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finger this jewelled expression of my love. I retired to bed with the assurance of a bright and unclouded future.

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I ROSE early on the following morning and set out upon my journey. The day was fine, and the air delightfully fresh and inspiriting; a gentle breeze from the west served to enliven, without agitating, the feelings, and produce that excited influence on the frame which thrills through the mind with a glad disturbance. Gray, always happy in epithets, never applied one more expressive or appropriate than when he called the morning "incensebreathing." We are pleased with the term when we read it in our chamber, but when we stand on some lofty headland, looking toward the newly-risen sun, and the uncertain zephyr grows fresher and fuller in swelling strength, we search the mind for some phrase that can denote the delight, and the word "incense" flashes on the understanding as a discovery of the instant, and a moment elapses before we discover that the word is another's and not our own. As light which contains all colours is colourless, and as the perfection and completeness of sound, according to Pythagoras, is silence, so the primary, single and undefective perfume, is the inodorous breath of day.

One who,-like the general race of men,-has gone from youth to manhood, through common life, a common man, can form no notion of the state of feeling in which I existed at this time,—a state which was but one of the

many phases of the human character when it grows up alone, and aloof from precedent, fellowship, or example, acted upon by nothing save the grand impulses of nature. The infinite little distractions of a quiet employment, the hourly greetings in the street, the momentary expectation of an incident, the sowing of to-day for the reaping of tomorrow, the constant sense of an external relation, all form, as it were, a lûte-like music to the heart of the dweller in the high-way of life, which charms the passions to sleep, and harmonizes the opposing infinities of the soul into the zero that lies between: and man enveloping within him capacities for good that might dwarf an angel, and energies of evil that might startle a demon, goes through the world a harmless, worthless being, as little conscious of what lies within him as the hirsute rind of the oyster knows of the jewel that it houses. To the thousands who have never made acquaintance with their own souls, what I shall relate of myself at this time may seem incredible because it is unusual; wanting sympathy with the feeling, they may lack intelligence of the condition. As little resemblance have the habits of the children of society to the impulses of the children of nature, as the spark on an electric point upon the earth has to the nighty spirit which the thunder-cloud has nursed, bosomed in its depths as it sails the air; as little as the stunted hemlock of a grove to the heaven stretching cedars of Mount Libanus. Yet be there many doubtless in whom the germ has sprouted, though it grew not to a flower; men who have in youth dreamed wildly for a moment, till the appointed destiny drew them back to business. Such may from the actual infer. the possible, and will know from a glimpse, once granted, ever gar-. nered, that my description exceeds not the truth.

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For three years I had lived in utter solitude, my mind having no other companion than my heart. With all curious speculations, mysterious imaginings, and profound impressions I was intimately familiar to all, in the things of nature and the thoughts of man, that could awake affection, wonder and meditation I was exquisitely susceptible. Morbid in feeling and impracticable in ex pectation, I was as little adapted to join actively in the

business of the world, as a tottering hermit is fitted to rise from the lonely musings of half a century, and marshal an army on the plain of combat. I was about to mingle with men again, and to rest on them the foundation of my romantic schemes; and it never occurred to me that those who lived under the influence of agencies the polar opposites of mine, might in any respect be different from me? I was about to transplant a dream from air to earth, thinking that a sky-bud would flower in the soil. In the universe of fancy I had created a world of my own, and living daily in that world, knew not that it was not the common globe; I thought that the azure veil on high which not hid angels from my sight, was the same sky that looked down on the labours and the pleasures of the whole earth; that the same Nature which looked, laughed, spoke to me in vale and hill and shady grove, spoke, looked and laughed also to woman and to man wherever dwelling;not reflecting that to the enthusiast's eye life is profoundly masked in error; not considering that the vapours of hope must be chilled and condensed ere they passed into solid reality. My dreams were to the world's deeds as

-noontide dew

Or fountain in a noonday grove,

is to the strumpet highway common unto all, which sends to the sky no tribute but the arid dust the earth throws off.

As I went on amid sights of landscape varying but to please, and under scenes of heaven changeless but to enchant, I gazed in a revery of rapture upon the lovely prospect,

-till it became

Far lovelier, and my soul could not sustain
The beauty still more beauteous!

A wave of deep emotion swelled through my bosom, as I looked into the clear blue sky, and influences of sacred joy floated to me through the crystal air.

That grand old man, Lord Bacon, was wont when he rode in the country, especially if a slight soft rain was falling, to uncover his head, saying that "he loved that the Spirit of the Universe should rest upon his temples."

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That such a spirit is, and makes itself to be perceived, is an impression which feeling suggests and philosophy sanctions. And if the stern and the worldly, if the commonplace and the trivial perceive this emanation,—and the squalid infant who knows no more of nature than the still cape of sky that roofs its native alley, has pondered its meaning with a heart of reverence,-if they whose hearts are encrusted by sensuality have, in despite of their hardness, been awed, it may be imagined how susceptible was I who had so nursed my soul to tenderness that, often, as if it had been a harp-string of living nerve, the faintest breath of passion could delight it almost to agony.

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In a tremor of gladness, my frame quivering with emotion, I looked back on the years that were passed, and forward to the days that were coming. I had been successful, even to the craving fulness of romance, successful,-in all my plans and undertakings. I was returning as a triumphant hero, with the proudest trophies of victory in my hand; my veins tingling with that sense of glorious success which makes the eye quiver and the lip tremble. Hope elevated and joy brightened my crest." When I looked forward, vision rose piled upon vision in unexhausted profusion, and dreams of happiness, each brighter than its predecessor, flitted unceasingly over the scenes of fancy. Of this world of suggestive bliss Emily should be queen! I would enthrone her mistress over all that was mine, whether treasured in the heart or built in the fancy. To her I would subject all my thoughts, my plans, my splendid wishes.

Referring to this period of my life, from the totally dif ferent state in which I now find myself, I feel it difficult to do more than hint at the high-wrought madness which then possessed me. It is rather by memory acting upon the result, than by relating consciousness that I am able to realize to myself that strange condition. No more than a far abler artist can I "paint what then I was.' But from sketches, broken and imperfect, the reader may apprehend in some degree, how false and unsound was the position into which solitude and a heated mind had brought me, and may anticipate the revulsion which

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reality would work in one of such jealous sensibility and longings as limitless as the universe.

I reached the village of my destination about noon, and alighting at the edge of it, went on foot over the fields, intending to pass through the garden, and enter by the back way the house in which Emily resided. Connected with her father's house was a tolerably extensive park or lawn, tastefully disposed, and agreeably furnished with trees and flowers. It was the place in which I had parted from Emily three years before; and as I walked through it now, almost entranced in visionary enthusiasm, I verily expected to find her there waiting for me, as if by some secret sympathy she had known of my arrival. I looked that she should have started up in love's own ecstasy, and flown to my arms in the thoughtless innocence of nature. But she did not.

I reached the house, and ascending the steps which led by a window to the parlour, I raised the sash and entered the room. The object of my search was before me; she sat alone, fully dressed, upon a sofa, reading a newspaper. She raised her eye, and as she recognized me, smiled, and with a very composed air advanced towards

me.

"Mr. Stanley !" giving me her hand, "I am extremely happy to see you. Pray sit down. When did you arrive in town?"

"Lately, immediately," said I.

"You found the roads very dusty, I am afraid. We are very much in want of rain."

"Very,-extremely so, indeed:" I replied, absolutely stunned by the calm immobility of the speaker. In an instant after, the sense of my ridiculous notions, of my idiotical folly of expectation flashed upon me. This sudden bolting of the actual upon the visionary startled me as the sudden awaking of a sleeper who unknowingly has wandered to a dizzy p precipice. My thoughts whirled round to a consciousness of the reality, like a windlass furiously uncoiling when, with its heavy weight almost at the top, the handle is forced off. My dreams could never be fulfilled! My affections never satisfied! Mingled with rage I felt a hopeless sinking of the heart. Great God!

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