d its loathsome keeper has seized them
as its prey. I looked into the tyrant's shuddering soul, as it trembled
past me. There, amidst the ruins of a thousand systems which aimed at
virtue, sat Crime, and shivered at its desolation. Yet this man is the
only Thinker, the only Aspirant, amongst them all. He still looks for
a future of peace and mercy, to begin,--ay! at what date? When he has
swept away every foe. Fool! new foes spring from every drop of blood.
Led by the eyes of the Unutterable, he is walking to his doom.

O Viola, thy innocence protects thee! Thou whom the sweet humanities
of love shut out even from the dreams of aerial and spiritual beauty,
making thy heart a universe of visions fairer than the wanderer over the
rosy Hesperus can survey,--shall not the same pure affection encompass
thee, even here, with a charmed atmosphere, and terror itself fall
harmless on a life too innocent for wisdom?

CHAPTER 7.IV.

Ombra piu che di notte, in cui di luce
Raggio misto non e;

....

Ne piu il palagio appar, ne piu le sue
Vestigia; ne dir puossi--egli qui fue.
--"Ger. Lib.", canto xvi.-lxix.

(Darkness greater than of night, in which not a ray of light is
mixed;...The palace appears no more: not even a vestige,--nor
can one say that it has been.)

The clubs are noisy with clamorous frenzy; the leaders are grim with
schemes. Black Henriot flies here and there, muttering to his armed
troops, "Robespierre, your beloved, is in danger!" Robespierre stalks
perturbed, his list of victims swelling every hour. Tallien, the Macduff
to the doomed Macbeth, is whispering courage to his pale conspirators.
Along the streets heavily roll the tumbrils. The shops are closed,--the
people are gorged with gore, and will lap no more. And night after
night, to the eighty theatres flock the children of the Revolution, to
laugh at the quips of comedy, and weep gentle tears over imaginary woes!

In a small chamber, in the heart of the city, sits the mother, watching
over her child. It is quiet, happy noon; the sunlight, broken by the
tall roofs in the narrow street, comes yet through the open casement,
the impartial playfellow of the air, gleesome alike in temple and
prison, hall and hovel; as golden and as blithe, whether it laugh over
the first hour of life, or quiver in its gay delight on the terror
and agony of the last! The child, where it lay at the feet of Viola,
stretched ou