EMILIUS was sitting in deep thought by a table, waiting for his friend Roderick. A light was burning before him; the winter evening was cold; and, glad as he was at other times to dispense with his companion's society, on this occasion he was particularly anxious for his presence, as he wished to tell him a secret, and to ask his advice. The shy, retiring Emilius, in the common business and the ups and downs of life, found such difficulties and so many insuperable obstacles, that Destiny seemed to have been in one of her ironical moods when she connected him with Roderick, who was, in all respects, the very opposite of his friend. Unstable and flighty, with the first impression he was all on fire; there was nothing he would not undertake; he had plans for every thing; no project could be too difficult, no obstacle could deter him; while in carrying them out he soon tired, and flagged as rapidly as he had been eager and elastic at the outset; and difficulties, instead of being a spur to urge him to increased activity, then only caused him to fling aside in disgust what he had at first so enthusiastically undertaken. Hence he was for ever full of schemes of some sort, but throwing them away and forgetting them with as little reason as he had before thoughtlessly adopted them. Between two such contradictory tempers not a day passed without a quarrel, which threatened to be fatal to their friendship. Yet perhaps, what seemed at first sight only to be a cause of division, was, at bottom, one of the closest bonds that held them together. In their hearts they were exceedingly fond of each other, yet each found the greatest satisfaction in being able to complain of the way the other treated him.
Emilius was a young roan of property. His father and mother were dead, so that he was his own master. He was of an imaginative though somewhat melancholy turn of mind; and being now on his travels to complete his education, he had been staying some time at a large town to enjoy the pleasure of the carnival, about which he did not care a straw, and to transact certain business with some of his relations whom he had not yet taken the trouble to call upon. On his way there he had stumbled upon the quicksilver Roderick, who was living not on the best possible terms with his guardians, and, to rid himself of them and their troublesome admonitions, had gladly availed himself of his new friend's offer to take him with him as a companion on his travels. Again and again they had been on the point of separating, but their quarrels had only served to shew them how indispensable they were to each other. When they came to any place of importance, they were hardly out of their carriage before Roderick had seen every thing there was there worth notice—the next day most likely to forget all about it again. While Emilius, after first spending weeks in preparing himself with books, that nothing might escape his observation, out of indolence generally left the place having seen hardly any thing. Roderick went to all the public places, made a thousand acquaintances, and not unfrequently would bring them to the solitary apartments of his friend, and as soon as he began to be tired of them himself, leave them alone for Emilius to entertain. Emilius's modesty too was often severely distressed by the way in which Roderick would speak of his talent and knowledge to sensible, well-informed people; for he never confined himself to strict truth; and although for himself he said he could never find time to listen to what his companion had to say on these matters, yet he gave them to understand there was scarce a subject in literature, history, or art on which they could not derive from him the most valuable information. If Emilius was disposed to do any thing, Roderick was sure to have been at a ball the night before, or to have caught cold at a sledging party, and be obliged to keep his bed; so that in the society of the most restless and excitable of sociable mortals, he lived almost wholly by himself.
This evening, however, Emilius counted on him with some certainty, as he had promised faithfully to spend it at home, to learn what it was that for some weeks past had been weighing on his friend's spirits. Emilius spent the interval in composing the following verses:
Spring-time, it is blithe and gay
When the nightingale sits on the hawthorn-spray,
And every leaf and every flower
Quivers with joy at the music's power.
The play of the gentle evening air
In the golden moonlight is passing fair,
As over the tree-tops it whispering sweeps
And its wings in the linden's fragrance steeps.
The glance of the new-blown rose is bright
As the gleaming of stars on a summer's night,
Like a bride for the altar the garden arraying,
And love in a thousand flowerets playing.
Yet brighter, and fairer, and lovelier far
Is the pale little lamplet's trembling star
Which yonder my love in her chamber shews
As she lingers at night, to her couch ere she goes.
Her delicate tresses I watch her unbind,
From around her fair temples the rose-wreath unwind;
Her exquisite form to my rapturous gaze
With each motion the tightening nightdress betrays.
And oh, when the lute in her fingers she takes,
And stirr'd at her bidding sweet music awakes,
With a thrill at her exquisite touch, from the strings
The spirit of melody laughingly springs.
She sends out a song to recall him again,
The wandering rogue—but she sends it in vain;
For he flies to my heart with a shout of loud laughter
For shelter; and there the pursuer flies after.