THE CASTLE-BUILI>ER. 



625 



tain ? Oh ! such a moment is a part of paradise ! Her eyes are 

 gazing on me with irresistible love ! Our hearts are one, and so shall 



our existence be. Oh,, precious joy ! unbound Curse the thing ! 



I have arrived at the end of my sheet. 



No matter : without much difficulty,, and at a very moderate ex- 

 pense, I can rebuild my intangible tenement anew ; for, with respect 

 to these same fabrics of the fancy, the possession of them is by no 

 means so annoying in its accompaniments as is the proprietorship of 

 your real stone and mortar. 



" A breath can make them as a breath has made;" 



and, though temporarily annihilated, they spring up again in all the 

 vigour of undoubted youth, uninjured, unimpaired. Time affects 

 them not ; their towery turrets rise unobscured amid a cloud of 

 years. " The same is as the first ;' and in the sunshine of creative 

 thought a million living creatures play about their portals. 



To turn from the thing to the person, the Castle-builder, or aerial 

 architect, is a person as supremely blest as eminently exalted. He 

 lives a life of sweet and agreeable luxury, or, as he pleases, of stirring 

 and inciting grandeur. Excluded from no place, he walks at will 

 through every degree of high, noble, and distinguished life. He 

 feasts with kings, and plays at whist with emperors ; sips souchong 

 with the first cousin of the stars ; wanders unmolested in the seraglio 

 of the sultan ; or, if so disposed, blows a cloud with the great mogul. 

 Nothing can surpass his power, or measure his magnificence. He is 

 bound to no place, but is a sort of sendentary traveller; and, 



" At once as far as angels ken he views." 



He conquers with the valiant, pardons with the generous, discourses 

 with the wise, and struggles with the strong. He is eloquent with the 

 orator, impassioned with the actor, natural with the artist, imaginative 

 with the poet, sublime with the composer, or profound with the phi- 

 losopher. Such is a Castle-builder, and such am I. 



Oh ! what a life has been mine. In my very school-days I was a 

 man, and did mighty things. My soul used to walk about in Wel- 

 lington boots, and a long-tailed coat, long long before my body was 

 emancipated from the degrading insignificance of a button-up suit, 

 and brown pinafores. The usher, with his full-pleated inexpressi- 

 bles, and stamping soles, used to stir my soul into a blaze of am- 

 bition ; and often, when all the rest of the boys have been playing, 

 have I sat myself quietly down, and in dreamy delight arrayed 

 myself in noble pantaloons, raised myself some two feet higher, and 

 sallied forth with all " the pomp and circumstance" of manhood. 

 There was a little girl, who used to sit in the next pew to us at 

 church j I was then about twelve, and very much attached to her. 

 It is a fact : her name, I remember well, was Eliza Frost, but little 

 resemblable was her name and her nature, for she was as gentle as a 

 kid, and as warm as summer. Well, without more ado Oh ! the de- 

 licious walks I took with her, through woods, and by " the bubbling 

 brook," on the banks of the rushing river, and through twilight 

 shades, " unperceivable by any star 1" Well but I must really 

 keep from wandering in this fashion without more ado, as I said 



