may be to others. I may be mistaken in the truth of my belief. There are
times when my brain is cool, and my frame at rest, and I sit alone and
think over the real past--when I feel my trust shaken, and my ardour
damped: but that thought does not console but torture me, and I hasten to
plunge once more among the charms, and spells, and mighty dreams, that
wrap me from my living self. Oh, lady! bright, and beautiful, and lofty,
as you are, there may come a time when you can conceive that even madness
may be a relief. For" (and here the wandering light burned brighter in
the enthusiast's glowing eyes), "for, when the night is round us, and
there is peace on earth, and the world's children sleep, it is a wild joy
to sit alone and vigilant, and forget that we live and are wretched. The
stars speak to us then with a wondrous and stirring voice; they tell us of
the doom of men and the wreck of empires, and prophesy of the far events
which they taught to the old Chaldeans. And then the Winds, walking to
and fro as they list, bid us go forth with them and hear the songs of the
midnight spirits; for you know," she whispered with a smile, putting her
hand upon the arm of the appalled and shrinking Constance, who now saw how
hopeless was the ministry she had undertaken, "though this world is given
up to two tribes of things that live and have a soul: the one bodily and
palpable as we are; the other more glorious, but invisible to our dull
sight--though I have seen them--Dread Solemn Shadows, even in their mirth;
the night is their season as the day is ours; they march in the moonbeams,
and are borne upon the wings of the winds. And with them, and by their
thoughts, I raise myself from what I am and have been. Ah, lady, wouldst
thou take this comfort from me?"

"But," said Constance, gathering courage from the gentleness which
Lucilla's insanity now wore, and trying to soothe, not contradict her in
her present vein, "but in the country, Lucilla, in some quiet and
sheltered nook, you might indulge these visions without the cares and