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.




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