Free The Mysteries of Udolpho by Ann Radcliffe Page B

and grandeur of solitudeimpressed a sacred awe upon her heart, and lifted her thoughts to the G OD OF HEAVEN AND EARTH . In scenes like these she would often linger alone, wrapt in a melancholy charm, 7 till the last gleam of day faded from the west; till the lonely sound of a sheep-bell, or the distant bark of a watch-dog, were all that broke on the stillness of the evening. Then, the gloom of the woods; the trembling of their leaves, at intervals, in the breeze; the bat, flitting on the twilight; the cottage-lights, now seen, and now lost – were circumstances that awakened her mind into effort, and led to enthusiasm and poetry. 8
    Her favourite walk was to a little fishing-house, belonging to St Aubert, in a woody glen, on the margin of a rivulet that descended from the Pyrenées, and, after foaming among their rocks, wound its silent way beneath the shades it reflected. Above the woods, that screened this glen, rose the lofty summits of the Pyrenées, which often burst boldly on the eye through the glades below. Sometimes the shattered face of a rock only was seen, crowned with wild shrubs; or a shepherd’s cabin seated on a cliff, overshadowed by dark cypress, or waving ash. Emerging from the deep recesses of the woods, the glade opened to the distant landscape, where the rich pastures and vine-covered slopes of Gascony gradually declined to the plains; and there, on the winding shores of the Garonne, groves, and hamlets, and villas, – their outlines softened by distance, melted from the eye into one rich harmonious tint.
    This, too, was the favourite retreat of St Aubert, to which he frequently withdrew from the fervour of noon, with his wife, his daughter, and his books; or came at the sweet evening hour to welcome the silent dusk, or to listen for the music of the nightingale. Sometimes, too, he brought music of his own, and awakened every fairy echo with the tender accents of his oboe; and often have the tones of Emily’s voice drawn sweetness from the waves, over which they trembled.
    It was in one of her excursions to this spot, that she observed the following lines written with a pencil 9 on a part of the wainscot:
    SONNET
    Go, pencil! faithful to thy master’s sighs!
    Go – tell the Goddess of this fairy scene,
    When next her light steps wind these wood-walks green,
    Whence all his tears, his tender sorrows, rise:
    Ah! paint her form, her soul-illumin’d eyes,
    The sweet expression of her pensive face,
    The light’ning smile, the animated grace –
    The portrait well the lover’s voice supplies;
    Speaks all his heart must feel, his tongue would say:
    Yet ah! not all his heart must sadly feel!
    How oft the flow’ret’s silken leaves conceal
    The drug that steals the vital spark away!
    And who that gazes on that angel-smile,
    Would fear its charm, or think it could beguile!
    These lines were not inscribed to any person; Emily therefore could not apply them to herself, though she was undoubtedly the nymph of these shades. Having glanced round the little circle of her acquaintance without being detained by a suspicion as to whom they could be addressed, she was compelled to rest in uncertainty; an uncertainty which would have been more painful to an idle mind than it was to hers. She had no leisure to suffer this circumstance, trifling at first, to swell into importance by frequent remembrance. The little vanity it had excited (for the incertitude which forbade her to presume upon having inspired the sonnet, forbade her also to disbelieve it) passed away, and the incident was dismissed from her thoughts amid her books, her studies, and the exercise of social charities.
    Soon after this period, her anxiety was awakened by the indisposition of her father, who was attacked with a fever; which, though not thought to be of a dangerous kind, gave a severe shock to his constitution. Madame St Aubert and Emily attended him with unremitting care; but his recovery was very