other hand, it falls short of her, for it gives no idea of her tall and intellectual forehead, nor has it any trace of the bright, animated, and sweet expression that so often lighted up her face. Attention has often been concentrated on the passage in "Epipsychidion" which appears to relate Shelley's experiences from earliest youth until he met with the noble and unfortunate "Lady Emilia V., now imprisoned in the convent of--," whose own words form the motto to the poem, and a key to the sympathy which the writer felt for her:--"The loving soul launches itself out of the created, and creates in the infinite a world all its own, far different from this dark and fearful abysm." The passage begins,-- "There was a being whom my spirit oft Met on its visioned wanderings, far aloft, In the clear golden prime of my youth's dawn." And this being was the worshipped object of Shelley's adoring aspirations in extreme youth; but it passed by him as a vision, though-- "And as a man with mighty loss dismayed, I would have followed, though the grave between Yawned like a gulf whose spectres are unseen: When a voice said,--'O thou of hearts the weakest, The phantom is beside thee whom thou seekest.' Then I,--'Where?' The world's echo answered, 'Where'!" She ever remained the veiled divinity of thoughts that worshipped her, while he went forth into the world with hope and fear,-- "Into the wintry forest of our life; And struggling through its error with vain strife, And stumbling in my weakness and my haste, And half bewildered by new forms, I passed Seeking among those untaught foresters If I could find one form resembling hers In which she might have masked herself from me." The passage grows more and more intelligible. Hitherto he has been simply a dreamy seeker; but now, at last, he thinks that Fate has answered his questioning exclamation, "Where?" "There, one whose voice was venomed melody Sat by a well, under the nightshade bowers; The breath of her false mouth was like faint flowers; Her touch was as electric poison; flame Out of her looks into my vitals came; And from her living cheeks and bosom flew A killing air which pierced like honey-dew Into the core of my green heart, and lay Upon its leaves,--until, as hair grown gray O'er a young brow, they hid its unblown prime With ruins of unseasonable time." This is a plain and only too intelligible reference to the college experiences to which I have alluded. The youth for the moment thought that he had encountered her whom he was seeking, but, instead of the Florimel, he found her venal, hideous, and fatal _simulacrum_; and he indicates even the material consequences to himself in his injured aspect and hair touched with gray. He continues his search.