ed from the beautiful world around him to gaze
upon a countenance sweeter than the summer air, softer than the gleaming
moon, brighter than the evening star. The shadowy light of purple
eve fell upon the still and solemn presence of Henrietta Temple.
Irresistible emotion impelled him; softly he took her gentle hand, and,
bending his head, he murmured to her, 'Most beautiful, I love thee!'

As, in the oppressive stillness of some tropic night, a single drop is
the refreshing harbinger of a slower that clears the heavens, so even
this slight expression relieved in an instant the intensity of his
over-burthened feelings, and warm, quick, and gushing flowed the words
that breathed his fervid adoration. 'Yes!' he continued, 'in this fair
scene, oh! let me turn to something fairer still. Beautiful, beloved
Henrietta, I can repress no longer the emotions that, since I first
beheld you, have vanquished my existence. I love you, I adore you; life
in your society is heaven; without you I cannot live. Deem me, oh! deem
me not too bold, sweet lady; I am not worthy of you, yet let me love!
I am not worthy of you, but who can be? Ah! if I dared but venture to
offer you my heart, if that humblest of all possessions might indeed be
yours, if my adoration, if my devotion, if the consecration of my life
to you, might in some degree compensate for its little worth, if I might
live even but to hope------

'You do not speak. Miss Temple, Henrietta, admirable Henrietta, have I
offended you? Am I indeed the victim of hopes too high and fancies too
supreme? Oh! pardon me, most beautiful, I pray your pardon. Is it a
crime to feel, perchance too keenly, the sense of beauty like to thine,
dear lady? Ah! tell me I am forgiven; tell me indeed you do not hate me.
I will be silent, I will never speak again. Yet, let me walk with you.
Cease not to be my companion because I have been too bold. Pity me, pity
me, dearest, dearest Henrietta. If you but knew how I have suffered, if
you but knew the nights that brought no sleep, the days of fever that
have been mine since first we met, if you but knew how I have fed but
upon one sweet idea, one sacred image of absorbing life, since first
I gazed on your transcendent form, indeed I think that you would pity,
that you would pardon, that you might even------

'Tell me, is it my fault that you are beautiful! Oh! how beautiful, my
wretched and exhausted soul too surely feels! Is it my fault those eyes
are like