One more quotation from Mr. Lang, and we are done. Sylvie and Gérard have met, and they go on a visit to her aunt, who, while she prepares dinner, sends Gérard for her niece, who had "gone to ransack the peasant treasures in the garret." "Two portraits were hanging there--one, that of a young man of the good old times, smiling with red lips and brown eyes, a pastel in an oval frame. Another medallion held the portrait of his wife, gay, _piquante_, in a bodice with ribbons fluttering, and with a bird perched on her finger. It was the old aunt in her youth, and further search discovered her ancient festal-gown, of stiff brocade, Sylvie arrayed herself in this splendour; patches were found in a box of tarnished gold, a fan, a necklace of amber." This is the charming moment chosen by M. Andhré des Gachons as the subject of his _aquarelle_, reproduced in colour as frontispiece to the present edition. III. In thus bringing out a fresh version of _Sylvie_, not to include the all too few illusive lyrics "done into English" by Mr. Lang, his exquisite sonnet on Gérard, and the lovely lines upon "Sylvie et Aurélie," were a deplorable omission. The sonnet exists in an earlier form; preferably, the later version is here given. Of De Nerval's prose little has yet found its way to us. His poetry is fully as inaccessible. Things of such iridescent hue are possibly beyond the art of translation. They are written in an unknown tongue; say, rather, in the language of Dreamland, "vaporous, unaccountable";--a world of crepuscular dawns, as of light irradiated from submerged sea caverns,--"the mermaid's haunt" beheld of him alone. IV. With what _adieux_ shall we now take leave of our little pearl of a story? And of him who gave us this exquisite creation of heart and brain what words remain to say? Thou, Sylvie, art an unfading flower of virginal, soft Spring, and faint, elusive skies. For _thee_ Earth's old sweet nights have shed their tenderest dews, and in thy lovely Valois land thou canst not fade or die. Thy lover, child, fared forth beneath an alien star. For _him_ there was no true country, here;--no return to thy happy-hearted love: the desert sands long since effaced the valley track. Only the far distant lying,--the abyss that calls and is never dumb, urged his onward steps. And these things, and this divine homesickness led him, pale nympholept, beyond Earth's human shores. Thither to thee, rapt Soul, shall all bright dreams of day, all lonely visions of the night, converge at last. SYLVIE: (SOUVENIRS DU VALOIS.) _AN OLD TUNE._ _GÉRARD DE NERVAL._ _There is an air for which I would disown_ _Mozart's, Rossini's, Weber's melodies,--_ _A sweet, sad air that languishes and sighs,_ _And keeps its secret charm for me alone._