soul, it was yet quite possible to baptize them into christianity. Mr. Percy was a wise as well as good man, and had determined, even before his wife's suggestion, to give as much conversational instruction to Julia as might be practicable, and to encourage, for that purpose, her visits to the Parsonage. Had his young friend been his own daughter, he would in a private sphere, and with the modifications rendered necessary by her sex, have given her the education of a boy. Late as it was, and under all disadvantages, he thought it advisable to imbue her mind, in some measure, with classical knowledge, at once to give a definite object of pursuit, and by an acquaintance with the (intellectually) faultless models of antiquity, strengthen the understanding, and induce distrust of its own perfections. During the college vacation, Mr. Percy gave up much time to reading with his son, and as Julia was nearly a daily visitor, she came by little and little to be regarded as a sort of pupil, whom in one way or other, all the family were anxious to assist. Even the younger boys admired the rapidity with which she apprehended, and the perseverance with which she pursued knowledge; and this, joined to her more than equivocal partiality for their sports, made them pay her the great compliment of wishing she had been a boy. But, with all the contingent helps received from the Rectory, Julia's most efficient friend was her own energy, exerted by herself. All things instructed her; all books, "all seasons and their change," for she had their true interpreter within -Genius. "Therefore, every day bequeathed New treasures to augment the unhoarded store 66 And night- - what enthusiast loves not night when the day has died in oriental pomp, and entire blackness, or a grave splendour" succeeds on the face of heaven?-and contemplation, and the power of dreams, and those half-waking visions which are less "slumber than Paradise; "they are more to a young and poetical enthusiast than the whole of his daily existence, though that may be distinguished by the gleams and visitings of imagination and joy. Dreams are the mythology of poetryadmired, not believed; and night is the soul's canopy of state; then we feel; then we are; then, shut out from the world, the world passes in review * Professor Wilson. before us, and the high heavens themselves seem less unattainable. There seems then more than mystery in the stars; they shine upon us, memorial lights of the world's past history; we question them, and of their silence frame happy oracles for the future. But this can only be in buoyant, gifted, enthusiastic youth. When passion and sorrow have traced their fiery writing on the soul, we love the stars no longer. They are like the eyes of a lovely stranger, beauteous but cold; mute mockers of our spirits and their woes. In youth, we tell our aspirations to the stars, our happiness and our hopes; afterwards we wander, and whisper our sorrows to the earth, for not only is she our mother, but our companion also, and our fellow-sufferer. This season had not arrived to Julia, and to her night was precious. At once from a sense of duty and from self-interest, she thwarted her worthy relative very little in the day-time, either by reading, or the manifestation of her spirit's mysteries. The temperament of genius is even morbidly susceptible to ridicule; ana the more vividly Julia felt that her mind was growing in daily dissimilarity to nearly all the minds around her, the more carefully did she conceal the fact from those who would have considered her superiority a personal affront. D Therefore, night and the first hours of morning were precious to her. From her friends at the Rectory and the Lodge she could obtain books; but it was not only to read, but to think, and feel, and dream, that she loved her hours of retirement. There was a pride and a luxury in the studious solitude she thus created for herself, and a sense of separation from others that gave no pain; the din of day was over or not begun; life was not full of vulgar cares, poor pleasures, or toilsome business, but an existence steeped in the light of rising and setting suns. "I would not be an angel," thought the young enthusiast, in one of the many reveries that often closed these midnight vigils her head sometimes pillowed on the volume that she had been reading, her untrimmed lamp burning to waste beside her, or if the night was only partially dark, extinguished, that nothing might disturb the dusky serenity around her " I would not be an angel for the sake of being exempt from pain, but for the sake of gaining immortal knowledge, for the sake of feeding to the very full on the fruit of that tree not now forbidden. O that the illustrious dead, might from the grave, speak to my spirit, make me the pupil of their ashes, and let me learn from their history how to tread the path that leads 66 to fame! O that the spirit and presence of the past could breathe into me the breath of etherial and herioc life!-the spirit and presence of nature kindle within me its own boundless, glorious energy, its own grandeur of beneficence-its own silent triumph over all that can injure and debase! Fame! what energy dwells in that one word— what power to kindle and exalt! I feel the hope of it, even now, the spirit of my spirit, the breath of my being, the life-blood of my life. I long for it, nay, as if it were a divinity-I pay it an idolatryI feel that for it I could surrender ease, health, happiness, friends, fortune, keep long vigils through many years, and wait for its appearing as the watchman for the morning light. O Fame! let me not pass away unknown, a hidden rill in the world's mighty forest; lay me in the grave, if so be thou wilt, then build over me a monument-only come !" |