ditches ten feet wide on horseback, and hunts like an old country squire-singular qualities for a mistress! such things never happen except with me.
“I laugh, but have certainly no cause for doing so, for I never suffered so much, and the last two months seemed to me like two years or rather two centuries. There was an ebb and flow of uncertainties in my head sufficient to stupefy the strongest brain; I was so violently agitated and pulled in all directions, I had such furious transports, such dull atonies, such extravagant hopes and such deep despairs, that I really do not know how it was that I did not die from the pain of it. This idea so occupied and possessed me that I was astonished that it was not seen clearly through my body like a candle in a lantern, and I was in mortal terror lest somebody should chance to discover the object of my insane love.
“However, Rosette, being the person most interested in watching the movements of my heart, appeared to perceive nothing; I believe that she was too much engaged in loving Theodore to pay attention to my cooling towards her; otherwise I must be a master of the art of dissimulation, and I am not so conceited as to have this belief. Theodore himself up to that day never showed that he had the faintest suspicion of the condition of my soul, and always spoke to me in a familiar and friendly fashion, as a well-bred young fellow speaks to another of his own age- nothing more. His conversation with me used to turn on all sorts of subjects, arts, poetry, and other similar matters, but never on anything of an intimate and exact nature having reference to himself or to me.
“It may be that the motives compelling him to this disguise have ceased to exist, and that he will soon resume the dress that is suitable for him. This I do not know; the fact remains that Rosalind tittered certain words with peculiar inflections, and in a very marked manner emphasized all the passages in her part which had an ambiguous meaning and might point in a particular direction.
“In the trysting scene, from the moment when she reproaches Orlando for not coming two hours too soon as would befit a genuine lover instead of two hours too late, until the sorrowful sigh which, fearful at the extent of her passion, she heaves as she throws herself into Aliena's arms: 'O coz, coz, my pretty little coz, that thou didst know how many fathoms deep I am in love!' she displayed miraculous talent. It was an irresistible blending of tenderness, melancholy, and love; there was a trembling and agitation in her voice, and behind the laugh might be felt the most violent love ready to burst forth; add to this all the piquancy and singularity of the transposition and the novelty of seeing a young man woo a mistress whom he takes for a man, and who has all the appearance of one.
“Expressions which in other situations would have appeared ordinary and common-place, were in ours thrown into peculiar relief, and all the small change of amorous comparisons and protestations in vogue on the stage seemed struck with quite a new stamp; besides, had the thoughts, instead of being rare and charming as they are, been more worn than a judge's robe or the crupper of a hired donkey, the style in which they were delivered would have caused them to be apparently characterized by the moot marvelous refinement and best taste in the world.
“I forgot to tell you that Rosette, after declining the part of Rosalind, compliantly undertook the secondary part of Phoebe. Phoebe is a shepherdess in the forest of Arden, loved to distraction by the shepherd Silvius, whom she cannot endure, and whom she overwhelms with consistent harshness. Phoebe is as cold as the moon whose name she bears; she has a heart of snow which is not to be melted by the fire of the most burning sighs, but whose icy crust constantly thickens and hardens like diamond; but scarcely has she seen Rosalind in the dress of the handsome page Ganymede, than all this ice dissolves to tears, and the diamond becomes softer than wax.
“The haughty Phoebe who laughed at love is herself in love, and now suffers the torments which she formerly made others endure. Her pride is humbled so far as to make every advance; she sends poor Silvius to Rosalind with an ardent letter containing the avowal of her passion in most humble and supplicating terms. Rosalind, touched with pity for Silvius, and having, moreover, most excellent reasons for not responding to Phoebe's love, subjects her to the harshest treatment, and mocks her with unparalleled cruelty and animosity. Nevertheless, Phoebe prefers these outrages to the most delicate and impassioned madrigals from her hapless shepherd; she follows the handsome stranger everywhere, and, by dint of her importunities, extracts the promise, — the most favorable she can obtain, — that if he ever marries a woman, he will most certainly marry her; meanwhile he binds her to treat Silvius welly and not to nurse too flattering a hope.
“Rosette acquitted herself of her part with a sad, fond grace and a tone of mournful resignation which went to the heart; and when Rosalind said to her,' I would love you if I could,' the tears were on the point of overflowing her eyes, and she found it difficult to restrain them, for Phoebe's history is here, just as Orlando's is mine, with the difference that everything turns out happily for Orlando, while Phoebe, deceived in her love, is reduced to marrying Silvius, instead of the charming ideal she would fain embrace. Life is ordered thus: that which makes the happiness of one makes of necessity the misfortune of another. It is very fortunate for me that Theodore is a woman; it is very unfortunate for Rosette that he is not a man; and she now finds herself amid the amorous impossibilities in which I was lately lost.
“At the end of the piece Rosalind lays aside the doublet of the page Ganymede for the garments of her sex, and makes herself known to the duke as his daughter, and to Orlando as his mistress. The god Hymen then arrives with his saffron livery and lawful torches. Three marriages take place-Orlando weds Rosalind, Phoebe Silvius, and the facetious Touchstone the artless Audrey. Then comes the salutation of the epilogue, and the curtain falls.
“We have been very greatly interested and occupied with all this. It was in some measure a play within a play, an invisible drama unknown to the audience, which we acted for ourselves alone, and which, in symbolical words, summed up our entire life, and expressed our most hidden desires. Without Rosalind's singular recipe, I should have become more sick than ever, without even the hope of a distant cure, and should have continued to wander sadly through the crooked paths of the dark forest.
“Nevertheless, I have only a moral certainty; I am without proofs, and I cannot remain any longer in this state of uncertainty; I really must speak to Theodore in a more definite manner. I have gone up to him twenty times with a sentence prepared, and could not manage to utter it I dare not; I have many opportunities of speaking to him alone, either in the park or in my room, or in his own, for he visits me and I him, but I let them slip without availing myself of them, although the next moment I feel mortal regret, and fall into horrible passions with myself. I open my mouth, and, in spite of myself, other words take the place of those that I would utter; instead of declaring my love, I enlarge upon the rain or the fine weather, or some other similar stupidity. Yet the season is drawing to a close, and we shall soon return to town; the facilities which here are opened up favorably to my desires will never be met with again. We shall perhaps lose sight of each other, and opposite currents will no doubt carry us away.
“Country freedom is so charming and convenient a thing! the trees, even when they have lost some of their leaves in autumn, afford such delicious shades to the dreamings of incipient love! it is difficult to resist amid the surroundings of beautiful nature! the birds have such languorous songs, the flowers such intoxicating scents, the backs of the hills such golden and silky turf! Solitude inspires you with a thousand voluptuous thoughts, which the whirlwind of the world would have scattered or have caused to fly hither and thither, and the instinctive movement of two beings listening to the beating of their hearts in the silence of the deserted country is to entwine the arms more closely and enfold each other, as though they were indeed the only living creatures in the world.
“I was out walking this morning, the weather was mild and damp, and though the sky gave no glimpse of the smallest lozenge of azure, it was neither dark nor lowering. Two or three tones of pearl-grey, harmoniously blended, bathed it from end to end, and across this vaporous background cottony clouds, like large pieces of wool, passed slowly along; they there being driven by the dying breath of a little breeze, scarcely strong enough to shake the summits of the most restless aspens; flakes of mist were rising among the tall chestnut trees and marking the course of the river in the distance.. When the breeze took breath again, parched and reddened leaves would scatter in agitation and hasten along the path before me like swarms of timid sparrows; then the breath ceasing, they would sink down a few paces further on-a true image of those natures which seem to be birds flying freely with their wings, but which after all are only leaves withered by the morning frost, and toy and sport of the slightest passing breeze.
“The distance was stumped with vapor and the fringes of the horizon ravelled on the border in such a manner that it was scarcely possible to determine the exact point at which the earth ended and the sky began: a grey which was somewhat more opaque, and a mist which was somewhat more dense, vaguely indicating the separation and the difference of the planes. Through this curtain the willows, with their ashen tops, looked like spectral rather than real trees and the curves of the hills, had a greater resemblance to the undulations of an accumulation of clouds than to the bearings of solid ground. The outlines of objects wavered to the eye, and a species of grey weft of unspeakable fineness, like a spider's web, stretched between the foreground of the landscape and the retreating
