Page:Romance & Reality 3.pdf/93

Rh till associated with human feelings: the poet repays his inspiration by the interest he flings round the objects which inspired it. Beatrice had early learnt this association of nature with humanity. She was as well acquainted with the English literature and language as with her own; and the melancholy and reflective character of its poetry suited well a young spirit early broken by sorrow, and left, moreover, to entire loneliness. The danger of a youth so spent was, that the mind would become too ideal—that mornings, passed with some favourite volume for the dropping fountain, or beneath the shadowy ilex, would induce habits of romantic dreaming, utterly at variance with the stern necessities of life. But Beatrice had been forced into a wholesome course of active exertion. Obliged to think and to act for herself—to have others dependent on her efforts—to know that each day brought its employment, her mind strengthened with its discipline. The duties that excited also invigorated. The keen feeling, the delicate taste, were accustomed to subjection, and romance refined, without weakening. Love is the Columbus of our moral world, and opens, at some period or other, a new