No similitude of his features, no token of his existence, cherished by love and hallowed by reverence, invested him with the immortality of memory.

It was as if he had never been.
Thus mantled in mystery, his image assumed a sublimity and grandeur in my imagination, dark and oppressive as night.

I would sit and ponder over his mystic attributes, till he seemed like those gods of mythology, who, veiling their divinity in clouds, came down and wooed the daughters of men.

A being so lovely and good as my mother would never have loved a common mortal.

Perhaps he was some royal exile, who had found her in his wanderings a beauteous flower, but dared not transplant her to the garden of kings.
My mother little thought, when I sat in my simple calico dress, my school-book open on my knees, conning my daily lessons, or seeming so to do, what wild, absurd ideas were revelling in my brain.