Page:Romance & Reality 3.pdf/300

298 likened unto hope—those depths which have been so happily compared to futurity—those changes to which the heart says, "Such are mine own." The stars came out, few and scattered, and from the far parts of the sky. We hold not now the belief of old: we know that in their mystic characters nought of our destiny is written. Philosophy has taught a lowly lesson to our pride; and no longer do we single out some bright and lovely planet, and ask of it our fate; till, from asking, we almost hope that Night will send on her winds some answer, whose words are from the mystic scroll of our destiny. Foolishness of mortality! to deem that the glorious and the lofty star, which looked not on us who watch its beauty, should have been placed in that mighty firmament to shed its radiance on our birth, and chronicle in its bright page our sin, our suffering, and our sorrow!—and when have not these three words told the story of our life? And yet this linking that vain life to the lofty and the lovely,—what is it but one of the many signs of the spirit within us—that which day crushes, but kills not—that spirit which looks into space with the eyes of longing, which spurns the course it