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listened the while to inspiring strains of music. At such times solemn
harmonies or spirit-stirring airs gave wings to my lagging thoughts,
permitting them, methought, to penetrate the last veil of nature and her
God, and to display the highest beauty in visible expression to the
understandings of men. As the music went on, my ideas seemed to quit their
mortal dwelling house; they shook their pinions and began a flight, sailing
on the placid current of thought, filling the creation with new glory, and
rousing sublime imagery that else had slept voiceless. Then I would hasten
to my desk, weave the new-found web of mind in firm texture and brilliant
colours, leaving the fashioning of the material to a calmer moment.
But this account, which might as properly belong to a former period of my
life as to the present moment, leads me far afield. It was the pleasure I
took in literature, the discipline of mind I found arise from it, that made
me eager to lead Perdita to the same pursuits. I began with light hand and
gentle allurement; first exciting her curiosity, and then satisfying it in
such a way as might occasion her, at the same time that she half forgot her
sorrows in occupation, to find in the hours that succeeded a reaction of
benevolence and toleration.
Intellectual activity, though not directed towards books, had always been
my sister's characteristic. It had been displayed early in life, leading
her out to solitary musing among her native mountains, causing her to form
innumerous combinations from common objects, giving strength to her
perceptions, and swiftness to their arrangement. Love had come, as the rod
of the master-prophet, to swallow up every minor propensity. Love had
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