My reverie turns itself into a lesson of bright reality; a present study of budding mind; a jealous watch of care encroaching upon innocence; a kindly outpouring of the father's manly heart upon the shrine of his idol.
Could such a reverie better end?
HEROINES OF HISTORY—LAURA.
WRITTEN FOR THE INTERNATIONAL MONTHLY MAGAZINE BY MARY E. HEWITT.
Laura, rendered immortal by the love and lyre of Petrarch, was the daughter of Audibert de Noves, who was of the haute noblesse of Avignon. He died in the infancy of Laura, leaving her a dowry of one thousand gold crowns, (about fifty thousand dollars,) a magnificent portion for those times. She was married at the age of eighteen to Hugh de Sade, a young noble only a few years older than his bride, but not distinguished by any advantages either of person or mind. The marriage contract is dated in January, 1325, two years before her first meeting with Petrarch; and in it her mother, the Lady Ermessende, and her brother, John de Noves, stipulate to pay the dower left by her father; and also to bestow on the bride two magnificent dresses for state occasions; one of green, embroidered with violets; the other of crimson, trimmed with feathers. In all the portraits of Laura now extant, she is represented in one of these two dresses, and they are frequently alluded to by Petrarch. He tells us expressly that when he first met her at matins in the church of Saint Claire, she was habited in a robe of green spotted with violets. Mention is also made of a coronal of silver with which she wreathed her hair; of her necklaces and ornaments of pearls. Diamonds are not once alluded to because the art of cutting them had not then been invented. From all which it appears that Laura was opulent, and moved in the first class of society. It was customary for women of rank in those times to dress with extreme simplicity on ordinary occasions, but with the most gorgeous splendor when they appeared in public.
There are some beautiful descriptions of Laura surrounded by her young female companions, divested of all her splendid apparel, in a simple white robe and a few flowers in her hair, but still preëminent over all by her superior loveliness.
She was in person a fair, Madonna-like beauty, with soft dark eyes, and a profusion of pale golden hair parted on her brow, and falling in rich curls over her neck. The general character of her beauty must have been pensive, soft, unobtrusive, and even somewhat languid. This softness and repose must nave been far removed from insipidity, for Petrarch dwells on the rare and varying expression of her loveliness, the lightning of her smile, and the tender magic of her voice, which was felt in the inmost heart. He dwells on the celestial grace of her figure and movements, and describes the beauty of her hand and the loveliness of her mouth. She had a habit of veiling her eyes with her hand, and her looks were generally bent on the earth.
In a portrait of Laura, in the Laurentinian library at Florence, the eyes have this characteristic downcast look.