She would have loved me all the more!
She has filled my long life of bondage with such felicity as no monarch
has ever dreamed, and has found her own felicity in doing so. That poor,
plodding existence I led before my great misadventure, and have tried to
describe--she has witnessed almost every hour of it with passionate
interest and sympathy, as we went hand in hand together through each
other's past. She would at any time have been only too glad to share it,
leaving her own.
I dreaded the effect of such a sordid revelation upon one who had lived
so brilliantly and at such an altitude. I need have had no fear! Just as
she thought me an "angelic hero" at eight years old, she remained
persuaded all through her life that I was an Apollo--a misunderstood
genius--a martyr!
I am sick with shame when I think of it. But I am not the first unworthy
mortal on whom blind, undiscriminating love has chosen to lavish its
most priceless treasures. Tarapatapoum is not the only fairy who has
idealized a hulking clown with an ass's head into a Prince Charming;
the spectacle, alas! is not infrequent. But at least I have been humbly
thankful for the undeserved blessing, and known its value.
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