And what was the _voluptas_ of Epicurus, but those refined and elegant enjoyments which must derive their spirit from virtue and from health; from a vivid fancy, susceptible feelings, and a cultivated mind; and which are never so fully tasted as in this sweet season of the day; then the influence of sentiment is buoyant over passion; the soul, alive to the sublimest impression, expands in the region of pure and elevated meditation: the passions, slumbering in the soft repose of Nature, leave the heart free to the reception of the purest, warmest, tenderest sentiments--when all is delicious melancholy, or pensive softness; when every vulgar wish is hushed, and a rapture, an indefinable rapture, thrills with sweet vibration on every nerve.” “It is thus I have felt,” said the all-impassioned Glorvina, clasping her hands and fixing her humid eyes on mine--“thus, in the dearth of all _kindred_ feeling, have I felt. But never, oh! till _now--never!_”--and she abruptly paused, and drooped her head on the back of my chair, over which my hand rested, and felt the soft pressure of her glowing cheek, while her balmy sigh breathed its odour on my lip. Oh had not her celestial confidence, her angelic purity, sublimed every thought, restrained every wish; at that moment; that too fortunate; too dangerous moment!!!--Yet even as it was, in the delicious agony of my soul, I secretly exclaimed with the legislator of Lesbos--“_It is too difficult to be always virtuous!_” while I half audibly breathed on the ear of Glorvina-- “Nor I, O first of all created beings! never, never till I beheld thee, did I know the pure rapture which the intercourse of a kindred soul awakens--of that sacred communion with a superior intelligence, which, while it raises me in my own estimation, tempts me to emulate that excellence I adore.” Glorvina raised her head--her melting eyes met mine, and her cheek rivalled the snow of that hand which was pressed with passionate ardour on my lips. Then her eyes were bashfully withdrawn; she again drooped her head--not on the chair, but on my shoulder. What followed, angels might have attested--but the eloquence of bliss is silence.