me nothing but his own baseness. But to feel base and accept
the bliss that beckons--he has not fallen so low as that.

Ah, happy English home! sweet wife! what mad miserable Wisp of the Fancy
led him away from you, high in his conceit? Poor wretch! that thought to
be he of the hundred hands, and war against the absolute Gods. Jove
whispered a light commission to the Laughing Dame; she met him; and how
did he shake Olympus? with laughter?

Sure it were better to be Orestes, the Furies howling in his ears, than
one called to by a heavenly soul from whom he is for ever outcast. He has
not the oblivion of madness. Clothed in the lights of his first passion,
robed in the splendour of old skies, she meets him everywhere; morning,
evening, night, she shines above him; waylays him suddenly in forest
depths; drops palpably on his heart. At moments he forgets; he rushes to
embrace her; calls her his beloved, and lo, her innocent kiss brings
agony of shame to his face.

Daily the struggle endured. His father wrote to him, begging him by the
love he had for him to return. From that hour Richard burnt unread all
the letters he received. He knew too well how easily he could persuade
himself: words from without might tempt him and quite extinguish the
spark of honourable feeling that tortured him, and that he clung to in
desperate self-vindication.

To arrest young gentlemen on the downward slope is both a dangerous and
thankless office. It is, nevertheless, one that fair women greatly prize,
and certain of them professionally follow. Lady Judith, as far as her sex
would permit, was also of the Titans in their battle against the absolute
Gods; for which purpose, mark you, she had married a lord incapable in
all save his acres. Her achievements she kept to her own mind: she did
not look happy over them. She met Richard accidentally in Paris; she saw
his state; she let him learn that she alone on earth understood him. The
consequence was that he was forthwith enrolled in her train. It soothed
him to be near a woman. Did she venture her guess as to the cause of his
conduct, she blotted it out with a facility women have, and cast on it a
melancholy hue he was taught to participate in. She spoke of sorrows,
personal sorrows, much as he might speak of his--vaguely, and with
self-blame. And she understood him. How the dark unfathomed wealth within
us gleams to a woman's eye! We are at compound interest immediately: so
much richer than we