Page:Valperga (1823) Shelley Vol 1.djvu/63

Ch. III.] bare, black walls, where before their neat cottages had stood."

Castruccio listened impatiently, and cried:—"Yet who would not rather be a knight, than one of those peasants, whose minds are as grovelling as their occupations?"

"That would not I," replied Guinigi fervently; "how must the human mind be distorted, which can delight in that which is ill, in preference to the cultivation of the earth, and the contemplation of its loveliness! What a strange mistake is it, that a peasant's life is incompatible with intellectual improvement! Alas! poor wretches; they are too hard-worked now to learn much, and their toil, uncheered by the applause of their fellow-creatures, appears a degradation; yet, when I would picture happiness upon earth, my imagination conjures up the family of a dweller among the fields, whose property is secure, and whose time is passed between labour and intellectual pleasures. Such now is my fate. The evening of my life steals gently on; and I have no regrets for the past, no wish for the future, but to continue as I am."