What though his coat be frieze? What though his labour constantly
return with the returning day? I wear the attire of kings; far from
labouring myself, thousands labour for my convenience. And yet he is
happier than I. Envied simplicity; venerable ignorance; plenteous
poverty! How gladly would I quit my sumptuous palace, and my magic arts,
for the careless, airy, and unreflecting joys of rural simplicity!"
It was in a late excursion of this kind that he had beheld the beauteous
Imogen. His eye was struck with the charms of her person, and the
amiableness of her manners. Never had he seen a complexion so
transparent, or an eye so expressive. Her vermeil-tinctured lips were
new-blown roses that engrossed the sight, and seemed to solicit to be
plucked. His heart was caught in the tangles of her hair. Such an
unaffected bashfulness, and so modest a blush; such an harmonious and
meaning tone of voice, that expressed in the softest accents, the most
delicate sense and the most winning simplicity, could not but engage the
attention of a swain so versed in the science of the fair as Roderic.
From that distinguished moment, though he still felt uneasiness, it was
no longer vacuity, it was no longer an uneasiness irrational and
unaccountable.
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