really mine? What things have I vainly expected! In the Agamemnon of Eschylus, a slave is placed as sentinel on the top of the palace at Argos; his eyes are strained to discover the concerted signal of the return of the ships: he sang, to solace the weariness of his watch; but the hours flew on, and the stars set, and no signal-torch blazed. When, after many years, its tardy light appeared over the waves, the slave was bent under the weight of years, and the chorus said to him, that 66 an old man is like a shadow wandering about in the light of day."

LUCILE'S MANUSCRIPT.

In the first enchantment of inspiration, I invited Lucile to imitate me. We passed days in mutual consultation, in communicating to each other what we had done, and what we purposed to do. We undertook works in common: guided by our instincts, we translated the most beautiful and most sorrowful passages of Job, and of Lucretius on Life; as the Tædet animum meum vita meæ*, the Homo natus de mulieret, the Tum porro puer ut sævis projectus ab undis navita, &c. Lucile's thoughts were all sentiments; she stepped beyond the bounds of her own soul with difficulty; but, when she succeeded in expressing her thoughts, they were incomparable. She left behind her about thirty pages of manuscript; it is impossible to read them without deep emotion. The elegance, sweetness, imaginativeness, and impassioned sensibility of these pages, present a combination of Greek and German genius.

66

66 MORNING.

What a mild radiance has just lighted up the East! Is it the young morning which is opening upon the world her beautiful eyes, heavy with the langour of sleep? Haste, charming goddess! leave the nuptial couch,-assume thy purple robe; let a soft girdle confine its folds : let no sandals press thy

* " My soul is weary of my life."-Job x. 1.
"Man that is born of a woman." - Job xiv. 1.
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delicate feet; let no ornament profane thy beautiful hands, made to open the portals of day. But thou art even now rising over the shady hills. Thy golden hair falls in humid ringlets on thy rosy neck. A pure and perfumed breath is exhaled from thy mouth. Tender deity, all nature smiles at thy presence; thou only sheddest tears, and flowers spring

forth."

"THE MOON

"Chaste goddess! goddess so pure, that not even the roses of modesty mingle with thy tender light. I venture to make thee the confidante of my sentiments. I have no cause, any more than thou, to blush for my own heart. But sometimes the remembrance of the unjust and blind judgments of men obscure my brow with clouds, even like thine; and on the errors and miseries of this world my thoughts turn, as on thee. But happier than I, thou, dweller in the Heavens, always preservest thy serenity; the tempests and storms which spring up from this globe of ours, glide over thy peaceful disc. O goddess! indulgent to my sadness, pour thy cold repose into my soul."

"Daughter of heaven, lovely innocence! if I might dare to attempt feebly to pourtray some of thy features, I would say, that thou occupiest the place of virtue to youth, of wisdom to manhood, of beauty to old age, and of happiness to misfortune; that, a stranger to our errors, thou sheddest only pure tears, and that thy smile is all heavenly. Beautiful innocence! What dangers surround thee! Envy aims at thee all her darts! Wilt thou tremble with fear, modest innocence? Wilt thou try to shelter thyself from the dangers which threaten thee? No: I see thee quite calm, asleep, thy head supported on an altar.”

My brother sometimes devoted a few brief moments to the hermits of Combourg; he was accustomed to bring with him

a young councillor of the Parliament of Bretagne, named M. de Malfilatre, cousin to the unfortunate poet of the same name. I believe Lucile had unconsciously contracted a secret passion for my brother's friend, and that this passion, stifled in her heart, was at the bottom of her melancholy. She was, besides, subject to Rousseau's mania, without his pride. She believed that all the world had conspired against her. She came to Paris in 1789, accompanied by that sister Julia, whose loss she deplored with a sadness, bearing the impress of sublimity. She was admired by all who knew her, from M. de Malesherbes to Champfort. Having been thrown into the revolutionary crypts at Rennes, she was on the point of being again shut up in the Castle of Combourg, which had been used as a prison during the reign of terror. Being delivered from prison, she married M. de Caud, who left her a widow at the end of a year. On my return from my emigration, I again saw the friend of my youth; and I shall relate how sh disappeared when it pleased God to afflict me.

Vallée-aux-Loups, November, 1817.

LAST LINES WRITTEN AT THE VALLEE-AUX-LOUPS-A REVELATION OF THE MYSTERY OF MY LIFE.

HAVING returned from Montboissier, these are the last lines which I trace in my hermitage. Must I abandon it, filled as it is with the beautiful plants, which had already begun to conceal and to crown their father by their thronging rows. I shall no more see the magnolia, which promised its rose for the tomb of my Floridienne, the Jerusalem pine and the cedar of Lebanon, consecrated to the memory of Jerome, the Grenada laurel, the platanus of Greece, and the oak of Armorica, at the foot of which I drew the image of Bianca, sang Cymodocea, and invented Valléda, Those trees sprang up, and grew under the care of my reveries. They were their Hamadryads. They are about to pass into the care of another. Will their new master love them as I have always loved them? He will

leave them to die-perhaps cut them down. I am about to preserve nothing on the earth. In bidding adieu to the woods of Aulnay, I recal that which I formerly said to the woods of Combourg. All my days are adieux.

The taste for poetry with which Lucile inspired me, was oil thrown upon fire. My sentiments took a new degree of force : I was filled with a desire for the vanity of reputation ; for a moment I believed in my talents, but having soon returned to a just distrust of myself, I looked upon my work as an evil temptation. I was vexed with Lucile, for having given birth in me to an unfortunate inclination. I ceased to write, and betook myself to weeping over my glory to come, as others weep over their glory departed.

Having resumed my former indolence, I felt more what was wanting to my youth. I became a mystery to myself. I could not see a woman without being troubled: I blushed if one spoke to me. My timidity, already excessive towards every one, became so great with a woman, that I would have preferred any torment whatsoever to that of remaining alone with one. She was no sooner gone, than I would have recalled her with all my heart. The descriptions of Virgil, Tibullus and Massillon readily recurred to my memory; but the image of my mother and my sister, sheltering everything under its purity, added thickness to the veil which nature was endeavouring to lift filial and fraternal affection deceived me with respect to tenderness less disinterested. Had any one delivered to me the most beautiful slaves of the seraglio, I should not have known what to say to them: accident enlightened me

A neighbour of ours at Combourg had come to pass some days at the castle, bringing his wife, who was very handsome. I do not remember what it was which was taking place in the village. We ran to one of the windows of the drawing-room to look at what was going on. I reached the window first; the stranger came close upon my footsteps-I wished to give place to her and turned towards her; she involuntarily barred my way, and I felt myself pressed between her and the window. I was no longer conscious of what was passing around me.

From that moment, I began to feel that to love, and to be loved in a manner which was unknown to me, must be supreme happiness. Had I done as other men do, I should sooner have learned the pains and the pleasures of the passion, the germ of which I carried in myself; but everything in me assumed an extraordinary character. The warmth of my imagination, my bashfulness and solitude, instead of prompting me to seek sympathy from without, caused me to turn back upon myself; for want of a real object, by the power of my vague desires I evoked a phantom which never quitted me more. I know not whether the history of the human heart furnishes another example of this kind.

A PHANTOM OF LOVE.

I pictured then to myself an ideal beauty, moulded from the various charms of all the women I had seen: she had the figure, the hair, and the smile of the stranger who had pressed against me; I gave her the eyes of one young village girl, and the rosy freshness of another. The portraits of noble ladies of the times of Francis I. Henry IV. and Louis XIV., with which the saloon was hung, furnished me with other features, and I even stole graces from the different representations of the Virgin to be found in the churches.

This invisible enchantress constantly attended me, I communed with her as with a real being; she varied at the will of my wandering fancy-now she was Aphrodite unveiled, now Diana clothed in azure and dew, now Thalia with her laughing mask, now Hebe bearing the cup of eternal youthand often she appeared in the guise of a powerful fay, bringing nature into subjection to my power. I touched and retouched my canvas; I took one attraction from my ideal beauty to replace it by a superior one: I changed her costume in a thousand ways, borrowing my ideas from every country and age, from every art and religion. Then, when I had made a chef-d'œuvre, I again scattered my drawings and colours; my single ideal being was remodelled into a number of beautiful women, in whom I idolized separately the charms which I had adored when united in one object.