Page:Dream Life - Mitchell - 1899? Altemus.djvu/54

 that your eyes and your heart cling to, but only some little story about Paul and Virginia;—that dear little Virginia! how many tears have been shed over her—not in garrets only, or by boys only!

You would have liked Virginia—you. know you would; but you perfectly hate the beldame aunt, who sent for her to come to France; you think she must have been like the old school-mistress, who occasionally boxes your ears with the cover of the spelling-book, or makes you wear one of the girl's bonnets, that smells strongly of pasteboard, and calico.

As for black Domingue, you think he was a capital old fellow; and you think more of him, and his bananas, than you do of the bursting, throbbing heart of poor Paul. As yet, Dream-life does not take hold on Jove. A little maturity of heart is wanted, to make up what the poets call sensibility. If love should come to be a dangerous, chivalric matter, as in the case of Helen Mar and Wallace, you can very easily conceive of it, and can take hold of all the little accessories of male costume, and embroidering of banners; but as for pure sentiment, such as lies in the sweet story of Bernardin de St. Pierre, it is quite beyond you.

The rich, soft nights, in which one might