ot to wrestle with its
emotions, seeks to conquer regret, must leave itself no leisure to look
behind. Who knows what benefits to the world may have sprung from the
sorrows of the benefactor? As the harvest that gladdens mankind in the
suns of autumn was called forth by the rains of spring, so the griefs of
youth may make the fame of maturity.

Gertrude, charmed by the beauties of the river, desired to continue the
voyage to Mayence. The rich Trevylyan persuaded the physician who had
attended her to accompany them, and they once more pursued their way
along the banks of the feudal Rhine. For what the Tiber is to the
classic, the Rhine is to the chivalric age. The steep rock and the gray
dismantled tower, the massive and rude picturesque of the feudal days,
constitute the great features of the scene; and you might almost fancy,
as you glide along, that you are sailing back adown the river of Time,
and the monuments of the pomp and power of old, rising, one after one,
upon its shores!

Vane and Du-----e, the physician, at the farther end of the vessel,
conversed upon stones and strata, in that singular pedantry of science
which strips nature to a skeleton, and prowls among the dead bones of
the world, unconscious of its living beauty.

They left Gertrude and Trevylyan to themselves; and, "bending o'er the
vessel's laving side," they indulged in silence the melancholy with
which each was imbued. For Gertrude began to waken, though doubtingly
and at intervals, to a sense of the short span that was granted to her
life; and over the loveliness around her there floated that sad and
ineffable interest which springs from the presentiment of our own death.
They passed the rich island of Oberwerth, and Hochheim, famous for its
ruby grape, and saw, from his mountain bed, the Lahn bear his tribute of
fruits and corn into the treasury of the Rhine. Proudly rose the tower
of Niederlahnstein, and deeply lay its shadow along the stream. It was
late noon; the cattle had sought the shade from the slanting sun, and,
far beyond, the holy castle of Marksburg raised its battlements above
mountains covered with the vine. On the water two boats had been drawn
alongside each other; and from one, now moving to the land, the splash
of oars broke the general stillness of the tide. Fast by an old tower
the fishermen were busied in their craft, but the sound of their voices
did not reach the ear. It was life, but a silent life, suited to the
tranq