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diff --git a/4058-h/4058-h.htm b/4058-h/4058-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..63d6509 --- /dev/null +++ b/4058-h/4058-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,5880 @@ +<!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 Two, 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; } + +p.poem {text-indent: 0%; + margin-left: 10%; + font-size: 90%; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em; } + +p.letter {text-indent: 0%; + margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; + 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; } + +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 Two, 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 Two</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 #4058]<br /> +[Most recently updated: September 3, 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 TWO ***</div> + +<h1>Marius the Epicurean</h1> + +<h3>HIS SENSATIONS AND IDEAS</h3> + +<h2 class="no-break">by WALTER PATER</h2> + +<h4>VOLUME TWO</h4> + +<h4>London: 1910.<br /> +(The Library Edition.)</h4> + +<hr /> + +<h2>Contents</h2> + +<table summary="" style=""> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#part03"><b>PART THE THIRD</b></a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap15">15. Stoicism at Court</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap16">16. Second Thoughts</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap17">17. Beata Urbs</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap18">18. “The Ceremony of the Dart”</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap19">19. The Will as Vision</a><br /><br /></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#part04"><b>PART THE FOURTH</b></a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap20">20. Two Curious Houses—1. Guests</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap21">21. Two Curious Houses—2. The Church in Cecilia’s House</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap22">22. “The Minor Peace of the Church”</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap23">23. Divine Service</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap24">24. A Conversation Not Imaginary</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap25">25. Sunt Lacrimae Rerum</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap26">26. The Martyrs</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap27">27. The Triumph of Marcus Aurelius</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap28">28. Anima Naturaliter Christiana</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> + +<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><a name="part03"></a>PART THE THIRD</h2> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap15"></a>CHAPTER XV.<br/> +STOICISM AT COURT</h2> + +<p> +The very finest flower of the same company—Aurelius with the gilded +fasces borne before him, a crowd of exquisites, the empress Faustina herself, +and all the elegant blue-stockings of the day, who maintained, people said, +their private “sophists” to whisper philosophy into their ears +winsomely as they performed the duties of the toilet—was assembled again +a few months later, in a different place and for a very different purpose. The +temple of Peace, a “modernising” foundation of Hadrian, enlarged by +a library and lecture-rooms, had grown into an institution like something +between a college and a literary club; and here Cornelius Fronto was to +pronounce a discourse on the Nature of Morals. There were some, indeed, who had +desired the emperor Aurelius himself to declare his whole mind on this matter. +Rhetoric was become almost a function of the state: philosophy was upon the +throne; and had from time to time, by request, delivered an official utterance +with well-nigh divine authority. And it was as the delegate of this authority, +under the full sanction of the philosophic emperor—emperor and pontiff, +that the aged Fronto purposed to-day to expound some parts of the Stoic +doctrine, with the view of recommending morals to that refined but perhaps +prejudiced company, as being, in effect, one mode of comeliness in +things—as it were music, or a kind of artistic order, in life. And he did +this earnestly, with an outlay of all his science of mind, and that eloquence +of which he was known to be a master. For Stoicism was no longer a rude and +unkempt thing. Received at court, it had largely decorated itself: it was grown +persuasive and insinuating, and sought not only to convince men’s +intelligence but to allure their souls. Associated with the beautiful old age +of the great rhetorician, and his winning voice, it was almost Epicurean. And +the old man was at his best on the occasion; the last on which he ever appeared +in this way. To-day was his own birthday. Early in the morning the imperial +letter of congratulation had reached him; and all the pleasant animation it had +caused was in his face, when assisted by his daughter Gratia he took his place +on the ivory chair, as president of the Athenaeum of Rome, wearing with a +wonderful grace the philosophic pall,—in reality neither more nor less +than the loose woollen cloak of the common soldier, but fastened on his right +shoulder with a magnificent clasp, the emperor’s birthday gift. +</p> + +<p> +It was an age, as abundant evidence shows, whose delight in rhetoric was but +one result of a general susceptibility—an age not merely taking pleasure +in words, but experiencing a great moral power in them. Fronto’s quaintly +fashionable audience would have wept, and also assisted with their purses, had +his present purpose been, as sometimes happened, the recommendation of an +object of charity. As it was, arranging themselves at their ease among the +images and flowers, these amateurs of exquisite language, with their tablets +open for careful record of felicitous word or phrase, were ready to give +themselves wholly to the intellectual treat prepared for them, applauding, +blowing loud kisses through the air sometimes, at the speaker’s +triumphant exit from one of his long, skilfully modulated sentences; while the +younger of them meant to imitate everything about him, down to the inflections +of his voice and the very folds of his mantle. Certainly there was rhetoric +enough:—a wealth of imagery; illustrations from painting, music, +mythology, the experiences of love; a management, by which subtle, unexpected +meaning was brought out of familiar terms, like flies from morsels of amber, to +use Fronto’s own figure. But with all its richness, the higher claim of +his style was rightly understood to lie in gravity and self-command, and an +especial care for the purities of a vocabulary which rejected every expression +unsanctioned by the authority of approved ancient models. +</p> + +<p> +And it happened with Marius, as it will sometimes happen, that this general +discourse to a general audience had the effect of an utterance adroitly +designed for him. His conscience still vibrating painfully under the shock of +that scene in the amphitheatre, and full of the ethical charm of Cornelius, he +was questioning himself with much impatience as to the possibility of an +adjustment between his own elaborately thought-out intellectual scheme and the +“old morality.” In that intellectual scheme indeed the old morality +had so far been allowed no place, as seeming to demand from him the admission +of certain first principles such as might misdirect or retard him in his +efforts towards a complete, many-sided existence; or distort the revelations of +the experience of life; or curtail his natural liberty of heart and mind. But +now (his imagination being occupied for the moment with the noble and resolute +air, the gallantry, so to call it, which composed the outward mien and +presentment of his strange friend’s inflexible ethics) he felt already +some nascent suspicion of his philosophic programme, in regard, precisely, to +the question of good taste. There was the taint of a graceless +“antinomianism” perceptible in it, a dissidence, a revolt against +accustomed modes, the actual impression of which on other men might rebound +upon himself in some loss of that personal pride to which it was part of his +theory of life to allow so much. And it was exactly a moral situation such as +this that Fronto appeared to be contemplating. He seemed to have before his +mind the case of one—Cyrenaic or Epicurean, as the courtier tends to be, +by habit and instinct, if not on principle—who yet experiences, actually, +a strong tendency to moral assents, and a desire, with as little logical +inconsistency as may be, to find a place for duty and righteousness in his +house of thought. +</p> + +<p> +And the Stoic professor found the key to this problem in the purely æsthetic +beauty of the old morality, as an element in things, fascinating to the +imagination, to good taste in its most highly developed form, through +association—a system or order, as a matter of fact, in possession, not +only of the larger world, but of the rare minority of <i>élite</i> +intelligences; from which, therefore, least of all would the sort of Epicurean +he had in view endure to become, so to speak, an outlaw. He supposed his hearer +to be, with all sincerity, in search after some principle of conduct (and it +was here that he seemed to Marius to be speaking straight to him) which might +give unity of motive to an actual rectitude, a cleanness and probity of life, +determined partly by natural affection, partly by enlightened self-interest or +the feeling of honour, due in part even to the mere fear of penalties; no +element of which, however, was distinctively moral in the agent himself as +such, and providing him, therefore, no common ground with a really moral being +like Cornelius, or even like the philosophic emperor. Performing the same +offices; actually satisfying, even as they, the external claims of others; +rendering to all their dues—one thus circumstanced would be wanting, +nevertheless, in the secret of inward adjustment to the moral agents around +him. How tenderly—more tenderly than many stricter souls—he might +yield himself to kindly instinct! what fineness of charity in passing judgment +on others! what an exquisite conscience of other men’s susceptibilities! +He knows for how much the manner, because the heart itself, counts, in doing a +kindness. He goes beyond most people in his care for all weakly creatures; +judging, instinctively, that to be but sentient is to possess rights. He +conceives a hundred duties, though he may not call them by that name, of the +existence of which purely duteous souls may have no suspicion. He has a kind of +pride in doing more than they, in a way of his own. Sometimes, he may think +that those men of line and rule do not really understand their own business. +How narrow, inflexible, unintelligent! what poor guardians (he may reason) of +the inward spirit of righteousness, are some supposed careful walkers according +to its letter and form. And yet all the while he admits, as such, no moral +world at all: no theoretic equivalent to so large a proportion of the facts of +life. +</p> + +<p> +But, over and above such practical rectitude, thus determined by natural +affection or self-love or fear, he may notice that there is a remnant of right +conduct, what he does, still more what he abstains from doing, not so much +through his own free election, as from a deference, an “assent,” +entire, habitual, unconscious, to custom—to the actual habit or fashion +of others, from whom he could not endure to break away, any more than he would +care to be out of agreement with them on questions of mere manner, or, say, +even, of dress. Yes! there were the evils, the vices, which he avoided as, +essentially, a failure in good taste. An assent, such as this, to the +preferences of others, might seem to be the weakest of motives, and the +rectitude it could determine the least considerable element in a moral life. +Yet here, according to Cornelius Fronto, was in truth the revealing example, +albeit operating upon comparative trifles, of the general principle required. +There was one great idea associated with which that determination to conform to +precedent was elevated into the clearest, the fullest, the weightiest principle +of moral action; a principle under which one might subsume men’s most +strenuous efforts after righteousness. And he proceeded to expound the idea of +Humanity—of a universal commonwealth of mind, which becomes explicit, and +as if incarnate, in a select communion of just men made perfect. +</p> + +<p> +Ho kosmos hôsanei polis estin+—the world is as it were a commonwealth, a +city: and there are observances, customs, usages, actually current in it, +things our friends and companions will expect of us, as the condition of our +living there with them at all, as really their peers or fellow-citizens. Those +observances were, indeed, the creation of a visible or invisible aristocracy in +it, whose actual manners, whose preferences from of old, become now a weighty +tradition as to the way in which things should or should not be done, are like +a music, to which the intercourse of life proceeds—such a music as no one +who had once caught its harmonies would willingly jar. In this way, the +becoming, as in Greek—to prepon: or ta êthê+ mores, manners, as both +Greeks and Romans said, would indeed be a comprehensive term for duty. +Righteousness would be, in the words of “Caesar” himself, of the +philosophic Aurelius, but a “following of the reasonable will of the +oldest, the most venerable, of cities, of polities—of the royal, the +law-giving element, therein—forasmuch as we are citizens also in that +supreme city on high, of which all other cities beside are but as single +habitations.” But as the old man spoke with animation of this supreme +city, this invisible society, whose conscience was become explicit in its inner +circle of inspired souls, of whose common spirit, the trusted leaders of human +conscience had been but the mouthpiece, of whose successive personal +preferences in the conduct of life, the “old morality” was the +sum,—Marius felt that his own thoughts were passing beyond the actual +intention of the speaker; not in the direction of any clearer theoretic or +abstract definition of that ideal commonwealth, but rather as if in search of +its visible locality and abiding-place, the walls and towers of which, so to +speak, he might really trace and tell, according to his own old, natural habit +of mind. It would be the fabric, the outward fabric, of a system reaching, +certainly, far beyond the great city around him, even if conceived in all the +machinery of its visible and invisible influences at their grandest—as +Augustus or Trajan might have conceived of them—however well the visible +Rome might pass for a figure of that new, unseen, Rome on high. At moments, +Marius even asked himself with surprise, whether it might be some vast secret +society the speaker had in view:—that august community, to be an outlaw +from which, to be foreign to the manners of which, was a loss so much greater +than to be excluded, into the ends of the earth, from the sovereign Roman +commonwealth. Humanity, a universal order, the great polity, its aristocracy of +elect spirits, the mastery of their example over their successors—these +were the ideas, stimulating enough in their way, by association with which the +Stoic professor had attempted to elevate, to unite under a single principle, +men’s moral efforts, himself lifted up with so genuine an enthusiasm. But +where might Marius search for all this, as more than an intellectual +abstraction? Where were those elect souls in whom the claim of Humanity became +so amiable, winning, persuasive—whose footsteps through the world were so +beautiful in the actual order he saw—whose faces averted from him, would +be more than he could bear? Where was that comely order, to which as a great +fact of experience he must give its due; to which, as to all other beautiful +“phenomena” in life, he must, for his own peace, adjust himself? +</p> + +<p> +Rome did well to be serious. The discourse ended somewhat abruptly, as the +noise of a great crowd in motion was heard below the walls; whereupon, the +audience, following the humour of the younger element in it, poured into the +colonnade, from the steps of which the famous procession, or transvectio, of +the military knights was to be seen passing over the Forum, from their +trysting-place at the temple of Mars, to the temple of the Dioscuri. The +ceremony took place this year, not on the day accustomed—anniversary of +the victory of Lake Regillus, with its pair of celestial assistants—and +amid the heat and roses of a Roman July, but, by anticipation, some months +earlier, the almond-trees along the way being still in leafless flower. Through +that light trellis-work, Marius watched the riders, arrayed in all their +gleaming ornaments, and wearing wreaths of olive around their helmets, the +faces below which, what with battle and the plague, were almost all youthful. +It was a flowery scene enough, but had to-day its fulness of war-like meaning; +the return of the army to the North, where the enemy was again upon the move, +being now imminent. Cornelius had ridden along in his place, and, on the +dismissal of the company, passed below the steps where Marius stood, with that +new song he had heard once before floating from his lips. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +NOTES +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +10. +Transliteration: Ho kosmos hôsanei polis estin. Translation: “The +world is like a city.” +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +10. +Transliteration: to prepon ... ta êthê. Translation: “That which is +seemly ... mores.” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap16"></a>CHAPTER XVI.<br/> +SECOND THOUGHTS</h2> + +<p> +And Marius, for his part, was grave enough. The discourse of Cornelius Fronto, +with its wide prospect over the human, the spiritual, horizon, had set him on a +review—on a review of the isolating narrowness, in particular, of his own +theoretic scheme. Long after the very latest roses were faded, when “the +town” had departed to country villas, or the baths, or the war, he +remained behind in Rome; anxious to try the lastingness of his own Epicurean +rose-garden; setting to work over again, and deliberately passing from point to +point of his old argument with himself, down to its practical conclusions. That +age and our own have much in common—many difficulties and hopes. Let the +reader pardon me if here and there I seem to be passing from Marius to his +modern representatives—from Rome, to Paris or London. +</p> + +<p> +What really were its claims as a theory of practice, of the sympathies that +determine practice? It had been a theory, avowedly, of loss and gain (so to +call it) of an economy. If, therefore, it missed something in the commerce of +life, which some other theory of practice was able to include, if it made a +needless sacrifice, then it must be, in a manner, inconsistent with itself, and +lack theoretic completeness. Did it make such a sacrifice? What did it lose, or +cause one to lose? +</p> + +<p> +And we may note, as Marius could hardly have done, that Cyrenaicism is ever the +characteristic philosophy of youth, ardent, but narrow in its +survey—sincere, but apt to become one-sided, or even fanatical. It is one +of those subjective and partial ideals, based on vivid, because limited, +apprehension of the truth of one aspect of experience (in this case, of the +beauty of the world and the brevity of man’s life there) which it may be +said to be the special vocation of the young to express. In the school of +Cyrene, in that comparatively fresh Greek world, we see this philosophy where +it is least blasé, as we say; in its most pleasant, its blithest and yet +perhaps its wisest form, youthfully bright in the youth of European thought. +But it grows young again for a while in almost every youthful soul. It is +spoken of sometimes as the appropriate utterance of jaded men; but in them it +can hardly be sincere, or, by the nature of the case, an enthusiasm. +“Walk in the ways of thine heart, and in the sight of thine eyes,” +is, indeed, most often, according to the supposition of the book from which I +quote it, the counsel of the young, who feel that the sunshine is pleasant +along their veins, and wintry weather, though in a general sense foreseen, a +long way off. The youthful enthusiasm or fanaticism, the self-abandonment to +one favourite mode of thought or taste, which occurs, quite naturally, at the +outset of every really vigorous intellectual career, finds its special +opportunity in a theory such as that so carefully put together by Marius, just +because it seems to call on one to make the sacrifice, accompanied by a vivid +sensation of power and will, of what others value—sacrifice of some +conviction, or doctrine, or supposed first principle—for the sake of that +clear-eyed intellectual consistency, which is like spotless bodily cleanliness, +or scrupulous personal honour, and has itself for the mind of the youthful +student, when he first comes to appreciate it, the fascination of an ideal. +</p> + +<p> +The Cyrenaic doctrine, then, realised as a motive of strenuousness or +enthusiasm, is not so properly the utterance of the “jaded +Epicurean,” as of the strong young man in all the freshness of thought +and feeling, fascinated by the notion of raising his life to the level of a +daring theory, while, in the first genial heat of existence, the beauty of the +physical world strikes potently upon his wide-open, unwearied senses. He +discovers a great new poem every spring, with a hundred delightful things he +too has felt, but which have never been expressed, or at least never so truly, +before. The workshops of the artists, who can select and set before us what is +really most distinguished in visible life, are open to him. He thinks that the +old Platonic, or the new Baconian philosophy, has been better explained than by +the authors themselves, or with some striking original development, this very +month. In the quiet heat of early summer, on the dusty gold morning, the music +comes, louder at intervals, above the hum of voices from some neighbouring +church, among the flowering trees, valued now, perhaps, only for the poetically +rapt faces among priests or worshippers, or the mere skill and eloquence, it +may be, of its preachers of faith and righteousness. In his scrupulous +idealism, indeed, he too feels himself to be something of a priest, and that +devotion of his days to the contemplation of what is beautiful, a sort of +perpetual religious service. Afar off, how many fair cities and delicate +sea-coasts await him! At that age, with minds of a certain constitution, no +very choice or exceptional circumstances are needed to provoke an enthusiasm +something like this. Life in modern London even, in the heavy glow of summer, +is stuff sufficient for the fresh imagination of a youth to build its +“palace of art” of; and the very sense and enjoyment of an +experience in which all is new, are but enhanced, like that glow of summer +itself, by the thought of its brevity, giving him something of a +gambler’s zest, in the apprehension, by dexterous act or diligently +appreciative thought, of the highly coloured moments which are to pass away so +quickly. At bottom, perhaps, in his elaborately developed self-consciousness, +his sensibilities, his almost fierce grasp upon the things he values at all, he +has, beyond all others, an inward need of something permanent in its character, +to hold by: of which circumstance, also, he may be partly aware, and that, as +with the brilliant Claudio in Measure for Measure, it is, in truth, but +darkness he is, “encountering, like a bride.” But the inevitable +falling of the curtain is probably distant; and in the daylight, at least, it +is not often that he really shudders at the thought of the grave—the +weight above, the narrow world and its company, within. When the thought of it +does occur to him, he may say to himself:—Well! and the rude monk, for +instance, who has renounced all this, on the security of some dim world beyond +it, really acquiesces in that “fifth act,” amid all the consoling +ministries around him, as little as I should at this moment; though I may hope, +that, as at the real ending of a play, however well acted, I may already have +had quite enough of it, and find a true well-being in eternal sleep. +</p> + +<p> +And precisely in this circumstance, that, consistently with the function of +youth in general, Cyrenaicism will always be more or less the special +philosophy, or “prophecy,” of the young, when the ideal of a rich +experience comes to them in the ripeness of the receptive, if not of the +reflective, powers—precisely in this circumstance, if we rightly consider +it, lies the duly prescribed corrective of that philosophy. For it is by its +exclusiveness, and by negation rather than positively, that such theories fail +to satisfy us permanently; and what they really need for their correction, is +the complementary influence of some greater system, in which they may find +their due place. That Sturm und Drang of the spirit, as it has been called, +that ardent and special apprehension of half-truths, in the enthusiastic, and +as it were “prophetic” advocacy of which, devotion to truth, in the +case of the young—apprehending but one point at a time in the great +circumference—most usually embodies itself, is levelled down, safely +enough, afterwards, as in history so in the individual, by the weakness and +mere weariness, as well as by the maturer wisdom, of our nature. And though +truth indeed, resides, as has been said, “in the whole”—in +harmonisings and adjustments like this—yet those special apprehensions +may still owe their full value, in this sense of “the whole,” to +that earlier, one-sided but ardent pre-occupation with them. +</p> + +<p> +Cynicism and Cyrenaicism:—they are the earlier Greek forms of Roman +Stoicism and Epicureanism, and in that world of old Greek thought, we may +notice with some surprise that, in a little while, the nobler form of +Cyrenaicism—Cyrenaicism cured of its faults—met the nobler form of +Cynicism half-way. Starting from opposed points, they merged, each in its most +refined form, in a single ideal of temperance or moderation. Something of the +same kind may be noticed regarding some later phases of Cyrenaic theory. If it +starts with considerations opposed to the religious temper, which the religious +temper holds it a duty to repress, it is like it, nevertheless, and very unlike +any lower development of temper, in its stress and earnestness, its serious +application to the pursuit of a very unworldly type of perfection. The saint, +and the Cyrenaic lover of beauty, it may be thought, would at least understand +each other better than either would understand the mere man of the world. Carry +their respective positions a point further, shift the terms a little, and they +might actually touch. +</p> + +<p> +Perhaps all theories of practice tend, as they rise to their best, as +understood by their worthiest representatives, to identification with each +other. For the variety of men’s possible reflections on their experience, +as of that experience itself, is not really so great as it seems; and as the +highest and most disinterested ethical formulae, filtering down into +men’s everyday existence, reach the same poor level of vulgar egotism, +so, we may fairly suppose that all the highest spirits, from whatever +contrasted points they have started, would yet be found to entertain, in the +moral consciousness realised by themselves, much the same kind of mental +company; to hold, far more than might be thought probable, at first sight, the +same personal types of character, and even the same artistic and literary +types, in esteem or aversion; to convey, all of them alike, the same savour of +unworldliness. And Cyrenaicism or Epicureanism too, new or old, may be noticed, +in proportion to the completeness of its development, to approach, as to the +nobler form of Cynicism, so also to the more nobly developed phases of the old, +or traditional morality. In the gravity of its conception of life, in its +pursuit after nothing less than a perfection, in its apprehension of the value +of time—the passion and the seriousness which are like a +consecration—la passion et le sérieux qui consacrent—it may be +conceived, as regards its main drift, to be not so much opposed to the old +morality, as an exaggeration of one special motive in it. +</p> + +<p> +Some cramping, narrowing, costly preference of one part of his own nature, and +of the nature of things, to another, Marius seemed to have detected in himself, +meantime,—in himself, as also in those old masters of the Cyrenaic +philosophy. If they did realise the monochronos hêdonê+ as it was +called—the pleasure of the “Ideal Now”—if certain +moments of their lives were high-pitched, passionately coloured, intent with +sensation, and a kind of knowledge which, in its vivid clearness, was like +sensation—if, now and then, they apprehended the world in its fulness, +and had a vision, almost “beatific,” of ideal personalities in life +and art, yet these moments were a very costly matter: they paid a great price +for them, in the sacrifice of a thousand possible sympathies, of things only to +be enjoyed through sympathy, from which they detached themselves, in +intellectual pride, in loyalty to a mere theory that would take nothing for +granted, and assent to no approximate or hypothetical truths. In their +unfriendly, repellent attitude towards the Greek religion, and the old Greek +morality, surely, they had been but faulty economists. The Greek religion was +then alive: then, still more than in its later day of dissolution, the higher +view of it was possible, even for the philosopher. Its story made little or no +demand for a reasoned or formal acceptance. A religion, which had grown through +and through man’s life, with so much natural strength; had meant so much +for so many generations; which expressed so much of their hopes, in forms so +familiar and so winning; linked by associations so manifold to man as he had +been and was—a religion like this, one would think, might have had its +uses, even for a philosophic sceptic. Yet those beautiful gods, with the whole +round of their poetic worship, the school of Cyrene definitely renounced. +</p> + +<p> +The old Greek morality, again, with all its imperfections, was certainly a +comely thing.—Yes! a harmony, a music, in men’s ways, one might +well hesitate to jar. The merely æsthetic sense might have had a legitimate +satisfaction in the spectacle of that fair order of choice manners, in those +attractive conventions, enveloping, so gracefully, the whole of life, insuring +some sweetness, some security at least against offence, in the intercourse of +the world. Beyond an obvious utility, it could claim, indeed but +custom—use-and-wont, as we say—for its sanction. But then, one of +the advantages of that liberty of spirit among the Cyrenaics (in which, through +theory, they had become dead to theory, so that all theory, as such, was really +indifferent to them, and indeed nothing valuable but in its tangible +ministration to life) was precisely this, that it gave them free play in using +as their ministers or servants, things which, to the uninitiated, must be +masters or nothing. Yet, how little the followers of Aristippus made of that +whole comely system of manners or morals, then actually in possession of life, +is shown by the bold practical consequence, which one of them maintained (with +a hard, self-opinionated adherence to his peculiar theory of values) in the not +very amiable paradox that friendship and patriotism were things one could do +without; while another—Death’s-advocate, as he was +called—helped so many to self-destruction, by his pessimistic eloquence +on the evils of life, that his lecture-room was closed. That this was in the +range of their consequences—that this was a possible, if remote, +deduction from the premisses of the discreet Aristippus—was surely an +inconsistency in a thinker who professed above all things an economy of the +moments of life. And yet those old Cyrenaics felt their way, as if in the dark, +we may be sure, like other men in the ordinary transactions of life, beyond the +narrow limits they drew of clear and absolutely legitimate knowledge, admitting +what was not of immediate sensation, and drawing upon that +“fantastic” future which might never come. A little more of such +“walking by faith,” a little more of such not unreasonable +“assent,” and they might have profited by a hundred services to +their culture, from Greek religion and Greek morality, as they actually were. +The spectacle of their fierce, exclusive, tenacious hold on their own narrow +apprehension, makes one think of a picture with no relief, no soft shadows nor +breadth of space, or of a drama without proportionate repose. +</p> + +<p> +Yet it was of perfection that Marius (to return to him again from his masters, +his intellectual heirs) had been really thinking all the time: a narrow +perfection it might be objected, the perfection of but one part of his +nature—his capacities of feeling, of exquisite physical impressions, of +an imaginative sympathy—but still, a true perfection of those capacities, +wrought out to their utmost degree, admirable enough in its way. He too is an +economist: he hopes, by that “insight” of which the old Cyrenaics +made so much, by skilful apprehension of the conditions of spiritual success as +they really are, the special circumstances of the occasion with which he has to +deal, the special felicities of his own nature, to make the most, in no mean or +vulgar sense, of the few years of life; few, indeed, for the attainment of +anything like general perfection! With the brevity of that sum of years his +mind is exceptionally impressed; and this purpose makes him no frivolous +dilettante, but graver than other men: his scheme is not that of a trifler, but +rather of one who gives a meaning of his own, yet a very real one, to those old +words—Let us work while it is day! He has a strong apprehension, also, of +the beauty of the visible things around him; their fading, momentary, graces +and attractions. His natural susceptibility in this direction, enlarged by +experience, seems to demand of him an almost exclusive pre-occupation with the +aspects of things; with their æsthetic character, as it is called—their +revelations to the eye and the imagination: not so much because those aspects +of them yield him the largest amount of enjoyment, as because to be occupied, +in this way, with the æsthetic or imaginative side of things, is to be in real +contact with those elements of his own nature, and of theirs, which, for him at +least, are matter of the most real kind of apprehension. As other men are +concentrated upon truths of number, for instance, or on business, or it may be +on the pleasures of appetite, so he is wholly bent on living in that full +stream of refined sensation. And in the prosecution of this love of beauty, he +claims an entire personal liberty, liberty of heart and mind, liberty, above +all, from what may seem conventional answers to first questions. +</p> + +<p> +But, without him there is a venerable system of sentiment and idea, widely +extended in time and place, in a kind of impregnable possession of human +life—a system, which, like some other great products of the conjoint +efforts of human mind through many generations, is rich in the world’s +experience; so that, in attaching oneself to it, one lets in a great tide of +that experience, and makes, as it were with a single step, a great experience +of one’s own, and with great consequent increase to one’s sense of +colour, variety, and relief, in the spectacle of men and things. The mere sense +that one belongs to a system—an imperial system or +organisation—has, in itself, the expanding power of a great experience; +as some have felt who have been admitted from narrower sects into the communion +of the catholic church; or as the old Roman citizen felt. It is, we might +fancy, what the coming into possession of a very widely spoken language might +be, with a great literature, which is also the speech of the people we have to +live among. +</p> + +<p> +A wonderful order, actually in possession of human life!—grown +inextricably through and through it; penetrating into its laws, its very +language, its mere habits of decorum, in a thousand half-conscious ways; yet +still felt to be, in part, an unfulfilled ideal; and, as such, awakening hope, +and an aim, identical with the one only consistent aspiration of mankind! In +the apprehension of that, just then, Marius seemed to have joined company once +more with his own old self; to have overtaken on the road the pilgrim who had +come to Rome, with absolute sincerity, on the search for perfection. It defined +not so much a change of practice, as of sympathy—a new departure, an +expansion, of sympathy. It involved, certainly, some curtailment of his +liberty, in concession to the actual manner, the distinctions, the enactments +of that great crowd of admirable spirits, who have elected so, and not +otherwise, in their conduct of life, and are not here to give one, so to term +it, an “indulgence.” But then, under the supposition of their +disapproval, no roses would ever seem worth plucking again. The authority they +exercised was like that of classic taste—an influence so subtle, yet so +real, as defining the loyalty of the scholar; or of some beautiful and +venerable ritual, in which every observance is become spontaneous and almost +mechanical, yet is found, the more carefully one considers it, to have a +reasonable significance and a natural history. +</p> + +<p> +And Marius saw that he would be but an inconsistent Cyrenaic, mistaken in his +estimate of values, of loss and gain, and untrue to the well-considered economy +of life which he had brought with him to Rome—that some drops of the +great cup would fall to the ground—if he did not make that concession, if +he did but remain just there. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +NOTES +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +21. +Transliteration: monochronos hêdonê. Pater’s definition “the +pleasure of the ideal present, of the mystic now.” The definition is +fitting; the unusual adjective monochronos means, literally, “single or +unitary time.” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap17"></a>CHAPTER XVII.<br/> +BEATA URBS</h2> + +<p class="letter"> +“Many prophets and kings have desired to see the things which ye +see.” +</p> + +<p> +The enemy on the Danube was, indeed, but the vanguard of the mighty invading +hosts of the fifth century. Illusively repressed just now, those confused +movements along the northern boundary of the Empire were destined to unite +triumphantly at last, in the barbarism, which, powerless to destroy the +Christian church, was yet to suppress for a time the achieved culture of the +pagan world. The kingdom of Christ was to grow up in a somewhat false +alienation from the light and beauty of the kingdom of nature, of the natural +man, with a partly mistaken tradition concerning it, and an incapacity, as it +might almost seem at times, for eventual reconciliation thereto. Meantime Italy +had armed itself once more, in haste, and the imperial brothers set forth for +the Alps. +</p> + +<p> +Whatever misgiving the Roman people may have felt as to the leadership of the +younger was unexpectedly set at rest; though with some temporary regret for the +loss of what had been, after all, a popular figure on the world’s stage. +Travelling fraternally in the same litter with Aurelius, Lucius Verus was +struck with sudden and mysterious disease, and died as he hastened back to +Rome. His death awoke a swarm of sinister rumours, to settle on Lucilla, +jealous, it was said, of Fabia her sister, perhaps of Faustina—on +Faustina herself, who had accompanied the imperial progress, and was anxious +now to hide a crime of her own—even on the elder brother, who, beforehand +with the treasonable designs of his colleague, should have helped him at supper +to a favourite morsel, cut with a knife poisoned ingeniously on one side only. +Aurelius, certainly, with sincere distress, his long irritations, so dutifully +concealed or repressed, turning now into a single feeling of regret for the +human creature, carried the remains back to Rome, and demanded of the Senate a +public funeral, with a decree for the apotheôsis, or canonisation, of the dead. +</p> + +<p> +For three days the body lay in state in the Forum, enclosed in an open coffin +of cedar-wood, on a bed of ivory and gold, in the centre of a sort of temporary +chapel, representing the temple of his patroness Venus Genetrix. Armed soldiers +kept watch around it, while choirs of select voices relieved one another in the +chanting of hymns or monologues from the great tragedians. +</p> + +<p> +At the head of the couch were displayed the various personal decorations which +had belonged to Verus in life. Like all the rest of Rome, Marius went to gaze +on the face he had seen last scarcely disguised under the hood of a +travelling-dress, as the wearer hurried, at night-fall, along one of the +streets below the palace, to some amorous appointment. Unfamiliar as he still +was with dead faces, he was taken by surprise, and touched far beyond what he +had reckoned on, by the piteous change there; even the skill of Galen having +been not wholly successful in the process of embalming. It was as if a brother +of his own were lying low before him, with that meek and helpless expression it +would have been a sacrilege to treat rudely. +</p> + +<p> +Meantime, in the centre of the Campus Martius, within the grove of poplars +which enclosed the space where the body of Augustus had been burnt, the great +funeral pyre, stuffed with shavings of various aromatic woods, was built up in +many stages, separated from each other by a light entablature of woodwork, and +adorned abundantly with carved and tapestried images. Upon this pyramidal or +flame-shaped structure lay the corpse, hidden now under a mountain of flowers +and incense brought by the women, who from the first had had their fondness for +the wanton graces of the deceased. The dead body was surmounted by a waxen +effigy of great size, arrayed in the triumphal ornaments. At last the +Centurions to whom that office belonged, drew near, torch in hand, to ignite +the pile at its four corners, while the soldiers, in wild excitement, flung +themselves around it, casting into the flames the decorations they had received +for acts of valour under the dead emperor’s command. +</p> + +<p> +It had been a really heroic order, spoiled a little, at the last moment, +through the somewhat tawdry artifice, by which an eagle—not a very noble +or youthful specimen of its kind—was caused to take flight amid the real +or affected awe of the spectators, above the perishing remains; a court +chamberlain, according to ancient etiquette, subsequently making official +declaration before the Senate, that the imperial “genius” had been +seen in this way, escaping from the fire. And Marius was present when the +Fathers, duly certified of the fact, by “acclamation,” muttering +their judgment all together, in a kind of low, rhythmical chant, decreed +Caelum—the privilege of divine rank to the departed. +</p> + +<p> +The actual gathering of the ashes in a white cere-cloth by the widowed Lucilla, +when the last flicker had been extinguished by drops of wine; and the +conveyance of them to the little cell, already populous, in the central mass of +the sepulchre of Hadrian, still in all the splendour of its statued colonnades, +were a matter of private or domestic duty; after the due accomplishment of +which Aurelius was at liberty to retire for a time into the privacy of his +beloved apartments of the Palatine. And hither, not long afterwards, Marius was +summoned a second time, to receive from the imperial hands the great pile of +Manuscripts it would be his business to revise and arrange. +</p> + +<p> +One year had passed since his first visit to the palace; and as he climbed the +stairs to-day, the great cypresses rocked against the sunless sky, like living +creatures in pain. He had to traverse a long subterranean gallery, once a +secret entrance to the imperial apartments, and in our own day, amid the ruin +of all around it, as smooth and fresh as if the carpets were but just removed +from its floor after the return of the emperor from the shows. It was here, on +such an occasion, that the emperor Caligula, at the age of twenty-nine, had +come by his end, the assassins gliding along it as he lingered a few moments +longer to watch the movements of a party of noble youths at their exercise in +the courtyard below. As Marius waited, a second time, in that little red room +in the house of the chief chamberlain, curious to look once more upon its +painted walls—the very place whither the assassins were said to have +turned for refuge after the murder—he could all but see the figure, which +in its surrounding light and darkness seemed to him the most melancholy in the +entire history of Rome. He called to mind the greatness of that popularity and +early promise—the stupefying height of irresponsible power, from which, +after all, only men’s viler side had been clearly visible—the +overthrow of reason—the seemingly irredeemable memory; and still, above +all, the beautiful head in which the noble lines of the race of Augustus were +united to, he knew not what expression of sensibility and fineness, not theirs, +and for the like of which one must pass onward to the Antonines. Popular hatred +had been careful to destroy its semblance wherever it was to be found; but one +bust, in dark bronze-like basalt of a wonderful perfection of finish, preserved +in the museum of the Capitol, may have seemed to some visitors there perhaps +the finest extant relic of Roman art. Had the very seal of empire upon those +sombre brows, reflected from his mirror, suggested his insane attempt upon the +liberties, the dignity of men?—“O humanity!” he seems to ask, +“what hast thou done to me that I should so despise +thee?”—And might not this be indeed the true meaning of kingship, +if the world would have one man to reign over it? The like of this: or, some +incredible, surely never to be realised, height of disinterestedness, in a king +who should be the servant of all, quite at the other extreme of the practical +dilemma involved in such a position. Not till some while after his death had +the body been decently interred by the piety of the sisters he had driven into +exile. Fraternity of feeling had been no invariable feature in the incidents of +Roman story. One long Vicus Sceleratus, from its first dim foundation in +fraternal quarrel on the morrow of a common deliverance so touching—had +not almost every step in it some gloomy memory of unnatural violence? Romans +did well to fancy the traitress Tarpeia still “green in earth,” +crowned, enthroned, at the roots of the Capitoline rock. If in truth the +religion of Rome was everywhere in it, like that perfume of the funeral incense +still upon the air, so also was the memory of crime prompted by a hypocritical +cruelty, down to the erring, or not erring, Vesta calmly buried alive there, +only eighty years ago, under Domitian. +</p> + +<p> +It was with a sense of relief that Marius found himself in the presence of +Aurelius, whose gesture of friendly intelligence, as he entered, raised a smile +at the gloomy train of his own thoughts just then, although since his first +visit to the palace a great change had passed over it. The clear daylight found +its way now into empty rooms. To raise funds for the war, Aurelius, his +luxurious brother being no more, had determined to sell by auction the +accumulated treasures of the imperial household. The works of art, the dainty +furniture, had been removed, and were now “on view” in the Forum, +to be the delight or dismay, for many weeks to come, of the large public of +those who were curious in these things. In such wise had Aurelius come to the +condition of philosophic detachment he had affected as a boy, hardly persuaded +to wear warm clothing, or to sleep in more luxurious manner than on the bare +floor. But, in his empty house, the man of mind, who had always made so much of +the pleasures of philosophic contemplation, felt freer in thought than ever. He +had been reading, with less self-reproach than usual, in the Republic of Plato, +those passages which describe the life of the philosopher-kings—like that +of hired servants in their own house—who, possessed of the “gold +undefiled” of intellectual vision, forgo so cheerfully all other riches. +It was one of his happy days: one of those rare days, when, almost with none of +the effort, otherwise so constant with him, his thoughts came rich and full, +and converged in a mental view, as exhilarating to him as the prospect of some +wide expanse of landscape to another man’s bodily eye. He seemed to lie +readier than was his wont to the imaginative influence of the philosophic +reason—to its suggestions of a possible open country, commencing just +where all actual experience leaves off, but which experience, one’s own +and not another’s, may one day occupy. In fact, he was seeking strength +for himself, in his own way, before he started for that ambiguous earthly +warfare which was to occupy the remainder of his life. “Ever remember +this,” he writes, “that a happy life depends, not on many +things—en oligistois keitai.”+ And to-day, committing himself with +a steady effort of volition to the mere silence of the great empty apartments, +he might be said to have escaped, according to Plato’s promise to those +who live closely with philosophy, from the evils of the world. +</p> + +<p> +In his “conversations with himself” Marcus Aurelius speaks often of +that City on high, of which all other cities are but single habitations. From +him in fact Cornelius Fronto, in his late discourse, had borrowed the +expression; and he certainly meant by it more than the whole commonwealth of +Rome, in any idealisation of it, however sublime. Incorporate somehow with the +actual city whose goodly stones were lying beneath his gaze, it was also +implicate in that reasonable constitution of nature, by devout contemplation of +which it is possible for man to associate himself to the consciousness of God. +In that New Rome he had taken up his rest for awhile on this day, deliberately +feeding his thoughts on the better air of it, as another might have gone for +mental renewal to a favourite villa. +</p> + +<p> +“Men seek retirement in country-houses,” he writes, “on the +sea-coast, on the mountains; and you have yourself as much fondness for such +places as another. But there is little proof of culture therein; since the +privilege is yours of retiring into yourself whensoever you please,—into +that little farm of one’s own mind, where a silence so profound may be +enjoyed.” That it could make these retreats, was a plain consequence of +the kingly prerogative of the mind, its dominion over circumstance, its +inherent liberty.—“It is in thy power to think as thou wilt: The +essence of things is in thy thoughts about them: All is opinion, conception: No +man can be hindered by another: What is outside thy circle of thought is +nothing at all to it; hold to this, and you are safe: One thing is +needful—to live close to the divine genius within thee, and minister +thereto worthily.” And the first point in this true ministry, this +culture, was to maintain one’s soul in a condition of indifference and +calm. How continually had public claims, the claims of other persons, with +their rough angularities of character, broken in upon him, the shepherd of the +flock. But after all he had at least this privilege he could not part with, of +thinking as he would; and it was well, now and then, by a conscious effort of +will, to indulge it for a while, under systematic direction. The duty of thus +making discreet, systematic use of the power of imaginative vision for purposes +of spiritual culture, “since the soul takes colour from its +fantasies,” is a point he has frequently insisted on. +</p> + +<p> +The influence of these seasonable meditations—a symbol, or sacrament, +because an intensified condition, of the soul’s own ordinary and natural +life—would remain upon it, perhaps for many days. There were experiences +he could not forget, intuitions beyond price, he had come by in this way, which +were almost like the breaking of a physical light upon his mind; as the great +Augustus was said to have seen a mysterious physical splendour, yonder, upon +the summit of the Capitol, where the altar of the Sibyl now stood. With a +prayer, therefore, for inward quiet, for conformity to the divine reason, he +read some select passages of Plato, which bear upon the harmony of the reason, +in all its forms, with itself—“Could there be Cosmos, that +wonderful, reasonable order, in him, and nothing but disorder in the world +without?” It was from this question he had passed on to the vision of a +reasonable, a divine, order, not in nature, but in the condition of human +affairs—that unseen Celestial City, Uranopolis, Callipolis, Urbs +Beata—in which, a consciousness of the divine will being everywhere +realised, there would be, among other felicitous differences from this lower +visible world, no more quite hopeless death, of men, or children, or of their +affections. He had tried to-day, as never before, to make the most of this +vision of a New Rome, to realise it as distinctly as he could,—and, as it +were, find his way along its streets, ere he went down into a world so +irksomely different, to make his practical effort towards it, with a soul full +of compassion for men as they were. However distinct the mental image might +have been to him, with the descent of but one flight of steps into the +market-place below, it must have retreated again, as if at touch of some malign +magic wand, beyond the utmost verge of the horizon. But it had been actually, +in his clearest vision of it, a confused place, with but a recognisable entry, +a tower or fountain, here or there, and haunted by strange faces, whose novel +expression he, the great physiognomist, could by no means read. Plato, indeed, +had been able to articulate, to see, at least in thought, his ideal city. But +just because Aurelius had passed beyond Plato, in the scope of the gracious +charities he pre-supposed there, he had been unable really to track his way +about it. Ah! after all, according to Plato himself, all vision was but +reminiscence, and this, his heart’s desire, no place his soul could ever +have visited in any region of the old world’s achievements. He had but +divined, by a kind of generosity of spirit, the void place, which another +experience than his must fill. +</p> + +<p> +Yet Marius noted the wonderful expression of peace, of quiet pleasure, on the +countenance of Aurelius, as he received from him the rolls of fine clear +manuscript, fancying the thoughts of the emperor occupied at the moment with +the famous prospect towards the Alban hills, from those lofty windows. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +NOTES +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +37. +Transliteration: en oligistois keitai. Definition “it lies in the +fewest [things].” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap18"></a>CHAPTER XVIII.<br/> +“THE CEREMONY OF THE DART”</h2> + +<p> +The ideas of Stoicism, so precious to Marcus Aurelius, ideas of large +generalisation, have sometimes induced, in those over whose intellects they +have had real power, a coldness of heart. It was the distinction of Aurelius +that he was able to harmonise them with the kindness, one might almost say the +amenities, of a humourist, as also with the popular religion and its many gods. +Those vasty conceptions of the later Greek philosophy had in them, in truth, +the germ of a sort of austerely opinionative “natural theology,” +and how often has that led to religious dryness—a hard contempt of +everything in religion, which touches the senses, or charms the fancy, or +really concerns the affections. Aurelius had made his own the secret of +passing, naturally, and with no violence to his thought, to and fro, between +the richly coloured and romantic religion of those old gods who had still been +human beings, and a very abstract speculation upon the impassive, universal +soul—that circle whose centre is everywhere, the circumference +nowhere—of which a series of purely logical necessities had evolved the +formula. As in many another instance, those traditional pieties of the place +and the hour had been derived by him from his mother:—para tês mêtros to +theosebes.+ Purified, as all such religion of concrete time and place needs to +be, by frequent confronting with the ideal of godhead as revealed to that +innate religious sense in the possession of which Aurelius differed from the +people around him, it was the ground of many a sociability with their simpler +souls, and for himself, certainly, a consolation, whenever the wings of his own +soul flagged in the trying atmosphere of purely intellectual vision. A host of +companions, guides, helpers, about him from of old time, “the very court +and company of heaven,” objects for him of personal reverence and +affection—the supposed presence of the ancient popular gods determined +the character of much of his daily life, and might prove the last stay of human +nature at its weakest. “In every time and place,” he had said, +“it rests with thyself to use the event of the hour religiously: at all +seasons worship the gods.” And when he said “Worship the +gods!” he did it, as strenuously as everything else. +</p> + +<p> +Yet here again, how often must he have experienced disillusion, or even some +revolt of feeling, at that contact with coarser natures to which his religious +conclusions exposed him. At the beginning of the year one hundred and +seventy-three public anxiety was as great as ever; and as before it brought +people’s superstition into unreserved play. For seven days the images of +the old gods, and some of the graver new ones, lay solemnly exposed in the open +air, arrayed in all their ornaments, each in his separate resting-place, amid +lights and burning incense, while the crowd, following the imperial example, +daily visited them, with offerings of flowers to this or that particular +divinity, according to the devotion of each. +</p> + +<p> +But supplementing these older official observances, the very wildest gods had +their share of worship,—strange creatures with strange secrets startled +abroad into open daylight. The delirious sort of religion of which Marius was a +spectator in the streets of Rome, during the seven days of the Lectisternium, +reminded him now and again of an observation of Apuleius: it was “as if +the presence of the gods did not do men good, but disordered or weakened +them.” Some jaded women of fashion, especially, found in certain oriental +devotions, at once relief for their religiously tearful souls and an +opportunity for personal display; preferring this or that +“mystery,” chiefly because the attire required in it was suitable +to their peculiar manner of beauty. And one morning Marius encountered an +extraordinary crimson object, borne in a litter through an excited +crowd—the famous courtesan Benedicta, still fresh from the bath of blood, +to which she had submitted herself, sitting below the scaffold where the +victims provided for that purpose were slaughtered by the priests. Even on the +last day of the solemnity, when the emperor himself performed one of the oldest +ceremonies of the Roman religion, this fantastic piety had asserted itself. +There were victims enough certainly, brought from the choice pastures of the +Sabine mountains, and conducted around the city they were to die for, in almost +continuous procession, covered with flowers and well-nigh worried to death +before the time by the crowds of people superstitiously pressing to touch them. +But certain old-fashioned Romans, in these exceptional circumstances, demanded +something more than this, in the way of a human sacrifice after the ancient +pattern; as when, not so long since, some Greeks or Gauls had been buried alive +in the Forum. At least, human blood should be shed; and it was through a wild +multitude of fanatics, cutting their flesh with knives and whips and licking up +ardently the crimson stream, that the emperor repaired to the temple of +Bellona, and in solemn symbolic act cast the bloodstained spear, or +“dart,” carefully preserved there, towards the enemy’s +country— towards that unknown world of German homes, still warm, as some +believed under the faint northern twilight, with those innocent affections of +which Romans had lost the sense. And this at least was clear, amid all doubts +of abstract right or wrong on either side, that the ruin of those homes was +involved in what Aurelius was then preparing for, with,—Yes! the gods be +thanked for that achievement of an invigorating philosophy!—almost with a +light heart. +</p> + +<p> +For, in truth, that departure, really so difficult to him, for which Marcus +Aurelius had needed to brace himself so strenuously, came to test the power of +a long-studied theory of practice; and it was the development of this +theory—a theôria, literally—a view, an intuition, of the most +important facts, and still more important possibilities, concerning man in the +world, that Marius now discovered, almost as if by accident, below the dry +surface of the manuscripts entrusted to him. The great purple rolls contained, +first of all, statistics, a general historical account of the writer’s +own time, and an exact diary; all alike, though in three different degrees of +nearness to the writer’s own personal experience, laborious, formal, +self-suppressing. This was for the instruction of the public; and part of it +has, perhaps, found its way into the Augustan Histories. But it was for the +especial guidance of his son Commodus that he had permitted himself to break +out, here and there, into reflections upon what was passing, into conversations +with the reader. And then, as though he were put off his guard in this way, +there had escaped into the heavy matter-of-fact, of which the main portion was +composed, morsels of his conversation with himself. It was the romance of a +soul (to be traced only in hints, wayside notes, quotations from older +masters), as it were in lifelong, and often baffled search after some vanished +or elusive golden fleece, or Hesperidean fruit-trees, or some mysterious light +of doctrine, ever retreating before him. A man, he had seemed to Marius from +the first, of two lives, as we say. Of what nature, he had sometimes wondered, +on the day, for instance, when he had interrupted the emperor’s musings +in the empty palace, might be that placid inward guest or inhabitant, who from +amid the pre-occupations of the man of practical affairs looked out, as if +surprised, at the things and faces around. Here, then, under the tame surface +of what was meant for a life of business, Marius discovered, welcoming a +brother, the spontaneous self-revelation of a soul as delicate as his +own,—a soul for which conversation with itself was a necessity of +existence. Marius, indeed, had always suspected that the sense of such +necessity was a peculiarity of his. But here, certainly, was another, in this +respect like himself; and again he seemed to detect the advent of some new or +changed spirit into the world, mystic, inward, hardly to be satisfied with that +wholly external and objective habit of life, which had been sufficient for the +old classic soul. His purely literary curiosity was greatly stimulated by this +example of a book of self-portraiture. It was in fact the position of the +modern essayist,—creature of efforts rather than of achievements, in the +matter of apprehending truth, but at least conscious of lights by the way, +which he must needs record, acknowledge. What seemed to underlie that position +was the desire to make the most of every experience that might come, outwardly +or from within: to perpetuate, to display, what was so fleeting, in a kind of +instinctive, pathetic protest against the imperial writer’s own +theory—that theory of the “perpetual flux” of all +things—to Marius himself, so plausible from of old. +</p> + +<p> +There was, besides, a special moral or doctrinal significance in the making of +such conversation with one’s self at all. The Logos, the reasonable +spark, in man, is common to him with the gods—koinos autô pros tous +theous+—cum diis communis. That might seem but the truism of a certain +school of philosophy; but in Aurelius was clearly an original and lively +apprehension. There could be no inward conversation with one’s self such +as this, unless there were indeed some one else, aware of our actual thoughts +and feelings, pleased or displeased at one’s disposition of one’s +self. Cornelius Fronto too could enounce that theory of the reasonable +community between men and God, in many different ways. But then, he was a +cheerful man, and Aurelius a singularly sad one; and what to Fronto was but a +doctrine, or a motive of mere rhetoric, was to the other a consolation. He +walks and talks, for a spiritual refreshment lacking which he would faint by +the way, with what to the learned professor is but matter of philosophic +eloquence. +</p> + +<p> +In performing his public religious functions Marcus Aurelius had ever seemed +like one who took part in some great process, a great thing really done, with +more than the actually visible assistants about him. Here, in these +manuscripts, in a hundred marginal flowers of thought or language, in happy new +phrases of his own like the impromptus of an actual conversation, in quotations +from other older masters of the inward life, taking new significance from the +chances of such intercourse, was the record of his communion with that eternal +reason, which was also his own proper self, with the divine companion, whose +tabernacle was in the intelligence of men—the journal of his daily +commerce with that. +</p> + +<p> +Chance: or Providence! Chance: or Wisdom, one with nature and man, reaching +from end to end, through all time and all existence, orderly disposing all +things, according to fixed periods, as he describes it, in terms very like +certain well-known words of the book of Wisdom:—those are the +“fenced opposites” of the speculative dilemma, the tragic embarras, +of which Aurelius cannot too often remind himself as the summary of man’s +situation in the world. If there be, however, a provident soul like this +“behind the veil,” truly, even to him, even in the most intimate of +those conversations, it has never yet spoken with any quite irresistible +assertion of its presence. Yet one’s choice in that speculative dilemma, +as he has found it, is on the whole a matter of will.—“’Tis +in thy power,” here too, again, “to think as thou wilt.” For +his part he has asserted his will, and has the courage of his opinion. +“To the better of two things, if thou findest that, turn with thy whole +heart: eat and drink ever of the best before thee.” “Wisdom,” +says that other disciple of the Sapiential philosophy, “hath mingled Her +wine, she hath also prepared Herself a table.” Tou aristou apolaue:+ +“Partake ever of Her best!” And what Marius, peeping now very +closely upon the intimacies of that singular mind, found a thing actually +pathetic and affecting, was the manner of the writer’s bearing as in the +presence of this supposed guest; so elusive, so jealous of any palpable +manifestation of himself, so taxing to one’s faith, never allowing one to +lean frankly upon him and feel wholly at rest. Only, he would do his part, at +least, in maintaining the constant fitness, the sweetness and quiet, of the +guest-chamber. Seeming to vary with the intellectual fortune of the hour, from +the plainest account of experience, to a sheer fantasy, only “believed +because it was impossible,” that one hope was, at all events, sufficient +to make men’s common pleasures and their common ambition, above all their +commonest vices, seem very petty indeed, too petty to know of. It bred in him a +kind of magnificence of character, in the old Greek sense of the term; a temper +incompatible with any merely plausible advocacy of his convictions, or merely +superficial thoughts about anything whatever, or talk about other people, or +speculation as to what was passing in their so visibly little souls, or much +talking of any kind, however clever or graceful. A soul thus disposed had +“already entered into the better life”:—was indeed in some +sort “a priest, a minister of the gods.” Hence his constant +“recollection”; a close watching of his soul, of a kind almost +unique in the ancient world.—Before all things examine into thyself: +strive to be at home with thyself!—Marius, a sympathetic witness of all +this, might almost seem to have had a foresight of monasticism itself in the +prophetic future. With this mystic companion he had gone a step onward out of +the merely objective pagan existence. Here was already a master in that craft +of self-direction, which was about to play so large a part in the forming of +human mind, under the sanction of the Christian church. +</p> + +<p> +Yet it was in truth a somewhat melancholy service, a service on which one must +needs move about, solemn, serious, depressed, with the hushed footsteps of +those who move about the house where a dead body is lying. Such was the +impression which occurred to Marius again and again as he read, with a growing +sense of some profound dissidence from his author. By certain quite traceable +links of association he was reminded, in spite of the moral beauty of the +philosophic emperor’s ideas, how he had sat, essentially unconcerned, at +the public shows. For, actually, his contemplations had made him of a sad +heart, inducing in him that melancholy—Tristitia—which even the +monastic moralists have held to be of the nature of deadly sin, akin to the sin +of Desidia or Inactivity. Resignation, a sombre resignation, a sad heart, +patient bearing of the burden of a sad heart:—Yes! this belonged +doubtless to the situation of an honest thinker upon the world. Only, in this +case there seemed to be too much of a complacent acquiescence in the world as +it is. And there could be no true Théodicé in that; no real accommodation of +the world as it is, to the divine pattern of the Logos, the eternal reason, +over against it. It amounted to a tolerance of evil. +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +The soul of good, though it moveth upon a way thou canst but little understand, yet prospereth on the journey:<br/> +If thou sufferest nothing contrary to nature, there can be nought of evil with thee therein.<br/> +If thou hast done aught in harmony with that reason in which men are communicant with the gods, there also can be nothing of evil with thee—nothing to be afraid of:<br/> +Whatever is, is right; as from the hand of one dispensing to every man according to his desert:<br/> +If reason fulfil its part in things, what more dost thou require?<br/> +Dost thou take it ill that thy stature is but of four cubits?<br/> +That which happeneth to each of us is for the profit of the whole.<br/> +The profit of the whole,—that was sufficient!+ +</p> + +<p> +—Links, in a train of thought really generous! of which, nevertheless, +the forced and yet facile optimism, refusing to see evil anywhere, might lack, +after all, the secret of genuine cheerfulness. It left in truth a weight upon +the spirits; and with that weight unlifted, there could be no real +justification of the ways of Heaven to man. “Let thine air be +cheerful,” he had said; and, with an effort, did himself at times attain +to that serenity of aspect, which surely ought to accompany, as their outward +flower and favour, hopeful assumptions like those. Still, what in Aurelius was +but a passing expression, was with Cornelius (Marius could but note the +contrast) nature, and a veritable physiognomy. With Cornelius, in fact, it was +nothing less than the joy which Dante apprehended in the blessed spirits of the +perfect, the outward semblance of which, like a reflex of physical light upon +human faces from “the land which is very far off,” we may trace +from Giotto onward to its consummation in the work of Raphael—the +serenity, the durable cheerfulness, of those who have been indeed delivered +from death, and of which the utmost degree of that famed +“blitheness” of the Greeks had been but a transitory gleam, as in +careless and wholly superficial youth. And yet, in Cornelius, it was certainly +united with the bold recognition of evil as a fact in the world; real as an +aching in the head or heart, which one instinctively desires to have cured; an +enemy with whom no terms could be made, visible, hatefully visible, in a +thousand forms—the apparent waste of men’s gifts in an early, or +even in a late grave; the death, as such, of men, and even of animals; the +disease and pain of the body. +</p> + +<p> +And there was another point of dissidence between Aurelius and his +reader.—The philosophic emperor was a despiser of the body. Since it is +“the peculiar privilege of reason to move within herself, and to be proof +against corporeal impressions, suffering neither sensation nor passion to break +in upon her,” it follows that the true interest of the spirit must ever +be to treat the body—Well! as a corpse attached thereto, rather than as a +living companion—nay, actually to promote its dissolution. In +counterpoise to the inhumanity of this, presenting itself to the young reader +as nothing less than a sin against nature, the very person of Cornelius was +nothing less than a sanction of that reverent delight Marius had always had in +the visible body of man. Such delight indeed had been but a natural consequence +of the sensuous or materialistic character of the philosophy of his choice. Now +to Cornelius the body of man was unmistakeably, as a later seer terms it, the +one true temple in the world; or rather itself the proper object of worship, of +a sacred service, in which the very finest gold might have its seemliness and +due symbolic use:—Ah! and of what awe-stricken pity also, in its +dejection, in the perishing gray bones of a poor man’s grave! +</p> + +<p> +Some flaw of vision, thought Marius, must be involved in the +philosopher’s contempt for it—some diseased point of thought, or +moral dulness, leading logically to what seemed to him the strangest of all the +emperor’s inhumanities, the temper of the suicide; for which there was +just then, indeed, a sort of mania in the world. “’Tis part of the +business of life,” he read, “to lose it handsomely.” On due +occasion, “one might give life the slip.” The moral or mental +powers might fail one; and then it were a fair question, precisely, whether the +time for taking leave was not come:—“Thou canst leave this prison +when thou wilt. Go forth boldly!” Just there, in the bare capacity to +entertain such question at all, there was what Marius, with a soul which must +always leap up in loyal gratitude for mere physical sunshine, touching him as +it touched the flies in the air, could not away with. There, surely, was a sign +of some crookedness in the natural power of apprehension. It was the attitude, +the melancholy intellectual attitude, of one who might be greatly mistaken in +things—who might make the greatest of mistakes. +</p> + +<p> +A heart that could forget itself in the misfortune, or even in the weakness of +others:—of this Marius had certainly found the trace, as a confidant of +the emperor’s conversations with himself, in spite of those jarring +inhumanities, of that pretension to a stoical indifference, and the many +difficulties of his manner of writing. He found it again not long afterwards, +in still stronger evidence, in this way. As he read one morning early, there +slipped from the rolls of manuscript a sealed letter with the emperor’s +superscription, which might well be of importance, and he felt bound to deliver +it at once in person; Aurelius being then absent from Rome in one of his +favourite retreats, at Praeneste, taking a few days of quiet with his young +children, before his departure for the war. A whole day passed as Marius +crossed the Campagna on horseback, pleased by the random autumn lights bringing +out in the distance the sheep at pasture, the shepherds in their picturesque +dress, the golden elms, tower and villa; and it was after dark that he mounted +the steep street of the little hill-town to the imperial residence. He was +struck by an odd mixture of stillness and excitement about the place. Lights +burned at the windows. It seemed that numerous visitors were within, for the +courtyard was crowded with litters and horses in waiting. For the moment, +indeed, all larger cares, even the cares of war, of late so heavy a pressure, +had been forgotten in what was passing with the little Annius Verus; who for +his part had forgotten his toys, lying all day across the knees of his mother, +as a mere child’s ear-ache grew rapidly to alarming sickness with great +and manifest agony, only suspended a little, from time to time, when from very +weariness he passed into a few moments of unconsciousness. The country surgeon +called in, had removed the imposthume with the knife. There had been a great +effort to bear this operation, for the terrified child, hardly persuaded to +submit himself, when his pain was at its worst, and even more for the parents. +At length, amid a company of pupils pressing in with him, as the custom was, to +watch the proceedings in the sick-room, the eminent Galen had arrived, only to +pronounce the thing done visibly useless, the patient falling now into longer +intervals of delirium. And thus, thrust on one side by the crowd of departing +visitors, Marius was forced into the privacy of a grief, the desolate face of +which went deep into his memory, as he saw the emperor carry the child +away—quite conscious at last, but with a touching expression upon it of +weakness and defeat—pressed close to his bosom, as if he yearned just +then for one thing only, to be united, to be absolutely one with it, in its +obscure distress. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +NOTES +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +42. +Transliteration: para tês mêtros to theosebes. Translation: “rites +deriving from [his] mother.” +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +47. +Transliteration: koinos autô pros tous theous. Translation: “common +to him together with the gods.” +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +49. +Transliteration: Tou aristou apolaue. Translation: “[Always] take +the best.” +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +52. +Not indented in the original. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap19"></a>CHAPTER XIX.<br/> +THE WILL AS VISION</h2> + +<p class="letter"> +Paratum cor meum deus! paratum cor meum! +</p> + +<p> +The emperor demanded a senatorial decree for the erection of images in memory +of the dead prince; that a golden one should be carried, together with the +other images, in the great procession of the Circus, and the addition of the +child’s name to the Hymn of the Salian Priests: and so, stifling private +grief, without further delay set forth for the war. +</p> + +<p> +True kingship, as Plato, the old master of Aurelius, had understood it, was +essentially of the nature of a service. If so be, you can discover a mode of +life more desirable than the being a king, for those who shall be kings; then, +the true Ideal of the State will become a possibility; but not otherwise. And +if the life of Beatific Vision be indeed possible, if philosophy really +“concludes in an ecstasy,” affording full fruition to the entire +nature of man; then, for certain elect souls at least, a mode of life will have +been discovered more desirable than to be a king. By love or fear you might +induce such persons to forgo their privilege; to take upon them the distasteful +task of governing other men, or even of leading them to victory in battle. But, +by the very conditions of its tenure, their dominion would be wholly a ministry +to others: they would have taken upon them “the form of a servant”: +they would be reigning for the well-being of others rather than their own. The +true king, the righteous king, would be Saint Lewis, exiling himself from the +better land and its perfected company—so real a thing to him, definite +and real as the pictured scenes of his psalter—to take part in or to +arbitrate men’s quarrels, about the transitory appearances of things. In +a lower degree (lower, in proportion as the highest Platonic dream is lower +than any Christian vision) the true king would be Marcus Aurelius, drawn from +the meditation of books, to be the ruler of the Roman people in peace, and +still more, in war. +</p> + +<p> +To Aurelius, certainly, the philosophic mood, the visions, however dim, which +this mood brought with it, were sufficiently pleasant to him, together with the +endearments of his home, to make public rule nothing less than a sacrifice of +himself according to Plato’s requirement, now consummated in his setting +forth for the campaign on the Danube. That it was such a sacrifice was to +Marius visible fact, as he saw him ceremoniously lifted into the saddle amid +all the pageantry of an imperial departure, yet with the air less of a sanguine +and self-reliant leader than of one in some way or other already defeated. +Through the fortune of the subsequent years, passing and repassing so +inexplicably from side to side, the rumour of which reached him amid his own +quiet studies, Marius seemed always to see that central figure, with its +habitually dejected hue grown now to an expression of positive suffering, all +the stranger from its contrast with the magnificent armour worn by the emperor +on this occasion, as it had been worn by his predecessor Hadrian. +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +Totus et argento contextus et auro: +</p> + +<p> +clothed in its gold and silver, dainty as that old divinely constructed armour +of which Homer tells, but without its miraculous lightsomeness—he looked +out baffled, labouring, moribund; a mere comfortless shadow taking part in some +shadowy reproduction of the labours of Hercules, through those northern, +mist-laden confines of the civilised world. It was as if the familiar soul +which had been so friendly disposed towards him were actually departed to +Hades; and when he read the Conversations afterwards, though his judgment of +them underwent no material change, it was nevertheless with the allowance we +make for the dead. The memory of that suffering image, while it certainly +strengthened his adhesion to what he could accept at all in the philosophy of +Aurelius, added a strange pathos to what must seem the writer’s mistakes. +What, after all, had been the meaning of that incident, observed as so +fortunate an omen long since, when the prince, then a little child much younger +than was usual, had stood in ceremony among the priests of Mars and flung his +crown of flowers with the rest at the sacred image reclining on the Pulvinar? +The other crowns lodged themselves here or there; when, Lo! the crown thrown by +Aurelius, the youngest of them all, alighted upon the very brows of the god, as +if placed there by a careful hand! He was still young, also, when on the day of +his adoption by Antoninus Pius he saw himself in a dream, with as it were +shoulders of ivory, like the images of the gods, and found them more capable +than shoulders of flesh. Yet he was now well-nigh fifty years of age, setting +out with two-thirds of life behind him, upon a labour which would fill the +remainder of it with anxious cares—a labour for which he had perhaps no +capacity, and certainly no taste. +</p> + +<p> +That ancient suit of armour was almost the only object Aurelius now possessed +from all those much cherished articles of vertu collected by the Caesars, +making the imperial residence like a magnificent museum. Not men alone were +needed for the war, so that it became necessary, to the great disgust alike of +timid persons and of the lovers of sport, to arm the gladiators, but money also +was lacking. Accordingly, at the sole motion of Aurelius himself, unwilling +that the public burden should be further increased, especially on the part of +the poor, the whole of the imperial ornaments and furniture, a sumptuous +collection of gems formed by Hadrian, with many works of the most famous +painters and sculptors, even the precious ornaments of the emperor’s +chapel or Lararium, and the wardrobe of the empress Faustina, who seems to have +borne the loss without a murmur, were exposed for public auction. “These +treasures,” said Aurelius, “like all else that I possess, belong by +right to the Senate and People.” Was it not a characteristic of the true +kings in Plato that they had in their houses nothing they could call their own? +Connoisseurs had a keen delight in the mere reading of the Praetor’s list +of the property for sale. For two months the learned in these matters were +daily occupied in the appraising of the embroidered hangings, the choice +articles of personal use selected for preservation by each succeeding age, the +great outlandish pearls from Hadrian’s favourite cabinet, the marvellous +plate lying safe behind the pretty iron wicker-work of the shops in the +goldsmiths’ quarter. Meantime ordinary persons might have an interest in +the inspection of objects which had been as daily companions to people so far +above and remote from them—things so fine also in workmanship and +material as to seem, with their antique and delicate air, a worthy survival of +the grand bygone eras, like select thoughts or utterances embodying the very +spirit of the vanished past. The town became more pensive than ever over old +fashions. +</p> + +<p> +The welcome amusement of this last act of preparation for the great war being +now over, all Rome seemed to settle down into a singular quiet, likely to last +long, as though bent only on watching from afar the languid, somewhat +uneventful course of the contest itself. Marius took advantage of it as an +opportunity for still closer study than of old, only now and then going out to +one of his favourite spots on the Sabine or Alban hills for a quiet even +greater than that of Rome in the country air. On one of these occasions, as if +by favour of an invisible power withdrawing some unknown cause of dejection +from around him, he enjoyed a quite unusual sense of self-possession—the +possession of his own best and happiest self. After some gloomy thoughts +over-night, he awoke under the full tide of the rising sun, himself full, in +his entire refreshment, of that almost religious appreciation of sleep, the +graciousness of its influence on men’s spirits, which had made the old +Greeks conceive of it as a god. It was like one of those old joyful wakings of +childhood, now becoming rarer and rarer with him, and looked back upon with +much regret as a measure of advancing age. In fact, the last bequest of this +serene sleep had been a dream, in which, as once before, he overheard those he +loved best pronouncing his name very pleasantly, as they passed through the +rich light and shadow of a summer morning, along the pavement of a +city—Ah! fairer far than Rome! In a moment, as he arose, a certain +oppression of late setting very heavily upon him was lifted away, as though by +some physical motion in the air. +</p> + +<p> +That flawless serenity, better than the most pleasurable excitement, yet so +easily ruffled by chance collision even with the things and persons he had come +to value as the greatest treasure in life, was to be wholly his to-day, he +thought, as he rode towards Tibur, under the early sunshine; the marble of its +villas glistening all the way before him on the hillside. And why could he not +hold such serenity of spirit ever at command? he asked, expert as he was at +last become in the art of setting the house of his thoughts in order. +“’Tis in thy power to think as thou wilt:” he repeated to +himself: it was the most serviceable of all the lessons enforced on him by +those imperial conversations.—“’Tis in thy power to think as +thou wilt.” And were the cheerful, sociable, restorative beliefs, of +which he had there read so much, that bold adhesion, for instance, to the +hypothesis of an eternal friend to man, just hidden behind the veil of a +mechanical and material order, but only just behind it, ready perhaps even now +to break through:—were they, after all, really a matter of choice, +dependent on some deliberate act of volition on his part? Were they doctrines +one might take for granted, generously take for granted, and led on by them, at +first as but well-defined objects of hope, come at last into the region of a +corresponding certitude of the intellect? “It is the truth I seek,” +he had read, “the truth, by which no one,” gray and depressing +though it might seem, “was ever really injured.” And yet, on the +other hand, the imperial wayfarer, he had been able to go along with so far on +his intellectual pilgrimage, let fall many things concerning the practicability +of a methodical and self-forced assent to certain principles or presuppositions +“one could not do without.” Were there, as the expression +“one could not do without” seemed to hint, beliefs, without which +life itself must be almost impossible, principles which had their sufficient +ground of evidence in that very fact? Experience certainly taught that, as +regarding the sensible world he could attend or not, almost at will, to this or +that colour, this or that train of sounds, in the whole tumultuous concourse of +colour and sound, so it was also, for the well-trained intelligence, in regard +to that hum of voices which besiege the inward no less than the outward ear. +Might it be not otherwise with those various and competing hypotheses, the +permissible hypotheses, which, in that open field for +hypothesis—one’s own actual ignorance of the origin and tendency of +our being—present themselves so importunately, some of them with so +emphatic a reiteration, through all the mental changes of successive ages? +Might the will itself be an organ of knowledge, of vision? +</p> + +<p> +On this day truly no mysterious light, no irresistibly leading hand from afar +reached him; only the peculiarly tranquil influence of its first hour increased +steadily upon him, in a manner with which, as he conceived, the aspects of the +place he was then visiting had something to do. The air there, air supposed to +possess the singular property of restoring the whiteness of ivory, was pure and +thin. An even veil of lawn-like white cloud had now drawn over the sky; and +under its broad, shadowless light every hue and tone of time came out upon the +yellow old temples, the elegant pillared circle of the shrine of the patronal +Sibyl, the houses seemingly of a piece with the ancient fundamental rock. Some +half-conscious motive of poetic grace would appear to have determined their +grouping; in part resisting, partly going along with the natural wildness and +harshness of the place, its floods and precipices. An air of immense age +possessed, above all, the vegetation around—a world of evergreen +trees—the olives especially, older than how many generations of +men’s lives! fretted and twisted by the combining forces of life and +death, into every conceivable caprice of form. In the windless weather all +seemed to be listening to the roar of the immemorial waterfall, plunging down +so unassociably among these human habitations, and with a motion so unchanging +from age to age as to count, even in this time-worn place, as an image of +unalterable rest. Yet the clear sky all but broke to let through the ray which +was silently quickening everything in the late February afternoon, and the +unseen violet refined itself through the air. It was as if the spirit of life +in nature were but withholding any too precipitate revelation of itself, in its +slow, wise, maturing work. +</p> + +<p> +Through some accident to the trappings of his horse at the inn where he rested, +Marius had an unexpected delay. He sat down in an olive-garden, and, all around +him and within still turning to reverie, the course of his own life hitherto +seemed to withdraw itself into some other world, disparted from this +spectacular point where he was now placed to survey it, like that distant road +below, along which he had travelled this morning across the Campagna. Through a +dreamy land he could see himself moving, as if in another life, and like +another person, through all his fortunes and misfortunes, passing from point to +point, weeping, delighted, escaping from various dangers. That prospect brought +him, first of all, an impulse of lively gratitude: it was as if he must look +round for some one else to share his joy with: for some one to whom he might +tell the thing, for his own relief. Companionship, indeed, familiarity with +others, gifted in this way or that, or at least pleasant to him, had been, +through one or another long span of it, the chief delight of the journey. And +was it only the resultant general sense of such familiarity, diffused through +his memory, that in a while suggested the question whether there had not +been—besides Flavian, besides Cornelius even, and amid the solitude he +had which in spite of ardent friendship perhaps loved best of all +things—some other companion, an unfailing companion, ever at his side +throughout; doubling his pleasure in the roses by the way, patient of his +peevishness or depression, sympathetic above all with his grateful recognition, +onward from his earliest days, of the fact that he was there at all? Must not +the whole world around have faded away for him altogether, had he been left for +one moment really alone in it? In his deepest apparent solitude there had been +rich entertainment. It was as if there were not one only, but two wayfarers, +side by side, visible there across the plain, as he indulged his fancy. A bird +came and sang among the wattled hedge-roses: an animal feeding crept nearer: +the child who kept it was gazing quietly: and the scene and the hours still +conspiring, he passed from that mere fantasy of a self not himself, beside him +in his coming and going, to those divinations of a living and companionable +spirit at work in all things, of which he had become aware from time to time in +his old philosophic readings—in Plato and others, last but not least, in +Aurelius. Through one reflection upon another, he passed from such instinctive +divinations, to the thoughts which give them logical consistency, formulating +at last, as the necessary exponent of our own and the world’s life, that +reasonable Ideal to which the Old Testament gives the name of Creator, which +for the philosophers of Greece is the Eternal Reason, and in the New Testament +the Father of Men—even as one builds up from act and word and expression +of the friend actually visible at one’s side, an ideal of the spirit +within him. +</p> + +<p> +In this peculiar and privileged hour, his bodily frame, as he could recognise, +although just then, in the whole sum of its capacities, so entirely possessed +by him—Nay! actually his very self—was yet determined by a +far-reaching system of material forces external to it, a thousand combining +currents from earth and sky. Its seemingly active powers of apprehension were, +in fact, but susceptibilities to influence. The perfection of its capacity +might be said to depend on its passive surrender, as of a leaf on the wind, to +the motions of the great stream of physical energy without it. And might not +the intellectual frame also, still more intimately himself as in truth it was, +after the analogy of the bodily life, be a moment only, an impulse or series of +impulses, a single process, in an intellectual or spiritual system external to +it, diffused through all time and place—that great stream of spiritual +energy, of which his own imperfect thoughts, yesterday or to-day, would be but +the remote, and therefore imperfect pulsations? It was the hypothesis (boldest, +though in reality the most conceivable of all hypotheses) which had dawned on +the contemplations of the two opposed great masters of the old Greek thought, +alike:—the “World of Ideas,” existent only because, and in so +far as, they are known, as Plato conceived; the “creative, incorruptible, +informing mind,” supposed by Aristotle, so sober-minded, yet as regards +this matter left something of a mystic after all. Might not this entire +material world, the very scene around him, the immemorial rocks, the firm +marble, the olive-gardens, the falling water, be themselves but reflections in, +or a creation of, that one indefectible mind, wherein he too became conscious, +for an hour, a day, for so many years? Upon what other hypothesis could he so +well understand the persistency of all these things for his own intermittent +consciousness of them, for the intermittent consciousness of so many +generations, fleeting away one after another? It was easier to conceive of the +material fabric of things as but an element in a world of thought—as a +thought in a mind, than of mind as an element, or accident, or passing +condition in a world of matter, because mind was really nearer to himself: it +was an explanation of what was less known by what was known better. The purely +material world, that close, impassable prison-wall, seemed just then the unreal +thing, to be actually dissolving away all around him: and he felt a quiet hope, +a quiet joy dawning faintly, in the dawning of this doctrine upon him as a +really credible opinion. It was like the break of day over some vast prospect +with the “new city,” as it were some celestial New Rome, in the +midst of it. That divine companion figured no longer as but an occasional +wayfarer beside him; but rather as the unfailing “assistant,” +without whose inspiration and concurrence he could not breathe or see, +instrumenting his bodily senses, rounding, supporting his imperfect thoughts. +How often had the thought of their brevity spoiled for him the most natural +pleasures of life, confusing even his present sense of them by the suggestion +of disease, of death, of a coming end, in everything! How had he longed, +sometimes, that there were indeed one to whose boundless power of memory he +could commit his own most fortunate moments, his admiration, his love, Ay! the +very sorrows of which he could not bear quite to lose the sense:—one +strong to retain them even though he forgot, in whose more vigorous +consciousness they might subsist for ever, beyond that mere quickening of +capacity which was all that remained of them in himself! “Oh! that they +might live before Thee”—To-day at least, in the peculiar clearness +of one privileged hour, he seemed to have apprehended that in which the +experiences he valued most might find, one by one, an abiding-place. And again, +the resultant sense of companionship, of a person beside him, evoked the +faculty of conscience—of conscience, as of old and when he had been at +his best, in the form, not of fear, nor of self-reproach even, but of a certain +lively gratitude. +</p> + +<p> +Himself—his sensations and ideas—never fell again precisely into +focus as on that day, yet he was the richer by its experience. But for once +only to have come under the power of that peculiar mood, to have felt the train +of reflections which belong to it really forcible and conclusive, to have been +led by them to a conclusion, to have apprehended the Great Ideal, so palpably +that it defined personal gratitude and the sense of a friendly hand laid upon +him amid the shadows of the world, left this one particular hour a marked point +in life never to be forgotten. It gave him a definitely ascertained measure of +his moral or intellectual need, of the demand his soul must make upon the +powers, whatsoever they might be, which had brought him, as he was, into the +world at all. And again, would he be faithful to himself, to his own habits of +mind, his leading suppositions, if he did but remain just there? Must not all +that remained of life be but a search for the equivalent of that Ideal, among +so-called actual things—a gathering together of every trace or token of +it, which his actual experience might present? +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="part04"></a>PART THE FOURTH</h2> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap20"></a>CHAPTER XX.<br/> +TWO CURIOUS HOUSES</h2> + +<h4>I. GUESTS</h4> + +<p class="letter"> +“Your old men shall dream dreams.”+ +</p> + +<p> +A nature like that of Marius, composed, in about equal parts, of instincts +almost physical, and of slowly accumulated intellectual judgments, was perhaps +even less susceptible than other men’s characters of essential change. +And yet the experience of that fortunate hour, seeming to gather into one +central act of vision all the deeper impressions his mind had ever received, +did not leave him quite as he had been. For his mental view, at least, it +changed measurably the world about him, of which he was still indeed a curious +spectator, but which looked further off, was weaker in its hold, and, in a +sense, less real to him than ever. It was as if he viewed it through a +diminishing glass. And the permanency of this change he could note, some years +later, when it happened that he was a guest at a feast, in which the various +exciting elements of Roman life, its physical and intellectual accomplishments, +its frivolity and far-fetched elegances, its strange, mystic essays after the +unseen, were elaborately combined. The great Apuleius, the literary ideal of +his boyhood, had arrived in Rome,—was now visiting Tusculum, at the house +of their common friend, a certain aristocratic poet who loved every sort of +superiorities; and Marius was favoured with an invitation to a supper given in +his honour. +</p> + +<p> +It was with a feeling of half-humorous concession to his own early boyish +hero-worship, yet with some sense of superiority in himself, seeing his old +curiosity grown now almost to indifference when on the point of satisfaction at +last, and upon a juster estimate of its object, that he mounted to the little +town on the hillside, the foot-ways of which were so many flights of easy-going +steps gathered round a single great house under shadow of the +“haunted” ruins of Cicero’s villa on the wooded heights. He +found a touch of weirdness in the circumstance that in so romantic a place he +had been bidden to meet the writer who was come to seem almost like one of the +personages in his own fiction. As he turned now and then to gaze at the evening +scene through the tall narrow openings of the street, up which the cattle were +going home slowly from the pastures below, the Alban mountains, stretched +between the great walls of the ancient houses, seemed close at hand—a +screen of vaporous dun purple against the setting sun—with those waves of +surpassing softness in the boundary lines which indicate volcanic formation. +The coolness of the little brown market-place, for profit of which even the +working-people, in long file through the olive-gardens, were leaving the plain +for the night, was grateful, after the heats of Rome. Those wild country +figures, clad in every kind of fantastic patchwork, stained by wind and weather +fortunately enough for the eye, under that significant light inclined him to +poetry. And it was a very delicate poetry of its kind that seemed to enfold +him, as passing into the poet’s house he paused for a moment to glance +back towards the heights above; whereupon, the numerous cascades of the +precipitous garden of the villa, framed in the doorway of the hall, fell into a +harmless picture, in its place among the pictures within, and scarcely more +real than they—a landscape-piece, in which the power of water (plunging +into what unseen depths!) done to the life, was pleasant, and without its +natural terrors. +</p> + +<p> +At the further end of this bland apartment, fragrant with the rare woods of the +old inlaid panelling, the falling of aromatic oil from the ready-lighted lamps, +the iris-root clinging to the dresses of the guests, as with odours from the +altars of the gods, the supper-table was spread, in all the daintiness +characteristic of the agreeable petit-maître, who entertained. He was already +most carefully dressed, but, like Martial’s Stella, perhaps consciously, +meant to change his attire once and again during the banquet; in the last +instance, for an ancient vesture (object of much rivalry among the young men of +fashion, at that great sale of the imperial wardrobes) a toga, of altogether +lost hue and texture. He wore it with a grace which became the leader of a +thrilling movement then on foot for the restoration of that disused garment, in +which, laying aside the customary evening dress, all the visitors were +requested to appear, setting off the delicate sinuosities and well-disposed +“golden ways” of its folds, with harmoniously tinted flowers. The +opulent sunset, blending pleasantly with artificial light, fell across the +quiet ancestral effigies of old consular dignitaries, along the wide floor +strewn with sawdust of sandal-wood, and lost itself in the heap of cool +coronals, lying ready for the foreheads of the guests on a sideboard of old +citron. The crystal vessels darkened with old wine, the hues of the early +autumn fruit—mulberries, pomegranates, and grapes that had long been +hanging under careful protection upon the vines, were almost as much a feast +for the eye, as the dusky fires of the rare twelve-petalled roses. A favourite +animal, white as snow, brought by one of the visitors, purred its way +gracefully among the wine-cups, coaxed onward from place to place by those at +table, as they reclined easily on their cushions of German eider-down, spread +over the long-legged, carved couches. +</p> + +<p> +A highly refined modification of the acroama—a musical performance during +supper for the diversion of the guests—was presently heard hovering round +the place, soothingly, and so unobtrusively that the company could not guess, +and did not like to ask, whether or not it had been designed by their +entertainer. They inclined on the whole to think it some wonderful +peasant-music peculiar to that wild neighbourhood, turning, as it did now and +then, to a solitary reed-note, like a bird’s, while it wandered into the +distance. It wandered quite away at last, as darkness with a bolder lamplight +came on, and made way for another sort of entertainment. An odd, rapid, +phantasmal glitter, advancing from the garden by torchlight, defined itself, as +it came nearer, into a dance of young men in armour. Arrived at length in a +portico, open to the supper-chamber, they contrived that their mechanical +march-movement should fall out into a kind of highly expressive dramatic +action; and with the utmost possible emphasis of dumb motion, their long swords +weaving a silvery network in the air, they danced the Death of Paris. The young +Commodus, already an adept in these matters, who had condescended to welcome +the eminent Apuleius at the banquet, had mysteriously dropped from his place to +take his share in the performance; and at its conclusion reappeared, still +wearing the dainty accoutrements of Paris, including a breastplate, composed +entirely of overlapping tigers’ claws, skilfully gilt. The youthful +prince had lately assumed the dress of manhood, on the return of the emperor +for a brief visit from the North; putting up his hair, in imitation of Nero, in +a golden box dedicated to Capitoline Jupiter. His likeness to Aurelius, his +father, was become, in consequence, more striking than ever; and he had one +source of genuine interest in the great literary guest of the occasion, in that +the latter was the fortunate possessor of a monopoly for the exhibition of wild +beasts and gladiatorial shows in the province of Carthage, where he resided. +</p> + +<p> +Still, after all complaisance to the perhaps somewhat crude tastes of the +emperor’s son, it was felt that with a guest like Apuleius whom they had +come prepared to entertain as veritable connoisseurs, the conversation should +be learned and superior, and the host at last deftly led his company round to +literature, by the way of bindings. Elegant rolls of manuscript from his fine +library of ancient Greek books passed from hand to hand about the table. It was +a sign for the visitors themselves to draw their own choicest literary +curiosities from their bags, as their contribution to the banquet; and one of +them, a famous reader, choosing his lucky moment, delivered in tenor voice the +piece which follows, with a preliminary query as to whether it could indeed be +the composition of Lucian of Samosata,+ understood to be the great mocker of +that day:— +</p> + +<p> +“What sound was that, Socrates?” asked Chaerephon. “It came +from the beach under the cliff yonder, and seemed a long way off.—And how +melodious it was! Was it a bird, I wonder. I thought all sea-birds were +songless.” +</p> + +<p> +“Aye! a sea-bird,” answered Socrates, “a bird called the +Halcyon, and has a note full of plaining and tears. There is an old story +people tell of it. It was a mortal woman once, daughter of Aeolus, god of the +winds. Ceyx, the son of the morning-star, wedded her in her early maidenhood. +The son was not less fair than the father; and when it came to pass that he +died, the crying of the girl as she lamented his sweet usage, was, Just that! +And some while after, as Heaven willed, she was changed into a bird. Floating +now on bird’s wings over the sea she seeks her lost Ceyx there; since she +was not able to find him after long wandering over the land.” +</p> + +<p> +“That then is the Halcyon—the kingfisher,” said Chaerephon. +“I never heard a bird like it before. It has truly a plaintive note. What +kind of a bird is it, Socrates?” +</p> + +<p> +“Not a large bird, though she has received large honour from the gods on +account of her singular conjugal affection. For whensoever she makes her nest, +a law of nature brings round what is called Halcyon’s weather,—days +distinguishable among all others for their serenity, though they come sometimes +amid the storms of winter—days like to-day! See how transparent is the +sky above us, and how motionless the sea!—like a smooth mirror.” +</p> + +<p> +True! A Halcyon day, indeed! and yesterday was the same. But tell me, Socrates, +what is one to think of those stories which have been told from the beginning, +of birds changed into mortals and mortals into birds? To me nothing seems more +incredible.” +</p> + +<p> +“Dear Chaerephon,” said Socrates, “methinks we are but +half-blind judges of the impossible and the possible. We try the question by +the standard of our human faculty, which avails neither for true knowledge, nor +for faith, nor vision. Therefore many things seem to us impossible which are +really easy, many things unattainable which are within our reach; partly +through inexperience, partly through the childishness of our minds. For in +truth, every man, even the oldest of us, is like a little child, so brief and +babyish are the years of our life in comparison of eternity. Then, how can we, +who comprehend not the faculties of gods and of the heavenly host, tell whether +aught of that kind be possible or no?—What a tempest you saw three days +ago! One trembles but to think of the lightning, the thunderclaps, the violence +of the wind! You might have thought the whole world was going to ruin. And +then, after a little, came this wonderful serenity of weather, which has +continued till to-day. Which do you think the greater and more difficult thing +to do: to exchange the disorder of that irresistible whirlwind to a clarity +like this, and becalm the whole world again, or to refashion the form of a +woman into that of a bird? We can teach even little children to do something of +that sort,—to take wax or clay, and mould out of the same material many +kinds of form, one after another, without difficulty. And it may be that to the +Deity, whose power is too vast for comparison with ours, all processes of that +kind are manageable and easy. How much wider is the whole circle of heaven than +thyself?—Wider than thou canst express. +</p> + +<p> +“Among ourselves also, how vast the difference we may observe in +men’s degrees of power! To you and me, and many another like us, many +things are impossible which are quite easy to others. For those who are +unmusical, to play on the flute; to read or write, for those who have not yet +learned; is no easier than to make birds of women, or women of birds. From the +dumb and lifeless egg Nature moulds her swarms of winged creatures, aided, as +some will have it, by a divine and secret art in the wide air around us. She +takes from the honeycomb a little memberless live thing; she brings it wings +and feet, brightens and beautifies it with quaint variety of colour:—and +Lo! the bee in her wisdom, making honey worthy of the gods. +</p> + +<p> +“It follows, that we mortals, being altogether of little account, able +wholly to discern no great matter, sometimes not even a little one, for the +most part at a loss regarding what happens even with ourselves, may hardly +speak with security as to what may be the powers of the immortal gods +concerning Kingfisher, or Nightingale. Yet the glory of thy mythus, as my +fathers bequeathed it to me, O tearful songstress! that will I too hand on to +my children, and tell it often to my wives, Xanthippe and Myrto:—the +story of thy pious love to Ceyx, and of thy melodious hymns; and, above all, of +the honour thou hast with the gods!” +</p> + +<p> +The reader’s well-turned periods seemed to stimulate, almost +uncontrollably, the eloquent stirrings of the eminent man of letters then +present. The impulse to speak masterfully was visible, before the recital was +well over, in the moving lines about his mouth, by no means designed, as +detractors were wont to say, simply to display the beauty of his teeth. One of +the company, expert in his humours, made ready to transcribe what he would say, +the sort of things of which a collection was then forming, the +“Florida” or Flowers, so to call them, he was apt to let fall by +the way—no impromptu ventures at random; but rather elaborate, carved +ivories of speech, drawn, at length, out of the rich treasure-house of a memory +stored with such, and as with a fine savour of old musk about them. Certainly +in this case, as Marius thought, it was worth while to hear a charming writer +speak. Discussing, quite in our modern way, the peculiarities of those suburban +views, especially the sea-views, of which he was a professed lover, he was also +every inch a priest of Aesculapius, patronal god of Carthage. There was a +piquancy in his rococo, very African, and as it were perfumed personality, +though he was now well-nigh sixty years old, a mixture there of that sort of +Platonic spiritualism which can speak of the soul of man as but a sojourner in +the prison of the body—a blending of that with such a relish for merely +bodily graces as availed to set the fashion in matters of dress, deportment, +accent, and the like, nay! with something also which reminded Marius of the +vein of coarseness he had found in the “Golden Book.” All this made +the total impression he conveyed a very uncommon one. Marius did not wonder, as +he watched him speaking, that people freely attributed to him many of the +marvellous adventures he had recounted in that famous romance, over and above +the wildest version of his own actual story—his extraordinary marriage, +his religious initiations, his acts of mad generosity, his trial as a sorcerer. +</p> + +<p> +But a sign came from the imperial prince that it was time for the company to +separate. He was entertaining his immediate neighbours at the table with a +trick from the streets; tossing his olives in rapid succession into the air, +and catching them, as they fell, between his lips. His dexterity in this +performance made the mirth around him noisy, disturbing the sleep of the furry +visitor: the learned party broke up; and Marius withdrew, glad to escape into +the open air. The courtesans in their large wigs of false blond hair, were +lurking for the guests, with groups of curious idlers. A great conflagration +was visible in the distance. Was it in Rome; or in one of the villages of the +country? Pausing for a few minutes on the terrace to watch it, Marius was for +the first time able to converse intimately with Apuleius; and in this moment of +confidence the “illuminist,” himself with locks so carefully +arranged, and seemingly so full of affectations, almost like one of those light +women there, dropped a veil as it were, and appeared, though still permitting +the play of a certain element of theatrical interest in his bizarre tenets, to +be ready to explain and defend his position reasonably. For a moment his +fantastic foppishness and his pretensions to ideal vision seemed to fall into +some intelligible congruity with each other. In truth, it was the Platonic +Idealism, as he conceived it, which for him literally animated, and gave him so +lively an interest in, this world of the purely outward aspects of men and +things.—Did material things, such things as they had had around them all +that evening, really need apology for being there, to interest one, at all? +Were not all visible objects—the whole material world indeed, according +to the consistent testimony of philosophy in many forms—“full of +souls”? embarrassed perhaps, partly imprisoned, but still eloquent souls? +Certainly, the contemplative philosophy of Plato, with its figurative imagery +and apologue, its manifold æsthetic colouring, its measured eloquence, its +music for the outward ear, had been, like Plato’s old master himself, a +two-sided or two-coloured thing. Apuleius was a Platonist: only, for him, the +Ideas of Plato were no creatures of logical abstraction, but in very truth +informing souls, in every type and variety of sensible things. Those noises in +the house all supper-time, sounding through the tables and along the +walls:—were they only startings in the old rafters, at the impact of the +music and laughter; or rather importunities of the secondary selves, the true +unseen selves, of the persons, nay! of the very things around, essaying to +break through their frivolous, merely transitory surfaces, to remind one of +abiding essentials beyond them, which might have their say, their judgment to +give, by and by, when the shifting of the meats and drinks at life’s +table would be over? And was not this the true significance of the Platonic +doctrine?—a hierarchy of divine beings, associating themselves with +particular things and places, for the purpose of mediating between God and +man—man, who does but need due attention on his part to become aware of +his celestial company, filling the air about him, thick as motes in the +sunbeam, for the glance of sympathetic intelligence he casts through it. +</p> + +<p> +“Two kinds there are, of animated beings,” he exclaimed: +“Gods, entirely differing from men in the infinite distance of their +abode, since one part of them only is seen by our blunted vision—those +mysterious stars!—in the eternity of their existence, in the perfection +of their nature, infected by no contact with ourselves: and men, dwelling on +the earth, with frivolous and anxious minds, with infirm and mortal members, +with variable fortunes; labouring in vain; taken altogether and in their whole +species perhaps, eternal; but, severally, quitting the scene in irresistible +succession. +</p> + +<p> +“What then? Has nature connected itself together by no bond, allowed +itself to be thus crippled, and split into the divine and human elements? And +you will say to me: If so it be, that man is thus entirely exiled from the +immortal gods, that all communication is denied him, that not one of them +occasionally visits us, as a shepherd his sheep—to whom shall I address +my prayers? Whom, shall I invoke as the helper of the unfortunate, the +protector of the good? +</p> + +<p> +“Well! there are certain divine powers of a middle nature, through whom +our aspirations are conveyed to the gods, and theirs to us. Passing between the +inhabitants of earth and heaven, they carry from one to the other prayers and +bounties, supplication and assistance, being a kind of interpreters. This +interval of the air is full of them! Through them, all revelations, miracles, +magic processes, are effected. For, specially appointed members of this order +have their special provinces, with a ministry according to the disposition of +each. They go to and fro without fixed habitation: or dwell in men’s +houses”— +</p> + +<p> +Just then a companion’s hand laid in the darkness on the shoulder of the +speaker carried him away, and the discourse broke off suddenly. Its singular +intimations, however, were sufficient to throw back on this strange evening, in +all its detail—the dance, the readings, the distant fire—a kind of +allegoric expression: gave it the character of one of those famous Platonic +figures or apologues which had then been in fact under discussion. When Marius +recalled its circumstances he seemed to hear once more that voice of genuine +conviction, pleading, from amidst a scene at best of elegant frivolity, for so +boldly mystical a view of man and his position in the world. For a moment, but +only for a moment, as he listened, the trees had seemed, as of old, to be +growing “close against the sky.” Yes! the reception of theory, of +hypothesis, of beliefs, did depend a great deal on temperament. They were, so +to speak, mere equivalents of temperament. A celestial ladder, a ladder from +heaven to earth: that was the assumption which the experience of Apuleius had +suggested to him: it was what, in different forms, certain persons in every age +had instinctively supposed: they would be glad to find their supposition +accredited by the authority of a grave philosophy. Marius, however, yearning +not less than they, in that hard world of Rome, and below its unpeopled sky, +for the trace of some celestial wing across it, must still object that they +assumed the thing with too much facility, too much of self-complacency. And his +second thought was, that to indulge but for an hour fantasies, fantastic +visions of that sort, only left the actual world more lonely than ever. For him +certainly, and for his solace, the little godship for whom the rude countryman, +an unconscious Platonist, trimmed his twinkling lamp, would never slip from the +bark of these immemorial olive-trees.—No! not even in the wildest +moonlight. For himself, it was clear, he must still hold by what his eyes +really saw. Only, he had to concede also, that the very boldness of such theory +bore witness, at least, to a variety of human disposition and a consequent +variety of mental view, which might—who can tell?—be correspondent +to, be defined by and define, varieties of facts, of truths, just “behind +the veil,” regarding the world all alike had actually before them as +their original premiss or starting-point; a world, wider, perhaps, in its +possibilities than all possible fancies concerning it. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +NOTES +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +75. Joel 2.28. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +81. +Halcyone. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap21"></a>CHAPTER XXI.<br/> +TWO CURIOUS HOUSES</h2> + +<h4>II. THE CHURCH IN CECILIA’S HOUSE</h4> + +<p class="letter"> +“Your old men shall dream dreams, and your young men shall see +visions.” +</p> + +<p> +Cornelius had certain friends in or near Rome, whose household, to Marius, as +he pondered now and again what might be the determining influences of that +peculiar character, presented itself as possibly its main secret—the +hidden source from which the beauty and strength of a nature, so persistently +fresh in the midst of a somewhat jaded world, might be derived. But Marius had +never yet seen these friends; and it was almost by accident that the veil of +reserve was at last lifted, and, with strange contrast to his visit to the +poet’s villa at Tusculum, he entered another curious house. +</p> + +<p> +“The house in which she lives,” says that mystical German writer +quoted once before, “is for the orderly soul, which does not live on +blindly before her, but is ever, out of her passing experiences, building and +adorning the parts of a many-roomed abode for herself, only an expansion of the +body; as the body, according to the philosophy of Swedenborg,+ is but a +process, an expansion, of the soul. For such an orderly soul, as life proceeds, +all sorts of delicate affinities establish themselves, between herself and the +doors and passage-ways, the lights and shadows, of her outward dwelling-place, +until she may seem incorporate with it—until at last, in the entire +expressiveness of what is outward, there is for her, to speak properly, between +outward and inward, no longer any distinction at all; and the light which +creeps at a particular hour on a particular picture or space upon the wall, the +scent of flowers in the air at a particular window, become to her, not so much +apprehended objects, as themselves powers of apprehension and door-ways to +things beyond—the germ or rudiment of certain new faculties, by which +she, dimly yet surely, apprehends a matter lying beyond her actually attained +capacities of spirit and sense.” +</p> + +<p> +So it must needs be in a world which is itself, we may think, together with +that bodily “tent” or “tabernacle,” only one of many +vestures for the clothing of the pilgrim soul, to be left by her, surely, as if +on the wayside, worn-out one by one, as it was from her, indeed, they borrowed +what momentary value or significance they had. +</p> + +<p> +The two friends were returning to Rome from a visit to a country-house, where +again a mixed company of guests had been assembled; Marius, for his part, a +little weary of gossip, and those sparks of ill-tempered rivalry, which would +seem sometimes to be the only sort of fire the intercourse of people in general +society can strike out of them. A mere reaction upon this, as they started in +the clear morning, made their companionship, at least for one of them, hardly +less tranquillising than the solitude he so much valued. Something in the +south-west wind, combining with their own intention, favoured increasingly, as +the hours wore on, a serenity like that Marius had felt once before in +journeying over the great plain towards Tibur—a serenity that was to-day +brotherly amity also, and seemed to draw into its own charmed circle whatever +was then present to eye or ear, while they talked or were silent together, and +all petty irritations, and the like, shrank out of existence, or kept certainly +beyond its limits. The natural fatigue of the long journey overcame them quite +suddenly at last, when they were still about two miles distant from Rome. The +seemingly endless line of tombs and cypresses had been visible for hours +against the sky towards the west; and it was just where a cross-road from the +Latin Way fell into the Appian, that Cornelius halted at a doorway in a long, +low wall—the outer wall of some villa courtyard, it might be +supposed— as if at liberty to enter, and rest there awhile. He held the +door open for his companion to enter also, if he would; with an expression, as +he lifted the latch, which seemed to ask Marius, apparently shrinking from a +possible intrusion: “Would you like to see it?” Was he willing to +look upon that, the seeing of which might define—yes! define the critical +turning-point in his days? +</p> + +<p> +The little doorway in this long, low wall admitted them, in fact, into the +court or garden of a villa, disposed in one of those abrupt natural hollows, +which give its character to the country in this place; the house itself, with +all its dependent buildings, the spaciousness of which surprised Marius as he +entered, being thus wholly concealed from passengers along the road. All +around, in those well-ordered precincts, were the quiet signs of wealth, and of +a noble taste—a taste, indeed, chiefly evidenced in the selection and +juxtaposition of the material it had to deal with, consisting almost +exclusively of the remains of older art, here arranged and harmonised, with +effects, both as regards colour and form, so delicate as to seem really +derivative from some finer intelligence in these matters than lay within the +resources of the ancient world. It was the old way of true +Renaissance—being indeed the way of nature with her roses, the divine way +with the body of man, perhaps with his soul—conceiving the new organism +by no sudden and abrupt creation, but rather by the action of a new principle +upon elements, all of which had in truth already lived and died many times. The +fragments of older architecture, the mosaics, the spiral columns, the precious +corner-stones of immemorial building, had put on, by such juxtaposition, a new +and singular expressiveness, an air of grave thought, of an intellectual +purpose, in itself, æsthetically, very seductive. Lastly, herb and tree had +taken possession, spreading their seed-bells and light branches, just astir in +the trembling air, above the ancient garden-wall, against the wide realms of +sunset. And from the first they could hear singing, the singing of children +mainly, it would seem, and of a new kind; so novel indeed in its effect, as to +bring suddenly to the recollection of Marius, Flavian’s early essays +towards a new world of poetic sound. It was the expression not altogether of +mirth, yet of some wonderful sort of happiness—the blithe self-expansion +of a joyful soul in people upon whom some all-subduing experience had wrought +heroically, and who still remembered, on this bland afternoon, the hour of a +great deliverance. +</p> + +<p> +His old native susceptibility to the spirit, the special sympathies, of +places,—above all, to any hieratic or religious significance they might +have,—was at its liveliest, as Marius, still encompassed by that peculiar +singing, and still amid the evidences of a grave discretion all around him, +passed into the house. That intelligent seriousness about life, the absence of +which had ever seemed to remove those who lacked it into some strange species +wholly alien from himself, accumulating all the lessons of his experience since +those first days at White-nights, was as it were translated here, as if in +designed congruity with his favourite precepts of the power of physical vision, +into an actual picture. If the true value of souls is in proportion to what +they can admire, Marius was just then an acceptable soul. As he passed through +the various chambers, great and small, one dominant thought increased upon him, +the thought of chaste women and their children—of all the various +affections of family life under its most natural conditions, yet developed, as +if in devout imitation of some sublime new type of it, into large controlling +passions. There reigned throughout, an order and purity, an orderly +disposition, as if by way of making ready for some gracious spousals. The place +itself was like a bride adorned for her husband; and its singular cheerfulness, +the abundant light everywhere, the sense of peaceful industry, of which he +received a deep impression though without precisely reckoning wherein it +resided, as he moved on rapidly, were in forcible contrast just at first to the +place to which he was next conducted by Cornelius still with a sort of eager, +hurried, half-troubled reluctance, and as if he forbore the explanation which +might well be looked for by his companion. +</p> + +<p> +An old flower-garden in the rear of the house, set here and there with a +venerable olive-tree—a picture in pensive shade and fiery blossom, as +transparent, under that afternoon light, as the old miniature-painters’ +work on the walls of the chambers within—was bounded towards the west by +a low, grass-grown hill. A narrow opening cut in its steep side, like a solid +blackness there, admitted Marius and his gleaming leader into a hollow cavern +or crypt, neither more nor less in fact than the family burial-place of the +Cecilii, to whom this residence belonged, brought thus, after an arrangement +then becoming not unusual, into immediate connexion with the abode of the +living, in bold assertion of that instinct of family life, which the sanction +of the Holy Family was, hereafter, more and more to reinforce. Here, in truth, +was the centre of the peculiar religious expressiveness, of the sanctity, of +the entire scene. That “any person may, at his own election, constitute +the place which belongs to him a religious place, by the carrying of his dead +into it”:—had been a maxim of old Roman law, which it was reserved +for the early Christian societies, like that established here by the piety of a +wealthy Roman matron, to realise in all its consequences. Yet this was +certainly unlike any cemetery Marius had ever before seen; most obviously in +this, that these people had returned to the older fashion of disposing of their +dead by burial instead of burning. Originally a family sepulchre, it was +growing to a vast necropolis, a whole township of the deceased, by means of +some free expansion of the family interest beyond its amplest natural limits. +That air of venerable beauty which characterised the house and its precincts +above, was maintained also here. It was certainly with a great outlay of labour +that these long, apparently endless, yet elaborately designed galleries, were +increasing so rapidly, with their layers of beds or berths, one above another, +cut, on either side the path-way, in the porous tufa, through which all the +moisture filters downwards, leaving the parts above dry and wholesome. All +alike were carefully closed, and with all the delicate costliness at command; +some with simple tiles of baked clay, many with slabs of marble, enriched by +fair inscriptions: marble taken, in some cases, from older pagan +tombs—the inscription sometimes a palimpsest, the new epitaph being woven +into the faded letters of an earlier one. +</p> + +<p> +As in an ordinary Roman cemetery, an abundance of utensils for the worship or +commemoration of the departed was disposed around—incense, lights, +flowers, their flame or their freshness being relieved to the utmost by +contrast with the coal-like blackness of the soil itself, a volcanic sandstone, +cinder of burnt-out fires. Would they ever kindle again?—possess, +transform, the place?—Turning to an ashen pallor where, at regular +intervals, an air-hole or luminare let in a hard beam of clear but sunless +light, with the heavy sleepers, row upon row within, leaving a passage so +narrow that only one visitor at a time could move along, cheek to cheek with +them, the high walls seemed to shut one in into the great company of the dead. +Only the long straight pathway lay before him; opening, however, here and +there, into a small chamber, around a broad, table-like coffin or +“altar-tomb,” adorned even more profusely than the rest as if for +some anniversary observance. Clearly, these people, concurring in this with the +special sympathies of Marius himself, had adopted the practice of burial from +some peculiar feeling of hope they entertained concerning the body; a feeling +which, in no irreverent curiosity, he would fain have penetrated. The complete +and irreparable disappearance of the dead in the funeral fire, so crushing to +the spirits, as he for one had found it, had long since induced in him a +preference for that other mode of settlement to the last sleep, as having +something about it more home-like and hopeful, at least in outward seeming. But +whence the strange confidence that these “handfuls of white dust” +would hereafter recompose themselves once more into exulting human creatures? +By what heavenly alchemy, what reviving dew from above, such as was certainly +never again to reach the dead violets?— Januarius, Agapetus, Felicitas; +Martyrs! refresh, I pray you, the soul of Cecil, of Cornelius! said an +inscription, one of many, scratched, like a passing sigh, when it was still +fresh in the mortar that had closed up the prison-door. All critical estimate +of this bold hope, as sincere apparently as it was audacious in its claim, +being set aside, here at least, carried further than ever before, was that +pious, systematic commemoration of the dead, which, in its chivalrous refusal +to forget or finally desert the helpless, had ever counted with Marius as the +central exponent or symbol of all natural duty. +</p> + +<p> +The stern soul of the excellent Jonathan Edwards, applying the faulty theology +of John Calvin, afforded him, we know, the vision of infants not a span long, +on the floor of hell. Every visitor to the Catacombs must have observed, in a +very different theological connexion, the numerous children’s graves +there—beds of infants, but a span long indeed, lowly “prisoners of +hope,” on these sacred floors. It was with great curiosity, certainly, +that Marius considered them, decked in some instances with the favourite toys +of their tiny occupants—toy-soldiers, little chariot-wheels, the entire +paraphernalia of a baby-house; and when he saw afterwards the living children, +who sang and were busy above—sang their psalm Laudate Pueri +Dominum!—their very faces caught for him a sort of quaint unreality from +the memory of those others, the children of the Catacombs, but a little way +below them. +</p> + +<p> +Here and there, mingling with the record of merely natural decease, and +sometimes even at these children’s graves, were the signs of violent +death or “martyrdom,”—proofs that some “had loved not +their lives unto the death”—in the little red phial of blood, the +palm-branch, the red flowers for their heavenly “birthday.” About +one sepulchre in particular, distinguished in this way, and devoutly arrayed +for what, by a bold paradox, was thus treated as, natalitia—a birthday, +the peculiar arrangements of the whole place visibly centered. And it was with +a singular novelty of feeling, like the dawning of a fresh order of experiences +upon him, that, standing beside those mournful relics, snatched in haste from +the common place of execution not many years before, Marius became, as by some +gleam of foresight, aware of the whole force of evidence for a certain strange, +new hope, defining in its turn some new and weighty motive of action, which lay +in deaths so tragic for the “Christian superstition.” Something of +them he had heard indeed already. They had seemed to him but one savagery the +more, savagery self-provoked, in a cruel and stupid world. +</p> + +<p> +And yet these poignant memorials seemed also to draw him onwards to-day, as if +towards an image of some still more pathetic suffering, in the remote +background. Yes! the interest, the expression, of the entire neighbourhood was +instinct with it, as with the savour of some priceless incense. Penetrating the +whole atmosphere, touching everything around with its peculiar sentiment, it +seemed to make all this visible mortality, death’s very self—Ah! +lovelier than any fable of old mythology had ever thought to render it, in the +utmost limits of fantasy; and this, in simple candour of feeling about a +supposed fact. Peace! Pax tecum!—the word, the thought—was put +forth everywhere, with images of hope, snatched sometimes from that jaded pagan +world which had really afforded men so little of it from first to last; the +various consoling images it had thrown off, of succour, of regeneration, of +escape from the grave—Hercules wrestling with Death for possession of +Alcestis, Orpheus taming the wild beasts, the Shepherd with his sheep, the +Shepherd carrying the sick lamb upon his shoulders. Yet these imageries after +all, it must be confessed, formed but a slight contribution to the dominant +effect of tranquil hope there—a kind of heroic cheerfulness and grateful +expansion of heart, as with the sense, again, of some real deliverance, which +seemed to deepen the longer one lingered through these strange and awful +passages. A figure, partly pagan in character, yet most frequently repeated of +all these visible parables—the figure of one just escaped from the sea, +still clinging as for life to the shore in surprised joy, together with the +inscription beneath it, seemed best to express the prevailing sentiment of the +place. And it was just as he had puzzled out this inscription— +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +I went down to the bottom of the mountains.<br/> +The earth with her bars was about me for ever:<br/> +Yet hast Thou brought up my life from corruption! +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> + +—that with no feeling of suddenness or change Marius found himself +emerging again, like a later mystic traveller through similar dark places +“quieted by hope,” into the daylight. +</p> + +<p> +They were still within the precincts of the house, still in possession of that +wonderful singing, although almost in the open country, with a great view of +the Campagna before them, and the hills beyond. The orchard or meadow, through +which their path lay, was already gray with twilight, though the western sky, +where the greater stars were visible, was still afloat in crimson splendour. +The colour of all earthly things seemed repressed by the contrast, yet with a +sense of great richness lingering in their shadows. At that moment the voice of +the singers, a “voice of joy and health,” concentrated itself with +solemn antistrophic movement, into an evening, or “candle” hymn. +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +“Hail! Heavenly Light, from his pure glory poured,<br/> +Who is the Almighty Father, heavenly, blest:—<br/> +Worthiest art Thou, at all times to be sung<br/> +With undefiled tongue.”— +</p> + +<p> +It was like the evening itself made audible, its hopes and fears, with the +stars shining in the midst of it. Half above, half below the level white mist, +dividing the light from the darkness, came now the mistress of this place, the +wealthy Roman matron, left early a widow a few years before, by Cecilius +“Confessor and Saint.” With a certain antique severity in the +gathering of the long mantle, and with coif or veil folded decorously below the +chin, “gray within gray,” to the mind of Marius her temperate +beauty brought reminiscences of the serious and virile character of the best +female statuary of Greece. Quite foreign, however, to any Greek statuary was +the expression of pathetic care, with which she carried a little child at rest +in her arms. Another, a year or two older, walked beside, the fingers of one +hand within her girdle. She paused for a moment with a greeting for Cornelius. +</p> + +<p> +That visionary scene was the close, the fitting close, of the afternoon’s +strange experiences. A few minutes later, passing forward on his way along the +public road, he could have fancied it a dream. The house of Cecilia grouped +itself beside that other curious house he had lately visited at Tusculum. And +what a contrast was presented by the former, in its suggestions of hopeful +industry, of immaculate cleanness, of responsive affection!—all alike +determined by that transporting discovery of some fact, or series of facts, in +which the old puzzle of life had found its solution. In truth, one of his most +characteristic and constant traits had ever been a certain longing for +escape—for some sudden, relieving interchange, across the very spaces of +life, it might be, along which he had lingered most pleasantly—for a +lifting, from time to time, of the actual horizon. It was like the necessity +under which the painter finds himself, to set a window or open doorway in the +background of his picture; or like a sick man’s longing for northern +coolness, and the whispering willow-trees, amid the breathless evergreen +forests of the south. To some such effect had this visit occurred to him, and +through so slight an accident. Rome and Roman life, just then, were come to +seem like some stifling forest of bronze-work, transformed, as if by malign +enchantment, out of the generations of living trees, yet with roots in a deep, +down-trodden soil of poignant human susceptibilities. In the midst of its +suffocation, that old longing for escape had been satisfied by this vision of +the church in Cecilia’s house, as never before. It was still, indeed, +according to the unchangeable law of his temperament, to the eye, to the visual +faculty of mind, that those experiences appealed—the peaceful light and +shade, the boys whose very faces seemed to sing, the virginal beauty of the +mother and her children. But, in his case, what was thus visible constituted a +moral or spiritual influence, of a somewhat exigent and controlling character, +added anew to life, a new element therein, with which, consistently with his +own chosen maxim, he must make terms. +</p> + +<p> +The thirst for every kind of experience, encouraged by a philosophy which +taught that nothing was intrinsically great or small, good or evil, had ever +been at strife in him with a hieratic refinement, in which the boy-priest +survived, prompting always the selection of what was perfect of its kind, with +subsequent loyal adherence of his soul thereto. This had carried him along in a +continuous communion with ideals, certainly realised in part, either in the +conditions of his own being, or in the actual company about him, above all, in +Cornelius. Surely, in this strange new society he had touched upon for the +first time to-day—in this strange family, like “a garden +enclosed”—was the fulfilment of all the preferences, the judgments, +of that half-understood friend, which of late years had been his protection so +often amid the perplexities of life. Here, it might be, was, if not the cure, +yet the solace or anodyne of his great sorrows—of that constitutional +sorrowfulness, not peculiar to himself perhaps, but which had made his life +certainly like one long “disease of the spirit.” Merciful intention +made itself known remedially here, in the mere contact of the air, like a soft +touch upon aching flesh. On the other hand, he was aware that new +responsibilities also might be awakened—new and untried +responsibilities—a demand for something from him in return. Might this +new vision, like the malignant beauty of pagan Medusa, be exclusive of any +admiring gaze upon anything but itself? At least he suspected that, after the +beholding of it, he could never again be altogether as he had been before. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +NOTES +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +93. +Emanuel Swedenborg, Swedish mystic writer, 1688-1772. Return. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap22"></a>CHAPTER XXII.<br/> +“THE MINOR PEACE OF THE CHURCH”</h2> + +<p> +Faithful to the spirit of his early Epicurean philosophy and the impulse to +surrender himself, in perfectly liberal inquiry about it, to anything that, as +a matter of fact, attracted or impressed him strongly, Marius informed himself +with much pains concerning the church in Cecilia’s house; inclining at +first to explain the peculiarities of that place by the establishment there of +the schola or common hall of one of those burial-guilds, which then covered so +much of the unofficial, and, as it might be called, subterranean enterprise of +Roman society. +</p> + +<p> +And what he found, thus looking, literally, for the dead among the living, was +the vision of a natural, a scrupulously natural, love, transforming, by some +new gift of insight into the truth of human relationships, and under the +urgency of some new motive by him so far unfathomable, all the conditions of +life. He saw, in all its primitive freshness and amid the lively facts of its +actual coming into the world, as a reality of experience, that regenerate type +of humanity, which, centuries later, Giotto and his successors, down to the +best and purest days of the young Raphael, working under conditions very +friendly to the imagination, were to conceive as an artistic ideal. He felt +there, felt amid the stirring of some wonderful new hope within himself, the +genius, the unique power of Christianity; in exercise then, as it has been +exercised ever since, in spite of many hindrances, and under the most +inopportune circumstances. Chastity,—as he seemed to understand—the +chastity of men and women, amid all the conditions, and with the results, +proper to such chastity, is the most beautiful thing in the world and the +truest conservation of that creative energy by which men and women were first +brought into it. The nature of the family, for which the better genius of old +Rome itself had sincerely cared, of the family and its appropriate +affections—all that love of one’s kindred by which obviously one +does triumph in some degree over death—had never been so felt before. +Here, surely! in its genial warmth, its jealous exclusion of all that was +opposed to it, to its own immaculate naturalness, in the hedge set around the +sacred thing on every side, this development of the family did but carry +forward, and give effect to, the purposes, the kindness, of nature itself, +friendly to man. As if by way of a due recognition of some immeasurable divine +condescension manifest in a certain historic fact, its influence was felt more +especially at those points which demanded some sacrifice of one’s self, +for the weak, for the aged, for little children, and even for the dead. And +then, for its constant outward token, its significant manner or index, it +issued in a certain debonair grace, and a certain mystic attractiveness, a +courtesy, which made Marius doubt whether that famed Greek +“blitheness,” or gaiety, or grace, in the handling of life, had +been, after all, an unrivalled success. Contrasting with the incurable +insipidity even of what was most exquisite in the higher Roman life, of what +was still truest to the primitive soul of goodness amid its evil, the new +creation he now looked on—as it were a picture beyond the craft of any +master of old pagan beauty—had indeed all the appropriate freshness of a +“bride adorned for her husband.” Things new and old seemed to be +coming as if out of some goodly treasure-house, the brain full of science, the +heart rich with various sentiment, possessing withal this surprising +healthfulness, this reality of heart. +</p> + +<p> +“You would hardly believe,” writes Pliny,—to his own +wife!—“what a longing for you possesses me. Habit—that we +have not been used to be apart—adds herein to the primary force of +affection. It is this keeps me awake at night fancying I see you beside me. +That is why my feet take me unconsciously to your sitting-room at those hours +when I was wont to visit you there. That is why I turn from the door of the +empty chamber, sad and ill-at-ease, like an excluded lover.”— +</p> + +<p> +There, is a real idyll from that family life, the protection of which had been +the motive of so large a part of the religion of the Romans, still surviving +among them; as it survived also in Aurelius, his disposition and aims, and, +spite of slanderous tongues, in the attained sweetness of his interior life. +What Marius had been permitted to see was a realisation of such life higher +still: and with—Yes! with a more effective sanction and motive than it +had ever possessed before, in that fact, or series of facts, to be ascertained +by those who would. +</p> + +<p> +The central glory of the reign of the Antonines was that society had attained +in it, though very imperfectly, and for the most part by cumbrous effort of +law, many of those ends to which Christianity went straight, with the +sufficiency, the success, of a direct and appropriate instinct. Pagan Rome, +too, had its touching charity-sermons on occasions of great public distress; +its charity-children in long file, in memory of the elder empress Faustina; its +prototype, under patronage of Aesculapius, of the modern hospital for the sick +on the island of Saint Bartholomew. But what pagan charity was doing tardily, +and as if with the painful calculation of old age, the church was doing, almost +without thinking about it, with all the liberal enterprise of youth, because it +was her very being thus to do. “You fail to realise your own good +intentions,” she seems to say, to pagan virtue, pagan kindness. She +identified herself with those intentions and advanced them with an unparalleled +freedom and largeness. The gentle Seneca would have reverent burial provided +even for the dead body of a criminal. Yet when a certain woman collected for +interment the insulted remains of Nero, the pagan world surmised that she must +be a Christian: only a Christian would have been likely to conceive so +chivalrous a devotion towards mere wretchedness. “We refuse to be +witnesses even of a homicide commanded by the law,” boasts the dainty +conscience of a Christian apologist, “we take no part in your cruel +sports nor in the spectacles of the amphitheatre, and we hold that to witness a +murder is the same thing as to commit one.” And there was another duty +almost forgotten, the sense of which Rousseau brought back to the degenerate +society of a later age. In an impassioned discourse the sophist Favorinus +counsels mothers to suckle their own infants; and there are Roman epitaphs +erected to mothers, which gratefully record this proof of natural affection as +a thing then unusual. In this matter too, what a sanction, what a provocative +to natural duty, lay in that image discovered to Augustus by the Tiburtine +Sibyl, amid the aurora of a new age, the image of the Divine Mother and the +Child, just then rising upon the world like the dawn! +</p> + +<p> +Christian belief, again, had presented itself as a great inspirer of chastity. +Chastity, in turn, realised in the whole scope of its conditions, fortified +that rehabilitation of peaceful labour, after the mind, the pattern, of the +workman of Galilee, which was another of the natural instincts of the catholic +church, as being indeed the long-desired initiator of a religion of +cheerfulness, as a true lover of the industry—so to term it—the +labour, the creation, of God. +</p> + +<p> +And this severe yet genial assertion of the ideal of woman, of the family, of +industry, of man’s work in life, so close to the truth of nature, was +also, in that charmed hour of the minor “Peace of the church,” +realised as an influence tending to beauty, to the adornment of life and the +world. The sword in the world, the right eye plucked out, the right hand cut +off, the spirit of reproach which those images express, and of which +monasticism is the fulfilment, reflect one side only of the nature of the +divine missionary of the New Testament. Opposed to, yet blent with, this +ascetic or militant character, is the function of the Good Shepherd, serene, +blithe and debonair, beyond the gentlest shepherd of Greek mythology; of a king +under whom the beatific vision is realised of a reign of peace—peace of +heart—among men. Such aspect of the divine character of Christ, rightly +understood, is indeed the final consummation of that bold and brilliant +hopefulness in man’s nature, which had sustained him so far through his +immense labours, his immense sorrows, and of which pagan gaiety in the handling +of life, is but a minor achievement. Sometimes one, sometimes the other, of +those two contrasted aspects of its Founder, have, in different ages and under +the urgency of different human needs, been at work also in the Christian +Church. Certainly, in that brief “Peace of the church” under the +Antonines, the spirit of a pastoral security and happiness seems to have been +largely expanded. There, in the early church of Rome, was to be seen, and on +sufficiently reasonable grounds, that satisfaction and serenity on a +dispassionate survey of the facts of life, which all hearts had desired, though +for the most part in vain, contrasting itself for Marius, in particular, very +forcibly, with the imperial philosopher’s so heavy burden of unrelieved +melancholy. It was Christianity in its humanity, or even its humanism, in its +generous hopes for man, its common sense and alacrity of cheerful service, its +sympathy with all creatures, its appreciation of beauty and daylight. +</p> + +<p> +“The angel of righteousness,” says the Shepherd of Hermas, the most +characteristic religious book of that age, its Pilgrim’s +Progress—“the angel of righteousness is modest and delicate and +meek and quiet. Take from thyself grief, for (as Hamlet will one day discover) +’tis the sister of doubt and ill-temper. Grief is more evil than any +other spirit of evil, and is most dreadful to the servants of God, and beyond +all spirits destroyeth man. For, as when good news is come to one in grief, +straightway he forgetteth his former grief, and no longer attendeth to anything +except the good news which he hath heard, so do ye, also! having received a +renewal of your soul through the beholding of these good things. Put on +therefore gladness that hath always favour before God, and is acceptable unto +Him, and delight thyself in it; for every man that is glad doeth the things +that are good, and thinketh good thoughts, despising grief.”—Such +were the commonplaces of this new people, among whom so much of what Marius had +valued most in the old world seemed to be under renewal and further promotion. +Some transforming spirit was at work to harmonise contrasts, to deepen +expression—a spirit which, in its dealing with the elements of ancient +life, was guided by a wonderful tact of selection, exclusion, juxtaposition, +begetting thereby a unique effect of freshness, a grave yet wholesome beauty, +because the world of sense, the whole outward world was understood to set forth +the veritable unction and royalty of a certain priesthood and kingship of the +soul within, among the prerogatives of which was a delightful sense of freedom. +</p> + +<p> +The reader may think perhaps, that Marius, who, Epicurean as he was, had his +visionary aptitudes, by an inversion of one of Plato’s peculiarities with +which he was of course familiar, must have descended, by foresight, upon a +later age than his own, and anticipated Christian poetry and art as they came +to be under the influence of Saint Francis of Assisi. But if he dreamed on one +of those nights of the beautiful house of Cecilia, its lights and flowers, of +Cecilia herself moving among the lilies, with an enhanced grace as happens +sometimes in healthy dreams, it was indeed hardly an anticipation. He had +lighted, by one of the peculiar intellectual good-fortunes of his life, upon a +period when, even more than in the days of austere ascêsis which had preceded +and were to follow it, the church was true for a moment, truer perhaps than she +would ever be again, to that element of profound serenity in the soul of her +Founder, which reflected the eternal goodwill of God to man, “in +whom,” according to the oldest version of the angelic message, “He +is well-pleased.” +</p> + +<p> +For what Christianity did many centuries afterwards in the way of informing an +art, a poetry, of graver and higher beauty, we may think, than that of Greek +art and poetry at their best, was in truth conformable to the original tendency +of its genius. The genuine capacity of the catholic church in this direction, +discoverable from the first in the New Testament, was also really at work, in +that earlier “Peace,” under the Antonines—the minor +“Peace of the church,” as we might call it, in distinction from the +final “Peace of the church,” commonly so called, under Constantine. +Saint Francis, with his following in the sphere of poetry and of the +arts—the voice of Dante, the hand of Giotto—giving visible feature +and colour, and a palpable place among men, to the regenerate race, did but +re-establish a continuity, only suspended in part by those troublous +intervening centuries—the “dark ages,” properly thus +named—with the gracious spirit of the primitive church, as manifested in +that first early springtide of her success. The greater “Peace” of +Constantine, on the other hand, in many ways, does but establish the +exclusiveness, the puritanism, the ascetic gloom which, in the period between +Aurelius and the first Christian emperor, characterised a church under +misunderstanding or oppression, driven back, in a world of tasteless +controversy, inwards upon herself. +</p> + +<p> +Already, in the reign of Antoninus Pius, the time was gone by when men became +Christians under some sudden and overpowering impression, and with all the +disturbing results of such a crisis. At this period the larger number, perhaps, +had been born Christians, had been ever with peaceful hearts in their +“Father’s house.” That earlier belief in the speedy coming of +judgment and of the end of the world, with the consequences it so naturally +involved in the temper of men’s minds, was dying out. Every day the +contrast between the church and the world was becoming less pronounced. And now +also, as the church rested awhile from opposition, that rapid self-development +outward from within, proper to times of peace, was in progress. Antoninus Pius, +it might seem, more truly even than Marcus Aurelius himself, was of that group +of pagan saints for whom Dante, like Augustine, has provided in his scheme of +the house with many mansions. A sincere old Roman piety had urged his +fortunately constituted nature to no mistakes, no offences against humanity. +And of his entire freedom from guile one reward had been this singular +happiness, that under his rule there was no shedding of Christian blood. To him +belonged that half-humorous placidity of soul, of a kind illustrated later very +effectively by Montaigne, which, starting with an instinct of mere fairness +towards human nature and the world, seems at last actually to qualify its +possessor to be almost the friend of the people of Christ. Amiable, in its own +nature, and full of a reasonable gaiety, Christianity has often had its +advantage of characters such as that. The geniality of Antoninus Pius, like the +geniality of the earth itself, had permitted the church, as being in truth no +alien from that old mother earth, to expand and thrive for a season as by +natural process. And that charmed period under the Antonines, extending to the +later years of the reign of Aurelius (beautiful, brief, chapter of +ecclesiastical history!), contains, as one of its motives of interest, the +earliest development of Christian ritual under the presidence of the church of +Rome. +</p> + +<p> +Again as in one of those mystical, quaint visions of the Shepherd of Hermas, +“the aged woman was become by degrees more and more youthful. And in the +third vision she was quite young, and radiant with beauty: only her hair was +that of an aged woman. And at the last she was joyous, and seated upon a +throne—seated upon a throne, because her position is a strong one.” +The subterranean worship of the church belonged properly to those years of her +early history in which it was illegal for her to worship at all. But, hiding +herself for awhile as conflict grew violent, she resumed, when there was felt +to be no more than ordinary risk, her natural freedom. And the kind of outward +prosperity she was enjoying in those moments of her first “Peace,” +her modes of worship now blossoming freely above-ground, was re-inforced by the +decision at this point of a crisis in her internal history. +</p> + +<p> +In the history of the church, as throughout the moral history of mankind, there +are two distinct ideals, either of which it is possible to maintain—two +conceptions, under one or the other of which we may represent to ourselves +men’s efforts towards a better life—corresponding to those two +contrasted aspects, noted above, as discernible in the picture afforded by the +New Testament itself of the character of Christ. The ideal of asceticism +represents moral effort as essentially a sacrifice, the sacrifice of one part +of human nature to another, that it may live the more completely in what +survives of it; while the ideal of culture represents it as a harmonious +development of all the parts of human nature, in just proportion to each other. +It was to the latter order of ideas that the church, and especially the church +of Rome in the age of the Antonines, freely lent herself. In that earlier +“Peace” she had set up for herself the ideal of spiritual +development, under the guidance of an instinct by which, in those serene +moments, she was absolutely true to the peaceful soul of her Founder. +“Goodwill to men,” she said, “in whom God Himself is +well-pleased!” For a little while, at least, there was no forced +opposition between the soul and the body, the world and the spirit, and the +grace of graciousness itself was pre-eminently with the people of Christ. Tact, +good sense, ever the note of a true orthodoxy, the merciful compromises of the +church, indicative of her imperial vocation in regard to all the varieties of +human kind, with a universality of which the old Roman pastorship she was +superseding is but a prototype, was already become conspicuous, in spite of a +discredited, irritating, vindictive society, all around her. +</p> + +<p> +Against that divine urbanity and moderation the old error of Montanus we read +of dimly, was a fanatical revolt—sour, falsely anti-mundane, ever with an +air of ascetic affectation, and a bigoted distaste in particular for all the +peculiar graces of womanhood. By it the desire to please was understood to come +of the author of evil. In this interval of quietness, it was perhaps +inevitable, by the law of reaction, that some such extravagances of the +religious temper should arise. But again the church of Rome, now becoming every +day more and more completely the capital of the Christian world, checked the +nascent Montanism, or puritanism of the moment, vindicating for all Christian +people a cheerful liberty of heart, against many a narrow group of sectaries, +all alike, in their different ways, accusers of the genial creation of God. +With her full, fresh faith in the Evangele—in a veritable regeneration of +the earth and the body, in the dignity of man’s entire personal +being—for a season, at least, at that critical period in the development +of Christianity, she was for reason, for common sense, for fairness to human +nature, and generally for what may be called the naturalness of +Christianity.—As also for its comely order: she would be “brought +to her king in raiment of needlework.” It was by the bishops of Rome, +diligently transforming themselves, in the true catholic sense, into universal +pastors, that the path of what we must call humanism was thus defined. +</p> + +<p> +And then, in this hour of expansion, as if now at last the catholic church +might venture to show her outward lineaments as they really were, +worship—“the beauty of holiness,” nay! the elegance of +sanctity—was developed, with a bold and confident gladness, the like of +which has hardly been the ideal of worship in any later age. The tables in fact +were turned: the prize of a cheerful temper on a candid survey of life was no +longer with the pagan world. The æsthetic charm of the catholic church, her +evocative power over all that is eloquent and expressive in the better mind of +man, her outward comeliness, her dignifying convictions about human +nature:—all this, as abundantly realised centuries later by Dante and +Giotto, by the great medieval church-builders, by the great ritualists like +Saint Gregory, and the masters of sacred music in the middle age—we may +see already, in dim anticipation, in those charmed moments towards the end of +the second century. Dissipated or turned aside, partly through the fatal +mistake of Marcus Aurelius himself, for a brief space of time we may discern +that influence clearly predominant there. What might seem harsh as dogma was +already justifying itself as worship; according to the sound rule: Lex orandi, +lex credendi—Our Creeds are but the brief abstract of our prayer and +song. +</p> + +<p> +The wonderful liturgical spirit of the church, her wholly unparalleled genius +for worship, being thus awake, she was rapidly re-organising both pagan and +Jewish elements of ritual, for the expanding therein of her own new heart of +devotion. Like the institutions of monasticism, like the Gothic style of +architecture, the ritual system of the church, as we see it in historic +retrospect, ranks as one of the great, conjoint, and (so to term them) +necessary, products of human mind. Destined for ages to come, to direct with so +deep a fascination men’s religious instincts, it was then already +recognisable as a new and precious fact in the sum of things. What has been on +the whole the method of the church, as “a power of sweetness and +patience,” in dealing with matters like pagan art, pagan literature was +even then manifest; and has the character of the moderation, the divine +moderation of Christ himself. It was only among the ignorant, indeed, only in +the “villages,” that Christianity, even in conscious triumph over +paganism, was really betrayed into iconoclasm. In the final “Peace” +of the Church under Constantine, while there was plenty of destructive +fanaticism in the country, the revolution was accomplished in the larger towns, +in a manner more orderly and discreet—in the Roman manner. The faithful +were bent less on the destruction of the old pagan temples than on their +conversion to a new and higher use; and, with much beautiful furniture ready to +hand, they became Christian sanctuaries. +</p> + +<p> +Already, in accordance with such maturer wisdom, the church of the “Minor +Peace” had adopted many of the graces of pagan feeling and pagan custom; +as being indeed a living creature, taking up, transforming, accommodating still +more closely to the human heart what of right belonged to it. In this way an +obscure synagogue was expanded into the catholic church. Gathering, from a +richer and more varied field of sound than had remained for him, those old +Roman harmonies, some notes of which Gregory the Great, centuries later, and +after generations of interrupted development, formed into the Gregorian music, +she was already, as we have heard, the house of song—of a wonderful new +music and poesy. As if in anticipation of the sixteenth century, the church was +becoming “humanistic,” in an earlier, and unimpeachable +Renaissance. Singing there had been in abundance from the first; though often +it dared only be “of the heart.” And it burst forth, when it might, +into the beginnings of a true ecclesiastical music; the Jewish psalter, +inherited from the synagogue, turning now, gradually, from Greek into +Latin—broken Latin, into Italian, as the ritual use of the rich, fresh, +expressive vernacular superseded the earlier authorised language of the Church. +Through certain surviving remnants of Greek in the later Latin liturgies, we +may still discern a highly interesting intermediate phase of ritual +development, when the Greek and the Latin were in combination; the poor, +surely!—the poor and the children of that liberal Roman +church—responding already in their own “vulgar tongue,” to an +office said in the original, liturgical Greek. That hymn sung in the early +morning, of which Pliny had heard, was kindling into the service of the Mass. +</p> + +<p> +The Mass, indeed, would appear to have been said continuously from the +Apostolic age. Its details, as one by one they become visible in later history, +have already the character of what is ancient and venerable. “We are very +old, and ye are young!” they seem to protest, to those who fail to +understand them. Ritual, in fact, like all other elements of religion, must +grow and cannot be made—grow by the same law of development which +prevails everywhere else, in the moral as in the physical world. As regards +this special phase of the religious life, however, such development seems to +have been unusually rapid in the subterranean age which preceded Constantine; +and in the very first days of the final triumph of the church the Mass emerges +to general view already substantially complete. “Wisdom” was +dealing, as with the dust of creeds and philosophies, so also with the dust of +outworn religious usage, like the very spirit of life itself, organising soul +and body out of the lime and clay of the earth. In a generous eclecticism, +within the bounds of her liberty, and as by some providential power within her, +she gathers and serviceably adopts, as in other matters so in ritual, one thing +here, another there, from various sources—Gnostic, Jewish, Pagan—to +adorn and beautify the greatest act of worship the world has seen. It was thus +the liturgy of the church came to be—full of consolations for the human +soul, and destined, surely! one day, under the sanction of so many ages of +human experience, to take exclusive possession of the religious consciousness. +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +TANTUM ERGO SACRAMENTUM VENEREMUR CERNUI:<br/> +ET ANTIQUUM DOCUMENTUM<br/> +NOVO CEDAT RITUI. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap23"></a>CHAPTER XXIII.<br/> +DIVINE SERVICE.</h2> + +<p class="letter"> +“Wisdom hath builded herself a house: she hath mingled her wine: she hath +also prepared for herself a table.” +</p> + +<p> +The more highly favoured ages of imaginative art present instances of the +summing up of an entire world of complex associations under some single form, +like the Zeus of Olympia, or the series of frescoes which commemorate The Acts +of Saint Francis, at Assisi, or like the play of Hamlet or Faust. It was not in +an image, or series of images, yet still in a sort of dramatic action, and with +the unity of a single appeal to eye and ear, that Marius about this time found +all his new impressions set forth, regarding what he had already recognised, +intellectually, as for him at least the most beautiful thing in the world. +</p> + +<p> +To understand the influence upon him of what follows the reader must remember +that it was an experience which came amid a deep sense of vacuity in life. The +fairest products of the earth seemed to be dropping to pieces, as if in +men’s very hands, around him. How real was their sorrow, and his! +“His observation of life” had come to be like the constant telling +of a sorrowful rosary, day after day; till, as if taking infection from the +cloudy sorrow of the mind, the eye also, the very senses, were grown faint and +sick. And now it happened as with the actual morning on which he found himself +a spectator of this new thing. The long winter had been a season of unvarying +sullenness. At last, on this day he awoke with a sharp flash of lightning in +the earliest twilight: in a little while the heavy rain had filtered the air: +the clear light was abroad; and, as though the spring had set in with a sudden +leap in the heart of things, the whole scene around him lay like some +untarnished picture beneath a sky of delicate blue. Under the spell of his late +depression, Marius had suddenly determined to leave Rome for a while. But +desiring first to advertise Cornelius of his movements, and failing to find him +in his lodgings, he had ventured, still early in the day, to seek him in the +Cecilian villa. Passing through its silent and empty court-yard he loitered for +a moment, to admire. Under the clear but immature light of winter morning after +a storm, all the details of form and colour in the old marbles were distinctly +visible, and with a kind of severity or sadness—so it struck +him—amid their beauty: in them, and in all other details of the +scene—the cypresses, the bunches of pale daffodils in the grass, the +curves of the purple hills of Tusculum, with the drifts of virgin snow still +lying in their hollows. +</p> + +<p> +The little open door, through which he passed from the court-yard, admitted him +into what was plainly the vast Lararium, or domestic sanctuary, of the Cecilian +family, transformed in many particulars, but still richly decorated, and +retaining much of its ancient furniture in metal-work and costly stone. The +peculiar half-light of dawn seemed to be lingering beyond its hour upon the +solemn marble walls; and here, though at that moment in absolute silence, a +great company of people was assembled. In that brief period of peace, during +which the church emerged for awhile from her jealously-guarded subterranean +life, the rigour of an earlier rule of exclusion had been relaxed. And so it +came to pass that, on this morning Marius saw for the first time the wonderful +spectacle—wonderful, especially, in its evidential power over himself, +over his own thoughts—of those who believe. +</p> + +<p> +There were noticeable, among those present, great varieties of rank, of age, of +personal type. The Roman ingenuus, with the white toga and gold ring, stood +side by side with his slave; and the air of the whole company was, above all, a +grave one, an air of recollection. Coming thus unexpectedly upon this large +assembly, so entirely united, in a silence so profound, for purposes unknown to +him, Marius felt for a moment as if he had stumbled by chance upon some great +conspiracy. Yet that could scarcely be, for the people here collected might +have figured as the earliest handsel, or pattern, of a new world, from the very +face of which discontent had passed away. Corresponding to the variety of human +type there present, was the various expression of every form of human sorrow +assuaged. What desire, what fulfilment of desire, had wrought so pathetically +on the features of these ranks of aged men and women of humble condition? Those +young men, bent down so discreetly on the details of their sacred service, had +faced life and were glad, by some science, or light of knowledge they had, to +which there had certainly been no parallel in the older world. Was some +credible message from beyond “the flaming rampart of the +world”—a message of hope, regarding the place of men’s souls +and their interest in the sum of things—already moulding anew their very +bodies, and looks, and voices, now and here? At least, there was a cleansing +and kindling flame at work in them, which seemed to make everything else Marius +had ever known look comparatively vulgar and mean. There were the children, +above all—troops of children—reminding him of those pathetic +children’s graves, like cradles or garden- beds, he had noticed in his +first visit to these places; and they more than satisfied the odd curiosity he +had then conceived about them, wondering in what quaintly expressive forms they +might come forth into the daylight, if awakened from sleep. Children of the +Catacombs, some but “a span long,” with features not so much +beautiful as heroic (that world of new, refining sentiment having set its seal +even on childhood), they retained certainly no stain or trace of anything +subterranean this morning, in the alacrity of their worship—as ready as +if they had been at play—stretching forth their hands, crying, chanting +in a resonant voice, and with boldly upturned faces, Christe Eleison! +</p> + +<p> +For the silence—silence, amid those lights of early morning to which +Marius had always been constitutionally impressible, as having in them a +certain reproachful austerity—was broken suddenly by resounding cries of +Kyrie Eleison! Christe Eleison! repeated alternately, again and again, until +the bishop, rising from his chair, made sign that this prayer should cease. But +the voices burst out once more presently, in richer and more varied melody, +though still of an antiphonal character; the men, the women and children, the +deacons, the people, answering one another, somewhat after the manner of a +Greek chorus. But again with what a novelty of poetic accent; what a genuine +expansion of heart; what profound intimations for the intellect, as the meaning +of the words grew upon him! Cum grandi affectu et compunctione +dicatur—says an ancient eucharistic order; and certainly, the mystic tone +of this praying and singing was one with the expression of deliverance, of +grateful assurance and sincerity, upon the faces of those assembled. As if some +searching correction, a regeneration of the body by the spirit, had begun, and +was already gone a great way, the countenances of men, women, and children +alike had a brightness on them which he could fancy reflected upon +himself—an amenity, a mystic amiability and unction, which found its way +most readily of all to the hearts of children themselves. The religious poetry +of those Hebrew psalms—Benedixisti Domine terram tuam: Dixit Dominus +Domino meo, sede a dextris meis—was certainly in marvellous accord with +the lyrical instinct of his own character. Those august hymns, he thought, must +thereafter ever remain by him as among the well-tested powers in things to +soothe and fortify the soul. One could never grow tired of them! +</p> + +<p> +In the old pagan worship there had been little to call the understanding into +play. Here, on the other hand, the utterance, the eloquence, the music of +worship conveyed, as Marius readily understood, a fact or series of facts, for +intellectual reception. That became evident, more especially, in those lessons, +or sacred readings, which, like the singing, in broken vernacular Latin, +occurred at certain intervals, amid the silence of the assembly. There were +readings, again with bursts of chanted invocation between for fuller light on a +difficult path, in which many a vagrant voice of human philosophy, haunting +men’s minds from of old, recurred with clearer accent than had ever +belonged to it before, as if lifted, above its first intention, into the +harmonies of some supreme system of knowledge or doctrine, at length complete. +And last of all came a narrative which, with a thousand tender memories, every +one appeared to know by heart, displaying, in all the vividness of a picture +for the eye, the mournful figure of him towards whom this whole act of worship +still consistently turned—a figure which seemed to have absorbed, like +some rich tincture in his garment, all that was deep-felt and impassioned in +the experiences of the past. +</p> + +<p> +It was the anniversary of his birth as a little child they celebrated to-day. +Astiterunt reges terrae: so the Gradual, the “Song of Degrees,” +proceeded, the young men on the steps of the altar responding in deep, clear, +antiphon or chorus— +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +Astiterunt reges terrae—<br/> +Adversus sanctum puerum tuum, Jesum:<br/> +Nunc, Domine, da servis tuis loqui verbum tuum—<br/> +Et signa fieri, per nomen sancti pueri Jesu. +</p> + +<p> +And the proper action of the rite itself, like a half-opened book to be read by +the duly initiated mind took up those suggestions, and carried them forward +into the present, as having reference to a power still efficacious, still after +some mystic sense even now in action among the people there assembled. The +entire office, indeed, with its interchange of lessons, hymns, prayer, silence, +was itself like a single piece of highly composite, dramatic music; a +“song of degrees,” rising steadily to a climax. Notwithstanding the +absence of any central image visible to the eye, the entire ceremonial process, +like the place in which it was enacted, was weighty with symbolic significance, +seemed to express a single leading motive. The mystery, if such in fact it was, +centered indeed in the actions of one visible person, distinguished among the +assistants, who stood ranged in semicircle around him, by the extreme fineness +of his white vestments, and the pointed cap with the golden ornaments upon his +head. +</p> + +<p> +Nor had Marius ever seen the pontifical character, as he conceived +it—sicut unguentum in capite, descendens in oram vestimenti—so +fully realised, as in the expression, the manner and voice, of this novel +pontiff, as he took his seat on the white chair placed for him by the young +men, and received his long staff into his hand, or moved his hands—hands +which seemed endowed in very deed with some mysterious power—at the +Lavabo, or at the various benedictions, or to bless certain objects on the +table before him, chanting in cadence of a grave sweetness the leading parts of +the rite. What profound unction and mysticity! The solemn character of the +singing was at its height when he opened his lips. Like some new sort of +rhapsôdos, it was for the moment as if he alone possessed the words of the +office, and they flowed anew from some permanent source of inspiration within +him. The table or altar at which he presided, below a canopy on delicate spiral +columns, was in fact the tomb of a youthful “witness,” of the +family of the Cecilii, who had shed his blood not many years before, and whose +relics were still in this place. It was for his sake the bishop put his lips so +often to the surface before him; the regretful memory of that death entwining +itself, though not without certain notes of triumph, as a matter of special +inward significance, throughout a service, which was, before all else, from +first to last, a commemoration of the dead. +</p> + +<p> +A sacrifice also,—a sacrifice, it might seem, like the most primitive, +the most natural and enduringly significant of old pagan sacrifices, of the +simplest fruits of the earth. And in connexion with this circumstance again, as +in the actual stones of the building so in the rite itself, what Marius +observed was not so much new matter as a new spirit, moulding, informing, with +a new intention, many observances not witnessed for the first time to-day. Men +and women came to the altar successively, in perfect order, and deposited below +the lattice-work of pierced white marble, their baskets of wheat and grapes, +incense, oil for the sanctuary lamps; bread and wine especially—pure +wheaten bread, the pure white wine of the Tusculan vineyards. There was here a +veritable consecration, hopeful and animating, of the earth’s gifts, of +old dead and dark matter itself, now in some way redeemed at last, of all that +we can touch or see, in the midst of a jaded world that had lost the true sense +of such things, and in strong contrast to the wise emperor’s renunciant +and impassive attitude towards them. Certain portions of that bread and wine +were taken into the bishop’s hands; and thereafter, with an increasing +mysticity and effusion the rite proceeded. Still in a strain of inspired +supplication, the antiphonal singing developed, from this point, into a kind of +dialogue between the chief minister and the whole assisting company— +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +SURSUM CORDA!<br/> +HABEMUS AD DOMINUM.<br/> +GRATIAS AGAMUS DOMINO DEO NOSTRO!— +</p> + +<p> +It might have been thought the business, the duty or service of young men more +particularly, as they stood there in long ranks, and in severe and simple +vesture of the purest white—a service in which they would seem to be +flying for refuge, as with their precious, their treacherous and critical youth +in their hands, to one—Yes! one like themselves, who yet claimed their +worship, a worship, above all, in the way of Aurelius, in the way of imitation. +Adoramus te Christe, quia per crucem tuam redemisti mundum!—they cry +together. So deep is the emotion that at moments it seems to Marius as if some +there present apprehend that prayer prevails, that the very object of this +pathetic crying himself draws near. From the first there had been the sense, an +increasing assurance, of one coming:—actually with them now, according to +the oft-repeated affirmation or petition, Dominus vobiscum! Some at least were +quite sure of it; and the confidence of this remnant fired the hearts, and gave +meaning to the bold, ecstatic worship, of all the rest about them. +</p> + +<p> +Prompted especially by the suggestions of that mysterious old Jewish psalmody, +so new to him—lesson and hymn—and catching therewith a portion of +the enthusiasm of those beside him, Marius could discern dimly, behind the +solemn recitation which now followed, at once a narrative and a prayer, the +most touching image truly that had ever come within the scope of his mental or +physical gaze. It was the image of a young man giving up voluntarily, one by +one, for the greatest of ends, the greatest gifts; actually parting with +himself, above all, with the serenity, the divine serenity, of his own soul; +yet from the midst of his desolation crying out upon the greatness of his +success, as if foreseeing this very worship.* As centre of the supposed facts +which for these people were become so constraining a motive of hopefulness, of +activity, that image seemed to display itself with an overwhelming claim on +human gratitude. What Saint Lewis of France discerned, and found so +irresistibly touching, across the dimness of many centuries, as a painful thing +done for love of him by one he had never seen, was to them almost as a thing of +yesterday; and their hearts were whole with it. It had the force, among their +interests, of an almost recent event in the career of one whom their +fathers’ fathers might have known. From memories so sublime, yet so close +at hand, had the narrative descended in which these acts of worship centered; +though again the names of some more recently dead were mingled in it. And it +seemed as if the very dead were aware; to be stirring beneath the slabs of the +sepulchres which lay so near, that they might associate themselves to this +enthusiasm—to this exalted worship of Jesus. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +* Psalm xxii. 22-31. +</p> + +<p> +One by one, at last, the faithful approach to receive from the chief minister +morsels of the great, white, wheaten cake, he had taken into his +hands—Perducat vos ad vitam aeternam! he prays, half-silently, as they +depart again, after discreet embraces. The Eucharist of those early days was, +even more entirely than at any later or happier time, an act of thanksgiving; +and while the remnants of the feast are borne away for the reception of the +sick, the sustained gladness of the rite reaches its highest point in the +singing of a hymn: a hymn like the spontaneous product of two opposed militant +companies, contending accordantly together, heightening, accumulating, their +witness, provoking one another’s worship, in a kind of sacred rivalry. +</p> + +<p> +Ite! Missa est!—cried the young deacons: and Marius departed from that +strange scene along with the rest. What was it?—Was it this made the way +of Cornelius so pleasant through the world? As for Marius himself,—the +natural soul of worship in him had at last been satisfied as never before. He +felt, as he left that place, that he must hereafter experience often a longing +memory, a kind of thirst, for all this, over again. And it seemed moreover to +define what he must require of the powers, whatsoever they might be, that had +brought him into the world at all, to make him not unhappy in it. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap24"></a>CHAPTER XXIV.<br/> +A CONVERSATION NOT IMAGINARY</h2> + +<p> +In cheerfulness is the success of our studies, says Pliny—studia +hilaritate proveniunt. It was still the habit of Marius, encouraged by his +experience that sleep is not only a sedative but the best of stimulants, to +seize the morning hours for creation, making profit when he might of the +wholesome serenity which followed a dreamless night. “The morning for +creation,” he would say; “the afternoon for the perfecting labour +of the file; the evening for reception—the reception of matter from +without one, of other men’s words and thoughts—matter for our own +dreams, or the merely mechanic exercise of the brain, brooding thereon +silently, in its dark chambers.” To leave home early in the day was +therefore a rare thing for him. He was induced so to do on the occasion of a +visit to Rome of the famous writer Lucian, whom he had been bidden to meet. The +breakfast over, he walked away with the learned guest, having offered to be his +guide to the lecture-room of a well-known Greek rhetorician and expositor of +the Stoic philosophy, a teacher then much in fashion among the studious youth +of Rome. On reaching the place, however, they found the doors closed, with a +slip of writing attached, which proclaimed “a holiday”; and the +morning being a fine one, they walked further, along the Appian Way. Mortality, +with which the Queen of Ways—in reality the favourite cemetery of +Rome—was so closely crowded, in every imaginable form of sepulchre, from +the tiniest baby-house, to the massive monument out of which the Middle Age +would adapt a fortress-tower, might seem, on a morning like this, to be +“smiling through tears.” The flower-stalls just beyond the city +gates presented to view an array of posies and garlands, fresh enough for a +wedding. At one and another of them groups of persons, gravely clad, were +making their bargains before starting for some perhaps distant spot on the +highway, to keep a dies rosationis, this being the time of roses, at the grave +of a deceased relation. Here and there, a funeral procession was slowly on its +way, in weird contrast to the gaiety of the hour. +</p> + +<p> +The two companions, of course, read the epitaphs as they strolled along. In +one, reminding them of the poet’s—Si lacrimae prosunt, visis te +ostende videri!—a woman prayed that her lost husband might visit her +dreams. Their characteristic note, indeed, was an imploring cry, still to be +sought after by the living. “While I live,” such was the promise of +a lover to his dead mistress, “you will receive this homage: after my +death,—who can tell?”—post mortem nescio. “If ghosts, +my sons, do feel anything after death, my sorrow will be lessened by your +frequent coming to me here!” “This is a privileged tomb; to my +family and descendants has been conceded the right of visiting this place as +often as they please.” “This is an eternal habitation; here lie I; +here I shall lie for ever.” “Reader! if you doubt that the soul +survives, make your oblation and a prayer for me; and you shall +understand!” +</p> + +<p> +The elder of the two readers, certainly, was little affected by those pathetic +suggestions. It was long ago that after visiting the banks of the Padus, where +he had sought in vain for the poplars (sisters of Phaethon erewhile) whose +tears became amber, he had once for all arranged for himself a view of the +world exclusive of all reference to what might lie beyond its “flaming +barriers.” And at the age of sixty he had no misgivings. His elegant and +self-complacent but far from unamiable scepticism, long since brought to +perfection, never failed him. It surrounded him, as some are surrounded by a +magic ring of fine aristocratic manners, with “a rampart,” through +which he himself never broke, nor permitted any thing or person to break upon +him. Gay, animated, content with his old age as it was, the aged student still +took a lively interest in studious youth.—Could Marius inform him of any +such, now known to him in Rome? What did the young men learn, just then? and +how? +</p> + +<p> +In answer, Marius became fluent concerning the promise of one young student, +the son, as it presently appeared, of parents of whom Lucian himself knew +something: and soon afterwards the lad was seen coming along briskly—a +lad with gait and figure well enough expressive of the sane mind in the healthy +body, though a little slim and worn of feature, and with a pair of eyes +expressly designed, it might seem, for fine glancings at the stars. At the +sight of Marius he paused suddenly, and with a modest blush on recognising his +companion, who straightway took with the youth, so prettily enthusiastic, the +freedom of an old friend. +</p> + +<p> +In a few moments the three were seated together, immediately above the fragrant +borders of a rose-farm, on the marble bench of one of the exhedrae for the use +of foot-passengers at the roadside, from which they could overlook the grand, +earnest prospect of the Campagna, and enjoy the air. Fancying that the +lad’s plainly written enthusiasm had induced in the elder speaker +somewhat more fervour than was usual with him, Marius listened to the +conversation which follows.— +</p> + +<p> +“Ah! Hermotimus! Hurrying to lecture! —if I may judge by your pace, +and that volume in your hand. You were thinking hard as you came along, moving +your lips and waving your arms. Some fine speech you were pondering, some +knotty question, some viewy doctrine—not to be idle for a moment, to be +making progress in philosophy, even on your way to the schools. To-day, +however, you need go no further. We read a notice at the schools that there +would be no lecture. Stay therefore, and talk awhile with us. +</p> + +<p> +—With pleasure, Lucian.—Yes! I was ruminating yesterday’s +conference. One must not lose a moment. Life is short and art is long! And it +was of the art of medicine, that was first said—a thing so much easier +than divine philosophy, to which one can hardly attain in a lifetime, unless +one be ever wakeful, ever on the watch. And here the hazard is no little +one:—By the attainment of a true philosophy to attain happiness; or, +having missed both, to perish, as one of the vulgar herd. +</p> + +<p> +—The prize is a great one, Hermotimus! and you must needs be near it, +after these months of toil, and with that scholarly pallor of yours. Unless, +indeed, you have already laid hold upon it, and kept us in the dark. +</p> + +<p> +—How could that be, Lucian? Happiness, as Hesiod says, abides very far +hence; and the way to it is long and steep and rough. I see myself still at the +beginning of my journey; still but at the mountain’s foot. I am trying +with all my might to get forward. What I need is a hand, stretched out to help +me. +</p> + +<p> +—And is not the master sufficient for that? Could he not, like Zeus in +Homer, let down to you, from that high place, a golden cord, to draw you up +thither, to himself and to that Happiness, to which he ascended so long ago? +</p> + +<p> +—The very point, Lucian! Had it depended on him I should long ago have +been caught up. ’Tis I, am wanting. +</p> + +<p> +—Well! keep your eye fixed on the journey’s end, and that happiness +there above, with confidence in his goodwill. +</p> + +<p> +—Ah! there are many who start cheerfully on the journey and proceed a +certain distance, but lose heart when they light on the obstacles of the way. +Only, those who endure to the end do come to the mountain’s top, and +thereafter live in Happiness:—live a wonderful manner of life, seeing all +other people from that great height no bigger than tiny ants. +</p> + +<p> +—What little fellows you make of us—less than the +pygmies—down in the dust here. Well! we, ‘the vulgar herd,’ +as we creep along, will not forget you in our prayers, when you are seated up +there above the clouds, whither you have been so long hastening. But tell me, +Hermotimus!—when do you expect to arrive there? +</p> + +<p> +—Ah! that I know not. In twenty years, perhaps, I shall be really on the +summit.—A great while! you think. But then, again, the prize I contend +for is a great one. +</p> + +<p> +—Perhaps! But as to those twenty years—that you will live so long. +Has the master assured you of that? Is he a prophet as well as a philosopher? +For I suppose you would not endure all this, upon a mere chance—toiling +day and night, though it might happen that just ere the last step, Destiny +seized you by the foot and plucked you thence, with your hope still +unfulfilled. +</p> + +<p> +—Hence, with these ill-omened words, Lucian! Were I to survive but for a +day, I should be happy, having once attained wisdom. +</p> + +<p> +—How?—Satisfied with a single day, after all those labours? +</p> + +<p> +—Yes! one blessed moment were enough! +</p> + +<p> +—But again, as you have never been, how know you that happiness is to be +had up there, at all—the happiness that is to make all this worth while? +</p> + +<p> +—I believe what the master tells me. Of a certainty he knows, being now +far above all others. +</p> + +<p> +—And what was it he told you about it? Is it riches, or glory, or some +indescribable pleasure? +</p> + +<p> +—Hush! my friend! All those are nothing in comparison of the life there. +</p> + +<p> +—What, then, shall those who come to the end of this +discipline—what excellent thing shall they receive, if not these? +</p> + +<p> +—Wisdom, the absolute goodness and the absolute beauty, with the sure and +certain knowledge of all things—how they are. Riches and glory and +pleasure—whatsoever belongs to the body—they have cast from them: +stripped bare of all that, they mount up, even as Hercules, consumed in the +fire, became a god. He too cast aside all that he had of his earthly mother, +and bearing with him the divine element, pure and undefiled, winged his way to +heaven from the discerning flame. Even so do they, detached from all that +others prize, by the burning fire of a true philosophy, ascend to the highest +degree of happiness. +</p> + +<p> +—Strange! And do they never come down again from the heights to help +those whom they left below? Must they, when they be once come thither, there +remain for ever, laughing, as you say, at what other men prize? +</p> + +<p> +—More than that! They whose initiation is entire are subject no longer to +anger, fear, desire, regret. Nay! They scarcely feel at all. +</p> + +<p> +—Well! as you have leisure to-day, why not tell an old friend in what way +you first started on your philosophic journey? For, if I might, I should like +to join company with you from this very day. +</p> + +<p> +—If you be really willing, Lucian! you will learn in no long time your +advantage over all other people. They will seem but as children, so far above +them will be your thoughts. +</p> + +<p> +—Well! Be you my guide! It is but fair. But tell me—Do you allow +learners to contradict, if anything is said which they don’t think right? +</p> + +<p> +—No, indeed! Still, if you wish, oppose your questions. In that way you +will learn more easily. +</p> + +<p> +—Let me know, then—Is there one only way which leads to a true +philosophy—your own way—the way of the Stoics: or is it true, as I +have heard, that there are many ways of approaching it? +</p> + +<p> +—Yes! Many ways! There are the Stoics, and the Peripatetics, and those +who call themselves after Plato: there are the enthusiasts for Diogenes, and +Antisthenes, and the followers of Pythagoras, besides others. +</p> + +<p> +—It was true, then. But again, is what they say the same or different? +</p> + +<p> +—Very different. +</p> + +<p> +—Yet the truth, I conceive, would be one and the same, from all of them. +Answer me then—In what, or in whom, did you confide when you first betook +yourself to philosophy, and seeing so many doors open to you, passed them all +by and went in to the Stoics, as if there alone lay the way of truth? What +token had you? Forget, please, all you are to-day—half-way, or more, on +the philosophic journey: answer me as you would have done then, a mere outsider +as I am now. +</p> + +<p> +—Willingly! It was there the great majority went! ’Twas by that I +judged it to be the better way. +</p> + +<p> +—A majority how much greater than the Epicureans, the Platonists, the +Peripatetics? You, doubtless, counted them respectively, as with the votes in a +scrutiny. +</p> + +<p> +—No! But this was not my only motive. I heard it said by every one that +the Epicureans were soft and voluptuous, the Peripatetics avaricious and +quarrelsome, and Plato’s followers puffed up with pride. But of the +Stoics, not a few pronounced that they were true men, that they knew +everything, that theirs was the royal road, the one road, to wealth, to wisdom, +to all that can be desired. +</p> + +<p> +—Of course those who said this were not themselves Stoics: you would not +have believed them—still less their opponents. They were the vulgar, +therefore. +</p> + +<p> +—True! But you must know that I did not trust to others exclusively. I +trusted also to myself—to what I saw. I saw the Stoics going through the +world after a seemly manner, neatly clad, never in excess, always collected, +ever faithful to the mean which all pronounce ‘golden.’ +</p> + +<p> +—You are trying an experiment on me. You would fain see how far you can +mislead me as to your real ground. The kind of probation you describe is +applicable, indeed, to works of art, which are rightly judged by their +appearance to the eye. There is something in the comely form, the graceful +drapery, which tells surely of the hand of Pheidias or Alcamenes. But if +philosophy is to be judged by outward appearances, what would become of the +blind man, for instance, unable to observe the attire and gait of your friends +the Stoics? +</p> + +<p> +—It was not of the blind I was thinking. +</p> + +<p> +—Yet there must needs be some common criterion in a matter so important +to all. Put the blind, if you will, beyond the privileges of philosophy; though +they perhaps need that inward vision more than all others. But can those who +are not blind, be they as keen-sighted as you will, collect a single fact of +mind from a man’s attire, from anything outward?—Understand me! You +attached yourself to these men—did you not?—because of a certain +love you had for the mind in them, the thoughts they possessed desiring the +mind in you to be improved thereby? +</p> + +<p> +—Assuredly! +</p> + +<p> +—How, then, did you find it possible, by the sort of signs you just now +spoke of, to distinguish the true philosopher from the false? Matters of that +kind are not wont so to reveal themselves. They are but hidden mysteries, +hardly to be guessed at through the words and acts which may in some sort be +conformable to them. You, however, it would seem, can look straight into the +heart in men’s bosoms, and acquaint yourself with what really passes +there. +</p> + +<p> +—You are making sport of me, Lucian! In truth, it was with God’s +help I made my choice, and I don’t repent it. +</p> + +<p> +—And still you refuse to tell me, to save me from perishing in that +‘vulgar herd.’ +</p> + +<p> +—Because nothing I can tell you would satisfy you. +</p> + +<p> +—You are mistaken, my friend! But since you deliberately conceal the +thing, grudging me, as I suppose, that true philosophy which would make me +equal to you, I will try, if it may be, to find out for myself the exact +criterion in these matters—how to make a perfectly safe choice. And, do +you listen. +</p> + +<p> +—I will; there may be something worth knowing in what you will say. +</p> + +<p> +—Well!—only don’t laugh if I seem a little fumbling in my +efforts. The fault is yours, in refusing to share your lights with me. Let +Philosophy, then, be like a city—a city whose citizens within it are a +happy people, as your master would tell you, having lately come thence, as we +suppose. All the virtues are theirs, and they are little less than gods. Those +acts of violence which happen among us are not to be seen in their streets. +They live together in one mind, very seemly; the things which beyond everything +else cause men to contend against each other, having no place upon them. Gold +and silver, pleasure, vainglory, they have long since banished, as being +unprofitable to the commonwealth; and their life is an unbroken calm, in +liberty, equality, an equal happiness. +</p> + +<p> +—And is it not reasonable that all men should desire to be of a city such +as that, and take no account of the length and difficulty of the way thither, +so only they may one day become its freemen? +</p> + +<p> +—It might well be the business of life:—leaving all else, +forgetting one’s native country here, unmoved by the tears, the +restraining hands, of parents or children, if one had them—only bidding +them follow the same road; and if they would not or could not, shaking them +off, leaving one’s very garment in their hands if they took hold on us, +to start off straightway for that happy place! For there is no fear, I suppose, +of being shut out if one came thither naked. I remember, indeed, long ago an +aged man related to me how things passed there, offering himself to be my +leader, and enrol me on my arrival in the number of the citizens. I was but +fifteen—certainly very foolish: and it may be that I was then actually +within the suburbs, or at the very gates, of the city. Well, this aged man told +me, among other things, that all the citizens were wayfarers from afar. Among +them were barbarians and slaves, poor men—aye! and cripples—all +indeed who truly desired that citizenship. For the only legal conditions of +enrolment were—not wealth, nor bodily beauty, nor noble +ancestry—things not named among them—but intelligence, and the +desire for moral beauty, and earnest labour. The last comer, thus qualified, +was made equal to the rest: master and slave, patrician, plebeian, were words +they had not—in that blissful place. And believe me, if that blissful, +that beautiful place, were set on a hill visible to all the world, I should +long ago have journeyed thither. But, as you say, it is far off: and one must +needs find out for oneself the road to it, and the best possible guide. And I +find a multitude of guides, who press on me their services, and protest, all +alike, that they have themselves come thence. Only, the roads they propose are +many, and towards adverse quarters. And one of them is steep and stony, and +through the beating sun; and the other is through green meadows, and under +grateful shade, and by many a fountain of water. But howsoever the road may be, +at each one of them stands a credible guide; he puts out his hand and would +have you come his way. All other ways are wrong, all other guides false. Hence +my difficulty!—The number and variety of the ways! For you know, There is +but one road that leads to Corinth. +</p> + +<p> +—Well! If you go the whole round, you will find no better guides than +those. If you wish to get to Corinth, you will follow the traces of Zeno and +Chrysippus. It is impossible otherwise. +</p> + +<p> +—Yes! The old, familiar language! Were one of Plato’s +fellow-pilgrims here, or a follower of Epicurus—or fifty +others—each would tell me that I should never get to Corinth except in +his company. One must therefore credit all alike, which would be absurd; or, +what is far safer, distrust all alike, until one has discovered the truth. +Suppose now, that, being as I am, ignorant which of all philosophers is really +in possession of truth, I choose your sect, relying on yourself—my +friend, indeed, yet still acquainted only with the way of the Stoics; and that +then some divine power brought Plato, and Aristotle, and Pythagoras, and the +others, back to life again. Well! They would come round about me, and put me on +my trial for my presumption, and say:—‘In whom was it you confided +when you preferred Zeno and Chrysippus to me?—and me?—masters of +far more venerable age than those, who are but of yesterday; and though you +have never held any discussion with us, nor made trial of our doctrine? It is +not thus that the law would have judges do—listen to one party and refuse +to let the other speak for himself. If judges act thus, there may be an appeal +to another tribunal.’ What should I answer? Would it be enough to +say:—‘I trusted my friend Hermotimus?’—‘We know +not Hermotimus, nor he us,’ they would tell me; adding, with a smile, +‘your friend thinks he may believe all our adversaries say of us whether +in ignorance or in malice. Yet if he were umpire in the games, and if he +happened to see one of our wrestlers, by way of a preliminary exercise, knock +to pieces an antagonist of mere empty air, he would not thereupon pronounce him +a victor. Well! don’t let your friend Hermotimus suppose, in like manner, +that his teachers have really prevailed over us in those battles of theirs, +fought with our mere shadows. That, again, were to be like children, lightly +overthrowing their own card-castles; or like boy-archers, who cry out when they +hit the target of straw. The Persian and Scythian bowmen, as they speed along, +can pierce a bird on the wing.’ +</p> + +<p> +—Let us leave Plato and the others at rest. It is not for me to contend +against them. Let us rather search out together if the truth of Philosophy be +as I say. Why summon the athletes, and archers from Persia? +</p> + +<p> +—Yes! let them go, if you think them in the way. And now do you speak! +You really look as if you had something wonderful to deliver. +</p> + +<p> +—Well then, Lucian! to me it seems quite possible for one who has learned +the doctrines of the Stoics only, to attain from those a knowledge of the +truth, without proceeding to inquire into all the various tenets of the others. +Look at the question in this way. If one told you that twice two make four, +would it be necessary for you to go the whole round of the arithmeticians, to +see whether any one of them will say that twice two make five, or seven? Would +you not see at once that the man tells the truth? +</p> + +<p> +—At once. +</p> + +<p> +—Why then do you find it impossible that one who has fallen in with the +Stoics only, in their enunciation of what is true, should adhere to them, and +seek after no others; assured that four could never be five, even if fifty +Platos, fifty Aristotles said so? +</p> + +<p> +—You are beside the point, Hermotimus! You are likening open questions to +principles universally received. Have you ever met any one who said that twice +two make five, or seven? +</p> + +<p> +—No! only a madman would say that. +</p> + +<p> +—And have you ever met, on the other hand, a Stoic and an Epicurean who +were agreed upon the beginning and the end, the principle and the final cause, +of things? Never! Then your parallel is false. We are inquiring to which of the +sects philosophic truth belongs, and you seize on it by anticipation, and +assign it to the Stoics, alleging, what is by no means clear, that it is they +for whom twice two make four. But the Epicureans, or the Platonists, might say +that it is they, in truth, who make two and two equal four, while you make them +five or seven. Is it not so, when you think virtue the only good, and the +Epicureans pleasure; when you hold all things to be material, while the +Platonists admit something immaterial? As I said, you resolve offhand, in +favour of the Stoics, the very point which needs a critical decision. If it is +clear beforehand that the Stoics alone make two and two equal four, then the +others must hold their peace. But so long as that is the very point of debate, +we must listen to all sects alike, or be well-assured that we shall seem but +partial in our judgment. +</p> + +<p> +—I think, Lucian! that you do not altogether understand my meaning. To +make it clear, then, let us suppose that two men had entered a temple, of +Aesculapius,—say! or Bacchus: and that afterwards one of the sacred +vessels is found to be missing. And the two men must be searched to see which +of them has hidden it under his garment. For it is certainly in the possession +of one or the other of them. Well! if it be found on the first there will be no +need to search the second; if it is not found on the first, then the other must +have it; and again, there will be no need to search him. +</p> + +<p> +—Yes! So let it be. +</p> + +<p> +—And we too, Lucian! if we have found the holy vessel in possession of +the Stoics, shall no longer have need to search other philosophers, having +attained that we were seeking. Why trouble ourselves further? +</p> + +<p> +—No need, if something had indeed been found, and you knew it to be that +lost thing: if, at the least, you could recognise the sacred object when you +saw it. But truly, as the matter now stands, not two persons only have entered +the temple, one or the other of whom must needs have taken the golden cup, but +a whole crowd of persons. And then, it is not clear what the lost object really +is—cup, or flagon, or diadem; for one of the priests avers this, another +that; they are not even in agreement as to its material: some will have it to +be of brass, others of silver, or gold. It thus becomes necessary to search the +garments of all persons who have entered the temple, if the lost vessel is to +be recovered. And if you find a golden cup on the first of them, it will still +be necessary to proceed in searching the garments of the others; for it is not +certain that this cup really belonged to the temple. Might there not be many +such golden vessels?—No! we must go on to every one of them, placing all +that we find in the midst together, and then make our guess which of all those +things may fairly be supposed to be the property of the god. For, again, this +circumstance adds greatly to our difficulty, that without exception every one +searched is found to have something upon him—cup, or flagon, or diadem, +of brass, of silver, of gold: and still, all the while, it is not ascertained +which of all these is the sacred thing. And you must still hesitate to +pronounce any one of them guilty of the sacrilege—those objects may be +their own lawful property: one cause of all this obscurity being, as I think, +that there was no inscription on the lost cup, if cup it was. Had the name of +the god, or even that of the donor, been upon it, at least we should have had +less trouble, and having detected the inscription, should have ceased to +trouble any one else by our search. +</p> + +<p> +—I have nothing to reply to that. +</p> + +<p> +—Hardly anything plausible. So that if we wish to find who it is has the +sacred vessel, or who will be our best guide to Corinth, we must needs proceed +to every one and examine him with the utmost care, stripping off his garment +and considering him closely. Scarcely, even so, shall we come at the truth. And +if we are to have a credible adviser regarding this question of +philosophy—which of all philosophies one ought to follow—he alone +who is acquainted with the dicta of every one of them can be such a guide: all +others must be inadequate. I would give no credence to them if they lacked +information as to one only. If somebody introduced a fair person and told us he +was the fairest of all men, we should not believe that, unless we knew that he +had seen all the people in the world. Fair he might be; but, fairest of +all—none could know, unless he had seen all. And we too desire, not a +fair one, but the fairest of all. Unless we find him, we shall think we have +failed. It is no casual beauty that will content us; what we are seeking after +is that supreme beauty which must of necessity be unique. +</p> + +<p> +—What then is one to do, if the matter be really thus? Perhaps you know +better than I. All I see is that very few of us would have time to examine all +the various sects of philosophy in turn, even if we began in early life. I know +not how it is; but though you seem to me to speak reasonably, yet (I must +confess it) you have distressed me not a little by this exact exposition of +yours. I was unlucky in coming out to-day, and in my falling in with you, who +have thrown me into utter perplexity by your proof that the discovery of truth +is impossible, just as I seemed to be on the point of attaining my hope. +</p> + +<p> +—Blame your parents, my child, not me! Or rather, blame mother Nature +herself, for giving us but seventy or eighty years instead of making us as +long-lived as Tithonus. For my part, I have but led you from premise to +conclusion. +</p> + +<p> +—Nay! you are a mocker! I know not wherefore, but you have a grudge +against philosophy; and it is your entertainment to make a jest of her lovers. +</p> + +<p> +—Ah! Hermotimus! what the Truth may be, you philosophers may be able to +tell better than I. But so much at least I know of her, that she is one by no +means pleasant to those who hear her speak: in the matter of pleasantness, she +is far surpassed by Falsehood: and Falsehood has the pleasanter countenance. +She, nevertheless, being conscious of no alloy within, discourses with boldness +to all men, who therefore have little love for her. See how angry you are now +because I have stated the truth about certain things of which we are both alike +enamoured—that they are hard to come by. It is as if you had fallen in +love with a statue and hoped to win its favour, thinking it a human creature; +and I, understanding it to be but an image of brass or stone, had shown you, as +a friend, that your love was impossible, and thereupon you had conceived that I +bore you some ill-will. +</p> + +<p> +—But still, does it not follow from what you said, that we must renounce +philosophy and pass our days in idleness? +</p> + +<p> +—When did you hear me say that? I did but assert that if we are to seek +after philosophy, whereas there are many ways professing to lead thereto, we +must with much exactness distinguish them. +</p> + +<p> +—Well, Lucian! that we must go to all the schools in turn, and test what +they say, if we are to choose the right one, is perhaps reasonable; but surely +ridiculous, unless we are to live as many years as the Phoenix, to be so +lengthy in the trial of each; as if it were not possible to learn the whole by +the part! They say that Pheidias, when he was shown one of the talons of a +lion, computed the stature and age of the animal it belonged to, modelling a +complete lion upon the standard of a single part of it. You too would recognise +a human hand were the rest of the body concealed. Even so with the schools of +philosophy:—the leading doctrines of each might be learned in an +afternoon. That over-exactness of yours, which required so long a time, is by +no means necessary for making the better choice. +</p> + +<p> +—You are forcible, Hermotimus! with this theory of The Whole by the Part. +Yet, methinks, I heard you but now propound the contrary. But tell me; would +Pheidias when he saw the lion’s talon have known that it was a +lion’s, if he had never seen the animal? Surely, the cause of his +recognising the part was his knowledge of the whole. There is a way of choosing +one’s philosophy even less troublesome than yours. Put the names of all +the philosophers into an urn. Then call a little child, and let him draw the +name of the philosopher you shall follow all the rest of your days. +</p> + +<p> +—Nay! be serious with me. Tell me; did you ever buy wine? +</p> + +<p> +—Surely. +</p> + +<p> +—And did you first go the whole round of the wine-merchants, tasting and +comparing their wines? +</p> + +<p> +—By no means. +</p> + +<p> +—No! You were contented to order the first good wine you found at your +price. By tasting a little you were ascertained of the quality of the whole +cask. How if you had gone to each of the merchants in turn, and said, ‘I +wish to buy a cotylé of wine. Let me drink out the whole cask. Then I shall be +able to tell which is best, and where I ought to buy.’ Yet this is what +you would do with the philosophies. Why drain the cask when you might taste, +and see? +</p> + +<p> +—How slippery you are; how you escape from one’s fingers! Still, +you have given me an advantage, and are in your own trap. +</p> + +<p> +—How so? +</p> + +<p> +—Thus! You take a common object known to every one, and make wine the +figure of a thing which presents the greatest variety in itself, and about +which all men are at variance, because it is an unseen and difficult thing. I +hardly know wherein philosophy and wine are alike unless it be in this, that +the philosophers exchange their ware for money, like the wine-merchants; some +of them with a mixture of water or worse, or giving short measure. However, let +us consider your parallel. The wine in the cask, you say, is of one kind +throughout. But have the philosophers—has your own master even—but +one and the same thing only to tell you, every day and all days, on a subject +so manifold? Otherwise, how can you know the whole by the tasting of one part? +The whole is not the same—Ah! and it may be that God has hidden the good +wine of philosophy at the bottom of the cask. You must drain it to the end if +you are to find those drops of divine sweetness you seem so much to thirst for! +Yourself, after drinking so deeply, are still but at the beginning, as you +said. But is not philosophy rather like this? Keep the figure of the merchant +and the cask: but let it be filled, not with wine, but with every sort of +grain. You come to buy. The merchant hands you a little of the wheat which lies +at the top. Could you tell by looking at that, whether the chick-peas were +clean, the lentils tender, the beans full? And then, whereas in selecting our +wine we risk only our money; in selecting our philosophy we risk ourselves, as +you told me—might ourselves sink into the dregs of ‘the vulgar +herd.’ Moreover, while you may not drain the whole cask of wine by way of +tasting, Wisdom grows no less by the depth of your drinking. Nay! if you take +of her, she is increased thereby. +</p> + +<p> +And then I have another similitude to propose, as regards this tasting of +philosophy. Don’t think I blaspheme her if I say that it may be with her +as with some deadly poison, hemlock or aconite. These too, though they cause +death, yet kill not if one tastes but a minute portion. You would suppose that +the tiniest particle must be sufficient. +</p> + +<p> +—Be it as you will, Lucian! One must live a hundred years: one must +sustain all this labour; otherwise philosophy is unattainable. +</p> + +<p> +—Not so! Though there were nothing strange in that, if it be true, as you +said at first, that Life is short and art is long. But now you take it hard +that we are not to see you this very day, before the sun goes down, a +Chrysippus, a Pythagoras, a Plato. +</p> + +<p> +—You overtake me, Lucian! and drive me into a corner; in jealousy of +heart, I believe, because I have made some progress in doctrine whereas you +have neglected yourself. +</p> + +<p> +—Well! Don’t attend to me! Treat me as a Corybant, a fanatic: and +do you go forward on this road of yours. Finish the journey in accordance with +the view you had of these matters at the beginning of it. Only, be assured that +my judgment on it will remain unchanged. Reason still says, that without +criticism, without a clear, exact, unbiassed intelligence to try them, all +those theories—all things—will have been seen but in vain. +‘To that end,’ she tells us, ‘much time is necessary, many +delays of judgment, a cautious gait; repeated inspection.’ And we are not +to regard the outward appearance, or the reputation of wisdom, in any of the +speakers; but like the judges of Areopagus, who try their causes in the +darkness of the night, look only to what they say. +</p> + +<p> +—Philosophy, then, is impossible, or possible only in another life! +</p> + +<p> +—Hermotimus! I grieve to tell you that all this even, may be in truth +insufficient. After all, we may deceive ourselves in the belief that we have +found something:—like the fishermen! Again and again they let down the +net. At last they feel something heavy, and with vast labour draw up, not a +load of fish, but only a pot full of sand, or a great stone. +</p> + +<p> +—I don’t understand what you mean by the net. It is plain that you +have caught me in it. +</p> + +<p> +—Try to get out! You can swim as well as another. We may go to all +philosophers in turn and make trial of them. Still, I, for my part, hold it by +no means certain that any one of them really possesses what we seek. The truth +may be a thing that not one of them has yet found. You have twenty beans in +your hand, and you bid ten persons guess how many: one says five, another +fifteen; it is possible that one of them may tell the true number; but it is +not impossible that all may be wrong. So it is with the philosophers. All alike +are in search of Happiness—what kind of thing it is. One says one thing, +one another: it is pleasure; it is virtue;—what not? And Happiness may +indeed be one of those things. But it is possible also that it may be still +something else, different and distinct from them all. +</p> + +<p> +—What is this?—There is something, I know not how, very sad and +disheartening in what you say. We seem to have come round in a circle to the +spot whence we started, and to our first incertitude. Ah! Lucian, what have you +done to me? You have proved my priceless pearl to be but ashes, and all my past +labour to have been in vain. +</p> + +<p> +—Reflect, my friend, that you are not the first person who has thus +failed of the good thing he hoped for. All philosophers, so to speak, are but +fighting about the ‘ass’s shadow.’ To me you seem like one +who should weep, and reproach fortune because he is not able to climb up into +heaven, or go down into the sea by Sicily and come up at Cyprus, or sail on +wings in one day from Greece to India. And the true cause of his trouble is +that he has based his hope on what he has seen in a dream, or his own fancy has +put together; without previous thought whether what he desires is in itself +attainable and within the compass of human nature. Even so, methinks, has it +happened with you. As you dreamed, so largely, of those wonderful things, came +Reason, and woke you up from sleep, a little roughly: and then you are angry +with Reason, your eyes being still but half open, and find it hard to shake off +sleep for the pleasure of what you saw therein. Only, don’t be angry with +me, because, as a friend, I would not suffer you to pass your life in a dream, +pleasant perhaps, but still only a dream—because I wake you up and demand +that you should busy yourself with the proper business of life, and send you to +it possessed of common sense. What your soul was full of just now is not very +different from those Gorgons and Chimaeras and the like, which the poets and +the painters construct for us, fancy-free:—things which never were, and +never will be, though many believe in them, and all like to see and hear of +them, just because they are so strange and odd. +</p> + +<p> +And you too, methinks, having heard from some such maker of marvels of a +certain woman of a fairness beyond nature—beyond the Graces, beyond Venus +Urania herself—asked not if he spoke truth, and whether this woman be +really alive in the world, but straightway fell in love with her; as they say +that Medea was enamoured of Jason in a dream. And what more than anything else +seduced you, and others like you, into that passion, for a vain idol of the +fancy, is, that he who told you about that fair woman, from the very moment +when you first believed that what he said was true, brought forward all the +rest in consequent order. Upon her alone your eyes were fixed; by her he led +you along, when once you had given him a hold upon you—led you along the +straight road, as he said, to the beloved one. All was easy after that. None of +you asked again whether it was the true way; following one after another, like +sheep led by the green bough in the hand of the shepherd. He moved you hither +and thither with his finger, as easily as water spilt on a table! +</p> + +<p> +My friend! Be not so lengthy in preparing the banquet, lest you die of hunger! +I saw one who poured water into a mortar, and ground it with all his might with +a pestle of iron, fancying he did a thing useful and necessary; but it remained +water only, none the less.” +</p> + +<p> +Just there the conversation broke off suddenly, and the disputants parted. The +horses were come for Lucian. The boy went on his way, and Marius onward, to +visit a friend whose abode lay further. As he returned to Rome towards evening +the melancholy aspect, natural to a city of the dead, had triumphed over the +superficial gaudiness of the early day. He could almost have fancied Canidia +there, picking her way among the rickety lamps, to rifle some neglected or +ruined tomb; for these tombs were not all equally well cared for (Post mortem +nescio!) and it had been one of the pieties of Aurelius to frame a severe law +to prevent the defacing of such monuments. To Marius there seemed to be some +new meaning in that terror of isolation, of being left alone in these places, +of which the sepulchral inscriptions were so full. A blood-red sunset was dying +angrily, and its wild glare upon the shadowy objects around helped to combine +the associations of this famous way, its deeply graven marks of immemorial +travel, together with the earnest questions of the morning as to the true way +of that other sort of travelling, around an image, almost ghastly in the traces +of its great sorrows—bearing along for ever, on bleeding feet, the +instrument of its punishment—which was all Marius could recall distinctly +of a certain Christian legend he had heard. The legend told of an encounter at +this very spot, of two wayfarers on the Appian Way, as also upon some very +dimly discerned mental journey, altogether different from himself and his late +companions—an encounter between Love, literally fainting by the road, and +Love “travelling in the greatness of his strength,” Love itself, +suddenly appearing to sustain that other. A strange contrast to anything +actually presented in that morning’s conversation, it seemed nevertheless +to echo its very words—“Do they never come down again,” he +heard once more the well-modulated voice: “Do they never come down again +from the heights, to help those whom they left here +below?”—“And we too desire, not a fair one, but the fairest +of all. Unless we find him, we shall think we have failed.” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap25"></a>CHAPTER XXV.<br/> +SUNT LACRIMAE RERUM+</h2> + +<p> +It was become a habit with Marius—one of his modernisms—developed +by his assistance at the Emperor’s “conversations with +himself,” to keep a register of the movements of his own private thoughts +and humours; not continuously indeed, yet sometimes for lengthy intervals, +during which it was no idle self-indulgence, but a necessity of his +intellectual life, to “confess himself,” with an intimacy, +seemingly rare among the ancients; ancient writers, at all events, having been +jealous, for the most part, of affording us so much as a glimpse of that +interior self, which in many cases would have actually doubled the interest of +their objective informations. +</p> + +<p> +“If a particular tutelary or genius,” writes +Marius,—“according to old belief, walks through life beside each +one of us, mine is very certainly a capricious creature. He fills one with +wayward, unaccountable, yet quite irresistible humours, and seems always to be +in collusion with some outward circumstance, often trivial enough in +itself—the condition of the weather, forsooth!—the people one meets +by chance—the things one happens to overhear them say, veritable enodioi +symboloi,+ or omens by the wayside, as the old Greeks fancied—to push on +the unreasonable prepossessions of the moment into weighty motives. It was +doubtless a quite explicable, physical fatigue that presented me to myself, on +awaking this morning, so lack-lustre and trite. But I must needs take my +petulance, contrasting it with my accustomed morning hopefulness, as a sign of +the ageing of appetite, of a decay in the very capacity of enjoyment. We need +some imaginative stimulus, some not impossible ideal such as may shape vague +hope, and transform it into effective desire, to carry us year after year, +without disgust, through the routine-work which is so large a part of life. +“Then, how if appetite, be it for real or ideal, should itself fail one +after awhile? Ah, yes! is it of cold always that men die; and on some of us it +creeps very gradually. In truth, I can remember just such a lack-lustre +condition of feeling once or twice before. But I note, that it was accompanied +then by an odd indifference, as the thought of them occurred to me, in regard +to the sufferings of others—a kind of callousness, so unusual with me, as +at once to mark the humour it accompanied as a palpably morbid one that could +not last. Were those sufferings, great or little, I asked myself then, of more +real consequence to them than mine to me, as I remind myself that +‘nothing that will end is really long’—long enough to be +thought of importance? But to-day, my own sense of fatigue, the pity I conceive +for myself, disposed me strongly to a tenderness for others. For a moment the +whole world seemed to present itself as a hospital of sick persons; many of +them sick in mind; all of whom it would be a brutality not to humour, not to +indulge. +</p> + +<p> +“Why, when I went out to walk off my wayward fancies, did I confront the +very sort of incident (my unfortunate genius had surely beckoned it from afar +to vex me) likely to irritate them further? A party of men were coming down the +street. They were leading a fine race-horse; a handsome beast, but badly hurt +somewhere, in the circus, and useless. They were taking him to slaughter; and I +think the animal knew it: he cast such looks, as if of mad appeal, to those who +passed him, as he went among the strangers to whom his former owner had +committed him, to die, in his beauty and pride, for just that one mischance or +fault; although the morning air was still so animating, and pleasant to snuff. +I could have fancied a human soul in the creature, swelling against its luck. +And I had come across the incident just when it would figure to me as the very +symbol of our poor humanity, in its capacities for pain, its wretched +accidents, and those imperfect sympathies, which can never quite identify us +with one another; the very power of utterance and appeal to others seeming to +fail us, in proportion as our sorrows come home to ourselves, are really our +own. We are constructed for suffering! What proofs of it does but one day +afford, if we care to note them, as we go—a whole long chaplet of +sorrowful mysteries! Sunt lacrimae rerum et mentem mortalia tangunt.+ +</p> + +<p> +“Men’s fortunes touch us! The little children of one of those +institutions for the support of orphans, now become fashionable among us by way +of memorial of eminent persons deceased, are going, in long file, along the +street, on their way to a holiday in the country. They halt, and count +themselves with an air of triumph, to show that they are all there. Their gay +chatter has disturbed a little group of peasants; a young woman and her +husband, who have brought the old mother, now past work and witless, to place +her in a house provided for such afflicted people. They are fairly +affectionate, but anxious how the thing they have to do may go—hope only +she may permit them to leave her there behind quietly. And the poor old soul is +excited by the noise made by the children, and partly aware of what is going to +happen with her. She too begins to count—one, two, three, five—on +her trembling fingers, misshapen by a life of toil. +</p> + +<p> +‘Yes! yes! and twice five make ten’—they say, to pacify her. +It is her last appeal to be taken home again; her proof that all is not yet up +with her; that she is, at all events, still as capable as those joyous +children. +</p> + +<p> +“At the baths, a party of labourers are at work upon one of the great +brick furnaces, in a cloud of black dust. A frail young child has brought food +for one of them, and sits apart, waiting till his father comes—watching +the labour, but with a sorrowful distaste for the din and dirt. He is regarding +wistfully his own place in the world, there before him. His mind, as he +watches, is grown up for a moment; and he foresees, as it were, in that moment, +all the long tale of days, of early awakings, of his own coming life of +drudgery at work like this. +</p> + +<p> +“A man comes along carrying a boy whose rough work has already +begun—the only child—whose presence beside him sweetened the +father’s toil a little. The boy has been badly injured by a fall of +brick-work, yet, with an effort, he rides boldly on his father’s +shoulders. It will be the way of natural affection to keep him alive as long as +possible, though with that miserably shattered body.—‘Ah! with us +still, and feeling our care beside him!’—and yet surely not without +a heartbreaking sigh of relief, alike from him and them, when the end comes. +</p> + +<p> +“On the alert for incidents like these, yet of necessity passing them by +on the other side, I find it hard to get rid of a sense that I, for one, have +failed in love. I could yield to the humour till I seemed to have had my share +in those great public cruelties, the shocking legal crimes which are on record, +like that cold-blooded slaughter, according to law, of the four hundred slaves +in the reign of Nero, because one of their number was thought to have murdered +his master. The reproach of that, together with the kind of facile apologies +those who had no share in the deed may have made for it, as they went about +quietly on their own affairs that day, seems to come very close to me, as I +think upon it. And to how many of those now actually around me, whose life is a +sore one, must I be indifferent, if I ever become aware of their soreness at +all? To some, perhaps, the necessary conditions of my own life may cause me to +be opposed, in a kind of natural conflict, regarding those interests which +actually determine the happiness of theirs. I would that a stronger love might +arise in my heart! +</p> + +<p> +“Yet there is plenty of charity in the world. My patron, the Stoic +emperor, has made it even fashionable. To celebrate one of his brief returns to +Rome lately from the war, over and above a largess of gold pieces to all who +would, the public debts were forgiven. He made a nice show of it: for once, the +Romans entertained themselves with a good-natured spectacle, and the whole town +came to see the great bonfire in the Forum, into which all bonds and evidence +of debt were thrown on delivery, by the emperor himself; many private creditors +following his example. That was done well enough! But still the feeling returns +to me, that no charity of ours can get at a certain natural unkindness which I +find in things themselves. +</p> + +<p> +“When I first came to Rome, eager to observe its religion, especially its +antiquities of religious usage, I assisted at the most curious, perhaps, of +them all, the most distinctly marked with that immobility which is a sort of +ideal in the Roman religion. The ceremony took place at a singular spot some +miles distant from the city, among the low hills on the bank of the Tiber, +beyond the Aurelian Gate. There, in a little wood of venerable trees, piously +allowed their own way, age after age—ilex and cypress remaining where +they fell at last, one over the other, and all caught, in that early May-time, +under a riotous tangle of wild clematis—was to be found a magnificent +sanctuary, in which the members of the Arval College assembled themselves on +certain days. The axe never touched those trees—Nay! it was forbidden to +introduce any iron thing whatsoever within the precincts; not only because the +deities of these quiet places hate to be disturbed by the harsh noise of metal, +but also in memory of that better age—the lost Golden Age—the +homely age of the potters, of which the central act of the festival was a +commemoration. +</p> + +<p> +“The preliminary ceremonies were long and complicated, but of a character +familiar enough. Peculiar to the time and place was the solemn exposition, +after lavation of hands, processions backwards and forwards, and certain +changes of vestments, of the identical earthen vessels—veritable relics +of the old religion of Numa!—the vessels from which the holy Numa himself +had eaten and drunk, set forth above a kind of altar, amid a cloud of flowers +and incense, and many lights, for the veneration of the credulous or the +faithful. +</p> + +<p> +“They were, in fact, cups or vases of burnt clay, rude in form: and the +religious veneration thus offered to them expressed men’s desire to give +honour to a simpler age, before iron had found place in human life: the +persuasion that that age was worth remembering: a hope that it might come +again. +</p> + +<p> +“That a Numa, and his age of gold, would return, has been the hope or the +dream of some, in every period. Yet if he did come back, or any equivalent of +his presence, he could but weaken, and by no means smite through, that root of +evil, certainly of sorrow, of outraged human sense, in things, which one must +carefully distinguish from all preventible accidents. Death, and the little +perpetual daily dyings, which have something of its sting, he must necessarily +leave untouched. And, methinks, that were all the rest of man’s life +framed entirely to his liking, he would straightway begin to sadden himself, +over the fate—say, of the flowers! For there is, there has come to be +since Numa lived perhaps, a capacity for sorrow in his heart, which grows with +all the growth, alike of the individual and of the race, in intellectual +delicacy and power, and which will find its aliment. +</p> + +<p> +“Of that sort of golden age, indeed, one discerns even now a trace, here +and there. Often have I maintained that, in this generous southern country at +least, Epicureanism is the special philosophy of the poor. How little I myself +really need, when people leave me alone, with the intellectual powers at work +serenely. The drops of falling water, a few wild flowers with their priceless +fragrance, a few tufts even of half-dead leaves, changing colour in the quiet +of a room that has but light and shadow in it; these, for a susceptible mind, +might well do duty for all the glory of Augustus. I notice sometimes what I +conceive to be the precise character of the fondness of the roughest +working-people for their young children, a fine appreciation, not only of their +serviceable affection, but of their visible graces: and indeed, in this +country, the children are almost always worth looking at. I see daily, in fine +weather, a child like a delicate nosegay, running to meet the rudest of brick- +makers as he comes from work. She is not at all afraid to hang upon his rough +hand: and through her, he reaches out to, he makes his own, something from that +strange region, so distant from him yet so real, of the world’s +refinement. What is of finer soul, of finer stuff in things, and demands +delicate touching—to him the delicacy of the little child represents +that: it initiates him into that. There, surely, is a touch of the secular +gold, of a perpetual age of gold. But then again, think for a moment, with what +a hard humour at the nature of things, his struggle for bare life will go on, +if the child should happen to die. I observed to-day, under one of the archways +of the baths, two children at play, a little seriously—a fair girl and +her crippled younger brother. Two toy chairs and a little table, and sprigs of +fir set upright in the sand for a garden! They played at housekeeping. Well! +the girl thinks her life a perfectly good thing in the service of this crippled +brother. But she will have a jealous lover in time: and the boy, though his +face is not altogether unpleasant, is after all a hopeless cripple. +</p> + +<p> +“For there is a certain grief in things as they are, in man as he has +come to be, as he certainly is, over and above those griefs of circumstance +which are in a measure removable—some inexplicable shortcoming, or +misadventure, on the part of nature itself—death, and old age as it must +needs be, and that watching for their approach, which makes every stage of life +like a dying over and over again. Almost all death is painful, and in every +thing that comes to an end a touch of death, and therefore of wretched coldness +struck home to one, of remorse, of loss and parting, of outraged attachments. +Given faultless men and women, given a perfect state of society which should +have no need to practise on men’s susceptibilities for its own selfish +ends, adding one turn more to the wheel of the great rack for its own interest +or amusement, there would still be this evil in the world, of a certain +necessary sorrow and desolation, felt, just in proportion to the moral, or +nervous perfection men have attained to. And what we need in the world, over +against that, is a certain permanent and general power of +compassion—humanity’s standing force of self-pity—as an +elementary ingredient of our social atmosphere, if we are to live in it at all. +I wonder, sometimes, in what way man has cajoled himself into the bearing of +his burden thus far, seeing how every step in the capacity of apprehension his +labour has won for him, from age to age, must needs increase his dejection. It +is as if the increase of knowledge were but an increasing revelation of the +radical hopelessness of his position: and I would that there were one even as +I, behind this vain show of things! +</p> + +<p> +“At all events, the actual conditions of our life being as they are, and +the capacity for suffering so large a principle in things—since the only +principle, perhaps, to which we may always safely trust is a ready sympathy +with the pain one actually sees—it follows that the practical and +effective difference between men will lie in their power of insight into those +conditions, their power of sympathy. The future will be with those who have +most of it; while for the present, as I persuade myself, those who have much of +it, have something to hold by, even in the dissolution of a world, or in that +dissolution of self, which is, for every one, no less than the dissolution of +the world it represents for him. Nearly all of us, I suppose, have had our +moments, in which any effective sympathy for us on the part of others has +seemed impossible; in which our pain has seemed a stupid outrage upon us, like +some overwhelming physical violence, from which we could take refuge, at best, +only in some mere general sense of goodwill—somewhere in the world +perhaps. And then, to one’s surprise, the discovery of that goodwill, if +it were only in a not unfriendly animal, may seem to have explained, to have +actually justified to us, the fact of our pain. There have been occasions, +certainly, when I have felt that if others cared for me as I cared for them, it +would be, not so much a consolation, as an equivalent, for what one has lost or +suffered: a realised profit on the summing up of one’s accounts: a +touching of that absolute ground amid all the changes of phenomena, such as our +philosophers have of late confessed themselves quite unable to discover. In the +mere clinging of human creatures to each other, nay! in one’s own +solitary self-pity, amid the effects even of what might appear irredeemable +loss, I seem to touch the eternal. Something in that pitiful contact, something +new and true, fact or apprehension of fact, is educed, which, on a review of +all the perplexities of life, satisfies our moral sense, and removes that +appearance of unkindness in the soul of things themselves, and assures us that +not everything has been in vain. +</p> + +<p> +“And I know not how, but in the thought thus suggested, I seem to take +up, and re-knit myself to, a well-remembered hour, when by some gracious +accident—it was on a journey—all things about me fell into a more +perfect harmony than is their wont. Everything seemed to be, for a moment, +after all, almost for the best. Through the train of my thoughts, one against +another, it was as if I became aware of the dominant power of another person in +controversy, wrestling with me. I seem to be come round to the point at which I +left off then. The antagonist has closed with me again. A protest comes, out of +the very depths of man’s radically hopeless condition in the world, with +the energy of one of those suffering yet prevailing deities, of which old +poetry tells. Dared one hope that there is a heart, even as ours, in that +divine ‘Assistant’ of one’s thoughts—a heart even as +mine, behind this vain show of things!” +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +NOTES +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +172. Virgil, Aeneid Book 1, line 462. “There are the tears of +things...” See also page 175 of this chapter, where the same text is +quoted in full. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +173. +Transliteration: enodioi symboloi. Pater’s Definition: “omens +by the wayside.” +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +175. +Sunt lacrimae rerum et mentem mortalia tangunt. Virgil, Aeneid Book 1, +line 462. Translation: “Here also there be tears for what men bear, and +mortal creatures feel each other’s sorrow,” from Vergil, Aeneid, +Theodore C. Williams. trans. Boston. Houghton Mifflin Co. 1910. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap26"></a>CHAPTER XXVI.<br/> +THE MARTYRS</h2> + +<p class="letter"> +“Ah! voilà les âmes qu’il falloit à la mienne!”<br/> +Rousseau. +</p> + +<p> +The charm of its poetry, a poetry of the affections, wonderfully fresh in the +midst of a threadbare world, would have led Marius, if nothing else had done +so, again and again, to Cecilia’s house. He found a range of intellectual +pleasures, altogether new to him, in the sympathy of that pure and elevated +soul. Elevation of soul, generosity, humanity—little by little it came to +seem to him as if these existed nowhere else. The sentiment of maternity, above +all, as it might be understood there,—its claims, with the claims of all +natural feeling everywhere, down to the sheep bleating on the hills, nay! even +to the mother-wolf, in her hungry cave—seemed to have been vindicated, to +have been enforced anew, by the sanction of some divine pattern thereof. He saw +its legitimate place in the world given at last to the bare capacity for +suffering in any creature, however feeble or apparently useless. In this +chivalry, seeming to leave the world’s heroism a mere property of the +stage, in this so scrupulous fidelity to what could not help itself, could +scarcely claim not to be forgotten, what a contrast to the hard contempt of +one’s own or other’s pain, of death, of glory even, in those +discourses of Aurelius! +</p> + +<p> +But if Marius thought at times that some long-cherished desires were now about +to blossom for him, in the sort of home he had sometimes pictured to himself, +the very charm of which would lie in its contrast to any random affections: +that in this woman, to whom children instinctively clung, he might find such a +sister, at least, as he had always longed for; there were also circumstances +which reminded him that a certain rule forbidding second marriages, was among +these people still in force; ominous incidents, moreover, warning a susceptible +conscience not to mix together the spirit and the flesh, nor make the matter of +a heavenly banquet serve for earthly meat and drink. +</p> + +<p> +One day he found Cecilia occupied with the burial of one of the children of her +household. It was from the tiny brow of such a child, as he now heard, that the +new light had first shone forth upon them—through the light of mere +physical life, glowing there again, when the child was dead, or supposed to be +dead. The aged servant of Christ had arrived in the midst of their noisy grief; +and mounting to the little chamber where it lay, had returned, not long +afterwards, with the child stirring in his arms as he descended the stair +rapidly; bursting open the closely-wound folds of the shroud and scattering the +funeral flowers from them, as the soul kindled once more through its limbs. +</p> + +<p> +Old Roman common-sense had taught people to occupy their thoughts as little as +might be with children who died young. Here, to-day, however, in this curious +house, all thoughts were tenderly bent on the little waxen figure, yet with a +kind of exultation and joy, notwithstanding the loud weeping of the mother. The +other children, its late companions, broke with it, suddenly, into the place +where the deep black bed lay open to receive it. Pushing away the grim +fossores, the grave-diggers, they ranged themselves around it in order, and +chanted that old psalm of theirs—Laudate pueri dominum! Dead children, +children’s graves—Marius had been always half aware of an old +superstitious fancy in his mind concerning them; as if in coming near them he +came near the failure of some lately-born hope or purpose of his own. And now, +perusing intently the expression with which Cecilia assisted, directed, +returned afterwards to her house, he felt that he too had had to-day his +funeral of a little child. But it had always been his policy, through all his +pursuit of “experience,” to take flight in time from any too +disturbing passion, from any sort of affection likely to quicken his pulses +beyond the point at which the quiet work of life was practicable. Had he, after +all, been taken unawares, so that it was no longer possible for him to fly? At +least, during the journey he took, by way of testing the existence of any chain +about him, he found a certain disappointment at his heart, greater than he +could have anticipated; and as he passed over the crisp leaves, nipped off in +multitudes by the first sudden cold of winter, he felt that the mental +atmosphere within himself was perceptibly colder. +</p> + +<p> +Yet it was, finally, a quite successful resignation which he achieved, on a +review, after his manner, during that absence, of loss or gain. The image of +Cecilia, it would seem, was already become for him like some matter of poetry, +or of another man’s story, or a picture on the wall. And on his return to +Rome there had been a rumour in that singular company, of things which spoke +certainly not of any merely tranquil loving: hinted rather that he had come +across a world, the lightest contact with which might make appropriate to +himself also the precept that “They which have wives be as they that have +none.” +</p> + +<p> +This was brought home to him, when, in early spring, he ventured once more to +listen to the sweet singing of the Eucharist. It breathed more than ever the +spirit of a wonderful hope—of hopes more daring than poor, labouring +humanity had ever seriously entertained before, though it was plain that a +great calamity was befallen. Amid stifled sobbing, even as the pathetic words +of the psalter relieved the tension of their hearts, the people around him +still wore upon their faces their habitual gleam of joy, of placid +satisfaction. They were still under the influence of an immense gratitude in +thinking, even amid their present distress, of the hour of a great deliverance. +As he followed again that mystical dialogue, he felt also again, like a mighty +spirit about him, the potency, the half-realised presence, of a great +multitude, as if thronging along those awful passages, to hear the sentence of +its release from prison; a company which represented nothing less +than—orbis terrarum—the whole company of mankind. And the special +note of the day expressed that relief—a sound new to him, drawn deep from +some old Hebrew source, as he conjectured, Alleluia! repeated over and over +again, Alleluia! Alleluia! at every pause and movement of the long Easter +ceremonies. +</p> + +<p> +And then, in its place, by way of sacred lection, although in shocking contrast +with the peaceful dignity of all around, came the Epistle of the churches of +Lyons and Vienne, to “their sister,” the church of Rome. For the +“Peace” of the church had been broken—broken, as Marius could +not but acknowledge, on the responsibility of the emperor Aurelius himself, +following tamely, and as a matter of course, the traces of his predecessors, +gratuitously enlisting, against the good as well as the evil of that great +pagan world, the strange new heroism of which this singular message was full. +The greatness of it certainly lifted away all merely private regret, inclining +one, at last, actually to draw sword for the oppressed, as if in some new order +of knighthood— +</p> + +<p> +“The pains which our brethren have endured we have no power fully to +tell, for the enemy came upon us with his whole strength. But the grace of God +fought for us, set free the weak, and made ready those who, like pillars, were +able to bear the weight. These, coming now into close strife with the foe, bore +every kind of pang and shame. At the time of the fair which is held here with a +great crowd, the governor led forth the Martyrs as a show. Holding what was +thought great but little, and that the pains of to-day are not deserving to be +measured against the glory that shall be made known, these worthy wrestlers +went joyfully on their way; their delight and the sweet favour of God mingling +in their faces, so that their bonds seemed but a goodly array, or like the +golden bracelets of a bride. Filled with the fragrance of Christ, to some they +seemed to have been touched with earthly perfumes. +</p> + +<p> +“Vettius Epagathus, though he was very young, because he would not endure +to see unjust judgment given against us, vented his anger, and sought to be +heard for the brethren, for he was a youth of high place. Whereupon the +governor asked him whether he also were a Christian. He confessed in a clear +voice, and was added to the number of the Martyrs. But he had the Paraclete +within him; as, in truth, he showed by the fulness of his love; glorying in the +defence of his brethren, and to give his life for theirs. +</p> + +<p> +“Then was fulfilled the saying of the Lord that the day should come, When +he that slayeth you will think that he doeth God service. Most madly did the +mob, the governor and the soldiers, rage against the handmaiden Blandina, in +whom Christ showed that what seems mean among men is of price with Him. For +whilst we all, and her earthly mistress, who was herself one of the contending +Martyrs, were fearful lest through the weakness of the flesh she should be +unable to profess the faith, Blandina was filled with such power that her +tormentors, following upon each other from morning until night, owned that they +were overcome, and had no more that they could do to her; admiring that she +still breathed after her whole body was torn asunder. +</p> + +<p> +“But this blessed one, in the very midst of her ‘witness,’ +renewed her strength; and to repeat, I am Christ’s! was to her rest, +refreshment, and relief from pain. As for Alexander, he neither uttered a groan +nor any sound at all, but in his heart talked with God. Sanctus, the deacon, +also, having borne beyond all measure pains devised by them, hoping that they +would get something from him, did not so much as tell his name; but to all +questions answered only, I am Christ’s! For this he confessed instead of +his name, his race, and everything beside. Whence also a strife in torturing +him arose between the governor and those tormentors, so that when they had +nothing else they could do they set red-hot plates of brass to the most tender +parts of his body. But he stood firm in his profession, cooled and fortified by +that stream of living water which flows from Christ. His corpse, a single +wound, having wholly lost the form of man, was the measure of his pain. But +Christ, paining in him, set forth an ensample to the rest—that there is +nothing fearful, nothing painful, where the love of the Father overcomes. And +as all those cruelties were made null through the patience of the Martyrs, they +bethought them of other things; among which was their imprisonment in a dark +and most sorrowful place, where many were privily strangled. But destitute of +man’s aid, they were filled with power from the Lord, both in body and +mind, and strengthened their brethren. Also, much joy was in our virgin mother, +the Church; for, by means of these, such as were fallen away retraced their +steps—were again conceived, were filled again with lively heat, and +hastened to make the profession of their faith. +</p> + +<p> +“The holy bishop Pothinus, who was now past ninety years old and weak in +body, yet in his heat of soul and longing for martyrdom, roused what strength +he had, and was also cruelly dragged to judgment, and gave witness. Thereupon +he suffered many stripes, all thinking it would be a wickedness if they fell +short in cruelty towards him, for that thus their own gods would be avenged. +Hardly drawing breath, he was thrown into prison, and after two days there +died. +</p> + +<p> +“After these things their martyrdom was parted into divers manners. +Plaiting as it were one crown of many colours and every sort of flowers, they +offered it to God. Maturus, therefore, Sanctus and Blandina, were led to the +wild beasts. And Maturus and Sanctus passed through all the pains of the +amphitheatre, as if they had suffered nothing before: or rather, as having in +many trials overcome, and now contending for the prize itself, were at last +dismissed. +</p> + +<p> +“But Blandina was bound and hung upon a stake, and set forth as food for +the assault of the wild beasts. And as she thus seemed to be hung upon the +Cross, by her fiery prayers she imparted much alacrity to those contending +Witnesses. For as they looked upon her with the eye of flesh, through her, they +saw Him that was crucified. But as none of the beasts would then touch her, she +was taken down from the Cross, and sent back to prison for another day: that, +though weak and mean, yet clothed with the mighty wrestler, Christ Jesus, she +might by many conquests give heart to her brethren. +</p> + +<p> +“On the last day, therefore, of the shows, she was brought forth again, +together with Ponticus, a lad of about fifteen years old. They were brought in +day by day to behold the pains of the rest. And when they wavered not, the mob +was full of rage; pitying neither the youth of the lad, nor the sex of the +maiden. Hence, they drave them through the whole round of pain. And Ponticus, +taking heart from Blandina, having borne well the whole of those torments, gave +up his life. Last of all, the blessed Blandina herself, as a mother that had +given life to her children, and sent them like conquerors to the great King, +hastened to them, with joy at the end, as to a marriage-feast; the enemy +himself confessing that no woman had ever borne pain so manifold and great as +hers. +</p> + +<p> +“Nor even so was their anger appeased; some among them seeking for us +pains, if it might be, yet greater; that the saying might be fulfilled, He that +is unjust, let him be unjust still. And their rage against the Martyrs took a +new form, insomuch that we were in great sorrow for lack of freedom to entrust +their bodies to the earth. +</p> + +<p> +“Neither did the night-time, nor the offer of money, avail us for this +matter; but they set watch with much carefulness, as though it were a great +gain to hinder their burial. Therefore, after the bodies had been displayed to +view for many days, they were at last burned to ashes, and cast into the river +Rhone, which flows by this place, that not a vestige of them might be left upon +the earth. For they said, Now shall we see whether they will rise again, and +whether their God can save them out of our hands.” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap27"></a>CHAPTER XXVII.<br/> +THE TRIUMPH OF MARCUS AURELIUS</h2> + +<p> +Not many months after the date of that epistle, Marius, then expecting to leave +Rome for a long time, and in fact about to leave it for ever, stood to witness +the triumphal entry of Marcus Aurelius, almost at the exact spot from which he +had watched the emperor’s solemn return to the capital on his own first +coming thither. His triumph was now a “full” one—Justus +Triumphus justified, by far more than the due amount of bloodshed in those +Northern wars, at length, it might seem, happily at an end. Among the captives, +amid the laughter of the crowds at his blowsy upper garment, his trousered legs +and conical wolf-skin cap, walked our own ancestor, representative of subject +Germany, under a figure very familiar in later Roman sculpture; and, though +certainly with none of the grace of the Dying Gaul, yet with plenty of uncouth +pathos in his misshapen features, and the pale, servile, yet angry eyes. His +children, white-skinned and golden-haired “as angels,” trudged +beside him. His brothers, of the animal world, the ibex, the wild-cat, and the +reindeer, stalking and trumpeting grandly, found their due place in the +procession; and among the spoil, set forth on a portable frame that it might be +distinctly seen (no mere model, but the very house he had lived in), a wattled +cottage, in all the simplicity of its snug contrivances against the cold, and +well-calculated to give a moment’s delight to his new, sophisticated +masters. +</p> + +<p> +Andrea Mantegna, working at the end of the fifteenth century, for a society +full of antiquarian fervour at the sight of the earthy relics of the old Roman +people, day by day returning to light out of the clay—childish still, +moreover, and with no more suspicion of pasteboard than the old Romans +themselves, in its unabashed love of open-air pageantries, has invested this, +the greatest, and alas! the most characteristic, of the splendours of imperial +Rome, with a reality livelier than any description. The homely sentiments for +which he has found place in his learned paintings are hardly more lifelike than +the great public incidents of the show, there depicted. And then, with all that +vivid realism, how refined, how dignified, how select in type, is this +reflection of the old Roman world!—now especially, in its time-mellowed +red and gold, for the modern visitor to the old English palace. +</p> + +<p> +It was under no such selected types that the great procession presented itself +to Marius; though, in effect, he found something there prophetic, so to speak, +and evocative of ghosts, as susceptible minds will do, upon a repetition after +long interval of some notable incident, which may yet perhaps have no direct +concern for themselves. In truth, he had been so closely bent of late on +certain very personal interests that the broad current of the world’s +doings seemed to have withdrawn into the distance, but now, as he witnessed +this procession, to return once more into evidence for him. The world, +certainly, had been holding on its old way, and was all its old self, as it +thus passed by dramatically, accentuating, in this favourite spectacle, its +mode of viewing things. And even apart from the contrast of a very different +scene, he would have found it, just now, a somewhat vulgar spectacle. The +temples, wide open, with their ropes of roses flapping in the wind against the +rich, reflecting marble, their startling draperies and heavy cloud of incense, +were but the centres of a great banquet spread through all the gaudily coloured +streets of Rome, for which the carnivorous appetite of those who thronged them +in the glare of the mid-day sun was frankly enough asserted. At best, they were +but calling their gods to share with them the cooked, sacrificial, and other +meats, reeking to the sky. The child, who was concerned for the sorrows of one +of those Northern captives as he passed by, and explained to his +comrade—“There’s feeling in that hand, you know!” +benumbed and lifeless as it looked in the chain, seemed, in a moment, to +transform the entire show into its own proper tinsel. Yes! these Romans were a +coarse, a vulgar people; and their vulgarities of soul in full evidence here. +And Aurelius himself seemed to have undergone the world’s coinage, and +fallen to the level of his reward, in a mediocrity no longer golden. +</p> + +<p> +Yet if, as he passed by, almost filling the quaint old circular chariot with +his magnificent golden-flowered attire, he presented himself to Marius, chiefly +as one who had made the great mistake; to the multitude he came as a more than +magnanimous conqueror. That he had “forgiven” the innocent wife and +children of the dashing and almost successful rebel Avidius Cassius, now no +more, was a recent circumstance still in memory. As the children went +past—not among those who, ere the emperor ascended the steps of the +Capitol, would be detached from the great progress for execution, happy rather, +and radiant, as adopted members of the imperial family—the crowd actually +enjoyed an exhibition of the moral order, such as might become perhaps the +fashion. And it was in consideration of some possible touch of a heroism herein +that might really have cost him something, that Marius resolved to seek the +emperor once more, with an appeal for common-sense, for reason and justice. +</p> + +<p> +He had set out at last to revisit his old home; and knowing that Aurelius was +then in retreat at a favourite villa, which lay almost on his way thither, +determined there to present himself. Although the great plain was dying +steadily, a new race of wild birds establishing itself there, as he knew enough +of their habits to understand, and the idle contadino, with his never-ending +ditty of decay and death, replacing the lusty Roman labourer, never had that +poetic region between Rome and the sea more deeply impressed him than on this +sunless day of early autumn, under which all that fell within the immense +horizon was presented in one uniform tone of a clear, penitential blue. +Stimulating to the fancy as was that range of low hills to the northwards, +already troubled with the upbreaking of the Apennines, yet a want of quiet in +their outline, the record of wild fracture there, of sudden upheaval and +depression, marked them as but the ruins of nature; while at every little +descent and ascent of the road might be noted traces of the abandoned work of +man. From time to time, the way was still redolent of the floral relics of +summer, daphne and myrtle-blossom, sheltered in the little hollows and ravines. +At last, amid rocks here and there piercing the soil, as those descents became +steeper, and the main line of the Apennines, now visible, gave a higher accent +to the scene, he espied over the plateau, almost like one of those broken +hills, cutting the horizon towards the sea, the old brown villa itself, rich in +memories of one after another of the family of the Antonines. As he approached +it, such reminiscences crowded upon him, above all of the life there of the +aged Antoninus Pius, in its wonderful mansuetude and calm. Death had overtaken +him here at the precise moment when the tribune of the watch had received from +his lips the word Aequanimitas! as the watchword of the night. To see their +emperor living there like one of his simplest subjects, his hands red at +vintage-time with the juice of the grapes, hunting, teaching his children, +starting betimes, with all who cared to join him, for long days of antiquarian +research in the country around:—this, and the like of this, had seemed to +mean the peace of mankind. +</p> + +<p> +Upon that had come—like a stain! it seemed to Marius just then—the +more intimate life of Faustina, the life of Faustina at home. Surely, that +marvellous but malign beauty must still haunt those rooms, like an unquiet, +dead goddess, who might have perhaps, after all, something reassuring to tell +surviving mortals about her ambiguous self. When, two years since, the news had +reached Rome that those eyes, always so persistently turned to vanity, had +suddenly closed for ever, a strong desire to pray had come over Marius, as he +followed in fancy on its wild way the soul of one he had spoken with now and +again, and whose presence in it for a time the world of art could so ill have +spared. Certainly, the honours freely accorded to embalm her memory were poetic +enough—the rich temple left among those wild villagers at the spot, now +it was hoped sacred for ever, where she had breathed her last; the golden +image, in her old place at the amphitheatre; the altar at which the newly +married might make their sacrifice; above all, the great foundation for orphan +girls, to be called after her name. +</p> + +<p> +The latter, precisely, was the cause why Marius failed in fact to see Aurelius +again, and make the chivalrous effort at enlightenment he had proposed to +himself. Entering the villa, he learned from an usher, at the door of the long +gallery, famous still for its grand prospect in the memory of many a visitor, +and then leading to the imperial apartments, that the emperor was already in +audience: Marius must wait his turn—he knew not how long it might be. An +odd audience it seemed; for at that moment, through the closed door, came +shouts of laughter, the laughter of a great crowd of children—the +“Faustinian Children” themselves, as he afterwards +learned—happy and at their ease, in the imperial presence. Uncertain, +then, of the time for which so pleasant a reception might last, so pleasant +that he would hardly have wished to shorten it, Marius finally determined to +proceed, as it was necessary that he should accomplish the first stage of his +journey on this day. The thing was not to be—Vale! anima +infelicissima!—He might at least carry away that sound of the laughing +orphan children, as a not unamiable last impression of kings and their houses. +</p> + +<p> +The place he was now about to visit, especially as the resting-place of his +dead, had never been forgotten. Only, the first eager period of his life in +Rome had slipped on rapidly; and, almost on a sudden, that old time had come to +seem very long ago. An almost burdensome solemnity had grown about his memory +of the place, so that to revisit it seemed a thing that needed preparation: it +was what he could not have done hastily. He half feared to lessen, or disturb, +its value for himself. And then, as he travelled leisurely towards it, and so +far with quite tranquil mind, interested also in many another place by the way, +he discovered a shorter road to the end of his journey, and found himself +indeed approaching the spot that was to him like no other. Dreaming now only of +the dead before him, he journeyed on rapidly through the night; the thought of +them increasing on him, in the darkness. It was as if they had been waiting for +him there through all those years, and felt his footsteps approaching now, and +understood his devotion, quite gratefully, in that lowliness of theirs, in +spite of its tardy fulfilment. As morning came, his late tranquillity of mind +had given way to a grief which surprised him by its freshness. He was moved +more than he could have thought possible by so distant a sorrow. +“To-day!”—they seemed to be saying as the hard dawn +broke,—“To-day, he will come!” At last, amid all his +distractions, they were become the main purpose of what he was then doing. The +world around it, when he actually reached the place later in the day, was in a +mood very different from his:—so work-a-day, it seemed, on that fine +afternoon, and the villages he passed through so silent; the inhabitants being, +for the most part, at their labour in the country. Then, at length, above the +tiled outbuildings, were the walls of the old villa itself, with the tower for +the pigeons; and, not among cypresses, but half-hidden by aged poplar-trees, +their leaves like golden fruit, the birds floating around it, the conical roof +of the tomb itself. In the presence of an old servant who remembered him, the +great seals were broken, the rusty key turned at last in the lock, the door was +forced out among the weeds grown thickly about it, and Marius was actually in +the place which had been so often in his thoughts. +</p> + +<p> +He was struck, not however without a touch of remorse thereupon, chiefly by an +odd air of neglect, the neglect of a place allowed to remain as when it was +last used, and left in a hurry, till long years had covered all alike with +thick dust —the faded flowers, the burnt-out lamps, the tools and +hardened mortar of the workmen who had had something to do there. A heavy +fragment of woodwork had fallen and chipped open one of the oldest of the +mortuary urns, many hundreds in number ranged around the walls. It was not +properly an urn, but a minute coffin of stone, and the fracture had revealed a +piteous spectacle of the mouldering, unburned remains within; the bones of a +child, as he understood, which might have died, in ripe age, three times over, +since it slipped away from among his great-grandfathers, so far up in the line. +Yet the protruding baby hand seemed to stir up in him feelings vivid enough, +bringing him intimately within the scope of dead people’s grievances. He +noticed, side by side with the urn of his mother, that of a boy of about his +own age—one of the serving-boys of the household—who had descended +hither, from the lightsome world of childhood, almost at the same time with +her. It seemed as if this boy of his own age had taken filial place beside her +there, in his stead. That hard feeling, again, which had always lingered in his +mind with the thought of the father he had scarcely known, melted wholly away, +as he read the precise number of his years, and reflected suddenly—He was +of my own present age; no hard old man, but with interests, as he looked round +him on the world for the last time, even as mine to-day! +</p> + +<p> +And with that came a blinding rush of kindness, as if two alienated friends had +come to understand each other at last. There was weakness in all this; as there +is in all care for dead persons, to which nevertheless people will always yield +in proportion as they really care for one another. With a vain yearning, as he +stood there, still to be able to do something for them, he reflected that such +doing must be, after all, in the nature of things, mainly for himself. His own +epitaph might be that old one eskhatos tou idiou genous+ —He was the last +of his race! Of those who might come hither after himself probably no one would +ever again come quite as he had done to-day; and it was under the influence of +this thought that he determined to bury all that, deep below the surface, to be +remembered only by him, and in a way which would claim no sentiment from the +indifferent. That took many days—was like a renewal of lengthy old burial +rites—as he himself watched the work, early and late; coming on the last +day very early, and anticipating, by stealth, the last touches, while the +workmen were absent; one young lad only, finally smoothing down the earthy bed, +greatly surprised at the seriousness with which Marius flung in his flowers, +one by one, to mingle with the dark mould. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +NOTES +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +207. +Transliteration: eskhatos tou idiou genous. Translation: “[he was] +the last of his race.” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap28"></a>CHAPTER XXVIII.<br/> +ANIMA NATURALITER CHRISTIANA</h2> + +<p> +Those eight days at his old home, so mournfully occupied, had been for Marius +in some sort a forcible disruption from the world and the roots of his life in +it. He had been carried out of himself as never before; and when the time was +over, it was as if the claim over him of the earth below had been vindicated, +over against the interests of that living world around. Dead, yet sentient and +caressing hands seemed to reach out of the ground and to be clinging about him. +Looking back sometimes now, from about the midway of life—the age, as he +conceived, at which one begins to redescend one’s life—though +antedating it a little, in his sad humour, he would note, almost with surprise, +the unbroken placidity of the contemplation in which it had been passed. His +own temper, his early theoretic scheme of things, would have pushed him on to +movement and adventure. Actually, as circumstances had determined, all its +movement had been inward; movement of observation only, or even of pure +meditation; in part, perhaps, because throughout it had been something of a +meditatio mortis, ever facing towards the act of final detachment. Death, +however, as he reflected, must be for every one nothing less than the fifth or +last act of a drama, and, as such, was likely to have something of the stirring +character of a dénouement. And, in fact, it was in form tragic enough that his +end not long afterwards came to him. +</p> + +<p> +In the midst of the extreme weariness and depression which had followed those +last days, Cornelius, then, as it happened, on a journey and travelling near +the place, finding traces of him, had become his guest at White-nights. It was +just then that Marius felt, as he had never done before, the value to himself, +the overpowering charm, of his friendship. “More than +brother!”—he felt—like a son also!” contrasting the +fatigue of soul which made himself in effect an older man, with the +irrepressible youth of his companion. For it was still the marvellous +hopefulness of Cornelius, his seeming prerogative over the future, that +determined, and kept alive, all other sentiment concerning him. A new hope had +sprung up in the world of which he, Cornelius, was a depositary, which he was +to bear onward in it. Identifying himself with Cornelius in so dear a +friendship, through him, Marius seemed to touch, to ally himself to, actually +to become a possessor of the coming world; even as happy parents reach out, and +take possession of it, in and through the survival of their children. For in +these days their intimacy had grown very close, as they moved hither and +thither, leisurely, among the country-places thereabout, Cornelius being on his +way back to Rome, till they came one evening to a little town (Marius +remembered that he had been there on his first journey to Rome) which had even +then its church and legend—the legend and holy relics of the martyr +Hyacinthus, a young Roman soldier, whose blood had stained the soil of this +place in the reign of the emperor Trajan. +</p> + +<p> +The thought of that so recent death, haunted Marius through the night, as if +with audible crying and sighs above the restless wind, which came and went +around their lodging. But towards dawn he slept heavily; and awaking in broad +daylight, and finding Cornelius absent, set forth to seek him. The plague was +still in the place—had indeed just broken out afresh; with an outbreak +also of cruel superstition among its wild and miserable inhabitants. Surely, +the old gods were wroth at the presence of this new enemy among them! And it +was no ordinary morning into which Marius stepped forth. There was a menace in +the dark masses of hill, and motionless wood, against the gray, although +apparently unclouded sky. Under this sunless heaven the earth itself seemed to +fret and fume with a heat of its own, in spite of the strong night-wind. And +now the wind had fallen. +</p> + +<p> +Marius felt that he breathed some strange heavy fluid, denser than any common +air. He could have fancied that the world had sunken in the night, far below +its proper level, into some close, thick abysm of its own atmosphere. The +Christian people of the town, hardly less terrified and overwrought by the +haunting sickness about them than their pagan neighbours, were at prayer before +the tomb of the martyr; and even as Marius pressed among them to a place beside +Cornelius, on a sudden the hills seemed to roll like a sea in motion, around +the whole compass of the horizon. For a moment Marius supposed himself attacked +with some sudden sickness of brain, till the fall of a great mass of building +convinced him that not himself but the earth under his feet was giddy. A few +moments later the little marketplace was alive with the rush of the distracted +inhabitants from their tottering houses; and as they waited anxiously for the +second shock of earthquake, a long-smouldering suspicion leapt precipitately +into well-defined purpose, and the whole body of people was carried forward +towards the band of worshippers below. An hour later, in the wild tumult which +followed, the earth had been stained afresh with the blood of the martyrs Felix +and Faustinus—Flores apparuerunt in terra nostra!—and their +brethren, together with Cornelius and Marius, thus, as it had happened, taken +among them, were prisoners, reserved for the action of the law. Marius and his +friend, with certain others, exercising the privilege of their rank, made claim +to be tried in Rome, or at least in the chief town of the district; where, +indeed, in the troublous days that had now begun, a legal process had been +already instituted. Under the care of a military guard the captives were +removed on the same day, one stage of their journey; sleeping, for security, +during the night, side by side with their keepers, in the rooms of a +shepherd’s deserted house by the wayside. +</p> + +<p> +It was surmised that one of the prisoners was not a Christian: the guards were +forward to make the utmost pecuniary profit of this circumstance, and in the +night, Marius, taking advantage of the loose charge kept over them, and by +means partly of a large bribe, had contrived that Cornelius, as the really +innocent person, should be dismissed in safety on his way, to procure, as +Marius explained, the proper means of defence for himself, when the time of +trial came. +</p> + +<p> +And in the morning Cornelius in fact set forth alone, from their miserable +place of detention. Marius believed that Cornelius was to be the husband of +Cecilia; and that, perhaps strangely, had but added to the desire to get him +away safely.—We wait for the great crisis which is to try what is in us: +we can hardly bear the pressure of our hearts, as we think of it: the lonely +wrestler, or victim, which imagination foreshadows to us, can hardly be +one’s self; it seems an outrage of our destiny that we should be led +along so gently and imperceptibly, to so terrible a leaping-place in the dark, +for more perhaps than life or death. At last, the great act, the critical +moment itself comes, easily, almost unconsciously. Another motion of the clock, +and our fatal line—the “great climacteric point”—has +been passed, which changes ourselves or our lives. In one quarter of an hour, +under a sudden, uncontrollable impulse, hardly weighing what he did, almost as +a matter of course and as lightly as one hires a bed for one’s +night’s rest on a journey, Marius had taken upon himself all the heavy +risk of the position in which Cornelius had then been—the long and +wearisome delays of judgment, which were possible; the danger and wretchedness +of a long journey in this manner; possibly the danger of death. He had +delivered his brother, after the manner he had sometimes vaguely anticipated as +a kind of distinction in his destiny; though indeed always with wistful +calculation as to what it might cost him: and in the first moment after the +thing was actually done, he felt only satisfaction at his courage, at the +discovery of his possession of “nerve.” +</p> + +<p> +Yet he was, as we know, no hero, no heroic martyr—had indeed no right to +be; and when he had seen Cornelius depart, on his blithe and hopeful way, as he +believed, to become the husband of Cecilia; actually, as it had happened, +without a word of farewell, supposing Marius was almost immediately afterwards +to follow (Marius indeed having avoided the moment of leave-taking with its +possible call for an explanation of the circumstances), the reaction came. He +could only guess, of course, at what might really happen. So far, he had but +taken upon himself, in the stead of Cornelius, a certain amount of personal +risk; though he hardly supposed himself to be facing the danger of death. +Still, especially for one such as he, with all the sensibilities of which his +whole manner of life had been but a promotion, the situation of a person under +trial on a criminal charge was actually full of distress. To him, in truth, a +death such as the recent death of those saintly brothers, seemed no glorious +end. In his case, at least, the Martyrdom, as it was called—the +overpowering act of testimony that Heaven had come down among men—would +be but a common execution: from the drops of his blood there would spring no +miraculous, poetic flowers; no eternal aroma would indicate the place of his +burial; no plenary grace, overflowing for ever upon those who might stand +around it. Had there been one to listen just then, there would have come, from +the very depth of his desolation, an eloquent utterance at last, on the irony +of men’s fates, on the singular accidents of life and death. +</p> + +<p> +The guards, now safely in possession of whatever money and other valuables the +prisoners had had on them, pressed them forward, over the rough mountain paths, +altogether careless of their sufferings. The great autumn rains were falling. +At night the soldiers lighted a fire; but it was impossible to keep warm. From +time to time they stopped to roast portions of the meat they carried with them, +making their captives sit round the fire, and pressing it upon them. But +weariness and depression of spirits had deprived Marius of appetite, even if +the food had been more attractive, and for some days he partook of nothing but +bad bread and water. All through the dark mornings they dragged over boggy +plains, up and down hills, wet through sometimes with the heavy rain. Even in +those deplorable circumstances, he could but notice the wild, dark beauty of +those regions—the stormy sunrise, and placid spaces of evening. One of +the keepers, a very young soldier, won him at times, by his simple kindness, to +talk a little, with wonder at the lad’s half-conscious, poetic delight in +the adventures of the journey. At times, the whole company would lie down for +rest at the roadside, hardly sheltered from the storm; and in the deep fatigue +of his spirit, his old longing for inopportune sleep overpowered +him.—Sleep anywhere, and under any conditions, seemed just then a thing +one might well exchange the remnants of one’s life for. +</p> + +<p> +It must have been about the fifth night, as he afterwards conjectured, that the +soldiers, believing him likely to die, had finally left him unable to proceed +further, under the care of some country people, who to the extent of their +power certainly treated him kindly in his sickness. He awoke to consciousness +after a severe attack of fever, lying alone on a rough bed, in a kind of hut. +It seemed a remote, mysterious place, as he looked around in the silence; but +so fresh—lying, in fact, in a high pasture-land among the +mountains—that he felt he should recover, if he might but just lie there +in quiet long enough. Even during those nights of delirium he had felt the +scent of the new-mown hay pleasantly, with a dim sense for a moment that he was +lying safe in his old home. The sunlight lay clear beyond the open door; and +the sounds of the cattle reached him softly from the green places around. +Recalling confusedly the torturing hurry of his late journeys, he dreaded, as +his consciousness of the whole situation returned, the coming of the guards. +But the place remained in absolute stillness. He was, in fact, at liberty, but +for his own disabled condition. And it was certainly a genuine clinging to life +that he felt just then, at the very bottom of his mind. So it had been, +obscurely, even through all the wild fancies of his delirium, from the moment +which followed his decision against himself, in favour of Cornelius. +</p> + +<p> +The occupants of the place were to be heard presently, coming and going about +him on their business: and it was as if the approach of death brought out in +all their force the merely human sentiments. There is that in death which +certainly makes indifferent persons anxious to forget the dead: to put +them—those aliens—away out of their thoughts altogether, as soon as +may be. Conversely, in the deep isolation of spirit which was now creeping upon +Marius, the faces of these people, casually visible, took a strange hold on his +affections; the link of general brotherhood, the feeling of human kinship, +asserting itself most strongly when it was about to be severed for ever. At +nights he would find this face or that impressed deeply on his fancy; and, in a +troubled sort of manner, his mind would follow them onwards, on the ways of +their simple, humdrum, everyday life, with a peculiar yearning to share it with +them, envying the calm, earthy cheerfulness of all their days to be, still +under the sun, though so indifferent, of course, to him!—as if these rude +people had been suddenly lifted into some height of earthly good-fortune, which +must needs isolate them from himself. +</p> + +<p> +Tristem neminen fecit+—he repeated to himself; his old prayer shaping +itself now almost as his epitaph. Yes! so much the very hardest judge must +concede to him. And the sense of satisfaction which that thought left with him +disposed him to a conscious effort of recollection, while he lay there, unable +now even to raise his head, as he discovered on attempting to reach a pitcher +of water which stood near. Revelation, vision, the discovery of a vision, the +seeing of a perfect humanity, in a perfect world—through all his +alternations of mind, by some dominant instinct, determined by the original +necessities of his own nature and character, he had always set that above the +having, or even the doing, of anything. For, such vision, if received with due +attitude on his part, was, in reality, the being something, and as such was +surely a pleasant offering or sacrifice to whatever gods there might be, +observant of him. And how goodly had the vision been!—one long unfolding +of beauty and energy in things, upon the closing of which he might gratefully +utter his “Vixi!”+ Even then, just ere his eyes were to be shut for +ever, the things they had seen seemed a veritable possession in hand; the +persons, the places, above all, the touching image of Jesus, apprehended dimly +through the expressive faces, the crying of the children, in that mysterious +drama, with a sudden sense of peace and satisfaction now, which he could not +explain to himself. Surely, he had prospered in life! And again, as of old, the +sense of gratitude seemed to bring with it the sense also of a living person at +his side. +</p> + +<p> +For still, in a shadowy world, his deeper wisdom had ever been, with a sense of +economy, with a jealous estimate of gain and loss, to use life, not as the +means to some problematic end, but, as far as might be, from dying hour to +dying hour, an end in itself—a kind of music, all-sufficing to the duly +trained ear, even as it died out on the air. Yet now, aware still in that +suffering body of such vivid powers of mind and sense, as he anticipated from +time to time how his sickness, practically without aid as he must be in this +rude place, was likely to end, and that the moment of taking final account was +drawing very near, a consciousness of waste would come, with half-angry tears +of self-pity, in his great weakness—a blind, outraged, angry feeling of +wasted power, such as he might have experienced himself standing by the +deathbed of another, in condition like his own. +</p> + +<p> +And yet it was the fact, again, that the vision of men and things, actually +revealed to him on his way through the world, had developed, with a wonderful +largeness, the faculties to which it addressed itself, his general capacity of +vision; and in that too was a success, in the view of certain, very definite, +well-considered, undeniable possibilities. Throughout that elaborate and +lifelong education of his receptive powers, he had ever kept in view the +purpose of preparing himself towards possible further revelation some +day—towards some ampler vision, which should take up into itself and +explain this world’s delightful shows, as the scattered fragments of a +poetry, till then but half-understood, might be taken up into the text of a +lost epic, recovered at last. At this moment, his unclouded receptivity of +soul, grown so steadily through all those years, from experience to experience, +was at its height; the house ready for the possible guest; the tablet of the +mind white and smooth, for whatsoever divine fingers might choose to write +there. And was not this precisely the condition, the attitude of mind, to which +something higher than he, yet akin to him, would be likely to reveal itself; to +which that influence he had felt now and again like a friendly hand upon his +shoulder, amid the actual obscurities of the world, would be likely to make a +further explanation? Surely, the aim of a true philosophy must lie, not in +futile efforts towards the complete accommodation of man to the circumstances +in which he chances to find himself, but in the maintenance of a kind of candid +discontent, in the face of the very highest achievement; the unclouded and +receptive soul quitting the world finally, with the same fresh wonder with +which it had entered the world still unimpaired, and going on its blind way at +last with the consciousness of some profound enigma in things, as but a pledge +of something further to come. Marius seemed to understand how one might look +back upon life here, and its excellent visions, as but the portion of a +race-course left behind him by a runner still swift of foot: for a moment he +experienced a singular curiosity, almost an ardent desire to enter upon a +future, the possibilities of which seemed so large. +</p> + +<p> +And just then, again amid the memory of certain touching actual words and +images, came the thought of the great hope, that hope against hope, which, as +he conceived, had arisen—Lux sedentibus in tenebris+—upon the aged +world; the hope Cornelius had seemed to bear away upon him in his strength, +with a buoyancy which had caused Marius to feel, not so much that by a caprice +of destiny, he had been left to die in his place, as that Cornelius was gone on +a mission to deliver him also from death. There had been a permanent protest +established in the world, a plea, a perpetual after-thought, which humanity +henceforth would ever possess in reserve, against any wholly mechanical and +disheartening theory of itself and its conditions. That was a thought which +relieved for him the iron outline of the horizon about him, touching it as if +with soft light from beyond; filling the shadowy, hollow places to which he was +on his way with the warmth of definite affections; confirming also certain +considerations by which he seemed to link himself to the generations to come in +the world he was leaving. Yes! through the survival of their children, happy +parents are able to think calmly, and with a very practical affection, of a +world in which they are to have no direct share; planting with a cheerful +good-humour, the acorns they carry about with them, that their grand-children +may be shaded from the sun by the broad oak-trees of the future. That is +nature’s way of easing death to us. It was thus too, surprised, +delighted, that Marius, under the power of that new hope among men, could think +of the generations to come after him. Without it, dim in truth as it was, he +could hardly have dared to ponder the world which limited all he really knew, +as it would be when he should have departed from it. A strange lonesomeness, +like physical darkness, seemed to settle upon the thought of it; as if its +business hereafter must be, as far as he was concerned, carried on in some +inhabited, but distant and alien, star. Contrariwise, with the sense of that +hope warm about him, he seemed to anticipate some kindly care for himself; +never to fail even on earth, a care for his very body—that dear sister +and companion of his soul, outworn, suffering, and in the very article of +death, as it was now. +</p> + +<p> +For the weariness came back tenfold; and he had finally to abstain from +thoughts like these, as from what caused physical pain. And then, as before in +the wretched, sleepless nights of those forced marches, he would try to fix his +mind, as it were impassively, and like a child thinking over the toys it loves, +one after another, that it may fall asleep thus, and forget all about them the +sooner, on all the persons he had loved in life—on his love for them, +dead or living, grateful for his love or not, rather than on theirs for +him—letting their images pass away again, or rest with him, as they +would. In the bare sense of having loved he seemed to find, even amid this +foundering of the ship, that on which his soul might “assuredly rest and +depend.” One after another, he suffered those faces and voices to come +and go, as in some mechanical exercise, as he might have repeated all the +verses he knew by heart, or like the telling of beads one by one, with many a +sleepy nod between-whiles. +</p> + +<p> +For there remained also, for the old earthy creature still within him, that +great blessedness of physical slumber. To sleep, to lose one’s self in +sleep—that, as he had always recognised, was a good thing. And it was +after a space of deep sleep that he awoke amid the murmuring voices of the +people who had kept and tended him so carefully through his sickness, now +kneeling around his bed: and what he heard confirmed, in the then perfect +clearness of his soul, the inevitable suggestion of his own bodily feelings. He +had often dreamt he was condemned to die, that the hour, with wild thoughts of +escape, was arrived; and waking, with the sun all around him, in complete +liberty of life, had been full of gratitude for his place there, alive still, +in the land of the living. He read surely, now, in the manner, the doings, of +these people, some of whom were passing out through the doorway, where the +heavy sunlight in very deed lay, that his last morning was come, and turned to +think once more of the beloved. Often had he fancied of old that not to die on +a dark or rainy day might itself have a little alleviating grace or favour +about it. The people around his bed were praying fervently—Abi! Abi! +Anima Christiana!+ In the moments of his extreme helplessness their mystic +bread had been placed, had descended like a snow-flake from the sky, between +his lips. Gentle fingers had applied to hands and feet, to all those old +passage-ways of the senses, through which the world had come and gone for him, +now so dim and obstructed, a medicinable oil. It was the same people who, in +the gray, austere evening of that day, took up his remains, and buried them +secretly, with their accustomed prayers; but with joy also, holding his death, +according to their generous view in this matter, to have been of the nature of +martyrdom; and martyrdom, as the church had always said, a kind of sacrament +with plenary grace. +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> + +1881-1884. +</p> + +<p class="center"> +THE END +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +NOTES +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +217. +“He made no one unhappy.” +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +218. +“I have lived!” +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +221. +From the Latin Vulgate Bible, Matthew 4:16: “populus qui sedebat in +tenebris lucem vidit magnam et sedentibus in regione et umbra mortis lux orta +est eis.” King James Bible translation: “The people which sat in +darkness saw great light; and to them which sat in the region and shadow of +death light is sprung up.” +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +224. “Depart! Depart! Christian Soul!” The thought is from the +Catholic prayer for the departing. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div style='display:block; margin-top:4em'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MARIUS THE EPICUREAN, VOLUME TWO ***</div> +<div style='text-align:left'> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +Updated editions will replace the previous one—the old editions will +be renamed. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright +law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, +so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United +States without permission and without paying copyright +royalties. Special rules, set forth in the General Terms of Use part +of this license, apply to copying and distributing Project +Gutenberg™ electronic works to protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG™ +concept and trademark. 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