His studies and affections induced him to neglect the mere vestiges of antiquity to seek with greater love the souvenirs of Christianity and the relics of the saints. We know if they abound on this illustrious earth.
Every day, then, the travellers turned a new leaf of the book which they had lisped from their childhood. The history of the martyrs particularly seized upon the imagination of Paganina. She never tired of listening to it on the very places they had sanctified by such sublime acts as the world rarely knows.
We may scoff at or disdain the wonders of interior sanctity, but indifference is arrested by the heroism of martyrdom.
The martyrs wear the double crown of divine and human glory. After their God, they are the vanquishers of death. Inspired courage burns on their faces; and when are added to their ranks the grace and beauty of woman and child, why refuse to their memory the homage of love and admiration, if even not to be Christian is considered worthy of worldly honor.
Paganina had the intelligence of greatness; she loved courage and true nobility. The recitals of her father drew tears from her eyes; and in traversing the arenas made memorable by some bloody triumph, she felt within her every inspiration to celebrate them. Here she was true to her Italian nature; but she spoke with an elevation of accent and depth of emotion which are the privileges of northern nations.
One evening she was at the Colosseum. She felt an enthusiasm within her, an inspiration unaccountable, and pictured in life-colors the crowd of excited people, watching and crying out to the poor Christian martyrs struggling and dying, in the brightness of a supernatural light. She entirely forgot herself.
Something like a hymn breathed from her oppressed heart; eloquence overflowed from her lips. The passers-by were attracted toward her, and her father listened overcome and astonished. While she appeared transfigured, standing in the light of the setting sun, which seemed to throw around her the bloody purple of which she chanted, a ray of the glory of her ancestors rested on the forehead of this grandchild of the martyrs.
That evening, her father, in taking her home again, said to her, "Go on, my little one; many have passed for eloquent who had not your inspiration; many have sought for poetry, and great they were; but they have not found the fruit your tiny hands have gathered. Mignon sang: you sing and speak; and if you use your power for good, Mignon may not compare with you."
Excuse the blindness of a father, if you please.