ll! And come, thou veil!
subtle, close, unvarying, the everlasting curse of entire hypocrisy,
that under thee, as night, the vexed world within may sleep, and stir
not! and all, in truth concealment, may seem repose!"

As he uttered these thoughts, the student paused and looked on the
extended landscape that lay below. A heavy, chill, and comfortless mist
sat saddening over the earth. Not a leaf stirred on the autumnal trees,
but the moist damps fell slowly and with a mournful murmur upon the
unwaving grass. The outline of the morning sun was visible, but it gave
forth no lustre: a ring of watery and dark vapor girded the melancholy
orb. Far at the entrance of the valley the wild fern showed red and
faded, and the first march of the deadly winter was already heralded by
that drear and silent desolation which cradles the winds and storms. But
amidst this cheerless scene the distant note of the merry marriage-bell
floated by, like the good spirit of the wilderness, and the student
rather paused to hearken to the note than to survey the scene. "My
marriage-bell!" said he. "Could I, two short years back, have dreamed
of this? My marriage-bell! How fondly my poor mother, when first she
learned pride for her young scholar, would predict this day, and blend
its festivities with the honor and the wealth her son was to acquire!
Alas! can we have no science to count the stars and forebode the black
eclipse of the future? But peace! peace! peace! I am, I will, I shall be
happy now! Memory, I defy thee!"

He uttered the last words in a deep and intense tone; and turning away
as the joyful peal again broke distinctly on his ear,--

"My marriage-bell! Oh, Madeline, how wondrously beloved, how unspeakably
dear thou art to me! What hast thou conquered! How many reasons for
resolve, how vast an army in the Past, has thy bright and tender purity
overthrown! But thou--No, never shalt thou repent!" And for several
minutes the sole thought of the soliloquist was love. But scarce
consciously to himself, a spirit, not, to all seeming, befitted to that
bridal-day,--vague, restless, impressed with the dark and fluttering
shadow of coming change,--had taken possession of his breast, and did
not long yield the mastery to any brighter and more serene emotion.

"And why," he said, as this spirit regained its empire over him, and he
paused before the "starred tubes" of his beloved science,--"and why this
chill, this shiver, in the midst of hope?