Yet Happiness Isn't Something You

A Sincere Acquaintance With Ourselves Teaches Us Humility; And From Humility Springs That Benevolence Which Compassionates The Transgressors We Condemn, And Prevents The Punishments We Inflict From Themselves Partaking Of Crime, In Being Rather The Wreakings Of Revenge Than The Chastisements Of Virtue.

The Platform Or The Altar Of Love May Be Analyzed And Explained; It Is Constructed Of Virtue, Beauty, And Affection. Such Is The Pyre, Such Is The Offering; But The Ethereal Spark Must Come From Heaven, That Lights The Sacrifice.

Beauty Of Form Affects The Mind, But Then It Must Be Understood That It Is Not The Mere Shell That We Admire; We Are Attracted By The Idea That This Shell Is Only A Beautiful Case Adjusted To The Shape And Value Of A Still More Beautiful Pearl Within. The Perfection Of Outward Loveliness Is The Soul Shining Through Its Crystalline Covering.

The Doubts Of Love Are Never To Be Wholly Overcome; They Grow With Its Various Anxieties, Timidities, And Tenderness, And Are The Very Fruits Of The Reverence In Which The Admired Object Is Beheld.

Any Base Heart Can Devise Means Of Vileness, And Affix The Ugly Shapings Of Its Own Fancy To The Actions Of Those Around Him; But It Requires Loftiness Of Mind, And The Heaven-born Spirit Of Virtue, To Imagine Greatness Where It Is Not, And To Deck The Sordid Objects Of Nature In The Beautiful Robes Of Loveliness And Light.