“Higher!—­no, lower!—­you get nothing right!...  Now let this sapphire sparkle on my brow.  You’re pricking me, you careless thing!  That’s good!  I love you, Anna dear.  How fair I am....

  “I hope he’ll be there, too—­the one I’ve tried
  To forget! no use! (Anna, my gown!) he too ... 
  (O fie, you wicked girl! my necklace, this?
  These golden beads the Holy Father blessed?)

  “He’ll be there—­Heavens! suppose he takes my hand
  —­I scarce can draw my breath for thinking of it! 
  And I confess to Father Anselmo
  To-morrow—­how can I ever tell him all?... 
  One last glance at the mirror. 
  O, I’m sure That they’ll adore me at the ball to-night.”

  Before the fire she stands admiringly. 
  O God! a spark has leapt into her gown. 
  Fire, fire!—­O run!—­Lost thus when mad with hope? 
  What, die? and she so fair?  The hideous flames
  Rage greedily about her arms and breast,
  Envelop her, and leaping ever higher,
  Swallow up all her beauty, pitiless—­
  Her eighteen years, alas! and her sweet dream.

  Adieu to ball, to pleasure, and to love! 
  “Poor Constance!” said the dancers at the ball,
  “Poor Constance!”—­and they danced till break of day.

  [66] Isaiah xiv, 8.

  [67] Isaiah lv, 12.

  [68] Night Thoughts, 2. 345.

  [69] Pastorals:  Summer, or Alexis, 73 ff., with the omission of
  two couplets after the first.

  [70] From the poem beginning ’T is said that some have died for
  love, Ruskin evidently quoted from memory, for there are several
  verbal slips in the passage quoted.

  [71] Stanza 16, of Shenstone’s twenty-sixth Elegy.

  [72] The Excursion, 6. 869 ff.

  [73] I cannot quit this subject without giving two more instances,
  both exquisite, of the pathetic fallacy, which I have just come
  upon, in Maud:—­

                    For a great speculation had fail’d;
  And ever he mutter’d and madden’d, and ever wann’d with despair;
  And out he walk’d, when the wind like a broken worldling wail’d,
  And the flying gold of the ruin’d woodlands drove thro’ the air.

      There has fallen a splendid tear
        From the passion-flower at the gate.
      The red rose cries, “She is near, she is near!”
        And the white rose weeps, “She is late.” 
      The larkspur listens, “I hear, I hear!”
        And the lily whispers, “I wait." [Ruskin.]

OF CLASSICAL LANDSCAPE

VOLUME III, CHAPTER 13