Page:Zanoni.djvu/69

Rh They converse — they confess to each other — they conjure up the past, and repeople it; but note how differently do such remembrances affect the two. On Zanoni's face, despite its habitual calm, the emotions change and go. He has acted in the past he surveys; but not a trace of the humanity that participates in joy and sorrow can be detected on the passionless visage of his companion; the Past, to him, as is now the Present, has been but as nature to the sage, the volume to the student — a calm and spiritual life — a study — a contemplation.

Prom the Past they turn to the Future. Ah! at the close of the last century, the Future seemed a thing tangible — it was woven up in all men's fears and hopes of the Present.

At the verge of that hundred years, Man, the ripest-born of Time, stood as at the deathbed of the Old World, and beheld the New Orb, blood-red amidst cloud and vapour — uncertain if a comet or a sun. Behold the icy and profound disdain on the brow of the old man — the lofty yet touching sadness that darkens the glorious countenance of Zanoni. Is it that one views with contempt the struggle and its issue, and the other with awe or pity? Wisdom contemplating mankind leads but to the two results — compassion or disdain. He who believes in other worlds can accustom himself to look on this as the naturalist