The scene reminded the sculptor of our New England vintages, where the
big piles of golden and rosy apples lie under the orchard trees, in the
mild, autumnal sunshine; and the creaking cider-mill, set in motion by
a circumgyratory horse, is all a-gush with the luscious juice. To speak
frankly, the cider-making is the more picturesque sight of the two,
and the new, sweet cider an infinitely better drink than the ordinary,
unripe Tuscan wine. Such as it is, however, the latter fills thousands
upon thousands of small, flat barrels, and, still growing thinner and
sharper, loses the little life it had, as wine, and becomes apotheosized
as a more praiseworthy vinegar.
Yet all these vineyard scenes, and the processes connected with the
culture of the grape, had a flavor of poetry about them. The toil that
produces those kindly gifts of nature which are not the substance of
life, but its luxury, is unlike other toil. We are inclined to fancy
that it does not bend the sturdy frame and stiffen the overwrought
muscles, like the labor that is devoted in sad, hard earnest to
raise grain for sour bread. Certainly, the sunburnt young men and
dark-cheeked, laughing girls, who weeded the rich acres of Monte Beni,
might well enough have passed for inhabitants of an unsophisticated
Arcadia. Later in the season, when the true vintage time should come,
and the wine of Sunshine gush into the vats, it was hardly too wild a
dream that Bacchus himself might revisit the haunts which he loved of
old. But, alas! where now would he find the Faun with whom we see him
consorting in so many an antique group?
Donatello's remorseful anguish saddened this primitive and delightful
life. Kenyon had a pain of his own, moreover, although not all a pain,
in the never quiet, never satisfied yearning of his heart towards Hilda.
He was authorized to use little freedom towards that shy maiden, even
in his visions; so that he almost reproached himself when sometimes his
imagination pictured in detail the sweet years that they might spend
together, in a retreat like this. It had just that rarest quality of
remoteness from the actual and ordinary world B a remoteness
through which all delights might visit them freely, sifted from all
troubles--which lovers so reasonably insist upon, in their ideal
arrangements for a happy union. It is possible, indeed, that even
Donatello's grief and Kenyon's pale, sunless affection lent a charm
to Monte Beni, which it would not have retained amid a more abundant
joyousness. The sculptor strayed amid its vineyards and orchards,
its dells and tangled shrubberies, with somewhat the sensations of an
adventurer who should find his way to the site of ancient Eden, and
behold its loveliness through the transparency of that gloom which has
been brooding over those haunts of innocence ever since the fall. Adam
saw it in a brighter sunshine, but never knew the shade of Pensive
beauty which Eden won from his expulsion.