tent, the man of
pleasure and the man of the world, the dapper and the pert, the vain and
shallow boaster, the fool and the pedant, the ignorant and brutal, and
all that is farthest removed from earth's fairest-born, and the pride of
human life. Seeing all these enter the courts of Love, and thinking that
I also might venture in under favour of the crowd, but finding myself
rejected, I fancied (I might be wrong) that it was not so much because
I was below, as above the common standard. I did feel, but I was ashamed
to feel, mortified at my repulse, when I saw the meanest of mankind, the
very scum and refuse, all creeping things and every obscene creature,
enter in before me. I seemed a species by myself, I took a pride even
in my disgrace; and concluded I had elsewhere my inheritance! The
only thing I ever piqued myself upon was the writing the _Essay on the
Principles of Human Action_--a work that no woman ever read, or would
ever comprehend the meaning of. But if I do not build my claim to regard
on the pretensions I have, how can I build it on those I am totally
without? Or why do I complain and expect to gather grapes of thorns, or
figs of thistles? Thought has in me cancelled pleasure; and this dark
forehead, bent upon truth, is the rock on which all affection has split.
And thus I waste my life in one long sigh; nor ever (till too late)
beheld a gentle face turned gently upon mine!... But no! not too late,
if that face, pure, modest, downcast, tender, with angel sweetness, not
only gladdens the prospect of the future, but sheds its radiance on the
past, smiling in tears. A purple light hovers round my head. The air of
love is in the room. As I look at my long-neglected copy of the Death
of Clorinda, golden gleams play upon the canvas, as they used when I
painted it. The flowers of Hope and Joy springing up in my mind, recall
the time when they first bloomed there. The years that are fled knock at
the door and enter. I am in the Louvre once more. The sun of Austerlitz
has not set. It still shines here--in my heart; and he, the son of
glory, is not dead, nor ever shall, to me. I am as when my life began.
The rainbow is in the sky again. I see the skirts of the departed years.
All that I have thought and felt has not been in vain. I am not utterly
worthless, unregarded; nor shall I die and wither of pure scorn. Now
could I sit on the tomb of Liberty, and write a Hymn to Love. Oh! if
I am deceived, let me be deceived st