we were born in. It insists upon everybody's adding somewhat--a mite,
perhaps, but earned by incessant effort--to an accumulated pile of
usefulness, of which the only use will be, to burden our posterity with
even heavier thoughts and more inordinate labor than our own. No life
now wanders like an unfettered stream; there is a mill-wheel for the
tiniest rivulet to turn. We go all wrong, by too strenuous a resolution
to go all right.

Therefore it was--so, at least, the sculptor thought, although partly
suspicious of Donatello's darker misfortune--that the young Count found
it impossible nowadays to be what his forefathers had been. He could
not live their healthy life of animal spirits, in their sympathy with
nature, and brotherhood with all that breathed around them. Nature, in
beast, fowl, and tree, and earth, flood, and sky, is what it was of old;
but sin, care, and self-consciousness have set the human portion of the
world askew; and thus the simplest character is ever the soonest to go
astray.

"At any rate, Tomaso," said Kenyon, doing his best to comfort the old
man, "let us hope that your young lord will still enjoy himself at
vintage time. By the aspect of the vineyard, I judge that this will be
a famous year for the golden wine of Monte Beni. As long as your grapes
produce that admirable liquor, sad as you think the world, neither the
Count nor his guests will quite forget to smile."

"Ah, Signore," rejoined the butler with a sigh, "but he scarcely wets
his lips with the sunny juice."

"There is yet another hope," observed Kenyon; "the young Count may fall
in love, and bring home a fair and laughing wife to chase the gloom out
of yonder old frescoed saloon. Do you think he could do a better thing,
my good Tomaso?"

"Maybe not, Signore," said the sage butler, looking earnestly at him;
"and, maybe, not a worse!"

The sculptor fancied that the good old man had it partly in his mind to
make some remark, or communicate some fact, which, on second thoughts,
he resolved to keep concealed in his own breast. He now took his
departure cellarward, shaking his white head and muttering to himself,
and did not reappear till dinner-time, when he favored Kenyon, whom he
had taken far into his good graces, with a choicer flask of Sunshine
than had yet blessed his palate.

To say the truth, this golden wine was no unnecessary ingredient towards
making the life of Monte Beni palatable. It seemed a pity that Donatello
did