He pressed her to his throbbing and
tumultuous breast!
The music stopped. He fell from his seventh heaven. He felt all the
exhaustion of his prolonged reverie. All was flat, dull, unpromising.
The moon seemed dim, the stars were surely fading, the perfume of the
trees was faint, the wind of the woods was a howling demon. Exhausted,
dispirited, ay! almost desperate, with a darkened soul and staggering
pace, he regained his chamber.
CHAPTER XIV.
_Pride Has a Fall_
THERE is nothing more strange, but nothing more certain, than the
different influence which the seasons of night and day exercise upon the
moods of our minds. Him whom the moon sends to bed with a head full of
misty meaning the sun-will summon in the morning with a brain clear and
lucid as his beam. Twilight makes us pensive; Aurora is the goddess of
activity. Despair curses at midnight; Hope blesses at noon.
And the bright beams of Phoebus--why should this good old name be
forgotten?--called up our Duke rather later than a monk at matins, in
a less sublime disposition than that in which he had paced among the
orange-trees of Dacre.
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