Down this arcade comes the intruder, deeper and deeper into the forest; he seems to have no settled purpose here, but wanders below the drooping branches in meditative silence, communing with his heart, and inhaling as it seems the melancholy tenderness which floats in the shadowy air--melancholy because anticipating the departure of those bright lingerers in summer’s lengthened train; and tender, because remembering how Nature, the universal mother, gathers in beneath her wintry mantle those children of her care, and nourishes them in her genial bosom till spring robes her anew with their verdure and their flowers. He seems no stranger to these gentle sympathies, this solitary wayfarer, but looks upon the gay foliage and clinging flowers as if they were ancient friends. He is young, but there is a shadow on his face which tells of mental suffering and grief, though it seems of grief whose agony and bitterness has past away. His face is thin, worn, and thoughtful, there are deep furrows on his cheek and brow, the traces of some great and long-enduring struggle; his eyes are cast down, and his lips move from time to time, as though they were repeating words of comfort, with which he was striving to strengthen himself, and ever and anon he anxiously raises his earnest eyes to heaven, as if he sought for light to his soul and assurance there; and then again his head is bent down towards the greensward as if in sudden humility, and a sigh of conscious guilt or unworthiness breaks from his labouring breast, and he writhes as if he felt a sudden agonising pang. It is evident that this lonely man seeks for something which he has not, of the lack of which he is fully conscious, and which he desires with all the intensity of a soul’s most ardent and earnest longing to obtain; wealth it cannot be, nor fame, nor honour, for this wild wilderness, this place so solitary and far from the abodes of men, is not where these are either sought or found. On the trunk of a giant pine which lies across the green arcade, a trophy of the last winter’s storms, he seats himself; the gentle gale breathes through the wood in long low sighings, which come to the ear like a prolonged moan; the leaves fall softly with a pleasant plaintive cadence to their mossy grave; the sun looks down from the heavens, veiling his glory with a cloud, as though he feared to gaze too keenly on a scene so fair and solemn; the heart of the lonely meditative man is fairly melted within him; the object he has been searching for, which he has so longed to possess, which has shone upon him hitherto so distant, so far off, beyond the reach of his extended hand, and never been seen save in such transient glimpses of his straining eyes that again and again, and yet again, his doubts and fears have returned in almost their original force, and the despair, which almost engulfed him in the old sad time, seems near at hand to enshroud him once again, is suddenly brought to nearest neighbourhood.