flowers of Paradise were changing to the sword and shield.

And this reminds me, that I have not yet described my hero. I
will do it now, as he stands looking down on the glorious
landscape;--but in few words. Both in person and character he
resembled Harold, the Fair-Hair of Norway, who is described, in the
old Icelandic Death-Song of Regner Hairy-Breeches, as "the young
chief so proud of his flowing locks; he who spent his mornings among
the young maidens; he who loved toconverse with the handsome
widows." This was an amiable weakness; and it sometimes led him into
mischief. Imagination was the ruling power of his mind. His thoughts
were twin-born; the thought itself, and its figurative semblance in
the outer world. Thus, through the quiet, still waters of his soul
each image floated double, "swan and shadow."

These traits of character, a good heart and a poetic imagination,
made his life joyous and the world beautiful; till at length Death
cut down the sweet, blue flower, that bloomed beside him, and
wounded him with that sharp sickle, so that he bowed his head, and
would fain have been bound up in the same sheaf with the sweet, blue
flower. Then the world seemed to him less beautiful, and life became
earnest. It would have been well if he could have forgotten the
past; that he might not so mournfully have lived in it, but might
have enjoyed and improved the present. But this his heart refused to
do; and ever, as he floated upon the great sea of life, he looked
down through thetransparent waters, checkered with sunshine and
shade, into the vast chambers of the mighty deep, in which his
happier days had sunk, and wherein they were lying still visible,
like golden sands, and precious stones, and pearls; and, half in
despair, half in hope, he grasped downward after them again, and