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PANTHEA, 
 
 THE SPIRIT OF NATURE. 
 
BEEVE, BENHAM, AND REEVE, 
 
 PRINTERS AND PUBLISHERS OF SCIENTIFIC WORKS, 
 
 KING WILLIAM STREET, STRAND. 
 
PANTHEA, 
 
 THE 
 
 SPIRIT OF NATURE. 
 
 BY 
 
 ROBERT HUNT, 
 
 AUTHOR OF 
 
 The Poetry of Science,' ' Researches on Light,' etc. etc. 
 
 LONDON: 
 REEVE, BENHAM, AND REEVE, 
 
 Kl^G WILLIAM STREET, STRAND. 
 
 1849. 
 
" I speak^ Sir, of those who, though bred up under our 
 unfavourable system of education, have yet held, at times, 
 some intercourse with Natui-e, and with those great minds 
 whose works have been moulded by the Spirit of Nature : 
 who, therefore, when they pass from the seclusion and con- 
 straint of early study, bring with them, into the new scene 
 of the world, much of the pure sensibihty which is the 
 spring of all that is greatly good in thought and action/^ 
 
 Coleridge. 
 

 PREFACE. 
 
 In the following Sketch — for it claims no higher 
 character — an attempt has been made to exhibit 
 the progress of a young and ardent mind, — cap- 
 tivated by the beautiful in nature, and alliu'ed by 
 the wonders of science, — under the influence of 
 the conflicting views which beset our philosophy. 
 
 The illusions of youth, — its visions of beauty, — 
 its warm feelings, — and its speculative tendencies, 
 all conduce to render pleasing the mystical dreams 
 of visionary thinkers. While, on the contrary, 
 the utilitarian tendencies of the age are coldly 
 repulsive to the young and imaginative mind. 
 The object, therefore, has been, to describe the 
 contest between the False — seductive by its poetic 
 
 ^nna-^t^^^ 
 
VI PREFACE. 
 
 associations, — and the True, as estimated by the 
 standard of the merely useful. 
 
 In endeavouring to trace the peculiar phases 
 of thought which are conceived to arise under the 
 pressure of these conditions, license has been taken, 
 in gathering, to a focus, those speculations -which 
 are peculiarly Continental, — and those which dis- 
 tinguishingly characterize the intellectual advances 
 of our own land. 
 
 Desiring to awaken a spirit of inquiry, the imagi- 
 nation has been taxed to inculcate a few abstract 
 truths in a pleasing form, without, however, sacri- 
 ficing any fact to the fictitious interest of the 
 narrative. Anxious to exhibit the dangerous 
 influences of false modes of reasoning, and defec- 
 tive habits of observation, — of showing what is 
 objectionable in the modern system of science, 
 and the exalting tendencies of that philosophy 
 which questions the oracle with an earnest de- 
 sire to elicit truth for its own sake, it is hoped 
 that the following pages may prove suggestive 
 of the advantages which arise from " The mar- 
 riage of Thought with Nature." 
 
 R. IJ. 
 
 October 30t,h, 184-9. 
 
THE PRELUDE. 
 
 Calmly the waves sank on the yellow sand, — 
 The clear blue ocean, like a mirror, spread 
 Its sky-reflecting waters round the strand. 
 Their surface tranquil as the newly dead. 
 On whose calm features heaven-lights often shed 
 The halo-radiance of an angel-smile. — 
 Here, with the banded Muses, oft I fled. 
 To worsliip Nature in a flower-crowned isle, 
 Wliich neither pride, nor power, nor passion, could defile. 
 
 It was an island where pure dreams had birth ; — 
 The nest from whrace those child-hke visions spring. 
 Which bless the slumber of the good on earth. — 
 Here, with the stream of tide meandering 
 In my frail bark — a fairy-fancied thing, — 
 I floated on, and watched the daylight^ s close, 
 When the retiring sun did proudly fling 
 Prismatic glories o'er the cloudy snows, 
 And, charmed by mystic sounds, sank to a soft repose. 
 
Vlll THE PRELUDE, 
 
 It was the sigliing of the aerial tide. 
 Coursing along a convoluted shell. 
 In frohc placed upon my shallop^s side : — 
 A wondrous labyrinth where erst did dwell 
 A creature of the Indian seas ; — a cell 
 ritted for Aphrodite — rayed by light. 
 And pearled in beauty by the ocean's swell ; 
 Yet, though with rainbow rays so richly dight. 
 Its music charmed the ear more than its hues the sight. 
 
 My soul had glimpses of the spirit-world ; 
 Whispers of angels fell upon my ear. 
 The rainbow flag of glory was unfurled. 
 And through the arch, all radiant, did appear 
 A spirit-band, which, as they floated near. 
 Passed from the mystery of an un shaped cloud — 
 A misty brilliancy — into the clear. 
 Wide-spreading vision of a mighty crowd 
 (3f the Seraphic host, who shouted " Truth," aloud. 
 
 Onward they came, thick -crowding ; the pui'e heaven 
 Grew dazzling bright, as if with summer rain. 
 When by the gusty breezes it is driven 
 And whirled through sunshine o'er a flovv'ry plain. 
 The flashing, sparkling radiance gave me pain, 
 And e'en in sleep I strove to shroud my eyes ; 
 But still the brightness pierced into my brain, 
 And through the lustre, — in the far-ofl skies, 
 I saw a giant shape, of God-like beauty, rise. 
 
THE PRELUDE. IX 
 
 The echoes of the earth had caught the sound, 
 Which burtliened still the voices of the throng ; 
 And o^er each sea, and the wide land around. 
 Rushed forth in shouts, which other shouts prolong. 
 The magic word, caught from tlie Seraph's tongue. 
 The flowers, the forest trees, all things, in sooth. 
 Burst joyous forth into a gush of song, 
 And, like the wild rejoicings of a youth. 
 The aged earth was shook by the return of Truth. 
 
 Peerless amid the brightness of that host. 
 The mighty Form came on with gentle grace ; 
 And, like the waves of ocean, which a coast 
 Divides on either hand, they all gave place. 
 And bowed adoring to that holy face, 
 Beaming with rays of charity and love. 
 Which, like the lights of meteors, seemed to trace 
 Such influence over earth, tlirough heaven above. 
 As rapt devotion views, e'en in the Mystic Dove. 
 
 All sounds sank into silence. — Echo died 
 Repeating her own words. The earth was still. 
 From the blank rocks which range by ocean's side. 
 Up to the snow-peak of the loftiest hill, 
 The brightness of the Presence seemed to fill 
 The atmosphere with breathings of the Blest, 
 And a soft music, like a murmuring riE, 
 Fell from the Spirit's lips; her words expressed 
 Exalted thoughts, which were unto my ear addressed. 
 
X THE PRELUDE. 
 
 They were re-mouldings of harmonious thought, 
 Which, in an innocent and happy hour, 
 Carae to my spirit, — ere my soul was brought 
 Beneath the clouds which over mortals lower. 
 And blight the heart, as by a poison shower. 
 The Spirit's words proclaimed that the low Earth 
 Had strength to win a cincture for her dower ; 
 To rise in beauty, by the force of worth. 
 The brightest star of peace, which yet in heaven has birth. 
 
 The Pleiades were high in heaven. My trance 
 Was undisturbed. I saw this multitude 
 Intently watch a noble youth advance 
 From earth, by victory crowned. He had subdued 
 The vices born of ignorance ; a brood 
 Black, base, and leprous as the fiends wliich dwell 
 Hid in the depths of midnight solitude. 
 " Back to mankind," exclaimed the Shape, " and tell, 
 Man may subdue the earth by Truth's almighty spell." 
 
BOOK THE FIRST. 
 
Panthea. 
 
 See, where the spirits of the human mind, 
 
 Wrapt in sweet sounds, as in bright veils, approach. 
 
 Chords of Spirits. 
 
 We come from the mind / 
 
 Of human kind. 
 Which was late so dusk, and obscene, and blind ; 
 
 Now 'tis an ocean 
 
 Of clear emotion, 
 A heaven of serene and mighty motion. 
 
 From the temples high 
 
 Of Man's ear and eye. 
 Roofed over Sculpture and Poesy ; 
 
 From the murmurings 
 
 Of the unsealed springs, 
 Where Science bedews his Dnedal wings. 
 
 Prometheus Unbound, — ShelJri/. 
 
PANTHEA, 
 
 THE 
 
 SPIRIT OF NATURE. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 THE ARDENT MIND. 
 
 "I dare to think." 
 
 "To dream — " 
 
 " Nay, Sir, to think, — unshackled by conventional 
 systems." 
 
 " The prisoner chained to his dungeon floor 
 may dream of freedom, and revel in a vision of 
 liberty ; but whilst the soul passes the prison bars, 
 and looks with gladness upon the active world, the 
 body to which it is allied rots in its clanking chains." 
 
 The two who conversed together were in striking 
 contrast. Age weighed heavily upon one of them. 
 
 B 
 
PANTHEA, 
 
 The elastic energy of youth was evident in every 
 movement of the other. Thought, anxious soul- 
 enlarging thought, had deeply marked the brow of 
 the elder man ; but over the countenance of the 
 younger it played, like a spring sunshine, in a life- 
 kindling smile of light aud gladness. 
 
 High intelligence illumined with a pure and 
 steady radiance the noble features of the old man. 
 
 Evidences of great intellectual power flashed 
 and scintillated over those of the youth. In the 
 former, long-continued mental toil was strongly 
 indicated; in the latter, great power, which had 
 never yet been bent to the labour of severe inquiry. 
 Care with her icy touch had graven the face of the 
 elder speaker, and the sorrows of mortality had too 
 evidently added their pressure to the weight of 
 years ; the other stood erect in young manliness ; 
 and a cheerfulness, over which no cloud of sadness 
 had ever cast its shadow, played upon his handsome 
 countenance. These two presented a fine picture 
 of life in one of its wide varieties. The aged and 
 the young, looking into the mirrors of their own 
 bosoms, can complete the portraits. 
 
 It was night, and the hour was strangely 
 beautiful. The deep blue sky was without a cloud ; 
 and a waning moon diffused a silvery radiance 
 around, through which some stars still shone 
 brightly ; and indeed the silvery glow of the zo- 
 diacal light, involving even the Pleiades, was to be 
 
THE SPIRIT OF NATURE. 3 
 
 distinguished as a distinct luminous phenomenon. 
 There was a pecuHar charm in the aspect of the 
 night. Are there not influences connected with 
 the manifestations of natural powers which myste- 
 riously compel the human soul to contemplation ? 
 Man cannot define the power, or explain its magic ; 
 but he is frequently convinced of its irresistible 
 force. The darkest spirit that ever wandered the 
 earth, stained with the blackest crimes, has felt that 
 voiceless nature could bend his stubborn soul, when 
 the eloquence of human teaching fell idly on his 
 ears. . Such was this hour ; — he must indeed have 
 been a lost spirit who could have profaned it with 
 a crime, in such a scene as that in which this aged 
 man and this youth were the only animated things. 
 It was a deep valley shut in by precipitous hills, 
 which were thickly covered with trees of noble 
 growth. Tlu'ough it there ran a river, now clear and 
 placid, after having rolled impetuously down a pile of 
 porphyritic rocks closing the end of a dell into which 
 the valley dwindled. The murmurs of the water-fall 
 echoed alond the vale ; but the stream, like a silver 
 snake now glided lazily along as though wearied with 
 its recent struggle. Some ancient inundation had 
 laid bare the surface of the rocks on the hill sides, 
 and huge boulders, which had probably floated 
 upon the ice-fields of the glacial sea, were scattered 
 over the level space. Around these there grew 
 luxuriantly a variety of wild flowers, their sides 
 
 B 2 
 
4 PANTHEA, 
 
 'vvere gay with creeping plants, and their surfaces 
 dehcately carpeted with the greenest and most cu- 
 rious mosses. Upon one of these Cyclopean masses 
 sat the old man before whom the young one stood, 
 resting his back against an elegant fir-tree which 
 grew apart from its kindred. 
 
 The aged man was Laon ^Iphage. He was 
 known among the philosophers of the day as Laon 
 the Mystic. He was regarded by many as a 
 follower of Jacob Behmen, and he excited the anger 
 of others by declaring his firm conviction of the 
 truth of many of the views entertained by the 
 Rossicrucians. In the neighbourhood to which he 
 had retked from active life, he was looked upon as 
 a conjuror or a madman. 
 
 His companion was Lord Julian Altamont, the 
 only son of that noble house. He was the eldest 
 born of several children, all of whom had died at 
 an early age excepting himself and his young sister. 
 The Earl of Devonport and Baron of Altamont was 
 proud of his son, because he was nobly formed, 
 presented a manly front beyond his years, and 
 manifested mental powers of the most extraordi- 
 nary character. It was the hope of the Earl and 
 Countess to see their son take a high standing in 
 the political world, and they regretted much that 
 the mystical ^Elphage had the power of charming 
 the boy beyond any of the instructors by whom 
 they had sm-rounded him. At length the young 
 
THE SPIRIT OF NATURE. 5 
 
 Lord was imperatively commanded not to visit 
 this dangerous neighbour, whom the Earl would 
 have removed from the precincts of Altamont, but 
 that Laon JElphage was strong in independence. 
 Julian often stole away from the Hall to enjoy the 
 (to him) divine conversation of this extraordinary old 
 man ; — and this was one of the forbidden meetings. 
 
 Laon sat smiling at Julian, as, after a brief silence, 
 the young nobleman somewhat eagerly replied, — 
 " Deprive me not of the satisfaction I have felt in 
 my efforts to look at nature with my own eyes, and 
 to reject those media through which the schoolmen 
 teach us to view creation." 
 
 " Associated with the world, Julian," said Laon, 
 "you cannot free yourself from the chain of its 
 errors. A web of thoughts and feelings, peculiar 
 to the age, imperceptibly involves your mind, and 
 even when you free yourself, on one hand, from the 
 besetting sophistries of society, and get a glimpse of 
 truth, your progress is restrained on the other by 
 the shackles of many hereditary superstitions. The 
 characteristics of a race are the habits of its indi- 
 vidual members. How can one man escape from 
 those external agencies which influence all around 
 him, or expect to be free from those mysterious 
 impulses which with the utmost subtlety penetrate 
 and move the mass. You are the child of a period 
 in which the triumphs of mind — the proud con- 
 quests of thought — are our boasted achievements. 
 
6 PANTHEA, 
 
 Man has more than reahzed the dreams of Romance. 
 By the power of heat, employed in changing the 
 form of matter, he drives his chariot with strange 
 velocity. That power which, a wonder and a terror, 
 bursting from the thunder-cloud strikes men with 
 fear, he chains by the force of reason, and compels 
 to be the messenger of his whispers — the herald of 
 his thought — with a spirit's swiftness — " 
 
 "And," exclaimed Julian with enthusiasm, "soon 
 shall we chain the lightning to our cars, and, as- 
 cending above the earth like new Phaetons — " 
 
 " Set the world on fire ! " interrupted Laon. 
 " Maddened by his success, man hurries on, striving 
 to wrest some new secret from nature — forgetting 
 that long and soul-toiling devotion are required 
 before the revelations of the Megacosm are made. 
 Julian, you are a type of the age. The giant ele- 
 ment of thought, which grows strong with toil, is 
 enervated by indulgence. The eagle eye of the 
 soul, which should gaze steadily on the fixed centre 
 of truth, is weakened by looking on the ground, 
 and the flickering of puny stars now dazzles it. 
 Unable to comprehend, to reach the reality, man 
 contents himself with the semblance. Without the 
 will to raise itself from the surface, and nobly wing 
 its flight through the purer air, the mind hurriedly 
 flutters over the low earth, and is satisfied \Aitli the 
 sup(!rficial search of an irregular flight. A thou- 
 santl facts are recorded, all expressing but one law. 
 
THE SPIRIT OF NATURE. 7 
 
 and man is confused amid the multitude of isolated 
 instances, — which appear distinct phenomena only, 
 because the truth which lies hidden under a film 
 is missed in the hurry of the age. As man, knoAAdng 
 good and evil, stood bewildered at the gate of Eden, 
 surveying the second chaos which his rashness had 
 produced, he now stands on the frontier of the land 
 he would conquer, proud but nearly powerless." 
 
 " I cannot fancy the intellectual powers of our 
 age are deteriorated," said Julian. " In every de- 
 partment of science we have advanced oui* know- 
 ledge." Never before were the arts of industry, 
 or the requii-ements of luxmy, so aided by the 
 applications of inductive research. Think — " 
 
 " I see yom* thought," interrupted Laon. " 1 
 admit that man has been industrious in creating 
 luxm-ies, and in increasing the number of his neces- 
 sities. A thousand minds are at Avork, eager to 
 discover some means of applying known principles 
 to useful ends, and they vnW have their rew\ard. 
 Possibly wealth may be theirs, or they may become 
 the heroes of their day ; — but short is that day, and 
 perishable that wealth. The riches of the priest- 
 hood, who watch at the shrines of truth, and win 
 their immortality by then' devotion to that high 
 calling, are undying. If the man who conquers 
 distance by his mechanical ingenuity A\dns national 
 honour, how world-embracing shoidd be the fame 
 of him, who, by loosening another seal fi'om the 
 
8 PANTHEA, 
 
 scroll of creation, stirs the whole earth, elevates 
 mankind in the scale of intelligence, and places the 
 human race some degrees nearer that Di\dnity to 
 which, in spite of man's earthiness, he is, by the 
 power of the spirit, for ever aspii'ing." Laon rose 
 from his seat while speaking, and, stretching forth 
 his ann towards heaven, stood like a prophet ani- 
 mated by the spirit of inspii-ation. 
 
 Julian eagerly replied, " The European mind is 
 earnestly struggling to obtain some object which is 
 seen faintly trembling in the distance — a shadow 
 cloud — undefined and changing, but which each 
 nation, shaping to its own ideal image of perfection, 
 regards as the idol to which it must bow." 
 
 " The ideal is too often more fascinating than the 
 real to the eyes of man," exclaimed Laon. 
 
 " What signifies it," asked Julian, " provided the 
 ideal leads to happiness ? " 
 
 "Is the momitebank superior to the minister?" 
 demanded Laon. " Is the brazen image, wdtli its 
 feet of clay, greater than the breathing being ? " 
 
 "You are not just, good Laon," said Julian 
 calmly. "The unknown must be to man at the 
 best an Ideality. Every human mind images for 
 itself the heaven it desu-es, and as we have changes 
 of the seasons in the physical world, so can we 
 ]3erceive changes of intellectual power in the moral 
 world, and with these alternations — Heaven and 
 Earth — the abstract and the })ractical — become in 
 
THE SPIRIT OF NATURE. 9 
 
 turn the objects of bis studies. This is the age of 
 practical appHcation — and is the man, who by em- 
 ploying known principles ingeniously produces a 
 combination which shall benefit his race, less worthy 
 of honom- than he who wastes a life in the discovery 
 of a new truth, which, until it is bent and shaped 
 by some more ordinary mind into a fomi which 
 can be appreciated, is useless to mankind?" 
 
 " Yes ! " shouted Laon, and the echoes of the 
 hills answered "Yes ! " Then, tm-ning with a soft 
 smile towards Julian, he said, " A truth once bom 
 into the world is everlasting — a living, soul-exciting 
 influence. It works its quiet way unnoticed by the 
 world ; but it lifts mankhid one step nearer immor- 
 tality. Every practical apphcation has its value ; 
 but each one is another rivet put in the chain wliich 
 fastens the soul to earth. " 
 
 " All men aim to be immortal " said Julian. 
 
 " And are so," answered Laon ; " but the im- 
 mortality of the ignorant and \icious is not that of 
 the intellectual and the good. Angels only cUffer 
 from men in the higher development of the mind ; 
 and devils, in their mysterious antagonism to truth 
 and goodness, are great examples of the per- 
 version of intelligence. Man, in his state of 
 probation, has the earth and her mysteries for 
 his inheritance, and on him is bestowed a mind 
 with almost unlimited capabilities, with which to 
 work out the problem of this eternal Sphinx. The 
 
10 PANTHEA, 
 
 labom's of the pure mind are ever upward, and the 
 reward of truth-searching is the enjoyment of that 
 angehc state in which all things become visible 
 to us without a cloud. The very toils of a degi*aded 
 mind have a downward tendency, and the end of its 
 eartlily labour is but the beginnmg of an eternity 
 of blank and dark endurance." 
 
 They walked by the side of the river up the 
 valley, and such was still the tenor of then* con- 
 versation ; but at almost every step it became e\d- 
 dent that Julian was unequal to that strange old man, 
 who was slowly involving him with a web of insi- 
 dious reasonings, by which he was led to receive, 
 with readiness and love, his philosophical mysticisms. 
 
 Commencing A\ith Man and his influences, Laon 
 had proceeded with much caution to the involved 
 questions connected with the physical powers of 
 natm'e, and their operations upon the more highly 
 developed organic forms. The laws of the known 
 physical forces were lucidly explained ; and then, 
 advancing from the things known to a consideration 
 of the things not known, Laon endeavoiu^ed to show 
 his pupil how ignorant man was of the causes pro- 
 ducing the most ordinary natm'al phenomena. 
 
 " The sun, " said Laon, " shines upon the world. 
 Under the influence of powers which flow fi'om that 
 bright som'ce how various are the results produced 
 around us ! The agents which excite the living 
 organism of the fruit-bearing tree — Avhicli render 
 
 i 
 
THE SPIRIT OF NATURE. 
 
 11 
 
 up to iiiau a healthful luxury — i)roducc from the 
 same elements the deadly poison. The fragrant 
 rose and the stmgmg nettle grow side by 
 side; the lily and the nightshade arc found in 
 the same locahty." Laon stooped, and, plucking a 
 nettle which grew luxuriantly from a low hedge by 
 which they were passing, continued, " The pahi 
 inflicted by the wound of one of these small haks, 
 which cover the serrated leaves of this little Urtica, 
 is trifling compared with that produced by the 
 crenulate Urtica of the East Indies, the touch of 
 which produces an injury as dreadful as any in- 
 flicted by om' most venomous vipers, and the touch 
 of the dread Devil's-leaf nettle of Timor, is death, 
 or a prolonged suffering, which is far worse. 
 Yet the chemist can detect no difference in the juices 
 of these plants ; the botanist recognises in them 
 the same external characteristics ; and the natural 
 philosopher discovers no physical distinction hi the 
 phenomena of then* growth. The same solar powers, 
 varying but slightly in intensity, are pom'ed upon 
 them all ; and yet how different the result. The 
 spiu*ge of om* own wastes — the acrid juice of which 
 wiU indeed stupefy the fish of the river, and nothing 
 more — becomes, as we advance towards the tropics, 
 so deadly in its character, that the Indian selects 
 the Eupliorhia as the most potent poison for his 
 arrows. This would appear to be due to hght ; and 
 many of the tropical Euphorbia imbibe that agency 
 
13 PANTHEA, 
 
 with such avidity, that if we wound their stems at 
 night, the milky juice flowing from them phos- 
 phoresces with far gi'eater brilliancy than yonder 
 glow-worm, whose silvery star is still to science as 
 great a mystery as those transmutations which we dis- 
 cover in every page of this mighty book of Nature." 
 
 Thus Laon went on to show that there must be 
 powers beyond those with which science has made 
 us familiar, by which the known forces were con- 
 trolled, until he at last referred them to manifesta- 
 tions under modified conditions of the Infinite In- 
 telligence, which he regarded as pm'e mind — the 
 central fire — the ever-burning lamp of the Illmninati. 
 
 " I cannot follow you," sighed Julian. " I have 
 looked at Natm'e, and I love her in all her forms of 
 sublimity and beauty ; but I feel that a great blank 
 exists, — that this poor brain has not the power to 
 grasp the whole. It is for other minds to deal vdih 
 large generalities. I can only ventm*e on the petty 
 details." 
 
 " Julian, you must learn to think instead of to 
 dream. Look at Natm'e with your own eyes, and 
 not with those of other men. Thy mind will gain 
 strength by walking alone ; thine eye will be bright- 
 ened, and thou wilt advance to the fine perception 
 of the mind which moves the elements, and see 
 through the Isis-vcil which covers creation." 
 
 " Will you teach me to do it?" asked he, with 
 a humility of tone which betrayed some fear. 
 
THE SPIRIT OF NATURE. 13 
 
 "If thou canst obey my precepts," replied Laoii. 
 
 " Name them — I'll be a willing slave to your 
 injunctions, if they are not dangerous." 
 
 Laon smiled, and taking Julian fondly by the 
 hand, slowly said, " The priest, before he could enter 
 the holy place, submitted to pm^ification. To look 
 upon the truth the spirit must be true ; to see the 
 spiritual essence, which is guided by the laws of the 
 Eternal — the moving power of creation, — you must 
 become spiritual. In the body you can so far 
 subdue the sensual, that this fair frame of clay 
 becomes but the case for a pm'e mind ; but you 
 must grow to the world a stranger, and the world 
 is at present unto you too lovely." 
 
 "No, good Laon; no," sighed Julian. 
 
 " Can you relinquish the palatial home of yom- 
 fathers — the splendom- and the liLxmy with which 
 wealth smTounds you — the tempting banquet and 
 the teeming wine-cup ? Can you leave these for the 
 bare rock — the €nut of the wild tree — and the 
 waters of the nearest spring? " 
 
 " Aye ! " said Julian, " the garrish splendour of 
 wealth is valueless to ine. I feel, indeed, like the 
 monarch crushed by the weight of his golden 
 chains. The mmd alone is the true standard of 
 greatness — and my knowledge, not my gold, shall 
 be my staff of power — " 
 
 " Lord Altamont, you are a lover ! " 
 
 Julian looked at Laon with a smile : "My mother's 
 
14 PANTHEA, 
 
 goodness and my sister's innocence appear to repre- 
 sent so sweetly the great characteristics of woman, * 
 that I love all womankind." 
 
 "Woman/' said Laon, in an impressive tone, 
 " tanght man evil. Created more spiritual than 
 man, she became — having yielded to the tempter — 
 the more essentially temporal. By the great con- 
 trast between the Oiu^anos of Paradise and the 
 earth beyond its precincts — between the cloudless 
 brilliancy of the one, and the tempest-riven dark- 
 ness of the other — the first pair learnt the cost of 
 disobedience, and in suffering discovered the dis- 
 tinctions between good and evil. The mystery of 
 human passion, working in piu'e sensualism, induced 
 in woman's soid a longing for those spiritualities she 
 had lost — and through the pure and unselfish love 
 of offspring, who in their innocence, as they ckew 
 theu' life from hers, represented the lost bliss — 
 was created an undying longing for a pm-er state — 
 a constant aspiration for the celestial enjoyment of 
 love and peace, of which infancy is the truest type 
 on earth. The condition of woman determines the 
 position of the race — and the character of an indi- 
 vidual, or the character of an entue people, is deter- 
 mined by that sex whose very weakness is a most 
 potent strength. Every woman holds the destiny 
 of at least one human soid in charge beyond her 
 own, and the pmity or the grossness of the love 
 which she inspires determines towards vice or 
 
THE SPIRIT OF NATURE. 15 
 
 virtue Avitli irresistible force. The soiil of man, to 
 become truly great, must partake of wouian's 
 softness, and bend from the pitch of pride which 
 the world dignifies by the name of manliness. 
 The Satan of John Milton's divine song illustrates 
 the greatness of human pride ; but, as even the 
 Devil becomes a Poet in the presence of Eve, so 
 does woman subdue the asperities of her partner, 
 and, if holy herself, she makes him holier still. The 
 Countess of Devonport is a woman possessing many 
 of those great virtues and soul-healing charities, 
 which too many of her rank know not. Fear, how- 
 ever, like an incubus, presses upon her mind, and 
 she dares not allow her intellect free play, lest she 
 o'ersteps the prescribed rules of worldly authority. 
 But yom- holy mother has done ^^isely in seeking 
 for you a holy maiden to preserve you from the 
 quicksands and pit -falls of passion. But, Julian, if 
 you would master the mystery of natm^e, you must 
 learn to love Eudora Spencer as an Angel of Light, 
 and not as a woman of the dark Earth." 
 
 "Eudora," said Julian, in a subdued yet im- 
 passioned tone, " is pm-e as light. She has been 
 my guardian angel, and preseiTed me A^ithin the 
 influence of her beautiful spirit in a state of honour- 
 able \ii'tue. Her mind is full of good and great 
 thoughts. She taught me to know the stars — 
 to mark the phenomena of light which even now 
 are so sublime ; and but for Eudora Spencer never 
 
16 PANTHEA, 
 
 should I have sought for that knowledge which has 
 led me, even against my father's commands, to yom- 
 cottage." 
 
 " If the Poet Julian plays truant for a season, and 
 retm-ns the Philosopher Altamont, the mtellectual 
 Eudora '^\Till forgive him. Then you would become 
 her teacher, — then you could school her to read the 
 wonderful language which is Amtten on those stars 
 of Heaven, and to hear the voices which are for 
 ever, like music, breaking from the flowers of the 
 earth, proclaiming the wonders of creative intelli- 
 gence." 
 
 They had now reached the entrance to a small 
 but most picturesque cottage, situated in a secluded 
 part of the deU, close to the cascade which rushed 
 and foamed in the moonhght, beating the dai'k 
 shi'ubs and long-trailing plants on either side, with 
 a sort of wild delight. 
 
 The cottage was overgrown with creeping plants, 
 which were festooned across the -wdndows and the 
 door AAith that marveUous taste which disguises its 
 art while it actually adorns nature. A voice, as soft 
 and musical as ever melted on the whispering breeze 
 into silence, was heard wdthin, — Laon ./Elphage 
 noiselessly pushed open the door, and entering, 
 motioned for Julian to follow him. 
 
 The bright moonbeams streamed through the 
 cottage windows, and fell upon the figm-e of a 
 female who was seated on a low stool, bending with 
 
THE SPIRIT OF NATURE. 17 
 
 an expression of intense delight over a water-lily, 
 glistening with dew or spray, which she held in her 
 hand. So strongly were the thoughts of the maiden 
 concentrated on the flower, that she observed not the 
 presence of Laon and Julian ; but sang with a voice 
 full of feeling, and rich with the most native music, 
 what appeared to Julian a strange wild rhapsody. 
 
 Maiden Sylph, I pray thee tell 
 Where thy sacred sisters dwell ? 
 If on earth, or in the sea, 
 Or in the bright air floating free ? — 
 Are they weaving wild-wood dresses 
 For the flowers the moon caresses ? 
 Are they, from the sunbeam, shaping 
 Fairy leaves for spring's gay draping ? 
 Or embroidering, by strong spell. 
 Star-light for the asphodel ? 
 Or distilling from the metals 
 Tints to paint the tulip's petals ? 
 
 Maiden Sylph, sweet spu-it say. 
 
 And thou shalt at once away. 
 
 Maiden Sylph, oh, hear my prayer ! 
 
 Listen, — Essence, sweet of air ! 
 
 Let the lowly earth-born see ; 
 
 Something of thy mystery. 
 
 Tell me — doth each gentle spirit 
 
 An especial charge inherit ? 
 
 Do they fly to sing the birth. 
 
 In heaven, of each new star on earth ? 
 
 Are they watches constant keeping 
 
 O'er the innocent when sleeping ? 
 
 Do they gather, from the breath, 
 
 The sigh of love, exhaled in death ? 
 
 Maiden Sylph, enlighten me. 
 
 And my kiss shall set thee free. 
 
 C 
 
18 PANTHEA, 
 
 Julian stepped liglitly forward, and, leaning over 
 this romantic gii'l, looked eagerly into tlie cup of the 
 water-lily, and in a low tone, and "with a smile upon 
 his brilliant countenance, said, " Let me, too, hear 
 the reveahngs of your prisoner." 
 
 The maiden looked up. Her face, pale in the 
 moon-beam, quivered with an expression rather of 
 sudden sorrow than of transient anger, and her 
 eyes, lustrous with an almost uneartlily energy, met 
 Jidian's vnth a chiding expression, fi'om which, man 
 as he was, inheriting every manly feeling, he shiTuik. 
 She, however, looked fixedly upon him, and in a 
 voice which somided hke the wail of a sorrowing 
 child she asked — " Why will the earthly for ever 
 come between me and the holiness of Tnith ? Why 
 has the coldness of worldly clay fi'ozen the words of 
 the charmed one ?" 
 
 Julian was about to reply, but Laon stopped him 
 \Yi\h a sign, and advancing said, " Pm*er in spirit 
 than his kindred, Altamont seeks my ^Itgiva to 
 know the Truth. Fear not ; we admit him to oiu* 
 mysteries." 
 
 ^Eltgiva placed her hand, which was cold as an 
 icicle, upon Julian's. He trembled at that touch ; 
 but as she grasped his fingers, exclaiming, " The 
 spell of the mighty mistress be upon you!" he 
 shuddered. .^Itgiva looked most expressively 
 upon him, and with a sweet smile, releasing Jidian, 
 said, " If the pidse of the earthly quivers at my 
 
THE SPIRIT OF NATURE. 19 
 
 poor touch, think you it can cndiu'c the solemn 
 vision and the sacred dreams ?" 
 
 " Put me to the trial," replied Julian ; and bend- 
 ing towards the lily which ^Itgiva held with extreme 
 caution he continued, " Permit me to see yom* 
 prisoner." 
 
 " Look into the cell of the flower," said JElt- 
 giva, holding the lily up to Julian ; " but touch it 
 not. There ! there ! there ! she fears you ! and 
 running round those pretty stamens endeavours to 
 hide herself fi'om human gaze. There, see — the 
 spell-bound creature, timid with all her strength, 
 seeks to hide in the fold at the bottom of the leaf. 
 Can you hot see her ?" 
 
 " No," said Julian, looking attentively into the 
 cup of the flower. Laon stood some distance be- 
 hind them, with his arms folded, watching wdth 
 pleased attention every word and gestm'e of the pau\ 
 
 " Not see her !" exclaimed iEltgiva ; " the bhnd- 
 ness of ignorance is heavy on you." Then rising 
 from her low seat, and again taking Julian's hand, 
 " Come forth into the moon-light," said she, " and 
 let me learn if you know aught of the beautiful 
 things which surround us." 
 
 / ^Itgiva led Julian to the door of the cottage. 
 The maiden exhibited in every movement the most 
 remarkable grace ; and as she stood imder the shade 
 of the luxuriant ivy which lumg in fidl festoons 
 across the porch, with her left hand holding 
 
 c 2 
 
20 PANTHEA, 
 
 up the water-lily, and her right still grasping 
 Julian, she appeared rather the fine idealization of 
 a poet-painter than a human being. There was 
 something imearthly and commanding m her mien. 
 She was taU, even beyond the height which is usu- 
 ally regarded as tall in woman ; and, although slen- 
 der, was of a most symmetric figm-e. Her face, 
 pale even to whiteness, with a tinge of red upon her 
 cheek, pm^e but faint as that wliich stains the petals 
 of some of the most delicate flowers of spring, was 
 rather too expressive to be called beautiful. All the 
 hues of her comitenance, though regular and of 
 faultless moulding, were too strongly defined, and 
 gave to the featm'es an aspect of sharpness. Her 
 eyes — strange, large, dark eyes — full of excitement 
 and inteUigeuce, appeared to flash light as they 
 moved beneath the silken fringe of her eyehds. 
 
 TEltgiva was dressed in a loose robe of white, 
 gathered in about the waist, and confined by a 
 dark-colom*ed ghdle, the ends of which, after pass- 
 ing tluough a large silver buckle, hmig do\A'n nearly 
 to her feet. Her arms were bare below the elbows, 
 and without ornament of any kind. Her hair, 
 which was nearly black, was simply parted over the 
 forehead, and being carried behind the ears was 
 braided and twisted into a tasteful knot. 
 
 Such was ^Itgiva, the mysterious daughter of 
 one, who was himself to all the world a mystery. 
 Her age could not have been beyond twenty ; but 
 
THE SPIRIT OF NATURE. 21 
 
 in her aspect and bearing she appeared like a woman 
 who had gained the experience, and learned those 
 lessons, which requii-e at least forty years' conflict 
 with a busy world to master. 
 
 With such a woman, sm-rounded too as she was 
 with the halo of a mystic sanctity, Julian was power- 
 less ; and he stood, with all his proud bearing sub- 
 dued, helpless as a child at her side. 
 
 T^ltgiva had raised her left arm, and with the 
 lily pointing to a spot in the zenith stood still as 
 a statue for many minutes, as though she waited 
 for some phenomenon to occur. Julian dared 
 not distm-b her silence, — Laon still watched them 
 from the cottage. 
 
 At length a brilliant meteor burst from the con- 
 stellation toward which ^Itgiva pointed ; and, as in 
 swift flight it passed across the heaven, its hght was 
 so brilliant that the shadows upon the ground, were, 
 for the period of its passage, shifted, colom*ed, and 
 then darkened. 
 
 " Knowest thou," said Mltgvva, " from whence 
 that meteor cometh ? or canst thou say whither it is 
 
 j3 
 
 " Some philosophers," replied Juhan, " tell us 
 that these shooting stars are fragments of a planet 
 which still cu-culate in the original orbit around the 
 sun, and coming within the limits of om- atmo- 
 sphere are rendered visible to us, either by re- 
 flecting the sun's light, — or, by generating heat in 
 
22 PANTHEA, 
 
 theii- rapid motion tlu-ough a resisting medium, 
 actually midergoing combustion, by wliich they are 
 again dissipated." 
 
 iEltgiva laughed loudly ; and it appeared to 
 Jidian that a thousand voices in that wild valley 
 responded to her laugh. " And yonder beams now 
 shoothig up from the north, what know you of 
 them?" 
 
 " The Am-ora Borealis," replied Julian, " is cer- 
 tainly an electrical phenomenon." 
 
 " And is not every thing which man does not 
 understand referred to electricity ?" asked iEltgiva. 
 " Say that you know not yet the mystery of those 
 northern fires. Confess that the philosophers who 
 pretend to explain the meteor star — see, another 
 passes ! — grope into the realm of hght in blindness, 
 thi'ough the excess of brdliancy. In the face of the 
 wonderful night, abandon all earth-born dreams, and 
 from henceforth live for the Holy Truth alone." 
 
 Jidian was about to reply, ^Itgiva stopped liim, 
 and walking forth to the side of the stream said, 
 " Look at yonder cataract, and tell me what thou 
 seest?" 
 
 " Nothing," said Julian, " beyond a fau- sheet of 
 water broken here and there into foam and spray 
 by the projecting rocks, — and, spanning the whole, 
 how religiously beautifid ! — a lunar bow." 
 
 " Dost thou see nothing else ?" 
 
 " Nothing ; — the water is sparkling with the 
 
THE SPIRIT OF NATURE. 23 
 
 moon-beams, and the mist rising from the torrent 
 refracts her hght, and sends it back to us in coloured 
 rays," rephed Juhan. 
 
 "Look again," said iEltgiva, "and strive to 
 pierce the mist with yom* dim eyes." 
 
 Julian bent forward, and appeared to strain his 
 eye-balls in his anxious search to discover some object 
 which had eluded his first glance. JEltgiva stood 
 smiling, and raising her hand pointed meaningly to 
 the centre of the cascade. 
 
 " I see nothing more," said Julian at length. 
 
 "Gaze on!" exclaimed ^Eltgiva; "cannot you 
 trace the graceful wavings of the lines of water ? — 
 wave succeeds wave with a strange regularity ; and 
 the lights and shadows of the crests, and hollows of 
 the billowy fall, distinctly show the presence of some 
 binding power. Cannot you see it ?" 
 
 " The law which binds the drop of water, glisten- 
 ing so brightly on your lily, sustains the mass which 
 so picturesquely falls over the precipice." 
 
 " Poor young philosopher ! and does the assertion 
 that a law regulates — that a law causes — content 
 you ? Ai-e you too idle or too ignorant to ask what 
 is that law — to look for a power beyond the law ? 
 How man contents himself with words ! I pray 
 you look, Altamont!" and raising her voice, and 
 drawing herself up in an attitude of queenly dignity, 
 iEltgiva exclaimed, in a tone of command, " Julian 
 Altamont, let the eyes of the mind look through the 
 
24 PANTHEA, 
 
 other senses, and see the Spiiit of the law." She 
 continued in a calmer tone : — " Those curving 
 waters, line with line commingling, to form that flow- 
 ing sheet on either side of the translucent mass, 
 which shines more brightly than any artificial miiTor, 
 glide adown the sun-woven tresses of the mighty 
 Panthea, by which they are restrained. Can you 
 not trace their myriads of silver threads, weaving 
 through all, and binding that mass of waters ? But 
 
 gaze on ." ^Eltgiva was suddenly silent. She 
 
 clasped her hands upon her bosom, still pressing the 
 water-lily. She bowed herself reverentially, and 
 sunk one knee slowly to the gromid. " Kneel, 
 Julian," she continued, " kneel ; the revelation 
 of those heaven-illumined eyes, dimning the moon 
 with then- lustre, is to be received with humility, 
 and met with human adoration. Mighty spiiit, 
 kindly looking fi'om thy throne of waters, permit 
 me to hope that, by this manifestation of thine 
 eternal presence to the earth-born, thou art pleased 
 to receive the votary we bring thee." 
 
 Julian kneeled not. He stood a pictme of ii-re- 
 solution, still gazing fixedly on the cataract ; but 
 evidently without seeing the vision wliich now ap- 
 peared to absorb the mind of ^Eltgiva. " Julian," 
 at length she said, " Panthea speaks tlnough me, 
 and bids me say, — ' To know nature thou must be 
 true to nature. To be true to natm^e thou must live 
 looking for ever with pm-est love unto the mighty 
 
THE SPIRIT OF NATURE. 25 
 
 spirit who presides. The love of the sensual must 
 rise into the love of the spiritual. On the earth thou 
 must cease to be of the earth. In the body the 
 purified soul must become bodiless ; and then the 
 rapture of that holy life w^hich is light shall be given 
 thee, and mounting the car of mind thou shalt see 
 and know the Mystery.' " 
 
 The rocks on either side of the valley seemed to 
 shout back " The Mystery !" Every tree appeared 
 to Julian to ring with " The Mystery !" And from 
 the rush of the cataract to the gurgling of the flow- 
 ing river every sound shaped itself to Julian's ear, 
 into a voice exclaiming " The Mystery !" 
 
 Laon now^ stood by the side of Altamont. " The 
 Mystery may be thine," said he. 
 
 " The Mystery !" whispered Julian, as though he 
 commimed with himself. 
 
 " The holy mystery of natiu'e," repeated Laon. 
 
 " The Mystery !" unconsciously echoed Julian. 
 
 The cataract, recently so bright in the moonshine, 
 grew dark ; — ^the deep shadow of the tall hills had 
 fallen upon its waters. 
 
 " Panthea, I serve thee!" exclaimed /Eltgiva 
 with enthusiasm ; and rising from the ground, and 
 joining Julian, she, in a voice which seemed to have 
 gathered music from its mystic communion, softly 
 said, " Oh ! thrice happy Altamont ! the Mystery 
 may be solved by thee. The portals of eternal truth 
 will be opened to thee. If thou hast strength to 
 
26 PANTHEA, 
 
 endure the trial, tliou mayst find the key of the 
 Mystery." 
 
 Again the echoes rung in the ears of the bewil- 
 dered youth. He stood between the father and the 
 daughter ; and tui'ning first to the old man, and 
 then to the maiden, he said, " Put me to the 
 trial;" and sinking his head upon his manly chest, 
 giving one hand to Laon, and the other to J^ltgiva, 
 who began to move towards the cottage, he again 
 repeated, in a subdued tone, " I am ready ; put me 
 to the trial." 
 
 Arrived at the cottage door, they stopped ; and 
 ^Itgiva, leaving her father and Julian, walked 
 quickly back to the margin of the river. " See," 
 she said, tmiiing and addi'essing the young noble, 
 " I send my flower-spmt to her kindi-ed with the 
 joyous news that a gifted mortal resigns the temp- 
 tations of earth in the strong hope of winning the 
 key to the Mystery." ^Eltgiva placed her lily most 
 carefully upon the stream, and like a thing instinct 
 with life it swam over the dancing w^aters, and 
 floated rapidly down the river, until, arriving at a 
 small embayment, it was carried by the eddy into 
 that quiet spot ; and, as if by some internal impulse, 
 impelled into the midst of a group of water-lilies, — 
 all of wdiicli appeared to throw back the mooidight 
 from their bright leaves in sudden flashes, as if the 
 flowers rejoiced in the retmii of the lost one. ^Elt- 
 giva clasped her hands joyously and sang — 
 
THE SPIRIT OF NATURE. 27 
 
 Home to thy kindred, loving and beautiful ; 
 
 Home, thou art gone, and with joy in thy breast — 
 Whispering the tale of the true and the dutiful, 
 
 Leaving the gloom of this land of unrest, — 
 Where sorrow the ice-bearer life's cup is chilling, 
 
 And death shedding snow on the cheek of the young, — 
 Where the hearts of the elders, with agony thrilling, 
 
 Give accents of woe to the words of each tongue. 
 
 Awaken the echoes with music of gladness, 
 
 Send over the waters a song of delight. 
 Dispel, my fair lily nymphs ! each shade of sadness, 
 
 W Inch spirits of darkness may float o'er the night. 
 The young and the holy is vowed to the truthful ; 
 
 The spirit of man is aroused from his vision ; 
 And the earth will advance by the might of the youthful, 
 
 Till brightly it shines in the splendour elysiiun. 
 
 Joining Laon and the yomig Lord Altamont, 
 who showed, by a bright smile which played upon 
 his intelligent countenance, the enlivening influence 
 of that maiden's melody, the thi^ee entered the cot- 
 tage of the mystic in silence. 
 
28 
 
 CHAPTER Tl. 
 
 THE HOME INFLUENCES. 
 
 There was a mysterious sense of gloom aromid the 
 magnificent palace of the proud noble. All the 
 splendour which had been accumulated by the 
 mighty barons of that time-honom-ed house, and 
 greatly increased by the powerful statesman, who 
 now reigned, not merely lord of that vast domain, 
 but of a great political party in England, appeared 
 shrouded in a mist which sullied all its brightness. 
 It was not the solemn silence which pervades the 
 house into which cold death has entered — a holy 
 stillness which purifies though it wounds, — but 
 rather that subdued saddening influence which 
 attends the consciousness of a crime revealed. 
 
 Nor was this gloom confined to the castle ; in 
 every cottage around that great dominion it was 
 seen and even felt. Old heads were nodding mys- 
 teriously to each other, and young ones were 
 gathered together in eager debate. Uncertainty and 
 sorrow were indicated on every hand. 
 
THE SPIRIT OF NATURE. 29 
 
 The Earl of Devonport sat alone in the smallest 
 of a splendid suite of rooms which constituted the 
 library. That proud noble was fiercely shaken by 
 contending feelings. He moved to and fro uneasily 
 in his seat ; sometimes bending forward and seizing 
 the writing materials which were scattered over the 
 table before him, as with a determination to use 
 them ; but ere the hand could obey the sudden 
 will, a change came over him, and the pen fell from 
 his grasp. 
 
 At length — as if suddenly moved by a new 
 thought — he rose from his chair, and hastily run- 
 ning his eyes over a series of very antiquated 
 volumes, which extended along a range of shelves, 
 bearing the general label, — " Philosophy," — he 
 seized one, and, throwing it upon a reading-stand 
 near him, rapidly turned over the black-lettered 
 leaves, in anxious search for some particular passage 
 on the pages, or for some object hidden between 
 the leaves. This search was not successful, and, 
 closing the book, he read aloud from the back the 
 title of the volume : — 
 
 " Fama Fraternitatis. — Andrea!' 
 
 " This must be the accursed book !" Lord Devon- 
 port exclaimed ; and he again, more carefully than 
 at first, examined the leaves. 
 
 After a period of ten or fifteen minutes of silent 
 investigation, the Earl paused in his task. On the 
 margin of the page, there appeared some manuscript 
 
30 
 
 PANTHEA, 
 
 notes. The writing was exceedingly small, and it 
 occupied him several minutes ere he made himself 
 master of the passage. At length having done so, 
 he re-read it in a firm tone, — slowly and medita- 
 tively, — as if he sought to weigh the meaning of 
 every word — 
 
 " I thank thee, Andrea. The only real element 
 of power is the mind. I will not rule by the might 
 of my ancient name. Men shall not fear me because 
 I was born to wealth and its honours. I long to 
 reign a pure teacher of truth. I am ambitious of 
 being exalted by the sacred impulse of knowledge, — 
 to stand between the multitude of my brother men 
 and the mysteries of nature an interpreter and a 
 benefactor. For this high calling I would willhigly 
 renounce for ever the barbaric dignity which clings, 
 like a ghostly cerecloth, to the house of Altamont." 
 
 The Earl closed the volume with great violence, 
 and, grasping it with both hands, he advanced to- 
 wards the fire which blazed up the antique chimney 
 of the largest of the rooms, and casting it forcibly 
 upon the glowing pile of wood, at the same time 
 firmly planting his right foot upon the andiron, he 
 clenched his fists in rage, and stammered out, in 
 almost inaudible tones, so violently was that proud 
 man shaken by passion : — " Thus perish all the 
 evidences of his madness, and of my folly." 
 
 The mass of leaves, secui-ed within the solid covers 
 of hard wood in which this copy of Andrea's book 
 
THE SPIRIT OF NATURE. 31 
 
 was bound, resisted for some time the effects of the 
 heat; and, as if it was a charmed vokime, it re- 
 mained for many minutes unignited. This irritated 
 still further the Earl. He stood for some moments 
 irresolute, and trembhng violently. In the deep 
 shade of those heavily draperied apartments, the 
 strong red light of the burning wood falling upon 
 his pale face, the chief of this honoured house ap- 
 peared debased to a pitiable exhibition of degraded 
 humanity; all the wild workings of the worst of 
 passions — pride wounded in its most tender point 
 — hate, and the impotent struggles of a powerless 
 desire for vengeance, being marked in strong lines 
 upon his convulsed features. 
 
 The back and leaves of Andrea's book of mystical 
 lore could not remain long unchanged amid that 
 glomng, crackling pile. It was ignited — it bm-st 
 into flame. The hard hues upon the face of the 
 Earl relaxed, and savage smiles of triumph passed 
 over his countenance as he rang the bell. A do- 
 mestic immediately obeyed the call. 
 
 " Mr. Cheverton," exclaimed Lord Devonport, 
 without taking his eyes from the fire. 
 
 The servant bowed, and hastily retii-ed. 
 
 In a few minutes a gentleman, dressed plainly in 
 black, with an exceedingly mild but intellectual 
 countenance, walked slowly up the hbrary, and stood 
 at the side of the Earl, who was again so absorbed 
 in watching the burning volume, the glowing flakes 
 
32 PANTHEA, 
 
 of which were now flying rapidly up the chimney, 
 that he did not observe that Mr. Cheverton, whom 
 he had summoned, was present, until he announced 
 himself by a simple " My Lord"- — 
 
 The Earl of Devon port turned fiercely round; 
 Mr. Cheverton started back one step in surprise, 
 but was silent. 
 
 In the whirlwind of rage which shook his noble 
 frame, it was with difficulty that the Earl restrained 
 himself from violence. He walked rapidly up and 
 down before the fire. He strove to speak, but his 
 nervous agitation prevented him from giving utter- 
 ance to his feelings. " See ! — see '."—pointing to 
 the nearly consumed volume — being the only words 
 his tongue could mould. His look of rage was 
 something terrible ; and although Mr. Cheverton 
 maintained an appearance of complete tranquillity, 
 he afterwards confessed that he trembled for his 
 safety. 
 
 At length the Earl of Devonport staggered, sup- 
 ported himself for a moment, and fell helpless — 
 trembling violently, into a chair. 
 
 Mr, Cheverton approached him under the impres- 
 sion that the Earl actually suffered from a fit. 
 
 " Stand back !" he shrieked, " you have destroyed 
 me." 
 
 "I, my lord?" said Mr. Cheverton. 
 
 " You have deceived me — hypocrite as you are — 
 scoundrel !" 
 
THE SPIRIT OF NATURE. 33 
 
 " Such words to me?" demanded Mr. Cheverton, 
 hastily, but still calmly. 
 
 "Aye !" shouted the Earl, rising from his seat, 
 and drawing up his tall form with a violent effort 
 at dignity ; — " aye ! and worse words than those. 
 Base in heart, by the basest means have you- — - 
 Jesuit ! Jacobin as you are — betrayed my trust, 
 and sacrificed my son to a demon." 
 
 " Lord Devonport !" exclaimed Mr. Cheverton. 
 
 " Cheverton, begone !" roared the Earl. " I have 
 discovered your treachery. Julian is lost to me. 
 My house — honom-ed by the bravery and wisdom 
 of twenty generations — is ruined, and by you — " 
 
 " Lord Devonport, you decide in ignorance," said 
 Mr. Cheverton, ia a more animated tone than he 
 had yet employed ; and it was now very evident 
 that he was compelled to make a powerful effort to 
 control his wounded feelings. 
 
 The Earl laughed hysterically, — then becoming 
 calmer, he seized an open letter which lay upon the 
 table, exclaiming, " There is Julian's letter. Sir. 
 He confesses to a wild flight with ^Iphage. Cheated 
 like a fool — which you have made him — by that vain 
 thing his daughter. But why need I tell you this ? 
 Think you, when the halls of Altamont are ruled 
 over by a sorcerer, a witch, and a fool, that you 
 will rise to higher honour?" 
 
 "My Lord ! I know nothing of all this." 
 
 " The last leaves of yonder volume now blazing 
 
 D 
 
34 PANTHEA, 
 
 condemn you ; those tongues of flame proclaim your 
 falsehood. Over that book I have seen you poring 
 with the boy, and on its accursed margin I have 
 discovered his notes — notes dictated by you — show- 
 ing the wretched influence of your secret lessons. 
 Nay, Sir, answer me not. If, within one hour, 1 
 find your shadow beneath this roof, my menials 
 shall hurl you from it." 
 
 " To answer you, my Lord," said Mr. Cheverton 
 with much feeling, though still held in subjection 
 to the master hand of his reason, — " to answer you 
 would, in the present tone of your mind, aggravate 
 your wounds, and degrade that feeling of honourable 
 dignity which rises proudly in my bosom. We 
 shall meet again, and the proud master of Alta- 
 mont win live to seek a pardon for the wrong he 
 has this day done to the humble tutor of his heir." 
 He said no more ; but, turning from the Earl, he 
 walked with a measured pace out of the library. 
 
 The Earl of Devonport could have slain that tutor, 
 had lie dared ; but that poor scholar was girded by 
 the visible strength of uprightness ; and had he bared 
 his breast before a sword in the hands of that im- 
 petuous noble, the proud boaster of his ancestral 
 honours could not have smote the unarmed posses- 
 sor of a httle original knowledge. 
 
 The Earl felt that he was the weakest man, and 
 he would have recalled the scholar; but pride — 
 family pride — obtained the mastery, and burying 
 
THE SPIRIT OF NATURE. 35 
 
 his head in his hands, he again sunk into his chair 
 tormented by uncertainty ; and from the dark 
 clouds of his fear shaping out the most terrible 
 images of the future. 
 
 A different scene presented itself in the drawing- 
 rooms of this ancient Hall. 
 
 There sat the Countess of Devonport in all the 
 sacredness of her sorrow. She was of a noble presence 
 — in form she was grand and statuesque ; but her 
 face — still retaining the exalted beauty of her 
 younger days — was expressive of the sincerest 
 womanly feeUngs. The lamp of Christian virtue 
 was lighted in her breast, and its irradiations, with 
 all the brilliancy of electric hght, shone through and 
 displayed the perfection of those features. 
 
 On the table before the Countess lay the Bible. 
 She had evidently been seeking for spiritual conso- 
 lation amid the beautiful thoughts and heavenward 
 aspirations of the monarch minstrel David. Her 
 eyes were reddened with weeping ; but under the 
 sanctifying influences of that pure belief, which 
 looks for ever to a disposing Providence, she had 
 diTink deeply from that river of poetry, which, first 
 poured forth in the Sacred City, has flowed on 
 a stream of healing waters, unpolluted by the convul- 
 sive storms of time, and the overflow of the well of 
 tears was stayed. The music of the Priest King fell 
 with quieting influence upon her soul, and operating 
 with the subduing calm of the shadows of evening, 
 
 D 2 
 
36 PANTHEA, 
 
 which began to veil the troubled world, gave peace 
 to the afflicted. 
 
 All was silent ; the Countess sat alone in deep 
 thought. The ringing, joyous laugh of a child 
 came with its wild happy melody to arouse her, and 
 in a moment a lovely girl bounded over the ter- 
 race, and sprang buoyantly through an open window 
 into the drawing-room. 
 
 Seeing the Countess she ran to her, and throwing 
 her arms around her neck, she exclaimed, with the 
 utmost joy — 
 
 " Oh ! Mamma, I am so happy, Julian will soon 
 be home again." 
 
 The Countess clasped her daughter in her arms, 
 and kissing her fair forehead said with a smile — ■ 
 
 " How have you learned that, my Euthanasia ?" 
 
 " I have seen her, and she told me so." 
 
 " Seen who, my love ?" 
 
 " iEltgiva !" 
 
 "Where?" 
 
 "In the grove near the pond, where I was 
 gathering flowers." 
 
 "Were you alone, my child ?" 
 
 " Do not be angry. Mamma ; I escaped from 
 Miss Warington, and played a game of hide and 
 seek, until she lost all traces of me. She was sadly 
 alarmed. Mamma ; and I have been laughing at her 
 terrors. Do not be angry with her." 
 
 " But what did ^Eltgiva say to you?" 
 
THE SPIRIT OF NATURE. 37 
 
 " I was playing with my pet fawn, who enjoyed 
 the truant race as much as I did, and as we ran out 
 of the grove into the path which leads to the 
 bridge, I saw ^Itgiva sitting on the mound watching 
 the clouds. I strove to avoid her, but she called 
 me by name. I do not think she can be so wicked 
 as they say, — her voice is so beautiful." 
 
 " Sin, my child, is permitted to disguise its de- 
 formities ; but proceed." 
 
 " I dared not retreat. I stood still ; but my 
 naughty fawn ran up to her, and placed its pretty 
 head in her lap. yEltgiva looked at me with a smile, 
 and said, as she patted the fawn, ' He does not fear 
 me.' I at length approached her ; but I trembled as I 
 did so. She took me by the hand, and looking me 
 fixedly in the face, asked if I was looking for my 
 brother. I replied, ' No, it was no use to do so.' ' No,' 
 said she ; ' but be happy, my dear Lady Euthanasia ; 
 your brother will suffer no harm, and he will return 
 home to you again before the sun sets twice.' " 
 
 " Did this woman say anything more ?" asked 
 the Coimtess. 
 
 A shade passed over the smiling face of the child, 
 and she sighed — ■ 
 
 The Countess pressed her beloved, her youngest 
 born closer to her. " Tell me all, my child," she 
 said, in a low, kind tone. 
 
 " vEltgiva smoothed back my hair, and looking 
 into my eyes — such a look. Mamma — said, ' Too 
 
38 PANTHEA, 
 
 bright for earth — too clear for this dark place — 
 too holy for mankind.' What could she mean, 
 Mamma ?" 
 
 Mr. Cheverton entered the room. 
 
 " Lady Devonport," he said, in a sad voice, " I 
 am dismissed this house. The Earl has cruelly up- 
 braided me ; but 1 could not quit Altamont without 
 a word with the mother of Lord Julian." 
 
 " Mr. Cheverton," said the Countess, " I per- 
 ceive you are troubled more deeply than you would 
 willingly allow. The Earl is of an impetuous 
 temper, and he has strong prejudices ; but there is 
 no man breathing this day in England who has a 
 higher sense of the dignity of Justice, or a more 
 honourable disposition to confess and atone for any 
 hasty wrong. Leave us not in our troubles, Mr. 
 Cheverton ; to-morrow we may reason with the 
 Earl." 
 
 " To-morrow, my Lady, will not find me in the 
 Hall of Altamont. I have been abused — called a 
 deceiver and a cheat — and I retire to-night, in 
 sorrow but not in anger, to await the hour when 
 the Earl of Devonport shall discover that the heart 
 of a poor philosopher can pulsate to as high a note 
 of honour as that of a gartered Earl." 
 
 " Mr. Cheverton, our trial is great. In our only 
 son rested our hopes — far, far too proudly. We 
 thought — " the Countess spoke with much emphasis 
 — " to see him take his place, — the noblest amidst 
 
THE SPIRIT OF NATURE. 39 
 
 the noble, — the wisest where all are wise. We 
 could not but perceive his powerful mind, and we 
 fed our pride upon the fi'uits of its progress. Lo ! 
 we are punished. The heir of our house, a ruler — 
 as he must be — among the rulers of this land, has 
 leagued with an infidel, of whom the world whispers 
 the basest crimes, and accuses of Paganism." 
 
 " We fear the worst," replied My. Cheverton ; 
 " that aged dreamer is dangerous, but I do not 
 believe him vicious. — See !" Mr. Cheverton started, 
 and eagerly directed attention to an open window, 
 from which, by a few steps, the usual ascent was 
 made from the gay j)arter?'e into the drawing-room. 
 
 There stood ^Itgiva. She now wore a long, 
 black dress, gathered in ample folds about her 
 person, and on her head a beaver hat, somewhat of 
 the shape of those worn by the cavaliers of the time 
 of Charles the Second. A long and evidently a rapid 
 walk liad given some appearance of health to her 
 otherwise pale face, and her brilliant eyes sparkled 
 mth animation. 
 
 Without hesitation she stepped over the fi*aming 
 of the window into the room, and, bowing with 
 much grace to the Countess and Mr. Cheverton, 
 she said : — 
 
 " Lady, — the sound of yom' sorrows has reached 
 my ears. Your grief is folly ; your fears are human 
 weaknesses. Julian Altamont has left his home to 
 learn wisdom. He will return to the halls of his 
 
40 PANTHEA, 
 
 fathers armed with the truth, — strong to achieve 
 that sovereignty of mind which is his destiny. Wait 
 and hope." 
 
 ^Itgiva turned to depart, 
 
 " Stay !" exclaimed the Countess. 
 
 " Begone !" roared the fierce Earl, who now 
 entered the drawing-room. The Countess and 
 Euthanasia shrank back, and even Mr. Cheverton 
 trembled. 
 
 " Begone ! — stain not these halls with thy 
 shadow." Lord Devonport walked proudly to- 
 wards ^Itgiva, — his hand clenched, and his teeth 
 fast set with rage. All but /Eltgiva shook with fear. 
 She stood unmoved as a rock, around which an 
 angry ocean was lashing its wild waters. She spoke 
 not — she moved not. The Earl bade her fear and 
 fly his wrath. He stamped furiously upon the 
 floor — he raised his arms above his head ; — had a 
 man stood before him he would have smote him to 
 the dust. But he was subdued by weakness — 
 the tranquillity of that strange woman had pa- 
 ralyzed the power of his rage. The queenly dig- 
 nity of virtue and the proud consciousness of 
 honesty in ^Itgiva restrained the untutored pas- 
 sions of that self-mighty man, as the music of the 
 shepherd god subdued the wild spirits of the savage 
 races of the early world. 
 
 " I came in peace," said ^Itgiva, at length, with 
 great calmness; "I shall not depart hi anger." 
 
THE SPIRIT OF NATURE. 41 
 
 There was a peculiar fascination in the beautiful 
 voice of yEltgiva. 
 
 The Earl was silent — he looked round the room 
 for relief. The Countess motioned with her hand 
 to ^Itgiva to depart ; but that maiden walked boldly 
 to the side of the Earl, and thus addressed him : — 
 
 " I have heard words to which my ear is a 
 stranger. The strength of the wave is not in its 
 foaming crest — the power of the mind is not in the 
 boiling words of passion. The truth lies before 
 you ; all you desire to know can be obtained by 
 asking ; but you wildly nurse your ignorance, and 
 foster a deceitful spectre in your anxious bosom, to 
 eat into the wound it has made. Man !— in all 
 things you are alike blind, impetuous, and proud — " 
 
 iEltgiva paused — the Earl moved not- — the 
 Countess and Euthanasia looked at him, and then 
 at Mr. Cheverton, in surprise. That by some spell 
 of magic this strange woman had enthralled the 
 Earl was their only thought, while the learned tutor 
 even began to doubt if there was not some glamoury 
 in the proceeding. 
 
 "Woman !" said the Earl. 
 
 " Man !" replied ^Itgiva, — the Earl bit his 
 lips, — " are you more than man ?" continued she. 
 " The dignity of human nature was not manifested 
 in your idle rage. The sovereign power of man's 
 intelligence did not display itself in your mean- 
 ingless words. The grandeur of an immortal 
 
42 PANTHEA, 
 
 spirit was not seen in the contortions of yom- 
 limbs." 
 
 " Peace !" exclaimed the Earl. 
 " The demons which have possessed you," said 
 vEltgiva, " must be expelled. The peace you have 
 driven from your house by the \vhirlwind of wrath 
 must be restored — " 
 
 " Give me back my son." 
 " Why ask you your son of me ?" 
 " Because through you have we lost him." 
 " Listen," ^Itgiva turned to all as to command 
 attention, — " Julian Altamont is born for greatness. 
 I have read in those stars, which now begin to shine 
 so tranquilly upon the earth, the high destiny of that 
 giant mind. His path is a devious one ; but out of 
 the labyrinth of error he will come in intellectual 
 greatness by the might of his reason. The pride 
 of birth — the hereditary dignity of an ancient house 
 — which you," addressing the Earl, " esteem too 
 highly, — the superstitions of a fashionable creed," 
 (^Itgiva looked towards the Countess,) " which, al- 
 though taught by a pure mother in true belief and 
 in holiest love, must be forgotten. The lessons of a 
 maiden heart, full of intellect, but too full of the 
 errors of humanity, and the precepts of one" — her 
 eyes fell on Mr. Cheverton — '' who, loving truth for 
 its own sake, still fears to lift the veil which hides 
 the mysteries of that creation, whose Creator he 
 adores, — all cling to your son, and retard his progress. 
 
 { 
 
THE SPIRIT OF NATURE. . 43 
 
 To enable him to look, free of all human passion 
 and feeling, upon nature, Julian Altamont is now 
 absent from you. He will shortly return ; but an 
 altered man will he return. If true to his task, he 
 will have gained wisdom ; but he will have lost the 
 narrow vision which keeps humanity a slave, and in 
 its place he will assert the power of God's great gift 
 of mind, and lift his race nearer to Heaven." 
 
 The enchantress paused. — All present gazed upon 
 her in silence, as if expecting still more information 
 from this strange woman. iEltgiva, on her part, 
 appeared to wait further questioning ; but no word 
 being uttered she walked towards the Countess, 
 who permitted her to take her hand, and, looking 
 full in her face, she said — 
 
 " Noblu Lady, the world knowing us not, speaks 
 of us with bitterness. Those who are not within 
 the world's standard of virtue, are, according to its 
 babbling voice, vicious. Laon, my father, has 
 taught me how valueless is the fashionable scale by 
 which the worldly measure the good, and through 
 him I live beyond the world, and enjoy that life 
 which brings me in communion with the pure spirit 
 of Nature. I have, however, human feelings still, 
 and by the good I wolild be thought holy. By 
 you, most noble Lady, I shall seek yet to be re- 
 spected. — Earewell !" 
 
 Advancing to Euthanasia with a sweet smile, 
 she placed her hand upon that trembling child's 
 
44 PANTHEA, 
 
 shoulder, and softly said, " The blessing of the pm-e 
 in spirit be with thee, sweet girl. Peace, foolish, 
 fluttering heart; thy brother Julian will return 
 again." Leaving her, she said, in passing Mr. Che- 
 verton, " We shall soon see who proves the better 
 teacher," and moving directly to the Earl of Devon- 
 port, she drew herself up with much dignity, and 
 emphatically exclaimed — 
 
 " There must be peace between us — " 
 
 " Woman, away !" said the Earl, w^ho had re- 
 covered himself during the brief period in which 
 ^Eltgiva had been addressing the Countess, and who 
 showed his uneasiness by a petulant movement. 
 " Away !— " 
 
 " I said, rash man, that I came in peace, and I 
 will not depart in anger. My Lord ! may the God 
 Avhom I worship, and who instructs me through his 
 wonderful w^orks, send the spirit of holy charity into 
 your heart." 
 
 ^Itgiva approached the open window, and, with 
 one foot upon the outside step, she turned slowly 
 round, and in that marvellous tone of voice which 
 we have already noticed, and which had the power 
 of a spell upon all listeners, she said — 
 
 " The bright stars look lovingly upon the earth. 
 The earth, the altar of humanity, sends back the 
 incense of sighing hearts to the stars, which, puri- 
 fied, returns to us again in the breath of love. To 
 be great, man must be good ; — to be good, man 
 
THE SPIRIT OF NATURE. 45 
 
 must be forbearing. My prayers will rise to-night 
 for your peace ; may yours blend with mine, and 
 ascend to the scat of the all-seeing Holy One." 
 She bowed, crossed her arms upon her bosom, was 
 a moment silent, and then, without casting another 
 glance into the room, slowly descended the steps, 
 and proceeded across the park to her dwelling. 
 
 There was peace that night in the Hall of Alta- 
 mont. A pure spirit had been there, and the radiance 
 of its influence was still upon its inmates. Human 
 passions, — pride — fear — anger — sorrow, — were all 
 subdued, and even the Earl, exclaiming, " May God 
 forgive us ! Mr. Cheverton I am wrong," retired to 
 his library with a feeling of holy quietude. 
 
 The Countess and Euthanasia knelt by that open 
 window, and from the lips of Mr. Cheverton a 
 prayer of peace was wafted to Heaven. 
 
40 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 THE DREAM OE NATURE'S TRIAL. 
 
 Laon and Julian were separated from all mankind. 
 They had travelled far beyond the bounds of civili- 
 zation; they had surveyed and had escaped the 
 perils which beset untutored humanity. They had 
 observed and studied man under the most dissimilar 
 conditions. They had seen the Apostle of Truth 
 gifted with a mental power which, extending itself be- 
 yond the present, could see much of the great future. 
 They had studied the progress of error, and learned, 
 from sad examples, the degrading influences of mere 
 worldly ambition, sensual pleasm^e, and human 
 pride. The monarch on his gilded throne, lavish- 
 ing his treasure to uphold a little power, and the 
 poor slave, daring even pestilence to scrape from 
 hills of sand a grain of gold to serve his unknown 
 ruler, — the intellectual leader of vast multitudes, 
 and the creature of reasonless impulses, struggling 
 with the beast of the forest for a doubtful ascendancy. 
 
THE SPIRIT OF NATURE. 47 
 
 — had passed in striking contrast before the eyes of 
 the mysterious wanderers. 
 
 Julian had learned many truths. He now saw 
 that the achievements of mind, which by their 
 magic force had raised nations in the scale of 
 moral and physical power, (although giant-hke 
 when compared with the efforts, scarcely more than 
 instinctive, of the nomadic races, who neverthe- 
 less exhibit an order of progress,) were lamentably 
 insignificant, when seen as the residts of an agent 
 which was destined to enjoy an infinite intelligence. 
 
 It appeared to Julian that he had entered upon 
 a new state of existence. His thoughts were of a 
 higher order, and his feelings of a more sensitive 
 character. His powers of perception were more 
 acute, and his reflective faculties capable of closer 
 and more endming exercise. He could now direct 
 his powers of observation to the most micro- 
 scopic phenomena, and without difficidty connect 
 these with the extended operations of creation. 
 A veil had been removed from his eyes ; all things 
 appeared more clear ; a greater transparency was, 
 as he thought, exhibited in nature. 
 
 Beauty was in and around all things ; as a flood 
 of hght it diff'used itself over the whole world. He 
 saw natm-e m its brightness and pmity reflecting 
 back to heaven the smile of God. 
 
 In outward appearance Jidian was pale and 
 travel-worn. His eye was brighter than before, 
 
48 PANTHEA, 
 
 and liquid as with liglit or tears. His cheek, now 
 ahnost as white as marble, was, T^ith every thought, 
 tinted by a blush ; the current of mind was seen to 
 flow in mystic brightness beneath that transparent 
 skin. His very voice was altered in its tone, — 
 it had acquired more of that soft and spuitual 
 melody which was so remarkable in iEltgiva, and 
 it had lost those commanding tones which formerly 
 distinguished it. 
 
 The man, young and impetuous, had become 
 staid and patiently endming. The proud, the bold, 
 the obstinate, was transformed into the himible, the 
 meek, the yielding. A man's strength had given 
 way to an almost womanly delicacy ; and v\ith it 
 assumed all the divine beauty of feminine spiiitu- 
 ality. 
 
 Juhan's soul Avas no less aspuing than it had 
 been from the beginning ; the spiiit-fii'e bm'nt with 
 a steadier and a pm'er flame ; the pulses of holy 
 thought, which had always beat in that brain, were 
 quickened ; and divine sensations were excited in 
 unceasing vibration through his system. Life was 
 spuitualized ; its impulses were higher and stronger ; 
 the soul was more powerful than the body. The 
 philosopher had become the poet. 
 
 Strange it is, that, as spu'ituality of thought and 
 feehng increase, the powers of the body diminish. 
 While the impulses which favour fine animal deve- 
 lopments are in full activity, the spirit power of the 
 
THE SPIRIT OF NATURE. 49 
 
 human soul is restrained. The chain of worldly 
 thought which binds the spirit to the earth must 
 be broken before we can exert those infinite forces 
 which, for ever struggling, Avhisper of their might, 
 and raise within us dreams of the great future which 
 the mind is destined to enjoy. 
 
 Julian had been impelled, by a power which he 
 could not control, from country to country. Scene 
 after scene arose and faded before his eyes ; and in 
 each he became an actor, — from each he gathered 
 knowledge. He had now studied man in all the 
 peculiarities of form and colour in which he is found 
 upon the earth. He had examined the geographi- 
 cal distribution of animals, traced each group to a 
 specific centre, and examined their relations to the 
 vegetable forms amid which they existed. His 
 studies, directed by his guide, during their wild 
 flight, had been rather those of a natm^alist than 
 of a physical inquirer ; and they now pm-sued their 
 way amidst the vegetable wonders of this curi- 
 ous sphere, through all the varying conditions 
 produced by the modified influences of those solar 
 variations on which the continued existence of all 
 organised form depends. 
 
 From the scanty vegetation of the Arctic regions, 
 — through the wild steeps of Siberia, and the great 
 plains of Tartary, — each form of vegetable life had 
 been sought for. From the luxuriant valleys of 
 Southern Asia, to the mighty forests of the Hiraa- 
 
50 PANTHEA, 
 
 layan range, had they travelled. Africa — from its 
 northern deserts to its southern wilds, fr-oni the 
 mountains of Nubia to the pestilential delta of the 
 Niger — they had traversed. The isles of the Eas- 
 tern and the Western Ocean had swam in all their 
 beauty of vegetable covering before the eyes of the 
 overladen brain of Julian. He felt as if swung from 
 island to island, or as if floating, in a magic shell, 
 over the mighty ocean, enjoying the tranquillizing 
 rocking of its restless waters. They were now in 
 the continent of America. They had embraced the 
 old world in their survey ; and now they looked 
 upon the new with all its characteristic forms of life. 
 In this strange passage Julian felt, he knew not 
 how, that he was, as by a stroke of magic, adapted 
 to all the conditions of each situation. Yet, though 
 he moved by some power not his own, he grew 
 wearied. He felt a double existence. He saw — he 
 knew himself Julian Altamont as of old, — yet a sort 
 of spirit form was for ever passing as a shade 
 before him, and still resolving itself into his own 
 person. This feeling grew upon him, and every 
 thing took a phantasmal form under the exercise 
 of the imaginative powers of the mind in its 
 strange duality, which we are all conscious of having 
 experienced in sleep more or less frequently. They 
 glided on the great lakes of Guiana. Julian again 
 and again stayed the progress of their canoe to sur- 
 vey the vegetable wonders of these waters. 
 
THE SPIRIT OF NATURE. 51 
 
 "Onward we must go!" impatiently exclaimed 
 Laon. " Death is in the atmosphere of this lake." 
 And he struck the waters with the light paddle 
 which he held, and the canoe flashed along the 
 waters of that inland sea. 
 
 "Those vegetable wonders — those grand and 
 beautiful water lilies — I could gaze for days upon 
 them. Do I not see the lily sprite of JEltgiva on 
 yonder giant leaf," said Julian. 
 
 Laon only smiled. They had reached the shore ; 
 and at a look, which Julian felt was a command, he 
 lept from their light boat. 
 
 The luxmiant wilduess of the scene they now 
 surveyed drew fi'om Julian constant exclamations 
 of delight. 
 
 They stood in a forest of Ferns, whose slender 
 stems, crowned with the most beautiful fi"onds, 
 bowed above their heads ; while at their feet sprang, 
 from a mossy carpet, an infinite variety of minute 
 but beautiful plants, which gave, by the alternations 
 of their cmious and elegant forms, a striking cha- 
 racter to the spot. The delicacy of these feathery 
 fronds, moved as by a spirit's influence, detained the 
 steps of Julian. 
 
 " Onward," cried Laon. 
 
 The scene rapidly changed. Mimosa forests 
 received them ; and these curiously formed and 
 almost animated plants, shuddering at the presence 
 of man, folded their feathery leaves. 
 
 £ 2 
 
52 PANTHEA, 
 
 Julian gazed in wonder, and exclaimed, " Spiiits, 
 fly not from us. Are we yet unholy?" 
 
 " Onward," shouted Laon. 
 
 They suddenly stood in the midst of a mighty 
 forest of the noblest trees. The proudest vegetable 
 growths were there; and Julian felt strongly the 
 mysterious power of external nature upon his soul. 
 Forgetting his instructor, who walked steadily on his 
 way, Julian was entranced. Form after form faded 
 away before him to be replaced by others. Fan- 
 tastic, dreamy images, crossed his vision. Serpents 
 wreathed themselves around the trunks of the tall 
 trees, and with green and pm-ple eyes glared upon 
 him, or silently looking into his eyes glided noise- 
 lessly away. 
 
 The voice of Laon rung through the forest, — 
 " Onward !" 
 
 Julian started at the familiar sound. His con- 
 sciousness retmiied ; he found that he had reached 
 the verge of the forest, and that nothing except the 
 tall trees and tangling Lianas behind him, with a 
 wide prairie before him, could he discover. 
 
 " Onward," again rang on the air. 
 
 The prairie quickly vanished. They reached a 
 spot covered with Cactus' plants in every variety of 
 unshapely form. The scorching rays of a vertical 
 sun struck fiercely upon the heads of om' travellers, 
 and the already overwearied youth felt crushed under 
 its influence. Yet the splendid flowers of the 
 
THE SPIRIT or NATURE. 53 
 
 Cacti, looking on the sun in all the briUiancy of 
 tropical colour, and the profusion of an excess of 
 life, almost maddened Julian mth delight. Fever 
 was working in his veins ; but there was no water 
 to tranquillize his tlu'obbing pulses. Laon wounded 
 a Cactus, and with its watery sap he refreshed the 
 jaded youth. 
 
 At the magic word " Onward ! " all things 
 changed. 
 
 A mighty forest once more covered them, and 
 from the branches of the trees sA^Ting to and fro 
 upon the still air those strange Orchidaceous plants 
 which mimic insect life in form and colom\ Julian 
 was strangely excited. All things appeared to 
 quicken into moving life ; the flowers became in- 
 sects, and the leaves birds. Laon took him by the 
 hand, and breathing across his forehead restored 
 him again to consciousness. " Onward to more 
 temperate cHmes, where the old world and the new 
 unite theii" beauties, where the temperate and the 
 torrid zones blend their charms." 
 
 The earth-Avide wanderers passed over a wide 
 and undulating country, rich with masses of forest- 
 trees and with every variety of vegetation. Jagua 
 palms, vdth. light and airy tufts of leaves rising 
 above columnar trunks, covered by twining plants 
 profusely decorated with flowers of every hue, waved 
 near masses of the darkly noble Cedar trees. The 
 humble Chamaerops and the lordly Cocoa-palm threw 
 
54 PANTHEA, 
 
 their shades over the thick and massy groups of 
 Aloes which shot up their spires of flowers to the 
 summer sky, and spice-bearing trees which perfumed 
 the ail*. The Zamia stood contrasted with the Palm 
 of Thebes; one stunted and disproportioued, the 
 other graceful and light. The sacred Baobab of a 
 thousand years still shook its leaves, and spread its 
 branches over the flowering shrubs of a summer's 
 growth. Magnolias mingled then* lovely flowers with. 
 rich Rhododendrons and the dark Pine. Mingled 
 vnth these were found the Orange and the Lemon 
 tree with their golden fi'uits — the Date and the Pig 
 — the Apricot and the Walnut — the thick clustering 
 Vine, and the beauties of the Acaciae — together with 
 the Oak and the Elm, the Chestnut and the Larch, 
 and every other forest tree which gives a charm to 
 the colder regions of the earth. 
 
 The scene was full of life. Lizards uttered their 
 wailing cries. Serpents hissed as they dragged 
 theii- glittering forms beneath the shelter of the long 
 grass. Frogs croaked in the moist shades ; and the 
 place was filled with the hum of insect wings beat- 
 ing the air. Birds of the richest plumage, uttering 
 shrill and discordant cries, shot from tree to tree ; 
 and trillings of the sweetest songsters of the forest 
 were heard lending the charm of theii' modulations 
 to the strange chorus which proclaimed the fidness 
 of enjoyment. From time to time the barkings and 
 bowlings of the great carnivora swelled across the 
 
THE SPIRIT or NATURE. 55 
 
 country ; and the lowing of herbivorous animals 
 proclaimed the variety of created forms, which had, 
 within a comparatively limited region, found a com- 
 mon home. 
 
 Under the conflicting influences of admiration, of 
 wonder, of terror, of manly daring and womanly 
 timidity, Julian clung to Laon in childlike helplessness. 
 
 He felt he could stand by the lair of the Lion, and 
 subdue him with a look ; yet he trembled at the 
 barking of the Prairie dog. He felt he could grasp 
 the hissing Serpent by the throat, and rob it of its 
 poison ; yet the harmless Lizard made him tremble 
 by its plaintive cry. 
 
 " We stand now," said Laon, supporting Julian 
 in his arms, " upon one of those centres about which 
 revolve all those forces which tend to produce the 
 full development of the great phenomena of life. 
 We have seen the manifestations of hving power in 
 the lords of reason, and marked its phenomena in 
 these creations which obey the humble laws of 
 instinct. We have now traced this principle — this 
 all-exciting power — through every form of vegetable 
 creation, from ' the Cedar which is on Lebanon, to 
 the Hyssop which groweth on the wall,' and yet our 
 task is not ended. The mysteries of the life which 
 brings the mute atoms into form, and which deter- 
 mine the conditions of every stone upon which we 
 tread, are still to be sm'veyed. Onward to the task 
 — my Julian, onward !" 
 
56 PANTHEA, 
 
 High and terrible rocks, bleached and barren, 
 were before them in all the wretchedness of utter 
 desolation. Jidian had scarcely power left to com- 
 prehend the sublime grandem' which rose around 
 him on every side. He moved forAvard in a state of 
 reverie, the mind being dead, in a great measure, to 
 the impressions of sense, or rather overpowering 
 them by the images it formed while dwelling on the 
 mp'iad wonders which had ah'eady pressed them- 
 selves upon its powers. He was, however, roused 
 from this somnolent state by the voice of an enor- 
 mous ape, which, bounding from rock to rock, 
 grinned hideously at them, in rage that his solitary 
 sanctuary was thus invaded by man. Being awak- 
 ened to the present toils, Julian looked upon the 
 massy piles of rocks with an expression of hopeless 
 weakness. 
 
 " The end of the trial !" said Laon encouragingly. 
 " Mount and triumph." . 
 
 " I can go no fm-ther," sighed Julian ; " the 
 triumph is not for me." 
 
 " Onward !" in a clear ringing voice, was Laou's 
 only reply. 
 
 The spirit-stirring tone inspired the sinking youth 
 to new exertion, and slowly they clambered that 
 naked mountain. 
 
 The great ape, not daring to attack them, still 
 sprang continually across the path of Laon and 
 Julian, and jabbering and spitting seemed to mut- 
 
THE SPIRIT OF NATUIIK. 57 
 
 ter a savage detiaiice to their progress. Julian 
 trembled with real fear. 
 
 " The poor creature is powerless to hurt us if we 
 are hold," said Laon ; " he is a type of sense ob- 
 structing the progress of reason;" and seizing firm 
 hold of JuHan, the old man sprang buoyantly for- 
 ward. No mountaineer, nerved to his task by the 
 constant exercise of the chase, ever sprung onward 
 with more elasticity. His tread was firm, and his 
 step buoyant ; and so far from exhibiting any 
 symptoms of fatigue, he appeared to gain strength 
 with the increasing toil now demanded of him. 
 Sometimes merely supporting, but often actually 
 carrying, Julian, Laon journeyed upward hour after 
 hour, the majestic rocks still towering above them. 
 
 The meridian sun shone brilliantly when the tra- 
 vellers were at the foot of this great mountain 
 range. Twilight, with its softening hitluences, 
 which had given a charm even to the nakedness of 
 this region of chasms and gorges, was now rapidly 
 fading. 
 
 Darkness had fallen around them, and clouds of 
 mist sunk in heavy condensation upon the lower 
 regions of these gigantic elevations. From out this 
 cloud-land they, however, saw the snow-clad topmost 
 peak, silvery in the first rays of the rising moon. 
 
 The night breeze blew coolly upon thein, fanning 
 the throbbing temples of the scarcely conscious 
 Jidian. He felt revived by the chilly wind ; and 
 
58 PANTHEA, 
 
 he now moved steadily by the side of Laoii, who 
 cheered him with his joyous shout of " Upwards 
 and onwards." Colder and colder became the air 
 as they ascended ; and under the influence of the 
 attenuated atmosphere, in which they were now 
 moving rapidly, Julian's senses began to fail him. 
 He talked wildly to the chattering ape who still 
 disputed their progress : and often burst into fits of 
 hysterical laughter, apparently at the strange con- 
 tortions of the angry beast. After each unnatural 
 impulse Julian sank into the arms of Laon, terrified 
 at the echoes he had awakened amid the rifted rocks, 
 which sounded to him like the rejoicings of millions 
 of unholy spirits. Things swam around him — 
 strange lights flashed and flitted before his eyes — 
 the external world had vanished ; — but he had a 
 dim consciousness of a mysterious change, — a new 
 existence appeared opening before him. He felt 
 himself lost in an atmosphere of mild light. 
 
 This radiance, of which Julian had but a faint 
 perception, was emitted by curtains of phosphores- 
 cent masses which festooned a great cavernous 
 passage, into which they had passed, and through 
 which they were now threading an intricate way. 
 With the atmospheric change to which they were 
 subjected, in their subterranean path, Julian once 
 more revived. 
 
 He saw, on every side, gigantic crystals of the 
 most perfect form reflecting m brilliancy the curious 
 
THE SPIRIT OF NATURE. 59 
 
 illumination, and giving, by refraction, strangely 
 mingled colours back to the eye. Mineral masses 
 of all kinds were diffused through the rocks. Here 
 gold and silver spread like the works of an earthly 
 artist's hands in mimicry of arborescent forms. 
 There copper, and lead, and ii'on glittered in crys- 
 talline beauty, or lay dull and heavy as a molten 
 mass in some vast fissm^e. Gems of great brilhancy 
 were scattered over the face of the rock in abundance, 
 and every form of metallic and earthly crystal was 
 to be discovered in this strange solitude deep in the 
 centre of the mountains. 
 
 Waters welled up through fissures in the rocks, 
 the steam of which filled the caverns with a mist. 
 These were sometimes accumulated in considerable 
 quantities, forming lakes, the bottoms of which were 
 covered with the utmost variety of crystallization. 
 Waters, filtered from the surface, through many 
 hundred yards of strata, flowed over the walls in the 
 most pellucid state, and appeared to afford, to tliis 
 world of crystals, the means of increasing in 
 brightness, and in magnitude, and in symmetry. 
 Julian saw all this, and he had an imperfect con- 
 sciousness of the powers at work, in strange anta- 
 gonism, to build this nether world. 
 
 " The life," said Laon, " which works in your 
 organized form is but an exalted condition of the 
 power which occasions the accretion of particles into 
 this crystalline mass. The quickening force of 
 
60 PANTHEA, 
 
 nature through every form of being is the same. 
 Through all we see the power of life, and man stands 
 only superior to the molecule in that development 
 of soul which enables him to search all things — to 
 reach all things — and even to commune with the 
 God who is above and beyond all existence." 
 
 Julian listened ; the words fell upon his ear ; but 
 the idea conveyed to his mind was faint He looked 
 at Laon, and around these caverns in utter vacancy. 
 He made one effort to command his thoughts, — the 
 struggle overcame him, and he fell powerless into 
 the arms of his conductor. Laon rushed forward 
 with his burthen, — they were again on the acclivities 
 of a great mountain range. 
 
 Julian's lips moved rapidly ; but no sound 
 escaped ; — a smile played over his pale features, and 
 his arm was extended as if to receive some one in 
 its embraces. The toil-worn aspect was gone, — in- 
 tellectual beauty suffused his countenance, — and his 
 face, which grew gradually rigid, appeared in the 
 full flood of moonlight, which now fell upon it like 
 the high ideal of a sculptor's di'eani. 
 
 Laon sat upon an ice-covered rock, and sup- 
 porting the senseless Julian in his arms, sheltered him 
 with his robes. That old man — enthusiast, enchanter, 
 visionary, or fool, — call him what we will accord- 
 ing to om* own views of man and his mission, — that 
 old man was now full of human nature, though he 
 boasted of a spiritual independciict> from its throes. 
 
THE SPIRIT OF NATURE. 61 
 
 He parted the hair from JuHan's brow, and fondly 
 kissing it exclaimed — 
 
 " The purity of light ! the holiness of silence ! and 
 the mystery of the hour be upon thy soul ." 
 
 Julian, in his strange dual state, felt that his 
 spiritual part was to be admitted to the high 
 privilege of surveying the vision of the mystery. 
 His mortal self — all that he had regarded as man — 
 rested, helpless, in the arms of Laon JElphage, 
 who watched him as tenderly as a father would 
 watch his favourite child in sickness. 
 
62 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 THE VISION OF THE MYSTERY. 
 
 Julian felt himself borne onward mth an easy 
 gliding motion, and lie yielded to a feeling of luxu- 
 riant repose, which subdued him so completely, that 
 he became entu^ely unconscious of any other in- 
 fluence. This dreamy sense of motion, which was 
 a soothing consciousness of long and easy undula- 
 tions, and from which there was no desu'e to escape, 
 continued for some time. At length, the sense of 
 hearing was suddenly awakened by somids which 
 sent a thrill through Julian's soul, and instantly 
 quickened it with a feeling of intense delight, so 
 entirely in accordance with his movements were the 
 waves of harmony which now floated aromid him. The 
 music did not appear to be di'awn from any instru- 
 ment, or to proceed from any human or even spi- 
 ritual organs of articulation. The sounds were 
 those produced by the movement of the ethereal 
 medium in which he swam, — the swelling and dying 
 
THE SPIRIT OF NATURE. 63 
 
 cadences corresponding with the wave of progression 
 upon wliich Julian was borne. He appeared to him- 
 self to be resolved into a state of extreme ethereality, 
 and to be, indeed, a portion of the billow of sound 
 — all feeling being concentrated in one exquisite 
 sense of hearing. Eventually the miurmuring 
 music became a more defined expression of joyous 
 sound ; and Julian became conscious that familiar 
 words were fashioned into melody by some spirit 
 tongues : — 
 
 " From the moonlit bowers 
 
 Of tlie world of flowers, 
 
 Now bathed with the mystic globes of dew, 
 
 Which gather the light 
 
 From the orbs of night. 
 
 And their fading tints to the leaves renew, 
 
 We come — we come ! 
 
 " From the distant globe. 
 With its radiant robe 
 Of powers — won from the Empyrean — 
 Where the echoes of Truth, 
 In the voice of Youth, 
 Bursts upon space in a mighty paean, 
 
 We come — we come ! 
 
 " From that lovely star 
 Of mankind the car. 
 So proudly rolling its onward way. 
 Bearing the weight 
 Of its mental freight. 
 Ascending still to the purer day. 
 
 We come — we come ! 
 
 Strains, which human sense translated into similar 
 language to this, continued to fall upon the ear, 
 
64 
 
 PANTHEA, 
 
 which grew more and more sensitive to the dehcate 
 harmonies floating aromid. Fi-esh bm-sts of song 
 were constantly breaking across Jidian's way, as if 
 proceechng from new and numerous bands of subtle 
 choristers, the bmihen of all ahke being — "The 
 Earth and the triumph of Truth." Julian had, 
 however, no perception of any embodied forms. 
 Inessentially he floated onward, with hmnan sym- 
 pathy for the spu'itual harmonies, of Avhich, by some 
 mysterious blending of powers, he formed a con- 
 cordant part. 
 
 Eventually, a perception of Hght — a sense of 
 floating into a region of glow — was felt ; and with 
 this feeling, a vague imagination, connecting it with 
 the Zodiacal light, became active within him. The 
 waves of sound swept him still onward ; and over 
 those long waves there passed mth rapidity thou- 
 sands of luminous billows, as if a phosphorescent 
 surface had been stirred by the tranquil cm-rents of an 
 attenuated ether. Yet Julian felt that he did not float 
 on a wave of either sound or light, but in it. The 
 brightness increased upon him, and he was soon 
 involved in the splendour of rays, refracted from 
 myriads of aerial prisms, forming, by combination, 
 chcles of tlic utmost chromatic beauty and intense 
 brilliancy, revolving round a centre of the pm-est 
 brightness. 
 
 Under the influence of the powers of sound 
 and light, Julian's consciousness was slowly re- 
 
THE SPIRIT OF NATURE, 65 
 
 stored. He was now moving through the stellar 
 space, and saw world after world rolling on its 
 infinite path in that intercommunion of brightness 
 which chains the material creations into one uni- 
 versal whole. The powers by which he was im- 
 pelled were still invisible, yet steadily he was wafted 
 onward. The numerous sounds increasing as he went, 
 blended, at length, into a tempest of the divinest 
 harmony, entrancing that human soul, and restrain- 
 ing his every earthward thought. The light now 
 blazed forth with much higher intensity ; and as the 
 iris rays passed into the pure radiance of this empy- 
 real space, Julian became sensible of an intellectual 
 power, far superior to anything which ever, even in 
 his most poetic dreamings, he imagined a mortal 
 could enjoy. 
 
 He felt that he approached the central sun. 
 With his exalted powers of vision he coidd now 
 scan the immensity of space ; and looking tlu-ough 
 myriads of planetary systems, which obeyed the 
 influence, as it now appeared to Julian, of that 
 power which was so rapidly impelling him onward, 
 he perceived, as a small speck of light, his own Earth 
 amid the congregated band of planets forming 
 the little Solar System, of which he knew himself a 
 part, although he felt no earthward longing. The 
 chain so long dra^m out had become too attenuated 
 to be sensibly felt by his etherealized spirit. 
 
 Bonie through the ocean of light by a torrent of 
 
 F 
 
66 PANTHEA, 
 
 sweet sounds, Julian felt an overpowering sense of 
 an approach towards the precincts of the sanctuary 
 of Universal Power, and he closed his eyes with a 
 feeling of solemn awe. But still, tln^ough his closed 
 eyehds, the radiance of Space penetrated Tvith but 
 slightly diminished brightness. 
 
 A burst of melody of the most exquisite inten- 
 sity, and a flash of hght, more like an extreme 
 electrical development than the steady radiance by 
 which the Elysium wanderer had hitherto been sm-- 
 rounded, was succeeded by a singularly impressive 
 silence, and he became conscious of a tempered 
 illumination. All was still ; Juhan was resting 
 after his long and strange flight — ^lie felt himself a 
 mortal. He knew he was in the region of the im- 
 mortals ; and fi'om the oppressive feehng of little- 
 ness he dared not to move — he feared even to look 
 around him. 
 
 Before, however, he felt either disposition or power 
 to endeavour to exercise any of his finite faculties, 
 a voice, which appeared hke that of a mortal, which 
 he even fancied was iEltgiva's, thus addi^essed 
 him : — 
 
 " Mortal ! from the bright lights which shine 
 through the Earth- enveloping atmosphere, I have 
 called thee ; fr'om the hfe-quickening sunbeam, and 
 from the paler radiance of the moonlight, have I 
 spoken to thee ; from the ocean wave thou hast 
 heard my voice ; from the rolling torrent and the 
 
THE SPIRIT OF NATURE. 67 
 
 tranquil stream have I sought to charm thee with 
 music ; from the many shaped forms of moving hfe 
 my discom-ses have been as the echoes upon thy 
 path ; from the full foliage of the aspiring tree, and 
 from the painted petals of the dew-fed flowers have 
 I hymned of truth for thy instruction ; from the 
 mass of the earth's mountains, their caverns and 
 then- abysses, have I sought to seize thee through 
 the force of Avonder and of terror ; and from the 
 rounded pebble of the babbling brook have I told 
 thee mighty truths; from the elemental powers 
 in the sunshine and the solemn stillness of the night 
 — in the fmy of the conflicting storm — in the tran- 
 quiflizing influences of natm-e's calm, I have sought 
 to lift thee above the earth. I have been as thy 
 shadow, — in the di-eam of infancy and the vision of 
 thy riper years, to thy heart have I sought to con- 
 vey high impulses. To the Good which is the 
 Great — to the Beautiful which is the True, I have 
 sought to consecrate thy soul ; and, through nature 
 in her ever-varying forms, instruct thee in the mys- 
 teries of being, and lift thee, from the finite state to 
 which thou art born, tow^ards that Infinite for which 
 thou art destined. Through thee I have sought to 
 advance the human family a few degrees above the 
 errors with which they are doomed to contend, in 
 the darkness of their superstitious ignorance. I 
 have striven to reveal myself unto thee; but the 
 mists of the earth have obscm-ed thy vision. To 
 
 f2 
 
68 PANTHEA, 
 
 the spiritual brightness of my nature a moral enerva- 
 tion has made thy soul dark; and I, who have 
 called upon thee in a hundred tongues, — I who 
 have wooed thee in a thousand shapes in vain, — I, 
 Panthea, the Spirit of Nature, command thee, in 
 my own land of light, to see and know me." 
 
 The eyes of Julian were opened. He saw and 
 bowed before the mighty Panthea. 
 
 Human sense, reducing the vast to its own 
 powers, — dwarfing, by the diminishing property of 
 its organs of vision, the infinite within the limits of 
 the finite, — saw the Universal Spirit as a beautiful 
 embodiment of angelic grace. Of a form exhibiting 
 the most perfect symmetry, and in the full grandeiu' 
 of spiritual life, stood Panthea, looking down on the 
 prostrate Julian. Her wings were folded that their 
 brilhancy might not blind the mortal ; and with a 
 gentle meaning in her mild eyes, which beamed 
 seraphic love, the Spirit lifted Julian, and bade him 
 look around. 
 
 Strange was the change he saw. The earth in 
 all its beauty was before him. His own vaUey, with 
 its river and its cataract, were there. He stood by 
 the ivied rock ; but not with Laon. The mys- 
 terious Panthea was by his side ; and the repose of 
 nature was as singularly beautiful as on that myste- 
 rious night from which he dated his sublimer impulses. 
 
 " Listen, but speak not," said Panthea. 
 
 The Spirit waved lier hand, and a veil appeared 
 
 I 
 
THE SPIRIT OF NATURE. 69 
 
 to cover the images which Julian had seen distinctly, 
 and looked lovingly upon, but a moment before ; 
 and he felt himself again involved in a drapery of 
 soft and luminous clouds. 
 
 Panthea spoke , 
 
 " The intelligence which commands your spiritual 
 powers has struggled nobly against the debasing 
 influences by which on earth you have been sur- 
 rounded ; and that pure desire to know the truth, 
 for the love of truth alone, is the talisman which has 
 led you to the presence of that spii'it who has power 
 to reveal the secrets which you seek. The earth, 
 and the forms of terrestrial matter — these are my 
 care ; the powers which regulate these forms — they 
 are my slaves. I rejoiced with the angelic hosts 
 when the foundations of the earth were laid ; and 
 my voice rang in the seraphic chorus which shook 
 the created worlds, when the grand development of 
 mind was completed in the creation of man. Still, 
 though in high ascendancy superior to the clay- 
 clogged mortal, I am but the faithful servant of the 
 Eternal Presence, whose influence is seen in all things, 
 and whose power is manifested through infinite 
 space. To the mortal many phenomena in natiu-e 
 must remain obscm-e. That which you may know 
 will I show you." 
 
 The car of clouds appeared to move from the 
 earth, and Julian felt that they were rising into an 
 attenuated ether. The clouds grew gradually so 
 
70 PANTHEA, 
 
 tliin that all objects were as distinctly visible, 
 tlirough tlieir filmy curtains, as if they had not been 
 interposed, yet Julian felt that it was upon their 
 far extended wings, floating hke a filmy web of 
 cometary light, that he was supported. 
 
 "The creation of the Earth," said Panthea, " or 
 the creation of a molecule of dust, requires the same 
 exertion of omnipotent power. That which was, is ; 
 the past is ever as the present ; — the beginning and 
 the end are the same with the eternals. But, mortal, 
 now survey the progress of creative power in your 
 distant planet !" 
 
 A globe of matter rolled on the thin air. It was 
 dark, and covered with heavy masses of vapour 
 which tossed in pitchy waves around it. What 
 may have been the form of the nucleus Julian could 
 not discover. Slowly the disturbed ocean settled 
 into comparative tranquillity ; and becoming, by the 
 condensation of its grosser particles, more transpa- 
 rent, a mass of crystalline matter was seen revolving 
 beneath a sphere of water. Mighty forces were 
 there in full activity ; but by one power the position 
 of the globe in space was determined, and secm-ely 
 chained within fixed limits. Gravitation was exert- 
 ing its control. 
 
 As a stream flowing along ten thousand lines, all 
 passing through a certain point, Jidian saw the 
 power of Magnetism at its task ; and running across 
 those streams, he beheld others no less energetically 
 
THE SPIRIT OF NATURE. 71 
 
 compelling matter to conform to their laws. 13y the 
 combined impulses of these forces every atom was 
 seen to assume a determinate position. These 
 streams of power, passing at right angles to each 
 other through a fixed point, which varied for every 
 condition of matter, but was the same for similar 
 conditions, produced the utmost symmetry ; and 
 under their influences crystalline masses of exceed- 
 ing beauty were developed from the fluid solution. 
 
 " Your magnetism," said Panthea, " not merely 
 keeps the earth's axis bound wdthin certain limits of 
 variation ; but its influence settles the place and 
 position of every atom of your world." 
 
 Other attractive forces were seen drawing particle 
 to particle ; and all were opposed by the potent 
 agency of Heat which power prevented them from 
 approaching beyond certain limits, which were de- 
 termined by properties not even then clearly dis- 
 covered by Julian. These he saw formed essential 
 elements in every state of matter. 
 
 The mighty chemical forces now struggled with 
 the other powers in the vast area. Heat was libe- 
 rated in its most intense form. The surrounding 
 envelope of waters was dissipated into vapour, 
 which, charged with the sulphureous exhalations 
 bursting through the rifted rock, now floated in 
 masses of black clouds. The hardest mountains 
 were melted down into pitch-like lakes ; and foun- 
 tains of ignited matter were thrown with enormous 
 
72 PANTHEA, 
 
 force high into the air. Those fire-jets fell into the 
 seas of molten porphyry, which boiled and bubbled 
 with enormous fury ; the huge blisters of the pasty 
 mass bursting and ejecting gases which, inflaming, 
 gave by their light a terrific grandeur to the scene. 
 The earth was the theatre of fiery strife ; and the 
 surrounding air, which passed again to a more than 
 midnight blackness, was rended by discharges of 
 lightning, which appeared to threaten destruction to 
 the planet. 
 
 The conflict of the elemental powers continued 
 long; but, eventually, the energy of Heat, and the force 
 of the Electric manifestations, were subdued by effects 
 of which they were themselves the moving cause. 
 The decompositions of the matters forming the mass 
 of the earth, by the agency of fh-e, produced com- 
 binations which quenched the fire itself. The de- 
 vastating power was chained down by shackles 
 of its own creation. The fury of the reign of Heat 
 was over ; and that great principle shrunk back 
 into the secret recesses of creation. 
 
 The whole form of the Earth was changed ; and 
 when the strife being abated, the black clouds were 
 slowly condensed, — ranges of mountains rose high 
 above the surface, — and level plains spread them- 
 selves out around them. Volcanoes still poured 
 forth their ashes in mighty belchings, and spread on 
 every side immense masses of tuffa, through which 
 streams of lava cut their burning way. Lightnings 
 
THE SPIRIT OF NATURE. 73 
 
 and thunders still pierced the air, and mournful 
 howls, from the many rents in the thick crust, gave 
 evidence of internal strugglings. 
 
 "See !" exclaimed the Spirit of Nature. Julian 
 saw a spirit like the mighty Panthea, in all the 
 brightness of angelic glory, pass amid the conflict of 
 the lightnings ; and, through the hollow groanings 
 of the dying thunders, a voice, clear and ringing, 
 sweetly exclaimed — "Be still ." 
 
 Echoes, like the decaying cadences of a departing 
 storm heard over the vast solitude of ocean, rose 
 upon the air ; and at the command of the spirit, all 
 things settled into harmonious arrangements. 
 
 The waters now cast their billows against the feet 
 of the mountains, and rivers ran musically along 
 the immense valleys. But no life was there. Blank 
 rocks alone composed the mountains ; and the plains 
 now presented hardened surfaces formed by the con- 
 solidation of the previously melted masses, or exhibited 
 vast accumulations of volcanic ashes. To the eye of 
 the entranced one, the planet appeared as the domain 
 of death in all the utterness of its fearful desolation. 
 
 Panthea saw his thoughts ; — 
 
 " Light, the life-giver, must animate the scene." 
 
 The sun rose ; and Julian saw that luminary 
 surrounded by many influences, each one distinct, but 
 still apparently but modified conditions of a com- 
 mon atmosphere, — each condition being determined 
 by properties belonging to the solid mass to which it 
 
74 PANTHEA, 
 
 was bound in supreme obedience. All these influ- 
 ences were guided by the luminous radiations ; and 
 they all fell, with the stream of solar light, to work 
 their powers upon the naked earth. 
 
 " Now all the forces," said Panthea, " which 
 we have seen so actively employed in moulding a 
 desert, will be resolved, by the agency of the solar 
 beam, into the superior principle upon which de- 
 pends man's greatest mystery — the Mystery of 
 Life. The accretion of atoms to form a crystal is 
 not life. The chemical agencies which determine 
 the composition of a mass of matter is not life. Nor 
 is light, or heat, or electricity, that pervading power. 
 Yet is it a force partaking of the properties of all the 
 other forces, but ever acting in antagonism to the 
 agency of each and all. — Look on." 
 
 The waters which beat now sluggishly on the 
 solid earth exhibited, wherever the light fell, new 
 and peculiar conditions. Small transparent cells 
 were rapidly formed, and these arranged themselves 
 in lines along the surface, which, by lateral combina- 
 tions, gave rise to numerous ramifications ; the whole 
 presenting an arborescent form. Colour was shortly 
 manifested, and the surface from white passed into 
 yellow, and eventually became a brilliant green. 
 
 Rapidly the waters were covered Avitli vegetable 
 life, and Julian perceived in these minute forms the 
 elements of the most stately plants. The atmosphere 
 around the planet appeared to be resolving into 
 
THE SPIRIT OF NATURE. 75 
 
 organic conditions. He saw thin gases condensed 
 into solid forms, which concentrated within them 
 all the agencies which he had previously beheld at 
 work in producing the mere aggregation of molecules, 
 and in determining crystalline forms. These were, 
 however, controlled by some unknowai agency more 
 potent than the others, which operated upon and 
 through all organized forms by a perpetual tremor ; 
 but the agency was hidden from Juhan's sight. 
 
 There was a gracious smile on the face of Panthea, 
 when she said, 
 
 " Life, and the more exalted energies which are 
 given to yom- Earth, cannot be rendered \isible to 
 the earthly. — Look on." 
 
 A small band of spirits was seen by Julian de- 
 scending through heaven, and they alighted on the 
 Earth. Although he was enabled to trace with his 
 eyes their beautiful forms, they were so attenuated, 
 and so brightly luminous, that they appeared rather 
 a portion of the solar radiations on which they floated, 
 than essences apart from them. Each one bore a 
 crystal vase, from Avhich they sprinkled wdnged 
 particles of dust upon the earth : these spreading 
 in all dh'ections gave rise to new phenomena, tlu'ough 
 the influence of which the earth became as a garden, 
 rich in the surpassing lovehness of vegetable life. 
 Voices rose through space, and Julian heard the 
 rejoicing sounds of spiritual song proclaiming that 
 the mysteries of life were all awakened, and active 
 
76 PANTHEA, 
 
 to realize the great ends of creation. The sword- 
 like grasses clothed the plains ; shrubs sprang up on 
 all sides of the hills, rich in their luxmiant foliage, 
 and the acclivities of the mountains were rapidly 
 covered with beautiful forest trees, which waved, as 
 in gladness, upon the air, through which rung the 
 spirits' song : — 
 
 From orbs wLicli lie hid in the depths of space, 
 
 All interchained by the bond of light, 
 Wje have wing'd our way to tliis desert place, 
 
 Which long has rolled in the shadowless night ; 
 And we bring from each light-inwoven star. 
 Those germs of Life which their beauties are. 
 
 The seeds we plant in the silent earth 
 Shall rise to the odour-breatliing trees. 
 
 And the flowers, voluptuous in light, have bii'th 
 In the many hues of its mysteries ; — 
 
 And colour, and odour, and health shall dwell 
 
 In the subtUe essence of each sweet ceU. 
 
 Thus echoed through the empyrean the voices of 
 the angels, to whom the great duty of diffusing the 
 living germs was given. 
 
 With supreme delight did Julian view the ever 
 altering conditions of the stream, which flowed from 
 the sun to the earth. The seed was quickened by a 
 great Chemical power, which was subdued by the 
 touch of Light as soon as the first leaves were 
 developed, and under luminous influence a due 
 excitement of the tremulous life, which was fixed in 
 every organic cell, produced that separation of solid 
 matter from its gaseous atmosphere, upon which the 
 
THE SPIRIT OF NATURE. 77 
 
 woody structure of every plant depended. Again, 
 when the bud was forming, and the flower ripening 
 into seed, to secure the perpetuity of its kind, won- 
 derful agencies of Heat subdued both Light and 
 Chemic force, and exercised important functions of 
 its own. 
 
 Julian spanned the Earth with a thought, and his 
 exalted powers enabled him to survey it as a whole. 
 Every vegetating form was before him, from the 
 mere film on the marsh to the mightiest trees and 
 the loveliest flowers. He saw them spring from the 
 soil — advance to maturity — ^burst forth in flower — 
 shed their seed upon the earth and die ; even in 
 death giving to their species the elements of a fresh 
 growth ; and although the life-quickening stream, 
 which had escaped to kindle other forms, left them 
 a prey to the powers it held restrained, the change 
 was seen by him to be one which the great law of 
 creative necessity demanded. 
 
 The earth was beautiful ; but to Julian's ear, 
 accustomed to the stir and movement of life, the 
 beauty of it was like the repose of the newly dead, 
 when all the lustre of infant loveliness returns, 
 heightened by a spiritual charm. Panthea waved her 
 arm, and amidst the powers which circulated around 
 the star on which Julian gazed with so much interest, 
 a brighter radiance appeared, mixing its undulations 
 in a strange manner with the other empyreal ele- 
 ments — lacing, so it appeared, the whole into an 
 
78 
 
 PANTHEA, 
 
 etherial veil. " The life," said Panthea, " which you 
 have seen quickening matter into beautiful organisms, 
 until the vegetable Avorld has unfolded its utmost 
 perfections in the many-scented flowers, now bursts 
 forth with higher impulses, and shortly it will excite 
 new conditions of matter, which shall not only live, 
 but move, and enjoy the privilege of change of 
 place at will. See the glorified troop now passing 
 from the orb of fire, which conceals the highest 
 order of Intelligences. They go to do the bidding 
 of our God, and to spread a new life upon your 
 native world." 
 
 In a flood of brightness, which compelled Julian 
 to close his eyes, the angels rushed by him — the 
 gentle beating of theii^ wings, so numerous was the 
 host, sounding like the rush of mighty waters. The 
 immortal Panthea bade him gaze again upon the 
 Earth. He looked ; — an active scene was awaiting 
 him ; — spirit passing spirit floated over every por- 
 tion of the new world, and, scattering through earth 
 and air, land and sea, the germs of animal existence, 
 they rejoiced in the prospect of a new creation. 
 
 On every spot spontaneous movement now 
 appeared ; the waters were stirred by a new power, 
 and the sm-face of the world was agitated by im- 
 pulses of a different character from those which 
 Julian had hitherto seen. Strange creatures swam 
 in the waters ; curious forms crawled over the dry 
 land, and the air was full of winged life; yet 
 
THE SPIRIT OF NATURE. 79 
 
 Julian saw that, with all this fulness, there existed 
 but a few pairs of each species. 
 
 The sun set, and night was upon the planet. Its 
 ruling orb rose again, and more complex develop- 
 ments appeared ; thus day succeeding day was 
 presented in the vision, and every morning broke 
 upon the mystery of advancing existence ; all 
 creatm-es multiplied among themselves, and new 
 forms of life sprang up amid the mass. Thus 
 from the waters, boiling with microscopic life, Julian 
 watched the progress of animal existence, until the 
 lion's roar, in the pride of his strength, sounded 
 fearfidly through the thick forests, and the gigantic 
 elephant crushed the soil of the luxuriant jungle 
 with the weight of his tread. 
 
 " The days you have seen," said Panthea, " are 
 ages which man cannot count. We know not time — 
 time is the division of a period. To the Infinite there 
 are no periods ; past and present are lost in eternity." 
 Man finds a bone embedded in a rock, — he learns at 
 length that the world on which he lives is older 
 than his creation, and he strives to reckon the cen- 
 turies dming which the mystery of life may have 
 moved upon the earth ; but his arithmetic is at faidt ; 
 the mind of man cannot reckon the ages which 
 passed before man was. The God of the earth was 
 before the earth. The Creator of man, in pm*suing 
 his grand design of framing a creature which shoidd 
 be trusted with a soul, so tried and tempered matter 
 
80 PANTHEA, 
 
 in every form of existence, that the thing which was 
 lives in that which is, and that which exists is that 
 which has existed. The earth was weighed at its 
 creation, and carefully balanced against all other 
 world's ; no grain of dust has been added to it — no 
 atom of matter has been removed from it ; but new 
 forms of Hfe have continually sprung up amid the 
 mass. Old things have passed away, and all 
 things have become new. It appeared to Julian 
 that the first created beings of a new race were 
 pregnant with that fulness of life which was to 
 pass through the entire family unto the last one 
 who perished from the exhaustion of the vital prin- 
 ciple. The form of life was then changed, and 
 another round of existence was run. The conchtions 
 of the earth determined the characteristics of its 
 inhabitants, and every distinct creation was pecu- 
 liarly adapted, by its arrangements in strict obedience 
 to the laws of physical force, for its position in the 
 scale of being. 
 
 ]N^ow — a vast ocean rolled beneath a heavy lowering 
 atmosphere ; its dense waters, charged with saline 
 matters, beat dully against the naked rocky shore. 
 Its surface was bestrewn with matted masses of vege- 
 tation, which sailed sluggishly along, upon which 
 strange slimy creatures crawled to and fro, in a 
 sluggish enjoyment of light. The ocean was 
 inhabited by creatures most wonderfully formed; 
 some exquisitely symmetric creations floated on its 
 
THE SPIRIT OF NATURE. 81 
 
 surface ; otliers like fair flowers clung to the rocks, 
 while many, which were rather remarkable for 
 strength than for beauty, sported in the deep waters. 
 Predacious fish, horned and winged, darted here and 
 there, making the host of smaller things their prey. 
 From a wilderness of waters, the scene was changed 
 to wide-spreading continents and groups of islands. 
 The atmosphere was heavy Avith moisture, and op- 
 pressive with heat. Plants of a fern-like character 
 grew with a luxuriance far beyond that Avhich is 
 afibrded even now by the vegetation of the tropical 
 deltas. They grew rapidly — they perished quickly, 
 and from theii' decay myriads of similar and other 
 species sprang into an excess of life. In the shade 
 of the fern forests, the hum of animal enjoyment 
 was heard, and a strange variety of reptile life was 
 seen in their deep damp shades. 
 
 All things passed into night, and another day at 
 length broke upon Jidian's astonished vision. 
 
 The character of the earth was altered — the ocean 
 and the land had changed places. The former races 
 had passed into the darkness of death, and ucav 
 tribes rejoiced in the freshness of a new world. The 
 order of life was higher, and the type of form was 
 of a more complex character. It appeared to the 
 observer, that the vital energy had gathered strength 
 by excitement, and that in obedience to some grand 
 law, the force, renovated by rest, was now exerting it- 
 self in the production of forms of greater grandeur. 
 
 G 
 
82 PANTHEA, 
 
 There was a sublimity spread over the featui-es 
 which the earth now presented. Sterile mountains 
 had arisen from the ocean, and wide continents were 
 spread out like the shattered ruins of a fairer land. 
 Rocks were piled tumidtuously upon each other, 
 firm in their immensity. From the sea-encompassed 
 lands volcanic fires were belched forth, and dark and 
 heavy vapours floated over the vast waters. From 
 the mountain ranges similar convulsions were visible, 
 and torrents of burning ashes were spread over the 
 far extending valleys. Wide plains were broken up 
 like a billowy sea by the earthquake strugglings of 
 the giant mass, — and huge clefts were formed across 
 them, through which rivers of lava poured their 
 fiery streams. Amid these grand and terrible 
 catastrophes, were seen numerous varieties of animal 
 life ; and all bore some analogy to the physical con- 
 ditions of the disturbed abode. Heat and chemical 
 forces, unchecked by any bonds, in the wildness of 
 their energies, exerted their transmuting powers on 
 the inorganic creation, — and the organic world was 
 formed in strength to resist the destructive agency 
 of these mighty influences, and created to the enjoy- 
 ment of violent appetites. 
 
 Huge frog-like monsters moved sluggishly, or, 
 with convulsive efforts over the wide swamps ; 
 rapacious Saurians came up from the foaming rivers, 
 and contested, with the inhabitants of the land, the 
 right to the smaller animals with which it teemed. 
 
THE SPIRIT OF NATURK. 8S 
 
 Savage was the warfare, and long the strife 
 between those monstrous creatures. From the 
 cavernous recesses of the mountains, — in the vast 
 abysms which, from their exceeding depth and 
 darkness, appeared to extend to the earth's centre, — 
 was heard the wild bellowings of rapacious am- 
 phibia, and the cries of anguish from their struggling 
 victims. Bird-like reptiles floated over the rioting 
 sea, and flapped their heavy and leathern wings 
 against the crags of the mighty precipices, which 
 were the barriers of the continents and islands. 
 Ravening fishes darted like lightning through the 
 waters, flashing back the sun's rays in a thousand 
 sparkles from their hard and scaly armom- ; — and 
 amid them, forms of exceeding beauty, cased in 
 symmetric and most enduring shells, floated in 
 security. Julian had viewed the earth in the wild 
 agony of a maddening energy ; — this was graduallv 
 exhausted, and all things passed like a vision before 
 his eyes into the quiet of universal sleep. 
 
 The changes still went on, and new forms of 
 matter arose before the eyes of the young philoso- 
 pher. The phenomena of vegetation were not the 
 same ; but gigantic herbs and trees now waved over 
 the land. Enormous animals, to which the modern 
 elephant appeared a dwarf, roamed through these 
 vast forests and mde-spread valleys, and the firm-set 
 earth appeared to tremble beneath their heavy tread. 
 Oviparous creatures had inhabited the world, — a 
 
 G 2 
 
84 PANTHEA, 
 
 large host of Viviparous creations now reigned its 
 masters. But still mutation was the law, and that 
 district, which had been devastated by the action of 
 heat, became, in its turn, subjected to the destroying 
 agency of extreme cold. Where the volcano was, 
 there the iceberg now appeared ; and wdiere the 
 stream of lava spread its glaring terrors, there now^ 
 the glacier presented its cheerless mass. But this 
 too passed ; — ^hills were worn down, continents sunk 
 slowly beneath the sea, and new lands arose from the 
 ocean, charged with the wrecks of earlier existences. 
 The struggle of the giant elements which stirred the 
 whole was reduced nearer to an equilibrium ; and a 
 calmer and more truly beautiful condition was 
 gradually arising. The living had died, and from 
 the dead the living arose ; but with every change of 
 state came a new order of excellencies. 
 
 Julian looked around for man — but his search 
 was in vain. The earth, although on all sides a new 
 tranquillity was spreading its modes of life, was yet 
 the abode of creatures which were led by merely 
 animal impulses. Herbivorae now grazed over the 
 grassy plains, and fulfilled their destiny by becoming 
 the prey of the Carnivorse, who, guided by their hun- 
 ger, passed from place to place, the great agents of 
 destruction. To all these was a destined course ; 
 and even when obeying blindly their wildest impulses, 
 they were fulfilling the law by which all creation 
 vras regulated. Death was the law by which the 
 
THE SPIRIT OF NATURE. 85 
 
 continuance of life was secured. As sleep cometh 
 to the child, and enables the exhausted muscle to 
 renew its vigour, so death, an all subduing force, 
 came upon the animal races ; and in the repose which 
 followed the mysterious change a renovation was 
 produced, by which the continuance of the species, 
 in the full enjoyment of vital energy, was secured. 
 Sensual enjoyment was followed by a cessation of 
 being. The things of the epoch knew only the 
 present — they could not forsee a future — they could 
 not dream of any new condition of existence — they 
 saw no power above them — they felt no impulses 
 beyond them. Blindly moved by an iniseen force 
 they lived and died, mere machines in that order 
 of progress which ended in Man. 
 
 " The Sacred Paradise of earth," said Panthea, 
 and breathed on Julian's forehead. They moved. 
 Julian walked in the delicious shadows of odour- 
 breathing trees. The air was redolent of fragrance, 
 poured out, like incense to the sun, from the flowers, 
 which flung back his rays in every colour. The 
 winds undulated amid the branches with a musical 
 sighing ; and the pellucid waters of the river, which 
 embraced this garden of loveliest nature, rang with 
 the cheerful tinkling of most harmonious bells. 
 There was every charm to excite the soul, or to tran- 
 quillize it. 
 
 Panthea waved her wings over Julian's eyes, and 
 he saw that every flower had its guardian angel, and 
 
86 PANTHEA, 
 
 that by the gentle care of this heavenly host, the 
 spot had been nurtured into its surpassing beauty, 
 and guarded from the intrusion of any of those 
 destructive agents vrhich occupied all other parts of 
 the earth. Every object in paradise exhibited its 
 utmost perfection. Preserved by appointed watchers 
 for the supreme purposes of a great creation, decay 
 had not yet touched with its mildewed fingers any 
 object within this sacred spot. 
 
 " Man's creation," said Panthea, " demands the 
 Eternal Presence, before whom even the angels veil 
 their eyes. Till the mortal becomes immortal the 
 glory of the Holiest cannot be visible to man. The 
 dust aggregating into the solid rock — atom attracted 
 to atom — to form the crystal in mute obedience to 
 empyreal powers, thou hast seen. The same matter, 
 excited by yet more subtile agencies, has expanded 
 into the tree before thee ; and the naked rocks have 
 become covered with the varied forms of vegetable 
 life. Again, by an excess of that same energetic 
 force, which lifts the atoms of the rock into the full 
 development of the tree, thou hast seen matter 
 assume the power of motion ; — the merely living 
 liave become the living and moving before thee ; 
 and that which began as a molecule, sm-rounded 
 by an atmosphere of agencies, was endued with 
 new powers, and became a living cell ; and that 
 life-bestowing power being quickened, the oi-ganic 
 forn\ advanced, and (he animal races })cople(l the 
 
THE SPIRIT OF NATURE. 87 
 
 earth. From tlic mere throb of existence, which 
 marks the life of tlie Monad, the pulsations of 
 vitality being quickened, races of beings, rising one 
 above the other in the perfection of their machinery 
 and in the order of then* intelligence, have arisen 
 before thee. But fi'om these \yiJl now awake a new 
 creation, which, although animal, is invested with 
 spiritual powers. The form of man is from the 
 dust of the earth, and the powers by which man 
 lives are only different in degree from those by 
 which a leaf grows, or a crystal forms. But the 
 agency you call mind is not of the earth, but from 
 heaven. In his wonderful creation the angelic hosts 
 saw a mysterious purpose. The pmity of heaven 
 was united to the grossness of earth, that the whole 
 might be pmified. Man stands on the edge of the 
 universe, a type of the antagonism of good and 
 evil, w^hich is made by the great Creator the neces- 
 sity of His universal scheme. 
 
 " Witness the form of the first man, ere yet the 
 spiritual life is breathed into his animated mass." 
 The waving of the mngs of Panthea dispelled a 
 mist, and there, amid the trees of paradise, stood 
 the mighty Adam. Jidian siu-veyed the splendid 
 form of the first man v\itli admii-ation. The perfec- 
 tion of every native grace was developed in him. 
 Strength and lightness appeared united in his mus- 
 cular fi'ame ; but with all his external s}-mmetry, 
 he moved as a mere animal ; and, with his eyes 
 
88 PANTHEA, 
 
 upon the ground, he passed onward amid the 
 thousand beauties of his bu'th-place without a single 
 expression of feehng. The birds sang above liis 
 head in a chorus full of love and native melody — 
 he heard no music. The flowers pom-ed forth 
 their odours — the incense of pm-e life offered fi-om 
 earth to heaven — they charmed no sense in him. 
 The hues of the vegetable world, beautiful in un- 
 clouded light, and brightened by the spuitual 
 ministry, attracted him not. The earth might have 
 been a blank space for him. Adam saw but with 
 his sensual eyes — he heard but with his mechanical 
 ears. Without a thought — knowing not his origm — 
 discovering no difference between himself and the 
 animals around him, — the parent of the human race 
 passed before the eyes of Julian as a melancholy 
 example of a soulless man. 
 
 " Darkness must shroud thee," said Panthea ; 
 and all things vanished as in a mist from the eyes 
 of Julian. He felt himself as if plunged into some 
 blank abyss ; but it was only for a moment. The 
 brio;ht wing of Panthea was waved over his fore- 
 head, and he saw again the earth's paradise ; but 
 oh ! how changed. Beautiful as it was, it had now 
 become a thousand fold more so. A brightness, 
 beyond the ordinary radiance of day, was over all 
 things ; and an influence, which he felt was that of 
 the Paraclete, pervaded the place. Each leaf and 
 every flower was of richer colour tlitui before. The 
 
THE SP]IUT OK NATURE. 89 
 
 birds and beasts, which sported amid the Hghts and 
 shadows of the groves, exhibited a new dehght ; and 
 amid them stood Adam gazing on the arching 
 cano})y of the azure heaven with an intensity of holy 
 longing which appeared to raise him from the earth. 
 In dignity of mien, in nobleness of gestm'e, and 
 in grandem* of expression, the first man exhibited 
 the fine perfection which is only seen, in a few rare 
 examples, in the race. He had received spiritual 
 life from the breath of his Creator j and he now 
 reflected back to heaven the brightness of that in- 
 telligence W'hich had been bestowed upon him by 
 his God. Although chained to the earth by the 
 force of physical powers, he appeared to struggle to 
 ascend to heaven by the might of his spirituality. 
 Adam gazed with an all absorbing look around him ; 
 and he felt the beauty of the vegetable creation to 
 be a robe of divinity spread over earth ; and the 
 harmonious mysteries which he saw, in the disposi- 
 tion of animal life, excited his admiration. He 
 sought to express his feelings : but his A^ords floated 
 on the unansW'Cring air, or were responded to only 
 by some unsympathizing echo. 
 
 " The supreme dehghts of even the celestial Hie- 
 rarchy must be shared to be enjoyed," saidPanthea. 
 " Solitude would debase an angelic spirit to an in- 
 sensate mass. Adam feels a want ; but he knows 
 not what he requires. A morrow of increased bliss 
 is soon to dawn upon him." 
 
90 
 
 PANTHEA, 
 
 Darkness again surrounded Julian ; but soon, 
 with a burst of the divinest harmony, a full flood 
 of light proclaimed the birth of a new day. 
 
 Adam slept ; and at his side a figure similar to 
 his own reposed, veiled by an elFulgence of the 
 Divine presence. The brightness difiused itself ! 
 the pair awoke ! and man in his strength, and wo- 
 man in her beauty, stood revealed. 
 
 " The sacredness of companionship is united to 
 the blessedness of spmtual life. The animal crea- 
 tion is brought to its highest state. The perfection 
 of the earthly is blended with the dawning light of 
 the heavenly, which wUl eventually blaze in meridian 
 splendour, and resolve, by the force of its radiant 
 powers, the whole creation into a uniform system of 
 brightness and truth. 
 
 Beautiful forms crowded forth from the leaves and 
 flowers, and gazed with wonder and delight on the 
 sublime creation. Man — but half a spirit, seeing 
 not the spiritual throng around him — moved among 
 them surveying his kingdom with the native dignity 
 of conscious power. Woman — more spiritual than 
 man — conscious of some unseen divinities, clung to 
 the arm of her mate ; and, with a smile of ineffable 
 sweetness, appeared to seek, in the transparent air, 
 for those higher intelligences of which she enjoyed 
 a dim consciousness. 
 
 Adam looked around on the earth, and saw, in 
 its fruits and flowers, and in its moving life, a glo- 
 
THE SPIRIT OF NATURE. 91 
 
 rioiis dominion, which he felt was to be ruled by 
 the master-passion of love. Eve saw in Adam the 
 imited beauty of all that is earthly ; but the bright- 
 ness and tenuity of the firmament was to her more 
 charming than the forms of the smface upon which 
 she moved. 
 
 " Man," said Panthea, " in his strength will rule 
 all things upon the earth, and by his knowledge 
 subdue even the elements to his purposes. Alone 
 — he would become a demon power in human form. 
 Growing in strength, and increasing in pride, he 
 woidd at last — another Lucifer — defy his God. 
 But woman, in her earthly weakness, is spiritually 
 potent ; and her destiny is to control, by the bonds 
 of affection, the nide passions of man ; and, fol- 
 lowing him through every phaze of being, to main- 
 tain the ascendancy of that \ii'tue which is of heaven, 
 over the vice wliich is of the earth, until the final 
 triumph of goodness shall be visible in the radiance 
 of the all involving Paraclete." 
 
 Strangely to Julian did the homage of all created 
 tilings to the parents of mankind appear. 
 
 Every leaf and flower felt the power of their holy 
 presence, and tremblmgly bowed as they passed 
 them by. The loftiest trees bent theii* heads in 
 reverence ; and the most ancieijt lords of the forest 
 shook thi'oughout their knotted trimks in the appa- 
 rent consciousness that they grew in the presence 
 of a new power. 
 
92 PAINTHEA, 
 
 There was a roar in tlie forest. A lion and a 
 lioness, eager for prey, rushed from its shades, in 
 all the nobility of their savage strength ; but at the 
 sight of the new creation they became powerless, and 
 creeping timidly forward crouched, with an imploring 
 look, in the path of Adam and Eve. The woman 
 smoothed the mane of the lion, while the man ad- 
 miringly patted the forehead of the lioness. The 
 noble animals forgot their hunger, and, rising from 
 the ground, followed their rulers, expressing by their 
 gambols their intense delight. Fierce tigers came 
 from the thick Avoods, and gigantic elephants from 
 the wide savanahs. From the mountains flocks of 
 wolves pom-ed down ; and fi'om tlieir caverns and 
 abysses the lowering hyenas came forth ; and all, 
 subdued by the power of the undisguised beauty 
 of the human form, crowded around the first pair, 
 and acknowledged their supremacy amid created 
 things by a thousand expressive actions. 
 
 The war of races — that law of animal existence 
 which makes the life of one dependent upon the 
 death of another — was suspended upon the earth. 
 The weak and the strong mingled together ; and 
 the common prey of the predatory tribes walked 
 fearlessly by the side of their ravening enemies. 
 The Lion and the Lamb gamboled together ; and 
 the Tiger and the Fawn sported at the feet of Eve. 
 
 The birds of the air crowded to the com't of man. 
 The Eagle and the Dove flew on together in liar- 
 
THE SPIRIT OF NATURE. 93 
 
 moiiy ; and the Hawk glided amid llocks of rejoic- 
 ing songsters, making playful whirls and sportive 
 stoops in peace amid his common prey. 
 
 Every creation became conscious that the advent 
 of mind was on the Earth ; and under the myste- 
 rious influence of the eternal soul, beaming from 
 the eyes of humanity, the ordinary conditions of 
 existence were restrained ; and Man and Woman 
 gazed on a world of ineffable beauty in the repose 
 of perfect peace. 
 
 Julian saw that the paradise of our first parents 
 — the garden of primeval bliss — was not an isolated 
 spot, but an entire world in all the luxmiant fulness 
 of young life, girdled by four mighty oceans of the 
 most translucent waters. A sound, loud as the 
 rush of many storms, was heard by Julian, and he 
 perceived thronging crowds of angels passing from 
 planet to planet, — the multitude constantly gather- 
 ing in its course which was onward toward the 
 Earth. At length the Celestial host, surrounding 
 the home of Man like a circle of Auroreal light, 
 burst forth in a rejoicing song, in praise and honour 
 of the human pair, and to the glory of their great 
 Creator. 
 
 The song and its echoes among the stars died 
 into silence, — a silence so deep that it sunk upon 
 the heart of Julian, as a dead weight, and im- 
 pressed him with a feeling of inexpressible awe. 
 
 The Earth was before him ; and Man and Woman 
 
94 PANTHEA, 
 
 — and the inhabitants of the air, of the land, and of 
 the waters — were all in the enjoyment of that 
 peaceful sleep, which, while it mimics death, is the 
 great restorer of vigorous life. The an gel- watchers 
 floated in the air, and a Presence was felt, not 
 seen, by Julian superior to all creation. From the 
 depth of the silence there came a voice which pro- 
 claimed — 
 
 " Such was man, and such he may be again. Read 
 the language inscribed upon the mountains. Listen 
 to the whispers of the forests. Obey the loud mur- 
 murs of the heaving waters. Bow before the sigh- 
 ings of the involving air. The secrets of the Earth 
 are the passports to Heaven. The Truth is revealed 
 alone unto the True. The Good only can know 
 the beautiful. Awake ! Free thy mind from its 
 chains of clay. Enjoy, in the brightness of Earth, 
 and in the fulness of life, the glorified existence 
 which is the presage of eternal beatitude. Awake ! " 
 
 "Awake!" shouted the hosts of angels, as with 
 the voice of many thunders. 
 
 Julian trembled, and awoke. 
 
95 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 THE BKEAK OF DAT. 
 
 Those who have stood upon the hill top, and 
 watched the sun appearing above the eastern hori- 
 zon, can alone form an idea of the beauty of 
 morning. 
 
 Nature — not merely the animal and vegetable 
 worlds, but even the inorganic forms of creation — 
 feels the influence of the first rays of solar glory, 
 and the voices of all moving things, the trembling 
 tongues of leaves and flowers, and the vibrations of 
 the mountain masses, unite in a common chorus of 
 dehght to hail the mighty day-star. 
 
 The harp of Memnon is not a fable, — its music 
 is no imaginary sound. Every lover of natm-e, who, 
 seated on the mountain or by the ocean, has wit- 
 nessed the sun casting his first golden beams across 
 the Earth, has had his soul stu-red by that divine 
 harmony. 
 
 Great type of immortality ! — figuring the passage 
 
96 PANTHEA, 
 
 of the undying soul through the night of death, and 
 its revival in brightness, — how many are the lessons 
 thou teachest to man ? — how few are they who profit 
 by thy wondrous teachings ? 
 
 As the sun rises in the east, so Truth and Life 
 were first seen in their greatness in the orient ; and 
 the march of mind has been ever in the direction of 
 that great orb which is its agent and herald. Man, 
 looking through nature for the God, which even in 
 the darkness of superstition he felt was behind the 
 visible stmctm-e of creation, saw, in the invigorating 
 sun, the source of those agencies on which life 
 appeared to depend, and reverentially was his fore- 
 head bowed in acknowledgment of that Divinity of 
 which the solar orb was the beautiful symbol. 
 
 The holy circles of the shepherds of the Asian 
 valleys, in the early years of man's strange history, 
 ■ — the Pyrsethia of the Persian, — and the Hypsethrnl 
 temples of our own Druidic priesthood, — equally 
 indicate that veneration which, as a latent principle 
 of the soul incapable of entire destruction by any 
 sensual influences, seeks to manifest itself through 
 natural types, and to show its reliance on a Divine 
 Ruler, by symbolizing the supposed attributes of 
 the unseen God. 
 
 The mysterious Stonehenge, the stone circles of 
 the Dartmoor hills, the Hurlers, and the Merry 
 Maidens, as superstition has named some sacred 
 circles in Cornwall, and the relics of pure British 
 
THE SPIRIT or NATURE. 97 
 
 rule which still exist upon the Cambrian mountains, 
 all are evidences that a worship of the sun prevailed 
 among our ancestors during the period when the cloud 
 of idolatry was allowed to rest over mankind ; and 
 when the mind of the race, struggling in the shackles 
 of ignorance, perceived, in the material creation, a 
 great power, which they curiously, as by intuition, 
 ideahzed in the never ending circle, and regarded 
 as the prime mover of the mystery of being. 
 
 The refined Plato, and the rude priest on the 
 British hills, both saw, in the sun, the type of the 
 Eternal Creator ; light and darkness representing 
 (to each) movement and repose. Day and night 
 were symbols of groAvth and decay ; and in the sun's 
 apparent path they saw the circle of unity, which 
 they figured in theii' sacred places, — the vital idea 
 which unassisted reason gives of a God. 
 
 Revelation has let in a light of greater brightness 
 on the soul ; and the orb to which man bowed in 
 mysterious reverence is seen to be but a twinkling 
 star of imperfect brightness, infinitely remote from 
 that great centre of illumination and power which 
 hides the immensity but still reveals the omnipo- 
 tence of the true God. 
 
 Howbeit, morning is still beautiful. The chaos 
 of night, resolved into forms of loveliness and life 
 by the touch of the sun-beam, cannot be uninstruc- 
 tive ; and the man who climbs the mountain to 
 catch the first rays of awakening day still enjoys a 
 
 H 
 
98 PAN THE A, 
 
 pleasure, akin to holiness, which is unknown to the 
 enervate creature who slothfuUy rises from his bed 
 at noon. 
 
 The sun had not yet arisen above the ocean ; but 
 a mild twihght gave a beauty to the scene around. 
 There was naturally a savage grandeur in the land- 
 scape. Granite hills but scantily covered with ve- 
 getation rose along the eastern side of an undu- 
 lating table-land, which was almost as barren as the 
 hills. Few and far between were seen the rude mud- 
 built cottages of the peasant — relics of the habits 
 of om- Saxon fathers, around which were the charm- 
 ing indications of that industry, — in the small gar- 
 den and bright green field, — which compels nature 
 to answer to its struggles. These spots, marking 
 the presence and exhibiting the influence of 
 humanity upon the wild face of the wilderness, 
 served to take away an appearance of absolute deso- 
 lation which would otherwise have prevailed. 
 
 Ascending from a valley, along which the mists 
 of the cold night were slowly undulating, arose, as 
 if from a lake of troubled water, two forms ; — they 
 were those of a stately old man and a graceful 
 woman. With a quick pace, in perfect silence, they 
 crossed the Down, and were in a short time lost 
 again in the cloud of mist which lay almost dor- 
 mant, in a sort of gorge, between the granite hills, 
 into which they descended. 
 
 On the opposite side of this gorge, which echoed 
 
 I 
 
THE SPIRIT 01-' NATURE. 99 
 
 with the rushing sound of the rapid river brawhng 
 among the numerous boulders of granite interrupting 
 its course, was an avenue carefully marked out by 
 unhewn rocks, Avhich extended across the hill, and 
 led to a large circle of stones on the top of one of 
 the most commanding positions of this primary range. 
 Laon and zEltgiva — for they were the morning tra- 
 vellers, — stepping lightly from stone to stone, passed 
 the river, and ascended along the old Druidic way 
 which led to the Bardic Temple. 
 
 They stood on the mountain top uncovered. The 
 morning breezes streamed through the grey hair of 
 Laon, and played amid the dark tresses of his 
 daughter. They were without the circle, and before 
 them was a detached mass of rock, on the surface 
 of which either nature or art, or perhaps both, had 
 formed several basins which were filled with the 
 waters of pure atmospheric distillation. 
 
 Like priests of the Arkite worship, they looked to 
 heaven, and asking a blessing for the day, they took 
 the pellucid waters from the rock-basins Avith their 
 hands, and laved their foreheads with the cold and 
 invigorating fluid. 
 
 This ordeal finished, they bowed their heads, and 
 with much reverence slowly entered that circle 
 within which the first inhabitants of our island 
 knelt in worship with those priests who, from the 
 Orient, had brought them a modified form of 
 Pantheism, and taught the doctrine of the Eternal 
 
 H 2 
 
100 PANTHEA, 
 
 Good of nature condemned to contend with the 
 everlasting rebelhon of Hell. 
 
 Within the sacred circle yEltgiva knelt ; and 
 Laon, placing his hands upon her head, gave his 
 daughter his daily blessing. ^^Eltgiva rose, and 
 having received a kiss upon her forehead from her 
 father, and pressed her lips, in fond and warm em- 
 brace, on the old man's cheek, she stood, half resting 
 upon Laon's arm, and partly supporting him, look- 
 ing over the undulating landscape, and the far 
 spread ocean beyond it, to catch the first appearance 
 of the sun's disc as it rose above the horizon. 
 
 Lines of coloured light, reflected from thin bands 
 of vapour, streaked the eastern sky. Every inter- 
 blending hue, between a golden yellow and, a lively 
 red, passed in succession ; and at length the pris- 
 matic standard, which floated as the herald of the 
 world's reviver, passed, as with a flash— so rapid 
 was the change — into an arch of golden fire, in the 
 centre of which rose the mighty luminary of hght 
 and life ; — and day was upon the earth. 
 
 Ear over the hills was heard the voices of Laon 
 and ^Eltgiva singing their morning hymn ; and 
 every cairn and tor threw back, as with an echo of 
 joy, the concluding words of that heart-felt praise 
 which the father and daughter poinded forth as their 
 first duty to their God. 
 
 They knelt together in that circle in silent prayer ; 
 they then arose, in silence they passed out of it, and 
 
 J 
 
THE SPIRIT OF NATURE. 101 
 
 stood, as they had stood a hundred times before, 
 admiring the scene which, in the lights and shadows 
 of the early morning, appeared the abode of the 
 spirits of tranquillity. 
 
 The mists slowly rose like filmy curtains, and 
 developed the full beauties of the valleys ; and 
 ascending the mountain sides, still becoming more 
 and more attenuated, they at length faded into the 
 blue air, and left the scene without a cloud. 
 
 From the cottages columns of smoke began to 
 arise, indicating that with the peasant the labour of 
 another day was pleasantly begun, after the peace- 
 ful repose of a night haunted by no dreams of am- 
 bition, or by the guilt which is constantly as the 
 shadow of pride. 
 
 The goat upon the hill top commenced his gam- 
 bols ; — the flock shook the dew drops from their 
 fleecy coats, and, led by the twinkling bell of the 
 wether, roamed across the hills cropping the dewy 
 herbage. The lowing of a few horned cattle was 
 added to the indications of life ; — and all, blend- 
 ing with the ecstatic bursts of the ascending 
 lark, gave the full animation of life to the treeless 
 wild. 
 
 As Laon and his daughter stood meditating over 
 that portion of this interesting landscape which 
 stretched away towards the sea, they did not observe 
 that a female was ascending the hill, with hasty steps, 
 on the opposite side to that on which they stood. 
 
102 PANTHEA, 
 
 Laon and ^Itgiva spoke not. Each one was 
 too fully absorbed in pure feelings of intense devo- 
 tion to suffer any interruption to that flow of thought 
 which lifted them in spirit beyond the finite cu'cle 
 by which life is bounded. Their altars were the 
 mountains, and the wondrous works of the Eternal 
 Mind. The first beams of the rising sun, gilding 
 the hill tops, were as sacred fires to them, — Etherial 
 emanations through which they believed they had 
 received Divine previsions of eternal truths. 
 
 The early traveller who was now approaching the 
 circle was a young woman, who, although scarcely 
 advanced beyond girlhood, was of a conunanding 
 presence, elegant in form, and graceful in every 
 movement. She was dressed plainly, but with 
 superior, — even refined taste. Her features were 
 beautiful ; and the blush which the morning air 
 and exercise spread upon her cheeks, gave an addi- 
 tional charm to a most expressive face. Her dark 
 eyes glistened with excitement as, advancing from 
 behind one of the upright stones, ^lie laid her hand 
 upon ^Itgiva's arm. ^Eltgiva started, tm"ned 
 round and exclaimed — 
 
 " Eudora Spencer !" 
 
 " Eudora Spencer," said Laon, mth less expres- 
 sion of surprise. 
 
 " It is not the first time, good sir, that Eudora 
 Spencer has been admitted to the mysteries of this 
 old world worship. 
 
THE SPIRIT OF NATURE. 103 
 
 " It is long since my fair p\ipil lias deigned to visit 
 even my less sacred cottage," said Laon. 
 
 " It is," replied Eudora. 
 
 " Why has it been so ?" said Laon, with much 
 kindness of manner. 
 
 " Ask me not, lest the tmth may displease you. 
 Do not," she repeated with some energy — " at 
 least," she added emphatically, " not until you 
 have replied to my more lu-gent inquiries." 
 
 " Julian Altamont is safe," said ^Eltgiva. " Your 
 inquiries extend only to him, or my woman's genius 
 deceives me." This was said in a tone which had 
 some sarcasm in it, and a cloud passed over 
 Eudora's countenance. 
 
 "My daughter!" said Laon, as in mild reproof. 
 
 A smile of exquisite sweetness played over vElt- 
 giva's face ; and extending her hands to Eudora, 
 she exclaimed — 
 
 " Pardon what of woman is still remaining, — I 
 pray you kiss me." 
 
 The beautiful Eudora raised her lips to those of 
 iEltgiva, and these two embraced each other with 
 all womanly fondness. 
 
 " My friend ! my earliest friend," said Eudora ; 
 " I come, indeed, to ask of Julian Altamont." 
 
 " I knew it, Eudora ; allow me still to enjoy my 
 old privilege of calling you my Eudora," rephed 
 JEltgiva. " Years have passed away since fu-st I 
 taught you the names of wild flowers, and that we 
 
104 PANTHEA, 
 
 gathered shells on yonder shore ; but I am certahi 
 the good heart that then beat m youi- bosom, and 
 the true spuit which stirred you into activity, cannot 
 be so changed, but that you will still plead against 
 an unkind world for those they persecute." 
 
 " iEltgiva," said Eudora, calmly, looking with a 
 smile upon her and her father, " blame not the 
 world. They do not know you to be true and 
 sinless as I do: They think you — and you give 
 them cause — dealers in unholy things, and traffickers 
 in mysteries which are forbidden." 
 
 "Alas ! poor world," said Laon, with a sigh. 
 
 " You charm Julian Altamont by your strange 
 eloquence," continued Eudora, now addressing Laon. 
 " You persuade him to neglect the admonitions of 
 a fond and christian mother, and to despise the 
 views of a most honourable father. That young 
 noble has deserted his home. Strange things are 
 whispered among the peasantry of Altamont, who, 
 with the pryhig domestics of the castle, regard you 
 as a sorcerer, and Jj^ltgiva as a witch. Sorrow is 
 heavy on the heart of the excellent Countess, and 
 thoughts, which are dangerous to you both, are 
 working with the Earl. To reheve those whom I 
 respect from the sad uncertainty in which your 
 strange conduct has kept them, and to inform my 
 former preceptors of the hazard they incur, I have, 
 unknown to my parents, — who now join with the 
 Earl and Countess in regarding vou with fear, — left 
 
THE SPIRIT OF NATURE. 105 
 
 my home alone thus early to seek you, where I 
 knew you always oftcred up your morning prayers. 
 I intreat you send for Lord Julian, or give me such 
 information of the wanderer that a messenger 
 may be dispatched quickly after him. For the 
 sake of all deny me not ; I know he is not far 
 from your home, but I dared not to say this at 
 Altamont." 
 
 "The broad disc of the sun," said Laon, "is 
 scarcely risen above the ocean. Julian Altamont is 
 waking from a divine sleep, and before the sun has 
 moved twice twenty degrees in its apparent course, 
 he will revive to the world a new man ; and long 
 before noon will he restore himself to the home, 
 where every worldly passion awaits him, and all 
 the temptations of wealth will again surround him. 
 May he reject them, and cling manfully to the True 
 and the Holy !" 
 
 " Amen ! " said Eudora Spencer • " but may he 
 learn to distinguish between the True and the False. 
 May he look at nature, and read her mighty volume 
 as a philosopher. May he cease to be a visionary, 
 and may he avoid, as a crying evil, those bewildering 
 sophistries, which have placed a barrier between me 
 and those whom I could love as a father and as a 
 sister." 
 
 " We will bear with thee, Eudora," said ^Eltgiva ; 
 " and in our orisons we shall pray for that light 
 which has hitherto been denied to one whose pride 
 
106 PANTHEA, 
 
 of place and person has been a heavy chain upon a 
 gifted mind." 
 
 " Eudora," said Laon, taking that lady's hand in 
 his own, "you count but eighteen summers — 
 seventy have shone upon these vi^hite haii's. I have 
 studied every form of being ; and beyond all things 
 I have sought to fathom the greatest of all mysteries 
 — Man and his Eternal Mind. The truths I have 
 discovered are not visions ; — the illumination which 
 has been granted to my toils is not delusive. That 
 sun shines brightly on the world. Man excludes 
 the full stream of life which flows from that orb 
 from his dwelUngs, and writhes and frets in the 
 pangs of the disease he cultivates. He practises 
 even medicine in ignorance, and we see a vain 
 struggle between the so-called " healing art " and 
 intemperance. The great star of truth shines on 
 all mankind with equal brightness ; but the worldly 
 build around themselves mighty walls in their pride 
 and superstition, to shut out its lustrous radiations, 
 and grope after the little truth which lies around 
 them with impaired vision, not daring to look upon 
 that region of celestial hght which lies beyond their 
 self-created barriers." 
 
 Eudora was about to reply, but Laon stopped 
 her. 
 
 "I loved thee once as my daughter, Eudora 
 Spencer ; and as a father I invoke a blessing upon 
 thy youth. Make thy heart and mind a truly noble 
 
THE SPIRIT OF NATURE, 107 
 
 woman's heart and mind, worthy of thyself. Re- 
 member constantly your little knowledge. Ask 
 yom'self always ' Why is this ?' and wdien you dis- 
 cover that your learning cannot guide you, come to 
 this circle, juid pray to its genius for the wisdom 
 you despise. Adieu ! remember the precepts of 
 him who instructed you to read the mysteries of tree 
 and flower." 
 
 They parted without another word. Laon and 
 ^Itgiva descended the hill ; Eudora Spencer stood 
 alone leaning in silence on a broken column of 
 unhewn granite, watching Laon and his daughter 
 Avith a feeling of mysterious reverence, mixed with 
 something of scorn, until they had passed the river, 
 and were mounting the acclivity on the opposite 
 side ; then, without any expression of feeling beyond 
 a deep sigh, she tm-ned and retraced her steps. 
 
 Eudora Spencer was the only child of Sir Wilson 
 and Lady Amy Spencer, who dwelt upon a fine 
 ancestral estate, which immediately joined Altamont. 
 The families had always been on terms of the 
 closest friendship, and they both looked forward to 
 the day, which they did not regard far distant,- 
 when the union of Julian and Eudora should chain 
 the two houses by a more holy bond than even that 
 of friendship. 
 
 During childhood, Julian Altamont and Eudora 
 Spencer were constant playmates ; and they loxed 
 each other with that pure affection, which, ih 
 
108 PANTHEA, 
 
 children, is frequently seen, and which partakes of 
 that unalloyed spirituality which was so sweetly said 
 by One whose mission upon earth was the diffusion 
 of perfect peace, to resemble the kingdom of 
 Heaven. As they advanced towards maturity, this 
 feeling lost somewhat of its spirituality ; but as that 
 diminished, the most absorbing of human feelings 
 increased, and they felt that they were created to be 
 companions through the storm and shine of this 
 low pilgrimage. These feelings had ever been 
 encouraged, and the boy and girl had been, by their 
 respective parents, studiously trained to the one 
 object of pleasing each other. Under these cir- 
 cumstances, it is not suprising that their tastes were 
 similar. 
 
 To an education which had been purely feminine, 
 Eudora Spencer had united acquirements which are 
 not usually reckoned among the mental stores of a 
 lady. But ever anxious to follow Julian in his path, 
 his studies became Eudora's passion ; and, in secret, 
 she not uncommonly mastered many difficult branches 
 of science, to enjoy the surprise and delight of Julian, 
 when she discovered to him the perfection of her 
 knowledge, which not unfrequently was found to be 
 even superior to his own. 
 
 Julian, with a masculine energy of mind, and the 
 development of high manly feeling, possessed many 
 traits of character which were essentially feminine, 
 formed under the influence of a mother he almost 
 
) 
 
 THE SPIRIT OF NATURE. • 109 
 
 adored, and of Eudora, whom he ever loved and 
 studied anxiously to please. The spirit of Eudora 
 had been to him like the influence of Saint 
 Cecilia's music upon the uncultivated tribes around 
 the priestess. All that was gross was rendered 
 pure, and all that was pure was made holy. 
 
 In pursuing then- studies of nature, for which in 
 both minds there was an innate love, Juhan and 
 Eudora had eagerly sought the assistance of Laon 
 ^Iphage and his intellectual daughter. For some 
 time this was permitted by their parents, who 
 regarded the strange old man as an enthusiast, and 
 TEltgiva as merely an eccentric, though learned, 
 female, who was to be admired for her devoted atten- 
 tion to her father. At length, however, the Earl of 
 Devonport and Sir Wilson discovered that Laon did 
 not subscribe to the creed of their church. That 
 he held political views which appeared to them of 
 the most dangerous character, and the young Lord 
 and his betrothed were forbidden to hold any inter- 
 course with so dangerous a person. Julian had 
 been, however, too deeply imbued with a love for 
 the mysterious studies of Laon, to obey the injunc- 
 tions of his parent ; but Eudora had strictly obeyed 
 her father's washes, and until this morning, when at 
 the request of the Countess of Devonport she sought 
 Laon and ^Eltgiva, she had for a long period avoided 
 them. Thus Eudora had escaped from many of the 
 influences which had woven themselves around the 
 
110 PANTHEA, 
 
 enthusiastic mind of Julian, in his desire to raise 
 his philosophy to a divine poetry. 
 
 Upon a rock, not far from the entrance to the 
 cottage of Laon, sate Julian Altamont, fixed as a 
 statue. But, notwithstanding the rigidity of his 
 form, it was evident, from the illumination of his 
 eyes, and the feverish blush upon his cheek, that all 
 the energies of mind were active. He appeared 
 to look out upon the world without seeing it ; it 
 was clearly indicated that a phantasmal creation 
 formed around him a mysterious circle. His reverie 
 was deep and far searching ; and he saw not JElt- 
 giva until she approached him, and gently placed 
 her hand upon his shoulder. 
 
 "Panthea!" he exclaimed with a voice full of 
 joy, — " Panthea !" 
 
 " Not so," said ^Itgiva ; " but a poor earthly 
 worshipper of the Spirit of Nature." 
 
 " Is she then lost to me." He looked with an 
 expression of sorrow into ^Itgiva's face. " And 
 yet — those eyes — the spirit Panthea shineth and 
 speaketh in them." 
 
 Laon advanced in front of Julian, and waving his 
 hand across his forehead exclaimed, in a loud voice, 
 " The vision of the Mystery is ended. The earth 
 and the earthly await thy ministry." 
 
 Laon and his daughter, and the valley glowing 
 
THE SPIRIT or NATURE. Ill 
 
 in all the beauty of morning, took the place of the 
 creations of Julian's reverie ; the pageantry of spirits 
 faded ; and once again he became conscious that a 
 material creation was about him. His awakening 
 senses seemed to assm'e him that he was involved 
 in some delusion which he must make an effort to 
 dispel ; but his mind still struggled to linger in the 
 spirituality it was conscious of having enjoyed. 
 
 " Go home to the halls of Altamont," said Laon ; 
 '' and when you desire, -^Aith your whole soul, to 
 penetrate the pure Etheriality of that life which is 
 in us, and about us, again will I see you, but not 
 till then. Go, — and may the blessing of all Ti-uth 
 shine like a halo for ever around thee." 
 
 Julian Altamont arose, covered his eyes with his 
 hands, and walked away, in deep thought, without 
 a word. 
 
112 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 THE SEVENTH DAY. 
 
 Julian Altamont was again under his father's 
 roof. After the agitation and deep distress which 
 his strange absence — still unexplained at home — 
 had occasioned, and the mixed feelings of displeasure 
 and of affection with which his return had been met, 
 all had subsided slowly into peace. Still a cloud of 
 anxiety, not unmixed with the deeper shade of sor- 
 row and distrust, was evident, amid the splendour 
 of that stately mansion. 
 
 Julian was an altered man. Although, in the 
 attention which he paid to his parents, he exhibited 
 an amount of tenderness which was unusual even 
 with him, and both the Earl and Countess felt 
 pleased theremth, and avoided any subject which 
 might be construed into a reflection on the past, 
 they saw, at the same time, manifestations of a deter- 
 mination of purpose, which, being undefined, was to 
 them the more distressing. He was much alone, — 
 
THE SPIRIT OF NATURE. 113 
 
 cither in his study or in his walks. Companionship 
 appeared painful to him ; and, although he did not 
 refuse the company of any of the family, yet all 
 observed that he exhibited unmistakeable signs of 
 impatience when thus intruded on, even when he 
 maintained the utmost kindness in his words, and 
 gentlemanly courtesy in his outward bearing. The 
 presence of his former friend and preceptor, Mr. 
 Cheverton, was evidently not agreeable; yet he 
 expressed no wish that that gentleman should absent 
 himself from his study. But that which appeared 
 to all the most unaccountable, was, that Julian had 
 never once since his return mentioned Eudora 
 Spencer ; and on the occasion of her coming to 
 the Hall with her parents, to rejoice in his return, 
 he suddenly disappeared, and could not be found 
 until after her departure. 
 
 The anxiety of an affectionate mother had, how- 
 ever, led the Countess to make a discovery which, 
 although she named it not even to the Earl, w^as to 
 her a cause for the sincerest grief. The greater 
 portion of the night Julian spent in watching, and 
 when, through exhaustion, he was compelled to throw 
 himself upon his bed, his sleep was distm-bed by 
 dreams, and his distress indicated by audible 
 mutterings and frequent sighing. That fond mother 
 could trace the effects of nights thus passed, in the 
 eye and on the cheek of her son — magnified perhaps 
 by her fears ; although no other person could dis- 
 
 I 
 
114 PANTHEA, 
 
 cover any change in the appearance of the young 
 Lord. 
 
 It was the morning of the sabbath, and in tlie 
 breakfast parlour were assembled the household of 
 Altamont. The Earl and Countess, and their 
 lovely daughter — Mr. Cheverton, and all the do- 
 mestics — but as yet Jidian was not among them. 
 They had waited for him ; but as he did not appear 
 the Earl signed to Mr. Cheverton to commence the 
 usual course of family worship. That good and 
 reverend man opened the pocket bible which he 
 held in his hand, and read, in a most impressive 
 manner, the 28th chapter of Job. To the last verse of 
 that dehghtful chapter — of that most beautifid Ara- 
 bian poem — he gave great effect by his earnestness. 
 " And unto man he said, Behold, the fear of the 
 Lord, that is wisdom, and to depart from evil is 
 understanding." As he concluded, a deep " Amen" 
 from one corner of the room betrayed the presence 
 of him for whom all were so anxious. Julian had 
 entered unobserved while Mr. Cheverton was reading, 
 and now he advanced to his mother's side, and, first 
 kissing her, knelt by her, and Hstened, with soul- 
 absorbing attention, to the beautiful prayer which 
 the chaplain offered in behalf of those who knelt 
 around that room, to that throne which is alike 
 approachable by the rich and the poor, the most 
 virtuous and the most wicked of human kind. 
 Every feeling which stirs the heart of man is of 
 
THE SPIRIT OF NATURE. 115 
 
 a contagious natm-e. The influence of a virtuous 
 thought is as powerful for good as that of a vicious 
 deed is for evil. A mysterious sympathy binds soul 
 to soul, and the impulses which stir the spii'it in a 
 material body are extended beyond itself, and per- 
 petuated in those around it — in secret silence — 
 unseen, perhaps unfelt — to do the work of holiness 
 or of sin. Every heart in that room beat with the 
 pious impulses of that righteous spirit who had led 
 them with such pure feeling to the centre of all 
 Greatness and Goodness. The prayer ended — the 
 morning meal finished — there was more of the 
 brightness of joy in those halls than had been seen 
 since the departiu-e of the heir. There was a smile 
 of peace— the transparent glow of happiness upon 
 the face of Julian — and from the highest to the 
 lowHest of that household, there was gladness of 
 heart, and a sabbath quietude. 
 
 Up the valley and across the parterre came the 
 sound of the bell from the parish church, calling 
 alike on the peer and the peasant. And wdthin the 
 district which bounded Altamont there were few 
 who did not obey its summons. 
 
 Along the path which led from the stile across 
 the churchyard to the ivied porch of that humble 
 and ancient fane, in which our Saxon fathers had 
 worshipped God, the young and the old, men and 
 Avomen, dressed in the neat simplicity of a primitive 
 people, were congregated. Sir Wilson and Lady 
 
 I 2 
 
116 PANTHEA, 
 
 Spencer, and their elegant and intellectual daughter, 
 appeared at the stile, — immediately all feU back 
 on either side of the path, and the Baronet and his 
 family passed onward to the chm'ch, amid the bows 
 and curtseys of the peasantry. A murmur passed 
 along that interesting assembly — the Earl of Devon- 
 port, leading his daughter Euthanasia, stepped into 
 the churchyard ; every hat was removed, and many 
 a venerable head bared its white hairs to the sun in 
 the presence of a proud peer. The Countess came 
 next, leaning on the arm of Lord Julian. The 
 presence of that young nobleman excited much 
 interest, and he was received with a bm^st of smiles. 
 To a fine old man, w^ho stood close to the stile 
 uncovered to receive him, Julian extended his hand, 
 and said with a smile, but with a firm and deter- 
 mined voice, — 
 
 " I cannot allow that time-honoured head to be 
 uncovered to one who is younger than your grand- 
 child." And then in a louder tone, " Friends all 
 alike are at least equal here; be covered, I pray 
 you." Each man obeyed his wish, and, following 
 him, they all entered that little church, of which 
 the only ornament on its white-washed walls, was the 
 plumed helmet and breast-plate of an ancient 
 warrior of the house of Altamont, and a shield and 
 rotting banner, displaying the heraldic bearings of 
 these time-honoured Barons, some of whom moid- 
 dered within its shadow. 
 
THE SPIRIT OF NATURE. 117 
 
 Mr. Cheverton was in the reading desk, clothed 
 in his surphce, and, after a few minutes spent in 
 soul communion with the Eternal, in whose name 
 they had met together, he commenced reading those 
 divine compositions which form the prayers of our 
 ancient church. Prayers full of that pure spirit of 
 piety which ever lifts, by its undecaying power, the 
 soul of the earth-worn, to the contemplation of the 
 Heaven of Holiness. When the good, feeling the 
 full bosom of religious principles, read these prayers, 
 how exalting are their influences. When the un- 
 righteous, with a mocking lip, perform the ceremony 
 as a mere task, which they endeavom' to act decently, 
 how hollow the responses which echo to the key- 
 note of hypocrisy. 
 
 The excellent cm'ate, who now solicited his little 
 band with the holiest and the humblest tone of 
 voice to " Let us pray," manifested in every word 
 and action so much sincerity — such depth of feeling 
 — that every forehead was bent in reverence, and 
 every heart was compelled, in sympathy, to follow 
 'the devout reader in his own spiiit. 
 
 The prayers were ended — the psalm was sung by 
 the village choir, and Mr. Cheverton ascended the 
 pulpit. There was a marked character in his dis- 
 course this day which every one observed. It 
 differed from his usual sermons, which were never 
 above the level of the most humble of his congrega- 
 tion, in dealing with a subject which but few among 
 
118 PANTHEA, 
 
 them could, even remotely, comprehend. He spoke 
 of the connexion between God and the Universe — of 
 the chain between the spiritual and the material — of 
 the manifestation of the Creator in His works — and 
 of the mightiness of the creation and its evidence 
 of the supreme grandeur of that Intelligence which 
 interpenetrates aU things with life. 
 
 One mind in that assembly felt that the discourse 
 was for him ; and when his tutor — his father's chap- 
 lain — alluded to his hallucinations, Julian trembled 
 with conflicting feelings. 
 
 "By the irradiating power of everlasting truth," 
 said the minister, in conclusion of his eloquent 
 discourse, " the poetic dreams of false creeds have 
 faded into that night from which they sprung. The 
 phantoms of visionaries have been dispelled like 
 the mists of the morning ; and, in the place of those 
 tricksy sprites which superstition saw working 
 behind the veil of nature, the power of the Most 
 High is manifested ; and in every flower of the 
 Held, and in every leaf of the forest is God revealed 
 in his omnipotence. Man enjoys two revelations — 
 the high revelation of the word — and that which 
 speaks through nature. The one inducing man to 
 advance to a knowledge of the harmony of all 
 things, and the other declaring this harmony to be 
 from God. Seek not, then, to look on nature with 
 false lights ; they serve but to guide you into the 
 utter darkness of mysticism. Learn to take — in 
 
THE SPIRIT OF NATURE. 119 
 
 faith — the Hght which is from Heaven, and advance 
 in the trne spirit by which human research shoidd 
 be directed, step by step, to the understanding of 
 those truths which nature never refuses to unveil to 
 the righteous philosopher. The world is the realiza- 
 tion of the thought of God. The Word is the 
 interpretation of the Almighty will. The world, of 
 which man forms an essential portion, is an infinite 
 unity, exhibiting itself in almost infinite divisions ; 
 and that vital action which stirs the whole, from the 
 crystal hidden in the caves of the earth to the 
 cedars which are on Lebanon, or the wild goats 
 upon the hills, is from Him who reigns the sole 
 centre of life. In examining God's world, we 
 advance to a nearer knowledge of his omnipotence ; 
 and the study of the things which surround us, 
 leads us towards a comprehension of those ilioughts, 
 which, like stars, shine through the Heaven of His 
 Holy Word. His Works be then our contempla- 
 tion ; His Word om* guide." 
 
 The morning service ended, the peasantry looked 
 at each other in surprise. Their minister had 
 indulged in language to which they were strangers, 
 and they failed to understand him. 
 
 Mr. Cheverton had, indeed, purposely directed 
 his discoiu:se to the young Lord Julian, with whom 
 he had not, since his retmii, succeeded in conversing 
 on the subject which he felt most nearly concerned 
 
120 PANTHEA, 
 
 his pupil. He knew Laon ^Ipliage well, and many 
 long, and often angry, discussions had taken place 
 between them. He was therefore familiar with all 
 the sophistries of the enthusiast, and well aware of 
 the danger which Lord Julian ran, possessed as he 
 was with the poetic temperament, in a high degree, 
 of being led to believe that the doctrines taught by 
 Laon, and so ably advocated by his intellectual 
 daughter, were fundamental truths, and free fi*om 
 sophistry. 
 
 Mr. Cheverton kncAv much ; but he knew not all. 
 The errors of Laon's philosophy he could analyze ; 
 but he would not see any of its truth — the mystery 
 of Laon's earnest vnW. His power of compelling 
 belief, and the magic by which he chained those who 
 listened, belonged to psychological phenomena, the 
 very manifestations of which were unknown to the 
 divine and to the experimental philosopher. 
 
 The Earl of Devonport thought that he had never 
 heard so many fine words enveloping so small an 
 amount of sense. He could not understand his 
 chaplain, and he at once felt his conviction strength- 
 ened, that Mr. Cheverton was not the man whom 
 he should have chosen to educate his son. 
 
 The Countess, however, felt that there was truth 
 in the words of the chaplain. She did not perceive 
 the full bearing of his observations ; but she had so 
 nuich confidence in Mr. Cheverton, that she felt 
 
THE SPIRIT OK NATURE. 121 
 
 assured he was dealing most judiciously in address- 
 ing her son from the pulpit. She had watched 
 Julian wdth anxiety and attention, and every emo- 
 tion which shewed itself on his bright and trans- 
 parent countenance, was studied with hope or fear 
 by the Countess. Nor was the mother alone in her 
 eager watch ; a younger eye was often turned anxi- 
 ously and inquiringly upon the face of the young 
 Lord, and it read there a language which she in- 
 terpreted according to her knowledge and her 
 wishes. The eyes of Eudora Spencer and those of 
 the Countess of Devonport met, and the smile of a 
 pleased mind brightened over each countenance. 
 ]\ii\ Cheverton was beloved by both these women 
 for the sake of Julian. Yet how different were the 
 secret causes which were thus manifested in similar 
 effects. 
 
 The church was emptied. Julian had remained 
 behind his friends, that he might indulge in a 
 reply to the discourse which he felt was directed 
 to him ; — and last of those who left that fane, 
 distinguished by the humility and marked by the 
 ah' of quiet which surrounded it, were Julian and 
 Mr. Cheverton. 
 
 Julian leant lightly on the arm of the chaplain, and 
 walked by his side for some distance smiling, but 
 in silence. The words would not be bidden ; and 
 the very thought with which Julian felt he could 
 annihilate the propositions of his jn'cceptor, was 
 
12.2 PANTHEA, 
 
 wandering in a maze of abstractions, from which he 
 felt himself unable to clear it. 
 
 Mr. Chevertonhad been for many years his teacher, 
 and all that he knew practically of the great phe- 
 nomena of nature Juhan felt he owed to that gentle- 
 man. He had a dim perception of a folly ; the 
 consciousness of a mental condition, such as is often 
 induced by fever, was felt ; and, although the vision 
 of the mystery had given him an insight into powers 
 which was denied to most men, he still felt, when 
 walking at the side of Mr. Cheverton, a degree of 
 mental inferiority which was now indeed painful. 
 
 Mr. Cheverton discovered that some strange 
 workings were going on in the mind of the young 
 nobleman, and he resolved to await patiently some 
 exhibition of the effect which his discourse had pro- 
 duced upon him. In silence, therefore, they walked 
 together for more than half the distance between 
 the chmTh and the Hall. 
 
 Mr. Cheverton was a remarkable man. From 
 his earliest youth he had exhibited an inquiring 
 spirit of no ordinary kind. His was no idle cmi- 
 osity ; but a pure thirst for knowledge, — a strength- 
 enmg deshe to know. Nature was around him ; 
 and he felt that a mystery was over all things, which, 
 however, man was permitted to penetrate and ex- 
 amine. He saw his brethren indolent, and content 
 to follow in the footsteps of philosophers who had 
 gone before them, without caring to incjuirc if they 
 
THE SPIRIT 01' NATURE. 123 
 
 were either mistaken in their conjectures, or false in 
 their professions. He perceived that the world had put 
 up idols to which they most reverentially bowed down, 
 and the words of whom it was a crime to doubt. 
 Words were made to take the place of ideas ; and, 
 like mocking-birds, a key note being struck, all men 
 repeated them ; and thinking that a well rounded 
 sentence expressed a fact, whereas it frequently only 
 concealed one, they rested content with disguising 
 their own ignorance, and endeavouring to believe 
 the mask was a reality instead of an idle sem- 
 blance. 
 
 Circumstances led Mr. Cheverton, in his youth, 
 to bring some scientific hypothesis to the test of 
 experiment, and his clear-sightedness soon convinced 
 him of their fallacy. Being thus put upon a train 
 of investigation, he grew deeply enamoured of his 
 task ; and in the pure love of truth, for its own 
 value, he had examined most branches of science 
 with sedulous care. Many and important were the 
 discoveries he had made ; and he might be said to 
 have almost created some new branches of science. 
 He did not disdain the most mechanical labours of the 
 severest physical research, or the details of the most 
 minute chemical analysis ; and the amount of close 
 attention given to results was indicated in all his 
 experiments ; yet, advancing from these mere mat- 
 ters of mechanical system, he was enabled to group 
 all their phenomena into grand generalities which 
 
m 
 
 124 PANTHEA, 
 
 bore most importantly upon the large operations of 
 iiatm-e. 
 
 Men of more than ordinary power have looked 
 into the mechanism of the world, and settled into a 
 cheerless materialism, which has rounded creation 
 to them with a most hopeless gloom. They have 
 started from that point at which faith without iu- 
 quuy made them superstitious ; and they have 
 descended, by inquiry, to that level where scepticism 
 usm'ps the privilege of reason to look beyond the 
 actual, and chains the mind to the merely fleshly 
 sense. Mr. Cheverton belonged to that higher 
 order of mankind who ascend from effects to causes, 
 and who, from their studies of the Supreme design 
 which they discover in creation, rise to that belief 
 in a Designer, which, from conviction, becomes a 
 faith of the most exalting kind, surrounding life 
 with a cincture of holiness, and disclosing, in the 
 depths beyond time, a cynosm'e by which immortal 
 Hope pilots the boat of life. 
 
 The inquiring boy had become a philosophic man ; 
 and the philosopher had ripened into the priest. 
 
 They had reached a rugged road which wound 
 around a somewhat precipitous hill, on one side of 
 which was an immense slate quarry. Upon a large 
 heap of the fragments which had been accumulated 
 from these workings during years, grew many inte- 
 resting plants ; among which, now in full flower, 
 appeared the Foxglove, with its taU stalk, rich with 
 
THE SPIRIT OV NATURE. 125 
 
 beautiful bells. One of these plauts, of au unusually 
 fine character, even in a locality where they were 
 remarkable for their luxuriance, attracted the atten- 
 tion of Julian ; and, quitting the side of Mr. Che- 
 verton, he advanced to inspect the flowers still more 
 closely, exclaiming as he did so — 
 
 " Did you ever see so splendid a Digitalis ?" 
 
 " Rarely indeed," was Mr. Cheverton's reply. 
 
 Julian examined the Foxglove carefully, and then 
 advancing to Mr. Cheverton said — 
 
 "Men — aye, even those who are counted among 
 the wisest — refer all the wonders of that beautiful 
 phenomena to purely physical powers. A few che- 
 mical elements combine, according to a fixed law, — 
 a little Heat, some Electricity, and the excitement 
 of Light, — and the plant is produced. Capillary 
 attraction, Exosmose, and Endosmose, and all is 
 set in action. Motion is established, — the rest 
 follows. Marvellous folly ! Can motion produce 
 life ? Life, the effect of a superior cause ; and 
 yet by life all your physical forces are restrained. 
 In the root, in the stalk, in the foliage, and in the 
 flower, distinct phenomena are occurring to produce 
 the beautiful whole ; the vital power modifies the 
 forces which are active here ; but beyond and above 
 that most exalted of earthly forces — Life, — wonder- 
 ful spiritualities perform those tasks which are 
 made theirs by the unchangeable Avill of Him the 
 Eternal." 
 
126 PANTHEA, 
 
 " But," replied Mr. Cheverton, " we must not 
 forget that there are limits to the powers of finite 
 intelligence. Man is permitted — indeed he is in- 
 vited — to ask Nature questions up to a line with- 
 in which is embraced all physical phenomena. 
 The mechanism of the Cosmos he may study ; but 
 the spiritualities by which the great machine is 
 moved cannot be known to man, until, having pre- 
 pared himself by a holy life, he shakes off this mor- 
 tal coil, and enters upon the enjoyment of that state 
 in which all things become visible to the purified 
 and liberated soul. Those who, in their boldness 
 and pride, venture to pry into the infinite which is 
 beyond our human vision, are blinded by the blaze 
 of light, and utterly confounded in the crowd of 
 mighty truths which develop themselves, hke the 
 rush of phantoms in your dreams, from the recesses 
 of the Eternal Mystery." 
 
 " This is the language, Sir, of those who fear, — 
 whose fears are the children of ignorance and super- 
 stition. The Ti'ue, though chained to the Earth by 
 this material body, may, if they earnestly desire, 
 advance into the infinite, and gaze upon the powers 
 by which the machinery of this beautiful Planet is 
 moved." 
 
 "It is not for the sons of Earth to usurp the 
 privileges of the Angels of Heaven," replied Mr. 
 Cheverton. " There is a condign punishment for 
 those who refuse to accept the Promise, and wait in 
 
THE SPIRIT OF NATURE. 127 
 
 patient faith for the appointed time. Like Moses, 
 tliese may see the Promised Land, but they shall 
 not enter it." 
 
 " Mr. Cheverton," exclaimed Julian, " I have 
 seen the Eternal Mystery ! " 
 
 The Divine looked steadily in the face of the 
 young philosopher, which was now illuminated with 
 intellectual brilliancy of an unnatural character. A 
 fevered flush was upon his cheek, and the pupils of 
 his eyes were so dilated that the iris was almost 
 lost. 
 
 " My dear Lord Jidian," said Mr. Cheverton^ 
 with the most soothing tone," you are misled — 
 misled by one whom I must regard as a self-deceiver. 
 iElphage is learned beyond most men. His know- 
 ledge of mankind is great. I know that he has, in 
 former days, united himself with those who seek to 
 rise upon the wreck of society, — who call devastation 
 by the name of progress, and bewildering the un- 
 thinking multitude with images of indolent happiness 
 prey upon them in their state of delusion. I know," 
 continued Mr. Cheverton with earnestness, perceiv- 
 ing that Julian was about to speak, "that Laon 
 ^Iphage is a false prophet ; and I implore you — 
 as yom' friend and preceptor I implore you — shun 
 him." 
 
 " What can be the object of that plain man, who 
 has no wants beyond those of the day, if he de- 
 ceives me ?" demanded Julian. 
 
128 PANTHEA, 
 
 " Once imbued with a love for his false and not 
 unpleasing doctrines, you would become the tool 
 of that man ; and your name, your interest, and 
 your wealth would be employed in a new attempt 
 to establish a sect of which Laon yElphage should 
 be the Grand Master." 
 
 " Mr. Cheverton, prejudice has blinded you. 
 You have looked at that good — that great old man 
 with other eyes than your natural ones. You have 
 studied him in a false light ; and it is you who are 
 deceived. You, Sir," said Julian, wath much dig- 
 nity of manner, " led me to believe that yom- expe- 
 rimental philosophers could explain all things. Laon 
 iElphage has convinced me that you know no- 
 thing." 
 
 " We know not a tenth," said Mr. Cheverton — 
 "nay not a hundi'edth portion of that which we may 
 learn to know as a privilege ; but by presumptuously 
 attempting to pass the boundaries of physical 
 science, and launching into the unknown ocean of 
 the spmtual, all knowledge is lost in dreams." 
 
 " Even in dreams," hastily replied Juhan, " truths 
 have been revealed to man. Is not every truth a 
 dream before it becomes to us a fact. Did not 
 Plato and Socrates, Copernicus and Galileo, Newton 
 and Laplace, Lavoisier and Dalton, dream ? and 
 have not their visions become great realities — stars, 
 in the heaven of knowledge, to light through all 
 time the intellect of bewildered man to yet more 
 
THE SPIRIT OF NATURE. 129 
 
 exalted wisdom. Laon JElpliage may be a dreamer ; 
 but, Sir, there is more truth in that good man's 
 dreams than in all those guesses which delight the 
 men of our generation." 
 
 " You speak hastily, my Lord." 
 
 " You judge unkindly, Mr. Cheverton. Because 
 a man will not believe that every effect, the cause of 
 which is hidden from us, is the result of Electricity 
 — because he will not admit that motion made the 
 world, — you call him by evil names. With all the 
 boasted liberality of modern philosophers, in what 
 is the present races better than those who immured 
 Galileo in a dungeon for telling them the truth. 
 Let a man believe upon authority, and he may sail 
 quietly on the stream ; — let him dare to think for 
 himself, and the stream bears him to destruction ; 
 or, at least, lashes his poor bark with its merciless 
 waves." 
 
 Julian was very energetic, and expressed himself 
 in a loud tone, and with much gesticulation. Seiz- 
 ing the Foxglove, and dragging it out of the loose 
 soil by the roots, he held the splendid plant in 
 his hand, and advancing to Mr. Cheverton ex- 
 claimed — 
 
 " Can you explain the mystery of this creation ?" 
 
 " No," Mr. Cheverton coolly replied. 
 
 " Why does it send down its roots into the soil ? 
 Why does it lift its branches and leaves into the air ? 
 Why did the seed breathe one air, and why does 
 
 K 
 
130 PANTHEA, 
 
 the leaves inspire another ? Why do the leaves 
 change into the flower, or fold into the seed ? Why 
 does this creation Hve in light, and perish in 
 darkness ? Can you answer me one of these 
 questions?" 
 
 " Only in part," said Mr. Cheverton. " We have 
 numerous questions yet to ask of Nature ; but we 
 know that certain physical forces determine all these 
 conditions ; for purely physical phenomena — which 
 those mentioned by you are — spiritual powers need 
 not be employed." 
 
 " Dare we say we know all the physical forces," 
 asked Julian. 
 
 " Most decidedly not," said Mr. Cheverton. 
 " In Light, Heat, and Actinism, we discover three 
 radiant forces ; in the modifications of Electricity 
 we recognize force in other forms ; and in Cohe- 
 sion, Gravitation, and the like, we perceive mecha- 
 nical powers of another order. These alone exhibit 
 phenomena which are enough for the study of any 
 man within the limits of his little hfe ; and if be- 
 yond these forces there are others, as I believe, we 
 shall only arrive at a knowledge of them by learn- 
 ing more of those which we already know." 
 
 " Pride envelopes the human soul," said Julian, 
 with a smile. " Man discovers this and that, and 
 takes credit to himself for being the parent of 
 a new truth. Whereas, Mr. Cheverton, your 
 Christianity teaches us that the greatest philosopher 
 
THE SPIRIT OF NATURE. 131 
 
 is but the instrument tlirough which God reveals 
 his truths to man ; and the instrument chosen to 
 this honour is ever selected for the truthfulness 
 with which he labours at that which he has learned 
 to recognize as a duty. Your worldly honours — 
 your Hero worship — is a poor reward to him who 
 feels the high honour of that ministration which 
 enables him to stand, between man and his Maker, 
 the priest of Truth." 
 
 " My Lord, — in a few minutes you ask me to 
 reply to numerous questions which demand much 
 thought, and a combination of much knowledge. 
 You exclaim against the customs of the world ; — 
 you reflect upon my teaching according to some of 
 its traditions ; — and, rounding the whole with a 
 truth which few will deny, you smile, fancying 
 that you have achieved a victory. On that flower- 
 ing plant, the Naturalist, the natural philosopher, 
 and the chemist, may deliver many lectures, and not 
 then exhaust the wondrous truth written upon its 
 leaves, and discovered by man's industry. It 
 follows not because the world rewards a man for his 
 productive labour, that he is more proud of that 
 worship than of the works which he can call his 
 own. Newton was less proud of the praise of the 
 great, who echoed his name with honom-, than he 
 was of the discovery of those laws of Gravitation 
 which he ever acknowledged as a reward from 
 Heaven for his piu-e devotion to tlie book of nature. 
 
 K 2 
 
132 PANTHEA, 
 
 Learn, my Lord Julian, to look at creation as that 
 great man did ; and then you will discover it is wiser 
 to collect the pebbles on the shore, than dare the 
 perils of that ocean which hes undiscovered beyond 
 you." 
 
 " Granted, if I am only a collector of pebbles— 
 a framer of hard names — a builder up of systems. — 
 Such a man, on the great ocean, would be like a 
 boy in his play-boat in the mid Atlantic. But 
 let man look for the powers which those pebbles 
 hide, — let him hsten to the whisperings of those 
 waves which beat upon that shore, — let him ac- 
 custom himself to the vast beyond, by looking 
 for ever to the horizon ; and a day will come — a 
 morning ^^ill break — when, upon that distant line 
 which blends the sea and sky, earth and heaven, 
 he shall discover a truth, and guide it to the 
 shore, — a new vessel for the genius of mankind 
 to sail in. This man may venture on the ocean ; — 
 his hand will have learnt to guide the helm, — 
 his eye will have been schooled in the survey of 
 the deep ; and with the guiding needle of truth, 
 which he relies on in faith, he may voyage to those 
 lands which are the ' Islands of the Blest,' and 
 bring back for his brethren the choice productions 
 
 of which nature has made him the revealer. 
 
 You smile at my Poetry, — smile on ; it belongs to 
 the True ; — I have sailed such a voyage ; and I 
 have learned to see tliat every purple bell of this 
 
THE SPIRIT OF NATURE. 133 
 
 beautiful flower, and every loriglit green leaf, is 
 guarded by a spirit power, which those who only 
 gather pebbles cannot discover even by the aid 
 of their most powerful microscopes." Julian placed 
 the plant upon the heap of stones ; then grasping 
 Mr. Cheverton by the arm, and m-ging him hastily 
 onward, he exclaimed, in a voice of triumph — • 
 
 " Will you prepare to voyage with me, Avhen 
 next I venture on that heaven-illumined sea." 
 
 " My Lord Julian, are you mad ?" 
 
 " Mr. Cheverton," exclaimed Julian, in an ex- 
 cited state, " if those men are mad Avho see the 
 ministers of God in his works, I am mad, and I 
 enjoy my madness." 
 
 " Let us speak no more of this at present," said 
 Mr. Cheverton, trembling at the excited condition 
 of his pupil. 
 
 " Speak no more of the glory of the world ! — 
 rather say. Shout forth songs of praise until the 
 mountain top flings back each accent. But, no ! 
 with you I will speak no more of this at present. 
 Panthea awaits me in the temple of the forest ; — 
 as Numa gave his soul to ^Egeria, so I devote my 
 spirit to Panthea ." 
 
 Julian darted suddenly from the side of the 
 chaplain, and was soon lost amid the thick under- 
 wood which siu-rounded the forest into which he 
 plunged. 
 
134 PANTHEA. 
 
 " Melancholy indeed is this strange madness," 
 sighed Mr. Cheverton ; and he walked to the Hall 
 of Altamont, in silence and sorrow, reflecting on 
 that singular hallucination which he felt he coidd 
 not comprehend ; but which, he feared, threatened 
 to wreck that powerful example of an highly intel- 
 lectual man. 
 
THE INTERLUDE. 
 
Through error's mazy grove, with fruitless toil, 
 Perplex'd witli puzzling doubts, we roam ; 
 
 False images our sight beguile ; 
 
 But still we stumble through the gloom, 
 
 And science seek, which still deludes the mind. 
 
 Yet, more enamour'd with the race, 
 
 With disproportion'd speed we m"ge the chase ; — 
 
 In vain ! the various prey no bounds restrain ; 
 
 Fleeting it only leaves, t' increase our pain, 
 
 A cold unsatisfying scent behind. 
 
 " Impotence of Human Wisdom." 
 Elijah Fenton. 
 
137 
 
 MODERN SCIENCE. 
 
 In all great cosmical phenomena time is a most 
 important element. In our laboratories we develope 
 physical forces in energy, and they produce before 
 om- eyes strange transmutations of form. In 
 natm-e, the same forces, acting with infinitely dimi- 
 nished intensity, give rise to changes still more 
 remarkable ; but these are produced slowly. The 
 work which man bids Electricity do in a day in his 
 workshop, Natiu-e spreads over years ; and the 
 consequence is, the work of Nature endures, — the 
 work of man decays. 
 
 The measured moments, during which any given 
 effect is produced, indicate, with certainty, the tran- 
 sitory existence to which it belongs. The indexed 
 years which pass — with their undulations .qf storm 
 and shine, of light and shadow — over a noble 
 growth, as surely indicate the endurance of the cre- 
 ation. As in experimental science we find that the 
 
138 PANTHEA, 
 
 quantity of Electricity, which is necessary to decom- 
 pose any substance, exactly represents the quantity re- 
 quired to hold the same body together ; so, in natm^e, 
 the time expended in the production of any pheno- 
 menon as siu'ely marks the term of its endm'ance. 
 
 Again, in psychological science, we find time 
 measuring out the terms of growth and decay. A 
 momentary impression is made on the mind; it 
 passes like a summer wind over water, and leaves 
 no trace. A feeling — a thought — slowly takes pos- 
 session of the human mind ; and it struggles into 
 life through all the influences by which it is the 
 destiny of truth to rise superior to error. The more 
 severe the struggle, the more certain the conquest ; 
 and the permanency of mental impression obeys, 
 with precision, laws similar to those by which phy- 
 sical creations are determined. All history tells us 
 this truth. Political, social, moral, and metaphysi- 
 cal forms and arrangements have, in their gradual 
 adjustment, a precise value by which their continu- 
 ance may be predicated. 
 
 Time was working with Julian Altamont as it 
 works with all mankind. The events of every horn- 
 were leaving their traces on his sensitive mind, in 
 which there was prevailing a direful struggle be- 
 tween the circumstances of his being and his high 
 aspirations. His father saw, with disappointment, 
 that his son was not Worldly. His mother felt 
 deeply, when she discovered that, according to her 
 
THE Sl'lRlT OF NATURE. 139 
 
 own standard, Julian was not Holy. Mr. Chcvcrton 
 fretted at the thought that his pupil was not Philo- 
 sophical ; and even Eudora Spencer sighed over him 
 whom she truly and pm'ely loved when she found that 
 the young Lord Altamont was not a Realist. His 
 was a strange destiny ; — every one regarded him 
 with a mixed feeling of love, admiration, and 
 reo-ret. 
 
 "^ Handsome in person, of a commanding bearing, 
 exhibiting that unacquirable but unmistakeable evi- 
 dence of the highest aristocracy — that of mind, — 
 Julian Altamont was fitted to command. He was 
 as full of the holiest aifections as the summer is of 
 flowers ; and in sensibility of soul he was almost 
 womanly, not in her weakness but in her holiest 
 and irresistible strength. 
 
 Like the poet's perception of the beautiful — an 
 ideal of all that adds to the dignity of human nature 
 — the existence of Julian appeared to be bounded 
 by a cloud. He was shrouded in a mystery ; and, 
 like a ghost, he passed across the daylight scene of 
 life an undefined brightness, — a halo surrounding a 
 dark spot, — an eye reflecting back the sun-light in 
 brilliancy, but communicating no impression of light 
 or colour to the mind. /^ 
 
 A strange dreaminess overwhelmed the young 
 noble ; and the fiend indolence appeared to repress 
 every tendency to exertion. 
 
 Hours and even days were passed on the hill top, 
 
140 PANTHEA, 
 
 inactively tracing the outlines of the Iandsca})e. 
 Beneath some ancient oak tree he lay supine, listening 
 to the mui'mui's of the wind amid the leaves, and the 
 monotonous linging of the waters in the neighbour- 
 ing river. In the flowery bowers which ornamented 
 the delightful gardens of the Hall he was sometimes 
 found with his sister — the young and beautiful 
 Euthanasia, — to whom alone he poured out liis soul. 
 To her, in words of wonderful eloquence, he spoke of 
 a spiritual nature, and induced the innocent girl to 
 believe that a living spirit dwelt in every flower. His 
 sister alone of all his kind lent an attentive ear to 
 his rhapsodies ; and she listened and dared not to 
 doubt. Eudora Spencer sometimes listened also, but 
 she doubted, and that displeased him. These inter- 
 views aflbrded the only evidences of any mental 
 activity ; and so fatal to the Avell being of their 
 youngest child did they appear to the Earl and 
 Countess, that they resolved to withdraw this perni- 
 cious influence. 
 
 The Earl of Devouport, having duly consulted a 
 Prime Minister, an Ai'chbishop, and a State Phy- 
 sician, at length determined on removing his son 
 to the metropolis. Julian offered no objection to 
 the arrangement, stipulating only that he should be 
 free to direct his studies in that path which pleased 
 him most. His father, perceiving that there was 
 an irrepressible desire for knowledge, and some 
 evidence of newly awakened industry, determined 
 
THE SPIRIT OF NATURE. 141 
 
 to make tlie best of the case, and endeavour to 
 direct it to tliose applications of science which dis- 
 tinguishingly mark the age we Hve in, but which 
 constituted, however, what he called " the fashion- 
 able fangle of the new philosophy." To this end 
 eminent chemists and celebrated engineers were 
 consulted, and engaged for Julian. 
 
 In the height of the London season, Julian found 
 himself in the metropolis, and all that the world 
 honom's was gathered around him by his anxious 
 parents. Brave men and beautifid women thronged 
 to the town mansion of the wealthy Earl ; and the 
 dinners and the evening parties given by the Alta- 
 monts will long be remembered for their liberal 
 magnificence, and for the galaxy of intellectual 
 brightness by w^hich they were distinguished. 
 Statesmen, whose genius strove to unravel the 
 tangled thread of social philosophy, — Generals, 
 whose powers had been displayed with high honour 
 in many a well-fought field, — Priests, whose elo- 
 quence could startle the sinner to penitental tears, 
 or stii' his soul with hope, — Philosophers, whose 
 discoveries had changed the character of science — 
 whose deductions appeared to indicate the right 
 path towards more wonderful truths, — Poets, whose 
 songs were on the lips of thousands, — and literary 
 men, whose writings political, and moral, formed 
 the authorities of the time — were all found amid the 
 fashionable crowd which gathered in those splendid 
 drawing-rooms. Women, remarkable for genius. 
 
142 PANTHEA, 
 
 for light and sparkling wit, and for elegance and 
 beauty — they too were there, the brightest stars of 
 that brilliant atmosphere. Amid them all, the most 
 marked of the throng was Lord Julian. He passed 
 from group to group, listening with strange calmness 
 to the many courteous compliments of the men, and 
 the well-timed flatteries of the women. He could 
 not be rude to any. He felt that they had been 
 gathered together with a view to his pleasiu-e, and 
 he strove to assume a gaiety, which, however, even 
 when most successful wanted the warmth of youth. 
 He conversed mth all ; — the statesman was sur- 
 prised at his knowledge of politics ; — the general was 
 pleased to find one who could so well appreciate 
 his strategies ; — the priest wondered at the young 
 man's knowledge of divinity and his polemical 
 powers ; — ^the poet Hstened with dehght to the high 
 thoughts which he poured forth ; — and the philoso- 
 phers admitted his powers, and they frequently 
 felt the unanswerable weight of his words, though 
 they regarded his reasonings as unsound. The men 
 admitted that Julian Altamont was an extraordinary 
 young man ; but each one, touching his own head 
 as the standard of wisdom, implied that all was not 
 right in that of the great Earl's son. The women 
 were much divided in opinion; — while some regarded 
 him as but a little below an inspired being whom 
 they could reverence, others considered him — or at 
 least they said so — as a mad enthusiast — a proud 
 pretender. 
 
THE SPIRIT OF NATURE. 143 
 
 Julian, in return, resolved that all around him was 
 a cheat. He saw that men and women flattered him 
 with their tongues, w^hile they almost hated him in 
 their hearts. Amidst the hundreds who crowded 
 to the grand entertainments given by his father, he 
 fancied he discovered scarcely any truly honest 
 hearts. The usages of society had induced every 
 one to appear in masquerade; and the man or 
 woman who was seen in that fashionable crowd was 
 not the same individual whom he should discover, 
 could he, in the silence of their homes, examine 
 their natm'es. Every one assumed an exterior for 
 the occasion, and Julian felt that they were all mere 
 players on a public stage, supporting, as best they 
 coidd, the parts which had been allotted to them. 
 
 " How little heart. How small an amount of 
 truth. What a want of earnestness is all this," 
 whispered Juhan one night to his mother, who was 
 tasking herself to the utmost to interest her visitors. 
 The tone in which this was uttered fell like an ice- 
 drop on her spirit ; she felt that Julian's disease 
 was not to be dispelled by this artificial display 
 which the world endeavours, so vainly, to disguise by 
 the name of pleasm-e. 
 
 Julian, however, learnt a great fact. Self-rehance 
 became slowly a part of his nature ; and, amid the 
 frivolities of the fashionable world — surrounded by 
 the crowd of those who believe themselves authorities, 
 and who by their loud talking and imperative manner 
 
144 PANTHEA, 
 
 endeavour to impress others with a behef in their 
 authority — he gradually found that it was a duty that 
 he owed to himself to maintain, in the throng of soci- 
 ety, all the independence of solitude. Often did he 
 repeat words, which, when spoken byLaon, he scarcely 
 understood, — " In the world you must be of the 
 world," — and he began to feel that he must rise 
 above himself — that he must dream no longer, but 
 act. He saw that to be true he must contemn the 
 false ; that he himself must submit his very thought 
 in nakedness to the knife which wounds to heal ; 
 that his father's displeasure, his mother's regrets, 
 and the sneers of the world must not prevent his 
 abandoning conventional errors, and his clinging 
 with earnestness to truth, wherever found, — whether 
 recovered from the past — thrown aside like a worn- 
 out garment by a proud and foolish world, or won 
 by contemplative power from the mysterious present 
 in which it is buried, like real rough gems, amidst a 
 heap of factitious jewels which are valued for thefr 
 expensive setting. 
 
 Such was the great world into which Julian was 
 thrown by his parents, and such were the results 
 upon that indi\idual mind, which was the subject 
 of theh solicitude. There was, however, a smaller 
 world — a far humbler sphere — a less obtrusive 
 circle, which exerted more powerful influences over 
 that mind — the world of science. Within this 
 circle — almost as exclusive as that of fashion — the 
 
THE SPIRIT OF NATURE. 145 
 
 proud position of tlic young Lord, and his higli 
 attainments gained liim ready admission. His 
 mornings, and often his nights, were spent in 
 watching the progress, under the best guides, of 
 researches in every department of knowledge. 
 
 He saw the astronomer penetrating space, ca- 
 taloguing the stars, delineating nebulae, watching 
 movements and perturbations which told so truly 
 that gravitation was a fact ; and he felt the littleness 
 of man as compared with the vast planetary space ; 
 and the high power and superior destiny of that 
 imprisoned mind which could pierce so far into the 
 mysterious purposes of the Infinite. With the 
 geologist he passed back into the arcana of time, 
 and as he learned, from studying the ages which 
 preceded the appearance of man, the briefness of 
 human creation, — the existence of his race being 
 but as a drop of water taken from an unmeasiu-ed 
 sea, — he grew proud of that power which permitted 
 him to see how gradually a world was made, and to 
 discover that slowly the old earth woidd pass away, 
 and a new creation rise in beauty fi'om its ruins. 
 With the experimental philosopher he heard of the 
 effects of the known physical forces. Light was 
 tortured through media of every kind to show him 
 the secrets of its powers. Heat was chased thi'ough 
 substances of all descriptions, in the vain hope of 
 chaining it in its coiu"se. Electricity was tried in 
 every form ; and he watched its phenomena with 
 
 L 
 
146 PANTHEA, 
 
 close attention, hoping to discover its mystery ; and 
 a host of mechanical effects due to these forces 
 combined in action, or to agencies which had not 
 yet been detected, were daily brought before hira. 
 Yet he left the natural philosopher, feeling there was 
 a great Beyond, which he could not penetrate, and 
 he sighed for the companionship of Laon ^Iphage. 
 
 The chemist exhibited to him the elementary 
 bodies and their combinations with each other; 
 analyzed natural productions, and by synthetic 
 experiments tested many of the great truths of his 
 science. The laws of combination, displaying the 
 universal harmony of the creation, and the influences 
 of physical powers on chemical constitution, power- 
 fully sohcited his attention. He bewildered himself 
 amidst the multifarious compounds of the organic 
 chemist ; combining and re-combining oxygen, hy- 
 di'ogen, nitrogen, and carbon in every possible 
 manner, without arriving at any law of combination 
 which is not shewn by every single case of chemical 
 affinity. The chemist, however, taught him the 
 great truth that the Divine Creator, so far from 
 expending His creative power on this wonderful 
 world, has left us evidence that numberless new 
 forms of matter could be created from the same 
 elements by any expression of His will. 
 
 With the naturalist he ran over the mineral, 
 vegetable, and the animal kingdoms. The beautiful 
 dependence of one upon the other was explained 
 
THE SPIRIT OF NATURE, 147 
 
 to him, and he saw that the rude grain of sand, by 
 nature's wonderful transmutation, passed into the 
 elaborate organisms of the vegetable world, and 
 became a portion of the delicate mechanism of the 
 animal frame. He perceived the curious parallelisms 
 which exist between vegetable and animal life. The 
 leaves and the lungs, the bark and the skin, the 
 wood and the arteries, the root and the intestines 
 he discovered presented many remarkable analogies. 
 Again, he saw in every ti'ee an assemblage of indi- 
 vidual energies bound by one common bond, as we 
 find classes of men and animals springing from a 
 common stalk, and affording individual aid to the 
 combined body. 
 
 With active inquiry he pursued the round of 
 modern science, and with much apparent zeal he 
 devoted his mind to the elaborate questions which 
 were at this time revolving in the philosophic mind 
 of Em'ope. He could not, however, slake his thirst 
 at any of the fountains which were opened to him. 
 He spoke of all men of science as deficient in 
 earnestness ; and he complained to all of the folly, 
 as he deemed it, of resting content with collecting 
 facts, when, by concentration of mental power, 
 they might deduce from their experiments laws 
 which would lead to our understanding the grandest 
 phenomena of the natural world. " Men peep," 
 he once exclaimed to a celebrated philosopher in the 
 library of the Royal Institution, " crawl and skulk 
 
 l3 
 
148 PANTHEA, 
 
 into that great palace of Natm-e which they have the 
 privilege of entering with a firm tread and an erect 
 forehead. Profession supplies the place of per- 
 formance, and words have usurped the stern dig- 
 nity of thought. We boast of our age as a religious 
 one, and yet have we lost sight of the Divine Power 
 in natm*e, and the infinity which belongs to it ; 
 although it is spoken in every natural formation, 
 and engraved on every artificial combination which 
 you make in your laboratories." 
 
 Julian, we have said, thirsted for the truth ; but 
 he desired to have that thirst slaked without the 
 labour of di'awing the bucket from the well. He 
 wished, by some process of inspiration, to learn all 
 things, and to see through nature by a species of 
 clairvoyance, which he did not himself well under- 
 stand. 
 
 Such a mind as Julian's was naturally bewildered 
 among the strange philosophies by which he was 
 smTOunded. On one hand he found every physical 
 phenomena referred to motion, as if the mere act of 
 change of place was sufficient to produce all the 
 involved and opposite effects which appear to our 
 senses to arise from the known agencies — electricity, 
 heat, and light — as causes. 
 
 " Matter in motion," sighed Julian, after a long 
 discussion with an eminent philosopher, " is elec- 
 tricity, is heat, is light ; then these powers are 
 material, and yet you deny any material emanations 
 
THE SPIRIT OF NATURE. 149 
 
 from that source from wliicli we derive the great 
 supply deraanded by this nmndane creation ; but 
 you invent a hypothetical ether, which has never 
 yet received the smallest shadow of proof from 
 astronomical observation, by which alone its exist- 
 ence could be proved. Your philosophies are not 
 consistent." 
 
 By another school everything was referred to 
 polar forces ; but what these were intended to mean 
 Julian could never discover, and at length he con- 
 cluded that this view was adopted, with considerable 
 ingenuity, to disguise the absence of any certain 
 knowledge, and prevent the necessity of an inquiry 
 which must be essentially laborious. This ardent 
 mind soon arrived at the conclusion, that in science 
 words as frequently disguised the truth as eluci- 
 dated it. 
 
 The duality of powers — the constant tendency of 
 all things to a compensation — pleased Lord Julian, 
 and he zealously sought for examples of the balance 
 of forces. He saw that every material creation — 
 every manifestation of force in any form — exhibited, 
 when bisected, this wonderful duality, and he traced 
 it onwards into moral science, and into every social 
 arrangement. The oriental philosophy of two con- 
 tending principles — an ever positive, an ever nega- 
 tive — leading to progress by antagonism caught his 
 fancy, pleasing the poetic tendency of his mind. 
 Yet he soon perceived, that although it w^as true 
 
150 PANTHEA, 
 
 that all nature did exhibit an order of binary com- 
 bination, and of powers eternally positing and 
 negating, yet that the knowledge of this fact brought 
 the mind no nearer towards that clear-sightedness 
 into nature which he desired. 
 
 The young Lord found also some pleasm"e in 
 examining the new forms under which the old doc- 
 trine of the harmony of numbers was revived ; but 
 when he found a philosopher regarding hydrogen as 
 the first creation, because its equivalent number on 
 the chemical scale was 1, and carbon as the second, 
 from the circumstance of its relation to hydrogen 
 being as 6 is to 1, he rejected, as dangerous, a system 
 which could be so perverted ; and even began to 
 question the advantages of those beautiful chemical 
 theories which display so perfectly — what no man 
 ever doubted — that creation is no ap-hazard mixing 
 of dissimilar bodies, but a system of combination 
 determined with the utmost mathematical precision, 
 both as it respects weight and volume, — the one 
 indeed naturally determining the other. 
 
 He met with one philosopher who taught him 
 the world was the spoken word of God — thought 
 translated into motion, — and that every human being 
 was His metatype ; that the first manifestation of 
 God was Manas, or gravity — ether — darkness ; that 
 the second was the D^as, or the ether in a state of 
 tension — light ; and the third the Trias, or heat — 
 then" tri-unc combination being Fire. Upon this 
 
THE SPIRIT OF NATURE. 151 
 
 mystical foundation a truly logical system had been 
 founded, the end of which was well expressed as a 
 constant positing of nothing. On one side every- 
 thing unexplained by science was referred to elec- 
 tricity ; on another to magnetism as a power inde- 
 pendent and superior; and, again, on another to 
 light and heat. Our student even heard the soul 
 of the world spoken of as an actual spirit inhabiting 
 the eai'th — a living body, — upon which plants and 
 animals grew, as parasites, under the influence of 
 solar and lunar radiations. 
 
 " Alas !" sighed Julian, " where shall I seek for 
 truth ?" 
 
 On his return home he usually found a letter from 
 Eudora Spencer, in which there was Truth ; but he 
 seldom saw it in all its fulness. His replies, which 
 were at first beautiful compositions, exhibiting without 
 disguise all the phases of his mind, became more 
 and more guarded in their character ; every letter 
 was shorter than the previous one ; and at length 
 they became merely courteous answers to the anxious 
 inquu'ies of a noble girl. 
 
 Tliis was the age of application. Julian, rather to 
 please his father than himself, sought out the selected 
 men of the Utihtarian school ; he visited the work- 
 shop and the manufactory ; he saw heat converted 
 into a motive power, impelling the car with velocity 
 on the iron road, and the ship on the restless sea, 
 binding and crushing masses of iron, and weaving 
 
152 PANTHEA, 
 
 such tissues as the imaginative painter would fling 
 around the aerial form of a zephyr. He examined all 
 the delicacies of those machines of which this ele- 
 ment was as the spirit to the body ; and he thought 
 he made himself familiar with each mechanical im- 
 provement. With the engineer he looked over those 
 great works which promise to tell the story of a 
 busy age to future generations ; and railroads, via- 
 ducts, bridges, tunnels, and the numerous works of 
 engineering skill which are spread across the land were 
 visited by Julian Altamont. He actually learned to 
 make the sun-beam paint the objects which it illu- 
 minated ; and in studying the art by which this 
 subtile pencil pom'trays the beautiful, he discovered 
 that the elements of life and the agencies of decay 
 were miited in the principles which light envelopes 
 in its garment of purity. There was a fascination 
 in these experiments which carried him onward; 
 but he found that light, heat, and chemical power 
 presented such a tangled thread, that he at length, 
 wearied even of actino-chemistry, sighed for a 
 revelation. He found electricity annihilating dis- 
 tance, and promising to bind the world in an 
 enchanted girdle tlu'ough which the remotest nations 
 could exchange their thoughts, learn to discover the 
 goodness of every human heart, and feel the mys- 
 tery of universal love. He felt that in the gi'cat 
 designs of Him who formed the world, the realiza- 
 tion of Christian peace was to be effected through 
 
THE SPIRIT OF NATURE. 153 
 
 the agencies of physical power. The mechanical 
 works of man shew that there was a purpose and a 
 zeal in action ; and he constantly regretted that that 
 earnestness which was capable of producing such 
 vast designs should be wasted on the merely earthly, 
 — ^that man's great energies should be given to the 
 production of sensual luxuries — to the advance of 
 that civiHzation which leads to idle indulgences, 
 and eventually ends in a complete enervation of 
 national power. He sighed that so much energy 
 should be so transient in action, — that the full tide 
 of mental power should not be sustained at its 
 maximum elevation, instead of constantly ebbing as 
 soon as it was attained. He now regretted Laon, 
 to whom alone he could look for a solution of such 
 problems as these. Mr. Cheverton he rarely thought 
 of; or when he did so, it was with a feeling that 
 that gentleman was chained to the mere fact by a 
 superstitious fear of extending his inquiries beyond it. 
 ^Itgiva he feared ; she was to him as a spii-it from 
 another world, whom he reverenced in awe and 
 trembling. He did not admit that a finite being 
 could possess supernatural power, yet he dared not, 
 to himself, deny its possibility, feeling convinced that 
 he had been himself strangely constrained by the 
 agency of ^Itgiva's potent will. 
 
 At one time, when these feelings were strong 
 upon him, he was persuaded by the Countess to 
 join her and his father in a visit to one of these 
 
154 PANTHEA, 
 
 Horticultural fetes, which were then, as they are 
 now, a fashion. He passed amid the gay crowd as 
 usual with an air of indifference, until his attention 
 was excited by a remarkably fine display of Calceo- 
 larias. He stopped to examine and admire them. 
 He cast his eyes hastily along the table, and he 
 started so suddenly and evidently that the Countess 
 of Devonport uttered a sound of surprise. This 
 recalled Julian to himself — " I thought I saw yElt- 
 giva; but it must have been but fancy," said he — 
 and they passed on. 
 
 On another occasion, as he afterwards confessed, 
 he fell the presence of that strange woman ; but he 
 dared not raise his eyes to look if she indeed were 
 present. 
 
 With this extraordinary activity of mind which 
 distinguished every movement of the young lord in 
 pursuit of knowledge, his parents perceived, mth 
 some regret, a constantly increasing alienation from 
 that society which they regarded as peculiarly the 
 circle in which their son should move. The Earl 
 and Countess of Devonport found that although, as 
 they thought, they had succeeded in destroying that 
 dreaminess which seemed to tlu'eaten madness, 
 they had given food to a passion which had not hi- 
 therto been regarded as dignifying the peerage. The 
 Earl, full of old world customs, when he found that 
 his efforts had led Julian to pursue a path which he 
 considered as derogatory to the peerage, was angry 
 
THE SPIRIT OF NATURE. 155 
 
 with himself and all around him ; and he resolved, 
 seriously and with firmness, to reason with his son 
 on the folly of his course. 
 
 "As usual, I presume," he said coolly one day 
 as Julian entered the library, " you come fi'om the 
 workshop?" 
 
 " I have been trying experiments with ," 
 
 naming an eminent chemist, replied Julian. 
 
 " To ascertain, I suppose, how much soda mixed 
 with dead horse flesh will make soap for the coal- 
 heavers?" 
 
 " I have been as profitably employed," said 
 Julian, with a smile. 
 
 " A reply worthy of a chandler. Possibly you 
 know the price of mottled and black soap ?" proudly 
 contmued the Earl ; "or can truly estimate the 
 price of tallow or kitchen stuff?" 
 
 Julian was stung ; but he suppressed his feelings, 
 merely replying, " Such statistics have not yet 
 attracted my attention ; but I admit their value in 
 tliis commercial comitry." 
 
 " Juhan," said the Earl, still with an angry scowl 
 upon his brow, " you were not born for a clerk ; 
 upon you wall devolve the duty — and it is a serious 
 one — of supporting the dignity of our house. I 
 have endeavom-ed to direct you by, I hope, my 
 always honourable example, in the correct path ; — 
 you have not been denied those things which you 
 have desired, although they have been idle and 
 
156 
 
 PANTHEA, 
 
 unworthy ; but I liave allowed you such instructors 
 as your fancy inchned you to, hoping that your folly 
 would have an end : that you would discover that 
 science — a thing well enough and useful enough to 
 the sons of tradesmen — is not a pursuit worthy one 
 of the nobles of England." 
 
 " Pardon me, my father," said Juhan, interrupting 
 the Earl ; " that nobility which will bear the name 
 brightly into the great future, must be achieved by 
 those labom-s of the mind which lift us above the 
 mere world." 
 
 " The peerage, Sir, can boast no brighter name 
 than that of Altamont." 
 
 " And that it may be the brightest is the desire 
 of yom' son." 
 
 " Recollect, Julian, that our great ancestors won 
 honours which were transmitted, as a sacred charg-e, 
 from father to son, until they descended to me. I 
 believe I have preserved my trust with all faithful- 
 ness ; and my desire is to feel that in your hands 
 the charge will be as holily treasured." 
 
 " My Lord ! father ! — at a time when a strong 
 arm and indomitable courage were required by the 
 tm-bulent condition of society, it happened that an 
 Altamont possessing these requirements won honours 
 from the people and rewards from the king. A 
 brave and possibly not a bad man, he secured lands 
 and monies as some return for hard fighting, and 
 prompt council, which was fortunate in proving 
 
THE SPIRIT OF NATURE. 157 
 
 good. Those wlio succeeded him were brave men, 
 and we find them, fathers and sons, in the ranks 
 of the warriors of those days. We inherit those 
 riches, bought by the waste of muscle and the 
 shedding of blood on the battle field ; and for some 
 of which a human life was the price paid down. 
 Are we honest in wearing this sword of honour 
 always in its sheath. Are we not mean if we rest 
 content in being adorned with the jewels won by 
 our dead ancestors ? Does it suit our pride to take 
 the shield so nobly blazoned by the acts of others, 
 and wear it in idleness ? No ! rather let us win 
 honourable ordinaries to om* armorial bearings. 
 There are no abatements now on our escutcheon ; 
 but such will follow the actions of the idle. We 
 cannot use the sword of om' fathers either against 
 infidel or barbarian ; but we can employ the mind 
 wliich has descended to us, in all that activity which 
 marked the head of our house, in a crusade against 
 ignorance and superstition." 
 
 " Why not then prepare for a seat in Parliament ; 
 you will shortly attain your majority." 
 
 "Because I feel unfit for so responsible an 
 office." 
 
 " The responsibility of voting with our party is 
 not a heavy one," said the Earl with a smile. 
 
 " There are talkers enough in the House, and 
 
 and would be safe guides to follow in your 
 
 politics." 
 
158 PANTHEA, 
 
 " If I have gained no other advantage by those 
 studies to which you have objected, I have learnt to 
 examine for myself, and to discover that half the 
 ignorance in the world is to be traced to that blind 
 dependance upon authority which distinguishes all 
 party. In politics, as in philosophy, I shall always 
 use my own reason, and I fear I should be found 
 
 as often voting against as with and your 
 
 friends." 
 
 " Would you destroy our friendships, and damage 
 our interests?" 
 
 " Sm-ely neither the one nor the other would be 
 jeopardised by a conscientious expression of an honest 
 opinion." 
 
 " An honest opinion ! — Aye ! the French philo- 
 sophers taught that jargon ; it is a fine catch- word, 
 and fools join in the cry." 
 
 The Earl of Devonport hastily left the library, 
 expressing his displeasm^e by slamming the door 
 behind him. As long as the Earl fancied he was 
 having his own way he was amiable and courteous ; 
 but when any dii'ect opposition to his views or 
 wishes was manifested, a fretful and petulant manner 
 was exhibited to all around him. He left his son, 
 and went from room to room of his mansion, 
 muttering to himself, "Honest opinion! Aye!" 
 until he at length reached the boudoii' of the 
 Countess, to whom in a quick and angry style he 
 related his conversation with his son. 
 
THE SPIRIT OF NATURE. 159 
 
 Julian, when his father left the library, threw 
 himself into a seat with a sigh of sorrow and regret. 
 He regretted having given cause for his father's 
 expression of anger, and he sorrowed over that 
 weakness of mind in his parent which betrayed him 
 into it. He sate for some time lost in thought ; 
 at length a hand was softly laid upon his shoulder. 
 He looked up; — the Countess, in tears, was stand- 
 ing by him. Juhan hastily rose, and clasping his 
 mother's hand between both his own, he exclaimed, 
 " Mother." 
 
 " Jidian," was her sweet reply. 
 
 He led the Countess to a couch, and seated him- 
 self beside her. 
 
 After a silence of deep feeling on both sides, the 
 Countess said, " Julian, you have given your father 
 cause to be angry." 
 
 '' My dear mother, I fear I may have been hasty, 
 indiscreet in my expressions ; but — " Julian 
 paused. 
 
 "But what, my son ? " 
 
 " I gave expression only to the truth. I cannot 
 play the hypocrite. Would you have me disguise 
 my thoughts ?" 
 
 " In all their purity do I desu^e you should express 
 them, Julian ; but it is a duty you owe to your 
 parents to regard their councils, and follow their 
 directions. The advantages of experience we have 
 gained with our advancing years, and these advan- 
 
160 PANTHEA, 
 
 tages we would impart to oiir children. Julian, 
 what talisman can I employ to destroy the illusion 
 in which you live?" 
 
 " Your love, my mother, is the only talisman 
 required. I have lived in a state of illusion ; but 
 when I place the delightful honesty of your spu'it 
 in contrast with the world, the enchantment is dis- 
 pelled, and I flyback to you and natm-e." 
 
 " You talk dreams, my son," said the Countess, 
 " A^Tien shall we see you gay in that circle of rank, 
 talent, and beauty to which you are born?" 
 
 " When, my mother, that circle is honest to 
 itself; and, instead of wasting its powers in sensual 
 pleasures which are copied in a debased manner by 
 the vulgar, shall exhibit an exalted consciousness 
 of their true position ; and, li\ing above the de- 
 grading influences which beset the poorer classes, 
 show some of the real features of human excellence, 
 in those exercises of intelhgence which are the true 
 labours of every human soul created for the enjoy- 
 ment of a spiritual hereafter." 
 
 " And are they not so, Julian, as far as they can 
 be, — surrounded by all the imperfections of om- 
 natiu-e?" 
 
 " No, mother, no. Among the nobles of England 
 there are many who exhibit every active Christian 
 virtue ; but these, alas ! are few, compared with 
 those who lie supine upon the waves of pleasure, 
 and are borne onward in thoughtless indifierence to 
 
THE SPIRIT OF NATURE. 161 
 
 all that is around tlieiu. But, independently of 
 their minor errors, a self-delusion, like a vast dark 
 cloud, is interposed bctAvecn them and the great 
 masses of mankind ; — they imagine that the dignity 
 of an ancestral name will secure them honour, inde- 
 pendently of those humble virtues which give a charm 
 to the cottage that the palace can rarely boast of. 
 New energies are moving the world, and the wealthy 
 and the honoured may, if they take the olive-branch, 
 direct those energies to great ends ; but to repress 
 them the sword is powerless. We can no longer 
 command the people by the force of our class 
 honour ; but they wait and watch for us to guide 
 them by that example of honest pm'pose, which is 
 indeed the truth." 
 
 "Julian, one more virtuous—more charitable 
 than your father, is not to be found this day in 
 England. With all his faults — and who is \vithout 
 them ? — he is beloved by his tenantry and admired 
 by the world. Would you have more honour and 
 respect than he has ? Can you not rest content, 
 as he has done, in the unobtrusive exercise of 
 virtuous deeds ? Are you ambitious to lead a 
 new party, or to form a fresh sect ? BcAvare, 
 my son ; you may be building for yourself an 
 idol with feet of clay, which shall fall and crush 
 you. 
 
 " Have patience with me, mother. Listen for 
 awhile, and do not interrupt me : — 
 
 M 
 
162 PANTHEA, 
 
 "You have mistaken my disposition and my 
 desires ; yon have mis-interpreted my conduct. 
 My earhest lessons were given me by you, my 
 mother. Before I could correctly employ language, 
 you instructed me in the great trutb, that be- 
 yond nature a spiiitual Power existed, to whom it 
 was the infant's duty to address its simple prayer. 
 Wlien kneeling before you, my little hands placed 
 by you in the adorative attitude, and my tongue 
 syllabling the words of the prayer you uttered, I 
 first formed my idea of the God of Natm^e. In 
 her, at whose feet I knelt, I saw everything 
 which I could comprehend, within my childish 
 mind, of goodness ; and I saw, in my infant 
 visions, beyond the bright blue sky which cm*- 
 tained Heaven, a God — pure, holy, and kind as 
 my mother." 
 
 Tears stood in the eyes of the Countess, but she 
 was silent. 
 
 Julian continued. " My boyish days were passed 
 in a country where the works of Natm^e were alike 
 sublime and beautiful. Mountains rose, rocky and 
 barren, toward the sky. Torrents rolled through 
 the rifted chasms down into valleys which were 
 rich with forest trees and full of flowers. The 
 desert and the garden were found beside each other. 
 A pastoral country spread towards the sea, and the 
 grand ocean beat in calm and storm on beetling 
 cliffs and wave-subduing sands. In the moaning 
 
THE SPIRIT OV NATURE. 1G3 
 
 of the mountain, the roar of the torrent, the sigh- 
 ing of the forest, the hum of the savannah, and 
 the wild music of the never-resthig sea, I heard 
 voices proclaiming a Greatness beyond us, which I 
 loved as I loved my mother ; while I felt an awe 
 amounting to dread on account of the mystery 
 which shrouded the Unseen. I was a poet long 
 before I dreamed of philosophy. I saw all natiure 
 through a beautiful veil, woven over my mind by my 
 mother. I saw nothing but goodness ; the evil 
 things of fallen humanity I had never seen. Earth 
 was still to my childish eye a paradise, upon which 
 even the rain-cloud and the wind-storm diffused a 
 regenerating influence; and, in those solitary rambles 
 which I always loved, I felt safe in the consolation 
 of a Presence which sheltered me as fondly as those 
 indulgent arms. I grew in years, and the task of 
 education was begun. I had to unlearn much ; at 
 least, all the efforts of my first masters were directed 
 to destroy those conceptions of natm'e which I had 
 drawn from nature, and to implant in my mind 
 ideas of an artificial character. I was bewildered 
 between the True and the False. Art was employed 
 to put on the semblance of honesty ; and I was in- 
 structed to believe that love and admiration were 
 only awarded by the world to him who followed 
 the false fashions of the age, and blindly bowed 
 before the recognised authority of his time. On 
 the one hand, a bright and beautiful spirit struggled 
 
 M 2 
 
164 PANTHEA, 
 
 to bind me to unsopliisticated nature ; on the 
 other, a proud and powerful genius strove to bend 
 me before those shadowy resemblances — the only- 
 remains of nature — with which sensual indulgence 
 has beguiled the world. Time passed on, and Mr. 
 Cheverton became my instructor. Loving science 
 for the truths it gave him, and earnestly pursuing 
 experimental research and scientific observation, for 
 the pure delight of reading natural truth, Mr. 
 Cheverton awoke a new passion within me, and 
 you and my father were delighted at the progress 
 I made under the direction of that good man. 
 He taught me to think clearly ; any ratiocinative 
 powers I may possess are due to him ; and to 
 him, also, am I indebted for that taint of scep- 
 ticism which interfered too powerfully with my 
 receiving a natm^al truth in faith. Unfortunately, 
 to that fine mind there has grown some of the 
 mosses and mildew which find a home still in 
 those sacred relics of monastic rule — om' uni- 
 versities ; and these have tangled their roots and 
 branches like cancerous fibres with his very life, 
 and he trembles to proceed beyond those points 
 which we can measure by the scale or weigh in 
 the balance." 
 
 The Countess was about to speak, but Julian 
 Altamont, placing his hand upon his mother's, with 
 a bland and meaning smile entreated her silence, 
 and continued. 
 
THE SPIRIT OF NATURE. 165 
 
 " You, my mother, taught mc to admh'e the 
 external aspect of nature, and to see evidence of a 
 sphitual Hfe in the lowUest flower which blossomed 
 on the wold. Mr. Chevertou instructed me to lift 
 the covering, and look upon the marvellous creation 
 which the external vesture hid. I found that my 
 idea of a God, beautiful as His shadow on His works, 
 rose, under Mr. Cheverton's guidance, into one 
 which faintly imaged out an immense grandeur — a 
 supreme embodiment of the utmost harmony. To 
 comprehend this — to embrace the large thought 
 which loomed upon my mind — was my desire. I 
 felt that we had dived but a little way beneath the 
 surface of creation, and I longed to look deeper 
 and deeper still. I was roughly told it was dan- 
 gerous ; and the icy hand of a miserable superstition 
 was placed upon my soul to restrain its ardent 
 pulsations. I sought still to gain the forbidden 
 frait of the tree of knowledge, and I found in Laon 
 iElphage— " 
 
 " The serpent tempter," said the Countess, 
 firmly. 
 
 " Nay, sweet mother ; he warned me not to pluck 
 the fruit of which he told me he had tasted. He 
 strove to repress my longing ; but I overcame him — 
 my soul would be satisfied. I knew, as you know, 
 that there was beyond the temporal a spiritual 
 world, and that the powers of the earthly were 
 bound in the bonds of the heavenly ; that the ter- 
 
166 PANTHEA, 
 
 restrial was moved by the celestial ; that God and 
 his ministering angels were the guardians of this 
 glittering star. Laon possessed a power, gained 
 by a life of the utmost piety and the profoundest 
 study, and at my prayer he employed that power, 
 and I have enjoyed the rapt pleasm^e of a holy 
 vision, and looked upon the beautiful." 
 
 A deep sigh escaped the Countess. 
 
 " I became melancholy in my longing for still 
 more knowledge. You and my father deemed my 
 meditations madness, and hurried me into a world 
 where I detect on every side false pretensions and 
 dishonest aims. There is much real excellence in 
 man, but it is disguised ; even good is done with 
 hypocrisy ; and Virtue almost fears to present her 
 pure form among the crowd. I have borne with this, 
 and I have learnt that although none are absolutely 
 evil, — although all exhibit an honest desire to act 
 correctly in their little circles, which are bounded 
 by a thousand sweet affections, that a chain of con- 
 ventional error binds us all, and, in obedience to 
 the galling shackle, man acts a part of baseness, 
 which the good that is in him teaches him to abhor. 
 Is this not so, mother ? Notwithstanding all our 
 semblance of piety, and the virtue and the charity 
 which we assume in public, are Ave not, aU of us, 
 when before the world, disposed to play the hypo- 
 crite ? and even before our looking-glasses, do we 
 not try to cheat ourselves, vainly imagining that 
 
THE SPIRIT OF NATURE. 167 
 
 the grand mirror of the eternal heavens ^^dll not 
 catch the reflection of our inmost souls, through 
 the mask? " 
 
 "I fear, Julian, I must admit the sin of self- 
 delusion," said the Countess. 
 
 "My ancestors, mother, battled with the bar- 
 barian that they might teach him civilization, and 
 I feel that your son is born to fight with the savages 
 Ignorance and Pride ; with all the tribe of Fears 
 which spring from their union, and grow like 
 parasitical forms upon every human virtue. To this 
 he will devote his energies, and, to arm himself for 
 this great war, he has striven to master human 
 knowledge ; but he still feels, that, like the heroes 
 of ancient song, he must be armed with a celestial 
 panoply, which he can only win by abstract devotion 
 to those high ministries which exist beyond the 
 limits of this temporal state. The physical world 
 has passed tlu'ough the terrible conflict of the 
 powers by which it is regulated ; and, after ages 
 of convulsive agony, it has assumed that tranquillity 
 which arises fi'om the perfect balance of the dis- 
 turbing forces ; and from the destruction of former 
 worlds, there has been produced one, over which 
 the beautiful, like the serene blue of heaven, is 
 spread. ]\Ian — the moral world — notwithstand- 
 ing the high endowments of the race, and their 
 capacity for attaining excellence in all things, stiU 
 maintains a vain strife, by which everything is 
 
168 PANTHEA, 
 
 retarded, and through the mfluence of which the 
 clear emppean is spread with clouds of sable 
 sorrow. I have resolved, mother, to devote my 
 life to the study of wisdom, and the attainment 
 of that high appreciation of the beautiful for 
 which we are all born ; and I shall devote the 
 power which my wealth and rank gives me, to 
 the conflict with the world's prejudices and sensual 
 passions." 
 
 " An idle resolution, Julian," said the Countess ; 
 " God will in his own good time bring about the 
 great millennium. The direction of events is not 
 left within the power of man. Under the influence 
 of the gi'eat curse, human pride is excited. ]\Ien 
 make of man a hero, and blindly worship and follow 
 him. The hero, in the intoxication of power, urged 
 on by the maddening gale of popular applause, 
 pm'sues some phantom ; and, instead of leading the 
 multitude to higher blessings than those they enjoy, 
 he bewilders them in their zeal, and the confusion 
 of tongues, that constant curse which follows man's 
 impious daring, falls upon them : — strife follows, 
 and widows and orphans are seen, — amid the ruins 
 of cities and the ensanguined wrecks of humanity, 
 — bewailing the unhappy madness. The poetic 
 dreams of a Rousseau were the precursors of a 
 revolution, from the effects of which France still 
 trembles." 
 
 The Countess spoke with most mmsual animation, 
 
THE SPIRIT OF NATURE. 169 
 
 and tears of excitement stood spiirkling in her 
 beautiful mild eyes. Julian was moved at witness- 
 ing his mother's strong feeling, and replied in his 
 kindest manner, and with the softest tone of voice : 
 
 " Mother, you still mistake me ; and you make 
 the mistake of all those who fear to trust themselves. 
 You confound those sycophantic heroes who attempt 
 to sway the tremulous feelings of the mob to their 
 own purposes, with those saint-like spirits who would 
 purge the human soul of error. Truth, mother, is 
 somewhat of a summer bird ; its bright pinions beat 
 rejoicingly upon the atmosphere of peace, but they 
 are folded, and she hides her lovely form, when the 
 dark clouds of sensual strife obscure the brightness 
 of heaven." 
 
 "What would j/o;(5 do, my dear Julian?" said 
 the Countess. 
 
 " Do, mother ! I would listen to the voices of God 
 in the singing of the brook, in the rustle of the 
 leaves, in the sighing of the mountahi, in the moan- 
 ing of the great sea. I would interpret their words 
 in the observatory of the astronomer, in the labora- 
 tory of the chemist, and in the workshop of the 
 engineer ; and then, having taught myself to echo 
 those pm'e, those earnest sounds, I w^ould send 
 forth my words like ministering spirits to spread 
 their mysterious music. I would utter nothing 
 but the truth ; but I would thunder that so loudly 
 that men should tremble at its eloquent earnestness." 
 
170 PANTHEA, 
 
 " My son ! my son !" replied that pious mother, 
 " talk not so wildly. A field in wliicli you may 
 distinguish yourself is before you. Follow in the 
 noble path of your ancestors. In the senate, in the 
 church, in the ranks of our country's defenders, they 
 have been found. They were proud to protect this 
 Clu'lstian land from idle innovations ; whereas, you 
 would substitute for that system which has led to oiu* 
 national glory, and preserved us in peace amid all 
 the conflicts by which we have been surrounded, a 
 sometldng, an idea which has taken root in solitude, 
 and grown like some huge parasite to the destruc- 
 tion of the living truth." 
 
 Julian rose, and calmly, but with much firmness, 
 looking his mother steadily in the face, he replied — 
 
 " Well, mother, — let my deeds, rather than my 
 words, be my reply. I shall return to Altamont." 
 
 The Countess started, and exclaimed, " Return 
 to Altamont !" 
 
 " Yes, mother ; hear me, — for I shall disguise 
 my thoughts or my designs no longer. I shall 
 return to Altamont to-morrow. I desire to see 
 Mr. Cheverton. I have much to ask of Laon ^^1- 
 
 phage. Nay, do not turn pale and tremble, 
 
 mother ; there is no danger. I am armed by expe- 
 rience ; and from his daughte^. too I l^^^e some- 
 thing more to learn." 
 
 " Is there no one else you would desire to see at 
 Altamont?" This was said with a mother's feel- 
 
THE SPIRIT OF NATURE. 171 
 
 ing, and full of the hope that there was some re- 
 awakening of that love which she desired to encou- 
 rage ; but which she often feared, and regretted in her 
 fear, had perished under the same influences which 
 appeared to her so fatal to every proper feeling in 
 her son. 
 
 Julian divined his mother's thought. He walked 
 slowl}^ across the apartment, and returned as leisiu-ely, 
 folding his arms upon his bosom. He began 
 abruptly : 
 
 " As a boy I loved Eudora Spencer ; as a man I 
 can only regard her as I would I could regard all 
 other women — a being formed to bless and purify 
 the heart of man. I have not dared to trust this, 
 still too human, heart with a thought of that dear 
 maiden, lest I should awaken again my early pas- 
 sion, and sacrifice my spirit's power on an earthly 
 shrine." He paused for some moments in deep 
 thought, and then exclaimed — " Yes, mother, I 
 will see Eudora Spencer, and strive to convince her 
 that in endeavouring to set myself free from the 
 enchantments which her beauty, her virtue, and 
 her intelligence have woven around me, I have 
 but attempted to reach that womanly excellence 
 which is the nearest approach to Divinity that 
 man can ever make. In woman — pure and holy 
 — we see an advance from the grossness of man, 
 towards that state which we distinguish as angelic ; 
 and, mother, I have, — although the world's wild 
 
172 PANTHEA. 
 
 laugli has been against me, and the shafts of man's 
 bitter ridicule have been launched, like poisoned 
 arrows, at my name, — I have endeavoured to sub- 
 due the earth-born propensities of this frail animal 
 body, that I might give room for the development of 
 those spiritual povrers which link us to Heaven, 
 and of which the innocence of childhood and the 
 faith of woman are the purest earthly examples. 
 Yes, mother, I will see Eudora Spencer." 
 
 In that promise the Countess saw hope ; she 
 arose, and kissed her son. 
 
 Juhan, full of high thoughts, left London the 
 next day for Altamont. 
 
BOOK THE SECOND. 
 
" Learned Paustus, to find the secrets of astronomy, 
 Graven in the book of Jove's high firmament, 
 Did mount him up to scale Olympus' top ; 
 Where, sitting in a chariot burning bright, 
 Drawn by the strength of yoked dragons' necks, 
 He views the clouds, the planets, and the stars, 
 The tropic zones, and quarters of the sky, 
 From the bright circle of the horned moon. 
 Even to the height of Frivmm Mobile.'" 
 
 Christophek, Maelowe. 
 
 " Men's thoughts are according to nature ; their words 
 according to precept ; but their deeds according to custom. 
 Nature is a kind of Pedant— Custom a Magistrate." — Bacon. 
 
175 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 HEAET AND SOUL. 
 
 It was a place 
 
 As holy and enchanted 
 
 As e'er, beneath a waning moon, was haunted 
 
 By woman, wailing for her demon lover. 
 
 Nature had made a little hollow in the hills, 
 within which the transparent waters of a small lake 
 reflected the sunshine and the stars. Ai't had 
 passed, under the dii'ection of the intelligent mind 
 of a high-souled woman, over the place, and a 
 strange, almost a savage, beauty covered it. Around 
 the tops of the hills grew the larch, the Scotch fir, 
 and the mountain-ash; a little way adown their 
 gi'acefully sloping sides rose the cedar of Lebanon, 
 the cypress, and a great variety of pines ; lower still 
 some of the hardy palms grew luxuriantly ; and at 
 their base was found the Nepal rhododendron, the 
 lovely magnolia, the azalea, the camelia, blossoming 
 myrtles, and a numerous variety of graceful flower- 
 
176 PANTHEA, 
 
 ing shi'ubs, which diffused their mingled odoui's 
 through the still air of this solitude. On the banks 
 which undulated around the lake, by artifices which 
 would pass unobserved by an ordinary beholder, 
 were formed the conditions required by the most 
 rare exotics. Orchidaceous plants grew upon the 
 branches of the trees ; and their flowers, like a 
 thousand butterflies, pendulated over head. Tropi- 
 cal palms spread their fan-like leaves on one hand, 
 and groves of ferns waved their fairy fronds upon 
 the other. Mimosas crept from tree to tree, and 
 opened their painted and star-like flowers, trem- 
 bling as in conscious sensibility. The olive, and 
 the orange, and the lemon-tree were reflected in the 
 waters ; and a numerous host of beautiful flowers 
 formed the carpet of this extraordifiary place. Art, 
 too, in the high form of intellectual creation, was 
 there. Ai'ound the lake were six marble statues, 
 embodying the sublime beauty of those Greek ori- 
 ginals from which they had been copied by a master 
 hand, who had felt the impulses of the same poetry 
 which sprang from the fulness of a divine dream of 
 the beautiful in nature, and which gave to Greece her 
 elegant mythology. Those idealizations stood like 
 the charmed guardians of the lake, which was so 
 shut in by the tree-covered hills that the winds 
 could scarcely disturb the surface of the miiTor, 
 reflecting them in all the correctness of their 
 symmetric outlines. There was a murmur of birds 
 
THE SPIRIT OF NATURE. 177 
 
 among tlie trees ; and a solitary swan swam lazily 
 upon the lake, in full, but silent, enjoyment of the 
 life-beam of the meridian sun, now shedding its tem- 
 pered rays over the scene. 
 
 One other, exalted form of life adorned the spot ; 
 — standing by the side of the lake, leaning against 
 the pedestal of one of the statues, was iEltgiva, 
 looking in deep thought into the water. 
 
 yEltgiva, dressed in a long white robe, and her 
 face pale as the marble, would have appeared as an 
 appendage to the statue by which she stood, but 
 that her eyes glistened with the excitement of much 
 internal emotion. Long she stood, motionless and 
 silent, looking fixedly into the liquid mirror ; at 
 length, raising her head, she exclaimed aloud — 
 
 " Joy ! joy ! — they come !" 
 
 The swan, enlivened at the sound of her voice, 
 glided quickly across the lake to her feet ; the waters 
 broke into a ripple as of smiles ; and the birds, 
 answering the echo of her harmonious accents, burst 
 into a general chorus of the sweetest music. 
 
 As ^Itgiva bent forward, smoothing the feathers 
 on the arched neck of the swan, she saw not the 
 approach of her father. Issuing from a sort of 
 grotto in a small pile of rocks, — upon which the 
 heath, and the fm-ze, and the broom blossomed, — 
 the aged Laon advanced with fiim steps towards his 
 daughter. He laid his hand upon her shoulder. 
 
 "Have the night visions, or day-light signs, told 
 
 N 
 
178 PANTHEA, 
 
 thee anything, my daughter, of the young philo- 
 sopher ?" 
 
 She turned round, and with a sweet smile replied, 
 " Yes." 
 
 " Are you certain you may not be again de- 
 ceived?" 
 
 " Father, are we certain that the sun will rise to- 
 morrow ? are we certain that the ocean tide, which 
 is now ebbing, will flow again ?" There was a tone 
 in her voice which appeared to convey some slight 
 reproach. 
 
 " Julian has been long absent," said Laon, in 
 reply. "As a watcher your spirit has been con- 
 stantly with his ; and the secret influences, which 
 our philosophers laugh at, have worked in power 
 upon him ; and yet, ^Eltgiva, twice already have 
 you told me of his coming, and yet he has not 
 come. 
 
 " Like the good and the evil genius of Socrates, 
 or the creative and destructive powers of the Eastern 
 faith, two all-potent principles have been working 
 upon the mind of Julian. The Spirit of Panthea — 
 good, pure, divine — has sought to convince that 
 mind of the intrinsic beauty and excellence of the 
 creation in every form ; and the Spirit of Earth has 
 clouded all things with gloom and mourning, upon 
 which that human soul can gaze. Between these 
 conflicting powers my anxious soul-vision has been 
 disturbed, and T failed in seeing correctly through 
 
THE SPIRIT OF NATURE. 179 
 
 the clouds, But all has become for a period 
 
 bright, and I see clearly. Hark !" 
 
 A silver bell sounded at some distance behind 
 the trees ; its clear tinkle breaking upon the silence 
 of the spot like some strange spirit music. 
 
 ^Eltgiva smiled, and said, with an expression of 
 pleasure, " It is not Julian." 
 
 " Who but he dare visit us ?" asked Laon. 
 
 " One whose hfe is involved in his." 
 
 " Eudora Spencer ?" 
 
 " Yes ; but, father, leave us alone. I have that 
 to speak of and to hear, which cannot be spoken of 
 or listened to in your presence." 
 
 " I am satisfied to leave you. My furnace burns 
 brightly ; and my experiments this morning give 
 me assm^ance that I shall shortly solve the perplexed 
 problem of transmutation." Laon departed by the 
 Avay he entered ; and ^Eltgiva, lifting a festoon of 
 clematis and mimosa, disappeared among the trees. 
 
 A few moments passed ; the climbing plants 
 trembled ; a light hand lifted them again ; and the 
 scene was opened upon Eudora Spencer. 
 
 Like two beautiful statues, the fine forms of 
 which were set ofi" by the dark green foliage amid 
 which they stood, were those two women. Eudora 
 Spencer paused in astonishment at the extraordinary 
 beauty of the spot, and hesitated whether to advance 
 and examine still further this choice example of 
 industry and taste, or to retreat from the place as 
 
 N 2 
 
180 PANTHEA, 
 
 from an enchanted and unholy one. ^Itgiva stood 
 a little behind Eudora, examining, with some delight, 
 the surprise of the younger maiden. 
 
 " Fear not, dear girl ; the only enchantment 
 which has been employed here is the wonderful 
 power of science," said vEltgiva. " I divine your 
 thoughts, Eudora Spencer ; but be assured no 
 harm shall come to you : you are safe from all 
 glamoury. 
 
 " The maid who lives to virtue true, 
 May pass ev'n charmed caverns through ; 
 And every gnome who dwells in them, 
 Shall, for her bright smile, yield a gem." 
 
 She took Eudora Spencer by the hand, and these 
 two walked towards the lake. 
 
 " Can we have lived within a mile of this beauti- 
 ful spot, and never have discovered it ?" said 
 Eudora. 
 
 " It would appear to be so," replied ^Itgiva ; 
 " but this is easily accounted for. My father's 
 land extends for about half a mile on either side of 
 the hills which shut us in. We are so little under- 
 stood by the world, that but few of the peasantry 
 will work upon the farm ; and of those few, not 
 one would dare to pass the Cairn, the Cromlech, or 
 the Runic Cross which crowns these hills. Our 
 gardener never goes from home ; and our little 
 world is thus protected from profane intruders." 
 
 " There is a Divine influence in beauty ; the 
 
THE SPIRIT OF NATURE. 181 
 
 soiil, looking upon the beautiful, becomes more pure 
 — more spii'itual. This is indeed a place of supreme 
 enchantment. I feel as though I had quitted a 
 barren world, and was transported to a new 
 Eden. Oh ! my iEltgiva, is there no sorcery in 
 all this?" 
 
 " The sorcery of knowledge, Eudora, Can you 
 fancy that an ignorant, impure man can stand 
 within a circle of dry bones, and, by muttering some 
 cabalistic words, call up spirits to do his bidding ? 
 Banish the idle thought — the old-world tale of the 
 conjuror. But by a true sorcery this hath been 
 done. We — my father and I — have made our 
 charmed circle within which the world dare not 
 intrude ; and in faith have we called, and with 
 prayer have we entreated, the Great Spirit of 
 Nature to do us service. And, behold ! upon the 
 barren hills, in the desolate w^ilderness which once 
 hid only the birds of night, and unclean reptiles, 
 amid its rank weeds, has sprung up a garden. We 
 have now the luxuriant flowers of more sunny 
 climes, and the spice and incense-bearing tree, 
 amid which birds, remarkable for their bright 
 plumage and their melodious song, enjoy life in 
 all its gladness. The magic we have employed 
 is truth and industry ; the result is before your 
 eyes." 
 
 " But with all the care of our gardeners, we can- 
 not produce, in our grounds, such beautiful flowers. 
 
182 PANTHEA, 
 
 and such grand and gi-aceful trees," replied Eudora. 
 " I think they are not less industrious than your 
 servant." 
 
 " May be not ; but I fear the despised iEltgiva 
 is more earnest than Eudora Spencer, who lives in 
 the world, and trifles with its luxuries." 
 
 Thus for some time conversed these two women. 
 They passed along from tree to tree, from flower 
 to flower ; and at every step new beauties excited 
 fi*esh expressions of surprise and admiration fi*om 
 Eudora. A small bed of beautifully coloured 
 flowers, exhibiting ahnost every ray of the chromatic 
 scale, blending in a most charming manner, parti- 
 cularly attracted her attention. 
 
 " These are indeed beautiful," exclaimed Eudora. 
 " I never saw anything so beautiful !" 
 
 " And yet, Eudora, there is not a single flower to 
 be found in that small group Avhich does not grow 
 in native wildness and beauty upon the hills around 
 yom- home. You are a type of the world, poor 
 maid : in that which is common you see no beauty ; 
 and yet, every flower which gems the carpet of the 
 spot around us — from the little blossom of the moss 
 which endures the winds upon the granite rocks, to 
 the magnificent orchids of our valleys — is guarded by 
 sacred agencies which mould them into beauty ; and 
 * from their heaven-painted leaves rise emanations 
 endued with the power of surrounding the good 
 with an atmosphere of Divinity. The world rejects 
 
THE SPIRIT or NATURE. 183 
 
 Heaven's best blessings, and profanely pursues a 
 phantom invested with the name of Pleasure, — 
 which proves at last the soulless skeleton of some 
 painted vice." 
 
 After some time they approached a subject, 
 which, although uppermost in their thoughts, they 
 had both trembled to touch on, and yet for one of 
 them to do so the other was most anxious. JEltgiva 
 at length said, with a smile, " But you came to ask 
 me of Julian Altamont." 
 
 "I did," replied Eudora, without hesitation. 
 
 " And yet you had not confidence in my trust- 
 worthiness." 
 
 " I know not why I came ; but I was compelled 
 by an iiTesistible power to do so. A presentiment 
 as of evil has hung over me for days, and I at length 
 resolved to yield to these strange impulses, and 
 seek you." 
 
 J^ltgiva smiled meaningly. At length she said, 
 " Have you not regularly corresponded with Lord 
 Julian ?" 
 
 " Nay," said Eudora, " for many weeks I have 
 not heard from him." 
 
 " A faithless lover," said ^Eltgiva. 
 
 " I scarcely know," said Eudora, leaning upon 
 yEltgiva's arm, and looking with an inquiring and 
 anxious fondness into her face, trembling slightly 
 as she spoke, — " I scarcely know if I dare consider 
 Lord Julian as a lover now." 
 
184 PANTHEA, 
 
 " Loving the truth, he should be truthful," said 
 ^Itgiva. 
 
 " Jj]ltgiva, I once told you all my heart ; I 
 trusted you with thoughts and feelings which 
 I would not whisper in my mother's ear. We were 
 taught to love each other ; at least, our instructors 
 told us that we must live for one another. There 
 was less care for our young affections in this, than of 
 the broad lands which would, by our union, be 
 united in one family. But when I began to listen 
 to the eloquent words of the young philosopher ; 
 when, day following day, he came to tell me of his 
 new discoveries in science, and explain his large 
 deductions from his ciu-ious facts ; when I saw him 
 advancing with rapid strides in his knowledge of 
 the mysteries of nature — a knowledge with which 
 men of his station are not usually familiar; and 
 when, above all, he poured forth his high philosophy 
 in the language of exalted poetry, I admired Julian 
 Altamont beyond all others, and as the girl advanced 
 to womanhood — " Eudora Spencer paused ; a 
 proud but womanly woman feels as if, in confessing 
 her love, she admitted a weakness. ^Eltgiva felt not 
 as her friend felt ; she had, however, a weakness 
 also to disguise, and she did so. 
 
 " To love one," said she, " distinguished above 
 all others by his genius, and that genius delighting 
 in the most exalted exercises of the human mind, 
 will bear a frank confession. You loved Julian — I 
 
THE SPIRIT OF NATURE. 185 
 
 know it ; and more than that, he loved you beyond 
 all other women. The delicious fancies which 
 sprang up in your bosom, like flowers in spring- 
 time, are drooping with a chill ; a white frost 
 is upon their leaves, and they hang heavily 
 towards the earth ; but a sun is rising, Eudora, 
 and its warmth will melt the frozen drops, and 
 in joyous life the flowers vii\[ become inebriate 
 with heavenly hght, and dance joyously upon the 
 winds." 
 
 " iEltgiva, I have struggled to understand Lord 
 Julian ; but he is a sphinx to me. From a pure 
 philosophy, and the enjoyment of a divine poetry, 
 he passed into a state of dream. I cannot call it 
 madness, and yet all reason seems perplexed and 
 tangled. He lives in a world of vain phantasies, 
 and his language has become a wild rhapsody. He 
 told me he could love no mortal maiden — that a 
 spiritual mistress awaited his escape fi'om the cap- 
 tivity of earth ; and then he asked me to share 
 with him that self-immolation which was to secure 
 him the powers of infinite mind, and make the past 
 and the futm'e equally present to him. During this 
 strange hallucination, the Earl and Countess, fearing 
 for that beautiful mind, removed him from influ- 
 ences they thought dangerous. I learn from 
 strangers that he is moody and reserved, though 
 singularly active ; but I have ceased to hear from 
 Julian Altamont." 
 
186 PANTHEA, 
 
 " It will not be long before you will learn all 
 from himself." 
 
 "How?" 
 
 " Lord Julian will shortly be at Altamont." 
 
 "At Altamont!" 
 
 " Yea, he will return to those dangerous in- 
 fluences from w^hich he was removed." 
 
 Eudora Spencer's bosom heaved with conflicting 
 feelings of fear and hope ; of offended womanhood 
 and of forgiving fondness. " Will he seek me ?" 
 she said, in a low, meditating tone, which was 
 expressive of her agitation. 
 
 " He will, Eudora," said ^Itgiva. 
 
 " How shall I meet him? He has treated me 
 with neglect, and I am too proud to allow it to pass 
 without some mark of my resentment." 
 
 " Poor woman's heart ! " exclaimed vEltgiva ; 
 " it is made of the fibres of sensitive plants, which 
 are knitted into a cell by the golden sun-ray and 
 the silver moonbeam ; one burns and excites to 
 fever, the other, by its mildness, subdues the 
 irritable throbbings, and awakens the sweet powers 
 of charity and love. On me, Eudora, you must 
 expend your passion, to Lord JuHan you must 
 extend yom' charity." 
 
 " I have been angry with you, ^Itgiva, and in my 
 secret heart I have charged you with many follies, 
 which have been the origin of sorrows ; but I 
 forgive you all/' 
 
THE SPIRIT OF NATURE. 187 
 
 "And have I nothing to forgive, Eudora?" 
 asked yEltgiva. "Are your suspicions of so Kttle 
 importance ? But they may pass ; as yonder lark, 
 poised so hghtly upon his fluttering wings, rises 
 above the earth in gushes of song, so I can treat 
 these worldly thoughts, and, in my spiritual life, 
 rise beyond them all." 
 
 A hawk swiftly darted from behind the trees 
 on the hill-top ; the lark uttered one cry of agony ; 
 the carnivorous bird gave a note .of triumph, and 
 bore the poor lark beyond the enclosure. 
 
 ^Itgiva and Eudora looked at each other in 
 silence. The pale cheek of the former had lost 
 its spot of fever, and was now pale as snow. Her 
 lips looked niarbly white, and as she placed her 
 hand upon Eudora's arm, she shivered from its 
 dead coldness. Eudora had not sufficient courage 
 to speak ; she felt that she was upon an enchanted 
 spot, and she regarded the little incident of the 
 bu'ds as an omen of dread to one of them, 
 
 iEltgiva stood as one struck with catalepsy, still 
 holding Eudora's arm ; — several minutes passed 
 thus. At length a convulsive shudder passed 
 through her sensitive frame ; and, looking with 
 her dark eyes into Eudora's, with all the intensity 
 with which one might try to pierce the ocean to 
 discover the mysteries it hides, she said in a slow 
 and solemn tone : — " The cruel death of that lovely 
 songster is owing to my sin. AVithin the precincts 
 
188 PANTHEA, 
 
 of perfect goodness the mysterious evil of the earth 
 dares not obtrude. That of woman which is left 
 of me has still a taint of clay, and, Eudora, I have 
 wronged you." 
 
 " Wronged me, vEltgiva ? No !" 
 
 " Listen, Eudora ; I have deceived you — I have 
 deceived my father — I have deceived myself. I 
 thought I could trust myself to the task of leading 
 Julian Altamont through the mysteries of our 
 knowledge, and regard him but as a pure offering 
 upon the altar of the Spiiit of Nature. I presented 
 him to Panthea, and he has had one vision of the 
 mystery. Humanity is ever selfish, and in oiu* 
 acolyte I saw such greatness of soul — such sur- 
 passing beauty of mind, and so noble an example 
 of mortality, that I desu*ed to imbue him with 
 a reverence for this frail form, and to surround 
 him with influences which should chain him to me. 
 Mistake me not, — though I mistook myself ; — a pure 
 and spuitual devotion swelled my bosom at its 
 first awakening, but it has slowly become more 
 earthly. I have been as a shadow — a presence — 
 ever near Julian, and by my power I have com- 
 pelled his return to Altamont. The powers beyond 
 me are wiser than I am ; as the lark I should 
 have perished if my sin had been pm\sued ; the 
 hawk is the type of the demon of my destiny, but I 
 
 have escaped. Panthea, the Eternal ! he is yoiu's, 
 
 he is yours ! The chastened ^Itgiva bows her 
 
THE SPIRIT OF NATURE. 189 
 
 head ill pciiitcnco. Pardon — pardon the erring 
 mortal." She sank on the ground in agony ; then, 
 rising to her knees, she clas})ed her hands in 
 frenzy, and in a voice, shrill beyond all human 
 effort, shrieked " Panthea ! Panthea !" 
 
 A strange hght flashed across that hollow in 
 the hills. Eudora thought it was the sun escaped 
 from a cloud; ^Itgiva saw forgiveness in that 
 flash of light, and she burst into a shower of tears. 
 Eudora sat upon a little mossy mound, and kindly 
 drew ^Itgiva towards her. ^Itgiva warmly 
 grasped Eudora's hands, and, burying her head 
 in her lap, continued to sob convidsively. 
 
 A small dark cloud will sometimes grow upon 
 the bright blue of a sun-lighted summer sky ; 
 around it gathers the vapours which have accu- 
 mulated in the air, and it increases in darkness 
 and in size; the struggles of physical force are 
 cu'culating through it, and it involves within its 
 mass a store of electric fii'e. At length, charged 
 to bm'sting, a deep, dull groan rolls around the 
 horizon — a lightning flash strikes fiercely towards 
 the earth — a volley of thunder startles the sleeping 
 winds — they rush in gusts between the hills and 
 through the valleys — big drops of rain fall to the 
 earth, and then a flood lashes the surface — the 
 cloud dies away — the storm subsides — and a sub- 
 dued sobbing of the air, which is gradually lost 
 in the distance, restores all to brightness and calm. 
 
190 PANTHEA, 
 
 The physical furnishes a type of the moral 
 world. The human heart, with its storm and calm, 
 its gloom and its sunshine, bears no remote 
 analogy to the atmosphere and its changes. So 
 was it with JEltgiva. Peace was restored to her 
 bosom; and, raising her head, her eyes appeared 
 the brighter for her tears, and with a placid 
 smile she said, " The daughters of the earth 
 are said to have enchanted the Angels of heaven, 
 who sacrificed their state of bhss for woman's 
 love. I had obtained a high state of purity for 
 a mortal ; I became proud, and in my pride, 
 like the sons of Heaven, I dared trifle with ray 
 privileges. Like them I might have perished 
 for my guilt, but for Nature's kindly warning. 
 The trial is a severe one, but I am saved. Leave 
 me now, Eudora; my spirit would be in solitude 
 and silence for awhile. Parewell, my kind one ! 
 I see you can forgive me." 
 
 " Forgive you, JEltgiva ! Oh that my heart 
 were like yom-s ! — powerful to good deeds, even 
 beyond the giant power of those passions which 
 are not usually mthin our control. Forgive you, 
 ^Itgiva ! I knew you not until now in all your 
 greatness and truth ; let me prove my poor for- 
 giveness by this." 
 
 Eudora bent over the still prostrate ^Itgiva, 
 and pressed her lips upon that noble forehead. 
 iEltgiva raised herself up; their lips met, and 
 
THE SPIRIT or NATURE. 191 
 
 these two women, so different in their natures, 
 sealed tlieir fidelity in an affectionate embrace. 
 
 " The moon rises to night at eight," said ^Elt- 
 giva ; " meet me at that horn', at the Kistvean 
 on the hill ; until then, Eudora, I must be alone." 
 
 ^Itgiva led Eudora from the garden, and they 
 parted. 
 
192 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 THE CHEMIST'S DELUSION. 
 
 A PIERCE fire blazed in the furnace, and cast its 
 intense glare upon the face of Laon as he bent over 
 it. A large crucible glowed at a white heat, and 
 this he watched with nervous anxiety. He turned 
 the hour-glass which stood upon a small table near 
 him. " Twenty times have I turned thee now," said 
 he ; " and if for twenty hours more I can maintain 
 this heat, my iron must be changed into nickel." 
 
 Wii-es passed from the furnace to a delicate galva- 
 nometer placed at some distance fi'om the fire, the 
 needle of which marked a thermo-electric force, equal 
 to a deflection of forty degrees, upon the dial. 
 
 Laon walked from the furnace to the instrument 
 with anxious frequency. The needle was once 
 observed by him to fall back a fraction of a degi'ee ; 
 and eagerly he adjusted the valves in the au--ways, 
 and added fresh fuel to his fire ; it blazed up with 
 energy, and the needle returned to its desu-ed point. 
 
THE SPIRIT OF NATURE. 193 
 
 Laon smiled ; and sinking into ii chair, he leaned 
 over the thermo-electric indicator and tliought alond. 
 " Electricity, how mysterious are all thy pheno- 
 mena ! Firmly and constantly locked in this little 
 wire, thou art like the imprisoned spirit of the sor- 
 cerer. Yet, how easily art thou disturbed, and with 
 what facility are thy currents made the slaves of 
 human will ! You watch my furnace ; you enable 
 us to mould metals without the aid of fire ; and 
 you convey our wishes regardless of distance. In 
 nature how vast are your agencies ! In the rocks 
 we sec you disposing particle in relation with par- 
 ticle ; and crystals are arranged, and metals deposited 
 in all their curious forms and chemical combinations, 
 by yom- power. In the living world we can detect 
 you ; but in these involved organisms, although we 
 see effects resulting from your agency, we cannot yet 
 use you to any end. How sad a reflection this for 
 the proud philosopher who glories in the few dis- 
 coveries which man has made ! Heat, electricity, 
 and light, are considered as the forces which de- 
 termine each state of being ; and yet I see principles 
 infinitely more subtile extending beyond these ; but 
 there is no authority for believing in them — Ha ! 
 Ha! Ha!" Laon laughed loudly, and the sounds 
 were echoed along the passages which led from this 
 cell to the cottage. Amid the echoes was heard a 
 laugh which certainly echo did not return, and Laon 
 started from his chair. " It is he," he said to 
 
194 PANTHEA, 
 
 himself. "Altamont!" he exclaimed loudly ; and 
 in another minute Julian Altamont entered. 
 
 Julian's cheek was pale, but his brow serene, and 
 his eye bright. To his native dignity was added a 
 firmness of command, which had only grown with 
 the increase of his experience. Laon, at one glance, 
 saw that his pupil was returned to him in a diiferent 
 spirit from that in which he left him ; and, advanc- 
 ing, he grasped him affectionately by the hand, 
 exclaiming- — " Have you, like the young Hercules, 
 abandoned the excitements of pleasure, and returned 
 again to the calm enjoyments of truth ?" 
 
 " I am here, good Laon ; and I scarcely can tell 
 you why I am here," said Julian. " It is true, the 
 thing called pleasure by the gay offered no seducing 
 aspects to me. Camoens has sung sweetly of a 
 dead queen who, robed in regal pomp, and crowned 
 with a sparkling tiara, sat upon a gilded throne, and 
 received the homage of the nobles of the land. 
 Fashionable pleasure is like that queen ; its splen- 
 dour does not disguise its corruption." 
 
 "Welcome — a thousand times welcome, Julian," 
 said Laon. " I trembled lest while you kissed the 
 golden hem of the world's idol you might have 
 been tainted with a portion of its corruption. It 
 is indeed a joy to my soul to see that you have 
 escaped unharmed fi'om the foul miasma, and come 
 back to Nature like a faithful lover to his lovely 
 mistress." 
 
THE SPIRIT OF NATURE. 195 
 
 " Youl' spirit enjoys a perpetual youth, good 
 Laon. Have you discovered the EUxir Vitoe ?" 
 
 " No/' said Laon, smih'ng ; " but I am near the 
 discovery of the philosopher's stone. In yon fur- 
 nace heat is performing its mysteries ; and in nine- 
 teen hours more I expect the ii'on, which is confined 
 within it, will be presented to me as a mass of 
 nickel." 
 
 Julian shook his head somewhat incredulously. 
 Laon tended his furnace, and, full of his pm'suit, 
 replied : 
 
 " You doubt this, Julian. You think the doctrine 
 of the Alchemists unworthy of any credit. It is 
 true there were among them many charlatans ; but 
 there were also many true and earnest minds. 
 Albertus Magnus, Roger Bacon, Basil Valentine, 
 and many others, appeal from the neglect of the 
 present, to the judgment of the future ; and in theii* 
 works, particularly in the Ojms 3fajm of the inspired 
 Bacon, are scattered truths, which are the germs from 
 which the greatest discoveries of other ages will arise." 
 
 " But transmutation seems a deception," said 
 Julian. 
 
 Laon rested his tongs upon the top of the fur- 
 nace, and, leaning firmly upon them, turned half 
 round to JuUan. 
 
 " Have you looked at Natm'e ? " asked he. 
 
 " You know how anxiously I have looked, — how 
 eagerly I have inquired — " 
 
 o 2 
 
196 PANTHEA, 
 
 " And yet," interrupted Laon, " you think trans- 
 mutation a wild fancy of some visionary men. The 
 old men, Julian, were wiser than we are ; and the 
 time will come, when, under some new form of 
 expression, the fom- elements will be declared the 
 truth. Think you the Creator required sixty ele- 
 mentary bodies to make a world ? Romberg was 
 right when he expressed his wonder that God had 
 made so few forms out of the materials he com- 
 manded. Let us look at Nature's indications," 
 Laon eagerly continued. " Gold and iron are 
 always associated together. Platinum, palladium, 
 rhodium, and other strange metals are ever united. 
 Lead and silver are seldom separate. Examine 
 yonder table of equivalents, and it will show you 
 some strange chemical relations. And do we not 
 know carbon, and silicon, and sulphur, and phos- 
 phorus, and even iron, as existing under unlike con- 
 ditions ? If I can render ii'on as powerfully repellent 
 of oxygen as even platinum, why should I not hope 
 to change it into a substance so like it as nickel ? 
 This metal is a characteristic of meteoric iron : may 
 not the change have been effected during that 
 strange condensation, and the intense heat thus 
 produced, in those regions beyond the earth's 
 atmosphere where these meteorolites were formed?" 
 
 Julian was about to speak, but Laon checked 
 him. 
 
 " Within our bodies we may observe transmu- 
 
THE SPIRIT OF NATURE. 197 
 
 tations daily and hourly taking place ; in the vege- 
 table world these changes are constantly presenting 
 themselves to us ; and in the mineral kingdom we 
 are not without evidences of similar physical phe- 
 nomena. Doubt it not, Julian. Transmutation is 
 a truth ; and had not the seductions of the demon 
 Gold led the Alchemists from the exalting truths 
 their search involved, to the sordid task of gaining 
 worldly wealth, we should not now be compelled to 
 add to our already long list of elements some strange 
 body found in a rare mineral from some almost un- 
 known locality. The greatness of Nature is against 
 so mean a thought as that its Creator stopped his 
 work to form an isolated fragment such as this," — 
 he took a piece of lanthanum from his cabinet near 
 him, — "which should be really different from all 
 other forms. I may fail ; my iron may not change 
 to either nickel or rhodium ; but my failiu:e a thou- 
 sand times would only serve to impress me with a 
 deeper knowledge of my weakness, and of the 
 Etenial's power." 
 
 " Heat," said JuHan, " is a mighty agent — " 
 " Of which we know exceeding little," hastily 
 said Laon. " Fire has, through all time, commanded 
 the attention of men. In the fable of Prometheus ; 
 in the myth of the Phcenix ; in the burnt-offerings 
 of the shepherd races of the Asian valleys ; in the 
 fii'e-worship of the Oriental jjeople ; in the lamps of 
 the Vestal, and the sacred fire of the Illuminati, we 
 
198 PANTHEA, 
 
 have the declarations of the human mind proclaim- 
 ing, as by inspiration, that, in its visible form, it 
 exhibits those powers upon which life, death, and 
 resurrection depend. We call a force in motion, 
 heat ; we speak of its cause as caloric ; and thus, 
 behind a name, we hide our ignorance. Within 
 the limits in which we can apply this omnipotent 
 power, how strangely varied are its influences ! — 
 Attend." 
 
 Laon took a capsule, and, putting into it a few 
 di'ops of water, he held it over a lamp, and, in a few 
 minutes, the water was evaporated. He again took 
 the capsule, which, having heated to redness, he 
 filled with water ; it formed itself into a beautifid 
 spheroid, and rolled round and round in that metal 
 dish without any apparent evaporation. The cap- 
 sule was removed from the lamp ; the metal cooled, 
 and the whole mass of water was dissipated with 
 violence into steam. " Water and mercury are 
 both very readily converted into vapom' by heat. 
 Yet, look on." 
 
 Two metallic crucibles were heated to redness. 
 Water was poured into one, and mercury into the 
 other, and a body more volatile than either, into 
 each ; and, lo ! from the glowing vessels Laon 
 turned into Julian's hands a lump of ice and a 
 mass of solid quicksilver. " Will your philosoj^hy 
 explain these phenomena, except by strange and 
 bungling contradictions?" asked Laon. 
 
THE SPIRIT OF NATURE. 199 
 
 '' Heat," he continued, " we employ to quicken 
 chemical combination, and yet you shall see that it 
 has power entirely to prevent its taking place." 
 Three substances, having the most remarkable che- 
 mical affinities for each other, were thrown into a 
 glowing crucible ; Julian looked on, and saw them 
 rolling about wdthin it, as secm'ely separated from 
 each other, as if a diaphragm had been placed 
 between them. 
 
 " Attend again ; another anomaly presents it- 
 self." Laon took the wu-es of a powerful galvanic 
 battery which was at hand, and, by the electric 
 current, heated a wire within a globe containing 
 oxygen and hydrogen gases ; — they exploded, and 
 water was formed. The same wire was brought to a 
 white heat by an electrical current in a vessel of 
 water, and the water was decomposed by the heat, 
 and its constituent gases were collected in a tube. 
 
 " In one example we have compelled, by caloric, 
 chemical combination to take place ; in the other, 
 w^e have, by the same force, broken up that combi- 
 nation which it has just given rise to." 
 
 '' It is w^onderful," said Julian. 
 
 " Do you not perceive," said Laon, " that the 
 miracle of the tln-ee holy Jews in the fm-nace 
 of the Babylonian tyi'ant was possible without the 
 disturbance of any physical law? Do you not 
 see that if this beautiful earth, in any process of 
 purification to which, by Eternal wisdom, it may 
 
200 PAMTHEA, 
 
 be designed, is subjected to the purgation of fire, — 
 that although its siu'face covering may be burnt 
 up as a scroll, it would not be destroyed, but 
 changed merely in its forms — recombination being 
 as rapidly produced, as decomposition was effected, 
 by the magnificent agent, Heat ? 
 
 " These remarkable phenomena are not confined 
 to this great agency. Electricity, in all its modes 
 of action, exhibits a constant duality : it makes 
 and unmakes — it disturbs and recomposes — as 
 you shall see. Light, in a similar manner, shows 
 us a like antagonism with itself; and the chemical 
 force which is involved with the other solar radia- 
 tions, of which we know so little, is equally remark- 
 able, — exhibiting, as it were, two sides, — one being 
 ever as active in doing as the other is in undoing." 
 
 Results by Laon repeatedly obtained, were 
 rapidly reproduced ; and all the involved phenomena 
 of Hght, electricity, magnetism, and actinism, were 
 brought before the eyes of the ciu-ious Julian 
 Altamont. Every variety of apparatus was at 
 hand; and so assiduously did this fine old man 
 pursue his search after truth, that everything was 
 in the most perfect order, and ever answered readily 
 to the questions demanded. 
 
 Julian Altamont was spell-bound. He had met 
 with no such earnestness in the great laboratories 
 of the metropolis which he had visited. He had 
 heard no such hicid explanation of phenomena 
 
THE SPIRIT OF NATURE. 201 
 
 at any of the lectm-es he had attended. He had 
 received no similar impressions of the great aims 
 and ends of science from any of the conversations 
 he had held with the most distinguished philo- 
 sophers of the age. That grey-headed old man 
 stood before him, exhibiting an activity of body 
 and an energy of mind which impressed him 
 deeply with the idea that all the suspicions of un- 
 truthfulness which had been urged against Laon 
 were false ; and he felt that if the solitary enthu- 
 siast was a visionary, his hallucinations were of a 
 soul-eunobhng character ; his thoughts, if dreams, 
 were such phantoms as visited the inspired men 
 of old, and which, as messengers from on high, 
 revealed to man mighty truths through them, as 
 a reward for their endurance, amid the vices of 
 humanity, in the paths of dignified virtue. Horn* 
 after hour passed away; the daylight had faded, 
 and the stars and the moon were bright in the 
 evening sky ; yet were Laon and Julian hi the 
 chemist's cell, tending that burning fm-nace, and 
 anxiously pursuing a devious train of experiments, 
 whicli became necessary, to elucidate the very 
 remarkable facts embraced in the ardent eloquence 
 of the ruler of that small cell. 
 
 After a pause, following some very remarkable 
 experiments on atmospheric electricity, Laon said : 
 " You see, Julian, science is still the atmosphere 
 hi which 1 live. I think I have shown you now 
 
202 PANTHEA, 
 
 that I do not scorn tlie humble mstruments which 
 human mgenuity has devised in my search after 
 knowledge. I have smTounded myself with every 
 variety of apparatus employed by others, and much 
 which has been devised by myself. I have sunk 
 wells and borings into the earth, — I have floated 
 balloons high in the air, and extended my searching 
 wii'es fi'om hill to hill ; and, by the phenomena 
 which these sometimes afford me, I have terrified 
 all around me into a belief that I deal with impure 
 spirits. In every way I torture and try our know- 
 ledge, and in honest earnestness I solicit nature 
 to answer my questionings. Judge of the result. 
 From physical causes I am enabled to ascend 
 to spuitual causes ; and, although a conceited age 
 rails in mockery at the thoughts of any angel 
 ministerings in these phenomena which we con- 
 stantly witness in creation, I know that the foot- 
 prints of angels are on the rocks, and the subtile 
 mouldings of angelic fingers upon the flow^ers of 
 this most beautiful of w^orlds. The religion which 
 is felt through the divine breathings of creation, 
 is as truly that of heaven, as the inspiration of the 
 wiitten Word. In faith we receive the Book, and 
 the Christian world professes to bind itself by its 
 laws ; yet the voice of the living creation, the 
 commandments written by the finger of God on 
 the tablets of stone, arc neglected ; and although 
 a Moses strikes the rock, and there issues forth a 
 
THE SPIRIT OF NATURE. 203 
 
 fountain of living water, yet man despises the 
 healing draught." 
 
 " He has not been taught to read the inscriptions 
 on the great monuments of nature," interrupted 
 Julian. 
 
 " Alas ! he has not ; and hence the worse than 
 Egyptian darkness which covers the civilized world." 
 
 " But are we not in this, our own enhghtened 
 age, advanced in the scale of intelligence far beyond 
 all who have preceded lis ?" asked Julian. 
 
 " Can we show a Job, or boast of one Homer ? 
 Have we a Plato or a Socrates ? In our senate- 
 house, or at our bar, can we name a Demosthenes, 
 or even an JEschines? Have we a superior to 
 Daedalus, or an equal to Archimedes ?" 
 
 " Those great names shine out, like stars in 
 heaven, from the darkness of the past; they are 
 the guiding lights of every age. But when was 
 there a period in which so much mental power was 
 spread over an entire people ?" 
 
 "There never was a time," replied Laon, "in which 
 there was so much pride of a httle knowledge. A 
 boasting man is invariably a foolish one. An age 
 of pretension has never yet proved itself an age of 
 attainment." 
 
 " I fear, Laon, that you have bound your life up 
 with the past — that you do not know the present." 
 
 " Do you know the past?" asked Laon. 
 
 " Only from books," replied Julian. 
 
204 PANTHEA, 
 
 " Which give you the history of the crimes of 
 the kings and rulers, and leave the virtues of the 
 multitude untold." Laon advanced towards a 
 carefully-guarded cabinet, and, opening it, took 
 therefrom a small bottle. " Would you see the 
 past ?" said he. 
 
 " Have you Asmodeus carefully bottled there?" 
 said Julian, smiling. 
 
 " I have in this the essence of the Indian Flax ; 
 it has strange powers, which have been known in 
 the East for many centuries. The priests of Buddha 
 and Brahma, the followers of Zooroaster, and, I 
 beheve, Mahomet himself, drank of such an elixir, 
 before they received those visions of the celestial 
 world, which remain to us great soul-searching 
 poems, powerful for good in their beauty and truth. 
 To know the past we have but to smell this fluid, 
 and the vapour escaping from it clears and purifies 
 the brain, and the mind can look back into the 
 great abyss of time." 
 
 Julian smilingly asked, " Was the vision of the 
 Mystery the result of smelling at your bottle?" 
 
 " To see the workings of the Spii'it of Nature, 
 spuitual aid must be given to the mind. No 
 merely physical agent can advance the soul be- 
 yond the earth ; but that Avhich is of the earth 
 may be made visible by the things which this 
 world produces." 
 
 " But the past has departed ; it has become no- 
 
THE SriRIT OV NATURE. 205 
 
 tiling ; it is but delusive shadows cheating the reel- 
 ing brain," said Julian. 
 
 " The past has not departed," exclaimed Laon. 
 " The first pulsation of a living thing still undulates 
 in the universe ; the first whisper of human love is 
 still a musical note upon the winds of heaven ; the 
 dying groan of Abel still murmurs on the air. That 
 which was, still is, and will be for ever. The futm-e 
 is unshaped ; but as we, every moment, give it form, 
 it is added to the past, and stands on eternal record. 
 Sound is but the undulation of the air around us ; 
 and the song of Laraech still beats in saddening sorrow 
 upon every human ear ; but so deadened is that organ 
 by its earthiness, that it feels not the tremors. 
 Light exists as undulations of what we must call 
 ether ; and those radiations which illumined our 
 first parents in their blissful Paradise, still tremble 
 against the eye ; but that orb is so dulled, that it is 
 not sensible to the fine emotion. Man can create no- 
 thing ; and yet, our true poets look back thousands 
 of years, and read the joys and sorrows of the heroes 
 of their songs, and gives them a material record 
 which the dehghted world admits as inspiration. 
 Have you not, in hours of rest — when the mind, 
 forgetting the earth, has turned in upon itself — seen 
 the past as plainly as we see the present ?" 
 
 " I have," said Julian ; " my day-dreams have 
 been many." 
 
 " And dared you doubt the truth of your vision ?" 
 asked Laon. 
 
200 PANTHEA. 
 
 " No ; truly those reveries told me of the dead 
 and the absent ; and in forms as evident have they 
 risen before me, as when they stood, in their mate- 
 riality, opposite to my eyes." 
 
 " Then why doubt the power of seeing further 
 still?" 
 
 " I know not ; give me the phial." 
 
 Julian carried it to his nostrils : he smelt to 
 the overpowering essence, sighed, and was asleep. 
 
207 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 THE ta:ngled web of the past. 
 
 In that peculiar psycliological condition which marks 
 the present age, it becomes difficult to determine 
 if the sublime can be beautiful. Oiu* appreciation 
 of beauty depends upon om' education. The painted 
 earthenware pari'ot is as beautiful to the labom-er, 
 who has seen it for years adorning his cottage home, 
 as is the marble statue, from the hands of a master, 
 to him, whose palace is decorated by the labours of 
 a Canova or a Flaxman. This is not as it should 
 be ; but so it is. 
 
 Our limits of the beautifid appear to be con^ 
 fined within a circle which embraces the afifections ; 
 which involves every grace that a gentle poetry can 
 throw over objects of art or nature ; and which 
 admits of every sentiment of piu:ity and truth not 
 tainted by the gloom of tragic feeling. The age in 
 which we live can scarcely be said to know the 
 sublime. Our milder feelings fall back with some- 
 
208 PANTHEA, 
 
 thing like the chill of terror upon the heart, when 
 the sea-cliff, the mountain gorge, or the precipitous 
 cataract bursts upon us in their grandeur. The 
 whirlwinds of human passion present themselves 
 as phenomena at which angels might weep ; but 
 the sublimity of tragedy finds no sympathy — 
 stirring to a high religion — in the cells of our more 
 tranquil bosoms. The spirit of the age is not tragic ; 
 and, consequently, our artists cannot learn, in suf- 
 fering, those sublime appeals to human hearts which 
 distinguish the works of sterner periods ; and, as 
 every effort of the mind is moulded by the passion 
 which stirs it, it becomes impossible that we should 
 embody in our poetry the terrors of Euripides, or, 
 in our paintings or sculptm-es, realize the sublimity 
 of Michael Angelo. We reach the beautiful ; but 
 we vainly attempt the sublime. The poet who 
 ventures on the task, assumes the grandiloquence 
 of sounding sentences, where he cannot rise to soul- 
 searching thoughts ; the painter, by size, endeavom^s 
 vainly to compensate for want of force ; and the 
 player, by rant, strives to cheat the senses into a 
 belief of passion. The watch-word of the present 
 is Peace. Even amid the discord of that tempest 
 which is sweeping like a cyclone over Europe, the 
 voice of the soul — a spiritual music amid the storm 
 — cries Peace. In the conflict of opinions ; in the 
 war of creeds ; in the riots of crime and ignorance ; 
 in the stir and agitation of the virtuous and the 
 
THE SPTIUT OF NATURE. 209 
 
 educated, still there rises, like a mighty throb from 
 a melancholy breast, the sigh for Peace. The phy- 
 sical world is more quiet than of old ; the moral 
 world desires to forget the wrathful feelings of its 
 ancient days. Reason carries a white flag, which 
 she will plant in the centre of the world ; but it 
 may be destined to float above hecatombs of the 
 slain, and wave over the smoking wrecks of ruined 
 cities, ere yet that ignorance is subdued by which 
 the struggle of the strong is so lamentably prolonged. 
 The flag of Reason, like a meteor, will pass onward; 
 — the musical voice of Peace cannot be smothered 
 even by the hoarse screamings of War ; and, in 
 proper time, the snowy pendant will calmly undulate 
 on the air, and the SAveet sound of Peace be heard, 
 marking that tranquil reign for which the civilized 
 world so ardently hopes. With such desires, such 
 feelings, the tragic cannot become a passion among 
 us, — our works cannot reach the sublime. That 
 spirit which has banished the faggot and the stake, 
 which has proclaimed there shall be no more 
 slavery, and which delighteth to take the young and 
 thoughtless from the abodes of crime, and place 
 them with some virtuous keeper who, even in his 
 Ragged School, strives to store their minds \nth 
 goodness and truth, is destructive to the Sublime, 
 unless it is brought within our own limits of the 
 Beautiful. 
 
210 PANTHEA, 
 
 Julian Altamont found himself surrounded with 
 mighty monuments of the Past. It was night. The sky 
 was cold, — intensely blue, and brilliant with many 
 stars. On one side of him arose a huge monument — 
 a mountain had been sculptured into the form of a 
 winged bull ; on the other, a no less wonderful work 
 had been executed, in cutting the rock into a vast 
 temple. Enormous idealities — strange combina- 
 tions of the spiritual and the sensual — formed the 
 gigantic entrance. Serpents of stone ran along the 
 frieze ; and dragon-like shapes looked fiercely from 
 above. Although he saw these remarkable works 
 of an age and country not his own, he rested him- 
 self upon a familiar Runic cross which was near his 
 home. Behind him was the dark mystery of space ; 
 the intense blue of the heaven above, passed gradu- 
 ally into the extreme depth of blackness, through 
 which no eye could pierce. Before him, a vnde 
 landscape was spread out with fertile valleys and 
 sandy deserts ; — an undulating country, beautiful in 
 the fulness of vegetation ; and mountains, whose 
 sides were covered with forests, but whose tops 
 were white with snow. Yet, the silence of the 
 tomb was over all ; and Julian, in the horrid 
 vacancy of this utter solitude, looked anxiously 
 around him for the relief of some companionship. 
 At length, in pure weariness, he strove to pierce 
 beyond the stars, into the darkness of the far-off" 
 space. It appeared to him that a glow, as of 
 
THE SPIRIT OF NATURE. 311 
 
 phosphorescent light, ilhimined the distance. As 
 he looked, it resolved itself into form, agd two bril- 
 liant points of light cast their radiance over all 
 things. These were surrounded by an irregular 
 brightness, which seemed to float like nebulous 
 clouds around the dazzling nuclei. Slowly but 
 steadily the whole appeared to approach ; and as the 
 strange appearance came nearer, it gathered into a 
 face of celestial aspect, with eyes which were bright 
 as with fire. Notwithstanding the dazzling lustre 
 of that immortal countenance, and the glare of 
 its beautiful eyes, Julian looked steadily at the 
 Presence as it still approached him, and watched it 
 resolve itself into the form of a woman, but of giant 
 size. The Spirit stood before him ; — he recognized 
 Panthea, and bowed his head in devotion. She was 
 brilliant, as if adorned with rays of light ; every 
 colour played, intermingling, wave on wave, over the 
 transparent wings which, folded, reached unto her 
 feet, and a silvery translucence marked out, and at 
 the same time enfolded, a form of the most perfect 
 symmetry. The robings of the Spirit of Nature 
 were the emanations of beauty, which sprang from 
 the etherial principles of her immortal being. 
 
 A voice, soft as the distant echo of a flute, 
 yet thrilling the very soul of the listener, was 
 heard : 
 
 "Mortal, why falterest thou?" were the words 
 articulated. 
 
 p 2 
 
212 PANTHEA, 
 
 Jiiliai) looked up ; the Spirit smiled ; and lie 
 replied, ^ 
 
 " From fear I falter." 
 
 " The holy know not fear. Did you not fear 
 my presence ?" 
 
 " Beautiful Spii-it, no. By day and night thou 
 hast been ever with me. In the solitude of the 
 hills, and in the rude crowds of the busy world, 
 thy presence has been as a shadow on my soid. I 
 have moved in an influence shed from thy bright- 
 ness ; and, although invisible to my human eyes, 
 thou hast been seen by my spiritual orbs. I come 
 now to ask thee the secret of man's elevation. Thou, 
 hast led me through the mysteries of creation, from 
 chaos up to man ; and now I thirst to know the 
 phenomena of human progress." 
 
 Panthea made no answer ; but, spreading her 
 wings, like silver clouds, which extended to the 
 horizon on either hand, the spirit rose into the air ; 
 and Julian was constrained, by some strange power, 
 to follow her. 
 
 Borne upon the " wings of the wind," far away 
 amid the stars, floated the mortal and the immortal. 
 Through light and darkness they passed in rapid 
 alternations. System upon system of w^orlds, roll- 
 ing onward amid the immensity of space, each one 
 regulating the revolutions of the other, was passed 
 in this swift flight. Strange and bewildering sen- 
 sations almost overpowered Julian ; Ire still retained 
 
THE SPIRIT OF NATURE. 213 
 
 SO much of human feeling, that he was sensible of 
 gliding along at a mighty height ; and he feared, as 
 he approached the sphered worlds which lay along 
 their path, that their attractive influences would 
 draw him from his dangerous elevation. But still 
 higher and onward they glided ; and at length, far 
 beyond, — as it appeared to Jidian, — any evidence 
 of a created world, in an atmosphere of the utmost 
 translucence, and an intense, but not a dazzling 
 brightness, they rested. Panthea, who appeared 
 herself but as a defined portion of the silvery atmo- 
 sphere in which they now reposed, placed her hand 
 upon the head of Julian, and proclaiming, in her 
 small still voice of the divinest music, " Be all the 
 past as the present unto you," she directed his 
 gaze into the vista of Time. 
 
 There was a wide plain, and in the centre thereof 
 a rude altar of piled stones. Two beings of the 
 most noble form, naked, but for strips of lion's 
 hide which were bound tightly around their loins, 
 stood near that altar. The man bore upon his 
 broad shoulders a dead stag, and the woman held 
 in one hand bunches of grapes, and in the other 
 a stone, ground into the form of a rude knife. 
 The carcase was thrown upon the ground, and, 
 being rudely cut to pieces by the man, some frag- 
 ments were placed by the woman upon the altar, 
 together with several bunches of her fruit. The 
 man looked around him, and seizing two pieces of 
 dry wood, rubbed them rapidly together, by which 
 
214 PANTHEA, 
 
 they were soon ignited. The fire blazed upon the 
 altar. These two rude beings, with their blood- 
 stained hands, knelt on either side, and their spirits 
 ascended with the smoke of their sacrifice to the 
 heaven which covered them. The fragments ofiered 
 thns, to the Unknown of their conceptions, being 
 consumed, they arose from then* knees, and greedily 
 devom-ed their carnivorous meal. Having satisfied 
 their hunger, they slept upon the spot, and dreams 
 of hunting-plains haunted their repose. 
 
 There was a noise, as of a multitude, upon the 
 borders of a forest ; and, emerging therefrom, 
 a band of rude revellers appeared. Old and young, 
 male and female, crowded one upon the other, 
 in a wild dance. There were shouts of delirious 
 delight, and even shrieks of joy, proclaiming the 
 exuberance of animal enjoyment. The revel was of 
 long continuance ; but at length all, alike weary, 
 sank upon the sward. Sleep closed their eyes, 
 and they rested in the mimic stillness of the dead. 
 
 The music of the morning — the song of birds 
 and the flute-like sighing of the aw^akening winds — 
 awoke man from his rest ; and having bathed his 
 elastic limbs in the nearest stream, the labours, 
 which were his destiny, demanded his powers. 
 
 There was a pastoral land. Men had gathered 
 flocks and herds into green pastures, and the shep- 
 herds watched upon the hill-sides. A ravaging 
 beast, from the passes of the mountain, rushed 
 amid the flocks, and the shepherds fled on all sides, 
 
THE SPIRIT OF NATURE. 215 
 
 leaving them for his prey. One noble youth, alone 
 and unarmed, except with a club, rushed boldly 
 along the plain, and, by a blow, disturbed the 
 lion at his feast, and roused him to his utmost 
 rage. Tierce was the contest between the man 
 and the beast ; but the man was at last the victor, 
 and the giant lord of the mountain pass was left 
 dead amid the trembling flocks. 
 
 The shouts of a multitude rang along the hills, 
 and loud were the praises sung in laudation of their 
 young deliverer. 
 
 The voices of women were heard chanting an 
 epithalamimn. 
 
 Brave of tlie bravest is he ; and liigh shall he stand 'mid the 
 
 honoured. 
 His forehead is bared for the crowning ; his head for the circlet 
 
 is waiting. 
 The voice of the sages is lifted, and loudly they sing forth his 
 
 praises. 
 The men bear him high on their shoulders ; the young men are 
 
 dancing before him. 
 There is pride in the heart of the brave one ; its lustre illumines 
 
 his features. 
 For man has discovered the hero ; the hero by man is rewarded. 
 For the brave one the women bring beauty ; the warm heart 
 
 of love to delight him. 
 The maiden is fair as the spring-tide — her soul is as pure as a 
 
 sunbeam. 
 The crown on the head giveth honom- ; the crown on the heart 
 
 bringeth peace. 
 Affection and pleasure await him. A wife shall attend on his 
 
 footsteps. 
 High courage and love are united ; — the bravest are ever the 
 
 fondest. 
 
216 PANTHEA, 
 
 Emerging from a valley, closed in by a circle 
 of gently undulating hills, came forth a group 
 of women. Young girls headed the procession, 
 dancing and strev^ing floAvers upon the path ; 
 these were followed by a band of matrons, lead- 
 ing their children, whose voices rose loud, but 
 not unmusically, upon the calm air. With 
 their slight covering of skins and wreaths of 
 flowers tastefully disposed upon their fine forms, 
 there was a vvdld and picturesque beauty in the 
 group. In the midst of them they conducted 
 a maiden, beautiful beyond them all. Her long 
 dark hair fell in waving curls over her naked 
 shoulders, far below her waist, and her graceful 
 form, in all the voluptuous beauty of ripe woman- 
 hood, was unadorned, except by a wreath of 
 white flowers bound around her forehead, the 
 long ends of w^hich were laced amid the tan- 
 gles of her hair, and, being brought over her 
 shoulders, and fastened in a gracefid knot below 
 her bosom, hung nearly to the ground. She 
 walked forward amidst the matrons with ease and 
 firmness, but with a downcast look of modesty and 
 meditation. Her heaving bosom, which rose and 
 fell "\vith the quickened beating of her young heart, 
 bespoke a soul excited by that life-kindling passion 
 which binds in its mystical chain the races of 
 the earth. 
 
 The procession of women joined a band of 
 
THE SPIRIT OF NATURE. 217 
 
 rejoicing men. In the face of heaven the hero 
 and his bride knelt to receive the blessings of the 
 sages ; and, having been sprhikled with the blood 
 of the slain lion, they were conducted, with fresh 
 rejoicings, home to their forest bower. 
 
 Strife arose amid mankind. The possession of 
 flocks and grazing-groimds became the subject 
 of deadly struggle ; and conquest, won even by 
 the sacrifice of hundreds of lives, was the theme 
 of praise, and man thus became ambitious of 
 renown. Hence arose, at the instigation of some 
 wild spirits, the wars of races ; and vengeance, 
 desiring to satisfy its direful passion, hesitated 
 not to sacrifice the aged and the young by the 
 secret knife of murder. 
 
 Long and loud were the wailings which ascended 
 the hill sides. Men and women tore their hair 
 and lacerated their bodies in the agony of a sorrow 
 which would not be restrained. Upon a litter of 
 boughs they bore the bloody corpse of one of their 
 tribe, who had been sacrificed to the brute passions 
 of an enemy. They hollowed out his grave 
 upon the hill-top, and with shrieks like those of 
 a tempest heard in the solemn grandeur of a 
 mountain ravine, they lapped him in earth, and 
 marked his grave with piled stones. There they 
 stood, a mark to quicken the revengeful feel- 
 ings of the weak of heart ; — to maintain the 
 burning fuiy of those mistaken passions which 
 
218 PANTHEA, 
 
 know of no remedy for blood, but an equal measure 
 of human gore. 
 
 Thus, amid scenes of repose and strife, — of joy 
 and mourning, — the population of the earth in- 
 creased, and the human family spread themselves 
 far in search for food, which was their most power- 
 ful necessity, and which alone prevented the sacrifice 
 of every good to the baneful effects of indolence. 
 Withal, man had never lost all the fine feelings 
 of his nature ; some of the most dehcate affections 
 still lingered. The wild hunter and the shepherd 
 equally felt their dependence upon a Mystery, and 
 they imaged out of their natural conditions some 
 conception of a presiding Power, to which the 
 best produce of the chace and the firsthng of the 
 flocks was offered, as a mediation for those savage 
 impulses of their untutored minds, which some dim 
 perception of a truth convinced them were not 
 right. Amid all, men cared for one another. The 
 magic of a strange sympathy bound migratory bands 
 together in fiiendship ; and the softening power of 
 woman, — which, though she was often deeply de- 
 graded, was never altogether lost, — kept alive in the 
 most savage breast the heaven-born spark of human 
 love. The infant child, playing in its nakedness 
 with the lovely flowers on the ground, watched 
 by its wild mother ; and the Httle savage, uncon- 
 scious of harm, hunting the crested snake, had 
 a strange influence on its stalwart father, who felt 
 
THE SPIRIT OF NATURE. 219 
 
 himself a better man as he gazed upon that 
 mystery — a chihl, and saw manifested the over- 
 flowing of a mother's love. 
 
 Associated, man became less violent, and more 
 strongly was developed the constructive facidty he 
 possessed. This had hitherto only shown itself in 
 hollowing out a cavern in the sands and looser 
 rocks, and in lacing the branches of the forest- 
 trees to form a covering against the inclemencies 
 of the varying seasons. Circular chambers of stone, 
 opening one into another, were now seen mai'king 
 man's abode ; and beyond these rude towns, invari- 
 ably was some altar of sacrifice — some sacred circle 
 for prayer or praise. Man's powers, awakened, arose 
 beyond the low sensualities of life ; and a desire 
 for the adornment of the person led to many rude 
 endeavours to borrow from nature the lovely colours 
 of her flowers. Dyes were extracted fi'om the 
 blossoming trees, and paints made from colom-ed 
 clays. The repose of congregated masses of men 
 led to contemplation ; and it was soon felt that aU 
 the past and the future was hidden, while the 
 present even was uncertain. The shepherd of the 
 hills marked the motions of the stars, and observed 
 that the changes of seasons were connected with 
 alterations in the positions of the sun, the moon, 
 and a constantly revolving few among the orbs 
 of night. 
 
 Thus, scene after scene was opened to the eye 
 
220 PANTHEA, 
 
 of Julian, and many strange influences were laid 
 bare. 
 
 Mankind had become a vast family, and although 
 still retaining to the full the wild feelings of its 
 unsettled condition, there was a strong desii'e 
 awakening to penetrate the obscurity which sur- 
 rounded their existence. Nature in growth and 
 decay — the brightness of day and the darkness of 
 night — the heat of summer and the cold of winter 
 — the warm enjoyment of life, and the cold nothing- 
 ness of death, all spoke of powers to which were 
 given the charge of existence, and at whose control 
 decay passed upon the living, and a renovation of 
 dead matter Avas effected. Every race was con- 
 scious of a Supreme God ; all natural agencies 
 they felt were directed by some Great Power, 
 and they drew ideas borrowed from the circum- 
 stances of their lives, — many of them rude and 
 even savage, but partaking of the characteristics 
 of their class, and presenting features of terror, of 
 despair, of strife, and all the agony of their restless 
 lives, — and blended them into a Deity. 
 
 Julian had seen Man, a creation possessing powers 
 beyond all comparison superior to every other being, 
 almost isolated in the world. Yet was he fidl of 
 power ; but this slept, like the slumbering elements 
 of the volcano, to burst forth ever and anon in de- 
 stroying fury. He perceived that the birth of science 
 
THE SPIRIT OF NATURE. 221 
 
 was coeval with the incarnation of sin ; man's 
 necessities taxing his constructive faculties, and 
 man's pleasures stimulating his inventive ones. 
 The influence of the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge 
 was exhibited in a constant excitement in every 
 mind to reach that which, with the unassisted 
 powers, w^as unapproachable, — to aim at that which 
 was undiscoverable. The monarch of the young 
 world trod the earth with all the real nobility of 
 manhood ; and, although guided by powerful in- 
 stincts, he easily satisfied the few wants of his 
 nature from the luxuriance around him. Yet the 
 strong life which was in him impelled him to aim at 
 something beyond this ; and, to expend his mighty 
 energies, he strove often in terrible conflicts with 
 the beasts of prey. There was a stern and savage 
 grandeur about the infant communities of the earth ; 
 and, although directed by their animal passions, 
 which were rendered all more pow^erful by the 
 violent action to w^hich they were constantly excited, 
 man never ceased to feel that he had a powder which 
 looked out beyond the body, and he became conscious 
 of a process by which he might gather knowledge 
 of the world around him. Thus commenced, and 
 thus was carried on, a violent struggle between 
 animal passions, sensual instincts, and mental aspi- 
 rations ; and out of the conflict graduaUy arose a 
 brighter and better order of existence. 
 
 In quick transition Julian had seen the progress of 
 
222 PANTHEA, 
 
 the shepherd tribes which sprang from Jabal, and the 
 gradual settlement of migratory races into a pastoral 
 people. He saw Jubal with the chorded shell, and 
 Tubal Cain, who smelted the metals for the use of 
 man, directing those who congregated in cities and 
 who strove to turn the discoveries, which they owed 
 to their reason, to the advancement of temporal plea- 
 sures, and he saw that their labours ever ended in 
 the acting of some fearful wrong. 
 
 Man, by his little knowledge, became proud ; by 
 his pride he became still more corrupted ; and 
 eventually, every impulse of his God-given mind was 
 towards wretched temporalities. Fearful calamities 
 ensued ; but mankind listened not to those warnings, 
 until a direfid cataclysm involved the peopled earth 
 in a common ruin. 
 
 The new world was rapidly covered with mul- 
 titudes of men ; and their progress was marked 
 by more of mind than had distinguished the ante- 
 diluvian races. But there soon arose the desire for 
 sensual indulgences ; and, as the ^uman family in- 
 creased in all that should render civilization a bless- 
 ing, they sank backward through weaknesses which, 
 sapping every existing good, became a most fearful 
 curse, and the glad earth became, under man's 
 baleful dominion, a spot incarnadine and desolate. 
 
 Yet a longing for a higher state never perished. 
 Looking ever onward, man, even in his wildest 
 moods, sought the pathway to the secrets of nature ; 
 
. THE SPIRIT OF NATURE. 223 
 
 and what his ill-directed powers failed to discover, his 
 wild and vicious imagination attempted to explain. 
 A demon-worship grew up among mankind; and 
 they sought to appease the wrath of creations which 
 were but the embodiment of their own vile deeds, by 
 the immolation of human victims, in thousands, in 
 temples hewn out of the porphyritic rocks, which were 
 involved in that terrible darkness which suited the 
 attributes of the fearful Ahrimanes and his attendant 
 demons. The earth from its dark bosom yielded 
 metals to the hands of man ; and these became the 
 types of strength and power — from the cu'clet of the 
 sovereign to the chains which he placed upon his 
 slave. Deep within that dark earth were placed 
 the objects men feared and worshipped ; and they 
 sacrificed myriads of lives in hollo\nng mountains 
 into elaborately-adorned temples to do honom' to 
 the demon god. True to then* worship, men forgot, 
 in time, to look upward ; they ceased to remember 
 the brightness and beauty of the creation of their 
 own fairer imagination — Ormuz; and Julian saw 
 the same race, which rose by the effort of reason 
 high in power, sink back, under the effect of 
 miserable superstitions, to the lowest conditions of 
 humanity. 
 
 Then beamed again a brighter star. Spirit and 
 mind rose superior to matter ; holiness and virtue 
 were recognized, and a new philosophy shed hght 
 over debased man. From the slough of indolence 
 
224 PANTHEA, 
 
 in which his ignorance had plunged him, he again 
 extricated himself by the might of a firm depen- 
 dence on the good beyond him. Nature was seen 
 to be beautiful, and her wonders became the study 
 of the thinking man in the tranquillity of his 
 peaceful hours. 
 
 Mythras, the mighty sun, the centre of all things, 
 and the ruler of heaven and earth, was surrounded 
 by the types of creation ; and the seven genii of 
 the elements performed the will of the eternal 
 Mythras. Temples arose upon the hills, and man 
 lifted his forehead to the skies in adoration ; and 
 within them were consecrated those of the race who 
 by their valour had defeated the powers of darkness 
 and hell. The wave of mind rose gradually to a 
 considerable height. Then Julian saw it rapidly 
 again decline, depressed by the weight of earthly 
 passions, to which Power and Pride had flung the 
 reins of progress. 
 
 As the great ocean of humanity rose and fell 
 with its gigantic and constantly enlarging waves, 
 the wrecks of the past were floated on and gathered 
 up, to form the foundations of those systems which 
 ruled the present. 
 
 Thus, before Julian's vision, the earlier races of 
 mankind lived and died. 
 
 He saw that the amomit of life in the world was 
 constant ; but that the forms of its manifestations 
 were ever varying. At one period its excitements 
 
THE SPIRIT OF NATURE. 225 
 
 were expended on the vegetable covering of the earth ; 
 but being stiiTed by higher impulses — physical forces 
 — but forces far more subtile than any yet dis- 
 covered by man — the diversified forms of animal 
 existence were spread around. Beyond this, he saw 
 in his vision that the human soul — the thinking 
 part of man — was an emanation from the Divinity, 
 and that it was, consequently, all goodness. The 
 breath of spiritual life was breathed into man by his 
 Creator ; and the earthly man, less powerful in his 
 mere earthiness than the beasts around him, became 
 a combination of heaven and earth, and by the 
 strength of the Heavenly he had power to subdue all 
 created things. This divine impregnation of mind 
 diffused itself through the whole human race, and 
 maintained a constant struggle with their animal 
 passions ; and to the strange exhibition of these 
 struggles, in all their peculiar phases, the Spirit 
 of Nature directed the mental vision of the young 
 philosopher. 
 
 Rising upon the wave of time, Egypt gradually 
 opened before him. The great empires of the East 
 were sinking into the trough of the overwhelming 
 ocean of the past; but from their stern magnifi- 
 cence Egy|3t borrowed many som-ces of mighty 
 power, and arose to that greatness which remains 
 still as a monument of her terrestrial height and 
 her celestial exaltation. 
 
 All human passions burnt fiercely in the breasts 
 
 Q 
 
226 PANTHEA, 
 
 of the Egyptian people ; but there were, amid 
 tlieir multitudinous priesthood, men true to their 
 destinies, who guided that mighty race in their 
 progress. Every art was cultivated that could 
 minister to the luxury or supply the mere necessities 
 of man; and thus, superior to the inhabitants of 
 neighboming countries, they became their con- 
 querors, and condemned them as captives to spend 
 their lives in rearing monuments to the pride of 
 their victors. Science became shaped into a more 
 daylight system than before, and nature was evoked 
 in a spirit of truth, which never fails to com- 
 mand a reply. These were, however, still mixed 
 up with wild cb-eams, derived from some dim 
 consciousness of the past, from which the philosophy 
 of Egypt was never freed. The mysteries of the 
 future ruled all the present with them ; and Julian 
 saw the poet priests of their superb temples still 
 typifying the powers of man by the strange mytho- 
 logy of those, — the first races of mankind, — who 
 appear to have caught their dreams of power fi'om 
 the creations which possessed the world ere yet it 
 was tranquillized to become the abode of man. 
 
 The martichore, with its human head, its lion 
 body, and scorpion tail ; the griffon, compound of 
 lion and eagle ; the cartazonon, the first type of the 
 unicorn ; the monoceros, with a lion's feet ; cyno- 
 cephali, sphinxes, and winged bulls, were all em- 
 ployed, to speak to the senses of the multitude of 
 
THE SPIllTT OF NATURE. 227 
 
 the strange powers of humanity — of the heavenly 
 in its earthly trammels. Thus metaphor interfered 
 with the progress of reason, but at the same time 
 served to record the mind of the period. Still, in 
 their fine idealizations of a guiding and presiding 
 Power, as seen in Osiris and Isis, and in that nature- 
 worship which these deities demanded, was per- 
 ceived an awakening conception of the kindling 
 soul-fu'e, and of teeming nature quickening in its 
 living impulses, which never perished, but became 
 at last bright in a still more glorious philosophy. 
 Time is ever relative ; and the scenes which passed 
 before the eyes of Julian in a few minutes involved 
 the incidents of ages. Eg}'ptian civilization, and the 
 growth of science which followed in its track, was 
 comparatively slow ; and to the period of its decline 
 it was still involved in the darkness of that mythical 
 system, and retained the barbarism of those secret 
 orgies, which it derived from the ancient demon - 
 worship. 
 
 The progress of mental acquirement kept pace, 
 however, with that activity which, clinging to the 
 past, built monuments, almost eternal, for the future ; 
 and dedicated these in honour of that angel of death 
 who was to guide mankind to the great immortahty 
 of the human soul, which was now become a fixed 
 belief in the mind of man. Whether JuHan gazed 
 upon the cyclopean works of Mauetho, or upon the 
 pyramid of Cheops ; whether he tracked, with its 
 
 Q 2 
 
228 PANTHEA, 
 
 multitudinous builders, the labyrinth of Amenemha ; 
 whether he surveyed the glory and the pride of 
 Ramses, rearing his memorial pillars — or a Cleopatra, 
 sinking a suicidal victim to sensuality in the palace 
 of her grandeur, he saw the same characteristics in 
 the Egyptian mind, and perceived that all its mighty 
 efforts to advance man's knowledge of the truths of 
 nature, were rounded in the dark shadow of a desire 
 to penetrate the world of shades, to which their 
 fathers had departed. For the dead they toiled — 
 for the dead the living sought to know the secrets 
 of nature — and in honour of the dead they recorded 
 on their sepulchral monuments every living truth. 
 There was a singularly solemn character in every- 
 thing Egyptian, since every pulse of life vi^as quick- 
 ened by a desire to penetrate the mystery of death. 
 
 Onward the vision passed. 
 
 The Divine spark, which Julian had seen some- 
 times almost extinguished, sometimes quickened 
 into a small bright flame, or diffused as a phospho- 
 rescent brightness, appeared to increase rapidly in 
 its radiance as it passed over the Hellenic races. 
 
 They were strangely constituted : possessing great 
 mobility of mind, being easily excited to the height 
 of every human passion, and imbued with an intense 
 longing to know the mysteries of nature as they 
 presented themselves in their beautiful land. Every 
 power of the Greek mind was bent to pierce the veil, 
 and look on the machinery which stirred the whole. 
 
THE SPIRIT OF NATURE. 229 
 
 The Egyptian moved forward, looking still behind 
 — walking into daylight, with an eye fixed npon 
 night and her stars. The Grecian, on the contrary, 
 advanced with an eye directed onward ; and, by the 
 illumination of the glorious day-star, sought to 
 penetrate all that was beyond him in Space, and 
 the vast future of Time. 
 
 Panthea hung, as it appeared to Julian, lovingly 
 over the isles and continent of Greece, and evoked 
 from her mysteries the gods of their adoration. 
 Hera received the prayers of all li\ing, who sprang 
 into life from her bosom, and who, when aweary, 
 sought rest in her lap. Dionysus, croA\Tied with 
 the most luscious of the fruits which Demeter 
 presented to him, was surrounded by a joyous 
 group, who saw joy and gladness in the fulness 
 of life. Hermes, the swift-footed, bore the treasures 
 of heaven in rapid flight over earth, and stimulated 
 the fruitfulness of his own Arcadia. While Cora 
 was seen sometimes mournino- over the decaving: 
 
 O J CD 
 
 and the dead, and then again exulting with all the 
 joyousness of a delighted child, in the reorganiza- 
 tion and new birth of matter. Hephaestus, floating 
 in his robes of fire, descended from heaven, and, 
 piercing the depths of the earth, kindled within 
 a living flame, and exerting his mysterious power 
 compelled all created things to take form in obe- 
 dience to his mandates. With a rush of mighty 
 waters, Poseidon rose from the great ^Egean, and 
 
230 PANTHEA, 
 
 with his trident compelled thek billows to roll on 
 in tranquillity, or rage in storm. The glorious 
 Apollo, robed in the many-coloured bow, and 
 lancing forth his golden radiations, passed over 
 the land, and the life which was in it was ex- 
 cited to a more ethereal height. Over all, amid 
 celestial music, the form of Aphrodite rose, and by 
 her aspect gave beauty to that nature which the 
 Greek adored. Ares and Artemis, and a crowd 
 of bright divinities, were there; but the advent 
 of Zeus, the supreme god of heaven, who embraced 
 the lovely Hera in his arms, echpsed all the other 
 celestials, who faded like stars away before the 
 coming of the sun. 
 
 The voice of Panthea fell upon the ear of Julian 
 with its wondrous melody. — 
 
 " Such were the bright offsprings of that mind 
 which sought to find the beautiful. The poetry of 
 Greece was the pure language of her philosophy ; 
 the rehgion of Athene was the high embodiment 
 of the truths of her science." 
 
 Earnestly onward passed a crowd of men. Each 
 one had his object, and each one sought for some 
 treasm-e, hidden beneath the varied forms of the 
 created world. 
 
 Amid the crowd. Homer, with his sightless eyes, 
 passed on, rejoicing in the glorious visions of his 
 ardent mind. Hesiod sang to the busy labourers, 
 and urged them in their tasks of cultivation. The 
 
THE SPIRIT OF NATURE. 231 
 
 tragic bards strove to melt the hard hearts of strong- 
 minded multitudes, by appeals — the most piercing — 
 to their human sympathies, and all her bright troop 
 of poets shouted in harmony, lo Psean, to the 
 gods of natm-e and the God of the Universe. 
 Epicurus, Pythagoras, Diogenes, Zeno, Plato, and 
 Socrates, were distinguished among the crowd of 
 sages who hurried onward in the great race for 
 truth ; and to them, the smallest secret, told by the 
 most humble creation, became an exalted poetry. 
 Thus Julian saw the land he had early learned 
 to love ; and as he gazed with an intense fascination 
 on that glorious phantom of the highest develop- 
 ment of mind, the voice of Panthea again floated 
 on the air. — 
 
 " Prom the dim spark, almost lost amid its cold 
 dark ashes, you have seen the kindling of intelli- 
 gence and the undulations of its heaven-descended 
 flame. The storms of human passion have striven 
 with the Light, and cloud and tempest have urged 
 their might against it. Yet, in the mystery of life, 
 by the strange impulse of its necessities, under 
 the guiding charm of its aff'ections, and the un- 
 ceasing power of its memories, the flame has never 
 died. Dimly has it burnt, and its light has been 
 often clouded, but the day of its brightness has 
 again arrived. But, beyond all other powers, the 
 power of religion, which looks either into the dim 
 mysterious past, or the slowly opening future, has 
 
232 PANTHEA. 
 
 ever fanned the flame into its original brightness. 
 In Greece, behold it at its point of culmination ; 
 advanced thereto by that strong desire for the 
 Beautiful which led them to see a spiritual world 
 behind the physical creation. The sensual world 
 has again had its day of triiunph, but the flame 
 of intelligence groweth brighter. Thou hast seen 
 the work of earnest energy rewarded by the eleva- 
 tion of mankind. Awake, and work !" 
 
 Julian Altamont aroused himself from his won- 
 derful sleep, and he saw Laon in a sound slumber, 
 leaning his head over his hour-glass, the last sands 
 of which had long run down ; and, alas ! his thermo- 
 electrometer exhibited no deflection. The fire in his 
 furnace was extinguished, his crucible was no 
 longer red. Julian aroused him. He gazed wildly 
 around him for a moment. He looked at his 
 glass, and at his black, dark furnace, and then 
 with a sigh he said : 
 
 " Frail human nature ! — this experiment has 
 failed again ; I must begin my work anew." 
 
233 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 THE SOUL CONDEMNATION. 
 
 There was a circle formed of twenty-three unhewn 
 blocks of granite, placed upright, and packed 
 closely together. Within the small enclosm-e thus 
 framed, four blocks had been so placed as to form 
 a sort of stone chest — they had now fallen some- 
 what asunder. This was the Kistvaen, which had, 
 without doubt, been the sacred spot within which 
 some chosen relic of humanity was laid by its 
 son-owing kindred, and within which the changes 
 of natm-e had slowly taken place, until the beautiful 
 casket of an immortal soul had passed into thin 
 air, and taken other forms. A legend attaches 
 itself to this wild spot ; and the peasant dares not 
 venture, even in the twihght, near the circle, lest 
 he should incur the anger of the wild Druidess, 
 who keeps her moonlight watch upon the grave 
 where they say her body had reposed, but from 
 which it was distm-bed by the soldiers of Athelstane, 
 
234 
 
 PANTHEA, 
 
 during his victorious march through Danmonium, 
 in his progress towards the possession of the Scilly 
 Islands. Often, it is stated, has the perturbed 
 spirit been seen ; but more fi-equently still have 
 benighted travellers witnessed the revels of fairies 
 around this sacred spot. 
 
 There was a remarkable calmness in the twilight, 
 giving to the scene, which was severely wild, an 
 aspect of tranquil beauty. For miles around no 
 tree was to be seen, and the eye wandered over 
 a great extent of country, without finding any 
 rehef from the sterile sameness of the granite hills, 
 except in the curious tors which here and there 
 arose in fantastic forms. These piles of granite 
 rocks have received the names of the knight, the 
 lady, the castle, and so forth, since, by a very slight 
 efibrt of the imagination, they are converted into 
 shapes which fairly represent these objects. The 
 light of the western sky was still sufficiently strong 
 to throw long shadoAvs on the ground, and these 
 were strangely coloured — a pale yellow — by the 
 faint beams of the rising moon. The general tone 
 of the picture was of a warm grey, or neutral 
 character ; and the beautiful varieties of light and 
 of shadow gave to that scene, which might be called 
 savage by broad daylight, an air of mildness, — such 
 as the shades of real sorrow cast upon the features 
 of an iron-visaged man. 
 
 Alone, in the midst of that solitude, sat ^Itffiva, 
 
THE SPIRIT 0¥ NATURE. 235 
 
 upon one of the stones of the charmed circle, which 
 had fallen apart from the rest. Through the mist 
 of tears, she looked upon the rising moon, and drop 
 after heavy drop fell from her eyelids, and mingled 
 with the dews upon the grass. Deep, hard sobs 
 came up from her heaving bosom, and spoke loudly 
 of some soul-withering affliction. 
 
 The moon slowly climbed the dark blue sky, 
 and the evening star and the bright Sirius came 
 out in heaven. The eyes of J^ltgiva were fixed 
 upon the planet Venus, which shone with more 
 than ordinary brilliancy, and she was muttering 
 between her lips some low and earnest prayer, 
 when a voice startled her with the call — shrill from 
 terror— "^Itgiva!" 
 
 ^Itgiva looked around her, and on the other 
 side of the circle she perceived Eudora Spencer, 
 who had approached, unnoticed, from the opposite 
 side of the hill. Eudora stood as one in doubt 
 and fear, and made no attempt to advance ; the 
 tradition of the Druidess was almost realized to 
 her mind in ^Eltgiva and her wild mutterings. 
 
 ^Itgiva seized the end of her long robings, and, 
 wiping the tears from her eyes, advanced towards 
 Eudora, and, with a smile, said : " Eear me not ; 
 the overflowing of the bosom is relieved by the 
 channels of the eyes, and through our tears we 
 often see pleasing visions. You see but two stars 
 in heaven — I have seen many ; and each one, like 
 
236 PAMTHEA, 
 
 a spirit of mercy, appeared in its brightness, to 
 say words of forgiveness to the penitent." 
 
 " You torture your pure heart, ^Itgiva, with 
 vain fears. An unquiet dream disturbs your 
 healthy mind. Oh, my ^Itgiva," — and Eudora 
 clasped her hands earnestly in hers, — " I would 
 that you could enjoy the consolation wliich the 
 creed of a Christian gives." 
 
 " And am I not a Clu-istian, Eudora ? Because 
 I go not on set days to your church, and use not 
 a set of prescribed words, can you dare to say that 
 this heart of mine loves less the beautiful charity 
 of the religion you profess, than those who make 
 a loud boast of their attention to religious obser- 
 vances ? Eudora, you know me not ; the world's 
 bond of slavery has kept you from that knowledge. 
 I must instruct you. Come and sit here." 
 
 JEltgiva led her companion over a fallen stone, 
 into the circle, and they seated themselves on the 
 Kistvaen. 
 
 " We rest now," began iEltgiva, solemnly, " upon 
 the tomb of one whom I sometimes imasrine I 
 
 o 
 
 faintly resemble." 
 
 Eudora trembled — the legend of the Druidess 
 could not be forgotten. 
 
 " Tradition is often more true than written 
 history," ^Itgiva began ; " and she whose dust is 
 mixed with the earth beneath us, was, according 
 to its story, a worshipper of the heavenly fires. 
 
THE SPIRIT OF NATURE. 237 
 
 and of the beautiful upon the earth. She saw the 
 image of God in the rolling planets of space, and 
 she beheld Him in every grain of matter which 
 constitutes this world, no less beautiful or bright 
 than they. She grew strong in her faith, and the 
 world, seeing she was powerful in truth, proclaimed 
 her a priestess. She was unmoved by human pas- 
 sions, and constantly struggled, against armed power 
 and rude splendour, in her work of goodness. 
 The storms of human nature were too chilhug for 
 her ethereal constitution, and she pined herself to 
 death with one regret, and sank into the grave 
 weeping that mankind would not quit the slough 
 of luxuiy for the serene heaven in which, like an 
 amaranth delicate and fair, she had planted her 
 own sold." 
 
 " ^Itgiva," said Eudora, who had now overcome 
 her foolish fears, " the creed of the Druids was 
 dark and cruel ; and if the visionary priestess, upon 
 whose tomb we sit, advanced, beyond her sisterhood 
 or her fathers, towards a brighter conception of the 
 truth, she still saw it but darkly ; she knew not the 
 light of Revelation ; and her death must have been 
 the natural consequence of an over-excited brain 
 working on a diseased body. Like her, ^Itgiva, 
 you have lived a visionary life ; and you have taught 
 yourself to see strange phantoms of beauty, and 
 believed them visible things belonging to a spiritual 
 world, where reason, religion, and science can only 
 
238 PANTHEA, 
 
 discover those harmonies which proclaim the truths 
 of revelation in another tongue." 
 
 " The creed to which T cling is a reahty," replied 
 ^Eltgiva. " I once knew what it was to di-eam ; and 
 I looked on nature through a thick veil. I was satis- 
 fied first to see a flower, and know that it was in form 
 and colom* pleasing. I then was content, indeed, to 
 learn that certain elements composed that pretty form, 
 and that it lived by the agency of influences to which 
 men have given famihar names. But I looked on ; 
 and I saw, through a rent in the veil, that although 
 Hght, and heat, and electricity stirred those sub- 
 stances which formed its structure and determined 
 its conditions, yet neither of the three were life- 
 gi\ing powers. Beyond these, I perceived material 
 agencies far more subtile than they — and even these 
 were moved by spuitual powers which were the 
 servants of the Eteraal Unity. I beheve in Nature, 
 and through faith I have gained a few steps in 
 advance of my kindred ; but they, professing to 
 believe, are the prisoners of Prejudice and of the 
 Python Sensuality. The deceive themselves with 
 formalities, and cling with obstinacy to then- ig- 
 norance." 
 
 " But, beheving in Nature," said Eudora, " should 
 not interfere with yom- belief in Revelation. We 
 are involved in mysteries, which it is in vain for 
 human natm'e to attempt to solve. But we have a 
 line of duty marked out for us with the utmost 
 
THE SPIRIT OF NATURE. 239 
 
 clearness. The human mmd may try its powers upon 
 everything which is terrestrial ; but the moment we 
 attempt to pass those bounds, and rush where 
 angels fear to tread, we are involved in confusion 
 and error, and ruined by the rash effort to see 
 that, in mortality, which is reserved for the im- 
 mortal vision. ^Itgiva, cling to those divine ideas of 
 beauty which you have nurtured. Let me be a sharer 
 in those sublime studies which seek for the harmony 
 that exists throughout creation, and which connects 
 the humblest truth with the most exalting thought ; 
 but let me, too, be a teacher in retm-n. And as 
 you read lessons from the great book of visible mat- 
 ter in its varied characters, let me translate to you 
 the truths of that other Book, which has been given 
 to man to steady his progress through life, to secure 
 his happiness on earth, and to enable him to die in 
 the hope of an eternity of pure intelligence." 
 
 " Let me, too, be a sharer in your lessons," ex- 
 claimed Julian Altamont, who had accidentally been 
 a listener, having arrived at the Kistvaen, in his 
 way homeward from Laon's, by a sheep-track across 
 the moor, leading round an abrupt portion of the 
 hill, which secured the traveller from sight, until he 
 advanced upon the spot on which this Druidical 
 remnant stood. Hearing female voices on so lone a 
 spot, he stopped to listen. The charm of ^Itgiva's 
 voice was not be mistaken, that of Eudora's was not 
 forgotten ; and Julian became curious to know the 
 
240 PANTHEA, 
 
 object of a meeting between these two women at so 
 strange a spot. 
 
 " Let me, too, be a sharer in yom* lessons," he 
 again said, as he advanced round the circle towards 
 those startled women, who clung to each other. 
 
 Juhan Altamont, in the full dignity of manhood, 
 stood before them ; and the effects of the first shock 
 gradually calming, ^Itgiva gently removed Eudora's 
 arms from around her waist, — arose with much 
 dignity of deportment, and raising herself up to 
 her most stately height, she said, in a measm'ed 
 tone : 
 
 " Lord Julian Altamont, I have been unfaithful, 
 or I should not have been sm-prised ; but the 
 shadows of coming events have gone backward, and 
 you have seen JEltgiva iElphage shaken with ter- 
 ror. It is past. I am punished ; and now I see 
 again the writings of destiny. There is a spirit 
 stronger than Panthea ; and, hovering in the eyes 
 of her whose rent heart still beats with the true 
 pulsation of woman's love, I can descry impulses to 
 which my weak powers are but as the mutterings 
 of an idle breeze. I came here, Julian Altamont, 
 to teach Eudora Spencer how to deserve you ; and 
 she has taught me, instead, that there is a truth 
 beyond my truth, — that beyond my dream of beauty 
 is a reality more beautiful, — that beyond the holi- 
 ness of my science there exists a science which is 
 holier still. I leave you." 
 
THE SPIRIT OP NATURE. 241 
 
 " Nay," exclaimed Julian, " you shall not." 
 
 " Do not," said Eudora Spencer. 
 
 " I shall leave you," exclaimed ^Itgiva ; " but 
 we shall all meet again ; and, at our next meeting, 
 it may perchance be my turn to teach, and yours 
 to listen." 
 
 She turned from them, and rapidly descended 
 the hill. Julian felt that he dared not follow her ; 
 and Eudora Spencer was so overpowered by the 
 conflict within her own bosom, that she remained 
 as one unable to move from the rock, on which 
 she sat, 
 
 Julian had learnt, in the great world, the secret 
 of that command which serves to disguise our feel- 
 ings — a lesson soon learnt in the conflict of man ; — 
 and, advancing to Eudora with an easy and cour- 
 teous air, he said : 
 
 " And has not Eudora Spencer one word of wel- 
 come for the truant, who has returned somewhat 
 the wiser for his absence?" He paused. Eudora 
 was silent ; and Julian felt more severely from that 
 silence, than if she had uttered words of the 
 strongest reproach. He stood self-convicted of a 
 neglect which coidd find no excuse save in that 
 selfishness which aspired to a point of excellence 
 beyond all other men ; and the thought was so 
 humiliating, that he felt himself degraded and 
 crushed thereby. He would willingly have tiu*ned 
 coward, and fled from that weak girl who sat before 
 
 R 
 
242 PANTHEA, 
 
 him ; but his better genius directed him ; and, 
 sinking down upon the same rude block of granite 
 upon which Eudora sat, but at a respectful distance 
 from her, he said : 
 
 " Eudora, in sincerity I ask your forgiveness. I 
 have been a dreamer involved in the tangled web 
 of society ; and so strangely have the swift emotions 
 awakened by the ceaseless din of the philosophical, 
 and pleasure-loving metropohs, affected this poor 
 brain, that it has grown almost unconscious of it- 
 self ; and my heart, exposed to the exhalations from 
 that mighty river, Eashion, which is loaded with 
 death to all the holier impulses, almost ceased to 
 pulsate, so stagnant was its best hfe-blood in those 
 channels through which its purity was maintained. 
 Eudora" — he took her hand in his — " I have heard 
 your words to night, and as the bright light which 
 fell on Saul was their influence upon my spuit. I 
 heard, in your voice, the enunciation of a truth 
 which I felt like a mysterious presence, but which 
 I could not see. Your words were charged with 
 power, like that which gave life to the cold marble, 
 and the image of beauty I possessed begins to 
 breathe ; it is for you to consign it to its cold 
 ideahty again, or to excite it into the full activity of 
 a bright reality, which may reward the labour it 
 demands. Eudora — " 
 
 "Julian — " Her voice was tremulous, and she 
 paused. 
 
THE SPIRIT OF NATURE. 243 
 
 " Eudora, there was a time when we roamed 
 these hills together, having no thoughts hidden from 
 one another. Can you not, with the memory of 
 that sweet past, forget much and forgive ?" 
 
 " Juhan Altamont, I have little to forgive/^ said 
 Eudora. " That friendship which was once valued 
 became valueless to you, and you cast it off. The 
 crustacean leaves its shell when it becomes too con- 
 fined for its increasing energies, and it forms a new 
 and more suitable covering for its future existence. 
 It is somewhat humiliating to feel one's self the 
 desecrated shell" — she smiled as only a woman can 
 smile ; — " but consolation comes to the mind in the 
 shape of hope. My country education, Julian, may 
 not fit me for the gay world. My practical mind 
 could no longer be endured by one who delights in 
 a system of ^Esthetics which is far beyond the 
 reach of ordinary thinkers." 
 
 " Eudora," said Julian, with much feeling, " I 
 cannot vindicate myself. That heart which, unsul- 
 lied by the world, can see nature through its natural 
 atmosphere, is of far more worth than those which, 
 though enshrined in jewelled splendour, pulsate 
 responsively to the echoes of pleasure, and view 
 nature through tinted glasses. I have neglected 
 you, Eudora ; but I may plead, in my behalf, that I 
 neglected you only from the feverish desire which 
 stirred my soid to reach a knowledge which I fancied 
 my mind could grasp. By day, by night, awake 
 
 R 2 
 
244 PANTHEA, 
 
 or asleep, one incessant throbbing of the brain has 
 made me blind to all the endearments of human 
 life ; and I have only seen a bright phantom, to 
 which I have hurried onward." 
 
 " Julian, we are no strangers to each other : we 
 need not repeat the past ; memory will not let it 
 die. I am so content in your confession that you 
 have been pursuing a phantom, that I cheerfully 
 welcome you back to Altamont ; and you shall 
 never be reminded by me that there has been a 
 blank period in yom' humanity." 
 
 " Blank, indeed, Eudora. Fatlier, mother, friends, 
 all forgotten in that absorbing selfishness which 
 swallowed up my life." 
 
 There was a pause ; a long silence. Here were 
 two most loving hearts, destined by nature for that 
 duality which constitutes the perfection of the earth. 
 Here were two large minds, which had received 
 carefid training, and which, pm"suing long together 
 the same path of study, had become tinctured with 
 similar hues of thought. Yet, great was the 
 dissimilarity between those minds. There was the 
 same difference which is ever found between man 
 and woman — between grey philosophy, and child- 
 like simplicity — between the delicate exotic of civi- 
 lization, and the natm'al production wild in its 
 native home. To both, there was a great beyond. 
 One tortured all its powers to comprehend it, and, 
 lost in cloud-land, saw not the charming things at 
 
THE SPIRIT OF NATURE. 245 
 
 its feet. The other was contented to believe that the 
 beyond was an Eternal and Infinite Intelligence, to 
 which the sonl might be admitted, if, by carefully 
 performing all its duties on the earth, it had fitted 
 itself for that state of enjoyment which consists in 
 seeing and knowing all things. 
 
 Julian sat meditating on the position in which he 
 now, for the first time, felt himself — a mortal, long- 
 ing for immortal power, yet feeling the danger of 
 the desire. He knew that his soul was from above, 
 heavenly ; that his body was from below, earthly ; 
 yet, that they were tied together by enchanted 
 chains. His heavenly soul was apprenticed to his 
 earthly body, to learn — what ? Was there aught 
 on earth which could be instructive to a creation 
 from heaven ? Could an angel gain any know- 
 ledge from man ? 
 
 Julian Altamont turned to Eudora Spencer. 
 
 " Resolve me a mystery," said he. 
 
 Eudora smiled, but waited in silence. 
 
 " What can the soul — om- eternal part, which 
 knows neither sleep nor death — learn, being locked 
 up in this poor body, which must sleep daily to 
 recruit its powers, and which miserably perishes ?" 
 
 " Can you look around you, Julian Altamont, 
 and yet find no answer to yom' strange question ?" 
 replied Eudora. " The smallest moss upon these 
 stones sounds like a trumpet in reply." 
 
 " I am deaf to the voice," said Julian. 
 
246 PANTHEA, 
 
 " And you have conversed with Panthea," said 
 Eudora, smiUng. " Think you that the experiences 
 of mortahty — its pains, its pleasures, its joys, its 
 sorrows — have no purpose?" 
 
 " The ills of life," replied Julian, " are even 
 more incomprehensible than the blessings which 
 we sometimes know in this sublunar world." 
 
 "Is not pleasure sweetened if it follows pain? 
 Is not the morning more beautiful that it follows 
 night ? Is not hope a child of brightness, born 
 from the grave of sorrow? Will not heaven be 
 the more desirable and the more glorious to us 
 after we have undergone the probation of human 
 evil ? A spirit may know all things ; but to know 
 is not to love. Love is ever strengthened by trial, 
 and that which costs us the largest amount of 
 actual suffering to obtain, holds the chosen place 
 in our affections. The philosopher may be too far- 
 sighted to be happy, for happiness consists in loving 
 all things ; and he who is satisfied in reducing this 
 grass to its ultimate ashes, and determining the 
 elements which compose it, may know nothing of 
 those impulses which arise from being human in 
 its true sense. Humanity is chained to the earth 
 by its affections, and it gropes about in its captivity, 
 and finds strange harmonies within the circle to 
 which it is confined. We are pleased with a flower ; 
 to satisfy our humanity we cultivate that plant ; we 
 AA'atcr it — we tend it carefully — it is troublesome 
 
THE SPIRIT 01' NATURE. 247 
 
 to rear — but it blossoms, and it is a thousand-fold 
 more beautiful than ever unto us. Wc love* the 
 plant ; and, loving, we seek to know its mysteries. 
 Om' science leads us on, and, step by step, we gain 
 some insight to a nature which is Avithin nature ; 
 and we find, that beneath the lovely vesture of a 
 rainbow-tinted flower, there exists a form more 
 exquisite in being, and we learn how rich a treasure 
 we possess. The soul still seeks knowledge, and, 
 hi its struggles to fly beyond its sphere, it may be 
 galled by its chains, and often does it fret at its 
 thraldom ; but the voice of Revelation bids it 
 rest in hope, and wait in patience for the growth 
 of that power which is the fruit upon the tree of 
 life. Without our humanity we could not enjoy 
 immortality. From the lowliest things on earth — 
 from the most earthly of our passions, are we borne 
 onward and upward ; and we learn, while grovelling 
 on the ground, to see, from the power which is 
 manifested in the creation we can survey, the 
 supreme height of that Intelligence which fashioned 
 human nature, and of the brightness which we 
 are promised the enjoyment of, in its fulness. 
 Every mortal trial advances the sufierer; and as 
 the fallen giant gained in strength when he touched 
 the earth, so the spirit grows stronger by that 
 struggle which is kept up between it and mortality." 
 " You too, Eudora, are a worshipper of Panthea," 
 exclaimed Jidian, seizuig the lady's hand. 
 
248 PANTHEA, 
 
 " Julian," replied Eudora, with much seriousness, 
 " I ^now enough of Oriental philosophy to under- 
 stand the ideality which has become a soul-senti- 
 ment to ^Eltgiva. The thoughts of intelligent 
 children are often sublimely beautiful ; this dream 
 of a race who inhabited the most luxuriant spot in 
 nature resembles those visions of the child, who, 
 desiring to shape a mystery into some fonn within 
 its comprehension, gives it a character evoked from 
 the innocent fancies of its immature, but sinless 
 mind. I cannot worship such a phantom, although 
 it assumes the attractions of true beauty, in my 
 full consciousness that it is not the True." 
 
 " Eudora Spencer, have I been under the influ- 
 ences of enchantment?" asked Julian, in a voice 
 tremulous with agitation. 
 
 " Beyond all doubt you have," said Eudora ; 
 " and, even now, the web of the sorceress is over 
 your soul." 
 
 " Have I not looked on the mysteries of nature ?" 
 
 " You have been dreaming of its mysteries, and 
 forgotten its grand truths," replied Eudora, with 
 fii^raness. 
 
 " But, Eudora, I — " Julian paused, and rose 
 from his seat in agitation. He pressed his hand 
 upon his forehead, and sighed deeply. 
 
 " You are distressed," said Eudora, mildly, as 
 with kindness she also arose and stood by his side. 
 
 " I am bewildered, Eudora ; I roll to and fro. 
 
THE SPIRIT OF NATURE. 249 
 
 like a man holding by a spar in the middle of a 
 boundless and tempestuous ocean ; if the frail frag- 
 ment fails me, I perish." 
 
 " Julian, can I relieve you ? May I know the 
 .real cause of your difficulties ?" 
 
 " Do you not know ? " demanded he ; " there are 
 many causes." 
 
 " I can guess at some ; but I may not know them 
 all," replied Eudora. 
 
 " Eudora — " Julian's voice was still more tremu- 
 lous ; there was that in its tone which told, louder 
 than words, that his soul was in agony. 
 
 A man, — a noble by birth, nobler by nature, — 
 possessing every attribute which can add to the 
 dignity of man, — formed in the stateliest mould, and 
 gifted with the largest mind, — stood trembling like 
 a weak child before one lone woman, shaken by 
 her words. 
 
 " Eudora," he said again, with a more excited 
 manner, " I have fancied myself wiser than the wise 
 of this world. With a proud contempt, I have 
 looked upon their little efforts to be useful. I have 
 lifted myself up to a point beyond them ; and I 
 now stand on a pinnacle, fearing I may fall. I fall 1 
 The derisive laugh of the multitude rings in my 
 ears ! The funereal knell over the wreck of one 
 who strove for immortality, but lost it !" 
 
 " Nay, Julian Altamont ; a long life of usefulness 
 is still before you." 
 
250 PANTHEA, 
 
 " Cold, icy cold, is that miserable sound, utility ; 
 — inventing some new mechanical scheme for sweep- 
 ing a dii'ty crossing ; producing some new dye for 
 a trader's wife's best dress ; or, it may be, patent- 
 ing a process for washing linen." He laughed 
 bitterly. " No, no, Eudora ; I never can be usefid." 
 
 " You are like the Scandinavian hero, who, bath- 
 ing in dragon's blood, fancied himself immortal. 
 Julian, we must find the spot which the fallen leaf pro- 
 tected, and strive to reach that which is mortal still." 
 
 " Eudora, do not laugh at me. You have already 
 compared me to the exuviating crustacean ; and I 
 feel myself, indeed, naked and defenceless." 
 
 " Julian Altamont," said Eudora, tenderly, " did 
 I not know you, was I ignorant of that true desire 
 by which you have been actuated, I might be in- 
 duced to ridicule your dreamings. We have, from 
 children, been familiar fiiends, and I have often 
 tortured you vrith my girlish follies. What I know 
 of science I owe to you ; and now, Julian Altamont, 
 I trust you will be indebted to me for an awaken- 
 ing from a feverish sleep, which wasted your ener- 
 gies, and robbed the world of your powers." 
 
 " Your words to J^ltgiva fell upon my soul like 
 a thunder-burst ; but still — Have I not been trans- 
 ported in spirit into the great past ? Have I not 
 witnessed the progress of events, before the genius 
 of history penned a line ? and — " 
 
 " Stop," exclaimed Eudora. " zEltgiva and her 
 
THE SPIRIT OF NATURE. 251 
 
 father found, in the tumult of your thought and the 
 glowings of your untrained imagination, a fitting 
 subject upon Avhich to work. They strove to in- 
 struct you in a creed which they honestly believe 
 (they have erred through an earnest zeal ; and, 
 although I pity their credulity, I cannot but feel 
 they are worthy of being beloved) ; and they sur- 
 round you with all the poetical creations by which 
 it maintained its hold upon the credulous, and 
 charmed the superstitious." 
 
 "Can you deny its truth, Eudora? Does not 
 everything in nature betray the operations of a 
 Spirit of Nature ?" 
 
 " Creation proclaims a God ; and, to please your 
 poetic mind, I will, with all reverence, idealize him, 
 by the Grecian Jove holding in his hand a sheaf of 
 rays, which are the physical agents by which He 
 guides His mighty creation." 
 
 " May there not be spiritual powers to whom are 
 given great duties?" 
 
 " I will not shock you by denying the possibility 
 of their existence ; but, except in dreams or reve- 
 ries, they have never been seen by man ; and all the 
 wonders of Emanuel Swedenborg and of Jacob 
 Behmen rest on the unsupported testimony of an 
 enthusiasm which has certainly verged upon in- 
 sanity. What have your visions been?" 
 
 " Will you seriously listen to me, Eudora?" 
 asked Julian, tremulous with agitation. 
 
252 PANTHEA, 
 
 " As seriously and as anxiously as I have done 
 when you have been eagerly striving to make a dull 
 girl understand some delightful experiment." 
 
 " You believed in me then, Eudora ; you did not 
 question my honesty/' said Julian. 
 
 " You gave me physical evidence of the truths you 
 taught, and left me no room for doubt," replied 
 Eudora. " But when you tell me you have seen 
 that which others, constituted as you are, cannot 
 see ; that you have heard that which cannot sound 
 in ears less gifted than yoiu' own ; that you have 
 accomplished things which the merely human being 
 dare not attempt, — what can I do, but doubt ? The 
 Creator has given us senses, and these have each 
 their especially constituted physical mediums ; and 
 through no others are they excited. Some eyes may 
 be more sensitive than other eyes ; the touch of 
 some, more delicate than that sense in others ; but 
 there is no reason for supposing that you have 
 higher powers than any of mankind ; and it is safer 
 to believe that you have been deceived, than to give 
 credence to a statement which may induce the mind 
 to quit the real advantages of a pursuit of truth in 
 humble and virtuous industry, for a shadowy exist- 
 ence which certainly only involves it in mists, upon 
 which fancy may rear its mirage : but where hu- 
 manity can find no substantial foundation whereon 
 to build those evident trutlis Avhich should form 
 the temple in which to worship the True — " 
 
THE SPIRIT or NATURE. 253 
 
 " But have I not seen, through the veil, the 
 truths, at least some of the truths, of the mystery ?" 
 This was said in a half-meditative strain. 
 
 " The vividness of some dreams makes a deeper 
 impression on the mind than actual occurrences 
 can do," replied Eudora. " But tell me your 
 visions." 
 
 " Eudora, I feel myself possessed by a medley 
 group of spirits. I believe and doubt ; I am full 
 of faith, and yet a sceptic. I tremble to lose the 
 effects of the past, and yet I desire fearlessly to 
 investigate the causes. My brain boils — my heart 
 is ice. I would be immortal, and yet I feel I am 
 almost dead mortality. What shall I do to save my 
 mind from shipwreck ?" 
 
 Eudora Spencer felt deeply, tenderly, for the 
 young Altamont. Possessed of great firmness of 
 purpose, she had resolved, whenever she met her 
 betrothed, to exhibit no feeling of disappointment or 
 regret at the slight he had shown her, having in her 
 own mind referred it to influences beyond his own 
 control, against which she had determined to con- 
 tend. Her purpose had, however, been much 
 shaken by the circumstances which attended her 
 interview with iEltgiva. Yet, still feeling that it 
 was her destiny to become, sooner or later, the 
 bride of the heir of Altamont (in this she had been 
 confirmed by the teaching of her parents), she ad- 
 vanced, as if it were a duty demanded from her by 
 
254 PANTHEA, 
 
 that honest sense which sets aside all minor griev- 
 ances to gain an important end, to the task of com- 
 bating with delusions which had possessed a noble 
 mind. Howbeit, she felt her weakness. 
 
 Although the education of Eudora Spencer had 
 been far superior to that of most ladies of her rank, 
 it was still very inferior to that received by Julian 
 Altamont in many important particulars. Even when 
 women are admitted by their instructors to acquire 
 a knowledge of those higher branches of learning 
 which are comprehended under the veiy general 
 term, philosophy, they are never schooled in any 
 system of logic, or pure induction. So it was wdth 
 Eudora Spencer ; and she now felt that her powers 
 of ratiocination were not equal to the discussion in 
 which she felt she must shortly be involved. With 
 all a woman's faith, and with a religious purity of 
 mind which had advanced beyond the miserable 
 period of doubt, she still felt that there was, above 
 the physical world, a spiritual atmosphere. She 
 knew that men had boasted of powers derived from 
 a knowledge of the phenomena connected with this 
 spiritual world ; and that some of the wisest and 
 the best of men had admitted the possibility of 
 looking beyond the finite, and had even acknow- 
 ledged that the phenomena of spiritual visitation 
 might be permitted. And Eudora Spencer had seen 
 some results of mesmerism practised by and upon 
 individuals who were too honest to deceive — who 
 
THE SriRTT OF NATURE. 255 
 
 could have no interest in deceiving — which were 
 beyond the powers of physiology to explain. All 
 these things passed rapidly through her mind ; — 
 she stood by Julian Altamont, supporting his arm, 
 which familiarly rested on her shoulder, his hand 
 pressing his pulsating forehead, and as she felt 
 the almost convulsive trembling which mental agita- 
 tion had set up through the strong but sensitive 
 frame of her poet-philosopher, Eudora Spencer 
 quailed with weakness, and was silent. They were 
 both so for some minutes. Night had closed 
 around them. The moon shone with much bright- 
 ness, and the stars looked full of tranquil light 
 through the calm clear air. No wind stirred the 
 grass upon that hill-top — the air was warm and 
 motionless ; yet, ever and anon, the loose fragments 
 on the ground were strangely stirred, and sometimes 
 bome up into the air and whirled round by little 
 columns of the atmosphere, set into circular motion 
 by some law of attraction and repulsion which 
 appears to belong to electrical phenomena. Over 
 the western hills rested a dark cloud, which had 
 slowly accumulated within the last horn', and now 
 gave a deep aspect of terror to that portion of the 
 scene. 
 
 Julian grew calmer, and, removing his hand from 
 his brow, he gazed tranquilly upon the face of 
 Eudora Spencer. There are some powers incarnate 
 in woman's form which are almighty in destroying 
 
256 PANTHEA, 
 
 the evils which strive with man. A faee need not 
 be moulded in the forms which the world calls 
 beautiful, to possess that principle, which it can, 
 when excited, radiate with force for goodness. The 
 giant might of virtue and truth beaming through 
 the eye or glowing upon the cheek of woman, is 
 more powerful than words — more piercing than 
 weapons. 
 
 Eudora Spencer was beautiful; and, as Julian 
 looked into her face, illumined by that calm moon- 
 light, he felt that a subtle influence was upon him. 
 He had dreamed of angels, and in his visions he 
 had seen them eff'ulgent with their immortality. 
 He now looked on a mortal maiden whose heart was 
 stirred with a supreme desire to administer to his 
 anguished mind — to free him from the delusions in 
 which she fancied him involved — and who yet felt 
 herself unable to cope with the force of intelligence 
 which might be arrayed against her ; and he con- 
 ceived he saw a mortal who had put on immortality. 
 " I have lived without a soul," at length Julian 
 said, in a subdued, quiet tone. And he continued 
 in the same strain, full of deep feeling — "Eudora 
 Spencer, I feel that my mind, dwelling in selfish 
 solitude, has preyed into itself — it is wounded and 
 weakened — and now it is so oppressed, that an 
 energy is required of me, which will not be excited. 
 To renew its powers, my spirit demands repose ; to 
 recover its vigour, my mind seeks for companionship; 
 
THE SPTRIT OF NATURE. 257 
 
 to escape from all these doubtings and difficulties, 
 I must find a heart to bear with my sufferings — to 
 endure my triflings — and, without anger, to assist 
 my examination of the past. I rcqiiii-e a friend 
 Avhose bosom shall be as ray own, and yet not my 
 own ; to which I might commit my soul, and ask 
 for counsel. Where shall I find such a friend ?" 
 
 "Julian, can I be that friend to you?" The 
 tears which stood in Eudora's eyes glistened in the 
 moonlight. 
 
 " Eudora, those words are music in my ears, and 
 like your voice in the days of your girlhood. Can 
 you bear with me?" 
 
 " If you can trust me, Julian, you shall see what 
 I can bear with." 
 
 " My own Eudora ! you compared me but now 
 to Siegfried, the Northman, who thought himself 
 immortal ; and you have found the vulnerable spot, 
 and pierced my mortality. I will trust you, and 
 you shall guide me." 
 
 " Nay, Julian, I will but venture to suggest — I 
 cannot guide. Your path lies among men — your 
 duty is of the most exalted character. In honom* 
 and for truth, in self-reliance, you must achieve by 
 the power of your mind more than ever your ances- 
 tors did by their swords. But let me know the 
 disturbing influences which may retard your march, 
 and a woman's common sense may serve to clear 
 them." 
 
258 PANTHEA, 
 
 Julian Altamont was excited to a nobler purpose 
 tlian any which had hitherto stii'red his soul ; and 
 yet he was so beset by those dim phantoms of the 
 mystical philosophy in which he had been involved, 
 that he was powerless for action. 
 
 A flash of lightning illumined the moor, and a 
 burst of thunder immediately succeeding proclaimed 
 the proximity of an angry storm. The moon and 
 stars had shone, and the clouds had gathered ; but 
 moon, nor stars, nor clouds had Julian seen. He 
 started at the flash, and, fully awakened by the 
 thunder, stammered an apology for detaining his 
 companion on the hills ; and, taking Eudora's hand 
 within his arm, they hastily walked towards the 
 home of the Spencers, which was much nearer the 
 Kistvaen than was the Hall of Altamont. 
 
 They walked rapidly ; for the lightning flashed 
 and the thunder rattled above their heads, as if in 
 wild rejoicing, and the hills caught up the sounds, 
 and continued them in savage echoes and low 
 moanings along the valleys. 
 
 By walking rapidly, and sometimes even quicken- 
 ing into a run, Julian and Eudora, in the full energy 
 of life, soon reached the residence of Sir Wilson 
 Spencer ; but the distance had been passed over in 
 silence : — the full heart has few words. 
 
 The Baronet and his lady were alarmed for the 
 safety of their daughter, although they knew that she 
 left her home to meet yEltgiva — for Eudora had 
 
THE SPIRIT OF NATURE. 259 
 
 made no secret of her purpose ; and they calculated 
 on the probability of her seeking shelter in the cot- 
 tage of Laon. They now stood in the entrance-hall 
 of their mansion, giving orders to three men-servants 
 to proceed in different directions, and meet at that 
 spot, when, to their delight, Eudora Spencer entered, 
 supported by Julian Altamont, of whose presence 
 in their neighbourhood they were not even aware. 
 
 The mother embraced her daughter, pleased that 
 her anxiety was at an end. Sir Wilson Spencer 
 extended his hand to Julian with the cordial grasp 
 of an old Englishman ; and, forgetful of the storm 
 wliich raged violently without, hastily and anxiously 
 led the way towards his private apartment, exclaim- 
 ing, in almost boisterous joy, *' Quite a knight- 
 errant's adventm'e — a deserted damsel and a storm. 
 Follow, Lord Julian, follow; we'll have no philo- 
 sophy to night. Quick, my lady. Is Eudora wet ? 
 Hasten and join us in my room." 
 
 Eudora Spencer and her mother ascended the 
 hall-stairs ; — Eudora to remove her walking dress, 
 and Lady Spencer bm*ning A\dtli curiosity to leani 
 some particulars of the meeting with the young 
 Lord Julian. 
 
 " It rejoices me to see you," said the old Baronet, 
 hurrying on. " How is the Countess, and my old 
 friend the Earl ? Is he returned ? No, no ! Par- 
 liament, parliament. AVell, well ! Par-dieu ! — but 
 that shook the old mansion." 
 
260 PANTHEA. 
 
 The crash of thunder which burst immediately 
 above the house did indeed shake it ; but, regard- 
 less of the terrors of the storm, the old Baronet 
 talked on, really deUghted at again beholding in his 
 house the young noble whom he had long regarded 
 as his son-in-law, but about whom he had lately 
 entertained many serious misgivings. He turned 
 round, — Lord Julian Altamont was gone ! 
 
261 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 THE NIGHT OF STORM. 
 
 Escaping from the garrulous old Baronet, Julian 
 Altamont hastened back through the hall; and, 
 saymg as he passed the porter, " Inform Lady 
 Spencer that I shall see her to-morrow," he opened 
 the hall-door himself, and, plunging into the dark- 
 ness of the night, was soon lost to sight. 
 
 He felt himself relieved, and found more compa- 
 nionship in the storm and darkness — in the cloud- 
 riving lightning, and the earth-shaking thunder, 
 than in the society of man. He hastened onward — 
 his steps being directed by the bright blue light- 
 nings which every minute played among the branches 
 of the trees in the park, and ran along the gravel 
 walks like fiery snakes. In the intervals of dark- 
 ness Julian paused and listened, anxious to ascertain 
 if any footsteps followed him ; but the rolling, rat- 
 tling peals of thunder, prolonged by the growling 
 echoes of this mountainous district, prevented his 
 distinguisliing any other sound. 
 
262 PANTHEA, 
 
 The rain now began to fall in torrents, and the 
 wind rushed onward in a sweeping hurricane. 
 JuHan grasped a tree to support himself against the 
 driving storm. He had scarcely done so, when this 
 tree — a tall elm — was cloven by a stroke of electric 
 fire. Julian felt the shock, by which, indeed, he was 
 thrown off from it, stunned, and for a few seconds 
 blinded ; but he found himself unharmed, and he 
 hastened onward. He now stood upon some rising 
 ground, from which, looking back, he could see the 
 house he had so rudely left. A flash of lightning 
 illumined the scene, and he perceived a crowd of 
 domestics at the hall- door, and two female figures, 
 which he felt conscious were those of Lady Spencer 
 and her daughter. 
 
 That anxious group was a sad reflection on his 
 manliness. The pressure of that most humiliating 
 of feelings — the thought of having done a weak 
 action — excited the feverish inquietude which was 
 within him, even as potent as the storm without 
 — and he trembled violently. A faint perspiration 
 poured out upon his forehead, and his heart thumped 
 audibly against his ribs. He thought he was dying 
 — he fancied the excitement of his soul had at 
 length ended in breaking the silver thread. He 
 heard his heart beat — the lightning-flash sheeted 
 before his eyes — and he felt himself falling, without 
 the power — without the wish — to save himself. 
 Some sensation still remained unto him. He was 
 
THE SPIRIT OF NATURE. 263 
 
 SAvimming round rapidly in a vortex — all things 
 were growing blacker and blacker, and a dead 
 silence was upon him. He knew no more. 
 
 There was one near him whom the young Lord 
 knew not of. Laon yElphage, from his deep know- 
 ledge of natural phenomena, having long foreseen 
 the coming storm — his wonderful electrical gatherers 
 having repeatedly charged his great batteries, which 
 again discharged themselves with violence ; his ba- 
 rometer having fallen an inch in a few hours, and 
 the mercm'ial column being in a state of violent 
 oscillation ; — the philosopher went forth to admire 
 the grandest exemplification of an Eternal's power 
 which is afforded to man. 
 
 Laon had seen, from a neighbouring hill, Julian 
 and Eudora at the Kistvaen. He anxiously watched 
 them as the storm approached, and witnessed their 
 rapid flight towards the lady's home. The old 
 philosopher desired the companionship of his friend 
 and pupil ; and he was walking through the park, 
 towards Sir Wilson Spencer's house, when he dis- 
 covered Julian in the condition we have described 
 him. The sage hurried onward, and caught the 
 young nobleman in his arms as he was falling to 
 the ground. 
 
 The rain fell heavily ; but it was, to him whose con- 
 sciousness was slowly returning, like the morning dew 
 — mild, cold, and refi*eshing. The storm had al)ated 
 nothing of its violence. The lightnings flashed, and 
 
:264 PANTHEA, 
 
 the thunder's loud artillery still rang around. After a 
 few minutes, Julian aroused himself ; and, looking 
 up, he saw, by the light of the storm, the mild face 
 of Laon gazing kindly upon him. Julian started 
 to his feet. 
 
 " My good Laon, is it you ? I have been ill — 
 overcome." 
 
 " I know aU, Julian Altamont. Here : rest on an 
 old man's arm : I will quickly guide you to the Hall." 
 
 " No, no, no : leave me amid the night, and its 
 storm, and its darkness ; they are congenial to me 
 now. Solitude and despair must be mine, until 
 both are resolved into a hopeless grave. Leave me, 
 Laon JElphage." Julian talked wildly. 
 
 " Julian Altamont," exclaimed Laon, still firmly 
 iiolding the young man in his grasp, " you torment 
 yourself in vain." 
 
 "It is you who torment me with your mysteries. 
 It is you who have maddened me. It is you who 
 have made this bosom the lazar-house of a leprous 
 desolation." 
 
 "My Lord Julian!" 
 
 " You have tempted me, and I have yielded. I 
 have struggled, but I ha\c been overcome. You 
 have deluded me with conjurations, and deceived 
 me by devilish incantations. Art thou a man, or a 
 devil, Laon iElphage ?" 
 
 Julian's voice was ahnost louder than tlie storm. 
 He swung himself away from the old man, and 
 
THE SPIRIT OF NATURE. 265 
 
 stood, with his upUfted arms towards heaven, rcpel- 
 hng him, as though Laon was the arch-fiend, witli 
 which he was about to wage a mortal combat. 
 
 " Begone ! I iibjure thee. By thy holy cheat — 
 thy Panthca — I bid thee begone, old man ! Ha ! 
 Ha ! The charm works, does it ? Thou art afraid ! 
 Fly ! Fly, before I kill thee !" Julian raved with 
 madness. 
 
 Laon stirred not. With a fixed expression he 
 watched every movement of the young noble. He 
 saw the condition of nervous excitement which was 
 increasing upon him. He saw all the difficidties of 
 his position ; but he rapidly resolved upon his mode 
 of action, and stood prepared. 
 
 " Wilt thou not fly me ? Dost thou not fear me ? 
 I can destroy thee !" He was rushing upon Laon 
 with fury ; but the cold, stern aspect of those large 
 eyes, which looked into his own, were like the eyes 
 of Panthea. He heard a voice — it was Laon's — 
 say, "By the Vision of the Mystery I command 
 thee ! " Julian stopped powerless ; a strong arm 
 grasped his wrist ; and he felt himself hurried on- 
 ward he knew not whither ; and, feeling resistance 
 useless, he resigned himself to his captivity. 
 
 Laon had, by seizing upon what he perceived to 
 be the leading idea of Lord Julian's mind, succeeded 
 in awing him into subjection ; and in this condition 
 he conducted him, through the storm, to the Hall 
 of Altamont, where they arrived about midnight. 
 
266 PANTHEA, 
 
 Mr. Cheverton, and the numerous band of domes- 
 tics at Altamont, were anxiously waiting the return 
 of the young lord, who had left the Hall that morn- 
 ing without tasting his breakfast, or saying a word 
 either to his servant, or to his sister Euthanasia, 
 who had, guilelessly, sought in vain, to attract his 
 attention. 
 
 They entered that feudal hall, where brave men 
 and beautiful women had lived in splendour, and 
 died in all the vanity of human state. And the one 
 who was to inherit all the greatness of many centuries, 
 stood in his father's Hall with a mind distraught. 
 
 Julian stood amid that astonished group, not one 
 of whom but was pained at the spectacle ; and, 
 looking proudly around him, he exclaimed : 
 
 " The contract was fairly signed : there is no 
 help now." 
 
 Mr. Cheverton was about to speak. Laon mo- 
 tioned him to be silent. The servants bustled to 
 and fro, uncertain what to do ; yet, all were anxious 
 to do something. 
 
 " Shall I ride off for the physician ?" said one. 
 
 " Shall I fetch the surgeon?" said another. 
 
 " Yes," was Laon's prompt and only reply. 
 
 Julian muttered to himself, " They may go for 
 the physician. I am not ill. He will say my head 
 or my heart is Avrong ; but let him come." 
 
 Laon still held Julian by the wrist. jMr. Chever- 
 ton approached, took him by the hand, and, looking 
 
THE SPIRIT OF NATURE. 267 
 
 liiui ill the face, asked : " Julian, do you not know 
 
 "Yes, I know you," lie hastily replied: "you 
 are the parish parson ; and if they leave my body 
 behind them, why, you'll read a lie above it, for I 
 shall have departed by the other road." 
 
 All save Laon shuddered. He called Mr. Che- 
 verton to his side, and whispered in his ear. That 
 gentleman left the Hall ; and Laon, guided by his 
 lordship's valet and another domestic, led Julian 
 Altamont, unresistingly, to his bed-room. When 
 there, they removed — but not without difficulty — 
 his wet clothes, and laid him in the bed. 
 
 The physician and the surgeon arrived in an 
 incredibly short time, considering the distance from 
 which they had to come, and that the tempest was 
 still raging furiously. 
 
 " We must bleed him," said the surgeon. 
 
 " He will die raving mad, if we do," replied the 
 physician. 
 
 The poor patient laughed hysterically as they left 
 the room to consult together. Laon, for a few 
 minutes, resigned his pupil and friend to the care of 
 the servants, and followed the doctors. 
 
 The discussion between these two medical prac- 
 titioners promised to be a long one. The physician 
 advised sedatives, by which, he said, they might 
 secure quiet of the nervous system. The surgeon 
 declared that there was an excessive excitement of 
 
268 PANTHEA, 
 
 the brain, arising from a too rapid circulation of the 
 blood, which nothing but bleeding could subdue. 
 Laon iElphage, who had, in early life, studied 
 medicine, as he had studied every science to which 
 his attention had been directed, with much care, 
 agreed with the physician, and the surgeon was 
 obliged to yield. Now, again, the physician was 
 for administering laudanum ; the surgeon thought 
 the acetate of morphia a better agent. And, again, 
 a long discussion would have ensued, but Mr. 
 Cheverton entered the room with a small phial, 
 which he gave to Laon, who said, " Here I have 
 that which is superior to your opiates ; it is the 
 essence prepared by the Arabs from the Cannabis 
 Indica. I shall give him that." 
 
 Both the Esculapian and the disciple of him of 
 Cos declared that they would not be answerable 
 for the consequences ; but Laon left the room and 
 proceeded to the bedside of the patient. 
 
 Laon ^Elphage had been educated to the medical 
 profession, and, indeed, was a stafF-surgeon when 
 the British army was in Egypt, where he dis- 
 tinguished himself by his endurance, his courage, 
 and his undeviating attention to the sick, at a time 
 when both the French and Enghsh soldiers were 
 so prostrated by the effects of the climate, that 
 they were aptly described by Laon as bone fighting 
 against bone. At the termination of this campaign 
 he retii'cd from the army, and travelled for several 
 
THE SriRIT OF NATURE. 269 
 
 years in the far East. Persia and Arabia were 
 visited by him, and he sought to penetrate into all 
 the mysteries which still, as traditions and super- 
 stitions, lingered in these countries, and which 
 appeared to indicate the earliest interpretations 
 which man gave to the revelations of creation. 
 
 Laon found the yomig Lord Altamont talking 
 wildly. At one moment he fancied himself a plant 
 growing in his father's garden ; then a few grains 
 of dust blowing on the winds. Looking up, he 
 saw Laon, and exclaimed : 
 
 " We little thought, when we were in the world, 
 that we should find a place like this. Often as we 
 discussed the question in yom' little library, our 
 fancies never led us to conceive so strange a change. 
 How rapidly I pass from one thing to another ; — 
 a rose — a dove — an eagle — a wolf — and now I am 
 a man again. Here, let me feel you." Julian 
 grasped Laon by the thigh. " You are not de- 
 caying. I am. Feel here ; wherever you put 
 yom' fingers, they sink into the rotten mass ; faugh ! 
 How do I rot so fast?" 
 
 "I have taken a nectar," said Laon, "which 
 retards decay. Shall I give you some?" 
 
 Julian sat upright in the bed, and Laon emptied 
 one half the contents of the phial into his mouth, 
 which he eagerly swallowed, and sank back upon 
 the bed. 
 
 " I could sing a love-song if ^Itgiva was by to 
 
270 PANTHEA, 
 
 listen. Send for her. ^^Tiy do you not send 
 for her?" 
 
 " I A\ill/' said Laon, and left the room, under 
 pretence of giving du-ections to a servant to fetch 
 his daughter, but he immediately returned. 
 
 " Have you sent for her ? How long she is in 
 coming. Fie!" 
 
 Thus Juhan continued for some time, now running 
 over the cu'cumstances of his life, then expressing his 
 regret that ^Itgiva did not come, occasionally re- 
 proaching Laon, and sometimes railing at Mr. Che- 
 verton, who, having retm-ned to the room, was 
 seated on the opposite side of the bed to that on 
 which Laon sat. 
 
 The servants were on the stairs, and the medical 
 men in the adjoining dressing-room. 
 
 At length Julian became calmer. Laon, perceiv- 
 ing that he was again feeling his body, asked him to 
 take another di-aught of his nectar. 
 
 " Readily," he said. 
 
 Laon handed it to him. He took it in his own 
 hand, deliberately emptied the contents of the glass 
 into his mouth, and, as he returned it empty to Laon, 
 he as deliberately blew out the fluid agaui into the 
 old man's face, and then laughing, exclaimed, " You 
 thought you could cheat me, did you ?" 
 
 Laon coolly wiped his face without offering a 
 reply, resumed his seat, smiled on Mr. Cheverton, 
 and attentively watched the progress of that in- 
 
THE SPIRIT or NATURE. 271 
 
 fliience which he knew the Indian hemp invariably 
 produced. 
 
 Juhan talked less wildly. His words were 
 uttered more slowly, and gradually there were 
 intervals of silence. All was still without — the 
 storm had spent its rage. Julian slept. 
 
 Wild dreams haunted that sleep. The present 
 and the past were strangely mingled. The proudest 
 monuments of engineering skill, — the greatest 
 achievements of applied science, — were confused 
 with Pagan temples. The orgies of Satanic worship, 
 and the fearful human sacrifices which super- 
 stition made to an unknown God, were blended 
 with that tranquillizing influence which the worship 
 of the true God affords. The wings of Panthea 
 overshadowed him. Through their attenuated tex- 
 ture, as through a mist, he surveyed the sinuous 
 river of Time. Along its banks were examples 
 of the minds of Rome, of Greece, of Egypt, of 
 Assyria, and all those kingdoms which appear as 
 culminating points in the progress of civilization. 
 Beyond, all was the vast ocean of eternity — bound- 
 less and dark. 
 
 In after years, Lord Altamont frequently described 
 the mixture of the beautiful and the grotesque, — of 
 the tranquilly sublime and of the deeply horrible, 
 which passed through his mind on that sad night. 
 " The temptation of St. Anthony," he woidd say, 
 " was a poor farce, compared with the vagaries I 
 
272 PANTHEA, 
 
 witnessed. Women, beautiful beyond expression, be- 
 came demons, horrible beyond endurance : — Nature, 
 invested in a living robe of the most chosen flowers, 
 bathed with the full radiance of the sunbeam, and 
 exhibiting a chromatic harmony, complete beyond 
 hmnan conception, suddenly became a black waste 
 of slime-covered rocks, inhabited by the foulest 
 of snakes, toads, and reptiles. I have often 
 thought the madness of that night was designed 
 to instruct me in the secret that our joys and our 
 sorrows depend upon ourselves, — that we can sur- 
 round life with beauty and light, or circle it with 
 deformity and darkness." 
 
 After a time, Julian's rest became less disturbed. 
 He started but seldom, and his breathing was more 
 regular. Seeing this, Laon prepared to leave him 
 in the charge of Mr. Cheverton and the medical 
 attendants, who were now convinced of the good 
 effects of this narcotic, which was new to their 
 practice, and who, although " they feared the 
 paroxysm might return with daylight," declared 
 " that the Indian remedy had worked like a charm." 
 
 " Silence, — absolute silence," said Laon, " will 
 now be required ; and even the excitement which 
 light induces will have to be guarded against. A 
 refined system has been upset, and a dehcate and 
 judicious care alone can restore the balance of 
 that mind." 
 
 The young nobleman suddenly started in the 
 
THE SPIRIT OF NATURE. 273 
 
 bed as if with pain, or in terror. He glared upon 
 all around him, and then fell back in unconsciousness. 
 Laon stood by the bed, and slowly passed his 
 hand over his patient. For half an hour he con- 
 tinued making these mesmeric passes. The phy- 
 sician smiled, and the surgeon looked at him con- 
 temptuously ; but Mr. Cheverton declared that 
 there was evidently some soothing influence ; and 
 eventually Laon took his departure, leaving Lord 
 Altamont, the heir to a wealth beyond that of many 
 kingdoms, and the possessor of a mind of the 
 most exalted order, like a stranded argosy, beaten 
 by the relentless waves, in utter helplessness. 
 
 The depth and darkness of night was over all 
 things. It wanted yet an hour of daybreak ; but 
 the gloom was terrible, producing on the mind a 
 sense of the utter nothingness of creation, when 
 deprived of that light which gives it beauty 
 and life. 
 
 Laon stood in the park of Altamont, and looked 
 hesitatingly into the darkness. He could not per- 
 ceive the trees which were a few yards in advance 
 of him. He had forsaken the path, and he knew 
 not where to discover it. He would not return 
 again to the Hall, — ^if, indeed, he could find it ; and 
 he stood, — endowed with all science, — lost within 
 half an hour's walk of his own dwelling. 
 
 The storm has passed onward, and all nature 
 around appeared to repose after the agony of the 
 
274 PANTHEA, 
 
 strife. The winds were still; no 'leaf stirred on 
 the trees ; — all was stagnant. Along the eastern line 
 of the horizon, every few minutes, a faint streak of 
 light appeared, showing that the chariot of electric 
 fire was still performing its great work, — that the 
 storm was raging afar off. The light of these 
 flashes — they were so distant — was only sufficient 
 to render the surrounding darkness more sensible. 
 Laon had, however, noted the path of the storm, 
 and, thus guided, he struck off in an opposite 
 direction, which he knew would lead him near his 
 own cottage. He had not proceeded far when he 
 heard a quick footstep. 
 
 "Who goes there?" Laon hastily demanded. 
 
 "Father, it is I," said ^Eltgiva, in her calm, 
 musical voice, as she stood by his side. 
 
 " How comest thou here, my daughter?" 
 
 " I knew there was a cloud of danger on Alta- 
 mont, and I could not rest." 
 
 " Have you been at the Hall ?" 
 
 " No nearer, father, than the Kiosk, upon the 
 mound. I was led there by lights in one apart- 
 ment, and I soon discovered your figure amid the 
 moving shadows. I sat there watching and praying 
 for you. I knew the hour was charged with evils, 
 for I have seen spirits hrn'rying to and fro in 
 terror." 
 
 " Have you seen no more than that ?" 
 
 " The spii'it of death, whose darkness is now 
 
THE SPIRIT OF NATURE. 275 
 
 Oil the air, shrouded the window with his l)lack 
 wings, and I thought he was about to strike. I 
 called upon the divine Panthea to aid me, and the 
 spirit passed onward, appeased by the promise of 
 another victim." 
 
 " yEltgiva," said Laon, " I begin to fear that 
 your eyes are sometimes fooled by your fancies." 
 
 " Father, I have seen and I have heard. Two 
 graves will be opened, and the aged will weep over 
 the youthful. But from those graves a living soul shall 
 derive a power which the whole world shall be con- 
 scious of. In the death of two shall the life of one 
 be made strong. From the blackness of nothing- 
 ness shall the brightness of morning be kindled." 
 
 " J^ltgiva, you speak in riddles, even to me." 
 
 " The riddle will soon be solved. The night is 
 silent ; — we hear not the coming of the morning, 
 but its bright feet are not far off. I must now be 
 as silent as the night, for the dark angel watches, 
 and he will not be deceived." 
 
 No other word would ^Itgiva utter. She led her 
 father without any difficulty through all the intricacies 
 of the way, and they reached their sohtude, and 
 sought, each with different feelings, the repose they 
 now requii'ed. 
 
 T 2 
 
276 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 THE TEACHINGS OE AFFLICTION. 
 
 Morning came, and the golden sun strove to pierce 
 the thick covering which had been placed over the 
 window of the apartment in which still slept Lord 
 Juhau Altamont. The watchers, consisting of Mr. 
 Cheverton, the medical attendants, and a valet, sat 
 there in silence. 
 
 Mr. Cheverton was the first to move ; and care- 
 fully he left the room, to despatch a messenger 
 forthwith to the metropolis, to inform the Earl and 
 Countess of the dangerous condition of their son. 
 
 Julian at length awoke fi^om his long slumber ; 
 but he awoke to a sensibility which was painful in 
 the extreme. A whisper vibrated thrillingly through 
 his brain ; the faint light of a taper was a distressing 
 glare ; and the delicate odour of the flowers, which 
 found its way through the narrow opening of the 
 window by which it was sought to ventilate the 
 room, was overpowering to his sense of smell. So 
 
THE SPIRIT OF NATURE. 277 
 
 singularly sensitive was his hearing, that a footstep 
 on the gravel- walk which ran round the mansion, 
 although unheard by any of those about him, was 
 declared by Julian to be that of Sir Wilson Spencer ; 
 and in the same manner he was conscious of the 
 arrival of Eudora, who followed her father, in her 
 anxiety to know the truth respecting the young 
 lord, whom they had been told was struck with 
 catalepsy during the thunder-storm. 
 
 Mr. Cheverton received them, and relieved both 
 father and daughter by expressing a hope that the 
 great evil was past. The Baronet was anxious to 
 see Lord Julian ; indeed, he demanded admission to 
 his chamber somewhat angrily ; but Mr. Cheverton 
 was firm ; and, although the choleric old gentleman 
 declared himself insulted at first, he eventually, in 
 answer to Mr. Cheverton's reasonings, admitted the 
 necessity of obsening the strictest exclusion from 
 the sick room. 
 
 The messenger had departed for London, and the 
 news was quickly spread abroad in the neighbouring 
 town, that Lord Altamont was mad ; and the pro- 
 vincial papers readily gave insertion to the most 
 alarming and extravagant paragraphs. 
 
 The Altamonts had never been a really popular 
 family. They had always retained that spu-it of feu- 
 dalism which tends to separate the rulers and the 
 ruled — the rich and the poor ; and therefore this 
 affliction was not received by the townsfolk with any 
 
278 PANTHEA, 
 
 feeling of sympathy ; indeed, on the contrary, many 
 hesitated not to express the pleasure they felt at the 
 infliction of this wound on the proud Earl. Unkind 
 stories were circulated; ill-natiu-ed remarks were 
 made ; and these backed up by untruths. Julian 
 Altamont had lived in so much retirement at the 
 Hall, that he was known to but few. The wealthy 
 left their cards at the lodge-gate ; but, beyond this, 
 there was no evidence of any of those kindly feelings 
 which should unite all ranks together in the common 
 bond of humanity. 
 
 Laon ^Elphage visited the Hall daily, until the 
 return home of the Earl and Countess. His visit 
 was then intermitted for one day ; but the Earl, 
 having heard fi'om all parties of the wonder per- 
 formed by the aged physician, and of his watchfid 
 care, sent a request, through the Countess, that Laon 
 would continue his visits, and repeat the mesmerism, 
 which had been affii-med by Julian himself and the 
 medical men to produce more tranquillity than any 
 anodyne. 
 
 The Earl inwardly resolved, however, that iEl- 
 phage should only serve his purpose ; and he reserved 
 to himself the right to deny him admission to the 
 Hall whenever he thought it desirable to do so. 
 
 The Countess of Altamont, accompanied by Eu- 
 dora Spencer, visited the cottage of Laon, and 
 solicited the kind continuance of that attention 
 which had been so very serviceable to her son ; 
 
THE SPIRIT OF NATURE. 279 
 
 expressing her heartfelt thanks, at the same time, in 
 a manner which coiikl but be pleasing to the philo- 
 sopher and gratifying to his eccentric daughter. 
 
 " The young lord," said ^Itgiva, " will see his 
 grandchildren. His star has been dimmed ; but 
 it groweth brighter than ever. Long hfe; high 
 honour in life; and a joyful immortality, are for 
 your son." 
 
 The Countess was not without some superstition, 
 and she felt that there was a strange mystery about 
 her who spoke. Some pecuhar influence appeared 
 to surround ^Itgiva ; but there was that in her 
 words which sounded so delightfully to that fond 
 mother's ear, and vibrated so sympathetically upon 
 her heart, that she received them as holy truths, and 
 felt that a load was removed from her soul. 
 
 " I pray God that truth may be in yom- words," 
 said the Countess ; and she extended her hand to 
 ^Itgiva, who coolly placed her fingers upon it, and, 
 looking upwards, exclaimed, " Amen." 
 
 The Countess recoiled from the icy coldness of 
 the touch. 
 
 " Shall we see you with your father at the Hall?" 
 asked the Countess. 
 
 " In my visions I have perceived that I shall visit 
 those gilded apartments once more; but when I 
 come, a colder hand than mine will beckon me." 
 
 " What do you mean, ^Itgiva?" asked Eudora 
 Spencer. 
 
280 PANTHEA, 
 
 " Let time tell : the knowledge of the future 
 is not always a blessing," replied ^Itgiva. 
 
 She looked upon the Countess, and sighed deeply. 
 
 " Sorrows are to man what storms are to nature : 
 they remove the pestilential accumulations, and 
 restore health and brightness to the soul. Seek 
 not to know that which I dare not tell you ; but 
 remember, when that strange w^oman, ^Itgiva ^1- 
 phage, is required — though armed men stood in 
 my path — send for me, and I will not fail you. — 
 Miss Spencer, you know my truth, and can trust me. 
 Ladies, adieu, — my hour of devotion is at hand." 
 
 She left them. Laon promised to attend his 
 patient within an hour ; and they separated. 
 
 The meeting of the Earl of Altamont and Laon 
 was singidarly marked by the peculiar characteristics 
 which distinguished each of these men. 
 
 Proudly the Earl rose to receive him ; and as 
 proudly, but with an air of extreme benignity, Laon 
 returned his salutation. 
 
 " You desire to see Lord Julian ?" 
 
 " I have been solicited to see om' suffering friend ; 
 and, trusting that my visit may be blessed by re- 
 storing to him the tranquillity he has lost, I 
 wiUingly attend." 
 
 " We have to thank you for your care." 
 
 " Rather thank the Almighty, who sent me to 
 the aid of yom* son, and who caused the tree to 
 grow which made sweet the bitter waters of Marah." 
 
THE SPIRIT or NATURE. 281 
 
 The Earl rang his bell, and directed his servant 
 to conduct his visitor to Lord Julian's apartment. 
 
 When the Fi-ench commissioners appointed to 
 inquire into the correctness of the phenomena of 
 animal magnetism reported — " De ces experiences 
 les commissaires ont conclu que I'imagination fait 
 tout, que le magnetisme est nul. Imagination, 
 imitation, attouchement, telles sont les vraies causes 
 des effets attribues au magnetisme," — they stated a 
 truth which all subsequent experience, that can be 
 relied upon, appears to have confirmed ; all the phe- 
 nomena probably depending upon the operations of 
 the mind of the individual operated upon, rather 
 than upon any external influences. Still, it cannot 
 be denied, that under the general term of mes- 
 merism are expressed a class of phenomena which 
 belongs to those high investigations of physiology 
 which reach into the confines of psychology. To 
 say that imagination and imitation are the sources 
 of certain phenomena, may be strictly true; but 
 when we find these mental operations producing 
 physical effects of an extraordinary character, giving 
 rise to abnormal conditions, which are indeed some- 
 times naturally produced under the influence of 
 disease, it is a mere acknowledgment of our igno- 
 rance of any of the ultimate causes, when we thus 
 accept in explanation such as are merely proximate. 
 The charlatanry which, from the first, has surrounded 
 this extraordinary class of phenomena, and which 
 
282 PANTHEA, 
 
 has sought to give popularity to its doctrines, by 
 assuming that magnetism presented some fancied 
 analogies in the mode of producing results, has been 
 fatal to the truth ; but remarkable phenomena exist, 
 to tell us of om' ignorance, — of our scepticism, and 
 of our dependence upon conventional authority. 
 
 Julian Altamont, who had, during the whole of 
 the previous day, been in such a high state of 
 nervous sensibility that all about him were dis- 
 tressed by his imtability and excited state, now 
 slept, under the influence of the presence of Laon 
 j^iliphage ; — slept as quietly as an innocent and 
 healthful babe lulled by its mother's song. 
 
 After a repose of two hoiurs, he awoke in a state 
 of perfect tranquillity. Laon ^Elphage sat on one 
 side of his bed, and the Countess of Devonport on 
 the other. Juhau looked with a sweet smile upon 
 both of them ; then, turning to his mother, he took 
 her hand within his, tenderly pressed, and then 
 kissed it. This was the first time, since her return, 
 that Julian had exhibited any sign of pleasure at 
 seeing the Countess. 
 
 The fond mother's heart beat quickerwith joy; and, 
 in fulness of soul, she ejaculated, " My dear Julian !" 
 
 " Mother — my dear mother," was his fond reply; 
 " I am better, in body — and, in mind, better than 
 I have been." 
 
 "And will soon be in perfect health," said Laon; 
 " but 1 nuist impose the penalty of silence on you." 
 
THE SPIRIT OF NATURE. 283 
 
 " May I not sec my sister ? I have sadly neglected 
 my sister," Julian said, with a sigh. 
 
 " Wait until to-morrow, and you shall sec her," 
 replied Laon. " My dear Lady, permit me to 
 counsel you to leave Lord Julian to that solitude 
 which his case demands." 
 
 The Countess reluctantly acquiesced, and followed 
 Laon from the room, looking anxiously towards the 
 pale but beautifid face of her son, upon which 
 played a most spiritual smile, like a sheet of light 
 upon a crystal lake. The hu-ed watchers took their 
 places again in the sick chamber ; and Juhan, con- 
 tentedly, allowed his mind to wander under the 
 guidance of the idlest fancies. 
 
 How strange is the connexion between the mind 
 and body ! The most powerful intellect which ever 
 astonished man, grasping the vast and examining 
 the minute, is rendered as purposeless and as weak 
 as that of the poor imbecile, who idles the day in 
 counting straws, by a slight disturbance of the 
 physical condition of one of those filmy webs which 
 ramify through his muscular system. 
 
 Hour after hour passed heavily away within the 
 Hall, where every one moved w^ith extreme caution ; 
 and regularly was Julian's chamber visited by the 
 Countess, dming that day and night, to see that 
 every want was carefully attended to, and to watch 
 the condition of him in whom she felt her whole 
 soul was bound up. 
 
284 PANTHEA, 
 
 Julian sometimes dozed ; but, when awake, he 
 was composed, and rewarded his mother's care with 
 a silent smile. 
 
 Thus, day followed day. Julian's recovery was 
 gradual, but slow. He had seen his sister ; and 
 even Sir Wilson Spencer and his daughter had 
 twice, for a short time, been admitted to his room, 
 at Julian's earnest request. The Earl had regularly 
 accompanied the family physician in his visit every 
 morning ; and, being satisfied that the danger was 
 past, he pursued his usual routine of business and 
 pleasure, expressing himself, however, sometimes to 
 Mr, Cheverton a little bitterly about ^Iphage, the 
 Mystery -man, as he called him. 
 
 Julian Altamont had so far recovered, that his 
 request to be freed from the attendance of nurses 
 was complied with, his valet only sleeping within 
 call in an adjoining room. Books were granted to 
 him, provided he chose only such as were of a light 
 and amusing character. He was generally, during 
 the day, to be found raised by the bed-chair, and 
 supported with pillows, thoughtfully dwelling upon 
 some of the beautiful passages of the more philoso- 
 phical of oiu" modern poets. Coleridge, Words- 
 worth, and Keats, were his favomites ; and, although 
 strikingly dissimilar in their habits of thought and 
 forms of expression, they appeared equally to charm 
 his meditative mind. Keats was perhaps the espe- 
 cial favourite ; and Julian spent hours, in most 
 
THE SPIRIT OF NATURE. 285 
 
 pleasant idleness of thought, over the immature 
 
 beauties of the dream-like " Endymion." He found, 
 
 in that delicate conception, a reflex of his own mind 
 
 in many of its phases ; — the same thirsting for the 
 
 beautiful ; the same desire to reach an unknown 
 
 beyond ; and the same enthralment in the chains of 
 
 a visionary love. Often would he repeat languidly 
 
 to himself the following lines : — 
 
 " Peona ! ever have I longed to slake 
 My thirst for the world's praises : nothing base, 
 No merely slumberous phantasm, could unlace 
 The stubborn canvas for my voyage prepared — 
 Though now 'tis tatter'd ; leaving my bark bared 
 And sullenly drifting." 
 
 Then, raising his voice, he would exclaim, with 
 
 enthusiasm : 
 
 " Yet my higher hope 
 Is of too wide, too rainbow-large a scope, 
 To fret at myriads of earthly wrecks." 
 
 When wearied with floating over the thoughts of 
 others, his mind, now regaining its elasticity, would 
 indulge in a review of the past, as it had presented 
 itself to him. He became sorrowful. Painful 
 memories, Hke dark clouds, floated up from their 
 sepulchi-e, and hung heavily over his otherwise 
 brightening intellect. His dejection was sometimes 
 extreme ; and it required the cheerful companion- 
 ship of his mother, who exerted herself to the ut- 
 most, to dispel the gloom in which Julian would 
 thus shroud himself. More effectual, however, was 
 
286 PANTHEA, 
 
 the playful, happy talk of his sister. Her very pre- 
 sence appeared to operate as a charm. " Like a float- 
 ing spirit," Euthanasia would noiselessly approach 
 the bedside of her brother, and quietly, tenderly 
 bend her head, and press her beautiful and inno- 
 cent lips to her brother's hands, and thus awaken 
 his attention. 
 
 Julian felt that his sister had been neglected for 
 his sake. Both parents, though with widely difier- 
 ent feelings, saw in Julian everything upon which 
 they could build up hopes, although they were 
 repeatedly dissipated, like the castles in cloud-land. 
 Still, immense power of mind was indicated ; and 
 they despaired not of seeing a day, when the illu- 
 sions which now beset the young noble might give 
 way to a more practical state of existence. The 
 very distress which was occasioned by the strange 
 vagaries of that powerful mind, was the cause of 
 confining their attention almost exclusively to theii* 
 eldest child. 
 
 Euthanasia was surrounded by niu-ses and higlily 
 intellectual teachers ; and, this being done, her 
 parents thought they had sufficiently performed their 
 duty by theh daughter, until the period arrived 
 when they should have to present her at court. 
 
 The daughter of the proud Earl was fortunate in 
 having constantly near her one whose heart, moulded 
 in the school of adversity, was replete with every 
 virtue, and whose mind, naturally energetic, had 
 
THE SPIRIT OF NATURE. 287 
 
 been most cautiously cultivated, and exhibited a 
 fine fulness of knowledge. Miss Warington, the 
 daughter of an officer in the navy, who had perished 
 in the battle off Cape St. Vincent, leaving a young 
 family to the charge of a delicate mother, whose 
 accomplishments were of a high order, had the 
 principal direction of the education of the Lady 
 Euthanasia. Miss Warington's mother died, leaving 
 her to the responsibility of training two brothers and 
 fom- sisters. In this task of trial she gained experi- 
 ence ; and, in the struggle to which she was doomed, 
 her affections were softened and enlarged. 
 
 Euthanasia had, from a child, exhibited extreme 
 delicacy of constitution ; and the experienced eye 
 of her governess saw, in the transparent whiteness 
 of her skin, the lovely hectic blush upon her cheek, 
 and the sparlding brilliancy of her dark eyes, cause 
 for much anxiety. Yet, as no symptom of illness had 
 presented itself, she feared to awaken, without a more 
 decided cause, any alarm in the minds of her parents. 
 
 Julian had always been fond of his sister. She 
 w^as so exceedingly beautiful, and had ever shown 
 so much quickness, and such a playful character of 
 mind, that he was always interested with her. The 
 difference, however, of ten years in their ages, and 
 the turn which Julian's studies had taken, both 
 operated to estrange the brother and sister. 
 
 No sorrow ever fell upon the heart of man, which 
 did not in some way improve the condition of that 
 
288 PANTHEA, 
 
 heart. Fresh sympathies, — a greater range of affec- 
 tions, — higher aspiration for the virtues of huma- 
 nity, or some other holy influence, invariably appears 
 as the wound heals ; and, disguise it as we may, 
 afflictions are the stern dispensers of those gifts 
 which adorn beatified souls. 
 
 It was near noon. Julian had fallen asleep, 
 soothed by the plaintive murmuring of an iEolian 
 harp, which had been placed by hira, long ago, 
 in the trees near his window. The breezes were 
 fitful ; and its strain was 
 
 " More subtle cadenced, more forest wild. 
 Than Driope's lone lulling of her child." 
 
 Julian had thrown himself back in an attitude of 
 ease ; and he lay asleep, with his head turned towards 
 the side of the bed, partly resting upon one arm, while 
 the other was thrown carelessly across his chest. 
 
 Euthanasia was leaning over him, watching with 
 the most intense interest the pale face of her 
 brother. The eyes of the beautifid girl slowly 
 filled with tears ; she sighed deeply and often, and 
 at length, overcome by the fulness of her bosom, 
 the tears fell heavily upon Julian's face, and he was 
 awakened by her convulsive sobbing. 
 
 " My Euthanasia, — my sister — dear sister, what 
 is the cause of this ?" asked Julian, anxiously. 
 
 Euthanasia could not reply. She buried her face 
 in her brother's bosom, and gave full way to a 
 flood of tears. 
 
TITF. SPIRIT OF NATURE. 289 
 
 " Tell nie, my sister, of the trouble you have at 
 heart," said Julian, tenderly. 
 
 " I am a foolish child, Julian ; do not ask me. 
 I cannot tell you," replied Euthanasia, still weeping. 
 
 Julian parted the dark hair from the white fore- 
 head of his sister, and again entreated her to tell 
 him the cause of her tears. 
 
 " I feared you would die, Julian. I fancied I 
 might lose a brother who loves me, and my ]:)oor 
 heart burst out at my eyes ; but it is all over. I 
 am a ridiculous girl ; but, ray dearest brother, I 
 could not help my folly." 
 
 It was now Julian's turn to feel, and, in his 
 weakness, he could not prevent the rising of the 
 fountains of feeling, and their waters poured forth 
 in concert with those of Euthanasia. At length, 
 tranquillity was restored to those two bosoms, and 
 from that hour there was established a communion 
 of soul, which knew no interruption till the grave 
 closed over one of them. Even then the memories 
 which lived in the mind of the other, were, like 
 guardian angels, ever present to preserve its per- 
 fect purity. 
 
 Euthanasia had felt the want — even as a child — 
 of that support around which she could twine her 
 tender spirit. This feeling had increased upon her, 
 until it became a settled sorrow. Julian too, from 
 other causes, ever desired to find a heart, an all- 
 believing heart, in which he could confide. He 
 
290 PANTHEA, 
 
 had sought it in Eiidora; but, although he found 
 all the tenderness of woman, he also met with 
 the sternness of a teacher who fears not to reprove, 
 and he became, therefore, weak enough to disguise 
 his thoughts from her, to whom he devoted liis 
 affections. 
 
 Julian, improving under the careful attention 
 of all those by whom he was surrounded, was 
 shortly in a fit state to be removed in a wheel-chair 
 from his room into the open balcony, which ex- 
 tended around a large portion of the Hall, 
 
 Seated here, in the shade of numerous twining 
 plants and flowering shrubs, he listened with much 
 delight to his sister's simple singing of some 
 romantic ballad. Her sweet and plaintive voice 
 penetrated his soul, and he felt an amomit of 
 happiness, thus idly listening to her lays, such 
 as he never remembered to have been sensible of 
 before. Oftentimes Euthanasia read to Julian, 
 and sometimes, but more seldom, she endeavoiu*ed 
 to interest him with the simple philosophy of an 
 intelligent child. 
 
 " This rose, brother," she said one morning, " is 
 very beautiful." 
 
 " It is, indeed," rephed Julian. 
 
 " I often think, Julian, that heaven must be full 
 of flowers." 
 
 " Flowers have been called by poets the stars of 
 earth," said Julian ; " and by their bright in- 
 
THE SPIRIT OF NATURE. 291 
 
 fluences they do, indeed, increase the enjoyments 
 of our being." 
 
 " Can such beautiful things be without conscious- 
 ness, Juhan ?" asked Euthanasia. 
 
 " It has been proved that they have a vital power, 
 as delicately constituted as our oAvn ; that if we 
 wound a leaf upon a tree, every member feels the 
 injury, and that its flow of Hfe is checked. The 
 plant will pass around obstacles to reach the light, 
 and there are radiations which are as decidedly 
 avoided by it. But I know not, Euthanasia, if 
 we can call this consciousness." 
 
 " I like those fancies, brother, which people all 
 the beautiful things of earth with fairy forms," 
 said Euthanasia, eagerly. " It appears so delight- 
 fully to bind them in close relationship with us. 
 Oh, how I should love this flower, if I thought it 
 really hid a little spirit in its scented petals !" 
 
 Julian was silent ; — he thought of ^Eltgiva and 
 the lily. 
 
 " You do not believe there are such things as 
 fairies ?" asked the child. 
 
 " My Euthanasia," Julian solemnly replied, " that 
 there is a spiritual world, which we have not the 
 power of penetrating while stained by human sin, 
 I sincerely believe ; but the origin of all the my- 
 thologies which live in the traditions of our land 
 is lost. Doubtless, they were inspu-ations given to 
 man, to lead him to that truth which, sooner or 
 
 u 2 
 
292 PANTHEA, 
 
 later, he will arrive at; but the progress toward 
 which is retarded by the follies of the race." 
 
 " Oh, I should enjoy a visit to the abode of the 
 fairies," repKed Euthanasia. " To live with them 
 in flow^ers — to ride the air — to dive into the lakes 
 — to drive butterflies and grasshoppers, yoked by 
 sunbeams to cars made of golden butter-cups, 
 would be most delightful." As that beautiful 
 girl's face was lighted up with those sweet fancies, 
 Juhan gazed upon her with admiration, and thought 
 her, indeed, a fitting companion for those innocent 
 creations, in which the simple and good have ever 
 delighted. " But, Juhan, they are only stories 
 of the poets," Euthanasia continued. " Mr. Che- 
 verton told me they w^ere merely the inventions of 
 romance- writers, to please the ignorant." 
 
 " Mr. Cheverton is a philosopher," said Julian, 
 satirically. 
 
 " And consequently not a poet," added the in- 
 telhgent girl ; "I have not been pleased with him 
 since. But why should not a philosopher be a 
 poet?" 
 
 ** I knoW' not. Euthanasia." 
 
 " There is something wTong in your philosophy, 
 Julian ; for sm-ely a knowledge of the highest 
 truths of nature should lead to the most exalted 
 poetry." 
 
 " I have thought so, my Euthanasia," said Julian. 
 
 " And do you not think so now, brother ?" 
 
THE SPIRIT OF NATURE. 293 
 
 " I can scarcely venture a reply. T once thought 
 much of the poetry of science. I had dreams of 
 the Beautiful, while engaged in tlie discovery of 
 the True ; but our authorities in physics have so 
 chained themselves to retorts and test-tubes, iron 
 bars and copper wires, that they see nothing but 
 the merely mechanical and dully prosaic facts. We 
 have lost that exaltation of thought which, from 
 an atom, rises to the contemplation of a world ; 
 from a world, lifts itself to the immense universe ; 
 and from the sublime immensity of planetary space, 
 ascends to that spiritual existence, in which human 
 vision loses itself in its efforts to pierce that celestial 
 brightness which hides the Eternal One. The age 
 is not poetic, and consequently its- philosophy — " 
 
 " Is prosy," interrupted the child, with a sweet 
 laugh. " Oh, Julian, I wish you were not a phi- 
 losopher." 
 
 " If I am a philosopher, Euthanasia, I am a 
 sadly poetical one. You and I should have been 
 born, sister, in those days when 
 
 " ' Old Silenus, shaking a green stick 
 
 Of lilies, and the wood -gods in a crew 
 Came, blithe, as in the olive copses thick 
 
 Cicadas are, drunk with the noonday dew ; 
 And Driope and Faunus followed quick, 
 
 Teazing the god to sing them something new.' " 
 
 '' I know not how it is, Julian, but whenever 
 I hear of Shelley, as I have heard from Miss 
 
294 PANTHEA, 
 
 Wariiigtoii, I thiuk he must have resembled 
 you," said Euthanasia, in a sorrowful tone. 
 
 " You are a strange child, Euthanasia ; in what 
 can I resemble that extraordinary genius and mis- 
 taken man ?" 
 
 " Because, my brother, you have been both ex- 
 traordinary and mistaken — at least, they all tell 
 me so, — and I fancy, Julian, I can see they have 
 not told me untruly." 
 
 Julian smiled, and taking his sister's hands in 
 his own, he said, " Now, tell me what you think 
 of yoiu' strange brother." 
 
 " Well, Julian, if you promise me not to be 
 displeased 
 
 " Displeased with Euthanasia ! — no," inten-upted 
 Julian, and tenderly pressed his sister's hands to 
 his lips. 
 
 " You are no doubt a genius, — you will persist 
 in driving your intellect the wrong way." 
 
 " Who taught you that, my pretty one ?" 
 
 " Now, my Lord Julian, cannot I say a good 
 thing, but I must have been taught it ? Although 
 I am a school-gii'l, I have eyes and ears of my own, 
 sm'ely." 
 
 " Eorgive me, Euthanasia ; go on. What would 
 you say should be the right direction, then ?" 
 
 " I am certain, dear brother, you have been dream- 
 ing. You have been lookhig for beauty by destroy- 
 ing the beautiful ; and to find the mystery of a 
 
THE SPIKIT OF NATURE. 295 
 
 curious stone, you have broken tlie vase to pieces, 
 into which it was fashioned by a master-hand." 
 
 " My sister ! and arc you the intclhgent creature 
 I have neglected so ? But go on." 
 
 Tears were in Euthanasia's eyes, and her bosom 
 heaved quickly. 
 
 " My words come almost against my will, Julian ; 
 but I do think you have been in error. You sought, 
 with iEltgiva, to know the mystery of Panthea." 
 
 " How know you that?" eagerly inquired Julian. 
 
 " -^Itgiva has told me, brother ; but — I have 
 betrayed her ; — do, do be secret, Julian. I am 
 a silly child." She wiped the tears from her 
 bright eyes. 
 
 " I will not utter a word of what you tell me, 
 Euthanasia. Have you seen her often?" asked 
 Julian, 
 
 " Yes," replied Euthanasia ; " almost daily since 
 you left us for London." 
 
 " And did no one know of this?" 
 
 " No one, Julian," replied Euthanasia. " You 
 know my own garden ; I demanded of Miss Waring- 
 ton the privilege of retiring alone to my own beau- 
 tiful bower ; — -have you seen it ? it is covered with 
 briUiant flowers ; — to learn those tasks she gave 
 me ; and there we met, and I learnt more from 
 the teaching of that dear woman than from all 
 my other teachers." 
 
 Julian sighed very deeply, and anxiously asked — 
 
296 PAI^THEA, 
 
 " But of the mystery of Pauthea : do you know 
 ought of that?" 
 
 " ^Itgiva has explained to me, my brother, that 
 a Spirit, of intellectual beauty, pervades creation, 
 and she says it is rendered sensible to human 
 vision in the form of Panthea. I have often dreamt 
 of this Celestial, and I have fancied she has watched 
 my slumbers in an angel's form, which was also 
 that of ^Eltgiva." 
 
 Julian paused, and pressing his sister's hand — 
 " My sweet sister, you revive some strange feelings 
 in my heart. But how have I done wrong?" 
 Julian, who was still excessively weak, trembled 
 with nervous agitation. 
 
 " Why, my brother, you have sought Panthea, 
 and spiritualized your mind to witness her sub- 
 limity ; and then you have toiled like a gnome in 
 the earth, to find the mystery of clayey atoms. 
 Between both, you have been bewildered and lost. 
 Oh, Julian, leave the cold philosophy — cheerless 
 and dead — of the ^vorld, and lead me through those 
 paths where for ever shines the light of this 
 intellectual beauty." 
 
 " Euthanasia," said Julian, " you speak the 
 words, and you almost have the voice, of .^Itgiva. 
 Leave me, my dear sister, my head is rocking to 
 and fro ; send me Edward," (the name of his 
 valet.) " I must retire to my chamber." 
 
 Euthanasia left him with a sigh. 
 
THE SPIHIT OV NATURE. 297 
 
 " Why this temptation ?" said Juhan, and sighed 
 also. 
 
 His valet immediately attended, and Julian 
 Altamont returned to his apartment with an agi- 
 tated mind. 
 
 For two days Julian did not leave his room. He 
 was so depressed in spirits that he cared not to quit 
 his bed. The third day came, and Julian remem- 
 bered that Euthanasia had not been near him. He 
 called his valet. " I wish to see Lady Euthanasia, 
 Edward." 
 
 The valet left the room, but soon returned. 
 
 " Lady Euthanasia is indisposed this morning, 
 my lord," said the valet. 
 
 There was something in the man's look and 
 manner which alarmed Julian. 
 
 " Lidisposed, Sir ! Do you mean that my sister 
 is ill?" asked Julian, quickly. 
 
 " I am told, my lord, that she cannot leave her 
 room to-day." 
 
 " Can she leave her bed ? No untruth, Edward." 
 
 " I beheve not, my lord," replied the trembling 
 valet. 
 
 " Assist me to dress instantly." 
 
 " My lord, you really must not — I cannot — My 
 lord—" 
 
 " Do as I bid you. Sir ; and no trifling." 
 
 Julian sprang from his bed, and stood alone firm 
 and strong. He hastily dressed himself by the aid 
 of his distressed valet, who at least twenty times 
 
298 PANTHEA, 
 
 sought for some excuse to go from the room; 
 but he was prevented by the angry voice of his 
 master. 
 
 Being dressed, " Give me your arm, Sir : I am 
 still unsteady," said Julian. His valet advanced 
 towards him. 
 
 " Do not, my lord. Lady Euthanasia is very ill," 
 said Edward ; " but the Countess desired that you 
 should not know of it." 
 
 " The more cause for haste," said Julian. " I 
 must visit her." And, seizing the man's arm, he 
 supported himself upon it, and almost dragged his 
 unwilling servant along the gallery, to the suite of 
 apartments which were appropriated to Lady Eu- 
 thanasia. 
 
 " Wait here. Sir," Julian said in a whisper ; and 
 then he quietly opened the door and entered. 
 
 He was in an outer room, w^hich was used for the 
 purposes of study. The bedroom of the young lady 
 was beyond, but was entered from it. Julian paused ; 
 all was silent. There lay, on the chairs and tables, 
 the books and the fancy work on which his sister 
 had last been engaged ; and, on the piano, the 
 piece of music stood open which she had last prac- 
 tised. There was an unusual disorder about the 
 room ; and he felt convinced that something seri- 
 ously wrong had prevented Miss Warington from 
 bestowing her attention upon the order of the 
 apartment. As he heard no sound, he fancied 
 Euthanasia slept ; and, sensible of his extreme 
 
THE SPIRIT OF NATURE. 299 
 
 weakness, lie sank noiselessly into a chair, to await 
 the entrance of some one from the bedroom. 
 
 He had not been seated many minutes, when 
 there was a stir in the adjoining apartment. 
 " Quick," said a female voice most anxiously. 
 There was a hurried movement ; — a ringing of a 
 bell violently. He heard his sister make a smo- 
 thered exclamation, and a strange rushing sound 
 followed. Julian sprang to the door of the apart- 
 ment ; and there, aghast, he stood ! His beautiful 
 sister, pale as a corpse, was supported in the bed 
 by Eudora Spencer on one side, and by Miss War- 
 ington on the other, her white dress saturated 
 with blood. 
 
 " Oh God ! have mercy !" exclaimed Julian. 
 
 Euthanasia heard her brother's voice. He fan- 
 cied she smiled upon him, as she fell back, faint 
 from loss of blood, into Eudora's arms. 
 
 In a few moments, the Countess, the family phy- 
 sician, who was in the hall, and two or three anxious 
 domestics, were in the room. 
 
 The Countess looked, first upon the apparently 
 dead body of her daughter lying in the arms of 
 Eudora Spencer, who was shedding heavy tears as 
 she looked upon her beautiful burthen — whom she, 
 indeed, thought dead, — and then upon her son, who 
 stood, rigid as a statue, and pale as its marble, 
 looking helplessly upon his sister ; and she felt, 
 indeed, the bitterness of woe. That excellent 
 
300 PANTHEA, 
 
 woman, however, commanded her feelmgs ; and her 
 only outward expression of them was an implor- 
 ing upturning of the head, as though she asked 
 heaven to support her. The physician pronounced 
 that Euthanasia had only fainted ; and he relieved 
 Eudora of his patient, and requested all to leave the 
 room except Miss Warington and the niurse. The 
 Countess approached her son, took him by the hand, 
 and led him quietly into the adjoining boudoir ; 
 when, bursting into a paroxysm of tears, he 
 exclaimed, " Cruel, cruel, not to have told me 
 of this !" 
 
 The extreme deHcacy of the fabric, in which was 
 placed the soul of Euthanasia, was such, that this 
 result might have been predicated. Although a 
 child, there was, in all she said and did, a prema- 
 ture womanhood. Her precocity was remarkable : 
 her young mind was always active. In such con- 
 stitutions, we constantly find the fire of the mind 
 consuming the elements of organization ; and where 
 such a result as that which Euthanasia now suff'ered 
 from does not happen, life is usually terminated by 
 marasmus. 
 
 On the evening of the day on which Julian and 
 his sister conversed so long in the balcony. Eutha- 
 nasia complained of cold, and expressed a desire to 
 retii-e early to rest. She had slept about an liour, 
 when she awoke Avith a sense of suffocation ; and 
 as she raised herself in bed, the outburst of blood 
 
THE SPIRIT OF NATURE. 301 
 
 too plainly told that a vessel had been broken. 
 The scene just described was, therefore, the 
 second time this alarming symptom had presented 
 itself. 
 
 When calmed, the Countess informed Julian of 
 all they had to fear, and how remote was the hope 
 in which even the most sanguine could dare to hi- 
 dulge. " Her sweet soul," sighed the Countess, 
 " will return early to that heaven, which I hope it 
 is fitted to enjoy." 
 
 Mr. Cheverton, at the request of the Countess, 
 joined them ; and all retiring to a more distant 
 room, they knelt in prayer. That holy philo- 
 sopher approached, with all humility and resig- 
 nation, the throne of the Most High, with his 
 petition that the life of the beloved child might 
 be spared. 
 
 Anxious were the watches kept at the bedside of 
 Euthanasia. Her brother, Julian, appeared to have 
 recovered suddenly from the state of depression in 
 which he had been so long. Hour on hour, by day 
 and by night, did he sit watching that bright spirit 
 exerting its expiring influences on his sister's beau- 
 tifid form, — like a light within an alabaster urn, 
 flickering unsteadily as it sinks slowly away, its 
 supply of oil being nearly exhausted. 
 
 One morning. Euthanasia awoke from a placid 
 slumber with a delightful smile upon her pale face. 
 She saw her brother sitting at her bedside, and 
 
302 PANTHEA, 
 
 the Countess and Eudora Spencer standing in the 
 embayment of the window, looking out on the 
 bright sky. 
 
 " Brother," said Euthanasia, in an exceedingly 
 low tone, " I have been dreaming of Panthea, and 
 I begin to see that all nature is full of the holy 
 influences of her spirit ; and, brother, I am soon to 
 be blended in that diffusion of radiance which is 
 Heaven." 
 
 Julian took her hand. She saw that tears were 
 in his eyes. 
 
 " Do not weep, Julian ; reserve your tears for 
 sorrow ; rather smile with me that I am so soon to 
 be liberated from ray prison, and to enter on a state 
 of spiritual bhss — free to enjoy an existence which 
 has no horizon." 
 
 The Countess and Eudora had approached the 
 bed. Euthanasia turned calmly round, and said : 
 
 " ^Eltgiva's hand, mother, must close those lids 
 when next I sleep." 
 
 The Countess trembled; but she restrained 
 those severe pangs which quickened her heart's 
 pulsations ; and, hesitating to reply, she looked to 
 Eudora Spencer. Julian saw the hesitation. 
 
 " Euthanasia, I will bring her to you," said he ; 
 and immediately he left the room. 
 
 " My dear child," said the Countess, " shall 
 Mr. Chevcrton pray with you?" 
 
 " I have nothing to pray for, mother." 
 
THE SPIRIT OF NATURE. 303 
 
 The Countess sluiddered, and Euthanasia saw it. 
 
 " Mistake me not," Euthanasia continued. " The 
 great God, who loveth us, has spread over me those 
 eternal wings of brightness which belong to the 
 Spirit of Nature; they wait to enfold my soul 
 and bear it to heaven ; — what can I pray for 
 more r 
 
 The Countess felt that in this speech of her 
 daughter there was an unfaithfulness to that creed 
 in which she had instructed her ; but, feeling unable 
 to meet the emergency, she whispered to Eudora 
 to seek Mr. Cheverton. 
 
 Eudora Spencer shortly returned with that di- 
 vine. 
 
 Euthanasia, exhausted with the slight effort she 
 had made to explain her meaning to her mother, 
 had sunk back, and closed her eyes. Her chest 
 heaved ; but for that indication, she might have 
 passed for one that was. Mr. Cheverton, deeply 
 affected, knelt by that bedside ; but no word was 
 spoken. 
 
 After a short time, Euthanasia opened her eyes, 
 which scintillated with light, as she exclaimed, in a 
 clear, sweet tone, " She comes !" 
 
 " Who?" asked Mr. Cheverton, turning to Eu- 
 dora Spencer. 
 
 " ^Itgiva !" replied Eudora. 
 
 Mr. Cheverton sighed ; he arose from the bed- 
 side and walked to the window, from which he saw 
 
304 PANTHEA, 
 
 — as he afterwards said — a youth guided by au 
 angel. 
 
 The appearance of Julian, exhausted as he had 
 been by disease, was now singularly striking. It 
 was all manliness, united to all the delicacy of 
 womanly beauty. His pale and intellectual face 
 was full of the poetry of thought ; and now, eager 
 with his anxiety, it was intensely expressive. vElt- 
 giva, clad in a flowing white robe, resting her hand 
 upon, or rather grasping, his arm, moved on quickly 
 by his side./There was at all times a marked dis- 
 tinction in every movement of this strange creature. 
 Men might — as indeed they did — say that an air of 
 madness was in her expression : — it was that glorious 
 shining of the soul through the body, which is so 
 rare on earth, which was mistaken for madness. 
 Her spirit transmuted everything around her into 
 beauty. Her every thought was a mental process 
 by which the dark features of existence were made 
 bright ; and every outward manifestation of life was, 
 consequently, moulded to that elegance which arose 
 from the inward influences. Jj]ltgiva had no thought 
 which did not embody the beautiful ; and by that 
 mysterious connexion of mind and body — the bind- 
 ing chain of which has not been found — every 
 expression of her face — every accent of her voice — 
 every movement of her form, was replete with beauty. 
 Mr. Cheverton, therefore, saw in her a fine realiza- 
 tion of his idea of an angel, y 
 
THE SPIRIT OF NATURE, 305 
 
 ^Eltgiva and Julian entered the room. Eutha- 
 nasia, who liad such a strange prescience of the 
 coming of /Eltgiva, had anxiously watched the door ; 
 and as they entered she raised herself up in the bed, 
 and extended her arms. JEltgiva advanced ; — 
 Euthanasia fell forward, clasping her neck, and 
 looking into her face with an expression of intense 
 love. After a short interval, the dying girl looked at 
 the group — so anxiously and so sorrowfully stand- 
 ing near her ; and having carefully examined each 
 one, she said, " I see not my father, the Earl." 
 
 Mr. Cheverton retired, but very quickly returned 
 with the Earl of Devonport, who appeared greatly 
 oppressed by the cloud which hung over his 
 house. 
 
 He advanced towards his daughter, who was still 
 supported by yEltgiva. 
 
 " My father ! dear father !" said Euthanasia. 
 
 The Earl, perceiving with what fondness her arm 
 embraced the neck of /Eltgiva, could not repress 
 his anger. 
 
 " Why am I mocked by this display?" he said, 
 turning to the Countess. "Is it not enough that 
 I allow Laon to perpetrate his folly ? — must I also 
 endure the madness of his daughter ?" 
 
 " Yes, for a season," was the reply of that remark- 
 able voice, which had already, with its soft music, 
 said, " Peace, be still," to the troubled waves of his 
 impetuous spirit. 
 
 X 
 
300 PANTHEA, 
 
 The Earl turned again towards ^Eltgiva, who 
 moved not from her seat on the bed. 
 
 " For a season," she contmued, " my presence, 
 which is a cloud to you, must be endured ; a short 
 season, and my mission of peace will be ended. 
 Within an hour I shall leave your hall, never more 
 to enter herein. Let that hour be calmly devoted 
 to the mysteries with which it is fraught. My lord, 
 your daughter — " 
 
 ^Itgiva moved a little aside ; and the Earl, whose 
 wrath was restrained by ^Eltgiva's words and man- 
 ner, put forth his hand to Euthanasia. She seized 
 it, pressed it to her lips, and then, by the motion 
 of her head, expressed a desii'e to kiss her parent on 
 the cheek. The Earl was touched ; he bent for- 
 ward to hide his emotion, kissed his daughter's 
 forehead, and she imprinted a last kiss upon that 
 cheek, which she had never kissed before. 
 
 The dying child, still holding him by the hand, 
 said, in a low tone of voice, " Father, I am depart- 
 ino; from a beautiful world for a heaven of infinite 
 brightness. In the death of your child let no shade 
 of sorrow be seen, for her end here is the beginning 
 of eternal happiness. If Julian fails to perceive the 
 world in the same aspect as you do, always re- 
 member that every soul sees through its own 
 medium." 
 
 She would have said more, but she sank back 
 exhausted upon ^Itgiva. 
 
THE SPIRIT OF NATURE. 307 
 
 The Earl covered his eyes with his hands, and 
 walked aside. 
 
 There was a long and anxious silence. The 
 heavy breathing of Euthanasia told too plainly that 
 her end was approaching. The chill of death ap- 
 peared to spread its paralyzing influences upon all 
 around ; so deadly silent was the group which now 
 watched the beautiful sufferer — if sufferer one could 
 be called, who was struggling merely to wing her 
 way to purer skies. 
 
 Euthanasia's breathing became less audible. She 
 waved her hand in the air for some moments ; then, 
 raising herself still higher in the bed, she opened 
 her eyes, and looking upon her brother with an 
 intensity which he felt painful, she exclaimed, 
 " The Beautiful !" 
 
 She then fell back into the arms of .^Itgiva, who 
 pressed her fondly to her heart. 
 
 Euthanasia fixed her eyes upon those of ^Eltgiva ; 
 and they appeared to find in their depths the light 
 they sought. They never moved again — they gra- 
 dually grew rigid and glassy ; and, some minutes 
 after their consciousness to light had ceased, and 
 death appeared to have done its work, Euthanasia's 
 lips were seen to move, and a whisper was heard 
 distinctly by all, bearing still the music of the word 
 " Beautiful." 
 
 iEltgiva passed her hand over those sightless 
 eyes, and softly placed Euthanasia back upon her 
 
 X 2 
 
308 PANTHEA, 
 
 pillow. There was one throb — the world had lost 
 a serene spirit, and heaven had gained another 
 Watcher. 
 
 Was one tearless in that company ? The Earl 
 and Countess, Julian and Eudora, Mr. Cheverton 
 and the physician, the governesses, nurse, and ser- 
 vants, who had anxiously crowded there, wept. 
 There were hysterical manifestations of woman's 
 weakness, and heavy sobs, which show that man- 
 hood was scarcely less sensitive than she. But one 
 stood in the midst of all, erect as a prophetess, in 
 whose eye there was no indication of a tear. 
 
 ^Eltgiva cast a glance on all around her, and 
 smiled. After a minute's silence, she exclaimed, in 
 a tone of voice which startled all : 
 
 " Bury your dead ! Erom her corpse, flowers 
 will rise in the spring-time, and they will give rich 
 perfume to the summer. — Bury your dead ! The 
 spirit has cast off its garments, and she floats now 
 an Infinite Brightness. — Bury your dead ! Her 
 w^ords still remain to instruct you, and guide you 
 in peace to the Beautiful. — Bury your dead ! The 
 days of weak sorrow being ended, and joy having 
 returned to your bosoms, you may come and bury 
 ^Eltgiva, whose panting heart will be silent." 
 
 All present were astounded, and many trembled 
 with fear. Her concluding words sounded so so- 
 lemnly awful — they were given in a tone like that 
 of a voice from the depths of the earth — that all, 
 
THE SPIRIT OF NATURE. 309 
 
 palsied with a sensation of deep awe, saw ^Itgiva 
 quit tlie room without daring to move from the spot 
 upon which they stood, when they heard this sad 
 prophecy — " Bury your dead!" rung in the ears 
 of all ; and in none so dreadfully, as in those of the 
 passionate Earl. 
 
 Life knows no endming sorrow. The darkness 
 of night gives place to the morning light. The 
 clouds of the tempest, sweeping the air in black- 
 ness, pass on before the wdnds ; and the clear blue 
 of heaven is seen to be still unsullied above them. 
 There is a purity in the heart of all, which cannot 
 be destroyed ; and sorrow, and even crime passes 
 over it, but it will shine forth in its pellucid 
 beauty again. 
 
 The beautiful creation, w^hich had perished so 
 eai'ly, was laid in the lap of earth ; human tears 
 fell upon the mould ; and, in the spring, the grass 
 grew green, and the mild daisies looked to heaven, 
 from that spot so sanctified to many memories. 
 
310 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 THE TKUE PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 " How slowly does truth flow in upon the mind ! 
 The world waited for Archimedes to wash himself 
 in a shallow bath, ere it discovered a method by 
 which the specific weight of bodies could be deter- 
 mined. The Greeks knew that some mystery in- 
 volved electron — amber. They said it had a spirit, 
 which drew light substances unto it ; and they had 
 men of mighty minds, who carefully noted facts, 
 and who possessed remarkable powers of analysis. 
 Yet, the world waited more than two thousand 
 years to learn that the spirit of electron was one of 
 the universal powers, which manifested its force in 
 the ravagings of the hghtning, and which irresist- 
 ibly, but tranquilly, disposed of the atoms of which 
 the world is built. The loadstone of Magnesia was 
 sung of by Lucretius ; and from earlier times was 
 its polar indications observed by the Indian and 
 Phoenician navigators. But it was reserved for 
 
THE SPIRIT OF NATURE. 311 
 
 (Ersted to discover the proof of the connection of 
 magnetism and electricity ; and for Faraday to 
 develop facts which manifestly show that every atom 
 of matter arranges itself relatively to every other 
 atom, in obedience to immutable laws." Such was 
 the language of Mr, Cheverton, when, a few weeks 
 after the bmial of Euthanasia, Julian Altamont 
 having rapidly recovered strength, he walked with 
 the young lord over one of the most picturesque 
 portions of the Park of Altamont. 
 
 Julian's countenance still bore traces of the shock 
 his system had received. There was an evident 
 melancholy in his air, but that quiet in his expres- 
 sion and in his words, which — Hke the calm of 
 evening following a stormy day and predicating a 
 tranquil morrow — bespoke the repose which argues 
 a healthful condition of the soul. 
 
 " A mystery surrounds the development of 
 Truth," said Julian, in reply to Mr. Cheverton. 
 " It would appear that there is an appointed time 
 for the birth of each new fact ; — that the day and 
 hour is fixed upon which the light is to be let in 
 upon the mind of some high, earth-born intelligence. 
 The discoverer of one of Natm-e'"s secrets stands in 
 the light of a high priest, through whom the neAv 
 advent of Truth is made. How dignified the 
 position ! How soul-ennobling the reflection ! that 
 a poor experimentalist may be made the medium of 
 expressing to the world the thought of God." 
 
312 PANTHEA, 
 
 "There is much beauty m the fancy, my lord," 
 said Mr. Chevertoii ; " and it is a pity to disturb it. 
 Have you ever thought how cmiously men hold the 
 end of a clue for ages, without attempting to trace the 
 labyrinth through which it winds — at the termination 
 of which is an almighty Truth ? The electron you 
 have named is a striking example of this ; and the 
 phenomenon of the propulsive force of steam, known 
 to Hiero, remained unexamined until Boyle, over- 
 coming all the ridicide which Avas cast upon his 
 researches on the elasticity and pressure of the aii-, 
 led the way to that train of investigation, which 
 was crowned at length by the triumph of the steam 
 engine in the hands of Watt." 
 
 " There is much to be written on this subject, Mr. 
 Cheverton, which is not to be found in any history of 
 the Inductive Sciences," said Julian. " But more 
 curious still appears to be that progress which is made 
 through errors — many of them of the most glaring 
 kind. Look at astrology, and at alchemy ; the one 
 leading to astronomy, and the other to chemistry. 
 And then, the doctrine of phlogiston, regarded as 
 the principle of levity ; and yet, leading to such a 
 clear development of the laws which regulate all 
 those changes that are exhibited during combustion." 
 
 " Astrology started from a grand truth," replied 
 Mr. Cheverton ; " that truth which has led, in our 
 time, to an astronomical triuun)h — the discovery 
 of Nej)tunc, through the i)crturbadons of Uranus. 
 
THE SPIRIT OV NATURE. 313 
 
 The Magi, or some of the Asian priesthood, proljably 
 noted disturljances among the stars ; and, arguing 
 that that power which would agitate the greater 
 mass must influence its smallest particles, they hence 
 concluded that, according to the position of those 
 stars, must be the destiny of man. Some truth was 
 mixed with a large amount of error ; and men, 
 firmly believing the doctrines of the astrologer, 
 constantly aided him in working out the truth of 
 his predictions. The blind folly of the struggle to 
 produce gold by transmutation (also of Eastern 
 origin), was based on the marvellous truth, that 
 Natm*e actually effects most extraordinary transmu- 
 tations in her works. But man, without stopping 
 to examine the laws which regulate the conditions 
 of matter, leaped to conclusions, filling up the 
 interval with wild fancies which were most futile ; 
 and they received, as their reward, well-merited 
 contempt and ruin." 
 
 " Have we any evidence of actual transmutation 
 in Nature ?" asked Julian. 
 
 " In the organic world we have certainly wonder- 
 ful transmutations, — the same elements combining 
 in like proportions, — assuming widely different 
 forms. In the inorganic kingdom we have not such 
 direct evidence ; but the remarkable facts to which 
 the great Berzelius drew attention — which he calls 
 the allotropic condition of bodies, the same elements 
 
314 PANTHEA, 
 
 taking almost opposite states — stand in proof of a 
 natiu'al transmutation." 
 
 " Then, wlien I saw Laon endeavouring to trans- 
 mute ii'on into nickel, he was not pursuing so 
 mere a dream?" said Julian. 
 
 " When we find that the most refractory metals 
 may exist in a vapourized state, — that the substance 
 which we know as iron may have been in the state 
 of transparency which was not very difierent from 
 that of the atmosphere which now siu'rounds us, — 
 when we find phosphorus, which is ordinarily most 
 readily ignited, undergoing a physical change, by 
 which, though it is phosphorus still, it is rendered 
 exceedingly difficult of combustion, — we dare not 
 say that transmutation is impossible. But, so ex- 
 tensive is the field of inquiiy into the operation of 
 physical laws — of powers of which we have not 
 yet dreamed — that it appears to me that many ages 
 must be passed in close observation and industrious 
 experiment before this discovery can be rendered 
 probable ; and, after all, the end being obtained, 
 the cupidity of man will receive a most lamentable 
 disappointment . ' ' 
 
 " The Stahlian hypothesis of plilogiston strangely 
 helped the truth, although proved to be false itself," 
 Julian remarked. 
 
 " I cannot but regard the doctrme of plilogiston," 
 said Mr. Cheverton, in reply to Julian, " as a 
 
THE SPIRIT OF NATURE. 315 
 
 speculation which was far in advance of all other 
 theories of the time. That bodies contained a 
 combustible element, was not an unapt expression 
 to explain the phenomenon of a burning body ; but 
 close habits of observation were wanting in the 
 advocates of phlogiston. They were like those 
 men who, now-a-days, attribute everything they 
 cannot explain to electricity ; and they conceived 
 a body, essentially light, escaping from the com- 
 bustible, not knowing that the change they saw 
 was due to the combination of oxygen with the 
 bm'ning body." 
 
 " I am not sure but that many of our theories 
 are even wider of the truth than was the theory 
 of phlogiston," Julian added. 
 
 " I believe many of them are idle fancies," 
 replied Mr. Cheverton ; " they are like mermaids : 
 one half being true to nature, and the other half 
 wretchedly false ; but science will eventually remove 
 the fish's tail, and we shall have a well-formed and 
 natural creation in its place." 
 
 " Your conceit, Mr. Cheverton, is not a bad one. 
 But you chain, I think, the mind too closely to 
 material facts. Some intellects, advancing far-ahead 
 of others, pass these details — those mere stepping- 
 stones — and at one stride stand on an eminence 
 of truth." 
 
 " In the discovery of Natm'e's truths this is not 
 true. If a man has dared to advance without 
 
316 PANTHEA, 
 
 examining the path along which he has moved, 
 depend upon it that path must be retraced," was 
 Mr. Cheverton's reply. 
 
 " Consider Sir Isaac Newton, and the discovery 
 of gravitation." 
 
 " You give me an apt illustration," said Mr. 
 Cheverton. " Never was any of the paths of science 
 more carefully examined by all the powers of the 
 human mind, than that which led our truly-great 
 Newton to the discovery of the law of gravitation. 
 But even Newton allowed his most comprehensive 
 mind to advance too fast in his inquiries on some 
 other natural phenomena. His theory of light will 
 not stand the searching investigation of modern 
 analysis ; and even his hypothesis of colours has 
 been found incorrect ; and before we shall arrive at 
 a true view of the phenomena of luminous radia- 
 tions, we must be content to return to the subject 
 where Newton found it, and forget that either the 
 corpuscular or the undulatory theories ever had 
 existence. Both have some truth, but they do not 
 express the entire truth." 
 
 " The mathematical philosopher will not admit 
 your conclusions," said Julian. 
 
 " Perhaps not ; but we must remember that the 
 premises upon which mathematical analyses are 
 founded, remain to be established ; if the foundation 
 fails, the superstructure must soon fall." 
 
 After a pause, Julian continued : — " But when 
 
THE SPIRIT OF NATURE. 317 
 
 we consider the sudden advances of the Greek 
 mind, rising, Hke a bright star of Hght, from tlic 
 mystic darkness of Egyj)tian rule, may we not 
 conceive an individual — equally as the combined 
 mass of mind in Greece — shooting forth like a 
 meteor?" 
 
 " We may conceive it in some of the exercises 
 of thought," replied Mr. Cheverton ; " but not 
 in such as demand experiment, or are the result 
 of close investigation. Look carefully at Greece ; 
 her religion was the Beautiful." 
 
 Julian's eyes sparkled ; a chord in his heart 
 vibrated responsively to this. " And is not the 
 Beautifid ever the True ?" eagerly asked he. 
 
 " The True must ever be the Beautiful," replied 
 Mr. Cheverton ; " but let us remember that our 
 knowledge of what is beautiful requires nice culti- 
 vation. Do we not constantly discover that the 
 False has assumed the guise of the Beautiful ? and 
 do we not full frequently learn that we have been 
 led away by tinsel, and neglected the pure gold ?" 
 
 " Alas ! I fear, Mr. Cheverton, you are correct ; 
 but Greece — " 
 
 " Greece," interrupted Mr. Cheverton, " is con- 
 stantly appealed to as an exemplification of the 
 human mind in its most exalted condition. It 
 cannot be denied that the w^orship of the Beautiful 
 advanced the Greek mind far beyond that of any 
 people who preceded them. The desire to find 
 
818 PANTHEA, 
 
 the Beautiful in the external form of all things, 
 and in the indwelling powers, which, with their 
 fine perceptions, they saw must exist behind the 
 screen, was their rehgion. They learnt from the 
 sombre Egyptians of the mysterious veil of Isis ; 
 and this mythological conceit produced that meta- 
 physical philosophy which most distinguishingly 
 marks the mental efforts of the Greeks. They were 
 not inductive philosophers ; they could not, either by 
 analysis or synthesis, test natural phenomena ; but 
 they conceived that active powders must be beyond 
 what they saw, to give rise to such conditions of 
 beauty as their lovely clime exhibited; and they 
 imagined intelligences of a spiritual nature, who 
 performed those tasks which w^e know now belong 
 to the exercise of physical forces," 
 
 " You have destroyed a delightful impression, 
 which has lived in my mind until I loved it," 
 said Julian, with a sigh. 
 
 " The truths brought to light by the aids of 
 science are far more beautiful, because they are true, 
 and, being so, are divine, — than any mythology, 
 howsoever poetical it may be. I can enjoy the 
 mystical poetry by which the Greek philosophers 
 strove to explain great natm^al phenomena; but 
 but it is in the same way as I feel pleased with 
 their polytheistic religion, which exhibits a longing 
 for the True and the Beautiful. Modern science 
 stands in regard to the first, as does Christianity 
 
THE SPTUIT OF NATURE. 319 
 
 in reference to the other. One is as pleasing as 
 the varied tints and shapes of the clouds at sunrise, 
 but the other is the sun arisen." 
 
 " You admit the inspirations of genius," said 
 Julian. " Can you, then, deny to such minds as 
 those possessed by Plato, Aristotle, and Pythagoras, 
 the power of seeing the truth ?" 
 
 "I do not deny them this. When Plato asks — 
 How is it possible so prodigious a mass as that of 
 the earth can be carried round for so long a time 
 by any natural cause ? — when Aristotle so beauti- 
 fully calls upon man to perceive the magnitude 
 of the clouds ; to measure the force of the winds ; 
 to behola the grandeur and beauty of the sun, and 
 its power of producing day by diffusing its light 
 through heaven ; to obsei-ve when night had over- 
 spread the earth with darkness, that heaven was 
 studded and adorned with stars ; and to mark the 
 phases of the moon, and the stated and immutable 
 courses of all these, throughout all eternity, and 
 deny, if he can, that these works are the works of 
 gods ; — surely they give us proof of a sublime 
 contemplation of the universe by these Grecian 
 sages, which stand forth as inspirations in the 
 psychological history of mankind. Pythagoras 
 must have been a close observer of nature, and 
 a man of most active mind, or he never could have 
 promidgated the great truth, that the earth moved 
 in a circle. The Pythagoreans must not be 
 
320 PANTHEA, 
 
 regarded strictly as representatives of tlieii' master ; 
 for their idea of a central fire was rather derived 
 from the sacred books of the magi, than from him ; 
 and, although it has still its hold upon the human 
 mind as a theory, it cannot be regarded as one of 
 the clear, high thoughts of the man who, rejecting 
 the starry concameration of the Ptolemaic system, 
 with its eccentrics and epicycles, introduced the 
 tenets which the Canon of Tourain, Copernicus, 
 restored ; or perceived such a harmony in the 
 planetary scheme, as to teach his disciples that the 
 stars moved to the most divine music. These men, 
 Plato, Aristotle, and Pythagoras, did not rest in 
 idleness, to wait for the coming of that inspiration, 
 but, by mental toil of the severest kind, they proved 
 their worthiness of the high reward of being made 
 the ministers of truth to man." 
 
 " According to your creed, Mr. Cheverton, the 
 discovery of the truth is the reward of human 
 industry ?" 
 
 There was a marked force thrown by Julian into 
 this question, which could not have escaped even 
 a less observant mind than Mr. Cheverton's. 
 
 " To labom- is the destiny of man," he replied, 
 with energy ; " and the recovery of that high state 
 of intelligence which he lost, is entirely dependent 
 upon the active use he makes of those faculties 
 with which he is endowed. The parable of the 
 talents applies to all." 
 
THE SPIRIT OF NATURE. 321 
 
 " I fear I have been idle in the midst of a fancied 
 activity," said Julian, with a sigh. 
 
 " There are active minds," replied Mr. Cheverton, 
 " which leap from the known — which, indeed, they 
 will not stop to examine — away into the regions of 
 the unknown, and who, as Bacon says, surround 
 themselves by forms, which are but the smoke of 
 their own vain fancies." 
 
 " Mr. Cheverton, you are severe upon me." Ju- 
 lian paused, and they walked on together for some 
 time in silence; at length Julian somewhat sud- 
 denly asked, " Have I not had visions of the truth ? 
 — Have I been the dupe of my own senses ?" 
 
 " In your dreams," said Mr. Cheverton, — " and 
 I must tell you, I consider you have spent the past 
 year in dreaming, — you have doubtless mixed up 
 truth and error — as in our nightly dreams we com- 
 bine the circumstances of the day with, the wild 
 fancies of an unchecked mind. Remember, my dear 
 young lord, the past as evidences merely of the exist- 
 ence of psychological phenomena which we cannot 
 explain, and endeavour for the future to bend your 
 energetic mind to the task of picking out your road 
 along the surface of the earth. Ask — anxiously and 
 frequently ask — of Nature to direct you in the right 
 path ; and do not believe, however gifted you may 
 be, that you can play the Cherubim, and, leaving 
 your body, float a mere mind over that earth of 
 which you are an essential part. Work and wait. 
 
322 PANTHEA. 
 
 The truth will come ; but it is like the jewels which 
 are hidden deep in the earth, — it must be diligently 
 mined for. Bird-witted men, as Bacon calls those 
 who are unstable in their pursuits, are never of 
 account among the wise." 
 
 Mr. Cheverton, like a judicious lawyer, seeing that 
 his words told on the mind of Julian, left them to 
 work in their strength ; and, as the path they had 
 followed led them by a circuitous route to the Hall, 
 Mr. Cheverton excused himself, having duties to 
 attend to at the parish church ; and they parted. 
 
 Julian Altamont's feelings were not now so deli- 
 cately sensitive as they had been ; and, instead of 
 suffering that amount of excitement which was dan- 
 gerous to his health, as liitherto, he calmly surveyed 
 the condition of his mind. He was conscious, through 
 all the fevered excitement of his previous progress, 
 of a constant want; — there was an unsleeping craving 
 for something unknown, which appeared to promise 
 to fill the soul, if its possession could be realized ; 
 but the endeavour to grasp it, brought the conviction 
 of an absolute vacancy, where the airy phantom, 
 which never had an outline, was imagined to exist. 
 He now stood as if upon a hill ; and, looking into the 
 valley of his soul, he saw the shadows and the mists 
 which overspread all that was bright ; and he entered 
 the Hall full of new resolutions. 
 
323 
 
 CHAPTER VIIL 
 
 NEW RESOLUTIONS CONFIEMED. 
 
 " Old days seem come back again," said the grey- 
 headed old boatman, Joel, to Julian Altamont, as he 
 rowed him over the ringing waters of the river, from 
 the Earl of Devonport's boat-house towards a point 
 about a mile off, where Julian had appointed to meet 
 Eudora Spencer. 
 
 Julian smiled in reply. 
 
 "It is twenty-five years this day," continued 
 Joel, " that I met the Earl on that very spot, and 
 with him, for the first time, the Countess, your 
 mother — then, as you know, Lady Esther Glanville. 
 They came on board our old gig : I had a crew of 
 half a dozen fine fellows ; and my lady was delighted 
 Avith the view we gave her of all the ins and outs of 
 this fine river of ours." 
 
 The river was singularly picturesque in this part. 
 On one side gently undulating hills were clothed with 
 wood to the edge of the water, and the little valleys 
 
 Y 2 
 
824 PANTHEA, 
 
 between them were adorned by the white-w^ashed 
 cottages of fishermen, miners, and agricultural la- 
 bourers. In the little bays which w^ere here and 
 there formed were numerous boats, on board w^iich 
 the fishermen were busily employed in some neces- 
 sary duty ; and on the shore, men, women, and 
 chilcben were all busily engaged, — some mending 
 fishing-nets, some cleaning and salting fish, and 
 others about those important tasks which connect 
 themselves with comfort even in the most humble 
 stations of life. On the other side of the river, slate 
 rocks presented a nearly perpendicular face, having 
 an average height of about three hundred feet. 
 Every crack and crevice in the rocks w^as luxmiantly 
 filled with wild plants, many of them presenting 
 bright bunches of colour, so brilliantly dyed were 
 their beautiful flowers. 
 
 On the top of the cliff was seen the tall house 
 and chimney of a steam-engine, employed in pump- 
 ing w^ater from a lead-mine worked under the bed 
 of the river. As they passed round an elbow of 
 land they heard the noise of the winding engine, 
 and the pouring out of the ore from the kihhle over 
 an inclined plane, by which it was shot to a lower 
 level, and lodged upon the di'essing-floors where 
 men, women, boys, and girls were hard at work 
 breaking up the lumps of ore, separating the metal- 
 liferous parts from the mere rock, and washing and 
 cleansing it for the market. 
 
THE SPIRIT OF NATURE. 325 
 
 " That is a busy scene," said Julian. 
 
 " The hal is in full work now," replied Joel. 
 
 Some miners came out of the adit-level at the 
 bottom of the cliff, and proceeded to wash their 
 hands and faces in the river. 
 
 " A miner's life is a dreary and a weary one," 
 said Julian ; " working in wet and darkness upon a 
 stubborn rock, day after day, and night after night." 
 
 " They are a happy and contented people, my 
 lord." 
 
 " It puzzles me, Joel, to know how a man can be 
 happy under all the hardships of such an existence," 
 said Julian. 
 
 " Honest industry, my lord," replied Joel, — 
 " honest industry carries the light of its blessings 
 into the darkest spots. You should see the miners 
 at home with their wives and children, enjoying their 
 quiet meal. You would see then how sweet was the 
 hard crust earned by the sweat of the brow, even 
 in the dark levels underneath this river." 
 
 " If industry brings happiness, it is a great cm'se 
 to be idle," said Jidian, meditatively, j^et aloud. 
 
 " Idleness is the parent of every evil, my lord ; 
 those who do not work with theii' hands or their 
 heads are ever the victims of care." 
 
 " Think you, then," asked Julian, " that our sor- 
 rows are lightened by labour ?" 
 
 " The good God, my lord, when he doomed man 
 to eaiHi his bread by the sweat of his brow, wisely 
 
326 PANTHEA, 
 
 saw that he could only bear up against the evils of 
 the condition he had brought upon himself by labour, 
 and he mercifully ordered man to work. It was not 
 a curse — it was a blessing, thrown in to relieve him 
 from the effects of the curse. Idle men feel the curse 
 of humanity : industrious men scarcely know it." 
 
 " Joel," said Julian, smiling, " are you a local 
 preacher and a methodist?" 
 
 " I am neither one nor the other, my lord ; but an 
 honest churchman — thanks to our good Mr. Che- 
 verton ; but I love the local preachers for their zeal, 
 and the methodists for their earnestness and faith." 
 
 " Earnestness and faith, Joel, may both be exerted 
 in a wrong direction," said Julian. 
 
 " They may be so, my lord ; but, somehow or 
 other, I have never seen them when combined going 
 long astray." 
 
 The boat had now approached a little peninsula, 
 which was a portion of Sir Wilson Spencer's pro- 
 perty ; and there, dressed in light mourning, waited 
 the womanly and beautiful Eudora Spencer. 
 
 Julian Altamont and the old boatman carefully as- 
 sisted her into the boat, and led her to the stern seat. 
 The wind being favourable, the sails were set upon 
 the little bark; and Joel seated himself in the 
 bows, having first given Julian some important 
 directions about steering. 
 
 "Joel," said Altamont, to Eudora, "has been 
 giving me a lectm'c on idleness." 
 
THE SPIRIT OF NATURE. 327 
 
 " Indeed," replied Eudora, Avith a smile. " I fear 
 we are, all of us, too hard upon you." 
 
 " Not a whit, Eudora ; it is only by external irri- 
 tants that a palsied muscle can be excited to action. 
 I feel that I have wasted my days." 
 
 " My dear Julian," replied Eudora, in a tone of 
 extreme kindness, " I have been severe — I fear too 
 severe with you when I thought you were going 
 Avi'ong. You must now allow me to act another 
 part, and a more generous one. You have not 
 wasted yom' time." 
 
 " Indeed, my Eudora, I have," w^as Julian's reply. 
 " When I think that I have mental powers capable — 
 at least, they were capable — of undertaking a strict 
 inductive examination, and that I contented myself 
 with the words I found in books — ^the traditions of 
 knowledge ; that I looked at the w^orks of other men, 
 not working myself; and that even when I denied 
 the power of authority over me on one side, I yielded 
 to it in another form upon the other, and allowed my 
 mind to be involved in mists of uncertainty, I cannot 
 but regret my folly." 
 
 " You have learned a great truth, Julian ; you 
 have gathered up stores of knowledge ; — they may 
 be somew^hat confusedly packed in your mind — " 
 
 " They are as a heap of vmhewn stones cast 
 upon a sea-shore, and beaten by the waves," hi- 
 terrupted Julian. 
 
 " Wait a little, Jidian, and you will recover them 
 
328 PANTHEA, 
 
 all ; and, in recovering, you will select and arrange ; 
 and, from the unhewn heap, I mistake me if I shall 
 not live to see a shrine built to the — " 
 
 " Spirit of Nature ? " interrupted Julian again, 
 with a smile of satire on himself. 
 
 " If the Spirit of Nature is truth — yes, to her," 
 replied Eudora. 
 
 " My dearest Eudora, I started full of zeal ; but 
 my imagination ran away with me — it was a horse 
 of the Ukraine to which I was tied ; and I have 
 only escaped from my wild steed by the struggle of 
 the delirium induced by the maddening ride. I was 
 the slave of words — the dupe of vain shows ; — the 
 more completely so, when I thought myself wise 
 among the truly learned. My mind must have 
 existed as in a mesmeric coma. I saw things — not 
 with my natural eyes, but as refracted through the 
 mind of another. Because I found not the world 
 ready with the jargon of the Illuminati, I saw no 
 truth, and I looked with contempt upon the best 
 works of my kindred. There is no earnestness — no 
 real working for truth, I cried ; and there I stood, 
 the idlest man among those I called idle, but who, 
 right or wrong, were racking mind and muscle. 
 In my onset I was rash ; I broke from my leading 
 strings, and clasped only shadows." 
 
 " Port your helm," cried Joel hastily. 
 
 Julian started, and, obeying his director, instead 
 of running the boat ashore, which he would in- 
 
THE SPIRIT OF NATURE. 329 
 
 evitably have done, they sailed safely upon another 
 tack. 
 
 "A realization of my way in the world, Eudora," 
 continued Julian. " I for ever forgot the helm." 
 
 "But, Julian," said Eudora, "the light of your 
 own experience will serve you now. You have used 
 the hundred eyes of Argus : you must now employ 
 the hundred hands of Briareus. I, a young woman, 
 leading a life of quiet aw^ay from the busy world, 
 feel myself but a poor instructor. Yet, as I have 
 known all the influences to which you have been 
 subjected, it does appear to me, that having at last 
 escaped, as I am sure you have done, from the 
 bewitching and eloquent errors which surrounded 
 you, Hke Syrens, I have only to implore you to 
 work, and wait for the result of the labom-s of 
 yom* own hands, exercising always a proper cii'- 
 cumspection. I am certain you will rise superior 
 to the past; and from the evils thereof good will 
 spring." 
 
 Julian remained silent for some minutes ; at 
 length he said : 
 
 "There is some sad confusion here," pressing his 
 hand to his head. " I cannot see things clearly. 
 Those visions of Panthea — my own wild flight — my 
 sister's visions, and the melancholy but beautiful 
 death of that dear girl — " 
 
 " Let me counsel you, my dear Julian, to endea- 
 vour to forget them." 
 
330 PANTHEA, 
 
 " That cannot be, until I discover tliera to be a 
 cheat. I must at least think they had some truth 
 in them." 
 
 " And so they had," eagerly said Eudora. " That 
 there are mysteries which we cannot explain, I do 
 not deny ; but, as you have already said, fascinated 
 by the wild poetry of that philosophy which Laon 
 iElphage teaches, may not your vision be but in- 
 duced sympathies ? May you have seen more than 
 the creations of that old man's brain ? or — " Eu- 
 dora paused, and, with much earnestness, then con- 
 tinued — " Or, perhaps, the marvellous mind of the 
 friend of my girlhood, ^Itgiva, may have influenced 
 you in yom* dreaminess — natural or induced ; and 
 that which she fancied, may you not have seen ? 
 Julian, ^Itgiva is a woman to love. Her mind is 
 as pure as the spirit she worships ; and she pines 
 for the time when she is to blend with that radiance 
 which she believes is over all things as a God. 
 iEltgiva has a woman's heart ; and I am charged 
 with a secret of that heart, which explains much 
 to me." 
 
 "Dare you not reveal it, then, to me?" asked 
 Julian, eagerly. 
 
 " If ever, Julian, we stand together upon the 
 grave of vEltgiva, I will tell you ; but not till then." 
 
 " Let us hope that day is distant, my Eudora." 
 
 " It is not, Julian," Eudora replied with a sigh. 
 
 " Why do you think so?" 
 
THE SPIRIT OF NATURE. 331 
 
 " I may tell you that, Julian. The mystic studies 
 which that woman has pursued — far exceeding, in 
 their soul-wearing energy, those of her father — have 
 rendered her a creation of the most extremely sensi- 
 tive system of nerves. Every sense is, with JFlt- 
 giva, quicker than with any other mortal I ever saw. 
 Everything has to her an intensity which is unknown 
 to other women. Colom*, form, sound, all nature is 
 to her more exquisite than to us ; and her mind is 
 ever stretched after something as in the distance of 
 space. Her delicate body can scarcely restrain her 
 powerful mind. It is as if an eagle was imprisoned 
 in a cage which was fitted only for the seciu-ity of 
 some little warbler. The astral knowledge of the 
 father and of the daughter you know to be great. 
 The old man has, however, of late been so busy 
 collecting midnight dew in pure silver basins, that 
 he has neglected his stars. Not so JEltgiva ; and 
 she tells me she saw, in the aspect of the stars, the 
 death of Euthanasia; and that, at the hour of the next 
 full moon, her own planet enters the house of death. 
 I much mistake J^ltgiva, if that conviction does not 
 bring about that liberation of spirit and body which 
 she so longs for." 
 
 "The next full moon, Eudora? the moon was 
 new yesterday," said Julian. 
 
 Eudora started. " I thought it not so near. 1 
 dread the day ; for we have been old friends, and I 
 do love her, though I pity her delusions." 
 
332 PANTHEA, 
 
 Both Julian and Eudora were for some time 
 silent. The boat, the winds being light, glided 
 slowly over the scarcely ruffled surface of the waters, 
 which had spread themselves out into a lake ; and 
 there was an air of extreme tranquillity upon all 
 things. Joel occasionally motioned to Lord Alta- 
 mont the direction he desired him to steer ; but, 
 beyond this, they all sat feeding upon the sorrow 
 which the thought of the death of ^Eltgiva had 
 given rise to. Julian held Eudora's right hand in 
 his : she leant her head upon her left, her elbow 
 resting on the gunwale of the boat ; and she looked 
 into the silent water, and fancied that night and 
 death were shadowed in its undulations. 
 
 " Julian," said Eudora, at length, " can we con- 
 sole ourselves with the thought that our friends 
 are removed from this earth for the benefit of the 
 living ?" 
 
 " Our affections will scarcely allow us to embrace 
 such a conclusion," replied Julian. 
 
 " The innocent influences of that pure spirit, 
 Euthanasia, may have operated to have chained you 
 still to the visionary creed you have abandoned." 
 
 " Say not ' abandoned,' Eudora. My mind hangs 
 delicately balanced ; a breath will throw it down on 
 either side." 
 
 Eudora spoke not in reply ; but, could she have 
 trusted herself to express the thought which was 
 passing in her mind, it would not have been one of 
 
THE SPIRTT OF NATURE. 333 
 
 regret that it was possible the influence of i^^ltgiva, 
 too, might be removed. 
 
 Thus passed away three houi's of a lovely morn- 
 ing. They at length returned to the point from 
 which they had started ; and, landing, — Julian and 
 Eudora walked to the Hall together, where they 
 expected to meet Sir Wilson and Lady Spencer. 
 
 They found their parents assembled ; and all were 
 evidently pleased to perceive the delicate attention 
 which Julian paid to his companion. Julian Alta- 
 mont, having conversed with Lady Spencer and his 
 mother for a short time, politely asked of his father 
 permission to visit j\Ir. Cheverton. 
 
 The Earl, surprised at this new feature, knew not 
 what reply to make ; but he was yet more astonished 
 when Julian said : 
 
 " And "wall your lordship join us in Mr. Chever- 
 ton's study in half an horn- ?" 
 
 " I will, my son, I will," he said, almost gasping ; 
 and rising and taking his son by the hand, and 
 looking him in the face, he said : "It dehghts me, 
 Julian, to see your steady improvement." 
 
 " Yes, father, I gain strength rapidly. I shall 
 be fit for work soon ;" and, wath a smile, bowing to 
 all, he left the room — the Earl repeating, " Work, 
 work ! what does the boy mean ?" 
 
 " Mr. Cheverton, good morning," said Julian, 
 with unusual heartiness, as he entered that gentle- 
 man's studv. 
 
334 PANTHEA, 
 
 Mr. Cheverton was reading a work on the 
 Philosophy of Science. He rose, and returned 
 Juhan's greeting with equal warmth. 
 
 " Have you been on the water this morning, my 
 lord ?" asked he. 
 
 " I have, Mr. Cheverton, and with a new in- 
 structor." 
 
 " Indeed ! and who may it have been ?" asked 
 Mr. Cheverton. 
 
 " One of my truest friends, Mr. Cheverton ; 
 nearly the only one, except yourself, who had bold- 
 ness enough to tell me of my faults." 
 
 " Miss Spencer?" asked the clergyman. 
 
 Julian replied only with a smile, and then asked, 
 " By what index could you guess so tiTily ?" 
 
 " The deep-souled feeling of that genuine-hearted 
 woman, manifested in confidence to me, when we 
 both regretted your delusions, convinced me it 
 could be no other. She has been your most watch- 
 ful guardian ; and her severe rebukes to you, and 
 her unflinching censure, conveyed to you in her 
 replies to your letters from London, have done 
 more than aught else to save you from a wreck." 
 
 " My dear Mr. Cheverton, I have to thank you 
 for your steady struggle with my wild fancies, 
 rendered strong and obstinate by a self-esteem 
 which 1 hope my youth will stand in excuse of. 
 From the illusion itself, I feel I have gained 
 some strength ; by yielding to the charms of the 
 
THE SPIRIT OF NATURE. 335 
 
 enchanter, T have at least learned to detect the 
 enchanted ; and I trust I may have secured such 
 weapons as may be sufficient to disperse similar 
 illusions in future." 
 
 " These things have not been permitted in vain," 
 said Mr. Cheverton. " The infirmities of body and 
 mind are useful, in teaching us both self-reliance 
 and our dependence upon our kindred. No man can 
 be taught without a teacher ; sometimes this may 
 be an individual, and sometimes the circumstances 
 by which Providence surrounds us. As the infant 
 requires a protector — its instincts not being suffi- 
 cient to secure it from harm — so the young mind, 
 more decidedly still, demands the care and experience 
 of those who have made the voyage of life. Your 
 ardent mind has been captivated by the poetic 
 beauty of a false creed, and blinded by the mys- 
 ticism of a secret sect ; but the captivity is over ; 
 the cataract is removed from your eyes ; and let us 
 derive consolation from the errors of the past, in 
 the aid they have afforded, by teaching how to escape 
 similar delusions in the future." 
 
 " Mr. Cheverton — " said Juhan. There was a 
 pause. " How can I learn to sift the truth from 
 the error by which we are surrounded ?" 
 
 "Train and temper the mind to the sternest 
 industry. In physical science, although it may be 
 convenient to admit an hypothesis, we should always 
 remember that it is not the truth, but merely a 
 
336 PANTHEA, 
 
 guess after truth ; and the man who argues for the 
 purpose of supporting any hypothesis, must commit 
 himself to statements which are not absohitely proved 
 to be true. This does not apply to a modest discus- 
 sion of the merits of any view, and of the support 
 it receives from facts. Again, in social and political 
 science, still more must we seek for information 
 from those who have witnessed the workings of 
 measures, and studied the influence of various 
 acts of government, both as we learn them from 
 history, and from the scenes which society has 
 exhibited upon the stage where we are ourselves 
 important actors. A young and ardent mind — to 
 steal a metaphor — endeavom"ing without experience 
 to guide the vessel of the state, will probably cause 
 it, from his ignorance, to suffer shipwreck. All 
 true knowledge is of comparatively slow growth ; 
 and the principal advantage of a mathematical 
 training arises from the fact that it binds the mind 
 to a habit of seeking for the proof of each par- 
 ticular equation. In all things we have to seek 
 an unknown quantity, and it is only by the aid 
 of the known that we can solve our problem. 
 Remember, too, always, that every study of the 
 human mind should tend to its exaltation ; and the 
 true philosopher always connects the most exalted 
 thoughts with the humblest truths. We cannot 
 survey the earth aright, without the aid of the 
 stars of heaven ; and to calcidate the wonders 
 
THE SPIRIT OF NATURE. 337 
 
 of the stellar vault, we require such a survey of 
 our earth's physical condition, as can only be 
 arrived at by the most unwearying attention and 
 concentrated observation. Thus, in all things 
 belonging to our destiny are heaven and earth 
 united in a beautiful chain." 
 
 Julian listened with delight. The sun shone 
 brighter upon his mind ; the mists were clearing 
 off. He felt himself every moment becoming a 
 new man. He expressed himself in the warmest 
 language to Mr. Cheverton, begged that gentleman 
 to continue his admonitions, and to instruct him by 
 his enunciations of the truth. 
 
 " I feel that I have been erring," said Julian 
 to Mr. Cheverton ; " and yet I scarcely comprehend 
 where I have gone wrong. There is a strange 
 mingling together of causes ; I see them like a 
 knot of coloured thread — each colour is visible to 
 me, but I cannot unravel a single fibre. Can 
 you aid me, Mr. Cheverton, in my endeavour to 
 make the past clear, before I start upon the 
 future ?" 
 
 Mr. Cheverton hesitated, and then replied, " I 
 feel considerable difficulty in untying this Gordian 
 knot — I am not sure but we shall be obliged to 
 cut it. But as the study of the past may be in- 
 structive to both, let us, in all honesty, make our 
 sm'vey. As you are the subject of inquiry, we 
 must take your especial case for om* examination. 
 
 z 
 
338 PANTHEA, 
 
 In the first place, are you willing to admit that 
 you are a sentient entity? Are you a positive being, 
 standing as a centre of an actual creation?" 
 
 Julian smiled, and replied, "I am not so far 
 gone in transcendentalism as to believe that matter 
 is ideal — the creation of my sensations." 
 
 "Then," continued Mr. Cheverton, "things are; 
 they have a subjective being, and we know them 
 by the sensations they produce. Coloiu-, form, and 
 smell, cause us to know this flower to be a helio- 
 trope, and by no other means can we know it to 
 be so. Of the external world we can know nothins:, 
 except through the medium of our senses." 
 
 "It is impossible to deny the entity of matter; 
 but there are phenomena beneath the externals of 
 nature, which are hidden from om- knowledge." 
 
 " True," replied Mr. Cheverton ; " but because 
 we have not discovered all the physical elements 
 at work, are we hence to nish to the conclusion 
 that sylphs or gnomes are engaged in those hidden 
 labours ? But let us not go too fast, my lord. 
 Can you imagine oiu- mind existing without the 
 body, and acquiring a knowledge of tJmi(/sT' 
 
 " In that state of intelligence to which we aspire, 
 I cannot but regard the mind as existing without 
 the body," replied Julian. 
 
 " And yet we have authority for believing, that, 
 in the realization of that blissful state, the body, 
 in a purified condition, will be raised and united 
 
THE SPIRIT OF NATURE. 339 
 
 to the soul. But we will avoid the mystery. Is not 
 the body the wonderful instrument which excites 
 the mind to action ? Is not the thinking principle 
 entirely dependent on the body for its thoughts ?" 
 
 Julian, hesitating hi deep reflection, made no 
 reply. 
 
 Mr. Cheverton continued : "If we destroy the 
 optic nerve, leaving the organ, the eye, uninjured, 
 the mind knows nothing of colour ; let us injure the 
 main branch of any other system of nerves, and we 
 cut off from the mind the knowledge of those things 
 which sensation gives. The communication between 
 body and mind is inscrutable ; but to us they co- 
 exist in mutual dependence. You admit that this, 
 which I call Myself, can only gain a knowledge of 
 that state of being of which it forms a part, by care- 
 fully examining every sensation produced by the 
 things around it." 
 
 " These sensations," said Julian, " being the phe- 
 nomena of nature." 
 
 " The difference between an ignorant and a 
 learned man is — " Mr. Cheverton paused for Ju- 
 lian to answer. 
 
 " The ignorant man is one who has not been 
 trained to observe — the learned man is one who 
 observes closely, and meditates," answered Julian. 
 
 " Never mind the higher operations of the think- 
 ing being," interposed ]\Ir. Cheverton. " The 
 non-observer walks the earth like Prankenstein's 
 
 z 2 
 
340 PANTHEA, 
 
 monster, or animated marble ; — things exist which 
 have to liim no being ; the world to such a man is 
 not the world we live on. Instead of a planet, he 
 sees but a plain ; instead of a revolving globe, 
 he has no idea beyond a firm-set rock. In the 
 place of warmth and brightness and beauty, he dis- 
 covers only coldness, darkness, and deformity. You, 
 as an observant man, having a mind and body in 
 health, desire knowledge. How should you gain it ?" 
 
 " I suppose I must answer," replied Julian, — 
 " By using my organs of sensation, and by in- 
 structing them to acquire greater sensibility, that 
 they may convey to my mind the best possible 
 impressions of any fact." 
 
 " Exactly so," said Mr. Cheverton. " But you 
 have produced an unnatm-al condition of the body 
 for the purpose of acquiring a more complete power 
 over sensation ; and in this abnormal state phan- 
 tasies have taken the place of truths." 
 
 " But you do not deny that a man may receive 
 knowledge by inspiration ?" asked Julian. 
 
 " God forbid ! but there can be no necessity for 
 an inspiration to make that known which may be 
 learnt by common industry. There was no inspira- 
 tion to tell the prophets that Saurians lived before 
 man — they, as men, might have found that out for 
 themselves ; but though they had employed all 
 industry, and had searched all things, they could 
 not have discovered the spiritual laws governing the 
 
THE SPIRIT OF NATURE. 341 
 
 human soul, which, consequently, they learnt by 
 mspiration." 
 
 " But many natural phenomena appear to us as 
 mvolved as the spiritual," said Julian. 
 
 " The perfection of human intelligence," replied 
 Mr. Cheverton, " is still very remote. All noble 
 growths are slow ; and that power which is destined 
 to become eventually superior to every other beneath 
 the Creator Himself, progresses, according to our 
 ideas of time, with a subhme slowness — if I may 
 use the expression. The great wave of progress — 
 the movement of the entire ocean of mind — is com- 
 mensurate with the magnitude of the mass to be 
 moved. Man stands for a brief space upon the 
 raft of life, floating on this ocean of time ; and, 
 not content with examining attentively the ob- 
 jects which swim around his frail bark, he commits 
 himself to a belief in dreams ; and, looking after 
 shadows, which quickly form and fade upon the 
 horizon, he loses the substance which lies around 
 him." 
 
 " But, surely," said Julian, " spiritual existences 
 there are ; angels, and cherubim and seraphim." 
 
 " But we speak of man, — mind and body — a 
 creation superior to the purely spiritual — through 
 whom all things are to become know^i. To know 
 the material world, you have organs fitted for 
 material sensations ; and, to enjoy the spiritual 
 world, a spirit, which is to be trained in know- 
 
342 PANTHEA, 
 
 ledge by its connection with matter. Has not every 
 fact which has a beginning a cause ?" 
 
 " Truly," replied Julian. 
 
 '* The cause of all beginning is God ?" asked 
 Mr. Cheverton. 
 
 " Beyond aU doubt." 
 
 " And the beginning of the world — the dead 
 matter of the world — was the thought of God ?" 
 
 " This must be admitted." 
 
 " Then, through a succession of phenomena we 
 find improving developments of form — the amor- 
 phous rock — the symmetric crystal — the organic 
 cell — the perfect plant — the plant-like animal — the 
 moving monad — the cyst-like creation — the inverte- 
 brate and then the vertebrate forms — the fish — 
 the reptile — the mammal — the man — and, lastly, the 
 mind breathed into that highly organized form by 
 the God of Creation. I believe the cycle of creation 
 is complete in man, and that this ark, bearing the 
 Shechinah, is the completion of the covenant. Hea- 
 ven and earth are in us united — spuit and matter 
 are combined — that the highest material condition 
 may eventually arise from the harmonious blending 
 of opposing powers. As God became man for the 
 sake of man, so will man be gradually elevated in 
 the scale of intelligence, until the i-ealization of the 
 Eternal's design — the blending of Himself wdth 
 matter — is completed." 
 
 " I can scarcely follow your fine thoughts, Mr. 
 
THE SPIRIT OF NATURE. 343 
 
 Cheverton ; they are a little of the transcendental," 
 said Julian, with a smile. 
 
 " I hope not ; but I would simply impress your 
 mind with the fact, as I believe, that there is a 
 mysterious bond between spuit and body ; that all 
 the powers of sensation belong to the one, all the 
 organs to the other ; that there is no real existence 
 for man in either state independent of the other. 
 Your soul cannot, while it is yours, be absent from 
 the body ; or, if absent fi'om the body, it would 
 lose all its powers of knowing the external world ; 
 therefore, your phantoms, — the visions of Emanuel 
 Swedenborg, — the dreams of Jacob Behmen — are of 
 no more value than the night-mare produced by the 
 German student, who ate raw beef and pickled cab- 
 bage to produce an appalling incident for his tra- 
 gedy. Your organs of sensation have been excited 
 to a condition of disease, working the centre of that 
 sense into a convulsion." 
 
 " But in mesmeric coma we have clairvoyance^ 
 " It maybe so," replied the clergyman. " I have 
 never seen it, though I have sought to see it ; but, 
 let this be admitted, it does appear to me that the 
 condition of the mind in the delirium of fever, 
 and even after the paroxysm has passed, goes to an 
 explanation of this dream -hke state. The philoso- 
 pher, my dear Julian, must honestly doubt this, 
 until he has such evidence as is beyond suspicion ; — 
 but, — have we untied your thread?" 
 
344 PANTHEA, 
 
 The Earl of Devouport entered the room; and, 
 with an expression intended to be one of much 
 satisfaction, he exclaimed : 
 
 " Well, Julian, well : I am come as you requested ; 
 let us at once to business. Tell me your wishes, 
 my son, and, if at all reasonable, everything shall 
 be granted." 
 
 The knotted thread of many colours was cut; 
 and the unravelled ends were floating, in well-de- 
 fined lines, before the mind's eye of Julian. 
 
 " Father, I desired to see you here, that I might 
 acquaint you with my earnest wish to pursue a 
 com*se of usefulness." 
 
 " Let me see," said the Earl, ^nth dignity ; 
 " my borough of Guzzletown is represented by old 
 Bribebridge — " 
 
 " And let him represent it still," interrupted 
 Julian. " I have no desire at present to enter the 
 House. I have much to learn, and very much to 
 unlearn ] but I am seriously determined to try my 
 business habits." The Earl was about to speak, 
 but Julian checked him, and continued : " You 
 will have much to endure with for a season. I 
 shall not be able always to follow yom- wishes. 
 But, grant me the privilege of forming my own 
 opinions." 
 
 The Earl shook his head despairingly, and looked 
 to Mr. Cheverton. Julian continued : " I know 
 your fears ; but several scales have fallen from my 
 
THE SPIRIT OF NATURE, 345 
 
 eyes, and I see more clearly than I did. I must 
 now be doing. I bave been dreaming ; and, for 
 the first time, I feel that if I strive to do good, for 
 the sake of goodness, the power will be granted me." 
 
 The Earl scarcely understood his son ; but he 
 said, " Julian, I desire so strongly to see you bear- 
 ing, worthily, such honours as shall add dignity 
 to the name of Altamont, that I will grant you 
 anything." 
 
 The Earl gave his hand to Julian, who said : — 
 " My lord, the pestilence reigns in the city. You, 
 as the greatest landed proprietor, will be expected 
 to attend the meeting of the Corporation and 
 Sanatory Board to-morrow. I shall go with you ; 
 but I must use my own discretion as to what part 
 I shall take in the business." 
 
 The frank smile which beamed brightly on the 
 Earl's face, showed the dehght he felt. " My boy," 
 he said, " I know that your motives have ever been 
 pure, and that when you have erred it has been 
 from an excess of vutue. You have learnt a lesson, 
 and paid its price. I trust you, — from my heart I 
 trust you : do as you please." 
 
 These three men, so different in then' characters, 
 sat together, enjoying each other's society, convers- 
 ing of realities and commonplace events, until the 
 sound of the musical gong summoned them to 
 dinner. 
 
 There was more joy m the halls of Altamont 
 
346 PANTHEA. 
 
 that day than had been witnessed there for many 
 years. There was a forgiving and forbearing spii-it 
 over every one ; but the scene was rendered charm- 
 ing to all present by the eloquent energy with which 
 Julian Altamont now poured forth beautiful thoughts 
 upon nature and on man. 
 
 The Countess and the Earl regarded their son 
 with pride. Sir Wilson and Lady Spencer looked 
 on their future son-in-law with admiration. Eudora 
 Spencer felt the full strength of that love which 
 Juhan Altamont had inspired. 
 
347 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 THE WOrxK OF USEFULNESS BEGUN. 
 
 There was gloom througliout the city. A disease, 
 assuming a familiar type, but frightful iu its dis- 
 organizing energy, was devastating those districts 
 where, crowded together in badly-lighted and worse- 
 ventilated rooms, the poor endm'ed their lot of pri- 
 vation. The misery of then- lives was increased 
 from the destruction of their energies by the con- 
 tinued endurance of ill ; and extreme neglect 
 marked every corner of the devoted spot. Huma- 
 nity, when it suffers, almost constantly allows the 
 cause of its suffering to prey upon it unresistingly. 
 We nurse the snake which stings us. Those who 
 live in idleness, cling with greater devotion to then- 
 sloth, when it becomes a manifest cause of theii- 
 sorrows ; and, sinking into the most abject apathy, 
 they perish. The act is a suicidal one ; the re- 
 sponsibility is their own. Those whom penury has 
 reduced to rags, and who, in their dispiritedness. 
 
348 PANTHEA, 
 
 forget those mere ablutions which are necessary to 
 health, slowly but surely open the road to their own 
 utter destitution ; they, indeed, wallow in a slough 
 of despond, and perish by the miasma generated 
 from the filth they have accumulated around them- 
 selves. 
 
 It is lamentable to see men die in their wretched- 
 ness. The death-bed of the virtuous and the good 
 is a solemn scene ; but it is as instructive for the 
 happiness of the living, as it is severely trying to 
 their affections. But the death of those whose days 
 have been without joy, whose lives have been merely 
 a succession of vicious sensualities, is of all things 
 the most wretched. To see men and women die, in 
 ragged and in filthy linen, upon beds of straw, in the 
 imwholesome atmosphere of a black, dark chamber, 
 — or, it may be, a damp and mouldy cellar, — the 
 whole of which may be regarded as the conse- 
 quences of error, either in themselves, or in the cii'- 
 cumstauces to which, from birth, they have been 
 condemned, — conveys, to the mind of the looker- 
 on, a dreadful idea of the depth of degradation to 
 which mortality may fall. 
 
 Poverty, struggling in honesty with existence, is 
 as noble a picture as that of Prometheus, chained 
 to his rock, enduring the gnawings of the vulture 
 in proud defiance of his persecutor. The giant, 
 thrown by Hercules to the earth, gained strength 
 after every fall ; and prostrate virtue may rise in 
 
THE SPIRIT OF NATURE. 349 
 
 triumph, if it wrestles with its lot ; but if, supinely, 
 it allows its energies to cool, its muscles to stiffen, 
 and its blood to stagnate, it will perish of its own 
 idleness. 
 
 The pestilence was in the city ; and people died 
 by scores daily. 
 
 The amount of virtue — self-sacrificing virtue 
 — in the world, is far greater than our moral 
 statisticians will be willing to allow. There are 
 men — unostentatious men — too timid to talk at 
 crowded meetings, where the charlatan boldly 
 demands the world's approbation — brave as lions 
 — braver than any lions — brave as the perfec- 
 tion of man in his full vigour, — when suffering 
 humanity calls. There are women, too — delicate 
 as exotic flowers — who, regardless of any danger, 
 will walk, in their missions of mercy, into the 
 valley of the shadow of death. 
 
 Such men and women had long and earnestly 
 appealed to their brethren for aid for those who 
 suffered ; but theii* applications were met with cold- 
 ness, until, from the spread of the danger, the 
 selfish found the monster they feared at their own 
 doors. They trembled and bestirred themselves then; 
 streets could be cleansed, houses white-washed, hos- 
 pitals established, and sanatory boards formed. 
 
 At an important public meeting, when the cor- 
 poration and the sanatory board were to make their 
 public report, appeared the Earl of Devonport and 
 
350 PANTHEA, 
 
 Lord Altamoiit. Men and ^yomen, terrified by the 
 enemy at their doors, crowded to the meeting, in 
 the midefiued hope of learning some means of ame- 
 lioration. Juhan Altamont sat on the crowded 
 platform, and Hstened to the reports of surveyors, 
 of engineers, and of medical men. He had always 
 conceived the practical business of a surveyor com- 
 pletely settled by the rule of proportion ; every point 
 having its value determined by unerring trigono- 
 metrical rules ; and he was, consequently, surprised 
 to find, on this, his first entry on the business of life, 
 men of established eminence in their profession 
 bringing forward conflicting statements as facts, and 
 directly contradicting each other upon points which 
 careful observation would immediately settle beyond 
 all doubt. Engineering questions were to be de- 
 termined in reference to arrangements necessary 
 for the effectual drainage of the locahty ; and here, 
 again, the recommendations of the engineers ap- 
 peared to be framed upon the principle of being in 
 opposition, rather than with any regard to the 
 means of correctly carrying out a principle in 
 which the health of an immense community \\as 
 involved. 
 
 Again, the evidence of the medical men surprised 
 him still more. One referred the disease to this cause, 
 one to that. Everything was supposed by this 
 physician to arise from the decomposition of organic 
 matter; another thought this had little to do with the 
 
THE SPIRIT OF NATURE. 351 
 
 pestilence — it was evidently due to some atmospheric 
 change ; while an eminent sm-geon was satisfied it 
 was all owing to electricity ; another declared it to 
 be a fungus ; and statements of the most astounding 
 nature were made, not one of which, as it appeared 
 on examination, had been confirmed by observation 
 or experiment. This man recommended a saline treat- 
 ment — salt and bichlorate of potash was certain to 
 effect a cure ; — that one had determined that ether 
 and laudanum were the most effectual remedies ; 
 another preferred naphtha ; and a fourth, in the 
 strongest terms, advocated wet sheets. 
 
 Julian broke through the restraint he had put 
 upon his feelings, and quietly asked the principal 
 physician, who sat near him, if such conflicting 
 opinions did not prove that they were putting 
 medicines, of which they knew Uttle, into a body, 
 of which they knew still less. 
 
 The old gentleman looked indignant ; but he made 
 no reply. 
 
 One man had the rule at that meeting : a man 
 with an overhanging brow, a downcast, sheepish 
 look, and most sinister expression. By his loud 
 talking and impertinent presumption he bore down 
 everybody who offered anything in opposition to his 
 views. He assumed the character of a public 
 benefactor ; and, to Julian, it was quite evident that 
 he intended to trade upon the ignorance of the 
 people ; to him, under all the fine things that this 
 
3 52 PANTHEA, 
 
 man said, was concealed a wretched selfishness, 
 which betrayed, to him, a low and creeping spirit — 
 a serpent writhing itself into high places. He saw 
 in him one who desired to be the medium through 
 whom the relief, the benevolent and wealthy intended 
 for the oppressed and the poor, should pass ; and he 
 also saw that the man had no kindness — no mercy 
 — that not one of the attributes of charity belonged 
 to him. He listened to his speeches — he heard his 
 bitter taunts — he followed him in his examinations 
 of evidence, and watched with attention, making 
 careful notes, all the plans which he proposed. 
 Julian Altamont saw the rottenness of the kernel, 
 and he felt that it was a duty w^liich belonged to 
 him to lay bare the poison spot. A light flashed 
 across his mind — a spontaneous power appeared to 
 spring up within him, and he felt that from that hour 
 he had passed beyond the limited horizon which 
 bounded his previous existence, and had entered 
 upon a circle of usefulness, the verge of which 
 was infinitely extended. 
 
 Julian Altamont rose, and with an air of modesty, 
 and with masterly good sense, proceeded to place all 
 the facts of the alarming position of the city in the 
 truest light. He scrupled not — though he did this 
 with caution — to expose the want of knowledge 
 shown in the conflicting evidence and opposing opi- 
 nions they had listened to. He felt he had the 
 thread in his hand by which he could make every 
 
THE SPIRIT 0¥ NATURE. 863 
 
 true heart vibrate. He wanned in his speech, and 
 proceeded to show the necessity of an active bene- 
 volence, and the still greater necessity of scrupulous 
 caution in selecting the channels through which the 
 waters of charity were to be distributed. Bravely 
 did Julian Altamont combat the sophistries of the 
 selfish trader Avho battened on the evils of society. 
 Although frowned at, and treated by some with 
 sardonic grins, which were intended to imply con- 
 tempt, he felt strong in the power of truth ; and, 
 amid the applause which followed, like an echo, upon 
 his words, he discovered the force of simple language, 
 and the eloquence of undisguised honesty. Clearly 
 and cautiously he examined the engineering ques- 
 tions, the medical treatment, the dietary, and, in- 
 deed, every point which appeared to belong to the 
 trying position in which the tovi^n was placed ; and, 
 at last, in a most eloquent appeal to the hearts of 
 his audience, he raised every motive of humanity 
 which now stirred the majority in that assembly, to a 
 more exalted activity ; he showed the meanness of 
 effecting good for a private end, and the grandeur 
 of that devotion which sacrifices itself for the ame- 
 lioration of suffering mortality. 
 
 All men were astonished. Some had thought that 
 the son of the Earl of Devonport had been mad ; 
 others understood that he was imbecile. The Eai'l 
 himself had not been popular among the citizens — 
 he was too old-schooled for them ; and it was not 
 
 2 A 
 
354 PANTHEA, 
 
 without some feelings of pleasure that they fancied 
 his pride punished in the fatuity of his heir. But 
 now the name of Altamont was upon every man's 
 lips ; and in many an old man's eye was the glit- 
 tering tear of feeling, as he reported to his family 
 the brilliant address of that young nobleman. The 
 admiration of the women exceeded all ordinary 
 bounds. Julian's forehead — his eyes — ^his mouth — 
 his figure — each and all came in for their favourable 
 criticisms ; and his words, — they had no language 
 with which to describe them ; — but, as by common 
 consent, every woman who had heard his speech at 
 the meeting, and all those, too, who read it in " The 
 City Record," declared that Lord Altamont was a 
 divine young man. 
 
 The Earl of Devonport was himself surprised 
 at the eloquent earnestness of his son. He could 
 not understand all his positions ; he could not 
 go with him in all his arguments ; — indeed, many 
 things which Julian said were opposed to the Earl's 
 views ; but he forgave all in his admiration of 
 powers which, he felt satisfied, would give his son 
 at once a commanding position in the House of 
 Commons, to which he resolved his introduction 
 should take place the moment he became of age. 
 
 There is a feeling of pride in such a triumph as 
 Julian Altamont had achieved, which is common 
 to every human breast ; and he gave way to it, as 
 the first reward of the exercise of his powers, and 
 
THE SPIRIT OF NATURE. 355 
 
 as an encouragement for him to proceed in his 
 work of active benevolence, of which this was the 
 beginning. 
 
 On his return, with the Earl, to Altamont, he 
 found Eudora Spencer waiting for him, with the 
 alarming hitelligence that the pestilence had seized 
 upon iEltgiva, and that her father would not allow 
 of any medical interference. After what he had wit- 
 nessed, Julian did not regret the resolve of Laon ; 
 but he expressed his determination immediately to 
 visit the sufferer. Eudora resolved on accompanying 
 him, and they were soon at the cottage. 
 
 They found ^Itgiva in a state of collapse ; there 
 was no suffering, but a complete prostration of all 
 animal power. She recognized her visitors, and 
 smiled serenely as her two choice friends approached 
 her couch. 
 
 " Carry me forth into the sunshine," said ^/Eltgiva. 
 
 Julian and Laon bore her in their arms forth from 
 the cottage into her own beautiful garden, iEltgiva 
 pointed with her finger to a spot on the margin 
 of the lake, to which she wished to be conveyed. 
 They obeyed her, and she rested on the soft green 
 sward, reposing her head upon her father's shoulder. 
 
 There was a strange, an oppressive silence ; — not 
 a leaf on any tree was moved ; even the aspens 
 and the raimosse ceased to tremble. The sky, as 
 seen from this hollow of the hills, was Avithout a 
 cloud. Of the deepest, the clearest blue, it ap- 
 
 2 A 2 
 
356 PANTHEA, 
 
 peared like a covering of thin light, drawn across 
 the portals of heaven. The lake was, by reflection, 
 as blue as the sky ; — the glory of the empyrean 
 was repeated upon earth. 
 
 The lonely swan sat upon the surface of the 
 lake, and now it solemnly glided towards ^Itgiva, 
 stretched forth its beautiful neck, and touched her 
 hand, as if to kiss it, with his beak. ^Itgiva 
 looked with tenderness upon the bird. It raised 
 its head, arched its neck in the proudest and most 
 graceful form, and sat upon the waters, looking at 
 its mistress with an expression of the most intense 
 pleasure. It moved not ; but there arose from the 
 depth of its throat, sounds of the most exquisite 
 melody, which thrilled the souls of Eudora and 
 Julian. 
 
 " How delightful !" whispered ^Eltgiva, to her 
 father. " Is not this a rich reward?" she said, in 
 a low, musical tone to JuHan. " Nature welcomes 
 me back to her bosom with her rarest music." 
 She sank into her father's arms. 
 
 "I come — Panthea--! come," were the sounds 
 which trembled upon ^Itgiva's hps, in almost 
 inaudible murmiu-s. 
 
 A silvery current, like the floating of warm air 
 through a colder atmosphere, passed over the scene. 
 It was quite evident to Julian and Eudora, but 
 it was a veil of the utmost degree of attenuation. 
 " Panthea !" said yEltgiva, raising herself, and ex- 
 
THE SPIRIT 0¥ NATURE. 357 
 
 tending her arm in tlie air. " Panthea — Beautiful ! 
 I see thee." She fainted. Her hand moved. She 
 grasped at something. A smile of complacency 
 gave a brilliancy, a lustre, to her face, which grew 
 unusually expressive and beautiful. 
 
 " Father," she said, turning her face upwards to 
 Laon, — " Father, — kiss me." 
 
 Their lips met, and parted — after one brief kiss. 
 " Father, is not this Beautiful ?" 
 Her head fell gently forward upon her bosom, and 
 ^^Eltgiva lay dead in her father's arms. The swan 
 ceased his melody, and, drooping his wings until 
 they trailed upon the crystal waters, and allowing 
 his neck to fall upon his breast, he glided solemnly 
 into the deep shadow of a group of acacias. 
 Laon looked upon J ulian in silence. 
 " We have lost her," said Eudora, at length, 
 her voice choked with emotion. 
 
 Tears gathered in Laon's eyes, and, gathering, 
 hung in large drops upon his long grey lashes. 
 
 At length, looking at Julian and Eudora, whose 
 eyes were full of tears, Laon still holding his daughter, 
 said, " The Beautiful cannot die ; the True cannot 
 be lost. Both are eternal. The mind which made 
 this wild hollow of the hills a garden, dwells still 
 within its bowers. I will sit in its shades. Under 
 the tree which shall shadow ^Fltgiva's grave will 
 I sit, and converse for ever with her liberated soid." 
 There was a long sdence. 
 
358 PANTHEA. 
 
 Laon sat maundering, — toying with the dead 
 fingers of his daughter. 
 
 " There is a philosophy beyond our philosophy, 
 Eudora," said Julian, with a sigh. 
 
 " There is a higher truth than the truth of 
 dreams," replied Eudora. 
 
 " To arrive at which, man, in humility, must 
 toil." 
 
 " And with every task," said Eudora, " connect 
 the highest thought ; and, in searching for truth 
 
 ON EARTH, LOOK TO THE GUTDE-STAR IN HEAVEN." 
 
 " Learn from the dead," moaned Laon ^Iphage. 
 " To the Beautiful she has resigned her soul." 
 
 " A choice sacrifice at a false shrine," whispered 
 Eudora to Julian Altamont. 
 
 " Panthea, the Spirit of Natme — " said Juhan, 
 meditatively. 
 
 " Is a dream," interrupted Eudora. 
 
 " Dream on," said Laon, clasping the corpse of 
 ^Itgiva to his breast. 
 
 " Awake and work," said Eudora to Juhan. 
 
 Julian Lord Altamont clasped, with one hand, 
 the fingers of the dead vEltgiva, and, with the 
 other, those of Eudora Spencer. He looked to 
 heaven ; and, standing between the living and the 
 dead, exclaimed in a firm voice, 
 
 "I WILL !" 
 
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