Silent, meditative, and filled with earnest longing, he rose and directed his steps toward the city. It lay before him, a dark mass of houses, save where some sky-light glancing with the reflection of the moonshine, or the distant lamps shining at intervals, broke the shadows which overhung it. The dingy orange lamp-lights shone on the bridge, casting their long, quivering reflection in the scarcely moving waters, contrasting with the pale, watery gleam of the silver stars, which flickered there also. The mooulight seemed to hang over the city like a veil, purifying and sanctifying it. And under that calm, holy light, Antonio knew that death was passing and vice, and the filth of a moral corruption lay reeking. But he knew also that kind, childlike hearts were beating, and innocent heads lay in quiet sleep upon their pillows. It was late when he found himself again in the heart of the city. He walked along through the streets, which were already thinned of passengers. The moonlight lay in the squares in masses. The shop-lights were one after another extinguished. The candles gleamed from the upper windows, and moving shadows crossed the curtains. He imagined the thousand different hearts which were beating in that great vortex of life, and the various passions that stirred within them, -Love, Fear, Joy, Rage. He thought even now may that deed be doing, which nothing but tears of blood shall wash away. He leaned against a lamp-post and watched the grotesque shadows of the passers-by, as they moved over the pavement, diminishing and then lengthening, while he listened to the ring of the iron heels, now loud, now lost as the walker turned round some abrupt corner. The watchmen in their great coats passed and looked suspiciously at him, as he gazed earnestly at the stars in the fathomless blue sky, or the broad patches of moonlight falling between the open vistas of buildings upon the almost deserted streets, or at the golden vanes which glittered aloft on the towers and spires. He sighed as he saw two figures pass him, and caught the gleam of love upon their faces, and heard a few indistinct words. His soul was touched, and he remembered the smiles of one which had shone on him when life was younger and happier; but his thoughts were soon turned by a party of revellers, who reeled home, shouting at intervals the fag end of an old catch. As he moved on, unconscious of the direction that he took, he passed away from the square and entered the meaner and narrower part of the city. At length, as, from weariness, he stopped before a low, small house, he saw a line of light gleaming through the chink of the closed shutters; and as he pressed his flushed cheek against the cold, damp brick

wall, he heard the confused murmur of voices within. Sometimes it sounded like the mingling of many in confused conversation; sometimes like a strain of music, and sometimes like a party of dancers. He thought how different was the world within and without that wall. A cold despair creeping over him, was numbing all his faculties, he doubted whether life were worth the having; but in the room love and joy were scenting the atmosphere and warming the heart, perhaps quiet, satisfied indifference and ignorance of the gnawing pangs of poverty, and of that stronger, fiercer want, the hunger of the mind. Ah, how little do we know of the life that is stirring in the next street, in the next room, in the next heart. All that we see we fill with our own life; and in these poor creatures of humanity around us, for whom our hearts beat in sympathy, we see but broken and distorted images of ourselves.

Oppressed with his own thoughts, Antonio went on; and as he passed by a small pothouse, he heard within the sound of laughter, and the utter contradiction which it gave to his own feelings attracted him. By some sudden impulse, he was determined to go in. That which is utterly adverse and opposite to our state of mind has always a charin for us; as the two opposite poles of the magnet attract each other. Antonio found a party of five or six seated in one corner of the room, and busily engaged in a warm debate; while in the other corner sat an old man, apparently intent in watching the course of the conversation, and studying with a curious smile the varying expression of the different faces. He was quietly smoking a cigar, whose whitish grey wreaths, circling and winding up in the dim, half-lighted atmosphere, clung round his head like a halo, and lent a spectral appearance to his whole figure. There was something mild and dignified in his bearing, and his eyes shone from beneath a heavy, projecting forehead, thickly covered with a dark eye-brow. His white hair curled softly down over his neck, like wreaths of falling smoke. Antonio sat down and looked upon the floor, and endeavored to confine his attention to the speakers; always when he looked up, however, he found the eyes of the old man fixed on him. He soon began to forget where he was, and sighed deeply. In the midst of his reverie he felt a hand upon his shoulder, and looking up, saw that it was the old man.

"Come with me," said he; "you are not well here. Let us go. out into the open air, the atmosphere is close and smoky here, and you are pale and unhappy. We shall find ourselves better somewhere else."

"I do not care where I go. One place is as good as another."

Antonio assented, and the two proceeded in silence until they arrived before the house where he had leaned and thought he heard voices. The old man then took a key from his pocket, and opened the door.

"Give me your hand," said he, "and I will guide you."

Antonio reached his hand to him, and they entered. The door closed heavily behind them with a jar, and all was pitch dark. Following his guide, however, the Student ascended a long, winding stair-case, until a door was opened into a small room, where a small taper threw a faint, uncertain light around. There was nothing peculiar about the room, saving that there were implements of mechanics, and several dusty curiosities kept apparently for their antiquíty, a pile of folios in the corner, and a large, round shield hanging over the mantle. The old man pushed an arm-chair to the Student, and taking another sat down opposite to him. The long, flickering shadows danced grotesquely up and down the ceiling, as the tongues of flame from a few embers on the hearth shot fitfully up the chimney and then died away.

"I wanted to speak with you," began the old man, "for you have affected me with a strange feeling of interest. I have been drawn to you by some invisible attraction, which need not be explained. We can never tell why we love; it is an incomprehensible tendency of one soul to another, which, though inexplicable, cannot be contended against. It is like the feeling that the ocean must have, when it finds itself gently raised by the inward moving tide and borne irresistibly onward. Suffice it to say, I have loved you, and watched you, while you were unaware of my presence. I have seen you working on, with noble firmness, day and night, with your cheek paling, and cherishing hope even in circumstances which might well seem hopeless. I know your privations and disappointments, and those longings and yearnings which have swelled your heart almost to bursting. I have determined to assist you."

Antonio lifted his eyes with a hopeless astonishment and looked at the old man steadily a moment, then relapsed into his former position, and attentively gazed into the fire.

"You are exhausted," said the old man, and rising he took from a cupboard a flask

and a long, bell-shaped glass, into which he poured a purple clear liquor. "Take this glass; it will make your head clearer and your heart lighter."

Antonio hesitated a moment, and then took up the glass and drained it.

"The liquor," said he, as he returned the glass, "is good; it has sent a warm glow into my veins. But my malady lies deeper than it can reach; and if it were poison, it might reach it better. I fear not death; indeed it would be most welcome. Life is a long and painful disease, at best, and the sooner it is cured the better. I have known want and sorrowing long enough, and have out-challenged fear, so that nothing can place me in a worse condition or darken my life. Music alone is the strip of sunlight which marks the passage of day without my prison. I know by it that there is beyond my dungeon a day where all is bright and clear. But here I pine and fret with endless longing. There is no pang worse than to have high aspirations, and never to be able to express them;-to feel something working at the heart, of which we cannot disburthen ourselves, and which the hand and tongue cannot utter. I sometimes wish God had made me an idiot, that I might stand idle in the sunshine and be happy. But now I have nursed within my heart the hope of fame; burning thoughts have shone round me at night, until, if they cannot be spoken, I must die! I have wept, night after night, scalding tears, and bitten my flesh with the longings that haunted me, and tossed restless until morning on my bed. The hunger of the body is nothing to the insatiate hungering of the mind, craving constantly for nourishment, and feeding on the unsubstantial food of its own desires and hopes."

"It is as I knew," said the old man. "Life to you is an unsatisfactory striving, an unaccomplished desire. All that you

see about you goads this intense longing within you, until you must have it, as you say, or die. Your soul has taken voice and calls to you constantly, and urges you on. But then the fiery ordeal of public opinion, through which you must pass ere you can be enrolled among the great, you shrink from. The coarseness of common life jars upon your too susceptible temperament. You would fight a thousand battles, but the sword hurts your hand. Your very thoughts, vibrating on the great sounding-board of society, seem to you imperfect utterances, and fill you with fear. This is not peculiar to you. Young men think their own feelings are nowhere to be found but in their own hearts; but they are mistaken. Your case is the case of many others, who have been haunted by dreams of perfection which overshadowed their works, until their body

seem

has sunk under their overwrought sensibility. The world knows them not; they have lived in lonely garrets and in the byeways and corners, unsympathized with, retiring and shrinking from the concourse of men, - always unhappy from their excess of temperament, and as unfit to do anything for themselves, or to forward their interest in life, as is a razor to cut stones; ing like delicate instruments, which the softest breath sets in motion, but from which the common winds of rough life bring but discord, and which are soon shattered; and this because they wanted faith and energy. What you want, with all your genius, is healthiness and strength; and this will come with age and experience. You must strive for it."

He ceased, and for a while neither spoke, and both sat gazing in the fire, lost in deep thought. At last the old man broke the silence.

"If you could have your wish, what would you ask?" said he.

-

Antonio's eyes sparkled like autumn stars, as he looked round cagerly into his companion's face. "Ask?" said he. "Oh, for language, expression-only to speak out the whole of this mass of feeling, which lies upon my heart! I am like a thundercloud stored with lightning, and which asked to spend itself in rain upon the thirsting earth. That power is in me, you may doubt, I do not. The golden lines of poetry, the fine coloring of eloquence, the calm, godlike marbles of art, thrill me through; I seem to feel a whole net-work about me; my sense faints, — the blood suddenly stops in my veins, and then rushes tingingly even to my extremities; my soul is jarred like a too full cup, and overruns the brim. But I can never produce any work which is like these, though I feel them so intensely, and they seem like transcripts of my own personal existence. When I hear the divine symphonies of Beethoven coming over me like the infinite sea, and bearing me before the rushings of their terrific harmonies, or drifting me with the calm, benign flow of their steadier tides; when I ride to heaven on some melody, I am taken out of myself, all is for a time Elysian. But then I return, and the power of production seizes me; I think I can give expression to that which lies within me. I have the same feelings; why should I not? Then I sit down in a glow to write; and, lo, I can get at nothing, all is vague, indistinct, and I cannot grasp it firmly. Í am drawn down from the spiritual to the mechanical. My thoughts roll from my grasp like mere air-figures. Close on my heart something lies, but I cannot utter it; it slips through my fingers, it evades me continually. And this constant disappoint

ment fills me with despair, and nothing eases me but weeping. What I have done is nothing."

As he finished speaking, the shield on the mantle rung with the last echo of his voice. He buried his face in his hands, and was silent.

"You are young," said the old man, after a pause. "Over the youth of all men of genius the same feeling has hung. They have seen the shadow of themselves, as the traveller in the Brocken sees his tall,gigantic image climb the opposite cliffs. It is not till after repeated efforts and repeated failures that the hand becomes married to the thought, and a full expression gained; — no, Art in itself must be compre

even never.

hended by the soul, and therefore cannot comprehend it; and no product can ever be as great as the producing power. Talent, which is the power of exercising harmoniously our faculties, must be cultivated; and if genius is not susceptible of improvement in itself, its means certainly are. No man, be he ever so great, can do perfectly at first. The first product that we see may have high merit; but the whole preceding life is thrown into it; it is not the moment's birth, but the result of a thousand hopings and strivings, inward and outward attempts, and the last step taken after the growth of years. The strong mind, when haunted by an idea, struggles incessantly until it is expressed. Our ideas will not suffer us to rest; they are like the trophies of Miltiades. But there is no such thing as a perfect expression of one's thought in art; that which we produce, bears no comparison with that which burns. in the soul; the thought dwarfs the thing; what we do, can never stand abreast of what we are; and the moment any work is accomplished, the soul is beyond it, and looks back upon it, and is spreading its wings for a further flight. That which is poetry in the poems we read, is that which is not expressed. They are beacons and guides pointing to somewhat far beyond. At best they never tell all; they are but the key to poetry. One fine thought sets all thought in motion. The sonatas of Beethoven did not express the fulness of his mighty soul. They are strugglings and writhings after somewhat which he cannot speak. And this is the peculiar meaning of his music. Think you not that he ever laid down his pen almost despairing, and then, nerved and strengthened again, grappled with the misty thought? Our poetry and art are but stammerings and stutterings out of the infinite which lies within. More than this is forbidden to the organization of man's mind. You know not what it would cost to gain this power."

"I care not," said Antonio; "I would lay down life for it. The great soul of music

crowds nature full, and can never wear away, and leave wood and wire tuneless. Great forests groan with music, oceans surge in harmony; all calls on me, and nature seems ever waiting for some one who can interpret her, and give utterance to that which she cannot speak. Nor in external nature alone does music call on me. In my own soul I hear her, for love is perfect harmony, hate, discord; and the range of passion between them is the musical interchangings and modulations, where contradictory powers strive for mastery. Thy soul and mine, ere we love, must be as two strings which vibrate harmoniously; for nature has provided that what we rhyme with we shall love. So am I beset by imploring nature; and I place nothing in comparison with the power of expressing what I am."

"You are foolish," answered his companion. "The mind is bounded by the senses to a certain extent. To look at the sun blinds us; too exuberant passion destroys the judgment. Things, therefore, appear to our filmy eyes indistinct and fragmentary; a veil hangs ever before us, and through it falls that modified light, which alone does not blast us, but clothes everything in a coloring of hope and faith.. Beauty is a subtle essence, permeating all things, and lies like an invisible golden dust around our poetry, painting, music, and sculpture. Would you ask for that insight now, knowing its consequences?"

"Yes, if with it comes the power of language. Oh! to throw down this weight for once would relieve me forever."

"Come with me, then," said the old

man.

Antonio, astonished, lifted his eyes, and his companion, taking his hand, led him to one side of the apartment. Here he opened two doors, which shut closely together, and in a large niche Antonio saw an organ with a mirror before the keys, facing the player and occupying the place of the music rack. "Sit down and play," said the old man. Antonio seated himself, and stretched his hands out over the keys. A thousand misgivings assailed him, as he held them suspended over the chords. But his brain was excited, and he could not restrain the impulse within him when he thought of the world which lay almost within the span of his two hands. His hands descended upon the key-board. Instantly a wild, deep, melodious sound filled his ears. The room was illuminated with lambent, clear light. Long, white ivory panels gleamed in the doors. The curtains swayed to and fro in purple and changing color, and the small, mean apartment became a vast and splendid hall, roofed with a dome like the sky, through which the full toned chords rolled like surges

of harmony over the air, and came sweeping and crowding back, broken into a glittering spray of music, and foaming with vehement longing. The organ-pipes spoke with the voice of a god; ear-piercing and soul-thrilling tones issued forth like threads of evening light,-seeming like souls of imprisoned melodies that, the moment they were freed by the master's hand, got wing to an eternal heaven. Antonio's heart expanded suddenly, and his eyes were steadily fixed upon the mirror before him, which seemed like the shield he had seen on the mantle. The tones lifted him up with invisible force out of the discord of life, and floated his whole being. His fingers no more refused to obey his thought, but by some magical power they went self-moved over the keys. Deeper, fuller and clearer grew the harmony, while he saw in the mirror his whole life spread out before him like a dreamed landscape. The feeling of the beautiful days of youth enveloped him like a soft and sunny haze. The tones of love fell through the air like woven music; birds sang at heaven's gate, and a stream of pure joy gushed out over his heart. It was as if a kind spring had come down and settled over him. His soul lay in the arms of beauty, softly and gently, as the moon in the dewy night atmosphere. Thus in the mirror he saw his life reflected and lying clear before him. His heart, overwhelmed and loosened, gave way to the elysian dream; and as his inward being changed, so changed the picture. Sometimes over the harmony, the melody went soaring and soaring in endless gyrations; and now circled gently upward like the involutions of ascending smoke; now the whole mass of sound drifted like a huge cloud at noon; now it was shivered into a thousand clear, glittering points, like the spear-heads of a splendid army in the sunshine; and now went rising and falling in sweeping undulations, like the lazy swell of the summer

ocean.

Antonio felt nothing but the inner life outpouring and shaping itself as all barriers gave way. It was the early morning landscape of youth that first met his eye, the moist, warm, serene morning. The exhalations of hope went up like the incense fragrance from the censers of the flowers. One mild, open, diffusive joy overspread all. The hours went by vivid and radiant with delight. Then came the mild repose of noon, complete and unshadowed as the fullness of thought. The flowers closed their faint chalices, and the golden sunshine lay in broad sheets upon the breathless earth. Mellower and softer it grew, until the edge of evening, when thought deepened and enlarged, as the day dipped into eternity. The streams grew flushed and tinged with roseate light. The clouds were