conspicuous for integrity, devotion, and true affection; for all that

constitutes the peculiar graces of the female character, and beheld her at

last the victim of too much loving, too constant an attachment to the

perishable and lost, she, in her pride of beauty and life, had thrown aside

the pleasant perception of the apparent world for the unreality of the

grave, and had left poor Clara quite an orphan. I concealed from this

beloved child that her mother's death was voluntary, and tried every means

to awaken cheerfulness in her sorrow-stricken spirit.

One of my first acts for the recovery even of my own composure, was to bid

farewell to the sea. Its hateful splash renewed again and again to my sense

the death of my sister; its roar was a dirge; in every dark hull that was

tossed on its inconstant bosom, I imaged a bier, that would convey to death

all who trusted to its treacherous smiles. Farewell to the sea! Come, my

Clara, sit beside me in this aerial bark; quickly and gently it cleaves the

azure serene, and with soft undulation glides upon the current of the air;

or, if storm shake its fragile mechanism, the green earth is below; we can

descend, and take shelter on the stable continent. Here aloft, the

companions of the swift-winged birds, we skim through the unresisting

element, fleetly and fearlessly. The light boat heaves not, nor is opposed

by death-bearing waves; the ether opens before the prow, and the shadow of

the globe that upholds it, shelters us from the noon-day sun. Beneath are

the plains of Italy, or the vast undulations of the wave-like Apennines:

fertility reposes in their many folds, and woods crown the summits. The

free and happy peasant, unshackled by the Austrian, bears the double

harvest to the garner; and the refined citizens rear without dread the long

283

The Last Man