filled up the measure of her content, and produced a sacred and

indissoluble tie between them. Sometimes she felt proud that he had

preferred her to the hopes of a crown. Sometimes she remembered that she

had suffered keen anguish, when he hesitated in his choice. But this memory

of past discontent only served to enhance her present joy. What had been

hardly won, was now, entirely possessed, doubly dear. She would look at him

at a distance with the same rapture, (O, far more exuberant rapture!) that

one might feel, who after the perils of a tempest, should find himself in

the desired port; she would hasten towards him, to feel more certain in his

arms, the reality of her bliss. This warmth of affection, added to the

depth of her understanding, and the brilliancy of her imagination, made her

beyond words dear to Raymond.

If a feeling of dissatisfaction ever crossed her, it arose from the idea

that he was not perfectly happy. Desire of renown, and presumptuous

ambition, had characterized his youth. The one he had acquired in Greece;

the other he had sacrificed to love. His intellect found sufficient field

for exercise in his domestic circle, whose members, all adorned by

refinement and literature, were many of them, like himself, distinguished

by genius. Yet active life was the genuine soil for his virtues; and he

sometimes suffered tedium from the monotonous succession of events in our

retirement. Pride made him recoil from complaint; and gratitude and

affection to Perdita, generally acted as an opiate to all desire, save that

of meriting her love. We all observed the visitation of these feelings, and

none regretted them so much as Perdita. Her life consecrated to him, was a

slight sacrifice to reward his choice, but was not that sufficient--Did

156

The Last Man