The Devil's Elixir

Who is there, over the wide world, who has not, at one period or another, in a more or less degree, felt the mysterious influences of love?-Whoever thou art, then, courteous reader, who shalt, after the lapse of years, turn over these papers, recall, I beseech you, to recollection that noontide interval of dazzling brightness-contemplate once more that beautiful image, which came, like an impersonization of the abstract spirit of love, from divine regions, to meet you.