Imagens da página
PDF
ePub

When we had got within half a mile of Moulins, at a little opening in the road leading to a thicket, I discovered poor Maria fitting under a poplar-fhe was fitting with her elbow in her lap, and her head leaning on one fide within her hand-a fmall brook ran at the foot of the tree.

I bid the poftillion go on with the chaife to Moulins-and La Fleur to befpeak my fupper-and that I would walk after him.

She was dreffed in white, and much as my friend defcribed her, except that her hair hung loose, which be-fore was twisted within a filk net.. -She had fuperadded likewife to her jacket, à pale green ribband, which fell across her fhoulder to her waift; at the end of which hung her pipe.Her goat had been as faithlefs as her lover; and she had got a little dog in lieu of him, which the had kept tied by a string to her girdle; as I looked at her dog, the drew him towards her with the ftring"Thou shalt not leave me, Sylvio," faid fhe. I looked in Maria's eyes, and faw fhe was thinking more of her father than of her lover or her little goat; for as fhe uttered them, the tears trickled down her cheeks.

I fat down close by her; and Maria let me wipe them away as they fell, with my handkerchief.I then fteeped it in my own-and then in hers-and then in mine-and then I wiped hers again-and as I did it, I felt fuch indefcribable emotion within me, as I am fure could not be accounted for from any combinations of matter and motion.

I am pofitive I have a foul; nor can all the books with which materialists have peftered the world ever convince me of the contrary.

When Maria had come a little to herself, I asked her if she remembered a tall thin person of a man who had fat down betwixt her and her goat about two years before? She said, fhe was much unfettled at that time, but remembered it upon two accounts-that ill as the was, the faw the perfon pitied her; and next, that her

goat

goat had ftolen his handkerchief, and the had beat him for the theft-she had washed it, she said, in the brook, and kept it ever fince in her pocket to restore it to him in case she fhould ever fee him again, which, the added, he had half promised her. As fhe told me this, fhe took the handkerchief out of her pocket to let me fee it; fhe had folded it up neatly in a couple of vine leaves, tied round with a tendril-on opening it, I faw an S marked in one of the corners.

She had fince that, fhe told me, ftrayed as far as Rome, and walked round St Peter's once-and returned back-that the found her way alone acrofs the Apenines had travelled over all Lombardy without mo ney-and through the flinty roads of Savoy without fhoes-how fhe had borne it, and how fhe had got fupported, the could not tell-but God tempers the wind, faid Maria, to the fhorn lamb.

my

Shorn, indeed! and to the quick, faid I; and was thou in my own land, where I have a cottage, I would take thee to it and shelter thee: thou shouldst eat of own bread, and drink of my own cup-I would be kind to thy Sylvio-in all thy weakneffes and wanderings I would feek after thee and bring thee back-when the fun went down, I would fay my prayers; and when I had done thou shouldft play the evening fong upon thy pipe, nor would the incenfe of my facrifice be worfe accepted for entering heaven along with that of a bro ken heart.

Nature melted within me, as I uttered this; and Ma ria obferving, as I took out my handkerchief, that it was steeped too much already to be of ufe, would needs. go wash it in the ftream.And where will you dry it, Maria? faid I-I will dry it in my bofom, faid fhe -it will do me good.

And is your heart ftill fo warm, Maria? faid I.

I touched upon the ftring on which hung all her forrows-she looked with wistful diforder for fome time in my face; and then, without faying any thing, took her pipe, and played her fervice to the Virgin.The

ftring I had touched ceafed to vibrate-in a moment or two Maria turned to herfelf-let her pipe fall, and rofe up.

And where are you going, Maria? faid I.She faid, to Moulins.Let us go, faid I, together.-Maria put her arm within mine, and lengthening the string to let the dog follow-in that order we entered Moulins.

Though I hate falutations and greetings in the market place, yet when we got into the middle of this, I ftopped to take my last look and last farewell of Maria. Maria, though not tall, was nevertheless of the firft order of fine forms- -affliction had touched her looks with fomething that was fcarce earthly-ftill fhe was feminine-and fo much was there about her of all that the heart wishes, or the eye looks for in woman, that could the traces be ever worn out of her brain, and those of Eliza's out of mine, the fhould not only eat of my bread and drink of my own cup, but Maria fhould lie in my bofom, and be unto me as a daughter.

Adieu, poor lucklefs maiden;-imbibe the oil and wine which the compaffion of a ftranger, as he journieth on his way, now pours into thy wounds- -that Being who has twice bruised thee, can only bind them up for ever.

The

The Want of Piety arises from the Want of Sensibility.

IT appears to me, that the mind of man, when it is free from natural defects and acquired corruption, feels no lefs a tendency to the indulgence of devotion, than to virtuous love, or to any other of the more refined and elevated affections. But debauchery and excess contribute greatly to destroy all the fufceptible delicacy with which nature usually furnishes the heart; and, in the general extinction of our better qualities, it is no wonder that so pure a sentiment as that of piety fhould be one of the first to expire.

It is certain that the understanding may be improved in a knowledge of the world, and in the arts of fucceeding in it, while the heart, or whatever conftitutes the feat of the moral and sentimental feelings, is gradually receding from its proper and original perfection. Indeed experience feems to evince, that it is hardly poffible to arrive at the character of a complete man of the world, without lofing many of the most valuable fentiments of uncorrupted nature. A complete man of the world is an artificial being; he has difcarded many of the native and laudable tendencies of his mind, and adopted a new fyftem of objects and propenfities of his own creation. These are commonly grofs, coarfe, fordid, felfifh, and fenfual. All, or either of these attributes, tend directly to blunt the sense of every thing liberal, enlarged, difinterested; of every thing which participates more of an intellectual than of a fenfual nature. When the heart is tied down to the earth by luft and avarice, it is not extraordinary that the eye fhould be feldom lifted up to heaven. To the man who fpends the Sunday (because he thinks the day fit for little elfe) in the counting-house, in travelling, in the tavern, or in the brothel, those who go to church appear

as

as fools, and the bufinefs they go upon as nonfense. He is callous to the feelings of devotion; but he is tremblingly alive to all that gratifies his fenfes or promotes his interest.

It has been remarked of thofe writers who have attacked Chriftianity, and reprefented all religions merely as diversified modes of fuperftition, that they were indeed, for the most part, men of a metayphyfical and a difputatious turn of mind, but ufually little diftinguished for benignity and generofity. There was, amidst all their pretenfions to logical fagacity, a cloudinefs of ideas, and a coldness of heart, which rendered them very unfit judges on a queftion in which the heart is chiefly interested; in which the language of nature is more expreffive and convincing, than all the dreary subtleties of the dismal metaphyficians. Even the reasoning faculty, on which we fo greatly value ourselves, may be perverted by exceffive refinement; and there is an abstruse, but vain and foolish philosophy, which philofophifes us out of the nobleft parts of our noble nature. One of those parts of us is our instinctive sense of religion, of which not one of those brutes which the philosophers most admire, and to whose rank they wish to reduce us, is found in the flighteft degree to participate.

Such philofophers may be called, in a double sense, the enemies of mankind. They not only endeavour to entice man from his duty, but to rob him of à most exalted and natural pleafure. Such, furely, is the pleasure of devotion. For when the foul rifes above this little orb, and pours its adoration at the throne of celeftial Majefty, the holy fervour which it feels is itself a rapturous delight. Neither is this a declamatory representation, but a truth felt and acknowledged by all the fons of men; except those who have been defective in fenfibility, or who hoped to gratify the pride or the malignity of their hearts, by fingular and pernicious fpeculation.

« AnteriorContinuar »