Sleep came not at first, but in her stead a train of
pleasing yet not rousing or awakening sensations. A state ensued
in which, still conscious of his own identity and his own
condition, the knight felt enabled to consider them not only
without alarm and sorrow, but as composedly as he might have
viewed the story of his misfortunes acted upon a stage--or rather
as a disembodied spirit might regard the transactions of its past
existence. From this state of repose, amounting almost to apathy
respecting the past, his thoughts were carried forward to the
future, which, in spite of all that existed to overcloud the
prospect, glittered with such hues as, under much happier
auspices, his unstimulated imagination had not been able to
produce, even in its most exalted state. Liberty, fame,
successful love, appeared to be the certain and not very distant
prospect of the enslaved exile, the dishonoured knight, even of
the despairing lover who had placed his hopes of happiness so far
beyond the prospect of chance, in her wildest possibilities,
serving to countenance his wishes.
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