Chapter XV: Section II

The youngest, Ariel, his mother most loved; for he was mild of temper, and of a make which would have shamed the Apollo, cut by hands skilled to search out the hidden springs of manly beauty, and cunningly transform the ideal into a reality, to stand forever a wonder before the eyes of men. His auburn locks, parted on either side, fell thick, and rested upon his shoulders; and upon his brow, fairer than woman, sat intellect, softened and refined to express the hopes and sorrows, the sweet delights and bitter ills, which God gave a heritage to Adam and his seed when he drove out the sinning pair from Paradise. Tall, he stood like a cedar upon Lebanon. His eyes, large and lustrous, in color his mother’s and heaven’s, seemed ever dreaming of a life which, cradled upon earth, had elsewhere its happiness; and the long brown lashes that veiled their intenser light, shadowed with melancholy a face which else had been too bright. In childhood, he wept over tales of that fair land lost by his first ancestors; and sought on every side, through the sombre wood, and along the flowery mead, and up the streams to their sources amid the valleys of the hills, for some trace of a glory half-extinct which might lead him onward to its walls, guarded by flame; then, weary and sad, he would stand by the sea, and look out across its waters, and strain his eyes to find a new earth, and catch a glimpse of that strange fire which, under the rule of night, mellows the waves, and makes their path more enticing than the walks of Arcady the blest, or the garden in which Italia’s poet subdued Ruggerio to a witch’s love. Thus found by his mother, after long search, he would rest his head upon her knees, and repeat his hopes and disappointments, while she, softly chiding, wiped his tears away. Growing toward manhood, he, unwillingly and slow, now doubting and now believing, put off his childish faith, and sought for and found a rest more perfect, and more noble far, than that paradise which fled before the knowledge of evil and of good.