nance sometimes paternal and sometimes angry;
and I tell you, Oswald, heaven has to-night condemned our love."--"My
dear," answered Lord Nelville, "the only omens of the life of man, are
his good or evil actions; and have I not this very evening, immolated my
most ardent desires on the altar of virtue?"--"Well, so much the better
if you are not included in this presage," replied Corinne; "it may be
that this angry sky has only threatened me."

FOOTNOTE:

[32] There is a charming description of the Lake of Albano, in a
collection of poems by Madame Brunn, _nee_ Muenter, whose talent and
imagination give her a first rank among the women of her country.

Chapter ii.

They arrived at Naples by day, in the midst of that immense population,
at once so animated and so indolent. They first traversed the Via
Toledo, and saw the Lazzaroni lying on the pavement, or in osier baskets
which serve them for lodging, day and night. There is something
extremely original in this state of savage existence, mingled with
civilization. There are some among these men who do not even know their
own name, and who go to confess anonymous sins; not being able to tell
who it is that has committed them. There is a subterranean grotto at
Naples where thousands of Lazzaroni pass their lives, only going out at
noon to see the sun, and sleeping the rest of the day, whilst their
wives spin. In climates where food and raiment are so easy of attainment
it requires a very independent and active government to give sufficient
emulation to a nation; for it is so easy for the people merely to
subsist at Naples, that they can dispense with that industry which is
necessary to procure a livelihood elsewhere. Laziness and ignorance
combined with the volcanic air which is breathed in this spot, ought to
produce ferocity when the passions are excited; but this people is not
worse than any other. They possess imagination, which might become the
principle of disinterested actions and give them a bias for virtue, if
their religious and political institutions were good.

Calabrians are seen marching in a body to cultivate the earth with a
fiddler at their head, and dancing from time to time, to rest themselves
from walking. There is every year, near Naples, a festival consecrated
to the _madonna of the grotto_, at which the girls dance to the sound of
the tambourine and the castanets, and it is not uncommon for a condition
to be inserted in the marriage cont