to him, and if in the humility of her heart she felt self-complacency, it
arose from the reflection that she had won the distinguished hero of the
age, and had for years preserved him, even after time had taken from love
its usual nourishment. Her own feeling was as entire as at its birth. Five
years had failed to destroy the dazzling unreality of passion. Most men
ruthlessly destroy the sacred veil, with which the female heart is wont to
adorn the idol of its affections. Not so Raymond; he was an enchanter,
whose reign was for ever undiminished; a king whose power never was
suspended: follow him through the details of common life, still the same
charm of grace and majesty adorned him; nor could he be despoiled of the
innate deification with which nature had invested him. Perdita grew in
beauty and excellence under his eye; I no longer recognised my reserved
abstracted sister in the fascinating and open-hearted wife of Raymond. The
genius that enlightened her countenance, was now united to an expression of
benevolence, which gave divine perfection to her beauty.

Happiness is in its highest degree the sister of goodness. Suffering and
amiability may exist together, and writers have loved to depict their
conjunction; there is a human and touching harmony in the picture. But
perfect happiness is an attribute of angels; and those who possess it,
appear angelic. Fear has been said to be the parent of religion: even of
that religion is it the generator, which leads its votaries to sacrifice
human victims at its altars; but the religion which springs from happiness
is a lovelier growth; the religion which makes the heart breathe forth
fervent thanksgiving, and causes us to pour out the overflowings of the
soul before the author of our being; that which is the parent of the
imagination and the nurse of poetry; that which bestows benevolent
intelligence on the visible mechanism of the world, and makes earth a
temple with heaven for its cope. Such happiness, goodness, and religion
inhabited the mind of Perdita.