Page:The Works of Samuel Johnson ... A journey to the Hebrides. The vision of Theodore, the hermit of Teneriffe. The fountains. Prayers and meditations. Sermons.v. 10-11. Parliamentary debates.pdf/216

 She next wished for a sparkling eye: the water grew yet more pleasant, and her glances were like the beams of the sun.

She could not yet stop; she drank again, desired to be made a perfect beauty, and a perfect beauty she became.

She had now whatever her heart could wish; and making an humble reverence to Lilinet, requested to be restored to her own habitation. They went back, and the fairies in the way wondered at the change of Floretta's form. She came home delighted to her mother, who, on seeing the improvement, was yet more delighted than herself.

Her mother from that time pushed her forward into publick view: Floretta was at all the resorts of idleness and assemblies of pleasure; she was fatigued with balls, she was cloyed with treats, she was exhausted by the necessity of returning compliments. This life delighted her awhile, but custom soon destroyed its pleasure. She found that the men who courted her to day, resigned her on the morrow to other flatterers, and that the women attacked her reputation by whispers and calumnies, till, without knowing how she had offended, she was shunned as infamous.

She knew that her reputation was destroyed by the envy of her beauty, and resolved to degrade herself from the dangerous preeminence. She went to the bush where she rescued the bird, and called for lady Lilinet. Immediately Lilinet appeared, and discovered by Floretta's dejected look, that she had drunk too much from the alabaster fountain.

"Follow me," she cried, "my Floretta, and be wiser for the future."

They went to the fountains, and Floretta began to taste of the waters of sorrow, which were so bitter that she withdrew more than once the cup from her mouth: at last she resolutely drank away the perfection of beauty, the sparkling eye, and rosy bloom, and left herself only agreeable.