The Mysteries of the Court of London — page 310: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

276 THE COURT OF LONDON inspiration wes carried to the brain, and I perceived in a moment that I loved you.” ‘Oh, what happiness is it to love and be beloved! ” mur- mured the princess, suffering ber bonnet to fall off and re- clining her head upon the baronet’s shoulder. Then, closing her eyes for nearly a minute as if to shut out all external objects and thus render the revel.of her own thoughts all the more luxuriously complete, she said, “‘ And have I indeed taught your heart to love once more, Richard, and do you really comprehend the nature of your own sentiments? Because it would break my heart were you to tell me, to- morrow, or in a week, or in a month, or even in a year, that you were mistaken, that you were carried away by the enthusiasm of a moment—” | “Oh, do not mistrust the nature of that passion which I experience for you,” interrupted the baronet, looking down into the depths of those beauteous azure eyes which the royal maiden now opened again, and which gave back a living flood of fondness in return for his own adoring gaze. ‘ Do not suspect the truth nor doubt the sincerity of that senti- ment which has become a worship, a faith, a creed, an enthusiastic devotion in my soul. Nor marvel, beauteous Amelia, that a being lately so lorn, desolate, and woebegone as I can have thus learned to love so soon and so tenderly again. For all that has happened is natural and easily to be explained; and I were indeed something less or something more than man had I not yielded to the Elysian influence wherewith I was surrounded. Not a month has elapsed since you found me the most miserable wretch upon the face of the earth. Every hope which could possibly bind me to existence was dead, crucified by the faithlessness of a woman and the treachery of friends. And thus had my bosom become the burial-place of life’s brightest promises, the grave of every aspiration which this world’s sun had gilded. My heart was a tomb wherein reposed the mem- ories of blighted affections, ruined hopes, and false friend- ships; and at the entrance of that sepulchral heart had the demon of despair placed a stone to bar admission against all tender sympathies. But you came, Amelia; you rolled away that stone, and you sat in my heart as an angel, pro- claiming the resurrection of hope.” “ Oh, it is delightful to hear you thus account for that GoOmilGcovoo S (C(O) ——