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Happiness is in its highest degree the sister of goodness. Suffering and
amiability may exist together, and writers have loved to depict their
conjunction; there is a human and touching harmony in the picture. But
perfect happiness is an attribute of angels; and those who possess it,
appear angelic. Fear has been said to be the parent of religion: even of
that religion is it the generator, which leads its votaries to sacrifice
human victims at its altars; but the religion which springs from happiness
is a lovelier growth; the religion which makes the heart breathe forth
fervent thanksgiving, and causes us to pour out the overflowings of the
soul before the author of our being; that which is the parent of the
imagination and the nurse of poetry; that which bestows benevolent
intelligence on the visible mechanism of the world, and makes earth a
temple with heaven for its cope. Such happiness, goodness, and religion
inhabited the mind of Perdita.
During the five years we had spent together, a knot of happy human beings
at Windsor Castle, her blissful lot had been the frequent theme of my
sister's conversation. From early habit, and natural affection, she
selected me in preference to Adrian or Idris, to be the partner in her
overflowings of delight; perhaps, though apparently much unlike, some
secret point of resemblance, the offspring of consanguinity, induced this
preference. Often at sunset, I have walked with her, in the sober,
enshadowed forest paths, and listened with joyful sympathy. Security gave
dignity to her passion; the certainty of a full return, left her with no
wish unfulfilled. The birth of her daughter, embryo copy of her Raymond,
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