CHAPTER X.
Chè difesa miglior ch'usbergo e scudo
E la santa innocenza al petto ignudo![1]
And they buried the Musician and his barbiton together, in the same coffin. That famous Steiner — primeval Titan of the great Tyrolese race — often hast thou sought to scale the heavens, and therefore must thou, like the meaner children of men, descend to the dismal Hades! Harder fate for thee than thy mortal master. For thy soul sleeps with thee in the coffin. And the music that belongs to his, separate from the instrument, ascends on high, to be heard often by a daughter's pious ears, when the heaven is serene and the earth sad. Tor there is a sense of hearing that the vulgar know not. And the voices of the dead breathe soft and frequent to those who can unite the memory with the faith.
And now Viola is alone in the world; alone in the home where loneliness had seemed from the cradle a thing that was not of nature. And at first the solitude and the stillness were insupportable. Have you, ye mourners,
- ↑ Better defence than shield or breastplate is holy innocence to the naked breast.
