Man's love, in general, is a selfish and exacting sentiment: it
demands every sacrifice and refuses all. But the nature of Mordaunt was
essentially high and disinterested, and his honour, like his love, was
not that of the world: it was the ethereal and spotless honour of a
lofty and generous mind, the honour which custom can neither give nor
take away; and, however impatiently he bore the deferring of a union, in
which he deemed that he was the only sufferer, he would not have uttered
a sigh or urged a prayer for that union, could it, in the minutest or
remotest degree, have injured or degraded her.

These are the hearts and natures which make life beautiful; these are
the shrines which sanctify love; these are the diviner spirits for whom
there is kindred and commune with everything exalted and holy in heaven
and earth. For them Nature unfolds her hoarded poetry and her hidden
spells; for their steps are the lonely mountains, and the still woods
have a murmur for their ears; for them there is strange music in the
wave, and in the whispers of the light leaves, and rapture in the voices
of the birds: their souls drink, and are saturated with the mysteries of
the Universal Spirit, which the philosophy of old times believed to
be God Himself. They look upon the sky with a gifted vision, and its
dove-like quiet descends and overshadows their hearts; the Moon and the
Night are to them wells of Castalian inspiration and golden dreams; and
it was one of them who, gazing upon the Evening Star, felt in the inmost
sanctuary of his soul its mysterious harmonies with his most worshipped
hope, his most passionate desire, and dedicated it to--LOVE.

CHAPTER XX.

Maria. Here's the brave old man's love, Bianca. That loves
the young man. The Woman's Prize; or, The Tamer
Tamed.

"No, my dear Clarence, you have placed confidence in me, and it is now
my duty to return it; you have told me your history and origin, and I
will inform you of mine, but not yet. At present we will talk of you.
You have conferred upon me what our universal love of life makes us
regard as the greatest of human obligations; and though I can bear a
large burden of gratitude, yet I must throw off an atom or two in using
my little power in your behalf. Nor is this all: your history has also
given you another tie upon my heart, and, in granting you a legitimate
title to my good offices, removes any scruple you might otherwise have
had