exclaimed to myself, 'it will be a mere trifle, or perhaps nothing at
all.' But I remember that, even whilst I was saying this, I took my hat
and walked with nervous haste into the little quiet lane upon which our
garden-gate opened. The lane led by a few turnings, and after a course
of about five hundred yards, into a broad high-road, which even at that
day had begun to assume the character of a street, and allowed an
unobstructed range of view in the direction of the city for at least a
mile. Here I stationed myself, for the air was so clear that I could
distinguish dress and figure to a much greater distance than usual.
Even on such a day, however, the remote distance was hazy and
indistinct, and at any other season I should have been diverted with
the various mistakes I made. From occasional combinations of color,
modified by light and shade, and of course powerfully assisted by the
creative state of the eye under this nervous apprehensiveness, I
continued to shape into images of Agnes forms without end, that upon
nearer approach presented the most grotesque contrasts to her
impressive appearance. But I had ceased even to comprehend the
ludicrous; my agitation was now so overruling and engrossing that I
lost even my intellectual sense of it; and now first I understood
practically and feelingly the anguish of hope alternating with
disappointment, as it may be supposed to act upon the poor shipwrecked
seaman, alone and upon a desolate coast, straining his sight for ever
to the fickle element which has betrayed him, but which only can
deliver him, and with his eyes still tracing in the far distance,

'Ships, dim-discover'd, dropping from the clouds,'--

which a brief interval of suspense still for ever disperses into hollow
pageants of air or vapor. One deception melted away only to be
succeeded by another; still I fancied that at last to a certainty I