| 233 | 234 | 235 | 236 | 237 |
| 1 | 100 | 200 | 300 | 400 |
|
than by calling it a habit of intense and continual thought,
pervading even his most trivial actions--intruding upon his moments
of dalliance--and interweaving itself with his very flashes of
merriment--like adders which writhe from out the eyes of the grinning
masks in the cornices around the temples of Persepolis.
I could not help, however, repeatedly observing, through the mingled
tone of levity and solemnity with which he rapidly descanted upon
matters of little importance, a certain air of trepidation--a degree of
nervous unction in action and in speech--an unquiet excitability of
manner which appeared to me at all times unaccountable, and upon some
occasions even filled me with alarm. Frequently, too, pausing in the
middle of a sentence whose commencement he had apparently forgotten,
he seemed to be listening in the deepest attention, as if either in
momentary expectation of a visiter, or to sounds which must have had
existence in his imagination alone.
It was during one of these reveries or pauses of apparent abstraction,
that, in turning over a page of the poet and scholar Politian's
beautiful tragedy "The Orfeo," (the first native Italian tragedy,)
which lay near me upon an ottoman, I discovered a passage underlined in
pencil. It was a passage towards the end of the third act--a passage of
the most heart-stirring excitement--a passage which, although tainted
with impurity, no man shall read without a thrill of novel emotion--no
235
Page
Quick Jump
|