t experience had set a confined limit to her ideas.
She had nothing save love, and a fitful temperament, upon which she
could draw for conversation. Those whose education debars them from
deriving instruction from things, have in general the power to extract
amusement from persons:--they can talk of the ridiculous Mrs. So-and-so,
or the absurd Mr. Blank. But our lovers saw no society: and thus their
commune was thrown entirely on their internal resources.

There was always that in the peculiar mind of Godolphin which was
inclined towards ideas too refined and subtle even for persons of
cultivated intellect. If Constance could scarcely comprehend the tone of
his character, we may believe that to Lucilla he was wholly a
mystery. This, perhaps, enhanced her love, but the consciousness of it
disappointed his. He felt that what he considered the noblest faculties
he possessed were unappreciated. He was sometimes angry with Lucilla
that she loved only those qualities in his character which he shared
with the rest of mankind. His speculative and Hamlet-like temper--(let
us here take Goethe's view of Hamlet, and combine a certain weakness
with finer traits of the royal dreamer)--perpetually deserted the
solid world, and flew to aerial creations. He could not appreciate the
present. Had Godolphin loved Lucilla as he once thought that he should
love her, the beauties of her character would have blinded him to its
defects; but its passion had been too sudden to be thoroughly grounded.
It had arisen from the knowledge of her affection---not grown step by
step from the natural bias of his own. Between the interval of liking
and possession, love (to be durable) should pass through many stages.
The doubt, the fear, the first pressure of the hand, the first kiss,
each should be an epoch for remembrance to cling to. In moments of after
coolness or anger, the mind should fly from the sated present to the
million tender and freshening associations of the past. With these
associations the affection renews its youth. How vast a store of melting
reflections, how countless an accumulation of the spells that preserve
constancy, does that love forfeit, in which the memory only commences
with possession!

And the more delicate and thoughtful our nature, the more powerful
are these associations. Do they not constitute the immense difference
between the love and the intrigue? All things that savour of youth make
our most exquisite sensations, whe