promontory of soul, and look off into the deeps of eternity behind, into the deeps of eternity beyond. Pause not to gaze at speculative meteoric dream, or fathom some metaphysical mist, lest a great, full-orbed truth pass the disc of the soul, unnoticed, unmarked, forever. See thoughts twinkle out from the misty via lactea of ages, and uncounted nebulæ of dim fancies flit in the dim ideal beyond. As we gaze through the stained windows of our curtained souls into the depths of these trooping thoughts, who shall find their true parallax? Who measure the soul's proud perihelion to uncreated light? Who conjecture its farthest aphelion, its immense sweep through distant ages? Look for a clock in the soul's cathedral tower that marks with hieroglyphic hand where truth begins, how far progresses, and where ends. Alas! the hands of the clock will point to the hour of midnight; it has not yet struck one truth sure, clear and loud, and the soul mournfully weeps in sympathy with the "throbbing stars," that it is so long, that like light from distant stars, truth's radiant rays are years coming to our visible horizon. Climb on tiptoe as we will, and peer through eternity's keyhole, we shall only approach, but never touch, the full-orbed truth. Could artist find mountain-peak tall enough for studio close to the star-lit skylight above and there alone, ' He patient kneels to art, and bathes in beauty's fount, there achieve this chef d'œuvre, the study of the heart from life, he might victoriously die, his name written in starlight above Michael Angelo, Correggio, Raphael or Murillo, his eagle fame nestling forever among the golden clouds of art's highest eyrie. CHAPTER XXXIX. ASTROGNOSIA. "Like the swell of some sweet tune, May glides onward into June." NEPENTHE STUART is quite busy a few weeks before the wedding-not in trying on elegant silks, heavy satins and embroidered muslins, laces and flounces, but her manuscript is really being published at last. Every evening she looks over several pages of her proof. There is a strange excitement in seeing anything of hers in print. She never knew how it would sound until she reads it aloud. She hides it hurriedly away when Frank comes, for she is keeping it a precious secret from him. She adds, changes, crosses out, corrects at night, and in the morning early she reviews and reads again, for by seven it goes to the stereotyper's. This first child of her fancy is very dear to her; it is the creation of her own heart, weeping her own tears, smiling her own smiles, and breathing her own soul-life. As she thinks of it with real affection, and dreads the cutting steel of sharp criticism, she vainly wishes she had never launched such a little, inexperienced bark out on the stormy, capricious Atlantic of public opinion, in whose turbulent depths hide fearful sharks and devouring whales, watching for prey. She thinks dolefully of many a poor little book once carefully launched, and sailing off on the same perilous voyage, silent forever, through some sharp critic's sharpest thrust or heaviest broadside. It may share the fate of many a light novel-craft, gaily trimmed and fully manned, floating down, and lost in the great Gulf Stream of Oblivion. But these reflections are too late now. Such clouds of fearful maybes always darken the sky, when our little hope-crafts sail silently away from our watching sight. "It is too late," thought Nepenthe, "to put pussy back in the bag. There's no tying her up tight now, to smother or drown her." Once plumed her airy wing, if she find no green leaf of sympathy, the dove of fancy can return no more to the sheltering ark of her native heart. The world, with its opera glass always in its hand, is a poor home for a new book; and a freshman author must be fagged and drilled, and held under the pump of criticism, to have cold water poured on his breathing thoughts and burning words, by those wise sophomores who have had their eye-teeth cut long ago by some similar cooling and refreshing process; and thus they pay back the grudges of their novitiate. But if Frank should read the book and like it, she will preserve her spiritual equanimity whatsoever blast the uncertain trumpet of fame may blow in her startled ears. But at last, as she rolls up the sheets of her proof, and sends them away, she forgets for the time her little bookfor the years of her lonely life have rolled away, and new, bright pages are unfolding in her history. It is the eve of her bridal. She reads over and over again in her happy heart, the beautiful dedication of her own life to her artist lover, as it is firmly bound and brightly clasped with his enduring affection. Under the cover of his strong protection, she reads in fancy, in new letters, her new name, in the press of Time, waiting to be stamped with the signet ring and sealing kiss, Nepenthe Carleyn.' The two volumes of their single lives will to-morrow be bound together. Not to be Volume first and Volume second, but ONE pleasant biography, illustrated with such beautiful engravings as love only carves. "God grant," said Nepenthe fervently, "that each daily life-chapter may be begun with some sweet strain of melody and closed with some dewy benediction, that when on the last page of this precious Biography shall be written 6 FINIS,' we may sit down together on the banks of the river of the water of life, and review with pure pleasure the truthful, happy, and elevated pages of our short history-stereotyped in its eternal plates." She stood by the window at nightfall, and looked out on God's great starlit roof, the only roof which had sheltered her when there was no spot in the wide world where she could repose securely at nightfall, sure of a home and shelter for the morrow. Watched ceaselessly by no earthly eyes through all the changes of her tearful childhood and lonely maidenhood, she had ever been like a waif-sometimes at rest, then drifting out alone on life's stormy tide. She looked out with brimming eyes upon the ever watchful, constant stars, which shone long ago in the old windows at home-those dear, faithful watchers were watching still. The only influences which had followed her through life were the "sweet influences of the Pleiades." The only bands which had linked her fragmentary life together, were" the golden bands of Orion," the never failing light on her hidden path, the gentle light of stars. Her faith had looked up more than those who have earthly loves and guides clinging ever around them. On this eve of her bridal, the whole sky seemed giving a grand joyful illumination, chanting one radiant bridal march on its reachless range. Where every jewelled planet sings Its clear eternal song Over the path our friends have gone." She knew nothing of dactyl or spondee, metre or measure. Without measuring or scanning from the De Profundis of her full heart welled out these lines. There was a mingling of sadness in the strain, for no woman with a soul can launch out on an unknown sea, even with a chosen guide, without a deep strange sadness, almost a fear, to link her life and trust freely and forever with another's. ASTROGNOSIA. Strange, quiet, patient stars, ye've looked down on life's ill, On in your calling bright, your mark is ever high, Nothing shall cross your tramp, ye sentry of the sky; Found ye in arsenal divine, in ages long agone, Your evening chant, your nightly beat, your burnished armor worn? Your lanterns o'er the restless waves of stormy life, When trouble's icebergs, cold and grand, Before dismantled spirits stand Ye Pharoi of the fatherland, Light safe along grim peril's strand. Most blinded by the mist of fears, exiled on isle of time, Within its curtained chamber my soul lies folded round; Steals through the misty twilight some watching, radiant star; The spirit sheds its grave clothes and walks again in life, Come forth, each shrouded spirit! all wrapped in mournful gloom, Along the roof of nature, above old science's floor, Our loftiest hopes like giants walk, as through enchanted door, |