Animated to the depths of her heart, she ran to Gabriele, and laughing, embraced her with the words, "You shall see that some fine day I'll ascend upwards yet."
PART IV.
CHAPTER I.
PETREA TO IDA.
From my Hermitage in the Garret.
"'Illusions! Illusions!' you cry over all joys, all faith, all love in life. I shout back with all my might over your own words, 'Illusions! Illusions!' All depends upon what we fix our faith and our affections. Must the beauty of love and worth of life be at an end to woman when her first spring, her bloom of love, her moments of romance are past? No, do not believe that, Ida. Nothing in this world is such an illusion as this belief. Life is rich; its tree blossoms eternally, because it is nourished by immortal fountains. It bears dissimilar fruits, varies in colour and glory, but all beautiful; let us undervalue none of them, for all of them are capable of producing plants of eternal life.
"Youthful love—the beaming passion-flower of earth! Who will belie its captivating beauty, who will not thank the Creator that he gave it to the children of earth? But ah! I will exclaim to all those who drink of its nectar, and to those who must do without it—'There are flowers which are as noble as this, and which are less in danger than it of being paled by the frosts of the earth—flowers from whose chalices also you may suck life from the life of the Eternal!'
"Ah! if we only understood how near to us Providence has placed the fountains of our happiness—if we had only understood this from the days of our childhood upwards, acted upon it, and profited by it, our lives would then seldom lead through dry wildernesses! Happy are those children whose eyes are early opened by parents and home to the rich activity of life. They will then experience what sweetness and joy and peace can flow out of family relationships, out of the heartfelt union between brothers and sisters, between parents and children: and they will experience how these relations, carefully cherished in youth, will become blessings for our maturer years.