Volume VI Part 44 (1/2)
”Yes, and to that fact I owe my happiness”
”It would be a pity for you if you found yourself mistaken”
”Not such a pity as you may think, Madam 'Carpe diem' is my motto 'Tis likewise the motto of that finished voluptuary, Horace, but I only take it because it suits me The pleasure which follows desires is the best, for it is the most acute
”True, but it cannot be calculated on, and defies the philosopher
May God preserve you,out this painful truth by experience! The highest good lies in enjoyment; desire too often remains unsatisfied If you have not yet found out the truth of Horace's ratulate you”
The aave no positive answer
Chiaccheri now opened his reatest happiness he could wish us was that we should never agree TheChiaccheri with a smile, but I could not do so
”I had rather contradict you,” I said, ”than renounce all hopes of pleasing you The abbe has thrown the apple of discord between us, but if we continue as we have begun I shall take up my abode at Sienna”
The marchioness was satisfied with the saan to talk co me if I should like to see company and enjoy society of the fair sex She promised to take me everywhere
”Pray do not take the trouble,” I replied ”I want to leave Sienna with the feeling that you are the only lady to whoe, and that the Abbe Chiaccheri has been uide”
The marchioness was flattered, and asked the abbe and htful house she had at a hundred paces frorew the more I became attached to the intellectual charms of women With the sensualist, the contrary takes place; he becoht in Venus's shrines, and flies fro her I told the abbe that if I stayed at Sienna I would see no other woreed that I was very right
The abbe shewed me all the objects of interest in Sienna, and introduced me to the literati, who in their turn visited me
The same day Chiaccheri took me to a house where the learned society assembled It was the residence of two sisters--the elder extreer very pretty, but the elder sister was accounted, and very rightly, the Corinna of the place She askedto return the co that came into my head, and she replied with a few lines of exquisite beauty I couessed that I did not believe her to be the author, and proposed that we should try bouts riave out the rhyly sister finished first, and when the verses came to be read, hers were pronounced the best I was aave her in writing In five minutes she returned it to ht was ant I was stillher name, and found her to be the famous ”Shepherdess,” Maria Fortuna, of the Academy of Arcadians
I had read the beautiful stanzas she had written in praise of Metastasio I told her so, and she brought me the poet's reply in manuscript
Full of admiration, I addressed myself to her alone, and all her plainness vanished
I had had an agreeable conversation with theI was literally in an ecstacy
I kept on talking of Fortuna, and asked the abbe if she could improvise in the manner of Gorilla He replied that she had wished to do so, but that he had disallowed it, and he easily convinced me that this improvisation would have been the ruin of her fine talent I also agreed with hi impromptus too frequently, as such hasty verses are apt to sacrifice wit to rhyst the Greeks and Romans is due to the fact that Greek and Latin verse is not under the doreat poets seldo as they did that such verses were usually feeble and coht searching for a vigorous and elegantly-turned phrase When he had succeeded, he wrote the words on the wall and went to sleep The lines which cost hienerally prosaic; they may easily be picked out in his epistles
The amiable and learned Abbe Chiaccheri, confessed to liness He added that he had never expected it when he began to teach her to make verses
”I can't understand that,” I said, ”sublata lucerna', you know”
”Not at all,” said he, with a laugh, ”I love her for her face, since it is inseparable from my idea of her”
A Tuscan has certainly more poetic riches at his disposal than any other Italian, and the Siennese dialect is sweeter and h the latter claims the title of the classic dialect, on account of its purity This purity, together with its richness and copiousness of diction it owes to the acadereat richness of Italian we can treat a subject with far greater eloquence than a French writer; Italian abounds in synonyms, while French is lah at those who said that the French tongue could not be charged with poverty, as it had all that was necessary A man may have necessaries, and yet be poor The obstinacy of the French acaden words skews more pride than wisdom This exclusiveness cannot last