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diff --git a/4057-h/4057-h.htm b/4057-h/4057-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..db2cc7b --- /dev/null +++ b/4057-h/4057-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,6172 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" +"http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en"> +<head> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=utf-8" /> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Style-Type" content="text/css" /> +<title>The Project Gutenberg eBook of Marius the Epicurean, Volume One, by Walter Horatio Pater</title> + +<style type="text/css"> + +body { margin-left: 20%; + margin-right: 20%; + text-align: justify; } + +h1, h2, h3, h4, h5 {text-align: center; font-style: normal; font-weight: +normal; line-height: 1.5; margin-top: .5em; margin-bottom: .5em;} + +h1 {font-size: 300%; + margin-top: 0.6em; + margin-bottom: 0.6em; + letter-spacing: 0.12em; + word-spacing: 0.2em; + text-indent: 0em;} +h2 {font-size: 150%; margin-top: 2em; margin-bottom: 1em;} +h3 {font-size: 130%; margin-top: 1em;} +h4 {font-size: 120%;} +h5 {font-size: 110%;} + +.no-break {page-break-before: avoid;} /* for epubs */ + +div.chapter {page-break-before: always; margin-top: 4em;} + +hr {width: 80%; margin-top: 2em; margin-bottom: 2em;} + +p {text-indent: 1em; + margin-top: 0.25em; + margin-bottom: 0.25em; } + +.p2 {margin-top: 2em;} + +p.poem {text-indent: 0%; + margin-left: 10%; + font-size: 90%; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em; } + +p.noindent {text-indent: 0% } + +p.center {text-align: center; + text-indent: 0em; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em; } + +p.footnote {font-size: 90%; + text-indent: 0%; + margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em; } + +sup { vertical-align: top; font-size: 0.6em; } + +a:link {color:blue; text-decoration:none} +a:visited {color:blue; text-decoration:none} +a:hover {color:red} + +</style> + +</head> + +<body> + +<div style='text-align:center; font-size:1.2em; font-weight:bold'>The Project Gutenberg eBook of Marius the Epicurean, Volume One, by Walter Pater</div> +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and +most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions +whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms +of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online +at <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a>. If you +are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the +country where you are located before using this eBook. +</div> +<div style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Title: Marius the Epicurean,<br /> +Volume One</div> +<div style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Author: Walter Horatio Pater</div> +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Release Date: October 25, 2001 [eBook #4057]<br /> +[Most recently updated: September 1, 2021]</div> +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Language: English</div> +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Character set encoding: UTF-8</div> +<div style='display:block; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Produced by: Alfred J. Drake. HTML version by Al Haines.</div> +<div style='margin-top:2em; margin-bottom:4em'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MARIUS THE EPICUREAN, VOLUME ONE ***</div> + +<h1>Marius the Epicurean</h1> + +<h3>HIS SENSATIONS AND IDEAS</h3> + +<h2 class="no-break">by WALTER PATER</h2> + +<h4>VOLUME ONE</h4> + +<h4>London: 1910.<br /> +(The Library Edition.)</h4> + +<hr /> + +<h2>Contents</h2> + +<table summary="" style=""> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#part01"><b>PART THE FIRST</b></a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap01">1. “The Religion of Numa”</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap02">2. White-Nights</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap03">3. Change of Air</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap04">4. The Tree of Knowledge</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap05">5. The Golden Book</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap06">6. Euphuism</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap07">7. A Pagan End</a><br /><br /></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#part02"><b>PART THE SECOND</b></a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap08">8. Animula Vagula</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap09">9. New Cyrenaicism</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap10">10. On the Way</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap11">11. “The Most Religious City in the World”</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap12">12. “The Divinity that Doth Hedge a King”</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap13">13. The “Mistress and Mother” of Palaces</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap14">14. Manly Amusement</a></td> +</tr> + +</table> + +<h3>NOTES BY THE E-TEXT EDITOR:</h3> + +<p> +Notes: I have placed an asterisk immediately after each of Pater’s +footnotes and a + sign after my own notes, and have listed each of my notes at +that chapter’s end. +</p> + +<p> +Greek typeface: For this full-text edition, I have transliterated Pater’s +Greek quotations. If there is a need for the original Greek, it can be viewed +at my site, http://www.ajdrake.com/etexts, a Victorianist archive that contains +the complete works of Walter Pater and many other nineteenth-century texts, +mostly in first editions. +</p> + +<h2>MARIUS THE EPICUREAN,<br/> +VOLUME ONE <br/> +WALTER PATER</h2> + +<p class="center"> +Χειμερινὸς +ὄνειρος, ὅτε +μήκισται αἱ +νύκτες+ +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> ++“A winter’s dream, when nights are longest.”<br/> +Lucian, The Dream, Vol. 3. +</p> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2>MARIUS THE EPICUREAN, VOLUME ONE</h2> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="part01"></a>PART THE FIRST</h2> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap01"></a>CHAPTER I.<br/> +“THE RELIGION OF NUMA”</h2> + +<p> +As, in the triumph of Christianity, the old religion lingered latest in the +country, and died out at last as but paganism—the religion of the +villagers, before the advance of the Christian Church; so, in an earlier +century, it was in places remote from town-life that the older and purer forms +of paganism itself had survived the longest. While, in Rome, new religions had +arisen with bewildering complexity around the dying old one, the earlier and +simpler patriarchal religion, “the religion of Numa,” as people +loved to fancy, lingered on with little change amid the pastoral life, out of +the habits and sentiment of which so much of it had grown. Glimpses of such a +survival we may catch below the merely artificial attitudes of Latin pastoral +poetry; in Tibullus especially, who has preserved for us many poetic details of +old Roman religious usage. +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +At mihi contingat patrios celebrare Penates,<br/> +Reddereque antiquo menstrua thura Lari: +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +—he prays, with unaffected seriousness. Something liturgical, with +repetitions of a consecrated form of words, is traceable in one of his elegies, +as part of the order of a birthday sacrifice. The hearth, from a spark of +which, as one form of old legend related, the child Romulus had been +miraculously born, was still indeed an altar; and the worthiest sacrifice to +the gods the perfect physical sanity of the young men and women, which the +scrupulous ways of that religion of the hearth had tended to maintain. A +religion of usages and sentiment rather than of facts and belief, and attached +to very definite things and places—the oak of immemorial age, the rock on +the heath fashioned by weather as if by some dim human art, the shadowy grove +of ilex, passing into which one exclaimed involuntarily, in consecrated phrase, +Deity is in this Place! Numen Inest!—it was in natural harmony with the +temper of a quiet people amid the spectacle of rural life, like that simpler +faith between man and man, which Tibullus expressly connects with the period +when, with an inexpensive worship, the old wooden gods had been still pressed +for room in their homely little shrines. +</p> + +<p> +And about the time when the dying Antoninus Pius ordered his golden image of +Fortune to be carried into the chamber of his successor (now about to test the +truth of the old Platonic contention, that the world would at last find itself +happy, could it detach some reluctant philosophic student from the more +desirable life of celestial contemplation, and compel him to rule it), there +was a boy living in an old country-house, half farm, half villa, who, for +himself, recruited that body of antique traditions by a spontaneous force of +religious veneration such as had originally called them into being. More than a +century and a half had past since Tibullus had written; but the restoration of +religious usages, and their retention where they still survived, was meantime +come to be the fashion through the influence of imperial example; and what had +been in the main a matter of family pride with his father, was sustained by a +native instinct of devotion in the young Marius. A sense of conscious powers +external to ourselves, pleased or displeased by the right or wrong conduct of +every circumstance of daily life—that conscience, of which the old Roman +religion was a formal, habitual recognition, was become in him a powerful +current of feeling and observance. The old-fashioned, partly puritanic awe, the +power of which Wordsworth noted and valued so highly in a northern peasantry, +had its counterpart in the feeling of the Roman lad, as he passed the spot, +“touched of heaven,” where the lightning had struck dead an aged +labourer in the field: an upright stone, still with mouldering garlands about +it, marked the place. He brought to that system of symbolic usages, and they in +turn developed in him further, a great seriousness—an impressibility to +the sacredness of time, of life and its events, and the circumstances of family +fellowship; of such gifts to men as fire, water, the earth, from labour on +which they live, really understood by him as gifts—a sense of religious +responsibility in the reception of them. It was a religion for the most part of +fear, of multitudinous scruples, of a year-long burden of forms; yet rarely (on +clear summer mornings, for instance) the thought of those heavenly powers +afforded a welcome channel for the almost stifling sense of health and delight +in him, and relieved it as gratitude to the gods. +</p> + +<p> +The day of the “little” or private Ambarvalia was come, to be +celebrated by a single family for the welfare of all belonging to it, as the +great college of the Arval Brothers officiated at Rome in the interest of the +whole state. At the appointed time all work ceases; the instruments of labour +lie untouched, hung with wreaths of flowers, while masters and servants +together go in solemn procession along the dry paths of vineyard and cornfield, +conducting the victims whose blood is presently to be shed for the purification +from all natural or supernatural taint of the lands they have “gone +about.” The old Latin words of the liturgy, to be said as the procession +moved on its way, though their precise meaning was long since become +unintelligible, were recited from an ancient illuminated roll, kept in the +painted chest in the hall, together with the family records. Early on that day +the girls of the farm had been busy in the great portico, filling large baskets +with flowers plucked short from branches of apple and cherry, then in spacious +bloom, to strew before the quaint images of the gods—Ceres and Bacchus +and the yet more mysterious Dea Dia—as they passed through the fields, +carried in their little houses on the shoulders of white-clad youths, who were +understood to proceed to this office in perfect temperance, as pure in soul and +body as the air they breathed in the firm weather of that early summer-time. +The clean lustral water and the full incense-box were carried after them. The +altars were gay with garlands of wool and the more sumptuous sort of blossom +and green herbs to be thrown into the sacrificial fire, fresh-gathered this +morning from a particular plot in the old garden, set apart for the purpose. +Just then the young leaves were almost as fragrant as flowers, and the scent of +the bean-fields mingled pleasantly with the cloud of incense. But for the +monotonous intonation of the liturgy by the priests, clad in their strange, +stiff, antique vestments, and bearing ears of green corn upon their heads, +secured by flowing bands of white, the procession moved in absolute stillness, +all persons, even the children, abstaining from speech after the utterance of +the pontifical formula, Favete linguis!—Silence! Propitious +Silence!—lest any words save those proper to the occasion should hinder +the religious efficacy of the rite. +</p> + +<p> +With the lad Marius, who, as the head of his house, took a leading part in the +ceremonies of the day, there was a devout effort to complete this impressive +outward silence by that inward tacitness of mind, esteemed so important by +religious Romans in the performance of these sacred functions. To him the +sustained stillness without seemed really but to be waiting upon that interior, +mental condition of preparation or expectancy, for which he was just then +intently striving. The persons about him, certainly, had never been challenged +by those prayers and ceremonies to any ponderings on the divine nature: they +conceived them rather to be the appointed means of setting such troublesome +movements at rest. By them, “the religion of Numa,” so staid, ideal +and comely, the object of so much jealous conservatism, though of direct +service as lending sanction to a sort of high scrupulosity, especially in the +chief points of domestic conduct, was mainly prized as being, through its +hereditary character, something like a personal distinction—as +contributing, among the other accessories of an ancient house, to the +production of that aristocratic atmosphere which separated them from newly-made +people. But in the young Marius, the very absence from those venerable usages +of all definite history and dogmatic interpretation, had already awakened much +speculative activity; and to-day, starting from the actual details of the +divine service, some very lively surmises, though scarcely distinct enough to +be thoughts, were moving backwards and forwards in his mind, as the stirring +wind had done all day among the trees, and were like the passing of some +mysterious influence over all the elements of his nature and experience. One +thing only distracted him—a certain pity at the bottom of his heart, and +almost on his lips, for the sacrificial victims and their looks of terror, +rising almost to disgust at the central act of the sacrifice itself, a piece of +everyday butcher’s work, such as we decorously hide out of sight; though +some then present certainly displayed a frank curiosity in the spectacle thus +permitted them on a religious pretext. The old sculptors of the great +procession on the frieze of the Parthenon at Athens, have delineated the placid +heads of the victims led in it to sacrifice, with a perfect feeling for animals +in forcible contrast with any indifference as to their sufferings. It was this +contrast that distracted Marius now in the blessing of his fields, and +qualified his devout absorption upon the scrupulous fulfilment of all the +details of the ceremonial, as the procession approached the altars. +</p> + +<p> +The names of that great populace of “little gods,” dear to the +Roman home, which the pontiffs had placed on the sacred list of the +Indigitamenta, to be invoked, because they can help, on special occasions, were +not forgotten in the long litany—Vatican who causes the infant to utter +his first cry, Fabulinus who prompts his first word, Cuba who keeps him quiet +in his cot, Domiduca especially, for whom Marius had through life a particular +memory and devotion, the goddess who watches over one’s safe coming home. +The urns of the dead in the family chapel received their due service. They also +were now become something divine, a goodly company of friendly and protecting +spirits, encamped about the place of their former abode—above all others, +the father, dead ten years before, of whom, remembering but a tall, grave +figure above him in early childhood, Marius habitually thought as a genius a +little cold and severe. +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +Candidus insuetum miratur limen Olympi,<br/> +Sub pedibusque videt nubes et sidera.— +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Perhaps!—but certainly needs his altar here below, and garlands to-day +upon his urn. But the dead genii were satisfied with little—a few +violets, a cake dipped in wine, or a morsel of honeycomb. Daily, from the time +when his childish footsteps were still uncertain, had Marius taken them their +portion of the family meal, at the second course, amidst the silence of the +company. They loved those who brought them their sustenance; but, deprived of +these services, would be heard wandering through the house, crying sorrowfully +in the stillness of the night. +</p> + +<p> +And those simple gifts, like other objects as trivial—bread, oil, wine, +milk—had regained for him, by their use in such religious service, that +poetic and as it were moral significance, which surely belongs to all the means +of daily life, could we but break through the veil of our familiarity with +things by no means vulgar in themselves. A hymn followed, while the whole +assembly stood with veiled faces. The fire rose up readily from the altars, in +clean, bright flame—a favourable omen, making it a duty to render the +mirth of the evening complete. Old wine was poured out freely for the servants +at supper in the great kitchen, where they had worked in the imperfect light +through the long evenings of winter. The young Marius himself took but a very +sober part in the noisy feasting. A devout, regretful after-taste of what had +been really beautiful in the ritual he had accomplished took him early away, +that he might the better recall in reverie all the circumstances of the +celebration of the day. As he sank into a sleep, pleasant with all the +influences of long hours in the open air, he seemed still to be moving in +procession through the fields, with a kind of pleasurable awe. That feeling was +still upon him as he awoke amid the beating of violent rain on the shutters, in +the first storm of the season. The thunder which startled him from sleep seemed +to make the solitude of his chamber almost painfully complete, as if the +nearness of those angry clouds shut him up in a close place alone in the world. +Then he thought of the sort of protection which that day’s ceremonies +assured. To procure an agreement with the gods—Pacem deorum exposcere: +that was the meaning of what they had all day been busy upon. In a faith, +sincere but half-suspicious, he would fain have those Powers at least not +against him. His own nearer household gods were all around his bed. The spell +of his religion as a part of the very essence of home, its intimacy, its +dignity and security, was forcible at that moment; only, it seemed to involve +certain heavy demands upon him. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap02"></a>CHAPTER II.<br/> +WHITE-NIGHTS</h2> + +<p> +To an instinctive seriousness, the material abode in which the childhood of +Marius was passed had largely added. Nothing, you felt, as you first caught +sight of that coy, retired place,—surely nothing could happen there, +without its full accompaniment of thought or reverie. White-nights! so you +might interpret its old Latin name.* “The red rose came first,” +says a quaint German mystic, speaking of “the mystery of so-called white +things,” as being “ever an after-thought—the doubles, or +seconds, of real things, and themselves but half-real, half-material—the +white queen, the white witch, the white mass, which, as the black mass is a +travesty of the true mass turned to evil by horrible old witches, is celebrated +by young candidates for the priesthood with an unconsecrated host, by way of +rehearsal.” So, white-nights, I suppose, after something like the same +analogy, should be nights not of quite blank forgetfulness, but passed in +continuous dreaming, only half veiled by sleep. Certainly the place was, in +such case, true to its fanciful name in this, that you might very well +conceive, in face of it, that dreaming even in the daytime might come to much +there. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +* <i>Ad Vigilias Albas</i>. +</p> + +<p> +The young Marius represented an ancient family whose estate had come down to +him much curtailed through the extravagance of a certain Marcellus two +generations before, a favourite in his day of the fashionable world at Rome, +where he had at least spent his substance with a correctness of taste Marius +might seem to have inherited from him; as he was believed also to resemble him +in a singularly pleasant smile, consistent however, in the younger face, with +some degree of sombre expression when the mind within was but slightly moved. +</p> + +<p> +As the means of life decreased, the farm had crept nearer and nearer to the +dwelling-house, about which there was therefore a trace of workday negligence +or homeliness, not without its picturesque charm for some, for the young master +himself among them. The more observant passer-by would note, curious as to the +inmates, a certain amount of dainty care amid that neglect, as if it came in +part, perhaps, from a reluctance to disturb old associations. It was +significant of the national character, that a sort of elegant gentleman +farming, as we say, had been much affected by some of the most cultivated +Romans. But it became something more than an elegant diversion, something of a +serious business, with the household of Marius; and his actual interest in the +cultivation of the earth and the care of flocks had brought him, at least, +intimately near to those elementary conditions of life, a reverence for which, +the great Roman poet, as he has shown by his own half-mystic pre-occupation +with them, held to be the ground of primitive Roman religion, as of primitive +morals. But then, farm-life in Italy, including the culture of the olive and +the vine, has a grace of its own, and might well contribute to the production +of an ideal dignity of character, like that of nature itself in this gifted +region. Vulgarity seemed impossible. The place, though impoverished, was still +deservedly dear, full of venerable memories, and with a living sweetness of its +own for to-day. +</p> + +<p> +To hold by such ceremonial traditions had been a part of the struggling family +pride of the lad’s father, to which the example of the head of the state, +old Antoninus Pius—an example to be still further enforced by his +successor—had given a fresh though perhaps somewhat artificial +popularity. It had been consistent with many another homely and old-fashioned +trait in him, not to undervalue the charm of exclusiveness and immemorial +authority, which membership in a local priestly college, hereditary in his +house, conferred upon him. To set a real value on these things was but one +element in that pious concern for his home and all that belonged to it, which, +as Marius afterwards discovered, had been a strong motive with his father. The +ancient hymn—Fana Novella!—was still sung by his people, as the new +moon grew bright in the west, and even their wild custom of leaping through +heaps of blazing straw on a certain night in summer was not discouraged. The +privilege of augury itself, according to tradition, had at one time belonged to +his race; and if you can imagine how, once in a way, an impressible boy might +have an inkling, an inward mystic intimation, of the meaning and consequences +of all that, what was implied in it becoming explicit for him, you conceive +aright the mind of Marius, in whose house the auspices were still carefully +consulted before every undertaking of moment. +</p> + +<p> +The devotion of the father then had handed on loyally—and that is all +many not unimportant persons ever find to do—a certain tradition of life, +which came to mean much for the young Marius. The feeling with which he thought +of his dead father was almost exclusively that of awe; though crossed at times +by a not unpleasant sense of liberty, as he could but confess to himself, +pondering, in the actual absence of so weighty and continual a restraint, upon +the arbitrary power which Roman religion and Roman law gave to the parent over +the son. On the part of his mother, on the other hand, entertaining the +husband’s memory, there was a sustained freshness of regret, together +with the recognition, as Marius fancied, of some costly self-sacrifice to be +credited to the dead. The life of the widow, languid and shadowy enough but for +the poignancy of that regret, was like one long service to the departed soul; +its many annual observances centering about the funeral urn—a tiny, +delicately carved marble house, still white and fair, in the family-chapel, +wreathed always with the richest flowers from the garden. To the dead, in fact, +was conceded in such places a somewhat closer neighbourhood to the old homes +they were thought still to protect, than is usual with us, or was usual in Rome +itself—a closeness which the living welcomed, so diverse are the ways of +our human sentiment, and in which the more wealthy, at least in the country, +might indulge themselves. All this Marius followed with a devout interest, +sincerely touched and awed by his mother’s sorrow. After the deification +of the emperors, we are told, it was considered impious so much as to use any +coarse expression in the presence of their images. To Marius the whole of life +seemed full of sacred presences, demanding of him a similar collectedness. The +severe and archaic religion of the villa, as he conceived it, begot in him a +sort of devout circumspection lest he should fall short at any point of the +demand upon him of anything in which deity was concerned. He must satisfy with +a kind of sacred equity, he must be very cautious lest he be found wanting to, +the claims of others, in their joys and calamities—the happiness which +deity sanctioned, or the blows in which it made itself felt. And from habit, +this feeling of a responsibility towards the world of men and things, towards a +claim for due sentiment concerning them on his side, came to be a part of his +nature not to be put off. It kept him serious and dignified amid the Epicurean +speculations which in after years much engrossed him, and when he had learned +to think of all religions as indifferent, serious amid many fopperies and +through many languid days, and made him anticipate all his life long as a thing +towards which he must carefully train himself, some great occasion of +self-devotion, such as really came, that should consecrate his life, and, it +might be, its memory with others, as the early Christian looked forward to +martyrdom at the end of his course, as a seal of worth upon it. +</p> + +<p> +The traveller, descending from the slopes of Luna, even as he got his first +view of the Port-of-Venus, would pause by the way, to read the face, as it +were, of so beautiful a dwelling-place, lying away from the white road, at the +point where it began to decline somewhat steeply to the marsh-land below. The +building of pale red and yellow marble, mellowed by age, which he saw beyond +the gates, was indeed but the exquisite fragment of a once large and sumptuous +villa. Two centuries of the play of the sea-wind were in the velvet of the +mosses which lay along its inaccessible ledges and angles. Here and there the +marble plates had slipped from their places, where the delicate weeds had +forced their way. The graceful wildness which prevailed in garden and farm gave +place to a singular nicety about the actual habitation, and a still more +scrupulous sweetness and order reigned within. The old Roman architects seem to +have well understood the decorative value of the floor—the real economy +there was, in the production of rich interior effect, of a somewhat lavish +expenditure upon the surface they trod on. The pavement of the hall had lost +something of its evenness; but, though a little rough to the foot, polished and +cared for like a piece of silver, looked, as mosaic-work is apt to do, its best +in old age. Most noticeable among the ancestral masks, each in its little +cedarn chest below the cornice, was that of the wasteful but elegant Marcellus, +with the quaint resemblance in its yellow waxen features to Marius, just then +so full of animation and country colour. A chamber, curved ingeniously into +oval form, which he had added to the mansion, still contained his collection of +works of art; above all, that head of Medusa, for which the villa was famous. +The spoilers of one of the old Greek towns on the coast had flung away or lost +the thing, as it seemed, in some rapid flight across the river below, from the +sands of which it was drawn up in a fisherman’s net, with the fine golden +laminae still clinging here and there to the bronze. It was Marcellus also who +had contrived the prospect-tower of two storeys with the white pigeon-house +above, so characteristic of the place. The little glazed windows in the +uppermost chamber framed each its dainty landscape—the pallid crags of +Carrara, like wildly twisted snow-drifts above the purple heath; the distant +harbour with its freight of white marble going to sea; the lighthouse temple of +Venus Speciosa on its dark headland, amid the long-drawn curves of white +breakers. Even on summer nights the air there had always a motion in it, and +drove the scent of the new-mown hay along all the passages of the house. +</p> + +<p> +Something pensive, spell-bound, and but half real, something cloistral or +monastic, as we should say, united to this exquisite order, made the whole +place seem to Marius, as it were, sacellum, the peculiar sanctuary, of his +mother, who, still in real widowhood, provided the deceased Marius the elder +with that secondary sort of life which we can give to the dead, in our +intensely realised memory of them—the “subjective +immortality,” to use a modern phrase, for which many a Roman epitaph +cries out plaintively to widow or sister or daughter, still in the land of the +living. Certainly, if any such considerations regarding them do reach the +shadowy people, he enjoyed that secondary existence, that warm place still +left, in thought at least, beside the living, the desire for which is actually, +in various forms, so great a motive with most of us. And Marius the younger, +even thus early, came to think of women’s tears, of women’s hands +to lay one to rest, in death as in the sleep of childhood, as a sort of natural +want. The soft lines of the white hands and face, set among the many folds of +the veil and stole of the Roman widow, busy upon her needlework, or with music +sometimes, defined themselves for him as the typical expression of maternity. +Helping her with her white and purple wools, and caring for her musical +instruments, he won, as if from the handling of such things, an urbane and +feminine refinement, qualifying duly his country-grown habits—the sense +of a certain delicate blandness, which he relished, above all, on returning to +the “chapel” of his mother, after long days of open-air exercise, +in winter or stormy summer. For poetic souls in old Italy felt, hardly less +strongly than the English, the pleasures of winter, of the hearth, with the +very dead warm in its generous heat, keeping the young myrtles in flower, +though the hail is beating hard without. One important principle, of fruit +afterwards in his Roman life, that relish for the country fixed deeply in him; +in the winters especially, when the sufferings of the animal world became so +palpable even to the least observant. It fixed in him a sympathy for all +creatures, for the almost human troubles and sicknesses of the flocks, for +instance. It was a feeling which had in it something of religious veneration +for life as such—for that mysterious essence which man is powerless to +create in even the feeblest degree. One by one, at the desire of his mother, +the lad broke down his cherished traps and springes for the hungry wild birds +on the salt marsh. A white bird, she told him once, looking at him gravely, a +bird which he must carry in his bosom across a crowded public place—his +own soul was like that! Would it reach the hands of his good genius on the +opposite side, unruffled and unsoiled? And as his mother became to him the very +type of maternity in things, its unfailing pity and protectiveness, and +maternity itself the central type of all love;—so, that beautiful +dwelling-place lent the reality of concrete outline to a peculiar ideal of +home, which throughout the rest of his life he seemed, amid many distractions +of spirit, to be ever seeking to regain. +</p> + +<p> +And a certain vague fear of evil, constitutional in him, enhanced still further +this sentiment of home as a place of tried security. His religion, that old +Italian religion, in contrast with the really light-hearted religion of Greece, +had its deep undercurrent of gloom, its sad, haunting imageries, not +exclusively confined to the walls of Etruscan tombs. The function of the +conscience, not always as the prompter of gratitude for benefits received, but +oftenest as his accuser before those angry heavenly masters, had a large part +in it; and the sense of some unexplored evil, ever dogging his footsteps, made +him oddly suspicious of particular places and persons. Though his liking for +animals was so strong, yet one fierce day in early summer, as he walked along a +narrow road, he had seen the snakes breeding, and ever afterwards avoided that +place and its ugly associations, for there was something in the incident which +made food distasteful and his sleep uneasy for many days afterwards. The memory +of it however had almost passed away, when at the corner of a street in Pisa, +he came upon an African showman exhibiting a great serpent: once more, as the +reptile writhed, the former painful impression revived: it was like a peep into +the lower side of the real world, and again for many days took all sweetness +from food and sleep. He wondered at himself indeed, trying to puzzle out the +secret of that repugnance, having no particular dread of a snake’s bite, +like one of his companions, who had put his hand into the mouth of an old +garden-god and roused there a sluggish viper. A kind of pity even mingled with +his aversion, and he could hardly have killed or injured the animals, which +seemed already to suffer by the very circumstance of their life, being what +they were. It was something like a fear of the supernatural, or perhaps rather +a moral feeling, for the face of a great serpent, with no grace of fur or +feathers, so different from quadruped or bird, has a sort of humanity of aspect +in its spotted and clouded nakedness. There was a humanity, dusty and sordid +and as if far gone in corruption, in the sluggish coil, as it awoke suddenly +into one metallic spring of pure enmity against him. Long afterwards, when it +happened that at Rome he saw, a second time, a showman with his serpents, he +remembered the night which had then followed, thinking, in Saint +Augustine’s vein, on the real greatness of those little troubles of +children, of which older people make light; but with a sudden gratitude also, +as he reflected how richly possessed his life had actually been by beautiful +aspects and imageries, seeing how greatly what was repugnant to the eye +disturbed his peace. +</p> + +<p> +Thus the boyhood of Marius passed; on the whole, more given to contemplation +than to action. Less prosperous in fortune than at an earlier day there had +been reason to expect, and animating his solitude, as he read eagerly and +intelligently, with the traditions of the past, already he lived much in the +realm of the imagination, and became betimes, as he was to continue all through +life, something of an idealist, constructing the world for himself in great +measure from within, by the exercise of meditative power. A vein of subjective +philosophy, with the individual for its standard of all things, there would be +always in his intellectual scheme of the world and of conduct, with a certain +incapacity wholly to accept other men’s valuations. And the generation of +this peculiar element in his temper he could trace up to the days when his life +had been so like the reading of a romance to him. Had the Romans a word for +unworldly? The beautiful word umbratilis perhaps comes nearest to it; and, with +that precise sense, might describe the spirit in which he prepared himself for +the sacerdotal function hereditary in his family—the sort of mystic +enjoyment he had in the abstinence, the strenuous self-control and ascêsis, +which such preparation involved. Like the young Ion in the beautiful opening of +the play of Euripides, who every morning sweeps the temple floor with such a +fund of cheerfulness in his service, he was apt to be happy in sacred places, +with a susceptibility to their peculiar influences which he never outgrew; so +that often in after-times, quite unexpectedly, this feeling would revive in him +with undiminished freshness. That first, early, boyish ideal of priesthood, the +sense of dedication, survived through all the distractions of the world, and +when all thought of such vocation had finally passed from him, as a ministry, +in spirit at least, towards a sort of hieratic beauty and order in the conduct +of life. +</p> + +<p> +And now what relieved in part this over-tension of soul was the lad’s +pleasure in the country and the open air; above all, the ramble to the coast, +over the marsh with its dwarf roses and wild lavender, and delightful signs, +one after another—the abandoned boat, the ruined flood-gates, the flock +of wild birds—that one was approaching the sea; the long summer-day of +idleness among its vague scents and sounds. And it was characteristic of him +that he relished especially the grave, subdued, northern notes in all +that—the charm of the French or English notes, as we might term +them—in the luxuriant Italian landscape. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap03"></a>CHAPTER III.<br/> +CHANGE OF AIR</h2> + +<p class="intro"> +Dilexi decorem domus tuae. +</p> + +<p> +That almost morbid religious idealism, and his healthful love of the country, +were both alike developed by the circumstances of a journey, which happened +about this time, when Marius was taken to a certain temple of Aesculapius, +among the hills of Etruria, as was then usual in such cases, for the cure of +some boyish sickness. The religion of Aesculapius, though borrowed from Greece, +had been naturalised in Rome in the old republican times; but had reached under +the Antonines the height of its popularity throughout the Roman world. That was +an age of valetudinarians, in many instances of imaginary ones; but below its +various crazes concerning health and disease, largely multiplied a few years +after the time of which I am speaking by the miseries of a great pestilence, +lay a valuable, because partly practicable, belief that all the maladies of the +soul might be reached through the subtle gateways of the body. +</p> + +<p> +Salus, salvation, for the Romans, had come to mean bodily sanity. The religion +of the god of bodily health, Salvator, as they called him absolutely, had a +chance just then of becoming the one religion; that mild and philanthropic son +of Apollo surviving, or absorbing, all other pagan godhead. The apparatus of +the medical art, the salutary mineral or herb, diet or abstinence, and all the +varieties of the bath, came to have a kind of sacramental character, so deep +was the feeling, in more serious minds, of a moral or spiritual profit in +physical health, beyond the obvious bodily advantages one had of it; the body +becoming truly, in that case, but a quiet handmaid of the soul. The priesthood +or “family” of Aesculapius, a vast college, believed to be in +possession of certain precious medical secrets, came nearest perhaps, of all +the institutions of the pagan world, to the Christian priesthood; the temples +of the god, rich in some instances with the accumulated thank-offerings of +centuries of a tasteful devotion, being really also a kind of hospitals for the +sick, administered in a full conviction of the religiousness, the refined and +sacred happiness, of a life spent in the relieving of pain. +</p> + +<p> +Elements of a really experimental and progressive knowledge there were +doubtless amid this devout enthusiasm, bent so faithfully on the reception of +health as a direct gift from God; but for the most part his care was held to +take effect through a machinery easily capable of misuse for purposes of +religious fraud. Through dreams, above all, inspired by Aesculapius himself, +information as to the cause and cure of a malady was supposed to come to the +sufferer, in a belief based on the truth that dreams do sometimes, for those +who watch them carefully, give many hints concerning the conditions of the +body—those latent weak points at which disease or death may most easily +break into it. In the time of Marcus Aurelius these medical dreams had become +more than ever a fashionable caprice. Aristeides, the “Orator,” a +man of undoubted intellectual power, has devoted six discourses to their +interpretation; the really scientific Galen has recorded how beneficently they +had intervened in his own case, at certain turning-points of life; and a belief +in them was one of the frailties of the wise emperor himself. Partly for the +sake of these dreams, living ministers of the god, more likely to come to one +in his actual dwelling-place than elsewhere, it was almost a necessity that the +patient should sleep one or more nights within the precincts of a temple +consecrated to his service, during which time he must observe certain rules +prescribed by the priests. +</p> + +<p> +For this purpose, after devoutly saluting the Lares, as was customary before +starting on a journey, Marius set forth one summer morning on his way to the +famous temple which lay among the hills beyond the valley of the Arnus. It was +his greatest adventure hitherto; and he had much pleasure in all its details, +in spite of his feverishness. Starting early, under the guidance of an old +serving-man who drove the mules, with his wife who took all that was needful +for their refreshment on the way and for the offering at the shrine, they went, +under the genial heat, halting now and then to pluck certain flowers seen for +the first time on these high places, upwards, through a long day of sunshine, +while cliffs and woods sank gradually below their path. The evening came as +they passed along a steep white road with many windings among the pines, and it +was night when they reached the temple, the lights of which shone out upon them +pausing before the gates of the sacred enclosure, while Marius became alive to +a singular purity in the air. A rippling of water about the place was the only +thing audible, as they waited till two priestly figures, speaking Greek to one +another, admitted them into a large, white-walled and clearly lighted +guest-chamber, in which, while he partook of a simple but wholesomely prepared +supper, Marius still seemed to feel pleasantly the height they had attained to +among the hills. +</p> + +<p> +The agreeable sense of all this was spoiled by one thing only, his old fear of +serpents; for it was under the form of a serpent that Aesculapius had come to +Rome, and the last definite thought of his weary head before he fell asleep had +been a dread either that the god might appear, as he was said sometimes to do, +under this hideous aspect, or perhaps one of those great sallow-hued snakes +themselves, kept in the sacred place, as he had also heard was usual. +</p> + +<p> +And after an hour’s feverish dreaming he awoke—with a cry, it would +seem, for some one had entered the room bearing a light. The footsteps of the +youthful figure which approached and sat by his bedside were certainly real. +Ever afterwards, when the thought arose in his mind of some unhoped-for but +entire relief from distress, like blue sky in a storm at sea, would come back +the memory of that gracious countenance which, amid all the kindness of its +gaze, had yet a certain air of predominance over him, so that he seemed now for +the first time to have found the master of his spirit. It would have been sweet +to be the servant of him who now sat beside him speaking. +</p> + +<p> +He caught a lesson from what was then said, still somewhat beyond his years, a +lesson in the skilled cultivation of life, of experience, of opportunity, which +seemed to be the aim of the young priest’s recommendations. The sum of +them, through various forgotten intervals of argument, as might really have +happened in a dream, was the precept, repeated many times under slightly varied +aspects, of a diligent promotion of the capacity of the eye, inasmuch as in the +eye would lie for him the determining influence of life: he was of the number +of those who, in the words of a poet who came long after, must be “made +perfect by the love of visible beauty.” The discourse was conceived from +the point of view of a theory Marius found afterwards in Plato’s +Phaedrus, which supposes men’s spirits susceptible to certain influences, +diffused, after the manner of streams or currents, by fair things or persons +visibly present—green fields, for instance, or children’s +faces—into the air around them, acting, in the case of some peculiar +natures, like potent material essences, and conforming the seer to themselves +as with some cunning physical necessity. This theory,* in itself so fantastic, +had however determined in a range of methodical suggestions, altogether quaint +here and there from their circumstantial minuteness. And throughout, the +possibility of some vision, as of a new city coming down “like a bride +out of heaven,” a vision still indeed, it might seem, a long way off, but +to be granted perhaps one day to the eyes thus trained, was presented as the +motive of this laboriously practical direction. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +* [Transliteration:] Ê aporroê tou kallous. +Translation: “Emanation +from a thing of beauty.” +</p> + +<p> +“If thou wouldst have all about thee like the colours of some fresh +picture, in a clear light,” so the discourse recommenced after a pause, +“be temperate in thy religious notions, in love, in wine, in all things, +and of a peaceful heart with thy fellows.” To keep the eye clear by a +sort of exquisite personal alacrity and cleanliness, extending even to his +dwelling-place; to discriminate, ever more and more fastidiously, select form +and colour in things from what was less select; to meditate much on beautiful +visible objects, on objects, more especially, connected with the period of +youth—on children at play in the morning, the trees in early spring, on +young animals, on the fashions and amusements of young men; to keep ever by him +if it were but a single choice flower, a graceful animal or sea-shell, as a +token and representative of the whole kingdom of such things; to avoid +jealously, in his way through the world, everything repugnant to sight; and, +should any circumstance tempt him to a general converse in the range of such +objects, to disentangle himself from that circumstance at any cost of place, +money, or opportunity; such were in brief outline the duties recognised, the +rights demanded, in this new formula of life. And it was delivered with +conviction; as if the speaker verily saw into the recesses of the mental and +physical being of the listener, while his own expression of perfect temperance +had in it a fascinating power—the merely negative element of purity, the +mere freedom from taint or flaw, in exercise as a positive influence. Long +afterwards, when Marius read the Charmides—that other dialogue of Plato, +into which he seems to have expressed the very genius of old Greek +temperance—the image of this speaker came back vividly before him, to +take the chief part in the conversation. +</p> + +<p> +It was as a weighty sanction of such temperance, in almost visible symbolism +(an outward imagery identifying itself with unseen moralities) that the memory +of that night’s double experience, the dream of the great sallow snake +and the utterance of the young priest, always returned to him, and the contrast +therein involved made him revolt with unfaltering instinct from the bare +thought of an excess in sleep, or diet, or even in matters of taste, still more +from any excess of a coarser kind. +</p> + +<p> +When he awoke again, still in the exceeding freshness he had felt on his +arrival, and now in full sunlight, it was as if his sickness had really +departed with the terror of the night: a confusion had passed from the brain, a +painful dryness from his hands. Simply to be alive and there was a delight; and +as he bathed in the fresh water set ready for his use, the air of the room +about him seemed like pure gold, the very shadows rich with colour. Summoned at +length by one of the white-robed brethren, he went out to walk in the temple +garden. At a distance, on either side, his guide pointed out to him the Houses +of Birth and Death, erected for the reception respectively of women about to +become mothers, and of persons about to die; neither of those incidents being +allowed to defile, as was thought, the actual precincts of the shrine. His +visitor of the previous night he saw nowhere again. But among the official +ministers of the place there was one, already marked as of great celebrity, +whom Marius saw often in later days at Rome, the physician Galen, now about +thirty years old. He was standing, the hood partly drawn over his face, beside +the holy well, as Marius and his guide approached it. +</p> + +<p> +This famous well or conduit, primary cause of the temple and its surrounding +institutions, was supplied by the water of a spring flowing directly out of the +rocky foundations of the shrine. From the rim of its basin rose a circle of +trim columns to support a cupola of singular lightness and grace, itself full +of reflected light from the rippling surface, through which might be traced the +wavy figure-work of the marble lining below as the stream of water rushed in. +Legend told of a visit of Aesculapius to this place, earlier and happier than +his first coming to Rome: an inscription around the cupola recorded it in +letters of gold. “Being come unto this place the son of God loved it +exceedingly:”—Huc profectus filius Dei maxime amavit hunc +locum;—and it was then that that most intimately human of the gods had +given men the well, with all its salutary properties. The element itself when +received into the mouth, in consequence of its entire freedom from adhering +organic matter, was more like a draught of wonderfully pure air than water; and +after tasting, Marius was told many mysterious circumstances concerning it, by +one and another of the bystanders:—he who drank often thereof might well +think he had tasted of the Homeric lotus, so great became his desire to remain +always on that spot: carried to other places, it was almost indefinitely +conservative of its fine qualities: nay! a few drops of it would amend other +water; and it flowed not only with unvarying abundance but with a volume so +oddly rhythmical that the well stood always full to the brim, whatever quantity +might be drawn from it, seeming to answer with strange alacrity of service to +human needs, like a true creature and pupil of the philanthropic god. Certainly +the little crowd around seemed to find singular refreshment in gazing on it. +The whole place appeared sensibly influenced by the amiable and healthful +spirit of the thing. All the objects of the country were there at their +freshest. In the great park-like enclosure for the maintenance of the sacred +animals offered by the convalescent, grass and trees were allowed to grow with +a kind of graceful wildness; otherwise, all was wonderfully nice. And that +freshness seemed to have something moral in its influence, as if it acted upon +the body and the merely bodily powers of apprehension, through the +intelligence; and to the end of his visit Marius saw no more serpents. +</p> + +<p> +A lad was just then drawing water for ritual uses, and Marius followed him as +he returned from the well, more and more impressed by the religiousness of all +he saw, on his way through a long cloister or corridor, the walls well-nigh +hidden under votive inscriptions recording favours from the son of Apollo, and +with a distant fragrance of incense in the air, explained when he turned aside +through an open doorway into the temple itself. His heart bounded as the +refined and dainty magnificence of the place came upon him suddenly, in the +flood of early sunshine, with the ceremonial lights burning here and there, and +withal a singular expression of sacred order, a surprising cleanliness and +simplicity. Certain priests, men whose countenances bore a deep impression of +cultivated mind, each with his little group of assistants, were gliding round +silently to perform their morning salutation to the god, raising the closed +thumb and finger of the right hand with a kiss in the air, as they came and +went on their sacred business, bearing their frankincense and lustral water. +Around the walls, at such a level that the worshippers might read, as in a +book, the story of the god and his sons, the brotherhood of the Asclepiadae, +ran a series of imageries, in low relief, their delicate light and shade being +heightened, here and there, with gold. Fullest of inspired and sacred +expression, as if in this place the chisel of the artist had indeed dealt not +with marble but with the very breath of feeling and thought, was the scene in +which the earliest generation of the sons of Aesculapius were transformed into +healing dreams; for “grown now too glorious to abide longer among men, by +the aid of their sire they put away their mortal bodies, and came into another +country, yet not indeed into Elysium nor into the Islands of the Blest. But +being made like to the immortal gods, they began to pass about through the +world, changed thus far from their first form that they appear eternally young, +as many persons have seen them in many places—ministers and heralds of +their father, passing to and fro over the earth, like gliding stars. Which +thing is, indeed, the most wonderful concerning them!” And in this scene, +as throughout the series, with all its crowded personages, Marius noted on the +carved faces the same peculiar union of unction, almost of hilarity, with a +certain self-possession and reserve, which was conspicuous in the living +ministrants around him. +</p> + +<p> +In the central space, upon a pillar or pedestal, hung, ex voto, with the +richest personal ornaments, stood the image of Aesculapius himself, surrounded +by choice flowering plants. It presented the type, still with something of the +severity of the earlier art of Greece about it, not of an aged and crafty +physician, but of a youth, earnest and strong of aspect, carrying an ampulla or +bottle in one hand, and in the other a traveller’s staff, a pilgrim among +his pilgrim worshippers; and one of the ministers explained to Marius this +pilgrim guise.—One chief source of the master’s knowledge of +healing had been observation of the remedies resorted to by animals labouring +under disease or pain—what leaf or berry the lizard or dormouse lay upon +its wounded fellow; to which purpose for long years he had led the life of a +wanderer, in wild places. The boy took his place as the last comer, a little +way behind the group of worshippers who stood in front of the image. There, +with uplifted face, the palms of his two hands raised and open before him, and +taught by the priest, he said his collect of thanksgiving and prayer +(Aristeides has recorded it at the end of his Asclepiadae) to the Inspired +Dreams:— +</p> + +<p> +“O ye children of Apollo! who in time past have stilled the waves of +sorrow for many people, lighting up a lamp of safety before those who travel by +sea and land, be pleased, in your great condescension, though ye be equal in +glory with your elder brethren the Dioscuri, and your lot in immortal youth be +as theirs, to accept this prayer, which in sleep and vision ye have inspired. +Order it aright, I pray you, according to your loving-kindness to men. Preserve +me from sickness; and endue my body with such a measure of health as may +suffice it for the obeying of the spirit, that I may pass my days unhindered +and in quietness.” +</p> + +<p> +On the last morning of his visit Marius entered the shrine again, and just +before his departure the priest, who had been his special director during his +stay at the place, lifting a cunningly contrived panel, which formed the back +of one of the carved seats, bade him look through. What he saw was like the +vision of a new world, by the opening of some unsuspected window in a familiar +dwelling-place. He looked out upon a long-drawn valley of singularly cheerful +aspect, hidden, by the peculiar conformation of the locality, from all points +of observation but this. In a green meadow at the foot of the steep olive-clad +rocks below, the novices were taking their exercise. The softly sloping sides +of the vale lay alike in full sunlight; and its distant opening was closed by a +beautifully formed mountain, from which the last wreaths of morning mist were +rising under the heat. It might have seemed the very presentment of a land of +hope, its hollows brimful of a shadow of blue flowers; and lo! on the one level +space of the horizon, in a long dark line, were towers and a dome: and that was +Pisa.—Or Rome, was it? asked Marius, ready to believe the utmost, in his +excitement. +</p> + +<p> +All this served, as he understood afterwards in retrospect, at once to +strengthen and to purify a certain vein of character in him. Developing the +ideal, pre-existent there, of a religious beauty, associated for the future +with the exquisite splendour of the temple of Aesculapius, as it dawned upon +him on that morning of his first visit—it developed that ideal in +connexion with a vivid sense of the value of mental and bodily sanity. And this +recognition of the beauty, even for the aesthetic sense, of mere bodily health, +now acquired, operated afterwards as an influence morally salutary, +counteracting the less desirable or hazardous tendencies of some phases of +thought, through which he was to pass. +</p> + +<p> +He came home brown with health to find the health of his mother failing; and +about her death, which occurred not long afterwards, there was a circumstance +which rested with him as the cruellest touch of all, in an event which for a +time seemed to have taken the light out of the sunshine. She died away from +home, but sent for him at the last, with a painful effort on her part, but to +his great gratitude, pondering, as he always believed, that he might chance +otherwise to look back all his life long upon a single fault with something +like remorse, and find the burden a great one. For it happened that, through +some sudden, incomprehensible petulance there had been an angry childish +gesture, and a slighting word, at the very moment of her departure, actually +for the last time. Remembering this he would ever afterwards pray to be saved +from offences against his own affections; the thought of that marred parting +having peculiar bitterness for one, who set so much store, both by principle +and habit, on the sentiment of home. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap04"></a>CHAPTER IV.<br/> +THE TREE OF KNOWLEDGE</h2> + +<p class="poem"> +O mare! O littus! verum secretumque Mouseion,+<br/> +quam multa invenitis, quam multa dictatis!<br/> +Pliny’s Letters. +</p> + +<p> +It would hardly have been possible to feel more seriously than did Marius in +those grave years of his early life. But the death of his mother turned +seriousness of feeling into a matter of the intelligence: it made him a +questioner; and, by bringing into full evidence to him the force of his +affections and the probable importance of their place in his future, developed +in him generally the more human and earthly elements of character. A singularly +virile consciousness of the realities of life pronounced itself in him; still +however as in the main a poetic apprehension, though united already with +something of personal ambition and the instinct of self-assertion. There were +days when he could suspect, though it was a suspicion he was careful at first +to put from him, that that early, much cherished religion of the villa might +come to count with him as but one form of poetic beauty, or of the ideal, in +things; as but one voice, in a world where there were many voices it would be a +moral weakness not to listen to. And yet this voice, through its forcible +pre-occupation of his childish conscience, still seemed to make a claim of a +quite exclusive character, defining itself as essentially one of but two +possible leaders of his spirit, the other proposing to him unlimited +self-expansion in a world of various sunshine. The contrast was so pronounced +as to make the easy, light-hearted, unsuspecting exercise of himself, among the +temptations of the new phase of life which had now begun, seem nothing less +than a rival religion, a rival religious service. The temptations, the various +sunshine, were those of the old town of Pisa, where Marius was now a tall +schoolboy. Pisa was a place lying just far enough from home to make his rare +visits to it in childhood seem like adventures, such as had never failed to +supply new and refreshing impulses to the imagination. The partly decayed +pensive town, which still had its commerce by sea, and its fashion at the +bathing-season, had lent, at one time the vivid memory of its fair streets of +marble, at another the solemn outline of the dark hills of Luna on its +background, at another the living glances of its men and women, to the thickly +gathering crowd of impressions, out of which his notion of the world was then +forming. And while he learned that the object, the experience, as it will be +known to memory, is really from first to last the chief point for consideration +in the conduct of life, these things were feeding also the idealism +constitutional with him—his innate and habitual longing for a world +altogether fairer than that he saw. The child could find his way in thought +along those streets of the old town, expecting duly the shrines at their +corners, and their recurrent intervals of garden-courts, or side-views of +distant sea. The great temple of the place, as he could remember it, on turning +back once for a last look from an angle of his homeward road, counting its tall +gray columns between the blue of the bay and the blue fields of blossoming flax +beyond; the harbour and its lights; the foreign ships lying there; the +sailors’ chapel of Venus, and her gilded image, hung with votive gifts; +the seamen themselves, their women and children, who had a whole peculiar +colour-world of their own—the boy’s superficial delight in the +broad light and shadow of all that was mingled with the sense of power, of +unknown distance, of the danger of storm and possible death. +</p> + +<p> +To this place, then, Marius came down now from White-nights, to live in the +house of his guardian or tutor, that he might attend the school of a famous +rhetorician, and learn, among other things, Greek. The school, one of many +imitations of Plato’s Academy in the old Athenian garden, lay in a quiet +suburb of Pisa, and had its grove of cypresses, its porticoes, a house for the +master, its chapel and images. For the memory of Marius in after-days, a clear +morning sunlight seemed to lie perpetually on that severe picture in old gray +and green. The lad went to this school daily betimes, in state at first, with a +young slave to carry the books, and certainly with no reluctance, for the sight +of his fellow-scholars, and their petulant activity, coming upon the sadder +sentimental moods of his childhood, awoke at once that instinct of emulation +which is but the other side of sympathy; and he was not aware, of course, how +completely the difference of his previous training had made him, even in his +most enthusiastic participation in the ways of that little world, still +essentially but a spectator. While all their heart was in their limited boyish +race, and its transitory prizes, he was already entertaining himself, very +pleasurably meditative, with the tiny drama in action before him, as but the +mimic, preliminary exercise for a larger contest, and already with an implicit +epicureanism. Watching all the gallant effects of their small rivalries—a +scene in the main of fresh delightful sunshine—he entered at once into +the sensations of a rivalry beyond them, into the passion of men, and had +already recognised a certain appetite for fame, for distinction among his +fellows, as his dominant motive to be. +</p> + +<p> +The fame he conceived for himself at this time was, as the reader will have +anticipated, of the intellectual order, that of a poet perhaps. And as, in that +gray monastic tranquillity of the villa, inward voices from the reality of +unseen things had come abundantly; so here, with the sounds and aspects of the +shore, and amid the urbanities, the graceful follies, of a bathing-place, it +was the reality, the tyrannous reality, of things visible that was borne in +upon him. The real world around—a present humanity not less comely, it +might seem, than that of the old heroic days—endowing everything it +touched upon, however remotely, down to its little passing tricks of fashion +even, with a kind of fleeting beauty, exercised over him just then a great +fascination. +</p> + +<p> +That sense had come upon him in all its power one exceptionally fine summer, +the summer when, at a somewhat earlier age than was usual, he had formally +assumed the dress of manhood, going into the Forum for that purpose, +accompanied by his friends in festal array. At night, after the full measure of +those cloudless days, he would feel well-nigh wearied out, as if with a long +succession of pictures and music. As he wandered through the gay streets or on +the sea-shore, the real world seemed indeed boundless, and himself almost +absolutely free in it, with a boundless appetite for experience, for adventure, +whether physical or of the spirit. His entire rearing hitherto had lent itself +to an imaginative exaltation of the past; but now the spectacle actually +afforded to his untired and freely open senses, suggested the reflection that +the present had, it might be, really advanced beyond the past, and he was ready +to boast in the very fact that it was modern. If, in a voluntary archaism, the +polite world of that day went back to a choicer generation, as it fancied, for +the purpose of a fastidious self-correction, in matters of art, of literature, +and even, as we have seen, of religion, at least it improved, by a shade or two +of more scrupulous finish, on the old pattern; and the new era, like the +Neu-zeit of the German enthusiasts at the beginning of our own century, might +perhaps be discerned, awaiting one just a single step onward—the +perfected new manner, in the consummation of time, alike as regards the things +of the imagination and the actual conduct of life. Only, while the pursuit of +an ideal like this demanded entire liberty of heart and brain, that old, staid, +conservative religion of his childhood certainly had its being in a world of +somewhat narrow restrictions. But then, the one was absolutely real, with +nothing less than the reality of seeing and hearing—the other, how vague, +shadowy, problematical! Could its so limited probabilities be worth taking into +account in any practical question as to the rejecting or receiving of what was +indeed so real, and, on the face of it, so desirable? +</p> + +<p> +And, dating from the time of his first coming to school, a great friendship had +grown up for him, in that life of so few attachments—the pure and +disinterested friendship of schoolmates. He had seen Flavian for the first time +the day on which he had come to Pisa, at the moment when his mind was full of +wistful thoughts regarding the new life to begin for him to-morrow, and he +gazed curiously at the crowd of bustling scholars as they came from their +classes. There was something in Flavian a shade disdainful, as he stood +isolated from the others for a moment, explained in part by his stature and the +distinction of the low, broad forehead; though there was pleasantness also for +the newcomer in the roving blue eyes which seemed somehow to take a fuller hold +upon things around than is usual with boys. Marius knew that those proud +glances made kindly note of him for a moment, and felt something like +friendship at first sight. There was a tone of reserve or gravity there, amid +perfectly disciplined health, which, to his fancy, seemed to carry forward the +expression of the austere sky and the clear song of the blackbird on that gray +March evening. Flavian indeed was a creature who changed much with the changes +of the passing light and shade about him, and was brilliant enough under the +early sunshine in school next morning. Of all that little world of more or less +gifted youth, surely the centre was this lad of servile birth. Prince of the +school, he had gained an easy dominion over the old Greek master by the +fascination of his parts, and over his fellow-scholars by the figure he bore. +He wore already the manly dress; and standing there in class, as he displayed +his wonderful quickness in reckoning, or his taste in declaiming Homer, he was +like a carved figure in motion, thought Marius, but with that indescribable +gleam upon it which the words of Homer actually suggested, as perceptible on +the visible forms of the gods—hoia theous epenênothen aien eontas.+ +</p> + +<p> +A story hung by him, a story which his comrades acutely connected with his +habitual air of somewhat peevish pride. Two points were held to be clear amid +its general vagueness—a rich stranger paid his schooling, and he was +himself very poor, though there was an attractive piquancy in the poverty of +Flavian which in a scholar of another figure might have been despised. Over +Marius too his dominion was entire. Three years older than he, Flavian was +appointed to help the younger boy in his studies, and Marius thus became +virtually his servant in many things, taking his humours with a sort of +grateful pride in being noticed at all, and, thinking over all this afterwards, +found that the fascination experienced by him had been a sentimental one, +dependent on the concession to himself of an intimacy, a certain tolerance of +his company, granted to none beside. +</p> + +<p> +That was in the earliest days; and then, as their intimacy grew, the genius, +the intellectual power of Flavian began its sway over him. The brilliant youth +who loved dress, and dainty food, and flowers, and seemed to have a natural +alliance with, and claim upon, everything else which was physically select and +bright, cultivated also that foppery of words, of choice diction which was +common among the élite spirits of that day; and Marius, early an expert and +elegant penman, transcribed his verses (the euphuism of which, amid a genuine +original power, was then so delightful to him) in beautiful ink, receiving in +return the profit of Flavian’s really great intellectual capacities, +developed and accomplished under the ambitious desire to make his way +effectively in life. Among other things he introduced him to the writings of a +sprightly wit, then very busy with the pen, one Lucian—writings seeming +to overflow with that intellectual light turned upon dim places, which, at +least in seasons of mental fair weather, can make people laugh where they have +been wont, perhaps, to pray. And, surely, the sunlight which filled those +well-remembered early mornings in school, had had more than the usual measure +of gold in it! Marius, at least, would lie awake before the time, thinking with +delight of the long coming hours of hard work in the presence of Flavian, as +other boys dream of a holiday. +</p> + +<p> +It was almost by accident at last, so wayward and capricious was he, that +reserve gave way, and Flavian told the story of his father—a freedman, +presented late in life, and almost against his will, with the liberty so fondly +desired in youth, but on condition of the sacrifice of part of his +peculium—the slave’s diminutive hoard—amassed by many a +self-denial, in an existence necessarily hard. The rich man, interested in the +promise of the fair child born on his estate, had sent him to school. The +meanness and dejection, nevertheless, of that unoccupied old age defined the +leading memory of Flavian, revived sometimes, after this first confidence, with +a burst of angry tears amid the sunshine. But nature had had her economy in +nursing the strength of that one natural affection; for, save his half-selfish +care for Marius, it was the single, really generous part, the one piety, in the +lad’s character. In him Marius saw the spirit of unbelief, achieved as if +at one step. The much-admired freedman’s son, as with the privilege of a +natural aristocracy, believed only in himself, in the brilliant, and mainly +sensuous gifts, he had, or meant to acquire. +</p> + +<p> +And then, he had certainly yielded himself, though still with untouched health, +in a world where manhood comes early, to the seductions of that luxurious town, +and Marius wondered sometimes, in the freer revelation of himself by +conversation, at the extent of his early corruption. How often, afterwards, did +evil things present themselves in malign association with the memory of that +beautiful head, and with a kind of borrowed sanction and charm in its natural +grace! To Marius, at a later time, he counted for as it were an epitome of the +whole pagan world, the depth of its corruption, and its perfection of form. And +still, in his mobility, his animation, in his eager capacity for various life, +he was so real an object, after that visionary idealism of the villa. His +voice, his glance, were like the breaking in of the solid world upon one, amid +the flimsy fictions of a dream. A shadow, handling all things as shadows, had +felt a sudden real and poignant heat in them. +</p> + +<p> +Meantime, under his guidance, Marius was learning quickly and abundantly, +because with a good will. There was that in the actual effectiveness of his +figure which stimulated the younger lad to make the most of opportunity; and he +had experience already that education largely increased one’s capacity +for enjoyment. He was acquiring what it is the chief function of all higher +education to impart, the art, namely, of so relieving the ideal or poetic +traits, the elements of distinction, in our everyday life—of so +exclusively living in them—that the unadorned remainder of it, the mere +drift or débris of our days, comes to be as though it were not. And the +consciousness of this aim came with the reading of one particular book, then +fresh in the world, with which he fell in about this time—a book which +awakened the poetic or romantic capacity as perhaps some other book might have +done, but was peculiar in giving it a direction emphatically sensuous. It made +him, in that visionary reception of every-day life, the seer, more especially, +of a revelation in colour and form. If our modern education, in its better +efforts, really conveys to any of us that kind of idealising power, it does so +(though dealing mainly, as its professed instruments, with the most select and +ideal remains of ancient literature) oftenest by truant reading; and thus it +happened also, long ago, with Marius and his friend. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +NOTES +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +43. +Transliteration: Mouseion. The word means “seat of the muses.” +Translation: “O sea! O shore! my own Helicon, / How many things have you +uncovered to me, how many things suggested!” Pliny, Letters, Book I, ix, +to Minicius Fundanus. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +50. +Transliteration: hoia theous epenênothen aien eontas. Translation: +“such as the gods are endowed with.” Homer, Odyssey, 8.365. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap05"></a>CHAPTER V.<br/> +THE GOLDEN BOOK</h2> + +<p> +The two lads were lounging together over a book, half-buried in a heap of dry +corn, in an old granary—the quiet corner to which they had climbed out of +the way of their noisier companions on one of their blandest holiday +afternoons. They looked round: the western sun smote through the broad chinks +of the shutters. How like a picture! and it was precisely the scene described +in what they were reading, with just that added poetic touch in the book which +made it delightful and select, and, in the actual place, the ray of sunlight +transforming the rough grain among the cool brown shadows into heaps of gold. +What they were intent on was, indeed, the book of books, the +“golden” book of that day, a gift to Flavian, as was shown by the +purple writing on the handsome yellow wrapper, following the title +Flaviane!—it said, +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +Flaviane! lege Felicitur!<br/> +Flaviane! Vivas! Fioreas!<br/> +Flaviane! Vivas! Gaudeas! +</p> + +<p> +It was perfumed with oil of sandal-wood, and decorated with carved and gilt +ivory bosses at the ends of the roller. +</p> + +<p> +And the inside was something not less dainty and fine, full of the archaisms +and curious felicities in which that generation delighted, quaint terms and +images picked fresh from the early dramatists, the lifelike phrases of some +lost poet preserved by an old grammarian, racy morsels of the vernacular and +studied prettinesses:—all alike, mere playthings for the genuine power +and natural eloquence of the erudite artist, unsuppressed by his erudition, +which, however, made some people angry, chiefly less well “got-up” +people, and especially those who were untidy from indolence. +</p> + +<p> +No! it was certainly not that old-fashioned, unconscious ease of the early +literature, which could never come again; which, after all, had had more in +common with the “infinite patience” of Apuleius than with the +hack-work readiness of his detractors, who might so well have been +“self-conscious” of going slip-shod. And at least his success was +unmistakable as to the precise literary effect he had intended, including a +certain tincture of “neology” in expression—nonnihil interdum +elocutione novella parum signatum—in the language of Cornelius Fronto, +the contemporary prince of rhetoricians. What words he had found for conveying, +with a single touch, the sense of textures, colours, incidents! “Like +jewellers’ work! Like a myrrhine vase!”—admirers said of his +writing. “The golden fibre in the hair, the gold thread-work in the gown +marked her as the mistress”—aurum in comis et in tunicis, ibi +inflexum hic intextum, matronam profecto confitebatur—he writes, with his +“curious felicity,” of one of his heroines. Aurum intextum: gold +fibre:—well! there was something of that kind in his own work. And then, +in an age when people, from the emperor Aurelius downwards, prided themselves +unwisely on writing in Greek, he had written for Latin people in their own +tongue; though still, in truth, with all the care of a learned language. Not +less happily inventive were the incidents recorded—story within +story—stories with the sudden, unlooked-for changes of dreams. He had his +humorous touches also. And what went to the ordinary boyish taste, in those +somewhat peculiar readers, what would have charmed boys more purely boyish, was +the adventure:—the bear loose in the house at night, the wolves storming +the farms in winter, the exploits of the robbers, their charming caves, the +delightful thrill one had at the question—“Don’t you know +that these roads are infested by robbers?” +</p> + +<p> +The scene of the romance was laid in Thessaly, the original land of witchcraft, +and took one up and down its mountains, and into its old weird towns, haunts of +magic and incantation, where all the more genuine appliances of the black art, +left behind her by Medea when she fled through that country, were still in use. +In the city of Hypata, indeed, nothing seemed to be its true +self—“You might think that through the murmuring of some cadaverous +spell, all things had been changed into forms not their own; that there was +humanity in the hardness of the stones you stumbled on; that the birds you +heard singing were feathered men; that the trees around the walls drew their +leaves from a like source. The statues seemed about to move, the walls to +speak, the dumb cattle to break out in prophecy; nay! the very sky and the +sunbeams, as if they might suddenly cry out.” Witches are there who can +draw down the moon, or at least the lunar virus—that white fluid she +sheds, to be found, so rarely, “on high, heathy places: which is a +poison. A touch of it will drive men mad.” +</p> + +<p> +And in one very remote village lives the sorceress Pamphile, who turns her +neighbours into various animals. What true humour in the scene where, after +mounting the rickety stairs, Lucius, peeping curiously through a chink in the +door, is a spectator of the transformation of the old witch herself into a +bird, that she may take flight to the object of her affections—into an +owl! “First she stripped off every rag she had. Then opening a certain +chest she took from it many small boxes, and removing the lid of one of them, +rubbed herself over for a long time, from head to foot, with an ointment it +contained, and after much low muttering to her lamp, began to jerk at last and +shake her limbs. And as her limbs moved to and fro, out burst the soft +feathers: stout wings came forth to view: the nose grew hard and hooked: her +nails were crooked into claws; and Pamphile was an owl. She uttered a queasy +screech; and, leaping little by little from the ground, making trial of +herself, fled presently, on full wing, out of doors.” +</p> + +<p> +By clumsy imitation of this process, Lucius, the hero of the romance, +transforms himself, not as he had intended into a showy winged creature, but +into the animal which has given name to the book; for throughout it there runs +a vein of racy, homely satire on the love of magic then prevalent, curiosity +concerning which had led Lucius to meddle with the old woman’s +appliances. “Be you my Venus,” he says to the pretty maid-servant +who has introduced him to the view of Pamphile, “and let me stand by you +a winged Cupid!” and, freely applying the magic ointment, sees himself +transformed, “not into a bird, but into an ass!” +</p> + +<p> +Well! the proper remedy for his distress is a supper of roses, could such be +found, and many are his quaintly picturesque attempts to come by them at that +adverse season; as he contrives to do at last, when, the grotesque procession +of Isis passing by with a bear and other strange animals in its train, the ass +following along with the rest suddenly crunches the chaplet of roses carried in +the High-priest’s hand. +</p> + +<p> +Meantime, however, he must wait for the spring, with more than the outside of +an ass; “though I was not so much a fool, nor so truly an ass,” he +tells us, when he happens to be left alone with a daintily spread table, +“as to neglect this most delicious fare, and feed upon coarse hay.” +For, in truth, all through the book, there is an unmistakably real feeling for +asses, with bold touches like Swift’s, and a genuine animal breadth. +Lucius was the original ass, who peeping slily from the window of his +hiding-place forgot all about the big shade he cast just above him, and gave +occasion to the joke or proverb about “the peeping ass and his +shadow.” +</p> + +<p> +But the marvellous, delight in which is one of the really serious elements in +most boys, passed at times, those young readers still feeling its fascination, +into what French writers call the macabre—that species of almost insane +pre-occupation with the materialities of our mouldering flesh, that luxury of +disgust in gazing on corruption, which was connected, in this writer at least, +with not a little obvious coarseness. It was a strange notion of the gross lust +of the actual world, that Marius took from some of these episodes. “I am +told,” they read, “that when foreigners are interred, the old +witches are in the habit of out-racing the funeral procession, to ravage the +corpse”—in order to obtain certain cuttings and remnants from it, +with which to injure the living—“especially if the witch has +happened to cast her eye upon some goodly young man.” And the scene of +the night-watching of a dead body lest the witches should come to tear off the +flesh with their teeth, is worthy of Théophile Gautier. +</p> + +<p> +But set as one of the episodes in the main narrative, a true gem amid its +mockeries, its coarse though genuine humanity, its burlesque horrors, came the +tale of Cupid and Psyche, full of brilliant, life-like situations, speciosa +locis, and abounding in lovely visible imagery (one seemed to see and handle +the golden hair, the fresh flowers, the precious works of art in it!) yet full +also of a gentle idealism, so that you might take it, if you chose, for an +allegory. With a concentration of all his finer literary gifts, Apuleius had +gathered into it the floating star-matter of many a delightful old +story.— +</p> + +<p class="center"> +The Story of Cupid and Psyche. +</p> + +<p> +In a certain city lived a king and queen who had three daughters exceeding +fair. But the beauty of the elder sisters, though pleasant to behold, yet +passed not the measure of human praise, while such was the loveliness of the +youngest that men’s speech was too poor to commend it worthily and could +express it not at all. Many of the citizens and of strangers, whom the fame of +this excellent vision had gathered thither, confounded by that matchless +beauty, could but kiss the finger-tips of their right hands at sight of her, as +in adoration to the goddess Venus herself. And soon a rumour passed through the +country that she whom the blue deep had borne, forbearing her divine dignity, +was even then moving among men, or that by some fresh germination from the +stars, not the sea now, but the earth, had put forth a new Venus, endued with +the flower of virginity. +</p> + +<p> +This belief, with the fame of the maiden’s loveliness, went daily further +into distant lands, so that many people were drawn together to behold that +glorious model of the age. Men sailed no longer to Paphos, to Cnidus or +Cythera, to the presence of the goddess Venus: her sacred rites were neglected, +her images stood uncrowned, the cold ashes were left to disfigure her forsaken +altars. It was to a maiden that men’s prayers were offered, to a human +countenance they looked, in propitiating so great a godhead: when the girl went +forth in the morning they strewed flowers on her way, and the victims proper to +that unseen goddess were presented as she passed along. This conveyance of +divine worship to a mortal kindled meantime the anger of the true Venus. +“Lo! now, the ancient parent of nature,” she cried, “the +fountain of all elements! Behold me, Venus, benign mother of the world, sharing +my honours with a mortal maiden, while my name, built up in heaven, is profaned +by the mean things of earth! Shall a perishable woman bear my image about with +her? In vain did the shepherd of Ida prefer me! Yet shall she have little joy, +whosoever she be, of her usurped and unlawful loveliness!” Thereupon she +called to her that winged, bold boy, of evil ways, who wanders armed by night +through men’s houses, spoiling their marriages; and stirring yet more by +her speech his inborn wantonness, she led him to the city, and showed him +Psyche as she walked. +</p> + +<p> +“I pray thee,” she said, “give thy mother a full revenge. Let +this maid become the slave of an unworthy love.” Then, embracing him +closely, she departed to the shore and took her throne upon the crest of the +wave. And lo! at her unuttered will, her ocean-servants are in waiting: the +daughters of Nereus are there singing their song, and Portunus, and Salacia, +and the tiny charioteer of the dolphin, with a host of Tritons leaping through +the billows. And one blows softly through his sounding sea-shell, another +spreads a silken web against the sun, a third presents the mirror to the eyes +of his mistress, while the others swim side by side below, drawing her chariot. +Such was the escort of Venus as she went upon the sea. +</p> + +<p> +Psyche meantime, aware of her loveliness, had no fruit thereof. All people +regarded and admired, but none sought her in marriage. It was but as on the +finished work of the craftsman that they gazed upon that divine likeness. Her +sisters, less fair than she, were happily wedded. She, even as a widow, sitting +at home, wept over her desolation, hating in her heart the beauty in which all +men were pleased. +</p> + +<p> +And the king, supposing the gods were angry, inquired of the oracle of Apollo, +and Apollo answered him thus: “Let the damsel be placed on the top of a +certain mountain, adorned as for the bed of marriage and of death. Look not for +a son-in-law of mortal birth; but for that evil serpent-thing, by reason of +whom even the gods tremble and the shadows of Styx are afraid.” +</p> + +<p> +So the king returned home and made known the oracle to his wife. For many days +she lamented, but at last the fulfilment of the divine precept is urgent upon +her, and the company make ready to conduct the maiden to her deadly bridal. And +now the nuptial torch gathers dark smoke and ashes: the pleasant sound of the +pipe is changed into a cry: the marriage hymn concludes in a sorrowful wailing: +below her yellow wedding-veil the bride shook away her tears; insomuch that the +whole city was afflicted together at the ill-luck of the stricken house. +</p> + +<p> +But the mandate of the god impelled the hapless Psyche to her fate, and, these +solemnities being ended, the funeral of the living soul goes forth, all the +people following. Psyche, bitterly weeping, assists not at her marriage but at +her own obsequies, and while the parents hesitate to accomplish a thing so +unholy the daughter cries to them: “Wherefore torment your luckless age +by long weeping? This was the prize of my extraordinary beauty! When all people +celebrated us with divine honours, and in one voice named the New Venus, it was +then ye should have wept for me as one dead. Now at last I understand that that +one name of Venus has been my ruin. Lead me and set me upon the appointed +place. I am in haste to submit to that well-omened marriage, to behold that +goodly spouse. Why delay the coming of him who was born for the destruction of +the whole world?” +</p> + +<p> +She was silent, and with firm step went on the way. And they proceeded to the +appointed place on a steep mountain, and left there the maiden alone, and took +their way homewards dejectedly. The wretched parents, in their close-shut +house, yielded themselves to perpetual night; while to Psyche, fearful and +trembling and weeping sore upon the mountain-top, comes the gentle Zephyrus. He +lifts her mildly, and, with vesture afloat on either side, bears her by his own +soft breathing over the windings of the hills, and sets her lightly among the +flowers in the bosom of a valley below. +</p> + +<p> +Psyche, in those delicate grassy places, lying sweetly on her dewy bed, rested +from the agitation of her soul and arose in peace. And lo! a grove of mighty +trees, with a fount of water, clear as glass, in the midst; and hard by the +water, a dwelling-place, built not by human hands but by some divine cunning. +One recognised, even at the entering, the delightful hostelry of a god. Golden +pillars sustained the roof, arched most curiously in cedar-wood and ivory. The +walls were hidden under wrought silver:—all tame and woodland creatures +leaping forward to the visitor’s gaze. Wonderful indeed was the +craftsman, divine or half-divine, who by the subtlety of his art had breathed +so wild a soul into the silver! The very pavement was distinct with pictures in +goodly stones. In the glow of its precious metal the house is its own daylight, +having no need of the sun. Well might it seem a place fashioned for the +conversation of gods with men! +</p> + +<p> +Psyche, drawn forward by the delight of it, came near, and, her courage +growing, stood within the doorway. One by one, she admired the beautiful things +she saw; and, most wonderful of all! no lock, no chain, nor living guardian +protected that great treasure house. But as she gazed there came a +voice—a voice, as it were unclothed of bodily +vesture—“Mistress!” it said, “all these things are +thine. Lie down, and relieve thy weariness, and rise again for the bath when +thou wilt. We thy servants, whose voice thou hearest, will be beforehand with +our service, and a royal feast shall be ready.” +</p> + +<p> +And Psyche understood that some divine care was providing, and, refreshed with +sleep and the Bath, sat down to the feast. Still she saw no one: only she heard +words falling here and there, and had voices alone to serve her. And the feast +being ended, one entered the chamber and sang to her unseen, while another +struck the chords of a harp, invisible with him who played on it. Afterwards +the sound of a company singing together came to her, but still so that none +were present to sight; yet it appeared that a great multitude of singers was +there. +</p> + +<p> +And the hour of evening inviting her, she climbed into the bed; and as the +night was far advanced, behold a sound of a certain clemency approaches her. +Then, fearing for her maidenhood in so great solitude, she trembled, and more +than any evil she knew dreaded that she knew not. And now the husband, that +unknown husband, drew near, and ascended the couch, and made her his wife; and +lo! before the rise of dawn he had departed hastily. And the attendant voices +ministered to the needs of the newly married. And so it happened with her for a +long season. And as nature has willed, this new thing, by continual use, became +a delight to her: the sound of the voice grew to be her solace in that +condition of loneliness and uncertainty. +</p> + +<p> +One night the bridegroom spoke thus to his beloved, “O Psyche, most +pleasant bride! Fortune is grown stern with us, and threatens thee with mortal +peril. Thy sisters, troubled at the report of thy death and seeking some trace +of thee, will come to the mountain’s top. But if by chance their cries +reach thee, answer not, neither look forth at all, lest thou bring sorrow upon +me and destruction upon thyself.” Then Psyche promised that she would do +according to his will. But the bridegroom was fled away again with the night. +And all that day she spent in tears, repeating that she was now dead indeed, +shut up in that golden prison, powerless to console her sisters sorrowing after +her, or to see their faces; and so went to rest weeping. +</p> + +<p> +And after a while came the bridegroom again, and lay down beside her, and +embracing her as she wept, complained, “Was this thy promise, my Psyche? +What have I to hope from thee? Even in the arms of thy husband thou ceasest not +from pain. Do now as thou wilt. Indulge thine own desire, though it seeks what +will ruin thee. Yet wilt thou remember my warning, repentant too late.” +Then, protesting that she is like to die, she obtains from him that he suffer +her to see her sisters, and present to them moreover what gifts she would of +golden ornaments; but therewith he ofttimes advised her never at any time, +yielding to pernicious counsel, to enquire concerning his bodily form, lest she +fall, through unholy curiosity, from so great a height of fortune, nor feel +ever his embrace again. “I would die a hundred times,” she said, +cheerful at last, “rather than be deprived of thy most sweet usage. I +love thee as my own soul, beyond comparison even with Love himself. Only bid +thy servant Zephyrus bring hither my sisters, as he brought me. My honeycomb! +My husband! Thy Psyche’s breath of life!” So he promised; and after +the embraces of the night, ere the light appeared, vanished from the hands of +his bride. +</p> + +<p> +And the sisters, coming to the place where Psyche was abandoned, wept loudly +among the rocks, and called upon her by name, so that the sound came down to +her, and running out of the palace distraught, she cried, “Wherefore +afflict your souls with lamentation? I whom you mourn am here.” Then, +summoning Zephyrus, she reminded him of her husband’s bidding; and he +bare them down with a gentle blast. “Enter now,” she said, +“into my house, and relieve your sorrow in the company of Psyche your +sister.” +</p> + +<p> +And Psyche displayed to them all the treasures of the golden house, and its +great family of ministering voices, nursing in them the malice which was +already at their hearts. And at last one of them asks curiously who the lord of +that celestial array may be, and what manner of man her husband? And Psyche +answered dissemblingly, “A young man, handsome and mannerly, with a +goodly beard. For the most part he hunts upon the mountains.” And lest +the secret should slip from her in the way of further speech, loading her +sisters with gold and gems, she commanded Zephyrus to bear them away. +</p> + +<p> +And they returned home, on fire with envy. “See now the injustice of +fortune!” cried one. “We, the elder children, are given like +servants to be the wives of strangers, while the youngest is possessed of so +great riches, who scarcely knows how to use them. You saw, Sister! what a hoard +of wealth lies in the house; what glittering gowns; what splendour of precious +gems, besides all that gold trodden under foot. If she indeed hath, as she +said, a bridegroom so goodly, then no one in all the world is happier. And it +may be that this husband, being of divine nature, will make her too a goddess. +Nay! so in truth it is. It was even thus she bore herself. Already she looks +aloft and breathes divinity, who, though but a woman, has voices for her +handmaidens, and can command the winds.” “Think,” answered +the other, “how arrogantly she dealt with us, grudging us these trifling +gifts out of all that store, and when our company became a burden, causing us +to be hissed and driven away from her through the air! But I am no woman if she +keep her hold on this great fortune; and if the insult done us has touched thee +too, take we counsel together. Meanwhile let us hold our peace, and know naught +of her, alive or dead. For they are not truly happy of whose happiness other +folk are unaware.” +</p> + +<p> +And the bridegroom, whom still she knows not, warns her thus a second time, as +he talks with her by night: “Seest thou what peril besets thee? Those +cunning wolves have made ready for thee their snares, of which the sum is that +they persuade thee to search into the fashion of my countenance, the seeing of +which, as I have told thee often, will be the seeing of it no more for ever. +But do thou neither listen nor make answer to aught regarding thy husband. +Besides, we have sown also the seed of our race. Even now this bosom grows with +a child to be born to us, a child, if thou but keep our secret, of divine +quality; if thou profane it, subject to death.” And Psyche was glad at +the tidings, rejoicing in that solace of a divine seed, and in the glory of +that pledge of love to be, and the dignity of the name of mother. Anxiously she +notes the increase of the days, the waning months. And again, as he tarries +briefly beside her, the bridegroom repeats his warning: +</p> + +<p> +“Even now the sword is drawn with which thy sisters seek thy life. Have +pity on thyself, sweet wife, and upon our child, and see not those evil women +again.” But the sisters make their way into the palace once more, crying +to her in wily tones, “O Psyche! and thou too wilt be a mother! How great +will be the joy at home! Happy indeed shall we be to have the nursing of the +golden child. Truly if he be answerable to the beauty of his parents, it will +be a birth of Cupid himself.” +</p> + +<p> +So, little by little, they stole upon the heart of their sister. She, +meanwhile, bids the lyre to sound for their delight, and the playing is heard: +she bids the pipes to move, the quire to sing, and the music and the singing +come invisibly, soothing the mind of the listener with sweetest modulation. Yet +not even thereby was their malice put to sleep: once more they seek to know +what manner of husband she has, and whence that seed. And Psyche, simple +over-much, forgetful of her first story, answers, “My husband comes from +a far country, trading for great sums. He is already of middle age, with +whitening locks.” And therewith she dismisses them again. +</p> + +<p> +And returning home upon the soft breath of Zephyrus one cried to the other, +“What shall be said of so ugly a lie? He who was a young man with goodly +beard is now in middle life. It must be that she told a false tale: else is she +in very truth ignorant what manner of man he is. Howsoever it be, let us +destroy her quickly. For if she indeed knows not, be sure that her bridegroom +is one of the gods: it is a god she bears in her womb. And let that be far from +us! If she be called mother of a god, then will life be more than I can +bear.” +</p> + +<p> +So, full of rage against her, they returned to Psyche, and said to her +craftily, “Thou livest in an ignorant bliss, all incurious of thy real +danger. It is a deadly serpent, as we certainly know, that comes to sleep at +thy side. Remember the words of the oracle, which declared thee destined to a +cruel beast. There are those who have seen it at nightfall, coming back from +its feeding. In no long time, they say, it will end its blandishments. It but +waits for the babe to be formed in thee, that it may devour thee by so much the +richer. If indeed the solitude of this musical place, or it may be the +loathsome commerce of a hidden love, delight thee, we at least in sisterly +piety have done our part.” And at last the unhappy Psyche, simple and +frail of soul, carried away by the terror of their words, losing memory of her +husband’s precepts and her own promise, brought upon herself a great +calamity. Trembling and turning pale, she answers them, “And they who +tell those things, it may be, speak the truth. For in very deed never have I +seen the face of my husband, nor know I at all what manner of man he is. Always +he frights me diligently from the sight of him, threatening some great evil +should I too curiously look upon his face. Do ye, if ye can help your sister in +her great peril, stand by her now.” +</p> + +<p> +Her sisters answered her, “The way of safety we have well considered, and +will teach thee. Take a sharp knife, and hide it in that part of the couch +where thou art wont to lie: take also a lamp filled with oil, and set it +privily behind the curtain. And when he shall have drawn up his coils into the +accustomed place, and thou hearest him breathe in sleep, slip then from his +side and discover the lamp, and, knife in hand, put forth thy strength, and +strike off the serpent’s head.” And so they departed in haste. +</p> + +<p> +And Psyche left alone (alone but for the furies which beset her) is tossed up +and down in her distress, like a wave of the sea; and though her will is firm, +yet, in the moment of putting hand to the deed, she falters, and is torn +asunder by various apprehension of the great calamity upon her. She hastens and +anon delays, now full of distrust, and now of angry courage: under one bodily +form she loathes the monster and loves the bridegroom. But twilight ushers in +the night; and at length in haste she makes ready for the terrible deed. +Darkness came, and the bridegroom; and he first, after some faint essay of +love, falls into a deep sleep. +</p> + +<p> +And she, erewhile of no strength, the hard purpose of destiny assisting her, is +confirmed in force. With lamp plucked forth, knife in hand, she put by her sex; +and lo! as the secrets of the bed became manifest, the sweetest and most gentle +of all creatures, Love himself, reclined there, in his own proper loveliness! +At sight of him the very flame of the lamp kindled more gladly! But Psyche was +afraid at the vision, and, faint of soul, trembled back upon her knees, and +would have hidden the steel in her own bosom. But the knife slipped from her +hand; and now, undone, yet ofttimes looking upon the beauty of that divine +countenance, she lives again. She sees the locks of that golden head, pleasant +with the unction of the gods, shed down in graceful entanglement behind and +before, about the ruddy cheeks and white throat. The pinions of the winged god, +yet fresh with the dew, are spotless upon his shoulders, the delicate plumage +wavering over them as they lie at rest. Smooth he was, and, touched with light, +worthy of Venus his mother. At the foot of the couch lay his bow and arrows, +the instruments of his power, propitious to men. +</p> + +<p> +And Psyche, gazing hungrily thereon, draws an arrow from the quiver, and trying +the point upon her thumb, tremulous still, drave in the barb, so that a drop of +blood came forth. Thus fell she, by her own act, and unaware, into the love of +Love. Falling upon the bridegroom, with indrawn breath, in a hurry of kisses +from eager and open lips, she shuddered as she thought how brief that sleep +might be. And it chanced that a drop of burning oil fell from the lamp upon the +god’s shoulder. Ah! maladroit minister of love, thus to wound him from +whom all fire comes; though ’twas a lover, I trow, first devised thee, to +have the fruit of his desire even in the darkness! At the touch of the fire the +god started up, and beholding the overthrow of her faith, quietly took flight +from her embraces. +</p> + +<p> +And Psyche, as he rose upon the wing, laid hold on him with her two hands, +hanging upon him in his passage through the air, till she sinks to the earth +through weariness. And as she lay there, the divine lover, tarrying still, +lighted upon a cypress tree which grew near, and, from the top of it, spake +thus to her, in great emotion. “Foolish one! unmindful of the command of +Venus, my mother, who had devoted thee to one of base degree, I fled to thee in +his stead. Now know I that this was vainly done. Into mine own flesh pierced +mine arrow, and I made thee my wife, only that I might seem a monster beside +thee—that thou shouldst seek to wound the head wherein lay the eyes so +full of love to thee! Again and again, I thought to put thee on thy guard +concerning these things, and warned thee in loving-kindness. Now I would but +punish thee by my flight hence.” And therewith he winged his way into the +deep sky. +</p> + +<p> +Psyche, prostrate upon the earth, and following far as sight might reach the +flight of the bridegroom, wept and lamented; and when the breadth of space had +parted him wholly from her, cast herself down from the bank of a river which +was nigh. But the stream, turning gentle in honour of the god, put her forth +again unhurt upon its margin. And as it happened, Pan, the rustic god, was +sitting just then by the waterside, embracing, in the body of a reed, the +goddess Canna; teaching her to respond to him in all varieties of slender +sound. Hard by, his flock of goats browsed at will. And the shaggy god called +her, wounded and outworn, kindly to him and said, “I am but a rustic +herdsman, pretty maiden, yet wise, by favour of my great age and long +experience; and if I guess truly by those faltering steps, by thy sorrowful +eyes and continual sighing, thou labourest with excess of love. Listen then to +me, and seek not death again, in the stream or otherwise. Put aside thy woe, +and turn thy prayers to Cupid. He is in truth a delicate youth: win him by the +delicacy of thy service.” +</p> + +<p> +So the shepherd-god spoke, and Psyche, answering nothing, but with a reverence +to his serviceable deity, went on her way. And while she, in her search after +Cupid, wandered through many lands, he was lying in the chamber of his mother, +heart-sick. And the white bird which floats over the waves plunged in haste +into the sea, and approaching Venus, as she bathed, made known to her that her +son lies afflicted with some grievous hurt, doubtful of life. And Venus cried, +angrily, “My son, then, has a mistress! And it is Psyche, who witched +away my beauty and was the rival of my godhead, whom he loves!” +</p> + +<p> +Therewith she issued from the sea, and returning to her golden chamber, found +there the lad, sick, as she had heard, and cried from the doorway, “Well +done, truly! to trample thy mother’s precepts under foot, to spare my +enemy that cross of an unworthy love; nay, unite her to thyself, child as thou +art, that I might have a daughter-in-law who hates me! I will make thee repent +of thy sport, and the savour of thy marriage bitter. There is one who shall +chasten this body of thine, put out thy torch and unstring thy bow. Not till +she has plucked forth that hair, into which so oft these hands have smoothed +the golden light, and sheared away thy wings, shall I feel the injury done me +avenged.” And with this she hastened in anger from the doors. +</p> + +<p> +And Ceres and Juno met her, and sought to know the meaning of her troubled +countenance. “Ye come in season,” she cried; “I pray you, +find for me Psyche. It must needs be that ye have heard the disgrace of my +house.” And they, ignorant of what was done, would have soothed her +anger, saying, “What fault, Mistress, hath thy son committed, that thou +wouldst destroy the girl he loves? Knowest thou not that he is now of age? +Because he wears his years so lightly must he seem to thee ever but a child? +Wilt thou for ever thus pry into the pastimes of thy son, always accusing his +wantonness, and blaming in him those delicate wiles which are all thine +own?” Thus, in secret fear of the boy’s bow, did they seek to +please him with their gracious patronage. But Venus, angry at their light +taking of her wrongs, turned her back upon them, and with hasty steps made her +way once more to the sea. +</p> + +<p> +Meanwhile Psyche, tost in soul, wandering hither and thither, rested not night +or day in the pursuit of her husband, desiring, if she might not soothe his +anger by the endearments of a wife, at the least to propitiate him with the +prayers of a handmaid. And seeing a certain temple on the top of a high +mountain, she said, “Who knows whether yonder place be not the abode of +my lord?” Thither, therefore, she turned her steps, hastening now the +more because desire and hope pressed her on, weary as she was with the labours +of the way, and so, painfully measuring out the highest ridges of the mountain, +drew near to the sacred couches. She sees ears of wheat, in heaps or twisted +into chaplets; ears of barley also, with sickles and all the instruments of +harvest, lying there in disorder, thrown at random from the hands of the +labourers in the great heat. These she curiously sets apart, one by one, duly +ordering them; for she said within herself, “I may not neglect the +shrines, nor the holy service, of any god there be, but must rather win by +supplication the kindly mercy of them all.” +</p> + +<p> +And Ceres found her bending sadly upon her task, and cried aloud, “Alas, +Psyche! Venus, in the furiousness of her anger, tracks thy footsteps through +the world, seeking for thee to pay her the utmost penalty; and thou, thinking +of anything rather than thine own safety, hast taken on thee the care of what +belongs to me!” Then Psyche fell down at her feet, and sweeping the floor +with her hair, washing the footsteps of the goddess in her tears, besought her +mercy, with many prayers:—“By the gladdening rites of harvest, by +the lighted lamps and mystic marches of the Marriage and mysterious Invention +of thy daughter Proserpine, and by all beside that the holy place of Attica +veils in silence, minister, I pray thee, to the sorrowful heart of Psyche! +Suffer me to hide myself but for a few days among the heaps of corn, till time +have softened the anger of the goddess, and my strength, out-worn in my long +travail, be recovered by a little rest.” +</p> + +<p> +But Ceres answered her, “Truly thy tears move me, and I would fain help +thee; only I dare not incur the ill-will of my kinswoman. Depart hence as +quickly as may be.” And Psyche, repelled against hope, afflicted now with +twofold sorrow, making her way back again, beheld among the half-lighted woods +of the valley below a sanctuary builded with cunning art. And that she might +lose no way of hope, howsoever doubtful, she drew near to the sacred doors. She +sees there gifts of price, and garments fixed upon the door-posts and to the +branches of the trees, wrought with letters of gold which told the name of the +goddess to whom they were dedicated, with thanksgiving for that she had done. +So, with bent knee and hands laid about the glowing altar, she prayed saying, +“Sister and spouse of Jupiter! be thou to these my desperate +fortune’s Juno the Auspicious! I know that thou dost willingly help those +in travail with child; deliver me from the peril that is upon me.” And as +she prayed thus, Juno in the majesty of her godhead, was straightway present, +and answered, “Would that I might incline favourably to thee; but against +the will of Venus, whom I have ever loved as a daughter, I may not, for very +shame, grant thy prayer.” +</p> + +<p> +And Psyche, dismayed by this new shipwreck of her hope, communed thus with +herself, “Whither, from the midst of the snares that beset me, shall I +take my way once more? In what dark solitude shall I hide me from the +all-seeing eye of Venus? What if I put on at length a man’s courage, and +yielding myself unto her as my mistress, soften by a humility not yet too late +the fierceness of her purpose? Who knows but that I may find him also whom my +soul seeketh after, in the abode of his mother?” +</p> + +<p> +And Venus, renouncing all earthly aid in her search, prepared to return to +heaven. She ordered the chariot to be made ready, wrought for her by Vulcan as +a marriage-gift, with a cunning of hand which had left his work so much the +richer by the weight of gold it lost under his tool. From the multitude which +housed about the bed-chamber of their mistress, white doves came forth, and +with joyful motions bent their painted necks beneath the yoke. Behind it, with +playful riot, the sparrows sped onward, and other birds sweet of song, making +known by their soft notes the approach of the goddess. Eagle and cruel hawk +alarmed not the quireful family of Venus. And the clouds broke away, as the +uttermost ether opened to receive her, daughter and goddess, with great joy. +</p> + +<p> +And Venus passed straightway to the house of Jupiter to beg from him the +service of Mercury, the god of speech. And Jupiter refused not her prayer. And +Venus and Mercury descended from heaven together; and as they went, the former +said to the latter, “Thou knowest, my brother of Arcady, that never at +any time have I done anything without thy help; for how long time, moreover, I +have sought a certain maiden in vain. And now naught remains but that, by thy +heraldry, I proclaim a reward for whomsoever shall find her. Do thou my bidding +quickly.” And therewith she conveyed to him a little scrip, in the which +was written the name of Psyche, with other things; and so returned home. +</p> + +<p> +And Mercury failed not in his office; but departing into all lands, proclaimed +that whosoever delivered up to Venus the fugitive girl, should receive from +herself seven kisses—one thereof full of the inmost honey of her throat. +With that the doubt of Psyche was ended. And now, as she came near to the doors +of Venus, one of the household, whose name was Use-and-Wont, ran out to her, +crying, “Hast thou learned, Wicked Maid! now at last! that thou hast a +mistress?” And seizing her roughly by the hair, drew her into the +presence of Venus. And when Venus saw her, she cried out, saying, “Thou +hast deigned then to make thy salutations to thy mother-in-law. Now will I in +turn treat thee as becometh a dutiful daughter-in-law!” +</p> + +<p> +And she took barley and millet and poppy-seed, every kind of grain and seed, +and mixed them together, and laughed, and said to her: “Methinks so plain +a maiden can earn lovers only by industrious ministry: now will I also make +trial of thy service. Sort me this heap of seed, the one kind from the others, +grain by grain; and get thy task done before the evening.” And Psyche, +stunned by the cruelty of her bidding, was silent, and moved not her hand to +the inextricable heap. And there came forth a little ant, which had +understanding of the difficulty of her task, and took pity upon the consort of +the god of Love; and he ran deftly hither and thither, and called together the +whole army of his fellows. “Have pity,” he cried, “nimble +scholars of the Earth, Mother of all things!—have pity upon the wife of +Love, and hasten to help her in her perilous effort.” Then, one upon the +other, the hosts of the insect people hurried together; and they sorted asunder +the whole heap of seed, separating every grain after its kind, and so departed +quickly out of sight. +</p> + +<p> +And at nightfall Venus returned, and seeing that task finished with so +wonderful diligence, she cried, “The work is not thine, thou naughty +maid, but his in whose eyes thou hast found favour.” And calling her +again in the morning, “See now the grove,” she said, “beyond +yonder torrent. Certain sheep feed there, whose fleeces shine with gold. Fetch +me straightway a lock of that precious stuff, having gotten it as thou +mayst.” +</p> + +<p> +And Psyche went forth willingly, not to obey the command of Venus, but even to +seek a rest from her labour in the depths of the river. But from the river, the +green reed, lowly mother of music, spake to her: “O Psyche! pollute not +these waters by self-destruction, nor approach that terrible flock; for, as the +heat groweth, they wax fierce. Lie down under yon plane-tree, till the quiet of +the river’s breath have soothed them. Thereafter thou mayst shake down +the fleecy gold from the trees of the grove, for it holdeth by the +leaves.” +</p> + +<p> +And Psyche, instructed thus by the simple reed, in the humanity of its heart, +filled her bosom with the soft golden stuff, and returned to Venus. But the +goddess smiled bitterly, and said to her, “Well know I who was the author +of this thing also. I will make further trial of thy discretion, and the +boldness of thy heart. Seest thou the utmost peak of yonder steep mountain? The +dark stream which flows down thence waters the Stygian fields, and swells the +flood of Cocytus. Bring me now, in this little urn, a draught from its +innermost source.” And therewith she put into her hands a vessel of +wrought crystal. +</p> + +<p> +And Psyche set forth in haste on her way to the mountain, looking there at last +to find the end of her hapless life. But when she came to the region which +borders on the cliff that was showed to her, she understood the deadly nature +of her task. From a great rock, steep and slippery, a horrible river of water +poured forth, falling straightway by a channel exceeding narrow into the unseen +gulf below. And lo! creeping from the rocks on either hand, angry serpents, +with their long necks and sleepless eyes. The very waters found a voice and +bade her depart, in smothered cries of, Depart hence! and What doest thou here? +Look around thee! and Destruction is upon thee! And then sense left her, in the +immensity of her peril, as one changed to stone. +</p> + +<p> +Yet not even then did the distress of this innocent soul escape the steady eye +of a gentle providence. For the bird of Jupiter spread his wings and took +flight to her, and asked her, “Didst thou think, simple one, even thou! +that thou couldst steal one drop of that relentless stream, the holy river of +Styx, terrible even to the gods? But give me thine urn.” And the bird +took the urn, and filled it at the source, and returned to her quickly from +among the teeth of the serpents, bringing with him of the waters, all +unwilling—nay! warning him to depart away and not molest them. +</p> + +<p> +And she, receiving the urn with great joy, ran back quickly that she might +deliver it to Venus, and yet again satisfied not the angry goddess. “My +child!” she said, “in this one thing further must thou serve me. +Take now this tiny casket, and get thee down even unto hell, and deliver it to +Proserpine. Tell her that Venus would have of her beauty so much at least as +may suffice for but one day’s use, that beauty she possessed erewhile +being foreworn and spoiled, through her tendance upon the sick-bed of her son; +and be not slow in returning.” +</p> + +<p> +And Psyche perceived there the last ebbing of her fortune—that she was +now thrust openly upon death, who must go down, of her own motion, to Hades and +the Shades. And straightway she climbed to the top of an exceeding high tower, +thinking within herself, “I will cast myself down thence: so shall I +descend most quickly into the kingdom of the dead.” And the tower again, +broke forth into speech: “Wretched Maid! Wretched Maid! Wilt thou destroy +thyself? If the breath quit thy body, then wilt thou indeed go down into Hades, +but by no means return hither. Listen to me. Among the pathless wilds not far +from this place lies a certain mountain, and therein one of hell’s +vent-holes. Through the breach a rough way lies open, following which thou wilt +come, by straight course, to the castle of Orcus. And thou must not go +empty-handed. Take in each hand a morsel of barley-bread, soaked in hydromel; +and in thy mouth two pieces of money. And when thou shalt be now well onward in +the way of death, then wilt thou overtake a lame ass laden with wood, and a +lame driver, who will pray thee reach him certain cords to fasten the burden +which is falling from the ass: but be thou cautious to pass on in silence. And +soon as thou comest to the river of the dead, Charon, in that crazy bark he +hath, will put thee over upon the further side. There is greed even among the +dead: and thou shalt deliver to him, for the ferrying, one of those two pieces +of money, in such wise that he take it with his hand from between thy lips. And +as thou passest over the stream, a dead old man, rising on the water, will put +up to thee his mouldering hands, and pray thee draw him into the ferry-boat. +But beware thou yield not to unlawful pity. +</p> + +<p> +“When thou shalt be come over, and art upon the causeway, certain aged +women, spinning, will cry to thee to lend thy hand to their work; and beware +again that thou take no part therein; for this also is the snare of Venus, +whereby she would cause thee to cast away one at least of those cakes thou +bearest in thy hands. And think not that a slight matter; for the loss of +either one of them will be to thee the losing of the light of day. For a +watch-dog exceeding fierce lies ever before the threshold of that lonely house +of Proserpine. Close his mouth with one of thy cakes; so shalt thou pass by +him, and enter straightway into the presence of Proserpine herself. Then do +thou deliver thy message, and taking what she shall give thee, return back +again; offering to the watch-dog the other cake, and to the ferryman that other +piece of money thou hast in thy mouth. After this manner mayst thou return +again beneath the stars. But withal, I charge thee, think not to look into, nor +open, the casket thou bearest, with that treasure of the beauty of the divine +countenance hidden therein.” +</p> + +<p> +So spake the stones of the tower; and Psyche delayed not, but proceeding +diligently after the manner enjoined, entered into the house of Proserpine, at +whose feet she sat down humbly, and would neither the delicate couch nor that +divine food the goddess offered her, but did straightway the business of Venus. +And Proserpine filled the casket secretly and shut the lid, and delivered it to +Psyche, who fled therewith from Hades with new strength. But coming back into +the light of day, even as she hasted now to the ending of her service, she was +seized by a rash curiosity. “Lo! now,” she said within herself, +“my simpleness! who bearing in my hands the divine loveliness, heed not +to touch myself with a particle at least therefrom, that I may please the more, +by the favour of it, my fair one, my beloved.” Even as she spoke, she +lifted the lid; and behold! within, neither beauty, nor anything beside, save +sleep only, the sleep of the dead, which took hold upon her, filling all her +members with its drowsy vapour, so that she lay down in the way and moved not, +as in the slumber of death. +</p> + +<p> +And Cupid being healed of his wound, because he would endure no longer the +absence of her he loved, gliding through the narrow window of the chamber +wherein he was holden, his pinions being now repaired by a little rest, fled +forth swiftly upon them, and coming to the place where Psyche was, shook that +sleep away from her, and set him in his prison again, awaking her with the +innocent point of his arrow. “Lo! thine old error again,” he said, +“which had like once more to have destroyed thee! But do thou now what is +lacking of the command of my mother: the rest shall be my care.” With +these words, the lover rose upon the air; and being consumed inwardly with the +greatness of his love, penetrated with vehement wing into the highest place of +heaven, to lay his cause before the father of the gods. And the father of gods +took his hand in his, and kissed his face and said to him, “At no time, +my son, hast thou regarded me with due honour. Often hast thou vexed my bosom, +wherein lies the disposition of the stars, with those busy darts of thine. +Nevertheless, because thou hast grown up between these mine hands, I will +accomplish thy desire.” And straightway he bade Mercury call the gods +together; and, the council-chamber being filled, sitting upon a high throne, +“Ye gods,” he said, “all ye whose names are in the white book +of the Muses, ye know yonder lad. It seems good to me that his youthful heats +should by some means be restrained. And that all occasion may be taken from +him, I would even confine him in the bonds of marriage. He has chosen and +embraced a mortal maiden. Let him have fruit of his love, and possess her for +ever.” +</p> + +<p> +Thereupon he bade Mercury produce Psyche in heaven; and holding out to her his +ambrosial cup, “Take it,” he said, “and live for ever; nor +shall Cupid ever depart from thee.” And the gods sat down together to the +marriage-feast. +</p> + +<p> +On the first couch lay the bridegroom, and Psyche in his bosom. His rustic +serving-boy bare the wine to Jupiter; and Bacchus to the rest. The Seasons +crimsoned all things with their roses. Apollo sang to the lyre, while a little +Pan prattled on his reeds, and Venus danced very sweetly to the soft music. +Thus, with due rites, did Psyche pass into the power of Cupid; and from them +was born the daughter whom men call Voluptas. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap06"></a>CHAPTER VI.<br/> +EUPHUISM</h2> + +<p> +So the famous story composed itself in the memory of Marius, with an expression +changed in some ways from the original and on the whole graver. The petulant, +boyish Cupid of Apuleius was become more like that “Lord, of terrible +aspect,” who stood at Dante’s bedside and wept, or had at least +grown to the manly earnestness of the Erôs of Praxiteles. Set in relief amid +the coarser matter of the book, this episode of Cupid and Psyche served to +combine many lines of meditation, already familiar to Marius, into the ideal of +a perfect imaginative love, centered upon a type of beauty entirely flawless +and clean—an ideal which never wholly faded from his thoughts, though he +valued it at various times in different degrees. The human body in its beauty, +as the highest potency of all the beauty of material objects, seemed to him +just then to be matter no longer, but, having taken celestial fire, to assert +itself as indeed the true, though visible, soul or spirit in things. In +contrast with that ideal, in all the pure brilliancy, and as it were in the +happy light, of youth and morning and the springtide, men’s actual loves, +with which at many points the book brings one into close contact, might appear +to him, like the general tenor of their lives, to be somewhat mean and sordid. +The hiddenness of perfect things: a shrinking mysticism, a sentiment of +diffidence like that expressed in Psyche’s so tremulous hope concerning +the child to be born of the husband she had never yet seen—“in the +face of this little child, at the least, shall I apprehend +thine”—in hoc saltem parvulo cognoscam faciem tuam: the fatality +which seems to haunt any signal+ beauty, whether moral or physical, as if it +were in itself something illicit and isolating: the suspicion and hatred it so +often excites in the vulgar:—these were some of the impressions, forming, +as they do, a constant tradition of somewhat cynical pagan experience, from +Medusa and Helen downwards, which the old story enforced on him. A book, like a +person, has its fortunes with one; is lucky or unlucky in the precise moment of +its falling in our way, and often by some happy accident counts with us for +something more than its independent value. The Metamorphoses of Apuleius, +coming to Marius just then, figured for him as indeed The Golden Book: he felt +a sort of personal gratitude to its writer, and saw in it doubtless far more +than was really there for any other reader. It occupied always a peculiar place +in his remembrance, never quite losing its power in frequent return to it for +the revival of that first glowing impression. +</p> + +<p> +Its effect upon the elder youth was a more practical one: it stimulated the +literary ambition, already so strong a motive with him, by a signal example of +success, and made him more than ever an ardent, indefatigable student of words, +of the means or instrument of the literary art. The secrets of utterance, of +expression itself, of that through which alone any intellectual or spiritual +power within one can actually take effect upon others, to over-awe or charm +them to one’s side, presented themselves to this ambitious lad in +immediate connexion with that desire for predominance, for the satisfaction of +which another might have relied on the acquisition and display of brilliant +military qualities. In him, a fine instinctive sentiment of the exact value and +power of words was connate with the eager longing for sway over his fellows. He +saw himself already a gallant and effective leader, innovating or conservative +as occasion might require, in the rehabilitation of the mother-tongue, then +fallen so tarnished and languid; yet the sole object, as he mused within +himself, of the only sort of patriotic feeling proper, or possible, for one +born of slaves. The popular speech was gradually departing from the form and +rule of literary language, a language always and increasingly artificial. While +the learned dialect was yearly becoming more and more barbarously pedantic, the +colloquial idiom, on the other hand, offered a thousand chance-tost gems of +racy or picturesque expression, rejected or at least ungathered by what claimed +to be classical Latin. The time was coming when neither the pedants nor the +people would really understand Cicero; though there were some indeed, like this +new writer, Apuleius, who, departing from the custom of writing in Greek, which +had been a fashionable affectation among the sprightlier wits since the days of +Hadrian, had written in the vernacular. +</p> + +<p> +The literary programme which Flavian had already designed for himself would be +a work, then, partly conservative or reactionary, in its dealing with the +instrument of the literary art; partly popular and revolutionary, asserting, so +to term them, the rights of the proletariate of speech. More than fifty years +before, the younger Pliny, himself an effective witness for the delicate power +of the Latin tongue, had said,—“I am one of those who admire the +ancients, yet I do not, like some others, underrate certain instances of genius +which our own times afford. For it is not true that nature, as if weary and +effete, no longer produces what is admirable.” And he, Flavian, would +prove himself the true master of the opportunity thus indicated. In his +eagerness for a not too distant fame, he dreamed over all that, as the young +Caesar may have dreamed of campaigns. Others might brutalise or neglect the +native speech, that true “open field” for charm and sway over men. +He would make of it a serious study, weighing the precise power of every phrase +and word, as though it were precious metal, disentangling the later +associations and going back to the original and native sense of +each,—restoring to full significance all its wealth of latent figurative +expression, reviving or replacing its outworn or tarnished images. Latin +literature and the Latin tongue were dying of routine and languor; and what was +necessary, first of all, was to re-establish the natural and direct +relationship between thought and expression, between the sensation and the +term, and restore to words their primitive power. +</p> + +<p> +For words, after all, words manipulated with all his delicate force, were to be +the apparatus of a war for himself. To be forcibly impressed, in the first +place; and in the next, to find the means of making visible to others that +which was vividly apparent, delightful, of lively interest to himself, to the +exclusion of all that was but middling, tame, or only half-true even to +him—this scrupulousness of literary art actually awoke in Flavian, for +the first time, a sort of chivalrous conscience. What care for style! what +patience of execution! what research for the significant tones of ancient +idiom—sonantia verba et antiqua! What stately and regular +word-building—gravis et decora constructio! He felt the whole meaning of +the sceptical Pliny’s somewhat melancholy advice to one of his friends, +that he should seek in literature deliverance from mortality—ut studiis +se literarum a mortalitate vindicet. And there was everything in the nature and +the training of Marius to make him a full participator in the hopes of such a +new literary school, with Flavian for its leader. In the refinements of that +curious spirit, in its horror of profanities, its fastidious sense of a +correctness in external form, there was something which ministered to the old +ritual interest, still surviving in him; as if here indeed were involved a kind +of sacred service to the mother-tongue. +</p> + +<p> +Here, then, was the theory of Euphuism, as manifested in every age in which the +literary conscience has been awakened to forgotten duties towards language, +towards the instrument of expression: in fact it does but modify a little the +principles of all effective expression at all times. ’Tis art’s +function to conceal itself: ars est celare artem:—is a saying, which, +exaggerated by inexact quotation, has perhaps been oftenest and most +confidently quoted by those who have had little literary or other art to +conceal; and from the very beginning of professional literature, the +“labour of the file”—a labour in the case of Plato, for +instance, or Virgil, like that of the oldest of goldsmiths as described by +Apuleius, enriching the work by far more than the weight of precious metal it +removed—has always had its function. Sometimes, doubtless, as in later +examples of it, this Roman Euphuism, determined at any cost to attain beauty in +writing—es kallos graphein+—might lapse into its characteristic +fopperies or mannerisms, into the “defects of its qualities,” in +truth, not wholly unpleasing perhaps, or at least excusable, when looked at as +but the toys (so Cicero calls them), the strictly congenial and appropriate +toys, of an assiduously cultivated age, which could not help being polite, +critical, self-conscious. The mere love of novelty also had, of course, its +part there: as with the Euphuism of the Elizabethan age, and of the modern +French romanticists, its neologies were the ground of one of the favourite +charges against it; though indeed, as regards these tricks of taste also, there +is nothing new, but a quaint family likeness rather, between the Euphuists of +successive ages. Here, as elsewhere, the power of “fashion,” as it +is called, is but one minor form, slight enough, it may be, yet distinctly +symptomatic, of that deeper yearning of human nature towards ideal perfection, +which is a continuous force in it; and since in this direction too human nature +is limited, such fashions must necessarily reproduce themselves. Among other +resemblances to later growths of Euphuism, its archaisms on the one hand, and +its neologies on the other, the Euphuism of the days of Marcus Aurelius had, in +the composition of verse, its fancy for the refrain. It was a snatch from a +popular chorus, something he had heard sounding all over the town of Pisa one +April night, one of the first bland and summer-like nights of the year, that +Flavian had chosen for the refrain of a poem he was then pondering—the +Pervigilium Veneris—the vigil, or “nocturn,” of Venus. +</p> + +<p> +Certain elderly counsellors, filling what may be thought a constant part in the +little tragi-comedy which literature and its votaries are playing in all ages, +would ask, suspecting some affectation or unreality in that minute culture of +form:—Cannot those who have a thing to say, say it directly? Why not be +simple and broad, like the old writers of Greece? And this challenge had at +least the effect of setting his thoughts at work on the intellectual situation +as it lay between the children of the present and those earliest masters. +Certainly, the most wonderful, the unique, point, about the Greek genius, in +literature as in everything else, was the entire absence of imitation in its +productions. How had the burden of precedent, laid upon every artist, increased +since then! It was all around one:—that smoothly built world of old +classical taste, an accomplished fact, with overwhelming authority on every +detail of the conduct of one’s work. With no fardel on its own back, yet +so imperious towards those who came labouring after it, Hellas, in its early +freshness, looked as distant from him even then as it does from ourselves. +There might seem to be no place left for novelty or originality,—place +only for a patient, an infinite, faultlessness. On this question too Flavian +passed through a world of curious art-casuistries, of self-tormenting, at the +threshold of his work. Was poetic beauty a thing ever one and the same, a type +absolute; or, changing always with the soul of time itself, did it depend upon +the taste, the peculiar trick of apprehension, the fashion, as we say, of each +successive age? Might one recover that old, earlier sense of it, that earlier +manner, in a masterly effort to recall all the complexities of the life, moral +and intellectual, of the earlier age to which it had belonged? Had there been +really bad ages in art or literature? Were all ages, even those earliest, +adventurous, matutinal days, in themselves equally poetical or unpoetical; and +poetry, the literary beauty, the poetic ideal, always but a borrowed light upon +men’s actual life? +</p> + +<p> +Homer had said— +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +Hoi d’ hote dê limenos polybentheos entos hikonto,<br/> +Histia men steilanto, thesan d’ en nêi melainê...<br/> +Ek de kai autoi bainon epi phêgmini thalassês.+ +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +And how poetic the simple incident seemed, told just thus! Homer was always +telling things after this manner. And one might think there had been no effort +in it: that here was but the almost mechanical transcript of a time, naturally, +intrinsically, poetic, a time in which one could hardly have spoken at all +without ideal effect, or, the sailors pulled down their boat without making a +picture in “the great style,” against a sky charged with marvels. +Must not the mere prose of an age, itself thus ideal, have counted for more +than half of Homer’s poetry? Or might the closer student discover even +here, even in Homer, the really mediatorial function of the poet, as between +the reader and the actual matter of his experience; the poet waiting, so to +speak, in an age which had felt itself trite and commonplace enough, on his +opportunity for the touch of “golden alchemy,” or at least for the +pleasantly lighted side of things themselves? Might not another, in one’s +own prosaic and used-up time, so uneventful as it had been through the long +reign of these quiet Antonines, in like manner, discover his ideal, by a due +waiting upon it? Would not a future generation, looking back upon this, under +the power of the enchanted-distance fallacy, find it ideal to view, in contrast +with its own languor—the languor that for some reason (concerning which +Augustine will one day have his view) seemed to haunt men always? Had Homer, +even, appeared unreal and affected in his poetic flight, to some of the people +of his own age, as seemed to happen with every new literature in turn? In any +case, the intellectual conditions of early Greece had been—how different +from these! And a true literary tact would accept that difference in forming +the primary conception of the literary function at a later time. Perhaps the +utmost one could get by conscious effort, in the way of a reaction or return to +the conditions of an earlier and fresher age, would be but novitas, artificial +artlessness, naïveté; and this quality too might have its measure of euphuistic +charm, direct and sensible enough, though it must count, in comparison with +that genuine early Greek newness at the beginning, not as the freshness of the +open fields, but only of a bunch of field-flowers in a heated room. +</p> + +<p> +There was, meantime, all this:—on one side, the old pagan culture, for us +but a fragment, for him an accomplished yet present fact, still a living, +united, organic whole, in the entirety of its art, its thought, its religions, +its sagacious forms of polity, that so weighty authority it exercised on every +point, being in reality only the measure of its charm for every one: on the +other side, the actual world in all its eager self-assertion, with Flavian +himself, in his boundless animation, there, at the centre of the situation. +From the natural defects, from the pettiness, of his euphuism, his assiduous +cultivation of manner, he was saved by the consciousness that he had a matter +to present, very real, at least to him. That preoccupation of the dilettante +with what might seem mere details of form, after all, did but serve the purpose +of bringing to the surface, sincerely and in their integrity, certain strong +personal intuitions, a certain vision or apprehension of things as really +being, with important results, thus, rather than thus,—intuitions which +the artistic or literary faculty was called upon to follow, with the exactness +of wax or clay, clothing the model within. Flavian too, with his fine clear +mastery of the practically effective, had early laid hold of the principle, as +axiomatic in literature: that to know when one’s self is interested, is +the first condition of interesting other people. It was a principle, the +forcible apprehension of which made him jealous and fastidious in the selection +of his intellectual food; often listless while others read or gazed diligently; +never pretending to be moved out of mere complaisance to people’s +emotions: it served to foster in him a very scrupulous literary sincerity with +himself. And it was this uncompromising demand for a matter, in all art, +derived immediately from lively personal intuition, this constant appeal to +individual judgment, which saved his euphuism, even at its weakest, from +lapsing into mere artifice. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +Was the magnificent exordium of Lucretius, addressed to the goddess Venus, the +work of his earlier manhood, and designed originally to open an argument less +persistently sombre than that protest against the whole pagan heaven which +actually follows it? It is certainly the most typical expression of a mood, +still incident to the young poet, as a thing peculiar to his youth, when he +feels the sentimental current setting forcibly along his veins, and so much as +a matter of purely physical excitement, that he can hardly distinguish it from +the animation of external nature, the upswelling of the seed in the earth, and +of the sap through the trees. Flavian, to whom, again, as to his later +euphuistic kinsmen, old mythology seemed as full of untried, unexpressed +motives and interest as human life itself, had long been occupied with a kind +of mystic hymn to the vernal principle of life in things; a composition shaping +itself, little by little, out of a thousand dim perceptions, into singularly +definite form (definite and firm as fine-art in metal, thought Marius) for +which, as I said, he had caught his “refrain,” from the lips of the +young men, singing because they could not help it, in the streets of Pisa. And +as oftenest happens also, with natures of genuinely poetic quality, those +piecemeal beginnings came suddenly to harmonious completeness among the +fortunate incidents, the physical heat and light, of one singularly happy day. +</p> + +<p> +It was one of the first hot days of March—“the sacred +day”—on which, from Pisa, as from many another harbour on the +Mediterranean, the Ship of Isis went to sea, and every one walked down to the +shore-side to witness the freighting of the vessel, its launching and final +abandonment among the waves, as an object really devoted to the Great Goddess, +that new rival, or “double,” of ancient Venus, and like her a +favourite patroness of sailors. On the evening next before, all the world had +been abroad to view the illumination of the river; the stately lines of +building being wreathed with hundreds of many-coloured lamps. The young men had +poured forth their chorus— +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +Cras amet qui nunquam amavit,<br/> +Quique amavit cras amet— +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +as they bore their torches through the yielding crowd, or rowed their lanterned +boats up and down the stream, till far into the night, when heavy rain-drops +had driven the last lingerers home. Morning broke, however, smiling and serene; +and the long procession started betimes. The river, curving slightly, with the +smoothly paved streets on either side, between its low marble parapet and the +fair dwelling-houses, formed the main highway of the city; and the pageant, +accompanied throughout by innumerable lanterns and wax tapers, took its course +up one of these streets, crossing the water by a bridge up-stream, and down the +other, to the haven, every possible standing-place, out of doors and within, +being crowded with sight-seers, of whom Marius was one of the most eager, +deeply interested in finding the spectacle much as Apuleius had described it in +his famous book. +</p> + +<p> +At the head of the procession, the master of ceremonies, quietly waving back +the assistants, made way for a number of women, scattering perfumes. They were +succeeded by a company of musicians, piping and twanging, on instruments the +strangest Marius had ever beheld, the notes of a hymn, narrating the first +origin of this votive rite to a choir of youths, who marched behind them +singing it. The tire-women and other personal attendants of the great goddess +came next, bearing the instruments of their ministry, and various articles from +the sacred wardrobe, wrought of the most precious material; some of them with +long ivory combs, plying their hands in wild yet graceful concert of movement +as they went, in devout mimicry of the toilet. Placed in their rear were the +mirror-bearers of the goddess, carrying large mirrors of beaten brass or +silver, turned in such a way as to reflect to the great body of worshippers who +followed, the face of the mysterious image, as it moved on its way, and their +faces to it, as though they were in fact advancing to meet the heavenly +visitor. They comprehended a multitude of both sexes and of all ages, already +initiated into the divine secret, clad in fair linen, the females veiled, the +males with shining tonsures, and every one carrying a sistrum—the richer +sort of silver, a few very dainty persons of fine gold—rattling the +reeds, with a noise like the jargon of innumerable birds and insects awakened +from torpor and abroad in the spring sun. Then, borne upon a kind of platform, +came the goddess herself, undulating above the heads of the multitude as the +bearers walked, in mystic robe embroidered with the moon and stars, bordered +gracefully with a fringe of real fruit and flowers, and with a glittering crown +upon the head. The train of the procession consisted of the priests in long +white vestments, close from head to foot, distributed into various groups, each +bearing, exposed aloft, one of the sacred symbols of Isis—the corn-fan, +the golden asp, the ivory hand of equity, and among them the votive ship +itself, carved and gilt, and adorned bravely with flags flying. Last of all +walked the high priest; the people kneeling as he passed to kiss his hand, in +which were those well-remembered roses. +</p> + +<p> +Marius followed with the rest to the harbour, where the mystic ship, lowered +from the shoulders of the priests, was loaded with as much as it could carry of +the rich spices and other costly gifts, offered in great profusion by the +worshippers, and thus, launched at last upon the water, left the shore, +crossing the harbour-bar in the wake of a much stouter vessel than itself with +a crew of white-robed mariners, whose function it was, at the appointed moment, +finally to desert it on the open sea. +</p> + +<p> +The remainder of the day was spent by most in parties on the water. Flavian and +Marius sailed further than they had ever done before to a wild spot on the bay, +the traditional site of a little Greek colony, which, having had its eager, +stirring life at the time when Etruria was still a power in Italy, had perished +in the age of the civil wars. In the absolute transparency of the air on this +gracious day, an infinitude of detail from sea and shore reached the eye with +sparkling clearness, as the two lads sped rapidly over the waves—Flavian +at work suddenly, from time to time, with his tablets. They reached land at +last. The coral fishers had spread their nets on the sands, with a tumble-down +of quaint, many-hued treasures, below a little shrine of Venus, fluttering and +gay with the scarves and napkins and gilded shells which these people had +offered to the image. Flavian and Marius sat down under the shadow of a mass of +gray rock or ruin, where the sea-gate of the Greek town had been, and talked of +life in those old Greek colonies. Of this place, all that remained, besides +those rude stones, was—a handful of silver coins, each with a head of +pure and archaic beauty, though a little cruel perhaps, supposed to represent +the Siren Ligeia, whose tomb was formerly shown here—only these, and an +ancient song, the very strain which Flavian had recovered in those last months. +They were records which spoke, certainly, of the charm of life within those +walls. How strong must have been the tide of men’s existence in that +little republican town, so small that this circle of gray stones, of service +now only by the moisture they gathered for the blue-flowering gentians among +them, had been the line of its rampart! An epitome of all that was liveliest, +most animated and adventurous, in the old Greek people of which it was an +offshoot, it had enhanced the effect of these gifts by concentration within +narrow limits. The band of “devoted youth,”—hiera +neotês.+—of the younger brothers, devoted to the gods and whatever luck +the gods might afford, because there was no room for them at home—went +forth, bearing the sacred flame from the mother hearth; itself a flame, of +power to consume the whole material of existence in clear light and heat, with +no smouldering residue. The life of those vanished townsmen, so brilliant and +revolutionary, applying so abundantly the personal qualities which alone just +then Marius seemed to value, associated itself with the actual figure of his +companion, standing there before him, his face enthusiastic with the sudden +thought of all that; and struck him vividly as precisely the fitting +opportunity for a nature like his, so hungry for control, for ascendency over +men. +</p> + +<p> +Marius noticed also, however, as high spirits flagged at last, on the way home +through the heavy dew of the evening, more than physical fatigue in Flavian, +who seemed to find no refreshment in the coolness. There had been something +feverish, perhaps, and like the beginning of sickness, about his almost forced +gaiety, in this sudden spasm of spring; and by the evening of the next day he +was lying with a burning spot on his forehead, stricken, as was thought from +the first, by the terrible new disease. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +NOTES +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +93. +Corrected from the Macmillan edition misprint “singal.” +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +98. +Transliteration: es kallos graphein. Translation: “To write +beautifully.” +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +100. +Iliad 1.432-33, 437. Transliteration: +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +Hoi d’ hote dê limenos polybentheos entos hikonto,<br/> +Histia men steilanto, thesan d’ en nêi melainê...<br/> +Ek de kai autoi bainon epi phêgmini thalassês. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +Etext editor’s translation: +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +When they had safely made deep harbor<br/> +They took in the sail, laid it in their black ship...<br/> +And went ashore just past the breakers. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +109. +Transliteration: hiera neotês. Pater translates the phrase, +“devoted youth.” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap07"></a>CHAPTER VII.<br/> +A PAGAN END</h2> + +<p> +For the fantastical colleague of the philosophic emperor Marcus Aurelius, +returning in triumph from the East, had brought in his train, among the enemies +of Rome, one by no means a captive. People actually sickened at a sudden touch +of the unsuspected foe, as they watched in dense crowds the pathetic or +grotesque imagery of failure or success in the triumphal procession. And, as +usual, the plague brought with it a power to develop all pre-existent germs of +superstition. It was by dishonour done to Apollo himself, said popular +rumour—to Apollo, the old titular divinity of pestilence, that the +poisonous thing had come abroad. Pent up in a golden coffer consecrated to the +god, it had escaped in the sacrilegious plundering of his temple at Seleucia by +the soldiers of Lucius Verus, after a traitorous surprise of that town and a +cruel massacre. Certainly there was something which baffled all imaginable +precautions and all medical science, in the suddenness with which the disease +broke out simultaneously, here and there, among both soldiers and citizens, +even in places far remote from the main line of its march in the rear of the +victorious army. It seemed to have invaded the whole empire, and some have even +thought that, in a mitigated form, it permanently remained there. In Rome +itself many thousands perished; and old authorities tell of farmsteads, whole +towns, and even entire neighbourhoods, which from that time continued without +inhabitants and lapsed into wildness or ruin. +</p> + +<p> +Flavian lay at the open window of his lodging, with a fiery pang in the brain, +fancying no covering thin or light enough to be applied to his body. His head +being relieved after a while, there was distress at the chest. It was but the +fatal course of the strange new sickness, under many disguises; travelling from +the brain to the feet, like a material resident, weakening one after another of +the organic centres; often, when it did not kill, depositing various degrees of +lifelong infirmity in this member or that; and after such descent, returning +upwards again, now as a mortal coldness, leaving the entrenchments of the +fortress of life overturned, one by one, behind it. +</p> + +<p> +Flavian lay there, with the enemy at his breast now in a painful cough, but +relieved from that burning fever in the head, amid the rich-scented +flowers—rare Paestum roses, and the like —procured by Marius for +his solace, in a fancied convalescence; and would, at intervals, return to +labour at his verses, with a great eagerness to complete and transcribe the +work, while Marius sat and wrote at his dictation, one of the latest but not +the poorest specimens of genuine Latin poetry. +</p> + +<p> +It was in fact a kind of nuptial hymn, which, taking its start from the thought +of nature as the universal mother, celebrated the preliminary pairing and +mating together of all fresh things, in the hot and genial +spring-time—the immemorial nuptials of the soul of spring itself and the +brown earth; and was full of a delighted, mystic sense of what passed between +them in that fantastic marriage. That mystic burden was relieved, at intervals, +by the familiar playfulness of the Latin verse-writer in dealing with +mythology, which, though coming at so late a day, had still a wonderful +freshness in its old age.—“Amor has put his weapons by and will +keep holiday. He was bidden go without apparel, that none might be wounded by +his bow and arrows. But take care! In truth he is none the less armed than +usual, though he be all unclad.” +</p> + +<p> +In the expression of all this Flavian seemed, while making it his chief aim to +retain the opulent, many-syllabled vocabulary of the Latin genius, at some +points even to have advanced beyond it, in anticipation of wholly new laws of +taste as regards sound, a new range of sound itself. The peculiar resultant +note, associating itself with certain other experiences of his, was to Marius +like the foretaste of an entirely novel world of poetic beauty to come. Flavian +had caught, indeed, something of the rhyming cadence, the sonorous organ-music +of the medieval Latin, and therewithal something of its unction and mysticity +of spirit. There was in his work, along with the last splendour of the +classical language, a touch, almost prophetic, of that transformed life it was +to have in the rhyming middle age, just about to dawn. The impression thus +forced upon Marius connected itself with a feeling, the exact inverse of that, +known to every one, which seems to say, You have been just here, just thus, +before!—a feeling, in his case, not reminiscent but prescient of the +future, which passed over him afterwards many times, as he came across certain +places and people. It was as if he detected there the process of actual change +to a wholly undreamed-of and renewed condition of human body and soul: as if he +saw the heavy yet decrepit old Roman architecture about him, rebuilding on an +intrinsically better pattern. Could it have been actually on a new musical +instrument that Flavian had first heard the novel accents of his verse? And +still Marius noticed there, amid all its richness of expression and imagery, +that firmness of outline he had always relished so much in the composition of +Flavian. Yes! a firmness like that of some master of noble metal-work, +manipulating tenacious bronze or gold. Even now that haunting refrain, with its +impromptu variations, from the throats of those strong young men, came floating +through the window. +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +Cras amet qui nunquam amavit,<br/> +Quique amavit cras amet! +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +—repeated Flavian, tremulously, dictating yet one stanza more. +</p> + +<p> +What he was losing, his freehold of a soul and body so fortunately endowed, the +mere liberty of life above-ground, “those sunny mornings in the +cornfields by the sea,” as he recollected them one day, when the window +was thrown open upon the early freshness—his sense of all this, was from +the first singularly near and distinct, yet rather as of something he was but +debarred the use of for a time than finally bidding farewell to. That was while +he was still with no very grave misgivings as to the issue of his sickness, and +felt the sources of life still springing essentially unadulterate within him. +From time to time, indeed, Marius, labouring eagerly at the poem from his +dictation, was haunted by a feeling of the triviality of such work just then. +The recurrent sense of some obscure danger beyond the mere danger of death, +vaguer than that and by so much the more terrible, like the menace of some +shadowy adversary in the dark with whose mode of attack they had no +acquaintance, disturbed him now and again through those hours of excited +attention to his manuscript, and to the purely physical wants of Flavian. +Still, during these three days there was much hope and cheerfulness, and even +jesting. Half-consciously Marius tried to prolong one or another relieving +circumstance of the day, the preparations for rest and morning refreshment, for +instance; sadly making the most of the little luxury of this or that, with +something of the feigned cheer of the mother who sets her last morsels before +her famished child as for a feast, but really that he “may eat it and +die.” +</p> + +<p> +On the afternoon of the seventh day he allowed Marius finally to put aside the +unfinished manuscript. For the enemy, leaving the chest quiet at length though +much exhausted, had made itself felt with full power again in a painful +vomiting, which seemed to shake his body asunder, with great consequent +prostration. From that time the distress increased rapidly downwards. Omnia tum +vero vitai claustra lababant;+ and soon the cold was mounting with sure pace +from the dead feet to the head. +</p> + +<p> +And now Marius began more than to suspect what the issue must be, and +henceforward could but watch with a sort of agonised fascination the rapid but +systematic work of the destroyer, faintly relieving a little the mere accidents +of the sharper forms of suffering. Flavian himself appeared, in full +consciousness at last—in clear-sighted, deliberate estimate of the actual +crisis—to be doing battle with his adversary. His mind surveyed, with +great distinctness, the various suggested modes of relief. He must without fail +get better, he would fancy, might he be removed to a certain place on the hills +where as a child he had once recovered from sickness, but found that he could +scarcely raise his head from the pillow without giddiness. As if now surely +foreseeing the end, he would set himself, with an eager effort, and with that +eager and angry look, which is noted as one of the premonitions of death in +this disease, to fashion out, without formal dictation, still a few more broken +verses of his unfinished work, in hard-set determination, defiant of pain, to +arrest this or that little drop at least from the river of sensuous imagery +rushing so quickly past him. +</p> + +<p> +But at length delirium—symptom that the work of the plague was done, and +the last resort of life yielding to the enemy—broke the coherent order of +words and thoughts; and Marius, intent on the coming agony, found his best hope +in the increasing dimness of the patient’s mind. In intervals of clearer +consciousness the visible signs of cold, of sorrow and desolation, were very +painful. No longer battling with the disease, he seemed as it were to place +himself at the disposal of the victorious foe, dying passively, like some dumb +creature, in hopeless acquiescence at last. That old, half-pleading petulance, +unamiable, yet, as it might seem, only needing conditions of life a little +happier than they had actually been, to become refinement of affection, a +delicate grace in its demand on the sympathy of others, had changed in those +moments of full intelligence to a clinging and tremulous gentleness, as he +lay—“on the very threshold of death”—with a sharply +contracted hand in the hand of Marius, to his almost surprised joy, winning him +now to an absolutely self-forgetful devotion. There was a new sort of pleading +in the misty eyes, just because they took such unsteady note of him, which made +Marius feel as if guilty; anticipating thus a form of self-reproach with which +even the tenderest ministrant may be sometimes surprised, when, at death, +affectionate labour suddenly ceasing leaves room for the suspicion of some +failure of love perhaps, at one or another minute point in it. Marius almost +longed to take his share in the suffering, that he might understand so the +better how to relieve it. +</p> + +<p> +It seemed that the light of the lamp distressed the patient, and Marius +extinguished it. The thunder which had sounded all day among the hills, with a +heat not unwelcome to Flavian, had given way at nightfall to steady rain; and +in the darkness Marius lay down beside him, faintly shivering now in the sudden +cold, to lend him his own warmth, undeterred by the fear of contagion which had +kept other people from passing near the house. At length about day-break he +perceived that the last effort had come with a revival of mental clearness, as +Marius understood by the contact, light as it was, in recognition of him there. +“Is it a comfort,” he whispered then, “that I shall often +come and weep over you?”—“Not unless I be aware, and hear you +weeping!” +</p> + +<p> +The sun shone out on the people going to work for a long hot day, and Marius +was standing by the dead, watching, with deliberate purpose to fix in his +memory every detail, that he might have this picture in reserve, should any +hour of forgetfulness hereafter come to him with the temptation to feel +completely happy again. A feeling of outrage, of resentment against nature +itself, mingled with an agony of pity, as he noted on the now placid features a +certain look of humility, almost abject, like the expression of a smitten child +or animal, as of one, fallen at last, after bewildering struggle, wholly under +the power of a merciless adversary. From mere tenderness of soul he would not +forget one circumstance in all that; as a man might piously stamp on his memory +the death-scene of a brother wrongfully condemned to die, against a time that +may come. +</p> + +<p> +The fear of the corpse, which surprised him in his effort to watch by it +through the darkness, was a hint of his own failing strength, just in time. The +first night after the washing of the body, he bore stoutly enough the tax which +affection seemed to demand, throwing the incense from time to time on the +little altar placed beside the bier. It was the recurrence of the +thing—that unchanged outline below the coverlet, amid a silence in which +the faintest rustle seemed to speak—that finally overcame his +determination. Surely, here, in this alienation, this sense of distance between +them, which had come over him before though in minor degree when the mind of +Flavian had wandered in his sickness, was another of the pains of death. Yet he +was able to make all due preparations, and go through the ceremonies, shortened +a little because of the infection, when, on a cloudless evening, the funeral +procession went forth; himself, the flames of the pyre having done their work, +carrying away the urn of the deceased, in the folds of his toga, to its last +resting-place in the cemetery beside the highway, and so turning home to sleep +in his own desolate lodging. +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +Quis desiderio sit pudor aut modus<br/> + Tam cari capitis?—+ +</p> + +<p> +What thought of others’ thoughts about one could there be with the regret +for “so dear a head” fresh at one’s heart? +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +NOTES +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +116. +Lucretius, Book VI.1153. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +120. +Horace, Odes I.xxiv.1-2. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="part02"></a>PART THE SECOND</h2> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap08"></a>CHAPTER VIII.<br/> +ANIMULA VAGULA</h2> + +<p class="poem"> +Animula, vagula, blandula<br/> +Hospes comesque corporis,<br/> +Quae nunc abibis in loca?<br/> +Pallidula, rigida, nudula. +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +The Emperor Hadrian to his Soul +</p> + +<p> +Flavian was no more. The little marble chest with its dust and tears lay cold +among the faded flowers. For most people the actual spectacle of death brings +out into greater reality, at least for the imagination, whatever confidence +they may entertain of the soul’s survival in another life. To Marius, +greatly agitated by that event, the earthly end of Flavian came like a final +revelation of nothing less than the soul’s extinction. Flavian had gone +out as utterly as the fire among those still beloved ashes. Even that wistful +suspense of judgment expressed by the dying Hadrian, regarding further stages +of being still possible for the soul in some dim journey hence, seemed wholly +untenable, and, with it, almost all that remained of the religion of his +childhood. Future extinction seemed just then to be what the unforced witness +of his own nature pointed to. On the other hand, there came a novel curiosity +as to what the various schools of ancient philosophy had had to say concerning +that strange, fluttering creature; and that curiosity impelled him to certain +severe studies, in which his earlier religious conscience seemed still to +survive, as a principle of hieratic scrupulousness or integrity of thought, +regarding this new service to intellectual light. +</p> + +<p> +At this time, by his poetic and inward temper, he might have fallen a prey to +the enervating mysticism, then in wait for ardent souls in many a melodramatic +revival of old religion or theosophy. From all this, fascinating as it might +actually be to one side of his character, he was kept by a genuine virility +there, effective in him, among other results, as a hatred of what was +theatrical, and the instinctive recognition that in vigorous intelligence, +after all, divinity was most likely to be found a resident. With this was +connected the feeling, increasing with his advance to manhood, of a poetic +beauty in mere clearness of thought, the actually aesthetic charm of a cold +austerity of mind; as if the kinship of that to the clearness of physical light +were something more than a figure of speech. Of all those various religious +fantasies, as so many forms of enthusiasm, he could well appreciate the +picturesque; that was made easy by his natural Epicureanism, already prompting +him to conceive of himself as but the passive spectator of the world around +him. But it was to the severer reasoning, of which such matters as Epicurean +theory are born, that, in effect, he now betook himself. Instinctively +suspicious of those mechanical arcana, those pretended “secrets +unveiled” of the professional mystic, which really bring great and little +souls to one level, for Marius the only possible dilemma lay between that old, +ancestral Roman religion, now become so incredible to him and the honest action +of his own untroubled, unassisted intelligence. Even the Arcana Celestia of +Platonism—what the sons of Plato had had to say regarding the essential +indifference of pure soul to its bodily house and merely occasional +dwelling-place—seemed to him while his heart was there in the urn with +the material ashes of Flavian, or still lingering in memory over his last +agony, wholly inhuman or morose, as tending to alleviate his resentment at +nature’s wrong. It was to the sentiment of the body, and the affections +it defined—the flesh, of whose force and colour that wandering Platonic +soul was but so frail a residue or abstract—he must cling. The various +pathetic traits of the beloved, suffering, perished body of Flavian, so deeply +pondered, had made him a materialist, but with something of the temper of a +devotee. +</p> + +<p> +As a consequence it might have seemed at first that his care for poetry had +passed away, to be replaced by the literature of thought. His much-pondered +manuscript verses were laid aside; and what happened now to one, who was +certainly to be something of a poet from first to last, looked at the moment +like a change from poetry to prose. He came of age about this time, his own +master though with beardless face; and at eighteen, an age at which, then as +now, many youths of capacity, who fancied themselves poets, secluded themselves +from others chiefly in affectation and vague dreaming, he secluded himself +indeed from others, but in a severe intellectual meditation, that salt of +poetry, without which all the more serious charm is lacking to the imaginative +world. Still with something of the old religious earnestness of his childhood, +he set himself—Sich im Denken zu orientiren—to determine his +bearings, as by compass, in the world of thought—to get that precise +acquaintance with the creative intelligence itself, its structure and +capacities, its relation to other parts of himself and to other things, without +which, certainly, no poetry can be masterly. Like a young man rich in this +world’s goods coming of age, he must go into affairs, and ascertain his +outlook. There must be no disguises. An exact estimate of realities, as towards +himself, he must have—a delicately measured gradation of certainty in +things—from the distant, haunted horizon of mere surmise or imagination, +to the actual feeling of sorrow in his heart, as he reclined one morning, alone +instead of in pleasant company, to ponder the hard sayings of an imperfect old +Greek manuscript, unrolled beside him. His former gay companions, meeting him +in the streets of the old Italian town, and noting the graver lines coming into +the face of the sombre but enthusiastic student of intellectual structure, who +could hold his own so well in the society of accomplished older men, were half +afraid of him, though proud to have him of their company. Why this +reserve?—they asked, concerning the orderly, self-possessed youth, whose +speech and carriage seemed so carefully measured, who was surely no poet like +the rapt, dishevelled Lupus. Was he secretly in love, perhaps, whose toga was +so daintily folded, and who was always as fresh as the flowers he wore; or bent +on his own line of ambition: or even on riches? +</p> + +<p> +Marius, meantime, was reading freely, in early morning for the most part, those +writers chiefly who had made it their business to know what might be thought +concerning that strange, enigmatic, personal essence, which had seemed to go +out altogether, along with the funeral fires. And the old Greek who more than +any other was now giving form to his thoughts was a very hard master. From +Epicurus, from the thunder and lightning of Lucretius—like thunder and +lightning some distance off, one might recline to enjoy, in a garden of +roses—he had gone back to the writer who was in a certain sense the +teacher of both, Heraclitus of Ionia. His difficult book “Concerning +Nature” was even then rare, for people had long since satisfied +themselves by the quotation of certain brilliant, isolated, oracles only, out +of what was at best a taxing kind of lore. But the difficulty of the early +Greek prose did but spur the curiosity of Marius; the writer, the superior +clearness of whose intellectual view had so sequestered him from other men, who +had had so little joy of that superiority, being avowedly exacting as to the +amount of devout attention he required from the student. “The +many,” he said, always thus emphasising the difference between the many +and the few, are “like people heavy with wine,” “led by +children,” “knowing not whither they go;” and yet, +“much learning doth not make wise;” and again, “the ass, +after all, would have his thistles rather than fine gold.” +</p> + +<p> +Heraclitus, indeed, had not under-rated the difficulty for “the +many” of the paradox with which his doctrine begins, and the due +reception of which must involve a denial of habitual impressions, as the +necessary first step in the way of truth. His philosophy had been developed in +conscious, outspoken opposition to the current mode of thought, as a matter +requiring some exceptional loyalty to pure reason and its “dry +light.” Men are subject to an illusion, he protests, regarding matters +apparent to sense. What the uncorrected sense gives was a false impression of +permanence or fixity in things, which have really changed their nature in the +very moment in which we see and touch them. And the radical flaw in the current +mode of thinking would lie herein: that, reflecting this false or uncorrected +sensation, it attributes to the phenomena of experience a durability which does +not really belong to them. Imaging forth from those fluid impressions a world +of firmly out-lined objects, it leads one to regard as a thing stark and dead +what is in reality full of animation, of vigour, of the fire of life—that +eternal process of nature, of which at a later time Goethe spoke as the +“Living Garment,” whereby God is seen of us, ever in weaving at the +“Loom of Time.” +</p> + +<p> +And the appeal which the old Greek thinker made was, in the first instance, +from confused to unconfused sensation; with a sort of prophetic seriousness, a +great claim and assumption, such as we may understand, if we anticipate in this +preliminary scepticism the ulterior scope of his speculation, according to +which the universal movement of all natural things is but one particular stage, +or measure, of that ceaseless activity wherein the divine reason consists. The +one true being—that constant subject of all early thought—it was +his merit to have conceived, not as sterile and stagnant inaction, but as a +perpetual energy, from the restless stream of which, at certain points, some +elements detach themselves, and harden into non-entity and death, +corresponding, as outward objects, to man’s inward condition of +ignorance: that is, to the slowness of his faculties. It is with this paradox +of a subtle, perpetual change in all visible things, that the high speculation +of Heraclitus begins. Hence the scorn he expresses for anything like a +careless, half-conscious, “use-and-wont” reception of our +experience, which took so strong a hold on men’s memories! Hence those +many precepts towards a strenuous self-consciousness in all we think and do, +that loyalty to cool and candid reason, which makes strict attentiveness of +mind a kind of religious duty and service. +</p> + +<p> +The negative doctrine, then, that the objects of our ordinary experience, fixed +as they seem, are really in perpetual change, had been, as originally +conceived, but the preliminary step towards a large positive system of almost +religious philosophy. Then as now, the illuminated philosophic mind might +apprehend, in what seemed a mass of lifeless matter, the movement of that +universal life, in which things, and men’s impressions of them, were ever +“coming to be,” alternately consumed and renewed. That continual +change, to be discovered by the attentive understanding where common opinion +found fixed objects, was but the indicator of a subtler but all-pervading +motion—the sleepless, ever-sustained, inexhaustible energy of the divine +reason itself, proceeding always by its own rhythmical logic, and lending to +all mind and matter, in turn, what life they had. In this “perpetual +flux” of things and of souls, there was, as Heraclitus conceived, a +continuance, if not of their material or spiritual elements, yet of orderly +intelligible relationships, like the harmony of musical notes, wrought out in +and through the series of their mutations—ordinances of the divine +reason, maintained throughout the changes of the phenomenal world; and this +harmony in their mutation and opposition, was, after all, a principle of +sanity, of reality, there. But it happened, that, of all this, the first, +merely sceptical or negative step, that easiest step on the threshold, had +alone remained in general memory; and the “doctrine of motion” +seemed to those who had felt its seduction to make all fixed knowledge +impossible. The swift passage of things, the still swifter passage of those +modes of our conscious being which seemed to reflect them, might indeed be the +burning of the divine fire: but what was ascertained was that they did pass +away like a devouring flame, or like the race of water in the +mid-stream—too swiftly for any real knowledge of them to be attainable. +Heracliteanism had grown to be almost identical with the famous doctrine of the +sophist Protagoras, that the momentary, sensible apprehension of the individual +was the only standard of what is or is not, and each one the measure of all +things to himself. The impressive name of Heraclitus had become but an +authority for a philosophy of the despair of knowledge. +</p> + +<p> +And as it had been with his original followers in Greece, so it happened now +with the later Roman disciple. He, too, paused at the apprehension of that +constant motion of things—the drift of flowers, of little or great souls, +of ambitious systems, in the stream around him, the first source, the ultimate +issue, of which, in regions out of sight, must count with him as but a dim +problem. The bold mental flight of the old Greek master from the fleeting, +competing objects of experience to that one universal life, in which the whole +sphere of physical change might be reckoned as but a single pulsation, remained +by him as hypothesis only—the hypothesis he actually preferred, as in +itself most credible, however scantily realisable even by the +imagination—yet still as but one unverified hypothesis, among many +others, concerning the first principle of things. He might reserve it as a +fine, high, visionary consideration, very remote upon the intellectual ladder, +just at the point, indeed, where that ladder seemed to pass into the clouds, +but for which there was certainly no time left just now by his eager interest +in the real objects so close to him, on the lowlier earthy steps nearest the +ground. And those childish days of reverie, when he played at priests, played +in many another day-dream, working his way from the actual present, as far as +he might, with a delightful sense of escape in replacing the outer world of +other people by an inward world as himself really cared to have it, had made +him a kind of “idealist.” He was become aware of the possibility of +a large dissidence between an inward and somewhat exclusive world of vivid +personal apprehension, and the unimproved, unheightened reality of the life of +those about him. As a consequence, he was ready now to concede, somewhat more +easily than others, the first point of his new lesson, that the individual is +to himself the measure of all things, and to rely on the exclusive certainty to +himself of his own impressions. To move afterwards in that outer world of other +people, as though taking it at their estimate, would be possible henceforth +only as a kind of irony. And as with the Vicaire Savoyard, after reflecting on +the variations of philosophy, “the first fruit he drew from that +reflection was the lesson of a limitation of his researches to what immediately +interested him; to rest peacefully in a profound ignorance as to all beside; to +disquiet himself only concerning those things which it was of import for him to +know.” At least he would entertain no theory of conduct which did not +allow its due weight to this primary element of incertitude or negation, in the +conditions of man’s life. Just here he joined company, retracing in his +individual mental pilgrimage the historic order of human thought, with another +wayfarer on the journey, another ancient Greek master, the founder of the +Cyrenaic philosophy, whose weighty traditional utterances (for he had left no +writing) served in turn to give effective outline to the contemplations of +Marius. There was something in the doctrine itself congruous with the place +wherein it had its birth; and for a time Marius lived much, mentally, in the +brilliant Greek colony which had given a dubious name to the philosophy of +pleasure. It hung, for his fancy, between the mountains and the sea, among +richer than Italian gardens, on a certain breezy table-land projecting from the +African coast, some hundreds of miles southward from Greece. There, in a +delightful climate, with something of transalpine temperance amid its luxury, +and withal in an inward atmosphere of temperance which did but further enhance +the brilliancy of human life, the school of Cyrene had maintained itself as +almost one with the family of its founder; certainly as nothing coarse or +unclean, and under the influence of accomplished women. +</p> + +<p> +Aristippus of Cyrene too had left off in suspense of judgment as to what might +really lie behind—flammantia moenia mundi: the flaming ramparts of the +world. Those strange, bold, sceptical surmises, which had haunted the minds of +the first Greek enquirers as merely abstract doubt, which had been present to +the mind of Heraclitus as one element only in a system of abstract philosophy, +became with Aristippus a very subtly practical worldly-wisdom. The difference +between him and those obscure earlier thinkers is almost like that between an +ancient thinker generally, and a modern man of the world: it was the difference +between the mystic in his cell, or the prophet in the desert, and the expert, +cosmopolitan, administrator of his dark sayings, translating the abstract +thoughts of the master into terms, first of all, of sentiment. It has been +sometimes seen, in the history of the human mind, that when thus translated +into terms of sentiment—of sentiment, as lying already half-way towards +practice—the abstract ideas of metaphysics for the first time reveal +their true significance. The metaphysical principle, in itself, as it were, +without hands or feet, becomes impressive, fascinating, of effect, when +translated into a precept as to how it were best to feel and act; in other +words, under its sentimental or ethical equivalent. The leading idea of the +great master of Cyrene, his theory that things are but shadows, and that we, +even as they, never continue in one stay, might indeed have taken effect as a +languid, enervating, consumptive nihilism, as a precept of +“renunciation,” which would touch and handle and busy itself with +nothing. But in the reception of metaphysical formulae, all depends, as regards +their actual and ulterior result, on the pre-existent qualities of that soil of +human nature into which they fall—the company they find already present +there, on their admission into the house of thought; there being at least so +much truth as this involves in the theological maxim, that the reception of +this or that speculative conclusion is really a matter of will. The persuasion +that all is vanity, with this happily constituted Greek, who had been a genuine +disciple of Socrates and reflected, presumably, something of his blitheness in +the face of the world, his happy way of taking all chances, generated neither +frivolity nor sourness, but induced, rather, an impression, just serious +enough, of the call upon men’s attention of the crisis in which they find +themselves. It became the stimulus towards every kind of activity, and prompted +a perpetual, inextinguishable thirst after experience. +</p> + +<p> +With Marius, then, the influence of the philosopher of pleasure depended on +this, that in him an abstract doctrine, originally somewhat acrid, had fallen +upon a rich and genial nature, well fitted to transform it into a theory of +practice, of considerable stimulative power towards a fair life. What Marius +saw in him was the spectacle of one of the happiest temperaments coming, so to +speak, to an understanding with the most depressing of theories; accepting the +results of a metaphysical system which seemed to concentrate into itself all +the weakening trains of thought in earlier Greek speculation, and making the +best of it; turning its hard, bare truths, with wonderful tact, into precepts +of grace, and delicate wisdom, and a delicate sense of honour. Given the +hardest terms, supposing our days are indeed but a shadow, even so, we may well +adorn and beautify, in scrupulous self-respect, our souls, and whatever our +souls touch upon—these wonderful bodies, these material dwelling-places +through which the shadows pass together for a while, the very raiment we wear, +our very pastimes and the intercourse of society. The most discerning judges +saw in him something like the graceful “humanities” of the later +Roman, and our modern “culture,” as it is termed; while Horace +recalled his sayings as expressing best his own consummate amenity in the +reception of life. +</p> + +<p> +In this way, for Marius, under the guidance of that old master of decorous +living, those eternal doubts as to the criteria of truth reduced themselves to +a scepticism almost drily practical, a scepticism which developed the +opposition between things as they are and our impressions and thoughts +concerning them—the possibility, if an outward world does really exist, +of some faultiness in our apprehension of it—the doctrine, in short, of +what is termed “the subjectivity of knowledge.” That is a +consideration, indeed, which lies as an element of weakness, like some admitted +fault or flaw, at the very foundation of every philosophical account of the +universe; which confronts all philosophies at their starting, but with which +none have really dealt conclusively, some perhaps not quite sincerely; which +those who are not philosophers dissipate by “common,” but +unphilosophical, sense, or by religious faith. The peculiar strength of Marius +was, to have apprehended this weakness on the threshold of human knowledge, in +the whole range of its consequences. Our knowledge is limited to what we feel, +he reflected: we need no proof that we feel. But can we be sure that things are +at all like our feelings? Mere peculiarities in the instruments of our +cognition, like the little knots and waves on the surface of a mirror, may +distort the matter they seem but to represent. Of other people we cannot truly +know even the feelings, nor how far they would indicate the same modifications, +each one of a personality really unique, in using the same terms as ourselves; +that “common experience,” which is sometimes proposed as a +satisfactory basis of certainty, being after all only a fixity of language. But +our own impressions!—The light and heat of that blue veil over our heads, +the heavens spread out, perhaps not like a curtain over anything!—How +reassuring, after so long a debate about the rival criteria of truth, to fall +back upon direct sensation, to limit one’s aspirations after knowledge to +that! In an age still materially so brilliant, so expert in the artistic +handling of material things, with sensible capacities still in undiminished +vigour, with the whole world of classic art and poetry outspread before it, and +where there was more than eye or ear could well take in—how natural the +determination to rely exclusively upon the phenomena of the senses, which +certainly never deceive us about themselves, about which alone we can never +deceive ourselves! +</p> + +<p> +And so the abstract apprehension that the little point of this present moment +alone really is, between a past which has just ceased to be and a future which +may never come, became practical with Marius, under the form of a resolve, as +far as possible, to exclude regret and desire, and yield himself to the +improvement of the present with an absolutely disengaged mind. America is here +and now—here, or nowhere: as Wilhelm Meister finds out one day, just not +too late, after so long looking vaguely across the ocean for the opportunity of +the development of his capacities. It was as if, recognising in perpetual +motion the law of nature, Marius identified his own way of life cordially with +it, “throwing himself into the stream,” so to speak. He too must +maintain a harmony with that soul of motion in things, by constantly renewed +mobility of character. +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +Omnis Aristippum decuit color et status et res.— +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Thus Horace had summed up that perfect manner in the reception of life attained +by his old Cyrenaic master; and the first practical consequence of the +metaphysic which lay behind that perfect manner, had been a strict limitation, +almost the renunciation, of metaphysical enquiry itself. Metaphysic—that +art, as it has so often proved, in the words of Michelet, <i>de s’égarer +avec méthode</i>, of bewildering oneself methodically:—one must spend +little time upon that! In the school of Cyrene, great as was its mental +incisiveness, logical and physical speculation, theoretic interests generally, +had been valued only so far as they served to give a groundwork, an +intellectual justification, to that exclusive concern with practical ethics +which was a note of the Cyrenaic philosophy. How earnest and enthusiastic, how +true to itself, under how many varieties of character, had been the effort of +the Greeks after Theory—Theôria—that vision of a wholly reasonable +world, which, according to the greatest of them, literally makes man like God: +how loyally they had still persisted in the quest after that, in spite of how +many disappointments! In the Gospel of Saint John, perhaps, some of them might +have found the kind of vision they were seeking for; but not in “doubtful +disputations” concerning “being” and “not being,” +knowledge and appearance. Men’s minds, even young men’s minds, at +that late day, might well seem oppressed by the weariness of systems which had +so far outrun positive knowledge; and in the mind of Marius, as in that old +school of Cyrene, this sense of ennui, combined with appetites so youthfully +vigorous, brought about reaction, a sort of suicide (instances of the like have +been seen since) by which a great metaphysical acumen was devoted to the +function of proving metaphysical speculation impossible, or useless. Abstract +theory was to be valued only just so far as it might serve to clear the tablet +of the mind from suppositions no more than half realisable, or wholly +visionary, leaving it in flawless evenness of surface to the impressions of an +experience, concrete and direct. +</p> + +<p> +To be absolutely virgin towards such experience, by ridding ourselves of such +abstractions as are but the ghosts of bygone impressions—to be rid of the +notions we have made for ourselves, and that so often only misrepresent the +experience of which they profess to be the representation—<i>idola</i>, +idols, false appearances, as Bacon calls them later—to neutralise the +distorting influence of metaphysical system by an all-accomplished metaphysic +skill: it is this bold, hard, sober recognition, under a very “dry +light,” of its own proper aim, in union with a habit of feeling which on +the practical side may perhaps open a wide doorway to human weakness, that +gives to the Cyrenaic doctrine, to reproductions of this doctrine in the time +of Marius or in our own, their gravity and importance. It was a school to which +the young man might come, eager for truth, expecting much from philosophy, in +no ignoble curiosity, aspiring after nothing less than an +“initiation.” He would be sent back, sooner or later, to +experience, to the world of concrete impressions, to things as they may be +seen, heard, felt by him; but with a wonderful machinery of observation, and +free from the tyranny of mere theories. +</p> + +<p> +So, in intervals of repose, after the agitation which followed the death of +Flavian, the thoughts of Marius ran, while he felt himself as if returned to +the fine, clear, peaceful light of that pleasant school of healthfully sensuous +wisdom, in the brilliant old Greek colony, on its fresh upland by the sea. Not +pleasure, but a general completeness of life, was the practical ideal to which +this anti-metaphysical metaphysic really pointed. And towards such a full or +complete life, a life of various yet select sensation, the most direct and +effective auxiliary must be, in a word, Insight. Liberty of soul, freedom from +all partial and misrepresentative doctrine which does but relieve one element +in our experience at the cost of another, freedom from all embarrassment alike +of regret for the past and of calculation on the future: this would be but +preliminary to the real business of education—insight, insight through +culture, into all that the present moment holds in trust for us, as we stand so +briefly in its presence. From that maxim of Life as the end of life, followed, +as a practical consequence, the desirableness of refining all the instruments +of inward and outward intuition, of developing all their capacities, of testing +and exercising one’s self in them, till one’s whole nature became +one complex medium of reception, towards the vision—the “beatific +vision,” if we really cared to make it such—of our actual +experience in the world. Not the conveyance of an abstract body of truths or +principles, would be the aim of the right education of one’s self, or of +another, but the conveyance of an art—an art in some degree peculiar to +each individual character; with the modifications, that is, due to its special +constitution, and the peculiar circumstances of its growth, inasmuch as no one +of us is “like another, all in all.” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap09"></a>CHAPTER IX.<br/> +NEW CYRENAICISM</h2> + +<p> +Such were the practical conclusions drawn for himself by Marius, when somewhat +later he had outgrown the mastery of others, from the principle that “all +is vanity.” If he could but count upon the present, if a life brief at +best could not certainly be shown to conduct one anywhere beyond itself, if +men’s highest curiosity was indeed so persistently baffled—then, +with the Cyrenaics of all ages, he would at least fill up the measure of that +present with vivid sensations, and such intellectual apprehensions, as, in +strength and directness and their immediately realised values at the bar of an +actual experience, are most like sensations. So some have spoken in every age; +for, like all theories which really express a strong natural tendency of the +human mind or even one of its characteristic modes of weakness, this vein of +reflection is a constant tradition in philosophy. Every age of European thought +has had its Cyrenaics or Epicureans, under many disguises: even under the hood +of the monk. +</p> + +<p> +But—Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die!—is a proposal, the +real import of which differs immensely, according to the natural taste, and the +acquired judgment, of the guests who sit at the table. It may express nothing +better than the instinct of Dante’s Ciacco, the accomplished glutton, in +the mud of the Inferno;+ or, since on no hypothesis does man “live by +bread alone,” may come to be identical with—“My meat is to do +what is just and kind;” while the soul, which can make no sincere claim +to have apprehended anything beyond the veil of immediate experience, yet never +loses a sense of happiness in conforming to the highest moral ideal it can +clearly define for itself; and actually, though but with so faint hope, does +the “Father’s business.” +</p> + +<p> +In that age of Marcus Aurelius, so completely disabused of the metaphysical +ambition to pass beyond “the flaming ramparts of the world,” but, +on the other hand, possessed of so vast an accumulation of intellectual +treasure, with so wide a view before it over all varieties of what is powerful +or attractive in man and his works, the thoughts of Marius did but follow the +line taken by the majority of educated persons, though to a different issue. +Pitched to a really high and serious key, the precept—Be perfect in +regard to what is here and now: the precept of “culture,” as it is +called, or of a complete education—might at least save him from the +vulgarity and heaviness of a generation, certainly of no general fineness of +temper, though with a material well-being abundant enough. Conceded that what +is secure in our existence is but the sharp apex of the present moment between +two hypothetical eternities, and all that is real in our experience but a +series of fleeting impressions:—so Marius continued the sceptical +argument he had condensed, as the matter to hold by, from his various +philosophical reading:—given, that we are never to get beyond the walls +of the closely shut cell of one’s own personality; that the ideas we are +somehow impelled to form of an outer world, and of other minds akin to our own, +are, it may be, but a day-dream, and the thought of any world beyond, a +day-dream perhaps idler still: then, he, at least, in whom those fleeting +impressions—faces, voices, material sunshine—were very real and +imperious, might well set himself to the consideration, how such actual moments +as they passed might be made to yield their utmost, by the most dexterous +training of capacity. Amid abstract metaphysical doubts, as to what might lie +one step only beyond that experience, reinforcing the deep original materialism +or earthliness of human nature itself, bound so intimately to the sensuous +world, let him at least make the most of what was “here and now.” +In the actual dimness of ways from means to ends—ends in themselves +desirable, yet for the most part distant and for him, certainly, below the +visible horizon—he would at all events be sure that the means, to use the +well-worn terminology, should have something of finality or perfection about +them, and themselves partake, in a measure, of the more excellent nature of +ends—that the means should justify the end. +</p> + +<p> +With this view he would demand culture, paideia,+ as the Cyrenaics said, or, in +other words, a wide, a complete, education—an education partly negative, +as ascertaining the true limits of man’s capacities, but for the most +part positive, and directed especially to the expansion and refinement of the +power of reception; of those powers, above all, which are immediately relative +to fleeting phenomena, the powers of emotion and sense. In such an education, +an “aesthetic” education, as it might now be termed, and certainly +occupied very largely with those aspects of things which affect us pleasurably +through sensation, art, of course, including all the finer sorts of literature, +would have a great part to play. The study of music, in that wider Platonic +sense, according to which, music comprehends all those matters over which the +Muses of Greek mythology preside, would conduct one to an exquisite +appreciation of all the finer traits of nature and of man. Nay! the products of +the imagination must themselves be held to present the most perfect forms of +life—spirit and matter alike under their purest and most perfect +conditions—the most strictly appropriate objects of that impassioned +contemplation, which, in the world of intellectual discipline, as in the +highest forms of morality and religion, must be held to be the essential +function of the “perfect.” Such manner of life might come even to +seem a kind of religion—an inward, visionary, mystic piety, or religion, +by virtue of its effort to live days “lovely and pleasant” in +themselves, here and now, and with an all-sufficiency of well-being in the +immediate sense of the object contemplated, independently of any faith, or hope +that might be entertained as to their ulterior tendency. In this way, the true +aesthetic culture would be realisable as a new form of the contemplative life, +founding its claim on the intrinsic “blessedness” of +“vision”—the vision of perfect men and things. One’s +human nature, indeed, would fain reckon on an assured and endless future, +pleasing itself with the dream of a final home, to be attained at some still +remote date, yet with a conscious, delightful home-coming at last, as depicted +in many an old poetic Elysium. On the other hand, the world of perfected +sensation, intelligence, emotion, is so close to us, and so attractive, that +the most visionary of spirits must needs represent the world unseen in colours, +and under a form really borrowed from it. Let me be sure then—might he +not plausibly say?—that I miss no detail of this life of realised +consciousness in the present! Here at least is a vision, a theory, theôria,+ +which reposes on no basis of unverified hypothesis, which makes no call upon a +future after all somewhat problematic; as it would be unaffected by any +discovery of an Empedocles (improving on the old story of Prometheus) as to +what had really been the origin, and course of development, of man’s +actually attained faculties and that seemingly divine particle of reason or +spirit in him. Such a doctrine, at more leisurable moments, would of course +have its precepts to deliver on the embellishment, generally, of what is near +at hand, on the adornment of life, till, in a not impracticable rule of +conduct, one’s existence, from day to day, came to be like a +well-executed piece of music; that “perpetual motion” in things (so +Marius figured the matter to himself, under the old Greek imageries) according +itself to a kind of cadence or harmony. +</p> + +<p> +It was intelligible that this “aesthetic” philosophy might find +itself (theoretically, at least, and by way of a curious question in casuistry, +legitimate from its own point of view) weighing the claims of that eager, +concentrated, impassioned realisation of experience, against those of the +received morality. Conceiving its own function in a somewhat desperate temper, +and becoming, as every high-strung form of sentiment, as the religious +sentiment itself, may become, somewhat antinomian, when, in its effort towards +the order of experiences it prefers, it is confronted with the traditional and +popular morality, at points where that morality may look very like a +convention, or a mere stage-property of the world, it would be found, from time +to time, breaking beyond the limits of the actual moral order; perhaps not +without some pleasurable excitement in so bold a venture. +</p> + +<p> +With the possibility of some such hazard as this, in thought or even in +practice—that it might be, though refining, or tonic even, in the case of +those strong and in health, yet, as Pascal says of the kindly and temperate +wisdom of Montaigne, “pernicious for those who have any natural tendency +to impiety or vice,” the line of reflection traced out above, was fairly +chargeable.—Not, however, with “hedonism” and its supposed +consequences. The blood, the heart, of Marius were still pure. He knew that his +carefully considered theory of practice braced him, with the effect of a moral +principle duly recurring to mind every morning, towards the work of a student, +for which he might seem intended. Yet there were some among his acquaintance +who jumped to the conclusion that, with the “Epicurean stye,” he +was making pleasure—pleasure, as they so poorly conceived it—the +sole motive of life; and they precluded any exacter estimate of the situation +by covering it with a high-sounding general term, through the vagueness of +which they were enabled to see the severe and laborious youth in the vulgar +company of Lais. Words like “hedonism”— terms of large and +vague comprehension—above all when used for a purpose avowedly +controversial, have ever been the worst examples of what are called +“question-begging terms;” and in that late age in which Marius +lived, amid the dust of so many centuries of philosophical debate, the air was +full of them. Yet those who used that reproachful Greek term for the philosophy +of pleasure, were hardly more likely than the old Greeks themselves (on whom +regarding this very subject of the theory of pleasure, their masters in the art +of thinking had so emphatically to impress the necessity of “making +distinctions”) to come to any very delicately correct ethical conclusions +by a reasoning, which began with a general term, comprehensive enough to cover +pleasures so different in quality, in their causes and effects, as the +pleasures of wine and love, of art and science, of religious enthusiasm and +political enterprise, and of that taste or curiosity which satisfied itself +with long days of serious study. Yet, in truth, each of those pleasurable modes +of activity, may, in its turn, fairly become the ideal of the +“hedonistic” doctrine. Really, to the phase of reflection through +which Marius was then passing, the charge of “hedonism,” whatever +its true weight might be, was not properly applicable at all. Not pleasure, but +fulness of life, and “insight” as conducting to that +fulness—energy, variety, and choice of experience, including noble pain +and sorrow even, loves such as those in the exquisite old story of Apuleius, +sincere and strenuous forms of the moral life, such as Seneca and +Epictetus—whatever form of human life, in short, might be heroic, +impassioned, ideal: from these the “new Cyrenaicism” of Marius took +its criterion of values. It was a theory, indeed, which might properly be +regarded as in great degree coincident with the main principle of the Stoics +themselves, and an older version of the precept “Whatsoever thy hand +findeth to do, do it with thy might”—a doctrine so widely +acceptable among the nobler spirits of that time. And, as with that, its +mistaken tendency would lie in the direction of a kind of idolatry of mere +life, or natural gift, or strength—l’idôlatrie des talents. +</p> + +<p> +To understand the various forms of ancient art and thought, the various forms +of actual human feeling (the only new thing, in a world almost too opulent in +what was old) to satisfy, with a kind of scrupulous equity, the claims of these +concrete and actual objects on his sympathy, his intelligence, his +senses—to “pluck out the heart of their mystery,” and in turn +become the interpreter of them to others: this had now defined itself for +Marius as a very narrowly practical design: it determined his choice of a +vocation to live by. It was the era of the rhetoricians, or sophists, as they +were sometimes called; of men who came in some instances to great fame and +fortune, by way of a literary cultivation of “science.” That +science, it has been often said, must have been wholly an affair of words. But +in a world, confessedly so opulent in what was old, the work, even of genius, +must necessarily consist very much in criticism; and, in the case of the more +excellent specimens of his class, the rhetorician was, after all, the eloquent +and effective interpreter, for the delighted ears of others, of what +understanding himself had come by, in years of travel and study, of the +beautiful house of art and thought which was the inheritance of the age. The +emperor Marcus Aurelius, to whose service Marius had now been called, was +himself, more or less openly, a “lecturer.” That late world, amid +many curiously vivid modern traits, had this spectacle, so familiar to +ourselves, of the public lecturer or essayist; in some cases adding to his +other gifts that of the Christian preacher, who knows how to touch +people’s sensibilities on behalf of the suffering. To follow in the way +of these successes, was the natural instinct of youthful ambition; and it was +with no vulgar egotism that Marius, at the age of nineteen, determined, like +many another young man of parts, to enter as a student of rhetoric at Rome. +</p> + +<p> +Though the manner of his work was changed formally from poetry to prose, he +remained, and must always be, of the poetic temper: by which, I mean, among +other things, that quite independently of the general habit of that pensive age +he lived much, and as it were by system, in reminiscence. Amid his eager +grasping at the sensation, the consciousness, of the present, he had come to +see that, after all, the main point of economy in the conduct of the present, +was the question:—How will it look to me, at what shall I value it, this +day next year?—that in any given day or month one’s main concern +was its impression for the memory. A strange trick memory sometimes played him; +for, with no natural gradation, what was of last month, or of yesterday, of +to-day even, would seem as far off, as entirely detached from him, as things of +ten years ago. Detached from him, yet very real, there lay certain spaces of +his life, in delicate perspective, under a favourable light; and, somehow, all +the less fortunate detail and circumstance had parted from them. Such hours +were oftenest those in which he had been helped by work of others to the +pleasurable apprehension of art, of nature, or of life. “Not what I do, +but what I am, under the power of this vision”—he would say to +himself—“is what were indeed pleasing to the gods!” +</p> + +<p> +And yet, with a kind of inconsistency in one who had taken for his philosophic +ideal the monochronos hêdonê+ of Aristippus—the pleasure of the ideal +present, of the mystic now—there would come, together with that +precipitate sinking of things into the past, a desire, after all, to retain +“what was so transitive.” Could he but arrest, for others also, +certain clauses of experience, as the imaginative memory presented them to +himself! In those grand, hot summers, he would have imprisoned the very perfume +of the flowers. To create, to live, perhaps, a little while beyond the allotted +hours, if it were but in a fragment of perfect expression:—it was thus +his longing defined itself for something to hold by amid the “perpetual +flux.” With men of his vocation, people were apt to say, words were +things. Well! with him, words should be indeed things,—the word, the +phrase, valuable in exact proportion to the transparency with which it conveyed +to others the apprehension, the emotion, the mood, so vividly real within +himself. Verbaque provisam rem non invita sequentur:+ Virile apprehension of +the true nature of things, of the true nature of one’s own impression, +first of all!—words would follow that naturally, a true understanding of +one’s self being ever the first condition of genuine style. Language +delicate and measured, the delicate Attic phrase, for instance, in which the +eminent Aristeides could speak, was then a power to which people’s +hearts, and sometimes even their purses, readily responded. And there were many +points, as Marius thought, on which the heart of that age greatly needed to be +touched. He hardly knew how strong that old religious sense of responsibility, +the conscience, as we call it, still was within him—a body of inward +impressions, as real as those so highly valued outward ones—to offend +against which, brought with it a strange feeling of disloyalty, as to a person. +And the determination, adhered to with no misgiving, to add nothing, not so +much as a transient sigh, to the great total of men’s unhappiness, in his +way through the world:—that too was something to rest on, in the drift of +mere “appearances.” +</p> + +<p> +All this would involve a life of industry, of industrious study, only possible +through healthy rule, keeping clear the eye alike of body and soul. For the +male element, the logical conscience asserted itself now, with opening +manhood—asserted itself, even in his literary style, by a certain +firmness of outline, that touch of the worker in metal, amid its richness. +Already he blamed instinctively alike in his work and in himself, as youth so +seldom does, all that had not passed a long and liberal process of erasure. The +happy phrase or sentence was really modelled upon a cleanly finished structure +of scrupulous thought. The suggestive force of the one master of his +development, who had battled so hard with imaginative prose; the utterance, the +golden utterance, of the other, so content with its living power of persuasion +that he had never written at all,—in the commixture of these two +qualities he set up his literary ideal, and this rare blending of grace with an +intellectual rigour or astringency, was the secret of a singular expressiveness +in it. +</p> + +<p> +He acquired at this time a certain bookish air, the somewhat sombre habitude of +the avowed scholar, which though it never interfered with the perfect tone, +“fresh and serenely disposed,” of the Roman gentleman, yet +qualified it as by an interesting oblique trait, and frightened away some of +his equals in age and rank. The sober discretion of his thoughts, his sustained +habit of meditation, the sense of those negative conclusions enabling him to +concentrate himself, with an absorption so entire, upon what is immediately +here and now, gave him a peculiar manner of intellectual confidence, as of one +who had indeed been initiated into a great secret.—Though with an air so +disengaged, he seemed to be living so intently in the visible world! And now, +in revolt against that pre-occupation with other persons, which had so often +perturbed his spirit, his wistful speculations as to what the real, the +greater, experience might be, determined in him, not as the longing for +love—to be with Cynthia, or Aspasia—but as a thirst for existence +in exquisite places. The veil that was to be lifted for him lay over the works +of the old masters of art, in places where nature also had used her mastery. +And it was just at this moment that a summons to Rome reached him. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +NOTES +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +145. +Canto VI. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +147. +Transliteration: paideia. Definition “rearing, education.” +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +149. +Transliteration: theôria. Definition “a looking at ... observing +... contemplation.” +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +154. +Transliteration: monochronos hêdonê. Pater’s definition “the +pleasure of the ideal present, of the mystic now.” The definition is +fitting; the unusual adjective monokhronos means, literally, “single or +unitary time.” +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +155. +Horace, Ars Poetica 311. +Etext editor’s translation: “The +subject once foreknown, the words will follow easily.” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap10"></a>CHAPTER X.<br/> +ON THE WAY</h2> + +<p class="poem"> +Mirum est ut animus agitatione motuque corporis excitetur.<br/> +Pliny’s Letters. +</p> + +<p> +Many points in that train of thought, its harder and more energetic practical +details especially, at first surmised but vaguely in the intervals of his +visits to the tomb of Flavian, attained the coherence of formal principle amid +the stirring incidents of the journey, which took him, still in all the +buoyancy of his nineteen years and greatly expectant, to Rome. That summons had +come from one of the former friends of his father in the capital, who had kept +himself acquainted with the lad’s progress, and, assured of his parts, +his courtly ways, above all of his beautiful penmanship, now offered him a +place, virtually that of an amanuensis, near the person of the philosophic +emperor. The old town-house of his family on the Caelian hill, so long +neglected, might well require his personal care; and Marius, relieved a little +by his preparations for travelling from a certain over-tension of spirit in +which he had lived of late, was presently on his way, to await introduction to +Aurelius, on his expected return home, after a first success, illusive enough +as it was soon to appear, against the invaders from beyond the Danube. +</p> + +<p> +The opening stage of his journey, through the firm, golden weather, for which +he had lingered three days beyond the appointed time of starting—days +brown with the first rains of autumn—brought him, by the byways among the +lower slopes of the Apennines of Luna, to the town of Luca, a station on the +Cassian Way; travelling so far mainly on foot, while the baggage followed under +the care of his attendants. He wore a broad felt hat, in fashion not unlike a +more modern pilgrim’s, the neat head projecting from the collar of his +gray paenula, or travelling mantle, sewed closely together over the breast, but +with its two sides folded up upon the shoulders, to leave the arms free in +walking, and was altogether so trim and fresh, that, as he climbed the hill +from Pisa, by the long steep lane through the olive-yards, and turned to gaze +where he could just discern the cypresses of the old school garden, like two +black lines down the yellow walls, a little child took possession of his hand, +and, looking up at him with entire confidence, paced on bravely at his side, +for the mere pleasure of his company, to the spot where the road declined again +into the valley beyond. From this point, leaving the servants behind, he +surrendered himself, a willing subject, as he walked, to the impressions of the +road, and was almost surprised, both at the suddenness with which evening came +on, and the distance from his old home at which it found him. +</p> + +<p> +And at the little town of Luca, he felt that indescribable sense of a welcoming +in the mere outward appearance of things, which seems to mark out certain +places for the special purpose of evening rest, and gives them always a +peculiar amiability in retrospect. Under the deepening twilight, the +rough-tiled roofs seem to huddle together side by side, like one continuous +shelter over the whole township, spread low and broad above the snug +sleeping-rooms within; and the place one sees for the first time, and must +tarry in but for a night, breathes the very spirit of home. The cottagers +lingered at their doors for a few minutes as the shadows grew larger, and went +to rest early; though there was still a glow along the road through the shorn +corn-fields, and the birds were still awake about the crumbling gray heights of +an old temple. So quiet and air-swept was the place, you could hardly tell +where the country left off in it, and the field-paths became its streets. Next +morning he must needs change the manner of his journey. The light baggage-wagon +returned, and he proceeded now more quickly, travelling a stage or two by post, +along the Cassian Way, where the figures and incidents of the great high-road +seemed already to tell of the capital, the one centre to which all were +hastening, or had lately bidden adieu. That Way lay through the heart of the +old, mysterious and visionary country of Etruria; and what he knew of its +strange religion of the dead, reinforced by the actual sight of the funeral +houses scattered so plentifully among the dwelling-places of the living, +revived in him for a while, in all its strength, his old instinctive yearning +towards those inhabitants of the shadowy land he had known in life. It seemed +to him that he could half divine how time passed in those painted houses on the +hillsides, among the gold and silver ornaments, the wrought armour and +vestments, the drowsy and dead attendants; and the close consciousness of that +vast population gave him no fear, but rather a sense of companionship, as he +climbed the hills on foot behind the horses, through the genial afternoon. +</p> + +<p> +The road, next day, passed below a town not less primitive, it might seem, than +its rocky perch—white rocks, that had long been glistening before him in +the distance. Down the dewy paths the people were descending from it, to keep a +holiday, high and low alike in rough, white-linen smocks. A homely old play was +just begun in an open-air theatre, with seats hollowed out of the turf-grown +slope. Marius caught the terrified expression of a child in its mother’s +arms, as it turned from the yawning mouth of a great mask, for refuge in her +bosom. The way mounted, and descended again, down the steep street of another +place, all resounding with the noise of metal under the hammer; for every house +had its brazier’s workshop, the bright objects of brass and copper +gleaming, like lights in a cave, out of their dark roofs and corners. Around +the anvils the children were watching the work, or ran to fetch water to the +hissing, red-hot metal; and Marius too watched, as he took his hasty mid-day +refreshment, a mess of chestnut-meal and cheese, while the swelling surface of +a great copper water-vessel grew flowered all over with tiny petals under the +skilful strokes. Towards dusk, a frantic woman at the roadside, stood and cried +out the words of some philter, or malison, in verse, with weird motion of her +hands, as the travellers passed, like a wild picture drawn from Virgil. +</p> + +<p> +But all along, accompanying the superficial grace of these incidents of the +way, Marius noted, more and more as he drew nearer to Rome, marks of the great +plague. Under Hadrian and his successors, there had been many enactments to +improve the condition of the slave. The ergastula+ were abolished. But no +system of free labour had as yet succeeded. A whole mendicant population, +artfully exaggerating every symptom and circumstance of misery, still hung +around, or sheltered themselves within, the vast walls of their old, +half-ruined task-houses. And for the most part they had been variously stricken +by the pestilence. For once, the heroic level had been reached in rags, +squints, scars—every caricature of the human type—ravaged beyond +what could have been thought possible if it were to survive at all. Meantime, +the farms were less carefully tended than of old: here and there they were +lapsing into their natural wildness: some villas also were partly fallen into +ruin. The picturesque, romantic Italy of a later time—the Italy of Claude +and Salvator Rosa—was already forming, for the delight of the modern +romantic traveller. +</p> + +<p> +And again Marius was aware of a real change in things, on crossing the Tiber, +as if some magic effect lay in that; though here, in truth, the Tiber was but a +modest enough stream of turbid water. Nature, under the richer sky, seemed +readier and more affluent, and man fitter to the conditions around him: even in +people hard at work there appeared to be a less burdensome sense of the mere +business of life. How dreamily the women were passing up through the broad +light and shadow of the steep streets with the great water-pots resting on +their heads, like women of Caryae, set free from slavery in old Greek temples. +With what a fresh, primeval poetry was daily existence here impressed—all +the details of the threshing-floor and the vineyard; the common farm-life even; +the great bakers’ fires aglow upon the road in the evening. In the +presence of all this Marius felt for a moment like those old, early, +unconscious poets, who created the famous Greek myths of Dionysus, and the +Great Mother, out of the imagery of the wine-press and the ploughshare. And +still the motion of the journey was bringing his thoughts to systematic form. +He seemed to have grown to the fulness of intellectual manhood, on his way +hither. The formative and literary stimulus, so to call it, of peaceful +exercise which he had always observed in himself, doing its utmost now, the +form and the matter of thought alike detached themselves clearly and with +readiness from the healthfully excited brain.—“It is +wonderful,” says Pliny, “how the mind is stirred to activity by +brisk bodily exercise.” The presentable aspects of inmost thought and +feeling became evident to him: the structure of all he meant, its order and +outline, defined itself: his general sense of a fitness and beauty in words +became effective in daintily pliant sentences, with all sorts of felicitous +linking of figure to abstraction. It seemed just then as if the desire of the +artist in him—that old longing to produce—might be satisfied by the +exact and literal transcript of what was then passing around him, in simple +prose, arresting the desirable moment as it passed, and prolonging its life a +little.—To live in the concrete! To be sure, at least, of one’s +hold upon that!—Again, his philosophic scheme was but the reflection of +the data of sense, and chiefly of sight, a reduction to the abstract, of the +brilliant road he travelled on, through the sunshine. +</p> + +<p> +But on the seventh evening there came a reaction in the cheerful flow of our +traveller’s thoughts, a reaction with which mere bodily fatigue, +asserting itself at last over his curiosity, had much to do; and he fell into a +mood, known to all passably sentimental wayfarers, as night deepens again and +again over their path, in which all journeying, from the known to the unknown, +comes suddenly to figure as a mere foolish truancy—like a child’s +running away from home—with the feeling that one had best return at once, +even through the darkness. He had chosen to climb on foot, at his leisure, the +long windings by which the road ascended to the place where that day’s +stage was to end, and found himself alone in the twilight, far behind the rest +of his travelling-companions. Would the last zigzag, round and round those dark +masses, half natural rock, half artificial substructure, ever bring him within +the circuit of the walls above? It was now that a startling incident turned +those misgivings almost into actual fear. From the steep slope a heavy mass of +stone was detached, after some whisperings among the trees above his head, and +rushing down through the stillness fell to pieces in a cloud of dust across the +road just behind him, so that he felt the touch upon his heel. That was +sufficient, just then, to rouse out of its hiding-place his old vague fear of +evil—of one’s “enemies”—a distress, so much a +matter of constitution with him, that at times it would seem that the best +pleasures of life could but be snatched, as it were hastily, in one +moment’s forgetfulness of its dark, besetting influence. A sudden +suspicion of hatred against him, of the nearness of “enemies,” +seemed all at once to alter the visible form of things, as with the +child’s hero, when he found the footprint on the sand of his peaceful, +dreamy island. His elaborate philosophy had not put beneath his feet the terror +of mere bodily evil; much less of “inexorable fate, and the noise of +greedy Acheron.” +</p> + +<p> +The resting-place to which he presently came, in the keen, wholesome air of the +market-place of the little hill-town, was a pleasant contrast to that last +effort of his journey. The room in which he sat down to supper, unlike the +ordinary Roman inns at that day, was trim and sweet. The firelight danced +cheerfully upon the polished, three-wicked lucernae burning cleanly with the +best oil, upon the white-washed walls, and the bunches of scarlet carnations +set in glass goblets. The white wine of the place put before him, of the true +colour and flavour of the grape, and with a ring of delicate foam as it mounted +in the cup, had a reviving edge or freshness he had found in no other wine. +These things had relieved a little the melancholy of the hour before; and it +was just then that he heard the voice of one, newly arrived at the inn, making +his way to the upper floor—a youthful voice, with a reassuring clearness +of note, which completed his cure. +</p> + +<p> +He seemed to hear that voice again in dreams, uttering his name: then, awake in +the full morning light and gazing from the window, saw the guest of the night +before, a very honourable-looking youth, in the rich habit of a military +knight, standing beside his horse, and already making preparations to depart. +It happened that Marius, too, was to take that day’s journey on +horseback. Riding presently from the inn, he overtook Cornelius—of the +Twelfth Legion—advancing carefully down the steep street; and before they +had issued from the gates of Urbs-vetus, the two young men had broken into talk +together. They were passing along the street of the goldsmiths; and Cornelius +must needs enter one of the workshops for the repair of some button or link of +his knightly trappings. Standing in the doorway, Marius watched the work, as he +had watched the brazier’s business a few days before, wondering most at +the simplicity of its processes, a simplicity, however, on which only genius in +that craft could have lighted.—By what unguessed-at stroke of hand, for +instance, had the grains of precious metal associated themselves with so +daintily regular a roughness, over the surface of the little casket yonder? And +the conversation which followed, hence arising, left the two travellers with +sufficient interest in each other to insure an easy companionship for the +remainder of their journey. In time to come, Marius was to depend very much on +the preferences, the personal judgments, of the comrade who now laid his hand +so brotherly on his shoulder, as they left the workshop. +</p> + +<p> +Itineris matutini gratiam capimus,+—observes one of our scholarly +travellers; and their road that day lay through a country, well-fitted, by the +peculiarity of its landscape, to ripen a first acquaintance into intimacy; its +superficial ugliness throwing the wayfarers back upon each other’s +entertainment in a real exchange of ideas, the tension of which, however, it +would relieve, ever and anon, by the unexpected assertion of something +singularly attractive. The immediate aspect of the land was, indeed, in spite +of abundant olive and ilex, unpleasing enough. A river of clay seemed, +“in some old night of time,” to have burst up over valley and hill, +and hardened there into fantastic shelves and slides and angles of cadaverous +rock, up and down among the contorted vegetation; the hoary roots and trunks +seeming to confess some weird kinship with them. But that was long ago; and +these pallid hillsides needed only the declining sun, touching the rock with +purple, and throwing deeper shadow into the immemorial foliage, to put on a +peculiar, because a very grave and austere, kind of beauty; while the graceful +outlines common to volcanic hills asserted themselves in the broader prospect. +And, for sentimental Marius, all this was associated, by some perhaps fantastic +affinity, with a peculiar trait of severity, beyond his guesses as to the +secret of it, which mingled with the blitheness of his new companion. +Concurring, indeed, with the condition of a Roman soldier, it was certainly +something far more than the expression of military hardness, or ascêsis; and +what was earnest, or even austere, in the landscape they had traversed +together, seemed to have been waiting for the passage of this figure to +interpret or inform it. Again, as in his early days with Flavian, a vivid +personal presence broke through the dreamy idealism, which had almost come to +doubt of other men’s reality: reassuringly, indeed, yet not without some +sense of a constraining tyranny over him from without. +</p> + +<p> +For Cornelius, returning from the campaign, to take up his quarters on the +Palatine, in the imperial guard, seemed to carry about with him, in that +privileged world of comely usage to which he belonged, the atmosphere of some +still more jealously exclusive circle. They halted on the morrow at noon, not +at an inn, but at the house of one of the young soldier’s friends, whom +they found absent, indeed, in consequence of the plague in those parts, so that +after a mid-day rest only, they proceeded again on their journey. The great +room of the villa, to which they were admitted, had lain long untouched; and +the dust rose, as they entered, into the slanting bars of sunlight, that fell +through the half-closed shutters. It was here, to while away the time, that +Cornelius bethought himself of displaying to his new friend the various +articles and ornaments of his knightly array—the breastplate, the sandals +and cuirass, lacing them on, one by one, with the assistance of Marius, and +finally the great golden bracelet on the right arm, conferred on him by his +general for an act of valour. And as he gleamed there, amid that odd +interchange of light and shade, with the staff of a silken standard firm in his +hand, Marius felt as if he were face to face, for the first time, with some new +knighthood or chivalry, just then coming into the world. +</p> + +<p> +It was soon after they left this place, journeying now by carriage, that Rome +was seen at last, with much excitement on the part of our travellers; +Cornelius, and some others of whom the party then consisted, agreeing, chiefly +for the sake of Marius, to hasten forward, that it might be reached by +daylight, with a cheerful noise of rapid wheels as they passed over the +flagstones. But the highest light upon the mausoleum of Hadrian was quite gone +out, and it was dark, before they reached the Flaminian Gate. The abundant +sound of water was the one thing that impressed Marius, as they passed down a +long street, with many open spaces on either hand: Cornelius to his military +quarters, and Marius to the old dwelling-place of his fathers. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +NOTES +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +162. +E-text editor’s note: ergastula were the Roman agrarian equivalent +of prison-workhouses. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +168. +Apuleius, The Golden Ass, I.17. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap11"></a>CHAPTER XI.<br/> +“THE MOST RELIGIOUS CITY IN THE WORLD”</h2> + +<p> +Marius awoke early and passed curiously from room to room, noting for more +careful inspection by and by the rolls of manuscripts. Even greater than his +curiosity in gazing for the first time on this ancient possession, was his +eagerness to look out upon Rome itself, as he pushed back curtain and shutter, +and stepped forth in the fresh morning upon one of the many balconies, with an +oft-repeated dream realised at last. He was certainly fortunate in the time of +his coming to Rome. That old pagan world, of which Rome was the flower, had +reached its perfection in the things of poetry and art—a perfection which +indicated only too surely the eve of decline. As in some vast intellectual +museum, all its manifold products were intact and in their places, and with +custodians also still extant, duly qualified to appreciate and explain them. +And at no period of history had the material Rome itself been better worth +seeing—lying there not less consummate than that world of pagan intellect +which it represented in every phase of its darkness and light. The various work +of many ages fell here harmoniously together, as yet untouched save by time, +adding the final grace of a rich softness to its complex expression. Much which +spoke of ages earlier than Nero, the great re-builder, lingered on, antique, +quaint, immeasurably venerable, like the relics of the medieval city in the +Paris of Lewis the Fourteenth: the work of Nero’s own time had come to +have that sort of old world and picturesque interest which the work of Lewis +has for ourselves; while without stretching a parallel too far we might perhaps +liken the architectural finesses of the archaic Hadrian to the more excellent +products of our own Gothic revival. The temple of Antoninus and Faustina was +still fresh in all the majesty of its closely arrayed columns of cipollino; +but, on the whole, little had been added under the late and present emperors, +and during fifty years of public quiet, a sober brown and gray had grown apace +on things. The gilding on the roof of many a temple had lost its garishness: +cornice and capital of polished marble shone out with all the crisp freshness +of real flowers, amid the already mouldering travertine and brickwork, though +the birds had built freely among them. What Marius then saw was in many +respects, after all deduction of difference, more like the modern Rome than the +enumeration of particular losses might lead us to suppose; the Renaissance, in +its most ambitious mood and with amplest resources, having resumed the ancient +classical tradition there, with no break or obstruction, as it had happened, in +any very considerable work of the middle age. Immediately before him, on the +square, steep height, where the earliest little old Rome had huddled itself +together, arose the palace of the Caesars. Half-veiling the vast substruction +of rough, brown stone—line upon line of successive ages of +builders—the trim, old-fashioned garden walks, under their closely-woven +walls of dark glossy foliage, test of long and careful cultivation, wound +gradually, among choice trees, statues and fountains, distinct and sparkling in +the full morning sunlight, to the richly tinted mass of pavilions and corridors +above, centering in the lofty, white-marble dwelling-place of Apollo himself. +</p> + +<p> +How often had Marius looked forward to that first, free wandering through Rome, +to which he now went forth with a heat in the town sunshine (like a mist of +fine gold-dust spread through the air) to the height of his desire, making the +dun coolness of the narrow streets welcome enough at intervals. He almost +feared, descending the stair hastily, lest some unforeseen accident should +snatch the little cup of enjoyment from him ere he passed the door. In such +morning rambles in places new to him, life had always seemed to come at its +fullest: it was then he could feel his youth, that youth the days of which he +had already begun to count jealously, in entire possession. So the grave, +pensive figure, a figure, be it said nevertheless, fresher far than often came +across it now, moved through the old city towards the lodgings of Cornelius, +certainly not by the most direct course, however eager to rejoin the friend of +yesterday. +</p> + +<p> +Bent as keenly on seeing as if his first day in Rome were to be also his last, +the two friends descended along the <i>Vicus Tuscus</i>, with its rows of +incense-stalls, into the <i>Via Nova</i>, where the fashionable people were +busy shopping; and Marius saw with much amusement the frizzled heads, then <i>à +la mode</i>. A glimpse of the <i>Marmorata</i>, the haven at the river-side, +where specimens of all the precious marbles of the world were lying amid great +white blocks from the quarries of Luna, took his thoughts for a moment to his +distant home. They visited the flower-market, lingering where the +<i>coronarii</i> pressed on them the newest species, and purchased zinias, now +in blossom (like painted flowers, thought Marius), to decorate the folds of +their togas. Loitering to the other side of the Forum, past the great +Galen’s drug-shop, after a glance at the announcements of new poems on +sale attached to the doorpost of a famous bookseller, they entered the curious +library of the Temple of Peace, then a favourite resort of literary men, and +read, fixed there for all to see, the <i>Diurnal</i> or Gazette of the day, +which announced, together with births and deaths, prodigies and accidents, and +much mere matter of business, the date and manner of the philosophic +emperor’s joyful return to his people; and, thereafter, with eminent +names faintly disguised, what would carry that day’s news, in many +copies, over the provinces—a certain matter concerning the great lady, +known to be dear to him, whom he had left at home. It was a story, with the +development of which “society” had indeed for some time past +edified or amused itself, rallying sufficiently from the panic of a year ago, +not only to welcome back its ruler, but also to relish a <i>chronique +scandaleuse;</i> and thus, when soon after Marius saw the world’s wonder, +he was already acquainted with the suspicions which have ever since hung about +her name. Twelve o’clock was come before they left the Forum, waiting in +a little crowd to hear the <i>Accensus</i>, according to old custom, proclaim +the hour of noonday, at the moment when, from the steps of the Senate-house, +the sun could be seen standing between the <i>Rostra</i> and the +<i>Græcostasis</i>. He exerted for this function a strength of voice, which +confirmed in Marius a judgment the modern visitor may share with him, that +Roman throats and Roman chests, namely, must, in some peculiar way, be +differently constructed from those of other people. Such judgment indeed he had +formed in part the evening before, noting, as a religious procession passed +him, how much noise a man and a boy could make, though not without a great deal +of real music, of which in truth the Romans were then as ever passionately +fond. +</p> + +<p> +Hence the two friends took their way through the Via Flaminia, almost along the +line of the modern Corso, already bordered with handsome villas, turning +presently to the left, into the Field-of-Mars, still the playground of Rome. +But the vast public edifices were grown to be almost continuous over the grassy +expanse, represented now only by occasional open spaces of verdure and +wild-flowers. In one of these a crowd was standing, to watch a party of +athletes stripped for exercise. Marius had been surprised at the luxurious +variety of the litters borne through Rome, where no carriage horses were +allowed; and just then one far more sumptuous than the rest, with dainty +appointments of ivory and gold, was carried by, all the town pressing with +eagerness to get a glimpse of its most beautiful woman, as she passed rapidly. +Yes! there, was the wonder of the world—the empress Faustina herself: +Marius could distinguish, could distinguish clearly, the well-known profile, +between the floating purple curtains. +</p> + +<p> +For indeed all Rome was ready to burst into gaiety again, as it awaited with +much real affection, hopeful and animated, the return of its emperor, for whose +ovation various adornments were preparing along the streets through which the +imperial procession would pass. He had left Rome just twelve months before, +amid immense gloom. The alarm of a barbarian insurrection along the whole line +of the Danube had happened at the moment when Rome was panic-stricken by the +great pestilence. +</p> + +<p> +In fifty years of peace, broken only by that conflict in the East from which +Lucius Verus, among other curiosities, brought back the plague, war had come to +seem a merely romantic, superannuated incident of bygone history. And now it +was almost upon Italian soil. Terrible were the reports of the numbers and +audacity of the assailants. Aurelius, as yet untried in war, and understood by +a few only in the whole scope of a really great character, was known to the +majority of his subjects as but a careful administrator, though a student of +philosophy, perhaps, as we say, a dilettante. But he was also the visible +centre of government, towards whom the hearts of a whole people turned, +grateful for fifty years of public happiness—its good genius, its +“Antonine”—whose fragile person might be foreseen speedily +giving way under the trials of military life, with a disaster like that of the +slaughter of the legions by Arminius. Prophecies of the world’s impending +conflagration were easily credited: “the secular fire” would +descend from heaven: superstitious fear had even demanded the sacrifice of a +human victim. +</p> + +<p> +Marcus Aurelius, always philosophically considerate of the humours of other +people, exercising also that devout appreciation of every religious claim which +was one of his characteristic habits, had invoked, in aid of the commonwealth, +not only all native gods, but all foreign deities as well, however +strange.—“Help! Help! in the ocean space!” A multitude of +foreign priests had been welcomed to Rome, with their various peculiar +religious rites. The sacrifices made on this occasion were remembered for +centuries; and the starving poor, at least, found some satisfaction in the +flesh of those herds of “white bulls,” which came into the city, +day after day, to yield the savour of their blood to the gods. +</p> + +<p> +In spite of all this, the legions had but followed their standards +despondently. But prestige, personal prestige, the name of +“Emperor,” still had its magic power over the nations. The mere +approach of the Roman army made an impression on the barbarians. Aurelius and +his colleague had scarcely reached Aquileia when a deputation arrived to ask +for peace. And now the two imperial “brothers” were returning home +at leisure; were waiting, indeed, at a villa outside the walls, till the +capital had made ready to receive them. But although Rome was thus in genial +reaction, with much relief, and hopefulness against the winter, facing itself +industriously in damask of red and gold, those two enemies were still +unmistakably extant: the barbarian army of the Danube was but over-awed for a +season; and the plague, as we saw when Marius was on his way to Rome, was not +to depart till it had done a large part in the formation of the melancholy +picturesque of modern Italy—till it had made, or prepared for the making +of the Roman Campagna. The old, unaffected, really pagan, peace or gaiety, of +Antoninus Pius—that genuine though unconscious humanist—was gone +for ever. And again and again, throughout this day of varied observation, +Marius had been reminded, above all else, that he was not merely in “the +most religious city of the world,” as one had said, but that Rome was +become the romantic home of the wildest superstition. Such superstition +presented itself almost as religious mania in many an incident of his long +ramble,—incidents to which he gave his full attention, though contending +in some measure with a reluctance on the part of his companion, the motive of +which he did not understand till long afterwards. Marius certainly did not +allow this reluctance to deter his own curiosity. Had he not come to Rome +partly under poetic vocation, to receive all those things, the very impress of +life itself, upon the visual, the imaginative, organ, as upon a mirror; to +reflect them; to transmute them into golden words? He must observe that strange +medley of superstition, that centuries’ growth, layer upon layer, of the +curiosities of religion (one faith jostling another out of place) at least for +its picturesque interest, and as an indifferent outsider might, not too deeply +concerned in the question which, if any of them, was to be the survivor. +</p> + +<p> +Superficially, at least, the Roman religion, allying itself with much +diplomatic economy to possible rivals, was in possession, as a vast and complex +system of usage, intertwining itself with every detail of public and private +life, attractively enough for those who had but “the historic +temper,” and a taste for the past, however much a Lucian might depreciate +it. Roman religion, as Marius knew, had, indeed, been always something to be +done, rather than something to be thought, or believed, or loved; something to +be done in minutely detailed manner, at a particular time and place, +correctness in which had long been a matter of laborious learning with a whole +school of ritualists—as also, now and again, a matter of heroic sacrifice +with certain exceptionally devout souls, as when Caius Fabius Dorso, with his +life in his hand, succeeded in passing the sentinels of the invading Gauls to +perform a sacrifice on the Quirinal, and, thanks to the divine protection, had +returned in safety. So jealous was the distinction between sacred and profane, +that, in the matter of the “regarding of days,” it had made more +than half the year a holiday. Aurelius had, indeed, ordained that there should +be no more than a hundred and thirty-five festival days in the year; but in +other respects he had followed in the steps of his predecessor, Antoninus +Pius—commended especially for his “religion,” his conspicuous +devotion to its public ceremonies—and whose coins are remarkable for +their reference to the oldest and most hieratic types of Roman mythology. +Aurelius had succeeded in more than healing the old feud between philosophy and +religion, displaying himself, in singular combination, as at once the most +zealous of philosophers and the most devout of polytheists, and lending +himself, with an air of conviction, to all the pageantries of public worship. +To his pious recognition of that one orderly spirit, which, according to the +doctrine of the Stoics, diffuses itself through the world, and animates +it—a recognition taking the form, with him, of a constant effort towards +inward likeness thereto, in the harmonious order of his own soul—he had +added a warm personal devotion towards the whole multitude of the old national +gods, and a great many new foreign ones besides, by him, at least, not ignobly +conceived. If the comparison may be reverently made, there was something here +of the method by which the catholic church has added the cultus of the saints +to its worship of the one Divine Being. +</p> + +<p> +And to the view of the majority, though the emperor, as the personal centre of +religion, entertained the hope of converting his people to philosophic faith, +and had even pronounced certain public discourses for their instruction in it, +that polytheistic devotion was his most striking feature. Philosophers, indeed, +had, for the most part, thought with Seneca, “that a man need not lift +his hands to heaven, nor ask the sacristan’s leave to put his mouth to +the ear of an image, that his prayers might be heard the +better.”—Marcus Aurelius, “a master in Israel,” knew +all that well enough. Yet his outward devotion was much more than a concession +to popular sentiment, or a mere result of that sense of fellow-citizenship with +others, which had made him again and again, under most difficult circumstances, +an excellent comrade. Those others, too!—amid all their ignorances, what +were they but instruments in the administration of the Divine Reason, +“from end to end sweetly and strongly disposing all things”? +Meantime “Philosophy” itself had assumed much of what we conceive +to be the religious character. It had even cultivated the habit, the power, of +“spiritual direction”; the troubled soul making recourse in its +hour of destitution, or amid the distractions of the world, to this or that +director—philosopho suo—who could really best understand it. +</p> + +<p> +And it had been in vain that the old, grave and discreet religion of Rome had +set itself, according to its proper genius, to prevent or subdue all trouble +and disturbance in men’s souls. In religion, as in other matters, +plebeians, as such, had a taste for movement, for revolution; and it had been +ever in the most populous quarters that religious changes began. To the +apparatus of foreign religion, above all, recourse had been made in times of +public disquietude or sudden terror; and in those great religious celebrations, +before his proceeding against the barbarians, Aurelius had even restored the +solemnities of Isis, prohibited in the capital since the time of Augustus, +making no secret of his worship of that goddess, though her temple had been +actually destroyed by authority in the reign of Tiberius. Her singular and in +many ways beautiful ritual was now popular in Rome. And then—what the +enthusiasm of the swarming plebeian quarters had initiated, was sure to be +adopted, sooner or later, by women of fashion. A blending of all the religions +of the ancient world had been accomplished. The new gods had arrived, had been +welcomed, and found their places; though, certainly, with no real security, in +any adequate ideal of the divine nature itself in the background of men’s +minds, that the presence of the new-comer should be edifying, or even refining. +High and low addressed themselves to all deities alike without scruple; +confusing them together when they prayed, and in the old, authorised, threefold +veneration of their visible images, by flowers, incense, and ceremonial +lights—those beautiful usages, which the church, in her way through the +world, ever making spoil of the world’s goods for the better uses of the +human spirit, took up and sanctified in her service. +</p> + +<p> +And certainly “the most religious city in the world” took no care +to veil its devotion, however fantastic. The humblest house had its little +chapel or shrine, its image and lamp; while almost every one seemed to exercise +some religious function and responsibility. Colleges, composed for the most +part of slaves and of the poor, provided for the service of the Compitalian +Lares—the gods who presided, respectively, over the several quarters of +the city. In one street, Marius witnessed an incident of the festival of the +patron deity of that neighbourhood, the way being strewn with box, the houses +tricked out gaily in such poor finery as they possessed, while the ancient idol +was borne through it in procession, arrayed in gaudy attire the worse for wear. +Numerous religious clubs had their stated anniversaries, on which the members +issued with much ceremony from their guild-hall, or schola, and traversed the +thoroughfares of Rome, preceded, like the confraternities of the present day, +by their sacred banners, to offer sacrifice before some famous image. Black +with the perpetual smoke of lamps and incense, oftenest old and ugly, perhaps +on that account the more likely to listen to the desires of the +suffering—had not those sacred effigies sometimes given sensible tokens +that they were aware? The image of the Fortune of Women—Fortuna +Muliebris, in the Latin Way, had spoken (not once only) and declared; Bene me, +Matronae! vidistis riteque dedicastis! The Apollo of Cumae had wept during +three whole nights and days. The images in the temple of Juno Sospita had been +seen to sweat. Nay! there was blood—divine blood—in the hearts of +some of them: the images in the Grove of Feronia had sweated blood! +</p> + +<p> +From one and all Cornelius had turned away: like the “atheist” of +whom Apuleius tells he had never once raised hand to lip in passing image or +sanctuary, and had parted from Marius finally when the latter determined to +enter the crowded doorway of a temple, on their return into the Forum, below +the Palatine hill, where the mothers were pressing in, with a multitude of +every sort of children, to touch the lightning-struck image of the wolf-nurse +of Romulus—so tender to little ones!—just discernible in its dark +shrine, amid a blaze of lights. Marius gazed after his companion of the day, as +he mounted the steps to his lodging, singing to himself, as it seemed. Marius +failed precisely to catch the words. +</p> + +<p> +And, as the rich, fresh evening came on, there was heard all over Rome, far +above a whisper, the whole town seeming hushed to catch it distinctly, the +lively, reckless call to “play,” from the sons and daughters of +foolishness, to those in whom their life was still green—Donec virenti +canities abest!—Donec virenti canities abest!+ Marius could hardly doubt +how Cornelius would have taken the call. And as for himself, slight as was the +burden of positive moral obligation with which he had entered Rome, it was to +no wasteful and vagrant affections, such as these, that his Epicureanism had +committed him. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +NOTES +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +187. +Horace, Odes I.ix.17. Translation: “So long as youth is fresh and +age is far away.” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap12"></a>CHAPTER XII.<br/> +THE DIVINITY THAT DOTH HEDGE A KING</h2> + +<p class="poem"> +But ah! Maecenas is yclad in claye,<br/> +And great Augustus long ygoe is dead,<br/> +And all the worthies liggen wrapt in lead,<br/> +That matter made for poets on to playe.+ +</p> + +<p> +Marcus Aurelius who, though he had little relish for them himself, had ever +been willing to humour the taste of his people for magnificent spectacles, was +received back to Rome with the lesser honours of the Ovation, conceded by the +Senate (so great was the public sense of deliverance) with even more than the +laxity which had become its habit under imperial rule, for there had been no +actual bloodshed in the late achievement. Clad in the civic dress of the chief +Roman magistrate, and with a crown of myrtle upon his head, his colleague +similarly attired walking beside him, he passed up to the Capitol on foot, +though in solemn procession along the Sacred Way, to offer sacrifice to the +national gods. The victim, a goodly sheep, whose image we may still see between +the pig and the ox of the Suovetaurilia, filleted and stoled almost like some +ancient canon of the church, on a sculptured fragment in the Forum, was +conducted by the priests, clad in rich white vestments, and bearing their +sacred utensils of massive gold, immediately behind a company of flute-players, +led by the great choir-master, or conductor, of the day, visibly tetchy or +delighted, according as the instruments he ruled with his tuning-rod, rose, +more or less adequately amid the difficulties of the way, to the dream of +perfect music in the soul within him. The vast crowd, including the soldiers of +the triumphant army, now restored to wives and children, all alike in holiday +whiteness, had left their houses early in the fine, dry morning, in a real +affection for “the father of his country,” to await the procession, +the two princes having spent the preceding night outside the walls, at the old +Villa of the Republic. Marius, full of curiosity, had taken his position with +much care; and stood to see the world’s masters pass by, at an angle from +which he could command the view of a great part of the processional route, +sprinkled with fine yellow sand, and punctiliously guarded from profane +footsteps. +</p> + +<p> +The coming of the pageant was announced by the clear sound of the flutes, heard +at length above the acclamations of the people—Salve Imperator!—Dii +te servent!—shouted in regular time, over the hills. It was on the +central figure, of course, that the whole attention of Marius was fixed from +the moment when the procession came in sight, preceded by the lictors with +gilded fasces, the imperial image-bearers, and the pages carrying lighted +torches; a band of knights, among whom was Cornelius in complete military, +array, following. Amply swathed about in the folds of a richly worked toga, +after a manner now long since become obsolete with meaner persons, Marius +beheld a man of about five-and-forty years of age, with prominent +eyes—eyes, which although demurely downcast during this essentially +religious ceremony, were by nature broadly and benignantly observant. He was +still, in the main, as we see him in the busts which represent his gracious and +courtly youth, when Hadrian had playfully called him, not Verus, after the name +of his father, but Verissimus, for his candour of gaze, and the bland capacity +of the brow, which, below the brown hair, clustering thickly as of old, shone +out low, broad, and clear, and still without a trace of the trouble of his +lips. You saw the brow of one who, amid the blindness or perplexity of the +people about him, understood all things clearly; the dilemma, to which his +experience so far had brought him, between Chance with meek resignation, and a +Providence with boundless possibilities and hope, being for him at least +distinctly defined. +</p> + +<p> +That outward serenity, which he valued so highly as a point of manner or +expression not unworthy the care of a public minister—outward symbol, it +might be thought, of the inward religious serenity it had been his constant +purpose to maintain—was increased to-day by his sense of the gratitude of +his people; that his life had been one of such gifts and blessings as made his +person seem in very deed divine to them. Yet the cloud of some reserved +internal sorrow, passing from time to time into an expression of fatigue and +effort, of loneliness amid the shouting multitude, might have been detected +there by the more observant—as if the sagacious hint of one of his +officers, “The soldiers can’t understand you, they don’t know +Greek,” were applicable always to his relationships with other people. +The nostrils and mouth seemed capable almost of peevishness; and Marius noted +in them, as in the hands, and in the spare body generally, what was new to his +experience—something of asceticism, as we say, of a bodily gymnastic, by +which, although it told pleasantly in the clear blue humours of the eye, the +flesh had scarcely been an equal gainer with the spirit. It was hardly the +expression of “the healthy mind in the healthy body,” but rather of +a sacrifice of the body to the soul, its needs and aspirations, that Marius +seemed to divine in this assiduous student of the Greek sages—a +sacrifice, in truth, far beyond the demands of their very saddest philosophy of +life. +</p> + +<p> +Dignify thyself with modesty and simplicity for thine ornaments!—had been +ever a maxim with this dainty and high-bred Stoic, who still thought manners a +true part of morals, according to the old sense of the term, and who regrets +now and again that he cannot control his thoughts equally well with his +countenance. That outward composure was deepened during the solemnities of this +day by an air of pontifical abstraction; which, though very far from being +pride—nay, a sort of humility rather—yet gave, to himself, an air +of unapproachableness, and to his whole proceeding, in which every minutest act +was considered, the character of a ritual. Certainly, there was no haughtiness, +social, moral, or even philosophic, in Aurelius, who had realised, under more +trying conditions perhaps than any one before, that no element of humanity +could be alien from him. Yet, as he walked to-day, the centre of ten thousand +observers, with eyes discreetly fixed on the ground, veiling his head at times +and muttering very rapidly the words of the “supplications,” there +was something many spectators may have noted as a thing new in their +experience, for Aurelius, unlike his predecessors, took all this with absolute +seriousness. The doctrine of the sanctity of kings, that, in the words of +Tacitus, Princes are as Gods—Principes instar deorum esse—seemed to +have taken a novel, because a literal, sense. For Aurelius, indeed, the old +legend of his descent from Numa, from Numa who had talked with the gods, meant +much. Attached in very early years to the service of the altars, like many +another noble youth, he was “observed to perform all his sacerdotal +functions with a constancy and exactness unusual at that age; was soon a master +of the sacred music; and had all the forms and ceremonies by heart.” And +now, as the emperor, who had not only a vague divinity about his person, but +was actually the chief religious functionary of the state, recited from time to +time the forms of invocation, he needed not the help of the prompter, or +ceremoniarius, who then approached, to assist him by whispering the appointed +words in his ear. It was that pontifical abstraction which then impressed +itself on Marius as the leading outward characteristic of Aurelius; though to +him alone, perhaps, in that vast crowd of observers, it was no strange thing, +but a matter he had understood from of old. +</p> + +<p> +Some fanciful writers have assigned the origin of these triumphal processions +to the mythic pomps of Dionysus, after his conquests in the East; the very word +Triumph being, according to this supposition, only Thriambos-the Dionysiac +Hymn. And certainly the younger of the two imperial “brothers,” +who, with the effect of a strong contrast, walked beside Aurelius, and shared +the honours of the day, might well have reminded people of the delicate Greek +god of flowers and wine. This new conqueror of the East was now about +thirty-six years old, but with his scrupulous care for all the advantages of +his person, and a soft curling beard powdered with gold, looked many years +younger. One result of the more genial element in the wisdom of Aurelius had +been that, amid most difficult circumstances, he had known throughout life how +to act in union with persons of character very alien from his own; to be more +than loyal to the colleague, the younger brother in empire, he had too lightly +taken to himself, five years before, then an uncorrupt youth, “skilled in +manly exercises and fitted for war.” When Aurelius thanks the gods that a +brother had fallen to his lot, whose character was a stimulus to the proper +care of his own, one sees that this could only have happened in the way of an +example, putting him on his guard against insidious faults. But it is with +sincere amiability that the imperial writer, who was indeed little used to be +ironical, adds that the lively respect and affection of the junior had often +“gladdened” him. To be able to make his use of the flower, when the +fruit perhaps was useless or poisonous:—that was one of the practical +successes of his philosophy; and his people noted, with a blessing, “the +concord of the two Augusti.” +</p> + +<p> +The younger, certainly, possessed in full measure that charm of a +constitutional freshness of aspect which may defy for a long time extravagant +or erring habits of life; a physiognomy, healthy-looking, cleanly, and firm, +which seemed unassociable with any form of self-torment, and made one think of +the muzzle of some young hound or roe, such as human beings invariably like to +stroke—a physiognomy, in effect, with all the goodliness of animalism of +the finer sort, though still wholly animal. The charm was that of the blond +head, the unshrinking gaze, the warm tints: neither more nor less than one may +see every English summer, in youth, manly enough, and with the stuff which +makes brave soldiers, in spite of the natural kinship it seems to have with +playthings and gay flowers. But innate in Lucius Verus there was that more than +womanly fondness for fond things, which had made the atmosphere of the old city +of Antioch, heavy with centuries of voluptuousness, a poison to him: he had +come to love his delicacies best out of season, and would have gilded the very +flowers. But with a wonderful power of self-obliteration, the elder brother at +the capital had directed his procedure successfully, and allowed him, become +now also the husband of his daughter Lucilla, the credit of a +“Conquest,” though Verus had certainly not returned a conqueror +over himself. He had returned, as we know, with the plague in his company, +along with many another strange creature of his folly; and when the people saw +him publicly feeding his favourite horse Fleet with almonds and sweet grapes, +wearing the animal’s image in gold, and finally building it a tomb, they +felt, with some un-sentimental misgiving, that he might revive the manners of +Nero.—What if, in the chances of war, he should survive the protecting +genius of that elder brother? +</p> + +<p> +He was all himself to-day: and it was with much wistful curiosity that Marius +regarded him. For Lucius Verus was, indeed, but the highly expressive type of a +class,—the true son of his father, adopted by Hadrian. Lucius Verus the +elder, also, had had the like strange capacity for misusing the adornments of +life, with a masterly grace; as if such misusing were, in truth, the quite +adequate occupation of an intelligence, powerful, but distorted by cynical +philosophy or some disappointment of the heart. It was almost a sort of genius, +of which there had been instances in the imperial purple: it was to ascend the +throne, a few years later, in the person of one, now a hopeful little lad at +home in the palace; and it had its following, of course, among the wealthy +youth at Rome, who concentrated no inconsiderable force of shrewdness and tact +upon minute details of attire and manner, as upon the one thing needful. +Certainly, flowers were pleasant to the eye. Such things had even their sober +use, as making the outside of human life superficially attractive, and thereby +promoting the first steps towards friendship and social amity. But what precise +place could there be for Verus and his peculiar charm, in that Wisdom, that +Order of divine Reason “reaching from end to end, strongly and sweetly +disposing all things,” from the vision of which Aurelius came down, so +tolerant of persons like him? Into such vision Marius too was certainly +well-fitted to enter, yet, noting the actual perfection of Lucius Verus after +his kind, his undeniable achievement of the select, in all minor things, felt, +though with some suspicion of himself, that he entered into, and could +understand, this other so dubious sort of character also. There was a voice in +the theory he had brought to Rome with him which whispered “nothing is +either great nor small;” as there were times when he could have thought +that, as the “grammarian’s” or the artist’s ardour of +soul may be satisfied by the perfecting of the theory of a sentence, or the +adjustment of two colours, so his own life also might have been fulfilled by an +enthusiastic quest after perfection—say, in the flowering and folding of +a toga. +</p> + +<p> +The emperors had burned incense before the image of Jupiter, arrayed in its +most gorgeous apparel, amid sudden shouts from the people of Salve Imperator! +turned now from the living princes to the deity, as they discerned his +countenance through the great open doors. The imperial brothers had deposited +their crowns of myrtle on the richly embroidered lapcloth of the god; and, with +their chosen guests, sat down to a public feast in the temple itself. There +followed what was, after all, the great event of the day:—an appropriate +discourse, a discourse almost wholly de contemptu mundi, delivered in the +presence of the assembled Senate, by the emperor Aurelius, who had thus, on +certain rare occasions, condescended to instruct his people, with the double +authority of a chief pontiff and a laborious student of philosophy. In those +lesser honours of the ovation, there had been no attendant slave behind the +emperors, to make mock of their effulgence as they went; and it was as if with +the discretion proper to a philosopher, and in fear of a jealous Nemesis, he +had determined himself to protest in time against the vanity of all outward +success. +</p> + +<p> +The Senate was assembled to hear the emperor’s discourse in the vast hall +of the Curia Julia. A crowd of high-bred youths idled around, or on the steps +before the doors, with the marvellous toilets Marius had noticed in the Via +Nova; in attendance, as usual, to learn by observation the minute points of +senatorial procedure. Marius had already some acquaintance with them, and +passing on found himself suddenly in the presence of what was still the most +august assembly the world had seen. Under Aurelius, ever full of veneration for +this ancient traditional guardian of public religion, the Senate had recovered +all its old dignity and independence. Among its members many hundreds in +number, visibly the most distinguished of them all, Marius noted the great +sophists or rhetoricians of the day, in all their magnificence. The antique +character of their attire, and the ancient mode of wearing it, still surviving +with them, added to the imposing character of their persons, while they sat, +with their staves of ivory in their hands, on their curule chairs—almost +the exact pattern of the chair still in use in the Roman church when a Bishop +pontificates at the divine offices—“tranquil and unmoved, with a +majesty that seemed divine,” as Marius thought, like the old Gaul of the +Invasion. The rays of the early November sunset slanted full upon the audience, +and made it necessary for the officers of the Court to draw the purple curtains +over the windows, adding to the solemnity of the scene. In the depth of those +warm shadows, surrounded by her ladies, the empress Faustina was seated to +listen. The beautiful Greek statue of Victory, which since the days of Augustus +had presided over the assemblies of the Senate, had been brought into the hall, +and placed near the chair of the emperor; who, after rising to perform a brief +sacrificial service in its honour, bowing reverently to the assembled fathers +left and right, took his seat and began to speak. +</p> + +<p> +There was a certain melancholy grandeur in the very simplicity or triteness of +the theme: as it were the very quintessence of all the old Roman epitaphs, of +all that was monumental in that city of tombs, layer upon layer of dead things +and people. As if in the very fervour of disillusion, he seemed to be +composing—Hôsper epigraphas chronôn kai holôn ethnôn+—the +sepulchral titles of ages and whole peoples; nay! the very epitaph of the +living Rome itself. The grandeur of the ruins of Rome,—heroism in ruin: +it was under the influence of an imaginative anticipation of this, that he +appeared to be speaking. And though the impression of the actual greatness of +Rome on that day was but enhanced by the strain of contempt, falling with an +accent of pathetic conviction from the emperor himself, and gaining from his +pontifical pretensions the authority of a religious intimation, yet the curious +interest of the discourse lay in this, that Marius, for one, as he listened, +seemed to forsee a grass-grown Forum, the broken ways of the Capitol, and the +Palatine hill itself in humble occupation. That impression connected itself +with what he had already noted of an actual change even then coming over +Italian scenery. Throughout, he could trace something of a humour into which +Stoicism at all times tends to fall, the tendency to cry, Abase yourselves! +There was here the almost inhuman impassibility of one who had thought too +closely on the paradoxical aspect of the love of posthumous fame. With the +ascetic pride which lurks under all Platonism, resultant from its opposition of +the seen to the unseen, as falsehood to truth—the imperial Stoic, like +his true descendant, the hermit of the middle age, was ready, in no friendly +humour, to mock, there in its narrow bed, the corpse which had made so much of +itself in life. Marius could but contrast all that with his own Cyrenaic +eagerness, just then, to taste and see and touch; reflecting on the opposite +issues deducible from the same text. “The world, within me and without, +flows away like a river,” he had said; “therefore let me make the +most of what is here and now.”—“The world and the thinker +upon it, are consumed like a flame,” said Aurelius, “therefore will +I turn away my eyes from vanity: renounce: withdraw myself alike from all +affections.” He seemed tacitly to claim as a sort of personal dignity, +that he was very familiarly versed in this view of things, and could discern a +death’s-head everywhere. Now and again Marius was reminded of the saying +that “with the Stoics all people are the vulgar save themselves;” +and at times the orator seemed to have forgotten his audience, and to be +speaking only to himself. +</p> + +<p> +“Art thou in love with men’s praises, get thee into the very soul +of them, and see!—see what judges they be, even in those matters which +concern themselves. Wouldst thou have their praise after death, bethink thee, +that they who shall come hereafter, and with whom thou wouldst survive by thy +great name, will be but as these, whom here thou hast found so hard to live +with. For of a truth, the soul of him who is aflutter upon renown after death, +presents not this aright to itself, that of all whose memory he would have each +one will likewise very quickly depart, until memory herself be put out, as she +journeys on by means of such as are themselves on the wing but for a while, and +are extinguished in their turn.—Making so much of those thou wilt never +see! It is as if thou wouldst have had those who were before thee discourse +fair things concerning thee. +</p> + +<p> +“To him, indeed, whose wit hath been whetted by true doctrine, that +well-worn sentence of Homer sufficeth, to guard him against regret and +fear.— +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + Like the race of leaves<br/> +The race of man is:— +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + The wind in autumn strows<br/> +The earth with old leaves: then the spring<br/> + the woods with new endows.+ +</p> + +<p> +Leaves! little leaves!—thy children, thy flatterers, thine enemies! +Leaves in the wind, those who would devote thee to darkness, who scorn or +miscall thee here, even as they also whose great fame shall outlast them. For +all these, and the like of them, are born indeed in the spring +season—Earos epigignetai hôrê+: and soon a wind hath scattered them, and +thereafter the wood peopleth itself again with another generation of leaves. +And what is common to all of them is but the littleness of their lives: and yet +wouldst thou love and hate, as if these things should continue for ever. In a +little while thine eyes also will be closed, and he on whom thou perchance hast +leaned thyself be himself a burden upon another. +</p> + +<p> +“Bethink thee often of the swiftness with which the things that are, or +are even now coming to be, are swept past thee: that the very substance of them +is but the perpetual motion of water: that there is almost nothing which +continueth: of that bottomless depth of time, so close at thy side. Folly! to +be lifted up, or sorrowful, or anxious, by reason of things like these! Think +of infinite matter, and thy portion—how tiny a particle, of it! of +infinite time, and thine own brief point there; of destiny, and the jot thou +art in it; and yield thyself readily to the wheel of Clotho, to spin of thee +what web she will. +</p> + +<p> +“As one casting a ball from his hand, the nature of things hath had its +aim with every man, not as to the ending only, but the first beginning of his +course, and passage thither. And hath the ball any profit of its rising, or +loss as it descendeth again, or in its fall? or the bubble, as it groweth or +breaketh on the air? or the flame of the lamp, from the beginning to the end of +its brief story? +</p> + +<p> +“All but at this present that future is, in which nature, who disposeth +all things in order, will transform whatsoever thou now seest, fashioning from +its substance somewhat else, and therefrom somewhat else in its turn, lest the +world grow old. We are such stuff as dreams are made of—disturbing +dreams. Awake, then! and see thy dream as it is, in comparison with that +erewhile it seemed to thee. +</p> + +<p> +“And for me, especially, it were well to mind those many mutations of +empire in time past; therein peeping also upon the future, which must needs be +of like species with what hath been, continuing ever within the rhythm and +number of things which really are; so that in forty years one may note of man +and of his ways little less than in a thousand. Ah! from this higher place, +look we down upon the ship-wrecks and the calm! Consider, for example, how the +world went, under the emperor Vespasian. They are married and given in +marriage, they breed children; love hath its way with them; they heap up riches +for others or for themselves; they are murmuring at things as then they are; +they are seeking for great place; crafty, flattering, suspicious, waiting upon +the death of others:—festivals, business, war, sickness, dissolution: and +now their whole life is no longer anywhere at all. Pass on to the reign of +Trajan: all things continue the same: and that life also is no longer anywhere +at all. Ah! but look again, and consider, one after another, as it were the +sepulchral inscriptions of all peoples and times, according to one +pattern.—What multitudes, after their utmost striving—a little +afterwards! were dissolved again into their dust. +</p> + +<p> +“Think again of life as it was far off in the ancient world; as it must +be when we shall be gone; as it is now among the wild heathen. How many have +never heard your names and mine, or will soon forget them! How soon may those +who shout my name to-day begin to revile it, because glory, and the memory of +men, and all things beside, are but vanity—a sand-heap under the +senseless wind, the barking of dogs, the quarrelling of children, weeping +incontinently upon their laughter. +</p> + +<p> +“This hasteth to be; that other to have been: of that which now cometh to +be, even now somewhat hath been extinguished. And wilt thou make thy treasure +of any one of these things? It were as if one set his love upon the swallow, as +it passeth out of sight through the air! +</p> + +<p> +“Bethink thee often, in all contentions public and private, of those whom +men have remembered by reason of their anger and vehement spirit—those +famous rages, and the occasions of them—the great fortunes, and +misfortunes, of men’s strife of old. What are they all now, and the dust +of their battles? Dust and ashes indeed; a fable, a mythus, or not so much as +that. Yes! keep those before thine eyes who took this or that, the like of +which happeneth to thee, so hardly; were so querulous, so agitated. And where +again are they? Wouldst thou have it not otherwise with thee? +</p> + +<p> +Consider how quickly all things vanish away—their bodily structure into +the general substance; the very memory of them into that great gulf and abysm +of past thoughts. Ah! ’tis on a tiny space of earth thou art creeping +through life—a pigmy soul carrying a dead body to its grave. +</p> + +<p> +“Let death put thee upon the consideration both of thy body and thy soul: +what an atom of all matter hath been distributed to thee; what a little +particle of the universal mind. Turn thy body about, and consider what thing it +is, and that which old age, and lust, and the languor of disease can make of +it. Or come to its substantial and causal qualities, its very type: contemplate +that in itself, apart from the accidents of matter, and then measure also the +span of time for which the nature of things, at the longest, will maintain that +special type. Nay! in the very principles and first constituents of things +corruption hath its part—so much dust, humour, stench, and scraps of +bone! Consider that thy marbles are but the earth’s callosities, thy gold +and silver its faeces; this silken robe but a worm’s bedding, and thy +purple an unclean fish. Ah! and thy life’s breath is not otherwise, as it +passeth out of matters like these, into the like of them again. +</p> + +<p> +“For the one soul in things, taking matter like wax in the hands, moulds +and remoulds—how hastily!—beast, and plant, and the babe, in turn: +and that which dieth hath not slipped out of the order of nature, but, +remaining therein, hath also its changes there, disparting into those elements +of which nature herself, and thou too, art compacted. She changes without +murmuring. The oaken chest falls to pieces with no more complaining than when +the carpenter fitted it together. If one told thee certainly that on the morrow +thou shouldst die, or at the furthest on the day after, it would be no great +matter to thee to die on the day after to-morrow, rather than to-morrow. Strive +to think it a thing no greater that thou wilt die—not to-morrow, but a +year, or two years, or ten years from to-day. +</p> + +<p> +“I find that all things are now as they were in the days of our buried +ancestors—all things sordid in their elements, trite by long usage, and +yet ephemeral. How ridiculous, then, how like a countryman in town, is he, who +wonders at aught. Doth the sameness, the repetition of the public shows, weary +thee? Even so doth that likeness of events in the spectacle of the world. And +so must it be with thee to the end. For the wheel of the world hath ever the +same motion, upward and downward, from generation to generation. When, when, +shall time give place to eternity? +</p> + +<p> +“If there be things which trouble thee thou canst put them away, inasmuch +as they have their being but in thine own notion concerning them. Consider what +death is, and how, if one does but detach from it the appearances, the notions, +that hang about it, resting the eye upon it as in itself it really is, it must +be thought of but as an effect of nature, and that man but a child whom an +effect of nature shall affright. Nay! not function and effect of nature, only; +but a thing profitable also to herself. +</p> + +<p> +“To cease from action—the ending of thine effort to think and do: +there is no evil in that. Turn thy thought to the ages of man’s life, +boyhood, youth, maturity, old age: the change in every one of these also is a +dying, but evil nowhere. Thou climbedst into the ship, thou hast made thy +voyage and touched the shore. Go forth now! Be it into some other life: the +divine breath is everywhere, even there. Be it into forgetfulness for ever; at +least thou wilt rest from the beating of sensible images upon thee, from the +passions which pluck thee this way and that like an unfeeling toy, from those +long marches of the intellect, from thy toilsome ministry to the flesh. +</p> + +<p> +“Art thou yet more than dust and ashes and bare bone—a name only, +or not so much as that, which, also, is but whispering and a resonance, kept +alive from mouth to mouth of dying abjects who have hardly known themselves; +how much less thee, dead so long ago! +</p> + +<p> +“When thou lookest upon a wise man, a lawyer, a captain of war, think +upon another gone. When thou seest thine own face in the glass, call up there +before thee one of thine ancestors—one of those old Caesars. Lo! +everywhere, thy double before thee! Thereon, let the thought occur to thee: And +where are they? anywhere at all, for ever? And thou, thyself—how long? +Art thou blind to that thou art—thy matter, how temporal; and thy +function, the nature of thy business? Yet tarry, at least, till thou hast +assimilated even these things to thine own proper essence, as a quick fire +turneth into heat and light whatsoever be cast upon it. +</p> + +<p> +“As words once in use are antiquated to us, so is it with the names that +were once on all men’s lips: Camillus, Volesus, Leonnatus: then, in a +little while, Scipio and Cato, and then Augustus, and then Hadrian, and then +Antoninus Pius. How many great physicians who lifted wise brows at other +men’s sick-beds, have sickened and died! Those wise Chaldeans, who +foretold, as a great matter, another man’s last hour, have themselves +been taken by surprise. Ay! and all those others, in their pleasant places: +those who doated on a Capreae like Tiberius, on their gardens, on the baths: +Pythagoras and Socrates, who reasoned so closely upon immortality: Alexander, +who used the lives of others as though his own should last for ever—he +and his mule-driver alike now!—one upon another. Well-nigh the whole +court of Antoninus is extinct. Panthea and Pergamus sit no longer beside the +sepulchre of their lord. The watchers over Hadrian’s dust have slipped +from his sepulchre.—It were jesting to stay longer. Did they sit there +still, would the dead feel it? or feeling it, be glad? or glad, hold those +watchers for ever? The time must come when they too shall be aged men and aged +women, and decease, and fail from their places; and what shift were there then +for imperial service? This too is but the breath of the tomb, and a skinful of +dead men’s blood. +</p> + +<p> +“Think again of those inscriptions, which belong not to one soul only, +but to whole families: Eschatos tou idiou genous:+ He was the last of his race. +Nay! of the burial of whole cities: Helice, Pompeii: of others, whose very +burial place is unknown. +</p> + +<p> +“Thou hast been a citizen in this wide city. Count not for how long, nor +repine; since that which sends thee hence is no unrighteous judge, no tyrant, +but Nature, who brought thee hither; as when a player leaves the stage at the +bidding of the conductor who hired him. Sayest thou, ‘I have not played +five acts’? True! but in human life, three acts only make sometimes an +entire play. That is the composer’s business, not thine. Withdraw thyself +with a good will; for that too hath, perchance, a good will which dismisseth +thee from thy part.” +</p> + +<p> +The discourse ended almost in darkness, the evening having set in somewhat +suddenly, with a heavy fall of snow. The torches, made ready to do him a +useless honour, were of real service now, as the emperor was solemnly conducted +home; one man rapidly catching light from another—a long stream of moving +lights across the white Forum, up the great stairs, to the palace. And, in +effect, that night winter began, the hardest that had been known for a +lifetime. The wolves came from the mountains; and, led by the carrion scent, +devoured the dead bodies which had been hastily buried during the plague, and, +emboldened by their meal, crept, before the short day was well past, over the +walls of the farmyards of the Campagna. The eagles were seen driving the flocks +of smaller birds across the dusky sky. Only, in the city itself the winter was +all the brighter for the contrast, among those who could pay for light and +warmth. The habit-makers made a great sale of the spoil of all such furry +creatures as had escaped wolves and eagles, for presents at the Saturnalia; and +at no time had the winter roses from Carthage seemed more lustrously yellow and +red. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +NOTES +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +188. +Spenser, Shepheardes Calendar, October, 61-66. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +200. +Transliteration: Hôsper epigraphas chronôn kai holôn ethnôn. +Pater’s Translation: “the sepulchral titles of ages and whole +peoples.” +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +202. +Homer, Iliad VI.146-48. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +202. +Transliteration: Earos epigignetai hôrê. Translation: “born in +springtime.” Homer, Iliad VI.147. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +210. +Transliteration: Eschatos tou idiou genous. Translation: “He was +the last of his race.” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap13"></a>CHAPTER XIII.<br/> +THE “MISTRESS AND MOTHER” OF PALACES</h2> + +<p> +After that sharp, brief winter, the sun was already at work, softening leaf and +bud, as you might feel by a faint sweetness in the air; but he did his work +behind an evenly white sky, against which the abode of the Caesars, its +cypresses and bronze roofs, seemed like a picture in beautiful but melancholy +colour, as Marius climbed the long flights of steps to be introduced to the +emperor Aurelius. Attired in the newest mode, his legs wound in dainty fasciae +of white leather, with the heavy gold ring of the ingenuus, and in his toga of +ceremony, he still retained all his country freshness of complexion. The eyes +of the “golden youth” of Rome were upon him as the chosen friend of +Cornelius, and the destined servant of the emperor; but not jealously. In spite +of, perhaps partly because of, his habitual reserve of manner, he had become +“the fashion,” even among those who felt instinctively the irony +which lay beneath that remarkable self-possession, as of one taking all things +with a difference from other people, perceptible in voice, in expression, and +even in his dress. It was, in truth, the air of one who, entering vividly into +life, and relishing to the full the delicacies of its intercourse, yet feels +all the while, from the point of view of an ideal philosophy, that he is but +conceding reality to suppositions, choosing of his own will to walk in a +day-dream, of the illusiveness of which he at least is aware. +</p> + +<p> +In the house of the chief chamberlain Marius waited for the due moment of +admission to the emperor’s presence. He was admiring the peculiar +decoration of the walls, coloured like rich old red leather. In the midst of +one of them was depicted, under a trellis of fruit you might have gathered, the +figure of a woman knocking at a door with wonderful reality of perspective. +Then the summons came; and in a few minutes, the etiquette of the imperial +household being still a simple matter, he had passed the curtains which divided +the central hall of the palace into three parts—three degrees of approach +to the sacred person—and was speaking to Aurelius himself; not in Greek, +in which the emperor oftenest conversed with the learned, but, more familiarly, +in Latin, adorned however, or disfigured, by many a Greek phrase, as now and +again French phrases have made the adornment of fashionable English. It was +with real kindliness that Marcus Aurelius looked upon Marius, as a youth of +great attainments in Greek letters and philosophy; and he liked also his +serious expression, being, as we know, a believer in the doctrine of +physiognomy—that, as he puts it, not love only, but every other affection +of man’s soul, looks out very plainly from the window of the eyes. +</p> + +<p> +The apartment in which Marius found himself was of ancient aspect, and richly +decorated with the favourite toys of two or three generations of imperial +collectors, now finally revised by the high connoisseurship of the Stoic +emperor himself, though destined not much longer to remain together there. It +is the repeated boast of Aurelius that he had learned from old Antoninus Pius +to maintain authority without the constant use of guards, in a robe woven by +the handmaids of his own consort, with no processional lights or images, and +“that a prince may shrink himself almost into the figure of a private +gentleman.” And yet, again as at his first sight of him, Marius was +struck by the profound religiousness of the surroundings of the imperial +presence. The effect might have been due in part to the very simplicity, the +discreet and scrupulous simplicity, of the central figure in this splendid +abode; but Marius could not forget that he saw before him not only the head of +the Roman religion, but one who might actually have claimed something like +divine worship, had he cared to do so. Though the fantastic pretensions of +Caligula had brought some contempt on that claim, which had become almost a +jest under the ungainly Claudius, yet, from Augustus downwards, a vague +divinity had seemed to surround the Caesars even in this life; and the peculiar +character of Aurelius, at once a ceremonious polytheist never forgetful of his +pontifical calling, and a philosopher whose mystic speculation encircled him +with a sort of saintly halo, had restored to his person, without his intending +it, something of that divine prerogative, or prestige. Though he would never +allow the immediate dedication of altars to himself, yet the image of his +Genius—his spirituality or celestial counterpart—was placed among +those of the deified princes of the past; and his family, including Faustina +and the young Commodus, was spoken of as the “holy” or +“divine” house. Many a Roman courtier agreed with the barbarian +chief, who, after contemplating a predecessor of Aurelius, withdrew from his +presence with the exclamation:—“I have seen a god to-day!” +The very roof of his house, rising into a pediment or gable, like that of the +sanctuary of a god, the laurels on either side its doorway, the chaplet of +oak-leaves above, seemed to designate the place for religious veneration. And +notwithstanding all this, the household of Aurelius was singularly modest, with +none of the wasteful expense of palaces after the fashion of Lewis the +Fourteenth; the palatial dignity being felt only in a peculiar sense of order, +the absence of all that was casual, of vulgarity and discomfort. A merely +official residence of his predecessors, the Palatine had become the favourite +dwelling-place of Aurelius; its many-coloured memories suiting, perhaps, his +pensive character, and the crude splendours of Nero and Hadrian being now +subdued by time. The window-less Roman abode must have had much of what to a +modern would be gloom. How did the children, one wonders, endure houses with so +little escape for the eye into the world outside? Aurelius, who had altered +little else, choosing to live there, in a genuine homeliness, had shifted and +made the most of the level lights, and broken out a quite medieval window here +and there, and the clear daylight, fully appreciated by his youthful visitor, +made pleasant shadows among the objects of the imperial collection. Some of +these, indeed, by reason of their Greek simplicity and grace, themselves shone +out like spaces of a purer, early light, amid the splendours of the Roman +manufacture. +</p> + +<p> +Though he looked, thought Marius, like a man who did not sleep enough, he was +abounding and bright to-day, after one of those pitiless headaches, which since +boyhood had been the “thorn in his side,” challenging the +pretensions of his philosophy to fortify one in humble endurances. At the first +moment, to Marius, remembering the spectacle of the emperor in ceremony, it was +almost bewildering to be in private conversation with him. There was much in +the philosophy of Aurelius—much consideration of mankind at large, of +great bodies, aggregates and generalities, after the Stoic manner—which, +on a nature less rich than his, might have acted as an inducement to care for +people in inverse proportion to their nearness to him. That has sometimes been +the result of the Stoic cosmopolitanism. Aurelius, however, determined to +beautify by all means, great or little, a doctrine which had in it some +potential sourness, had brought all the quickness of his intelligence, and long +years of observation, to bear on the conditions of social intercourse. He had +early determined “not to make business an excuse to decline the offices +of humanity—not to pretend to be too much occupied with important affairs +to concede what life with others may hourly demand;” and with such +success, that, in an age which made much of the finer points of that +intercourse, it was felt that the mere honesty of his conversation was more +pleasing than other men’s flattery. His agreeableness to his young +visitor to-day was, in truth, a blossom of the same wisdom which had made of +Lucius Verus really a brother—the wisdom of not being exigent with men, +any more than with fruit-trees (it is his own favourite figure) beyond their +nature. And there was another person, still nearer to him, regarding whom this +wisdom became a marvel, of equity—of charity. +</p> + +<p> +The centre of a group of princely children, in the same apartment with +Aurelius, amid all the refined intimacies of a modern home, sat the empress +Faustina, warming her hands over a fire. With her long fingers lighted up red +by the glowing coals of the brazier Marius looked close upon the most beautiful +woman in the world, who was also the great paradox of the age, among her boys +and girls. As has been truly said of the numerous representations of her in +art, so in life, she had the air of one curious, restless, to enter into +conversation with the first comer. She had certainly the power of stimulating a +very ambiguous sort of curiosity about herself. And Marius found this enigmatic +point in her expression, that even after seeing her many times he could never +precisely recall her features in absence. The lad of six years, looking older, +who stood beside her, impatiently plucking a rose to pieces over the hearth, +was, in outward appearance, his father—the young Verissimus—over +again; but with a certain feminine length of feature, and with all his +mother’s alertness, or license, of gaze. +</p> + +<p> +Yet rumour knocked at every door and window of the imperial house regarding the +adulterers who knocked at them, or quietly left their lovers’ garlands +there. Was not that likeness of the husband, in the boy beside her, really the +effect of a shameful magic, in which the blood of the murdered gladiator, his +true father, had been an ingredient? Were the tricks for deceiving husbands +which the Roman poet describes, really hers, and her household an efficient +school of all the arts of furtive love? Or, was the husband too aware, like +every one beside? Were certain sudden deaths which happened there, really the +work of apoplexy, or the plague? +</p> + +<p> +The man whose ears, whose soul, those rumours were meant to penetrate, was, +however, faithful to his sanguine and optimist philosophy, to his determination +that the world should be to him simply what the higher reason preferred to +conceive it; and the life’s journey Aurelius had made so far, though +involving much moral and intellectual loneliness, had been ever in affectionate +and helpful contact with other wayfarers, very unlike himself. Since his days +of earliest childhood in the Lateran gardens, he seemed to himself, blessing +the gods for it after deliberate survey, to have been always surrounded by +kinsmen, friends, servants, of exceptional virtue. From the great Stoic idea, +that we are all fellow-citizens of one city, he had derived a tenderer, a more +equitable estimate than was common among Stoics, of the eternal shortcomings of +men and women. Considerations that might tend to the sweetening of his temper +it was his daily care to store away, with a kind of philosophic pride in the +thought that no one took more good-naturedly than he the +“oversights” of his neighbours. For had not Plato taught (it was +not paradox, but simple truth of experience) that if people sin, it is because +they know no better, and are “under the necessity of their own +ignorance”? Hard to himself, he seemed at times, doubtless, to decline +too softly upon unworthy persons. Actually, he came thereby upon many a useful +instrument. The empress Faustina he would seem at least to have kept, by a +constraining affection, from becoming altogether what most people have believed +her, and won in her (we must take him at his word in the +“Thoughts,” abundantly confirmed by letters, on both sides, in his +correspondence with Cornelius Fronto) a consolation, the more secure, perhaps, +because misknown of others. Was the secret of her actual blamelessness, after +all, with him who has at least screened her name? At all events, the one thing +quite certain about her, besides her extraordinary beauty, is her sweetness to +himself. +</p> + +<p> +No! The wise, who had made due observation on the trees of the garden, would +not expect to gather grapes of thorns or fig-trees: and he was the vine, +putting forth his genial fruit, by natural law, again and again, after his +kind, whatever use people might make of it. Certainly, his actual presence +never lost its power, and Faustina was glad in it to-day, the birthday of one +of her children, a boy who stood at her knee holding in his fingers tenderly a +tiny silver trumpet, one of his birthday gifts.—“For my part, +unless I conceive my hurt to be such, I have no hurt at +all,”—boasts the would-be apathetic emperor:—“and how I +care to conceive of the thing rests with me.” Yet when his children fall +sick or die, this pretence breaks down, and he is broken-hearted: and one of +the charms of certain of his letters still extant, is his reference to those +childish sicknesses.—“On my return to Lorium,” he writes, +“I found my little lady—domnulam meam—in a fever;” and +again, in a letter to one of the most serious of men, “You will be glad +to hear that our little one is better, and running about the +room—parvolam nostram melius valere et intra cubiculum discurrere.” +</p> + +<p> +The young Commodus had departed from the chamber, anxious to witness the +exercises of certain gladiators, having a native taste for such company, +inherited, according to popular rumour, from his true father—anxious also +to escape from the too impressive company of the gravest and sweetest specimen +of old age Marius had ever seen, the tutor of the imperial children, who had +arrived to offer his birthday congratulations, and now, very familiarly and +affectionately, made a part of the group, falling on the shoulders of the +emperor, kissing the empress Faustina on the face, the little ones on the face +and hands. Marcus Cornelius Fronto, the “Orator,” favourite teacher +of the emperor’s youth, afterwards his most trusted counsellor, and now +the undisputed occupant of the sophistic throne, whose equipage, elegantly +mounted with silver, Marius had seen in the streets of Rome, had certainly +turned his many personal gifts to account with a good fortune, remarkable even +in that age, so indulgent to professors or rhetoricians. The gratitude of the +emperor Aurelius, always generous to his teachers, arranging their very +quarrels sometimes, for they were not always fair to one another, had helped +him to a really great place in the world. But his sumptuous appendages, +including the villa and gardens of Maecenas, had been borne with an air +perfectly becoming, by the professor of a philosophy which, even in its most +accomplished and elegant phase, presupposed a gentle contempt for such things. +With an intimate practical knowledge of manners, physiognomies, smiles, +disguises, flatteries, and courtly tricks of every kind—a whole +accomplished rhetoric of daily life—he applied them all to the promotion +of humanity, and especially of men’s family affection. Through a long +life of now eighty years, he had been, as it were, surrounded by the gracious +and soothing air of his own eloquence—the fame, the echoes, of +it—like warbling birds, or murmuring bees. Setting forth in that fine +medium the best ideas of matured pagan philosophy, he had become the favourite +“director” of noble youth. +</p> + +<p> +Yes! it was the one instance Marius, always eagerly on the look-out for such, +had yet seen of a perfectly tolerable, perfectly beautiful, old age—an +old age in which there seemed, to one who perhaps habitually over-valued the +expression of youth, nothing to be regretted, nothing really lost, in what +years had taken away. The wise old man, whose blue eyes and fair skin were so +delicate, uncontaminate and clear, would seem to have replaced carefully and +consciously each natural trait of youth, as it departed from him, by an +equivalent grace of culture; and had the blitheness, the placid cheerfulness, +as he had also the infirmity, the claim on stronger people, of a delightful +child. And yet he seemed to be but awaiting his exit from life—that +moment with which the Stoics were almost as much preoccupied as the Christians, +however differently—and set Marius pondering on the contrast between a +placidity like this, at eighty years, and the sort of desperateness he was +aware of in his own manner of entertaining that thought. His infirmities +nevertheless had been painful and long-continued, with losses of children, of +pet grandchildren. What with the crowd, and the wretched streets, it was a sign +of affection which had cost him something, for the old man to leave his own +house at all that day; and he was glad of the emperor’s support, as he +moved from place to place among the children he protests so often to have loved +as his own. +</p> + +<p> +For a strange piece of literary good fortune, at the beginning of the present +century, has set free the long-buried fragrance of this famous friendship of +the old world, from below a valueless later manuscript, in a series of letters, +wherein the two writers exchange, for the most part their evening thoughts, +especially at family anniversaries, and with entire intimacy, on their +children, on the art of speech, on all the various subtleties of the +“science of images”—rhetorical images—above all, of +course, on sleep and matters of health. They are full of mutual admiration of +each other’s eloquence, restless in absence till they see one another +again, noting, characteristically, their very dreams of each other, expecting +the day which will terminate the office, the business or duty, which separates +them—“as superstitious people watch for the star, at the rising of +which they may break their fast.” To one of the writers, to Aurelius, the +correspondence was sincerely of value. We see him once reading his letters with +genuine delight on going to rest. Fronto seeks to deter his pupil from writing +in Greek.—Why buy, at great cost, a foreign wine, inferior to that from +one’s own vineyard? Aurelius, on the other hand, with an extraordinary +innate susceptibility to words—la parole pour la parole, as the French +say—despairs, in presence of Fronto’s rhetorical perfection. +</p> + +<p> +Like the modern visitor to the Capitoline and some other museums, Fronto had +been struck, pleasantly struck, by the family likeness among the Antonines; and +it was part of his friendship to make much of it, in the case of the children +of Faustina. “Well! I have seen the little ones,” he writes to +Aurelius, then, apparently, absent from them: “I have seen the little +ones—the pleasantest sight of my life; for they are as like yourself as +could possibly be. It has well repaid me for my journey over that slippery +road, and up those steep rocks; for I beheld you, not simply face to face +before me, but, more generously, whichever way I turned, to my right and my +left. For the rest, I found them, Heaven be thanked! with healthy cheeks and +lusty voices. One was holding a slice of white bread, like a king’s son; +the other a crust of brown bread, as becomes the offspring of a philosopher. I +pray the gods to have both the sower and the seed in their keeping; to watch +over this field wherein the ears of corn are so kindly alike. Ah! I heard too +their pretty voices, so sweet that in the childish prattle of one and the other +I seemed somehow to be listening—yes! in that chirping of your pretty +chickens—to the limpid+ and harmonious notes of your own oratory. Take +care! you will find me growing independent, having those I could love in your +place:—love, on the surety of my eyes and ears.” +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> ++“Limpid” is misprinted “Limped.” +</p> + +<p> +“Magistro meo salutem!” replies the Emperor, “I too have seen +my little ones in your sight of them; as, also, I saw yourself in reading your +letter. It is that charming letter forces me to write thus:” with +reiterations of affection, that is, which are continual in these letters, on +both sides, and which may strike a modern reader perhaps as fulsome; or, again, +as having something in common with the old Judaic unction of friendship. They +were certainly sincere. +</p> + +<p> +To one of those children Fronto had now brought the birthday gift of the silver +trumpet, upon which he ventured to blow softly now and again, turning away with +eyes delighted at the sound, when he thought the old man was not listening. It +was the well-worn, valetudinarian subject of sleep, on which Fronto and +Aurelius were talking together; Aurelius always feeling it a burden, Fronto a +thing of magic capacities, so that he had written an encomium in its praise, +and often by ingenious arguments recommends his imperial pupil not to be +sparing of it. To-day, with his younger listeners in mind, he had a story to +tell about it:— +</p> + +<p> +“They say that our father Jupiter, when he ordered the world at the +beginning, divided time into two parts exactly equal: the one part he clothed +with light, the other with darkness: he called them Day and Night; and he +assigned rest to the night and to day the work of life. At that time Sleep was +not yet born and men passed the whole of their lives awake: only, the quiet of +the night was ordained for them, instead of sleep. But it came to pass, little +by little, being that the minds of men are restless, that they carried on their +business alike by night as by day, and gave no part at all to repose. And +Jupiter, when he perceived that even in the night-time they ceased not from +trouble and disputation, and that even the courts of law remained open (it was +the pride of Aurelius, as Fronto knew, to be assiduous in those courts till far +into the night) resolved to appoint one of his brothers to be the overseer of +the night and have authority over man’s rest. But Neptune pleaded in +excuse the gravity of his constant charge of the seas, and Father Dis the +difficulty of keeping in subjection the spirits below; and Jupiter, having +taken counsel with the other gods, perceived that the practice of nightly +vigils was somewhat in favour. It was then, for the most part, that Juno gave +birth to her children: Minerva, the mistress of all art and craft, loved the +midnight lamp: Mars delighted in the darkness for his plots and sallies; and +the favour of Venus and Bacchus was with those who roused by night. Then it was +that Jupiter formed the design of creating Sleep; and he added him to the +number of the gods, and gave him the charge over night and rest, putting into +his hands the keys of human eyes. With his own hands he mingled the juices +wherewith Sleep should soothe the hearts of mortals—herb of Enjoyment and +herb of Safety, gathered from a grove in Heaven; and, from the meadows of +Acheron, the herb of Death; expressing from it one single drop only, no bigger +than a tear one might hide. ‘With this juice,’ he said, ‘pour +slumber upon the eyelids of mortals. So soon as it hath touched them they will +lay themselves down motionless, under thy power. But be not afraid: they shall +revive, and in a while stand up again upon their feet.’ Thereafter, +Jupiter gave wings to Sleep, attached, not, like Mercury’s, to his heels, +but to his shoulders, like the wings of Love. For he said, ‘It becomes +thee not to approach men’s eyes as with the noise of chariots, and the +rushing of a swift courser, but in placid and merciful flight, as upon the +wings of a swallow—nay! with not so much as the flutter of the +dove.’ Besides all this, that he might be yet pleasanter to men, he +committed to him also a multitude of blissful dreams, according to every +man’s desire. One watched his favourite actor; another listened to the +flute, or guided a charioteer in the race: in his dream, the soldier was +victorious, the general was borne in triumph, the wanderer returned home. +Yes!—and sometimes those dreams come true! +</p> + +<p> +Just then Aurelius was summoned to make the birthday offerings to his household +gods. A heavy curtain of tapestry was drawn back; and beyond it Marius gazed +for a few moments into the Lararium, or imperial chapel. A patrician youth, in +white habit, was in waiting, with a little chest in his hand containing incense +for the use of the altar. On richly carved consoles, or side boards, around +this narrow chamber, were arranged the rich apparatus of worship and the golden +or gilded images, adorned to-day with fresh flowers, among them that image of +Fortune from the apartment of Antoninus Pius, and such of the emperor’s +own teachers as were gone to their rest. A dim fresco on the wall commemorated +the ancient piety of Lucius Albinius, who in flight from Rome on the morrow of +a great disaster, overtaking certain priests on foot with their sacred +utensils, descended from the wagon in which he rode and yielded it to the +ministers of the gods. As he ascended into the chapel the emperor paused, and +with a grave but friendly look at his young visitor, delivered a parting +sentence, audible to him alone: <i>Imitation is the most acceptable part of +worship:—the gods had much rather mankind should resemble than flatter +them. Make sure that those to whom you come nearest be the happier by your +presence!</i> +</p> + +<p> +It was the very spirit of the scene and the hour—the hour Marius had +spent in the imperial house. How temperate, how tranquillising! what humanity! +Yet, as he left the eminent company concerning whose ways of life at home he +had been so youthfully curious, and sought, after his manner, to determine the +main trait in all this, he had to confess that it was a sentiment of +mediocrity, though of a mediocrity for once really golden. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap14"></a>CHAPTER XIV.<br/> +MANLY AMUSEMENT</h2> + +<p> +During the Eastern war there came a moment when schism in the empire had seemed +possible through the defection of Lucius Verus; when to Aurelius it had also +seemed possible to confirm his allegiance by no less a gift than his beautiful +daughter Lucilla, the eldest of his children—the domnula, probably, of +those letters. The little lady, grown now to strong and stately maidenhood, had +been ever something of the good genius, the better soul, to Lucius Verus, by +the law of contraries, her somewhat cold and apathetic modesty acting as +counterfoil to the young man’s tigrish fervour. Conducted to Ephesus, she +had become his wife by form of civil marriage, the more solemn wedding rites +being deferred till their return to Rome. +</p> + +<p> +The ceremony of the Confarreation, or religious marriage, in which bride and +bridegroom partook together of a certain mystic bread, was celebrated +accordingly, with due pomp, early in the spring; Aurelius himself assisting, +with much domestic feeling. A crowd of fashionable people filled the space +before the entrance to the apartments of Lucius on the Palatine hill, richly +decorated for the occasion, commenting, not always quite delicately, on the +various details of the rite, which only a favoured few succeeded in actually +witnessing. “She comes!” Marius could hear them say, +“escorted by her young brothers: it is the young Commodus who carries the +torch of white-thornwood, the little basket of work-things, the toys for the +children:”—and then, after a watchful pause, “she is winding +the woollen thread round the doorposts. Ah! I see the marriage-cake: the +bridegroom presents the fire and water.” Then, in a longer pause, was +heard the chorus, Thalassie! Thalassie! and for just a few moments, in the +strange light of many wax tapers at noonday, Marius could see them both, side +by side, while the bride was lifted over the doorstep: Lucius Verus heated and +handsome—the pale, impassive Lucilla looking very long and slender, in +her closely folded yellow veil, and high nuptial crown. +</p> + +<p> +As Marius turned away, glad to escape from the pressure of the crowd, he found +himself face to face with Cornelius, an infrequent spectator on occasions such +as this. It was a relief to depart with him—so fresh and quiet he looked, +though in all his splendid equestrian array in honour of the +ceremony—from the garish heat of the marriage scene. The reserve which +had puzzled Marius so much on his first day in Rome, was but an instance of +many, to him wholly unaccountable, avoidances alike of things and persons, +which must certainly mean that an intimate companionship would cost him +something in the way of seemingly indifferent amusements. Some inward standard +Marius seemed to detect there (though wholly unable to estimate its nature) of +distinction, selection, refusal, amid the various elements of the fervid and +corrupt life across which they were moving together:—some secret, +constraining motive, ever on the alert at eye and ear, which carried him +through Rome as under a charm, so that Marius could not but think of that +figure of the white bird in the market-place as undoubtedly made true of him. +And Marius was still full of admiration for this companion, who had known how +to make himself very pleasant to him. Here was the clear, cold corrective, +which the fever of his present life demanded. Without it, he would have felt +alternately suffocated and exhausted by an existence, at once so gaudy and +overdone, and yet so intolerably empty; in which people, even at their best, +seemed only to be brooding, like the wise emperor himself, over a world’s +disillusion. For with all the severity of Cornelius, there was such a breeze of +hopefulness—freshness and hopefulness, as of new morning, about him. For +the most part, as I said, those refusals, that reserve of his, seemed +unaccountable. But there were cases where the unknown monitor acted in a +direction with which the judgment, or instinct, of Marius himself wholly +concurred; the effective decision of Cornelius strengthening him further +therein, as by a kind of outwardly embodied conscience. And the entire drift of +his education determined him, on one point at least, to be wholly of the same +mind with this peculiar friend (they two, it might be, together, against the +world!) when, alone of a whole company of brilliant youth, he had withdrawn +from his appointed place in the amphitheatre, at a grand public show, which +after an interval of many months, was presented there, in honour of the +nuptials of Lucius Verus and Lucilla. +</p> + +<p> +And it was still to the eye, through visible movement and aspect, that the +character, or genius of Cornelius made itself felt by Marius; even as on that +afternoon when he had girt on his armour, among the expressive lights and +shades of the dim old villa at the roadside, and every object of his knightly +array had seemed to be but sign or symbol of some other thing far beyond it. +For, consistently with his really poetic temper, all influence reached Marius, +even more exclusively than he was aware, through the medium of sense. From +Flavian in that brief early summer of his existence, he had derived a powerful +impression of the “perpetual flux”: he had caught there, as in +cipher or symbol, or low whispers more effective than any definite language, +his own Cyrenaic philosophy, presented thus, for the first time, in an image or +person, with much attractiveness, touched also, consequently, with a pathetic +sense of personal sorrow:—a concrete image, the abstract equivalent of +which he could recognise afterwards, when the agitating personal influence had +settled down for him, clearly enough, into a theory of practice. But of what +possible intellectual formula could this mystic Cornelius be the sensible +exponent; seeming, as he did, to live ever in close relationship with, and +recognition of, a mental view, a source of discernment, a light upon his way, +which had certainly not yet sprung up for Marius? Meantime, the discretion of +Cornelius, his energetic clearness and purity, were a charm, rather physical +than moral: his exquisite correctness of spirit, at all events, accorded so +perfectly with the regular beauty of his person, as to seem to depend upon it. +And wholly different as was this later friendship, with its exigency, its +warnings, its restraints, from the feverish attachment to Flavian, which had +made him at times like an uneasy slave, still, like that, it was a +reconciliation to the world of sense, the visible world. From the hopefulness +of this gracious presence, all visible things around him, even the commonest +objects of everyday life—if they but stood together to warm their hands +at the same fire—took for him a new poetry, a delicate fresh bloom, and +interest. It was as if his bodily eyes had been indeed mystically washed, +renewed, strengthened. +</p> + +<p> +And how eagerly, with what a light heart, would Flavian have taken his place in +the amphitheatre, among the youth of his own age! with what an appetite for +every detail of the entertainment, and its various accessories:—the +sunshine, filtered into soft gold by the vela, with their serpentine +patterning, spread over the more select part of the company; the Vestal +virgins, taking their privilege of seats near the empress Faustina, who sat +there in a maze of double-coloured gems, changing, as she moved, like the waves +of the sea; the cool circle of shadow, in which the wonderful toilets of the +fashionable told so effectively around the blazing arena, covered again and +again during the many hours’ show, with clean sand for the absorption of +certain great red patches there, by troops of white-shirted boys, for whom the +good-natured audience provided a scramble of nuts and small coin, flung to them +over a trellis-work of silver-gilt and amber, precious gift of Nero, while a +rain of flowers and perfume fell over themselves, as they paused between the +parts of their long feast upon the spectacle of animal suffering. +</p> + +<p> +During his sojourn at Ephesus, Lucius Verus had readily become a patron, patron +or protégé, of the great goddess of Ephesus, the goddess of hunters; and the +show, celebrated by way of a compliment to him to-day, was to present some +incidents of her story, where she figures almost as the genius of madness, in +animals, or in the humanity which comes in contact with them. The entertainment +would have an element of old Greek revival in it, welcome to the taste of a +learned and Hellenising society; and, as Lucius Verus was in some sense a lover +of animals, was to be a display of animals mainly. There would be real wild and +domestic creatures, all of rare species; and a real slaughter. On so happy an +occasion, it was hoped, the elder emperor might even concede a point, and a +living criminal fall into the jaws of the wild beasts. And the spectacle was, +certainly, to end in the destruction, by one mighty shower of arrows, of a +hundred lions, “nobly” provided by Aurelius himself for the +amusement of his people.—Tam magnanimus fuit! +</p> + +<p> +The arena, decked and in order for the first scene, looked delightfully fresh, +re-inforcing on the spirits of the audience the actual freshness of the +morning, which at this season still brought the dew. Along the subterranean +ways that led up to it, the sound of an advancing chorus was heard at last, +chanting the words of a sacred song, or hymn to Diana; for the spectacle of the +amphitheatre was, after all, a religious occasion. To its grim acts of +blood-shedding a kind of sacrificial character still belonged in the view of +certain religious casuists, tending conveniently to soothe the humane +sensibilities of so pious an emperor as Aurelius, who, in his fraternal +complacency, had consented to preside over the shows. +</p> + +<p> +Artemis or Diana, as she may be understood in the actual development of her +worship, was, indeed, the symbolical expression of two allied yet contrasted +elements of human temper and experience—man’s amity, and also his +enmity, towards the wild creatures, when they were still, in a certain sense, +his brothers. She is the complete, and therefore highly complex, representative +of a state, in which man was still much occupied with animals, not as his +flock, or as his servants after the pastoral relationship of our later, orderly +world, but rather as his equals, on friendly terms or the reverse,—a +state full of primeval sympathies and antipathies, of rivalries and common +wants—while he watched, and could enter into, the humours of those +“younger brothers,” with an intimacy, the “survivals” +of which in a later age seem often to have had a kind of madness about them. +Diana represents alike the bright and the dark side of such relationship. But +the humanities of that relationship were all forgotten to-day in the excitement +of a show, in which mere cruelty to animals, their useless suffering and death, +formed the main point of interest. People watched their destruction, batch +after batch, in a not particularly inventive fashion; though it was expected +that the animals themselves, as living creatures are apt to do when hard put to +it, would become inventive, and make up, by the fantastic accidents of their +agony, for the deficiencies of an age fallen behind in this matter of manly +amusement. It was as a Deity of Slaughter—the Taurian goddess who demands +the sacrifice of the shipwrecked sailors thrown on her coasts—the cruel, +moonstruck huntress, who brings not only sudden death, but rabies, among the +wild creatures that Diana was to be presented, in the person of a famous +courtesan. The aim at an actual theatrical illusion, after the first +introductory scene, was frankly surrendered to the display of the animals, +artificially stimulated and maddened to attack each other. And as Diana was +also a special protectress of new-born creatures, there would be a certain +curious interest in the dexterously contrived escape of the young from their +mother’s torn bosoms; as many pregnant animals as possible being +carefully selected for the purpose. +</p> + +<p> +The time had been, and was to come again, when the pleasures of the +amphitheatre centered in a similar practical joking upon human beings. What +more ingenious diversion had stage manager ever contrived than that incident, +itself a practical epigram never to be forgottten, when a criminal, who, like +slaves and animals, had no rights, was compelled to present the part of Icarus; +and, the wings failing him in due course, had fallen into a pack of hungry +bears? For the long shows of the amphitheatre were, so to speak, the +novel-reading of that age—a current help provided for sluggish +imaginations, in regard, for instance, to grisly accidents, such as might +happen to one’s self; but with every facility for comfortable inspection. +Scaevola might watch his own hand, consuming, crackling, in the fire, in the +person of a culprit, willing to redeem his life by an act so delightful to the +eyes, the very ears, of a curious public. If the part of Marsyas was called +for, there was a criminal condemned to lose his skin. It might be almost +edifying to study minutely the expression of his face, while the assistants +corded and pegged him to the bench, cunningly; the servant of the law waiting +by, who, after one short cut with his knife, would slip the man’s leg +from his skin, as neatly as if it were a stocking—a finesse in providing +the due amount of suffering for wrong-doers only brought to its height in +Nero’s living bonfires. But then, by making his suffering ridiculous, you +enlist against the sufferer, some real, and all would-be manliness, and do much +to stifle any false sentiment of compassion. The philosophic emperor, having no +great taste for sport, and asserting here a personal scruple, had greatly +changed all that; had provided that nets should be spread under the dancers on +the tight-rope, and buttons for the swords of the gladiators. But the +gladiators were still there. Their bloody contests had, under the form of a +popular amusement, the efficacy of a human sacrifice; as, indeed, the whole +system of the public shows was understood to possess a religious import. Just +at this point, certainly, the judgment of Lucretius on pagan religion is +without reproach— +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +Tantum religio potuit suadere malorum. +</p> + +<p> +And Marius, weary and indignant, feeling isolated in the great slaughter-house, +could not but observe that, in his habitual complaisance to Lucius Verus, who, +with loud shouts of applause from time to time, lounged beside him, Aurelius +had sat impassibly through all the hours Marius himself had remained there. For +the most part indeed, the emperor had actually averted his eyes from the show, +reading, or writing on matters of public business, but had seemed, after all, +indifferent. He was revolving, perhaps, that old Stoic paradox of the +Imperceptibility of pain; which might serve as an excuse, should those savage +popular humours ever again turn against men and women. Marius remembered well +his very attitude and expression on this day, when, a few years later, certain +things came to pass in Gaul, under his full authority; and that attitude and +expression defined already, even thus early in their so friendly intercourse, +and though he was still full of gratitude for his interest, a permanent point +of difference between the emperor and himself—between himself, with all +the convictions of his life taking centre to-day in his merciful, angry heart, +and Aurelius, as representing all the light, all the apprehensive power there +might be in pagan intellect. There was something in a tolerance such as this, +in the bare fact that he could sit patiently through a scene like this, which +seemed to Marius to mark Aurelius as his inferior now and for ever on the +question of righteousness; to set them on opposite sides, in some great +conflict, of which that difference was but a single presentment. Due, in +whatever proportions, to the abstract principles he had formulated for himself, +or in spite of them, there was the loyal conscience within him, deciding, +judging himself and every one else, with a wonderful sort of +authority:—You ought, methinks, to be something quite different from what +you are; here! and here! Surely Aurelius must be lacking in that decisive +conscience at first sight, of the intimations of which Marius could entertain +no doubt—which he looked for in others. He at least, the humble follower +of the bodily eye, was aware of a crisis in life, in this brief, obscure +existence, a fierce opposition of real good and real evil around him, the +issues of which he must by no means compromise or confuse; of the antagonisms +of which the “wise” Marcus Aurelius was unaware. +</p> + +<p> +That long chapter of the cruelty of the Roman public shows may, perhaps, leave +with the children of the modern world a feeling of self-complacency. Yet it +might seem well to ask ourselves—it is always well to do so, when we read +of the slave-trade, for instance, or of great religious persecutions on this +side or on that, or of anything else which raises in us the question, “Is +thy servant a dog, that he should do this thing?”—not merely, what +germs of feeling we may entertain which, under fitting circumstances, would +induce us to the like; but, even more practically, what thoughts, what sort of +considerations, may be actually present to our minds such as might have +furnished us, living in another age, and in the midst of those legal crimes, +with plausible excuses for them: each age in turn, perhaps, having its own +peculiar point of blindness, with its consequent peculiar sin—the +touch-stone of an unfailing conscience in the select few. +</p> + +<p> +Those cruel amusements were, certainly, the sin of blindness, of deadness and +stupidity, in the age of Marius; and his light had not failed him regarding it. +Yes! what was needed was the heart that would make it impossible to witness all +this; and the future would be with the forces that could beget a heart like +that. His chosen philosophy had said,—Trust the eye: Strive to be right +always in regard to the concrete experience: Beware of falsifying your +impressions. And its sanction had at least been effective here, in +protesting—“This, and this, is what you may not look upon!” +Surely evil was a real thing, and the wise man wanting in the sense of it, +where, not to have been, by instinctive election, on the right side, was to +have failed in life. +</p> + +<p class="center"> +END OF VOL. 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