[2] That is a thing which I have often seemed to notice in love—that propensity to reap more unhappiness from what is unhappy than happiness from what is happy.
[3] Don Carlos,[(17)] Saint-Preux,[(17)] Racine's Hippolyte and Bajazet.
[4] Mordaunt Mertoun, Pirate, Vol. I.
[5] As I have mentioned Correggio, I will add that in the sketch of an angel's head in the gallery of the museum at Florence, is to be seen the glance of happy love, and at Parma in the Madonna crowned by Jesus the downcast eyes of love.
Come what sorrow can
It cannot countervail the exchange of joy
That one short moment gives me in her sight.—(Romeo and Juliet.)
[7] Some days before the last he made a little ode, which has the merit of expressing just the sentiments, which formed the subject of our conversations:—.
L'ULTIMO DI.
Anacreontica.
A ELVIRA.
Vedi tu dove il rio
Lambendo un mirto va,
Là del riposo mio
La pietra surgerà.
Il passero amoroso,
E il nobile usignuol
Entro quel mirto ombroso
Raccoglieranno il vol.
Vieni, diletta Elvira,
A quella tomba vien,
E sulla muta lira,
Appoggia il bianco sen.
Su quella bruna pietra,
Le tortore verran,
E intorno alia mia cetra,
Il nido intrecieran.
E ogni anno, il di che offendere
M'osasti tu infedel,
Faro la su discendere
La folgore del ciel.
Odi d'un uom che muore
Odi l'estremo suon
Questo appassito fiore
Ti lascio, Elvira, in don
Quanto prezioso ei sia
Saper tu il devi appien
Il di che fosti mia,
Te l'involai dal sen.
Simbolo allor d'affetto
Or pegno di dolor
Torno a posarti in petto
Quest' appassito fior.
E avrai nel cuor scolpito
Se crudo il cor non è,
Come ti fu rapito,
Come fu reso a te.—(S. Radael.)*
* [Lo! where the passing stream laps round the myrtle-tree, raise there the stone of my resting-place. The amorous sparrow and the noble nightingale within the shade of that myrtle will rest from flight. Come, beloved Elvira, come to that tomb and press my mute lyre to your white bosom. Turtles shall perch on that dark stone and will twine their nest about my harp. And every year on the day when you did dare cruelly betray me, on this spot will I make the lightning of heaven descend. Listen, listen to the last utterances of a dying man. This faded flower, Elvira, is the gift I leave you. How precious it is you must know full well: from your bosom I stole it the day you became mine. Then it was a symbol of love; now as a pledge of suffering I will put it back in your bosom—this faded flower. And you shall have engraved on your heart, if a woman's heart you have, how it was snatched from you, how it was returned.]
[8] "Poor wretch, how many sweet thoughts, what constancy brought him to his last hour. He was fair and beautiful and gentle of countenance, only a noble scar cut through one of his eyebrows."