Returning then to the amiable artifice with which she had before prevented Oswald from abandoning himself to passionate disquietudes, she desired to interest his mind and his imagination anew, by the wonders of the fine arts which he had not yet seen, and by this means retard the moment when their fate should be cleared up and decided. Such a situation would be insupportable, governed by any other sentiment than that of love; but so much is it in the power of love to sweeten every hour, to give a charm to every minute, that although it need an indefinite future, it becomes, intoxicated with the present, and is filled every day with such a multitude of emotions and ideas that it becomes an age of happiness or pain! Undoubtedly it is love alone that can give an idea of eternity; it confounds every notion of time; it effaces every idea of beginning and end; we believe that we have always loved the object of our affection; so difficult is it to conceive that we have ever been able to live without him. The more dreadful separation appears, the less it seems probable; it becomes, like death, a fear which is more spoken of than believed--a future event which seems impossible, even at the very moment we know it to be inevitable. Corinne, among her innocent stratagems to vary the amusements of Oswald, had still in reserve the statues and the paintings. One day therefore, when Oswald was perfectly restored, she proposed that they should go together to see the most beautiful specimens of painting and sculpture that Rome contains. "It is a reproach," said she to him, smiling, "not to be acquainted with our statues and our pictures; so to-morrow we will commence our tour of the museums and the galleries."--"It is your wish," answered Nelville, "and I agree. But in truth, Corinne, you have no need of these foreign resources to retain me; on the contrary, it is a sacrifice that I make whenever I turn my eyes from you to any object whatever." They went first to the Museum of the Vatican, that palace of statues where the human figure is deified by Paganism, in the same manner as the sentiments of the soul are now by Christianity. Corinne directed the observation of Lord Nelville to those silent halls, where the images of the gods and the heroes are assembled, and where the most perfect beauty seems to enjoy itself in eternal repose. In contemplating these admirable features and forms, the intentions of the Deity towards man, seems, I know not how, to be revealed by the noble figure which He has been pleased to give him. The soul is uplifted by this contemplation to hopes full of enthusiasm and virtue; for beauty is one and the same throughout the universe, and under whatever form it presents itself, it always excites a religious emotion in the heart of man. What poetic language, there is in those countenances where the most sublime expression is for ever imprinted,--where the grandest thoughts are clad with an image so worthy of them!