BATHOS. 38 



When my vision was enabled to comprehend the entire fascina- 

 tions of the angelic form, I was seized with a kind of ethereal intoxi- 

 cation invigorated with one intense gush of passion : an indivisible 

 sensation of unadulterated love! We met! and I was rivetted to 

 the spot stark as a corpse immutable as the duke of York's 

 column. At length, completely overcome, I sank exhausted into a 

 seat beside me. 



~ fr Alarmed by my extreme agitation, the figure stopped also turned 

 upon me a look in which pity struggled with sympathy and actually 

 became my neighbour in the settle ! My feelings at this moment 

 were inconceivable ! and, but for a few vigorous whiffs, I am per- 

 suaded that both my lite and my cigar would have been simultane- 

 ously extinguished ! 



How shall I describe the being who sat beside me? Words 

 pshaw ! The most perfect symbols bodied forth in the superlatively 

 superfine vocabulary. of an excited and fanciful imagination, would 

 be inadequate useless ! 



At first the vivid radiance of THE FORM blinded me to all around ; 

 but I at length gained sufficient strength of vision for a lengthened 

 gaze. Heavens ! THE FORM uttered a sound it spoke ! 



Yes ! ]it turned upon me an enquiring glance ; then raising its 

 super cerulean orbs towards the firmament, in a voice compared 

 with which the music of the spheres is but as the drone of a bag- 

 pipe, it said (powers of pleasure, ministering angels of rapture, 

 record it as I write !) " D'ye think it will rain, Sir ? " 



I took my cigar from my mouth, and, by one other effort of 

 visual determination, actually ascertained that which my hitherto 

 excruciating agitation had prevented rne from knowing : THE FORM 

 was that of a woman ! 



" A lady, the wonder of her kind, 

 Whose form was upborne by a lovely mind, 

 Which, dilating, had moulded her mien and motion, 

 Like a sea-flower unfolded beneath the ocean." 



When all traces of this astonishingly unexpected discovery had 

 left me, I became sufficiently calm to answer the sublime interroga- 

 tory. " Madam," I replied, " I really can't say ; the weather is 

 changeable, and '' " Changeable !" she repeated ; while passion 

 fired her eye with a rapid flash of poetical enthusiasm " this 

 world is nought but change man, woman, beasts, birds, insects 

 nay, even flowers are variable ! Behold that plant " she continued, 

 pointing to a deadly-lively butter-cup before us " yesterday 'twas 

 fresh and blooming now drooping withered. So with the human 

 heart. To-day light, gay, exulting ; to-morrow care-worn, can- 

 kered, blasted ! *' Man is born to trouble," says Byron, "as sparks 

 fly upward." 



Instinctively I knocked the ashes from my cigar, by way of illus- 

 tration. 



" Aye, Sir, and woman too," resumed the indefatigable angel 

 then, with a sigh that cracked my very heart-strings, she said, 



