tion and desire, when the whole soul and senses are
abandoned to a lively imagination, that renders every emotion
delicate and rapturous. Yes; these are emotions over which satiety
has no power, and the recollection of which even disappointment
cannot disenchant; but they do not exist without self-denial. These
emotions, more or less strong, appear to me to be the distinctive
characteristics of genius, the foundation of taste, and of that
exquisite relish for the beauties of nature, of which the common
herd of eaters and drinkers and _child-begetters_ certainly have no
idea. You will smile at an observation that has just occurred to
me: I consider those minds as the most strong and original whose
imagination acts as the stimulus to their senses.

"Well! you will ask what is the result of all this reasoning. Why,
I cannot help thinking that it is possible for you, having great
strength of mind, to return to nature and regain a sanity of
constitution and purity of feeling which would open your heart to
me. I would fain rest there!

"Yet, convinced more than ever of the sincerity and tenderness of
my attachment to you, the involuntary hopes which a determination
to live has revived are not sufficiently strong to dissipate the
cloud that despair has spread over futurity. I have looked at the
sea and at my child, hardly daring to own to myself the secret wish
that it might become our tomb, and that the heart, still so alive
to anguish, might there be quieted by death. At this moment ten
thousand complicated sentiments press for utterance, weigh on my
heart, and obscure my sight."

After almost a month of inactivity, the one bright spot in it being a
visit to Beverly, the home of her childhood, she sailed for Sweden, with
Fanny and a maid as her only companions. Her "Letters from Sweden,
Norway, and Denmark," with the more personal passages omitted, were
published in a volume by themselves shortly after her return to England.
Notice of them will find a more appropriate place in another chapter. All
that is necessary here is the very portion which was then suppressed, but
which Godwin later included with the "Letters to Imlay." The northern
trip had at least this good result. It strengthened her physically. She
was so weak when she first arrived in Sweden that the day she landed she
fell fainting to th