But Malcolm was not of the stuff of which coxcombs are made, and had
not begun to think even of the abyss that separated Lady Florimel
and himself--an abyss like that between star and star, across
which stretches no mediating air--a blank and blind space. He
felt her presence only as that of a being to be worshipped, to be
heard with rapture, and yet addressed without fear.
Though not greatly prejudiced in favour of books, Lady Florimel
had burrowed a little in the old library at Lossie House, and had
chanced on the Faerie Queene. She had often come upon the name of
the author in books of extracts, and now, turning over its leaves,
she found her own. Indeed, where else could her mother have found
the name Florimel? Her curiosity was roused, and she resolved--
no light undertaking--to read the poem through, and see who and
what the lady, Florimel, was. Notwithstanding the difficulty she met
with at first, she had persevered, and by this time it had become
easy enough. The copy she had found was in small volumes, of which
she now carried one about with her wherever she wandered; and
making her first acquaintance with the sea and the poem together,
she soon came to fancy that she could not fix her attention on the
book without the sound of the waves for an accompaniment to the
verse--although the gentler noise of an ever flowing stream would
have better suited the nature of Spenser's rhythm; for indeed,
he had composed the greater part of the poem with such a sound
in his ears, and there are indications in the poem itself that he
consciously took the river as his chosen analogue after which to
model the flow of his verse.
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