of ‘Astarte,’ taken from some European Byronic gallery.  I have studied it until almost it seemed to move and speak to me.  She is clad in the ghostly drapery of the tomb, just as invoked by Nemesis, with trailing tresses, closed eyes, and folded hands.  The features are dim, spectral, yet marvelously beautiful.  Almost one might think the eyelids quivered, there is such an air of waking dreaminess.  That this is a false and inadequate conception of Byron’s ‘Astarte’ I feel assured, and trust that I shall yet find the key to this enigma.  It interests me greatly, and, by some inexplicable process, whenever I sit pondering the mystery of Astarte, that wonderful creation in ‘Shirley’ presents itself.  Astarte becomes in a trice that ‘woman-Titan’ Nature, kneeling before the red hills of the west, at her evening prayers.  I see her prostrate on the great steps of her altar, praying for a fair night, for mariners at sea, for lambs in moors, and unfledged birds in woods.  Her robe of blue air spreads to the outskirts of the heath.  A veil, white as an avalanche, sweeps from her head to her feet, and arabesques of lightning flame on its borders.  I see her zone, purple, like the horizon; through its blush shines the star of evening.  Her forehead has the expanse of a cloud, and is paler than the early moon, risen long before dark gathers.  She reclines on the ridge of Stillbro-Moor, her mighty hands are joined beneath it.  So kneeling, face to face, ‘Nature speaks with God.’  Oh!  I would give twenty years of my life to have painted that Titan’s portrait.  I would rather have been the author of this than have wielded the scepter of Zenobia, in the palmiest days of Palmyra!”

She spoke rapidly, and with white lips that quivered.  Clara looked at her wonderingly, and said hesitatingly: 

“I don’t understand the half of what you have been saying, It sounds to me very much as if you had stumbled into a lumber room of queer ideas; snatched up a handful, all on different subjects, and woven them into a speech as incongruous as Joseph’s variegated coat.”  There was no reply.  Beulah’s hands were clasped on the table before her, and she leaned forward with eyes fixed steadily on the floor.  Clara waited a moment, and then continued: 

“I never noticed any of the mysteries of ‘Manfred’ that seem to trouble you so much.  I enjoy the fine passages, and never think of the hidden meanings, as you call them; whereas it seems you are always plunging about in the dark, hunting you know not what.  I am content to glide on the surface, and—­”

“And live in the midst of foam and bubbles!” cried Beulah, with a gesture of impatience.