3.8. CHAPTER VIII.
WE had now reached Switzerland, so long the final mark
and aim of our exertions. We had looked, I know not
wherefore, with hope and pleasing expectation on her
congregation of hills and snowy crags, and opened our
bosoms with renewed spirits to the icy Biz, which even
at Midsummer used to come from the northern glacier
laden with cold. Yet how could we nourish expectation
of relief? Like our native England, and the vast extent
of fertile France, this mountain-embowered land was
desolate of its inhabitants. Nor bleak mountain-top,
nor
snow-nourished rivulet; not the ice-laden Biz, nor
thunder, the tamer of contagion, had preserved
them—why therefore should we claim exemption?
Who was there indeed to save? What troop had we brought
fit to stand at bay, and combat with the conqueror? We
were a failing remnant, tamed to mere submission to
the coming blow. A train half dead, through fear of
death—a hopeless, unresisting, almost reckless crew,
which, in the tossed bark of life, had given up all
pilotage, and resigned themselves to the destructive
force of ungoverned winds. Like a few furrows of
unreaped corn, which, left standing on a wide field
after the rest is gathered to the garner, are swiftly
borne down by the winter storm. Like a few straggling
swallows, which, remaining after their fellows had, on
the first unkind breath of passing autumn, migrated to
genial climes, were struck to earth by the first frost
of November. Like a stray sheep that wanders over the
sleet-beaten hill-side, while
the flock is in the pen,
and dies before morning-dawn. Like a cloud, like one
of many that were spread in impenetrable woof over the
sky, which, when the shepherd north has driven its
companions "to drink Antipodean noon," fades and
dissolves in the clear ether—Such were we!
We left the fair margin of the beauteous lake of
Geneva, and entered the Alpine ravines; tracing to its
source the brawling Arve, through the rock-bound valley
of Servox, beside the mighty waterfalls, and under the
shadow of the inaccessible mountains, we travelled on;
while the luxuriant walnut-tree gave place to the dark
pine, whose musical branches swung in the wind, and
whose upright forms had braved a thousand storms—till
the verdant sod, the flowery dell, and shrubbery hill
were exchanged for the sky-piercing, untrodden,
seedless rock, "the bones of the world, waiting to be
clothed with every thing necessary to give life and
beauty."[7] Strange that we should seek shelter here!
Surely, if, in those countries where earth was wont,
like a tender mother, to nourish her children, we had
found her a destroyer, we need not seek it here, where
stricken by keen penury she seems to shudder through
her stony veins. Nor were we mistaken in our
conjecture. We vainly sought the vast and ever moving
glaciers of Chamounix, rifts of pendant ice, seas of
congelated waters, the leafless groves of
tempest-battered pines, dells, mere paths for the loud
avalanche, and hill-tops, the resort of
thunder-storms. Pestilence reigned paramount even here.
By the time that day and night, like twin sisters of
equal growth, shared equally their dominion over the
hours, one by one, beneath the ice-caves, beside the
waters springing from the thawed snows of a thousand
winters, another and yet another of the remnant of the
race of Man, closed their eyes for ever to the light.
Yet we were not quite wrong in seeking a scene like
this, whereon to close the drama.
Nature, true to the
last, consoled us in the very heart of misery. Sublime
grandeur of outward objects soothed our hapless hearts,
and were in harmony with our desolation. Many sorrows
have befallen man during his chequered course; and
many a woe-stricken mourner has found himself sole
survivor among many. Our misery took its majestic
shape and colouring from the vast ruin, that
accompanied and made one with it. Thus on lovely
earth, many a dark ravine contains a brawling stream,
shadowed by romantic rocks, threaded by mossy
paths—but all, except this, wanted the mighty
back-ground, the towering Alps, whose snowy capes, or
bared ridges, lifted us from our dull mortal abode, to
the palaces of Nature's own.
This solemn harmony of event and situation regulated
our feelings, and gave as it were fitting costume to
our last act. Majestic gloom and tragic pomp attended
the decease of wretched humanity. The funeral
procession of monarchs of old, was transcended by our
splendid
shews. Near the sources of the Arveiron we
performed the rites for, four only excepted, the last
of the species. Adrian and I, leaving Clara and Evelyn
wrapt in peaceful unobserving slumber, carried the
body to this desolate spot, and placed it in those
caves of ice beneath the glacier, which rive and split
with the slightest sound, and bring destruction on
those within the clefts—no bird or beast of prey
could here profane the frozen form. So, with hushed
steps and in silence, we placed the dead on a bier of
ice, and then, departing, stood on the rocky platform
beside the river springs. All hushed as we had been,
the very striking of the air with our persons had
sufficed to disturb the repose of this thawless
region; and we had hardly left the cavern, before vast
blocks of ice, detaching themselves from the roof,
fell, and covered the human image we had deposited
within. We had chosen a fair moonlight night, but our
journey thither had been long, and the crescent sank
behind the western heights by the time we had
accomplished
our purpose. The snowy mountains and blue
glaciers shone in their own light. The rugged and
abrupt ravine, which formed one side of Mont Anvert,
was opposite to us, the glacier at our side; at our
feet Arveiron, white and foaming, dashed over the
pointed rocks that jutted into it, and, with whirring
spray and ceaseless roar, disturbed the stilly night.
Yellow lightnings played around the vast dome of Mont
Blanc, silent as the snow-clad rock they illuminated;
all was bare, wild, and sublime, while the singing of
the pines in melodious murmurings added a gentle
interest to the rough magnificence. Now the riving and
fall of icy rocks clave the air; now the thunder of the
avalanche burst on our ears. In countries whose
features are of less magnitude, nature betrays her
living powers in the foliage of the trees, in the
growth of herbage, in the soft purling of meandering
streams; here, endowed with giant attributes, the
torrent, the thunder-storm, and the flow of massive
waters, display her activity.
Such the church-yard,
such the requiem, such the eternal congregation, that
waited on our companion's funeral!
Nor was it the human form alone which we had placed in
this eternal sepulchre, whose obsequies we now
celebrated. With this last victim Plague vanished from
the earth. Death had never wanted weapons wherewith to
destroy life, and we, few and weak as we had become,
were still exposed to every other shaft with which his
full quiver teemed. But pestilence was absent from
among them. For seven years it had had full sway upon
earth; she had trod every nook of our spacious globe;
she had mingled with the atmosphere, which as a cloak
enwraps all our fellow-creatures—the inhabitants of
native Europe—the luxurious Asiatic—the swarthy
African and free American had been vanquished and
destroyed by her. Her barbarous tyranny came to its
close here in the rocky vale of Chamounix.
Still recurring scenes of misery and pain, the fruits
of this distemper, made no more a part of
our
lives—the word plague no longer rung in our ears—the
aspect of plague incarnate in the human countenance no
longer appeared before our eyes. From this moment I
saw plague no more. She abdicated her throne, and
despoiled herself of her imperial sceptre among the
ice rocks that surrounded us. She left solitude and
silence co-heirs of her kingdom.
My present feelings are so mingled with the past, that
I cannot say whether the knowledge of this change
visited us, as we stood on this sterile spot. It seems
to me that it did; that a cloud seemed to pass from
over us, that a weight was taken from the air; that
henceforth we breathed more freely, and raised our
heads with some portion of former liberty. Yet we did
not hope. We were impressed by the sentiment, that our
race was run, but that plague would not be our
destroyer. The coming time was as a mighty river, down
which a charmed boat is driven, whose mortal steersman
knows, that the obvious peril is not the one he needs
fear, yet that danger is nigh; and who floats
awe-struck under beetling
precipices, through the dark
and turbid waters—seeing in the distance yet stranger
and ruder shapes, towards which he is irresistibly
impelled. What would become of us? O for some Delphic
oracle, or Pythian maid, to utter the secrets of
futurity! O for some Oedipus to solve the riddle of the
cruel Sphynx! Such Oedipus was I to be—not divining a
word's juggle, but whose agonizing pangs, and
sorrow-tainted life were to be the engines, wherewith
to lay bare the secrets of destiny, and reveal the
meaning of the enigma, whose explanation closed the
history of the human race.
Dim fancies, akin to these, haunted our minds, and
instilled feelings not unallied to pleasure, as we
stood beside this silent tomb of nature, reared by
these lifeless mountains, above her living veins,
choking her vital principle. "Thus are we left," said
Adrian, "two melancholy blasted trees, where once a
forest waved. We are left to mourn, and pine, and die.
Yet even now we have our duties, which we must string
ourselves to fulfil: the duty of bestowing pleasure
where we can, and by force of love, irradiating with
rainbow hues the tempest of grief. Nor will I repine if
in this extremity we preserve what we now possess.
Something tells me, Verney, that we need no longer
dread our cruel enemy, and I cling with delight to the
oracular voice. Though strange, it will be sweet to
mark the growth of your little boy, and the
development of Clara's young heart. In the midst of a
desert world, we are everything to them; and, if we
live, it must be our task to make this new mode of
life happy to them. At present this is easy, for their
childish ideas do not wander into futurity, and the
stinging craving for sympathy, and all of love of
which our nature is susceptible, is not yet awake
within them: we cannot guess what will happen then,
when nature asserts her indefeasible and sacred
powers; but, long before that time, we may all be
cold, as he who lies in yonder tomb of ice. We need
only provide for the present, and endeavour to fill
with
pleasant images the inexperienced fancy of your
lovely niece. The scenes which now surround us, vast
and sublime as they are, are not such as can best
contribute to this work. Nature is here like our
fortunes, grand, but too destructive, bare, and rude,
to be able to afford delight to her young imagination.
Let us descend to the sunny plains of Italy. Winter
will soon be here, to clothe this wilderness in double
desolation; but we will cross the bleak hill-tops, and
lead her to scenes of fertility and beauty, where her
path will be adorned with flowers, and the cheery
atmosphere inspire pleasure and hope."
In pursuance of this plan we quitted Chamounix on the
following day. We had no cause to hasten our steps; no
event was transacted beyond our actual sphere to
enchain our resolves, so we yielded to every idle whim,
and deemed our time well spent, when we could behold
the passage of the hours without dismay. We loitered
along the lovely Vale of Servox; passed long hours on
the bridge, which, crossing
the ravine of Arve,
commands a prospect of its pine-clothed depths, and the
snowy mountains that wall it in. We rambled through
romantic Switzerland; till, fear of coming winter
leading us forward, the first days of October found us
in the valley of La Maurienne, which leads to Cenis. I
cannot explain the reluctance we felt at leaving this
land of mountains; perhaps it was, that we regarded the
Alps as boundaries between our former and our future
state of existence, and so clung fondly to what of old
we had loved. Perhaps, because we had now so few
impulses urging to a choice between two modes of
action, we were pleased to preserve the existence of
one, and preferred the prospect of what we were to do,
to the recollection of what had been done. We felt
that for this year danger was past; and we believed
that, for some months, we were secured to each other.
There was a thrilling, agonizing delight in the
thought—it filled the eyes with misty tears, it tore
the heart with tumultuous heavings; frailer than the
"snow
fall in the river," were we each and all—but we
strove to give life and individuality to the meteoric
course of our several existences, and to feel that no
moment escaped us unenjoyed. Thus tottering on the
dizzy brink, we were happy. Yes! as we sat beneath the
toppling rocks, beside the waterfalls, near
— Forests, ancient as the hills,
And folding sunny spots of greenery,
where the chamois grazed, and the timid squirrel laid
up its hoard—descanting on the charms of nature,
drinking in the while her unalienable beauties—we
were, in an empty world, happy.
Yet, O days of joy—days, when eye spoke to eye, and
voices, sweeter than the music of the swinging branches
of the pines, or rivulet's gentle murmur, answered
mine—yet, O days replete with beatitude, days of loved
society—days unutterably dear to me forlorn—pass, O
pass before me, making me in your memory forget what I
am. Behold, how my streaming eyes blot this senseless
paper—behold, how my features
are convulsed by
agonizing throes, at your mere recollection, now that,
alone, my tears flow, my lips quiver, my cries fill
the air, unseen, unmarked, unheard! Yet, O yet, days of
delight! let me dwell on your long-drawn hours!
As the cold increased upon us, we passed the Alps, and
descended into Italy. At the uprising of morn, we sat
at our repast, and cheated our regrets by gay sallies
or learned disquisitions. The live-long day we
sauntered on, still keeping in view the end of our
journey, but careless of the hour of its completion.
As the evening star shone out, and the orange sunset,
far in the west, marked the position of the dear land
we had for ever left, talk, thought enchaining, made
the hours fly—O that we had lived thus for ever and
for ever! Of what consequence was it to our four
hearts, that they alone were the fountains of life in
the wide world? As far as mere individual sentiment
was concerned, we had rather be left thus united
together, than if, each alone in a populous desert
of
unknown men, we had wandered truly companionless till
life's last term. In this manner, we endeavoured to
console each other; in this manner, true philosophy
taught us to reason.
It was the delight of Adrian and myself to wait on
Clara, naming her the little queen of the world,
ourselves her humblest servitors. When we arrived at a
town, our first care was to select for her its most
choice abode; to make sure that no harrowing relic
remained of its former inhabitants; to seek food for
her, and minister to her wants with assiduous
tenderness. Clara entered into our scheme with
childish gaiety. Her chief business was to attend on
Evelyn; but it was her sport to array herself in
splendid robes, adorn herself with sunny gems, and ape
a princely state. Her religion, deep and pure, did not
teach her to refuse to blunt thus the keen sting of
regret; her youthful vivacity made her enter, heart
and soul, into these strange masquerades.
We had resolved to pass the ensuing winter
at Milan,
which, as being a large and luxurious city, would
afford us choice of homes. We had descended the Alps,
and left far behind their vast forests and mighty
crags. We entered smiling Italy. Mingled grass and
corn grew in her plains, the unpruned vines threw
their luxuriant branches around the elms. The grapes,
overripe, had fallen on the ground, or hung purple, or
burnished green, among the red and yellow leaves. The
ears of standing corn winnowed to emptiness by the
spendthrift winds; the fallen foliage of the trees, the
weed-grown brooks, the dusky olive, now spotted with
its blackened fruit; the chestnuts, to which the
squirrel only was harvest-man; all plenty, and yet,
alas! all poverty, painted in wondrous hues and
fantastic groupings this land of beauty. In the towns,
in the voiceless towns, we visited the churches,
adorned by pictures, master-pieces of art, or galleries
of statues—while in this genial clime the animals, in
new found liberty, rambled through the gorgeous
palaces, and hardly feared
our forgotten aspect. The
dove-coloured oxen turned their full eyes on us, and
paced slowly by; a startling throng of silly sheep,
with pattering feet, would start up in some chamber,
formerly dedicated to the repose of beauty, and rush,
huddling past us, down the marble staircase into the
street, and again in at the first open door, taking
unrebuked possession of hallowed sanctuary, or kingly
council-chamber. We no longer started at these
occurrences, nor at worse exhibition of change—when
the palace had become a mere tomb, pregnant with fetid
stench, strewn with the dead; and we could perceive how
pestilence and fear had played strange antics, chasing
the luxurious dame to the dank fields and bare
cottage; gathering, among carpets of Indian woof, and
beds of silk, the rough peasant, or the deformed
half-human shape of the wretched beggar.
We arrived at Milan, and stationed ourselves in the
Vice-Roy's palace. Here we made laws for ourselves,
dividing our day, and fixing distinct
occupations for
each hour. In the morning we rode in the adjoining
country, or wandered through the palaces, in search of
pictures or antiquities. In the evening we assembled
to read or to converse. There were few books that we
dared read; few, that did not cruelly deface the
painting we bestowed on our solitude, by recalling
combinations and emotions never more to be experienced
by us. Metaphysical disquisition; fiction, which
wandering from all reality, lost itself in self-created
errors; poets of times so far gone by, that to read of
them was as to read of Atlantis and Utopia; or such as
referred to nature only, and the workings of one
particular mind; but most of all, talk, varied and
ever new, beguiled our hours.
While we paused thus in our onward career towards
death, time held on its accustomed course. Still and
for ever did the earth roll on, enthroned in her
atmospheric car, speeded by the force of the invisible
coursers of never-erring necessity. And now, this
dew-drop in
the sky, this ball, ponderous with
mountains, lucent with waves, passing from the short
tyranny of watery Pisces and the frigid Ram, entered
the radiant demesne of Taurus and the Twins. There,
fanned by vernal airs, the Spirit of Beauty sprung
from her cold repose; and, with winnowing wings and
soft pacing feet, set a girdle of verdure around the
earth, sporting among the violets, hiding within the
springing foliage of the trees, tripping lightly down
the radiant streams into the sunny deep. "For lo!
winter is past, the rain is over and gone; the flowers
appear on the earth, the time of the singing of birds
is come, and the voice of the turtle is heard in our
land; the fig tree putteth forth her green figs, and
the vines, with the tender grape, give a good smell."
[8]
Thus was it in the time of the ancient regal poet; thus
was it now.
Yet how could we miserable hail the approach
of this
delightful season? We hoped indeed that death did not
now as heretofore walk in its shadow; yet, left as we
were alone to each other, we looked in each other's
faces with enquiring eyes, not daring altogether to
trust to our presentiments, and endeavouring to divine
which would be the hapless survivor to the other
three. We were to pass the summer at the lake of Como,
and thither we removed as soon as spring grew to her
maturity, and the snow disappeared from the hill tops.
Ten miles from Como, under the steep heights of the
eastern mountains, by the margin of the lake, was a
villa called the Pliniana, from its being built on the
site of a fountain, whose periodical ebb and flow is
described by the younger Pliny in his letters. The
house had nearly fallen into ruin, till in the year
2090, an English nobleman had bought it, and fitted it
up with every luxury. Two large halls, hung with
splendid tapestry, and paved with marble, opened on
each side of a
court, of whose two other sides one
overlooked the deep dark lake, and the other was
bounded by a mountain, from whose stony side gushed,
with roar and splash, the celebrated fountain. Above,
underwood of myrtle and tufts of odorous plants
crowned the rock, while the star-pointing giant
cypresses reared themselves in the blue air, and the
recesses of the hills were adorned with the luxuriant
growth of chestnut-trees. Here we fixed our summer
residence. We had a lovely skiff, in which we sailed,
now stemming the midmost waves, now coasting the
over-hanging and craggy banks, thick sown with
evergreens, which dipped their shining leaves in the
waters, and were mirrored in many a little bay and
creek of waters of translucent darkness. Here orange
plants bloomed, here birds poured forth melodious
hymns; and here, during spring, the cold snake emerged
from the clefts, and basked on the sunny terraces of
rock.
Were we not happy in this paradisiacal retreat? If some
kind spirit had whispered
forgetfulness to us, methinks
we should have been happy here, where the precipitous
mountains, nearly pathless, shut from our view the far
fields of desolate earth, and with small exertion of
the imagination, we might fancy that the cities were
still resonant with popular hum, and the peasant still
guided his plough through the furrow, and that we, the
world's free denizens, enjoyed a voluntary exile, and
not a remediless cutting off from our extinct species.
Not one among us enjoyed the beauty of this scenery so
much as Clara. Before we quitted Milan, a change had
taken place in her habits and manners. She lost her
gaiety, she laid aside her sports, and assumed an
almost vestal plainness of attire. She shunned us,
retiring with Evelyn to some distant chamber or silent
nook; nor did she enter into his pastimes with the
same zest as she was wont, but would sit and watch him
with sadly tender smiles, and eyes bright with tears,
yet without a word of complaint. She approached us
timidly, avoided
our caresses, nor shook off her
embarrassment till some serious discussion or lofty
theme called her for awhile out of herself. Her beauty
grew as a rose, which, opening to the summer wind,
discloses leaf after leaf till the sense aches with its
excess of loveliness. A slight and variable colour
tinged her cheeks, and her motions seemed attuned by
some hidden harmony of surpassing sweetness. We
redoubled our tenderness and earnest attentions. She
received them with grateful smiles, that fled swift as
sunny beam from a glittering wave on an April day.
Our only acknowledged point of sympathy with her,
appeared to be Evelyn. This dear little fellow was a
comforter and delight to us beyond all words. His
buoyant spirit, and his innocent ignorance of our vast
calamity, were balm to us, whose thoughts and feelings
were over-wrought and spun out in the immensity of
speculative sorrow. To cherish, to caress, to amuse
him was the common task of all. Clara, who felt towards
him in some degree like a young
mother, gratefully
acknowledged our kindness towards him. To me, O! to
me, who saw the clear brows and soft eyes of the
beloved of my heart, my lost and ever dear Idris,
re-born in his gentle face, to me he was dear even to
pain; if I pressed him to my heart, methought I clasped
a real and living part of her, who had lain there
through long years of youthful happiness.
It was the custom of Adrian and myself to go out each
day in our skiff to forage in the adjacent country. In
these expeditions we were seldom accompanied by Clara
or her little charge, but our return was an hour of
hilarity. Evelyn ransacked our stores with childish
eagerness, and we always brought some new found gift
for our fair companion. Then too we made discoveries
of lovely scenes or gay palaces, whither in the evening
we all proceeded. Our sailing expeditions were most
divine, and with a fair wind or transverse course we
cut the liquid waves; and, if talk failed under the
pressure of thought, I had my clarionet with me, which
awoke the echoes, and gave the change to our careful
minds. Clara at such times often returned to her
former habits of free converse and gay sally; and
though our four hearts alone beat in the world, those
four hearts were happy.
One day, on our return from the town of Como, with a
laden boat, we expected as usual to be met at the port
by Clara and Evelyn, and we were somewhat surprised to
see the beach vacant. I, as my nature prompted, would
not prognosticate evil, but explained it away as a mere
casual incident. Not so Adrian. He was seized with
sudden trembling and apprehension, and he called to me
with vehemence to steer quickly for land, and, when
near, leapt from the boat, half falling into the water;
and, scrambling up the steep bank, hastened along the
narrow strip of garden, the only level space between
the lake and the mountain. I followed without delay;
the garden and inner court were empty, so was the
house, whose every room we
visited. Adrian called
loudly upon Clara's name, and was about to rush up the
near mountain-path, when the door of a summer-house at
the end of the garden slowly opened, and Clara
appeared, not advancing towards us, but leaning
against a column of the building with blanched cheeks,
in a posture of utter despondency. Adrian sprang
towards her with a cry of joy, and folded her
delightedly in his arms. She withdrew from his embrace,
and, without a word, again entered the summer-house.
Her quivering lips, her despairing heart refused to
afford her voice to express our misfortune. Poor
little Evelyn had, while playing with her, been seized
with sudden fever, and now lay torpid and speechless on
a little couch in the summer-house.
For a whole fortnight we unceasingly watched beside the
poor child, as his life declined under the ravages of
a virulent typhus. His little form and tiny lineaments
encaged the embryo of the world-spanning mind of man.
Man's nature, brimful of passions and affections, would
have had an home in that little heart, whose swift
pulsations hurried towards their close. His small
hand's fine mechanism, now flaccid and unbent, would in
the growth of sinew and muscle, have achieved works of
beauty or of strength. His tender rosy feet would have
trod in firm manhood the bowers and glades of
earth—these reflections were now of little use: he
lay, thought and strength suspended, waiting
unresisting the final blow.
We watched at his bedside, and when the access of fever
was on him, we neither spoke nor looked at each other,
marking only his obstructed breath and the mortal glow
that tinged his sunken cheek, the heavy death that
weighed on his eyelids. It is a trite evasion to say,
that words could not express our long drawn agony; yet
how can words image sensations, whose tormenting
keenness throw us back, as it were, on the deep roots
and hidden foundations of our nature, which shake our
being with earth-quake-throe,
so that we leave to
confide in accustomed feelings which like mother-earth
support us, and cling to some vain imagination or
deceitful hope, which will soon be buried in the ruins
occasioned by the final shock. I have called that
period a fortnight, which we passed watching the
changes of the sweet child's malady—and such it might
have been—at night, we wondered to find another day
gone, while each particular hour seemed endless. Day
and night were exchanged for one another uncounted; we
slept hardly at all, nor did we even quit his room,
except when a pang of grief seized us, and we retired
from each other for a short period to conceal our sobs
and tears. We endeavoured in vain to abstract Clara
from this deplorable scene. She sat, hour after hour,
looking at him, now softly arranging his pillow, and,
while he had power to swallow, administered his drink.
At length the moment of his death came: the blood
paused in its flow—his eyes opened, and then closed
again: without
convulsion or sigh, the frail tenement
was left vacant of its spiritual inhabitant.
I have heard that the sight of the dead has confirmed
materialists in their belief. I ever felt otherwise.
Was that my child—that moveless decaying inanimation?
My child was enraptured by my caresses; his dear voice
cloathed with meaning articulations his thoughts,
otherwise inaccessible; his smile was a ray of the
soul, and the same soul sat upon its throne in his
eyes. I turn from this mockery of what he was. Take, O
earth, thy debt! freely and for ever I consign to thee
the garb thou didst afford. But thou, sweet child,
amiable and beloved boy, either thy spirit has sought a
fitter dwelling, or, shrined in my heart, thou livest
while it lives.
We placed his remains under a cypress, the upright
mountain being scooped out to receive them. And then
Clara said, "If you wish me to live, take me from
hence. There is something in this scene of
transcendent beauty, in
these trees, and hills and
waves, that for ever whisper to me, leave thy cumbrous
flesh, and make a part of us. I earnestly entreat you
to take me away."
So on the fifteenth of August we bade adieu to our
villa, and the embowering shades of this abode of
beauty; to calm bay and noisy waterfall; to Evelyn's
little grave we bade farewell! and then, with heavy
hearts, we departed on our pilgrimage towards Rome.
[7]
Mary Wollstonecraft's Letters from Norway.