purer. Those divine lights which shone on me as did those of Beatrice
upon Dante, and well might I say with him yet with what different
feelings

E quasi mi perdei gli occhi chini.

Can you wonder, Mathilda, that I dwelt on your looks, your words, your
motions, & drank in unmixed delight?

["]But I am afraid that I wander from my purpose. I must be more brief
for night draws on apace and all my hours in this house are counted.
Well, we removed to London, and still I felt only the peace of sinless
passion. You were ever with me, and I desired no more than to gaze on
your countenance, and to know that I was all the world to you; I was
lapped in a fool's paradise of enjoyment and security. Was my love
blamable? If it was I was ignorant of it; I desired only that which I
possessed, and if I enjoyed from your looks, and words, and most
innocent caresses a rapture usually excluded from the feelings of a
parent towards his child, yet no uneasiness, no wish, no casual idea
awoke me to a sense of guilt. I loved you as a human father might be
supposed to love a daughter borne to him by a heavenly mother; as
Anchises might have regarded the child of Venus if the sex had been
changed; love mingled with respect and adoration. Perhaps also my
passion was lulled to content by the deep and exclusive affection you
felt for me.

"But when I saw you become the object of another's love; when I
imagined that you might be loved otherwise than as a sacred type and
image of loveliness and excellence; or that you might love another
with a more ardent affection than that which you bore to me, then the