Page:Zanoni.djvu/94

64 gentle head! But thou, Paisiello, calm in the long prosperity of fame, knowest that the New will have its day, and comfortest thyself that the Elfrida and the Pirro will live for ever. Perhaps a mistake, but it is by such mistakes that true genius conquers envy. "To be immortal," says Schiller, "live in the whole." To be superior to the hour, live in thy self-esteem. The audience now would give their ears for those variations and flights they were once wont to hiss. No! — Pisani has been two-thirds of a life at silent work on his masterpiece: there is nothing he can add to that, however he might have sought to improve on the masterpieces of others. Is not this common? The least little critic, in reviewing some work of art, will say, "pity this, and pity that;" "this should have been altered — that omitted." Yea, with his wiry fiddlestring will he creak out his accursed variations. But let him sit down and compose himself. He sees no improvement in variations then! Every man can control his fiddle when it is his own work with which its vagaries would play the devil.

And Viola is the idol — the theme of Naples. She is the spoiled sultana of the boards. To spoil her acting may be easy enough — shall they spoil her nature? No, I think not. There, at home, she is still good and simple; and there, under the awning by the doorway — there she still sits, divinely musing. How often, crook-trunked tree, she looks to thy green boughs; how often, like thee, in her dreams and fancies, does she struggle for the light; — not the light of the