Letitia Elizabeth Landon

“ That grave but yesterday received one who was to have been his bride—his betrothed from childhood for whose sake he had been to far lands and gathered much wealth, but who had pined in his absence and died. He flung himself on the loathsome place, and the night-wind bore around the ravings of his despair. Woe for that selfishness which belonged to my mortality! I felt at that moment more of terror than of pity. I thought of myself: Thus must I, with all my power, my science, and loved by one into whose sphere Death comes not, even thus must I perish! ”

“ Don Leoni, I pity you—I wish to serve you: I know not, if in giving you wealth I give you happiness; but wealth I can give. This is not the place for such words as mine must be. Breathe not in living ear what I have said: my power to serve you depends on your silence. Come to-morrow to our palazzo."
Medora turned from him, and descended the terrace. The weakness of our nature—how soon any strong emotion masters it! Leoni stood breathless with surprise and hope; he had once or twice before seen Donna Medora, and he had heard much of her. ”

“ Lolah was listening to those charmed words which change the girl at once into the woman—we step not over the threshold of childhood till led by Love. Alas, this knowledge is almost always heralded by a sorrow! That morning had Lolah heard from her stern uncle, that the love she bore to her cousin Leoni di Montefiore was a childish toy, and as such was to be put away; and all her happiness had been destroyed by having to reflect upon it. Poor Lolah! how hard it is to teach the young that life is made up of many parts; and that wealth, rank, power, are more to be desired than affection! ”

“ I kneel to the Madonna, and my thoughts are not with prayer; in society I shrink from every eye with a vague but ever-present fear—a word, a look, sends the colour from my cheek, and curdles the life-blood at my heart; and yet I know not what I dread: and sleep, oh, sleep is very terrible! for then, Leoni, you tell me what it is death to hear, and I start from my pillow—but when I waken I disbelieve your guilt:—you guilty, Leoni? ”

“ Our feelings are as little in our power as the bodily structure they animate. My love had been sudden, uncontrollable, and born out of my own will—and such was my hate. As little could I master the sick shudder his image now called up, as I could the passionate beating of the heart it had once excited. I stood alone in my solitary hall—I gazed on the eternal fire burning over the tomb of my father, and I wished it were burning over mine. For the first time I felt the limitations of humanity. The desire of my race was in me accomplished—I was immortal; and what was this immortality? ”

“ The dark power, whose awful brow was fixed upon us like Fate, again was shrouded in the kindling waters. By an impulse neither could control, the Spirit and I flung ourselves down the steep blue air, but apart, and each muttering, 'Never! never!' And that word 'never' told our destiny. Never could either feel again that sweet deceit of happiness, which, if it be a lie, is worth all truth. Never more could each heart be the world of the other. ”

“ He forgot that the power with which the rich man is endued, is a sacred duty, whose neglect brings its own punishment; and that he who seeks pleasure with reference to himself, not others, will ever find that pleasure is only another name for discontent. At first Lolah was the idol of his heart—she became his bride—and a few happy weeks were passed in retirement and bliss; but Leoni soon looked beyond the small circle of the heart. They went to Palermo, and there he took delight in magnificence; his vanity exulted in glittering display, it was gratified by envy and wonder. ”

“ The love which alters, in its inconstancy may set up a new idol, and worship again with a pleasant blindness; but the love which leaves the heart with a full knowledge of its own vanity and nothingness,—which saith, The object of my passion still remains, but it is worthless in my sight—never more can I renew my early feeling—I marvel how I ever could have loved—I loathe, I disdain the weakness in my former self;—ah, the end of such love is indeed despair! ”

“ From the terrace came the breath of the orange-plants, whose white flowers were turned to silver in the light which fell on them from the windows. Within the halls were assembled the fairest and noblest of Sicily.
Every one, they say, has a genius for something—that of Count Arezzi was for festivals. A king, or more, the Athenian Pericles, might have welcomed his most favoured guests in such a chamber. The walls were painted in fresco, as artists paint whose present is a dream of beauty, and whose future is an immortality. ”

“ Do you mark yonder black marble slab, which is spread as over a tomb? It covers the most silvery fountain that ever mirrored the golden light of noon, or caught the fall of the evening dew, in an element bright as themselves. The radiant likeness of a Spirit rests on those waters. I bade him give duration to the shadow he flung upon the wave, that I might gaze on it during his absence. The first act of my immortality was to shut it from my sight. There must that black marble rest for ever. ”

“ The stillness is so deep, the solitude so unbroken, the fever brought on by want of rest so weakens the nerves, that the imagination exercises despotic and unwholesome power, till, if the heart have a fear or a sorrow, up it arises in all the force and terror of gigantic exaggeration. ”

“ But he was roused from his revery by Medora's voice.
"My silence, Count," said she, "must seem strange; but when you have heard the story I am about to reveal, you will not marvel that I hesitate to speak words which are even as those of Fate. You love, and you are beloved; surely you might be happy. There is but one obstacle, that of wealth. Leoni, I can make you rich—rich as the fabled kings, who poured forth gold like water: dare you accept the offer?" ”

“ I advanced in these divine studies even to his wish, and looked to the future with a hope which many years had deadened in himself, but from which I caught an omen of ultimate success. Alas! he mastered not his destiny: I have said before, his ashes are in yonder urn. A few unwholesome dews on a summer night were mightier than all his science. For a time I struggled not with despair: but youth is buoyant, and habit is strong. ”

“ The flashing of her radiant eyes fell upon the culprit—she raised her hand, whereon shone the starry talisman as it shone when she bade the spirits give him wealth unbounded and at a wish. She beckoned Leoni. A power was on him which forced him to obey—he sprang towards the lake—he sank below the surface—twice he emerged from the bright waves, again they closed over his head, and the moon shone upon one unbroken line of light. The strange and beautiful being gazed on the spot with a look of horror ”

“ Now the shadow of the last rests upon the first, and all life groans beneath the weight and darkness thereof. Then the marble of the quarry and the gold of the mine lay on the surface; the fertile soil of the East yielded forth its abundance; and the labour which was in man's destiny, needed not to be all given to that sad and perpetual strife with hunger which belongs to our worn-out and weary age. ”

“ Water—the mighty, the pure, the beautiful, the unfathomable—where is thy element so glorious as it is in thine own domain, the deep seas? What an infinity of power is in the far Atlantic, the boundary of two separate worlds, apart like those of memory and of hope! ”

“ Day after day did some unkind friend—for when do friends not delight in the sorrow of the prosperous?—come to her with tales how the Count's wealth was lavished on others less lovely than herself. ”

“ They were standing on the top of a mighty tower; one of those, whose height, seen from below, seems to reach even unto the heavens—but the summit once gained, we only find what an immeasurable upward distance remains. A hot, bright noon filled the air with light, but not with fertility; for far as the eye could reach—and the clear colourless atmosphere seemed to extend the sight even to infinity—spread an arid desert, as if sand were an element, and only shared its empire with the sky. ”

“ Dumb from his birth, the boy Julio had been brought up in the Manfredi family, where his weak frame and want of language had exempted him from all but the lightest tasks.
"What would the Senora Lolah say to this visit?" cried Stefano, the moment his master was out of hearing. "The lady Medora is beautiful as an angel; I marvel we never rowed cavalier hither before."
"We never have; but I have, and in an evil hour. Well had it been for my first master if he had never looked on a face so fair and so false. I remember when I was wont of an evening to row the Count Rivoli to this very spot. ”

“ Medora rose from her seat.
"Not here, where the uncharmed air might bear away my words, dare I tell my history. Count Leoni, you have heard of wondrous and fearful secrets, whose spell is over stars and over spirits; you have heard of mortals to whom immortal power is given—such power is mine. You deem you are speaking to your cousin—would that you were! ”

“ Leoni answered by taking the hand extended towards him. Even as he touched it, a vapour filled the room; he felt himself raised with a sudden and dizzy velocity; he leant back; the cloud was as the wave on which a swimmer floats, borne by no effort of his own ”

“ At length I resolved to leave my solitude, to visit earth; to seek, if I could not recall, my humanity; to interest myself in my species, and help even while I despised them. The thousand hues of sunset were deepening into the rich purple of twilight, when I passed over a Sicilian palace. Lemon and orange trees crowded the terrace, and their odours floated upwards towards an apartment where every casement was flung open for the sake of air. ”

“ They say the young Count knelt at her feet, but in vain; and for her sake he forswore the face of woman and his native country. Count Rivoli is now a Knight of Malta. What has the Senora Medora to do with another lover?"
"Well, yonder gallant's step is not much like a lover's," replied Stefano, as a bend in the path enabled them to see the slow and thoughtful pace at which Leoni followed his guide. ”

“ I do no more than a mere mortal might. On this interview there is imposed the condition—secrecy; on the possession of riches there is none. The spirits of riches are the first and the meanest which yield to science; it shall be my care that they reach you in simple and ordinary channels. Speak!"
"Give me," exclaimed Leoni, "give me wealth; give me Lolah!"
A purple cloud filled the glorious hall; again stupor overwhelmed him; again he awakened, and there he was in the lonely summer-room, and Medora, with her pale child-like face and black garments, at his side ”

“ Why, when love is perished, should its memory remain? I had said to myself, So long as I have life, one deep feeling must absorb my existence. A change—and that too of my own earnest seeking—had passed over my being ”

“ True, the rich spices, the perfumed woods, the fragrant oils, which would feed the sacred fire of my funeral pyre, would save my mortal remains from that corruption which makes the disgust of death even worse than its dread. ”

“ I had lost of humanity but its illusions, and they alone are what render it supportable. ”

“ How often will the lip frame some indifferent question, when the heart is full of the most important! ”

“ In sad truth, half our forebodings of our neighbours are but our own wishes, which we are ashamed to utter in any other form. ”

“ The father caught the lifeless hands of his child, and, mad with despair, implored her not to leave him. Loud sobs came from the further part of the chamber: there was now no one to disturb by that passion of sorrow. "Human misery is an awful sight. ”

“ The weakness of our nature—how soon any strong emotion masters it! ”