The luscious softness of the Italian airs overcame me with a delicious
enervation. Every note, every interval, each shade of expression spoke to
me--I knew not what: and yet they spoke to my heart of hearts. A spirit
out of the infinite heaven seemed calling to my spirit, which longed to
answer--and was dumb--and could only vent itself in tears, which welled
unconsciously forth, and eased my heart from the painful tension of
excitement.
* * * * *
Her voice is hovering o'er my soul--it lingers,
O'ershadowing it with soft and thrilling wings;
The blood and life within those snowy fingers
Teach witchcraft to the instrumental strings.
My brain is wild, my breath comes quick.
The blood is listening in my frame;
And thronging shadows, fast and thick,
Fall on my overflowing eyes.
My heart is quivering like a flame;
As morning-dew that in the sunbeam dies,
I am dissolved in these consuming ecstacies.
* * * * *
The dark lady, Miss Staunton, as I ought to call her, saw my emotion, and,
as I thought unkindly, checked the cause of it at once.
"Pray do not give us any more of those die-away Italian airs, Lillian. Sing
something manful, German or English, or anything you like, except those
sentimental wailings."
Lillian stopped, took another book, and commenced, after a short prelude,
one of my own songs. Surprise and pleasure overpowered me more utterly than
the soft southern melodies had done. I was on the point of springing up and
leaving the room, when my raptures were checked by our host, who turned
round, and stopped short in an oration on the geology of Upper Egypt.
"What's that about brotherhood and freedom, Lillian? We don't want anything
of that kind here."
"It's only a popular London song, papa," answered she, with an arch smile.
"Or likely to become so," added Miss Staunton, in her marked dogmatic tone.
"I am very sorry for London, then." And he returned to the deserts.
CHAPTER XV.
THE MAN OF SCIENCE.
After breakfast the next morning, Lillian retired, saying laughingly, that
she must go and see after her clothing club and her dear old women at the
almshouse, which, of course, made me look on her as more an angel than
ever. And while George was left with Lord Lynedale, I was summoned to a
private conference with the dean, in his study.
I found him in a room lined with cabinets of curiosities, and hung all over
with strange horns, bones, and slabs of fossils. But I was not allowed
much time to look about me; for he commenced at once on the subject of
my studies, by asking me whether I was willing to prepare myself for the
university, by entering on the study of mathematics?
I felt so intense a repugnance to them, that at the risk of offending
him--perhaps, for what I knew, fatally--I dared to demur. He smiled--