Ernest Maltravers — Volume 03
65 pages
English

Ernest Maltravers — Volume 03

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65 pages
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The Project Gutenberg EBook Ernest Maltravers, by Bulwer-Lytton, Book 3 #70 in our series by Edward Bulwer-LyttonCopyright laws are changing all over the world. Be sure to check the copyright laws for your country before downloadingor redistributing this or any other Project Gutenberg eBook.This header should be the first thing seen when viewing this Project Gutenberg file. Please do not remove it. Do notchange or edit the header without written permission.Please read the "legal small print," and other information about the eBook and Project Gutenberg at the bottom of thisfile. Included is important information about your specific rights and restrictions in how the file may be used. You can alsofind out about how to make a donation to Project Gutenberg, and how to get involved.**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts****EBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971*******These EBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers*****Title: Ernest Maltravers, Book 3Author: Edward Bulwer-LyttonRelease Date: March 2005 [EBook #7642] [Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule] [This file was firstposted on March 11, 2004]Edition: 10Language: English*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ERNEST MALTRAVERS, LYTTON, V3 ***This eBook was produced by Dagny, dagnypg@yahoo.com and David Widger, widger@cecomet.netBOOK III. "Not to all men Apollo shows himself— Who sees him—/he/ is great!" CALLIM. /Ex Hymno in ...

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The Project Gutenberg EBook Ernest Maltravers,by Bulwer-Lytton, Book 3 #70 in our series byEdward Bulwer-LyttonsCuorpey triog chth leacwk st haer ec ocphyarniggihnt gl aawll so fvoerr  ytohue r wcooruldn.t rByebefore downloading or redistributing this or anyother Project Gutenberg eBook.vTiheiws inhge atdhiesr  Psrhoojeulcdt  bGeu ttehne bfierrsgt  tfihlien. gP lseeaesne  wdhoe nnotremove it. Do not change or edit the headerwithout written permission.Please read the "legal small print," and otherinformation about the eBook and ProjectGutenberg at the bottom of this file. Included isimportant information about your specific rights andrestrictions in how the file may be used. You canalso find out about how to make a donation toProject Gutenberg, and how to get involved.**Welcome To The World of Free Plain VanillaElectronic Texts***C*oEmBopoutkesr sR, eSaidncaeb le1 9B7y1 *B*oth Humans and By*****These EBooks Were Prepared By Thousandsof Volunteers*****Title: Ernest Maltravers, Book 3
Author: Edward Bulwer-LyttonRelease Date: March 2005 [EBook #7642] [Yes,we are more than one year ahead of schedule][This file was first posted on March 11, 2004]Edition: 10Language: English*E*B* OSTOAK RETR ONFE STTH EM APLRTORJAEVCET RGS,U LTYETNTBOENR, GV3 ***This eBook was produced by Dagny,dagnypg@yahoo.com and David Widger,widger@cecomet.netBOOK III.  "Not to all men Apollo shows himself—   Who sees him—/he/ is great!"     CALLIM. /Ex Hymno in Apollinon/.
CHAPTER I.     "CHreeree pw iinll  owuer  seita, rasnds loeftt  tshtiell nseosusn dasn do ft hme unsiigcht   Become the touches of sweet harmony."     SHAKESPEARE.BOAT SONG ON THE LAKE OF COMO..IThe Beautiful Clime!—the Clime of Love!  Thou beautiful Italy!Like a mother's eyes, the earnest skies  Ever have smiles for thee!Not a flower that blows, not a beam that glows,  But what is in love with thee!.IIThe beautiful lake, the Larian lake!*  Soft lake like a silver sea,The Huntress Queen, with her nymphs of sheen,  Never had bath like thee.See, the Lady of night and her maids of light,  Even now are mid-deep in thee!* The ancient name of Como.
II.IBeautiful child of the lonely hills,  Ever blest may thy slumbers be!No mourner should tread by thy dreamy bed,  No life bring a care to thee—Nay, soft to thy bed, let the mourner tread—  And life be a dream like thee!Such, though uttered in the soft Italian tongue, andnow imperfectly translated—such were the notesthat floated one lovely evening in summer alongthe lake of Como. The boat, from which came thesong, drifted gently down the sparkling waters,towards the mossy banks of a lawn, whence on alittle eminence gleamed the white walls of a villa,backed by vineyards. On that lawn stood a youngand handsome woman, leaning on the arm of herhusband, and listening to the song. But her delightwas soon deepened into one of more personalinterest, as the boatmen, nearing the banks,changed their measure, and she felt that theminstrelsy was in honour of herself.SERENADE TO THE SONGSTRESS..ICHORUS.Softly—oh, soft! let us rest on the oar,
And vex not a billow that sighs to the shore:—For sacred the spot where the starry waves meetWith the beach, where the breath of the citron issweet.There's a spell on the waves that now waft usgnolaTo the last of our Muses, the Spirit of Song.RECITATIVE.   The Eagle of old renown,   And the Lombard's iron crownAnd Milan's mighty name are ours no more;   But by this glassy water,   Harmonia's youngest daughter,Still from the lightning saves one laurel to ourshore..IICHORUS.They heard thee, Teresa, the Teuton, the Gaul,Who have raised the rude thrones of the North onour fall;They heard thee, and bow'd to the might of thy;gnosLike love went thy steps o'er the hearts of thestrong;As the moon to the air, as the soul to the clay,To the void of this earth was the breath of thy lay.
RECITATIVE.   Honour for aye to her   The bright interpreterOf Art's great mysteries to the enchanted throng;   While tyrants heard thy strains,   Sad Rome forgot her chains;The world the sword had lost was conquer'd backby song!"Thou repentest, my Teresa, that thou hastrenounced thy dazzling career for a dull home, anda husband old enough to be thy father," said thehusband to the wife, with a smile that spokeconfidence in the answer."Ah, no! even this homage would have no music tome if thou didst not hear it."She was a celebrated personage in Italy—theSignora Cesarini, now Madame de Montaigne. Herearlier youth had been spent upon the stage, andher promise of vocal excellence had been mostbrilliant. But after a brief though splendid career,she married a French gentleman of good birth andfortune, retired from the stage, and spent her lifealternately in the gay saloons of Paris and upon thebanks of the dreamy Como, on which her husbandhad purchased a small but beautiful villa. She still,however, exercised in private her fascinating art; towhich—for she was a woman of singularaccomplishment and talent—she added the gift ofthe improvvisatrice. She had just returned for the
summer to this lovely retreat, and a party ofenthusiastic youths from Milan had sought the lakeof Como to welcome her arrival with the suitablehomage of song and music. It is a charming relic,that custom of the brighter days of Italy; and Imyself have listened, on the still waters of thesame lake, to a similar greeting to a greater genius—the queenlike and unrivalled Pasta—theSemiramis of Song! And while my boat paused,and I caught something of the enthusiasm of theserenaders, the boatman touched me, and,pointing to a part of the lake on which the settingsun shed its rosiest smile, he said, "There, Signor,was drowned one of your countrymen 'bellissimouomo! che fu bello!'"—yes, there, in the pride of hispromising youth, of his noble and almost godlikebeauty, before the very windows—the very eyes—of his bride—the waves without a frown had sweptover the idol of many hearts—the graceful andgallant Locke.* And above his grave was thevoluptuous sky, and over it floated the triumphantmusic. It was as the moral of the Roman poets—calling the living to a holiday over the oblivion of theaed.d* Captain William Locke of the Life Guards (theonly son of the accomplished Mr. Locke of NorburyPark), distinguished by a character the mostamiable, and by a personal beauty that certainlyequalled, perhaps surpassed, the highestmasterpiece of Grecian sculpture. He wasreturning in a boat from the town of Como to hisvilla on the banks of the lake, when the boat wasupset by one of the mysterious under-currents to
wwahisc hd rtohwe nlaekd ei ni ss idgahnt goefr ohiuss lbyr isdue,b jewchtoe dw; aasnd hewatching his return from the terrace or balcony oftheir home.As the boat now touched the bank, Madame deMontaigne accosted the musicians, thanked themwith a sweet and unaffected earnestness for thecompliment so delicately offered, and invited themashore. The Milanese, who were six in number,accepted the invitation, and moored their boat tothe jutting shore. It was then that Monsieur deMontaigne pointed out to the notice of his wife aboat, that had lingered under the shadow of abank, tenanted by a young man, who had seemedto listen with rapt attention to the music, and whohad once joined in the chorus (as it was twicerepeated), with a voice so exquisitely attuned, andso rich in its deep power, that it had awakened theadmiration even of the serenaders themselves."DDeo eMso nntoat itghnaet  agseknetlde omf atnh eb eMloilnagn etso ey.our party?""No, Signor, we know him not," was the answer;"his boat came unawares upon us as we weresinging."While this question and answer were going on, theyoung man had quitted his station, and his oars cutthe glassy surface of the lake, just before the placewhere De Montaigne stood. With the courtesy ofhis country, the Frenchman lifted his hat; and, byhis gesture, arrested the eye and oar of the solitary
rower. "Will you honour us," he said, "by joining ourlittle party?""It is a pleasure I covet too much to refuse," repliedthe boatman, with a slight foreign accent, and inanother moment he was on shore. He was one ofremarkable appearance. His long hair floated witha careless grace over a brow more calm andthoughtful than became his years; his manner wasunusually quiet and self-collected, and not withouta certain stateliness, rendered more striking by theheight of his stature, a lordly contour of feature,and a serene but settled expression of melancholyin his eyes and smile. "You will easily believe," saidhe, "that, cold as my countrymen are esteemed(for you must have discovered already that I am anEnglishman), I could not but share in theenthusiasm of those about me, when loitering nearthe very ground sacred to the inspiration. For therest, I am residing for the present in yonder villa,opposite to your own; my name is Maltravers, andI am enchanted to think that I am no longer apersonal stranger to one whose fame has alreadyreached me." Madame de Montaigne was flatteredby something in the manner and tone of theEnglishman, which said a great deal more than hiswords; and in a few minutes, beneath the influenceof the happy continental ease, the whole partyseemed as if they had known each other for years.Wines, and fruits, and other simple andunpretending refreshments, were brought out andranged on a rude table upon the grass, roundwhich the guests seated themselves with their hostand hostess, and the clear moon shone over them,
and the lake slept below in silver. It was a scenefor a Boccaccio or a Claude.The conversation naturally fell upon music; it isalmost the only thing which Italians in general canbe said to know—and even that knowledge comesto them, like Dogberry's reading and writing, bynature—for of music, as an /art/, theunprofessional amateurs know but little. As vainand arrogant of the last wreck of their nationalgenius as the Romans of old were of the empire ofall arts and arms, they look upon the harmonies ofother lands as barbarous; nor can they appreciateor understand appreciation of the mighty Germanmusic, which is the proper minstrelsy of a nation ofmen—a music of philosophy, of heroism, of theintellect and the imagination; beside which, thestrains of modern Italy are indeed effeminate,fantastic, and artificially feeble. Rossini is theCanova of music, with much of the pretty, withnothing of the grand!The little party talked, however, of music, with ananimation and gusto that charmed the melancholyMaltravers, who for weeks had known nocompanion save his own thoughts, and with whom,at all times, enthusiasm for any art found a readysympathy. He listened attentively, but said little;and from time to time, whenever the conversationflagged, amused himself by examining hiscompanions. The six Milanese had nothingremarkable in their countenances or in their talk;they possessed the characteristic energy andvolubility of their countrymen, with something of the
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