"Do you think," said she to Godolphin, who stood beside her, that there
lives any one who could behold these countless monuments of eternal glory,
and not sigh to recall the triteness, or rather burn to rise from the
level, of our ordinary life?"

"Nay," said Godolphin, "to you the view may be an inspiration, to others a
warning. The arch and the ruin you survey speak of change yet more
eloquently than glory. Look on the spot where once was the temple of
Romulus:--there stands the little church of an obscure saint. Just below
you is the Tarpeian Rock: we cannot see it; it is hidden from us by a
crowd of miserable houses. Along the ancient plain of the Campus Martins
behold the numberless spires of a new religion, and the palaces of a
modern race! Amidst them you see the triumphal columns of Trajan and
Marcus lntoninus; but whose are the figures that crown their summits? St.
Peter's and St. Paul's! And this awful wilderness of men's labours--this
scene and token of human revolutions--inspires you with a love of glory;
to me it proves its nothingness. An irresistible--a crushing sense of the
littleness and brief life of our most ardent and sagacious achievements
seems to me to float like a voice over the place!"

"And are you still, then," said Constance, with a half sigh, "dead to all
but the enjoyment of the present moment?"

"No," replied Godolphin, in a low and trembling voice: "I am not dead to
the regret of the past!"

Constance blushed deeply; but Godolphin, as if feeling he had committed
himself too far, continued in a hurried tone:--"Let us turn our eyes,"
said he, "yonder among the olive groves. There