If, in adopting the legendary love tale of Romeo and Juliet, Shakespeare
had changed the scene in which it is cast for a more northern clime, we
may doubt whether the art of Shakespeare himself could have reconciled
us at once to the suddenness and the strength of Juliet’s passion. And,
even as it is, perhaps there are few of our rational and sober-minded
islanders who would not honestly confess, if fairly questioned, that
they deem the romance and fervour of those ill-starred lovers of Verona
exaggerated and over-drawn. Yet, in Italy, the picture of that affection
born of a night--but “strong as death”--is one to which the veriest
commonplaces of life would afford parallels without number. As in
different ages, so in different climes, love varies wonderfully in the
shapes it takes. And even at this day, beneath Italian skies, many a
simple girl would feel as Juliet, and many a homely gallant would rival
the extravagance of Romeo. Long suits in that sunny land, wherein, as
whereof, I now write, are unknown. In no other land, perhaps, is there
found so commonly the love at first sight, which in France is a jest,
and in England a doubt; in no other land, too, is love, though so
suddenly conceived, more faithfully preserved. That which is ripened
in fancy comes at once to passion, yet is embalmed through all time by
sentiment. And this must be my and their excuse, if the love of
Adrian some too prematurely formed, and that of Irene too romantically
conceived;--it is the excuse which they take from the air and sun, from
the customs of their ancestors, from the soft contagion of example.
But while they yielded to the dictates of their hearts, it was with a
certain though secret sadness--a presentiment that had, perhaps, its
charm, though it was of cross and evil. Born of so proud a race, Adrian
could scarcely dream of marriage with the sister of a plebeian; and
Irene, unconscious of the future glory of her brother, could hardly
have cherished any hope, save that of being loved. Yet these adverse
circumstances, which, in the harder, the more prudent, the more
self-denying, perhaps the more virtuous minds, that are formed beneath
the northern skies, would have been an inducement to wrestle against
love so placed, only contributed to feed and to strengthen theirs by
an opposition which has ever its attraction for romance. They found
frequent, though short, opportunities of meeting--not quite alone, but
only in the conniving presence of Benedetta: sometimes in the public
gardens, sometimes amidst the vast and deserted ruins by which the house
of Rienzi was surrounded. They surrendered themselves, without much
question of the future, to the excitement--the elysium--of the hour:
they lived but from day to day; their future was the next time they
should meet; beyond that epoch, the very mists of their youthful love
closed in obscurity and shadow which they sought not to penetrate: and
as yet they had not arrived at that period of affection when there was
danger of their fall,--their love had not passed the golden portal where
Heaven ceases and Earth begins. Everything for them was the poetry,
the vagueness, the refinement,--not the power, the concentration, the
mortality,--of desire! The look--the whisper--the brief pressure of the
hand, at most, the first kisses of love, rare and few,--these marked the
human limits of that sentiment which filled them with a new life, which
elevated them as with a new soul.
The roving tendencies of Adrian were at once fixed and centered; the
dreams of his tender mistress had awakened to a life dreaming still, but
“rounded with a truth.” All that earnestness, and energy, and fervour of
emotion, which, in her brother, broke forth in the schemes of patriotism
and the aspirations of power, were, in Irene, softened down into one
object of existence, one concentration of soul,--and that was love. Yet,
in this range of thought and action, so apparently limited, there was,
in reality, no less boundless a sphere than in the wide space of her
brother’s many-pathed ambition. Not the less had she the power and
scope for all the loftiest capacities granted to our clay. Equal was her
enthusiasm for her idol; equal, had she been equally tried, would have
been her generosity, her devotion:--greater, be sure, her courage; more
inalienable her worship; more unsullied by selfish purposes and sordid
views. Time, change, misfortune, ingratitude, would have left her the
same! What state could fall, what liberty decay, if the zeal of man’s
noisy patriotism were as pure as the silent loyalty of a woman’s love?
In them everything was young!--the heart unchilled, unblighted,--that
fulness and luxuriance of life’s life which has in it something of
divine. At that age, when it seems as if we could never die, how
deathless, how flushed and mighty as with the youngness of a god, is all
that our hearts create! Our own youth is like that of the earth itself,
when it peopled the woods and waters with divinities; when life
ran riot, and yet only gave birth to beauty;--all its shapes, of
poetry,--all its airs, the melodies of Arcady and Olympus! The Golden
Age never leaves the world: it exists still, and shall exist, till love,
health, poetry, are no more; but only for the young!
If I now dwell, though but for a moment, on this interlude in a drama
calling forth more masculine passions than that of love, it is because
I foresee that the occasion will but rarely recur. If I linger on the
description of Irene and her hidden affection, rather than wait for
circumstances to portray them better than the author’s words can, it is
because I foresee that that loving and lovely image must continue to the
last rather a shadow than a portrait,--thrown in the background, as is
the real destiny of such natures, by bolder figures and more gorgeous
colours; a something whose presence is rather felt than seen, and whose
very harmony with the whole consists in its retiring and subdued repose.