d the youthful year and
day; such entire harmony between the light, the heat, the splendor, the
silence, the gentle sounds, the pensive delights of Nature and our own
sensations; we felt so delightfully mingled with the surrounding air
and sky, life and repose; we were so completely all to each other in
this solitude,--that our exuberant but satisfied thoughts and
sensations sufficed us. We did not even seek for words to express them;
but were as the full vase, whose very plenitude renders its contents
motionless. Our hearts could hold no more; but they were capacious
enough to contain all, and nothing sought to escape from them. Our
breathing was scarcely audible.

I know not how long we remained thus seated at the foot of the oak,
mute and motionless beside one another, our faces buried in our hands,
our feet in sunshine on the grass, our heads in shade; but when I
raised my eyes the shadows had retreated before us on the grass, beyond
the folds of Julie's dress. I looked at her, she raised her face as if
by the same impulse which had made me raise mine; and gazing at me
without saying a word, she burst into tears. "Why do you weep?" I asked
with anxious emotion, but in a low tone for fear of disturbing or
diverting the course of her silent thoughts. "From happiness," she
answered. Her lips smiled, while big tears rolled down her cheeks in
shining drops, like the dew of spring. "Yes, from happiness," she
resumed. "This day, this hour, this sky, this spot, this peace, this
silence, this solitude with you, this complete assimilation of our two
souls, which no longer require to converse to comprehend each other,
which breathe in the same aspiration is too much,--too much for mortal
nature that excess of joy may kill, as excess of grief, and which, when
it can draw no cry from the heart, grieves that it cannot sigh, and
mourns that it cannot praise sufficiently."

She stopped for an instant; her cheeks were flushed. I trembled lest
death should seize her in her joy; but her voice soon reassured me.
"Raphael! Raphael!" she exclaimed in a solemn tone, which surprised me,
as if she had been announcing some good tidings, long and anxiously
expected,--"Raphael, there is a God!" "How has he been revealed to you
to-day more clearly than any other day?" I asked. "By love," she
answered, raising slowly to heaven the orbs of her bright, glistening
eyes; "yes, by love, whose torrents have flowed in my heart just now
with a murmuri