Rienzi by Edward Bulwer-lytton — Read

If, in adopting the legendary love tale of Romeo and Juliet, Shakespeare / had changed the scene in which it is cast for a more northern clime, we / may doubt whether the art of Shakespeare himself could have reconciled / us at once to the suddenness and the strength of Juliet's passion. And, / even as it is, perhaps there are few of our rational and sober-minded / islanders who would not honestly confess, if fairly questioned, that / they deem the romance and fervour of those ill-starred lovers of Verona / exaggerated and over-drawn. Yet, in Italy, the picture of that affection / born of a night -- but "strong as death" -- is one to which the veriest / commonplaces of life would afford parallels without number. As in / different ages, so in different climes, love varies wonderfully in the / shapes it takes. And even at this day, beneath Italian skies, many a / simple girl would feel as Juliet, and many a homely gallant would rival / the extravagance of Romeo. Long suits in that sunny land, wherein, as / whereof, I now write, are unknown. In no other land, perhaps, is there / found so commonly the love at first sight, which in France is a jest, / and in England a doubt; in no other land, too, is love, though so / suddenly conceived, more faithfully preserved. That which is ripened / in fancy comes at once to passion, yet is embalmed through all time by / sentiment. And this must be my and their excuse, if the love of / Adrian some too prematurely formed, and that of Irene too romantically / conceived; -- it is the excuse which they take from the air and sun, from / the customs of their ancestors, from the soft contagion of example. / But while they yielded to the dictates of their hearts, it was with a / certain though secret sadness -- a presentiment that had, perhaps, its / charm, though it was of cross and evil. Born of so proud a race, Adrian / could scarcely dream of marriage with the sister of a plebeian; and / Irene, unconscious of the future glory of her brother, could hardly / have cherished any hope, save that of being loved. Yet these adverse / circumstances, which, in the harder, the more prudent, the more / self-denying, perhaps the more virtuous minds, that are formed beneath / the northern skies, would have been an inducement to wrestle against / love so placed, only contributed to feed and to strengthen theirs by / an opposition which has ever its attraction for romance. They found / frequent, though short, opportunities of meeting -- not quite alone, but / only in the conniving presence of Benedetta: sometimes in the public / gardens, sometimes amidst the vast and deserted ruins by which the house / of Rienzi was surrounded. They surrendered themselves, without much / question of the future, to the excitement -- the elysium -- of the hour: / they lived but from day to day; their future was the next time they / should meet; beyond that epoch, the very mists of their youthful love / closed in obscurity and shadow which they sought not to penetrate: and / as yet they had not arrived at that period of affection when there was / danger of their fall, -- their love had not passed the golden portal where / Heaven ceases and Earth begins. Everything for them was the poetry, / the vagueness, the refinement, -- not the power, the concentration, the / mortality, -- of desire! The look -- the whisper -- the brief pressure of the / hand, at most, the first kisses of love, rare and few, -- these marked the / human limits of that sentiment which filled them with a new life, which / elevated them as with a new soul.

The roving tendencies of Adrian were at once fixed and centered; the / dreams of his tender mistress had awakened to a life dreaming still, but / "rounded with a truth. " All that earnestness, and energy, and fervour of / emotion, which, in her brother, broke forth in the schemes of patriotism / and the aspirations of power, were, in Irene, softened down into one / object of existence, one concentration of soul, -- and that was love. Yet, / in this range of thought and action, so apparently limited, there was, / in reality, no less boundless a sphere than in the wide space of her / brother's many-pathed ambition. Not the less had she the power and / scope for all the loftiest capacities granted to our clay. Equal was her / enthusiasm for her idol; equal, had she been equally tried, would have / been her generosity, her devotion: -- greater, be sure, her courage; more / inalienable her worship; more unsullied by selfish purposes and sordid / views. Time, change, misfortune, ingratitude, would have left her the / same! What state could fall, what liberty decay, if the zeal of man's / noisy patriotism were as pure as the silent loyalty of a woman's love?