Alfred; or, The Adventures of a French Gentleman — page 37: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

24 | ALFRED; OR ADVENTURES or tradsporting a chain of galley-slaves from one place to another. Apart from the scanty crowd of idlers, and drawn thither by motives far different from those that attracted the rest, stood the two individuals we have before alluded to. ‘They were as motionless as statues—one clung to the other’s arm—-but the eyes of both were turned towards the same point—their looks dwelt upon the youngest, the most de- jected, and the most remarkable as to form and feature, of the convicts. ‘Tears trickled down their cheeks, as they gazed upon the youth whom misfortune had condemned to so sad a destiny. But they spoke not a word, uttered not a syllable—gnief with them was dumb as to ejaculation, although it were proclaimed by a thousand tongues on their death-like features—and that internal sorrow which their countenances betrayed, was more acute than can be described. ‘The object of their solicitude, whom the reader has doubtless recognised to be Alfred de Rosann, was one of the handsomest of God’s creatures. Bowed down as he was to the earth with a deep sense of shame and degradation, still did the only hali-suppressed energies of a noble mind fiash from his dark eyes, and stamp him at once as a being totally different from the rest of the motley group in which he now found himself. His graceful form was not robbed of its perfections by the unseemly garb that enveloped it; nor could the beauty of his regular features be disfigured by the traces of an- euish and despair. His years had perhaps scarcely reached their twenty-fourth summer; in stature he was somewhat above the standard height of a Frenchman; his figure was rather slender than athletic; his hair was black; his eyes were large and dark ; and his hands and feet small even to a fault. Let us leave him a moment to his bitter reflections, and direct the reader’s attention to those indivi- duals who appear so deeply interested in his fate. The first was an elderly man, with white hair, and a pale brow on which sate untimely wrinkles. And yet that hoariness of locks and those numerous traces on his forehead were more the effects of deep thought, and settled melancholy, than the work of years; ior his age scarcely exceeded five and forty. He was tall, well-formed, and possessed features far from disagreeable. In his youth he must have been one of those who, endowed with many giits from the hands of capricious Nature, are calculated to win the favour of the fair sex, and make their way in the world, if they have no fortune of their own, through the medium of an auspicious marriage. He was dressed in deep black, and on his left arm hung a large cloak, with which, de- spite of the bitter chill of the morning, he thought not of covering himself. His ideas were too deeply occupied by another and more material affair than the cloudy sky and the impending storm: hada second deluge commenced, he would not have perceived the force of the falling waters. There are times when the soul of man is thus - abstracted from the scenes of frequent occurrence; and when its reflections are alone engaged in the contemplation of unusual sorrows. It would almost seem that our existence is now and then marked by moments in which we can say to our imaginations, ‘‘ Ponder on this evil which has befallen us, and on nought besides.” And how faith- fully—Oh ! tar too faithfully are we obeyed! So it appeared to be with the individual we are describing. That manly form stood erect COLA ) JOOKSTEO