Having delivered his horse to the charge of his attendant, he walked

for a space in the Pleasance and in the garden, rather to indulge in

comparative solitude his own reflections, than to admire those singular

beauties of nature and art which the magnificence of Leicester had there

assembled. The greater part of the persons of condition had left the

Castle for the present, to form part of the Earl's cavalcade; others,

who remained behind, were on the battlements, outer walls, and towers,

eager to view the splendid spectacle of the royal entry. The garden,

therefore, while every other part of the Castle resounded with the human

voice, was silent but for the whispering of the leaves, the emulous

warbling of the tenants of a large aviary with their happier companions

who remained denizens of the free air, and the plashing of the

fountains, which, forced into the air from sculptures of fatastic and

grotesque forms, fell down with ceaseless sound into the great basins of

Italian marble.

The melancholy thoughts of Tressilian cast a gloomy shade on all the

objects with which he was surrounded. He compared the magnificent scenes

which he here traversed with the deep woodland and wild moorland which

surrounded Lidcote Hall, and the image of Amy Robsart glided like a

phantom through every landscape which his imagination summoned up.

Nothing is perhaps more dangerous to the future happiness of men of deep

thought and retired habits than the entertaining an early, long, and

unfortunate attachment. It frequently sinks so deep into the mind that

it becomes their dream by night and their vision by day--mixes itself

with every source of interest and enjoyment; and when blighted and

withered by final disappointment, it seems as if the springs of the

heart were dried up along with it. This aching of the heart, this

languishing after a shadow which has lost all the gaiety of its

colouring, this dwelling on the remembrance of a dream from which

we have been long roughly awakened, is the weakness of a gentle and

generous heart, and it was that of Tressilian.

He himself at length became sensible of the necessity of forcing other

objects upon his mind; and for this purpose he left the Pleasance,

in order to mingle with the noisy crowd upon the walls, and view the

preparation for the pageants. But as he left the garden, and heard the

busy hum, mixed with music and laughter, which floated around him, he

felt an uncontrollable reluctance to mix with society whose feelings

were in a tone so different from his own, and resolved, instead of doing

so, to retire to the chamber assigned him, and employ himself in study

until the tolling of the great Castle bell should announce the arrival

of Elizabeth.




readonlinefreebook.com Copyright 2016 - 2024