In the lap of nature the troubled mind gets rest; and the wounds of the heart heal rapidly, once delivered there, safe from contact with the infectious world; and the bosom of the nursing mother is not more powerful or quick to lull the pain and still the sobs of her distressed ones.  It is the sanctuary of the bruised spirit, and to arrive at it is to secure shelter and to find repose.  Peace, eternal and blessed, birthright and joy of angels, whither do those glimpses hover that we catch of thee in this tumultuous life, weak, faint, and transient though they be, melting the human soul with heavenly tranquillity?  Whither, if not upon the everlasting hills, where the brown line divides the sky, or on the gentle sea, where sea and sky are one—­a liquid cupola—­or in the leafy woods and secret vales, where beauty lends her thrilling voice to silence?  How often will the remembrance only of one bright spot—­a vision of Paradise rising over the dull waste of my existence—­send a glow of comfort to my aged heart, and a fresh feeling of repose which the harsh business of life cannot extinguish or disturb!  And what a fair history comes with that shadowy recollection!  How much of passionate condensed existence is involved in it, and how mysteriously, yet naturally connected with it, seem all the noblest feelings of my imperfect nature!  The scene of beauty has become “a joy for ever.”

I recall a spring day—­a sparkling day of the season of youth and promise—­and a nook of earth, fit for the wild unshackled sun to skip along and brighten with his inconstant giddy light.  Hope is everywhere; murmuring in the brooks, and smiling in the sky.  Upon the bursting trees she sits; she nestles in the hedges.  She fills the throat of mating birds, and bears the soaring lark nearer and nearer to the gate of Heaven.  It is the first holiday of the year, and the universal heart is glad.  Grief and apprehension cannot dwell in the human breast on such a day; and, for an hour, even Self is merged in the general joy.  I reach my destination; and the regrets for the past, and the fear for the future, which have accompanied me through the long and anxious journey, fall from the oppressed spirit, and leave it buoyant, cheerful, free—­free to delight itself in a land of enchantment, and to revel again in the unsubstantial glories of a youthful dream.  I paint the Future in the colours that surround me, and I confide in her again.

It was noon when we reached the headquarters of the straggling parish of Deerhurst—­its chief village.  We had travelled since the golden sunrise over noble earth, and amongst scenes scarcely less heavenly than the blue vault which smiled upon them.  Now the horizon was bounded by a range of lofty hills linked to each other by gentle undulations, and bearing to their summits innumerable and giant trees; these, crowded together, and swayed by the brisk wind, presented to the eye the figure of a vast and supernatural sea,