The one is, like lightning, more likely to dazzle than to destroy, and,
divine even in its danger, it makes holy what it sears; but the other
is like that sure and deadly fire which fell upon the cities of old,
graving in the barrenness of the desert it had wrought the record and
perpetuation of a curse. A low and thrilling voice stole upon Emily's
ear. She turned--Falkland stood beside her. "I felt restless and
unhappy," he said, "and I came to seek you. If (writes one of the
fathers) a guilty and wretched man could behold, though only for a few
minutes, the countenance of an angel, the calm and glory which it wears
would so sink into his heart, that he would pass at once over the gulf
of gone years into his first unsullied state of purity and hope; perhaps
I thought of that sentence when I came to you."

"I know not," said Emily, with a deep blush at this address, which
formed her only answer to the compliment it conveyed; "I know not why
it is, but to me there is always something melancholy in this
hour--something mournful in seeing the beautiful day die with all its
pomp and music, its sunshine, and songs of birds."

"And yet," replied Falkland, "if I remember the time when my feelings
were more in unison with yours (for at present external objects have
lost for me much of their influence and attraction), the melancholy you
perceive has in it a vague and ineffable sweetness not to be exchanged
for more exhilarated spirits. The melancholy which arises from no cause
within ourselves is like music--it enchants us in proportion to its
effect upon our feelings. Perhaps its chief charm (though this it
requires the contamination of after years before we can fathom and
define) is in the purity of the sources it springs from. Our feelings
can be but little sullied and worn while they can yet respond to the
passionless and primal sympathies of Nature; and the sadness you speak
of is so void of bitterness, so allied to the best and most delicious
sensations we enjoy, that I should imagine the very happiness of Heaven
partook rather of melancholy than mirth."

There was a pause of some moments. It was rarely that Falkland alluded
even so slightly to the futurity of another world; and when he did, it
was never in a careless and commonplace manner, but in a tone which sank
deep into Emily's heart. "Look," she said, at length, "at that beautiful
star! the first and brightest! I have often thought it was like the
promise of lif