of Gaeta, the
valley of San Germano, the wild and romantic mountain region of the
Abruzzi and a view, too, of the blue sea are in the panorama, bathed in
the opalescent, gleaming lights that often invest the Italian landscape
with jewelled splendor.

"I ask myself, Is this a dream?
Will it all vanish into air?
Is there a land of such supreme
And perfect beauty, anywhere?"

It might have been in this pictured dream-region that Hercules came to
rest.

"When Heracles, the twelve great labors done,
To Calpe came, and there his journey stayed,
He raised two pillars toward the evening sun,
And carved them by a goddess' subtle aid.
Upon their shafts were sacred legends traced,
And round the twain a serpent cincture placed:
'T was at this bound the primal world stood still,
And of Atlantis dreamed, with baffled will."

But still in unmeasured space, still beyond and afar and unattained,
still lost in the unpenetrated realms of the poet's fancy,--

"Atlantis lies beyond the pillars yet!"

_"Here Ischia smiles
O'er liquid miles."_

* * * * *

_High o'er the sea-surge and the sands,
Like a great galleon wrecked and cast
Ashore by storms, thy Castle stands
A mouldering landmark of the Past._

_Upon its terrace-walk, I see
A phantom gliding to and fro;
It is Colonna,--it is she
Who lived and loved so long ago._

LONGFELLOW.

_We are the only two that, face to face,
Do know each other, as God doth know us both.
--O fearless friendship, that held nothing back!
O absolute trust, that yielded every key,
And flung each curtain up, and drew me on
To enter the white temple of thy soul,
So vast, so cold, so waste!--and give thee sense
Of living warmth, of throbbing tenderness,
Of soft dependencies! O faith that made
Thee free to seek the spot where my dead hopes
Have sepulture, and read above the crypt
Deep graven, the tearful legend of my life!
There, gloomed with the memorials of my past,
Thou once for all didst learn what man accepts
Lothly--(how should he else?)--that never woman,
Fashioned a woman,--heart, brain, body, soul,--
Ever twice loved._

"_Vittoria Colonna to Michael Angelo._"

MARGARET J. PRESTON.

IV

A PAGE DE CONTI F