From the east to western Ind,
No jewel is like Rosalind,
Her worth being mounted on the wind,
Through all the world bears Rosalind,
All the pictures fairest lined,
Are but black to Rosalind,
Let no face be kept in mind,
But the face of Rosalind.
?Touchstone.—I'll rhyme you so, eight years together; dinners and
suppers, and sleeping hours excepted; it is the right butter-woman's
rank to market.
?? ?? ?? As You Like It.
Whenever L'Isle took holiday from his military duties, he was pretty sure to take it out of his regiment, the next day. On parade, next morning, he inspected the ranks, bent on detecting some defect in bearing or equipment, and peered into the faces of the men, as if hunting out the culprits in the latest breach of discipline. Men and officers looked for a three hours' drill, to improve their wind, and put them in condition. But, to their great comfort, he soon let them off, and hastened back to his quarters. Arrived there, he called to his man for his portfolio, and at once sat down to write as if he had a world of correspondence before him. But it was plain to this man, who had occasion to come often into the room, that his master did not get through his work with his usual facility. He found him, not so often writing, as leaning on the table in laborious cogitation, or biting the feather end of his quill, or rapping his forehead with his knuckles, to stimulate the action of the organs within, or else striding up and down the room, in a brown study, over sundry half-written and discarded sheets of paper, scattered on the floor. L'Isle's servant wished to speak to him, but was too wise to disturb him in the midst of those throes of mental labor. But, when pausing suddenly in his walk, he pressed his forefinger on his temple, and exclaimed, "I had it last night, and now I have lost it!" his confidential man thought it time to speak. "What is it, sir, shall I look for it?"
L'Isle stared at him, as if just roused from a reverie, and bursting into a hearty laugh, bid him go down stairs until he called for him.
Down stairs he went, and told his two companions that their master was at work on the toughest despatch or report, or something of that sort, he had ever had to make in his life, adding, "I would not be surprised if something came of it."
"I have not a doubt," answered Tom, the groom, in a confident tone, "that the colonel has found out some new way to jockey the French, and is about to lay it before Sir Rowland Hill, or, perhaps my Lord Wellington himself."
Being men of leisure, they were still busy discussing their master's affairs, and had begun to wonder if he had forgotten that it was time to go to dinner, when L'Isle called for his man; but it was only to bid him send the groom up to him.
With an obedient start, Tom hastened up stairs. In a few minutes, he came down with an exceedingly neatly folded despatch in his hand. He seemed to have gained in that short interval no little accession of importance. He had quite sunk the groom, and strode into the room with the air of an ambassador.
"Now, my lads, without even stopping to wet my whistle," said he, "I will but sharpen my spurs, saddle my horse, and then—"
"What then?" asked his comrades.
"I will ride off on my important mission."
"Were you right?" asked L'Isle's gentleman. "Is that for Sir Rowland Hill?"
"Sir Rowland," answered Tom, carelessly, "is not the most considerable personage with whom master may correspond. And as the army post goes every day to Coria, he would hardly send me thither."
"Can it be for the commander-in-chief?" suggested the footman. "That is farther off still."
"You are but half-right," said Tom, contemptuously; "for it is not so far," and, holding up the letter, he pretended to read the direction: "'To his excellency, Lieutenant-General Sir Mabel Stewart, commander-in-chief of his majesty's forces in these parts.' If you had not been blockheads, you might have known it, from the extraordinary neatness of the rose-colored envelope, with its figured green border."
"I wonder where he got it?" said the footman.
"He brought them out with him from home," said Tom, as if he were in all his master's secrets, "for his love-letters to the Portuguese ladies—but never met with any worth writing love-letters to. And, now, my lads, hinder me no longer, I must ride and run till this be delivered to my lady, and your mistress, that is to be." He was soon in the saddle, and when there, rode as if carrying the news, that a French division, having surprised the dreamy Spaniards in Badajoz, was already fording the Cayo, without meeting even Goring's handful of dragoons, to check its advance.
L'Isle now hastened to the regimental mess, and, after dining, loitered there longer than usual, with a convivial set, until it was late enough to visit Lady Mabel.
He found her alone, in her drawing-room; her father being still at table, with some companions, the murmur of whose voices and laughter now and then reached L'Isle's ears.
"Lieutenant Goring, who is down stairs," said Lady Mabel, "has been amusing us at dinner with his version of our adventure at the ford of the Cayo; and a very good story he makes of it, giving some rich samples of Captain Hatton's polyglot eloquence. He, alone, seems not to have been in the dark; and saw all, and more than all, that occurred—nor does he forget you in the picture. But, papa cannot see the wit of it at all."
"Burlas de manos, burlas de villanos. There seldom is wit in practical jokes," said L'Isle; "but there was certainly more wit than wisdom in this."
"By-the-bye," said Lady Mabel, "our excursion yesterday has procured me a new correspondent. You will be astonished to hear who he is, and at the style in which he writes."
"Indeed!" said L'Isle, with heightening color. "I hope he writes on an agreeable topic, and in a suitable style?"
"You shall judge for yourself," said Lady Mabel. "But the grandiloquence of the epistle, worthy of Captain Don Alonzo Melendez himself, calls not for reading, but recitation. Do you sit here as critic, while I take my stand in the middle of the room, and give it utterance with all the elocution and pathos I can muster. You must know that this epistle I hold in my hand, is addressed to me by no less a personage than the river-god of the Guadiana, who, contrary to all my notions of mythology, proves to be a gentleman, and not a lady." And, in a slightly mock-heroic tone, she began to recite it:
Maiden, the sunshine of thine eye,
?Flashing my joyous waves along,
The magic of thy soul-lit smile,
?Have waked my murmuring voice to song.
Winding through Hispania's mountains,
?Watering her sunburnt plains,
I, from earliest time, have gladdened
?Dwellers on these wide domains.
I have watched succeeding races,
?Peopling my fertile strand,
Marked each varying lovely model,
?Moulded by Nature's plastic hand.
Striving still to reach perfection,
?Ruthless, she broke each beauteous mould;
Some blemish still deformed her creature,
?Some alloy still defiled her gold.
The Iberian girl has often bathed,
?Her limbs in my delighted flood,
And no Acteon came to startle
?This very Dian of the wood.
The stately Roman maid has loitered,
?Pensive, upon my flowering shore,
Shedding some pearly drops to think,
?Italia she may see no more.
While gazing on my placid face,
?She meditates her distant home;
And rears, as upon Tiber's banks,
?The towers of imperial Rome.
The blue-eyed daughter of the Goth,
?Fresh from her northern forest-home,
In rude nobility of race,
?Foreshadowed her who now has come.
The loveliest offspring of the Moor
?Beside my moon-lit current sat;
And, sighing, sung her hopeless love,
?In strains, that I remember yet.
The Christian knight, in captive chains,
?The conqueror of her heart has proved;
His own, in far Castilian bower,
?He bears her blandishments unmoved.
Thus Nature tried her 'prentice hand,
?Become, at last, an artist true;
In inspiration's happiest mood,
?She tried again, and moulded you.
Maiden, from my crystal surface,
?May thy image never fade;
Longing, longing, to embrace thee,
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