of Glyndon. He would be the rival of Zicci, not in human and perishable
affections, but in preternatural and eternal lore. He would have laid
down life with content, nay, rapture, as the price of learning those
solemn secrets which separated the stranger from mankind.. Such fools
are we when we aspire to be over-wise! To be enamoured too madly of the
goddess of goddesses is only to embrace a cloud, and to forfeit alike
heaven and earth.

The night was most lovely and serene, and the waves scarcely rippled at
his feet as the Englishman glided on by the cool and starry beach. At
length he arrived at the spot, and there, leaning against the broken
pillar, he beheld a man wrapped in a long mantle and in an attitude of
profound repose. He approached, and uttered the name of Zicci. The
figure turned, and he saw the face of a stranger,--a face not stamped by
the glorious beauty of the Corsican, but equally majestic in its aspect,
and perhaps still more impressive from the mature age and the
passionless depth of thought that characterized the expanded forehead
and deep-set but piercing eyes.

"You seek Zicci," said the stranger,--"he will be here anon; but perhaps
he whom you see before you is more connected with your destiny, and more
disposed to realize your dreams."

"Hath the earth then another Zicci?"

"If not," replied the stranger, "why do you cherish the hope and the
wild faith to be yourself a Zicci? Think you that none others have
burned with the same godlike dream? Who, indeed, in his first youth;--
youth, when the soul is nearer to the heaven from which it sprang, and
its divine and primal longings are not all effaced by the sordid