With my first consciousness of existence dawned on my perceptions the beautiful imagery of the cloister and celebrated church of the Lime-Tree. Even at this moment, methinks the dark oak wood yet rustles around me; I breathe once more the fragrance of the luxuriant grass and variegated flowers which were my cradle. No noxious insect, no poisonous reptile, is found within the limits of that sanctuary. Scarce even the buzzing of a fly, or chirping of a grasshopper, interrupts the solemn stillness, diversified only by the pious songs of the monks, who walk about in long solemn processions, accompanied by pilgrims of all nations, waving their censers of consecrated perfume. Even now, I seem yet vividly to behold in the middle of the church, the stem of the lime-tree cased in silver, that far-famed tree, on which supernatural visitants had placed the miraculous and wonder-working image of the Virgin, while from the walls and lofty dome, the well-known features of Saints and Angels are once more smiling upon me. In like manner, it appears to me also, as if I had once beheld in the same place the mysterious figure of a tall, grave, and austere-looking man, of whom I was given to understand, that he could be no other but the far-famed Italian painter, who had, in times long past, been here professionally employed. No one understood his language, nor was his real history known to any one of the monks. This much only was certain, that he had, in a space of time incredibly short, filled the church with its richest ornaments, and then, as soon as his work was finished, immediately disappeared, no one could tell how or whither. Not less vividly could I paint the portrait of a venerable pilgrim, who carried me about in his arms, and assisted me in my childish plays of searching for all sorts of variegated moss and pebbles in the forest. Yet, though the apparition of the painter was certainly real, that of the pilgrim, were it not for its influence on my after life, would seem to me but a dream. One day this personage brought with him a boy of uncommon beauty, and about my equal in years, with whom I seated myself on the grass, sharing with him my treasured store of moss and pebbles, which he already knew how to form into various regular figures, and above all, into the holy sign of the cross. My mother, meanwhile, sat near us on a stone bench, and the old pilgrim stood behind her, contemplating with mild gravity our infantine employments.