Thus, day after day, week after week passed by, and philosophy became as dry as dust, and my companions silly and unprofitable; and Egypt became a myth and Judea a dream; while the past was forgotten and the future uncared for, except in connection with her. Solitude became sweet, and reverie ecstatic, and the language of poetry the voice of common life. I created for myself an ideal world, romantic, ethereal, felicitous; for the greatest magician that ever lived is Love. I was sometimes, however, sunk into the fathomless abyss of despair. I met in the splendid halls of Calisthenes so many distinguished and wealthy and powerful men; so many soldiers and statesmen; so many philosophers, artists and poets; all many degrees superior to myself, and all paying the same homage to the idol I worshiped, that my envy and jealousy were being continually excited; and I frequently shrank within myself, taciturn and melancholy, contemplating the awful distance which intervened between my feeble pretensions and the transcendent object of my admiration. Then Helena, observing my silence and grief, would single me out from the crowd with a peculiar sweetness; would bestow a smile which seemed meant only for me; would drop a sentence of pearl which I felt that I alone comprehended; would solicit my early return in a manner so special and impressive, that I was fired with new hope and endowed with new life; spurned the dull earth beneath me, and was ready, like the daring boy of Apollo, to drive the chariot of the sun. “Let no one ever despair,” I would thus fondly say to myself, “of conquering a woman by love. Concentrate the passion of your soul upon her, like the rays of a burning glass, and sooner or later, you will melt her heart. The best philter to excite love is love itself. If you would ignite, you must burn.” With all this magnificent exterior, with the blended adornments of nature and art, this Helena was altogether unworthy of the pure and simple love I lavished upon her. She studied men as the angler studies the character, habits and locality of fish; solely to allure and capture them. She had the thoughtful brow and the words of wisdom for one class; the smile of the cupid and the laugh of the bacchante for another. She had an armory full of weapons; the tear of sympathy, the corruscations of wit, the meekness of modesty, the humility of religion, the splendor of dress, the ornament and even the exposure of person. Everything about her was the highest art in a garb of the sweetest nature.