I never credited her with more than charity towards myself; and if I gloried in the fact that I was privileged to love so wondrous a being, the thought humiliated me at the same time. I was conscious of my nothingness before her worthiness, and desperate to fit myself for her high society. A noble rage for excellence possessed me; like any champion or knight of old I strove to approve my manhood, only that I might lay the spoils of it at her sacred feet.