that created also give life
and warmth to its productions? Beneath the marble he could see the soft,
living pulse, distinctly; and the wind that blew over the mountains,
beyond the river, ruffled the waves about the tiny boat. Even the star
above the child's head sparkled in the depths of the sky.

Fred was delighted. "It is enchantment!" he said. But no,--it was one
of those miracles that have not yet become commonplace. The poetic life
that his perceptions were now able to enjoy, in inanimate nature, would
be such a perpetual gratification to his taste,--such an incentive to
explorations and discoveries! He could not felicitate himself enough.

"A thousand times better than the microscope," said he to himself
again. "Atoms are annoying and disgusting to look at, with their
incomprehensible and frightful minuteness, and their horrible celerity.
One does not like to think that everything is composed of myriads, be
they ever so beautiful,--which they are not, that ever I could see, but
chiefly all head or a wriggling tail. Bah! This is much better. Hark! I
can hear the waves dash,--the hope-song of the child,--and the breeze
moving against the delicate sails!

"How delightful it will be to travel, with this new-found faculty!
Whenever I choose, I can have the talking bird, the singing tree, and
the laughing water! I always thought those peeps into irrational nature
the chief charm of the Arabian tales. How little did I dream of ever
being able to read with my own eyes the riddle of the world! By-the-way,
let me look at my Graces, and see if they, too, are conscious forms of
beauty."

He turned to the group. Alas! even the Graces were not proof against the
ordeal of constant society. Perhaps, if he had reflected, he would
not have expected it. In truth, it was surprising to see how many
disagreeable sentiments they all three contrived to express, without
untwining their arms, or loosening their fond and graceful hold on each
other. A slight elevation of the eyebrow, a curve of the lovely mouth,
or a shrug from the Parian shoulders,--how expressive,--how surprising!
But Fred need not have been surprised; they never set up for Faith,
Hope, and Charity. What he most wondered at was that they still looked
so lovely, when they were clearly full of all pagan naughtiness. They
might as well have been women.

Fred pondered on this for some time. Then, it seemed, everything had
a latent life in it. He had suspected as much.