Amours de Voyage | Page 7

and die for the Cause; yet?Still, individual culture is also something, and no man?Finds quite distinct the assurance that he of all others is called on,?Or would be justified even, in taking away from the world that?Precious creature, himself. Nature sent him here to abide here;?Else why send him at all? Nature wants him still, it is likely;?On the whole, we are meant to look after ourselves; it is certain?Each has to eat for himself, digest for himself, and in general?Care for his own dear life, and see to his own preservation;?Nature's intentions, in most things uncertain, in this are decisive;?Which, on the whole, I conjecture the Romans will follow, and I shall.?So we cling to our rocks like limpets; Ocean may bluster,?Over and under and round us; we open our shells to imbibe our?Nourishment, close them again, and are safe, fulfilling the purpose?Nature intended,--a wise one, of course, and a noble, we doubt not.?Sweet it may be and decorous, perhaps, for the country to die; but,?On the whole, we conclude the Romans won't do it, and I sha'n't.
III. Claude to Eustace.
Will they fight? They say so. And will the French? I can hardly,?Hardly think so; and yet----He is come, they say, to Palo,?He is passed from Monterone, at Santa Severa?He hath laid up his guns. But the Virgin, the Daughter of Roma,?She hath despised thee and laughed thee to scorn,--The Daughter of Tiber,?She hath shaken her head and built barricades against thee!?Will they fight? I believe it. Alas! 'tis ephemeral folly,?Vain and ephemeral folly, of course, compared with pictures,?Statues, and antique gems!--Indeed: and yet indeed too,?Yet, methought, in broad day did I dream,--tell it not in St. James's,?Whisper it not in thy courts, O Christ Church!--yet did I, waking,?Dream of a cadence that sings, Si tombent nos jeunes heros, la?Terre en produit de nouveaux contre vous tous prets a se battre;?Dreamt of great indignations and angers transcendental,?Dreamt of a sword at my side and a battle-horse underneath me.
IV. Claude to Eustace.
Now supposing the French or the Neapolitan soldier?Should by some evil chance come exploring the Maison Serny?(Where the family English are all to assemble for safety),?Am I prepared to lay down my life for the British female??Really, who knows? One has bowed and talked, till, little by little,?All the natural heat has escaped of the chivalrous spirit.?Oh, one conformed, of course; but one doesn't die for good manners,?Stab or shoot, or be shot, by way of graceful attention.?No, if it should be at all, it should be on the barricades there;?Should I incarnadine ever this inky pacifical finger,?Sooner far should it be for this vapour of Italy's freedom,?Sooner far by the side of the d----d and dirty plebeians.?Ah, for a child in the street I could strike; for the full-blown lady----?Somehow, Eustace, alas! I have not felt the vocation.?Yet these people of course will expect, as of course, my protection,?Vernon in radiant arms stand forth for the lovely Georgina,?And to appear, I suppose, were but common civility. Yes, and?Truly I do not desire they should either be killed or offended.?Oh, and of course, you will say, 'When the time comes, you will be ready.'?Ah, but before it comes, am I to presume it will be so??What I cannot feel now, am I to suppose that I shall feel??Am I not free to attend for the ripe and indubious instinct??Am I forbidden to wait for the clear and lawful perception??Is it the calling of man to surrender his knowledge and insight,?For the mere venture of what may, perhaps, be the virtuous action??Must we, walking our earth, discerning a little, and hoping?Some plain visible task shall yet for our hands be assigned us,--?Must we abandon the future for fear of omitting the present,?Quit our own fireside hopes at the alien call of a neighbour,?To the mere possible shadow of Deity offer the victim??And is all this, my friend, but a weak and ignoble refining,?Wholly unworthy the head or the heart of Your Own Correspondent?
V. Claude to Eustace.
Yes, we are fighting at last, it appears. This morning as usual,?Murray, as usual, in hand, I enter the Caffe Nuovo;?Seating myself with a sense as it were of a change in the weather,?Not understanding, however, but thinking mostly of Murray,?And, for to-day is their day, of the Campidoglio Marbles;?Caffe-latte! I call to the waiter,--and Non c'e latte,?This is the answer he makes me, and this is the sign of a battle.?So I sit: and truly they seem to think any one else more?Worthy than me of attention. I wait for my milkless nero,?Free to observe undistracted all sorts and sizes of persons,?Blending civilian and soldier in strangest costume, coming in, and?Gulping in hottest haste, still standing, their coffee,--withdrawing?Eagerly, jangling a sword on the steps, or jogging a musket?Slung to the shoulder behind. They are