INCIDENTS OF REAL LIFE. BY AN OBSERVER OF THE RELATIONS BETWEEN THE MORAL AND THE aspects of external nature never "Twilight, from the East, Just deepening into darkness," its humble spire glows faintly amid the "mustering stars," with the last gleams of expiring day, and all the scene below-buttress and tracery, graves and motionless foliage slumbers in deep, undistinguishable gloom. It is true that all bosoms do not respond alike to these appeals of natural objects. Differently constituted at first by nature, we have other differences thrust upon us by time and circumstance. Not a few, who owe to nature but little of the susceptibility of a refined taste, are disciplined to some perception akin to it by education and custom. When, however, as in the case of those artists by profession, who are not such also by the election of genius, these perceptions are matter of acquirement only, they will generally be found characterised by affectation and extravagance. Of these debasing redundancies of merely acquired taste we have examples in abundance. It is where the faculty is born with the individual, has been perfected by cultivation, and is called into exercise by a genial ambition, that there exists the consummate painter of landscape -an artist, at least, as rarely met with in perfection as the historical or poetical. He is, indeed, a poet, albeit he sings to the eye, not the ear; and, like Gaspar Poussin, Claude, and our own Wilson, uses not "winged winds," but a pencil Dipped, at will, In glory or in gloom." To return, however, to our theme -the sense of a profound correspondence between the lights and shadows of our own mysterious being and those which diversify and cnnoble external nature. It has happened to the writer of the following pages to observe the evidence of this correspondence, to trace the coincidence, on some remarkable occasions, of profound emotion in the human soul with the more transient but striking phenomena of the material world. He has made it the occasional occupation of a mind demanding relief from severer tasks, to collect and arrange the particulars of some of these incidents, to whichhad it been in his power to extend the meaning of the word from the technical sense of artists to a moral application-he would have chosen rather to give simply the name of "EFFECTS," than the more descriptive title which appears at the head of this paper. I. THE IMAGE OF THE NORMAN KNIGHT. "This rain-this wearisome rain! will it never cease? Still, sister, are the hills shrouded by the falling deluge ?" She who spoke was a pale, but young and beautiful invalid, whose couch-contrary to her wont to recline where her eye could command from the window a wide expanse of enchanting scenery-had that day, from apprehension of the damp without, been placed near a fire, although the season was "the glorious month of June." The blooming creature addressed looked round, with an expression in her glowing countenance, in which surprise mingled with sorrow and much love; for the tone of that sweet voice had in it something akin to impatience, and even querulousness, such as she had never before heard from the gentle, and, in general, uncomplaining sufferer. "What, Bertha," it proceeded, "no gleam of sun-light yet in the west?" Ere she could close the sentence the eager eyes of the young girl already glistened in the glance of a sunbeam shot through the separating clouds. "Oh yes! yes! Happy news, since you so anxiously desire the change! The heavy masses of vapour below are fast dispersing. Already I discern the dappled brightness of the upper region of clouds, the 'flock' that basks in perpetual sunshine. Ah! there I catch the blue! And yonder the hills begin to appear, with their many ridges of rich foliage-green, glowing, and rounded,— through the few glittering drops that yet fall, but every moment less, between us and them. Rejoice, dear sister!" she added, turning to embrace her. "You will at least be gladdened by a sight of the sun, and may breathe the fresh pure air at the open window, although I fear too much wet has fallen to allow of your paying the accustomed visit to your favourite retreat to-day." Celestine now reproached herself for her impatient murmurs, and expressed her thanks both in words and by an upward look of her large, lustrous, tearful eyes, in accordance with which a glow of grateful satisfaction overspread her emaciated fea tures. A silent observer of this little scene, to whose anxious mind not a word or look had been lost, now came forward-the mother of the maidens. That morning was the saddest she had spent, since it had been her lot to pass days and nights of "hope deferred" beside the couch of her eldest and best-loved child, destined, as she now too clearly foresaw, to an early grave. During the whole period, the greater part of a year, in which the sands of life had been slowly but visibly running out, perfect peace" and serenity of mind had accompanied the even course of bodily decay. This day it was otherwise. The usual expedients for engaging attention on worthy objects, without incurring fatigue or adding to depression, had all been found unavailing; religious duties, joined in by the sufferer at the moment with more than ordinary fervour, had been followed only by exhaustion and despondency. What had so changed her gentle child? What impending crisis of the dire malady had thrown forward its dark shadow in this day's gloomy discontent? Such were the thoughts which in a thousand agitating shapes coursed one another, with the swiftness of fear-pursued phantoms, through the maternal heart and brain. The family in which occurred our incident of a rainy morning, was that of the Dean of It was one of a class of families met with nowhere but in England, in which the amenities of high society and the refinements of perfect education take a hallowed charm from the simple earnestness of unaffected piety. We do not pretend to assert that the domestic hearth of every English dignitary is brightened by the united glow of these attractions. The schoolfellow of a prime minister may grow up to be a worldly elergyman, and the senior wrangler who plods his way, under a heavy load of mathematic lore, up to the presidency of a chapter, may leave at every step of his rising career unmistakeable traces of a vulgar mind. Moreover, the wives and daughters of deans are not necessarily exempt from such feminine vices as vanity and the love of pleasure, nor their sons from pride and dissipation. But the Dean of and his family, at least, presented an exception to all that the enemies of the class of clergymen of high rank delight to allege against them; a sufficient evidence of which fact to satisfy a physiognomist, or craniologist either, was now presented in the person and demeanour of that dignitary, as, issuing from the study where his morning had been passed, he also joined the group around the invalid's couch. "A boon, dear father!" exclaimed Celestine, with reviving cheerful ness. I "Already willingly granted. can deny you nothing, my poor child; least of all," added the dean (for he too had shared the pain her altered demeanour had that day diffused through the family), "least of all any thing that can tend to restore your usual serenity." "It will, father-it will. But say: I may venture to-day as usual to my favourite seat at the rose-plat beneath the ruins ?" "Knowing your anxiety on this point, I too have been watching the changes of the weather; and I think I may stake the credit for sagacity in this particular branch of meteorology which, in common with most Englishmen, I pretend to, upon the probability that no more rain will fall this afternoon. The sun has burst out with uncommon power, and several hours are yet to elapse ere he will set. But what, Celestine, is your request ?" "That you will yourself accompany me there, that you will not quit my side; that- and I may ask this, I am sure, without offence" (she smiled, as she spoke, upon her mother and sister), "to my best and kindest physician and attendant-that for a little while at least you alone will remain with me." Looks of surprise were exchanged, but the whole party at once acquiesced. The garden-chair was presently wheeled from its place in the rustic hall, and in half-an-hour the group might be scen passing slowly, and with frequent pauses from delight at the fresh beauty of the scenc now in the glittering sunshine, now darkened by the shadow of some tall tree beside their path-down the middle walk of the deanery gardens. The deanery of was one of the happiest examples of that beautiful union of sociality with retirement, of old-fashioned simplicity with modern elegance, which is not rarely to be met with among the prebendal dwellings in our ancient episcopal seats. The house and its adjoining grounds occupied a kind of terrace upon the slope of a hill, which was crowned by the cathedral, one of the most magnificent and most nearly uniæval among the glorious monuments of the munificence, piety, and knowledge of those ages, to which the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, themselves sterile beyond almost every other in even tolerable architectural productions, have not hesitated to brand with the epithet of barbarous. Through every opening between the clumps of acacias and poplars that bordered the lawn as you ascended or descended the gradual, slowly-winding slope, were seen clustering the lofty square towers and airy pinnacles, grey from the remoteness occasioned by their altitude as contrasted with the glowing foliage, yet on a day and at an hour such as we are describing, relieved in light upon the deep azure into which they rose. The opposite side presented a rural prospect, the features of which were eminently beautiful, and in their extent and combination might be termed grand. A broad, winding, level valley of purest green gleamed at intervals, as sky, or sunny cloud, or the orb of day itself, was reflected in the glassy surface of a gentle river, whose complex windings rivalled the sinuosities of Meander. At intervals it was enriched with groups of the dark green alder, the grey willow, and the graceful ash, which, in an endless variety of arrangements and proportions, followed the course of the stream from whose perennial current they drew their inimitable freshness. The nearer slope of the valley was a moderate declivity, divided by blooming hedgerows into orchards, paddocks, and the usual adjuncts of prosperous English homesteads; but bolder features distinguished the opposite ascent. There the banks rose into heights, swelling or precipitous, covered, in accordance with their form and position, with natural woods of beech and oak, or standing out in craggy cliffs of an almost mountainous altitude, which the artistic hand of nature had beautifully harmonised with the surrounding masses of foliage, by means of trailing plants suspended from the jutting ledges, shoots starting from their crevices, and weather-stains of every hue, which diversified their surfaces. It was in a spot that, like the social hearth in some well-arranged apartment, or the comparison is no desecration-like the holy altar in some spacious temple, seemed at once the focus of its attractions and the point from which the whole might be observed to the greatest advantage, that the noiseless group from the deanery finally paused. The domestic who had drawn the chair of the invalid was dismissed; the mother and the blooming but serious Bertha presently made an excuse for continuing their walk; the father and the elder child-the earliest, brightest, but now fading flower in the garland of his domestic happiness -were left alone. Balmy and fresh was the air, as the scene was beautiful. The western breeze, bearing on its wings delicious coolness from the moist valley, mitigated the powerful rays of an unclouded sun, tempered still more by the partial shadows from the trees. A thousand richly-cultivated flowers, among which the rose predominated, filled the atmosphere with perfume, exhaled from the rejoicing blossoms in a profusion that would have been overpowering in a less elevated situation. The dean, venerable rather from the gravity of his countenance and demeanour than from advancing years, leaned over his child with an air of some embarrassment. The eyes of Celestine, on the contrary, were fixed with a definite and ardent gaze upon a remarkable object, the presence of which in this exquisite retreat yet remains to be noticed. From the precise position occupied by the pair, they looked full upon a noble ruin that rose between them and the lofty minster. Its style was that of the fine Anglo Norman architecture, of the twelfth century, and it was evidently the remains of some splendid monastic edifice. A central doorway of large proportions opened directly before them, through which, and through some chasms in the walls beside it, the eye discovered a long avenue, between rows of massive columns, almost uninjured by time or accident, and here and there supporting fragments of arches, which, as well as those above the entrance, were enriched with the zigzag and other ornaments peculiar to structures of the period to which this building belonged. The portion that remained of the superstructure presented in the front a row of smaller arches, round, like those within, and supported by richly-carved capitals, but interlaced in such a manner as to present at once both the semicircular form and that most beautiful, because simplest, form of the pointed arch, which resulted from those intersections. Still higher, suspended, as it were, amidst wallflowers and ivy, hung the remains of a row of windows and niches for statues, in the pure, pointed style, of which one niche alone remained perfect. It contained the graceful figure of a knight, clad in the shirt of mail and low head-piece peculiar to the Norman period. The attitude of the warrior was singular, advancing with projected shield and sword in hand, as if eagerly bent upon some exploit of danger. His looks were, nevertheless, reverted towards another figure, indistinctly visible behind, but, apparently, a female. Upon this relic of medieval art was poured the full, broad radiance of the summer evening's sun, lighting up the naturally rich colour of the stone into one mass of golden brilliance. And upon this figure now rested, for the thousandth time, the fascinated gaze of Celestine. A sort of enchantment, indeed, seemed to surround this object when contemplated under that peculiar effect of light, and in connexion with the attendant circumstances and adjuncts: a glory might be imagined to glimmer beyond its outline over the ethereal depth above and around, the effect of which was heightened by its radiance being diffused over the distant surface of a large stone cross, richly ornamented, which, terminating one of the lofty transepts of the cathedral, just rose to view above the centre of the ruin. The eyes of the dean had followed the fixed gaze of Celestine, and, for a few seconds, both seemed equally entranced in admiration of the visionary splendour before them. Beautiful!" he exclaimed, involuntarily, as, recalled to the more essential circumstances of the moment, his looks reverted to his daughter. "Is it not beautiful, father?" demanded Celestine, eagerly, at the same moment disengaging her eyes also, and, after a glance at her father, letting them fall. "Strange," she continued, musingly, "that the beings who alone are capable of perceiving and enjoying beauty, whether in nature or in art, should be so apt to pervert the sense of it in either to sin and misery!" The dean expressed less surprise in his looks at this remark than might have been expected, for Celestine was naturally both thoughtful and imaginative. Her education had likewise directed her ideas into moral and religious channels, while disease and suffering had imparted unusual intensity to her language. "Man," he replied, "in his actual state, has a vast-may we not say an infinite?-capacity for evil and for good, both in perception and in act. That his will is more readily drawn by his passions to embrace the evil than the good, supplies the perpetual fountain of all calamity." "This scene of beauty," continued the maiden," these hills and woods these trees and flowers, the very pinnacles of God's temple, that ascend to Him yonder-above all, this ruin, with its carved imagery shining in the golden light-these things have been to me a snare and a block of stumbling. They have seduced my soul into idol-worship, as I have heard you, my father, describe the processions, the altars, and the high places of their heathen neighbours, as having seduced the ancient Jews.' The dean was startled and distressed. Some passage in one of his sermons, meant for a far wider application, had, he imagined, made an undue impression on the sensitive conscience of his child. "Lionel Hardwick ?-doubtless. But what of him here, and at this time?" he asked, his wonder and alarm now thoroughly raised. "Fathers," she continued, in a tone of solemnity,-"fathers are sagacious, and mothers vigilant; but there are in the bosoms of the youthful depths of feeling which parents do not fathom, and purposes whose seriousness and resolvedness they do not comprehend. Listen! You, my father, you and my mother,—were no strangers to the fact, that, two years since, an attachment, not of recent growth, had become evident between Lionel and myself. I acknowledge having ever been treated by you both with the tenderest, perhaps (forgive me!) with an extreme indulgence. But I knew the strictness of your sense of filial dutynay, I was not so dull, nor so selfish, as not to appreciate its justice. An indirect intimation that he was not the youth, nor his the family, whom the Dean of would approve for an alliance by marriage, was enough to keep me silent, and Lionel also, for my sake. The voice of duty is a potent voice-it has ever been so with me; but it is not of power to subdue the struggles of a first, a determinately exclusive attachment. Wealth is not a good the most difficult to be obtained by exertion; and the laurels of personal honour, plucked in the world's sight, often, even in the estimation of the worldly, serve effectually to conceal the defects of birth and lineage. Lionel had received an education in some degree military; he resolved to seek his fortune as a soldier in India, the arena of success to thousands, alas! the grave of tens of thousands! I now lived a life of solitude in the midst of those I loved-solitude of the heart. It was not that I wholly wanted confidence in you, my mother, or my sister, still less from love of concealment; but I could not hope for what I felt my case required--ardent sympathy. And I cherished the hope, the girlish hope, that after some few anxious years Lionel would |