OPHELIA.
[HAMLET.]
This is the poor Ophelia whom Hamlet the Dane loved. She was a beautiful blonde girl, and there was especially in her speech a magic which touched my heart, most of all when I would journey to Wittenberg, and went to her father to bid him farewell. The old lord was so kind as to give me on the way all the good counsels of which he himself made so little use, and at last called Ophelia to give us the parting cup. When the dear girl modestly and gently approached me with the salver, and raised her gleaming eyes to mine, in my distraction I grasped an empty instead of a full cup. She laughed at my mistake. Her smile was so wondrous gleaming, and there stole over her lips that intoxicating, melting softness which doubtless came from the kiss-fairies who lurked in the dimples of the mouth.
When I returned from Wittenberg, and the smile of Ophelia gleamed on me again, I forgot all the crafty casuistry of the scholastics, and my deep researches were only on the charming question: "What does this smile set forth what is the inner meaning of that voice with its mysterious deeply yearning flute-tones? Whence do those
