Isora

“ Though I was in reality awed even to terror by learning from Isora's lip so just a cause for her forebodings,—though I shuddered with a horror surpassing even my wrath, when I heard a threat so breathing of deadly and determined passions,—yet I concealed my emotions, and only thought of cheering and comforting Isora. I represented to her how guarded and vigilant should ever henceforth be the protection of her husband; that nothing should again separate him from her side ”

“ Now, Isora, in misfortune, in destitution, I place without reserve my whole heart—its trust, its zeal, its devotion—in your keeping; come evil or good, storm or sunshine, I am yours, wholly and forever. Reject me if you will, I will return to you again; and never, never—save from my own eyes or your own lips—will I receive a single evidence detracting from your purity, or, Isora,—mine own, own Isora,—may I not add also—from your love?”
“Too, too generous!” murmured Isora, struggling passionately with her tears, “may Heaven forsake me if ever I am ungrateful to thee ”

“ Isora’s whole frame seemed sinking beneath her emotions; she raised her head, and looked hurriedly and fearfully round; my eye followed hers, and I then saw upon the damp ground the recent print of a man’s footstep, not my own: and close to the spot where I had found Isora lay a man’s glove. A pang shot through me; I felt my eyes flash fire, and my brow darken, as I turned to Isora and said, “I see it; I see all: I have a rival, who has but just left you; you love me not; your affections are for him!” Isora sobbed violently, but made no reply. ”

“ Indeed, there was much in the peculiar circumstances of Isora, much in the freshness of her present affliction, much in the unfriended and utter destitution of her situation, that, while on the one hand, it called forth her pride, and made stubborn that temper which was naturally so gentle and so soft ”

“ But, answer me; is not—"
"For Heaven's sake, for mercy's sake!" cried Isora, eagerly, "do not question me; I may not tell you who, or what this man is; I am bound, by a most solemn oath, never to divulge that secret."
"I care not," said I, calmly, "I want no confirmation of my knowledge: this masked rival is my own brother!"
I fixed my eyes full on Isora while I said this, and she quailed beneath my gaze: her cheek, her lips, were utterly without colour, and an expression of sickening and keen anguish was graven upon her face. She made no answer. ”

“ Still was Isora to me the light and the music of existence! still did my heart thrill and leap within me when her silver and fond voice made the air a blessing! Still would I hang over her, when her beautiful features lay hushed in sleep, and watch the varying hues of her cheek; and fancy, while she slept, that in each low, sweet breath that my lips drew from hers, was a whisper of tenderness and endearment! Still when I was absent from her, my soul seemed to mourn a separation from its better and dearer part, and the joyous senses of existence saddened and shrank into a single want! ”

“ Then commenced that domestic persecution, so common in this very tyrannical world, which makes us sicken to bear, and which, had Isora been wholly a Spanish girl, she, in all probability, would never have resisted: so much of custom is there in the very air of a climate. But she did resist it, partly because she loved me,—and loved me more and more for our separation,—and partly because she dreaded and abhorred the ferocious and malignant passions of my rival, far beyond any other misery with which fortune could threaten her. ”

“ That some objections existed to this mediatory plan was true enough: those objections related to Isora rather than to myself, and she was the first, on my hinting at the proposal, to overcome its difficulties. The leading feature in Isora’s character was generosity; and, in truth, I know not a quality more dangerous either to man or woman. Herself was invariably the last human being whom she seemed to consider ”

“ But to my great surprise, when I first announced to Isora my intention of revealing our marriage, I perceived in her countenance, always such a traitor to her emotions, a very different expression from that which I had anticipated. A deadly paleness spread over her whole face, and a shudder seemed to creep through her frame. She attempted, however, to smile away the alarm she had created in me ”

“ There was not on earth that which the one would not have forfeited at the lightest desire of the other. So utterly were happiness and Isora entwined together that I could form no idea of the one with which the other was not connected. Was this love made for the many and miry roads through which man must travel? ”

“ The love I bear to you I can but feebly express now; all of us wish to prove our feelings, and I would give one proof of mine for you. It seems to me that I was made only for one purpose—to love you; and I would fain hope that my death may be some sort of sacrifice to you—some token of the ruling passion and the whole object of my life."
As Isora said this, the light of the moon, which had just risen, shone full upon her cheek, flushed as it was with a deeper tint than it usually wore ”

“ Who loves hath attained the anchorite’s secret; and the hermitage has become dearer than the world. O respite from the toil and the curse of our social and banded state, a little interval art thou, suspended between two eternities,—the Past and the Future,—a star that hovers between the morning and the night, sending through the vast abyss one solitary ray from heaven, but too far and faint to illumine, while it hallows the earth!
There was nothing in Isora’s tale which the reader has not already learned or conjectured. ”

“ The poor exiled girl is grateful for your esteem—and—and your affection. She will never forget them,—never! But be this our last meeting—our very last—God bless you, Morton!" and, as she read my heart, pierced and agonized as it was, in my countenance, Isora bent over me, for I knelt beside her, and I felt her tears upon my cheek,—"God bless you—and farewell!" ”

“ In short, I looked upon him as possessing a characteristic common to most bad men, who are never so influenced by love as they are by hatred; and imagined, therefore, that if he had lost the object of the love, he could console himself by exulting over any decline of prosperity in the object of the hate.
As the appointed day drew near, Isora’s despondency seemed to vanish, and she listened, with her usual eagerness in whatever interested me, to my Continental schemes of enterprise. ”

“ Lady Isola, I have loved you long, Loved you all secretly, more than my life, Loved you since I was but a boy in years, Loved you in silence when Escanior Found favour in your eyes and won your heart. He was my friend, and your joy my whole life. I would not try to steal your love from him. But he is gone, passed to the Great Unknown, Passed o’er the boundless Ocean of Life’s space. Whither? Who knows? Beyond our mortal ken. Will you not try to give Vulnar your love? He would not force it on you, Isola, But be content to wait and hope for it. ”

“ Scrutus and Verita will do their best, Good faithful hearts, yet lacking influence, And minus that great pow’r which can enthuse And weld together diff’rent characters. Well, I must seek to use the pow’r of Thought, And draw towards me that which my heart loves, Isola, can I make thee think of me? Can I enthuse thee to take Vergli’s place? The people love thee, thou can’st lead them well, If thou wilt take the lead, I have no fear. Isola, thou whom this lone heart adores, Although thou can’st not love me in return, Thy heart being wedded to Escanior, Wilt thou not fill the place I cannot fill? ”

“ Isidro, seated on the shaft, according to the custom of the country, answered:—
"Your pistols are completely useless, gentlemen; leave me to act; one cry will be enough; my mule will rid us of two, three, or even four men."
Scarcely one minute had elapsed after the calezero had uttered these words, when two men presented themselves before the mule and seized her by the nostrils. At the same instant a formidable cry, which will never be effaced from my remembrance,—the cry of Capitana!—was uttered by Isidro. ”

“ It was the last utterance of Isidora Covarubio de los Llanos!
As the spirit of the unhappy señorita passed into eternity, along with it went all rancour from that of her more fortunate rival. There can be no jealousy of the dead. That of Lady Gerald was at rest, and for ever.
It was succeeded by a strong sympathy for the ill-fated Isidora; whose story she now better comprehended. She even assisted her lord in the saddling of his red-bay steed, and encouraged him in the pursuit of the assassin.
She joyed to see the latter led back at the end of a lazo—held in the hand of her husband ”

“ You who did not know Isolda in her youth, cannot imagine what an enormous concession that was for her to make about any man.
It was Isolda herself who told me of Sebastian Prest the other day, else how would I know so much about it? Of course, I had long since guessed something of it, for one used to see Isolda and Prest about together; and then one night twelve years ago he was found dead in the snow within five miles of Moreton Taylor, Isolda’s place in Surrey. It looked as though he had just gone quite comfortably off to sleep in the snow, and one thought: “How tired he must have been!” ”

“ Isola entered heart and soul into my plan. [254] ‘I will go with her,’ she exclaimed. ‘She is too much of a child to be trusted by herself in the world. Where she wanders thither will I go, where she dies there will I die, and there will I be buried.’ I gladly consented to this, as Isola had already once made the journey to England, and would know all the details of the route. My mother, too, was so bright and quick, and her remembrance of the English you taught her so perfect, that I had scarcely any fear of difficulties arising on the road. ”

“ Ancient authors knew little of Isauria except its northern part, all to the south, with its capital, Isaura, being to them, practically, a terra incognita. As marauders, however, the Isaurians were so troublesome to their neighbours, that the Roman Senate sent a considerable force against them, in B.C. 73, under P. Servilius, whose success won for him the title of “Isauricus.” 125This conquest, however, so to call it, was but temporary, and, not long after, Amyntas of Lycaonia lost his life in an attempt to crush one of their tribes. ”

“ Then Isuro answered:
‘If we must die, put us in the place where the wood is cut, and heap it up all round us, so that we cannot escape, and set fire to the wood; and if one is burned and the other is not, then he that is burned is the goat-slayer.’
And the people did as Isuro had said. But Isuro knew of a hole under the wood-pile, and when the fire was kindled he ran into the hole, but Gudu died there. ”

“ April in Rome is as fresh as April in an English forest; only it is April with the warmth and flowers of June. I feel sure you will grow ever so much stronger after one little week in Rome.”
“Yes, I know I shall be better here. I feel better already,” said Isola, with a kind of feverish hopefulness. “It was so good of Martin to bring me. San Remo is always lovely—and I shall love it to the end of my life, because it was my first home in Italy—but I was beginning to be tired—not of the olive woods and the sea, but of the people we met, and the sameness of life. ”

“ Her love of justice and right brings her to the scaffold, which she contemplates with quiet heroism, in which there is no fear, or flutter of fear—neither bravado nor shrinking. No hysterical word escapes her. No word of reproach, such as Madame Roland uttered, is spoken by Isola. Her sole desire is to save others and to serve the cause of right. As the tragic death of a woman, capable both of heroism and reflection, the last hours of Fortunatus are memorable. ”

“ I fear not death, To die beside you is enough for me. Vulnar asks not a better fate, indeed, But to be faithful to the very end— To Love, to Justice and to mighty Truth, All three the seraphs of a perfect Life. Forgive me, Isola, for breathing love, But I have loved you faithfully and well. To feel you feel this and forgive Vulnar, Would make his last days peaceful and content. He could not help his love, it came on him Long long ago when he was yet a boy; He loved this love and hugged it very tight, And nurtured it, until it grew so strong He knew no mortal pow’r could sever it ”

“ To-night the atmosphere was unusually calm, and Isola could hear the sailors singing at their work.
Slowly, slowly the two young women went down the hill, Allegra full of speculation and wonderment about the unknown vessel, Isola curiously silent. As they neared the hotel a man landed from a dinghy, and came briskly up the slippery causeway—a tall, slim figure in the vivid moonlight, loose limbed, loosely clad, moving with easiest motion. ”

“ The legend of Isolda began from that night at the Haymarket Theater, and it grew with the years, and it became a part of England. Whether or not she was a great actress I do not know—I am not sure, and I will not argue about it; for again we come to the ungenerous thought in people, the almost unconsciously ungenerous thought which makes it more difficult for them to accept a lovely woman than a plainish woman, as a great actress. ”

“ Isola, Queen of the Saxscobers, sitting alone soliloquises: “Vast attribute of the Eternal mind, Thought, and thy clinging twin, fair Memory, Art thou and she imperishable parts Of Life and Matter, or but sudden sparks Born to expire and never live again? What art thou Thought and what is Memory If not the factors of undying Life, Which draws from Death fresh force to recreate And fashion new existence from Decay? ”