Shapes and colors and projects all
lived again for him, but his mind received no clear and perfect
conception. It was the poet's task to complete the sketches of the
great master, who had scornfully mingled on his palette the hues of
the numberless vicissitudes of human life. When the world at large at
last released him, when he had pondered over many lands, many epochs,
and various empires, the young man came back to the life of the
individual. He impersonated fresh characters, and turned his mind to
details, rejecting the life of nations as a burden too overwhelming
for a single soul.
Yonder was a sleeping child modeled in wax, a relic of Ruysch's
collection, an enchanting creation which brought back the happiness of
his own childhood. The cotton garment of a Tahitian maid next
fascinated him; he beheld the primitive life of nature, the real
modesty of naked chastity, the joys of an idleness natural to mankind,
a peaceful fate by a slow river of sweet water under a plantain tree
that bears its pleasant manna without the toil of man. Then all at
once he became a corsair, investing himself with the terrible poetry
that Lara has given to the part: the thought came at the sight of the
mother-of-pearl tints of a myriad sea-shells, and grew as he saw
madrepores redolent of the sea-weeds and the storms of the Atlantic.
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