Page:In Maremma, by Ouida (vol 1).djvu/333

 instinct of delight in natural beauty which made Linnæus fall on his knees before the English gorse and thank God for having made so beautiful a thing. This child of the foolish and sensual Serapia and of the murderer Mastarna was a poet at heart; in another land, and under other circumstances, the world might have heard of her and have hearkened as eagerly to her as the people of Santa Tarsilla had listened to her singing. Had study and wise companionship been given to her she might have found utterance for all the thoughts and fancies, the dreams and the affections, that thronged on her amidst the woods and on the sea, but left her dumb and moved to a mute joy, keen almost to pain.

In a freer and a gladder day than hers, in time of Urbinan or Florentine or Venetian greatness, she might have forced her own way up to light and learning, and made the heaven of some great soul, and been crowned with the golden laurel on the Capitol.

As it was, her sympathies and her imaginings spent themselves in solitary song as she made the old strings of the lute throb in low cadence when she sat solitary by her hearth on the rock floor of the grave;