[1] Who that has one beloved object absent for any considerable space of time, can read this tribute from a foreigner without tears of pride and rapture, at the consciousness that whoever is left behind, though little valued while near, gains a sad importance as part of that home, that England, to which the dear one must long to return? The natives of great continents may love their birth-places as well as we do ours; but it cannot be in the same manner.—TR.
[CHAPTER IV.]
Our lovers commenced their route by the ruins of Pompeii. Both were silent, for the decisive moment now drew nigh; and the vague hope so long enjoyed, so accordant with the clime, was about to give place to yet unknown reality. Pompeii is the most curious ruin of antiquity. In Rome, one hardly finds any wrecks, save those of public works, associated with the political changes of bygone centuries. In Pompeii, you retrace the private life of the ancients. The volcano which buried it in ashes preserved it from decay. No edifices, exposed to the air, could thus have lasted. Pictures and bronzes keep their primal beauty, while all domestic implements remain in overawing perfection. The amphoras are still decked for the morrow's festival. The flour that was to have been kneaded into cakes is yet there: the remains of a female are adorned for this interrupted fête, her fleshless arm no longer filling the jewelled bracelet that yet hangs about it. Nowhere else can one behold such proofs of death's abrupt invasion. The track of wheels is visible in the streets; and the stone-work of the wells bears the marks of the cords that had worn away their edges by degrees. On the walls of the guard-room are seen the ill-formed letters and rudely-sketched figures which the soldiers had scrawled to beguile their time, while time himself was striding to devour them. When, from the midst of the cross-roads, you see all sides of the town, nearly as it existed of yore, you seem to expect that some one will come from these masterless dwellings: this appearance of life renders the eternal silence of the place still more appalling. Most of the houses are built of lava—and fresh lava destroyed them. The epochs of the world are counted from fall to fall. The thoughts of human beings, toiling by the light that consumed them, fills the breast with melancholy. How long it is since man first lived, suffered, and died! Where can we find the thoughts of the departed? do they still float around these ruins? or are they gathered forever to the heaven of immortality? A few scorched manuscripts, which were partly unrolled at Portici, are all that is left us of these victims to earthquake and volcano. But in drawing near such relics we dread to breathe, lest we should scatter with their dust the noble ideas perhaps impressed on it. The public buildings, even of Pompeii, which was one of the smallest Italian towns, are very handsome. The splendor of the ancients seemed always intended for the general good. Their private houses are small, and decked but by a taste for the fine arts. Their interiors possess agreeable pictures and tasteful mosaic pavements; on many of them, near the door-sill, is inlet the word Salve. This salutation was not surely one of simple politeness, but an invitation to hospitality. The rooms are remarkably narrow, with no windows towards the street, nearly all of them opening into a portico, or the marble court round which the rooms are constructed: in its centre is a simply elegant cistern. It is evident that the inhabitants lived chiefly in the open air, and even received their friends there. Nothing can give a more luxurious idea of life than a climate which throws man into the bosom of nature. Society must have meant something very different in such habits from what it is where the cold confines men within doors. We better appreciate the dialogues of Plato, while beholding the porticos beneath which the ancients passed half of their day. They were incessantly animated by the beauteous sky. Social order, they conceived, was not the barren combination of fraud and force, but a happy union of institutions that excite the faculties, and develop the mind, making man's object the perfection of himself and his fellow-creatures. Antiquity inspires insatiable curiosity. The learned, employed solely on collections of names, which they call history, were surely devoid of all imagination. But to penetrate the past, interrogate the human heart through many ages; to seize on a fact in a word, and on the manners or character of a nation in a fact; to re-enter the most distant time, in order to conceive how the earth looked in its youth, and in what way men supported the life which civilization has since rendered so complicated; this were a continual effort of imagination, whose guesses discover secrets that study and reflection cannot reveal. Such occupation was particularly attractive to Nevil, who often told Corinne that, if he had not nobler interests to serve in his own land, he could not endure to live away from this. We should, at least, regret the glory we cannot obtain. Forgetfulness alone degrades the soul, which can ever take refuge in the past, when deprived of a present purpose.
Leaving Pompeii they proceeded to Portici, whose inhabitants beset them with loud cries of "Come and see the mountain!" thus they designate Vesuvius. Has it need of name? It is their glory, their country is celebrated as the shrine of this marvel. Oswald begged Corinne to ascend in a sort of palanquin to the Hermitage of St. Salvadore, which is half-way up, and the usual resting-place for travellers. He rode by her side to overlook her bearers; and the more his heart filled with the generous sentiments such scenes inspire, the more he adored Corinne. The country at the foot of Vesuvius is the most fertile and best cultivated of the kingdom most favored by Heaven in all Europe. The celebrated Lacryma Christi vine flourishes beside land totally devastated by lava, as if nature here made a last effort, and resolved to perish in her richest array. As you ascend, you turn to gaze on Naples, and on the fair land around it—the sea sparkles in the sun as if strewn with jewels; but all the splendors of creation are extinguished by degrees, as you enter the region of ashes and of smoke, that announces your approach to the volcano. The iron waves of other years have traced their large black furrows in the soil. At a certain height, birds are no longer seen; further on, plants become very scarce; then, even insects find no nourishment. At last, all life disappears; you enter the realm of death, and the slain earth's dust alone slips beneath your unassured feet.
"Nè greggi, nè armenti
Guida bifolco mai, guida pastore."
"Never doth swain nor cowboy thither lead the flocks or herds."
A hermit lives betwixt the confines of life and death. One tree, the last farewell to vegetation, stands before his door, and beneath the shade of its pale foliage are travellers wont to await the night ere they renew their course; for during the day the fires and lava, so fierce when the sun is set, look dark beneath his splendor. This metamorphose is in itself a glorious sight, which every eve renews the wonder that a continual glare might weaken. The solitude of this spot gave Oswald strength to reveal his secrets; and, wishing to encourage the confidence of Corinne, he said: "You would fain read your unhappy lover to the depth of his soul. Well, I will confess all. My wounds will reopen, I feel it; but in the presence of immutable nature ought one to fear the changes time can bring?"