He had uttered a mad wish that he himself might remain untarnished, and the face on the canvas bear the burden of his passions and his sins; that the painted image might be seared with the lines of suffering and thought, and that he might keep all the delicate bloom and loveliness of his then just conscious boyhood.
O Love! they die in yon rich sky, They faint on hill or field or river: Our echoes roll from soul to soul, And grow forever and forever. Blow, bugle, blow! set the wild echoes flying! And answer, echoes, answer! dying, dying, dying.
Thus nature has no love for solitude, and always leans, as it were, on some support; and the sweetest support is found in the most intimate friendship.
Love brings to light the lofty and hidden characteristics of the lover--what is rare and exceptional in him: to that extent it caneasily be deceptive with respect to what is normal in him.