67. The Bourbonnois

THERE was nothing from which I had painted out for myself so joyous a riot of the affections, as in this journey in the vintage, through this part of France; but pressing through this gate of sorrow to it, my sufferings have totally unfitted me: in every scene of festivity I saw Maria in the background of the piece, sitting pensive under her poplar; and I had got almost to Lyons before I was able to cast a shade across her.-

-Dear sensibility! source inexhausted of all that's precious in our joys, or costly in our sorrows! thou chainest thy martyr down upon his bed of straw-and 't is thou who lift'st him up to HEAVEN-eternal fountain of our feelings!-'t is here I trace thee-and this is thy divinity which stirs within me-not that in some sad and sickening moments, "my soul shrinks back upon herself, and startles at destruction"-mere pomp of words!-but that I feel some generous joys and generous cares beyond myself-all comes from thee, great-great SENSORIUM of the world! which vibrates, if a hair of our heads but falls upon the ground, in the remotest desert of thy creation.-Touch'd with thee, Eugenius draws my curtain when I languish-hears my tale of symptoms,. and blames the weather for the disorder of his nerves. Thou giv'st a portion of it sometimes to the roughest peasant who traverses the bleakest mountains-he finds the lacerated lamb of another's flock.-This moment I beheld him leaning with his head against his crook, with piteous inclination looking down upon it.-Oh! had I come one moment sooner!-it bleeds to death-his gentle heart bleeds with it-

Peace to thee, generous swain!-I see thou walkest off with anguish-but thy joys shall balance it-for happy is thy cottage-and happy is the sharer of it-and happy are the lambs which sport about you.