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diff --git a/22019-8.txt b/22019-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..89d7a99 --- /dev/null +++ b/22019-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,16102 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Wisdom, Wit, and Pathos of Ouida, by Ouida + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Wisdom, Wit, and Pathos of Ouida + Selected from the Works of Ouida + +Author: Ouida + +Compiler: F. Sydney Morris + +Release Date: July 8, 2007 [EBook #22019] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WISDOM, WIT, AND PATHOS OF OUIDA *** + + + + +Produced by Charles Aldarondo, Janet Blenkinship, and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + + + + + WISDOM, WIT, AND PATHOS + + OF + + OUIDA. + + WISDOM, WIT, AND PATHOS + + _SELECTED FROM THE WORKS_ + + OF + + OUIDA + + BY F. SYDNEY MORRIS + + PHILADELPHIA + + J. B. LIPPINCOTT & CO. + + 1884 + + + + + CONTENTS. + + + _SELECTIONS FROM_-- + + PAGE + + ARIADNE 1 + + CHANDOS 32 + + FOLLE-FARINE 48 + + IDALIA 97 + + A VILLAGE COMMUNE 106 + + PUCK 115 + + TWO LITTLE WOODEN SHOES 158 + + FAME 177 + + MOTHS 182, 354 + + IN A WINTER CITY 189 + + A LEAF IN THE STORM 205 + + A DOG OF FLANDERS 209 + + A BRANCH OF LILAC 216 + + SIGNA 220 + + TRICOTRIN 264 + + A PROVENCE ROSE 288 + + PIPISTRELLO 291 + + HELD IN BONDAGE 294 + + PASCARČL 296 + + IN MAREMMA 335 + + UNDER TWO FLAGS 363 + + STRATHMORE 417 + + FRIENDSHIP 427 + + WANDA 452 + + + + +_ARIADNE._ + + +One grows to love the Roman fountains as sea-born men the sea. Go where +you will there is the water; whether it foams by Trevi, where the green +moss grows in it like ocean weed about the feet of the ocean god, or +whether it rushes reddened by the evening light, from the mouth of an +old lion that once saw Cleopatra; whether it leaps high in air, trying +to reach the gold cross on St. Peter's or pours its triple cascade over +the Pauline granite; whether it spouts out of a great barrel in a wall +in old Trastevere, or throws up into the air a gossamer as fine as +Arachne's web in a green garden way where the lizards run, or in a +crowded corner where the fruit-sellers sit against the wall;--in all its +shapes one grows to love the water that fills Rome with an unchanging +melody all through the year. + + * * * + +And indeed I do believe all things and all traditions. History is like +that old stag that Charles of France found out hunting in the woods +once, with the bronze collar round its neck on which was written, "Cćsar +mihi hoc donavit." How one's fancy loves to linger about that old stag, +and what a crowd of mighty shades come thronging at the very thought of +him! How wonderful it is to think of--that quiet grey beast leading his +lovely life under the shadows of the woods, with his hinds and their +fawns about him, whilst Cćsar after Cćsar fell and generation on +generation passed away and perished! But the sciolist taps you on the +arm. "Deer average fifty years of life; it was some mere court trick of +course--how easy to have such a collar made!" Well, what have we gained? +The stag was better than the sciolist. + + * * * + +Life costs but little on these sunny, silent shores; four walls of loose +stones, a roof of furze and brambles, a fare of fish and fruit and +millet-bread, a fire of driftwood easily gathered--and all is told. For +a feast pluck the violet cactus; for a holiday push the old red boat to +sea, and set the brown sail square against the sun--nothing can be +cheaper, perhaps few things can be better. + +To feel the western breezes blow over that sapphire sea, laden with the +fragrance of a score of blossoming isles. To lie under the hollow rocks, +where centuries before the fisher folk put up that painted tablet to the +dear Madonna, for all poor shipwrecked souls. To climb the high hills +through the tangle of myrtle and tamarisk, and the tufted rosemary, with +the kids bleating above upon some unseen height. To watch the soft night +close in, and the warning lights shine out over shoals and sunken rocks, +and the moon hang low and golden in the blue dusk at the end there under +the arch of the boughs. To spend long hours in the cool, fresh, break of +day, drifting with the tide, and leaping with bare free limbs into the +waves, and lying outstretched upon them, glancing down to the depths +below, where silvery fish are gliding and coral branches are growing, +and pink shells are floating like rose-leaves, five fathoms low and +more. Oh! a good life, and none better, abroad in the winds and weather, +as Nature meant that every living thing should be, only, alas, the +devil put it into the mind of man to build cities! A good life for the +soul and the body: and from it this sea-born Joy came to seek the +Ghetto! + + * * * + +With a visible and physical ill one can deal; one can thrust a knife +into a man at need, one can give a woman money for bread or masses, one +can run for medicine or a priest. But for a creature with a face like +Ariadnę's, who had believed in the old gods and found them fables, who +had sought for the old altars and found them ruins, who had dreamed of +Imperial Rome and found the Ghetto--for such a sorrow as this, what +could one do? + + * * * + +Some said I might have been a learned man, had I taken more pains. But I +think it was only their kindness. I have that twist in my brain, which +is the curse of my countrymen--a sort of devilish quickness at doing +well, that prevents us ever doing best; just the same sort of thing that +makes our goatherds rhyme perfect sonnets, and keeps them dunces before +the alphabet. + + * * * + +If our beloved Leopardi, instead of bemoaning his fate in his despair +and sickening of his narrow home, had tried to see how many fair strange +things there lay at his house door, had tried to care for the troubles +of the men that hung the nets on the trees, and the innocent woes of the +girl that carried the grass to the cow, and the obscure martyrdom of +maternity and widowhood that the old woman had gone through who sat +spinning on the top of the stairs, he would have found that his little +borgo that he hated so for its dulness had all the comedies and +tragedies of life lying under the sound of its tolling bells. He would +not have been less sorrowful, for the greater the soul the sadder it is +for the unutterable waste, the unending pain of life. But he would never +have been dull: he would never have despised, and despising missed, the +stories and the poems that were round him in the millet fields and the +olive orchards. There is only one lamp which we can carry in our hand, +and which will burn through the darkest night, and make the light of a +home for us in a desert place: it is sympathy with everything that +breathes. + + * * * + +Into other lands I wandered, then, and sought full half the world. When +one wants but little, and has a useful tongue, and knows how to be merry +with the young folk, and sorrowful with the old, and can take the fair +weather with the foul, and wear one's philosophy like an easy boot, +treading with it on no man's toe, and no dog's tail; why, if one be of +this sort, I say, one is, in a great manner, independent of fortune; and +the very little that one needs one can usually obtain. Many years I +strayed about, seeing many cities and many minds, like Odysseus; being +no saint, but, at the same time, being no thief and no liar. + + * * * + +Art was dear to me. Wandering through many lands, I had come to know the +charm of quiet cloisters; the delight of a strange, rare volume; the +interest of a quaint bit of pottery; the unutterable loveliness of some +perfect painter's vision, making a glory in some dusky, world-forgotten +church: and so my life was full of gladness here in Rome, where the +ass's hoof ringing on a stone may show you that Vitruvius was right, +where you had doubted him; or the sun shining down upon a cabbage +garden, or a coppersmith's shreds of metal, may gleam on a signet ring +of the Flavian women, or a broken vase that may have served vile Tullia +for drink. + + * * * + +Art is, after nature, the only consolation that one has at all for +living. + + * * * + +I have been all my life blown on by all sorts of weather, and I know +there is nothing so good as the sun and the wind for driving ill-nature +and selfishness out of one. + + * * * + +Anything in the open air is always well; it is because men now-a-days +shut themselves up so much in rooms and pen themselves in stifling +styes, where never the wind comes or the clouds are looked at, that +puling discontent and plague-struck envy are the note of all modern +politics and philosophies. The open air breeds Leonidas, the factory +room Felix Pyat. + + * * * + +I lit my pipe. A pipe is a pocket philosopher, a truer one than +Socrates. For it never asks questions. Socrates must have been very +tiresome when one thinks of it. + + * * * + +I have had some skill in managing the minds of crowds; it is a mere +knack, like any other; it belongs to no particular character or culture. +Arnold of Brescia had it, and so had Masaniello. Lamartine had it, and +so had Jack Cade. + + * * * + +It is of use to have a reputation for queerness; it gains one many +solitary moments of peace. + + * * * + +Ersilia was a good soul, and full of kindliness; but charity is a flower +not naturally of earthly growth, and it needs manuring with a promise of +profit. + + * * * + +The soul of the poet is like a mirror of an astrologer: it bears the +reflection of the past and of the future, and can show the secrets of +men and gods; but all the same it is dimmed by the breath of those who +stand by and gaze into it. + + * * * + +"You are not unhappy now?" I said to her in farewell. + +She looked at me with a smile. + +"You have given me hope; and I am in Rome, and I am young." + +She was right. Rome may be only a ruin, and Hope but another name for +deception and disappointment; but Youth is supreme happiness in itself, +because all possibilities lie in it, and nothing in it is as yet +irrevocable. + + * * * + +There never was an Ćneas; there never was a Numa; well, what the better +are we? We only lose the Trojan ship gliding into Tiber's mouth, when +the woodland thickets that bloomed by Ostia were reddening with the +first warmth of the day's sun; we only lose the Sabine lover going by +the Sacred Way at night, and sweet Egeria weeping in the woods of Nemi; +and are--by their loss--how much the poorer! + +Perhaps all these things never were. + +The little stone of truth, rolling through the many ages of the world, +has gathered and grown grey with the thick mosses of romance and +superstition. But tradition must always have that little stone of truth +as its kernel; and perhaps he who rejects all, is likelier to be wrong +than even foolish folk like myself who love to believe all, and who +tread the new paths, thinking ever of the ancient stories. + + * * * + +There can be hardly any life more lovely upon earth than that of a young +student of art in Rome. With the morning, to rise to the sound of +countless bells and of innumerable streams, and see the silver lines of +the snow new fallen on the mountains against the deep rose of the dawn, +and the shadows of the night steal away softly from off the city, +releasing, one by one, dome and spire, and cupola and roof, till all the +wide white wonder of the place discloses itself under the broad +brightness of full day; to go down into the dark cool streets, with the +pigeons fluttering in the fountains, and the sounds of the morning +chants coming from many a church door and convent window, and little +scholars and singing children going by with white clothes on, or scarlet +robes, as though walking forth from the canvas of Botticelli or +Garofalo; to eat frugally, sitting close by some shop of flowers and +birds, and watching all the while the humours and the pageants of the +streets by quaint corners, rich with sculptures of the Renaissance, and +spanned by arches of architects that builded for Agrippa, under grated +windows with arms of Frangipanni or Colonna, and pillars that +Apollodorus raised; to go into the great courts of palaces, murmurous +with the fall of water, and fresh with green leaves and golden fruit, +that rob the colossal statues of their gloom and gauntness, and thence +into the vast chambers where the greatest dreams that men have ever had, +are written on panel and on canvas, and the immensity and the silence of +them all are beautiful and eloquent with dead men's legacies to the +living, where the Hours and the Seasons frolic beside the Maries at the +Sepulchre, and Adonis bares his lovely limbs, in nowise ashamed because +S. Jerome and S. Mark are there; to study and muse, and wonder and be +still, and be full of the peace which passes all understanding, because +the earth is lovely as Adonis is, and life is yet unspent; to come out +of the sacred light, half golden, and half dusky, and full of many +blended colours, where the marbles and the pictures live, sole dwellers +in the deserted dwellings of princes; to come out where the oranges are +all aglow in the sunshine, and the red camellias are pushing against the +hoary head of the old stone Hermes, and to go down the width of the +mighty steps into the gay piazza, alive with bells tolling, and crowds +laughing, and drums abeat, and the flutter of carnival banners in the +wind; and to get away from it all with a full heart, and ascend to see +the sun set from the terrace of the Medici, or the Pamfili, or the +Borghese woods, and watch the flame-like clouds stream homewards behind +S. Peter's, and the pines of Monte Mario grow black against the west, +till the pale green of evening spreads itself above them, and the stars +arise; and then, with a prayer--be your faith what it will--a prayer to +the Unknown God, to go down again through the violet-scented air and the +dreamful twilight, and so, with unspeakable thankfulness, simply because +you live, and this is Rome--so homeward. + + * * * + +The strong instinctive veracity in her weighed the measure of her days, +and gave them their right name. She was content, her life was full of +the sweetness and strength of the arts, and of the peace of noble +occupation and endeavour. But some true instinct in her taught her that +this is peace, but is not more than peace. Happiness comes but from the +beating of one heart upon another. + + * * * + +There was a high wall near, covered with peach-trees, and topped with +wistaria and valerian, and the handsome wild caperplant; and against the +wall stood rows of tall golden sunflowers late in their blooming; the +sun they seldom could see for the wall, and it was pathetic always to +me, as the day wore on, to watch the poor stately amber heads turn +straining to greet their god, and only meeting the stones and the +cobwebs, and the peach-leaves of their inexorable barrier. + +They were so like us!--straining after the light, and only finding +bricks and gossamer and wasps'-nests! But the sunflowers never made +mistakes as we do: they never took the broken edge of a glass bottle or +the glimmer of a stable lanthorn for the glory of Helios, and comforted +themselves with it--as we can do. + + * * * + +Dear, where we love much we always forgive, because we ourselves are +nothing, and what we love is all. + + * * * + +There is something in the silence of an empty room that sometimes has a +terrible eloquence: it is like the look of coming death in the eyes of a +dumb animal; it beggars words and makes them needless. + + * * * + +When you have said to yourself that you will kill any one, the world +only seems to hold yourself and him, and God--who will see the justice +done. + + * * * + +What is it that love does to a woman?--without it she only sleeps; with +it, alone, she lives. + + * * * + +A great love is an absolute isolation, and an absolute absorption. +Nothing lives or moves or breathes, save one life: for one life alone +the sun rises and sets, the seasons revolve, the clouds bear rain, and +the stars ride on high; the multitudes around cease to exist, or seem +but ghostly shades; of all the sounds of earth there is but one voice +audible; all past ages have been but the herald of one soul; all +eternity can be but its heritage alone. + + * * * + +Is Nature kind or cruel? Who can tell? + +The cyclone comes, or the earthquake; the great wave rises and swallows +the cities and the villages, and goes back whence it came; the earth +yawns, and devours the pretty towns and the sleeping children, the +gardens where the lovers were sitting, and the churches where women +prayed, and then the morass dries up and the gulf unites again. Men +build afresh, and the grass grows, and the trees, and all the flowering +seasons come back as of old. But the dead are dead: nothing changes +that! + +As it is with the earth, so it is with our life; our own poor, short, +little life, that is all we can really call our own. + +Calamities shatter, and despair engulfs it; and yet after a time the +chasm seems to close; the storm wave seems to roll back; the leaves and +the grass return; and we make new dwellings. That is, the daily ways of +living are resumed, and the common tricks of our speech and act are as +they used to be before disaster came upon us. Then wise people say, he +or she has "got over it." Alas, alas! the drowned children will not come +back to us; the love that was struck down, the prayer that was silenced, +the altar that was ruined, the garden that was ravished, they are all +gone for ever,--for ever, for ever! Yet we live; because grief does not +always kill, and often does not speak. + + * * * + +I crept through the myrtles downward, away from the house where the +statue lay shattered. The earliest of the nightingales of the year was +beginning her lay in some leafy covert hard by, but never would he hear +music in their piping again; never, never: any more than I should hear +the song of the Faun in the fountain. + +For the song that we hear with our ears is only the song that is sung in +our hearts. + +And his heart, I knew, would be for ever empty and silent, like a temple +that has been burned with fire, and left standing, pitiful and terrible, +in mockery of a lost religion, and of a forsaken god. + + * * * + +Men and women, losing the thing they love, lose much, but the artist +loses far more; for him are slaughtered all the children of his dreams, +and from him are driven all the fair companions of his solitude. + + * * * + +Love art alone, forsaking all other loves, and she will make you happy, +with a happiness that shall defy the seasons and the sorrows of time, +the pains of the vulgar and the changes of fortune, and be with you day +and night, a light that is never dim. But mingle with it any human +love--and art will look for ever at you with the eyes of Christ when he +looked at the faithless follower as the cock crew. + + * * * + +And, indeed, there are always the poor: the vast throngs born century +after century, only to know the pangs of life and of death, and nothing +more. Methinks that human life is, after all, but like a human body, +with a fair and smiling face, but all the limbs ulcered and cramped and +racked with pain. No surgery of statecraft has ever known how to keep +the fair head erect, yet give the trunk and the limbs health. + + * * * + +For in a great love there is a self-sustaining strength by which it +lives, deprived of everything, as there are plants that live upon our +barren ruins burned by the sun, and parched and shelterless, yet ever +lifting green leaves to the light. + + * * * + +And indeed after all there is nothing more cruel than the impotence of +genius to hold and keep those commonest joys and mere natural affections +which dullards and worse than dullards rejoice in at their pleasure; the +common human things, whose loss makes the great possessions of its +imperial powers all valueless and vain as harps unstrung, or as lutes +that are broken. + + * * * + +"This world of our own immediate day is weak and weary, because it is no +longer young; yet it possesses one noble attribute--it has an acute and +almost universal sympathy, which does indeed often degenerate into a +false and illogical sentiment, yet serves to redeem an age of egotism. +We have escaped both the gem-like hardness of the Pagan, and the +narrowing selfishness of the Christian and the Israelite. We are sick +for the woe of creation, and we wonder why such woe is ours, and why it +is entailed on the innocent dumb beasts, that perish in millions for us, +unpitied, day and night. Rome had no altar to Pity: it is the one God +that we own. When that pity in us for all things is perfected, perhaps +we shall have reached a religion of sympathy that will be purer than any +religion the world has yet seen, and more productive. 'Save my country!' +cried the Pagan to his deities. 'Save my soul!' cries the Christian at +his altars. We, who are without a god, murmur to the great unknown +forces of Nature: 'Let me save others some little portion of this pain +entailed on all simple and guileless things, that are forced to live, +without any fault of their own at their birth, or any will of their own +in their begetting.'" + + * * * + +How should we have great Art in our day? We have no faith. Belief of +some sort is the lifeblood of Art. When Athene and Zeus ceased to excite +any veneration in the minds of men, sculpture and architecture both lost +their greatness. When the Madonna and her son lost that mystery and +divinity, which for the simple minds of the early painters they +possessed, the soul went out of canvas and of wood. When we carve a +Venus now, she is but a light woman; when we paint a Jesus now, it is +but a little suckling, or a sorrowful prisoner. We want a great +inspiration. We ought to find it in the things that are really +beautiful, but we are not sure enough, perhaps, what is so. What does +dominate us is a passion for nature; for the sea, for the sky, for the +mountain, for the forest, for the evening storm, for the break of day. +Perhaps when we are thoroughly steeped in this we shall reach greatness +once more. But the artificiality of all modern life is against it; so is +its cynicism. Sadness and sarcasm make a great Lucretius as a great +Juvenal, and scorn makes a strong Aristophanes; but they do not make a +Praxiteles and an Apelles; they do not even make a Raffaelle, or a +Flaxman. + +Art, if it be anything, is the perpetual uplifting of what is beautiful +in the sight of the multitudes--the perpetual adoration of that +loveliness, material and moral, which men in the haste and the greed of +their lives are everlastingly forgetting: unless it be that it is empty +and useless as a child's reed-pipe when the reed is snapt and the +child's breath spent. Genius is obligation. + + * * * + +"No woman, I think, ever loved you as this woman does, whom you have +left as I would not leave a dog," said Maryx, and something of his old +ardent eloquence returned to him, and his voice rose and rang clearer as +the courage in him consummated the self-sacrifice that he had set +himself for her sake. "Have you ever thought what you have done? When +you have killed Art in an artist, you have done the cruellest murder +that earth can behold. Other and weaker natures than hers might forget, +but she never. Her fame will be short-lived as that rose, for she sees +but your face, and the world will tire of that, but she will not. She +can dream no more. She can only remember. Do you know what that is to +the artist?--it is to be blind and to weary the world; the world that +has no more pity than you have! You think her consoled because her +genius has not left her: are you a poet and yet do not know that genius +is only a power to suffer more and to remember longer?--nothing else. +You say to yourself that she will have fame, that will beguile her as +the god came to Ariadnę; perhaps; but across that fame, let it become +what it may, there will settle for ever the shadow of the world's +dishonour; it will be for ever poisoned, and cursed, and embittered by +the scorn of fools, and the reproach of women, since by you they have +been given their lashes of nettles, and by you have been given their +by-word to hoot. She will walk in the light of triumph, you say, and +therefore you have not hurt her; do you not see that the fiercer that +light may beat on her, the sharper will the eyes of the world search out +the brand with which you have burned her. For when do men forgive force +in the woman? and when do women ever forgive the woman's greatness? and +when does every cur fail to snarl at the life that is higher than its +fellows? It is by the very genius in her that you have had such power to +wound, such power to blight and to destroy. By so long as her name shall +be spoken, so long will the wrong you have done her cling round it, to +make it meet for reproach. A mere woman dies, and her woe and her shame +die with her, and the earth covers her and them; but such shelter is +denied for ever to the woman who has genius and fame; long after she is +dead she will lie out on common soil, naked and unhouselled, for all the +winds to blow on her and all the carrion birds to tear." + + * * * + +"No, no. That is accursed! To touch Art without a right to touch it, +merely as a means to find bread--you are too honest to think of such a +thing. Unless Art be adored for its own sake and purely, it must be +left alone. Philip of Macedon had every free man's child taught Art! I +would have every boy and girl taught its sacredness; so, we might in +time get back some accuracy of taste in the public, some +conscientiousness of production in the artist. If artistic creation be +not a joy, an imperious necessity, an instinct of all the forces of the +mind, let the boy go and plough, and the girl go and spin." + + * * * + +Maybe you turn your back on happiness. I have heard that wise people +often do that. They look up so at the sun and the stars, that they set +their foot on the lark that would have sung to them and woke them +brightly in the morning--and kill it. + + * * * + +Landscape painting is the only original form of painting that modern +times can boast. It has not exhausted itself yet; it is capable of +infinite development. Ruysdael, Rembrandt, and the rest, did great +scenes, it is true, but it has been left to our painters to put soul +into the sunshine of a cornfield, and suggest a whole life of labour in +a dull evening sky hanging over a brown ploughed upland, with the horses +going tired homewards, and one grey figure trudging after them, to the +hut on the edge of the moor. Of course the modern fancy of making nature +answer to all human moods, like an Eölian harp, is morbid and +exaggerated, but it has a beauty in it, and a certain truth. Our +tenderer souls take refuge in the country now, as they used to do in the +cloister. + + * * * + +I think if people oftener saw the break of day they would vow oftener to +keep that dawning day holy, and would not so often let its fair hours +drift away with nothing done that were not best left undone. + + * * * + +We are the sons of our Time: it is not for us to slay our mother. Let us +cover her dishonour if we see it, lest we should provoke the Erinyes. + + * * * + +How one loves Canova the man, and how one execrates Canova the artist! +Surely never was a great repute achieved by so false a talent and so +perfect a character. One would think he had been born and bred in +Versailles instead of Treviso. He is called a naturalist! Look at his +Graces! He is always Coysevax and Coustou at heart. Never purely +classic, never frankly modern. Louis XIV. would have loved him better +than Bernini. + + * * * + +If Alexander had believed himself a bubble of gas instead of the son of +a god, he would not have changed the face of the world. Negation cannot +be the parent of heroism, though it will produce an indifference that +counterfeits it not ill, since Petronius died quite as serenely as ever +did the martyrs of the Church. + + * * * + +Genius cannot escape the taint of its time more than a child the +influence of its begetting. Augustus could have Horace and Ovid; he +could never have had Homer and Milton. + + * * * + +I do not think with you. Talent takes the mark of its generation; genius +stamps its time with its own impression. Virgil had the sentiment of an +united Italy. + + * * * + +Tell her that past she thinks so great was only very like the Serapis +which men worshipped so many ages in Theophilis, and which, when the +soldiers struck it down at last, proved itself only a hollow Colossus +with a colony of rats in its head that scampered right and left. + + * * * + +Falconet struck the death-note of the plastic arts when he said, "Our +marbles have _almost_ colour." That is just where we err. We are +incessantly striving to make Sculpture at once a romance-writer and a +painter, and of course she loses all dignity and does but seem the jay +in borrowed plumes of sable. Conceits are altogether out of keeping with +marble. They suit a cabinet painting or a piece of china. Bernini was +the first to show the disease when he veiled the head of his Nile to +indicate that the source was unknown. + + * * * + +Whosoever has any sort of fame has lighted a beacon that is always +shining upon him, and can never more return into the cool twilight of +privacy even when most he wishes. It is of these retributions--some call +them compensations--of which life is full. + + * * * + +Men have forgotten the virile Pyrrhic dance, and have become incapable +of the grace of the Ionian; their only dance is a Danse Macabre, and +they are always hand in hand with a skeleton. + + * * * + +By night Rome is still a city for the gods; the shadows veil its wounds, +the lustre silvers all its stones; its silence is haunted as no other +silence is; if you have faith, there where the dark gloss of the laurel +brushes the marble as in Agrippa's time, you will see the Immortals +passing by chained with dead leaves and weeping. + + * * * + +A great love is an absolute isolation and an absolute absorption. +Nothing lives or moves or breathes save one life; for one life alone the +sun rises and sets, the seasons revolve, the clouds bear rain, and the +stars ride on high; the multitudes around cease to exist, or seem but +ghostly shades; of all the sounds of earth there is but one voice +audible; all past ages have been but the herald of one soul; all +eternity can be but its heritage alone. + + * * * + +Perhaps she was right: for a few hours of joy one owes the debt of +years, and should give a pardon wide and deep as the deep sea. + +This Love which she had made in his likeness, the tyrant and compeller +of the world, was to her as the angel which brings perfect dreams and +lets the tired sleeper visit heaven. + + * * * + +"And when the ship sails away without you?" I said brutally, and +laughing still, because the mention of the schooner had broken the bonds +of the silence that had held me against my will half paralysed, and I +seemed to be again upon the Tyrrhene shore, seeing the white sail fade +against the sky. + +"And when that ship sails without you? The day will come. It always +comes. You are my Ariadnę; yet you forget Naxos! Oh, the day will come! +you will kiss the feet of your idol then, and they will not stay; they +will go away, away, away, and they will not tarry for your prayers or +your tears--ay, it is always so. Two love, and one tires. And you know +nothing of that; you who would have love immortal." + +And I laughed again, for it seemed to me so horrible, and I was half +mad. + +No doubt it would have been kinder had I struck my knife down into her +breast with her words unspoken. + +All shade of colour forsook her face; only the soft azure of the veins +remained, and changed to an ashen grey. She shook with a sudden shiver +from head to foot as the name she hated, the name of Ariadnę, fell upon +her ear. The icebolt had fallen in her paradise. A scared and terrible +fear dilated her eyes, that opened wide in the amaze of some suddenly +stricken creature. + +"And when he leaves you?" I said, with cruel iteration. "Do you remember +what you told me once of the woman by the marshes by the sea, who had +nothing left by which to remember love save wounds that never healed? +That is all his love will leave you by-and-by." + +"Ah, never!" + +She spoke rather to herself than me. The terror was fading out of her +eyes, the blood returning to her face; she was in the sweet bewildered +trance of that blind faith which goes wherever it is led, and never asks +the end nor dreads the fate. Her love was deathless: how could she know +that his was mortal? + +"You are cruel," she said, with her mouth quivering, but the old, soft, +grand courage in her eyes. "We are together for ever; he has said so. +But even if--if--I only remembered him by wounds, what would that change +in me? He would _have_ loved me. If he would wish to wound me, so he +should. I am his own as the dogs are. Think!--he looked at me, and all +the world grew beautiful; he touched me, and I was happy--I, who never +had been happy in my life. You look at me strangely; you speak harshly. +Why? I used to think, surely you would be glad----" + +I gripped my knife and cursed him in my soul. + +How could one say to her the thing that he had made her in man's and +woman's sight? + +"I thought you would be glad," she said, wistfully, "and I would have +told you long ago--myself. I do not know why you should look so. Perhaps +you are angered because I seemed ungrateful to you and Maryx. Perhaps I +was so. I have no thought--only of him. What he wished, that I did. Even +Rome itself was for me nothing, and the gods--there is only one for me; +and he is with me always. And I think the serpents and the apes are gone +for ever from the tree, and he only hears the nightingales--now. He +tells me so often. Very often. Do you remember I used to dream of +greatness for myself--ah, what does it matter! I want nothing now. When +he looks at me--the gods themselves could give me nothing more." + +And the sweet tranquil radiance came back into her eyes, and her +thoughts wandered into the memories of this perfect passion which +possessed her, and she forgot that I was there. + +My throat was choking; my eyes felt blind; my tongue clove to my mouth. +I, who knew what that end would be as surely as I knew the day then +shining would sink into the earth, I was dumb, like a brute beast--I, +who had gone to take his life. + +Before this love which knew nothing of the laws of mankind, how poor and +trite and trivial looked those laws! What could I dare to say to her of +shame? Ah! if it had only been for any other's sake! But he,--perhaps he +did not lie to her; perhaps he did only hear the nightingales with her +beside him; but how soon their song would pall upon his ear, how soon +would he sigh for the poisonous kiss of the serpents! I knew! I knew! + +I stood heart-broken in the warm light that was falling through the +casement and streaming towards her face. What could I say to her? Men +harder and sterner and surer in every way of their own judgment than I +was of mine no doubt would have shaken her with harsh hands from that +dream in which she had wandered to her own destruction. + +No doubt a sterner moralist than I would have had no pity, and would +have hurled on her all the weight of those bitter truths of which she +was so ignorant; would have shown her that pit of earthly scorn upon +whose brink she stood; would have torn down all that perfect, credulous +faith of hers, which could have no longer life nor any more lasting root +than the flowering creeper born of a summer's sun, and gorgeous as the +sunset's hues, and clinging about a ruin-mantling decay. Oh yes, no +doubt. But I am only weak, and of little wisdom, and never certain that +the laws and ways of the world are just, and never capable of long +giving pain to any harmless creature, least of all to her. + +She seemed to rouse herself with effort to remember I was there, and +turned on me her eyes that were suffused and dreamful with happiness, +like a young child's with sleep. + +"I must have seemed so thankless to you: you were so very good to me," +she said, with that serious sweetness of her rare smile that I had used +to watch for, as an old dog watches for his young owner's--an old dog +that is used to be forgotten, but does not himself forget, though he is +old. "I must have seemed so thankless; but he bade me be silent, and I +have no law but him. After that night when we walked in Nero's fields, +and I went home and learned he loved me;--do you not see I forgot that +there was any one in all the world except himself and me? It must always +be so--at least, so I think. Oh, how true that poem was! Do you +remember how he read it that night after Mozart amongst the roses by the +fire? What use was endless life and all the lore of the spirits and +seers to Sospitra? I was like Sospitra, till he came; always thinking of +the stars and the heavens in the desert all alone, and always wishing +for life eternal, when it is only life _together_ that is worth a wish +or a prayer. But why do you look at me so? Perhaps you do not +understand. Perhaps I am selfish." + +This was all that it seemed to her--that I did not understand. Could she +see the tears of blood that welled up in my eyes? Could she see the +blank despair that blinded my sight? Could she see the frozen hand that +I felt clutching at my heart and benumbing it? I did not understand; +that was all that it seemed to her. + +She was my Ariadnę, born again to suffer the same fate. I saw the +future: she could not. I knew that he would leave her as surely as the +night succeeds the day. I knew that his passion--if passion, indeed, it +were, and not only the mere common vanity of subjugation and +possession--would pall on him and fade out little by little, as the +stars fade out of the grey morning skies. I knew, but I had not the +courage to tell her. + +Men were faithful only to the faithless. But what could she know of +this? + +"Thinking of the stars and of the heavens in the desert all alone! Yes!" +I cried; and the bonds of my silence were unloosed, and the words rushed +from my lips like a torrent from between the hills. + +"Yes; and never to see the stars any more, and to lose for ever the +peace of the desert--that, you think, is gain! Oh, my dear! what can I +say to you? What can I say? You will not believe if I tell you. I shall +seem a liar and a prophet of false woe. I shall curse when I would +bless. What can I say to you? Athene watched over you. You were of those +who dwell alone, but whom the gods are with. You had the clue and the +sword, and they are nothing to you; you lose them both at his word, at +the mere breath of his lips, and know no god but his idle law, that +shifts as the winds of the sea. And you count that gain? Oh, just +Heaven! Oh, my dear, my heart is broken; how can I tell you? One man +loved you who was great and good, to whom you were a sacred thing, who +would have lifted you up in heaven, and never have touched too roughly a +single hair of your head; and you saw him no more than the very earth +that you trod; he was less to you than the marbles he wrought in; and he +suffers: and what do you care? You have had the greatest wrong that a +woman can have, and you think it the greatest good, the sweetest gift! +He has torn your whole life down as a cruel hand tears a rose in the +morning light, and you rejoice! For what do you know? He will kill your +soul, and still you will kiss his hand. Some women are so. When he +leaves you, what will you do? For you there will only be death. The weak +are consoled, but the strong never. What will you do? What will you do? +You are like a child that culls flowers at the edge of a snake's +breeding-pit. He waked you--yes!--to send you in a deeper sleep, blind +and dumb to everything but his will. Nay, nay! that is not your fault. +Love does not come at will; and of goodness it is not born, nor of +gratitude, nor of any right or reason on the earth. Only that you should +have had no thought of us--no thought at all--only of him by whom your +ruin comes; that seems hard! Ay, it is hard. You stood just so in my +dream, and you hesitated between the flower of passion and the flower of +death. Ah, well might Love laugh. They grow on the same bough; Love +knows that. Oh, my dear, my dear, I come too late! Look! he has done +worse than murder, for that only kills the body; but he has killed the +soul in you. He will crush out all that came to you from heaven; all +your mind and your hopes and your dreams, and all the mystery in you, +that we poor half-dumb fools call genius, and that made the common +daylight above you full of all beautiful shapes and visions that our +duller eyes could not see as you went. He has done worse than murder, +and I came to take his life. Ay, I would slay him now as I would +strangle the snake in my path. And even for this I come too late. I +cannot do you even this poor last service. To strike him dead would only +be to strike you too. I come too late! Take my knife, lest I should see +him--take it. Till he leaves you I will wait." + +I drew the fine, thin blade across my knee and broke it in two pieces, +and threw the two halves at her feet. + +Then I turned without looking once at her, and went away. + +I do not know how the day waned and passed; the skies seemed red with +fire, and the canals with blood. I do not know how I found my road over +the marble floors and out into the air. I only remember that I felt my +way feebly with my hands, as though the golden sunlight were all +darkness, and that I groped my way down the steps and out under an angle +of the masonry, staring stupidly upon the gliding waters. + +I do not know whether a minute had gone by or many hours, when some +shivering sense of sound made me look up at the casement above, a high, +vast casement fretted with dusky gold and many colours, and all kinds of +sculptured stone. The sun was making a glory as of jewels on its painted +panes. Some of them were open; I could see within the chamber Hilarion's +fair and delicate head, and his face drooped with a soft smile. I could +see her, with all her loveliness, melting, as it were, into his embrace, +and see her mouth meet his. + +If I had not broken the steel!---- + +I rose from the stones and cursed them, and departed from the place as +the moon rose. + + * * * + +He was silent; the moonlight poured down between us white and wide; +there lay a little dead bird on the stones, I remember, a redbreast, +stiff and cold. The people traffic in such things here, in the square of +Agrippa; it had fallen, doubtless, off some market stall. + +Poor little robin! All the innocent sweet woodland singing-life of it +was over, over in agony, and not a soul in all the wide earth was the +better for its pain; not even the huckster who had missed making his +copper coin by it. Woe is me; the sorrow of the world is great. + +I pointed to it where it lay, poor little soft huddled heap of bright +feathers; there is no sadder sight than a dead bird, for what lovelier +life can there be than a bird's life, free in the sun and the rain, in +the blossom and foliage? + +"Make the little cold throat sing at sunrise," I said to him. "When you +can do that, then think to undo what you have done." + +"She will forget:--" + +"You know she never will forget. There is your crime." + +"She will have her art----" + +"Will the dead bird sing?" + + * * * + +Here, if anywhere in the "divine city of the Vatican"--for in truth a +city and divine it is, and well has it been called so--here, if +anywhere, will wake the soul of the artist; here, where the very +pavement bears the story of Odysseus, and each passage-way is a Via +Sacra, and every stone is old with years whose tale is told by hundreds +or by thousands, and the wounded Adonis can be adored beside the tempted +Christ of Sistine, and the serious beauty of the Erythean Sibyl lives +beside the laughing grace of ivy-crowned Thalia, and the Jupiter +Maximus frowns on the mortals made of earth's dust, and the Jehovah who +has called forth woman meets the first smile of Eve. A Divine City +indeed, holding in its innumerable chambers and its courts of granite +and of porphyry all that man has ever dreamed of, in his hope and in his +terror, of the Unknown God. + + * * * + +The days of joyous, foolish mumming came--the carnival mumming that as a +boy I had loved so well, and that, ever since I had come and stitched +under my Apollo and Crispin, I had never been loth to meddle and mix in, +going mad with my lit taper, like the rest, and my whistle of the +Befana, and all the salt and sport of a war of wits such as old Rome has +always heard in midwinter since the seven nights of the Saturnalia. + +Dear Lord! to think that twice a thousand years ago and more, along +these banks of Tiber, and down in the Velabrum and up the Sacred Way, +men and women and children were leaping, and dancing, and shouting, and +electing their festal king, and exchanging their new-year gifts of wax +candles and little clay figures: and that now-a-days we are doing just +the same thing in the same season, in the same places, only with all the +real faunic joyfulness gone out of it with the old slain Saturn, and a +great deal of empty and luxurious show come in instead! It makes one +sad, mankind looks such a fool. + +Better be Heine's fool on the seashore, who asks the winds their +"wherefore" and their "whence." You remember Heine's poem--that one in +the "North Sea" series, that speaks of the man by the shore, and asks +what is Man, and what shall become of him, and who lives on high in the +stars? and tells how the waves keep on murmuring and the winds rising, +the clouds scudding before the breeze, and the planets shining so cold +and so far, and how on the shore a fool waits for an answer, and waits +in vain. It is a terrible poem, and terrible because it is true. + +Every one of us stands on the brink of the endless sea that is Time and +is Death; and all the blind, beautiful, mute, majestic forces of +creation move around us and yet tell us nothing. + +It is wonderful that, with this awful mystery always about us, we can go +on on our little lives as cheerfully as we do; that on the edge of that +mystical shore we yet can think so much about the crab in the +lobster-pot, the eel in the sand, the sail in the distance, the child's +face at home. + +Well, no doubt it is heaven's mercy that we can do so; it saves from +madness such thinking souls as are amongst us. + + * * * + +"My dear, of love there is very little in the world. There are many +things that take its likeness: fierce unstable passions and poor +egotisms of all sorts, vanities too, and many other follies--Apatę and +Philotęs in a thousand masquerading characters that gain great Love +discredit. The loves of men, and women too, my dear, are hardly better +very often than Minos' love for Skylla; you remember how he threw her +down from the stern of his vessel when he had made the use of her he +wished, and she had cut the curls of Nisias. A great love does not of +necessity imply a great intelligence, but it must spring out of a great +nature, that is certain; and where the heart has spent itself in much +base petty commerce, it has no deep treasury of gold on which to draw; +it is bankrupt from its very over-trading. A noble passion is very rare; +believe me; as rare as any other very noble thing." + + * * * + +"Do you call him a poet because he has the trick of a sonorous cadence +and of words that fall with the measure of music, so that youths and +maidens recite them for the vain charm of their mere empty sound? It is +a lie--it is a blasphemy. A poet! A poet suffers for the meanest thing +that lives; the feeblest creature dead in the dust is pain to him; his +joy and his sorrow alike outweigh tenfold the joys and the sorrows of +men; he looks on the world as Christ looked on Jerusalem, and weeps; he +loves, and all heaven and all hell are in his love; he is faithful unto +death, because fidelity alone can give to love the grandeur and the +promise of eternity; he is like the martyrs of the church who lay upon +the wheel with their limbs racked, yet held the roses of Paradise in +their hands and heard the angels in the air. That is a poet; that is +what Dante was, and Shelley and Milton and Petrarca. But this man? this +singer of the senses, whose sole lament is that the appetites of the +body are too soon exhausted; this languid and curious analysist who +rends the soul aside with merciless cruelty, and puts away the quivering +nerves with cold indifference, once he has seen their secrets?--this a +poet? Then so was Nero harping! Accursed be the book and all the +polished vileness that his verses ever palmed off on men by their mere +tricks of sound. This a poet! As soon are the swine that rout the +garbage, the lions of the Apocalypse by the throne of God!" + + * * * + +The glad water sparkles and ripples everywhere; above the broad porphyry +basins butterflies of every colour flutter, and swallows fly; lovers and +children swing balls of flowers, made as only our Romans know how to +make them; the wide lawns under the deep-shadowed avenues are full of +blossoms; the air is full of fragrance; the palms rise against a +cloudless sky; the nights are lustrous; in the cool of the great +galleries the statues seem to smile: so spring had been to me always; +but now the season was without joy, and the scent of the flowers on the +wind hurt me as it smote my nostrils. + +For a great darkness seemed always between me and the sun, and I +wondered that the birds could sing, and the children run amongst the +blossoms--the world being so vile. + + * * * + +Women hope that the dead love may revive; but men know that of all dead +things none are so past recall as a dead passion. + +The courtesan may scourge it with a whip of nettles back into life; but +the innocent woman may wet it for ever with her tears, she will find no +resurrection. + + * * * + +Art is an angel of God, but when Love has entered the soul, the angel +unfolds its plumes and takes flight, and the wind of its wings withers +as it passes. He whom it has left misses the angel at his ear, but he is +alone for ever. Sometimes it will seem to him then that it had been no +angel ever, but a fiend that lied, making him waste his years in a +barren toil, and his nights in a joyless passion; for there are two +things beside which all Art is but a mockery and a curse: they are a +child that is dying and a love that is lost. + + * * * + +Love art alone, forsaking all other loves, and she will make you happy, +with a happiness that shall defy the seasons and the sorrows of time, +the pains of the vulgar and the changes of fortune, and be with you day +and night, a light that is never dim. But mingle with it any human +love--and art will look for ever at you with the eyes of Christ when he +looked at the faithless follower as the cock crew. + + * * * + +The little garden of the Rospigliosi seems to have all medićval Rome +shut in it, as you go up the winding stairs with all their lichens and +water-plants and broken marbles, into the garden itself, with its smooth +emerald turf and spreading magnolias, and broad fish-ponds, and orange +and citron trees, and the frescoed building at the end where Guido's +Aurora floats in unchanging youth, and the buoyant Hours run before the +sun. + +Myself I own I care not very much for that Aurora; she is no incarnation +of the morning, and though she floats wonderfully and does truly seem to +move, yet is she in nowise ethereal nor suggestive of the dawn either of +day or life. When he painted her, he must have been in love with some +lusty taverner's buxom wife busked in her holiday attire. + +But whatever one may think of the famed Aurora, of the loveliness of her +quiet garden home, safe in the shelter of the stately palace walls, +there can be no question; the little place is beautiful, and sitting in +its solitude with the brown magnolia fruit falling on the grass, and the +blackbirds pecking between the primroses, all the courtly and superb +pageant of the dead ages will come trooping by you, and you will fancy +that the boy Metastasio is reciting strophes under yonder Spanish +chestnut-tree, and cardinals, and nobles, and gracious ladies, and +pretty pages are all listening, leaning against the stone rail of the +central water. + +For this is the especial charm and sorcery of Rome, that, sitting idly +in her beautiful garden-ways, you can turn over a score of centuries and +summon all their pomp and pain before you, as easily as little children +can turn over the pages of a coloured picture-book until their eyes are +dazzled. + + + + +_CHANDOS._ + + +It is so easy for the preacher, when he has entered the days of +darkness, to tell us to find no flavour in the golden fruit, no music in +the song of the charmer, no spell in eyes that look love, no delirium in +the soft dreams of the lotus--so easy when these things are dead and +barren for himself, to say they are forbidden! But men must be far more +or far less than mortal ere they can blind their eyes, and dull their +senses, and forswear their nature, and obey the dreariness of the +commandment; and there is little need to force the sackcloth and the +serge upon us. The roses wither long before the wassail is over, and +there is no magic that will make them bloom again, for there is none +that renews us--youth. The Helots had their one short, joyous festival +in their long year of labour; life may leave us ours. It will be surely +to us, long before its close, a harder tyrant and a more remorseless +taskmaster than ever was the Lacedemonian to his bond-slaves,--bidding +us make bricks without straw, breaking the bowed back, and leaving us as +our sole chance of freedom the hour when we shall turn our faces to the +wall--and die. + + * * * + +Society, that smooth and sparkling sea, is excessively difficult to +navigate; its surf looks no more than champagne foam, but a thousand +quicksands and shoals lie beneath: there are breakers ahead for more +than half the dainty pleasure-boats that skim their hour upon it; and +the foundered lie by millions, forgotten, five fathoms deep below. The +only safe ballast upon it is gold dust; and if stress of weather come on +you, it will swallow you without remorse. Trevenna had none of this +ballast; he had come out to sea in as ticklish a cockle-shell as might +be; he might go down any moment, and he carried no commission, being a +sort of nameless, unchartered rover: yet float he did, securely. + + * * * + +Corals, pink and delicate, rivet continents together; ivy tendrils, that +a child may break, bold Norman walls with bonds of iron; a little ring, +a toy of gold, a jeweller's bagatelle, forges chains heavier than the +galley-slave's: so a woman's look may fetter a lifetime. + + * * * + +He had passed through life having escaped singularly all the shadows +that lie on it for most men; and he had, far more than most, what may be +termed the faculty for happiness--a gift, in any temperament, whose +wisdom and whose beauty the world too little recognises. + + * * * + +A temperament that is _never_ earnest is at times well-nigh as wearisome +as a temperament that is never gay; there comes a time when, if you can +never touch to any depth, the ceaseless froth and brightness of the +surface will create a certain sense of impatience, a certain sense of +want. + + * * * + +A straw misplaced will make us enemies; a millstone of benefits hung +about his neck may fail to anchor down by us a single friend. We may +lavish what we will--kindly thought, loyal service, untiring aid, and +generous deed--and they are all but as oil to the burning, as fuel to +the flame, when spent upon those who are jealous of us. + + * * * + +Truth is a rough, honest, helter-skelter terrier, that none like to see +brought into their drawing-rooms, throwing over all their dainty little +ornaments, upsetting their choicest Dresden, that nobody guessed was +cracked till it fell with the mended side uppermost, and keeping every +one in incessant tremor lest the next snap should be at their braids or +their boots, of which neither the varnish nor the luxuriance will stand +rough usage. + + * * * + +When will men learn to know that the power of genius, and the human +shell in which it chances to be harboured, are as distinct as is the +diamond from the quartz-bed in which they find it? + + * * * + +Had he embraced dishonour, and accepted the rescue that a lie would have +lent him, this misery in its greatest share had never been upon him. He +would have come hither with riches about him, and the loveliness he had +worshipped would have been his own beyond the touch of any rival's hand. +Choosing to cleave to the old creeds of his race, and passing, without a +backward glance, into the paths of honour and of justice, it was thus +with him now. Verily, virtue must be her own reward, as in the Socratic +creed; for she will bring no other dower than peace of conscience in her +gift to whosoever weds her. "I have loved justice, and fled from +iniquity; wherefore here I die in exile," said Hildebrand upon his +death-bed. They will be the closing words of most lives that have +followed truth. + + * * * + +There are liberties sweeter than love; there are goals higher than +happiness. + +Some memory of them stirred in him there, with the noiseless flow of the +lingering water at his feet, and above the quiet of the stars; the +thoughts of his youth came back to him, and his heart ached with their +longing. + +Out of the salt depths of their calamity men had gathered the heroisms +of their future; out of the desert of their exile they had learned the +power to return as conquerors. The greater things within him awakened +from their lethargy; the innate strength so long untried, so long lulled +to dreamy indolence and rest, uncoiled from its prostration; the force +that would resist and, it might be, survive, slowly came upon him, with +the taunts of his foe. It was possible that there was that still in him +which might be grander and truer to the ambitions of his imaginative +childhood under adversity, than in the voluptuous sweetness of his rich +and careless life. It was possible, if--if he could once meet the fate +he shuddered from, once look at the bitterness of the life that waited +for him, and enter on its desolate and arid waste without going back to +the closed gates of his forfeited paradise to stretch his limbs within +their shadow once more ere he died. + +There is more courage needed oftentimes to accept the onward flow of +existence, bitter as the waters of Marah, black and narrow as the +channel of Jordan, than there is ever needed to bow down the neck to the +sweep of the death-angel's sword. + + * * * + +He accepted the desolation of his life, for the sake of all beyond life, +greater than life, which looked down on him from the silence of the +night. + + * * * + +It was sunset in Venice,--that supreme moment when the magical flush of +light transfigures all, and wanderers whose eyes have long ached with +the greyness and the glare of northward cities gaze and think themselves +in heaven. The still waters of the lagunes, the marbles and the porphyry +and the jasper of the mighty palaces, the soft grey of the ruins all +covered with clinging green and the glowing blossoms of creepers, the +hidden antique nooks where some woman's head leaned out of an arched +casement, like a dream of the Dandolo time when the Adriatic swarmed +with the returning galleys laden with Byzantine spoil, the dim, mystic, +majestic walls that towered above the gliding surface of the eternal +water, once alive with flowers, and music, and the gleam of golden +tresses, and the laughter of careless revellers in the Venice of +Goldoni, in the Venice of the Past;--everywhere the sunset glowed with +the marvel of its colour, with the wonder of its warmth. + +Then a moment, and it was gone. Night fell with the hushed shadowy +stillness that belongs to Venice alone; and in the place of the riot and +luxuriance of colour there was the tremulous darkness of the young +night, with the beat of an oar on the water, the scent of unclosing +carnation-buds, the white gleam of moonlight, and the odour of +lilies-of-the-valley blossoming in the dark archway of some mosaic-lined +window. + + * * * + +The ruin that had stripped him of all else taught him to fathom the +depths of his own attainments. He had in him the gifts of a Goethe; but +it was only under adversity that these reached their stature and bore +their fruit. + + * * * + +The words were true. The bread of bitterness is the food on which men +grow to their fullest stature; the waters of bitterness are the +debatable ford through which they reach the shores of wisdom; the ashes +boldly grasped and eaten without faltering are the price that must be +paid for the golden fruit of knowledge. The swimmer cannot tell his +strength till he has gone through the wild force of opposing waves; the +great man cannot tell the might of his hand and the power of his +resistance till he has wrestled with the angel of adversity, and held it +close till it has blessed him. + + * * * + +The artist was true to his genius; he knew it a greater gift than +happiness; and as his hands wandered by instinct over the familiar +notes, the power of his kingdom came to him, the passion of his mistress +was on him, and the grandeur of the melody swelled out to mingle with +the night, divine as consolation, supreme as victory. + + * * * + +The man who puts chains on another's limbs is only one shade worse than +he who puts fetters on another's free thoughts and on another's free +conscience. + + * * * + +One fetter of tradition loosened, one web of superstition broken, one +ray of light let in on darkness, one principle of liberty secured, are +worth the living for, he mused. Fame!--it is the flower of a day, that +dies when the next sun rises. But to do something, however little, to +free men from their chains, to aid something, however faintly, the +rights of reason and of truth, to be unvanquished through all and +against all, these may bring one nearer the pure ambitions of youth. + +Happiness dies as age comes to us; it sets for ever, with the suns of +early years: yet perhaps we may keep a higher thing beside which it +holds but a brief loyalty, if to ourselves we can rest true, if for the +liberty of the world we can do anything. + + * * * + +Do not believe that happiness makes us selfish; it is a treason to the +sweetest gift of life. It is when it has deserted us that it grows hard +to keep all the better things in us from dying in the blight. + + * * * + +"Coleridge cried, 'O God, how glorious it is to live!' Renan asks, 'O +God, when will it be worth while to live?' In nature we echo the poet; +in the world we echo the thinker." + + * * * + +"Yet you are greater than you were then," he said, slowly. "I know it,--I +who am but a wine-cup rioter and love nothing but my summer-day fooling. +You are greater; but the harvest you sow will only be reaped over your +grave." + +"I should be content could I believe it would be reaped then." + +"Be content then. You may be so." + +"God knows! Do you not think Marsy and Delisle de Sales and Linguet +believed, as they suffered in their dungeons for mere truth of speech, +that the remembrance of future generations would solace them? Bichât +gave himself to premature death for science' sake; does the world once +in a year speak his name? Yet how near those men are to us, to be +forgotten! A century, and history will scarce chronicle them." + +"Then why give the wealth of your intellect to men?" + +"Are there not higher things than present reward and the mere talk of +tongues? The _monstrari digito_ were scarce a lofty goal. We may love +Truth and strive to serve her, disregarding what she brings us. Those +who need a bribe from her are not her true believers." + +Philippe d'Orvâle tossed his silvery hair from his eyes,--eyes of such +sunny lustre still. + +"Ay! And those who held that sublime code of yours, that cleaving to +truth for truth's sake, where are they? How have they fared in every +climate and in every age? Stoned, crucified, burned, fettered, broken on +the vast black granite mass of the blind multitude's brutality, of the +priesthood's curse and craft!" + +"True! Yet if through us, ever so slightly, the bondage of the creeds' +traditions be loosened from the lives they stifle, and those +multitudes--so weary, so feverish, so much more to be pitied than +condemned--become less blind, less brute, the sacrifice is not in vain." + +"In your sense, no. But the world reels back again into darkness as soon +as a hand has lifted it for a while into light. Men hold themselves +purified, civilised; a year of war,--and lust and bloodthirst rage +untamed in all their barbarism; a taste of slaughter,--and they are +wolves again! There was truth in the old feudal saying, 'Oignez vilain, +il vous poindra; poignez vilain, il vous oindra.' Beat the multitudes +you talk of with a despot's sword, and they will lick your feet; touch +them with a Christ-like pity, and they will nail you to the cross." + +There was terrible truth in the words: this man of princely blood, who +disdained all sceptres and wanted nothing of the world, could look +through and through it with his bold sunlit eyes, and see its +rottenness to the core. + +Chandos sighed as he heard. + +"You are right,--only too right. Yet even while they crouch to the +tyrant's sabre, how bitterly they need release! even while they crucify +their teachers and their saviours, how little they know what they do! +They may forsake themselves; but they should not be forsaken." + +Philippe d'Orvâle looked on him with a light soft as woman's tears in +his eyes, and dashed his hand down on the alabaster. + +"Chandos, you live twenty centuries too late. You would have been +crowned in Athens, and throned in Asia. But here, as a saving grace, +they will call you--'mad!'" + +"Well, if they do? The title has its honours. It was hooted against +Solon and Socrates." + + * * * + +"I would do all in the world to please _you_, monseigneur," he answered, +sadly; "but I cannot change my nature. The little aziola loves the +shade, and shrinks from noise and glare and all the ways of men; I am +like it. You cannot make the aziola a bird for sunlight; you cannot make +me as others are." + +Chandos looked down on him with an almost tender compassion. To him, +whose years were so rich in every pleasure and every delight that men +can enjoy, the loneliness and pain of Lulli's life, divorced from all +the living world, made it a marvel profoundly melancholy, profoundly +formed to claim the utmost gentleness and sympathy. + +"I would not have you as others are, Lulli," he said, softly. "If in all +the selfishness and pleasures of our world there were not some here and +there to give their lives to high thoughts and to unselfish things, as +you give yours, we should soon, I fear, forget that such existed. But +for such recluse's devotion to an art as yours, the classics would have +perished; without the cloister-penmen, the laws of science would never +have broken the bondage of tradition." + +Lulli looked up eagerly; then his head drooped again with the +inexpressible weariness of that vain longing which "toils to reach the +stars." + +"Ah, what is the best that I reach?--the breath of the wind which +passes, and sighs, and is heard no more." + + * * * + +"How crabbed a scroll!" he went on, throwing himself down a moment on +the thyme and grass. "The characters must baffle even you; the years +that have yellowed the vellum have altered the fashion. Whose is it?" + +"An old Elizabethan musician's," answered Lulli, as he looked up. "Yes; +the years take all,--our youth, our work, our life, even our graves." + +Something in his Provençal cadence gave a rhythm to his simplest speech: +the words fell sadly on his listener's ear, though on the sensuous +luxuriance of his own existence no shadow ever rested, no skeleton ever +crouched. + +"Yes: the years take all," he said, with a certain sadness on him. "How +many unperfected resolves, unachieved careers, unaccomplished ambitions, +immatured discoveries, perish under the rapidity of time, as unripe +fruits fall before their season! Bichât died at thirty-one:--if he had +lived, his name would now have outshone Aristotle's." + +"We live too little time to do anything even for the art we give our +life to," murmured Lulli. "When we die, our work dies with us: our +better self must perish with our bodies; the first change of fashion +will sweep it into oblivion." + +"Yet something may last of it," suggested Chandos, while his hand +wandered among the blue bells of the curling hyacinths. "Because few +save scholars read the '_Defensio Populi_' now, the work it did for free +thought cannot die. None the less does the cathedral enrich Cologne +because the name of the man who begot its beauty has passed unrecorded. +None the less is the world aided by the effort of every true and daring +mind because the thinker himself has been crushed down in the rush of +unthinking crowds." + +"No, if _it_ could live!" murmured Lulli, softly, with a musing pain in +the broken words. "But look! the scroll was as dear to its writer as his +score to Beethoven,--the child of his love, cradled in his thoughts +night and day, cherished as never mother cherished her first-born, +beloved as wife or mistress, son or daughter, never were. Perhaps he +denied himself much to give his time more to his labour; and when he +died, lonely and in want, because he had pursued that for which men +called him a dreamer, his latest thought was of the work which never +could speak to others as it spoke to him, which he must die and leave, +in anguish that none ever felt to sever from a human thing. Yet what +remains of his love and his toil? It is gone, as a laugh or a sob dies +off the ear, leaving no echo behind. His name signed here tells nothing +to the men for whom he laboured, adds nothing to the art for which he +lived. As it is with him, so will it be with me." + +His voice, that had risen in sudden and untutored eloquence, sank +suddenly into the sadness and the weariness of the man whose highest joy +is but relief from pain; and in it was a keener pang still,--the grief +of one who strives for what incessantly escapes him. + +"Wait," said Chandos, gently. "Are we sure that nothing lives of the +music you mourn? It may live on the lips of the people, in those +Old-World songs whose cause we cannot trace, yet which come sweet and +fresh transmitted to every generation. How often we hear some nameless +melody echo down a country-side! the singers cannot tell you whence it +came; they only know their mothers sang it by their cradles, and they +will sing it by their children's. But in the past the song had its birth +in genius." + +Guido Lulli bent his head. + +"True: such an immortality were all-sufficient: we could well afford to +have our names forgotten----" + + * * * + +"Let that fellow alone, Cos," laughed Chandos, to avert the stormy +element which seemed to threaten the serenity of his breakfast-party. +"Trevenna will beat us all with his tongue, if we tempt him to try +conclusions. He should be a Chancellor of the Exchequer or a Cheap John; +I am not quite clear which as yet." + +"Identically the same things!" cried Trevenna. "The only difference is +the scale they are on; one talks from the bench, and the other from the +benches; one cheapens tins, and the other cheapens taxes; one has a +salve for an incurable disease, and the other a salve for the national +debt; one rounds his periods to put off a watch that won't go, and the +other to cover a deficit that won't close; but they radically drive the +same trade, and both are successful if the spavined mare trots out +looking sound, and the people pay up. 'Look what I save you,' cry Cheap +John and Chancellor; and while they shout their economics, they pocket +their shillings. Ah, if I were sure I could bamboozle a village, I +should know I was qualified to make up a Budget." + + * * * + +"Most impudent of men! When will you learn the first lesson of society, +and decently and discreetly _apprendre ŕ vous effacer_?" + +"_A m'effacer_? The advice Lady Harriet Vandeleur gave Cecil. Very good +for mediocre people, I dare say; but it wouldn't suit _me_. There are +some people, you know, that won't iron down for the hardest rollers. +_M'effacer_? No! I'd rather any day be an ill-bred originality than a +well-bred nonentity." + +"Then you succeed perfectly in being what you wish! Don't you know, +monsieur, that to set yourself against conventionalities is like talking +too loud?--an impertinence and an under-breeding that society resents by +exclusion." + +"Yes, I know it. But a duke may bawl, and nobody shuts out _him_; a +prince might hop on one leg, and everybody would begin to hop too. Now, +what the ducal lungs and the princely legs might do with impunity, I +declare I've a right to do, if I like." + +"_Bécasse_! no one can declare his rights till he can do much more, +and--purchase them. Have a million, and we may perhaps give you a little +license to be unlike other persons: without the million it is an +ill-bred _gaucherie_." + +"Ah, I know! Only a nobleman may be original; a poor penniless wretch +upon town must be humbly and insignificantly commonplace. What a pity +for the success of the aristocratic monopolists that nature puts clever +fellows and fools just in the reverse order! But then nature's a +shocking socialist." + +"And so are you." + +Trevenna laughed. + +"Hush, madame. Pray don't destroy me with such a whisper." + + * * * + +Talent wears well; genius wears itself out; talent drives a brougham in +fact, genius a sun-chariot in fancy; talent keeps to earth and fattens +there, genius soars to the empyrean, to get picked by every kite that +flies; talent is the part and the venison, genius the seltzer and +souffle of life. The man who has talent sails successfully on the top of +the wave; the man with genius beats himself to pieces, fifty to one, on +the first rock he meets. + + * * * + +One innocent may be wrongly suspected until he is made the thing that +the libel called him. + + * * * + +Men shut out happiness from their schemes for the world's happiness. +They might as well try to bring flowers to bloom without the sun. + + * * * + +The most dastardly sin on earth is the desertion of the fallen. + + * * * + +Let the world abandon you, but to yourself be true. + + * * * + +The bread of bitterness is the food on which men grow to their fullest +stature. + + * * * + +Youth without faith is a day without sun. + + * * * + +I detest posterity--every king hates his heir. + + * * * + +Scandals are like dandelion seeds; they are arrow-headed and stick when +they fall, and bring forth and multiply fourfold. + + * * * + +The puff perfect is the puff personal--adroitly masked. + + * * * + +I wear the Bonnet Rouge discreetly weighed down with a fine tassel of +British prudence. + + * * * + +He was a master of the great art of banter. It is a marvellous force; it +kills sanctity, unveils sophistry, travesties wisdom, cuts through the +finest shield, and turns the noblest impulses to hopeless ridicule. + + * * * + +Immortality is dull work--a hideous statue that gets black as soot in no +time; funeral sermons that make you out a vial of revelations and +discuss the probabilities of your being in the realms of Satan; a bust +that slants you off at the shoulders and sticks you up on a bracket; a +tombstone for the canes of the curious to poke at; an occasional +attention in the way of withered immortelles or biographical +Billingsgate, and a partial preservation shared in common with mummies, +auks' eggs, snakes in bottles, and deformities in spirits of +wine:--that's posthumous fame. I must say I don't see much fun in it. + + * * * + +It were hard not to be wrong in philosophies when the body starves on a +pinch of oatmeal. It is the law of necessity, the balance of economy; +human fuel must be used up that the machine of the world may spin on; +but it is not, perhaps, marvellous that the living fuel is sometimes +unreconciled to that symmetrical rule of waste and repair, of consumer +and consumed. + + * * * + +It is many centuries since Caius Gracchus called the mercantile classes +to aid the people against the patricians, and found too late that they +were deadlier oppressors than all the optimates; but the error still +goes on, and the moneymakers churn it into gold, as they churned it then +into the Asiatic revenues and the senatorial amulets. + + * * * + +The love of a people is the most sublime crown that can rest on the brow +of any man, but the love of a mob is a mongrel that fawns and slavers +one moment, to rend and tear the next. + + + + +_FOLLE-FARINE._ + + +In this old-world district, amidst the pastures and corn-lands of +Normandy, superstition had taken a hold which the passage of centuries +and the advent of revolution had done very little to lessen. Few of the +people could read, and fewer still could write. They knew nothing but +what their priests and politicians told them to believe. They went to +their beds with the poultry, and rose as the cock crew: they went to +mass, as their ducks to the osier and weed ponds; and to the +conscription as their lambs to the slaughter. They understood that there +was a world beyond them, but they remembered it only as the best market +for their fruit, their fowls, their lace, their skins. Their brains were +as dim as were their oil-lit streets at night; though their lives were +content and mirthful, and for the most part pious. They went out into +the summer meadows chanting aves, in seasons of drought to pray for rain +on their parching orchards, in the same credulity with which they groped +through the winter-fog bearing torches, and chanting dirges to gain a +blessing at seed-time on their bleak, black fallows. + +The beauty and the faith of the old medićval life were with them still; +and with its beauty and its faith were its bigotry and cruelty likewise. + +They led simple and contented lives; for the most part honest, and +amongst themselves cheerful and kindly: preserving much grace of colour, +of costume, of idiosyncrasy, because apart from the hueless communism +and characterless monotony of modern cities. + +But they believed in sorcery and in devilry: they were brutal to their +beasts, and could be as brutal to their foes: they were steeped in +legend and tradition from their cradles; and all the darkest +superstitions of dead ages still found home and treasury in their hearts +and at their hearths. + +They had always been a religious people in this birth country of the +Flamma race: the strong poetic reverence of their forefathers, which had +symbolised itself in the carving of every lintel, corbel or buttress in +their streets, and the fashion of every spire on which a weather-vane +could gleam against the sun, was still in their blood; the poetry had +departed, but the bigotry remained. + + * * * + +"The earth and the air are good," she thought, as she lay there watching +the dark leaves sway in the foam and the wind, and the bright-bosomed +birds float from blossom to blossom. For there was latent in her, all +untaught, that old pantheistic instinct of the divine age, when the +world was young, to behold a sentient consciousness in every leaf +unfolded to the light; to see a soul in every created thing the day +shines on; to feel the presence of an eternal life in every breeze that +moves, in every grass that grows; in every flame that lifts itself to +heaven; in every bell that vibrates on the air; in every moth that soars +to reach the stars. + +Pantheism is the religion of the poet; and nature had made her a poet, +though man as yet had but made of her an outcast, a slave, and a beast +of burden. + +"The earth and the air are good," she thought, watching the sun-rays +pierce the purple hearts of a passion-flower, the shadows move across +the deep brown water, the radiant butterfly alight upon a lily, the +scarlet-throated birds dart in and out through the yellow feathery +blossoms of the limes. + + * * * + +When a man clings to life for life's sake, because it is fair and sweet, +and good in the sight and the senses, there may be weakness in his +shudder at its threatening loss. But when a man is loth to lose life +although it be hard, and joyless, and barren of all delights, because +this life gives him power to accomplish things greater than he, which +yet without him must perish, there is the strength in him, as there is +the agony of Prometheus. + +With him it must die also: that deep dim greatness within him, which +moves him, despite himself; that nameless unspeakable force which +compels him to create and to achieve; that vision by which he beholds +worlds beyond him not seen by his fellows. + +Weary of life he may be; of life material, and full of subtlety; of +passion, of pleasure, of pain; of the kisses that burn, of the laugh +that rings hollow, of the honey that so soon turns to gall, of the +sickly fatigues, and the tired, cloyed hunger, that are the portion of +men upon earth. Weary of these he may be; but still if the gods have +breathed on him, and made him mad with the madness that men have called +genius, there will be that in him greater than himself, which he +knows,--and cannot know without some fierce wrench and pang,--will be +numbed and made impotent, and drift away, lost for evermore, into that +eternal night, which is all that men behold of death. + + * * * + +The grass of the Holy River gathers perfume from the marvellous suns, +and the moonless nights, and the gorgeous bloom of the east, from the +aromatic breath of the leopard, and the perfume of the fallen +pomegranate, and the sacred oil that floats in the lamps, and the caress +of the girl-bather's feet, and the myrrh-dropping unguents that glide +from the maiden's bare limbs in the moonlight,--the grass holds and +feeds on them all. But not till the grass has been torn from the roots, +and been crushed, and been bruised and destroyed, can the full odours +exhale of all it has tasted and treasured. + +Even thus the imagination of man may be great, but it can never be at +its greatest until one serpent, with merciless fangs, has bitten it +through and through, and impregnated it with passion and with +poison,--that one deathless serpent which is memory. + + * * * + +And, indeed, to those who are alive to the nameless, universal, Eternal +Soul which breathes in all the grasses of the fields, and beams in the +eyes of all creatures of earth and air, and throbs in the living light +of palpitating stars, and thrills through the young sap of forest trees, +and stirs in the strange loves of wind-borne plants, and hums in every +song of the bee, and burns in every quiver of the flame, and peoples +with sentient myriads every drop of dew that gathers on a hare-bell, +every bead of water that ripples in a brook--to them the mortal life of +man can seem but little, save at once the fiercest and the feeblest +thing that does exist; at once the most cruel and the most impotent; +tyrants of direst destruction, and bondsmen of lowest captivity. + + * * * + +The earth has always most charm, and least pain, to the poet or the +artist when men are hidden away under their roofs. Then they do not +break its calm with either their mirth or their brutality; then the vile +and revolting coarseness of their works, that blot it with so much +deformity, is softened and obscured in the purple breaths of shadow, and +the dim tender gleam of stars. + + * * * + +When the world was in its youth, it had leisure to treasure its +recollections; even to pause and look back; to see what flower of a fair +thought, what fruit of a noble art, it might have overlooked or left +down-trodden. But now it is so old, and is so tired; it is purblind, and +heavy of foot; it does not notice what it destroys; it desires rest and +can find none; nothing can matter greatly to it; its dead are so many +that it cannot count them; and being thus worn and dulled with age, and +suffocated under the weight of its innumerable memories, it is very slow +to be moved, and swift--terribly swift--to forget. + +Why should it not be? + +It has known the best, it has known the worst that ever can befall it. + +And the prayer that to the heart of man seems so freshly born from his +own desire, what is it on the weary ear of the world, save the same old, +old cry which it has heard through all the ages, empty as the sound of +the wind, and for ever--for ever--unanswered? + + * * * + +For there is nothing so cruel in life as a Faith;--the Faith, whatever +its name may be, that draws a man on all his years through on one narrow +path, by one tremulous light, and then at the last, with a laugh--drowns +him. + + * * * + +I think I see!--the great God walked by the edge of the river, and he +mused on a gift to give man, on a joy that should be a joy on the earth +for ever; and he passed by the lily white as snow, by the thyme that fed +the bees, by the gold heart in the arum flower, by the orange flame of +the tall sandrush, by all the great water-blossoms which the sun kissed +and the swallows loved, and he came to the one little reed pierced with +the snake's-tongues, and all alone amidst millions. Then he took it up, +and cut it to the root, and killed it; killed it as a reed--but breathed +into it a song audible and beautiful to all the ears of men. Was that +death to the reed?--or life? Would a thousand summers of life by the +waterside have been worth that one thrill of song when a god first spoke +through it? + + * * * + +It is odd that you should live in a palace, and he should want for +bread; but then he can create things, and you can only buy them. So it +is even, perhaps. + + * * * + +A word that needs compelling is broken by the heart before the lips give +it. It is to plant a tree without a root to put faith in a man that +needs a bond. + + * * * + +"You are glad since you sing!" said the old man to her as she passed him +again on her homeward way and paused again beside him. + +"The birds in cages sing," she answered him, "but think you they are +glad?" + +"Are they not?" + +She sat down a moment beside him, on the bank which was soft with moss, +and odorous with wild flowers curling up the stems of the poplars and +straying over into the corn beyond. + +"Are they? Look. Yesterday I passed a cottage, it is on the Great South +Road; far away from here. The house was empty; the people no doubt were +gone to labour in the fields; there was a wicker cage hanging to the +wall, and in the cage there was a blackbird. The sun beat on his head; +his square of sod was a dry clod of bare earth; the heat had dried every +drop of water in his pan; and yet the bird was singing. Singing how? In +torment, beating his breast against the bars till the blood started, +crying to the skies to have mercy on him and to let the rain fall. His +song was shrill; it had a scream in it; still he sang. Do you say the +merle was glad?" + +"What did you do?" asked the old man, still breaking his stones with a +monotonous rise and fall of his hammer. + +"I took the cage down and opened the door." + +"And he?" + +"He shot up in the air first, then dropped down amidst the grasses, +where a little brook which the drought had not dried was still running; +and he bathed and drank, and bathed again, seeming mad with the joy of +the water. When I lost him from sight he was swaying among the leaves on +a bough over the river; but then he was silent." + +"And what do you mean by that?" + +Her eyes clouded; she was mute. She vaguely knew the meaning it bore to +herself, but it was beyond her to express it. All things of nature had +voices and parables for her, because her fancy was vivid, and her mind +was still too dark, and too profoundly ignorant, for her to be able to +shape her thoughts into metaphor or deduction. The bird had spoken to +her; by his silence as by his song; but what he had uttered she could +not well utter again. Save indeed that song was not gladness, and +neither was silence pain. + + * * * + +"The future?" she said at last, "that means something that one has not, +and that is to come--is it so?" "Something that one never has, and that +never comes," muttered the old man, wearily cracking the flints in two; +"something that one possesses in one's sleep, and that is farther off +each time that one awakes; and yet a thing that one sees always, sees +even when one lies a dying they say--for men are fools." + + * * * + +In one of the most fertile and most fair districts of northern France +there was a little Norman town, very, very old, and beautiful +exceedingly by reason of its ancient streets, its high peaked roofs, its +marvellous galleries and carvings, its exquisite greys and browns, its +silence and its colour, and its rich still life. + +Its centre was a great cathedral, noble as York or Chartres; a +cathedral, whose spire shot to the clouds, and whose innumerable towers +and pinnacles were all pierced to the day, so that the blue sky shone +and the birds of the air flew all through them. A slow brown river, +broad enough for market boats and for corn barges, stole through the +place to the sea, lapping as it went the wooden piles of the houses, and +reflecting the quaint shapes of the carvings, the hues of the signs and +the draperies, the dark spaces of the dormer windows, the bright heads +of some casement-cluster of carnations, the laughing face of a girl +leaning out to smile on her lover. + +All around it lay the deep grass unshaven, the leagues on leagues of +fruitful orchards, the low blue hills tenderly interlacing one another, +the fields of colza, where the white head-dress of the women-workers +flashed in the sun like a silvery pigeon's wing. To the west there were +the deep green woods, and the wide plains golden with gorse of Arthur's +and of Merlin's lands; and beyond, to the northward, was the dim +stretch of the ocean breaking on a yellow shore, whither the river ran, +and whither led straight shady roads, hidden with linden and with poplar +trees, and marked ever and anon by a wayside wooden Christ, or by a +little murmuring well crowned with a crucifix. + +A beautiful, old, shadowy, ancient place: picturesque everywhere; often +silent, with a sweet sad silence that was chiefly broken by the sound of +bells or the chaunting of choristers. A place of the Middle Ages still. +With lanterns swinging on cords from house to house as the only light; +with wondrous scroll-works and quaint signs at the doors of all its +traders; with monks' cowls and golden croziers and white-robed acolytes +in its streets; with the subtle smoke of incense coming out from the +cathedral door to mingle with the odours of the fruits and flowers in +the market-place; with great flat-bottomed boats drifting down the river +under the leaning eaves of its dwellings; and with the galleries of its +opposing houses touching so nearly that a girl leaning in one could +stretch a Provence rose or toss an Easter egg across to her neighbour in +the other. + +Doubtless there were often squalor, poverty, dust, filth, and +uncomeliness within these old and beautiful homes. Doubtless often the +dwellers therein were housed like cattle and slept like pigs, and looked +but once out to the woods and waters of the landscapes round for one +hundred times that they looked at their hidden silver in an old delf +jug, or at their tawdry coloured prints of St. Victorian or St. Scćvola. + +But yet much of the beauty and the nobility of the old, simple, restful, +rich-hued life of the past still abode there, and remained with them. In +the straight, lithe form of their maidens, untrammelled by modern garb, +and moving with the free majestic grace of forest does. In the vast, +dim, sculptured chambers, where the grandam span by the wood fire, and +the little children played in the shadows, and the lovers whispered in +the embrasured window. In the broad market-place, where the mules +cropped the clover, and the tawny awnings caught the sunlight, and the +white caps of the girls framed faces fitted for the pencils of missal +painters, and the flush of colour from mellow wall-fruits and +grape-clusters glanced amidst the shelter of deepest, freshest green. In +the perpetual presence of their cathedral, which, through sun and storm, +through frost and summer, through noon and midnight, stood there amidst +them, and watched the galled oxen tread their painful way, and the +scourged mules droop their humble heads, and the helpless, harmless +flocks go forth to the slaughter, and the old weary lives of the men and +women pass through hunger and cold to the grave, and the sun and the +moon rise and set, and the flowers and the children blossom and fade, +and the endless years come and go, bringing peace, bringing war; +bringing harvest, bringing famine; bringing life, bringing death; and, +beholding these, still said to the multitude in its terrible irony, "Lo! +your God is Love." + +This little town lay far from the great Paris highway and all greatly +frequented tracks. It was but a short distance from the coast, but near +no harbour of greater extent than such as some small fishing village had +made in the rocks for the trawlers. Few strangers ever came to it, +except some wandering painters or antiquaries. It sent its apples and +eggs, its poultry and honey, its colza and corn to the use of the great +cities; but it was rarely that any of its own people went thither. + +Now and then some one of the oval-faced, blue-eyed, lithe-limbed maidens +of its little homely households would sigh and flush and grow restless, +and murmur of Paris; and would steal out in the break of a warm grey +morning whilst only the birds were still waking; and would patter away +in her wooden shoes over the broad, white, southern road, with a stick +over her shoulder, and a bundle of all her worldly goods upon the stick. +And she would look back often, often, as she went; and when all was lost +in the blue haze of distance save the lofty spire which she still saw +through her tears, she would say in her heart, with her lips parched and +trembling, "I will come back again. I will come back again." + +But none such ever did come back. + +They came back no more than did the white sweet sheaves of the lilies +which the women gathered and sent to be bought and sold in the city--to +gleam one faint summer night in a gilded balcony, and to be flung out +the next morning, withered and dead. + +One amongst the few who had thus gone whither the lilies went, and of +whom the people would still talk as their mules paced homewards through +the lanes at twilight, had been Reine Flamma, the daughter of the miller +of Yprés. + + * * * + +"There are only two trades in a city," said the actors to her, with a +smile as bitter as her own, "only two trades--to buy souls and to sell +them. What business have you here, who do neither the one nor the +other?" + +There was music still in this trampled reed of the river, into which the +gods had once bidden the stray winds and the wandering waters breathe +their melody; but there, in the press, the buyers and sellers only saw +in it a frail thing of the sand and the stream, only made to be woven +for barter, or bind together the sheaves of the roses of pleasure. + + * * * + +Art was to him as mother, brethren, mistress, offspring, religion--all +that other men hold dear. He had none of these, he desired none of them; +and his genius sufficed to him in their stead. + +It was an intense and reckless egotism, made alike cruel and sublime by +its intensity and purity, like the egotism of a mother in her child. To +it, as the mother to her child, he would have sacrificed every living +creature; but to it also, like her, he would have sacrificed his very +existence as unhesitatingly. But it was an egotism which, though +merciless in its tyranny, was as pure as snow in its impersonality; it +was untainted by any grain of avarice, of vanity, of selfish desire; it +was independent of all sympathy; it was simply and intensely the passion +for immortality:--that sublime selfishness, that superb madness, of all +great minds. + +Art had taken him for its own, as Demeter, in the days of her +desolation, took the child Demophoon to nurture him as her own on the +food of gods, and to plunge him through the flames of a fire that would +give him immortal life. As the pusillanimous and sordid fears of the +mortal mother lost to the child for evermore the possession of Olympian +joys and of perpetual youth, so did the craven and earthly cares of +bodily needs hold the artist back from the radiance of the life of the +soul, and drag him from the purifying fires. Yet he had not been utterly +discouraged; he strove against the Metanira of circumstance; he did his +best to struggle free from the mortal bonds that bound him; and, as the +child Demophoon mourned for the great goddess that had nurtured him, +refusing to be comforted, so did he turn from the base consolations of +the senses and the appetites, and beheld ever before his sight the +ineffable majesty of that Mater Dolorosa who once and for ever had +anointed him as her own. + + * * * + +Men did not believe in him; what he wrought saddened and terrified them; +they turned aside to those who fed them on simpler and on sweeter food. + +His works were great, but they were such as the public mind deems +impious. They unveiled human corruption too nakedly, and they shadowed +forth visions too exalted, and satires too unsparing, for them to be +acceptable to the multitude. They were compounded of an idealism clear +and cold as crystal, and of a reality cruel and voluptuous as love. They +were penetrated with an acrid satire and an intense despair: the world +caring only for a honied falsehood and a gilded gloss in every art, +would have none of them. + + * * * + +"See you--what he lacks is only the sinew that gold gives. What he has +done is great. The world rightly seeing must fear it; and fear is the +highest homage the world ever gives. But he is penniless; and he has +many foes; and jealousy can with so much ease thrust aside the greatness +which it fears into obscurity, when that greatness is marred by the +failures and the feebleness of poverty. Genius scorns the power of gold: +it is wrong; gold is the war-scythe on its chariot, which mows down the +millions of its foes and gives free passage to the sun-coursers with +which it leaves those heavenly fields of light for the gross +battle-fields of earth." + + * * * + +It is true that the great artist is as a fallen god who remembers a time +when worlds arose at his breath, and at his bidding the barren lands +blossomed into fruitfulness; the sorcery of the thyrsus is still his, +though weakened. + +The powers of lost dominions haunt his memory; the remembered glory of +an eternal sun is in his eyes, and makes the light of common day seem +darkness; the heart sickness of a long exile weighs on him; incessantly +he labours to overtake the mirage of a loveliness which fades as he +pursues it. In the poetic creation by which the bondage of his material +life is redeemed, he finds at once ecstasy and disgust, because he feels +at once his strength and weakness. For him all things of earth and air, +and sea and cloud, have beauty; and to his ear all voices of the forest +land and water world are audible. + +He is as a god, since he can call into palpable shape dreams born of +impalpable thought; as a god, since he has known the truth divested of +lies, and has stood face to face with it, and been not afraid; a god +thus. But a cripple inasmuch as his hand can never fashion the shapes +that his vision beholds; an alien because he has lost what he never will +find upon earth; a beast, since ever and again his passions will drag +him to wallow in the filth of sensual indulgence; a slave, since +oftentimes the divinity that is in him breaks and bends under the +devilry that also is in him, and he obeys the instincts of vileness, and +when he would fain bless the nations he curses them. + + * * * + +"I do not know," she said, wearily afresh. "Marcellin says that every +God is deaf. He must be deaf--or very cruel. Look; everything lives in +pain; and yet no God pities and makes an end of the earth. I would--if I +were He. Look--at dawn, the other day, I was out in the wood. I came +upon a little rabbit in a trap; a little, pretty, soft black-and-white +thing, quite young. It was screaming in its horrible misery; it +had been screaming all night. Its thighs were broken in the iron teeth; +the trap held it tight; it could not escape, it could only +scream--scream--scream. All in vain. When I had set it free it was +mangled as if a wolf had gnawed it; the iron teeth had bitten through +the fur, and the flesh, and the bone; it had lost so much blood, and it +was in so much pain, that it could not live. I laid it down in the +bracken, and put water to its mouth, and did what I could; but it was of +no use. It had been too much hurt. It died as the sun rose; a little, +harmless, shy, happy thing, you know, that never killed any creature, +and only asked to nibble a leaf or two, or sleep in a little round hole, +and run about merry and free. How can one care for a God since He lets +these things be?" + +Arslŕn smiled as he heard. + +"Child,--men care for a god only as a god means a good to them. Men are +heirs of heaven, they say; and, in right of their heritage, they make +life hell to every living thing that dares dispute the world with them. +You do not understand that,--tut! You are not human then. If you were +human, you would begrudge a blade of grass to a rabbit, and arrogate to +yourself a lease of immortality." + + * * * + +"Of a winter night," she said, slowly, "I have heard old Pitchou read +aloud to Flamma, and she reads of their God, the one they hang +everywhere on the crosses here; and the story ran that the populace +scourged and nailed to death the one whom they knew afterwards, when too +late, to have been the great man that they looked for, and that, being +bidden to make their choice of one to save, they chose to ransom and +honour a thief: one called Barabbas. Is it true?--if the world's choice +were wrong once, why not twice?" + +Arslŕn smiled; the smile she knew so well, and which had no more warmth +than the ice floes of his native seas. + +"Why not twice? Why not a thousand times? A thief has the world's +sympathies always. It is always the Barabbas--the trickster in talent, +the forger of stolen wisdom, the bravo of political crime, the huckster +of plundered thoughts, the charlatan of false art, whom the vox populi +elects and sets free, and sends on his way rejoicing. 'Will ye have +Christ or Barabbas?' Every generation is asked the same question, and +every generation gives the same answer; and scourges the divinity out of +its midst, and finds its idol in brute force and low greed." + +She only dimly comprehended, not well knowing why her words had thus +roused him. She pondered awhile, then her face cleared. + +"But the end?" she asked. "The dead God is the God of all these people +round us now, and they have built great places in His honour, and they +bow when they pass His likeness in the highway or the market-place. But +with Barabbas--what was the end? It seems that they loathe and despise +him?" + +Arslŕn laughed a little. + +"His end? In Syria may be the vultures picked his bones, where they lay +whitening on the plains--those times were primitive, the world was +young. But in our day Barabbas lives and dies in honour, and has a tomb +that stares all men in the face, setting forth his virtues, so that all +who run may read. In our day Barabbas--the Barabbas of money-greeds and +delicate cunning, and the theft which has risen to science, and the +assassination that kills souls and not bodies, and the crime that deals +moral death and not material death--our Barabbas, who is crowned Fraud +in the place of mailed Force, lives always in purple and fine linen, and +ends in the odours of sanctity with the prayers of priests over his +corpse." + +He spoke with a certain fierce passion that rose in him whenever he +thought of that world which had rejected him, and had accepted so many +others, weaker in brain and nerve, but stronger in one sense, because +more dishonest; and as he spoke he went straight to a wall on his right, +where a great sea of grey paper was stretched, untouched and ready to +his hand. + +She would have spoken, but he made a motion to silence. + +"Hush! be quiet," he said to her, almost harshly, "I have thought of +something." + +And he took the charcoal and swept rapidly with it over the dull blank +surface till the vacancy glowed with life. A thought had kindled in him; +a vision had arisen before him. + +The scene around him vanished utterly from his sight. The grey stone +walls, the square windows through which the fading sun-rays fell; the +level pastures and sullen streams, and paled skies without, all faded +away as though they had existed only in a dream. + +All the empty space about him became peopled with many human shapes that +for him had breath and being, though no other eye could have beheld +them. The old Syrian world of eighteen hundred years before arose and +glowed before him. The things of his own life died away, and in their +stead he saw the fierce flame of eastern suns, the gleaming range of +marble palaces, the purple flush of pomegranate flowers, the deep colour +of oriental robes, the soft silver of hills olive crested, the tumult of +a city at high festival. And he could not rest until all he thus saw in +his vision he had rendered as far as his hand could render it; and what +he drew was this. + +A great thirsty, heated, seething crowd; a crowd that had manhood and +womanhood, age and infancy, youths and maidens within its ranks; a crowd +in whose faces every animal lust and every human passion were let loose; +a crowd on which a noon sun without shadow streamed; a sun which parched +and festered and engendered all corruption in the land on which it +looked. This crowd was in a city, a city on whose flat roofs the myrtle +and the cistus bloomed; above whose walls the plumes of olives waved; +upon whose distant slopes the darkling cedar groves rose straight +against the sky, and on whose lofty temple plates of gold glistened +against the shining heavens. This crowd had scourges, and stones, and +goads in their hands; and in their midst they led one clothed in white, +whose head was thorn-crowned, and whose eyes were filled with a god's +pity and a man's reproach; and him they stoned, and lashed, and hooted. + +And triumphant in the throng, whose choice he was, seated aloft upon +men's shoulders, with a purple robe thrown on his shoulders, there sat a +brawny, grinning, bloated, jibbering thing, with curled lips and savage +eyes, and satyr's leer: the creature of greed, of lust, of obscenity, of +brutality, of avarice, of desire. This thing the people followed, +rejoicing exceedingly, content in the guide whom they had chosen, +victorious in the fiend for whom they spurned a deity; crying, with wide +open throats and brazen lungs,--"Barabbas!" + +There was not a form in all this close-packed throng which had not a +terrible irony in it, which was not in itself a symbol of some appetite +or of some vice, for which women and men abjure the godhead in them. + +A gorged drunkard lay asleep with his amphora broken beneath him, the +stream of the purple wine lapped eagerly by ragged children. A +money-changer had left the receipt of custom, eager to watch and shout, +and a thief clutched both hands full of the forsaken coins and fled. + +A miser had dropped a bag of gold, and stopped to catch at all the +rolling pieces, regardless in his greed how the crowd trampled and trod +on him. A mother chid and struck her little brown curly child, because +he stretched his arms and turned his face towards the thorn-crowned +captive. + +A priest of the temple, with a blood-stained knife thrust in his girdle, +dragged beside him, by the throat, a little tender lamb doomed for the +sacrifice. + +A dancing woman with jewels in her ears, and half naked to the waist, +sounding the brazen cymbals above her head, drew a score of youths after +her in Barabbas' train. + +On one of the flat roof tops, reclining on purple and fine linen, +looking down on the street below from the thick foliage of her citron +boughs and her red Syrian roses, was an Egyptian wanton; and leaning +beside her, tossing golden apples in her bosom, was a young centurion of +the Roman guard, languid and laughing, with his fair chest bare to the +heat, and his armour flung in a pile beside him. + +And thus, in like manner, every figure bore its parable; and above all +was the hard, hot, cruel, cloudless sky of blue, without one faintest +mist to break its horrible serenity, whilst high in the azure ether and +against the sun, an eagle and a vulture fought, locked close, and +tearing at each other's breasts. + +Six nights this conception occupied him. His days were not his own, he +spent them in a rough mechanical labour which his strength executed +while his mind was far away from it; but the nights were all his, and at +the end of the sixth night the thing arose, perfect as far as his hand +could perfect it; begotten by a chance and ignorant word as have been +many of the greatest works the world has seen;--oaks sprung from the +acorn that a careless child has let fall. + +When he had finished it his arm dropped to his side, he stood +motionless; the red glow of the dawn lighting the depths of his +sleepless eyes. + + * * * + +It was a level green silent country which was round her, with little +loveliness and little colour; but as she went she laughed incessantly +in the delirious gladness of her liberty. + +She tossed her head back to watch the flight of a single swallow; she +caught a handful of green leaves and buried her face in them. She +listened in a very agony of memory to the rippling moisture of a little +brook. She followed with her eyes the sweeping vapours of the +rain-clouds, and when a west wind rose and blew a cluster of loose apple +blossoms between her eyes--she could no longer bear the passionate pain +of all the long-lost sweetness, but flinging herself downward, sobbed +with the ecstasy of an exile's memories. + +The hell in which she had dwelt had denied them to her for so long. + +"Ah God!" she thought, "I know now--one cannot be utterly wretched +whilst one has still the air and the light and the winds of the sky." + +And she arose, calmer, and went on her way; wondering, even in that +hour, why men and women trod the daily measures of their lives with +their eyes downward and their ears choked with the dust; hearkening so +little to the sound of the breeze in the grasses, looking so little to +the passage of the clouds against the sun. + + * * * + +The ground ascended as it stretched seaward, but on it there were only +wide dull fields of colza or of grass lying, sickly and burning, under +the fire of the late afternoon sun. + +The slope was too gradual to break their monotony. + +Above them was the cloudless weary blue; below them was the faint +parched green; other colour there was none; one little dusky panting +bird flew by pursued by a kite; that was the only change. + +She asked him no questions; she walked mutely and patiently by his side; +she hated the dull heat, the colourless waste, the hard scorch of the +air, the dreary changelessness of the scene. But she did not say so. He +had chosen to come to them. + +A league onward the fields were merged into a heath, uncultivated and +covered with short prickly furze; on the brown earth between the stunted +bushes a few goats were cropping the burnt-up grasses. Here the slope +grew sharper, and the earth seemed to rise up between the sky and them, +steep and barren as a house-roof. + +Once he asked her-- + +"Are you tired?" + +She shook her head. + +Her feet ached, and her heart throbbed; her limbs were heavy like lead +in the heat and the toil. But she did not tell him so. She would have +dropped dead from exhaustion rather than have confessed to him any +weakness. + +He took the denial as it was given, and pressed onward up the ascent. + +The sun was slanting towards the west; the skies seemed like brass; the +air was sharp, yet scorching; the dull brown earth still rose up before +them like a wall; they climbed it slowly and painfully, their hands and +their teeth filled with its dust, which drifted in a cloud before them. +He bade her close her eyes, and she obeyed him. He stretched his arm out +and drew her after him up the ascent, which was slippery from drought +and prickly from the stunted growth of furze. + +On the summit he stood still and released her. + +"Now look." + +She opened her eyes with the startled, half-questioning stare of one +led out from utter darkness into a full and sudden light. + +Then, with a great cry, she sank down on the rock, trembling, weeping, +laughing, stretching out her arms to the new glory that met her sight, +dumb with its grandeur, delirious with its delight. + +For what she saw was the sea. + +Before her dazzled sight all its beauty stretched, the blueness of the +waters meeting the blueness of the skies; radiant with all the marvels +of its countless hues; softly stirred by a low wind that sighed across +it; bathed in a glow of gold that streamed on it from the westward; +rolling from north to south in slow, sonorous measure, filling the +silent air with the ceaseless melody of its wondrous voice. + +The lustre of the sunset beamed upon it; the cool fresh smell of its +waters shot like new life through all the scorch and stupor of the day; +its white foam curled and broke on the brown curving rocks and wooded +inlets of the shores; innumerable birds, that gleamed like silver, +floated or flew above its surface; all was still, still as death, save +only for the endless movement of those white swift wings and the murmur +of the waves, in which all meaner and harsher sounds of earth seemed +lost and hushed to slumber and to silence. + +The sea alone reigned, as it reigned in the young years of the earth +when men were not; as, may be, it will be its turn to reign again in the +years to come, when men and all their works shall have passed away and +be no more seen nor any more remembered. + +Arslŕn watched her in silence. + +He was glad that it should awe and move her thus. The sea was the only +thing for which he cared, or which had any power over him. In the +northern winters of his youth he had known the ocean, in one wild +night's work, undo all that men had done to check and rule it, and +burst through all the barriers that they had raised against it, and +throw down the stones of the altar and quench the fires of the hearth, +and sweep through the fold and the byre, and flood the cradle of the +child and the grave of the grandsire. + +He had seen its storms wash away at one blow the corn harvests of years, +and gather in the sheep from the hills, and take the life of the +shepherd with the life of the flock. He had seen it claim lovers locked +in each other's arms, and toss the fair curls of the first-born as it +tossed the riband weeds of its deeps. And he had felt small pity; it had +rather given him a certain sense of rejoicing and triumph to see the +water laugh to scorn those who were so wise in their own conceit, and +bind beneath its chains those who held themselves masters over all +beasts of the field and birds of the air. + +Other men dreaded the sea and cursed it; but he in his way loved it +almost with passion, and could he have chosen the manner of his death +would have desired that it should be by the sea and through the sea; a +death cold and serene and dreamily voluptuous: a death on which no woman +should look and in which no man should have share. + +He watched her now for some time without speaking. When the first +paroxysm of her emotion had exhausted itself, she stood motionless, her +figure like a statue of bronze against the sun, her head sunk upon her +breast, her arms outstretched as though beseeching that wondrous +brightness which she saw to take her to itself and make her one with it. +Her whole attitude expressed an unutterable worship. She was like one +who for the first time hears of God. + +"What is it you feel?" he asked her suddenly. He knew without asking; +but he had made it his custom to dissect all her joys and sufferings +with little heed whether he thus added to either. + +At the sound of his voice she started, and a shiver shook her as she +answered him slowly, without withdrawing her gaze from the waters. + +"It has been there always--always--so near me?" + +"Before the land, the sea was." + +"And I never knew!"-- + +Her head drooped on her breast; great tears rolled silently down her +cheeks; her arms fell to her sides; she shivered again and sighed. She +knew all that she had lost--this is the greatest grief that life holds. + +"You never knew," he made answer. "There was only a sand-hill between +you and all this glory; but the sand-hill was enough. Many people never +climb theirs all their lives long." + +The words and their meaning escaped her. + +She had for once no remembrance of him, nor any other sense save of this +surpassing wonder that had thus burst on her--this miracle that had been +near her for so long, yet of which she had never in all her visions +dreamed. + +She was quite silent; sunk there on her knees, motionless, and gazing +straight, with eyes unblenching, at the light. + +There was no sound near them, nor was there anything in sight except +where above against the deepest azure of the sky two curlews were +circling around each other, and in the distance a single ship was +gliding, with sails silvered by the sun. All signs of human life lay far +behind; severed from them by those steep scorched slopes swept only by +the plovers and the bees. And all the while she looked slow tears +gathered in her eyes and fell, and the loud hard beating of her heart +was audible in the hushed stillness of the upper air. + +He waited awhile: then he spoke to her. + +"Since it pains you, come away." + +A great sob shuddered through her. + +"Give me that pain," she muttered, "sooner than any joy. Pain? pain?--it +is life, heaven--liberty!" + +For suddenly those words which she had heard spoken around her, and +which had been to her like the mutterings of the deaf and the dumb, +became real to her with thousand meanings. + +The seagulls were lost in the heights of the air; the ship sailed on +into the light till the last gleam of its canvas vanished; the sun sank +westward lower and lower till it glowed in a globe of flame upon the +edge of the water: she never moved; standing there on the summit of the +cliff, with her head drooped upon her breast, her form thrown out dark +and motionless against the gold of the western sky, on her face still +that look of one who worships with intense honour and passionate faith +an unknown God. + +The sun sank entirely, leaving only a trail of flame across the heavens; +the waters grew grey and purple in the shadows; one boat, black against +the crimson reflections of the west, swept on swiftly with the +in-rushing tide; the wind rose and blew long curls of seaweed on the +rocks; the shores of the bay were dimmed in a heavy mist, through which +the lights of the little hamlets dimly glowed, and the distant voices of +fishermen calling to each other as they drew in their deep-sea nets came +faint and weirdlike. + + * * * + +What she wanted was to live. Live as the great moor bird did that she +had seen float one day over these pale, pure, blue skies, with its +mighty wings outstretched in the calm grey weather; which came none knew +whence, and which went none knew whither; which poised silent and +stirless against the clouds; then called with a sweet wild love-note to +its mate, and waited for him as he sailed in from the misty shadows +where the sea lay; and with him rose yet higher and higher in the air; +and passed westward, cleaving the fields of light, and so vanished;--a +queen of the wind, a daughter of the sun; a creature of freedom, of +victory, of tireless movement, and of boundless space, a thing of heaven +and of liberty. + + * * * + +In the springtime of the year three gods watched by the river. + +The golden flowers of the willows blew in the low winds; the waters came +and went; the moon rose full and cold over a silvery stream; the reeds +sighed in the silence. + +Two winters had drifted by and one hot drowsy summer since their creator +had forsaken them, and all the white still shapes upon the walls already +had been slain by the cold breath of Time. The green weeds waved in the +empty casements; the chance-sown seeds of thistles and of bell-flowers +were taking leaf between the square stones of the paven places; on the +deserted threshold lichens and brambles climbed together; the filmy ooze +of a rank vegetation stole over the loveliness of Persephone and +devoured one by one the divine offspring of Zeus; about the feet of the +bound sun king in Pheroe and over the calm serene mockery of Hermes' +smile the grey nets of the spiders' webs had been woven to and fro, +across and across, with the lacing of a million threads, as Fate weaves +round the limbs and covers the eyes of mortals as they stumble blindly +from their birthplace to their grave. All things, the damp and the dust, +the frost and the scorch, the newts and the rats, the fret of the +flooded waters, and the stealing sure inroad of the mosses that +everywhere grew from the dews and the fogs, had taken and eaten, in +hunger or sport, or had touched, and thieved from, then left, gangrened +and ruined. + +The three gods alone remained; who being the sons of eternal night, are +unharmed, unaltered, by any passage of the years of earth. The only gods +who never bend beneath the yoke of years; but unblenchingly behold the +nations wither as uncounted leaves, and the lands and the seas change +their places, and the cities and the empires pass away as a tale that is +told; and the deities that are worshipped in the temples alter in name +and attributes and cultus, at the wanton will of the age which begot +them. + +In the still, cold, moonlit air their shadows stood together. Hand in +hand; looking outward through the white night-mists. Other gods perished +with the faith of each age as it changed; other gods lived by the breath +of men's lips, the tears of prayer, the smoke of sacrifice. But +they,--their empire was the universe. + +In every young soul that leaps into the light of life rejoicing blindly, +Oneiros has dominion; and he alone. In every creature that breathes, +from the conqueror resting on a field of blood to the nest bird cradled +in its bed of leaves, Hypnos holds a sovereignty which nothing mortal +can long resist and live. And Thanatos,--to him belongs every created +thing, past, present, and to come; beneath his feet all generations lie; +and in the hollow of his hand he holds the worlds; though the earth be +tenantless, and the heavens sunless, and the planets shrivel in their +courses, and the universe be shrouded in an endless night, yet through +the eternal desolation Thanatos still will reign, and through the +eternal darkness, through the immeasurable solitudes, he alone will +wander, and he still behold his work. + +Deathless as themselves their shadows stood; and the worm and the lizard +and the newt left them alone and dared not wind about their calm clear +brows, and dared not steal to touch the roses at their lips, knowing +that ere the birth of the worlds these were, and when the worlds shall +have perished these still will reign on:--the slow, sure, soundless, +changeless ministers of an eternal rest, of an eternal oblivion. + +A late light strayed in from the grey skies, pale as the primrose +flowers that grew amongst the reeds upon the shore; and found its way to +them, trembling; and shone in the far-seeing depths of their +unfathomable eyes. + +The eyes which spake and said: + +"Sleep, dreams, and death:--we are the only gods that answer prayer." + + * * * + +Night had come; a dark night of earliest spring. The wild day had sobbed +itself to sleep after a restless life with fitful breath of storm and +many sighs of shuddering breezes. + +The sun had sunk, leaving long tracks of blood-red light across one-half +the heavens. + +There was a sharp crisp coldness as of lingering frost in the gloom and +the dulness. Heavy clouds, as yet unbroken, hung over the cathedral and +the clustering roofs around it in dark and starless splendour. + +Over the great still plains which stretched eastward and southward, +black with the furrows of the scarce-budded corn, the wind blew hard; +blowing the river and the many streamlets spreading from it into foam; +driving the wintry leaves which still strewed the earth thickly, hither +and thither in legions; breaking boughs that had weathered the winter +hurricanes, and scattering the tender blossoms of the snowdrops and the +earliest crocuses in all the little moss-grown garden ways. + +The smell of wet grass, of the wood-born violets, of trees whose new +life was waking in their veins, of damp earths turned freshly upwards by +the plough, were all blown together by the riotous breezes. + +Now and then a light gleamed through the gloom where a little peasant +boy lighted home with a torch some old priest on his mule, or a boat +went down the waters with a lamp hung at its prow. For it grew dark +early, and people used to the river read a threat of a flood on its +face. + +A dim glow from the west, which was still tinged with the fire of the +sunset, fell through a great square window set in a stone building, and +striking across the sicklier rays of an oil lamp reached the opposing +wall within. + +It was a wall of grey stone, dead and lustreless like the wall of a +prison-house, over whose surface a spider as colourless as itself +dragged slowly its crooked hairy limbs loaded with the moisture of the +place, which was an old tower, of which the country folk told strange +tales, where it stood among the rushes on the left bank of the stream. + +A man watched the spider as it went. + +It crept on its heavy way across the faint crimson reflection from the +glow of the sunken sun. + +It was fat, well-nourished, lazy, content; its home of dusky silver hung +on high, where its pleasure lay in weaving, clinging, hoarding, +breeding. It lived in the dark; it had neither pity nor regret; it +troubled itself neither for the death it dealt to nourish itself, nor +for the light without, into which it never wandered; it spun and throve +and multiplied. + +It was an emblem of the man who is wise in his generation; of the man +whom Cato the elder deemed divine; of the Majority and the Mediocrity +who rule over the earth and enjoy its fruits. + +This man knew that it was wise; that those who were like to it were wise +also: wise with the holy wisdom which is honoured of other men. + +He had been unwise--always; and therefore he stood watching the sun die, +with hunger in his soul, with famine in his body. + +For many months he had been half famished, as were the wolves in his own +northern mountains in the winter solstice. For seven days he had only +been able to crush a crust of hard black bread between his teeth. For +twenty hours he had not done even so much as this. The trencher on his +tressel was empty; and he had not wherewithal to re-fill it. + +He might have found some to fill it for him no doubt. He lived amidst +the poor, and the poor to the poor are good, though they are bad and +bitter to the rich. But he did not open either his lips or his hand. He +consumed his heart in silence; and his vitals preyed in anguish on +themselves without his yielding to their torments. + +He was a madman; and Cato, who measured the godliness of man by what +they gained, would have held him accursed;--the madness that starves and +is silent for an idea is an insanity, scouted by the world and the gods. +For it is an insanity unfruitful; except to the future. And for the +future who cares,--save these madmen themselves? + +He watched the spider as it went. + +It could not speak to him as its fellow once spoke in the old Scottish +story. To hear as that captive heard, the hearer must have hope, and a +kingdom,--if only in dreams. + +This man had no hope; he had a kingdom indeed, but it was not of earth; +and, in an hour of sheer cruel bodily pain, earth alone has dominion and +power and worth. + +The spider crawled across the grey wall; across the glow from the +vanished sun; across a coil of a dead passion-vine, that strayed loose +through the floor; across the classic shapes of a great cartoon drawn in +chalks upon the dull rugged surface of stone. + +Nothing arrested it; nothing retarded it, as nothing hastened it. It +moved slowly on; fat, lustreless, indolent, hueless; reached at length +its den, and there squatted aloft, loving the darkness; its young +swarming around, its prey held in its forceps, its nets cast about. + +Through the open casement there came on the rising wind of the storm, +in the light of the last lingering sunbeam, a beautiful night-moth, +begotten by some cruel hot-house heat in the bosom of some frail exiled +tropical flower. + +It swam in on trembling pinions, and alighted on the golden head of a +gathered crocus that lay dying on the stones--a moth that should have +been born to no world save that of the summer world of a Midsummer +Night's Dream. + +A shape of Ariel and Oberon; slender, silver, purple, roseate, +lustrous-eyed, and gossamer-winged. + +A creature of woodland waters, and blossoming forests; of the yellow +chalices of kingcups and the white breasts of river lilies, of moonbeams +that strayed through a summer world of shadows, and dew-drops that +glistened in the deep folded hearts of roses. A creature to brush the +dreaming eyes of a poet, to nestle on the bosom of a young girl +sleeping: to float earthwards on a falling star, to slumber on a lotus +leaf. + +A creature that amidst the still soft hush of woods and waters still +tells, to those who listen, of the world when the world was young. + +The moth flew on, and poised on the fading crocus leaves, which spread +out their pale gold on the level of the grey floor. + +It was weary, and its delicate wings drooped; it was storm-tossed, +wind-beaten, drenched with mist and frozen with the cold; it belonged to +the moon, to the dew, to the lilies, to the forget-me-nots, and to the +night; and it found that the hard grip of winter had seized it whilst +yet it had thought that the stars and the summer were with it. It lived +before its time,--and it was like the human soul, which being born in +the darkness of the world dares to dream of light, and, wandering in +vain search of a sun that will never rise, falls and perishes in +wretchedness. + +It was beautiful exceedingly, with the brilliant tropical beauty of a +life that is short-lived. It rested a moment on the stem of the pale +flower, then with its radiant eyes fastened on the point of light which +the lamp thrust upward, it flew on high; and, spreading out its +transparent wings and floating to the flame, kissed it, quivered once, +and died. + +There fell among the dust and cinder of the lamp a little heap of +shrunken, fire-scorched, blackened ashes. + +The wind whirled them upward from their rest, and drove them forth into +the night to mingle with the storm-scourged grasses, the pale dead +violets, the withered snow-flowers, with all things frost-touched and +forgotten. + +The spider sat aloft, sucking the juices from the fettered flies, +teaching its spawn to prey and feed; content in squalor and in +plenitude; in sensual sloth, and in the increase of its body and its +hoard. + +He watched them both: the success of the spider, the death of the moth; +trite as a fable; ever repeated as the tides of the sea; the two symbols +of humanity; of the life which fattens on greed and gain, and the life +which perishes of divine desire. + + * * * + +There were no rare birds, no birds of moor and mountain, in that +cultivated and populous district; but to her all the little home-bred +things of pasture and orchard were full of poetry and of character. + +The robins, with that pretty air of boldness with which they veil their +real shyness and timidity; the strong and saucy sparrows, powerful by +the strength of all mediocrities and majorities; all the dainty families +of finches in their gay apparellings; the plain brown bird that filled +the night with music; the gorgeous oriole ruffling in gold, the gilded +princeling of them all; the little blue warblers, the violets of the +air; the kingfishers who had hovered so long over the forget-me-nots +upon the rivers that they had caught the colours of the flowers on their +wings; the bright blackcaps green as the leaves, with their yellow +waistcoats and velvet hoods, the innocent freebooters of the woodland +liberties: all these were her friends and lovers, various as any human +crowds of court or city. + +She loved them; they and the fourfooted beasts were the sole things that +did not flee from her; and the woeful and mad slaughter of them by the +peasants was to her a grief passionate in its despair. She did not +reason on what she felt; but to her a bird slain was a trust betrayed, +an innocence defiled, a creature of heaven struck to earth. + +Suddenly on the silence of the garden there was a little shrill sound of +pain; the birds flew high in air, screaming and startled; the leaves of +a bough of ivy shook as with a struggle. + +She rose and looked; a line of twine was trembling against the foliage; +in its noosed end the throat of the mavis had been caught; it hung +trembling and clutching at the air convulsively with its little drawn-up +feet. It had flown into the trap as it had ended its joyous song and +soared up to join its brethren. + +There were a score of such traps set in the miller's garden. + +She unloosed the cord from about its tiny neck, set it free, and laid it +down upon the ivy. The succour came too late; the little gentle body was +already without breath; the feet had ceased to beat the air; the small +soft head had drooped feebly on one side; the lifeless eyes had started +from their sockets; the throat was without song for evermore. + +"The earth would be good but for men," she thought, as she stood with +the little dead bird in her hand. + +Its mate, which was poised on a rose bough, flew straight to it, and +curled round and round about the small slain body, and piteously +bewailed its fate, and mourned, refusing to be comforted, agitating the +air with trembling wings, and giving out vain cries of grief. + +Vain; for the little joyous life was gone; the life that asked only of +God and Man a home in the green leaves; a drop of dew from the cup of a +rose; a bough to swing on in the sunlight; a summer day to celebrate in +song. + +All the winter through, it had borne cold and hunger and pain without +lament; it had saved the soil from destroying larvć, and purified the +trees from all foul germs; it had built its little home unaided, and had +fed its nestlings without alms; it had given its sweet song lavishly to +the winds, to the blossoms, to the empty air, to the deaf ears of men; +and now it lay dead in its innocence; trapped and slain because a human +greed begrudged it a berry worth the thousandth part of a copper coin. + +Out from the porch of the mill-house Claudis Flamma came, with a knife +in his hand and a basket, to cut lilies for one of the choristers of the +cathedral, since the morrow would be the religious feast of the +Visitation of Mary. + +He saw the dead thrush in her hand, and chuckled to himself as he went +by. + +"The tenth bird trapped since sunrise," he said, thinking how shrewd and +how sure in their make were these traps of twine that he set in the +grass and the leaves. + +She said nothing; but the darkness of disgust swept over her face, as he +came in sight in the distance. + +She knelt down and scraped a hole in the earth; and laid moss in it, and +put the mavis softly on its green and fragrant bier, and covered it with +handfuls of fallen rose leaves, and with a sprig or two of thyme. + +Around her head the widowed thrush flew ceaselessly, uttering sad +cries;--who now should wander with him through the sunlight?--who now +should rove with him above the blossoming fields?--who now should sit +with him beneath the boughs hearing the sweet rain fall between the +leaves?--who now should wake with him whilst yet the world was dark, to +feel the dawn break ere the east were red, and sing a welcome to the +unborn day? + + * * * + +And, indeed, to those who are alive to the nameless, universal, eternal +soul which breathes in all the grasses of the fields, and beams in the +eyes of all creatures of earth and air, and throbs in the living light +of palpitating stars, and thrills through the young sap of forest trees, +and stirs in the strange loves of wind-borne plants, and hums in every +song of the bee, and burns in every quiver of the flame, and peoples +with sentient myriads every drop of dew that gathers on a harebell, +every bead of water that ripples in a brook--to these the mortal life of +man can seem but little, save at once the fiercest and the feeblest +thing that does exist; at once the most cruel and the most impotent; +tyrant of direst destruction and bondsman of lowest captivity. + +Hence, pity entered very little into his thoughts at any time; the +perpetual torture of life did indeed perplex him, as it perplexes every +thinking creature, with wonder at the universal bitterness that taints +all creation, at the universal death whereby all forms of life are +nurtured, at the universal anguish of all existence which daily and +nightly assails the unknown God in piteous protest at the inexorable +laws of inexplicable miseries and mysteries. But because such suffering +was thus universal, therefore he almost ceased to feel pity for it; of +the two he pitied the beasts far more than the human kind:--the horse +staggering beneath the lash in all the feebleness of hunger, lameness, +and old age; the ox bleeding from the goad on the hard furrows, or +stumbling through the hooting crowd, blind, footsore, and shivering, to +its last home in the slaughter-house; the dog, yielding up its noble +life inch by inch under the tortures of the knife, loyally licking the +hand of the vivisector while he drove his probe through its quivering +nerves; the unutterable hell in which all these gentle, kindly, and +long-suffering creatures dwelt for the pleasure or the vanity, the +avarice or the brutality of men,--these he pitied perpetually, with a +tenderness for them that was the softest thing in all his nature. + + * * * + +"There lived once in the East, a great king; he dwelt far away, amongst +the fragrant fields of roses, and in the light of suns that never set. + +"He was young, he was beloved, he was fair of face and form; and the +people, as they hewed stone, or brought water, said amongst themselves, +'Verily, this man is as a god; he goes where he lists, and he lies still +or rises up as he pleases; and all fruits of all lands are culled for +him; and his nights are nights of gladness, and his days, when they +dawn, are all his to sleep through or spend as he wills.' But the people +were wrong. For this king was weary of his life. + +"His buckler was sown with gems, but his heart beneath it was sore. For +he had been long bitterly harassed by foes who descended on him as +wolves from the hills in their hunger, and he had been long plagued with +heavy wars and with bad rice harvests, and with many troubles to his +nation that kept it very poor, and forbade him to finish the building of +new marble palaces, and the making of fresh gardens of delight, on which +his heart was set. So he, being weary of a barren land and of an empty +treasury, with all his might prayed to the gods that all he touched +might turn to gold, even as he had heard had happened to some magician +long before in other ages. And the gods gave him the thing he craved; +and his treasury overflowed. No king had ever been so rich, as this king +now became in the short space of a single summer-day. + +"But it was bought with a price. + +"When he stretched out his hand to gather the rose that blossomed in his +path, a golden flower scentless and stiff was all he grasped. When he +called to him the carrier-dove that sped with a scroll of love words +across the mountains, the bird sank on his breast a carven piece of +metal. When he was athirst and shouted to his cupbearer for drink, the +red wine ran a stream of molten gold. When he would fain have eaten, the +pulse and the pomegranate grew alike to gold between his teeth. And lo! +at eventide, when he sought the silent chambers of his harem, saying, +'Here at least shall I find rest,' and bent his steps to the couch +whereon his best-beloved slave was sleeping, a statue of gold was all he +drew into his eager arms, and cold shut lips of sculptured gold were all +that met his own. + +"That night the great king slew himself, unable any more to bear this +agony; since all around him was desolation, even though all around him +was wealth. + +"Now the world is too like that king, and in its greed of gold it will +barter its life away. + +"Look you,--this thing is certain--I say that the world will perish, +even as that king perished, slain as he was slain, by the curse of its +own fulfilled desire. + +"The future of the world is written. For God has granted their prayer to +men. He has made them rich, and their riches shall kill them. + +"When all green places have been destroyed in the builder's lust of +gain:--when all the lands are but mountains of brick, and piles of wood +and iron:--when there is no moisture anywhere; and no rain ever +falls:--when the sky is a vault of smoke; and all the rivers reek with +poison:--when forest and stream, and moor and meadow, and all the old +green wayside beauty are things vanished and forgotten:--when every +gentle timid thing of brake and bush, of air and water, has been killed +because it robbed them of a berry or a fruit:--when the earth is one +vast city, whose young children behold neither the green of the field +nor the blue of the sky, and hear no song but the hiss of the steam, and +know no music but the roar of the furnace:--when the old sweet silence +of the country-side, and the old sweet sounds of waking birds, and the +old sweet fall of summer showers, and the grace of a hedgerow bough, and +the glow of the purple heather, and the note of the cuckoo and cushat, +and the freedom of waste and of woodland, are all things dead, and +remembered of no man:--then the world, like the Eastern king, will +perish miserably of famine and of drought, with gold in its stiffened +hands, and gold in its withered lips, and gold everywhere:--gold that +the people can neither eat nor drink, gold that cares nothing for them, +but mocks them horribly:--gold for which their fathers sold peace and +health, and holiness and liberty:--gold that is one vast grave." + + * * * + +The earth is crowded full with clay gods and false prophets, and fresh +legions for ever arriving to carry on the old strife for supremacy; and +if a man pass unknown all the time that his voice is audible, and his +hand visible, through the sound and smoke of the battle, he will dream +in vain of any remembrance when the gates of the grave shall have closed +on him and shut him for ever from sight. + +When the world was in its youth, it had leisure to treasure its +recollections; even to pause and look back, and to see what flower of a +fair thought, what fruit of a noble art it might have overlooked or left +down-trodden. + +But now it is so old, and is so tired; it is purblind and heavy of foot; +it does not notice what it destroys; it desires rest, and can find none; +nothing can matter greatly to it; its dead are so many that it cannot +count them; and being thus worn and dulled with age, and suffocated +under the weight of its innumerable memories, it is very slow to be +moved, and swift--terribly swift--to forget. + +Why should it not be? + +It has known the best, it has known the worst, that ever can befall it. + +And the prayer that to the heart of a man seems so freshly born from his +own desire, what is it on the weary ear of the world, save the same old +old cry which it has heard through all the ages, empty as the sound of +the wind, and for ever--for ever--unanswered? + + * * * + +There is no more terrible woe upon earth than the woe of the stricken +brain, which remembers the days of its strength, the living light of its +reason, the sunrise of its proud intelligence, and knows that these have +passed away like a tale that is told; like a year that is spent; like an +arrow that is shot to the stars, and flies aloft, and falls in a swamp; +like a fruit that is too well loved of the sun, and so, over-soon ripe, +is dropped from the tree and forgot on the grasses, dead to all joys of +the dawn and the noon and the summer, but still alive to the sting of +the wasp, to the fret of the aphis, to the burn of the drought, to the +theft of the parasite. + +She only dimly understood, and yet she was smitten with awe and +reverence at that endless grief which had no taint of cowardice upon it, +but was pure as the patriot's despair, impersonal as the prophet's +agony. + +For the first time the intellect in her consciously awoke. For the first +time she heard a human mind find voice even in its stupor and its +wretchedness to cry aloud, in reproach to its unknown Creator: + +"I am _yours_! Shall I perish with the body? Why have you ever bade me +desire the light and seek it, if for ever you must thrust me into the +darkness of negation? Shall I be Nothing?--like the muscle that rots, +like the bones that crumble, like the flesh that turns to ashes, and +blows in a film on the winds? Shall I die so? I?--the mind of a man, the +breath of a god?" + + * * * + +He could not bear to die without leaving behind his life some work the +world would cherish. + +Call it folly, call it madness, it is both: the ivory Zeus that was to +give its sculptor immortality, lives but in tradition; the bronze +Athene, that was to guard the Pirćus in eternal liberty, has long been +levelled with the dust; yet with every age the artist still gives life +for fame, still cries, "Let my body perish, but make my soul immortal!" + + * * * + +The spider had drawn his dusty trail across them; the rat had squatted +at their feet; the darkness of night had enshrouded and defaced them; +yet with the morning they arose, stainless, noble, undefiled. + +Amongst them there was one colossal form, on which the sun poured with +its full radiance. + +This was the form of a captive grinding at a millstone; the majestic, +symmetrical, supple form of a man who was also a god. + +In his naked limbs there was a supreme power; in his glance there was a +divine command; his head was lifted as though no yoke could ever lie on +that proud neck; his foot seemed to spurn the earth as though no mortal +tie had ever bound him to the sod that human steps bestrode: yet at the +corn-mill he laboured, grinding wheat like the patient blinded oxen +that toiled beside him. + +For it was the great Apollo in Pherć. + +The hand which awoke the music of the spheres had been blood-stained +with murder; the beauty which had the light and lustre of the sun had +been darkened with passion and with crime; the will which no other on +earth or in heaven could withstand had been bent under the chastisement +of Zeus. + +He whose glance had made the black and barren slopes of Delos to laugh +with fruitfulness and gladness--he whose prophetic sight beheld all +things past, present, and to come, the fate of all unborn races, the +doom of all unspent ages--he, the Far-Striking King, laboured here +beneath the curse of crime, greatest of all the gods, and yet a slave. + +In all the hills and vales of Greece his Io pćan sounded still. + +Upon his holy mountains there still arose the smoke of fires of +sacrifice. + +With dance and song the Delian maidens still hailed the divinity of +Lętô's son. + +The waves of the pure Ionian air still rang for ever with the name of +Delphinios. + +At Pytho and at Clarus, in Lycia and in Phokis, his oracles still +breathed forth upon their fiat terror or hope into the lives of men; and +still in all the virgin forests of the world the wild beasts honoured +him wheresoever they wandered, and the lion and the boar came at his +bidding from the deserts to bend their free necks and their wills of +fire meekly to bear his yoke in Thessaly. + +Yet he laboured here at the corn-mill of Admetus; and watching him at +his bondage there stood the slender, slight, wing-footed Hermes, with a +slow, mocking smile upon his knavish lips, and a jeering scorn in his +keen eyes, even as though he cried: + +"O brother, who would be greater than I! For what hast thou bartered to +me the golden rod of thy wealth and thy dominion over the flocks and the +herds? For seven chords strung on a shell--for a melody not even thine +own! For a lyre outshone by my syrinx hast thou sold all thine empire to +me. Will human ears give heed to thy song now thy sceptre has passed to +my hands? Immortal music only is left thee, and the vision foreseeing +the future. O god! O hero! O fool! what shall these profit thee now?" + +Thus to the artist by whom they had been begotten the dim white shapes +of the deities spoke. Thus he saw them, thus he heard, whilst the pale +and watery sunlight lit up the form of the toiler in Pherć. + +For even as it was with the divinity of Delos, so is it likewise with +the genius of a man, which, being born of a god, yet is bound as a slave +to the grindstone. Since even as Hermes mocked the Lord of the Unerring +Bow, so is genius mocked of the world, when it has bartered the herds, +and the grain, and the rod that metes wealth, for the seven chords that +no ear, dully mortal, can hear. + +And as he looked upon this symbol of his life, the captivity and the +calamity, the strength and the slavery of his existence overcame him; +and for the first hour since he had been born of a woman Arslŕn buried +his face in his hands and wept. + +He could bend great thoughts to take the shapes that he chose, as the +chained god in Pherć bound the strong kings of the desert and forest to +carry his yoke; yet, like the god, he likewise stood fettered to the +mill to grind for bread. + + * * * + +One evening, a little later, he met her in the fields on the same spot +where Marcellin first had seen her as a child amongst the scarlet blaze +of the poppies. + +The lands were all yellow with saffron and emerald with the young corn; +she balanced on her head a great brass jar; the red girdle glowed about +her waist as she moved: the wind stirred the folds of her garments; her +feet were buried in the shining grass; clouds tawny and purple were +behind her; she looked like some Moorish phantom seen in a dream under a +sky of Spain. + +He paused and gazed at her with eyes half content, half cold. + +She was of a beauty so uncommon, so strange, and all that was his for +his art:--a great artist, whether in words, in melody, or in colour, is +always cruel, or at the least seems so, for all things that live under +the sun are to him created only to minister to his one inexorable +passion. + +Art is so vast, and human life is so little. It is to him only supremely +just that the insect of an hour should be sacrificed to the infinite and +eternal truth which must endure until the heavens themselves shall +wither as a scroll that is held in a flame. It might have seemed to +Arslŕn base to turn her ignorance, and submission to his will, for the +gratification of his amorous passions; but to make these serve the art +to which he had himself abandoned every earthly good was in his sight +justified, as the death agonies of the youth whom they decked with roses +and slew in sacrifice to the sun, were in the sight of the Mexican +nation. + +The youth whom the Mexicans slew, on the high hill of the city, with his +face to the west, was always the choicest and the noblest of all the +opening flower of their manhood: for it was his fate to be called to +enter into the realms of eternal light, and to dwell face to face with +the unbearable brightness without whose rays the universe would have +perished frozen in perpetual night. So the artist, who is true to his +art, regards every human sacrifice that he renders up to it; how can he +feel pity for a thing which perishes to feed a flame that he deems the +life of the world? + +The steel that he draws out from the severed heart of his victim he is +ready to plunge into his own vitals: no other religion can vaunt as much +of its priests. + +"What are you thinking of to-night?" he asked her where she came through +the fields by the course of a little flower-sown brook, fringed with +tall bulrushes and waving willow-stems. + +She lifted her eyelids with a dreamy and wistful regard. + +"I was thinking--I wonder what the reed felt that you told me of--the +one reed that a god chose from all its millions by the waterside and cut +down to make into a flute." + +"Ah?--you see there are no reeds that make music now-a-days; the reeds +are only good to be woven into kreels for the fruits and the fish of the +market." + +"That is not the fault of the reeds?" + +"Not that I know; it is the fault of men, most likely, who find the +chink of coin in barter sweeter music than the song of the syrinx. But +what do you think the reed felt then?--pain to be so sharply severed +from its fellows?" + +"No--or the god would not have chosen it." + +"What then?" + +A troubled sigh parted her lips; these old fables were fairest truths to +her, and gave a grace to every humblest thing that the sun shone on, or +the waters begat from their foam, or the winds blew with their breath +into the little life of a day. + +"I was trying to think. But I cannot be sure. These reeds have +forgotten. They have lost their soul. They want nothing but to feed +among the sand and the mud, and grow in millions together, and shelter +the toads and the newts,--there is not a note of music in them +all--except when the wind rises and makes them sigh, and then they +remember that long, long-ago the breath of a great god was in them." + +Arslŕn looked at her where she stood; her eyes resting on the reeds, and +the brook at her feet; the crimson heat of the evening all about her, on +the brazen amphora, on the red girdle on her loins, on the thoughtful +parted lips, on the proud bent brows above which a golden butterfly +floated as above the brows of Psyche. + +He smiled; the smile that was so cold to her. + +"Look: away over the fields, there comes a peasant with a sickle; he +comes to mow down the reeds to make a bed for his cattle. If he heard +you, he would think you mad." + +"They have thought me many things worse. What matter?" + +"Nothing at all;--that I know. But you seem to envy that reed--so long +ago--that was chosen?" + +"Who would not?" + +"Are you so sure? The life of the reed was always pleasant;--dancing +there in the light, playing with the shadows, blowing in the winds; with +the cool waters all about it all day long, and the yellow daffodils and +the blue bell-flowers for its brethren." + +"Nay;--how do you know?" + +Her voice was low, and thrilled with a curious eager pain. + +"How do you know?" she murmured. "Rather,--it was born in the sands, +amongst the stones, of the chance winds, of the stray germs,--no one +asking, no one heeding, brought by a sunbeam, spat out by a toad--no one +caring where it dropped. Rather,--it grew there by the river, and such +millions of reeds grew with it, that neither waters nor winds could +care for a thing so common and worthless, but the very snakes twisting +in and out despised it, and thrust the arrows of their tongues through +it in scorn. And then--I think I see!--the great god walked by the edge +of the river, and he mused on a gift to give man, on a joy that should +be a joy on the earth for ever; and he passed by the lily white as snow, +by the thyme that fed the bees, by the gold heart in the arum flower, by +the orange flame of the tall sandrush, by all the great water-blossoms +which the sun kissed, and the swallows loved, and he came to the one +little reed pierced with the snakes' tongues, and all alone amidst +millions. Then he took it up, and cut it to the root, and killed +it;--killed it as a reed,--but breathed into it a song audible and +beautiful to all the ears of men. Was that death to the reed?--or life? +Would a thousand summers of life by the waterside have been worth that +one thrill of song when a god first spoke through it?" + +Her face lightened with a radiance to which the passion of her words was +pale and poor; the vibrations of her voice grew sonorous and changing as +the sounds of music itself; her eyes beamed through unshed tears as +planets through the rain. + + * * * + +Of all the forms with which he had peopled its loneliness, these had the +most profound influence on her in their fair, passionless, majestic +beauty, in which it seemed to her that the man who had forgotten them +had repeated his own likeness. For they were all alike, yet unlike; of +the same form and feature, yet different even in their strong +resemblance, like elder and younger brethren who hold a close +companionship. For Hypnos was still but a boy with his blue-veined +eyelids closed, and his mouth rosy and parted like that of a slumbering +child, and above his golden head a star rose in the purple night. +Oneiros standing next was a youth whose eyes smiled as though they +beheld visions that were welcome to him; in his hand, amongst the white +roses, he held a black wand of sorcery, and around his bended head there +hovered a dim silvery nimbus. Thanatos alone was a man fully grown; and +on his calm and colourless face there were blended an unutterable +sadness, and an unspeakable peace; his eyes were fathomless, +far-reaching, heavy laden with thought, as though they had seen at once +the heights of heaven and the depths of hell; and he, having thus seen, +and knowing all things, had learned that there was but one good possible +in all the universe,--that one gift which his touch gave, and which men +in their blindness shuddered from and cursed. And above him and around +him there was a great darkness. + +So the gods stood, and so they spoke, even to her; they seemed to her as +brethren, masters, friends--these three immortals who looked down on her +in their mute majesty. + +They are the gods of the poor, of the wretched, of the outcast, of the +proscribed,--they are the gods who respect not persons nor palaces,--who +stay with the exile and flee from the king,--who leave the tyrant of a +world to writhe in torment, and call a smile beautiful as the morning on +the face of a beggar child,--who turn from the purple beds where wealth +and lust and brutal power lie, and fill with purest visions the darkest +hours of the loneliest nights, for genius and youth,--they are the gods +of consolation and of compensation,--the gods of the exile, of the +orphan, of the outcast, of the poet, of the prophet, of all whose bodies +ache with the infinite pangs of famine, and whose hearts ache with the +infinite woes of the world, of all who hunger with the body or the +soul. + + * * * + +It became mid-April. It was market-day for all the country lying round +that wondrous cathedral-spire, which shot into the air far-reaching and +ethereal, like some fountain whose column of water had been arrested +aloft and changed to ice. + +The old quiet town was busy, with a rich sunshine shed upon it, in which +the first yellow butterflies of the year had begun to dance. + +It was high noon, and the highest tide of the market. + +Flower-girls, fruit-girls, egg-sellers, poultry-hucksters, crowds of +women, old and young, had jolted in on their docile asses, throned on +their sheepskin saddles; and now, chattering and chaffering, drove fast +their trade. On the steps of the cathedral boys with birds'-nests, +knife-grinders making their little wheels fly, cobblers hammering, with +boards across their knees, travelling pedlars with knapsacks full of +toys and mirrors, and holy images, and strings of beads, sat side by +side in amicable competition. + +Here and there a priest passed, with his black robe and broad hat, like +a dusky mushroom amongst a bed of many-hued gillyflowers. Here and there +a soldier, all colour and glitter, showed like a gaudy red tulip in +bloom amidst tufts of thyme. + +The old wrinkled leathern awnings of the market-stalls glowed like +copper in the brightness of noon. The red tiles of the houses edging the +great square were gilded with yellow houseleeks. The little children ran +hither and thither with big bunches of primroses or sheaves of blue +wood-hyacinths, singing. The red and blue serges of the young girls' +bodices were like the gay hues of the anemones in their baskets. The +brown faces of the old dames under the white roofing of their headgear +were like the russet faces of the home-kept apples which they had +garnered through all the winter. + +Everywhere in the shade of the flapping leather, and the darkness of +the wooden porches, there were the tender blossoms of the field and +forest, of the hedge and garden. The azure of the hyacinths, the pale +saffron of the primroses, the cool hues of the meadow daffodils, the +ruby eyes of the cultured jonquils, gleamed amongst wet rushes, grey +herbs, and freshly budded leafage. Plovers' eggs nestled in moss-lined +baskets; sheaves of velvet-coated wallflowers poured fragrance on the +air; great plumes of lilac nodded on the wind, and amber feathers of +laburnum waved above the homelier masses of mint and marjoram, and sage +and chervil. + + + + +_IDALIA._ + + +Whatever fate rose for them with the dawn, this night at least was +theirs: there is no love like that which lives victorious even beneath +the shadow of death: there is no joy like that which finds its paradise +even amid the cruelty of pain, the fierce long struggle of despair. + +Never is the voluptuous glory of the sun so deep, so rich, as when its +last excess of light burns above the purple edge of the tempest-cloud +that soars upward to cover and devour it. + + * * * + +"And we reign still!" + +She turned, as she spoke, towards the western waters, where the sea-line +of the Ćgean lay, while in her eyes came the look of a royal pride and +of a deathless love. + +"Greece cannot die. No matter what the land be now, Greece--_our_ +Greece--must live for ever. Her language lives; the children of Europe +learn it, even if they halt it in imperfect numbers. The greater the +scholar, the humbler he still bends to learn the words of wisdom from +her school. The poet comes to her for all his fairest myths, his noblest +mysteries, his greatest masters. The sculptor looks at the broken +fragments of her statues, and throws aside his calliope in despair +before those matchless wrecks. From her soldiers learn how to die, and +nations how to conquer and to keep their liberties. No deed of heroism +is done but, to crown it, it is named parallel to hers. They write of +love, and who forgets the Lesbian? They dream of freedom, and to reach +it they remember Salamis. They talk of progress, and while they talk +they sigh for all that they have lost in Academus. They seek truth, and +while they seek, wearily long, as little children, to hear the golden +speech of Socrates, that slave, and fisherman, and sailor, and +stonemason, and date-seller were all once free to hear in her Agora. But +for the light that shone from Greece in the breaking of the Renaissance, +Europe would have perished in its Gothic darkness. They call her dead: +she can never die while her life, her soul, her genius breathe fire into +the new nations, and give their youth all of greatness and of grace that +they can claim. Greece dead! She reigns in every poem written, in every +art pursued, in every beauty treasured, in every liberty won, in every +god-like life and godlike death, in your fresh lands, which, but for +her, would be barbarian now." + +Where she stood, with her eyes turned westward to the far-off snows of +Cithćron and Mount Ida, and the shores which the bronze spear of Pallas +Athene once guarded through the night and day, the dark light in her +eyes deepened, and the flush of a superb pride was on her brow--it +seemed Aspasia who lived again, and who remembered Pericles. + + * * * + +The chant of the Imaum rang up from the shore, deep and sonorous, +calling on the Faithful to prayer, an hour before midnight. She listened +dreamily to the echoes that seemed to linger among the dark foliage. + +"I like those national calls to prayer," she said, as she leaned over +the parapet, while the fire-flies glittered among the mass of leaves as +the diamond sprays glistened in her hair. "The Ave Maria, the Vespers, +the Imaum's chant, the salutation of the dawn or of the night, the hymn +before sleep, or before the sun;--you have none of those in your chill +islands? You have only weary rituals, and stuccoed churches, where the +'Pharisees for a pretence make long prayers!' As if _that_ was not the +best--the only--temple!" + +She glanced upward at the star-studded sky, and on her face was that +graver and gentler look which had come there when she sang. + +"I have held it so many a time," he answered her, lying awake at night +among the long grass of the Andes, or under the palms of the desert. It +was a strange delusion to build shrines to the honour of God while there +are still his own--the forests and the mountains. + + * * * + +"It was a fair heritage to lose through a feeble vanity--that beautiful +Constantinople!" she said musingly. "The East and the West--what an +empire! More than Alexander ever grasped at--what might not have been +done with it? Asian faith and Oriental sublimity, with Roman power and +Gothic force; if there had been a hand strong enough to weld all these +together, what a world there might have been!" + +"But to have done that would have been to attain the Impossible," he +answered her. "Oil and flame, old and new, living and dying, tradition +and scepticism, iconoclast and idolater, you cannot unite and harmonise +these antagonisms?" + +She gave a sign of dissent. + +"The prophet or the hero unites all antagonisms, because he binds them +all to his own genius. The Byzantine empire had none such; the nearest +was Julian, but he believed less in himself than in the gods; the +nearest after him was Belisarius--the fool of a courtesan, and he was +but a good soldier; he was no teacher, no liberator, no leader for the +nations. John Vatices came too late. A man must be his own convert +before he can convert others. Zoroaster, Christ, Mahommed, Cromwell, +Napoleon, believed intensely in their own missions; hence their +influence on the peoples. How can we tell what Byzantium might have +become under one mighty hand? It was torn in pieces among courtesans, +and parasites, and Christian fanatics, and Houmousians and +Houmoiousians! I have the blood of the Commneni in me. I think of it +with shame when I remember what they might have been." + +"You come from the Roman Emperors?" + +"The Roman Emperors?" she repeated. "When the name was a travesty, an +ignominy, a reproach! When Barbarians thronged the Forum, and the +representative of Galilee fishermen claimed power in the Capitol? Yes; I +descend, they say, from the Commneni; but I am far prouder that, on the +other hand, I come from pure Athenians. I belong to two buried worlds. +But the stone throne of the Areopagus was greater than the gold one of +Manuel." + + * * * + +"That animal life is to be envied perhaps," she said. + +"Their pride is centred in a silver hairpin; their conscience is +committed to a priest; their credulity is contented with tradition; +their days are all the same, from the rising of one sun to another; they +do not love, they do not hate; they are like the ass that they drive, +follow one patient routine, and only take care for their food. Perhaps +they are to be envied!" + +"You would not lose 'those thoughts that wander through eternity,' to +gain in exchange the peace from ignorance of the peasant or the +dullard?" + +She turned her face to him, with its most beautiful smile on her lips +and in her eyes. + +"No, I would not: you are right. Better to know the secrets of the gods, +even though with pain, than to lead the dull, brute life, though +painless. It is only in our dark hours that we would sell our souls for +a dreamless ease." + +"Dark hours! _You_ should not know them. Ah, if you would but trust me +with some confidence! if there were but some way in which I could serve +you!" + +Her eyes met his with gratitude, even while she gave him a gesture of +silence. She thought how little could the bold, straight stroke of this +man's frank chivalry cut through the innumerable and intricate chains +that entangled her own life. The knightly Excalibur could do nothing to +sever the filmy but insoluble meshes of secret intrigues. + +"It is a saint's-day: I had forgotten it," she said to turn his words +from herself, while the bell of the campanile still swung through the +air. "I am a pagan, you see: I do not fancy that you care much for +creeds yourself." + +"Creeds? I wish there were no such word. It has only been a rallying-cry +for war, an excuse for the bigot to burn his neighbour." + +"No. Long ago, under the Andes, Nezahualcoytl held the same faith that +Socrates had vainly taught in the Agora; and Zengis Khan knew the truth +of theism like Plato; yet the world has never generally learnt it. It is +the religion of nature--of reason. But the faith is too simple and too +sublime for the multitude. The mass of minds needs a religion of +mythics, legend, symbolism, and fear. What is impalpable escapes it; and +it must give an outward and visible shape to its belief, as it gives in +its art a human form to its deity. Come, since we agree in our creed, I +will take you to my temple--a temple not made by hands." + + * * * + +"I never had a fair field!"--it may be sometimes a coward's apology; but +it is many a time the epitome of a great, cramped, tortured, wasted +life, which strove like a caged eagle to get free, and never could beat +down the bars of the den that circumstances and prejudice had forged. +The world sees the few who do reach freedom, and, watching their bold +upright flight, says rashly, "will can work all things." But they who +perish by the thousand, the fettered eagles who never see the sun; who +pant in darkness, and wear their breasts bare beating on the iron that +will never yield; who know their strength, yet cannot break their +prison; who feel their wings, yet never can soar up to meet the sweet +wild western winds of liberty; who lie at last beaten, and hopeless, and +blind, with only strength enough to long for death to come and quench +all sense and thought in its annihilation,--who thinks of them--who +counts them? + + * * * + +The earliest dawn had broken eastward, where the mountains +stretched--the dawn of a southern summer, that almost touches the sunset +of the past night--but under the dense shadows of the old woods that had +sheltered the mystic rites of Gnostics and echoed with the Latin hymns +to Pan, no light wandered. There was only a dim silvery haze that seemed +to float over the whiteness of the tall-stemmed arum lilies and the +foam-bells of the water that here and there glimmered under the rank +vegetation, where it had broken from its hidden channels up to air and +space. Not a sound disturbed the intense stillness; that the night waned +and the world wakened, brought no change to the solitudes that men had +forgotten, and only memories of dead-deserted gods still haunted in the +places of their lost temples, whose columns were now the sea-pines' +stems, and on whose fallen altars and whose shattered sculptures the +lizard made her shelter and the wind-sown grasses seeded and took root. +Of the once graceful marble beauty and the incense-steeped stones of +sacrifice nothing remained but moss-grown shapeless fragments, buried +beneath a pall of leaves by twice a thousand autumns. Yet the ancient +sanctity still rested on the nameless, pathless woods; the breath of an +earlier time, of a younger season of the earth, seemed to lie yet upon +the untroubled forest ways; the whisper of the unseen waters had a +dream-like, unreal cadence; in the deep shade, in the warm fragrance and +the heavy gloom, there was a voluptuous yet mournful charm--the world +seemed so far, the stars shone so near; there were the sweetness of rest +and the oblivion of passion. + + * * * + +Death is not ours to deal. And were it ours, should we give him the +nameless mystic mercy which all men live to crave--give it as the +chastisement of crime? Death! It is rest to the aged, it is oblivion to +the atheist, it is immortality to the poet! It is a vast, dim, +exhaustless pity to all the world. And would you summon it as your +hardest cruelty to sin? + +They were silent; she stirred their souls--she had not bound their +passions. + +"A traitor merits death," they muttered. + +"Merits it! Not so. The martyr, the liberator, the seeker of truth, may +deserve its peace; how has the traitor won them? You deem yourselves +just; your justice errs. If you would give him justice, make him live. +Live to know fear lest every wind among the leaves may whisper of his +secret; live to feel the look of a young child's eyes a shame to him; +live to envy every peasant whose bread has not been bought with tainted +coin; live to hear ever in his path the stealing step of haunting +retribution; live to see his brethren pass by him as a thing accurst; +live to listen in his age to white-haired men, who once had been his +comrades, tell to the youth about them the unforgotten story of his +shame. Make him live thus if you would have justice." + +They answered nothing; a shudder ran through them as they heard. + +"And--if you have as I--a deliverance that forbids you even so much +harshness, still let him live, and bury his transgression in your +hearts. Say to him as I say, 'Your sin was great, go forth and sin no +more.'" + + * * * + +"One is not an assassin!" + +"Since when have you discovered that?" + +The flush grew darker on Count Conrad's forehead; he moved restlessly +under the irony, and drank down a draught of red fiery Roussillon +without tasting it more than if it had been water. Then he laughed; the +same careless musical laughter with which he had made the requiem over a +violet--a laugh which belonged at once to the most careless and the most +evil side of his character. + +"Since sophism came in, which was with Monsieur Cain, when he asked, 'Am +I my brother's keeper?' It was ingenious that reply; creditable to a +beginner, without social advantages. 'An assassin!' Take the word boldly +by the beard, and look at it. What is there objectionable?" + +"Nothing--except to the assassinated." + +"It has had an apotheosis ever since the world began," pursued Phaulcon, +unheeding, in his bright vivacity. "Who are celebrated in Scripture? +Judith, Samuel, David, Moses, Joab. Who is a patriot? Brutus. Who is an +immortal? Harmodius and Aristogiton. Who is a philosopher? Cicero, while +he murmurs '_Vixerunt!_' after slaying Lentulus. Who is a hero? Marius, +who nails the senators' heads to the rostrć. Who is a martyr? Charles, +who murders Strafford. What is religion? Christianity, that has burnt +and slain millions. Who is a priest? Calvin, who destroys Servetus; or +Pole, who kills Latimer, which you like. Who is a saint? George of +Cappadocia, who slaughters right and left. Who is a ruler? Sulla, who +slays Ofella. Who is a queen? Christina, who stabs Monaldeschi; +Catherine, who strangles Peter; Isabella, who slays Moors and Jews by +the thousand. Murderers all! Assassination has always been deified; and +before it is objected to, the world must change its creeds, its +celebrities, and its chronicles. 'Monsieur, you are an assassin,' says +an impolite world. 'Messieurs,' says the polite logician, 'I found my +warrant in your Bible, and my precedent in your Brutus. What you deify +in Aristogiton and Jael you mustn't damn in Ankarström and me.' Voilŕ! +What could the world say?" + +"That you would outwit Belial with words, and beguile Beelzebub out of +his kingdom with sophistry." + + + + +_A VILLAGE COMMUNE._ + + +Power is sweet, and when you are a little clerk you love its sweetness +quite as much as if you were an emperor, and maybe you love it a good +deal more. + + * * * + +He saw no reason why he should not become a deputy, and even a minister +before he died, and indeed there was no reason whatever. He was only a +clerk at fifty pounds a year; but he had a soul above all scruples, and +a heart as hard as a millstone. + + * * * + +He was only a clerk indeed, at a slender salary, and ate his friends' +tomatoes publicly in the little back room of the caffč; but he had the +soul of a statesman. When a donkey kicks, beat it; when it dies, skin +it; so only will it profit you; that was his opinion, and the public was +the donkey of Messer Nellemane. + + * * * + +Pippo and Viola feared everything, yet knew not what they feared; it is +a ghostly burden of dread, that which the honest poor carry with them +all through their toiling hungry days, the vague oppressive dread of +this law which is always acting the spy on them, always dogging their +steps, always emptying their pockets. The poor can understand criminal +law, and its justice and its necessity easily enough, and respect its +severities; but they cannot understand the petty tyrannies of civil law; +and it wears their lives out, and breaks their spirits. When it does not +break their spirits it curdles their blood and they become socialists, +nihilists, internationalists, anything that will promise them riddance +of their spectre and give them vengeance. We in Italy are all of us +afraid of socialism, we who have anything to lose; and yet we let the +syndics, and their secretaries, conciliators, and chancellors sow it +broadcast in dragon's teeth of petty injustices and petty cruelties, +that soon or late will spring up armed men, hydra-headed and torch in +hand! + + * * * + +The law should be a majesty, solemn, awful, unerring: just, as man hopes +that God is just; and from its throne it should stretch out a mighty +hand to seize and grasp the guilty, and the guilty only. But when the +law is only a petty, meddlesome, cruel, greedy spy, mingling in every +household act and peering in at every window pane, then the poor who are +guiltless would be justified if they spat in its face, and called it by +its right name, a foul extortion. + + * * * + +The Italian tongue chatters like a magpie's; if they did not let the +steam off thus they would be less easily ruled than they are; but no +great talker ever did any great thing yet, in this world. + + * * * + +A retentive memory is of great use to a man, no doubt; but the talent of +oblivion is on the whole more useful. + + * * * + +Sarta Rosalia is in a lovely pastoral country; the country that seems to +thrill with Theocritus' singing, as it throbs with the little tamborine +of the cicala; a country running over with beautiful greenery, and with +climbing creepers hanging everywhere, from the vine on the maples to the +china-rose hedges, and with the deep-blue shadows, and the sun-flushed +whiteness of the distant mountains lending to it in the golden distance +that solemnity and ethereal charm which, without mountains somewhere +within sight, no country ever has. But since the advent of "freedom" it +is scarred and wounded; great scar-patches stretch here and there where +woods have been felled by the avarice illumined in the souls of +landowners; hundreds and thousands of bare poles stand stark and stiff +against the river light which have been glorious pyramids of leaf +shedding welcome shadows on the river path; and many a bold round hill +like the _ballons_ of the Vosges, once rich of grass as they, now shorn +of wood, and even of undergrowth, lift a bare stony front to the lovely +sunlight, and never more will root of tree, or seed of flower or of +fern, find bed there. + +Such is Progress. + + * * * + +For the first time his _liberi pensieri_ were distasteful to him and +unsatisfactory; for atheism makes a curse a mere rattle of dry peas in a +fool's bladder, as it makes a blessing a mere flutter of a breath. +Messer Nellemane for the first time felt that the old religion has its +advantages over agnosticism; it gave you a hell for your rivals and your +enemies! + + * * * + +He had never heard of Virgil and of Theocritus--but it hurt him to have +these sylvan pictures spoiled; these pictures which are the same as +those they saw and sang; the threshing barns with the piles of golden +grain, and the flails flying to merry voices; the young horses trampling +the wheat loose from its husk with bounding limbs and tossing manes; the +great arched doorways, with the maidens sitting in a circle breaking the +maize from its withered leaves, and telling old-world stories, and +singing sweet _fiorellini_ all the while; the hanging fields broken up +in hill and vale with the dun-coloured oxen pushing their patient way +through labyrinths of vine boughs, and clouds of silvery olive leaf: the +bright laborious day, with the sun-rays turning the sickle to a +semi-circlet of silver, as the mice ran, and the crickets shouted, and +the larks soared on high: the merry supper when the day was done, with +the thrill and thrum of the mandolini, and the glisten of the unhoused +fire-flies, whose sanctuary had been broken when the bearded barley and +the amber corn fell prone: all these things rose to his memory: they had +made his youth and manhood glad and full of colour; they were here still +for his sons a little while, but when his sons should be all grown men, +then those things would have ceased to be, and even their very memory +would have perished, most likely, while the smoke of the accursed +engines would have sullied the pure blue sky, and the stench of their +foul vapours would have poisoned the golden air. + +He roused himself and said wearily to Pippo, + +"There is a tale I have heard somewhere of a man who sold his birthright +for gold, and when the gold was in his hands, then it changed to +withered leaves and brown moss: I was thinking, eh? that the world is +much like that man!" + + * * * + +When all your politics and policies are summed up in the one intention +to do well for yourself, great simplicity is given to your theories, if +not to your practice. + + * * * + +The ministerialists ... made florid and beautiful speeches full of +sesquipedalian phrases in which they spoke about the place of Italy +among the great powers, the dangers of jealousy and invasion from other +nations, the magnificence of the future, the blessings of education, the +delights of liberty, the wickedness of the opposition, the sovereign +rights of the people; and said it all so magnificently and so +bewilderingly that the people never remembered till it was too late that +they had said nothing about opposing the cow-tax--or indeed any taxes at +all, but listened and gaped, and shouted, and clapped; and being told +that they could sit at a European Congress to decide the fate of Epirus, +were for the moment oblivious that they had bad bread, dear wine, scant +meat, an army of conscripts, and a bureaucracy that devoured them as +maggots a cheese. What is political eloquence for, if not to make the +people forget such things as these? + + * * * + +To sell your grapes to foreigners and have none at all at home is a +spirited commerce, and fine free trade; that the poor souls around are +all poisoned with cheap chemicals in the absence of wine, is only an +evidence of all that science can do. + + * * * + +It is the noblest natures that tyranny drives to frenzy. + + * * * + +The bureaucratic mind, all the world over, believes the squeak of the +official penny whistle to be as the trump of archangels and the voice of +Sinai. That all the people do not fall down prostrate at the squeak is, +to this order of mind, the one unmentionable sin. + + * * * + +It is not true that no Italian ever tells the truth, as commentators on +the country say, but it is sadly true that when one does he suffers for +it. + + * * * + +A day in prison to a free-born son of the soil, used to work with the +broad bright sky alone above his head, is more agony than a year of it +is to a cramped city-worker used only to the twilight of a machine-room +or a workshop, only to an air full of smuts and smoke, and the stench of +acids, and the dust of filed steel or sifted coal. The sufferings of the +two cannot be compared, and one among many of the injustices the law, +all over the world, commits, is that it never takes into consideration +what a man's past has been. There are those to whom a prison is as hell; +there are those to whom it is something better than the life they led. + + * * * + +She was an old woman, and had been bred up in the old faiths; faiths +that were not clear indeed to her nor ever reasoned on, but yet gave her +consolation, and a great, if a vague hope. Now that we tell the poor +there is no such hope, that when they have worked and starved long +enough, then they will perish altogether, like bits of candle that have +burnt themselves out, that they are mere machines made of carbon and +hydrogen, which, when they have had due friction, will then crumble back +into the dust; now that we tell them all this, and call this the spread +of education, will they be as patient? + + * * * + +Take hope from the heart of man, and you make him a beast of prey. + + * * * + +One of the cruellest sins of any state, in giving petty and tyrannous +authority into petty and tyrannous hands, is that it thus brings into +hatred and disgust the true and high authority of moral law. + + * * * + +In these modern times of cowardice, when great ministers dare not say +the thing they think, and high magistrates stoop to execute decrees they +abhor, it is scarcely to be hoped for that moral courage will be a plant +of very sturdy growth in the souls of carpenters, and coopers, and +bakers, and plumbers, and day-labourers, who toil for scarce a shilling +a day. + + * * * + +He had been wronged, and a great wrong is to the nature as a cancer is +to the body; there is no health. + + * * * + +A just chastisement may benefit a man, though it seldom does, but an +unjust one changes all his blood to gall. + + * * * + +In these days, Christian Europe decides that not only the poor man lying +by the wayside, but also the Samaritan who helps him, are sinners +against political economy, and its law forbids what its religion orders: +people must settle the contradiction as they deem best; they generally +are content to settle it by buttoning up their pockets, and passing by, +on the other side. + + * * * + +In this lovely land that brims over with flowers like a cup over-filled, +where the sun is as a magician for ever changing with a wand of gold all +common things to paradise; where every wind shakes out the fragrance of +a world of fruit and flower commingled; where, for so little, the lute +sounds and the song arises; here, misery looks more sad than it does in +sadder climes, where it is like a home-born thing, and not an alien +tyrant as it is here. + + * * * + +You cannot cage a field bird when it is old; it dies for want of flight, +of air, of change, of freedom. No use will be the stored grain of your +cages; better for the bird a berry here and there, and peace of gentle +death at last amidst the golden gorse or blush of hawthorn buds. + + * * * + +"What is England?" + +"It is a place where the poor souls have no wine of their own, I think; +and they make cannons and cheese. You see their people over here now +and then. They carry red Bibles, and they go about with their mouths +open to catch flies, and they run into all the little old dusty places; +you must have seen them." + +"And why do we want to have anything to do with them?" + +"They will come in ships and fire at us, if we are not bigger and +stronger than they. We must build iron houses that float, and go on the +sea and meet them." + + + + +_PUCK._ + + +"Animalism," forsooth!--a more unfair word don't exist. When we animals +never drink only just enough to satisfy thirst, never eat except when we +have genuine appetites, never indulge in any sort of debauch, and never +strain excess till we sink into the slough of satiety, shall "animalism" +be a word to designate all that men and women dare to do? "Animalism!" +You ought to blush for such a libel on our innocent and reasonable lives +when you regard your own! You men who scorch your throats with alcohols, +and kill your lives with absinthe; and squander your gold in the +Kursaal, and the Cecle, and the Arlington; and have thirty services at +your dinner betwixt soup and the "chasse;" and cannot spend a summer +afternoon in comfort unless you be drinking deep the intoxication of +hazard in your debts and your bets on the Heath or the Downs, at +Hurlingham or at Tattersalls' Rooms. You women, who sell your souls for +bits of stones dug from the bowels of the earth; who stake your honour +for a length of lace two centuries old; who replace the bloom your +passions have banished with the red of poisoned pigments; who wreathe +your aching heads with purchased tresses torn from prisons, and +madhouses, and coffins; who spend your lives in one incessant struggle, +first the rivalry of vanity and then the rivalry of ambition; who deck +out greed, and selfishness, and worship of station or gold, as "love," +and then wonder that your hapless dupes, seizing the idol that you offer +them as worthy of their worship, fling it from them with a curse, +finding it dumb, and deaf, and merciless, a thing of wood and stone. + +"Animalism," forsooth! God knows it would be well for you, here and +hereafter, men and women both, were you only patient, continent, and +singleminded, only faithful, gentle, and long-suffering, as are the +brutes that you mock, and misuse, and vilify in the supreme blindness of +your egregious vanity! + + * * * + +I was horribly cold and hungry; and this is a combination which kills +sentiment in bigger people than myself. The emotions, like a hothouse +flower or a sea-dianthus, wither curiously when aired in an east wind, +or kept some hours waiting for dinner. + + * * * + +In truth, too, despite all the fine chances that you certainly give your +peasants to make thorough beasts of themselves, they are your real +aristocrats, and have the only really good manners in your country. In +an old north-country dame, who lives on five shillings a week, in a +cottage like a dream of Teniers' or Van Tol's, I have seen a fine +courtesy, a simple desire to lay her best at her guest's disposal, a +perfect composure, and a freedom from all effort, that were in their way +the perfection of breeding. I have seen these often in the peasantry, in +the poor. It is your middle classes, with their incessant flutter, and +bluster, and twitter, and twaddle; with their perpetual strain after +effect; with their deathless desire to get one rung of the ladder higher +than they ever can get; with their preposterous affectations, their +pedantic unrealities, their morbid dread of remark, their everlasting +imitations, their superficial education, their monotonous commonplaces, +and their nervous deference to opinion;--it is your middle classes that +have utterly destroyed good manners, and have made the prevalent mode of +the day a union of boorishness and servility, of effervescence and of +apathy--a court suit, as it were, worn with muddy boots and a hempen +shirt. + + * * * + +I think Fanfreluche spoke with reason. Coincidence is a god that greatly +influences mortal affairs. He is not a cross-tempered deity either, +always; and when you beat your poor fetish for what seems to you an +untoward accident, you may do wrong; he may have benefited you far more +than you wot. + + * * * + +Now I believe that when a woman's own fair skin is called rouge, and her +own old lace is called imitation, she must in some way or other have +roused sharply the conscience or the envy of her sisters who sit in +judgment. + + * * * + +I canna go to church. Look'ee,--they's allus a readin' o' cusses, and +damnin', and hell fire, and the like; and I canna stomach it. What for +shall they go and say as all the poor old wimmin i' tha parish is gone +to the deil 'cause they picks up a stick or tew i' hedge, or likes to +mumble a charm or tew o'er their churnin'? Them old wimmin be rare an' +good i' ither things. When I broke my ankle three years agone, old Dame +Stuckley kem o'er, i' tha hail and the snaw, a matter of five mile and +more, and she turned o' eighty; and she nursed me, and tidied the +place, and did all as was wanted to be done, 'cause Avice was away, +working somewhere's; and she'd never let me gie her aught for it. And I +heard ta passon tell her as she were sold to hell, 'cause the old soul +have a bit of belief like in witch-stones, and allus sets one aside her +spinnin' jenny, so that the thrid shanna knot nor break. Ta passon he +said, God cud mak tha thrid run smooth, or knot it, just as He chose, +and 'twas wicked to think she could cross His will. And the old dame, +she said, Weel, sir, I dinna b'lieve tha Almighty would ever spite a +poor old crittur like me, don't 'ee think it? But if we're no to help +oursells i' this world, what for have He gied us the trouble o' tha +thrid to spin? and why no han't He made tha shirts, an' tha sheets, an' +tha hose grow theersells? And ta passon niver answered her that, he only +said she was fractious and blas-_phe_-mous. Now she warn't, she spoke i' +all innocence, and she mint what she said--she mint it. Passons niver +can answer ye plain, right-down, nataral questions like this'n, and +that's why I wunna ga ta tha church. + + * * * + +Dinna ye meddle, Tam; it's niver no good a threshin' other folk's corn; +ye allays gits the flail agin i' yer own eye somehow. + + * * * + +The flowers hang in the sunshine, and blow in the breeze, free to the +wasp as to the bee. The bee chooses to make his store of honey, that is +sweet, and fragrant, and life-giving; the wasp chooses to make his from +the same blossoms, but of a matter hard, and bitter, and useless. Shall +we pity the wasp because, of his selfish passions, he selects the +portion that shall be luscious only to his own lips, and spends his +hours only in the thrusting-in of his sting? Is not such pity--wasted +upon the wasp--an insult to the bee who toils so wearily to gather in +for others; and who, because he stings not man, is by man maltreated? +Now it seems to me, if I read them aright, that vicious women, and women +that are of honesty and honour, are much akin to the wasp and to the +bee. + + * * * + +My dear, a gentleman may forget his appointments, his love vows, and his +political pledges; he may forget the nonsense he talked, the dances he +engaged for, the women that worried him, the electors that bullied him, +the wife that married him, and he may be a gentleman still; but there +are two things he must never forget, for no gentleman ever does--and +they are, to pay a debt that is a debt of honour, and to keep a promise +to a creature that can't force him to keep it. + + * * * + +A genius? You must mistake. I have always heard that a genius is +something that they beat to death first with sticks and stones, and set +up on a great rock to worship afterwards. Now they make her very happy +whilst she is alive. She cannot possibly be a genius. + + * * * + +I learned many wondrous things betwixt Epsom and Ascot. A brief space, +indeed, yet one that to me seemed longer than the whole of my previous +life, so crowded was it every hour with new and marvellous experiences. +Worldly experiences, I mean. Intellectually, I am not sure that I +acquired much. + +Indeed, to a little brain teeming with memories of the Théâtres +Beaumarchais, Voltaire, Moličre, Feuillet, Sardou, Sandeau, &c., which +I had heard read so continually at the Dower-House amongst the Fens, the +views of dramatic literature held at the Coronet appeared of the most +extraordinary character. They certainly had one merit--simplicity. + +The verb "to steal" was the only one that a successful dramatic author +appeared to be required to conjugate. + +For your music steal from the music-halls; for your costumes steal from +_Le Follet_; for your ideas steal from anybody that happens to carry +such a thing about him; for your play, in its entirety, steal the plot, +the characters, the romance, the speeches, and the wit, if it have any, +of some attractive novel; and when you have made up your parcel of +thefts, tie it together with some string of stage directions, herald it +as entirely original, give a very good supper to your friends on the +press, and bow from your box as the "Author." + +You will certainly be successful: and if the novelist ever object, +threaten him with an action for interference with _your_ property. + +These I found were the laws laid down by London dramatists; and they +assuredly were so easy to follow and so productive to obey, that if any +Ben Jonson or Beaumarchais, Sheridan or Marivaux, had arisen and +attempted to infringe them, he would have infallibly been regarded as a +very evil example, and been extinguished by means of journalistic +slating and stall-siflage. + + * * * + +By the way, permit me, in parenthesis, to say that one of the chief +causes of that preference for the _demi-monde_ which you daily and +hourly discover more and more, is the indulgence it shows to idleness. +Because your lives are so intense now, and always at high pressure--for +that very reason are you more indolent also in little things. It bores +you to dress; it bores you to talk; it bores you to be polite. Sir +Charles Grandison might find ecstasy in elaborating a bow, a wig, or a +speech; you like to give a little nod, cut your hair very short, and +make "awfully" do duty for all your adjectives. + +"_Autres temps, autres mćurs._" You are a very odd mixture. You will go +to the ends of the earth on the scent of big game; but you shirk all +social exertion with a cynical laziness. You will come from Damascus at +a stretch without sleeping, and think nothing of it; but you find it a +wretched thing to have to exert yourself to be courteous in a +drawing-room. + +Therefore the _demi-monde_ suits you with a curious fitness, and suits +you more and more every year. I am afraid it is not very good for you. I +don't mean for your morals; I don't care the least about them, I am a +dog of the world; I mean for your manners. It makes you slangy, inert, +rude, lazy. And yet what perfect gentlemen you can be still, and what +grace there is in your careless, weary ease, when you choose to be +courteous; and you always _do_ choose, that I must say for you, when you +find a woman who is really worth the trouble. + + * * * + +I never knew quite whether I liked her--how can you with those women of +the world? She was kind and insincere; she was gentle and she was cruel; +she was generous and ungenerous; she was true as steel, and she was +false as Judas--what would you?--she was a woman of the world, with +several sweet natural impulses, and all a coquette's diplomacies. + +She tended me with the greatest solicitude one day that autumn, when I +had run a thorn into my foot: and the very next day, when I was well +again, she laughed to see me worried on the lawn by a bull-terrier. If +you have not met a woman like that, I wonder where you have lived. + + * * * + +You must be spider or fly, as somebody says. Now all my experience tells +me that men are mostly the big, good-natured, careless blue-bottles, +half-drunk with their honey of pleasure, and rushing blindly into any +web that dazzles them a little in the sunshine; and women are the +dainty, painted, patient spiders that just sit and weave, and weave, and +weave, till--pong!--Bluebottle is in head foremost, and is killed, and +sucked dry, and eaten up at leisure. + +You men think women do not know much of life. Pooh! I, Puck, who have +dwelt for many of my days on their boudoir cushions, and eaten of their +dainty little dinners, and been smuggled under their robes even into +operas, balls, and churches, tell you that is an utter fallacy. They do +not choose you to know that they know it, very probably; but there is +nothing that is hidden from them, I promise you. + + * * * + +Don't you know that whilst broad, intellectual scepticism is masculine, +narrow, social scepticism is feminine? To get hearty, reverent, genuine +belief in the innocence of a slandered woman, go to a man: where the +world has once doubted, women, the world-worshippers, will for ever +after doubt also. You can never bring women to see that the pecked-at +fruit is always the richest and sweetest; they always take the benison +of the wooing bird to be the malison of the hidden worm! + + * * * + +Not very long ago I was down away in the vale of Belvoir. I stayed with +my friends at a great stately place, owned by as gallant a gentleman as +ever swung himself into saddle. His wife was a beautiful woman, and he +treated her with the courtliest tenderness: indeed, I often heard their +union cited as one of almost unequalled felicity. "He never had a +thought that he did not tell me," I heard his wife once say to a friend. +"Not a single thought, I know, all these twelve years of our marriage." +It was a happy belief--many women have the like--but it was an +unutterably foolish one; for the minds of the best and truest amongst +you are, in many things, as sealed books to those whom you care for the +most. + +One bitter, black hunting-day, a day keen and cold, with frost, as men +feared, in the air, and with the ground so hard that even the Duke's +peerless "dandies," perfect hounds though they are, scarcely could keep +the scent, there came terrible tidings to the Hall--he had met with a +crashing fall. His horse had refused at timber, and had fallen upon him, +kicking his head with the hind hoofs repeatedly. They had taken him to +the nearest farmhouse, insensible; even dead already, they feared. His +wife and the elder amongst the beautiful children fled like mad +creatures across the brown fallows, and the drear blackened meadows. The +farm, happily, was not far: I sped with them. + +When they reached him he was not quite lifeless, but he knew none of +them; his head had been beaten in by the plates of the kicking hoofs; +and they waited for his death with every moment, in the little old dusky +room, with its leaded lattices, and its odour of dried lavender, and its +bough of holly above the hearth. For this had chanced upon Christmas +Eve. + +To his wife's agonies, to his children's moans, he was silent: he knew +nothing; he lay with closed eyes and crushed brain--deaf, blind, mute. +Suddenly the eyes opened, and stared at the red winter sun where it +glowed dimly through the squares of the lattice-panes. "Dolores!" he +cried aloud; "Dolores! Dolores!" It was the name of none there. + +"My God! What woman is it he calls?" his wife asked in her torture. But +none ever knew. Through half the night his faint pulse beat, his faint +breath came and went; but consciousness never more returned, and for +ever he muttered only that one name, that name which was not her own. +And when they laid the dead body in its shroud, they found on the left +arm above the elbow the word "Dolores" marked on the skin, as sailors +stamp letters in their flesh. But whose it was, or what woe or passion +it recorded, none ever knew--not even his wife, who had believed she +shared his every thought. And to his grave his dead and secret love went +with him. + +This man was but a gay, frank, high-spirited gentleman, of no great +knowledge, and of no great attainments, riding fearlessly, laughing +joyously, living liberally; not a man, one would have said, to know any +deep passions, to treasure any bitter memories--and yet he had loved one +woman so well that he had never spoken of her, and never forgotten her; +never--not even in his death-hour, when the poor, stunned, stifled brain +had forgotten all other things of earth. + +And so it seems to me that it is very often with you, and that you bear +with you through your lifetime the brand of an unforgotten name, branded +deep in, in days of passion, that none around you ever wot of, and that +the wife who sleeps on your heart never knows. + +It is dead--the old love--long dead. And yet, when your last hour shall +come, and your senses shall be dizzy with death, the pale loves of the +troth and the hearth will fade from you, and this love alone will abide. + + * * * + +"Modern painters do not owe you much, sir," said a youngster to him +once, writhing under the _Midas'_ ruthless flagellation of his first +Academy picture. + +"On the contrary," said the great censor, taking his snuff; "they owe me +much, or might have owed me much. If they had only listened to me, they +would have saved every shilling that they have thrown away on canvas!" + + * * * + +In your clubs and your camps, in your mischievous moods and your +philosophic moods, always indeed theoretically, you consider all women +immoral (except just, of course, your own mothers); but practically, +when your good-feeling is awakened, or your honest faith honestly +appealed to, you will believe in a woman's honour with a heartiness and +strength for which she will look in vain in her own sex. According to +your jests, the world is one vast harem, of which all the doors are open +to every man, and whose fair inmates are all alike impressionable to the +charm of intrigue or to the chink of gold. But, in simple earnest and +reality, I have heard the wildest and most debonair amongst you--once +convinced of the honour and innocence looking from a woman's eyes--stand +up in defence of these when libelled in her absence, with a zeal and a +stanchness that did my heart good. + + * * * + +His simple creed, "the good faith of a gentleman," forbade him to injure +what lay defenceless at his mercy. + +Ah! revile that old faith as you will, it has lasted longer than any +other cultus; and whilst altars have reeled, and idols been shattered, +and priests changed their teachings, and peoples altered their gods, the +old faith has lasted through all; and the simple instinct of the Greek +eupatrid and of the Roman patrician still moves the heart of the English +gentleman--the instinct of _Noblesse oblige_. + + * * * + +"The exception proves the rule," runs your proverb; but why, I wonder, +is it that you always only believe in the rule, and are always utterly +sceptical as to the existence of the exception? + + * * * + +The sun shone in over the roofs; the bird in its cage began a low +tremulous song; the murmur of all the crowded streets came up upon the +silence; and Nellie lay there dead;--the light upon her curly hair, and +on her mouth the smile that had come there at his touch. + +"Ah, my dear!" said Fanfreluche, as she ceased her story, with a +half-soft and half-sardonic sadness, "she was but a little, ignorant, +common player, who made but three pounds a week, and who talked the +slang of the streets, and who thought shrimps and tea a meal for the +gods, and who made up her own dresses with her own hands, out of tinsel +and tarlatanes and trumperies, and who knew no better than to follow the +blind, dumb instincts of good that, self-sown and uncultured, lived in +her--God knows how!--as the harebells, with the dew on them, will live +amidst the rank, coarse grass of graveyards. She was but a poor little +player, who tried to be honest where all was corruption, who tried to +walk straightly where all ways were crooked. So she died to-day in a +garret, my dear." + + * * * + +If all men in whose hearts lives a dull, abiding grief, whose throbs +death and death only ever will still, deserted for desert or ocean your +world of fame and of fashion, how strangely that world would look! How +much eloquence would be dumb in your senatorial chambers; how many a +smile would be missing from your ball-rooms and hunting-fields; how many +a frank laugh would die off for ever from your ear; how many a +well-known face would vanish from your clubs, from your park, from your +dinner-tables, from your race-stands! + +And how seldom would it be those that you had pitied who would go!--how +often would the vacant place be that place where so many seasons through +you had seen, and had envied, the gayest, the coldest, the most +light-hearted, the most cynical amongst you! + +Ah! let Society be thankful that men in their bitterness do not now fly, +as of old, to monastery or to hermitage; for, did they do so, Society +would send forth her gilded cards to the wilderness. + + * * * + +"_Une vie manquée!_" says the world. + +Is there any threnody over a death half so unutterably sad as that one +jest over a life? + +"_Manquée!_"--the world has no mercy on a hand that has thrown the die +and has lost; no tolerance for the player who, holding fine cards, will +not play them by the rules of the game. "_Manquée!_" the world says, +with a polite sneer, of the lives in which it beholds no blazoned +achievement, no public success. + +And yet, if it were keener of sight, it might see that those lives, not +seldom, may seem to have missed of their mark, because their aim was +high over the heads of the multitude; or because the arrow was sped by +too eager a hand in too rash a youth, and the bow lies unstrung in that +hand when matured. It might see that those lives which look so lost, so +purposeless, so barren of attainment, so devoid of object or fruition, +have sometimes nobler deeds in them and purer sacrifice than lies in +the home-range of its own narrowed vision. "_Manquée!_"--do not cast +that stone idly: how shall you tell, as you look on the course of a life +that seems to you a failure, because you do not hear its "_Io triumphe_" +on the lips of a crowd, what sweet dead dreams, what noble vain desires, +what weariness of futile longing, what conscious waste of vanished +years--nay, what silent acts of pure nobility, what secret treasures of +unfathomed love--may lie within that which seems in your sight even as a +waste land untilled, as a fire burnt out, as a harp without chords, as a +bird without song? + + * * * + +Genius is oftentimes but a poor fool, who, clinging to a thing that +belongs to no age, Truth, does oftentimes live on a pittance and die in +a hospital; but whosoever has the gift to measure aright their +generation is invincible--living, they shall enjoy all the vices +undetected; and dead, on their tombstones they shall possess all the +virtues. + + * * * + +Cant, naked, is honoured throughout England. Cant, clothed in gold, is a +king never in England resisted. + + * * * + +"Ben Dare, he be dead?" he asked suddenly. "They telled me so by +Darron's side."[A] + +[A] The river Derwent. + +Ambrose bent his head, silently. + +"When wur't?" + +"Last simmar-time, i' th' aftermath." + +"It were a ston' as killed him?" + +"Ay," said Ambrose, softly shading his eyes with his hand from the sun +that streamed through the aisles of pine. + +"How wur't?" + +"They was a blastin'. He'd allus thoct as he'd dee that way, you know. +They pit mair pooder i' quarry than common; and the ston' it split, and +roared, and crackit, wi' a noise like tha crack o' doom. And one bit on +'t, big as ox, were shot i' th' air, an' fell, unlookit for like, and +dang him tew the groun', and crushit him,--a-lyin' richt athwart his +brist." + +"An' they couldna stir it?" + +"They couldna. I heerd tha other min screech richt tew here, an' I knew +what it wur, tha shrill screech comin' jist i' top o' tha blastin' roar; +an' I ran, an' ran--na gaze-hound fleeter. An' we couldna raise it--me +an' Tam, an' Job, an' Gideon o' the Mere, an' Moses Legh o' Wissen Edge, +a' strong min and i' our prime. We couldna stir it, till Moses o' Wissen +Edge he thoct o' pittin' fir-poles underneath--poles as was sharp an' +slim i' thur ends, an' stout an' hard further down. Whin tha poles was +weel thrust under we heaved, an' heaved, an' heaved, and got it slanted +o' one side, and drawed him out; an' thin it were too late, too late! A' +tha brist was crushit in--frushed flesh and bone together. He jist +muttered i' his throat, 'Tha little lass, tha little lass!' and then he +turned him on his side, and hid his face upo' the sod. When we raised +him he wur dead." + +The voice of Ambrose sank very low; and where he leaned over his smithy +door the tears fell slowly down his sun-bronzed cheeks. + +"Alack a day!" sighed Daffe, softly. "Sure a better un niver drew breath +i' the varsal world!" + +"An' that's trew," Ambrose made answer, his voice hushed and very +tender. + +"He was varra changed like," murmured Daffe, his hand wandering amongst +the golden blossoms of the stonecrop. "He niver were the same crittur +arter the lass went awa'. He niver were the same--niver. Ta seemed tew +mak an auld man o' him a' at once." + +"It did," said Ambrose, brokenly. "He couldna bear tew look na tew spik +to nane o' us. He were bent i' body, an' gray o' head, that awfu' night +when he kem back fra' the waking. It were fearfu' tew see; and we +couldna dew naught. Th' ony thing as he'd take tew were Trust." + +"Be dog alive?" + +"Na. Trust he'd never quit o' Ben's grave. He wouldna take bit na drop. +He wouldna be touchit; not whin he was clem would he be tempted awa'. +And he died--jist tha fifth day arter his master." + +"An' the wench? Hev' 'ee e'er heerd on her?" + +"Niver--niver. Mappen she's dead and gone tew. She broke Ben's heart for +sure; long ere tha ston' crushit life out o't." + +"And wheer may he lie?" + +Ambrose clenched his brawny hand, his eyes darkened, his swarthy face +flushed duskily. + +"Wheer? What think 'ee, Daffe? When we took o' him up for the burial, ta +tha church ower theer beyant tha wood, the passon he stoppit us, a' tha +gate of tha buryin' field. The passon he med long words, and sed as how +a unb'liever sud niver rest i' blessed groun', sin he willna iver enter +into the sight o' tha Lord. He sed as how Ben were black o' heart and +wicked o' mind, an' niver set fute i' church-door, and niver ate o' tha +sacrament bread, and niver not thocht o' God nor o' Devil; an' he +wouldna say tha rites o'er him an' 'twere iver so, an' he wouldna let +him lie i' tha holy earth, nor i' tha pale o' tha graveyard. Well, we +couldna gae agin him--we poor min, an' he a squire and passon tew. Sae +we took him back, five weary mile; and we brocht him here, and we dug +his grave under them pines, and we pit a cross o' tha bark to mark the +place, and we laid old Trust, when he died, by his side. I were mad with +grief like, thin; it were awfu' ta ha' him forbad Christian burial." + +"Dew it matter?" asked the gentle Daffe, wistfully. He had never been +within church-doors himself. + +Ambrose gave a long troubled sigh. + +"Aweel! at first it seemed awfu'--awfu'! And to think as Ben 'ud niver +see the face o' his God was mair fearfu' still. But as time gees on and +on--I can see his grave fra' here, tha cross we cut is tha glimmer o' +white on that stem ayont,--it dew seem as 'tis fitter like fer him to +lie i' tha fresh free woods, wi' tha birds a' chirmin' abuve him, an' a' +tha forest things as he minded a flyin', an' nestin', an' runnin', an' +rejoicin' arount him. 'Tis allus so still there, an' peacefu'. 'Tis blue +and blue now, wi' tha hy'cinths; and there's one bonnie mavis as dew +make her home wi' each spring abuve the gravestone. 'Bout not meetin' +his God, I dunno--I darena saw nowt anent it--but, for sure, it dew seem +to me that we canna meet Him no better, nor fairer, than wi' lips that +ha ne'er lied to man nor to woman, and wi' hands as niver hae harmed the +poor dumb beasts nor the prattlin' birds. It dew seem so. I canna tell." + +As the words died off his lips the sun fell yet more brightly through +the avenues of the straight, dark, odorous pines; sweet silent winds +swept up the dewy scents of mosses, and of leaves, and of wild +hyacinths; and on the stillness of that lonely place there came one +tremulous, tender sound. It was the sound of the mavis singing. + +"I canna tell; but for sure it is well with him?" said Ambrose; and he +bared his head, and bowed it humbly, as though in the voice of the mavis +he heard the answer of God: + +"It is well." + +Ah! I trust that it may be so for you; that the sweetness of your +arrogant dreams of an unshared eternity be not wholly a delusion; that +for you--although to us you do deny it--there may be found pity, +atonement, compensation, in some great Hereafter. + + * * * + +"I have heard a very great many men and women call the crows carrion +birds, and the jackals carrion beasts, with an infinite deal of disgust +and much fine horror at what they were pleased to term 'feasting on +corpses;' but I never yet heard any of them admit their own appetite for +the rotten 'corpse' of a pheasant, or the putrid haunch of a deer, to be +anything except the choice taste of an epicure!" + +"But they do cook the corpses!" I remonstrated; whereupon she grinned +with more meaning than ever. + +"Exactly what I am saying, my dear. Their love of synonyms has made them +forget that they are _carnivori_, because they talk so sweetly of the +_cuisine_. A poor, blundering, honest, ignorant lion only kills and eats +when the famine of his body forces him to obey that law of slaughter +which is imposed on all created things, from the oyster to the man, by +what we are told is the beautiful and beneficent economy of Creation. Of +course, the lion is a brutal and bloodthirsty beast of prey, to be +hunted down off the face of the earth as fast as may be. Whereas +man--what does he do? He devours the livers of a dozen geese in one +_pâté_; he has lobsters boiled alive, that the scarlet tint may look +tempting to his palate; he has fish cut up or fried in all its living +agonies, lest he should lose one _nuance_ of its flavour; he has the +calf and the lamb killed in their tender age, that he may eat dainty +sweetbreads; he has quails and plovers slaughtered in the +nesting-season, that he may taste a slice of their breasts; he crushes +oysters in his teeth whilst life is in them; he has scores of birds and +animals slain for one dinner, that he may have the numberless dishes +which fashion exacts; and then--all the time talking softly of _rissôle_ +and _mayonnaise_, of _consommé_ and _entremet_, of _croquette_ and +_côtelette_--the dear _gourmet_ discourses on his charming science, and +thanks God that he is not as the parded beasts that prey!" + +"Well," said I, sulkily, for I am fond myself of a good +_vol-au-vent_,--"well, you have said that eating is a law in the +economies--or the waste--of creation. Is it not well to clothe a +distasteful and barbaric necessity in a refining guise and under an +elegant nomenclature?" + +"Sophist!" said Fanfreluche, with much scorn, though she herself is as +keen an epicure and as suave a sophist, for that matter, as I know,--"I +never denied that it was well for men to cheat themselves, through the +art of their cooks, into believing that they are not brutes and beasts +of prey--it is well exceedingly--for their vanity. Life is sustained +only by the destruction of life. Cookery, the divine, can turn this +horrible fact into a poetic idealism; can twine the butcher's knife with +lilies, and hide the carcass under roses. But I do assuredly think that, +when they sit down every night with their _menu_ of twenty services, +they should not call the poor lion bad names for eating an antelope once +a fortnight." + +And, with the true consistency of preachers, Fanfreluche helped herself +to a Madeira stewed kidney which stood amongst other delicacies on the +deserted luncheon table. + + * * * + +"If this play should succeed it will be a triumph of true art," said +another critical writer to Dudley Moore. + +That great personage tapped his Louis-Quinze snuffbox with some +impatience. + +"Pardon me, but it is not possible to have art at all on the stage. Art +is a pure idealism. You can have it in a statue, a melody, a poem; but +you cannot have it on the stage, which is at its highest but a graphic +realism. The very finest acting is only fine in proportion as it is an +exact reproduction of physical life. How, then, can it be art, which is +only great in proportion as it escapes from the physical life into the +spiritual?" + +"But may not dramatic art escape thither also?" asked the critic, who +was young, and deferred to him. + +"Impossible, sir. It is shackled with all the forms of earth, and--worse +still--with all its shams and commonplaces. When we read _Othello_, we +only behold the tempest of the passions and the wreck of a great soul; +but when we see _Othello_, we are affronted by the colour of the Moor's +skin, and are brought face to face with the vulgarities of the bolster!" + +"Then there is no use in a stage at all?" + +"I am not prepared to conclude that. It is agreeable to a vast number of +people: as a Frith or an O'Neil is agreeable to a vast number of people +to whom an Ary Scheffer or a Delaroche would be unintelligible. It is +better, perhaps, that this vast number should look at Friths and O'Neils +than that they should never look on any painting at all. Now the stage +paints rudely, often tawdrily; still it does paint. It is better than +nothing. I take it that the excellence, as the end, of histrionic art is +to portray, to the minds of the many, poetic conceptions which, without +such realistic rendering, would remain unknown and impalpable to all +save the few. Histrionic art is at its greatest only when it is the +follower and the interpreter of literature; the actor translates the +poet's meanings into the common tongue that is understood of the people. +But how many on the miserable stage of this country have ever had either +humility to perceive, or capability to achieve this?" + +The other critic smiled. + +"I imagine not one, in our day. Their view of their profession is +similar to Mrs. Delamere's, when Max Moncrief wrote that sparkling +comedy for her. 'My dear,' she said to him, 'why did you trouble +yourself to put all that wit and sense into it? We didn't want _that_. I +shall wear all my diamonds, and I have ordered three splendid new +dresses!'" + + * * * + +All day long the fowls kept it alive with sound and movement; for of all +mercurial and fussy things there is nothing on the face of the earth to +equal cocks and hens. They have such an utterly exaggerated sense, too, +of their own importance; they make such a clacking and clucking over +every egg, such a scratching and trumpeting over every morsel of +treasure-trove, and such a striding and stamping over every bit of +well-worn ground. On the whole, I think poultry have more humanity in +them than any other race, footed or feathered; and cocks certainly must +have been the first creatures that ever hit on the great art of +advertising. Myself I always fancy that the souls of this feathered +tribe pass into the bodies of journalists; but this may be a mere +baseless association of kindred ideas in my mind. + + * * * + +She kissed the dog on the forehead; then pointed to the kreel of shells +and seaweed on the red, smooth piece of rock. + +"Take care of them, dear Bronze," she murmured; "and wait till I come +back. Wait here." + +She did not mean to command; she only meant to console him by the +appointment of some service. + +Bronze looked in her face with eyes of woe and longing; but he made no +moan or sound, but only stretched himself beside the kreel on guard. I +am always glad to think that as she went she turned, and kissed him once +again. + +The boat flew fast over the water. When boats leave you, and drag your +heart with them, they always go like that; and when they come, and your +heart darts out to meet them, then they are so slow! + +The boat flew like a seagull, the sun bright upon her sail. Bronze, left +upon the rock, lifted his head and gave one long, low wail. It echoed +woefully and terribly over the wide, quiet waters. They gave back no +answer--not even the poor answer that lies in echo. + +It was very still there. Nothing was in sight except that single little +sail shining against the light, and flying--flying--flying. + +Now and then you could hear a clock striking in the distant village, the +faint crow of a cock, the far-off voices of children calling to one +another. + +The little sea-mouse stole athwart a pool; the grey sea-crabs passed +like a little army; the tiny sea creatures that dwelt in rosy shells +thrust their delicate heads from their houses to peep and wonder at the +sun. But all was noiseless. How dared they make a sound, when that great +sea, that was at once their life and death, was present with its +never-ceasing "Hush!" + +Bronze never moved, and his eyes never turned from the little boat that +went and left him there--the little boat that fast became merely a flash +and speck of white against the azure air, no bigger than the breadth of +a seagull's wings. + +An hour drifted by. The church-clock on the cliffs had struck four +times; a deep-toned, weary bell, that tolled for every quarter, and must +often have been heard, at dead of night, by dying men, drowning +unshriven and unhouselled. + +Suddenly the sand about us, so fawn-hued, smooth, and beautifully +ribbed, grew moist, and glistened with a gleam of water, like eyes that +fill with tears. + +Bronze never saw: he only watched the boat. A little later the water +gushed above the sand, and, gathering in a frail rippling edge of foam, +rolled up and broke upon the rock. + +And still he never saw; for still he watched the boat. + +Awhile, and the water grew in volume, and filled the mouse's pool till +it brimmed over, and bathed the dull grasses till they glowed like +flowers; and drew the sea-crabs and the tiny dwellers of the shells back +once more into its wondrous living light. + +And all around the fresh tide rose, silently thus about the rocks and +stones; gliding and glancing in all the channels of the shore, until the +sands were covered, and the grasses gathered in, and all the creeping, +hueless things were lost within its space; and in the stead of them, and +of the bronzed palm-leaves of weed, and of the great brown boulders +gleaming in the sun, there was but one vast lagoon of shadowless bright +water everywhere. + +And still he never saw; for still he watched the boat. + +By this time the tide, rolling swiftly in before a strong sou'-wester, +had risen midway against the rock on which we had been left, and was +breaking froth and foam upon the rock's worn side. For this rock alone +withstood the passage of the sea: there was naught else but this to +break the even width of water. All other things save this had been +subdued and reapen. + +It was all deep water around; and the water glowed a strange emerald +green, like the green in a lizard or snake. The shore, that had looked +so near, now seemed so far, far off; and the woods were hidden in mist, +and the cottages were all blurred with the brown of the cliff, and there +came no sound of any sort from the land--no distant bell, no farm-bird's +call, no echo of children's voices. There was only one sound at all; +and that was the low, soft, ceaseless murmuring of the tide as it glided +inward. + +The waters rose till they touched the crest of the rock; but still he +never moved. Stretched out upon the stone, guarding the things of her +trust, and with his eyes fastened on the sail which rose against the +light, he waited thus--for death. + +I was light, and a strong swimmer. I had been tossed on those waves from +my birth. Buffeted, fatigued, blind with the salt sea-spray, drenched +with the weight of the water, I struggled across that calm dread width +of glassy coldness, and breathless reached the land. + +By signs and cries I made them wot that something needed them at sea. +They began to get ready a little boat, bringing it down from its wooden +rest on high dry ground beneath the cliff. Whilst they pushed and +dragged through the deep-furrowed sand I gazed seaward. The shore was +raised; I could see straight athwart the waters. They now were level +with the rock; and yet he had never moved. + +The little skiff had passed round the bend of a bluff, and was out of +his sight and ours. + +The boat was pushed into the surf; they threw me in. They could see +nothing, and trusted to my guidance. + +I had skill enough to make them discover whither it was I wanted them to +go. Then, looking in their eagerness whither my eyes went, they saw him +on the rock, and with a sudden exercise of passionate vigour, bent to +their oars and sent the boat against the hard opposing force of the +resisting tide. For they perceived that, from some cause, he was +motionless there, and could not use his strength; and they knew that it +would be shame to their manhood if, within sight of their land, the +creature who had succoured their brethren in the snow, and saved the +two-year child from the storm, should perish before their sight on a +calm and unfretted sea and in a full noon sun. + +It was but a furlong to that rock; it was but the breadth of the beach, +that at low water stretched uncovered; and yet how slowly the boat sped, +with the ruthless tide sweeping it back as fast as the oars bore it +forward! + +So near we seemed to him that one would have thought a stone flung from +us through the air would have lit far beyond him; and yet the space was +enough, more than enough, to bar us from him, filled as it was with the +strong adverse pressure of those low, swift, in-rushing waves. + +The waters leaped above the summit of the rock, and for a moment covered +him. A great shout went up from the rowers beside me. They strained in +every nerve to reach him; and the roll of a fresh swell of water lifted +the boat farther than their uttermost effort could achieve, but lifted +her backward, backward to the land. + +When the waters touched him he arose slowly, and stood at bay like a +stag upon a headland, when the hounds rage behind, and in front yawns +the fathomless lake. + +He stood so that he still guarded the things of his trust; and his eyes +were still turned seaward, watching for the vanished sail. + +Once again the men, with a loud cry to him of courage and help, strained +at their oars, and drove themselves a yard's breadth farther out. And +once again the tide, with a rush of surf and shingle, swept the boat +back, and seemed to bear her to the land as lightly as though she were a +leaf with which a wind was playing. + +The waters covered the surface of the rock. It sank from sight. The foam +was white about his feet, and still he stood there--upon guard. +Everywhere there was the brilliancy of noontide sun; everywhere there +was the beaming calmness of the sea, that spread out, far and wide, in +one vast sheet of light; from the wooded line of the shore there echoed +the distant gaiety of a woman's laugh. A breeze, softly stirring through +the warm air, brought with it from the land the scent of myrtle thickets +and wild flowers. How horrible they were--the light, the calm, the +mirth, the summer fragrance! + +For one moment he stood there erect; his dark form sculptured, +lion-like, against the warm yellow light of noon; about his feet the +foam. + +Then, all noiselessly, a great, curled, compact wave surged over him, +breaking upon him, sweeping him away. The water spread out quickly, +smooth and gleaming like the rest. He rose, grasping in his teeth the +kreel of weed and shells. + +He had waited until the last. Driven from the post he would not of +himself forsake, the love of life awoke in him; he struggled against +death. + +Three times he sank, three times he rose. The sea was now strong, and +deep, and swift of pace, rushing madly in; and he was cumbered with that +weight of osier and of weed, which yet he never yielded, because it had +been her trust. With each yard that the tide bore him forward, by so +much it bore us backward. There was but the length of a spar between us, +and yet it was enough! + +He rose for the fourth time, his head above the surf, the kreel uplifted +still, the sun-rays full upon his brown weary eyes, with all their +silent agony and mute appeal. Then the tide, fuller, wilder, deeper with +each wave that rolled, and washing as it went all things of the shore +from their places, flung against him, as it swept on, a great rough limb +of driftwood. It struck him as he rose; struck him across the brow. The +wave rushed on; the tide came in; the black wood floated to the shore; +he never rose again. + +And scarcely that span of the length of a spar had parted us from him +when he sank! + +All the day through they searched, and searched with all the skill of +men sea-born and sea-bred. The fisher, whose little child he had saved +in the winter night, would not leave him to the things of the deep. And +at sunset they found him, floating westward, in the calm water where the +rays of the sun made it golden and warm. He was quite dead; but in his +teeth there still was clenched the osier kreel, washed empty of its +freight. + +They buried him there; on the shore underneath the cliff, where a great +wild knot of myrtle grows, and the honeysuckle blooms all over the sand. +And when Lord Beltran in that autumn came, and heard how he had died in +the fulfilling of a trust, he had a stone shapen and carved; and set it +against the cliff, amongst the leafage and flowers, high up where the +highest winter tide will not come. And by his will the name of Bronze +was cut on it in deep letters that will not wear out, and on which the +sun will strike with every evening that it shall pass westward above the +sea; and beneath the name he bade three lines be chiselled likewise, and +they are these: + + "HE CHOSE DEATH RATHER THAN UNFAITHFULNESS. + HE KNEW NO BETTER. + HE WAS A DOG." + +"They are all words. Creatures that take out their grief in crape and +mortuary tablets can't feel very much." + +"There are many lamentations, from Lycidas to Lesbia, which prove that +whether for a hero or a sparrow--" I began timidly to suggest. + +"That's only a commonplace," snapped my lady. "They chatter and +scribble; they don't feel. They write stanzas of 'gush' on Maternity; +and tear the little bleating calf from its mother to bleed to death in +a long, slow agony. They maunder twaddle about Infancy over some ugly +red lump of human flesh, in whose creation their vanity happens to be +involved; and then go out and send the springtide lamb to the slaughter, +and shoot the parent birds as they fly to the nest where their +fledglings are screaming in hunger! Pooh! Did you never find out the +value of their words? Some one of them has said that speech was given +them to conceal their thoughts. It is true that they use it for that +end; but it was given them for this reason. At the time of the creation, +when all except man had been made, the Angel of Life, who had been +bidden to summon the world out of chaos, moving over the fresh and yet +innocent earth, thought to himself, 'I have created so much that is +doomed to suffer for ever, and for ever be mute; I will now create an +animal that shall be compensated for all suffering by listening to the +sound of its own voluble chatter.' Whereon the Angel called Man into +being, and cut the _frćnum_ of his tongue, which has clacked incessantly +ever since, all through the silence of the centuries." + + * * * + +There was once a dog, my dear, that was hit by three men, one after +another, as they went by him where he lay in the sun; and in return he +bit them--deep--and they let him alone then, and ever after sought to +propitiate him. Well, the first he bit in the arm, where there was a +brand for deserting; and the second he bit in the throat, where there +was a hideous mole; and the third he bit in the shoulder, where there +was the mark of a secret camorra. Now, not one of these three durst +speak of the wounds in places they all wished to hide; and whenever +afterwards they passed the dog, they gave him fair words, and sweet +bones, and a wide berth. It is the dogs, and the satirists, and the +libellers, and the statesmen who know how to bite like that--in the +weak part--that get let alone, and respected, and fed on the fat of the +land. + + * * * + +For him by whom a thirsty ear is lent to the world's homage, the tocsin +of feebleness, if not of failure, has already sounded. + +The gladness of the man is come when the crowds lisp his name, and the +gold fills his hand, and the women's honeyed adulations buzz like golden +bees about his path; but how often is the greatness of the artist gone, +and gone for ever! + +Because when the world denies you it is easy to deny the world; because +when the bread is bitter it is easy not to linger at the meal; because +when the oil is low it is easy to rise with dawn; because when the body +is without surfeit or temptation it is easy to rise above earth on the +wings of the spirit. Poverty is very terrible to you, and kills your +soul in you sometimes; but it is like the northern blast that lashes men +into Vikings; it is not the soft, luscious south wind that lulls them +into lotos-eaters. + + * * * + +I have grave doubts of Mrs. Siddons. She was a goddess of the age of +fret and fume, of stalk and strut, of trilled R's and of nodding plumes. +If we had Siddons now I fear we should hiss; I am quite sure we should +yawn. She must have been Melpomene always; Nature never. + + * * * + +Oh, how wise you are and how just!--if there be a spectacle on earth to +rejoice the angels, it is your treatment of the animals that you say God +has given unto you! + +It is not for me, a little dog, to touch on such awful mysteries; +but--sometimes--I wonder, if ever He ask you how you have dealt with His +gift, what will you answer then? + +If all your slaughtered millions should instead answer for you--if all +the countless and unpitied dead, all the goaded, maddened beasts from +forest and desert who were torn asunder in the holidays of Rome; and all +the innocent, playful, gentle lives of little home-bred creatures that +have been racked by the knives, and torn by the poisons, and convulsed +by the torments, of your modern Science, should, instead, answer, with +one mighty voice, of a woe no longer inarticulate, of an accusation no +more disregarded, what then? Well! Then, if it be done unto you as you +have done, you will seek for mercy and find none in all the width of the +universe; you will writhe, and none shall release you; you will pray, +and none shall hear. + + * * * + +"These fine things don't make one's happiness," I murmured pensively to +Fanfreluche. + +"No, my dear, they don't," the little worldling admitted. "They do to +women; they're so material, you see. They are angels--O yes, of +course!--but they're uncommonly sharp angels where money and good living +are concerned. Just watch them--watch the tail of their eye--when a +cheque is being written or an _éprouvette_ being brought to table. And +after all, you know, minced chicken is a good deal nicer than dry bread. +Of course we can easily be sentimental and above this sort of thing, +when the chicken _is_ in our mouths where we sit by the fire; but if we +were gnawing wretched bones, out in the cold of the streets, I doubt if +we should feel in such a sublime mood. All the praises of poverty are +sung by the minstrel who has got a golden harp to chant them on; and +all the encomiums on renunciation come from your _bon viveur_ who never +denied himself aught in his life!" + + * * * + +Emotions are quite as detrimental to a dog's tail as they are to a +lady's complexion. Joseph Buonaparte's American wife said to an American +gentleman, whom I heard quote her words, that she "never laughed because +it made wrinkles:" there is a good deal of wisdom in that cachinatory +abstinence. There is nothing in the world that wears people (or dogs) so +much as feeling of any kind, tender, bitter, humoristic, or emotional. + +How often you commend a fresh-coloured matron with her daughters, and a +rosy-cheeked hunting squire in his saddle, who, with their half-century +of years, yet look so comely, so blooming, so clear-browed, and so +smooth-skinned. How often you distrust the weary delicate creature, with +the hectic flush of her rouge, in society; and the worn, tired, +colourless face of the man of the world who takes her down to dinner. +Well, to my fancy, you may be utterly wrong. An easy egotism, a +contented sensualism, may have carried the first comfortably and +serenely through their bank-note-lined paradise of commonplace +existence. How shall you know what heart-sickness in their youth, what +aching desires for joys never found, what sorrowful power of sympathy, +what fatal keenness of vision, have blanched the faded cheek, and lined +the weary mouth, of the other twain? + + * * * + +"Sheep and men are very much alike," said Trust, who thought both very +poor creatures. "Very much alike indeed. They go in flocks, and can't +give a reason why. They leave their fleece on any bramble that is strong +enough to insist on fleecing them. They bleat loud at imagined evils, +while they tumble straight into real dangers. And for going off the +line, there's nothing like them. There may be pits, thorns, quagmires, +spring-guns, what not, the other side of the hedge, but go off the +straight track they will--and no dog can stop them. It's just the sheer +love of straying. You may bark at them right and left; go they will, +though they break their legs down a limekiln. Oh, men and sheep are +wonderfully similar; take them all in all." + + * * * + +Ah! you people never guess the infinite woe we dogs suffer in new homes, +under strange tyrannies; you never heed how we shrink from unfamiliar +hands, and shudder at unfamiliar voices, how lonely we feel in unknown +places, how acutely we dread harshness, novelty, and scornful treatment. +Dogs die oftentimes of severance from their masters; there is +Greyfriars' Bobby now in Edinboro' town who never has been persuaded to +leave his dead owner's grave all these many years through. You see such +things, but you are indifferent to them. "It is only a dog," you say; +"what matter if the brute fret to death?" + +You don't understand it of course; you who so soon forget all your own +dead--the mother that bore you, the mistress that loved you, the friend +that fought with you shoulder to shoulder; and of course, also, you care +nothing for the measureless blind pains, the mute helpless sorrows, the +vague lonely terrors, that ache in our little dumb hearts. + + * * * + +Lucretius has said how charming it is to stand under a shelter in a +storm, and see another hurrying through its rain and wind; but a woman +would refine that sort of cruelty, and would not be quite content +unless she had an umbrella beside her that she refused to lend. + + * * * + +"Oh, pooh, my dear!" cried Fanfreluche. "He has robbed his host at +cards, and abused his host behind his back; to fulfil the whole duty of +a nineteenth century guest it only remains for him to betray his host in +love!" + +"You think very ill of men?" I muttered; I was, indeed, slightly weary +of her sceptical supercilious treatment of all things; your +pseudo-philosopher, who will always think he has plumbed the ocean with +his silver-topped cane, is a great bore sometimes. + +"I think very well of men," returned Fanfreluche. "You are mistaken, my +dear. There are only two things that they never are honest about--and +that is their sport and their women. When they get talking of their +rocketers, or their runs, their pigeon-score, or their _bonnes +fortunes_, they always lie--quite unconsciously. And if they miss their +bird or their woman, isn't it always because the sun was in their eyes +as they fired, or because she wasn't half good-looking enough to try +after?--bless your heart, I know them!" + +"If you do, you are not complimentary to them," I grumbled. + +"Can't help that, my dear," returned Fanfreluche. "Gracious! whatever is +there that stands the test of knowing it well? I have heard Beltran say, +that you find out what an awful humbug the Staubbach is when you go up +to the top and see you can straddle across it. Well, the Staubbach is +just like everything in this life. Keep your distance, and how well the +creature looks!--all veiled in its spray, and all bright with its +prismatic colours, so deep, and so vast, and so very impressive. But +just go up to the top, scale the crags of its character, and measure the +height of its aspirations, and fathom the torrent of its passions, and +sift how much is the foam of speech, and how little is the well-spring +of thought. Well, my dear, it is a very uncommon creature if it don't +turn out just like the Staubbach." + + * * * + +I think if you knew what you did, even the most thoughtless amongst you +would not sanction with your praise, and encourage with your coin, the +brutality that trains dancing-dogs. + +Have human mimes if you will; it is natural to humanity to caper and +grimace and act a part: but for pity's sake do not countenance the +torture with which Avarice mercilessly trains us "dumb beasts" for the +trade of tricks. + +"The Clown-dog draws throngs to laugh and applaud," says some +advertisement: yes, and I knew a very clever clown-dog once. His feet +were blistered with the hot irons on which he had been taught to dance; +his teeth had been drawn lest he should use his natural weapons against +his cowardly tyrants; his skin beneath his short white hair was black +with bruises; though originally of magnificent courage, his spirit had +been so broken by torture that he trembled if a leaf blew against him; +and his eyes--well, if the crowds that applauded him had once looked at +those patient, wistful, quiet eyes, with their unutterable despair, +those crowds would have laughed no more, unless they had indeed been +devils. + +Who has delivered us unto you to be thus tortured, and martyred? +Who?--Oh, that awful eternal mystery that ye yourselves cannot explain! + + * * * + +Believe me, it is the light or the darkness of our own fate that either +gives "greenness to the grass and glory to the flower," or leaves both +sickly, wan, and colourless. A little breadth of sunny lawn, the +spreading shadow of a single beech, the gentle click of a little +garden-gate, the scent of some simple summer roses--how fair these are +in your memory because of a voice which then was on your ear, because of +eyes that then gazed in your own. And the grandeur of Nile, and the +lustre of the after-glow, and the solemn desolation of Carnac, and the +wondrous beauty of the flushed sea of tossing reeds, are all cold, and +dead, and valueless, because in those eyes no love now lies for you; +because that voice, for you, is now for ever silent. + + * * * + +For, write as you will of the glory of poverty, and of the ennui of +pleasure, there is no life like this life, wherein to the sight and the +sense all things minister; wherefrom harsh discord and all unloveliness +are banished: where the rare beauty of high-born women is common; where +the passions at their wildest still sheathe themselves in courtesy's +silver scabbard; where the daily habits of existence are made graceful +and artistic; where grief, and woe, and feud, and futile longing for +lost loves, can easiest be forgot in delicate laughter and in endless +change. Artificial? Ah, well, it may be so! But since nevermore will you +return to the life of the savage, to the wigwam of the squaw, it is +best, methinks, that the Art of Living--the great _Savoir Vivre_--should +be brought, as you seek to bring all other arts, up to uttermost +perfection. + + * * * + +Men are very much in society as women will them to be. Let a woman's +society be composed of men gently born and bred, and if she find them +either coarse or stupid, make answer to her--"You must have been coarse +or stupid yourself." + +And if she demur to the _tu quoque_ as to a base and illogical form of +argument, which we will grant that it usually is, remind her that the +cream of a pasturage may be pure and rich, but if it pass into the hands +of a clumsy farm serving-maid, then shall the cheese made thereof be +neither Roquefort nor Stilton, but rough and flavourless and uneatable, +"like a Banbury cheese, nothing but paring." Now, the influence of a +woman's intelligence on the male intellects about her is as the churn to +the cream: it can either enrich and utilise it, or impoverish and waste +it. It is not too much to say that it almost invariably, in the present +decadence of the salon and parrot-jabbering of the suffrage, has the +latter effect alone. + + * * * + +Humiliation is a guest that only comes to those who have made ready his +resting-place, and will give him a fair welcome. My father used to say +to me, "Child, when you grow to womanhood, whether you be rich or poor, +gentle or simple, as the balance of your life may turn for or against +you, remember always this one thing--that no one can disgrace you save +yourself. Dishonour is like the Aaron's Beard in the hedgerows, it can +only poison if it be plucked." They call the belladonna Aaron's Beard in +the country, you know; and it is true that the cattle, simple as they +are, are never harmed by it; just because, though it is always in their +path, they never stop and taste it. I think it may just be so with us; +with any sort of evil. + + * * * + +"Every pleasure has its penalty. If a woman be celebrated, the world +always thinks she must be wicked. If she's wise, she laughs. It is the +bitter that you must take with the sweet, as you get the sorrel flavour +with the softness of the cream, in your soup ŕ la Bonne Femme. But the +cream would clog without it, and the combination is piquant." + +"Only to jaded palates," I retorted; for I have often tasted the Bonne +Femme, and detest it. + +By the way, what exquisite irony lies in some of your kitchen +nomenclature! + + * * * + +Once at a great house in the west I saw a gathering on the young lord's +coming of age. There were half the highest people in England there; and +a little while before the tenantry went to their banquet in the +marquees, the boy-peer and his guests were all out on the terraces and +the lawns. With him was a very noble deer-hound, whom he had owned for +four years. + +Suddenly the hound, Red Comyn, left his titled master, and plunged +head-foremost through the patrician crowd, and threw himself in wild +raptures on to a poor, miserable, tattered, travelling cobbler, who had +dared to creep in through the open gates and the happy crowds, hoping +for a broken crust. Red Comyn pounced on him, and caressed him, and laid +massive paws upon his shoulders, and gave him maddest welcome--this poor +hungry man, in the midst of that aristocratic festival. + +The cobbler could scarcely speak awhile; but when he got his breath, his +arms were round the hound, and his eyes were wet with tears. + +"Please pardon him, my lord," he said, all in a quiver and a tremble. +"He was mine once from the time he was pupped for a whole two year; and +he loved me, poor soul, and he ha'n't forgot. He don't know no better, +my lord--he's only a dog." + +No; he didn't know any better than to remember, and be faithful, and to +recognise a friend, no matter in what woe or want. Ah, indeed, dogs are +far behind you! + +For the credit of "the order," it may be added that Red Comyn and the +cobbler have parted no more, but dwell together still upon that young +lord's lands. + + * * * + +Appearances are so and so, hence facts must be so and so likewise, is +Society's formula. This sounds mathematical and accurate; but as facts, +nine times out of ten, belie appearances, the logic is very false. There +is something, indeed, comically stupid in your satisfied belief in the +surface of any parliamentary or public facts that may be presented to +you, varnished out of all likeness to the truth by the suave periods of +writer or speaker. But there is something tragically stupid about your +dogged acceptation of any social construction of a private life, damned +out of all possibility of redemption by the flippant deductions of +chatter-box or of slanderer. + +Now and then you poor humanities, who are always so dimly conscious that +you are all lies to one another, get a glimpse of various truths from +some cynical dead man's diary, or some statesman's secret papers. But +you never are warned: you placidly continue greedily to gobble up, +unexamined, the falsehoods of public men; and impudently to adjudicate +on the unrevealed secrets of private lives. + + * * * + +You are given, very continually, to denouncing or lamenting the gradual +encroachment of mob-rule. But, alas! whose fault, pray, is it that +bill-discounters dwell as lords in ancient castles; that money-lenders +reign over old, time-honoured lands; that low-born hirelings dare to +address their master with a grin and sneer, strong in the knowledge of +his shameful secrets; and that the vile daughters of the populace are +throned in public places, made gorgeous with the jewels which, from the +heirlooms of a great patriciate, have fallen to be the gew-gaws of a +fashionable infamy? + +Ah, believe me, an aristocracy is a feudal fortress which, though it has +merciless beleaguers in the Jacquerie of plebeian Envy, has yet no foe +so deadly as its own internal traitor of Lost Dignity! + + * * * + +"But ye dunna get good wage?" said the miner, with practical wisdom. + +"We doan't," confessed the East Anglian, "we doan't. And that theer +botherin' machinery as do the threshin', and the reapin', and the +sawin', and the mowin', hev a ruined us. See!--in old time, when ground +was frost-bit or water-soaked, the min threshed in-doors, in barns, and +kep in work so. But now the machine, he dew all theer is to dew, and dew +it up so quick. Theer's a many more min than theer be things to dew. In +winter-time measter he doan't want half o' us; and we're just out o' +labour; and we fall sick, cos o' naethin' to eat; and goes tew +parish--able-bodied min strong as steers." + +"Machine's o' use i' mill-work," suggested one of the northerners. + +"O' use! ay, o' coorse 'tis o' use--tew tha measters," growled the East +Anglian. "But if ye warn't needed at yer mill cos the iron beast was a +weavin' and a reelin' and a dewin' of it all, how'd yer feel? Wi' six +children, mebbe, biggest ony seven or eight, a crazin' ye for bread. And +ye mayn't send 'em out, cos o' labour-laws, to pick up a halfpenny for +theerselves; and tha passon be all agin yer, cos ye warn't thrifty and +didn't gev a penny for the forrin blacks out o' the six shillin' a week? +Would yer think iron beast wor o' use thin? or would yer damn him hard?" + + * * * + +The poetic faculty--as you call the insight and the sympathy which feels +a divinity in all created things and a joy unutterable in the natural +beauty of the earth--is lacking in the generality of women, +notwithstanding their claims to the monopoly of emotion. If it be not, +how comes it that women have given you no great poet since the days of +Sappho? + +It is women's deficiency in intellect, you will observe. Not a whit: it +is women's deficiency in sympathy. + +The greatness of a poet lies in the universality of his sympathies. And +women are not sympathetic, because they are intensely self-centred. + + * * * + +All living things seemed to draw closer together in the perils and +privations of the winter, as you men do in the frost of your frights or +your sorrows. In summer--as in prosperity--every one is for himself, and +is heedless of others because he needs nothing of them. + + * * * + +It was covered, from the lowest of its stones to the top of its peaked +roof, with a gigantic rose-thorn. + +"Sure the noblest shrub as ever God have made," would Ben say, looking +at its massive, cactus-like branches, with their red, waxen, +tender-coloured berries. The cottage was very old, and the rose-thorn +was the growth of centuries. Men's hands had never touched it. It had +stretched where it would, ungoverned, unhampered, unarrested. It had a +beautiful dusky glow about it always, from its peculiar thickness and +its blended hues; and in the chilly weather the little robin red-breasts +would come and flutter into it, and screen themselves in its shelter +from the cold, and make it rosier yet with the brightness of their +little ruddy throats. + +"Tha Christ-birds do allus seem safest like i' tha Christ-bush," Ben +would say softly, breaking off the larger half of his portion of oaten +cake, to crumble for the robins with the dawn. I never knew what he +meant, though I saw he had some soft, grave, old-world story in his +thoughts, that made the rose-thorn and the red-breasts both sacred to +him. + + * * * + +"Ah, my dear, you little dream the ecstatic delight that exists in +Waste, for the vulgarity of a mind that has never enjoyed Possession, +till it comes to riot at one blow in Spoliation!" + +"I do wish you would answer me plainly," I said, sulkily, +"without--without----" + +"Epigrams!" she added, sharply; "I daresay you do, my dear. Epigrams are +the salts of life; but they wither up the grasses of foolishness, and +naturally the grasses hate to be sprinkled therewith." + + * * * + +We are ill appreciated, we cynics; on my honour if cynicism be not the +highest homage to Virtue there is, I should like to know what Virtue +wants. We sigh over her absence, and we glorify her perfections. But +Virtue is always a trifle stuck-up, you know, and she is very difficult +to please. + +She is always looking uneasily out of the "tail of her eye" at her +opposition-leader Sin, and wondering why Sin dresses so well, and drinks +such very good wine. We "cynics" tell her that under Sin's fine clothes +there is a breast cancer-eaten, and at the bottom of the wine there is a +bitter dreg called satiety; but Virtue does not much heed that; like the +woman she is, she only notes that Sin drives a pair of ponies in the +sunshine, while she herself is often left to plod wearily through the +everlasting falling rain. So she dubs us "cynics" and leaves us--who can +wonder if we won't follow her through the rain? Sin smiles so merrily if +she makes us pay toll at the end; whereas Virtue--ah me, Virtue _will_ +find such virtue in frowning! + + * * * + +Women always put me in mind of that bird of yours, the cuckoo. + +Your poetry and your platitudes have all combined to attach a most +sentimental value to cuckoos and women. All sorts of pretty phantasies +surround them both; the springtide of the year, the breath of early +flowers, the verse of old dead poets, the scent of sweet summer rains, +the light of bright dewy dawns--all these things you have mingled with +the thought of the cuckoo, till its first call through the woods in +April brings all these memories with it. Just so in like manner have you +entangled your poetic ideals, your dreams of peace and purity, all +divinities of patience and of pity, all sweet saintly sacrifice and +sorrow, with your ideas of women. + +Well--cuckoos and women, believe me, are very much like each other, and +not at all like your phantasy:--to get a well-feathered nest without the +trouble of making it, and to keep easily in it themselves, no matter who +may turn out in the cold, is both cuckoo and woman all over; and, while +you quote Herrick and Wordsworth about them as you walk in the dewy +greenwood, they are busy slaying the poor lonely fledglings, that their +own young may lie snug and warm. + + * * * + +"Then everybody is a hypocrite?" + +"Not a bit, child. We always like what we haven't got; and people are +quite honest very often in their professions, though they give the lie +direct to them in their practice. People can talk themselves into +believing that they believe anything. When the preacher discourses on +the excellence of holiness, he may have been a thoroughgoing scamp all +his life; but it don't follow he's dishonest, because he's so accustomed +to talk goody-goody talk that it runs off his lips as the thread off a +reel----" + +"But he must know he's a scamp?" + +"Good gracious me, why should he? I have met a thousand scamps; but I +never met one who considered himself so. Self-knowledge isn't so common. +Bless you, my dear, a man no more sees himself, as others see him, in a +moral looking-glass, than he does in a mirror out of his dressing-box. I +know a man who has forged bills, run off with his neighbour's wife, and +left sixty thousand pounds odd in debts behind him; but he only thinks +himself 'a victim of circumstances'--honestly thinks it too. A man never +is so honest as when he speaks well of himself. Men are always optimists +when they look inwards, and pessimists when they look round them." + +I yawned a little; nothing is so pleasant, as I have known later, as to +display your worldly wisdom in epigram and dissertation, but it is a +trifle tedious to hear another person display theirs. + +When you talk yourself, you think how witty, how original, how acute you +are; but when another does so, you are very apt to think only--What a +crib from Rochefoucauld! + + + + +_TWO LITTLE WOODEN SHOES._ + + +Brussels has stones that are sermons, or rather that are quaint, +touching, illuminated legends of the middle ages, which those who run +may read. + +Brussels is a gay little city that lies as bright within its girdle of +woodland as any butterfly that rests upon moss. + +The city has its ways and wiles of Paris. It decks itself with white and +gold. It has music under its trees and soldiers in its streets, and +troops marching and counter-marching along its sunny avenues. It has +blue and pink, and yellow and green, on its awnings and on its +house-fronts. It has a merry open-air life on its pavements at little +marble tables before little gay-coloured cafés. It has gilded balconies +and tossing flags and comic operas, and leisurely pleasure-seekers, and +tries always to believe and make the world believe that it is Paris in +very truth. + +But this is only the Brussels of the noblesse and the foreigners. + +There is a Brussels that is better than this--a Brussels that belongs to +the old burgher-life, to the artists and the craftsmen, to the master +masons of Moyen-age, to the same spirit and soul that once filled the +free men of Ghent and the citizens of Bruges and the besieged of Leyden, +and the blood of Egmont and of Horne. + +Down there by the water-side, where the old quaint walls lean over the +yellow sluggish stream, and the green barrels of the Antwerp barges +swing against the dusky piles of the crumbling bridges: + +In the grey square desolate courts of the old palaces, where in +cobwebbed galleries and silent chambers the Flemish tapestries drop to +pieces: + +In the great populous square, where, above the clamorous and rushing +crowds, the majestic front of the Maison du Roi frowns against the sun, +and the spires and pinnacles of the Burgomaster's gathering-halls tower +into the sky in all the fantastic luxuriance of Gothic fancy: + +Under the vast shadowy wings of angels in the stillness of the +cathedral, across whose sunny aisles some little child goes slowly all +alone, laden with lilies for the Feast of the Assumption, till their +white glory hides its curly head: + +In all strange quaint old-world niches withdrawn from men in silent +grass-grown corners, where a twelfth-century corbel holds a pot of +roses, or a Gothic arch yawns beneath a wool-warehouse, or a water-spout +with a grinning faun's head laughs in the grim humour of the Moyen-age +above the bent head of a young lace-worker;---- + +In all these, Brussels, although more worldly than her sisters of Ghent +and Bruges, and far more worldly yet than her Teuton cousins of Freiburg +and Nürnberg, Brussels is in her own way still like some monkish story, +mixed up with the Romaunt of the Rose, or rather like some light French +vaudeville, all jests and smiles, illustrated in motley contrast with +helm and hauberk, cope and cowl, praying knights and fighting priests, +winged griffins and nimbused saints, flame-breathing dragons and +enamoured princes, all mingled together in the illuminated colours and +the heroical grotesque romance of the Middle Ages. + +And it was this side of the city that Bébée knew, and she loved it well +and would not leave it for the market of the Madeleine. + + * * * + +It was a warm grey evening, the streets were full; there were blossoms +in all the balconies, and gay colours in all the dresses. The old tinker +put his tools together and whispered to her-- + +"Bébée, as it is your feast-day, come and stroll in St. Hubert's +gallery, and I will buy you a horn of sugarplums or a ribbon, and we can +see the puppet-show afterwards, eh?" + +But the children were waiting at home: she would not spend the evening +in the city; she only thought she would just kneel a moment in the +cathedral and say a little prayer or two for a minute--the saints were +so good in giving her so many friends. + +There is something very touching in the Netherlander's relation with his +Deity. It is all very vague to him; a jumble of veneration and +familiarity, of sanctity and profanity, without any thought of being +familiar, or any idea of being profane. + +There is a homely poetry, an innocent affectionateness, in it +characteristic of the people. + +He talks to his good angel Michel, and to his friend that dear little +Jesus, much as he would talk to the shoemaker over the way, or the +cooper's child in the doorway. + +It is a very unreasonable, foolish, clumsy sort of religion, this +theology in wooden shoes; it is half grotesque, half pathetic; the +grandmothers pass it on to the grandchildren, as they pass the bowl of +potatoes round the stove in the long winter nights; it is as silly as +possible, but it comforts them as they carry faggots over the frozen +canals or wear their eyes blind over the squares of lace; and it has in +it the supreme pathos of a perfect confidence, of an utter childlike and +undoubting trust. + +This had been taught to Bébée, and she went to sleep every night in the +firm belief that the sixteen little angels of the Flemish prayer kept +watch and ward over her bed. + + * * * + +She said her prayer, and thanked the saints for all their gifts and +goodness, her clasped hands against her silver shield; her basket on the +pavement by her; abovehead the sunset rays streaming purple and crimson +and golden through the painted windows that are the wonder of the world. + +When her prayer was done she still kneeled there; her head thrown back +to watch the light; her hands clasped still; and on her upturned face +the look that made the people say, "What does she see?--the angels or +the dead?" + +She forgot everything. She forgot the cherries at home, and the children +even. She was looking upward at the stories of the painted panes; she +was listening to the message of the dying sun-rays; she was feeling +vaguely, wistfully, unutterably the tender beauty of the sacred place +and the awful wonder of the world in which she with her sixteen years +was all alone, like a little blue cornflower amongst the wheat that goes +for grist, and the barley that makes men drunk. + +For she was alone, though she had so many friends. Quite alone +sometimes, for God had been cruel to her, and had made her a lark +without song. + + * * * + +He went leisurely, travelling up the bright Meuse river, and across the +monotony of the plains, then green with wheat a foot high, and musical +with the many bells of the Easter kermesses in the quaint old-world +villages. + +There was something so novel, so sleepy, so harmless, so medićval, in +the Flemish life, that it soothed him. He had been swimming all his life +in salt, sea-fed rapids; this sluggish, dull canal-water, mirroring +between its rushes a life that had scarcely changed for centuries, had a +charm for him. + +He stayed awhile in Antwerpen. The town is ugly and beautiful; it is +like a dull, quaint, grčs de Flandre jug, that has precious stones set +inside its rim. It is a burgher ledger of bales and barrels, of sale and +barter, of loss and gain; but in the heart of it there are illuminated +leaves of missal vellum, all gold and colour, and monkish story and +heroic ballad, that could only have been executed in the days when Art +was a religion. + + * * * + +"Oh--to-morrow perhaps, or next year--or when Fate fancies. + +"Or rather--when I choose," he thought to himself, and let his eyes rest +with a certain pleasure on the little feet that went beside him in the +grass, and the pretty neck that showed ever and again, as the frills of +her linen bodice were blown back by the wind, and her own quick motion. + +Bébée looked also up at him; he was very handsome, or seemed so to her, +after the broad, blunt, characterless faces of the Brabantois around +her. He walked with an easy grace, he was clad in picture-like velvets, +he had a beautiful poetic head, and eyes like deep-brown waters, and a +face like one of Jordaens' or Rembrandt's cavaliers in the galleries +where she used to steal in of a Sunday, and look up at the paintings, +and dream of what that world could be in which those people had lived. + +"_You_ are of the people of Rubes' country, are you not?" she asked him. + +"Of what country, my dear?" + +"Of the people that live in the gold frames," said Bébée, quite +seriously. "In the galleries, you know. I know a charwoman that scrubs +the floors of the Arenenberg, and she lets me in sometimes to look--and +you are just like those great gentlemen in the gold frames, only you +have not a hawk and a sword, and they always have. I used to wonder +where they came from, for they are not like any of us one bit, and the +charwoman--she is Lisa Dredel, and lives in the street of the Pot +d'Etain--always said, 'Dear heart, they all belong to Rubes' land--we +never see their like now-a-days.' But _you_ must come out of Rubes' +land--at least, I think so; do you not?" + +He caught her meaning; he knew that Rubes was the homely abbreviation of +Rubens, that all the Netherlanders used, and he guessed the idea that +was reality to this little, lonely, fanciful mind. + +"Perhaps I do," he answered her with a smile, for it was not worth his +while to disabuse her thoughts of any imagination that glorified him to +her. "Do you not want to see Rubes' world, little one? To see the gold +and the grandeur, and the glitter of it all?--never to toil or get +tired?--always to move in a pageant?--always to live like the hawks in +the paintings you talk of, with silver bells hung round you, and a hood +all sewn with pearls?" + +"No," said Bébée, simply. "I should like to see it--just to see it, as +one looks through a grating into the king's grapehouses here. But I +should not like to live in it. I love my hut, and the starling, and the +chickens--and what would the garden do without me?--and the children, +and the old Annémie? I could not anyhow, anywhere be any happier than I +am. There is only one thing I wish." + +"And what is that?" + +"To know something. Not to be so ignorant. Just look--I can read a +little, it is true; my hours, and the letters, and when Krebs brings in +a newspaper I can read a little of it--not much. I know French well, +because Antoine was French himself, and never did talk Flemish to me; +and they, being Flemish, cannot, of course, read the newspapers at all, +and so think it very wonderful indeed in me. But what I want is to know +things, to know all about what _was_ before ever I was living. Ste. +Gudule now--they say it was built hundreds of years before; and Rubes +again--they say he was a painter-king in Antwerpen before the oldest +woman like Annémie ever began to count time. I am sure books tell you +all those things, because I see the students coming and going with them; +and when I saw once the millions of books in the Rue de la Musée, I +asked the keeper what use they were for, and he said, 'to make men wise, +my dear.' But Bac the cobbler, who was with me,--it was a fęte day--Bac, +_he_ said, 'Do you not believe that, Bébée? they only muddle folk's +brains; for one book tells them one thing, and another book another, and +so on, till they are dazed with all the contrary lying; and if you see a +bookish man, be sure you see a very poor creature who could not hoe a +patch, or kill a pig, or stitch an upper-leather, were it ever so.' But +I do not believe that Bac said right. Did he?" + +"I am not sure. On the whole, I think it is the truest remark on +literature I have ever heard, and one that shows great judgment in Bac. +Well?" + +"Well--sometimes, you know," said Bébée, not understanding his answer, +but pursuing her thoughts confidentially; "sometimes I talk like this to +the neighbours, and they laugh at me. Because Mčre Krebs says that when +one knows how to spin, and sweep, and make bread, and say one's prayers, +and milk a goat or a cow, it is all a woman wants to know this side of +heaven. But for me, I cannot help it--when I look at those windows in +the cathedral, or at those beautiful twisted little spires that are all +over our Hôtel de Ville, I want to know who the men were that made +them--what they did and thought--how they looked and spoke--how they +learned to shape stone into leaves and grasses like that--how they could +imagine all those angel faces on the glass. When I go alone in the quite +early morning or at night when it is still--sometimes in winter I have +to stay till it is dark over the lace--I hear their feet come after me, +and they whisper to me close, 'Look what beautiful things we have done, +Bébée, and you all forget us quite. We did what never will die, but our +names are as dead as the stones.' And then I am so sorry for them and +ashamed. And I want to know more. Can you tell me?" + +He looked at her earnestly; her eyes were shining, her cheeks were warm, +her little mouth was tremulous with eagerness. + +"Did any one ever speak to you in that way?" he asked her. + +"No," she answered him. "It comes into my head of itself. Sometimes I +think the cathedral angels put it there. For the angels must be tired, +you know; always pointing to God and always seeing men turn away. I used +to tell Antoine sometimes. But he used to shake his head and say that it +was no use thinking; most likely Ste. Gudule and St. Michael had set the +church down in the night all ready made--why not? God made the trees, +and they were more wonderful, he thought, for his part. And so perhaps +they are, but that is no answer. And I do _want_ to know. I want some +one who will tell me,--and if you come out of Rubes' country as I think, +no doubt you know everything, or remember it?" + +He smiled. + + * * * + +The Sun came and touched the lichens of the roof into gold. + +Bébée smiled at it gaily as it rose above the tops of the trees, and +shone on all the little villages scattered over the plains. + +"Ah, dear Sun!" she cried to it. "I am going to be wise. I am going into +great Rubes' country. I am going to hear of the Past and the Future. I +am going to listen to what the Poets say. The swallows never would tell +me anything; but now I shall know as much as they know. Are you not glad +for me, O Sun?" + +The Sun came over the trees, and heard and said nothing. If he had +answered at all he must have said:-- + +"The only time when a human soul is either wise or happy, is in that one +single moment when the hour of my own shining or of the moon's beaming +seems to that single soul to be past and present and future, to be at +once the creation and the end of all things. Faust knew that; so will +you." + +But the Sun shone on and held his peace. He sees all things ripen and +fall. He can wait. He knows the end. It is always the same. + +He brings the fruit out of the peach-flower, and rounds it and touches +it into ruddiest rose and softest gold; but the sun knows well that the +peach must drop--whether into the basket to be eaten by kings, or on to +the turf to be eaten by ants. What matter which very much after all? + +The Sun is not a cynic; he is only wise because he is Life and He is +death, the creator and the corrupter of all things. + + * * * + +"And where are you going so fast, as if those wooden shoes of yours were +sandals of mercury?" + +"Mercury--is that a shoemaker?" + +"No, my dear. He did a terrible bit of cobbling once, when he made +Woman. But he did not shoe her feet with swiftness that I know of; she +only runs away to be run after, and if you do not pursue her, she comes +back--always." + +Bébée did not understand at all. + +"I thought God made women?" she said, a little awe-stricken. + + * * * + +There is a dignity of peasants as well as of kings--the dignity that +comes from all absence of effort, all freedom from pretence. Bébée had +this, and she had more still than this: she had the absolute simplicity +of childhood with her still. + +Some women have it still when they are fourscore. + + * * * + +Prosper Bar, who is a Calvinist, always says, "Do not mix up prayer and +play; you would not cut a gherkin in your honey;" but I do not know why +he called prayer a gherkin, because it is sweet enough--sweeter than +anything, I think. + + * * * + +There is not much change in the great Soignies woods. They are aisles on +aisles of beautiful green trees, crossing and recrossing; tunnels of +dark foliage that look endless; long avenues of beech, of oak, of elm, +or of fir, with the bracken and the brushwood growing dense between; a +delicious forest growth everywhere, shady even at noon, and, by a little +past midday, dusky as evening; with the forest fragrance, sweet and +dewy, all about, and under the fern the stirring of wild game, and the +white gleam of little rabbits, and the sound of the wings of birds. + +Soignies is not legend-haunted like the Black Forest, nor king-haunted +like Fontainebleau, nor sovereign of two historic streams like the brave +woods of Heidelberg; nor wild and romantic, and broken with black rocks, +and poetised by the shade of Jaques, and swept through by a perfect +river, like its neighbours of Ardennes; nor throned aloft on mighty +mountains like the majestic oak glades of the Swabian hills of the +ivory-carvers. + +Soignies is only a Flemish forest in a plain, throwing its shadow over +corn-fields and cattle-pastures, with no panorama beyond it and no +wonders in its depth. But it is a fresh, bold, beautiful forest for all +that. + +It has only green leaves to give--green leaves always, league after +league; but there is about it that vague mystery which all forests have, +and this universe of leaves seems boundless, and Pan might dwell in it, +and St. Hubert, and John Keats. + + * * * + +"I am going to learn to be very wise, dear," she told them; "I shall not +have time to dance or to play." + +"But people are not merry when they are wise, Bébée," said Franz, the +biggest boy. + +"Perhaps not," said Bébée; "but one cannot be everything, you know, +Franz." + +"But surely you would rather be merry than anything else?" + +"I think there is something better, Franz. I am not sure; I want to find +out; I will tell you when I know." + +"Who has put that into your head, Bébée?" + +"The angels in the Cathedral," she told them, and the children were awed +and left her, and went away to play blindman's buff by themselves on the +grass by the swan's water. + +"But for all that the angels have said it," said Franz to his sisters, +"I cannot see what good it will be to her to be wise, if she will not +care any longer afterwards for almond gingerbread and currant cake." + + * * * + +To vice, innocence must always seem only a superior kind of chicanery. + + * * * + +"Ay dear; when the frost kills your brave rosebush, root and bud, do you +think of the thorns that pricked you, or only of the fair sweet-smelling +things that flowered all your summer?" + + * * * + +Flowers belong to fairyland; the flowers and the birds, and the +butterflies are all that the world has kept of its golden age; the only +perfectly beautiful things on earth, joyous, innocent, half divine, +useless, say they who are wiser than God. + + * * * + +When the day was done, Bébée gave a quick sigh as she looked across the +square. She had so wanted to tell him that she was not ungrateful, and +she had a little moss-rose ready, with a sprig of sweetbriar, and a tiny +spray of maiden-hair fern that grew under the willows, which she had +kept covered up with a leaf of sycamore all the day long. + +No one would have it now. + +The child went out of the place sadly, as the carillon rang. There was +only the moss-rose in her basket, and the red and white currants that +had been given her for her dinner. + +She went along the twisting, many-coloured, quaintly-fashioned streets, +till she came to the water-side. + +It is very ancient, there still; there are all manner of old buildings, +black and brown and grey, peaked roofs, gabled windows, arched doors, +crumbling bridges, twisted galleries leaning to touch the dark surface +of the canal, dusky wharves crowded with barrels, and bales, and cattle, +and timber, and all the various freightage that the good ships come and +go with all the year round, to and from the Zuyder Zee, and the Baltic +water, and the wild Northumbrian shores, and the iron-bound Scottish +headlands, and the pretty grey Norman seaports, and the white sandy +dunes of Holland, with the toy towns and the straight poplar-trees. + +Bébée was fond of watching the brigs and barges, that looked so big to +her, with their national flags flying, and their tall masts standing +thick as grass, and their tawny sails flapping in the wind, and about +them the sweet, strong smell of that strange, unknown thing, the sea. + +Sometimes the sailors would talk with her; sometimes some old salt, +sitting astride of a cask, would tell her a mariner's tale of far-away +lands and mysteries of the deep; sometimes some curly-headed cabin-boy +would give her a shell or a plume of seaweed, and try and make her +understand what the wonderful wild water was like, which was not quiet +and sluggish and dusky as this canal was, but was for ever changing and +moving, and curling and leaping, and making itself now blue as her eyes, +now black as that thunder-cloud, now white as the snow that the winter +wind tossed, now pearl-hued and opaline as the convolvulus that blew in +her own garden. + +And Bébée would listen, with the shell in her lap, and try to +understand, and gaze at the ships and then at the sky beyond them, and +try to figure to herself those strange countries, to which these ships +were always going, and saw in fancy all the blossoming orchard province +of green France, and all the fir-clothed hills and rushing rivers of the +snow-locked Swedish shore, and saw too, doubtless, many lands that had +no place at all except in dreamland, and were more beautiful even than +the beauty of the earth, as poets' countries are, to their own sorrow, +oftentimes. + +But this dull day Bébée did not go down upon the wharf; she did not want +the sailor's tales; she saw the masts and the bits of bunting that +streamed from them, and they made her restless, which they had never +done before. Instead she went in at a dark old door and climbed up a +steep staircase that went up and up and up, as though she were mounting +Ste. Gudule's belfry towers; and at the top of it entered a little +chamber in the roof, where one square unglazed hole that served for +light looked out upon the canal, with all its crowded craft, from the +dainty schooner yacht, fresh as gilding and holystone could make her, +that was running for pleasure to the Scheldt, to the rude, clumsy +coal-barge, black as night, that bore the rough diamonds of Belgium to +the snow-buried roofs of Christiania and Stromsöon. + +In the little dark attic there was a very old woman in a red petticoat +and a high cap, who sat against the window, and pricked out lace +patterns with a pin on thick paper. She was eighty-five years old, and +could hardly keep body and soul together. + +Bébée, running to her, kissed her. + +"O mother Annémie, look here! Beautiful red and white currants, and a +roll; I saved them for you. They are the first currants we have seen +this year. Me? oh, for me, I have eaten more than are good! You know I +pick fruit like a sparrow, always. Dear mother Annémie, are you better? +Are you quite sure you are better to-day?" + +The little old withered woman, brown as a walnut and meagre as a rush, +took the currants, and smiled with a childish glee, and began to eat +them, blessing the child with each crumb she broke off the bread. + +"Why had you not a grandmother of your own, my little one?" she mumbled. +"How good you would have been to her, Bébée?" + +"Yes," said Bébée seriously, but her mind could not grasp the idea. It +was easier for her to believe the fanciful lily-parentage of Antoine's +stories. "How much work have you done, Annémie? Oh, all that? all that? +But there is enough for a week. You work too early and too late, you +dear Annémie." + +"Nay, Bébée, when one has to get one's bread, that cannot be. But I am +afraid my eyes are failing. That rose now, is it well done?" + +"Beautifully done. Would the Baës take them if they were not? You know +he is one that cuts every centime in four pieces." + +"Ah! sharp enough, sharp enough--that is true. But I am always afraid of +my eyes. I do not see the flags out there so well as I used to do." + +"Because the sun is so bright, Annémie; that is all. I myself, when I +have been sitting all day in the Place in the light, the flowers look +pale to me. And you know it is not age with _me_, Annémie?" + +The old woman and the young girl laughed together at that droll idea. + +"You have a merry heart, dear little one," said old Annémie. "The saints +keep it to you always." + +"May I tidy the room a little?" + +"To be sure, dear, and thank you too. I have not much time, you see; and +somehow my back aches badly when I stoop." + +"And it is so damp here for you, over all that water!" said Bébée, as +she swept and dusted and set to rights the tiny place, and put in a +little broken pot a few sprays of honeysuckle and rosemary that she had +brought with her. "It is so damp here. You should have come and lived in +my hut with me, Annémie, and sat out under the vine all day, and looked +after the chickens for me when I was in the town. They are such +mischievous little souls; as soon as my back is turned one or other is +sure to push through the roof, and get out amongst the flower-beds. Will +you never change your mind, and live with me, Annémie? I am sure you +would be happy, and the starling says your name quite plain, and he is +such a funny bird to talk to; you never would tire of him. Will you +never come? It is so bright there, and green and sweet-smelling, and to +think you never even have seen it!--and the swans and all,--it is a +shame." + +"No, dear," said old Annémie, eating her last bunch of currants. "You +have said so so often, and you are good and mean it, that I know. But I +could not leave the water. It would kill me. + +"Out of this window you know I saw my Jeannot's brig go +away--away--away--till the masts were lost in the mists. Going with iron +to Norway; the Fleur d'Epine of this town, a good ship, and a sure, and +he her mate; and as proud as might be, and with a little blest Mary in +lead round his throat. + +"She was to be back in port in eight months bringing timber. Eight +months--that brought Easter time. + +"But she never came. Never, never, never, you know. + +"I sat here watching them come and go, and my child sickened and died, +and the summer passed, and the autumn, and all the while I +looked--looked--looked; for the brigs are all much alike; only his I +always saw as soon as she hove in sight because he tied a hank of flax +to her mizzen mast; and when he was home safe and sound I spun the hank +into hose for him; that was a fancy of his, and for eleven voyages, one +on another, he had never missed to tie the flax nor I to spin the hose. + +"But the hank of flax I never saw this time; nor the brave brig; nor my +good man with his sunny blue eyes. + +"Only one day in winter, when the great blocks of ice were smashing +hither and thither, a coaster came in and brought tidings of how off in +the Danish waters they had come on a waterlogged brig, and had boarded +her, and had found her empty, and her hull riven in two, and her crew +all drowned and dead beyond any manner of doubt. And on her stern there +was her name painted white, the Fleur d'Epine, of Brussels, as plain as +name could be; and that was all we ever knew--what evil had struck her, +or how they had perished, nobody ever told. + +"Only the coaster brought that bit of beam away, with the Fleur d'Epine +writ clear upon it. + +"But you see I never _know_ my man is dead. + +"Any day--who can say?--any of those ships may bring him aboard of her, +and he may leap out on the wharf there, and come running up the stairs +as he used to do, and cry, in his merry voice, 'Annémie, Annémie, here +is more flax to spin, here is more hose to weave!' For that was always +his homeward word; no matter whether he had had fair weather or foul, he +always knotted the flax to his mast-head. + +"So you see, dear, I could not leave here. For what if he came and found +me away? He would say it was an odd fashion of mourning for him. + +"And I could not do without the window, you know. I can watch all the +brigs come in; and I can smell the shipping smell that I have loved all +the days of my life; and I can see the lads heaving, and climbing, and +furling, and mending their bits of canvas, and hauling their flags up +and down. + +"And then who can say?--the sea never took him, I think--I think I shall +hear his voice before I die. + +"For they do say that God is good." + +Bébée sweeping very noiselessly, listened, and her eyes grew wistful and +wondering. She had heard the story a thousand times; always in different +words, but always the same little tale, and she knew how old Annémie was +deaf to all the bells that tolled the time, and blind to all the +whiteness of her hair, and all the wrinkles of her face, and only +thought of her sea-slain lover as he had been in the days of her youth. + + * * * + +When we suffer very much ourselves, anything that smiles in the sun +seems cruel--a child, a bird, a dragonfly--nay, even a fluttering +ribbon, or a spear-grass that waves in the wind. + + * * * + +Bébée, whose religion was the sweetest and vaguest mingling of Pagan and +Christian myths, and whose faith in fairies and in saints was exactly +equal in strength and in ignorance--Bébée filled the delf pot anew +carefully, then knelt down on the turf in that little green corner, and +prayed in devout hopeful childish good faith to the awful unknown Powers +who were to her only as gentle guides and kindly playmates. + +Was she too familiar with the Holy Mother? + +She was almost fearful that she was; but then the Holy Mother loved +flowers so well, Bébée could not feel aloof from her, nor be afraid. + +"When one cuts the best blossoms for her, and tries to be good, and +never tells a lie," thought Bébée, "I am quite sure, as she loves the +lilies, that she will never altogether forget me." + + * * * + +The loveliest love is that which dreams high above all storms, unsoiled +by all burdens; but, perhaps, the strongest love is that which, whilst +it adores, drags its feet through mire, and burns its brow in heat for +the thing beloved. + + * * * + +It is, perhaps, the most beautiful square in all Northern Europe, with +its black timbers and gilded carvings, and blazoned windows, and +majestic scutcheons, and fantastic pinnacles. This Bébée did not know, +but she loved it, and she sat resolutely in front of the Broodhuis, +selling her flowers, smiling, chatting, helping the old woman, counting +her little gains, eating her bit of bread at noon-day like any other +market girl; but, at times, glancing up to the stately towers and the +blue sky, with a look on her face that made the old tinker and cobbler +whisper together--"What does she see there?--the dead people or the +angels?" + +The truth was that even Bébée herself did not know very surely what she +saw--something that was still nearer to her than even this kindly crowd +that loved her. That was all she could have said had anybody asked her. + +But none did. + +No one wanted to hear what the dead said; and for the angels, the tinker +and the cobbler were of opinion that one had only too much of them +sculptured about everywhere, and shining on all the casements--in +reverence be it spoken of course. + + + + +_FAME._ + + +"There is no soul in them," he muttered, and he set down his lamp and +frowned; a sullen mechanical art made him angered like an insult to +heaven; and these were soulless; their drawing was fine, their anatomy +faultless, their proportions and perspective excellent; but there all +merit ended. They were worse than faulty--they were commonplace. There +is no sin in Art so deadly as that. + + * * * + +He had been only a poor lad, a coppersmith's son, here in Munich; one +among many, and beaten and cursed at home very often for mooning over +folly when others were hard at work. But he had minded neither curse nor +blow. He had always said to himself, "I am a painter." Whilst camps were +soaked with blood and echoing only the trumpets of war, he had only seen +the sweet divine smile of Art. He had gone barefoot to Italy for love of +it, and had studied, and laboured, and worshipped, and been full of the +fever of great effort and content with the sublime peace of conscious +power. He had believed in himself: it is much. But it is not all. As +years had slid away and the world of men would not believe in him, this +noble faith in himself grew a weary and bitter thing. One shadow climbed +the hills of the long years with him and was always by his side: this +constant companion was Failure. + +Fame is very capricious, but Failure is seldom inconstant. Where it once +clings, there it tarries. + + * * * + +It was a brilliant and gay day in Munich. It was the beginning of a +Bavarian summer, with the great plain like a sea of grass with flowers +for its foam, and the distant Alps of Tyrol and Vorarlberg clearly seen +in warm, transparent, buoyant weather. + +Down by the winding ways of the river there were birch and beechen +thickets in glory of leaf; big water-lilies spread their white beauty +against the old black timbers of the water-mills; and in the quaint, +ancient places of the old streets, under the gables and beams, pots of +basil, and strings of green pease, and baskets of sweet-smelling +gillyflowers and other fragrant old-fashioned things, blossomed wherever +there was a breadth of blue sky over them or a maiden's hand within; +whilst above the towers and steeples, above the clanging bells of the +Domkirche and the melon-shaped crest of the Frauenkirche, and all the +cupolas and spires and minarets in which the city abounds, the pigeons +went whirling and wheeling from five at sunrise to seven of sunset, +flocks of grey and blue and black and white, happy as only birds can be, +and as only birds can be when they are doves of Venice or of Munich, +with all the city's hearths and homes for their granaries, and with the +sun and the clouds for their royal estate. + +In the wide, dull new town it was dusty and hot; the big squares were +empty and garish-looking; the blistering frescoes on the buildings were +gaudy and out of place; the porticoes and friezes were naked and +staring, and wanted all that belongs to them in Italy. All the deep, +intense shadows, the sultry air, the sense of immeasurable space and of +unending light, the half-naked figures graceful as a plume of maize, the +vast projecting roofs, the spouts of tossing water, the brown barefoot +straw-plaiter passing in a broad path of sunshine, the old bronze lamp +above the painted shrine, the gateway framing the ethereal landscape of +amethystine horizons and silvery olive ways--they want all these, do +these classic porticoes and pediments of Italy, and they seem to stare, +conscious of a discordance and a lack of harmony in the German air. But +in the old town there is beauty still; in the timbered house-fronts, in +the barred and sculptured casements, in the mighty gables, in the gilded +and pictured signs, in the sunburnt walls, in the grey churches, in the +furriers' stalls, in the toysellers' workshops, in the beetling +fortresses, in the picturesque waysides, here is the old Munich of the +Minnesingers and master masons, of the burghers and the _burschen_, of +the Schefflertanz, and of the merry Christchild Fair. And old Munich +keeps all to itself, whether with winter snow on its eaves, or summer +leaves in its lattices; and here the maidens still wear coloured +kerchiefs on their heads and clattering shoes on their feet; and here +the students still look like etchings for old ballads, with long hair on +their shoulders and grey cloaks worn jauntily; and here something of the +odour and aspect of the Middle Ages lingers as about an illuminated roll +of vellum that has lain long put away and forgotten in a desk, with +faded rose-leaves and a miniature that has no name. + +The Munich of builder-king Ludwig is grand, no doubt, and tedious and +utterly out of place, with mountains of marble and granite, and acres of +canvas more or less divine, and vast straight streets that make one weep +from weariness, and frescoed walls with nude women that seem to shiver +in the bitter Alpine winds; it is great, no doubt, but ponderously +unlovely, like the bronze Bavaria that looks over the plain, who can +hold six men in her head, but can never get fire in her eyes nor +meaning in her mouth--clumsy Athenć-Artemis that she is. + +New Munich, striving to be Athens or Rome, is monotonous and tiresome, +but old Munich is quaint and humble, and historical and romancical, with +its wooden pavements under foot, and its clouds of doves above head; +indeed, has so much beauty of its own, like any old painted Missal or +golden goblet of the _moyen âge_, that it seems incredible to think that +any man could ever have had the heart to send the hammers of masons +against it, and set up bald walls of plaster in its stead. Wandering in +old Munich--there is not much of it left, alas!--is like reading a +black-letter ballad about Henry the Lion or Kaiser Max; it has sombre +nooks and corners, bright gleams of stained casements, bold oriels, and +sculptured shields, arcades and arches, towers and turrets, light and +shade, harmony and irregularity, all, in a word, that old cities have, +and old Teutonic cities beyond all others; and when the Metzgersprung is +in full riot round the Marienplatz, or on Corpus Christi day, when the +King and the Court and the Church, the guilds and the senate and the +magistracy, all go humbly through the flower-strewn streets, it is easy +to forget the present and to think that one is still in the old days +with the monks, who gave their name to it, tranquil in their work-rooms +and the sound of battle all over the lands around them. + +It was the Corpus Christi day in Munich now, and the whole city, the new +and the old, had hung itself with garlands and draperies, with pictures +and evergreens, with flags and tapestries, and the grand procession had +passed to and from the church, and the archbishop had blessed the +people, and the king had bared his handsome head to the sun and the Holy +Ghost, and it was all over for the year, and the people were all happy +and satisfied and sure that God was with them and their town; especially +the people of the old quarters, who most loved and clung to these +ceremonials and feasts; good God-fearing families, labouring hard, +living honestly and wholesomely, gay also in a quiet, mirthful, innocent +fashion--much such people as their forefathers were before them, in days +when Gustavus Adolphus called their city the golden saddle on the lean +horse. + +The lean horse, by which he meant the sterile plains, which yield little +except hay, looks rich with verdure in the mellow afternoon light, when +midsummer is come, and the whole populace, men, women, and children, on +Sundays and feast-days pour out of the city gates eagerly to their own +little festivities under the cherry-trees of the little blue and white +coffee-houses along the course of the river, when the beanflowers are in +bloom. For out of the old city you go easily beyond the walls to the +grey glacier water of "Isar rolling rapidly," not red with blood now as +after Hohenlinden, but brilliant and boisterous always, with washerwomen +leaning over it with bare arms, and dogs wading where rushes and dams +break the current, and the hay blowing breast-high along the banks, and +the students chasing the girls through it, and every now and then upon +the wind the music of a guitar, light and dancing, or sad and slow, +according as goes the heart of the player that tunes it. At this season +Bavaria grows green, and all is fresh and radiant. Outside the town all +the country is a sheet of cherry-blossom and of clover. Night and day, +carts full of merrymakers rattle out under the alders to the dancing +places amongst the pastures, or to the _Sommerfrischen_ of their country +friends. Whoever has a kreuzer to spend will have a draft of beer and a +whiff of the lilac-scented air, and the old will sit down and smoke +their painted pipes under the eaves of their favourite _Gasthof_, and +the young will roam with their best-loved maidens through the shadows of +the Anlagen, or still farther on under the high beech-trees of +Grosshesslohe. + + + + +_MOTHS._ + + +The ear has its ecstasy as have other senses. + + * * * + +As there is love without dominion, so there is dominion without love. + + * * * + +When Fame stands by us all alone, she is an angel clad in light and +strength; but when Love touches her she drops her sword, and fades away, +ghostlike and ashamed. + + * * * + +Society only thought her--unamiable. True, she never said an unkind +thing, or did one; she never hurt man or woman; she was generous to a +fault; and to aid even people she despised would give herself trouble +unending. But these are serious, simple qualities which do not show +much, and are soon forgotten by those who benefit from them. Had she +laughed more, danced more, taken more kindly to the fools and their +follies, she might have been acid of tongue and niggard of sympathy; the +world would have thought her much more amiable. + + * * * + +"If she would only listen to me!" thought her mother, in the superior +wisdom of her popular little life. "If she would only kiss a few women +in the morning, and flirt with a few men in the evening, it would set +her all right with them in a month. It is no use doing good to anybody; +they only hate you for it. You have seen them in their straits; it is +like seeing them without their wig or their teeth; they never forgive +it. But to be pleasant, always to be pleasant, that is the thing. And +after all it costs nothing." + + * * * + +Marriage, as our world sees it, is simply a convenience; a somewhat +clumsy contrivance to tide over a social difficulty. + + * * * + +A sin! did the world know of such a thing? Hardly. Now and then, for +sake of its traditions, the world took some hapless boy, or some still +yet unhappier woman, and pilloried one of them, and drove them out under +a shower of stones, selecting them by caprice, persecuting them without +justice, slaying them because they were friendless. But that was all. +For the most part sin was an obsolete thing, archaic and unheard of. + + * * * + +Music is not a science, any more than poetry is. It is a sublime +instinct, like genius of all kinds. + + * * * + +Charity in various guises is an intruder the poor see often; but +courtesy and delicacy are visitors with which they are seldom honoured. + + * * * + +There is no shame more bitter to endure than to despise oneself. It is +harder to keep true to high laws and pure instincts in modern society +than it was in the days of martyrdom. + + * * * + +One weeps for the death of children, but perhaps the change of them into +callous men and women is a sadder change to see after all. + + * * * + +Honour is an old-world thing, but it smells sweet to those in whose hand +it is strong. + + * * * + +Young lives are tossed upon the stream of life like rose-leaves on a +fast-running river, and the rose-leaves are blamed if the river be too +strong and too swift for them and they perish. It is the fault of the +rose-leaves. + + * * * + +Every pretty woman should be a flirt, every clever woman a politician; +the aim, the animus, the intrigue, the rivalry which accompany each of +these pursuits make the salt without which the great dinner were +tasteless. + + * * * + +In these old Austrian towns the churches are always very reverent +places; dark and tranquil; overladen, indeed, with ornament and image, +but too full of shadow for these to much offend; there is the scent of +centuries of incense; the walls are yellow with the damp of ages. +Mountain suzerains and bold reiters, whose deeds are still sung of in +twilight to the zither, deep beneath the moss-grown pavement; their +shields and crowns are worn flat to the stone they were embossed on by +the passing feet of generations of worshippers. High above in the +darkness there is always some colossal carved Christs. Through the +half-opened iron-studded door there is always the smell of pinewood, the +gleam of water, the greenness of Alpine grass; often, too, there is the +silvery falling of rain, and the fresh smell of it comes through the +church by whose black benches and dim lamps there will be sure to be +some old bent woman praying. + + * * * + +The moths will eat all that fine delicate feeling away, little by +little; the moths of the world will eat the unselfishness first, and +then the innocence, and then the honesty, and then the decency; no one +will see them eating, no one will see the havoc being wrought, but +little by little the fine fabric will go, and in its place will be dust. +Ah, the pity of it! The pity of it! The webs come out of the great +weaver's loom lovely enough, but the moths of the world eat them all. + + * * * + +She had five hundred dear friends, but this one she was really fond of; +that is to say, she never said anything bad of her, and only laughed at +her good-naturedly when she had left a room; and this abstinence is as +strong a mark of sincerity now-a-days as dying for another used to be in +the old days of strong feeling and the foolish expression of them. + + * * * + +Gratitude is such an unpleasant quality, you know; there is always a +grudge behind it! + + * * * + +The richest soil always bears the rankest mushrooms: France is always +bearing mushrooms. + + * * * + +Position, she thought, was the only thing that, like old wine or oak +furniture, improved with years. + + * * * + +Position is a pillory: sometimes they pelt one with rose-leaves, and +sometimes with rotten eggs, but one is for ever in the pillory! + + * * * + +We are too afraid of death: that fear is the shame of Christianity. + + * * * + +He never could prevail on his vanity to break with her, lest men should +think she had broken with him. + + * * * + +She would go grandly to the guillotine, but she will never understand +her own times. She has dignity; we have not a scrap; we have forgotten +what it was like; we go into a passion at the amount of our bills; we +play and never pay; we smoke and we wrangle; we laugh loud, much too +loud; we inspire nothing unless, now and then, a bad war or a disastrous +speculation; we live showily, noisily, meanly, gaudily. + + * * * + +Big brains do not easily hold trifles ... little packets of starch that +this world thinks are the staff of life. + + * * * + +Pehl, like a young girl, is prettiest in the morning. Pehl is calm and +sedate, and simple and decorous. Pehl is like some tender, fair, +wholesome yet patrician beauty, like the pretty aristocratic Charlotte +in Kaulbach's picture, who cuts the bread-and-butter, yet looks a +patrician. Pehl has nothing of the _belle petite_, like her sister of +Baden; nothing of the titled _cocadetta_, like her cousin of Monaco; +Pehl does not gamble or riot or conduct herself madly in any way; she is +a little old-fashioned still in a courtly way; she has a little +rusticity still in her elegant manners; she is like the noble dames of +the past ages, who were so high of rank and so proud of habit, yet were +not above the distilling-room and the spinning-wheel; who were quiet, +serious, sweet, and smelt of the rose-leaves with which they filled +their big jars. + + * * * + +The pity of modern Society is that all its habits make as effectual a +disguise morally as our domino in carnival does physically. Everybody +looks just like everybody else. Perhaps, as under the domino, so under +the appearance, there may be great nobility or great deformity; but all +look alike. Were Socrates amongst us, he would only look like a club +bore; and were there Messalina, she would only look--well--look much +like our Duchesse Jeunne! + + * * * + +She did not know that from these swamps of flattery, intrigue, envy, +rivalry, and emulation there rises a miasma which scarcely the +healthiest lungs can withstand. She did not know that though many may be +indifferent to the tempting of men, few indeed are impenetrable to the +smile and the sneer of women; that to live your own life in the midst of +the world is a harder thing than it was of old to withdraw to the +Thebaid; that to risk "looking strange" requires a courage perhaps +cooler and higher than the soldier's or the saint's; and that to stand +away from the contact and custom of your "set" is a harder and sterner +work than it was of old to go into the sanctuary of La Trappe or Port +Royal. + + * * * + +The world has grown apathetic and purblind. Critics rage and quarrel +before a canvas, but the nations do not care; quarries of marble are +hewn into various shapes, and the throngs gape before them and are +indifferent; writers are so many that their writings blend in the public +mind in a confused phantasmagoria, where the colours run into one +another, and the lines are all waved and indistinct; the singer alone +still keeps the old magic power, "The beauty that was Athens, once the +glory that was Rome's," still holds the divine Cadmus, still sways the +vast thronged auditorium, till the myriads hold their breath like little +children in delight and awe. The great singer alone has the magic sway +of fame; and if he close his lips, "The gaiety of nations is eclipsed," +and the world seems empty and silent, like a wood in which the birds are +all dead. + + + + +_IN A WINTER CITY._ + + +The Duc found no topic that suited her. It was the Corso di Gala that +afternoon, would she not go? + +No: her horses hated masks, and she hated noise. + +The Veglione on Sunday--would she not go to that? + +No: those things were well enough in the days of Philippe d'Orléans, who +invented them, but they were only now as stupid as they were vulgar; +anybody was let in for five francs. + +Did she like the new weekly journal that was electrifying Paris? + +No: she could see nothing in it: there was no wit now-a-days--only +personalities, which grew more gross every year. + +The Duc urged that personalities were as old as Cratinus and +Archilochus, and that five hundred years before Christ the satires of +Hipponax drove Bupalus to hang himself. + +She answered that a bad thing was not the better for being old. + +People were talking of a clever English novel translated everywhere, +called "In a Hothouse," the hothouse being society--had she seen it? + +No: what was the use of reading novels of society by people who never +had been in it? The last English "society" novel she had read had +described a cabinet minister in London as going to a Drawing-room in +the crowd, with everybody else, instead of by the _petite entrée_; they +were always full of such blunders. + +Had she read the new French story "Le Bal de Mademoiselle Bibi?" + +No: she had heard too much of it; it made you almost wish for a +Censorship of the Press. + +The Duc agreed that literature was terribly but truly described as "un +tas d'ordures soigneusement enveloppé." + +She said that the "tas d'ordures" without the envelope was sufficient +for popularity, but that the literature of any age was not to be +blamed--it was only a natural growth, like a mushroom; if the soil were +noxious, the fungus was bad. + +The Duc wondered what a censorship would let pass if there were one. + +She said that when there was one it had let pass Crebillon, the +Chevalier Le Clos, and the "Bijoux Indiscrets;" it had proscribed +Marmontel, Helvetius, and Lanjuinais. She did not know how one man could +be expected to be wiser than all his generation. + +The Duc admired some majolica she had purchased. + +She said she began to think that majolica was a false taste; the +metallic lustre was fine, but how clumsy the forms! one might be led +astray by too great love of old work. + +The Duc praised a magnificent Sčvres panel, just painted by Riocreux and +Goupil, and given to her by Princess Olga on the New Year. + +She said it was well done, but what charm was there in it? All their +modern iron and zinc colours, and hydrate of aluminum, and oxide of +chromium, and purple of Cassius, and all the rest of it, never gave +one-tenth the charm of those old painters who had only green greys and +dull blues and tawny yellows, and never could get any kind of red +whatever; Olga had meant to please her, but she, for her part, would +much sooner have had a little panel of Abruzzi, with all the holes and +defects in the pottery, and a brown contadina for a Madonna; there was +some interest in that,--there was no interest in that gorgeous landscape +and those brilliant hunting figures. + +The Duc bore all the contradictions with imperturbable serenity and +urbanity, smiled to himself, and bowed himself out in perfect +good-humour. + +"Tout va bien," he thought to himself; "Miladi must be very much in love +to be so cross." + +The Duc's personal experience amongst ladies had made him of opinion +that love did not improve the temper. + + * * * + +"In love!" she echoed, with less languor and more of impetuosity than +she had ever displayed, "are you ever in love, any of you, ever? You +have senses and vanity and an inordinate fear of not being in the +fashion--and so you take your lovers as you drink your stimulants and +wear your wigs and tie your skirts back--because everybody else does it, +and not to do it is to be odd, or prudish, or something you would hate +to be called. Love! it is an unknown thing to you all. You have a sort +of miserable hectic passion, perhaps, that is a drug you take as you +take chlorodyne--just to excite you and make your jaded nerves a little +alive again, and yet you are such cowards that you have not even the +courage of passion, but label your drug Friendship, and beg Society to +observe that you only keep it for family uses like arnica or like +glycerine. You want notoriety; you want to indulge your fancies, and yet +keep your place in the world. You like to drag a young man about by a +chain, as if he were the dancing monkey that you depended upon for +subsistence. You like other women to see that you are not too _passée_ +to be every whit as improper as if you were twenty. You like to +advertise your successes as it were with drum and trumpet, because if +you did not, people might begin to doubt that you had any. You like all +that, and you like to feel there is nothing you do not know and no +length you have not gone, and so you ring all the changes on all the +varieties of intrigue and sensuality, and go over the gamut of sickly +sentiment and nauseous license as an orchestra tunes its strings up +every night! That is what all you people call love; I am content enough +to have no knowledge of it." + + * * * + +"I would rather have the crudest original thing than the mere galvanism +of the corpse of a dead genius. I would give a thousand paintings by +Froment, Damousse, or any of the finest living artists of Sčvres, for +one piece by old Van der Meer of Delft; but I would prefer a painting on +Sčvres done yesterday by Froment or Damousse, or even any much less +famous worker, provided only it had originality in it, to the best +reproduction of a Van der Meer that modern manufacturers could produce." + +"I think you are right; but I fear our old pottery-painters were not +very original. They copied from the pictures and engravings of Mantegna, +Raffaelle, Marcantonio, Marco di Ravenna, Beatricius, and a score of +others." + +"The application was original, and the sentiment they brought to it. +Those old artists put so much heart into their work." + +"Because when they painted a _stemma_ on the glaze they had still feudal +faith in nobility, and when they painted a Madonna or Ecce Homo they had +still childlike belief in divinity. What does the pottery-painter of +to-day care for the coat of arms or the religious subject he may be +commissioned to execute for a dinner service or a chapel? It may be +admirable painting--if you give a very high price--but it will still be +only manufacture." + +"Then what pleasant lives those pottery painters of the early days must +have led! They were never long stationary. They wandered about +decorating at their fancy, now here and now there; now a vase for a +pharmacy, and now a stove for a king. You find German names on Italian +ware, and Italian names on Flemish grčs; the Nuremberger would work in +Venice, the Dutchman would work in Rouen. Sometimes, however, they were +accused of sorcery; the great potter, Hans Kraut, you remember, was +feared by his townsmen as possessed by the devil, and was buried +ignominiously outside the gates, in his nook of the Black Forest. But on +the whole they were happy, no doubt; men of simple habits and of worthy +lives." + +"You care for art yourself, M. Della Rocca?" + +There came a gleam of interest in her handsome, languid, hazel eyes, as +she turned them upon him. + +"Every Italian does," he answered her. "I do not think we are ever, or I +think, if ever, very seldom connoisseurs in the way that your Englishman +or Frenchman is so. We are never very learned as to styles and dates; we +cannot boast the huckster's eye of the northern bric-ŕ-brac hunter; it +is quite another thing with us; we love art as children their nurses' +tales and cradle-songs. It is a familiar affection with us, and +affection is never very analytical. The Robbia over the chapel-door, the +apostle-pot that the men in the stables drink out of; the Sodoma or the +Beato Angelico that hangs before our eyes daily as we dine; the old +bronze _secchia_ that we wash our hands in as boys in the Loggia--these +are all so homely and dear to us that we grow up with a love for them +all as natural as our love for our mothers. You will say the children of +all rich people see beautiful and ancient things from their birth: so +they do, but not _as_ we see them. Here they are too often degraded to +the basest household uses, and made no more account of than the dust +which gathers on them; but that very neglect of them makes them the more +kindred to us. Art elsewhere is the guest of the salon--with us she is +the playmate of the infant and the serving-maid of the peasant: the +mules may drink from an Etruscan sarcophagus, and the pigeons be fed +from a _patina_ of the twelfth century." + + * * * + +Taste, mon cher Della Rocca, is the only sure guarantee in these +matters. Women, believe me, never have any principle. Principle is a +backbone, and no woman--except bodily--ever possesses any backbone. +Their priests and their teachers and their mothers fill them with +doctrines and conventionalities--all things of mere word and wind. No +woman has any settled principles; if she have any vague ones, it is the +uttermost she ever reaches, and those can always be overturned by any +man who has any influence over her. But Taste is another matter +altogether. A woman whose taste is excellent is preserved from all +eccentricities and most follies. You never see a woman of good sense +_afficher_ her improprieties or advertise her liaisons as women of +vulgarity do. Nay, if her taste be perfect, though she have weaknesses, +I doubt if she will ever have vices. Vice will seem to her like a gaudy +colour, or too much gold braid, or very large plaits, or buttons as big +as saucers, or anything else such as vulgar women like. Fastidiousness, +at any rate, is very good _postiche_ for modesty: it is always decent, +it can never be coarse. Good taste, inherent and ingrained, natural and +cultivated, cannot alter. Principles--ouf!--they go on and off like a +slipper; but good taste is indestructible; it is a compass that never +errs. If your wife have it--well, it is possible she may be false to +you; she is human, she is feminine; but she will never make you +ridiculous, she will never compromise you, and she will not romp in a +cotillon till the morning sun shows the paint on her face washed away in +the rain of her perspiration. Virtue is, after all, as Mme. de Montespan +said, "une chose tout purement géographique." It varies with the +hemisphere like the human skin and the human hair; what is vile in one +latitude is harmless in another. No philosophic person can put any trust +in a thing which merely depends upon climate; but, Good Taste---- + + * * * + +Gossip is like the poor devil in the legend of Fugger's Teufelspalast at +Trent; it toils till cock-crow picking up the widely-scattered grains of +corn by millions till the bushel measure is piled high; and lo!--the +five grains that are _the_ grains always escape its sight and roll away +and hide themselves. The poor devil, being a primitive creature, +shrieked and flew away in despair at his failure. Gossip hugs its false +measure and says loftily that the five real grains are of no consequence +whatever. + + * * * + +The Lady Hilda sighed. This dreadful age, which has produced communists, +pétroleuses, and liberal thinkers, had communicated its vague +restlessness even to her; although she belonged to that higher region +where nobody ever thinks at all, and everybody is more or less devout in +seeming at any rate, because disbelief is vulgar, and religion is an +"affaire des moeurs," like decency, still the subtle philosophies and +sad negations which have always been afloat in the air since Voltaire +set them flying, had affected her slightly. + +She was a true believer, just as she was a well-dressed woman, and had +her creeds just as she had her bath in the morning, as a matter of +course. + +Still, when she did come to think of it, she was not so very sure. There +was another world, and saints and angels and eternity; yes, of +course--but how on earth would all those baccarat people ever fit into +it? Who could, by any stretch of imagination, conceive Madame Mila and +Maurice des Gommeux in a spiritual existence around the throne of Deity? + +And as for punishment and torment and all that other side of futurity, +who could even think of the mildest purgatory as suitable to those poor +flipperty-gibbet inanities who broke the seventh commandment as gaily as +a child breaks his indiarubber ball, and were as incapable of passion +and crime as they were incapable of heroism and virtue? + +There might be paradise for virtue and hell for crime, but what in the +name of the universe was to be done with creatures that were only all +Folly? Perhaps they would be always flying about like the souls Virgil +speaks of, "suspensć ad ventos," to purify themselves; as the sails of a +ship spread out to dry. The Huron Indians pray to the souls of the fish +they catch; well, why should they not? a fish has a soul if Modern +Society has one; one could conceive a fish going softly through shining +waters for ever and for ever in the ecstasy of motion; but who could +conceive Modern Society in the spheres? + + * * * + +"One grows tired of everything," she answered with a little sigh. + +"Everything that is artificial, you mean. People think Horace's love of +the rural life an affectation. I believe it to be most sincere. After +the strain of the conventionality and the adulation of the Augustan +court, the natural existence of the country must have been welcome to +him. I know it is the fashion to say that a love of Nature belongs only +to the Moderns, but I do not think so. Into Pindar, Theocritus, +Meleager, the passion for Nature must have entered very strongly; what +_is_ modern is the more subjective, the more fanciful feeling which +makes Nature a sounding-board to echo all the cries of man." + +"But that is always a northern feeling?" + +"Inevitably. With us Nature is too _riante_ for us to grow morbid about +it. The sunshine that laughs around us nine months of every year, the +fruits that grow almost without culture, the flowers that we throw to +the oxen to eat, the very stones that are sweet with myrtle, the very +sea sand that is musical with bees in the rosemary, everything we grow +up amongst from infancy, makes our love of Nature only a kind of +unconscious joy in it; but here even the peasant has that, and the songs +of the men that cannot read or write are full of it. If a field labourer +sing to his love he will sing of the narcissus and the crocus, as +Meleager sang to Heliodora twenty centuries ago." + + * * * + +That is an Italian amorous fancy. Romeo and Othello are the typical +Italian lovers. I never can tell how a northerner like Shakespeare could +draw either. You are often very unfaithful; but _while_ you are faithful +you are ardent, and you are absorbed in the woman. That is one of the +reasons why an Italian succeeds in love as no other man does. "L'art de +brűler silencieusement ment le coeur d'un femme" is a supreme art with +you. Compared with you, all other men are children. You have been the +supreme masters of the great passion since the days of Ovid. + + * * * + +Boredom is the ill-natured pebble that always _will_ get in the golden +slipper of the pilgrim of pleasure. + + * * * + +"They say," the great assassin who slays as many thousands as ever did +plague or cholera, drink or warfare; "they say," the thief of +reputation, who steals, with stealthy step and coward's mask, to filch +good names away in the dead dark of irresponsible calumny; "they say," a +giant murderer, iron-gloved to slay you, a fleet, elusive, vaporous +will-o'-the-wisp, when you would seize and choke it; "they say," mighty +Thug though it be which strangles from behind the purest victim, had not +been ever known to touch the Lady Hilda. + + * * * + +All her old philosophies seemed falling about her like shed leaves, and +her old self seemed to her but a purposeless frivolous chilly creature. +The real reason she would not face, and indeed as yet was not conscious +of; the reason that love had entered into her, and that love, if it be +worth the name, has always two handmaidens: swift sympathy, and sad +humility, keeping step together. + + * * * + +The Femme Galante has passed through many various changes, in many +countries. The dames of the Decamerone were unlike the fair +athlete-seekers of the days of Horace; and the powdered coquettes of the +years of Moličre, were sisters only by the kinship of a common vice to +the frivolous and fragile faggot of impulses, that is called Frou-frou. + +The Femme Galante has always been a feature in every age; poets, from +Juvenal to Musset, have railed at her; artists, from Titian to +Winterhalter, have painted her; dramatists, from Aristophanes to +Congreve and Dumas Fils, have pointed their arrows at her; satirists, +from Archilochus and Simonides to Hogarth and Gavarni, have poured out +their aqua-fortis for her. But the real Femme Galante of to-day has been +missed hitherto. + +Frou-frou, who stands for her, is not in the least the true type. +Frou-frou is a creature that can love, can suffer, can repent, can die. +She is false in sentiment and in art, but she is tender after all; poor, +feverish, wistful, changeful morsel of humanity. A slender, helpless, +breathless, and frail thing who, under one sad, short sin, sinks down to +death. + +But Frou-frou is in no sense the true Femme Galante of her day. +Frou-frou is much more a fancy than a fact. It is not Frou-frou that +Moličre would have handed down to other generations in enduring +ridicule, had he been living now. To her he would have doffed his hat +with dim eyes; what he would have fastened for all time in his pillory +would have been a very different, and far more conspicuous offender. + +The Femme Galante, who has neither the scruples nor the follies of poor +Frou-frou, who neither forfeits her place nor leaves her lord; who has +studied adultery as one of the fine arts and made it one of the domestic +virtues; who takes her wearied lover to her friends' houses as she takes +her muff or her dog, and teaches her sons and daughters to call him by +familiar names; who writes to the victim of her passions with the same +pen that calls her boy home from school; and who smooths her child's +curls with the same fingers that stray over her lover's lips; who +challenges the world to find a flaw in her, and who smiles serene at her +husband's table on a society she is careful to conciliate; who has woven +the most sacred ties and most unholy pleasures into so deft a braid, +that none can say where one commences or the other ends; who uses the +sanctity of her maternity to cover the lawlessness of her license; and +who, incapable alike of the self-abandonment of love or of the +self-sacrifice of duty, has not even such poor, cheap honour as, in the +creatures of the streets, may make guilt loyal to its dupe and partner. + +This is the Femme Galante of the passing century, who, with her hand on +her husband's arm, babbles of her virtue in complacent boast; and +ignoring such a vulgar word as Sin, talks with a smile of Friendship. +Beside her Frou-frou were innocence itself, Marion de l'Orme were +honesty, Manon Lescaut were purity, Cleopatra were chaste, and Faustine +were faithful. + +She is the female Tartuffe of seduction, the Précieuse Ridicule of +passion, the parody of Love, the standing gibe of Womanhood. + + * * * + +She was always in debt, though she admitted that her husband allowed her +liberally. She had eighty thousand francs a year by her settlements to +spend on herself, and he gave her another fifty thousand to do as she +pleased with: on the whole about one half what he allowed to Blanche +Souris, of the Château Gaillard theatre. + +She had had six children, three were living and three were dead; she +thought herself a good mother, because she gave her wet-nurses ever so +many silk gowns, and when she wanted the children for a fancy ball or a +drive, always saw that they were faultlessly dressed, and besides she +always took them to Trouville. + +She had never had any grief in her life, except the loss of the Second +Empire, and even that she got over when she found that flying the Red +Cross flag had saved her hotel, without so much as a teacup being broken +in it, that MM. Worth and Offenbach were safe from all bullets, and +that society, under the Septennate, promised to be every bit as _leste_ +as under the Empire. + +In a word, Madame Mila was a type of the women of her time. + +The women who go semi-nude in an age which has begun to discover that +the nude in sculpture is very immoral; who discuss "Tue-la" in a +generation which decrees Moličre to be coarse, and Beaumont and Fletcher +indecent; who have the Journal pour Rire on their tables in a day when +no one who respects himself would name the Harlot's Progress; who read +Beaudelaire and patronise Térésa and Schneider in an era which finds +"Don Juan" gross, and Shakespeare far too plain; who strain all their +energies to rival Miles. Rose Thé and La Petite Boulotte in everything; +who go shrimping or oyster-hunting on fashionable sea-shores, with their +legs bare to the knee; who go to the mountains with confections, high +heels, and gold-tipped canes, shriek over their gambling as the dawn +reddens over the Alps, and know no more of the glories of earth and sky, +of sunrise and sunset, than do the porcelain pots that hold their paint, +or the silver dressing-box that carries their hair-dye. + +Women who are in convulsions one day, and on the top of a drag the next; +who are in hysterics for their lovers at noon, and in ecstasies over +baccarat at midnight; who laugh in little nooks together over each +other's immoralities, and have a moral code so elastic that it will +pardon anything except innocence; who gossip over each other's dresses, +and each other's passions, in the self-same, self-satisfied chirp of +contentment, and who never resent anything on earth, except any +eccentric suggestion that life could be anything except a perpetual fęte +ŕ la Watteau in a perpetual blaze of lime-light. + +Pain?--Are there not chloral and a flattering doctor? Sorrow?--Are there +not a course at the Baths, play at Monte Carlo, and new cases from +Worth? Shame?--Is it not a famine fever which never comes near a +well-laden table? Old Age?--Is there not white and red paint, and heads +of dead hair, and even false bosoms? Death? Well, no doubt there is +death, but they do not realise it; they hardly believe in it, they think +about it so little. + +There is something unknown somewhere to fall on them some day that they +dread vaguely, for they are terrible cowards. But they worry as little +about it as possible. They give the millionth part of what they possess +away in its name to whatever church they belong to, and they think they +have arranged quite comfortably for all possible contingencies +hereafter. + +If it make things safe, they will head bazaars for the poor, or wear +black in holy week, turn lottery-wheels for charity, or put on fancy +dresses in the name of benevolence, or do any little amiable trifle of +that sort. But as for changing their lives,--_pas si bęte!_ + +A bird in the hand they hold worth two in the bush; and though your +birds may be winged on strong desire, and your bush the burning portent +of Moses, they will have none of them. + +These women are not all bad; oh, no! they are like sheep, that is all. +If it were fashionable to be virtuous, very likely they would be so. If +it were _chic_ to be devout, no doubt they would pass their life on +their knees. But, as it is, they know that a flavour of vice is as +necessary to their reputation as great ladies, as sorrel-leaves to soup +ŕ la bonne femme. They affect a license if they take it not. + +They are like the barber, who said, with much pride, to Voltaire, "Je ne +suis qu'un pauvre diable de perruquier, mais je ne crois pas en Dieu +plus que les autres." + +They may be worth very little, but they are desperately afraid that you +should make such a mistake as to think them worth anything at all. You +are not likely, if you know them. Still, they are apprehensive. + +Though one were to arise from the dead to preach to them, they would +only make of him a nine days' wonder, and then laugh a little, and yawn +a little, and go on in their own paths. + +Out of the eater came forth meat, and from evil there may be begotten +good; but out of nullity there can only come nullity. They have wadded +their ears, and though Jeremiah wailed of desolation, or Isaiah +thundered the wrath of heaven, they would not hear,--they would go on +looking at each other's dresses. + +What could Paul himself say that would change them? + +You cannot make sawdust into marble; you cannot make sea-sand into gold. +"Let us alone," is all they ask; and it is all that you could do, though +the force and flame of Horeb were in you. + + * * * + +It is very curious, but loss of taste in the nobles has always been +followed by a revolution of the mob. The _décadence_ always ushers in +the democracy. + + * * * + +Pleasure alone cannot content any one whose character has any force, or +mind any high intelligence. Society is, as you say, a book we soon read +through, and know by heart till it loses all interest. Art alone cannot +fill more than a certain part of our emotions; and culture, however +perfect, leaves us unsatisfied. There is only one thing that can give to +life what your poet called the light that never was on sea or land--and +that is human love. + + * * * + +"Yes, it is a curious thing that we do not succeed in fresco. The grace +is gone out of it; modern painters have not the lightness of touch +necessary; they are used to masses of colour, and they use the palette +knife as a mason the trowel. The art, too, like the literature of our +time, is all detail; the grand suggestive vagueness of the Greek drama +and of the Umbrian frescoes are lost to us under a crowd of elaborated +trivialities; perhaps it is because art has ceased to be spiritual or +tragic, and is merely domestic or melodramatic; the Greeks knew neither +domesticity nor melodrama, and the early Italian painters were imbued +with a faith which, if not so virile as the worship of the Phidian Zeus, +yet absorbed them and elevated them in a degree impossible in the tawdry +Sadduceeism of our own day. By the way, when the weather is milder you +must go to Orvieto; you have never been there, I think; it is the +Prosodion of Signorelli. What a fine Pagan he was at heart! He admired +masculine beauty like a Greek; he must have been a singularly happy +man--few more happy----" + + + + +_A LEAF IN THE STORM._ + + +The Berceau de Dieu was a little village in the valley of the Seine. + +As a lark drops its nest amongst the grasses, so a few peasant people +had dropped their little farms and cottages amidst the great green woods +on the winding river. It was a pretty place, with one steep, stony +street, shady with poplars and with elms; quaint houses, about whose +thatch a cloud of white and grey pigeons fluttered all day long; a +little aged chapel with a conical red roof; and great barns covered with +ivy and thick creepers, red and purple, and lichens that were yellow in +the sun. + +All around it there were the broad, flowering meadows, with the sleek +cattle of Normandy fattening in them, and the sweet dim forests where +the young men and maidens went on every holy-day and feast-day in the +summer-time to seek for wood-anemones, and lilies of the pools, and the +wild campanula, and the fresh dogrose, and all the boughs and grasses +that made their house-doors like garden-bowers, and seemed to take the +cushat's note and the linnet's song into their little temple of God. + +The Berceau de Dieu was very old indeed. + +Men said that the hamlet had been there in the day of the Virgin of +Orléans; and a stone cross of the twelfth century still stood by the +great pond of water at the bottom of the street, under the +chestnut-tree, where the villagers gathered to gossip at sunset when +their work was done. + +It had no city near it, and no town nearer than four leagues. It was in +the green core of a pastoral district, thickly wooded and intersected +with orchards. Its produce of wheat, and oats, and cheese, and fruit, +and eggs, was more than sufficient for its simple prosperity. Its people +were hardy, kindly, laborious, happy; living round the little grey +chapel in amity and good-fellowship. + +Nothing troubled it. War and rumours of war, revolutions and +counter-revolutions, empires and insurrections, military and political +questions--these all were for it things unknown and unheard of--mighty +winds that arose and blew and swept the lands around it, but never came +near enough to harm it, lying there, as it did, in its loneliness like +any lark's nest. + + * * * + +"I am old: yes, I am very old," she would say, looking up from her +spinning-wheel in her house-door, and shading her eyes from the sun, +"very old--ninety-two last summer. But when one has a roof over one's +head, and a pot of soup always, and a grandson like mine, and when one +has lived all one's life in the Berceau de Dieu, then it is well to be +so old. Ah, yes, my little ones--yes, though you doubt it, you little +birds that have just tried your wings--it is well to be so old. One has +time to think, and thank the good God, which one never seemed to have a +minute to do in that work, work, work, when one was young." + + * * * + +The end soon came. + +From hill to hill the Berceau de Dieu broke into flames. The village was +a lake of fire, into which the statue of the Christ, burning and +reeling, fell. Some few peasants, with their wives and children, fled to +the woods, and there escaped one torture to perish more slowly of cold +and famine. All other things perished. The rapid stream of the flame +licked up all there was in its path. The bare trees raised their +leafless branches on fire at a thousand points. The stores of corn and +fruit were lapped by millions of crimson tongues. The pigeons flew +screaming from their roosts and sank into the smoke. The dogs were +suffocated on the thresholds they had guarded all their lives. The calf +was stifled in the byre. The sheep ran bleating with the wool burning on +their living bodies. The little caged birds fluttered helpless, and then +dropped, scorched to cinders. The aged and the sick were stifled in +their beds. All things perished. + +The Berceau de Dieu was as one vast furnace, in which every living +creature was caught and consumed and changed to ashes. + +The tide of war has rolled on and left it a blackened waste, a smoking +ruin, wherein not so much as a mouse may creep or a bird may nestle. It +is gone, and its place can know it never more. + +Never more. + +But who is there to care? + +It was but as a leaf which the great storm withered as it passed. + + * * * + +"Look you," she had said to him oftentimes, "in my babyhood there was +the old white flag upon the château. Well, they pulled that down and put +up a red one. That toppled and fell, and there was one of three +colours. Then somebody with a knot of white lilies in his hand came one +day and set up the old white one afresh; and before the day was done +that was down again, and the tricolour again up where it is still. Now +some I know fretted themselves greatly because of all these changes of +the flags, but as for me, I could not see that any one of them mattered: +bread was just as dear, and sleep was just as sweet, whichever of the +three was uppermost." + + + + +_A DOG OF FLANDERS._ + + +In the spring and summer especially were they glad. Flanders is not a +lovely land, and around the burgh of Rubens it is perhaps least lovely +of all. + +Corn and colza, pasture and plough, succeed each other on the +characterless plain in wearying repetition, and save by some gaunt grey +tower, with its peal of pathetic bells, or some figure coming athwart +the fields, made picturesque by a gleaner's bundle or a woodman's +faggot, there is no change, no variety, no beauty anywhere; and he who +has dwelt upon the mountains or amidst the forests feels oppressed as by +imprisonment with the tedium and the endlessness of that vast and dreary +level. + +But it is green and very fertile, and it has wide horizons that have a +certain charm of their own even in their dulness and monotony; and +amongst the rushes by the water-side the flowers grow, and the trees +rise tall and fresh where the barges glide with their great hulks black +against the sun, and their little green barrels and vari-coloured flags +gay against the leaves. + +Anyway, there is a greenery and breadth of space enough to be as good as +beauty to a child and a dog; and these two asked no better, when their +work was done, than to lie buried in the lush grasses on the side of the +canal, and watch the cumbrous vessels drifting by, and bringing the +crisp salt smell of the sea amongst the blossoming scents of the country +summer. + + * * * + +Antwerp, as all the world knows, is full at every turn of old piles of +stones, dark and ancient and majestic, standing in crooked courts, +jammed against gateways and taverns, rising by the water's edge, with +bells ringing above them in the air, and ever and again out of their +arched doors a swell of music pealing. + +There they remain, the grand old sanctuaries of the past, shut in amidst +the squalor, the hurry, the crowds, the unloveliness and the commerce of +the modern world; and all day long the clouds drift and the birds +circle, and the winds sigh around them, and beneath the earth at their +feet there sleeps--RUBENS. + +And the greatness of the mighty Master still rests upon Antwerp; +wherever we turn in its narrow streets his glory lies therein, so that +all mean things are thereby transfigured; and as we pace slowly through +the winding ways, and by the edge of the stagnant water, and through the +noisome courts, his spirit abides with us, and the heroic beauty of his +visions is about us, and the stones that once felt his footsteps and +bore his shadow seem to arise and speak of him with living voices. For +the city which is the tomb of Rubens still lives to us through him, and +him alone. + +Without Rubens, what were Antwerp? A dirty, dusky, bustling mart, which +no man would ever care to look upon save the traders who do business on +its wharves. With Rubens, to the whole world of men it is a sacred name, +a sacred soil, a Bethlehem where a god of Art saw light, a Golgotha +where a god of Art lies dead. + +It is so quiet there by that great white sepulchre--so quiet, save only +when the organ peals, and the choir cries aloud the Salve Regina or the +Kyrie Eleison. Sure no artist ever had a greater gravestone than that +pure marble sanctuary gives to him in the heart of his birthplace in the +chancel of St. Jacques? + +O nations! closely should you treasure your great men, for by them alone +will the future know of you. Flanders in her generations has been wise. +In his life she glorified this greatest of her sons, and in his death +she magnifies his name. But her wisdom is very rare. + + * * * + +The night was very wild. The lamps under the wayside crosses were blown +out: the roads were sheets of ice; the impenetrable darkness hid every +trace of habitations; there was no living thing abroad. All the cattle +were housed, and in all the huts and homesteads men and women rejoiced +and feasted. There was only the dog out in the cruel cold--old and +famished and full of pain, but with the strength and the patience of a +great love to sustain him in his search. + +The trail of Nello's steps, faint and obscure as it was under the new +snow, went straightly along the accustomed tracks into Antwerp. It was +past midnight when Patrasche traced it over the boundaries of the town +and into the narrow, tortuous, gloomy streets. It was all quite dark in +the town. Now and then some light gleamed ruddily through the crevices +of house-shutters, or some group went homeward with lanterns chanting +drinking songs. The streets were all white with ice: the high walls and +roofs loomed black against them. There was scarce a sound save the riot +of the winds down the passages as they tossed the creaking signs and +shook the tall lamp-irons. + +So many passers-by had trodden through and through the snow, so many +diverse paths had crossed and re-crossed each other, that the dog had a +hard task to retain any hold on the track he followed. But he kept on +his way, though the cold pierced him to the bone, and the jagged ice cut +his feet, and the hunger in his body gnawed like a rat's teeth. But he +kept on his way--a poor, gaunt, shivering, drooping thing in the frozen +darkness, that no one pitied as he went--and by long patience traced the +steps he loved into the very heart of the burgh and up to the steps of +the great cathedral. + +"He is gone to the things that he loved," thought Patrasche; he could +not understand, but he was full of sorrow and of pity for the +art-passion that to him was so incomprehensible and yet so sacred. + +The portals of the cathedral were unclosed after the midnight mass. Some +heedlessness in the custodians, too eager to go home and feast or sleep, +or too drowsy to know whether they turned the keys aright, had left one +of the doors unlocked. By that accident the footfalls Patrasche sought +had passed through into the building, leaving the white marks of snow +upon the dark stone floor. By that slender white thread, frozen as it +fell, he was guided through the intense silence, through the immensity +of the vaulted space--guided straight to the gates of the chancel, and +stretched there upon the stones he found Nello. He crept up noiselessly, +and touched the face of the boy. "Didst thou dream that I should be +faithless and forsake thee? I--a dog?" said that mute caress. + +The lad raised himself with a low cry and clasped him close. + +"Let us lie down and die together," he murmured. "Men have no need of +us, and we are all alone." + +In answer, Patrasche crept closer yet, and laid his head upon the young +boy's breast. The great tears stood in his brown sad eyes: not for +himself--for himself he was happy. + +They lay close together in the piercing cold. The blasts that blew over +the Flemish dykes from the northern seas were like waves of ice, which +froze every living thing they touched. The interior of the immense vault +of stone in which they were was even more bitterly chill than the +snow-covered plains without. Now and then a bat moved in the shadows; +now and then a gleam of light came to the ranks of carven figures. Under +the Rubens they lay together, quite still, and soothed almost into a +dreaming slumber by the numbing narcotic of the cold. Together they +dreamed of the old glad days when they had chased each other through the +flowering grasses of the summer meadows, or sat hidden in the tall +bulrushes by the water's side, watching the boats go seaward in the sun. + +No anger had ever separated them; no cloud had ever come between them; +no roughness on the one side, no faithlessness on the other, had ever +obscured their perfect love and trust. All through their short lives +they had done their duty as it had come to them, and had been happy in +the mere sense of living, and had begrudged nothing to any man or beast, +and had been quite content because quite innocent. And in the faintness +of famine and of the frozen blood that stole dully and slowly through +their veins, it was of the days they had spent together that they +dreamed, lying there in the long watches of the night of the Noël. + +Suddenly through the darkness a great white radiance streamed through +the vastness of the aisles; the moon, that was at her height, had broken +through the clouds; the snow had ceased to fall; the light reflected +from the snow without was clear as the light of dawn. It fell through +the arches full upon the two pictures above, from which the boy on his +entrance had flung back the veil: the Elevation and the Descent of the +Cross were for one instant visible as by day. + +Nello rose to his feet and stretched his arms to them: the tears of a +passionate ecstasy glistened on the paleness of his face. + +"I have seen them at last!" he cried aloud. "O God, it is enough!" + +His limbs failed under him, and he sank upon his knees, still gazing +upward at the majesty that he adored. For a few brief moments the light +illumined the divine visions that had been denied to him so long--light, +clear and sweet and strong as though it streamed from the throne of +Heaven. + +Then suddenly it passed away: once more a great darkness covered the +face of Christ. + +The arms of the boy drew close again the body of the dog. + +"We shall see His face--_there_," he murmured; "and He will not part us, +I think; He will have mercy." + +On the morrow, by the chancel of the cathedral, the people of Antwerp +found them both. They were both dead: the cold of the night had frozen +into stillness alike the young life and the old. When the Christmas +morning broke and the priests came to the temple, they saw them lying +thus on the stones together. Above, the veils were drawn back from the +great visions of Rubens, and the fresh rays of the sunrise touched the +thorn-crowned head of the God. + +As the day grew on there came an old, hard-featured man, who wept as +women weep. + +"I was cruel to the lad," he muttered, "and now I would have made +amends--yea, to the half of my substance--and he should have been to me +as a son." + +There came also, as the day grew apace, a painter who had fame in the +world, and who was liberal of hand and of spirit. + +"I seek one who should have had the prize yesterday had worth won," he +said to the people,--"a boy of rare promise and genius. An old +woodcutter on a fallen tree at eventide--that was all his theme. But +there was greatness for the future in it. I would fain find him, and +take him with me and teach him art." + + * * * + +Death had been more pitiful to them than longer life would have been. It +had taken the one in the loyalty of love, and the other in the innocence +of faith, from a world which for love has no recompense, and for faith +no fulfilment. + +All their lives they had been together, and in their deaths they were +not divided; for when they were found the arms of the boy were folded +too closely around the dog to be severed without violence, and the +people of their little village, contrite and ashamed, implored a special +grace for them, and, making them one grave, laid them to rest there side +by side--for ever. + + + + +_A BRANCH OF LILAC._ + + +And indeed I loved France: still, in the misery of my life, I loved her +for all that I had had from her. + +I loved her for her sunny roads, for her cheery laughter, for her +vine-hung hamlets, for her contented poverty, for her gay, sweet mirth, +for her pleasant days, for her starry nights, for her little bright +groups at the village fountain, for her old, brown, humble peasants at +her wayside crosses, for her wide, wind-swept plains all red with her +radiant sunsets. She had given me beautiful hours; she is the mother of +the poor, who sings to them so that they forget their hunger and their +nakedness; she had made me happy in my youth. I was not ungrateful. + +It was in the heats of September that I reached my country. It was just +after the day of Sedan. I heard all along the roads, as I went, sad, +sullen murmurs of our bitter disasters. It was not the truth exactly +that was ever told at the poor wine-shops and about the harvest-fields, +but it was near enough to the truth to be horrible. + +The blood-thirst which had been upon me ever since that night when I +found her chair empty seemed to burn and seethe, till I saw nothing but +blood--in the air, in the sun, in the water. + + * * * + +I remember in that ghastly time seeing a woman put the match to a piece +whose gunner had just dropped dead. She fired with sure aim: her shot +swept straight into a knot of horsemen on the Neuilly road, and emptied +more than one saddle. + +"You have a good sight," I said to her. + +She smiled. + +"This winter," she said slowly, "my children have all died for want of +food--one by one, the youngest first. Ever since then I want to hurt +something--always. Do you understand?" + +I did understand: I do not know if you do. It is just these things that +make revolutions. + + * * * + +When I sit in the gloom here I see all the scenes of that pleasant life +pass like pictures before me. + +No doubt I was often hot, often cold, often footsore, often ahungered +and athirst: no doubt; but all that has faded now. I only see the old, +lost, unforgotten brightness; the sunny roads, with the wild poppies +blowing in the wayside grass; the quaint little red roofs and peaked +towers that were thrust upward out of the rolling woods; the clear blue +skies, with the larks singing against the sun; the quiet, cool, +moss-grown towns, with old dreamy bells ringing sleepily above them; the +dull casements opening here and there to show a rose like a girl's +cheek, and a girl's face like the rose; the little wine-shops buried in +their climbing vines and their tall, many-coloured hollyhocks, from +which sometimes a cheery voice would cry, "Come, stay for a stoup of +wine, and pay us with a song." + +Then, the nights when the people flocked to us, and the little tent was +lighted, and the women's and the children's mirth rang out in peals of +music; and the men vied with each other as to which should bear each of +us off to have bed and board under the cottage roof, or in the old +mill-house, or in the weaver's garret; the nights when the homely +supper-board was brightened and thought honoured by our presence; when +we told the black-eyed daughter's fortunes, and kept the children +round-eyed and flushing red with wonder at strange tales, and smoked +within the leaf-hung window with the father and his sons; and then went +out, quietly, alone in the moonlight, and saw the old cathedral white +and black in the shadows and the light; and strayed a little into its +dim aisles, and watched the thorn-crowned God upon the cross, and in the +cool fruit-scented air, in the sweet, silent dusk, moved softly with +noiseless footfall and bent head, as though the dead were there. + +Ah, well! they are all gone, those days and nights. Begrudge me not +their memory. I am ugly, and very poor, and of no account; and I die at +sunrise, so they say. Let me remember whilst I can: it is all oblivion +_there_. So they say. + + * * * + +Whether I suffered or enjoyed, loved or hated, is of no consequence to +any one. The dancing-dog suffers intensely beneath the scourge of the +stick, and is capable of intense attachment to any one who is merciful +enough not to beat him; but the dancing-dog and his woe and his love are +nothing to the world: I was as little. + +There is nothing more terrible, nothing more cruel, than the waste of +emotion, the profuse expenditure of fruitless pain, which every hour, +every moment, as it passes, causes to millions of living creatures. If +it were of any use who would mind? But it is all waste, frightful waste, +to no end, to no end. + + * * * + +Ah, well! it is our moments of blindness and of folly that are the sole +ones of happiness for all of us on earth. We only see clearly, I think, +when we have reached the depths of woe. + + * * * + +France was a great sea in storm, on which the lives of all men were as +frail boats tossing to their graves. Some were blown east, some west; +they passed each other in the endless night, and never knew, the tempest +blew so strong. + + * * * + +Winter tries hardly all the wandering races: if the year were all +summer, all the world would be Bohemians. + + * * * + +We poured out blood like water, and much of it was the proud blue blood +of the old nobility. We should have saved France, I am sure, if there +had been any one who had known how to consolidate and lead us. No one +did; so it was all of no use. + +Guerillas like us can do much, very much, but to do so much that it is +victory we must have a genius amidst us. And we had none. If the First +Bonaparte had been alive and with us, we should have chased the foe as +Marius the Cimbri. + +I think other nations will say so in the future: at the present they are +all dazzled, they do not see clearly--they are all worshipping the +rising sun. It is blood-red, and it blinds them. + + * * * + +It is so strange! We see a million faces, we hear a million voices, we +meet a million women with flowers in their breasts and light in their +fair eyes, and they do not touch us. Then we see one, and she holds for +us life or death, and plays with them idly so often--as idly as a child +with toys. She is not nobler, better, or more beautiful than were all +those we passed, and yet the world is empty to us without her. + + + + +_SIGNA._ + + +In the garden of these children all the flora of Italy was gathered and +was growing. + +The delights of an Italian garden are countless. It is not like any +other garden in the world. It is at once more formal and more wild, at +once greener with more abundant youth and venerable with more antique +age. It has all Boccaccio between its walls, all Petrarca in its leaves, +all Raffaelle in its skies. And then the sunshine that beggars words and +laughs at painters!--the boundless, intense, delicious, heavenly light! +What do other gardens know of that, save in orange-groves of Granada and +rose thickets of Damascus? + +The old broken marble statues, whence the water dripped and fed the +water-lily; the great lemon-trees in pots big enough to drown a boy, the +golden globes among their emerald leaves; the magnolias, like trees cast +in bronze, with all the spice of India in their cups; the spires of +ivory bells that the yuccas put forth, like belfries for fairies; the +oleanders taller than a man, red and white and blush colour; the broad +velvet leaves of the flowering rush; the dark majestic ilex oaks, that +made the noon like twilight; the countless graces of the vast family of +acacias; the high box hedges, sweet and pungent in the sun; the stone +ponds, where the gold-fish slept through the sultry day; the wilderness +of carnations; the huge roses, yellow, crimson, snow-white, and the +small noisette and the banksia with its million of pink stars; myrtles +in dense thickets, and camellias like a wood of evergreens; cacti in all +quaint shapes, like fossils astonished to find themselves again alive; +high walls, vine-hung and topped by pines and cypresses; low walls with +crowds of geraniums on their parapets, and the mountains and the fields +beyond them; marble basins hidden in creepers where the frogs dozed all +day long; sounds of convent bells and of chapel chimes; green lizards +basking on the flags; great sheds and granaries beautiful with the +clematis and the wisteria and the rosy trumpets of the bignonia; great +wooden places cool and shady, with vast arched entrances, and scent of +hay, and empty casks, and red earthen amphorć, and little mice scudding +on the floors, and a sun-dial painted on the wall, and a crucifix set +above the weather-cock, and through the huge unglazed windows sight of +the green vines with the bullocks in the harvest-carts beneath them, or +of some hilly sunlit road with a mule-team coming down it, or of a blue +high hill with its pine-trees black against the sky, and on its slopes +the yellow corn and misty olive. This was their garden; it is ten +thousand other gardens in the land. + +The old painters had these gardens, and walked in them, and thought +nothing better could be needed for any scene of Annunciation or +Adoration, and so put them in beyond the windows of Bethlehem or behind +the Throne of the Lamb--and who can wonder? + + * * * + +In these little ancient burghs and hillside villages, scattered up and +down between mountain and sea, there is often some boy or girl, with a +more wonderful voice, or a more beautiful face, or a sweeter knack of +song, or a more vivid trick of improvisation than the others; and this +boy or girl strays away some day with a little bundle of clothes, and a +coin or two, or is fetched away by some far-sighted pedlar in such human +wares, who buys them as bird-fanciers buy the finches from the nets; and +then, years and years afterwards, the town or hamlet hears indistinctly +of some great prima donna, or of some lark-throated tenor, that the big +world is making happy as kings, and rich as kings' treasurers, and the +people carding the flax or shelling the chestnuts say to one another, +"That was little black Liŕ, or that was our old Momo;" but Momo or Liŕ +the village or the vine-field never sees again. + + * * * + +The heart of silver falls ever into the hands of brass. The sensitive +herb is eaten as grass by the swine. + + * * * + +Fate will have it so. Fate is so old, and weary of her task; she must +have some diversion. It is Fate who blinded Love for sport, and on the +shoulders of Possession hung the wallet full of stones and +sand--Satiety. + + * * * + +As passion yet unknown thrills in the adolescent, as maternity yet +undreamed of stirs in the maiden; so the love of art comes to the artist +before he can give a voice to his thought or any name to his desire. + +Signa heard "beautiful things" as he sat in the rising moonlight, with +the bells of the little bindweed white about his feet. + +That was all he could have said. + +Whether the angels sent them on the breeze, or the birds brought them, +or the dead men came and sang them to him, he could not tell. Indeed, +who can tell? + +Where did Guido see the golden hair of St. Michael gleam upon the wind? +Where did Mozart hear the awful cries of the risen dead come to +judgment? What voice was in the fountain of Vaucluse? Under what nodding +oxlip did Shakespeare find Titania asleep? When did the Mother of Love +come down, chaster in her unclothed loveliness than vestal in her veil, +and with such vision of her make obscure Cleomenes immortal? + +Who can tell? + +Signa sat dreaming, with his chin upon his hands, and his eyes wandering +over all the silent place, from the closed flowers at his feet to the +moon in her circles of mist. + +Who walks in these paths now may go back four hundred years. They are +changed in nothing. Through their high hedges of rhododendron and of +jessamine that grow like woodland trees it would still seem but natural +to see Raffaelle with his court-train of students, or Signorelli +splendid in those apparellings which were the comment of his age; and on +these broad stone terraces with the lizards basking on their steps and +the trees opening to show a vine-covered hill with the white oxen +creeping down it and the blue mountains farther still behind, it would +be but fitting to see a dark figure sitting and painting lilies upon a +golden ground, or cherubs' heads upon a panel of cypress wood, and to +hear that this painter was the monk Angelico. + +The deepest charm of these old gardens, as of their country, is, after +all, that in them it is possible to forget the present age. + +In the full, drowsy, voluptuous noon, when they are a gorgeous blaze of +colour and a very intoxication of fragrance, as in the ethereal white +moonlight of midnight, when, with the silver beams and the white +blossoms and the pale marbles, they are like a world of snow, their +charm is one of rest, silence, leisure, dreams, and passion all in one; +they belong to the days when art was a living power, when love was a +thing of heaven or of hell, and when men had the faith of children and +the force of gods. + +Those days are dead, but in these old gardens you can believe still that +you live in them. + + * * * + +"Pippa!" echoed Istriel. His memories were wakened by the name, and went +back to the days of his youth, when he had gone through the fields at +evening, when the purple beanflower was in bloom. + +"What is your name then?" he asked, with a changed sound in his voice, +and with his fair cheek paler. + +"I am Bruno Marcillo; I come from the hills above the Lastra a Signa." + +Istriel rose, and looked at him; he had not remembered dead Pippa for +many a year. All in a moment he did remember: the long light days, the +little grey-walled town, the meetings in the vine-hung paths, when +sunset burned the skies; the girl with the pearls on her round brown +throat, the moonlit nights, with the strings of the guitar throbbing, +and the hearts of the lovers leaping; the sweet, eager, thoughtless +passion that swayed them one to another, as two flowers are blown +together in the mild soft winds of summer; he remembered it all now. + +And he had forgotten so long; forgotten so utterly; save now and then, +when in some great man's house he had chanced to see some painting done +in his youth, and sold then for a few gold coins, of a tender +tempestuous face, half smiling and half sobbing, full of storm and +sunshine, both in one; and then at such times had thought, "Poor little +fool! she loved me too well;--it is the worst fault a woman has." + +Some regret he had felt, and some remorse when he had found the garret +empty, and had lost Pippa from sight in the great sea of chance; but +she had wearied him, importuned him, clung to him; she had had the worst +fault, she had loved him too much. He had been young and poor, and very +ambitious; he had been soon reconciled; he had soon learned to think +that it was a burden best fallen from his shoulders. No doubt she had +suffered; but there was no help for that--some one always suffered when +these ties were broken--so he had said to himself. And then there had +come success and fame, and the pleasures of the world and the triumphs +of art, and Pippa had dropped from his thoughts as dead blossoms from a +bough; and he had loved so many other women, that he could not have +counted them; and the memory of that boy-and-girl romance in the green +hill country of the old Etruscan land had died away from him like a song +long mute. + +Now, all at once, Pippa's hand seemed to touch him--Pippa's voice seemed +to rouse him--Pippa's eyes seemed to look at him. + + * * * + +It was very early in the morning. + +There had been heavy rains at night, and there was, when the sun rose, +everywhere, that white fog of the Valdarno country which is like a +silvery cloud hanging over all the earth. It spreads everywhere and +blends together land and sky; but it has breaks of exquisite +transparencies, through which the gold of the sunbeam shines, and the +rose of the dawn blushes, and the summits of the hills gleam here and +there, with a white monastery, or a mountain belfry, or a cluster of +cypresses seen through it, hung in the air as it were, and framed like +pictures in the silvery mist. + +It is no noxious steam rising from the rivers and the rains: no grey and +oppressive obliteration of the face of the world like the fogs of the +north; no weight on the lungs and blindness to the eyes; no burden of +leaden damp lying heavy on the soil and on the spirit; no wall built up +between the sun and men; but a fog that is as beautiful as the full +moonlight is--nay, more beautiful, for it has beams of warmth, glories +of colour, glimpses of landscape such as the moon would coldly kill; and +the bells ring, and the sheep bleat, and the birds sing underneath its +shadow; and the sun-rays come through it, darted like angels' spears: +and it has in it all the promise of the morning, and all the sounds of +the waking day. + + * * * + +A great darkness was over all his mind like the plague of that unending +night which brooded over Egypt. + +All the ferocity of his nature was scourged into its greatest strength; +he was sensible of nothing except the sense that he was beaten in the +one aim and purpose of his life. + +Only--if by any chance he could still save the boy. + +That one thought--companion with him, sleeping and waking, through so +many joyless nights--stayed with him still. + +It seemed to him that he would have strength to scale the very heights +of heaven, and shake the very throne of God until He heard--to save the +boy. + +The night was far gone; the red of the day-dawn began to glow, and the +stars paled. + +He did not know how time went; but he knew the look of the daybreak. +When the skies looked so through his grated windows at home, he rose and +said a prayer, and went down and unbarred his doors, and led out his +white beasts to the plough, or between the golden lines of the reaped +corn; all that was over now. + +The birds were waking on the old green hills and the crocus flowers +unclosing; but he---- + +"I shall never see it again," he thought, and his heart yearned to it, +and the great, hot, slow tears of a man's woe stole into his aching eyes +and burned them. But he had no pity on himself. + +He had freedom and health and strength and manhood, and he was still not +old, and still might win the favour of women, and see his children +laugh--if he went back to the old homestead, and the old safe ways of +his fathers. And the very smell of the earth there was sweet to him as a +virgin's breath, and the mere toil of the ground had been dear to him by +reason of the faithful love that he bore to his birthplace. But he had +no pity on himself. + +"My soul for his," he had said; and he cleaved to his word and kept it. + +In his day he had been savage to others. He was no less so to himself. + +He had done all that he knew how to do. He had crushed out the natural +evil of him and denied the desires of the flesh, and changed his very +nature to do good by Pippa's son: and it had all been of no use; it had +all been spent in vain, as drowning seamen's cries for help are spent on +angry winds and yawning waters. He had tried to follow God's will and to +drive the tempter from him, for the boy's sake; and it had all been of +no avail. Through the long score of years his vain sacrifices echoed +dully by him as a dropt stone through the dark shaft of a well. + +Perhaps it was not enough. + +Perhaps it was needful that he should redeem the boy's soul by the utter +surrender and eternal ruin of his own--perhaps. After all it was a poor +love which balanced cost; a meek, mean love which would not dare to take +guilt upon it for the thing it cherished. + +To him crime was crime in naked utter blackness; without aught of those +palliatives with which the cultured and philosophic temper can streak it +smooth and paint its soft excuse, and trace it back to influence or +insanity. To him sin was a mighty, hideous, hell-born thing, which being +embraced dragged him who kissed it on the mouth, downward and downward +into bottomless pits of endless night and ceaseless torment. To him the +depths of hell and heights of heaven were real as he had seen them in +the visions of Orgagna. + +Yet he was willing to say, "Evil, be thou my good!" if by such evil he +could break the bonds of passion from the life of Pippa's son. + +He had in him the mighty fanaticism which has made at once the tyrants +and the martyrs of the world. + +"Leave him to me," he had said, and then the strength and weakness, and +ruthless heat, and utter self-deliverance of his nature leaped to their +height, and nerved him with deadly passion. + +"There is but one way," he said to himself;--there was but one way to +cut the cords of this hideous, tangled knot of destiny and let free the +boy to the old ways of innocence. + +"He will curse me," he thought; "I shall die--never looking on his +face--never hearing his voice. But he will be freed--so. He will +suffer--for a day--a year. But he will be spared the truth. And he is so +young--he will be glad again before the summer comes." + +For a moment his courage failed him. + +He could face the thought of an eternity of pain, and not turn pale, nor +pause. But to die with the boy's curse on him--that was harder. + +"It is selfishness to pause," he told himself. "He will loathe me +always; but what matter?--he will be saved; he will be innocent once +more; he will hear his 'beautiful things' again; he will never know the +truth; he will be at peace with himself, and forget before the summer +comes. He never has loved me--not much. What does it matter?--so that he +is saved. When he sees his mother in heaven some day, then she will say +to him--'It was done for your sake.' And I shall know that he sees then, +as God sees. That will be enough." + + * * * + +The boy looked out through the iron bars of his open lattice into the +cold, still night, full of the smell of fallen leaves and fir cones. The +tears fell down his cheeks; his heart was oppressed with a vague +yearning, such as made Mozart weep, when he heard his own Lacrimosa +chanted. + +It is not fear of death, it is not desire of life. + +It is that unutterable want, that nameless longing, which stirs in the +soul that is a little purer than its fellow, and which, burdened with +that prophetic pain which men call genius, blindly feels its way after +some great light, that knows must be shining somewhere upon other +worlds, though all the earth is dark. + +When Mozart wept, it was for the world he could never reach--not for the +world he left. + + * * * + +He had been brought up upon this wooded spur, looking down on the Signa +country; all his loves and hatreds, joys and pains, had been known here; +from the time he had plucked the maple leaves in autumn for the cattle +with little brown five-year-old hands he had laboured here, never seeing +the sun set elsewhere except on that one night at the sea. He was close +rooted to the earth as the stonepines were and the oaks. It had always +seemed to him that a man should die where he took life first, amongst +his kindred and under the sods that his feet had run over in babyhood. +He had never thought much about it, but unconsciously the fibres of his +heart had twisted themselves round all the smallest and the biggest +things of his home as the tendrils of a strong ivy bush fasten round a +great tower and the little stones alike. + +The wooden settle where his mother had sat; the shrine in the house +wall; the copper vessels that had glowed in the wood-fuel light when a +large family had gathered there about the hearth; the stone well under +the walnut-tree where dead Dina had often stayed to smile on him; the +cypress-wood presses where Pippa had kept her feast-day finery and her +pearls; the old vast sweet-smelling sheds and stables where he had +threshed and hewn and yoked his oxen thirty years if one: all these +things, and a hundred like them, were dear to him with all the memories +of his entire life; and away from them he could know no peace. + +He was going away into a great darkness. He had nothing to guide him. +The iron of a wasted love, of a useless sacrifice, was in his heart. His +instinct drove him where there was peril for Pippa's son--that was all. + +If this woman took the lad away from him, where was there any mercy or +justice, earthly or divine? That was all he asked himself, blindly and +stupidly; as the oxen seem to ask it with their mild, sad eyes as they +strain under the yoke and goad, suffering and not knowing why they +suffer. + +Nothing was clear to Bruno. + +Only life had taught him that Love is the brother of Death. + +One thing and another had come between him and the lad he cherished. The +dreams of the child, the desires of the youth, the powers of art, the +passion of genius, one by one had come in between him and loosened his +hold, and made him stand aloof as a stranger. But Love he had dreaded +most of all; Love which slays with one glance dreams and art and genius, +and lays them dead as rootless weeds that rot in burning suns. + +Now Love had come. + +He worked all day, holding the sickness of fear off him as best he +could, for he was a brave man;--only he had wrestled with fate so long, +and it seemed always to beat him, and almost he grew tired. + +He cut a week's fodder for the beasts, and left all things in their +places, and then, as the day darkened, prepared to go. + +Tinello and Pastore lowed at him, thrusting their broad white foreheads +and soft noses over their stable door. + +He turned and stroked them in farewell. + +"Poor beasts!" he muttered; "shall I never muzzle and yoke you ever +again?" + +His throat grew dry, his eyes grew dim. He was like a man who sails for +a voyage on unknown seas, and neither he nor any other can tell whether +he will ever return. + +He might come back in a day; he might come back never. + +Multitudes, well used to wander, would have laughed at him. But to him +it was as though he set forth on the journey which men call death. + +In the grey lowering evening he kissed the beasts on their white brows. +There was no one there to see his weakness, and year on year he had +decked them with their garlands of hedge flowers and led them up on +God's day to have their strength blessed by the priest--their strength +that laboured with his own from dawn to dark over the bare brown fields. + +Then he turned his back on his old home, and went down the green sides +of the hill, and lost sight of his birthplace as the night fell. + +All through the night he was borne away by the edge of the sea, along +the wild windy shores, through the stagnant marshes and the black pools +where the buffalo and the wild boar herded, past the deserted cities of +the coast, and beyond the forsaken harbours of Ćneas and of Nero. + +The west wind blew strong; the clouds were heavy; now and then the moon +shone on a sullen sea; now and then the darkness broke over rank maremma +vapours; at times he heard the distant bellowing of the herds, at times +he heard the moaning of the water; mighty cities, lost armies, +slaughtered hosts, foundered fleets, were underneath that soil and sea; +whole nations had their sepulchres on that low, wind-blown shore. But of +these he knew nothing. + +It only seemed to him, that day would never come. + +Once or twice he fell asleep for a few moments, and waking in that +confused noise of the stormy night and the wild water and the frightened +herds, thought that he was dead, and that this sound was the passing of +the feet of all the living multitude going for ever to and fro, +unthinking, over the depths of the dark earth where he lay. + + * * * + +To behold the dominion of evil; the victory of the liar; the empire of +that which is base; to be powerless to resist, impotent to strip it +bare; to watch it suck under a beloved life as the whirlpool the +gold-freighted vessel; to know that the soul for which we would give our +own to everlasting ruin is daily, hourly, momentarily subjugated, +emasculated, possessed, devoured by those alien powers of violence and +fraud which have fastened upon it as their prey; to stand by fettered +and mute, and cry out to heaven that in this conflict the angels +themselves should descend to wrestle for us, and yet know that all the +while the very stars in their courses shall sooner stand still than this +reign of sin be ended:--this is the greatest woe that the world holds. + +Beaten, we shake in vain the adamant gates of a brazen iniquity; we may +bruise our breasts there till we die; there is no entrance possible. For +that which is vile is stronger than all love, all faith, all pure +desire, all passionate pain; that which is vile has all the forces that +men have called the powers of hell. + + * * * + +To him the world was like the dark fathomless waste of waters shelving +away to nameless shapeless perils such as the old Greek mariners drew +upon their charts as compassing the shores they knew. + +He had no light of knowledge by which to pursue in hope or fancy the +younger life that would be launched into the untried realms. To him such +separation was as death. + +He could not write; he could not even read what was written. He could +only trust to others that all was well with the boy. + +He could have none of that mental solace which supports the scholar; +none of that sense of natural loveliness which consoles the poet; his +mind could not travel beyond the narrow circlet of its own pain; his +eyes could not see beauty everywhere from the green fly at his foot to +the sapphire mountains above his head; he only noticed the sunset to +tell the weather; he only looked across the plain to see if the +rain-fall would cross the river. When the autumn crocus sank under his +share, to him it was only a weed best withered; in hell he believed, and +for heaven he hoped, but only dully, as things certain that the priests +knew; but all consolations of the mind or the fancy were denied to him. +Superstitions, indeed, he had, but these were all;--sad-coloured fungi +in the stead of flowers. + +The Italian has not strong imagination. + +His grace is an instinct; his love is a frenzy; his gaiety is rather joy +than jest; his melancholy is from temperament, not meditation; nature is +little to him; and his religion and his passions alike must have +physical indulgence and perpetual nearness, or they are nothing. + +He lived in almost absolute solitude. Sometimes it grew dreary, and the +weeks seemed long. + +Two years went by--slowly. + +Signa did not come home. The travel to and fro took too much money, and +he was engrossed in his studies, and it was best so; so Luigi Dini said, +and Bruno let it be. The boy did not ask to return. His letters were +very brief and not very coherent, and he forget to send messages to old +Teresina or to Palma. But there was no fear for him. + +The sacristan's friends under whose roof he was wrote once in a quarter, +and spoke well of him always, and said that the professors did the same, +and that a gentler lad or one more wedded to his work they never knew. +And so Bruno kept his soul in patience, and said, "Do not trouble him; +when he wishes he will come--or if he want anything. Let him be." + +To those who have traversed far seas and many lands, and who can bridge +untravelled countries by the aid of experience and of understanding, +such partings have pain, but a pain lessened by the certain knowledge of +their span and purpose. By the light of remembrance or of imagination +they can follow that which leaves them. + +But Bruno had no such solace. + +To him all that was indefinite was evil; all that was unfamiliar was +horrible. It is the error of ignorance at all times. + + * * * + +He played for himself, for the air, for the clouds, for the trees, for +the sheep, for the kids, for the waters, for the stones; played as Pan +did, and Orpheus and Apollo. + +His music came from heaven and went back to it. What did it matter who +heard it on earth? + +A lily would listen to him as never a man could do; and a daffodil would +dance with delight as never woman could;--or he thought so at least, +which was the same thing. And he could keep the sheep all round him, +charmed and still, high above on the hillside, with the sad pines +sighing. + +What did he want with people to hear? He would play for them; but he did +not care. If they felt it wrongly, or felt it not at all, he would stop, +and run away. + +"If they are deaf I will be dumb," he said. "The dogs and the sheep and +the birds are never deaf--nor the hills--nor the flowers. It is only +people that are deaf. I suppose they are always hearing their own steps +and voices and wheels and windlasses and the cries of the children and +the hiss of the frying-pans. I suppose that is why. Well, let them be +deaf. Rusignuola and I do not want them." + +So he said to Palma under the south wall, watching a butterfly, that +folded was like an illuminated shield of black and gold, and with its +wings spread was like a scarlet pomegranate blossom flying. Palma had +asked him why he had run away from the bridal supper of Griffeo, the +coppersmith's son,--just in the midst of his music; run away home, he +and his violin. + +"They were not deaf," resumed Palma. "But your music was so sad--and +they were merry." + +"I played what came to me," said Signa. + +"But you are merry sometimes." + +"Not in a little room with oilwicks burning, and a stench of wine, and +people round me. People always make me sad." + +"Why that?" + +"Because--I do not know:--when a number of faces are round me I seem +stupid; it is as if I were in a cage; I feel as if God went away, +farther, farther, farther!" + +"But God made men and women." + +"Yes. But I wonder if the trapped birds, and the beaten dogs, and the +smarting mules, and the bleeding sheep think so." + +"Oh, Signa!" + +"I think they must doubt it," said Signa. + +"But the beasts are not Christians, the priests say so," said Palma, who +was a very true believer. + +"I know. But I think they are. For they forgive. We never do." + +"Some of us do." + +"Not as the beasts do. Agnoto's house-lamb, the other day, licked his +hand as he cut its throat. He told me so." + +"That was because it loved him," said Palma. + +"And how can it love if it have not a soul?" said Signa. + +Palma munched her crust. This sort of meditation, which Signa was very +prone to wander in, utterly confused her. + +She could talk at need, as others could, of the young cauliflowers, and +the spring lettuces, and the chances of the ripening corn, and the look +of the budding grapes, and the promise of the weather, and the +likelihood of drought, and the Parocco's last sermon, and the gossips' +last history of the neighbours, and the varying prices of fine and of +coarse plaiting; but anything else--Palma was more at ease with the +heavy pole pulling against her, and the heavy bucket coming up sullenly +from the water-hole. + +She felt, when he spoke in this way, much as Bruno did--only far more +intensely--as if Signa went away from her--right away into the sky +somewhere--as the swallows went when they spread their wings to the +east, or the blue wood-smoke when it vanished. + +"You love your music better than you do Bruno, or me, or anything, +Signa," she said, with a little sorrow that was very humble, and not in +the least reproachful. + +"Yes," said Signa, with the unconscious cruelty of one in whom Art is +born predominant. "Do you know, Palma," he said suddenly, after a +pause--"Do you know--I think I could make something beautiful, something +men would be glad of, if only I could be where they would care for it." + +"We do care," said the girl gently. + +"Oh, in a way. That is not what I mean," said the boy, with a little +impatience which daily grew on him more, for the associates of his life. +"You all care; you all sing; it is as the finches do in the fields, +without knowing at all what it is that you do. You are all like birds. +You pipe--pipe--pipe, as you eat, as you work, as you play. But what +music do we ever have in the churches? Who amongst you really likes all +that music when I play it off the old scores that Gigi says were written +by such great men, any better than you like the tinkling of the +mandolines when you dance in the threshing barns? I am sure you all like +the mandolines best. I know nothing here. I do not even know whether +what I do is worth much or nothing. I think if I could hear great music +once--if I could go to Florence----" + +"To Florence?" echoed Palma. + + * * * + +The contadino not seldom goes through all his life without seeing one +league beyond the fields of his labour, and the village that he is +registered at, married at, and buried at, and which is the very apex of +the earth to him. Women will spin and plait and hoe and glean within +half a dozen miles of some great city whose name is an art glory in the +mouths of scholars, and never will have seen it, never once perhaps, +from their birth down to their grave. A few miles of vine-bordered +roads, a breadth of corn-land, a rounded hill, a little red roof under a +mulberry tree, a church tower with a saint upon the roof, and a bell +that sounds over the walnut-trees--these are their world: they know and +want to know no other. + +A narrow life, no doubt, yet not without much to be said for it. Without +unrest, without curiosity, without envy; clinging like a plant to the +soil; and no more willing to wander than the vinestakes which they +thrust into the earth. + +To those who have put a girdle round the earth with their footsteps, the +whole world seems much smaller than does the hamlet or farm of his +affections to the peasant:--and how much poorer! The vague, dreamful +wonder of an untravelled distance--of an untracked horizon--has after +all more romance in it than lies in the whole globe run over in a year. + +Who can ever look at the old maps in Herodotus or Xenophon without a +wish that the charm of those unknown limits and those untraversed seas +was ours?--without an irresistible sense that to have sailed away, in +vaguest hazard, into the endless mystery of the utterly unknown, must +have had a sweetness and a greatness in it that is never to be extracted +from "the tour of the world in ninety days." + + * * * + +"She takes a whim for him; a fancy of a month; he thinks it heaven and +eternity. She has ruined him. His genius is burned up; his youth is +dead; he will do nothing more of any worth. Women like her are like the +Indian drugs, that sleep and kill. How is that any fault of mine? He +could see the thing she was. If he will fling his soul away upon a +creature lighter than thistle-down, viler than a rattlesnake's poison, +poorer and quicker to pass than the breath of a gnat--whose blame is +that except his own? There was a sculptor once, you know, that fell to +lascivious worship of the marble image he had made; well,--poets are not +even so far wise as that. They make an image out of the gossamer rainbow +stuff of their own dreams, and then curse heaven and earth because it +dissolves to empty air in their fond arms--whose blame is that? The +fools are made so----" + + * * * + +Not only the fly on the spoke takes praise to itself for the speed of +the wheel, but the stone that would fain have hindered it, says, when +the wheel unhindered has passed it, "Lo! see how much I helped!" + + * * * + +The woman makes or mars the man: the man the woman. Mythology had no +need of the Fates. + +There is only one; the winged blind god that came by night to Psyche. + + * * * + +All in a moment his art perished. + +When a human love wakes it crushes fame like a dead leaf, and all the +spirits and ministers of the mind shrink away before it, and can no more +allure, no more console, but, sighing, pass into silence and are dumb. + + * * * + +Life, without a central purpose around which it can revolve, is like a +star that has fallen out of its orbit. With a great affection or a great +aim gone, the practical life may go on loosely, indifferently, +mechanically, but it takes no grip on outer things, it has no vital +interest, it gravitates to nothing. + + * * * + +Men who dwell in solitude are superstitious. There is no "chance" for +them. + +The common things of earth and air to them grow portents: and it is +easier for them to believe that the universe revolves to serve the +earth, than to believe that men are to the universe as the gnats in the +sunbeam to the sun; they can sooner credit that the constellations are +charged with their destiny, than that they can suffer and die without +arousing a sigh for them anywhere in all creation. It is not vanity, as +the mocker too hastily thinks. It is the helpless, pathetic cry of the +mortal to the immortal nature from which he springs: + +"Leave me not alone: confound me not with the matter that perishes: I am +full of pain--have pity!" + +To be the mere sport of hazard as a dead moth is on the wind--the heart +of man refuses to believe it can be so with him. To be created only to +be abandoned--he will not think that the forces of existence are so +cruel and so unrelenting and so fruitless. In the world he may learn to +say that he thinks so, and is resigned to it; but in loneliness the +penumbra of his own existence lies on all creation, and the winds and +the stars and the daylight and night and the vast unknown mute forces of +life--all seem to him that they must of necessity be either his +ministers or his destroyers. + + * * * + +Of all the innocent things that die, the impossible dreams of the poet +are the things that die with most pain, and, perhaps, with most loss to +humanity. Those who are happy die before their dreams. This is what the +old Greek saying meant. + +The world had not yet driven the sweet, fair follies from Signa's head, +nor had it yet made him selfish. If he had lived in the age when +Timander could arrest by his melodies the tide of revolution, or when +the harp of the Persian could save Bagdad from the sword and flame of +Murad, all might have been well with him. But the time is gone by when +music or any other art was a king. All genius now is, at its best, but a +servitor--well or ill fed. + + * * * + +Silently he put his hand out and grasped Signa's, and led him into the +Spanish Chapel, and sank on his knees. + +The glory of the morning streamed in from the cloister; all the dead +gold and the faded hues were transfigured by it; the sunbeams shone on +the face of Laura, the deep sweet colours of Bronzino's Coena glowed +upward in the vault amidst the shadows; the company of the blessed, +whom the old painters had gathered there, cast off the faded robes that +the Ages had wrapped them in, and stood forth like the tender spirits +that they were, and seemed to say, "Nay, we, and they who made us, we +are not dead, but only waiting." + +It is all so simple and so foolish there; the war-horses of Taddeo that +bear their lords to eternity as to a joust of arms; the heretic dogs of +Memmi, with their tight wooden collars; the beauteous Fiammetta and her +lover, thronging amongst the saints; the little house, where the Holy +Ghost is sitting, with the purified saints listening at the door, with +strings tied to their heads to lift them into paradise; it is all so +quaint, so childlike, so pathetic, so grotesque,--like a set of wooden +figures from its Noah's Ark that a dying child has set out on its little +bed, and that are so stiff and ludicrous, and yet which no one well can +look at and be unmoved, by reason of the little cold hand that has found +beauty in them. + +As the dying child to the wooden figures, so the dead faith gives to the +old frescoes here something that lies too deep for tears; we smile, and +yet all the while we say;--if only we could believe like this; if only +for us the dead could be but sleeping! + + * * * + +It was past midnight, and the moon had vanished behind her mountain, +withdrawing her little delicate curled golden horn, as if to blow with +it the trumpet-call of morning. + + * * * + +Such pretty, neat, ready lying as this would stand him in better stead +than all the high spirit in the world; which, after all, only serves to +get a man into hot water in this life and eternal fire in the next. + + * * * + +In the country of Virgil, life remains pastoral still. The field +labourer of northern countries may be but a hapless hind, hedging and +ditching dolefully, or at best serving a steam-beast with oil and fire; +but in the land of the Georgics there is the poetry of agriculture +still. + +Materially it may be an evil and a loss--political economists will say +so; but spiritually it is a gain. A certain peace and light lie on the +people at their toil. The reaper with his hook, the plougher with his +oxen, the girl who gleans amongst the trailing vines, the child that +sees the flowers tossing with the corn, the men that sing to get a +blessing on the grapes--they have all a certain grace and dignity of the +old classic ways left with them. They till the earth still with the +simplicity of old, looking straight to the gods for recompense. Great +Apollo might still come down amidst them and play to them in their +threshing-barns, and guide his milk-white beasts over their +furrows,--and there would be nothing in the toil to shame or burden him. +It will not last. The famine of a world too full will lay it waste; but +it is here a little while longer still. + + * * * + +For Discontent already creeps into each of these happy households, and +under her fox-skin hood says, "Let me in--I am Progress." + + * * * + +In most men and women, Love waking wakes, with itself, the soul. + +In poets Love waking kills it. + + * * * + +When God gives genius, I think He makes the brain of some strange, +glorious stuff, that takes all strength out of the character, and all +sight out of the eyes. Those artists--they are like the birds we blind: +they sing, and make people weep for very joy to hear them; but they +cannot see their way to peck the worms, and are for ever wounding their +breasts against the wires. No doubt it is a great thing to have genius; +but it is a sort of sickness after all; and when love comes-- + + * * * + +Lippo knew that wise men do not do harm to whatever they may hate. + +They drive it on to slay itself. + +So without blood-guiltiness they get their end, yet stainless go to God. + + * * * + +He was a little shell off the seashore that Hermes had taken out of +millions like it that the waves washed up, and had breathed into, and +had strung with fine chords, and had made into a syrinx sweet for every +human ear. + +Why not break the simple shell for sport? She did not care for music. +Did the gods care--they could make another. + + * * * + +Start a lie and a truth together, like hare and hound; the lie will run +fast and smooth, and no man will ever turn it aside; but at the truth +most hands will fling a stone, and so hinder it for sport's sake, if +they can. + + * * * + +He heard the notes of a violin, quite faint and distant, but sweet as +the piping of a blackbird amongst the white anemones of earliest +spring. + + * * * + +"Nature makes some folks false as it makes lizards wriggle," said he. +"Lippo is a lizard. No dog ever caught him napping, though he looks so +lazy in the sun." + + * * * + +He did not waver. He did not repine. He made no reproach, even in his +own thoughts. He had only lost all the hope out of his life and all the +pride of it. + +But men lose these and live on; women also. + +He had built up his little kingdom out of atoms, little by little; atoms +of time, of patience, of self-denial, of hoarded coins, of snatched +moments;--built it up little by little, at cost of bodily labour and of +bodily pain, as the pyramids were built brick by brick by the toil and +the torment of unnoticed lives. + +It was only a poor little nook of land, but it had been like an empire +won to him. + +With his foot on its soil he had felt rich. + +And now it was gone--gone like a handful of thistle-down lost on the +winds, like a spider's web broken in a shower of rain. Gone: never to be +his own again. Never. + +He sat and watched the brook run on, the pied birds come to drink, the +throstle stir on the olive, the cloud shadows steal over the brown, bare +fields. + +The red flush of sunrise faded. Smoke rose from the distant roofs. Men +came out on the lands to work. Bells rang. The day began. + +He got up slowly and went away; looking backwards, looking backwards, +always. + +Great leaders who behold their armed hosts melt like snow, and great +monarchs who are driven out discrowned from the palaces of their +fathers, are statelier figures and have more tragic grace than he +had;--only a peasant leaving a shred of land, no bigger than a rich +man's dwelling-house will cover;--but vanquished leader or exiled +monarch never was more desolate than Bruno, when the full sun rose and +he looked his last look upon the three poor fields, where for ever the +hands of other men would labour, and for ever the feet of other men +would wander. + + * * * + +He only heard the toads cry to one another, feeling rain coming, "Crake! +crake! crake! We love a wet world as men an evil way. The skies are +going to weep; let us be merry. Crock! crock! crock!" + +And they waddled out--slow, quaint, black things, with arms akimbo, and +stared at him with their shrewd, hard eyes. They would lie snug a +thousand years with a stone and be quite happy. + +Why were not men like that? + +Toads are kindly in their way, and will get friendly. Only men seem to +them such fools. + +The toad is a fakeer, and thinks the beatitude of life lies in +contemplation. Men fret and fuss and fume, and are for ever in haste; +the toad eyes them with contempt. + + * * * + +I would die this hour, oh, so gladly, if I could be quite sure that my +music would be loved, and be remembered. I do not know: there can be +nothing like it, I think:--a thing you create, that is all your own, +that is the very breath of your mouth, and the very voice of your soul; +which is all that is best in you, the very gift of God; and then to know +that all this may be lost eternally, killed, stifled, buried, just for +want of men's faith and a little gold! I do not think there can be any +loss like it, nor any suffering like it, anywhere else in the world. Oh, +if only it would do any good, I would fling my body into the grave +to-morrow, happy, quite happy; if only afterwards, they would sing my +songs, all over the earth, and just say, "God spoke to him; and he has +told men what He said." + + * * * + +No one can make much music with the mandoline, but there is no other +music, perhaps, which sounds so fittingly to time and place, as do its +simple sonorous tender chords when heard through the thickets of +rose-laurel or the festoons of the vines, vibrating on the stillness of +the night under the Tuscan moon. It would suit the serenade of Romeo; +Desdemona should sing the willow song to it, and not to the harp; Paolo +pleaded by it, be sure, many a time to Francesca; and Stradella sang to +it the passion whose end was death; it is of all music the most Italian, +and it fills the pauses of the love-songs softly, like a sigh or like a +kiss. + +Its very charm is, that it says so little. Love wants so little said. + +And the mandoline, though so mournful and full of languor as Love is, +yet can be gay with that caressing joy born of beautiful nothings, which +makes the laughter of lovers the lightest-hearted laughter that ever +gives silver wings to time. + + * * * + +It was a quaint, vivid, pretty procession, full of grace and of +movement--classic and homely, pagan and medićval, both at once--bright +in hue, rustic in garb, poetic in feeling. + +Teniers might have painted the brown girls and boys leaping and singing +on the turf, with their brandishing boughs, their flaring torches, their +bare feet, their tossing arms; but Leonardo or Guercino would have been +wanted for the face of the young singer whom they carried, with the +crown of the leaves and of the roses on his drooped head, like the +lotus flowers on the young Antinous. + +Piero di Cosimo, perhaps, in one of his greatest moments of brilliant +caprice, might best have painted the whole, with the background of the +dusky hillside; and he would have set it round with strange arabesques +in gold, and illumined amongst them in emblem the pipe of the shepherd, +and the harp of the muse, and the river-rush that the gods would cut +down and fill with their breath and the music of heaven. + +Bruno stood by, and let the innocent pageant pass, with its gold of +autumn foliage and its purples of crocus-like colchicum. + +He heard their voices crying in the court: "We have got him--we have +brought him. Our Signa, who is going to be great!" + + * * * + +All life had been to him as the divining-rod of Aaron, blooming ever +afresh with magic flowers. Now that the flame of pain and passion burned +it up, and left a bare sear brittle bough, he could not understand. + +Love is cruel as the grave. + +The poet has embraced the universe in his visions, and heard harmony in +every sound, from deep calling through the darkest storm to deep, as +from the lightest leaf-dancing in the summer wind; he has found joy in +the simplest things, in the nest of a bird, in the wayside grass, in the +yellow sand, in the rods of the willow; the lowliest creeping life has +held its homily and solace, and in the hush of night he has lifted his +face to the stars, and thought that he communed with their Creator and +his own. Then--all in a moment--Love claims him, and there is no melody +anywhere save in one single human voice, there is no heaven for him save +on one human breast; when one face is turned from him there is darkness +on all the earth; when one life is lost--let the stars reel from their +courses and the world whirl and burn and perish like the moon; nothing +matters; when Love is dead there is no God. + + * * * + +Bruno lay down that night, but for an hour only. He could not sleep. + +He rose before the sun was up, in the grey wintry break of day, while +the fog from the river rose like a white wall built up across the plain. + +It is the season when the peasant has the least to do. Ploughing, and +sowing, and oil-pressing, all are past; there is little labour for man +or beast; there is only garden work for the vegetable market, and the +care of the sheep and cattle, where there are any. In large households, +where many brothers and sisters get round the oil lamp and munch roast +chestnuts and thrum a guitar, or tell ghost stories, these short empty +days are very well; sometimes there is a stranger lost coming over the +pinewoods, sometimes there is a snow-storm, and the sheep want seeing +to; sometimes there is the old roistering way of keeping Twelfth-night, +even on these lonely wind-torn heights; where the house is full and +merry, the short winter passes not so very dully; but in the solitary +places, where men brood alone, as Bruno did, they are heavy enough; all +the rest of the world might be dead and buried, the stillness is so +unbroken, the loneliness so great. + +He got up and saw after his few sheep above amongst the pines; one or +two of them were near lambing; then he laboured on his garden mould +amongst the potato plants and cauliflowers, the raw mist in his lungs +and the sea-wind blowing. It had become very mild; the red rose on his +house-wall was in bud, and the violets were beginning to push from +underneath the moss; but the mornings were always very cold and damp. + +An old man came across from Carmignano to beg a pumpkin-gourd or two; he +got a scanty living by rubbing them up and selling them to the fishermen +down on the Arno. Bruno gave them. He had known the old creature all his +life. + +"You are dull here," said the old man, timidly; because every one was +more or less afraid of Bruno. + +Bruno shrugged his shoulders and took up his spade again. + +"Your boy does grand things, they say," said the old man; "but it would +be cheerfuller for you if he had taken to the soil." + +Bruno went on digging. + +"It is like a man I know," said the pumpkin-seller, thinking the sound +of his own voice must be a charity. "A man that helped to cast +church-bells. He cast bells all his life; he never did anything else at +all. 'It is brave work,' said he to me once, 'sweating in the furnace +there and making the metal into tuneful things to chime the praise of +all the saints and angels; but when you sweat and sweat and sweat, and +every bell you make just goes away and is swung up where you never see +or hear it ever again--that seems sad; my bells are all ringing in the +clouds, saving the people's souls, greeting Our Lady; but they are all +gone ever so far away from me. I only hear them ringing in my dreams.' +Now, I think the boy is like the bells--to you." + +Bruno dug in the earth. + +"The man was a fool," said he. "Who cared for his sweat or sorrow? It +was his work to melt the metal. That was all." + +"Ay," said the pumpkin-seller, and shouldered the big, yellow, wrinkled +things that he had begged; "but never to hear the bells--that is sad +work." + +Bruno smiled grimly. + +"Sad! He could hear some of them as other people did, no doubt, ringing +far away against the skies while he was in the mud. That was all he +wanted; if he were wise, he did not even want so much as that. +Good-day." + +It was against his wont to speak so many words on any other thing than +the cattle or the olive harvest or the prices of seeds and grain in the +market in the town. He set his heel upon his spade and pitched the +earth-begrimed potatoes in the skip he filled. + +The old man nodded and went--to wend his way to Carmignano. + +Suddenly he turned back: he was a tender-hearted, fanciful soul, and had +had a long, lonely life himself. + +"I tell you what," he said, a little timidly; "perhaps the bells, +praising God always, ringing the sun in and out, and honouring Our Lady; +perhaps they went for something in the lives of the men that made them? +I think they must. It would be hard if the bells got everything, the +makers nothing." + +Over Bruno's face a slight change went. His imperious eyes softened. He +knew the old man spoke in kindness. + +"Take these home with you. Nay; no thanks," he said, and lifted on the +other's back the kreel full of potatoes dug for the market. + +The old man blessed him, overjoyed; he was sickly and very poor; and +hobbled on his way along the side of the mountains. + +Bruno went to other work. + +If the bells ring true and clear, and always to the honour of the +saints, a man may be content to have sweated for it in the furnace and +to be forgot; but--if it be cracked in a fire and the pure ore of it +melt away shapeless? + + * * * + +"Toccň" was sounding from all the city clocks. He met another man he +knew, a farmer from Montelupo. + +"Brave doings!" said the Montelupo man. "A gala night to-night for the +foreign prince, and your boy summoned, so they say. No doubt you are +come in to see it all?" + +Bruno shook himself free quickly, and went on; for a moment it occurred +to him that it might be best to wait and see Signa in the town; but then +he could not do that well. Nothing was done at home, and the lambs could +not be left alone to the shepherd lad's inexperience; only a day old, +one or two of them, and the ground so wet, and the ewes weakly. To leave +his farm would have seemed to Bruno as to leave his sinking ship does to +a sailor. Besides, he had nothing to do with all the grandeur; the king +did not want _him_. + +All this stir and tumult and wonder and homage in the city was for +Signa; princes seemed almost like his servants, the king like his +henchman! Bruno was proud, under his stern, calm, lofty bearing, which +would not change, and would not let him smile, or seem so womanish-weak +as to be glad for all the gossiping. + +The boy wanted no king or prince. + +He said so to them with erect disdain. + +Yet he was proud. + +"After all, one does hear the bells ringing," he thought; his mind +drifting away to the old Carmignano beggar's words. He was proud, and +glad. + +He stopped his mule by Strozzi palace, and pushed his way into the +almost empty market to the place called the Spit or Fila, where all day +long and every day before the roaring fires the public cooks roast flesh +and fowl to fill the public paunch of Florence. + +Here there was a large crowd, pushing to buy the frothing, savoury hot +meats. He thrust the others aside, and bought half a kid smoking, and a +fine capon, and thrust them in his cart. Then he went to a shop near, +and bought some delicate white bread, and some foreign chocolate, and +some snowy sugar. + +"No doubt," he thought, "the boy had learned to like daintier fare than +theirs in his new life;" theirs, which was black crusts and oil and +garlic all the year round, with meat and beans, perhaps, on feast +nights, now and then, by way of a change. Then as he was going to get +into his seat he saw among the other plants and flowers standing for +sale upon the ledge outside the palace a damask rose-tree--a little +thing, but covered with buds and blossoms blushing crimson against the +stately old iron torch-rings of the smith Caprera. Bruno looked at +it--he who never thought of flowers from one year's end on to another, +and cut them down with his scythe for his oxen to munch as he cut grass. +Then he bought it. + +The boy liked all beautiful innocent things, and had been always so +foolish about the lowliest herb. It would make the dark old house upon +the hill look bright to him. Ashamed of the weaknesses that he yielded +to, Bruno sent the mule on at its fastest pace; the little red rose-tree +nodding in the cart. + +He had spent more in a day than he was accustomed to spend in three +months' time. + +But then the house looked so cheerless. + +As swiftly as he could make the mule fly, he drove home across the +plain. + +The boy was there, no doubt; and would be cold and hungry, and alone. + +Bruno did not pause a moment on his way, though more than one called to +him as he drove, to know if it were true indeed that this night there +was to be a gala for the Lamia and the princes. + +He nodded, and flew through the chill grey afternoon, splashing the deep +mud on either side of him. + +The figure of St. Giusto on his high tower; the leafless vines and the +leafless poplars; the farriers' and coopers' workshops on the road; grim +Castel Pucci, that once flung its glove at Florence; the green low dark +hills of Castagnolo; villa and monastery, watch-tower and bastion, +homestead and convent, all flew by him, fleeting and unseen; all he +thought of was that the boy would be waiting, and want food. + +He was reckless and furious in his driving always, but his mule had +never been beaten and breathless as it was that day when he tore up the +ascent to his own farm as the clocks in the plain tolled four. + +He was surprised to see his dog lie quiet on the steps. + +"Is he there?" he cried instinctively to the creature, which rose and +came to greet him. + +There was no sound anywhere. + +Bruno pushed his door open. + +The house was empty. + +He went out again and shouted to the air. + +The echo from the mountain above was all his answer. When that died away +the old silence of the hills was unbroken. + +He returned and took the food and the little rose-tree out of his cart. + +He had bought them with eagerness, and with that tenderness which was in +him, and for which dead Dina had loved him to her hurt. He had now no +pleasure in them. A bitter disappointment flung its chill upon him. + +Disappointment is man's most frequent visitor--the uninvited guest most +sure to come; he ought to be well used to it; yet he can never get +familiar. + +Bruno ought to have learned never to hope. + +But his temper was courageous and sanguine: such madmen hope on to the +very end. + +He put the things down on the settle, and went to put up the mule. The +little rose-tree had been too roughly blown in the windy afternoon; its +flowers were falling, and some soon strewed the floor. + +Bruno looked at it when he entered. + +It hurt him; as the star Argol had done. + +He covered the food with a cloth, and set the flower out of the draught. +Then he went to see his sheep. + +There was no train by the seaway from Rome until night. Signa would not +come that way now, since he had to be in the town for the evening. + +"He will come after the theatre," Bruno said to himself, and tried to +get the hours away by work. He did not think of going into the city +again himself. He was too proud to go and see a thing he had never been +summoned to; too proud to stand outside the doors and stare with the +crowd while Pippa's son was honoured within. + +Besides, he could not have left the lambs all a long winter's night; and +the house all unguarded; and nobody there to give counsel to the poor +mute simpleton whom he had now to tend his beasts. + +"He will come after the theatre," he said. + +The evening seemed very long. + +The late night came. Bruno set his door open, cold though it was; so +that he should catch the earliest sound of footsteps. The boy, no doubt, +he thought, would drive to the foot of the hill, and walk the rest. + +It was a clear night after the rain of many days. + +He could see the lights of the city in the plain fourteen miles or so +away. + +What was doing down there? + +It seemed strange;--Signa being welcomed there, and he himself knowing +nothing--only hearing a stray word or two by chance. + +Once or twice in his younger days he had seen the city in gala over some +great artist it delighted to honour; he could imagine the scene and +fashion of it all well enough; he did not want to be noticed in it, only +he would have liked to have been told, and to have gone down and seen +it, quietly wrapped in his cloak, amongst the throng. + +That was how he would have gone, had he been told. + +He set the supper out as well as he could, and put wine ready, and the +rose-tree in the midst. In the lamplight the little feast did not look +so badly. + +He wove wicker-work round some uncovered flasks by way of doing +something. The bitter wind blew in; he did not mind that; his ear was +strained to listen. Midnight passed. The wind had blown his lamp out. He +lighted two great lanthorns, and hung them up against the doorposts; it +was so dark upon the hills. + +One hour went; another; then another. There was no sound. When yet +another passed, and it was four of the clock, he said: + +"He will not come to-night. No doubt they kept him late, and he was too +tired. He will be here by sunrise." + +He threw himself on his bed for a little time, and closed the door. But +he left the lanthorns hanging outside; on the chance. + +He slept little; he was up while it was still dark, and the robins were +beginning their first twittering notes. + +"He will be here to breakfast," he said to himself, and he left the +table untouched, only opening the shutters so that when day came it +should touch the rose at once and wake it up; it looked so drooping, as +though it felt the cold. + +Then he went and saw to his beasts and to his work. + +The sun leapt up in the cold, broad, white skies. Signa did not come +with it. + +The light brightened. The day grew. Noon brought its hour of rest. + +The table still stood unused. The rose-leaves had fallen in a little +crimson pool upon it. Bruno sat down on the bench by the door, not +having broken his fast. + +"They are keeping him in the town," he thought. "He will come later." + +He sat still a few moments, but he did not eat. + +In a little while he heard a step on the dead winter leaves and tufts of +rosemary. He sprang erect; his eyes brightened; his face changed. He +went forward eagerly: + +"Signa!--my dear!--at last!" + +He only saw under the leafless maples and brown vine tendrils a young +man that he had never seen, who stopped before him breathing quickly +from the steepness of the ascent. + +"I was to bring this to you," he said, holding out a long gun in its +case. "And to tell you that he, the youth they all talk of--Signa--went +back to Rome this morning; had no time to come, but sends you this, with +his dear love and greeting, and will write from Rome to-night. Ah, Lord! +There was such fuss with him in the city. He was taken to the foreign +princes, and then the people!--if you had heard them!--all the street +rang with the cheering. This morning he could hardly get away for all +the crowd there was. I am only a messenger. I should be glad of wine. +Your hill is steep." + +Bruno took the gun from him, and put out a flask of his own wine on the +threshold; then shut close the door. + +It was such a weapon as he had coveted all his life long, seeing such in +gunsmiths' windows and the halls of noblemen: a breech-loader, of +foreign make, beautifully mounted and inlaid with silver. + +He sat still a little while, the gun lying on his knees; there was a +great darkness on his face. Then he gripped it in both hands, the butt +in one, the barrel in the other, and dashed the centre of it down across +the round of his great grindstone. + +The blow was so violent, the wood of the weapon snapped with it across +the middle, the shining metal loosened from its hold. He struck it +again, and again, and again; until all the polished walnut was flying in +splinters, and the plates of silver, bent and twisted, falling at his +feet; the finely tempered steel of the long barrel alone was whole. + +He went into his woodshed, and brought out branches of acacia brambles, +and dry boughs of pine, and logs of oak; dragging them forth with fury. +He piled them in the empty yawning space of the black hearth, and built +them one on another in a pile; and struck a match and fired them, +tossing pine-cones in to catch the flames. + +In a few minutes a great fire roared alight, the turpentine in the +pine-apples and fir-boughs blazing like pitch. Then he fetched the +barrel of the gun, and the oaken stock, and the silver plates and +mountings, and threw them into the heat. + +The flaming wood swallowed them up; he stood and watched it. + +After a while a knock came at his house-door. + +"Who is there?" he called. + +"It is I," said a peasant's voice. "There is so much smoke, I thought +you were on fire. I was on the lower hill, so I ran up--is all right +with you?" + +"All is right with me." + +"But what is the smoke?" + +"I bake my bread." + +"It will be burnt to cinders." + +"I make it, and I eat it. Whose matter is it?" + +The peasant went away muttering, with slow unwilling feet. + +Bruno watched the fire. + +After a brief time its frenzy spent itself; the flames died down; the +reddened wood grew pale, and began to change to ash; the oaken stock was +all consumed, the silver was melted and fused into shapeless lumps, the +steel tube alone kept shape unchanged, but it was blackened and choked +up with ashes, and without beauty or use. + +Bruno watched the fire die down into a great mound of dull grey and +brown charred wood. + +Then he went out, and drew the door behind him, and locked it. + +The last red rose dropped, withered by the heat. + + * * * + +There is always song somewhere. As the wine waggon creaks down the hill, +the waggoner will chant to the corn that grows upon either side of him. +As the miller's mules cross the bridge, the lad as he cracks his whip +will hum to the blowing alders. In the red clover, the labourers will +whet their scythes to a trick of melody. In the quiet evenings a Kyrie +Eleison will rise from the thick leaves that hide a village chapel. On +the hills the goatherd, high in air amongst the arbutus branches, will +scatter on the lonely mountain-side stanzas of purest rhythm. By the +sea-shore, where Shelley died, the fisherman, rough and salt and +weather-worn, will string notes of sweetest measure under the +tamarisk-tree on his mandoline. But the poetry and the music float on +the air like the leaves of roses that blossom in a solitude, and drift +away to die upon the breeze; there is no one to notice the fragrance, +there is no one to gather the leaves. + + * * * + +But then life does not count by years. Some suffer a lifetime in a day, +and so grow old between the rising and the setting of a sun. + + * * * + +But he was not obstinate. He only stretched towards the light he saw, as +the plant in the cellar will stretch through the bars. + +Tens of millions of little peasants come to the birth, and grow up and +become men, and do the daily bidding of the world, and work and die, and +have no more of soul or Godhead in them than the grains of sand. But +here and there, with no lot different from his fellows, one is born to +dream and muse and struggle to the sun of higher desires, and the world +calls such a one Burns, or Haydn, or Giotto, or Shakespeare, or whatever +name the fierce light of fame may burn upon and make irridescent. + + * * * + +The mighty lives have passed away into silence, leaving no likeness to +them on earth; but if you would still hold communion with them, even +better than to go to written score or printed book or painted panel or +chiselled marble or cloistered gloom is it to stray into one of these +old quiet gardens, where for hundreds of years the stone naiad has +leaned over the fountain, and the golden lizard hidden under the fallen +caryatide, and sit quite still, and let the stones tell you what they +remember, and the leaves say what the sun once saw; and then the shades +of the great dead will come to you. Only you must love them truly, else +you will see them never. + + * * * + +"How he loves that thing already--as he never will love me," thought +Bruno, looking down at him in the starlight, with that dull sense of +hopeless rivalry and alien inferiority which the self-absorption of +genius inflicts innocently and unconsciously on the human affections +that cling to it, and which later on love avenges upon it in the same +manner. + + * * * + +Who can look at the old maps in Herodotus or Xenophon, without a wish +that the charm of those unknown limits and those untraversed seas was +ours?--without an irresistible sense that to have sailed away, in +vaguest hazard, into the endless mystery of the utterly unknown, must +have had a sweetness and a greatness in it that is never to be extracted +from the "tour of the world in ninety days." + + * * * + +Fair faiths are the blossoms of life. When the faith drops, spring is +over. + + * * * + +In the country of Virgil, life remains pastoral still. The +field-labourer of northern counties may be but a hapless hind, hedging +and ditching dolefully, or at least serving a steam-beast with oil and +fire, but in the land of the Georgics there is the poetry of agriculture +still. + + * * * + +The fatal desire of fame, which is to art the corroding element, as the +desire of the senses is to love--bearing with it the seeds of satiety +and mortality--had entered into him without his knowing what it was that +ailed him. + + * * * + +Genius lives in isolation, and suffers from it. But perhaps it creates +it. The breath of its lips is like ether; purer than the air around it, +it changes the air for others into ice. + + * * * + +Conscience and genius--the instinct of the heart, and the desire of the +mind--the voice that warns and the voice that ordains: when these are in +conflict, it is bitter for life in which they are at war; most bitter of +all when that life is in its opening youth, and sure of everything, and +yet sure of nothing. + + * * * + +Between them there was that bottomless chasm of mental difference, +across which mutual affection can throw a rope-chain of habit and +forbearance for the summer days, but which no power on earth can ever +bridge over with that iron of sympathy which stands throughout all +storms. + + * * * + +When the heart is fullest of pain, and the mouth purest with truth, +there is a cruel destiny in things, which often makes the words worst +chosen and surest to defeat the end they seek. + + * * * + +There is a chord in every human heart that has a sigh in it if touched +aright. When the artist finds the key-note which that chord will answer +to--in the dullest as in the highest--then he is great. + + * * * + +Life without a central purpose around which it can revolve, is like a +star that has fallen out of its orbit. With a great affection or a great +aim gone, the practical life may go on loosely, indifferently, +mechanically, but it takes no grip on outer things, it has no vital +interest, it gravitates to nothing. + + * * * + +Fame has only the span of a day, they say. But to live in the hearts of +the people--that is worth something. + + * * * + +Keep young. Keep innocent. Innocence does not come back: and repentance +is a poor thing beside it. + + * * * + +The chimes of the monastery were ringing out for the first mass; deep +bells of sweet tone, that came down the river like a benediction on the +day. Signa kneeled down on the grass. + +"Did you pray for the holy men?" Bruno asked him when they rose, and +they went on under the tall green quivering trees. + +"No," said Signa under his breath. "I prayed for the devil." + +"For him?" echoed Bruno aghast; "what are you about, child? Are you +possessed? Do you know what the good priests would say?" + +"I prayed for him," said Signa. "It is he who wants it. To be wicked +_there_ where God is, and the sun, and the bells"---- + +"But he is the foe of God. It is horrible to pray for him." + +"No," said Signa, sturdily. "God says we are to forgive our enemies, and +help them. I only asked Him to begin with His." + +Bruno was silent. + + + + +_TRICOTRIN._ + + +At every point where her eyes glanced there was a picture of exquisite +colour, and light, and variety. + +But the scene in its loveliness was so old to her, so familiar, that it +was scarcely lovely, only monotonous. With all a child's usual ignorant +impatience of the joys of the present--joys so little valued at the +time, so futilely regretted in the after-years--she was heedless of the +hour's pleasure, she was longing for what had not come. + + * * * + +On the whole, the Waif fared better, having fallen to the hands of a +vagabond philosopher, than if she had drifted to those of a respected +philanthropist. The latter would have had her glistening hair shorn +short, as a crown with which that immortal and inconsistent socialist +Nature had no justification in crowning a foundling, and, in his desire +to make her fully expiate the lawless crime of entering the world +without purse or passport, would have left her no choice, as she grew +into womanhood, save that between sinning and starving. The former bade +the long fair tresses float on the air, sunny rebels against bondage, +and saw no reason why the childhood of the castaway should not have its +share of childish joyousness as well as the childhood prince-begotten +and palace-cradled; holding that the fresh life just budded on earth +was as free from all soil, no matter whence it came, as is the brook of +pure rivulet water, no matter whether it spring from classic lake or +from darksome cavern. + + * * * + +The desire to be "great" possessed her. When that insatiate passion +enters a living soul, be it the soul of a woman-child dreaming of a +coquette's conquests, or a crowned hero craving for a new world, it +becomes blind to all else. Moral death falls on it; and any sin looks +sweet that takes it nearer to its goal. It is a passion that generates +at once all the loftiest and all the vilest things, which between them +ennoble and corrupt the world--even as heat generates at once the +harvest and the maggot, the purpling vine and the lice that devour it. +It is a passion without which the world would decay in darkness, as it +would do without heat, yet to which, as to heat, all its filthiest +corruption is due. + + * * * + +A woman's fair repute is like a blue harebell--a touch can wither it. + + * * * + +Viva had gained the "great world;" and because she had gained it all the +old things of her lost past grew unalterably sweet to her now that they +no longer could be called hers. The brown, kind, homely, tender face of +grand'mčre; the gambols of white and frolicsome Bébé; the woods where, +with every spring, she had filled her arms with sheaves of delicate +primroses; the quaint little room with its strings of melons and sweet +herbs, its glittering brass and pewter, its wood-fire with the soup-pot +simmering above the flame; the glad free days in the vineyard and on +the river, with the winds blowing fragrance from over the clover and +flax, and the acacias and lindens; nay, even the old, quiet, sleepy +hours within the convent-walls, lying on the lush unshaven grass, while +the drowsy bells rang to vespers or compline,--all became suddenly +precious and dear to her when once she knew that they had drifted away +from her for evermore. + + * * * + +Then he bent his head, letting her desire be his law; and that music, +which had given its hymn for the vintage-feast of the Loire, and which +had brought back the steps of the suicide from the river-brink in the +darkness of the Paris night, which sovereigns could not command and +which held peasants entranced by its spell, thrilled through the +stillness of the chamber. + +Human in its sadness, more than human in its eloquence, now melancholy +as the Miserere that sighs through the gloom of a cathedral at midnight, +now rich as the glory of the afterglow in Egypt, a poem beyond words, a +prayer grand as that which seems to breathe from the hush of mountain +solitudes when the eternal snows are lighted by the rising of the +sun--the melody of the violin filled the silence of the closing day. + +The melancholy, ever latent in the vivid natures of men of genius, is +betrayed and finds voice in their Art. Goethe laughs with the riotous +revellers, and rejoices with the summer of the vines, and loves the glad +abandonment of woman's soft embraces, and with his last words prays for +Light. But the profound sadness of the great and many-sided master-mind +thrills through and breaks out in the intense humanity, the passionate +despair of Faust; the melancholy and the yearning of the soul are there. + +With Tricotrin they were uttered in his music. + + * * * + +"Let me be but amused! Let me only laugh if I die!" cries the world in +every age. It has so much of grief and tragedy in its own realities, it +has so many bitter tears to shed in its solitude, it has such weariness +of labour without end, it has such infinitude of woe to regard in its +prisons, in its homes, in its battlefields, in its harlotries, in its +avarices, in its famines; it is so heart-sick of them all, that it would +fain be lulled to forgetfulness of its own terrors; it asks only to +laugh for awhile, even if it laugh but at shadows. + +"The world is vain, frivolous, reckless of that which is earnest; it is +a courtesan who thinks only of pleasure, of adornment, of gewgaws, of +the toys of the hour!" is the reproach which its satirists in every age +hoot at it. + +Alas! it is a courtesan who, having sold herself to evil, strives to +forget her vile bargain; who, having washed her cheeks white with +saltest tears, strives to believe that the paint calls the true colour +back; who, having been face to face for so long with blackest guilt, +keenest hunger, dreadest woe, strives to lose their ghosts, that +incessantly follow her, in the tumult of her own thoughtless laughter. + +"Let me be but amused!"--the cry is the aching cry of a world that is +overborne with pain, and with longing for the golden years of its youth; +that cry is never louder than when the world is most conscious of its +own infamy. + +In the Roman Empire, in the Byzantine Empire, in the Second Empire of +Napoleonic France, the world, reeking with corruption, staggering under +the burden of tyrannies, and delivered over to the dominion of lust, has +shrieked loudest in its blindness of suffering, "Let me only laugh if I +die!" + + * * * + +Not as others! Why, my Waif? Is your foot less swift, your limb less +strong, your face less fair than theirs? Does the sun shine less often, +have the flowers less fragrance, does sleep come less sweetly to you +than to them? Nature has been very good, very generous to you, Viva. Be +content with her gifts. What you lack is only a thing of man's +invention--a quibble, a bauble, a Pharisee's phylactery. Look at the +river-lilies that drift yonder--how white they are, how their leaves +enclose and caress them, how the water buoys them up and plays with +them! Well, are they not better off than the poor rare flowers that live +painfully in hothouse air, and are labelled, and matted, and given long +names by men's petty precise laws? You are like the river-lilies. O +child, do not pine for the glass house that would ennoble you, only to +force you and kill you? + + * * * + +Wrong to be proud, you ask? No. But then the pride must be of a right +fashion. It must be the pride which says, "Let me not envy, for that +were meanness. Let me not covet, for that were akin to theft. Let me not +repine, for that were weakness." It must be the pride which says, "I can +be sufficient for myself. My life makes my nobility; and I need no +accident of rank, because I have a stainless honour." It must be pride +too proud to let an aged woman work where youthful limbs can help her; +too proud to trample basely on what lies low already; too proud to be a +coward, and shrink from following conscience in the confession of known +error; too proud to despise the withered toil-worn hands of the poor and +old, and be vilely forgetful that those hands succoured you in your +utmost need of helpless infancy! + + * * * + +Philosophy, Viva, is the pomegranate of life, ever cool and most +fragrant, and the deeper you cut in it the richer only will the core +grow. Power is the Dead-Sea apple, golden and fair to sight while the +hand strives to reach it, dry grey ashes between dry fevered lips when +once it is grasped and eaten! + + * * * + +Pleasure is but labour to those who do not know also that labour in its +turn is pleasure. + + * * * + +Happy! As a mollusc is happy so long as the sea sweeps prey into its +jaws; what does the mollusc care how many lives have been shipwrecked so +long as the tide wafts it worms? She has killed her conscience, Viva; +there is no murder more awful. It is to slay what touch of God we have +in us! + + * * * + +Have I been cruel, my child? Your fever of discontent needed a sharp +cure. Life lies before you, Viva, and you alone can mould it for +yourself. Sin and anguish fill nine-tenths of the world: to one soul +that basks in light, a thousand perish in darkness; I dare not let you +go on longer in your dangerous belief that the world is one wide +paradise, and that the high-road of its joys is the path of reckless +selfishness. Can you not think that there are lots worse than that of a +guiltless child who is well loved and well guarded, and has all her +future still before her? + + * * * + +It rests with you to live your life nobly or vilely. We have not our +choice to be rich or poor, to be happy or unhappy, to be in health or in +sickness; but we have our choice to be worthy or worthless. No +antagonist can kill our soul in us; that can perish only from its own +suicide. Ever remember that. + + * * * + +But they are hollow inside, you still urge? fie, for shame! What a plea +that is! Have you the face to make it? If you have, let me bargain with +you. + +When all the love that is fair and false goes begging for believers, and +all the passion that is a sham fails to find one fool to buy it; when +all the priests and politicians clap in vain together the brazen cymbals +of their tongues, because their listeners will not hearken to brass +clangour, nor accept it for the music of the spheres; when all the +creeds, that feast and fatten upon the cowardice and selfishness of men, +are driven out of hearth and home, and mart and temple, as impostors +that put on the white beard of reverence and righteousness to pass +current a cheater's coin; when all the kings that promise peace while +they swell their armouries and armies; when all the statesmen that +chatter of the people's weal as they steal up to the locked casket where +coronets are kept; when all the men who talk of "glory," and prate of an +"idea" that they may stretch their nation's boundary, and filch their +neighbour's province--when all these are no longer in the land, and no +more looked on with favour, then I will believe your cry that you hate +the toys which are hollow. + + * * * + +Can an ignorant or an untrained brain follow the theory of light, or the +metamorphosis of plants? Yet it may rejoice in the rays of a summer sun, +in the scent of a nest of wild-flowers. So may it do in my music. Shall +I ask higher payment than the God of the sun and the violets asks for +Himself? + + * * * + +Once there were three handmaidens of Krishna's; invisible, of course, to +the world of men. They begged of Krishna, one day, to test their wisdom, +and Krishna gave them three drops of dew. It was in the season of +drought,--and he bade them go and bestow them where each deemed best in +the world. + +Now one flew earthward, and saw a king's fountain leaping and shining in +the sun; the people died of thirst, and the fields and the plains were +cracked with heat, but the king's fountain was still fed and played on. +So she thought, "Surely, my dew will best fall where such glorious water +dances?" and she shook the drop into the torrent. + +The second hovered over the sea, and saw the Indian oysters lying under +the waves, among the sea-weed and the coral. Then she thought, "A +rain-drop that falls in an oyster's shell becomes a pearl; it may bring +riches untold to man, and shine in the diadem of a monarch. Surely it is +best bestowed where it will change to a jewel?"--and she shook the dew +into the open mouth of a shell. + +The third had scarcely hovered a moment over the parched white lands, +ere she beheld a little, helpless brown bird dying of thirst upon the +sand, its bright eyes glazed, its life going out in torture. Then she +thought, "Surely my gift will be best given in succour to the first and +lowliest thing I see in pain?"--and she shook the dew-drop down into the +silent throat of the bird, that fluttered, and arose, and was +strengthened. + +Then Krishna said that she alone had bestowed her power wisely; and he +bade her take the tidings of rain to the aching earth, and the earth +rejoiced exceedingly. Genius is the morning dew that keeps the world +from perishing in drought. Can you read my parable? + + * * * + +To die when life can be lived no longer with honour is greatness indeed; +but to die because life galls and wearies and is hard to pursue--there +is no greatness in that? It is the suicide's plea for his own self-pity. +You live under tyranny, corruption, dynastic lies hard to bear, despotic +enemies hard to bear, I know. But you forget--what all followers of your +creed ever forget--that without corruption, untruth, weakness, ignorance +in a nation itself, such things could not be in its rulers. Men can +bridle the ass and can drive the sheep; but who can drive the eagle or +bridle the lion? A people that was strong and pure no despot could yoke +to his vices. + + * * * + +No matter! He must have _race_ in him. Heraldry may lie; but voices do +not. Low people make money, drive in state, throng to palaces, receive +kings at their tables by the force of gold; but their antecedents always +croak out in their voices. They either screech or purr; they have no +clear modulations; besides, their women always stumble over their train, +and their men bow worse than their servants. + + * * * + +Ere long he drew near a street which in the late night was still +partially filled with vehicles and with foot-passengers, hurrying +through the now fast-falling snow, and over the slippery icy pavements. +In one spot a crowd had gathered--of artisans, women, soldiers, and +idlers, under the light of a gas-lamp. In the midst of the throng some +gendarmes had seized a young girl, accused by one of the bystanders of +having stolen a broad silver piece from his pocket. + +She offered no resistance; she stood like a stricken thing, speechless +and motionless, as the men roughly laid hands on her. + +Tricotrin crossed over the road, and with difficulty made his way into +the throng of blouses and looked at her. Degraded she was, but scarcely +above a child's years; and her features had a look as if innocence were +in some sort still there, and sin still loathed in her soul. As he drew +near he heard her mutter, + +"Mother, mother! She will die of hunger!--it was for her, only for her!" + +He stooped in the snow, and letting fall, unperceived, a five-franc +piece, picked it up again. + +"Here is some silver," he said, turning to the infuriated owner, a +lemonade-seller, who could ill afford to lose it now that it was winter, +and people were too cold for lemonade, and who seized it with rapturous +delight. + +"That is it, monsieur, that is it. Holy Jesus! how can I thank you? Ah, +if I had convicted the poor creature--and all in error!--I should never +have forgiven myself! Messieurs les gendarmes, let her go! It was my +mistake. My silver piece was in the snow!" + +The gendarmes reluctantly let quit their prey: they muttered, they +hesitated, they gripped her arms tighter, and murmured of the +prison-cell. + +"Let her go," said Tricotrin quietly: and in a little while they did +so,--the girl stood bareheaded and motionless in the snow like a +frost-bound creature. + +Soon the crowd dispersed: nothing can be still long in Paris, and since +there had been no theft there was no interest! they were soon left +almost alone, none were within hearing. + +Then he stooped to her: she had never taken off him the wild, senseless, +incredulous gaze of her great eyes. + +"Were you guilty?" he asked her. + +She caught his hands, she tried to bless him and to thank him, and broke +down in hysterical sobs. + +"I took it--yes! What would you have? I took it for my mother. She is +old, and blind, and without food. It is for her that I came on the +streets; but she does not know it, it would kill her to know; she thinks +my money honest; and she is so proud and glad with it! That was the +first thing I _stole_! O God! are you an angel? If they had put me in +prison my mother would have starved!" + +He looked on her gently, and with a pity that fell upon her heart like +balm. + +"I saw it was your first theft. Hardened robbers do not wear your +stricken face," he said softly, as he slipped two coins into her hand. +"Ah, child! let your mother die rather than allow her to eat the bread +of your dishonour: which choice between the twain do you not think a +mother would make? And know your trade she must, soon or late. Sin no +more, were it only for that love you bear her." + + * * * + +Their lives had drifted asunder, as two boats drift north and south on a +river, the distance betwixt them growing longer and longer with each +beat of the oars and each sigh of the tide. And for the lives that part +thus, there is no reunion. One floats out to the open and sunlit sea; +and one passes away to the grave of the stream. Meet again on the river +they cannot. + + * * * + +"They shudder when they read of the Huns and the Ostrogoths pouring down +into Rome," he mused, as he passed toward the pandemonium. "They keep a +horde as savage, imprisoned in their midst, buried in the very core of +their capitals, side by side with their churches and palaces, and never +remember the earthquake that would whelm them if once the pent volcano +burst, if once the black mass covered below took flame and broke to the +surface! Statesmen multiply their prisons, and strengthen their laws +against the crime that is done--and they never take the canker out of +the bud, they never save the young child from pollution. Their political +economy never studies prevention; it never cleanses the sewers, it only +curses the fever-stricken!" + + * * * + +"What avail?" he thought. "What avail to strive to bring men nearer to +the right? They love their darkness best--why not leave them to it? Age +after age the few cast away their lives striving to raise and to ransom +the many. What use? Juvenal scourged Rome, and the same vices that his +stripes lashed then, laugh triumphant in Paris to-day! The satirist, and +the poet, and the prophet strain their voices in vain as the crowds rush +on; they are drowned in the chorus of mad sins and sweet falsehoods! O +God! the waste of hope, the waste of travail, the waste of pure desire, +the waste of high ambitions!--nothing endures but the wellspring of lies +that ever rises afresh, and the bay-tree of sin that is green, and +stately, and deathless!" + + * * * + +He himself went onward through the valley, through the deep belt of the +woods, through the avenues of the park. The whole front of the antique +building was lighted, and the painted oriels gleamed ruby, and amber, +and soft brown, in the dusky evening, through the green screen of +foliage. + +The fragrance of the orange alleys, and of the acres of flowers, was +heavy on the air; there was the sound of music borne down the low +southerly wind; here and there through the boughs was the dainty glisten +of gliding silks:--it was such a scene as once belonged to the terraces +and gardens of Versailles. + +From beyond the myrtle fence and gilded railings which severed the park +from the pleasaunce, enough could be seen, enough heard, of the +brilliant revelry within to tell of its extravagance, and its elegance, +in the radiance that streamed from all the illumined avenues. + +He stood and looked long; hearing the faint echo of the music, seeing +the effulgence of the light through the dark myrtle barrier. + +A very old crippled peasant, searching in the grass for truffles, with a +little dog, stole timidly up and looked too. + +"How can it feel, to live like _that?_" he asked, in a wistful, +tremulous voice. + +Tricotrin did not hear: his hand was grasped on one of the gilded rails +with a nervous force as from bodily pain. + +The old truffle-gatherer, with his little white dog panting at his feet, +crossed himself as he peered through the myrtle screen. + +"God!" he muttered; "how strange it seems that people are there who +never once knew what it was to want bread, and to find it nowhere, +though the lands all teemed with harvest! They never feel hungry, or +cold, or hot, or tired, or thirsty: they never feel their bones ache, +and their throat parch, and their entrails gnaw! These people ought not +to get to heaven--they have it on earth!" + +Tricotrin heard at last: he turned his head and looked down on the old +man's careworn, hollow face. + +"'Verily they have their reward,' you mean? Nay, that is a cruel +religion, which would excruciate hereafter those who enjoy now. Judge +them not; in their laurel crowns there is full often twisted a serpent. +The hunger of the body is bad indeed, but the hunger of the mind is +worse perhaps; and from that they suffer, because from every fulfilled +desire springs the pain of a fresh satiety." + +The truffle-hunter, wise in his peasant-fashion, gazed wistfully up at +the face above him, half comprehending the answer. + +"It may be so," he murmured; "but then--they _have_ enjoyed! Ah, Christ! +that is what I envy them. Now we--we die, starved amidst abundance; we +see the years go, and the sun never shines once in them; and all we have +is a hope--a hope that may be cheated at last; for none have come back +from the grave to tell us whether _that_ fools us as well." + + * * * + +"I incline to think you live twenty centuries too late, or--twenty +centuries too early." + +Viva turned on him a swift and eager glance. + +"Of course!" she said, with a certain emotion, whose meaning he could +not analyse. "Was there ever yet a man of genius who was not either the +relic of some great dead age, or the precursor of some noble future one, +in which he alone has faith?" + +"Chut!" said Tricotrin, rapidly; he could not trust himself to hear her +speak in his own defence. "Fine genius mine! To fiddle to a few +villagers, and dash colour on an alehouse shutter! I have the genius of +indolence, if you like. As to my belonging to a bygone age,--well! I am +not sure that I have not got the soul in me of some barefooted friar of +Moyen Age, who went about where he listed, praying here, laughing there, +painting a missal with a Pagan love-god, and saying a verse of Horace +instead of a chant of the Church. Or, maybe, I am more like some Greek +gossiper, who loitered away his days in the sun, and ate his dates in +the market-place, and listened here and there to a philosopher, +and--just by taking no thought--hit on a truer philosophy than ever +came out of Porch or Garden. Ah, my Lord of Estmere! you have two +hundred servants over there at Villiers, I have been told; do you not +think I am better served here by one little, brown-eyed, brown-cheeked +maiden, who sings her Béranger like a lark, while she brings me her dish +of wild strawberries? There is fame too for you--his--the King of the +Chansons! When a girl washes her linen in the brook--when a herdsman +drives his flock through the lanes--when a boy throws his line in a +fishing-stream--when a grisette sits and works at her attic +lattice--when a student dreams under the linden leaves--he is on their +lips, in their hearts, in their fancies and joys. What a power! What a +dominion! Wider than any that emperors boast!" + +"And," added Estmere, with a smile, "if you were not Tricotrin you would +be Béranger?" + + * * * + +"Aye! Hymns forbad at noonday are ever so sung at night; and oftentimes, +what at noon would have been a lark's chant of liberty, grows at night +to a vampire's screech for blood!" he murmured. "They are gay at your +château up yonder." + + * * * + +Be not a coward who leaves the near duty that is as cruel to grasp as a +nettle, and flies to gather the far-off duty that will flaunt in men's +sight like a sun-flower. + + * * * + +"A great Character!" says Society, when it means--"a great Scamp!" + + * * * + +Estmere laid the panel down as he heard. + +"Whoever painted it must have genius." + +"Genius!" interrupted Tricotrin. "Pooh! What is genius? Only the power +to see a little deeper and a little clearer than most other people. That +is all." + +"The power of vision? Of course. But that renders it none the less +rare." + +"Oh yes, it is rare--rare like kingfishers, and sandpipers, and herons, +and black eagles. And so men always shoot it down, as they do the birds, +and stick up the dead body in glass cases, and label it, and stare at +it, and bemoan it as 'so singular,' having done their best to insure its +extinction!" + +Estmere looked keenly at him. + +"Surely genius that secretes itself as your friend's must do," he said, +touching the panel afresh, "commits suicide, and desires its own +extinction." + +"Pshaw!" said Tricotrin, impatiently, and with none of his habitual +courtesy. "You think the kingfisher and the black eagle have no better +thing to live for than to become the decorations of a great personage's +glass cabinets. You think genius can find no higher end than to furnish +frescoes and panellings for a nobleman's halls and ante-chambers. You +mistake very much; the mistake is a general one in your order. But +believe me, the kingfisher enjoys his brown moorland stream, and his +tufts of green rushes, and his water-swept bough of hawthorn; the eagle +enjoys his wild rocks, and his sweep through the air, and his steady +gaze at the sun that blinds all human eyes;--and neither ever imagine +that the great men below pity them because they are not stuffed, and +labelled, and praised by rule in their palaces! And genius is much of +the birds' fashion of thinking. It lives its own life; and is not, as +your connoisseurs are given to fancy, wretched unless you see fit in +your graciousness to deem it worth the glass-case of your criticism, and +the straw-stuffing of your gold. For it knows, as kingfisher and eagle +knew also, that stuffed birds nevermore use their wings, and are +evermore subject to be bought and be sold." + + * * * + +Against the foreign foes of your country die in your youth if she need +it. But against her internecine enemies live out your life in continual +warfare. When I tell you this, do you dream that I spare you? +Children!--you have yet to learn what life is! Who could think it hard +to die in the glory of strife, drunk with the sound of the combat, and +feeling no pain in the swoon of a triumph? Few men whose blood was hot +and young would ask a greater ending. But to keep your souls in +patience; to strive unceasingly with evil; to live in self-negation, in +ceaseless sacrifices of desire; to give strength to the weak, and sight +to the blind, and light where there is darkness, and hope where there is +bondage; to do all these through many years unrecognised of men, content +only that they are done with such force as lies within you,--this is +harder than to seek the cannons' mouths, this is more bitter than to +rush, with drawn steel, on your tyrants. + +Your women cry out against you because you leave them to starve and to +weep while you give your hearts to revolution and your bodies to the +sword. Their cry is the cry of selfishness, of weakness, of narrowness, +the cry of the sex that sees no sun save the flame on its hearth: yet +there is truth in it--a truth you forget. The truth--that, forsaking the +gold-mine of duty which lies at your feet, you grasp at the rainbow of +glory; that, neglectful of your own secret sins, you fly at public woes +and at national crimes. Can you not see that if every man took heed of +the guilt of his own thoughts and acts, the world would be free and at +peace? It is easier to rise with the knife unsheathed than to keep watch +and ward over your own passions; but do not cheat yourself into +believing that it is nobler, and higher, and harder. What reproach is +cast against all revolutionists?--that the men who have nothing to lose, +the men who are reckless and outlawed, alone raise the flag of revolt. +It is a satire; but in every satire there lies the germ of a terrible +fact. + +You--you who are children still, you whose manhood is still a gold +scarcely touched in your hands, a gold you can spend in all great ways, +or squander for all base uses;--you can give the lie to that public +reproach, if only you will live in such wise that your hands shall be +clean, and your paths straight, and your honour unsullied through all +temptations. Wait, and live so that the right to judge, to rebuke, to +avenge, to purify, become yours through your earning of them. Live +nobly, first; and then teach others how to live. + + * * * + +"So you have brought Fame to Lélis, my English lord?" said Tricotrin, +without ceremony. "That was a good work of yours. She is a comet that +has a strange fancy only to come forth like a corpse-candle, and dance +over men's graves. It is her way. When men will have her out in the noon +of their youth, she kills them; and the painter's bier is set under his +Transfiguration, and the soldier's body is chained to the St. Helena +rock, and the poet's grave is made at Missolonghi. It is always so." + +Estmere bowed his head in assent; he was endeavouring to remember where +he had once met this stranger who thus addressed him--where he had once +heard these mellow, ringing, harmonious accents. + +"Was it because you were afraid of dying in your prime that you would +never woo Fame then yourself?" asked Lélis, with a smile. + +"Oh-hč!" answered Tricotrin, seating himself on a deal box that served +as a table, and whereat he and the artist had eaten many a meal of roast +chestnuts and black coffee; "I never wanted her; she is a weather vane, +never still two moments; she is a spaniel that quits the Plantagenet the +moment the battle goes against him, and fawns on Bolingbroke; she is an +alchemist's crucible, that has every fair and rich thing thrown into it, +but will only yield in return the calcined stones of chagrin and +disappointment; she is a harlot, whose kisses are to be bought, and who +runs after those who brawl the loudest and swagger the finest in the +world's market-places. No! I want nothing of her. My lord here condemned +her as I came in; he said she was the offspring of echoing parrots, of +imitative sheep, of fawning hounds. Who can want the creature of such +progenitors?" + + * * * + +"There are many kinds of appreciation. The man of science appreciates +when he marvels before the exquisite structure of the sea-shell, the +perfect organism of the flower; but the young girl appreciates, too, +when she holds the shell to her ear for its music, when she kisses the +flower for its fragrance. Appreciation! It is an affair of the reason, +indeed; but it is an affair of the emotions also." + +"And you prefer what is born of the latter?" + +"Not always; but for my music I do. It speaks in an unknown tongue. +Science may have its alphabet, but it is feeling that translates its +poems. Delaroche, who leaves off his work to listen; Descamps, in whose +eyes I see tears; Ingres, who dreams idyls while I play; a young poet +whose face reflects my thoughts, an old man whose youth I bring back, an +hour of pain that I soothe, an hour of laughter that I give; these are +my recompense. Think you I would exchange them for the gold showers and +the diamond boxes of a Farinelli?" + +"Surely not. All I meant was that you might gain a world-wide celebrity +did you choose----" + +"Gain a honey-coating that every fly may eat me and every gnat may +sting? I thank you. I have a taste to be at peace, and not to become +food to sate the public famine for a thing to tear." + +Estmere smiled; he did not understand the man who thus addressed him, +but he was attracted despite all his strongest prejudices. + +"You are right! Under the coat of honey is a shirt of turpentine. +Still--to see so great a gift as yours wasted----" + +"Wasted? Because the multitudes have it, such as it is, instead of the +units? Droll arithmetic! I am with you in thinking that minorities +should have a good share of power, for all that is wisest and purest is +ever in a minority, as we know; but I do not see, as you see, that +minorities should command a monopoly--of sweet sounds or of anything +else." + +"I speak to the musician, not to the politician," said Estmere, with the +calm, chill contempt of his colder manner: the cold side of his +character was touched, and his sympathies were alienated at once. + +Tricotrin, indifferent to the hint as to the rebuff, looked at him +amusedly. + +"Oh, I know you well, Lord Estmere; I told you so not long ago, to your +great disgust. You and your Order think no man should ever presume to +touch politics unless his coat be velvet and his rent-roll large, like +yours. But, you see, we of the _école buissonničre_ generally do as we +like; and we get pecking at public questions for the same reason as our +brother birds peck at the hips and the haws--because we have no +granaries as you have. You do not like Socialism? Ah! and yet affect to +follow it." + +"I!" Estmere looked at this wayside wit, this wine-house philosopher, +with a regard that asked plainly, "Are you fool or knave?" + +"To be sure," answered Tricotrin. "You have chapel and chaplain yonder +at your château, I believe? The Book of the Christians is the very +manual of Socialism: '_You_ read the Gospel, Marat?' they cried. 'To be +sure,' said Marat. 'It is the most republican book in the world, and +sends all the rich people to hell.' If you do not like my politics, +_beau sire_, do not listen to the Revolutionist of Galilee." + + * * * + +Not rare on this earth is the love that cleaves to the thing it has +cherished through guilt, and through wrong, and through misery. But +rare, indeed, is the love that still lives while its portion is +oblivion, and the thing which it has followed passes away out to a joy +that it cannot share, to a light that it cannot behold. + +For this is as the love of a god, which forsakes not, though its +creatures revile, and blaspheme, and deride it. + + * * * + +Ever and anon the old, dark, eager, noble face was lifted from its +pillow, and the withered lips murmured three words: + +"Is she come?" + +For Tricotrin had bent over her bed, and had murmured, "I go to seek +her, she is near;" and grand'mčre had believed and been comforted, for +she knew that no lie passed his lips. And she was very still and only +the nervous working of the hard, brown, aged hand showed the longing of +her soul. + +Life was going out rapidly, as the flame sinks fast in a lamp whose oil +is spent. The strong and vigorous frame, the keen and cheery will, had +warded off death so long and bravely; and now they bent under, all +suddenly, as those hardy trees will bend after a century of wind and +storm--bend but once, and only to break for ever. + +The red sun in the west was in its evening glory; and through the open +lattice there were seen in the deep blue of the sky, the bough of a +snow-blossomed pear-tree, the network of the ivy, and the bees humming +among the jasmine flowers. From the distance there came faintly the +musical cries of the boatmen down the river, the voices of the +vine-tenders in the fields, the singing of a throstle on a wild-grape +tendril. + +Only, in the little darkened chamber the old peasant lay quite +still--listening, through all the sweet and busy sounds of summer, for a +step that never came. + +And little by little all those sounds grew fainter on her ear: the +dulness of death was stealing over all her senses; and all she heard was +the song of the thrush where the bird swayed on the vine, half in, half +out, of the lattice. + +But the lips moved still, though no voice came, with the same words: "Is +she come?" and when the lips no more could move, the dark and straining +wistfulness of the eyes asked the question more earnestly, more +terribly, more ceaselessly. + +The thrush sang on, and on, and on; but to the prayer of the dying eyes +no answer came. + +The red sun sank into the purple mists of cloud; the song of the bird +was ended; the voice of the watching girl murmured, "They will come too +late!" + +For, as the sun faded off from the vine in the lattice, and the singing +of the bird grew silent, grand'mčre raised herself with her arms +outstretched, and the strength of her youth returned in the hour of +dissolution. + +"They never come back!" she cried. "They never come back! nor will she! +One dead in Africa--and one crushed beneath the stone--and one shot on +the barricade. The three went forth together; but not one returned. We +breed them, we nurse them, we foster them; and the world slays them body +and soul, and eats the limbs that lay in our bosoms, and burns up the +souls that we knew so pure. And she went where they went: she is dead +like them." + +Her head fell back; her mouth was grey and parched, her eyes had no +longer sight; a shiver ran through the hardy frame that winter storms +and summer droughts had bruised and scorched so long; and a passionless +and immeasurable grief came on the brown, weary, age-worn face. + +"All dead!" she murmured in the stillness of the chamber, where the song +of the bird had ceased, and the darkness of night had come. + +Then through her lips the last breath quivered in a deep-drawn sigh, and +the brave, patient, unrewarded life passed out for ever. + + * * * + +"You surely find no debtor such an ingrate, no master such a tyrant, as +the People?" + +"Perhaps. But, rather I find it a dog that bullies and tears where it is +feared, but may be made faithful by genuine courage and strict justice +shown to it." + +"The experience of the musician, then, must be much more fortunate than +the experience of the statesman." + +"Why, yes. It is ungrateful to great men, I grant; but it has the +irritation of its own vague sense that it is but their tool, their +ladder, their grappling-iron, to excuse it. Still--I know well what you +mean; the man who works for mankind works for a taskmaster who makes +bitter every hour of his life only to forget him with the instant of his +death; he is ever rolling the stone of human nature upward toward purer +heights, to see it recoil and rush down into darkness and bloodshed. I +know----" + + + + +_A PROVENCE ROSE._ + + +Flowers are like your poets: they give ungrudgingly, and, like all +lavish givers, are seldom recompensed in kind. + +We cast all our world of blossom, all our treasure or fragrance, at the +feet of the one we love; and then, having spent ourselves in that too +abundant sacrifice, you cry, "A yellow, faded thing! to the dust-hole +with it!" and root us up violently, and fling us to rot with the refuse +and offal; not remembering the days when our burden of beauty made +sunlight in your darkest places, and brought the odours of a lost +paradise to breathe over your bed of fever. + +Well, there is one consolation. Just so likewise do you deal with your +human wonder-flower of genius. + + * * * + +I sighed at my square open pane in the hot, sulphurous mists of the +street, and tried to see the stars and could not. For, between me and +the one small breadth of sky which alone the innumerable roofs left +visible, a vintner had hung out a huge gilded imperial crown as a sign +on his roof-tree; and the crown, with its sham gold turning black in the +shadow, hung between me and the planets. + +I knew that there must be many human souls in a like plight with +myself, with the light of heaven blocked from them by a gilded tyranny, +and yet I sighed, and sighed, and sighed, thinking of the white pure +stars of Provence throbbing in the violet skies. + +A rose is hardly wiser than a poet, you see: neither rose nor poet will +be comforted, and be content to dwell in darkness because a crown of +tinsel swings on high. + + * * * + +Ah! In the lives of you who have wealth and leisure we, the flowers, are +but one thing among many: we have a thousand rivals in your porcelains, +your jewels, your luxuries, your intaglios, your mosaics, all your +treasures of art, all your baubles of fancy. But in the lives of the +poor we are alone: we are all the art, all the treasure, all the grace, +all the beauty of outline, all the purity of hue that they possess: +often we are all their innocence and all their religion too. + +Why do you not set yourselves to make us more abundant in those joyless +homes, in those sunless windows? + + * * * + +For the life of a painter is beautiful when he is still young, and loves +truly, and has a genius in him stronger than calamity, and hears a voice +in which he believes say always in his ear, "Fear nothing. Men must +believe as I do in thee, one day. And meanwhile--we can wait!" + +And a painter in Paris, even though he starve on a few sous a day, can +have so much that is lovely and full of picturesque charm in his daily +pursuits: the long, wondrous galleries full of the arts he adores; the +_réalité de l'idéal_ around him in that perfect world; the slow, sweet, +studious hours in the calm wherein all that is great in humanity alone +survives; the trance--half adoration, half aspiration, at once desire +and despair--before the face of the Mona Lisa; then, without, the +streets so glad and so gay in the sweet, living sunshine; the quiver of +green leaves among gilded balconies; the groups at every turn about the +doors; the glow of colour in market-place and peopled square; the quaint +grey piles in old historic ways; the stones, from every one of which +some voice from the imperishable Past cries out; the green and silent +woods, the little leafy villages, the winding waters garden-girt; the +forest heights, with the city gleaming and golden in the plain; all +these are his. + +With these--and youth--who shall dare say the painter is not rich--ay, +though his board be empty, and his cup be dry? + +I had not loved Paris--I, a little imprisoned rose, caged in a clay pot, +and seeing nothing but the sky-line of the roofs. But I grew to love it, +hearing from René and from Lili of all the poetry and gladness that +Paris made possible in their young and burdened lives, and which could +have been thus possible in no other city of the earth. + +City of Pleasure you have called her, and with truth; but why not also +City of the Poor? For what city, like herself, has remembered the poor +in her pleasure, and given to them, no less than to the richest, the +treasure of her laughing sunlight, of her melodious music, of her +gracious hues, of her million flowers, of her shady leaves, of her +divine ideals? + + + + +_PIPISTRELLO._ + + +It was a strange, gaunt wilderness of stone, this old villa of the +Marchioni. It would have held hundreds of serving-men. It had as many +chambers as one of the palaces down in Rome; but life is homely and +frugal here, and has few graces. The ways of everyday Italian life in +these grand old places are like nettles and thistles set in an old +majolica vase that has had knights and angels painted on it. You know +what I mean, you who know Italy. Do you remember those pictures of +Vittario Carpacio and of Gentile? They say that is the life our Italy +saw once in her cities and her villas;--that is the life she wants. +Sometimes when you are all alone in these vast deserted places the +ghosts of all that pageantry pass by you, and they seem fitter than the +living people for these courts and halls. + + * * * + +I had been no saint. I had always been ready for jest or dance or +intrigue with a pretty woman, and sometimes women far above me had cast +their eyes down on the arena as in Spain ladies do in the bull-ring to +pick a lover out thence for his strength: but I had never cared. I had +loved, laughed, and wandered away with the stroller's happy liberty; but +I had never cared. Now all at once the whole world seemed dead; dead, +heaven and earth; and only one woman's two eyes left living in the +universe; living, and looking into my soul and burning it to ashes. Do +you know what I mean? No?--ay, then you know not love. + + * * * + +Sometimes I think love is the darkest mystery of life: mere desire will +not explain it, nor will the passions or the affections. You pass years +amidst crowds, and know naught of it; then all at once you meet a +stranger's eyes, and never are you free. That is love. Who shall say +whence it comes? It is a bolt from the gods that descends from heaven +and strikes us down into hell. We can do nothing. + + * * * + +In Italy one wants so little; the air and the light, and a little red +wine, and the warmth of the wind, and a handful of maize or of grapes, +and an old guitar, and a niche to sleep in near a fountain that murmurs +and sings to the mosses and marbles--these are enough in Italy. + + * * * + +Petty laws breed great crimes. Few rulers, little or big, remember that. + + * * * + +_L'esprit du clocher_ is derided nowadays. But it may well be doubted +whether the age which derides it will give the world anything one-half +as tender and true in its stead. It is peace because it is content; and +it is a peace which has in it the germ of heroism: menaced, it produces +patriotism--the patriotism whose symbol is Tell. + + * * * + +The tyrannies of petty law hurt the authority of the State more with the +populace than all the severity of a Draconian code against great +offences. Petty laws may annoy but can never harm the rich, for they can +always evade them or purchase immunity; but petty laws for the poor are +as the horse-fly on the neck and on the eyelids of the horse. + + * * * + +It was in the month of April; outside the walls and on the banks of +Tiber, still swollen by the floods of winter, one could see the gold of +a million daffodils and the bright crimson and yellow of tulips in the +green corn. The scent of flowers and herbs came into the town and filled +its dusky and narrow ways; the boatmen had green branches fastened to +their masts; in the stillness of evening one heard the song of crickets, +and even a mosquito would come and blow his shrill little trumpet, and +one was willing to say to him "Welcome!" because on his little horn he +blew the glad news, "Summer is here!" + + + + +_HELD IN BONDAGE._ + + +"A young man married is a man that's marred." That's a golden rule, +Arthur; take it to heart. Anne Hathaway, I have not a doubt, suggested +it; experience is the sole asbestos, only unluckily one seldom gets it +before one's hands are burnt irrevocably. Shakespeare took to wife the +ignorant, rosy-cheeked Warwickshire peasant girl at _eighteen_! Poor +fellow! I picture him, with all his untried powers, struggling like +new-born Hercules for strength and utterance, and the great germ of +poetry within him, tingeing all the common realities of life with its +rose hue; genius giving him power to see with god-like vision the +"fairies nestling in the cowslip chalices," and the golden gleam of +Cleopatra's sails; to feel the "spiced Indian air" by night, and the +wild working of kings' ambitious lust; to know by intuition, alike the +voices of nature unheard by common ears, and the fierce schemes and +passions of a world from which social position shut him out! I picture +him in his hot, imaginative youth, finding his first love in the +yeoman's daughter at Shottery, strolling with her by the Avon, making +her an "odorous chaplet of sweet summer buds," and dressing her up in +the fond array of a boy's poetic imaginings! Then--when he had married +her, he, with the passionate ideals of Juliets and Violas, Ophelias and +Hermiones in his brain and heart, must have awakened to find that the +voices so sweet to him were dumb to her. The "cinque spotted cowslip +bells" brought only thoughts of wine to her. When he was watching +"certain stars shoot madly from their spheres," she most likely was +grumbling at him for mooning there after curfew bell. When he was +learning Nature's lore in "the fresh cup of the crimson rose," she was +dinning in his ear that Hammet and Judith wanted worsted socks. When he +was listening in fancy to the "sea-maid's song," and weaving thoughts to +which a world still stands reverentially to listen, she was buzzing +behind him, and bidding him go card the wool, and weeping that, in her +girlhood, she had not chosen some rich glover or ale-taster, instead of +idle, useless, wayward Willie Shakespeare. Poor fellow! He did not +write, I would swear, without fellow-feeling, and yearning over souls +similarly shipwrecked, that wise saw, "A young man married is a man +that's marred." + + + + +_PASCARČL._ + + +When a man's eyes meet yours, and his faith trusts you, and his heart +upon a vague impulse is laid bare to you, it always has seemed to me the +basest treachery the world can hold to pass the gold of confidence which +he pours out to you from hand to hand as common coin for common +circulation. + + * * * + +Circumstance is so odd and so cruel a thing. It is wholly apart from +talent. + +Genius will do so little for a man if he do not know how to seize or +seduce opportunity. No doubt, in his youth, Ambrogiň had been shy, +silent, out of his art timid, and in his person ungraceful, and +unlovely. So the world had passed by him turning a deaf ear to his +melodies, and he had let it pass, because he had not that splendid +audacity to grasp it perforce, and hold it until it blessed him, without +which no genius will ever gain the benediction of the Angel of Fame. + +Which is a fallen Angel, no doubt; but still, perhaps, the spirit most +worth wrestling with after all; since wrestle we must in this world, if +we do not care to lie down and form a pavement for other men's cars of +triumph, as the Assyrians of old stretched themselves on their faces +before the coming of the chariot of their kings. + + * * * + +One of the saddest things perhaps in all the sadness of this world is +the frightful loss at which so much of the best and strongest work of a +man's life has to be thrown away at the onset. If you desire a name +amongst men, you must buy the crown of it at such a costly price! + +True, the price will in the end be paid back to you, no doubt, when you +are worn out, and what you do is as worthless as the rustling canes that +blow together in autumn by dull river sides: then you scrawl your +signature across your soulless work, and it fetches thrice its weight in +gold. + +But though you thus have your turn, and can laugh at your will at the +world that you fool, what can that compensate you for all those dear +dead darlings?--those bright first-fruits, those precious earliest +nestlings of your genius, which had to be sold into bondage for a broken +crust, which drifted away from you never to be found again, which you +know well were a million fold better, fresher, stronger, higher, better +than anything you have begotten since then; and yet in which none could +be found to believe, only because you had not won that magic spell which +lies in--being known? + + * * * + +When I think of the sweet sigh of the violin melodies through the white +winter silence of Raffaelino's eager, dreamy eyes, misty with the +student's unutterable sadness and delight; of old Ambrogiň, with his +semicircle of children round him, lifting their fresh voices at his +word; of the little robin that came every day upon the waterpipe, and +listened, and thrilled in harmony, and ate joyfully the crumbs which the +old maestro daily spared to it from his scanty meal--when I think of +those hours, it seems to me that they must have been happiness too. + +"Could we but know when we are happy!" sighs some poet. As well might +he write, "Could we but set the dewdrop with our diamonds! could we but +stay the rainbow in our skies!" + + * * * + +Every old Italian city has this awe about it--holds close the past and +moves the living to a curious sense that they are dead and in their +graves are dreaming; for the old cities themselves have beheld so much +perish around them, and yet have kept so firm a hold upon tradition and +upon the supreme beauty of great arts, that those who wander there grow, +as it were, bewildered, and know not which is life and which is death +amongst them. + + * * * + +The sun was setting. + +Over the whole Valdarno there was everywhere a faint ethereal golden +mist that rose from the water and the woods. + +The town floated on it as upon a lake; her spires, and domes, and +towers, and palaces bathed at their base in its amber waves, and rising +upward into the rose-hued radiance of the upper air. The mountains that +encircled her took all the varying hues of the sunset on their pale +heights until they flushed to scarlet, glowered to violet, wavered with +flame, and paled to whiteness, as the opal burns and fades. Warmth, +fragrance, silence, loveliness encompassed her; and in the great +stillness the bell of the basilica tolled slowly the evening call to +prayer. + +Thus Florence rose before me. + +A strange tremor of exceeding joy thrilled through me as I beheld the +reddened shadows of those close-lying roofs, and those marble heights of +towers and of temples. At last my eyes gazed on her! the daughter of +flowers, the mistress of art, the nursing mother of liberty and of +aspiration. + +I fell on my knees and thanked God. I pity those who, in such a moment, +have not done likewise. + + * * * + +There is nothing upon earth, I think, like the smile of Italy as she +awakes when the winter has dozed itself away in the odours of its +oakwood fires. + +The whole land seems to laugh. + +The springtide of the north is green and beautiful, but it has nothing +of the radiance, the dreamfulness, the ecstasy of spring in the southern +countries. The springtide of the north is pale with the gentle +colourless sweetness of its world of primroses; the springtide of Italy +is rainbow-hued, like the profusion of anemones that laugh with it in +every hue of glory under every ancient wall and beside every hill-fed +stream. + +Spring in the north is a child that wakes from dreams of death; spring +in the south is a child that wakes from dreams of love. One is rescued +and welcomed from the grave; but the other comes smiling on a sunbeam +from heaven. + + * * * + +The landscape that has the olive is spiritual as no landscape can ever +be from which the olive is absent; for where is there spirituality +without some hue of sadness? + +But this spiritual loveliness is one for which the human creature that +is set amidst it needs a certain education as for the power of +Euripides, for the dreams of Phćdrus, for the strength of Michaelangelo, +for the symphonies of Mozart or Beethoven. + +The mind must itself be in a measure spiritualised ere aright it can +receive it. + +It is too pure, too impalpable, too nearly divine, to be grasped by +those for whom all beauty centres in strong heats of colour and great +breadths of effect; it floats over the senses like a string of perfect +cadences in music; it has a breath of heaven in it; though on the earth +it is not of the earth; when the world was young, ere men had sinned on +it, and gods forsaken it, it must have had the smile of this light that +lingers here. + + * * * + +Bad? Good? Pshaw! Those are phrases. No one uses them but fools. You +have seen the monkeys' cage in the beast-garden here. That is the world. +It is not strength, or merit, or talent, or reason that is of any use +there; it is just which monkey has the skill to squeeze to the front and +jabber through the bars, and make his teeth meet in his neighbours' +tails till they shriek and leave him free passage--it is that monkey +which gets all the cakes and the nuts of the folk on a feast-day. The +monkey is not bad; it is only a little quicker and more cunning than the +rest; that is all. + + * * * + +It is a kind of blindness--poverty. We can only grope through life when +we are poor, hitting and maiming ourselves against every angle. + + * * * + +Count art by gold, and it fetters the feet it once winged. + + * * * + +"Is that all you know?" he cried, while his voice rang like a +trumpet-call. "Listen here, then, little lady, and learn better. What is +it to be a player? It is this. A thing despised and rejected on all +sides; a thing that was a century since denied what they call Christian +burial; a thing that is still deemed for a woman disgraceful, and for a +man degrading and emasculate; a thing that is mute as a dunce save when, +parrot-like, it repeats by rote with a mirthless grin or a tearless sob; +a wooden doll, as you say, applauded as a brave puppet in its prime, +hissed at in its first hour of failure or decay; a thing made up of +tinsel and paint, and patchwork, of the tailor's shreds and the barber's +curls of tow--a ridiculous thing to be sure. That is a player. And yet +again--a thing without which laughter and jest were dead in the sad +lives of the populace; a thing that breathes the poet's words of fire so +that the humblest heart is set aflame; a thing that has a magic on its +lips to waken smiles or weeping at its will; a thing which holds a +people silent, breathless, intoxicated with mirth or with awe, as it +chooses; a thing whose grace kings envy, and whose wit great men will +steal; a thing by whose utterance alone the poor can know the fair +follies of a thoughtless hour, and escape for a little space from the +dull prisons of their colourless lives into the sunlit paradise where +genius dwells--_that_ is a player, too!" + + * * * + +The instrument on which we histrions play is that strange thing, the +human heart. It looks a little matter to strike its chords of laughter +or of sorrow; but, indeed, to do that aright and rouse a melody which +shall leave all who hear it the better and the braver for the hearing, +that may well take a man's lifetime, and, perhaps, may well repay it. + + * * * + +Oh, cara mia, when one has run about in one's time with a tinker's +tools, and seen the lives of the poor, and the woe of them, and the +wretchedness of it all, and the utter uselessness of everything, and +the horrible, intolerable, unending pain of all the things that breathe, +one comes to think that in this meaningless mystery which men call life +a little laughter and a little love are the only things which save us +all from madness--the madness that would curse God and die. + + * * * + +It always seems as if that well-spring of poetry and art which arose in +Italy, to feed and fertilise the world when it was half dead and wholly +barren under the tyrannies of the Church and the lusts of Feudalism; it +would always seem, I say, as though that water of life had so saturated +the Italian soil, that the lowliest hut upon its hills and plains will +ever nourish and put forth some flower of fancy. + +The people cannot read, but they can rhyme. They cannot reason, but they +can keep perfect rhythm. They cannot write their own names, but written +on their hearts are the names of those who made their country's +greatness. They believe in the virtues of a red rag tied to a stick +amidst their fields, but they treasure tenderly the heroes and the +prophets of an unforgotten time. They are ignorant of all laws of +science or of sound, but when they go home by moonlight through the +maize yonder alight with lůcciole, they will never falsify a note, or +overload a harmony, in their love-songs. + +The poetry, the art, in them is sheer instinct; it is not the genius of +isolated accident, but the genius of inalienable heritage. + + * * * + +Do you ever think of those artist-monks who have strewed Italy with +altar-pieces and missal miniatures till there is not any little lonely +dusky town of hers that is not rich by art? Do you often think of them? +I do. + +There must have been a beauty in their lives--a great beauty--though +they missed of much, of more than they ever knew or dreamed of, let us +hope. In visions of the Madonna they grew blind to the meaning of a +woman's smile, and illuminating the golden olive wreath above the heads +of saints they lost the laughter of the children under the homely +olive-trees without. + +But they did a noble work in their day; and leisure for meditation is no +mean treasure, though the modern world does not number it amongst its +joys. + +One can understand how men born with nervous frames and spiritual +fancies into the world when it was one vast battle-ground, where its +thrones were won by steel and poison, and its religion enforced by torch +and faggot, grew so weary of the never-ending turmoil, and of the +riotous life which was always either a pageant or a slaughter-house, +that it seemed beautiful to them to withdraw themselves into some +peaceful place like this Badiŕ and spend their years in study and in +recommendation of their souls to God, with the green and fruitful fields +before their cloister windows, and no intruders on the summer stillness +as they painted their dreams of a worthier and fairer world except the +blue butterflies that strayed in on a sunbeam, or the gold porsellini +that hummed at the lilies in the Virgin's chalice. + + * * * + +Florence, where she sits throned amidst her meadows white with Lenten +lilies, Florence is never terrible, Florence is never old. In her +infancy they fed her on the manna of freedom, and that fairest food gave +her eternal youth. In her early years she worshipped ignorantly indeed, +but truly always the day-star of liberty; and it has been with her +always so that the light shed upon her is still as the light of +morning. + +Does this sound a fanciful folly? Nay, there is a real truth in it. + +The past is so close to you in Florence. You touch it at every step. It +is not the dead past that men bury and then forget. It is an +unquenchable thing; beautiful, and full of lustre, even in the tomb, +like the gold from the sepulchres of the Ćtruscan kings that shines on +the breast of some fair living woman, undimmed by the dust and the +length of the ages. + +The music of the old greatness thrills through all the commonest things +of life like the grilli's chant through the wooden cages on Ascension +Day; and, like the song of the grilli, its poetry stays in the warmth of +the common hearth for the ears of the little children, and loses nothing +of its melody. + +The beauty of the past in Florence is like the beauty of the great +Duomo. + +About the Duomo there is stir and strife at all times; crowds come and +go; men buy and sell; lads laugh and fight; piles of fruit blaze gold +and crimson; metal pails clash down on the stones with shrillest +clangour; on the steps boys play at dominoes, and women give their +children food, and merry maskers grin in carnival fooleries; but there +in their midst is the Duomo all unharmed and undegraded, a poem and a +prayer in one, its marbles shining in the upper air, a thing so majestic +in its strength, and yet so human in its tenderness, that nothing can +assail, and nothing equal it. + +Other, though not many, cities have histories as noble, treasuries as +vast; but no other city has them living and ever present in her midst, +familiar as household words, and touched by every baby's hand and +peasant's step, as Florence has. + +Every line, every rood, every gable, every tower, has some story of the +past present in it. Every tocsin that sounds is a chronicle; every +bridge that unites the two banks of the river unites also the crowds of +the living with the heroism of the dead. + +In the winding dusky irregular streets, with the outlines of their logge +and arcades, and the glow of colour that fills their niches and +galleries, the men who "have gone before" walk with you; not as +elsewhere mere gliding shades clad in the pallor of a misty memory, but +present, as in their daily lives, shading their dreamful eyes against +the noonday sun or setting their brave brows against the mountain wind, +laughing and jesting in their manful mirth and speaking as brother to +brother of great gifts to give the world. All this while, though the +past is thus close about you the present is beautiful also, and does not +shock you by discord and unseemliness as it will ever do elsewhere. The +throngs that pass you are the same in likeness as those that brushed +against Dante or Calvacanti; the populace that you move amidst is the +same bold, vivid, fearless, eager people with eyes full of dreams, and +lips braced close for war, which welcomed Vinci and Cimabue and fought +from Montaperto to Solferino. + +And as you go through the streets you will surely see at every step some +colour of a fresco on a wall, some quaint curve of a bas-relief on a +lintel, some vista of Romanesque arches in a palace court, some dusky +interior of a smith's forge or a wood-seller's shop, some Renaissance +seal-ring glimmering on a trader's stall, some lovely hues of fruits and +herbs tossed down together in a Tre Cento window, some gigantic mass of +blossoms being borne aloft on men's shoulders for a church festivity of +roses, something at every step that has some beauty or some charm in it, +some graciousness of the ancient time, or some poetry of the present +hour. + +The beauty of the past goes with you at every step in Florence. Buy eggs +in the market, and you buy them where Donatello bought those which fell +down in a broken heap before the wonder of the crucifix. Pause in a +narrow bye-street in a crowd and it shall be that Borgo Allegri, which +the people so baptized for love of the old painter and the new-born art. +Stray into a great dark church at evening time, where peasants tell +their beads in the vast marble silence, and you are where the whole city +flocked, weeping, at midnight to look their last upon the face of their +Michael Angelo. Pace up the steps of the palace of the Signorěa and you +tread the stone that felt the feet of him to whom so bitterly was known +"_com' č duro calle, lo scendere č'l salir per l'altrúi scale_." Buy a +knot of March anemoni or April arum lilies, and you may bear them with +you through the same city ward in which the child Ghirlandajo once +played amidst the gold and silver garlands that his father fashioned for +the young heads of the Renaissance. Ask for a shoemaker and you shall +find the cobbler sitting with his board in the same old twisting, +shadowy street way, where the old man Toscanelli drew his charts that +served a fair-haired sailor of Genoa, called Columbus. Toil to fetch a +tinker through the squalor of San Niccolň, and there shall fall on you +the shadow of the bell-tower where the old sacristan saved to the world +the genius of the Night and Day. Glance up to see the hour of the +evening time, and there, sombre and tragical, will loom above you the +walls of the communal palace on which the traitors were painted by the +brush of Sarto, and the tower of Giotto, fair and fresh in its perfect +grace as though angels had builded it in the night just past, "_ond' +ella toglie ancora e terza e nona_," as in the noble and simple days +before she brake the "_cerchia antěca_." + +Everywhere there are flowers, and breaks of songs, and rills of +laughter, and wonderful eyes that look as if they too, like their Poets, +had gazed into the heights of heaven and the depths of hell. + +And then you will pass out at the gates beyond the city walls, and all +around you there will be a radiance and serenity of light that seems to +throb in its intensity and yet is divinely restful, like the passion and +the peace of love when it has all to adore and nothing to desire. + +The water will be broad and gold, and darkened here and there into +shadows of porphyrine amber. Amidst the grey and green of the olive and +acacia foliage there will arise the low pale roofs and flat-topped +towers of innumerable villages. + +Everywhere there will be a wonderful width of amethystine hills and +mystical depths of seven-chorded light. Above, masses of rosy cloud will +drift, like rose-leaves leaning on a summer wind. And, like a magic +girdle which has shut her out from all the curse of age and death and +man's oblivion, and given her a youth and loveliness which will endure +so long as the earth itself endures, there will be the circle of the +mountains, purple and white and golden, lying around Florence. + + * * * + +Amidst all her commerce, her wars, her hard work, her money-making, +Florence was always dominated and spiritualised, at her noisiest and +worst, by a poetic and picturesque imagination. + +Florentine life had always an ideal side to it; and an idealism, pure +and lofty, runs through her darkest histories and busiest times like a +thread of gold through a coat of armour and a vest of frieze. + +The Florentine was a citizen, a banker, a workman, a carder of wool, a +weaver of silk, indeed; but he was also always a lover, and always a +soldier; that is, always half a poet. He had his Carňccio and his +Ginevra as well as his tools and his sacks of florins. He had his sword +as well as his shuttle. His scarlet giglio was the flower of love no +less than the blazonry of battle on his standard, and the mint stamp of +the commonwealth on his coinage. + +Herein lay the secret of the influence of Florence: the secret which +rendered the little city, stretched by her river's side, amongst her +quiet meadows white with arums, a sacred name to all generations of men +for all she dared and all she did. + +"She amassed wealth," they say: no doubt she did--and why? + +To pour it with both hands to melt in the foundries of Ghiberti--to +bring it in floods to cement the mortar that joined the marbles of +Brunelleschi! She always spent to great ends, and to mighty uses. + +When she called a shepherd from his flocks in the green valley to build +for her a bell-tower so that she might hear, night and morning, the call +to the altar, the shepherd built for her in such fashion that the belfry +has been the Pharos of Art for five centuries. + +Here is the secret of Florence--supreme aspiration. + +The aspiration which gave her citizens force to live in poverty, and +clothe themselves in simplicity, so as to be able to give up their +millions of florins to bequeath miracles in stone and metal and colour +to the Future. The aspiration which so purified her soil, red with +carnage, black with smoke of war, trodden continuously by hurrying feet +of labourers, rioters, mercenaries, and murderers, that from that soil +there could spring, in all its purity and perfection, the +paradise-blossom of the Vita Nuova. + +Venice perished for her pride and carnal lust; Rome perished for her +tyrannies and her blood-thirst; but Florence--though many a time nearly +strangled under the heel of the Empire and the hand of the +Church--Florence was never slain utterly either in body or soul; +Florence still crowned herself with flowers even in her throes of agony, +because she kept always within her that love--impersonal, consecrate, +void of greed--which is the purification of the individual life and the +regeneration of the body politic. "We labour for the ideal," said the +Florentines of old, lifting to heaven their red flower de luce--and to +this day Europe bows before what they did and cannot equal it. + +"But she had so many great men, so many mighty masters!" I would urge, +whereon Pascarčl would glance on me with his lightest and yet utmost +scorn. + +"O wise female thing, who always traces the root to the branch and +deduces the cause from the effect! Did her great men spring up +full-armed like Athene, or was it the pure, elastic atmosphere of her +that made her mere mortals strong as immortals? The supreme success of +modern government is to flatten down all men into one uniform likeness, +so that it is only by most frightful, and often destructive, effort that +any originality can contrive to get loose in its own shape for a +moment's breathing space; but in the Commonwealth of Florence a man, +being born with any genius in him, drew in strength to do and dare +greatly with the very air he breathed." + +Moreover, it was not only the great men that made her what she was. + +It was, above all, the men who knew they were not great, but yet had the +patience and unselfishness to do their appointed work for her zealously, +and with every possible perfection in the doing of it. + +It was not only Orcagna planning the Loggia, but every workman who +chiselled out a piece of its stone, that put all his head and heart into +the doing thereof. It was not only Michaelangelo in his studio, but +every poor painter who taught the mere a, b, c, d of the craft to a +crowd of pupils out of the streets, who did whatsoever came before them +to do mightily and with reverence. + +In those days all the servants as well as the sovereigns of art were +penetrated with the sense of her holiness. + +It was the mass of patient, intelligent, poetic, and sincere servitors +of art, who, instead of wildly consuming their souls in envy and desire, +cultured their one talent to the uttermost, so that the mediocrity of +that age would have been the excellence of any other. + +Not alone from the great workshops of the great masters did the light +shine on the people. From every scaffold where a palace ceiling was +being decorated with its fresco, from every bottega where the children +of the poor learned to grind and to mingle the colours, from every cell +where some solitary monk studied to produce an offering to the glory of +his God, from every nook and corner where the youths gathered in the +streets to see some Nunziata or Ecce Homo lifted to its niche in the +city wall, from every smallest and most hidden home of art--from the +nest under the eaves as well as from the cloud-reaching temples,--there +went out amidst the multitudes an ever-flowing, ever-pellucid stream of +light, from that Aspiration which is in itself Inspiration. + +So that even to this day the people of Italy have not forgotten the +supreme excellence of all beauty, but are, by the sheer instinct of +inherited faith, incapable of infidelity to those traditions; so that +the commonest craftsman of them all will sweep his curves and shade his +hues upon a plaster cornice with a perfection that is the despair of the +maestri of other nations. + + * * * + +The broad plains that have been the battle-ground of so many races and +so many ages were green and peaceful under the primitive husbandry of +the contadini. + +Everywhere under the long lines of the yet unbudded vines the seed was +springing, and the trenches of the earth were brimful with brown +bubbling water left from the floods of winter, when Reno and Adda had +broken loose from their beds. + +Here and there was some old fortress grey amongst the silver of the +olive orchards; some village with white bleak house-walls and flat roofs +pale and bare against the level fields; or some little long-forgotten +city once a stronghold of war and a palace for princes, now a little +hushed and lonely place, with weed-grown ramparts and gates rusted on +their hinges, and tapestry weavers throwing the shuttle in its deserted +and dismantled ways. + +But chiefly it was always the green, fruitful, weary, endless plain +trodden by the bullocks and the goats, and silent, strangely silent, as +though fearful still of its tremendous past. + + * * * + +The long bright day draws to a close. The west is in a blaze of gold, +against which the ilex and the acacia are black as funeral plumes. The +innumerable scents of fruits and flowers and spices, and tropical seeds, +and sweet essences, that fill the streets at every step from shops and +stalls, and monks' pharmacies, are fanned out in a thousand delicious +odours on the cooling air. The wind has risen, blowing softly from +mountain and from sea across the plains through the pines of Pisa, +across to the oak-forests of green Casentěno. + +Whilst the sun still glows in the intense amber of his own dying glory, +away in the tender violet hues of the east the young moon rises. + +Rosy clouds drift against the azure of the zenith, and are reflected as +in a mirror in the shallow river waters. + +A little white cloud of doves flies homeward against the sky. + +All the bells chime for the Ave Maria. + +The evening falls. + +Wonderful hues, creamy, and golden, and purple, and soft as the colours +of a dove's throat, spread themselves slowly over the sky; the bell +tower rises like a shaft of porcelain clear against the intense azure; +amongst the tall canes by the river the fire-flies sparkle; the shores +are mirrored in the stream with every line and curve, and roof and +cupola, drawn in sharp deep shadow; every lamp glows again thrice its +size in the glass of the current, and the arches of the bridges meet +their own image there; the boats glide down the water that is now white +under the moon, now amber under the lights, now black under the walls, +for ever changing; night draws on, then closes quite. + +But it is night as radiant as day, and ethereal as day can never be; on +the hills the cypresses still stand out against the faint gold that +lingers in the west; there is the odour of carnations and of acacias +everywhere. + +Noiseless footsteps come and go. + +People pass softly in shadow, like a dream. + + * * * + +You know how St. Michael made the Italian? he is saying to them, and the +clear crystal ring of the sonorous Tuscan reaches to the farthest corner +of the square. Nay?--oh, for shame! Well, then, it was in this fashion; +long, long ago, when the world was but just called from chaos, the +Dominiddio was tired, as you all know, and took his rest on the seventh +day; and four of the saints, George and Denis and Jago and Michael, +stood round him with their wings folded and their swords idle. + +So to them the good Lord said: "Look at those odds and ends, that are +all lying about after the earth is set rolling. Gather them up, and make +them into four living nations to people the globe." The saints obeyed +and set to the work. + +St. George got a piece of pure gold and a huge lump of lead, and buried +the gold in the lead, so that none ever would guess it was there, and so +sent it rolling and bumping to earth, and called it the English people. + +St. Jago got a bladder filled with wind, and put in it the heart of a +fox, and the fang of a wolf, and whilst it puffed and swelled like the +frog that called itself a bull, it was despatched to the world as the +Spaniard. + +St. Denis did better than that; he caught a sunbeam flying, and he tied +it with a bright knot of ribbons, and he flashed it on earth as the +people of France; only, alas! he made two mistakes, he gave it no +ballast, and he dyed the ribbons blood-red. + +Now St. Michael, marking their errors, caught a sunbeam likewise, and +many other things too; a mask of velvet, a poniard of steel, the chords +of a lute, the heart of a child, the sigh of a poet, the kiss of a +lover, a rose out of paradise, and a silver string from an angel's lyre. + +Then with these in his hand he went and knelt down at the throne of the +Father. "Dear and great Lord," he prayed, "to make my work perfect, give +me one thing; give me a smile of God." And God smiled. + +Then St. Michael sent his creation to earth, and called it the Italian. + +But--most unhappily, as chance would have it--Satanas watching at the +gates of hell, thought to himself, "If I spoil not his work, earth will +be Eden in Italy." So he drew his bow in envy, and sped a poisoned +arrow; and the arrow cleft the rose of paradise, and broke the silver +string of the angel. + +And to this day the Italian keeps the smile that God gave in his eyes; +but in his heart the devil's arrow rankles still. + +Some call this barbed shaft Cruelty; some Superstition; some Ignorance; +some Priestcraft; maybe its poison is drawn from all four; be it how it +may, it is the duty of all Italians to pluck hard at the arrow of hell, +so that the smile of God alone shall remain with their children's +children. + +Yonder in the plains we have done much; the rest will lie with you, the +Freed Nation. + + * * * + +There is an old legend, he made answer to me, an old monkish tale, which +tells how, in the days of King Clovis, a woman, old and miserable, +forsaken of all, and at the point of death, strayed into the Merovingian +woods, and lingering there, and hearkening to the birds, and loving +them, and so learning from them of God, regained, by no effort of her +own, her youth; and lived, always young and always beautiful, a hundred +years; through all which time she never failed to seek the forests when +the sun rose, and hear the first song of the creatures to whom she owed +her joy. Whoever to the human soul can be, in ever so faint a sense, +that which the birds were to the woman in the Merovingian woods, he, I +think, has a true greatness. But I am but an outcast, you know; and my +wisdom is not of the world. + +Yet it seemed the true wisdom, there, at least, with the rose light +shining across half the heavens, and the bells ringing far away in the +plains below over the white waves of the sea of olives. + + * * * + +Only for the people! Altro! did not Sperone and all the critics at his +heels pronounce Ariosto only fit for the vulgar multitude? and was not +Dante himself called the laureate of the cobblers and the bakers? + +And does not Sacchetti record that the great man took the trouble to +quarrel with an ass-driver and a blacksmith because they recited his +verses badly? + +If he had not written "only for the people," we might never have got +beyond the purisms of Virgilio, and the Ciceronian imitations of Bembo. + +Dante now-a-days may have become the poet of the scholars and the sages, +but in his own times he seemed to the sciolists a most terribly low +fellow for using his mother tongue; and he was most essentially the poet +of the vulgar--of the _vulgare eloquio_, of the _vulgare illustre_; and +pray what does the "Commedia" mean if not a _canto villereccio_, a song +for the rustics? Will you tell me that? + +Only for the people! Ah, that is the error. Only! how like a woman that +is! Any trash will do for the people; that is the modern notion; vile +roulades in music, tawdry crudities in painting, cheap balderdash in +print--all that will do for the people. So they say now-a-days. + +Was the bell tower yonder set in a ducal garden or in a public place? +Was Cimabue's masterpiece veiled in a palace or borne aloft through the +throngs of the streets? + + * * * + +A man, be he bramble or vine, likes to grow in the open air in his own +fashion; but a woman, be she flower or weed, always thinks she would be +better under glass. When she gets the glass she breaks it--generally; +but till she gets it she pines. + + * * * + +When they grew up in Italy, all that joyous band,--Arlecchino in +Bergamo, Stenterello in Florence, Pulcinello in Naples, Pantaleone in +Venice, Dulcamara in Bologna, Beltramo in Milan, Brighella in +Brescia--masked their mirthful visages and ran together and jumped on +that travelling stage before the world, what a force they were for the +world, those impudent mimes! + +"Only Pantomimi?" When they joined hands with one another and rolled +their wandering house before St. Mark's they were only players indeed; +but their laughter blew out the fires of the Inquisition, their fools' +caps made the papal tiara look but paper toy, their wooden swords struck +to earth the steel of the nobles, their arrows of epigram, feathered +from goose and from falcon, slew, flying, the many-winged dragon of +Superstition. + +They were old as the old Latin land, indeed. + +They had mouldered for ages in Etruscan cities, with the dust of +uncounted centuries upon them, and been only led out in Carnival times, +pale, voiceless, frail ghosts of dead powers, whose very meaning the +people had long forgotten. But the trumpet-call of the Renaissance woke +them from their Rip Van Winkle sleep. + +They got up, young again, and keen for every frolic--Barbarossas of sock +and buskin, whose helmets were caps and bells, breaking the magic spell +of their slumber to burst upon men afresh; buoyant incarnations of the +new-born scorn for tradition, of the nascent revolts of democracy, with +which the air was rife. + +"Only Pantomimi?" Oh, altro! + +The world when it reckons its saviours should rate high all it owed to +the Pantomimi,--the privileged Pantomimi--who first dared take license +to say in their quips and cranks, in their capers and jests, what had +sent all speakers before them to the rack and the faggots. + +Who think of that when they hear the shrill squeak of Pulcinello in the +dark bye-streets of northern towns, or see lean Pantaleone slip and +tumble through the transformation-scene of some gorgeous theatre? + +Not one in a million. + +Yet it is true for all that. Free speech was first due to the Pantomimi. +A proud boast that. They hymn Tell and chant Savonarola and glorify the +Gracchi, but I doubt if any of the gods in the world's Pantheon or the +other world's Valhalla did so much for freedom as those merry mimes that +the children scamper after upon every holiday. + + * * * + +We are straws on the wind of the hour, too frail and too brittle to +float into the future. Our little day of greatness is a mere child's +puff-ball, inflated by men's laughter, floated by women's tears; what +breeze so changeful as the one, what waters so shallow as the +other?--the bladder dances a little while; then sinks, and who +remembers? + + * * * + +Do you know the delicate delights of a summer morning in Italy? morning +I mean between four and five of the clock, and not the full hot mid-day +that means morning to the languid associations of this weary century. + +The nights, perfect as they are, have scarcely more loveliness than the +birth of light, the first rippling laughter of the early day. + +The air is cool, almost cold, and clear as glass. There is an endless +murmur from birds' throats and wings, and from far away there will ring +from village or city the chimes of the first mass. The deep broad +shadows lie so fresh, so grave, so calm, that by them the very dust is +stilled and spiritualised. + +Softly the sun comes, striking first the loftier trees and then the +blossoming magnolias, and lastly the green lowliness of the gentle +vines; until all above is in a glow of new-born radiance, whilst all +beneath the leaves still is dreamily dusk and cool. + +The sky is of a soft sea-blue; great vapours will float here and there, +iris-coloured and snow-white. The stone parapets of bridge and tower +shine against the purple of the mountains, which are low in tone, and +look like hovering storm-clouds. Across the fields dun oxen pass to +their labour; through the shadows peasants go their way to mass; down +the river a raft drifts slowly, with the pearly water swaying against +the canes; all is clear, tranquil, fresh as roses washed with rain. + + * * * + +To the art of the stage, as to every other art, there are two sides: the +truth of it, which comes by inspiration--that is, by instincts subtler, +deeper, and stronger than those of most minds; and the artifice of it, +in which it must clothe itself to get understood by the people. + +It is this latter which must be learnt; it is the leathern harness in +which the horses of the sun must run when they come down to race upon +earth. + + * * * + +For in Italy life is all contrast, and there is no laugh and love-song +without a sigh beside them; there is no velvet mask of mirth and passion +without the marble mask of art and death near to it. For everywhere the +wild tulip burns red upon a ruined altar, and everywhere the blue borage +rolls its azure waves through the silent temples of forgotten gods. + + * * * + +To enter Bologna at midnight is to plunge into the depths of the middle +ages. + +Those desolate sombre streets, those immense dark arches, dark as +Tartarus, those endless arcades where scarce a footfall breaks the +stillness, that labyrinth of marble, of stone, of antiquity; the past +alone broods over them all. + +As you go it seems to you that you see the gleam of a snowy plume and +the shine of a straight rapier striking home through cuirass and +doublet, whilst on the stones the dead body falls, and high above over +the lamp-iron, where the torch is flaring, a casement uncloses, and a +woman's voice murmurs, with a cruel little laugh, "Cosa fatta capo ha!" + +There is nothing to break the spell of that old-world enchantment. + +Nothing to recall to you that the ages of Bentivoglio and of Visconti +have fled for ever. + +The mighty Academy of Luvena Juris is so old, so old, so old!--the folly +and frippery of modern life cannot dwell in it a moment; it is as that +enchanted throne which turned into stone like itself whosoever dared to +seat himself upon its majestic heights. + +For fifteen centuries Bologna has grimly watched and seen the mad life +of the world go by; it sits amidst the plains as the Sphynx amidst her +deserts. + + * * * + +It is women's way. They always love colour better than form, rhetoric +better than logic, priestcraft better than philosophy, and flourishes +better than fugues. It has been said scores of times before I said it. + +Nay, he pursued, thinking he had pained me, you have a bright wit +enough, and a beautiful voice, though you sing without knowing very well +what you do sing. But genius you have not, look you; say your +thanksgiving to the Madonna at the next shrine we come to; genius you +have not. + +What is it? + +Well, it is hard to tell; but this is certain, that it puts peas +unboiled into the shoes of every pilgrim who really gets up to its +Olivet. + +Genius has all manner of dead dreams and sorrowful lost loves for its +scallop-shells; and the palm that it carries is the bundle of rods +wherewith fools have beaten it for calling them blind. + +Genius has eyes so clear that it sees straight down into the hearts of +others through all their veils of sophistry and simulation; but its own +heart is pierced often to the quick for shame of what it reads there. + +It has such long and faithful remembrance of other worlds and other +lives which most minds have forgotten, that beside the beauty of those +memories all things of earth seem poor and valueless. + +Men call this imagination or idealism; the name does not matter much; +whether it be desire or remembrance, it comes to the same issue; so that +genius, going ever beyond the thing it sees in infinite longing for some +higher greatness which it has either lost or otherwise cannot reach, +finds the art, and the humanity, and the creations, and the affections +which seem to others so exquisite most imperfect and scarcely to be +endured. + +The heaven of Phćdrus is the world which haunts Genius--where there +shall not be women but Woman, not friends but Friendship, not poems but +Poetry; everything in its uttermost wholeness and perfection; so that +there shall be no possibility of regret nor any place for desire. + +For in this present world there is only one thing which can content it, +and that thing is music; because music has nothing to do with earth, but +sighs always for the lands beyond the sun. + +And yet all this while genius, though sick at heart, and alone, and +finding little in man or in woman, in human art or in human nature, that +can equal what it remembers--or, as men choose to say, it imagines--is +half a child too, always: for something of the eternal light which +streams from the throne of God is always shed about it, though sadly +dimmed and broken by the clouds and vapours that men call their +atmosphere. + +Half a child always, taking a delight in the frolic of the kids, the +dancing of the daffodils, the playtime of the children, the romp of the +winds with the waters, the loves of the birds in the blossoms. Half a +child always, but always with tears lying close to its laughter, and +always with desires that are death in its dreams. + +No; you have not genius, cara mia. Say your grazie at the next shrine we +pass. + + * * * + +Therefore, in those days men, giving themselves leave to be glad for a +little space, were glad with the same sinewy force and manful singleness +of purpose as made them in other times laborious, self-denying, patient, +and fruitful of high thoughts and deeds. + +Because they laboured for their fellows, therefore they could laugh with +them; and because they served God, therefore they dared be glad. + +In those grave, dauntless, austere lives the Carnival's jocund revelry +was as one golden bead in a pilgrim's rosary of thorn-berries. + +They had aimed highly and highly achieved; therefore they could go forth +amidst their children and rejoice. + +But we--in whom all art is the mere empty Shibboleth of a ruined +religion whose priests are all dead; we--whose whole year-long course is +one Dance of Death over the putridity of our pleasures; we--whose +solitary purpose it is to fly faster and faster from desire to satiety, +from satiety to desire, in an endless eddy of fruitless effort; +we--whose greatest genius can only raise for us some inarticulate +protest of despair against some unknown God;--we have strangled King +Carnival and killed him, and buried him in the ashes of our own +unutterable weariness and woe. + + * * * + +Oh, I believe it was all true enough. + +There were mighty Pascarčlli in the olden days. But I am very glad that +I was not of them; except, indeed, that I should have liked to strike a +blow or two for Guido Calvacanti and have hindered the merrymaking of +those precious rascals who sent him out to die of the marsh fever. + +Great? + +No; certainly I would not be great. To be a great man is endlessly to +crave something that you have not; to kiss the hands of monarchs and +lick the feet of peoples. To be great? Who was ever more great than +Dante, and what was his experience?--the bitterness of begged bread, and +the steepness of palace stairs. + +Besides, given the genius to deserve it, the up-shot of a life spent for +greatness is absolutely uncertain. Look at Machiavelli. + +After having laid down infallible rules for social and public success +with such unapproachable astuteness that his name has become a synonym +for unerring policy, Machiavelli passed his existence in obedience and +submission to Rome, to Florence, to Charles, to Cosmo, to Leo, to +Clement. + +He was born into a time favourable beyond every other to sudden changes +of fortune; a time in which any fearless audacity might easily become +the stepping-stone to a supreme authority; and yet Machiavelli, whom the +world still holds as its ablest statesman--in principle--never in +practice rose above the level of a servant of civil and papal tyrannies, +and, when his end came, died in obscurity and almost in penury. + +Theoretically, Machiavelli could rule the universe; but practically he +never attained to anything finer than a more or less advantageous change +of masters. To reign doctrinally may be all very well, but when it only +results in serving actually, it seems very much better to be obscure and +content without any trouble. + + "Fumo di gloria non vale fumo di pipa." + +I, for one, at any rate, am thoroughly convinced of that truth of +truths. + +I hearkened to him sorrowful; for to my ignorant eyes the witch candle +of fame seemed a pure and perfect planet; and I felt that the planet +might have ruled his horoscope had he chosen. + +Is there no glory at all worth having, then? I murmured. + +He stretched himself where he rested amongst the arum-whitened grass, +and took his cigaretto from his mouth: + +Well, there is one, perhaps. But it is to be had about once in five +centuries. + +You know Or San Michele? It would have been a world's wonder had it +stood alone, and not been companioned with such wondrous rivals that its +own exceeding beauty scarce ever receives full justice. + +Where the jasper of Giotto and the marble of Brunelleschi, where the +bronze of Ghiberti and the granite of Arnolfo rise everywhere in the +sunlit air to challenge vision and adoration, or San Michele fails of +its full meed from men. Yet, perchance, in all the width of Florence +there is not a nobler thing. + +It is like some massive casket of silver oxydised by time; such a casket +as might have been made to hold the Tables of the Law by men to whose +faith Sinai was the holy and imperishable truth. + +I know nothing of the rule or phrase of Architecture, but it seems to +me surely that that square-set strength, as of a fortress, towering +against the clouds, and catching the last light always on its fretted +parapet, and everywhere embossed and enriched with foliage, and tracery, +and the figures of saints, and the shadows of vast arches, and the light +of niches gold-starred and filled with divine forms, is a gift so +perfect to the whole world, that, passing it, one should need say a +prayer for great Taddeo's soul. + +Surely, nowhere is the rugged, changeless, mountain force of hewn stone +piled against the sky, and the luxuriant, dreamlike, poetic delicacy of +stone carven and shaped into leafage and loveliness more perfectly +blended and made one than where Or San Michele rises out of the dim, +many-coloured, twisting streets, in its mass of ebon darkness and of +silvery light. + +Well, the other day, under the walls of it I stood, and looked at its +Saint George where he leans upon his shield, so calm, so young, with his +bared head and his quiet eyes. + +"That is our Donatello's," said a Florentine beside me--a man of the +people, who drove a horse for hire in the public ways, and who paused, +cracking his whip, to tell this tale to me. "Donatello did that, and it +killed him. Do you not know? When he had done that Saint George, he +showed it to his master. And the master said, 'It wants one thing only.' +Now this saying our Donatello took gravely to heart, chiefly of all +because his master would never explain where the fault lay; and so much +did it hurt him, that he fell ill of it, and came nigh to death. Then he +called his master to him. 'Dear and great one, do tell me before I die,' +he said, 'what is the one thing my statue lacks.' The master smiled, and +said, 'Only--speech.' 'Then I die happy,' said our Donatello. And he +died--indeed, that hour." + +"Now, I cannot say that the pretty story is true; it is not in the least +true; Donato died when he was eighty-three, in the Street of the Melon; +and it was he himself who cried, 'Speak then--speak!' to his statue, as +it was carried through the city. But whether true or false the tale, +this fact is surely true, that it is well--nobly and purely well--with a +people when the men amongst it who ply for hire on its public ways think +caressingly of a sculptor dead five hundred years ago, and tell such a +tale standing idly in the noonday sun, feeling the beauty and the pathos +of it all. + +"'Our Donatello' still to the people of Florence. 'Our own little +Donato' still, our pet and pride, even as though he were living and +working in their midst to-day, here in the shadows of the +Stocking-maker's Street, where his Saint George keeps watch and ward. + +"'Our little Donato' still, though dead so many hundred years ago. + +"That is glory, if you will. And something more beautiful than any +glory--Love." + +He was silent a long while, gathering lazily with his left hand the arum +lilies to bind them together for me. + +Perhaps the wish for the moment passed over him that he had chosen to +set his life up in stone, like to Donato's, in the face of Florence, +rather than to weave its light and tangled skein out from the breaths of +the wandering winds and the sands of the shifting shore. + + * * * + +Come out here in the young months of summer, and leave, as we left, the +highways that grim walls fence in, and stray, as we strayed, through the +field-paths and the bridle-roads in the steps of the contadini, and you +will find this green world about your feet touched with the May-day +suns to tenderest and most lavish wealth of nature. + +The green corn uncurling underneath the blossoming vines. The vine +foliage that tosses and climbs and coils in league on league of verdure. +The breast-high grasses full of gold and red and purple from the +countless flowers growing with it. + +The millet filled with crimson gladioli and great scarlet poppies. The +hill-sides that look a sheet of rose-colour where the lupinelli are in +bloom. The tall plumes of the canes, new-born, by the side of every +stream and rivulet. + +The sheaves of arum leaves that thrust themselves out from every joint +of masonry or spout of broken fountain. The flame of roses that burns on +every handbreadth of untilled ground and springs like a rainbow above +the cloud of every darkling roof or wall. The ocean spray of arbutus and +acacia shedding its snow against the cypress darkness. The sea-green of +the young ilex leaves scattered like light over the bronze and purple of +the older growth. The dreamy blue of the iris lilies rising underneath +the olives and along the edges of the fields. + + * * * + +All greatest gifts that have enriched the modern world have come from +Italy. Take those gifts from the world, and it would lie in darkness, a +dumb, barbaric, joyless thing. + +Leave Rome alone, or question as you will whether she were the mightiest +mother, or the blackest curse that ever came on earth. I do not speak of +Rome, imperial or republican, I speak of Italy. + +Of Italy, after the greatness of Rome dropped as the Labarum was raised +on high, and the Fisher of Galilee came to fill the desolate place of +the Cćsars. + +Of Italy, when she was no more a vast dominion, ruling over half the +races of the globe, from the Persian to the Pict, but a narrow slip +bounded by Adriatic and Mediterranean, divided into hostile sections, +racked by foreign foes, and torn by internecine feud. + +Of Italy, ravaged by the Longobardo, plundered by the French, scourged +by the Popes, tortured by the Kaisers; of Italy, with her cities at war +with each other, her dukedoms against her free towns, her tyrants in +conflict with her municipalities; of Italy, in a word, as she has been +from the days of Theodoric and Theodolinda to the days of Napoleon and +Francis Joseph. It is this Italy--our Italy--which through all the +centuries of bloodshed and of suffering never ceased to bear aloft and +unharmed its divining-rod of inspiration as S. Christopher bore the +young Christ above the swell of the torrent and the rage of the tempest. + +All over Italy from north to south men arose in the darkness of those +ages who became the guides and the torchbearers of a humanity that had +gone astray in the carnage and gloom. + +The faith of Columbus of Genoa gave to mankind a new world. The insight +of Galileo of Pisa revealed to it the truth of its laws of being. Guido +Monacco of Arezzo bestowed on it the most spiritual of all earthly joys +by finding a visible record for the fugitive creations of harmony ere +then impalpable and evanescent as the passing glories of the clouds. +Dante Alighieri taught to it the might of that vulgar tongue in which +the child babbles at its mother's knee, and the orator leads a +breathless multitude at his will to death or triumph. Teofilo of Empoli +discovered for it the mysteries of colour that lie in the mere earths of +the rocks and the shores, and the mere oils of the roots and the +poppies. Arnoldo of Breccia lit for it the first flame of free opinion, +and Amatus of Breccia perfected for it the most delicate and exquisite +of all instruments of sound, which men of Cremona, or of Bologna, had +first created. Maestro Giorgio, and scores of earnest workers whose +names are lost in Pesaro and in Gubbio, bestowed on it those homelier +treasures of the graver's and the potter's labours which have carried +the alphabet of art into the lowliest home. Brunelleschi of Florence +left it in legacy the secret of lifting a mound of marble to the upper +air as easily as a child can blow a bubble; and Giordano Bruno of Nola +found for it those elements of philosophic thought, which have been +perfected into the clear and prismatic crystals of the metaphysics of +the Teuton and the Scot. + +From south and north, from east and west, they rose, the ministers and +teachers of mankind. + +From mountain and from valley, from fortress smoking under battle, and +from hamlet laughing under vines; from her great wasted cities, from her +small fierce walled towns, from her lone sea-shores ravaged by the +galleys of the Turks, from her villages on hill and plain that struggled +into life through the invaders' fires, and pushed their vineshoots over +the tombs of kings, everywhere all over her peaceful soil, such men +arose. + +Not men alone who were great in a known art, thought or science, of +these the name was legion; but men in whose brains, art, thought, or +science took new forms, was born into new life, spoke with new voice, +and sprang full armed a new Athene. + +Leave Rome aside, I say, and think of Italy; measure her gifts, which +with the lavish waste of genius she has flung broadcast in grand and +heedless sacrifice, and tell me if the face of earth would not be dark +and drear as any Scythian desert without these? + +She was the rose of the world, aye--so they bruised and trampled her, +and yet the breath of heaven was ever in her. + +She was the world's nightingale, aye--so they burned her eyes out and +sheared her wings, and yet she sang. + +But she was yet more than these: she was the light of the world: a light +set on a hill, a light unquenchable. A light which through the darkness +of the darkest night has been a Pharos to the drowning faiths and dying +hopes of man. + + * * * + +"It must have been such a good life--a painter's--in those days; those +early days of art. Fancy the gladness of it then--modern painters can +know nothing of it. + +"When all the delicate delights of distance were only half perceived; +when the treatment of light and shadow was barely dreamed of; when +aerial perspective was just breaking on the mind in all its wonder and +power; when it was still regarded as a marvellous boldness to draw from +the natural form in a natural fashion;--in those early days only fancy +the delights of a painter! + +"Something fresh to be won at each step; something new to be penetrated +at each moment; something beautiful and rash to be ventured on with each +touch of colour,--the painter in those days had all the breathless +pleasure of an explorer; without leaving his birthplace he knew the joys +of Columbus. + +"And then the reverence that waited on him. + +"He was a man who glorified God amongst a people that believed in God. + +"What he did was a reality to himself and those around him. Spinello +fainted before the Satanas he portrayed, and Angelico deemed it +blasphemy to alter a feature of the angels who visited him that they +might live visibly for men in his colours in the cloister. + +"Of all men the artist was nearest to heaven, therefore of all men was +he held most blessed. + +"When Francis Valois stooped for the brush he only represented the +spirit of the age he lived in. It is what all wise kings do. It is their +only form of genius. + +"Now-a-days what can men do in the Arts! Nothing. + +"All has been painted--all sung--all said. + +"All is twice told--in verse, in stone, in colour. There is no +untraversed ocean to tempt the Columbus of any Art. + +"It is dreary--very dreary--that. All had been said and done so much +better than we can ever say or do it again. One envies those men who +gathered all the paradise flowers half opened, and could watch them +bloom. + +"Art can only live by Faith: and what faith have we? + +"Instead of Art we have indeed Science; but Science is very sad, for she +doubts all things and would prove all things, and doubt is endless, and +proof is a quagmire that looks like solid earth, and is but shifting +waters." + +His voice was sad as it fell on the stillness of Arezzo--Arezzo who had +seen the dead gods come and go, and the old faiths rise and fall, there +where the mule trod its patient way and the cicala sang its summer song +above the place where the temple of the Bona Dea and the Church of +Christ had alike passed away, so that no man could tell their place. + +It was all quiet around. + +"I would rather have been Spinello than Petrarca," he pursued, after a +while. "Yes; though the sonnets will live as long as men love: and the +old man's work has almost every line of it crumbled away. + +"But one can fancy nothing better than a life such as Spinello led for +nigh a century up on the hill here, painting, because he loved it, till +death took him. Of all lives, perhaps, that this world has ever seen, +the lives of painters, I say, in those days were the most perfect. + +"Not only the magnificent pageants of Leonardo's, of Raffaelle's, of +Giorgone's: but the lowlier lives--the lives of men such as Santi, and +Ridolfi, and Benozzo, and Francia, and Timoteo, and many lesser men than +they, painters in fresco and grisaille, painters of miniatures, painters +of majolica and montelupo, painters who were never great, but who +attained infinite peacefulness and beauty in their native towns and +cities all over the face of Italy. + +"In quiet places, such as Arezzo and Volterra, and Modena and Urbino, +and Cortona and Perugia, there would grow up a gentle lad who from +infancy most loved to stand and gaze at the missal paintings in his +mother's house, and the coena in the monk's refectory, and when he had +fulfilled some twelve or fifteen years, his people would give in to his +wish and send him to some bottega to learn the management of colours. + +"Then he would grow to be a man; and his town would be proud of him, and +find him the choicest of all work in its churches and its convents, so +that all his days were filled without his ever wandering out of reach of +his native vesper bells. + +"He would make his dwelling in the heart of his birthplace, close under +its cathedral, with the tender sadness of the olive hills stretching +above and around; in the basiliche or the monasteries his labour would +daily lie; he would have a docile band of hopeful boyish pupils with +innocent eyes of wonder for all he did or said; he would paint his +wife's face for the Madonna's, and his little son's for the child +Angel's; he would go out into the fields and gather the olive bough, and +the feathery corn, and the golden fruits, and paint them tenderly on +ground of gold or blue, in symbol of those heavenly things of which the +bells were for ever telling all those who chose to hear; he would sit in +the lustrous nights in the shade of his own vines and pity those who +were not as he was; now and then horsemen would come spurring in across +the hills and bring news with them of battles fought, of cities lost and +won; and he would listen with the rest in the market-place, and go home +through the moonlight thinking that it was well to create the holy +things before which the fiercest reiter and the rudest free-lance would +drop the point of the sword and make the sign of the cross. + +"It must have been a good life--good to its close in the cathedral +crypt--and so common too; there were scores such lived out in these +little towns of Italy, half monastery and half fortress, that were +scattered over hill and plain, by sea and river, on marsh and mountain, +from the day-dawn of Cimabue to the afterglow of the Carracci. + +"And their work lives after them; the little towns are all grey and +still and half peopled now; the iris grows on the ramparts, the canes +wave in the moats, the shadows sleep in the silent market-place, the +great convents shelter half-a-dozen monks, the dim majestic churches are +damp and desolate, and have the scent of the sepulchre. + +"But there, above the altars, the wife lives in the Madonna and the +child smiles in the Angel, and the olive and the wheat are fadeless on +their ground of gold and blue; and by the tomb in the crypt the +sacristan will shade his lantern and murmur with a sacred tenderness:-- + +"'Here he sleeps.' + +"'He,' even now, so long, long after, to the people of his birthplace. +Who can want more of life--or death?" + +So he talked on in that dreamy, wistful manner that was as natural with +him in some moments as his buoyant and ironical gaiety at others. + +Then he rose as the shadows grew longer and pulled down a knot of +pomegranate blossom for me, and we went together under the old walls, +across the maize fields, down the slope of the hills to the olive +orchard, where a peasant, digging deep his trenches against the autumn +rains, had struck his mattock on the sepulchre of the Etruscan king. + +There was only a little heap of fine dust when we reach the spot. + + * * * + +"There was so much more colour in those days," he had said, rolling a +big green papone before him with his foot. "If, indeed, it were laid on +sometimes too roughly. And then there was so much more play for +character. Now-a-days, if a man dare go out of the common ways to seek a +manner of life suited to him, and unlike others, he is voted a vagabond, +or, at least, a lunatic, supposing he is rich enough to get the sentence +so softened. In those days the impossible was possible--a paradox? oh, +of course. The perfection of those days was, that they were full of +paradoxes. No democracy will ever compass the immensity of Hope, the +vastness of Possibility, with which the Church of those ages filled the +lives of the poorest poor. Not hope spiritual only, but hope +terrestrial, hope material and substantial. A swineherd, glad to gnaw +the husks that his pigs left, might become the Viceregent of Christ, and +spurn emperors prostrate before his throne. The most famished student +who girt his lean loins to pass the gates of Pavia or Ravenna, knew that +if he bowed his head for the tonsure he might live to lift it in a +pontiff's arrogance in the mighty reality and the yet mightier metaphor +of a Canosa. The abuses of the medićval Church have been gibbeted in +every language; but I doubt if the wonderful absolute _equality_ which +that Church actually contained and caused has ever been sufficiently +remembered. Then only think how great it was to _be_ great in those +years, when men were fresh enough of heart to feel emotion and not +ashamed to show it. Think of Petrarca's entry into Rome; think of the +superb life of Raffael; think of the crowds that hung on the lips of +the Improvisatori: think of the influence of S. Bruno, of S. Bernard, of +S. Francis; think of the enormous power on his generation of Fra +Girolamo! And if one were not great at all, but only a sort of brute +with stronger sinews than most men, what a fearless and happy brute one +might be, riding with Hawkwood's Lances, or fighting with the Black +Bands! Whilst, if one were a peaceable, gentle soul, with a turn for art +and grace, what a calm, tender life one might lead in little, old, quiet +cities, painting praying saints on their tiptoes, or moulding +marriage-plates in majolica! It must have been such a great thing to +live when the world was still all open-eyed with wonder at itself, like +a child on its sixth birthday. Now-a-days, science makes a great +discovery; the tired world yawns, feels its pockets, and only asks, +"Will it pay?" Galileo ran the risk of the stake, and Giordano Bruno +suffered at it; but I think that chance of the faggots must have been +better to bear than the languid apathy and the absorbed avarice of the +present age, which is chiefly tolerant because it has no interest except +in new invented ways for getting money and for spending it." + + + + +_IN MAREMMA._ + + +He remembered two years before, when he had passed through Italy on his +way eastward, pausing in Ferrara, and Brescia, and Mantua, and staying +longer in the latter city on account of a trial then in course of +hearing in the court of justice, which had interested him by its +passionate and romantic history; it had been the trial of the young +Count d'Este, accused of the assassination of his mistress. Sanctis had +gone with the rest of the town to the hearing of the long and tedious +examination of the witnesses and of accused. It had been a warm day in +early autumn, three months after the night of the murder; Mantua had +looked beautiful in her golden mantle of sunshine and silver veil of +mist; there was a white, light fog on the water meadows and the lakes, +and under it the willows waved and the tall reeds rustled; whilst the +dark towers, the forked battlements, the vast Lombard walls, seemed to +float on it like sombre vessels on a foamy sea. + +He remembered the country people flocking in over the bridge, the bells +ringing, the red sails drifting by, the townsfolk gathering together in +the covered arcades and talking with angry rancour against the dead +woman's lord. He remembered sitting in the hush and gloom of the +judgment-hall and furtively sketching the head of the prisoner because +of its extreme and typical beauty. He remembered how at the time he had +thought this accused lover guiltless, and wondered that the tribunal did +not sooner suspect the miserly, malicious, and subtle meaning of the +husband's face. He remembered listening to the tragic tale that seemed +so well to suit those sombre, feudal streets, those melancholy waters, +seeing the three-edged dagger passed from hand to hand, hearing how the +woman had been found dead in her beauty on her old golden and crimson +bed with the lilies on her breast, and looking at the attitude of the +prisoner--in which the judges saw remorse and guilt, and he could only +see the unutterable horror of a bereaved lover to whom the world was +stripped and naked. + +He had stayed but two days in Mantua, but those two days had left an +impression on him like that left by the reading at the fall of night of +some ghastly poem of the middle ages. He had thought that they had +condemned an innocent man, as the judge gave his sentence of the galleys +for life: and the scene had often come back to his thoughts. + +The vaulted audience chamber; the strong light pouring in through high +grated windows; the pillars of many-coloured marbles, the frescoed roof; +the country people massed together in the public place, with faces that +were like paintings of Mantegna or Masaccio; the slender supple form of +the accused drooping like a bruised lily between the upright figures of +two carabineers; the judge leaning down over his high desk in black +robes and black square cap, like some Venetian lawgiver of Veronese or +of Titian; and beyond, through an open casement, the silvery, watery, +sun-swept landscape that was still the same as when Romeo came, +banished, to Mantua. All these had remained impressed upon his mind by +the tragedy which there came to its close as a lover, passionate as +Romeo and yet more unfortunate, was condemned to the galleys for his +life. "They have ill judged a guiltless man," he had said to himself as +he had left the court with a sense of pain before injustice done, and +went with heart saddened by a stranger's fate into the misty air, along +the shining water where the Mills of the Twelve Apostles were churning +the great dam into froth, as they had done through seven centuries, +since first, with reverent care, the builder had set the sacred statues +there that they might bless the grinding of the corn. + +Sitting now in the silence of the tomb, Sanctis recalled that day, when, +towards the setting of the sun, he had strolled there by the +water-wheels of the twelve disciples, and allowed the fate of an unknown +man, declared a criminal by impartial judges, to cloud over for him the +radiance of evening on the willowy Serraglio and chase away his peaceful +thoughts of Virgil. He remembered how the country people had come out by +the bridge and glided away in their boats, and talked of the murder of +Donna Aloysia; and how they had, one and all of them, said, going back +over the lake water or along the reed-fringed roads, to their +farmhouses, that there could be no manner of doubt about it--the lover +had been moon-struck and mad with jealousy, and his dagger had found +its way to her breast. They had not blamed him much, but they had never +doubted his guilt; and the foreigner alone, standing by the mill +gateway, and seeing the golden sun go down beyond the furthermost fields +of reeds that grew blood-red as the waters grew, had thought to himself +and said half aloud: + +"Poor Romeo! he is guiltless, even though the dagger were his"---- + +And a prior, black-robed, with broad looped-up black hat, who was also +watching the sunset, breviary in hand, had smiled and said, "Nay, Romeo, +banished to us, had no blood on his hand; but this Romeo, native of our +city, has. Mantua will be not ill rid of Luitbrand d'Este." + +Then he again, in obstinacy and against all the priest's better +knowledge as a Mantuan, had insisted and said, "The man is innocent." + +And the sun had gone down as he had spoken, and the priest had smiled--a +smile cold as a dagger's blade--perhaps recalling sins confessed to him +of love that had changed to hate, of fierce delight ending in as fierce +a death-blow. Mantua in her day had seen so much alike of love and hate. + +"The man is innocent," he had said insisting, whilst the carmine light +had glowed on the lagoons and bridges, and on the Lombard walls, and +Gothic gables, and high bell-towers, and ducal palaces, and feudal +fortresses of the city in whose street Crichton fell to the hired steel +of bravoes. + + * * * + +She had the heaven-born faculty of observation of the poets, and she had +that instinct of delight in natural beauty which made Linnćus fall on +his knees before the English gorse and thank God for having made so +beautiful a thing. + +Her sympathies and her imaginings spent themselves in solitary song as +she made the old strings of the lute throb in low cadence when she sat +solitary by her hearth on the rock floor of the grave; and out of doors +her eyes filled and her lips laughed when she wandered through the leafy +land and found the warbler's nest hung upon the reeds, or the first +branching asphodel in flower. She could not have told why these made her +happy, why she could watch for half a day untired the little wren +building where the gladwyn blossomed on the water's edge. It was only +human life that hurt her, embittered her, and filled her with hatred of +it. + +As she walked one golden noon by the Sasso Scritto, clothed with its +myrtle and thyme and its quaint cacti that later would bear their purple +heads of fruit; the shining sea beside her, and above her the bold +arbutus-covered heights, with the little bells of the sheep sounding on +their sides, she saw a large fish, radiant as a gem, with eyes like +rubies. Some men had it; a hook was in its golden gills, and they had +tied its tail to the hook so that it could not stir, and they had put it +in a pail of water that it might not die too quickly, die ere they could +sell it. A little further on she saw a large green and gold snake, one +of the most harmless of all earth's creatures, that only asked to creep +into the sunshine, to sleep in its hole in the rock, to live out its +short, innocent life under the honey smile of the rosemary; the same men +stoned it to death, heaping the pebbles and broken sandstone on it, and +it perished slowly in long agony, being large and tenacious of life. Yet +a little further on, again, she saw a big square trap of netting, with a +blinded chaffinch as decoy. The trap was full of birds, some fifty or +sixty of them, all kinds of birds, from the plain brown minstrel, +beloved of the poets, to the merry and amber-winged oriole, from the +dark grey or russet-bodied fly-catcher and whinchat to the glossy and +handsome jay, cheated and caught as he was going back to the north; they +had been trapped, and would be strung on a string and sold for a copper +coin the dozen; and of many of them the wings or the legs were broken +and the eyes were already dim. The men who had taken them were seated on +the thymy turf grinning like apes, with pipes in their mouths, and a +flask of wine between their knees. + +She passed on, helpless. + +She thought of words that Joconda had once quoted to her, words which +said that men were made in God's likeness! + + * * * + +While it is winter the porphyrion sails down the willowy streams beside +the sultan-hen that is to be his love, and sees her not, and stays not +her passage upon the water or through the air; she does not live as yet +to him. But when the breath of the spring brings the catkins from the +willows, and the violets amidst the wood-moss on the banks, then he +awakes and beholds her; and then the stream reflects but her shape for +him, and the rushes are full of the melody of his love-call. It was +still winter with Este--a bitter winter of discontent; and he had no +eyes for this water-bird that swam with him through the icy current of +his adversity. + +To break the frozen flood that imprisoned him was his only thought. + + * * * + +Air is the king of physicians; he who stands often with nothing between +him and the open heavens will gain from them health both moral and +physical. + + * * * + +"Yes; you have a right to know. After all, it was ruin to me, but it is +not much of a story; a tale-teller with his guitar on a vintage night +would soon make a better one. I loved a woman. She lived in Mantua. So +did I, too. For her sake I lost three whole years--three years of the +best of my life. And yet, what is gain except love, and what better than +joy can we have? A pomegranate is ripe but once. And I--my pomegranate +is rotten for evermore! We lived in Mantua. It is a strange sad place. +It was great and gay enough once. Grander pomp than Mantua's there was +never known in Italy. Felix Mantua!--and now it is all decaying, +mouldering, sinking, fading; it is silent as death; the mists, the +waters, the empty palaces, the walls that the marshes are eating little +by little every day, the grass and the moss and the wild birds' nests on +the roofs, on the temples, on the bridges, all are desolate in Mantua +now. Yet is it beautiful in its loneliness, when the sunrise comes over +the seas of reeds, and the towers and the arches are reflected in the +pools and streams; and yet again at night, when the moon is high and the +lagoons are as sheets of silver, and the shadows come and go over the +bulrushes and St. Andrea lifts itself against the stars. Yes; then it is +still Mantova la Gloriosa." + +His voice dropped; the tears came into his closing eyes as though he +looked on the dead face of a familiar friend. + +He felt the home sickness of the exile, of the wanderer who knows not +where to lay his head. + +The glory was gone from the city. + +Its greatness was but as a ghost that glided through its deserted +streets calling in vain on dead men to arise. + +The rough red sail of the fishing-boat was alone on the waters once +crowded with the silken sails of gilded galleys; the toad croaked and +the stork made her nest where the Lords of Gonzaga had gone forth to +meet their brides of Este or of Medici; Virgil, Alboin, great Karl, +Otho, Petrarca, Ariosto, had passed by here over this world of waters +and become no more than dreams; and the vapours and the dust together +had stolen the smile from Giulio's Psyche, and the light from Mantegna's +arabesques. On the vast walls the grass grew, and in the palaces of +princes the winds wandered and the beggars slept. All was still, +disarmed, lonely, forgotten; left to a silence like the silence of the +endless night of death. Yet it was dear to him; this sad and stately +city, waiting for the slow death of an unpitied and lingering decay. + +It was dear to him from habit, from birth, from memory, from affinity, +as the reeds of its stagnant waters were dear to the sedge-warbler that +hung its slender nest on the stem of a rush. A price was set on his +head; and never more, he thought, would he see the sunshine in ripples +of gold come over the grey lagoons. + + * * * + +No one cared; the terrible, barren, acrid truth, that science trumpets +abroad as though it were some new-found joy, touched her ignorance with +its desolating despair. No one cared. Life was only sustained by death. +The harmless and lovely children of the air and of the moor were given +over, year after year, century after century, to the bestial play and +the ferocious appetites of men. The wondrous beauty of the earth renewed +itself only to be the scene of endless suffering, of interminable +torture. The human tyrant, without pity, greedy as a child, more brutal +than the tiger in his cruelty, had all his way upon the innocent races +to which he begrudged a tuft of reeds, a palm's breadth of moss or sand. +The slaughter, the misery, the injustice, renewed themselves as the +greenness of the world did. No one cared. There was no voice upon the +blood-stained waters. There was no rebuke from the offended heavens. To +all prayer or pain there was eternal silence as the sole reply. + + * * * + +The uneducated are perhaps unjustly judged sometimes. To the ignorant +both right and wrong are only instincts; when one remembers their +piteous and innocent confusion of ideas, the twilight of dim +comprehension in which they dwell, one feels that oftentimes the laws of +cultured men are too hard on them, and that, in a better sense than that +of injustice and reproach, there ought indeed to be two laws for rich +and poor. + + * * * + +It needs a great nature to bear the weight of a great gratitude. + +To a great nature it gives wings that bear it up to heaven; a lower +nature feels it always as a clog that impatiently is dragged only so +long as force compels. + + * * * + +When the thoughts of youth return, fresh as the scent of new-gathered +blossoms, to the tired old age which has so long forgot them, the coming +of Death is seldom very distant. + + * * * + +The boat went through the waters swiftly, as the wind blew more +strongly; the sandy shore with its scrub of low-growing rock-rose and +prickly Christ's thorn did not change its landscape, but what she looked +at always was the sea; the sea that in the light had the smiling azure +of a young child's eyes, and when the clouds cast shadows on it, had the +intense impenetrable brilliancy of a jewel. + +In the distance were puffs of white and grey, like smoke or mist; those +mists were Corsica and Caprajŕ. + +Elba towered close at hand. + +Gorgona lay far beyond, with all the other little isles that seem made +to shelter Miranda and Ariel, but of Gorgona she knew nothing; she was +steering straight towards it, but it was many a league distant on the +northerly water. + +When she at last stopped her boat in its course she was at the Sasso +Scritto: a favourite resting-place with her, where, on feast-days, when +Joconda let her have liberty from housework and rush-plaiting and +spinning of flax, she always came. + +Northward, there was a long smooth level beach of sand, and beyond that +a lagoon where all the waterbirds that love both the sea and the marsh +came in large flocks, and spread their wings over the broad spaces in +which the salt water and the fresh were mingled. Beyond this there were +cliffs of the humid red tufa, and the myrtle and the holy thorn grew +down their sides, and met in summer the fragrant hesperis of the shore. + +These cliffs were fine bold bluffs, and one of them had been called from +time immemorial the Sasso Scritto,--why, no one knew; the only writing +on it was done by the hand of Nature. It was steep and lofty; on its +summit were the ruins of an old fortress of the middle ages; its sides +were clothed with myrtle, aloe, and rosemary, and at its feet were +boulders of marble, rose and white in the sun; rock pools, with +exquisite network of sunbeams crossing their rippling surface, and +filled with green ribbon-grasses and red sea-foliage, and shining gleams +of broken porphyry, and pieces of agate and cornelian. + +The yellow sands hereabouts were bright just now with the sea-daffodil, +and the sea-stocks, which would blossom later, were pricking upward to +the Lenten light; great clusters of southern-wood waved in the wind, and +the pungent sea-rush grew in long lines along the shore, where the +sand-piper was dropping her eggs, and the blue-rock was carrying dry +twigs and grass to his home in the ruins above or the caverns beneath, +and the stock-doves in large companies were winging their way over sea +towards the Maritime or the Pennine Alps. + +This was a place that Musa loved, and she would come here and sit for +hours, and watch the roseate cloud of the returning flamingoes winging +their way from Sardinia, and the martins busy at their masonry in the +cliffs, and the Arctic longipennes going away northward as the weather +opened, and the stream-swallows hunting early gnats and frogs on the +water, and the kingfisher digging his tortuous underground home in the +sand. Here she would lie for hours amongst the rosemary, and make silent +friendships with the populations of the air, while the sweet blue sky +was above her head, and the sea, as blue, stretched away till it was +lost in light. + +Once up above, on these cliffs, the eye could sweep over the sea north +and south, and the soil was more than ever scented with that fragrant +and humble blue-flowered shrub of which the English madrigals and glees +of the Stuart and Hanoverian poets so often speak, and seem to smell. +Behind the cliffs stretched moorland, marshes, woodland, intermingled, +crossed by many streams, holding many pools, blue-fringed in May with +iris, and osier beds, and vast fields of reeds, and breadths of forest +with dense thorny underwood, where all wild birds came in their season, +and where all was quiet save for a bittern's cry, a boar's snort, a +snipe's scream, on the lands once crowded with the multitudes that gave +the eagle of Persia and the brazen trumpets of Lydia to the legions of +Rome. + +Under their thickets of the prickly sloe-tree and the sweet-smelling bay +lay the winding ways of buried cities; their runlets of water rippled +where kings and warriors slept beneath the soil, and the yellow marsh +lily, and the purple and the rose of the wind-flower and the +pasque-flower, and the bright red of the Easter tulips, and the white +and the gold of the asphodels, and the colours of a thousand other rarer +and less homelike blossoms, spread their innocent glory in their turn to +the sky and the breeze, above the sunken stones of courts and gates and +palaces and prisons. + +These moors were almost as solitary as the deserts are. + +Now and then against the blue of the sky and the brown of the wood, +there rose the shapes of shepherds and their flocks; now and then herds +of young horses went by, fleet and unconscious of their doom; now and +then the sound of a rifle cracked the silence of the windless air; but +these came but seldom. + +Maremma is wide, and its people are scattered. + +In autumn and in winter, hunters, shepherds, swineherds, sportsmen, +birdcatchers, might spoil the solemn peace of these moors, but in spring +and summer no human soul was seen upon them. The boar and the buffalo, +the flamingo and the roebuck, the great plover and the woodcock, reigned +alone. + + * * * + +"They say he sang too well, and that was why they burnt him," said +Andreino to her to-day, after telling her for the hundredth time of what +he had seen once on the Ligurian shore, far away yonder northward, when +he, who knew nothing of Adonais or Prometheus, had been called, a stout +seafaring man in that time, amongst other peasants of the country-side, +to help bring in the wood for a funeral pyre by the sea. + +He had known nought of the songs or the singer, but he loved to tell the +tale he had heard then; and say how he had seen, he himself, with his +own eyes, the drowned poet burn, far away yonder where the pines stood +by the sea, and how the flames had curled around the heart that men had +done their best to break, and how it had remained unburnt in the midst, +whilst all the rest drifted in ashes down the wind. He knew nought of +the Skylark's ode, and nought of the Cor Cordium; but the scene by the +seashore had burned itself as though with flame into his mind, and he +spoke of it a thousand times if once, sitting by the edge of the sea +that had killed the singer. + +"Will they burn me if I sing too well?" the child asked him this day, +the words of Joconda being with her. + +"Oh, that is sure," said Andreino, half in jest and half in earnest. +"They burnt him because he sang better than all of them. So they said. +I do not know. I know the resin ran out of the pinewood all golden and +hissing and his heart would not burn, all we could do. You are a female +thing, Musa; your heart will be the first to burn, the first of all!" + +"Will it?" said Musa seriously, but not any way alarmed, for the thought +of that flaming pile by the seashore by night was a familiar image to +her. + +"Ay, for sure; you will be a woman!" said Andreino, hammering into his +boat. + + * * * + +"Though there is not a soul here, still sometimes they come--Lucchese, +Pistoiese, what not--they come as they go; they are a faithless lot; +they love all winter, and while the corn is in the ear it goes well, but +after harvest--phew!--they put their gains in their pockets and they are +off and away back to their mountains. There are broken hearts in Maremma +when the threshing is done." + +"Yes," said Musa again. + +It was nothing to her, and she heeded but little. + +"Yes, because men speak too lightly and women hearken too quickly; that +is how the mischief is born. With the autumn the mountaineers come. They +are strong and bold; they are ruddy and brown; they work all day, but in +the long nights they dance and they sing; then the girl listens. She +thinks it is all true, though it has all been said before in his own +hills to other ears. The winter nights are long, and the devil is always +near; when the corn goes down and the heat is come there is another sad +soul the more, another burden to carry, and he--he goes back to the +mountains. What does he care? Only when he comes down into the plains +again he goes to another place to work, because men do not love women's +tears. That is how it goes in Maremma." + + * * * + +"So the saints will pluck her to themselves at last," thought Joconda; +and the dreariness, the lovelessness, the hopelessness of such an +existence did not occur to her, because age, which has learned the +solace and sweetness of peace, never remembers that to youth peace seems +only stagnation, inanition, death. + +The exhausted swimmer, reaching the land, falls prone on it, and blesses +it; but the outgoing swimmer, full of strength, spurns the land, and +only loves the high-crested wave, the abyss of the deep sea. + + * * * + +Imagination without culture is crippled and moves slowly; but it can be +pure imagination, and rich also, as folk-lore will tell the vainest. + + * * * + +It is this narrowness of the peasant mind which philosophers never +fairly understand, and demagogues understand but too well, and warp to +their own selfish purposes and profits. + + * * * + +Flying, the flamingoes are like a sunset cloud; walking, they are like +slender spirals of flame traversing the curling foam. When one looks on +them across black lines of storm-blown weeds on a November morning in +the marshes, as their long throats twist in the air with the flexile +motion of the snake, the grace of a lily blown by wind, one thinks of +Thebes, of Babylon, of the gorgeous Persia of Xerxes, of the lascivious +Egypt of the Ptolemies. + +The world has grown grey and joyless in the twilight of age and fatigue, +but these birds keep the colour of its morning. Eos has kissed them. + + * * * + +For want of a word lives often drift apart. + + * * * + +Nausicaa, in the safe shelter of her father's halls, had never tended +Odysseus with more serenity and purity than the daughter of Saturnino +tended his fellow-slave. + +The sanctity of the tombs lay on them, the dead were so near; neither +profanity nor passion seemed to have any place here in this mysterious +twilight alive with the memories of a vanished people. Her innocence was +a grand and noble thing, like any one of the largest white lilies that +rose up from the noxious mud of the marshes; a cup of ivory wet with the +dewdrops of dawn, blossoming fair on fetid waters. And in him the +languor of sickness and of despair borrowed unconsciously for awhile the +liveries of chastity; and he spoke no word, he made no gesture, that +would have scared from its original calm the soul of this lonely +creature, who succoured him with so much courage and so much compassion +that they awed him with the sense of an eternal, infinite, and +overwhelming obligation. It needs a great nature to bear the weight of a +great gratitude. + +To a great nature it gives wings that bear it up to heaven; a lower +nature feels it always a clog that impatiently is dragged only so long +as force compels. + + * * * + +Her daily labours remained the same, but it seemed to her as if she had +the strength of those immortals he told her she resembled. She felt as +though she trod on air, as though she drank the sunbeams and they gave +her force like wine; she had no sense of fatigue; she might have had +wings at her ankles, and nectar in her veins. She was so happy, with +that perfect happiness which only comes where the world cannot enter, +and the free nature has lifted itself to the light, knowing nothing of, +and caring nothing for, the bonds of custom and of prejudice with which +men have paralysed and cramped themselves, calling the lower the higher +law. + + * * * + +The world was so far from her; she knew not of it; she was a law to +herself, and her whole duty seemed to her set forth in one single word, +perhaps the noblest word in human language--fidelity. When life is cast +in solitary places, filled with high passions, and led aloof from men, +the laws which are needful to curb the multitudes, but yet are poor +conventional foolish things at their best, sink back into their true +signification, and lose their fictitious awe. + + * * * + +Moreover, love is for ever measureless, and the deepest and most +passionate love is that which survives the death of esteem. + +Friendship needs to be rooted in respect, but love can live upon itself +alone. Love is born of a glance, a touch, a murmur, a caress; esteem +cannot beget it, nor lack of esteem slay it. _Questi che mai da me non +fia diviso_, shall be for ever its consolation amidst hell. One life +alone is beloved, is beautiful, is needful, is desired: one life alone +out of all the millions of earth. Though it fall, err, betray, be mocked +of others and forsaken by itself, what does this matter? This cannot +alter love. The more it is injured by itself, derided of men, abandoned +of God, the more will love still see that it has need of love, and to +the faithless will be faithful. + + * * * + +He stood mute and motionless awhile. Then as the truth was borne in on +him, tears gushed from his eyes like rain, and he laughed long, and +laughed loud as madmen do. + +He never doubted her. + +He sprang up the stone steps, and leapt into the open air: into that +light of day which he had been forbidden to see so long. + +To stand erect there, to look over the plains, to breathe, and move, and +gaze, and stretch his arms out to the infinite spaces of the sea and +sky--this alone was so intense a joy that he felt mad with it. + +Never again to hide with the snake and the fox; never again to tremble +as his shadow went beside him on the sand; never to waste the sunlit +hours hidden in the bowels of the earth; never to be afraid of every +leaf that stirred, of every bird that flew, of every moon-beam that fell +across his path!--he laughed and sobbed with the ecstasy of his release. + +"O God, Thou hast not forgotten!" he cried in that rapture of freedom. + +All the old childish faiths that had been taught him by dim old altars +in stately Mantuan churches came back to his memory and heart. + +On the barren rock of Gorgona he had cursed and blasphemed the Creator +and creation of a world that was hell; he had been without hope: he had +derided all the faiths of his youth as illusions woven by devils to make +the disappointment of man the more bitter. + +But now in the sweetness of his liberty, all the old happy beliefs +rushed back to him; he saw Deity in the smile of the seas, in the light +upon the plains. He was free! + + * * * + +The world has lost the secret of making labour a joy; but nature has +given it to a few. Where the maidens dance the _Saltarello_ under the +deep Sardinian forests, and the honey and the grapes are gathered +beneath the snowy sides of Etna, and the oxen walk up to their loins in +flowing grass where the long aisles of pines grow down the Adrian shore, +this wood-magic is known still of the old simple charm of the pastoral +life. + + * * * + +"Does it vex you that I am not a boy?" said the girl--"why should it vex +you? I can do all they can, I can row better than many, and sail and +steer; I can drive too, and I know what to do with the nets; if I had a +boat of my own you would see what I could do." + +"All that is very well," said Joconda with a little nod. "I do not say +it is not. But you have not a boat of your own, that is just it; that is +what women always suffer from; they have to steer, but the craft is some +one else's, and the haul too." + + * * * + +Wild bird of sea and cloud, you are a stormy petrel, but there may come +a storm too many--and I am old. I have done my best, but that is little. +If you were a lad one would not be so uneasy. I suppose the good God +knows best--if one could be sure of that--I am a hard working woman, and +I have done no great sin that I know of, but up in heaven they never +take any thought of me. When I was young, I asked them at my marriage +altar to help me, and when my boys were born, I did the same, but they +never noticed; my man was drowned, and my beautiful boys got the fever +and sickened one by one and died: that was all I got. Priests say it is +best; priests are not mothers. + + * * * + +"They were greater than the men that live now," she said with a solemn +tenderness, + +"Perhaps; Why think so?" + +"Because they were not afraid of their dead; they built them beautiful +houses, and gave them beautiful things. Now, men are afraid or ashamed, +or they have no remembrance. Their dead are huddled away in dust or mud +as though they were hateful or sinful. That is what I think so cowardly, +so thankless. If they will not bear the sight of death, it were better +to let great ships go slowly out, far out to sea, and give the waves +their lost ones." + + + + +_MOTHS._ + + +When gardeners plant and graft, they know very well what will be the +issue of their work; they do not expect the rose from a bulb of garlic, +or look for the fragrant olive from a slip of briar; but the culturers +of human nature are less wise, and they sow poison, yet rave in +reproaches when it breeds and brings forth its like. "The rosebud garden +of girls" is a favourite theme for poets, and the maiden in her likeness +to a half-opened blossom, is as near purity and sweetness as a human +creature can be, yet what does the world do with its opening buds?--it +thrusts them in the forcing-house amidst the ordure, and then, if they +perish prematurely, never blames itself. The streets absorb the girls of +the poor; society absorbs the daughters of the rich; and not seldom one +form of prostitution, like the other, keeps its captives "bound in the +dungeon of their own corruption." + + * * * + +The frivolous are always frightened at any strength or depth of nature, +or any glimpse of sheer despair. + +Not to be consoled! + +What can seem more strange to the shallow? What can seem more obstinate +to the weak? Not to be consoled is to offend all swiftly forgetting +humanity, most of whose memories are writ on water. + + * * * + +It is harder to keep true to high laws and pure instincts in modern +society than it was in days of martyrdom. There is nothing in the whole +range of life so dispiriting and so unnerving as a monotony of +indifference. Active persecution and fierce chastisement are tonics to +the nerves; but the mere weary conviction that no one cares, that no one +notices, that there is no humanity that honours, and no deity that +pities, is more destructive of all higher effort than any conflict with +tyranny or with barbarism. + + * * * + +Yet as he thought, so he did not realise that he would ever cease to be +in the world--who does? Life was still young in him, was prodigal to him +of good gifts; of enmity he only knew so much as made his triumph finer, +and of love he had more than enough. His life was full--at times +laborious--but always poetical and always victorious. He could not +realise that the day of darkness would ever come for him, when neither +woman nor man would delight him, when no roses would have fragrance for +him, and no song any spell to rouse him. Genius gives immortality in +another way than in the vulgar one of being praised by others after +death; it gives elasticity, unwearied sympathy, and that sense of some +essence stronger than death, of some spirit higher than the tomb, which +nothing can destroy. It is in this sense that genius walks with the +immortals. + + * * * + +A cruel story runs on wheels, and every hand oils the wheels as they +run. + + * * * + +You may weep your eyes blind, you may shout your throat dry, you may +deafen the ears of your world for half a lifetime, and you may never get +a truth believed in, never have a simple fact accredited. But the lie +flies like the swallow, multiplies itself like the caterpillar, is +accepted everywhere, like the visits of a king; it is a royal guest for +whom the gates fly open, the red carpet is unrolled, the trumpets sound, +the crowds applaud. + + * * * + +She lived, like all women of her stamp and her epoch, in an atmosphere +of sugared sophisms; she never reflected, she never admitted, that she +did wrong; in her world nothing mattered much, unless, indeed, it were +found out, and got into the public mouth. + +Shifting as the sands, shallow as the rain-pools, drifting in all danger +to a lie, incapable of loyalty, insatiably curious, still as a friend +and ill as a foe, kissing like Judas, denying like Peter, impure of +thought, even where by physical bias or political prudence still pure in +act, the woman of modern society is too often at once the feeblest and +the foulest outcome of a false civilisation. Useless as a butterfly, +corrupt as a canker, untrue to even lovers and friends because mentally +incapable of comprehending what truth means, caring only for physical +comfort and mental inclination, tired of living, but afraid of dying; +believing some in priests, and some in physiologists, but none at all in +virtue; sent to sleep by chloral, kept awake by strong waters and raw +meat; bored at twenty, and exhausted at thirty, yet dying in the harness +of pleasure rather than drop out of the race and live naturally; +pricking their sated senses with the spur of lust, and fancying it love; +taking their passions as they take absinthe before dinner; false in +everything, from the swell of their breast to the curls at their +throat;--beside them the guilty and tragic figures of old, the Medea, +the Clytemnćstra, the Phćdra, look almost pure, seem almost noble. + +When one thinks that they are the only shape of womanhood which comes +hourly before so many men, one comprehends why the old Christianity +which made womanhood sacred dies out day by day, and why the new +Positivism, which would make her divine, can find no lasting root. + +The faith of men can only live by the purity of women, and there is both +impurity and feebleness at the core of the dolls of Worth, as the canker +of the phylloxera works at the root of the vine. + + * * * + +"What an actress was lost in your mother!" he added with his rough +laugh; but he confused the talent of the comedian of society with that +of the comedian of the stage, and they are very dissimilar. The latter +almost always forgets herself in her part; the former never. + + * * * + +The scorn of genius is the most arrogant and the most boundless of all +scorn. + + * * * + +"The fame of the singer can never be but a breath, a sound through a +reed. When our lips are once shut, there is on us for ever eternal +silence. Who can remember a summer breeze when it has passed by, or +tell in any after-time how a laugh or a sigh sounded?" + + * * * + +"When the soldier dies at his post, unhonoured and unpitied, and out of +sheer duty, is that unreal because it is noble?" he said one night to +his companions. "When the sister of charity hides her youth and her sex +under a grey shroud, and gives up her whole life to woe and solitude, to +sickness and pain, is that unreal because it is wonderful? A man paints +a spluttering candle, a greasy cloth, a mouldy cheese, a pewter can; +'How real!' they cry. If he paint the spirituality of dawn, the light of +the summer sea, the flame of arctic nights, of tropic woods, they are +called unreal, though they exist no less than the candle and the cloth, +the cheese and the can. Ruy Blas is now condemned as unreal because the +lovers kill themselves; the realists forget that there are lovers still +to whom that death would be possible, would be preferable, to low +intrigue and yet more lowering falsehood. They can only see the mouldy +cheese, they cannot see the sunrise glory. All that is heroic, all that +is sublime, impersonal, or glorious, is derided as unreal. It is a +dreary creed. It will make a dreary world. Is not my Venetian glass with +its iridescent hues of opal as real every whit as your pot of pewter? +Yet the time is coming when every one, morally and mentally at least, +will be allowed no other than a pewter pot to drink out of, under pain +of being 'writ down an ass'--or worse. It is a dreary prospect." + + * * * + +"Good? bad? If there were only good and bad in this world it would not +matter so much," said Corrčze a little recklessly and at random. "Life +would not be such a disheartening affair as it is. Unfortunately the +majority of people are neither one nor the other, and have little +inclination for either crime or virtue. It would be almost as absurd to +condemn them as to admire them. They are like tracts of shifting sand, +in which nothing good or bad can take root. To me they are more +despairing to contemplate than the darkest depth of evil; out of that +may come such hope as comes of redemption and remorse, but in the vast, +frivolous, featureless mass of society there is no hope." + + * * * + +"No!" he said with some warmth: "I refuse to recognise the divinity of +noise; I utterly deny the majesty of monster choruses; clamour and +clangour are the death-knell of music as drapery and so-called realism +(which means, if it mean aught, that the dress is more real than the +form underneath it!) are the destruction of sculpture. It is very +strange. Every day art in every other way becomes more natural and music +more artificial. Every day I wake up expecting to hear myself _dénigré_ +and denounced as old-fashioned, because I sing as my nature as well as +my training teaches me to do. It is very odd; there is such a cry for +naturalism in other arts--we have Millet instead of Claude; we have Zola +instead of Georges Sand; we have Dumas _fils_ instead of Corneille; we +have Mercié instead of Canova; but in music we have precisely the +reverse, and we have the elephantine creations, the elaborate and +pompous combinations of Baireuth, and the Tone school, instead of the +old sweet strains of melody that went straight and clear to the ear and +the heart of man. Sometimes my enemies write in their journals that I +sing as if I were a Tuscan peasant strolling through his corn--how +proud they make me! But they do not mean to do so. I will not twist and +emphasise. I trust to melody. I was taught music in its own country, and +I will not sin against the canons of the Italians. They are right. +Rhetoric is one thing, and song is another. Why confuse the two? +Simplicity is the soul of great music; as it is the mark of great +passion. Ornament is out of place in melody which represents single +emotions at their height, be they joy, or fear, or hate, or love, or +shame, or vengeance, or whatsoever they will. Music is not a science any +more than poetry is. It is a sublime instinct, like genius of all kinds. +I sing as naturally as other men speak; let me remain natural"---- + + * * * + +Childhood goes with us like an echo always, a refrain to the ballad of +our life. One always wants one's cradle-air. + + * * * + +"The poor you have always with you," she said to a bevy of great ladies +once. "Christ said so. You profess to follow Christ. How have you the +poor with you? The back of their garret, the roof of their hovel, +touches the wall of your palace, and the wall is thick. You have +dissipations, spectacles, diversions that you call charities; you have a +tombola for a famine, you have a dramatic performance for a flood, you +have a concert for a fire, you have a fancy fair for a leprosy. Do you +never think how horrible it is, that mockery of woe? Do you ever wonder +at revolutions? Why do you not say honestly that you care nothing? You +do care nothing. The poor might forgive the avowal of indifference; they +will never forgive the insult of affected pity." + + * * * + +"Why do you go to such a place?" he asked her as she stood on the +staircase. + +"There are poor there, and great misery," she answered him reluctantly; +she did not care to speak of these things at any time. + +"And what good will you do? You will be cheated and robbed, and even if +you are not, you should know that political science has found that +private charity is the hotbed of all idleness." + +"When political science has advanced enough to prevent poverty, it may +have the right to prevent charity too," she answered him, with a +contempt that showed thought on the theme was not new to her. "Perhaps +charity--I dislike the word--may do no good; but friendship from the +rich to the poor must do good; it must lessen class hatreds." + +"Are you a socialist?" said Zouroff with a little laugh, and drew back +and let her pass onward. + + * * * + +"My dear! I never say rude things; but, if you wish me to be sincere, I +confess I think everybody is a little vulgar now, except old women like +me, who adhered to the Faubourg while you all were dancing and changing +your dresses seven times a day at St. Cloud. There is a sort of +vulgarity in the air; it is difficult to escape imbibing it; there is +too little reticence, there is too much tearing about; men are not +well-mannered, and women are too solicitous to please, and too +indifferent how far they stoop in pleasing. It may be the fault of +steam; it may be the fault of smoking; it may come from that flood of +new people of whom 'L'Etrangčre' is the scarcely exaggerated sample; +but, whatever it comes from, there it is--a vulgarity that taints +everything, courts and cabinets as well as society. Your daughter +somehow or other has escaped it, and so you find her odd, and the world +thinks her stiff. She is neither; but no dignified long-descended +point-lace, you know, will ever let itself be twisted and twirled into a +cascade and a _fouillis_ like your Brétonne lace that is just the +fashion of the hour, and worth nothing. I admire your Vera very greatly; +she always makes me think of those dear old stately hotels with their +grand gardens in which I saw, in my girlhood, the women who, in theirs, +had known France before '30. These hotels and their gardens are gone, +most of them, and there are stucco and gilt paint in their places. And +here are people who think that a gain. I am not one of them." + + + + +_UNDER TWO FLAGS._ + + +The old viscount, haughtiest of haughty nobles, would never abate one +jot of his magnificence; and his sons had but imbibed the teaching of +all that surrounded them; they did but do in manhood what they had been +unconsciously moulded to do in boyhood, when they were sent to Eton at +ten with gold dressing-boxes to grace their dame's tables, embryo dukes +for their co-fags, and tastes that already knew to a nicety the worth of +the champagnes at Christopher's. The old, old story--how it repeats +itself! Boys grow up amidst profuse prodigality, and are launched into a +world where they can no more arrest themselves, than the feather-weight +can pull in the lightning-stride of the two-year-old, who defies all +check, and takes the flat as he chooses. They are brought up like young +dauphins, and tossed into the costly whirl to float as best they can--on +nothing. Then on the lives and deaths that follow; on the graves where a +dishonoured alien lies forgotten by the dark Austrian lake-side, or +under the monastic shadow of some crumbling Spanish crypt; where a red +cross chills the lonely traveller in the virgin solitudes of Amazonian +forest aisles, or the wild scarlet creepers of Australia trail over a +nameless mound above the trackless stretch of sun-warmed waters--then, +at them the world + + "Shoots out its lips with scorn." + +Not on _them_ lies the blame. + + * * * + +His influence had done more to humanise the men he was associated with +than any preachers or teachers could have done. + +Almost insensibly they grew ashamed to be beaten by him, and strove to +do like him as far as they could. They never knew him drunk, they never +heard him swear, they never found him unjust, even to a poverty-stricken +_indigčne_, or brutal, even to a _fille de joie_. Insensibly his +presence humanised them. Of a surety, the last part Bertie dreamed of +playing was that of a teacher to any mortal thing. Yet--here in +Africa--it might reasonably be questioned if a second Augustine or +François Xavier would ever have done half the good among the +devil-may-care Roumis that was wrought by the dauntless, listless, +reckless soldier, who followed instinctively the one religion which has +no cant in its brave, simple creed, and binds man to man in links that +are as true as steel--the religion of a gallant gentleman's loyalty and +honour. + + * * * + +The child had been flung upward, a little straw floating in the gutter +of Paris iniquities; a little foam-bell, bubbling on the sewer waters of +barrack vice; the stick had been her teacher, the baggage-waggon her +cradle, the camp-dogs her playfellows, the _caserne_ oaths her lullaby, +the _guidons_ her sole guiding-stars, the _razzia_ her sole fete-day: it +was little marvel that the bright, bold, insolent little friend of the +flag had nothing left of her sex save a kitten's mischief and coquette's +archness. It said much rather for the straight, fair, sunlit instincts +of the untaught nature, that Cigarette had gleaned, even out of such a +life, two virtues that she would have held by to the death, if tried--a +truthfulness that would have scorned a lie as only fit for cowards, and +a loyalty that cleaved to France as a religion. + + * * * + +Tired as over-worked cattle, and crouched or stretched like worn-out +homeless dogs, they had never wakened as he had noiselessly harnessed +himself, and he looked at them with that interest in other lives which +had come to him through adversity; for if misfortune had given him +strength, it had also given him sympathy. + + * * * + +And he did her that injustice which the best amongst us are apt to do to +those whom we do not feel interest enough in to study with that +closeness which can alone give comprehension of the intricate and +complex rebus, so faintly sketched, so marvellously involved, of human +nature. + + * * * + +The gleam of the dawn spread in one golden glow of the morning, and the +day rose radiant over the world; they stayed not for its beauty or its +peace; the carnage went on hour upon hour; men began to grow drunk with +slaughter as with raki. It was sublimely grand; it was hideously +hateful--this wild-beast struggle, that heaving tumult of striving lives +that ever and anon stirred the vast war-cloud of smoke and broke from it +as the lightning from the night. The sun laughed in its warmth over a +thousand hills and streams, over the blue seas lying northward, and over +the yellow sands of the south; but the touch of its heat only made the +flame in their blood burn fiercer; and the fulness of its light only +served to show them clearer where to strike, and how to slay. + + * * * + +She might be a careless young coquette, a lawless little brigand, a +child of sunny caprices, an elf of dauntless mischief; but she was more +than these. The divine fire of genius had touched her, and Cigarette +would have perished for her country not less surely than Jeanne d'Arc. +The holiness of an impersonal love, the glow of an imperishable +patriotism, the melancholy of a passionate pity for the concrete and +unnumbered sufferings of the people, were in her instinctive and inborn, +as fragrance in the heart of flowers. And all these together moved her +now, and made her young face beautiful as she looked down upon the +crowding soldiery. + + * * * + +After all, Diderot was in the right when he told Rousseau which side of +the question to take. On my life, civilisation develops comfort, but I +do believe it kills nobility. Individuality dies in it, and egotism +grows strong and specious. Why is it that in a polished life a man, +whilst becoming incapable of sinking to crime, almost always becomes +also incapable of rising to greatness? Why is it that misery, tumult, +privation, bloodshed, famine, beget, in such a life as this, such +countless things of heroism, of endurance, of self-sacrifice--things +mostly of demigods--in men who quarrel with the wolves for a wild-boar's +carcase, for a sheep's offal? + + * * * + +As for death--when it comes it comes. Every soldier carries it in his +wallet, and it may jump out on him any minute. I would rather die young +than old. Pardi! age is nothing else but death that is _conscious_. + + * * * + +It is misery that is glory--the misery that toils with bleeding feet +under burning suns without complaint; that lies half dead through the +long night with but one care, to keep the torn flag free from the +conqueror's touch; that bears the rain of blows in punishment rather +than break silence and buy release by betrayal of a comrade's trust; +that is beaten like the mule, and galled like the horse, and starved +like the camel, and housed like the dog, and yet does the thing which is +right, and the thing which is brave, despite all; that suffers, and +endures, and pours out his blood like water to the thirsty sands whose +thirst is never stilled, and goes up in the morning sun to the combat as +though death were the Paradise of the Arbico's dream, knowing the while +that no Paradise waits save the crash of the hoof through the throbbing +brain, or the roll of the gun-carriage over the writhing limb. _That_ is +glory. The misery that is heroism because France needs it, because a +soldier's honour wills it. _That_ is glory. It is to-day in the hospital +as it never is in the Cour des Princes where the glittering host of the +marshals gather! + + * * * + +Spare me the old world-worn, thread-bare formulas. Because the flax and +the colza blossom for use, and the garden flowers grow trained and +pruned, must there be no bud that opens for mere love of the sun, and +swings free in the wind in its fearless fair fashion? Believe me, it is +the lives which follow no previous rule that do the most good, and give +the most harvest. + + * * * + +"The first thing I saw of Cigarette was this: She was seven years old; +she had been beaten black and blue; she had had two of her tiny teeth +knocked out. The men were furious, she was a pet with them; and she +would not say who had done it, though she knew twenty swords would have +beaten him flat as a fritter if she had given his name. I got her to sit +to me some days after. I pleased her with her own picture. I asked her +to tell me why she would not say who had ill-treated her. She put her +head on one side like a robin, and told me, in a whisper: 'It was one of +my comrades--because I would not steal for him. I would not have the +army know--it would demoralise them. If a French soldier ever does a +cowardly thing, another French soldier must not betray it.' That was +Cigarette--at seven years. The _esprit du corps_ was stronger than her +own wrongs." + + * * * + +A better day's sport even the Quorn had never had in all its brilliant +annals, and faster things the Melton men themselves had never wanted: +both those who love the "quickest thing you ever knew--thirty minutes +without a check--_such_ a pace!" and care little whether the _finale_ be +"killed" or "broke away," and those of older fashion, who prefer "long +day, you know, steady as old time, the beauties stuck like wax through +fourteen parishes as I live; six hours if it were a minute; horses dead +beat; positively walked, you know, no end of a day!" but must have the +fatal "who-whoop" as conclusion--both of these, the "new style and the +old," could not but be content with the doings of the "Demoiselles" from +start to finish. + +Was it likely that Cecil remembered the caustic lash of his father's +ironies while he was lifting Mother of Pearl over the posts and rails, +and sweeping on, with the halloo ringing down the wintry wind as the +grasslands flew beneath him? Was it likely that he recollected the +difficulties that hung above him while he was dashing down the Gorse +happy as a king, with the wild hail driving in his face, and a break of +stormy sunshine just welcoming the gallant few who were landed at the +death, as twilight fell? Was it likely that he could unlearn all the +lessons of his life, and realise in how near a neighbourhood he stood to +ruin when he was drinking Regency sherry out of his gold flask as he +crossed the saddle of his second horse, or, smoking, rode slowly +homeward through the leafless muddy lanes in the gloaming? + +Scarcely;--it is very easy to remember our difficulties when we are +eating and drinking them, so to speak, in bad soups and worse wines in +Continental impecuniosity, sleeping on them as rough Australian +shake-downs, or wearing them perpetually in Californian rags and +tatters, it were impossible very well to escape from them then; but it +is very hard to remember them when every touch and shape of life is +pleasant to us--when everything about us is symbolical and redolent of +wealth and ease--when the art of enjoyment is the only one we are Called +on to study, and the science of pleasure all we are asked to explore. + +It is well-nigh impossible to believe yourself a beggar when you never +want sovereigns for whist; and it would be beyond the powers of human +nature to conceive your ruin irrevocable, while you still eat turbot and +terrapin with a powdered giant behind your chair daily. Up in his garret +a poor wretch knows very well what he is, and realises in stern fact the +extremities of the last sou, the last shirt, and the last hope; but in +these devil-may-care pleasures--in this pleasant, reckless, velvet-soft +rush down-hill--in this club-palace, with every luxury that the heart of +man can devise and desire, yours to command at your will--it is hard +work, _then_, to grasp the truth that the crossing-sweeper yonder, in +the dust of Pall Mall, is really not more utterly in the toils of +poverty than you are! + + * * * + +The bell was clanging and clashing passionately, as Cecil at last went +down to the weights, all his friends of the Household about him, and all +standing "crushers" on their champion, for their stringent _esprit du +corps_ was involved, and the Guards are never backward in putting their +gold down, as all the world knows. In the inclosure, the cynosure of +devouring eyes, stood the King, with the _sang froid_ of a superb +gentleman, amid the clamour raging round him, one delicate ear laid back +now and then, but otherwise indifferent to the din, with his coat +glistening like satin, the beautiful tracery of vein and muscle, like +the veins of vine-leaves, standing out on the glossy, clear-carved neck +that had the arch of Circassia, and his dark antelope eyes gazing with a +gentle, pensive earnestness on the shouting crowd. + +His rivals, too, were beyond par in fitness and in condition, and there +were magnificent animals among them. Bay Regent was a huge, raking +chestnut, upwards of sixteen hands, and enormously powerful, with very +fine shoulders, and an all-over-like-going head; he belonged to a +Colonel in the Rifles, but was to be ridden by Jimmy Delmar of the 10th +Lancers, whose colours were violet with orange hoops. Montacute's horse, +Pas de Charge, which carried all the money of the Heavy Cavalry, +Montacute himself being in the Dragoon Guards, was of much the same +order, a black hunter with racing blood in him, loins and withers that +assured any amount of force, and no fault but that of a rather coarse +head, traceable to a slur on his 'scutcheon on the distaff side from a +plebeian great-grandmother, who had been a cart mare, the only stain in +his otherwise faultless pedigree. However, she had given him her massive +shoulders, so that he was in some sense a gainer by her after all. Wild +Geranium was a beautiful creature enough, a bright bay Irish mare, with +that rich red gloss that is like the glow of a horse-chestnut, very +perfect in shape, though a trifle light perhaps, and with not quite +strength enough in neck or barrel; she would jump the fences of her own +paddock half a dozen times a day for sheer amusement, and was game to +anything. She was entered by Cartouche of the Enniskillens, to be ridden +by "Baby Grafton," of the same corps, a feather-weight, and quite a boy, +but with plenty of science in him. These were the three favourites; Day +Star ran them close, the property of Durham Vavassour, of the Scots +Greys, and to be ridden by his owner; a handsome, flea-bitten, grey +sixteen-hander, with ragged hips, and action that looked a trifle +string-halty, but noble shoulders, and great force in the loins and +withers; the rest of the field, though unusually excellent, did not find +so many "sweet voices" for them, and were not so much to be feared: each +starter was of course much backed by his party, but the betting was +tolerably even on these four:--all famous steeplechasers;--the King at +one time, and Bay Regent at another, slightly leading in the Ring. + +Thirty-two starters were hoisted up on the telegraph board, and as the +field got at last under weigh, uncommonly handsome they looked, while +the silk jackets of all the colours of the rainbow glittered in the +bright noon sun. As Forest King closed in, perfectly tranquil still, but +beginning to glow and quiver all over with excitement, knowing as well +as his rider the work that was before him, and longing for it in every +muscle and every limb, while his eyes flashed fire as he pulled at the +curb and tossed his head aloft, there went up a general shout of +"Favourite!" His beauty told on the populace, and even somewhat on the +professionals, though the legs kept a strong business prejudice against +the working powers of "the Guards' crack." The ladies began to lay +dozens in gloves on him; not altogether for his points, which perhaps +they hardly appreciated, but for his owner and rider, who, in the +scarlet and gold, with the white sash across his chest, and a look of +serene indifference on his face, they considered the handsomest man of +the field. The Household is usually safe to win the suffrages of the +sex. + +In the throng on the course Rake instantly bonneted an audacious dealer +who had ventured to consider that Forest King was "light and curby in +the 'ock." "You're a wise 'un, you are!" retorted the wrathful and +ever-eloquent Rake, "there's more strength in his clean flat legs, bless +him! than in all the round, thick, mill-posts of _your_ half-breds, that +have no more tendon than a bit of wood, and are just as flabby as a +sponge!" Which hit the dealer home just as his hat was hit over his +eyes; Rake's arguments being unquestionable in their force. + +The thoroughbreds pulled and fretted, and swerved in their impatience; +one or two over-contumacious bolted incontinently, others put their +heads between their knees in the endeavour to draw their riders over +their withers; Wild Geranium reared straight upright, fidgeted all over +with longing to be off, passaged with the prettiest, wickedest grace in +the world, and would have given the world to neigh if she had dared, but +she knew it would be very bad style, so, like an aristocrat as she was, +restrained herself; Bay Regent almost sawed Jimmy Delmar's arms off +looking like a Titan Bucephalus; while Forest King, with his nostrils +dilated till the scarlet tinge on them glowed in the sun, his muscles +quivering with excitement as intense as the little Irish mare's, and all +his Eastern and English blood on fire for the fray, stood steady as a +statue for all that, under the curb of a hand light as a woman's, but +firm as iron to control, and used to guide him by the slightest touch. + +All eyes were on that throng of the first mounts in the Service; +brilliant glances by the hundred gleamed down behind hot-house bouquets +of their chosen colour, eager ones by the thousand stared thirstily from +the crowded course, the roar of the Ring subsided for a second, a +breathless attention and suspense succeeded it; the Guardsmen sat on +their drags, or lounged near the ladies with their race-glasses ready, +and their habitual expression of gentle and resigned weariness in nowise +altered, because the Household, all in all, had from sixty to seventy +thousand on the event, and the Seraph murmured mournfully to his +cheroot, "That chestnut's no end _fit_," strong as his faith was in the +champion of the Brigades. + +A moment's good start was caught--the flag dropped--off they went, +sweeping out for the first second like a line of cavalry about to +charge. + +Another moment, and they were scattered over the first field, Forest +King, Wild Geranium, and Bay Regent leading for two lengths, when +Montacute, with his habitual "fast burst," sent Pas de Charge past them +like lightning. The Irish mare gave a rush and got alongside of him; the +King would have done the same, but Cecil checked him, and kept him in +that cool swinging canter which covered the grassland so lightly; Bay +Regent's vast thundering stride was Olympian, but Jimmy Delmar saw his +worst foe in the "Guards' crack," and waited on him warily, riding +superbly himself. + +The first fence disposed of half the field, they crossed the second in +the same order, Wild Geranium racing neck to neck with Pas de Charge; +the King was all athirst to join the duello, but his owner kept him +gently back, saving his pace and lifting him over the jumps as easily as +a lapwing. The second fence proved a cropper to several, some awkward +falls took place over it, and tailing commenced; after the third field, +which was heavy plough, all knocked off but eight, and the real struggle +began in sharp earnest: a good dozen who had shown a splendid stride +over the grass being done up by the terrible work on the clods. + +The five favourites had it all to themselves; Day Star pounding onward +at tremendous speed, Pas de Charge giving slight symptoms of distress +owing to the madness of his first burst, the Irish mare literally flying +ahead of him, Forest King and the chestnut waiting on one another. + +In the Grand Stand the Seraph's eyes strained after the Scarlet and +White, and he muttered in his moustaches, "Ye gods, what's up? The +world's coming to an end!--Beauty's turned cautious!" + +Cautious, indeed,--with that giant of Pytchley fame running neck to neck +by him; cautious,--with two-thirds of the course unrun, and all the +yawners yet to come; cautious,--with the blood of Forest King lashing to +boiling heat, and the wondrous greyhound stride stretching out faster +and faster beneath him, ready at a touch to break away and take the +lead: but he would be reckless enough by-and-by; reckless, as his nature +was, under the indolent serenity of habit. + +Two more fences came, laced high and stiff with the Shire thorn, and +with scarce twenty feet between them, the heavy ploughed land leading to +them, clotted, and black, and hard, with the fresh earthy scent steaming +up as the hoofs struck the clods with a dull thunder. Pas de Charge rose +to the first: distressed too early, his hind feet caught in the thorn, +and he came down rolling clear of his rider; Montacute picked him up +with true science, but the day was lost to the Heavy Cavalry men. Forest +King went in and out over both like a bird, and led for the first time; +the chestnut was not to be beat at fencing, and ran even with him; Wild +Geranium flew still as fleet as a deer, true to her sex, she would not +bear rivalry; but little Grafton, though he rode like a professional, +was but a young one, and went too wildly--her spirit wanted cooler curb. + +And now only, Cecil loosened the King to his full will and his full +speed. Now only, the beautiful Arab head was stretched like a racer's +in the run-in for the Derby, and the grand stride swept out till the +hoofs seemed never to touch the dark earth they skimmed over; neither +whip nor spur was needed, Bertie had only to leave the gallant temper +and the generous fire that were roused in their might to go their way, +and hold their own. His hands were low; his head was a little back; his +face very calm; the eyes only had a daring, eager, resolute will +lighting in them; Brixworth lay before him. He knew well what Forest +King could do; but he did not know how great the chestnut Regent's +powers might be. + +The water gleamed before them, brown and swollen, and deepened with the +meltings of winter snows a month before; the brook that has brought so +many to grief over its famous banks, since cavaliers leapt it with their +falcon on their wrist, or the mellow note of the horn rang over the +woods in the hunting days of Stuart reigns. They knew it well, that long +dark line, skimmering there in the sunlight, the test that all must pass +who go in for the Soldiers' Blue Ribbon. Forest King scented water, and +went on with his ears pointed, and his greyhound stride lengthening, +quickening, gathering up all its force and its impetus for the leap that +was before--then like the rise and the swoop of the heron he spanned the +water, and, landing clear, launched forward with the lunge of a spear +darted through air. Brixworth was passed--the Scarlet and White, a mere +gleam of bright colour, a mere speck in the landscape, to the breathless +crowds in the stand, sped on over the brown and level grassland; two and +a quarter miles done in four minutes and twenty seconds. Bay Regent was +scarcely behind him; the chestnut abhorred the water, but a finer +trained hunter was never sent over the Shires, and Jimmy Delmar rode +like Grimshaw himself. The giant took the leap in magnificent style, and +thundered on neck and neck with the "Guards' crack." The Irish mare +followed, and, with miraculous gameness, landed safely; but her +hind-legs slipped on the bank, a moment was lost, and "Baby" Grafton +scarce knew enough to recover it, though he scoured on nothing daunted. + +Pas de Charge, much behind, refused the yawner; his strength was not +more than his courage, but both had been strained too severely at first. +Montacute struck the spurs into him with a savage blow over the head; +the madness was its own punishment; the poor brute rose blindly to the +jump, and missed the bank with a reel and a crash; Sir Eyre was hurled +out into the brook, and the hope of the Heavies lay there with his +breast and fore-legs resting on the ground, his hind-quarters in the +water, and his back broken. Pas de Charge would never again see the +starting-flag waved, or hear the music of the hounds, or feel the +gallant life throb and glow through him at the rallying notes of the +horn. His race was run. + +Not knowing, or looking, or heeding what happened behind, the trio tore +on over the meadow and the ploughed; the two favourites neck by neck, +the game little mare hopelessly behind through that one fatal moment +over Brixworth. The turning-flags were passed; from the crowds on the +course a great hoarse roar came louder and louder, and the shouts rang, +changing every second, "Forest King wins," "Bay Regent wins," "Scarlet +and White's ahead," "Violet's up with him," "Violet's past him," +"Scarlet recovers," "Scarlet beats," "A cracker on the King," "Ten to +one on the Regent," "Guards are over the fence first," "Guards are +winning," "Guards are losing," "Guards are beat!!" + +Were they? + +As the shout rose, Cecil's left stirrup leather snapped and gave way; at +the pace they were going most men, ay, and good riders too, would have +been hurled out of their saddle by the shock; he scarcely swerved; a +moment to ease the King and to recover his equilibrium, then he took the +pace up again as though nothing had changed. And his comrades of the +Household, when they saw this through their race-glasses, broke through +their serenity and burst into a cheer that echoed over the grasslands +and the coppices like a clarion, the grand rich voice of the Seraph +leading foremost and loudest--a cheer that rolled mellow and triumphant +down the cold bright air like the blast of trumpets, and thrilled on +Bertie's ear where he came down the course a mile away. It made his +heart beat quicker with a victorious headlong delight, as his knees +pressed closer into Forest King's flanks, and, half stirrupless like the +Arabs, he thundered forward to the greatest riding feat of his life. His +face was very calm still, but his blood was in tumult, the delirium of +pace had got on him, a minute of life like this was worth a year, and he +knew that he would win or die for it, as the land seemed to fly like a +black sheet under him, and, in that killing speed, fence and hedge and +double and water all went by him like a dream, whirling underneath him +as the grey stretches, stomach to earth, over the level, and rose to +leap after leap. + +For that instant's pause, when the stirrup broke, threatened to lose him +the race. + +He was more than a length behind the Regent, whose hoofs as they dashed +the ground up sounded like thunder, and for whose herculean strength the +plough has no terrors; it was more than the lead to keep now, there was +ground to cover, and the King was losing like Wild Geranium. Cecil felt +drunk with that strong, keen, west wind that blew so strongly in his +teeth, a passionate excitation was in him, every breath of winter air +that rushed in its bracing currents round him seemed to lash him like a +stripe--the Household to look on and see him beaten! + +Certain wild blood that lay latent in Cecil under the tranquil +gentleness of temper and of custom, woke, and had the mastery; he set +his teeth hard, and his hands clenched like steel on the bridle. "Oh! my +beauty, my beauty," he cried, all unconsciously half aloud as they clear +the thirty-sixth fence; "kill me if you like, but don't _fail_ me!" + +As though Forest King heard the prayer and answered it with all his +hero's heart, the splendid form launched faster out, the stretching +stride stretched farther yet with lightning spontaneity, every fibre +strained, every nerve struggled; with a magnificent bound like an +antelope the grey recovered the ground he had lost, and passed Bay +Regent by a quarter-length. It was a neck-to-neck race once more, across +the three meadows with the last and lower fences that were between them +and the final leap of all; that ditch of artificial water with the +towering double hedge of oak rails and of blackthorn that was reared +black and grim and well-nigh hopeless just in front of the Grand Stand. +A roar like the roar of the sea broke up from the thronged course as the +crowd hung breathless on the even race; ten thousand shouts rang as +thrice ten thousand eyes watched the closing contest, as superb a sight +as the Shires ever saw, while the two ran together, the gigantic +chestnut, with every massive sinew swelled and strained to tension, side +by side with the marvellous grace, the shining flanks, and the +Arabian-like head of the Guards' horse. + +Louder and wilder the shrieked tumult rose: "The Chestnut beats!" "The +Grey beats!" "Scarlet's ahead!" "Bay Regent's caught him!" "Violet's +winning, Violet's winning!" "The King's neck by neck!" "The King's +beating!" "The Guards will get it!" "The Guards' crack has it!" "Not +yet, not yet!" "Violet will thrash him at the jump!" "Now for it!" "The +Guards, the Guards, the Guards!" "Scarlet will win!" "The King has the +finish!" "No, no, no, NO!" + +Sent along at a pace that Epsom flat never saw eclipsed, sweeping by the +Grand Stand like the flash of electric flame, they ran side to side one +moment more, their foam flung on each other's withers, their breath hot +in each other's nostrils, while the dark earth flew beneath their +stride. The blackthorn was in front behind five bars of solid oak, the +water yawning on its farther side, black and deep, and fenced, twelve +feet wide if it were an inch, with the same thorn wall beyond it! a leap +no horse should have been given, no steward should have set. Cecil +pressed his knees closer and closer, and worked the gallant hero for the +test; the surging roar of the throng, though so close, was dull on his +ear; he heard nothing, knew nothing, saw nothing but that lean chestnut +head beside him, the dull thud on the turf of the flying gallop, and the +black wall that reared in his face. Forest King had done so much, could +he have stay and strength for this? + +Cecil's hands clenched unconsciously on the bridle, and his face was +very pale--pale with excitation--as his foot where the stirrup was +broken crushed closer and harder against the grey's flanks. + +"Oh, my darling, my beauty--_now_!" + +One touch of the spur--the first--and Forest King rose at the leap, all +the life and power there were in him gathered for one superhuman and +crowning effort; a flash of time, not half a second in duration, and he +was lifted in the air higher, and higher, and higher in the cold, fresh, +wild winter wind; stakes and rails, and thorn and water lay beneath him +black and gaunt and shapeless, yawning like a grave; one bound, even in +mid air, one last convulsive impulse of the gathered limbs, and Forest +King was over! + +And as he galloped up the straight run-in, he was alone. + +Bay Regent had refused the leap. + +As the grey swept to the judge's chair, the air was rent with deafening +cheers that seemed to reel like drunken shouts from the multitude. "The +Guards win, the Guards win;" and when his rider pulled up at the +distance with the full sun shining on the scarlet and white, with the +gold glisten of the embroidered "Coeur Vaillant se fait Royaume," +Forest King stood in all his glory, winner of the Soldier's Blue Ribbon, +by a feat without its parallel in all the annals of the Gold Vase. + + * * * + +Over there in England, you know, sir, pipe-clay is the deuce-and-all; +you've always got to have the stock on, and look as stiff as a stake, or +it's all up with you; you're that tormented about little things that you +get riled and kick the traces before the great 'uns come to try you. +There's a lot of lads would be game as game could be in battle, ay, and +good lads to boot, doing their duty right as a trivet when it came to +anything like war, that are clean druv' out of the service in time o' +peace, along with all them petty persecutions that worry a man's skin +like mosquito-bites. Now here they know that, and Lord! what soldiers +they do make through knowing of it! It's tight enough and stern enough +in big things; martial law sharp enough, and obedience to the letter all +through the campaigning; but that don't grate on a fellow; if he's worth +his salt he's sure to understand that he must move like clockwork in a +fight, and that he's to go to hell at double-quick march, and mute as a +mouse, if his officers see fit to send him. _That's_ all right, but they +don't fidget you here about the little fal-lals; you may stick your +pipe in your mouth, you may have your lark, you may do as you like, you +may spend your _décompte_ how you choose, you may settle your little +duel as you will, you may shout and sing and jump and riot on the march, +so long as you _march on_; you may lounge about half dressed in any +style as suits you best, so long as you're up to time when the trumpets +sound for you; and that's what a man likes. He's ready to be a machine +when the machine's wanted in working trim, but when it's run off the +line and the steam all let off, he do like to oil his own wheels, and +lie a bit in the sun at his fancy. There aren't better stuff to make +soldiers out of nowhere than Englishmen, God bless 'em, but they're +badgered, they're horribly badgered, and that's why the service don't +take over there, let alone the way the country grudge 'em every bit of +pay. In England you go in the ranks--well, they all just tell you you're +a blackguard, and there's the lash, and you'd better behave yourself or +you'll get it hot and hot; they take for granted you're a bad lot or you +wouldn't be there, and in course you're riled and go to the bad +according, seeing that it's what's expected of you. Here, contrariwise, +you come in the ranks and get a welcome, and feel that it just rests +with yourself whether you won't be a fine fellow or not; and just along +of feelin' that you're pricked to show the best metal you're made on, +and not to let nobody else beat you out of the race like. Ah! it makes a +wonderful difference to a fellow--a wonderful difference--whether the +service he's come into look at him as a scamp that never will be nothin' +_but_ a scamp, or as a rascal that's maybe got in him, all rascal though +he is, the pluck to turn into a hero. It makes a wonderful difference, +this 'ere, whether you're looked at as stuff that's only fit to be +shovelled into the sand after a battle; or as stuff that'll belike churn +into a great man. And it's just that difference, sir, that France has +found out, and England hasn't--God bless her all the same. + +With which the soldier whom England had turned adrift, and France had +won in her stead, concluded his long oration by dropping on his knees to +refill his Corporal's chibouque. + +"A army's just a machine, sir, in course," he concluded, as he rammed in +the Turkish tobacco. "But then it's a live machine for all that; and +each little bit of it feels for itself like the joints in an eel's body. +Now, if only one of them little bits smarts, the whole crittur goes +wrong--there's the mischief." + + * * * + +It makes all the difference in life, whether hope is left, or--left out! + + * * * + +She had been ere now a child and a hero; beneath this blow which struck +at him she changed--she became a woman and a martyr. + +And she rode at full speed through the night, as she had done through +the daylight, her eyes glancing all around in the keen instinct of a +trooper, her hand always on the butt of her belt pistol. For she knew +well what the danger was of these lonely, unguarded, untravelled leagues +that yawned in so vast a distance between her and her goal. The Arabs, +beaten, but only rendered furious by defeat, swept down on to those +plains with the old guerilla skill, the old marvellous rapidity. She +knew that with every second shot or steel might send her reeling from +her saddle, that with every moment she might be surrounded by some +desperate band who would spare neither her sex nor her youth. But that +intoxication of peril, the wine-draught she had drunk from her infancy, +was all which sustained her in that race with death. It filled her veins +with their old heat, her heart with its old daring, her nerves with +their old matchless courage: but for it she would have dropped, +heart-sick with terror and despair, ere her errand could be done; under +it she had the coolness, the keenness, the sagacity, the sustained +force, and the supernatural strength of some young hunted animal. They +might slay her so that she left perforce her mission unaccomplished; but +no dread of such a fate had even an instant's power to appal her or +arrest her. While there should be breath in her, she would go on to the +end. + +There were eight hours' hard riding before her, at the swiftest pace her +horse could make; and she was already worn by the leagues already +traversed. Although this was nothing new that she did now, yet as time +flew on and she flew with it, ceaselessly, through the dim solitary +barren moonlit land, her brain now and then grew giddy, her heart now +and then stood still with a sudden numbing faintness. She shook the +weakness off her with the resolute scorn for it of her nature, and +succeeded in its banishment. They had put in her hand as she had passed +through the fortress gates a lance with a lantern muffled in Arab +fashion, so that the light was unseen from before, while it streamed +over her herself, to enable her to guide her way if the moon should be +veiled by clouds. With that single starry gleam aslant on a level with +her eyes, she rode through the ghastly twilight of the half-lit plains, +now flooded with lustre as the moon emerged, now engulfed in darkness as +the stormy western winds drove the cirri over it. But neither darkness +nor light differed to her; she noted neither; she was like one drunk +with strong wine, and she had but one dread--that the power of her horse +would give way under the unnatural strain made on it, and that she would +reach too late, when the life she went to save would have fallen for +ever, silent unto death, as she had seen the life of Marquise _fall_. + +Hour on hour, league on league, passed away; she felt the animal quiver +under the spur, and she heard the catch in his panting breath as he +strained to give his fleetest and best, that told her how, ere long, the +racing speed, the extended gallop at which she kept him, would tell, and +beat him down despite his desert strain. She had no pity; she would have +killed twenty horses under her to reach her goal. She was giving her own +life, she was willing to lose it, if by its loss she did this thing, to +save even the man condemned to die with the rising of the sun. She did +not spare herself; and she would have spared no living thing, to fulfil +the mission that she undertook. She loved with the passionate blindness +of her sex, with the absolute abandonment of the southern blood. If to +spare him she must have bidden thousands fall, she would have given the +word for their destruction without a moment's pause. + +Once from some screen of gaunt and barren rock a shot was fired at her, +and flew within a hair's-breadth of her brain; she never even looked +around to see whence it had come; she knew it was from some Arab prowler +of the plains. Her single spark of light through the half-veiled lantern +passed as swiftly as a shooting-star across the plateau. And as she felt +the hours steal on--so fast, so hideously fast--with that horrible +relentlessness, "ohne Hast, ohne Rast," which tarries for no despair, as +it hastens for no desire, her lips grew dry as dust, her tongue clove to +the roof of her mouth, the blood beat like a thousand hammers on her +brain. + +What she dreaded came. + +Midway in her course, when, by the stars, she knew midnight was passed, +the animal strained with hard-drawn panting gasps to answer the demand +made on him by the spur and by the lance-shaft with which he was goaded +onward. In the lantern-light she saw his head stretched out in the +racing agony, his distended eyeballs, his neck covered with foam and +blood, his heaving flanks that seem bursting with every throb that his +heart gave; she knew that half a league more forced from him, he would +drop like a dead thing never to rise again. She let the bridle drop upon +the poor beast's neck, and threw her arms above her head with a shrill +wailing cry, whose despair echoed over the noiseless plains like the cry +of a shot-stricken animal. She saw it all; the breathing of the rosy, +golden day; the stillness of the hushed camp; the tread of the few +picked men; the open coffin by the open grave; the levelled carbines +gleaming in the first rays of the sun.... She had seen it so many +times--seen it to the awful end, when the living man fell down in the +morning light a shattered, senseless, soulless, crushed-out mass. + +That single moment was all the soldier's nature in her gave to the +abandonment of despair, to the paralysis that seized her. With that one +cry from the depths of her breaking heart, the weakness spent itself: +she knew that action alone could aid him. She looked across, southward +and northward, east and west, to see if there were aught near from which +she could get aid. If there were none, the horse must drop down to die, +and with his life the other life would perish as surely as the sun would +rise. + +Her gaze, straining through the darkness, broken here and there by +fitful gleams of moonlight, caught sight in the distance of some yet +darker thing moving rapidly--a large cloud skimming the earth. She let +the horse, which had paused the instant the bridle had touched his neck, +stand still awhile, and kept her eyes fixed on the advancing cloud till, +with the marvellous surety of her desert-trained vision, she +disentangled it from the floating mists and wavering shadows, and +recognised it, as it was, a band of Arabs. + +If she turned eastward out of her route, the failing strength of her +horse would be fully enough to take her into safety from their pursuit, +or even from their perception, for they were coming straightly and +swiftly across the plain. If she were seen by them she was certain of +her fate; they could only be the desperate remnant of the decimated +tribes, the foraging raiders of starving and desperate men, hunted from +refuge to refuge, and carrying fire and sword in their vengeance +wherever an unprotected caravan or a defenceless settlement gave them +the power of plunder and of slaughter, that spared neither age nor sex. +She was known throughout the length and the breadth of the land to the +Arabs: she was neither child nor woman to them; she was but the soldier +who had brought up the French reserve at Zaraila; she was but the foe +who had seen them defeated, and ridden down with her comrades in their +pursuit in twice a score of vanquished, bitter, intolerably shameful +days. Some among them had sworn by their God to put her to a fearful +death if ever they made her captive, for they held her in superstitious +awe, and thought the spell of the Frankish successes would be broken if +she were slain. She knew that; yet, knowing it, she looked at their +advancing band one moment, then turned her horse's head and rode +straight toward them. + +"They will kill me, but that may save him," she thought. "Any other way +he is lost." + +So she rode directly toward them; rode so that she crossed their front, +and placed herself in their path, standing quite still, with the cloth +torn from the lantern, so that its light fell full about her, as she +held it above her head. In an instant they knew her. They were the +remnant who had escaped from the carnage of Zaraila; they knew her with +all the rapid unerring surety of hate. They gave the shrill wild +war-shout of their tribe, and the whole mass of gaunt, dark, mounted +figures with their weapons whirling round their heads enclosed her: a +cloud of kites settled down with their black wings and cruel beaks upon +one young silvery-plumed gerfalcon. + +She sat unmoved, and looked up at the naked blades that flashed above +her: there was no fear upon her face, only a calm resolute proud beauty, +very pale, very still in the light that gleamed on it from the lantern +rays. + +"I surrender," she said briefly. She had never thought to say these +words of submission to her scorned foes; she would not have been brought +to utter them to spare her own existence. Their answer was a yell of +furious delight, and their bare blades smote each other with a clash of +brutal joy: they had her, the Frankish child who had brought shame and +destruction on them at Zaraila, and they longed to draw their steel +across the fair young throat, to plunge their lances into the bright +bare bosom, to twine her hair round their spear handles, to rend her +delicate limbs apart, as a tiger rends the antelope, to torture, to +outrage, to wreak their vengeance on her. Their chief, only, motioned +their violence back from her, and bade them leave her untouched. At him +she looked, still with the same fixed, serene, scornful resolve: she had +encountered these men so often in battle, she knew so well how rich a +prize she was to him. But she had one thought alone with her; and for it +she subdued contempt, and hate, and pride, and every passion in her. + +"I surrender," she said, with the same tranquillity. "I have heard that +you have sworn by your God and your Prophet to tear me limb from limb +because that I--a child, and a woman-child--brought you to shame and to +grief on the day of Zaraila. Well, I am here; do it. You can slake your +will on me. But that you are brave men, and that I have ever met you in +fair fight, let me speak one word with you first." + +Through the menaces and the rage around her, fierce as the yelling of +starving wolves around a frozen corpse, her clear brave tones reached +the ear of the chief in the lingua-sabir that she used. He was a young +man, and his ear was caught by that tuneful voice, his eyes by that +youthful face. He signed upward the swords of his followers, and +motioned them back as their arms were stretched to seize her, and their +shouts clamoured for her slaughter. + +"Speak on," he said briefly to her. + +"You have sworn to take my body, sawn in two, to Ben-Ihreddin?" she +pursued, naming the Arab leader whom her Spahis had driven off the field +of Zaraila. "Well, here it is; you can take it to him; and you will +receive the piastres, and the horse, and the arms that he has promised +to whosoever shall slay me. I have surrendered; I am yours. But you are +bold men, and the bold are never mean; therefore I will ask one thing of +you. There is a man yonder, in my camp, condemned to death with the +dawn. He is innocent. I have ridden from Algiers to-day with the order +of his release. If it is not there by sunrise, he will be shot; and he +is guiltless as a child unborn. My horse is worn out; he could not go +another half-league. I knew that, since he had failed, my comrade must +die, unless I found a fresh beast or a messenger to go in my stead. I +saw your band come across the plain. I knew that you would kill me, +because of your oath and of your Emir's bribe; but I thought that you +would have greatness enough in you to save this man who is condemned, +without crime, and who must perish unless you, his foes, have pity on +him. Therefore I came. Take the paper that frees him; send your fleetest +and surest with it, under a flag of truce, into our camp by the dawn; +let him tell them there that I, Cigarette, gave it him--he must say no +word of what you have done to me, or his white flag will not protect him +from the vengeance of my army--and then receive your reward from your +chief, Ben-Ihreddin, when you lay my head down for his horse's hoofs to +trample into the dust. Answer me--is the compact fair? Ride on with this +paper northward, and then kill me with what torments you choose." + +She spoke with calm unwavering resolve, meaning that which she uttered +to its very uttermost letter. She knew that these men had thirsted for +her blood; she offered it to be shed to gain for him that messenger on +whose speed his life was hanging; she knew that a price was set upon her +head, but she delivered herself over to the hands of her enemies so that +thereby she might purchase his redemption. + +As they heard, silence fell upon the brutal clamorous herd around--the +silence of amaze and of respect. The young chief listened gravely; by +the glistening of his keen black eyes, he was surprised and moved, +though, true to his teaching, he showed neither emotion as he answered +her: + +"Who is this Frank for whom you do this thing?" + +"He is the warrior to whom you offered life on the field of Zaraila, +because his courage was as the courage of gods." + +She knew the qualities of the desert character; knew how to appeal to +its reverence and to its chivalry. + +"And for what does he perish?" he asked. + +"Because he forgot for once that he was a slave; and because he has +borne the burden of a guilt that was not his own." + +They were quite still now, closed around her; these ferocious +plunderers, who had been thirsty a moment before to sheathe their +weapons in her body, were spell-bound by the sympathy of courageous +souls, by some vague perception that there was a greatness in this +little tigress of France, whom they had sworn to hunt down and +slaughter, which surpassed all they had known or dreamed. + +"And you have given yourself up to us that by your death you may +purchase a messenger from us for this errand?" pursued their leader. He +had been reared as a boy in the high tenets and the pure chivalries of +the school of Abd-el-Kader; and they were not lost in him despite the +crimes and the desperation of his life. + +She held the paper out to him with a passionate entreaty breaking +through the enforced calm of despair with which she had hitherto spoken. + +"Cut me in ten thousand pieces with your swords, but save _him_, as you +are brave men, as you are generous foes!" + +With a single sign of his hand, their leader waved them back where they +crowded around her, and leaped down from his saddle, and led the horse +he had dismounted to her. + +"Maiden," he said gently, "we are Arabs, but we are not brutes. We swore +to avenge ourselves on an enemy; we are not vile enough to accept a +martyrdom. Take my horse--he is the swiftest of my troop--and go you on +your errand; you are safe from me." + +She looked at him in stupor; the sense of his words was not tangible to +her; she had had no hope, no thought, that they would ever deal thus +with her; all she had ever dreamed of was so to touch their hearts and +their generosity that they would spare one from among their troop to do +the errand of mercy she had begged of them. + +"You play with me;" she murmured, while her lips grew whiter and her +great eyes larger in the intensity of her emotion. "Ah! for pity's +sake, make haste and kill me, so that this only may reach him!" + +The chief, standing by her, lifted her up in his sinewy arms, on to the +saddle of his charger. His voice was very solemn, his glance was very +gentle; all the nobility of the highest Arab nature was aroused in him +at the heroism of a child, a girl, an infidel--one, in his sight, +abandoned and shameful among her sex. + +"Go in peace," he said simply; "it is not with such as thee that we +war." + +Then, and then only, as she felt the fresh reins placed in her hands, +and saw the ruthless horde around her fall back and leave her free, did +she understand his meaning, did she comprehend that he gave her back +both liberty and life, and, with the surrender of the horse he loved, +the noblest and most precious gift that the Arab ever bestows or ever +receives. The unutterable joy seemed to blind her, and gleam upon her +face like the blazing light of noon, as she turned her burning eyes full +on him. + +"Ah! now I believe that thine Allah rules thee, equally with Christians! +If I live, thou shalt see me back ere another night; if I die, France +will know how to thank thee!" + +"We do not do the thing that is right for the sake that men may +recompense us," he answered her gently. "Fly to thy friend, and +hereafter do not judge that those who are in arms against thee must +needs be as the brutes that seek out whom they shall devour." + +Then, with one word in his own tongue, he bade the horse bear her +southward, and, as swiftly as a spear launched from his hand, the animal +obeyed him and flew across the plains. He looked after her awhile, +through the dim tremulous darkness that seemed cleft by the rush of the +gallop as the clouds are cleft by lightning, while his tribe sat silent +on their horses in moody unwilling consent, savage in that they had +been deprived of prey, moved in that they were sensible of this +martyrdom which had been offered to them. + +"Verily the courage of a woman has put the best among us unto shame," he +said, rather to himself than them, as he mounted the stallion brought +him from the rear and rode slowly northward, unconscious that the thing +he had done was great, because conscious only that it was just. + +And, borne by the fleetness of the desert-bred beast, she went away +through the heavy bronze-hued dulness of the night. Her brain had no +sense, her hands had no feeling, her eyes had no sight; the rushing as +of waters was loud on her ears, the giddiness of fasting and of fatigue +sent the gloom eddying round and round like a whirlpool of shadow. Yet +she had remembrance enough left to ride on, and on, and on without once +flinching from the agonies that racked her cramped limbs and throbbed in +her beating temples; she had remembrance enough to strain her blind eyes +toward the east and murmur, in her terror of that white dawn, that must +soon break, the only prayer that had been ever uttered by the lips no +mother's kiss had ever touched: + +"_O God! keep the day back!_" + + * * * + +One of the most brilliant of Algerian autumnal days shone over the great +camp in the south. The war was almost at an end for a time; the Arabs +were defeated and driven desertwards; hostilities irksome, harassing, +and annoying, like all guerilla warfare, would long continue, but peace +was virtually established, and Zaraila had been the chief glory that had +been added by the campaign to the flag of Imperial France. The kites +and the vultures had left the bare bones by thousands to bleach upon the +sands, and the hillocks of brown earth rose in crowds where those more +cared for in death had been hastily thrust beneath the brown crust of +the earth. The dead had received their portion of reward--in the +jackall's teeth, in the crow's beak, in the worm's caress. And the +living received theirs in this glorious rose-flecked glittering autumn +morning, when the breath of winter made the air crisp and cool, but the +ardent noon still lighted with its furnace glow the hillside and the +plain. + +The whole of the Army of the South was drawn up on the immense level of +the plateau to witness the presentation of the Cross of the Legion of +Honour. + +It was full noon. The sun shone without a single cloud on the deep +sparkling azure of the skies. The troops stretched east and west, north +and south, formed up in three sides of one vast massive square. + +The red white and blue of the standards, the brass of the eagle guidons, +the grey tossed manes of the chargers, the fierce swarthy faces of the +soldiery, the scarlet of the Spahis' cloaks, and the snowy folds of the +Demi-Cavalerie turbans, the shine of the sloped lances, and the glisten +of the carbine barrels, fused together in one sea of blended colour, +flashed into a million of prismatic hues against the sombre bistre +shadow of the sunburnt plains and the clear blue of the skies. + +It had been a sanguinary, fruitless, cruel campaign; it had availed +nothing except to drive the Arabs away from some hundred leagues of +useless and profitless soil; hundreds of French soldiers had fallen by +disease, and drought, and dysentery, as well as by shot and sabre, and +were unrecorded save on the books of the bureaus, unlamented save, +perhaps, in some little nestling hamlet among the great green woods of +Normandy, or some wooden hut among the olives and the vines of +Provence, where some woman toiling till sunset among the fields, or +praying before some wayside saint's stone niche, would give a thought to +the far-off and devouring desert that had drawn down beneath its sands +the head that had used to lie upon her bosom, cradled as a child's, or +caressed as a lover. + +But the drums rolled out their long deep thunder over the wastes; and +the shot-torn standards fluttered gaily in the breeze blowing from the +west, and the clear full music of the French bands echoed away to the +dim distant terrible south, where the desert-scorch and the +desert-thirst had murdered their bravest and best--and the Army was _en +fęte_. _En fęte_, for it did honour to its darling. Cigarette received +the Cross. + +Mounted on her own little bright bay, Etoile-Filante, with tricolour +ribbons flying from his bridle and among the glossy fringes of his mane, +the Little One rode among her Spahis. A scarlet _képi_ was set on her +thick silken curls, a tricolour sash was knotted round her waist, her +wine-barrel was slung on her left hip, her pistols thrust in her +_ceinturon_, and a light carbine held in her hand with the butt-end +resting on her foot. With the sun on her child-like brunette face, her +eyes flashing like brown diamonds in the light, and her marvellous +horsemanship, showing its skill in a hundred _désinvoltures_ and daring +tricks, the little Friend of the Flag had come hither among her +half-savage warriors, whose red robes surrounded her like a sea of +blood. + +And on a sea of blood she, the Child of War, had floated, never sinking +in that awful flood, but buoyant ever above its darkest waves, catching +ever some ray of sunlight upon her fair young head, and being oftentimes +like a star of hope to those over whom its dreaded waters closed. +Therefore they loved her, these grim, slaughterous, and lustful +warriors, to whom no other thing of womanhood was sacred, by whom in +their wrath or their crime no friend and no brother was spared, whose +law was license, and whose mercy was murder. They loved her, these +brutes whose greed was like the tiger's, whose hate was like the +devouring flame; and any who should have harmed a single lock of her +curling hair would have had the spears of the African Mussulmans buried +by the score in his body. They loved her, with the one fond triumphant +love these vultures of the army ever knew; and to-day they gloried in +her with fierce passionate delight. To-day she was to her wild wolves of +Africa what Jeanne of Vaucouleurs was to her brethren of France. And +to-day was the crown of her young life. It is given to most, if the +desire of their soul ever become theirs, to possess it only when long +and weary and fainting toil has brought them to its goal; when beholding +the golden fruit so far off, through so dreary a pilgrimage, dulls its +bloom as they approach; when having so long centred all their thoughts +and hopes in the denied possession of that one fair thing, they find but +little beauty in it when that possession is granted to satiate their +love. But thrice happy, and few as happy, are they to whom the dream of +their youth is fulfilled _in_ their youth, to whom their ambition comes +in full sweet fruitage, while yet the colours of glory have not faded to +the young, eager, longing eyes that watch its advent. And of these was +Cigarette. + +In the fair, slight, girlish body of the child-soldier there lived a +courage as daring as Danton's, a patriotism as pure as Vergniaud's, a +soul as aspiring as Napoleon's. Untaught, untutored, uninspired by +poet's words or patriot's bidding, spontaneous as the rising and the +blossoming of some wind-sown, sun-fed flower, there was, in this child +of the battle and the razzia, the spirit of genius, the desire to live +and to die greatly. It was unreasoned on, it was felt, not thought, it +was often drowned in the gaiety of young laughter, and the ribaldry of +military jest, it was often obscured by noxious influence, and stifled +beneath the fumes of lawless pleasure; but there, ever, in the soul and +the heart of Cigarette, dwelt the germ of a pure ambition--the ambition +to do some noble thing for France, and leave her name upon her soldiers' +lips, a watchword and a rallying-cry for evermore. To be for ever a +beloved tradition in the army of her country, to have her name +remembered in the roll-call as "_Mort sur le champ d'honneur_;" to be +once shrined in the love and honour of France, Cigarette--full of the +boundless joys of life that knew no weakness and no pain, strong as the +young goat, happy as the young lamb, careless as the young flower +tossing on the summer breeze--Cigarette would have died contentedly. And +now, living, some measure of this desire had been fulfilled to her, some +breath of this imperishable glory had passed over her. France had heard +the story of Zaraila; from the throne a message had been passed to her; +what was far beyond all else to her, her own Army of Africa had crowned +her, and thanked her, and adored her as with one voice, and wheresoever +she passed the wild cheers rang through the roar of musketry, as through +the silence of sunny air, and throughout the regiments every sword would +have sprung from its scabbard in her defence if she had but lifted her +hand and said one word--"Zaraila!" + +The Army looked on her with delight now. In all that mute, still, +immovable mass that stretched out so far, in such gorgeous array, there +was not one man whose eyes did not turn on her, whose pride did not +centre in her--their Little One who was so wholly theirs, and who had +been under the shadow of their flag ever since the curls, so dark now, +had been yellow as wheat in her infancy. The flag had been her shelter, +her guardian, her plaything, her idol; the flutter of the striped folds +had been the first thing at which her childish eyes had laughed; the +preservation of its colours from the sacrilege of an enemy's touch had +been her religion, a religion whose true following was, in her sight, +salvation of the worst and the most worthless life; and that flag she +had saved, and borne aloft in victory at Zaraila. There was not one in +all those hosts whose eyes did not turn on her with gratitude, and +reverence, and delight in her as their own. + +But she had scarce time even for that flash of pain to quiver in +impotent impatience through her. The trumpets sounded, the salvoes of +artillery pealed out, the lances and the swords were carried up in +salute; on to the ground rode the Marshal of France, who represented the +imperial will and presence, surrounded by his staff, by generals of +division and brigade, by officers of rank, and by some few civilian +riders. An _aide_ galloped up to her where she stood with the corps of +her Spahis, and gave her his orders. The Little One nodded carelessly, +and touched Etoile-Filante with the prick of the spur. Like lightning +the animal bounded forth from the ranks, rearing and plunging, and +swerving from side to side, while his rider, with exquisite grace and +address, kept her seat like the little semi-Arab that she was, and with +a thousand curves and bounds cantered down the line of the gathered +troops, with the west wind blowing from the far-distant sea, and fanning +her bright cheeks till they wore the soft scarlet flush of the glowing +japonica flower. And all down the ranks a low, hoarse, strange, longing +murmur went--the buzz of the voices which, but that discipline +suppressed them, would have broken out in worshipping acclamations. + +As carelessly as though she reined up before the _café_ door of the _As +de Pique_, she arrested her horse before the great Marshal who was the +impersonation of authority, and put her hand up in the salute, with her +saucy wayward laugh. He was the impersonation of that vast, silent, +awful, irresponsible power which, under the name of the Second Empire, +stretched its hand of iron across the sea, and forced the soldiers of +France down into nameless graves, with the desert sand choking their +mouths; but he was no more to Cigarette than any drummer-boy that might +be present. She had all the contempt for the laws of rank of your +thorough inborn democrat, all the gay _insouciant_ indifference to +station of the really free and untrammelled nature; and, in her sight, a +dying soldier, lying quietly in a ditch to perish of shot-wounds without +a word or a moan, was greater than all Messieurs les Maréchaux +glittering in their stars and orders. As for impressing her, or hoping +to impress her, with rank--pooh! You might as well have bid the sailing +clouds pause in their floating passage because they came between royalty +and the sun. All the sovereigns of Europe would have awed Cigarette not +one whit more than a gathering of muleteers. "Allied sovereigns--bah!" +she would have said, "what did that mean in '15? A chorus of magpies +chattering over one stricken eagle!" + +So she reined up before the Marshal and his staff, and the few great +personages whom Algeria could bring around them, as indifferently as she +had many a time reined up before a knot of grim Turcos, smoking under a +barrack-gate. _He_ was nothing to her; it was her Army that crowned her. +"The Generalissimo is the poppy-head, the men are the wheat; lay every +ear of the wheat low, and of what use is the towering poppy that blazed +so grand in the sun?" Cigarette would say with metaphorical unction, +forgetful, like most allegorists, that her fable was one-sided and +unjust in figure and deduction. + +Nevertheless, despite her gay contempt for rank, her heart beat fast +under its golden-laced jacket as she reined up Etoile and saluted. In +that hot clear sun all the eyes of that immense host were fastened on +her, and the hour of her longing desire was come at last. France had +recognised that she had done greatly, and France, through the voice of +this, its chief, spoke to her--France, her beloved, and her +guiding-star, for whose sake the young brave soul within her would have +dared and have endured all things. There was a group before her, large +and brilliant, but at them Cigarette never looked; what she saw were the +sunburnt faces of her "children," of men who, in the majority, were old +enough to be her grandsires, who had been with her through so many +darksome hours, and whose black and rugged features lightened and grew +tender whenever they looked upon their Little One. For the moment she +felt giddy with sweet fiery joy; they were here to behold her thanked in +the name of France. + +The Marshal, in advance of all his staff, touched his plumed hat and +bowed to his saddle-bow as he faced her. He knew her well by sight, this +pretty child of his Army of Africa, who had, before then, suppressed +mutiny like a veteran, and led the charge like a Murat--this kitten with +a lion's heart, this humming-bird with an eagle's swoop. + +"Mademoiselle," he commenced, while his voice, well skilled to such +work, echoed to the farthest end of the long lines of troops, "I have +the honour to discharge to-day the happiest duty of my life. In +conveying to you the expression of the Emperor's approval of your noble +conduct in the present campaign, I express the sentiments of the whole +Army. Your action on the day of Zaraila was as brilliant in conception +as it was great in execution; and the courage you displayed was only +equalled by your patriotism. May the soldiers of many wars remember you +and emulate you. In the name of France, I thank you. In the name of the +Emperor, I bring to you the Cross of the Legion of Honour." + +As the brief and soldierly words rolled down the ranks of the listening +regiments, he stooped forward from his saddle and fastened the red +ribbon on her breast; while from the whole gathered mass, watching, +hearing, waiting breathlessly to give their tribute of applause to their +darling also, a great shout rose as with one voice, strong, full, +echoing over and over again across the plains in thunder that joined her +name with the name of France and of Napoleon, and hurled it upward in +fierce tumultuous idolatrous love to those cruel cloudless skies that +shone above the dead. She was their child, their treasure, their idol, +their young leader in war, their young angel in suffering; she was all +their own, knowing with them one common mother--France. Honour to her +was honour to them; they gloried with heart and soul in this bright +young fearless life that had been among them ever since her infant feet +had waded through the blood of slaughter-fields, and her infant lips had +laughed to see the tricolour float in the sun above the smoke of battle. + +And as she heard, her face became very pale, her large eyes grew dim and +very soft, her mirthful mouth trembled with the pain of a too intense +joy. She lifted her head, and all the unutterable love she bore her +country and her people thrilled through the music of her voice: + +"_Français!--ce n'était rien!_" + +That was all she said; in that one first word of their common +nationality, she spoke alike to the Marshal of the Empire and to the +conscript of the ranks. "Français!" that one title made them all equal +in her sight; whoever claimed it was honoured in her eyes, and was +precious to her heart, and when she answered them that it was nothing, +this thing which they glorified in her, she answered but what seemed the +simple truth in her code. She would have thought it "nothing" to have +perished by shot, or steel, or flame, in day-long torture, for that one +fair sake of France. + +Vain in all else, and to all else wayward, here she was docile and +submissive as the most patient child; here she deemed the greatest and +the hardest thing that she could ever do far less than all that she +would willingly have done. And as she looked upon the host whose +thousand and ten thousand voices rang up to the noonday sun in her +homage, and in hers alone, a light like a glory beamed upon her face, +that for once was white and still and very grave;--none who saw her face +then, ever forgot that look. + +In that moment she touched the full sweetness of a proud and pure +ambition, attained and possessed in all its intensity, in all its +perfect splendour. In that moment she knew that divine hour which, born +of a people's love and of the impossible desires of genius in its youth, +comes to so few human lives--knew that which was known to the young +Napoleon when, in the hot hush of the nights of July, France welcomed +the Conqueror of Italy. + + * * * + +She longed to do as some girl of whom she had once been told by an old +Invalide had done in the '89--a girl of the people, a fisher-girl of the +Cannébičre who had loved one above her rank, a noble who deserted her +for a woman of his own order, a beautiful, soft-skinned, lily-like +scornful aristocrat, with the silver ring of merciless laughter, and the +languid lustre of sweet contemptuous eyes. The Marseillaise bore her +wrong in silence--she was a daughter of the south and of the populace, +with a dark, brooding, burning beauty, strong and fierce, and braced +with the salt lashing of the sea and with the keen breath of the stormy +mistral. She held her peace while the great lady was wooed and won, +while the marriage joys came with the purple vintage time, while the +people were made drunk at the bridal of their _châtelaine_ in those hot, +ruddy, luscious autumn days. + +She held her peace; and the Terror came, and the streets of the city by +the sea ran blood, and the scorch of the sun blazed, every noon, on the +scaffold. Then she had her vengeance. She stood and saw the axe fall +down on the proud snow-white neck that never had bent till it bent +there, and she drew the severed head into her own bronzed hands and +smote the lips his lips had kissed, a cruel blow that blurred their +beauty out, and twined a fish-hook in the long and glistening hair, and +drew it, laughing as she went, through dust, and mire, and gore, and +over the rough stones of the town, and through the shouting crowds of +the multitudes, and tossed it out on to the sea, laughing still as the +waves flung it out from billow to billow, and the fish sucked it down to +make their feast. "_Voilŕ tes secondes noces!_" she cried where she +stood, and laughed by the side of the gray angry water, watching the +tresses of the floating hair sink downward like a heap of sea-tossed +weed. + + * * * + +"There is only one thing worth doing--to die greatly!" thought the +aching heart of the child-soldier, unconsciously returning to the only +end that the genius and the greatness of Greece could find as issue to +the terrible jest, the mysterious despair, of all existence. + + * * * + +A very old man--one who had been a conscript in the bands of Young +France, and marched from his Pyrenéan village to the battle-tramp of the +Marseillaise, and charged with the Enfans de Paris across the plains of +Gemappes; who had known the passage of the Alps, and lifted the long +curls from the dead brow of Désaix, at Marengo, and seen in the sultry +noonday dust of a glorious summer the Guard march into Paris, while the +people laughed and wept with joy, surging like the mighty sea around one +pale frail form, so young by years, so absolute by genius. + +A very old man; long broken with poverty, with pain, with bereavement, +with extreme old age; and by a long course of cruel accidents, alone, +here in Africa, without one left of the friends of his youth, or of the +children of his name, and deprived even of the charities due from his +country to his services--alone save for the little Friend of the Flag, +who, for four years, had kept him on the proceeds of her wine trade, in +this Moorish attic, tending him herself when in town, taking heed that +he should want for nothing when she was campaigning. + +She hid, as her lawless courage would not have stooped to hide a sin, +had she chosen to commit one, this compassion which she, the young +_condottiera_ of Algeria, showed with so tender a charity to the soldier +of Bonaparte. To him, moreover, her fiery imperious voice was gentle as +the dove, her wayward dominant will was pliant as the reed, her +contemptuous sceptic spirit was reverent as a child's before an altar. +In her sight the survivor of the Army of Italy was sacred; sacred the +eyes which, when full of light, had seen the sun glitter on the +breastplates of the Hussars of Murat, the Dragoons of Kellerman, the +Cuirassiers of Milhaud; sacred the hands which, when nervous with youth, +had borne the standard of the Republic victorious against the gathered +Teuton host in the Thermopylć of Champagne; sacred the ears which, when +quick to hear, had heard the thunder of Arcola, of Lodi, of Rivoli, and, +above even the tempest of war, the clear, still voice of Napoleon; +sacred the lips which, when their beard was dark in the fulness of +manhood, had quivered, as with a woman's weeping, at the farewell in the +spring night in the moonlit Cour des Adieux. + +Cigarette had a religion of her own; and followed it more closely than +most disciples follow other creeds. + + * * * + +The way was long; the road ill-formed, leading for the most part across +a sere and desolate country, with nothing to relieve its barrenness +except long stretches of the great spear-headed reeds. At noon the heat +was intense; the little cavalcade halted for half an hour under the +shade of some black towering rocks which broke the monotony of the +district, and commenced a more hilly and more picturesque portion of the +country. Cigarette came to the side of the temporary ambulance in which +Cecil was placed. He was asleep--sleeping for once peacefully with +little trace of pain upon his features, as he had slept the previous +night. She saw that his face and chest had not been touched by the +stinging insect-swarm; he was doubly screened by a shirt hung above him +dexterously on some bent sticks. + +"Who has done that?" thought Cigarette. As she glanced round she +saw--without any linen to cover him, Zackrist had reared himself up and +leaned slightly forward over against his comrade. The shirt that +protected Cecil was his; and on his own bare shoulders and mighty chest +the tiny armies of the flies and gnats were fastened, doing their will +uninterrupted. + +As he caught her glance, a sullen ruddy glow of shame shone through the +black hard skin of his sunburnt visage--shame to which he had been never +touched when discovered in any one of his guilty and barbarous actions. + +"_Dame!_" he growled savagely; "he gave me his wine; one must do +something in return. Not that I feel the insects--not I; my skin is +leather, see you; they can't get through it; but his is _peau de +femme_--white and soft--bah! like tissue paper!" + +"I see, Zackrist; you are right. A French soldier can never take a +kindness from an English fellow without outrunning him in generosity. +Look--here is some drink for you." + +She knew too well the strange nature with which she had to deal to say a +syllable of praise to him for his self-devotion, or to appear to see +that, despite his boast of his leather skin, the stings of the cruel +winged tribes were drawing his blood and causing him alike pain and +irritation which, under that sun, and added to the torment of his +gunshot wound, were a martyrdom as great as the noblest saint ever +endured. + +"_Tiens! tiens!_ I did him wrong," murmured Cigarette. "That is what +they are--the children of France--even when they are at their worst, +like that devil, Zackrist. Who dare say they are not the heroes of the +world?" + +And all through the march she gave Zackrist a double portion of her +water dashed with red wine, that was so welcome and so precious to the +parched and aching throats; and all through the march Cecil lay asleep, +and the man who had thieved from him, the man whose soul was stained +with murder, and pillage, and rapine, sat erect beside him, letting the +insects suck his veins and pierce his flesh. + +It was only when they drew near the camp of the main army that Zackrist +beat off the swarm and drew his old shirt over his head. "You do not +want to say anything to him," he muttered to Cigarette. "I am of +leather, you know; I have not felt it." + +She nodded; she understood him. Yet his shoulders and his chest were +well-nigh flayed, despite the tough and horny skin of which he made his +boast. + +"_Dieu!_ we are droll!" mused Cigarette. "If we do a good thing, we hide +it as if it were a bit of stolen meat, we are so afraid it should be +found out; but, if they do one in the world there, they bray it at the +tops of their voices from the houses' roofs, and run all down the +streets screaming about it for fear it should be lost. _Dieu!_ we are +droll!" + +And she dashed the spurs into her mare and galloped off at the height of +her speed into camp--a very city of canvas, buzzing with the hum of +life, regulated with the marvellous skill and precision of French +warfare, yet with the carelessness and the picturesqueness of the +desert-life pervading it. + + * * * + +Like wave rushing on wave of some tempestuous ocean, the men swept out +to meet her in one great surging tide of life, impetuous, passionate, +idolatrous, exultant, with all the vivid ardour, all the uncontrolled +emotion, of natures south-born, sun-nurtured. They broke away from their +mid-day rest as from their military toil, moved as by one swift breath +of fire, and flung themselves out to meet her, the chorus of a thousand +voices ringing in deafening _vivas_ to the skies. She was enveloped in +that vast sea of eager, furious lives, in that dizzy tumult of +vociferous cries, and stretching hands, and upturned faces. As her +soldiers had done the night before, so these did now--kissing her hands, +her dress, her feet, sending her name in thunder through the sunlit air, +lifting her from off her horse, and bearing her, in a score of stalwart +arms, triumphant in their midst. + +She was theirs--their own--the Child of the Army, the Little One whose +voice above their dying brethren had the sweetness of an angel's song, +and whose feet, in their hours of revelry, flew like the swift and +dazzling flight of gold-winged orioles. And she had saved the honour of +their Eagles; she had given to them and to France their god of Victory. +They loved her--O God, how they loved her!--with that intense, +breathless, intoxicating love of a multitude which, though it may stone +to-morrow what it adores to-day, has yet for those on whom it has once +been given thus a power no other love can know--a passion unutterably +sad, deliriously strong. + +That passion moved her strangely. + +As she looked down upon them, she knew that not one man breathed among +that tumultuous mass but would have died that moment at her word; not +one mouth moved among that countless host but breathed her name in +pride, and love, and honour. + +She might be a careless young coquette, a lawless little brigand, a +child of sunny caprices, an elf of dauntless mischief; but she was more +than these. The divine fire of genius had touched her, and Cigarette +would have perished for her country not less surely than Jeanne d'Arc. +The holiness of an impersonal love, the glow of an imperishable +patriotism, the melancholy of a passionate pity for the concrete and +unnumbered sufferings of the people were in her, instinctive and inborn, +as fragrance in the heart of flowers. And all these together moved her +now, and made her young face beautiful as she looked down upon the +crowded soldiery. + +"It was nothing," she answered them; "it was nothing. It was for +France." + +For France! They shouted back the beloved word with tenfold joy; and the +great sea of life beneath her tossed to and fro in stormy triumph, in +frantic paradise of victory, ringing her name with that of France upon +the air, in thunder-shouts like spears of steel smiting on shields of +bronze. + +But she stretched her hand out, and swept it backward to the +desert-border of the south with a gesture that had awe for them. + +"Hush!" she said softly, with an accent in her voice that hushed the +riot of their rejoicing homage till it lulled like the lull in a storm. +"Give me no honour while _they_ sleep yonder. With the dead lies the +glory!" + + * * * + +Thoughts are very good grain, but if they are not whirled round, round, +round, and winnowed and ground in the millstones of talk, they remain +little, hard, useless kernels, that not a soul can digest. + + * * * + +Love was all very well, so Cigarette's philosophy had always reckoned; a +chocolate bonbon, a firework, a bagatelle, a draught of champagne, to +flavour an idle moment. "_Vin et Vénus_" she had always been accustomed +to see worshipped together, as became their alliterative; it was a bit +of fun--that was all. A passion that had pain in it had never touched +the Little One; she had disdained it with lightest, airiest contumely. +"If your sweetmeat has a bitter almond in it, eat the sugar, and throw +the almond away, you goose! that is simple enough, isn't it? Bah! I +don't pity the people who eat the bitter almond; not I--_ce sont bien +bętes, ces gens!_" she had said once, when arguing with an officer on +the absurdity of a melancholy love which possessed him, and whose +sadness she rallied most unmercifully. Now, for once in her young life, +the Child of France found that it was remotely possible to meet with +almonds so bitter that the taste will remain and taint all things, do +what philosophy may to throw its acridity aside. + + * * * + +There were before them death, deprivation, long days of famine, long +days of drought and thirst; parching sun-baked roads; bitter chilly +nights; fiery furnace-blasts of sirocco; killing, pitiless, northern +winds; hunger, only sharpened by a snatch of raw meat or a handful of +maize; and the probabilities, ten to one, of being thrust under the sand +to rot, or left to have their skeletons picked clean by the vultures. +But what of that? There were also the wild delight of combat, the +freedom of lawless warfare, the joy of deep strokes thrust home, the +chance of plunder, of wine-skins, of cattle, of women; above all, that +lust for slaughter which burns so deep down in the hidden souls of men, +and gives them such brotherhood with wolf and vulture, and tiger, when +once its flames burst forth. + + * * * + +The levelled carbines covered him; he stood erect with his face full +toward the sun; ere they could fire, a shrill cry pierced the air-- + +"Wait! in the name of France." + +Dismounted, breathless, staggering, with her arms flung upward, and her +face bloodless with fear, Cigarette appeared upon the ridge of rising +ground. + +The cry of command pealed out upon the silence in the voice that the +Army of Africa loved as the voice of their Little One. And the cry came +too late; the volley was fired, the crash of sound thrilled across the +words that bade them pause, the heavy smoke rolled out upon the air, the +death that was doomed was dealt. + +But beyond the smoke-cloud he staggered slightly, and then stood erect +still, almost unharmed, grazed only by some few of the balls. The flash +of fire was not so fleet as the swiftness of her love; and on his breast +she threw herself, and flung her arms about him, and turned her head +backward with her old dauntless sunlit smile as the balls pierced her +bosom, and broke her limbs, and were turned away by that shield of warm +young life from him. + +Her arms were gliding from about his neck, and her shot limbs were +sinking to the earth as he caught her up where she dropped to his feet. + +"O God! my child! they have killed you!" + +He suffered more, as the cry broke from him, than if the bullets had +brought him that death which he saw at one glance had stricken down for +ever all the glory of her childhood, all the gladness of her youth. + +She laughed--all the clear, imperious, arch laughter of her sunniest +hours unchanged. + +"Chut! It is the powder and ball of France! _that_ does not hurt. If it +were an Arbico's bullet now! But wait! Here is the Marshal's order. He +suspends your sentence; I have told him all. You are safe!--do you +hear?--you are safe! How he looks! Is he grieved to live? _Mes +Français!_ tell him clearer than I can tell--here is the order. The +General must have it. No--not out of my hand till the General sees it. +Fetch him, some of you--fetch him to me." + +"Great Heaven! you have given your life for mine!" + +The words broke from him in an agony as he held her upward against his +heart, himself so blind, so stunned, with the sudden recall from death +to life, and with the sacrifice whereby life was thus brought to him, +that he could scarce see her face, scarce hear her voice, but only +dimly, incredulously, terribly knew, in some vague sense, that she was +dying, and dying thus for him. + +She smiled up in his eyes, while even in that moment, when her life was +broken down like a wounded bird's, and the shots had pierced through +from her shoulder to her bosom, a hot scarlet flush came over her cheeks +as she felt his touch and rested on his heart. + +"A life! _Tiens!_ what is it to give? We hold it in our hands every +hour, we soldiers, and toss it in change for a draught of wine. Lay me +down on the ground--at your feet--so! I shall live longest that way, and +I have much to tell. How they crowd around me! _Mes soldats_, do not +make that grief and that rage over me. They are sorry they fired; that +is foolish. They were only doing their duty, and they could not hear me +in time." + +But the brave words could not console those who had killed the Child of +the Tricolour; they flung their carbines away, they beat their breasts, +they cursed themselves and the mother who had borne them; the silent, +rigid, motionless phalanx that had stood there in the dawn to see death +dealt in the inexorable penalty of the law was broken up into a +tumultuous, breathless, heart-stricken, infuriated throng, maddened with +remorse, convulsed with sorrow, turning wild eyes of hate on him as on +the cause through which their darling had been stricken. He, laying her +down with unspeakable gentleness as she had bidden him, hung over her, +leaning her head against his arm, and watching in paralysed horror the +helplessness of the quivering limbs, the slow flowing of the blood +beneath the Cross that shone where that young heroic heart so soon would +beat no more. + +"Oh, my child, my child!" he moaned, as the full might and meaning of +this devotion which had saved him at such cost rushed on him. "What am I +worth that you should perish for me? Better a thousand times have left +me to my fate! Such nobility, such sacrifice, such love!" + +The hot colour flushed her face once more; she was strong to the last to +conceal that passion for which she was still content to perish in her +youth. + +"Chut! we are comrades, and you are a brave man. I would do the same for +any of my Spahis. Look you, I never heard of your arrest till I heard +too of your sentence"---- + +She paused a moment, and her features grew white, and quivered with pain +and with the oppression that seemed to lie like lead upon her chest. But +she forced herself to be stronger than the anguish which assailed her +strength; and she motioned them all to be silent as she spoke on while +her voice still should serve her. + +"They will tell you how I did it--I have not time. The Marshal gave his +word you shall be saved; there is no fear. That is your friend who bends +over me here?--is it not? A fair face, a brave face! You will go back to +your land--you will live among your own people--and _she_, she will love +you now--now she knows you are of her Order!" + +Something of the old thrill of jealous dread and hate quivered through +the words, but the purer, nobler nature vanquished it; she smiled up in +his eyes, heedless of the tumult round them. + +"You will be happy. That is well. Look you--it is nothing that I did. I +would have done it for any one of my soldiers. And for this"--she +touched the blood flowing from her side with the old, bright, brave +smile--"it was an accident; they must not grieve for it. My men are good +to me; they will feel such regret and remorse; but do not let them. I am +glad to die." + +The words were unwavering and heroic, but for one moment a convulsion +went over her face; the young life was so strong in her, the young +spirit was so joyous in her, existence was so new, so fresh, so bright, +so dauntless a thing to Cigarette. She loved life: the darkness, the +loneliness, the annihilation of death were horrible to her as the +blackness and the solitude of night to a young child. Death, like night, +can be welcome only to the weary, and she was weary of nothing on the +earth that bore her buoyant steps; the suns, the winds, the delights of +the sights, the joys of the senses, the music of her own laughter, the +mere pleasure of the air upon her cheeks, or of the blue sky above her +head, were all so sweet to her. Her welcome of her death-shot was the +only untruth that had ever soiled her fearless lips. Death was terrible; +yet she was content--content to have come to it for his sake. + +There was a ghastly stricken silence round her. The order she had +brought had just been glanced at, but no other thought was with the most +callous there than the heroism of her act, than the martyrdom of her +death. + +The colour was fast passing from her lips, and a mortal pallor settling +there in the stead of that rich bright hue, once warm as the scarlet +heart of the pomegranate. Her head leant back on Cecil's breast, and she +felt the great burning tears fall one by one upon her brow as he hung +speechless over her; she put her hand upward and touched his eyes +softly. + +"Chut! What is it to die--just to die? You have _lived_ your martyrdom; +I could not have done that. Listen, just one moment. You will be rich. +Take care of the old man--he will not trouble long--and of Vole-qui-veut +and Etoile, and Boule Blanche, and the rat, and all the dogs, will you? +They will show you the Château de Cigarette in Algiers. I should not +like to think that they would starve." + +She felt his lips move with the promise he could not find voice to +utter; and she thanked him with that old child-like smile that had lost +nothing of its light. + +"That is good; they will be happy with you. And see here;--that Arab +must have back his white horse: he alone saved you. Have heed that they +spare him. And make my grave somewhere where my Army passes; where I can +hear the trumpets, and the arms, and the passage of the troops--O God! I +forgot! I shall not wake when the bugles sound. It will all _end_ now, +will it not? That is horrible, horrible!" + +A shudder shook her as, for the moment, the full sense that all her +glowing, redundant, sunlit, passionate life was crushed out for ever +from its place upon the earth forced itself on and overwhelmed her. But +she was of too brave a mould to suffer any foe--even the foe that +conquers kings--to have power to appal her. She raised herself, and +looked at the soldiery around her, among them the men whose carbines had +killed her, whose anguish was like the heartrending anguish of women. + +"Mes Français! That was a foolish word of mine. How many of my bravest +have fallen in death; and shall I be afraid of what they welcomed? Do +not grieve like that. You could not help it; you were doing your duty. +If the shots had not come to me, they would have gone to him; and he has +been unhappy so long, and borne wrong so patiently, he has earned the +right to live and enjoy. Now I--I have been happy all my days, like a +bird, like a kitten, like a foal, just from being young and taking no +thought. I should have had to suffer if I had lived; it is much best as +it is"---- + +Her voice failed her when she had spoken the heroic words; loss of blood +was fast draining all strength from her, and she quivered in a torture +she could not wholly conceal; he for whom she perished hung over her in +an agony greater far than hers; it seemed a hideous dream to him that +this child lay dying in his stead. + +"Can nothing save her?" he cried aloud. "O God! that you had fired one +moment sooner!" + +She heard; and looked up at him with a look in which all the passionate, +hopeless, imperishable love she had resisted and concealed so long +spoke with an intensity she never dreamed. + +"She is content," she whispered softly. "You did not understand her +rightly; that was all." + +"_All!_ O God! how I have wronged you!" + +The full strength, and nobility, and devotion of this passion he had +disbelieved in and neglected rushed on him as he met her eyes; for the +first time he saw her as she was, for the first time he saw all of which +the splendid heroism of this untrained nature would have been capable +under a different fate. And it struck him suddenly, heavily, as with a +blow; it filled him with a passion of remorse. + +"My darling!--my darling! what have I done to be worthy of such love?" +he murmured, while the tears fell from his blinded eyes, and his head +drooped until his lips met hers. At the first utterance of that word +between them, at the unconscious tenderness of his kisses that had the +anguish of a farewell in them, the colour suddenly flushed all over her +blanched face; she trembled in his arms; and a great shivering sigh ran +through her. It came too late, this warmth of love. She learned what its +sweetness might have been only when her lips grew numb, and her eyes +sightless, and her heart without pulse, and her senses without +consciousness. + +"Hush!" she answered, with a look that pierced his soul. "Keep those +kisses for Miladi. She will have the right to love you; she is of your +'_aristocrates_,' she is not 'unsexed.' As for me,--I am only a little +trooper who has saved my comrade! My soldiers, come round me one +instant; I shall not long find words." + +Her eyes closed as she spoke; a deadly faintness and coldness passed +over her; and she gasped for breath. A moment, and the resolute courage +in her conquered: her eyes opened and rested on the war-worn faces of +her "children"--rested in a long-lost look of unspeakable wistfulness +and tenderness. + +"I cannot speak as I would," she said at length, while her voice grew +very faint. "But I have loved you. All is said!" + +All was uttered in those four brief words. "She had loved them." The +whole story of her young life was told in the single phrase. And the +gaunt, battle-scarred, murderous, ruthless veterans of Africa who heard +her could have turned their weapons against their own breasts, and +sheathed them there, rather than have looked on to see their darling +die. + +"I have been too quick in anger sometimes--forgive it," she said gently. +"And do not fight and curse among yourselves; it is bad amid brethren. +Bury my Cross with me, if they will let you; and let the colours be over +my grave, if you can. Think of me when you go into battle; and tell them +in France"---- + +For the first time her own eyes filled with great tears as the name of +her beloved land paused upon her lips; she stretched her arms out with a +gesture of infinite longing, like a lost child that vainly seeks its +mother. + +"If I could only see France once more! France"---- + +It was the last word upon her utterance; her eyes met Cecil's in one +fleeting upward glance of unutterable tenderness; then with her hands +still stretched out westward to where her country was, and with the +dauntless heroism of her smile upon her face like light, she gave a +tired sigh as of a child that sinks to sleep, and in the midst of her +Army of Africa the Little One lay dead. + + + + +_STRATHMORE._ + + +The sun was setting, sinking downward beyond purple bars of cloud, and +leaving a long golden trail behind it in its track--sinking slowly and +solemnly towards the west as the day declined, without rest, yet without +haste, as though to give to all the sons of earth warning and time to +leave no evil rooted, no bitterness unhealed, no feud to ripen, and no +crime to bring forth seed, when the day should have passed away to be +numbered with hours irrevocable, and the night should cast its pall over +the dark deeds done, and seal their graves never to be unclosed. The sun +was setting, and shedding its rich and yellow light over the green +earth, on the winding waters, and the blue hills afar off, and down the +thousand leafy aisles close by; but to one place that warm radiance +wandered not, in one spot the rays did not play, the glory did not +enter. That place was the deer-pond of the old Bois, where the dark +plants brooding on the fetid waters, which only stirred with noisome +things, had washed against the floating hair of lifeless women, and the +sombre branches of the crowding trees had been dragged earthward by the +lifeless weight of the self-slain, till the air seemed to be poisonous +with death, and the grasses, as they moved, to whisper to the winds +dread secrets of the Past. And here the light of the summer evening did +not come, but only through the leafless boughs of one seared tree, which +broke and parted the dark barrier of forest growth, they saw the west, +and the sun declining slowly in its haze of golden air, sinking downward +past the bars of cloud. + +All was quiet, save the dull sounds of the parting waters, when some +loathsome reptiles stirred among its brakes, or the hot breeze moved its +pestilential plants; and in the silence they stood fronting each other; +in this silence they had met, in it they would part. And there, on their +right hand, through the break in the dank wall of leaves, shone the sun, +looking earthward, luminous, and blinding human sight like the gaze of +God. + +The light from the west fell upon Erroll, touching the fair locks of his +silken hair, and shining in his azure eyes as they looked up at the +sunny skies, where a bird was soaring and circling in space, happy +through its mere sense and joy of life; and on Strathmore's face the +deep shadows slanted, leaving it as though cast in bronze, chill and +tranquil as that of an Eastern Kabyl, each feature set into the +merciless repose of one immovable purpose. Their faces were strangely +contrasted, for the serenity of the one was that of a man who fearlessly +awaits an inevitable doom, the serenity of the other that of a man who +mercilessly deals out an implacable fate; and while in the one those +present saw but the calmness of courage and of custom, in the other they +vaguely shrank from a new and an awful meaning. For beneath the suave +smile of the Duellist they read the intent of the Murderer. + +The night was nigh at hand, and soon the day had to be gathered to the +past, such harvest garnered with it as men's hands had sown throughout +its brief twelve hours, which are so short in span, yet are so long in +sin. "LET NOT THE SUN GO DOWN UPON YOUR WRATH." There, across the west, +in letters of flame, the warning of the Hebrew scroll was written on the +purple skies; but he who should have read them stood immutable yet +insatiate, with the gleam of a tiger's lust burning in his eyes--the +lust when it scents blood; the lust that only slakes its thirst in life. + +They fronted one another, those who had lived as brothers; while at +their feet babbled the poisonous waters, and on their right hand shone +the evening splendour of the sun. + +"One!" + +The word fell down upon the silence, and the hiss of a shrill cicada +echoed to it like a devil's laugh. Their eyes met, and in the gaze of +the one was a compassionate pardon, but in the gaze of the other a +relentless lust. + +And the sun sank slowly downward beyond the barrier of purple cloud, +passing away from earth. + +"Two!" + +Again the single word dropped out upon the stillness, marking the flight +of the seconds; again the hoot of the cicada echoed it, laughing +hideously from its noisome marsh. + +And the sun sank slowly, still slowly, nearer and nearer to its shroud +of mist, bearing with it all that lingered of the day. + +"Three!" + +The white death-signal flickered in the breeze, and the last golden rays +of the sun were still above the edge of the storm-cloud. + +There was yet time. + +But the warning was not read: there was the assassin's devilish greed +within Strathmore's soul, the assassin's devilish smile upon his lips; +the calmness of his face never changed, the tranquil pulse of his wrist +never quickened, the remorseless gleam of his eyes never softened. It +was for him to fire first, and the doom written in his look never +relaxed. He turned--in seeming carelessness, as you may turn to aim at +carrion bird--but his shot sped home. + +One moment Erroll stood erect, his fair hair blowing in the wind, his +eyes full open to the light; then--he reeled slightly backward, raised +his right arm, and fired in the air! The bullet flew far and harmless +amidst the forest foliage, his arm dropped, and without sign or sound he +fell down upon the sodden turf, his head striking against the earth with +a dull echo, his hands drawing up the rank herbage by the roots, as they +closed convulsively in one brief spasm. + +He was shot through the heart. + +And the sun sank out of sight, leaving a dusky, sultry gloom to brood +over the noxious brakes and sullen stagnant waters, leaving the world to +Night, as fitting watch and shroud of Crime; and those who stood there +were stricken with a ghastly horror, were paralysed by a vague and +sudden awe, for they knew that they were in the presence of death, and +that the hand which had dealt it was the hand of his chosen friend. But +he, who had slain him, more coldly, more pitilessly than the merciful +amongst us would slay a dog, stood unmoved in the shadow, with his +ruthless calm, his deadly serenity, which had no remorse as it had had +no mercy, while about his lips there was a cold and evil smile, and in +his eyes gleamed the lurid flame of a tiger's triumph--the triumph when +it has tasted blood, and slaked its thirst in life. + +_"Voyez!--il est mort!"_ + +The words, uttered in his ear by Valdor, were hoarse and almost +tremulous; but he heard and assented to them unmoved. An exultant light +shone and glittered in his eyes; he had avenged himself and her! Life +was the sole price that his revenge had set; his purpose had been as +iron, and his soul was as bronze. He went nearer, leisurely, and stooped +and looked at the work of his hand. In the gloom the dark-red blood +could yet be clearly seen, slowly welling out and staining the clotted +herbage as it flowed, while one stray gleam of light still stole +across, as if in love and pity, and played about the long fair hair +which trailed amidst the grass. + +Life still lingered, faintly, flickeringly, as though both to leave for +ever that which one brief moment before had been instinct with all its +richest glory; the eyes opened wide once more, and looked up to the +evening skies with a wild, delirious, appealing pain, and the lips which +were growing white and drawn moved in a gasping prayer: + +"Oh, God! I forgive--I forgive. He did not know"---- + +Then his head fell back, and his eyes gazed upward without sight or +sense, and murmuring low a woman's name, "Lucille! Lucille!" while one +last breath shivered like a deep-drawn sigh through all his frame--he +died. And his murderer stood by to see the shudder convulse the rigid +limbs, and count each lingering pang--calm, pitiless, unmoved, his face +so serene in its chill indifference, its brutal and unnatural +tranquillity, whilst beneath the drooped lids his eyes watched with the +dark glitter of a triumphant vengeance the last agony of the man whom he +had loved, that the two who were with him in this ghastly hour shrank +involuntarily from his side, awed more by the Living than the Dead. +Almost unconsciously they watched him, fascinated basilisk-wise, as he +stooped and severed a long flake of hair that was soiled by the dank +earth and wet with the dew: unarrested they let him turn away with the +golden lock in his hand and the fatal calm on his face, and move to the +spot where his horse was waiting. The beat of the hoofs rang muffled on +the turf, growing fainter and fainter as the gallop receded. Strathmore +rode to her whose bidding had steeled his arm, and whose soft embrace +would be his reward; rode swift and hard, with his hand closing fast on +the promised pledge of his vengeance; while behind him, in the shadows +of the falling night, lay a man whom he had once loved, whom he had now +slain, with the light of early stars breaking pale and cold, to shine +upon the oozing blood as it trailed slowly in its death-stream through +the grasses, staining red the arid turf. + +And the sun had gone down upon his wrath. + + * * * + +Mes frčres! it is well for us that we are no seers! Were we cursed with +prevision, could we know how, when the idle trifle of the present hour +shall have been forged into a link of the past, it will stretch out and +bind captive the whole future in its bonds, we should be paralysed, +hopeless, powerless, old ere we were young! It is well for us that we +are no seers. Were we cursed with second sight, we should see the white +shroud breast-high above the living man, the phosphor light of death +gleaming on the youthful radiant face, the feathery seed, lightly sown, +bearing in it the germ of the upas-tree; the idle careless word, daily +uttered, carrying in its womb the future bane of a lifetime; we should +see these things till we sickened, and reeled, and grew blind with pain +before the ghastly face of the Future, as men in ancient days before the +loathsome visage of the Medusa! + + * * * + +Contretemps generally have some saving crumbs of consolation for those +who laugh at fate, and look good-humouredly for them; life's only evil +to him who wears it awkwardly, and philosophic resignation works as many +miracles as Harlequin; grumble, and you go to the dogs in a wretched +style; make _mots_ on your own misery, and you've no idea how pleasant a +_trajet_ even drifting "to the bad" may become. + + * * * + +The statue that Strathmore at once moulded and marred was his life: the +statue which we all, as we sketch it, endow with the strength of the +Milo, the glory of the Belvedere, the winged brilliance of the Perseus! +which ever lies at its best; when the chisel has dropped from our hands, +as they grow powerless and paralysed with death; like the mutilated +torso; a fragment unfinished and broken, food for the ants and worms, +buried in the sands that will quickly suck it down from sight or memory, +with but touches of glory and of value left here and there, only faintly +serving to show what _might have been_, had we had time, had we had +wisdom! + + * * * + +With which satirical reflection on his times and his order drifting +through his mind, Strathmore's thoughts floated onward to a piece of +statecraft then numbered among the delicate diplomacies and intricate +embroglie of Europe, whose moves absorbed him as the finesses of a +problem absorb a skilful chess-player, and from thence stretched onwards +to his future, in which he lived, like all men of dominant ambition, far +more than he lived in his present. It was a future brilliant, secure, +brightening in its lustre, and strengthening in its power, with each +successive year; a future which was not to him as to most wrapped in a +chiaroscuro, with but points of luminance gleaming through the mist, but +in whose cold glimmering light he seemed to see clear and distinct, as +we see each object of the far-off landscape stand out in the air of a +winter's noon, every thread that he should gather up, every distant +point to which he should pass onward; a future singular and +characteristic, in which state-power was the single ambition marked out, +from which the love of women was banished, in which pleasure and wealth +were as little regarded as in Lacedćmon, in which age would be courted, +not dreaded, since with it alone would come added dominion over the +minds of men, and in which, as it stretched out before him, failure and +alteration were alike impossible. What, if he lived, could destroy a +future that would be solely dependent on, solely ruled by, himself? By +his own hand alone would his future be fashioned; would he hew out any +shape save the idol that pleased him? When we hold the chisel ourselves, +are we not secure to have no error in the work? Is it likely that our +hand will slip, that the marble we select will be dark-veined, and +brittle, and impure, that the blows of the mallet will shiver our +handiwork, and that when we plan a Milo--god of strength--we shall but +mould and sculpture out a Laocoön of torture? Scarcely; and Strathmore +held the chisel, and, certain of his own skill, was as sure of what he +should make of life as Benvenuto, when he bade the molten metal pour +into the shape that he, master-craftsman, had fashioned, and gave to the +sight of the world the Winged Perseus. But Strathmore did not remember +what Cellini did--that one flaw might mar the whole! + + * * * + +In the little _millefleurs_-scented billet lay, unknown to its writer as +to him, the turning-point of his life! God help us! what avail are +experience, prescience, prudence, wisdom, in this world, when at every +chance step the silliest trifle, the most commonplace meeting, an +invitation to dinner, a turn down the wrong street, the dropping of a +glove, the delay of a train, the introduction to an unnoticed stranger, +will fling down every precaution, and build a fate for us of which we +never dream? Of what avail for us to erect our sand-castle when every +chance blast of air may blow it into nothing, and drift another into +form that we have no power to move? Life hinges upon hazard, and at +every turn wisdom is mocked by it, and energy swept aside by it, as the +battled dykes are worn away, and the granite walls beaten down by the +fickle ocean waves, which, never two hours together alike, never two +instants without restless motion, are yet as changeless as they are +capricious, as omnipotent as they are fickle, as cruel as they are +countless! Men and mariners may build their bulwarks, but hazard and the +sea will overthrow and wear away both alike at their will--their wild +and unreined will, which no foresight can foresee, no strength can +bridle. + +Was it not the mere choice between the saddle and the barouche that day +when Ferdinand d'Orléans flung down on second thoughts his riding-whip +upon the console at the Tuileries, and ordered his carriage instead of +his horse, that cost himself his life, his son a throne, the Bourbon +blood their royalty, and France for long years her progress and her +peace? Had he taken up his whip instead of laying it aside, he might be +living to-day with the sceptre in his hand, and the Bee, crushed beneath +his foot, powerless to sting to the core of the Lily! Of all strange +things in human life, there is none stranger than the dominance of +Chance. + + * * * + +He landed and went into Silver-rest in the morning light. Far as the eye +could reach stretched the deep still waters of the bay; the white sails +of his yacht and of the few fishing skiffs in the offing stood out +distinct and glancing in the sun; over the bluffs and in all the clefts +of rock the growing grass blew and flickered in the breeze; and as he +crossed the sands the air was fragrant with the scent of the wild +flowers that grew down to the water's edge. But to note these things a +man must be in unison with the world; and to love them he must be in +unison with himself. Strathmore scarce saw them as he went onward. + + * * * + +If a military man's friend dies who had the step above him, his first +thought is "Promotion! deucedly lucky for me!" His next, "Poor fellow, +what a pity!" always comes two seconds after. I understand Voltaire. If +your companion's existence at table makes you have a dish dressed as you +don't like it, you are naturally relieved if an apoplectic fit empties +his chair, and sets you free to say, "_Point de sauce blanche!_" All men +are egotists, they only persuade themselves they are not selfish by +swearing so often, that at last they believe what they say. No motive +under the sun will stand the microscope; human nature, like a faded +beauty, must only have a _demi-lumičr_; draw the blinds up, and the +blotches come out, the wrinkles show, and the paint peels off. The +beauty scolds the servants--men hiss the satirists--who dare to let in +daylight! + + * * * + +The Frenchwoman prides herself on being thought unfaithful to her +husband; the Englishwoman on being thought faithful to him; but though +their theories are different, their practice comes to much the same +thing. + + + + +_FRIENDSHIP._ + + +When Zeus, half in sport and half in cruelty, made man, young Hermęs, +who, as all Olympus knew, was for ever at some piece of mischief, +insisted on meddling with his father's work, and got leave to fashion +the human ear out of a shell that he chanced to have by him, across +which he stretched a fine cobweb that he stole from Arachne. But he +hollowed and twisted the shell in such a fashion that it would turn back +all sounds except very loud blasts that Falsehood should blow on a +brazen horn, whilst the impenetrable web would keep out all such +whispers as Truth could send up from the depths of her well. + +Hermęs chuckled as he rounded the curves of his ear, and fastened it on +to the newly-made human creature. + +"So shall these mortals always hear and believe the thing that is not," +he said to himself in glee--knowing that the box he would give to +Pandora would not bear more confused and complex woes to the hapless +earth than this gift of an ear to man. + +But he forgot himself so far that, though two ears were wanted, he only +made one. + +Apollo, passing that way, marked the blunder, and resolved to avenge the +theft of his milk-white herds which had led him such a weary chase +through Tempe. + +Apollo took a pearl of the sea and hollowed it, and strung across it a +silver string from his own lyre, and with it gave to man one ear by +which the voice of Truth should reach the brain. + +"You have spoilt all my sport," said the boy Hermes, angry and weeping. + +"Nay," said the elder brother with a smile. "Be comforted. The brazen +trumpets will be sure to drown the whisper from the well, and ten +thousand mortals to one, be sure, will always turn by choice your ear +instead of mine." + + * * * + +Women never like one another, except now and then an old woman and a +young woman like you and me. They are good to one another amongst the +poor, you say! Oh, that I don't know anything about. They may be. +Barbarians always retain the savage virtues. In Society women hate one +another--all the more because in Society they have to smile in each +other's faces every night of their lives. Only think what that is, my +dear!--to grudge each other's conquests, to grudge each other's +diamonds, to study each other's dress, to watch each other's wrinkles, +to outshine each other always on every possible occasion, big or little, +and yet always to be obliged to give pet names to each other, and visit +each other with elaborate ceremonial--why, women _must_ hate each other! +Society makes them. Your poor folks, I daresay, in the midst of their +toiling and moiling, and scrubbing and scraping, and starving and +begging, do do each other kindly turns, and put bread in each other's +mouths now and then, because they can scratch each other's eyes out, and +call each other hussies in the streets, any minute they like, in the +most open manner. But in Society women's entire life is a struggle for +precedence, precedence in everything--beauty, money, rank, success, +dress, everything. We have to smother hate under smiles, and envy under +compliment, and while we are dying to say "You hussy," like the women +in the streets, we are obliged, instead of boxing her ears, to kiss her +on both cheeks, and cry, "Oh, my dearest--how charming of you--so kind!" +Only think what all that repression means. You laugh? Oh, you very +clever people always do laugh at these things. But you must study +Society, or suffer from it, sooner or later. If you don't always strive +to go out before everybody, life will end in everybody going out before +you, everybody--down to the shoeblack! + + * * * + +"Read!" echoed the old wise man with scorn. "O child, what use is that? +Read!--the inland dweller reads of the sea, and thinks he knows it, and +believes it to be as a magnified duck-pond, and no more. Can he tell +anything of the light and the shade; of the wave and the foam; of the +green that is near, of the blue that is far; of the opaline changes, now +pure as a dove's throat, now warm as a flame; of the great purple depths +and the fierce blinding storm; and the delight and the fear, and the +hurricane rising like a horse snorting for war, and all that is known to +man who goes down to the great deep in ships? Passion and the sea are +like one another. Words shall not tell them, nor colour portray them. +The kiss that burns, and the salt spray that stings--let the poet excel +and the painter endeavour, yet the best they can do shall say nothing to +the woman without a lover; and the landsman who knows not the sea. If +you would live--love. You will live in an hour a lifetime; and you will +wonder how you bore your life before. But as an artist all will be over +with you--that I think." + + * * * + +What is the use of railing against Society? Society, after all, is only +Humanity _en masse_, and the opinion of it must be the opinion of the +bulk of human minds. Complaints against Society are like the lions' +against the man's picture. No doubt the lions would have painted the +combat as going just the other way, but then, so long as it is the man +who has the knife or the gun, and the palette and the pencil, where is +the use of the lions howling about injustice? Society has the knife and +the pencil; that's the long and the short of it; and if people don't +behave themselves they feel 'em both, and have to knock under. They're +knifed first, and then caricatured--as the lions were. + + * * * + +"Excelling!--it is rather a Dead Sea apple, I fear. The effort is +happiness, but the fruit always seems poor." + +Lady Cardiff could not patiently hear such nonsense. + +"There you are again, my dear feminine Alceste," she said irritably, +"looking at things from your solitary standpoint on that rock of yours +in the middle of the sea. _You_ are thinking of the excelling of genius, +of the possessor of an ideal fame, of the 'Huntress mightier than the +moon' and _I_ am thinking of the woman who excels in Society--who has +the biggest diamonds, the best _chef_, the most lovers, the most _chic_ +and _chien_, who leads the fashion, and condescends when she takes tea +with an empress. But even from your point of view on your rock, I can't +quite believe it. Accomplished ambition must be agreeable. To look back +and say, 'I have achieved!'--what leagues of sunlight sever that proud +boast from the weary sigh, 'I have failed!' Fame must console." + +"Perhaps; but the world, at least, does its best that it should not. Its +glory discs are of thorns." + +"You mean that superiority has its attendant shadow, which is calumny? +Always has had, since Apelles painted. What does it matter if everybody +looks after you when you pass down a street, what they say when you +pass?" + +"A malefactor may obtain that sort of flattery. I do not see the charm +of it." + +"You are very perverse. Of course I talk of an unsullied fame, not of an +infamous notoriety." + +"Fame nowadays is little else but notoriety," said Etoile with a certain +scorn, "and it is dearly bought, perhaps too dearly, by the sacrifice of +the serenity of obscurity, the loss of the peace of private life. Art is +great and precious, but the pursuit of it is sadly embittered when we +have become so the plaything of the public, through it, that the +simplest actions of our lives are chronicled and misconstrued. You do +not believe it, perhaps, but I often envy the women sitting at their +cottage doors, with their little children on their knees; no one talks +of _them_!" + + "J'ai tant de gloire, ô roi, que j'aspire au fumier!" + +said Lady Cardiff. "You are very thankless to Fate, my dear, but I +suppose it is always so." + +And Lady Cardiff took refuge in her cigar case, being a woman of too +much experience not to know that it is quite useless to try and make +converts to your opinions; and especially impossible to convince people +dissatisfied with their good fortune that they ought to be charmed with +it. + +"It is very curious," she thought when she got into her own carriage, +"really it makes one believe in that odd doctrine of, what is it, +Compensations; but, certainly, people of great talent always are a +little mad. If they're not flightily mad with eccentricity and brandy, +they are morbidly mad with solitude and sentiment. Now she is a great +creature, really a great creature; might have the world at her feet if +she liked; and all she cares for is a big dog, a bunch of roses, and +some artist or poet dead and gone three hundred or three thousand years! +It is very queer. It is just like that extraordinary possession of +Victor Hugo's; with powers that might have sufficed to make ten men +brilliant and comfortable, he must vex and worry about politics that +didn't concern him in the least, and go and live under a skylight in the +middle of the sea. It is very odd. They are never happy; but when they +are unhappy, and if you tell them that Addison could be a great writer, +and yet live comfortably and enjoy the things of this world, they only +tell you contemptuously that Addison had no genius, he had only a Style. +I suppose he hadn't. I think if I were one of them and had to choose, I +would rather have only a Style too." + + * * * + +When passion and habit long lie in company it is only slowly and with +incredulity that habit awakens to find its companion fled, itself alone. + + * * * + +A new acquaintance is like a new novel; you open it with expectation, +but what you find there seldom makes you care to take it off the shelf +another time. + + * * * + +The pity which is not born from experience is always cold. It cannot +help being so. It does not understand. + + * * * + +The house she lived in was very old, and had those charming conceits, +those rich shadows and depth of shade, that play of light, that variety, +and that character which seem given to a dwelling-place in ages when +men asked nothing better of their God than to live where their fathers +had lived, and leave the old roof-tree to their children's children. + +The thing built yesterday, is a caravanserai: I lodge in it to-day, and +you to-morrow; in an old house only can be made a home, where the +blessings of the dead have rested and the memories of perfect faiths and +lofty passions still abide. + + * * * + +There is so much mystery in this world, only people who lead humdrum +lives will not believe it. + +It is a great misfortune to be born to a romantic history. The humdrum +always think that you are lying. In real truth romance is common in +life, commoner, perhaps, than the commonplace. But the commonplace +always looks more natural. + +In Nature there are millions of gorgeous hues to a scarcity of neutral +tints; yet the pictures that are painted in sombre semi-tones and have +no one positive colour in them are always pronounced the nearest to +nature. When a painter sets his palette, he dares not approach the gold +of the sunset and dawn, or the flame of the pomegranate and poppy. + + * * * + +This age of Money, of Concessions, of Capitalists, and of Limited +Liabilities, has largely produced the female financier, who thinks with +M. de Camors, that "_l'humanité est composée des actionnaires_." Other +centuries have had their especial type of womanhood; the learned and +graceful _hetaira_, the saintly and ascetic recluse, the warrior of +Oriflamme or Red Rose, the _dame de beauté_, all loveliness and light, +like a dewdrop, the philosophic _précieuse_, with sesquipedalian phrase, +the revolutionist, half nude of body and wholly nude of mind, each in +their turn have given their sign and seal to their especial century, for +better or for worse. The nineteenth century has some touch of all, but +its own novelty of production is the female speculator. + +The woman who, breathless, watches _la hausse_ and _la baisse_; whose +favour can only be won by some hint in advance of the newspapers; whose +heart is locked to all save golden keys; who starts banks, who concocts +companies, who keeps a broker, as in the eighteenth century a woman kept +a monkey, and in the twelfth a knight; whose especial art is to buy in +at the right moments, and to sell out in the nick of time; who is great +in railways and canals, and new bathing-places, and shares in +fashionable streets; who chooses her lovers, thinking of concessions, +and kisses her friends for sake of the secrets they may betray from +their husbands--what other centuries may say of her who can tell? + +The Hôtel Rambouillet thought itself higher than heaven, and the +generation of Catherine of Sienna believed her deal planks the sole +highway to the throne of God. + + * * * + +Proud women, and sensitive women, take hints and resent rebuffs, and so +exile themselves from the world prematurely and haughtily. They abdicate +the moment they see that any desire their discrowning. Abdication is +grand, no doubt. But possession is more profitable. "A well-bred dog +does not wait to be kicked out," says the old see-saw. But the well-bred +dog thereby turns himself into the cold, and leaves the crumbs from +under the table to some other dog with less good-breeding and more +worldly wisdom. The sensible thing to do is to stay where you like best +to be; stay there with tooth and claw ready and a stout hide on which +cudgels break. People, after all, soon get tired of kicking a dog that +never will go. + +High-breeding was admirable in days when the world itself was high-bred. +But those days are over. The world takes high-breeding now as only a +form of insolence. + + * * * + +"To your poetic temper life is a vast romance, beautiful and terrible, +like a tragedy of Ćschylus. You stand amidst it entranced, like a child +by the beauty and awe of a tempest. And all the while the worldly-wise, +to whom the tempest is only a matter of the machineries of a theatre--of +painted clouds, electric lights, and sheets of copper--the world-wise +govern the storm as they choose and leave you in it defenceless and +lonely as old Lear. To put your heart into life is the most fatal of +errors; it is to give a hostage to your enemies whom you can only ransom +at the price of your ruin. But what is the use of talking? To you, life +will be always Alastor and Epipsychidion, and to us, it will always be a +Treatise on Whist. That's all!" + +"A Treatise on Whist! No! It is something much worse. It is a Book of +the Bastile, with all entered as criminal in it, who cannot be bought +off by bribe or intrigue, by a rogue's stratagem or a courtesan's vice!" + +"The world is only a big Harpagon, and you and such as you are Maître +Jacques. '_Puisque vous l'avez voulu!_' you say,--and call him frankly +to his face, '_Avare, ladre, vilain, fessemathieu!_' and Harpagon +answers you with a big stick and cries, '_Apprenez ŕ parler!_' Poor +Maître Jacques! I never read of him without thinking what a type he is +of Genius. No offence to you, my dear. He'd the wit to see he would +never be pardoned for telling the truth, and yet he told it! The perfect +type of Genius." + + * * * + +The untruthfulness of women communicates itself to the man whose chief +society they form, and the perpetual necessities of intrigue end in +corrupting the temper whose chief pursuit is passion. + +Women who environ a man's fidelity by ceaseless suspicion and exaction, +create the evil that they dread. + + * * * + +Society, after all, asks very little. Society only asks you to wash the +outside of your cup and platter: inside you may keep any kind of +nastiness that you like: only wash the outside. Do wash the outside, +says Society; and it would be a churl or an ass indeed who would refuse +so small a request. + + * * * + +A woman who is ice to his fire, is less pain to a man than the woman who +is fire to his ice. There is hope for him in the one, but only a dreary +despair in the other. The ardours that intoxicate him in the first +summer of his passion serve but to dull and chill him in the later time. + + * * * + +A frog that dwelt in a ditch spat at a worm that bore a lamp. + +"Why do you do that?" said the glow-worm. + +"Why do you shine?" said the frog. + + * * * + +When a name is in the public mouth the public nostril likes to smell a +foulness in it. It likes to think that Byron committed incest; that +Milton was a brute; that Raffaelle's vices killed him; that Pascal was +mad; that Lamartine lived and died a pauper; that Scipio took the +treasury moneys; that Thucydides and Phidias stole; that Heloise and +Hypatia were but loose women after all--so the gamut runs over twice a +thousand years; and Rousseau is at heart the favourite of the world +because he was such a beast, with all his talent. + +When the world is driven to tears and prayers by Schiller, it hugs +itself to remember that he could not write a line without the smell of +rotten apples near, and that when he died there was not enough money in +his desk to pay his burial. They make him smaller, closer, less +divine--the apples and the pauper's coffin. + + * * * + +"Get a great cook; give three big balls a winter, and drive English +horses; you need never consider Society then, it will never find fault +with you, _ma trčs-chčre_." + +She did not quite understand, but she obeyed; and Society never did. +Society says to the members of it as the Spanish monk to the tree that +he pruned, and that cried out under his hook: + +"It is not beauty that is wanted of you, nor shade, but olives." + +Moral loveliness or mental depth, charm of feeling or nobleness of +instinct, beauty, or shade, it does not ask for, but it does ask for +olives--olives that shall round off its dessert, and flavour its dishes, +and tickle its sated palate; olives that it shall pick up without +trouble, and never be asked to pay for; these are what it likes. + +Now it is precisely in olives that the woman who has one foot in Society +and one foot out of it will be profuse. + +She must please, or perish. + +She must content, or how will she be countenanced? + +The very perilousness of her position renders her solicitous to attract +and to appease. + +Society follows a natural selfishness in its condonation of her; she is +afraid of it, therefore she must bend all her efforts to be agreeable to +it! it can reject her at any given moment, so that her court of it must +be continual and expansive. No woman will take so much pains, give so +much entertainment, be so willing to conciliate, be so lavish in +hospitality, be so elastic in willingness, as the woman who adores +Society, and knows that any black Saturday it may turn her out with a +bundle of rods, and a peremptory dismissal. + +Between her and Society there is a tacit bond. + +"Amuse me, and I will receive you." + +"Receive me, and I will amuse you." + + * * * + +Of all lay figures there is none on earth so useful as a wooden husband. +You should get a wooden husband, my dear, if you want to be left in +peace. It is like a comfortable slipper or your dressing-gown after a +ball. It is like springs to your carriage. It is like a clever maid who +never makes mistakes with your notes or comes without coughing +discreetly through your dressing-room. It is like tea, cigarettes, +postage-stamps, foot-warmers, eiderdown counterpanes--anything that +smooths life, in fact. Young women do not think enough of this. An +easy-going husband is the one indispensable comfort of life. He is like +a set of sables to you. You may never want to put them on; still, if the +north wind do blow--and one can never tell--how handy they are! You pop +into them in a second, and no cold wind can find you out, my dear. +Couldn't find you out, if your shift were in rags underneath! Without +your husband's countenance, you have scenes. With scenes, you have +scandal. With scandal, you come to a suit. With a suit, you most likely +lose your settlements. And without your settlements, where are you in +Society? With a husband you are safe. You need never think about him in +any way. His mere existence suffices. He will always be at the bottom of +your table, and the head of your visiting-cards. That is enough. He will +represent Respectability for you, without your being at the trouble to +represent Respectability for yourself. Respectability is a thing of +which the shadow is more agreeable than the substance. Happily for us, +Society only requires the shadow. + + * * * + +Very well; if you dislike dancing, don't dance; though if a woman don't, +you know, they always think she has got a short leg, or a cork leg, or +something or other that's dreadful. But why not show yourself at them? +At least show yourself. One goes to balls as one goes to church. It's a +social muster. + + * * * + +The art of pleasing is more based on the art of seeming pleased than +people think of, and she disarmed the prejudices of her enemies by the +unaffected delight she appeared to take in themselves. You may think +very ill of a woman, but after all you cannot speak very ill of her if +she has assured you a hundred times that you are amongst her dearest +friends. + + * * * + +Society always had its fixed demands. It used to exact birth. It used to +exact manners. In a remote and golden age there is a tradition that it +was once contented with mind. Nowadays it exacts money, or rather +amusement, because if you don't let other folks have the benefit of your +money, Society will take no account of it. But have money and spend it +well (that is, let Society live on it, gorge with it, walk ankle-deep in +it), and you may be anything and do anything; you may have been an +omnibus conductor in the Strand, and you may marry a duke's daughter; +you may have been an oyster-girl in New York, and you may entertain +royalties. It is impossible to exaggerate an age of anomaly and +hyperbole. There never was an age when people were so voracious of +amusement, and so tired of it, both in one. It is a perpetual carnival +and a permanent yawn. If you can do anything to amuse us you are +safe--till we get used to you--and then you amuse no longer, and must go +to the wall. Every age has its price: what Walpole said of men must be +true of mankind. Anybody can buy the present age that will bid very high +and pay with tact as well as bullion. There is nothing it will not +pardon if it see its way to getting a new sensation out of its leniency. +Perhaps no one ought to complain. A Society with an india-rubber +conscience, no memory, and an absolute indifference to eating its own +words and making itself ridiculous, is, after all, a convenient one to +live in--if you can pay for its suffrages. + + * * * + +If you are only well beforehand with your falsehood all will go upon +velvet; nobody ever listens to a rectification. "Is it possible?" +everybody cries with eager zest; but when they have only to say "Oh, +wasn't it so?" nobody feels any particular interest. It is the first +statement that has the swing and the success; as for explanation or +retractation--pooh! who cares to be bored? + + * * * + +Those people with fine brains and with generous souls will never learn +that life is after all only a game--a game which will go to the +shrewdest player and the coolest. They never see this; not they; they +are caught on the edge of great passions, and swept away by them. They +cling to their affections like commanders to sinking ships, and go down +with them. They put their whole heart into the hands of others, who only +laugh and wring out their lifeblood. They take all things too vitally in +earnest. Life is to them a wonderful, passionate, pathetic, terrible +thing that the gods of love and of death shape for them. They do not see +that coolness and craft, and the tact to seize accident, and the +wariness to obtain advantage, do in reality far more in hewing out a +successful future than all the gods of Greek or Gentile. They are very +unwise. It is of no use to break their hearts for the world; they will +not change it. _La culte de l'humanité_ is the one of all others which +will leave despair as its harvest. Laugh like Rabelais, smile like +Montaigne; that is the way to take the world. It only puts to death its +Sebastians, and makes its Shelleys not sorrowful to see the boat is +filling. + + * * * + +Society always adheres to its principles; just as a Moslem subscribes +none the less to the Koran because he may just have been blowing the +froth off his bumper of Mumm's before he goes to his mosque. + + * * * + +Pleasantness is the soft note of this generation, just as scientific +assassination is the harsh note of it. The age is compounded of the two. +Half of it is chloroform; the other half is dynamite. + + * * * + +You make us think, and Society dislikes thinking. You call things by +their right names, and Society hates that, though Queen Bess didn't mind +it. You trumpet our own littleness in our ear, and we know it so well +that we do not care to hear much about it. You shudder at sin, and we +have all agreed that there is no such thing as sin, only mere +differences of opinion, which, provided they don't offend us, we have no +business with: adultery is a _liaison_, lying is gossip, debt is a +momentary embarrassment, immorality is a little slip, and so forth: and +when we have arranged this pretty little dictionary of convenient +pseudonyms, it is not agreeable to have it sent flying by fierce, +dreadful, old words, that are only fit for some book that nobody ever +reads, like Milton or the Family Bible. We do not want to think. We do +not want to hear. We do not care about anything. Only give us a good +dinner and plenty of money, and let us outshine our neighbours. There is +the Nineteenth Century Gospel. My dear, if Ecclesiasticus himself came +he would preach in vain. You cannot convince people that don't want to +be convinced. We call ourselves Christians--Heaven save the mark!--but +we are only the very lowest kind of pagans. We do not believe in +anything--except that nothing matters. Well, perhaps nothing does +matter. Only one wonders why ever so many of us were all created, only +just to find _that_ out. + + * * * + +Love to the looker-on may be blind, unwise, unworthily bestowed, a +waste, a sacrifice, a crime; yet none the less is love, alone, the one +thing that, come weal or woe, is worth the loss of every other thing; +the one supreme and perfect gift of earth, in which all common things of +daily life become transfigured and divine. And perhaps of all the many +woes that priesthoods have wrought upon humanity, none have been greater +than this false teaching, that love can ever be a sin. To the sorrow +and the harm of the world, the world's religions have all striven to +make men and women shun and deny their one angel as a peril or a shame; +but religions cannot strive against nature, and when the lovers see each +other's heaven in each other's eyes, they know the supreme truth that +one short day together is worth a lifetime's glory. + + * * * + +Genius is like the nautilus, all sufficient for itself in its pretty +shell, quite at home in the big ocean, with no fear from any storm. But +if a wanton stone from a boat passing by break the shell, where is the +nautilus then? Drowned; just like any common creature! + + * * * + +There are times when, even on the bravest temper, the ironical mockery, +the cruel despotism of trifling circumstances, that have made themselves +the masters of our lives, the hewers of our fate, must weigh with a +sense of involuntary bondage, against which to strive is useless. + +The weird sisters were forms of awe and magnitude proportionate to the +woes they dealt out, to the destiny they wove. But the very littleness +of the daily chances that actually shape fate is, in its discordance and +its mockery, more truly terrible and most hideously solemn--it is the +little child's laugh at a frisking kitten which brings down the +avalanche, and lays waste the mountain side, or it is the cackle of the +startled geese that saves the Capitol. + +To be the prey of Atropos was something at the least; and the grim _Deus +vult perdere_, uttered in the delirium of pain, at the least made the +maddened soul feel of some slender account in the sight of the gods and +in the will of Heaven. But we, who are the children of mere accident and +the sport of idlest opportunity, have no such consolation. + + * * * + +Of course they will stone you, as village bumpkins run out and stone an +odd stray bird that they have never seen before; and the more beautiful +the plumage looks, the harder rain the stones. If the bird were a +sparrow the bumpkins would let it be. + + * * * + +Love that remembers aught save the one beloved may be affection, but it +is not love. + + * * * + +Ariel could not combat a leopardess; Ithuriel's spear glances pointless +from a rhinoceros' hide. To match what is low and beat it, you must +stoop, and soil your hands to cut a cudgel rough and ready. She did not +see this; and seeing it, would not have lowered herself to do it. + + * * * + +Which is the truth, which is the madness?--when the artist, in the +sunlit ice of a cold dreamland, scorns love and adores but one art; or +when the artist, amidst the bruised roses of a garden of passion, finds +all heaven in one human heart? + + * * * + +There is a story in an old poet's forgotten writings of a woman who was +queen when the world was young, and reigned over many lands, and loved a +captive, and set him free, and thinking to hurt him less by seeming +lowly, came down from her throne and laid her sceptre in the dust, and +passed amongst the common maidens that drew water at the well, or begged +at the city gate, and seemed as one of them, giving him all and keeping +nought herself: "so will he love me more," she thought; but he, crowned +king, thought only of the sceptre and the throne, and having those, +looked not amongst the women at the gate, and knew her not, because what +he had loved had been a queen. Thus she, self-discrowned, lost both her +lover and her kingdom. A wise man amongst the throng said to her, "Nay, +you should have kept aloof upon your golden seat and made him feel your +power to deal life or death, and fretted him long, and long kept him in +durance and in doubt, you, meanwhile, far above. For men are light +creatures as the moths are." + + * * * + +They had lived in London and Paris all their lives, and had, before +this, heard patriotism used as a reason for a variety of things, from a +minister's keeping in office against the will of the country, to a +newspaper's writing a country into bloodshed and bankruptcy; they were +quite aware of the word's elasticity. + + * * * + +It was the true and perfect springtide of the year, when Love walks +amongst the flowers, and comes a step nearer what it seeks with every +dawn. + +Without Love, spring is of all seasons cruel; more cruel than all frost +and frown of winter. + + * * * + +In the early days of an illicit passion concealment is charming; every +secret stairway of intrigue has a sweet surprise at its close; to be in +conspiracy with one alone against all the rest of humanity is the most +seductive of seductions. Love lives best in this soft twilight, where it +only hears its own heart and one other's beat in the solitude. + +But when the reverse of the medal is turned; when every step on the +stairs has been traversed and tired of, when, instead of the heart's +beat, there is but an upbraiding voice, when it is no longer _with_ one +but _from_ one that concealment is needed, then the illicit passion is +its own Nemesis, then nothing were ever drearier, wearier, more anxious, +or more fatiguing than its devious paths become, and they seem to hold +the sated wanderer in a labyrinth of which he knows, and knowing hates, +every wind, and curve, and coil, yet out of which it seems to him he +will never make his way back again into the light of wholesome day. + + * * * + +My dear, the days of Fontenoy are gone out; everybody nowadays only +tries to get the first fire, by hook or by crook. Ours is an age of +cowardice and cuirassed cannon; chivalry is out of place in it. + + * * * + +With a woman, the vulgarity that lies in public adulation is apt to +nauseate; at least if she be so little of a woman that she is not vain, +and so much of one that she cares for privacy. For the fame of our age +is not glory but notoriety; and notoriety is to a woman like the bull to +Pasiphae--whilst it caresses it crushes. + + * * * + +Had she your talent the world would have heard of her. As it is, she +only enjoys herself. Perhaps the better part. Fame is a cone of smoke. +Enjoyment is a loaf of sugar. + + * * * + +There is no such coward as the woman who toadies Society because she has +outraged Society. The bully is never brave. + +"Oignez vilain il vous poindra: poignez vilain il vous oindra," is as +true of the braggart's soul still, as it used to be in the old days of +Froissart, when the proverb was coined. + + * * * + +She was of opinion with Sganarelle, that "cinq ou six coups de bâton +entre gens qui s'aiment ne font que ragaillarder l'affection." + +But, like Sganarelle also, she always premised that the right to give +the blows should be hers. + + * * * + +She was only like any other well-dressed woman after all, and humanity +considers that when genius comes forth in the flesh the touch of the +coal from the altar should have left some visible stigmata on the lips +it has burned, as, of course anybody knows, it invariably leaves some +smirch upon the character. + +Humanity feels that genius ought to wear a livery, as Jews and loose +women wore yellow in the old golden days of distinction. + +"They don't even paint!" said one lady, and felt herself aggrieved. + + * * * + +Calumny is the homage of our contemporaries, as some South Sea Islanders +spit on those they honour. + + * * * + +Popularity has been defined as the privilege of being cheered by the +kind of people you would never allow to bow to you. + +Fame may be said to be the privilege of being slandered at once by the +people who do bow to you, as well as by the people who do not. + + * * * + +Nobody there knew at all. So everybody averred they knew for certain. +Nobody's story agreed with anybody else's, but that did not matter at +all. The world, like Joseph's father, gives the favourite coat of many +colours which the brethren rend. + + * * * + +"Be honey, and the flies will eat you," says the old saw, but, like most +other proverbs, it will not admit of universal application. There is a +way of being honey that is thoroughly successful and extremely popular, +and constitutes a kind of armour that is bomb-proof. + + * * * + +The longest absence is less perilous to love than the terrible trials of +incessant proximity. + + * * * + +She forgot that love likes to preserve its illusions, and that it will +bear better all the sharpest deprivations in the world than it will the +cruel tests of an unlovely and unveiled intercourse. + +She had committed the greatest error of all: she had let him be +disenchanted by familiarity. Passion will pardon rage, will survive +absence, will forgive infidelity, will even thrive on outrage, and will +often condone a crime; but when it dies of familiarity it is dead for +ever and aye. + + * * * + +Society will believe anything rather than ever believe that Itself can +be duped. + +If you have only assurance enough to rely implicitly on this, there is +hardly anything you cannot induce it to accept. + + * * * + +Here was the secret of her success. To her nothing was little. + +This temper is always popular with Society. To enjoy yourself in the +world, is, to the world, the prettiest of indirect compliments. + +The chief offence of the poet, as of the philosopher, is that the world +as it is fails to satisfy them. + +Society, which is after all only a conglomerate of hosts, has the host's +weakness--all its guests must smile. + +The poet sighs, the philosopher yawns. Society feels that they +depreciate it. Society feels more at ease without them. + +To find every one acceptable to you is to make yourself acceptable to +every one. + +Hived bees get sugar because they will give back honey. All existence is +a series of equivalents. + + * * * + +Even the discreetest friends will, like the closest-packed hold of a +ship, leak occasionally. Salt water and secrets are alike apt to ooze. + + * * * + +The simplicity of the artist is always the stumbling-block of the artist +with the world. + + * * * + +A woman need never dread the fiercest quarrel with her lover; the +tempest may bring sweeter weather than any it broke up, and after the +thunder the singing of birds will sound lovelier than before. Anger will +not extinguish love, nor will scorn trample it dead; jealousy will fan +its fires, and offences against it may but fasten closer the fetters +that it adores beyond all liberty. But when love dies of a worn-out +familiarity it perishes for ever and aye. + +Jaded, disenchanted, wearied, indifferent, the tired passion expires of +sheer listlessness and contemptuous disillusion. + +The death is slow and unperceived, but it is sure; and it is a death +that has no resurrection. + + * * * + +There is nothing that you may not get people to believe in if you will +only tell it them loud enough and often enough, till the welkin rings +with it. + + * * * + +What Raffaelle has left us must be to the glories he imagined as the +weaver's dye to the sunset's fire. + + * * * + +A woman's violence is a mighty power; before it reason recoils unnerved, +justice quails appalled, and peace perishes like a burnt-up scroll; it +is a sand-storm, before which courage can do but little: the bravest man +can but fall on his face and let it rage on above him. + + * * * + +A very trustful woman believes in her lover's fidelity with her heart; a +very vain woman believes in it with her head. + + * * * + +From the moment that another life has any empire on ours, peace is gone. + +Art spreads around us a profound and noble repose, but passion enters +it, and then art grows restless and troubled as the deep sea at the call +of the whirlwind. + + + + +_WANDA._ + + +A man cast forth from his home is like a ship cut loose from its anchor +and rudderless. Whatever may have been his weakness, his offences, they +cannot absolve you from your duty to watch over your husband's soul, to +be his first and most faithful friend, to stand between him and his +temptations and perils. That is the nobler side of marriage. When the +light of love is faded, and its joys are over, its duties and its +mercies remain. Because one of the twain has failed in these the other +is not acquitted of obligation. + + * * * + +"Choose some career; make yourself some aim in life; do not fold your +talents in a napkin; in a napkin that lies on the supper-table at +Bignon's. That idle, aimless life is very attractive, I daresay, in its +way, but it must grow wearisome and unsatisfactory as years roll on. The +men of my house have never been content with it; they have always been +soldiers, statesmen, something or other beside mere nobles." + +"But they have had a great position." + +"Men make their own position; they cannot make a name (at least, not to +my thinking). You have that good fortune; you have a great name; you +only need, pardon me, to make your manner of life worthy of it." + +"Cannot make a name? Surely in these days the beggar rides on horseback +in all the ministries and half the nobilities;" + +"You mean that Hans, Pierre, or Richard becomes a count, an excellency, +or an earl? What does that change? It alters the handle; it does not +alter the saucepan. No one can be ennobled. Blood is blood; nobility can +only be inherited; it cannot be conferred by all the heralds in the +world. The very meaning and essence of nobility are descent, inherited +traditions, instincts, habits, and memories--all that is meant by +_noblesse oblige_." + + * * * + +"Men are always like Horace," said the princess. "They admire rural +life, but they remain for all that with Augustus." + + * * * + +I read the other day of some actresses dining off a truffled pheasant +and a sack of bonbons. That is the sort of dinner we make all the year +round, morally--metaphorically--how do you say it? It makes us thirsty, +and perhaps--I am not sure--perhaps it leaves us half starved, though we +nibble the sweetmeats, and don't know it. + +"Your dinner must lack two things--bread and water." + +"Yes; we never see either. It is all truffles and caramels and _vins +frappés_." + +"There is your bread." + +She glanced at the little children, two pretty, graceful little maids of +six and seven years old. + +"_Ouf!_" said the Countess Branka. "They are only little bits of puff +paste, a couple of _petits fours_ baked on the boulevards. If they be +_chic_, and marry well, I for one shall ask no more of them. If ever you +have children, I suppose you will rear them on science and the +Antonines?" + +"Perhaps on the open air and Homer." + + * * * + +Cannot you make them understand that we are not public artists to need +_réclames_, nor yet sovereigns to be compelled to submit to the +microscope? Is this the meaning of civilisation--to make privacy +impossible, to oblige every one to live under a lens? + + * * * + +The world was much happier when distinctions and divisions were +impassable. There are no sumptuary laws now. What is the consequence? +That your _bourgeoise_ ruins her husband in wearing gowns fit only for a +duchess, and your prince imagines it makes him popular to look precisely +like a cabman or a bailiff. + + * * * + +A great love must be as exhaustless as the ocean in its mercy, and as +profound in its comprehension. + + * * * + +What was love if not one long forgiveness? What raised it higher than +the senses if not its infinite patience and endurance of all wrong? What +was its hope of eternal life if it had not gathered strength in it +enough to rise above human arrogance and human vengeance? + + * * * + +There is an infinite sense of peace in those cool, vast, unworn mountain +solitudes, with the rain-mists sweeping like spectral armies over the +level lands below, and the sun-rays slanting heavenward, like the spears +of an angelic host. There is such abundance of rushing water, of deep +grass, of endless shade, of forest trees, of heather and pine, of +torrent and tarn; and beyond these are the great peaks that loom through +breaking clouds, and the clear cold air, in which the vulture wheels and +the heron sails; and the shadows are so deep, and the stillness is so +sweet, and the earth seems so green, and fresh, and silent, and strong. +Nowhere else can one rest so well; nowhere else is there so fit a refuge +for all the faiths and fancies that can find a home no longer in the +harsh and hurrying world; there is room for them all in the Austrian +forests, from the Erl-King to Ariel and Oberon. + + * * * + +"You think any sin may be forgiven?" he said irrelevantly, with his face +averted. + +"That is a very wide question. I do not think St. Augustine himself +could answer it in a word or in a moment. Forgiveness, I think, would +surely depend on repentance." + +"Repentance in secret--would that avail?" + +"Scarcely--would it?--if it did not attain some sacrifice. It would have +to prove its sincerity to be accepted." + +"You believe in public penance?" said Sabran, with some impatience and +contempt. + +"Not necessarily public," she said, with a sense of perplexity at the +turn his words had taken. "But of what use is it for one to say he +repents unless in some measure he makes atonement?" + +"But where atonement is impossible?" + +"That could never be." + +"Yes. There are crimes whose consequences can never be undone. What +then? Is he who did them shut out from all hope?" + +"I am no casuist," she said, vaguely troubled. "But if no atonement were +possible I still think--nay, I am sure--a sincere and intense regret +which is, after all, what we mean by repentance, must be accepted, must +be enough." + +"Enough to efface it in the eyes of one who had never sinned?" + +"Where is there such a one? I thought you spoke of heaven." + +"I spoke of earth. It is all we can be sure to have to do with; it is +our one poor heritage." + +"I hope it is but an antechamber which we pass through, and fill with +beautiful things, or befoul with dust and blood, at our own will." + +"Hardly at our own will. In your antechamber a capricious tyrant waits +us all at birth. Some come in chained; some free." + + * * * + +"Do not compare the retreat of the soldier tired of his wounds, of the +gambler wearied by his losses, with the poet or the saint who is at +peace with himself and sees all his life long what he at least believes +to be the smile of God. Loyola and Francis d'Assisi are not the same +thing, are not on the same plane." + +"What matter what brought them," she said softly, "if they reach the +same goal?" + + * * * + +"You bade me do good at Romaris. Candidly, I see no way to do it except +in saving a crew off a wreck, which is not an occasion that presents +itself every week. I cannot benefit these people materially, since I am +poor; I cannot benefit them morally, because I have not their faith in +the things unseen, and I have not their morality in the things +tangible. They are God-fearing, infinitely patient, faithful in their +daily lives, and they reproach no one for their hard lot, cast on an +iron shore and forced to win their scanty bread at the risk of their +lives. They do not murmur either at duty or mankind. What should I say +to them? I, whose whole life is one restless impatience, one petulant +mutiny against circumstance? If I talk with them I only take them what +the world always takes into solitude--discontent. It would be a cruel +gift, yet my hand is incapable of holding out any other. It is a homely +saying that no blood comes out of a stone; so, out of a life saturated +with the ironies, the contempt, the disbelief, the frivolous +philosophies, the hopeless negations of what we call Society, there can +be drawn no water of hope and charity, for the well-head--belief--is +dried up at its source. Some pretend, indeed, to find in humanity what +they deny to exist as Deity, but I should be incapable of the illogical +exchange. It is to deny that the seed sprang from a root; it is to +replace a grand and illimitable theism by a finite and vainglorious +bathos. Of all the creeds that have debased mankind, the new creed that +would centre itself in man seems to me the poorest and the most baseless +of all. If humanity be but a _vibrion_, a conglomeration of gases, a +mere mould holding chemicals, a mere bundle of phosphorus and carbon, +how can it contain the elements of worship? what matter when or how each +bubble of it bursts? This is the weakness of all materialism when it +attempts to ally itself with duty. It becomes ridiculous. The _carpi +diem_ of the classic sensualists, the morality of the 'Satyricon' or the +'Decamerone,' are its only natural concomitants and outcome; but as yet +it is not honest enough to say this. It affects the soothsayer's long +robe, the sacerdotal frown, and is a hypocrite." + +In answer she wrote back to him: + +"I do not urge you to have my faith: what is the use? Goethe was right. +It is a question between a man and his own heart. No one should venture +to intrude there. But taking life even as you do, it is surely a casket +of mysteries. May we not trust that at the bottom of it, as at the +bottom of Pandora's, there may be hope? I wish again to think with +Goethe that immortality is not an inheritance, but a greatness to be +achieved like any other greatness, by courage, self-denial, and purity +of purpose--a reward allotted to the just. This is fanciful, may be, but +it is not illogical. And without being either a Christian or a +Materialist, without beholding either majesty or divinity in humanity, +surely the best emotion that our natures know--pity--must be large +enough to draw us to console where we can, and sustain where we can, in +view of the endless suffering, the continual injustice, the appalling +contrasts, with which the world is full. Whether man be the _vibrion_ or +the heir to immortality, the bundle of carbon or the care of angels, one +fact is indisputable: he suffers agonies, mental and physical, that are +wholly out of proportion to the brevity of his life, while he is too +often weighted from infancy with hereditary maladies, both of body and +of character. This is reason enough, I think, for us all to help each +other, even though we feel, as you feel, that we are as lost children, +wandering in a great darkness, with no thread or clue to guide us to the +end." + + * * * + +"We do not cultivate music one-half enough among the peasantry. It +lightens labour; it purifies and strengthens the home life; it sweetens +black bread. Do you remember that happy picture of Jordaens' 'Where the +old sing, the young chirp,' where the old grandfather and grandmother, +and the baby in its mother's arms, and the hale five-year-old boy, and +the rough servant, are all joining in the same melody, while the goat +crops the vine-leaves off the table? I should like to see every cottage +interior like that when the work was done. I would hang up an etching +from Jordaens where you would hang up, perhaps, the programme of +Proudhon." + +Then she walked back with him through the green sun-gleaming woods. + +"I hope that I teach them content," she continued. "It is the lesson +most neglected in our day. '_Niemand will ein Schuster sein; Jedermann +ein Dichter._' It is true we are very happy in our surroundings. A +mountaineer's is such a beautiful life, so simple, healthful, hardy, and +fine; always face to face with nature. I try to teach them what an +inestimable joy that alone is. I do not altogether believe in the +prosaic views of rural life. It is true that the peasant digging his +trench sees the clod, not the sky; but then when he does lift his head +the sky is there, not the roof, not the ceiling. That is so much in +itself. And here the sky is an everlasting grandeur; clouds and domes of +snow are blent together. When the stars are out above the glaciers how +serene the night is, how majestic! even the humblest creature feels +lifted up into that eternal greatness. Then you think of the home-life +in the long winters as dreary; but it is not so. Over away there, at +Lahn, and other places on the Hallstadtersee, they do not see the sun +for five months; the wall of rock behind them shuts them from all light +of day; but they live together, they dance, they work. The young men +recite poems, and the old men tell tales of the mountains and the French +war, and they sing the homely songs of the _Schnader-hüpfeln_. Then when +winter passes, when the sun comes up again over the wall of rocks, when +they go out into the light once more, what happiness it is! One old man +said to me, 'It is like being born again!' and another said, 'Where it +is always warm and light I doubt they forget to thank God for the +sunshine;' and quite a young child said, all of his own accord, 'The +primroses live in the dusk all the winter, like us, and then when the +sun comes up we and they run out together, and the Mother of Christ has +set the water and the little birds laughing.' I would rather have the +winter of Lahn than the winter of Belleville." + + * * * + +If the Venus de Medici could be animated into life women would only +remark that her waist was large. + + * * * + +Tedium is the most terrible and the most powerful foe love ever +encounters. + + * * * + +"Life is after all like baccarat or billiards," he said to himself. "It +is no use winning unless there be a _galerie_ to look on and applaud." + + * * * + +Time hung on his hands like a wearisome wallet of stones. + +When all the habits of life are suddenly rent asunder, they are like a +rope cut in two. They may be knotted together clumsily, or they may be +thrown altogether aside and a new strand woven, but they will never be +the same thing again. + + * * * + +The greatness of a great race is a thing far higher than mere pride. Its +instincts are noble and supreme, its obligations are no less than its +privileges; it is a great light which streams backward through the +darkness of the ages, and if by that light you guide not your footsteps, +then are you thrice accursed, holding as you do that lamp of honour in +your hands. + + * * * + +Even to those who care nothing for Society, and dislike the stir and +noise of the world about them, there is still always a vague sense of +depression in the dispersion of a great party; the house seems so +strangely silent, the rooms seem so strangely empty, servants flitting +noiselessly here and there, a dropped flower, a fallen jewel, an +oppressive scent from multitudes of fading blossoms, a broken vase +perhaps, or perhaps a snapped fan--these are all that are left of the +teeming life crowded here one little moment ago. Though one may be glad +they are gone, yet there is a certain sadness in it. "_Le lendemain de +la fęte_" keeps its pathos, even though the _fęte_ itself has possessed +no poetry and no power to amuse. + + * * * + +In every one of her villages she had her schools on this principle, and +they throve, and the children with them. Many of these could not read a +printed page, but all of them could read the shepherd's weather-glass in +sky and flower; all of them knew the worm that was harmful to the crops, +the beetle that was harmless in the grass; all knew a tree by a leaf, a +bird by a feather, an insect by a grub. + +Modern teaching makes a multitude of gabblers. She did not think it +necessary for the little goat-herds, and dairymaids, and foresters, and +charcoal-burners, and sennerins, and carpenters, and cobblers, to study +the exact sciences or draw casts from the antique. She was of opinion, +with Pope, that "a little learning is a dangerous thing," and that a +smattering of it will easily make a man morose and discontented, whilst +it takes a very deep and lifelong devotion to it to teach a man content +with his lot. Genius, she thought, is too rare a thing to make it +necessary to construct village schools for it, and whenever or wherever +it comes upon earth, it will surely be its own master. + +She did not believe in culture for little peasants who have to work for +their daily bread at the plough-tail or with the reaping-hook. She knew +that a mere glimpse of a Canaan of art and learning is cruelty to those +who never can enter into and never even can have leisure to merely gaze +on it. She thought that a vast amount of useful knowledge is consigned +to oblivion whilst children are taught to waste their time in picking up +the crumbs of a great indigestible loaf of artificial learning. She had +her scholars taught their "ABC," and that was all. Those who wished to +write were taught, but writing was not enforced. What they were made to +learn was the name and use of every plant in their own country; the +habits and ways of all animals; how to cook plain food well, and make +good bread; how to brew simples from the herbs of their fields and +woods, and how to discern the coming weather from the aspect of the +skies, the shutting-up of certain blossoms, and the time of day from +those "poor men's watches," the opening flowers. In all countries there +is a great deal of useful household and out-of-door lore that is fast +being choked out of existence under books and globes, and which, unless +it passes by word of mouth from generation to generation, is quickly and +irrevocably lost. All this lore she had cherished by her +school-children. Her boys were taught in addition any useful trade they +liked--boot-making, crampon-making, horse-shoeing, wheel-making, or +carpentry. This trade was made a pastime to each. The little maidens +learned to sew, to cook, to spin, to card, to keep fowls and sheep and +cattle in good health, and to know all poisonous plants and berries by +sight. + +"I think it is what is wanted," she said. "A little peasant child does +not need to be able to talk of the corolla and the spathe, but he does +want to recognise at a glance the flower that will give him healing and +the berries that will give him death. His sister does not in the least +require to know why a kettle boils, but she does need to know when a +warm bath will be good for a sick baby or when hurtful. We want a new +generation to be helpful, to have eyes, and to know the beauty of +silence. I do not mind much whether my children reap or not. The +labourer that reads turns Socialist, because his brain cannot digest the +hard mass of wonderful facts he encounters. But I believe every one of +my little peasants, being wrecked like Crusoe, would prove as handy as +he." + + * * * + +"Can you inform me how it is that women possess tenacity of will in +precise proportion to the frivolity of their lives? All these +butterflies have a volition of iron." + +"It is egotism. Intensely selfish people are always very decided as to +what they wish. That is in itself a great force; they do not waste their +energies in considering the good of others." + + * * * + +"I am not like you, my dear Olga," she wrote to her relative the +Countess Brancka. "I am not easily amused. That _course effrénée_ of the +great world carries you honestly away with it; all those incessant +balls, those endless visits, those interminable conferences on your +toilettes, that continual circling of human butterflies round you, those +perpetual courtships of half a score of young men; it all diverts you. +You are never tired of it; you cannot understand any life outside its +pale. All your days, whether they pass in Paris or Petersburgh, at +Trouville, at Biarritz, or at Vienna or Scheveningen, are modelled on +the same lines; you must have excitement as you have your cup of +chocolate when you wake. What I envy you is that the excitement excites +you. When I was amidst it I was not excited; I was seldom ever diverted. +See the misfortune that it is to be born with a grave nature! I am as +serious as Marcus Antoninus. You will say that it comes of having +learned Latin and Greek. I do not think so; I fear I was born +unamusable. I only truly care about horses and trees, and they are both +grave things, though a horse can be playful enough sometimes when he is +allowed to forget his servitude. Your friends, the famous tailors, send +me admirably-chosen costumes which please that sense in me which Titians +and Vandycks do (I do not mean to be profane); but I only put them on as +the monks do their frocks. Perhaps I am very unworthy of them; at least, +I cannot talk toilette as you can with ardour a whole morning and every +whole morning of your life. You will think I am laughing at you; indeed +I am not. I envy your faculty of sitting, as I am sure you are sitting +now, in a straw chair on the shore, with a group of _boulevardiers_ +around you, and a crowd making a double hedge to look at you when it is +your pleasure to pace the planks. My language is involved. I do not envy +you the faculty of doing it, of course; I could do it myself to-morrow. +I envy you the faculty of finding amusement in doing it, and finding +flattery in the double hedge." + + * * * + +"No doubt a love of nature is a triple armour against self-love. How can +I say how right I think your system with these children? You seem not to +believe me. There is only one thing in which I differ with you; you +think the 'eyes that see' bring content. Surely not! surely not!" + +"It depends on what they see. When they are wide open in the woods and +fields, when they have been taught to see how the tree-bee forms her +cell and the mole her fortress, how the warbler builds his nest for his +love and the water-spider makes his little raft, how the leaf comes +forth from the hard stem and the fungi from the rank mould, then I think +that sight is content--content in the simple life of the woodland place, +and in such delighted wonder that the heart of its own accord goes up in +peace and praise to the Creator. The printed page may teach envy, +desire, coveteousness, hatred, but the Book of Nature teaches +resignation, hope, willingness to labour and live, submission to die. +The world has gone farther and farther from peace since larger and +larger have grown its cities, and its shepherd kings are no more." + + * * * + +She remained still, her hands folded on her knees, her face set as +though it were cast in bronze. The great bedchamber, with its hangings +of pale blue plush and its silver-mounted furniture, was dim and shadowy +in the greyness of a midwinter afternoon. Doors opened, here to the bath +and dressing chambers, there to the oratory, yonder to the apartments of +Sabran. She looked across to the last, and a shudder passed over her; a +sense of sickness and revulsion came on her. + +She sat still and waited; she was too weak to go farther than this room. +She was wrapped in a long loose gown of white satin, lined and trimmed +with sable. There were black bearskins beneath her feet; the atmosphere +was warmed by hot air, and fragrant with some bowls full of forced +roses, which her women had placed there at noon. The grey light of the +fading afternoon touched the silver scrollwork of the bed, and the +silver frame of one large mirror, and fell on her folded hands and on +the glister of their rings. Her head leaned backward against the high +carved ebony of her chair. Her face was stern and bitterly cold, as that +of Maria Theresa when she signed the loss of Silesia. + +He approached from his own apartments, and came timidly and with a slow +step forward. He did not dare to salute her, or go near to her; he stood +like a banished man, disgraced, a few yards from her seat. + +Two months had gone by since he had seen her. When he entered he read on +her features that he must leave all hope behind. + +Her whole frame shrank within her as she saw him there, but she gave no +sign of what she felt. Without looking at him she spoke, in a voice +quite firm, though it was faint from feebleness. + +"I have but little to say to you, but that little is best said, not +written." + +He did not reply; his eyes were watching her with a terrible appeal, a +very agony of longing. They had not rested on her for two months. She +had been near the gates of the grave, within the shadow of death. He +would have given his life for a word of pity, a touch, a regard--and he +dared not approach her! + +She dared not look at him. After that first glance, in which there had +been so much of horror, of revulsion, she did not once look towards him. +Her face had the immutability of a mask of stone; so many wretched days +and haunted nights had she spent nerving herself for this inevitable +moment that no emotion was visible in her; into her agony she had poured +her pride, and it sustained her, as the plaster poured into the dry +bones at Pompeii makes the skeleton stand erect, the ashes speak. + +"After that which you have told me," she said, after a moment's silence +in which he fancied she must hear the throbbing of his heart, "you must +know that my life cannot be lived out beside yours. The law gives you +many rights, no doubt, but I believe you will not be so base as to +enforce them." + +"I have no rights!" he muttered. "I am a criminal before the law. The +law will free you from me, if you choose." + +"I do not choose," she said coldly; "you understand me ill. I do not +carry my wrongs or my woes to others. What you have told me is known +only to Prince Vásárhely and to the Countess Brancka. He will be silent; +he has the power to make her so. The world need know nothing. Can you +think that I shall be its informant?" + +"If you divorce me"---- he murmured. + +A quiver of bitter anger passed over her features, but she retained her +self-control. + +"Divorce? What could divorce do for me? Could it destroy the past? +Neither Church or Law can undo what you have done. Divorce would make me +feel that in the past I had been your mistress, not your wife, that is +all." + +She breathed heavily, and again pressed her hand on her breast. + +"Divorce!" she repeated. "Neither priest nor judge can efface a past as +you clean a slate with a sponge! No power, human or divine, can free +_me_, purify _me_, wash your dishonoured blood from your children's +veins." + +She almost lost her self-control; her lips trembled, her eyes were full +of flame, her brow was black with passion. With a violent effort she +restrained herself; invective or reproach seemed to her low and coarse +and vile. + +He was silent; his greatest fear, the torture of which had harassed him +sleeping and waking ever since he had placed his secret in her hands, +was banished at her words. She would seek no divorce--the children would +not be disgraced--the world of men would not learn his shame; and yet as +he heard a deeper despair than any he had ever known came over him. She +was but as those sovereigns of old who scorned the poor tribunals of +man's justice because they held in their own might the power of so much +heavier chastisement. + +"I shall not seek for a legal separation," she resumed; "that is to say, +I shall not, unless you force me to do so to protect myself from you. If +you fail to abide by the conditions I shall prescribe, then you will +compel me to resort to any means that may shelter me from your demands. +But I do not think you will endeavour to force on me conjugal rights +which you obtained over me by a fraud." + +All that she desired was to end quickly the torture of this interview, +from which her courage had not permitted her to shrink. She had to +defend herself because she would not be defended by others, and she only +sought to strike swiftly and unerringly so as to spare herself and him +all needless or lingering throes. Her speech was brief, for it seemed to +her that no human language held expression deep and vast enough to +measure the wrong done to her, could she seek to give it utterance. + +She would not have made a sound had any murderer stabbed her body; she +would not now show the death-wound of her soul and honour to this man +who had stabbed both to the quick. Other women would have made their +moan aloud, and cursed him. The daughter of the Szalras choked down her +heart in silence, and spoke as a judge speaks to one condemned by man +and God. + +"I wish no words between us," she said, with renewed calmness. "You know +your sin; all your life has been a lie. I will keep me and mine back +from vengeance; but do not mistake--God may pardon you, I never! What I +desired to say to you is that henceforth you shall wholly abandon the +name you stole; you shall assign the land of Romaris to the people; you +shall be known only as you have been known here of late, as the Count +von Idrac. The title was mine to give, I gave it you; no wrong is done +save to my fathers, who were brave men." + +He remained silent; all excuse he might have offered seemed as if from +him to her it would be but added outrage. He was her betrayer, and she +had the power to avenge betrayal; naught that she could say or do could +seem unjust or undeserved beside the enormity of her irreparable wrongs. + +"The children?" he muttered faintly, in an unuttered supplication. + +"They are mine," she said, always with the same unchanging calm that was +cold as the frozen earth without. "You will not, I believe, seek to +enforce your title to dispute them with me?" + +He gave a gesture of denial. + +He, the wrong-doer, could not realise the gulf which his betrayal had +opened betwixt himself and her. On him all the ties of their past +passion were sweet, precious, unchanged in their dominion. He could not +realise that to her all these memories were abhorred, poisoned, stamped +with ineffable shame; he could not believe that she, who had loved the +dust that his feet had brushed, could now regard him as one leprous and +accursed. He was slow to understand that his sin had driven him out of +her life for evermore. + +Commonly it is the woman on whom the remembrance of love has an +enthralling power when love itself is traitor; commonly it is the man on +whom the past has little influence, and to whom its appeal is vainly +made; but here the position was reversed. He would have pleaded by it; +she refused to acknowledge it, and remained as adamant before it. His +nerve was too broken, his conscience was too heavily weighted, for him +to attempt to rebel against her decisions or sway her judgment. If she +had bidden him go out and slay himself he would gladly have obeyed. + +"Once you said," he murmured timidly, "that repentance washes out all +crimes. Will you count my remorse as nothing?" + +"You would have known no remorse had your secret never been discovered!" + +He shrank as from a blow. + +"That is not true," he said wearily. "But how can I hope you will +believe me?" + +She answered nothing. + +"Once you told me that there was no sin you would not pardon me!" he +muttered. + +She replied: + +"We pardon sin; we do not pardon baseness." + +She paused and put her hand to her heart; then she spoke again in that +cold, forced, measured voice, which seemed on his ear as hard and +pitiless as the strokes of an iron hammer, beating life out beneath it. + +"You will leave Hohenszalras; you will go where you will; you have the +revenues of Idrac. Any other financial arrangements that you may wish to +make I will direct my lawyers to carry out. If the revenues of Idrac be +insufficient to maintain you"---- + +"Do not insult me--so," he murmured, with a suffocated sound in his +voice, as though some hand were clutching at his throat. + +"Insult _you_!" she echoed with a terrible scorn. + +She resumed with the same inflexible calmness, + +"You must live as becomes the rank due to my husband. The world need +suspect nothing. There is no obligation to make it your confidante. If +any one were wronged by the usurpation of the name you took it would be +otherwise, but as it is you will lose nothing in the eyes of men; +Society will not flatter you the less. The world will only believe that +we are tired of one another, like so many. The blame will be placed on +me. You are a brilliant comedian, and can please and humour it. I am +known to be a cold, grave, eccentric woman, a recluse, of whom it will +deem it natural that you are weary. Since you allow that I have the +right to separate from you--to deal with you as with a criminal--you +will not seek to recall your existence to me. You will meet my +abstinence by the only amends you can make to me. Let me forget--as far +as I am able--let me forget that ever you have lived!" + +He staggered slightly, as if under some sword-stroke from an unseen +hand. A great faintness came upon him. He had been prepared for rage, +for reproach, for bitter tears, for passionate vengeance; but this +chill, passionless, disdainful severance from him for all eternity he +had never dreamed of; it crept like the cold of frost into his very +marrow; he was speechless and mute with shame. If she had dragged him +through all the tribunals of the world she would have hurt him and +humiliated him far less. Better all the hooting gibes of the whole earth +than this one voice, so cold, so inflexible, so full of utter scorn! + +Despite her bodily weakness she rose to her full height, and for the +first time looked at him. + +"You have heard me," she said; "now go!" + +But instead, blindly, not knowing what he did, he fell at her feet. + +"But you loved me," he cried, "you loved me so well!" + +The tears were coursing down his cheeks. + +She drew the sables of her robe from his touch. + +"Do not recall _that_," she said, with a bitter smile. "Women of my race +have killed men before now for less outrage than yours has been to me." + +"Kill me!" he cried to her. "I will kiss your hand." + +She was mute. + +He clung to her gown with an almost convulsive supplication. + +"Believe, at least, that _I_ loved _you_!" he cried, beside himself in +his misery and impotence. "Believe that, at the least!" + +She turned from him. + +"Sir, I have been your dupe for ten long years; I can be so no more!" + +Under that intolerable insult he rose slowly, and his eyes grew blind, +and his limbs trembled, but he walked from her, and sought not again +either her pity or her pardon. + +On the threshold he looked back once. She stood erect, one hand resting +upon the carved work of her high oak chair; cold, stately, motionless, +the furred velvets falling to her feet like a queen's robes. + +He looked, then passed the threshold and closed the door behind him. + + +THE END. + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's Wisdom, Wit, and Pathos of Ouida, by Ouida + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WIT, WISDOM AND PATHOS OF OUIDA *** + +***** This file should be named 22019-8.txt or 22019-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/2/2/0/1/22019/ + +Produced by Charles Aldarondo, Janet Blenkinship, and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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