Leonora had subsisted on what she could get in the way of enjoyment, but her capacity far exceeded the supply that presented itself. She was not one of those people who can live for days in happiness from one sight of something beautiful, from a glimpse at a great picture, or from the memory of one strain of music. She liked all that was artistic, and especially that which was admirable for novelty, fineness of execution, or boldness of conception. She was not impressed with the beauty of small and unpretending things,--the art that amused her was necessarily of the most brilliant kind. The people she liked were the stirring, active, original people who either make history or make public fools of themselves, or both. The philosophies she had dabbled in were such as could produce in her a sensation of odd possibility rather than such as could satisfy a logical intellect, and they resolved themselves into a vast sea of aspirations, emotions, and potential passions, in which she loved to disport herself, diving and splashing and floating, like a magnificent sea-nymph in fullest enjoyment of her wild vitality,--sitting, an hour afterwards, on some lonely rock, and wringing her white hands to heaven in despair, because, being but half divine, she was less goddess-like than the great goddesses of Olympus.
She could not help it if she grew pale and thin,--she was so wretched without him; and, without his letters and the sense that he was not so very far from her after all, she would have gone mad. She would sit for hours in her room staring at nothing; or she would go through elaborate processes of toilet before the glass, looking at herself and wondering if he would find her changed,--perhaps that very day some chance would offer, and she might see him. Everything was possible. That was the colour he liked best, and that bit of jewelry,--put it on, in case he should come. And again, she would change it all, because she would not wear for her husband the things she wore for her sweet lover; and then she would change once more, perhaps, and put back the colours and the ornaments he loved, so that she might the better think of him while she was with Marcantonio; she had a thousand idle thoughts and fancies which she strove hard to train into the semblance of a little happiness, the hollowest image of a little joy.