he cradle, and a soul to nurture for the
heaven,--what to me must be the rapture to welcome an inheritor of all
the gifts which double themselves in being shared! How sweet the power
to watch, and to guard,--to instil the knowledge, to avert the evil,
and to guide back the river of life in a richer and broader and deeper
stream to the paradise from which it flows! And beside that river our
souls shall meet, sweet mother. Our child shall supply the sympathy that
fails as yet; and what shape shall haunt thee, what terror shall dismay,
when thy initiation is beside the cradle of thy child!

CHAPTER 4.XI.

They thus beguile the way
Untill the blustring storme is overblowne,
When weening to returne whence they did stray,
They cannot finde that path which first was showne,
But wander to and fro in waies unknowne.
--Spenser's "Faerie Queene," book i. canto i. st. x.

Yes, Viola, thou art another being than when, by the threshold of thy
Italian home, thou didst follow thy dim fancies through the Land of
Shadow; or when thou didst vainly seek to give voice to an ideal beauty,
on the boards where illusion counterfeits earth and heaven for an
hour, till the weary sense, awaking, sees but the tinsel and the
scene-shifter. Thy spirit reposes in its own happiness. Its wanderings
have found a goal. In a moment there often dwells the sense of eternity;
for when profoundly happy, we know that it is impossible to die.
Whenever the soul FEELS ITSELF, it feels everlasting life.

The initiation is deferred,--thy days and nights are left to no other
visions than those with which a contented heart enchants a guileless
fancy. Glendoveers and Sylphs, pardon me if I question whether those
visions are not lovelier than yourselves.

They stand by the beach, and see the sun sinking into the sea. How long
now have they dwelt on that island? What matters!--it may be months, or
years--what matters! Why should I, or they, keep account of that happy
time? As in the dream of a moment ages may seem to pass, so shall we
measure transport or woe,--by the length of the dream, or the number of
emotions that the dream involves?

The sun sinks slowly down; the air is arid and oppressive; on the sea,
the stately vessel lies motionless; on the shore, no leaf trembles on
the trees.

Viola drew nearer to Zanoni. A presentiment she could not define made
her heart beat more quickly; and, looking into his face, she was struck