Methinks, Arthur, I see her now: and an increase of warmth glides through every vein till it reaches my heart, which glows and throbs more proudly and more proudly, that the arbitress of its every motion is Sibella Valmont. Let imagination dress up her most airy forms, let fancy exhaust the riches of her invention, the vision thus created may dazzle, may delude in the absence of perfection; but bring the all-radiant charms of Sibella in contrast, and it sinks into vapour. Painting and language are alike incompetent to represent her.--Ha! that thought again shoots across my brain--I--I was inconstant!--Oh, I would give an eye, an ear, nay a limb, that I had never known other embraces!--Then I might have been all soul too:--what she now is, what I can imagine but never shall experience.--Yes, you gave the advice, Murden; and I, deserving almost damnation for the deed, stooped to gross allurements, and obeyed the calls of appetite, and I ought to have braved death in support of my constancy. Thank God! she cannot know it! And oh, may annihilation, or the worst of curses, fall on this head, rather than I again pollute myself, or entertain one thought within my breast that may not rank with her angelic purity! Yes, Murden, I say purity. Ay, and she is as pure as angels, notwithstanding Clement has been admitted to her embraces. For I am her husband. She never heard of ties more holy, more binding, than those of the heart. Custom has not placed its sordid restraint on her feelings. Nature forms her impulses. Oh, she is Nature's genuine child! more lovely than painting can trace: yet robust as the peasant who climbs yon hill to toil for his hourly subsistence--soft as her lover's bounding wishes can desire: yet stedfast, aspiring, brave enough to lead an army in the field. No cowardly apprehensions enter her mind. She shrinks not from the wintry blast. Let the torrent descend, the wind howl, the lowering thunder roar: it affects not her peace. No trembling nerves has she! Methinks I see her now: I hear again the harmony of that voice; now softening into the scarcely audible adieu; now rising into firmness, to instruct her Clement how to bear his destiny. I had just quitted Mr. Valmont's study, where I underwent another torturing repetition of all the inconsistency of his designs for us. So freezing was his language, that it appeared to chill sensation; and when he presented me the 500l, which is to open my prospects in life, I was scarcely sensible either of its value or design.--I believe I never thanked him; and though I did not take his offered hand, its touch I dreaded more than the torpedo.