a favourite station on the rocky and projecting cliff, while at night, he often took a solitary ramble to whatever spot chance might direct his uncertain steps. It was at the close of a sombre day 'When autumn winds were at their evening songs,' that he walked forth as usual with often repeated but fruitless efforts to forget himself. Lost in deep reverie, he found himself at last beside his mother's garden. The gate opened with the pressure of his hand, and without aim or object, he wound his well-known way amongst the shrubs as if old habits were leading him whithersoever they would. In a few moments more, he was gazing upon the bright fire blazing in his mother's parlour, through a screen of jessamine not yet faded, by which he was concealed from the observation of those within. His mother was seated by the fire, with her perpetual knitting in her hand, while her face, lighted up with an expression of lively satisfaction, was turned to Walter, who appeared to be reading aloud from a book which must have been a favourite with Agnes, for she, too, raised her eyes so often, and with such deep interest, that Walter could not choose but look from his book as often, to participate in her enjoyment. man or woman their good fortune, and yet he was not only unable to participate in the enjoyment of others, but the mere contemplation of it added fresh bitterness to his secret repinings. "Every one can find happiness on earth but me," he murmured to himself, as he stood riveted to the same spot, and gazing on the same scene. "Every one can partake of social endearment; every one can draw around some centre of enjoyment but me. From the loved and the lovely I must dwell apart, with the cancer of despair in my bosom, and the poisoned arrow of destruction in my heart." What a wonderful and inexhaustible fund the melancholy mind can draw upon for materials to build up its own wretchedness! While Arnold Percival was observing from without the internal movements of his mother's establishment, she herself rose up, and after ringing the bell, a servant who came in, unconsciously closed the shutters in the face of the misanthrope, who immediately gave himself up to the absurd idea, that he was violently shut out from the presence of the happy group. As he turned to retrace his steps, the rustling of the withered leaves that lay scattered in his path, gave notice to his cousin's dog that a strange foot was near, and, before he had time to make himself known, he was beset and annoyed by the loud barking of the watchful animal. "The very dog," said he to himself, "that I have seen crouching at her feet with ten There was nothing in the situation of these three individuals to make them happier than human beings generally may be, nor in that of Arnold to render him more wretched than most of us at many seasons of our lives have been; and yet his morbid imagination imme-derness and love, grows furious at the sight diately transformed the scene within into that of the garden of Eden, and himself into the enemy of all happiness, whom the poet has so ably described as unable to look on, without the stirrings of the deadliest of human passions. Envy is a feeling so odions in itself, with so few redeeming accompaniments, that none will own its baneful influence; although an impartial investigator might too often detect its lurking venom, mingled with the cup of life. Arnold Percival would have repelled with indignation the charge of envying either of me. He walked on, but thick clouds had now overcast the moon; a hollow wind which had all day been moaning amongst the "sere and yellow" leaves, rushed along with the gathering darkness, and it was with difficulty that he reached the nearest cottage before the bursting of a tempest which threatened to cut off his farther progress for the night. The place in which he had found such timely shelter was a porch, where he had once, on a very different occasion, seated himself before; and, had not the darkness prevented his making any local ob servations, he would, probably, have risked the fury of the raging elements, rather than have remained in safety under the cover of that particular roof. "It is a fearful night," said an aged voice within. "We are better in this low cottage, Mary, than in the high towers of a castle, when such a storm is howling." "It is not all who live in castles, that are either safe or happy," was answered by a female. misanthrope went forth again, in the dark and lonely night, to trace his way to a home, to him more dark and lonely still. On turning to close the gate at the lodge gently, and without noise, he saw a light in Bella Dunhill's house, which suddenly disappeared, but not before he had perceived that other persons besides the wonted inhabitants were up and stirring at that unseasonable hour. His first impulse was to give a thundering knock at the door; but, on second thoughts, "I fear not," said the old man, with a deep he determined to tap gently at the shutter. sigh, "I fear not!" "And yet they may be as happy as they deserve," observed the woman. "Who that has never loved any one, or been kind to any one, can either expect or deserve happiness themselves?" The door was quickly unbolted, and Bella herself looked out stealthily, saying, in a sort of whisper, "Roger, is it you?" "It is I," replied Arnold; and, thrusting back the astonished woman, before she had time to prevent his entrance, he stood in the midst of a gang of desperate poachers, who had long made her house their place of secret rendezvous. Arnold was a stranger to the sensation of fear; and when he had stimulus enough to act upon, he could act with firmness and judgment. He had no weapons to defend himself, nor was any violence offered-not even when he snatched a blazing brand from the half-extinguished fire, and held it to the faces of the men, as they rushed past him to effect their escape. By this means he recog "Mary, we judge blindly, when we judge one another. It is wiser and more profitable to look into our own hearts, to read the words of eternal life, and to pray." And so saying, he commenced his evening service, and after reading aloud a chapter of the bible with more solemnity than fluency, he poured forth the genuine feelings of his soul in a simple but affecting prayer. He had never, since an important event in his life had first placed him in a situation of serious trust, omitted morning and evening to offer up a petition for the welfare and right guid-nized many of his own labourers and deance of his young master, and he performed his holy duty as faithfully, as tenderly, and with as much fervent zeal, now that that ungrateful master had suspected, wronged, and finally dismissed him from his service. "And this man can pray for me!" said Arnold, as he leaned his head against the cold, stony wall, and closed his eyes upon every thing but the remembrance of his early years, and those bright visions of departed innocence which memory sometimes conjures up, making fresh tears burst forth from eyes that have almost forgotten how to weep, and quickening the fainting soul with renewed agony, but not with renovated life. The simple inhabitants of the cottage retired to rest; the storm passed over, and the pendents, and observed that Bella Dunhill, immediately on his entrance had laid her hand upon a loaded pistol, which she grasped with such a fierce and threatening look, that he scrupled not to select her from the number of her faithless friends, who had one and all deserted her to her fate, as a fitting example to those who might be disposed to tempt his future vengeance. The stimulus of this scene, with the prompt and active exertion it had called forth, made the misanthrope for a short time forget himself; and could he have drawn rational deductions from what he had seen, heard, and felt, that night, he might thenceforth have been " a wiser and a better man." He might have learned, from the scene in his mother's parlour, that there is such a thing as enjoyment, even upon earth: he might have learned from the prayer of the discarded servant, that whatever human nature may be in its perverted state, there is a power that can subdue, temper, and refine its faculties, until they are capable of all that we admire as generous and noble: he might have learned, from the conduct of the ungrateful woman whom he had befriended, that none can be worthy of respect or confidence who are insensible to the kindly feelings which a Divine Being has bestowed as a blessing upon his creatures, or averse to the principles which He has laid down for their especial benefit: and, finally, from the effect of his own exertions, he might have learned, that man is only in a natural and healthy condition when using the powers with which he has been gifted, and that, in order to add happiness to health, he must use them for the purposes which are most in unison with the Divine will. was gradually becoming an altered character-that the melancholy situation of her daughter, by rousing her dormant energies, and exciting a deep interest in her feelings, had combined, with causes of a higher nature, to produce that change for which she herself had so ardently laboured, watched, and prayed-she now deemed it as unnecessary as unwise to obtrude her services more than for the common purposes of kindness and civility, which enhance the enjoyment of social life. With Arnold she was now perfectly at ease; at least, as much so as her naturally affectionate heart could be while contemplating his perverted feelings, and gradually deteriorating character;-deteriorating, because it is the inevitable consequence of every fault, as well as every vice, long and inveterately indulged in, to spread its baneful influence over other faculties of the mind, just as a poisonous weed, at first too insignificant to mar the beauty of the garden, will, in time, extend itself, so as to prevent the growth of either flowers or fruit. Agnes, after having once learned to consider her cousin Arnold as the husband of another, never afterwards entertained an idea that could have interfered, in the remotest manner, with that sacred connexion. She had no wandering and undisciplined thoughts to startle her with their impropriety, nor To him whose mind is accustomed to observe, contemplate and adore, what lessons of instruction may be gathered from the past: to him whose feelings are tuned to the melody of nature, what harmonious music is in the wide universe around! What faith may be built upon the often-repeated instances which memory recalls, in which the heart, panting after some ideal good, has been mercifully spared the anguish of possessing-morbid feelings with which to brood over the what hope from the visitations of unexpected light which have broken in upon our darkness-what charity from the many wrong calculations, false steps, and fatal deviations, which we ourselves have made! CHAPTER XVI. AGNES FORESTER was now less constant in her attendance upon her friends at the castle, although still ready to offer her services whenever and in whatever way they might be required; yet, having seen with unspeakable satisfaction, that Lady Forbes past, until the present should become irksome and intolerable: he was now her cousin Arnold, and no more; and she could read his countenance, and listen to his voice, with as much composure as to that of any other person. With a mind so tempered, she refused not still to be the occasional companion of his walks, his rides, even to the very cliff and the sea shore, where they had wandered in other days, nor was there anything in his manner to awake the scruples of the most delicate mind. It is probable that, in the general desolation of his heart, the warmest and tenderest sentiment he had ever entertained, had been chilled, and withered, and finally had perished under the universal blight; but over some characters, habit is more powerful than impulse; and we often continue to serve, and suffer from those we love, long after the life of our affection has been extinguished. In this manner, Arnold was accustomed to bear with Agnes when she thought it right to remark upon his conduct, as he would have borne with no one else; and she seldom failed to thank him both by words and looks for the kind forbearance he had shown her. "There is nothing," said she, one day, during a long ramble by the sea-shore, "which I dislike so much, as the mere act of finding fault, when accompanied by that peevish and uncharitable spirit which too often prompts us to say to those who are smarting under the consequences of their own folly or misconduct, 'You should not have acted thus, you knew what it would lead to-it is all your own fault.' But it sometimes becomes necessary, that we should retrace the errors both of ourselves and others, in order that we may not fall into the presumptuous absurdity of self-exculpation, nor charge God foolishly." "Reason as you like, Agnes," replied the misanthrope, "you never will convince me that the cup of life has not been prepared for me with peculiar and especial bitterness." "Think, for one moment, Arnold, of what you are saying. You are accusing the Almighty of injustice and malevolence." "I presume not to penetrate into the designs of Providence, nor to say, even if my existence should be overshadowed with tenfold gloom, that such a destiny would be inconsistent with that wisdom which I am not able to comprehend." "But your feelings belie your words, and while you feel that divine mercy is not united with divine wisdom, you cannot love your Heavenly Father as you ought." phers may dispute the question, whether we inherit or acquire our mental faculties? whether they are developed in prominences upon the skull, or exist only in operations of mind apart from matter? I am no philosopher, and, therefore, I leave these difficult points to those who feel better qualified to unravel the mystery of our being, not without fervent desires after that state of existence, where, I trust, we shall be better prepared to receive and understand the truth. "Looking at human nature through the medium of my own dull senses, and I would humbly hope with the assistance of some better light, I am disposed to think, that the tendency of which you speak, whether originating in bodily conformation, or early bias of the mind, has been appointed by Providence as your especial temptation or means of discipline; the difficulty to which you may find countless promises to apply,--the enemy against which you are to arm yourself with the weapons of Christian warfare. Few persons, I believe, have arrived at the conclusion of even a well-spent life, without being able to confess that their course has been beset by one evil propensity above all others. Misanthropy has been yours, arising out of what you call constitutional melancholy; and until you can prove that you have made systematical resistance against it, by perseverance, patience, and prayer, I can never join with you in thinking, that you have been harshly dealt with, or that God has not been merciful to you as well as to the rest of his creatures." "And yet, when I recall my past life, I see nothing but a series of disappointments attendant upon all I have ever hoped or desired. From the brotherhood of man, I selected one friend-and one only وو "For what did you select him?—Not for his noble independent character, but for his servile pretence to sentiments and feelings "Was I not born with a constitutional ten-like your own. You might persuade yourdency to sadness?" "Precisely in the same way as a thief may say, that he is born with a constitutional tendency to take what is not his own. Philoso self, that this apparent resemblance was sympathy, that connecting chain of kindred interesta and associations; but, he who finds his friend resemble him only in the worst parts of his own character, may certainly suspect that he has made a wrong choice, and with nothing more substantial to calculate upon, may certainly anticipate deception and final disappointment. With regard to your misplaced charity and kindness, the same arguments would very justly apply, and I regret that you should not have made the experiment elsewhere." "Agnes, you are a cool reasoner, and a strict judge. What have you to say to that melancholy circumstance which has sealed my doom, and made me for life the most miserable of men?" "My dear cousin, I would not willingly speak on this subject, but in words of the deepest tenderness and sympathy; yet since we have entered upon it in the spirit of impartial discussion, and since there is no alternative but to throw the blame either upon you as an accountable being, or upon that which you call destiny, but which must eventually be referred to the Author of our being; I scruple not to say, that in contracting this alliance, you were guilty of the greatest imprudence of your life. Far be it from me to touch with too much freedom a character whose every feature has now become sacred to us through suffering. I have never met with any one more lovely, seldom with one more calculated to inspire affection; but look into your own heart, and ask what sympathy could possibly exist between two beings so differently constituted, or how it was possible that you could minister to each other's happiness? "Marriage, like all other social engagements, is not merely an appropriation to ourselves of what we desire to possess. It is a mutual compact, in which much must be contributed on both sides to render it productive of real satisfaction. It is not my wish to lift the veil which is very properly drawn over the secrets of domestic life, nor to pronounce upon what might have been conceded, palliated, or reconciled; the grand error was in the first determination you made to unite yourself to one whose disposition, tastes, and habits, were so totally different from your own, that I should suppose it almost impossible for any circumstance to occur in which you would think or feel together." "And yet you, who were the monitress of my early years, never gave me one word of warning, when you saw me risking the happiness of my whole life upon one fatal cast!" "Arnold, you cannot surely need to be reminded how ineffectual my warnings hitherto had been, and how impracticable I had ever found it, even in the most trivial instances, to change your ill-chosen mode of thinking and acting. Besides, so distant as I then was— so ignorant of the circumstances by which you were influenced-what right had I to interfere? I was astonished, it is true; yet I knew not then how rashly you were acting. But let us leave the past, dear Arnold, to be visited only when we are disposed to doubt the good providence of God, and would say, in the presumption of our hearts, 'I have not merited this stroke.'" "Then, upon what subject, may I ask, would you please to expatiate, with such a companion by your side? Tell me what the future has in store for me! Look at my household gods, and say if they rule not with the sceptre of destruction ?" Agnes was, indeed, at a loss: whether she stretched her prophetic view over the future, or looked with more scrutinizing eye upon the present. To the gloomy and determined misanthrope the one was as barren in prospect as the other was sterile, cold, and unfruitful in possession. "You make me no reply," said Arnold— "you do well to be silent. You have known me too long to mock my ear with the words of consolation." "I have, indeed, lost the power to light again the little beacon of hope which you have so often extinguished-and, with that power, the presumptuous thought that I might, in some way, assist to pilot you through the storms of life: but remember, that the beacon fire which is lighted by a human hand is, at best but an emanation from the fountain of eternal light, which no tempest of this nether world is able to extinguish, |