Fata Morgana

“ Alone upon the vast plain, away from human eyes, András dared to conjure up this vision, and found mad delight in torturing himself with those Fata Morgana-like dreams of great blue eyes, large and wondering, growing soft and misty, moist and tender with responsive passion, of that exquisite tiny mouth, perfumed and chaste, as the petals of a rosebud, of the soft red lips, parting with a smile, preparing for a kiss, of the warmth of her breath, the tears in her eyes, the quickly drawn breath through her delicate nostrils. ”

“ They did so much good with their magic wands!”
“Morgana is my ancestress,” said the duke. “She is my good genius. There is not a cottage in Morgania where her picture does not hang, next to the icons of the Virgin. In the winter evenings, around the fire, they recount her exploits and those of Rhodaïs and Bertha. Children grow up with it in their blood; they no more think of their country without its heroines than without its woods and mountains.” ”

“ We now come to the Fate of romance and tale.
The earliest notice that we can recollect to have seen of these potent ladies is in the Orlando Innamorato, where we meet the celebrated Fata Morgana, who would at first appear to be, as a personification of Fortune, a being of a higher order.
Ivi è una fata nomata Morgana,
Che a le genti diverse dona l'oro ”

“ He sometimes stops a minute to laugh at it himself, then begins anew with fresh vigor; for all the spirits he is driving before him seem to him as Fata Morgana, ugly masks, in fact, if he can but make them turn about ”

“ You know everything, and you don’t know the legend of Morgana!”
“Only by name,” said Miss Rowrer. “In my picture-books there used to be Bluebeard and ogres and ugly wolves, who made me afraid—and the good fairies Mélusine and Morgana, who delighted me. ”

“ They are beautiful, loo, and their beauty is immortal: always in Bojardo. He would not have turned Alcina into an old woman, as Ariosto did; which I must always consider a dreadful blemish on the many charms of the Orlando Furioso.
Algernon. I remember the passage well. The beautiful Fata, dancing and singing by the fountain, presents a delightful picture.
Morgana. Then, you know, Orlando, who had missed his opportunity of seizing the golden forelock while she was sleeping, pursues her a long while in vain through rocky deserts, La Penitenza following him with a scourge. ”

“ This was the Fata Morgana, which, for twenty-six years, I had thought a mere fable.”
Brydone, writing from Messina, evidently in a dubious vein, states:—“Do you know, the most extraordinary phenomenon in the world is often observed near to this place? I laughed at it at first, as you will do, but I am now convinced of its reality, and am persuaded, too, that if ever it had been thoroughly examined by a philosophical eye, the natural cause must long ago have been assigned. ”

“ Meanwhile von Sarnoff with a well directed shot had laid the panther low.
Holding his sweetheart in his arms, Carl saw the dismal jungle brightened with the rays of the setting sun, as Sana recovered consciousness and with a cry of joy embraced him, realizing that she was safe at last.
[317] The world may be but a Fata Morgana and life an illusion to those who keep not the faith, but to those who tend the fires of truth, the rays of the setting sun shall be messengers of Peace. ”

“ Only think how somewhere people are agitating themselves in fog and smoke, while we are sailing straight for dreamland and—isn’t it curious?—a duchy with sorceresses and fairies in its history, where legends a thousand years old still move the people. I wish to believe in it—I wish to see the return of Morgana! ”

“ I thought I saw heads in the pool; human bodies wallowing confusedly; eyes turned up to heaven with hopeless horror; was that water, or—Where was the impulse now? I raised my eyes from the pool, I looked no more upon it—I looked forward, far down the stream in the far distance. “Ha! what is that? I thought I saw a kind of Fata Morgana, green meadows, waving groves, a rustic home; but in the far distance—I stared—I stared—a Fata Morgana—it was gone—”
I left the balustrade and walked to the farther end of the bridge, where I stood for some time contemplating the crowd ”

“ Nobody should betray them, nobody should carry tidings concerning them to the women and girls of Debreczen. And God?—Ah! He sees these women thus hastening to destruction, He looks at them through the mirror of the Fata Morgana, and hides [Pg 13] from them the crafty snare laid for them in the very nick of time. Blessed be the name of the Lord!
On the evening of the third day the sentinels stationed on the border of the forest informed Badrul Beg that far off in the puszta a long line of dust could be seen, as if hundreds and hundreds of waggons were coming along one after another. ”

“ Fata Morgana, a mirage occasionally observed in the Strait of Messina, in which, from refraction in the atmosphere, images of objects, such as men, houses, trees, etc., are seen from the coast under or over the surface of the water.
Fatalism, the doctrine that all which takes place in life and history is subject to fate, that is is to say, takes place by inevitable necessity, that things being as they are, events cannot fall out otherwise than they do.
Fates, The, in the Greek mythology the three goddesses who presided over the destinies of individuals—Clotho, Lachesis, and Atropos (q. v.) ”

“ He here confounds Morgana with Urganda, and he has been followed in his mistake. D'Herbelot also thinks it possible that Féerie may come from Peri; but he regards the common derivation from Fata as much more probable. Cambrian etymologists, by the way, say that Morgain is Mor Gwynn, the White Maid. ”

“ He was a descendant of Hugh, the Frankish chief to whom Theodosius had given one of his twelve duchies of the West, and since that time nothing—not even Attila’s torrent, nor the Turks, nor Charles the V, nor so many famines, nor so many wars—nothing had ever struck the sword from the hands of his ancestors—nothing save the anger of the people against Duke Adhemar, who was driven from the throne because he had delivered up Morgana! ”

“ Such duchesses the people of Morgania preferred to all others. It was very important for the future of the house that she who was to succeed the mother of Adalbert should possess all those qualities which make a woman adorable—goodness, beauty, and valor. ”

“ The eldest excels in the art of healing, and exceeds her sisters in beauty. She is called Morgana, and knows the virtues of all the herbs of the meadow. She can change her form, and soar in the air like a bird; she can be where she pleases in a moment, and in a moment descend on our coasts from the clouds. Her sister Thiten is renowned for her skill on the harp.'
"'With the prince we arrived, and Morgana received us with fitting honour. And in her own chamber she placed the king on a bed of gold, and with delicate touch, she uncovered the wound. ”

“ No effigy of stone ever looked colder, harder, greyer than this inert figure of man,—uninjured apparently, for there were no visible marks of wounds or bruises upon his features, which appeared frozen into stiff rigidity, but a man as surely dead as death could make him! Morgana heard, as in a far-off dream, the Marchese Rivardi speaking—
"I have done your bidding because it was you who bade,"—he said, his voice shaking with the tremor and excitement of his daring effort—"And it was not so very difficult. But it is a vain rescue! They are past recall." ”

“ Morgana looked at her tenderly, touched to the quick by her eagerness and her beauty, now intensified by the glow of excitement which gave a roseate warmth to her cheeks and deeper darkness to her eyes. All ignorant and unsuspecting as she was of the world's malignity and cruel misjudgments, how could it be explained to her that a woman of such youth and loveliness, electing to dwell alone with a man, even if the man were a hopeless paralytic, would make herself the subject of malicious comment and pitiless scandal! ”

“ She looked wistfully out to sea,—the blue Sicilian sea so exquisite in tone and play of pure reflections,—and thought how happy a life lived after the old sweet ways might be for a brilliant little creature like Morgana, if she could win "a good man's love" as Shakespeare puts it. And yet—was not this rather harking back to mere sentiment, often proved delusive? Her own "good man's love" had been very precious to her,—but it had not fulfilled all her heart's longing, though she considered herself an entirely commonplace woman. And what sort of a man would it be that could hold Morgana? ”

“ And Morgana listened,—listened intently,—the sapphire hue of the Ray lighting her gold hair, as she knelt, absorbed. What she heard filled her with a certain dread; and a tremor of premonition, like the darkness preceding storm, shook her nerves. But the inward spirit of her was as a warrior clothed in steel,—she was afraid of nothing—least of all of any event or incident passing for "supernatural," knowing beyond all doubt that the most seeming miraculous circumstances are all the result of natural movement and transmutation. ”

“ And both Rivardi and Gaspard thought they were not far from the realisation of an angel when Morgana suddenly appeared at the door of her sleeping-cabin, attired in a fleecy-wool gown of purest white, her wonderful gold hair unbound and falling nearly to her feet.
"What a perfect morning!" she exclaimed—"All things seem new! And I have had such a good rest! The air is so pure and clean—surely we are over the sea?" ”

“ The solid earth is quite good enough for my old feet as long as they will support me!"
Morgana laughed.
"You dear Duchess!" she said, affectionately—"Don't worry! I'm not going to ask you to travel in my air-ship—I wouldn't so try your nerves for the world! Though it is an absolutely safe ship,—nothing"—and she emphasised the word—"NOTHING can upset it or drive it out of its course unless natural law is itself upset! Now let us sit here"—and she drew two wicker chairs into the cool shadow of the loggia and set them facing the sea—"and have our talk! ”

“ So fired with light she looked ethereal—a very spirit of air or of flame; and Rivardi, just able to see her from his steering place, began to think there was some truth an the strange words of Don Aloysius—"Sometimes in this wonderful world of ours beings are born who are neither man nor woman and who partake of a nature that is not so much human as elemental—or, might not one almost say atmospheric?"
At the moment Morgana seemed truly "atmospheric"—a small creature so fine and fair as to almost suggest an evanescent form about to melt away in mist. ”

“ Don Aloysius looked round with a questioning glance.
"What does she herself think about it?" he asked, mildly.
"I have not thought at all"—said Morgana, quickly, "I can always fill it with friends. No end of people are glad to winter in Sicily."
"But will such 'friends' care for YOU or YOUR happiness?" suggested the Marchese, pointedly.
Morgana laughed.
"Oh, no, I do not expect that! Nowadays no one really cares for anybody else's happiness but their own. Besides, I shall be much too busy to want company. ”

“ Morgana smiled, and stretching out her small white hand, adorned with its sparkling rings, laid it caressingly on the girl's brown wrist.
"You are a dear!"—she murmured, lazily—"Just a dear! A big, beautiful creature with a heart! That's the trouble—your heart! You've found a man living selfishly alone, scribbling what he perhaps thinks are the most wonderful things ever put on paper, when they are very likely nothing but rubbish, and it enters into your head that he wants mothering and loving! He doesn't want anything of the sort! And YOU want to love and mother him! ”

“ Morgana lifted her eyes. The "fey" light was glittering in them.
"Yes! She thought he loved her! That's what many a woman thinks—that 'he'—the particular 'he' loves her! But how seldom he does! How much more often he loves himself!"
"You must not be cynical, my dear!" said Lady Kingswood, gently—"Life is certainly full of disappointments, especially in love and marriage—but we must endure our sorrows patiently and believe that God does everything for the best."
This was the usual panacea which the excellent lady offered for all troubles, and Morgana smiled. ”

“ Morgana's eyes flashed over them all with a bright, half-laughing tolerance.
"I thank you, my friends!" she said—"You have done well the work I entrusted you to do under the guidance of the Marchese Rivardi, and you can now judge for yourselves the result It mystifies you I can see! You think it is a kind of 'black magic'? Not so!—unless all our modern science is 'black magic' as well, born of the influence of those evil spirits who, as we are told in tradition, descended in rebellion from heaven and lived with the daughters of men! ”

“ Then Queen Morgana fell a-laughing beyond all measure, and when she had stinted her laughter, she cried, “Hey, Vivien! certes thou art cunning beyond anything that I ever heard tell of, and I believe that thou art as wicked as thou art cunning. ”

“ At the same time, as she was more interested in observing Morgana than Morgana was in observing her, she readily perceived the latter's predilection for Mr. Falconer, and the gradual folding around him of the enchanted net. These observations, and the manifest progressive concentration of Lord Curryfin's affections on herself, showed her that she was not in the way of inflicting any very severe wound on her young friend's feelings, or encouraging a tendency to absolute hopelessness in her own. ”