came full and close into view, divided from my fairy-land of life but by
the trodden murmurous thoroughfare winding low beneath the ivied parapets;
and as now, again, the world of men abruptly vanished behind the screening
foliage of luxuriant June.

At last the enchanted glade opened out from the verdure, its borders
fragrant with syringa and rose and woodbine; and there, by the gray
memorial of the gone Gothic age, my eyes seemed to close their unquiet
wanderings, resting spell-bound on that image which had become to me the
incarnation of earth's bloom and youth.

She stood amidst the Past, backed by the fragments of walls which man had
raised to seclude him from human passion, locking, under those lids so
downcast, the secret of the only knowledge I asked from the boundless
Future.

Ah! what mockery there is in that grand word, the world's fierce
war-cry,--Freedom! Who has not known one period of life, and that so
solemn that its shadows may rest over all life hereafter, when one human
creature has over him a sovereignty more supreme and absolute than Orient
servitude adores in the symbols of diadem and sceptre? What crest so
haughty that has not bowed before a hand which could exalt or humble!
What heart so dauntless that has not trembled to call forth the voice at
whose sound open the gates of rapture or despair! That life alone is free
which rules, and suffices for itself. That life we forfeit when we love!




CHAPTER XVII.