CHAPTER XXVI.
Fair and flowery as in the idyllic dawn when Theocritus sang itspafatoral charms, was that sunny Sicilian land where, one May morning,Leo Gordon wandered with a gay party in quest of historic sites, whichthe slow silting of the stream of time had not obliterated. Viewed fromthe heights of Achradina, whence all the vestiges of magnificence andluxury have vanished, and only the hideous monument of "man'sinhumanity to man" remains, what a vast panorama stretched far as thehorizon on every side.
To the north, girding the fire-furrowed plain of Catania where olive,lemon, oleander and orange springing out of black lava, mingled hueslike paints on an ebony palette--rose vast, lonely, purple at base,snowy at summit, brooding Etna; dozing in the soft, sweet springtime,with red, wrathful eyes veiled by a silvery haze. An unlimited expanseof crinkling blue sea, shot like Persian silk with gleams of gold, andlaced here and there with foam scallops, bounded the east; smilingtreacherously above the ghastly wreck sepultured in its coral crypts,that might have told of the crash of triremes, the flames of sinkinggalleys, which twenty-two centuries ago lit the bloody waves thatclosed over slaughtered hosts.
Westward lay green, wimpling vales, studded with laurel, arched withvine-draped pergolas, dotted widi flocks, dimpled with reedy marsheswhere red oxen browsed; and beyond the pale pink flush of almondgroves--
"A smoke of blue olives, a vision of towers."
Bucolic paradise of Battus and Bombyce, of Corydon and Daphnis, may itplease the hierophants of Sanskrit lore, of derivative Aryan philology,of iconoclastic euhemerism, to spare us yet awhile the lovely mythsthat dance across the asphodel meads of sunny Sicily.
On the verge of the parapet of the Latomia, where the breath of thesirocco, the gnawing tooth of time, and the slow ravelling of rain hadserrated the ledge, stood Leo, gazing into the dizzying depths of thecharnel house that swarmed with the ghosts of nine thousand men, whoonce were huddled within its stony embrace.
As if pitying nature had striven to appease the manes of the unburieddead, a pall of luxuriant ivy and glossy acanthus covered the bottomand sides of the quarry, one hundred feet below; but out of the dust ofcenturies stared the rayless eyes of corpses, and the gaunt despairingfaces seemed still uplifted, now in invocation, anon in imprecation tothe overarching sky, where blistering suns mocked them by day, andglittering moons and silver stars paused in their westward marchthrough dewy night, to tell them tantalizing tales of how musicallyAegean wavelets broke against the marbles at Piraeus; how loud thenightingales sang in the plane and poplar groves at home; how the whiteglory of the Parthenon smiled down on violet-crowned Athens, wheretheir wives and children thronged the temples, in sacrificial rites toinsure their safety.
In crevices of the perpendicular walls lush creepers tapestried thegray stone, and far down, out of the mould of the subterranean dungeon,sprang slim lemon trees snowed over with fragrant bloom, clumps ofoleander waving banners of vivid rose, and golden-green pomegranatebushes, where scarlet flakes glowed like the wings of tropical birds.
"Well, is the game worth the candle? After voyaging thousands of miles,do you feel repaid; or down there, in the heart of the desolation, doyou see only the grinning mask of jeering disappointment, whichgenerally follows American realists into the dusty haunts of Old Worldidealism?"
As she spoke, Alma Cutting stepped back under the cool canopy of aspreading fig-tree, and fanned herself with a tuft of papyrus leaves.She was a tall, handsome woman, pronouncedly brunette in type, withlarge black eyes whose customary indolent indifference of expressiondid not entirely veil the fires "banked" under the velvet iris; and asquare, firm mouth, around whose full crimson lips lurked a certainhaughtiness, that despite the curb of good breeding, bordered at timesclosely upon insolence. Thirty years had tripped over this dark head,where the hair, innocent of crimp or curl, hung in a straight jetfringe low on her wide forehead; and though no lines marred the smooth,health-tinted skin, she was perceptibly "sun burnt by the glare oflife," and the dew of youth had vanished before the vampire lips ofennui.
"Disappointed? Certainly not; and I were exacting and unreasonableindeed, if I did not feel abundantly repaid. Alma, since the days whenI pored over Thucydides, Plutarch, Rollin and Grote, this spot hasbeckoned to my imagination with all the uplifted hands of the ninethousand captives; and the longing of years is to-day completelygratified."
"Am I unusually stupid, or are you rapt, beyond the realm of reason andmid-day common sense? Pray what is the fascination? It is neither sovast, nor so picturesque as the Colosseum. There, one expects to hearthe roar of the beasts springing on their human prey; the ring of steelon steel, when the gladiators have bowed like dancing-masters to thebloated old bald-headed Neros and Vespasians; and you fancy that yousmell the fountains of perfume that toss their spray from tier to tier;and see the rainbow of the silk awning flapping overhead. Better thanall, you imagine you can watch the ravishing toilettes of theFaustinas, and Fulvias and Messalinas who flirt with the handsome,straight-nosed beaux so immensely classical in their togas; and whentheir thunder-browed husbands unexpectedly step in behind, it is soeasy to conjecture the sudden change of theme, as they spread theirfans to cover the message just written on their ivory tablets, andstraightway fall to clawing the characters of all the Cornelias, andCalpurnias, and Octavias and Julia Domnas, and other respectable wives!All that I quite enjoyed because I understood. Eight years' campaigningin New York, and London and Paris would teach even an idiot thatnineteenth century 'best society' can lift you so close to thenaughtiness of the golden Roman era, that one only has to strain a verylittle on tip-toe, to feel at one's ease with the jeunesse doree ofdead ages. Here--what do you find in a huge stone well sunk into thebowels of the earth? About as enticing as a plunge into a dry cistern,suddenly unroofed? If spectres we must hunt, do let them be festive,like those Faust danced with on the Brocken!"
"You should be ashamed, Alma! Miss Gordon is the very soul of courteoustoleration, or she would resent the teasing goad of your Philistinism,"cried the brother, Rivers Cutting, who in his new style yachting suitof blue cloth appeared veritably the jaunty genius of fashionablemodernity, confronting the ghost of antiquity.
"You forget, Rivers, some of the sage dicta you brought back from the'Summer School of Philosophy', when you followed your last Boston flameto Concord, where she went poaching on the sacred preserves of the'Illuminati,' hunting a new sensation. 'We must be as courteous tohuman beings as we are to a picture, which we are willing to give theadvantage of a good light.' Now being Leo's very sincere friend, andknowing that the supreme moment of her facial triumph is when, like astartled fawn, she opens her eyes wide in horrified amazement at someinconceivable heresy, do you suppose I am so recreant to loyalty as tofail in providing her occasionally with the necessary Gorgon, ethicalor archaeolegical, as surroundings warrant?
"History was never the fetich of my girlhood, and that quartette ofdry-as-dust worthies whom Leo carries around in leash, as other womencarry pugs and poodles, came near giving me meningitis in my tenderyears. My first governess, a Puritan spinster, full of zeal, andconscientiously bent on earning her wages, by exercising my brains totheir utmost capacity, undertook to introduce me to all the highlyimmoral personages and practices that made the Punic Wars famous. Byway of making Imilco a lifelong acquaintance, she illustrated the siegeof Agrigentum by a huge, hideous image of Phalaris' 'Brazen Bull,'drawn with chalk on the school-room blackboard.
"A wonderful beast it certainly was; that taurus with head lowered,tail lashing the air, one hoof pawing savagely, worthy representativeof all the horrors it typified, and which she explained with maddeningperspicuity. That night, when papa tore himself away from the club roomat one o'clock, and met mamma on the doorstep--just coming home from asupper at Delmonico's after an opera party--they were ascending thestairs, when frantic cries drove from her ears the echoes of'Traviata's' witching strain. Thinking only a conflagration wouldjustify the din, papa threw up the hall sash and shouted 'fire!
' andthe police sounded the alarm, and all pandemonium broke loose.Investigation discovered me, wriggled half way down to the foot of mybed, buried under the blankets, and shrieking 'Perillus' Bull! I amroasting in the Brass Bull!' Being not very ardent disciples of Clio,my solicitous parents failed to understand the nightmare; hence crackedice was folded over my head (mid-winter), and the family physicianordered a mustard plaster half a yard long, down my spine. I vividlyremember Imilco, and the bovine fury pawing the blackboard; but of thethree Punic Wars, then and there tabooed, I recall only the brassmonster at Agrigentum. Leo, when we reach Girgenti, the remaining Meccaof your historic hopes, some time to-morrow, you will understand why,instead of climbing to the temples of the cliff, I shall lock the doorof our cabin, and drown the bellowing of the beast in Daudet's newbook."
"I wish, indeed I do, that you had staid there to-day, instead ofcoming ashore to dampen all our ardor and enthusiasm by your constantthin drizzle of scorn. One should suppose that in this idyllic region,some ray of poetic warmth must melt your frigid, scoffing soul. Daudetsuits my sister far better than Theocritus," answered her brother,fastening a sprig of orange blossom in his button hole.
Pushing back her sailor hat, Alma looked obliquely at him from beneathher drooping lids.
"Try me. Perhaps infection haunts the air. Spare us the Greek, comedown from your Yale and Harvard heights to the level of my ignorance,and warble for me in English some of your Sicilian lark's melodies. Atleast I have heard of Amaryllis and Simaetha."
Mr. Cutting shook his head.
"What--? Ashamed of your bucolic hobby! No wonder--since after all it'sonly a goat. I dare you, brother mine, to produce me a Theocritanfragment."
"Take the consequences of your rash levity; though I have a dawningsuspicion some 'Imp of the Perverse' has coached you for the occasion."
He stroked his mustache, pondered a moment, then struck an attitude,and declaimed:
"I go a serenading to Amaryllis; what time my flocks browse on themountains, and Tityrus drives them. Tityrus beloved of me in thehighest degree, feed my flocks and lead them to the fountain, etc."
Mimicking his tone exactly, Alma finished the line:
"And mind, Tityrus, that tawny Libyan he-goat lest he butt thee!' Come,Rivers; free translation is allowable, considering surroundings, butnot garbling; and every time you know you substituted flocks for goats.Proceed, and do not insult your pet author with emendations."
With his hat on the back of his head, and his thumbs in the armholes ofhis vest, Mr. Cutting resumed:
"Sweet Amaryllis! though by death defiled, Thee shall I ne'er forget; dear to my heart As are my frisking goats, thou did'st depart. To what a lot--was I, unhappy, born!"
Again the mocking voice responded:
"But see! yon calves devour The olive branches. Pelt them off I pray.
"Confound the calves! 'St--! you white-skin thief--away!' Thanks, nomore at present. Doubtless it sounds very fine in Greek, because then,I could not possibly understand that it is the melody and the rhythmicdance of bleating calves, and capering goats. Here come the stragglersladen with plunder. Oh, papa! Do give me those exquisite acaciaclusters."
"My dear, I have ordered luncheon spread down there, in that strangegarden. It is the queerest place imaginable; and looking up, the effectis quite indescribable."
"Have you had the skulls polished for drinking cups, and printed themenus on cross-bones? What shocking taste to add insult to injury byspreading all our wealth of canned dainties on the very stones wheresit the ghosts of those who perished from hunger and thirst! EminentlyDantesque, but the sacrilege appalls Leo. She would sooner attend anoyster supper, or a clam-bake in the Catacombs, or--" bowing to a youngEnglishman standing near, "lead a German in the Poets' corner ofWestminster Abbey. My dear girl, under which flag do you fight?Athenian, Roman, Carthagenian, Syracusan?
"The child of a man who fell in defence of his own fireside, couldscarcely fail to sympathize with the holy cause of the invaded; yethere, in view of the horrors inflicted upon the captives, one almostleans to Athens. It seems to me the most enduring monument of Syracusanglory survives in the eloquent protest of Nicolaus against her cruelty;especially when we recollect that it came from one who, of all others,had most to forgive. Old, decrepit, unable to walk, the venerablesorrow-laden man whose only children, two sons, had died fighting tosave Syracuse--was carried on a litter into the midst of the shoutingthousands, who were drunk with the wine of victory. 'Behold an unhappyfather, who has most cause to detest the Athenians, the authors of thiswar, the murderers of my children! But I am less sensible of my privateafflictions than of the honor of my country, when I see it ready toexpose itself to eternal infamy by violating the law of nations, anddishonoring our victory by barbarous cruelty. What! Will you tarnishyour glory, and have all the world say that a nation who firstdedicated a temple in their city, to Clemency, found none in yours?Triumphs and victories do not give immortal glory to a city; but theuse of moderation in the greatest prosperity, the exercise of mercytoward a vanquished enemy, the fear of offending the gods by a haughtyand insolent pride.' What a theme for Dore or Munkacsy?"
"Thank you ever so much, Miss Gordon, for brushing away the librarydust from that historic cameo. I had so utterly forgotten it lay in themusty tomes, that it has all the charm of a curio." Mr. Cutting tookoff his hat, and bowed.
"Acknowledgments are due rather to my cousin, Dr. Douglass, who calledmy attention to the passage. The best of all things good abide withhim; and out of his overflowing store, he shares with the needy. Onlylast night he reminded me of an illustration of the vanitas vanitatumof human fame and national gratitude, to be found over yonder in thenecropolis. Less than a hundred and forty years after his death,Archimedes was so completely forgotten by the city he had immortalized,that Syracuse denied he was buried on her soil; and a foreigner had thehonor of clearing away rubbish and brambles, in order to show the graveto his own countrymen."
Leighton Douglass handed to his cousin a bunch of the delicate lilacblossoms of acanthus, tied with a wisp of some ribbon-like grass, andtaking off his spectacles, replied:
"Leo unduly exalts my memory at the expense of her own; and we have alllevied heavily on her fund of topographical accuracy."
"If I travel much longer with two such learned and philosophicalscholars, I shall inevitably degenerate into an intellectual Dodder,"yawned Alma.
"Into a what?" asked her father.
"A Dodder, sir. Pray, papa, be more considerate than to force DoctorDouglass to believe that instead of listening to the sermon he preachedus last year, you either slept ignominiously throughout its delivery,or else allowed your unregenerate thoughts to dwell on those devices ofLucifer, 'puts,' 'calls, 'spreads,' 'corners, 'spots' and 'futures'. Ofcourse you remember that he believes in evolution? There was a time,even in my extremely recent day, when that word was more frightful tothe orthodox than a ton of nitro-glycerine; was to the elect, a foulerabomination even than opera bouffe and the can can. But 'the thoughtsof men are widened with the process of the suns', and now it appearsthat the immortal soul of us must be evolved, somewhat in the samefashion as protoplasm, and unless we fight for 'survival' elsewhere, weshall not be numbered among the spirited 'fittest', but degenerate intoparasites, dodders, backsliders. So, drawing nutriment from theDoctor's historic brains, and from Leo's, I fall back into worse than adodder, a torpid violator of the Law of Work, a hopeless Sacculina!Doctor Douglass, it was the bravest hour of your life when you stood upin--church pulpit, and told us the scientists whom we were wont toregard as more dreadful than the cannibals and Calmucks, are only adevoted sect of truth seekers, preaching from older texts, and drawingnearer and nearer to the kingdom of Heaven. To throw that ethical bomb,required more courage than Balaklava."
"Mine was merely a feeble attempt to follow out the analogicalreasoning of one of the most original and scientific thinkers of ourday in Great Britain; but the fact that you recall so correct
ly theline of argument in a sermon delivered more than a year ago, iscertainly complimentary assurance of at least approximate success in myeffort."
"After all, I am sorry I humored Leo's whim, and persuaded papa tobring us here."
"Why, my dear? We are enjoying it immensely," said her father.
"Because Syracuse has proved my 'crumpled rose leaf', by destroying theprestige of the 'Cleopatra'. Hitherto, I deemed our yacht quite themost complete and gorgeous floating palace since the days of its highlyimproper namesake's marauding sails on the Cydnus."
"And so she is; there is nothing afloat comparable to her in speed,appointments, comfort and beauty," interrupted Mr. Cutting.
"Poor papa! How he bristles at the bare suggestion of rivalry. Becomforted, sir, in the knowledge that at least we shall not be run downby a phantom cruiser. It is very humiliating to American pride--afterwinning the international prizes, and boasting so inordinately, to findout that we are only about--how many centuries, Leo?--twenty-fivecenturies behind Syracuse in building pleasure crafts. Think of asuperb cabin with staterooms containing beds (not bunks) for onehundred and twenty guests, and the floors all covered with agates andother precious stones, that formed a mosaic copy of the Iliad! If youwished to emphasize a discussion on connubial devotion, behold! thereon your right, Andromache and Hector; if one's husband objected to aharmless flirtation, lo! on the left, Agamemnon and Briseis; and topoint the moral of 'pretty is, as pretty does'--how very convenient toindicate with the tip of your satin slipper, the demure figure of Helenstanding on the walls, to watch the duel between Menelaus and Paris!Fancy the consolation a person of my indolent Sacculina temperamentmight have derived from the untimely fate of Cassandra, oppressed withknowledge in advance of her day and generation! There was the gymnasiumfor the beaux; and for the belles bona fide gardens, with walks andarbors covered with ivy and flowering vines whose roots rested in greatstone vessels filled with earth. Imagine the boudoir and bathroomspaved with precious stones, encrusted with carved ivory and statues--"
"Pooh! Alma. That rigmarole is not in the guide books. Come, Dixon iswaving his handkerchief down there, as a signal that luncheon is ready."
"I prefer to wait here. Alma, bring me some anemones, and a sprig ofivy from the circular garden, when you come back," said Leo.
Doctor Douglass drew closer, and asked:
"Will you let me stay also, and enjoy with you the wonderful charm ofthis opalescent air, this beautiful cincturing sea?"
"I would rather be alone. Solitude is a luxury rarely allowed on ayacht cruise; and I want a few quiet moments. By day, poor Aunt Pattyhas so much to tell me; at night, Alma is a chattering owl."
There are hours when the ghost of a happy past, from which we havepersistently fled, constrains us to give audience; and Leo surrenderedherself to memories that brought a very mournful shadow into her bravebrown eyes. Thirteen months had passed since her departure from X---anddespite changing scenes and novel incidents, she could not escape thehaunting face that met her on mountains, was mirrored in every sea; thebrilliant mesmeric face set in its frame of crisp black locks, withdark blue eyes whose intense lustre had the cold, hard gleam of jewels.Sleeping or waking, always that dear, powerful face daring her toforget.
When Doctor Douglass and Miss Patty joined the yacht party at Palermo,the former had brought a letter and a package, which sorely testedLeo's strength of will. Leaning to-day against the twisted body of anold olive tree, she opened and read once more, the final message.
"When Leighton places this sheet in your hands, the year of releasewhich I could not refuse you, will have expired. Once your noble heartwas wholly mine; and the proudest moment of my life was, and will be,that in which you promised to be my wife. All that you ever were, youshall always remain to me; and if you can confide your happiness to mykeeping, I will never betray the sacred trust. Life has grown sombre tome, during the past eighteen months; and the only companionship that Ican hope to cheer it, you alone can bring me. I have not willingly orintentionally forfeited your confidence; but that I have suffered, Ishall not deny. If you love me, as in days gone by, our future restsonce more in your hands; and you must renew the pledges that at yourrequest I surrendered. In behalf of our past, I beg that you willretain the ring, hallowed forever by the touch of your hand; and itsacceptance will typify, if not a renewal of our engagement, at leastthe perpetuity of a sacred friendship. Awaiting your final decision, Iam, my dear Leo,
"Yours as of yore, LENNOX."
All that she had ever been; no more. The graceful, well-bred heiresswhom he admired, who commanded his profoundest respect, whom he hadknown from his boyhood, and who of all others he had desired shouldpreside over his home and wear his name; but not the woman who reignedin his heart; whose touch had lighted the glowing tenderness that sotransfigured his countenance, as she saw it that day, bending over asick convict in a penitentiary.
He offered her formal allegiance, and that pale phantom of affectiongrounded in reverence, which is to the ardent love that a true womandemands in exchange for her own, as--
"Moonlight unto sunlight; and as water unto wine."
She knew that he was no willing victim of a fascination, which hadaudaciously deranged his carefully mapped campaign of life; that hewould have set his heel on his own insurgent heart, had it beenpossible; and she honored him for the stern integrity that forbade hisaffectation of a warmth of feeling which she was now conscious she hadnever evoked.
Accepting the theory that the young convict was sustained and animatedby her devotion to a guilty lover, Leo fully understood that Lennox,even were he mad enough to sacrifice his pride, could indulge noexpectation of ever winning the love of the prisoner; and despite herefforts to regard their rupture as final, she had faintly hoped that hewould cross the ocean, and in person urge a renewal of the betrothal.The test of absence had proved as effectual as she intended it shouldbe, and his letter proclaimed the humiliating fact, that while honorinspired him to hold out his wrists for conjugal manacles, honorequally constrained him to spare her the wrong and insult of insincereprofessions of tenderness.
Had she found it possible to condemn him as unworthy, it would havediminished the pain of surrendering the brightest hope of her life; forcontempt is the balm a lofty soul offers a bruised heart, but she wasjust, even in her anguish; and that when barbed the arrow, was themortifying consciousness that compassion for her was the strongestmotive which dictated the carefully phrased letter. She was far tooproud to parley with the temptation to accept the shadow in lieu of thesubstance; and twenty-four hours after the arrival of the final appeal,her answer was speeding with wings of steam across the ocean.
"DEAR LENNOX:
"My heart overflows with gratitude for all the affectionate interest,the kind solicitude, the innumerable thoughtful attentions you have soindefatigably shown to Aunt Patty, in the sad complication ofmisfortunes that so suddenly overwhelmed her; and I feel the inadequacyof any attempt to express my thanks. Your letter can only rivet moreindissolubly the links of an affectionate friendship that must alwaysbind you and me; but the future can hold no renewal of pledges which Ifeel assured would conduce neither to your happiness, nor to mine. Letus embalm the past and bury it tenderly; raising no mound to trip ourfriendly feet in years to come. The serenity of our future might bemarred by retrospective gleams of the beautiful ring that once enclosedtwo lives; hence, I have ordered the diamonds reset in the form of afour-leaved clover, which will be sent to dear Kittie as an auspiciousomen.
"With undiminished esteem, and unshaken confidence, and with a prayerfor your happiness, which will always be dear to me, I remain,
"Your sincerely attached friend,
"LEO."
The majority of men, and a large class of women, bury their dead, andstraightway begin assiduously the cultivation of all that promisesoblivion; but Leo's nature was deeper, more intense; and while she madeno audible moan, and shed no tears, she accepted the fact that earthlyexistence had lost its
coveted crown, and that her aching heart was thedark grave of a beautiful hope that could know no resurrection. To-dayshe asked herself: "What shall I do with my life?"
Upon the warm air, sweet with the breath of lemon flowers, floated thepeculiar, jeering, yet subdued and musical laughter, which told thatAlma had flown straight at some luckless quarry. She held in one hand acluster of crimson anemones, and purple stars of periwinkle, andwalking between two English gentlemen, whose yacht, the "Albatross",lay anchored close to the "Cleopatra" in the harbor below, slowlyapproached Leo, saying:
"Don't stone your prophets. Especially one hedged about with the triplesanctity of Brasenose! 'Consider that thy marbles are but the earth'scallosities, thy gold and silver its faeces; thy silken robe but aworm's bedding; and thy purple an unclean fish.' That is onesugar-coated pill that I administer to my humility now and then to keepit healthy. Hear him again;--'sitting on the marble bench of one of theexhedrea on the edge of the Appian Way, close to the fragrant bordersof a rose farm': 'So it is, with the philosophers; all alike are insearch of happiness, what kind of thing it is. It is pleasure, it isvirtue; what not? All philosophers, so to speak, are but fighting aboutthe ass' shadow. I saw one who poured water into a mortar, and groundit with all his might with a pestle of iron, fancying he did a thinguseful; but it remained water only, none the less.' Stoicism, hedonism,the gospel of 'Sweetness and Light'; what is it, may I ask, that youraesthetic priests furnish, to feed immortal British souls? Kneebreeches, sun flowers, niello, cretonne, Nanking bowls, lily dados? Tous it savors sorrowfully of that which one of your prophetsforeshadowed, 'Despair, baying as the poet heard her, in the ruins ofold Rome'."
"Beg pardon, Miss Cutting; but you quite surprise me. The tone of manyAmerican papers and magazines led us to suppose, really, that the rosydawn of Culture was beginning to flush the night of Philistinismbrooding over your Western world."
"Believe it not. Primeval gloom, raw realism so weigh upon ourapathetic souls, that we rub our eyes and stare at sight of youraesthetic catechism: 'Harmony, but no system; instinct, but no logic;eternal growth and no maturity; everlasting movement, and nothingattained; infinite possibilities of everything; the becoming allthings, the being nothing.' We have too much Philistine honesty topretend that we understand that, but like other ambitious parrots wecan commit to memory. One of your seers tells us that: 'Renaissance artwill make our lives like what seems one of the loveliest things innature, the iridescent film on the face of stagnant water!' Now it willrequire at least a decade, to train us to appreciate the subtilesymphonies of ditch slime. An English friend compassionating myAmerican stupidity, essayed to initiate me in the cult of 'culture',and gave me a leaf to study, from the latter-day gospel. I learned itafter a time, as I did the multiplication table. 'Culture steps in, andpoints out the grossness of untempered belief. It tells us the beautyof picturesque untruth; the grotesqueness of unmannerly conviction;truth and error have kissed each other in a sweet, serener sphere; thisbecomes that, and that is something else. The harmonious, the suave,the well bred waft the bright particular being into a peculiar andreserved parterre of paradise, where bloom at once the graces ofPanthism, the simplicity of Deism, and the pathos of Catholicism; wherehe can sip elegances and spiritualities from flowerets of every faith!'Fancy my crass ignorance, when I assure you that I actually laughedover that verbal syllabub, thinking it intended as a famous bit ofsatire."
"Then it is pathetically true that reverence for the Renaissance hasnot crossed the Atlantic?" asked one of the "Albatross" party, who withhis sketch book half open, was surreptitiously making an"impressionist" view of Leo's profile, as she stood listening to Alma'spersiflage, and mechanically arranging her lilac acanthus blossoms.
"Devoted British colporteurs have philanthropically scattered a few artprimers and tracts, and there is a possibility that in the near future,our people may search the maps for Orvieto, and the dictionaries forCampo Santo, to compass the mysteries of the 'Triumph of Death', and of'Symmetria Prisca'. Some of us have even heard of 'Aucassin etNicolette', and of 'Nencia da Barberino', picking salad in her garden;and I am almost sure a Vassar girl once spoke to me of Delia Quercia'sIlaria; but with all my national pride, candor compels me to admitthat it is a 'far cry' to the day when we can devoutly fall on ourknees before the bronze Devil of Giovanni da Bologna. Aestheticpaupers, we sit on the lowest bench at the foot of the class, in yourDame's Art School, to learn the alphabet of the wonderful Renaissance;and in our chastened and reverent mood, it almost takes our breath awaywhen your high-priestess unrolls the last pronunciamento, and tells usher startling story of 'Euphorion!' Why? Ah!--don't you know? ThePuritan leaven of prudery, and the stern, stolid, phlegmatic decorum ofKnickerbockerdom mingle in that consummate flower of the nineteenthcentury occident, the 'American Girl', who pales and flushes at sightof the carnival of the undraped--in English art and literature. Here,Leo, take your anemones; red, are they not, as the blood once chilleddown yonder, in that huge stone kennel? Dr. Douglass has the ivy root;and he and I have concluded, that after all, Syracuse was not morecruel here in the Latomia, than some States in America, where convictsare leased to mining companies, and kept quarrying coal, without eventhe sweet consolation of staring up at this magical blue sky. We leavehideous moral and physical leprosy at home, and come here to sheddilettante tears over classic tatters twenty-five centuries old! Oimmortal and ubiquitous Tartufe!"
As Leo walked with her cousin toward the spot, where the "Cleopatra"rose and fell on the crest of waves racing before Libeccio, shesuddenly laid her hand on his arm.
"Leighton, I have decided to leave the yacht at Venice and take AuntPatty to Udine for rest and quiet. When summer is over, I shall beready to make arrangements for the journey to Syria and Egypt, and youmust complete your church mission to England in time to accompany us toJerusalem."
"Is this your itinerary, or Aunt Patty's?"
"She has set her heart upon it; and it will be agreeable to me."