Have you ever thought about what fiction is? Probably, such a question may seem surprising: and so everything is clear. Every person throughout his life has to repeatedly create the works he needs for specific purposes - statements, autobiographies, dictations - using not gypsum or clay, not musical notes, not paints, but just a word. At the same time, almost every person will be very surprised if he is told that he thereby created a work of fiction, which is very different from visual art, music and sculpture making. However, everyone understands that a student's essay or dictation is fundamentally different from novels, short stories, news that are created by professional writers. In the works of professionals there is the most important difference - excogitation. But, oddly enough, in a school literature course, you don’t realize the full power of fiction. So using our website in your free time discover fiction for yourself. The Last Days of Pompeii by Baron Edward Bulwer Lytton Lytton (interesting books to read txt) 📖
Book online «The Last Days of Pompeii by Baron Edward Bulwer Lytton Lytton (interesting books to read txt) 📖». Author Baron Edward Bulwer Lytton Lytton
'Take then these roses,' said Glaucus; 'let their fragrance suggest to thee Ione.'
'Alas, the roses will fade!' said the Neapolitan, archly.
Thus conversing, they wore away the hours; the lovers, conscious only of the brightness and smiles of love; the blind girl feeling only its darkness—its tortures—the fierceness of jealousy and its woe!
And now, as they drifted on, Glaucus once more resumed the lyre, and woke its strings with a careless hand to a strain, so wildly and gladly beautiful, that even Nydia was aroused from her reverie, and uttered a cry of admiration.
'Thou seest, my child,' cried Glaucus, 'that I can yet redeem the character of love's music, and that I was wrong in saying happiness could not be gay. Listen, Nydia! listen, dear Ione! and hear:
THE BIRTH OF LOVE I Like a Star in the seas above, Like a Dream to the waves of sleep— Up—up—THE INCARNATE LOVE— She rose from the charmed deep! And over the Cyprian Isle The skies shed their silent smile; And the Forest's green heart was rife With the stir of the gushing life— The life that had leap'd to birth, In the veins of the happy earth! Hail! oh, hail! The dimmest sea-cave below thee, The farthest sky-arch above, In their innermost stillness know thee: And heave with the Birth of Love! Gale! soft Gale! Thou comest on thy silver winglets, From thy home in the tender west, Now fanning her golden ringlets, Now hush'd on her heaving breast. And afar on the murmuring sand, The Seasons wait hand in hand To welcome thee, Birth Divine, To the earth which is henceforth thine. II Behold! how she kneels in the shell, Bright pearl in its floating cell! Behold! how the shell's rose-hues, The cheek and the breast of snow, And the delicate limbs suffuse, Like a blush, with a bashful glow. Sailing on, slowly sailing O'er the wild water; All hail! as the fond light is hailing Her daughter, All hail! We are thine, all thine evermore: Not a leaf on the laughing shore, Not a wave on the heaving sea, Nor a single sigh In the boundless sky, But is vow'd evermore to thee! III And thou, my beloved one—thou, As I gaze on thy soft eyes now, Methinks from their depths I view The Holy Birth born anew; Thy lids are the gentle cell Where the young Love blushing lies; See! she breaks from the mystic shell, She comes from thy tender eyes! Hail! all hail! She comes, as she came from the sea, To my soul as it looks on thee; She comes, she comes! She comes, as she came from the sea, To my soul as it looks on thee! Hail! all hail!Chapter III THE CONGREGATION.
FOLLOWED by Apaecides, the Nazarene gained the side of the Sarnus—that river, which now has shrunk into a petty stream, then rushed gaily into the sea, covered with countless vessels, and reflecting on its waves the gardens, the vines, the palaces, and the temples of Pompeii. From its more noisy and frequented banks, Olinthus directed his steps to a path which ran amidst a shady vista of trees, at the distance of a few paces from the river. This walk was in the evening a favorite resort of the Pompeians, but during the heat and business of the day was seldom visited, save by some groups of playful children, some meditative poet, or some disputative philosophers. At the side farthest from the river, frequent copses of box interspersed the more delicate and evanescent foliage, and these were cut into a thousand quaint shapes, sometimes into the forms of fauns and satyrs, sometimes into the mimicry of Egyptian pyramids, sometimes into the letters that composed the name of a popular or eminent citizen. Thus the false taste is equally ancient as the pure; and the retired traders of Hackney and Paddington, a century ago, were little aware, perhaps, that in their tortured yews and sculptured box, they found their models in the most polished period of Roman antiquity, in the gardens of Pompeii, and the villas of the fastidious Pliny.
This walk now, as the noonday sun shone perpendicularly through the chequered leaves, was entirely deserted; at least no other forms than those of Olinthus and the priest infringed upon the solitude. They sat themselves on one of the benches, placed at intervals between the trees, and facing the faint breeze that came languidly from the river, whose waves danced and sparkled before them—a singular and contrasted pair; the believer in the latest—the priest of the most ancient—worship of the world!
'Since thou leftst me so abruptly,' said Olinthus, 'hast thou been happy? has thy heart found contentment under these priestly robes? hast thou, still yearning for the voice of God, heard it whisper comfort to thee from the oracles of Isis? That sigh, that averted countenance, give me the answer my soul predicted.'
'Alas!' answered Apaecides, sadly, 'thou seest before thee a wretched and distracted man! From my childhood upward I have idolized the dreams of virtue! I have envied the holiness of men who, in caves and lonely temples, have been admitted to the companionship of beings above the world; my days have been consumed with feverish and vague desires; my nights with mocking but solemn visions. Seduced by the mystic prophecies of an impostor, I have indued these robes;—my nature (I confess it to thee frankly)—my nature has revolted at what I have seen and been doomed to share in! Searching after truth, I have become but the minister of
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