wave, until the spur of one of those rugged
Triestine hills, jutting into the sea, has been made the seat of ease
and luxury; but the visitor is aware of the magic as soon as he passes
the gate of the palace grounds. These are in great part perpendicular,
and are overclambered with airy stairways climbing to pensile arbors.
Where horizontal, they are diversified with mimic seas for swans to sail
upon, and summer-houses for people to lounge in and look at the swans
from. On the point of land farthest from the acclivity stands the castle
of Miramare, half at sea, and half adrift in the clouds above.

"And fain it would stoop downward
To the mirrored wave below;
And fain it would soar upward
In the evening's crimson glow."

I remember that a little yacht lay beside the pier at the castle's foot,
and lazily flapped its sail, while the sea beat inward with as languid a
pulse. That was some years ago, before Mexico was dreamed of at
Miramare. Now, perchance, she who is one of the most unhappy among women
looks down distraught from those high windows, and finds in the helpless
sail and impassive wave the images of her baffled hope, and that
immeasurable sea which gives back its mariners neither to love nor to
sorrow. I think, though she be the wife and daughter of royalty, we may
pity this poor Empress at least as much as we pity the Mexicans to whom
her dreams have brought so many woes.

It was the midnight following the visit to Miramare when the fiacre in
which I had quitted my friend's house was drawn up by its greatly
bewildered driver on the quay near the place where the steamer for
Venice should be lying. There was no steamer for Venice to be seen. The
driver swore a little in the polyglot profanities of his native city,
and, descending from his box, went and questioned different
lights--blue lights, yellow lights, green lights--to be seen at
different points. To a light, they were ignorant, though eloquent, and,
to pass the time, we drove up and down the quay, and stopped at the
landings of all the steamers that touch at Trieste. It was a snug fiacre
enough, but I did not care to spend the night in it, and I urged the
driver to further inquiry. A wanderer whom we met declared that it was
not the night for the Venice steamer; another admitted that it might be;
a third conversed with the driver in low tones, and then leaped upon the
box. We drove rapidly away, and before I had, in view of this myst