The Marble Faun; Or, The Romance of Monte Beni - Volume 1

and hills. He led his friend to many enchanting nooks, with which he himself had been familiar in his childhood. But of late, as he remarked to Kenyon,

man could do no more for them, time and nature came, and wrought hand in hand to bring them to a soft and venerable perfection. There grew the fig-tree that had run wild and taken to wife the vine, which likewise had gone rampant out of all human control; so that

sh of the small stream, with an urn in her arms, stood a marble nymph, whose nakedness the moss had kindly clothed as with a garment; and the long trails and tresses of the maidenhair had done what they could in the poor thing's behalf, by hanging themselves about her waist, In former days-it might be a remote antiquity-this lady of

forlorn; and you might have fancied that the whole

ht in," remarked Donatello, sighing. "As a chi

, are of such a social nature, that I should hardly have thought these lonely haunts would take yo

mpany of this fountain and this nymph. It is said that a Faun, my oldest forefather, brought home hither to thi

ble!" exclaimed Kenyon; "th

pot. But, now that I remember it, it seems to me more sad than sweet, though formerly the sorrow, in which it close

well or ill. These wild legends have often the

ehow interfused throughout the gushing water. She was a fresh, cool, dewy thing, sunny and shadowy, full of pleasant little mischiefs, fitful and changeable with the whim of the moment, but yet as constant as her native stream, which kept the same gush and flow forever, while marble crumbled over and around it. The fountain woman loved the youth,-a knight, as Donatello called

he sat waiting for her by the margin of the spring, she would suddenly fall down around him in a shower of sunny raindrops, with a rainbow glancing through them,

t; and, furthermore, when he knelt down to drink out of the spring, nothing was more common than for a pair of

tor, at this point. "But the deportment of the watery lady must have had a most chill

making fun of the story. But I see nothing laughabl

of the fountain nymph. In his merriest hours, she gladdened him with her sportive humor. If ever he was ann

frightful in his tone she did not appear, nor answer him. He flung himself down, and washed his hands and bathed his feverish brow in the cool, pure water. And then there was a sound of woe; it

re came to a

from this unhappy knight

or-stricken whisper. "The guilty man had polluted the pure water. The nymph migh

r behold her mor

ed to wash it off. He mourned for her his whole life long, and employed the best sculptor of the time to carve this statue of the nymph from his description of her aspect. But, though my ancestor would fain have

g and genial effects of an habitual intercourse with nature in all ordinary cares and griefs; while, on the other hand, her mild influ

ny mortal? Methinks you, by your native qualities, are as well entitled to her

," answered Donatello; and he added, in an i

r saw her?" sa

iar with whatever creatures haunt the woods. You would have laughed to see the friends I had among them; yes, among the wild, nimble things, that reckon man their deadliest enemy! How it was first taught me,

met with a person endowed with it. Pray try the charm; and lest I should fright

will remember my voice now. It changes, y

itor as at once the strangest and the most natural utterance that had ever reached his ears. Any idle boy, it should seem, singing to himself and setting his wordless song to no other or more definite tune than the play of his own pulses, might produce a sound almost identical with this; and yet, it w

t have been the original voice and utterance of the natural man, before the sophistication of the human intellect formed what we now call language. In this broad dialect-broad as the sympathie

hey welled up slowly from his heart, which was thrilling with an emotion more delightful than he had often

a rustling among the shrubbery; a whir of wings, moreover, that hovered in the air. It may have been all an illusion; but Kenyon fancied that he could distinguish the stealthy, cat-like movement of some small forest citizen, and that he could even see its doubtful shadow

s) rustling away through the sunshine. To all present appearance, this venomous reptile was the only creatu

yon, stooping down over his friend, and w

sobbed Donatello

ed grief and childish tears made Kenyon sensible in how small a degree the customs and restraints of society had really acted upon this young man, in spite of the quietude of his ordin

that Kenyon could yet di

ello, trembling. "They shun me! All nature shrinks from me, and shudders at me! I live in the

which you have been exercising, and of which I have heard before, though I never believed in, nor expected to witness it, I am satisfied that you st

f mine no longer,"

enyon, "lose somewhat of our proximity to na

riend. In your eyes, it must look very absurd. It is a grief, I presume, to all men, to find the pleasant privileges and prop

han even the unrestrained passion of the preceding scene. It is a very miserable epoch, when the evil necessities of life, in our tortuous world, first get the better of us so far as to compel us to attempt throwing a cloud over our transparency. Simplicity increases in value the longer we can keep it, and the further we carry it onward into life; the loss of a child's simplicity, in the inevitable lapse of years, causes but a natural sigh or two

ad an antique edition of Dante, which he had found among some old volumes of Catholic devotion

no looks very sad

the sculptor. "Would that we c

if one might but be sure that they were the right ones. We

said the sculptor, struck by an intelligence in th

onger," said Tomaso, with th