“So,” thought I, “it is indeed with the son of the greatest ruler England, or perhaps, in modern times, Europe has ever produced, that I have held this conversation upon content! Yes, perhaps your fate is more to be envied than that of your illustrious father; but who _would_ envy it more? Strange that while we pretend that happiness is the object of all desire, happiness is the last thing which we covet. Love and wealth and pleasure and honour,--these are the roads which we take so long that, accustomed to the mere travel, we forget that it was first undertaken not for the course but the goal; and in the common infatuation which pervades all our race, we make the toil the meed, and in following the means forsake the end.”
I never saw my host again; very shortly afterwards he died:* I and Fate, which had marked with so strong a separation the lives of the father and the son, united in that death--as its greatest, so its only universal blessing--the philosopher and the recluse with the warrior and the chief!
IN WHICH THE HERO SHOWS DECISION ON MORE POINTS THAN ONE.--MORE OF ISORA’S CHARACTER IS DEVELOPED.
To use the fine image in the “Arcadia,” it was “when the sun, like a noble heart, began to show his greatest countenance in his lowest estate,” that I arrived at Isora’s door. I had written to her once, to announce my uncle’s death and the day of my return: but I had not mentioned in my letter my reverse of fortunes; I reserved that communication till it could be softened by our meeting. I saw by the countenance of the servant who admitted me that all was well: so I asked no question; I flew up the stairs; I broke into Isora’s chamber, and in an instant she was in my arms. Ah, Love, Love! wherefore art thou so transitory a pilgrim on the earth,--an evening cloud which hovers on our horizon, drinking the hues of the sun, that grows ominously brighter as it verges to the shadow and the night, and which, the moment that sun is set, wanders on in darkness or descends in tears?
“And now, my bird of Paradise,” said I, as we sat alone in the apartment I had fitted up as the banqueting-room, and on which, though small in its proportions, I had lavished all the love of luxury and of show which made one of my most prevailing weaknesses, “and now how has time passed with you since we parted?”