Page:Tales of humour and romance translated by Holcroft.djvu/218

 beaming with lustre, lest that lustre disappear, as we wipe not the moist diamond that it may not grow pale,—by their own hearts, which require too much, enjoy too little, hope too much, bear too little. Rosamond was a pure pearl, pierced by sorrow. Separated from her friends, she still continued to shrink under suffering, like a severed branch of the sensitive plant at the approach of night; her life was a soft genial rain, as that of her husband was a bright and ardent sunshine. In his presence, she turned her eyes away from her sickly child, who in this life was like a light and fluttering butterfly under a pelting rain. The fancy of Eugenius destroyed by its powerful flights, his too weak and delicate corporeal frame; his body tender as the hare-bell, suited not his mighty mind; the place where the sigh sprung, his bosom, was destroyed like his happiness: he had nothing else in the world but his loving heart, and but two beings to fill that heart.

They resolved in the spring to withdraw from the whirlpool of the world, which had dashed so coldly, and so unkindly against their hearts; they caused a quiet hut to be prepared for them upon a lofty mountain, which lay opposite to the silver chain of the Staub-bach. On the first lovely morning of spring, they entered upon their long journey to the mountain. There is a sacredness, which suffering alone can give