brother's countenance. And often had we
such a Friend in these our far-off wanderings over moors and mountains,
by the edge of lochs, and through the umbrage of the old pine-woods. A
Friend from whom "we had received his heart, and given him back our
own,"--such a friendship as the most fortunate and the most happy--and
at that time we were both--are sometimes permitted by Providence, with
all the passionate devotion of young and untamed imagination, to enjoy,
during a bright dreamy world of which that friendship is as the Polar
star. Emilius Godfrey! for ever holy be the name! a boy when we were but
a child--when we were but a youth, a man. We felt stronger in the shadow
of his arm--happier, bolder, better in the light of his countenance. He
was the protector--the guardian of our moral being. In our pastimes we
bounded with wilder glee--at our studies we sat with intenser
earnestness, by his side. He it was that taught us how to feel all those
glorious sunsets, and imbued our young spirit with the love and worship
of nature. He it was that taught us to feel that our evening prayer was
no idle ceremony to be hastily gone through--that we might lay down our
head on the pillow, then soon smoothed in sleep, but a command of God,
which a response from nature summoned the humble heart to obey. He it
was who for ever had at command wit for the sportive, wisdom for the
serious hour. Fun and frolic flowed in the merry music of his
lips--they lightened from the gay glancing of his eyes; and then, all at
once, when the one changed its measures, and the other gathered, as it
were, a mist or a cloud, an answering sympathy chained our own tongue,
and darkened our own countenance, in intercommunion of spirit felt to be
indeed divine! It seemed as if we knew but the words of language--that
he was a scholar who saw into their very essence. The books we read
together were, every page, and every sentence of every page, all covered
over with light. Where his eye fell not as we read, all was dim or dark,
unintelligible or with imperfect meanings. Whether we perused with him a
volume writ by a nature like our own, or the volume of the earth and the
sky, or the volume revealed from heaven, next day we always knew and
felt that something had been added to our being. Thus imperceptibly we
grew up in our intellectual stature, breathing a purer moral and
religious air, with all our finer affections towards other human beings,
all our kindred and o