William Story

“ For this is a story of a rainbow, part of which was found.
There are two kinds of poets, professional and instinctive; and William was a poet by instinct. He could not express himself in words; his rhymes were visions. He was by trade a journeyman plumber; inclination as well as necessity had driven him into it. He found Romance in lead pipes, sheet tin, gas and water mains. To his mind there was nothing quite so marvelous as the amazing cobweb of pipes and mains that stretched across the great city a few feet under the surface. ”

“ Sweet William comes, stands at her head and her feet, kisses her, gives vent to his repentance and admiration in intense and elaborate expressions, then lies down by her side and dies.
The first eleven stanzas are in a fairly popular tone. It will be observed that the first and third verses rhyme in 12-24, but not in 1-11. The whole may be one man’s work, who may have thought that an elegy should properly be more artificial, both in form and in style, than a story, but I incline to think that the lament is a later attachment. ”

“ The pastor went up to the kneelers, and, with a voice of pity, condolence, and pardon, said, “There was a time when none, William, could read the Scriptures better than couldst thou—can it be that the son of my friend hath forgotten the lessons of his youth?” He had not forgotten them; there was no need for the repentant sinner to lift up his eyes from the bedside. ”

“ A cheerless dawn was breaking, and a thick damp mist was lazily hanging on the water's surface, as our travellers waved the hand to Venice.
"Fare thee well!" said George, as he rose in the gondola to catch a last glimpse of the Piazzetta, "sea girt city! decayed memorial of patrician splendour, and plebeian debasement! of national glory, blended with individual degradation!--fallen art thou, but fair! It was not with freshness of heart, I reached thee:--I dwelt not in thee, with that jocund spirit, whose every working or gives the lip a smile, or moistens the eye of feeling with a tear. ”

“ It was not long ere the glittering prow of the gondola pointed to Venice.
Before the travellers, rose ocean's Cybele; springing from the waters, like some fairy city, described to youthful ear by aged lip.
The fantastic dome of St. Mark--the Palladian churches--the columned palaces--the sable gondolas shooting through the canals--made its aspect, as is its reality, unique in the world.
"Beautiful, beautiful city!" said George, his eye lighting up as he spoke, "thou dost indeed look a city of the heart--a resting place for a wearied spirit. ”

“ William retired from this scene of unutterable anguish, and for a long period was overwhelmed with the deepest melancholy and remorse. But time gradually softened and subdued his sorrow, and I trust perfected his repentance. He is since married and wealthy, and is regarded by the world as an individual eminently respectable and happy. But, amidst all his comforts, there are moments when he would exchange his identity with the meanest slave that breathes, and regards himself as the murderer of Mary Coventry.—J. M‘D., in Blackwood’s Magazine, 1817. ”

“ With this exhibition of judicious restraint, which rises to the full measure of the vast responsibilities and anxious necessities of his position, our chronological record of William’s three-years’ reign may be fittingly brought to a close. The added narrative which is held in store for us by the future may be tempestuous and discoloured by fire and blood; far better, it may be a gentle story of increasing wisdom, of good deeds done and peace made a natural state instead of an emergency in the minds of men. ”

“ But what struck Acmé, and even Sir Henry, who was more inured to the whirl of cities, as the characteristical feature of Naples, was its moving life. In the streets, there was an incessant bustle from morning until midnight. Each passer by wore an air of importance, almost amounting to a consciousness of happiness. There was fire in the glance--speech in the action--on the lip a ready smile.
In no city of Italy, does care seem more misplaced. ”

“ On their right, Capra's isle and Portici--and Vesuvius--wreathed in vapour, presented themselves.
As their vessel held on her way, Naples became visible--its turrets capt by a solitary cloud, which had not yet acknowledged the supremacy of the rising deity.
The effulgence of the city was dimmed, but it was lovely still,--as a diamond, obscured by a passing breath; or woman's eye, humid from pity's tear.
"And this," said Sir Henry, for it happened that his travels in Italy had not extended so far south, "this is Naples! and this sea view the second finest in the world!" ”

“ The sun was sinking, as the travellers neared Delmé. The old mansion looked as calm as ever. The blue smoke curled above its sombre roof; and the rooks sailed over the chimneys, flapping their wings, and cawing rejoicefully, as they caught the first glimpse of their lofty homes. Emily let down the carriage window, and with sunshiny tear, looked out on the home of her ancestors.
There let us leave her; and turn to bid adieu for a season, to one, who for many a weary day, was doomed to undergo the pangs of blighted affection. ”

“ How the presence of each, calls up sorrow, and yet assists to repress it,--awakes remembrances full of grief, yet brings to life indefinable hopes, that rob that grief of its most poignant sting! The very garb of woe, whose mournful effect is felt to the full, only when each one sees it worn by the other--the very garb paralyses, and brings impressively before us, the awful truth, that for our loss, in this world, there is no remedy. How holy, how chaste is the affection, which we feel disposed to lavish, on those who are left us. ”

“ In making them, the weight of this unexplained mystery of life hung over him; the struggle of humanity against superior forces oppressed him. The doubts, the despair, the power, the indomitable will of his own nature are in them. They are not the expressions of the natural day of the world, of the glory of the sunrise, the tenderness of the twilight, the broad gladness of day, or the calm repose of night; but they are seasons and epochs of the spirit of man—its doubts and fears, its sorrows and longings and unrealized hopes. ”

“ Even the servants stole away from their work in the kitchen, and, unrebuked by master or mistress, stood quite spell-bound in the doorway to listen. Observing all this in silence, while my husband was going on with his narrative, the thought suddenly flashed across me, “Why should William not get a wider audience for that story, as well as for others which he has heard from time to time from his sitters, and which he has hitherto only repeated in private among a few friends? People tell stories in books and get money for them. What if we told our stories in a book? ”

“ Summer too went by; and as the leaves of Autumn rustled at his feet, Delmé started, as he felt that the sting and poignancy of his grief was gone. It was with something like reproach, that he did so. There is a dignity in grief--a pride in perpetuating it--and his had been no common affliction.
It is a trite, but true remark, that time scatters our sorrows, as it scatters our joys.
The heat of fever and the delirium of love, have their gradations; and so has grief. ”

“ Surely if there be a guardian spirit, which deigns to flit through this wayward world, to cheer the stricken breast, and purify feelings, whose every chord vibrates to the touch of woe; surely such presides, and throws a sunny halo, on the group, that blood has united--on which family love has shed its genial influence--and of which, each member, albeit bowed down by sympathetic grief, attempts to lift his drooping head, and to others open some source of comfort, which to the kind speaker, is inefficient and valueless indeed! ”

“ The most absolute realism will not answer the higher demand of the imagination for ideal truth. Art is not simply the reproduction of nature, but nature as modified and colored by the spirit of the artist. ”

“ A sombre, noble tone of color pervades them,—harmonizing with their grand design, but seeking nothing for itself, and sternly subjected and restrained to these powerful conceptions. Nature silently withdraws and looks on, awed by these mighty presences. ”

“ The promising vineyards--the orange groves, with their glowing fruit and ample foliage, "looking like golden lamps" in a dark night of leaves--the thick leaves of the prickly pear--the purple sky above him, lending its rich hue to the sea beside--the architectural beauties of the cottages--the wide portico of the mansions--the flat terrace with its balustrade, over which might be seen a fair face, half concealed by the faldette, smilingly peering, and through whose pillars might be noted a pretty ancle, and siesta-looking slipper--these were novelties, and pleasing ones! ”

“ She met the eye, like a vision conjured up by fervid youth; when, ere our waking thoughts dare to run riot in beauty's contemplation--sleep, the tempter, gives to our disordered imaginations, forms and scenes, which in after life we pant for, but meet them--never! ”

“ He let the head fall, and buried his face in his hands.
He turned reproachfully, to gaze on that cloudless Heaven, where the moon, and the brilliant stars, and the falling meteor, seemed to hold a bright and giddy festival. ”

“ The elegant kiosks--the ornamented gardens--the pinnacled harems, the entrance to which lofty barriers jealously guarded--the number of the tombs in their silent cities---gave an intense interest to the Turkish coast;--while sumptuous barges, filled with veiled women, swept by us, and gave a fairy charm to the sea. ”

“ Who can forget the play of the fountains in front of the Vatican, the music of whose descending water is most distinctly audible, although crowds throng the wide and noble space.
Breathless--silent all--is the assembled multitude, as the clock of Saint Peter's gives its long expected signal.
Away! darkness is light! a fairy palace springs before us! its beautiful proportions starting into life, until the giddy brain reels, from the excess of that splendour, on which the eye suddenly and delightedly feasts! ”

“ Dinner! immortal faculty of eating! to what glorious sense or pre-eminent passion dost thou not contribute? Is not love half fed by thy attractions? Beams ever the eye of lover more bright than when, after gazing with enraptured glance at the coveted haunch, whose fat--a pure white; whose lean--a rich brown--invitingly await the assault. When doth lover's eye sparkle more, than when, at such a moment, it lights on the features of the loved fair one? Is not the supper quadrille the most dangerous and the dearest of all? ”

“ They defy criticism, however just, and stand by themselves outside the beaten track of art, to challenge our admiration. So also, despite all his faults and defects, how grand a figure Michel Angelo himself is in history, how high a place he holds! His name itself is a power. He is one of the mighty masters that the world cannot forget. Kings and emperors die and are forgotten,—dynasties change and governments fall,—but he, the silent, stern worker, reigns unmoved in the great realm of art. ”

“ He could not have been a pleasant companion, and he was never a lover of woman. His friendship with Vittoria Colonna was worlds away from the senses,—worlds away from such a connection as that of Raffaelle with the Fornarina. They walked together in the higher fields of thought and feeling, in the region of ideas and aspirations. Their conversation was of art, and poesy, and religion, and the mysteries of life. They read to each other their poems, and discoursed on high themes of religion, and fate, and foreknowledge. ”

“ I strove to act up to my best principles; but life is difficult, and man is not wise, and our opinions are often incorrect. Still, I strove to act according to my nature; to do the things which were fit for me, and not to be diverted from them by fear of any blame; to keep the divine part in me tranquil and content; and to look upon death and life, honor and dishonor, pain and pleasure, as neither good nor evil in themselves, but only in the way in which we receive them. ”

“ And turning round, one may see the Baptistery celebrated by Dante, and those massive bronze doors storied by Ghiberti, which Michel Angelo said were worthy to be the doors of Paradise. History and romance meets us everywhere. The old families still give their names to the streets, and palaces, and loggie. Every now and then a marble slab upon some house records the birth or death within of some famous citizen, artist, writer, or patriot, or perpetuates the memory of some great event. ”

“ It was a wee while or James cam up, an’ when he saw William lying covered wi’ blude, “The Lord preserve us,” cried he, “the callant’s killed!” an’ he sat down beside him, an’ got William’s head on his knee, an’ tried to recover him. By an’ by, William opens his een, an’ when he sees James, “After him, after him,” cries he, “an’ no mind me.”
“After him,” says James, “an’ the man a mile agate already? It wad be nonsense for me to try’t.”
“Then let me up, an’ I’ll try it mysel,” cried William. ”

“ All poetry is thus allegorical. The wind will always have wings until it ceases to blow. These myths are simply poetic moulds of thought, in which vague sentiments, ideas, and facts are wrought together into an express shape. Think what your own literature or thought would be without the old Grecian poems. Let the reason reject them as it will, and drive them out into the cold, the imagination will run forth and bring them back again to warm and cherish them on its breast. Facts, as facts, are but dead husks. The spirit cannot live upon them. ”