I were recreated and had about me all the
freshness and life of a new being: I was, as it were, transported
since his arrival from a narrow spot of earth into a universe
boundless to the imagination and the understanding. My life had been
before as a pleasing country rill, never destined to leave its native
fields, but when its task was fulfilled quietly to be absorbed, and
leave no trace. Now it seemed to me to be as a various river flowing
through a fertile and lovely lanscape, ever changing and ever
beautiful. Alas! I knew not the desart it was about to reach; the
rocks that would tear its waters, and the hideous scene that would be
reflected in a more distorted manner in its waves. Life was then
brilliant; I began to learn to hope and what brings a more bitter
despair to the heart than hope destroyed?

Is it not strange[18] that grief should quickly follow so divine a
happiness? I drank of an enchanted cup but gall was at the bottom of
its long drawn sweetness. My heart was full of deep affection, but it
was calm from its very depth and fulness. I had no idea that misery
could arise from love, and this lesson that all at last must learn was
taught me in a manner few are obliged to receive it. I lament now, I
must ever lament, those few short months of Paradisaical bliss; I
disobeyed no command, I ate no apple, and yet I was ruthlessly driven
from it. Alas! my companion did, and I was precipitated in his
fall.[19] But I wander from my relation--let woe come at its appointed
time; I may at this stage of my story still talk of happiness.

Three months passed away in this delightful intercourse, when my aunt
fell ill. I passed a whole month in her chamber nursing her, but her
disease was mortal and she died, leaving me for some time
inconsolable, Death is so dreadful to the living;[20] the chains of
habit are so strong even when affection does not link them that the
heart must be agonized when they break. But my father was beside me to
console me and to drive away bitter memories by bright hopes:
methought that it was sweet to grieve that he might dry my tears.

Then again he distracted my thoughts from my sorrow by comparing it
with his despair when he lost my mother. Even at that time I shuddered
at the picture he drew of his passions: he had the imagination of a
poet, and when he described the whirlwind that then tore his feelings
he gave his words the impress of life so vividly that I believed while
I trembled. I