Part 15

_Epicurus._ I am not unmoved by the kindness of your intentions. Most people, and philosophers, too, among the rest, when their own conduct or opinions are questioned, are admirably prompt and dexterous in the science of defence; but when another's are assailed, they parry with as ill a grace and faltering a hand as if they never had taken a lesson in it at home. Seldom will they see what they profess to look for; and, finding it, they pick up with it a thorn under the nail. They canter over the solid turf, and complain that there is no corn upon it; they canter over the corn, and curse the ridges and furrows. All schools of philosophy, and almost all authors, are rather to be frequented for exercise than for freight; but this exercise ought to acquire us health and strength, spirits and good-humour. There is none of them that does not supply some truth useful to every man, and some untruth equally so to the few that are able to wrestle with it. If there were no falsehood in the world, there would be no doubt; if there were no doubt, there would be no inquiry; if no inquiry, no wisdom, no knowledge, no genius: and Fancy herself would lie muffled up in her robe, inactive, pale, and bloated. I wish we could demonstrate the existence of utility in some other evils as easily as in this.

_Leontion._ My remarks on the conduct and on the style of Theophrastus are not confined to him solely. I have taken at last a general view of our literature, and traced as far as I am able its deviation and decline. In ancient works we sometimes see the mark of the chisel; in modern we might almost suppose that no chisel was employed at all, and that everything was done by grinding and rubbing. There is an ordinariness, an indistinctness, a generalization, not even to be found in a flock of sheep. As most reduce what is sand into dust, the few that avoid it run to a contrary extreme, and would force us to believe that what is original must be unpolished and uncouth.

_Epicurus._ There have been in all ages, and in all there will be, sharp and slender heads made purposely and peculiarly for creeping into the crevices of our nature. While we contemplate the magnificence of the universe, and mensurate the fitness and adaptation of one part to another, the small philosopher hangs upon a hair or creeps within a wrinkle, and cries out shrilly from his elevation that we are blind and superficial. He discovers a wart, he pries into a pore; and he calls it knowledge of man. Poetry and criticism, and all the fine arts, have generated such living things, which not only will be co-existent with them but will (I fear) survive them. Hence history takes alternately the form of reproval and of panegyric; and science in its pulverized state, in its shapeless and colourless atoms, assumes the name of metaphysics. We find no longer the rich succulence of Herodotus, no longer the strong filament of Thucydides, but thoughts fit only for the slave, and language for the rustic and the robber. These writings can never reach posterity, nor serve better authors near us; for who would receive as documents the perversions of venality and party? Alexander we know was intemperate, and Philip both intemperate and perfidious: we require not a volume of dissertation on the thread of history, to demonstrate that one or other left a tailor's bill unpaid, and the immorality of doing so; nor a supplement to ascertain on the best authorities which of the two it was. History should explain to us how nations rose and fell, what nurtured them in their growth, what sustained them in their maturity; not which orator ran swiftest through the crowd from the right hand to the left, which assassin was too strong for manacles, or which felon too opulent for crucifixion.

_Leontion._ It is better, I own it, that such writers should amuse our idleness than excite our spleen.

_Ternissa._ What is spleen?

_Epicurus._ Do not ask her; she cannot tell you. The spleen, Ternissa, is to the heart what Arimanes is to Oromazes.

_Ternissa._ I am little the wiser yet. Does he ever use such hard words with you?

_Leontion._ He means the evil Genius and the good Genius, in the theogony of the Persians: and would perhaps tell you, as he hath told me, that the heart in itself is free from evil, but very capable of receiving and too tenacious of holding it.

_Epicurus._ In our moral system, the spleen hangs about the heart and renders it sad and sorrowful, unless we continually keep it in exercise by kind offices, or in its proper place by serious investigation and solitary questionings. Otherwise, it is apt to adhere and to accumulate, until it deadens the principles of sound

## action, and obscures the sight.

_Ternissa._ It must make us very ugly when we grow old.

_Leontion._ In youth it makes us uglier, as not appertaining to it: a little more or less ugliness in decrepitude is hardly worth considering, there being quite enough of it from other quarters: I would stop it here, however.

_Ternissa._ Oh, what a thing is age!

_Leontion._ Death without death's quiet.

_Ternissa._ Leontion said that even bad writers may amuse our idle hours: alas! even good ones do not much amuse mine, unless they record an action of love or generosity. As for the graver, why cannot they come among us and teach us, just as you do?

_Epicurus._ Would you wish it?

_Ternissa._ No, no! I do not want them: only I was imagining how pleasant it is to converse as we are doing, and how sorry I should be to pore over a book instead of it. Books always make me sigh, and think about other things. Why do you laugh, Leontion?

_Epicurus._ She was mistaken in saying bad authors may amuse our idleness. Leontion knows not then how sweet and sacred idleness is.

_Leontion._ To render it sweet and sacred, the heart must have a little garden of its own, with its umbrage and fountains and perennial flowers--a careless company! Sleep is called sacred as well as sweet by Homer; and idleness is but a step from it. The idleness of the wise and virtuous should be both, it being the repose and refreshment necessary for past exertions and for future; it punishes the bad man, it rewards the good; the deities enjoy it, and Epicurus praises it. I was indeed wrong in my remark; for we should never seek amusement in the foibles of another, never in coarse language, never in low thoughts. When the mind loses its feeling for elegance, it grows corrupt and grovelling, and seeks in the crowd what ought to be found at home.

_Epicurus._ Aspasia believed so, and bequeathed to Leontion, with every other gift that Nature had bestowed upon her, the power of delivering her oracles from diviner lips.

_Leontion._ Fie! Epicurus! It is well you hide my face for me with your hand. Now take it away; we cannot walk in this manner.

_Epicurus._ No word could ever fall from you without its weight; no breath from you ought to lose itself in the common air.

_Leontion._ For shame! What would you have?

_Ternissa._ He knows not what he would have nor what he would say. I must sit down again. I declare I scarcely understand a single syllable. Well, he is very good, to tease you no longer. Epicurus has an excellent heart; he would give pain to no one; least of all to you.

_Leontion,_ I have pained him by this foolish book, and he would only assure me that he does not for a moment bear me malice. Take the volume; take it, Epicurus! tear it in pieces.

_Epicurus._ No, Leontion! I shall often look with pleasure on this trophy of brave humanity; let me kiss the hand that raises it!

_Ternissa._ I am tired of sitting: I am quite stiff: when shall we walk homeward?

_Epicurus._ Take my arm, Ternissa!

_Ternissa._ Oh! I had forgotten that I proposed to myself a trip as far up as the pinasters, to look at the precipice of Oreithyia. Come along! come along! how alert does the sea air make us! I seem to feel growing at my feet and shoulders the wings of Zethes or Calaeis.

_Epicurus._ Leontion walks the nimblest to-day.

_Ternissa._ To display her activity and strength, she runs before us. Sweet Leontion, how good she is! but she should have stayed for us: it would be in vain to try to overtake her.

No, Epicurus! Mind! take care! you are crushing these little oleanders--and now the strawberry plants--the whole heap. Not I, indeed. What would my mother say, if she knew it? And Leontion! she will certainly look back.

_Epicurus._ The fairest of the Eudaimones never look back: such are the Hours and Love, Opportunity and Leontion.

_Ternissa._ How could you dare to treat me in this manner? I did not say again I hated anything.

_Epicurus._ Forgive me!

_Ternissa._ Violent creature!

_Epicurus._ If tenderness is violence. Forgive me; and say you love me.

_Ternissa._ All at once? could you endure such boldness?

_Epicurus._ Pronounce it! whisper it.

_Ternissa._ Go, go. Would it be proper?

_Epicurus._ Is that sweet voice asking its heart or me? let the worthier give the answer.

_Ternissa._ O Epicurus! you are very, very dear to me; and are the last in the world that would ever tell you were called so.

FOOTNOTES:

[7] The Attic month of Puanepsion had its commencement in the latter days of October; its name is derived from +puana+, the legumes which were offered in sacrifice to Apollo at that season.

[8] The thirteenth of Elaphebolion was the tenth of April.

DANTE AND BEATRICE

_Dante._ When you saw me profoundly pierced with love, and reddening and trembling, did it become you, did it become you, you whom I have always called _the most gentle Bice_, to join in the heartless laughter of those girls around you? Answer me. Reply unhesitatingly. Requires it so long a space for dissimulation and duplicity? Pardon! pardon! pardon! My senses have left me; my heart being gone, they follow.

_Beatrice._ Childish man! pursuing the impossible.

_Dante._ And was it this you laughed at? We cannot touch the hem of God's garment; yet we fall at His feet and weep.

_Beatrice._ But weep not, gentle Dante! fall not before the weakest of His creatures, willing to comfort, unable to relieve you. Consider a little. Is laughter at all times the signal or the precursor of derision? I smiled, let me avow it, from the pride I felt in your preference of me; and if I laughed, it was to conceal my sentiments. Did you never cover sweet fruit with worthless leaves? Come, do not drop again so soon so faint a smile. I will not have you grave, nor very serious. I pity you; I must not love you: if I might, I would.

_Dante._ Yet how much love is due to me, O Bice, who have loved you, as you well remember, even from your tenth year. But it is reported, and your words confirm it, that you are going to be married.

_Beatrice._ If so, and if I could have laughed at that, and if my laughter could have estranged you from me, would you blame me?

_Dante._ Tell me the truth.

_Beatrice._ The report is general.

_Dante._ The truth! the truth! Tell me, Bice.

_Beatrice._ Marriages, it is said, are made in heaven.

_Dante._ Is heaven then under the paternal roof?

_Beatrice._ It has been to me hitherto.

_Dante._ And now you seek it elsewhere.

_Beatrice._ I seek it not. The wiser choose for the weaker. Nay, do not sigh so. What would you have, my grave pensive Dante? What can I do?

_Dante._ Love me.

_Beatrice._ I always did.

_Dante._ Love me? O bliss of heaven!

_Beatrice._ No, no, no! Forbear! Men's kisses are always mischievous and hurtful; everybody says it. If you truly loved me, you would never think of doing so.

_Dante._ Nor even this!

_Beatrice._ You forget that you are no longer a boy; and that it is not thought proper at your time of life to continue the arm at all about the waist. Beside, I think you would better not put your head against my bosom; it beats too much to be pleasant to you. Why do you wish it? why fancy it can do you any good? It grows no cooler; it seems to grow even hotter. Oh, how it burns! Go, go; it hurts me too: it struggles, it aches, it sobs. Thank you, my gentle friend, for removing your brow away; your hair is very thick and long; and it began to heat me more than you can imagine. While it was there, I could not see your face so well, nor talk with you so quietly.

_Dante._ Oh, when shall we talk quietly in future?

_Beatrice._ When I am married. I shall often come to visit my father. He has always been solitary since my mother's death, which happened in my infancy, long before you knew me.

_Dante._ How can he endure the solitude of his house when you have left it?

_Beatrice._ The very question I asked him.

_Dante._ You did not then wish to ... to ... go away?

_Beatrice._ Ah no! It is sad to be an outcast at fifteen.

_Dante._ An outcast?

_Beatrice._ Forced to leave a home.

_Dante._ For another?

_Beatrice._ Childhood can never have a second.

_Dante._ But childhood is now over.

_Beatrice._ I wonder who was so malicious as to tell my father that? He wanted me to be married a whole year ago.

_Dante._ And, Bice, you hesitated?

_Beatrice._ No; I only wept. He is a dear good father. I never disobeyed him but in those wicked tears; and they ran the faster the more he reprehended them.

_Dante._ Say, who is the happy youth?

_Beatrice._ I know not who ought to be happy if you are not.

_Dante._ I?

_Beatrice._ Surely you deserve all happiness.

_Dante._ Happiness! any happiness is denied me. Ah, hours of childhood! bright hours! what fragrant blossoms ye unfold! what bitter fruits to ripen!

_Beatrice._ Now cannot you continue to sit under that old fig-tree at the corner of the garden? It is always delightful to me to think of it.

_Dante._ Again you smile: I wish I could smile too.

_Beatrice._ You were usually more grave than I, although very often, two years ago, you told me I was the graver. Perhaps I _was_ then indeed; and perhaps I ought to be now: but really I must smile at the recollection, and make you smile with me.

_Dante._ Recollection of what in particular?

_Beatrice._ Of your ignorance that a fig-tree is the brittlest of trees, especially when it is in leaf; and moreover of your tumble, when your head was just above the wall, and your hand (with the verses in it) on the very coping-stone. Nobody suspected that I went every day to the bottom of our garden, to hear you repeat your poetry on the other side; nobody but yourself; you soon found me out. But on that occasion I thought you might have been hurt; and I clambered up our high peach-tree in the grass plot nearest the place; and thence I saw Messer Dante, with his white sleeve reddened by the fig-juice, and the seeds sticking to it pertinaciously, and Messer blushing, and trying to conceal his calamity, and still holding the verses. They were all about me.

_Dante._ Never shall any verse of mine be uttered from my lips, or from the lips of others, without the memorial of Bice.

_Beatrice._ Sweet Dante! in the purity of your soul shall Bice live; as (we are told by the goatherds and foresters) poor creatures have been found preserved in the serene and lofty regions of the Alps, many years after the breath of life had left them. Already you rival Guido Cavalcante and Cino da Pistoja: you must attempt, nor perhaps shall it be vainly, to surpass them in celebrity.

_Dante._ If ever I am above them ... and I must be ... I know already what angel's hand will have helped me up the ladder. Beatrice, I vow to heaven, shall stand higher than Selvaggia, high and glorious and immortal as that name will be. You have given me joy and sorrow; for the worst of these (I will not say the least) I will confer on you all the generations of our Italy, all the ages of our world. But first (alas, from me you must not have it!) may happiness, long happiness, attend you!

_Beatrice._ Ah, those words rend your bosom! why should they?

_Dante._ I could go away contented, or almost contented, were I sure of it. Hope is nearly as strong as despair, and greatly more pertinacious and enduring. You have made me see clearly that you never can be mine in this world: but at the same time, O Beatrice, you have made me see quite as clearly that you may and must be mine in another! I am older than you: precedency is given to age, and not to worthiness; I will pray for you when I am nearer to God, and purified from the stains of earth and mortality. He will permit me to behold you, lovely as when I left you. Angels in vain should call me onward.

_Beatrice._ Hush, sweetest Dante! hush!

_Dante._ It is there where I shall have caught the first glimpse of you again, that I wish all my portion of Paradise to be assigned me; and there, if far below you, yet within the sight of you, to establish my perdurable abode.

_Beatrice._ Is this piety? Is this wisdom? O Dante! And may not I be called away first?

_Dante._ Alas, alas, how many small feet have swept off the early dew of life, leaving the path black behind them! But to think that you should go before me! It almost sends me forward on my way, to receive and welcome you. If indeed, O Beatrice, such should be God's immutable will, sometimes look down on me when the song to Him is suspended. Oh! look often on me with prayer and pity; for there all prayers are accepted, and all pity is devoid of pain! Why are you silent?

_Beatrice._ It is very sinful not to love all creatures in the world. But it is true, O Dante! that we always love those the most who make us the most unhappy?

_Dante._ The remark, I fear, is just.

_Beatrice._ Then, unless the Virgin be pleased to change my inclinations, I shall begin at last to love my betrothed; for already the very idea of him renders me sad, wearisome, and comfortless. Yesterday he sent me a bunch of violets. When I took them up, delighted as I felt at that sweetest of odours, which you and I once inhaled together....

_Dante._ And only once.

_Beatrice._ You know why. Be quiet now, and hear me. I dropped the posy; for around it, hidden by various kinds of foliage, was twined the bridal necklace of pearls. O Dante, how worthless are the finest of them (and there are many fine ones) in comparison with those little pebbles, some of which (for perhaps I may not have gathered up all) may be still lying under the peach-tree, and some (do I blush to say it?) under the fig! Tell me not who threw these, nor for what. But you know you were always thoughtful, and sometimes reading, sometimes writing, and sometimes forgetting me, while I waited to see the crimson cap, and the two bay-leaves I fastened in it, rise above the garden-wall. How silently you are listening, if you do listen!

_Dante._ Oh, could my thoughts incessantly and eternally dwell among these recollections, undisturbed by any other voice ... undistracted by any other presence! Soon must they abide with me alone, and be repeated by none but me ... repeated in the accents of anguish and despair! Why could you not have held in the sad home of your heart that necklace and those violets?

_Beatrice._ My Dante! we must all obey ... I my father, you your God. He will never abandon you.

_Dante._ I have ever sung, and will for ever sing, the most glorious of His works: and yet, O Bice! He abandons me, He casts me off; and He uses your hand for this infliction.

_Beatrice._ Men travel far and wide, and see many on whom to fix or transfer their affections; but we maidens have neither the power nor the will. Casting our eyes on the ground, we walk along the straight and narrow road prescribed for us; and, doing this, we avoid in great measure the thorns and entanglements of life. We know we are performing our duty; and the fruit of this knowledge is contentment. Season after season, day after day, you have made me serious, pensive, meditative, and almost wise. Being so little a girl, I was proud that you, so much taller, should lean on my shoulder to overlook my work. And greatly more proud was I when in time you taught me several Latin words, and then whole sentences, both in prose and verse, pasting a strip of paper over, or obscuring with impenetrable ink, those passages in the poets which were beyond my comprehension, and might perplex me. But proudest of all was I when you began to reason with me. What will now be my pride if you are convinced by the first arguments I ever have opposed to you; or if you only take them up and try if they are applicable. Certainly do I know (indeed, indeed I do) that even the patience to consider them will make you happier. Will it not then make me so? I entertain no other wish. Is not this true love?

_Dante._ Ah, yes! the truest, the purest, the least perishable, but not the sweetest. Here are the rue and hyssop; but where the rose?

_Beatrice._ Wicked must be whatever torments you: and will you let love do it? Love is the gentlest and kindest breath of God. Are you willing that the tempter should intercept it, and respire it polluted into your ear? Do not make me hesitate to pray to the Virgin for you, nor tremble lest she look down on you with a reproachful pity. To her alone, O Dante, dare I confide all my thoughts! Lessen not my confidence in my only refuge.

_Dante._ God annihilate a power so criminal! Oh, could my love flow into your breast with hers! It should flow with equal purity.

_Beatrice._ You have stored my little mind with many thoughts; dear because they are yours, and because they are virtuous. May I not, O my Dante! bring some of them back again to your bosom; as the _contadina_ lets down the string from the cottage-beam in winter, and culls a few bunches of the soundest for the master of the vineyard? You have not given me glory that the world should shudder at its eclipse. To prove that I am worthy of the smallest part of it, I must obey God; and, under God, my father. Surely the voice of Heaven comes to us audibly from a parent's lips. You will be great, and, what is above, all greatness, good.