Romola I-II. [antikvár]

ROMOLA. P R O E M. More than three centuries and a half ago, in the mid-spring-time of 1492, we are sure that the angel of the dawn, as he travelled with broad slow wing from the Levant to the Pillare of Hercules, and from the summits of the Cau-casus across ali the snowy Alpine ridges to the dark naked-ness of the Western isles, saw nearly the same outline of firm land and unstable sea—saw the same great mountain shadows on the same Valleys as he has seen to-day—saw olive mounts, and pine forests, and the broad plains, green with young corn or rain-freshened grass—saw the domes and spires of cities rising by the river sides or mingled with the sedge-like masts on the many-curved sea coast, in the same spots where they rise to-day. And as the faint light of his course pierced into the dwellings of men, it feil, as now, on the rosy warmth of nestling children; on the haggard waking of sorrow and sickness; on the hasty uprising of the hard-handed labourer; and on the late sleep of the night-student, who had been questioning the stare or the sages, or his own soul, for that hidden knowledge which would break through the barrier of man's brief life, and show its dark path, that seemed to bend no whither, to be an arc in an immeasurable circle of light and glory. The great river courses which have shaped