Note (20) — Chapter XX

“Except this, what was not there that might not renew the delicious dream of her former existence, and make her believe herself again the queen of that fairy isle?—One image was wanting—an image whose absence made that paradise of islands, and all the odorous and flowery luxury of a moonlight garden in Spain, alike deserts to her. In her heart alone could she hope to meet that image,—to herself alone did she dare to repeat his name, and those wild and sweet songs of his country(20) which he had taught her in his happier moods. And so strange was the contrast between her former and present existence,—so subdued was she by constraint and coldness,—so often had she been told that every thing she did, said, or thought, was wrong,—that she began to yield up the evidences of her senses, to avoid the perpetual persecutions of teazing and imperious mediocrity, and considered the appearance of the stranger as one of those visions that formed the trouble and joy of her dreamy and illusive existence.