"I know not," said he, as he related these particulars to Lucille one evening when they were alone,--"I know not what the earth may be like, or the heaven, or the rivers whose voice at least I can hear, for I have no recollection beyond that of a confused but delicious blending of a thousand glorious colours, a bright and quick sense of joy, A VISIBLE MUSIC.

But it is only since my childhood closed that I have mourned, as I now unceasingly mourn, for the light of day.

My boyhood passed in a quiet cheerfulness; the least trifle then could please and occupy the vacancies of my mind; but it was as I took delight in being read to, as I listened to the vivid descriptions of Poetry, as I glowed at the recital of great deeds, as I was made acquainted by books with the energy, the action, the heat, the fervour, the pomp, the enthusiasm of life, that I gradually opened to the sense of all I was forever denied.

I felt that I existed, not lived; and that, in the midst of the Universal Liberty, I was sentenced to a prison, from whose blank walls there was no escape.

Still, however, while my parents lived, I had something of consolation; at least I was not alone.