significance of the one through the symbols of the other, and pondering
the lesson with sweetness of assent and ever-earnest longing for fuller
revelation.

"As I lingered before this fair shadow, I heard my name pronounced,
and, turning, beheld the not less fair original, the daughter of my
host. Now do not fear a catalogue of feminine graces, or a lengthened
romance of the heart, tedious with such platitudes as have been Elysium
to the actors, and weariness to the audience, ever since the world
began. The Enchanted Isles wear no enchantment to unanointed vision;
their skies of Paradise are fog, their angels Harpies, perchance, or
harsh-throated Sirens. Besides, we can never describe correctly those
whom we love, because we see them through the heart; and the heart's
optics have no technology. It is enough to say, that, from almost the
first time I looked upon Blanche, I felt that I had at last found the
gift rarely accorded to us here,--the fulfilment of a promise hidden
in every heart, but often waited for in vain. Hitherto my all-sufficing
self-hood had never been stirred by the mighty touch of Love. I had
been amused by trivial and superficial affections, like the gay
triflers of whom Rasselas says, 'They fancied they were in love, when
in truth they were only idle.' But that sentiment which is never twice
inspired, that new birth of

'A soul within the soul, evolving it sublimely,'

had never until now wakened my pulses and opened my eyes to the higher
and holier heritage. Perhaps you doubt that Psychal fetters may be
forged in a moment's heat; but I believe that the love which is deepest
and most sacred, and which Plato calls the memory of divine beings whom
we knew in some anterior life, that recognition of kindred natures