us, as we gaze upon certain places, which associates the scene either with
some dim-remembered and dream-like images of the Past, or with a prophetic
and fearful omen of the Future! As I gaze now upon this spot--those
banks--that whirling river--it seems as if my destiny claimed a mysterious
sympathy with the scene: when--how-wherefore--I know not--guess not: only
this shadowy and chilling sentiment unaccountably creeps over me. Every
one has known a similar strange, indistinct, feeling at certain times and
places, and with a similar inability to trace the cause. And yet, is it
not singular that in poetry, which wears most feelings to an echo, I leave
never met with any attempt to describe it?"

"Because poetry," said Constance, "is, after all, but a hackneyed
imitation of the most common thoughts, giving them merely a gloss by the
brilliancy of verse. And yet how little poets _know!_ They _imagine,_
and they _imitate;_--behold all their secrets!"

"Perhaps you are right," said Godolphin, musingly; "and I, who have often
vainly fancied I had the poetical temperament, have been so chilled and
sickened by the characteristics of the tribe, that I have checked its
impulses with a sort of disdain; and thus the Ideal, having no vent in me,
preys within, creating a thousand undefined dreams and unwilling
superstitions, making me enamoured of the Shadowy and Unknown, and
dissatisfying me with the petty ambitions of the world."

"You will awake hereafter," said Constance, earnestly.

Godolphin shook his head, and replied not.

Their way now lay along a green lane that gradually wound round a hill
commanding a view of great richness and beauty. Cottages, and spires, and