Last words of Thomas Carlyle - Warburg Institute

86 WOTTON EEINFREDas the dove and high and noble as the eagle. Tohim her presence brought with it airs from heaven.A balmy rest encircled his spirit while near her ;paledoubt fled away to the distance, and life bloomed upwith happiness and hope.to awake as from a haggard dream ;The young man seemedhe had been inthe garden of Eden, then, and his eyes could notdiscern it ! Butnow the black walls of his prisonmelted away, and the captive was alive and free inthe sunny spring ! If he loved this benignant disenchantress?His whole heart and soul and life werehers ;yet he had never thought of love ; for hiswhole existence wasyet shaped into a thought.but a feeling which he had notBut human life were another matter than it is couldit grant such things continuance. Jane Montagu hadan ancient maiden aunt who was her hostess andprotectress, to whom she owed alland looked for all.With the eyes of fifty, one sees not as with the eyes offifteen. What passed between the good maiden andher aunt we know not ; the old lady was proud andpoor ; she had high hopes from her niece, and in hermeagre hunger-bitten philosophy Wotton's visits hadfrom the first been but faintly approved of.One morning he found his fan* Jane constrainedand sad ; she was silent, absent; she seemed to havebeen weeping. The aunt left the room. He pressedfor explanation, first in kind solicitude, then withincreasing apprehension ; but none was to be had,