Seymour with an ironical smile, and an air which he meant to be that of a De Grammont, and said, "I think I deserve credit for my self-denial, in being able to leave so much wit and so much beauty." "At least," replied his tormentor, "you deserve credit for your honesty in not, amid such a profusion, taking away a particle of either!" From that moment Mrs. Seymour did what is the easiest thing in the world for a pretty and a clever woman to do, namely, lost a dangler and gained an enemy; but in this instance she had the bad taste to prefer the latter to the former. 66 Madame de A. had been very busy preparing for her masquerade, which was to take place at Venice early in the ensuing week; and as she had determined upon having a game of piquet played with living cards, Fanny had been exerting all her inventive powers in designing dresses for the court cards that would not prevent their moving about. Only fancy my having been so busy," said she, "about those card dresses, that I have never opened that packet of books which came from England this morning. I I wish some of you idle men would have the charity to read out to us poor industrious damsels; do, Mr. Mowbray, for I have been told by a particular friend of yours that you read remarkably well." "So I do," said Mowbray, laughing; "but I assure you my particular friend reads infinitely better." "A very just observation," said Saville, in the Dowager Lady de Clifford's voice, "and does credit to your head and hort." Every one laughed at Saville's quotation and his admirable mimicry. "When you have done being so vaustly civil to each other," said Fanny, pursuing the same theme, "perhaps one of you will have the goodness to open that packet and see what's in it." "There, my dear fellow, do you do it," said Saville, pushing over the huge parcel to Mowbray; "it will be a charity to employ you, and prevent you pulling all those poor innocent magnolias to pieces, which never did you the slightest harm." "That's not true," said Mowbray," for they have given me a terrible headache." Julia raised her eyes from her work: "Pray try some eau de Cologne," said she, giving him a "flacon" out of her workbasket. He soon felt most miraculously reVOL. I.-K lieved, and pronounced it the best eau de Cologne he had ever met with. "Well, what books are these?" inquired Fanny, seeing that Mowbray was reading all the titlepages to him self. 66 Every sort you can possibly desire: memoirs, diaries, biography, novels, essays, magazines, poems, 'ad infinitum;' which will you have?" "Oh, not poetry, certainly!" said every one unanimously, "unless it is Moore's, Mrs. Heman's, or L. E. L.'s." "You are wrong," said Mowbray, " for 1 have opened upon some exceedingly pretty poetry, though written by a person whose name I nor you never heard before, a Mr. Charles Mackea." "The name is not euphonius, at all events," said Saville. 66 No, but the verses are." It has been remarked, that when we are under the influence of any particular passion or circumstances, we rarely open a book which does not seem addressed directly to our situation. This had been the case with Mowbray in opening the little volume in question; besides, it was a favourite subterfuge of his, to make the words of others speak for him; thoughts he dared not breathe to her, thoughts which he dared not own, even to himself, came with apparent guilelessness from another. How much subtile, honeyed, yet deadly poison, had he by this means distilled into Julia's ear; how much danger had stolen through that low, deep, soft, wooing voice into the very lifesprings of its victim! Like the plagueblast passing over the flowery vale of the Arno, which was rendered more destructive by the very sweets it acquired.* No wonder, then, that, on such occasions, there was a deep pathos in the tones of Mowbray's at all times touching and beautiful voice, which drew forth unqualified admiration from his auditors, and led poor Julia into the error of thinking that, in her admiration of him, she was only indulging a general, and not a particular feeling. "Well," said Fanny, “if it is not very long, we will * When the plague raged at Florence in the thirteenth century, those who retired to Fiesole for safety fell victims to a worse species of infection, from the pestilence gaining additional venom by the atmosphere being so impregnated with the perfume of flowers. allow you to read the poem you have volunteered to stand sponsor for." Mowbray was too anxious to express some of the thoughts contained in it to wait for another command; and having drawn his chair closer to the table, or, in other words, closer to Julia's, he began the following very beautiful "PRAYER OF ADAM ALONE IN PARADISE. "O Father, hear! Thou knowst my secret thought. I bend before thy mighty throne, All desolate upon the earth; And when my spirit hears the tone, When from the flowery vales O, then I feel there is a void for me! To thee for solace breathe the prayer. When o'er the bowers I stray, When bending thus before thy throne, My spirit weeps with silent tears, To think that I must pray alone! And when at evening's twilight dim, Bend from their bright homes in the sky; Then, Father, in my dreams I see That we may live and be but one- Almighty, in thy wisdom high, To die must be to live alone, Unloved, uncherish'd, and unknown, Lord of the boundless sphere! If 'tis thy will that I should rove Alone o'er Eden's smiling bowers, A music and a mystery! Grant that my soul no more may feel For all around, in earth or sea, "Beautiful!" said Fanny; "beautiful!" echoed every one except Julia; but she had made a great many false stitches in a rosebud she was embroidering; she left the room to get some more silk, and when she returned Mowbray was gone. "If the bright lake lay stilly When whirlwinds arose to deform, If the life of the lily. Were charm'd against the storm, Thou mightst, though human, Have smiled through the saddest of years Thou mightst, though woman, Have lived unacquainted with tears!" From the German of JOHANN THEODOR DRECHSLER. THERE is but one real actual present on earth, but one period in which we feel our own identity independent of our imagination, and that is the time we pass with the one we love; the mere sense of existence is then an all-sufficient happiness, and this sense it is which alone can rivet or create for us that vague thing, the present. The reason is obvious: then, and then only, the boundless void of the human heart is filled; then alone we want nothing beyond what we have; and this it is that constitutes the actual, the present. So allpervading is this feeling, that, in the presence of a beloved object, we dread even thinking our own thoughts, lest the illusion, the spell of consciousness, which is then in itself happiness, should be broken; lest the wild and swift-winged present should be startled into flight, never to return. This mysterious presence alone has the power of bringing all our widely-ranged feelings, thoughts, and passions into one focus; quit it but a moment, and then do our jarring atoms again separate, to war within us like chaotic spirits struggling for pre-eminence; memory turning us back, hope leading us forward, jealousy |