Page:The Garden of Romance - 1897.djvu/118

ought I to be reviled for being beautiful; for beauty in a virtuous woman is like a distant flame and a sharp sword afar off, which prove fatal to none but those who approach too near them. Honour and virtue are the ornaments of the soul; without which the body, though ever so handsome, ought to seem ugly; if chastity, then, be one of the virtues which chiefly adorns and beautifies both body and soul, why should she that is beloved, lose that jewel for which she is chiefly beloved, merely to satisfy the appetite of one who, for his own selfish enjoyment, employs his whole care and industry to destroy it? I was born free, and to enjoy that freedom have I chosen the solitude of these fields. The trees on these mountains are my companions; and I have no other mirror than the limpid streams of these crystal brooks. With the trees and the streams I share my contemplation and my beauty: I am a distant flame and a sword afar off: those whom my eyes have captivated, my tongue has undeceived: and if hope be the food of desire, as I gave none to Chrysostom or to any other person, so neither can his death, nor that of any other of my admirers, be justly imputed to my cruelty, but rather to their own obstinate despair. To those who observe that his intentions were honourable, and that, therefore, I was bound to comply with them, I answer, when he declared the honesty of his designs in that very spot where now his grave is digging, I told him my purpose was to live in perpetual solitude, and let the earth alone enjoy the fruits of my retirement, and the spoils of my beauty. Wherefore, if he, notwithstanding this my explanation, persevered without hope, and sailed against the wind, it is no wonder that he was overwhelmed in the gulf of his