tow on your fellow men is a
Godlike attribute--So indeed it is and as such not one fit for
mortality;--the giver like Adam and Prometheus, must pay the penalty
of rising above his nature by being the martyr to his own excellence.
Woodville was free from all these evils; and if slight examples did
come across him[52] he did not notice them but passed on in his course
as an angel with winged feet might glide along the earth unimpeded by
all those little obstacles over which we of earthly origin stumble. He
was a believer in the divinity of genius and always opposed a stern
disbelief to the objections of those petty cavillers and minor critics
who wish to reduce all men to their own miserable level--"I will make
a scientific simile" he would say, "[i]n the manner, if you will, of
Dr. Darwin--I consider the alledged errors of a man of genius as the
aberrations of the fixed stars. It is our distance from them and our
imperfect means of communication that makes them appear to move; in
truth they always remain stationary, a glorious centre, giving us a
fine lesson of modesty if we would thus receive it."[53]

I have said that he was a poet: when he was three and twenty years of
age he first published a poem, and it was hailed by the whole nation
with enthusiasm and delight. His good star perpetually shone upon him;
a reputation had never before been made so rapidly: it was universal.
The multitude extolled the same poems that formed the wonder of the
sage in his closet: there was not one dissentient voice.[54]

It was at this time, in the height of his glory, that he became
acquainted with Elinor. She was a young heiress of exquisite beauty
who lived under the care of her guardian: from the moment they were
seen together they appeared formed for each other. Elinor had not the
genius of Woodville but she was generous and noble, and exalted by her
youth and the love that she every where excited above the knowledge of
aught but virtue and excellence. She was lovely; her manners were
frank and simple; her deep blue eyes swam in a lustre which could only
be given by sensibility joined to wisdom.

They were formed for one another and they soon loved. Woodville for
the first time felt the delight of love; and Elinor was enraptured in
possessing the heart of one so beautiful and glorious among his fellow
men. Could any thing but unmixed joy flow from such a union?

Woodville was a Poet--he was sought for by every society and all ey