when these conflicts, combats, and denials to which my frame is unequal, when death will have closed the scene of my mortal existence,—ere that moment Oriana will have ceased to attach interest to my name, she will have ceased to love, to think, or speak of Philimore!"
Thus under the strict fulfilment of a duty so severe, but which he conceived incumbent upon him to retrieve the past, Philimore insensibly became detached from his miseries, the ties of earth slackened, and his thoughts often soared to rest upon the substantial realities of another life. Such exalted moments, however, could not at that time endure without occasional relapses into sorrow; but as they principally arose from a contemplation of past error, in connection with Oriana, while all of material enjoyment vanished from his view, those of a higher, more interior, and unearthly character succeeded, and gained the ascendancy in his mind.
His correspondence with Oriana had totally ceased, yet after some period had thus elapsed, he felt the most ardent desire to renew it,—to pour into her bosom those new, sacred, and powerful feelings which influenced him; to make her a participator in those sublime thoughts so frequently engrossing him; to communicate with her in a style of sentiment, idea, and reflection wholly different from the past; to hear her in return express the language of patient submission and resignation to the Deity.
An intercourse so free from passion, so pure and
