ove, is it not because we
recognize beauty that we have dreamed of, the beauty that has existed
in idea for us is realized? When I spoke to her, she answered simply,
without shyness or eagerness; she did not know the pleasure it was to
me to see her, to hear the musical sounds of her voice. All these angels
are revealed to our hearts by the same signs; by the sweetness of their
tongues, the tenderness in their eyes, by their fair, pale faces, and
their gracious ways. All these things are so blended and mingled that
we feel the charm of their presence, yet cannot tell in what that charm
consists, and every movement is an expression of a divine soul within.
I loved passionately. This newly awakened love satisfied all my restless
longings, all my ambitious dreams. She was beautiful, wealthy, and nobly
born; she had been carefully brought up; she had all the qualifications
which the world positively demands of a woman placed in the high
position which I desired to reach; she had been well educated, she
expressed herself with a sprightly facility at once rare and common
in France; where the most prettily worded phrases of many women are
emptiness itself, while her bright talk was full of sense. Above all,
she had a deep consciousness of her own dignity which made others
respect her; I know of no more excellent thing in a wife. I must stop,
captain; no one can describe the woman he loves save very imperfectly,
preexistent mysteries which defy analysis lie between them.

"I very soon took my old friend into my confidence. He introduced me to
her family, and gave me the countenance of his honorable character. I
was received at first with the frigid politeness characteristic of those
exclusive people who never forsake those whom they have once admitted to
their friendship. As time went on they welcomed me almost as one of the
family; this mark of their esteem was won by my behavior in the matter.
In spite of my passionate love, I did nothing that could lower me in my
own eyes; I did not cringe, I paid no court to those upon whom my fate
depended, before all things I showed myself a man, and not other than
I really was. When I was well known to them, my old friend, who was as
desirous as I myself that my life of melancholy loneliness should come
to an end, spoke of my hopes and met with a favorable reception; but
with the diplomatic shrewdness which is almost a second nature with men
of the world, he was silent with regard to an e