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mellow moon-light. After the pause of a moment, St. Aubert added, I
have always fancied, that I thought with more clearness, and precision,
at such an hour than at any other, and that heart must be insensible in a
great degree, that does not soften to its influence. But many such there
are.
Valancourt sighed.
Are there, indeed, many such? said Emily.
a few years hence, my Emily, replied St. Aubert, and you may
smile at the recollection of that question -- if you do not weep to it. But
come, I am somewhat refreshed, let us proceed.
Having emerged from the woods, they saw, upon a turfy hillock
above, the convent of which they were in search. A high wall, that
surrounded it, led them to an ancient gate, at which they knocked; and
the poor monk, who opened it, conducted them into a small adjoining
room, where he desired they would wait while he informed the superior
of their request.
In this interval, several friars came in separately to look at them;
and at length the first monk returned, and they followed him to a room,
where the superior was sitting in an arm-chair, with a large folio volume,
printed in black letter, open on a desk before him. He received them with
courtesy, though he did not rise from his seat; and, having asked them a
few questions, granted their request. After a short conversation, formal
and solemn on the part of the superior, they withdrew to the apartment
where they were to sup, and Valancourt, whom one of the inferior friars
civilly desired to accompany, went to seek Michael and his mules. They
had not descended half way down the cliffs, before they heard the voice
of the muleteer echoing far and wide. Sometimes he called on St.
Aubert, and sometimes on Valancourt; who having, at length, convinced
him that he had nothing to fear either for himself, or his master; and
having disposed of him, for the night, in a cottage on the skirts of the
woods, returned to sup with his friends, on such sober fare as the monks
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thought it prudent to set before them. While St. Aubert was too much
indisposed to share it, Emily, in her anxiety for her father, forgot herself;
and Valancourt, silent and thoughtful, yet never inattentive to them,
appeared particularly solicitous to accommodate and relieve St. Aubert,
who often observed, while his daughter was pressing him to eat, or
adjusting the pillow she had placed in the back of his arm-chair, that
Valancourt fixed on her a look of pensive tenderness, which he was not
displeased to understand.
They separated at an early hour, and retired to their respective
apartments. Emily was shown to hers by a nun of the convent, whom she
was glad to dismiss, for her heart was melancholy, and her attention so
much abstracted, that conversation with a stranger was painful. She
thought her father daily declining, and attributed his present fatigue
more to the feeble state of his frame, than to the difficulty of the journey.
A train of gloomy ideas haunted her mind, till she fell asleep.
In about two hours after, she was awakened by the chiming of a
bell, and then heard quick steps pass along the gallery, into which her
chamber opened. She was so little accustomed to the manners of a
convent, as to be alarmed by this circumstance; her fears, ever alive for
her father, suggested that he was very ill, and she rose in haste to go to
him. Having paused, however, to let the persons in the gallery pass
before she opened her door, her thoughts, in the mean time, recovered
from the confusion of sleep, and she understood that the bell was the call
of the monks to prayers. It had now ceased, and, all being again still, she
forbore to go to St. Aubert's room. Her mind was not disposed for
immediate sleep, and the moon-light, that shone into her chamber,
invited her to open the casement, and look out upon the country.
It was a still and beautiful night, the sky was unobscured by any
cloud, and scarce a leaf of the woods beneath trembled in the air. As she
listened, the mid-night hymn of the monks rose softly from a chapel, that
stood on one of the lower cliffs, an holy strain, that seemed to ascend
through the silence of night to heaven, and her thoughts ascended with
it. From the consideration of His works, her mind arose to the adoration
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of the Deity, in His goodness and power; wherever she turned her view,
whether on the sleeping earth, or to the vast regions of space, glowing
with worlds beyond the reach of human thought, the sublimity of God,
and the majesty of His presence appeared. Her eyes were filled with
tears of awful love and admiration; and she felt that pure devotion,
superior to all the distinctions of human system, which lifts the soul
above this world, and seems to expand it into a nobler nature; such
devotion as can, perhaps, only be experienced, when the mind, rescued,
for a moment, from the humbleness of earthly considerations, aspires to
contemplate His power in the sublimity of His works, and His goodness
in the infinity of His blessings.
Is it not now the hour,
The holy hour, when to the cloudless height
Of yon starred concave climbs the full-orbed moon,
And to this nether world in solemn stillness,
Gives sign, that, to the list'ning ear of Heaven
Religion's voice should plead? The very babe
Knows this, and, chance awak'd, his little hands
Lifts to the gods, and on his innocent couch
Calls down a blessing.
-- Caractacus
The midnight chant of the monks soon after dropped into silence;
but Emily remained at the casement, watching the setting moon, and the
valley sinking into deep shade, and willing to prolong her present state
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of mind. At length she retired to her mattress, and sunk into tranquil
slumber.
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THE MYSTERIES OF UDOLPHO Vol I
CHAPTER V
While in the rosy vale
Love breath'd his infant sighs, from anguish free.
-- Thomson
St. Aubert, sufficiently restored by a night's repose to pursue his
journey, set out in the morning, with his family and Valancourt, for
Rousillon, which he hoped to reach before night-fall. The scenes,
through which they now passed, were as wild and romantic, as any they
had yet observed, with this difference, that beauty, every now and then,
softened the landscape into smiles. Little woody recesses appeared
among the mountains, covered with bright verdure and flowers; or a
pastoral valley opened its grassy bosom in the shade of the cliffs, with
flocks and herds loitering along the banks of a rivulet, that refreshed it
with perpetual green.
St. Aubert could not repent the having taken this fatiguing road,
though he was this day, also, frequently obliged to alight, to walk along
the rugged precipice, and to climb the steep and flinty mountain. The
wonderful sublimity and variety of the prospects repaid him for all this,
and the enthusiasm, with which they were viewed by his young
companions, heightened his own, and awakened a remembrance of all
the delightful emotions of his early days, when the sublime charms of
nature were first unveiled to him. He found great pleasure in conversing
with Valancourt, and in listening to his ingenuous remarks. The fire and
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simplicity of his manners seemed to render him a characteristic figure in
the scenes around them; and St. Aubert discovered in his sentiments the
justness and the dignity of an elevated mind, unbiassed by intercourse
with the world. He perceived, that his opinions were formed, rather than
imbibed; were more the result of thought, than of learning. Of the world
he seemed to know nothing; for he believed well of all mankind, and this
opinion gave him the reflected image of his own heart.
St. Aubert, as he sometimes lingered to examine the wild plants in
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