“Ernest Clay! is he a friend of yours? He is at Munich, attached to the Legation. I see you smile at the idea of Ernest Clay drawing up a protocol!”
“Madeleine, you have never read me Caroline Mounteney’s letter, as you promised,” said Miss Fane; “I suppose full of raptures; ‘the Alps and Apennines, the Pyrenaean and the River Po?’”
“By no means; the whole letter is filled with an account of the ballet at La Scala, which, according to Caroline, is a thousand times more interesting than Mont Blanc or the Simplon.”
“One of the immortal works of Vigano, I suppose,” said Vivian; “he has raised the ballet of action to an equality with tragedy. I have heard my father mention the splendid effect of his Vestale and his Otello.”
“And yet,” said Violet, “I do not like Othello to be profaned. It is not for operas and ballets. We require the thrilling words.”
“It is very true; yet Pasta’s acting in the opera was a grand performance; and I have myself seldom witnessed a more masterly effect produced by any actor in the world than I did a fortnight ago, at the Opera at Darmstadt, by Wild in Othello.”
“I think the history of Desdemona is the most affecting of all tales,” said Miss Fane.
“The violent death of a woman, young, lovely, and innocent, is assuredly the most terrible of tragedies,” observed Vivian.
“I have often asked myself,” said Miss Fane, “which is the most terrible destiny for the young to endure: to meet death after a life of anxiety and suffering, or suddenly to be cut off in the enjoyment of all things that make life delightful.”
“For my part,” said Vivian, “in the last instance, I think that death can scarcely be considered an evil. How infinitely is such a destiny to be preferred to that long apprenticeship of sorrow, at the end of which we are generally as unwilling to die as at the commencement!”