Oswald started at these words, his eyes fixed themselves upon Corinne,
who heard them with an emotion that was not inspired by self-love, but
which was allied to the most amiable and delicate feelings. The Prince
Castel-Forte was much affected for a moment, and then resumed his
speech. He spoke of Corinne's talent for music, for painting, for
declamation and for dancing: In all these talents, he said, she was
entirely herself, not confined to any particular manner, or to any
particular rule, but expressing in various languages the same powers of
the imagination, and the same witchery of the fine arts under all their
different forms.

"I do not flatter myself," said the Prince Castel-Forte in concluding,
"that I have been able to paint a lady of whom it is impossible to form
an idea without having heard her; but her presence is, for us at Rome,
as one of the benefits of our brilliant sky and our inspired nature.
Corinne is the tie that unites her friends together; she is the moving
principle and the interest of our life. We reckon upon her goodness; we
are proud of her genius; we say to strangers, 'Behold her! She is the
image of our beautiful Italy; she is what we should be without the
ignorance, the envy, the discord and the indolence to which our fate has
condemned us.' We take pleasure in contemplating her as an admirable
production of our climate and of our fine arts,--as a scion shooting out
of the past, as a prophecy of the future. When foreigners insult this
country, whence has issued that intelligence which has shed its light
over Europe; when they are without pity for our defects, which arise out
of our misfortunes, we will say to them: 'Behold Corinne! 'Tis our
desire to follow her footsteps; we would endeavour to become, as men,
what she is as woman, if man like woman could create a world in his own
heart; and if our genius, necessarily dependent upon social relations