Page:Ethel Churchill 3.pdf/122

120 this is the real mystery of love. I remember reading, long ago, an eastern story of a dervise, who had a mystic ointment, with which, when the eyes were touched, all the hidden precious things of earth were given to view. The gold and silver shone within the mountain, and the diamonds glistened within the secret mines: so it is with love, who is the fine magician, shewing all the veiled treasures of the heart. How much has love taught me, that is true and beautiful! What a mistake to build our hopes on the external vanities of life! circumstance is nothing. How worthless, now appears to me, all that once seemed the chief objects of existence! our happiness lies within. To love, says all that can be said of intense and engrossing delight; even when away from him, the sunshine of his presence lingers behind. He gathered from the old garden-wall a branch of those fragile roses, which, frail as they are, linger on to the last: I have kept them, and those few withered leaves have a charm I never yet found in a flower;