Brightest, and but for that error perhaps the loftiest, of the secret and solemn race that fills up the interval in creation between mankind and the demons, age after age wilt thou rue the splendid folly which made thee ask to carry the beauty and the passions of youth into the dreary grandeur of earthly immortality." "I do not repent, nor shall I," answered Zicci, coldly.

"The transport and the sorrow, so wildly blended, which diversify my doom, are better than the calm and bloodless tenor of thy solitary way.

Thou, who lovest nothing, hatest nothing,--feelest nothing, and walkest the world with the noiseless and joyless footsteps of a dream!" "You mistake," replied he who had owned the name of Mejnour; "though I care not for love, and am dead to every passion that agitates the sons of clay, I am not dead to their more serene enjoyments.

I have still left to me the sublime pleasures of wisdom and of friendship.

I carry down the Stream of the countless years, not the turbulent desires of youth, but the calm and spiritual delights of age.