no place is more calculated to call forth all the vagaries of the imagination than an old half-ruined castle, surrounded by wood and mount, hoar from many centuries, and lying in such deep seclusion, as to be unseen by the mere casual traveller. on such a spot, completely circled by a branch of the cevennes, in the ancient district of auvergne, it was once my hap to light. trees of such gigantic growth, that they appeared bending beneath the weight of ages, frowning rocks, and overgrown brushwood formed so close a fortification, that the building might have been passed and repassed within a mile of its vicinity undiscovered.
it was a gothic chateau of the olden time, just sufficiently ruinous to give it the interest of age, yet containing costly tapestried chambers, panelled halls, long rambling galleries, secret rooms, and those deep dark dungeons, where many a brave man has languished and died unknown, save by his ruthless captor, all still in sufficient preservation to fill the mind with visions of the past as with the breathing realities of the present. there was a small chapel in the building, which had once been evidently richly adorned, but whose shrines and hangings were now all crumbling to decay. it was a melancholy visionary place, yet infused with a charm impossible to be resisted, and day after day my wanderings turned to the chateau; contented at first with rambling over chamber, hall, and gallery, imagination feasting on the thoughts of what had been the life, the stir, the pageantry, where all was now the solitude of silence and neglect. there were still some pictures hanging from the walls, but seemingly so resigned to the cobweb and the dust, that i had heeded them little, till one day the sun gleaming upon an antique frame, unobserved before, attracted me to the picture it enshrined, and in a moment heart, mind, and fancy were irresistibly enchained.
to attempt description of that face, to say why it haunted me for days and nights, as something almost unearthly, would be a hopeless task; yet turn from it as i would, or seek amusement in other objects, still it rose before me, pale, shadowy, yet so lovely, baffling every effort to dismiss it from my mind. stars and braids of diamonds seemed still literally to glisten in the long jetty tresses, falling as a veil around her. hands small, thin, and delicately white were crossed upon her bosom; the large dark eyes were raised, and the pale lips parted as in prayer; she seemed standing near an ancient altar; but every other object in the picture time had rendered wholly indistinct.
that i could obtain any information from the half-blind, wholly deaf guardian of the chateau was little probable; but the old man, to my astonishment, volunteered the tradition of the portrait, even before i had sufficiently rallied from its effect to look into its past. this tale, when separated from the garrulous annotations of his age and office, was simple and brief enough, yet to resist its spell was impossible. the beings of whom i heard seemed to breathe and move around me, the old castle to resume the state and order which had characterised it nearly three centuries ago, the very woods to lose their wild appearance, and blending in beautiful keeping with mount and rock, and richly-cultured lands, seemed to teem with the innumerable retainers of the proud nobles to whom they had once belonged. under the influence of such dreamy visions the following papers were hastily written. pretensions to a connected romance they have none; they tell but the story of a picture, which i would fain bring before the mind’s eye of the reader, even as its remembrance still so vividly lingers on my own.
