nt, and held her faiths in a
sincerely ethical spirit. She judged nobly, she often saw with clear
vision. But must not something of kindly condescension always blend
with his admiring devotedness? Were it but possible to win the love of
a woman who looked forth with eyes thoroughly purged from all mist of
tradition and conventionalism, who was at home among arts and sciences,
who, like himself, acknowledged no class and bowed to no authority but
that of the supreme human mind!

Such women are to be found in every age, but how many of them shine
with the distinctive ray of womanhood? These are so rare that they have
a place in the pages of history. The truly emancipated woman--it was
Godwin's conviction--is almost always asexual; to him, therefore,
utterly repugnant. If, then, he were not content to waste his life in a
vain search for the priceless jewel, which is won and worn only by
fortune's supreme favourites, he must acquiesce in the imperfect
marriage commonly the lot of men whose intellect allows them but little
companionship even among their own sex: for that matter, the lot of
most men, and necessarily so until the new efforts in female education
shall have overcome the vice of wedlock as hitherto sanctioned. Nature
provides the hallucination which flings a lover at his mistress's feet.
For the chill which follows upon attainment she cares nothing--let
society and individuals make their account with that as best they may.
Even with a wife such as Sidwell the process of disillusion would
doubtless have to be faced, however liberal one's allowances in the
forecast.

Reflections of this colour were useful; they helped to keep within
limits the growth of agitating desire. But there were seasons when
Godwin surrendered himself to luxurious reverie, hours of summer
twilight which forbade analysis and listened only to the harmonies of
passion. Then was Sidwell's image glorified, and all the delights
promised by such love as hers fired his imagination to intolerable
ecstasy. O heaven! to see the smile softened by rosy warmth which would
confess that she had given her heart--to feel her supple fingers
intertwined with his that clasped them--to hear the words in which a
mind so admirable, instincts so delicate, would make expression of
their tenderness! To live with Sidwell--to breathe the fragrance of
that flower of womanhood in wedded intimacy--to prove the devotion of a
nature so profoundly chaste! The visionary tran