Page:Ernestus Berchtold or the Modern Œdipus.djvu/108

96 trace where his riches lay; yet as his gold was poured forth with so liberal a hand, his wealth was deemed almost infinite. He had been strikingly handsome, and was extremely intelligent; but grief had weighed down his energies, and sorrow had broken his faculties. After his return he had married. Beauty was the mere casket, the riches were within; his wife was described as having possessed a mind, that without laying aside all that appealing delicacy and weakness, which binds woman to man; had all those powers and accomplishments, which unfortunately in her sex have generally been the panders to vice; but which, with her, were the handmaids to virtue. Her presence was commanding, but her voice was persuasive; its tones struck the heart and produced those emotions, which all remember, none can express, the feeling, as if we had been always virtuous, and were worthy of listening to the voice of a being superior to ourselves. The poor