Edward Bulwer-Lytton: The Last Days of Pompeii

BOOK THE SECOND 4. Chapter IV (continued)

'You wear your veil at home,' said the Egyptian; 'that is not fair to those whom you honour with your friendship.'

'But to Arbaces,' answered Ione, who, indeed, had cast the veil over her features to conceal eyes red with weeping--'to Arbaces, who looks only to the mind, what matters it that the face is concealed?'

'I do look only to the mind,' replied the Egyptian: 'show me then your face--for there I shall see it.'

'You grow gallant in the air of Pompeii,' said Ione, with a forced tone of gaiety.

'Do you think, fair Ione, that it is only at Pompeii that I have learned to value you?' The Egyptian's voice trembled--he paused for a moment, and then resumed.

'There is a love, beautiful Greek, which is not the love only of the thoughtless and the young--there is a love which sees not with the eyes, which hears not with the ears; but in which soul is enamoured of soul. The countryman of thy ancestors, the cave-nursed Plato, dreamed of such a love--his followers have sought to imitate it; but it is a love that is not for the herd to echo--it is a love that only high and noble natures can conceive--it hath nothing in common with the sympathies and ties of coarse affection--wrinkles do not revolt it--homeliness of feature does not deter; it asks youth, it is true, but it asks it only in the freshness of the emotions; it asks beauty, it is true, but it is the beauty of the thought and of the spirit. Such is the love, O Ione, which is a worthy offering to thee from the cold and the austere. Austere and cold thou deemest me--such is the love that I venture to lay upon thy shrine--thou canst receive it without a blush.'

'And its name is friendship!' replied Ione: her answer was innocent, yet it sounded like the reproof of one conscious of the design of the speaker.