Shakespeare, after having terminated the third act of the "Winter's
Tale," pauses in order to leave time for little Perdita to grow up
in wisdom and in beauty; and when he raises the curtain again he
evokes the ancient Scythe-bearer upon the stage to render account
to the audience of those many long days which have weighted down
upon the head of the jealous Leontes.

Like Shakespeare in his play, I have left in this diary of mine a
long interval to oblivion; and after the fashion of the poet, I make
Time himself intervene to explain the omission of ten whole years.
Ten whole years, indeed, have passed since I wrote one single line
in this diary; and now that I take up the pen again, I have not the
pleasure, alas! to describe a Perdita "now grown in grace." Youth
and beauty are the faithful companions of poets; but those charming
phantoms scarcely visit the rest of us, even for the space of a
season. We do not know how to retain them with us. If the fair
shade of some Perdita should ever, through some inconceivable whim,
take a notion to traverse my brain, she would hurt herself horribly
against heaps of dog-eared parchments. Happy the poets!--their
white hairs never scare away the hovering shades of Helens,
Francescas, Juliets, Julias, and Dorotheas! But the nose alone of
Sylvestre Bonnard would put to flight the whole swarm of love's
heroines.

Yet I, like others, have felt beauty; I have known that mysterious
charm which Nature has lent to animate form; and the clay which
lives has given to me that shudder of delight which makes the lover
and the poet. But I have never known either how to love or how to
sing. Now in my memory--all encumbered as it is with the rubbish