CHRISTOPHER IN HIS SPORTING JACKET 



anatomy — for his weight is not more than three 

 pounds — could drive his claws through that shaggy 

 hide till blood sprung to the blow — inextricable but 

 to yells of pain, and leaving gashes hard to heal, for 

 virulent is the poison of rage in a dying bird of prey. 

 Sublime solitude of our boyhood ! where each stone 

 in the desert was sublime, unassociated though it 

 was with dreams of memory, in its own simple native 

 power over the human heart! Each sudden breath of 

 wind passed by us like the voice of a spirit. There 

 were strange meanings in the clouds — often so like 

 human forms and faces threatening us off, or beckon- 

 ing us on, with long black arms, back into the long- 

 withdrawing wilderness of heaven. We wished then, 

 with quaking bosoms, that we had not been all alone 

 in the desert — that there had been another heart, 

 whose beatings might have kept time with our own, 

 that we might have gathered courage in the silent 

 and sullen gloom from the light in a brother's eye 

 — the smile on a brother's countenance. And often 

 had we such a Friend in these our far-off wanderings 

 over moors and mountains, by the edge of lochs, and 

 through the umbrage of the old pine-woods. A Friend 

 from whom "we had received his heart, and given 

 him back our own,"" — such a friendship as the most 

 fortunate and the most happy — and at that time we 

 were both — are sometimes permitted by Providence, 



[ ii-t ] 



