The noble countenance before him grew luminous at once: the lip quivered, the eye sparkled; the enthusiasm of Godolphin was not comparable to that of Constance.

The fact was, that the broad and common emotions of the intellectual character struck upon the right key.

Courage, defiance, ambition, these she comprehended to their fullest extent; but the rich subtleties of thought which mark the cold and bright page of the Comus; the noble Platonism--the high and rare love for what is abstractedly good, these were not "sonorous and trumpet-speaking" enough for the heart of one meant by Nature for a heroine or a queen, not a poetess or a philosopher.
But all that in literature was delicate, and half-seen, and abstruse, had its peculiar charm for Godolphin.

Of a reflective and refining mind, he had early learned to despise the common emotions of men: glory touched him not, and to ambition he had shut his heart.

Love, with him--even though he had been deemed, not unjustly, a man of gallantry and pleasure--love was not compounded of the ordinary elements of the passions.