Luigi did not come to the gondola. Camillo waited, and sat until it was
quite dark. Then he went through the garden of the convent, and inquired
for the painter. They sought him in the parlor. He was not there. The
abbess was not there. Upon the easel stood her portrait partly
finished--strangely beautiful. Camillo had followed into the room, and
stood suddenly before the picture. He had not seen Sulpizia since she was
a child. Even his fancy had scarcely dreamed of a face so beautiful. His
knees trembled as he stood, and he fell before it in the attitude of
prayer. The last red flash of daylight fell upon the picture. The eyes
smiled--the lips were slightly parted--a glow of awakening life trembled
all through the features.
"The strong man's heart was melted, and the nuns beheld him kneeling and
weeping before the portrait of their abbess.
"But where was she?
"Nobody knew. There was no clue--except that the gondola of the convent
was gone.
"Camillo took the portrait and stepped into his gondola. He returned to
the city, to the palace of Sulpizia's parents. Slowly he went up the great
staircase, dark and silent, up which his eager steps had followed the
flying feet of Sulpizia. He entered the saloon slowly, like a man who
carries a heavy burden--but rather in his heart than in his hands.
"'It is all that remains to you of your daughter,' said he in a low voice,
throwing back his cloak, and revealing the marvellous beauty of their
child's portrait to the amazed parents. Then came the agony--a child
lost--a friend false.
"Camillo returned to us and told the tale. I felt my heart wither and grow
old. My mother was grieved in her heart for her son's sorrow--in her pride
for its kind and method. Fiora did not smile any more. Her step was no
longer bounding upon the floor and the stairs, and the year afterward she
married the Marchese Cicada.
"The next day, Camillo returned to the island. The abbess had not
returned, nor had any tidings been received. Only the gondola had been
found in the morning in its usual place. The days passed. A new abbess was
chosen. The church did not dare to curse the fugitive, for there was no
proof that she had willingly gone away. It might be supposed--it could not
be proved. Camillo hung in his chamber the unfinished portrait, and a
black veil shrouded it from chance and curious eyes. He did not seem
altered. He was still calm and grave--still cold and sweet in his general
intercourse.
"My friendship with him became more intimate. He saw that I was much
changed--for although pride can do much, the heart is stronger than the
head. But he had no suspicion of the truth. People who suffer intensely
often forget that there are other sufferers in the world, you know.
Camillo was very tender toward me, for he thought that I was paying the
penalty of too warm a sympathy with him, and often begged me not to wear
away my health and youth in commiseration for what was past and hopeless.
I cultivated my consciousness of his suffering as a defence against my
own. We never mentioned the names of either of those of whom we were
always thinking; but once in many months he would call me into his
chamber and remove the veil from the portrait, while we stood before it as
silent as devotees in a church before the picture of the Madonna. Camillo
pursued his affairs--the cares of his estate--the duties of society. He
assembled all the strangers of distinction at his table. Yes, it was a
rare and great triumph.
"For myself, I was mistress of my secret, and I reveal it to you for the
first time. Why not? I am seventy years old. You know none of the
persons--you hear it as you would read a romance. My heart was broken--my
faith was lost--and I have never met since any one who could restore it. I
distrust the sweetest smile if it move me deeply, and although men may
sometimes be sincere, yet sorrow is so sure that we must steer by memory,
not by hope. In this world we must not play that we are happy. That play
has a frightful forfeit. Society is wise. It eats its own children, whose
consolation is that after this world there is another--and a better, say
the priests. Of course--for it could not be a worse.
V.
"Suddenly Sulpizia returned. My brother was in his library when a
messenger came for him from her parents. He ran breathless and pale to
his gondola. The man was conquered in that moment and the wild passion of
the boy flamed up again. When he reached the Balbo palace he paused a
moment, despite himself, upon the stairs, and the calmness of the man
returned to him. Nature is kind in that to her noble children. Their
regrets, their despairs, their lightning flashes of hope, she does not
reveal to those who cause them. Every man is weak, but the weakness of the
strong man is hidden. He entered the saloon. There stood Sulpizia with her
parents.
"Death and victory were in her eyes. They were fearfully hollow; and the
strongly-carved features, from which the flesh had fallen during the long
struggles of the soul, were pure and pale as marble. It seemed as if she
must fall from weakness, but not a muscle moved.
"Nothing was said. Camillo stood before the woman who had always ruled his
soul, to whom it was still loyal. The parents stood appalled behind their
daughter. It was a wintry noon in Venice--cold and still.
"'Camillo,' said Sulpizia at length, in a tone not to be described, but
seemingly destitute of emotion--as the ocean might seem when a gale calmed
it--'he has left me.'
"Child, I have not fathomed the human heart; but after a long, long
silence my brother answered only, I know not from what feeling of duty and
of sacrifice:
"'Sulpizia, will you marry me?'
* * * * *
"Cardinal Balbo arranged the matter at Rome, and after a short time they
were married. I was the only one present with the parents of Sulpizia, who
were glad enough so to cover what they called their daughter's shame. My
mother would not come, but left Venice that very day and died abroad. The
circumstances of the marriage were not comprehended; but the old friends
of the family came occasionally to make solemn, stately visits, which my
brother scrupulously returned.
"You may believe that we enjoyed a kind of mournful peace after the dark
days of the last few years. I loved Sulpizia, but her cheerfulness without
smiling was the awful serenity of wintry sunlight. She faded day by day.
It was clear to us that the end was not far away.
"Two years after the marriage, Sulpizia was lying upon a couch in the room
behind us, where you have seen the veiled portrait which hung in my
brother's chamber. All the long windows and doors were open and we sat by
her side, talking gently in whispers. I knew that death was at hand, but
I rejoiced to think that much as he had suffered, there was one bitter
drop that had been spared him.
"Sulpizia's voice was scarcely audible, and the deadly pallor deepened
every moment upon her face. Camillo bent over her without speaking, and
bowed his head. I stood apart. In a little while she seemed to be
unconscious of our presence. Her eyes were open and her glance was toward
the window, but her few words showed her mind to be wandering. Still a few
moments, and her lips moved inaudibly, she lifted her hands to Camillo's
face and drew it toward her own with infinite tenderness. His listening
soul heard one word only--the glimmering phantom of sound--it was 'Luigi.'
"His head bowed more profoundly. Sulpizia's eyes were closed. I crossed
her hands upon her breast. I touched my brother--he started a
moment--looked at me, at his wife, and sunk slowly, senseless by the
couch."
VI.
Think of it! The birds sing--the sun shines--the leaves rustle--the
flowers bud and bloom--children shout--young hearts are happy--the world
wheels on--and such tragedies are, and always have been!
I sat with the old Marchesa upon her balcony, and listened to this
terrible tale. She tells it no more, for she is gone now. The Marchesa
tells it no more, but Venice tells it still; and as you glide in your
black gondola along the canal, under the balconies, in the full moonlight
of summer nights, listen and listen; and vaguely in your heart or in your
fancy you will hear the tragic strain.
THE TORTURE CHAMBER.
BY WILLIAM ALLEN BUTLER.
Down the broad, imperial Danube,
As its wandering waters guide,
Past the mountains and the meadows,
Winding with the stream, we glide.
RATISBON we leave behind us,
Where the spires and gables throng,
And the huge cathedral rises,
Like a fortress, vast and strong.
Close beside it, stands the Town-Hall,
With its massive tower, alone,
Brooding o'er the dismal secret,
Hidden in its heart of stone.
There, beneath the old foundations,
Lay the prisons of the State,
Like the last abodes of vengeance,
In the fabled realms of Fate.
And the tides of life above them,
Drifted ever, near and wide,
As at Venice, round the prisons,
Sweeps the sea's incessant tide.
Never, like the far-off dashing,
Or the nearer rush of waves,
Came the tread or murmur downward,
To those dim, unechoing caves.
There the dungeon clasped its victim,
And a stupor chained his breath.
Till the torture woke his senses,
With a sharper touch than death.
Now, through all the vacant silence,
Reign the darkness and the damp,
Broken only when the traveller
Comes to gaze, with guide and lamp.
All about him, black and shattered,
Eaten with the rust of Time,
Lie the fearful signs and tokens
Of an age when Law was Crime.
And the guide, with grim precision,
Tells the dismal tale once more,
Tells to living men the tortures
Living men have borne before.
Well that speechless things, unconscious,
Furnish forth that place of dread,
Guiltless of the crimes they witnessed,
Guiltless of the blood they shed;
Else what direful lamentations,
And what revelations dire,
Ceaseless from their lips would echo,
Tossed in memory's penal fire.
Even as we gaze, the fancy
With a sudden life-gush warms,
And, once more, the Torture Chamber,
With its murderous tenants swarms.
Yonder, through the narrow archway,
Comes the culprit in the gloom,
Falters on the fatal threshold--
Totters to the bloody doom.
Here the executioner, lurking,
Waits, with brutal thirst, his hour,
Tool of bloodier men and bolder,
Drunken with the dregs of power.
There the careful leech sits patient,
Watching pulse, and hue, and breath,
Weighing life's remaining scruples
With the heavier chance of death.
Eking out the little remnant,
Lest the victim die too soon,
And the torture of the morning
Spare the torture of the noon.
Here, behind the heavy grating,
Sits the scribe, with pen and scroll,
Waiting till the giant terror
Bursts the secrets of the soul;
Till the fearful tale of treason
From the shrinking lips is wrung,
Or the final, false confession
Quivers from the trembling tongue;
When the spirit, torn and tempted,
Tried beyond its utmost scope,
By an anguish past endurance,
Madly cancels all its hope;
From the pointed cliffs of torture,
With its shrieks upon the air,
Suicidal, plunging blindly,
In the frenzy of despair!
* * * * *
But the grey old tower is fading,
Fades, in sunshine, from the eye,
Like some evil bird whose pinion
Dimly blots the distant sky.
So the ancient gloom and terror
Of the ages fade away,
In the sunlight of the present,
Of our better, purer day!
THE HOME OF CHARLOTTE BRONTË.
A PASSAGE FROM A DIARY.
BY W. FRANCIS WILLIAMS.
"Such shrines as these are pilgrim shrines--
Shrines to no code or creed confined;
The Delphian vales, the Palestines,
The Meccas of the mind."
HALLECK.
The date is September 5, 1857. I am at Haworth, whither I had walked from
the Bradford Station, some ten or twelve miles distant. This Haworth--a
place but a few years since quite unknown to any but the few residing in
its immediate vicinity--is built upon the side of a hill, and, with its
long line of grey houses creeping up the slope, seems like a huge saurian
monster, sprawling along the hill-side, his head near the top and his tail
reaching nearly to the vale below. At the summit, in the very head of our
saurian, stands Haworth Parsonage, and the church near by, with the square
old tower rising above the houses that cluster about it. I well remember
my first view of this place. It was an autumn afternoon, and near sunset.
The sky had been cloudy, but as I stopped to take my first long look at
the little village, so hallowed by the memory of the Brontë sisters, the
declining sun sent through a breach in the clouds a few spears of dazzling
light, that played about the old church and parsonage with an ineffable
glory. It lasted but a few moments, the sun went down, and darkness and
night gradually settled over the scene. The little incident seemed almost
like a type of the life of the gifted woman chiefly to whom Haworth owes
its fame; for her life, like this very day, had been dark and wearisome,
overshadowed by clouds of cares, tears falling like rain-drops upon
new-made graves, until near its close, when there came a sweet season of
bright domestic happiness, that lasted too shortly, and then gave place to
the darkness and night of death.
Strolling through the village, after my quiet meal at the Black Bull Inn,
which poor Branwell Brontë had so often frequented, I stopped to make some
trifling purchases at a stationery store, and casually asked the
proprietor--a small, delicate-looking man, with a bright eye and a highly
intellectual countenance--if he remembered the Brontë sisters. It was a
fortunate question, for he knew them well, and was a personal friend of
the authoress of Jane Eyre, to whose handsomely-framed portrait he
proudly pointed. He had provided her, as he said, with joyful delight,
with the paper on which she wrote the manuscripts of most of her novels;
he is referred to in one of Miss Brontë's letters to Mrs. Gaskell, as her
"one friend in Haworth," and is the "working-man" mentioned in her
memoirs, who wrote a little _critique_ on Jane Eyre, that came to the
notice of the authoress and afforded her great pleasure. To talk of the
Brontë girls--to express his admiration of them to one who had come from
America to visit their home and grave, was to him a great gratification.
He told me how he used to meet them on the moors--how they were accustomed
to stroll all three together, and talk and gather flowers; then how Emily
died, and Anne and Charlotte were left to pace the familiar path
arm-in-arm; then how they took Anne away to the sea-side, whence she never
returned, while Charlotte would take her lonely moorland walk, rapt in sad
contemplation. Sometimes he would meet her on these occasions, and if he
passed by without attracting her attention, she would chide him when told
of it afterward. She was always so kind, so good-hearted, and with those
she knew, so really sociable.
Sunday, with my new friend, I attended the church. The storm of the day
before had cleared away, and even the place of graves looked bright and
cheerful. The churchyard was crowded with country people from miles
around, who sat carelessly on the long, flat stones that so thickly
covered the ground, waiting for the opening services, while the parish
bell kept up a merry peal. Everything seemed simple and happy, and I do
not wonder that the Brontës loved their home, with its little garden of
lilac bushes, the old church in front, and the sweeping moors stretching
far behind. On many a Sunday morning like this they had trodden the very
path I then was treading, and had entered the church-door; but how few of
these simple villagers knew the treasures of genius showered on these
quiet, reserved sisters!
The church inside is old, and quaint, and simple; it can neither be called
elegant, comfortable, spacious nor antique. Old Mr. Brontë was to preach,
and the Rev. Mr. Nicholls read the service. As a compliment to a stranger,
I had been invited by the organist of the church to play the organ--a neat
little instrument of some eight or ten stops; and it was while "giving
out" the familiar tune of Antioch that I noticed, in the reflection of a
little mirror placed above the keyboard, that Mr. Brontë had entered the
church, and was passing up the aisle. He wore the customary black gown,
and the lower part of his face was quite buried in an enormous white
neckcloth--the most monstrous article of the kind I had ever beheld. The
reflection in that little mirror I shall never forget. The old man,
walking feebly up the aisle, shading his eyes with his right hand, and
supporting himself with a cane, the quiet congregation, and the singular
dress and venerable bald head of the old preacher, all formed a
character-picture, that is not often seen. His sermon was extempore, and
consisted of a series of running paraphrases and simple and touching
explanations upon a few verses selected from the Lamentations of Jeremiah.
* * * * *
After church, my friend the stationer walked with me on the moors.
Charlotte Brontë's experience of the world was so very limited, that in
drawing the characters in her novels, she had to select the real, living
people in the vicinity. Thus, my friend pointed out one house and another
to me as being the residence of many of the originals of many of the
characters in her works, especially in "Shirley." Soon, however, our path
across the moors took us out of human habitations, and among the moorland
solitudes the Brontë sisters so fondly loved. Cold and desolate as they
appear from a distance, a nearer examination proves them to be replete
with exquisite beauty. Delicate heather-blooms carpet the immense slope,
and bend like nodding plumes, in graceful waves, to the breezes that play
heedlessly down the hill-side. Gay yellow buttercups, bright purple
heath-flowers, and dark bilberries, vary the general violet tint, while
the tiny stems of these gentle plants spring from rich tufts of emerald
moss, and are pushed aside by the spray-like leaves of the wild fern. The
hum of bees imparts a half busy, half drowsy sound to the scene, while far
down the long easy slopes are little valleys, through which trickle
talkative brooks, that sometimes peep between the low foliage on their
margins, and are the next moment lost to sight behind the crowding bushes.
It is no wonder that Charlotte and her sisters loved their quiet walks
along the moors.
The next day I bade farewell to Haworth. It is now frequently included in
the route of American tourists, by many of whom the memory of Charlotte
Brontë is as fondly cherished as by her own countrymen and women; and
Haworth is no longer the quiet, unknown Yorkshire hamlet that it was a few
years ago.
THORWALDSEN'S CHRIST.
BY THE REV. E.A. WASHBURN.
Silent stood the youthful sculptor
Gazing on the breathing stone
From the chaos of the marble
Into godlike being grown.
But a gloom was on his forehead,
In his eye a drooping glance,
And at length the heavy sorrow
From the lip found utterance:
"Holy Art! thy shapes of beauty
Have I carved, but ne'er before
Reached my thought a faultless image,
Still unbodied would it soar;
Still the pure unfound Ideal
Would ensoul a fairer shrine;
In my victory I perish,
And no loftier aim is mine."
Noble artist! thine the yearning,
Thine the great inspiring word,
By the sleepless mind forever
In its silent watches heard;
For the earthly it is pleasure
Only earthly ends to gain;
For the seeker of the perfect,
To be satisfied is pain.
Visions of an untold glory
Milton saw in his eclipse,
Paradise to outward gazers
Lost, with no apocalypse;
Holier Christ and veiled Madonnas,
Painted were on Raphael's soul;
Melodies he could not utter
O'er Bethoven's ear would roll.
Ever floats the dim Ideal
Far before the longing eyes;
Ever, as we travel onward,
Boundless the horizon flies;
Not the brimming cups of wisdom
Can the thirsty spirit slake,
And the molten gold in pouring
Will the mould in pieces break.
Voice within our inmost being,
Calling deep to answering deep,
Midst the life of weary labor
Thou shalt waken us from sleep!
All our joy is in our Future
And our motion is our rest,
Still the True reveals the Truer,
Still the good foretells the Best.
JUNE TWENTY-NINTH, EIGHTEEN FIFTY-NINE.
BY CAROLINE M. KIRKLAND.
To talk about the weather is the natural English and American mode of
beginning an acquaintance.
This day--the one that glares upon us at our present writing--is eminently
able to melt away what is called the frost of ceremony, and to induce the
primmest of us to throw off all disguises that can possibly be dispensed
with. It is a day to bring the most sophisticated back to first
principles. The very thought of wrapping anything up in mystery, to-day,
brings a thrill like the involuntary protest of the soul against cruelty.
We are not even as anxious as usual to cover up our faults. We hesitate at
enveloping a letter.
The shimmer that lives and moves over yonder dry fallow, as if ten
thousand million fairies were fanning themselves with midges' wings,
fatigues the eye with a notion of unnecessary exertion. Wiser seems yon
glassy pool, moveless, under heavy, not melancholy, boughs. That is
reflecting--keeping one pleasant thought all the time--satisfying itself
with one picture for a whole morning, as we all did while the "Heart of
the Andes" was laid open to our longing gaze. The pool has the advantage
of us, too; for it receives into its waveless bosom the loveliness of sky
and tree without emotion, while we, gazing on the wondrous transcript made
by mortal man of these measureless glories, felt our souls stirred, even
to pain, with a sense of the artist's power, and of the amount of his
precious life that must have gone into such a creation.
By the way, if we had energy enough to-day to wish anything, it would be
to find ourselves far away amid flashing seas and wild winds, hunting
icebergs, with Church for our Columbus, his banner of _Excelsior_
streaming over us, his wondrous eye piercing the distant wreaths of spray,
in search of domes and pinnacles of opal and lapis lazuli, turned, now to
diamonds, now to marble, by sun and shade. One whose good fortune it was
to be with the young discoverer at Niagara, came away with the feeling of
having acquired a new sense, by the potent magic of genius.
But to-day, Art is nothing--genius is nothing--but no! that is
blasphemous. It is we that are nothing--if not stupid. Dullness is the
universe. The grasshoppers are too faint to sing, the birds sit still on
the boughs, waiting for the leaves to fan them. Children are wilted into
silence and slumberous nonentity; boys do not bathe to-day--they welter,
hour after hour, in the dark water near the shaded rock. Even they and the
tadpoles can hardly be seen to wriggle. The cow has found a shade, and,
preferring repose to munching, lies contented under the one great elm
mercifully left in the middle of her pasture.
A hot day in June is hotter than any other hot day. It finds us cruelly
unguarded. After we have been gently baked awhile, the crust thus acquired
makes us somewhat tortoise-like and quiescent. If we were condemned to
suffer thirty-nine stripes, or even only as many as belong to our flag,
would it or would it not be a privilege to take them by degrees, say one
on the first day, two on the second, four on the third, etc., in the
celebrated progression style, until the whole were accomplished? Or were
it better to have the whole at once, and so be done with it? In either
case, or in present case, what a blessing to be made pachydermatous! (a
learned word lately acquired by ladies, though doubtless long familiar to
lords).
But words beginning with the sound of _ice_, are more agreeable for
to-day--such as icicle, isolation, Islip.
Some unhappy critic has said that the "icicle that hangs on Diana's
temple" is not colder than other icicles. We pity him, and would like to
try the comparison to-day. We have already tried "thinking on the frosty
Caucasus," and quite agree with Claudio--was it, or Romeo, or who?--that
this is of no service in case of fire.
Delicious music for to-day--the tinkling of ice in the pitcher, as Susan,
slowly and carefully, brings up-stairs the water we wait for. It were
really a loss to have the way shorter, or the servant a harum-scarum thing
who would dash in with her precious burden before one knew it was coming.