Well accustomed to human weakness, and perhaps guessing at some of the sources of mine, the good Hermit, without appearing to notice this emotion, expatiated, with a cheerful air, on, what he called, the many comforts of my dwelling. Sheltered, he said, from the dry, burning wind of the south, my porch would inhale the fresh breeze of the Dog‐star. Fruits from his own mountain‐garden should furnish my repast. The well of the neighbouring rock would supply my beverage; and, “here,” he continued,—lowering his voice into a more solemn tone, as he placed upon the table the volume which he had brought,—“here, my son, is that ‘well of living waters,’ in which alone thou wilt find lasting refreshment or peace!” Thus saying, he descended the rock to his boat, and after a few plashes of his oar had died upon my ear, the solitude and silence around me was complete. CHAP. XVII. What a fate was mine!—but a few weeks since, presiding over that splendid Festival of the Garden, with all the luxuries of existence tributary in my train; and now,—self‐humbled into a solitary outcast,—the hypocritical pupil of a Christian anchoret,—without even the excuse of fanaticism, or of any other madness, but that of love, wild love, to extenuate my fall! Were there a hope that, by this humiliating waste of existence, I might purchase but a glimpse, now and then, of Alethe, even the depths of the desert, with such a chance, would be welcome. But to live—and live thus—_without_ her, was a misery which I neither foresaw nor could endure. Hating even to look upon the den to which I was doomed, I hurried out into the air, and found my way, along the rocks, to the desert. The sun was going down, with that blood‐red hue, which he so frequently wears, in this clime, at his setting. I saw the sands, stretching out, like a sea, to the horizon, as if their waste extended to the very verge of the world,—and, in the bitterness of my feelings, rejoiced to see so much of creation rescued, even by this barren liberty, from the grasp of man. The thought seemed to relieve my wounded pride, and, as I wandered over the dim and boundless solitude, to be thus free, even amid blight and desolation, appeared a blessing. The only living thing I saw was a restless swallow, whose wings were of the hue of the grey sands over which he fluttered. “Why may not the mind, like this bird, take the colour of the desert, and sympathise in its austerity, its freedom, and its calm?”—thus, between despondence and defiance, did I ask myself, endeavouring to face with fortitude what yet my heart sickened to contemplate. But the effort was unavailing. Overcome by that vast solitude, whose repose was not the slumber of peace, but the sullen and burning silence of hate, I felt my spirit give way, and even love itself yield to despair.