eraldry.

Why have these thoughts crept over me? I would rather dwell on very
different themes; but already, far over the mountains westward, comes
the distant sound of strife. The dark clouds that are hurrying over the
lofty summit of Monte Brisbone are wafted from regions where armed hosts
are gathering, and the cry of battle is heard; and Switzerland, whose
war-trophies have been won from the invader, is about to be torn by
civil strife. Even in my ride to-day towards Lugano, I met parties
of peasants armed, and wearing the cockade of Ticino in their hats,
hastening towards Capo di Lago. The spectacle was a sad one; the field
labours of the year, just begun, are already arrested; the plough is
seen standing in the unfinished furrow, and the team is away to share
the fortunes of its owners in the panoply of battle. These new-made
soldiers, too, with all the loutish indifference of the peasant in
their air, have none of the swaggering effrontery of regular troops,
and consequently present more palpably to the eye the sufferings of a
population given up to conscription and torn from their peaceful homes
to scenes of carnage and bloodshed, and for what?--for an opinion? for
even less than an opinion: for a suspicion--a mere doubt.

Who will be eager in this cause on either side? None, save those
that never are to mingle in the contest. The firebrand Journalist of
Geneva--the dark-intentioned Jesuit of Lucerne; these are they who will
accept of no quarter, nor listen to one cry of mercy: such, at least,
is the present aspect of the struggle. Lukewarmness, if not actual
repugnance, among the soldiery; hatred supplying all the enthusiasm of
those who hound them on.

The Howards are already uneasy at their vicinity to the seat of war,
and speak of proceeding southward; yet they will not hear of my leaving
them. I feel spell-bound, not only to them but to the very place itself;
a presentiment is upon me, that, after this, life will have no pleasure
left for me--that I go hence to solitude, to suffering, and to death!

A restless night, neither waking nor sleeping, but passed in wild,
strange fancies, of reality and fiction commingled; and now, I am
feverish and ill. The struggle against failing health is at last become
torture; for I feel--alas that I must say it!--the longing desire to
live. Towards daybreak I did sleep, and soundly; but I dreamed too--and
how happily! I fancied that I was suddenly restored to health, wit