doubled all her excellencies, and placed a diadem on her genius. Was she to

cease to love? Take the colours and odour from the rose, change the sweet

nutriment of mother's milk to gall and poison; as easily might you wean

Perdita from love. She grieved for the loss of Raymond with an anguish,

that exiled all smile from her lips, and trenched sad lines on her brow of

beauty. But each day seemed to change the nature of her suffering, and

every succeeding hour forced her to alter (if so I may style it) the

fashion of her soul's mourning garb. For a time music was able to satisfy

the cravings of her mental hunger, and her melancholy thoughts renewed

themselves in each change of key, and varied with every alteration in the

strain. My schooling first impelled her towards books; and, if music had

been the food of sorrow, the productions of the wise became its

medicine. The acquisition of unknown languages was too tedious an

occupation, for one who referred every expression to the universe within,

and read not, as many do, for the mere sake of filling up time; but who was

still questioning herself and her author, moulding every idea in a thousand

ways, ardently desirous for the discovery of truth in every sentence. She

sought to improve her understanding; mechanically her heart and

dispositions became soft and gentle under this benign discipline. After

awhile she discovered, that amidst all her newly acquired knowledge, her

own character, which formerly she fancied that she thoroughly understood,

became the first in rank among the terrae incognitae, the pathless wilds of

a country that had no chart. Erringly and strangely she began the task of

self-examination with self-condemnation. And then again she became aware of

her own excellencies, and began to balance with juster scales the shades of

good and evil. I, who longed beyond words, to restore her to the happiness

208

The Last Man