w how
rapturously I admire personal attractions; but I feel a reserve I can
neither conquer nor explain. Friendship seems to me too holy and
enduring to be lightly bestowed, and yet I desire with inexpressible
earnestness, to find some one of my own age who would love and
comprehend me--some mind in whose mirror I could trace an image of my
own. I have gained something like a fulfillment of this wish in
Gerald; but he is naturally less enthusiastic than I am, and of course
cannot enter into the fervor of my expectations. He thinks them vain
an idle--and so, in truth, they may be; but only their irrevocable
disappointment will ever convince _me_ of their folly. . . . . . I
have been painting a great deal, beside my regular exercises, for my
own amusement; I take such delight in testing my power to reflect the
visible charm of beauty, and in endeavoring, however faintly, to
idealize humanity. Among other efforts, I have finished a miniature of
one of the young sisters here, whose sad, placid face, seemed to
sketch itself upon my memory. Of course, the likeness was drawn
without her knowledge--she has put away from her thoughts all such
vanities. I often look on the picture, which is scarcely more tranquil
than the original; and I wish I could speak a word of welcome sympathy
to one who is so young, and yet so sorrowful. I was much touched, a
few days since, by accidentally witnessing an interview between this
nun, whose convent name is Cecelia, and her sister. It seems that she
had taken the vows in opposition to the wishes and counsel of all her
friends, having forsaken a widowed mother and an only sister for
spiritual solitude and the cloister. I was copying an exquisite
engraving of the Madonna, which adorns the apartment allotted to
visiters, when a young lady entered, and desired to see her sister.
The nun came, but not beyond the grating which bounds one side of the
room. Those bars--signs of the heart's prison--were between beings who
from infancy had been undivided, whose pleasures and pains through
life had been inseparable, and who were now severed by a barrier
impassable as the grave. They contrasted strongly, these two sisters,
so nearly the same age, so different in their hopes for the future.
The guest wept constantly, and her words, spoken in a loud tone, were
broken by bursts of grief; but the other was composed, almost to
coldness--there was no evidence of distress on her marble cheek, and
her large, gray