I told you we had beautiful and consoling thoughts,
and more than thoughts. All else is lost, our wealth, our arts, our
luxury, our invention, all have vanished. The niggard earth scarcely
yields us a subsistence; we dress like Kurds, feed hardly as well; but
if we were to quit these mountains, and wander like them on the plains
with our ample flocks, we should lose our sacred images, all the
traditions that we yet cherish in our souls, that in spite of our hard
lives preserve us from being barbarians; a sense of the beautiful and
the lofty, and the divine hope that, when the rapidly consummating
degradation of Asia has been fulfilled, mankind will return again to
those gods who made the earth beautiful and happy; and that they, in
their celestial mercy, may revisit that world which, without them, has
become a howling wilderness.'
'Lady,' said Tancred, with much emotion, 'we must, with your permission,
speak of these things. My heart is at present too full.'
'Come hither,' said the Queen, in a voice of great softness; and she led
Tancred away.
They entered a chamber of much smaller dimensions, which might be looked
upon as a chapel annexed to the cathedral or Pantheon which they had
quitted. At each end of it was a statue.
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