slighter use of the weird and the mysterious.

The chief interest of the story for the ordinary reader centres, not in
its ghostly characters and improbable machinery, the scenes in Mejnour's
chamber in the ruined castle among the Apennines, the colossal and
appalling apparitions on Vesuvius, the hideous phantom with its burning
eye that haunted Glyndon, but in the loves of Viola and the mysterious
Zanoni, the blissful and the fearful scenes through which they pass,
and their final destiny, when the hero of the story sacrifices his
own "charmed life" to save hers, and the Immortal finds the only true
immortality in death. Among the striking passages in the work are the
pathetic sketch of the old violinist and composer, Pisani, with his
sympathetic "barbiton" which moaned, groaned, growled, and laughed
responsive to the feelings of its master; the description of Viola's and
her father's triumph, when "The Siren," his masterpiece, is performed at
the San Carlo in Naples; Glyndon's adventure at the Carnival in Naples;
the death of his sister; the vivid pictures of the Reign of Terror in
Paris, closing with the downfall of Robespierre and his satellites; and
perhaps, above all, the thrilling scene where Zanoni leaves Viola asleep
in prison when his guards call him to execution, and she, unconscious of
the terrible sacrifice, but awaking and missing him, has a vision of the
procession to the guillotine, with Zanoni there, radiant in youth
and beauty, followed by the sudden vanishing of the headsman,--the
horror,--and the "Welcome" of her loved one to Heaven in a myriad of
melodies from the choral hosts above.

"Zanoni" was originally published by Saunders and Otley, London, in
three volumes 12mo., in 1842. A translation into French, made by M.
Sheldon under the direction of P. Lorain, was published in Paris in the
"Bibliotheque des Meilleurs Romans Etrangers."