CHAPTER II.
At an early hour on the following morning I heard the emphatic tread of the young painter in the corridor. In a moment he entered my apartment, and his appearance renewed in some degree my emotion. “Our feelings had too much of lyric riot in them last night,” said he, smiling; “such excitement is exhausting, and cannot be long sustained without approximation to fever. I shall never learn moderation in my attachments, but I am resolved to lower the expression of them to a more temperate standard; and with this object I will, if agreeable to you, endeavour to create occupation for our intellects as well as our feelings.”
He then inquired if I had practised drawing, and to what extent. I told him that I had been in the habit of sketching the fine lake and mountain scenery of Lombardy; but that my ambition was to draw the human figure from living models, which I regarded as the only avenue by which any degree of excellence could be attained.
“If you will accept of my assistance,” he replied, “we can immediately commence a course of elementary studies of the human figure; after which,” added he sportively, “you may employ me as a model. In return for my instructions in painting, you must promote my ardent wish to attain a competent knowledge of modern Greek. I have a sacred duty to perform in one of the Greek islands, and shall proceed there in the ensuing autumn.”
“We cannot effectually realise your suggestion,” I rejoined, “unless we abandon for a while the riot and revelry of Venice. My father is at present in Dalmatia, and I am pledged to pass the summer in the country with my excellent and respected mother, who is preparing for departure, and will probably quit Venice at the close of the present week. The villa we inhabit during the summer heats is in the most charming district of Lombardy, and near the spot where the rapid Mincio receives the pure waters of the lake of Garda. You must accompany me to this earthly paradise, where we can enjoy the cool breezes from the lake and mountains, and explore the bright scenery of its classic shores and the peninsula of Sirmio, sung in glowing verse by Catullus. There we can repose under the dark umbrage of orange and myrtle groves, drink deep of the beauties of Pindar, and bind our temples with wreaths of laurel. But I have not yet introduced you to my mother. She is aware that a stranger saved me from a watery death in the harbour, and will welcome gratefully the preserver of her only son. She has a fine taste for pictures, and is an enthusiastic admirer of beautiful Madonnas. If you will paint one for her private chapel, and subdue in some measure the impetuous ardour of your deportment in her presence, she will receive and cherish you as a son.”
While thus addressing him, I perceived a sudden contraction of his fine features, indicative of strong internal emotion, the mystery of which was not developed for a considerable period after this conversation. At length he approached me, and, with a look of intense interest, inquired how near my father’s villa was to Peschiera on the lake of Garda. “Within a league of it,” I replied. Again he paced the apartment in silent abstraction, when suddenly his eagle-eye was lighted up with more than its wonted fire, and he exclaimed with animation, “Agreed! I will accompany you to Lombardy, and should I prove acceptable to your mother as a guest, I will paint a Madonna for her chapel. On my discretion, and my respect for her habits and feelings, you may rely.”
On the succeeding day I introduced him to my mother. The elegant freedom of his address, and the spirit and originality of his conversation, made an immediate and favourable impression upon my beloved parent; and she afterwards acknowledged to me that, independently of his noble exterior, and his powerful claim upon her gratitude, she had never been so strongly prepossessed. It was on this occasion that he named himself Colonna. Since his refusal to reveal his name on the first day of our acquaintance, I had never repeated the inquiry. Subsequently, however, I discovered that this appellation had been assumed under circumstances of a disastrous and compulsory nature. After his interview with my mother, I accompanied him to his abode, where I was gratified with a view of the paintings and sketches which he had executed in Venice. His figures were fresh and masterly; his colouring had all the brilliant glow of the Venetian painters; while his bold and beautiful designs betrayed, as I had anticipated, the accurate drawing of the Tuscan school. His studies were from the antique, and from Italian life: naked figures, or with little drapery; female heads abounding with expression and loveliness; arms and legs, backs and busts; naked boys, bathing, running, and wrestling. He intimated that he had never yet painted for emolument, nor for the gratification of others; and added, carelessly, “what farther concerns me shall be revealed to you in our hours of leisure by the lake of Garda.”
On the appointed morning we quitted Venice. Our bark issued from the grand canal at an early hour, glided silently over the smooth surface of the laguna, and approached the entrance of the Brenta. The sun was rising in veiled and purple majesty through the soft mists of a summer morning, and the towers and churches of Venice appeared floating in thin vapour. Colonna ascended the deck, and, folding his arms, gazed with evident emotion on the “City of Palaces,” until it disappeared behind a bank of fog. His chest heaved with some powerful sympathy, and, for a moment, tears suffused his eyes and veiled their brightness. His manner implied, I thought, some painful recollections, or a presentiment that he should never behold Venice again. To me our departure was a source of relief and enjoyment. In the winter season Venice is a cheerful and desirable abode, because the population is dense, and the local peculiarities contribute greatly to promote public and private festivity: but, during the heats of summer and the exhalations of autumn, no place is more offensive and pestilential.
At Padua we separated from my mother, who proceeded with her domestics by the direct road to Peschiera, while Colonna and I made a deviation to Vicenza, whither we journeyed on foot; a mode of travelling the most favourable to colloquial enjoyment, and to an accurate and comprehensive view of the country. We found the numerous edifices of Palladio in Vicenza and its vicinity in many respects unworthy of that noble architect; many of them are indeed remodelled fronts of old houses, in which the pure taste of the artist was warped by the want of capability in the original elevations. The palaces built after his designs are deficient in extent and variety, and may be termed experimental models, rather than effective illustrations, of his chaste and classical conceptions. In his triumphal arch at the entrance of the Campo Marzo we found much to admire, and not less in his beautiful bridge which spans the Bacchiglione. How bold, and light, and elegant the arch, like the daring leap of a youthful amazon! And how cheerful the open balustrade, through which the clear and sparkling waters are seen rolling their rapid course to the adjacent city!
It is in Venice that the fine genius of Palladio develops all its supremacy. The Cornaro palace on the grand canal, and the unfinished convent of La Carità, are splendid efforts of pure taste in design and decoration; and as perfect in execution and finish as if cast in a mould. His churches too, especially that glorious edifice, Al Redentore—how simple in design, and yet how beautifully effective and harmonious in proportion and outline!
We proceeded on the following morning to Verona, which excited a stronger interest than Vicenza by its classical associations and striking position on the river Adige, a lively daughter of the Alps. Rushing from her mountain bed, she urges her rapid and devious course through the city, dividing it into two portions, connected by the bridge of Scaliger. This fine edifice rises on bold arches, wider, and more heroic, and more scientific, than that of the Rialto, the wonder of Venice, which is indeed no bridge, but a huge and inconvenient staircase.
Pursuing as we journeyed onward the subject of architecture, I commented on the insignificant appearance of the temples of Pantheism, when compared with the majestic cathedrals for which the Christian world is indebted to the barbarians of the middle ages.
“The Greeks and Romans,” observed Colonna, “erected a temple to each individual of their numerous deities. These buildings were consequently of limited extent, and their columns of corresponding proportions. The citizens sacrificed singly to the gods, or attended public festivals, comprehending large masses of the people; in which event the officiating priest or priestess entered the temple, and the assembled votaries were grouped without. In our churches, on the contrary, the population of a city is often congregated for hours; and how magnificently adapted for this object is the vast and solemn interior of a Gothic cathedral, in which the voice of the priest reverberates like thunder, and the chorus of the people rises like a mountain-gust, praising the great Father of all, and rousing the affrighted conscience of the infidel; while the mighty organ, the tyrant of music, rages like a hurricane, and rolls his deep floods of sound in sublime accompaniment! How grand were the conceptions of the rational barbarians, to whom Europe is indebted for these vast and noble structures! And how immeasurably they surpass, for all meditative and devotional objects, the modern application of Greek and Roman temples, on an enlarged scale, to the purposes of Christian worship! Had any necessity existed to borrow designs from these sources, we should rather have modelled our churches from their theatres, the plan of which is admirably fitted for oratorical purposes, and for the accommodation of numbers.”
We accomplished the last portion of our journey during a night of superlative beauty. A brilliant and nearly full moon glided with us through long avenues of lofty elms, linked together by the clustering tendrils of vines, festooned from tree to tree, and at this season prodigal of foliage. The coruscations of distant lightning shot through the clear darkness of Italian night; the moon and evening star, and Sirius and Orion, soared above us in pure ether, and seemed to approach our sphere like guardian spirits. The cool breezes which usher in the dawn now began to whisper through the foliage; a light vapour arose in the east; and the soft radiance of the first sunbeams faintly illumined the horizon as we arrived at our destination. Here the romantic lake of Garda lay expanded before us; its broad surface ruffled by the mountain breeze, and gleaming like silver in the moonlight. The waves were heaving in broken and foaming masses, and reverberated along the rocky shores, finely illustrating the accuracy of Virgil’s descriptive line:
“Fluctibus et fremitu assurgens marino.”
I retired immediately to rest, not having slept for the preceding twenty-four hours; while Colonna preferred a morning walk, and wandered out to view the environs. In the course of the day we completed our domestic arrangements. My friend occupied a saloon on the north side of the villa, which commanded an extensive prospect, a light favourable for painting, and private egress into the open country; an accommodation which he requested, that his rambling and irregular habits might occasion no inconvenience to the other inmates of the mansion.
After a few days had been devoted to excursions upon and around the lake, and over the picturesque hills as far as Brescia, we commenced a more useful and methodical distribution of our time. Colonna began and completed the sketch of a Madonna for my mother, that he might work upon it at his leisure; and we read together the Greek poets and historians: nor did I forget to avail myself of my friend’s proffered assistance to improve my knowledge of drawing and design. Under his masterly guidance I persevered in drawing geometrical figures until I could trace them with quickness, freedom, and accuracy. He then annoyed me for a brief interval with skeletons and anatomical subjects, directing my attention to the articulation of the joints and the insertion of the muscles; after which I proceeded to copy his fine studies of human limbs, both round and muscular, and in the various attitudes of action and repose. Finally, I began to sketch from living models, and was pursuing my object with ardour and success, when a tragical event severed me for a considerable period from my beloved tutor and friend.
It had been arranged between us that each should, in his habits, be perfectly uncontrolled, and independent of the other. Our excursions were alternately separate, and in company, and Colonna was often absent from the villa for one or more days and nights, without exciting observation or surprise.
He delighted in ranging over the green pastures of Lombardy, hedged in by lofty trees, festooned with vines, and irrigated by transparent streams innumerable. The young Tuscan had never before seen nature in a garb so lovely and inviting; he wandered through the picturesque villages which margin or overhang the lake of Garda, sojourned with the peasantry, and sketched their figures and costume. From these rambles he would often return at sunset over the lake in a small bark, crowned like a youthful Bacchus with vine leaves and ivy, and singing wild Dithirambics to his guitar, while the surrounding villagers, by whom he was idolised, followed him in their boats with shouts of joy and festivity.
During the cool nights which, in this hilly region, temper the sickly heat of an Italian summer, we often wandered along the breezy shores of our classic Benacus, or sought refreshment in its dark blue waters. Colonna was an adept in the delightful exercise of swimming, and his instructions soon imparted to me requisite skill and self-possession. We plunged from the marble terraces of the villa into the delicious element, cleaving its moonlit waves, and sporting over its wide surface like water-gods.
The Madonna for my mother was finished in August. The artist had selected the incident of the flight into Egypt, and the mother of Jesus was reposing in deep shade, under the giant arms and dense foliage of a maple tree. In the middle distance, a few ilex and cypress trees were effectively and naturally distributed. The background was mountain scenery; and from a lofty cliff a river was precipitated, in a bold and picturesque fall. The waters rebounded from the gulf below in silver spray, and flowed through a verdant level into a tranquil and beautiful lake. The most romantic features of the wilderness around the lake of Garda were faithfully and beautifully introduced; and the brilliant rays of a sun approaching the horizon, threw a flood of gold over rock, and wood, and water. The Madonna was a young and lovely woman, giving nourishment to her first-born son, and bending over her pleasing task with delighted attention. The head of the Virgin was after a sketch from life, but developed and elevated in character, and invested with a breathing tenderness, a hallowed innocence and purity of expression, which at once thrilled and saddened the beholder. The boy was a model of infantine beauty; he supported himself with one little hand on his mother’s breast, which was partially veiled with red drapery, and he had raised his cherub head and glossy curls from the sweet fount of life, to look with bright and earnest gaze upon the glowing landscape. The luxuriant brown hair of the Madonna was confined in a net, from which a few locks had strayed over her brow and cheek; and her blue mantle flowed with modest grace over her fine person, revealing, through its light and well-distributed folds, the graceful and easy position of the limbs. The eyes of both were radiantly bright, and in the large, well-opened orbs of the infant Saviour, the painter had introduced a something never seen in life—a premature and pathetic seriousness, awfully indicative of his high and hallowed destiny. Above the stately plane-tree were soaring three angels of more than Grecian beauty; and their features, in which a sacred innocence of look was blended with feminine grace and softness, reminded me powerfully of that exquisite design in Raffaelle’s pictorial Bible—the “three angels before Abraham’s threshold.”
In the middle-distance the ass was grazing, and Joseph, whose features the artist had borrowed from the well-chiselled head of an old peasant, stood leaning on his staff, like a faithful servant who has succeeded in rescuing from imminent peril the treasure intrusted to him. The picture was upright and on a large scale; the Madonna and Bambino were painted the size of life, and the rich colouring of the heads and draperies was finely relieved by the local tints and highly finished bark and leafage of the plane-tree, behind which the immense landscape receded in wide and brilliant perspective.
My mother was inexpressibly delighted with this valuable token of his regard, and her affection for the highly-gifted painter became truly maternal.
About this period I remarked a mysterious change in the looks and habits of Colonna. His prompt and flowing language gave place to a moody and oppressive silence; his deportment was occasionally more abrupt and impassioned; and his eloquent features betrayed some hidden source of grief and perplexity. The increased duration and frequency of his rambles from the villa excited at length my attention and remonstrance. In justification, he pleaded, as before, that he was a man of itinerant habits, and too mercurial in temperament to remain long in any place. This explanation had now, however, ceased to be satisfactory. Our intercourse was obviously less cordial and incessant. He had of late rarely sought my society in his excursions, and this circumstance, in connection with his altered look and manner, made me suspect some change in his feelings towards me. I determined to solve a mystery so painful and embarrassing, and succeeded ere long in obtaining his confession, during a still and beautiful night, a large portion of which we passed together in a myrtle arbour, which crowned a cool eminence in the villa gardens. We had passed some hours in this delicious solitude, enjoying the pure night-breeze, and admiring the soft and silver tints diffused by an Italian moon over the lake and landscape. Our spirits were elevated by wine, and song, and conversation; and our hearts communed together, and expanded into more than usual freedom and confidence. I described to him the fair objects of several fleeting attachments, and acknowledged that my experience of female excellence had never yet realised the expectations I had formed. “I anticipated from you, however,” I continued, “some illustrations of that wayward thing, the human heart. A youth so ardent in feeling, and so adorned by nature and education, must necessarily have had no limited experience of the tender passion; and surely some of the beautiful heads in your portfolio have been sketched from life, and con amore.”
“I do not willingly,” he replied, “enter upon acknowledgments of this nature. They tend to excite feelings of envy, and sometimes expose the warmest friendship to a severe test. We have now, however, enjoyed abundant opportunity to study the lights, and shades, and inmost recesses of our respective characters, and as you have made me your father-confessor, I shall no longer hesitate to repose in you a responsive and unbounded confidence. Know, then, that I love, with all the enthusiasm of a first passion, the most beautiful woman of her time—that she is the only daughter of the proudest senator in Venice—that she is no stranger to your family, and now resides within a league of us. Her name is Laura Foscari; and she is, alas! the destined and unwilling bride of the opulent Ercole Barozzo, governor of Candia.”
At this unexpected intelligence, I almost started on my feet with astonishment. My consternation was too great for utterance, and I listened with breathless and eager attention.
“We became acquainted,” he continued, “by a singular accident. I had long admired her as the most lovely woman in Venice. Her head has all the beauty of a fine antique, lighted up by dark eyes of radiant lustre, and heightened by a smile of magic power and sweetness. I have more than once sketched her unrivalled features when she was kneeling at church, and her fine eyes were upraised in devotional rapture. In public places, and at mass, I had frequently seen her, and our eyes had so often met, that she could not but learn from mine how fervently I admired her. My endeavours to obtain an introduction as an artist to her father and brothers had been unsuccessful, and at length I was indebted to a fortunate incident for an opportunity of conversing with her unobserved. One evening, near the close of the last Carnival, I saw her enter with her friends the place of St Mark, near the new church of San Geminiano. She wore only a half-mask, and her graceful mien and fine person could not be disguised. My mask and domino were similar to those of her youngest brother, who resembled me also somewhat in person. The imperfect light and the confusion of the assembled crowd separated her from her party; and while endeavouring to rejoin them, she approached me, mistook me for her brother, put her arm within mine, and with charming vivacity, whispered in my ear some comments on the motley groups around us. You will readily conjecture that I promptly availed myself of the brief and golden opportunity. I glanced rapidly around, and finding that we were unobserved, I partially raised my mask. She had so often observed me gazing upon her with undisguised and rapturous admiration, that she recognised me at once, and tacitly acknowledged it by a blush which suffused every visible feature with crimson. In glowing and beautiful confusion she attempted to withdraw her arm, but I retained it firmly, and in low but emphatic tones, I told her that I had long loved her with sincerity and ardour; that I could fairly boast of constancy and discretion, of education and refinement; that no man so well understood her value, or would encounter and endure so much to win her affections. All this and more I poured into her ear with rapid and glowing diction, and with the impassioned gesture which is natural to me. Timid and irresolute, she accompanied me some paces, paused, and in trembling emotion again attempted to withdraw her arm, but was still urged forward by my impetuosity. At length, by a sudden effort, she escaped; but, as she quitted, whispered with bewitching hesitation and timidity—‘To-morrow morning, at Santi Giovanni e Paolo.’ Soon as these words fell on my delighted ear, I plunged into the crowd of masks, in token of my discretion and prompt obedience to her will. The emotion excited by this early and unexpected proof of sympathy was so rapturous and overwhelming, that I abandoned myself to all the extravagance of sudden bliss. I flew on wings of ecstasy along the streets, bounded over the stairs of the Rialto, and reached my abode in a state of mind bordering on delirium. During that interminable but delicious night I neither sought nor wished for repose. I felt as if I had never known sleep—as if I should never sleep again; and, when my waking dreams occasionally yielded to brief and agitated slumber, my excited feelings called up a flitting train of images not less vivid and enchanting.
“Long before the commencement of the early mass, I had reached the church indicated by the beauteous Laura. I was the first to enter it, and I waited her arrival with an impatience which no words can describe. Never had the celebration of the mass appeared to me so wearisome and monotonous; and, in hopes to subdue in some measure the wild agitation which chafed me, I withdrew the curtain which veiled Titian’s divine picture of Pietro Martire, in which the saint lies wounded and dying before his assassin. The companion of the prostrate Pietro is endeavouring to escape a similar fate; and two angels, whose features are not Italian but Greek, are soaring amidst the foliage, environed with a heavenly lustre, which throws its bright effulgence over the foreground of the immense landscape. What a masterpiece! How full of animation and contrast! What rich and lively local tints in the slender and graceful stems of the lofty chestnuts, which are painted the size of nature! And how naturally the glorious landscape fades into the blue and distant mountains! The half-naked murderer has all the ferocity of a mountain bandit, in figure, attitude, and menace; while the wounded saint exhibits in his pale and collapsed features the dying agony of a good man, blended with a consciousness that he has achieved the rewarding glories of martyrdom.
“But no masterpiece could allay the glowing tumults of my soul, and again I paced the church with feverish impatience. At length the peerless Laura entered, and, alas, poor Titian! the charms of thy creative pencil withered as she approached—the vivid splendours of thy colouring faded before the paramount beauties of nature! She was attired in the picturesque garb and head-dress of Venice; her veil was raised; and her fine countenance, radiant with beauty and intelligence, imparted life, dignity, and lustre to every surrounding object.
“She was accompanied by her mother, and after prostration before the altar, they retired to their devotions in the body of the church. I stood in a position which enabled me to observe every look and gesture, and it did not escape me that Laura, while kneeling, cast a look of supplication towards heaven, and sighed deeply. She soon became conscious of my presence; and rising, she took a chair, and fixed upon me a look so deeply penetrative, so fraught with tender meaning, and yet so timidly, so truly modest, that every chord of feeling in my frame was thrilled with sudden transport. To uninterested observers her deportment was tranquil, but ere long I could discern tokens of deep and anxious thought clouding her lovely face. Her lips quivered as if in sympathy with some inward feeling of doubt and apprehension, which at length subsided, and her angelic features were suddenly irradiated with a tender and enchanting smile. She then read for some time in her book, and marked a place in it with a card, to which, by an expressive glance, she directed my attention. The mass was concluded, the congregation quitted the church, and I availed myself of the crowded portal to approach and take the card, which she conveyed to me unperceived. I hastened from the spot, and seized the first opportunity to read these words—‘Two hours after midnight, at the postern near the canal.’ The card said no more; but, to a lover, it spoke volumes.
“These magic words, and the enchantress who had penned them, absorbed every thought and feeling throughout the never-ending day. In the evening, I passed and repassed the Foscari palace, until the shape and position of every door and window were engraven on my memory. I provided myself with weapons, ordered my gondolier to hold himself in readiness, and at midnight I proceeded to the Piazza near Maria Formosa. Enveloped in my mantle, I traversed the pavement with feverish impetuosity for two hours, which appeared like ages. The course of nature seemed to stagnate, and the constellations to pause in their career, as if in mockery of my feelings. I walked with increased rapidity, and even vaulted into the air with childish eagerness as if to grasp the heavenly bodies, and accelerate their lingering progress. At length the last quarter struck. I hastened through the silent and deserted streets, and strode over the bridges with a bound as vehement as if I would have spurned them from under me. I soon arrived at the appointed postern, and waited, all eye and ear, in a contiguous angle of the wall. Ere long the door was gently opened, and I heard the music of an angel’s voice, bidding me enter with noiseless steps, and beware of rousing her brothers, whose violence would endanger my life. In obedient silence I followed her up a dark staircase into a saloon adjoining the grand canal, and dimly lighted by a single lamp. The enchanting Laura was attired in a white robe of elegant simplicity, well fitted to display the perfect symmetry and luxuriant fulness of her incomparable shape. Her head was uncovered, and her waving tresses floated in rich profusion over her shoulders and bosom. Thus unadorned, her beauty was so dazzling and celestial, that I could have knelt and worshipped her as the Aphrodite of the Adriatic Paphos. I gazed upon her until I became giddy with admiration and rapture. Yielding to an irresistible impulse, I lost all discretion—folded the lovely creature in my embrace—and impressed a fervent kiss upon her coral lips.
“‘Unhand me, daring youth!’ she exclaimed, her fine features flashing with indignant eloquence as she repulsed me. ‘Remember that I am Foscari’s daughter, and do me the justice to believe, that I have not unadvisedly received you at an hour so unseemly. I was impelled to this step not only by the regard due to your personal safety, but by my implicit confidence in the honour of a cavalier. Think not, rash youth! that a Foscari would condescend, like Bianca Capello, to an obscure stranger. I know that you are not what you would seem. I know that ‘Colonna the painter’ is but the outward shell which hides the pearl and pride of the Florentine nobility. I have a friend in Venice who is in confidential intercourse by letter with your aunt Veronica, and from her I heard in secresy that the study of painting was not your primary object in Venice, but assumed only to mask some more important purpose.’
“Mortified by the indiscretion of my aunt, and sensible of the fatal consequences it might involve, I soon recovered some degree of self-control, and apologised to the still offended Laura for the inconsiderate freedom in which I had indulged. I then disclosed to her some particulars of my previous history, and expressed, in ardent and grateful terms my sense of the flattering distinction conferred upon me by the loveliest woman in Venice.
“‘Ah, Montalto!’ she replied, with glowing cheeks, and a look of enchanting tenderness, ‘you know not the dreadful risk to which my wish to become better acquainted with your merits exposes me. I am watched with jealous and unceasing vigilance by an ambitious father, whose sole object is the aggrandisement of his sons; and to the accomplishment of this purpose he will not hesitate to sacrifice an only and affectionate daughter. Destined to become the unwilling bride of heartless opulence, or to the living sepulture of a convent, and formed, by an affectionate mother, for every social and domestic relation, there have been moments when I wished it had pleased Heaven to cast my lot in free and humble mediocrity. My affections were then unappropriated——’
“She paused in blushing and beautiful embarrassment, but soon resumed:—‘It would be affectation to deny that they are no longer so. I must have been more than woman to have remarked, without some responsive feeling, the obvious regard——’ Here she paused anew, the rose of sweet confusion dyed her cheek more deeply than before, and after a momentary struggle, she continued, with averted looks: ‘The heroic cast and expression of your features, and the unembarrassed ease and elegance of your deportment, bore the genuine stamp of nobility by descent and education. The instinctive discrimination peculiar to woman is often more accurate in its conclusions than the boasted experience of man. Appearances taught me to suspect, that your homely garb and professional pursuit were a delusion; and I heard with more pleasure than surprise that my conjecture was well-founded.’
“Such, my Angelo! was the ingenuous and flattering avowal of the transcendent Laura Foscari, the pride of Venice, and paragon of her sex. No words can portray the boundless gratitude and affection with which she inspired me; nor will I attempt to describe the enchanting grace and varied intelligence of her conversation during the brief and delightful hour I remained with her. Too soon the breezes which announce the dawn shook the windows of the saloon; a luminous streak bordered the eastern sky; and Laura, starting suddenly from her chair, bade me begone.
“Thus terminated my first interview with this high-minded and incomparable woman. To-morrow, should no obstacle intervene, I will resume my narrative, and, at the same time, impart to you some particulars of my family and early life.”
We then returned to the villa, and separated for the night.