Page:The Talisman.pdf/6

58 ; long lines of crimson light trembled in the stream; fifty pointed spires glittered in the bright air, each marking one of those sacred fanes where the dead find a hallowed rest, and the living a hallowed hope. In the midst arose the giant dome of St. Paul's—a mighty shrine, fit for the thanksgiving of a mighty people. As yet, the many houses around lay in unbroken repose; the gardens of the Temple looked green and quiet, as if far away in some lonely valley; and the few solitary trees scattered among the houses seemed to drink the fresh morning air and rejoice. "How strong is the love of the country in all indwellers of towns!" exclaimed Charles. "How many creepers, shutting out the dark wall, can I see from this spot! how many pots of bright-coloured and sweet-scented plants are carefully nursed in windows, which, but for them, would be dreary indeed! And yet even here is that wretched inequality in which fate delights alike in the animate and inanimate world. What have those miserable trees and shrubs done, that they should thus be surrounded by an unnatural world of brick—the air, which is their life, close and poisoned, and the very rain, which should refresh them, but washing down the soot and dust from the roofs above; and all this, when so many of their race flourish in the glad and open fields, their free branches spreading to the morning dews and the summer showers, while the earliest growth of violets springs beneath their shade?”