Wyseby

OP THE FIRST IKVINGS. 15
aimless seeker, an unconscious philosopher, a voiceless
poet, a believer in that magnificent dream — human
perfection. Yet he loved no one. The courtly
dame, in the pride of hereditary and cultivated
graces, in the blaze of youthful beauty, in the en-
vironment of successful art ; — the mountain maid, —
her locks on the northern blast floating free as the
blast itself, — her step timed to no music save the
deep melody of inward impulses, or the louder but
less divine music of the mountain cataract ; — the
lowland girl, with her mild look of innocence,
her smile of guileless simplicity, her sweet songs of
home and of love, — alike failed to possess his spirit.
It felt they were beautiful ; that was all. He had
no sympathy with them. In the depth of his soul
he cherished an ideal of. beauty, of love, of truth.
When alone, this would he call up, and for hours, in
sweet oblivion of the world, gazing upon it, revel
in the extacies of spiritual love, This was he,
(the demoniac in his nature yet latent,) when at the
age of twenty he became, by the death of his father,
Esecal, Knight of Burdock. What he was in after
years, thou shalt hear anon.