The nurse of his sick-room--was she not also a great artist?
Rare and beautiful union! If to the depths of tenderness and devotion, in which the true and irresistible empire of woman must commence, and deprived of which she is only an enigma without a possible solution, nature should unite the most brilliant gifts of genius,--the miraculous spectacle of the Greek firs would be renewed,--the glittering flames would again sport over the abysses of the ocean without being extinguished or submerged in the chilling depths, adding, as the living hues were thrown upon the surging waves, the glowing dyes of the purple fire to the celestial blue of the heaven-reflecting sea! Has genius ever attained that utter self-abnegation, that sublime humility of heart which gives the power to make those strange sacrifices of the entire Past, of the whole Future; those immolations, as courageous as mysterious; those mystic and utter holocausts of self, not temporary and changing, but monotonous and constant,--through whose might alone tenderness may justly claim the higher name, devotion?
Has not the force of genius its own exclusive and legitimate exactions, and does not the force of woman consist in the abdication of all exactions?
Can the royal purple and burning flames of genius ever float upon the immaculate azure of woman's destiny ?....