Once more left alone, Leonard's mind returned to the state of revery, and
his face assumed the expression that had now become to it habitual. Thus
seen, he was changed much since we last beheld him. His cheek was more
pale and thin, his lips more firmly compressed, his eye more fixed and
abstract. You could detect, if I may borrow a touching French
expression, that "Sorrow had passed by there." But the melancholy on his
countenance was ineffably sweet and serene, and on his ample forehead
there was that power, so rarely seen in early youth,--the power that has
conquered, and betrays its conquests but in calm. The period of doubt,
of struggle, of defiance, was gone, perhaps forever; genius and soul were
reconciled to human life. It was a face most lovable; so gentle and
peaceful in its character. No want of fire; on the contrary, the fire
was so clear and so steadfast, that it conveyed but the impression of
light. The candour of boyhood, the simplicity of the villager, were
still there,--refined by intelligence, but intelligence that seemed to
have traversed through knowledge, not with the 'footstep, but the wing,
unsullied by the mire, tending towards the star, seeking through the
various grades of Being but the lovelier forms of truth and goodness; at
home, as should be the Art that consummates the Beautiful,--

"In den heitern Regionen
Wo die reinen Formen wohnen."

[At home--"In the serene regions
Where dwell the pure forms."]


From this revery Leonard did not seek to rouse himself, till the bell at
the garden gate rang loud and shrill; and then starting up and hurrying