All our lives want a suitable background. They
should at least, like the life of the anchorite, be as impressive
to behold as objects in the desert, a broken shaft or crumbling
mound against a limitless horizon. Character always secures for
itself this advantage, and is thus distinct and unrelated to near
or trivial objects, whether things or persons. On this same
stream a maiden once sailed in my boat, thus unattended but by
invisible guardians, and as she sat in the prow there was nothing
but herself between the steersman and the sky. I could then say
with the poet, -
"Sweet falls the summer air
Over her frame who sails with me;
Her way like that is beautifully free,
Her nature far more rare,
And is her constant heart of virgin purity."
At evening still the very stars seem but this maiden's emissaries
and reporters of her progress.
Low in the eastern sky
Is set thy glancing eye;
And though its gracious light
Ne'er riseth to my sight,
Yet every star that climbs
Above the gnarled limbs
Of yonder hill,
Conveys thy gentle will.
Believe I knew thy thought,
And that the zephyrs brought
Thy kindest wishes through,
As mine they bear to you,
That some attentive cloud
Did pause amid the crowd
Over my head,
While gentle things were said.
