That day, and the night which followed it, was a long period with

me. I had to see many acquaintances, and attend to a thousand small

matters. I was on my feet the whole day, and even when the night

came I had no rest. I was in the city till near eleven o'clock. When

I got home I found that my wife had done her share of the tasks.

She had completed her preparations. Our luggage was all ready for

removal. To her I had assigned the labor of packing up her pictures,

her materials for painting, her clothes, and such other matters as

she desired to carry with us, to our new place of abode. The rest

was to be sold by a friend after our departure, and the proceeds

remitted. I knew I should need them all. Most of our baggage

was to be sent by water. We travelled in a private carriage, and

consequently, could take little. Julia, unlike most women, was

willing to believe with me that impediments are the true name for

much luggage; and, with a most unfeminine habit, she could limit

herself without reluctance to the merest necessities. We had no

bandboxes, baskets, or extra bundles, to be stuffed here and there,

filling holes and corners, and crowding every space, which should

be yielded entirely to the limbs of the traveller. Though sensitive

and delicate in a great degree, she had yet that masculine sense

which teaches that, in the fewness of our wants lies our truest

source of independence; and she could make herself ready for taking

stage or steamboat in quite as short a time as myself.

Her day's work had exhausted her. She retired, and when I went up

to the chamber, she already seemed to sleep. I could not. Fatigue,

which had produced exhaustion, had baffled sleep. Extreme

weariness becomes too much like a pain to yield readily to repose.

The moment that exercise benumbs the frame, makes the limbs ache,

the difficulty increases of securing slumber. I felt weary, but

I was restless also. I felt that it would be vain for me to go to

bed. Accordingly, I placed myself beside the window, and looked

out meditatingly upon the broad lake which lay before our dwelling.

The night was very calm and beautiful. The waters from the lake were

falling. Tide was going out, and the murmuring clack of a distant

sawmill added a strange sweetness to the hour, and mingled

harmoniously with the mysterious goings on of midnight. The starlight,

not brilliant, was yet very soft and touching. Isolated and small

clouds, like dismembered ravens' wings, flitted lightly along

the edge of the western horizon, shooting out at intervals brief,

brilliant flashes of lightning. There was a flickering breeze that

played with the shrubbery beneath my window, making a slight stir

that did not break the quiet of the scene, and gave a graceful

movement to the slender stems as they waved to and fro beneath its

pressure. A noble pride of India [Footnote: China tree: the melia

azedaracha of botanists. A tree peculiar to the south, of singular

beauty, and held in high esteem as a shade-tree.] rose directly

before my eyes to the south--its branches stretching almost from

within touch of the dwelling, over the fence of a neighbor. The

whole scene was fairy-like. I should find it indescribable. It

soothed my feelings. I had been the victim of a long and painful

moral conflict. At length I had a glimmering of repose. Events,

in the last few days--small events which, in themselves denoted

nothing--had yet spoken peace to my feelings. My heart was in that

dreamy state of languor, such as the body enjoys under the gradually

growing power of the anodyne, in which the breath of the summer

wind brings a language of luxury, and the most emperiest sights

and sounds in nature minister to a capacity of enjoyment, which is

not the less intoxicating and sweet because it is subdued. I mused

upon my own heart, upon the heart which I so much loved and had so

much distrusted--upon life, its strange visions, delusive hopes,

and the sweet efficacy of mere shadows in promoting one's happiness

et last. Then came, by natural degrees, the thought of that strange

mysterious union of light and darkness--life and death--the shadows

that we are; the substances that we are yet to be. The future!--still

it rose before me--but the darkness upon it alone showed me it was

there. It did not offend me, however, for my heart was glowing in

a present starlight. It was the hour of hopes rather than of fears;

and in the mere prospect of transition to the new--such is the

elastic nature of youth--I had agreed to forget every pang whether

of idea or fact, which had vexed and tortured me in the perished

past. My musings were all tender yet joyful--they partook of that

"joy of grief" of which the bard of Fingal tells us. I felt a big

tear gathering in my eye, I knew not wherefore. I felt my heart

growing feeble, with the same delight which one would feel at

suddenly recovering a great treasure which had been supposed for

ever lost. I fancied that I had recovered my treasure, and I rose

quietly, went to the bed where Julia lay sleeping peacefully,

and kissed her pale but lovely cheeks. She started, but did not

waken--a gentle sigh escaped her lips, and they murmured with some

indistinct syllables which I failed to distinguish. At that moment

the notes of a flute rose softly from the grove without.




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