A hundred times he reviewed the broad question, by the light of his six months’ experience.  Was Sidwell Warricombe his ideal woman, absolutely speaking?  Why, no; not with all his glow of feeling could he persuade himself to declare her that.  Satisfied up to a certain point, admitted to the sphere of wealthy refinement, he now had leisure to think of yet higher grades, of the women who are not only exquisite creatures by social comparison but rank by divine right among the foremost of their race.  Sidwell was far from intolerant, and held her faiths in a sincerely ethical spirit.  She judged nobly, she often saw with clear vision.  But must not something of kindly condescension always blend with his admiring devotedness?  Were it but possible to win the love of a woman who looked forth with eyes thoroughly purged from all mist of tradition and conventionalism, who was at home among arts and sciences, who, like himself, acknowledged no class and bowed to no authority but that of the supreme human mind!

Such women are to be found in every age, but how many of them shine with the distinctive ray of womanhood?  These are so rare that they have a place in the pages of history.  The truly emancipated woman—­ it was Godwin’s conviction—­is almost always asexual; to him, therefore, utterly repugnant.  If, then, he were not content to waste his life in a vain search for the priceless jewel, which is won and worn only by fortune’s supreme favourites, he must acquiesce in the imperfect marriage commonly the lot of men whose intellect allows them but little companionship even among their own sex:  for that matter, the lot of most men, and necessarily so until the new efforts in female education shall have overcome the vice of wedlock as hitherto sanctioned.  Nature provides the hallucination which flings a lover at his mistress’s feet.  For the chill which follows upon attainment she cares nothing—­let society and individuals make their account with that as best they may.  Even with a wife such as Sidwell the process of disillusion would doubtless have to be faced, however liberal one’s allowances in the forecast.

Reflections of this colour were useful; they helped to keep within limits the growth of agitating desire.  But there were seasons when Godwin surrendered himself to luxurious reverie, hours of summer twilight which forbade analysis and listened only to the harmonies of passion.  Then was Sidwell’s image glorified, and all the delights promised by such love as hers fired his imagination to intolerable ecstasy. 0 heaven! to see the smile softened by rosy warmth which would confess that she had given her heart—­to feel her supple fingers intertwined with his that clasped them—­to hear the words in which a mind so admirable, instincts so delicate, would make expression of their tenderness!  To live with Sidwell—­to breathe the fragrance of that flower of womanhood in wedded intimacy—­to prove the devotion of a nature so profoundly chaste!  The visionary