for
her? He drew his breath sharply and looked out to sea, as many a
heart-broken man has looked across that fair water since woman first
learned that men's hearts could break.

It was a wonderful afternoon. The sun was already low, rolling down to
his western bath behind Capo Miseno, northernmost of all his daily
plunges in the year; and as he sank, the colours he had painted on the
hills at dawn returned behind him, richer and deeper and rarer for the
heat he had given them all day. There, like a mass of fruit and flowers
in a red gold bowl, Sorrento lay in the basin of the surrounding
mountains, all gilded above and full of rich shadows below. Over all,
the great Santangelo raised his misty head against the pale green
eastern sky, gazing down at the life below, at the living land and the
living sea, and remembering, perhaps, the silent days before life was,
or looking forward to the night to come in which there will be no life
left any more. For who shall tell me that the earth herself may not be a
living, thinking, feeling being, on whose not unkindly bosom we wear out
our little lives, but whose high loves are with the stars, beyond our
sight, and her voice too deep and musical for ears used to our shrill
human speech? Who shall say surely that she is not conscious of our
presence, of some of our doings when we tear her breast and lay burdens
upon her neck and plough up her fair skin with our hideous works, or
when we touch her kindly and love her, and plant sweet flowers in soft
places? Who shall know and teach us that the summer breeze is not her
breath, the storm the sobbing of her passion, the rain her woman's
tears--that she is not alive, loving and suffering, as we all have been,
are, or would be, but greater than we as the star she loves somewhere is
greater and stronger than herself? And we live upon her, and feed on her
and all die and are taken back into her whence we came, wondering much
of the truth that is hidden, learning perhaps at last the great secret
she keeps so well. Her life, too, will end some day, her last blossom
will have bloomed alone, her last tears will have fallen upon her own
bosom, her last sob will have rent the air, and the beautiful earth will
be dead for ever, borne on in the sweep of the race that will never end,
borne along yet a few ages, till her sweet body turns to star-dust in
the great emptiness of a night without morning.

But Ruggiero, plain strong man of the people, har