The River Falls journal. (River Falls, Pierce County, Wis.) 1857-1861, 1857-09-23

stronger natures than the world knows.
But the one is the love that demands lux
ury and ponlp:. it d.sl enses with glory,
but not with magni feence: it lies
"Jn pavilion. cloth of gold, of tissee,
Der pieturing that Vents where see
The fancy outwork nattre. =
Take away the majesty from that love,
and it sinks into the gross passion Of a
hoary dc tafd and Oh coquette. But
everything about the love OF juliet IS very
young, pure even in It's passion. 1t does
not lose worlds, but can dispense with the
world itself; it asks no purple eanopies, no
regal feasts; It's wine is ri,h enough with
our dissolving pears III its parking fresh
ness; it is precisely that which belongs to
the beautiful inexperience Of a passionate
girl: it is the incarnation Of passion, sole
ly because it is the incarnation of youth.
And there, iii that larn belonging to the
convsnt of the good old friar OF the tale
no rool above-the damp mould below
the broken, oblong sepulcher itself, half
filed with green water, is the tomb of
this being, made as familiar to us by ge-
MUS, as if she had really moved and ly-
ed before us-as if we had gazed upon
her in the revel, and listened to her voice
from the moonlit balcony. Nothing can
equal the sadness and gloom of the spot.
On the walls yet remain two old and ia
ded frcseos on the religious subjects ia
vored by Italian art; morning und night
the dews fall through the roofess howell,
and the melancholy stars CLEAN on the
tomb, whence the very dust is gonel 1t
has not even the grandeur of desolation-
no splendid sepulchre, no cathedral-aisle.
no Ligh arched-roof, impresses you with
awe. A heap of fagots, pilcd carolessly
at one end of the clubhouse, proves the
little veneration in which the place is held.
The SPOTS desecrated; the old tomb, with
its pillow of stone, is but broken cistern
to the eyes of the brethcren Of the con-
vent! The character of the place is drear,
unsanctifying, slovenly discomfort? Beau
tiful daughter of Capulet none care for
thee, thy love, or thy memories, save the
strangers from the Far Isle, whom north
ern minstrel hath taught to weep # thee!
1t is this peculiar Oh earincss, this want of
harmony between the spot and the asso-
Citations, which makes the scene SO i'm
pressive. The eager, tender, ardent Jul
liet-every thought a passionate very
Hebe of Romance, never fated to be old;
and this damp, unregarded bowel, strew-
ed with vile lumber, and profane to all
uses! What contrast what moral
of human affections Had it been green
spot in some quiet valley, with the holi-
ness of nature to watch over it, the tomb
would have impressed MS with sweet, not
sorrowful, associations. We should have
felt the soft steps Of the appropriate spirit
of the place, and dreams of poetry, as at
Arqua, or in the grotto of Egeria. But
there is no poetry here all IS stern and
real: the loveliest vision Of Shakespeare
surrounded by the hardest scenes of
Crabbe! And afar in the city rise the
gorgeous tombs of the Scaligers, the falni-
" of that Duke of Verona, who is but a
pageant, that enchanting tale! Ten
thousand forins Of gold had one of these
naughty princes consumed, in order to
eclipse, in his own, the magnifcence of
the tombs of his predecessors. Fretted
and arched in all the elaborate tracery OF
the fourteenth century, hose feu''al tolnbs
make vet the pride and boast OF Verona;
and to juliet, worth, to the place, all
the dukes that ever strutted the hour
upon the stage. this gray st n, and this
Wondering barn! 1t IS as If to aysnge
the slight upon her beart full memory, tia.
we Yawn as we gaze upon the tonos OF
power, and feel so deep sympathy with
this poor monument Of Owe!
The old wo,.an that showed US the
place had something in Ler of the pictur-
esque-aged, and wrinkled, and hldeous
with her hard hand impatcntly stretch
cd out for the petty con which was to
pay for admission to The spot--she suited
well with oil tue rest! She increased the
pathos that belongs to the deserted sanct-
uarv. How little could she feel that
nothing in Verena was SO precious to the
"Zincaro'' SO this miserable hove! "and
if it should not be Jul;ets .om5 sfer a "
Out, sceptic The tradition goes far back.
The dull Verones5themseives do not ques-
ton it! Why should we? We all bear
about us the prototype of that scene.-
That which make the passion and the glo-
ry of our youth, t. Juliet Of the heart
when once it has died and left us, les
not IFS tomb within us, forgotten and I'M
regarded-surrounded by The lumber OF
base cares, polluted by strange and indif-
ferent passers-by (the wishes and desires
of more vulgar life, J UNDECIDED unremem-
bcred-the sole monument which sanct'-
fies the Jude and commonplace abode In
which i moulders silently away.