“Decipit exemplar vitiis imitabile.”

Thy faults have attracted them, not the virtues that redeem them.  Shake thyself free of such, and with those who have loved much, and to whom much has been forgiven, go in peace!  The shades of the Poets will greet thee as they greeted Dante and Virgil, when, thyself a shade, thou goest towards them.  The heart that fainted at Francesca’s sorrows will not refuse a throb to thine.  For there is a gallery of great women, great with and without sin, where thou must sit, between Sappho and Cleopatra, the Magdalen thy neighbor,—­nor yet removed wholly out of sight the Mother of the Great Forgiveness of God.

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HAIR-CHAINS.

It was really a magnificent ball!  The host had determined that his entertainment should minister to all the senses of his guests, and had succeeded so well that there was only room to regret there were but five senses to be gratified.  Only five gates in the fortified wall within which the shy soul intrenches itself, where an attack may be made.  And even when these are all carried by storm, there are sometimes inner citadels, impregnable to the magic torrent streaming through the Beautiful Gates, where she may survey intruders with calm disdain.  In vain floods of delicious intoxication beat against her lofty retreat:  she calmly analyzes the sweet poison, (as she thinks it,) separates and retains the solid fact whose solution had enriched the otherwise barren stream, and indifferently suffers the rest to flow by.  These are the souls of philosophers and wise men, who never are drowned, never surprised.  But the bountiful host had not cared only for these grand super-sensual people, but had striven perfectly to satisfy the eyes, the ears, the noses, the palates of the more numerous throng of weaker folk, whose inner fortifications were not so well defended.  Hundreds of wax candles illuminated the far-reaching saloons with soft lustre.  The walls were tinted with the most delicate hues, that afforded a pleasant cool background to the blazing rooms, and relieved the rich colors of the pictures.  In all the pictures adorning the walls, the eye revelled in the luxurious coloring, careless of the absence of distinctness of form and grand pure outline.  Scenes in the dark heart of tropical forests, the dense green foliage here and there startlingly relieved by a bright scarlet flower or the brilliant plumage of a songless bird,—­gorgeous sunsets on American prairies, where the rolling purple ground contrasted with the crimson and golden glories of eventide,—­vivid sketches along the Mediterranean, the blue sea embracing the twin sky,—­vineyards ripening under the mellow Italian sun,—­fields of yellow wheat bending to the sickles of English reapers,—­and sometimes, half hidden by the folds of a heavy crimson curtain, one was startled to discover the solemn icebergs and everlasting snows of the Arctic regions.  The wood-work of all the rooms was of dark oak, so that each appeared with its brilliantly dressed company to be a flashing gem set in a rich casket.  A shadow of music wandered through the air, sometimes blended with the sound of the falling fountain in the green-house, sometimes almost absorbed in the fragrance of the flowers.