"Then let us go now," said Mr. Earnscliffe; "there could not be a better night for seeing them than this dark and starry one, and my gondola is at the steps of the Piazzetta. Shall it be so, Mrs. Adair?"
"The girls would like it," answered Mrs. Adair, "so I suppose we must go."
... What a happy closing to the evening did Flora find in that row in the gondola! How vividly did Mr. Earnscliffe's language call up the past,—the far-famed Doges of other days; the hapless Marino Faliero, the father of the Foscari; great "blind old Dondolo."... Byron and Shakespeare lent their aid; Shylock and Antonio seemed to walk again on the Rialto; ... bravos lurked behind dark buttresses for the coming of their victims; ... lovers fled in the close-curtained gondole from cruel guardians to some freer shore.... Mr. Earnscliffe did indeed make Venice "one vast romance" to Flora, the spell of which was hardly broken by his taking leave of them on the steps of the Hotel Zucchese.
[CHAPTER XVI.]
What a delightful yet wakeful night did Flora spend in thinking over the events of the evening!... When Mr. Earnscliffe's voice fell upon her ear she was musing sadly on the weariness of life, and the emptiness of its ordinary pleasures. And if perchance one did get a glimpse of something like real enjoyment, it came, she thought, only to vanish. But the vibration of that voice put to flight all her blue devils, or rather transformed them into bright airy spirits with rosy wings.... And now as she lay awake in bed, she kept repeating over to herself all that she could remember of that last hour's conversation. It was a habit of hers this repeating over to herself conversations which had given her great pleasure: it recalled the tones and look which accompanied the words; it was a clinging to, and an effort to reproduce that which had filled her heart with delight.
Unfortunately for Flora, she did not love religion so as to find in it a centre round which all her thoughts and actions could revolve; and without such a centre—as we have seen—she found existence wearisome. For a while, indeed, her faith had been a little tottering; but, happily, this momentary wavering had been conquered. From the time when she first began to think upon such subjects, she felt that there could be no medium between mere Rationalism and Faith in a Divine teaching authority upon earth, or Christianity in all its fulness.... She thought and read, until reason itself—aided by God's grace—showed her that the Authority which had existed and grown with the growth of mankind—like all life, of which God alone can be the author—must necessarily be Divine; ... that Religion—or the tie which re-unites fallen man to God—had been revealed by God from the beginning; ... that it is the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever; ... that this Divine Word, spoken to the Patriarchs—written by Moses—in the fulness of time became Incarnate, and left the Spirit of Truth itself to lead that Divine teaching Authority into all Truth, and will so lead it until the end of time.... In this faith she now believed with unshaken firmness, yet she had none of the practical piety of Marie.
Most applicable to Flora are Lady Georgiana Fullerton's beautiful words in "Lady Bird."... Speaking of characters in whom a craving for excitement is a disease, she says—"There is but one cure for it, call it what you will: self-education, not for this world, but for the next. The work of life understood; perfection conceived and resolutely aimed at; the dream of human happiness resigned, and in the same hour its substance regained; the capital paid into the other world, and the daily unlooked-for interest received in this."... But to "resign the dream of human happiness" is just what Flora finds it so hard to do, especially on that night when lying with unclosed eyelids, and a happy smile hovering about her lips, she whispered over the words which had been such music to her during the evening, and then added, "How nice it would be if I could die now before this brightness has faded out of my life, as it will do so soon!... What a mercy it would be not to have to go back to the old, weary, objectless life again!"