of our loss like the company of those who have no
loss to mourn. Go back to thy solitude, young
orphan,—go back to thy home: the sorrow
that meets thee on the threshold can greet thee, even
in its sadness, like the smile upon the face of the
dead. And there, from thy casement, and there,
from without thy door, thou seest still the tree, solitary
as thyself, and springing from the clefts of the rock,
but forcing its way to light,—as, through
all sorrow, while the seasons yet can renew the verdure
and bloom of youth, strives the instinct of the human
heart! Only when the sap is dried up, only when
age comes on, does the sun shine in vain for man and
for the tree.
Weeks and months—months sad and many—again
passed, and Naples will not longer suffer its idol
to seclude itself from homage. The world ever
plucks us back from ourselves with a thousand arms.
And again Viola’s voice is heard upon the stage,
which, mystically faithful to life, is in nought more
faithful than this, that it is the appearances that
fill the scene; and we pause not to ask of what realities
they are the proxies. When the actor of Athens
moved all hearts as he clasped the burial urn, and
burst into broken sobs; how few, there, knew that it
held the ashes of his son! Gold, as well as fame,
was showered upon the young actress; but she still
kept to her simple mode of life, to her lowly home,
to the one servant whose faults, selfish as they were,
Viola was too inexperienced to perceive. And
it was Gionetta who had placed her when first born
in her father’s arms! She was surrounded
by every snare, wooed by every solicitation that could
beset her unguarded beauty and her dangerous calling.
But her modest virtue passed unsullied through them
all. It is true that she had been taught by lips
now mute the maiden duties enjoined by honour and
religion. And all love that spoke not of the
altar only shocked and repelled her. But besides
that, as grief and solitude ripened her heart, and
made her tremble at times to think how deeply it could
feel, her vague and early visions shaped themselves
into an ideal of love. And till the ideal is found,
how the shadow that it throws before it chills us
to the actual! With that ideal, ever and ever,
unconsciously, and with a certain awe and shrinking,
came the shape and voice of the warning stranger.
Nearly two years had passed since he had appeared
at Naples. Nothing had been heard of him, save
that his vessel had been directed, some months after
his departure, to sail for Leghorn. By the gossips
of Naples, his existence, supposed so extraordinary,
was wellnigh forgotten; but the heart of Viola was
more faithful. Often he glided through her dreams,
and when the wind sighed through that fantastic tree,
associated with his remembrance, she started with
a tremor and a blush, as if she had heard him speak.
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