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The Marble Faun, or The Romance of Monte Beni, Vol. II ............................................................................1

Nathaniel Hawthorne...............................................................................................................................1

CHAPTER XXIV. THE TOWER AMONG THE APENNINES...........................................................1

CHAPTER XXV. SUNSHINE ................................................................................................................5

CHAPTER XXVI. THE PEDIGREE OF MONTE BENI .......................................................................9

CHAPTER XXVII. MYTHS .................................................................................................................14

CHAPTER XXVIII. THE OWL TOWER .............................................................................................19

CHAPTER XXIX. ON THE BATTLEMENTS ....................................................................................22

CHAPTER XXX. DONATELLO'S BUST...........................................................................................27

CHAPTER XXXI. THE MARBLE SALOON ......................................................................................30

CHAPTER XXXII. SCENES BY THE WAY......................................................................................35

CHAPTER XXXIII. PICTURED WINDOWS.....................................................................................40

CHAPTER XXXIV. MARKET DAY IN PERUGIA...........................................................................43

CHAPTER XXXV. THE BRONZE PONTIFF'S BENEDICTION ......................................................46

CHAPTER XXXVI. HILDA'S TOWER ...............................................................................................50

CHAPTER XXXVII. THE EMPTINESS OF PICTURE GALLERIES ...............................................53

CHAPTER XXXVIII. ALTARS AND INCENSE ................................................................................58

CHAPTER XXXIX. THE WORLD'S CATHEDRAL ..........................................................................61

CHAPTER XL. HILDA AND A FRIEND ............................................................................................66

CHAPTER XLI. SNOWDROPS AND MAIDENLY DELIGHTS......................................................71

CHAPTER XLII. REMINISCENCES OF MIRIAM............................................................................74

CHAPTER XLIII. THE EXTINCTION OF A LAMP ..........................................................................78

CHAPTER XLIV. THE DESERTED SHRINE....................................................................................82

CHAPTER XLV. THE FLIGHT OF HILDA'S DOVES......................................................................86

CHAPTER XLVI. A WALK ON THE CAMPAGNA.........................................................................90

CHAPTER XLVII. THE PEASANT AND CONTADINA..................................................................93

CHAPTER XLVIII. A SCENE IN THE CORSO.................................................................................97

CHAPTER XLIX. A FROLIC OF THE CARNIVAL........................................................................101

CHAPTER L. MIRIAM, HILDA, KENYON, DONATELLO ...........................................................105

It was in June that the sculptor, Kenyon, arrived on horseback at the gate of an ancient country house (which,

from some of its features, might almost be called a castle) situated in a part of Tuscany somewhat remote

from the ordinary track of tourists. Thither we must now accompany him, and endeavor to make our story

flow onward, like a streamlet, past a gray tower that rises on the hillside, overlooking a spacious valley,

The sculptor had left Rome with the retreating tide of foreign residents. For, as summer approaches, the

Niobe of Nations is made to bewail anew, and doubtless with sincerity, the loss of that large part of her

population which she derives from other lands, and on whom depends much of whatever remnant of

prosperity she still enjoys. Rome, at this season, is pervaded and overhung with atmospheric terrors, and

insulated within a charmed and deadly circle. The crowd of wandering tourists betake themselves to

Switzerland, to the Rhine, or, from this central home of the world, to their native homes in England or

America, which they are apt thenceforward to look upon as provincial, after once having yielded to the spell

of the Eternal City. The artist, who contemplates an indefinite succession of winters in this home of art

(though his first thought was merely to improve himself by a brief visit), goes forth, in the summer time, to

sketch scenery and costume among the Tuscan hills, and pour, if he can, the purple air of Italy over his

canvas. He studies the old schools of art in the mountain towns where they were born, and where they are still

to be seen in the faded frescos of Giotto and Cimabue, on the walls of many a church, or in the dark chapels,

in which the sacristan draws aside the veil from a treasured picture of Perugino. Thence, the happy painter

goes to walk the long, bright galleries of Florence, or to steal glowing colors from the miraculous works,

which he finds in a score of Venetian palaces. Such summers as these, spent amid whatever is exquisite in art,

or wild and picturesque in nature, may not inadequately repay him for the chill neglect and disappointment

through which he has probably languished, in his Roman winter. This sunny, shadowy, breezy, wandering

life, in which he seeks for beauty as his treasure, and gathers for his winter's honey what is but a passing

fragrance to all other men, is worth living for, come afterwards what may. Even if he die unrecognized, the

Kenyon had seen, at a distance of many miles, the old villa or castle towards which his journey lay, looking

from its height over a broad expanse of valley. As he drew nearer, however, it had been hidden among the

inequalities of the hillside, until the winding road brought him almost to the iron gateway. The sculptor found

this substantial barrier fastened with lock and bolt. There was no bell, nor other instrument of sound; and,

after summoning the invisible garrison with his voice, instead of a trumpet, he had leisure to take a glance at

About thirty yards within the gateway rose a square tower, lofty enough to be a very prominent object in the

landscape, and more than sufficiently massive in proportion to its height. Its antiquity was evidently such

that, in a climate of more abundant moisture, the ivy would have mantled it from head to foot in a garment

that might, by this time, have been centuries old, though ever new. In the dry Italian air, however, Nature had

only so far adopted this old pile of stonework as to cover almost every hand'sbreadth of it with

closeclinging lichens and yellow moss; and the immemorial growth of these kindly productions rendered the

general hue of the tower soft and venerable, and took away the aspect of nakedness which would have made

Up and down the height of the tower were scattered three or four windows, the lower ones grated with iron

bars, the upper ones vacant both of window frames and glass. Besides these larger openings, there were

several loopholes and little square apertures, which might be supposed to light the staircase, that doubtless

climbed the interior towards the battlemented and machicolated summit. With this lastmentioned warlike

garniture upon its stern old head and brow, the tower seemed evidently a stronghold of times long past. Many

a crossbowman had shot his shafts from those windows and loopholes, and from the vantage height of those

gray battlements; many a flight of arrows, too, had hit all round about the embrasures above, or the apertures

below, where the helmet of a defender had momentarily glimmered. On festal nights, moreover, a hundred

lamps had often gleamed afar over the valley, suspended from the iron hooks that were ranged for the

Connected with the tower, and extending behind it, there seemed to be a very spacious residence, chiefly of

more modern date. It perhaps owed much of its fresher appearance, however, to a coat of stucco and yellow

wash, which is a sort of renovation very much in vogue with the Italians. Kenyon noticed over a doorway, in

the portion of the edifice immediately adjacent to the tower, a cross, which, with a bell suspended above the

roof, indicated that this was a consecrated precinct, and the chapel of the mansion.

Meanwhile, the hot sun so incommoded the unsheltered traveller, that he shouted forth another impatient

summons. Happening, at the same moment, to look upward, he saw a figure leaning from an embrasure of the

"Ho, Signore Count!" cried the sculptor, waving his straw hat, for he recognized the face, after a moment's

doubt. "This is a warm reception, truly! Pray bid your porter let me in, before the sun shrivels me quite into a

"I will come myself," responded Donatello, flinging down his voice out of the clouds, as it were; "old

Tomaso and old Stella are both asleep, no doubt, and the rest of the people are in the vineyard. But I have

The young Countas perhaps we had better designate him in his ancestral towervanished from the

battlements; and Kenyon saw his figure appear successively at each of the windows, as he descended. On

every reappearance, he turned his face towards the sculptor and gave a nod and smile; for a kindly impulse

prompted him thus to assure his visitor of a welcome, after keeping him so long at an inhospitable threshold.

Kenyon, however (naturally and professionally expert at reading the expression of the human countenance),

had a vague sense that this was not the young friend whom he had known so familiarly in Rome; not the

sylvan and untutored youth, whom Miriam, Hilda, and himself had liked, laughed at, and sported with; not

the Donatello whose identity they had so playfully mixed up with that of the Faun of Praxiteles.

Finally, when his host had emerged from a side portal of the mansion, and approached the gateway, the

traveller still felt that there was something lost, or something gained (he hardly knew which), that set the

Donatello of today irreconcilably at odds with him of yesterday. His very gait showed it, in a certain

gravity, a weight and measure of step, that had nothing in common with the irregular buoyancy which used to

distinguish him. His face was paler and thinner, and the lips less full and less apart.

"I have looked for you a long while," said Donatello; and, though his voice sounded differently, and cut out

its words more sharply than had been its wont, still there was a smile shining on his face, that, for the

moment, quite brought back the Faun. "I shall be more cheerful, perhaps, now that you have come. It is very

"I have come slowly along, often lingering, often turning aside," replied Kenyon; "for I found a great deal to

interest me in the mediaeval sculpture hidden away in the churches hereabouts. An artist, whether painter or

sculptor, may be pardoned for loitering through such a region. But what a fine old tower! Its tall front is like a

"I know little or nothing of its history," said the Count, glancing upward at the battlements, where he had just

been standing. "But I thank my forefathers for building it so high. I like the windy summit better than the

"It is a pity you are not a stargazer," observed Kenyon, also looking up. "It is higher than Galileo's tower,

"A stargazer? I am one," replied Donatello. "I sleep in the tower, and often watch very late on the

battlements. There is a dismal old staircase to climb, however, before reaching the top, and a succession of

dismal chambers, from story to story. Some of them were prison chambers in times past, as old Tomaso will

The repugnance intimated in his tone at the idea of this gloomy staircase and these ghostly, dimly lighted

rooms, reminded Kenyon of the original Donatello, much more than his present custom of midnight vigils on

"I shall be glad to share your watch," said the guest; "especially by moonlight. The prospect of this broad

valley must be very fine. But I was not aware, my friend, that these were your country habits. I have fancied

you in a sort of Arcadian life, tasting rich figs, and squeezing the juice out of the sunniest grapes, and

"I may have known such a life, when I was younger," answered the Count gravely. "I am not a boy now.

The sculptor could not but smile at the triteness of the remark, which, nevertheless, had a kind of originality

as coming from Donatello. He had thought it out from his own experience, and perhaps considered himself as

They were now advancing up the courtyard; and the long extent of the villa, with its ironbarred lower

windows and balconied upper ones, became visible, stretching back towards a grove of trees.

"At some period of your family history," observed Kenyon, "the Counts of Monte Beni must have led a

patriarchal life in this vast house. A greatgrandsire and all his descendants might find ample verge here, and

with space, too, for each separate brood of little ones to play within its own precincts. Is your present

"Only myself," answered Donatello, "and Tomaso, who has been butler since my grandfather's time, and old

Stella, who goes sweeping and dusting about the chambers, and Girolamo, the cook, who has but an idle life

of it. He shall send you up a chicken forthwith. But, first of all, I must summon one of the contadini from the

Accordingly, the young Count shouted again, and with such effect that, after several repetitions of the outcry,

an old gray woman protruded her head and a broomhandle from a chamber window; the venerable butler

emerged from a recess in the side of the house, where was a well, or reservoir, in which he had been

cleansing a small wine cask; and a sunburnt contadino, in his shirtsleeves, showed himself on the outskirts

of the vineyard, with some kind of a farming tool in his hand. Donatello found employment for all these

retainers in providing accommodation for his guest and steed, and then ushered the sculptor into the vestibule

It was a square and lofty entranceroom, which, by the solidity of its construction, might have been an

Etruscan tomb, being paved and walled with heavy blocks of stone, and vaulted almost as massively

overhead. On two sides there were doors, opening into long suites of anterooms and saloons; on the third

side, a stone staircase of spacious breadth, ascending, by dignified degrees and with wide restingplaces, to

another floor of similar extent. Through one of the doors, which was ajar, Kenyon beheld an almost

interminable vista of apartments, opening one beyond the other, and reminding him of the hundred rooms in

Blue Beard's castle, or the countless halls in some palace of the Arabian Nights.

It must have been a numerous family, indeed, that could ever have sufficed to people with human life so large

an abode as this, and impart social warmth to such a wide world within doors. The sculptor confessed to

himself, that Donatello could allege reason enough for growing melancholy, having only his own personality

"How a woman's face would brighten it up!" he ejaculated, not intending to be overheard.

But, glancing at Donatello, he saw a stern and sorrowful look in his eyes, which altered his youthful face as if

it had seen thirty years of trouble; and, at the same moment, old Stella showed herself through one of the

"Come," said the Count, "I see you already find the old house dismal. So do I, indeed! And yet it was a

cheerful place in my boyhood. But, you see, in my father's days (and the same was true of all my endless line

of grandfathers, as I have heard), there used to be uncles, aunts, and all manner of kindred, dwelling together

as one family. They were a merry and kindly race of people, for the most part, and kept one another's hearts

"Two hearts might be enough for warmth," observed the sculptor, "even in so large a house as this. One

solitary heart, it is true, may be apt to shiver a little. But, I trust, my friend, that the genial blood of your race

"I am the last," said Donatello gloomily. "They have all vanished from me, since my childhood. Old Tomaso

will tell you that the air of Monte Beni is not so favorable to length of days as it used to be. But that is not the

"I thought of one, the other night, while I was gazing at the stars," answered Donatello; "but, pardon me, I do

not mean to tell it. One cause, however, of the longer and healthier life of my forefathers was, that they had

many pleasant customs, and means of making themselves glad, and their guests and friends along with them.

By this time, he had ushered the sculptor into one of the numberless saloons; and, calling for refreshment, old

Stella placed a cold fowl upon the table, and quickly followed it with a savory omelet, which Girolamo had

lost no time in preparing. She also brought some cherries, plums, and apricots, and a plate full of particularly

delicate figs, of last year's growth. The butler showing his white head at the door, his master beckoned to

him. "Tomaso, bring some Sunshine!" said he. The readiest method of obeying this order, one might suppose,

would have been to fling wide the green windowblinds, and let the glow of the summer noon into the

room. But, at Monte Beni, with provident caution against the wintry days, when there is little sunshine, and

the rainy ones, when there is none, it was the hereditary custom to keep their Sunshine stored away in the

cellar. Old Tomaso quickly produced some of it in a small, strawcovered flask, out of which he extracted

the cork, and inserted a little cotton wool, to absorb the olive oil that kept the precious liquid from the air.

"This is a wine," observed the Count, "the secret of making which has been kept in our family for centuries

upon centuries; nor would it avail any man to steal the secret, unless he could also steal the vineyard, in

which alone the Monte Beni grape can be produced. There is little else left me, save that patch of vines. Taste

some of their juice, and tell me whether it is worthy to be called Sunshine! for that is its name." "A glorious

name, too!" cried the sculptor. "Taste it," said Donatello, filling his friend's glass, and pouring likewise a little

into his own. "But first smell its fragrance; for the wine is very lavish of it, and will scatter it all abroad."

"Ah, how exquisite!" said Kenyon. "No other wine has a bouquet like this. The flavor must be rare, indeed, if

it fulfill the promise of this fragrance, which is like the airy sweetness of youthful hopes, that no realities will

This invaluable liquor was of a pale golden hue, like other of the rarest Italian wines, and, if carelessly and

irreligiously quaffed, might have been mistaken for a very fine sort of champagne. It was not, however, an

effervescing wine, although its delicate piquancy produced a somewhat similar effect upon the palate.

Sipping, the guest longed to sip again; but the wine demanded so deliberate a pause, in order to detect the

hidden peculiarities and subtile exquisiteness of its flavor, that to drink it was really more a moral than a

physical enjoyment. There was a deliciousness in it that eluded analysis, andlike whatever else is

superlatively goodwas perhaps better appreciated in the memory than by present consciousness.

One of its most ethereal charms lay in the transitory life of the wine's richest qualities; for, while it required a

certain leisure and delay, yet, if you lingered too long upon the draught, it became disenchanted both of its

The lustre should not be forgotten, among the other admirable endowments of the Monte Beni wine; for, as it

stood in Kenyon's glass, a little circle of light glowed on the table round about it, as if it were really so much

"I feel myself a better man for that ethereal potation," observed the sculptor. "The finest Orvieto, or that

famous wine, the Est Est Est of Montefiascone, is vulgar in comparison. This is surely the wine of the Golden

Age, such as Bacchus himself first taught mankind to press from the choicest of his grapes. My dear Count,

why is it not illustrious? The pale, liquid gold, in every such flask as that, might be solidified into golden

Tomaso, the old butler, who was standing by the table, and enjoying the praises of the wine quite as much as

if bestowed upon himself, made answer,"We have a tradition, Signore," said he, "that this rare wine of our

vineyard would lose all its wonderful qualities, if any of it were sent to market. The Counts of Monte Beni

have never parted with a single flask of it for gold. At their banquets, in the olden time, they have entertained

princes, cardinals, and once an emperor and once a pope, with this delicious wine, and always, even to this

day, it has been their custom to let it flow freely, when those whom they love and honor sit at the board. But

the grand duke himself could not drink that wine, except it were under this very roof!"

"What you tell me, my good friend," replied Kenyon, "makes me venerate the Sunshine of Monte Beni even

more abundantly than before. As I understand you, it is a sort of consecrated juice, and symbolizes the holy

"Why, partly so, Signore," said the old butler, with a shrewd twinkle in his eye; "but, to speak out all the

truth, there is another excellent reason why neither a cask nor a flask of our precious vintage should ever be

sent to market. The wine, Signore, is so fond of its native home, that a transportation of even a few miles

turns it quite sour. And yet it is a wine that keeps well in the cellar, underneath this floor, and gathers

fragrance, flavor, and brightness, in its dark dungeon. That very flask of Sunshine, now, has kept itself for

you, sir guest (as a maid reserves her sweetness till her lover comes for it), ever since a merry vintagetime,

"You must not wait for Tomaso to end his discourse about the wine, before drinking off your glass," observed

Donatello. "When once the flask is uncorked, its finest qualities lose little time in making their escape. I

And, in truth, the sculptor fancied that the Sunshine became almost imperceptibly clouded, as he approached

the bottom of the flask. The effect of the wine, however, was a gentle exhilaration, which did not so speedily

Being thus refreshed, Kenyon looked around him at the antique saloon in which they sat. It was constructed

in a most ponderous style, with a stone floor, on which heavy pilasters were planted against the wall,

supporting arches that crossed one another in the vaulted ceiling. The upright walls, as well as the

compartments of the roof, were completely Covered with frescos, which doubtless had been brilliant when

first executed, and perhaps for generations afterwards. The designs were of a festive and joyous character,

representing Arcadian scenes, where nymphs, fauns, and satyrs disported themselves among mortal youths

and maidens; and Pan, and the god of wine, and he of sunshine and music, disdained not to brighten some

sylvan merrymaking with the scarcely veiled glory of their presence. A wreath of dancing figures, in

admirable variety of shape and motion, was festooned quite round the cornice of the room.

In its first splendor, the saloon must have presented an aspect both gorgeous and enlivening; for it invested

some of the cheerfullest ideas and emotions of which the human mind is susceptible with the external reality

of beautiful form, and rich, harmonious glow and variety of color. But the frescos were now very ancient.

They had been rubbed and scrubbed by old Stein and many a predecessor, and had been defaced in one spot,

and retouched in another, and had peeled from the wall in patches, and had hidden some of their brightest

portions under dreary dust, till the joyousness had quite vanished out of them all. It was often difficult to

puzzle out the design; and even where it was more readily intelligible, the figures showed like the ghosts of

dead and buried joys,the closer their resemblance to the happy past, the gloomier now. For it is thus, that

with only an inconsiderable change, the gladdest objects and existences become the saddest; hope fading into

disappointment; joy darkening into grief, and festal splendor into funereal duskiness; and all evolving, as

their moral, a grim identity between gay things and sorrowful ones. Only give them a little time, and they turn

"There has been much festivity in this saloon, if I may judge by the character of its frescos," remarked

Kenyon, whose spirits were still upheld by the mild potency of the Monte Beni wine. "Your forefathers, my

dear Count, must have been joyous fellows, keeping up the vintage merriment throughout the year. It does me

good to think of them gladdening the hearts of men and women, with their wine of Sunshine, even in the Iron

"Yes; there have been merry times in the banquet hall of Monte Beni, even within my own remembrance,"

replied Donatello, looking gravely at the painted walls. "It was meant for mirth, as you see; and when I

brought my own cheerfulness into the saloon, these frescos looked cheerful too. But, methinks, they have all

"It would be a good idea," said the sculptor, falling into his companion's vein, and helping him out with an

illustration which Donatello himself could not have put into shape, "to convert this saloon into a chapel; and

when the priest tells his hearers of the instability of earthly joys, and would show how drearily they vanish,

he may point to these pictures, that were so joyous and are so dismal. He could not illustrate his theme so

"True, indeed," answered the Count, his former simplicity strangely mixing itself up with ah experience that

had changed him; "and yonder, where the minstrels used to stand, the altar shall be placed. A sinful man

"But I should regret to have suggested so ungenial a transformation in your hospitable saloon," continued

Kenyon, duly noting the change in Donatello's characteristics. "You startle me, my friend, by so ascetic a

design! It would hardly have entered your head, when we first met. Pray do not,if I may take the freedom

of a somewhat elder man to advise you," added he, smiling,"pray do not, under a notion of improvement,

take upon yourself to be sombre, thoughtful, and penitential, like all the rest of us."

Donatello made no answer, but sat awhile, appearing to follow with his eyes one of the figures, which was

repeated many times over in the groups upon the walls and ceiling. It formed the principal link of an allegory,

by which (as is often the case in such pictorial designs) the whole series of frescos were bound together, but

which it would be impossible, or, at least, very wearisome, to unravel. The sculptor's eyes took a similar

direction, and soon began to trace through the vicissitudes,once gay, now sombre,in which the old artist

had involved it, the same individual figure. He fancied a resemblance in it to Donatello himself; and it put

"My dear Count," said he, "I have a proposal to make. You must let me employ a little of my leisure in

modelling your bust. You remember what a striking resemblance we all of usHilda, Miriam, and Ifound

between your features and those of the Faun of Praxiteles. Then, it seemed an identity; but now that I know

your face better, the likeness is far less apparent. Your head in marble would be a treasure to me. Shall I have

"I have a weakness which I fear I cannot overcome," replied the Count, turning away his face. "It troubles me

"I have observed it since we have been sitting here, though never before," rejoined the sculptor. "It is a kind

of nervousness, I apprehend, which, you caught in the Roman air, and which grows upon you, in your solitary

life. It need be no hindrance to my taking your bust; for I will catch the likeness and expression by side

glimpses, which (if portrait painters and bust makers did but know it) always bring home richer results than a

"You may take me if you have the power," said Donatello; but, even as he spoke, he turned away his face;

"and if you can see what makes me shrink from you, you are welcome to put it in the bust. It is not my will,

but my necessity, to avoid men's eyes. Only," he added, with a smile which made Kenyon doubt whether he

might not as well copy the Faun as model a new bust,"only, you know, you must not insist on my

"Nay; I never should dream of such a thing," answered the sculptor, laughing, as the young Count shook his

clustering curls. "I could not hope to persuade you, remembering how Miriam once failed!"

Nothing is more unaccountable than the spell that often lurks in a spoken word. A thought may be present to

no utterance could make it more so; and two minds may be conscious of the same thought, in which one or

both take the profoundest interest; but as long as it remains unspoken, their familiar talk flows quietly over

the hidden idea, as a rivulet may sparkle and dimple over something sunken in its bed. But speak the word,

and it is like bringing up a drowned body out of the deepest pool of the rivulet, which has been aware of the

And even so, when Kenyon chanced to make a distinct reference to Donatello's relations with Miriam

(though the subject was already in both their minds), a ghastly emotion rose up out of the depths of the young

Count's heart. He trembled either with anger or terror, and glared at the sculptor with wild eyes, like a wolf

that meets you in the forest, and hesitates whether to flee or turn to bay. But, as Kenyon still looked calmly at

him, his aspect gradually became less disturbed, though far from resuming its former quietude.

"You have spoken her name," said he, at last, in an altered and tremulous tone; "tell me, now, all that you

"I scarcely think that I have any later intelligence than yourself," answered Kenyon; "Miriam left Rome at

about the time of your own departure. Within a day or two after our last meeting at the Church of the

Capuchins, I called at her studio and found it vacant. Whither she has gone, I cannot tell."

They rose from table, and strolled together about the premises, whiling away the afternoon with brief

intervals of unsatisfactory conversation, and many shadowy silences. The sculptor had a perception of change

in his companion,possibly of growth and development, but certainly of change,which saddened him,

because it took away much of the simple grace that was the best of Donatello's peculiarities.

Kenyon betook himself to repose that night in a grim, old, vaulted apartment, which, in the lapse of five or

six centuries, had probably been the birth, bridal, and death chamber of a great many generations of the

Monte Beni family. He was aroused, soon after daylight, by the clamor of a tribe of beggars who had taken

their stand in a little rustic lane that crept beside that portion of the villa, and were addressing their petitions

to the open windows. By and by they appeared to have received alms, and took their departure.

"Some charitable Christian has sent those vagabonds away," thought the sculptor, as he resumed his

interrupted nap; "who could it be? Donatello has his own rooms in the tower; Stella, Tomaso, and the cook

are a world's width off; and I fancied myself the only inhabitant in this part of the house."

In the breadth and space which so delightfully characterize an Italian villa, a dozen guests might have had

each his suite of apartments without infringing upon one another's ample precincts. But, so far as Kenyon

From the old butler, whom he found to be a very gracious and affable personage, Kenyon soon learned many

curious particulars about the family history and hereditary peculiarities of the Counts of Monte Beni. There

was a pedigree, the later portion of whichthat is to say, for a little more than a thousand yearsa

genealogist would have found delight in tracing out, link by link, and authenticating by records and

documentary evidences. It would have been as difficult, however, to follow up the stream of Donatello's

ancestry to its dim source, as travellers have found it to reach the mysterious fountains of the Nile. And, far

beyond the region of definite and demonstrable fact, a romancer might have strayed into a region of old

poetry, where the rich soil, so long uncultivated and untrodden, had lapsed into nearly its primeval state of

wilderness. Among those antique paths, now overgrown with tangled and riotous vegetation, the wanderer

The race of Monte Beni, beyond a doubt, was one of the oldest in Italy, where families appear to survive at

least, if not to flourish, on their halfdecayed roots, oftener than in England or France. It came down in a

broad track from the Middle Ages; but, at epochs anterior to those, it was distinctly visible in the gloom of

the period before chivalry put forth its flower; and further still, we are almost afraid to say, it was seen,

though with a fainter and wavering course, in the early morn of Christendom, when the Roman Empire had

hardly begun to show symptoms of decline. At that venerable distance, the heralds gave up the lineage in

But where written record left the genealogy of Monte Beni, tradition took it up, and carried it without dread

or shame beyond the Imperial ages into the times of the Roman republic; beyond those, again, into the epoch

of kingly rule. Nor even so remotely among the mossy centuries did it pause, but strayed onward into that

gray antiquity of which there is no token left, save its cavernous tombs, and a few bronzes, and some quaintly

wrought ornaments of gold, and gems with mystic figures and inscriptions. There, or thereabouts, the line

was supposed to have had its origin in the sylvan life of Etruria, while Italy was yet guiltless of Rome.

Of course, as we regret to say, the earlier and very much the larger portion of this respectable descentand

the same is true of many briefer pedigreesmust be looked upon as altogether mythical. Still, it threw a

romantic interest around the unquestionable antiquity of the Monte Beni family, and over that tract of their

own vines and figtrees beneath the shade of which they had unquestionably dwelt for immemorial ages.

And there they had laid the foundations of their tower, so long ago that one half of its height was said to be

sunken under the surface and to hide subterranean chambers which once were cheerful with the olden

One story, or myth, that had mixed itself up with their mouldy genealogy, interested the sculptor by its wild,

and perhaps grotesque, yet not unfascinating peculiarity. He caught at it the more eagerly, as it afforded a

shadowy and whimsical semblance of explanation for the likeness which he, with Miriam and Hilda, had seen

The Monte Beni family, as this legend averred, drew their origin from the Pelasgic race, who peopled Italy in

times that may be called prehistoric. It was the same noble breed of men, of Asiatic birth, that settled in

Greece; the same happy and poetic kindred who dwelt in Arcadia, andwhether they ever lived such life or

notenriched the world with dreams, at least, and fables, lovely, if unsubstantial, of a Golden Age. In those

delicious times, when deities and demigods appeared familiarly on earth, mingling with its inhabitants as

friend with friend,when nymphs, satyrs, and the whole train of classic faith or fable hardly took pains to

hide themselves in the primeval woods,at that auspicious period the lineage of Monte Beni had its rise. Its

progenitor was a being not altogether human, yet partaking so largely of the gentlest human qualities, as to be

neither awful nor shocking to the imagination. A sylvan creature, native among the woods, had loved a

mortal maiden, andperhaps by kindness, and the subtile courtesies which love might teach to his

simplicity, or possibly by a ruder wooinghad won her to his haunts. In due time he gained her womanly

affection; and, making their bridal bower, for aught we know, in the hollow of a great tree, the pair spent a

happy wedded life in that ancient neighborhood where now stood Donatello's tower.

From this union sprang a vigorous progeny that took its place unquestioned among human families. In that

age, however, and long afterwards, it showed the ineffaceable lineaments of its wild paternity: it was a

pleasant and kindly race of men, but capable of savage fierceness, and never quite restrainable within the

trammels of social law. They were strong, active, genial, cheerful as the sunshine, passionate as the tornado.

But, as centuries passed away, the Faun's wild blood had necessarily been attempered with constant

intermixtures from the more ordinary streams of human life. It lost many of its original qualities, and served

for the most part only to bestow an unconquerable vigor, which kept the family from extinction, and enabled

them to make their own part good throughout the perils and rude emergencies of their interminable descent.

In the constant wars with which Italy was plagued, by the dissensions of her petty states and republics, there

The successive members of the Monte Beni family showed valor and policy enough' at all events, to keep

their hereditary possessions out of the clutch of grasping neighbors, and probably differed very little from the

other feudal barons with whom they fought and feasted. Such a degree of conformity with the manners of the

generations through which it survived, must have been essential to the prolonged continuance of the race.

It is well known, however, that any hereditary peculiarityas a supernumerary finger, or an anomalous

shape of feature, like the Austrian lipis wont to show itself in a family after a very wayward fashion. It

skips at its own pleasure along the line, and, latent for half a century or so, crops out again in a

greatgrandson. And thus, it was said, from a period beyond memory or record, there had ever and anon been

a descendant of the Monte Benis bearing nearly all the characteristics that were attributed to the original

founder of the race. Some traditions even went so far as to enumerate the ears, covered with a delicate fur,

and shaped like a pointed leaf, among the proofs of authentic descent which were seen in these favored

individuals. We appreciate the beauty of such tokens of a nearer kindred to the great family of nature than

other mortals bear; but it would be idle to ask credit for a statement which might be deemed to partake so

But it was indisputable that, once in a century or oftener, a son of Monte Beni gathered into himself the

scattered qualities of his race, and reproduced the character that had been assigned to it from immemorial

times. Beautiful, strong, brave, kindly, sincere, of honest impulses, and endowed with simple tastes and the

love of homely pleasures, he was believed to possess gifts by which he could associate himself with the wild

things of the forests, and with the fowls of the air, and could feel a sympathy even with the trees; among

which it was his joy to dwell. On the other hand, there were deficiencies both of intellect and heart, and

especially, as it seemed, in the development of the higher portion of man's nature. These defects were less

perceptible in early youth, but showed themselves more strongly with advancing age, when, as the animal

spirits settled down upon a lower level, the representative of the Monte Benis was apt to become sensual,

addicted to gross pleasures, heavy, unsympathizing, and insulated within the narrow limits of a surly

A similar change, indeed, is no more than what we constantly observe to take place in persons who are not

careful to substitute other graces for those which they inevitably lose along with the quick sensibility and

joyous vivacity of youth. At worst, the reigning Count of Monte Beni, as his hair grew white, was still a jolly

old fellow over his flask of wine, the wine that Bacchus himself was fabled to have taught his sylvan ancestor

how to express, and from what choicest grapes, which would ripen only in a certain divinely favored portion

The family, be it observed, were both proud and ashamed of these legends; but whatever part of them they

might consent to incorporate into their ancestral history, they steadily repudiated all that referred to their one

distinctive feature, the pointed and furry ears. In a great many years past, no sober credence had been yielded

to the mythical portion of the pedigree. It might, however, be considered as typifying some such assemblage

of qualitiesin this case, chiefly remarkable for their simplicity and naturalnessas, when they reappear in

successive generations, constitute what we call family character. The sculptor found, moreover, on the

evidence of some old portraits, that the physical features of the race had long been similar to what he now

saw them in Donatello. With accumulating years, it is true, the Monte Beni face had a tendency to look grim

and savage; and, in two or three instances, the family pictures glared at the spectator in the eyes like some

The young Count accorded his guest full liberty to investigate the personal annals of these pictured worthies,

as well as all the rest of his progenitors; and ample materials were at hand in many chests of wormeaten

papers and yellow parchments, that had been gathering into larger and dustier piles ever since the dark ages.

But, to confess the truth, the information afforded by these musty documents was so much more prosaic than

what Kenyon acquired from Tomaso's legends, that even the superior authenticity of the former could not

reconcile him to its dullness. What especially delighted the sculptor was the analogy between Donatello's

character, as he himself knew it, and those peculiar traits which the old butler's narrative assumed to have

been long hereditary in the race. He was amused at finding, too, that not only Tomaso but the peasantry of the

estate and neighboring village recognized his friend as a genuine Monte Beni, of the original type. They

seemed to cherish a great affection for the young Count, and were full of stories about his sportive childhood;

how he had played among the little rustics, and been at once the wildest and the sweetest of them all; and

how, in his very infancy, he had plunged into the deep pools of the streamlets and never been drowned, and

had clambered to the topmost branches of tall trees without ever breaking his neck. No such mischance could

happen to the sylvan child because, handling all the elements of nature so fearlessly and freely, nothing had

He grew up, said these humble friends, the playmate not only of all mortal kind, but of creatures of the

woods; although, when Kenyon pressed them for some particulars of this latter mode of companionship, they

could remember little more than a few anecdotes of a pet fox, which used to growl and snap at everybody

But they enlargedand never were weary of the themeupon the blithesome effects of Donatello's

presence in his rosy childhood and budding youth. Their hovels had always glowed like sunshine when he

entered them; so that, as the peasants expressed it, their young master had never darkened a doorway in his

life. He was the soul of vintage festivals. While he was a mere infant, scarcely able to run alone, it had been

the custom to make him tread the winepress with his tender little feet, if it were only to crush one cluster of

the grapes. And the grapejuice that gushed beneath his childish tread, be it ever so small in quantity,

sufficed to impart a pleasant flavor to a whole cask of wine. The race of Monte Beniso these rustic

chroniclers assured the sculptorhad possessed the gift from the oldest of old times of expressing good wine

from ordinary grapes, and a ravishing liquor from the choice growth of their vineyard.

In a word, as he listened to such tales as these, Kenyon could have imagined that the valleys and hillsides

about him were a veritable Arcadia; and that Donatello was not merely a sylvan faun, but the genial wine god

in his very person. Making many allowances for the poetic fancies of Italian peasants, he set it down for fact

that his friend, in a simple way and among rustic folks, had been an exceedingly delightful fellow in his

But the contadini sometimes added, shaking their heads and sighing, that the young Count was sadly changed

since he went to Rome. The village girls now missed the merry smile with which he used to greet them.

The sculptor inquired of his good friend Tomaso, whether he, too, had noticed the shadow which was said to

"Ah, yes, Signore!" answered the old butler, "it is even so, since he came back from that wicked and

miserable city. The world has grown either too evil, or else too wise and sad, for such men as the old Counts

of Monte Beni used to be. His very first taste of it, as you see, has changed and spoilt my poor young lord.

There had not been a single count in the family these hundred years or more, who was so true a Monte Beni,

of the antique stamp, as this poor signorino; and now it brings the tears into my eyes to hear him sighing over

"Surely, Signore," said Tomaso; "a merrier world, and merrier Counts of Monte Beni to live in it! Such tales

of them as I have heard, when I was a child on my grandfather's knee! The good old man remembered a lord

of Monte Beniat least, he had heard of such a one, though I will not make oath upon the holy crucifix that

my grandsire lived in his time who used to go into the woods and call pretty damsels out of the fountains, and

out of the trunks of the old trees. That merry lord was known to dance with them a whole long summer

"Not soon, I am afraid," acquiesced the sculptor. "You are right, excellent Tomaso; the world is sadder now!"

And, in truth, while our friend smiled at these wild fables, he sighed in the same breath to think how the once

genial earth produces, in every successive generation, fewer flowers than used to gladden the preceding ones.

Not that the modes and seeming possibilities of human enjoyment are rarer in our refined and softened

era,on the contrary, they never before were nearly so abundant,but that mankind are getting so far

beyond the childhood of their race that they scorn to be happy any longer. A simple and joyous character can

find no place for itself among the sage and sombre figures that would put his unsophisticated cheerfulness to

shame. The entire system of man's affairs, as at present established, is built up purposely to exclude the

careless and happy soul. The very children would upbraid the wretched individual who should endeavor to

take life and the world as w what we might naturally suppose them meant fora place and opportunity for

It is the iron rule in our day to require an object and a purpose in life. It makes us all parts of a complicated

scheme of progress, which can only result in our arrival at a, colder and drearier region than we were born in.

It insists upon everybody's adding somewhata mite, perhaps, but earned by incessant effortto an

accumulated pile of usefulness, of which the only use will be, to burden our posterity with even heavier

thoughts and more inordinate labor than our own. No life now wanders like an unfettered stream; there is a

millwheel for the tiniest rivulet to turn. We go all wrong, by too strenuous a resolution to go all right.

Therefore it wasso, at least, the sculptor thought, although partly suspicious of Donatello's darker

misfortunethat the young Count found it impossible nowadays to be what his forefathers had been. He

could not live their healthy life of animal spirits, in their sympathy with nature, and brotherhood with all that

breathed around them. Nature, in beast, fowl, and tree, and earth, flood, and sky, is what it was of old; but sin,

care, and selfconsciousness have set the human portion of the world askew; and thus the simplest character

"At any rate, Tomaso," said Kenyon, doing his best to comfort the old man, "let us hope that your young lord

will still enjoy himself at vintage time. By the aspect of the vineyard, I judge that this will be a famous year

for the golden wine of Monte Beni. As long as your grapes produce that admirable liquor, sad as you think

"Ah, Signore," rejoined the butler with a sigh, "but he scarcely wets his lips with the sunny juice."

"There is yet another hope," observed Kenyon; "the young Count may fall in love, and bring home a fair and

laughing wife to chase the gloom out of yonder old frescoed saloon. Do you think he could do a better thing,

"Maybe not, Signore," said the sage butler, looking earnestly at him; "and, maybe, not a worse!"

The sculptor fancied that the good old man had it partly in his mind to make some remark, or communicate

some fact, which, on second thoughts, he resolved to keep concealed in his own breast. He now took his

departure cellarward, shaking his white head and muttering to himself, and did not reappear till dinnertime,

when he favored Kenyon, whom he had taken far into his good graces, with a choicer flask of Sunshine than

To say the truth, this golden wine was no unnecessary ingredient towards making the life of Monte Beni

palatable. It seemed a pity that Donatello did not drink a little more of it, and go jollily to bed at least, even if

Nevertheless, there was no lack of outward means for leading an agreeable life in the old villa. Wandering

musicians haunted the precincts of Monte Beni, where they seemed to claim a prescriptive right; they made

the lawn and shrubbery tuneful with the sound of fiddle, harp, and flute, and now and then with the tangled

squeaking of a bagpipe. Improvisatori likewise came and told tales or recited verses to the contadiniamong

whom Kenyon was often an auditorafter their day's work in the vineyard. Jugglers, too, obtained

permission to do feats of magic in the hall, where they set even the sage Tomaso, and Stella, Girolamo, and

the peasant girls from the farmhouse, all of a broad grin, between merriment and wonder. These good people

got food and lodging for their pleasant pains, and some of the small wine of Tuscany, and a reasonable

handful of the Grand Duke's copper coin, to keep up the hospitable renown of Monte Beni. But very seldom

There were sometimes dances by moonlight on the lawn, but never since he came from Rome did Donatello's

presence deepen the blushes of the pretty contadinas, or his footstep weary out the most agile partner or

Paupersfor this kind of vermin infested the house of Monte Beni worse than any other spot in

beggarhaunted Italystood beneath all the windows, making loud supplication, or even establishing

themselves on the marble steps of the grand entrance. They ate and drank, and filled their bags, and pocketed

the little money that was given them, and went forth on their devious ways, showering blessings innumerable

on the mansion and its lord, and on the souls of his deceased forefathers, who had always been just such

simpletons as to be compassionate to beggary. But, in spite of their favorable prayers, by which Italian

philanthropists set great store, a cloud seemed to hang over these once Arcadian precincts, and to be darkest

After the sculptor's arrival, however, the young Count sometimes came down from his forlorn elevation, and

rambled with him among the neighboring woods and hills. He led his friend to many enchanting nooks, with

which he himself had been familiar in his childhood. But of late, as he remarked to Kenyon, a sort of

strangeness had overgrown them, like clusters of dark shrubbery, so that he hardly recognized the places

To the sculptor's eye, nevertheless, they were still rich with beauty. They were picturesque in that sweetly

impressive way where wildness, in a long lapse of years, has crept over scenes that have been once adorned

with the careful art and toil of man; and when man could do no more for them, time and nature came, and

wrought hand in hand to bring them to a soft and venerable perfection. There grew the figtree that had run

wild and taken to wife the vine, which likewise had gone rampant out of all human control; so that the two

wild things had tangled and knotted themselves into a wild marriage bond, and hung their various

progenythe luscious figs, the grapes, oozy with the Southern juice, and both endowed with a wild flavor

In Kenyon's opinion, never was any other nook so lovely as a certain little dell which he and Donatello

visited. It was hollowed in among the hills, and open to a glimpse of the broad, fertile valley. A fountain had

its birth here, and fell into a marble basin, which was all covered with moss and shaggy with waterweeds.

Over the gush of the small stream, with an urn in her arms, stood a marble nymph, whose nakedness the moss

had kindly clothed as with a garment; and the long trails and tresses of the maidenhair had done what they

could in the poor thing's behalf, by hanging themselves about her waist, In former daysit might be a

remote antiquitythis lady of the fountain had first received the infant tide into her urn and poured it thence

into the marble basin. But now the sculptured urn had a great crack from top to bottom; and the discontented

nymph was compelled to see the basin fill itself through a channel which she could not control, although with

For this reason, or some other, she looked terribly forlorn; and you might have fancied that the whole

"This was a place that I used greatly to delight in," remarked Donatello, sighing. "As a child, and as a boy, I

"And, as a man, I should ask no fitter place to be happy in," answered Kenyon. "But you, my friend, are of

such a social nature, that I should hardly have thought these lonely haunts would take your fancy. It is a place

"I am no poet, that I know of," said Donatello, "but yet, as I tell you, I have been very happy here, in the

company of this fountain and this nymph. It is said that a Faun, my oldest forefather, brought home hither to

this very spot a human maiden, whom he loved and wedded. This spring of delicious water was their

"It is a most enchanting fable!" exclaimed Kenyon; "that is, if it be not a fact."

"And why not a fact?" said the simple Donatello. "There is, likewise, another sweet old story connected with

this spot. But, now that I remember it, it seems to me more sad than sweet, though formerly the sorrow, in

which it closes, did not so much impress me. If I had the gift of taletelling, this one would be sure to interest

"Pray tell it," said Kenyon; "no matter whether well or ill. These wild legends have often the most powerful

So the young Count narrated a myth of one of his Progenitors,he might have lived a century ago, or a

thousand years, or before the Christian epoch, for anything that Donatello knew to the contrary, who had

made acquaintance with a fair creature belonging to this fountain. Whether woman or sprite was a mystery, as

was all else about her, except that her life and soul were somehow interfused throughout the gushing water.

She was a fresh, cool, dewy thing, sunny and shadowy, full of pleasant little mischiefs, fitful and changeable

with the whim of the moment, but yet as constant as her native stream, which kept the same gush and flow

forever, while marble crumbled over and around it. The fountain woman loved the youth,a knight, as

Donatello called him,for, according to the legend, his race was akin to hers. At least, whether kin or no,

there had been friendship and sympathy of old betwixt an ancestor of his, with furry ears, and the longlived

lady of the fountain. And, after all those ages, she was still as young as a May morning, and as frolicsome as

She taught him how to call her from her pebbly source, and they spent many a happy hour together, more

especially in the fervor of the summer days. For often as he sat waiting for her by the margin of the spring,

she would suddenly fall down around him in a shower of sunny raindrops, with a rainbow glancing through

them, and forthwith gather herself up into the likeness of a beautiful girl, laughingor was it the warble of

Thus, kind maiden that she was, the hot atmosphere became deliciously cool and fragrant for this favored

knight; and, furthermore, when he knelt down to drink out of the spring, nothing was more common than for

a pair of rosy lips to come up out of its little depths, and touch his mouth with the thrill of a sweet, cool, dewy

"It is a delightful story for the hot noon of your Tuscan summer," observed the sculptor, at this point. "But the

deportment of the watery lady must have had a most chilling influence in midwinter. Her lover would find it,

"I suppose," said Donatello rather sulkily, "you are making fun of the story. But I see nothing laughable in the

He went on to relate, that for a long While the knight found infinite pleasure and comfort in the friendship of

the fountain nymph. In his merriest hours, she gladdened him with her sportive humor. If ever he was

annoyed with earthly trouble, she laid her moist hand upon his brow, and charmed the fret and fever quite

But one dayone fatal noontidethe young knight came rushing with hasty and irregular steps to the

accustomed fountain. He called the nymph; butno doubt because there was something unusual and

frightful in his tone she did not appear, nor answer him. He flung himself down, and washed his hands and

bathed his feverish brow in the cool, pure water. And then there was a sound of woe; it might have been a

woman's voice; it might have been only the sighing of the brook over the pebbles. The water shrank away

"Because he had tried to wash off a bloodstain!" said the young Count, in a horrorstricken whisper. "The

guilty man had polluted the pure water. The nymph might have comforted him in sorrow, but could not

"Never but once," replied his friend. "He never beheld her blessed face but once again, and then there was a

bloodstain on the poor nymph's brow; it was the stain his guilt had left in the fountain where he tried to

wash it off. He mourned for her his whole life long, and employed the best sculptor of the time to carve this

statue of the nymph from his description of her aspect. But, though my ancestor would fain have had the

image wear her happiest look, the artist, unlike yourself, was so impressed with the mournfulness of the story,

that, in spite of his best efforts, he made her forlorn, and forever weeping, as you see!"

Kenyon found a certain charm in this simple legend. Whether so intended or not, he understood it as an

apologue, typifying the soothing and genial effects of an habitual intercourse with nature in all ordinary cares

and griefs; while, on the other hand, her mild influences fall short in their effect upon the ruder passions, and

"Do you say," he asked, "that the nymph's race has never since been shown to any mortal? Methinks you, by

your native qualities, are as well entitled to her favor as ever your progenitor could have been. Why have you

"I called her often when I was a silly child," answered Donatello; and he added, in an inward voice, "Thank

"Never in my life!" rejoined the Count. "No, my dear friend, I have not seen the nymph; although here, by her

fountain, I used to make many strange acquaintances; for, from my earliest childhood, I was familiar with

whatever creatures haunt the woods. You would have laughed to see the friends I had among them; yes,

among the wild, nimble things, that reckon man their deadliest enemy! How it was first taught me, I cannot

tell; but there was a charma voice, a murmur, a kind of chantby which I called the woodland

inhabitants, the furry people, and the feathered people, in a language that they seemed to understand."

"I have heard of such a gift," responded the sculptor gravely, "but never before met with a person endowed

with it. Pray try the charm; and lest I should frighten your friends away, I will withdraw into this thicket, and

"I doubt," said Donatello, "whether they will remember my voice now. It changes, you know, as the boy

Nevertheless, as the young Count's goodnature and easy persuadability were among his best characteristics,

he set about complying with Kenyon's request. The latter, in his concealment among the shrubberies, heard

him send forth a sort of modulated breath, wild, rude, yet harmonious. It struck the auditor as at once the

strangest and the most natural utterance that had ever reached his ears. Any idle boy, it should seem, singing

to himself and setting his wordless song to no other or more definite tune than the play of his own pulses,

might produce a sound almost identical with this; and yet, it was as individual as a murmur of the breeze.

Donatello tried it, over and over again, with many breaks, at first, and pauses of uncertainty; then with more

confidence, and a fuller swell, like a wayfarer groping out of obscurity into the light, and moving with freer

Anon, his voice appeared to fill the air, yet not with an obtrusive clangor. The sound was of a murmurous

character, soft, attractive, persuasive, friendly. The sculptor fancied that such might have been the original

voice and utterance of the natural man, before the sophistication of the human intellect formed what we now

call language. In this broad dialectbroad as the sympathies of naturethe human brother might have

spoken to his inarticulate brotherhood that prowl the woods, or soar upon the wing, and have been intelligible

The sound had its pathos too. At some of its simple cadences, the tears came quietly into Kenyon's eyes. They

welled up slowly from his heart, which was thrilling with an emotion more delightful than he had often felt

before, but which he forbore to analyze, lest, if he seized it, it should at once perish in his grasp.

Donatello paused two or three times, and seemed to listen,then, recommencing, he poured his spirit and

life more earnestly into the strain. And finally,or else the sculptor's hope and imagination deceived

him,soft treads were audible upon the fallen leaves. There was a rustling among the shrubbery; a whir of

wings, moreover, that hovered in the air. It may have been all an illusion; but Kenyon fancied that he could

distinguish the stealthy, catlike movement of some small forest citizen, and that he could even see its

doubtful shadow, if not really its substance. But, all at once, whatever might be the reason, there ensued a

hurried rush and scamper of little feet; and then the sculptor heard a wild, sorrowful cry, and through the

Emerging from his hidingplace, he saw no living thing, save a brown lizard (it was of the tarantula species)

rustling away through the sunshine. To all present appearance, this venomous reptile was the only creature

that had responded to the young Count's efforts to renew his intercourse with the lower orders of nature.

"What has happened to you?" exclaimed Kenyon, stooping down over his friend, and wondering at the

He grovelled beside the fountain, in a fit of such passionate sobbing and weeping, that it seemed as if his

heart had broken, and spilt its wild sorrows upon the ground. His unrestrained grief and childish tears made

Kenyon sensible in how small a degree the customs and restraints of society had really acted upon this young

man, in spite of the quietude of his ordinary deportment. In response to his friend's efforts to console him, he

murmured words hardly more articulate than the strange chant which he had so recently been breathing into

"Who know it?" asked the sculptor. "And what is it their know?" "They know it!" repeated Donatello,

trembling. "They shun me! All nature shrinks from me, and shudders at me! I live in the midst of a curse, that

"Be comforted, my dear friend," said Kenyon, kneeling beside him. "You labor under some illusion, but no

curse. As for this strange, natural spell, which you have been exercising, and of which I have heard before,

though I never believed in, nor expected to witness it, I am satisfied that you still possess it. It was my own

halfconcealed presence, no doubt, and some involuntary little movement of mine, that scared away your

"We all of us, as we grow older," rejoined Kenyon, "lose somewhat of our proximity to nature. It is the price

"A heavy price, then!" said Donatello, rising from the ground. "But we will speak no more of it. Forget this

scene, my dear friend. In your eyes, it must look very absurd. It is a grief, I presume, to all men, to find the

pleasant privileges and properties of early life departing from them. That grief has now befallen me. Well; I

Nothing else made Kenyon so sensible of a change in Donatello, as his newly acquired power of dealing with

his own emotions, and, after a struggle more or less fierce, thrusting them down into the prison cells where he

usually kept them confined. The restraint, which he now put upon himself, and the mask of dull composure

which he succeeded in clasping over his still beautiful, and once faunlike face, affected the sensitive

sculptor more sadly than even the unrestrained passion of the preceding scene. It is a very miserable epoch,

when the evil necessities of life, in our tortuous world, first get the better of us so far as to compel us to

attempt throwing a cloud over our transparency. Simplicity increases in value the longer we can keep it, and

the further we carry it onward into life; the loss of a child's simplicity, in the inevitable lapse of years, causes

but a natural sigh or two, because even his mother feared that he could not keep it always. But after a young

man has brought it through his childhood, and has still worn it in his bosom, not as an early dewdrop, but as a

diamond of pure white lustre,it is a pity to lose it, then. And thus, when Kenyon saw how much his friend

had now to hide, and how well he hid it, he would have wept, although his tears would have been even idler

They parted on the lawn before the house, the Count to climb his tower, and the sculptor to read an antique

edition of Dante, which he had found among some old volumes of Catholic devotion, in a seldomvisited

"Even so, good Tomaso," replied the sculptor. "Would that we could raise his spirits a little!"

"There might be means, Signore," answered the old butler, "if one might but be sure that they were the right

"Women, you would say, my good friend, are better," said the sculptor, struck by an intelligence in the

"Ah; we will wait a little longer," said Tomaso, with the customary shake of his head.

"It is plainly enough to be seen, methinks," answered the Count, with a kind of sulkiness that often appeared

"Yes; its exterior is visible far and wide," said Kenyon. "But such a gray, mossgrown tower as this, however

valuable as an object of scenery, will certainly be quite as interesting inside as out. It cannot be less than six

hundred years old; the foundations and lower story are much older than that, I should judge; and traditions

probably cling to the walls within quite as plentifully as the gray and yellow lichens cluster on its face

"No doubt," replied Donatello,"but I know little of such things, and never could comprehend the interest

which some of you Forestieri take in them. A year or two ago an English signore, with a venerable white

beardthey say he was a magician, toocame hither from as far off as Florence, just to see my tower."

"Ah, I have seen him at Florence," observed Kenyon. "He is a necromancer, as you say, and dwells in an old

mansion of the Knights Templars, close by the Ponte Vecchio, with a great many ghostly books, pictures, and

antiquities, to make the house gloomy, and one brighteyed little girl, to keep it cheerful!"

"I know him only by his white beard," said Donatello; "but he could have told you a great deal about the

tower, and the sieges which it has stood, and the prisoners who have been confined in it. And he gathered up

all the traditions of the Monte Beni family, and, among the rest, the sad one which I told you at the fountain

the other day. He had known mighty poets, he said, in his earlier life; and the most illustrious of them would

have rejoiced to preserve such a legend in immortal rhyme,especially if he could have had some of our

"Any man might be a poet, as well as Byron, with such wine and such a theme," rejoined the sculptor. "But

shall we climb your tower The thunderstorm gathering yonder among the hills will be a spectacle worth

"Come, then," said the Count, adding, with a sigh, "it has a weary staircase, and dismal chambers, and it is

"Like a man's life, when he has climbed to eminence," remarked the sculptor; "or, let us rather say, with its

difficult steps, and the dark prison cells you speak of, your tower resembles the spiritual experience of many

a sinful soul, which, nevertheless, may struggle upward into the pure air and light of Heaven at last!"

Mounting the broad staircase that ascended from the entrance hall, they traversed the great wilderness of a

house, through some obscure passages, and came to a low, ancient doorway. It admitted them to a narrow

turret stair which zigzagged upward, lighted in its progress by loopholes and ironbarred windows. Reaching

the top of the first flight, the Count threw open a door of wormeaten oak, and disclosed a chamber that

occupied the whole area of the tower. It was most pitiably forlorn of aspect, with a brickpaved floor, bare

holes through the massive walls, grated with iron, instead of windows, and for furniture an old stool, which

increased the dreariness of the place tenfold, by suggesting an idea of its having once been tenanted.

"This was a prisoner's cell in the old days," said Donatello; "the whitebearded necromancer, of whom I told

you, found out that a certain famous monk was confined here, about five hundred years ago. He was a very

holy man, and was afterwards burned at the stake in the Grandducal Square at Firenze. There have always

been stories, Tomaso says, of a hooded monk creeping up and down these stairs, or standing in the doorway

of this chamber. It must needs be the ghost of the ancient prisoner. Do you believe in ghosts?"

"Neither do I," responded the Count; "for, if spirits ever come back, I should surely have met one within these

Following the narrow staircase still higher, they came to another room of similar size and equally forlorn, but

inhabited by two personages of a race which from time immemorial have held proprietorship and occupancy

in ruined towers. These were a pair of owls, who, being doubtless acquainted with Donatello, showed little

sign of alarm at the entrance of visitors. They gave a dismal croak or two, and hopped aside into the darkest

"They do not desert me, like my other feathered acquaintances," observed the young Count, with a sad smile,

alluding to the scene which Kenyon had witnessed at the fountainside. "When I was a wild, playful boy, the

He made no further pause here, but led his friend up another flight of stepswhile, at every stage, the

windows and narrow loopholes afforded Kenyon more extensive eyeshots over hill and valley, and allowed

him to taste the cool purity of midatmosphere. At length they reached the topmost chamber, directly beneath

In fact, the room was fitted up as a bedchamber, though in a style of the utmost simplicity. It likewise served

as an oratory; there being a crucifix in one corner, and a multitude of holy emblems, such as Catholics judge

it necessary to help their devotion withal. Several ugly little prints, representing the sufferings of the Saviour,

and the martyrdoms of saints, hung on the wall; and behind the crucifix there was a good copy of Titian's

Magdalen of the Pitti Palace, clad only in the flow of her golden ringlets. She had a confident look (but it was

Titian's fault, not the penitent woman's), as if expecting to win heaven by the free display of her earthly

charms. Inside of a glass case appeared an image of the sacred Bambino, in the guise of a little waxen boy,

very prettily made, reclining among flowers, like a Cupid, and holding up a heart that resembled a bit of red

Beneath the crucifix, on a table, lay a human skull, which looked as if it might have been dug up out of some

old grave. But, examining it more closely, Kenyon saw that it was carved in gray alabaster; most skillfully

done to the death, with accurate imitation of the teeth, the sutures, the empty eyecaverns, and the fragile

little bones of the nose. This hideous emblem rested on a cushion of white marble, so nicely wrought that you

seemed to see the impression of the heavy skull in a silken and downy substance.

Donatello dipped his fingers into the holywater vase, and crossed himself. After doing so he trembled.

"On what mortal breast can it be made, then?" asked the sculptor. "Is there one that hides no sin?"

"But these blessed emblems make you smile, I fear," resumed the Count, looking askance at his friend. "You

"I, at least, whom you call a heretic, reverence that holy symbol," answered Kenyon. "What I am most

inclined to murmur at is this death's head. I could laugh, moreover, in its ugly face! It is absurdly monstrous,

my dear friend, thus to fling the dead weight of our mortality upon our immortal hopes. While we live on

earth, 't is true, we must needs carry our skeletons about with us; but, for Heaven's sake, do not let us burden

our spirits with them, in our feeble efforts to soar upward! Believe me, it will change the whole aspect of

death, if you can once disconnect it, in your idea, with that corruption from which it disengages our higher

"I do not well understand you," said Donatello; and he took up the alabaster skull, shuddering, and evidently

feeling it a kind of penance to touch it. "I only know that this skull has been in my family for centuries. Old

Tomaso has a story that it was copied by a famous sculptor from the skull of that same unhappy knight who

loved the fountain lady, and lost her by a bloodstain. He lived and died with a deep sense of sin upon him,

and on his deathbed he ordained that this token of him should go down to his posterity. And my forefathers,

being a cheerful race of men in their natural disposition, found it needful to have the skull often before their

eyes, because they dearly loved life and its enjoyments, and hated the very thought of death."

"I am afraid," said Kenyon, "they liked it none the better, for seeing its face under this abominable mask."

Without further discussion, the Count led the way up one more flight of stairs, at the end of which they

emerged upon the summit of the tower. The sculptor felt as if his being were suddenly magnified a

hundredfold; so wide was the Umbrian valley that suddenly opened before him, set in its grand framework of

nearer and more distant hills. It seemed as if all Italy lay under his eyes in that one picture. For there was the

broad, sunny smile of God, which we fancy to be spread over that favored land more abundantly than on

other regions, and beneath it glowed a most rich and varied fertility. The trim vineyards were there, and the

figtrees, and the mulberries, and the smokyhued tracts of the olive orchards; there, too, were fields of

every kind of grain, among which, waved the Indian corn, putting Kenyon in mind of the fondly remembered

acres of his father's homestead. White villas, gray convents, church spires, villages, towns, each with its

battlemented walls and towered gateway, were scattered upon this spacious map; a river gleamed across it;

and lakes opened their blue eyes in its face, reflecting heaven, lest mortals should forget that better land when

What made the valley look still wider was the two or three varieties of weather that were visible on its

surface, all at the same instant of time. Here lay the quiet sunshine; there fell the great black patches of

ominous shadow from the clouds; and behind them, like a giant of leaguelong strides, came hurrying the

thunderstorm, which had already swept midway across the plain. In the rear of the approaching tempest,

brightened forth again the sunny splendor, which its progress had darkened with so terrible a frown.

All round this majestic landscape, the baldpeaked or forestcrowned mountains descended boldly upon the

plain. On many of their spurs and midway declivities, and even on their summits, stood cities, some of them

famous of old; for these had been the seats and nurseries of early art, where the flower of beauty sprang out

of a rocky soil, and in a high, keen atmosphere, when the richest and most sheltered gardens failed to nourish

"Thank God for letting me again behold this scene!" Said the sculptor, a devout man in his way, reverently

taking off his hat. "I have viewed it from many points, and never without as full a sensation of gratitude as

my heart seems capable of feeling. How it strengthens the poor human spirit in its reliance on His providence,

to ascend but this little way above the common level, and so attain a somewhat wider glimpse of His dealings

"You discern something that is hidden from me," observed Donatello gloomily, yet striving with unwonted

grasp to catch the analogies which so cheered his friend. "I see sunshine on one spot, and cloud in another,

and no reason for it in either ease. The sun on you; the cloud on me! What comfort can I draw from this?"

"Nay; I cannot preach," said Kenyon, "with a page of heaven and a page of earth spread wide open before us!

Only begin to read it, and you will find it interpreting itself without the aid of words. It is a great mistake to

try to put our best thoughts into human language. When we ascend into the higher regions of emotion and

spiritual enjoyment, they are only expressible by such grand hieroglyphics as these around us."

They stood awhile, contemplating the scene; but, as inevitably happens after a spiritual flight, it was not long

before the sculptor felt his wings flagging in the rarity of the upper atmosphere. He was glad to let himself

quietly downward out of the midsky, as it were, and alight on the solid platform of the battlemented tower.

He looked about him, and beheld growing out of the stone pavement, which formed the roof, a little shrub,

with green and glossy leaves. It was the only green thing there; and Heaven knows how its seeds had ever

been planted, at that airy height, or how it had found nourishment for its small life in the chinks of the stones;

for it had no earth, and nothing more like soil than the crumbling mortar, which had been crammed into the

Yet the plant seemed fond of its native site; and Donatello said it had always grown there from his earliest

remembrance, and never, he believed, any smaller or any larger than they saw it now.

"I wonder if the shrub teaches you any good lesson," said he, observing the interest with which Kenyon

examined it. "If the wide valley has a great meaning, the plant ought to have at least a little one; and it has

"O, certainly!" answered the sculptor; "the shrub has its moral, or it would have perished long ago. And, no

doubt, it is for your use and edification, since you have had it before your eyes all your lifetime, and now are

"It teaches me nothing," said the simple Donatello, stooping over the plant, and perplexing himself with a

minute scrutiny. "But here was a worm that would have killed it; an ugly creature, which I will fling over the

The sculptor now looked through art embrasure, and threw down a bit of lime, watching its fall, till it struck

upon a stone bench at the rocky foundation of the tower, and flew into many fragments.

"Pray pardon me for helping Time to crumble away your ancestral walls," said he. "But I am one of those

persons who have a natural tendency to climb heights, and to stand on the verge of them, measuring the depth

below. If I were to do just as I like, at this moment, I should fling myself down after that bit of lime. It is a

very singular temptation, and all but irresistible; partly, I believe, because it might be so easily done, and

partly because such momentous consequences would ensue, without my being compelled to wait a moment

for them. Have you never felt this strange impulse of an evil spirit at your back, shoving you towards a

"Ah, no!" cried. Donatello, shrinking from the battlemented wall with a face of horror. "I cling to life in a

way which you cannot conceive; it has been so rich, so warm, so sunny!and beyond its verge, nothing but

"Nay; if it be a great height," said Kenyon, "a man would leave his life in the air, and never feel the hard

"That is not the way with this kind of death!" exclaimed Donatello, in a low, horrorstricken voice, which

grew higher and more full of emotion as he proceeded. "Imagine a fellow creature,breathing now, and

looking you in the face,and now tumbling down, down, down, with a long shriek wavering after him, all

the way! He does not leave his life in the air! No; but it keeps in him till he thumps against the stones, a

horribly long while; then he lies there frightfully quiet, a dead heap of bruised flesh and broken bones! A

quiver runs through the crushed mass; and no more movement after that! No; not if you would give your soul

to make him stir a finger! Ah, terrible! Yes, yes; I would fain fling myself down for the very dread of it, that I

"How forcibly, how frightfully you conceive this!" said the sculptor, aghast at the passionate horror which

was betrayed in the Count's words, and still more in his wild gestures and ghastly look. "Nay, if the height of

your tower affects your imagination thus, you do wrong to trust yourself here in solitude, and in the

nighttime, and at all unguarded hours. You are not safe in your chamber. It is but a step or two; and what if

a vivid dream should lead you up hither at midnight, and act itself out as a reality!"

Donatello had hidden his face in his hands, and was leaning against the parapet.

"No fear of that!" said he. "Whatever the dream may be, I am too genuine a coward to act out my own death

The paroxysm passed away, and the two friends continued their desultory talk, very much as if no such

interruption had occurred. Nevertheless, it affected the sculptor with infinite pity to see this young man, who

had been born to gladness as an assured heritage, now involved in a misty bewilderment of grievous thoughts,

amid which he seemed to go staggering blindfold. Kenyon, not without an unshaped suspicion of the definite

fact, knew that his condition must have resulted from the weight and gloom of life, now first, through the

agency of a secret trouble, making themselves felt on a character that had heretofore breathed only an

atmosphere of joy. The effect of this hard lesson, upon Donatello's intellect and disposition, was very

striking. It was perceptible that he had already had glimpses of strange and subtle matters in those dark

caverns, into which all men must descend, if they would know anything beneath the surface and illusive

pleasures of existence. And when they emerge, though dazzled and blinded by the first glare of daylight, they

From some mysterious source, as the sculptor felt assured, a soul had been inspired into the young Count's

simplicity, since their intercourse in Rome. He now showed a far deeper sense, and an intelligence that began

to deal with high subjects, though in a feeble and childish way. He evinced, too, a more definite and nobler

individuality, but developed out of grief and pain, and fearfully conscious of the pangs that had given it birth.

Every human life, if it ascends to truth or delves down to reality, must undergo a similar change; but

sometimes, perhaps, the instruction comes without the sorrow; and oftener the sorrow teaches no lesson that

abides with us. In Donatello's case, it was pitiful, and almost ludicrous, to observe the confused struggle that

he made; how completely he was taken by surprise; how illprepared he stood, on this old battlefield of the

world, to fight with such an inevitable foe as mortal calamity, and sin for its stronger ally.

"And yet," thought Kenyon," the poor fellow bears himself like a hero, too! If he would only tell me his

trouble, or give me an opening to speak frankly about it, I might help him; but he finds it too horrible to be

uttered, and fancies himself the only mortal that ever felt the anguish of remorse. Yes; he believes that

nobody ever endured his agony before; so thatsharp enough in itselfit has all the additional zest of a

The sculptor endeavored to dismiss the painful subject from his mind; and, leaning against the battlements, he

turned his face southward and westward, and gazed across the breadth of the valley. His thoughts flew far

beyond even those wide boundaries, taking an airline from Donatello's tower to another turret that ascended

into the sky of the summer afternoon, invisibly to him, above the roofs of distant Rome. Then rose

tumultuously into his consciousness that strong love for Hilda, which it was his habit to confine in one of the

heart's inner chambers, because he had found no encouragement to bring it forward. But now he felt a strange

pull at his heartstrings. It could not have been more perceptible, if all the way between these battlements and

Hilda's dovecote had stretched an exquisitely sensitive cord, which, at the hither end, was knotted with his

aforesaid heartstrings, and, at the remoter one, was grasped by a gentle hand. His breath grew tremulous. He

put his hand to his breast; so distinctly did he seem to feel that cord drawn once, and again, and again, as

ifthough still it was bashfully intimated there were an importunate demand for his presence. O for the

white wings of Hilda's doves, that he might, have flown thither, and alighted at the Virgin's shrine!

But lovers, and Kenyon knew it well, project so lifelike a copy of their mistresses out of their own

imaginations, that it can pull at the heartstrings almost as perceptibly as the genuine original. No airy

intimations are to be trusted; no evidences of responsive affection less positive than whispered and broken

words, or tender pressures of the hand, allowed and half returned; or glances, that distil many passionate

avowals into one gleam of richly colored light. Even these should be weighed rigorously, at the instant; for,

in another instant, the imagination seizes on them as its property, and stamps them with its own arbitrary

value. But Hilda's maidenly reserve had given her lover no such tokens, to be interpreted either by his hopes

"Yonder, over mountain and valley, lies Rome," said the sculptor; "shall you return thither in the autumn?"

"And yet it was a pleasant winter that we spent there," observed Kenyon, "and with pleasant friends about us.

"All, to the best of my belief," said the sculptor: "but you need not go to Rome to seek them. If there were

one of those friends whose lifetime was twisted with your own, I am enough of a fatalist to feel assured that

you will meet that one again, wander whither you may. Neither can we escape the companions whom

"Yet the stairs are steep and dark," rejoined the Count; "none but yourself would seek me here, or find me, if

As Donatello did not take advantage of this opening which his friend had kindly afforded him to pour out his

hidden troubles, the latter again threw aside the subject, and returned to the enjoyment of the scene before

him. The thunderstorm, which he had beheld striding across the valley, had passed to the left of Monte Beni,

and was continuing its march towards the hills that formed the boundary on the eastward. Above the whole

valley, indeed, the sky was heavy with tumbling vapors, interspersed with which were tracts of blue, vividly

brightened by the sun; but, in the east, where the tempest was yet trailing its ragged skirts, lay a dusky region

of cloud and sullen mist, in which some of the hills appeared of a dark purple hue. Others became so

indistinct, that the spectator could not tell rocky height from impalpable cloud. Far into this misty cloud

region, however,within the domain of chaos, as it were,hilltops were seen brightening in the sunshine;

they looked like fragments of the world, broken adrift and based on nothingness, or like portions of a sphere

The sculptor, habitually drawing many of the images and illustrations of his thoughts from the plastic art,

fancied that the scene represented the process of the Creator, when he held the new, imperfect earth in his

"What a magic is in mist and vapor among the mountains!" he exclaimed. "With their help, one single scene

becomes a thousand. The cloud scenery gives such variety to a hilly landscape that it would be worth while to

journalize its aspect from hour to hour. A cloud, however, as I have myself experienced,is apt to grow

solid and as heavy as a stone the instant that you take in hand to describe it, But, in my own heart, I have

found great use in clouds. Such silvery ones as those to the northward, for example, have often suggested

sculpturesque groups, figures, and attitudes; they are especially rich in attitudes of living repose, which a

sculptor only hits upon by the rarest good fortune. When I go back to my dear native land, the clouds along

"I can see cloud shapes, too," said Donatello; "yonder is one that shifts strangely; it has been like people

whom I knew. And now, if I watch it a little longer, it will take the figure of a monk reclining, with his cowl

"I think," remarked Kenyon, "we can hardly be gazing at the same cloud. What I behold is a reclining figure,

to be sure, but feminine, and with a despondent air, wonderfully well expressed in the wavering outline from

head to foot. It moves my very heart by something indefinable that it suggests."

"I see the figure, and almost the face," said the Count; adding, in a lower voice, "It is Miriam's!"

"No, not Miriam's," answered the sculptor. While the two gazers thus found their own reminiscences and

presentiments floating among the clouds, the day drew to its close, and now showed them the fair spectacle of

an Italian sunset. The sky was soft and bright, but not so gorgeous as Kenyon had seen it, a thousand times, in

America; for there the western sky is wont to be set aflame with breadths and depths of color with which

poets seek in vain to dye their verses, and which painters never dare to copy. As beheld from the tower of

Monte Beni, the scene was tenderly magnificent, with mild gradations of hue and a lavish outpouring of gold,

but rather such gold as we see on the leaf of a bright flower than the burnished glow of metal from the mine.

Or, if metallic, it looked airy and unsubstantial, like the glorified dreams of an alchemist. And

speedilymore speedily than in our own climecame the twilight, and, brightening through its gray

A swarm of minute insects that had been hovering all day round the battlements were now swept away by the

freshness of a rising breeze. The two owls in the chamber beneath Donatello's uttered their soft melancholy

cry,which, with national avoidance of harsh sounds, Italian owls substitute for the hoot of their kindred in

other countries,and flew darkling forth among the shrubbery. A convent bell rang out near at hand, and

was not only echoed among the hills, but answered by another bell, and still another, which doubtless had

farther and farther responses, at various distances along the valley; for, like the English drumbeat around the

globe, there is a chain of convent bells from end to end, and crosswise, and in all possible directions over

"Time for you, my friend," replied the Count; and he hesitated a little before adding, "I must keep a vigil here

for some hours longer. It is my frequent custom to keep vigils,and sometimes the thought occurs to me

whether it were not better to keep them in yonder convent, the bell of which just now seemed to summon me.

"Then think of it no more, for Heaven's sake!" cried the sculptor. "There are a thousand better and more

poignant methods of being miserable than that, if to be miserable is what you wish. Nay; I question whether a

monk keeps himself up to the intellectual and spiritual height which misery implies. A monk I judge from

their sensual physiognomies, which meet me at every turnis inevitably a beast! Their souls, if they have

any to begin with, perish out of them, before their sluggish, swinish existence is half done. Better, a million

times, to stand stargazing on these airy battlements, than to smother your new germ of a higher life in a

"You make me tremble," said Donatello, "by your bold aspersion of men who have devoted themselves to

"They serve neither God nor man, and themselves least of all, though their motives be utterly selfish," replied

Kenyon. "Avoid the convent, my dear friend, as you would shun the death of the soul! But, for my own part,

if I had an insupportable burden,if, for any cause, I were bent upon sacrificing every earthly hope as a

peaceoffering towards Heaven,I would make the wide world my cell, and good deeds to mankind my

Yet his face brightened beneath the stars; and, looking at it through the twilight, the sculptor's remembrance

went back to that scene in the Capitol, where, both in features and expression, Donatello had seemed identical

with the Faun. And still there was a resemblance; for now, when first the idea was suggested of living for the

welfare of his fellowcreatures, the original beauty, which sorrow had partly effaced, came back elevated and

spiritualized. In the black depths the Faun had found a soul, and was struggling with it towards the light of

The illumination, it is true, soon faded out of Donatello's face. The idea of lifelong and unselfish effort was

too high to be received by him with more than a momentary comprehension. An Italian, indeed, seldom

dreams of being philanthropic, except in bestowing alms among the paupers, who appeal to his beneficence at

every step; nor does it occur to him that there are fitter modes of propitiating Heaven than by penances,

pilgrimages, and offerings at shrines. Perhaps, too, their system has its share of moral advantages; they, at all

events, cannot well pride themselves, as our own more energetic benevolence is apt to do, upon sharing in the

counsels of Providence and kindly helping out its otherwise impracticable designs.

And now the broad valley twinkled with lights, that glimmered through its duskiness like the fireflies in the

garden of a Florentine palace. A gleam of lightning from the rear of the tempest showed the circumference of

hills and the great space between, as the last cannonflash of a retreating army reddens across the field where

it has fought. The sculptor was on the point of descending the turret stair, when, somewhere in the darkness

The song, if song it could be called, that had only a wild rhythm, and flowed forth in the fitful measure of a

windharp, did not clothe itself in the sharp brilliancy of the Italian tongue. The words, so far as they could

be distinguished, were German, and therefore unintelligible to the Count, and hardly less so to the sculptor;

being softened and molten, as it were, into the melancholy richness of the voice that sung them. It was as the

murmur of a soul bewildered amid the sinful gloom of earth, and retaining only enough memory of a better

state to make sad music of the wail, which would else have been a despairing shriek. Never was there

profounder pathos than breathed through that mysterious voice; it brought the tears into the sculptor's eyes,

with remembrances and forebodings of whatever sorrow he had felt or apprehended; it made Donatello sob,

as chiming in with the anguish that he found unutterable, and giving it the expression which he vaguely

But, when the emotion was at its profoundest depth, the voice rose out of it, yet so gradually that a gloom

seemed to pervade it, far upward from the abyss, and not entirely to fall away as it ascended into a higher and

purer region. At last, the auditors would have fancied that the melody, with its rich sweetness all there, and

"Donatello," said the sculptor, when there was silence again, "had that voice no message for your ear?"

"I dare not receive it," said Donatello; "the anguish of which it spoke abides with me: the hope dies away

with the breath that brought it hither. It is not good for me to hear that voice."

Kenyon, it will be remembered, had asked Donatello's permission to model his bust. The work had now made

considerable progress, and necessarily kept the sculptor's thoughts brooding much and often upon his host's

personal characteristics. These it was his difficult office to bring out from their depths, and interpret them to

all men, showing them what they could not discern for themselves, yet must be compelled to recognize at a

He had never undertaken a portraitbust which gave him so much trouble as Donatello's; not that there was

any special difficulty in hitting the likeness, though even in this respect the grace and harmony of the features

seemed inconsistent with a prominent expression of individuality; but he was chiefly perplexed how to make

this genial and kind type of countenance the index of the mind within. His acuteness and his sympathies,

indeed, were both somewhat at fault in their efforts to enlighten him as to the moral phase through which the

Count was now passing. If at one sitting he caught a glimpse of what appeared to be a genuine and permanent

trait, it would probably be less perceptible on a second occasion, and perhaps have vanished entirely at a

third. So evanescent a show of character threw the sculptor into despair; not marble or clay, but cloud and

vapor, was the material in which it ought to be represented. Even the ponderous depression which constantly

weighed upon Donatello's heart could not compel him into the kind of repose which the plastic art requires.

Hopeless of a good result, Kenyon gave up all preconceptions about the character of his subject, and let his

hands work uncontrolled with the clay, somewhat as a spiritual medium, while holding a pen, yields it to an

unseen guidance other than that of her own will. Now and then he fancied that this plan was destined to be

the successful one. A skill and insight beyond his consciousness seemed occasionally to take up the task. The

mystery, the miracle, of imbuing an inanimate substance with thought, feeling, and all the intangible

attributes of the soul, appeared on the verge of being wrought. And now, as he flattered himself, the true

image of his friend was about to emerge from the facile material, bringing with it more of Donatello's

character than the keenest observer could detect at any one moment in the face of the original Vain

expectation!some touch, whereby the artist thought to improve or hasten the result, interfered with the

design of his unseen spiritual assistant, and spoilt the whole. There was still the moist, brown clay, indeed,

and the features of Donatello, but without any semblance of intelligent and sympathetic life.

"The difficulty will drive me mad, I verily believe!" cried the sculptor nervously. "Look at the wretched piece

of work yourself, my dear friend, and tell me whether you recognize any manner of likeness to your inner

"None," replied Donatello, speaking the simple truth. "It is like looking a stranger in the face."

This frankly unfavorable testimony so wrought with the sensitive artist, that he fell into a passion with the

stubborn image, and cared not what might happen to it thenceforward. Wielding that wonderful power which

sculptors possess over moist clay, however refractory it may show itself in certain respects, he compressed,

elongated, widened, and otherwise altered the features of the bust in mere recklessness, and at every change

"Stop!" cried Donatello at last, catching the sculptor's hand. "Let it remain so!" By some accidental handling

of the clay, entirely independent of his own will, Kenyon had given the countenance a distorted and violent

look, combining animal fierceness with intelligent hatred. Had Hilda, or had Miriam, seen the bust, with the

expression which it had now assumed, they might have recognized Donatello's face as they beheld it at that

"What have I done?" said the sculptor, shocked at his own casual production. "It were a sin to let the clay

which bears your features harden into a look like that. Cain never wore an uglier one."

"For that very reason, let it remain!" answered the Count, who had grown pale as ashes at the aspect of his

crime, thus strangely presented to him in another of the many guises under which guilt stares the criminal in

the face. "Do not alter it! Chisel it, rather, in eternal marble! I will set it up in my oratory and keep it

continually before my eyes. Sadder and more horrible is a face like this, alive with my own crime, than the

But, without in the least heeding Donatello's remonstrances, the sculptor again applied his artful fingers to the

clay, and compelled the bust to dismiss the expression that had so startled them both.

"Believe me," said he, turning his eyes upon his friend, full of grave and tender sympathy, "you know not

what is requisite for your spiritual growth, seeking, as you do, to keep your soul perpetually in the

unwholesome region of remorse. It was needful for you to pass through that dark valley, but it is infinitely

dangerous to linger there too long; there is poison in the atmosphere, when we sit down and brood in it,

instead of girding up our loins to press onward. Not despondency, not slothful anguish, is what you now

require,but effort! Has there been an unalterable evil in your young life? Then crowd it out with good, or it

will lie corrupting there forever, and cause your capacity for better things to partake its noisome corruption!"

"You stir up many thoughts," said Donatello, pressing his hand upon his brow, "but the multitude and the

They now left the sculptor's temporary studio, without observing that his last accidental touches, with which

he hurriedly effaced the look of deadly rage, had given the bust a higher and sweeter expression than it had

hitherto worn. It is to be regretted that Kenyon had not seen it; for only an artist, perhaps, can conceive the

irksomeness, the irritation of brain, the depression of spirits, that resulted from his failure to satisfy himself,

after so much toil and thought as he had bestowed on Donatello's bust. In case of success, indeed, all this

thoughtful toil would have been reckoned, not only as well bestowed, but as among the happiest hours of his

life; whereas, deeming himself to have failed, it was just so much of life that had better never have been

lived; for thus does the good or ill result of his labor throw back sunshine or gloom upon the artist's mind.

The sculptor, therefore, would have done well to glance again at his work; for here were still the features of

the antique Faun, but now illuminated with a higher meaning, such as the old marble never bore.

Donatello having quitted him, Kenyon spent the rest of the day strolling about the pleasant precincts of

Monte Beni, where the summer was now so far advanced that it began, indeed, to partake of the ripe wealth

of autumn. Apricots had long been abundant, and had passed away, and plums and cherries along with them.

But now came great, juicy pears, melting and delicious, and peaches of goodly size and tempting aspect,

though cold and watery to the palate, compared with the sculptor's rich reminiscences of that fruit in

America. The purple figs had already enjoyed their day, and the white ones were luscious now. The contadini

(who, by this time, knew Kenyon well) found many clusters of ripe grapes for him, in every little globe of

Unexpectedly, in a nook close by the farmhouse, he happened upon a spot where the vintage had actually

commenced. A great heap of early ripened grapes had been gathered, and thrown into a mighty tub. In the

middle of it stood a lusty and jolly contadino, nor stood, merely, but stamped with all his might, and danced

amain; while the red juice bathed his feet, and threw its foam midway up his brown and shaggy legs. Here,

then, was the very process that shows so picturesquely in Scripture and in poetry, of treading out the

winepress and dyeing the feet and garments with the crimson effusion as with the blood of a battlefield. The

memory of the process does not make the Tuscan wine taste more deliciously. The contadini hospitably

offered Kenyon a sample of the new liquor, that had already stood fermenting for a day or two. He had tried a

similar draught, however, in years past, and was little inclined to make proof of it again; for he knew that it

would be a sour and bitter juice, a wine of woe and tribulation, and that the more a man drinks of such liquor,

The scene reminded the sculptor of our New England vintages, where the big piles of golden and rosy apples

lie under the orchard trees, in the mild, autumnal sunshine; and the creaking cidermill, set in motion by a

circumgyratory horse, is all agush with the luscious juice. To speak frankly, the cidermaking is the more

picturesque sight of the two, and the new, sweet cider an infinitely better drink than the ordinary, unripe

Tuscan wine. Such as it is, however, the latter fills thousands upon thousands of small, flat barrels, and, still

growing thinner and sharper, loses the little life it had, as wine, and becomes apotheosized as a more

Yet all these vineyard scenes, and the processes connected with the culture of the grape, had a flavor of

poetry about them. The toil that produces those kindly gifts of nature which are not the substance of life, but

its luxury, is unlike other toil. We are inclined to fancy that it does not bend the sturdy frame and stiffen the

overwrought muscles, like the labor that is devoted in sad, hard earnest to raise grain for sour bread.

Certainly, the sunburnt young men and darkcheeked, laughing girls, who weeded the rich acres of Monte

Beni, might well enough have passed for inhabitants of an unsophisticated Arcadia. Later in the season, when

the true vintage time should come, and the wine of Sunshine gush into the vats, it was hardly too wild a

dream that Bacchus himself might revisit the haunts which he loved of old. But, alas! where now would he

Donatello's remorseful anguish saddened this primitive and delightful life. Kenyon had a pain of his own,

moreover, although not all a pain, in the never quiet, never satisfied yearning of his heart towards Hilda. He

was authorized to use little freedom towards that shy maiden, even in his visions; so that he almost

reproached himself when sometimes his imagination pictured in detail the sweet years that they might spend

together, in a retreat like this. It had just that rarest quality of remoteness from the actual and ordinary world

B a remoteness through which all delights might visit them freely, sifted from all troubleswhich lovers so

reasonably insist upon, in their ideal arrangements for a happy union. It is possible, indeed, that even

Donatello's grief and Kenyon's pale, sunless affection lent a charm to Monte Beni, which it would not have

retained amid a more abundant joyousness. The sculptor strayed amid its vineyards and orchards, its dells and

tangled shrubberies, with somewhat the sensations of an adventurer who should find his way to the site of

ancient Eden, and behold its loveliness through the transparency of that gloom which has been brooding over

those haunts of innocence ever since the fall. Adam saw it in a brighter sunshine, but never knew the shade of

It was in the decline of the afternoon that Kenyon returned from his long, musing ramble, Old

Tomasobetween whom and himself for some time past there had been a mysterious understanding,met

"No; in the saloon beyond it," answered the butler: "the entrance you once saw the signorina appear through it

In an old Tuscan villa, a chapel ordinarily makes one among the numerous apartments; though it often

happens that the door is permanently closed, the key lost, and the place left to itself, in dusty sanctity, like

that chamber in man's heart where he hides his religious awe. This was very much the case with the chapel of

Monte Beni. One rainy day, however, in his wanderings through the great, intricate house, Kenyon had

unexpectedly found his way into it, and been impressed by its solemn aspect. The arched windows, high

upward in the wall, and darkened with dust and cobweb, threw down a dim light that showed the altar, with a

picture of a martyrdom above, and some tall tapers ranged before it. They had apparently been lighted, and

burned an hour or two, and been extinguished perhaps half a century before. The marble vase at the entrance

held some hardened mud at the bottom, accruing from the dust that had settled in it during the gradual

evaporation of the holy water; and a spider (being an insect that delights in pointing the moral of desolation

and neglect) had taken pains to weave a prodigiously thick tissue across the circular brim. An old family

banner, tattered by the moths, drooped from the vaulted roof. In niches there were some mediaeval busts of

Donatello's forgotten ancestry; and among them, it might be, the forlorn visage of that hapless knight between

Throughout all the jovial prosperity of Monte Beni, this one spot within the domestic walls had kept itself

silent, stern, and sad. When the individual or the family retired from song and mirth, they here sought those

realities which men do not invite their festive associates to share. And here, on the occasion above referred to,

the sculptor had discoveredaccidentally, so far as he was concerned, though with a purpose on her

partthat there was a guest under Donatello's roof, whose presence the Count did not suspect. An interview

He crossed the chapel, in compliance with Tomaso's instructions, and, passing through the side entrance,

found himself in a saloon, of no great size, but more magnificent than he had supposed the villa to contain.

As it was vacant, Kenyon had leisure to pace it once or twice, and examine it with a careless sort of scrutiny,

This beautiful hall was floored with rich marbles, in artistically arranged figures and compartments. The

walls, likewise, were almost entirely cased in marble of various kinds, the prevalent, variety being giallo

antico, intermixed with verdantique, and others equally precious. The splendor of the giallo antico,

however, was what gave character to the saloon; and the large and deep niches, apparently intended for full

length statues, along the walls, were lined with the same costly material. Without visiting Italy, one can have

no idea of the beauty and magnificence that are produced by these fittingsup of polished marble. Without

such experience, indeed, we do not even know what marble means, in any sense, save as the white limestone

of which we carve our mantelpieces. This rich hall of Monte Beni, moreover, was adorned, at its upper end,

with two pillars that seemed to consist of Oriental alabaster; and wherever there was a space vacant of

precious and variegated marble, it was frescoed with ornaments in arabesque. Above, there was a coved and

vaulted ceiling, glowing with pictured scenes, which affected Kenyon with a vague sense of splendor,

It is one of the special excellences of such a saloon of polished and richly colored marble, that decay can

never tarnish it. Until the house crumbles down upon it, it shines indestructibly, and, with a little dusting,

looks just as brilliant in its three hundredth year as the day after the final slab of giallo antico was fitted into

the wall. To the sculptor, at this first View of it, it seemed a hall where the sun was magically imprisoned,

and must always shine. He anticipated Miriam's entrance, arrayed in queenly robes, and beaming with even

While this thought was passing through his mind, the pillared door, at the upper end of the saloon, was partly

opened, and Miriam appeared. She was very pale, and dressed in deep mourning. As she advanced towards

the sculptor, the feebleness of her step was so apparent that he made haste to meet her, apprehending that she

But, with a gleam of her natural selfreliance, she declined his aid, and, after touching her cold hand to his,

went and sat down on one of the cushioned divans that were ranged against the wall.

"You are very ill, Miriam!" said Kenyon, much shocked at her appearance. "I had not thought of this."

"No; not so ill as I seem to you," she answered; adding despondently, "yet I am ill enough, I believe, to die,

"The disorder!" repeated Miriam. "There is none that I know of save too much life and strength, without a

purpose for one or the other. It is my too redundant energy that is slowlyor perhaps rapidlywearing me

away, because I can apply it to no use. The object, which I am bound to consider my only one on earth, fails

me utterly. The sacrifice which I yearn to make of myself, my hopes, my everything, is coldly put aside.

Nothing is left for me but to brood, brood, brood, all day, all night, in unprofitable longings and repinings."

"With all your activity of mind," resumed he, "so fertile in plans as I have known you, can you imagine no

"My mind is not active any longer," answered Miriam, in a cold, indifferent tone. "It deals with one thought

and no more. One recollection paralyzes it. It is not remorse; do not think it! I put myself out of the question,

and feel neither regret nor penitence on my own behalf. But what benumbs me, what robs me of all power,

it is no secret for a woman to tell a man, yet I care not though you know it, is the certainty that I am, and

The sculptora young man, and cherishing a love which insulated him from the wild experiences which

some men gatherwas startled to perceive how Miriam's rich, illregulated nature impelled her to fling

herself, conscience and all, on one passion, the object of which intellectually seemed far beneath her.

"How have you obtained the certainty of which you speak?" asked he, after a pause.

"O, by a sure token," said Miriam; "a gesture, merely; a shudder, a cold shiver, that ran through him one

She started, and a flush of color came tremulously over the paleness of her cheek.

"Yes," repeated Kenyon, "if my interest in Donatelloand in yourself, Miriamendows me with any true

insight, he not only loves you still, but with a force and depth proportioned to the stronger grasp of his

"Not for the world!" replied Kenyon. "Here is what I take to be the truth. There was an interval, no doubt,

when the horror of some calamity, which I need not shape out in my conjectures, threw Donatello into a

stupor of misery. Connected with the first shock there was an intolerable pain and shuddering repugnance

attaching themselves to all the circumstances and surroundings of the event that so terribly affected him. Was

his dearest friend involved within the horror of that moment? He would shrink from her as he shrank most of

all from himself. But as his mind roused itself,as it rose to a higher life than he had hitherto

experienced,whatever had been true and permanent within him revived by the selfsame impulse. So has it

"But, surely," said Miriam, "he knows that I am here! Why, then, except that I am odious to him, does he not

"He is, I believe, aware of your presence here," answered the sculptor. "Your song, a night or two ago, must

have revealed it to him, and, in truth, I had fancied that there was already a consciousness of it in his mind.

But, the more passionately he longs for your society, the more religiously he deems himself bound to avoid it.

The idea of a lifelong penance has taken strong possession of Donatello. He gropes blindly about him for

some method of sharp selftorture, and finds, of course, no other so efficacious as this."

"But he loves me," repeated Miriam, in a low voice, to herself. "Yes; he loves me!"

It was strange to observe the womanly softness that came over her, as she admitted that comfort into her

bosom. The cold, unnatural indifference of her manner, a kind of frozen passionateness which had shocked

and chilled the sculptor, disappeared. She blushed, and turned away her eyes, knowing that there was more

surprise and joy in their dewy glances than any man save one ought to detect there.

"A wonderful process is going forward in Donatello's mind," answered the sculptor. "The germs of faculties

that have heretofore slept are fast springing into activity. The world of thought is disclosing itself to his

inward sight. He startles me, at times, with his perception of deep truths; and, quite as often, it must be

owned, he compels me to smile by the intermixture of his former simplicity with a new intelligence. But he is

bewildered with the revelations that each day brings. Out of his bitter agony, a soul and intellect, I could

"Ah, I could help him here!" cried Miriam, clasping her hands. "And how sweet a toil to bend and adapt my

whole nature to do him good! To instruct, to elevate, to enrich his mind with the wealth that would flow in

upon me, had I such a motive for acquiring it! Who else can perform the task? Who else has the tender

sympathy which he requires? Who else, save only me,a woman, a sharer in the same dread secret, a

partaker in one identical guilt,could meet him on such terms of intimate equality as the case demands?

With this object before me, I might feel a right to live! Without it, it is a shame for me to have lived so long."

"Surely it is," replied Miriam. "If Donatello is entitled to aught on earth, it is to my complete selfsacrifice

for his sake. It does not weaken his claim, methinks, that my only prospect of happiness a fearful word,

however lies in the good that may accrue to him from our intercourse. But he rejects me! He will not listen to

the whisper of his heart, telling him that she, most wretched, who beguiled him into evil, might guide him to

a higher innocence than that from which he fell. How is this first great difficulty to be obviated?"

"It lies at your own option, Miriam, to do away the obstacle, at any moment," remarked the sculptor. "It is but

to ascend Donatello's tower, and you will meet him there, under the eye of God."

"No; for, as far as I can see into that cloudy and inscrutable thing, my heart, it has none but pure motives,"

replied Miriam. "But, my friend, you little know what a weak or what a strong creature a woman is! I fear not

Heaven, in this case, at least, butshall I confess it? I am greatly in dread of Donatello. Once he shuddered

Kenyon could not but marvel at the subjection into which this proud and selfdependent woman had willfully

flung herself, hanging her life upon the chance of an angry or favorable regard from a person who, a little

while before, had seemed the plaything of a moment. But, in Miriam's eyes, Donatello was always,

thenceforth, invested with the tragic dignity of their hour of crime; and, furthermore, the keen and deep

insight, with which her love endowed her, enabled her to know him far better than he could be known by

ordinary observation. Beyond all question, since she loved him so, there was a force in Donatello worthy of

"You see my weakness," said Miriam, flinging out her hands, as a person does when a defect is

acknowledged, and beyond remedy. "What I need, now, is an opportunity to show my strength."

"It has occurred to me," Kenyon remarked, "that the time is come when it may be desirable to remove

Donatello from the complete seclusion in which he buries himself. He has struggled long enough with one

idea. He now needs a variety of thought, which cannot be otherwise so readily supplied to him, as through the

medium of a variety of scenes. His mind is awakened, now; his heart, though full of pain, is no longer

benumbed. They should have food and solace. If he linger here much longer, I fear that he may sink back into

a lethargy. The extreme excitability, which circumstances have imparted to his moral system, has its dangers

and its advantages; it being one of the dangers, that an obdurate scar may supervene upon its very tenderness.

Solitude has done what it could for him; now, for a while, let him be enticed into the outer world."

"Simply," replied Kenyon, "to persuade Donatello to be my companion in a ramble among these hills and

valleys. The little adventures and vicissitudes of travel will do him infinite good. After his recent profound

experience, he will recreate the world by the new eyes with which he will regard it. He will escape, I hope,

"And what is to be my part in this process?" inquired Miriam sadly, and not without jealousy. "You are

taking him from me, and putting yourself, and all manner of living interests, into the place which I ought to

"It would rejoice me, Miriam, to yield the entire responsibility of this office to yourself," answered the

sculptor. "I do not pretend to be the guide and counsellor whom Donatello needs; for, to mention no other

obstacle, I am a man, and between man and man there is always an insuperable gulf. They can never quite

grasp each other's hands; and therefore man never derives any intimate help, any heart sustenance, from his

brother man, but from womanhis mother, his sister, or his wife. Be Donatello's friend at need, therefore,

"It is not kind to taunt me thus," said Miriam. "I have told you that I cannot do what you suggest, because I

"Well, then," rejoined the sculptor, "see if there is any possibility of adapting yourself to my scheme. The

incidents of a journey often fling people together in the oddest and therefore the most natural way. Supposing

you were to find yourself on the same route, a reunion with Donatello might ensue, and Providence have a

"It is not a hopeful plan," said Miriam, shaking her head, after a moment's thought; "yet I will not reject it

without a trial. Only in case it fail, here is a resolution to which I bind myself, come what come may! You

know the bronze statue of Pope Julius in the great square of Perugia? I remember standing in the shadow of

that statue one sunny noontime, and being impressed by its paternal aspect, and fancying that a blessing fell

upon me from its outstretched hand. Ever since, I have had a superstition, you will call it foolish, but sad and

illfated persons always dream such things,that, if I waited long enough in that same spot, some good

event would come to pass. Well, my friend, precisely a fortnight after you begin your tour, unless we

sooner meet,bring Donatello, at noon, to the base of the statue. You will find me there!"

Kenyon assented to the proposed arrangement, and, after some conversation respecting his contemplated line

of travel, prepared to take his leave. As he met Miriam's eyes, in bidding farewell, he was surprised at the

new, tender gladness that beamed out of them, and at the appearance of health and bloom, which, in this little

"May I tell you, Miriam," said he, smiling, "that you are still as beautiful as ever?"

"You have a right to notice it," she replied, "for, if it be so, my faded bloom has been revived by the hopes

you give me. Do you, then, think me beautiful? I rejoice, most truly. Beautyif I possess itshall be one of

the instruments by which I will try to educate and elevate him, to whose good I solely dedicate myself."

The sculptor had nearly reached the door, when, hearing her call him, he turned back, and beheld Miriam still

standing where he had left her, in the magnificent hall which seemed only a fit setting for her beauty. She

"You are a man of refined taste," said she; "more than that,a man of delicate sensibility. Now tell me

frankly, and on your honor! Have I not shocked you many times during this interview by my betrayal of

woman's cause, my lack of feminine modesty, my reckless, passionate, most indecorous avowal, that I live

Thus adjured, however difficult the point to which she brought him, the sculptor was not a man to swerve

"Miriam," replied he, "you exaggerate the impression made upon my mind; but it has been painful, and

"I knew it," said Miriam, mournfully, and with no resentment. "What remains of my finer nature would have

told me so, even if it had not been perceptible in all your manner. Well, my dear friend, when you go back to

Rome, tell Hilda what her severity has done! She was all womanhood to me; and when she cast me off, I had

no longer any terms to keep with the reserves and decorums of my sex. Hilda has set me free! Pray tell her so,

"I shall tell Hilda nothing that will give her pain," answered Kenyon. "But, Miriam, though I know not what

passed between her and yourself, I feel,and let the noble frankness of your disposition forgive me if I say

so,I feel that she was right. You have a thousand admirable qualities. Whatever mass of evil may have

fallen into your life, pardon me, but your own words suggest it,you are still as capable as ever of many

high and heroic virtues. But the white shining purity of Hilda's nature is a thing apart; and she is bound, by

the undefiled material of which God moulded her, to keep that severity which I, as well as you, have

"O, you are right!" said Miriam; "I never questioned it; though, as I told you, when she cast me off, it severed

some few remaining bonds between me and decorous womanhood. But were there anything to forgive, I do

forgive her. May you win her virgin heart; for methinks there can be few men in this evil world who are not

When it came to the point of quitting the reposeful life of Monte Beni, the sculptor was not without regrets,

and would willingly have dreamed a little longer of the sweet paradise on earth that Hilda's presence there

might make. Nevertheless, amid all its repose, he had begun to be sensible of a restless melancholy, to which

the cultivators of the ideal arts are more liable than sturdier men. On his own part, therefore, and leaving

Donatello out of the case, he would have judged it well to go. He made parting visits to the legendary dell,

and to other delightful spots with which he had grown familiar; he climbed the tower again, and saw a sunset

and a moonrise over the great valley; he drank, on the eve of his departure, one flask, and then another, of the

Monte Beni Sunshine, and stored up its flavor in his memory as the standard of what is exquisite in wine.

Donatello had not very easily been stirred out of the peculiar sluggishness, which enthralls and bewitches

melancholy people. He had offered merely a passive resistance, however, not an active one, to his friend's

schemes; and when the appointed hour came, he yielded to the impulse which Kenyon failed not to apply;

and was started upon the journey before he had made up his mind to undertake it. They wandered forth at

large, like two knightserrant, among the valleys, and the mountains, and the old mountain towns of that

picturesque and lovely region. Save to keep the appointment with Miriam, a fortnight thereafter, in the great

square of Perugia, there was nothing more definite in the sculptor's plan than that they should let themselves

be blown hither and thither like Winged seeds, that mount upon each wandering breeze. Yet there was an idea

of fatality implied in the simile of the winged seeds which did not altogether suit Kenyon's fancy; for, if you

look closely into the matter, it will be seen that whatever appears most vagrant, and utterly purposeless, turns

out, in the end, to have been impelled the most surely on a preordained and unswerving track. Chance and

change love to deal with men's settled plans, not with their idle vagaries. If we desire unexpected and

unimaginable events, we should contrive an iron framework, such as we fancy may compel the future to take

one inevitable shape; then comes in the unexpected, and shatters our design in fragments.

The travellers set forth on horseback, and purposed to perform much of their aimless journeyings under the

moon, and in the cool of the morning or evening twilight; the midday sun, while summer had hardly begun to

trail its departing skirts over Tuscany, being still too fervid to allow of noontide exposure.

For a while, they wandered in that same broad valley which Kenyon had viewed with such delight from the

Monte Beni tower. The sculptor soon began to enjoy the idle activity of their new life, which the lapse of a

day or two sufficed to establish as a kind of system; it is so natural for mankind to be nomadic, that a very

little taste of that primitive mode of existence subverts the settled habits of many preceding years. Kenyon's

cares, and whatever gloomy ideas before possessed him, seemed to be left at Monte Beni, and were scarcely

remembered by the time that its gray tower grew undistinguishable on the brown hillside. His perceptive

faculties, which had found little exercise of late, amid so thoughtful a way of life, became keen, and kept his

He delighted in the picturesque bits of rustic character and manners, so little of which ever comes upon the

surface of our life at home. There, for example, were the old women, tending pigs or sheep by the wayside.

As they followed the vagrant steps of their charge, these venerable ladies kept spinning yarn with that

elsewhere forgotten contrivance, the distaff; and so wrinkled and stern looking were they, that you might

have taken them for the Parcae, spinning the threads of human destiny. In contrast with their

greatgrandmothers were the children, leading goats of shaggy beard, tied by the horns, and letting them

browse on branch and shrub. It is the fashion of Italy to add the petty industry of age and childhood to the

hum of human toil. To the eyes of an observer from the Western world, it was a strange spectacle to see

sturdy, sunburnt creatures, in petticoats, but otherwise manlike, toiling side by side with male laborers, in the

rudest work of the fields. These sturdy women (if as such we must recognize them) wore the highcrowned,

broad brimmed hat of Tuscan straw, the customary female headapparel; and, as every breeze blew back its

breadth of brim, the sunshine constantly added depth to the brown glow of their cheeks. The elder sisterhood,

however, set off their witchlike ugliness to the worst advantage with black felt hats, bequeathed them, one

Another ordinary sight, as sylvan as the above and more agreeable, was a girl, bearing on her back a huge

bundle of green twigs and shrubs, or grass, intermixed with scarlet poppies and blue flowers; the verdant

burden being sometimes of such size as to hide the bearer's figure, and seem a selfmoving mass of fragrant

bloom and verdure. Oftener, however, the bundle reached only halfway down the back of the rustic nymph,

leaving in sight her welldeveloped lower limbs, and the crooked knife, hanging behind her, with which she

had been reaping this strange harvest sheaf. A preRaphaelite artist (he, for instance, who painted so

marvellously a windswept heap of autumnal leaves) might find an admirable subject in one of these Tuscan

girls, stepping with a free, erect, and graceful carriage. The miscellaneous herbage and tangled twigs and

blossoms of her bundle, crowning her head (while her ruddy, comely face looks out between the hanging side

festoons like a larger flower), would give the painter boundless scope for the minute delineation which he

Though mixed up with what was rude and earthlike, there was still a remote, dreamlike, Arcadian charm,

which is scarcely to be found in the daily toil of other lands. Among the pleasant features of the wayside were

always the vines, clambering on figtrees, or other sturdy trunks; they wreathed themselves in huge and rich

festoons from one tree to another, suspending clusters of ripening grapes in the interval between. Under such

careless mode of culture, the luxuriant vine is a lovelier spectacle than where it produces a more precious

liquor, and is therefore more artificially restrained and trimmed. Nothing can be more picturesque than an old

grapevine, with almost a trunk of its own, clinging fast around its supporting tree. Nor does the picture lack

its moral. You might twist it to more than one grave purpose, as you saw how the knotted, serpentine growth

imprisoned within its strong embrace the friend that had supported its tender infancy; and how (as seemingly

flexible natures are prone to do) it converted the sturdier tree entirely to its own selfish ends, extending its

innumerable arms on every bough, and permitting hardly a leaf to sprout except its own. It occurred to

Kenyon, that the enemies of the vine, in his native land, might here have seen an emblem of the remorseless

gripe, which the habit of vinous enjoyment lays upon its victim, possessing him wholly, and letting him live

The scene was not less characteristic when their path led the two wanderers through some small, ancient

town. There, besides the peculiarities of present life, they saw tokens of the life that had long ago been lived

and flung aside. The little town, such as we see in our mind's eye, would have its gate and its surrounding

walls, so ancient and massive that ages had not sufficed to crumble them away; but in the lofty upper portion

of the gateway, still standing over the empty arch, where there was no longer a gate to shut, there would be a

dovecote, and peaceful doves for the only warders. Pumpkins lay ripening in the open chambers of the

structure. Then, as for the town wall, on the outside an orchard extends peacefully along its base, full, not of

appletrees, but of those old humorists with gnarled trunks and twisted boughs, the olives. Houses have been

built upon the ramparts, or burrowed out of their ponderous foundation. Even the gray, martial towers,

crowned with ruined turrets, have been converted into rustic habitations, from the windows of which hang

ears of Indian corn. At a door, that has been broken through the massive stonework where it was meant to be

strongest, some contadini are winnowing grain. Small windows, too, are pierced through the whole line of

ancient wall, so that it seems a row of dwellings with one continuous front, built in a strange style of needless

strength; but remnants of the old battlements and machicolations are interspersed with the homely chambers

and earthentiled housetops; and all along its extent both grapevines and running flowershrubs are

Finally the long grass, intermixed with weeds and wild flowers, waves on the uppermost height of the

shattered rampart; and it is exceedingly pleasant in the golden sunshine of the afternoon to behold the warlike

precinct so friendly in its old days, and so overgrown with rural peace. In its guard rooms, its prison

chambers, and scooped out of its ponderous breadth, there are dwellings nowadays where happy human lives

are spent. Human parents and broods of children nestle in them, even as the swallows nestle in the little

Passing through the gateway of this same little town, challenged only by those watchful sentinels, the

pigeons, we find ourselves in a long, narrow street, paved from side to side with flagstones, in the old Roman

fashion. Nothing can exceed the grim ugliness of the houses, most of which are three or four stories high,

stone built, gray, dilapidated, or halfcovered with plaster in patches, and contiguous all along from end to

end of the town. Nature, in the shape of tree, shrub, or grassy sidewalk, is as much shut out from the one

street of the rustic village as from the heart of any swarming city. The dark and half ruinous habitations, with

their small windows, many of which are drearily closed with wooden shutters, are but magnified hovels, piled

story upon story, and squalid with the grime that successive ages have left behind them. It would be a hideous

scene to contemplate in a rainy day, or when no human life pervaded it. In the summer noon, however, it

possesses vivacity enough to keep itself cheerful; for all the withindoors of the village then bubbles over

upon the flagstones, or looks out from the small windows, and from here and there a balcony. Some of the

populace are at the butcher's shop; others are at the fountain, which gushes into a marble basin that resembles

an antique sarcophagus. A tailor is sewing before his door with a young priest seated sociably beside him; a

burly friar goes by with an empty winebarrel on his head; children are at play; women, at their own

doorsteps, mend clothes, embroider, weave hats of Tuscan straw, or twirl the distaff. Many idlers, meanwhile,

strolling from one group to another, let the warm day slide by in the sweet, interminable task of doing

From all these people there comes a babblement that seems quite disproportioned to the number of tongues

that make it. So many words are not uttered in a New England village throughout the yearexcept it be at a

political canvass or townmeetingas are spoken here, with no especial purpose, in a single day. Neither so

many words, nor so much laughter; for people talk about nothing as if they were terribly in earnest, and make

merry at nothing as if it were the best of all possible jokes. In so long a time as they have existed, and within

such narrow precincts, these little walled towns are brought into a closeness of society that makes them but a

larger household. All the inhabitants are akin to each, and each to all; they assemble in the street as their

common saloon, and thus live and die in a familiarity of intercourse, such as never can be known where a

village is open at either end, and all roundabout, and has ample room within itself.

Stuck up beside the door of one house, in this village street, is a withered bough; and on a stone seat, just

under the shadow of the bough, sits a party of jolly drinkers, making proof of the new wine, or quaffing the

old, as their oftentried and comfortable friend. Kenyon draws bridle here (for the bough, or bush, is a

symbol of the wineshop at this day in Italy, as it was three hundred years ago in England), and calls for a

goblet of the deep, mild, purple juice, well diluted with water from the fountain. The Sunshine of Monte Beni

would be welcome now. Meanwhile, Donatello has ridden onward, but alights where a shrine, with a burning

lamp before it, is built into the wall of an inn stable. He kneels and crosses himself, and mutters a brief

prayer, without attracting notice from the passersby, many of whom are parenthetically devout in a similar

fashion. By this time the sculptor has drunk off his wineandwater, and our two travellers resume their way,

Before them, again, lies the broad valley, with a mist so thinly scattered over it as to be perceptible only in

the distance, and most so in the nooks of the hills. Now that we have called it mist, it seems a mistake not

rather to have called it sunshine; the glory of so much light being mingled with so little gloom, in the airy

material of that vapor. Be it mist or sunshine, it adds a touch of ideal beauty to the scene, almost persuading

the spectator that this valley and those hills are visionary, because their visible atmosphere is so like the

Immediately about them, however, there were abundant tokens that the country was not really the paradise it

looked to be, at a casual glance. Neither the wretched cottages nor the dreary farmhouses seemed to partake

of the prosperity, with which so kindly a climate, and so fertile a portion of Mother Earth's bosom, should

have filled them, one and all. But possibly the peasant inhabitants do not exist in so grimy a poverty, and in

homes so comfortless, as a stranger, with his native ideas of those matters, would be likely to imagine. The

Italians appear to possess none of that emulative pride which we see in our New England villages, where

every householder, according to his taste and means, endeavors to make his homestead an ornament to the

grassy and elmshadowed wayside. In Italy there are no neat doorsteps and thresholds; no pleasant,

vinesheltered porches; none of those grassplots or smoothly shorn lawns, which hospitably invite the

imagination into the sweet domestic interiors of English life. Everything, however sunny and luxuriant may

be the scene around, is especially disheartening in the immediate neighborhood of an Italian home.

An artist, it is true, might often thank his stars for those old houses, so picturesquely timestained, and with the

plaster falling in blotches from the ancient brickwork. The prisonlike, ironbarred windows, and the wide

arched, dismal entrance, admitting on one hand to the stable, on the other to the kitchen, might impress him

as far better worth his pencil than the newly painted pine boxes, in whichif he be an Americanhis

countrymen live and thrive. But there is reason to suspect that a people are waning to decay and ruin the

moment that their life becomes fascinating either in the poet's imagination or the painter's eye.

As usual on Italian waysides, the wanderers passed great, black crosses, hung with all the instruments of the

sacred agony and passion: there were the crown of thorns, the hammer and nails, the pincers, the spear, the

sponge; and perched over the whole, the cock that crowed to St. Peter's remorseful conscience. Thus, while

the fertile scene showed the neverfailing beneficence of the Creator towards man in his transitory state,

these symbols reminded each wayfarer of the Saviour's infinitely greater love for him as an immortal spirit.

Beholding these consecrated stations, the idea seemed to strike Donatello of converting the otherwise aimless

journey into a penitential pilgrimage. At each of them he alighted to kneel and kiss the cross, and humbly

press his forehead against its foot; and this so invariably, that the sculptor soon learned to draw bridle of his

own accord. It may be, too, heretic as he was, that Kenyon likewise put up a prayer, rendered more fervent by

the symbols before his eyes, for the peace of his friend's conscience and the pardon of the sin that so

Not only at the crosses did Donatello kneel, but at each of the many shrines, where the Blessed Virgin in

frescofaded with sunshine and half washed out with showerslooked benignly at her worshipper; or

where she was represented in a wooden image, or a basrelief of plaster or marble, as accorded with the

means of the devout person who built, or restored from a mediaeval antiquity, these places of wayside

worship. They were everywhere: under arched niches, or in little penthouses with a brick tiled roof just large

enough to shelter them; or perhaps in some bit of old Roman masonry, the founders of which had died before

the Advent; or in the wall of a country inn or farmhouse; or at the midway point of a bridge; or in the shallow

cavity of a natural rock; or high upward in the deep cuts of the road. It appeared to the sculptor that Donatello

prayed the more earnestly and the more hopefully at these shrines, because the mild face of the Madonna

promised him to intercede as a tender mother betwixt the poor culprit and the awfulness of judgment.

It was beautiful to observe, indeed, how tender was the soul of man and woman towards the Virgin mother, in

recognition of the tenderness which, as their faith taught them, she immortally cherishes towards all human

souls. In the wirework screen 'before each shrine hung offerings of roses, or whatever flower was sweetest

and most seasonable; some already wilted and withered, some fresh with that very morning's dewdrops.

Flowers there were, too, that, being artificial, never bloomed on earth, nor would ever fade. The thought

occurred to Kenyon, that flowerpots with living plants might be set within the niches, or even that

rosetrees, and all kinds of flowering shrubs, might be reared under the shrines, and taught to twine and

wreathe themselves around; so that the Virgin should dwell within a bower of verdure, bloom, and fragrant

freshness, symbolizing a homage perpetually new. There are many things in the religious customs of these

people that seem good; many things, at least, that might be both good and beautiful, if the soul of goodness

and the sense of beauty were as much alive in the Italians now as they must have been when those customs

were first imagined and adopted. But, instead of blossoms on the shrub, or freshly gathered, with the

dewdrops on their leaves, their worship, nowadays, is best symbolized by the artificial flower.

The sculptor fancied, moreover (but perhaps it was his heresy that suggested the idea), that it would be of

happy influence to place a comfortable and shady seat beneath every wayside shrine. Then the weary and

sunscorched traveller, while resting himself under her protecting shadow, might thank the Virgin for her

hospitality. Nor, perchance, were he to regale himself, even in such a consecrated spot, with the fragrance of

a pipe, would it rise to heaven more offensively than the smoke of priestly incense. We do ourselves wrong,

and too meanly estimate the Holiness above us, when we deem that any act or enjoyment, good in itself, is

Whatever may be the iniquities of the papal system, it was a wise and lovely sentiment that set up the

frequent shrine and cross along the roadside. No wayfarer, bent on whatever worldly errand, can fail to be

reminded, at every mile or two, that this is not the business which most concerns him. The pleasureseeker is

silently admonished to look heavenward for a joy infinitely greater than he now possesses. The wretch in

temptation beholds the cross, and is warned that, if he yield, the Saviour's agony for his sake will have been

endured in vain. The stubborn criminal, whose heart has long been like a stone, feels it throb anew with dread

and hope; and our poor Donatello, as he went kneeling from shrine to cross, and from cross to shrine,

doubtless found an efficacy in these symbols that helped him towards a higher penitence.

Whether the young Count of Monte Beni noticed the fact, or no, there was more than one incident of their

journey that led Kenyon to believe that they were attended, or closely followed, or preceded, near at hand, by

some one who took an interest in their motions. As it were, the step, the sweeping garment, the faintly heard

breath, of an invisible companion, was beside them, as they went on their way. It was like a dream that had

strayed out of their slumber, and was haunting them in the daytime, when its shadowy substance could have

neither density nor outline, in the too obtrusive light. After sunset, it grew a little more distinct.

"On the left of that last shrine," asked the sculptor, as they rode, under the moon, "did you observe the figure

"I never looked that way," replied Donatello. "I was saying my own prayer. It was some penitent, perchance.

May the Blessed Virgin be the more gracious to the poor soul, because she is a woman."

After wide wanderings through the valley, the two travellers directed their course towards its boundary of

hills. Here, the natural scenery and men's modifications of it immediately took a different aspect from that of

the fertile and smiling plain. Not unfrequently there was a convent on the hillside; or, on some insulated

promontory, a mined castle, once the den of a robber chieftain, who was accustomed to dash down from his

commanding height upon the road that wound below. For ages back, the old fortress had been flinging down

Their road wound onward among the hills, which rose steep and lofty from the scanty level space that lay

between them. They continually thrust their great bulks before the wayfarers, as if grimly resolute to forbid

their passage, or closed abruptly behind them, when they still dared to proceed. A gigantic hill would set its

foot right down before them, and only at the last moment would grudgingly withdraw it, just far enough to let

them creep towards another obstacle. Adown these rough heights were visible the dry tracks of many a

mountain torrent that had lived a life too fierce and passionate to be a long one. Or, perhaps, a stream was yet

hurrying shyly along the edge of a far wider bed of pebbles and shelving rock than it seemed to need, though

not too wide for the swollen rage of which this shy rivulet was capable. A stone bridge bestrode it, the

ponderous arches of which were upheld and rendered indestructible by the weight of the very stones that

threatened to crush them down. Old Roman toil was perceptible in the foundations of that massive bridge; the

Threading these defiles, they would arrive at some immemorial city, crowning the high summit of a hill with

its cathedral, its many churches, and public edifices, all of Gothic architecture. With no more level ground

than a single piazza in the midst, the ancient town tumbled its crooked and narrow streets down the

mountainside, through arched passages and by steps of stone. The aspect of everything was awfully old;

older, indeed, in its effect on the imagination than Rome itself, because history does not lay its finger on these

forgotten edifices and tell us all about their origin. Etruscan princes may have dwelt in them. A thousand

years, at all events, would seem but a middle age for these structures. They are built of such huge, square

stones, that their appearance of ponderous durability distresses the beholder with the idea that they can never

fall,never crumble away, never be less fit than now for human habitation. Many of them may once have

been palaces, and still retain a squalid grandeur. But, gazing at them, we recognize how undesirable it is to

build the tabernacle of our brief lifetime out of permanent materials, and with a view to their being occupied

All towns should be made capable of purification by fire, or of decay, within each halfcentury. Otherwise,

they become the hereditary haunts of vermin and noisomeness, besides standing apart from the possibility of

such improvements as are constantly introduced into the rest of man's contrivances and accommodations. It is

beautiful, no doubt, and exceedingly satisfactory to some of our natural instincts, to imagine our far posterity

dwelling under the same rooftree as ourselves. Still, when people insist on building indestructible houses,

they incur, or their children do, a misfortune analogous to that of the Sibyl, when she obtained the grievous

boon of immortality. So we may build almost immortal habitations, it is true; but we cannot keep them from

growing old, musty, unwholesome, dreary,full of death scents, ghosts, and murder stains; in short, such

"You should go with me to my native country," observed the sculptor to Donatello. "In that fortunate land,

each generation has only its own sins and sorrows to bear. Here, it seems as if all the weary and dreary Past

were piled upon the back of the Present. If I were to lose my spirits in this country,if I were to suffer any

heavy misfortune here,methinks it would be impossible to stand up against it, under such adverse

"The sky itself is an old roof, now," answered the Count; "and, no doubt, the sins of mankind have made it

gloomier than it used to be." "O, my poor Faun," thought Kenyon to himself, "how art thou changed!"

A city, like this of which we speak, seems a sort of stony growth out of the hillside, or a fossilized town; so

ancient and strange it looks, without enough of life and juiciness in it to be any longer susceptible of decay.

An earthquake would afford it the only chance of being ruined, beyond its present ruin.

Yet, though dead to all the purposes for which we live today, the place has its glorious recollections, and not

merely rude and warlike ones, but those of brighter and milder triumphs, the fruits of which we still enjoy.

Italy can count several of these lifeless towns which, four or five hundred years ago, were each the birthplace

of its own school of art; nor have they yet forgotten to be proud of the dark old pictures, and the faded

frescos, the pristine beauty of which was a light and gladness to the world. But now, unless one happens to be

a painter, these famous works make us miserably desperate. They are poor, dim ghosts of what, when Giotto

or Cimabue first created them, threw a splendor along the stately aisles; so far gone towards nothingness, in

our day, that scarcely a hint of design or expression can glimmer through the dusk. Those early artists did

well to paint their frescos. Glowing on the churchwalls, they might be looked upon as symbols of the living

spirit that made Catholicism a true religion, and that glorified it as long as it retained a genuine life; they

filled the transepts with a radiant throng of saints and angels, and threw around the high altar a faint

reflectionas much as mortals could see, or bearof a Diviner Presence. But now that the colors are so

wretchedly bedimmed,now that blotches of plastered wall dot the frescos all over, like a mean reality

thrusting itself through life's brightest illusions,the next best artist to Cimabue or Giotto or Ghirlandaio or

Pinturicchio will be he that shall reverently cover their ruined masterpieces with whitewash!

Kenyon, however, being an earnest student and critic of Art, lingered long before these pathetic relics; and

Donatello, in his present phase of penitence, thought no time spent amiss while he could be kneeling before

an altar. Whenever they found a cathedral, therefore, or a Gothic church, the two travellers were of one mind

to enter it. In some of these holy edifices they saw pictures that time had not dimmed nor injured in the least,

though they perhaps belonged to as old a school of Art as any that were perishing around them. These were

the painted windows; and as often as he gazed at them the sculptor blessed the medieval time, and its

gorgeous contrivances of splendor; for surely the skill of man has never accomplished, nor his mind

It is the special excellence of pictured glass, that the light, which falls merely on the outside of other pictures,

is here interfused throughout the work; it illuminates the design, and invests it with a living radiance; and in

requital the unfading colors transmute the common daylight into a miracle of richness and glory in its passage

through the heavenly substance of the blessed and angelic shapes which throng the higharched window.

"It is a woeful thing," cried Kenyon, while one of these frail yet enduring and fadeless pictures threw its hues

on his face, and on the pavement of the church around him,"a sad necessity that any Christian soul should

pass from earth without once seeing an antique painted window, with the bright Italian sunshine glowing

through it! There is no other such true symbol of the glories of the better world, where a celestial radiance

will be inherent in all things and persons, and render each continually transparent to the sight of all."

"But what a horror it would be," said Donatello sadly, "if there were a soul among them through which the

"Yes; and perhaps this is to be the punishment of sin," replied the sculptor; "not that it shall be made evident

to the universe, which can profit nothing by such knowledge, but that it shall insulate the sinner from all

sweet sodety by rendering him impermeable to light, and, therefore, unrecognizable in the abode of heavenly

simplicity and truth. Then, what remains for him, but the dreariness of infinite and eternal solitude?"

His voice as he spoke the words had a hollow and dreary cadence, as if he anticipated some such frozen

solitude for himself. A figure in a dark robe was lurking in the obscurity of a side chapel close by, and made

"But there might be a more miserable torture than to be solitary forever," said he. "Think of having a single

companion in eternity, and instead of finding any consolation, or at all events variety of torture, to see your

"I think, my dear Count, you have never read Dante," observed Kenyon. "That idea is somewhat in his style,

The darkrobed figure had shrunk back, and was quite lost to sight among the shadows of the chapel.

"There was an English poet," resumed Kenyon, turning again towards the window, "who speaks of the 'dim,

religious light,' transmitted through painted glass. I always admired this richly descriptive phrase; but, though

he was once in Italy, I question whether Milton ever saw any but the dingy pictures in the dusty windows of

English cathedrals, imperfectly shown by the gray English daylight. He would else have illuminated that

word 'dim' with some epithet that should not chase away the dimness, yet should make it glow like a million

of rubies, sapphires, emeralds, and topazes. Is it not so with yonder window? The pictures are most brilliant

in themselves, yet dim with tenderness and reverence, because God himself is shining through them."

"The pictures fill me with emotion, but not such as you seem to experience," said Donatello. "I tremble at

those awful saints; and, most of all, at the figure above them. He glows with Divine wrath!"

"My dear friend," said Kenyon, "how strangely your eyes have transmuted the expression of the figure! It is

"To my eyes," said Donatello stubbornly, "it is wrath, not love! Each must interpret for himself."

The friends left the church, and looking up, from the exterior, at the window which they had just been

contemplating within, nothing; was visible but the merest outline of dusky shapes, Neither the individual

likeness of saint, angel, nor Saviour, and far less the combined scheme and purport of the picture, could

anywise be made out. That miracle of radiant art, thus viewed, was nothing better than an incomprehensible

obscurity, without a gleam of beauty to induce the beholder to attempt unravelling it.

"All this," thought the sculptor, "is a most forcible emblem of the different aspect of religious truth and

sacred story, as viewed from the warm interior of belief, or from its cold and dreary outside. Christian faith is

a grand cathedral, with divinely pictured windows. Standing without, you see no glory, nor can possibly

imagine any; standing within, every ray of light reveals a harmony of unspeakable splendors."

After Kenyon and Donatello emerged from the church, however, they had better opportunity for acts of

charity and mercy than for religious contemplation; being immediately surrounded by a swarm of beggars,

who are the present possessors of Italy, and share the spoil of the stranger with the fleas and mosquitoes, their

formidable allies. These peststhe human oneshad hunted the two travellers at every stage of their

journey. From village to village, ragged boys and girls kept almost under the horses' feet; hoary grandsires

and grandames caught glimpses of their approach, and hobbled to intercept them at some point of vantage;

blind men stared them out of countenance with their sightless orbs; women held up their unwashed babies;

cripples displayed their wooden legs, their grievous scars, their dangling, boneless arms, their broken backs,

their burden of a hump, or whatever infirmity or deformity Providence had assigned them for an inheritance.

On the highest mountain summitin the most shadowy ravinethere was a beggar waiting for them. In one

small village, Kenyon had the curiosity to count merely how many children were crying, whining, and

bellowing ail at once for alms. They proved to be more than forty of as ragged and dirty little imps as any in

the world; besides whom, all the wrinkled matrons, and most of the village maids, and not a few stalwart

men, held out their hands grimly, piteously, or smilingly in the forlorn hope of whatever trifle of coin might

remain in pockets already so fearfully taxed. Had they been permitted, they would gladly have knelt down

and worshipped the travellers, and have cursed them, without rising from their knees, if the expected boon

Yet they were not so miserably poor but that the grown people kept houses over their heads.

In the way of food, they had, at least, vegetables in their little gardens, pigs and chickens to kill, eggs to fry

into omelets with oil, wine to drink, and many other things to make life comfortable. As for the children,

when no more small coin appeared to be forthcoming, they began to laugh and play, and turn heels over head,

showing themselves jolly and vivacious brats, and evidently as well fed as needs be. The truth is, the Italian

peasantry look upon strangers as the almoners of Providence, and therefore feel no more shame in asking and

receiving alms, than in availing themselves of providential bounties in whatever other form.

In accordance with his nature, Donatello was always exceedingly charitable to these ragged battalions, and

appeared to derive a certain consolation from the prayers which many of them put up in his behalf. In Italy a

copper coin of minute value will often make all the difference between a vindictive cursedeath by

apoplexy being the favorite one mumbled in an old witch's toothless jaws, and a prayer from the same lips,

so earnest that it would seem to reward the charitable soul with at least a puff of grateful breath to help him

heavenward. Good wishes being so cheap, though possibly not very efficacious, and anathemas so

exceedingly bitter,even if the greater portion of their poison remain in the mouth that utters them,it may

be wise to expend some reasonable amount in the purchase of the former. Donatello invariably did so; and as

he distributed his alms under the pictured window, of which we have been speaking, no less than seven

"Come," said the sculptor, rejoicing at the happier expression which he saw in his friend's face. "I think your

steed will not stumble with you today. Each of these old dames looks as much like Horace's Atra Cura as

can well be conceived; but, though there are seven of them, they will make your burden on horseback lighter

"A tolerable journey betwixt now and tomorrow noon," Kenyon replied; "for, at that hour, I purpose to be

Perugia, on its lofty hilltop, was reached by the two travellers before the sun had quite kissed away the early

freshness of the morning. Since midnight, there had been a heavy, rain, bringing infinite refreshment to the

scene of verdure and fertility amid which this ancient civilization stands; insomuch that Kenyon loitered,

when they came to the gray city wall, and was loath to give up the prospect of the sunny wilderness that lay

below. It was as green as England, and bright as Italy alone. There was all the wide valley, sweeping down

and spreading away on all sides from the weed grown ramparts, and bounded afar by mountains, which lay

asleep in the sun, with thin mists and silvery clouds floating about their heads by way of morning dreams.

"It lacks still two hours of noon," said the sculptor to his friend, as they stood under the arch of the gateway,

waiting for their passports to be examined; "will you come with me to see some admirable frescos by

Perugino? There is a hall in the Exchange, of no great magnitude, but covered with what must have beenat

the time it was paintedsuch magnificence and beauty as the world had not elsewhere to show."

"It depresses me to look at old frescos," responded the Count; "it is a pain, yet not enough of a pain to answer

"Will you look at some pictures by Fra Angelico in the Church of San Domenico?" asked Kenyon; "they are

full of religious sincerity, When one studies them faithfully, it is like holding a conversation about heavenly

"You have shown me some of Fra Angelico's pictures, I remember," answered Donatello; "his angels look as

if they had never taken a flight out of heaven; and his saints seem to have been born saints, and always to

have lived so. Young maidens, and all innocent persons, I doubt not, may find great delight and profit in

"Your criticism, I fancy, has great moral depth," replied Kenyon; "and I see in it the reason why Hilda so

highly appreciates Fra Angelico's pictures. Well; we will let all such matters pass for today, and stroll about

They wandered to and fro, accordingly, and lost themselves among the strange, precipitate passages, which,

in Perugia, are called streets, Some of them are like caverns, being arched all over, and plunging down

abruptly towards an unknown darkness; which, when you have fathomed its depths, admits you to a daylight

that you scarcely hoped to behold again. Here they met shabby men, and the careworn wives and mothers of

the people, some of whom guided children in leading strings through those dim and antique thoroughfares,

where a hundred generations had passed before the little feet of today began to tread them. Thence they

climbed upward again, and came to the level plateau, on the summit of the hill, where are situated the grand

It happened to be market day in Perugia. The great square, therefore, presented a far more vivacious spectacle

than would have been witnessed in it at any other time of the week, though not so lively as to overcome the

gray solemnity of the architectural portion of the scene. In the shadow of the cathedral and other old Gothic

structuresseeking shelter from the sunshine that fell across the rest of the piazzawas a crowd of people,

engaged as buyers or sellers in the petty traffic of a country fair. Dealers had erected booths and stalls on the

pavement, and overspread them with scanty awnings, beneath which they stood, vociferously crying their

merchandise; such as shoes, hats and caps, yarn stockings, cheap jewelry and cutlery, books, chiefly little

volumes of a religious Character, and a few French novels; toys, tinware, old iron, cloth, rosaries of beads,

crucifixes, cakes, biscuits, sugarplums, and innumerable little odds and ends, which we see no object in

advertising. Baskets of grapes, figs, and pears stood on the ground. Donkeys, bearing panniers stuffed out

with kitchen vegetables, and requiring an ample roadway, roughly shouldered aside the throng.

Crowded as the square was, a juggler found room to spread out a white cloth upon the pavement, and cover it

with cups, plates, balls, cards, w the whole material of his magic, in short,wherewith he proceeded to work

miracles under the noonday sun. An organ grinder at one point, and a clarion and a flute at another,

accomplished what their could towards filling the wide space with tuneful noise, Their small uproar,

however, was nearly drowned by the multitudinous voices of the people, bargaining, quarrelling, laughing,

and babbling copiously at random;. for the briskness of the mountain atmosphere, or some other cause, made

everybody so loquacious, that more words were wasted in Perugia on this one market day, than the noisiest

Through all this petty tumult, which kept beguiling one's eyes and upper strata of thought, it was delightful to

catch glimpses of the grand old architecture that stood around the square. The life of the flitting moment,

existing in the antique shell of an age gone by, has a fascination which we do not find in either the past or

present, taken by themselves. It might seem irreverent to make the gray cathedral and the tall, timeworn

palaces echo back the exuberant vociferation of the market; but they did so, and caused the sound to assume a

kind of poetic rhythm, and themselves looked only the more majestic for their condescension.

On one side, there was an immense edifice devoted to public purposes, with an antique gallery, and a range of

arched and stonemullioned windows, running along its front; and by way of entrance it had a central Gothic

arch, elaborately wreathed around with sculptured semicircles, within which the spectator was aware of a

stately and impressive gloom. Though merely the municipal councilhouse and exchange of a decayed

country town, this structure was worthy to have held in one portion of it the parliament hall of a nation, and

in the other, the state apartments of its ruler. On another side of the square rose the mediaeval front of the

cathedral, where the imagination of a Gothic architect had long ago flowered out indestructibly, in the first

place, a grand design, and then covering it with such abundant detail of ornament, that the magnitude of the

work seemed less a miracle than its minuteness. You would suppose that he must have softened the stone into

wax, until his most delicate fancies were modelled in the pliant material, and then had hardened it into stone

again. The whole was a vast, blackletter page of the richest and quaintest poetry. In fit keeping with all this

old magnificence was a great marble fountain, where again the Gothic imagination showed its overflow and

gratuity of device in the manifold sculptures which it lavished as freely as the water did its shifting shapes.

Besides the two venerable structures which we have described, there were lofty palaces, perhaps of as old a

date, rising story above Story, and adorned with balconies, whence, hundreds of years ago, the princely

occupants had been accustomed to gaze down at the sports, business, and popular assemblages of the piazza.

And, beyond all question, they thus witnessed the erection of a bronze statue, which, three centuries since,

"I never come to Perugia, said Kenyon, "without spending as much time as I can spare in studying yonder

statue of Pope Julius the Third. Those sculptors of the Middle Age have fitter lessons for the professors of my

art than we can find in the Grecian masterpieces. They belong to our Christian civilization; and, being earnest

works, they always express something which we do not get from the antique. Will you look at it?"

"Willingly," replied the Count, "for I see, even so far off, that the statue is bestowing a benediction, and there

Remembering the similar idea which Miriam a short time before had expressed, the sculptor smiled hopefully

at the coincidence. They made their way through the throng of the market place, and approached close to the

It was the figure of a pope, arrayed in his pontifical robes, and crowned with the tiara. He sat in a bronze

chair, elevated high above the pavement, and seemed to take kindly yet authoritative cognizance of the busy

scene which was at that moment passing before his eye. His right hand was raised and spread abroad, as if in

the act of shedding forth a benediction, which every manso broad, so wise, and so serenely affectionate

was the bronze pope's regardmight hope to feel quietly descending upon the need, or the distress, that he

had closest at his heart. The statue had life and observation in it, as well as patriarchal majesty. An

imaginative spectator could not but be impressed with the idea that this benignly awful representative of

divine and human authority might rise from his brazen chair, should any great public exigency demand his

interposition, and encourage or restrain the people by his gesture, or even by prophetic utterances worthy of

And in the long, calm intervals, amid the quiet lapse of ages, the pontiff watched the daily turmoil around his

seat, listening with majestic patience to the market cries, and all the petty uproar that awoke the echoes of the

stately old piazza. He was the enduring friend of these men, and of their forefathers and children, the familiar

"The pope's blessing, methinks, has fallen upon you," observed the sculptor, looking at his friend.

In truth, Donatello's countenance indicated a healthier spirit than while he was brooding in his melancholy

tower. The change of scene, the breaking up of custom, the fresh flow of incidents, the sense of being

homeless, and therefore free, had done something for our poor Faun; these circumstances had at least

promoted a reaction, which might else have been slower in its progress. Then, no doubt, the bright day, the

gay spectacle of the market place, and the sympathetic exhilaration of so many people's cheerfulness, had

each their suitable effect on a temper naturally prone to be glad. Perhaps, too, he was magnetically conscious

of a presence that formerly sufficed to make him happy. Be the cause what it might, Donatello's eyes shone

with a serene and hopeful expression while looking upward at the bronze pope, to whose widely diffused

"Yes, my dear friend," said he, in reply to the sculptor's remark," I feel the blessing upon my spirit."

"It is wonderful," said Kenyon, with a smile, "wonderful and delightful to think how long a good man's

beneficence may be potent, even after his death. How great, then, must have been the efficacy of this

"I have heard," remarked the Count, "that there was a brazen image set up in the wilderness, the sight of

which healed the Israelites of their poisonous and rankling wounds. If it be the Blessed Virgin's pleasure, why

should not this holy image before us do me equal good? A wound has long been rankling in my soul, and

"I did wrong to smile," answered Kenyon. "It is not for me to limit Providence in its operations on man's

While they stood talking, the clock in the neighboring cathedral told the hour, with twelve reverberating

strokes, which it flung down upon the crowded market place, as if warning one and all to take advantage of

the bronze pontiff's benediction, or of Heaven's blessing, however proffered, before the opportunity were lost.

When the last of the twelve strokes had fallen from the cathedral clock, Kenyon threw his eyes over the busy

scene of the market place, expecting to discern Miriam somewhere in the 'crowd. He looked next towards the

cathedral itself, where it was reasonable to imagine that she might have taken shelter, while awaiting her

appointed time. Seeing no trace of her in either direction, his eyes came back from their quest somewhat

disappointed, and rested on a figure which was leaning, like Donatello and himself, on the iron balustrade

It was the figure of a woman, with her head bowed on her hands, as if she deeply feltwhat we have been

endeavoring to convey into our feeble descriptionthe benign and aweinspiring influence which the

pontiff's statue exercises upon a sensitive spectator. No matter though it were modelled for a Catholic chief

priest, the desolate heart, whatever be its religion, recognizes in that image the likeness of a father.

"It is I," she replied; "I am faithful to my engagement, though with many fears." She lifted her head, and

revealed to Kenyonrevealed to Donatello likewisethe wellremembered features of Miriam. They were

pale and worn, but distinguished even now, though less gorgeously, by a beauty that might be imagined

bright enough to glimmer with its own light in a dim cathedral aisle, and had no need to shrink from the

severer test of the midday sun. But she seemed tremulous, and hardly able to go through with a scene which

"You are most welcome, Miriam!" said the sculptor, seeking to afford her the encouragement which he saw

she so greatly required. "I have a hopeful trust that the result of this interview will be propitious. Come; let

"No, Kenyon, no!" whispered Miriam, shrinking back; "unless of his own accord he speaks my

name,unless he bids me stay,no word shall ever pass between him and me. It is not that I take upon me

to be proud at this late hour. Among other feminine qualities, I threw away my pride when Hilda cast me

"If not pride, what else restrains you?" Kenyon asked, a little angry at her unseasonable scruples, and also at

this halfcomplaining reference to Hilda's just severity. "After daring so much, it is no time for fear! If we let

him part from you without a word, your opportunity of doing him inestimable good is lost forever."

"True; it will be lost forever!" repeated Miriam sadly. "But, dear friend, will it be my fault? I willingly fling

my woman's pride at his feet. Butdo you not see?his heart must be left freely to its own decision

whether to recognize me, because on his voluntary choice depends the whole question whether my devotion

will do him good or harm. Except he feel an infinite need of me, I am a burden and fatal obstruction to him!"

"Take your own course, then, Miriam," said Kenyon; "and, doubtless, the crisis being what it is, your spirit is

While the foregoing words passed between them they had withdrawn a little from the immediate vicinity of

the statue, so as to be out of Donatello's hearing. Still, however, they were beneath the pontiff's outstretched

hand; and Miriam, with her beauty and her sorrow, looked up into his benignant face, as if she had come

Meanwhile, she had not stood thus long in the public square of Perugia, without attracting the observation of

many eyes. With their quick sense of beauty, these Italians had recognized her loveliness, and spared not to

take their fill of gazing at it; though their native gentleness and courtesy made their homage far less obtrusive

than that of Germans, French, or AngloSaxons might have been. It is not improbable that Miriam had

planned this momentous interview, on so public a spot and at high noon, with an eye to the sort of protection

that would be thrown over it by a multitude of eyewitnesses. In circumstances of profound feeling and

passion, there is often a sense that too great a seclusion cannot be endured; there is an indefinite dread of

being quite alone with the object of our deepest interest. The species of solitude that a crowd harbors within

itself is felt to be preferable, in certain conditions of the heart, to the remoteness of a desert or the depths of

an untrodden wood. Hatred, love, or whatever kind of too intense emotion, or even indifference, where

emotion has once been, instinctively seeks to interpose some barrier between itself and the corresponding

passion in another breast. This, we suspect, was what Miriam had thought of, in coming to the thronged

piazza; partly this, and partly, as she said, her superstition that the benign statue held good influences in store.

But Donatello remained leaning against the balustrade. She dared not glance towards him, to see whether he

were pale and agitated, or calm as ice. Only, she knew that the moments were fleetly lapsing away, and that

his heart must call her soon, or the voice would never reach her. She turned quite away from him and spoke

"I have wished to meet you," said she, "for more than one reason. News has come to me respecting a dear

friend of ours. Nay, not of mine! I dare not call her a friend of mine, though once the dearest."

"Do you speak of Hilda?" exclaimed Kenyon, with quick alarm. "Has anything befallen her? When I last

"Hilda remains in Rome," replied Miriam, "nor is she ill as regards physical health, though much depressed in

spirits. She lives quite alone in her dovecote; not a friend near her, not one in Rome, which, you know, is

deserted by all but its native inhabitants. I fear for her health, if she continue long in such solitude, with

despondency preying on her mind. I tell you this, knowing the interest which the rare beauty of her character

"I will go to Rome!" said the sculptor, in great emotion. "Hilda has never allowed me to manifest more than a

friendly regard; but, at least, she cannot prevent my watching over her at a humble distance. I will set out this

"Do not leave us now!" whispered Miriam imploringly, and laying her hand on his arm. "One moment more!

Though but a single word, and the first that he had spoken, its tone was a warrant of the sad and tender depth

from which it came. It told Miriam things of infinite importance, and, first of all, that he still loved her. The

sense of their mutual crime had stunned, but not destroyed, the vitality of his affection; it was therefore

indestructible. That tone, too, bespoke an altered and deepened character; it told of a vivified intellect, and of

spiritual instruction that had come through sorrow and remorse; so that instead of the wild boy, the thing of

sportive, animal nature, the sylvan Faun, here was now the man of feeling and intelligence.

She turned towards him, while his voice still reverberated in the depths of her soul.

"Because my deepest heart has need of you!" he replied. "Forgive, Miriam, the coldness, the hardness with

"Alas! and it was I that brought it on you," said she. "What repentance, what selfsacrifice, can atone for that

infinite wrong? There was something so sacred in the innocent and joyous life which you were leading! A

happy person is such an unaccustomed and holy creature in this sad world! And, encountering so rare a being,

and gifted with the power of sympathy with his sunny life, it was my doom, mine, to bring him within the

limits of sinful, sorrowful mortality! Bid me depart, Donatello! Fling me off! No good, through my agency,

"Miriam," said he, "our lot lies together. Is it not so? Tell me, in Heaven's name, if it be otherwise."

Donatello's conscience was evidently perplexed with doubt, whether the communion of a crime, such as they

two were jointly stained with, ought not to stifle all the instinctive motions of their hearts, impelling them one

towards the other. Miriam, on the other hand, remorsefully questioned with herself whether the misery,

already accruing from her influence, should not warn her to withdraw from his path. In this momentous

interview, therefore, two souls were groping for each other in the darkness of guilt and sorrow, and hardly

"It seems irreverent," said he, at length; "intrusive, if not irreverent, for a third person to thrust himself

between the two solely concerned in a crisis like the present. Yet, possibly as a bystander, though a deeply

interested one, I may discern somewhat of truth that is hidden from you both; nay, at least interpret or suggest

"Speak!" said Miriam. "We confide in you." "Speak!" said Donatello. "You are true and upright."

"I well know," rejoined Kenyon, "that I shall not succeed in uttering the few, deep words which, in this

matter, as in all others, include the absolute truth. But here, Miriam, is one whom a terrible misfortune has

begun to educate; it has taken him, and through your agency, out of a wild and happy state, which, within

circumscribed limits, gave him joys that he cannot elsewhere find on earth. On his behalf, you have incurred

a responsibility which you cannot fling aside. And here, Donatello, is one whom Providence marks out as

intimately connected with your destiny. The mysterious process, by which our earthly life instructs us for

another state of being, was begun for you by her. She has rich gifts of heart and mind, a suggestive power, a

magnetic influence, a sympathetic knowledge, which, wisely and religiously exercised, are what your

condition needs. She possesses what you require, and, with utter self devotion, will use it for your good. The

bond betwixt you, therefore, is a true one, and neverexcept by Heaven's own actshould be rent asunder."

"But take heed," resumed the sculptor, anxious not to violate the integrity of his own conscience, "take heed;

for you love one another, and yet your bond is twined with such black threads that you must never look upon

it as identical with the ties that unite other loving souls. It is for mutual support; it is for one another's final

good; it is for effort, for sacrifice, but not for earthly happiness. If such be your motive, believe me, friends, it

were better to relinquish each other's hands at this sad moment. There would be no holy sanction on your

"None," repeated Miriam, also shuddering. "Unitedmiserably entangled with me, ratherby a bond of

guilt, our union might be for eternity, indeed, and most intimate;but, through all that endless duration, I

"Not for earthly bliss, therefore," said Kenyon, "but for mutual elevation, and encouragement towards a

severe and painful life, you take each other's hands. And if, out of toil, sacrifice, prayer, penitence, and

earnest effort towards right things, there comes at length a sombre and thoughtful, happiness, taste it, and

thank Heaven! So that you live not for it,so that it be a wayside flower, springing along a path that leads to

higher ends,it will be Heaven's gracious gift, and a token that it recognizes your union here below."

"Have you no more to say?" asked Miriam earnestly. "There is matter of sorrow and lofty consolation

"Only this, dear Miriam," said the sculptor; "if ever in your lives the highest duty should require from either

of you the sacrifice of the other, meet the occasion without shrinking. This is all."

While Kenyon spoke, Donatello had evidently taken in the ideas which he propounded, and had ennobled

them by the sincerity of his reception. His aspect unconsciously assumed a dignity, which, elevating his

former beauty, accorded with the change that had long been taking place in his interior self. He was a man,

revolving grave and deep thoughts in his breast. He still held Miriam's hand; and there they stood, the

beautiful man, the beautiful woman, united forever, as they felt, in the presence of these thousand

eyewitnesses, who gazed so curiously at the unintelligible scene. Doubtless the crowd recognized them as

lovers, and fancied this a betrothal that was destined to result in lifelong happiness. And possibly it might be

so. Who can tell where happiness may come; or where, though an expected guest, it may never show its face?

Perhapsshy, subtle thingit had crept into this sad marriage bond, when the partners would have trembled

"Farewell!" said Donatello too. "May you be happy. You have no guilt to make you shrink from happiness."

At this moment it so chanced that all the three friends by one impulse glanced upward at the statue of Pope

Julius; and there was the majestic figure stretching out the hand of benediction over them, and bending down

upon this guilty and repentant pair its visage of grand benignity. There is a singular effect oftentimes when,

of the midst of engrossing thought and deep absorption, we suddenly look up, and catch a glimpse of external

objects. We seem at such moments to look farther and deeper into them, than by any premeditated

observation; it is as if they met our eyes alive, and with all their hidden meaning on the surface, but grew

again inanimate and inscrutable the instant that they became aware of our glances. So now, at that unexpected

glimpse, Miriam, Donatello, and the sculptor, all three imagined that they beheld the bronze pontiff endowed

with spiritual life. A blessing was felt descending upon them from his outstretched hand; he approved by look

When we have once known Rome, and left her where she lies, like a longdecaying corpse, retaining a trace

of the noble shape it was, but with accumulated dust and a fungous growth overspreading all its more

admirable features, left her in utter weariness, no doubt, of her narrow, crooked, intricate streets, so

uncomfortably paved with little squares of lava that to tread over them is a penitential pilgrimage, so

indescribably ugly, moreover, so cold, so alleylike, into which the sun never falls, and where a chill wind

forces its deadly breath into our lungs,left her, tired of the sight of those immense sevenstoried,

yellowwashed hovels, or call them palaces, where all that is dreary in domestic life seems magnified and

multiplied, and weary of climbing those staircases, which ascend from a groundfloor of cook shops,

cobblers' stalls, stables, and regiments of cavalry, to a middle region of princes, cardinals, and ambassadors,

and an upper tier of artists, just beneath the unattainable sky,left her, worn out with shivering at the

cheerless and smoky fireside by day, and feasting with our own substance the ravenous little populace of a

Roman bed at night,left her, sick at heart of Italian trickery, which has uprooted whatever faith in man's

integrity had endured till now, and sick at stomach of sour bread, sour wine, rancid butter, and bad cookery,

needlessly bestowed on evil meats,left her, disgusted with the pretence of holiness and the reality of

nastiness, each equally omnipresent,left her, half lifeless from the languid atmosphere, the vital principle

of which has been used up long ago, or corrupted by myriads of slaughters,left her, crushed down in spirit

with the desolation of her ruin, and the hopelessness of her future, left her, in short, hating her with all our

might, and adding our individual curse to the infinite anathema which her old crimes have unmistakably

brought down,when we have left Rome in such mood as this, we are astonished by the discovery, by and

by, that our heartstrings have mysteriously attached themselves to the Eternal City, and are drawing us

thitherward again, as if it were more familiar, more intimately our home, than even the spot where we were

It is with a kindred sentiment, that we now follow the course of our story back through the Flaminian Gate,

and, treading our way to the Via Portoghese, climb the staircase to the upper chamber of the tower where we

Hilda all along intended to pass the summer in Rome; for she had laid out many high and delightful tasks,

which she could the better complete while her favorite haunts were deserted by the multitude that thronged

them throughout the winter and early spring. Nor did she dread the summer atmosphere, although generally

held to be so pestilential. She had already made trial of it, two years before, and found no worse effect than a

kind of dreamy languor, which was dissipated by the first cool breezes that came with autumn. The thickly

populated centre of the city, indeed, is never affected by the feverish influence that lies in wait in the

Campagna, like a besieging foe, and nightly haunts those beautiful lawns and woodlands, around the

suburban villas, just at the season when they most resemble Paradise. What the flaming sword was to the first

Eden, such is the malaria to these sweet gardens and grove. We may wander through them, of an afternoon, it

is true, but they cannot be made a home and a reality, and to sleep among them is death. They are but

illusions, therefore, like the show of gleaming waters and shadowy foliage in a desert.

But Rome, within the walls, at this dreaded season, enjoys its festal days, and makes itself merry with

characteristic and hereditary pastimes, for which its broad piazzas afford abundant room. It leads its own

life with a freer spirit, now that the artists and foreign visitors are scattered abroad. No bloom, perhaps, would

be visible in a cheek that should be unvisited, throughout the summer, by more invigorating winds than any

within fifty miles of the city; no bloom, but yet, if the mind kept its healthy energy, a subdued and colorless

wellbeing. There was consequently little risk in Hilda's purpose to pass the summer days in the galleries of

Roman palaces, and her nights in that aerial chamber, whither the heavy breath of the city and its suburbs

could not aspire. It would probably harm her no more than it did the white doves, who sought the same high

atmosphere at sunset, and, when morning came, flew down into the narrow streets, about their daily business,

With the Virgin's aid and blessing, which might be hoped for even by a heretic, who so religiously lit the

lamp before her shrine, the New England girl would sleep securely in her old Roman tower, and go forth on

her pictorial pilgrimages without dread or peril. In view of such a summer, Hilda had anticipated many

months of lonely, but unalloyed enjoyment. Not that she had a churlish disinclination to society, or needed to

be told that we taste one intellectual pleasure twice, and with double the result, when we taste it with a friend.

But, keeping a maiden heart within her bosom, she rejoiced in the freedom that enabled her still to choose her

Her expectation, however, of a delightful summer was woefully disappointed. Even had she formed no

previous plan of remaining there, it is improbable that Hilda would have gathered energy to stir from Rome.

A torpor, heretofore unknown to her vivacious though quiet temperament, had possessed itself of the poor

girl, like a halfdead serpent knotting its cold, inextricable wreaths about her limbs. It was that peculiar

despair, that chill and heavy misery, which only the innocent can experience, although it possesses many of

the gloomy characteristics that mark a sense of guilt. It was that heartsickness, which, it is to be hoped, we

may all of us have been pure enough to feel, once in our lives, but the capacity for which is usually exhausted

early, and perhaps with a single agony. It was that dismal certainty of the existence of evil in the world,

which, though we may fancy ourselves fully assured of the sad mystery long before, never becomes a portion

of our practical belief until it takes substance and reality from the sin of some guide, whom we have deeply

When that knowledge comes, it is as if a cloud had suddenly gathered over the morning light; so dark a cloud,

that there seems to be no longer any sunshine behind it or above it. The character of our individual beloved

one having invested itself with all the attributes of right,that one friend being to us the symbol and

representative of whatever is good and true,when he falls, the effect is almost as if the sky fell with him,

bringing down in chaotic ruin the columns that upheld our faith. We struggle forth again, no doubt, bruised

and bewildered. We stare wildly about us, and discoveror, it may be, we never make the discoverythat it

was not actually the sky that has tumbled down, but merely a frail structure of our own rearing, which never

rose higher than the housetops, and has fallen because we founded it on nothing. But the crash, and the

affright and trouble, are as overwhelming, for the time, as if the catastrophe involved the whole moral world.

Remembering these things, let them suggest one generous motive for walking heedfully amid the defilement

of earthly ways! Let us reflect, that the highest path is pointed out by the pure Ideal of those who look up to

Hilda's situation was made infinitely more wretched by the necessity of Confining all her trouble within her

own consciousness. To this innocent girl, holding the knowledge of Miriam's crime within her tender and

delicate soul, the effect was almost the same as if she herself had participated in the guilt. Indeed, partaking

the human nature of those who could perpetrate such deeds, she felt her own spotlessness impugnent.

Had there been but a single friend,or not a friend, since friends were no longer to be confided in, after

Miriam had betrayed her trust, but, had there been any calm, wise mind, any sympathizing intelligence; or,

if not these, any dull, halflistening ear into which she might have flung the dreadful secret, as into an

echoless cavern, what a relief would have ensued! But this awful loneliness! It enveloped her whithersoever

she went. It was a shadow in the sunshine of festal days; a mist between her eyes and the pictures at which

she strove to look; a chill dungeon, which kept her in its gray twilight and fed her with its unwholesome air,

fit only for a criminal to breathe and pine in! She could not escape from it. In the effort to do so, straying

farther into the intricate passages of our nature, she stumbled, ever and again, over this deadly idea of mortal

Poor sufferer for another's sin! Poor wellspring of a virgin's heart, into which a murdered corpse had casually

fallen, and whence it could not be drawn forth again, but lay there, day after day, night after night, tainting its

The strange sorrow that had befallen Hilda did not fail to impress its mysterious seal upon her face, and to

make itself perceptible to sensitive observers in her manner and carriage. A young Italian artist, who

frequented the same galleries which Hilda haunted, grew deeply interested in her expression. One day, while

she stood before Leonardo da Vinci's picture of Joanna of Aragon, but evidently without seeing it,for,

though it had attracted her eyes, a fancied resemblance to Miriam had immediately drawn away her

thoughts,this artist drew a hasty sketch which he afterwards elaborated into a finished portrait. It

represented Hilda as gazing with sad and earnest horror at a bloodspot which she seemed just then to have

discovered on her white robe. The picture attracted considerable notice. Copies of an engraving from it may

still be found in the print shops along the Corso. By many connoisseurs, the idea of the face was supposed to

have been suggested by the portrait of Beatrice Cenci; and, in fact, there was a look somewhat similar to poor

Beatrice's forlorn gaze out of the dreary isolation and remoteness, in which a terrible doom had involved a

tender soul. But the modern artist strenuously upheld the originality of his own picture, as well as the

stainless purity its subject, and chose to call itand was laughed at for his pains"Innocence, dying of a

"Your picture, Signore Panini, does you credit," remarked the picture dealer, who had bought it of the young

man for fifteen scudi, and afterwards sold it for ten times the sum; "but it would be worth a better price if you

had given it a more intelligible title. Looking at the face and expression of this fair signorina, we seem to

comprehend readily enough, that she is undergoing one or another of those troubles of the heart to which

young ladies are but too liable. But what is this bloodstain? And what has innocence to do with it? Has she

"She! she commit a crime!" cried the young artist. "Can you look at the innocent anguish in her face, and ask

that question? No; but, as I read the mystery, a man has been slain in her presence, and the blood, spurting

"Then, in the name of her patron saint," exclaimed the picture dealer, "why don't she get the robe made white

again at the expense of a few baiocchi to her washerwoman? No, no, my dear Panini. The picture being now

my property, I shall call it 'The Signorina's Vengeance.' She has stabbed her lover overnight, and is repenting

it betimes the next morning. So interpreted, the picture becomes an intelligible and very natural

Thus coarsely does the world translate all finer griefs that meet its eye. It is more a coarse world than an

But Hilda sought nothing either from the world's delicacy or its pity, and never dreamed of its

misinterpretations. Her doves often flew in through the windows of the tower, winged messengers, bringing

her what sympathy they could, and uttering soft, tender, and complaining sounds, deep in their bosoms,

which soothed the girl more than a distincter utterance might. And sometimes Hilda moaned quietly among

the doves, teaching her voice to accord with theirs, and thus finding a temporary relief from the burden of her

incommunicable sorrow, as if a little portion of it, at least, had been told to these innocent friends, and been

When she trimmed the lamp before the Virgin's shrine, Hilda gazed at the sacred image, and, rude as was the

workmanship, beheld, or fancied, expressed with the quaint, powerful simplicity which sculptors sometimes

had five hundred years ago, a woman's tenderness responding to her gaze. If she knelt, if she prayed, if her

oppressed heart besought the sympathy of divine womanhood afar in bliss, but not remote, because forever

humanized by the memory of mortal griefs, was Hilda to be blamed? It was not a Catholic kneeling at an

idolatrous shrine, but a child lifting its tearstained face to seek comfort from a mother.

Hilda descended, day by day, from her dovecote, and went to one or another of the great old palaces,the

Pamfili Doria, the Corsini, the Sciarra, the Borghese, the Colonna,where the doorkeepers knew her well,

and offered her a kindly greeting. But they shook their heads and sighed, on observing the languid step with

which the poor girl toiled up the grand marble staircases. There was no more of that cheery alacrity with

which she used to flit upward, as if her doves had lent her their wings, nor of that glow of happy spirits which

had been wont to set the tarnished gilding of the picture frames and the shabby splendor of the furniture all

An old German artist, whom she often met in the galleries, once laid a paternal hand on Hilda's head, and

"Go back soon," he said, with kindly freedom and directness, "or you will go never more. And, if you go not,

why, at least, do you spend the whole summertime in Rome? The air has been breathed too often, in so

many thousand years, and is not wholesome for a little foreign flower like you, my child, a delicate

"I have no task nor duty anywhere but here," replied Hilda. "The old masters will not set me free!"

"Ah, those old masters!" cried the veteran artist, shaking his head. "They are a tyrannous race! You will find

them of too mighty a spirit to be dealt with, for long together, by the slender hand, the fragile mind, and the

delicate heart, of a young girl. Remember that Raphael's genius wore out that divinest painter before half his

life was lived. Since you feel his influence powerfully enough to reproduce his miracles so well, it will

"Yes, fair maiden, you stand in that peril now!" insisted the kind old man; and he added, smiling, yet in a

melancholy vein, and with a German grotesqueness of idea, "Some fine morning, I shall come to the

Pinacotheca of the Vatican, with my palette and my brushes, and shall look for my little American artist that

sees into the very heart of the grand pictures! And what shall I behold? A heap of white ashes on the marble

floor, just in front of the divine Raphael's picture of the Madonna da Foligno! Nothing more, upon my word!

The fire, which the poor child feels so fervently, will have gone into her innermost, and burnt her quite up!"

"It would be a happy martyrdom!" said Hilda, faintly smiling. "But I am far from being worthy of it. What

troubles me much, among other troubles, is quite the reverse of what you think. The old masters hold me

here, it is true, but they no longer warm me with their influence. It is not flame consuming, but torpor chilling

"Perchance, then," said the German, looking keenly at her, "Raphael has a rival in your heart? He was your

first love; but young maidens are not always constant, and one flame is sometimes extinguished by another!"

Hilda shook her head, and turned away. She had spoken the truth, however, in alleging that torpor, rather than

fire, was what she had to dread. In those gloomy days that had befallen her, it was a great additional calamity

that she felt conscious of the present dimness of an insight which she once possessed in more than ordinary

measure. She had lostand she trembled lest it should have departed foreverthe faculty of appreciating

those great works of art, which heretofore had made so large a portion of her happiness. It was no wonder.

A picture, however admirable the painter's art, and wonderful his power, requires of the spectator a surrender

of himself, in due proportion with the miracle which has been wrought. Let the canvas glow as it may, you

must look with the eye of faith, or its highest excellence escapes you. There is always the necessity of helping

out the painter's art with your own resources of sensibility and imagination. Not that these qualities shall

really add anything to what the master has effected; but they must be put so entirely under his control, and

work along with him to such an extent, that, in a different mood, when you are cold and critical, instead of

sympathetic, you will be apt to fancy that the loftier merits of the picture were of your own dreaming, not of

Like all revelations of the better life, the adequate perception of a great work of art demands a gifted

simplicity of vision. In this, and in her selfsurrender, and the depth and tenderness of her sympathy, had lain

Hilda's remarkable power as a copyist of the old masters. And now that her capacity of emotion was choked

up with a horrible experience, it inevitably followed that she should seek in vain, among those friends so

venerated and beloved, for the marvels which they had heretofore shown her. In spite of a reverence that

lingered longer than her recognition, their poor worshipper became almost an infidel, and sometimes doubted

For the first time in her life, Hilda now grew acquainted with that icy demon of weariness, who haunts great

picture galleries. He is a plausible Mephistopheles, and possesses the magic that is the destruction of all other

magic. He annihilates color, warmth, and, more especially, sentiment and passion, at a touch. If he spare

anything, it will be some such matter as an earthen pipkin, or a bunch of herrings by Teniers; a brass kettle, in

which you can see your rice, by Gerard Douw; a furred robe, or the silken texture of a mantle, or a straw hat,

by Van Mieris; or a longstalked wineglass, transparent and full of shifting reflection, or a bit of bread and

cheese, or an overripe peach with a fly upon it, truer than reality itself, by the school of Dutch conjurers.

These men, and a few Flemings, whispers the wicked demon, were the only painters. The mighty Italian

masters, as you deem them, were not human, nor addressed their work to human sympathies, but to a false

intellectual taste, which they themselves were the first to create. Well might they call their doings "art," for

they substituted art instead of nature. Their fashion is past, and ought, indeed, to have died and been buried

Then there is such a terrible lack of variety in their subjects. The churchmen, their great patrons, suggested

most of their themes, and a dead mythology the rest. A quarter part, probably, of any large collection of

pictures consists of Virgins and infant Christs, repeated over and over again in pretty much an identical spirit,

and generally with no more mixture of the Divine than just enough to spoil them as representations of

maternity and childhood, with which everybody's heart might have something to do. Half of the other pictures

are Magdalens, Flights into Egypt, Crucifixions, Depositions from the Cross, Pietas, Nolimetangeres, or

the Sacrifice of Abraham, or martyrdoms of saints, originally painted as altarpieces, or for the shrines of

The remainder of the gallery comprises mythological subjects, such as nude Venuses, Ledas, Graces, and, in

short, a general apotheosis of nudity, once fresh and rosy perhaps, but yellow and dingy in our day, and

retaining only a traditionary charm. These impure pictures are from the same illustrious and impious hands

that adventured to call before us the august forms of Apostles and Saints, the Blessed Mother of the

Redeemer, and her Son, at his death, and in his glory, and even the awfulness of Him, to whom the martyrs,

dead a thousand years ago, have not yet dared to raise their eyes. They seem to take up one task or the other

w the disrobed woman whom they call Venus, or the type of highest and tenderest womanhood in the mother

of their Saviour with equal readiness, but to achieve the former with far more satisfactory success. If an artist

sometimes produced a picture of the Virgin, possessing warmth enough to excite devotional feelings, it was

probably the object of his earthly love to whom he thus paid the stupendous and fearful homage of setting up

her portrait to be worshipped, not figuratively as a mortal, but by religious souls in their earnest aspirations

towards Divinity. And who can trust the religious sentiment of Raphael, or receive any of his Virgins as

heavendescended likenesses, after seeing, for example, the Fornarina of the Barberini Palace, and feeling

how sensual the artist must have been to paint such a brazen trollop of his own accord, and lovingly? Would

the Blessed Mary reveal herself to his spiritual vision, and favor him with sittings alternately with that type of

But no sooner have we given expression to this irreverent criticism, than a throng of spiritual faces look

reproachfully upon us. We see cherubs by Raphael, whose baby innocence could only have been nursed in

paradise; angels by Raphael as innocent as they, but whose serene intelligence embraces both earthly and

celestial things; madonnas by Raphael, on whose lips he has impressed a holy and delicate reserve, implying

sanctity on earth, and into whose soft eyes he has thrown a light which he never could have imagined except

by raising his own eyes with a pure aspiration heavenward. We remember, too, that divinest countenance in

Poor Hilda, however, in her gloomiest moments, was never guilty of the high treason suggested in the above

remarks against her beloved and honored Raphael. She had a faculty (which, fortunately for themselves, pure

women often have) of ignoring all moral blotches in a character that won her admiration. She purified the

Hilda's despondency, nevertheless, while it dulled her perceptions in one respect, had deepened them in

another; she saw beauty less vividly, but felt truth, or the lack of it, more profoundly. She began to suspect

that some, at least, of her venerated painters, had left an inevitable hollowness in their works, because, in the

most renowned of them, they essayed to express to the world what they had not in their own souls. They

deified their light and Wandering affections, and were continually playing off the tremendous jest, alluded to

above, of offering the features of some venal beauty to be enshrined in the holiest places. A deficiency of

earnestness and absolute truth is generally discoverable in Italian pictures, after the art had become

consummate. When you demand what is deepest, these painters have not wherewithal to respond. They

substituted a keen intellectual perception, and a marvellous knack of external arrangement, instead of the live

sympathy and sentiment which should have been their inspiration. And hence it happens, that shallow and

worldly men are among the best critics of their works; a taste for pictorial art is often no more than a polish

upon the hard enamel of an artificial character. Hilda had lavished her whole heart upon it, and found (just as

if she had lavished it upon a human idol) that the greater part was thrown away.

For some of the earlier painters, however, she still retained much of her former reverence. Fra Angelico, she

felt, must have breathed a humble aspiration between every two touches of his brush, in order to have made

the finished picture such a visible prayer as we behold it, in the guise of a prim angel, or a saint without the

human nature. Through all these dusky centuries, his works may still help a struggling heart to pray. Perugino

was evidently a devout man; and the Virgin, therefore, revealed herself to him in loftier and sweeter faces of

celestial womanhood, and yet with a kind of homeliness in their human mould, than even the genius of

Raphael could imagine. Sodoma, beyond a question, both prayed and wept, while painting his fresco, at

In her present need and hunger for a spiritual revelation, Hilda felt a vast and weary longing to see this

lastmentioned picture once again. It is inexpressibly touching. So weary is the Saviour and utterly worn out

with agony, that his lips have fallen apart from mere exhaustion; his eyes seem to be set; he tries to lean his

head against the pillar, but is kept from sinking down upon the ground only by the cords that bind him. One

of the most striking effects produced is the sense of loneliness. You behold Christ deserted both in heaven

and earth; that despair is in him which wrung forth the saddest utterance man ever made, "Why hast Thou

forsaken me?" Even in this extremity, however, he is still divine. The great and reverent painter has not

suffered the Son of God to be merely an object of pity, though depicting him in a state so profoundly pitiful.

He is rescued from it, we know not how,by nothing less than miracle,by a celestial majesty and beauty,

and some quality of which these are the outward garniture. He is as much, and as visibly, our Redeemer, there

bound, there fainting, and bleeding from the scourge, with the cross in view, as if he sat on his throne of glory

in the heavens! Sodoma, in this matchless picture, has done more towards reconciling the incongruity of

Divine Omnipotence and outraged, suffering Humanity, combined in one person, than the theologians ever

This hallowed work of genius shows what pictorial art, devoutly exercised, might effect in behalf of religious

truth; involving, as it does, deeper mysteries of revelation, and bringing them closer to man's heart, and

making him tenderer to be impressed by them, than the most eloquent words of preacher or prophet)

It is not of pictures like the above that galleries, in Rome or elsewhere, are made up, but of productions

immeasurably below them, and requiring to be appreciated by a very different frame of mind. Few amateurs

are endowed with a tender susceptibility to the sentiment of a picture; they are not won from an evil life, nor

anywise morally improved by it. The love of art, therefore, differs widely in its influence from the love of

nature; whereas, if art had not strayed away from its legitimate paths and aims, it ought to soften and sweeten

the lives of its worshippers, in even a more exquisite degree than the contemplation of natural objects. But, of

its own potency, it has no such effect; and it fails, likewise, in that other test of its moral value which poor

Hilda was now involuntarily trying upon it. It cannot comfort the heart in affliction; it grows dim when the

So the melancholy girl wandered through those long galleries, and over the mosaic pavements of vast,

solitary saloons, wondering what had become of the splendor that used to beam upon her from the walls. She

grew sadly critical, and condemned almost everything that she was wont to admire. Heretofore, her sympathy

went deeply into a picture, yet seemed to leave a depth which it was inadequate to sound; now, on the

contrary, her perceptive faculty penetrated the canvas like a steel probe, and found but a crust of paint over an

emptiness. Not that she gave up all art as worthless; only it had lost its consecration. One picture in ten

thousand, perhaps, ought to live in the applause of mankind, from generation to generation, until the colors

fade and blacken out of sight, or the canvas rot entirely away. For the rest, let them be piled in garrets, just as

the tolerable poets are shelved, when their little day is over. Is a painter more sacred than a poet?

And as for these galleries of Roman palaces, they were to Hilda, though she still trod them with the forlorn

hope of getting back her sympathies,they were drearier than the whitewashed walls of a prison corridor. If

a magnificent palace were founded, as was generally the case, on hardened guilt and a stony conscience,if

the prince or cardinal who stole the marble of his vast mansion from the Coliseum, or some Roman temple,

had perpetrated still deadlier crimes, as probably he did,there could be no fitter punishment for his ghost

than to wander, perpetually through these long suites of rooms, over the cold marble or mosaic of the floors,

growing chiller at every eternal footstep. Fancy the progenitor of the Dorias thus haunting those heavy halls

where his posterity reside! Nor would it assuage his monotonous misery, but increase it manifold, to be

compelled to scrutinize those masterpieces of art, which he collected with so much cost and care, and gazing

at them unintelligently, still leave a further portion of his vital warmth at every one.

Such, or of a similar kind, is the torment of those who seek to enjoy pictures in an uncongenial mood. Every

haunter of picture galleries, we should imagine, must have experienced it, in greater or less degree; Hilda

And now, for the first time in her lengthened absence, comprising so many years of her young life, she began

to be acquainted with the exile's pain. Her pictorial imagination brought up vivid scenes of her native village,

with its great old elmtrees; and the neat, comfortable houses, scattered along the wide, grassy margin of its

street, and the white meetinghouse, and her mother's very door, and the stream of gold brown water, which

her taste for color had kept flowing, all this while, through her remembrance. O dreary streets, palaces,

churches, and imperial sepulchres of hot and dusty Rome, with the muddy Tiber eddying through the midst,

instead of the goldbrown rivulet! How she pined under this crumbly magnificence, as if it were piled all

upon her human heart! How she yearned for that native homeliness, those familiar sights, those faces which

she had known always, those days that never brought any strange event; that life of sober weekdays, and a

solemn sabbath at the close! The peculiar fragrance of a flowerbed, which Hilda used to cultivate, came

freshly to her memory, across the windy sea, and through the long years since the flowers had withered. Her

heart grew faint at the hundred reminiscences that were awakened by that remembered smell of dead

blossoms; it was like opening a drawer, where many things were laid away, and every one of them scented

We ought not to betray Hilda's secret; but it is the truth, that being so sad, and so utterly alone, and in such

great need of sympathy, her thoughts sometimes recurred to the sculptor. Had she met him now, her heart,

indeed, might not have been won, but her confidence would have flown to him like a bird to its nest. One

summer afternoon, especially, Hilda leaned upon the battlements of her tower, and looked over Rome

"O that he were here!" she sighed; "I perish under this terrible secret; and he might help me to endure it. O

That very afternoon, as the reader may remember, Kenyon felt Hilda's hand pulling at the silken cord that was

connected with his heartstrings, as he stood looking towards Rome from the battlements of Monte Beni.

Rome has a certain species of consolation readier at hand, for all the necessitous, than any other spot under

the sun; and Hilda's despondent state made her peculiarly liable to the peril, if peril it can justly be termed, of

Had the Jesuits known the situation of this troubled heart, her inheritance of New England Puritanism would

hardly have protected the poor girl from the pious strategy of those good fathers. Knowing, as they do, how

to work each proper engine, it would have been ultimately impossible for Hilda to resist the attractions of a

faith, which so marvellously adapts itself to every human need. Not, indeed, that it can satisfy the soul's

cravings, but, at least, it can sometimes help the soul towards a higher satisfaction than the faith contains

within itself. It supplies a multitude of external forms, in which the spiritual may be clothed and manifested;

it has many painted windows, as it were, through which the celestial sunshine, else disregarded, may make

itself gloriously perceptible in visions of beauty and splendor. There is no one want or weakness of human

nature for which Catholicism will own itself without a remedy; cordials, certainly, it possesses in abundance,

and sedatives in inexhaustible variety, and what may once have been genuine medicaments, though a little the

To do it justice, Catholicism is such a miracle of fitness for its own ends, many of which might seem to be

admirable ones, that it is difficult to imagine it a contrivance of mere man. Its mighty machinery was forged

and put together, not on middle earth, but either above or below. If there were but angels to work it, instead of

the very different class of engineers who now manage its cranks and safety valves, the system would soon

Hilda had heretofore made many pilgrimages among the churches of Rome, for the sake of wondering at their

gorgeousness. Without a glimpse at these palaces of worship, it is impossible to imagine the magnificence of

the religion that reared them. Many of them shine with burnished gold. They glow with pictures. Their walls,

columns, and arches seem a quarry of precious stones, so beautiful and costly are the marbles with which

they are inlaid. Their pavements are often a mosaic, of rare workmanship. Around their lofty cornices hover

flights of sculptured angels; and within the vault of the ceiling and the swelling interior of the dome, there are

frescos of such brilliancy, and wrought with so artful a perspective, that the sky, peopled with sainted forms,

appears to be opened only a little way above the spectator. Then there are chapels, opening from the side

aisles and transepts, decorated by princes for their own burial places, and as shrines for their especial saints.

In these, the splendor of the entire edifice is intensified and gathered to a focus. Unless words were gems, that

would flame with manycolored light upon the page, and throw thence a tremulous glimmer into the reader's

Restless with her trouble, Hilda now entered upon another pilgrimage among these altars and shrines. She

climbed the hundred steps of the Ara Coeli; she trod the broad, silent nave of St. John Lateran; she stood in

the Pantheon, under the round opening in the dome, through which the blue sunny sky still gazes down, as it

used to gaze when there were Roman deities in the antique niches. She went into every church that rose

before her, but not now to wonder at its magnificence, when she hardly noticed more than if it had been the

She wentand it was a dangerous errandto observe how closely and comfortingly the popish faith applied

itself to all human occasions. It was impossible to doubt that multitudes of people found their spiritual

advantage in it, who would find none at all in our own formless mode of worship; which, besides, so far as

the sympathy of prayerful souls is concerned, can be enjoyed only at stated and too unfrequent periods. But

here, whenever the hunger for divine nutriment came upon the soul, it could on the instant be appeased. At

one or another altar, the incense was forever ascending; the mass always being performed, and carrying

upward with it the devotion of such as had not words for their own prayer. And yet, if the worshipper had his

individual petition to offer, his own heartsecret to whisper below his breath, there were divine auditors ever

ready to receive it from his lips; and what encouraged him still more, these auditors had not always been

divine, but kept, within their heavenly memories, the tender humility of a human experience. Now a saint in

Hilda saw peasants, citizens, soldiers, nobles, women with bare heads, ladies in their silks, entering the

churches individually, kneeling for moments or for hours, and directing their inaudible devotions to the

shrine of some saint of their own choice. In his hallowed person, they felt themselves possessed of an own

friend in heaven. They were too humble to approach the Deity directly. Conscious of their unworthiness, they

asked the mediation of their sympathizing patron, who, on the score of his ancient martyrdom, and after many

ages of celestial life, might venture to talk with the Divine Presence, almost as friend with friend. Though

dumb before its Judge, even despair could speak, and pour out the misery of its soul like water, to an

advocate so wise to comprehend the case, and eloquent to plead it, and powerful to win pardon whatever

were the guilt. Hilda witnessed what she deemed to be an example of this species of confidence between a

young man and his saint. He stood before a shrine, writhing, wringing his hands, contorting his whole frame

in an agony of remorseful recollection, but finally knelt down to weep and pray. If this youth had been a

Protestant, he would have kept all that torture pent up in his heart, and let it burn there till it seared him into

Often and long, Hilda lingered before the shrines and chapels of the Virgin, and departed from them with

reluctant steps. Here, perhaps, strange as it may seem, her delicate appreciation of art stood her in good stead,

and lost Catholicism a convert. If the painter had represented Mary with a heavenly face, poor Hilda was now

in the very mood to worship her, and adopt the faith in which she held so elevated a position. But she saw

that it was merely the flattered portrait of an earthly beauty; the wife, at best, of the artist; or, it might be, a

peasant girl of the Campagna, or some Roman princess, to whom he desired to pay his court. For love, or

some even less justifiable motive, the old painter had apotheosized these women; he thus gained for them, as

far as his skill would go, not only the meed of immortality, but the privilege of presiding over Christian

altars, and of being worshipped with far holier fervors than while they dwelt on earth. Hilda's fine sense of

She never found just the virgin mother whom she needed. Here it was an earthly mother, worshipping the

earthly baby in her lap, as any and every mother does, from Eve's time downward. In another picture, there

was a dim sense, shown in the mother's face, of some divine quality in the child. In a third, the artist seemed

to have had a higher perception, and had striven hard to shadow out the Virgin's joy at bringing the Saviour

into the world, and her awe and love, inextricably mingled, of the little form which she pressed against her

bosom. So far was good. But still, Hilda looked for something more; a face of celestial beauty, but human as

well as heavenly, and with the shadow of past grief upon it; bright with immortal youth, yet matronly and

motherly; and endowed with a queenly dignity, but infinitely tender, as the highest and deepest attribute of

"Ah," thought Hilda to herself, "why should not there be a woman to listen to the prayers of women? A

mother in heaven for all motherless girls like me? In all God's thought and care for us, can he have withheld

Oftener than to the other churches, she wandered into St. Peter's. Within its vast limits, she thought, and

beneath the sweep of its great dome, there should be space for all forms of Christian truth; room both for the

faithful and the heretic to kneel; due help for every creature's spiritual want.

Hilda had not always been adequately impressed by the grandeur of this mighty cathedral. When she first

lifted the heavy leathern curtain, at one of the doors, a shadowy edifice in her imagination had been dazzled

out of sight by the reality. Her preconception of St. Peter's was a structure of no definite outline, misty in its

architecture, dim and gray and huge, stretching into an interminable perspective, and overarched by a dome

like the cloudy firmament. Beneath that vast breadth and height, as she had fancied them, the personal man

might feel his littleness, and the soul triumph in its immensity. So, in her earlier visits, when the compassed

splendor Of the actual interior glowed before her eyes, she had profanely called it a great prettiness; a gay

piece of cabinet work, on a Titanic scale; a jewel casket, marvellously magnified.

This latter image best pleased her fancy; a casket, all inlaid in the inside with precious stones of various hue,

so that there Should not be a hair'sbreadth of the small interior unadorned with its resplendent gem. Then,

conceive this minute wonder of a mosaic box, increased to the magnitude of a cathedral, without losing the

intense lustre of its littleness, but all its petty glory striving to be sublime. The magic transformation from the

minute to the vast has not been so cunningly effected but that the rich adornment still counteracts the

impression of space and loftiness. The spectator is more sensible of its limits than of its extent.

Until after many visits, Hilda continued to mourn for that dim, illimitable interior, which with her eyes shut

she had seen from childhood, but which vanished at her first glimpse through the actual door. Her childish

vision seemed preferable to the cathedral which Michael Angelo, and all the great architects, had built;

because, of the dream edifice, she had said, "How vast it is!" while of the real St. Peter's she could only say,

"After all, it is not so immense!" Besides, such as the church is, it can nowhere be made visible at one glance.

It stands in its own way. You see an aisle, or a transept; you see the nave, or the tribune; but, on account of its

ponderous piers and other obstructions, it is only by this fragmentary process that you get an idea of the

There is no answering such objections. The great church smiles calmly upon its critics, and, for all response,

says, "Look at me!" and if you still murmur for the loss of your shadowy perspective, there comes no reply,

save, "Look at me!" in endless repetition, as the one thing to be said. And, after looking many times, with

long intervals between, you discover that the cathedral has gradually extended itself over the whole compass

of your idea; it covers all the site of your visionary temple, and has room for its cloudy pinnacles beneath the

One afternoon, as Hilda entered St. Peter's in sombre mood, its interior beamed upon her with all the effect of

a new creation. It seemed an embodiment of whatever the imagination could conceive, or the heart desire, as

a magnificent, comprehensive, majestic symbol of religious faith. All splendor was included within its verge,

and there was space for all. She gazed with delight even at the multiplicity of ornament. She was glad at the

cherubim that fluttered upon the pilasters, and of the marble doves, hovering unexpectedly, with green

olivebranches of precious stones. She could spare nothing, now, of the manifold magnificence that had been

lavished, in a hundred places, richly enough to have made worldfamous shrines in any other church, but

which here melted away into the vast sunny breadth, and were of no separate account. Yet each contributed

She would not have banished one of those grim popes, who sit each over his own tomb, scattering cold

benedictions out of their marble hands; nor a single frozen sister of the Allegoric family, to whomas, like

hired mourners at an English funeral, it costs them no wear and tear of heartis assigned the office of

weeping for the dead. If you choose to see these things, they present themselves; if you deem them unsuitable

and out of place, they vanish, individually, but leave their life upon the walls.

The pavement! it stretched out illimitably, a plain of manycolored marble, where thousands of worshippers

might kneel together, and shadowless angels tread among them without brushing their heavenly garments

against those earthly ones. The roof! the dome! Rich, gorgeous, filled with sunshine, cheerfully sublime, and

fadeless after centuries, those lofty depths seemed to translate the heavens to mortal comprehension, and help

the spirit upward to a yet higher and wider sphere. Must not the faith, that built this matchless edifice, and

warmed, illuminated, and overflowed from it, include whatever can satisfy human aspirations at the loftiest,

or minister to human necessity at the sorest? If Religion had a material home, was it not here?

As the scene which we but faintly suggest shone calmly before the New England maiden at her entrance, she

moved, as if by very instinct, to one of the vases of holy water, upborne against a column by two mighty

cherubs. Hilda dipped her fingers, and had almost signed the cross upon her breast, but forbore, and trembled,

while shaking the water from her fingertips. She felt as if her mother's spirit, somewhere within the dome,

were looking down upon her child, the daughter of Puritan forefathers, and weeping to behold her ensnared

by these gaudy superstitions. So she strayed sadly onward, up the nave, and towards the hundred golden

lights that swarm before the high altar. Seeing a woman; a priest, and a soldier kneel to kiss the toe of the

brazen St. Peter, who protrudes it beyond his pedestal for the purpose, polished bright with former

salutations, while a child stood on tiptoe to do the same, the glory of the church was darkened before Hilda's

eyes. But again she went onward into remoter regions. She turned into the right transept, and thence found

her way to a shrine, in the extreme corner of the edifice, which is adorned with a mosaic copy of Guido's

This was one of the few pictures, which, in these dreary days, had not faded nor deteriorated in Hilda's

estimation; not that it was better than many in which she no longer took an interest; but the subtile delicacy of

the painter's genius was peculiarly adapted to her character. She felt, while gazing at it, that the artist had

done a great thing, not merely for the Church of Rome, but for the cause of Good. The moral of the picture,

the immortal youth and loveliness of virtue, and its irresistibles might against ugly Evil, appealed as much to

Suddenly, and as if it were done in a dream, Hilda found herself kneeling before the shrine, under the

everburning lamp that throws its rays upon the Archangel's face. She laid her forehead on the marble steps

before the altar, and sobbed out a prayer; she hardly knew to whom, whether Michael, the Virgin, or the

Father; she hardly knew for what, save only a vague longing, that thus the burden of her spirit might be

In an instant she snatched herself up, as it were, from her knees, all athrob with the emotions which were

struggling to force their way out of her heart by the avenue that had so nearly been opened for them. Yet

there was a strange sense of relief won by that momentary, passionate prayer; a strange joy, moreover,

whether from what she had done, or for what she had escaped doing, Hilda could not tell. But she felt as one

Next to the shrine where she had knelt there is another, adorned with a picture by Guercino, representing a

maiden's body in the jaws of the sepulchre, and her lover weeping over it; while her beatified spirit looks

down upon the scene, in the society of the Saviour and a throng of saints. Hilda wondered if it were not

possible, by some miracle of faith, so to rise above her present despondency that she might look down upon

what she was, just as Petronilla in the picture looked at her own corpse. A hope, born of hysteric trouble,

fluttered in her heart. A presentiment, or what she fancied such, whispered her, that, before she had finished

The unhappy are continually tantalized by similar delusions of succor near at hand; at least, the despair is

Still gliding onward, Hilda now looked up into the dome, where the sunshine came through the western

windows, and threw across long shafts of light. They rested upon the mosaic figures of two evangelists above

the cornice. These great beams of radiance, traversing what seemed the empty space, were made visible in

misty glory, by the holy cloud of incense, else unseen, which had risen into the middle dome. It was to Hilda

as if she beheld the worship of the priest and people ascending heavenward, purified from its alloy of earth,

and acquiring celestial substance in the golden atmosphere to which it aspired, She wondered if angels did

not sometimes hover within the dome, and show themselves, in brief glimpses, floating amid the sunshine

She had now come into the southern transept. Around this portion of the church are ranged a number of

confessionals. They are small tabernacles of carved wood, with a closet for the priest in the centre; and, on

either side, a space for a penitent to kneel, and breathe his confession through a perforated auricle into the

good father's ear. Observing this arrangement, though already familiar to her, our poor Hilda was anew

impressed with the infinite convenienceif we may use so poor a phraseof the Catholic religion to its

Who, in truth, that considers the matter, can resist a similar impression! In the hottest feverfit of life, they

can always find, ready for their need, a cool, quiet, beautiful place of worship. They may enter its sacred

precincts at any hour, leaving the fret and trouble of the world behind them, and purifying themselves with a

touch of holy water at the threshold. In the calm interior, fragrant of rich and soothing incense, they may hold

converse with some saint, their awful, kindly friend. And, most precious privilege of all, whatever perplexity,

sorrow, guilt, may weigh upon their souls, they can fling down the dark burden at the foot of the cross, and go

forthto sin no more, nor be any longer disquieted; but to live again in the freshness and elasticity of

"Do not these inestimable advantages," thought Hilda, "or some of them at least, belong to Christianity itself?

Are they not a part of the blessings which the system was meant to bestow upon mankind? Can the faith in

which I was born and bred be perfect, if it leave a weak girl like me to wander, desolate, with this great

A poignant anguish thrilled within her breast; it was like a thing that had life, and was struggling to get out.

Only by the reverberations that followedarch echoing the sound to arch, and a pope of bronze repeating it

to a pope of marble, as each sat enthroned over his tombdid Hilda become aware that she had really

spoken above her breath. But, in that great space, there is no need to hush up the heart within one's own

bosom, so carefully as elsewhere; and if the cry reached any distant auditor, it came broken into many

Approaching one of the confessionals, she saw a woman kneeling within. Just as Hilda drew near, the

penitent rose, came forth, and kissed the hand of the priest, who regarded her with a look of paternal

benignity, and appeared to be giving her some spiritual counsel, in a low voice. She then knelt to receive his

blessing, which was fervently bestowed. Hilda was so struck with the peace and joy in the woman's face, that,

"You look very happy!" said she. "Is it so sweet, then, to go to the confessional?"

"O, very sweet, my dear signorina!" answered the woman, with moistened eyes and an affectionate smile; for

she was so thoroughly softened with what she had been doing, that she felt as if Hilda were her younger

sister. "My heart is at rest now. Thanks be to the Saviour, and the Blessed Virgin and the saints, and this good

"I am glad for your sake," said Hilda, sighing for her own. "I am a poor heretic, but a human sister; and I

She went from one to another of the confessionals, and, looking at each, perceived that they were inscribed

with gilt letters: on one, Pro Italica Lingua; on another, Pro Flandrica Lingua; on a third, Pro Polonica

Lingua; on a fourth, Pro Illyrica Lingua; on a fifth, Pro Hispanica Lingua. In this vast and hospitable

cathedral, worthy to be the religious heart of the whole world, there was room for all nations; there was

access to the Divine Grace for every Christian soul; there was an ear for what the overburdened heart might

When Hilda had almost completed the circuit of the transept, she came to a confessionalthe central part

was closed, but a mystic room protruded from it, indicating the presence of a priest withinon which was

It was the word in season! If she had heard her mother's voice from within the tabernacle, calling her, in her

own mothertongue, to come and lay her poor head in her lap, and sob out all her troubles, Hilda could not

have responded with a more inevitable obedience. She did not think; she only felt. Within her heart was a

great need. Close at hand, within the veil of the confessional, was the relief. She flung herself down in the

penitent's place; and, tremulously, passionately, with sobs, tears, and the turbulent overflow of emotion too

long repressed, she poured out the dark story which had infused its poison into her innocent life.

Hilda had not seen, nor could she now see, the visage of the priest. But, at intervals, in the pauses of that

strange confession, half choked by the struggle of her feelings toward an outlet, she heard a mild, calm voice,

somewhat mellowed by age. It spoke soothingly; it encouraged her; it led her on by apposite questions that

seemed to be suggested by a great and tender interest, and acted like magnetism in attracting the girl's

confidence to this unseen friend. The priest's share in the interview, indeed, resembled that of one who

removes the stones, clustered branches, or whatever entanglements impede the current of a swollen stream.

Hilda could have imaginedso much to the purpose were his inquiriesthat he was already acquainted with

Thus assisted, she revealed the whole of her terrible secret! The whole, except that no name escaped her lips.

And, ah, what a relief! When the hysteric gasp, the strife between words and sobs, had subsided, what a

torture had passed away from her soul! It was all gone; her bosom was as pure now as in her childhood. She

was a girl again; she was Hilda of the dovecote; not that doubtful creature whom her own doves had hardly

recognized as their mistress and playmate, by reason of the deathscent that clung to her garments!

After she had ceased to speak, Hilda heard the priest bestir himself with an old man's reluctant movement. He

stepped out of the confessional; and as the girl was still kneeling in the penitential corner, he summoned her

"Stand up, my daughter," said the mild voice of the confessor; "what we have further to say must be spoken

Hilda did his bidding, and stood before him with a downcast visage, which flushed and grew pale again. But

it had the wonderful beauty which we may often observe in those who have recently gone through a great

struggle, and won the peace that lies just on the other side. We see it in a new mother's face; we see it in the

faces of the dead; and in Hilda's countenancewhich had always a rare natural charm for her friendsthis

On her part, Hilda beheld a venerable figure with hair as white as snow, and a face strikingly characterized by

benevolence. It bore marks of thought, however, and penetrative insight; although the keen glances of the

eyes were now somewhat bedimmed with tears, which the aged shed, or almost shed, on lighter stress of

"It has not escaped my observation, daughter," said the priest, "that this is your first acquaintance with the

"Father," replied Hilda, raising her eyes, and again letting them fall, "I am of New Eng land birth, and was

"From New England!" exclaimed the priest. "It was my own birthplace, likewise; nor have fifty years of

absence made me cease to love it. But a heretic! And are you reconciled to the Church?"

"And, that being the case," demanded the old man, "on what ground, my daughter, have you sought to avail

yourself of these blessed privileges, confined exclusively to members of the one true Church, of confession

"Absolution, father?" exclaimed Hilda, shrinking back. "O no, no! I never dreamed of that! Only our

Heavenly Father can forgive my sins; and it is only by sincere repentance of whatever wrong I may have

done, and by my own best efforts towards a higher life, that I can hope for his forgiveness! God forbid that I

"Then wherefore," rejoined the priest, with somewhat less mildness in his tone,"wherefore, I ask again,

have you taken possession, as I may term it, of this holy ordinance; being a heretic, and neither seeking to

share, nor having faith in, the unspeakable advantages which the Church offers to its penitents?"

"Father," answered Hilda, trying to tell the old man the simple truth, "I am a motherless girl, and a stranger

here in Italy. I had only God to take care of me, and be my closest friend; and the terrible, terrible crime,

which I have revealed to you, thrust itself between him and me; so that I groped for him in the darkness, as it

were, and found him not,found nothing but a dreadful solitude, and this crime in the midst of it! I could not

bear it. It seemed as if I made the awful guilt my own, by keeping it hidden in my heart. I grew a fearful thing

"It was a grievous trial, my poor child!" observed the confessor. "Your relief, I trust, will prove to be greater

"I feel already how immense it is!" said Hilda, looking gratefully in his face. "Surely, father, it was the hand

of Providence that led me hither, and made me feel that this vast temple of Christianity, this great home of

religion, must needs contain some cure, some ease, at least, for my unutterable anguish. And it has proved so.

I have told the hideous secret; told it under the sacred seal of the confessional; and now it will burn my poor

"But, daughter," answered the venerable priest, not unmoved by what Hilda said, "you forget! you

mistake!you claim a privilege to which you have not entitled yourself! The seal of the confessional, do you

say? God forbid that it should ever be broken where it has been fairly impressed; but it applies only to matters

that have been confided to its keeping in a certain prescribed method, and by persons, moreover, who have

faith in the sanctity of the ordinance. I hold myself, and any learned casuist of the Church would hold me, as

free to disclose all the particulars of what you term your confession, as if they had come to my knowledge in

"Do not you see, child," he rejoined, with some little heat, "with all your nicety of conscience, cannot you

recognize it as my duty to make the story known to the proper authorities; a great crime against public justice

"No, father, no!" answered Hilda, courageously, her cheeks flushing and her eyes brightening as she spoke.

"Trust a girl's simple heart sooner than any casuist of your Church, however learned he may be. Trust your

own heart, too! I came to your confessional, father, as I devoutly believe, by the direct impulse of Heaven,

which also brought you hither today, in its mercy and love, to relieve me of a torture that I could no longer

bear. I trusted in the pledge which your Church has always held sacred between the priest and the human

soul, which, through his medium, is struggling towards its Father above. What I have confided to you lies

sacredly between God and yourself. Let it rest there, father; for this is right, and if you do otherwise, you will

perpetrate a great wrong, both as a priest and a man! And believe me, no question, no torture, shall ever force

my lips to utter what would be necessary, in order to make my confession available towards the punishment

"My quiet little countrywoman," said the priest, with half a smile on his kindly old face, "you can pluck up a

"I have spirit only to do what I think right," replied Hilda simply. "In other respects I am timorous."

"But you confuse yourself between right feelings and very foolish inferences," continued the priest, "as is the

wont of women,so much I have learnt by long experience in the confessional,be they young or old.

However, to set your heart at rest, there is no probable need for me to reveal the matter. What you have told,

if I mistake not, and perhaps more, is already known in the quarter which it most concerns."

"Known!" exclaimed Hilda. "Known to the authorities of Rome! And what will be the consequence?"

"Hush!" answered the confessor, laying his finger on his lips. "I tell you my suppositionmind, it is no

assertion of the factin order that you may go the more cheerfully on your way, not deeming yourself

burdened with any responsibility as concerns this dark deed. And now, daughter, what have you to give in

"And nothing more?" the priest inquired, with a persuasive smile. "Will you not reward him with a great joy;

one of the last joys that he may know on earth, and a fit one to take with him into the better world? In a word,

will you not allow me to bring you as a stray lamb into the true fold? You have experienced some little taste

of the relief and comfort which the Church keeps abundantly in store for all its faithful children. Come home,

dear child,poor wanderer, who hast caught a glimpse of the heavenly light,come home, and be at rest."

"Father," said Hilda, much moved by his kindly earnestness, in which, however, genuine as it was, there

might still be a leaven of professional craft, "I dare not come a step farther than Providence shall guide me.

Do not let it grieve you, therefore, if I never return to the confessional; never dip my fingers in holy water;

never sign my bosom with the cross. I am a daughter of the Puritans. But, in spite of my heresy," she added

with a sweet, tearful smile, "you may one day see the poor girl, to whom you have done this great Christian

kindness, coming to remind you of it, and thank you for it, in the Better Land."

The old priest shook his head. But, as he stretched out his hands at the same moment, in the act of

benediction, Hilda knelt down and received the blessing with as devout a simplicity as any Catholic of them

When Hilda knelt to receive the priest's benediction, the act was witnessed by a person who stood leaning

against the marble balustrade that surrounds the hundred golden lights, before the high altar. He had stood

there, indeed, from the moment of the girl's entrance into the confessional. His start of surprise, at first

beholding her, and the anxious gloom that afterwards settled on his face, sufficiently betokened that he felt a

After Hilda had bidden the priest farewell, she came slowly towards the high altar. The individual to whom

we have alluded seemed irresolute whether to advance or retire. His hesitation lasted so long that the maiden,

straying through a happy reverie, had crossed the wide extent of the pavement between the confessional and

the altar, before he had decided whether to meet her. At last, when within a pace or two, she raised her eyes

In truth, the sculptor had never before seen, nor hardly imagined, such a figure of peaceful beatitude as Hilda

now presented. While coming towards him in the solemn radiance which, at that period of the day, is diffused

through the transept, and showered down beneath the dome, she seemed of the same substance as the

atmosphere that enveloped her. He could scarcely tell whether she was imbued with sunshine, or whether it

At all events, it was a marvellous change from the sad girl, who had entered the confessional bewildered with

anguish, to this bright, yet softened image of religious consolation that emerged from it. It was as if one of

the throng of angelic people, who might be hovering in the sunny depths of the dome, had alighted on the

pavement. Indeed, this capability of transfiguration, which we often see wrought by inward delight on

persons far less capable of it than Hilda, suggests how angels come by their beauty, it grows out of their

She held out her hand, and Kenyon was glad to take it in his own, if only to assure himself that she was made

"Yes, Hilda, I see that you are very happy," he replied gloomily, and withdrawing his hand after a single

"Has any misfortune befallen you?" asked Hilda with earnestness. "Pray tell me, and you shall have my

sympathy, though I must still be very happy. Now I know how it is that the saints above are touched by the

sorrows of distressed people on earth, and yet are never made wretched by them. Not that I profess to be a

saint, you know," she added, smiling radiantly. "But the heart grows so large, and so rich, and so variously

endowed, when it has a great sense of bliss, that it can give smiles to some, and tears to others, with equal

"Do not say you are no saint!" answered Kenyon with a smile, though he felt that the tears stood in his eves.

"Ah! you would not have said so, had you seen me but an hour ago!" murmured she. "I was so wretched, that

"And what has made you so suddenly happy?" inquired the sculptor. "But first, Hilda, will you not tell me

"Had I met you yesterday, I might have told you that," she replied. "Today, there is no need."

"Your happiness, then?" said the sculptor, as sadly as before. "Whence comes it?"

"A great burden has been lifted from my heartfrom my conscience, I had almost said"answered Hilda,

without shunning the glance that he fixed upon her. "I am a new creature, since this morning, Heaven be

praised for it! It was a blessed houra blessed impulsethat brought me to this beautiful and glorious

cathedral. I shall hold it in loving remembrance while I live, as the spot where I found infinite peace after

Her heart seemed so full, that it spilt its new gush of happiness, as it were, like rich and sunny wine out of an

overbrimming goblet. Kenyon saw that she was in one of those moods of elevated feeling, when the soul is

upheld by a strange tranquility, which is really more passionate and less controllable than emotions far

exceeding it in violence. He felt that there would be indelicacy, if he ought not rather to call it impiety, in his

stealing upon Hilda, while she was thus beyond her own guardianship, and surprising her out of secrets which

she might afterwards bitterly regret betraying to him. Therefore, though yearning to know what had

Simple and earnest people, however, being accustomed to speak from their genuine impulses, cannot easily,

as craftier men do, avoid the subject which they have at heart. As often as the sculptor unclosed his lips, such

words as these were ready to burst out:"Hilda, have you flung your angelic purity into that mass of

"What were you saying?" she asked, as Kenyon forced back an almost uttered exclamation of this kind.

"I was thinking of what you have just remarked about the cathedral," said he, looking up into the mighty

hollow of the dome. "It is indeed a magnificent structure, and an adequate expression of the Faith which built

it. When I behold it in a proper mood,that is to say, when I bring my mind into a fair relation with the

minds and purposes of its spiritual and material architects,I see but one or two criticisms to make. One is,

"O, no!" said Hilda. "They would be quite inconsistent with so much richness of color in the interior of the

church. Besides, it is a Gothic ornament, and only suited to that style of architecture, which requires a

"Nevertheless," continued the sculptor, "yonder square apertures, filled with ordinary panes of glass, are quite

out of keeping with the superabundant splendor of everything about them. They remind me of that portion of

Aladdin's palace which he left unfinished, in order that his royal fatherinlaw might put the finishing touch.

Daylight, in its natural state, ought not to be admitted here. It should stream through a brilliant illusion of

saints and hierarchies, and old scriptural images, and symbolized dogmas, purple, blue, golden, and a broad

flame of scarlet. Then, it would be just such an illumination as the Catholic faith allows to its believers. But,

"Why do you look so sorrowfully at me?" asked Hilda, quietly meeting his disturbed gaze. "What would you

"I fancied so," answered Kenyon. "Forgive me, Hilda; but I must needs speak. You seemed to me a rare

mixture of impressibility, sympathy, sensitiveness to many influences, with a certain quality of common

sense;no, not that, but a higher and finer attribute, for which I find no better word. However tremulously

you might vibrate, this quality, I supposed, would always bring you back to the equipoise. You were a

creature of imagination, and yet as truly a New England girl as any with whom you grew up in your native

village. If there were one person in the world whose native rectitude of thought, and something deeper, more

reliable, than thought, I would have trusted against all the arts of a priesthood,whose taste alone, so

exquisite and sincere that it rose to be a moral virtue, I would have rested upon as a sufficient safeguard,it

"I am conscious of no such high and delicate qualities as you allow me," answered Hilda. "But what have I

done that a girl of New England birth and culture, with the right sense that her mother taught her, and the

"Ah well, my dear friend," replied Hilda, casting down her eyes, and looking somewhat confused, yet not

ashamed, "you must try to forgive me for that, ~ if you deem it wrong, because it has saved my reason, and

made me very happy. Had you been here yesterday, I would have confessed to you."

"I think," Hilda resumed," I shall never go to the confessional again; for there can scarcely come such a sore

trial twice in my life. If I had been a wiser girl, a stronger, and a more sensible, very likely I might not have

gone to the confessional at all. It was the sin of others that drove me thither; not my own, though it almost

seemed so. Being what I am, I must either have done what you saw me doing, or have gone mad. Would that

"Really, I do not quite know what I am," replied Hilda, encountering his eyes with a frank and simple gaze. "I

have a great deal of faith, and Catholicism seems to have a great deal of good. Why should not I be a

Catholic, if I find there what I need, and what I cannot find elsewhere? The more I see of this worship, the

more I wonder at the exuberance with which it adapts itself to all the demands of human infirmity. If its

ministers were but a little more than human, above all error, pure from all iniquity, what a religion would it

"I need not fear your conversion to the Catholic faith," remarked Kenyon, "if you are at all aware of the bitter

sarcasm implied in your last observation. It is very just. Only the exceeding ingenuity of the system stamps it

as the contrivance of man, or some worse author; not an emanation of the broad and simple wisdom from on

Thus conversing, the two friends went together down the grand extent of the nave. Before leaving the church,

they turned to admire again its mighty breadth, the remoteness of the glory behind the altar, and the effect of

visionary splendor and magnificence imparted by the long bars of smoky sunshine, which travelled so far

Kenyon's mind was deeply disturbed by his idea of her Catholic propensities; and now what he deemed her

disproportionate and misapplied veneration for the sublime edifice stung him into irreverence.

"The best thing I know of St. Peter's," observed he, "is its equable temperature" We are now enjoying the

coolness of last winter, which, a few months hence, will be the warmth of the present summer. It has no cure,

I suspect, in all its length and breadth, for a sick soul, but it would make an admirable atmospheric hospital

for sick bodies. What a delightful shelter would it be for the invalids who throng to Rome, where the sirocco

steals away their strength, and the tramontana stabs them through and through, like cold steel with a poisoned

point! But within these walls, the thermometer never varies. Winter and summer are married at the high altar,

"Yes," said Hilda; "and I have always felt this soft, unchanging climate of St. Peter's to be another

"That is not precisely my idea," replied Kenyon. "But what a delicious life it would be, if a colony of people

with delicate lungs or merely with delicate fanciescould take up their abode in this evermild and tranquil

air. These architectural tombs of the popes might serve for dwellings, and each brazen sepulchral doorway

would become a domestic threshold. Then the lover, if he dared, might say to his mistress, ' Will you share

my tomb with me? ' and, winning her soft consent, he would lead her to the altar, and thence to yonder

sepulchre of Pope Gregory, which should be their nuptial home. What a life would be theirs, Hilda, in their

"It is not kind, nor like yourself," said Hilda gently, "to throw ridicule on emotions which are genuine. I

revere this glorious church for itself and its purposes; and love it, moreover, because here I have found sweet

"Forgive me," answered the sculptor, "and I will do so no more. My heart is not so irreverent as my Words."

They went through the piazza of St. Peter's and the adjacent streets, silently at first; but, before reaching the

bridge of St. Angelo, Hilda's flow of spirits began to bubble forth, like the gush of a streamlet that has been

shut up by frost, or by a heavy stone over its source. Kenyon had never found her so delightful as now; so

softened out of the chillness of her virgin pride; so full of fresh thoughts, at which he was often moved to

smile, although, on turning them over a little more, he sometimes discovered that they looked fanciful only

But, indeed, she was not quite in a normal state. Emerging from gloom into sudden cheerfulness, the effect

upon Hilda was as if she were just now created. After long torpor, receiving back her intellectual activity, she

derived an exquisite pleasure from the use of her faculties, which were set in motion by causes that seemed

inadequate. She continually brought to Kenyon's mind the image of a child, making its plaything of every

object, but sporting in good faith, and with a kind of seriousness. Looking up, for example, at the statue of St.

Michael, on the top of Hadrian's castellated tomb, Hilda fancied an interview between the Archangel and the

old emperor's ghost, who was naturally displeased at finding his mausoleum, which he had ordained for the

"But St. Michael, no doubt," she thoughtfully remarked, "would finally convince the Emperor Hadrian that

where a warlike despot is sown as the seed, a fortress and a prison are the only possible crop."

They stopped on the bridge to look into the swift eddying flow of the yellow Tiber, a mud puddle in

strenuous motion; and Hilda wondered whether the sevenbranched golden candlestick,the holy

candlestick of the Jews, which was lost at the Ponte Molle, in Constantine's time, had yet been swept as far

"It probably stuck where it fell," said the sculptor; "and, by this time, is imbedded thirty feet deep in the mud

"I fancy you are mistaken," replied Hilda, smiling. "There was a meaning and purpose in each of its seven

branches, and such a candlestick cannot be lost forever. When it is found again, and seven lights are kindled

and burning in it, the whole world will gain the illumination which it needs. Would not this be an admirable

idea for a mystic story or parable, or sevenbranched allegory, full of poetry, art, philosophy, and religion? It

shall be called 'The Recovery of the Sacred Candlestick.' As each branch is lighted, it shall have a differently

colored lustre from the other six; and when all the seven are kindled, their radiance shall combine into the

"Positively, Hilda, this is a magnificent conception," cried Kenyon. "The more I look at it, the brighter it

"I think so too," said Hilda, enjoying a childlike pleasure in her own idea. "The theme is better suited for

verse than prose; and when I go home to America, I will suggest it to one of our poets. Or seven poets might

write the poem together, each lighting a separate branch of the Sacred Candlestick."

"Only yesterday," she replied, "I longed to flee away. Now, all is changed, and, being happy again, I should

feel deep regret at leaving the Pictorial Land. But I cannot tell. In Rome, there is something dreary and awful,

When they reached the Via Portoghese, and approached Hilda's tower, the doves, who were waiting aloft,

flung themselves upon the air, and came floating down about her head. The girl caressed them, and responded

to their cooings with similar sounds from her own lips, and with words of endearment; and their joyful

flutterings and airy little flights, evidently impelled by pure exuberance of spirits, seemed to show that the

doves had a real sympathy with their mistress's state of mind. For peace had descended upon her like a dove.

Bidding the sculptor farewell, Hilda climbed her tower, and came forth upon its summit to trim the Virgin's

lamp. The doves, well knowing her custom, had flown up thither to meet her, and again hovered about her

head; and very lovely was her aspect, in the evening Sunlight, which had little further to do with the world

Turning her eyes down into the dusky street which she had just quitted, Hilda saw the sculptor still there, and

"How sad and dim he looks, down there in that dreary street!" she said to herself. "Something weighs upon

"How like a spirit she looks, aloft there, with the evening glory round her head, and those winged creatures

claiming her as akin to them!" thought Kenyon, on his part. "How far above me! how unattainable! Ah, if I

could lift myself to her region! Orif it be not a sin to wish itwould that I might draw her down to an

What a sweet reverence is that, when a young man deems his mistress a little more than mortal, and almost

chides himself for longing to bring her close to his heart! A trifling circumstance, but such as lovers make

much of, gave him hope. One of the doves, which had been resting on Hilda's shoulder, suddenly flew

downward, as if recognizing him as its mistress's dear friend; and, perhaps commissioned with an errand of

It being still considerably earlier than the period at which artists and tourists are accustomed to assemble in

Rome, the sculptor and Hilda found themselves comparatively alone there. The dense mass of native Roman

life, in the midst of which they were, served to press them near one another. It was as if they had been thrown

together on a desert island. Or they seemed to have wandered, by some strange chance, out of the common

world, and encountered each other in a depopulated city, where there were streets of lonely palaces, and

unreckonable treasures of beautiful and admirable things, of which they two became the sole inheritors.

In such circumstances, Hilda's gentle reserve must have been stronger than her kindly disposition permitted,

if the friendship between Kenyon and herself had not grown as warm as a maiden's friendship can ever be,

without absolutely and avowedly blooming into love. On the sculptor's side, the amaranthine flower was

already in full blow. But it is very beautiful, though the lover's heart may grow chill at the perception, to see

how the snow will sometimes linger in a virgin's breast, even after the spring is well advanced. In such alpine

soils, the summer will not be anticipated; we seek vainly for passionate flowers, and blossoms of fervid hue

and spicy fragrance, finding only snowdrops and sunless violets, when it is almost the full season for the

With so much tenderness as Hilda had in her nature, it was strange that she so reluctantly admitted the idea of

love; especially as, in the sculptor, she found both congeniality and variety of taste, and likenesses and

differences of character; these being as essential as those to any poignancy of mutual emotion.

So Hilda, as far as Kenyon could discern, still did not love him, though she admitted him within the quiet

circle of her affections as a dear friend and trusty counsellor. If we knew what is best for us, or could be

content with what is reasonably good, the sculptor might well have been satisfied, for a season, with this calm

intimacy, which so sweetly kept him a stranger in her heart, and a ceremonious guest; and yet allowed him

the free enjoyment of all but its deeper recesses. The flowers that grow outside of those minor sanctities have

a wild, hasty charm, which it is well to prove; there may be sweeter ones within the sacred precinct, but none

that will die while you are handling them, and bequeath you a delicious legacy, as these do, in the perception

And this may be the reason, after all, why Hilda, like so many other maidens, lingered on the hither side of

passion; her finer instinct and keener sensibility made her enjoy those pale delights in a degree of which men

are incapable. She hesitated to grasp a richer happiness, as possessing already such measure of it as her heart

Certainly, they both were very happy. Kenyon's genius, unconsciously wrought upon by Hilda's influence,

took a more delicate character than heretofore. He modelled, among other things, a beautiful little statue of

maidenhood gathering a snowdrop. It was never put into marble, however, because the sculptor soon

recognized it as one of those fragile creations which are true only to the moment that produces them, and are

On her part, Hilda returned to her customary Occupations with a fresh love for them, and yet with a deeper

look into the heart of things; such as those necessarily acquire who have passed from picture galleries into

dungeon gloom, and thence come back to the picture gallery again. It is questionable whether she was ever so

perfect a copyist thenceforth. She could not yield herself up to the painter so unreservedly as in times past;

her character had developed a sturdier quality, which made her less pliable to the influence of other minds.

She saw into the picture as profoundly as ever, and perhaps more so, but not with the devout sympathy that

had formerly given her entire possession of the old master's idea. She had known such a reality, that it taught

her to distinguish inevitably the large portion that is unreal, in every work of art. Instructed by sorrow, she

felt that there is something beyond almost all which pictorial genius has produced; and she never forgot those

sad wanderings from gallery to gallery, and from church to church, where she had vainly sought a type of the

Virgin Mother, or the Saviour, or saint, or martyr, which a soul in extreme need might recognize as the

How, indeed, should she have found such? How could holiness be revealed to the artist of an age when the

greatest of them put genius and imagination in the place of spiritual insight, and when, from the pope

Meanwhile, months wore away, and Rome received back that large portion of its lifeblood which runs in the

veins of its foreign and temporary population. English visitors established themselves in the hotels, and in all

the sunny suites of apartments, in the streets convenient to the Piazza di Spagna; the English tongue was

heard familiarly along the Corso, and English children sported in the Pincian Gardens.

The native Romans, on the other hand, like the butterflies and grasshoppers, resigned themselves to the short,

sharp misery which winter brings to a people whose arrangements are made almost exclusively with a view to

summer. Keeping no fire withindoors, except possibly a spark or two in the kitchen, they crept out of their

cheerless houses into the narrow, sunless, sepulchral streets, bringing their firesides along with them, in the

shape of little earthen pots, vases, or pipkins, full of lighted charcoal and warm ashes, over which they held

their tingling fingerends. Even in this halftorpid wretchedness, they still seemed to dread a pestilence in

the sunshine, and kept on the shady side of the piazzas, as scrupulously as in summer. Through the open

doorways w no need to shut them when the weather within was bleaker than withouta glimpse into the

interior of their dwellings showed the uncarpeted brick floors, as dismal as the pavement of a tomb.

They drew their old cloaks about them, nevertheless, and threw the corners over their shoulders, with the

dignity of attitude and action that have come down to these modern citizens, as their sole inheritance from the

togated nation. Somehow or other, they managed to keep up their poor, frostbitten hearts against the pitiless

atmosphere with a quiet and uncomplaining endurance that really seems the most respectable point in the

present Roman character. For in New England, or in Russia, or scarcely in a hut of the Esquimaux, there is no

such discomfort to be borne as by Romans in wintry weather, when the orangetrees bear icy fruit in the

gardens; and when the rims of all the fountains are shaggy with icicles, and the Fountain of Trevi skimmed

almost across with a glassy surface; and when there is a slide in the piazza of St. Peter's, and a fringe of

brown, frozen foam along the eastern shore of the Tiber, and sometimes a fall of great snowflakes into the

dreary lanes and alleys of the miserable city. Cold blasts, that bring death with them, now blow upon the

Wherever we pass our summers, may all our inclement months, from November to April, henceforth be spent

Now, too, there was especial discomfort in the stately picture galleries, where nobody, indeed,not the

princely or priestly founders, nor any who have inherited their cheerless magnificence, ever dreamed of

such an impossibility as fireside warmth, since those great palaces were built. Hilda, therefore, finding her

fingers so much benumbed that the spiritual influence could not be transmitted to them, was persuaded to

leave her easel before a picture, on one of these wintry days, and pay a visit to Kenyon's studio. But neither

was the studio anything better than a dismal den, with its marble shapes shivering around the walls, cold as

the snow images which the sculptor used to model in his boyhood, and sadly behold them weep themselves

Kenyon's Roman artisans, all this while, had been at work on the Cleopatra. The fierce Egyptian queen had

now struggled almost out of the imprisoning stone; or, rather, the workmen had found her within the mass of

marble, imprisoned there by magic, but still fervid to the touch with fiery life, the fossil woman of an age that

produced statelier, stronger, and more passionate creatures than our own. You already felt her compressed

heat, and were aware of a tigerlike character even in her repose. If Octavius should make his appearance,

though the marble still held her within its embrace, it was evident that she would tear herself forth in a

twinkling, either to spring enraged at his throat, or, sinking into his arms, to make one more proof of her rich

blandishments, or, falling lowly at his feet, to try the efficacy of a woman's tears.

"I am ashamed to tell you how much I admire this statue," said Hilda. "No other sculptor could have done it."

"This is very sweet for me to hear," replied Kenyon; "and since your reserve keeps you from saying more, I

shall imagine you expressing everything that an artist would wish to hear said about his work."

"You will not easily go beyond my genuine opinion," answered Hilda, with a smile.

"Ah, your kind word makes me very happy," said the sculptor, "and I need it, just now, on behalf of my

Cleopatra. That inevitable period has come,for I have found it inevitable, in regard to all my works,

when I look at what I fancied to be a statue, lacking only breath to make it live, and find it a mere lump of

senseless stone, into which I have not really succeeded in moulding the spiritual part of my idea. I should

like, now,only it would be such shameful treatment for a discrowned queen, and my own offspring too,I

should like to hit poor Cleopatra a bitter blow on her Egyptian nose with this mallet."

"That is a blow which all statues seem doomed to receive, sooner or later, though seldom from the hand that

sculptured them," said Hilda, laughing. "But you must not let yourself be too much disheartened by the decay

of your faith in what you produce. I have heard a poet express similar distaste for his own most exquisite

poem, and I am afraid that this final despair, and sense of shortcoming, must always be the reward and

punishment of those who try to grapple with a great or beautiful idea. It only proves that you have been able

to imagine things too high for mortal faculties to execute. The idea leaves you an imperfect image of itself,

which you at first mistake for the ethereal reality, but soon find that the latter has escaped out of your closest

"And the only consolation is," remarked Kenyon, "that the blurred and imperfect image may still make a very

"More than that," rejoined Hilda; "for there is a class of spectators whose sympathy will help them to see the

perfect through a mist of imperfection. Nobody, I think, ought to read poetry, or look at pictures or statues,

who cannot find a great deal more in them than the poet or artist has actually expressed. Their highest merit is

"You, Hilda, are yourself the only critic in whom I have much faith," said Kenyon. "Had you condemned

"You invest me with such an awful responsibility," she replied, "that I shall not dare to say a single word

He pointed to a bust of Donatello. It was not the one which Kenyon had begun to model at Monte Beni, but a

reminiscence of the Count's face, wrought under the influence of all the sculptor's knowledge of his history,

and of his personal and hereditary character. It stood on a wooden pedestal, not nearly finished, but with fine

white dust and small chips of marble scattered about it, and itself incrusted all round with the white, shapeless

substance of the block. In the midst appeared the features, lacking sharpness, and very much resembling a

fossil countenance,but we have already used this simile, in reference to Cleopatra, with the accumulations

And yet, strange to say, the face had an expression, and a more recognizable one than Kenyon had succeeded

in putting into the clay model at Monte Beni. The reader is probably acquainted with Thorwaldsen's

threefold analogy,the clay model, the Life; the plaster cast, the Death; and the sculptured marble, the

Resurrection, and it seemed to be made good by the spirit that was kindling up these imperfect features,

"I was not quite sure, at first glance, that I knew the face," observed Hilda; "the likeness surely is not a

striking one. There is a good deal of external resemblance, still, to the features of the Faun of Praxiteles,

between whom and Donatello, you know, we once insisted that there was a perfect twinbrotherhood. But the

"I hardly know how to define it," she answered. "But it has an effect as if I could see this countenance

gradually brightening while I look at it. It gives the impression of a growing intellectual power and moral

sense. Donatello's face used to evince little more than a genial, pleasurable sort of vivacity, and capability of

enjoyment. But here, a soul is being breathed into him; it is the Faun, but advancing towards a state of higher

"Hilda, do you see all this?" exclaimed Kenyon, in considerable surprise. "I may have had such an idea in my

mind, but was quite unaware that I had succeeded in conveying it into the marble."

"Forgive me," said Hilda, "but I question whether this striking effect has been brought about by any skill or

purpose on the sculptor's part. Is it not, perhaps, the chance result of the bust being just so far shaped out, in

the marble, as the process of moral growth had advanced in the original? A few more strokes of the chisel

"I believe you are right," answered Kenyon, thoughtfully examining his work; "and, strangely enough, it was

the very expression that I tried unsuccessfully to produce in the clay model. Well; not another chip shall be

And, accordingly, Donatello's bust (like that rude, rough mass of the head of Brutus, by Michael Angelo, at

Florence) has ever since remained in an unfinished state. Most spectators mistake it for an unsuccessful

attempt towards copying the features of the Faun of Praxiteles. One observer in a thousand is conscious of

something more, and lingers long over this mysterious face, departing from it reluctantly, and with many a

glance thrown backward. What perplexes him is the riddle that he sees propounded there; the riddle of the

soul's growth, taking its first impulse amid remorse and pain, and struggling through the incrustations of the

senses. It was the contemplation of this imperfect portrait of Donatello that originally interested us in his

history, and impelled us to elicit from Kenyon what he knew of his friend's adventures.

When Hilda and himself turned away from the unfinished bust, the sculptor's mind still dwelt upon the

reminiscences which it suggested. "You have not seen Donatello recently," he remarked, "and therefore

The terrible scene which she had witnessed, when Donatello's face gleamed out in so fierce a light, came

back upon her memory, almost for the first time since she knelt at the confessional. Hilda, as is sometimes the

case with persons whose delicate organization requires a peculiar safeguard, had an elastic faculty of

throwing off such recollections as would be too painful for endurance. The first shock of Donatello's and

Miriam's crime had, indeed, broken through the frail defence of this voluntary forgetfulness; but, once

enabled to relieve herself of the ponderous anguish over which she had so long brooded, she had practised a

"No wonder, do you say?" repeated the sculptor, looking at her with interest, but not exactly with surprise; for

he had long suspected that Hilda had a painful knowledge of events which he himself little more than

surmised. "Then you know!you have heard! But what can you possibly have heard, and through what

"Nothing!" replied Hilda faintly. "Not one word has reached my ears from the lips of any human being. Let

"And Miriam!" said Kenyon, with irrepressible interest. "Is it also forbidden to speak of her?"

"Hush! do not even utter her name! Try not to think of it!" Hilda whispered. "It may bring terrible

"My dear Hilda!" exclaimed Kenyon, regarding her with wonder and deep sympathy. "My sweet friend, have

you had this secret hidden in your delicate, maidenly heart, through all these many months! No wonder that

"It was so, indeed!" said Hilda, shuddering. "Even now, I sicken at the recollection."

"And how could it have come to your knowledge?" continued the sculptor. "But no matter! Do not torture

yourself with referring to the subject. Only, if at any time it should be a relief to you, remember that we can

speak freely together, for Miriam has herself suggested a confidence between us."

"Miriam has suggested this!" exclaimed Hilda. "Yes, I remember, now, her advising that the secret should be

shared with you. But I have survived the death struggle that it cost me, and need make no further revelations.

And Miriam has spoken to you! What manner of woman can she be, who, after sharing in such a deed, can

"Ah, Hilda," replied Kenyon, "you do not know, for you could never learn it from your own heart, which is

all purity and rectitude, what a mixture of good there may be in things evil; and how the greatest criminal, if

you look at his conduct from his own point of view, or from any side point, may seem not so unquestionably

guilty, after all. So with Miriam; so with Donatello. They are, perhaps, partners in what we must call awful

guilt; and yet, I will own to you,when I think of the original cause, the motives, the feelings, the sudden

concurrence of circumstances thrusting them onward, the urgency of the moment, and the sublime

unselfishness on either part,I know not well how to distinguish it from much that the world calls heroism.

Might we not render some such verdict as this?'Worthy of Death, but not unworthy of Love! '"

"Never!" answered Hilda, looking at the matter through the clear crystal medium of her own integrity. "This

thing, as regards its causes, is all a mystery to me, and must remain so. But there is, I believe, only one right

and one wrong; and I do not understand, and may God keep me from ever understanding, how two things so

totally unlike can be mistaken for one another; nor how two mortal foes, as Right and Wrong surely are, can

work together in the same deed. This is my faith; and I should be led astray, if you could persuade me to give

"Alas for poor human nature, then!" said Kenyon sadly, and yet half smiling at Hilda's unworldly and

impracticable theory. "I always felt you, my dear friend, a terribly severe judge, and have been perplexed to

conceive how such tender sympathy could coexist with the remorselessness of a steel blade. You need no

"That sounds like a bitter gibe," said Hilda, with the tears springing into her eyes. "But I cannot help it. It

does not alter my perception of the truth. If there be any such dreadful mixture of good and evil as you

affirm,and which appears to me almost more shocking than pure evil,then the good is turned to poison,

The sculptor seemed disposed to say something more, but yielded to the gentle steadfastness with which

Hilda declined to listen. She grew very sad; for a reference to this one dismal topic had set, as it were, a

prison door ajar, and allowed a throng of torturing recollections to escape from their dungeons into the pure

air and white radiance of her soul. She bade Kenyon a briefer farewell than ordinary, and went homeward to

In spite of her efforts to withdraw them to other subjects, her thoughts dwelt upon Miriam; and, as had not

heretofore happened, they brought with them a painful doubt whether a wrong had not been committed on

Hilda's part, towards the friend once so beloved. Something that Miriam had said, in their final conversation,

recurred to her memory, and seemed now to deserve more weight than Hilda had assigned to it, in her horror

at the crime just perpetrated. It was not that the deed looked less wicked and terrible in the retrospect; but she

asked herself whether there were not other questions to be considered, aside from that single one of Miriam's

guilt or innocence; as, for example, whether a close bond of friendship, in which we once voluntarily engage,

ought to be severed on account of any unworthiness, which we subsequently detect in our friend. For, in these

unions of hearts,call them marriage, or whatever else,we take each other for better for worse. Availing

ourselves of our friend's intimate affection, we pledge our own, as to be relied upon in every emergency. And

what sadder, more desperate emergency could there be, than had befallen Miriam? Who more need the tender

succor of the innocent, than wretches stained with guilt! And must a selfish care for the spotlessness of our

own garments keep us from pressing the guilty ones close to our hearts, wherein, for the very reason that we

It was a sad thing for Hilda to find this moral enigma propounded to her conscience; and to feel that,

whichever way she might settle it, there would be a cry of wrong on the other side. Still, the idea stubbornly

came back, that the tie between Miriam and herself had been real, the affection true, and that therefore the

"Miriam loved me well," thought Hilda remorsefully, "and I failed her at her sorest need."

Miriam loved her well; and not less ardent had been the affection which Miriam's warm, tender, and generous

characteristics had excited in Hilda's more reserved and quiet nature. It had never been extinguished; for, in

part, the wretchedness which Hilda had since endured was but the struggle and writhing of her sensibility,

still yearning towards her friend. And now, at the earliest encouragement, it awoke again, and cried out

Recurring to the delinquencies of which she fancied (we say "fancied," because we do not unhesitatingly

adopt Hilda's present view, but rather suppose her misled by her feelings)of which she fancied herself

guilty towards her friend, she suddenly remembered a sealed packet that Miriam had confided to her. It had

been put into her hands with earnest injunctions of secrecy and care, and if unclaimed after a certain period,

was to be delivered according to its address. Hilda had forgotten it; or, rather, she had kept the thought of this

commission in the background of her consciousness, with all other thoughts referring to Miriam.

But now the recollection of this packet, and the evident stress which Miriam laid upon its delivery at the

specified time, impelled Hilda to hurry up the staircase of her tower, dreading lest the period should already

No; the hour had not gone by, but was on the very point of passing. Hilda read the brief note of instruction,

on a corner of the envelope, and discovered, that, in case of Miriam's absence from Rome, the packet was to

"How nearly I had violated my promise!" said Hilda. "And, since we are separated forever, it has the

So Hilda set forth in the decline of the afternoon, and pursued her way towards the quarter of the city in

which stands the Palazzo Cenci. Her habit of selfreliance was so simply strong, so natural, and now so well

established by long use, that the idea of peril seldom or never occurred to Hilda, in her lonely life.

She differed, in this particular, from the generality of her sex, although the customs and character of her

native land often produce women who meet the world with gentle fearlessness, and discover that its terrors

have been absurdly exaggerated by the tradition of mankind. In ninetynine cases out of a hundred, the

apprehensiveness of women is quite gratuitous. Even as matters now stand, they are really safer in perilous

situations and emergencies than men; and might be still more so, if they trusted themselves more confidingly

to the chivalry of manhood. In all her wanderings about Rome, Hilda had gone and returned as securely as

she had been accustomed to tread the familiar street of her New England village, where every face wore a

look of recognition. With respect to whatever was evil, foul, and ugly, in this populous and corrupt city, she

trod as if invisible, and not only so, but blind. She was altogether unconscious of anything wicked that went

along the same pathway, but without jostling or impeding her, any more than gross substance hinders the

wanderings of a spirit. Thus it is, that, bad as the world is said to have grown, innocence continues to make a

Hilda's present expedition led her into what wasphysically, at leastthe foulest and ugliest part of Rome.

In that vicinity lies the Ghetto, where thousands of Jews are crowded within a narrow compass, and lead a

close, unclean, and multitudinous life, resembling that of maggots when they overpopulate a decaying

Hilda passed on the borders of this region, but had no occasion to step within it. Its neighborhood, however,

naturally partook of characteristics 'like its own. There was a confusion of black and hideous houses, piled

massively out of the ruins of former ages; rude and destitute of plan, as a pauper would build his hovel, and

yet displaying here and there an arched gateway, a cornice, a pillar, or a broken arcade, that might have

adorned a palace. Many of the houses, indeed, as they stood, might once have been palaces, and possessed

still a squalid kind of grandeur. Dirt was everywhere, strewing the narrow streets, and incrusting the tall

shabbiness of the edifices, from the foundations to the roofs; it lay upon the thresholds, and looked out of the

windows, and assumed the guise of human life in the children that Seemed to be engendered out of it. Their

It is a question of speculative interest, whether the ancient Romans were as unclean a people as we

everywhere find those who have succeeded them. There appears to be a kind of malignant spell in the spots

that have been inhabited by these masters of the world, or made famous in their history; an inherited and

inalienable curse, impelling their successors to fling dirt and defilement upon whatever temple, column,

mined palace, or triumphal arch may be nearest at hand, and on every monument that the old Romans built. It

is most probably a classic trait, regularly transmitted downward, and perhaps a little modified by the better

civilization of Christianity; so that Caesar may have trod narrower and filthier ways in his path to the Capitol,

As the paternal abode of Beatrice, the gloomy old palace of the Cencis had an interest for Hilda, although not

sufficiently strong, hitherto, to overcome the disheartening effect of the exterior, and draw her over its

threshold. The adjacent piazza, of poor aspect, contained only an old woman selling roasted chestnuts and

baked squashseeds; she looked sharply at Hilda, and inquired whether she had lost her way.

"Yonder it is, fair signorina," replied the Roman matron. "If you wish that packet delivered, which I see in

your hand, my grandson Pietro shall run with it for a baiocco. The Cenci palace is a spot of ill omen for

Hilda thanked the old dame, but alleged the necessity of doing her errand in person. She approached the front

of the palace, which, with all its immensity, had but a mean appearance, and seemed an abode which the

lovely shade of Beatrice would not be apt to haunt, unless her doom made it inevitable. Some soldiers stood

about the portal, and gazed at the brownhaired, faircheeked AngloSaxon girl, with approving glances, but

not indecorously. Hilda began to ascend the staircase, three lofty flights of which were to be surmounted,

Between Hilda and the sculptor there had been a kind of halfexpressed understanding, that both were to visit

the galleries of the Vatican the day subsequent to their meeting at the studio. Kenyon, accordingly, failed not

to be there, and wandered through the vast ranges of apartments, but saw nothing of his expected friend. The

marble faces, which stand innumerable along the walls, and have kept themselves so calm through the

vicissitudes of twenty centuries, had no sympathy for his disappointment; and he, on the other hand, strode

past these treasures and marvels of antique art, with the indifference which any preoccupation of the feelings

is apt to produce, in reference to objects of sculpture. Being of so cold and pure a substance, and mostly

deriving their vitality more from thought than passion, they require to be seen through a perfectly transparent

And, moreover, Kenyon had counted so much upon Hilda's delicate perceptions in enabling him to look at

two or three of the statues, about which they had talked together, that the entire purpose of his visit was

defeated by her absence. It is a delicious sort of mutual aid, when the united power of two sympathetic, yet

dissimilar, intelligences is brought to bear upon a poem by reading it aloud, or upon a picture or statue by

viewing it in each other's company. Even if not a word of criticism be uttered, the insight of either party is

wonderfully deepened, and the comprehension broadened; so that the inner mystery of a work of genius,

hidden from one, will often reveal itself to two. Missing such help, Kenyon saw nothing at the Vatican which

In the chili of his disappointment, he suspected that it was a very cold art to which he had devoted himself.

He questioned, at that moment, whether sculpture really ever softens and warms the material which it

handles; whether carved marble is anything but limestone, after all; and whether the Apollo Belvedere itself

possesses any merit above its physical beauty, or is beyond criticism even in that generally acknowledged

excellence. In flitting glances, heretofore, he had seemed to behold this statue, as something ethereal and

Nothing pleased him, unless it were the group of the Laocoon, which, in its immortal agony, impressed

Kenyon as a type of the long, fierce struggle of man, involved in the knotted entanglements of Error and Evil,

those two snakes, which, if no divine help intervene, will be sure to strangle him and his children in the end.

What he most admired was the strange calmness diffused through this bitter strife; so that it resembled the

rage of the sea made calm by its immensity,' or the tumult of Niagara which ceases to be tumult because it

lasts forever. Thus, in the Laocoon, the horror of a moment grew to be the fate of interminable ages. Kenyon

looked upon the group as the one triumph of sculpture, creating the repose, which is essential to it, in the very

acme of turbulent effort; but, in truth, it was his mood of unwonted despondency that made him so sensitive

to the terrible magnificence, as well as to the sad moral, of this work. Hilda herself could not have helped him

A good deal more depressed than the nature of the disappointment warranted, Kenyon went to his studio, and

took in hand a great lump of clay. He soon found, however, that his plastic cunning had departed from him

for the time. So he wandered forth again into the uneasy streets of Rome, and walked up and down the Corso,

where, at that period of the day, a throng of passersby and loiterers choked up the narrow sidewalk. A

It was a figure in a white robe, with a kind of featureless mask over the face, through the apertures of which

the eyes threw an unintelligible light. Such odd, questionable shapes are often seen gliding through the streets

of Italian cities, and are understood to be usually persons of rank, who quit their palaces, their gayeties, their

pomp and pride, and assume the penitential garb for a season, with a view of thus expiating some crime, or

atoning for the aggregate of petty sins that make up a worldly life. It is their custom to ask alms, and perhaps

to measure the duration of their penance by the time requisite to accumulate a sum of money out of the little

droppings of individual charity. The avails are devoted to some beneficent or religious purpose; so that the

benefit accruing to their own souls is, in a manner, linked with a good done, or intended, to their fellowmen.

These figures have a ghastly and startling effect, not so much from any very impressive peculiarity in the

garb, as from the mystery which they bear about with them, and the sense that there is an acknowledged

In the present instance, however, the penitent asked no alms of Kenyon; although, for the space of a minute

or two, they stood face to face, the hollow eyes of the mask encountering the sculptor's gaze. But, just as the

crowd was about to separate them, the former spoke, in a voice not unfamiliar to Kenyon, though rendered

"Is all well with you, Signore?" inquired the penitent, out of the cloud in which he walked.

But the masked penitent returned no answer, being borne away by the pressure of the throng.

The sculptor stood watching the figure, and was almost of a mind to hurry after him and follow up the

conversation that had been begun; but it occurred to him that there is a sanctity (or, as we might rather term it,

an inviolable etiquette) which prohibits the recognition of persons who choose to walk under the veil of

"How strange!" thought Kenyon to himself. "It was surely Donatello! What can bring him to Rome, where

his recollections must be so painful, and his presence not without peril? And Miriam! Can she have

He walked on, thinking of the vast change in Donatello, since those days of gayety and innocence, when the

young Italian was new in Rome, and was just beginning to be sensible of a more poignant felicity than he had

yet experienced, in the sunny warmth of Miriam's smile. The growth of a soul, which the sculptor half

imagined that he had witnessed in his friend, seemed hardly worth the heavy price that it had cost, in the

sacrifice of those simple enjoyments that were gone forever. A creature of antique healthfulness had vanished

from the earth; and, in his stead, there was only one other morbid and remorseful man, among millions that

The accident of thus meeting Donatello the glad Faun of his imagination and memory, now transformed into

a gloomy penitentcontributed to deepen the cloud that had fallen over Kenyon's spirits. It caused him to

fancy, as we generally do, in the petty troubles which extend not a hand'sbreadth beyond our own sphere,

that the whole world was saddening around him. It took the sinister aspect of an omen, although he could not

If it had not been for a peculiar sort of pique, with which lovers are much conversant, a preposterous kind of

resentment which endeavors to wreak itself on the beloved object, and on one's own heart, in requital of

mishaps for which neither are in fault, Kenyon might at once have betaken himself to Hilda's studio, and

asked why the appointment was not kept. But the interview of today was to have been so rich in present joy,

and its results so important to his future life, that the bleak failure was too much for his equanimity. He was

angry with poor Hilda, and censured her without a hearing; angry with himself, too, and therefore inflicted on

this latter criminal the severest penalty in his power; angry with the day that was passing over him, and would

To confess the truth, it had been the sculptor's purpose to stake all his hopes on that interview in the galleries

of the Vatican. Straying with Hilda through those long vistas of ideal beauty, he meant, at last, to utter

himself upon that theme which lovers are fain to discuss in village lanes, in wood paths, on seaside sands, in

crowded streets; it little matters where, indeed, since roses are sure to blush along the way, and daisies and

violets to spring beneath the feet, if the spoken word be graciously received. He was resolved to make proof

whether the kindness that Hilda evinced for him was the precious token of an individual preference, or

merely the sweet fragrance of her disposition, which other friends might share as largely as himself. He

would try if it were possible to take this shy, yet frank, and innocently fearless creature captive, and imprison

her in his heart, and make her sensible of a wider freedom there, than in all the world besides.

It was hard, we must allow, to see the shadow of a wintry sunset falling upon a day that was to have been so

bright, and to find himself just where yesterday had left him, only with a sense of being drearily balked, and

defeated without an opportunity for struggle. So much had been anticipated from these now vanished hours,

In a case like this, it is doubtful whether Kenyon could have done a much better thing than he actually did, by

going to dine at the Cafe Nuovo, and drinking a flask of Montefiascone; longing, the while, for a beaker or

two of Donatello's Sunshine. It would have been just the wine to cure a lover's melancholy, by illuminating

his heart with tender light and warmth, and suggestions of undefined hopes, too ethereal for his morbid

No decided improvement resulting from the draught of Montefiascone, he went to the Teatro Argentino, and

sat gloomily to see an Italian comedy, which ought to have cheered him somewhat, being full of glancing

merriment, and effective over everybody's disabilities except his own. The sculptor came out, however,

As he made his way through the complication of narrow streets, which perplex that portion of the city, a

carriage passed him. It was driven rapidly, but not too fast for the light of a gaslamp to flare upon a face

withinespecially as it was bent forward, appearing to recognize him, while a beckoning hand was

protruded from the window. On his part, Kenyon at once knew the face, and hastened to the carriage, which

This inquiry, in the identical words which Donatello had so recently addressed to him from beneath the

penitent's mask, startled the sculptor. Either the previous disquietude of his mind, or some tone in Miriam's

voice, or the unaccountableness of beholding her there at all, made it seem ominous.

"All is well, I believe," answered he doubtfully. "I am aware of no misfortune. Have you any to announce'?"

He looked still more earnestly at Miriam, and felt a dreamy uncertainty whether it was really herself to whom

he spoke. True; there were those beautiful features, the contour of which he had studied too often, and with a

sculptor's accuracy of perception, to be in any doubt that it was Miriam's identical face. But he was conscious

of a change, the nature of which he could not satisfactorily define; it might be merely her dress, which,

imperfect as the light was, he saw to be richer than the simple garb that she had usually worn. The effect, he

fancied, was partly owing to a gem which she had on her bosom; not a diamond, but something that

glimmered with a clear, red lustre, like the stars in a southern sky. Somehow or other, this colored light

seemed an emanation of herself, as if all that was passionate and glowing in her native disposition had

crystallized upon her breast, and were just now scintillating more brilliantly than ever, in sympathy with

Of course there could be no real doubt that it was Miriam, his artist friend, with whom and Hilda he had spent

so many pleasant and familiar hours, and whom he had last seen at Perugia, bending with Donatello beneath

the bronze pope's benediction. It must be that selfsame Miriam; but the sensitive sculptor felt a difference of

manner, which impressed him more than he conceived it possible to be affected by so external a thing. He

remembered the gossip so prevalent in Rome on Miriam's first appearance; how that she was no real artist,

but the daughter of an illustrious or golden lineage, who was merely playing at necessity; mingling with

human struggle for her pastime; stepping out of her native sphere only for an interlude, just as a princess

might alight from her gilded equipage to go on foot through a rustic lane. And now, after a mask in which

love and death had performed their several parts, she had resumed her proper character.

"Have you anything to tell me?" cried he impatiently; for nothing causes a more disagreeable vibration of the

nerves than this perception of ambiguousness in familiar persons or affairs. "Speak; for my spirits and

Miriam put her finger on her lips, and seemed desirous that Kenyon should know of the presence of a third

person. He now saw, indeed, that, there was some one beside her in the carriage, hitherto concealed by her

attitude; a man, it appeared, with a sallow Italian face, which the sculptor distinguished but imperfectly, and

"I can tell you nothing," she replied; and leaning towards him, she whispered,appearing then more like the

Miriam whom he knew than in what had before passed,"Only, when the lamp goes out do not despair."

The carriage drove on, leaving Kenyon to muse over this unsatisfactory interview, which seemed to have

served no better purpose than to fill his mind with more ominous forebodings than before. Why were

Donatello and Miriam in Rome, where both, in all likelihood, might have much to dread? And why had one

and the other addressed him with a question that seemed prompted by a knowledge of some calamity, either

"I am sluggish," muttered Kenyon, to himself; "a weak, nerveless fool, devoid of energy and promptitude; or

neither Donatello nor Miriam could have escaped me thus! They are aware of some misfortune that concerns

There seemed but a single calamity possible to happen within so narrow a sphere as that with which the

sculptor was connected; and even to that one mode of evil he could assign no definite shape, but only felt that

Flinging aside the morbid hesitation, and the dallyings with his own wishes, which he had permitted to

influence his mind throughout the day, he now hastened to the Via Portoghese. Soon the old palace stood

before him, with its massive tower rising into the clouded night; obscured from view at its midmost elevation,

but revealed again, higher upward, by the Virgin's lamp that twinkled on the summit. Feeble as it was, in the

broad, surrounding gloom, that little ray made no inconsiderable illumination among Kenyon's sombre

thoughts; for; remembering Miriam's last words, a fantasy had seized him that he should find the sacred lamp

And even while he stood gazing, as a mariner at the star in which he put his trust, the light quivered, sank,

gleamed up again, and finally went out, leaving the battlements of Hilda's tower in utter darkness. For the

first time in centuries, the consecrated and legendary flame before the loftiest shrine in Rome had ceased to

Kenyon knew the sanctity which Hilda (faithful Protestant, and daughter of the Puritans, as the girl was)

imputed to this shrine. He was aware of the profound feeling of responsibility, as well earthly as religious,

with which her conscience had been impressed, when she became the occupant of her aerial chamber, and

undertook the task of keeping the consecrated lamp alight. There was an accuracy and a certainty about

Hilda's movements, as regarded all matters that lay deep enough to have their roots in right or wrong, which

made it as possible and safe to rely upon the timely and careful trimming of this lamp (if she were in life, and

able to creep up the steps), as upon the rising of tomorrow's sun, with lustreundiminished from today.

The sculptor could scarcely believe his eyes, therefore, when he saw the flame flicker and expire. His sight

had surely deceived him. And now, since the light did not reappear, there must be some smoke wreath or

impenetrable mist brooding about the tower's gray old head, and obscuring it from the lower world. But no!

For right over the dim battlements, as the wind chased away a mass of clouds, he beheld a star, and moreover,

by an earnest concentration of his sight, was soon able to discern even the darkened shrine itself. There was

no obscurity around the tower; no infirmity of his own vision. The flame had exhausted its supply of oil, and

A man in a cloak happened to be passing; and Kenyonanxious to distrust the testimony of his senses, if he

"Do me the favor, Signore," said he, "to look at the top of yonder tower, and tell me whether you see the lamp

"The lamp, Signore?" answered the man, without at first troubling himself to look up. "The lamp that has

burned these four hundred years! How is it possible, Signore, that it should not be burning now?" "But look!"

said the sculptor impatiently. With goodnatured indulgence for what he seemed to consider as the whim of

an eccentric Forestiero, the Italian carelessly threw his eyes upwards; but, as soon as he perceived that there

was really no light, he lifted his hands with a vivid expression of wonder and alarm.

"The lamp is extinguished!" cried he. "The lamp that has been burning these four hundred years! This surely

must portend some great misfortune; and, by my advice, Signore, you will hasten hence, lest the tower

tumble on our heads. A priest once told me that, if the Virgin withdrew her blessing and the light went out,

the old Palazzo del Torte would sink into the earth, with all that dwell in it. There will be a terrible crash

The stranger made the best of his way from the doomed premises; while Kenyonwho would willingly have

seen the tower crumble down before his eyes, on condition of Hilda's safetydetermined, late as it was, to

Passing through the arched entrance,which, as is often the case with Roman entrances, was as accessible at

midnight as at noon,he groped his way to the broad staircase, and, lighting his wax taper, went glimmering

up the multitude of steps that led to Hilda's door. The hour being so unseasonable, he intended merely to

knock, and, as soon as her voice from within should reassure him, to retire, keeping his explanations and

apologies for a fitter time. Accordingly, reaching the lofty height where the maiden, as he trusted, lay asleep,

with angels watching over her, though the Virgin seemed to have suspended her care, he tapped lightly at the

door panels,then knocked more forcibly,then thundered an impatient summons. No answer came; Hilda,

After assuring himself that this must be the fact, Kenyon descended the stairs, but made a pause at every

successive stage, and knocked at the door of its apartment, regardless whose slumbers he might disturb, in his

anxiety to learn where the girl had last been seen. But, at each closed entrance, there came those hollow

echoes, which a chamber, or any dwelling, great or small, never sends out, in response to human knuckles or

iron hammer, as long as there is life within to keep its heart from getting dreary.

Once indeed, on the lower landingplace, the sculptor fancied that there was a momentary stir inside the

door, as if somebody were listening at the threshold. He hoped, at least, that the small ironbarred aperture

would be unclosed, through which Roman housekeepers are wont to take careful cognizance of applicants for

admission, from a traditionary dread, perhaps, of letting in a robber or assassin. But it remained shut; neither

was the sound repeated; and Kenyon concluded that his excited nerves had played a trick upon his senses, as

There was nothing to be done, save to go heavily away, and await whatever good or ill tomorrow's daylight

Betimes in the morning, therefore, Kenyon went back to the Via Portoghese, before the slant rays of the sun

had descended halfway down the gray front of Hilda's tower. As he drew near its base, he saw the doves

perched in full session, on the sunny height of the battlements, and a pair of themwho were probably their

mistress's especial pets, and the confidants of her bosom secrets, if Hilda had anycame shooting down, and

made a feint of alighting on his shoulder. But, though they evidently recognized him, their shyness would not

yet allow so decided a demonstration. Kenyon's eyes followed them as they flew upward, hoping that they

might have come as joyful messengers of the girl's safety, and that he should discern her slender form, half

hidden by the parapet, trimming the extinguished lamp at the Virgin's shrine, just as other maidens set about

the little duties of a household. Or, perhaps, he might see her gentle and sweet face smiling down upon him,

midway towards heaven, as if she had flown thither for a day or two, just to visit her kindred, but had been

But his eyes were blessed by no such fair vision or reality; nor, in truth, were the eager, unquiet flutterings of

the doves indicative of any joyful intelligence, which they longed to share with Hilda's friend, but of anxious

inquiries that they knew not how to utter. They could not tell, any more than he, whither their lost companion

had withdrawn herself, but were in the same void despondency with him, feeling their sunny and airy lives

In the brisk morning air, Kenyon found it much easier to pursue his researches than at the preceding

midnight, when, if any slumberers heard the clamor that he made, they had responded only with sullen and

drowsy maledictions, and turned to sleep again. It must be a very dear and intimate reality for which people

will be content to give up a dream. When the sun was fairly up, however, it was quite another thing. The

heterogeneous population, inhabiting the lower floor of the old tower, and the other extensive regions of the

palace, were now willing to tell all they knew, and imagine a great deal more. The amiability of these Italians,

assisted by their sharp and nimble wits, caused them to overflow with plausible suggestions, and to be very

bounteous in their avowals of interest for the lost Hilda. In a less demonstrative people, such expressions

would have implied an eagerness to search land and sea, and never rest till she were found. In the mouths that

uttered them they meant good wishes, and were, so far, better than indifference. There was little doubt that

many of them felt a genuine kindness for the shy, brownhaired, delicate young foreign maiden, who had

flown from some distant land to alight upon their tower, where she consorted only with the doves. But their

energy expended itself in exclamation, and they were content to leave all more active measures to Kenyon,

and to the Virgin, whose affair it was to see that the faithful votary of her lamp received no harm.

In a great Parisian domicile, multifarious as its inhabitants might be, the concierge under the archway would

be cognizant of all their incomings and issuings forth. But except in rare cases, the general entrance and main

staircase of a Roman house are left as free as the street, of which they form a sort of bylane. The sculptor,

therefore, could hope to find information about Hilda's movements only from casual observers.

On probing the knowledge of these people to the bottom, there was various testimony as to the period when

the girl had last been seen. Some said that it was four days since there had been a trace of her; but an English

lady, in the second piano of the palace, was rather of opinion that she had met her, the morning before, with a

drawingbook in her hand. Having no acquaintance with the young person, she had taken little notice and

might have been mistaken. A count, on the piano next above, was very certain that he had lifted his hat to

Hilda, under the archway, two afternoons ago. An old woman, who had formerly tended the shrine, threw

some light upon the matter, by testifying that the lamp required to be replenished once, at least, in three days,

On the whole, though there was other evidence enough to create some perplexity, Kenyon could not satisfy

himself that she had been visible since the afternoon of the third preceding day, when a fruit seller

remembered her coming out of the arched passage, with a sealed packet in her hand. As nearly as he could

ascertain, this was within an hour after Hilda had taken leave of the sculptor at his own studio, with the

understanding that they were to meet at the Vatican the next day. Two nights, therefore, had intervened,

The door of Hilda's apartments was still locked, as on the preceding night; but Kenyon sought out the wife of

the person who sublet them, and prevailed on her to give him admittance by means of the duplicate key

which the good woman had in her possession. On entering, the maidenly neatness and simple grace,

recognizable in all the arrangements, made him visibly sensible that this was the daily haunt of a pure soul, in

Thence, the sturdy Roman matron led the sculptor across a narrow passage, and threw open the door of a

small chamber, on the threshold of which he reverently paused. Within, there was a bed, covered with white

drapery, enclosed with snowy curtains like a tent, and of barely width enough for a slender figure to repose

upon it. The sight of this cool, airy, and secluded bower caused the lover's heart to stir as if enough of Hilda's

gentle dreams were lingering there to make him happy for a single instant. But then came the closer

"Behold, Signore," said the matron; "here is the little staircase by which the signorina used to ascend and trim

the Blessed Virgin's lamp. She was worthy to be a Catholic, such pains the good child bestowed to keep it

burning; and doubtless the Blessed Mary will intercede for her, in consideration of her pious offices, heretic

though she was. What will become of the old palazzo, now that the lamp is extinguished, the saints above us

only know! Will you mount, Signore, to the battlements, and see if she have left any trace of herself there?"

The sculptor stepped across the chamber and ascended the little staircase, which gave him access to the

breezy summit of the tower. It affected him inexpressibly to see a bouquet of beautiful flowers beneath the

shrine, and to recognize in them an offering of his own to Hilda, who had put them in a vase of water, and

dedicated them to the Virgin, in a spirit partly fanciful, perhaps, but still partaking of the religious sentiment

which so profoundly influenced her character. One rosebud, indeed, she had selected for herself from the rich

mass of flowers; for Kenyon well remembered recognizing it in her bosom when he last saw her at his studio.

"That little part of my great love she took," said he to himself. "The remainder she would have devoted to

Heaven; but has left it withering in the sun and wind. Ah! Hilda, Hilda, had you given me a right to watch

"Be not downcast, signorino mio," said the Roman matron, in response to the deep sigh which struggled out

of Kenyon's breast. "The dear little maiden, as we see, has decked yonder blessed shrine as devoutly as I

myself, or any Other good Catholic woman, could have done. It is a religious act, and has more than the

efficacy of a prayer. The signorina will as surely come back as the sun will fall through the window

tomorrow no less than today. Her own doves have often been missing for a day or two, but they were sure

to come fluttering about her head again, when she least expected them. So will it be with this dovelike

"It might be so," thought Kenyon, with yearning anxiety, "if a pure maiden were as safe as a dove, in this evil

As they returned through the studio, with the furniture and arrangements of which the sculptor was familiar,

he missed a small ebony writingdesk that he remembered as having always been placed on a table there. He

knew that it was Hilda's custom to deposit her letters in this desk, as well as other little objects of which she

"Become of what, pray?" exclaimed the woman, a little disturbed. "Does the Signore suspect a robbery,

"The signorina's writingdesk is gone," replied Kenyon; "it always stood on this table, and I myself saw it

"Ah, well!" said the woman, recovering her composure, which she seemed partly to have lost. "The signorina

has doubtless taken it away with her. The fact is of good omen; for it proves that she did not go unexpectedly,

"This is very singular," observed Kenyon. "Have the rooms been entered by yourself, or any other person,

"Not by me, Signore, so help me Heaven and the saints!" said the matron. "And I question whether there are

more than two keys in Rome that will suit this strange old lock. Here is one; and as for the other, the

The sculptor had no reason to doubt the word of this respectable dame. She appeared to be well meaning and

kind hearted, as Roman matrons generally are; except when a fit of passion incites them to shower horrible

curses on an obnoxious individual, or perhaps to stab him with the steel stiletto that serves them for a hairpin.

But Italian asseverations of any questionable fact, however true they may chance to be, have no witness of

their truth in the faces of those who utter them. Their words are spoken with strange earnestness, and yet do

not vouch for themselves as coming from any depth, like roots drawn out of the substance of the soul, with

some of the soil clinging to them. There is always a something inscrutable, instead of frankness, in their eyes.

In short, they lie so much like truth, and speak truth so much as if they were telling a lie, that their auditor

suspects himself in the wrong, whether he believes or disbelieves them; it being the one thing certain, that

falsehood is seldom an intolerable burden to the tenderest of Italian consciences.

"It is very strange what can have become of the desk!" repeated Kenyon, looking the woman in the face.

"Very strange, indeed, Signore," she replied meekly, without turning away her eyes in the least, but checking

his insight of them at about half an inch below the surface. "I think the signorina must have taken it with her."

It seemed idle to linger here any longer. Kenyon therefore departed, after making an arrangement with the

woman, by the terms of which she was to allow the apartments to remain in their present state, on his

He spent the day in making such further search and investigation as he found practicable; and, though at first

trammelled by an unwillingness to draw public attention to Hilda's affairs, the urgency of the circumstances

soon compelled him to be thoroughly in earnest. In the course of a week, he tried all conceivable modes of

fathoming the mystery, not merely by his personal efforts and those of his brother artists and friends, but

through the police, who readily undertook the task, and expressed strong confidence of success. But the

Roman police has very little efficiency, except in the interest of the despotism of which it is a tool. With their

cocked hats, shoulder belts, and swords, they wear a sufficiently imposing aspect, and doubtless keep their

eyes open wide enough to track a political offender, but are too often blind to private outrage, be it murder or

any lesser crime. Kenyon counted little upon their assistance, and profited by it not at all.

Remembering the mystic words which Miriam had addressed to him, he was anxious to meet her, but knew

not whither she had gone, nor how to obtain an interview either with herself or Donatello. The days wore

away, and still there were no tidings of the lost one; no lamp rekindled before the Virgin's shrine; no light

shining into the lover's heart; no star of Hopehe was ready to say, as he turned his eyes almost

Along with the lamp on Hilda's tower, the sculptor now felt that a light had gone out, or, at least, was

ominously obscured, to which he owed whatever cheerfulness had heretofore illuminated his cold, artistic

life. The idea of this girl had been like a taper of virgin wax, burning with a pure and steady flame, and

chasing away the evil spirits out of the magic circle of its beams. It had darted its rays afar, and modified the

whole sphere in which Kenyon had his being. Beholding it no more, he at once found himself in darkness and

This was the time, perhaps, when Kenyon first became sensible what a dreary city is Rome, and what a

terrible weight is there imposed on human life, when any gloom within the heart corresponds to the spell of

ruin that has been thrown over the site of ancient empire. He wandered, as it were, and stumbled over the

fallen columns, and among the tombs, and groped his way into the sepulchral darkness of the catacombs, and

found no path emerging from them. The happy may well enough continue to be such, beneath the brilliant

sky of Rome. But, if you go thither in melancholy mood, if you go with a ruin in your heart, or with a vacant

site there, where once stood the airy fabric of happiness, now vanished,all the ponderous gloom of the

Roman Past will pile itself upon that spot, and crush you down as with the heapedup marble and granite, the

It might be supposed that a melancholy man would here make acquaintance with a grim philosophy. He

should learn to bear patiently his individual griefs, that endure only for one little lifetime, when here are the

tokens of such infinite misfortune on an imperial scale, and when so many far landmarks of time, all around

him, are bringing the remoteness of a thousand years ago into the sphere of yesterday. But it is in vain that

you seek this shrub of bitter sweetness among the plants that root themselves on the roughness of massive

walls, or trail downward from the capitals of pillars, or spring out of the green turf in the palace of the

Caesars. It does not grow in Rome; not even among the five hundred various weeds which deck the grassy

arches of the Coliseum. You look through a vista of century beyond century,through much shadow, and a

little sunshine, through barbarism and civilization, alternating with one another like actors that have

prearranged their parts: through a broad pathway of progressive generations bordered by palaces and temples,

and bestridden by old, triumphal arches, until, in the distance, you behold the obelisks, with their

unintelligible inscriptions, hinting at a past infinitely more remote than history can define. Your own life is as

nothing, when compared with that immeasurable distance; but still you demand, none the less earnestly, a

gleam of sunshine, instead of a speck of shadow, on the step or two that will bring you to your quiet rest.

How exceedingly absurd! All men, from the date of the earliest obelisk,and of the whole world, moreover,

since that far epoch, and before,have made a similar demand, and seldom had their wish. If they had it,

what are they the better now? But, even while you taunt yourself with this sad lesson, your heart cries out

obstreperously for its small share of earthly happiness, and will not be appeased by the myriads of dead hopes

that lie crushed into the soil of Rome. How wonderful that this our narrow foothold of the Present should

hold its own so constantly, and, while every moment changing, should still be like a rock betwixt the

Man of marble though he was, the sculptor grieved for the Irrevocable. Looking back upon Hilda's way of

life, he marvelled at his own blind stupidity, which had kept him from remonstrating as a friend, if with no

stronger right against the risks that she continually encountered. Being so innocent, she had no means of

estimating those risks, nor even a possibility of suspecting their existence. But hewho had spent years in

Rome, with a man's far wider scope of observation and experienceknew things that made him shudder. It

seemed to Kenyon, looking through the darkly colored medium of his fears, that all modes of crime were

crowded into the close intricacy of Roman streets, and that there was no redeeming element, such as exists in

For here was a priesthood, pampered, sensual, with red and bloated cheeks, and carnal eyes. With apparently

a grosser development of animal life than most men, they were placed in an unnatural relation with woman,

and thereby lost the healthy, human conscience that pertains to other human beings, who own the sweet

household ties connecting them with wife and daughter. And here was an indolent nobility, with no high aims

or opportunities, but cultivating a vicious way of life, as if it were an art, and the only one which they cared to

learn. Here was a population, high and low, that had no genuine belief in virtue; and if they recognized any

act as criminal, they might throw off all care, remorse, and memory of it, by kneeling a little while at the

confessional, and rising unburdened, active, elastic, and incited by fresh appetite for the next ensuing sin.

Here was a soldiery who felt Rome to be their conquered city, and doubtless considered themselves the legal

inheritors of the foul license which Gaul, Goth, and Vandal have here exercised in days gone by.

And what localities for new crime existed in those guilty sites, where the crime of departed ages used to be at

home, and had its long, hereditary haunt! What street in Rome, what ancient ruin, what one place where man

had standingroom, what fallen stone was there, unstained with one or another kind of guilt! In some of the

vicissitudes of the city's pride or its calamity, the dark tide of human evil had swelled over it, far higher than

the Tiber ever rose against the acclivities of the seven hills. To Kenyon's morbid view, there appeared to be a

contagious element, rising foglike from the ancient depravity of Rome, and brooding over the dead and

halfrotten city, as nowhere else on earth. It prolonged the tendency to crime, and developed an

instantaneous growth of it, whenever an opportunity was found; And where could it be found so readily as

here! In those vast palaces, there were a hundred remote nooks where Innocence might shriek in vain.

Beneath meaner houses there were unsuspected dungeons that had once been princely chambers, and open to

the daylight; but, on account of some wickedness there perpetrated, each passing age had thrown its handful

of dust upon the spot, and buried it from sight. Only ruffians knew of its existence, and kept it for murder,

Such was the city through which Hilda, for three years past, had been wandering without a protector or a

guide. She had trodden lightly over the crumble of old crimes; she had taken her way amid the grime and

corruption which Paganism had left there, and a perverted Christianity had made more noisome; walking

saintlike through it all, with white, innocent feet; until, in some dark pitfall that lay right across her path, she

had vanished out of sight. It was terrible to imagine what hideous outrage might have thrust her into that

Then the lover tried to comfort himself with the idea that Hilda's sanctity was a sufficient safeguard. Ah, yes;

she was so pure! The angels, that were of the same sisterhood, would never let Hilda come to harm. A

miracle would be wrought on her behalf, as naturally as a father would stretch out his hand to save a

bestbeloved child. Providence would keep a little area and atmosphere about her as safe and wholesome as

heaven itself, although the flood of perilous iniquity might hem her round, and its black waves hang curling

above her head! But these reflections were of slight avail. No doubt they were the religious truth. Yet the

ways of Providence are utterly inscrutable; and many a murder has been done, and many an innocent virgin

has lifted her white arms, beseeching its aid in her extremity, and all in vain; so that, though Providence is

infinitely good and wise, and perhaps for that very reason, it may be half an eternity before the great circle of

its scheme shall bring us the superabundant recompense for all these sorrows! But what the lover asked was

such prompt consolation as might consist with the brief span of mortal life; the assurance of Hilda's present

An imaginative man, he suffered the penalty of his endowment in the hundredfold variety of gloomily tinted

scenes that it presented to him, in which Hilda was always a central figure. The sculptor forgot his marble.

Rome ceased to be anything, for him, but a labyrinth of dismal streets, in one or another of which the lost girl

had disappeared. He was haunted with the idea that some circumstance, most important to be known, and

perhaps easily discoverable, had hitherto been overlooked, and that, if he could lay hold of this one clew, it

would guide him directly in the track of Hilda's footsteps. With this purpose in view, he went, every morning,

to the Via Portoghese, and made it the startingpoint of fresh investigations. After nightfall, too, he

invariably returned thither, with a faint hope fluttering at his heart that the lamp might again be shining on the

summit of the tower, and would dispel this ugly mystery out of the circle consecrated by its rays. There being

no point of which he could take firm hold, his mind was filled with unsubstantial hopes and fears. Once

Kenyon had seemed to cut his life in marble; now he vaguely clutched at it, and found it vapor.

In his unstrung and despondent mood, one trifling circumstance affected him with an idle pang. The doves

had at first been faithful to their lost mistress. They failed not to sit in a row upon her windowsill, or to

alight on the shrine, or the churchangels, and on the roofs and portals of the neighboring houses, in evident

expectation of her reappearance. After the second week, however, they began to take flight, and dropping off

by pairs, betook themselves to other dovecotes. Only a single dove remained, and brooded drearily beneath

the shrine. The flock that had departed were like the many hopes that had vanished from Kenyon's heart; the

one that still lingered, and looked so wretched,was it a Hope, or already a Despair?

In the street, one day, the sculptor met a priest of mild and venerable aspect; and as his mind dwelt

continually upon Hilda, and was especially active in bringing up all incidents that had ever been connected

with her, it immediately struck him that this was the very father with whom he had seen her at the

confessional. Such trust did Hilda inspire in him, that Kenyon had never asked what was the subject of the

communication between herself and this old priest. He had no reason for imagining that it could have any

relation with her disappearance, so long subsequently; but, being thus brought face to face with a personage,

mysteriously associated, as he now remembered, with her whom he had lost, an impulse ran before his

It might be that the reverend kindliness of the old man's expression took Kenyon's heart by surprise; at all

events, he spoke as if there were a recognized acquaintanceship, and an object of mutual interest between

"Of that sweet girl," answered Kenyon, "who knelt to you at the confessional. Surely you remember her,

among all the mortals to whose confessions you have listened! For she alone could have had no sins to

"Yes; I remember," said the priest, with a gleam of recollection in his eyes. "She was made to bear a

miraculous testimony to the efficacy of the divine ordinances of the Church, by seizing forcibly upon one of

them, and finding immediate relief from it, heretic though she was. It is my purpose to publish a brief

narrative of this miracle, for the edification of mankind, in Latin, Italian, and English, from the printing press

of the Propaganda. Poor child! Setting apart her heresy, she was spotless, as you say. And is she dead?"

"Heaven forbid, father!" exclaimed Kenyon, shrinking back. "But she has gone from me, I know not whither.

It may beyes, the idea seizes upon my mindthat what she revealed to you will suggest some clew to the

"None, my son, none," answered the priest, shaking his head; "nevertheless, I bid you be of good cheer. That

young maiden is not doomed to die a heretic. Who knows what the Blessed Virgin may at this moment be

doing for her soul! Perhaps, when you next behold her, she will be clad in the shining white robe of the true

This latter suggestion did not convey all the comfort which the old priest possibly intended by it; but he

imparted it to the sculptor, along with his blessing, as the two best things that he could bestow, and said

When they had parted, however, the idea of Hilda's conversion to Catholicism recurred to her lover's mind,

bringing with it certain reflections, that gave a new turn to his surmises about the mystery into which she had

vanished. Not that he seriously apprehendedalthough the superabundance of her religious sentiment might

mislead her for a momentthat the New England girl would permanently succumb to the scarlet

superstitions which surrounded her in Italy. But the incident of the confessional if known, as probably it was,

to the eager propagandists who prowl about for souls, as cats to catch a mousewould surely inspire the

most confident expectations of bringing her over to the faith. With so pious an end in view, would Jesuitical

morality be shocked at the thought of kidnapping the mortal body, for the sake of the immortal spirit that

might otherwise be lost forever? Would not the kind old priest, himself, deem this to be infinitely the kindest

service that he could perform for the stray lamb, who had so strangely sought his aid?

If these suppositions were well founded, Hilda was most likely a prisoner in one of the religious

establishments that are so numerous in Rome. The idea, according to the aspect in which it was viewed,

brought now a degree of comfort, and now an additional perplexity. On the one hand, Hilda was safe from

any but spiritual assaults; on the other, where was the possibility of breaking through all those barred portals,

Kenyon, however, as it happened, was prevented from endeavoring to follow out this surmise, which only the

state of hopeless uncertainty, that almost bewildered his reason, could have led him for a moment to

entertain. A communication reached him by an unknown hand, in consequence of which, and within an hour

It was a bright forenoon of February; a month in which the brief severity of a Roman winter is already past,

and when violets and daisies begin to show themselves in spots favored by the sun. The sculptor came out of

the city by the gate of San Sebastiano, and walked briskly along the Appian Way.

For the space of a mile or two beyond the gate, this ancient and famous road is as desolate and disagreeable

as most of the other Roman avenues. It extends over small, uncomfortable pavingstones, between brick and

plastered walls, which are very solidly constructed, and so high as almost to exclude a view of the

surrounding country. The houses are of most uninviting aspect, neither picturesque, nor homelike and social;

they have seldom or never a door opening on the wayside, but are accessible only from the rear, and frown

inhospitably upon the traveller through irongrated windows. Here and there appears a dreary inn or a

wineshop, designated by the withered bush beside the entrance, within which you discern a stonebuilt and

sepulchral interior, where guests refresh themselves with sour bread and goats'milk cheese, washed down

At frequent intervals along the roadside uprises the ruin of an ancient tomb. As they stand now, these

structures are immensely high and broken mounds of conglomerated brick, stone, pebbles, and earth, all

molten by time into a mass as solid and indestructible as if each tomb were composed of a single boulder of

granite. When first erected, they were cased externally, no doubt, with slabs of polished marble, artfully

wrought basreliefs, and all such suitable adornments, and were rendered majestically beautiful by grand

architectural designs. This antique splendor has long since been stolen from the dead, to decorate the palaces

and churches of the living. Nothing remains to the dishonored sepulchres, except their massiveness.

Even the pyramids form hardly a stranger spectacle, or are more alien from human sympathies, than the

tombs of the Appian Way, with their gigantic height, breadth, and solidity, defying time and the elements,

and far too mighty to be demolished by an ordinary earthquake. Here you may see a modern dwelling, and a

garden with its vines and olivetrees, perched on the lofty dilapidation of a tomb, which forms a precipice of

fifty feet in depth on each of the four sides. There is a home on that funereal mound, where generations of

children have been born, and successive lives been spent, undisturbed by the ghost of the stern Roman whose

ashes were so preposterously burdened. Other sepulchres wear a crown of grass, shrubbery, and foresttrees,

which throw out a broad sweep of branches, having had time, twice over, to be a thousand years of age. On

one of them stands a tower, which, though immemorially more modern than the tomb, was itself built by

immemorial hands, and is now rifted quite from top to bottom by a vast fissure of decay; the tombhillock,

its foundation, being still as firm as ever, and likely to endure until the last trump shall rend it wide asunder,

Yes; its unknown dead! For, except in one or two doubtful instances, these mountainous sepulchral edifices

have not availed to keep so much as the bare name of an individual or a family from oblivion. Ambitious of

everlasting remembrance, as they were, the slumberers might just as well have gone quietly to rest, each in

his pigeonhole of a columbarium, or under his little green hillock in a graveyard, without a headstone to

mark the spot. It is rather satisfactory than otherwise, to think that all these idle pains have turned out so

About two miles, or more, from the city gate, and right upon the roadside, Kenyon passed an immense round

pile, sepulchral in its original purposes, like those already mentioned. It was built of great blocks of hewn

stone, on a vast, square foundation of rough, agglomerated material, such as composes the mass of all the

other ruinous tombs. But whatever might be the cause, it was in a far better state of preservation than they.

On its broad summit rose the battlements of a mediaeval fortress, out of the midst of which (so long since had

time begun to crumble the supplemental structure, and cover it with soil, by means of wayside dust) grew

trees, bushes, and thick festoons of ivy. This tomb of a woman had become the citadel and donjonkeep of a

castle; and all the care that Cecilia Metella's husband could bestow, to secure endless peace for her beloved

relics, had only sufficed to make that handful of precious ashes the nucleus of battles, long ages after her

A little beyond this point, the sculptor turned aside from the Appian Way, and directed his course across the

Campagna, guided by tokens that were obvious only to himself. On one side of him, but at a distance, the

Claudian aqueduct was striding over fields and watercourses. Before him, many miles away, with a blue

atmosphere between, rose the Alban hills, brilliantly silvered with snow and sunshine.

He was not without a companion. A buffalocalf, that seemed shy and sociable by the selfsame impulse, had

begun to make acquaintance with him, from the moment when he left the road. This frolicsome creature

gambolled along, now before, now behind; standing a moment to gaze at him, with wild, curious eyes, he

leaped aside and shook his shaggy head, as Kenyon advanced too nigh; then, after loitering in the rear, he

came galloping up, like a charge of cavalry, but halted, all of a sudden, when the sculptor turned to look, and

bolted across the Campagna at the slightest signal of nearer approach. The young, sportive thing, Kenyon half

fancied, was serving him as a guide, like the heifer that led Cadmus to the site of his destined city; for, in

spite of a hundred vagaries, his general course was in the right direction, and along by several objects which

In this natural intercourse with a rude and healthy form of animal life, there was something that wonderfully

revived Kenyon's spirits. The warm rays of the sun, too, were wholesome for him in body and soul; and so

was a breeze that bestirred itself occasionally, as if for the sole purpose of breathing upon his cheek and

dying softly away, when he would fain have felt a little more decided kiss. This shy but loving breeze

reminded him strangely of what Hilda's deportment had sometimes been towards himself.

The weather had very much to do, no doubt, with these genial and delightful sensations, that made the

sculptor so happy with mere life, in spite of a head and heart full of doleful thoughts, anxieties, and fears,

which ought in all reason to have depressed him. It was like no weather that exists anywhere, save in Paradise

and in Italy; certainly not in America, where it is always too strenuous on the side either of heat or cold.

Young as the season was, and wintry, as it would have been under a more rigid sky, it resembled summer

rather than what we New Englanders recognize in our idea of spring. But there was an indescribable

something, sweet, fresh, and remotely affectionate, which the matronly summer loses, and which thrilled,

and, as it were, tickled Kenyon's heart with a feeling partly of the senses, yet far more a spiritual delight. In a

After walking at a brisk pace for about half an hour, he reached a spot where an excavation appeared to have

been begun, at some not very distant period. There was a hollow space in the earth, looking exceedingly like

a deserted cellar, being enclosed within old subterranean walls, constructed of thin Roman bricks, and made

accessible by a narrow flight of stone steps. A suburban villa had probably stood over this site, in the imperial

days of Rome, and these might have been the ruins of a bathroom, or some other apartment that was required

to be wholly or partly under ground. A spade can scarcely be put into that soil, so rich in lost and forgotten

things, without hitting upon some discovery which would attract all eyes, in any other land. If you dig but a

little way, you gather bits of precious marble, coins, rings, and engraved gems; if you go deeper, you break

into columbaria, or into sculptured and richly frescoed apartments that look like festive halls, but were only

The sculptor descended into the cellarlike cavity, and sat down on a block of stone. His eagerness had

brought him thither sooner than the appointed hour. The sunshine fell slantwise into the hollow, and

happened to be resting on what Kenyon at first took to be a shapeless fragment of stone, possibly marble,

But his practised eye was soon aware of something artistic in this rude object. To relieve the anxious tedium

of his situation, he cleared away some of the soil, which seemed to have fallen very recently, and discovered

a headless figure of marble. It was earth stained, as well it might be, and had a slightly corroded surface, but

at once impressed the sculptor as a Greek production, and wonderfully delicate and beautiful. The head was

gone; both arms were broken off at the elbow. Protruding from the loose earth, however, Kenyon beheld the

fingers of a marble hand; it was still appended to its arm, and a little further search enabled him to find the

other. Placing these limbs in what the nice adjustment of the fractures proved to be their true position, the

poor, fragmentary woman forthwith showed that she retained her modest instincts to the last. She had

perished with them, and snatched them back at the moment of revival. For these longburied hands

immediately disposed themselves in the manner that nature prompts, as the antique artist knew, and as all the

"What a discovery is here!" thought Kenyon to himself. "I seek for Hilda, and find a marble woman! Is the

In a corner of the excavation lay a small round block of stone, much incrusted with earth that had dried and

hardened upon it. So, at least, you would have described this object, until the sculptor lifted it, turned it hither

and thither in his hands, brushed off the clinging soil, and finally placed it on the slender neck of the newly

discovered statue. The effect was magical. It immediately lighted up and vivified the whole figure, endowing

it with personality, soul, and intelligence. The beautiful Idea at once asserted its immortality, and converted

that heap of forlorn fragments into a whole, as perfect to the mind, if not to the eye, as when the new marble

gleamed with snowy lustre; nor was the impression marred by the earth that still hung upon the exquisitely

graceful limbs, and even filled the lovely crevice of the lips. Kenyon cleared it away from between them, and

It was either the prototype or a better repetition of the Venus of the Tribune. But those who have been

dissatisfied with the small head, the narrow, soulless face, the buttonhole eyelids, of that famous statue, and

its mouth such as nature never moulded, should see the genial breadth of this far nobler and sweeter

countenance. It is one of the few works of antique sculpture in which we recognize womanhood, and that,

Here, then, was a treasure for the sculptor to have found! How happened it to be lying there, beside its grave

of twenty centuries? Why were not the tidings of its discovery already noised abroad? The world was richer

than yesterday, by something far more precious than gold. Forgotten beauty had come back, as beautiful as

ever; a goddess had risen from her long slumber, and was a goddess still. Another cabinet in the Vatican was

destined to shine as lustrously as that of the Apollo Belvedere; or, if the aged pope should resign his claim, an

emperor would woo this tender marble, and win her as proudly as an imperial bride!

Such were the thoughts with which Kenyon exaggerated to himself the importance of the newly discovered

statue, and strove to feel at least a portion of the interest which this event would have inspired in him a little

while before. But, in reality, he found it difficult to fix his mind upon the subject. He could hardly, we fear,

be reckoned a consummate artist, because there was something dearer to him than his art; and, by the greater

strength of a human affection, the divine statue seemed to fall asunder again, and become only a heap of

While the sculptor sat listlessly gazing at it, there was a sound of small hoofs, clumsily galloping on the

Campagna; and soon his frisky acquaintance, the buffalocalf, came and peeped over the edge of the

excavation. Almost at the same moment he heard voices, which approached nearer and nearer; a man's voice,

and a feminine one, talking the musical tongue of Italy. Besides the hairy visage of his four footed friend,

Kenyon now saw the figures of a peasant and a contadina, making gestures of salutation to him, on the

They descended into the excavation: a young peasant, in the short blue jacket, the smallclothes buttoned at

the knee, and buckled shoes, that compose one of the ugliest dresses ever worn by man, except the wearer's

form have a grace which any garb, or the nudity of an antique statue, would equally set off; and, hand in hand

with him, a village girl, in one of those brilliant costumes largely kindled up with scarlet, and decorated with

gold embroidery, in which the contadinas array themselves on feastdays. But Kenyon was not deceived; he

had recognized the voices of his friends, indeed, even before their disguised figures came between him and

the sunlight. Donatello was the peasant; the contadina, with the airy smile, half mirthful, though it shone out

They both greeted the sculptor with a familiar kindness which reminded him of the days when Hilda and they

and he had lived so happily together, before the mysterious adventure of the catacomb. What a succession of

"It is carnival time, you know," said Miriam, as if in explanation of Donatello's and her own costume. "Do

When individuals approach one another with deep purposes on both sides, they seldom come at once to the

matter which they have most at heart. They dread the electric shock of a too sudden contact with it. A natural

impulse leads them to steal gradually onward, hiding themselves, as it were, behind a closer, and still a closer

topic, until they stand face to face with the true point of interest. Miriam was conscious of this impulse, and

"So your instincts as a sculptor have brought you into the presence of our newly discovered statue," she

observed. "Is it not beautiful? A far truer image of immortal womanhood than the poor little damsel at

"Most beautiful," said Kenyon, casting an indifferent glance at the Venus. "The time has been when the sight

"I fancied so, indeed, when we discovered it two days ago. It is Donatello's prize. We were sitting here

together, planning an interview with you, when his keen eyes detected the fallen goddess, almost entirely

buried under that heap of earth, which the clumsy excavators showered down upon her, I suppose. We

congratulated ourselves, chiefly for your sake. The eyes of us three are the only ones to which she has yet

revealed herself. Does it not frighten you a little, like the apparition of a lovely woman that livid of old, and

"Ah, Miriam! I cannot respond to you," said the sculptor, with irrepressible impatience. "Imagination and the

"Miriam," interposed Donatello with gentle gravity, "why should we keep our friend in suspense? We know

"You are so direct and immediate, my beloved friend!" answered Miriam with an unquiet smile. "There are

several reasons why I should like to play round this matter a little while, and cover it with fanciful thoughts,

"No grave in which your heart need be buried," she replied; "you have no such calamity to dread. But I linger

and hesitate, because every word I speak brings me nearer to a crisis from which I shrink. Ah, Donatello! let

us live a little longer the life of these last few days! It is so bright, so airy, so childlike, so without either past

or future! Here, on the wild Campagna, you seem to have found, both for yourself and me, the life that

belonged to you in early youth; the sweet irresponsible life which you inherited from your mythic ancestry,

the Fauns of Monte Beni. Our stern and black reality will come upon us speedily enough. But, first, a brief

"I dare not linger upon it," answered Donatello, with an expression that reminded the sculptor of the

gloomiest days of his remorse at Monte Beni. "I dare to be so happy as you have seen me, only because I

"One day, then!" pleaded Miriam. "One more day in the wild freedom of this sweetscented air."

"Well, one more day," said Donatello, smiling; and his smile touched Kenyon with a pathos beyond words,

there being gayety and sadness both melted into it; "but here is Hilda's friend, and our own. Comfort him, at

"Ah, surely he might endure his pangs a little longer!" cried Miriam, turning to Kenyon with a tricksy, fitful

kind of mirth, that served to hide some solemn necessity, too sad and serious to be looked at in its naked

aspect. "You love us both, I think, and will be content to suffer for our sakes, one other day. Do I ask too

"Tell me of Hilda," replied the sculptor; "tell me only that she is safe, and keep back what else you will."

"Hilda is safe," said Miriam. "There is a Providence purposely for Hilda, as I remember to have told you long

ago. But a great troublean evil deed, let us acknowledge it has spread out its dark branches so widely, that

the shadow falls on innocence as well as guilt. There was one slight link that connected your sweet Hilda

with a crime which it was her unhappy fortune to witness, but of which I need not say she was as guiltless as

the angels that looked out of heaven, and saw it too. No matter, now, what the consequence has been. You

"But when will she return?" persisted the sculptor; "tell me the when, and where, and how!"

"A little patience. Do not press me so," said Miriam; and again Kenyon was struck by the spritelike, fitful

characteristic of her manner, and a sort of hysteric gayety, which seemed to be a willo'thewisp from a

sorrow stagnant at her heart. "You have more time to spare than I. First, listen to something that I have to tell.

Then Miriam spoke of her own life, and told facts that threw a gleam of light over many things which had

perplexed the sculptor in all his previous knowledge of her. She described herself as springing from English

parentage, on the mother's side, but with a vein, likewise, of Jewish blood; yet connected, through her father,

with one of those few princely families of Southern Italy, which still retain great wealth and influence. And

she revealed a name at which her auditor started and grew pale; for it was one that, only a few years before,

had been familiar to the world in connection with a mysterious and terrible event. The reader, if he think it

worth while to recall some of the strange incidents which have been talked of, and forgotten, within no long

"You shudder at me, I perceive," said Miriam, suddenly interrupting her narrative.

"No; you were innocent," replied the sculptor. "I shudder at the fatality that seems to haunt your footsteps,

"There was such a fatality," said Miriam; "yes; the shadow fell upon me, innocent, but I went astray in it, and

She went on to say that, while yet a child, she had lost her English mother. From a very early period of her

life, there had been a contract of betrothal between herself and a certain marchese, the representative of

another branch of her paternal house,a family arrangement between two persons of disproportioned ages,

and in which feeling went for nothing. Most Italian girls of noble rank would have yielded themselves to such

a marriage as an affair of course. But there was something in Miriam's blood, in her mixed race, in her

recollections of her mother,some characteristic, finally, in her own nature,which had given her freedom

of thought, and force of will, and made this prearranged connection odious to her. Moreover, the character of

her destined husband would have been a sufficient and insuperable objection; for it betrayed traits so evil, so

treacherous, so vile, and yet so strangely subtle, as could only be accounted for by the insanity which often

develops itself in old, closekept races of men, when long unmixed with newer blood. Reaching the age

when the marriage contract should have been fulfilled, Miriam had utterly repudiated it.

Some time afterwards had occurred that terrible event to which Miriam had alluded when she revealed her

name; an event, the frightful and mysterious circumstances of which will recur to many minds, but of which

few or none can have found for themselves a satisfactory explanation. It only concerns the present narrative,

inasmuch as the suspicion of being at least an accomplice in the crime fell darkly and directly upon Miriam

"But you know that I am innocent!" she cried, interrupting herself again, and looking Kenyon in the face.

"I know it by my deepest consciousness," he answered; "and I know it by Hilda's trust and entire affection,

"That is sure ground, indeed, for pronouncing me innocent," said Miriam, with the tears gushing into her

eyes. "Yet I have since become a horror to your saintlike Hilda, by a crime which she herself saw me help to

She proceeded with her story. The great influence of her family connections had shielded her from some of

the consequences of her imputed guilt. But, in her despair, she had fled from home, and had surrounded her

flight with such circumstances as rendered it the most probable conclusion that she had committed suicide.

Miriam, however, was not of the feeble nature which takes advantage of that obvious and poor resource in

earthly difficulties. She flung herself upon the world, and speedily created a new sphere, in which Hilda's

gentle purity, the sculptor's sensibility, clear thought, and genius, and Donatello's genial simplicity had given

her almost her first experience of happiness. Then came that illomened adventure of the catacomb, The

spectral figure which she encountered there was the evil fate that had haunted her through life.

Looking back upon what had happened, Miriam observed, she now considered him a madman. Insanity must

have been mixed up with his original composition, and developed by those very acts of depravity which it

suggested, and still more intensified, by the remorse that ultimately followed them. Nothing was stranger in

his dark career than the penitence which often seemed to go hand in hand with crime. Since his death she had

ascertained that it finally led him to a convent, where his severe and selfinflicted penance had even acquired

him the reputation of unusual sanctity, and had been the cause of his enjoying greater freedom than is

"Need I tell you more?" asked Miriam, after proceeding thus far. "It is still a dim and dreary mystery, a

gloomy twilight into which I guide you; but possibly you may catch a glimpse of much that I myself can

explain only by conjecture. At all events, you can comprehend what my situation must have been, after that

fatal interview in the catacomb. My persecutor had gone thither for penance, but followed me forth with fresh

impulses to crime. He had me in his power. Mad as he was, and wicked as he was, with one word he could

have blasted me in the belief of all the world. In your belief too, and Hilda's! Even Donatello would have

"Hilda and Donatello and myself,we three would have acquitted you," said Kenyon, "let the world say

"I thought often of revealing it to you," answered Miriam; "on one occasion, especially,it was after you

had shown me your Cleopatra; it seemed to leap out of my heart, and got as far as my very lips. But finding

you cold to accept my confidence, I thrust it back again. Had I obeyed my first impulse, all would have

"And Hilda!" resumed the sculptor. "What can have been her connection with these dark incidents?"

"She will, doubtless, tell you with her own lips," replied Miriam. "Through sources of information which I

possess in Rome, I can assure you of her safety. In two days moreby the help of the special Providence

"Ah, you are cruel now! More cruel than you know!" exclaimed Miriam, with another gleam of that fantastic,

fitful gayety, which had more than once marked her manner during this interview. "Spare your poor friends!"

"No matter," she replied; "you will understand hereafter. But could you think it? Here is Donatello haunted

with strange remorse, and an unmitigable resolve to obtain what he deems justice upon himself. He fancies,

with a kind of direct simplicity, which I have vainly tried to combat, that, when a wrong has been done, the

doer is bound to submit himself to whatsoever tribunal takes cognizance of such things, and abide its

judgment. I have assured him that there is no such thing as earthly justice, and especially none here, under the

"We will not argue the point again," said Donatello, smiling. "I have no head for argument, but only a sense,

an impulse, an instinct, I believe, which sometimes leads me right. But why do we talk now of what may

It appeared to Kenyon that since he last saw Donatello, some of the sweet and delightful characteristics of the

antique Faun had returned to him. There were slight, careless graces, pleasant and simple peculiarities, that

had been obliterated by the heavy grief through which he was passing at Monte Beni, and out of which he had

hardly emerged when the sculptor parted with Miriam and him beneath the bronze pontiffs outstretched hand.

These happy blossoms had now reappeared. A playfulness came out of his heart, and glimmered like firelight

in his actions, alternating, or even closely intermingled, with profound sympathy and serious thought.

"Is he not beautiful?" said Miriam, watching the sculptor's eye as it dwelt admiringly on Donatello. "So

changed, yet still, in a deeper sense, so much the same! He has travelled in a circle, as all things heavenly and

earthly do, and now comes back to his original self, with an inestimable treasure of improvement won from

an experience of pain. How wonderful is this! I tremble at my own thoughts, yet must needs probe them to

their depths. Was the crimein which he and I were weddedwas it a blessing, in that strange disguise?

Was it a means of education, bringing a simple and imperfect nature to a point of feeling and intelligence

"You stir up deep and perilous matter, Miriam," replied Kenyon. "I dare not follow you into the unfathomable

"Yet there is a pleasure in them! I delight to brood on the verge of this great mystery," returned she. "The

story of the fall of man! Is it not repeated in our romance of Monte Beni? And may we follow the analogy yet

further? Was that very sin,into which Adam precipitated himself and all his race, was it the destined means

by which, over a long pathway of toil and sorrow, we are to attain a higher, brighter, and profounder

happiness, than our lost birthright gave? Will not this idea account for the permitted existence of sin, as no

"It is too dangerous, Miriam! I cannot follow you!" repeated the sculptor. "Mortal man has no right to tread

"Ask Hilda what she thinks of it," said Miriam, with a thoughtful smile. "At least, she might conclude that

sinwhich man chose instead of goodhas been so beneficently handled by omniscience and omnipotence,

that, whereas our dark enemy sought to destroy us by it, it has really become an instrument most effective in

Miriam paused a little longer among these meditations, which the sculptor rightly felt to be so perilous; she

"The day after tomorrow," said she, "an hour before sunset, go to the Corso, and stand in front of the fifth

house on your left, beyond the Antonine column. You will learn tidings of a friend."

Kenyon would have besought her for more definite intelligence, but she shook her head, put her finger on her

lips, and turned away with an illusive smile. The fancy impressed him that she too, like Donatello, had

reached a wayside paradise, in their mysterious life journey, where they both threw down the burden of the

before and after, and, except for this interview with himself, were happy in the flitting moment. Today

Donatello was the sylvan Faun; today Miriam was his fit companion, a Nymph of grove or fountain;

tomorrowa remorseful man and woman, linked by a marriage bond of crimethey would set forth

On the appointed afternoon, Kenyon failed not to make his appearance in the Corso, and at an hour much

It was carnival time. The merriment of this famous festival was in full progress; and the stately avenue of the

Corso was peopled with hundreds of fantastic shapes, some of which probably represented the mirth of

ancient times, surviving through all manner of calamity, ever since the days of the Roman Empire. For a few

afternoons of early spring, this mouldy gayety strays into the sunshine; all the remainder of the year, it seems

Besides these hereditary forms, at which a hundred generations have laughed, there were others of modern

date, the humorous effluence of the day that was now passing. It is a day, however, and an age, that appears

to be remarkably barren, when compared with the prolific originality of former times, in productions of a

scenic and ceremonial character, whether grave or gay. To own the truth, the Carnival is alive, this present

year, only because it has existed through centuries gone by. It is traditionary, not actual. If decrepit and

melancholy Rome smiles, and laughs broadly, indeed, at carnival time, it is not in the old simplicity of real

mirth, but with a halfconscious effort, like our selfdeceptive pretence of jollity at a threadbare joke.

Whatever it may once have been, it is now but a narrow stream of merriment, noisy of set purpose, running

along the middle of the Corso, through the solemn heart of the decayed city, without extending its shallow

influence on either side. Nor, even within its own limits, does it affect the mass of spectators, but only a

comparatively few, in street and balcony, who carry on the warfare of nosegays and counterfeit sugar plums.

The populace look on with staid composure; the nobility and priesthood take little or no part in the matter;

and, but for the hordes of AngloSaxons who annually take up the flagging mirth, the Carnival might long

ago have been swept away, with the snowdrifts of confetti that whiten all the pavement.

No doubt, however, the wornout festival is still new to the youthful and light hearted, who make the

wornout world itself as fresh as Adam found it on his first forenoon in Paradise. It may be only age and care

that chill the life out of its grotesque and airy riot, with the impertinence of their cold criticism.

Kenyon, though young, had care enough within his breast to render the Carnival the emptiest of mockeries.

Contrasting the stern anxiety of his present mood with the frolic spirit of the preceding year, he fancied that

so much trouble had, at all events, brought wisdom in its train. But there is a wisdom that looks grave, and

sneers at merriment; and again a deeper wisdom, that stoops to be gay as often as occasion serves, and

oftenest avails itself of shallow and trifling grounds of mirth; because, if we wait for more substantial ones,

we seldom can be gay at all. Therefore, had it been possible, Kenyon would have done well to mask himself

in some wild, hairy visage, and plunge into the throng of other maskers, as at the Carnival before. Then

Donatello had danced along the Corso in all the equipment of a Faun, doing the part with wonderful felicity

of execution, and revealing furry ears, which looked absolutely real; and Miriam had been alternately a lady

of the antique regime, in powder and brocade, and the prettiest peasant girl of the Campagna, in the gayest of

costumes; while Hilda, sitting demurely in a balcony, had hit the sculptor with a single rosebud,so sweet

These were all gone; all those dear friends whose sympathetic mirth had made him gay. Kenyon felt as if an

interval of many years had passed since the last Carnival. He had grown old, the nimble jollity was tame, and

the maskers dull and heavy; the Corso was but a narrow and shabby street of decaying palaces; and even the

long, blue streamer of Italian sky, above it, not half so brightly blue as formerly.

Yet, if he could have beheld the scene with his clear, natural eyesight, he might still have found both

merriment and splendor in it. Everywhere, and all day long, there had been tokens of the festival, in the

baskets brimming over with bouquets, for sale at the street corners, or borne about on people's heads; while

bushels upon bushels of variously colored confetti were displayed, looking just like veritable sugar plums; so

that a stranger would have imagined that the whole commerce and business of stern old Rome lay in flowers

and sweets. And now, in the sunny afternoon, there could hardly be a spectacle more picturesque than the

vista of that noble street, stretching into the interminable distance between two rows of lofty edifices, from

every window of which, and many a balcony, flaunted gay and gorgeous carpets, bright silks, scarlet cloths

with rich golden fringes, and Gobelin tapestry, still lustrous with varied hues, though the product of antique

looms. Each separate palace had put on a gala dress, and looked festive for the occasion, whatever sad or

guilty secret it might hide within. Every window, moreover, was alive with the faces of women, rosy girls,

and children, all kindled into brisk and mirthful expression, by the incidents in the street below. In the

balconies that projected along the palace fronts stood groups of ladies, some beautiful, all richly dressed,

scattering forth their laughter, shrill, yet sweet, and the musical babble of their voices, to thicken into an airy

All these innumerable eyes looked down into the street, the whole capacity of which was thronged with festal

figures, in such fantastic variety that it had taken centuries to contrive them; and through the midst of the

mad, merry stream of human life rolled slowly onward a neverending procession of all the vehicles in

Rome, from the ducal carriage, with the powdered coachman high in front, and the three golden lackeys

clinging in the rear, down to the rustic cart drawn by its single donkey. Among this various crowd, at

windows and in balconies, in cart, cab, barouche, or gorgeous equipage, or bustling to and fro afoot, there

was a sympathy of nonsense; a true and genial brotherhood and sisterhood, based on the honest

purposeand a wise one, tooof being foolish, all together. The sport of mankind, like its deepest earnest,

is a battle; so these festive people fought one another with an ammunition of sugar plums and flowers.

Not that they were veritable sugar plums, however, but something that resembled them only as the apples of

Sodom look like better fruit. They were concocted mostly of lime, with a grain of oat, or some other

worthless kernel, in the midst. Besides the hailstorm of confetti, the combatants threw handfuls of flour or

lime into the air, where it hung like smoke over a battlefield, or, descending, whitened a black coat or priestly

At the same time with this acrid contest of quicklime, which caused much effusion of tears from suffering

eyes, a gentler warfare of flowers was carried on, principally between knights and ladies. Originally, no

doubt, when this pretty custom was first instituted, it may have had a sincere and modest import. Each youth

and damsel, gathering bouquets of field flowers, or the sweetest and fairest that grew in their own gardens, all

fresh and virgin blossoms, flung them with true aim at the one, or few, whom they regarded with a sentiment

of shy partiality at least, if not with love. Often, the lover in the Corso may thus have received from his bright

mistress, in her father's princely balcony, the first sweet intimation that his passionate glances had not struck

against a heart of marble. What more appropriate mode of suggesting her tender secret could a maiden find

This was the pastime and the earnest of a more innocent and homelier age. Nowadays the nosegays are

gathered and tied up by sordid hands, chiefly of the most ordinary flowers, and are sold along the Corso, at

mean price, yet more than such Venal things are worth. Buying a basketful, you find them miserably wilted,

as if they had flown hither and thither through two or three carnival days already; muddy, too, having been

fished up from the pavement, where a hundred feet have trampled on them. You may see throngs of men and

boys who thrust themselves beneath the horses' hoofs to gather up bouquets that were aimed amiss from

balcony and carriage; these they sell again, and yet once more, and ten times over, defiled as they all are with

Such are the flowery favorsthe fragrant bunches of sentimentthat fly between cavalier and dame, and

back again, from one end of the Corso to the other. Perhaps they may symbolize, more aptly than was

intended, the poor, battered, wilted hearts of those who fling them; hearts whichcrumpled and crushed by

former possessors, and stained with various mishaphave been passed from hand to hand along the muddy

These venal and polluted flowers, therefore, and those deceptive bonbons, are types of the small reality that

still subsists in the observance of the Carnival. Yet the government seemed to imagine that there might be

excitement enough,wild mirth, perchance, following its antics beyond law, and frisking from frolic into

earnest,to render it expedient to guard the Corso with an imposing show of military power. Besides the

ordinary force of gendarmes, a strong patrol of papal dragoons, in steel helmets and white cloaks, were

stationed at all the street corners. Detachments of French infantry stood by their stacked muskets in the

Piazza del Popolo, at one extremity of the course, and before the palace of the Austrian embassy, at the other,

and by the column of Antoninus, midway between. Had that chained tigercat, the Roman populace, shown

only so much as the tip of his claws, the sabres would have been flashing and the bullets whistling, in right

earnest, among the combatants who now pelted one another with mock sugar plums and wilted flowers.

But, to do the Roman people justice, they were restrained by a better safeguard than the sabre or the bayonet;

it was their own gentle courtesy, which imparted a sort of sacredness to the hereditary festival. At first sight

of a spectacle so fantastic and extravagant, a cool observer might have imagined the whole town gone mad;

but, in the end, he would see that all this apparently unbounded license is kept strictly within a limit of its

own; he would admire a people who can so freely let loose their mirthful propensities, while muzzling those

fiercer ones that tend to mischief. Everybody seemed lawless; nobody was rude. If any reveller overstepped

the mark, it was sure to be no Roman, but an Englishman or an American; and even the rougher play of this

Gothic race was still softened by the insensible influence of a moral atmosphere more delicate, in some

respects, than we breathe at home. Not that, after all, we like the fine Italian spirit better than our own;

popular rudeness is sometimes the symptom of rude moral health. But, where a Carnival is in question, it

would probably pass off more decorously, as well as more airily and delightfully, in Rome, than in any

When Kenyon emerged from a side lane into the Corso, the mirth was at its height. Out of the seclusion of his

own feelings, he looked forth at the tapestried and damaskcurtained palaces, the slowmoving double line

of carriages, and the motley maskers that swarmed on foot, as if he were gazing through the iron lattice of a

prison window. So remote from the scene were his sympathies, that it affected him like a thin dream, through

the dim, extravagant material of which he could discern more substantial objects, while too much under its

control to start forth broad awake. Just at that moment, too, there came another spectacle, making its way

It was, first and foremost, a full band of martial music, reverberating, in that narrow and confined though

stately avenue, between the walls of the lofty palaces, and roaring upward to the sky with melody so powerful

that it almost grew to discord. Next came a body of cavalry and mounted gendarmes, with great display of

military pomp. They were escorting a long train of equipages, each and all of which shone as gorgeously as

Cinderella's coach, with paint and gilding. Like that, too, they were provided with coachmen of mighty

breadth, and enormously tall footmen, in immense powdered wigs, and all the splendor of goldlaced, three

cornered hats, and embroidered silk coats and breeches. By the oldfashioned magnificence of this

procession, it might worthily have included his Holiness in person, with a suite of attendant Cardinals, if

those sacred dignitaries would kindly have lent their aid to heighten the frolic of the Carnival. But, for all its

show of a martial escort, and its antique splendor of costume, it was but a train of the municipal authorities of

Rome, illusive shadows, every one, and among them a phantom, styled the Roman Senator,proceeding

The riotous interchange of nosegays and confetti was partially suspended, while the procession passed. One

welldirected shot, however,it was a double handful of powdered lime, flung by an impious New

Englander,hit the coachman of the Roman Senator full in the face, and hurt his dignity amazingly. It

appeared to be his opinion that the Republic was again crumbling into ruin, and that the dust of it now filled

his nostrils; though, in fact, it would hardly be distinguished from the official powder with which he was

While the sculptor, with his dreamy eyes, was taking idle note of this trifling circumstance, two figures

passed before him, hand in hand. The countenance of each was covered with an impenetrable black mask; but

one seemed a peasant of the Campagna; the other, a contadina in her holiday costume.

The crowd and confusion, just at that moment, hindered the sculptor from pursuing these figures,the

peasant and contadina,who, indeed, were but two of a numerous tribe that thronged the Corso, in similar

costume. As soon as he could squeeze a passage, Kenyon tried to follow in their footsteps, but quickly lost

sight of them, and was thrown off the track by stopping to examine various groups of masqueraders, in which

he fancied the objects of his search to be included. He found many a sallow peasant or herdsman of the

Campagna, in such a dress as Donatello wore; many a contadina, too, brown, broad, and sturdy, in her finery

of scarlet, and decked out with gold or coral beads, a pair of heavy earrings, a curiously wrought cameo or

mosaic brooch, and a silver comb or long stiletto among her glossy hair. But those shapes of grace and beauty

As soon as the procession of the Senator had passed, the merrymakers resumed their antics with fresh spirit,

and the artillery of bouquets and sugar plums, suspended for a moment, began anew. The sculptor himself,

being probably the most anxious and unquiet spectator there, was especially a mark for missiles from all

quarters, and for the practical jokes which the license of the Carnival permits. In fact, his sad and contracted

brow so ill accorded with the scene, that the revellers might be pardoned for thus using him as the butt of

Fantastic figures, with bulbous heads, the circumference of a bushel, grinned enormously in his face.

Harlequins struck him with their wooden swords, and appeared to expect his immediate transformation into

some jollier shape. A little, longtailed, horned fiend sidled up to him and suddenly blew at him through a

tube, enveloping our poor friend in a whole harvest of winged seeds. A biped, with an ass's snout, brayed

close to his ear, ending his discordant uproar with a peal of human laughter. Five strapping damselsso, at

least, their petticoats bespoke them, in spite of an awful freedom in the flourish of their legsjoined hands,

and danced around him, inviting him by their gestures to perform a hornpipe in the midst. Released from

these gay persecutors, a clown in motley rapped him on the back with a blown bladder, in which a handful of

Unquestionably, a carestricken mortal has no business abroad, when the rest of mankind are at high

carnival; they must either pelt him and absolutely martyr him with jests, and finally bury him beneath the

aggregate heap; or else the potency of his darker mood, because the tissue of human life takes a sad dye more

readily than a gay one, will quell their holiday humors, like the aspect of a death'shead at a banquet. Only

that we know Kenyon's errand, we could hardly forgive him for venturing into the Corso with that troubled

Even yet, his merry martyrdom was not half over. There came along a gigantic female figure, seven feet high,

at least, and taking up a third of the street's breadth with the preposterously swelling sphere of her crinoline

skirts. Singling out the sculptor, she began to make a ponderous assault upon his heart, throwing amorous

glances at him out of her great goggle eyes, offering him a vast bouquet of sunflowers and nettles, and

soliciting his pity by all sorts of pathetic and passionate dumbshow. Her suit meeting no favor, the rejected

Titaness made a gesture of despair and rage; then suddenly drawing a huge pistol, she took aim right at the

obdurate sculptor's breast, and pulled the trigger. The shot took effect, for the abominable plaything went off

by a spring, like a boy's popgun, covering Kenyon with a cloud of lime dust, under shelter of which the

Hereupon, a whole host of absurd figures surrounded him, pretending to sympathize in his mishap. Clowns

and partycolored harlequins; orangoutangs; bearheaded, bullheaded, and dogheaded individuals; faces

that would have been human, but for their enormous noses; one terrific creature, with a visage right in the

centre of his breast; and all other imaginable kinds of monstrosity and exaggeration. These apparitions

appeared to be investigating the case, after the fashion of a coroner's jury, poking their pasteboard

countenances close to the sculptor's with an unchangeable grin, that gave still more ludicrous effect to the

comic alarm and sorrow of their gestures. Just then, a figure came by, in a gray wig and rusty gown, with an

inkhorn at his buttonhole and a pen behind his ear; he announced himself as a notary, and offered to make the

last will and testament of the assassinated man. This solemn duty, however, was interrupted by a surgeon,

who brandished a lancet, three feet long, and proposed to him to let him take blood.

The affair was so like a feverish dream, that Kenyon resigned himself to let it take its course. Fortunately the

humors of the Carnival pass from one absurdity to another, without lingering long enough on any, to wear out

even the slightest of them. The passiveness of his demeanor afforded too little scope for such broad

merriment as the masqueraders sought. In a few moments they vanished from him, as dreams and spectres do,

leaving him at liberty to pursue his quest, with no impediment except the crowd that blocked up the footway.

He had not gone far when the peasant and the contadina met him. They were still hand in hand, and appeared

to be straying through the grotesque and animated scene, taking as little part in it as himself. It might be

because he recognized them, and knew their solemn secret, that the sculptor fancied a melancholy emotion to

be expressed by the very movement and attitudes of these two figures; and even the grasp of their hands,

uniting them so closely, seemed to set them in a sad remoteness from the world at which they gazed.

"I rejoice to meet you," said Kenyon. But they looked at him through the eyeholes of their black masks,

"Pray give me a little light on the matter which I have so much at heart," said he; "if you know anything of

Still they were silent; and the sculptor began to imagine that he must have mistaken the identity of these

figures, there being such a multitude in similar costume. Yet there was no other Donatello, no other Miriam.

He felt, too, that spiritual certainty which impresses us with the presence of our friends, apart from any

"You are unkind," resumed he,"knowing the anxiety which oppresses me, not to relieve it, if in your

The reproach evidently had its effect; for the contadina now spoke, and it was Miriam's voice.

"We gave you all the light we could," said she. "You are yourself unkind, though you little think how much

so, to come between us at this hour. There may be a sacred hour, even in carnival time."

In another state of mind, Kenyon could have been amused by the impulsiveness of this response, and a sort of

vivacity that he had often noted in Miriam's conversation. But he was conscious of a profound sadness in her

tone, overpowering its momentary irritation, and assuring him that a pale, tearstained face was hidden

Donatello here extended his hand,not that which was clasping Miriam's,and she, too, put her free one

into the sculptor's left; so that they were a linked circle of three, with many reminiscences and forebodings

flashing through their hearts. Kenyon knew intuitively that these once familiar friends were parting with him

No sooner was the word spoken, than they loosed their hands; and the uproar of the Carnival swept like a

tempestuous sea over the spot which they had included within their small circle of isolated feeling.

By this interview, the sculptor had learned nothing in reference to Hilda; but he understood that he was to

adhere to the instructions already received, and await a solution of the mystery in some mode that he could

not yet anticipate. Passing his hands over his eyes, and looking about him,for the event just described had

made the scene even more dreamlike than before,he now found himself approaching that broad piazza

bordering on the Corso, which has for its central object the sculptured column of Antoninus. It was not far

from this vicinity that Miriam had bid him wait. Struggling onward as fast as the tide of merrymakers, setting

strong against him, would permit, he was now beyond the Palazzo Colonna, and began to count the houses.

The fifth was a palace, with a long front upon the Corso, and of stately height, but somewhat grim with age.

Over its arched and pillared entrance there was a balcony, richly hung with tapestry and damask, and

tenanted, for the time, by a gentleman of venerable aspect and a group of ladies. The white hair and whiskers

of the former, and the winter roses in his cheeks, had an English look; the ladies, too, showed a fairhaired

Saxon bloom, and seemed to taste the mirth of the Carnival with the freshness of spectators to whom the

scene was new. All the party, the old gentleman with grave earnestness, as if he were defending a rampart,

and his young companions with exuberance of frolic, showered confetti inexhaustibly upon the passersby.

In the rear of the balcony, a broadbrimmed, ecclesiastical beaver was visible. An abbate, probably an

acquaintance and cicerone of the English family, was sitting there, and enjoying the scene, though partially

There seemed no better nor other course for Kenyon than to keep watch at this appointed spot, waiting for

whatever should happen next. Clasping his arm round a lamppost, to prevent being carried away by the

turbulent stream of wayfarers, he scrutinized every face, with the idea that some one of them might meet his

eyes with a glance of intelligence. He looked at each mask,harlequin, ape, bulbousheaded monster, or

anything that was absurdest,not knowing but that the messenger might come, even in such fantastic guise.

Or perhaps one of those quaint figures, in the stately ruff, the cloak, tunic, and trunkhose of three centuries

ago, might bring him tidings of Hilda, out of that longpast age. At times his disquietude took a hopeful

aspect; and he fancied that Hilda might come by, her own sweet self, in some shy disguise which the instinct

Of his love would be sure to penetrate. Or, she might be borne past on a triumphal car, like the one just now

approaching, its slowmoving wheels encircled and spoked with foliage, and drawn by horses, that were

harnessed and wreathed with flowers. Being, at best, so far beyond the bounds of reasonable conjecture, he

might anticipate the wildest event, or find either his hopes or fears disappointed in what appeared most

The old Englishman and his daughters, in the opposite balcony, must have seen something unutterably absurd

in the sculptor's deportment, poring into this whirlpool of nonsense so earnestly, in quest of what was to make

his life dark or bright. Earnest people, who try to get a reality out of human existence, are necessarily absurd

in the view of the revellers and masqueraders. At all events, after a good deal of mirth at the expense of his

melancholy visage, the fair occupants of the balcony favored Kenyon with a salvo of confetti, which came

rattling about him like a hailstorm. Looking up instinctively, he was surprised to see the abbate in the

It was the same old priest with whom he had seen Hilda, at the confessional; the same with whom he had

Yet, whatever might be the reason, Kenyon did not now associate this ecclesiastical personage with the idea

of Hilda. His eyes lighted on the old man, just for an instant, and then returned to the eddying throng of the

Corso, on his minute scrutiny of which depended, for aught he knew, the sole chance of ever finding any

trace of her. There was, about this moment, a bustle on the other side of the street, the cause of which Kenyon

did not see, nor exert himself to discover. A small party of soldiers or gendarmes appeared to be concerned in

it; they were perhaps arresting some disorderly character, who, under the influence of an extra flask of wine,

"She was not amiss," replied a female voice; "but her companion was far the handsomer figure of the two.

"No, no," said the other. "It is some frolic of the Carnival, carried a little too far."

This conversation might have excited Kenyon's interest; only that, just as the last words were spoken, he was

hit by two missiles, both of a kind that were flying abundantly on that gay battlefield. One, we are ashamed to

say, was a cauliflower, which, flung by a young man from a passing carriage, came with a prodigious thump

against his shoulder; the other was a single rosebud, so fresh that it seemed that moment gathered. It flew

from the opposite balcony, smote gently on his lips, and fell into his hand. He looked upward, and beheld the

She was dressed in a white domino, and looked pale and bewildered, and yet full of tender joy. Moreover,

there was a gleam of delicate mirthfulness in her eyes, which the sculptor had seen there only two or three

times in the course of their acquaintance, but thought it the most bewitching and fairylike of all Hilda's

expressions. That soft, mirthful smile caused her to melt, as it were, into the wild frolic of the Carnival, and

become not so strange and alien to the scene, as her unexpected apparition must otherwise have made her.

Meanwhile, the venerable Englishman and his daughters were staring at poor Hilda in a way that proved them

altogether astonished, as well as inexpressibly shocked, by her sudden intrusion into their private balcony.

They looked,as, indeed, English people of respectability would, if an angel were to alight in their circle,

without due introduction from somebody whom they knew, in the court above,they looked as if an

unpardonable liberty had been taken, and a suitable apology must be made; after which, the intruder would be

The abbate, however, drew the old gentleman aside, and whispered a few words that served to mollify him;

he bestowed on Hilda a sufficiently benignant, though still a perplexed and questioning regard, and invited

But, whoever was in fault, our shy and gentle Hilda had dreamed of no intrusion. Whence she had come, or

where she had been hidden, during this mysterious interval, we can but imperfectly surmise, and do not mean,

at present, to make it a matter of formal explanation with the reader. It is better, perhaps, to fancy that she had

been snatched away to a land of picture; that she had been straying with Claude in the golden light which he

used to shed over his landscapes, but which he could never have beheld with his waking eyes till he awoke in

the better clime. We will imagine that, for the sake of the true simplicity with which she loved them, Hilda

had been permitted, for a season, to converse with the great, departed masters of the pencil, and behold the

diviner works which they have painted in heavenly colors. Guido had shown her another portrait of Beatrice

Cenci, done from the celestial life, in which that forlorn mystery of the earthly countenance was exchanged

for a radiant joy. Perugino had allowed her a glimpse at his easel, on which she discerned what seemed a

woman's face, but so divine, by the very depth and softness of its womanhood, that a gush of happy tears

blinded the maiden's eyes before she had time to look. Raphael had taken Hilda by the hand, that fine,

forcible hand which Kenyon sculptured,and drawn aside the curtain of goldfringed cloud that hung

before his latest masterpiece. On earth, Raphael painted the Transfiguration. What higher scene may he have

Neither will we retrace the steps by which she returned to the actual world. For the present, be it enough to

say that Hilda had been summoned forth from a secret place, and led we know not through what mysterious

passages, to a point where the tumult of life burst suddenly upon her ears. She heard the tramp of footsteps,

the rattle of wheels, and the mingled hum of a multitude of voices, with strains of music and loud laughter

breaking through. Emerging into a great, gloomy hall, a curtain was drawn aside; she found herself gently

propelled into an open balcony, whence she looked out upon the festal street, with gay tapestries flaunting

over all the palace fronts, the windows thronged with merry faces, and a crowd of maskers rioting upon the

Immediately she seemed to become a portion of the scene. Her pale, largeeyed, fragile beauty, her

wondering aspect and bewildered grace, attracted the gaze of many; and there fell around her a shower of

bouquets and bonbonsfreshest blossoms and sweetest sugar plums, sweets to the sweetsuch as the

revellers of the Carnival reserve as tributes to especial loveliness. Hilda pressed her hand across her brow;

she let her eyelids fall, and, lifting them again, looked through the grotesque and gorgeous show, the chaos of

mad jollity, in quest of some object by which she might assure herself that the whole spectacle was not an

Beneath the balcony, she recognized a familiar and fondly remembered face. The spirit of the hour and the

scene exercised its influence over her quick and sensitive nature; she caught up one of the rosebuds that had

been showered upon her, and aimed it at the sculptor; It hit the mark; he turned his sad eyes upward, and

there was Hilda, in whose gentle presence his own secret sorrow and the obtrusive uproar of the Carnival

That night, the lamp beneath the Virgin's shrine burned as brightly as if it had never been extinguished; and

though the one faithful dove had gone to her melancholy perch, she greeted Hilda rapturously the next

morning, and summoned her less constant companions, whithersoever they had flown, to renew their

The gentle reader, we trust, would not thank us for one of those minute elucidations, which are so tedious,

and, after all, so unsatisfactory, in clearing up the romantic mysteries of a story. He is too wise to insist upon

looking closely at the wrong side of the tapestry, after the right one has been sufficiently displayed to him,

woven with the best of the artist's skill, and cunningly arranged with a view to the harmonious exhibition of

its colors. If any brilliant, or beautiful, or even tolerable effect have been produced, this pattern of kindly

readers will accept it at its worth, without tearing its web apart, with the idle purpose of discovering how the

threads have been knit together; for the sagacity by which he is distinguished will long ago have taught him

that any narrative of human action and adventure whether we call it history or romanceis certain to be a

fragile handiwork, more easily rent than mended. The actual experience of even the most ordinary life is full

of events that never explain themselves, either as regards their origin or their tendency.

It would be easy, from conversations which we have held with the sculptor, to suggest a clew to the mystery

of Hilda's disappearance; although, as long as she remained in Italy, there was a remarkable reserve in her

communications upon this subject, even to her most intimate friends. Either a pledge of secrecy had been

exacted, or a prudential motive warned her not to reveal the stratagems of a religious body, or the secret acts

of a despotic governmentwhichever might be responsible in the present instancewhile still within the

scope of their jurisdiction. Possibly, she might not herself be fully aware what power had laid its grasp upon

her person. What has chiefly perplexed us, however, among Hilda's adventures, is the mode of her release, in

which some inscrutable tyranny or other seemed to take part in the frolic of the Carnival. We can only

account for it, by supposing that the fitful and fantastic imagination of a womansportive, because she must

otherwise be desperatehad arranged this incident, and made it the condition of a step which her conscience,

A few days after Hilda's reappearance, she and the sculptor were straying together through the streets of

Rome. Being deep in talk, it so happened that they found themselves near the majestic, pillared portico, and

huge, black rotundity of the Pantheon. It stands almost at the central point of the labyrinthine intricacies of

the modern city, and often presents itself before the bewildered stranger, when he is in search of other

"I never pass it without going in," she said, "to pay my homage at the tomb of Raphael."

"Nor I," said Kenyon, "without stopping to admire the noblest edifice which the barbarism of the early ages,

They went in accordingly, and stood in the free space of that great circle, around which are ranged the arched

recesses and stately altars, formerly dedicated to heathen gods, but Christianized through twelve centuries

gone by. The world has nothing else like the Pantheon. So grand it is, that the pasteboard statues over the

lofty cornice do not disturb the effect, any more than the tin crowns and hearts, the dusty artificial flowers,

and all manner of trumpery gewgaws, hanging at the saintly shrines. The rust and dinginess that have

dimmed the precious marble on the walls; the pavement, with its great squares and rounds of porphyry and

granite, cracked crosswise and in a hundred directions, showing how roughly the troublesome ages have

trampled here; the gray dome above, with its opening to the sky, as if heaven were looking down into the

interior of this place of worship, left unimpeded for prayers to ascend the more freely; all these things make

"I think," said the sculptor, "it is to the aperture in the domethat great Eye, gazing heavenward that the

Pantheon owes the peculiarity of its effect. It is so heathenish, as it were,so unlike all the snugness of our

modern civilization! Look, too, at the pavement, directly beneath the open space! So much rain has fallen

there, in the last two thousand years, that it is green with small, fine moss, such as grows over tombstones in

"I like better," replied Hilda, "to look at the bright, blue sky, roofing the edifice where the builders left it

open. It is very delightful, in a breezy day, to see the masses of white cloud float over the opening, and then

the sunshine fall through it again, fitfully, as it does now. Would it be any wonder if we were to see angels

hovering there, partly in and partly out, with genial, heavenly faces, not intercepting the light, but only

transmuting it into beautiful colors? Look at that broad, golden beama sloping cataract of sunlightwhich

comes down from the aperture and rests upon the shrine, at the right hand of the entrance!"

"There is a dusky picture over that altar," observed the sculptor. "Let us go and see if this strong illumination

Approaching the shrine, they found the picture little worth looking at, but could not forbear smiling, to see

that a very plump and comfortable tabbycatwhom we ourselves have often observed haunting the

Pantheonhad established herself on the altar, in the genial sunbeam, and was fast asleep among the holy

tapers. Their footsteps disturbing her, she awoke, raised herself, and sat blinking in the sun, yet with a certain

"I presume," remarked Kenyon, "that this is the first of the feline race that has ever set herself up as an object

of worship, in the Pantheon or elsewhere, since the days of ancient Egypt. See; there is a peasant from the

neighboring market, actually kneeling to her! She seems a gracious and benignant saint enough."

"Do not make me laugh," said Hilda reproachfully," but help me to drive the creature away. It distresses me

"Then, Hilda," answered the sculptor more seriously, "the only Place in the Pantheon for you and me to kneel

is on the pavement beneath the central aperture. If we pray at a saint's shrine, we shall give utterance to

earthly wishes; but if we pray face to face with the Deity, we shall feel it impious to petition for aught that is

narrow and selfish. Methinks it is this that makes the Catholics so delight in the worship of saints; they can

bring up all their little worldly wants and whims, their individualities and human weaknesses, not as things to

be repented of, but to be humored by the canonized humanity to which they pray. Indeed, it is very

What Hilda might have answered must be left to conjecture; for as she turned from the shrine, her eyes were

attracted to the figure of a female penitent, kneeling on the pavement just beneath the great central eye, in the

very spot which Kenyon had designated as the only one whence prayers should ascend. The upturned face

"If it were possible," she replied," I should fancy that kneeling figure to be Miriam!"

"As you say, it is impossible," rejoined the sculptor; "We know too well what has befallen both her and

Donatello." "Yes; it is impossible!" repeated Hilda. Her voice was still tremulous, however, and she seemed

unable to withdraw her attention from the kneeling figure. Suddenly, and as if the idea of Miriam had opened

the whole volume of Hilda's reminiscences, she put this question to the sculptor: "Was Donatello really a

"If you had ever studied the pedigree of the fardescended heir of Monte Beni, as I did," answered Kenyon,

with an irrepressible smile, "you would have retained few doubts on that point. Faun or not, he had a genial

nature, which, had the rest of mankind been in accordance with it, would have made earth a paradise to our

poor friend. It seems the moral of his story, that human beings of Donatello's character, compounded

especially for happiness, have no longer any business on earth, or elsewhere. Life has grown so sadly serious,

that such men must change their nature, or else perish, like the antediluvian creatures that required, as the

"Then here is another; take your choice!" said the sculptor, remembering what Miriam had recently

suggested, in reference to the same point. "He perpetrated a great crime; and his remorse, gnawing into his

soul, has awakened it; developing a thousand high capabilities, moral and intellectual, which we never should

have dreamed of asking for, within the scanty compass of the Donatello whom we knew."

"Here comes my perplexity," continued Kenyon. "Sin has educated Donatello, and elevated him. Is sin,

then,which we deem such a dreadful blackness in the universe,is it, like sorrow, merely an element of

human education, through which we struggle to a higher and purer state than we could otherwise have

attained? Did Adam fall, that we might ultimately rise to a far loftier paradise than his?" "O hush!" cried

Hilda, shrinking from him with an expression of horror which wounded the poor, speculative sculptor to the

soul. "This is terrible; and I could weep for you, if you indeed believe it. Do not you perceive what a mockery

your creed makes, not only of all religious sentiments, but of moral law? And how it annuls and obliterates

whatever precepts of Heaven are written deepest within us? You have shocked me beyond words!"

"Forgive me, Hilda!" exclaimed the sculptor, startled by her agitation; "I never did believe it! But the mind

wanders wild and wide; and, so lonely as I live and work, I have neither polestar above nor light of cottage

windows here below, to bring me home. Were you my guide, my counsellor, my inmost friend, with that

white wisdom which clothes you as a celestial garment, all would go well. O Hilda, guide me home!"

"We are both lonely; both far from home!" said Hilda, her eyes filling with tears. "I am a poor, weak girl, and

What further may have passed between these lovers, while standing before the pillared shrine, and the marble

Madonna that marks Raphael's tomb; whither they had now wandered, we are unable to record. But when the

kneeling figure beneath the open eye of the Pantheon arose, she looked towards the pair and extended her

hands with a gesture of benediction. Then they knew that it was Miriam. They suffered her to glide out of the

portal, however, without a greeting; for those extended hands, even while they blessed, seemed to repel, as if

Miriam stood on the other side of a fathomless abyss, and warned them from its verge.

So Kenyon won the gentle Hilda's shy affection, and her consent to be his bride. Another hand must

henceforth trim the lamp before the Virgin's shrine; for Hilda was coming down from her old tower, to be

herself enshrined and worshipped as a household saint, in the light of her husband's fireside. And, now that

life had so much human promise in it, they resolved to go back to their own land; because the years, after all,

have a kind of emptiness, when we spend too many of them on a foreign shore. We defer the reality of life, in

such cases, until a future moment, when we shall again breathe our native air; but, by and by, there are no

future moments; or, if we do return, we find that the native air has lost its invigorating quality, and that life

has shifted its reality to the spot where we have deemed ourselves only temporary residents. Thus, between

two countries, we have none at all, or only that little space of either in which we finally lay down our

Before they quitted Rome, a bridal gift was laid on Hilda's table. It was a bracelet, evidently of great cost,

being composed of seven ancient Etruscan gems, dug out of seven sepulchres, and each one of them the

signet of some princely personage, who had lived an immemorial time ago. Hilda remembered this precious

ornament. It had been Miriam's; and once, with the exuberance of fancy that distinguished her, she had

amused herself with telling a mythical and magic legend for each gem, comprising the imaginary adventures

and catastrophe of its former wearer. Thus the Etruscan bracelet became the connecting bond of a series of

seven wondrous tales, all of which, as they were dug out of seven sepulchres, were characterized by a

sevenfold sepulchral gloom; such as Miriam's imagination, shadowed by her own misfortunes, was wont to

And now, happy as Hilda was, the bracelet brought the tears into her eyes, as being, in its entire circle, the

symbol of as sad a mystery as any that Miriam had attached to the separate gems. For, what was Miriam's life

to be? And where was Donatello? But Hilda had a hopeful soul, and saw sunlight on the mountaintops.

There comes to the author, from many readers of the foregoing pages, a demand for further elucidations

He reluctantly avails himself of the opportunity afforded by a new edition, to explain such incidents and

passages as may have been left too much in the dark; reluctantly, he repeats, because the necessity makes him

sensible that he can have succeeded but imperfectly, at best, in throwing about this Romance the kind of

He designed the story and the characters to bear, of course, a certain relation to human nature and human life,

but still to be so artfully and airily removed from our mundane sphere, that some laws and proprieties of their

The idea of the modern Faun, for example, loses all the poetry and beauty which the Author fancied in it, and

becomes nothing better than a grotesque absurdity, if we bring it into the actual light of day. He had hoped to

mystify this anomalous creature between the Real and the Fantastic, in such a manner that the reader's

sympathies might be excited to a certain pleasurable degree, without impelling him to ask how Cuvier would

have classified poor Donatello, or to insist upon being told, in so many words, whether he had furry ears or

no. As respects all who ask such questions, the book is, to that extent, a failure.

Nevertheless, the Author fortunately has it in his power to throw light upon several matters in which some of

his readers appear to feel an interest. To confess the truth, he was himself troubled with a curiosity similar to

that which he has just deprecated on the part of his readers, and once took occasion to crossexamine his

friends, Hilda and the sculptor, and to pry into several dark recesses of the story, with which they had

We three had climbed to the top of St. Peter's, and were looking down upon the Rome we were soon to leave,

but which (having already sinned sufficiently in that way) it is not my purpose further to describe. It occurred

to me, that, being so remote in the upper air, my friends might safely utter here the secrets which it would be

"Hilda," I began, "can you tell me the contents of that mysterious packet which Miriam entrusted to your

"I never had any further knowledge of it," replied Hilda, "nor felt it right to let myself be curious upon the

"As to its precise contents," interposed Kenyon, "it is impossible to speak. But Miriam, isolated as she

seemed, had family connections in Rome, one of whom, there is reason to believe, occupied a position in the

"This Signore Luca Barboni was either the assumed name of the personage in question, or the medium of

communication between that individual and Miriam. Now, under such a government as that of Rome, it is

obvious that Miriam's privacy and isolated life could only be maintained through the connivance and support

of some influential person connected with the administration of affairs. Free and selfcontrolled as she

appeared, her every movement was watched and investigated far more thoroughly by the priestly rulers than

"Miriam, if I mistake not, had a purpose to withdraw herself from this irksome scrutiny, and to seek real

obscurity in another land; and the packet, to be delivered long after her departure, contained a reference to

this design, besides certain family documents, which were to be imparted to her relative as from one dead and

"Yes, it is clear as a London fog," I remarked. "On this head no further elucidation can be desired. But when

"You must recollect," replied Kenyon, with a glance of friendly commiseration at my obtuseness," that

Miriam had utterly disappeared, leaving no trace by which her whereabouts could be known. In the

meantime, the municipal authorities had become aware of the murder of the Capuchin; and from many

preceding circumstances, such as his persecution of Miriam, they must have seen an obvious connection

between herself and that tragical event. Furthermore, there is reason to believe that Miriam was suspected of

connection with some plot, or political intrigue, of which there may have been tokens in the packet. And

when Hilda appeared as the bearer of this missive, it was really quite a matter of course, under a despotic

"Ah, quite a matter of course, as you say," answered I. "How excessively stupid in me not to have seen it

sooner! But there are other riddles. On the night of the extinction of the lamp, you met Donatello, in a

penitent's garb, and afterwards saw and spoke to Miriam, in a coach, with a gem glowing on her bosom. What

was the business of these two guilty ones in Rome, and who was Miriam's companion?"

"Who!" repeated Kenyon, "why, her official relative, to be sure; and as to their business, Donatello's still

gnawing remorse had brought him hitherward, in spite of Miriam's entreaties, and kept him lingering in the

neighborhood of Rome, with the ultimate purpose of delivering himself up to justice. Hilda's disappearance,

which took place the day before, was known to them through a secret channel, and had brought them into the

city, where Miriam, as I surmise, began to make arrangements, even then, for that sad frolic of the Carnival."

Hilda threw her eyes on all sides, and seeing that there was not even a bird of the air to fly away with the

secret, nor any human being nearer than the loiterers by the obelisk in the piazza below, she told us about her

"I was a prisoner in the Convent of the Sacre Coeur, in the Trinita de Monte," said she," but in such kindly

custody of pious maidens, and watched over by such a dear old priest, thathad it not been for one or two

disturbing recollections, and also because I am a daughter of the Puritans I could willingly have dwelt there

"My entanglement with Miriam's misfortunes, and the good abbate's mistaken hope of a proselyte, seem to

"The atmosphere is getting delightfully lucid," observed I, "but there are one or two things that still puzzle

me. Could you tell meand it shall be kept a profound secret, I assure you what were Miriam's real name

and rank, and precisely the nature of the troubles that led to all those direful consequences?"

"Is it possible that you need an answer to those questions?" exclaimed Kenyon, with an aspect of vast

surprise. "Have you not even surmised Miriam's name? Think awhile, and you will assuredly remember it. If

not, I congratulate you most sincerely; for it indicates that your feelings have never been harrowed by one of

the most dreadful and mysterious events that have occurred within the present century!"

"Well," resumed I, after an interval of deep consideration, "I have but few things more to ask. Where, at this

"The Castle of Saint Angelo," said Kenyon sadly, turning his face towards that sepulchral fortress, "is no

longer a prison; but there are others which have dungeons as deep, and in one of them, I fear, lies our poor

"Call it cruelty if you like, not mercy," answered Kenyon. "But, after all, her crime lay merely in a glance.

"Only one question more," said I, with intense earnestness. "Did Donatello's ears resemble those of the Faun

"I know, but may not tell," replied Kenyon, smiling mysteriously. "On that point, at all events, there shall be