contemplation, and betrays that the past or the future is more congenial
to the mind than the enjoyment and action of the present hour.

The younger, who was yet a boy, had nothing striking in his appearance
or countenance, unless an expression of great sweetness and gentleness
could be so called; and there was something almost feminine in the
tender deference with which he appeared to listen to his companion.
His dress was that usually worn by the humbler classes, though somewhat
neater, perhaps, and newer; and the fond vanity of a mother might be
detected in the care with which the long and silky ringlets had been
smoothed and parted as they escaped from his cap and flowed midway down
his shoulders.

As they thus sauntered on, beside the whispering reeds of the river,
each with his arm round the form of his comrade, there was a grace
in the bearing, in the youth, and in the evident affection of the
brothers--for such their connexion--which elevated the lowliness of
their apparent condition.

"Dear brother," said the elder, "I cannot express to thee how I enjoy
these evening hours. To you alone I feel as if I were not a mere
visionary and idler when I talk of the uncertain future, and build up my
palaces of the air. Our parents listen to me as if I were uttering fine
things out of a book; and my dear mother, Heaven bless her! wipes her
eyes, and says, 'Hark, what a scholar he is!' As for the monks, if I
ever dare look from my Livy, and cry 'Thus should Rome be again!' they
stare, and gape, and frown, as though I had broached an heresy. But you,
sweet brother, though you share not my studies, sympathize so kindly
with all their results--you seem so to approve my wild schemes, and to
encourage my ambitious hopes--that sometimes I forget our birth, our