He is wiser than he was, but his objects remain the same. The
sympathies--the moral sense--the soul--are still asleep.


BOOK THE THIRD.

Sordello buries himself once more in the contemplation of nature; but
finds in it only a short-lived peace. The marshy country about Mantua is
suddenly converted into water; and with the shock of this catastrophe
comes also the feeling: Nature can do and undo; her opportunities are
endless. With man

"...youth once gone is gone:
Deeds let escape are never to be done." (vol. i. p. 135.)

He has dreamed of love, of revel, and of adventure; but he has let pass
the time when such dreams could be realized; and worst of all, the
sacrifice has been useless. He has sacrificed the man in him to the
poet; and his poetic existence has been impoverished by the act. He has
rejected experience that he might _be_ his fullest self before living
it; and only _living_, in other words, experience, could have made that
self complete. His later years have been paving the way for this
discovery; it bursts on him all at once. He has been under a long
strain. The reaction at length has come. He yearns helplessly for the
"blisses strong and soft" which he has known he was passing by, but of
which the full meaning never reached him until now. He must live yet.
The question is, "in what way." And this is unexpectedly answered. Palma
sends for him to Verona: tells him of her step-mother's death--of
strange secrets revealed to herself--of the secret influence Sordello
has exercised over her life--of a great future awaiting his own, and