CHRISTOPHER IN HIS SPORTING JACKET 



tion rocks of the citadel, to the high dew-dropping 

 vault of heaven, too, too dazzlingly illumined by the 

 lamp of the insufferable sun ! There reason triumphed 

 — those were the works of glorified humanity. But 

 thou — a creature of mere instinct — according to Des- 

 cartes, a machine, an automaton — hadst yet a con- 

 stant light of thought and of affection in thine eyes — 

 nor wert thou without some glimmering and mysteri- 

 ous notions — and what more have we ourselves? — of 

 life and of death! Why fear to say that thou wert 

 divinely commissioned and inspired — on that most 

 dismal and shrieking hour, when little Harry Sey- 

 mour, that bright English boy, "whom all that 

 looked on loved," entangled among the cruel chains 

 of those fair water-lilies, all so innocently yet so mur- 

 derously floating round him, was, by all standing or 

 running about there with clenched hands, or kneel- 

 ing on the sod — given up to inextricable death? We 

 were not present to save the dear boy, who had been 

 delivered to our care as to that of an elder brother, 

 by the noble lady who, in her deep widow's weeds, 

 kissed her sole darling's sunny head, and disappeared. 

 We were not present — or by all that is holiest in 

 heaven or on earth — our arms had been soon around 

 thy neck, when thou wert seemingly about to perish! 



But a poor dumb despised dog — nothing, as some 

 say, but animated dust — was there — and without 

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