My beloved Rhine did not, however, always appear under this tragic aspect, nor are all my memories of the old home steeped in such melancholy hues. How beautiful it was, and the grounds how lovely in those old days, before the cyclone had laid low the tallest trees. Some of the finest specimens were quite near the house, and towered above it, white poplars whose silvery foliage contrasted strikingly with the ruddy hue of the copper-beeches, and the soft delicate verdure of the lindens. The world looked lovely and smiling indeed, as I gazed from my window and saw them bathed in sunshine, with the shadows of their waving branches dancing backwards and forwards on the grass. But there were other seasons;--sometimes of long duration,--when the gloom within doors was so great, it seemed as if the sun never shone at all, and I sat alone in my room over my books, listening to the roaring of the wind in the chimney, roaring as it only roars in old and half empty houses, as if the Spirit of the Storm were imprisoned there! Something of this Paganini must surely have one day heard and have borne in mind when he composed those strange, weird variations for the violin, in which the strings sob and moan with more than mortal anguish. Quite recently, when that melody was played before me by our gifted young musician, George Enesco, so vividly did it recall the wailing sound, as of a soul in distress, by which my childhood had been haunted, that I leant over to my young niece, who happened to be present, and whispered, “Do you hear the voice of the wind in the chimneys of the old home?”--and she burst into tears. Ah! how often have I cried too in the old days, when that dismal sound rang in my ears, and all that I looked out upon was a sullen swollen flood carrying along huge blocks of ice, or else tossing its angry foaming waves aloft, beneath a sky that seemed itself weighted with lead and borne down to the earth, unmindful of its true mission to stand arched above our heads to cheer us! And I had no amusing books to distract my thoughts; nothing but grammars and histories! And the latter I abhorred, for they seemed to me to be but a record of human misery on a larger scale, of which I had only seen too much in my own small way, quite at close quarters. I did not want to hear of the wretched squabbles that had gone on all over the earth, of how men hated and vilified one another, how they quarrelled and fought. History is nothing but glorified misery after all! I knew of course that these were frightful heresies, and was very much ashamed of my own deficient powers of admiration, but it was perhaps not very much to be wondered at, considering the way in which historic facts had been rammed down my throat in my lesson-hours. It was natural enough that my thoughts should wander in any other direction, and that I should seize my pen, and try to give them form. These first products of my Muse were surely very poor