I would say: "Beware, lest you, too, suffer the regret, almost despair, of a fallen angel. through a like unrest; beware, lest some foul The one delight that is yet left me is to refiend be tugging at your heart-strings, and visit those bright scenes again, to tread once leading you, satiate, from the broad highways more the summits of those hills, and see God of duty and honor, to that isolated place which make himself "the awful rose of dawn "-in I have reached at last, where lover and friend solitude-a melancholy pleasure, that draws have forsaken me, and kinsmen stand afar tears off." clouded brain. Only on the tarn upon the mountain-top I dare not gaze-only where the old man and his two happy sons stood mirrored in the flood, I dare not stand. What hideous metamorphosis! what dreadful change should I not see hath fallen upon one of them!-worse than the mouldering bones and eyeless sockets that have long ere this replaced the stalwart form and the still radiant look of him I once. called father. I was born in the far north: in Shardale, To glad the withered thought, and clear the fairest valley in Westmoreland, guarded by the mountain genii, and quite secluded from the hum of men, my father built his home. His whole life long had been employed in commerce, and that so busily, he hardly had a thought apart from it: a prudent man, and well to do, such as had worship and honor in his native town of Liverpool, even to the statute length: an effigy in stone of my deceased parent is indeed painfully obvious in one of its public edifices. His neighbors thought him mad, who, at the green age of sixty-five, removed himself so suddenly to Shardale, and dug and stretched himself for ever in that living tomb. It may have been that the same wild whim and impulse which has cursed my every step, and ruined me at last, was latent in my father too, and came to light at that one single epoch. My love for nature, though more or less at different times, is still the one steady desire of my soul; often rising to passion, it never has sunk to indifference; and of any thing or creature under heaven, I scarcely dare to say. that much. My fickleness in other things, my fatal changefulness of heart exhibited itself first towards my darling sister. She had been away from all of us, for her health's sake, in Madeira, until we left Liverpool, but at Shardale we thought it safe that she should come home amongst us; and she did come-to her His affairs were wound up in about a week; every tittle of his interest in the great firm of Branksome & Co., of which he was the head, disposed of; his connection with all his former associates entirely cut off; and never, to my grave. So beautiful, so glorious a being my knowledge, did he receive, or at least reply fancy never drew in dreams; that voice I do to, a single business communication of any not think could be ever otherwise than gentle, sort or kind for the remaining five years of that placid brow ever tortured to a frown: we his life. He came from his city home a stern, all loved her from her first fairy kiss-for she almost morose old man; whom his family had was too delicate and fragile to be called wonever seen from breakfast time to dinner all man-but I may truly say my love was doting. his days, whose talk had been of stock, and Ah! miles and miles of mountain by her whose thought had been of stock from youth pony's side have I walked on untiringly and to hoary age; and from the hour of his arrival gladly, leaving her an instant for some lofty in the valley, he never missed a meal with us, peak, to see if there were view enough to until his last sad illness; nor ever. read a tempt her thither, but else keeping as closely column of "Money Market" and "City In- to her side as lover, loud with the poems she telligence" again. He took myself (his eldest loved best-war-songs, the stormful roll of son James), and Charles, my brother-youths battle, were the favorite strains of that weak, of twelve and eleven years of age-a moun-loving girl-learned long and late to please tain walk soon after sunrise throughout the her, full of the legends of each rock and summer, with a more sprightly step than ever tarn her ear delighted in, and ready to lay left the Stock Exchange: his conversation down limb and life at any time to serve her. was as that of a boy to boys, and that not gradually and induced, as might have been expected by a novel life, fresh air, and genial exercise-but at once; and so it remained for ever. Our Ellen lived here but sixteen months before the death-flower blushed upon her cheek; she died, I say, in less than two years of our first meeting, and I was not beside her death-bed, though I was in the house, nor cared to hear her dying words, although the last prayer she uttered was for me. Never was that artless manner less kind to me than of old; never were those lips pressed unto mine less tenderly; but ice formed round my spirit from within, and numbed the grasp of I look back on those mornings now with my cold hand, and froze the tears that never DXXXVI. LIVING AGE. VOL. VI. 27 His heart expanded beneath the influence of those glorious scenes, as though it were a child's, and never had been dried and withered in the heat of bustling life, or blunted by the hardness of its fellows, or chipped away by contact with hard and bitter men's. reached my eyes. I trust and hope that I to Trinity College, Cambridge, we went the was mad; I do most truly pray that it has next October. been madness that through all my life has I always used to fancy Charles was her pet blighted friendship in its perfect bloom-that boy, although she loved me very dearly, and has made me eager and delighted with the proved it in a thousand ways; and that supfirst appearance of affection-the mere pleas- position of itself was quite sufficient to preed look of chance acquaintances but that vent the excess of affection on my own part has taken from me at different periods of my which was always sure to end in cold indifferlife as ardent intimates as a man could have-ence. My brother and myself were friendly, that has left me, at this present, a very, very and never, to my recollection, had a single few whom I have known a month ago, and quarrel; but our tastes were quite dissimilar, shall have lost before the next; and that-I and our lives at college diverged so greatly, hope at no distant time-will cause my dying that we never passed a day in either's comeyes to lack a hand to close them. pany. He attached himself to a steady readHow I strove to overcome my hideous care-ing set; ate jam at breakfast; walked on the lessness! what honeyed words did not I force Trumpington Road; dined in hall without my stubborn tongue to utter-what miserable pudding; kept chapels regularly; was made and useless disguise did I not wear, in order a scholar in his second year; became king of to deceive the ear and eye of love! "Leave a coterie, and puffed up with mathematical acme, my dearest James," said my poor sister, quirement; and finally, caught a very high "leave me to the remembrance of what you wranglership, from which his constitution was were; it will sweeten the last few weeks I not strong enough to rally; and he is now a have to live, which your presence can but, Don. I, on the contrary, knew everybody alas! imbitter; and when I see you again, from the "Sims" (disciples of Simeon) to the may it be in that blessed abode, wherein in-"Fighting men;" was treasurer of the C.U. difference can never enter, and pure eternal B.C.; a committee man on "the Drag; " prelove hath no satiety." sident of "the union;' a member of "the She took all blame upon herself and the Apostles;" scraped through my "little go;" caprice of her disease, affected to be pleased crammed for the ordinary degree; and left to be away from me, and uneasy at my ap- college the most popular man of my tire. I proach. My dear mother and the rest never was principally indebted for all this to ray inknew the sad truth, but implored of me with tense desire to please, and high pressure of tears to be of good heart, and to bear patiently animal spirits; but I had great_vivacity, and with this strange treatment. I do not doubt a warm and winning address. In whatsoever at all that Ellen's death was hastened by my society I was thrown, I became one of them fiendish and inhuman conduct. When I leant at once, because I could not help it, and not over her grave in Shardale church yard, night by any effort or compulsion. I had a better after night, as I have done, it was not love chance of being considered a wit than most that led my restless feet-although I cherished men, inasmuch as I restricted myself to no every thought of her, as the nun clasps her subject whatever. In my mouth, blasphemy crucifix to her heart, as soon as they became lost its sinfulness; coarseness, its vulgarity; but memories-but rather the morbid feeling and the sneer from my ever smiling lips, its that brings the murderer to revisit the scene bitterness; above all, I never said an ill naof his crime; and the winds about the yew tured thing of any man, and always spoke tree seemed to murmur at my presence, and affectionately of my acquaintances behind the stream that circles round the holy spot to their backs. It was through these qualities grow angry as my shadow fell athwart it; and that I became "a great brick," and "the best the very grass upon that hillock to make haste hearted fellow breathing." to rise, to efface the impress of my penitent knees. I never cut a man at all, so never made an active foe, but "dropped" my nearest and my dearest friends in periods varying from one month to a year. I had therfore three sets of men, in my three university years, who had been in their seasons my intimates; who had confided to me their "yung men's secrets," their likes and disliker, even their religion, or the want of it. Three years from this, my father's bones were laid in the same place; and truly it was strange how anxious he had been upon this point-that his final resting place should not be within hearing of the hurrying street, to add another unit to that sum of human corruption that at noonday festers in our towns. He left but little money-far less than had Their intercourse with me ran in this fashbeen expected-an income of £500 to my ion: First, I was much enchanted with them; mother, and £200 a year apiece to each of his second, devotedly fond of them; third, on the sons. She, with the utmost liberality, gave most friendly terms with them; fourth, rather us an allowance of £100 per annum besides, indifferent about them; fifth, exceedingly during our stay at the university-whither, bored by them; sixth, vexed to death by their approach-but always civil to them, and al-| Poverty, sickness, reverses of any kind, I ways smiling. I could no more help the have the greatest pity for and sympathy with. change of feeling than account for it, but II would infinitely rather insult a great man was sensible of its injustice, and did what in than a beggar; the last baseness that I would me lay to make amends for it; with what willingly commit, would be the desertion of a success, let him who has attempted to affect affection, at any time, declare. friend deprived of fortune or position. Nobody can tell how hardly, how painfully, I Even at college, however the very place strove to show that my regard for Clement for such a man as I to gather friends this fic- was quite undiminished; how I thought by kleness had nearly ruined me. Clement, a night and day upon what might be done for fellow commoner, friend of my early days, him, and used what influence I had to get was amongst my oldest acquaintances; an him an appointment he wished for. But even honest, hearty youth-rare qualities amongst as I write, my words grow cold and feeble; the grade to which he belonged-whom I both my heart could not go with him; and first af dearly liked and respected. I felt the demon fection, and then interest itself, began to flag rising within me, but resisted him so stoutly, and tire. His sensitiveness soon perceived that he had to call the fiend of jealousy to aid this, and a letter, couched in the haughtiest his evil work. I was much too confident in language, forbade me from his rooms for ever. my own powers to dread this last in general, Then, indeed, it began to be whispered that but whenever I have felt a sting of his, ever Branksome cut his friends as soon as they so slightly, both jealousy and love have taken ceased to be useful to him-was a hanger-on flight together. I could not bear a rival, even of the wealthy-a toad-eater-and everything where rivalship on my own part must of ne- else that was most abhorrent to my disposicessity have been out of the question. If Ition. Only by the greatest efforts at pleasing, had met a stranger in a railway carriage, and by the most distorted accounts of our eswhom I "took to," as the phrase goes, and he trangement, could I reconcile myself to our had mentioned that his father or his brother common acquaintances. Still, as I said, I left was the dearest, or the most agreeable, or the college, popular; though, it is true, that popuwisest man he had ever seen, I am sure I larity had been purchased by other means beshould have felt annoyed. If comparisons sides smiles and witticisms. I owed some are odious, superlative expressions are at least, heavy bills at Cambridge, and had borrowed one degree more so: "best," "handsomest," a considerable sum of money; my mother, "cleverest chap I ever knew in my life," are even if I had not been ashamed to ask her, adjectives better diluted if applied to others was unable to assist me; my pride revolted than the persons we address. It was at my against applying myself to any of my richer rooms that Clement had first met Lacy: friends; and I spent my first graduate year at had introduced them to each other as kindred Shardale with a mind tormented by suspense spirits, and imagined that I was still their and fear, haunted by the demon Debt, and principal bond of union; but I was soon un-unable to be soothed, as it was wont, by the deceived. One evening, at supper-time, a contemplation and communion of nature. letter was brought to the former by a special At Wellingfirth, the nearest town to our messenger, and he left the table instantly with-lone valley, we had a large acquaintance. I out a word. I could not well leave my guests, myself, from a certain softness of manner and and I thought, besides, if there was any bad gentleness of nature, have always been welnews from home, it would be better he should come to female society; and in return, have be by himself; but early next morning-at preferred it to that of my own sex. Two least early for me-I called at his rooms to ladies of this place were especially my favorsee after him. I found him deadly pale, with ites and confidantes: one exceedingly good Lacy, who had sat up with him all night, be- looking; both young; and possessed of a sufside him. "Ah," said he gaily, "I shan't have ficient independence. To do myself justice, many friends now, my dear Branksome, be- this last matter never entered into my sides you and Francis." He never had called thoughts at all. I liked the wit, the nobleness me James. "I am almost ruined, and must of mind, the bold originality of the one, and change those "spangles," that you used to the beauty and accomplishments of the other. laugh so much about, for the pensioner's We read together such plays as suited us, sang gown." Almost all his property, indeed, had glees, and accompanied each other in music. gone in some great "smash" in the city, and People talked, as people will talk to the end he was obliged to descend from the high table of time-were sarcastic upon "Platonic atand fellow commoner's privileges. Icongrat-tachments," sympathies of thought, and such ulated him merrily upon "assuming the pur-like-in short, the common place objections ple" of my own rank, and did what I could vulgar natures make to companionships they to comfort him; but the presence of Lacy put do not understand, were made. But Ellen triple steel about was much too sensible to care for them, think my heart. 66 ing as much of matrimony, indeed, as I of less than a threat of arrest for a sum of £400, mathematics; and Lucy, not being talked-incurred in borrowing £250,-in case of about, but admitted into our society, as was its not being paid within a certain early date. said, only to "do propriety," fell in love, poor That date, through some mistake of the postgirl, with me. man's, was already past, so that the writ might I wonder why difference of sex should be already be upon its way. If I was in a frame conceived to be an insurmountable bar to the of mind for translating anything that day, it purest and most elevating friendships? I would have been, from choice, a certain poem wonder why sympathy of thought and simi- of Dante's called the Inferno. I took my larity of disposition should not exist between way to Wellingfirth, sorrowful indeed; I told two people without the passion of love? I a hundred specious fibs to explain away my wonder whether those who decry such things, depression to Ellen; but I might as well have have any knowledge of love themselves at all, tried to hoodwink Argus. You owe money, or whether they are not perhaps altogether and can't pay it, James," at last she said; of the earth, earthy? I preferred Ellen New-" and you are proud about asking me to help by to Lucy Ward; but I had not the faintest you, as though I were one of those who change wish to marry either of them; nor was I the heart and tone at once upon that subject; victim of the Newgate hero's mishap, who and our friendship is but like that of those would have been so happy with either were we have so often laughed at, after all-eh? t'other away. Had bigamy been permitted, Now, don't you see me frowning, and hear I should have had quite as little desire to take me speaking slower, like Mr. Checks the advantage of that. Why should I have wish-banker, when one wants to overdraw." And ed to make other use of those pleasant lips so, with a tumult of words to prevent my that so charmingly warbled my pet songs? thanking her, which indeed I did not know to press those fingers so well employed at the how to do, she put into my hands a blank orpiano? It appears to me, indeed, once for der, and bade me fill it up as I pleased. I all, that while a flirtation is but one degree wrote an IOU for £400 in return, which she above a Casino conversation, the intercourse instantly made a "spill" of, and set a light I have been describing is of the least worldly, to; and I promised to pay her interest quarthe least vicious, and the least false. I spoke terly, which she playfully assented to, and we to Ellen quite unreservedly on, every point, had a delightful lesson. with exception of my pecuniary embarrass- I had never taken money from another in ments and habitual fickleness, and she was this way before; I was not arrived at the equally communicative to me. I say again, wisdom of a celebrated poet-philosopher, who upon my soul, that whatever of good is yet" knew on which side the obligation lay;" but left within me, whatever sorrow for sin, what- I certainly trod homeward with a lighter step ever endeavor after the right, I am indebted with the cheque in my pocket, and the load for, my dear, dear girl, after Heaven, to you. Oh, if you should set your eyes on these sad revelations, I know you will not ascribe them to unworthy motives. I know that if I came to you this day-as come I might, for but two streets divide us and offered myself again to be your friend, you would not trust me, though I took Heaven to witness. I know too well how you would disbelieve, even if you did take me to your heart again, the possibility of reviving that dead joy-how infinitely worthier you hold a noble memory, than the re-enactment of a past pleasure. Were not these words your own once ? Disinter no dead regret, Those red cheeks with wo are white, One morning, that I had intended to have spent with her in a congenial task of translation, I received a very alarming letter-no upon my heart replaced by an easy burden of tender gratitude: even then it gave me no slight shudder to see Solomon Levi, the atrocious money lender-like the devil for a lost soul at almost the minute of forfeit at the very portal of the cottage, with two other ginger faced gentry, his companions, come to do me honor. What a hideous shadow he cast upon the rose trellis, set up by my dead sister's hands! His Jewish nose was thrown there in all its prominence. I could not help thinking what miseries this creature would have had power to bring upon the innocent as well as the guilty, had it not been for Ellen's generosity. Between her and him, what a monstrous gulf-both human creatures, but God's child and the fiend's! Thank Heaven, neither Charles nor my mother caught a sight of him; I sent him back appeased, and even jocular. For weeks and weeks after this business, I was filled with increased affection for my companion; my regard for her, indeed, as my benefactress, never diminished; but when I at last found myself expressing so much continually to her own ears, and to her manifest distress and pain-when I began to be solic-vorable auguries that the esteem, which I itous and unhappy in myself about the means truly had for her, would last. How but by this of repaying her I did not need her reproach- marriage, indeed, was I to pay off my debt to ful looks, and faded, rayless manner to inform | Ellen-an obligation that by this time had me, that the curse was fallen, and the dream become well nigh intolerable? This last reaof my delight dissolved. son, I fear, weighed as heavily as any. heard. My mother and friends were much pleased; they had greatly preferred Lucy, of my two favorites, all along: the knowledge of their own inferiority-insufferable to women, if felt in regard to one of their own sex-had opposed them to Ellen from the first. One day, that I had resolved inly should be my last visit, I found Lucy Ward with Ellen in the garden. I came in at the lattice-gate, as was my custom, and through the ivy-walk that shut me from their sight till close upon them. I could not have helped hearing their conversation had I had the courage to forego I was proud of my young wife, and almost it. Ellen was speaking-I knew it by the entirely happy on the day I was married. tone at once, without the words of myself; With her assistance, I had paid all my debts, the words, as I know now, of honest warning and above all, Miss Newby's. I felt thankful from a noble woman to a weak one of her own to Lucy, and kindly, "and her beauty made sex-bitterer a thousand times to her that ut-me glad." People expressed their satisfaction tered them, than to the living heart that at seeing so wild and reckless a young gentleman safely landed. There was great re"I did not say false, Lucy, nor deceptive, joicing in all Shardale valley; the little bell but fickle-fickle as the winds themselves. I pealed as joyously as it could the same that do not know whether he loves you; but in- had tolled for my sister's funeral-the young deed-indeed, dear girl, I fear that he does girls strewed with flowers our path that led not. I know right well that if he does, it will beside her grave. not be for long. He never told me of this For a whole week, I loved my wife exceedfault of his-this natural and inborn disease; ingly; I began to have some hopes of living but I found it out long since in the case of happily with her to the end; I even wrote others, and prayed—ah, how I prayed!-that verses about her-which is indeed a rare prohe might not so act towards me. Alas! he ceeding in a husband-for I was an author looks upon this house as a truant on his school and a poet. It was to prosecute my literary room. I tell you, the sole feeling that brings labors more advantageously that we lived in him here at all is, that lowest of all incentives London. Our fortune, though small, was yet -the sense of obligation. He comes to-day, sufficient to shield us from much of the early and you yourself shall judge of his con- bitterness of that kind of life. I was young stancy." and sanguine, and found that there was a bat“And so you shall, Lucy," said I, confront-tle uphill and against odds to be fought, such ing them. "As you have thought fit to dis- as I had never dreamed of. I experienced close that circumstance, Miss Newby, on all ills that authors are heir to rejections, which you enjoined my secrecy so strictly, I delays, misprints, alterations, and publications may confess at once that I do owe you four without pay from the serials, unfavorable rehundred pounds, with the interest accruing views, no reviews, and little or no sale of thereto, for two months and five days. Al-original works. One day, my wife observed though you burned my bond, it seems you are upon one of these casualties: "Lucky for anxious to have, at least, a witness;" and you, my dear James, you have not to get your stung to madness by what I had overheard, I bread by your wits." It was a coarse, thoughtwas still continuing this cruel strain, when less remark, and as soon as it was uttered, Ellen on a sudden grew deadly pale, fainted, she strove to erase the effect of it by caresses; and would have fallen, but for Lucy's arm, to but I never forgave her from that hour. To the ground. I carried her into the drawing- think that in what interested me most on room, the glass doors of which opened out earth, I should meet from my life-companion upon the lawn, and as soon as she showed not sympathy, but sneers; that she should signs of returning animation, imprinted a kiss have-as it seemed to my morbid mind-the on Lucy's beautiful forehead, and left the cot-baseness thus to hint at her superiority of tage, never to enter it again. fortune. I never looked upon her beautiful From that hour, I set my whole heart upon face without these thoughts; and it became a marrying Lucy Ward; not that it was set of burden to me to have her eyes rest on me. I itself, not that I affected even any ardent en- fled her presence day and night. The more thusiasm upon the matter, but knowing for her nature showed itself repentant and loving certain, and by her own confession, that she towards me, the colder grew my feelings toloved me, I did my best to reciprocate the wards her; from indifference to antipathy, sentiment. Moreover, from the fact of my from antipathy to downright hatred; and feeling so calmly upon the subject, I drew fa- then my hideous characteristic had attained |