dreadful I
won't feel it. There's but one thought--one thought in my mind, and that
I wouldn't part with for the wealth of the universe."

Both then proceeded at a quick puce until they reached the corner
of Bodagh's garden, where, with brief but earnest reassurances of
unalterable attachment, they took a tender and affectionate farewell.

It is not often that the higher ranks can appreciate the moral beauty of
love as it is experienced by those humbler classes to whom they deny
the power of feeling in its most refined and exalted character. For our
parts we differ so much from them in this, that, if we wanted to give an
illustration of that passion in its purest and most delicate state, we
would not seek for it in the saloon or the drawing--room, but among the
green fields and the smiling landscapes of rural life. The simplicity
of humble hearts is more accordant with the unity of affection than any
mind can be that is distracted by the competition of rival claims upon
its gratification. We do not say that the votaries of rank and fashion
are insensible to love; because, how much soever they may be conversant
with the artificial and unreal, still they are human, and must, to a
certain extent, be influenced by a principle that acts wherever it can
find a heart on which to operate. We say, however, that their love, when
contrasted with that which is felt by the humble peasantry, is languid
and sickly; neither so pure, nor so simple, nor so intense. Its
associations in high life are unfavorable to the growth of a healthy
passion; for what is the glare of a lamp, a twirl through the insipid
maze of the ball-room, or the unnatural distortions of the theatre,
when compared to the rising of the summer sun, the singing of birds,
the music of the streams, the joyous aspect of the varied landscape, the
mountain, the valley, the lake, and a thousand other objects, each of
which transmits to the peasant's heart silently and imperceptibly that
subtle power which at once strengthens and purifies the passion?
There is scarcely such a thing as solitude in the upper ranks, nor an
opportunity of keeping the feelings unwasted, and the energies of
the heart unspent by the many vanities and petty pleasures with which
fashion forces a compliance, until the mind falls from its natural
dignity, into a habit of coldness and aversion to everything but the
circle of empty trifles in which it moves so giddily. But the enamored
youth who can reti