"Oh yes, it delights my eye, but my heart asked nothing but you. I fear you will never know how well I love you, in the midst of such regal splendor. If you ever doubt me, Ernest, take me to that island home you once described, and you will there learn that on you, and you alone, I rely for happiness."
He believed me. I knew he did; for he drew me to his bosom, and amid a thousand endearing protestations, told me he did not believe it possible ever to doubt a love, which irradiated me at that moment, as the moon did the Fairy Grotto.
He led me around the marble basin that received the waters of the fountain, and which was margined by sea-shells, from which luxuriant flowers were gushing, and explained the beautiful figures standing so white, so "coldly sweet, so deadly fair," in the still and solemn moonlight. I knew the history of each statue as he named them, but I questioned him, that I might have the delight of hearing his charming and poetic descriptions.
"Is this a daughter of Danaus?" I asked, stopping before a young and exquisitely lovely female, holding up to the fountain an urn, through whose perforated bottom the waters seemed eternally dripping.
"It is."
"Is it Hypermestra, the only one of all the fifty who had a woman's heart, punished by her father for rescuing her husband from the awful doom which her obedient sisters so cruelly inflicted on theirs."
"I believe it is one of the savage forty-nine, who were condemned by the judges of the infernal regions to fill bottomless vessels with water, through the unending days of eternity. She does not look much like a bride of blood, does she, with that face of softly flowing contour, and eye of patient anguish? I suppose filial obedience was considered a more divine virtue than love, or the artist would not thus have beautified and idealized one of the most revolting characters in mythology. I do not like to dwell on this image. It represents woman in too detestable a light. May we not be pardoned for want of implicit faith in her angelic nature, when such examples are recorded of her perfidy and heartlessness?"
"But she is a fabulous being, Ernest."
"Fables have their origin in truth, my Gabriella. Cannot you judge, by the shadow, of the form that casts it? The mythology of Greece and Rome shows what estimate was placed on human character at the time it was written. The attributes of men and women were ascribed to gods and goddesses, and by their virtues and crimes we may judge of the moral tone of ancient society. Had there been no perfidious wives, the daughters of Danaus had never been born of the poet's brain, and embodied by the sculptor's hand. Had woman always been as true as she is fair, Venus had never risen from the foam of imagination, or floated down the tide of time in her dove-drawn car, giving to mankind an image of beauty and frailty that is difficult for him to separate, so closely are they intertwined."
"Yes," said I, reproachfully, "and had woman never been forsaken and betrayed, we should never have heard of the fair, deserted Ariadne, or the beautiful and avenging Medea. Had man never been false to his vows, we should never have been told of the jealous anger of Juno, or the poisoned garment prepared by the hapless Dejarnira. Ah! this is lovely!"