of the human race that had its limbs shapen and its countenance formed, refused to consort with me ;—the very dog (I only dared to seek out one that seemed more rugged and hideous than its fellows), the very dog dreaded me, and slunk away! I grew up lonely and wretched; I was like the reptile whose prison is the stone's heart,-immured in the eternal penthouse of a solitude to which the breath of fellowship never came ;— girded with a wall of barrennes, and flint, and doomed to vegetate and batten on my own suffocating and poisoned meditations. But while this was my heart's dungeon, they could not take from the external senses the sweet face of the Universal Nature ;-they could not bar me from commune with the voices of the mighty Dead. Earth opened to me her marvels, and the volumes of the wise their stores. I read- I mused-I examineddescended into the deep wells of Truth-and mirrored in my soul the holiness of her divine beauty. The past lay before me like a scroll; the mysteries of this breathing world rose from the present like clouds ;—even of the dark future, experience shadowed forth something of a token and a sign; and over the wonders of the world, I hung the intoxicating and mingled spells of poesy and of knowledge. But I could not without a struggle live in a world of love, and be the only thing doomed to hatred. "I will travel," said I, "to other quarters of the globe. All earth's tribes have not the proud stamp of angels and of gods, and amongst its infinite variety I may find a

I

being who will not sicken at myself." I took leave of the only one who had not loathed me-the woman who had given me food, and reared me up to life. She had now become imbecile, and doting, and blind;-so she did not disdain to lay her hand upon my distorted head, and to bless me. "But better," she said, even as she blessed me and in despite of her dotage,—“ better that you had perished in the womb!" And I laughed with a loud laugh when I heard her, and rushed from the house.

One evening, in my wanderings, as I issued from a wood, I came abruptly upon the house of a village priest. Around it, from a thick and lofty fence of shrubs which the twilight of summer bathed in dew, the honeysuckle, and the sweetbrier, and the wild rose sent forth those gifts of fragrance and delight which were not denied even unto me. As I walked slowly behind the hedge, I heard voices on the opposite side; they were the voices of women, and I paused to listen. They spoke of love, and of the qualities which should create it.

No," said one, and the words, couched in a tone of music, thrilled to my heart,-" no, it is not beauty which I require in a lover; it is the mind which can command others, and the passion which would bow that mind unto me. I ask for genius and affection. I ask for nothing else."

"But," said the other voice, "you could not love a monster in person, even if he were a miracle of intellect and of love!"

"I could," answered the first speaker, fervently; "if

I know my own heart, I could. You remember the fable of a girl whom a monster loved! I could have loved that monster."

And with these words they passed from my hearing; but I stole round, and through a small crevice in the fence, beheld the face and form of the speaker, whose words had opened, as it were, a glimpse of Heaven to my heart. Her eyes were soft, and deep,- her hair parting from her girlish, and smooth brow, was of the hue of gold,her aspect was pensive and melancholy, -and over the delicate and transparent paleness of her cheek, hung the wanness, but also the eloquence of thought. To other eyes she might not have been beautiful,-to mine, her face was as an angel's.-Oh! lovelier far than the visions of the Carian, or the shapes that floated before the eyes of the daughters of Delos, is the countenance of one that bringeth to the dark breast the first glimmerings of Hope! From that hour my resolution was taken; I concealed myself in the wood that bordered her house; I made my home with the wild fox in the cavern, and the shade; the day-light passed in dreams, and passionate delirium,-and at evening I wandered forth, to watch afar off her footstep; or creep through the copse, unseen, to listen to her voice; or through the long and lone night to lie beneath the shadow of the house, and fix my soul, watchful as a star, upon the windows of the chamber where she slept. I strewed her walks with the leaves of poetry, and at

midnight I made the air audible with the breath of music. In my writings and my songs, whatever in the smooth accents of praise, or the burning language of passion, or the liquid melodies of verse, could awaken her fancy or excite her interest, I attempted. Curses on the attempt! May the hand wither!-may the brain burn! May the heart shrivel, and parch like a leaf that a flame devours-from which the cravings of my ghastly and unnatural love found a channel, or an aid! I told her in my verses, in my letters, that I had overheard her confession. I told her that I was more hideous than the demons which the imagination of a Northern savage had ever bodied forth;-I told her that I was a thing which the day-light loathed to look upon; but I told her also, that I adored her and I breathed both my story and my love in the numbers of song, and sung them to the silver chords of my lute, with a voice which belied my form, and was not out of harmony with nature. She answered me, and her answer filled the air, that had hitherto been to me a breathing torture, with enchantment and rapture. She repeated, that beauty was as nothing in her estimation— that to her all loveliness was in the soul. She told me that one who wrote as I wrote-who felt as I feltcould not be loathsome in her eyes. She told me that she could love me, be my form even more monstrous than I had portrayed it. Fool!-miserable fool that I to believe her! So then, shrouded among the

was,

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trees, and wrapped from head to foot in a mantle, and safe in the oath by which I had bound her not to seek to penetrate my secret, or to behold my form before the hour I myself should appoint, arrived-I held commune with her in the deep nights of summer, and beneath the unconscious stars; and while I unrolled to her earnest spirit the marvels of the mystic world, and the glories of wisdom, I mingled with my instruction the pathos and the passion of love!

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"Go," said she one night as we conferred together, and through the matted trees I saw-though she beheld me not-that her cheek blushed as she spoke ; Go,and win from others the wonder that you have won from me. Go, pour forth your knowledge to the crowd; go, gain the glory of fame-the glory which makes man immortal-and then come back, and claim me,I will be yours!"

"Swear it!" cried I.

"I swear!" she said; and as she spoke the moonlight streamed upon her face, flushed as it was with the ardour of the moment and the strangeness of the scene ; her eye burnt with a steady and deep fire-her lip was firm-and her figure, round which the light fell like the glory of a halo, seemed instinct and swelling, as it were, with the determinate energy of the soul. I gazed-and my heart leapt within me ;-I answered not-but I stole silently away for months she heard of me no more.

I fled to a lonely and far spot,-I surrounded myself