e glancing
upon my thoughts like the beam on the solitary tree, to which thou didst
once liken me so well? It was--it was, that, like the tree, I struggled
for the light, and the light came. They tell me of love, and my very
life of the stage breathes the language of love into my lips. No; again
and again, I know THAT is not the love that I feel for thee!--it is not
a passion, it is a thought! I ask not to be loved again. I murmur not
that thy words are stern and thy looks are cold. I ask not if I have
rivals; I sigh not to be fair in thine eyes. It is my SPIRIT that would
blend itself with thine. I would give worlds, though we were apart,
though oceans rolled between us, to know the hour in which thy gaze was
lifted to the stars,--in which thy heart poured itself in prayer. They
tell me thou art more beautiful than the marble images that are fairer
than all human forms; but I have never dared to gaze steadfastly on thy
face, that memory might compare thee with the rest. Only thine eyes and
thy soft, calm smile haunt me; as when I look upon the moon, all that
passes into my heart is her silent light.

....

"Often, when the air is calm, I have thought that I hear the strains of
my father's music; often, though long stilled in the grave, have they
waked me from the dreams of the solemn night. Methinks, ere thou comest
to me that I hear them herald thy approach. Methinks I hear them wail
and moan, when I sink back into myself on seeing thee depart. Thou art
OF that music,--its spirit, its genius. My father must have guessed
at thee and thy native regions, when the winds hushed to listen to his
tones, and the world deemed him mad! I hear where I sit, the far murmur
of the sea. Murmur on, ye blessed waters! The waves are the pulses of
the shore. They beat with the gladness of the morning wind,--so beats my
heart in the freshness and light that make up the thoughts of thee!

....

"Often in my childhood I have mused and asked for what I was born; and
my soul answered my heart and said, 'THOU WERT BORN TO WORSHIP!' Yes; I
know why the real world has ever seemed to me so false and cold. I know
why the world of the stage charmed and dazzled me. I know why it was so
sweet to sit apart and gaze my whole being into the distant heavens.
My nature is not formed for this life, happy though that life seem to
others. It is its very want to have ever before it some image loftier
than itself! Stranger, in what realm above, when the g