Though nothing that could be called a dispute had taken place, yet this conversation cast a shadow both upon Morley and Lieberg, during the rest of the day. They proceeded in the afternoon to Meran, and put up at the little inn, where stories of Hofer, and thoughts of past times, served, like the evening sun, to clear the clouds away, and they rose for their journey the following morning in a more cheerful mood.
I have said this book is not a road-book--I wish to Heaven it were, for there are few things more pleasant than journeying lightly along, taking the reader as one's companion, and discussing with him, in a quiet, easy kind of way, sometimes the bright and beautiful things of nature, sometimes the follies and absurdities of man; telling a story here, gleaning an anecdote there; moralizing on the strange destinies of states and individuals; looking into the domestic home of the peasant in one place, sitting down with the statesman in his retirement in another; sometimes listening to the thunders of eloquence, sometimes to the music of the shepherd's pipe. But all this must not be, and we must hurry upon our way with Morley and his companion passing along by the side of the clear and sparkling Adige, and issuing forth into the plains of Lombardy; but, strange to say, with far different feelings from those which are described by universal tourists in the language of conventional admiration for the land of song and ancient arts.
The weather in the Tyrol had been fine and warm, for the season of the year. The days had been clear, the nights fine, as if summer had come back in the train of autumn, to usurp, for a time, possession of the earth in despite of winter. The scenery had thus appeared to the highest advantage, and the Lombard plains seemed flat and meaningless to the eyes of Morley Ernstein, as they bent their way towards Verona.
After sleeping in that fine old city, seeing all the curious monuments Which it contains, Juliet's apocryphal tomb, and that splendid amphitheatre which first wakes up in the mind of the traveller the images of the mighty past, that Rome is destined to call forth still more vividly, it became a question whether they should proceed on their way southward, while the weather was yet fine and clear, or turn aside to visit Venice, and other places of interest on that side of Italy.
Lieberg seemed somewhat anxious to go on, but Morley had dreams about Venice which he wished to realize. It was to him a place of greater interest than Rome itself. He had few sympathies with the Cæsars, but with "The Rialto, Shylock, and the Moor," he had a thousand, and easily induced his companion to give up his own opinion, and accompany him, by Vicenza and Padua, to the City of the Sea, proposing, as they returned, to pass by Mantua and Modena, on their way to Naples.
Venice is certainly a place of enchantment--the only town I ever saw which leaves fancy far behind. Morley Ernstein yielded to the magic influence of the place, as he had yielded to the effect of every other beautiful thing along the road. The buildings, the pictures, the air, the Adriatic, the moonlight walks in the Piazzetta, the solemn mysterious gloom of the jewel-fretted dome of St. Mark's,--all excited his imagination to a pitch which he had thought scarcely possible; he lived as if in another world; he felt as if his Spirit were refreshed and renewed. The powers of enjoyment came fully back upon him, and the vein of melancholy, of unfading and unfaded regret, that mingled with every pleasure, seemed now to elevate and not to lower the tone of his sensations.
Such was his state of mind when, one day as he was waiting for Lieberg on the Sclavonian quay, and gazing thoughtfully over towards the ghost-like church of the Salute, a lady crossed him, dressed, as is very common there, in black, and gliding along with a quick but graceful pace, her head bent down, and her veil closely drawn around her face. She had passed him before she seemed to take any notice; but then she suddenly stopped, and turning round, as if she partially recognised him, and wished to make herself sure, she raised her veil, shewing him the countenance of his fair companion Veronica.
Morley sprang forward with real pleasure, for the effect of Lieberg's description of her character and conduct was yet strong upon his mind, but she looked at him reproachfully, though she held out her hand, saying--"You had forgotten your promise. I have heard of your being in Venice these five days."
"I had not forgotten, indeed," replied Morley; "but, if you recollect, you gave me to understand that you would not be here so soon."
"True--true," she said; "but I did not stay in Milan as long as I expected--I wanted to get back; and now I am mortified, because I dare say you have seen almost all that is worth seeing here without me. I wanted to shew you everything myself, and to see your enthusiasm, to call it forth, to force it into action. My countrymen, and almost every other nation upon earth, make a mistake about you English; they say you have no enthusiasm, but I believe that England is the only country where true enthusiasm is to be found. The difference is, that with us there is the gilding upon the surface--with you the gold is in the heart; with most nations it is a painted shrine having little inside, but with you it is the oaken casket, and the jewels within; now, you have deprived me of the pleasure of seeing these jewels--I mean, making you display your enthusiasm; and therefore I am very angry with you."