months preceding, even the bare possibility of hope, the license to fancy her mine, had sufficed for the triumph of a summer. Che parlo? o dove sono? e chi m'inganna -I repeated these lines at Rouen, (my half-way station to Havre), when after vain endeavour to study the splendid monuments of that most picturesque of cities, I had ascended at last an overlooking hill, and sat with my face towards England, aiming at submission to the future whatever. Though so far dearer than life that this only made life dear, this hope too might be fallacy : Désirée's bright welcome a sister's kindness: love unreturned: the waste wilderness before me: I would put anticipation aside; I would arm myself with patience. And yet—the hour for departure struck below on a hundred bells :-I left St. Gervais, and strode down the long Rue Beauvoisine with childish exultation. I sang aloud: I felt as if marching to a victory already mine, to a triumph beyond any that wound with crowns, and spoil, and proclamation, and the 'alalagmos of legions', and the applause of Rome to the Capitol. Though so lately renounced, I could not chase from me this folle espérance'. I set myself to remember past defeat: the agony of that hopelessness: yet hope came flying back each instant like a brooding bird: Every moment I found the other self saying to the real self, I am going to Désirée. If a cloud from within, a warning sensation of the possible truth overshadowed me, at once the festive feeling, the blessed knowledge, would force its way back with exultation, and lightness of heart, and the cry, I am going to Désirée. I sat amongst grooms and porters' at the Rive Droite Station: I tried to suppress the thought by talking with them. One told me the story of his campaigning through the 'Cent Jours'; he was simple and friendly as a man known for years; he pressed me to taste some famous native drink close by. I found myself answering with animation : almost telling this stranger I was too happy for such pleasures. He drove away. I reasoned with myself again: I recalled the circumstances of her affectionate kindness when we had met in late years of the thus far and no further of forbearance more touching yet: of what I might endanger now. But in vain, but in vain was that appeal to reason. The blood would run quicker, the heart beat more airily: the soul anticipate what Heaven and she had refused to a thousand prayers. .... The crowd, the hurry of the Gare, the shutting doors, the colporteur crying' Journaux', the impatient guards: all these trivialities give a joy I cannot conquer, a blessedness with which I am at strife to no purpose. I see written, In one day I shall be at this English Tesoretto ': I shall be with HER in one day. . . ... XVI Happiness, however, accordantly with the word, chances on us sometimes before we had expected her. With a sense of life and exultation naturally called forth by the Sea, at least from Englishmen, I had crossed to England under that clear arch of sunlight buttressed on the white cliffs of antagonist coasts, which so frequently, I think, spans this ocean interval. Let no one ask me how it came to pass; It seems that I am happy— reading, a few lines together, the last gift of the great Poet -a tale published at the moment, I thought, as if by the surpassing force and delicacy of these lines and many more, to add passion to passion-the journey seemed of unexpected brevity. Railway arrangements made it my shortest route to the H-coast to take London on the way. An additional reason was, that I could at once call and ascertain from the servants of the house the latest news of their absent family. Désirée rode up as I came to the door : the first welcome to England came from her lips the request that I would at any rate, return to-morrow, and fix the scheme for our southward journey, which could not be arranged without next morning's letters. We entered the house meanwhile. I could have kissed the walls in the plenitude of my heart's delight, and the beam from the " timber' seemed to answer me. . . . Then we sat side by side her lately married sister, who for a few days had requested her company, was there : Désirée explained the little family circumstances which had brought her to London, and, avoiding any allusion of too soul-arousing significance, endeavoured anxiously, I saw, to give me that peculiar pleasure, resumption into the circle of ' household 'hearts' that might be mine too, if so I would be content to have it. Who could calmly measure, and so received by the Lady of his love, the exact limits of happiness? Why, at one moment, when she said 'You were once interested 'in' such and such things, did the lips hesitate, and the sorrise parolette grow deep and sad, and like echoes from that irrevocable once itself? I answered away from the ... purpose: I thought a star-crowned Angel passed over us ; a higher Power present, and leading to celestial determinations. So warst du denn im Paradies empfangen, Als wärst du werth des ewig schönen Lebens ; Und in dem Anschaun dieses einzig Schönen Versiegte gleich der Quell sehnsüchtiger Thränen. These were sixty minutes sunnier than sunlight: we had been speaking throughout indeed with the pressure and rapidity of those who meet after long separation, yet so profound was the sense of blessedness that penetrated them, they seemed to have run by in an absolute and soulsubduing silence. Though bearing with me nothing but what has been here noted for special or definite remembrance, when I left it was glorified in heart and head, as the Prophet coming from the Mount and the Vision, with the emanations of her presence. XVII Che parlo? o dove sono? e chi m'inganna -But that night I could not read, I could not sleep, I was so disturbed by this dear image: by her first sad sweet gaze as we stood talking alone: by the smiles that followed by the meeting for to-morrow promised as if the all to me was something now to Désirée. There had been a power on me as we spoke: a fascination gradually growing, I knew not how or why or to what issues: an awe I would call it, not fear, yet compelling me to silence : -as though the passage of some ultimate moment, some great crisis pre-ordained through eternity were striking on the silver bells of Paradise. . O voice so long unheard, so late regranted, confiding depth of sincere and eloquent eyes, pursuing glance of the face more desired than the faces of Heaven, shaking me through the deepest depths of Resignation,-and what was your significance ? Let the sweet heavens endure, Not close and darken above me That there is one to love me : -Let me have my dream awhile, I thought, let me clasp it in its ineffable sweetness: at last, at last; this 'beyond 'all beyond', to believe Désirée mine. . . . I dare not bid the dawning hasten, I walk as if amongst spirits in the under world, between death and life; and what is prepared for to-morrow? I cannot so think of Providence as to think that Vision and Hope granted only in celestial Irony; that the Eternal Love can be so directed by the Illimitable Power: -Ono: he hears, he cannot but hear, the supplication and sigh from boyhood to manhood. . . As I looked up, there is a sign in heaven, I thought, more stars than the number appointed, and brighter. They answer-It is so : Désirée yours the yearning of years fulfilled; the heart's desire accomplished: shame and sorrow transfigured to blessedness; the crown of thorns glorified almost to the brightness of that God placed, after death and rising, on the brows of his Well Beloved. Faithfully I had served more years than Jacob for the true wife; long I had waited; the Merciful has heard :-the Desire cometh. . . . At last, at last but the ecstasy of her dear love won such! that with his own Best, He Himself could not better it. XVIII I thought I had courage when beginning this narrative, to evade no conviction, and to shrink from no |