Sylph

“ Nothing is so easy as to get away from your company in a crowd: I slipped from them, and went into a room which was nearly empty, and still followed by the conjuror. I seated myself on a sopha, and just turned my head round, when I perceived the most elegant creature that imagination can form placed by me. I started, half-breathless with surprize. "Be not alarmed, my Julia," said the phantom, (for such I at first thought it) "be not alarmed at the appearance of your Sylph." ”

“ While he spoke this, he had again taken my hand, and pressed it with rapture to his bosom, which, beating with violence, I own caused no small emotion in mine. I gently withdrew my hand, and said, with as composed a voice as I could command, "Yes, my Sylph, I do most readily resign myself to your protection, and shall never feel a wish to put any restriction on it, while I am enabled to judge of you from your own criterion; while virtue presides over your lessons; while your instructions are calculated to make me a good and respectable character, I can form no wish to depart from them." ”

“ and she’s the only sylph I ever saw, who could stand upon one leg, and play the tambourine on her other knee, like a sylph.’
‘When does she come down?’ asked Nicholas. ”

“ She is really one of the most beautiful girls I have seen,—a little sylph,—who must have stolen her exquisite foot and her graces from another land. She is only sixteen,—wild, and mobile as quicksilver ”

“ This, however, is but as a preface to what I mean to say to you;—I have hinted, I knew you well;—when I thus expressed myself, it should be understood, I spoke in the person of the Sylph, which I shall occasionally do, as it will be writing with more perspicuity in the first instance; and, as he is employed by me, I may, without the appearance of robbery, safely appropriate to myself the knowledge he gains.
Every human being has a guardian angel; my skill has discovered your's; my power has made him obedient to my will; I have a right to avail myself of the intelligences he gains ”

“ The author goes on to say that the sylphs of the Rosicrucians seeing that they are taken for Demons when they appear, in order to diminish aversion, take the form of these animals, and accomodate themselves thus to the whimsical weakness of women, who would be horrified at the sight of a handsome sylph, but less so at a dog or monkey. ”

“ Thus, it once happened that a sylphide, who was in union with a philosopher, on an occasion when he was talking with friends about a pretty woman--and perhaps rather too warmly--suddenly allowed her white beautifully-formed limb to become visible in the air, as if to convince the friends of her beauty, and then killed the poor philosopher on the spot. ”

“ German romance and lyrical poetry teem with allusions to sylphs, gnomes, undines, and salamanders; and the French have not been behind in substituting them, in works of fiction, for the more cumbrous mythology of Greece and Rome. The sylphs, more especially, have been the favourites of the bards, and have become so familiar to the popular mind as to be, in a manner, confounded with that other race of ideal beings, the fairies, who can boast of an antiquity much more venerable in the annals of superstition. ”

“ Sylvia paused for a moment, and then answered: 'A quiet spirit.' And the Fairy granted her request.
This lovely gift makes life a constant happiness to its possessor, and to all who are brought into contact with her. She has all the beauty of gentleness and contentment in her sweet face; and if at times it seems less lovely through some chance grief or disquietude, the hardest thing that one ever hears said is:
'Sylvia's dear face is pale to-day. ”

“ Day after day they followed mountain paths, studying the changes of an ever-varying landscape, watching the flush of dawn redden the granite fronts of these Titans scarred with centuries of storm, the lustre of noon brood over them until they smiled, the evening purple wrap them in its splendor, or moonlight touch them with its magic; till Sylvia, always looking up at that which filled her heart with reverence and awe, was led to look beyond, and through the medium of the friend beside her learned that human love brings us nearer to the Divine, and is the surest means to that great end. ”

“ Not even the shadow of death had ever fallen across Sylvia's life, or that of her father, to explain the premonitory emotion which now drew them together like two frightened children. Sylvia felt the inexorable music beating in her own veins, and when she took her father's hand it seemed to her that its strong pulses throbbed to the same rhythm; beauty, and despair ... hope ... life ... death. ”

“ To Sylvia the sudden change into brightness and bustle occasioned by the entrance of her father and the specksioneer was like that which you may effect any winter's night, when you come into a room where a great lump of coal lies hot and slumbering on the fire; just break it up with a judicious blow from the poker, and the room, late so dark, and dusk, and lone, is full of life, and light, and warmth. ”

“ Mère Gontran, candle in hand, towered up above her with such a dominating excitement that Sylvia let herself be over-persuaded and followed her out into the garden. From what had formerly been Carrier's room the owls hooted at the moon; Samuel, the talking collie, was baying dolefully; the snowfall, too light to give to the nocturnal landscape a pure and crystalline beauty, was enough to destroy the familiar aspect of the scene and to infect it with a withered papery look, turning house and garden to the color of dry bones. ”

“ Stanhope—of my bereavement and present idyllic existence. And she told me of herself, how she had lived on and on in the little cottage, caring only for the support and education of her niece, Phyllis Kinglake, an orphan for nearly twenty years. "You [Pg 26] remember Sylvia?" she said, with the first touch of emotion.
Did I remember Sylvia? My little fair-haired playmate with the large eyes and the blue veins showing through the delicate beauty of her face? Little Sylvia, who first won my boyish affection, and with whom I made a solemn contract of marriage when we were only seven years old? ”

“ Many such old people set out betimes, on the Sunday afternoon to which Sylvia had been so looking forward, to scale the long flights of stone steps--worn by the feet of many generations--which led up to the parish church, placed on a height above the town, on a great green area at the summit of the cliff, which was the angle where the river and the sea met, and so overlooking both the busy crowded little town, the port, the shipping, and the bar on the one hand, and the wide illimitable tranquil sea on the other--types of life and eternity. ”

“ Sylvia, standing opposite, not looking at Hester, but gazing at the ribbons in the shop window, as if hardly conscious that any one awaited the expression of her wishes, was a great contrast; ready to smile or to pout, or to show her feelings in any way, with a character as undeveloped as a child's, affectionate, wilful, naughty, tiresome, charming, anything, in fact, at present that the chances of an hour called out. ”

“ Sylvia, the forest's honour, the soul's firer?
Of her I speak. Alas! I lived one time,
So fastened to her side, that never turtle
Was closer to his mate, nor ever will be.
Our homes were close together, closer still
Our hearts; our age conformable, our thoughts
Still more conformed. ”

“ SYBILLA, MYRTILLO, AND FURIOSO. ACERTAIN king had a beautiful golden-haired daughter named Sybilla, whose suitors came from every country, though with small success, since the princess had vowed to remain single until one proving to be the mightiest hero of the world should appear.
At no great distance from her father's country lived a horrible giant, every hair of whose head could change, at will, into a fiery serpent. He had one eye, the size of a mill-wheel, and his teeth looked like rocks in a mighty cavern. ”

“ Thy Rigour, oh Sylvia, will shorten thy Reign,
And make our bright Goddess a Mortal again.
Love heightens our Joys, he's the ease of our Care,
A spur to the Valiant, a Crown to the Fair;
Oh seize his soft Wings then before 'tis too late,
Or Cruelty quickly will hasten thy Fate.
'Tis kindness, my Sylvia, 'tis kindness alone,
Will add to thy Lovers, and strengthen thy Throne;
In Love, as in Empire, Tyrannical sway,
Will make Loyal Subjects forget to Obey. ”

“ But Sylvia was too highly strung for banter. If she had not been one of those who went to mock, but remained to pray, she had gone to church with the thought of the cloak-that-was-to-be uppermost in her mind, and she had come down the long church stair with life and death suddenly become real to her mind, the enduring sea and hills forming a contrasting background to the vanishing away of man. ”

“ One of the farms on the cliff had lately been taken by Sylvia's father. He was a man who had roamed about a good deal—been sailor, smuggler, horse-dealer, and farmer in turns; a sort of fellow possessed by a spirit of adventure and love of change, which did him and his own family more harm than anybody else. He was just the kind of man that all his neighbours found fault with, and all his neighbours liked. ”

“ How he loves his mistress who sits him so light, so firm, so easily swaying; she bends him to her will by master-strength; yet pats and soothes as she might a frightened child. Sweetness and strength! that is all the magic. The rein is a channel through which intelligence goes most subtly. Good Sylvan knows and loves his rider—feels her vividly to the core of his quick sense; will serve her unquestioning to the limit of his speed and stay. ”

“ As Sylvia grew up she became conscious of her beauty, and, relying upon her good looks, and no doubt also upon her pretty name, she enslaved to her will the handsome swain Darinel, whose appellation, like that of his lady-love, is racy of the land of the Pharaohs. ”

“ Sylvia, in her purity and excellence, was so far above him, that in raising his eyes to her, he lost sight of all the sordid creatures to whose level he had once debased himself, and had come in part to regard the sins he had committed, before his redemption by the love of this bright young creature, as evil done by him under a past condition of existence, and for the consequences of which he was not responsible. ”

“ If Philip were gay, and brisk, well-dressed like him, returning with martial glory to Monkshaven, would not Sylvia love him once more? Could not he win her heart? He was brave by nature, and the prospect of danger did not daunt him, if ever it presented itself to his imagination. ”

“ But do you know that in Elven Fate had another name, and that name was Sylvia?”
He replaced the garter and stood up looking down at the cat crouched before the closed door.
“The name of Elven has a charm for me. It tells me of meadows and clear rivers. The name of Sylvia troubles me like perfume from dead flowers.”
The cat mewed.
“Yes, yes,” he said soothingly, “I will take you back. Your Sylvia is not my Sylvia; the world is wide and Elven is not unknown. Yet in the darkness and filth of poorer Paris, in the sad shadows of this ancient house, these names are very pleasant to me.” ”

“ Sylv. This must be he: ay, 'tis he, and, as I am a virgin, roaring drunk; but, if I find not a way to make him sober—
Cour. Here, here's the window: ay, that's hell-door, and my damnation's in the inside. Sylvia, Sylvia, Sylvia! dear imp of Satan, appear to thy servant.
Sylv. Who calls on Sylvia in this dead of night,
When rest is wanting to her longing eyes?
Cour. 'Tis a poor wretch can hardly stand upright,
Drunk with thy love, and if he falls he lies.
Sylv. Courtine, is't you?
Cour. Yes, sweetheart, 'tis I; art thou ready for me? ”

“ Sylvle's sweet lips shaped themselves to reply, but her voice sounded faint and very far away. The vision was fast slipping from my eager gaze: but It seemed to me, in that last bewildering moment, that not Sylvie but an angel was looking out through those trustful
brown eyes, and that not Sylvie's but an angel's voice was whispering
"It is Love." ”

“ But Sylvia, a shuddering chip on the torrent, always found herself in the exact middle of the most crowded spot, feeling her body horrifyingly pressed upon by various invisible ones behind her and several only too visible ones in front, breathing down the back of somebody's neck, often a dirty and sweaty one, with somebody breathing hotly down the back of her own. ”

“ Heavy miserable times of endurance and waiting have to be passed through by all during the course of their lives; and Philip had had his share of such seasons, when the heart, and the will, and the speech, and the limbs, must be bound down with strong resolution to patience.
For many days, nay, for weeks, he was forbidden to see Sylvia, as the very sound of his footstep brought on a recurrence of the fever and convulsive movement. ”

“ Behind Sylvia stalked her cold and haughty husband, and behind him tripped the wonderful nursemaid, with her wonderful blue streamers, and her wonderful bundle of ruffles and lace. All the huge family had to fall upon Sylvia and kiss and embrace her rapturously, and shake the hand of the cold and haughty husband, and peer into the wonderful bundle, and go into ecstasies over its contents. Rarely, indeed, did the great ones of this earth condescend to spread so much of their emotional life before the public gaze ”

“ THE MAGIC LOCKET.
"Where are we, father?" Sylvie whispered, with her arms twined closely around the old man's neck, and with her rosy cheek lovingly pressed to his.
"In Elfland, darling. It's one of the provinces of Fairyland." ”