the pride
of her maternal heart, she had regretted nothing. She closed the fair
book of youth at these three words,--"God, husband, children." Raphael
especially was her best beloved. She would have purchased for him a
kingly destiny, but, alas, she had only her heart with which to raise
him up, for their slender fortune, and their dreams of prosperity,
would ever and anon crumble to their very foundation beneath the hand
of fate.

Two holy men, driven by persecution to the mountains, had, soon after
the Reign of Terror, taken refuge in her house. They had been
persecuted as members of a mystical religious sect which dimly
predicted a renovation of the age. They loved Raphael, who was then a
mere child, and, obscurely prophesying his fate, pointed out his star
in the heavens, and told his mother to watch over that son with all her
heart. She reproached herself for being too credulous, for she was very
pious; but still she believed them. In such matters, a mother is so
easy of belief! Her credulity supported her under many trials, but
spurred her to efforts beyond her means to educate Raphael, and
ultimately deceived her.

I had known Raphael since he was twelve years old, and next to his
mother he loved me best on earth. We had met since the conclusion of
our studies, first in Paris, then at Rome, whither he had been taken by
one of his father's relatives, for the purpose of copying manuscripts
in the Vatican Library. There he had acquired the impassioned language
and the genius of Italy. He spoke Italian better than his mother
tongue. At evening he would sit beneath the pines of the Villa
Pamphili, and gazing on the setting sun and on the white fragments
scattered on the plain, like the bleached bones of departed Rome, would
pour forth extemporaneous stanzas that made us weep; but he never
wrote. "Raphael," would I sometimes say, "why do you not write?"

"Ah!" would he answer, "does the wind write what it sighs in this
harmonious canopy of leaves? Does the sea write the wail of its shores?
Nought that has been written is truly, really beautiful, and the heart
of man never discloses its best and most divine portion. It is
impossible! The instrument is of flesh, and the note is of fire!
Between what is felt and what is expressed," would he add, mournfully,
"there is the same distance as between the soul and the twenty-six
letters of an alphabet! Immensity of distance! Think you a flute of
reeds can give an idea of t