THE ARTIST'S LOVE.

BY MRS. EMMA C. EMBURY.

4 It were all one
As I should love a bright particular star,

And seek to wel it "

long passed, and the few who now entered the gallery were, like myself, enthusiasts or students. Two or three persons were scattered around, fixed in silent admiration before some favorite picture; and, throwing myself in an arm-chair that stood in the deep shadow of an alcove, I gave myself up to that vague, sweet reverie which is the purest of all voluptuous enjoyments.

| any information, and I hurried home in a state of excitement which Byron has well described as “dazzled and drunk with beauty." The next day I returned to the picture gallery in the hope that the lady might be induced to revisit it. Hour after hour I sat amid forms of beauty and miracles of art-silent, abstracted, patient-waiting for a renewal of my beatific vision; until a gentle intimation that the exhibition was closed for the day sent me sad and disappointed to my solitary home. Day after day I took my station in that hall, vainly hoping that I might once more behold that exquisite face. My paintings stood unfinished on the easel, my books lay unread, my friends were neglected, the preparations for my home voyage were deferred, and I gave up my whole heart to this vain homage, offered unto one whose very name was unknown to me. You will think me mad, Anne, but I tell you that the moment my eye fell upon that noble woman, the inward voice, which never speaks in vain, the prophetic voice of the soul whispered that in her I beheld my destiny. Aye, I knew it then, when she had been but as a glimpse of Heaven to my eyes, even as I know it now, when for years I have lived upon her memory.

"How long I had been thus dreaming I do not know, but I was at length aroused by a light step near me, and as I raised my eyes I beheld a creature of such perfect loveliness as even my wild fancy could never have fashioned. Standing before one of the pictures, in the attitude of deep thought, with her arms folded upon her bosom, and the folds of her rich shawl falling, like the drapery of some Grecian statue, around her tall figure, was a lady of such surpassing beauty that, for a moment, I could not but believe I was gazing on an unsubstantial vision called up by the influences of the place. Words would be vain to describe the glorious beauty of that countenance. I might tell of the classical symmetry of her chiseled features, of the exquisite form and setting of her full dark-blue eye, of the pearl-like purity of her clear complexion, of the delicate rose tint on her oval cheek, of the soft pale-brown curls which fell from beneath her simple cottage bonnet; but what language could depict the soul which dwelt in the depths of those clear eyes, of the sweetness which sat on those calmly folded lips, of the intellect which had made its shrine on her high, fair brow, of the feeling which spoke in the varying hues of her transparent skin? I was spell-bound-fascinated-every faculty was absorbed in intense admiration, and, as I sat unobserved in my darkened nook, watching every movement of her graceful form, it seemed to me that the very atmosphere had become purer, as if refined by the presence of some being from a holier sphere. At length she spoke, and, as the low tones of her melodious voice fell upon my ear, I aroused myself from my trance sufficiently to notice her companion. He was a youth whose delicate beauty betrayed his relationship to the fair being at his side, and I fancied I could detect a degree of tender solicitude in her manner, which led me to believe that his boyish figure and pale check were the results of infirm health. Nothing could be more beautiful than the grouping of these two exquisite forms as they stood together in the soft light, surrounded by images of loveliness; and I watched them until my senses were overpowered by that delicious, indescribable|ject of my cherished interest. faintness which, in me, ever attends such overwrought feeling.

For more than an hour I gazed unnoticed on this magnificent woman, and it was not until she gathered up the folds of her shawl and glided from the room, that I could summon energy enough to rise. As the door closed behind her, it seemed as if the sunlight had suddenly been shut out—a gloom fell upon every thing, and I hastily left the apartment. An impulse which I could not restrain led me to inquire of the doorkeeper the names of the persons who had just quitted the gallery, but he was unable to afford me

"Some weeks later, as I was returning from my solitary vigil, I passed the door of a celebrated jeweler, just as a carriage drove up. As I drew aside to avoid the shower of mud thrown up by the feet of the prancing horses, I caught a glimpse of the wellremembered countenance which had now become the idol of my dreams. Anticipating the lady's intentions, I entered the glittering shop, and, pretending to examine some curiously engraved seals, lost not a single look. She conversed in a low tone with the jeweler, and seemed to be giving directions respecting the setting of a miniature, while I was drinking in new draughts of hopeless and passionate love from her exquisite beauty. As she returned to the carriage I hastened to engross the attention of the polite Mr. ——, and soon contrived to be allowed a glance at the miniature. It was a small and highly finished likeness of the brother who had been her companion in the gallery, but the jeweler could afford me no other information than that it was to be set in plain gold, with the initials C. M. on the back, and that it must be finished by the next evening, as the lady intended leaving town. The next evening found me again at the shop, but I was destined to disappointment; the brother came, received the miniature and departed, leaving me no possible clue to the ob

Wearied and disappointed, I lingered in London with that aimless and idle spirit of loitering that now so fully possessed me, until a friend, from whom I had received many kindnesses, insisted upon my accompanying him to his country house previous to my leaving England. The beauties of rural scenery in that noble island can never be viewed too often, and I gladly found myself in the quiet of a sequestered village, where, with the genuine hospitality so well understood in England, I was surrounded by all the means of enjoyment, and then left to choose that which best suited my mood. I visited every place

in the neighborhood which contained objects of interest, and found much to divert the melancholy that was rapidly settling upon my feelings, but still I had become morbidly sensitive, and wherever I went I seemed to find new food for my love-sick fancy. Accidentally hearing of an old baronial residence some twenty miles distant, which, though somewhat dilapidated, like the fortunes of the family to which it belonged, still contained some fine pictures, I determined to visit it. My friend dissuaded me by assuring me that I would scarcely obtain admission, as the owner usually occupied the mansion, and was somewhat eccentric and unsocial. 'He is a Catholic, is said to be in bad health, and to live in great seclusion on account of his sister, who is under some ecclesiastic vow.' This account, instead of deterring me, only stimulated my curiosity, and, taking advantage of a beautiful autumnal day, I rode alone to Mordaunt Hall.

when she is not here, for it is too beautiful to be spoiled by dust and sunshine.'

"As she spoke, the old woman drew aside a heavy crimson curtain and displayed the exquisite features of her whom I had so long sought in vain. The lady of the gallery was at length made known to me, and in Helen Mordaunt I beheld the idol of my dreaming fancy.

"I need not tell you how gladly I now listened to every reminiscence of the family, how fondly I dwelt upon every thing which concerned Helen, and how eagerly I gathered every incident which could confirm me in a belief of her nobleness of character. I learned that their seclusion was the consequence of Mr. Mordaunt's ill health, and yet there seemed to be some mystery connected with the manner in which Helen was associated in this loneliness. The story of her religious vows was utterly untrue, but still her devotion to her brother did not altogether account for her close retirement, and there seemed something which the old housekeeper did not wish to remember.

tainly was nothing derogatory to the noble nature of Miss Mordaunt. With her moderate fortune she had managed to diffuse comfort and happiness in many an humble cottage. She had the kind heart, the soft voice, the ready hand which adds redoubled value to every bounty, and from hill-side and valley ascended the prayer of many a grateful peasant on her gentle head. I was fully disposed to credit the old lady's assertion when she said that Miss Helen was too good and too beautiful for this world, but I did not then know by how frail a tenure she held the life which was so great a blessing to others.

"I always had a passion for rambling over old houses, and the newness of every thing in America makes us all peculiarly alive to the charm of gray anti-But whatever was the nature of that mystery, it cerquity abroad. It was with no little regret, therefore, that I found myself excluded from the old hall by a venerable man who looked as antique as the oaken door which he kept so inhospitably closed. Mr. Mordaunt was absent; he said, he had left home only two weeks before, in the hope that the climate of Italy might restore him to health, and the rooms were not in proper order for a stranger's inspection.' Upon my informing him, however, of my vocation, and my desire to behold only the pictures, he consented to admit me, and after I had entered, he summoned the old housekeeper, who received me with a degree of stately civility which would have done honor to a dowager duchess. The old lady was glad to find some one who was willing to listen to her garrulity, and the attention which I paid to her long stories about the buckram squires and shepherdess ladies in the picture gallery, so far won her favor that she wanted me to visit the tapestried chambers, where were still preserved the relics of bygone splendor. Charmed with the interest I took in these old-world matters, she finally conducted me into that part of the mansion usually occupied by the family.

"This is Miss Helen's room,' said she, as she opened the door of a beautiful apartment, lighted by a large stained glass window.

"And who is Miss Helen?' I asked, as I observed the traces of elegant occupation in the music, the books and the implements of drawing, scattered around the room.

She is the sister of my young master; their parents died while they were yet children, and they have ever since lived here with their grandfather, at whose death, two years since, Mr. Charles Mordaunt came into possession. But I am afraid he will not long live to enjoy his estate. He inherits his mother's delicacy along with her beauty, and I who sat beside | his cradle, may yet live to watch beside his deathbed. Miss Helen manages every thing for him, she saves him all trouble, and indeed she is like an angel to every body. We always keep her picture curtained

"I learned that the brother and sister were on their way to Florence, and after feeding my wild passion with every excitement to be found amid the scenes which had once enjoyed her presence, I resolved to follow them into Italy. You will ask with what purpose I thus sought her presence. Alas! I had noneno hope-no design, save that of once more beholding her wonderful beauty. She had unconsciously woven a spell around me, and I sought not to be disenthralled. That face which was henceforth to be the load-star of my life rose before me whenever I looked upon the features of woman-it was with me in the vague happiness of my nightly dreams-it outshone the brightness of joyous moments, and illumined my hours of solitude and sadness.

"There is a madness of the heart which often resembles the madness of the brain. The passions often become masters over the intellectual powers, and men, while in full possession of reason, do things which nothing but the wildness of delirium could excuse. Perhaps such was my conduct-such it certainly would seem in the eyes of a wordly and unimaginative being. I abandoned my intention of returning to America, and again sought the shores of Italy—that fair land of shadows, where the passionate dreams of youth and genius are embdodied in the sculptured image or portrayed on the eloquent canvass-that noble country, whose blue sky is but as a cloudless dome above a glorious panorama of

natural beauty and physical perfection. To a vision- | beauty of her who was now my earthly idol; all the accessories of the picture, beautifully and delicately as they were depicted by the hand of love, have become blended in the indistinctness of time's mellowing tints. Charles Mordaunt gradually recovered, and he rallied his little remaining strength in the hope of reaching Geneva, where he purposed pass

in reaching the desired place, and when there he seemed quite recruited, but my blissful moments were at an end. The isolation which had led to our close intimacy no longer existed-the world had come in between us-I was still the friend, but no longer the only friend of Helen Mordaunt.

ary like myself, the very climate of Italy brings danger. There is something so enervating in its genial gales and sunny heavens-so fascinating in the indolent enjoyment which is common to all from the prince to the beggar-so soothing in the 'dolce far 'niente' which is universally practiced amid sounds of harmony and sights of beauty, that a strangering the summer. With some difficulty we succeeded inevitably falls into those habits of idleness and reverie, which, however delightful at first, have a reaction not less terrible than that which attends the bliss-giving opiate of a Turkish elysium. Had I sought to subdue my wild passion, I would never have returned to Italy. Active life, with all its excitements and its duties, would, perhaps, have changed the course of my feelings, but there was a romantic mystery in my strange attachment which suited too well my peculiar temperament. It was like the revival of an old tale of sorcery-I was subjected to some secret power which took from me even the volition to be free. Alas! how often do we forge our own chains, and then complain of the fate which has hung fetters on our will.

"What a creature she was!-how noble in character!-how refined in feeling!-how self-forgetting!-how devoted to her brother!-how utterly free from every selfish emotion! Full of intellect, with feelings so profound, so earnest that they would have been passionate had they not been so pure, she seemed never to entertain a thought which angels might not have cherished. Yet her loftiness was not that of pride, it was rather the elevation of a heav

too bright an impress of its immortal birth to bear one stain of earth. And then she was so beautiful! Good heaven! when I remember that glorious countenance lighted up with all the splendor of such a mind and heart-when I recall the image of that stately and graceful creature whose footstep fell upon the earth like the snowflake upon wool-when I live over again those blissful hours in which her voice was the daily music of my life, and her smile its sweetest light, I wonder that I am yet a denizen of this dull earth, when its melody and its sunshine have forever vanished.

"I wandered through Italy as one in a dream.enly nature, the nobleness of a soul which retained Wherever I went I heard of those for whom I sought, for they had been before me along the whole route. I occupied apartments which they had quitted, traveled in coaches they had used, traversed picture galleries they had explored, and found their names on the records of visitants at all the places of note. Yet they seemed always to elude my view, and like the early navigators in their search for the Fortunate Isles, I was ever near, yet never within sight of the object of my desires. But my patience was at length rewarded. A difficulty in obtaining post-horses had detained me at a miserable inn on the confines of Italy, and I was preparing with an ill grace to submit to its discomforts through the night, when I was started by the low sweet tones of a well-remembered voice. I listened-the words were Italian, and addressed to the slatternly landlady whose unwashed kerchief and long gold ear-rings had attracted my attention-but the voice was not to be mistaken. It was indeed Helen Mordaunt, whom the sudden illness of her brother had detained in that miserable place, and who was thus left unaided in the midst of strangers. To make myself known to her and proffer my services was my first impulse, though the agitation of my manner was sufficient to awaken her surprise, if not her distrust. But she was too far above guile to suspect it in others; she accepted my offers with graceful and dignified gratitude, while the attentions which I was thus enabled to bestow upon her brother laid the foundation of a warm friendship in her gentle heart.

"Yet Helen shared not-knew not my feelings. Devoted to her failing brother she seemed to have no room for another affection in her heart, and I dared not disturb the pure current of her feelings by the shadow of a less holy love. She regarded me as her brother's friend, she was grateful for my attentions to the invalid, and the smile, the kindly clasp of the hand with which she daily met me, were but emanations of her sisterly tenderness.

"Is she not a noble creature?' said Charles Mordaunt to me, one day, as she glided from the room in search of some flowers to deck his apartment. 'Oh if you but knew half her devotion, half her goodness! beautiful as she is-and God never made a fairer being-her spirit is more angelic than her seraph body.'

"I know not what power impelled me, but at these words the fountains of my sympathy were broken up, and I poured forth the resistiess torrent of my long repressed feelings. I told him of my first meeting with his sister in the picture gallery-of my vain search for them-of my visit to their ancestral home

"You will think it strange, Anne, when I tell you that of those blissful days of passionate existence I retain only a vague and dreamlike recollection. I might tell you of a few striking incidents which stand-of my quest through Italy-and finally, in the eloout in bold relief, but the details of that period of my life seem to have become blended into one indistinct remembrance of happiness. When I look into the chambers of mine imagery I see only the exceeding

quent words of passion, I told him of my wild and earnest love. I had not ventured to look toward him while I uttered my confession, but when he still remained silent, I raised my head, and observed a spot

moment.

"She has long known her fate,' said Charles; she lives as one who may be summoned to the world of shadows without hearing a single footfall of the King of Terrors, and the very sublimity of her character is perhaps the result of such conviction of the continual presence of death. Life is to her but an Egyptian feast; an image from the grave sits ever beside her, and though she has ceased to tremble, nay, can even decorate the hideous spectre with the festal robe and wreath, she is not the less conscious of its presence. Helen will never marry; she has never known any warmer affection than that which nature implanted in her heart for me. She loves me with a depth and fervor which would be almost idolatrous, were it not so holy. The knowledge of your wild passion might cloud the pure current of her thoughts, but could never win you an adequate return. She is devoted to higher aims, and the marriage bond would ill suit one who is already the bride of Heaven.'

of burning red on his thin cheek, while a tear slowly | destined to be fatal at some sudden and unexpected gathered in his unnaturally bright eye. For a moment he hesitated, then grasping my hand he said: "I will not disguise from you, my friend, that the time has been when my ire would have risen to fever heat had any but the scion of a noble house sought the hand of Helen Mordaunt. My family have fallen from their high estate, yet I cannot forget that the blood of princes runs in the veins of the two last descendants of a race once loftiest in my own proud land. You, as an American, can share none of this feeling, and can sympathize little in this vain pride, yet it is inborn in the child of noble lineage, and I can easier part with every other prejudice than with that which places me above the reach of fortune's frowns. Yet this objection to your suit which would not, perhaps, be insurmountable in Helen's mind, (who shares none of my weaknesses, not even that of family pride,) is not the only one. We are a singularly doomed family. You know that we hold the ancient faith, and my mother, who was one of the most rigid of devotees, had early destined Helen and "I shall never forget the bright and seraphic exmyself to the seclusion of a cloister. The death of pression of the youth's face as he uttered these last an elder brother and sister induced her to relinquish words. Never had he so strongly resembled his her resolution, but, when the sudden death of my beautiful sister, and had he asked the sacrifice of my father was followed by my gradual decline of health, life at that moment it would have been freely given. she remembered her broken pledge to the church, Promise me,' said he, that while I live you will and bowed down in the dust beneath the judgment not proffer your suit to my sister. Let me still behold which her ill-kept faith had brought upon her. My her in all her maiden purity of thought, free from grandfather would not consent to immure in a clois- even the shadow of another love. When I am gone ter the only heir to his fading honors, and my mother her own noble nature must be her guide, and to that went down to her grave mourning over her broken I can surely trust.' I promised, and the painful invow, and praying her darling Helen to make expia-terview closed with varied and mingled feelings on tion for the sins of all, by the devotion of her life to seclusion. Helen knew that my mother's wish would doom her to a convent, but from this her enlightened | piety revolted. She was a sincere Christian, but she saw more duties in the world than the dull round of monastic rites could embrace, and, in devoting herself to the last years of her aged grandfather, and now in giving up her whole thoughts to me, she feels that she is fulfilling the spirit, if not the letter, of my mother's vow. But in one respect she has relgiously obeyed my mother's desire. She has kept herself unspotted from the world, never mingling in its amusements, never sharing its vanities, never yielding her heart to its affections. Perhaps the consciousness of her own feeble hold on life has made the task one of less difficulty, and has assimilated her pure and noble nature to those angelic beings whose company she may be called to join at a moment's warning.'

"Horror-stricken at these last mysterious words, which reminded me of some vague hints uttered by the old housekeeper of Mordaunt Hall, I forgot my mingled feelings of pride and disappointment, and only thought of the doom which seemed to impend over Helen. Eagerly I demanded an explanation, and it was given in a few words. From childhood she had been the subject of an organic disease of the heart, which shows itself only in increased pulsation, and the rapidly changeful hues of her complexion, inflicting no pain, and scarcely making itself felt, yet

both sides.

"I cannot dwell on the painful details of Charles Mordaunt's last illness; my heart sinks and my eyes fill with tears which seem to sear my cheeks as they fall. The injunction of the dying man was obeyed, and while I was constantly ministering to his wants, and sharing all his sister's cares, though our hands often met in his feeble grasp, and my pulse bounded as if my veins ran lightning when I felt the cool touch of her rose-tipped fingers, though our brows were often bowed down in prayer upon the same pillow beside him, yet I breathed not the love which, pure as I knew it to be, scemed almost sacrilegious at such a moment. Helen never spoke of herself, but the holy calmness with which she contemplated her brother's approaching death seemed an evidence of her belief that she should not long survive him. He declined gradually but surely; suffering little pain, and retaining every faculty of his mind unimpaired, he yielded day by day to the debility which was slowly wearing his life away. To sit beside that noble brother and sister, to watch the varied beauty of their glorious countenances, to listen to the 'converse high' between the dying youth and the doomed maiden, such were my precious, my painful privileges. Alas! I linger upon these moments, even as the condemned criminal seeks to prolong the time which intervenes before his execution.

"Helen and myself watched beside Charles until he drew his latest breath; when the final moment