Herminia

“ And so it was, Herminia herself was fain to admit, in a pure painter’s sense that didn’t at all attract her. Lines grouped themselves against the sky in infinite diversity. Whichever way they turned, quaint old walls met their eyes, and tumble-down churches, and mouldering towers, and mediæval palazzi with carved doorways or rich loggias. But whichever way they turned, dusty roads too confronted them, illimitable stretches of gloomy suburb, unwholesome airs, sickening sights and sounds and perfumes. ”

“ The mother and daughter swept out of the room, their dresses—the rustling moiré of the Countess and the maize-coloured silk of Ernestine—gliding noiselessly over the varnished floor, and Herminia was left to her own sad reflections.
'Ich bin sehr böse!' (I am very angry) she heard the Countess exclaim, as the door closed, and then she heard her cousin make some laughing response.
'How can Ernestine be so heartless?' thought the girl; 'but, alas! she knows not what love is! ”

“ Herminia Barton’s features, I think, were even more striking in their way in later life, when sorrow had stamped her, and the mark of her willing martyrdom for humanity’s sake was deeply printed upon them. But their beauty then was the beauty of holiness, which not all can appreciate. In her younger days, as Alan Merrick first saw her, she was beautiful still with the first flush of health and strength and womanhood in a free and vigorous English girl’s body. ”

“ Narrow streets swept, darkling, under pointed archways, that framed distant vistas of spire or campanile, silhouetted against the solid blue sky of Italy. The crystal hardness of that sapphire firmament repelled Herminia. They passed beneath the triumphal arch of Augustus with its Etruscan mason-work, its Roman decorations, and round the antique walls, aglow with tufted gillyflowers, to the bare Piazza d’Armi. A cattle fair was going on there; and Alan pointed with pleasure to the curious fact that the oxen were all cream-coloured—the famous white steers of Clitumnus. ”

“ She was Alan’s own child, after all; she had Alan’s blue eyes; and in a world where your daughters go off and marry men you don’t like, while your sons turn out badly, and don’t marry at all to vex you, it’s something to have some fresh young life of your blood to break in upon your chilly old age and cheer you. So the great doctor called a few days later at Herminia’s lodgings, and having first ascertained that Herminia herself was out, had five minutes’ conversation alone with her landlady. ”

“ What ought not to be sacrificed in order to reign in secret over the all-powerful of the earth, who lord it in full day? This journey to Rome, from which I have just returned, has given me a new idea of our formidable power. For, Herminia, it is Rome which is the culminating point, overlooking the fairest and broadest quarters of the globe, made so by custom, by tradition, or by faith. Thence can our workings be embraced in their full extent. It is an uncommon view to see from its height the myriad tools, whose personality is continually absorbed into the immovable personality of our Order. ”

“ Most warmly had Heinrich written to her again and again about his English comrade, who had once actually fought a duel for him at Altona, when he was too ill to fight for himself, so Ernestine was all anxiety to know, receive, and thank him; for she doted on Heinrich, her only brother, as a loving, tender, and devoted sister alone can dote.
During all the past week, Herminia had but one thought, especially when riding, driving, or walking abroad. Her lover had confidently promised to see her again, and to follow her to Frankenburg ”

“ Label it as one will, it remains a clever, stimulating book. A real enthusiasm for humanity blazes through every page of this, in many ways, most remarkable and significant little book.... Even its bitterest enemies must feel a thrill of admiration for its courage."
Pall Mall Gazette:—"His sincerity is undeniable. And in the mouth of Herminia are some very noble and eloquent passages upon the wrongs of our marriage system."
Scotsman:—"The story is as remarkable for its art as for its daring." ”

“ What though he love your Hermia? Lord, what though?
Yet Hermia still loves you: then be content.
Lysander.
Content with Hermia! No; I do repent
The tedious minutes I with her have spent.
Not Hermia but Helena I love:
Who will not change a raven for a dove?
The will of man is by his reason sway'd;
And reason says you are the worthier maid.
Things growing are not ripe until their season:
So I, being young, till now ripe not to reason ”

“ Hermia,” said Helena, “it is you have set Lysander on to vex me with mock praises; and your other lover, Demetrius, who used almost to spurn me with his foot, have you not bid him call me goddess, nymph, rare, precious, and celestial? He would not speak thus to me, whom he hates, if you did not set him on to make a jest of me. Unkind Hermia, to join with men in scorning your poor friend. Have you forgot our schoolday friendship? How often, Hermia, have we two, sitting on one cushion, both singing one song, with our needles working the same flower, both on the same sampler wrought ”

“ Hermia.
Lysander riddles very prettily:
Now much beshrew my manners and my pride,
If Hermia meant to say Lysander lied.
But, gentle friend, for love and courtesy
Lie further off; in human modesty,
Such separation as may well be said
Becomes a virtuous bachelor and a maid,
So far be distant; and, good night, sweet friend:
Thy love ne’er alter till thy sweet life end!
Lysander.
Amen, amen, to that fair prayer, say I;
And then end life when I end loyalty!
Here is my bed: sleep give thee all his rest!
Hermia.
With half that wish the wisher’s eyes be press’d! ”

“ Hermia, like many other women, lived a double life. On the night when, under the dramatic illusion of Monte Cristo, her imagination had awakened with a shock which rent the film of childhood from her brain, she had found a dream-world of her own. The prosaic never suspected its existence; the earth’s millions who dwelt in the same world cared nothing for any kingdom in it but their own; she was sovereign of a vast domain wrapped in the twilight mystery of dreamland, but peopled with obedient subjects conceived and molded in her waking brain. ”

“ I am Hermione, the daughter of Hippocles, the Alien. Marrying me you shut out, not perhaps yourself, but your children from the career which is their inheritance. I am too proud,”—and here the girl dropped her voice to a whisper,—“and I love you too well for that.”
“What is my career to your love?” cried the young man passionately; “I am ready to give up country and all for that.”
“That,” said Hermione, “is the only unworthy thing that I ever heard you say. Your better thoughts will make you withdraw it. Athens has fallen; the gods know that it has wrung my heart to see it. ”

“ I told you the other day, Herminie, when you asked me about her. I understand your motive now. But I tell you now, as I told you then, that no woman ever lived who was more absurdly vain of her rank."
"And yet Herminie says she will never marry Gerald unless Madame de Senneterre comes and tells her that she consents to this marriage. This only shows a proper pride in Herminie, though. You think so, too, do you not, M. de Maillefort?"
"She has made that resolve? Ah, what a brave and noble-hearted girl she is!" exclaimed the marquis. ”

“ Far from holding herself aloof from the amusements of her companions, Herminie greatly enjoyed seeing them enjoy themselves, and always did everything in her power to add to their pleasure, but this generosity of feeling would hardly suffice to explain the exuberance of life and youth and happiness which imparted an unusually radiant expression to the enchanting features of the duchess. ”

“ The rich have their sorrows as well as the poor. In pity remember the words of my dying mother, who so often talked to you of me, and continue to love me for her sake."
"Have no fears on that score. You will always be dear, doubly dear to me," replied Herminie; "but you see I have scarcely recovered from my bewilderment. It seems like a dream to me, and when I think of the way in which I became acquainted with you, Ernestine, and of a thousand other things, I have to see you here close beside me, to believe that it is not really all a dream." ”

“ Suppose you try something else and be more careful with your vocabulary. I trust you catch my idea, because I am really quite interested in your work. It is like the fresh breeze of spring when it is not”—here he laughed—“the torrid breath of the simoon. I have read some of your other verse, you see.”
“I think I understand you,” said Hermia, leaning forward and gazing reflectively at him. “Manner is everything. Matter is a creature whose limbs may be of wood, whose joints may be sapless; so long as he is covered by a first-class tailor he is a being to strut proudly down to posterity. ”

“ In their long mountain walks, in their rides on muleback to distant villages, hidden in the recesses, or perched upon the crests of the rocks, in their quiet hours under the oak-trees when the noon wrapped all things in its cloak of gold, or on the terrace when the stars came out, and the shepherds led their flocks down to the valleys with little happy tunes, Hermione gave out all the sensitive thoughts, desires, aspirations, all the wonder, all the rest that beauty and solitude and nearness to nature in this isle of the south woke in her. ”

“ I am as one who has been toying with flowers in the valley, contented with the flowers, and thinking of nothing above them, and then suddenly lifted on a mountain top, whence there lies stretched out a lovely landscape, and a voice tells me it is mine, that I reign over it, and that the blue arch of heaven above me encircles me with love. Yes, Hermione, as by a miracle your little Cynthia has forgotten her childish days, and has come into possession of her inheritance as a woman. ”

“ You both are rivals, and love Hermia;
And now both rivals, to mock Helena:
A trim exploit, a manly enterprise,
To conjure tears up in a poor maid’s eyes
With your derision! none of noble sort
Would so offend a virgin and extort
A poor soul’s patience, all to make you sport.
Lysander.
You are unkind, Demetrius; be not so;
For you love Hermia; this you know I know:
And here, with all good will, with all my heart,
In Hermia’s love I yield you up my part;
And yours of Helena to me bequeath,
Whom I do love and will do till my death. ”

“ Herminius is the word that left to Italy the graceful legacy of Erminia, which was in vogue, by inheritance, among Italian ladies when Tasso bestowed it upon the Saracen damsel who was captured by Tancred, and fascinated by the graces of her captor. Thence the French adopted it as Hermine, and it has since been incorrectly supposed to be the Italian for Hermione; indeed, Scott indiscriminately calls the mysterious lady in George Heriot’s house Erminia or Hermione. ”

“ The duchess, free and untrammelled in every way, had never loved,—though she had inspired love in the hearts of many, without intending or even caring to do so, for she was too proud to stoop to coquetry, and too generous to enjoy the torments of an unrequited love. None of her suitors had pleased Herminie, in spite of the honesty of their matrimonial overtures, based in some cases, at least, upon a certain amount of affluence, for several had been engaged in business, while others were musicians like Herminie herself, and others clerks in dry-goods establishments, or bookkeepers. ”

“ She is not drawn to God in the least. She is drawn to the idealized abstraction of her lover, who, in the mists of her white-heated imagination, assumes the lineaments of the being most exalted by tradition. If there were a being more exalted still than God, her lover’s phantom would be re-christened with his name instead. It is to her lover that she prays—the intermediate being is a pretty fiction—and she revels in prayer, because it gives her a dreamy and sensuous nearness to her lover.”
Hermia sprang to her feet and paced the narrow platform with rapid steps. ”

“ And even as she past, unheeding her worshipper, Mr. Herrick’s lute resumed the strain.
And now past two fair ladies, close entwined as Hermia and Helena, whispering each in the other’s ear and casting oblique and tender looks upon their poet, the one in a yellow robe like a spring daffodil and the other in a most pure violet, perfume-breathing as the hue she wore. And the first was crowned with may, white as ivory exprest in blossom, and my heart said for me, “Corinna, who will go a-maying while the world lasts. ”

“ And while the two young girls continued this interchange of affectionate words, thus prolonging a little scene in which Herminie gave convincing proof of perfect tact, rare distinction of manner, and a modest and graceful dignity, the hunchback, more and more charmed with his adopted daughter, said, in a whispered aside to Madame de Senneterre:
"Tell me frankly; do you think it would be possible for any person to do better under the circumstances?" ”

“ The hermit supped and lay down to sleep with them; but, in the middle of the night, they both arose and fell to praying and weeping. When daybreak was near, the King said, ‘O my God, this Thy servant beseeches Thee to return him his cloud; and Thou art able to this; so, O my God, answer Thou his prayer and restore him his cloud.’ The Queen said ‘Amen’ to his prayer and behold, the cloud appeared in the sky; whereupon the King gave the hermit joy and the latter took leave of them and went away, the cloud following him as of old. ”

“ And then, all folks there admiring and beholding, the statue moved from its pedestal, and came down the steps and put its arms round the King's neck, and he held her face and kissed her many times, for this was no statue, but the real living Queen Hermione herself. She had lived hidden, by Paulina's kindness, all these years, and would not discover herself to her husband, though she knew he had repented, because she could not quite forgive him till she knew what had become of her little baby. ”