O there is a sweet æra in the life of man, when (the brain being tender
and fibrillous, and more like pap than anything else)----a story read of
two fond lovers, separated from each other by cruel parents, and by
still more cruel destiny----
_Amandus_ ----He
_Amanda_ ----She----
each ignorant of the other’s course,
He----east
She----west
_Amandus_ taken captive by the _Turks_, and carried to the emperor of
_Morocco’s_ court, where the princess of _Morocco_ falling in love with
him, keeps him twenty years in prison for the love of his _Amanda_.----
She--(_Amanda_) all the time wandering barefoot, and with dishevell’d
hair, o’er rocks and mountains, enquiring for _Amandus!_----_Amandus!
Amandus!_--making every hill and valley to echo back his name----
_Amandus! Amandus!_
at every town and city, sitting down forlorn at the gate ----Has
_Amandus!_--has my _Amandus_ enter’d? ----till, ----going round, and
round, and round the world----chance unexpected bringing them at the
same moment of the night, though by different ways, to the gate of
_Lyons_, their native city, and each in well-known accents calling out
aloud,
Is _Amandus_ }
Is my _Amanda_ } still alive?
they fly into each other’s arms, and both drop down dead for joy.
There is a soft æra in every gentle mortal’s life, where such a story
affords more _pabulum_ to the brain, than all the _Frusts_, and
_Crusts_, and _Rusts_ of antiquity, which travellers can cook up for it.
----’Twas all that stuck on the right side of the cullender in my own,
of what _Spon_ and others, in their accounts of _Lyons_, had _strained_
into it; and finding, moreover, in some Itinerary, but in what God
knows ----That sacred to the fidelity of _Amandus_ and _Amanda_, a tomb
was built without the gates, where, to this hour, lovers called upon
them to attest their truths ----I never could get into a scrape of that
kind in my life, but this _tomb of the lovers_ would, somehow or other,
come in at the close----nay such a kind of empire had it establish’d
over me, that I could seldom think or speak of _Lyons_--and sometimes
not so much as see even a _Lyons-waistcoat_, but this remnant of
antiquity would present itself to my fancy; and I have often said in my
wild way of running on----tho’ I fear with some irreverence---- “I
thought this shrine (neglected as it was) as valuable as that of
_Mecca_, and so little short, except in wealth, of the _Santa Casa_
itself, that some time or other, I would go a pilgrimage (though I had
no other business at _Lyons_) on purpose to pay it a visit.”
In my list, therefore, of _Videnda_ at _Lyons_, this, tho’ _last_, --was
not, you see, _least_; so taking a dozen or two of longer strides than
usual across my room, just whilst it passed my brain, I walked down
calmly into the _Basse Cour_, in order to sally forth; and having called
for my bill--as it was uncertain whether I should return to my inn,
I had paid it----had moreover given the maid ten sous, and was just
receiving the dernier compliments of Monsieur _Le Blanc_, for a pleasant
voyage down the _Rhône_----when I was stopped at the gate----