hat whispers of the bloom of spring.

And over your brilliant career as man of the world, however lit up by a
morbid vanity, or galvanized by a lascivious passion, there will come at
times the consciousness of a better heart, struggling beneath your
cankered action,--like the low Vesuvian fire, reeking vainly under rough
beds of tufa and scoriated lava. And as you smile in _loge_ or _salon_,
with daring smiles, or press with villain fondness the hand of those
lady-votaries of the same god you serve, there will gleam upon you over
the waste of rolling years a memory that quickens again the nobler and
bolder instincts of the heart.

Childish recollections, with their purity and earnestness,--a sister's
love,--a mother's solicitude, will flood your soul once more with a
gushing sensibility that yearns for enjoyment. And the consciousness of
some lingering nobility of affection, that can only grow great in mating
itself with nobility of heart, will sweep off your puny triumphs, your
Platonic friendships, your dashing coquetries, like the foul smoke of a
city before a fresh breeze of the country autumn.

III.

_Manly Hope._

You are at home again; not your own home,--that is gone,--but at the
home of Nelly and of Frank. The city heats of summer drive you to the
country. You ramble, with a little kindling of old desires and memories,
over the hill-sides that once bounded your boyish vision. Here you
netted the wild rabbits, as they came out at dusk to feed; there, upon
that tall chestnut, you cruelly maimed your first captive squirrel. The
old maples are even now scarred with the rude cuts you gave them in
sappy March.

You sit down upon some height overlooking the valley where you were
born; you trace the faint, silvery line of river; you detect by the
leaning elm your old bathing-place upon the Saturdays of Summer. Your
eye dwells upon some patches of pasture-wood which were famous for their
nuts. Your rambling and saddened vision roams over the houses; it traces
the familiar chimney-stacks; it searches out the low-lying cottages; it
dwells upon the gray roof sleeping yonder under the sycamores.

Tears swell in your eye as you gaze; you cannot tell whence or why they
come. Yet they are tears eloquent of feeling. They speak of
brother-children,--of boyish glee,--of the flush of young health,--of a
mother's devotion,--of the home affections,--of the vanities of
life,--of the wasting years,--of the Death that m