XIII.--At Mother Hecht's. WITHERED LEAVES. VOL. II.--ERRATA. Page 109, line 20, for Nirwana read Nirvana. " 154, " 12, for Niriwana read Nirvana. " 183, " 1, for Arioste read Ariosto. WITHERED LEAVES. CHAPTER I. THE FIRST MEETING. "I had always been a dreamer, and an enthusiast," began Blanden, "and even when at school I cherished bold designs; I would emigrate to Madagascar, an island to which I had taken a peculiar fancy, and did not deem it impossible there to win a crown for myself. "I always remained aloof from the noisy amusements of my companions. I loved solitude; a walk in the company of others was disagreeable to me; all their conversations and songs seemed like desecration of nature, which only reveals its beauty, its secrets to silent appreciation. But when I wandered alone through meadows, even if only the cornfields of my paternal estates, or lost myself in the woods--above me the rustling oaks, beside me the roaring sea--a sensation often overcame me, of which I was unable to give any account, which would not allow itself to be put into words, without wiping away its mysterious magic as if it were the coloured down of a butterfly's wings. I was persuaded that this feeling was shared and understood by none; it was a kind of religion of nature, but so fervent, that in it I believed to lose my identity, that I felt as if my soul went forth into the vast universe, as if the lisping breeze which stirred the branches and tops of the trees were the spirit of the Divinity, the same spirit which also animated the respirations of my bosom, and the feelings of my heart. The evening crimson, when its glow faded away behind the summits, could fill me with infinite emotion; a hot day which unfettered the spicy breeze in field and forest, and which with darkening fragrance hovered over the blue distance, could transport me into an ecstacy, as though the fire of external nature glowed within my own veins. "I studied the works of poets; I found nothing that would entirely have expressed my sensations, and even in ancient religious writings and the works of a later period, I found the indication of this feeling rather than itself in its peculiarity. "I might gather it from ambiguous symbols, but the language of my heart it was not.