Santa Lucia

“ The canton of Santa Lucia de Tallano still preserves a memorial of Renuccio in the ruins of the Franciscan convent which was founded by this brave hero, with whom fell the power of the old Corsican barons. In the church is shown the tomb of his daughter Serena, with 209 a marble statue of her in a recumbent posture, a chaplet in her hand, and attached to it a gold purse, as a symbol of her great benevolence.
Among the mountains of Santa Lucia is found that remarkable species of granite—peculiar to Corsica—which goes by the name of Orbicularis. ”

“ As one approaches the mission from the road, it defines itself more and more as a distinct element in the view: the hills ... seem to distribute themselves on either side, as though realizing that here, at least, they are subordinate and must not intrude. This brings Santa Lucia into view, directly behind the mission, and thus the two most prominent, most interesting, most beautiful objects in the landscape are brought together in one perfect whole: Mt. Santa Lucia—Nature's grandest creation for miles around ”

“ At eight he was already driving up and down the Toledo, lolling on the cushions of a hired carriage, with his hat over his eyes and the curtains drawn down, consulting his watch every few minutes.
The heavy, iron-bound portière of padded leather fell behind a lady dressed in black, in deep mourning. There were few people in the church of Santa Chiara, which has but one nave, gay with gilding, large windows and bright painting; more of a drawing-room than a church. Lucia, crossing herself devoutly, took the holy water, and turned towards the principal entrance. ”

“ Secrecy in such matters is out of the question, as with the Arabs; there is too much gossip, and too little coyness about what is natural; your friendships are openly recognized, and tacitly approved. The priests do not interfere; their hands are full.
To see these women at their best one must choose a Sunday or a feast-day; one must go, morever, to the favourite fountain of Santa Lucia, which lies on the hill-side and irrigates some patches of corn and vegetables. ”

“ S. better in health and state of mind, but our villa acquired, also, new life from the wandering troubadours, who came in the evening with their guitar or mandolin, and sung Neapolitan songs, or played to the boys who danced the tarantella. These natural singers have neither pure nor beautiful voices; but they are often strong, and always full of expression; and they sang the fascinating Neapolitan folk-song, Santa Lucia, with a passion which made the heart beat, spite of the false notes of the song. It was sung with greater beauty and purity by Psyché. ”

“ Santa Lucia, Sant’ Agnese, and another female Saint, on the other; but the three first-mentioned figures are in every respect superior to the three last: they are executed in a better manner, and have more relief. On a wall of the same chapel, Liberale painted the Madonna with the Infant Christ, who espouses the Virgin Martyr, Santa Caterina; and in this work the artist has exhibited the portrait of Messer Piero Buonaveri, the owner of the chapel. ”

“ There is a statue to Pedro Valdivia, the first of the Spanish conquerors, whose [p. 204] conquering career was ended by the unconquerable Araucanians, and a chapel and monument to the public-spirited Archbishop Vicuña. A theatre, a café, and some other structures also have been erected. Their value in beautifying the mountain is not great, yet art and advertising have not been allowed altogether to spoil Nature.
Santa Lucia is Santiago’s crown jewel, her Kohinoor. Every day during my stay I went to walk there, often through the clouds, but always with a freshened sense of enjoyment. ”

“ Apollonia was at the gate of Heaven and the Virgin Mary passed that way. “Say, Apollonia, what are you about?” “My Lady, I neither sleep nor watch, I am dying with a pain in my teeth.” “By the star of Venus and the setting sun, by the Most Holy Sacrament, which I bore in my womb, may no pain in your tooth, neither front nor back, afflict you from this time henceforward.”
Of Santa Lucia (December 13) , born in Syracuse on the island of Sicily, a strange legend is told. A young man fell 258passionately in love with her, and wrote to her that her wonderful eyes pursued him even in his dreams. ”

“ Or we watched the yellow omnibuses laboring down Washington Street like clumsy beetles. It seemed to me that a city was the most delightful and absorbing plaything a child could have, and it was a hard arbitrary blow of fate that took me from it to the convent school at Santa Clara.
But if to leave the city was hard, it was terrible indeed to leave the house, the familiar rooms, the familiar footsteps and voices that I loved, and listened for. I had never been away from father and Abby in my life, and though Hallie Ferguson and Estrella Mendez went also, I was very homesick. ”

“ Night approaches; the shade of the bills inundates all the landscape, rises even over the palm-crest. Then, black-towering into the golden glow of sunset, the land loses all its color, all its charm; forms of frondage, variations of tint, become invisible. Saint Lucia is only a monstrous silhouette; all its billowing hills, its volcanic bays, its amphitheatrical valleys, turn black as ebony. ”

“ For, as with blushing, smiling face the little girl made a deep obeisance to her Sovereign, that gracious lady rose in her carriage, and, all unseen by any other eyes, bowed to the lonely little girl in the lonely country road.
"I wonder if I shall see the Queen?" questioned May that morning, as she carried armful after armful of clothes from the boxes to the drawers.
"Very likely you will," answered Lucia, "if we go into Windsor. It is but a chance thing to see the Queen out here, but of course she does drive every day somewhere when she is at home." ”

“ The night of St Lucia is greatly feared (the saint loses her sight; the summer, the warm sunny season, comes to an end; the Madonna moon disappears, and then becomes queen of the sky, the guardian of light, as St Lucia) , and conjurings are made against nightmare, devils, and witches. ”

“ She was enveloped in the pallium, or large mantle worn by the Roman lady abroad, her face covered with a thick veil, and thus disguised from observation threw herself down by the side of a fountain, under a cypress tree, and, leaning her head on the bosom of Cornelia, wept bitterly. Feminine and gentle as she was, Lucia was not devoid of the lofty pride of her family. A Roman by birth and education, she attached great importance to general opinion, and valued her reputation beyond her life. ”

“ If we only trusted our heavenly Father as those children in their play-houses trust their earthly father, how different life would be!"
She turned round and retraced her steps, without disturbing the little party; but though she left them behind, she did not leave the thoughts which they had suggested.
She entered the cottage, fetched her easel and her painting materials, and sat down under the elms to sketch, while the bees buzzed dreamily, and the birds sang a ceaseless song.
That quiet morning was a turning-point in Lucia's life. ”

“ Mrs Quantock's Guru would become Lucia's Guru and all Riseholme would flock hungrily for light and leading to The Hurst. She had written to Lucia in all sincerity, hoping that she would extend the hospitality of her garden-parties to the Guru, but now the very warmth of Lucia's reply caused her to suspect this ulterior motive. She had been too precipitate, too rash, too ill-advised, too sudden, as Lucia would say. She ought to have known that Lucia, with her August parties coming on, would have jumped at a Guru, and withheld him for her own parties, taking the wind out of Lucia's August sails. ”

“ But it was found that no force which could be applied was able to move her from the spot on which she stood; even boiling oil and burning pitch had no power to hurt her, until at last she was slain with the sword. The most important documents concerning St Lucy are the mention in the Martyrologium Hieronymianum and the ancient inscription discovered at Syracuse, in which her festival is indicated. Many paintings represent her bearing her eyes in her hand or on a salver. Some artists have even represented her blind, but nothing in her Acta justifies this representation. ”

“ The children were never tired of hearing Lucia tell how one day when she was about seven years old, as she was walking near the cottage quite alone, she saw a cloud of dust approaching along the road, and in a moment she guessed it was caused by the outriders surrounding the Queen's carriage, and with beating heart stood upon the path to see her go by. ”

“ I am very glad."
"I'm glad," responded Evan heartily. "I never thought how nice it would be to have the Lord Jesus for my very own Saviour."
So the last cloud rolled from Lucia's heart, and that day, as she sat on her favourite wall at the edge of the wood to watch the sunset, she could not but think over the past, and thank God for His kindness in saving her from herself.
When the children were all in bed that night, she wrote to her cousins a brighter letter than she had been able to frame before. ”

“ Lucia, my lovely Lucia, retired into a convent at Murano after the French had left the city, and there she still may be, some gentle lady abbess who has perhaps long forgotten the days when our hearts throbbed together, and when the whole great world seemed so small a thing beside the love which burned in our veins. ”

“ Lucia had come up to the altar, her face whiter, more absolutely colourless than the veil over it, and my heart sank with apprehension as I first caught sight of her. Never, except in death, and already with the coffin enclosing it, have I seen a face so pallid. She walked steadily—she was a woman who always walked well, as a swan swims well, by nature—and the graceful figure passed on calmly towards us.
She kept the lids drooped over her eyes, and her white lips were closed firmly in repose. ”

“ Thus it came to pass that as soon as Lucia had step-brothers and sisters, she instilled her enthusiasm about the Queen into their susceptible little hearts, and May especially felt that the Royal lady who lived so near the cottage was her Queen—her property—to be loved and reverenced as long as she lived. ”

“ It was not till the piano had been tried and retried, not till Lucia had sung them song after song, in her beautiful fresh young voice, that someone said,—
"Where's May?"
She certainly was not with them, and there ensued a general hunt, which ended in her being found talking to her doll, in a quiet corner, behind a hayrick, though what she had said to her doll was certainly unguessed by any of the party.
"Now, Rosabel," she had said, "when next we all go out for a walk in the woods, I shall keep my eyes open for the road that the Queen drives in. ”

“ Lucia’s wretchedness was augmented by the seeming impossibility of escape from the position in which she found herself. Could she turn back without either encouragement and support, while, by continuing in sin, she would have both? Her natural want of energy made it the more difficult for her to return to the right path, with no help but his who never fails those who seek him with faith and without fear or faltering. The tears she shed tarnished her beauty, and the sorrow that preyed on her heart robbed her manners—hitherto so gay and caressing—of their charm. ”

“ But it is well to suffer for God’s sake!”
“Let us both take holy vows, Lucia.”
“You are joking, but I did seriously intend to be a nun. It was my father who prevented me from doing so. God grant that he may not repent of it.”
“Why, Lucia? Think, if you had become a nun, we should not have met and loved each other, and you would never have been my dear wife.”
“What is the good of love and marriage? All is corruption, everything in this world is putrid.”
“Lucia, you are lugubrious.”
“Forgive me, Alberto mio, the gloom that overshadows my soul leaks out and saddens my beloved one. ”

“ Peppino had written a very moving little prose-poem about it, for she had royally presented him with the idea, and had suggested a beautiful analogy between the earthly dew that refreshed the grasses, and was drawn up into the fire of the Sun, and Thought the spiritual dew that refreshed the mind and thereafter, rather vaguely, was drawn up into the Full-Orbed Soul of the World.
At that moment Lucia's eye was attracted by an apparition on the road which lay adjacent to the further side of the happy stream which flowed into the Avon. ”

“ She turned briskly towards her Guru.
"Will you tell them about that time when you levitated at Paddington Station?" she said. "Or will you keep that for when Mrs Lucas gets rather further on? You must be patient, dear Lucia; we all have to go through the early stages, before we get to that."
Mrs Quantock spoke as if she was in the habit of levitating herself, and it was but reasonable, in spite of the love that was swirling about them all, that Lucia should protest against such an attitude. Humility, after all, was the first essential to progress on the Way. ”

“ If only her mother had proposed that she should bring home Emmie or Phyllis with her as a companion, it would not have been so bad. But to be shut up in a cottage with nurse and five tiresome children—
And then the quiet face of her aunt's housekeeper rose up before her mental vision, and she could almost hear her say, "Dear Miss Lucia, it makes all the difference if we love to do the Lord's will, and not our own. His will is always kindest and best." ”