"You will call me a little ignoramus," replied Rose; "but I can't help it: I prefer this abbey in its ruins to any perfect work of art. No doubt, in its original state it must have been very lovely; but look at it now! With no roof but heaven, no painted windows, but, instead, those charming glimpses of the hills around; and the chinks in the walls—the ruin with its moss and lichens, and the soft shadows thrown on this grassy pavement by the fragments of beauty which are still remaining—is not all this more beautiful than a work of art?"
Julius looked into her eyes and thought she was right; but what stopped his lips from replying, I leave to the reader's imagination: to my ears it had a very musical sound.
It was in vain they tried to be æsthetical and talk architecture; the time and mood were not made for it; and even the exquisite beauty which surrounded them could only draw from them fragmentary remarks. But if they did not express much, they felt a great deal.
It was not a spot to stand on without having the thoughts constantly withdrawn from the present to the past, of which it was a fragment. The mind would wander. On that very spot where they stood, had many a pious monk bowed himself down in prayer: asking, in the contrition of a weary spirit, for pardon and for courage. The faith which moved him has passed away, effaced beneath the giant march of time; the tessellated pavement no longer echoes the slow and heavy tread of monks, but has been broken and scattered, and has passed away with the faith it served; and, like that faith, exists only in broken fragments, curious amongst the weeds that have usurped its place. The painted windows
Richly dight,
Shedding a dim, religious light—
are no more: yon broken, crumbling shaft, springing up like an aspiring soul to the sky, no longer holds the glass
Diamonded with panes of quaint device,
Innumerable of stains and splendid dyes,
As are the tiger-moth's deep-damask'd wings.
Looking on these fragments which speak feelingly of the decay and change of all things, a soft melancholy would invade their minds.
"Everything then changes, is it so?" asked Rose.
"Everything," he replied, "but love; and that sustains the world."