Yet her countenance might indicate that
she was little interested in the scene in which she mixed. She was too
proud to weep, but too sad to smile. Elegant and lone, she stood among
her crushed and lovely hopes like a column amid the ruins of a beautiful
temple.
The world declared that Lady Aphrodite was desperately virtuous, and the
world was right. A thousand fireflies had sparkled round this myrtle,
and its fresh and verdant hue was still unsullied and un-scorched. Not
a very accurate image, but pretty; and those who have watched a glancing
shower of these glittering insects will confess that, poetically, the
bush might burn. The truth is, that Lady Aphrodite still trembled when
she recalled the early anguish of her broken sleep of love, and had not
courage enough to hope that she might dream again. Like the old Hebrews,
she had been so chastened for her wild idolatry that she dared not again
raise an image to animate the wilderness of her existence. Man she at
the same time feared and despised. Compared with her husband, all who
surrounded her were, she felt, in appearance inferior, and were, she
believed, in mind the same.
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