of speaking, it is encouraged to more and more clearness. Thus
it was with me,--from no merit of mine, but because I had the
good fortune to be free enough to yield to my impressions.
Common ties had not bound me; there were no traditionary
notions in my mind; I believed in nothing merely because
others believed in it; I had taken no feelings on trust. Thus
my mind was open to their sway.

'This woman came to me, a star from the east, a morning star,
and I worshipped her. She too was elevated by that worship,
and her fairest self called out. To the mind she brought
assurance that there was a region congenial with its
tendencies and tastes, a region of elegant culture and
intercourse, whose object, fulfilled or not, was to gratify
the sense of beauty, not the mere utilities of life. In our
relation she was lifted to the top of her being. She had known
many celebrities, had roused to passionate desire many hearts,
and became afterwards a wife; but I do not believe she ever
more truly realized her best self than towards the lonely
child whose heaven she was, whose eye she met, and whose
possibilities she predicted. "He raised me," said a woman
inspired by love, "upon the pedestal of his own high thoughts,
and wings came at once, but I did not fly away. I stood there
with downcast eyes worthy of his love, for he had made me so."

'Thus we do always for those who inspire us to expect from
them the best. That which they are able to be, they become,
because we demand it of them. "We expect the impossible--and
find it."