THE SOJOURN AT FLORENCE.
[CHAPTER I.]
Count D'Erfeuil, having passed some time in Switzerland, wearied of nature 'mid the Alps, as he had tired of the arts at Rome, and suddenly resolved to visit England. He had heard that he should find much depth of thought there, and woke one morning to the conviction of that being the very thing he wished to meet. This third search after pleasure had succeeded no better than its predecessors, but his regard for Nevil spurred him on; and he assured himself, another morning, that friendship was the greatest bliss on earth; therefore he went to Scotland. Not seeing Oswald at his home, but learning that he was gone to Lady Edgarmond's, the Count leaped on his horse to follow; so much did he believe that he longed to meet him. As he rode quickly on, he saw a female extended motionless upon the road, and instantly dismounted to assist her. What was his horror at recognizing, through their mortal paleness, the features of Corinne! With the liveliest sympathy he helped his servant to arrange some branches as a litter, intending to convey her to Lady Edgarmond's, when Thérésina, who till now had remained in her mistress's carriage, alarmed at her absence, came to the spot, and, certain that no one but Lord Nevil could have reduced her lady to this stats, begged that she might be borne to the neighboring town. The Count followed her; and for eight days, during which she suffered all the delirium of fever, he never left her. Thus it was the frivolous man who proved faithful, while the man of sentiment was breaking her heart. This contrast struck Corinne, when she recovered her senses, and she thanked d'Erfeuil with great feeling: he replied by striving to console her, more capable of noble actions than of serious conversation. Corinne found him useful, but could not make him her friend. She strove to recall her reason, and think over what had passed; but it was long ere she could remember all she had done, and from what motive. Then, perhaps, she thought her sacrifice too great; and hoped, at least, to bid Lord Nevil a last adieu, ere she left England; but the day after she regained her faculties chance threw a newspaper in her way, which contained the following paragraph:——
"Lady Edgarmond has lately learned that her step-daughter, who she believed had died in Italy, is still enjoying great literary celebrity at Rome, under the name of Corinne. Her ladyship, much to her own honor, acknowledges the fair poet, and is desirous of sharing with her the fortune left by Lord Edgarmond's brother, who died in India. The marriage contract was yesterday signed, between his Lordship's youngest daughter (the only child of his widow) and Lord Nevil, who, on Sunday next, leads Miss Lucy Edgarmond to the altar."
Unfortunately, Corinne lost not her consciousness after reading this announcement; a sudden change took place within her; all the interests of life were lost; she felt like one condemned to death, who had not known, till now, when her sentence would be executed; and from this moment the resignation of despair was the only sensation of her breast. D'Erfeuil entered her room, and, finding her even paler than while in her swoon, anxiously asked her the news. She replied gravely: "I am no longer ill; to-morrow is the Sabbath: I will go to Plymouth, and embark for Italy."—"I shall accompany you," he ardently returned. "I've nothing to detain me here, and shall be charmed at travelling with you."—"How truly good you are!" she said: "we ought not to judge from appearances." Then, after checking herself, added: "I accept your guidance to the seaport, because I am not sure of my own; but, once on board, the ship will bear me on, no matter in what state I may be." She signed for him to leave her, and wept long before her God, begging him to support her beneath this sorrow. Nothing was left of the impetuous Corinne. The active powers of her life were all exhausted; and this annihilation, for which she could scarcely account, restored her composure. Grief had subdued her. Sooner or later all rebellious heads must bow to the same yoke.
"It is to-day!" sighed Corinne, as she woke: "it is to-day!" and entered her carriage with d'Erfeuil. He questioned her, but she could not reply. They passed a church: she asked his leave to enter for a moment; then, kneeling before the altar, prayed for Oswald and for Lucy: but when she would have risen she staggered, and could not take one step without the support of Thérésina and the Count, who had followed her. All present made way for her, with every demonstration of pity. "I look very miserable, then?" she said: "the young and lovely, at this hour, are leaving such a scene in triumph." The Count scarcely understood these words. Kind as he was, and much as he loved Corinne, he soon wearied of her sadness, and strove to draw her from it, as if we had only to say we will forget all woes of life, and do so. Sometimes he cried: "I told you how it would be." Strange mode of comforting; but such is the satisfaction which vanity tastes at the expense of misfortune. Corinne fruitlessly strove to conceal her sufferings; for we are ashamed of strong affections in the presence of the light-minded, and bashful in all feelings that must be explained ere comprehended—those secrets of the heart that can only be consoled by those who guess them, Corinne was displeased with herself, as not sufficiently grateful for the Count's devotion to her service; but in his looks, his words, his accents, there were so much which wandered in search of amusement, that she was often on the point of forgetting his generous actions, as he did himself. It is doubtless very magnanimous to set small price on our own good deeds, but that indifference, so admirable in itself, may be carried to an extreme which approaches an unfeeling levity.
Corinne, during her delirium, had betrayed nearly all her secrets—the papers had since apprised d'Erfeuil of the rest. He often wished to talk of what he called her affairs, but that word alone sufficed to freeze her confidence; and she entreated him to spare her the pain of breathing Lord Nevil's name. In parting with the Count, Corinne knew not how to express herself; for she was at once glad to anticipate being alone, and grieved to lose a man who had behaved so well towards her. She strove to thank him, but he begged her so naturally not to speak of it, that she obeyed: charging him to inform Lady Edgarmond that she refused the legacy of her uncle; and to do so, as if she had sent this message from Italy; for she did not wish her step-mother to know she had been in England. "Nor Nevil?" asked the Count. "You may tell him soon, yes, very soon; my friends in Rome will let you know when."—"Take care of your health, at least," he added: "don't you know that I am uneasy about you?"—"Really!" she exclaimed, smiling, "not without cause, I believe." He offered her his arm to the vessel: at that moment she turned towards England, the country she must never more behold, where dwelt the sole object of her love and grief, and her eyes filled with the first sad tears she had ever shed in d'Erfeuil's presence. "Lovely Corinne!" he said, "forget that ingrate! think of the friends so tenderly attached to you, and recollect your own advantages with pleasure." She withdrew her hand from him, and stepped back some paces; then blaming herself for this reproof, gently returned to bid him adieu: but he, having perceived nothing of what passed in her mind, got into the boat with her; recommended her earnestly to the captain's care; busied himself most endearingly on all the details that could render her passage agreeable: and, when rowed ashore, waved his handkerchief to the ship as long as he could be seen. Corinne returned his salute. Alas! was this the friend on whose attentions she ought to have been thrown? Light loves last long; they are not tied so tight that they can break. They are obscured or brought to light by circumstances, while deep affections fly, never to return; and in their places leave but cureless wounds.
[CHAPTER II.]
A favorable breeze bore Corinne to Leghorn in less than a month: she suffered from fever the whole time; and her debility was such that grief of mind was confused with the pain of illness; nothing seemed now distinct. She hesitated, on landing, whether she should proceed to Rome, or no; but though her best friends awaited her, she felt an insurmountable repugnance to living in the scenes where she had known Oswald. She thought of that door through which he came to her twice every day; and the prospect of being there without him was too dreary. She decided on going to Florence; and believing that her life could not long resist her sorrows, thus intended to detach herself by degrees from the world, by living alone, far from those who loved her, from the city that witnessed her success, whose inhabitants would strive to reanimate her mind, expect her to appear what she had been, while her discouraged heart found every effort odious. In crossing fertile Tuscany, approaching flower-breathed Florence, Corinne felt but an added sadness. How dreadful the despair which such skies fail to calm! One must feel either love or religion, in order to appreciate nature; and she had lost the first of earthly blessings, without having yet recovered the peace which piety alone can afford the unfortunate. Tuscany, a well-cultivated, smiling land, strikes not the imagination as do the environs of Rome and Naples. The primitive institutions of its early inhabitants have been so effaced, that there scarcely remains one vestige of them; but another species of historic beauty exists in their stead—cities that bear the impress of the Middle Ages. At Sienna, the public square wherein the people assembled, the balcony from which their magistrate harangued them, must catch the least reflecting eye, as proofs that there once flourished a democratic government. It is a real pleasure to hear the Tuscans, even of the lowest classes, speak; their fanciful phrases give one an idea of that Athenian Greek, which sounded like a perpetual melody. It is a strange sensation to believe one's self amid a people all equally educated, all elegant; such is the illusion which, for a moment, the purity of their language creates.
The sight of Florence recalls its history, previous to the Medicean sway. The palaces of its best families are built like fortresses: without, are still seen the iron rings, to which the standards of each party were attached. All things seem to have been more arranged for the support of individual powers, than for their union in a common cause. The city appears formed for civil war. There are towers attached to the Hall of Justice, whence the approach of the enemy could be discerned. Such were the feuds between certain houses, that you find dwellings inconveniently constructed, because their lords would not let them extend to the ground on which that of some foe had been pulled down. Here the Pazzi conspired against the De Medici; there the Guelfs assassinated the Ghibellines. The marks of struggling rivalry are everywhere visible, though but in senseless stones. Nothing is now left for any pretenders but an inglorious state, not worth disputing. The life led in Florence has become singularly monotonous: its natives walk every afternoon on the banks of the Arno, and every evening ask one another if they have been there. Corinne settled at a little distance from the town; and let Prince Castel Forte know this, in the only letter she had strength to write: such was her horror of all habitual actions, that even the fatigue of giving the slightest order redoubled her distress. She sometimes passed her day in complete inactivity, retired to her pillow, rose again, opened a book, without the power to comprehend a line of it. Oft did she remain whole hours at her window; then would walk rapidly in her garden, cull its flowers, and seek to deaden her senses in their perfume; but the consciousness of life pursued her, like an unrelenting host: she strove in vain to calm the devouring faculty of thought, which no longer presented her with varied images; but one lone idea, armed with a thousand stings, that pierced her heart.
[CHAPTER III.]
An hour passed in St. Peter's had been wont to compose her; and Corinne hoped to find the same effect from visiting the churches of fair Florence. She walked beneath the fine trees of the river's bank, in a lovely eve of June. Roses embalmed the air, and every face expressed the general felicity from which she felt herself excluded; yet she unenvyingly blessed her God for his kind care of man. "I am an exception to universal order," she said; "there is happiness for every one but me: this power of suffering, beneath which I die, is then peculiar to myself. My God! wherefore was I selected for such a doom? May I not say, like thy Divine Son, 'Father, let this cup be taken from me?'" The active air of the inhabitants astonished her: since she had lost all interest in life, she knew not why others seemed occupied; and, slowly pacing the large stoned pavement of Florence, she forgot where she had designed to go. At last, she found herself before the far-famed gate of brass, sculptured by Ghiberti, for the front of St. John's, which stands beside the cathedral. For some time she examined this stupendous work; where, wrought in bronze, the divers nations, though of minute proportions, are distinctly marked by their varied physiognomies; all of which express some thought of their artist. "What patience!" cried Corinne; "what respect for posterity! yet how few scrutinize these doors, through which so many daily pass, in heedlessness, ignorance, or disdain! How difficult it is to escape oblivion! how vast the power of death!"
In this cathedral was Julian de Medicis assassinated. Not far thence, in the church of St. Lorenzo, is shown the marble chapel, enriched with precious stones, where rise the tombs of that high family, and Michael Angelo's statues of Julian and Lorenzo: the latter, meditating vengeance on the murder of his brother, deserves the honor of having been called "la pensée de Michel Angelo!" At the feet of these figures are Aurora and Night. The awaking of the one is admirable; still more so is the other's sleep. A poet chose it for his theme, and concluded by saying: "Sound as is her slumber, she lives: if you believe not, wake her, she will speak." Angelo, who cultivated letters (without which imagination of all kinds must soon decay) replied:——
"Grato m'è il sono, e più l'esser di sasso.
Mentre che il danno e la vergogna dura,
Non veder, non sentir m'è gran ventura,
Perô non mi destar, deh parla basso!"
"It is well for me to sleep, still better to be stone; while shame and injustice last: not to see, not to hear, is a great blessing; therefore disturb me not! speak low!"
This great man was the only comparatively modern sculptor who neither gave the human figure the beauty of the antique nor the affected air of our own day. You see the grave energy of the Middle Ages—its perseverance, its passions, but no ideal beauty. He was the genius of his own school; and imitated no one, not even the ancients. This tomb is in the church of Santa Croce. At his desire, it faces a window whence may be seen the dome built by Filippo Brunelleschi: as if his ashes would stir, even beneath the marble, at the sight of a cupola copied from that of St. Peter's. Santa Croce contains some of the most illustrious dead in Europe. Galileo, persecuted by man, for having discovered the secrets of the sky—Machiavel, who revealed the arts of crime rather as an observer than an actor; yet whose lessons are more available to the oppressors than, the oppressed—Aretino, who consecrated his days to mirth, and found nothing serious in life except its end—Boccaccio, whose laughing fancy resisted the united scourges of civil war and plague—a picture in honor of Dante, showing that the Florentines, who permitted him to perish in exile, were not the less vain of his glory,[1] with many other worthy names, and some celebrated in their own day, but echoing less forcibly from age to age, so that their sound is now almost unheard.[2] This church, adorned with noble recollections, rekindled the enthusiasm of Corinne, which the living had repressed. The silent presence of the great revived, for a moment, that emulation which once she felt for fame. She stepped more steadfastly, and the high thoughts of other days arose within her breast. Some young priests came slowly down the aisle, chanting in subdued tones: she asked the meaning of this ceremony. "We are praying for our dead," said one of them. "Right," thought Corinne; "your dead! well may you boast them; they are the only noble relics left ye. Ah! why then, Oswald, have you stifled all the gifts Heaven granted me, with which I ought to excite the sympathy of kindred minds? O God!" she added, sinking on her knees, "it is not in vanity I dare entreat thee to give me back my talents: doubtless the lowly saints who lived and died for thee alone are greatest in thy sight; but there are different careers for mortals: genius, which illustrates our noblest virtues, devotes itself to generous humanity and truth, may trust to be received in some outer heaven." She cast her eyes to earth, and, on the stone where she had knelt, read this inscription:——
"Alone I rose, alone I sank, I am alone e'en here."
"Ah!" cried Corinne, "that is mine answer. What should embolden me to toil? what pride can I ever feel? who would participate in my success, or interest himself in my defeats? Oh, I should need his look for my reward." Another epitaph fixed her attention, that of a youth, who says:—
"Pity me not, if you can guess how many pangs the grave hath spared me."
How did those words wean her from life! amid the tumult of a city, this church opened to teach mankind the best of secrets, if they would learn: but no; they passed it by, and the miraculous forgetfulness of death kept all the world alive.
[1] After the death of Dante, the Florentines, ashamed of having permitted him to perish far from his home, sent a deputation to the pope for his remains, interred at Ravenna. The pope refused; rightly deeming that the land which had sheltered him in exile must have become his country, and deserved not to be thus robbed of the glory that shone around his tomb.
[2] Alfieri said, that it was in the church of Santa Croce he first felt a love for fame. The epitaph he composed for himself and the Countess d'Albani is most simply and affectingly expressive of long and perfect friendship.
[CHAPTER IV.]
The spring of feeling which had consoled Corinne for a few moments, led her next morning to the Gallery: she hoped to recover her taste, and draw some pleasure from her former pursuits. Even the fine arts are republican in Florence. Pictures and statues are shown at all hours, with the greatest ease. Well-informed men, paid by the government, like public functionaries, explain all these chefs-d'œuvre. This lingering respect for talent has ever pervaded Italy; particularly Florence, where the Medicii extorted pardon for their power over human actions, by the free scope they left for human minds. The common people love the arts, and blend this taste with their devotion, which is more regular in Tuscany than in any other Italian state; but they frequently confound mythologic figures with Scripture history. One of the guides used to show a Minerva as Judith, and an Apollo as David; adding, when he explained a bas-relief, which represented the fall of Troy, that "Cassandra was a good Christian." Many days may be passed in the gallery ere half its beauties are known. Corinne went from one to the other, mortified at her own indifference and abstraction. The calm dignity which shines through the deep grief of Niobe, however, recalled her attention. In such a case, the countenance of a living mother would doubtless be more agitated; but the ideal arts preserve beauty even in despair; and what affects us most in works of genius, is not grief's self, but the soul's power o'er grief. Not far from this is a head of the dying Alexander. These two countenances afford rich material for thought. The conqueror looks astonished and indignant at not having achieved a victory even over nature. The anguish of maternal love is depicted on all the traits of Niobe: she presses her daughter to her heart with the most touching eagerness; her fine face bearing the stamp of that fatality which left the ancients no resource, even in religion. Niobe lifts her eyes to heaven, but without hope; for the gods themselves are her enemies.
On her return home, Corinne strove to reflect on what she had seen, and retrace her impressions, as she had formerly done; but her mental distraction was uncontrollable. How far was she now from the power of improvisation! In vain she sought for words, or wrote unmeaning ones, that dismayed her on perusal, as would the ravings of delirium. Incapable of turning her thoughts from her own situation, she then strove to describe it; but no longer could she command those universal sentiments that find echoes in all hearts. Hers were now but long unvaried wailings, like the cry of the night bird; her expressions were too impetuous, too unveiled—they were those of misery, not of talent. To write well, we require to feel truly, but not heart-breakingly. The best melancholy poetry is that inspired by a kind of rapture, which still tells of mental strength and enjoyment. Real grief is a foe to intellectual fertility: it produces a gloomy agitation, that incessantly returns to the same point, like the knight who, pursued by an evil genius, sought a thousand roads for escape, yet always found himself at the spot from whence he started.
The state of Corinne's health completed the confusion of her mind. The following are a few of the reflections she wrote, while making a fruitless effort to become capable of a connected work.
CHAPTER V.
FRAGMENTS OF CORINNE'S THOUGHTS.
My genius lives no longer: I regret
Its death: I own I should have loved that yet
My lays had waked his sympathy; my name
Might still have reach'd him, heralded by fame.
I err'd by hoping that in his own land
The thoughts, the feelings—that our fate united—
The influence of habit could withstand—
Amid such scenes love's flower must soon be blighted.
There is so much to say 'gainst maid like me!
How futile must the only answer be!
"Such was her heart—her mind;" a poor reply
For hosts who know not what I was, nor why.
Yet are they wrong to fear superior mind,
The more it towers, more morally refined:
The more we know, the better we forgive;
Whoe'er feels deeply, feels for all who live.
How can two beings who confided all,
Whose converse was the spirit's griefs, its dangers,
And immortality, bear this swift fall,
Thus to each other become once more strangers?
What a mysterious sentiment is love!
Nothing, if not all other ties above—
Vying in faith with all that martyrs feel—
Or—colder than the simplest friendship's zeal.
This most involuntary sense on earth,
Doth heaven or mortal passion give it birth?
What storms it raises deep within the breast!
Must we obey, or combat such wild guest?
Talent should be a refuge; as when one[1]
Imprison'd to a cloister, art's true son,
Bequeath'd its walls such traces of his doom,
That genius glorified monastic gloom!
But he, though captive, suffer'd from without;
His bosom was not torn by dread or doubt;
When grief is there, all efforts lose their force,
The spring of comfort's poison'd from its source.
Sometimes I view myself as one apart,
Impartially, and pity my own heart;
Was I not mental, kind to others' pain,
Generous, and frank? Then why all this in vain?
Is the world really so vile, that charms
Like these but rob us of our needful arms?
'Tis pitiful! Spite all my youth hath shown,
Despite my glory, I shall die unknown;
Nor leave one proof of what I might have been.
Had I learnt happiness, or could defy
This all-devouring fever—men had seen
Me contemplate them from a station high.
Tracking the hidden links between yon heaven
And human nature; but the clue is riven.
How, how think freely, while each painful breath
But bids me feel the woe that weighs me down to death?
Oh! why would he forbear to render blest
A heart whose secret he alone possess'd?
To him—him only spoke my inmost soul!
'Tis easy to leave those chance may control,
The common herd—but she who must admire,
Yet judge ere fancy kindles love's chaste fire,
Expansive as it is, to soul like hers,
There's but one object in the universe!
I learnt life from the poets; 'tis not thus;
Vainly they strive to change the truth, for us
Who live to wake from their soft dreams, and see
The barrenness of life's reality!
Remembering what I was but chafes my pride.
Why tell me I could charm, if not for love?
Why inspire confidence, to make me prove
But the more fearful anguish when it died?
Will he, in any other, meet more mind
Than was my own? a heart more true and kind?
No! but—congenial with heartlessness—
He will be more content in finding less.
In presence of the sun, or starry spheres,
To deserve love we need but to desire—
For love ennobles all that it endears;
Conscious of mutual worth, we look no higher.
But ah, society! where each must owe
His fate but to factitious joy or woe—
Where what is said of him becomes the test—
How soon it hardens e'en the trifler's breast.
Could men once meet, free from this false control,
How pure an air were breathed into the soul!
How would the mind, refresh'd by feelings true,
Teem with ideas natural and new!
E'en Nature's cruel; this praised face
Is fading: what avails it now
That still I pour affection's vow,
Without one look my prayer to grace?
These tear-dimm'd eyes no more express,
As once they might, my tenderness.
Within my bosom is a pain
No language ever can explain—
I have no strength for task like this;
Love, only love, could sound the abyss.
How happy men! in honor's strife
They burst the chains of hated life.
We hope no solace from the throng;
Our torture is to bear,
Stirless and mute, a lone life long,
The presence of Despair.
Sometimes, when listing music's tone,
It tells of powers so late mine own,
Song, dance, and poesie—I start,
As I could fly from this sad heart,
To joy again; a sudden chill
Reminds me that the world would say,
"Back, lingering ghost! it fits thee ill
To brave the living, and the day!"
I wish I now could find a spell
'Gainst misery in the crowd: 'twas well
To mix there once, lest solitude
Should bear my thoughts too far through fate,
My mind grew flexible, imbued
With gay impressions; 'tis too late;
Features and feelings fix for aye:
Smiles, fancies, graces! where are they?
Ah! if't were in a moment o'er,
Fain would I taste of hope once more!
But all is done: life can but be
A burning desert now to me;
The drop of water, like the river,
Sullied with bitterness forever,
A single day's enjoyment is
Impossible, as years of bliss.
Guilty towards me as I must deem
My love—compared with other men
What mindless things of art they seem!
How does he rise an angel then!—
E'en though his sword of flame consume
My life, and devastate my doom;
Heaven lends the one beloved his power
Thus to avenge each misspent hour.
'Tis not first love that must endure;
It springs but from the dreams of youth;
But if, with intellect mature,
We meet the mind long sought in vain,
Fancy is then subdued by truth,
And we have reason to complain.
"What maniacs!" the many cry,
"Are those for love who live or die!
As if, when such frail boon is reft,
A thousand blessings were not left!"
Enthusiasm, though the seed
Of every high heroic deed,
Each pious sacrifice—its lot
Is scorn, from those who feel it not.
All then is folly, if they will,
Save their own selfish care
Of mortal life; this nobler thrill
Is madness everywhere.
Alas! it is my worst distress
That he alone my thoughts could guess;
Too late and vainly may he find
That I alone could read his mind.
Mine own should thus be understood;
In friendship's varying degrees
Easy, yet difficult to please:
With cordial hours for all the good,
But with affection deep and true,
Which but for one, for him I knew.
Feeling and fancy, wit and reason,
Where now such union can I find,
Seek the world through—save his—whose treason
'Gainst love hath slain me? Oswald's mind
Blends all these charms; unless I dream'd
He was the wonder he but seem'd.
How, then, to others should I speak?
In whom confide? what subjects seek?
What end, aim, interest remains?
The sweetest joys, the bitterest pains,
Already known, what should I fear?
Or what expect? before me cast
A future changeless, wan, and drear,
As but the spectre of my past!
Why, why is happiness so brief?
Life's weeds so strong, its flowers so frail?
Is nature's natural order grief?
Unwonted pain soon finds relief
When its strange throes our frames assail—
Joy to the soul's less usual: there
The habitual state is this despair.
How mutable the world appears
Where nothing lasts, but pain and tears![2]
Another life! another life
That is my hope! but still such force
Hath this we bear, that we demand
In heaven the same rebellious band
Of passions that here caused our strife.
The northern zealots paint the shade
Still hunting, with his hound and horse,
The phantom stag, through cloudy glade;
Yet dare we call such shapes unreal?
Naught here is sure save that Distress—
Whose power all suffer who can feel—
Keeps her unpitying promises!
I dream of immortality!
No more of that which man can give;
Once in the future did I live,
The present seem'd too old for me.[3]
All I now ask of Him on high,
Is, that my heart may never die!
Father! the offering and the shrine
A mortal spurns; with grace divine,
Deign to receive—'tis thine!—'tis thine!
I know my days will be but few;
That thought restores a sense of rest:
'Tis sweet to feel, as now I do,
Death draw Grief's barb from out my breast.
'Tis Superstition's sad retreat,
More than the home of pious trust;
Devotion to the blest is sweet.—
What gratitude to the All Just
Ought Oswald's wife to feel! O God, she must.
And yet misfortune oft improves,
Corrects us, teaches us to weigh
Our errors with our sufferings: they
Are wedded: we repent the loves
Of earth, when salutary time
And solitude inspires love more sublime.
'Tis this I need, ere yet I can fulfil
A tranquil voyage to life more tranquil still:—
What innocence is in the thoughts of those
About to leave this life of passion's woes!
The secret which not genius' self can share,
The enigma, may it be reveal'd to prayer?
May not some simple thought, by reverie
Full oft approach'd, disclose the mystery?
Vast as the efforts which the soul may make
They weary her in vain; she cannot take
This latest step; life must be still unknown
Till its last hour on earth be well-nigh flown I
'Tis time mine should repose; and who will sigh—
'Tis still, at last, the heart that beat so high!
[1] Domenichino.
[2] "Ahi! null' altro che pianto al mondo dura."—PETRARCH.
[3] That idea is Dante's.
CHAPTER VI.
Prince Castel Forte quitted Rome, to settle near Corinne. She felt most grateful for this proof of friendship, and yet ashamed that she could not requite it, even by such conversation as of yore: now she was silent and abstracted; her failing health robbed her of all the strength required, even for a momentary triumph over her absorbing griefs. That interest, which the heart's courtesy inspires, she could still at times evince; but her desire to please was lost forever. Unhappy love freezes all our affections: our own souls grow inexplicable to us. More than we gained while we were happy, we lose by the reverse. That added life which made us enjoy nature, lent an enchantment to our intercourse with society; but the heart's vast hope once lost, existence is impoverished, and all spontaneous impulses are paralyzed. Therefore, a thousand duties command women, and men still more, to respect and fear the passion they awaken, since it may devastate the mind as well as the heart.
Sometimes Castel Forte might speak for several minutes to Corinne without a reply, because she neither understood nor even heard him. When she did, her answers had none of that glowing animation once so remarkable; they merely dragged on the dialogue for a few seconds, and then she relapsed into silence. Sometimes, as she had done at Naples, she would smile in pity over her own failures. The amiable prince humored her on all her favorite topics. She would thank him, by pressing his hand, and once, after a walk on the banks of the Arno, began to jest with her accustomed grace: he gazed, and listened in glad surprise; but she abruptly broke off, and rushed from the room in tears. On returning, she said, gently: "Pardon me, my generous friend; I would fain make myself agreeable; it will not be: bear with me as I am." What most distressed him, was the shock her constitution had received: no immediate danger threatened her, yet it was impossible that she could live long, unless she regained some vigor. If she endeavored to speak on aught that concerned the soul, her wan tremor was painful to behold; and he strove to divert her from this strain. He ventured to talk of Oswald, and found that she took a perverse pleasure in the subject; but it left her so shaken, that he was obliged to interdict it. Castel Forte was a susceptible being: but not even the most magnanimous of men knows how to console the woman he has loved under the pangs thus inflicted by another. Some little self-love on his side, must aid her timidity, in preventing perfect confidence. Besides, what would it avail? It can only be of service to those wounds which would cure themselves without it.
At this time the prince received a letter from Lord Nevil, replete with professions, which would have deeply affected Corinne: he mused for hours together on the propriety of showing it to her; but anticipating the violence of its effects on a creature so feeble, he forbore. Even while he was thus deliberating, another letter reached him, announcing his Lordship's departure for America. Castel Forte then decided on saying nothing to Corinne. Perhaps he erred: one of her greatest griefs was Nevil's silence; she scarce dared own it to herself: but though forever separated from him, one recollection, one regret, would have been very precious to her: as it was, he gave her, she thought, no opportunity of hearing his name, left her no excuse for breathing it. The sorrow, of which no one speaks to us, which gains no change from time, cuts deeper than reiterated blows; the good prince followed the usual maxim, which bids us do our utmost towards teaching a mourner to forget; but there is no oblivion for the imaginative: it were better to keep alive their memories, weary them of their tears, exhaust their sighs, and force them back upon themselves, that they may reconcentrate their own powers.