Iona

“ It has found a hiding-place in such an insignificant shell that one would not have found it with a candle by daylight....
Iona sees a house-porter with a parcel and makes up his mind to address him.
“What time will it be, friend?” he asks.
“Going on for ten.... Why have you stopped here? Drive on!”
Iona drives a few paces away, bends himself double, and gives himself up to his misery. He feels it is no good to appeal to people. But before five minutes have passed he draws himself up, shakes his head as though he feels a sharp pain, and tugs at the reins.... He can bear it no longer. ”

“ I know Iona.”
“You can approach her nearly,” Tacita said. “But who else would push down a barrier that she raises round herself?”
“I want you to,” Ion said earnestly. “I want Iona to have some one to whom she can unveil her mind more than she would to me even. Her relations with our people are fixed. Half by her own motion, and half with their help, she has been got on to a pedestal. She is on a pedestal even to Dylar. And there she must remain till some one helps her down. ”

“ Iona embraced her. “The same hand leads us both, dear. Do not grieve. For me, I am in haste to go. You have yourself made me more eager with your munificent gift.”
244For Tacita, with Dylar’s approval, had given all her little fortune to Iona to be disposed of “not in doing charity,” she said, “but in doing justice.”
And Iona had replied: “Yes, justice! For though charity may move us to act, that which we do of good is but a just restitution.” ”

“ Before dawn, on the morning of the hundredth Sabbath after Colum the White had made glory to God in Hy, that was theretofore called Ioua, or the Druid Isle, and is now Iona, the saint beheld his own sleep in a vision.
Much fasting and long pondering over the missals, with their golden and azure and sea-green initials and earth-brown branching letters, had made Colum weary. He had brooded much of late upon the mystery of the living world that was not man's world. ”

“ But now that Iona has been "as it was," the other and greater change may yet be, may well have already come.
Strange, that to this day none knows with surety the derivation or original significance of the name Iona. ”

“ Grotesque peaks and cliffs rose on every side, shutting her in. Scintillating overhead was the Milky Way, a white torrent of stars from the heights of heaven flowing between the black rock-rims that it seemed almost to touch.
The gold came in glimmer after glimmer, some almost too small to gather out of the slippery débris, others half as large as the flame of the lamp, and brightly glowing.
Iona’s spirit revived a little. The place, the time, and the occupation took her out of the track of her habitual life. She recollected her first visit to this place, when she and Dylar were children. ”

“ Iona feels behind his back the jolting person and quivering voice of the hunchback. He hears abuse addressed to him, he sees people, and the feeling of loneliness begins little by little to be less heavy on his heart. ”

“ Columba and Oran ... these are the two great names in Iona. Love and Faith have made one immortal; the other lives also, clothed in legend. I am afraid there is not much definite basis for the popular Iona legend of Oran. It is now the wont of guides and others to speak of the Réilig Odhrain, Oran's burial-place, as that of Columba's friend (and victim) , but it seems likelier that the Oran who lies here is he who is spoken [Pg 146] of in the Annals of the Four Masters as having died in the year 548, that is fifteen years before Colum came to the island. ”

“ He loves Iona not only for its gray and barren beauty, but because it was here Columba wrought his wonders. "Iona," which fills the major part of the volume "The Divine Adventure" gives title to, is the finest in quality as well as the longest of his writings that may be called, prosaically, topographical. They, in their varying ways, are much more than merely topographical, whether done in the way of "F. M.," as "Iona" is, and as "From the Hebrid Isles" is, and several papers from "Where the Forest Murmurs" ”

“ To her mind, Tacita, however sweet and lovely, was a girl of limited capacity, but also one who could assume a dignified and even haughty reserve when her relations with Dylar were called into question. As his wife, she might object to any other female authority in the place; and Iona well knew that the fair-haired girl, with her charming grace and caressing manners, would win a greater affection from the people than she herself would be able to win by the devotion of a life. ”

“ Columba is Christian Iona, as much as Iona is Icolmkill. I have often wondered (because of a passage in Adamnan) if the island be not indeed named after him, the Dove: for as Adamnan says incidentally, the name Columba is identical with the Hebrew name Jonah, also signifying a Dove, and by the Hebrews pronounced Iona.
It is enough now to recall that this man, so [Pg 145] often erring but so human always, in whose life we see the soul of Iona as in a glass, is become the archetype of his race, as Iona is the microcosm of the Gaelic world. ”

“ Solitary, these; not only because the pilgrim to the Fount of Eternal Youth must fare hither alone, and at dawn, so as to touch the healing water the moment the first sunray quickens it—but solitary, also, because those who go in quest of this Fount of Youth are the dreamers and the Children of Dream, and these are not many, and few come now to this lonely place. Yet, an Isle of Dream Iona is, indeed. Here the last sun-worshippers bowed before the Rising of God; here Columba and his hymning priests laboured and brooded ”

“ She read: “I think that the late rains may have washed out a few grains of gold. I did not go when I was last at the castle. Will you look?
Dylar.” Just as if nothing had happened! Iona put her hand to her forehead and for a moment wondered if anything had happened.
“I must work hard!” she thought. “‘When nature is in revolt, put her into the treadmill;’” and she went out to see what there was to do, going from house to house, greeting the people and welcomed by them. ”

“ She is the Directress of the girls’ school, and she is the women’s tribune. All classes have with us their tribune, or advocate. Iona has traveled and studied in both continents. She has advanced so far in astronomy that she teaches it even in the boys’ school. ”

“ Iona said courteously, declining to stay; and bowing, left them.
For a time, to Tacita, it had seemed as if San 201Salvador had opened its walls to admit a salt wave from the outer world; but the gap closed again while Dylar attended to her with a careful solicitude sufficiently reassuring as to his regard for her, but with no suggestion of fondness. He was a kind friend; and the cheerfulness and decision of his manner gave her strength.
“He is not one,” she thought, “to need the strength of a woman’s will to keep him in the path of duty. And she—I am glad that Iona does not love him. ”

“ A great missionary enterprise, like that which resulted in the establishment of a monastery at Iona, and through it the conversion of the whole nation of the Picts, bespeaks a Church in which energy and zeal are no rare virtues. ”

“ Johnson declares the man little to be envied whose piety would not grow warmer among the ruins of Iona. That man is soulless Aristobulus, who excites our heroine’s indignation by the cold-blooded manner in which he would peep and geologise among so sacred monuments, hammering off a piece of a cross to examine it as a mineral specimen. ”

“ Io would have entreated to be allowed to share the cell, but Oscar forbade her making any such application. A quiet home was found for the poor young wife in a missionary’s dwelling, situated not very far from the prison; and every morning a palanquin might be seen going from that house in the direction of the gloomy building which held all that Io loved best upon earth; every day a slight form, dressed in deep mourning, passed through its stern archway. ”

“ Looking out of the dual heads of Dionaea and Baena now, Diana Triformis, who was no stranger to dual and triple existence even in the same body, saw with those four eyes the naked body of Eos, reflecting, emanating, giving off in vast floods the focused energies of the Pole of Female Life-energy, and those four eyes fastened hypnotized upon that glory, female beyond any other life in all space. ”

“ Oona's heart beat as she saw herself within reach of this spot. She had watched it so often from the safe and peaceful isle, with that thrill of awe, and wonder, and half-terror, which gave an additional pleasure to her own complete and perfect safety. She made a few steps forward, and, putting out her hand with a quiver of all her nerves, took hold upon the cold roughness of the lower ledge. The touch steadied her, yet woke an agitation in her frame, the stir of strong excitement; for death lay below her, and her only refuge was in the very home of mystery, a spot untrodden of men. ”

“ The priest caught her by the hand.
“Ninon,” he whispered, “it is on my soul not to let you go to-night. Something tells me that the hour of your salvation is come. Women worse than you, Ninon, have come to lead holy lives. Pray, Ninon, pray to the Mother of Sorrows, who knows the sufferings and sins of the heart.” He pointed to the befrilled and highly fashionable Virgin with her rouge-stained cheeks. ”

“ Very joyful was the greeting of the dear grandmother. Iola soon nestled in her heart and lent additional sunshine to her once checkered life, and Robert, who had so long been robbed of kith and kin, was delighted with the new accession to his home life.
CHAPTER XXIV. NORTHERN EXPERIENCE. "Uncle Robert," said Iola, after she had been North several weeks, "I have a theory that every woman ought to know how to earn her own living. I believe that a great amount of sin and misery springs from the weakness and inefficiency of women." ”

“ That erudite interpreter of hidden things taught him that the name of the Dove was Iön and Iönah, whence in immediate descent the Oän and Oannes of Berosus and Abydenus, and in longer but lineal deduction Æneas, Hannes, Hanno, Ionah, Ιοάννης, Johannes, Janus, Eanus among the elder Romans, Giovanni among the later Italians, Juan, Joam, Jean, John, Jan, Iwain, Ivan, Ewan, Owen, Evan, Hans, Ann, Hannah, Nannette, Jane, Jeannette, Jeanne, Joanna and Joan ”

“ Frederic Jacobs says, fancifully yet truly, that 'the language of Ionia resembles the smooth mirror of a broad and silent lake, from whose depth a serene sky, with its soft and sunny vault, and the varied nature along its smiling shores are reflected in transfigured beauty.' In Ionia, to borrow the expressions of the same eloquent writer, the mind of man 'enjoyed a life exempt from drudgery, among fair festivals and solemn assemblies, full of sensibility and frolic joy, innocent curiosity and childlike faith. ”

“ By a natural impulse, Iola clasped her fair hands together, and uttered a low exclamation of fear; but the bishop gazed calmly forth for a moment, and then said--
"We had better hasten on our way, my child. Extinguish the lamp--Here, set it down here. We must not show ourselves more than we we can help, lest any eye should be turned this way."
"We must pass through the grate," said Iola, recalled to herself by the prelate's words; "for there is no other way out; but if we run quickly round to the back of the building, no one will see us." ”

“ Elinor, this eldest daughter, whose advice was so effectual, possessed a strength of understanding, and coolness of judgment, which qualified her, though only nineteen, to be the counsellor of her mother, and enabled her frequently to counteract, to the advantage of them all, that eagerness of mind in Mrs. Dashwood which must generally have led to imprudence. She had an excellent heart; her disposition was affectionate, and her feelings were strong; but she knew how to govern them: it was a knowledge which her mother had yet to learn; ”

“ Even to understand that office of glory and humility demands an enlightenment, such as those who do not love can never attain. To Oona it seemed that life itself became glorious in this service. It raised her above all earthly things. She looked at him with the pity of an angel, with something of the tenderness of a mother, with an identification and willingness to submit which was pure woman. ”

“ Oona! I am going to tell you everything. Give it to me," he said, holding out his hands one over the other to receive and clasp hers, his eyes moist, his lips appealing with a quivering smile of entreaty. And how may it be told what was in Oona's heart? Her whole being was moved through and through with tenderness, wonder, pity. Her hand seemed to move of itself towards him. The impulse was upon her almost too strong to be resisted, to throw her arms around him, like a mother with a child—to identify herself with him whatever might follow. ”

“ There is perhaps no modern book of verse in which a certain melancholy phase of ancient thought is better reproduced than in Ionica, and this gives its slight verses their lasting charm. We have had numerous resuscitations of ancient manners and landscape in modern poetry since the days of Keats and André Chenier. Many of these have been so brilliantly successful that only pedantry would deny their value. But in Ionica something is given which the others have not known how to give, the murmur of antiquity, the sigh in the grass of meadows dedicated to Persephone. ”

“ Iola's cheek was crimson in a moment, but she said nothing; and the abbess exclaimed gaily, "Oh, this world, this world. I see it will steal your heart away from us, Constance. No more vows and veils for you now. Well, do as you like, my child. I have found a convent life a very happy one--perhaps, because there was no choice, and I resolved to make the best of it; and, if Iola would take her aunt's advice, she would look upon marriage as much the same, and make the best of it too." ”