I dared hardly consider you as my daughter; your beauty, artlessness and untaught wisdom seemed to belong to a higher order of beings; your voice breathed forth only words of love: if there was aught of earthly in you it was only what you derived from the beauty of the world; you seemed to have gained a grace from the mountain breezes--the waterfalls and the lake; and this was all of earthly except your affections that you had; there was no dross, no bad feeling in the composition.

You yet even have not seen enough[36] of the world to know the stupendous difference that exists between the women we meet in dayly life and a nymph of the woods such as you were, in whose eyes alone mankind may study for centuries & grow wiser & purer.

Those divine lights which shone on me as did those of Beatrice upon Dante, and well might I say with him yet with what different feelings E quasi mi perdei gli occhi chini.
Can you wonder, Mathilda, that I dwelt on your looks, your words, your motions, & drank in unmixed delight?
["]But I am afraid that I wander from my purpose.

I must be more brief for night draws on apace and all my hours in this house are counted.
Well, we removed to London, and still I felt only the peace of sinless passion.

You were ever with me, and I desired no more than to gaze on your countenance, and to know that I was all the world to you; I was lapped in a fool's paradise of enjoyment and security.