affection,—i.e., a constant anxiety, conjoined to willingness, to endure and suffer for another; at times it betrays sadness and uneasiness; at others, extreme consciousness of pleasure; alas! at times, it wears that direful veil, called green jealousy. Love has many streams, which ten times faster glide than the sun's beams. Its breath is the air of Paradise.
This gentle angel is looking for the manifestation of that life and feeling in others, of which she has the most ethereal models and idealities placed in the niches of her spirit; there are restless spirits there, yet all are sanctified and prepared for their office by the mystery of inspiration. Sometimes she leaves her watch-tower, and is found midst an umbrageous loveliness, listening to Echo, or sweet Philomel; in the mazy dance, gentle are her lovely motions,—smoothly gliding, undulating or winding, her buoyant form exciting the most pleasing of sensitive perceptions. Her motion is the life of beauty, her smile is beauty, her contour is the phase of beauty—the very presence of divinity. The poets describe her path and call her—
"The winding honey-suckle, with ivy canopied and interwove."
Elevation and extacy are often akin to this loveliness of form and expression. There are sympathies in the carriage of the head (which is generally thrown upward), and the arms are often raised, and this may arise from the idea prevalent amongst mortals, that the plains of eternal joys are above the mountain, and far out of mortal ken. This, also, is a phase of beauty, as an expression of the most delightful feelings, conveyed by means of that which is to sense most delicately pleasing; there is gentleness of form and combination of influences, which conjoin to animate and delight; this spirit Love, refines all ideas and conjoins with all holy desires, which mutually assist each other and multiply the exuberance of joys, till at length the highest excellence of social perception may be attained.
