Ione

“ The handmaids, almost invariably attendant on Ione, who with her freedom of life preserved the most delicate modesty, sat at a little distance; by the feet of Glaucus lay the lyre on which he had been playing to Ione one of the Lesbian airs. The scene—the group before Arbaces, was stamped by that peculiar and refined ideality of poesy which we yet, not erroneously, imagine to be the distinction of the ancients—the marble columns, the vases of flowers, the statue, white and tranquil, closing every vista ”

“ Ione. We can give him a name. Endymion will do. Glaucus. What god is he? Ione. God of the moon. Glaucus. Endymion, god of the moon. Well, I'll invite him.—Good sir—I mean, good .... Ione, how shall I address him? Ione. Address him by his name. Glaucus. Endymion, will your godship be pleased so far to favour my humble abode as to take up your quarters there for the night. [Sarmion passes his hand through Ione's hair. [Aside.] Thus do the gods turn the insolence of men into courtesy. He seems smitten with Ione. Suppose, now, my daughter were to marry a god: she would become a goddess ”

“ The oath once woven the Fates only can untie. Away!'
'Come, dearest!' said Glaucus, impatiently. 'Thinkest thou that the gods above us or below hear the impotent ravings of dotage? Come!'
Long and loud rang the echoes of the cavern with the dread laugh of the Saga—she deigned no further reply.
The lovers breathed more freely when they gained the open air: yet the scene they had witnessed, the words and the laughter of the witch, still fearfully dwelt with Ione; and even Glaucus could not thoroughly shake off the impression they bequeathed. ”

“ She looked at him with a friendly smile. “Would you really like to know about us?”
“Intensely.”
“Well, there are eight of us: Chlorippe, thirteen; Philodice, fourteen; Dione, fifteen; Aphrodite, sixteen—I am Aphrodite; Cybele, seventeen, married; Lissa, eighteen, married; Iole, nineteen, married, and Vanessa, twenty, married.” She raised one small, gloved finger to emphasize the narrative. “All our lives we were brought up to be perfectly natural, to live, act, eat, sleep, play like primitive people. Our father dressed us like youths—boys, you know. ”

“ On his return to Asia Minor, after an absence of about five years, he stationed himself for a time in Ionia; where the fame of his travels and his austere mode of life gained for him much attention to his philosophical harangues. The cities sent embassies to him, decreeing him public honours; while the oracles pronounced him more than mortal, and referred the sick to him for relief. [291]
From Ionia he passed over to Greece, and made his first tour through its principal cities; [292] visiting the temples and oracles, reforming the divine rites, and sometimes exercising his theurgic skill. ”

“ Ignace Mission where it was buried beneath the church which he had founded. More than two hundred years passed away and the name of the discoverer of Iowa had become historic and honored wherever his achievements were known. In 1877 the old grave was found and a monument erected to his memory on the site of the old church of St. Ignace, by descendants of his French and Indian companions. History will hand down to the latest generations the brief record preserved of one of the noblest of America's pioneers. ”

“ And with one arm around Aphrodite she descended the great stairway, where, on the lower landing, immensely interested, sat Chlorippe, Philodice and Dione, observant, fairly aquiver with intelligence.
“Oh, that young man is catching it!” remarked Dione, looking up as Iole passed, her arm close around her sister’s waist. “George has said ‘dammit’ seven times and father is rocking—not in a rocking-chair—just rocking and expressing his inmost thoughts. And Mr. 141 Briggs pretends to scowl and mutters: ‘Hook him over the ropes, George. ’E ain’t got no friends!’ Take a peep, Iole. ”

“ But upon Ioua, that is now Iona, there was one wiser 89 even than Art the White, Dùach the Druid: and when questioned as to Ulad the poet-king, he said he was of the ancient people that dwelt among the inlands of Alba, the old race that had known the divine folk, the Tuatha-de-Danann, when they were seen of men and no mortality was upon their sweet clay. ”

“ Dione, fourteen; Aphrodite, fifteen; Cybele, the one next to me, sixteen, and almost seventeen; and myself, seventeen, almost eighteen. Besides, there is Iole, who married Mr. Wayne, and Vanessa, married to Mr. Briggs. They have been off on Mr. Wayne’s yacht, the Thendara, on their wedding trip. Now you know all about us. Do you think you would like to know us?”
“Like to! I’d simply love to! I——”
“That is very nice,” she said unembarrassed.
61
“I thought I should like you when I saw you leaning over and listening so reverently to father’s epigrams. ”

“ If we come, bringing nothing with us, we go away ill-content, having seen and heard nothing of what we had vaguely expected to see or hear. It is another Iona than the Iona of sacred memories and prophecies: Iona the metropolis of dreams. None can understand it who does not see it through its pagan light, its Christian light, its singular blending of paganism and romance and spiritual beauty. There is, too, an Iona that is more than Gaelic, that is more than a place rainbow-lit with the seven desires of the world, the Iona that, if we will it so, is a mirror of your heart and of mine. ”

“ Where the shy bulbul plaintive mourns her love,
Shalt thou uplift thy blossoms to the sky,
Or wave them o'er the waters rippling by;
No more thy fruit shall stud with jewels red
The leafy crown thou fashionedst for thy head. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Fear not then, Spirit, death's disrobing hand, So welcome when the tyrant is awake, So welcome when the bigot's hell-torch flares; 'Tis but the voyage of a darksome hour, 560 The transient gulf-dream of a startling sleep. For what thou art shall perish utterly, But what is thine may never cease to be; Death is no foe to virtue: earth has seen Love's brightest roses on the scaffold bloom, 565 Mingling with freedom's fadeless laurels there, And presaging the truth of visioned bliss. ”

“ 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" ”

“ Io kept repeating to herself, as she quitted the dark, dismal prison. “The Lord can make him happy yet; and as for me, it is happiness to be with him.”
Io did not find the palanquin at the entrance, for no one had expected her to quit the prison so soon. She stopped the first empty conveyance which she saw. “To Government House” was the direction which she gave to the driver. She had entered that lordly building but once before—on her arrival as a bride at Calcutta. Io had gone in goodly apparel, and her beauty had attracted much admiration. ”

“ The frequent apparition of the d’Ionis demoiselles observed and reported in detail coincided in every particular with what I had seen and with what the abbé had recounted to me. But then neither he nor I 57had possessed sufficient faith, or courage to question the phantoms. Others had done so, according to the chroniclers, and it had been reserved for them to see the three maidens, no longer as greenish clouds, but in all the brilliancy of their youth and beauty, not all of them at once, but one in particular, while the others remained in the background. ”

“ After taking his twenty kopecks, Iona gazes for a long while after the revelers, who disappear into a dark entry. Again he is alone and again there is silence for him.... The misery which has been for a brief space eased comes back again and tears his heart more cruelly than ever. With a look of anxiety and suffering Iona’s eyes stray restlessly among the crowds moving to and fro on both sides of the street: can he not find among those thousands someone who will listen to him? ”

“ I am reminded of the story of Mochaoi when I think of Iona. I think she too, beautiful isle, while gathering the help of human longing and tears and hopes, strewn upon her beaches by wild waves of the world, stood, enchanted, to listen to a Song of Beauty. "That is a new voice I hear in the wave," we can dream of her saying, and of the answer: "we are the angelic flocks of the Shepherd: we are the Voices of the Eternal: listen a while!" ”

“ Io herself is variously interpreted. She is usually understood to be the moon in the midst of the mighty heaven, studded with stars, represented by Argus. According to others, she is the annual rising of the Nile; the personification of the Ionian race; the mist; the earth. It seems probable that she was a duplicate of Hera (Io βούκερως is Hera βοῶπις) , or a deity in primitive times worshipped under the symbol of a cow, whose worship was superseded by that of Hera; the recollection of this early identity would account for Io being regarded as the priestess of the goddess in later times. ”

“ 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. ”

“ I would give all that I have in the world to hear Oscar laugh again.”
Io was like the fair lily which refuses to sink though the waters encompass it around. It lifts its bright head above them all, and smiles in the face of the sun. It even covers over those dark waters with the verdant leaves of hope; and if some drops, like tears, rest on the spreading leaves, even those tears, like diamonds, glitter in the light. It seemed less impossible to Io than it is to most people to rejoice always, for her trustful, restful spirit had found the secret of peace. ”

“ Madame d’Ionis exhibited great surprise at what I told her, and asked me many questions relative to my vision in the ladies’ room. She listened without laughing, and was even astonished at the calmness with which I had undergone this strange adventure.
“I see,” said she, “that you are very strong-minded. ”

“ Perhaps I speak with the narrow-mindedness of the collector who possesses a treasure; but I think the appreciators of Ionica will always be few in number, and it seems good for those few to have some difficulties thrown in the way of their delights.
Shortly after Ionica appeared great developments took place in English verse. In 1858 there was no Rossetti, no Swinburne; we may say that, as far as the general public was concerned, there was no Matthew Arnold and no William Morris. This fact has to be taken into consideration in dealing with the tender humanism of Mr. Johnson's verses. ”

“ Can any one recount a dream?”
“Perhaps if your memory were assisted,” said Madame d’Ionis with great coolness, determined to encourage her mother-in-law’s hobby; “did they say nothing to you about the future prosperity of this house?”
“It seems to me they did, in fact.”
“Ah! you see, Zéphyrine,” cried the dowager; “you who believe in nothing and I wager that they spoke of the law suit: come, Monsieur Nivières, tell us all about it.”
A glance from Madame d’Ionis warned me not to answer. I declared that not a word of the law suit had I heard in my dreams. ”

“ Iuno.—Iuppiter carries with him into the state-worship his female counterpart, Iuno, with his own characteristics, in a certain degree, and his own privileges. She is Lucina and Fulgura as he is Lucetius and Fulgur: white cows are her offerings as white steers are his: as the Ides are sacred to Iuppiter, so—though they are not a festival—are the Calends to Iuno. But from the first she shows a certain independence and develops on lines of her own. ”

“ He put entire confidence in the honesty of Iago, who had not only been his companion in arms, but, as he believed, had just proved his faithfulness in the matter of the marriage. This confidence was misplaced, and we happen to know it; but it was no sign of stupidity in Othello. For his opinion of Iago was the opinion of practically everyone who knew him: and that opinion was that Iago was before all things ‘honest,’ his very faults being those of excess in honesty. ”

“ Of this characteristic blending of pagan and Christian thought and legend I have tried elsewhere to convey some sense—oftener, perhaps, have instinctively expressed: and here, as they are apposite to Iona, I would like to select some pages as representative of three phases—namely, of the barbaric history of Iona, of the primitive spiritual history which is so childlike in its simplicity, and of that direct grafting of Christian thought and imagery upon pagan thought and imagery which at one time, and doubtless for many generations (for it still survives) , was a normal unconscious method. ”