Within the breast of kings.
Though there were power in tears,
Shed through unnumbered years,
To soften the hard stone,
There, fruitless would they prove!
Grief has no power to move
The heart of man alone."
"Now run away, Ida, and fetch me a book," said Arabella; "I must not let such thoughts stir within me any more; they render me discontented, dear girl; and, they say, a contented heart makes a garden of a wilderness."
"Ay, dear lady," answered Ida Mara, with a sigh; "but it is hard work first plucking up the thorns. You have no books but those you have read often;--which shall I bring you?"
"Run to Sir Gervase Elways," said Arabella, "and ask him to lend me something new. He is a learned man, and very complaisant, and I know amuses the tediousness of his charge with much reading. A blessing on those who write for us! How many a heavy heart is lightened by reading the tales of other men's endurance; how many a sick bed is smoothed by the light hand of gentle poetry! Good faith, Ida--as it must be for one or the other--I would rather weep for the gone-by sorrows of other people than for my own, too truly present."