Chamberss Edinburgh Journal, No. 419 | Page 3

subdued and thoughtful beneath the
tender and gracious associations of the day, each in turn ministered,
reverently and lovingly, to the old mother's need of body and of soul,
my heart was melted within me. Blessed, indeed, was I in a lot full to
overflowing of all the good gifts which a wise and merciful Maker
could lavish upon his erring and craving creature. I stood reproved. I
felt humbled to think that I should ever for a moment have indulged
one idle or restless longing for the restoration of that past which had
done its appointed work, and out of which so gracious a present had
arisen. One idea impressed me strongly: I could not but feel that had
the craving of my soul been answered in reality, as my dream had
foreshadowed; and had the wise and beneficent order of nature been
disturbed and distorted from its just relations, how fearful would have
been the result! Here, in my green old age, I stood amongst a new
generation, honoured for what I was, beloved for what I had been.
What if, at some mortal wish in some freak of nature, the form which I
now bore were for ever to remain before the eyes of my children! Were
such a thing to befall, how would their souls ever be lifted upward to
the contemplation of that higher state of being into which it is my hope
soon to pass when the hand which guided me hither shall beckon me
hence? At the thought my heart was chastened. Never since that night
have I indulged in any one wish framed in opposition to nature's laws.

Now I find my dream-children in the present; and to the past I yield
willingly all things which are its own--among the rest, the Lost Ages.

STORY OF GASPAR MENDEZ.
BY CATHERINE CROWE.
The extraordinary motives under which people occasionally act, and
the strange things they do under the influence of these motives,
frequently so far transcend the bounds of probability, that we
romance-writers, with the wholesome fear of the critics before our eyes,
would not dare to venture on them. Only the other day we read in the
newspapers that a Frenchman who had been guilty of embezzlement,
and was afraid of being found out, went into a theatre in Lyon and
stabbed a young woman whom he had never seen before in his life, in
order that he might die by the hands of the executioner, and so escape
the inconvenience of rushing into the other world without having time
to make his peace with Heaven. He desired death as a refuge from the
anguish of mind he was suffering; but instead of killing himself he
killed somebody else, because the law would allow him leisure for
repentance before it inflicted the penalty of his crime.
It will be said the man was mad--I suppose he was; and so is everybody
whilst under the influence of an absorbing passion, whether the mania
be love, jealousy, fanaticism, or revenge. The following tale will
illustrate one phase of such a madness.
In the year 1789, there resided in Italy, not far from Aquila in the
Abruzzo, a man called Gaspar Mendez. He appears to have been a
Spaniard, if not actually by birth, at least by descent, and to have
possessed a small estate, which he rendered valuable by pasturing cattle.
Not far from where he resided there lived with her parents a remarkably
handsome girl, of the name of Bianca Venoni, and on this fair damsel
Mendez fixed his affections. As he was by many degrees the best match
about the neighbourhood, he never doubted that his addresses would be
received with a warm welcome, and intoxicated with this security, he
seems to have made his advances so abruptly that the girl felt herself
entitled to give him an equally abrupt refusal. To aggravate his
mortification, he discovered that a young man, called Giuseppe Ripa,
had been a secret witness to the rejection, which took place in an
orchard; and as he walked away with rage in his heart, he heard

echoing behind him the merry laugh of the two thoughtless young
people. Proud and revengeful by nature, this affront seems to have
rankled dreadfully in the mind of Gaspar; although, in accordance with
that pride, he endeavoured to conceal his feelings under a show of
indifference. Those who knew the parties well, however, were not
deceived; and when, after an interval, it was discovered that Giuseppe
himself was the favoured lover of Bianca, the enmity, though not more
open, became more intense than ever.
In the meantime old Venoni, Bianca's father, had become aware of the
fine match his daughter had missed, and was extremely angry about it;
more particularly as he was