unclouded sunlight. I bowed down my head for a draught of the cool,
clear waters, and immediately upon tasting them, felt through my frame a
pleasant, vivifying thrill;--I felt also as if I had at once thrown off
the heavy trammels of mortality, with its wearying cares, its feverish
hopes, and its over-burdening sorrows. Light as air, fresh as morning,
and joyful as the martyr at the gates of death, I gazed on the
enchanting loveliness around me.

"_Come!_" sighed a voice, low and mellifluous as that of the wind-harp,
parleying with "_the breath of the sweet south_,"--"ravishing and
radiant as is this spot, its bowery beauty must thou quit, for the
splendour of the _Golden City_, the _City of the Fairies!_ Thrice happy
mortal! thither, even to _our_ city, am I commissioned to conduct
thee!--_Come!_"

So saying, the tiny essence, whose substance resembled a portion of
lucent morning mist, wrought into the draperied and miniature image of
humanity, and whose slight figure skimmed the pure, thin air, extended
its delicate hand, and smiling encouragement, beckoned me onwards. I
followed--rather instinctively, than by any act of the understanding,
for the faculties of my ravished spirit were absorbed, as in a dream of
heaven, by the ethereal loveliness of this transcendent land, by the
soft, crystalline light, the glorious, romantic landscape, the vivid
verdure, the celestial odours, and by the snatches of unearthly melody,
which ever and anon, borne on the undulating wings of the breeze, came
from afar upon my wildered senses, breathing ineffable felicity. Above
all, my bosom was immersed in a flood of delicious feeling, by the holy
repose, the unutterable peace of the Fairy Paradise; and my heart,
surcharged with rapture, could find no vent for the overwhelming
influences of gladness and devotion, because I remembered that to