When that is effected, how will the perfect
sunshine break out from that face! Ah! how blest must Scotland be
under his reign, when all will be light, virtue, and joy!" Bliss
hovered like an angel over the image of this imaginary Bruce; while
sorrow, in mourning weeds, seemed ever dropping tears, when any
circumstance recalled that of the real Wallace.
Such was the state of Helen's thoughts, when in the moment beholding
the chief Ellerslie in the citadel she recognized, in his expected
melancholy form, the resplendent countenance of him whom she supposed
the prince of Scotland. That two images so opposite should at once
unite; that in one bosom should be mingled all the virtues she had
believed peculiar to each, struck her with overwhelming amazement. But
when she recovered from her short swoon, and found Wallace at her feet;
when she felt that all the devotion her heart had hitherto paid to the
simple idea of virtue alone would now be attracted to that glorious
mortal, in whom all human excellence appeared summed up, she trembled
under an emotion that seemed to rob her of herself, and place a new
principle of being within her.
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