CHAPTER XVIII.
"In the wind's uproar, the sea's raging grim, And the sighs that are born in him." HEINE.
"From dreams of bliss shall men awake One day, but not to weep: The dreams remain; they only break The mirror of the sleep." JEAN PAUL, Hesperus.
How I got through this dreary part of my travels, I do not know.

I do not think I was upheld by the hope that any moment the light might break in upon me; for I scarcely thought about that.

I went on with a dull endurance, varied by moments of uncontrollable sadness; for more and more the conviction grew upon me that I should never see the white lady again.

It may seem strange that one with whom I had held so little communion should have so engrossed my thoughts; but benefits conferred awaken love in some minds, as surely as benefits received in others.
Besides being delighted and proud that my songs had called the beautiful creature to life, the same fact caused me to feel a tenderness unspeakable for her, accompanied with a kind of feeling of property in her; for so the goblin Selfishness would reward the angel Love.

When to all this is added, an overpowering sense of her beauty, and an unquestioning conviction that this was a true index to inward loveliness, it may be understood how it came to pass that my imagination filled my whole soul with the play of its own multitudinous colours and harmonies around the form which yet stood, a gracious marble radiance, in the midst of ITS white hall of phantasy.