"'If Shakespeare loved me and I did not love him, how could I marry
him?'

"Could I be misanthropical when I saw such fidelity, and dignity, and
simplicity?

"You may believe that I was especially curious to look at that old
lover of hers, through my glasses. He was no longer young, you know,
when I came, and his fame and fortune were secure. Certainly I have
heard of few men more beloved, and of none more worthy to be loved. He
had the easy manner of a man of the world, the sensitive grace of a
poet, and the charitable judgment of a wide-traveller. He was
accounted the most successful and most unspoiled of men. Handsome,
brilliant, wise, tender, graceful, accomplished, rich, and famous, I
looked at him, without the spectacles, in surprise, and admiration,
and wondered how your neighbor over the way had been so entirely
untouched by his homage. I watched their intercourse in society, I saw
her gay smile, her cordial greeting; I marked his frank address, his
lofty courtesy. Their manner told no tales. The eager world was
baulked, and I pulled out my spectacles.

"I had seen her already, and now I saw him. He lived only in memory,
and his memory was a spacious and stately palace. But he did not
oftenest frequent the banqueting hall, where were endless hospitality
and feasting,--nor did he loiter much in the reception rooms, where a
throng of new visitors was for ever swarming,--nor did he feed his
vanity by haunting the apartment in which were stored the trophies of
his varied triumphs,--nor dream much in the great gallery hung with
pictures of his travels.