Last words of Thomas Carlyle - Warburg Institute

;34 WOTTON EEINFEEDher voice ;and perhaps she thanked the dusk that ithalf hid her. The conversation took a higher toneone fine thought called forth another; each, thespeakers and the hearers alike, felt happy and well atease. To Wotton the hours seemed moments; hehad never been as now ;the words from those sweetestlips came over him like dew on thirsty grass ; hiswhole soul was as if lapped in richest melodies, andall better feelings within him seemed to whisper, * Itis good for us to be here.' At parting the fair one'shand was in his ;in the balmy twilight with the kindstars above them he spoke something of meetingagain which was not contradicted;he pressed gentlythose small soft fingers, and it seemed as if they werenot hastily or angrily withdrawn.Wotton had never known love : brought up inseclusion from the sex, immersed insolitary speculation,he had seen the lovelier half of our species onlyfrom afar, and learned in his poeticalstudies to viewthem with an almost venerating reverence. Elysiandreams, a fairyland of richestblessedness his youngfancy had indeed shaped for him ;but it lay far apartfrom the firm earth, with impassable abysses intervening;and doubting and disbelieving all things, thepoor youth had never learned to believe in himself.That he, the obscure, forlorn, and worthless, couldever taste the heaven of being loved ; that for himany fair soul should ever languish in fond longing,seemed a thing impossible. Other men were loved ;