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Lamartine, Alphonse de, 1790-1869

"Raphael Pages of the Book of Life at Twenty"

I looked at her, she raised her face as if
by the same impulse which had made me raise mine; and gazing at me
without saying a word, she burst into tears. "Why do you weep?" I asked
with anxious emotion, but in a low tone for fear of disturbing or
diverting the course of her silent thoughts. "From happiness," she
answered. Her lips smiled, while big tears rolled down her cheeks in
shining drops, like the dew of spring. "Yes, from happiness," she
resumed. "This day, this hour, this sky, this spot, this peace, this
silence, this solitude with you, this complete assimilation of our two
souls, which no longer require to converse to comprehend each other,
which breathe in the same aspiration is too much,--too much for mortal
nature that excess of joy may kill, as excess of grief, and which, when
it can draw no cry from the heart, grieves that it cannot sigh, and
mourns that it cannot praise sufficiently."
She stopped for an instant; her cheeks were flushed. I trembled lest
death should seize her in her joy; but her voice soon reassured me.


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