XII.] mela:n-cholt hours. 381 



towards letters. But ambition is not quite enough to fill 

 a young man's heart. I still felt a void there, and sighed 

 as I reflected on the happiness of my friend. At the time 

 when I visited the object of mj first love, a young Chris- 

 tian woman, her frequent companion, had sometimes 

 taken my attention. She was an Ionian by birth, and 

 had all the softness and pensive intelligence which her 

 countrywomen are said to possess when unvitiated by the 

 corruption so prevalent in that delightful region. You 

 are no stranger to the contempt with which the Greeks 

 then treated, and do still, in some places, treat the Chris- 

 tians. This young woman bore that contempt with a 

 calmness which surprised me. There were then but few 

 converts to that religion in those parts, and its profession 

 was therefore more exposed to ridicule and persecution 

 from its strangeness. Notwithstanding her religion, 1 

 thought I could love this interesting and amiable female, 

 and in spite of my former mistake, I had the vanity to 

 imagine I was not indifferent to her. As our intimacy 

 increased, I learned, to my astonishment, that she re- 

 garded me as one involved in ignorance and error, and 

 that, although she felt an affection forme, yet she would 

 never become my wife while I remained devoted to the 

 religion of my ancestors. Piqued at this discovery, I re- 

 ceived the books, which she had now for the first time 

 put into my hands, with pity and contempt. I expected 

 to find them nothing but the repositaries of a miserable 

 and deluded superstition, more presuming than the mysti- 

 cal leaves of the Sibyls, or the obscure triads of Zoroaster. 

 How was I mistaken ! There was much which I could 

 not at all comprehend ; but, in the midst of this dark- 

 ness, the effect of my ignorance, I discerned a system of 

 morality, so exalted, so exquisitely pure, and so far re- 

 moved from all I would have conceived of the most per- 

 fect virtue, that all the philosophy of the Grecian world 

 seemed worse than dross in com.parison. My former learn- 

 ing had only served to teach me that something was want- 

 ing to complete the sj-stems of philosophers. Here that 

 invisible link was supplied, and I could even then observe 

 a harmony and consistency in the whole, which carried 



