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 was already past; a flower was a rarity; not one human being heard his plaintive strains; and his verses, which savoured already of the winter, were generally obliged to be thawed before the kitchen fire along with their author, before they were palatable; and were lost to the world, and to immortality, because no person heard them but myself.

I took care of the internal economy of our house; and, with the two servants, fed and milked the cows, and prepared our meals. We three seemed to prefer having a good joint of meat in the pot, and a prospect of a substantial dinner, to hunting for rhimes all the day long. When the Count returned, and had properly arranged his ideas, he began to speak with enthusiasm of the graces of poetry, and of the celestial, immortal fire of love. His character had received some fatal lunatic spots from the reading of some German novels, and his fancies more frequently breathed an odour of the grave than of sound