moments as long as I live, and yet I cannot give a clear and connected
relation of them. I see only a picture in my mind of a purple couch
under a golden canopy, a fair form, a beautiful head crowned with golden
hair, a glowing arm holding a white flower on its long green stalk.
Suddenly, as if impelled by an instinct, she turns her face full upon me
as the barge comes opposite to her father's throne. I see her great
violet eyes fixed upon mine as though she would read into my very soul.
I do not shrink from that pure search. On the contrary, I feel myself
drawn towards her by an irresistible attraction, and return her gaze.

She does not look away. She smiles--yes, she smiles upon me, and
inclines her head to see me, like a sunflower following the sun, as she
is floating past.

From that moment I was an altered man. The vision of that peerless
beauty had worked a miracle in my nature. A strange peace, an
unfathomable joy, I should rather say an ecstacy of bliss, reigned in my
heart. I felt that I had found something for which my soul had craved
without knowing it, and had been seeking unawares--something beyond all
price, which is not merely the best that life, eternity, can offer; but
gives to life, eternity, an inestimable value--I felt that I had found
the counterpart of myself--the celestial mate of my spirit. Henceforth
there was only one woman in the world, in the universe, for me. A
mysterious instinct whispered that we belonged to each other--that this
incomparable creature was mine by an inviolable right, if not on this
side of time at all events hereafter, and for ever. I felt, too, that my
own being had now completed its development, and burst into bloom like a
plant under the vivifying rays of the sun.

Exulting in my new-found happiness, and overcome with gratitude for it,