away and left me standing in a long, endless hall with endless columns,
and white figures all about,--in the niches, on the floor, on the
walls,--each Olympian in beauty, in grandeur, in power to lift the
entranced soul to the high region where itself was created, and to which
it always pointed. The white figures melted and warmed into masses and
alcoves, and innumerable volumes looked affectionately at me. They knew
me of old, and had told me their delightful secrets. "They had slept
in my bosom, and whispered kind things to me in the dark night." Some
pressed forward, declaring that here was the new wine of thought,
sparkling and foaming as it had never done before, from the depths of
human sympathy; and others murmured, "The old is better," and smiled at
the surface-thoughts in blue and gold. Volumes and authors grew angry
and vituperative. There was so much to be said on all sides, that I was
deafened, and, with a shake of my head, shook everything into chaos, as
I had done a hundred times before.

"What are you thinking of, Del?" said Laura, pointing the dog's eye with
scarlet wool, to make him look fierce. "You have been looking straight
at me for half a minute."

"Half a minute! have I?"

That wasn't long, however, considering what I had seen in the time.

"At Cotton's, yesterday, I saw, Laura, a beautiful engraving of Arria
and Paetus. She is drawing the dagger from her side, and saying, so
calmly, so heroically,--'My Paetus! it is not hard to die!'"

I had inquired the price of this engraving, and the man said it was
fifty dollars without the frame.