Moths by Ouida — page 215: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

— MOTHS. ' | 21 was al. yivan, tranquil, picturesque, Watteau-like. That there could be anywhere a world full of revolution, speculation, pov- erty and socialism, and haste and noise, seemed impossible. At ischl, life may be still a voyage a Cythere, but not in the reckless and frivolous fashion of other places. All remains calm, placid, and touched with the graceful dxcorum of another time than ours. The bright Viennese are gay, indeed, as any butterflies can be; but still Ischi is Ischl, anc not Trouville, not Monaco, not Biarritz. Itis aristocratic, Austrian, and tranquil, and still be- longs to an age in which Nihilism and the electric light were un- known. ‘* A place to doze and dream in; and how good that is!” thought Correze, as he stood out on his balcony an hour after sunrise. ‘* What will the world be like when there are no such places? Horrible! but I shall be out of it; that is a supreme comfort.” } Yet, as he thought so, he did not realize that he would ever cease to be in the world:: who does? Life was still young in him, . was prodigalto him of good gifts; of enmity, he only knew se much as made his triumph finer, and of love he had more than enough. His life was full—at times laborious—but always Liga and always victorious. He could not realize that the ay of darkness would ever come for him, when neither woman nor man would delight him, when, no roses would have fragrance for him, and no song any spell torouse him. Genius gives imiortality in another sense than in the vulgar one of being praised by others after death; it gives elasticity, unwearied sympathy, and that sense of some essence stronger than death, of some spirit higher than the tomb, which nothing can destroy. It is in this sense that genius walks with the mn- mortals. Correze leaned over his balcony, and watched the emerald-hued Traun flow by, and the sun’s rays touch the woods behind the water-mill upon the left. His life was of the world and in it, but the mountaineer’s love of nature remained with him. But it was not of the woods or the waters or even of the pretty women who | went by in their chaits to the Trinkhalle, that he was thinking now. He was looking at the empty chair in the balcony under- neath, and the fan that had lain there all night. As he bent down and looked, a knot of edelweiss was flung up- ward, and fell at his feet, and a voice that he knew cried out to him: ‘‘ Good-morning, Correze! You serenaded us divinely, last night. Come and breakfast with us at ten o’clock, We live by cock-crow here.” The voice was the voice of Jeanne de Sonnaz, who came out te the balcony that he had been told was Vere’s. Astonished, and not pleased, he returned some graceful compliment, and won- dered how it was that she was there. The duchess looked un «* him and laughed; her ugly face looked prettier than many preity women’s. She was in a loose white gown that was all torrents and cascades of lace; she had a real moss-rose over her right ear and at her bosom; she had little Chinese slippers on, all over pearls, with filigree butterflies that trembled above her toes, comicboo, cS.