’How shall I thank thee for once more breaking the chains of my sorrowful slumber?  My heart beats.  I live again, for I feel that I am worthy audience for thee, and that my being would be reason enough for thine.

’Master, my eyes are always clear.  I see that the universe is rich, if I am poor.  I see the insignificance of my sorrows.  In my will, I am not a captive; in my intellect, not a slave.  Is it then my fault that the palsy of my affections benumbs my whole life?

’I know that the curse is but for the time.  I know what the eternal justice promises.  But on this one sphere, it is sad.  Thou didst say, thou hadst no friend but thy art.  But that one is enough.  I have no art, in which to vent the swell of a soul as deep as thine, Beethoven, and of a kindred frame.  Thou wilt not think me presumptuous in this saying, as another might.  I have always known that thou wouldst welcome and know me, as would no other who ever lived upon the earth since its first creation.

’Thou wouldst forgive me, master, that I have not been true to my eventual destiny, and therefore have suffered on every side “the pangs of despised love.”  Thou didst the same; but thou didst borrow from those errors the inspiration of thy genius.  Why is it not thus with me?  Is it because, as a woman, I am bound by a physical-law, which prevents the soul from manifesting itself?  Sometimes the moon seems mockingly to say so,—­to say that I, too, shall not shine, unless I can find a sun.  O, cold and barren moon, tell a different tale!

’But thou, oh blessed master! dost answer all my questions, and make it my privilege to be.  Like a humble wife to the sage, or poet, it is my triumph that I can understand and cherish thee:  like a mistress, I arm thee for the fight:  like a young daughter, I tenderly bind thy wounds.  Thou art to me beyond compare, for thou art all I want.  No heavenly sweetness of saint or martyr, no many-leaved Raphael, no golden Plato, is anything to me, compared with thee.  The infinite Shakspeare, the stern Angelo, Dante,—­bittersweet like thee,—­are no longer seen in thy presence.  And, beside these names, there are none that could vibrate in thy crystal sphere.  Thou hast all of them, and that ample surge of life besides, that great winged being which they only dreamed of.  There is none greater than Shakspeare; he, too, is a god; but his creations are successive; thy fiat comprehends them all.

’Last summer, I met thy mood in nature, on those wide impassioned plains flower and crag-bestrown.  There, the tide of emotion had rolled over, and left the vision of its smiles and sobs, as I saw to-night from thee.

’If thou wouldst take me wholly to thyself—!  I am lost in this world, where I sometimes meet angels, but of a different star from mine.  Even so does thy spirit plead with all spirits.  But thou dost triumph and