“And here—how full of tenderness—how full of faith—seem these simple words!—
Quì dorme in pace
la gentile e virtuosa giovine Maria, &c.
Voleva all’ amplesso di Dio.
“And this,—
O Ginevra,
Unico nostro tesoro!
Arridi a noi dal cielo
cara angioletta,
e ne prega da Dio
novella prole che ti somigli,
a rendere meno acerbo,
il dolore della tua partita.
“Earth and Heaven—how they mingle here!”
“Is it poetry or religion that we are reading?” said Winston. “It seems to me as if these people had suddenly turned their poetry into faith.”
“Or have some of us been turning our faith into poetry? I believe,” added Mildred, “that, in every mind, not utterly destitute of imagination, the boundaries of the two are not very rigidly defined. There is always something of faith in our poetry, and something of poetry in our faith.”
They were now joined by Mr. and Miss Bloomfield, who had made their tour of the church; and the whole party retraced their steps towards their hotel. Winston felt that he had not once indulged Mr. Bloomfield in an opportunity of venting his lamentations over the evils of travel, and the discomforts of foreign parts; he therefore asked that gentleman how he had found himself accommodated at the hotel at which he had descended.
“Ay,” said Mr. Bloomfield, delighted to have a topic on which he could feelingly expatiate, “Descended!—’tis the Frenchman’s phrase. I know that I have ascended to my hotel, and to no trivial elevation. Why, the hotel itself does not begin till where another house might end, and where it ends might be a problem for astronomers to calculate. The ladies got deposited somewhere beneath the clouds; but for myself I am really at a frightful altitude. I was conducted up a dark stone-staircase with an iron-bannister; after some time my guide branched off laterally through by-passages, with unglazed openings, having the most cheerless look-out imaginable, and across damp landing-places contiguous to sinks, and what seemed wash-houses, and where you heard the perpetual dripping of water. All this lay in the road to my bed-room; but the bed-room was not reached yet. I had again to mount—to mount—till I was almost giddy. When at length I attained the apartment destined for me—the only one, I was assured, vacant in the hotel—and was left up there alone in it, I felt so removed from all human fellowship, all succour or sympathy from the inhabitants of the earth below, that I do declare, if I had not been a little initiated on the journey—if I had come direct from my English home at Wimborne—and if, moreover, I was not here in character of protector to two ladies, and therefore bound to carry a bold face in all extremities—I do declare that I should have thrown myself down in utter despair upon the floor, and there lay till the undertaker should come and take me down again!—it seemed the only mode of descent that was at all practicable.”
“Certainly it would be the easiest and the safest,” said Winston, humouring his vein of exaggeration. “And yet it is hardly upon the floor that you would have thrown yourself—which being probably of painted tiles, would have given you a cruel reception. You would rather have chosen Captain Shandy’s attitude, when he was overwhelmed with grief, and flung yourself face foremost upon the bed.”