THERE was nothing from which I had painted out for my self 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 ’tis thou who lift’st him up to Heaven!—Eternal Fountain of our
feelings!—’tis 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 behold 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!