Zanoni

At Naples, in the latter half of the last century, a worthy artist named Gaetano Pisani lived and flourished. He was a musician of great genius, but not of popular reputation; t...

Now at last the education is accomplished! Viola is nearly sixteen. The Cardinal declares that the time is come when the new name must be inscribed in the Libro d’Oro,--the Gold...

Now notwithstanding the triumph both of the singer and the opera, there had been one moment in the first act, and, consequently, BEFORE the arrival of Pisani, when the scale see...

It was the custom of Pisani, except when the duties of his profession made special demand on his time, to devote a certain portion of the mid-day to sleep,--a habit not so much...

And now, accompanying this mysterious Zanoni, am I compelled to bid a short farewell to Naples. Mount behind me,--mount on my hippogriff, reader; settle yourself at your ease. I...

Nous etions a table chez un de nos confreres a l’Academie, Grand Seigneur et homme d’esprit.--La Harpe. (We supped with one of our confreres of the Academy,--a great nobleman an...

Qui donc t’a donne la mission s’annoncer au peuple que la divinite n’existe pas? Quel avantage trouves-tu a persuader a l’homme qu’une force aveugle preside a ses destinees et f...

Antipathies also form a part of magic (falsely) so-called. Man naturally has the same instinct as the animals, which warns them involuntarily against the creatures that are host...

Che non vuol che ‘l destrier piu vada in alto, Poi lo lega nel margine marino A un verde mirto in mezzo un lauro E UN PINO. “Orlando Furioso,” c. vi. xxiii.

And they buried the musician and his barbiton together, in the same coffin. That famous Steiner--primeval Titan of the great Tyrolese race--often hast thou sought to scale the h...

One moonlit night, in the Gardens at Naples, some four or five gentleman were seated under a tree, drinking their sherbet, and listening, in the intervals of conversation, to th...

Clarence Glyndon was a young man of fortune, not large, but easy and independent. His parents were dead, and his nearest relation was an only sister, left in England under the c...

When most I wink, then do mine eyes best see, For all the day they view things unrespected; But when I sleep, in dreams they look on thee, And, darkly bright, are bright in dark...

Les Intelligences Celestes se font voir, et see communiquent plus volontiers, dans le silence et dans la tranquillite de la solitude. On aura donc une petite chambre ou un cabin...

The next day Glyndon bent his steps towards Zanoni’s palace. The young man’s imagination, naturally inflammable, was singularly excited by the little he had seen and heard of th...

‘Tis certain that this man has an estate of fifty thousand livres, and seems to be a person of very great accomplishments. But, then, if he’s a wizard, are wizards so devoutly g...

Learn to be poor in spirit, my son, if you would penetrate that sacred night which environs truth. Learn of the Sages to allow to the Devils no power in Nature, since the fatal...

From the confused mists of his fancy glittered forth again those happy, golden schemes which part from the young ambition of art, to play in the air, to illumine the space like...

Wouldst thou soar heavenward on its joyous wing? Cast off the earthly burden of the Real; High from this cramped and dungeoned being, spring Into the realm of the Ideal.

She was seated outside her door,--the young actress! The sea before her in that heavenly bay seemed literally to sleep in the arms of the shore; while, to the right, not far off...

But that which especially distinguishes the brotherhood is their marvellous knowledge of all the resources of medical art. They work not by charms, but simples. --“MS. Account o...

Who so happy as Viola now! A dark load was lifted from her heart: her step seemed to tread on air; she would have sung for very delight as she went gayly home. It is such happin...

The next day, at noon, Zanoni visited Viola; and the next day and the next and again the next,--days that to her seemed like a special time set apart from the rest of life. And...

When Glyndon left Viola, as recorded in the concluding chapter of the second division of this work, he was absorbed again in those mystical desires and conjectures which the hau...

Venerable Brotherhood, so sacred and so little known, from whose secret and precious archives the materials for this history have been drawn; ye who have retained, from century...

It was a small cabinet; the walls were covered with pictures, one of which was worth more than the whole lineage of the owner of the palace. Oh, yes! Zanoni was right. The paint...

My art is already dim and troubled. I have lost the tranquillity which is power. I cannot influence the decisions of those whom I would most guide to the shore; I see them wande...

At Naples, the tomb of Virgil, beetling over the cave of Posilipo, is reverenced, not with the feelings that should hallow the memory of the poet, but the awe that wraps the mem...

Dafne: Ma, chi lung’ e d’Amor? Tirsi: Chi teme e fugge. Dafne: E che giova fuggir da lui ch’ ha l’ ali? Tirsi: AMOR NASCENTE HA CORTE L’ ALI! “Aminta,” At. ii. Sc. ii.

O chiunque tu sia, che fuor d’ogni uso Pieghi Natura ad opre altere e strane, E, spiando i segreti, entri al piu chiuso Spazi’ a tua voglia delle menti umane--Deh, Dimmi! “Gerus...

Mervale and the Italians arrived in safety at the spot where they had left the mules; and not till they had recovered their own alarm and breath did they think of Glyndon. But t...

On returning from Vesuvius or Pompeii, you enter Naples through its most animated, its most Neapolitan quarter,--through that quarter in which modern life most closely resembles...

The young actress and Gionetta had returned from the theatre; and Viola fatigued and exhausted, had thrown herself on a sofa, while Gionetta busied herself with the long tresses...

The young actress was led to, and left alone in a chamber adorned with all the luxurious and half-Eastern taste that at one time characterised the palaces of the great seigneurs...

The sleep of Glyndon, the night after his last interview with Zanoni, was unusually profound; and the sun streamed full upon his eyes as he opened them to the day. He rose refre...

We must go back some hours in the progress of this narrative. It was the first faint and gradual break of the summer dawn; and two men stood in a balcony overhanging a garden fr...

The Prince di -- was not a man whom Naples could suppose to be addicted to superstitious fancies. Still, in the South of Italy, there was then, and there still lingers a certain...

It wanted several minutes of midnight, and Glyndon repaired to the appointed spot. The mysterious empire which Zanoni had acquired over him, was still more solemnly confirmed by...

“I tell you,” said one (who spoke warmly), “that if you have a particle of common-sense left in you, you will accompany me to England. This Mejnour is an imposter more dangerous...

The attendants whom Mejnour had engaged for his strange abode were such as might suit a philosopher of few wants. An old Armenian whom Glyndon recognised as in the mystic’s serv...

...There is, therefore, a certain ecstatical or transporting power, which, if at any time it shall be excited or stirred up by an ardent desire and most strong imagination, is a...

It is fit that we who endeavour to rise to an elevation so sublime, should study first to leave behind carnal affections, the frailty of the senses, the passions that belong to...

Great travell hath the gentle Calidore And toyle endured... There on a day,--He chaunst to spy a sort of shepheard groomes, Playing on pipes and caroling apace. ...He, there bes...

Whilest Calidore does follow that faire mayd, Unmindful of his vow and high beheast Which by the Faerie Queene was on him layd. --Spenser, “Faerie Queene,” cant. x. s. 1.

And it is profound night. All is at rest within the old castle,--all is breathless under the melancholy stars. Now is the time. Mejnour with his austere wisdom,--Mejnour the ene...

In one of those islands whose history the imperishable literature and renown of Athens yet invest with melancholy interest, and on which Nature, in whom “there is nothing melanc...

There is a principle of the soul, superior to all nature, through which we are capable of surpassing the order and systems of the world. When the soul is elevated to natures bet...

Thou hast not informed me of the progress of thy pupil; and I fear that so differently does circumstance shape the minds of the generations to which we are descended, from the i...

They thus beguile the way Untill the blustring storme is overblowne, When weening to returne whence they did stray, They cannot finde that path which first was showne, But wande...

It will be remembered that we left Master Paolo by the bedside of Glyndon; and as, waking from that profound slumber, the recollections of the past night came horribly back to h...

It is some time after the date of the last chapter. Here we are, not in moonlit islands or mouldering castles, but in a room twenty-six feet by twenty-two,--well carpeted, well...

The next morning, at breakfast, Mrs. Mervale looked as if all the wrongs of injured woman sat upon her brow. Mr. Mervale seemed the picture of remorseful guilt and avenging bile...

From this state of restlessness and agitation rather than continuous action, Glyndon was aroused by a visitor who seemed to exercise the most salutary influence over him. His si...

A fever, attended with delirium, for several days deprived Glyndon of consciousness; and when, by Adela’s care more than the skill of the physicians, he was restored to life and...

“Oh, joy, joy!--thou art come again! This is thy hand--these thy lips. Say that thou didst not desert me from the love of another; say it again,--say it ever!--and I will pardon...

According to the order of the events related in this narrative, the departure of Zanoni and Viola from the Greek isle, in which two happy years appear to have been passed, must...

And they placed the child in the father’s arms! As silently he bent over it, tears--tears, how human!--fell from his eyes like rain! And the little one smiled through the tears...

Mejnour, Humanity, with all its sorrows and its joys, is mine once more. Day by day, I am forging my own fetters. I live in other lives than my own, and in them I have lost more...

For the first time since their union, Zanoni and Viola were separated,--Zanoni went to Rome on important business. “It was,” he said, “but for a few days;” and he went so sudden...

The casement stood open, and Viola was seated by it. Beneath sparkled the broad waters in the cold but cloudless sunlight; and to that fair form, that half-averted face, turned...

Alas, Zanoni! the aspirer, the dark, bright one!--didst thou think that the bond between the survivor of ages and the daughter of a day could endure? Didst thou not foresee that...

She stood within the chamber, and gazed around her; no signs by which an inquisitor of old could have detected the scholar of the Black Art were visible. No crucibles and caldro...

“It has come to this!--I am the first to part! I, the unfaithful one, bid thee farewell forever. When thine eyes fall upon this writing thou wilt know me as one of the dead. For...

“Mejnour, behold thy work! Out, out upon our little vanities of wisdom!--out upon our ages of lore and life! To save her from Peril I left her presence, and the Peril has seized...

Orrida maesta nei fero aspetto Terrore accresce, e piu superbo il rende; Rosseggian gli occhi, e di veneno infetto Come infausta cometa, il guardo splende, Gil involve il mento,...

It roars,--The River of Hell, whose first outbreak was chanted as the gush of a channel to Elysium. How burst into blossoming hopes fair hearts that had nourished themselves on...

his harmless leisure; the murderous Fournier carried on his shoulders a pretty little squirrel, attached by a silver chain; Panis bestowed the superfluity of his affections upon...

While such the designs and fears of Maximilien Robespierre, common danger, common hatred, whatever was yet left of mercy or of virtue in the agents of the Revolution, served to...

Dost thou remember in the old time, when the Beautiful yet dwelt in Greece, how we two, in the vast Athenian Theatre, witnessed the birth of Words as undying as ourselves? Dost...

(Darkness greater than of night, in which not a ray of light is mixed;...The palace appears no more: not even a vestige,--nor can one say that it has been.)

Glyndon did not perceive, as he hurried from the house, two forms crouching by the angle of the wall. He saw still the spectre gliding by his side; but he beheld not the yet mor...

The Italian did not overrate that craft of simulation proverbial with her country and her sex. Not a word, not a look, that day revealed to Glyndon the deadly change that had co...

Robespierre was reclining languidly in his fauteuil, his cadaverous countenance more jaded and fatigued than usual. He to whom Catherine Theot assured immortal life, looked, ind...

“Without doubt,” it began, “you are uneasy at not having earlier received news from me. Be not alarmed; you know that I ought only to reply by our ordinary courier; and as he ha...

In the mean time Glyndon, after an audience of some length with C--, in which the final preparations were arranged, sanguine of safety, and foreseeing no obstacle to escape, ben...

Think not my magic wonders wrought by aid Of Stygian angels summoned up from hell; Scorned and accursed be those who have essayed Her gloomy Dives and Afrites to compel. But by...

“She is in one of their prisons,--their inexorable prisons. It is Robespierre’s order,--I have tracked the cause to Glyndon. This, then, made that terrible connection between th...

The morning rose,--the 8th of Thermidor (July 26). Robespierre has gone to the Convention. He has gone with his laboured speech; he has gone with his phrases of philanthropy and...

As Robespierre left the hall, there was a dead and ominous silence in the crowd without. The herd, in every country, side with success; and the rats run from the falling tower....

To-morrow!--and it is already twilight. One after one, the gentle stars come smiling through the heaven. The Seine, in its slow waters, yet trembles with the last kiss of the ro...

Then towards the Garden of the Star Lift up thine aspect warm with love, And, friendlike link’d through space afar, Mount with him, arm in arm, above. --Uhland, “Poem to Death.”

It was late that night, and Rene-Francois Dumas, President of the Revolutionary Tribunal, had re-entered his cabinet, on his return from the Jacobin Club. With him were two men...

Viola was in the prison that opened not but for those already condemned before adjudged. Since her exile from Zanoni, her very intellect had seemed paralysed. All that beautiful...

And Viola was in prayer. She heard not the opening of the door; she saw not the dark shadow that fell along the floor. HIS power, HIS arts were gone; but the mystery and the spe...