[[1]] "Such is the lot of the beautiful upon earth."
The poor tree was marked for felling! Ambrosia was almost affected to tears, once more. The scene was so beautiful, and the allusion so touching, and there seemed to her such a charm over her God-daughter Hermione; she was herself so glad, too, to feel sure that success had crowned her gift, that, altogether, her Fairy heart grew quite soft. "You may do as you like about observing Hermione further," cried she. "But, for my part, I am now satisfied. She is enjoying life to the uttermost; all its beauties of sight and sound; its outward loveliness; its inward mysteries. She will never marry but from love, and one whose heart can sympathise with hers. Ah, Ianthe, what more has life to give? You will say, she is not beautiful; perhaps not for a marble statue; but the grace of poetical feeling is in her every look and action. Ah, she will walk by the side of manhood, turning even the hard realities of life into beauty by that living well-spring of sweet thoughts and fancies that I see beaming from her eyes. Look at her now, Ianthe, and confess that surely that countenance breathes more beauty than chiselled features can give." And certainly, whether some mesmeric influence from her enthusiastic Fairy Godmother was working on Hermione's brain, or whether her own quotation upon the doomed tree had stirred up other poetical recollections, I know not; but as she was retracing her steps homewards, she repeated to herself softly but with much pathos, Coleridge's lines:[[2]]
"O lady, we receive but what we give,
And in our life alone does nature live:
Ours is her wedding-garment, ours her shroud!
And would we aught behold, of higher worth,
Than that inanimate cold world allowed
To the poor loveless ever anxious crowd,
Ah! from the soul itself must issue forth
A light, a glory, a fair luminous cloud
Enveloping the earth—
And from the soul itself must there be sent
A sweet and potent voice, of its own birth,
Of all sweet sounds the life and element!"
[[2]] Coleridge's "Dejection: an Ode."
And, turning through the little handgate at the extremity of the wood, she pursued the train of thought with heightened colour in her cheeks—
"I may not hope from outward forms to win
The passion and the life, whose fountains are within."
And thus Hermione reached her home, her countenance lighted up by the pleasure of success, and the sweet and healthy musings of her solitary walk.
She entered the library of a beautiful country house by the low window that opened on to the lawn, and found her mother reading.
"I cannot tell you how lovely the day is, Mamma, every thing is so fresh, and the shadows and lights are so good! I have immortalized our poor old friend the oak, before they cut him down," added she, smiling, as she placed the drawing in her mother's hands. "I wish the forest belonged to some one who had not this cruel taste for turning knotted oak trees into fancy work-tables. It is as bad as what Charles Lamb said of the firs, 'which look so romantic alive, and die into desks.'—Die into desks!" repeated Hermione musingly, as she seated herself on the sofa, and took up a book that was before her on the table; mechanically removing her bonnet from her head, and laying it down by her side as she spoke.
And here for some time there was a silence, during which Hermione's mother ceased reading, and, lifting up her eyes, looked at her daughter with mingled love, admiration, and interest. "I wish I had her picture so," dreamt the poor lady, as she gazed; "so earnest, and understanding, and yet so simple, and kind!—There is but one difficulty for her in life," was the next thought; "with such keen enjoyment of this world, such appreciation of the beauties, and wonders, and delights of God's creations on earth—to keep the eye of faith firmly fixed on the 'better and more enduring inheritance,' to which both she and I, but I trust she, far behind, are hastening. Yet, by God's blessing, and with Christian training, and the habit of active charity, and the vicissitudes of life, I have few or no fears. But such capability of happiness in this world is a great temptation, and I sometimes fancy must therefore have been a Fairy gift." And here the no longer young Mother of Hermione fell into a reverie, and a long pause ensued, during which Ambrosia felt very sad, for it grieved her to think that the good and reasonable Mother should be so much afraid of Fairy gifts, even when the result had been so favourable.