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PICTURES OF PRIVATE LIFE.

MISANTHROPY.

And none did love him, though to hall and bower
He gathered revellers from far and near,
He knew them flatterers of the festal hour;
The heartless parasites of present cheer,
Yea! none did love him-not his leman's dear.

CHAPTER I.

CHILDE HAROLD.

It was not long before he was again at her side.

As the Rev. Charles Forester, rector of the parish of Haughton, was turning down the brow of the hill which overlooked his own quiet dwelling in the valley, he was met by his sister, Mrs. Percival, who, laying hold of the rein of his bridle, playfully cried out, "A boon! a boon!" "What is your pleasure, fair dame ?" ask- she should catch cold—”

"I have been thinking," said he, "that the poor child has but little entertainment at home, and that, if she does really add so much pleasure to the party, she might as well go. But mind, sister; in the article of clothing, I depend upon you, as understanding these things better than myself; and if

ed the rector.

"To-morrow is the day," replied the lady, "appointed for certain rural sports, such as fishing, boating, and the like: and we desire the company of your daughter Agnes, who always adds double pleasure to whatever party she may honour with her presence."

Mr. Forester shook his head. "I do not like your parties upon water; Agnes may sit in damp shoes, to say the least of the danger;" and he hit his pony a smart stroke upon the neck, which made him quickly disentangle his rein, and start off at a brisk

trot.

Mrs. Percival walked off also in the opposite direction, knowing, by long acquaintance with the habits and feelings of lordly man, that the less she said to urge her suit, the more likely was her brother's heart to relent.

"Thank you! thank you!" interrupted Mrs. Percival; "I will gladly bear all the punishment you may think fit to inflict upon me, if she should catch cold."

The morning was beautiful when the merry group set off. Agnes, who had not yet learned the painful lesson, that when boys go forth to enjoy themselves, girls must stay at home, took the place, prepared for her comfort and safety with cloaks, cushions, and wrappers, which she pushed aside as soon as her father and Mrs. Percival had concluded their many charges to the old, experienced watermen, and were fairly out of sight. Close beside her sat her cousin Arnold Percival, a tall, commanding-looking youth, some years older than herself, whose right to the privileged seat no one disputed; and at the farthest possible distance, stripped to

Walter would one day be the man of upright and steady usefulness, of strict punctuality, promptness, and integrity in the common affairs of life. Arnold never called a servant or ordered a horse, but they were ready on the instant. Walter hated that any one should do for him what he was able to do for himself; but when he did require service from his mother's domestics, he could obtain it as readily for love, as his brother could for fear. Arnold held no communication with what Walter was accustomed to call the useful classes of society; but Walter listened to their complaints, redressed their grievances as far as he was able, and showed them respect by a thousand little acts of consideration, richly worth their cost. Arnold's face was of a handsome, proud, and melancholy cast, finely moulded, but cold and inanimate; and the glance of his beautiful dark eye was generally directed to distant objects, or wandered on in listless and dreamy vacuity; while Walter, much below his brother in stature, was equally inferior to him in all that could strike the attention of the superficial observer. His eyes were blue and clear, and usually concentrated in their look, as if the faculties of his mind were fixed upon some powerful image, or strong focus of light, re

his shirt sleeves, and tugging at the oar, was his younger brother, Walter. These two boys (or young men, as they were more likely to have called themselves,) were each born to an inheritance as different as the dispositions which they carried along with them. Arnold was heir to an entailed estate, which would, at some future time, afford him the possession of an almost princely fortune: Walter had no other dependance than upon a clear head and ready hand. Gladly would Arnold have shared half his wealth with Walter; but Walter, since he was not born with a title to it, scrupled to receive the slightest pecuniary obligation from his brother. Perhaps, had their hearts been laid open, pride would have been found the only quality in which they resembled each other; but Arnold's pride was of an open domineering character, while his brother's was so deep and hidden, as to be scarcely discernible in his outward actions. Arnold's characteristics, as a boy, were indolence and indifference; the one arising partly from constitution, partly from the knowledge that he should never be called upon for exertion; the other from a general distrust of kindness, and latent suspicion that his money, not himself, was the object of attraction. Walter would have been enthusiastic almost to mad-vealed only to his inward vision; his lips ness, had it not been for the common sense and correct feeling which kept all the exuberance of his mind in check: thus he was accustomed to pursue his favorite employments in secret, to rise early, and sit up late, to labour and endure, with a pertinacity that was almost certain to ensure success. What his favourite employments were, and what the degree of mental power he was capable of exercising, few people suspected, and none knew; for he was careless at school, and made little progress in the beaten track of learning. Arnold was more successful in his aquirements, as he was solicitous that nothing should be wanting to complete the dignified and imposing character to which he aspired. Every one might discover, at the first glance, that Arnold was the gentleman; and it needed as little penetration to see that

were thin, firm, and compressed, and all his movements decided, prompt, and energetic; he had, besides, in very early life, an uncommon flow of animal spirits, so that, before he began to think deeply, he played with more vivacity than any other boy. At the time of the fishing party, the change in his character had but just appeared. Some rude attempts at mechanism, closely concealed in the remotest corner of his private closet, bore testimony to earnest and grave thought; but he had too much of the boy about him still to sit long at any employment and he now laughed, shouted, and rowed with unrivalled strength and determination.

It was a glorious day. The sun shone out in cloudless light; the boat glided swiftly over the waters; the trees bent down their feathery boughs as if to soothe the rippling

stream that foamed and fretted against the rocky shores, and the birds sung sweetly in the distance, until startled from the branches, they winged their rapid flight away from this region of peace and beauty. All things above, around and beneath, wore the garb of nature's holiday; and even Arnold, charmed out of himself, sent forth his deeptoned voice in a wild and melancholy song. At length they reached the basin or broad space in the river, where their sport was to begin. Lightly every foot sprang from the boat, and Agnes, no less eager than the rest, seizing the line which Walter had prepared, took her place beside a drooping birch and waited for her prey.

Arnold alone, of all the party, declined to enter into their amusement. Striding from rock to rock, he quickly disappeared from their sight, and, winding round a high point which jutted out into the stream, seated himself like an eagle upon its height, exalted, in his own ideas, to as great a superiority over the merry creatures he had left, as this solitary rock was above the shallow waters rippling at its base. On his difficult and circuitous path he had gathered handfuls of fern and wild flowers, each little group a picture of woodland beauty, enough to send the spirit up to Heaven in the incense of gratitude; and now the misanthrope amused himself by casting them one by one into the stream below, moralizing as they dropped from his fingers and fluttered in the summer wind upon the emptiness and worthless of all things. Wearied as man must naturally be with that system of reasoning which tends to establish the non-existence of useful ends, and wise purposes in the creation, Arnold at last descended from his height and joined the party below. Some were reclining in laughing indolence upon the rocks; some pursuing their amusement in solitary silence; and others exulting in the triumph of a first bite; while Walter was busily employed in leading Agnes away from the deceitful and slippery shore, to some safer standing-place, arranging her tackle, and doing every thing for her except draw out her luckless victims.

Arnold looked upon his brother and his fair cousin with the same sneer of contempt with which he had first regarded the group of idlers and the patient solitaries farther up the stream. He made no remark; but his countenance and his character were so well known to all, that they bore along with them an influence more readily felt than explained. Agnes laid down the line and said she was weary; Walter took it up and walked off with an air that showed his will, if not his power, to catch every fish in the river; the idlers rose and wondered when the party would think it time to eat; the solitaries gave up their fruitless task and gathered round their friends; while Agnes, ever the first to perceive and turn away the dark spirit of discontent, ran for the baskets of provisions, and began to place around upon the rocks the welcome viands which Mrs. Percival had prepared; and fortunate it was for her endeavours to maintain good humour and good will, that they were backed by the keen and healthy appetites of the whole group. Even Arnold could eat; and Walter, after being summoned by the shrill notes of the bugle, came wandering up from his retreat.

Agnes had chosen for the place of refreshment a sort of picturesque cave or hollow by the side of the stream, where they were shaded from the sun by the branches of the feathery birch, and lulled by the ripple of the water at their feet.

"Is it not happiness to be here!" exclaimed the delighted girl, as Arnold took his wonted place beside her; but there was no answer in his face to any voice that spoke of happiness, and she appealed to Walter the last of a row of boys seated on the opposite side of their sylvan temple. He answered from his clear blue eyes with such a look as the wounded and weary, the deceived and the deceitful, try in vain to assume; a look that lasts but seldom beyond the days of our childhood; a look that reminds us of a higher and purer state of existence, and tells more of what we might be than what we

are.

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