nce only of one bright spot--a
vision of Paradise rising over the dull waste of my existence--send a
glow of comfort to my aged heart, and a fresh feeling of repose which
the harsh business of life cannot extinguish or disturb! And what a fair
history comes with that shadowy recollection! How much of passionate
condensed existence is involved in it, and how mysteriously, yet
naturally connected with it, seem all the noblest feelings of my
imperfect nature! The scene of beauty has become "a joy for ever."

I recall a spring day--a sparkling day of the season of youth and
promise--and a nook of earth, fit for the wild unshackled sun to skip
along and brighten with his inconstant giddy light. Hope is everywhere;
murmuring in the brooks, and smiling in the sky. Upon the bursting trees
she sits; she nestles in the hedges. She fills the throat of mating
birds, and bears the soaring lark nearer and nearer to the gate of
Heaven. It is the first holiday of the year, and the universal heart is
glad. Grief and apprehension cannot dwell in the human breast on such a
day; and, for an hour, even _Self_ is merged in the general joy. I reach
my destination; and the regrets for the past, and the fear for the
future, which have accompanied me through the long and anxious journey,
fall from the oppressed spirit, and leave it buoyant, cheerful,
free--free to delight itself in a land of enchantment, and to revel
again in the unsubstantial glories of a youthful dream. I paint the
Future in the colours that surround me, and I confide in her again.

It was noon when we reached the headquarters of the straggling parish of
Deerhurst--its chief village. We had travelled since the golden sunrise
over noble earth, and amongst scenes scarcely less heavenly than the
blue vault which smiled upon them. Now the horizon was bounded by a
range of lofty hills linked to each other by gentle undulations, and
bearing to their summits innumerable and giant trees; these, crowded
together, and swayed by the brisk wind, presented to the eye the figure
of a vast and supernatural sea, and made the intervening vale of
loveliness a neglected blank. Then we emerged suddenly--yes,
instantaneously--as though designing nature, with purpose to surprize,
had hid behind the jutting crag, beneath the rugged steep--upon a world
of beauty; garden upon garden, sward upon sward, hamlet upon hamlet, far
as the sight could reach, and purple shades of all beyond. Then, flashes
of