Their love was sudden, but it was strong; it filled all the sources of their life.
Heart--brain--sense--imagination, all were its ministers and priests.
As you take some obstacle from two objects that have a mutual attraction, they met, and united at once; their wonder was, that they had lived separate so long.

And it was natural that they should so love.

Young, beautiful, and gifted--of the same birth, and the same soul--there was poetry in their very union.

They imagined the heavens smiled upon their affection.

As the persecuted seek refuge at the shrine, so they recognized in the altar of their love an asylum from the sorrows of earth; they covered it with flowers--they knew not of the serpents that lay coiled behind.
One evening, the fifth after their first meeting at Pompeii, Glaucus and Ione, with a small party of chosen friends, were returning from an excursion round the bay; their vessel skimmed lightly over the twilight waters, whose lucid mirror was only broken by the dripping oars.