dark, but upon close inspection the innumerable strokes of various hues of infinite fineness and endless variety, drawn in concentric circles behind the pellucid crystal, filled the mind with wonder and admiration, and could only be the work of infinite power directed by infinite wisdom."
Alexy's union with Aür-Ahebeh the Circassian slave
is marked by circumstances of deep pathos, and the
sweetest tenderness of sentiment. The description of
his misery and madness at her death deserves to be
remarked as affording evidence of an imagination vast,
profound and full of energy.
"Alexy, who gained the friendship, perhaps the love of the
native Rosalie: the handsome Haimatoff, the philosophic
Haimatoff, the haughty Haimatoff, Haimatoff the gay, the
witty, the accomplished, the bold hunter, the friend of liberty,
the chivalric lover of all that is feminine, the hero, the enthusiast:
see him now, that is he, mark him! he appears in the
shades of evening, he stalks as a spectre, he has just risen from
the damps of the charnel-house; see, the dews still hang on his
forehead. He will vanish at cock-crowing, he never heard the
song of the lark, nor the busy hum of men; the sun's rays
never warmed him, the pale moonbeam alone shows his unearthly
figure, which is fanned by the wing of the owl, which
scarce obstructs the slow flight of the droning beetle, or of the
drowsy bat. Mark him! he stops, his lean arms are crossed on
his bosom; he is bowed to the earth, his sunken eye gazes from
its deep cavity on vacuity, as the toad skulking in the corner of
a sepulchre, peeps with malignity through the circumambient
gloom. His cheek is hollow; the glowing tints of his complexion,
which once resembled the autumnal sunbeam on the
autumnal beech, are gone, the cadaverous yellow, the livid hue,
have usurped their place, the sable honours of his head have
perished, they once waved in the wind like the jetty pinions of
the raven, the skull is only covered by the shrivelled skin,
which the rook views wistfully, and calls to her young ones.
His gaunt bones start from his wrinkled garments, his voice is
deep, hollow, sepulchral; it is the voice which wakes the dead,
he has long held converse with the departed. He attempts to
walk he knows not whither, his legs totter under him, he falls,
the boys hoot him, the dogs bark at him, he hears them not, he
sees them not.—Rest there, Alexy, it beseemeth thee, thy bed
is the grave, thy bride is the worm, yet once thou stoodest
