CHAPTER XXXI

O there is a sweet æra in the life of man, when (the brain being tender and fibrillous, and more like pap than anything else)----a story read of two fond lovers, separated from each other by cruel parents, and by still more cruel destiny----

_Amandus_ ----He _Amanda_ ----She----

each ignorant of the other’s course,

He----east She----west

_Amandus_ taken captive by the _Turks_, and carried to the emperor of _Morocco’s_ court, where the princess of _Morocco_ falling in love with him, keeps him twenty years in prison for the love of his _Amanda_.----

She--(_Amanda_) all the time wandering barefoot, and with dishevell’d hair, o’er rocks and mountains, enquiring for _Amandus!_----_Amandus! Amandus!_--making every hill and valley to echo back his name----

_Amandus! Amandus!_

at every town and city, sitting down forlorn at the gate ----Has _Amandus!_--has my _Amandus_ enter’d? ----till, ----going round, and round, and round the world----chance unexpected bringing them at the same moment of the night, though by different ways, to the gate of _Lyons_, their native city, and each in well-known accents calling out aloud,

Is _Amandus_ } Is my _Amanda_ } still alive?

they fly into each other’s arms, and both drop down dead for joy.

There is a soft æra in every gentle mortal’s life, where such a story affords more _pabulum_ to the brain, than all the _Frusts_, and _Crusts_, and _Rusts_ of antiquity, which travellers can cook up for it.

----’Twas all that stuck on the right side of the cullender in my own, of what _Spon_ and others, in their accounts of _Lyons_, had _strained_ into it; and finding, moreover, in some Itinerary, but in what God knows ----That sacred to the fidelity of _Amandus_ and _Amanda_, a tomb was built without the gates, where, to this hour, lovers called upon them to attest their truths ----I never could get into a scrape of that kind in my life, but this _tomb of the lovers_ would, somehow or other, come in at the close----nay such a kind of empire had it establish’d over me, that I could seldom think or speak of _Lyons_--and sometimes not so much as see even a _Lyons-waistcoat_, but this remnant of antiquity would present itself to my fancy; and I have often said in my wild way of running on----tho’ I fear with some irreverence---- “I thought this shrine (neglected as it was) as valuable as that of _Mecca_, and so little short, except in wealth, of the _Santa Casa_ itself, that some time or other, I would go a pilgrimage (though I had no other business at _Lyons_) on purpose to pay it a visit.”

In my list, therefore, of _Videnda_ at _Lyons_, this, tho’ _last_, --was not, you see, _least_; so taking a dozen or two of longer strides than usual across my room, just whilst it passed my brain, I walked down calmly into the _Basse Cour_, in order to sally forth; and having called for my bill--as it was uncertain whether I should return to my inn, I had paid it----had moreover given the maid ten sous, and was just receiving the dernier compliments of Monsieur _Le Blanc_, for a pleasant voyage down the _Rhône_----when I was stopped at the gate----

##