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diff --git a/old/iprtr10.txt b/old/iprtr10.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d19f7f9 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/iprtr10.txt @@ -0,0 +1,3340 @@ +Project Gutenberg Etext of Imaginary Portraits, by Walter Pater + + +Copyright laws are changing all over the world, be sure to check +the copyright laws for your country before posting these files!! + +Please take a look at the important information in this header. +We encourage you to keep this file on your own disk, keeping an +electronic path open for the next readers. Do not remove this. + + +**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** + +**Etexts Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** + +*These Etexts Prepared By Hundreds of Volunteers and Donations* + +Information on contacting Project Gutenberg to get Etexts, and +further information is included below. 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SEBASTIAN VAN STORCK + +CHAPTER IV. DUKE CARL OF ROSENMOLD + + +CHAPTER I. A PRINCE OF COURT PAINTERS + + + +EXTRACTS FROM AN OLD FRENCH JOURNAL + +Valenciennes, September 1701. + +They have been renovating my father's large workroom. That delightful, +tumble-down old place has lost its moss-grown tiles and the green +weather-stains we have known all our lives on the high whitewashed wall, +opposite which we sit, in the little sculptor's yard, for the coolness, +in summertime. Among old Watteau's workpeople came his son, "the genius," +my father's godson and namesake, a dark-haired youth, whose large, unquiet +eyes seemed perpetually wandering to the various drawings which lie exposed +here. My father will have it that he is a genius indeed, and a painter born. +We have had our September Fair in the Grande Place, a wonderful stir of +sound and colour in the wide, open space beneath our windows. And just where +the crowd was busiest young Antony was found, hoisted into one of those +empty niches of the old Hotel de Ville, sketching the scene to the life, +but with a kind of grace--a marvellous tact of omission, as my father +pointed out to us, in dealing with the vulgar reality seen from one's own +window--which has made trite old Harlequin, Clown, and Columbine, seem like +people in some fairyland; or like infinitely clever tragic actors, who, for +the humour of the thing, have put on motley for once, and are able to throw +a world of serious innuendo into their burlesque looks, with a sort of +comedy which shall be but tragedy seen from the other side. He brought his +sketch to our house to-day, and I was present when my father questioned him +and commended his work. But the lad seemed not greatly pleased, and left +untasted the glass of old Malaga which was offered to him. His father will +hear nothing of educating him as a painter. Yet he is not ill-to-do, and has +lately built himself a new stone house, big and grey and cold. Their old +plastered house with the black timbers, in the Rue des Cardinaux, was +prettier; dating from the time of the Spaniards, and one of the oldest in +Valenciennes. + + +October 1701. + +Chiefly through the solicitations of my father, old Watteau has consented +to place Antony with a teacher of painting here. I meet him betimes on the +way to his lessons, as I return from Mass; for he still works with the +masons, but making the most of late and early hours, of every moment of +liberty. And then he has the feast-days, of which there are so many in this +old-fashioned place. Ah! such gifts as his, surely, may once in a way make +much industry seem worth while. He makes a wonderful progress. And yet, far +from being set-up, and too easily pleased with what, after all, comes to +him so easily, he has, my father thinks, too little self-approval for +ultimate success. He is apt, in truth, to fall out too hastily with himself +and what he produces. Yet here also there is the "golden mean." Yes! I +could fancy myself offended by a sort of irony which sometimes crosses the +half-melancholy sweetness of manner habitual with him; only that as I can +see, he treats himself to the same quality. + + +October 1701. + +Antony Watteau comes here often now. It is the instinct of a natural +fineness in him, to escape when he can from that blank stone house, +with so little to interest, and that homely old man and woman. The rudeness +of his home has turned his feeling for even the simpler graces of life +into a physical want, like hunger or thirst, which might come to greed; and +methinks he perhaps overvalues these things. Still, made as he is, his hard +fate in that rude place must needs touch one. And then, he profits by the +experience of my father, who has much knowledge in matters of art beyond his +own art of sculpture; and Antony is not unwelcome to him. In these last +rainy weeks especially, when he can't sketch out of doors, when the wind only +half dries the pavement before another torrent comes, and people stay at home, +and the only sound from without is the creaking of a restless shutter on its +hinges, or the march across the Place of those weary soldiers, coming and +going so interminably, one hardly knows whether to or from battle with the +English and the Austrians, from victory or defeat:--Well! he has become like +one of our family. "He will go far!" my father declares. He would go far, in +the literal sense, if he might--to Paris, to Rome. It must be admitted that +our Valenciennes is a quiet, nay! a sleepy place; sleepier than ever since it +became French, and ceased to be so near the frontier. The grass is growing +deep on our old ramparts, and it is pleasant to walk there--to walk there +and muse; pleasant for a tame, unambitious soul such as mine. + + +December 1792. + +Antony Watteau left us for Paris this morning. It came upon us quite suddenly. +They amuse themselves in Paris. A scene-painter we have here, well known in +Flanders, has been engaged to work in one of the Parisian play-houses; and +young Watteau, of whom he had some slight knowledge, has departed in his +company. He doesn't know it was I who persuaded the scene-painter to take him; +that he would find the lad useful. We offered him our little presents--fine +thread-lace of our own making for his ruffles, and the like; for one must make +a figure in Paris, and he is slim and well-formed. For myself, I presented him +with a silken purse I had long ago embroidered for another. Well! we shall +follow his fortunes (of which I for one feel quite sure) at a distance. Old +Watteau didn't know of his departure, and has been here in great anger. + + +December 1703. + +Twelve months to-day since Antony went to Paris! The first struggle must be a +sharp one for an unknown lad in that vast, overcrowded place, even if he be as +clever as young Antony Watteau. We may think, however, that he is on the way +to his chosen end, for he returns not home; though, in truth, he tells those +poor old people very little of himself. The apprentices of the M. Metayer for +whom he works, labour all day long, each at a single part only,--coiffure, or +robe, or hand,--of the cheap pictures of religion or fantasy he exposes for +sale at a low price along the footways of the Pont Notre-Dame. Antony is +already the most skilful of them, and seems to have been promoted of late to +work on church pictures. I like the thought of that. He receives three livres +a week for his pains, and his soup daily. + + + +May 1705. + +Antony Watteau has parted from the dealer in pictures a bon marche and +works now with a painter of furniture pieces (those headpieces for doors +and the like, now in fashion) who is also concierge of the Palace of the +Luxembourg. Antony is actually lodged somewhere in that grand place, which +contains the king's collection of the Italian pictures he would so +willingly copy. Its gardens also are magnificent, with something, as we +understand from him, altogether of a novel kind in their disposition and +embellishment. Ah! how I delight myself, in fancy at least, in those +beautiful gardens, freer and trimmed less stiffly than those of other royal +houses. Methinks I see him there, when his long summer-day's work is over, +enjoying the cool shade of the stately, broad-foliaged trees, each of which +is a great courtier, though it has its way almost as if it belonged to that +open and unbuilt country beyond, over which the sun is sinking. + +His thoughts, however, in the midst of all this, are not wholly away from +home, if I may judge by the subject of a picture he hopes to sell for as +much as sixty livres--Un Depart de Troupes, Soldiers Departing--one of +those scenes of military life one can study so well here at Valenciennes. + + +June 1705. + +Young Watteau has returned home--proof, with a character so independent as +his, that things have gone well with him; and (it is agreed!) stays with +us, instead of in the stone-mason's house. The old people suppose he comes +to us for the sake of my father's instruction. French people as we are +become, we are still old Flemish, if not at heart, yet on the surface. +Even in French Flanders, at Douai and Saint Omer, as I understand, in the +churches and in people's houses, as may be seen from the very streets, +there is noticeable a minute and scrupulous air of care-taking and +neatness. Antony Watteau remarks this more than ever on returning to +Valenciennes, and savours greatly, after his lodging in Paris, our +Flemish cleanliness, lover as he is of distinction and elegance. Those +worldly graces he seemed when a young lad to hunger and thirst for, as +though truly the mere adornments of life were its necessaries, he already +takes as if he had been always used to them. And there is something +noble--shall I say?--in his half-disdainful way of serving himself with +what he still, as I think, secretly values over-much. There is an air of +seemly thought--le bel serieux--about him, which makes me think of one of +those grave old Dutch statesmen in their youth, such as that famous +William the Silent. And yet the effect of this first success of his (of +more importance than its mere money value, as insuring for the future the +full play of his natural powers) I can trace like the bloom of a flower +upon him; and he has, now and then, the gaieties which from time to time, +surely, must refresh all true artists, however hard-working and "painful." + + +July 1705. + +The charm of all this--his physiognomy and manner of being--has touched +even my young brother, Jean-Baptiste. He is greatly taken with Antony, +clings to him almost too attentively, and will be nothing but a painter, +though my father would have trained him to follow his own profession. It +may do the child good. He needs the expansion of some generous sympathy or +sentiment in that close little soul of his, as I have thought, watching +sometimes how his small face and hands are moved in sleep. A child of ten +who cares only to save and possess, to hoard his tiny savings! Yet he is +not otherwise selfish, and loves us all with a warm heart. Just now it is +the moments of Antony's company he counts, like a little miser. Well! that +may save him perhaps from developing a certain meanness of character I +have sometimes feared for him. + + +August 1705. + +We returned home late this summer evening--Antony Watteau, my father and +sisters, young Jean-Baptiste, and myself--from an excursion to Saint-Amand, +in celebration of Antony's last day with us. After visiting the great +abbey-church and its range of chapels, with their costly encumbrance of +carved shrines and golden reliquaries and funeral scutcheons in the +coloured glass, half seen through a rich enclosure of marble and +brasswork, we supped at the little inn in the forest. Antony, looking well +in his new-fashioned, long-skirted coat, and taller than he really is, +made us bring our cream and wild strawberries out of doors, ranging +ourselves according to his judgment (for a hasty sketch in that big +pocket-book he carries) on the soft slope of one of those fresh spaces in +the wood, where the trees unclose a little, while Jean-Baptiste and my +youngest sister danced a minuet on the grass, to the notes of some +strolling lutanist who had found us out. He is visibly cheerful at the +thought of his return to Paris, and became for a moment freer and more +animated than I have ever yet seen him, as he discoursed to us about the +paintings of Peter Paul Rubens in the church here. His words, as he spoke +of them, seemed full of a kind of rich sunset with some moving glory within +it. Yet I like far better than any of these pictures of Rubens a work of +that old Dutch master, Peter Porbus, which hangs, though almost out of +sight indeed, in our church at home. The patron saints, simple, and +standing firmly on either side, present two homely old people to Our Lady +enthroned in the midst, with the look and attitude of one for whom, amid +her "glories" (depicted in dim little circular pictures, set in the +openings of a chaplet of pale flowers around her) all feelings are over, +except a great pitifulness. Her robe of shadowy blue suits my eyes better +far than the hot flesh-tints of the Medicean ladies of the great Peter Paul, +in spite of that amplitude and royal ease of action under their stiff court +costumes, at which Antony Watteau declares himself in dismay. + + +August 1705. + +I am just returned from early Mass. I lingered long after the office was +ended, watching, pondering how in the world one could help a small bird +which had flown into the church but could find no way out again. I +suspect it will remain there, fluttering round and round distractedly, +far up under the arched roof till it dies exhausted. I seem to have heard +of a writer who likened man's life to a bird passing just once only, on +some winter night, from window to window, across a cheerfully-lighted hall. +The bird, taken captive by the ill-luck of a moment, re-tracing its +issueless circle till it expires within the close vaulting of that great +stone church:--human life may be like that bird too! + +Antony Watteau returned to Paris yesterday. Yes!--Certainly, great heights +of achievement would seem to lie before him; access to regions whither one +may find it increasingly hard to follow him even in imagination, and +figure to one's self after what manner his life moves therein. + + +January 1709. + +Antony Watteau has competed for what is called the Prix de Rome, desiring +greatly to profit by the grand establishment founded at Rome by Lewis the +Fourteenth, for the encouragement of French artists. He obtained only the +second place, but does not renounce his desire to make the journey to +Italy. Could I save enough by careful economies for that purpose? It might +be conveyed to him in some indirect way that would not offend. + + +February 1712. + +We read, with much pleasure for all of us, in the Gazette to-day, among +other events of the world, that Antony Watteau had been elected to the +Academy of Painting under the new title of Peintre des Fetes Galantes, +and had been named also Peintre du Roi. My brother, Jean-Baptiste, ran +to tell the news to old Jean-Philippe and Michelle Watteau. + +A new manner of painting! The old furniture of people's rooms must needs +be changed throughout, it would seem, to accord with this painting; or +rather, the painting is designed exclusively to suit one particular kind +of apartment. A manner of painting greatly prized, as we understand, by +those Parisian judges who have had the best opportunity of acquainting +themselves with whatever is most enjoyable in the arts:--such is the +achievement of the young Watteau! He looks to receive more orders for +his work than he will be able to execute. He will certainly relish--he, +so elegant, so hungry for the colours of life--a free intercourse with +those wealthy lovers of the arts, M. de Crozat, M. de Julienne, the Abbe +de la Roque, the Count de Caylus, and M. Gersaint, the famous dealer in +pictures, who are so anxious to lodge him in their fine hotels, and to +have him of their company at their country houses. Paris, we hear, has +never been wealthier and more luxurious than now: and the great ladies +outbid each other to carry his work upon their very fans. Those vast +fortunes, however, seem to change hands very rapidly. And Antony's new +manner? I am unable even to divine it--to conceive the trick and effect +of it--at all. Only, something of lightness and coquetry I discern there, +at variance, methinks, with his own singular gravity and even sadness of +mien and mind, more answerable to the stately apparelling of the age of +Henry the Fourth, or of Lewis the Thirteenth, in these old, sombre Spanish +houses of ours. + + +March 1713. + +We have all been very happy,--Jean-Baptiste as if in a delightful dream. +Antony Watteau, being consulted with regard to the lad's training as a +painter, has most generously offered to receive him for his own pupil. +My father, for some reason unknown to me, seemed to hesitate the first; +but Jean-Baptiste, whose enthusiasm for Antony visibly refines and +beautifies his whole nature, has won the necessary permission, and this +dear young brother will leave us to-morrow. Our regrets and his, at his +parting from us for the first time, overtook our joy at his good fortune +by surprise, at the last moment, as we were about to bid each other +good-night. For a while there had seemed to be an uneasiness under our +cheerful talk, as if each one present were concealing something with an +effort; and it was Jean-Baptiste himself who gave way at last. And then +we sat down again, still together, and allowed free play to what was in +our hearts, almost till morning, my sisters weeping much. I know better +how to control myself. In a few days that delightful new life will have +begun for him: and I have made him promise to write often to us. With how +small a part of my whole life shall I be really living at Valenciennes! + + +January 1714. + +Jean-Philippe Watteau has received a letter from his son to-day. Old +Michelle Watteau, whose sight is failing, though she still works (half +by touch, indeed) at her pillow-lace, was glad to hear me read the letter +aloud more than once. It recounts--how modestly, and almost as a matter +of course!--his late successes. And yet!--does he, in writing to these +old people, purposely underrate his great good fortune and seeming +happiness, not to shock them too much by the contrast between the delicate +enjoyments of the life he now leads among the wealthy and refined, and +that bald existence of theirs in his old home? A life, agitated, exigent, +unsatisfying! That is what this letter really discloses, below so +attractive a surface. As his gift expands so does that incurable +restlessness one supposed but the humour natural to a promising youth +who had still everything to do. And now the only realised enjoyment he +has of all this might seem to be the thought of the independence it has +purchased him, so that he can escape from one lodging-place to another, +just as it may please him. He has already deserted, somewhat incontinently, +more than one of those fine houses, the liberal air of which he used so +greatly to affect, and which have so readily received him. Has he failed +truly to grasp the fact of his great success and the rewards that lie +before him? At all events, he seems, after all, not greatly to value that +dainty world he is now privileged to enter, and has certainly but little +relish for his own works--those works which I for one so thirst to see. + + +March 1714. + +We were all--Jean-Philippe, Michelle Watteau, and ourselves--half in +expectation of a visit from Antony; and to-day, quite suddenly, he is +with us. I was lingering after early Mass this morning in the church of +Saint Vaast. It is good for me to be there. Our people lie under one of +the great marble slabs before the jube, some of the memorial brass +balusters of which are engraved with their names and the dates of their +decease. The settle of carved oak which runs all round the wide nave is +my father's own work. The quiet spaciousness of the place is itself like +a meditation, an "act of recollection," and clears away the confusions +of the heart. I suppose the heavy droning of the carillon had smothered +the sound of his footsteps, for on my turning round, when I supposed +myself alone, Antony Watteau was standing near me. Constant observer as +he is of the lights and shadows of things, he visits places of this kind +at odd times. He has left Jean-Baptiste at work in Paris, and will stay +this time with the old people, not at our house; though he has spent the +better part of to-day in my father's workroom. He hasn't yet put off, in +spite of all his late intercourse with the great world, his distant and +preoccupied manner--a manner, it is true, the same to every one. It is +certainly not through pride in his success, as some might fancy, for he +was thus always. It is rather as if, with all that success, life and its +daily social routine were somewhat of a burden to him. + + +April 1714. + +At last we shall understand something of that new style of his-the +Watteau style--so much relished by the fine people at Paris. He has taken +it into his kind head to paint and decorate our chief salon--the room with +the three long windows, which occupies the first floor of the house. + +The room was a landmark, as we used to think, an inviolable milestone and +landmark, of old Valenciennes fashion--that sombre style, indulging much +in contrasts of black or deep brown with white, which the Spaniards left +behind them here. Doubtless their eyes had found its shadows cool and +pleasant, when they shut themselves in from the cutting sunshine of their +own country. But in our country, where we must needs economise not the +shade but the sun, its grandiosity weighs a little on one's spirits. +Well! the rough plaster we used to cover as well as might be with morsels +of old figured arras-work, is replaced by dainty panelling of wood, with +mimic columns, and a quite aerial scrollwork around sunken spaces of a +pale-rose stuff and certain oval openings--two over the doors, opening +on each side of the great couch which faces the windows, one over the +chimney-piece, and one above the buffet which forms its vis-a-vis--four +spaces in all, to be filled by and by with "fantasies" of the Four +Seasons, painted by his own hand. He will send us from Paris arm-chairs +of a new pattern he has devised, suitably covered, and a clavecin. Our +old silver candlesticks look well on the chimney-piece. Odd, +faint-coloured flowers fill coquettishly the little empty spaces here and +there, like ghosts of nosegays left by visitors long ago, which paled thus, +sympathetically, at the decease of their old owners; for, in spite of its +new-fashionedness, all this array is really less like a new thing than the +last surviving result of all the more lightsome adornments of past times. +Only, the very walls seem to cry out:--No! to make delicate insinuation, +for a music, a conversation, nimbler than any we have known, or are likely +to find here. For himself, he converses well, but very sparingly. He +assures us, indeed, that the "new style" is in truth a thing of old days, +of his own old days here in Valenciennes, when, working long hours as a +mason's boy, he in fancy reclothed the walls of this or that house he was +employed in, with this fairy arrangement--itself like a piece of +"chamber-music," methinks, part answering to part; while no too trenchant +note is allowed to break through the delicate harmony of white and pale +red and little golden touches. Yet it is all very comfortable also, it +must be confessed; with an elegant open place for the fire, instead of +the big old stove of brown tiles. The ancient, heavy furniture of our +grandparents goes up, with difficulty, into the garrets, much against my +father's inclination. To reconcile him to the change, Antony is painting +his portrait in a vast perruque and with more vigorous massing of light +and shadow than he is wont to permit himself. + + +June 1714. + +He has completed the ovals:--The Four Seasons. Oh! the summerlike grace, +the freedom and softness, of the "Summer"--a hayfield such as we visited +to-day, but boundless, and with touches of level Italian architecture in +the hot, white, elusive distance, and wreaths of flowers, fairy hayrakes +and the like, suspended from tree to tree, with that wonderful lightness +which is one of the charms of his work. I can understand through this, at +last, what it is he enjoys, what he selects by preference, from all that +various world we pass our lives in. I am struck by the purity of the room +he has re-fashioned for us--a sort of MORAL purity; yet, in the FORMS and +COLOURS of things. Is the actual life of Paris, to which he will soon +return, equally pure, that it relishes this kind of thing so strongly? +Only, methinks 'tis a pity to incorporate so much of his work, of himself, +with objects of use, which must perish by use, or disappear, like our own +old furniture, with mere change of fashion. + + +July 1714. + +On the last day of Antony Watteau's visit we made a party to Cambrai. +We entered the cathedral church: it was the hour of Vespers, and it +happened that Monseigneur le Prince de Cambrai, the author of Telemaque, +was in his place in the choir. He appears to be of great age, assists +but rarely at the offices of religion, and is never to be seen in Paris; +and Antony had much desired to behold him. Certainly it was worth while +to have come so far only to see him, and hear him give his pontifical +blessing, in a voice feeble but of infinite sweetness, and with an +inexpressibly graceful movement of the hands. A veritable grand seigneur! +His refined old age, the impress of genius and honours, even his +disappointments, concur with natural graces to make him seem too +distinguished (a fitter word fails me) for this world. Omnia vanitas! he +seems to say, yet with a profound resignation, which makes the things we +are most of us so fondly occupied with look petty enough. Omnia vanitas! +Is that indeed the proper comment on our lives, coming, as it does in this +case, from one who might have made his own all that life has to bestow? +Yet he was never to be seen at court, and has lived here almost as an exile. +Was our "Great King Lewis" jealous of a true grand seigneur or grand +monarque by natural gift and the favour of heaven, that he could not endure +his presence? + + +July 1714. + +My own portrait remains unfinished at his sudden departure. I sat for it +in a walking-dress, made under his direction--a gown of a peculiar silken +stuff, falling into an abundance of small folds, giving me "a certain air +of piquancy" which pleases him, but is far enough from my true self. My +old Flemish faille, which I shall always wear, suits me better. + +I notice that our good-hearted but sometimes difficult friend said little +of our brother Jean-Baptiste, though he knows us so anxious on his +account--spoke only of his constant industry, cautiously, and not +altogether with satisfaction, as if the sight of it wearied him. + + +September 1714. + +Will Antony ever accomplish that long-pondered journey to Italy? For his +own sake, I should be glad he might. Yet it seems desolately far, across +those great hills and plains. I remember how I formed a plan for providing +him with a sum sufficient for the purpose. But that he no longer needs. + +With myself, how to get through time becomes sometimes the +question,--unavoidably; though it strikes me as a thing unspeakably sad +in a life so short as ours. The sullenness of a long wet day is yielding +just now to an outburst of watery sunset, which strikes from the far +horizon of this quiet world of ours, over fields and willow-woods, upon +the shifty weather-vanes and long-pointed windows of the tower on the +square--from which the Angelus is sounding-with a momentary promise of a +fine night. I prefer the Salut at Saint Vaast. The walk thither is a +longer one, and I have a fancy always that I may meet Antony Watteau +there again, any time; just as, when a child, having found one day a tiny +box in the shape of a silver coin, for long afterwards I used to try +every piece of money that came into my hands, expecting it to open. + + +September 1714. + +We were sitting in the Watteau chamber for the coolness, this sultry +evening. A sudden gust of wind ruffled the lights in the sconces on the +walls: the distant rumblings, which had continued all the afternoon, broke +out at last; and through the driving rain, a coach, rattling across the +Place, stops at our door: in a moment Jean-Baptiste is with us once again; +but with bitter tears in his eyes;--dismissed! + + +October 1714. + +Jean-Baptiste! he too, rejected by Antony! It makes our friendship and +fraternal sympathy closer. And still as he labours, not less sedulously +than of old, and still so full of loyalty to his old master, in that +Watteau chamber, I seem to see Antony himself, of whom Jean-Baptiste +dares not yet speak,--to come very near his work, and understand his great +parts. So Jean-Baptiste's work, in its nearness to his, may stand, for the +future, as the central interest of my life. I bury myself in that. + + +February 1715. + +If I understand anything of these matters, Antony Watteau paints that +delicate life of Paris so excellently, with so much spirit, partly +because, after all, he looks down upon it or despises it. To persuade +myself of that, is my womanly satisfaction for his preference--his +apparent preference--for a world so different from mine. Those coquetries, +those vain and perishable graces, can be rendered so perfectly, only +through an intimate understanding of them. For him, to understand must be +to despise them; while (I think I know why) he nevertheless undergoes their +fascination. Hence that discontent with himself, which keeps pace with his +fame. It would have been better for him--he would have enjoyed a purer and +more real happiness--had he remained here, obscure; as it might have been +better for me! + +It is altogether different with Jean-Baptiste. He approaches that life, and +all its pretty nothingness, from a level no higher than its own; and +beginning just where Antony Watteau leaves off in disdain, produces a solid +and veritable likeness of it and of its ways. + + +March 1715. + +There are points in his painting (I apprehend this through his own +persistently modest observations) at which he works out his purpose more +excellently than Watteau; of whom he has trusted himself to speak at last, +with a wonderful self-effacement, pointing out in each of his pictures, +for the rest so just and true, how Antony would have managed this or that, +and, with what an easy superiority, have done the thing better--done the +impossible. + + +February 1716. + +There are good things, attractive things, in life, meant for one and not +for another--not meant perhaps for me; as there are pretty clothes which +are not suitable for every one. I find a certain immobility of disposition +in me, to quicken or interfere with which is like physical pain. He, so +brilliant, petulant, mobile! I am better far beside Jean-Baptiste--in +contact with his quiet, even labour, and manner of being. At first he did +the work to which he had set himself, sullenly; but the mechanical labour +of it has cleared his mind and temper at last, as a sullen day turns quite +clear and fine by imperceptible change. With the earliest dawn he enters +his workroom, the Watteau chamber, where he remains at work all day. The +dark evenings he spends in industrious preparation with the crayon for the +pictures he is to finish during the hours of daylight. His toil is also his +amusement: he goes but rarely into the society whose manners he has to +re-produce. The animals in his pictures, pet animals, are mere toys: he +knows it. But he finishes a large number of works, door-heads, clavecin +cases, and the like. His happiest, his most genial moments, he puts, like +savings of fine gold, into one particular picture (true opus magnum, as he +hopes), The Swing. He has the secret of surprising effects with a certain +pearl-grey silken stuff of his predilection; and it must be confessed that +he paints hands--which a draughtsman, of course, should understand at least +twice as well other people--with surpassing expression. + + +March 1716. + +Is it the depressing result of this labour, of a too exacting labour? I +know not. But at times (it is his one melancholy!) he expresses a strange +apprehension of poverty, of penury and mean surroundings in old age; +reminding me of that childish disposition to hoard, which I noticed in him +of old. And then--inglorious Watteau, as he is!--at times that steadiness, +in which he is so great a contrast to Antony, as it were accumulates, +changes, into a ray of genius, a grace, an inexplicable touch of truth, +in which all his heaviness leaves him for a while, and he actually goes +beyond the master; as himself protests to me, yet modestly. And still, it +is precisely at those moments that he feels most the difference between +himself and Antony Watteau. "In THAT country, ALL the pebbles are golden +nuggets," he says; with perfect good-humour. + + +June 1716. + +'Tis truly in a delightful abode that Antony Watteau is just now +lodged--the hotel or town-house of M. de Crozat, which is not only a +comfortable dwelling-place, but also a precious museum lucky people go +far to see. Jean-Baptiste, too, has seen the place, and describes it. +The antiquities, beautiful curiosities of all sorts--above all, the +original drawings of those old masters Antony so greatly admires-are +arranged all around one there, that the influence, the genius, of those +things may imperceptibly play upon and enter into one, and form what one +does. The house is situated near the Rue Richelieu, but has a large +garden bout it. M. de Crozat gives his musical parties there, and Antony +Watteau has painted the walls of one of the apartments with the Four +Seasons, after the manner of ours, but doubtless improved by second +thoughts. This beautiful place is now Antony's home for a while. The +house has but one story, with attics in the mansard roofs, like those of +a farmhouse in the country. I fancy Antony fled thither for a few +moments, from the visitors who weary him; breathing the freshness of that +dewy garden in the very midst of Paris. As for me, I suffocate this +summer afternoon in this pretty Watteau chamber of ours, where +Jean-Baptiste is at work so contentedly. + + +May 1717. + +In spite of all that happened, Jean-Baptiste has been looking forward to +a visit to Valenciennes which Antony Watteau had proposed to make. He +hopes always--has a patient hope--that Antony's former patronage of him +may be revived. And now he is among us, actually at his work-restless +and disquieting, meagre, like a woman with some nervous malady. Is it +pity, then, pity only, one must feel for the brilliant one? He has been +criticising the work of Jean-Baptiste, who takes his judgments generously, +gratefully. Can it be that, after all, he despises and is no true lover +of his own art, and is but chilled by an enthusiasm for it in another, +such as that of Jean-Baptiste? as if Jean-Baptiste over-valued it, or as +if some ignobleness or blunder, some sign that he has really missed his +aim, started into sight from his work at the sound of praise--as if such +praise could hardly be altogether sincere. + + +June 1717. + +And at last one has actual sight of his work--what it is. He has brought +with him certain long-cherished designs to finish here in quiet, as he +protests he has never finished before. That charming Noblesse--can it be +really so distinguished to the minutest point, so naturally aristocratic? +Half in masquerade, playing the drawing-room or garden comedy of life, +these persons have upon them, not less than the landscape he composes, +and among the accidents of which they group themselves with such a perfect +fittingness, a certain light we should seek for in vain upon anything real. +For their framework they have around them a veritable architecture--a +tree-architecture--to which those moss-grown balusters, termes, statues, +fountains, are really but accessories. Only, as I gaze upon those windless +afternoons, I find myself always saying to myself involuntarily, "The +evening will be a wet one." The storm is always brooding through the massy +splendour of the trees, above those sun-dried glades or lawns, where +delicate children may be trusted thinly clad; and the secular trees +themselves will hardly outlast another generation. + + +July 1717. + +There has been an exhibition of his pictures in the Hall of the Academy +of Saint Luke; and all the world has been to see. + +Yes! Besides that unreal, imaginary light upon these scenes, these persons, +which is pure gift of his, there was a light, a poetry, in those persons +and things themselves, close at hand WE had not seen. He has enabled us to +see it: we are so much the better-off thereby, and I, for one, the better. +The world he sets before us so engagingly has its care for purity, its +cleanly preferences, in what one is to SEE--in the outsides of things-and +there is something, a sign, a memento, at the least, of what makes life +really valuable, even in that. There, is my simple notion, wholly womanly +perhaps, but which I may hold by, of the purpose of the arts. + + +August 1717. + +And yet! (to read my mind, my experience, in somewhat different terms) +methinks Antony Watteau reproduces that gallant world, those patched and +powdered ladies and fine cavaliers, so much to its own satisfaction, +partly because he despises it; if this be a possible condition of +excellent artistic production. People talk of a new era now dawning upon +the world, of fraternity, liberty, humanity, of a novel sort of social +freedom in which men's natural goodness of heart will blossom at a +thousand points hitherto repressed, of wars disappearing from the world in +an infinite, benevolent ease of life--yes! perhaps of infinite littleness +also. And it is the outward manner of that, which, partly by anticipation, +and through pure intellectual power, Antony Watteau has caught, together +with a flattering something of his own, added thereto. Himself really of +the old time--that serious old time which is passing away, the impress of +which he carries on his physiognomy--he dignifies, by what in him is +neither more nor less than a profound melancholy, the essential +insignificance of what he wills to touch in all that, transforming its mere +pettiness into grace. It looks certainly very graceful, fresh, animated, +"piquant," as they love to say--yes! and withal, I repeat, perfectly pure, +and may well congratulate itself on the loan of a fallacious grace, not +its own. For in truth Antony Watteau is still the mason's boy, and deals +with that world under a fascination, of the nature of which he is +half-conscious methinks, puzzled at "the queer trick he possesses," to use +his own phrase. You see him growing ever more and more meagre, as he goes +through the world and its applause. Yet he reaches with wonderful sagacity +the secret of an adjustment of colours, a coiffure, a toilette, setting I +know not what air of real superiority on such things. He will never +overcome his early training; and these light things will possess for him +always a kind of representative or borrowed worth, as characterising that +impossible or forbidden world which the mason's boy saw through the closed +gateways of the enchanted garden. Those trifling and petty graces, the +insignia to him of that nobler world of aspiration and idea, even now that +he is aware, as I conceive, of their true littleness, bring back to him, +by the power of association, all the old magical exhilaration of his +dream--his dream of a better world than the real one. There, is the +formula, as I apprehend, of his success--of his extraordinary hold on +things so alien from himself. And I think there is more real hilarity in +my brother's fetes champetres--more truth to life, and therefore less +distinction. Yes! The world profits by such reflection of its poor, +coarse self, in one who renders all its caprices from the height of a +Corneille. That is my way of making up to myself for the fact that I +think his days, too, would have been really happier, had he remained +obscure at Valenciennes. + + +September 1717. + +My own poor likeness, begun so long ago, still remains unfinished on the +easel, at his departure from Valenciennes--perhaps for ever; since the +old people departed this life in the hard winter of last year, at no +distant time from each other. It is pleasanter to him to sketch and plan +than to paint and finish; and he is often out of humour with himself +because he cannot project into a picture the life and spirit of his first +thought with the crayon. He would fain begin where that famous master +Gerard Dow left off, and snatch, as it were with a single stroke, what in +him was the result of infinite patience. It is the sign of this sort of +promptitude that he values solely in the work of another. To my thinking +there is a kind of greed or grasping in that humour; as if things were +not to last very long, and one must snatch opportunity. And often he +succeeds. The old Dutch painter cherished with a kind of piety his colours +and pencils. Antony Watteau, on the contrary, will hardly make any +preparations for his work at all, or even clean his palette, in the +dead-set he makes at improvisation. 'Tis the contrast perhaps between the +staid Dutch genius and the petulant, sparkling French temper of this new +era, into which he has thrown himself. Alas! it is already apparent that +the result also loses something of longevity, of durability--the colours +fading or changing, from the first, somewhat rapidly, as Jean-Baptiste +notes. 'Tis true, a mere trifle alters or produces the expression. But +then, on the other hand, in pictures the whole effect of which lies in a +kind of harmony, the treachery of a single colour must needs involve the +failure of the whole to outlast the fleeting grace of those social +conjunctions it is meant to perpetuate. This is what has happened, in part, +to that portrait on the easel. Meantime, he has commanded Jean-Baptiste to +finish it; and so it must be. + + +October 1717. + +Antony Watteau is an excellent judge of literature, and I have been +reading (with infinite surprise!) in my afternoon walks in the little +wood here, a new book he left behind him--a great favourite of his; as +it has been a favourite with large numbers in Paris.* Those pathetic +shocks of fortune, those sudden alternations of pleasure and remorse, +which must always lie among the very conditions of an irregular and +guilty love, as in sinful games of chance:--they have begun to talk of +these things in Paris, to amuse themselves with the spectacle of them, +set forth here, in the story of poor Manon Lescaut--for whom fidelity is +impossible, vulgarly eager for the money which can buy pleasures, such +as hers--with an art like Watteau's own, for lightness and grace. +Incapacity of truth, yet with such tenderness, such a gift of tears, on +the one side: on the other, a faith so absolute as to give to an illicit +love almost the regularity of marriage! And this is the book those fine +ladies in Watteau's "conversations," who look so exquisitely pure, lay +down on the cushion when the children run up to have their laces righted. +Yet the pity of it! What floods of weeping! There is a tone about which +strikes me as going well with the grace of these leafless birch-trees +against the sky, the pale silver of their bark, and a certain delicate +odour of decay which rises from the soil. It is all one half-light; and +the heroine, nay! The hero himself also, that dainty Chevalier des +Grieux, with all his fervour, have, I think, but a half-life in them +truly, from the first. And I could fancy myself almost of their +condition sitting here alone this evening, in which a premature touch +of winter makes the world look but an inhospitable place of +entertainment for one's spirit. With so little genial warmth to hold it +there, one feels that the merest accident might detach that flighty guest +altogether. So chilled at heart things seem to me, as I gaze on that +glacial point in the motionless sky, like some mortal spot whence death +begins to creep over the body! + +*Possibly written at this date, but almost certainly not printed till +many years later.--Note in Second Edition. + +And yet, in the midst of this, by mere force of contrast, comes back to +me, very vividly, the true colour, ruddy with blossom and fruit, of the +past summer, among the streets and gardens of some of our old towns we +visited; when the thought of cold was a luxury, and the earth dry enough +to sleep on. The summer was indeed a fine one; and the whole country +seemed bewitched. A kind of infectious sentiment passed upon us, like an +efflux from its flowers and flowerlike architecture--flower-like to me at +least, but of which I never felt the beauty before. + +And as I think of that, certainly I have to confess that there is a +wonderful reality about this lovers' story; an accordance between +themselves and the conditions of things around them, so deep as to make +it seem that the course of their lives could hardly have been other than +it was. That impression comes, perhaps, wholly of the writer's skill; +but, at all events, I must read the book no more. + + +June 1718. + +And he has allowed that Mademoiselle Rosalba--"ce bel esprit"--who can +discourse upon the arts like a master, to paint his portrait: has painted +hers in return! She holds a lapful of white roses with her two hands. +Rosa Alba--himself has inscribed it! It will be engraved, to circulate +and perpetuate it the better. + +One's journal, here in one's solitude, is of service at least in this, +that it affords an escape for vain regrets, angers, impatience. One puts +this and that angry spasm into it, and is delivered from it so. + +And then, it was at the desire of M. de Crozat that the thing was done. +One must oblige one's patrons. The lady also, they tell me, is +consumptive, like Antony himself, and like to die. And he, who has +always lacked either the money or the spirits to make that long-pondered, +much-desired journey to Italy, has found in her work the veritable accent +and colour of those old Venetian masters he would so willingly have +studied under the sunshine of their own land. Alas! How little peace have +his great successes given him; how little of that quietude of mind, +without which, methinks, one fails in true dignity of character. + + +November 1718. + +His thirst for change of place has actually driven him to England, that +veritable home of the consumptive. Ah me! I feel it may be the finishing +stroke. To have run into the native country of consumption! Strange +caprice of that desire to travel, which he has really indulged so little +in his life--of the restlessness which, they tell me, is itself a symptom +of this terrible disease! + + +January 1720. + +As once before, after long silence, a token has reached us, a slight +token that he remembers--an etched plate, one of very few he has executed, +with that old subject: Soldiers on the March. And the weary soldier +himself is returning once more to Valenciennes, on his way from England +to Paris. + + +February 1720. + +Those sharply-arched brows, those restless eyes which seem larger than +ever--something that seizes on one, and is almost terrible, in his +expression--speak clearly, and irresistibly set one on the thought of a +summing-up of his life. I am reminded of the day when, already with that +air of seemly thought, le bel serieux, he was found sketching, with so +much truth to the inmost mind in them, those picturesque mountebanks at +the Fair in the Grande Place; and I find, throughout his course of life, +something of the essential melancholy of the comedian. He, so fastidious +and cold, and who has never "ventured the representation of passion," +does but amuse the gay world; and is aware of that, though certainly +unamused himself all the while. Just now, however, he is finishing a +very different picture--that too, full of humour--an English family-group, +with a little girl riding a wooden horse: the father, and the mother +holding his tobacco-pipe, stand in the centre. + + +March 1720. + +To-morrow he will depart finally. And this evening the Syndics of the +Academy of Saint Luke came with their scarves and banners to conduct +their illustrious fellow-citizen, by torchlight, to supper in their +Guildhall, where all their beautiful old corporation plate will be +displayed. The Watteau salon was lighted up to receive them. There is +something in the payment of great honours to the living which fills one +with apprehension, especially when the recipient of them looks so like a +dying man. God have mercy on him! + + +April 1721. + +We were on the point of retiring to rest last evening when a messenger +arrived post-haste with a letter on behalf of Antony Watteau, desiring +Jean-Baptiste's presence at Paris. We did not go to bed that night; and +my brother was on his way before daylight, his heart full of a strange +conflict of joy and apprehension. + + +May 1721. + +A letter at last! from Jean-Baptiste, occupied with cares of all sorts at +the bedside of the sufferer. Antony fancying that the air of the country +might do him good, the Abbe Haranger, one of the canons of the Church of +Saint Germain l'Auxerrois, where he was in the habit of hearing Mass, has +lent him a house at Nogent-sur-Marne. There he receives a few visitors. +But in truth the places he once liked best, the people, nay! the very +friends, have become to him nothing less than insupportable. Though he +still dreams of change, and would fain try his native air once more, he +is at work constantly upon his art; but solely by way of a teacher, +instructing (with a kind of remorseful diligence, it would seem) +Jean-Baptiste, who will be heir to his unfinished work, and take up many +of his pictures where he has left them. He seems now anxious for one +thing only, to give his old "dismissed" disciple what remains of himself +and the last secrets of his genius. His property--9000 livres only--goes +to his relations. Jean-Baptiste has found these last weeks immeasurably +useful. + +For the rest, bodily exhaustion perhaps, and this new interest in an old +friend, have brought him tranquillity at last, a tranquillity in which he +is much occupied with matters of religion. Ah! it was ever so with me. +And one lives also most reasonably so.--With women, at least, it is thus, +quite certainly. Yet I know not what there is of a pity which strikes deep, +at the thought of a man, a while since so strong, turning his face to the +wall from the things which most occupy men's lives. 'Tis that homely, but +honest cure of Nogent he has caricatured so often, who attends him. + + +July 1721. + +Our incomparable Watteau is no more! Jean-Baptiste returned unexpectedly. +I heard his hasty footsteps on the stairs. We turned together into that +room; and he told his story there. Antony Watteau departed suddenly, in +the arms of M. Gersaint, on one of the late hot days of July. At the last +moment he had been at work upon a crucifix for the good cure of Nogent, +liking little the very rude one he possessed. He died with all the +sentiments of religion. + +He has been a sick man all his life. He was always a seeker after +something in the world that is there in no satisfying measure, or not +at all. + + + +CHAPTER II. DENYS L'AUXERROIS + + +Almost every people, as we know, has had its legend of a "golden age" +and of its return--legends which will hardly be forgotten, however +prosaic the world may become, while man himself remains the aspiring, +never quite contented being he is. And yet in truth, since we are no +longer children, we might well question the advantage of the return to +us of a condition of life in which, by the nature of the case, the +values of things would, so to speak, lie wholly on their surfaces, +unless we could regain also the childish consciousness, or rather +unconsciousness, in ourselves, to take all that adroitly and with the +appropriate lightness of heart. The dream, however, has been left for +the most part in the usual vagueness of dreams: in their waking hours +people have been too busy to furnish it forth with details. What follows +is a quaint legend, with detail enough, of such a return of a golden or +poetically-gilded age (a denizen of old Greece itself actually finding +his way back again among men) as it happened in an ancient town of +medieval France. + +Of the French town, properly so called, in which the products of +successive ages, not with-out lively touches of the present, are blended +together harmoniously, with a beauty SPECIFIC--a beauty cisalpine and +northern, yet at the same time quite distinct from the massive German +picturesque of Ulm, or Freiburg, or Augsburg, and of which Turner has +found the ideal in certain of his studies of the rivers of France, a +perfectly happy conjunction of river and town being of the essence of +its physiognomy--the town of Auxerre is perhaps the most complete +realisation to be found by the actual wanderer. Certainly, for +picturesque expression it is the most memorable of a distinguished group +of three in these parts,--Auxerre, Sens, Troyes,--each gathered, as if +with deliberate aim at such effect, about the central mass of a huge +grey cathedral. + +Around Troyes the natural picturesque is to be sought only in the rich, +almost coarse, summer colouring of the Champagne country, of which the +very tiles, the plaster and brickwork of its tiny villages and great, +straggling, village-like farms have caught the warmth. The cathedral, +visible far and wide over the fields seemingly of loose wild-flowers, +itself a rich mixture of all the varieties of the Pointed style down to +the latest Flamboyant, may be noticed among the greater French churches +for breadth of proportions internally, and is famous for its almost +unrivalled treasure of stained glass, chiefly of a florid, elaborate, +later type, with much highly conscious artistic contrivance in design as +well as in colour. In one of the richest of its windows, for instance, +certain lines of pearly white run hither and thither, with delightful +distant effect, upon ruby and dark blue. Approaching nearer you find it +to be a Travellers' window, and those odd lines of white the long +walking-staves in the hands of Abraham, Raphael, the Magi, and the other +saintly patrons of journeys. The appropriate provincial character of the +bourgeoisie of Champagne is still to be seen, it would appear, among the +citizens of Troyes. Its streets, for the most part in timber and +pargeting, present more than one unaltered specimen of the ancient hotel +or town-house, with forecourt and garden in the rear; and its more +devout citizens would seem even in their church-building to have sought +chiefly to please the eyes of those occupied with mundane affairs and +out of doors, for they have finished, with abundant outlay, only the +vast, useless portals of their parish churches, of surprising height and +lightness, in a kind of wildly elegant Gothic-on-stilts, giving to the +streets of Troyes a peculiar air of the grotesque, as if in some quaint +nightmare of the Middle Age. + +At Sens, thirty miles away to the west, a place of far graver aspect, +the name of Jean Cousin denotes a more chastened temper, even in these +sumptuous decorations. Here all is cool and composed, with an almost +English austerity. The first growth of the Pointed style in England--the +hard "early English" of Canterbury--is indeed the creation of William, a +master reared in the architectural school of Sens; and the severity of +his taste might seem to have acted as a restraining power on all the +subsequent changes of manner in this place--changes in themselves for +the most part towards luxuriance. In harmony with the atmosphere of its +great church is the cleanly quiet of the town, kept fresh by little +channels of clear water circulating through its streets, derivatives of +the rapid Vanne which falls just below into the Yonne. The Yonne, +bending gracefully, link after link, through a never-ending rustle of +poplar trees, beneath lowly vine-clad hills, with relics of delicate +woodland here and there, sometimes close at hand, sometimes leaving an +interval of broad meadow, has all the lightsome characteristics of +French river-side scenery on a smaller scale than usual, and might pass +for the child's fancy of a river, like the rivers of the old +miniature-painters, blue, and full to a fair green margin. One notices +along its course a greater proportion than elsewhere of still untouched +old seignorial residences, larger or smaller. The range of old gibbous +towns along its banks, expanding their gay quays upon the water-side, +have a common character--Joigny, Villeneuve, Julien-du-Sault--yet tempt +us to tarry at each and examine its relics, old glass and the like, of +the Renaissance or the Middle Age, for the acquisition of real though +minor lessons on the various arts which have left themselves a central +monument at Auxerre.--Auxerre! A slight ascent in the winding road! and +you have before you the prettiest town in France--the broad framework of +vineyard sloping upwards gently to the horizon, with distant white +cottages inviting one to walk: the quiet curve of river below, with all +the river-side details: the three great purple-tiled masses of Saint +Germain, Saint Pierre, and the cathedral of Saint Etienne, rising out of +the crowded houses with more than the usual abruptness and irregularity +of French building. Here, that rare artist, the susceptible painter of +architecture, if he understands the value alike of line and mass of +broad masses and delicate lines, has "a subject made to his hand." + +A veritable country of the vine, it presents nevertheless an expression +peaceful rather than radiant. Perfect type of that happy mean between +northern earnestness and the luxury of the south, for which we prize +midland France, its physiognomy is not quite happy--attractive in part +for its melancholy. Its most characteristic atmosphere is to be seen +when the tide of light and distant cloud is travelling quickly over it, +when rain is not far off, and every touch of art or of time on its old +building is defined in clear grey. A fine summer ripens its grapes into +a valuable wine; but in spite of that it seems always longing for a +larger and more continuous allowance of the sunshine which is so much to +its taste. You might fancy something querulous or plaintive in that +rustling movement of the vine-leaves, as blue-frocked Jacques Bonhomme +finishes his day's labour among them. + +To beguile one such afternoon when the rain set in early and walking was +impossible, I found my way to the shop of an old dealer in bric-a-brac. +It was not a monotonous display, after the manner of the Parisian +dealer, of a stock-in-trade the like of which one has seen many times +over, but a discriminate collection of real curiosities. One seemed to +recognise a provincial school of taste in various relics of the +housekeeping of the last century, with many a gem of earlier times from +the old churches and religious houses of the neighbourhood. Among them +was a large and brilliant fragment of stained glass which might have +come from the cathedral itself. Of the very finest quality in colour and +design, it presented a figure not exactly conformable to any recognised +ecclesiastical type; and it was clearly part of a series. On my eager +inquiry for the remainder, the old man replied that no more of it was +known, but added that the priest of a neighbouring village was the +possessor of an entire set of tapestries, apparently intended for +suspension in church, and designed to portray the whole subject of which +the figure in the stained glass was a portion. + +Next afternoon accordingly I repaired to the priest's house, in reality +a little Gothic building, part perhaps of an ancient manor-house, close +to the village church. In the front garden, flower-garden and potager in +one, the bees were busy among the autumn growths--many-coloured asters, +bignonias, scarlet-beans, and the old-fashioned parsonage flowers. The +courteous owner readily showed me his tapestries, some of which hung on +the walls of his parlour and staircase by way of a background for the +display of the other curiosities of which he was a collector. Certainly, +those tapestries and the stained glass dealt with the same theme. In +both were the same musical instruments--pipes, cymbals, long reed-like +trumpets. The story, indeed, included the building of an organ, just +such an instrument, only on a larger scale, as was standing in the old +priest's library, though almost soundless now, whereas in certain of the +woven pictures the hearers appear as if transported, some of them +shouting rapturously to the organ music. A sort of mad vehemence +prevails, indeed, throughout the delicate bewilderments of the whole +series--giddy dances, wild animals leaping, above all perpetual +wreathings of the vine, connecting, like some mazy arabesque, the +various presentations of one oft-repeated figure, translated here out of +the clear-coloured glass into the sadder, somewhat opaque and earthen +hues of the silken threads. The figure was that of the organ-builder +himself, a flaxen and flowery creature, sometimes wellnigh naked among +the vine-leaves, sometimes muffled in skins against the cold, sometimes +in the dress of a monk, but always with a strong impress of real +character and incident from the veritable streets of Auxerre. What is +it? Certainly, notwithstanding its grace, and wealth of graceful +accessories, a suffering, tortured figure. With all the regular beauty +of a pagan god, he has suffered after a manner of which we must suppose +pagan gods incapable. It was as if one of those fair, triumphant beings +had cast in his lot with the creatures of an age later than his own, +people of larger spiritual capacity and assuredly of a larger capacity +for melancholy. With this fancy in my mind, by the help of certain +notes, which lay in the priest's curious library, upon the history of +the works at the cathedral during the period of its finishing, and in +repeated examination of the old tapestried designs, the story shaped +itself at last. + +Towards the middle of the thirteenth century the cathedral of Saint +Etienne was complete in its main outlines: what remained was the +building of the great tower, and all that various labour of final +decoration which it would take more than one generation to accomplish. +Certain circumstances, however, not wholly explained, led to a somewhat +rapid finishing, as it were out of hand, yet with a marvellous fulness +at once and grace. Of the result much has perished, or been transferred +elsewhere; a portion is still visible in sumptuous relics of stained +windows, and, above all, in the reliefs which adorn the western portals, +very delicately carved in a fine, firm stone from Tonnerre, of which +time has only browned the surface, and which, for early mastery in art, +may be compared with the contemporary work of Italy. They come nearer +than the art of that age was used to do to the expression of life; with +a feeling for reality, in no ignoble form, caught, it might seem, from +the ardent and full-veined existence then current in these actual +streets and houses. Just then Auxerre had its turn in that political +movement which broke out sympathetically, first in one, then in another +of the towns of France, turning their narrow, feudal institutions into a +free, communistic life--a movement of which those great centres of +popular devotion, the French cathedrals, are in many instances the +monument. Closely connected always with the assertion of individual +freedom, alike in mind and manners, at Auxerre this political stir was +associated also, as cause or effect, with the figure and character of a +particular personage, long remembered. He was the very genius, it would +appear, of that new, free, generous manner in art, active and potent as +a living creature. + +As the most skilful of the band of carvers worked there one day, with a +labour he could never quite make equal to the vision within him, a +finely-sculptured Greek coffin of stone, which had been made to serve +for some later Roman funeral, was unearthed by the masons. Here, it +might seem, the thing was indeed done, and art achieved, as far as +regards those final graces, and harmonies of execution, which were +precisely what lay beyond the hand of the medieval workman, who for his +part had largely at command a seriousness of conception lacking in the +old Greek. Within the coffin lay an object of a fresh and brilliant +clearness among the ashes of the dead--a flask of lively green glass, +like a great emerald. It might have been "the wondrous vessel of the +Grail." Only, this object seemed to bring back no ineffable purity, but +rather the riotous and earthy heat of old paganism itself. Coated +within, and, as some were persuaded, still redolent with the tawny +sediment of the Roman wine it had held so long ago, it was set aside for +use at the supper which was shortly to celebrate the completion of the +masons' work. Amid much talk of the great age of gold, and some random +expressions of hope that it might return again, fine old wine of Auxerre +was sipped in small glasses from the precious flask as supper ended. +And, whether or not the opening of the buried vessel had anything to do +with it, from that time a sort of golden age seemed indeed to be +reigning there for a while, and the triumphant completion of the great +church was contemporary with a series of remarkable wine seasons. The +vintage of those years was long remembered. Fine and abundant wine was +to be found stored up even in poor men's cottages; while a new beauty, a +gaiety, was abroad, as all the conjoint arts branched out exuberantly in +a reign of quiet, delighted labour, at the prompting, as it seemed, of +the singular being who came suddenly and oddly to Auxerre to be the +centre of so pleasant a period, though in truth he made but a sad +ending. + +A peculiar usage long perpetuated itself at Auxerre. On Easter Day the +canons, in the very centre of the great church, played solemnly at ball. +Vespers being sung, instead of conducting the bishop to his palace, they +proceeded in order into the nave, the people standing in two long rows +to watch. Girding up their skirts a little way, the whole body of +clerics awaited their turn in silence, while the captain of the +singing-boys cast the ball into the air, as high as he might, along the +vaulted roof of the central aisle to be caught by any boy who could, and +tossed again with hand or foot till it passed on to the portly chanters, +the chaplains, the canons themselves, who finally played out the game +with all the decorum of an ecclesiastical ceremony. It was just then, +just as the canons took the ball to themselves so gravely, that +Denys--Denys l'Auxerrois, as he was afterwards called--appeared for the +first time. Leaping in among the timid children, he made the thing +really a game. The boys played like boys, the men almost like madmen, +and all with a delightful glee which became contagious, first in the +clerical body, and then among the spectators. The aged Dean of the +Chapter, Protonotary of his Holiness, held up his purple skirt a little +higher, and stepping from the ranks with an amazing levity, as if +suddenly relieved of his burden of eighty years, tossed the ball with +his foot to the venerable capitular Homilist, equal to the occasion. +And then, unable to stand inactive any longer, the laity carried on the +game among themselves, with shouts of not too boisterous amusement; the +sport continuing till the flight of the ball could no longer be traced +along the dusky aisles. + +Though the home of his childhood was but a humble one--one of those +little cliff-houses cut out in the low chalky hillside, such as are +still to be found with inhabitants in certain districts of France-there +were some who connected his birth with the story of a beautiful +country girl, who, about eighteen years before, had been taken from her +own people, not unwillingly, for the pleasure of the Count of Auxerre. +She had wished indeed to see the great lord, who had sought her +privately, in the glory of his own house; but, terrified by the strange +splendours of her new abode and manner of life, and the anger of the +true wife, she had fled suddenly from the place during the confusion of +a violent storm, and in her flight given birth prematurely to a child. +The child, a singularly fair one, was found alive, but the mother dead, +by lightning-stroke as it seemed, not far from her lord's chamber-door, +under the shelter of a ruined ivy-clad tower. Denys himself certainly +was a joyous lad enough. At the cliff-side cottage, nestling actually +beneath the vineyards, he came to be an unrivalled gardener, and, grown +to manhood, brought his produce to market, keeping a stall in the great +cathedral square for the sale of melons and pomegranates, all manner of +seeds and flowers (omnia speciosa camporum), honey also, wax tapers, +sweetmeats hot from the frying-pan, rough home-made pots and pans from +the little pottery in the wood, loaves baked by the aged woman in whose +house he lived. On that Easter Day he had entered the great church for +the first time, for the purpose of seeing the game. + +And from the very first, the women who saw him at his business, or +watering his plants in the cool of the evening, idled for him. The men +who noticed the crowd of women at his stall, and how even fresh young +girls from the country, seeing him for the first time, always loitered +there, suspected--who could tell what kind of powers? hidden under the +white veil of that youthful form; and pausing to ponder the matter, +found themselves also fallen into the snare. The sight of him made old +people feel young again. Even the sage monk Hermes, devoted to study and +experiment, was unable to keep the fruit-seller out of his mind, and +would fain have discovered the secret of his charm, partly for the +friendly purpose of explaining to the lad himself his perhaps more than +natural gifts with a view to their profitable cultivation. + +It was a period, as older men took note, of young men and their +influence. They took fire, no one could quite explain how, as if at his +presence, and asserted a wonderful amount of volition, of insolence, yet +as if with the consent of their elders, who would themselves sometimes +lose their balance, a little comically. That revolution in the temper +and manner of individuals concurred with the movement then on foot at +Auxerre, as in other French towns, for the liberation of the commune +from its old feudal superiors. Denys they called Frank, among many other +nicknames. Young lords prided themselves on saying that labour should +have its ease, and were almost prepared to take freedom, plebeian +freedom (of course duly decorated, at least with wild-flowers) for a +bride. For in truth Denys at his stall was turning the grave, slow +movement of politic heads into a wild social license, which for a while +made life like a stage-play. He first led those long processions, +through which by and by "the little people," the discontented, the +despairing, would utter their minds. One man engaged with another in +talk in the market-place; a new influence came forth at the contact; +another and then another adhered; at last a new spirit was abroad +everywhere. The hot nights were noisy with swarming troops of +dishevelled women and youths with red-stained limbs and faces, carrying +their lighted torches over the vine-clad hills, or rushing down the +streets, to the horror of timid watchers, towards the cool spaces by the +river. A shrill music, a laughter at all things, was everywhere. And the +new spirit repaired even to church to take part in the novel offices of +the Feast of Fools. Heads flung back in ecstasy--the morning sleep among +the vines, when the fatigue of the night was over--dew-drenched +garments--the serf lying at his ease at last: the artists, then so +numerous at the place, caught what they could, something, at least, of +the richness, the flexibility of the visible aspects of life, from all +this. With them the life of seeming idleness, to which Denys was +conducting the youth of Auxerre so pleasantly, counted but as the +cultivation, for their due service to man, of delightful natural things. +And the powers of nature concurred. It seemed there would be winter no +more. The planet Mars drew nearer to the earth than usual, hanging in +the low sky like a fiery red lamp. A massive but well-nigh lifeless vine +on the wall of the cloister, allowed to remain there only as a curiosity +on account of its immense age, in that great season, as it was long +after called, clothed itself with fruit once more. The culture of the +grape greatly increased. The sunlight fell for the first time on many a +spot of deep woodland cleared for vine-growing; though Denys, a lover of +trees, was careful to leave a stately specimen of forest growth here and +there. + +When his troubles came, one characteristic that had seemed most amiable +in his prosperity was turned against him--a fondness for oddly grown or +even misshapen, yet potentially happy, children; for odd animals also: +he sympathised with them all, was skilful in healing their maladies, +saved the hare in the chase, and sold his mantle to redeem a lamb from +the butcher. He taught the people not to be afraid of the strange, ugly +creatures which the light of the moving torches drew from their +hiding-places, nor think it a bad omen that approached. He tamed a +veritable wolf to keep him company like a dog. It was the first of many +ambiguous circumstances about him, from which, in the minds of an +increasing number of people, a deep suspicion and hatred began to define +itself. The rich bestiary, then compiling in the library of the great +church, became, through his assistance, nothing less than a garden of +Eden--the garden of Eden grown wild. The owl alone he abhorred. A little +later, almost as if in revenge, alone of all animals it clung to him, +haunting him persistently among the dusky stone towers, when grown +gentler than ever he dared not kill it. He moved unhurt in the famous +menagerie of the castle, of which the common people were so much afraid, +and let out the lions, themselves timid prisoners enough, through the +streets during the fair. The incident suggested to the somewhat barren +pen-men of the day a "morality" adapted from the old pagan books--a +stage-play in which the God of Wine should return in triumph from the +East. In the cathedral square the pageant was presented, amid an +intolerable noise of every kind of pipe-music, with Denys in the chief +part, upon a gaily-painted chariot, in soft silken raiment, and, for +headdress, a strange elephant-scalp with gilded tusks. + +And that unrivalled fairness and freshness of aspect:--how did he alone +preserve it untouched, through the wind and heat? In truth, it was not +by magic, as some said, but by a natural simplicity in his living. When +that dark season of his troubles arrived he was heard begging +querulously one wintry night, "Give me wine, meat; dark wine and brown +meat!"--come back to the rude door of his old home in the cliff-side. +Till that time the great vine-dresser himself drank only water; he had +lived on spring-water and fruit. A lover of fertility in all its forms, +in what did but suggest it, he was curious and penetrative concerning +the habits of water, and had the secret of the divining-rod. Long before +it came he could detect the scent of rain from afar, and would climb +with delight to the great scaffolding on the unfinished tower to watch +its coming over the thirsty vine-land, till it rattled on the great +tiled roof of the church below; and then, throwing off his mantle, allow +it to bathe his limbs freely, clinging firmly against the tempestuous +wind among the carved imageries of dark stone. + +It was on his sudden return after a long journey (one of many +inexplicable disappearances), coming back changed somewhat, that he ate +flesh for the first time, tearing the hot, red morsels with his delicate +fingers in a kind of wild greed. He had fled to the south from the first +forbidding days of a hard winter which came at last. At the great +seaport of Marseilles he had trafficked with sailors from all parts of +the world, from Arabia and India, and bought their wares, exposed now +for sale, to the wonder of all, at the Easter fair--richer wines and +incense than had been known in Auxerre, seeds of marvellous new flowers, +creatures wild and tame, new pottery painted in raw gaudy tints, the +skins of animals, meats fried with unheard-of condiments. His stall +formed a strange, unwonted patch of colour, found suddenly displayed in +the hot morning. + +The artists were more delighted than ever, and frequented his company in +the little manorial habitation, deserted long since by its owners and +haunted, so that the eyes of many looked evil upon it, where he had +taken up his abode, attracted, in the first instance, by its rich though +neglected garden, a tangle of every kind of creeping, vine-like plant. +Here, surrounded in abundance by the pleasant materials of his trade, +the vine-dresser as it were turned pedant and kept school for the +various artists, who learned here an art supplementary to their +own,--that gay magic, namely (art or trick) of his existence, till they +found themselves grown into a kind of aristocracy, like veritable gens +fleur-de-lises, as they worked together for the decoration of the great +church and a hundred other places beside. And yet a darkness had grown +upon him. The kind creature had lost something of his gentleness. +Strange motiveless misdeeds had happened; and, at a loss for other +causes, not the envious only would fain have traced the blame to Denys. +He was making the younger world mad. Would he make himself Count of +Auxerre? The lady Ariane, deserted by her former lover, had looked +kindly upon him; was ready to make him son-in-law to the old count her +father, old and not long for this world. The wise monk Hermes bethought +him of certain old readings in which the Wine-god, whose part Denys had +played so well, had his contrast, his dark or antipathetic side; was +like a double creature, of two natures, difficult or impossible to +harmonise. And in truth the much-prized wine of Auxerre has itself but a +fugitive charm, being apt to sicken and turn gross long before the +bottle is empty, however carefully sealed; as it goes indeed, at its +best, by hard names, among those who grow it, such as Chainette and +Migraine. + +A kind of degeneration, of coarseness--the coarseness of satiety, and +shapeless, battered-out appetite--with an almost savage taste for +carnivorous diet, had come over the company. A rumour went abroad of +certain women who had drowned, in mere wantonness, their newborn babes. +A girl with child was found hanged by her own act in a dark cellar. Ah! +if Denys also had not felt himself mad! But when the guilt of a murder, +committed with a great vine-axe far out among the vineyards, was +attributed vaguely to him, he could but wonder whether it had been +indeed thus, and the shadow of a fancied crime abode with him. People +turned against their favourite, whose former charms must now be counted +only as the fascinations of witchcraft. It was as if the wine poured out +for them had soured in the cup. The golden age had indeed come back for +a while:--golden was it, or gilded only, after all? and they were too +sick, or at least too serious, to carry through their parts in it. The +monk Hermes was whimsically reminded of that after-thought in pagan +poetry, of a Wine-god who had been in hell. Denys certainly, with all +his flaxen fairness about him, was manifestly a sufferer. At first he +thought of departing secretly to some other place. Alas! his wits were +too far gone for certainty of success in the attempt. He feared to be +brought back a prisoner. Those fat years were over. It was a time of +scarcity. The working people might not eat and drink of the good things +they had helped to store away. Tears rose in the eyes of needy children, +of old or weak people like children, as they woke up again and again to +sunless, frost-bound, ruinous mornings; and the little hungry creatures +went prowling after scattered hedge-nuts or dried vine-tendrils. +Mysterious, dark rains prevailed throughout the summer. The great +offices of Saint John were fumbled through in a sudden darkness of +unseasonable storm, which greatly damaged the carved ornaments of the +church, the bishop reading his mid-day Mass by the light of the little +candle at his book. And then, one night, the night which seemed +literally to have swallowed up the shortest day in the year, a plot was +contrived by certain persons to take Denys as he went and kill him +privately for a sorcerer. He could hardly tell how he escaped, and found +himself safe in his earliest home, the cottage in the cliff-side, with +such a big fire as he delighted in burning upon the hearth. They made a +little feast as well as they could for the beautiful hunted creature, +with abundance of waxlights. + +And at last the clergy bethought themselves of a remedy for this evil +time. The body of one of the patron saints had lain neglected somewhere +under the flagstones of the sanctuary. This must be piously exhumed, and +provided with a shrine worthy of it. The goldsmiths, the jewellers and +lapidaries, set diligently to work, and no long time after, the shrine, +like a little cathedral with portals and tower complete, stood ready, +its chiselled gold framing panels of rock crystal, on the great altar. +Many bishops arrived, with King Lewis the Saint himself accompanied by +his mother, to assist at the search for and disinterment of the sacred +relics. In their presence, the Bishop of Auxerre, with vestments of deep +red in honour of the relics, blessed the new shrine, according to the +office De benedictione capsarum pro reliquiis. The pavement of the +choir, removed amid a surging sea of lugubrious chants, all persons +fasting, discovered as if it had been a battlefield of mouldering human +remains. Their odour rose plainly above the plentiful clouds of incense, +such as was used in the king's private chapel. The search for the Saint +himself continued in vain all day and far into the night. At last from a +little narrow chest, into which the remains had been almost crushed +together, the bishop's red-gloved hands drew the dwindled body, shrunken +inconceivably, but still with every feature of the face traceable in a +sudden oblique ray of ghastly dawn. + +That shocking sight, after a sharp fit as though a demon were going out +of him, as he rolled on the turf of the cloister to which he had fled +alone from the suffocating church, where the crowd still awaited the +Procession of the relics and the Mass De reliquiis quae continentur in +Ecclesiis, seemed indeed to have cured the madness of Denys, but +certainly did not restore his gaiety. He was left a subdued, silent, +melancholy creature. Turning now, with an odd revulsion of feeling, to +gloomy objects, he picked out a ghastly shred from the common bones on +the pavement to wear about his neck, and in a little while found his way +to the monks of Saint Germain, who gladly received him into their +workshop, though secretly, in fear of his foes. + +The busy tribe of variously gifted artists, labouring rapidly at the +many works on hand for the final embellishment of the cathedral of St. +Etienne, made those conventual buildings just then cheerful enough to +lighten a melancholy, heavy even as that of our friend Denys. He took +his place among the workmen, a conventual novice; a novice also as to +whatever concerns any actual handicraft. He could but compound sweet +incense for the sanctuary. And yet, again by merely visible presence, he +made himself felt in all the varied exercise around him of those arts +which address themselves first of all to sight. Unconsciously he defined +a peculiar manner, alike of feeling and expression, to those skilful +hands at work day by day with the chisel, the pencil, or the needle, in +many an enduring form of exquisite fancy. In three successive phases or +fashions might be traced, especially in the carved work, the humours he +had determined. There was first wild gaiety, exuberant in a wreathing of +life-like imageries, from which nothing really present in nature was +excluded. That, as the soul of Denys darkened, had passed into obscure +regions of the satiric, the grotesque and coarse. But from this time +there was manifest, with no loss of power or effect, a well-assured +seriousness, somewhat jealous and exclusive, not so much in the +selection of the material on which the arts were to work, as in the +precise sort of expression that should be induced upon it. It was as if +the gay old pagan world had been BLESSED in some way; with effects to be +seen most clearly in the rich miniature work of the manuscripts of the +capitular library,--a marvellous Ovid especially, upon the pages of +which those old loves and sorrows seemed to come to life again in +medieval costume, as Denys, in cowl now and with tonsured head, leaned +over the painter, and led his work, by a kind of visible sympathy, often +unspoken, rather than by any formal comment. + +Above all, there was a desire abroad to attain the instruments of a +freer and more various sacred music than had been in use hitherto--a +music that might express the whole compass of souls now grown to +manhood. Auxerre, then as afterwards, was famous for its liturgical +music. It was Denys, at last, to whom the thought occurred of combining +in a fuller tide of music all the instruments then in use. Like the +Wine-god of old, he had been a lover and patron especially of the music +of the pipe, in all its varieties. Here, too, there had been evident +those three fashions or "modes":--first, the simple and pastoral, the +homely note of the pipe, like the piping of the wind itself from off the +distant fields; then, the wild, savage din, that had cost so much to +quiet people, and driven excitable people mad. Now he would compose all +this to sweeter purposes; and the building of the first organ became +like the book of his life: it expanded to the full compass of his +nature, in its sorrow and delight. In long, enjoyable days of wind and +sun by the river-side, the seemingly half-witted "brother" sought and +found the needful varieties of reed. The carpenters, under his +instruction, set up the great wooden passages for the thunder; while the +little pipes of pasteboard simulated the sound of the human voice +singing to the victorious notes of the long metal trumpets. At times +this also, as people heard night after night those wandering sounds, +seemed like the work of a madman, though they awoke sometimes in wonder +at snatches of a new, an unmistakable new music. It was the triumph of +all the various modes of the power of the pipe, tamed, ruled, united. +Only, on the painted shutters of the organ-case Apollo with his lyre in +his hand, as lord of the strings, seemed to look askance on the music of +the reed, in all the jealousy with which he put Marsyas to death so +cruelly. + +Meantime, the people, even his enemies, seemed to have forgotten him. +Enemies, in truth, they still were, ready to take his life should the +opportunity come; as he perceived when at last he ventured forth on a +day of public ceremony. The bishop was to pronounce a blessing upon the +foundations of a new bridge, designed to take the place of the ancient +Roman bridge which, repaired in a thousand places, had hitherto served +for the chief passage of the Yonne. It was as if the disturbing of that +time-worn masonry let out the dark spectres of departed times. Deep +down, at the core of the central pile, a painful object was exposed--the +skeleton of a child, placed there alive, it was rightly surmised, in the +superstitious belief that, by way of vicarious substitution, its death +would secure the safety of all who should pass over. There were some who +found themselves, with a little surprise, looking round as if for a +similar pledge of security in their new undertaking. It was just then +that Denys was seen plainly, standing, in all essential features +precisely as of old, upon one of the great stones prepared for the +foundation of the new building. For a moment he felt the eyes of the +people upon him full of that strange humour, and with characteristic +alertness, after a rapid gaze over the grey city in its broad green +framework of vineyards, best seen from this spot, flung himself down +into the water and disappeared from view where the stream flowed most +swiftly below a row of flour-mills. Some indeed fancied they had seen +him emerge again safely on the deck of one of the great boats, loaded +with grapes and wreathed triumphantly with flowers like a floating +garden, which were then bringing down the vintage from the country; but +generally the people believed their strange enemy now at last departed +for ever. Denys in truth was at work again in peace at the cloister, +upon his house of reeds and pipes. At times his fits came upon him +again; and when they came, for his cure he would dig eagerly, turned +sexton now, digging, by choice, graves for the dead in the various +churchyards of the town. There were those who had seen him thus employed +(that form seeming still to carry something of real sun-gold upon it) +peering into the darkness, while his tears fell sometimes among the grim +relics his mattock had disturbed. + +In fact, from the day of the exhumation of the body of the Saint in the +great church, he had had a wonderful curiosity for such objects, and one +wintry day bethought him of removing the body of his mother from the +unconsecrated ground in which it lay, that he might bury it in the +cloister, near the spot where he was now used to work. At twilight he +came over the frozen snow. As he passed through the stony barriers of +the place the world around seemed curdled to the centre--all but +himself, fighting his way across it, turning now and then right-about +from the persistent wind, which dealt so roughly with his blond hair and +the purple mantle whirled about him. The bones, hastily gathered, he +placed, awefully but without ceremony, in a hollow space prepared +secretly within the grave of another. + +Meantime the winds of his organ were ready to blow; and with difficulty +he obtained grace from the Chapter for a trial of its powers on a +notable public occasion, as follows. A singular guest was expected at +Auxerre. In recompense for some service rendered to the Chapter in times +gone by, the Sire de Chastellux had the hereditary dignity of a canon of +the church. On the day of his reception he presented himself at the +entrance of the choir in surplice and amice, worn over the military +habit. The old count of Chastellux was lately dead, and the heir had +announced his coming, according to custom, to claim his ecclesiastical +privilege. There had been long feud between the houses of Chastellux and +Auxerre; but on this happy occasion an offer of peace came with a +proposal for the hand of the Lady Ariane. + +The goodly young man arrived, and, duly arrayed, was received into his +stall at vespers, the bishop assisting. It was then that the people +heard the music of the organ, rolling over them for the first time, with +various feelings of delight. But the performer on and author of the +instrument was forgotten in his work, and there was no re-instatement of +the former favourite. The religious ceremony was followed by a civic +festival, in which Auxerre welcomed its future lord. The festival was to +end at nightfall with a somewhat rude popular pageant, in which the +person of Winter would be hunted blindfold through the streets. It was +the sequel to that earlier stage-play of the Return from the East in +which Denys had been the central figure. The old forgotten player saw +his part before him, and, as if mechanically, fell again into the chief +place, monk's dress and all. It might restore his popularity: who could +tell? Hastily he donned the ashen-grey mantle, the rough haircloth about +the throat, and went through the preliminary matter. And it happened +that a point of the haircloth scratched his lip deeply, with a long +trickling of blood upon the chin. It was as if the sight of blood +transported the spectators with a kind of mad rage, and suddenly +revealed to them the truth. The pretended hunting of the unholy creature +became a real one, which brought out, in rapid increase, men's evil +passions. The soul of Denys was already at rest, as his body, now borne +along in front of the crowd, was tossed hither and thither, torn at last +limb from limb. The men stuck little shreds of his flesh, or, failing +that, of his torn raiment, into their caps; the women lending their long +hairpins for the purpose. The monk Hermes sought in vain next day for +any remains of the body of his friend. Only, at nightfall, the heart of +Denys was brought to him by a stranger, still entire. It must long since +have mouldered into dust under the stone, marked with a cross, where he +buried it in a dark corner of the cathedral aisle. + +So the figure in the stained glass explained itself. To me, Denys seemed +to have been a real resident at Auxerre. On days of a certain +atmosphere, when the trace of the Middle Age comes out, like old marks +in the stones in rainy weather, I seemed actually to have seen the +tortured figure there--to have met Denys l'Auxerrois in the streets. + + + +CHAPTER III. SEBASTIAN VAN STORCK + + +It was a winter-scene, by Adrian van de Velde, or by Isaac van Ostade. +All the delicate poetry together with all the delicate comfort of the +frosty season was in the leafless branches turned to silver, the furred +dresses of the skaters, the warmth of the red-brick house fronts under +the gauze of white fog, the gleams of pale sunlight on the cuirasses of +the mounted soldiers as they receded into the distance. Sebastian van +Storck, confessedly the most graceful performer in all that skating +multitude, moving in endless maze over the vast surface of the frozen +water-meadow, liked best this season of the year for its expression of a +perfect impassivity, or at least of a perfect repose. The earth was, or +seemed to be, at rest, with a breathlessness of slumber which suited the +young man's peculiar temper. The heavy summer, as it dried up the +meadows now lying dead below the ice, set free a crowded and competing +world of life, which, while it gleamed very pleasantly russet and yellow +for the painter Albert Cuyp, seemed wellnigh to suffocate Sebastian van +Storck. Yet with all his appreciation of the national winter, Sebastian +was not altogether a Hollander. His mother, of Spanish descent and +Catholic, had given a richness of tone and form to the healthy freshness +of the Dutch physiognomy, apt to preserve its youthfulness of aspect far +beyond the period of life usual with other peoples. This mixed +expression charmed the eye of Isaac van Ostade, who had painted his +portrait from a sketch taken at one of those skating parties, with his +plume of squirrel's tail and fur muff, in all the modest pleasantness of +boyhood. When he returned home lately from his studies at a place far +inland, at the proposal of his tutor, to recover, as the tutor +suggested, a certain loss of robustness, something more than that +cheerful indifference of early youth had passed away. The learned man, +who held, as was alleged, the doctrines of a surprising new philosophy, +reluctant to disturb too early the fine intelligence of the pupil +entrusted to him, had found it, perhaps, a matter of honesty to send +back to his parents one likely enough to catch from others any sort of +theoretic light; for the letter he wrote dwelt much on the lad's +intellectual fearlessness. "At present," he had written, "he is +influenced more by curiosity than by a care for truth, according to the +character of the young. Certainly, he differs strikingly from his equals +in age, by his passion for a vigorous intellectual gymnastic, such as +the supine character of their minds renders distasteful to most young +men, but in which he shows a fearlessness that at times makes me fancy +that his ultimate destination may be the military life; for indeed the +rigidly logical tendency of his mind always leads him out upon the +practical. Don't misunderstand me! At present, he is strenuous only +intellectually; and has given no definite sign of preference, as regards +a vocation in life. But he seems to me to be one practical in this +sense, that his theorems will shape life for him, directly; that he will +always seek, as a matter of course, the effective equivalent to--the +line of being which shall be the proper continuation of--his line of +thinking. This intellectual rectitude, or candour, which to my mind has +a kind of beauty in it, has reacted upon myself, I confess, with a +searching quality." That "searching quality," indeed, many others also, +people far from being intellectual, had experienced--an agitation of +mind in his neighbourhood, oddly at variance with the composure of the +young man's manner and surrounding, so jealously preserved. + +In the crowd of spectators at the skating, whose eyes followed, so +well-satisfied, the movements of Sebastian van Storck, were the mothers +of marriageable daughters, who presently became the suitors of this rich +and distinguished youth, introduced to them, as now grown to man's +estate, by his delighted parents. Dutch aristocracy had put forth all +its graces to become the winter morn: and it was characteristic of the +period that the artist tribe was there, on a grand footing,--in waiting, +for the lights and shadows they liked best. The artists were, in truth, +an important body just then, as a natural consequence of the nation's +hard-won prosperity; helping it to a full consciousness of the genial +yet delicate homeliness it loved, for which it had fought so bravely, +and was ready at any moment to fight anew, against man or the sea. +Thomas de Keyser, who understood better than any one else the kind of +quaint new Atticism which had found its way into the world over those +waste salt marshes, wondering whether quite its finest type as he +understood it could ever actually be seen there, saw it at last, in +lively motion, in the person of Sebastian van Storck, and desired to +paint his portrait. A little to his surprise, the young man declined the +offer; not graciously, as was thought. + +Holland, just then, was reposing on its laurels after its long contest +with Spain, in a short period of complete wellbeing, before troubles of +another kind should set in. That a darker time might return again, was +clearly enough felt by Sebastian the elder--a time like that of William +the Silent, with its insane civil animosities, which would demand +similarly energetic personalities, and offer them similar opportunities. +And then, it was part of his honest geniality of character to admire +those who "get on" in the world. Himself had been, almost from boyhood, +in contact with great affairs. A member of the States-General which had +taken so hardly the kingly airs of Frederick Henry, he had assisted at +the Congress of Munster, and figures conspicuously in Terburgh's picture +of that assembly, which had finally established Holland as a first-rate +power. The heroism by which the national wellbeing had been achieved was +still of recent memory--the air full of its reverberation, and great +movement. There was a tradition to be maintained; the sword by no means +resting in its sheath. The age was still fitted to evoke a generous +ambition; and this son, from whose natural gifts there was so much to +hope for, might play his part, at least as a diplomatist, if the present +quiet continued. Had not the learned man said that his natural +disposition would lead him out always upon practice? And in truth, the +memory of that Silent hero had its fascination for the youth. When, +about this time, Peter de Keyser, Thomas's brother, unveiled at last his +tomb of wrought bronze and marble in the Nieuwe Kerk at Delft, the young +Sebastian was one of a small company present, and relished much the cold +and abstract simplicity of the monument, so conformable to the great, +abstract, and unuttered force of the hero who slept beneath. + +In complete contrast to all that is abstract or cold in art, the home of +Sebastian, the family mansion of the Storcks--a house, the front of +which still survives in one of those patient architectural pieces by Jan +van der Heyde--was, in its minute and busy wellbeing, like an epitome of +Holland itself with all the good-fortune of its "thriving genius" +reflected, quite spontaneously, in the national taste. The nation had +learned to content itself with a religion which told little, or not at +all, on the outsides of things. But we may fancy that something of the +religious spirit had gone, according to the law of the transmutation of +forces, into the scrupulous care for cleanliness, into the grave, +old-world, conservative beauty of Dutch houses, which meant that the +life people maintained in them was normally affectionate and pure. + +The most curious florists of Holland were ambitious to supply the +Burgomaster van Storck with the choicest products of their skill for the +garden spread below the windows on either side of the portico, and along +the central avenue of hoary beeches which led to it. Naturally this +house, within a mile of the city of Haarlem, became a resort of the +artists, then mixing freely in great society, giving and receiving hints +as to the domestic picturesque. Creatures of leisure--of leisure on both +sides--they were the appropriate complement of Dutch prosperity, as it +was understood just then. Sebastian the elder could almost have wished +his son to be one of them: it was the next best thing to the being an +influential publicist or statesman. The Dutch had just begun to see what +a picture their country was--its canals, and boompjis, and endless, +broadly-lighted meadows, and thousands of miles of quaint water-side: +and their painters, the first true masters of landscape for its own +sake, were further informing them in the matter. They were bringing +proof, for all who cared to see, of the wealth of colour there was all +around them in this, supposably, sad land. Above all, they developed the +old Low-country taste for interiors. Those innumerable genre +pieces--conversation, music, play--were in truth the equivalent of +novel-reading for that day; its own actual life, in its own proper +circumstances, reflected in various degrees of idealisation, with no +diminution of the sense of reality (that is to say) but with more and +more purged and perfected delightfulness of interest. Themselves +illustrating, as every student of their history knows, the +good-fellowship of family life, it was the ideal of that life which +these artists depicted; the ideal of home in a country where the +preponderant interest of life, after all, could not well be out of +doors. Of the earth earthy--genuine red earth of the old Adam--it was an +ideal very different from that which the sacred Italian painters had +evoked from the life of Italy, yet, in its best types, was not without a +kind of natural religiousness. And in the achievement of a type of +beauty so national and vernacular, the votaries of purely Dutch art +might well feel that the Italianisers, like Berghem, Boll, and Jan +Weenix went so far afield in vain. + +The fine organisation and acute intelligence of Sebastian would have +made him an effective connoisseur of the arts, as he showed by the +justice of his remarks in those assemblies of the artists which his +father so much loved. But in truth the arts were a matter he could but +just tolerate. Why add, by a forced and artificial production, to the +monotonous tide of competing, fleeting existence? Only, finding so much +fine art actually about him, he was compelled (so to speak) to adjust +himself to it; to ascertain and accept that in it which should least +collide with, or might even carry forward a little, his own +characteristic tendencies. Obviously somewhat jealous of his +intellectual interests, he loved inanimate nature, it might have been +thought, better than man. He cared nothing, indeed, for the warm +sandbanks of Wynants, nor for those eerie relics of the ancient Dutch +woodland which survive in Hobbema and Ruysdael, still less for the +highly-coloured sceneries of the academic band at Rome, in spite of the +escape they provide one into clear breadth of atmosphere. For though +Sebastian van Storck refused to travel, he loved the distant--enjoyed +the sense of things seen from a distance, carrying us, as on wide wings +of space itself, far out of one's actual surrounding. His preference in +the matter of art was, therefore, for those prospects a vol d'oiseau--of +the caged bird on the wing at last--of which Rubens had the secret, and +still more Philip de Koninck, four of whose choicest works occupied the +four walls of his chamber; visionary escapes, north, south, east, and +west, into a wide-open though, it must be confessed, a somewhat sullen +land. For the fourth of them he had exchanged with his mother a +marvellously vivid Metsu, lately bequeathed to him, in which she herself +was presented. They were the sole ornaments he permitted himself. From +the midst of the busy and busy-looking house, crowded with the furniture +and the pretty little toys of many generations, a long passage led the +rare visitor up a winding staircase, and (again at the end of a long +passage) he found himself as if shut off from the whole talkative Dutch +world, and in the embrace of that wonderful quiet which is also possible +in Holland at its height all around him. It was here that Sebastian +could yield himself, with the only sort of love he had ever felt, to the +supremacy of his difficult thoughts.--A kind of EMPTY place! Here, you +felt, all had been mentally put to rights by the working-out of a long +equation, which had zero is equal to zero for its result. Here one did, +and perhaps felt, nothing; one only thought. Of living creatures only +birds came there freely, the sea-birds especially, to attract and detain +which there were all sorts of ingenious contrivances about the windows, +such as one may see in the cottage sceneries of Jan Steen and others. +There was something, doubtless, of his passion for distance in this +welcoming of the creatures of the air. An extreme simplicity in their +manner of life was, indeed, characteristic of many a distinguished +Hollander--William the Silent, Baruch de Spinosa, the brothers de Witt. +But the simplicity of Sebastian van Storck was something different from +that, and certainly nothing democratic. His mother thought him like one +disembarrassing himself carefully, and little by little, of all +impediments, habituating himself gradually to make shift with as little +as possible, in preparation for a long journey. + +The Burgomaster van Storck entertained a party of friends, consisting +chiefly of his favourite artists, one summer evening. The guests were +seen arriving on foot in the fine weather, some of them accompanied by +their wives and daughters, against the light of the low sun, falling red +on the old trees of the avenue and the faces of those who advanced along +it:--Willem van Aelst, expecting to find hints for a flower-portrait in +the exotics which would decorate the banqueting-room; Gerard Dow, to +feed his eye, amid all that glittering luxury, on the combat between +candle-light and the last rays of the departing sun; Thomas de Keyser, +to catch by stealth the likeness of Sebastian the younger. Albert Cuyp +was there, who, developing the latent gold in Rembrandt, had brought +into his native Dordrecht a heavy wealth of sunshine, as exotic as those +flowers or the eastern carpets on the Burgomaster's tables, with Hooch, +the indoor Cuyp, and Willem van de Velde, who painted those shore-pieces +with gay ships of war, such as he loved, for his patron's cabinet. +Thomas de Keyser came, in company with his brother Peter, his niece, and +young Mr. Nicholas Stone from England, pupil of that brother Peter, who +afterwards married the niece. For the life of Dutch artists, too, was +exemplary in matters of domestic relationship, its history telling many +a cheering story of mutual faith in misfortune. Hardly less exemplary +was the comradeship which they displayed among themselves, obscuring +their own best gifts sometimes, one in the mere accessories of another +man's work, so that they came together to-night with no fear of falling +out, and spoiling the musical interludes of Madame van Storck in the +large back parlour. A little way behind the other guests, three of them +together, son, grandson, and the grandfather, moving slowly, came the +Hondecoeters--Giles, Gybrecht, and Melchior. They led the party before +the house was entered, by fading light, to see the curious poultry of +the Burgomaster go to roost; and it was almost night when the +supper-room was reached at last. The occasion was an important one to +Sebastian, and to others through him. For (was it the music of the +duets? he asked himself next morning, with a certain distaste as he +remembered it all, or the heady Spanish wines poured out so freely in +those narrow but deep Venetian glasses?) on this evening he approached +more nearly than he had ever yet done to Mademoiselle van Westrheene, as +she sat there beside the clavecin looking very ruddy and fresh in her +white satin, trimmed with glossy crimson swans-down. + +So genially attempered, so warm, was life become, in the land of which +Pliny had spoken as scarcely dry land at all. And, in truth, the sea +which Sebastian so much loved, and with so great a satisfaction and +sense of wellbeing in every hint of its nearness, is never far distant +in Holland. Invading all places, stealing under one's feet, insinuating +itself everywhere along an endless network of canals (by no means such +formal channels as we understand by the name, but picturesque rivers, +with sedgy banks and haunted by innumerable birds) its incidents present +themselves oddly even in one's park or woodland walks; the ship in full +sail appearing suddenly among the great trees or above the garden wall, +where we had no suspicion of the presence of water. In the very +conditions of life in such a country there was a standing force of +pathos. The country itself shared the uncertainty of the individual +human life; and there was pathos also in the constantly renewed, +heavily-taxed labour, necessary to keep the native soil, fought for so +unselfishly, there at all, with a warfare that must still be maintained +when that other struggle with the Spaniard was over. But though +Sebastian liked to breathe, so nearly, the sea and its influences, those +were considerations he scarcely entertained. In his passion for +Schwindsucht--we haven't the word--he found it pleasant to think of the +resistless element which left one hardly a foot-space amidst the +yielding sand; of the old beds of lost rivers, surviving now only as +deeper channels in the sea; of the remains of a certain ancient town, +which within men's memory had lost its few remaining inhabitants, and, +with its already empty tombs, dissolved and disappeared in the flood. + +It happened, on occasion of an exceptionally low tide, that some +remarkable relics were exposed to view on the coast of the island of +Vleeland. A countryman's waggon overtaken by the tide, as he returned +with merchandise from the shore! you might have supposed, but for a +touch of grace in the construction of the thing--lightly wrought +timber-work, united and adorned by a multitude of brass fastenings, like +the work of children for their simplicity, while the rude, stiff chair, +or throne, set upon it, seemed to distinguish it as a chariot of state. +To some antiquarians it told the story of the overwhelming of one of the +chiefs of the old primeval people of Holland, amid all his gala array, +in a great storm. But it was another view which Sebastian preferred; +that this object was sepulchral, namely, in its motive--the one +surviving relic of a grand burial, in the ancient manner, of a king or +hero, whose very tomb was wasted away.--Sunt metis metae! There came +with it the odd fancy that he himself would like to have been dead and +gone as long ago, with a kind of envy of those whose deceasing was so +long since over. + +On more peaceful days he would ponder Pliny's account of those primeval +forefathers, but without Pliny's contempt for them. A cloyed Roman might +despise their humble existence, fixed by necessity from age to age, and +with no desire of change, as "the ocean poured in its flood twice a day, +making it uncertain whether the country was a part of the continent or +of the sea." But for his part Sebastian found something of poetry in all +that, as he conceived what thoughts the old Hollander might have had at +his fishing, with nets themselves woven of seaweed, waiting carefully +for his drink on the heavy rains, and taking refuge, as the flood rose, +on the sand-hills, in a little hut constructed but airily on tall +stakes, conformable to the elevation of the highest tides, like a +navigator, thought the learned writer, when the sea was risen, like a +ship-wrecked mariner when it was retired. For the fancy of Sebastian he +lived with great breadths of calm light above and around him, influenced +by, and, in a sense, living upon them, and surely might well complain, +though to Pliny's so infinite surprise, on being made a Roman citizen. + +And certainly Sebastian van Storck did not felicitate his people on the +luck which, in the words of another old writer, "hath disposed them to +so thriving a genius." Their restless ingenuity in making and +maintaining dry land where nature had willed the sea, was even more like +the industry of animals than had been that life of their forefathers. +Away with that tetchy, feverish, unworthy agitation! with this and that, +all too importunate, motive of interest! And then, "My son!" said his +father, "be stimulated to action!" he, too, thinking of that heroic +industry which had triumphed over nature precisely where the contest had +been most difficult. + +Yet, in truth, Sebastian was forcibly taken by the simplicity of a great +affection, as set forth in an incident of real life of which he heard +just then. The eminent Grotius being condemned to perpetual +imprisonment, his wife determined to share his fate, alleviated only by +the reading of books sent by friends. The books, finished, were returned +in a great chest. In this chest the wife enclosed the husband, and was +able to reply to the objections of the soldiers who carried it +complaining of its weight, with a self-control, which she maintained +till the captive was in safety, herself remaining to face the +consequences; and there was a kind of absoluteness of affection in that, +which attracted Sebastian for a while to ponder on the practical forces +which shape men's lives. Had he turned, indeed, to a practical career it +would have been less in the direction of the military or political life +than of another form of enterprise popular with his countrymen. In the +eager, gallant life of that age, if the sword fell for a moment into its +sheath, they were for starting off on perilous voyages to the regions of +frost and snow in search after that "North-Western passage," for the +discovery of which the States-General had offered large rewards. +Sebastian, in effect, found a charm in the thought of that still, +drowsy, spellbound world of perpetual ice, as in art and life he could +always tolerate the sea. Admiral-general of Holland, as painted by Van +der Helst, with a marine background by Backhuizen:--at moments his +father could fancy him so. + +There was still another very different sort of character to which +Sebastian would let his thoughts stray, without check, for a time. His +mother, whom he much resembled outwardly, a Catholic from Brabant, had +had saints in her family, and from time to time the mind of Sebastian +had been occupied on the subject of monastic life, its quiet, its +negation. The portrait of a certain Carthusian prior, which, like the +famous statue of Saint Bruno, the first Carthusian, in the church of +Santa Maria degli Angeli at Rome, could it have spoken, would have said, +"Silence!" kept strange company with the painted visages of men of +affairs. A great theological strife was then raging in Holland. Grave +ministers of religion assembled sometimes, as in the painted scene by +Rembrandt, in the Burgomaster's house, and once, not however in their +company, came a renowned young Jewish divine, Baruch de Spinosa, with +whom, most unexpectedly, Sebastian found himself in sympathy, meeting +the young Jew's far-reaching thoughts half-way, to the confirmation of +his own; and he did not know that his visitor, very ready with the +pencil, had taken his likeness as they talked on the fly-leaf of his +note-book. Alive to that theological disturbance in the air all around +him, he refused to be moved by it, as essentially a strife on small +matters, anticipating a vagrant regret which may have visited many other +minds since, the regret, namely, that the old, pensive, use-and-wont +Catholicism, which had accompanied the nation's earlier struggle for +existence, and consoled it therein, had been taken from it. And for +himself, indeed, what impressed him in that old Catholicism was a kind +of lull in it--a lulling power--like that of the monotonous organ-music, +which Holland, Catholic or not, still so greatly loves. But what he +could not away with in the Catholic religion was its unfailing drift +towards the concrete--the positive imageries of a faith, so richly beset +with persons, things, historical incidents. + +Rigidly logical in the method of his inferences, he attained the poetic +quality only by the audacity with which he conceived the whole sublime +extension of his premises. The contrast was a strange one between the +careful, the almost petty fineness of his personal surrounding--all the +elegant conventionalities of life, in that rising Dutch family--and the +mortal coldness of a temperament, the intellectual tendencies of which +seemed to necessitate straightforward flight from all that was positive. +He seemed, if one may say so, in love with death; preferring winter to +summer; finding only a tranquillising influence in the thought of the +earth beneath our feet cooling down for ever from its old cosmic heat; +watching pleasurably how their colours fled out of things, and the long +sand-bank in the sea, which had been the rampart of a town, was washed +down in its turn. One of his acquaintance, a penurious young poet, who, +having nothing in his pockets but the imaginative or otherwise barely +potential gold of manuscript verses, would have grasped so eagerly, had +they lain within his reach, at the elegant outsides of life, thought the +fortunate Sebastian, possessed of every possible opportunity of that +kind, yet bent only on dispensing with it, certainly a most puzzling and +comfortless creature. A few only, half discerning what was in his mind, +would fain have shared his intellectual clearness, and found a kind of +beauty in this youthful enthusiasm for an abstract theorem. Extremes +meeting, his cold and dispassionate detachment from all that is most +attractive to ordinary minds came to have the impressiveness of a great +passion. And for the most part, people had loved him; feeling +instinctively that somewhere there must be the justification of his +difference from themselves. It was like being in love: or it was an +intellectual malady, such as pleaded for forbearance, like bodily +sickness, and gave at times a resigned and touching sweetness to what he +did and said. Only once, at a moment of the wild popular excitement +which at that period was easy to provoke in Holland, there was a certain +group of persons who would have shut him up as no well-wisher to, and +perhaps a plotter against, the common-weal. A single traitor might cut +the dykes in an hour, in the interest of the English or the French. Or, +had he already committed some treasonable act, who was so anxious to +expose no writing of his that he left his very letters unsigned, and +there were little stratagems to get specimens of his fair manuscript? +For with all his breadth of mystic intention, he was persistent, as the +hours crept on, to leave all the inevitable details of life at least in +order, in equation. And all his singularities appeared to be summed up +in his refusal to take his place in the life-sized family group (tres +distingue et tres soigne remarks a modern critic of the work) painted +about this time. His mother expostulated with him on the matter:--she +must needs feel, a little icily, the emptiness of hope, and something +more than the due measure of cold in things for a woman of her age, in +the presence of a son who desired but to fade out of the world like a +breath--and she suggested filial duty. "Good mother," he answered, +"there are duties towards the intellect also, which women can but rarely +understand." + +The artists and their wives were come to supper again, with the +Burgomaster van Storck. Mademoiselle van Westrheene was also come, with +her sister and mother. The girl was by this time fallen in love with +Sebastian; and she was one of the few who, in spite of his terrible +coldness, really loved him for himself. But though of good birth she was +poor, while Sebastian could not but perceive that he had many suitors of +his wealth. In truth, Madame van Westrheene, her mother, did wish to +marry this daughter into the great world, and plied many arts to that +end, such as "daughterful" mothers use. Her healthy freshness of mien +and mind, her ruddy beauty, some showy presents that had passed, were of +a piece with the ruddy colouring of the very house these people lived +in; and for a moment the cheerful warmth that may be felt in life seemed +to come very close to him,--to come forth, and enfold him. Meantime the +girl herself taking note of this, that on a former occasion of their +meeting he had seemed likely to respond to her inclination, and that his +father would readily consent to such a marriage, surprised him on the +sudden with those coquetries and importunities, all those little arts of +love, which often succeed with men. Only, to Sebastian they seemed +opposed to that absolute nature we suppose in love. And while, in the +eyes of all around him to-night, this courtship seemed to promise him, +thus early in life, a kind of quiet happiness, he was coming to an +estimate of the situation, with strict regard to that ideal of a calm, +intellectual indifference, of which he was the sworn chevalier. Set in +the cold, hard light of that ideal, this girl, with the pronounced +personal views of her mother, and in the very effectiveness of arts +prompted by a real affection, bringing the warm life they prefigured so +close to him, seemed vulgar! And still he felt himself bound in honour; +or judged from their manner that she and those about them thought him +thus bound. He did not reflect on the inconsistency of the feeling of +honour (living, as it does essentially, upon the concrete and minute +detail of social relationship) for one who, on principle, set so slight +a value on anything whatever that is merely relative in its character. + +The guests, lively and late, were almost pledging the betrothed in the +rich wine. Only Sebastian's mother knew; and at that advanced hour, +while the company were thus intently occupied, drew away the Burgomaster +to confide to him the misgiving she felt, grown to a great height just +then. The young man had slipped from the assembly; but certainly not +with Mademoiselle van Westrheene, who was suddenly withdrawn also. And +she never appeared again in the world. Already, next day, with the +rumour that Sebastian had left his home, it was known that the expected +marriage would not take place. The girl, indeed, alleged something in +the way of a cause on her part; but seemed to fade away continually +afterwards, and in the eyes of all who saw her was like one perishing of +wounded pride. But to make a clean breast of her poor girlish +worldliness, before she became a beguine, she confessed to her mother +the receipt of the letter--the cruel letter that had killed her. And in +effect, the first copy of this letter, written with a very deliberate +fineness, rejecting her--accusing her, so natural, and simply loyal! of +a vulgar coarseness of character--was found, oddly tacked on, as their +last word, to the studious record of the abstract thoughts which had +been the real business of Sebastian's life, in the room whither his +mother went to seek him next day, littered with the fragments of the one +portrait of him in existence. + +The neat and elaborate manuscript volume, of which this letter formed +the final page (odd transition! by which a train of thought so abstract +drew its conclusion in the sphere of action) afforded at length to the +few who were interested in him a much-coveted insight into the curiosity +of his existence; and I pause just here to indicate in outline the kind +of reasoning through which, making the "Infinite" his beginning and his +end, Sebastian had come to think all definite forms of being, the warm +pressure of life, the cry of nature itself, no more than a troublesome +irritation of the surface of the one absolute mind, a passing vexatious +thought or uneasy dream there, at its height of petulant importunity in +the eager, human creature. + +The volume was, indeed, a kind of treatise to be:--a hard, systematic, +well-concatenated train of thought, still implicated in the +circumstances of a journal. Freed from the accidents of that particular +literary form with its unavoidable details of place and occasion, the +theoretic strain would have been found mathematically continuous. The +already so weary Sebastian might perhaps never have taken in hand, or +succeeded in, this detachment of his thoughts; every one of which, +beginning with himself as the peculiar and intimate apprehension of this +or that particular day and hour, seemed still to protest against such +disturbance, as if reluctant to part from those accidental associations +of the personal history which had prompted it, and so become a purely +intellectual abstraction. + +The series began with Sebastian's boyish enthusiasm for a strange, fine +saying of Doctor Baruch de Spinosa, concerning the Divine Love:--That +whoso loveth God truly must not expect to be loved by him in return. In +mere reaction against an actual surrounding of which every circumstance +tended to make him a finished egotist, that bold assertion defined for +him the ideal of an intellectual disinterestedness, of a domain of +unimpassioned mind, with the desire to put one's subjective side out of +the way, and let pure reason speak. + +And what pure reason affirmed in the first place, as the "beginning of +wisdom," was that the world is but a thought, or a series of thoughts: +that it exists, therefore, solely in mind. It showed him, as he fixed +the mental eye with more and more of self-absorption on the phenomena of +his intellectual existence, a picture or vision of the universe as +actually the product, so far as he really knew it, of his own lonely +thinking power--of himself, there, thinking: as being zero without him: +and as possessing a perfectly homogeneous unity in that fact. "Things +that have nothing in common with each other," said the axiomatic reason, +"cannot be understood or explained by means of each other." But to pure +reason things discovered themselves as being, in their essence, +thoughts:--all things, even the most opposite things, mere +transmutations, of a single power, the power of thought. All was but +conscious mind. Therefore, all the more exclusively, he must minister to +mind, to the intellectual power, submitting himself to the sole +direction of that, whithersoever it might lead him. Everything must be +referred to, and, as it were, changed into the terms of that, if its +essential value was to be ascertained. "Joy," he said, anticipating +Spinosa--that, for the attainment of which men are ready to surrender +all beside--"is but the name of a passion in which the mind passes to a +greater perfection or power of thinking; as grief is the name of the +passion in which it passes to a less." + +Looking backward for the generative source of that creative power of +thought in him, from his own mysterious intellectual being to its first +cause, he still reflected, as one can but do, the enlarged pattern of +himself into the vague region of hypothesis. In this way, some, at all +events, would have explained his mental process. To him that process was +nothing less than the apprehension, the revelation, of the greatest and +most real of ideas--the true substance of all things. He, too, with his +vividly-coloured existence, with this picturesque and sensuous world of +Dutch art and Dutch reality all around that would fain have made him the +prisoner of its colours, its genial warmth, its struggle for life, its +selfish and crafty love, was but a transient perturbation of the one +absolute mind; of which, indeed, all finite things whatever, time +itself, the most durable achievements of nature and man, and all that +seems most like independent energy, are no more than petty accidents or +affections. Theorem and corollary! Thus they stood: + +"There can be only one substance: (corollary) it is the greatest of +errors to think that the non-existent, the world of finite things seen +and felt, really is: (theorem): for, whatever is, is but in that: +(practical corollary): one's wisdom, therefore, consists in hastening, +so far as may be, the action of those forces which tend to the +restoration of equilibrium, the calm surface of the absolute, untroubled +mind, to tabula rasa, by the extinction in one's self of all that is but +correlative to the finite illusion--by the suppression of ourselves." + +In the loneliness which was gathering round him, and, oddly enough, as a +somewhat surprising thing, he wondered whether there were, or had been, +others possessed of like thoughts, ready to welcome any such as his +veritable compatriots. And in fact he became aware just then, in +readings difficult indeed, but which from their all-absorbing interest +seemed almost like an illicit pleasure, a sense of kinship with certain +older minds. The study of many an earlier adventurous theorist satisfied +his curiosity as the record of daring physical adventure, for instance, +might satisfy the curiosity of the healthy. It was a tradition--a +constant tradition--that daring thought of his; an echo, or haunting +recurrent voice of the human soul itself, and as such sealed with +natural truth, which certain minds would not fail to heed; discerning +also, if they were really loyal to themselves, its practical +conclusion.--The one alone is: and all things beside are but its passing +affections, which have no necessary or proper right to be. + +As but such "accidents" or "affections," indeed, there might have been +found, within the circumference of that one infinite creative thinker, +some scope for the joy and love of the creature. There have been +dispositions in which that abstract theorem has only induced a renewed +value for the finite interests around and within us. Centre of heat and +light, truly nothing has seemed to lie beyond the touch of its perpetual +summer. It has allied itself to the poetical or artistic sympathy, which +feels challenged to acquaint itself with and explore the various forms +of finite existence all the more intimately, just because of that sense +of one lively spirit circulating through all things--a tiny particle of +the one soul, in the sunbeam, or the leaf. Sebastian van Storck, on the +contrary, was determined, perhaps by some inherited satiety or fatigue +in his nature, to the opposite issue of the practical dilemma. For him, +that one abstract being was as the pallid Arctic sun, disclosing itself +over the dead level of a glacial, a barren and absolutely lonely sea. +The lively purpose of life had been frozen out of it. What he must +admire, and love if he could, was "equilibrium," the void, the tabula +rasa, into which, through all those apparent energies of man and nature, +that in truth are but forces of disintegration, the world was really +settling. And, himself a mere circumstance in a fatalistic series, to +which the clay of the potter was no sufficient parallel, he could not +expect to be "loved in return." At first, indeed, he had a kind of +delight in his thoughts--in the eager pressure forward, to whatsoever +conclusion, of a rigid intellectual gymnastic, which was like the making +of Euclid. Only, little by little, under the freezing influence of such +propositions, the theoretic energy itself, and with it his old eagerness +for truth, the care to track it from proposition to proposition, was +chilled out of him. In fact, the conclusion was there already, and might +have been foreseen, in the premises. By a singular perversity, it seemed +to him that every one of those passing "affections"--he too, alas! at +times--was for ever trying to be, to assert ITSELF, to maintain its +isolated and petty self, by a kind of practical lie in things; although +through every incident of its hypothetic existence it had protested that +its proper function was to die. Surely! those transient affections +marred the freedom, the truth, the beatific calm, of the absolute +selfishness, which could not, if it would, pass beyond the circumference +of itself; to which, at times, with a fantastic sense of wellbeing, he +was capable of a sort of fanatical devotion. And those, as he conceived, +were his moments of genuine theoretic insight, in which, under the +abstract "perpetual light," he died to self; while the intellect, after +all, had attained a freedom of its own through the vigorous act which +assured him that, as nature was but a thought of his, so himself also +was but the passing thought of God. + +No! rather a puzzle only, an anomaly, upon that one, white, unruffled +consciousness! His first principle once recognised, all the rest, the +whole array of propositions down to the heartless practical conclusion, +must follow of themselves. Detachment: to hasten hence: to fold up one's +whole self, as a vesture put aside: to anticipate, by such individual +force as he could find in him, the slow disintegration by which nature +herself is levelling the eternal hills:--here would be the secret of +peace, of such dignity and truth as there could be in a world which +after all was essentially an illusion. For Sebastian at least, the world +and the individual alike had been divested of all effective purpose. +The most vivid of finite objects, the dramatic episodes of Dutch +history, the brilliant personalities which had found their parts to play +in them, that golden art, surrounding us with an ideal world, beyond +which the real world is discernible indeed, but etherealised by the +medium through which it comes to one: all this, for most men so powerful +a link to existence, only set him on the thought of escape--means of +escape--into a formless and nameless infinite world, quite evenly grey. +The very emphasis of those objects, their importunity to the eye, the +ear, the finite intelligence, was but the measure of their distance from +what really is. One's personal presence, the presence, such as it is, of +the most incisive things and persons around us, could only lessen by so +much, that which really is. To restore tabula rasa, then, by a continual +effort at self-effacement! Actually proud at times of his curious, +well-reasoned nihilism, he could but regard what is called the business +of life as no better than a trifling and wearisome delay. Bent on making +sacrifice of the rich existence possible for him, as he would readily +have sacrificed that of other people, to the bare and formal logic of +the answer to a query (never proposed at all to entirely healthy minds) +regarding the remote conditions and tendencies of that existence, he did +not reflect that if others had inquired as curiously as himself the +world could never have come so far at all--that the fact of its having +come so far was itself a weighty exception to his hypothesis. His odd +devotion, soaring or sinking into fanaticism, into a kind of religious +mania, with what was really a vehement assertion of his individual will, +he had formulated duty as the principle to hinder as little as possible +what he called the restoration of equilibrium, the restoration of the +primary consciousness to itself--its relief from that uneasy, tetchy, +unworthy dream of a world, made so ill, or dreamt so weakly--to forget, +to be forgotten. + +And at length this dark fanaticism, losing the support of his pride in +the mere novelty of a reasoning so hard and dry, turned round upon him, +as our fanaticism will, in black melancholy. The theoretic or +imaginative desire to urge Time's creeping footsteps, was felt now as +the physical fatigue which leaves the book or the letter unfinished, or +finishes eagerly out of hand, for mere finishing's sake, unimportant +business. Strange! that the presence to the mind of a metaphysical +abstraction should have had this power over one so fortunately endowed +for the reception of the sensible world. It could hardly have been so +with him but for the concurrence of physical causes with the influences +proper to a mere thought. The moralist, indeed, might have noted that a +meaner kind of pride, the morbid fear of vulgarity, lent secret strength +to the intellectual prejudice, which realised duty as the renunciation +of all finite objects, the fastidious refusal to be or do any limited +thing. But besides this it was legible in his own admissions from time +to time, that the body, following, as it does with powerful +temperaments, the lead of mind and the will, the intellectual +consumption (so to term it) had been concurrent with, had strengthened +and been strengthened by, a vein of physical phthisis--by a merely +physical accident, after all, of his bodily constitution, such as might +have taken a different turn, had another accident fixed his home among +the hills instead of on the shore. Is it only the result of disease? he +would ask himself sometimes with a sudden suspicion of his intellectual +cogency--this persuasion that myself, and all that surrounds me, are but +a diminution of that which really is?--this unkindly melancholy? + +The journal, with that "cruel" letter to Mademoiselle van Westrheene +coming as the last step in the rigid process of theoretic deduction, +circulated among the curious; and people made their judgments upon it. +There were some who held that such opinions should be suppressed by law; +that they were, or might become, dangerous to society. Perhaps it was +the confessor of his mother who thought of the matter most justly. The +aged man smiled, observing how, even for minds by no means superficial, +the mere dress it wears alters the look of a familiar thought; with a +happy sort of smile, as he added (reflecting that such truth as there +was in Sebastian's theory was duly covered by the propositions of his +own creed, and quoting Sebastian's favourite pagan wisdom from the lips +of Saint Paul) "in Him, we live, and move, and have our being." + +Next day, as Sebastian escaped to the sea under the long, monotonous +line of wind-mills, in comparative calm of mind--reaction of that +pleasant morning from the madness of the night before--he was making +light, or trying to make light, with some success, of his late distress. +He would fain have thought it a small matter, to be adequately set at +rest for him by certain well-tested influences of external nature, in a +long visit to the place he liked best: a desolate house, amid the sands +of the Helder, one of the old lodgings of his family property now, +rather, of the sea-birds, and almost surrounded by the encroaching tide, +though there were still relics enough of hardy, sweet things about it, +to form what was to Sebastian the most perfect garden in Holland. Here +he could make "equation" between himself and what was not himself, and +set things in order, in preparation towards such deliberate and final +change in his manner of living as circumstances so clearly necessitated. + +As he stayed in this place, with one or two silent serving people, a +sudden rising of the wind altered, as it might seem, in a few dark, +tempestuous hours, the entire world around him. The strong wind changed +not again for fourteen days, and its effect was a permanent one; so that +people might have fancied that an enemy had indeed cut the dykes +somewhere--a pin-hole enough to wreck the ship of Holland, or at least +this portion of it, which underwent an inundation of the sea the like of +which had not occurred in that province for half a century. Only, when +the body of Sebastian was found, apparently not long after death, a +child lay asleep, swaddled warmly in his heavy furs, in an upper room of +the old tower, to which the tide was almost risen; though the building +still stood firmly, and still with the means of life in plenty. And it +was in the saving of this child, with a great effort, as certain +circumstances seemed to indicate, that Sebastian had lost his life. + +His parents were come to seek him, believing him bent on +self-destruction, and were almost glad to find him thus. A learned +physician, moreover, endeavoured to comfort his mother by remarking that +in any case he must certainly have died ere many years were passed, +slowly, perhaps painfully, of a disease then coming into the world; +disease begotten by the fogs of that country--waters, he observed, not +in their place, "above the firmament"--on people grown somewhat +over-delicate in their nature by the effects of modern luxury. + + + +CHAPTER IV. DUKE CARL OF ROSENMOLD + +One stormy season about the beginning of the present century, a great +tree came down among certain moss-covered ridges of old masonry which +break the surface of the Rosenmold heath, exposing, together with its +roots, the remains of two persons. Whether the bodies (male and female, +said German bone-science) had been purposely buried there was +questionable. They seemed rather to have been hidden away by the +accident, whatever it was, which had caused death--crushed, perhaps, +under what had been the low wall of a garden--being much distorted, and +lying, though neatly enough discovered by the upheaval of the soil, in +great confusion. People's attention was the more attracted to the +incident because popular fancy had long run upon a tradition of buried +treasures, golden treasures, in or about the antiquated ruin which the +garden boundary enclosed; the roofless shell of a small but +solidly-built stone house, burnt or overthrown, perhaps in the time of +the wars at the beginning of the eighteenth century. Many persons went +to visit the remains lying out on the dark, wild plateau, which +stretches away above the tallest roofs of the old grand-ducal town, very +distinctly outlined, on that day, in deep fluid grey against a sky still +heavy with coming rain. No treasure, indeed, was forthcoming among the +masses of fallen stone. But the tradition was so far verified, that the +bones had rich golden ornaments about them; and for the minds of some +long-remembering people their discovery set at rest an old query. It had +never been precisely known what was become of the young Duke Carl, who +disappeared from the world just a century before, about the time when a +great army passed over those parts, at a political crisis, one result of +which was the final absorption of his small territory in a neighbouring +dominion. Restless, romantic, eccentric, had he passed on with the +victorious host, and taken the chances of an obscure soldier's life? +Certain old letters hinted at a different ending--love-letters which +provided for a secret meeting, preliminary perhaps to the final +departure of the young Duke (who, by the usage of his realm, could only +with extreme difficulty go whither, or marry whom, he pleased) to +whatever worlds he had chosen, not of his own people. The minds of those +still interested in the matter were now at last made up, the disposition +of the remains suggesting to them the lively picture of a sullen night, +the unexpected passing of the great army, and the two lovers rushing +forth wildly at the sudden tumult outside their cheerful shelter, caught +in the dark and trampled out so, surprised and unseen, among the horses and +heavy guns. + +Time, at the court of the Grand-duke of Rosenmold, at the beginning of +the eighteenth century might seem to have been standing still almost +since the Middle Age--since the days of the Emperor Charles the Fifth, +at which period, by the marriage of the hereditary Grand-duke with a +princess of the Imperial house, a sudden tide of wealth, flowing through +the grand-ducal exchequer, had left a kind of golden architectural +splendour on the place, always too ample for its population. The sloping +Gothic roofs for carrying off the heavy snows still indented the sky--a +world of tiles, with space uncurtailed for the awkward gambols of that +very German goblin, Hans Klapper, on the long, slumberous, northern +nights. Whole quarryfuls of wrought stone had been piled along the +streets and around the squares, and were now grown, in truth, like +nature's self again, in their rough, time-worn massiveness, with weeds +and wild flowers where their decay accumulated, blossoming, always the +same, beyond people's memories, every summer, as the storks came back to +their platforms on the remote chimney-tops. Without, all was as it had +been on the eve of the Thirty Years' War: the venerable dark-green +mouldiness, priceless pearl of architectural effect, was unbroken by a +single new gable. And within, human life--its thoughts, its habits, +above all, its etiquette--had keen put out by no matter of excitement, +political or intellectual, ever at all, one might say, at any time. The +rambling grand-ducal palace was full to overflowing with furniture, +which, useful or useless, was all ornamental, and none of it new. +Suppose the various objects, especially the contents of the haunted old +lumber-rooms, duly arranged and ticketed, and their Highnesses would +have had a historic museum, after which those famed "Green Vaults" at +Dresden would hardly have counted as one of the glories of Augustus the +Strong. An immense heraldry, that truly German vanity, had grown, +expatiating, florid, eloquent, over everything, without and +within--windows, house-fronts, church walls, and church floors. And +one-half of the male inhabitants were big or little State functionaries, +mostly of a quasi decorative order--the treble-singer to the +town-council, the court organist, the court poet, and the like--each +with his deputies and assistants, maintaining, all unbroken, a sleepy +ceremonial, to make the hours just noticeable as they slipped away. At +court, with a continuous round of ceremonies, which, though early in the +day, must always take place under a jealous exclusion of the sun, one +seemed to live in perpetual candle-light. + +It was in a delightful rummaging of one of those lumber-rooms, escaped +from that candle-light into the broad day of the uppermost windows, that +the young Duke Carl laid his hand on an old volume of the year 1486, +printed in heavy type, with frontispiece, perhaps, by Albert Duerer--Ars +Versificandi: The Art of Versification: by Conrad Celtes. Crowned poet +of the Emperor Frederick the Third, he had the right to speak on that +subject; for while he vindicated as best he might old German literature +against the charge of barbarism, he did also a man's part towards +reviving in the Fatherland the knowledge of the poetry of Greece and +Rome; and for Carl, the pearl, the golden nugget, of the volume was the +Sapphic ode with which it closed--To Apollo, praying that he would come +to us from Italy, bringing his lyre with him: Ad Apollinem, Ut ab Italis +cum lyra ad Germanos veniat. The god of light, coming to Germany from +some more favoured world beyond it, over leagues of rainy hill and +mountain, making soft day there: that had ever been the dream of the +ghost-ridden yet deep-feeling and certainly meek German soul; of the +great Duerer, for instance, who had been the friend of this Conrad +Celtes, and himself, all German as he was, like a gleam of real day amid +that hyperborean German darkness--a darkness which clave to him, too, at +that dim time, when there were violent robbers, nay, real live devils, +in every German wood. And it was precisely the aspiration of Carl +himself. Those verses, coming to the boy's hand at the right moment, +brought a beam of effectual daylight to a whole magazine of observation, +fancy, desire, stored up from the first impressions of childhood. To +bring Apollo with his lyre to Germany! It was precisely that he, Carl, +desired to do--was, as he might flatter himself, actually doing. + +The daylight, the Apolline aurora, which the young Duke Carl claimed to +be bringing to his candle-lit people, came in the somewhat questionable +form of the contemporary French ideal, in matters of art and +literature--French plays, French architecture, French +looking-glasses--Apollo in the dandified costume of Lewis the +Fourteenth. Only, confronting the essentially aged and decrepit graces +of his model with his own essentially youthful temper, he invigorated +what he borrowed; and with him an aspiration towards the classical +ideal, so often hollow and insincere, lost all its affectation. His +doating grandfather, the reigning Grand-duke, afforded readily enough, +from the great store of inherited wealth which would one day be the +lad's, the funds necessary for the completion of the vast unfinished +Residence, with "pavilions" (after the manner of the famous Mansard) +uniting its scattered parts; while a wonderful flowerage of +architectural fancy, with broken attic roofs, passed over and beyond the +earlier fabric; the later and lighter forms being in part carved +adroitly out of the heavy masses of the old, honest, "stump Gothic" +tracery. One fault only Carl found in his French models, and was +resolute to correct. He would have, at least within, real marble in +place of stucco, and, if he might, perhaps solid gold for gilding. +There was something in the sanguine, floridly handsome youth, with his +alertness of mind turned wholly, amid the vexing preoccupations of an +age of war, upon embellishment and the softer things of life, which +soothed the testy humours of the old Duke, like the quiet physical +warmth of a fire or the sun. He was ready to preside with all ceremony +at a presentation of Marivaux's Death of Hannibal, played in the +original, with such imperfect mastery of the French accent as the lovers +of new light in Rosenmold had at command, in a theatre copied from that +at Versailles, lined with pale yellow satin, and with a picture, amid +the stucco braveries of the ceiling, of the Septentrional Apollo +himself, in somewhat watery red and blue. Innumerable wax lights in +cut-glass lustres were a thing of course. Duke Carl himself, attired +after the newest French fashion, played the part of Hannibal. The old +Duke, indeed, at a council-board devoted hitherto to matters of state, +would nod very early in certain long discussions on matters of +art--magnificent schemes, from this or that eminent contractor, for +spending his money tastefully, distinguishings of the rococo and the +baroque. On the other hand, having been all his life in close +intercourse with select humanity, self-conscious and arrayed for +presentation, he was a helpful judge of portraits and the various +degrees of the attainment of truth therein--a phase of fine art which +the grandson could not value too much. The sergeant-painter and the +deputy sergeant-painter were, indeed, conventional performers enough; as +mechanical in their dispensation of wigs, finger-rings, ruffles, and +simpers, as the figure of the armed knight who struck the bell in the +Residence tower. But scattered through its half-deserted rooms, state +bed-chambers and the like, hung the works of more genuine masters, still +as unadulterate as the hock, known to be two generations old, in the +grand-ducal cellar. The youth had even his scheme of inviting the +illustrious Antony Coppel to the court; to live there, if he would, with +the honours and emoluments of a prince of the blood. The illustrious +Mansard had actually promised to come, had not his sudden death taken +him away from earthly glory. + +And at least, if one must forgo the masters, masterpieces might be had +for their price. For ten thousand marks--day ever to be remembered!--a +genuine work of "the Urbinate," from the cabinet of a certain +commercially-minded Italian grand-duke, was on its way to Rosenmold, +anxiously awaited as it came over rainy mountain-passes, and along the +rough German roads, through doubtful weather. The tribune, the throne +itself, were made ready in the presence-chamber, with hangings in the +grand-ducal colours, laced with gold, together with a speech and an ode. +Late at night, at last, the waggon was heard rumbling into the +courtyard, with the guest arrived in safety, but, if one must confess +one's self, perhaps forbidding at first sight. From a comfortless +portico, with all the grotesqueness of the Middle Age, supported by +brown, aged bishops, whose meditations no incident could distract, Our +Lady looked out no better than an unpretending nun, with nothing to say +the like of which one was used to hear. Certainly one was not stimulated +by, enwrapped, absorbed in the great master's doings; only, with much +private disappointment, put on one's mettle to defend him against +critics notoriously wanting in sensibility, and against one's self. In +truth, the painter whom Carl most unaffectedly enjoyed, the real vigour +of his youthful and somewhat animal taste finding here its proper +sustenance, was Rubens--Rubens reached, as he is reached at his best, in +well-preserved family portraits, fresh, gay, ingenious, as of privileged +young people who could never grow old. Had not he, too, brought +something of the splendour of a "better land" into those northern +regions; if not the glowing gold of Titian's Italian sun, yet the +carnation and yellow of roses or tulips, such as might really grow there +with cultivation, even under rainy skies? And then, about this time +something was heard at the grand-ducal court of certain mysterious +experiments in the making of porcelain; veritable alchemy, for the +turning of clay into gold. The reign of Dresden china was at hand, with +one's own world of little men and women more delightfully diminutive +still, amid imitations of artificial flowers. The young Duke braced +himself for a plot to steal the gifted Herr Boettcher from his enforced +residence, as if in prison, at the fortress of Meissen. Why not bring +pots and wheels to Rosenmold, and prosecute his discoveries there? The +Grand-duke, indeed, preferred his old service of gold plate, and would +have had the lad a virtuoso in nothing less costly than gold--gold +snuff-boxes. + +For, in truth, regarding what belongs to art or culture, as elsewhere, +we may have a large appetite and little to feed on. Only, in the things +of the mind, the appetite itself counts for so much, at least in +hopeful, unobstructed youth, with the world before it. "You are the +Apollo you tell us of, the northern Apollo," people were beginning to +say to him, surprised from time to time by a mental purpose beyond their +guesses--expressions, liftings, softly gleaming or vehement lights, in +the handsome countenance of the youth, and his effective speech, as he +roamed, inviting all about him to share the honey, from music to +painting, from painting to the drama, all alike florid in style, yes! +and perhaps third-rate. And so far consistently throughout he had held +that the centre of one's intellectual system must be understood to be in +France. He had thoughts of proceeding to that country, secretly, in +person, there to attain the very impress of its genius. + +Meantime, its more portable flowers came to order in abundance. That the +roses, so to put it, were but excellent artificial flowers, redolent +only of musk, neither disproved for Carl the validity of his ideal nor +for our minds the vocation of Carl himself in these matters. In art, as +in all other things of the mind, again, much depends on the receiver; +and the higher informing capacity, if it exist within, will mould an +unpromising matter to itself, will realise itself by selection, and. The +preference of the better in what is bad or indifferent, asserting its +prerogative under the most unlikely conditions. People had in Carl, +could they have understood it, the spectacle, under those superficial +braveries, of a really heroic effort of mind at a disadvantage. That +rococo seventeenth-century French imitation of the true Renaissance, +called out in Carl a boundless enthusiasm, as the Italian original had +done two centuries before. He put into his reception of the aesthetic +achievements of Lewis the Fourteenth what young France had felt when +Francis the First brought home the great Da Vinci and his works. It was +but himself truly, after all, that he had found, so fresh and real, +among those artificial roses. + +He was thrown the more upon such outward and sensuous products of +mind--architecture, pottery, presently on music--because for him, with +so large intellectual capacity, there was, to speak properly, no +literature in his mother-tongue. Books there were, German books, but of +a dulness, a distance from the actual interests of the warm, various, +coloured life around and within him, to us hardly conceivable. There was +more entertainment in the natural train of his own solitary thoughts, +humoured and rightly attuned by pleasant visible objects, than in all +the books he had hunted through so carefully for that all-searching +intellectual light, of which a passing gleam of interest gave fallacious +promise here or there. And still, generously, he held to the belief, +urging him to fresh endeavour, that the literature which might set heart +and mind free must exist somewhere, though court librarians could not +say where. In search for it he spent many days in those old book-closets +where he had lighted on the Latin ode of Conrad Celtes. Was German +literature always to remain no more than a kind of penal apparatus for +the teasing of the brain? Oh for a literature set free, conterminous +with the interests of life itself. + +In music, it might be thought, Germany had already vindicated its +spiritual liberty. One and another of those North-german towns were +already aware of the youthful Sebastian Bach. The first notes had been +heard of a music not borrowed from France, but flowing, as naturally as +springs from their sources, out of the ever musical soul of Germany +itself. And the Duke Carl was a sincere lover of music, himself playing +melodiously on the violin to a delighted court. That new Germany of the +spirit would be builded, perhaps, to the sound of music. In those other +artistic enthusiasms, as the prophet of the French drama or the +architectural taste of Lewis the Fourteenth, he had contributed himself +generously, helping out with his own good-faith the inadequacy of their +appeal. Music alone hitherto had really helped HIM, and taken him out of +himself. To music, instinctively, more and more he was dedicate; and in +his desire to refine and organise the court music, from which, by leave +of absence to official performers enjoying their salaries at a distance, +many parts had literally fallen away, like the favourite notes of a +worn-out spinet, he was ably seconded by a devoted youth, the deputy +organist of the grand-ducal chapel. A member of the Roman Church amid a +people chiefly of the Reformed religion, Duke Carl would creep sometimes +into the curtained court pew of the Lutheran Church, to which he had +presented its massive golden crucifix, to listen to the chorales, the +execution of which he had managed to time to his liking, relishing, he +could hardly explain why, those passages of a pleasantly monotonous and, +as it might seem, unending melody--which certainly never came to what +could rightly be called an ending here on earth; and having also a +sympathy with the cheerful genius of Dr. Martin Luther, with his good +tunes, and that ringing laughter which sent dull goblins flitting. + +At this time, then, his mind ran eagerly for awhile on the project of +some musical and dramatic development of a fancy suggested by that old +Latin poem of Conrad Celtes--the hyperborean Apollo, sojourning, in the +revolutions of time, in the sluggish north for a season, yet Apollo +still, prompting art, music, poetry, and the philosophy which interprets +man's life, making a sort of intercalary day amid the natural darkness; +not meridian day, of course, but a soft derivative daylight, good enough +for us. It would be necessarily a mystic piece, abounding in fine +touches, suggestions, innuendoes. His vague proposal was met half-way by +the very practical executant power of his friend or servant, the deputy +organist, already pondering, with just a satiric flavour (suppressible +in actual performance, if the time for that should ever come) a musical +work on Duke Carl himself; Balder, an Interlude. He was contented to +re-cast and enlarge the part of the northern god of light, with a now +wholly serious intention. But still, the near, the real and familiar, +gave precision to, or actually superseded, the distant and the ideal. +The soul of the music was but a transfusion from the fantastic but so +interesting creature close at hand. And Carl was certainly true to his +proposed part in that he gladdened others by an intellectual radiance +which had ceased to mean warmth or animation for himself. For him the +light was still to seek in France, in Italy, above all in old Greece, +amid the precious things which might yet be lurking there unknown, in +art, in poetry, perhaps in very life, till Prince Fortunate should come. + +Yes! it was thither, to Greece, that his thoughts were turned during +those romantic classical musings while the opera was made ready. That, +in due time, was presented, with sufficient success. Meantime, his +purpose was grown definite to visit that original country of the Muses, +from which the pleasant things of Italy had been but derivative; to +brave the difficulties in the way of leaving home at all, the +difficulties also of access to Greece, in the present condition of the +country. + +At times the fancy came that he must really belong by descent to a +southern race, that a physical cause might lie beneath this strange +restlessness, like the imperfect reminiscence of something that had +passed in earlier life. The aged ministers of heraldry were set to work +(actually prolonging their days by an unexpected revival of interest in +their too well-worn function) at the search for some obscure rivulet of +Greek descent--later Byzantine Greek, perhaps,--in the Rosenmold +genealogy. No! with a hundred quarterings, they were as indigenous, +incorruptible heraldry reasserted, as the old yew-trees' asquat on the +heath. + +And meantime those dreams of remote and probably adventurous travel lent +the youth, still so healthy of body, a wing for more distant expeditions +than he had ever yet inclined to, among his own wholesome German +woodlands. In long rambles, afoot or on horseback, by day and night, he +flung himself, for the resettling of his sanity, on the cheerful +influences of their simple imagery; the hawks, as if asleep on the air +below him; the bleached crags, evoked by late sunset among the dark +oaks; the water-wheels, with their pleasant murmur, in the foldings of +the hillside. + +Clouds came across his heaven, little sudden clouds, like those which in +this northern latitude, where summer is at best but a flighty visitor, +chill out the heart, though but for a few minutes at a time, of the +warmest afternoon. He had fits of the gloom of other people--their dull +passage through and exit from the world, the threadbare incidents of +their lives, their dismal funerals--which, unless he drove them away +immediately by strenuous exercise, settled into a gloom more properly +his own. Yet at such times outward things also would seem to concur +unkindly in deepening the mental shadow about him, almost as if there +were indeed animation in the natural world, elfin spirits in those +inaccessible hillsides and dark ravines, as old German poetry pretended, +cheerfully assistant sometimes, but for the most part troublesome, to +their human kindred. Of late these fits had come somewhat more +frequently, and had continued. Often it was a weary, deflowered face +that his favourite mirrors reflected. Yes! people were prosaic, and +their lives threadbare:---all but himself and organist Max, perhaps, and +Fritz the treble-singer. In return, the people in actual contact with +him thought him a little mad, though still ready to flatter his madness, +as he could detect. Alone with the doating old grandfather in their +stiff, distant, alien world of etiquette, he felt surrounded by +flatterers, and would fain have tested the sincerity even of Max, and +Fritz who said, echoing the words of the other, "Yourself, Sire, are the +Apollo of Germany!" + +It was his desire to test the sincerity of the people about him, and +unveil flatterers, which in the first instance suggested a trick he +played upon the court, upon all Europe. In that complex but wholly +Teutonic genealogy lately under research, lay a much-prized thread of +descent from the fifth Emperor Charles, and Carl, under direction, read +with much readiness to be impressed all that was attainable concerning +the great ancestor, finding there in truth little enough to reward his +pains. One hint he took, however. He determined to assist at his own +obsequies. + +That he might in this way facilitate that much-desired journey occurred +to him almost at once as an accessory motive, and in a little while +definite motives were engrossed in the dramatic interest, the pleasing +gloom, the curiosity, of the thing itself. Certainly, amid the living +world in Germany, especially in old, sleepy Rosenmold, death made great +parade of itself. Youth even, in its sentimental mood, was ready to +indulge in the luxury of decay, and amuse itself with fancies of the +tomb; as in periods of decadence or suspended progress, when the world +seems to nap for a time, artifices for the arrest or disguise of old age +are adopted as a fashion, and become the fopperies of the young. The +whole body of Carl's relations, saving the drowsy old grandfather, +already lay buried beneath their expansive heraldries: at times the +whole world almost seemed buried thus--made and re-made of the dead--its +entire fabric of politics, of art, of custom, being essentially heraldic +"achievements," dead men's mementoes such as those. You see he was a +sceptical young man, and his kinsmen dead and gone had passed certainly, +in his imaginations of them, into no other world, save, perhaps, into +some stiffer, slower, sleepier, and more pompous phase of ceremony--the +last degree of court etiquette--as they lay there in the great, +low-pitched, grand-ducal vault, in their coffins, dusted once a year for +All Souls' Day, when the court officials descended thither, and Mass for +the dead was sung, amid an array of dropping crape and cobwebs. The lad, +with his full red lips and open blue eyes, coming as with a great cup in +his hands to life's feast, revolted from the like of that, as from +suffocation. And still the suggestion of it was everywhere. In the +garish afternoon, up to the wholesome heights of the Heiligenberg +suddenly from one of the villages of the plain came the grinding +death-knell. It seemed to come out of the ugly grave itself, and +enjoyment was dead. On his way homeward sadly, an hour later, he enters +by chance the open door of a village church, half buried in the tangle +of its churchyard. The rude coffin is lying there of a labourer who had +but a hovel to live in. The enemy dogged one's footsteps! The young Carl +seemed to be flying, not from death simply, but from assassination. + +And as these thoughts sent him back in the rebounding power of youth, +with renewed appetite, to life and sense, so, grown at last familiar, +they gave additional purpose to his fantastic experiment. Had it not +been said by a wise man that after all the offence of death was in its +trappings? Well! he would, as far as might be, try the thing, while, +presumably, a large reversionary interest in life was still his. He +would purchase his freedom, at least of those gloomy "trappings," and +listen while he was spoken of as dead. The mere preparations gave +pleasant proof of the devotion to him of a certain number, who entered +without question into his plans. It is not difficult to mislead the +world concerning what happens to those who live at the artificial +distance from it of a court, with its high wall of etiquette. However +the matter was managed, no one doubted, when, with a blazon of +ceremonious words, the court news went forth that, after a brief +illness, according to the way of his race, the hereditary Grand-duke was +deceased. In momentary regret, bethinking them of the lad's taste for +splendour, those to whom the arrangement of such matters belonged (the +grandfather now sinking deeper into bare quiescence) backed by the +popular wish, determined to give him a funeral with even more than +grand-ducal measure of lugubrious magnificence. The place of his repose +was marked out for him as officiously as if it had been the delimitation +of a kingdom, in the ducal burial vault, through the cobwebbed windows +of which, from the garden where he played as a child, the young Duke had +often peered at the faded glories of the immense coroneted coffins, the +oldest shedding their velvet tatters around them. Surrounded by the +whole official world of Rosenmold, arrayed for the occasion in almost +forgotten dresses of ceremony as if for a masquerade, the new coffin +glided from the fragrant chapel where the Requiem was sung, down the +broad staircase lined with peach-colour and yellow marble, into the +shadows below. Carl himself, disguised as a strolling musician, had +followed it across the square through a drenching rain, on which +circumstance he overheard the old people congratulate the "blessed" dead +within, had listened to a dirge of his own composing brought out on the +great organ with much bravura by his friend, the new court organist, who +was in the secret, and that night turned the key of the garden entrance +to the vault, and peeped in upon the sleepy, painted, and bewigged +young pages whose duty it would be for a certain number of days to come +to watch beside their late master's couch. + +And a certain number of weeks afterwards it was known that "the mad +Duke" had reappeared, to the dismay of court marshals. Things might have +gone hard with the youth had the strange news, at first as fantastic +rumour, then as matter of solemn enquiry, lastly as ascertained fact, +pleasing or otherwise, been less welcome than it was to the grandfather, +too old, indeed, to sorrow deeply, but grown so decrepit as to propose +that ministers should possess themselves of the person of the young +Duke, proclaim him of age and regent. From those dim travels, presenting +themselves to the old man, who had never been fifty miles away from +home, as almost lunar in their audacity, he would come back--come back +"in time," he murmured faintly, eager to feel that youthful, animating +life on the stir about him once more. + +Carl himself, now the thing was over, greatly relishing its satiric +elements, must be forgiven the trick of the burial and his still greater +enormity in coming to life again. And then, duke or no duke, it was +understood that he willed that things should in no case be precisely as +they had been. He would never again be quite so near people's lives as +in the past--a fitful, intermittent visitor--almost as if he had been +properly dead; the empty coffin remaining as a kind of symbolical +"coronation incident," setting forth his future relations to his +subjects. Of all those who believed him dead one human creature only, +save the grandfather, had sincerely sorrowed for him; a woman, in tears +as the funeral train passed by, with whom he had sympathetically +discussed his own merits. Till then he had forgotten the incident which +had exhibited him to her as the very genius of goodness and strength; +how, one day, driving with her country produce into the market, and, +embarrassed by the crowd, she had broken one of a hundred little police +rules, whereupon the officers were about to carry her away to be fined, +or worse, amid the jeers of the bystanders, always ready to deal hardly +with "the gipsy," at which precise moment the tall Duke Carl, like the +flash of a trusty sword, had leapt from the palace stair and caused her +to pass on in peace. She had half detected him through his disguise; in +due time news of his reappearance had been ceremoniously carried to her +in her little cottage, and the remembrance of her hung about him not +ungratefully, as he went with delight upon his way. + +The first long stage of his journey over, in headlong flight night and +day, he found himself one summer morning under the heat of what seemed a +southern sun, at last really at large on the Bergstrasse, with the rich +plain of the Palatinate on his left hand; on the right hand vineyards, +seen now for the first time, sloping up into the crisp beeches of the +Odenwald. By Weinheim only an empty tower remained of the Castle of +Windeck. He lay for the night in the great whitewashed guest-chamber of +the Capuchin convent. + +The national rivers, like the national woods, have a family likeness: +the Main, the Lahn, the Moselle, the Neckar, the Rhine. By help of such +accommodation as chance afforded, partly on the stream itself, partly +along the banks, he pursued the leisurely winding course of one of the +prettiest of these, tarrying for awhile in the towns, grey, white, or +red, which came in his way, tasting their delightful native "little" +wines, peeping into their old overloaded churches, inspecting the church +furniture, or trying the organs. For three nights he slept, warm and +dry, on the hay stored in a deserted cloister, and, attracted into the +neighbouring minster for a snatch of church music, narrowly escaped +detection. By miraculous chance the grimmest lord of Rosenmold was there +within, recognised the youth and his companions--visitors naturally +conspicuous, amid the crowd of peasants around them--and for some hours +was upon their traces. After unclean town streets the country air was a +perfume by contrast, or actually scented with pinewoods. One seemed to +breathe with it fancies of the woods, the hills, and water--of a sort of +souls in the landscape, but cheerful and genial now, happy souls! A +distant group of pines on the verge of a great upland awoke a violent +desire to be there--seemed to challenge one to proceed thither. Was +their infinite view thence? It was like an outpost of some far-off fancy +land, a pledge of the reality of such. Above Cassel, the airy hills +curved in one black outline against a glowing sky, pregnant, one could +fancy, with weird forms, which might be at their old diableries again on +those remote places ere night was quite come there. At last in the +streets, the hundred churches, of Cologne, he feels something of a +"Gothic" enthusiasm, and all a German's enthusiasm for the Rhine. + +Through the length and breadth of the Rhine country the vintage was +begun. The red ruins on the heights, the white-walled villages, white +Saint Nepomuc upon the bridges, were but isolated high notes of contrast +in a landscape, sleepy and indistinct under the flood of sunshine, with +a headiness in it like that of must, of the new wine. The noise of the +vineyards came through the lovely haze, still, at times, with the sharp +sound of a bell--death-bell, perhaps, or only a crazy summons to the +vintagers. And amid those broad, willowy reaches of the Rhine at length, +from Bingen to Mannheim, where the brown hills wander into airy, blue +distance, like a little picture of paradise, he felt that France was at +hand. Before him lay the road thither, easy and straight.--That well of +light so close! But, unexpectedly, the capricious incidence of his own +humour with the opportunity did not suggest, as he would have wagered it +must, "Go, drink at once!" Was it that France had come to be of no +account at all, in comparison of Italy, of Greece? or that, as he passed +over the German land, the conviction had come, "For you, France, Italy, +Hellas, is here!"--that some recognition of the untried spiritual +possibilities of meek Germany had for Carl transferred the ideal land +out of space beyond the Alps or the Rhine, into future time, whither he +must be the leader? A little chilly of humour, in spite of his manly +strength, he was journeying partly in search of physical heat. To-day +certainly, in this great vineyard, physical heat was about him in +measure sufficient, at least for a German constitution. Might it be not +otherwise with the imaginative, the intellectual, heat and light; the +real need being that of an interpreter--Apollo, illuminant rather as the +revealer than as the bringer of light? With large belief that the +Eclaircissement, the Aufklaerung (he had already found the name for the +thing) would indeed come, he had been in much bewilderment whence and +how. Here, he began to see that it could be in no other way than by +action of informing thought upon the vast accumulated material of which +Germany was in possession: art, poetry, fiction, an entire imaginative +world, following reasonably upon a deeper understanding of the past, of +nature, of one's self--an understanding of all beside through the +knowledge of one's self. To understand, would be the indispensable first +step towards the enlargement of the great past, of one's little present, +by criticism, by imagination. Then, the imprisoned souls of nature would +speak as of old. The Middle Age, in Germany, where the past has had such +generous reprisals, never far from us, would reassert its mystic spell, +for the better understanding of our Raffaelle. The spirits of distant +Hellas would reawake in the men and women of little German towns. +Distant times, the most alien thoughts, would come near together, as +elements in a great historic symphony. A kind of ardent, new patriotism +awoke in him, sensitive for the first time at the words NATIONAL poesy, +NATIONAL art and literature, GERMAN philosophy. To the resources of the +past, of himself, of what was possible for German mind, more and more +his mind opens as he goes on his way. A free, open space had been +determined, which something now to be created, created by him, must +occupy. "Only," he thought, "if I had coadjutors! If these thoughts +would awake in but one other mind?" + +At Strasbourg, with its mountainous goblin houses, nine stories high, +grouped snugly, in the midst of that inclement plain, like a great +stork's nest around the romantic red steeple of its cathedral, Duke Carl +became fairly captive to the Middle Age. Tarrying there week after week +he worked hard, but (without a ray of light from others) in one long +mistake, at the chronology and history of the coloured windows. +Antiquity's very self seemed expressed there, on the visionary images of +king or patriarch, in the deeply incised marks of character, the hoary +hair, the massive proportions, telling of a length of years beyond what +is lived now. Surely, past ages, could one get at the historic soul of +them, were not dead but living, rich in company, for the entertainment, +the expansion, of the present; and Duke Carl was still without suspicion +of the cynic afterthought that such historic soul was but an arbitrary +substitution, a generous loan of one's self. + +The mystic soul of Nature laid hold on him next, saying, "Come! +understand, interpret me!" He was awakened one morning by the jingle of +sledge-bells along the street beneath his windows. Winter had descended +betimes from the mountains: the pale Rhine below the bridge of boats on +the long way to Kehl was swollen with ice, and for the first time he +realised that Switzerland was at hand. On a sudden he was captive to the +enthusiasm of the mountains, and hastened along the valley of the Rhine +by Alt Breisach and Basle, unrepelled by a thousand difficulties, to +Swiss farmhouses and lonely villages, solemn still, and untouched by +strangers. At Grindelwald, sleeping at last in the close neighbourhood +of the greater Alps, he had the sense of an overbrooding presence, of +some strange new companions around him. Here one might yield one's self +to the unalterable imaginative appeal of the elements in their highest +force and simplicity--light, air, water, earth. On very early spring +days a mantle was suddenly lifted; the Alps were an apex of natural +glory, towards which, in broadening spaces of light, the whole of Europe +sloped upwards. Through them, on the right hand, as he journeyed on, +were the doorways to Italy, to Como or Venice, from yonder peak Italy's +self was visible!--as, on the left hand, in the South-german towns, in a +high-toned, artistic fineness, in the dainty, flowered ironwork for +instance, the overflow of Italian genius was traceable. These things +presented themselves at last only to remind him that, in a new +intellectual hope, he was already on his way home. Straight through +life, straight through nature and man, with one's own self-knowledge as +a light thereon, not by way of the geographical Italy or Greece, lay the +road to the new Hellas, to be realised now as the outcome of home-born +German genius. At times, in that early fine weather, looking now not +southwards, but towards Germany, he seemed to trace the outspread of a +faint, not wholly natural, aurora over the dark northern country. And it +was in an actual sunrise that the news came which finally put him on the +directest road homewards. One hardly dared breathe in the rapid uprise +of all-embracing light which seemed like the intellectual rising of the +Fatherland, when up the straggling path to his high beech-grown summit +(was one safe nowhere?) protesting over the roughness of the way, came +the too familiar voices (ennui itself made audible) of certain high +functionaries of Rosenmold, come to claim their new sovereign, close +upon the runaway. + +Bringing news of the old Duke's decease! With a real grief at his heart, +he hastened now over the ground which lay between him and the bed of +death, still trying, at quieter intervals, to snatch profit by the way; +peeping, at the most unlikely hours, on the objects of his curiosity, +waiting for a glimpse of dawn through glowing church windows, +penetrating into old church treasuries by candle-light, taxing the old +courtiers to pant up, for "the view," to this or that conspicuous point +in the world of hilly woodland. From one such at last, in spite of +everything with pleasure to Carl, old Rosenmold was visible--the attic +windows of the Residence, the storks on the chimneys, the green copper +roofs baking in the long, dry German summer. The homeliness of true old +Germany! He too felt it, and yearned towards his home. + +And the "beggar-maid" was there. Thoughts of her had haunted his mind +all the journey through, as he was aware, not unpleased, graciously +overflowing towards any creature he found dependent upon him. The mere +fact that she was awaiting him, at his disposition, meekly, and as +though through his long absence she had never quitted the spot on which +he had said farewell, touched his fancy, and on a sudden concentrated +his wavering preference into a practical decision. "King Cophetua" would +be hers. And his goodwill sunned her wild-grown beauty into majesty, +into a kind of queenly richness. There was natural majesty in the heavy +waves of golden hair folded closely above the neck, built a little +massively; and she looked kind, beseeching also, capable of sorrow. She +was like clear sunny weather, with bluebells and the green leaves, +between rainy days, and seemed to embody Die Ruh auf dem Gipfel--all +the restful hours he had spent of late in the wood-sides and on the +hilltops. One June day, on which she seemed to have withdrawn into +herself all the tokens of summer, brought decision to our lover of +artificial roses, who had cared so little hitherto for the like of her. +Grand-duke perforce, he would make her his wife, and had already +re-assured her with lively mockery of his horrified ministers. "Go +straight to life!" said his new poetic code; and here was the +opportunity;--here, also, the real "adventure," in comparison of which +his previous efforts that way seemed childish theatricalities, fit only +to cheat a little the profound ennui of actual life. In a hundred stolen +interviews she taught the hitherto indifferent youth the art of love. + +Duke Carl had effected arrangements for his marriage, secret, but +complete and soon to be made public. Long since he had cast complacent +eyes on a strange architectural relic, an old grange or hunting-lodge on +the heath, with he could hardly have defined what charm of remoteness +and old romance. Popular belief amused itself with reports of the wizard +who inhabited or haunted the place, his fantastic treasures, his immense +age. His windows might be seen glittering afar on stormy nights, with a +blaze of golden ornaments, said the more adventurous loiterer. It was +not because he was suspicious still, but in a kind of wantonness of +affection, and as if by way of giving yet greater zest to the luxury of +their mutual trust that Duke Carl added to his announcement of the +purposed place and time of the event a pretended test of the girl's +devotion. He tells her the story of the aged wizard, meagre and wan, to +whom she must find her way alone for the purpose of asking a question +all-important to himself. The fierce old man will try to escape with +terrible threats, will turn, or half turn, into repulsive animals. She +must cling the faster; at last the spell will be broken; he will yield, +he will become a youth once more, and give the desired answer. + +The girl, otherwise so self-denying, and still modestly anxious for a +private union, not to shame his high position in the world, had wished +for one thing at least--to be loved amid the splendours habitual to him. +Duke Carl sends to the old lodge his choicest personal possessions. For +many days the public is aware of something on hand; a few get delightful +glimpses of the treasures on their way to "the place on the heath." Was +he preparing against contingencies, should the great army, soon to pass +through these parts, not leave the country as innocently as might be +desired? + +The short grey day seemed a long one to those who, for various reasons, +were waiting anxiously for the darkness; the court people fretful and on +their mettle, the townsfolk suspicious, Duke Carl full of amorous +longing. At her distant cottage beyond the hills, Gretchen kept herself +ready for the trial. It was expected that certain great military +officers would arrive that night, commanders of a victorious host making +its way across Northern Germany, with no great respect for the rights of +neutral territory, often dealing with life and property too rudely to +find the coveted treasure. It was but one episode in a cruel war. Duke +Carl did not wait for the grandly illuminated supper prepared for their +reception. Events precipitated themselves. Those officers came as +practically victorious occupants, sheltering themselves for the night in +the luxurious rooms of the great palace. The army was in fact in motion +close behind its leaders, who (Gretchen warm and happy in the arms, not +of the aged wizard, but of the youthful lover) are discussing terms for +the final absorption of the duchy with those traitorous old councillors. +At their delicate supper Duke Carl amuses his companion with caricature, +amid cries of cheerful laughter, of the sleepy courtiers entertaining +their martial guests in all their pedantic politeness, like people in +some farcical dream. A priest, and certain chosen friends to witness the +marriage, were to come ere nightfall to the grange. The lovers heard, as +they thought, the sound of distant thunder. The hours passed as they +waited, and what came at last was not the priest with his companions. +Could they have been detained by the storm? Duke Carl gently re-assures +the girl--bids her believe in him, and wait. But through the wind, grown +to tempest, beyond the sound of the violent thunder--louder than any +possible thunder--nearer and nearer comes the storm of the victorious +army, like some disturbance of the earth itself, as they flee into the +tumult, out of the intolerable confinement and suspense, dead-set upon +them. + +The Enlightening, the Aufklaerung, according to the aspiration of Duke +Carl, was effected by other hands; Lessing and Herder, brilliant +precursors of the age of genius which centered in Goethe, coming well +within the natural limits of Carl's lifetime. As precursors Goethe +gratefully recognised them, and understood that there had been a +thousand others, looking forward to a new era in German literature with +the desire which is in some sort a "forecast of capacity," awakening +each other to the permanent reality of a poetic ideal in human life, +slowly forming that public consciousness to which Goethe actually +addressed himself. It is their aspirations I have tried to embody in the +portrait of Carl. + +"A hard winter had covered the Main with a firm footing of ice. The +liveliest social intercourse was quickened thereon. I was unfailing from +early morning onwards; and, being lightly clad, found myself, when my +mother drove up later to look on, fairly frozen. My mother sat in the +carriage, quite stately in her furred cloak of red velvet, fastened on +the breast with thick gold cord and tassels. + +"'Dear mother,' I said, on the spur of the moment, 'give me your furs, I +am frozen.' + +"She was equally ready. In a moment I had on the cloak. Falling below +the knee, with its rich trimming of sables, and enriched with gold, it +became me excellently. So clad I made my way up and down with a cheerful +heart." + +That was Goethe, perhaps fifty years later. His mother also related the +incident to Bettina Brentano;--"There, skated my son, like an arrow +among the groups. Away he went over the ice like a son of the gods. +Anything so beautiful is not to be seen now. I clapped my hands for joy. +Never shall I forget him as he darted out from one arch of the bridge, +and in again under the other, the wind carrying the train behind him as +he flew." In that amiable figure I seem to see the fulfilment of the +Resurgam on Carl's empty coffin--the aspiring soul of Carl himself, in +freedom and effective, at last. + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg Etext of Imaginary Portraits, by Walter Pater + diff --git a/old/iprtr10.zip b/old/iprtr10.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..29283f2 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/iprtr10.zip |