The wide amphitheatre of hills, clothed with olives,
oranges and pines and all the noblest forms of Italian vegetation,
embraced the silent sea, and seemed not a multiplicity of things, but a
single vast object under the all-pervading sunshine.
Lying on the grass, or sitting on a rock or under a tree, the young man
felt the river of life flow within him; as in a trance, he seemed to
feel the whole universe throb and palpitate in his breast; in a species
of religious rapture, he felt that he possessed the infinite. That which
he experienced was ineffable, divine. The vista before him opened out by
degrees into a profound and long continued vision, the branches of the
trees overhead supported the firmament, filling the blue, and shining
like the garlands of immortal poets. And he gazed and listened and
breathed with the sea and the earth, placid as a god.
Where were now all his vanities and his cruelties, his schemes and his
duplicities? What had become of all his loves and his illusions, his
disappointments and his disgusts, and the implacable reaction after
pleasure? He remembered none of them. His spirit had renounced them all,
and with the absence of desire, he had found peace.
Desire had abandoned its throne and intellect was free to follow its
proper course, and reflect the objective world purely from the outside
point of view; things appeared clearly and precisely under their true
form, in their true colours, in all their real significance and beauty;
every personal sentiment was in abeyance.
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