Certain Personal Matters | Page 8

very comfortably
and began reading, and, indeed, read until Euphemia arrived. But she,
at the sight of his head and legs, made several fragmentary and
presumably offensive remarks about crushing some hat or other, and
proceeded with needless violence to get him out of the box again.
However, that is my own private trouble. We are concerned now with
the merits of Euphemia's romance.
The hero of the story is a Venetian, named (for some unknown reason)
Ivan di Sorno. So far as I ascertained, he is the entire house of Di Sorno
referred to in the title. No other Di Sornos transpired. Like others in the
story, he is possessed of untold wealth, tempered by a profound sorrow,
for some cause which remains unmentioned, but which is possibly
internal. He is first displayed "pacing a sombre avenue of ilex and
arbutus that reflected with singular truth the gloom of his countenance,"
and "toying sadly with the jewelled hilt of his dagger." He meditates
upon his loveless life and the burthen of riches. Presently he "paces the
long and magnificent gallery," where a "hundred generations of Di
Sornos, each with the same flashing eye and the same marble brow,
look down with the same sad melancholy upon the beholder"--a truly
monotonous exhibition. It would be too much for anyone, day after day.
He decides that he will travel. Incognito.
The next chapter is headed "In Old Madrid," and Di Sorno, cloaked to
conceal his grandeur, "moves sad and observant among the giddy
throng." But "Gwendolen"--the majestic Gwendolen of the
balcony--"marked his pallid yet beautiful countenance." And the next
day at the bull-fight she "flung her bouquet into the arena, and turning

to Di Sorno"--a perfect stranger, mind you--"smiled commandingly."
"In a moment he had flung himself headlong down among the flashing
blades of the toreadors and the trampling confusion of bulls, and in
another he stood before her, bowing low with the recovered flowers in
his hand. 'Fair sir,' she said, 'methinks my poor flowers were scarce
worth your trouble.'" A very proper remark. And then suddenly I put
the manuscript down.
My heart was full of pity for Euphemia. Thus had she gone a-dreaming.
A man of imposing physique and flashing eye, who would fling you
oxen here and there, and vault in and out of an arena without catching a
breath, for his lady's sake--and here I sat, the sad reality, a lean and
slippered literary pretender, and constitutionally afraid of cattle.
Poor little Euphemia! For after all is said and done, and the New
Woman gibed out of existence, I am afraid we do undeceive these poor
wives of ours a little after the marrying is over. It may be they have
deceived themselves, in the first place, but that scarcely affects their
disappointment. These dream-lovers of theirs, these monsters of
unselfishness and devotion, these tall fair Donovans and dark
worshipping Wanderers! And then comes the rabble rout of us poor
human men, damning at our breakfasts, wiping pens upon our coat
sleeves, smelling of pipes, fearing our editors, and turning Euphemia's
private boxes into public copy. And they take it so steadfastly--most of
them. They never let us see the romance we have robbed them of, but
turn to and make the best of it--and us--with such sweet grace. Only
now and then--as in the instance of a flattened hat--may a cry escape
them. And even then----
But a truce to reality! Let us return to Di Sorno.
This individual does not become enamoured of Gwendolen, as the
crude novel reader might anticipate. He answers her "coldly," and his
eye rests the while on her "tirewoman, the sweet Margot." Then come
scenes of jealousy and love, outside a castle with heavily mullioned
windows. The sweet Margot, though she turns out to be the daughter of
a bankrupt prince, has one characteristic of your servant all the world
over--she spends all her time looking out of the window. Di Sorno tells

her of his love on the evening of the bull-fight, and she cheerfully
promises to "learn to love him," and therafter he spends all his days and
nights "spurring his fiery steed down the road" that leads by the castle
containing the young scholar. It becomes a habit with him--in all, he
does it seventeen times in three chapters. Then, "ere it is too late," he
implores Margot to fly.
Gwendolen, after a fiery scene with Margot, in which she calls her a
"petty minion,"--pretty language for a young gentlewoman,--"sweeps
with unutterable scorn from the room," never, to the reader's huge
astonishment, to appear in the story again, and Margot flies with Di
Sorno to Grenada, where the Inquisition, consisting apparently of a
single monk with a "blazing eye," becomes extremely machinatory. A
certain Countess di Morno, who