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Psychology Around Us
Third Canadian Edition

RONALD COMER
Princeton University

NANCY OGDEN
Mount Royal University

MICHAEL BOYES
University of Calgary

ELIZABETH GOULD
Princeton University
 VICE PRESIDENT, EDUCATION Tim Stookesberry

VICE PRESIDENT AND DIRECTOR George Hoffman

DIRECTOR OF PSYCHOLOGY Veronica Visentin
SENIOR MANAGER, CONTENT Karen Staudinger
ENABLEMENT & OPERATIONS
DEVELOPMENT EDITOR Daleara Hirjikaka

SENIOR MARKETING MANAGER Glenn Wilson

SENIOR CONTENT MANAGER Dorothy Sinclair
PRODUCTION EDITOR AND MEDIA Meaghan MacDonald
SPECIALIST
DESIGN Wiley
COVER DESIGN Joanna Vieira/Wiley
SENIOR PHOTO EDITOR Mary Ann Price
COVER IMAGE © Caiaimage/Sam
Edwards/Getty Images

Founded in 1807, John Wiley & Sons, Inc. has been a valued source
of knowledge and understanding for more than 200 years, helping
people around the world meet their needs and fulfill their aspirations.
Our company is built on a foundation of principles that include
responsibility to the communities we serve and where we live and
work. In 2008, we launched a Corporate Citizenship Initiative, a global
effort to address the environmental, social, economic, and ethical
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addressing are carbon impact, paper specifications and procurement,
ethical conduct within our business and among our vendors, and
community and charitable support. For more information, please visit
our website: www.wiley.com/go/citizenship.
Copyright © 2018 John Wiley & Sons Canada, Ltd.
Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons Canada, Ltd. All rights reserved.
No part of this work covered by the copyrights herein may be
reproduced, transmitted, or used in any form or by any means—
graphic, electronic, or mechanical—without the prior written
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be directed to The Canadian Copyright Licensing Agency (Access
Copyright). For an Access Copyright Licence, visit
www.accesscopyright.ca or call toll-free, 1-800-893-5777.
Care has been taken to trace ownership of copyright material
contained in this text. The publishers will gladly receive any
information that will enable them to rectify any erroneous reference or
credit line in subsequent editions.
Evaluation copies are provided to qualified academics and
professionals for review purposes only, for use in their courses during
the next academic year. These copies are licensed and may not be
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period, please return the evaluation copy to Wiley. Return instructions
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ISBN 9781119348610 (E-Pub)
The inside back cover will contain printing identification and country of
origin if omitted from this page. In addition, if the ISBN on the back
cover differs from the ISBN on this page, the one on the back cover is
correct.
About the Authors
RONALD COMER has taught in Princeton University’s Department of
Psychology for the past 35 years and has served as Director of
Clinical Psychology Studies for most of that time. He has received the
President’s Award for Distinguished Teaching at the university. Comer
also is the author of the textbooks Abnormal Psychology, now in its
seventh edition, and Fundamentals of Abnormal Psychology, now in
its ninth edition, and is the coauthor of Case Studies in Abnormal
Psychology. He is the producer of various educational videos,
including The Introduction to Psychology Video Library Series. In
addition, he has published journal articles in clinical psychology,
personality, social psychology, and family medicine.
NANCY OGDEN is a professor at Mount Royal University in the
Department of Psychology where she has taught for the past 25
years. She has previously published another Canadian introductory
psychology textbook. Ogden has twice received the Teaching
Excellence Award at Mount Royal University. She works and
publishes in the areas of poverty, social and emotional development in
children and adolescents and their families, homeless youth, physical
literacy in early childhood, and in data management for non-profit
agencies serving children, youth, and families. She also does
research pertaining to the development of study strategy information
in undergraduates.
MICHAEL BOYES has taught at the University of Calgary in the
Department of Psychology for 30 years. He has previously published
another Canadian introductory psychology textbook. Boyes received
the University of Calgary Student Union Teaching Award. He
publishes, consults, and runs courses and workshops in the areas of
cognitive and social development in families, children, adolescents,
and emerging adults, as well as in programs aimed at optimizing
student experiences in post-secondary developmental pathways. He
assists with the development and telling the stories (evaluation) of
programs by and for urban Aboriginal children, youth, and families and
programs dealing with domestic violence. He has also served as an
expert witness in cases related to matters of adolescent consent.
ELIZABETH GOULD has taught in Princeton University’s Department
of Psychology for the past 12 years. A leading researcher in the study
of adult neurogenesis, she has published numerous journal articles on
the production of new neurons in the adult mammalian brain. Gould
has been honoured for her breakthrough work with a number of
awards, including the 2006 NARSAD Distinguished Investigator Award
and the 2009 Royal Society of the Arts Benjamin Franklin Medal. She
serves on the editorial boards of The Journal of Neuroscience,
Neurobiology of Learning and Memory, Biological Psychology, and
Cell Stem Cell.
To the Instructor
Psychology is all around us. If ever there was subject matter that
permeates our everyday lives, it is psychology. Behaviour occurs
everywhere, and mental processes affect all that we do; therefore, the
study of individual behaviour and mental processes can help shed
light on a wide range of events and issues.
Psychology Around Us, Third Canadian Edition, helps open
students’ minds to the notion that psychology is indeed around them
every day and that its principles are immediately applicable to a whole
host of life’s questions. It also features classroom-proven pedagogy to
keep students engaged and help them master the material.
We are committed to demonstrating for students the relevance and
interconnectedness of all areas of psychology. We aim to encourage
students to examine not only what they know about human behaviour
but how they know it, and seek to open students up to an appreciation
of how psychology pervades the world around them and how it can
assist them in seeing, understanding, and optimizing their experiences
within the world.

About the Text

Our content is unique in that while each topic is still covered in its own
chapter, the integrated nature of psychology permeates every chapter.
For example, how can students get a full appreciation of memory
without discussing the vital role of the hippocampus, or how memory
develops, or Alzheimer’s disease? Psychology Around Us, Third
Canadian Edition is a truly integrated product—one that brings all of
these elements together into one, complete discussion of any given
topic of psychology.
This integration is accomplished by offering a thorough, current
presentation of the nature, explanations, applications, and research
(including key Canadian research) of each topic, but also includes
sections on neuroscience, development, dysfunctions, and individual
differences that illustrate how each of these key areas is tied to other
areas of psychology. These sections present psychology as a united
and integrated discipline, therefore allowing students to see “the big
picture.”

New to this Edition

Our goal for the third Canadian edition of Psychology Around Us
was to continue to make it as engaging as possible for students and
as supportive as possible for instructors. We asked reviewers to
provide us with constructive input in terms of the strong science base
of the coverage, their own concerns regarding key topics for inclusion,
and what their students found engaging about the material—what they
wanted to know, what questions they asked, and what seemed to
most pique their interest. We have incorporated many of the
suggestions made by reviewers.

Currency and Content Changes

We updated and added a considerable number of references in each
chapter to ensure that readers get access to the most up-to-date
research related to the topics covered. In addition, we continued to
add current, relevant references to make the research foundations of
the theories, concepts, and findings we discussed current and clear.
Where new studies suggested new conceptual understandings of
areas of psychological work, we added them and made sure their
relationships to previous work was clear. A good example of this is in
Chapter 15, which reflects how the neurological underpinnings of
many disorder symptom patterns has been significantly expanded by
the recent reorganization of funding priorities by the American
National Institute of Mental Health. This move is aimed at shaking
research in that area loose from the historical focus on Diagnostic and
Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) diagnostic categories. It
has opened up opportunities for research in the United States and
around the world into the neurological connections across diagnostic
categories and the investigation of neurological assessment and
diagnostic tools.
Reflecting a concern from reviewers that many students tend to view
feature boxes as superfluous, we reduced the number of boxes from
the second edition and embedded the content of many Psychology
Around Us boxes directly into our coverage of core psychological
concepts and research.

Canadian Content
In the third Canadian edition of Psychology Around Us we have
illuminated the important work of Canadian researchers in context.
Examples of trailblazing Canadian work highlighted include that by
historical figures such as Donald Hebb, Peter Milner, and James Olds
(Chapter 1). Chapter 2 features work on the effects of viewing
violence on television or in video games by Jonathan Freedman at the
University of Toronto; work on spatial memory, frontal lobe function,
and lateralization by Brenda Milner at McGill University; and research
on many aspects of sensation and perception and work on dog
intelligence and behavioural management by Stan Coren at the
University of British Columbia. Chapter 3 highlights recent fMRI
research on creativity from Melissa Ellamil and her colleagues at the
University of British Columbia; the work of Lili-Naz Hazrati and her
colleagues at the University Toronto on chronic traumatic
encephalopathy; and research by Kevin Englehart and colleagues at
the University of New Brunswick on neural machine interface for
control of artificial limbs. Chapter 3 also highlights Bill Cade’s research
at the University of Lethbridge on aspects of the evolutionary process
in crickets and the work of Roslyn Dakin, University of British
Columbia, and Robert Montgomerie, Queen’s University, on the
mating success of peacocks. Chapter 4 features the Romanian
Adoption Research Project by Elinor Ames, Simon Fraser University;
Jeremy Carpendale’s research out of Simon Fraser University on the
cognitive development of children; Kerry Daly’s work on the Fathers’
Involvement Research Alliance from the University of Guelph; and the
research of Mary Nixon and her colleagues as well as E. David
Klonsky and his colleagues, from the University of British Columbia,
on the mechanisms of self-harm. Chapter 6 highlights work on the
complexity of brain functioning related to human consciousness by
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Brian Kolb and Ian Wishaw at the University of Lethbridge and
research on change blindness by Ronald Resnick at the University of
British Columbia. Chapter 7 features the work of E. David Klonsky and
his colleagues at the University of British Columbia on the
mechanisms of self-harm. Chapter 8 highlights research on memory
and aging by Fergus Craik and Nicole Anderson at the Rotman
Research Institute at Baycrest, Toronto, as well as Robert S. Lockhart
at the University of Toronto. Chapter 8 includes classical work on
explicit memory by Endel Tulving at the University of Toronto. Chapter
9 features groundbreaking work on infant phonemic processing by
Janet Werker at the University of British Columbia and research on
the roles of cognitive processing and self-awareness in short and
longer-term planning by Michael Chandler at the University of British
Columbia and Jeremy Carpendale at Simon Fraser University.
Chapter 10 discusses the controversial and divisive work on race and
IQ by the late Philippe Rushton at the University of Western Ontario
and David Suzuki’s public challenges and debates with Rushton, as
well as evaluation research on the effectiveness of early intervention
programs by Mike Boyes (an author of this textbook) at the University
of Calgary. Chapter 11 features research on the relationship between
getting “psyched up” and “choking” among hockey goaltenders by
Ryan Gelinas and Krista Munroe-Chandler at the University of
Windsor and important research on eating disorders by Kristen von
Ranson at the University of Calgary. Chapter 12 highlights work on the
developmental trajectories of delinquent Aboriginal youth in Manitoba
by government researchers Annie Yessine and James Bonta and
research on the incidence of antisocial personality disorder by Rodger
Bland at the University of Alberta. Chapter 13 covers research on
prejudice by Bertram Gawronski and his colleagues at the University
of Western Ontario and by Kerry Kawakami and others at York
University, as well as research on interracial marriage in Canada by
Reginald Bibby, a sociologist from the University of Lethbridge.
Chapter 14 highlights the classic foundational research on stress and
general adaptation syndrome by Hans Selye, who worked at McGill
University. Chapter 15 features the work of Jitender Sareen and
colleagues at the University of Manitoba on socio-economic class and
psychopathology; research linking suicide and cultural continuity in
Aboriginal youth by Michael Chandler at the University of British
Columbia and Chris Lalonde of the University of Victoria; work linking
interpersonal stress and depression among adolescent girls by Kate
Harkness and her colleagues at Queen’s University; the University of
British Columbia’s Robert Hare’s work on psychopathy; the research
of Regina Schuller of York University and James Ogloff of Simon
Fraser University on the nature of criminal responsibility; and research
on social anxiety and perfectionism by Paul Hewitt from the University
of British Columbia and Gordon Flett from York University. Finally,
Chapter 16 highlights the work of Patricia Sealy and Paul Whitehead
and their colleagues at the University of Western Ontario on the
effects of deinstitutionalization.

Special Pedagogical Tools

Tying It Together
We have structured each of the chapters in a very particular way—
with a cross-sectional presentation. Using a Tying It Together
approach, every chapter on a substantive area of psychology includes
wordmarks highlighting the integration of the four subfields of
psychology—development, brain function, individual differences, and
dysfunctions. These wordmarks, , ,
, and , enable students to
readily integrate the material into what they already know both from
within the book and from their broader experiences.

Your Brain and Behaviour

In recent years neuroscience has been tied to virtually every subfield
of psychology. Remarkable brain imaging studies, in conjunction with
animal studies, have helped us to identify the neural mechanisms of
everyday experience. Accordingly, Psychology Around Us, Third
Canadian Edition, incorporates neuroscience information into
chapters where it has traditionally been absent, such as social
psychology and consciousness.
In addition, the product offers a key teaching feature—Tying It
Together: Your Brain and Behaviour—that illustrates the link between
the brain and behaviour when people are performing such common
activities as eating pizza, learning to play a video game, acquiring a
second language, giving a speech in public, or running a marathon.
These features, which include neuroimages and findings from both
human studies and relevant animal experiments, draw students into
the brain and provide them with up-to-date information about the
neural mechanisms at work during their everyday experiences. Each
feature includes questions that allow students to test their knowledge.
Regardless of their background in neuroscience, students come away
intrigued by material that has traditionally been considered difficult.

Additional Features
Chapter Opener Outline
Every chapter begins with an outline of the main headings in the
chapter, with the accompanying learning objective. Each chapter also
starts with a description about a person or situation to introduce
concepts and interest students in the chapter content. This
introductory material helps to give readers a big-picture overview of
the chapter and helps to prepare them for the material they will need
to learn.

Guided Learning
A Learning Objective for each chapter section identifies the most
important material for students to understand while reading that
section.
Following each section is a Before You Go On feature with questions
that help students check their mastery of the important items covered.
What Do You Know? questions prompt students to stop and review
the key concepts just presented. What Do You Think? questions
encourage students to think critically on key questions in the chapter.

Special Topics on Psychology Around Us

Each chapter highlights interesting news stories, current controversies
in and around psychology, and relevant research findings that
demonstrate psychology around us.
The Psychology Around Us boxes highlight how psychology
affects us in our everyday lives, in every way, with examples from
Canada and around the world.
The Practically Speaking boxes emphasize the practical
application of everyday psychology.

Thorough Coverage
Psychology Around Us, Third Canadian Edition, contains 16
chapters that cover all the topics of psychology in depth. Instead of
combining chapters on stress and emotion, or psychological disorders
and their treatment, each topic is given full coverage in its own,
separate chapter. This gives you ultimate flexibility in determining how
much time you want your students to devote to each topic. If you want
to cover neuroscience briefly, then simply assign the relevant pages
from that chapter; but if you want to cover neuroscience in depth, you
have a full chapter at your disposal that contains detailed and
integrated coverage of the topic.

Chapter Summary
The end-of-chapter summary reviews the main concepts presented in
the chapter with reference to the specific Learning Objectives. It
provides students with another opportunity to review what they have
learned as well as to see how the key topics within the chapter fit
together. End-of-chapter Self-Study Questions have been added, with
answers provided, to help students do a quick check of key concepts
covered.

Resources
WileyPlus with ORION
WileyPLUS with ORION adaptive practice improves outcomes with
robust practice problems and feedback, fosters engagement with
course content and educational videos, and gives students the
flexibility to increase confidence as they learn and prepare outside of
class. With ORION, instructors can see how their students learn best
and adjust material appropriately. For students, ORION allows them to
focus on their weakest areas to make study time more efficient.

WileyPLUS helps instructors:

Save time by automating grading of practice, homework, quizzes,
and exams
Create a focused and personalized course that reflects their
teaching style
Quickly identify and understand student learning trends to improve
classroom engagement
Improve their course year over year using WileyPLUS data

Wiley E-Textbook
E-Textbooks are complete digital versions of the text that help
students study more efficiently as they:
Access content online and off line on their desktop, laptop, and
mobile device
Search across the entire book content
Take notes and highlight
Copy and paste or print key sections
Wiley E-Text: Powered by Vitalsource® provides students with
anytime, anywhere access to course content. With the Wiley E-Text,
students can:
Create a personalized study plan
Easily search content and make notes
Share insights and questions with peers
Wiley Custom
This group’s services allow you to:
Adapt existing Wiley content and combine texts
Incorporate and publish your own materials
Collaborate with our team to ensure your satisfaction

Wiley Custom Select

Wiley Custom Select allows you to build your own course materials
using selected chapters of any Wiley text and your own material if
desired. For more information, contact your Wiley sales representative
or visit http://customselect.wiley.com/.

Videos
The Psychology Around Us series of psychology videos help bring
lectures to life and, most important, engage students. They help
demonstrate that psychology is all around us and that thought and
behaviour, from the everyday to the abnormal, is truly fascinating.
Averaging about five minutes each in length, this collection of videos
covers a range of relevant topics. Each video is a high-quality excerpt
from various agencies or independent video libraries chosen from a
televised news report, documentary, lab study, or the like, and
illustrating a specific lecture point, bringing the topic to life in exciting
ways.
The wide selection of clips in this package focus on topics ranging
from the split-brain phenomenon to conformity and obedience,
emotions of fear or disgust, sensations of taste and smell, infant facial
recognition, gender orientation, and brain development.
The video program is readily accessible and easily integrated into any
introductory psychology course through the Psychology Around Us,
Third Canadian Edition, WileyPLUS course. If instructors choose not
to use any or all the videos in the classroom they have the option of
assigning videos to students for viewing outside of class. Instructors
can also use the prepared quizzes that test understanding of the
videos’ content and relevance.

Student and Instructor Resources

The Instructor’s Manual presents teaching suggestions for each
chapter and includes ideas for lecture classroom discussions,
demonstrations, and videos.
Every chapter contains a PowerPoint Presentation with a
combination of key concepts, figures and tables, and problems and
examples from the textbook. The instructor’s version also includes
notes for additional discussion points or activities you can use during
your lecture. In addition, each PowerPoint contains links to videos and
animation tutorials available for that chapter.
The Test Bank contains over 200 questions per chapter with a variety
of question types—multiple choice, true/false, short answer, and
essay. The Test Bank is available in a Word® document format, as
well as a Computerized Test Bank, which allows you to upload the test
bank into your learning management system. The questions are
available to instructors to create and print multiple versions of the
same test by scrambling the order of all questions found in the Word
version of the test bank. This allows users to customize exams by
altering or adding new questions.
Practice Quizzes offer several questions per learning objective that
students can use to test their knowledge of the chapter content.
Clicker questions offer 10 to 15 questions per chapter that can be
used with a variety of personal response (or “clicker”) systems.
An MCAT correlation guide links MCAT topics to chapters and
sections in Psychology Around Us, Third Canadian Edition,
making it easy for students to use the content to prepare for the MCAT
exam.
The Wiley Psychology Weekly Update site
(http://wileypsychologyupdates.ca) features articles and videos to
help keep learners up to date on the field of psychology and illustrates
the real-world significance of psychology in everyday life. Discussion
questions are provided to help guide an understanding of the article or
video and to encourage class participation.

Acknowledgements
The writing of this text has been a group effort involving the input and
support of many individuals. We owe an enormous debt of gratitude to
the people at Wiley for their encouragement, support, and assistance
in guiding and developing the production of this text. In particular, we
wish to recognize those with whom we worked most closely, and who
deserve a special debt of gratitude. First, we want to thank the
Director of Psychology, Veronica Visentin, for her stalwart leadership
on this project. We also want to recognize with deep appreciation the
efforts of Daleara Hirjikaka, Developmental Editor. Daleara was
committed to the project; contributed important ideas and suggestions;
provided timely, thoughtful, and perceptive feedback; and kept us on
track. We also want to recognize Leanne Rancourt and Gail Brown,
who worked with us on previous editions of the text, for their insights
and suggestions. The efforts of all three developmental editors have
made this text infinitely stronger over its three editions.
We are extremely thankful to the entire editorial, production, and sales
and marketing teams for their expertise and support of this book,
including: Glenn Wilson, Senior Marketing Manager; Karen
Staudinger, Senior Manager, Content Enablement and Operations;
Meaghan MacDonald, Production and Media Specialist; Mary Ann
Price, Senior Photo Editor; Joanna Vieira, Multimedia Designer; Ethan
Lipson, Editorial Assistant; and Deanna Durnford, Supplements
Coordinator. We are truly grateful for the efforts and expertise of
Laurel Hyatt, copyeditor, as well as permissions researcher Karyn
Morrison and indexer Belle Wong, and the editorial assistance offered
by Ward Jardine and Erin Torrance.
We thank George Alder for his past contributions to Chapter 2 and for
the single-handed creation of Appendix B, which introduces students
to statistics and their importance in psychology research. George
explains theories and concepts about research and statistics in ways
that are uniquely comprehensible to students, and we know that the
book is stronger because of this. As well, Evelyn Field developed and
wrote the section on evolutionary psychology in Chapter 3, and we
thank her for sharing her expertise and for her cogent writing. Like
George, Evelyn is skilled at drawing students into material that is
typically viewed as “dry” or “uninteresting,” and we are confident that
her work will engage students, thereby aiding their understanding. We
thank also research assistants Emily Ogden-Boyes and Erika Gomez
for their contributions to the text. They searched for and acquired
hundreds of citation sources and worked tirelessly on the manuscript.
We would also like to acknowledge the past work of Daniel
Cryderman, who created answers for the Before You Go On
questions, and Keegan Patterson, who made insightful contributions
to some of the content in previous editions.
On a personal note, we thank our families, friends, and colleagues for
their encouragement and support.
Finally, a very special thank you goes out to the faculty members who
have contributed to the development of the core content (both the
previous and current editions), its digital resources, and its powerful
supplemental program. We would particularly like to thank Evelyn
Field, Cheryl Techentin, and Meghan Quinlan for their extraordinary
and creative work. To the reviewers who gave their time and
constructive criticism (both to the development of the previous editions
and this current edition), we offer our heartfelt thanks. We are deeply
indebted to the following individuals and trust they will recognize their
significant contributions throughout the text.

Reviewers
George Alder, Simon Fraser University
Cheryl Bereziuk, Grande Prairie Regional College
Jody Bain, University of Victoria
Jacqueline Blundell, Memorial University of Newfoundland
Wendy Bourque, University of New Brunswick
Emma Climie, University of Calgary
John Conklin, Camosun College
Leora Dahl, Okanagan College
Lori Doan, University of Manitoba
James Drover, Memorial University of Newfoundland
Kristie Dukewich, University of Toronto
Ben Dyson, Ryerson University
Judy Eaton, Wilfrid Laurier University
Deborah Flynn, Nipissing University
Leonard George, Capilano University
Carla Gunn, University of New Brunswick
Sandra Hessels, Huron University College at Western
Mark Holder, University of British Columbia
Lynne Honey, Grant MacEwan University
Tamara Jenkins, Mount Royal University
Rajiv Jhangiani, Capilano University
Jacqueline Kampman, Thompson Rivers University
Trudy Kwong, Mount Royal University
Beverley Lenihan, Camosun College
Karsten Loepelmann, University of Alberta, North Campus
Laura Loewen, Okanagan College
Colleen MacQuarrie, University of Prince Edward Island
Rick Maddigan, Memorial University
Susan McBride, Langara College
Rick Mehta, Acadia University
Blaine Mullins, University of Alberta
Kim O’Neil, Carleton University
Tim Parker, University of Alberta, Augustana Campus
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Susana Phillips, Kwantlen Polytechnic University
Wayne Podrouzek, Kwantlen Polytechnic University
Jennifer Poole, Langara College
Kavita Prakash, Heritage College
Jamie Prowse-Turner, Red Deer College
Lorena Ruci, Carleton University
Heather Schellinck, Dalhousie University
Harry Strub, University of Winnipeg
Doug Symons, Acadia University
Cheryl Techentin, Mount Royal University
Susan Thompson, Kwantlen Polytechnic University
Bruce Tsuji, Carleton University
Roger Tweed, Kwantlen Polytechnic University
Greg Tyndall, College of New Caledonia
Claire Vanston, Capilano University
Ashley Waggoner-Denton, University of Toronto
Pamela Woodman, University of Alberta, Augustana Campus
Cara Zaskow, Capilano University
Table of Contents
Cover
Title Page
About the Authors
To the Instructor
CHAPTER 1: Psychology: Yesterday and Today
What Is Psychology?
Psychology’s Roots in Philosophy
The Early Days of Psychology
Twentieth-Century Approaches
Psychology Today
Summary
Key Terms
Self-Study Questions
CHAPTER 2: Psychology as a Science
What Is a Science?
Is Psychology a Science?
How Do Psychologists Conduct Research?
How Do Psychologists Make Sense of Research Results?
What Ethical Research Guidelines Do Psychologists Follow?
Summary
Key Terms
Self-Study Questions
CHAPTER 3: Neuroscience
How Do Scientists Study the Nervous System?
How Does the Nervous System Work?
How Do Neurons Work?
 How Is the Nervous System Organized?
Structures of the Brain
Brain Side and Brain Size
Evolution and Evolutionary Psychology
Summary
Key Terms
Self-Study Questions
CHAPTER 4: Human Development
How Is Developmental Psychology Studied?
Understanding How We Develop
Heredity and Prenatal Development
Infancy and Childhood
Adolescence
Adulthood
Summary
Key Terms
Self-Study Questions
CHAPTER 5: Sensation and Perception
Common Features of Sensation and Perception
The Chemical Senses: Smell and Taste
The Tactile or Cutaneous Senses: Touch, Pressure, Pain,
Vibration
The Auditory Sense: Hearing
The Visual Sense: Sight
Summary
Key Terms
Self-Study Questions
CHAPTER 6: Consciousness
When We Are Awake: Conscious Awareness
 Preconscious and Unconscious States
When We Are Asleep
Hypnosis
Meditation
Psychoactive Drugs
Summary
Key Terms
Self-Study Questions
CHAPTER 7: Learning
What Is Learning?
Classical Conditioning
Operant Conditioning
Observational Learning
Learning and Cognition
Factors that Facilitate Learning
Prenatal and Postnatal Learning
Specific Learning Disorder
Summary
Key Terms
Self-Study Questions
CHAPTER 8: Memory
What Is Memory?
How Do We Encode Information into Memory?
How Do We Store Memories?
How Do We Retrieve Memories?
Why Do We Forget and Misremember?
Memory and the Brain
Memories in the Young and Old
Disorders of Memory
 Summary
Key Terms
Self-Study Questions
CHAPTER 9: Language and Thought
Language
The Relationship between Language and Thought
Thought
Summary
Key Terms
Self-Study Questions
CHAPTER 10: Intelligence
What Do We Mean by Intelligence?
Additional Types of Intelligence
How Do We Measure Intelligence?
Is Intelligence Governed by Genetic or Environmental Factors?
The Brain and Intelligence
Extremes in Intelligence
Summary
Key Terms
Self-Study Questions
CHAPTER 11: Motivation and Emotion
Theories of Motivation
Biological Motivations: Hunger
Biological Motivations: Sex
Psychological Motivations: Affiliation and Achievement
What Is Emotion?
Theories of Emotion
What About Positive Emotions?
Summary
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knew well, and which, because of its effect of incongruity with her
usual pose, suggested to him the image of a dark, closed house
where violent hands had suddenly opened on rusty hinges all the
doors and windows.
"We must praise Ariadne," he replied, "for having uttered, in all this
harmony, the most sublime note."
Stelio said those flattering words only to induce the fair singer to
speak, only through a desire to know the timbre of that voice when
it descended from the heights of song. But his praise was lost in the
reiterated clamor of the crowd, which overflowed on the Molo,
making a longer stay impossible. From the bank, Stelio assisted the
two friends into their gondola; then he sat down on a stool at their
knees, and the long, dentellated prow sparkled, like all else, in the
magic fire.
"To the Rio Marin, by the Grand Canal," La Foscarina ordered the
gondolier. "Do you know, Effrena, we are to have at supper some of
your best friends: Francesco de Lizo, Daniele Glauro, Prince Hoditz,
Antimo della Bella, Fabio Molza, Baldassare Stampa"—
"Then it will be a banquet?"
"But not, alas! like that of Cana."
"And will not Lady Myrta, with her Veronese greyhounds, be there?"
"Rest assured that we shall have Lady Myrta. Did you not see her in
the hall? She sat in the first row, lost in admiration of you."
Because they had looked into each other's eyes as they spoke, a
sudden emotion seized them. The remembrance of that full twilight
hour on the water that rippled beneath their oar filled their hearts
with a wave of troubled blood; and each was surprised by a swift
return of the same agitation felt when leaving the silent estuary
already in the power of shadow and death. Their lips refused to utter
vain, light words; their souls refused to make the effort to incline
themselves through prudence toward the passing trivialities of the
superficial life, which now seemed worthless to both; and their
spirits became absorbed in the contemplation of the strange fancies
that rose from their inmost thoughts in a garb of indescribable
richness, like the heaped-up treasures the streams of light seemed
to reveal in the depths of the nocturnal waters.
And, because of that very silence, they felt the presence of the
singer weigh heavily upon them, as in the moment when her name
had first been spoken between them; and little by little the
oppression became intolerable. Although Stelio was seated close to
her, she appeared no less distant than when she rose above the
forest of instruments; she was as absent and unconscious as she
had been when her voice soared high in song. She had not yet
spoken.
Simply to hear her speak, and almost timidly, Stelio said:
"Shall you remain some time longer in Venice?"
He had pondered on the first words he should say to her, but was
dissatisfied with whatever rose to his lips, for all phrases seemed too
vivid, insidious, full of ambiguous significance, capable of infinite
changes and transformations, like the unknown seed from which
may spring a thousand roots. And it seemed to him that Perdita
could not hear one of those phrases without feeling that a shadow
darkened her love.
After he had spoken those simple, conventional words, he reflected
that even that question might suggest an infinity of hope and
eagerness.
"I must leave Venice to-morrow," Donatella replied. "I ought not to
be here even now."
Her voice, so clear and powerful in the heights of song, was low and
sober, as if suffused with a slight opacity, suggesting the image of
the most precious metal wrapped in the most delicate velvet. Her
brief reply indicated that there was a place of suffering to which she
must return, where she must undergo some familiar torture. Like
iron tempered with tears, a strong though sorrowful will shone
through the veil of her youthful beauty.
"To-morrow!" Stelio exclaimed, not seeking to hide his sincere
regret. "Have you heard, Signora?"
"I know," the actress replied, gently taking Donatella's hand. "I am
filled with regret to see her go. But she cannot remain away longer
from her father. Perhaps you do not yet know"—
"What?" asked Stelio quickly. "Is he ill? Is it true, then, that Lorenzo
Arvale is ill?"
"No, he is only fatigued," said La Foscarina, touching her forehead
with a gesture perhaps involuntary but which revealed to Stelio the
horrible menace hanging over the genius of the artist who had
seemed as fertile and indefatigable as one of the old masters—a
Della Robbia or a Verrocchio.
"He is only fatigued," repeated La Foscarina. "He needs repose and
quiet. And his daughter's singing is very soothing to him. Do you not
believe, also, Effrena, in the healing power of music?"
"Certainly," Stelio replied, "Ariadne possesses a divine gift whereby
her power transcends all limits."
The name of Ariadne came spontaneously to his lips to indicate the
singer as she appeared to his fancy, for it seemed to him impossible
to pronounce the young girl's real name preceded by the ordinary
appellation imposed by social usage. In his eyes she was perfect and
singular, free from the little ties of custom, living her own
sequestered life, like a work of art on which style had set its
inviolable seal. He thought of her as isolated like those figures that
stand out with clear contour, far from common life, lost in mystic
reverie; and already, before that impenetrable character, he felt a
sort of passionate impatience, somewhat similar to that of a curious
man before something hermetically sealed that tempts him.
"Ariadne had for the soothing of her griefs the gift of forgetfulness,"
said Donatella, "and that I do not possess."
A bitterness perhaps involuntary infused these words, in which Stelio
fancied he detected the indication of an aspiration toward a life less
oppressed by useless suffering. He guessed at her revolt against a
certain form of domestic slavery, the horror of her self-imposed
sacrifice, her vehement desire to rise toward joy, and her inborn
aptitude for being drawn like a beautiful bow by a strong hand that
would know how to use it for some high conquest. He divined that
she had no longer any hope of her father's recovery, and that she
was saddened at the thought that henceforth she could only be the
guardian of a darkened hearth, of ashes without a spark. The image
of the great artist rose in his mind, not as he was, since Stelio never
had known him personally, but such as he had fancied the sculptor
after studying his ideas of beauty expressed in imperishable bronze
and marble. His mind fixed itself on that image with a sensation of
terror more icy than that which the most appalling aspects of death
could have inspired. And all his strength, all his pride and his ardor
seemed to resound within him like weapons shaken by a menacing
hand, sending a quiver through every fiber of his heart.
Presently La Foscarina lifted the funereal black curtain, which
suddenly, amid the splendors of the festival, had seemed to change
the gondola into a coffin.
"Look!" she said, pointing out to Stelio the balcony of Desdemona's
palace: "See the beautiful Nineta receiving the homage of the
Serenade, as she sits between her pet monkey and her little dog."
"Ah, the beautiful Nineta!" said Stelio, rousing himself from his wild
thoughts, and saluting the smiling occupant of the balcony, a little
woman who was listening to the music, her face illumined from two
silver candelabra, from the branches of which hung wreaths of the
last roses of the year. "I have not yet seen her this time. She is the
gentlest and most graceful animal I know. How fortunate was our
dear Howitz to discover her behind the lid of an old harpsichord
when he was rummaging in that curiosity shop at San Samuele! Two
pieces of good fortune in one day: the lovely Nineta and a
harpsichord lid painted by Pordenone. Since that day, the harmony
of his life has been complete. How I should like to have you
penetrate to his nest! You would find there a perfect example of that
which I spoke of this evening, at twilight. There is a man who, by
obeying his native taste for simplicity, has arranged for himself with
minute art his own little love-story, in which he lives as happily as
did his Moravian ancestor in the Arcady of Rosswald. Ah! I know a
thousand exquisite things about him!"
A large gondola, decorated with many-colored lanterns, and laden
with singers and musicians, had stopped beneath the balcony of
Desdemona's house. The old song of brief youth and fleeting beauty
rose sweetly toward the little woman who listened with her child-like
smile, sitting between the monkey and the lapdog, making a group
like one of Pietro Longhi's prints.

Do beni vu gharè
Beleza e zoventù;
Co i va no i torna più,
Nina mia cara....

"Does it not seem to you, Effrena, that these surroundings express

the true soul of Venice, and that the other picture, which you
presented to the multitude, is only your own fancy?" said La
Foscarina, nodding her head slightly in time with the rhythm of the
sweet song that spread through the Grand Canal and was reechoed
from afar by singers in other gondolas.
"No," Stelio replied, "this does not at all represent the true soul of
Venice. In each one of us, fluttering like a butterfly over the surface
of our deeper nature, is a lighter soul, an animula, a little playful
sprite that often dominates us for the moment, and leads us toward
simple and mediocre pleasures, toward puerile pastimes and
frivolous music. This animula vagula exists even in the gravest and
most violent natures, like the clown attached to the person of
Othello; and sometimes it misleads our better judgment. That which
you hear now, in the songs and the melodies of the guitars, is the
animula, or lighter spirit, of Venice; but her real soul is discovered
only in silence, and most terribly, be assured, in full summer, at
noonday, like the soul of the great god Pan. Out in the harbor of San
Marco, I thought that you felt its mystic vibration during those
moments of the great conflagration. You are forgetting Giorgione for
Rosalba!"
Around the large gondola beneath the balcony had gathered other
gondolas bearing languid women who leaned out to listen to the
music in attitudes of graceful abandon, as if in fancy they felt
themselves sinking into invisible arms. And around this romantic
group the reflections of the lanterns in the water quivered like a
flowering of rare and luminous water-lilies.

Se lassarè passar
La bela e fresca età,
Un zorno i ve dirà
Vechia maura,
E bramarè, ma invan,
Quel che ghavevi in man
Co avè lassà scampar
La congiontura.

It was, in truth, the song of the last roses that entwined the
candelabra. It called up in Perdita's mind the funeral cortège of the
dead Summer, the opalescent veil in which Stelio had wrapped the
sweet body in its golden robe. Through the glass, sealed by the
Master of Fire, she could see her own image at the bottom of the
lagoon, lying on a field of seaweed. A sudden chill stole over her;
once more she felt horror and disgust of her own body, no longer
young. And, remembering her recent promise, thinking that perhaps
this very night the beloved one would claim its fulfilment, she
shuddered with a sort of sorrowful modesty, a mingling of fear and
pride. Her experience and despairing eyes ran over the young girl
beside her, studying her, penetrating her, realizing her occult but
certain power, her intact freshness, pure health, and that indefinable
virtue of love that emanates like an aroma from chaste maidens
when they have arrived at the perfection of their bloom. She felt that
some secret current of affinity existed between this fair creature and
the poet; she could almost divine the words he addressed to her in
the silence of his heart. A bitter pang seized her, so intolerable that,
with an involuntary movement, her fingers clutched convulsively the
black rope of the arm-rest beside her, so that the little metal griffin
that held it creaked audibly.
This movement did not escape Stelio's anxious vigilance. He
understood her agitation, and for a moment he experienced the
same pang, but it was mingled with impatience and almost with
anger, for her anguish, like a cry of destruction, interrupted the
fiction of transcendent life that he had been constructing within
himself in order to conciliate the contrast, to conquer this new force
that offered itself to him like a bow to be drawn, yet at the same
time not to lose the savor of that ripe maturity which life had
impregnated with all its essences, and the benefit of that devotion
and that passionate faith which sharpened his intelligence and fed
his pride.
"Ah, Perdita!" he said to himself, "From the ferment of your human
loves, why has not a love more than human sprung. Ah, why have I
finally vanquished you by my pleading, although I know it is too
late? and why do you allow me to read in your eyes the certainty of
your yielding, amid a flood of doubts which, nevertheless, never
again will have power to reëstablish the abolished interdiction. Each
of us knows full well that that interdiction conferred the highest
dignity upon our long communion, yet we have not known how to
preserve its rule, and at the last hour we yield blindly to an
imperious internal call. Yet, a short time ago, when your noble head
dominated the belt of constellations, I no longer saw in you an
earthly love, but the illuminating, revelatory Muse of my poetry; and
all my heart went out to you in gratitude, not for the promise of a
fleeting happiness, but for the promise of glory. Do you not
understand—you, who understand everything? By a marvelous
inspiration, such as always comes to you, have you not turned my
inclination, by the ray of your smile, toward a resplendent
youthfulness which you have chosen and reserved for me? When
you descended the stairway together, and approached me, had you
not the appearance of one that bears a gift or an unexpected
message? Not wholly unexpected, perhaps, Perdita! For I have
anticipated from your infinite wisdom some extraordinary action
toward me."
"How happy the beautiful Nineta is, with her monkey and her little
dog!" sighed the actress, looking back at the light songsters and the
smiling woman on the balcony.

La zoventù xe un fior
Che apena nato el mor,
E un zorno gnanca mi
No sarò quela.

Donatella Arvale and Stelio also looked back, while the light barque,
without sinking, bore over the water and past the music the three
faces of a heavy destiny.

E vegna quel che vol,

Lassè che voga!

Suddenly, in front of the red palace of the Foscari, at the curve of

the canal, they saw the state vessel of the Doge of Venice so
brightly illumined that it looked like a burning tower. New streaks of
fire flashed against the sky. Other flaming doves flew up from the
deck, rose above the terraces, sank among the statues, hissed as
they fell into the water, multiplied themselves in thousands of
sparks, and floated along in smoke. Along the parapets, from the
decks, the poop, the prow, in a simultaneous explosion, a thousand
fountains of fire opened, dilated, blended, illuminating with an
intense, fiery radiance each side of the canal as far as San Vitale and
the Rialto. Then the vessel of the Doge glided out of sight,
transformed into a purple thunder-cloud.
"Go through San Polo!" called La Foscarina to the gondolier, bending
her head as under a storm, and shutting out the roar with her palms
over her ears.
Again Donatella Arvale and Stelio Effreno looked at each other with
dazzled eyes. Again their faces, lighted by the glare, glowed as if
they were leaning over a furnace or a burning crater.
The gondola turned into the canal of San Polo, gliding along through
the darkness. A cold shadow seemed suddenly to fall over the spirits
of the three silent occupants. Under the arch of the bridge, the
hollow echo of the dipping oar struck upon their souls, and the
hilarity of the festival sounded infinitely far-away. All the houses
were dark; the campanile rose silent and solitary toward the stars;
the Campiello del Remer and the Campiello del Pistor were deserted,
and the grass breathed there in untrodden peace; the trees, bending
over the low walls of the little gardens, seemed to feel their leaves
dying on the branches pointing to the serene sky.
 CHAPTER VI
THE POET'S DREAM

"So, for a few hours at least, the rhythm of Art and the pulse of Life
have again throbbed in unison in Venice," said Daniele Glauro,
raising from the table an exquisite chalice, to which only the Sacred
Host was wanting. "Allow me to express, for myself and also for the
many that are absent, the gratitude and fervor that blend in one
single image of beauty the three persons to whom we owe this
miracle: the mistress of the feast, the daughter of Lorenzo Arvale,
and the poet of Persephone."
"And why the mistress of the feast, Glauro?" asked La Foscarina,
smiling in graceful surprise. "I, like you, have not given joy, but have
received it. Donatella and the Master of the Flame: they alone merit
the crown; and to them alone the glory must be given."
"But, a short time ago, in the Hall of the Greater Council," said the
mystic doctor, "your silent presence beside the celestial sphere was
not less eloquent than the words of Stelio, nor less musical than the
song of Ariadne. Once again you have divinely carved your own
statue in silence, and it will live in our memories blended with the
music and the words."
Stelio shuddered as he recalled to mind the ephemeral flexible
monster from the side of which had emerged the Tragic Muse above
the sphere of constellations.
"That is true, very true," said Francesco de Lizo. "I, too, had the
same thought. As we looked at you, we all realized that you were
the soul of that ideal world which each of us forms for himself,
according to his own aspirations and thoughts when listening to the
mystic word, the song, the symphony."
"And each of us," said Fabio Molza, "felt that in your presence,
dominating the throng, before the poet, dwelt a great and rare
significance."
"One might almost have said that you alone were about to assist at
the mysterious birth of a new idea," said Antimo della Bella.
"Everything around us seemed awakening itself to produce it—that
idea which must soon be revealed to us, as a reward for the
profound faith with which we have awaited it."
The Animator, with another trembling of the heart, felt the work that
he cherished within him leap once more, formless yet, but already
living; and his whole soul, as if impelled by a lyric breath, suddenly
felt drawn toward the fertile and enlightening power that emanated
from the Dionysian woman to whom these fervent spirits addressed
their praise.
Suddenly she had become very beautiful: a nocturnal creature,
fashioned by dreams and passion on a golden anvil, living
embodiment of immortal fate and eternal enigmas. She might
remain motionless and silent, but her famous accents and her
memorable gestures seemed to live around her, vibrating indefinitely,
as melodies seem to hover over the cords accustomed to sound
them, as rhymes seem to breathe from the poet's closed book,
wherein love and sorrow seek comfort and intoxication. The heroic
fidelity of Antigone, the oracular fury of Cassandra, the devouring
fever of Phædre, the cruelty of Medea, the sacrifice of Iphigenia,
Myrrha before her father, Polyxenes and Alceste before the face of
death, Cleopatra, fitful as the wind and the fires of the world, Lady
Macbeth, the dreamy murderess with the little hands; and those
great, fair lilies empearled with dew and tears—Imogen, Juliet,
Miranda, Rosalind, Jessica, and Perdita—the tenderest, most terrible,
and most magnificent souls dwelt within her, inhabited her body,
shone from her eyes, breathed through her lips, which knew both
honey and poison, the jeweled chalice and the cup of wormwood.
Thus, through unlimited space, and endless, the outlines of human
life and substance appeared to perpetuate themselves; and from the
simple movement of a muscle, a sign, a start, a quiver of the
eyelids, a slight change of color, an almost imperceptible inclination
of the head, a fugitive play of light and shade, a lightning-like virtue
of expression radiating from that frail and slender body, infinite
worlds of imperishable beauty were continually generated.
The genii of the places consecrated by poetry hovered around her,
and encircled her with changing visions: the dusty plain of Thebes,
the arid Argolide, the parched myrtles of Trezene, the sacred olives
of Colonus, the triumphant Cydnus, the pale country of Dunsinane,
Prospero's cavern, the Forest of Arden, land dampened with blood,
toiled upon with pain, transfigured by a dream or illumined by an
inextinguishable smile, seemed to appear, to recede, then to vanish
behind her head. And a vision of countries still more remote—
regions of mists, northern lands, and, far across the ocean, the
immense continent where she had appeared like an unknown force
amid astonished multitudes, bearer of the mystic word and the flame
of genius—vanished behind her head: the throngs, the mountains,
rivers and gulfs, the impure cities, the ancient, enfeebled, savage
race, the strong people aspiring to dominate the world, the new
nation that wrests from Nature her most secret energies to make
them serve an all-powerful work in erecting edifices of iron and of
crystal; the bastard colonies that ferment and grow corrupt on virgin
soil; all the barbarous crowds she had visited as the messenger of
Latin genius; all the ignorant masses to whom she had spoken the
sublime language of Dante; all the human herds from which had
mounted toward her, on a wave of confused anxieties and desires,
the aspiration to Beauty.
She stood there, a creature of perishable flesh, subject to the sad
laws of time, but an illimitable mass of reality and poetry weighed
upon her, surged around her, palpitated with the rhythm of her
breath. And not upon the stage alone had she uttered her cries and
suppressed her sobs: this had entered into her daily life. She had
loved, fought and suffered violently, in her soul and in her body.
What loves? What combats? What pangs? From what abysses of
melancholy had she drawn the exaltations of her tragic force? At
what springs of bitterness had she watered her free genius? She had
certainly witnessed the crudest misery, the darkest ruin; she had
known heroic effort, pity, horror, and the threshold of death. All her
thirst had burned in the delirium of Phædre, and in the
submissiveness of Imogen had trembled all her tenderness. Thus
Life and Art, the irrevocable Past and the eternal Present, had made
her profound, many-souled, and mysterious, had magnified her
ambiguous destiny beyond human limits, and rendered her equal to
great temples and natural forests.
Nevertheless, she stood there, a living, breathing woman, under the
gaze of the poets, each of whom saw her, and yet in her many
others.
"Ah! I will embrace you as in some mad revelry; I will clasp you,
shake you; from your ripe experience, I will draw all the divine and
abnormal secrets that weigh upon you—the things you have already
done, and those on which you still meditate in the mysterious depths
of your soul," sang the lyric demon in the ear of the poet, who
recognized in the mystery of this woman the surviving power of
primitive myth, the renewed initiation of the god that had
concentrated in one single ferment all the energies of Nature, and,
by a variety of rhythms, had raised, in an enthusiastic worship of
himself, the senses and the spirit of man to the highest summits of
joy and of pain.
"I have done well, I have done wisely, to wait!" said Stelio to himself.
"The passing of years, the tumult of dreams, the agitation of
struggle and the swiftness of triumph, the experience of many loves,
the enchantment of poets, the acclamations of the people; the
marvels of earth, the patience and the fury, the steps in the mud,
the blind flight, all evil, all good, that which I know and do not know,
that which you know, as well as that which you are ignorant of—all
this had to be to prepare the fulness of this night, which belongs to
me!"
He felt himself suffocate and turn pale. A wild impulse seized him by
the throat, and would not relax its hold. His heart swelled with the
same keen emotion that had possessed both in the twilight, as they
floated over the water.
And, as the exaggerated radiance of the city and the event had
suddenly disappeared, the glory of this woman of the night
reappeared to his mind still more closely blended with the city of the
wonderful necklaces and the thousand emerald girdles. In the city
and in the woman, the poet now saw a power of expression that he
never had seen before: each glowed in the Autumn night; the same
feverish fire that coursed through the canals ran also in her veins.
The stars sparkled, the trees waved their branches behind Perdita's
head, back of which were the shadows of a garden. Through the
open balconies the sweet air of heaven entered the room; shook the
flames of the candelabra and the chalices of flowers; swept through
the doorways, making the draperies wave to and fro, animating that
old house of the Capello, wherein the last great daughter of San
Marco whom the people had covered with gold and glory had
gathered relics of republican magnificence. Galleon lamps, Turkish
targets, bronze helmets, leathern quivers, and velvet scabbards
ornamented the apartments inhabited by the last descendant of that
marvelous Cesare Darbes who maintained the Art of Comedy against
the Goldonian reform, and changed the agony of the Most Serene
Republic into a burst of laughter.
"I only ask that I may be the humble servitor of that idea," was La
Foscarina's reply to Antimo della Bella's words. Her voice trembled a
little, her eyes had met Stelio's gaze.
"You alone could make it triumphant," said Francesco de Lizo. "The
soul of the people is yours forever."
"The drama can only be a rite or a message," declared Glauro
sententiously. "Acting should again become as solemn as a religious
ceremony, since it embraces the two constituent elements of all
worship: the living person, in whom, on the stage as before an altar,
the word of the revealer is made incarnate, before a multitude as
silent as if in a temple"—
"Bayreuth!" interrupted Prince Hoditz.
"No; the Janiculum!" exclaimed Stelio, suddenly breaking his silence
of blissful dizziness. "A Roman hill. We do not need the wood and
brick of Upper Franconia; we will have a marble theater on a Roman
hill."
The sudden opposition of his words seemed to spring from a light,
good-natured disdain.
"Do you not admire the work of Richard Wagner?" Donatella Arvale
inquired, with a slight frown that for a moment made her Hermes-
like face look almost hard.
Stelio looked deep into her eyes; he felt that there was something
obscurely hostile in the young girl's manner, and also that he himself
experienced against her an indistinct suggestion of enmity. At this
moment he again saw her living her own isolated life, fixed in some
deep, secret thought, strange and inviolable.
"The work of Richard Wagner," he replied, "is founded in the German
spirit, and its essence is purely northern. His reform is not without
analogy with that attempted by Luther; his drama is the supreme
flower of the genius of a race, the extraordinarily powerful summary
of the aspirations that have stirred the souls of the symphonists and
national poets, from Bach to Beethoven, from Wieland to Goethe. If
you could imagine his work on the Mediterranean shores, amid our
pale olive-trees, our slender laurels, under the glorious light of the
Latin sky, you would see it grow pale and dissolve. Since, according
to his own words, it is given to the artist to behold a world as yet
unformed resplendent in its future perfection, and to enjoy it
prophetically through desire and through hope, I announce to you
the coming of a new, or rather a renewed, art which, by the strong,
sincere simplicity of its lines, by its vigorous grace, by its ardor of
inspiration, by the pure power of its harmonies, will continue and
crown the immense ideal edifice of our elect race. I glory in being
Latin, and—will you pardon me, most exquisite Lady Myrta, and you,
my delicate Hoditz?—in every man of different blood I see a
barbarian."
"But Wagner, too," said, Baldassare Stampa, who, having just
returned from Bayreuth, was still full of ecstasy, "when he first
unwound the thread of his theories, departed from the Greeks."
"It was an uneven and a tangled thread," the poet replied. "Nothing
is further from the Orestiades than the tetralogy of the Ring. The
Florentines of the Casa Bardi have penetrated much deeper into the
true meaning of Greek tragedy. All honor to the Camerata of the
Conte di Vernio!"
"I have always thought that the Camerata was only an idle reunion
of scholars and rhetoricians," said Baldassare Stampa.
"Did you hear that, Daniele?" exclaimed Stelio, addressing the mystic
doctor. "When was there in the world a more fervid intelligence?
They sought the spirit of life in Grecian antiquity; they tried to
develop harmoniously all human energies, to manifest man in his
integrity by every method of art. Giulio Caccini taught that that,
which contributed to the excellence of the musician is not only the
study of particular things, but of everything in general; the tawny
hair of Jacopo Peri and of Zazzerino flamed in their song like that of
Apollo. In the discourse that serves as a preface to the
Rappresentazione di Anima et di Corpo, Emilio del Cavaliere presents
the same ideas on the organization of the new theater that have
since been realized at Bayreuth, comprising the rules of perfect
silence, an invisible orchestra, and appropriate darkness. Marco da
Gagliano, in celebrating a festal performance, eulogizes all the arts
that contributed to it 'in such a way that through the intellect all the
noblest sentiments are flattered at the same time by the most
delightful art that the human mind has discovered.' That is sufficient,
I think."
"Bermino," resumed Francesco de Lizo, "presented an opera in
Rome, for which he himself built the theater, painted the
decorations, carved the ornamental statues, invented the machinery,
wrote the words, composed the music, arranged the dances,
rehearsed the actors, and in which he, too, danced, sang, and
acted."
"Enough! Enough!" cried Prince Hoditz, laughing. "The barbarian is
vanquished."
"No, that is not yet enough," said Antimo della Bella; "it remains to
us to glorify the greatest of all these innovators; him that was
consecrated a Venetian by his passion and death, him whose tomb is
in the Church of the Frari, and is worthy of a pilgrimage—the divine
Claudio Monteverde."
"There was a heroic soul, of pure Italian essence," warmly acceded
Daniele Glauro.
"He accomplished his work in the tempest, loving, suffering,
struggling, alone with his faith, his passion, and his genius," said La
Foscarina slowly, as if absorbed in a vision of that sad and
courageous life that had nourished the creations of its art with its
warmest blood. "Tell us about him, Effrena."
Stelio thrilled as if she had suddenly touched him. Again her
expressive mouth called up an ideal figure, which rose as if from a
sepulcher before the eyes of the poets, with the color and the breath
of life. The ancient viola-player, bereaved, ardent, and sorrowful, like
the Orpheus of his own fable, seemed to appear before them.
It was a fiery apparition, more fervid and dazzling than that which
had glowed in the harbor of San Marco; a flaming force of life,
expelled from the deepest recesses of Nature toward the expectant
multitude; a vehement zone of light, flashing out from an interior
sky to illumine the most secret depths of human will and desire; an
unheard word emerging from original silence to say that which is
eternal and eternally ineffable in the heart of the world.
"Who could speak of him, even if he himself should speak to us?"
said the Inspirer, agitated, unable to conceal the wave of emotion
surging in his soul like the troubled waters of a stormy sea.
He looked at the singer, and beheld her as she had appeared during
the pauses, when she stood amid the forest of instruments, white
and inanimate as a statue.
But the spirit of Beauty they had called up was to manifest itself
through her.
"Ariadne!" Stelio murmured, as if to awaken her from a dream.
She arose without speaking, reached the door, and entered the
adjoining room. The light sweep of her skirts and her soft footfall
were audible; then they heard the sound of the piano being opened.
All were silent and expectant. A musical silence filled the vacant
place in the supper-room. A sudden gust of wind shook the flames
of the candles and swayed the flowers. Then all became motionless
in the anxiety of anticipation.

Lasciatemi morire!

Suddenly their souls were ravished by a power comparable to the

strength of the eagle which, in Dante's dream, bore the poet to the
region of flame. They burned together in eternal truth; they heard
the melody of the world pass through their luminous ecstasy:

Lasciatemi morire!

Was it Ariadne, still Ariadne, weeping in some new grief, still rising to
higher martyrdom?
 E che volete
Che mi conforte
In cosa dure sorte,
In cosi gran martire?
Lasciatemi morire!

The voice ceased; the singer did not reappear. The aria of Claudio
Monteverde composed itself in the auditors' memories like an
immutable lineament.
"Is there any Greek marble that has a perfection of style more sure
and simple?" said Daniele Glauro softly, as if he feared to break the
musical silence.
"But what sorrow on earth ever has wept like that?" stammered
Lady Myrta, her eyes full of tears, that ran down her poor, pale
cheeks, which she wiped with her trembling hands, misshaped by
gout.
The austere intellect of the ascetic and the sweet, sensitive soul shut
within the old, infirm body bore witness to the same power. In the
same way, nearly three centuries before, at Mantua, in the famous
theater, six thousand spectators had been unable to repress their
sobs; and the poets had believed in the living presence of Apollo on
the new stage.
"See, Baldassare," said Stelio, "here is an artist of our own race who
by the simplest means succeeded in attaining the highest degree of
that beauty which the German but rarely approached in his confused
aspirations toward the land of Sophocles."
"Do you know the lament of the ailing king?" asked the young man
with the sunny locks, which he wore long as a heritage from the
Venetian Sappho, the "high Gaspara," unfortunate friend of Collalto.
"All the agony of Amfortas is contained in a mottetto that I know:
Peccantem me quotidie, but with what lyric impetus, what powerful
simplicity! All the forces of tragedy are there, sublimated, so to
speak, like the instincts of a multitude in a heroic heart. The
language of Palestrina, much more ancient, appears to me still purer
and more virile.
"But the contrast between Kundry and Parsifal, in the second act,
the Herzeleide motif, the impetuous figure, that figure of pain drawn
from the word of the sacred feast, the motif of Kundry's aspiration,
the prophetic theme of the promise, the kiss on the lips of the 'pure
fool,' all that rending and intoxicating contrast of desire and horror....
'The wound, the wound! Now it burns, now it bleeds within me!' And
above the despairing frenzy of the temptress, the melody of
submission: 'Let me weep on thy breast! Let me unite myself with
thee for one hour; then, even if God repel me, through thee I shall
be redeemed and saved.' And Parsifal's response, in which the motif
of the 'pure fool,' now transfigured into the promised Hero, returns
with lofty solemnity: 'Hell would be our fate for all eternity if for one
single hour I should permit thee to clasp me in thy arms.' Then the
wild ecstasy of Kundry: 'Since my kiss has made thee a prophet,
embrace me wholly, and my love will render thee divine! One hour,
one single hour with thee, and I shall be saved!' And the last effort
of her demoniac will, the last gesture of enticement, the entreaty
and the furious words: 'Only thy love can save me! Oh, let me love
thee! Mine for a single hour! Thine for a single hour!'"
Perdita and Stelio, entranced, gazed into each other's eyes; for an
instant their spirits rushed together and mingled, in all the joy of an
actual embrace.
La Marangona, the largest bell of San Marco, sounded midnight,
and, as at the eventide, the two enamored ones felt the
reverberation of the bronze bell in the roots of their hair, almost like
a quiver of their own flesh. Once more they felt, hovering over them,
the whirlwind of sound, in the midst of which, in the twilight, they
had suddenly become aware of the rising apparition of consoling
Beauty, evoked by unanimous prayer. All the beauty of the waters,
the timidity of concealed longing, the anxiety, the promise, the
parting, the festival, the formidable, many-headed monster, the
great, starry sphere, the clamor, the music, the song, and the
wonders of the miraculous Flame, the return through the echoing
canal, the song of brief youth, the mental struggle and silent
agitation in the gondola, the sudden shadow over their three
destinies, the banquet illumined by beautiful thought, the
presentiments, hopes, pride, all the strongest pulsations of life were
renewed between those two, quickened, became a thousand, and
again one. They felt that in that one moment they had lived beyond
all human limits, and that before them was opening a vast unknown,
which they might absorb as the ocean absorbs, for, though they had
lived so much, they felt their hearts were empty; though they had
drunk so deep, they were still athirst. An overmastering illusion
seized upon these rich natures, and each seemed to grow
immeasurably more desirable in the other's eyes. The young girl had
disappeared. The expression of the despairing, nomadic actress
seemed to repeat: "Embrace me wholly, and my love will render thee
divine! One hour, one single hour with thee, and I shall be saved!
Mine for a single hour! Thine for a single hour!"
The eloquent commentary of the enthusiast still dwelt upon the
sacred tragedy. Kundry, the mad temptress, the slave of desire, the
Rose of Hell, the original perdition, the accursed, now reappeared in
the spring dawn; she reappeared humble and pale in her
messenger's attire, her head bent, her eyes cast down; and her
harsh, broken voice spoke only the single phrase: "Let me serve! Let
me serve!"
The melodies of solitude, of submission, of purification prepared
around her humility the enchantment of Good Friday. And behold
Parsifal, in black armor and closed helmet, his spear lowered, lost in
an infinite dream: "I have come by perilous paths, but perhaps this
day I shall be saved, since I hear the murmur of the sacred forest."
... Hope, pain, remorse, memory, the promise, faith panting for the
soul's health, and the sacred, mysterious melodies wove the ideal
mantle that should cover the Simple One, the Pure, the promised
Hero sent to heal the incurable wound. "Wilt thou take me to
Amfortas to-day?" He languished and fainted in the old man's arms.
"Let me serve! Let me serve!" The melody of submission rose again
from the orchestra, drowning the original impetuous motif. "Let me
serve!" The faithful woman brings water, kneels humbly and eagerly,
and washes the feet of her beloved. The faithful one drew from her
bosom a vase of balm, anointed the beloved feet, and wiped them
with her flowing hair. "Let me serve!" The Pure One bent over the
sinner, sprinkling water on her wild head: "Thus I accomplish my
first office; receive this baptism and believe in the Redeemer!"
Kundry burst into tears, and knelt with her brow in the dust, freed
from impurity, freed from the curse. And then, from the profound
final harmonies of the prayer to the Redeemer, rose and spread with
superhuman sweetness the melody of the flowery fields: "How
beautiful to-day is the meadow! Once I was entwined with
marvelous flowers; but never before were the grass and wild
blossoms so fragrant!" In ecstasy, Parsifal contemplated the fields
and forests, dewy and smiling in the light of morn.
"Ah! who could forget that sublime moment?" cried the fair-haired
enthusiast, whose thin face seemed to reflect the light of that joy.
"All, in the darkness of the theater, remained motionless, like one
solid, compact mass. One would have said that, in order to listen to
that marvelous music, the blood had ceased to flow in our veins.
From the Mystic Gulf, the symphony rose like a shaft of light, the
notes transformed into rays of sunshine, born with the same joy as
the blade of grass that pierces the earth, the opening flower, the
budding branch, the insect unfolding its wings. And all the innocence
of new-born things entered into us, and our souls lived over again I
know not what dream of our far-away childhood.... INFANTIA, the
device of Carpaccio! Ah, Stelio! how well you brought it back to our
riper age! How well you knew how to inspire us with regret for all
that we have lost, and with hope of recovering it by means of an art
that shall be indissolubly reunited to life!"
Stelio Effrena was silent, oppressed by the thought of the gigantic
work accomplished by the barbaric creator, which the enthusiasm of
Baldassare Stampa had evoked as a contrast to the fervid poet of
Orpheus and of Ariadne. A kind of instinctive rancor, an obscure
hostility that did not spring from the intellect, sustained him against
the tenacious German who had succeeded, by his own unaided
effort, in inflaming the world. To achieve his victory over men and
things, he, too, had exalted his own image and magnified his own
dreams of dominating beauty. He, too, had approached the
multitude as if it were his chosen prey; he, too, had imposed upon
himself, as if it were a discipline, an unceasing effort to surpass
himself. And now he had the temple of his creed on the Bavarian hill.
"Art alone can lead men back to unity," said Daniele Glauro. "Let us
honor the nobler master that has proclaimed this dogma for all time.
His Festival Theater, though built of bricks and wood, though narrow
and imperfect, has none the less a sublime significance, for within it
Art appears as a religion in a living form; the drama there becomes a
rite."
"Yes, let us honor Richard Wagner," said Antimo della Bella, "but, if
this hour is to be memorable by an announcement and a promise
from him who this night has shown the mysterious ship to the
people, let us invoke once more the heroic soul that has spoken to
us through the voice of Donatella Arvale. In laying the corner-stone
of his Festival Theater, the poet of Siegfried consecrated it to the
hopes and victories of Germany. The Apollo Theater, which is now
rising rapidly on the Janiculum, where eagles once descended,
bearing their prophecies, must be the monumental revelation of the
idea toward which our race is led by its genius. Let us reaffirm the
privilege with which nature has ennobled our Latin blood."
Still Stelio remained silent, deeply stirred by turbulent forces that
worked within his soul with a sort of blind fury, like the subterranean
energies that swell, rend, and transform volcanic regions for the
creation of new mountains and new chasms. All the elements of his
inner life, assailed by this violence, seemed to dissolve and multiply
at the same time. Images of grandeur and of terror passed through
this tumult, accompanied by strange harmonies. Swift concentrations
and dispersions of thought succeeded one another, like electric
flashes in a tempest. At certain moments, it seemed to him that he
could hear songs and wild clamors through a doorway that was
opened and closed incessantly; sounds as if a tempestuous wind
bore to his ears the alternate cries of a massacre and an apotheosis.
Suddenly, with the intensity of a feverish vision, he saw the scorched
and fatal spot of earth whereon he wished to create the souls of his
great tragedy; he felt all its parching thirst within himself. He saw
the mythical fountain which alone could quench the burning aridity;
and in the bubbling of its springs the purity of the maiden that must
die there. He saw on Perdita's face the mask of the heroine,
quiescent in the beauty of an extraordinarily calm sorrow. Then the
ancient dryness of the plain of Argos converted itself into flames; the
fountain of Perseia flowed with the swiftness of a stream. The fire
and the water, the two primitive elements, rushed over all things,
effaced all other traces, spread and wandered, struggled, triumphed,
acquired a word, a language wherewith to unveil their inner essence
and to reveal the innumerable myths born of their eternity. The
symphony expressed the drama of the two elementary Souls on the
stage of the Universe, the pathetic struggle of two great living and
moving Beings, two cosmic Wills, such as the shepherd Arya fancied
it when he contemplated the spectacle from the high plateau with
his pure eyes. And, of a sudden, from the very center of the musical
mystery, from the depths of the symphonic Ocean, arose the Ode,
brought by the human voice, and attaining the loftiest heights.
The miracle of Beethoven renewed itself. The winged Ode, the
Hymn, sprang from the midst of the orchestra to proclaim, in
phrases absolute and imperious, the joy and the sorrow of Man. It
was not the Chorus, as in the Ninth Symphony, but the Voice, alone
and dominating, the interpreter, the messenger to the multitude.
"Her voice! her voice! She has disappeared. Her song seemed to
move the heart of the world, and she was beyond the veil," said the
Animator, who in mental vision saw again the crystal statue within
which he had watched the mounting wave of melody. "I will seek
thee, I shall find thee again; I will possess myself of thy secret. Thou
shalt sing my hymns, towering at the summit of my music!" Freed
now from all earthly desire, he thought of that maiden form as the
receptacle of a divine gift. He heard the disembodied voice surge
from the depths of the orchestra to reveal the part of eternal truth
that exists in ephemeral fact. The Ode crowned the episode with
light. Then, as if to lead back to the play of imagery his ravished
spirit from "beyond the veil," a dancing figure stood out against the
rhythm of the dying Ode. Between the lines of a parallelogram
drawn beneath the arch of the stage, as within the limits of a
strophe, the mute dancer, with her body seemingly free for a
moment from the sad laws of gravity, imitated the fire, the
whirlwind, the revolutions of the stars. "La Tanagra, flower of
Syracuse, made of wings, as a flower is made of petals!" Thus he
invoked the image of the already famous Sicilian who had re-
discovered the ancient orchestic art as it had been in the days when
Phrynichus boasted that he had within himself as many figures of
the dance as there were waves on the ocean on a stormy winter
night. The actress, the singer, the dancer—the three Dionysian
women—appeared to him like perfect and almost divine instruments
of his creations. With an incredible rapidity, in word, song, gesture
and symphony, his work should crystallize itself and live an all-
powerful life before the conquered multitude.
He was still silent, lost in an ideal world, waiting to measure the
effort necessary to manifest it. The voices surrounding him seemed
to come from a long distance.
"Wagner declares that the only creator of a work of art is the
people," said Baldassare Stampa, "and that the sole function of the
artist is to gather and express the creation of the unconscious
multitude."
The extraordinary emotion that had stirred Stelio when, from the
throne of the Doges, he had spoken to the throng seized on him
once more. In that communion between his soul and the soul of the
people an almost divine mystery had existed; something greater and
more exalted was added to the habitual feeling he had for his own
person; he had felt that an unknown power converged within him,
abolishing the limits of his earthly being and conferring upon his
solitary voice the full harmony of a chorus.
There was, then, in the multitude a secret beauty, in which only the
poet and the hero could kindle a spark. Whenever that beauty
revealed itself by the sudden outburst from a theater, a public
square, or an entrenchment, a torrent of joy must swell the heart of
him who had known how to inspire it by his verse, his harangue, or
a signal from his sword. Thus, the word of the poet, when
communicated to the people, was an act comparable to the deed of
a hero—an act that brought to birth in the great composite soul of
the multitude a sudden comprehension of beauty, as a master
sculptor, from the mere touch of his plastic thumb upon a mass of
clay, creates a divine statue. Then the silence that had spread like a
sacred veil over the completed poem would cease. The material part
of life would no longer be typified by immaterial symbols: life itself
would be manifested in its perfection by the poet; the word would
become flesh, rhythm would quicken in breathing, palpitating form,
the idea would be embodied with all the fulness of its force and
freedom.
"But," said Fabio Molza, "Richard Wagner believes that the real heart
of the people is composed only of those that experience grief in
common—you understand, grief in common."
"Toward Joy—still toward eternal Joy," Stelio reflected. "The real
heart of the people is composed of those that feel vaguely the
necessity of raising themselves, by means of Fiction, Poetry, the
Ideal, out of the daily prison in which they serve and suffer."
In his waking dream he beheld the disappearance of the small
theaters of the city, where, amid suffocating air heavy with
impurities, before a crowd of rakes and courtesans, the actors make
public prostitution of their talents. And then, on the steps of the new
theater, his mental vision beheld the true people, the great,
unanimous multitude, whose human odor he had inhaled, whose
clamor he had listened to in the great marble shell, under the stars.
By the mysterious power of rhythm, his art, imperfectly understood
though it was, had stirred the rude and ignorant ones with a
profound emotion, penetrating as that felt by a prisoner about to be
released from his chains. Little by little, the sensation of joy at their
deliverance had crept over the most abject; the deep-lined brows
cleared; lips accustomed to brutal vociferation had parted in
amazement; and, above all, the hands—the rough hands enslaved
by instruments of toil—had stretched out in one unanimous gesture
of adoration toward the heroine who in their presence had wafted
toward the stars the spirit of immortal sorrow.
"In the life of a people like ours," said Daniele Glauro, "a great
manifestation of art has much more weight than a treaty of alliance
or a tributary law. That which never dies is more prized than that
which is ephemeral. The astuteness and audacity of a Malatesta are
crystallized for all time in a medal of Pisanello's. Of Machiavelli's
politics nothing survives but the power of his prose."
"That is true, most true!" thought Stelio; "the fortunes of Italy are
inseparable from the fate of the Beauty of which she is the Mother."
This sovereign truth now appeared to him the rising sun of that
divine, ideal land through which wandered the great Dante. "Italy!
Italy!" Throughout his being, like a call to arms, seemed to thrill that
name, that name which intoxicates the world. From its ruins, bathed
in so much heroic blood, should not the new art, robust in root and
branch, arise and flourish? Should it not become a determining and
constructive force in the third Rome, reawakening all the latent
power possessed by the hereditary substance of the nation,
indicating to her statesmen the primitive truths that are the
necessary bases of new institutions? Faithful to the oldest instincts of
his race, Richard Wagner had foreseen, and had fostered by his own
efforts, the aspiration of the German States to the heroic grandeur
of the Empire. He had evoked the noble figure of Henry the Fowler,
standing erect beneath the ancient oak: "Let warriors arise from
every German land!" And at Sadowa and at Sedan these warriors
had won. With the same impulse, the same tenacity, people and
artist had achieved their glorious aim. The same degree of victory
had crowned the work of the sword and the work of melody. Like
the hero, the poet had accomplished an act of deliverance. Like the
will of the Iron Chancelor, like the blood of his soldiers, the Master's
musical numbers had contributed toward the exalting and
perpetuating of the soul of his race.
"He has been here only a few days, at the Palazzo Vendramin-
Calergi," said Prince Hoditz.
And suddenly the image of the barbaric creator seemed to Stelio to
approach him; the lines of his face became visible, the blue eyes
gleamed under the wide brow, the lips closed tight above the
powerful chin, armed with sensuousness, pride, and disdain. The
slight body, bent with the weight of age and glory, straightened
itself, appeared almost as gigantic as his work, took on the aspect of
a god. The blood coursed like a swift mountain torrent, its breath
sighed like a forest breeze. Suddenly the youth of Siegfried filled the
figure and permeated it, radiant as the dawn shining through a
cloud. "To follow the impulse of my heart, to obey my instinct, to
listen to the voice of Nature within myself—that is my supreme law!"
The heroic, resounding words, springing from the depths, expressed
the young and healthy will that had triumphed over all obstacles and
all evil, always in accord with the law of the Universe. And the
flames, called forth from the rock by the wand of Wotan, arose in
the magic circle: "On the flaming sea a way has opened! To plunge
into that fire, oh, ineffable joy! To find my bride within that flaming
circle!" All the phantoms of the myth seemed to blaze anew and
then vanish.
Then the winged helmet of Brunehilde gleamed in the sunlight:
"Glory to the sun! Glory to the light! Glory to the radiant day! My
sleep was long. Who has awakened me?" The phantoms fled in
tumult, and dispersed. Then arose from the dark shadows the
maiden of the song, Donatella Arvale, as she had appeared to him
amid the purple and gold of the immense hall in a commanding
attitude and holding a fiery flower in her hand: "Dost thou not see
me, then? Do not my burning gaze and ardent blood make thee
tremble. Dost thou not feel this wild ardor?" Though she was absent,
she seemed to resume her power over his dream. Infinite music
seemed to rise from the silent, empty place in the supper-room. Her
Hermes-like face seemed to retain an inviolable secret: "Do not
touch me; do not trouble my repose, and I will reflect forever thy
luminous image. Love only thyself and renounce all thought of me!"
And again, as on the feverish water, a passionate impatience
tortured the Animator, and again he fancied the absent one like a
beautiful bow to be drawn by a strong hand that would know how to
use it as an instrument to achieve some great conquest: "Awake,
virgin, awake! Live and laugh! Be mine!"
Stelio's spirit was drawn violently into the orbit of the magic world
created by the German god; its visions and harmonies overwhelmed
him; the figures of the Northern myth towered above those of his
own art and passion, obscuring them. His own desire and his own
hope spoke the language of the barbarian: "I must love thee, blindly,
and laughing: and, laughing, we must unite and lose ourselves, each
in the other. O radiant Love! O smiling Death!" The joyousness of the
warrior-virgin on the flame-circled summit reached the loftiest
height; her cry of love and liberty mounted to the heart of the sun.
Ah, what heights and what depths had he not touched, that
formidable Master of human souls! What effort could ever equal his?
What eagle could ever hope to soar higher? His gigantic work was
there, finished, amidst men. Throughout the world swelled the last
mighty chorus of the Grail, the canticle of thanksgiving: "Glory to the
Miracle! Redemption to the Redeemer!"
"He is tired," said Prince Hoditz, "very tired and feeble. That is the
reason why we did not see him at the Doge's Palace. His heart is
affected." ...
Once more the giant became a man: the slight body, bent with age
and glory, consumed by passion, slowly dying. And Stelio heard
again in his heart Perdita's words, which had called up the image of
another stricken artist—the father of Donatella Arvale. "The name of
the bow is BIOS ("life"), and its work is death!"
The young man saw his pathway blazed before him by victory—the
long art, the short life. "Forward, still forward! Higher, ever higher!"
Every hour, every second, he must strive, struggle, fortify himself