them, and they bloomed for me. I culled the most beautiful. I looked at them on every side. I kissed them, I pressed them to my bosom with passionate emotions, such as I have never dared express to any human being. An ambition swelled my heart to be as beautiful, as perfect as they. I have not kept my vow. Yet, forgive, ye wild asters, which gleam so sadly amid the fading grass; forgive me, ye golden autumn flowers, which so strive to reflect the glories of the departing distant sun; and ye silvery flowers, whose moonlight eyes I knew so well, forgive! Living and blooming in your unchecked law, ye know nothing of the blights, the distortions, which beset the human being; and which at such hours it would seem that no glories of free agency could ever repay!
‘There was, in the house, no apartment appropriated
to the purpose of a library, but there was in my father’s
room a large closet filled with books, and to these I had
free access when the task-work of the day was done.
Its window overlooked wide fields, gentle slopes, a rich
and smiling country, whose aspect pleased without
much occupying the eye, while a range of blue hills,
rising at about twelve miles distance, allured to reverie.
“Distant mountains,” says Tieck, “excite the fancy, for
beyond them we place the scene of our Paradise.”
Thus, in the poems of fairy adventure, we climb the
rocky barrier, pass fearless its dragon caves, and dark
pine forests, and find the scene of enchantment in the
vale behind. My hopes were never so definite, but my
eye was constantly allured to that distant blue range,
and I would sit, lost in fancies, till tears fell on my
cheek. I loved this sadness; but only in later years,
