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diff --git a/old/7mstd10.txt b/old/7mstd10.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..07d74a1 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/7mstd10.txt @@ -0,0 +1,6331 @@ +The Project Gutenberg Etext of Miscellaneous Studies, by Walter Pater +#9 in our series by Walter Pater + +Copyright laws are changing all over the world, be sure to check +the laws for your country before redistributing these files!!! + +Please take a look at the important information in this header. +We encourage you to keep this file on your own disk, keeping an +electronic path open for the next readers. + +Please do not remove this. + +This should be the first thing seen when anyone opens the book. +Do not change or edit it without written permission. 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A bracketed +numeral such as [22] indicates that the material immediately +following the number marks the beginning of the relevant page. I +have preserved paragraph structure except for first-line indentation. + +Hyphenation: I have not preserved original hyphenation since an +e-text does not require line-end or page-end hyphenation. + +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. + + + + +MISCELLANEOUS STUDIES: A SERIES OF ESSAYS +WALTER HORATIO PATER + + +CONTENTS + +C. Shadwell's Preface -- Publication Chronology: 1-7 + +Prosper Merimee: 11-37 + +Raphael: 38-61 + +Pascal: 62-89 + +Art Notes in North Italy: 90-108 + +Notre Dame D'Amiens: 109-125 + +Vezelay: 126-141 + +Apollo in Picardy: 142-171 + +The Child in the House: 172-196 + +Emerald Uthwart: 197-246 + +Diaphaneite: 247-254 + + + +CHARLES L. SHADWELL'S PREFACE + +[1] The volume of Greek Studies, issued early in the present year, +dealt with Mr. Pater's contributions to the study of Greek art, +mythology, and poetry. The present volume has no such unifying +principle. Some of the papers would naturally find their place +alongside of those collected in Imaginary Portraits, or in +Appreciations, or in the Studies in the Renaissance. And there is no +doubt, in the case of several of them, that Mr. Pater, if he had +lived, would have subjected them to careful revision before allowing +them to reappear in a permanent form. The task, which he left +unexecuted, cannot now be taken up by any other hand. But it is +hoped that students of his writings will be glad to possess, in a +collected shape, what has hitherto only been accessible in the +scattered volumes of magazines. It is with some hesitation that the +paper on Diaphaneite, the last in this volume, has been added, as the +only specimen known to [2] be preserved of those early essays of Mr. +Pater's, by which his literary gifts were first made known to the +small circle of his Oxford friends. + +Subjoined is a brief chronological list of his published writings. +It will be observed how considerable a period, 1880 to 1885, was +given up to the composition of Marius the Epicurean, the most highly +finished of all his works, and the expression of his deepest thought. + +August, 1895. + + + +A CHRONOLOGY OF PATER'S WORKS, 1866-1895 + +(Adapted from a compilation by Charles L. Shadwell in the 1895 +Macmillan edition of Miscellaneous Studies.) + +1866. + +COLERIDGE. Appeared in Westminster Review, January, 1866. Reprinted +1889 in Appreciations. + +1867. + +WINCKELMANN. Appeared in Westminster Review, January, 1867. Reprinted +1873 in Studies in the Renaissance. + +1868. + +*AESTHETIC POETRY. Written in 1868. First published 1889 in +Appreciations. (Not included in the 1910 Macmillan Library Edition, +but published separately at Project Gutenberg and +www.ajdrake.com/etexts.) + +1869. + +NOTES ON LEONARDO DA VINCI. Appeared in Fortnightly Review in Novermber, +1869. Reprinted 1873 in Studies in the Renaissance. + +1870. + +SANDRO BOTTICELLI. Appeared in Fortnightly Review in August, 1870, +entitled "A Fragment on Sandro Botticelli." Reprinted 1873 in +Studies in the Renaissance. + +1871. + +PICO DELLA MIRANDOLA. Appeared in Fortnightly Review in October, 1871. +Reprinted 1873 in Studies in the Renaissance. + +POETRY OF MICHELANGELO. Appeared in Fortnightly Review in November, +1871. Reprinted 1873 in Studies in the Renaissance. + +1873. + +STUDIES IN THE HISTORY OF THE RENAISSANCE. Published 1873 by Macmillan. +Contents: + +Aucassin and Nicolette. Entitled in second and later editions, "Two +Early French Stories." + +Pico della Mirandola. See 1871. + +Sandro Botticelli. See 1870. + +Luca della Robbia. + +Poetry of Michelangelo. See 1871. + +Leonardo da Vinci. See 1869. + +Joachim du Bellay. + +Winckelmann. See 1867. + +Conclusion. + +1874. + +WORDSWORTH. Appeared in Fortnightly Review in April, 1874. Reprinted +1889 in Appreciations. + +MEASURE FOR MEASURE. Appeared in Fortnightly Review in November, 1874. +Reprinted 1889 in Appreciations. + +1875. + +DEMETER AND PERSEPHONE. Written as two lectures, and delivered in 1875 +at the Birmingham and Midland Institute. Appeared in Fortnightly +Review in January and February, 1876. Reprinted 1895 in Greek +Studies. + +1876. + +ROMANTICISM. Appeared in Macmillan's Magazine in November, 1876. +Reprinted 1889 in Appreciations under the title "Postscript." + +A STUDY OF DIONYSUS. Appeared in Fortnightly Review in December, 1876. +Reprinted 1895 in Greek Studies. + +1877. + +THE SCHOOL OF GIORGIONE. Appeared in Fortnightly Review in October, +1877. Reprinted 1888 in third edition of The Renaissance. + +THE RENAISSANCE: STUDIES IN ART AND POETRY. Second edition. Macmillan. +Contents: + +Two Early French Stories. + +Pico della Mirandola. + +Sandro Botticelli. + +Luca della Robbia. + +The Poetry of Michelangelo. + +Leonardo da Vinci. + +Joachim du Bellay. + +Winckelmann. + +1878. + +THE CHILD IN THE HOUSE. Appeared in Macmillan's Magazine in August, +1878, under the heading, "Imaginary Portrait. The Child in the +House." Reprinted 1895 in Miscellaneous Studies. + +CHARLES LAMB. Appeared in Fortnightly Review in October, 1878. +Reprinted 1889 in Appreciations. + +LOVE'S LABOURS LOST. Written in 1878. Appeared in Macmillan's Magazine +in December, 1885. Reprinted 1889 in Appreciations. + +THE BACCHANALS OF EURIPIDES. Written in 1878. Appeared in Macmillan's +Magazine in May, 1889. Reprinted in Tyrrell's edition of the Bacchae +in 1892. Reprinted in 1895 in Greek Studies. + +1880. + +THE BEGINNINGS OF GREEK SCULPTURE. Appeared in Fortnightly Review in +February and March, 1880. Reprinted 1895 in Greek Studies. + +THE MARBLES OF AEGINA. Appeared in Fortnightly Review in April, 1880. +Reprinted 1895 in Greek Studies. + +1883. + +DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI. Written in 1883. Published 1889 in +Appreciations. + +1885. + +MARIUS THE EPICUREAN. Published in 1885 by Macmillan. Two volumes. + +A PRINCE OF COURT PAINTERS. Appeared in Macmillan's Magazine in October, +1885. Reprinted 1887 in Imaginary Portraits. + +1886. + +FEUILLET'S "LA MORTE." Written in 1886. Published 1890 in second +edition of Appreciations. + +SIR THOMAS BROWNE. Written in 1886. Published 1889 in Appreciations. + +SEBASTIAN VAN STORCK. Appeared in Macmillan's Magazine in March, 1886. +Reprinted 1887 in Imaginary Portraits. + +DENYS L'AUXERROIS. Appeared in Macmillan's Magazine in October, 1886. +Reprinted 1887 in Imaginary Portraits. + +1887. + +DUKE CARL OF ROSENMOLD. Appeared in Macmillan's Magazine in May, 1887. +Reprinted the same year in Imaginary Portraits. + +IMAGINARY PORTRAITS. Published 1887 by Macmillan. Contents: + +A Prince of Court Painters. See 1885. + +Denys l'Auxerrois. See 1886. + +Sebastian van Storck. See 1886. + +Duke Carl of Rosenmold. See above. + +1888. + +GASTON DE LATOUR. Appeared in Macmillan's Magazine as under: viz. + +Chapter I in June. + +Chapter II in July. + +Chapter III in August. + +Chapter IV in September. + +Chapter V in October. + +STYLE. Appeared in Fortnightly Review in December, 1888. Reprinted +1889 in Appreciations. + +THE RENAISSANCE. Third Edition. Macmillan. Contents: + +Two Early French Stories. + +Pico della Mirandola. + +Sandro Botticelli. + +Luca della Robbia. + +The Poetry of Michelangelo. + +Leonardo da Vinci. + +The School of Giorgione. See 1877. + +Joachim du Bellay. + +Winckelmann. + +Conclusion. + +1889. + +HIPPOLYTUS VEILED. Appeared in Macmillan's Magazine in August, 1889. +Reprinted 1895 in Greek Studies. + +*GIORDANO BRUNO. Appeared in Fortnightly Review in August, 1889. (Not +included in the 1910 Macmillan Library Edition, but published +separately online at Project Gutenberg and www.ajdrake.com/etexts.) + +APPRECIATIONS, WITH AN ESSAY ON STYLE. Published 1889 by Macmillan. +Contents: + +Style. See 1888. + +Wordsworth. See 1874. + +Coleridge. See 1866. + +Charles Lamb. See 1878. + +Sir Thomas Browne. See 1886. + +Love's Labours Lost. See 1878. + +Measure for Measure. See 1874. + +Shakespeare's English Kings. + +*Aesthetic Poetry. See 1868. + +Dante Gabriel Rossetti. See 1883. + +Postscript. See under "Romanticism," 1876. + +1890. + +ART NOTES IN NORTHERN ITALY. Appeared in New Review in November, 1890. +Reprinted 1895 in Miscellaneous Studies. + +PROSPER MERIMEE. Delivered as a lecture at Oxford in November, 1890. +Appeared in Fortnightly Review in December, 1890. Reprinted 1895 in +Miscellaneous Studies. + +APPRECIATIONS. Second edition. Macmillan. Contents as in first +edition of 1889, but omitting Aesthetic Poetry and including a paper +on Feuillet's "La Morte" (See 1886). + +1892. + +THE GENIUS OF PLATO. Appeared in Contemporary Review in February, +1892. Reprinted 1893 as Chapter VI of Plato and Platonism. + +A CHAPTER ON PLATO. Appeared in Macmillan's Magazine in May, 1892. +Reprinted 1893 as Chapter I of Plato and Platonism. + +LACEDAEMON. Appeared in Contemporary Review in June, 1892. Reprinted +1893 as Chapter VIII of Plato and Platonism. + +EMERALD UTHWART. Appeared in New Review in June and July, 1892. +Reprinted 1895 in Miscellaneous Studies. + +RAPHAEL. Delivered as a lecture at Oxford in August, 1892. Appeared +in Fortnightly Review in October, 1892. Reprinted 1895 in +Miscellaneous Studies. + +1893. + +APOLLO IN PICARDY. Appeared in Harper's Magazine in November, 1893. +Reprinted 1895 in Miscellaneous Studies. + +PLATO AND PLATONISM. Published 1893 by Macmillan. Included, as +Chapters 1, 6, and 8, papers which had already appeared in Magazines +in 1892. Contents: + +1. Plato and the Doctrine of Motion. + +2. Plato and the Doctrine of Rest. + +3. Plato and the Doctrine of Number. + +4. Plato and Socrates. + +5. Plato and the Sophists. + +6. The Genius of Plato. + +7. The Doctrine of Plato-- + + I. The Theory of Ideas. + + II. Dialectic. + +8. Lacedaemon. + +9. The Republic. + +10. Plato's Aesthetics. + +1894. + +THE AGE OF ATHLETIC PRIZEMEN. Appeared in Contemporary Review in +February, 1894. Reprinted 1895 in Greek Studies. + +SOME GREAT CHURCHES IN FRANCE. 1) NOTRE-DAME D'AMIENS; 2) VEZELAY. +Appeared in Nineteenth Century in March and June, 1894. Reprinted +1895 in Miscellaneous Studies as two separate essays. + +PASCAL. Written for delivery as a lecture at Oxford in July, 1894. +Appeared in Contemporary Review in December, 1894. Reprinted 1895 in +Miscellaneous Studies. + +1895. + +GREEK STUDIES. Published 1895 by Macmillan. Contents: + +A Study of Dionysus. See 1876. + +The Bacchanals of Euripides. See 1878. + +The Myth of Demeter and Persephone. See 1875. + +Hippolytus Veiled. See 1889. + +The Beginnings of Greek Sculpture. See 1880: + + 1) The Heroic Age of Greek Art. + + 2) The Age of Graven Images. + +The Marbles of Aegina. See 1880. + +The Age of Athletic Prizemen. See 1894. + + + +PROSPER MERIMEE* + +FOR one born in eighteen hundred and three much was recently become +incredible that had at least warmed the imagination even of the +sceptical eighteenth century. Napoleon, sealing the tomb of the +Revolution, had foreclosed many a problem, extinguished many a hope, +in the sphere of practice. And the mental parallel was drawn by +Heine. In the mental world too a great outlook had lately been cut +off. After Kant's criticism of the mind, its pretensions to pass +beyond the limits of individual experience seemed as dead as those of +old French royalty. And Kant did but furnish its innermost theoretic +force to a more general criticism, which had withdrawn from every +department of action, underlying principles once thought eternal. A +time of disillusion followed. The typical personality of the day was +Obermann, the very genius of ennui, a Frenchman disabused even of +patriotism, who has hardly strength enough to die. + +[12] More energetic souls, however, would recover themselves, and +find some way of making the best of a changed world. Art: the +passions, above all, the ecstasy and sorrow of love: a purely +empirical knowledge of nature and man: these still remained, at least +for pastime, in a world of which it was no longer proposed to +calculate the remoter issues:--art, passion, science, however, in a +somewhat novel attitude towards the practical interests of life. The +desillusionne, who had found in Kant's negations the last word +concerning an unseen world, and is living, on the morrow of the +Revolution, under a monarchy made out of hand, might seem cut off +from certain ancient natural hopes, and will demand, from what is to +interest him at all, something in the way of artificial stimulus. He +has lost that sense of large proportion in things, that all-embracing +prospect of life as a whole (from end to end of time and space, it +had seemed), the utmost expanse of which was afforded from a +cathedral tower of the Middle Age: by the church of the thirteenth +century, that is to say, with its consequent aptitude for the +co-ordination of human effort. Deprived of that exhilarating yet +pacific outlook, imprisoned now in the narrow cell of its own +subjective experience, the action of a powerful nature will be +intense, but exclusive and peculiar. It will come to art, or +science, to the experience of life itself, not as to portions of +human nature's daily food, but as to [13] something that must be, by +the circumstances of the case, exceptional; almost as men turn in +despair to gambling or narcotics, and in a little while the narcotic, +the game of chance or skill, is valued for its own sake. The +vocation of the artist, of the student of life or books, will be +realised with something--say! of fanaticism, as an end in itself, +unrelated, unassociated. The science he turns to will be a science +of crudest fact; the passion extravagant, a passionate love of +passion, varied through all the exotic phases of French fiction as +inaugurated by Balzac; the art exaggerated, in matter or form, or +both, as in Hugo or Baudelaire. The development of these conditions +is the mental story of the nineteenth century, especially as +exemplified in France. + +In no century would Prosper Merimee have been a theologian or +metaphysician. But that sense of negation, of theoretic insecurity, +was in the air, and conspiring with what was of like tendency in +himself made of him a central type of disillusion. In him the +passive ennui of Obermann became a satiric, aggressive, almost angry +conviction of the littleness of the world around; it was as if man's +fatal limitations constituted a kind of stupidity in him, what the +French call betise. Gossiping friends, indeed, linked what was +constitutional in him and in the age with an incident of his earliest +years. Corrected for some childish fault, in passionate distress, he +overhears a half-pitying laugh at his expense, and has determined, +[14] in a moment, never again to give credit--to be for ever on his +guard, especially against his own instinctive movements. Quite +unreserved, certainly, he never was again. Almost everywhere he +could detect the hollow ring of fundamental nothingness under the +apparent surface of things. Irony surely, habitual irony, would be +the proper complement thereto, on his part. In his infallible self- +possession, you might even fancy him a mere man of the world, with a +special aptitude for matters of fact. Though indifferent in +politics, he rises to social, to political eminence; but all the +while he is feeding all his scholarly curiosity, his imagination, the +very eye, with the, to him ever delightful, relieving, reassuring +spectacle, of those straightforward forces in human nature, which are +also matters of fact. There is the formula of Merimee! the +enthusiastic amateur of rude, crude, naked force in men and women +wherever it could be found; himself carrying ever, as a mask, the +conventional attire of the modern world--carrying it with an +infinite, contemptuous grace, as if that, too, were an all-sufficient +end in itself. With a natural gift for words, for expression, it +will be his literary function to draw back the veil of time from the +true greatness of old Roman character; the veil of modern habit from +the primitive energy of the creatures of his fancy, as the Lettres a +une Inconnue discovered to general gaze, after his death, a certain +depth of [15] passionate force which had surprised him in himself. +And how forcible will be their outlines in an otherwise insignificant +world! Fundamental belief gone, in almost all of us, at least some +relics of it remain--queries, echoes, reactions, after-thoughts; and +they help to make an atmosphere, a mental atmosphere, hazy perhaps, +yet with many secrets of soothing light and shade, associating more +definite objects to each other by a perspective pleasant to the +inward eye against a hopefully receding background of remoter and +ever remoter possibilities. Not so with Merimee! For him the +fundamental criticism has nothing more than it can do; and there are +no half-lights. The last traces of hypothesis, of supposition, are +evaporated. Sylla, the false Demetrius, Carmen, Colomba, that +impassioned self within himself, have no atmosphere. Painfully +distinct in outline, inevitable to sight, unrelieved, there they +stand, like solitary mountain forms on some hard, perfectly +transparent day. What Merimee gets around his singularly +sculpturesque creations is neither more nor less than empty space. + +So disparate are his writings that at first sight you might fancy +them only the random efforts of a man of pleasure or affairs, who, +turning to this or that for the relief of a vacant hour, discovers to +his surprise a workable literary gift, of whose scope, however, he is +not precisely aware. His sixteen volumes nevertheless range +themselves in three compact groups. There are his letters [16] -- +those Lettres a une Inconnue, and his letters to the librarian +Panizzi, revealing him in somewhat close contact with political +intrigue. But in this age of novelists, it is as a writer of novels, +and of fiction in the form of highly descriptive drama, that he will +count for most:--Colomba, for instance, by its intellectual depth of +motive, its firmly conceived structure, by the faultlessness of its +execution, vindicating the function of the novel as no tawdry light +literature, but in very deed a fine art. The Chronique du Regne de +Charles IX., an unusually successful specimen of historical romance, +links his imaginative work to the third group of Merimee's writings, +his historical essays. One resource of the disabused soul of our +century, as we saw, would be the empirical study of facts, the +empirical science of nature and man, surviving all dead metaphysical +philosophies. Merimee, perhaps, may have had in him the making of a +master of such science, disinterested, patient, exact: scalpel in +hand, we may fancy, he would have penetrated far. But quite +certainly he had something of genius for the exact study of history, +for the pursuit of exact truth, with a keenness of scent as if that +alone existed, in some special area of historic fact, to be +determined by his own peculiar mental preferences. Power here too +again,--the crude power of men and women which mocks, while it makes +its use of, average human nature: it was the magic function of +history to put one in living [17] contact with that. To weigh the +purely physiognomic import of the memoir, of the pamphlet saved by +chance, the letter, the anecdote, the very gossip by which one came +face to face with energetic personalities: there lay the true +business of the historic student, not in that pretended theoretic +interpretation of events by their mechanic causes, with which he +dupes others if not invariably himself. In the great hero of the +Social War, in Sylla, studied, indeed, through his environment, but +only so far as that was in dynamic contact with himself, you saw, +without any manner of doubt, on one side, the solitary height of +human genius; on the other, though on the seemingly so heroic stage +of antique Roman story, the wholly inexpressive level of the humanity +of every day, the spectacle of man's eternal betise. Fascinated, +like a veritable son of the old pagan Renaissance, by the grandeur, +the concentration, the satiric hardness of ancient Roman character, +it is to Russia nevertheless that he most readily turns--youthful +Russia, whose native force, still unbelittled by our western +civilisation, seemed to have in it the promise of a more dignified +civilisation to come. It was as if old Rome itself were here again; +as, occasionally, a new quarry is laid open of what was thought long +since exhausted, ancient marble, cipollino or verde antique. +Merimee, indeed, was not the first to discern the fitness for +imaginative service of the career of "the false Demetrius," pretended +[18] son of Ivan the Terrible; but he alone seeks its utmost force in +a calm, matter-of-fact carefully ascertained presentment of the naked +events. Yes! In the last years of the Valois, when its fierce +passions seemed to be bursting France to pieces, you might have seen, +far away beyond the rude Polish dominion of which one of those Valois +princes had become king, a display more effective still of +exceptional courage and cunning, of horror in circumstance, of +betise, of course, of betise and a slavish capacity of being duped, +in average mankind: all that under a mask of solemn Muscovite court- +ceremonial. And Merimee's style, simple and unconcerned, but with +the eye ever on its object, lends itself perfectly to such purpose-- +to an almost phlegmatic discovery of the facts, in all their crude +natural colouring, as if he but held up to view, as a piece of +evidence, some harshly dyed oriental carpet from the sumptuous floor +of the Kremlin, on which blood had fallen. + +A lover of ancient Rome, its great character and incident, Merimee +valued, as if it had been personal property of his, every extant +relic of it in the art that had been most expressive of its genius-- +architecture. In that grandiose art of building, the most national, +the most tenaciously rooted of all the arts in the stable conditions +of life, there were historic documents hardly less clearly legible +than the manuscript chronicle. By the mouth of those stately +Romanesque [19] churches, scattered in so many strongly characterised +varieties over the soil of France, above all in the hot, half-pagan +south, the people of empire still protested, as he understood, +against what must seem a smaller race. The Gothic enthusiasm indeed +was already born, and he shared it--felt intelligently the +fascination of the Pointed Style, but only as a further +transformation of old Roman structure; the round arch is for him +still the great architectural form, la forme noble, because it was to +be seen in the monuments of antiquity. Romanesque, Gothic, the +manner of the Renaissance, of Lewis the Fourteenth:--they were all, +as in a written record, in the old abbey church of Saint-Savin, of +which Merimee was instructed to draw up a report. Again, it was as +if to his concentrated attention through many months that deserted +sanctuary of Benedict were the only thing on earth. Its beauties, +its peculiarities, its odd military features, its faded mural +paintings, are no merely picturesque matter for the pencil he could +use so well, but the lively record of a human society. With what +appetite! with all the animation of George Sand's Mauprat, he tells +the story of romantic violence having its way there, defiant of law, +so late as the year 1611; of the family of robber nobles perched, as +abbots in commendam, in those sacred places. That grey, pensive old +church in the little valley of Poitou, was for a time like Santa +Maria del Fiore to [20] Michelangelo, the mistress of his affections- +-of a practical affection; for the result of his elaborate report was +the Government grant which saved the place from ruin. In +architecture, certainly, he had what for that day was nothing less +than intuition--an intuitive sense, above all, of its logic, of the +necessity which draws into one all minor changes, as elements in a +reasonable development. And his care for it, his curiosity about it, +were symptomatic of his own genius. Structure, proportion, design, a +sort of architectural coherency: that was the aim of his method in +the art of literature, in that form of it, especially, which he will +live by, in fiction. + +As historian and archaeologist, as a man of erudition turned artist, +he is well seen in the Chronique du Regne de Charles IX., by which we +pass naturally from Merimee's critical or scientific work to the +products of his imagination. What economy in the use of a large +antiquarian knowledge! what an instinct amid a hundred details, for +the detail that carries physiognomy in it, that really tells! And +again what outline, what absolute clarity of outline! For the +historian of that puzzling age which centres in the "Eve of Saint +Bartholomew," outward events themselves seem obscured by the +vagueness of motive of the actors in them. But Merimee, disposing of +them as an artist, not in love with half-lights, compels events and +actors alike to the clearness he [21] desired; takes his side without +hesitation; and makes his hero a Huguenot of pure blood, allowing its +charm, in that charming youth, even to Huguenot piety. And as for +the incidents--however freely it may be undermined by historic doubt, +all reaches a perfectly firm surface, at least for the eye of the +reader. The Chronicle of Charles the Ninth is like a series of +masterly drawings in illustration of a period--the period in which +two other masters of French fiction have found their opportunity, +mainly by the development of its actual historic characters. Those +characters--Catherine de Medicis and the rest--Merimee, with +significant irony and self-assertion, sets aside, preferring to think +of them as essentially commonplace. For him the interest lies in the +creatures of his own will, who carry in them, however, so lightly! a +learning equal to Balzac's, greater than that of Dumas. He knows +with like completeness the mere fashions of the time--how courtier +and soldier dressed themselves, and the large movements of the +desperate game which fate or chance was playing with those pretty +pieces. Comparing that favourite century of the French Renaissance +with our own, he notes a decadence of the more energetic passions in +the interest of general tranquillity, and perhaps (only perhaps!) of +general happiness. "Assassination," he observes, as if with regret, +"is no longer a part of our manners." In fact, the duel, and the +whole [22] morality of the duel, which does but enforce a certain +regularity on assassination, what has been well called le sentiment +du fer, the sentiment of deadly steel, had then the disposition of +refined existence. It was, indeed, very different, and is, in +Merimee's romance. In his gallant hero, Bernard de Mergy, all the +promptings of the lad's virile goodness are in natural collusion with +that sentiment du fer. Amid his ingenuous blushes, his prayers, and +plentiful tears between-while, it is a part of his very sex. With +his delightful, fresh-blown air, he is for ever tossing the sheath +from the sword, but always as if into bright natural sunshine. A +winsome, yet withal serious and even piteous figure, he conveys his +pleasantness, in spite of its gloomy theme, into Merimee's one quite +cheerful book. + +Cheerful, because, after all, the gloomy passions it presents are but +the accidents of a particular age, and not like the mental conditions +in which Merimee was most apt to look for the spectacle of human +power, allied to madness or disease in the individual. For him, at +least, it was the office of fiction to carry one into a different if +not a better world than that actually around us; and if the Chronicle +of Charles the Ninth provided an escape from the tame circumstances +of contemporary life into an impassioned past, Colomba is a measure +of the resources for mental alteration which may be found even in the +modern age. There was a corner of [23] the French Empire, in the +manners of which assassination still had a large part. + +"The beauty of Corsica," says Merimee, "is grave and sad. The aspect +of the capital does but augment the impression caused by the solitude +that surrounds it. There is no movement in the streets. You hear +there none of the laughter, the singing, the loud talking, common in +the towns of Italy. Sometimes, under the shadow of a tree on the +promenade, a dozen armed peasants will be playing cards, or looking +on at the game. The Corsican is naturally silent. Those who walk +the pavement are all strangers: the islanders stand at their doors: +every one seems to be on the watch, like a falcon on its nest. All +around the gulf there is but an expanse of tanglework; beyond it, +bleached mountains. Not a habitation! Only, here and there, on the +heights about the town, certain white constructions detach themselves +from the background of green. They are funeral chapels or family +tombs." + +Crude in colour, sombre, taciturn, Corsica, as Merimee here describes +it, is like the national passion of the Corsican--that morbid +personal pride, usurping the place even of grief for the dead, which +centuries of traditional violence had concentrated into an all- +absorbing passion for bloodshed, for bloody revenges, in collusion +with the natural wildness, and the wild social condition of the +island still unaffected even by the finer [24] ethics of the duel. +The supremacy of that passion is well indicated by the cry, put into +the mouth of a young man in the presence of the corpse of his father +deceased in the course of nature--a young man meant to be +commonplace. "Ah! Would thou hadst died malamorte--by violence! We +might have avenged thee!" + +In Colomba, Merimee's best known creation, it is united to a +singularly wholesome type of personal beauty, a natural grace of +manner which is irresistible, a cunning intellect patiently diverting +every circumstance to its design; and presents itself as a kind of +genius, allied to fatal disease of mind. The interest of Merimee's +book is that it allows us to watch the action of this malignant power +on Colomba's brother, Orso della Robbia, as it discovers, rouses, +concentrates to the leaping-point, in the somewhat weakly diffused +nature of the youth, the dormant elements of a dark humour akin to +her own. Two years after his father's murder, presumably at the +instigation of his ancestral enemies, the young lieutenant is +returning home in the company of two humorously conventional English +people, himself now half Parisianised, with an immense natural +cheerfulness, and willing to believe an account of the crime which +relieves those hated Barricini of all complicity in its guilt. But +from the first, Colomba, with "voice soft and musical," is at his +side, gathering every accident and echo and circumstance, the very +lightest circumstance, [25] into the chain of necessity which draws +him to the action every one at home expects of him as the head of his +race. He is not unaware. Her very silence on the matter speaks so +plainly. "You are forming me!" he admits. "Well! 'Hot shot, or cold +steel!'--you see I have not forgotten my Corsican." More and more, +as he goes on his way with her, he finds himself accessible to the +damning thoughts he has so long combated. In horror, he tries to +disperse them by the memory of his comrades in the regiment, the +drawing-rooms of Paris, the English lady who has promised to be his +bride, and will shortly visit him in the humble manoir of his +ancestors. From his first step among them the villagers of +Pietranera, divided already into two rival camps, are watching him in +suspense--Pietranera, perched among those deep forests where the +stifled sense of violent death is everywhere. Colomba places in his +hands the little chest which contains the father's shirt covered with +great spots of blood. "Behold the lead that struck him!" and she +laid on the shirt two rusted bullets. "Orso! you will avenge him!" +She embraces him with a kind of madness, kisses wildly the bullets +and the shirt, leaves him with the terrible relics already exerting +their mystic power upon him. It is as if in the nineteenth century a +girl, amid Christian habits, had gone back to that primitive old +pagan version of the story of the Grail, which [26] identifies it not +with the Most Precious Blood, but only with the blood of a murdered +relation crying for vengeance. Awake at last in his old chamber at +Pietranera, the house of the Barricini at the other end of the +square, with its rival tower and rudely carved escutcheons, stares +him in the face. His ancestral enemy is there, an aged man now, but +with two well-grown sons, like two stupid dumb animals, whose +innocent blood will soon be on his so oddly lighted conscience. At +times, his better hope seemed to lie in picking a quarrel and killing +at least in fair fight, one of these two stupid dumb animals; with +rude ill-suppressed laughter one day, as they overhear Colomba's +violent utterances at a funeral feast, for she is a renowned +improvisatrice. "Your father is an old man," he finds himself +saying, "I could crush with my hands. 'Tis for you I am destined, +for you and your brother!" And if it is by course of nature that the +old man dies not long after the murder of these sons (self-provoked +after all), dies a fugitive at Pisa, as it happens, by an odd +accident, in the presence of Colomba, no violent death by Orso's own +hand could have been more to her mind. In that last hard page of +Merimee's story, mere dramatic propriety itself for a moment seems to +plead for the forgiveness, which from Joseph and his brethren to the +present day, as we know, has been as winning in story as in actual +life. Such dramatic propriety, however, was by no means [27] in +Merimee's way. "What I must have is the hand that fired the shot," +she had sung, "the eye that guided it; aye! and the mind moreover-- +the mind, which had conceived the deed!" And now, it is in idiotic +terror, a fugitive from Orso's vengeance, that the last of the +Barricini is dying. + +Exaggerated art! you think. But it was precisely such exaggerated +art, intense, unrelieved, an art of fierce colours, that is needed by +those who are seeking in art, as I said of Merimee, a kind of +artificial stimulus. And if his style is still impeccably correct, +cold-blooded, impersonal, as impersonal as that of Scott himself, it +does but conduce the better to his one exclusive aim. It is like the +polish of the stiletto Colomba carried always under her mantle, or +the beauty of the fire-arms, that beauty coming of nice adaptation to +purpose, which she understood so well--a task characteristic also of +Merimee himself, a sort of fanatic joy in the perfect pistol-shot, at +its height in the singular story he has translated from the Russian +of Pouchkine. Those raw colours he preferred; Spanish, Oriental, +African, perhaps, irritant certainly to cisalpine eyes, he +undoubtedly attained the colouring you associate with sun-stroke, +only possible under a sun in which dead things rot quickly. + +Pity and terror, we know, go to the making of the essential tragic +sense. In Merimee, certainly, we have all its terror, but without +the [28] pity. Saint-Clair, the consent of his mistress barely +attained at last, rushes madly on self-destruction, that he may die +with the taste of his great love fresh on his lips. All the +grotesque accidents of violent death he records with visual +exactness, and no pains to relieve them; the ironic indifference, for +instance, with which, on the scaffold or the battle-field, a man will +seem to grin foolishly at the ugly rents through which his life has +passed. Seldom or never has the mere pen of a writer taken us so +close to the cannon's mouth as in the Taking of the Redoubt, while +Matteo Falcone--twenty-five short pages--is perhaps the cruellest +story in the world. + +Colomba, that strange, fanatic being, who has a code of action, of +self-respect, a conscience, all to herself, who with all her virginal +charm only does not make you hate her, is, in truth, the type of a +sort of humanity Merimee found it pleasant to dream of--a humanity as +alien as the animals, with whose moral affinities to man his +imaginative work is often directly concerned. Were they so alien, +after all? Were there not survivals of the old wild creatures in the +gentlest, the politest of us? Stories that told of sudden freaks of +gentle, polite natures, straight back, not into Paradise, were always +welcome to men's fancies; and that could only be because they found a +psychologic truth in them. With much success, with a credibility +insured by his literary tact, Merimee tried his own hand at such +stories: unfrocked the [29] bear in the amorous young Lithuanian +noble, the wolf in the revolting peasant of the Middle Age. There +were survivals surely in himself, in that stealthy presentment of his +favourite themes, in his own art. You seem to find your hand on a +serpent, in reading him. + +In such survivals, indeed, you see the operation of his favourite +motive, the sense of wild power, under a sort of mask, or assumed +habit, realised as the very genius of nature itself; and that +interest, with some superstitions closely allied to it, the belief in +the vampire, for instance, is evidenced especially in certain +pretended Illyrian compositions--prose translations, the reader was +to understand, of more or less ancient popular ballads; La Guzla, he +called the volume, The Lyre, as we might say; only that the +instrument of the Illyrian minstrel had but one string. Artistic +deception, a trick of which there is something in the historic +romance as such, in a book like his own Chronicle of Charles the +Ninth, was always welcome to Merimee; it was part of the machinery of +his rooted habit of intellectual reserve. A master of irony also, in +Madame Lucrezia he seems to wish to expose his own method cynically; +to explain his art--how he takes you in--as a clever, confident +conjuror might do. So properly were the readers of La Guzla taken in +that he followed up his success in that line by the Theatre of Clara +Gazul, purporting to be from a rare Spanish original, the work [30] +of a nun, who, under tame, conventual reading, had felt the touch of +mundane, of physical passions; had become a dramatic poet, and +herself a powerful actress. It may dawn on you in reading her that +Merimee was a kind of Webster, but with the superficial mildness of +our nineteenth century. At the bottom of the true drama there is +ever, logically at least, the ballad: the ballad dealing in a kind of +short-hand (or, say! in grand, simple, universal outlines) with those +passions, crimes, mistakes, which have a kind of fatality in them, a +kind of necessity to come to the surface of the human mind, if not to +the surface of our experience, as in the case of some frankly +supernatural incidents which Merimee re-handled. Whether human love +or hatred has had most to do in shaping the universal fancy that the +dead come back, I cannot say. Certainly that old ballad literature +has instances in plenty, in which the voice, the hand, the brief +visit from the grave, is a natural response to the cry of the human +creature. That ghosts should return, as they do so often in +Merimee's fiction, is but a sort of natural justice. Only, in +Merimee's prose ballads, in those admirable, short, ballad-like +stories, where every word tells, of which he was a master, almost the +inventor, they are a kind of half-material ghosts--a vampire tribe-- +and never come to do people good; congruously with the mental +constitution of the writer, which, alike in fact and fiction, [31] +could hardly have horror enough--theme after theme. Merimee himself +emphasises this almost constant motive of his fiction when he adds to +one of his volumes of short stories some letters on a matter of fact- +-a Spanish bull-fight, in which those old Romans, he regretted, might +seem, decadently, to have survived. It is as if you saw it. In +truth, Merimee was the unconscious parent of much we may think of +dubious significance in later French literature. It is as if there +were nothing to tell of in this world but various forms of hatred, +and a love that is like lunacy; and the only other world, a world of +maliciously active, hideous, dead bodies. + +Merimee, a literary artist, was not a man who used two words where +one would do better, and he shines especially in those brief +compositions which, like a minute intaglio, reveal at a glance his +wonderful faculty of design and proportion in the treatment of his +work, in which there is not a touch but counts. That is an art of +which there are few examples in English; our somewhat diffuse, or +slipshod, literary language hardly lending itself to the +concentration of thought and expression, which are of the essence of +such writing. It is otherwise in French, and if you wish to know +what art of that kind can come to, read Merimee's little romances; +best of all, perhaps, La Venus d'Ille and Arsene Guillot. The former +is a modern version of the beautiful old story of the Ring given to +Venus, given to her, in [32] this case, by a somewhat sordid creature +of the nineteenth century, whom she looks on with more than disdain. +The strange outline of the Canigou, one of the most imposing outlying +heights of the Pyrenees, down the mysterious slopes of which the +traveller has made his way towards nightfall into the great plain of +Toulouse, forms an impressive background, congruous with the many +relics of irrepressible old paganism there, but in entire contrast to +the bourgeois comfort of the place where his journey is to end, the +abode of an aged antiquary, loud and bright just now with the +celebration of a vulgar worldly marriage. In the midst of this well- +being, prosaic in spite of the neighbourhood, in spite of the pretty +old wedding customs, morsels of that local colour in which Merimee +delights, the old pagan powers are supposed to reveal themselves once +more (malignantly, of course), in the person of a magnificent bronze +statue of Venus recently unearthed in the antiquary's garden. On her +finger, by ill-luck, the coarse young bridegroom on the morning of +his marriage places for a moment the bridal ring only too effectually +(the bronze hand closes, like a wilful living one, upon it), and +dies, you are to understand, in her angry metallic embraces on his +marriage night. From the first, indeed, she had seemed bent on +crushing out men's degenerate bodies and souls, though the +supernatural horror of the tale is adroitly made credible by a +certain vagueness in the [33] events, which covers a quite natural +account of the bridegroom's mysterious death. + +The intellectual charm of literary work so thoroughly designed as +Merimee's depends in part on the sense as you read, hastily perhaps, +perhaps in need of patience, that you are dealing with a composition, +the full secret of which is only to be attained in the last +paragraph, that with the last word in mind you will retrace your +steps, more than once (it may be) noting then the minuter structure, +also the natural or wrought flowers by the way. Nowhere is such +method better illustrated than by another of Merimee's quintessential +pieces, Arsene Guillotand here for once with a conclusion ethically +acceptable also. Merimee loved surprises in human nature, but it is +not often that he surprises us by tenderness or generosity of +character, as another master of French fiction, M. Octave Feuillet, +is apt to do; and the simple pathos of Arsene Guillot gives it a +unique place in Merimee's writings. It may be said, indeed, that +only an essentially pitiful nature could have told the exquisitely +cruel story of Matteo Falcone precisely as Merimee has told it; and +those who knew him testify abundantly to his own capacity for +generous friendship. He was no more wanting than others in those +natural sympathies (sending tears to the eyes at the sight of +suffering age or childhood) which happily are no extraordinary +component in men's natures. It was, perhaps, no fitting return for a +[34] friendship of over thirty years to publish posthumously those +Lettres a une Inconnue, which reveal that reserved, sensitive, self- +centred nature, a little pusillanimously in the power, at the +disposition of another. For just there lies the interest, the +psychological interest, of those letters. An amateur of power, of +the spectacle of power and force, followed minutely but without +sensibility on his part, with a kind of cynic pride rather for the +mainspring of his method, both of thought and expression, you find +him here taken by surprise at last, and somewhat humbled, by an +unsuspected force of affection in himself. His correspondent, +unknown but for these letters except just by name, figures in them +as, in truth, a being only too much like himself, seen from one side; +reflects his taciturnity, his touchiness, his incredulity except for +self-torment. Agitated, dissatisfied, he is wrestling in her with +himself, his own difficult qualities. He demands from her a freedom, +a frankness, he would have been the last to grant. It is by first +thoughts, of course, that what is forcible and effective in human +nature, the force, therefore, of carnal love, discovers itself; and +for her first thoughts Merimee is always pleading, but always +complaining that he gets only her second thoughts; the thoughts, that +is, of a reserved, self-limiting nature, well under the yoke of +convention, like his own. Strange conjunction! At the beginning of +the correspondence he seems to have been [35] seeking only a fine +intellectual companionship; the lady, perhaps, looking for something +warmer. Towards such companionship that likeness to himself in her +might have been helpful, but was not enough of a complement to his +own nature to be anything but an obstruction in love; and it is to +that, little by little, that his humour turns. He--the +Megalopsychus, as Aristotle defines him--acquires all the lover's +humble habits: himself displays all the tricks of love, its +casuistries, its exigency, its superstitions, aye! even its +vulgarities; involves with the significance of his own genius the +mere hazards and inconsequence of a perhaps average nature; but too +late in the day--the years. After the attractions and repulsions of +half a lifetime, they are but friends, and might forget to be that, +but for his death, clearly presaged in his last weak, touching +letter, just two hours before. There, too, had been the blind and +naked force of nature and circumstance, surprising him in the +uncontrollable movements of his own so carefully guarded heart. + +The intimacy, the effusion, the so freely exposed personality of +those letters does but emphasise the fact that impersonality was, in +literary art, Merimee's central aim. Personality versus +impersonality in art:--how much or how little of one's self one may +put into one's work: whether anything at all of it: whether one can +put there anything else:--is clearly a far-reaching and complex +question. Serviceable as [36] the basis of a precautionary maxim +towards the conduct of our work, self-effacement, or impersonality, +in literary or artistic creation, is, perhaps, after all, as little +possible as a strict realism. "It has always been my rule to put +nothing of myself into my works," says another great master of French +prose, Gustave Flaubert; but, luckily as we may think, he often +failed in thus effacing himself, as he too was aware. "It has always +been my rule to put nothing of myself into my works" (to be +disinterested in his literary creations, so to speak), "yet I have +put much of myself into them": and where he failed Merimee succeeded. +There they stand--Carmen, Colomba, the "False" Demetrius--as detached +from him as from each other, with no more filial likeness to their +maker than if they were the work of another person. And to his +method of conception, Merimee's much-praised literary style, his +method of expression, is strictly conformable--impersonal in its +beauty, the perfection of nobody's style--thus vindicating anew by +its very impersonality that much worn, but not untrue saying, that +the style is the man:--a man, impassible, unfamiliar, impeccable, +veiling a deep sense of what is forcible, nay, terrible, in things, +under the sort of personal pride that makes a man a nice observer of +all that is most conventional. Essentially unlike other people, he +is always fastidiously in the fashion--an expert in all the little, +half- [37] contemptuous elegances of which it is capable. Merimee's +superb self-effacement, his impersonality, is itself but an effective +personal trait, and, transferred to art, becomes a markedly peculiar +quality of literary beauty. For, in truth, this creature of +disillusion who had no care for half-lights, and, like his creations, +had no atmosphere about him, gifted as he was with pure mind, with +the quality which secures flawless literary structure, had, on the +other hand, nothing of what we call soul in literature:--hence, also, +that singular harshness in his ideal, as if, in theological language, +he were incapable of grace. He has none of those subjectivities, +colourings, peculiarities of mental refraction, which necessitate +varieties of style--could we spare such?--and render the perfections +of it no merely negative qualities. There are masters of French +prose whose art has begun where the art of Merimee leaves off. + +NOTES + +11. *A lecture delivered at the Taylor Institution, Oxford, and at +the London Institution. Published in the Fortnightly Review, Dec. +1890, and now reprinted by the kind permission of the proprietors. + + + +RAPHAEL* + +[38] By his immense productiveness, by the even perfection of what he +produced, its fitness to its own day, its hold on posterity, in the +suavity of his life, some would add in the "opportunity" of his early +death, Raphael may seem a signal instance of the luckiness, of the +good fortune, of genius. Yet, if we follow the actual growth of his +powers, within their proper framework, the age of the Renaissance--an +age of which we may say, summarily, that it enjoyed itself, and found +perhaps its chief enjoyment in the attitude of the scholar, in the +enthusiastic acquisition of knowledge for its own sake:--if we thus +view Raphael and his works in their environment we shall find even +his seemingly mechanical good fortune hardly distinguishable from his +own patient disposal of the means at hand. Facile master as he may +seem, as indeed he is, he is also one of the world's typical +scholars, with [39] Plato, and Cicero, and Virgil, and Milton. The +formula of his genius, if we must have one, is this: genius by +accumulation; the transformation of meek scholarship into genius-- +triumphant power of genius. + +Urbino, where this prince of the Renaissance was born in 1483, year +also of the birth of Luther, leader of the other great movement of +that age, the Reformation--Urbino, under its dukes of the house of +Montefeltro, had wherewithal just then to make a boy of native +artistic faculty from the first a willing learner. The gloomy old +fortress of the feudal masters of the town had been replaced, in +those later years of the Quattro-cento, by a consummate monument of +Quattro-cento taste, a museum of ancient and modern art, the owners +of which lived there, gallantly at home, amid the choicer flowers of +living humanity. The ducal palace was, in fact, become nothing less +than a school of ambitious youth in all the accomplishments alike of +war and peace. Raphael's connexion with it seems to have become +intimate, and from the first its influence must have overflowed so +small a place. In the case of the lucky Raphael, for once, the +actual conditions of early life had been suitable, propitious, +accordant to what one's imagination would have required for the +childhood of the man. He was born amid the art he was, not to +transform, but to perfect, by a thousand reverential retouchings. In +no palace, however, but [40] in a modest abode, still shown, +containing the workshop of his father, Giovanni Santi. But here, +too, though in frugal form, art, the arts, were present. A store of +artistic objects was, or had recently been, made there, and now +especially, for fitting patrons, religious pictures in the old +Umbrian manner. In quiet nooks of the Apennines Giovanni's works +remain; and there is one of them, worth study, in spite of what +critics say of its crudity, in the National Gallery. Concede its +immaturity, at least, though an immaturity visibly susceptible of a +delicate grace, it wins you nevertheless to return again and again, +and ponder, by a sincere expression of sorrow, profound, yet +resigned, be the cause what it may, among all the many causes of +sorrow inherent in the ideal of maternity, human or divine. But if +you keep in mind when looking at it the facts of Raphael's childhood, +you will recognise in his father's picture, not the anticipated +sorrow of the "Mater Dolorosa" over the dead son, but the grief of a +simple household over the mother herself taken early from it. That +may have been the first picture the eyes of the world's great painter +of Madonnas rested on; and if he stood diligently before it to copy, +and so copying, quite unconsciously, and with no disloyalty to his +original, refined, improved, substituted,--substituted himself, in +fact, his finer self--he had already struck the persistent note of +his career. As with his age, it is [41] his vocation, ardent worker +as he is, to enjoy himself--to enjoy himself amiably, and to find his +chief enjoyment in the attitude of a scholar. And one by one, one +after another, his masters, the very greatest of them, go to school +to him. + +It was so especially with the artist of whom Raphael first became +certainly a learner--Perugino. Giovanni Santi had died in Raphael's +childhood, too early to have been in any direct sense his teacher. +The lad, however, from one and another, had learned much, when, with +his share of the patrimony in hand, enough to keep him, but not to +tempt him from scholarly ways, he came to Perugia, hoping still +further to improve himself. He was in his eighteenth year, and how +he looked just then you may see in a drawing of his own in the +University Galleries, of somewhat stronger mould than less genuine +likenesses may lead you to expect. There is something of a fighter +in the way in which the nose springs from the brow between the wide- +set, meditative eyes. A strenuous lad! capable of plodding, if you +dare apply that word to labour so impassioned as his--to any labour +whatever done at Perugia, centre of the dreamiest Apennine scenery. +Its various elements (one hardly knows whether one is thinking of +Italian nature or of Raphael's art in recounting them), the richly- +planted lowlands, the sensitive mountain lines in flight one beyond +the other into clear distance, the cool yet glowing atmosphere, [42] +the romantic morsels of architecture, which lend to the entire scene +I know not what expression of reposeful antiquity, arrange themselves +here as for set purpose of pictorial effect, and have gone with +little change into his painted backgrounds. In the midst of it, on +titanic old Roman and Etruscan foundations, the later Gothic town had +piled itself along the lines of a gigantic land of rock, stretched +out from the last slope of the Apennines into the plain. Between its +fingers steep dark lanes wind down into the olive gardens; on the +finger-tips military and monastic builders had perched their towns. +A place as fantastic in its attractiveness as the human life which +then surged up and down in it in contrast to the peaceful scene +around. The Baglioni who ruled there had brought certain tendencies +of that age to a typical completeness of expression, veiling crime-- +crime, it might seem, for its own sake, a whole octave of fantastic +crime--not merely under brilliant fashions and comely persons, but +under fashions and persons, an outward presentment of life and of +themselves, which had a kind of immaculate grace and discretion about +them, as if Raphael himself had already brought his unerring gift of +selection to bear upon it all for motives of art. With life in those +streets of Perugia, as with nature, with the work of his masters, +with the mere exercises of his fellow-students, his hand rearranges, +refines, renews, as if by simple contact; [43] but it is met here +half-way in its renewing office by some special aptitude for such +grace in the subject itself. Seemingly innocent, full of natural +gaiety, eternally youthful, those seven and more deadly sins, +embodied and attired in just the jaunty dress then worn, enter now +and afterwards as spectators, or assistants, into many a sacred +foreground and background among the friends and kinsmen of the Holy +Family, among the very angels, gazing, conversing, standing firmly +and unashamed. During his apprenticeship at Perugia Raphael visited +and left his work in more modest places round about, along those +seductive mountain or lowland roads, and copied for one of them +Perugino's "Marriage of the Virgin" significantly, did it by many +degrees better, with a very novel effect of motion everywhere, and +with that grace which natural motion evokes, introducing for a temple +in the background a lovely bit of his friend Bramante's sort of +architecture, the true Renaissance or perfected Quattro-cento +architecture. He goes on building a whole lordly new city of the +like as he paints to the end of his life. The subject, we may note, +as we leave Perugia in Raphael's company, had been suggested by the +famous mystic treasure of its cathedral church, the marriage ring of +the Blessed Virgin herself. + +Raphael's copy had been made for the little old Apennine town of +Citta di Castello; and another place he visits at this time is still +more [44] effective in the development of his genius. About his +twentieth year he comes to Siena--that other rocky Titan's hand, just +lifted out of the surface of the plain. It is the most grandiose +place he has yet seen; it has not forgotten that it was once the +rival of Florence; and here the patient scholar passes under an +influence of somewhat larger scope than Perugino's. Perugino's +pictures are for the most part religious contemplations, painted and +made visible, to accompany the action of divine service--a visible +pattern to priests, attendants, worshippers, of what the course of +their invisible thoughts should be at those holy functions. Learning +in the workshop of Perugino to produce the like--such works as the +Ansidei Madonna--to produce them very much better than his master, +Raphael was already become a freeman of the most strictly religious +school of Italian art, the so devout Umbrian soul finding there its +purest expression, still untroubled by the naturalism, the +intellectualism, the antique paganism, then astir in the artistic +soul everywhere else in Italy. The lovely work of Perugino, very +lovely at its best, of the early Raphael also, is in fact +"conservative," and at various points slightly behind its day, though +not unpleasantly. In Perugino's allegoric frescoes of the Cambio, +the Hall of the Money-changers, for instance, under the mystic rule +of the Planets in person, pagan personages take their place indeed +side by side with the figures of the New [45] Testament, but are no +Romans or Greeks, neither are the Jews Jews, nor is any one of them, +warrior, sage, king, precisely of Perugino's own time and place, but +still contemplations only, after the manner of the personages in his +church-work; or, say, dreams--monastic dreams--thin, do-nothing +creatures, conjured from sky and cloud. Perugino clearly never broke +through the meditative circle of the Middle Age. + +Now Raphael, on the other hand, in his final period at Rome, exhibits +a wonderful narrative power in painting; and the secret of that +power--the power of developing a story in a picture, or series of +pictures--may be traced back from him to Pinturicchio, as that +painter worked on those vast, well-lighted walls of the cathedral +library at Siena, at the great series of frescoes illustrative of the +life of Pope Pius the Second. It had been a brilliant personal +history, in contact now and again with certain remarkable public +events--a career religious yet mundane, you scarcely know which, so +natural is the blending of lights, of interest in it. How unlike the +Peruginesque conception of life in its almost perverse other- +worldliness, which Raphael now leaves behind him, but, like a true +scholar, will not forget. Pinturicchio then had invited his +remarkable young friend hither, "to assist him by his counsels," who, +however, pupil-wise, after his habit also learns much as he thus +assists. He stands depicted there in person in the scene [46] of the +canonisation of Saint Catherine; and though his actual share in the +work is not to be defined, connoisseurs have felt his intellectual +presence, not at one place only, in touches at once finer and more +forcible than were usual in the steady-going, somewhat Teutonic, +Pinturicchio, Raphael's elder by thirty years. The meek scholar you +see again, with his tentative sketches and suggestions, had more than +learned his lesson; through all its changes that flexible +intelligence loses nothing; does but add continually to its store. +Henceforward Raphael will be able to tell a story in a picture, +better, with a truer economy, with surer judgment, more naturally and +easily than any one else. + +And here at Siena, of all Italian towns perhaps most deeply impressed +with medieval character--an impress it still retains--grotesque, +parti-coloured--parti-coloured, so to speak, in its genius--Satanic, +yet devout of humour, as depicted in its old chronicles, and +beautiful withal, dignified; it is here that Raphael becomes for the +first time aware of that old pagan world, which had already come to +be so much for the art-schools of Italy. There were points, as we +saw, at which the school of Perugia was behind its day. Amid those +intensely Gothic surroundings in the cathedral library where +Pinturicchio worked, stood, as it remained till recently, unashamed +there, a marble group of the three Graces--an average Roman work in +[47] effect--the sort of thing we are used to. That, perhaps, is the +only reason why for our part, except with an effort, we find it +conventional or even tame. For the youthful Raphael, on the other +hand, at that moment, antiquity, as with "the dew of herbs," seemed +therein "to awake and sing" out of the dust, in all its sincerity, +its cheerfulness and natural charm. He has turned it into a picture; +has helped to make his original only too familiar, perhaps, placing +the three sisters against his own favourite, so unclassic, Umbrian +background indeed, but with no trace of the Peruginesque ascetic, +Gothic meagreness in themselves; emphasising rather, with a hearty +acceptance, the nude, the flesh; making the limbs, in fact, a little +heavy. It was but one gleam he had caught just there in medieval +Siena of that large pagan world he was, not so long afterwards, more +completely than others to make his own. And when somewhat later +he painted the exquisite, still Peruginesque, Apollo and Marsyas, +semi-medieval habits again asserted themselves with delightfully +blent effects. It might almost pass for a parable--that little +picture in the Louvre--of the contention between classic art and the +romantic, superseded in the person of Marsyas, a homely, quaintly +poetical young monk, surely! Only, Apollo himself also is clearly of +the same brotherhood; has a touch, in truth, of Heine's fancied +Apollo "in exile," who, Christianity now triumphing, has served as +[48] a hired shepherd, or hidden himself under the cowl in a +cloister; and Raphael, as if at work on choir-book or missal, still +applies symbolical gilding for natural sunlight. It is as if he +wished to proclaim amid newer lights--this scholar who never forgot a +lesson--his loyal pupilage to Perugino, and retained still something +of medieval stiffness, of the monastic thoughts also, that were born +and lingered in places like Borgo San Sepolcro or Citta di Castello. +Chef-d'oeuvre! you might exclaim, of the peculiar, tremulous, half- +convinced, monkish treatment of that after all damnable pagan world. +And our own generation certainly, with kindred tastes, loving or +wishing to love pagan art as sincerely as did the people of the +Renaissance, and medieval art as well, would accept, of course, of +work conceived in that so seductively mixed manner, ten per cent of +even Raphael's later, purely classical presentments. + +That picture was suggested by a fine old intaglio in the Medicean +collection at Florence, was painted, therefore, after Raphael's +coming thither, and therefore also a survival with him of a style +limited, immature, literally provincial; for in the phase on which he +had now entered he is under the influence of style in its most fully +determined sense, of what might be called the thorough-bass of the +pictorial art, of a fully realised intellectual system in regard to +its processes, well tested by experiment, upon a survey [49] of all +the conditions and various applications of it--of style as understood +by Da Vinci, then at work in Florence. Raphael's sojourn there +extends from his twenty-first to his twenty-fifth year. He came with +flattering recommendations from the Court of Urbino; was admitted as +an equal by the masters of his craft, being already in demand for +work, then and ever since duly prized; was, in fact, already famous, +though he alone is unaware--is in his own opinion still but a +learner, and as a learner yields himself meekly, systematically to +influence; would learn from Francia, whom he visits at Bologna; from +the earlier naturalistic works of Masolino and Masaccio; from the +solemn prophetic work of the venerable dominican, Bartolommeo, +disciple of Savonarola. And he has already habitually this strange +effect, not only on the whole body of his juniors, but on those whose +manner had been long since formed; they lose something of themselves +by contact with him, as if they went to school again. + +Bartolommeo, Da Vinci, were masters certainly of what we call "the +ideal" in art. Yet for Raphael, so loyal hitherto to the traditions +of Umbrian art, to its heavy weight of hieratic tradition, dealing +still somewhat conventionally with a limited, non-natural matter--for +Raphael to come from Siena, Perugia, Urbino, to sharp-witted, +practical, masterful Florence was in immediate effect a transition +from reverie to [50] realities--to a world of facts. Those masters +of the ideal were for him, in the first instance, masters also of +realism, as we say. Henceforth, to the end, he will be the analyst, +the faithful reporter, in his work, of what he sees. He will realise +the function of style as exemplified in the practice of Da Vinci, +face to face with the world of nature and man as they are; selecting +from, asserting one's self in a transcript of its veritable data; +like drawing to like there, in obedience to the master's preference +for the embodiment of the creative form within him. Portrait-art had +been nowhere in the school of Perugino, but it was the triumph of the +school of Florence. And here a faithful analyst of what he sees, yet +lifting it withal, unconsciously, inevitably, recomposing, +glorifying, Raphael too becomes, of course, a painter of portraits. +We may foresee them already in masterly series, from Maddalena Doni, +a kind of younger, more virginal sister of La Gioconda, to cardinals +and popes--to that most sensitive of all portraits, the "Violin- +player," if it be really his. But then, on the other hand, the +influence of such portraiture will be felt also in his inventive +work, in a certain reality there, a certain convincing loyalty to +experience and observation. In his most elevated religious work he +will still keep, for security at least, close to nature, and the +truth of nature. His modelling of the visible surface is lovely +because he understands, can see the hidden causes [51] of momentary +action in the face, the hands--how men and animals are really made +and kept alive. Set side by side, then, with that portrait of +Maddalena Doni, as forming together a measure of what he has learned +at Florence, the "Madonna del Gran Duca," which still remains there. +Call it on revision, and without hesitation, the loveliest of his +Madonnas, perhaps of all Madonnas; and let it stand as representative +of as many as fifty or sixty types of that subject, onwards to the +Sixtine Madonna, in all the triumphancy of his later days at Rome. +Observe the veritable atmosphere about it, the grand composition of +the drapery, the magic relief, the sweetness and dignity of the human +hands and faces, the noble tenderness of Mary's gesture, the unity of +the thing with itself, the faultless exclusion of all that does not +belong to its main purpose; it is like a single, simple axiomatic +thought. Note withal the novelty of its effect on the mind, and you +will see that this master of style (that's a consummate example of +what is meant by style) has been still a willing scholar in the hands +of Da Vinci. But then, with what ease also, and simplicity, and a +sort of natural success not his! + +It was in his twenty-fifth year that Raphael came to the city of the +popes, Michelangelo being already in high favour there. For the +remaining years of his life he paces the same streets with that grim +artist, who was so great a [52] contrast with himself, and for the +first time his attitude towards a gift different from his own is not +that of a scholar, but that of a rival. If he did not become the +scholar of Michelangelo, it would be difficult, on the other hand, to +trace anywhere in Michelangelo's work the counter influence usual +with those who had influenced him. It was as if he desired to add to +the strength of Michelangelo that sweetness which at first sight +seems to be wanting there. Ex forti dulcedo: and in the study of +Michelangelo certainly it is enjoyable to detect, if we may, sweet +savours amid the wonderful strength, the strangeness and potency of +what he pours forth for us: with Raphael, conversely, something of a +relief to find in the suavity of that so softly moving, tuneful +existence, an assertion of strength. There was the promise of it, as +you remember, in his very look as he saw himself at eighteen; and you +know that the lesson, the prophecy of those holy women and children +he has made his own, is that "the meek shall possess." So, when we +see him at Rome at last, in that atmosphere of greatness, of the +strong, he too is found putting forth strength, adding that element +in due proportion to the mere sweetness and charm of his genius; yet +a sort of strength, after all, still congruous with the line of +development that genius has hitherto taken, the special strength of +the scholar and his proper reward, a purely cerebral strength [53] +the strength, the power of an immense understanding. + +Now the life of Raphael at Rome seems as we read of it hasty and +perplexed, full of undertakings, of vast works not always to be +completed, of almost impossible demands on his industry, in a world +of breathless competition, amid a great company of spectators, for +great rewards. You seem to lose him, feel he may have lost himself, +in the multiplicity of his engagements; might fancy that, wealthy, +variously decorated, a courtier, cardinal in petto, he was "serving +tables." But, you know, he was forcing into this brief space of +years (he died at thirty-seven) more than the natural business of the +larger part of a long life; and one way of getting some kind of +clearness into it, is to distinguish the various divergent outlooks +or applications, and group the results of that immense intelligence, +that still untroubled, flawlessly operating, completely informed +understanding, that purely cerebral power, acting through his +executive, inventive or creative gifts, through the eye and the hand +with its command of visible colour and form. In that way you may +follow him along many various roads till brain and eye and hand +suddenly fail in the very midst of his work--along many various +roads, but you can follow him along each of them distinctly. + +At the end of one of them is the Galatea, and in quite a different +form of industry, the datum [54] for the beginnings of a great +literary work of pure erudition. Coming to the capital of +Christendom, he comes also for the first time under the full +influence of the antique world, pagan art, pagan life, and is +henceforth an enthusiastic archaeologist. On his first coming to +Rome a papal bull had authorised him to inspect all ancient marbles, +inscriptions, and the like, with a view to their adaptation in new +buildings then proposed. A consequent close acquaintance with +antiquity, with the very touch of it, blossomed literally in his +brain, and, under his facile hand, in artistic creations, of which +the Galatea is indeed the consummation. But the frescoes of the +Farnese palace, with a hundred minor designs, find their place along +that line of his artistic activity; they do not exhaust his knowledge +of antiquity, his interest in and control of it. The mere fragments +of it that still cling to his memory would have composed, had he +lived longer, a monumental illustrated survey of the monuments of +ancient Rome. + +To revive something of the proportionable spirit at least of antique +building in the architecture of the present, came naturally to +Raphael as the son of his age; and at the end of another of those +roads of diverse activity stands Saint Peter's, though unfinished. +What a proof again of that immense intelligence, by which, as I said, +the element of strength supplemented the element of mere sweetness +and charm in his [55] work, that at the age of thirty, known hitherto +only as a painter, at the dying request of the venerable Bramante +himself, he should have been chosen to succeed him as the director of +that vast enterprise! And if little in the great church, as we see +it, is directly due to him, yet we must not forget that his work in +the Vatican also was partly that of an architect. In the Loggie, or +open galleries of the Vatican, the last and most delicate effects of +Quattro-cento taste come from his hand, in that peculiar arabesque +decoration which goes by his name. + +Saint Peter's, as you know, had an indirect connexion with the +Teutonic reformation. When Leo X. pushed so far the sale of +indulgences to the overthrow of Luther's Catholicism, it was done +after all for the not entirely selfish purpose of providing funds to +build the metropolitan church of Christendom with the assistance of +Raphael; and yet, upon another of those diverse outways of his so +versatile intelligence, at the close of which we behold his +unfinished picture of the Transfiguration, what has been called +Raphael's Bible finds its place--that series of biblical scenes in +the Loggie of the Vatican. And here, while he has shown that he +could do something of Michelangelo's work a little more soothingly +than he, this graceful Roman Catholic rivals also what is perhaps +best in the work of the rude German reformer--of Luther, who came to +Rome about this very [56] time, to find nothing admirable there. +Place along with them the Cartoons, and observe that in this phase of +his artistic labour, as Luther printed his vernacular German version +of the Scriptures, so Raphael is popularising them for an even larger +world; he brings the simple, to their great delight, face to face +with the Bible as it is, in all its variety of incident, after they +had so long had to content themselves with but fragments of it, as +presented in the symbolism and in the brief lections of the Liturgy:- +-Biblia Pauperum, in a hundred forms of reproduction, though designed +for popes and princes. + +But then, for the wise, at the end of yet another of those divergent +ways, glows his painted philosophy in the Parnassus and the School of +Athens, with their numerous accessories. In the execution of those +works, of course, his antiquarian knowledge stood him in good stead; +and here, above all, is the pledge of his immense understanding, at +work on its own natural ground on a purely intellectual deposit, the +apprehension, the transmission to others of complex and difficult +ideas. We have here, in fact, the sort of intelligence to be found +in Lessing, in Herder, in Hegel, in those who, by the instrumentality +of an organised philosophic system, have comprehended in one view or +vision what poetry has been, or what Greek philosophy, as great +complex dynamic facts in the world. But then, with the artist of the +sixteenth century, [57] this synoptic intellectual power worked in +perfect identity with the pictorial imagination and a magic hand. By +him large theoretic conceptions are addressed, so to speak, to the +intelligence of the eye. There had been efforts at such abstract or +theoretic painting before, or say rather, leagues behind him. Modern +efforts, again, we know, and not in Germany alone, to do the like for +that larger survey of such matters which belongs to the philosophy of +our own century; but for one or many reasons they have seemed only to +prove the incapacity of philosophy to be expressed in terms of art. +They have seemed, in short, so far, not fit to be seen literally-- +those ideas of culture, religion, and the like. Yet Plato, as you +know, supposed a kind of visible loveliness about ideas. Well! in +Raphael, painted ideas, painted and visible philosophy, are for once +as beautiful as Plato thought they must be, if one truly apprehended +them. For note, above all, that with all his wealth of antiquarian +knowledge in detail, and with a perfect technique, it is after all +the beauty, the grace of poetry, of pagan philosophy, of religious +faith that he thus records. + +Of religious faith also. The Disputa, in which, under the form of a +council representative of all ages, he embodies the idea of theology, +divinarum rerum notitia, as constantly resident in the Catholic +Church, ranks with the "Parnassus" and the "School of Athens," if it +does not rather [58] close another of his long lines of intellectual +travail--a series of compositions, partly symbolic, partly +historical, in which the "Deliverance of St. Peter from Prison," the +"Expulsion of the Huns," and the "Coronation of Charlemagne," find +their places; and by which, painting in the great official chambers +of the Vatican, Raphael asserts, interprets the power and charm of +the Catholic ideal as realised in history. A scholar, a student of +the visible world, of the natural man, yet even more ardently of the +books, the art, the life of the old pagan world, the age of the +Renaissance, through all its varied activity, had, in spite of the +weakened hold of Catholicism on the critical intellect, been still +under its influence, the glow of it, as a religious ideal, and in the +presence of Raphael you cannot think it a mere after-glow. +Independently, that is, of less or more evidence for it, the whole +creed of the Middle Age, as a scheme of the world as it should be, as +we should be glad to find it, was still welcome to the heart, the +imagination. Now, in Raphael, all the various conditions of that age +discover themselves as characteristics of a vivid personal genius, +which may be said therefore to be conterminous with the genius of the +Renaissance itself. For him, then, in the breadth of his immense +cosmopolitan intelligence, for Raphael, who had done in part the work +of Luther also, the Catholic Church--through all its phases, as +reflected in its visible local centre, [59] the papacy--is alive +still as of old, one and continuous, and still true to itself. Ah! +what is local and visible, as you know, counts for so much with the +artistic temper! + +Old friends, or old foes with but new faces, events repeating +themselves, as his large, clear, synoptic vision can detect, the +invading King of France, Louis XII., appears as Attila: Leo X. as Leo +I.: and he thinks of, he sees, at one and the same moment, the +coronation of Charlemagne and the interview of Pope Leo with Francis +I., as a dutiful son of the Church: of the deliverance of Leo X. from +prison, and the deliverance of St. Peter. + +I have abstained from anything like description of Raphael's pictures +in speaking of him and his work, have aimed rather at preparing you +to look at his work for yourselves, by a sketch of his life, and +therein especially, as most appropriate to this place, of Raphael as +a scholar. And now if, in closing, I commend one of his pictures in +particular to your imagination or memory,, your purpose to see it, or +see it again, it will not be the Transfiguration nor the Sixtine +Madonna, nor even the "Madonna del Gran Duca," but the picture we +have in London--the Ansidei, or Blenheim, Madonna. I find there, at +first sight, with something of the pleasure one has in a proposition +of Euclid, a sense of the power of the understanding, in the economy +with which he has reduced his material to the [60] simplest terms, +has disentangled and detached its various elements. He is painting +in Florence, but for Perugia, and sends it a specimen of its own old +art--Mary and the babe enthroned, with St. Nicolas and the Baptist in +attendance on either side. The kind of thing people there had +already seen so many times, but done better, in a sense not to be +measured by degrees, with a wholly original freedom and life and +grace, though he perhaps is unaware, done better as a whole, because +better in every minute particular, than ever before. The scrupulous +scholar, aged twenty-three, is now indeed a master; but still goes +carefully. Note, therefore, how much mere exclusion counts for in +the positive effect of his work. There is a saying that the true +artist is known best by what he omits. Yes, because the whole +question of good taste is involved precisely in such jealous +omission. Note this, for instance, in the familiar Apennine +background, with its blue hills and brown towns, faultless, for once- +-for once only--and observe, in the Umbrian pictures around, how +often such background is marred by grotesque, natural, or +architectural detail, by incongruous or childish incident. In this +cool, pearl-grey, quiet place, where colour tells for double--the +jewelled cope, the painted book in the hand of Mary, the chaplet of +red coral--one is reminded that among all classical writers Raphael's +preference was for the faultless Virgil. How orderly, how divinely +[61] clean and sweet the flesh, the vesture, the floor, the earth and +sky! Ah, say rather the hand, the method of the painter! There is +an unmistakeable pledge of strength, of movement and animation in the +cast of the Baptist's countenance, but reserved, repressed. Strange, +Raphael has given him a staff of transparent crystal. Keep then to +that picture as the embodied formula of Raphael's genius. Amid all +he has here already achieved, full, we may think, of the quiet +assurance of what is to come, his attitude is still that of the +scholar; he seems still to be saying, before all things, from first +to last, "I am utterly purposed that I will not offend." + +NOTES + +38. *A lecture delivered to the University Extension Students, +Oxford, 2 August, 1892. Published in the Fortnightly Review, Oct. +1892, and now reprinted by the kind permission of the proprietors. + + + +PASCAL* + +[62] ABOUT the middle of the seventeenth century, two opposite views +of a question, upon which neither Scripture, nor Council, nor Pope, +had spoken with authority--the question as to the amount of freedom +left to man by the overpowering work of divine grace upon him--had +seemed likely for a moment to divide the Roman Church into two rival +sects. In the diocese of Paris, however, the controversy narrowed +itself into a mere personal quarrel between the Jesuit Fathers and +the religious community of Port-Royal, and might have been forgotten +but for the intervention of a new writer in whom French literature +made more than a new step. It became at once, as if by a new +creation, what it has remained--a pattern of absolutely unencumbered +expressiveness. + +In 1656 Pascal, then thirty-three years old, under the form of +"Letters to a Provincial by one of his Friends," put forth a series +of [63] pamphlets in which all that was vulnerable in the Jesuit +Fathers was laid bare to the profit of their opponents. At the +moment the quarrel turned on the proposed censure of Antoine Arnauld +by the Sorbonne, by the University of Paris as a religious body. +Pascal, intimate, like many another fine intellect of the day, with +the Port-Royalists, was Arnauld's friend, and it belonged to the +ardour of his genius, at least as he was then, to be a very active +friend. He took up the pen as other chivalrous gentlemen of the day +took up the sword, and showed himself a master of the art of fence +therewith. His delicate exercise of himself with that weapon was +nothing less than a revelation to all the world of the capabilities, +the true genius of the French language in prose. + +Those who think of Pascal in his final sanctity, his detachment of +soul from all but the greatest matters, may be surprised, when they +turn to the "Letters," to find him treating questions, as serious for +the friends he was defending as for their adversaries, ironically, +with a but half-veiled disdain for them, or an affected humility at +being unskilled in them and no theologian. He does not allow us to +forget that he is, after all, a layman; while he introduces us, +almost avowedly, into a world of unmeaning terms, and unreal +distinctions and suppositions that can never be verified. The world +in general, indeed, se paye des paroles. That saying belongs to +Pascal, and [64] he uses it with reference to the Jesuits and their +favourite expression of "sufficient grace." In the earliest +"Letters" he creates in us a feeling that, however orthodox one's +intention, it is scarcely possible to speak of the matters then so +abundantly discussed by religious people without heresy at some +unguarded point. The suspected proposition of Arnauld, it is +admitted by one of his foes, "would be Catholic in the mouth of any +one but M. Arnauld." "The truth," as it lay between Arnauld and his +opponents, is a thing so delicate that "pour peu qu'on s'en retire, +on tombe dans l'erreur; mais cette erreur est si deliee, que, pour +peu qu'on s'en eloigne, on se trouve dans la verite." + +Some, indeed, may find in the very delicacy, the curiosity, with +which such distinctions are drawn, by Pascal's friends as well as by +their foes, only the impertinence, the profanities, of the theologian +by profession, all too intimate in laying down the law of the things +he deals with--the things "which eye hath not seen" pressing into the +secrets of God's sublime commerce with men, in which, it may be, He +differs with every single human soul, by forms of thought adapted +from the poorest sort of men's dealings with each other, from the +trader, or the attorney. Pascal notes too the "impious buffooneries" +of his opponents. The good Fathers, perhaps, only meant them to +promote geniality of temper in the debate. But of such failures-- +failures of taste, of respect towards one's [65] own point of view-- +the world is ever unamiably aware; and in the "Letters" there is much +to move the self-complacent smile of the worldling, as Pascal +describes his experiences, while he went from one authority to +another to find out what was really meant by the distinction between +grace "sufficient," grace "efficacious," grace "active," grace +"victorious." He heard, for instance, that all men have sufficient +grace to do God's will; but it is not always prochain, not always at +hand, at the moment of temptation to do otherwise. So far, then, +Pascal's charges are those which may seem to lie ready to hand +against all who study theology, a looseness of thought and language, +that would pass nowhere else, in making what are professedly very +fine distinctions; the insincerity with which terms are carefully +chosen to cover opposite meanings; the fatuity with which opposite +meanings revolve into one another, in the strange vacuous atmosphere +generated by professional divines. + +Up to this point, you see, Pascal is the countryman of Rabelais and +Montaigne, smiling with the fine malice of the one, laughing outright +with the gaiety of the other, all the world joining in the laugh-- +well, at the silliness of the clergy, who seem indeed not to know +their own business. It is we, the laity, he would urge, who are +serious, and disinterested, because sincerely interested, in these +great questionings. Jalousie de metier, the reader may suspect, has +something to do with [66] the Professional leaders on both sides of +the controversy; but at the actual turn controversy took just then, +it was against the Jesuit Fathers that Pascal's charges came home in +full force. And their sin is above all that sin, unpardonable with +men of the world sans peur et sans reproche, of a lack of self- +respect, sins against pride, if the paradox may be allowed, all the +undignified faults, in a word, of essentially little people when they +interfere in great matters--faults promoted in the direction of the +consciences of women and children, weak concessions to weak people +who want to be saved in some easy way quite other than Pascal's high, +fine, chivalrous way of gaining salvation, an incapacity to say what +one thinks with the glove thrown down. He supposes a Jansenist to +turn upon his opponent who uses the term "sufficient" grace, while +really meaning, as he alleges, insufficient, with the words:--"Your +explanation would be odious to men of the world. They speak more +sincerely than you on matters of far less importance than this." +With the world, Pascal, in the "Provincial Letters," had immediate +success. "All the world," we read in his friend's supposed reply to +the second "Letter," "sees them; all the world understands them. Men +of the world find them agreeable, and even women intelligible." A +century later Voltaire found them very agreeable. The spirit in +which Pascal deals with his opponents, his irony, may remind us of +the "Apology" of [67] Socrates; the style which secured them +immediate access to people who, as a rule, find the subjects there +treated hopelessly dry, reminds us of the "Apologia" of Newman. + +The essence of all good style, whatever its accidents may be, is +expressiveness. It is mastered in proportion to the justice, the +nicety with which words balance or match their meaning, and their +writer succeeds in saying what he wills, grave or gay, severe or +florid, simple or complex. Pascal was a master of style because, as +his sister tells us, recording his earliest years, he had a wonderful +natural facility a dire ce qu'il voulait en la maniere qu'il voulait. + +Facit indignatio versus. The indignation which caused Pascal to +write the "Letters" was of a supercilious kind, and what he willed to +say in them led to the development of all those qualities that are +summed up in the French term l'esprit. Voltaire declared that the +best comedies of Moliere n'ont pas plus de sel que les premieres +lettres. "Vos maximes," Pascal assures the Jesuit Fathers, "ont je +ne sais quoi de divertissant, qui rejouit toujours le monde," and +they lose nothing of that character in his handling of them, so much +so that it was clear from the first that the world in general would +never ask whether Pascal had been quite fair to his opponents: +"N'etes-vous donc pas ridicules, mes Peres? Qu'on satisfait au +precepte d'ouir la messe en entendant quatre quarts de messe a la +fois de differents pretres!" When [68] you have the like of that it +is impossible not to laugh, parce que rien n'y porte davantage qu'une +disproportion surprenante entre ce qu'on attend et ce qu'on voit. + +He has "salt" also, of another kind. He drives straight at the +Jesuits, for instance, rather than at those who do but copy them, +because, as he tells us: Les choses valent toujours mieux dans leur +source. What equity of expression, how brief, how untranslateable! +And the "Letters" abound in such things. + +But to his comparison of Pascal with Moliere, Voltaire added that +Bossuet n'a rien de plus sublime que les dernieres. And in truth the +more serious note of the impassioned servant of religion whose lips +have been touched with altar-fire, whose seriousness came to be like +some incurable malady, a visitation of God, as people used to say, is +presently struck when, in the natural course of his argument, his +thoughts are carried, from a mere passage of arms between one man or +one class of men and another, deep down to those awful encounters of +the individual soul with itself which are formulated in the eternal +problem of predestination. + +In their doctrine of "sufficient grace" the Jesuits had presented a +view of the conflict of good and evil in the soul, which is +honourable to God and encouraging to man, and which has catholicity +on its face. All to whom entrance into the Church, through its +formal ministries, [69] lies open are truly called of God, while +beyond it stretches the ocean of "His uncovenanted mercies." That is +a doctrine for the many, for those whose position in the religious +life is mediocrity, who so far as themselves or others can discern +have nothing about them of eternal or necessary or irresistible +reprobation, or of the eternal condition opposite to that. + +The so-called Jansenist doctrine, on the other hand, of [ ]+ but +irresistible grace was the appropriate view of the Port-Royalists, +high-pitched, eager souls as they were, and of their friend Pascal +himself, however much in his turn he might refine upon it. Whether +or not, as a matter of fact, upon which, as distinct from matters of +faith, an infallible pope can be mistaken, the dreary old Dutch +bishop Jansenius had really taught Jansenism, the Port-Royalists had +found in his "Augustinus" an incentive to devotion, and were avowedly +his adherents. In that somewhat gloomy, that too deeply impressed, +that fanatical age, they were the Calvinists of the Roman Catholic +Church, maintaining, emphasising in it a view, a tradition, really +constant in it from St. Augustin, from St. Paul himself. It is a +merit of Pascal, his literary merit, to have given a very fine-toned +expression to that doctrine, though mainly in the way of a criticism +of its opponents, to one side or aspect of an eternal controversy, +eternally suspended, as representing two opposite aspects of +experience [70] itself. Calvin and Arminius, Jansen and Molina sum +up, in fact, respectively, like the respective adherents of the +freedom or of the necessity of the human will, in the more general +question of moral philosophy, two opposed, two counter trains of +phenomena actually observable by us in human action, too large and +complex a matter, as it is, to be embodied or summed up in any one +single proposition or idea. + +There are moments of one's own life, aspects of the life of others, +of which the conclusion that the will is free seems to be the only-- +is the natural or reasonable--account. Yet those very moments on +reflexion, on second thoughts, present themselves again, as but links +in a chain, in an all-embracing network of chains. In all education +we assume, in some inexplicable combination, at once the freedom and +the necessity of the subject of it. And who on a survey of life from +outside would willingly lose the dramatic contrasts, the alternating +interests, for which the opposed ideas of freedom and necessity are +our respective points of view? How significant become the details we +might otherwise pass by almost unobserved, but to which we are put on +the alert by the abstract query whether a man be indeed a freeman or +a slave, as we watch from aside his devious course, his struggles, +his final tragedy or triumph. So much value at least there may be in +problems insoluble in themselves, such as that great controversy of +Pascal's day [71] between Jesuit and Jansenist. And here again who +would forego, in the spectacle of the religious history of the human +soul, the aspects, the details which the doctrines of universal and +particular grace respectively embody? The Jesuit doctrine of +sufficient grace is certainly, to use the familiar expression, a very +pleasant doctrine conducive to the due feeding of the whole flock of +Christ, as being, as assuming them to be, what they really are, at +the worst, God's silly sheep. It has something in it congruous with +the rising of the physical sun on the evil and on the good, while the +wheat and the tares grow naturally, peacefully together. But how +pleasant also the opposite doctrine, how true, how truly descriptive +of certain distinguished, magnifical, or elect souls, vessels of +election, epris des hauteurs, as we see them pass across the world's +stage, as if led on by a kind of thirst for God! Its necessary +counterpart, of course, we may find, at least dramatically true of +some; we can name them in history, perhaps from our own experience; +souls of whom it seems but an obvious story to tell that they seemed +to be in love with eternal death, to have borne on them from the +first signs of reprobation. Of certain quite visibly elect souls, at +all events, the theory of irresistible grace might seem the almost +necessary explanation. Most reasonable, most natural, most truly is +it descriptive of Pascal himself. + +[72] So far, indeed, up to the year 1656, Pascal's annus mirabilis, +the year of the "Letters," the world had been allowed to see only one +side of him. Early in life he had achieved brilliant overtures in +the abstract sciences, and, inheriting much of the quality of a fine +gentleman, he figures, with his trenchant manner, never at a loss, as +a quite secular person, stirred on occasion to take part in a +religious debate. But it is after the grand fashion of the mundane +quarrels of that day, the age of the sentiment of personal honour, in +which it was so natural for the good-natured Jesuits, stirring all +Pascal's satiric power, to excuse as well as they could the act de +tuer pour un simple medisance. The Church was still an estate of the +realm with all the obligations of the noblesse, and it was still +something worse than bad taste, it was dangerous to express religious +doubts. About the Catholic religion, as he conceived it, Pascal +displays the assured attitude of an ancient Crusader. He has the +full courage of his opinions, and by his elegant easy gallantry in +speaking for it he gives to religion then and now a kind of dignity +it had lost with other controversialists in the eyes of the world. +There is abundant gaiety also in the "Letters." He quotes from +Tertullian to the effect that c'est proprement a la verite qu'il +appartient de rire parce qu'elle est gaie, et de se jouer de ses +ennemis parce qu'elle est assuree de sa victoire. For he could find +quotations to his purpose from recondite writers, [73] though he was +not a man of erudition; like a man of the world again, he read +little, but that absorbingly, was the master of two authors, +Epictetus and Montaigne, and, as appeared afterwards, of the +Scriptures in the Vulgate. + +So far, his imposing carriage of himself intellectually might lead us +to suspect that the forced humilities of his later years are +indirectly a discovery of what seems one leading quality of the +natural man in him, a pride that could be quite fierce on occasion. +And, like another rich young man whom Jesus loved, he lacked nothing +to make the world also love and confide in, as it already flattered, +him. He turned from it, decided to live a single life. Was it the +mere oddity of genius? Or its last fine dainty touch of difference +from ordinary people and their motives? Or that sanctity of which, +in some cases, the world itself instinctively feels the distinction, +though it shrinks from the true explanation of it? Certainly, all +things considered, on the morrow of the "Letters," Blaise Pascal, at +the age of thirty-three, had a brilliant worldly future before him, +had he cared duly to wait upon, to serve it. To develop the already +considerable position of his family among the gentry of Auvergne +would have been to follow the way of his time, in which so many noble +names had been founded on professional talents. Increasingly, +however, from early youth, he had been the subject of a malady so +hopeless [74] and inexplicable that in that superstitious age some +fancied it the result of a malign spell in infancy. Gradually, the +world almost loses sight of him, hears at last, some time after it +had looked for that event, that he had died, of course very piously, +among those sombre people, his friends and relations of Port-Royal, +with whom he had taken refuge, and seemed already to have been buried +alive. And in the year 1670, not till eight years after his death, +the "Pensees" appeared--"Pensees de M. Pascal sur la Religion et sur +quelques autres sujets"--or rather a selection from those "Thoughts" +by the Port-Royalists, still in fear of consequences to the +struggling Jansenist party, anxious to present Pascal's doctrine as +far as possible in conformity with the Jesuit sense, as also to +divert the vaguer parts of it more entirely into their own. The +incomparable words were altered, the order changed or lost, the +thoughts themselves omitted or retrenched. Written in short +intervals of relief from suffering, they were contributions to a +large and methodical work--"Pensees de M. Pascal sur la Religion et +sur quelques autres sujets"--on a good many things besides, as the +reader finds, on many of the great things of this world which seemed +to him to come in contact or competition with religion. In the true +version of the "Thoughts," edited at last by Faugere, in 1844, from +Pascal's own MSS., in the National Library, they group themselves +into certain definite trains [75] of speculation and study. But it +is still, nevertheless, as isolated thoughts, as inspirations, so to +call them, penetrating what seemed hopelessly dark, summarising what +seemed hopelessly confused, sticking fast in men's memories, floating +lightly, or going far, that they have left so deep a mark in +literature. For again the manner, also, their style precisely +becomes them. The merits of Pascal's style, indeed, as of the French +language itself, still is to say beaucoup de choses en peu de mots; +and the brevity, the discerning edge, the impassioned concentration +of the language are here one with the ardent immediate apprehensions +of his spirit. + +One of the literary merits of the "Provincial Letters" is that they +are really like letters; they are essentially a conversation by +writing with other persons. What we have in the "Thoughts" is the +conversation of the writer with himself, with himself and with God, +or rather concerning Him, for He is, in Pascal's favourite phrase +from the Vulgate, Deus absconditus, He who never directly shows +Himself. Choses de coeur the "Thoughts" are, indeed those of an +individual, though they seem to have determined the very outlines of +a great subject for all other persons. In Pascal, at the summit of +the Puy de Dome in his native Auvergne, experimenting on the weight +of the invisible air, proving it to be ever all around by its +effects, we are presented with one of the more pleasing [76] aspects +of his earlier, more wholesome, open-air life. In the great work of +which the "Thoughts" are the first head, Pascal conceived himself to +be doing something of the same kind in the spiritual order by a +demonstration of this other invisible world all around us, with its +really ponderable forces, its movement, its attractions and +repulsions, the world of grace, unseen, but, as he thinks, the one +only hypothesis that can explain the experienced, admitted facts. +Whether or not he was fixing permanently in the "Pensees" the +outlines, the principles, of a great system of assent, of conviction, +for acceptance by the intellect, he was certainly fixing these with +all the imaginative depth and sufficiency of Shakespeare himself, the +fancied opposites, the attitudes, the necessary forms of pathos,+ of a +great tragedy in the heart, the soul, the essential human tragedy, as +typical and central in its expression here, as Hamlet--what the soul +passes, and must pass, through, aux abois with nothingness, or with +those offended mysterious powers that may really occupy it--or when +confronted with the thought of what are called the "four last things" +it yields this way or that. What might have passed with all its +fiery ways for an esprit de secte et de cabale is now revealed amid +the disputes not of a single generation but of eternal ones, by the +light of a phenomenal storm of blinding and blasting inspirations. + +[77] Observe, he is not a sceptic converted, a returned infidel, but +is seen there as if at the very centre of a perpetually maintained +tragic crisis holding the faith steadfastly, but amid the well-poised +points of essential doubt all around him and it. It is no mere calm +supersession of a state of doubt by a state of faith; the doubts +never die, they are only just kept down in a perpetual agonia. +Everywhere in the "Letters" he had seemed so great a master--a master +of himself--never at a loss, taking the conflict so lightly, with so +light a heart: in the great Atlantean travail of the "Thoughts" his +feet sometimes "are almost gone." In his soul's agony, theological +abstractions seem to become personal powers. It was as if just below +the surface of the green undulations, the stately woods, of his own +strange country of Auvergne, the volcanic fires had suddenly +discovered themselves anew. In truth into his typical diagnosis, as +it may seem, of the tragedy of the human soul, there have passed not +merely the personal feelings, the temperament of an individual, but +his malady also, a physical malady. Great genius, we know, has the +power of elevating, transmuting, serving itself by the accidental +conditions about it, however unpromising--poverty, and the like. It +was certainly so with Pascal's long-continued physical sufferings. +That aigreur, which is part of the native colour of Pascal's genius, +is reinforced in the [78] "Pensees" by insupportable languor, +alternating with supportable pain, as he died little by little +through the eight years of their composition. They are essentially +the utterance of a soul malade--a soul of great genius, whose malady +became a new quality of that genius, perfecting it thus, by its very +defect, as a type on the intellectual stage, and thereby guiding, +reassuring sympathetically, manning by a sense of good company that +large class of persons who are malade in the same way. "La maladie +est l'etat naturel des Chretiens," says Pascal himself. And we +concede that every one of us more or less is ailing thus, as another +has told us that life itself is a disease of the spirit. + +From Port-Royal also came, about the year 1670, a painful book, the +"Life of Pascal," a portrait painted slowly from the life or living +death, but with an almost exclusive preference for traits expressive +of disease. The post-mortem examination of Pascal's brain revealed, +we are now told, the secret, not merely of that long prostration, +those sudden passing torments, but of something analogous to them in +Pascal's genius and work. Well! the light cast indirectly on the +literary work of Pascal by Mme. Perier's "Life" is of a similar kind. +It is a veritable chapter in morbid pathology, though it may have +truly a beauty for experts, the beauty which belongs to all refined +cases even of cerebral disturbance. That he should [79] have sought +relief from his singular wretchedness, in that sombre company, is +like the second stroke of tragedy upon him. At moments Pascal +becomes almost a sectarian, and seems to pass out of the genial broad +heaven of the Catholic Church. He had lent himself in those last +years to a kind of pieties which do not make a winning picture, which +always have about them, even when they show themselves in men +physically strong, something of the small compass of the sick- +chamber. His medieval or oriental self-tortures, all the painful +efforts at absolute detachment, a perverse asceticism taking all +there still was to spare from the denuded and suffering body, might +well, you may think, have died with him, but are here recorded, +chiefly by way of showing the world, the Jesuits, that the +Jansenists, too, had a saint quite after their mind. + +But though, at first sight, you may find a pettiness in those minute +pieties, they have their signification as a testimony to the +wholeness of Pascal's assent, the entirety of his submission, his +immense sincerity, the heroic grandeur of his achieved faith. The +seventeenth century presents survivals of the gloomy mental habits of +the Middle Age, but for the most part of a somewhat theatrical kind, +imitations of Francis and Dominic or of their earlier imitators. In +Pascal they are original, and have all their seriousness. Que je +n'en sois [80] jamais separe--pas separe eternellement, he repeats, +or makes that strange sort of MS. amulet, of which his sister tells +us, repeat for him. Cast me not away from Thy presence; and take not +Thy Holy Spirit from me. It is table rase he is trying to make of +himself, that He might reign there absolutely alone, who, however, as +he was bound to think, had made and blest all those things he +declined to accept. Deeper and deeper, then, he retreated into the +renuncient life. He could not, had he wished, deprive himself of +that his greatest gift--literally a gift he might have thought it not +to be buried but accounted for--the gift of le beau dire, of writing +beautifully. "Il avoit renonce depuis longtemps aux sciences +purement humains." To him who had known them so well, and as if by +intuition, those abstract and perdurable forms of service might well +have seemed a part of "the Lord's doing, marvellous in our eyes," as +his favourite Psalm cxix., the psalm des petites heures, the cxviii. +of the Vulgate, says.* These, too, he counts now as but a variety of +le neant and vanity of things. He no longer records, therefore, the +mathematical apercus that may visit him; and in his scruples, his +suspicions of' visible beauty, he interests us as precisely an +inversion of what is called the aesthetic life. + +[81] Yet his faith, as in the days of the Middle Age, had been +supported, rewarded, by what he believed to be visible miracle among +the strange lights and shades of that retired place. Pascal's niece, +the daughter of Madame Perier, a girl ten years of age, suffered from +a disease of the eyes pronounced to be incurable. The disease was a +peculiarly distressing one, the sort of affliction which, falling on +a young child, may lead one to question the presence of divine +justice in the world, makes one long that miracles were possible. +Well! Pascal, for one, believed that on occasion that profound +aspiration had been followed up by the power desired. A thorn from +the crown of Jesus, as was believed, had been lately brought to the +Port-Royal du Faubourg S. Jacques in Paris, and was one day applied +devoutly to the eye of the suffering child. What followed was an +immediate and complete cure, fully attested by experts. Ah! Thou +hast given him his heart's desire: and hast not denied him the +request of his lips. Pascal, and the young girl herself, faithfully +to the end of a long life, believed the circumstances to have been +miraculous. Otherwise, we do not see that Pascal was ever permitted +to enjoy (so to speak) the religion for which he had exchanged so +much; that the sense of acceptance, of assurance, had come to him; +that for him the Spouse had ever penetrated the veil of the ordinary +routine of the means of grace; [82] nothing that corresponded as a +matter of clear personal intercourse of the very senses to the +greatness of his surrender--who had emptied himself of all other +things. Besides, there was some not wholly-explained delay in his +reception, in those his last days, of the Sacrament. It was brought +to him just in time--"Voici celui que vous avez tant desire!"--the +ministrant says to the dying man. Pascal was then aged thirty-nine-- +an age you may remember fancifully noted as fatal to genius. + +Pascal's "Thoughts," then, we shall not rightly measure but as the +outcome, the utterance, of a soul diseased, a soul permanently ill at +ease. We find in their constant tension something of insomnia, of +that sleeplessness which can never be a quite healthful condition of +mind in a human body. Sometimes they are cries, cries of obscure +pain rather than thoughts--those great fine sayings which seem to +betray by their depth of sound the vast unseen hollow places of +nature, of humanity, just beneath one's feet or at one's side. +Reading them, so modern still are those thoughts, so rich and various +in suggestion, that one seems to witness the mental seed-sowing of +the next two centuries, and perhaps more, as to those matters with +which he concerns himself. Intuitions of a religious genius, they +may well be taken also as the final considerations of the natural +man, as a religious inquirer on doubt and faith, and their place in +[83] things. Listen now to some of these "Thoughts" taken at random: +taken at first for their brevity. Peu de chose nous console, parce +que peu de chose nous afflige. Par l'espace l'univers me comprend et +m'engloutit comme un point: par la pensee je le comprends. Things +like these put us en route with Pascal. Toutes les bonnes maximes +sont dans le monde: on ne manque que de les appliquer. The great +ascetic was always hard on amusements, on mere pastimes: Le +divertissement nous amuse, one and all of us, et nous fait arriver +insensiblement a la mort. Nous perdons encore la vie avec joie, +pourvu qu'on en parle. On ne peut faire une bonne physionomie (in a +portrait) qu'en accordant toutes nos contrarietes. L'homme n'est +qu'un roseau, le plus foible de la nature, mais c'est un roseau +pensant. Il ne faut pas que l'univers entier s'arme pour l'ecraser. +Une vapeur, une goutte d'eau, suffit pour le tuer. Mais quand +l'univers l'ecraseroit, l'homme seroit encore plus noble que se qui +le tue, parce qu'il sait qu'il meurt, et l'avantage que l'univers a +sur lui, l'univers n'en sait rien. It is not thought by which that +excels, but the convincing force of imagination which sublimates its +very triteness. Toute notre dignite consiste donc en la pensee. + +There, then, you have at random the sort of stuff of which the +"Pensees" are made. Let me now briefly indicate, also by quotation +again, some of the main leading tendencies in them. La chose la plus +importante a toute la vie c'est la [84] choix du metier: le hasard en +dispose. There we recognise the manner of thought of Montaigne. Now +one of the leading interests in the study of Pascal is to trace the +influence upon him of the typical sceptic of the preceding century. +Pascal's "Thoughts" we shall never understand unless we realise the +under-texture in them of Montaigne's very phrases, the fascination +the "Essays" had for Pascal in his capacity of one of the children of +light, as giving a veritable compte rendu of the Satanic course of +this world since the Fall, set forth with all the persuasiveness, the +power and charm, all the gifts of Satan, the veritable light on +things he has at his disposal. + +Pascal re-echoes Montaigne then in asserting the paradoxical +character of man and his experience. The old headings under which +the Port-Royalist editors grouped the "Thoughts" recall the titles of +Montaigne's "Essays"--"Of the Disproportion of Man," and the like. As +strongly as Montaigne he delights in asserting the relative, local, +ephemeral and merely provisional character of our ideas of law, vice, +virtue, happiness, and so forth. Comme la mode fait l'agrement aussi +fait-elle la justice. La justice et la verite sont deux pointes si +subtiles, que nos instruments sont trop mousses pour y toucher +exactement. Bien suivant la seule raison n'est juste de soi: tout +branle avec le temps. Sometimes he strikes the express accent of +Montaigne: Ceux qui sont dans un vaisseau croient que ceux qui sont +[85] au bord fuient. Le langage est pareil de tous cotes. Il faut +avoir un point fixe pour en juger. Le port juge ceux qui sont dans +un vaisseau, mais ou prendrons-nous un port dans la morale? At times +he seems to forget that he himself and Montaigne are after all not of +the same flock, as his mind grazes in those pleasant places. Qu'il +(man) se regarde comme egare dans ce canton detourne de la nature, et +de ce petit cachot ou il se trouve loge, qu'il apprenne the earth, et +soi-meme a son juste prix. Il ffre, mais elle est ployable a tous +sens; et ainsi il n'y en a point. Un meme sens change selon les +paroles qui l'expriment. He has touches even of what he calls the +malignity, the malign irony of Montaigne. Rien que la mediocrite +n'est bon, he says,--epris des hauteurs, as he so conspicuously was-- +C'est sortir de l'humanite que de sortir du milieu; la grandeur de +l'ame humaine consiste a savoir s'y tenir. Rien ne fortifie plus le +pyrrhonisme--that is ever his word for scepticism--que ce qu'il y en +a qui ne sont pas pyrrhoniens: si tous etaient ils auraient tort. +You may even credit him, like Montaigne, with a somewhat Satanic +intimacy with the ways, the cruel ways, the weakness, lachete, of the +human heart, so that, as he says of Montaigne, himself too might be a +pernicious study for those who have a native tendency to corruption. + +The paradoxical condition of the world, the natural inconsistency of +man, his strange [86] blending of meanness with ancient greatness, +the caprices of his status here, of his power and attainments, in the +issue of his existence--that is what the study of Montaigne had +enforced on Pascal as the sincere compte rendu of experience. But +then he passes at a tangent from the circle of the great sceptic's +apprehension. That prospect of man and the world, undulant, +capricious, inconsistent, contemptible, lache, full of contradiction, +with a soul of evil in things good, irreducible to law, upon which, +after all, Montaigne looks out with a complacency so entire, fills +Pascal with terror. It is the world on the morrow of a great +catastrophe, the casual forces of which have by no means spent +themselves. Yes! this world we see, of which we are a part, with its +thousand dislocations, is precisely what we might expect as resultant +from the Fall of Man, with consequences in full working still. It +presents the appropriate aspect of a lost world, though with beams of +redeeming grace about it, those, too, distributed somewhat +capriciously to chosen people and elect souls, who, after all, can +have but an ill time of it here. Under the tragic eclairs of divine +wrath essentially implacable, the gentle, pleasantly undulating, +sunny, earthly prospect of poor loveable humanity which opens out for +one in Montaigne's "Essays," becomes for Pascal a scene of harsh +precipices, of threatening heights and depths--the depths of his own +nothingness. Vanity: nothingness: these [87] are his catchwords: +Nous sommes incapables et du vrai et du bien; nous sommes tous +condamnes. Ce qui y parait (i.e., what we see in the world) ne +marque ni une exclusion totale ni une presence manifeste de divinite, +mais la presence d'un Dieu qui se cache: (Deus absconditus, that is a +recurrent favourite thought of his) tout porte ce caractere. In this +world of abysmal dilemmas, he is ready to push all things to their +extremes. All or nothing; for him real morality will be nothing +short of sanctity. En Jesus Christ toutes les contradictions sont +accordees. Yet what difficulties again in the religion of Christ! +Nulle autre religion n'a propose de se hair. La seule religion +contraire a la nature, contraire au sens commun, est la seule qui ait +toujours ete. + +Multitudes in every generation have felt at least the aesthetic charm +of the rites of the Catholic Church. For Pascal, on the other hand, +a certain weariness, a certain puerility, a certain unprofitableness +in them is but an extra trial of faith. He seems to have little +sense of the beauty of holiness. And for his sombre, trenchant, +precipitous philosophy there could be no middle terms; irresistible +election, irresistible reprobation; only sometimes extremes meet, and +again it may be the trial of faith that the justified seem as +loveless and unlovely as the reprobate. Abetissez-vous! A nature, +you may think, that would magnify things to the utmost, nurse, expand +them beyond their natural bounds by his [88] reflex action upon them. +Thus revelation is to be received on evidence, indeed, but an +evidence conclusive only on a presupposition or series of +presuppositions, evidence that is supplemented by an act of +imagination, or by the grace of faith, shall we say? At any rate, +the fact is, that the genius of the great reasoner, of this great +master of the abstract and deductive sciences, turned theologian, +carrying the methods of thought there formed into the things of +faith, was after all of the imaginative order. Now hear what he says +of imagination: Cette faculte trompeuse, qui semble nous etre donnee +expres pour nous induire a une erreur necessaire. That has a sort of +necessity in it. What he says has again the air of Montaigne, and he +says much of the same kind: Cette superbe puissance ennemie de la +raison, combien toutes les richesses de la terre sont insuffisantes +sans son consentement. The imagination has the disposition of all +things: Elle fait la beaute, la justice, et le bonheur, qui est le +tout du monde. L'imagination dispose de tout. And what we have here +to note is its extraordinary power in himself. Strong in him as the +reasoning faculty, so to speak, it administered the reasoning faculty +in him a son grbut he was unaware of it, that power d'autant plus +fourbe qu'elle ne l'est pas toujours. Hidden under the apparent +rigidity of his favourite studies, imagination, even in them, played +a large part. Physics, mathematics were with him largely matters of +intuition, anticipation, [89] precocious discovery, short cuts, +superb guessing. It was the inventive element in his work and his +way of putting things that surprised those best able to judge. He +might have discovered the mathematical sciences for himself, it is +alleged, had his father, as he once had a mind to do, withheld him +from instruction in them. + +About the time when he was bidding adieu to the world, Pascal had an +accident. As he drove round a corner on the Seine side to cross the +bridge at Neuilly, the horses were precipitated down the bank into +the water. Pascal escaped, but with a nervous shock, a certain +hallucination, from which he never recovered. As he walked or sat he +was apt to perceive a yawning depth beside him; would set stick or +chair there to reassure himself. We are now told, indeed, that that +circumstance has been greatly exaggerated. But how true to Pascal's +temper, as revealed in his work, that alarmed precipitous character +in it! Intellectually the abyss was evermore at his side. Nous +avons, he observes, un autre principe d'erreur, les maladies. Now in +him the imagination itself was like a physical malady, troubling, +disturbing, or in active collusion with it. . . . + +NOTES + +62. *Published in the Contemporary Review, Feb. 1895, and now +reprinted by the kind permission of the proprietors. + +76. +Transliteration: pathos. + +80. *The words here cited are, however, from Psalm cxviii., the +cxvii. of the Vulgate, and not from Pascal's favourite Psalm. +(C.L.S.) +C.L.S. stands for Charles Shadwell, editor of the original +volume. + + + +ART NOTES IN NORTH ITALY* + +[90] TITIAN, as we see him in what some have thought his noblest +work, the large altar-piece, dated 1522, his forty-fifth year, of SS. +Nazaro e Celso, at Brescia, is certainly a religious--a great, +religious painter. The famous Gabriel of the Annunciation, aflight, +in all the effortless energy of an angel indeed, and Sebastian, +adapted, it was said, from an ancient statue, yet as novel in design +as if Titian had been the first to handle that so familiar figure in +old religious art--may represent for us a vast and varied amount of +work--in which he expands to their utmost artistic compass the +earlier religious dreams of Mantegna and the Bellini, affording +sufficient proof how sacred themes could rouse his imagination, and +all his manual skill, to heroic efforts. But he is also the painter +of the Venus of the Tribune and the Triumph of Bacchus; and such +frank acceptance of the voluptuous paganism of the Renaissance, the +motive of a large proportion of his work, [91] might make us think +that religion, grandly dramatic as was his conception of it, can have +been for him only one of many pictorial attitudes. There are however +painters of that date who, while their work is great enough to be +connected (perhaps groundlessly) with Titian's personal influence, or +directly attributed to his hand, possess at least this psychological +interest, that about their religiousness there can be no question. +Their work is to be looked for mainly in and about the two sub-alpine +towns of Brescia and Bergamo; in the former of which it becomes +definable as a school--the school of Moretto, in whom the perfected +art of the later Renaissance is to be seen in union with a +catholicism as convinced, towards the middle of the sixteenth +century, as that of Giotto or Angelico. + +Moretto of Brescia, for instance, is one of the few painters who have +fully understood the artistic opportunities of the subject of Saint +Paul, for whom, for the most part, art has found only the +conventional trappings of a Roman soldier (a soldier, as being in +charge of those prisoners to Damascus), or a somewhat commonplace old +age. Moretto also makes him a nobly accoutred soldier--the rim of +the helmet, thrown backward in his fall to the earth, rings the head +already with a faint circle of glory--but a soldier still in +possession of all those resources of unspoiled youth which he is +ready to offer in a [92] moment to the truth that has just dawned +visibly upon him. The terrified horse, very grandly designed, leaps +high against the suddenly darkened sky above the distant horizon of +Damascus, with all Moretto's peculiar understanding of the power of +black and white. But what signs the picture inalienably as Moretto's +own is the thought of the saint himself, at the moment of his +recovery from the stroke of Heaven. The pure, pale, beardless face, +in noble profile, might have had for its immediate model some +military monk of a later age, yet it breathes all the joy and +confidence of the Apostle who knows in a single flash of time that he +has found the veritable captain of his soul. It is indeed the Paul +whose genius of conviction has so greatly moved the minds of men--the +soldier who, bringing his prisoners "bound to Damascus," is become +the soldier of Jesus Christ. + +Moretto's picture has found its place (in a dark recess, alas!) in +the Church of Santa Maria presso San Celso, in the suburbs of Milan, +hard by the site of the old Roman cemetery, where Ambrose, at a +moment when in one of his many conflicts a "sign" was needed, found +the bodies of Nazarus and Celsus, youthful patrician martyrs in the +reign of Nero, overflowing now with miraculous powers, their blood +still fresh upon them--conspersa recenti sanguine. The body of Saint +Nazarus he removed into the city: that of Saint Celsus remained +within the little sanctuary [93] which still bears his name, and +beside which, in the fifteenth century, arose the glorious Church of +the Madonna, with spacious atrium after the Ambrosian manner, a +facade richly sculptured in the style of the Renaissance, and +sumptuously adorned within. Behind the massive silver tabernacle of +the altar of the miraculous picture which gave its origin to this +splendid building, the rare visitor, peeping as into some sacred +bird-nest, detects one of the loveliest works of Luini, a small, but +exquisitely finished "Holy Family." Among the fine pictures around +are works by two other very notable religious painters of the cinque- +cento. Both alike, Ferrari and Borgognone, may seem to have +introduced into fiery Italian latitudes a certain northern +temperature, and somewhat twilight, French, or Flemish, or German, +thoughts. Ferrari, coming from the neighbourhood of Varallo, after +work at Vercelli and Novara, returns thither to labour, as both +sculptor and painter, in the "stations" of the Sacro Monte, at a form +of religious art which would seem to have some natural kinship with +the temper of a mountain people. It is as if the living actors in +the "Passion Play" of Oberammergau had been transformed into almost +illusive groups in painted terra-cotta. The scenes of the Last +Supper, of the Martyrdom of the Innocents, of the Raising of Jairus' +daughter, for instance, are certainly touching in the naive piety of +their life-sized realism. But Gaudenzio Ferrari had many [94] +helpmates at the Sacro Monte; and his lovelier work is in the +Franciscan Church at the foot of the hill, and in those two, truly +Italian, far-off towns of the Lombard plain. Even in his great, +many-storied fresco in the Franciscan Church at Varallo there are +traces of a somewhat barbaric hankering after solid form; the armour +of the Roman soldiers, for example, is raised and gilt. It is as if +this serious soul, going back to his mountain home, had lapsed again +into mountain "grotesque," with touches also, in truth, of a +peculiarly northern poetry--a mystic poetry, which now and again, in +his treatment, for instance, of angel forms and faces, reminds one of +Blake. There is something of it certainly in the little white +spectral soul of the penitent thief making its escape from the +dishonoured body along the beam of his cross. + +The contrast is a vigorous one when, in the space of a few hours, the +traveller finds himself at Vercelli, half-stifled in its thick +pressing crop of pumpkins and mulberry trees. The expression of the +prophet occurs to him: "A lodge in a garden of cucumbers." Garden of +cucumbers and half-tropical flowers, it has invaded the quiet open +spaces of the town. Search through them, through the almost +cloistral streets, for the Church of the Umiliati; and there, amid +the soft garden-shadows of the choir, you may find the sentiment of +the neighbourhood expressed with great refinement in what is perhaps +[95] the masterpiece of Ferrari, "Our Lady of the Fruit-garden," as +we might say--attended by twelve life-sized saints and the monkish +donors of the picture. The remarkable proportions of the tall panel, +up which the green-stuff is climbing thickly above the mitres and +sacred garniture of those sacred personages, lend themselves +harmoniously to the gigantic stature of Saint Christopher in the +foreground as the patron saint of the church. With the savour of +this picture in his memory, the visitor will look eagerly in some +half-dozen neighbouring churches and deserted conventual places for +certain other works from Ferrari's hand; and so, leaving the place +under the influence of his delicate religious ideal, may seem to have +been listening to much exquisite church-music there, violins and the +like, on that perfectly silent afternoon--such music as he may still +really hear on Sundays at the neighbouring town of Novara, famed for +it from of old. Here, again, the art of Gaudenzio Ferrari reigns. +Gaudenzio! It is the name of the saintly prelate on whom his pencil +was many times employed, First Bishop of Novara, and patron of the +magnificent basilica hard by which still covers his body, whose +earthly presence in cope and mitre Ferrari has commemorated in the +altar-piece of the "Marriage of St. Catherine," with its refined +richness of colour, like a bank of real flowers blooming there, and +like nothing else around it in the [96] vast duomo of old Roman +architecture, now heavily masked in modern stucco. The solemn +mountains, under the closer shadow of which his genius put on a +northern hue, are far away, telling at Novara only as the grandly +theatrical background to an entirely lowland life. And here, as at +Vercelli so at Novara, Ferrari is not less graciously Italian than +Luini himself. + +If the name of Luini's master, Borgognone, is no proof of northern +extraction, a northern temper is nevertheless a marked element of his +genius--something of the patience, especially, of the masters of +Dijon or Bruges, nowhere more clearly than in the two groups of male +and female heads in the National Gallery, family groups, painted in +the attitude of worship, with a lowly religious sincerity which may +remind us of the contemporary work of M. Legros. Like those northern +masters, he accepts piously, but can refine, what "has no +comeliness." And yet perhaps no painter has so adequately presented +that purely personal beauty (for which, indeed, even profane painters +for the most part have seemed to care very little) as Borgognone in +the two deacons, Stephen and Laurence, who, in one of the altar- +pieces of the Certosa, assist at the throne of Syrus, ancient, +sainted, First Bishop of Pavia--stately youths in quite imperial +dalmatics of black and gold. An indefatigable worker at many forms +of religious art, here and elsewhere, assisting at last in the [97] +carving and inlaying of the rich marble facade of the Certosa, the +rich carved and inlaid wood-work of Santa Maria at Bergamo, he is +seen perhaps at his best, certainly in his most significantly +religious mood, in the Church of the Incoronata at Lodi, especially +in one picture there, the "Presentation of Christ in the Temple." +The experienced visitor knows what to expect in the sacristies of the +great Italian churches; the smaller, choicer works of Luini, say, of +Della Robbia or Mino of Fiesole, the superb ambries and drawers and +presses of old oak or cedar, the still untouched morsel of fresco-- +like sacred priestly thoughts visibly lingering there in the half- +light. Well! the little octagonal Church of the Incoronata is like +one of these sacristies. The work of Bramante--you see it, as it is +so rarely one's luck to do, with its furniture and internal +decoration complete and unchanged, the coloured pavement, the +colouring which covers the walls, the elegant little organ of +Domenico da Lucca (1507), the altar-screens with their dainty rows of +brass cherubs. In Borgognone's picture of the "Presentation," there +the place is, essentially as we see it to-day. The ceremony, +invested with all the sentiment of a Christian sacrament, takes place +in this very church, this "Temple" of the Incoronata where you are +standing, reflected on the dimly glorious wall, as in a mirror. +Borgognone in his picture has [98] but added in long legend, letter +by letter, on the fascia below the cupola, the Song of Simeon. + +The Incoronata however is, after all, the monument less of Ambrogio +Borgognone than of the gifted Piazza family:--Callisto, himself born +at Lodi, his father, his uncle, his brothers, his son Fulvio, working +there in three generations, under marked religious influence, and +with so much power and grace that, quite gratuitously, portions of +their work have been attributed to the master-hand of Titian, in some +imaginary visit here to these painters, who were in truth the +disciples of another--Romanino of Brescia. At Lodi, the lustre of +Scipione Piazza is lost in that of Callisto, his elder brother; but +he might worthily be included in a list of painters memorable for a +single picture, such pictures as the solemn Madonna of Pierino del +Vaga, in the Duomo of Pisa, or the Holy Family of Pellegrino Piola, +in the Goldsmiths' Street at Genoa. A single picture, a single +figure in a picture, signed and dated, over the altar of Saint +Clement, in the Church of San Spirito, at Bergamo, might preserve the +fame of Scipione Piazza, who did not live to be old. The figure is +that of the youthful Clement of Rome himself, "who had seen the +blessed Apostles," writing at the dictation of Saint Paul. For a +moment he looks away from the letters of the book with all the +wistful intelligence of a boy softly touched already by the radiancy +of the [99] celestial Wisdom. "Her ways are ways of pleasantness!" +That is the lesson this winsome, docile, spotless creature--ingenui +vultus puer ingenuique pudoris--younger brother or cousin of +Borgognone's noble deacons at the Certosa--seems put there to teach +us. And in this church, indeed, as it happens, Scipione's work is +side by side with work of his. + +It is here, in fact, at Bergamo and at Brescia, that the late +survival of a really convinced religious spirit becomes a striking +fact in the history of Italian art. Vercelli and Novara, though +famous for their mountain neighbourhood, enjoy but a distant and +occasional view of Monte Rosa and its companions; and even then those +awful stairways to tracts of airy sunlight may seem hardly real. But +the beauty of the twin sub-alpine towns further eastward is shaped by +the circumstance that mountain and plain meet almost in their +streets, very effectively for all purposes of the picturesque. +Brescia, immediately below the "Falcon of Lombardy" (so they called +its masterful fortress on the last ledge of the Pie di Monte), to +which you may now ascend by gentle turfed paths, to watch the purple +mystery of evening mount gradually from the great plain up the +mountain-walls close at hand, is as level as a church pavement, home- +like, with a kind of easy walking from point to point about it, rare +in Italian towns--a town full of walled gardens, giving even to [100] +its smaller habitations the retirement of their more sumptuous +neighbours, and a certain English air. You may peep into them, +pacing its broad streets, from the blaze of which you are glad to +escape into the dim and sometimes gloomy churches, the twilight +sacristies, rich with carved and coloured woodwork. The art of +Romanino still lights up one of the darkest of those churches with +the altar-piece which is perhaps his most expressive and noblest +work. The veritable blue sky itself seems to be breaking into the +dark-cornered, low-vaulted, Gothic sanctuary of the Barefoot +Brethren, around the Virgin and Child, the bowed, adoring figures of +Bonaventura, Saint Francis, Saint Antony, the youthful majesty of +Saint Louis, to keep for ever in memory--not the King of France +however, in spite of the fleurs-de-lys on his cope of azure, but +Louis, Bishop of Toulouse. A Rubens in Italy! you may think, if you +care to rove from the delightful fact before you after vague +supposititious alliances--something between Titian and Rubens! +Certainly, Romanino's bold, contrasted colouring anticipates +something of the northern freshness of Rubens. But while the +peculiarity of the work of Rubens is a sense of momentary transition, +as if the colours were even now melting in it, Romanino's canvas +bears rather the steady glory of broad Italian noonday; while he is +distinguished also for a remarkable clearness of [101] design, which +has perhaps something to do, is certainly congruous with, a markedly +religious sentiment, like that of Angelico or Perugino, lingering +still in the soul of this Brescian painter towards the middle of the +sixteenth century. + +Romanino and Moretto, the two great masters of Brescia in successive +generations, both alike inspired above all else by the majesty, the +majestic beauty, of religion--its persons, its events, every +circumstance that belongs to it--are to be seen in friendly rivalry, +though with ten years' difference of age between them, in the Church +of San Giovanni Evangelista; Romanino approaching there, as near as +he might, in a certain candle-lighted scene, to that harmony in +black, white, and grey preferred by the younger painter. Before this +or that example of Moretto's work, in that admirably composed picture +of Saint Paul's Conversion, for instance, you might think of him as +but a very noble designer in grisaille. A more detailed study would +convince you that, whatever its component elements, there is a very +complex tone which almost exclusively belongs to him; the "Saint +Ursula" finally, that he is a great, though very peculiar colourist-- +a lord of colour who, while he knows the colour resources that may +lie even in black and white, has really included every delicate hue +whatever in that faded "silver grey," which yet lingers in one's +memory as their final effect. For some admirers indeed he is +definable [102] as a kind of really sanctified Titian. It must be +admitted, however, that whereas Titian sometimes lost a little of +himself in the greatness of his designs, or committed their +execution, in part, to others, Moretto, in his work, is always all +there--thorough, steady, even, in his workmanship. That, again, was +a result of his late-surviving religious conscience. And here, as in +other instances, the supposed influence of the greater master is only +a supposition. As a matter of fact, at least in his earlier life, +Moretto made no visit to Venice; developed his genius at home, under +such conditions for development as were afforded by the example of +the earlier masters of Brescia itself; left his work there +abundantly, and almost there alone, as the thoroughly representative +product of a charming place. In the little Church of San Clemente he +is still "at home" to his lovers; an intimately religious artist, +full of cheerfulness, of joy. Upon the airy galleries of his great +altar-piece, the angels dance against the sky above the Mother and +the Child; Saint Clement, patron of the church, being attendant in +pontifical white, with Dominic, Catherine, the Magdalen, and good, +big-faced Saint Florian in complete armour, benign and strong. He +knows many a saint not in the Roman breviary. Was there a single +sweet-sounding name without its martyr patron? Lucia, Agnes, Agatha, +Barbara, Cecilia--holy women, dignified, high-bred, intelligent-- +[103] have an altar of their own; and here, as in that festal high +altar-piece, the spectator may note yet another artistic alliance, +something of the pale effulgence of Correggio--an approach, at least, +to that peculiar treatment of light and shade, and a pre-occupation +with certain tricks therein of nature itself, by which Correggio +touches Rembrandt on the one hand, Da Vinci on the other. Here, in +Moretto's work, you may think that manner more delightful, perhaps +because more refined, than in Correggio himself. Those pensive, +tarnished, silver side-lights, like mere reflexions of natural +sunshine, may be noticed indeed in many another painter of that day, +in Lanini, for instance, at the National Gallery. In his "Nativity" +at the Brera, Procaccini of Verona almost anticipates Correggio's +Heilige Nacht. It is, in truth, the first step in the decomposition +of light, a touch of decadence, of sunset, along the whole horizon of +North-Italian art. It is, however, as the painter of the white- +stoled Ursula and her companions that the great master of Brescia is +most likely to remain in the memory of the visitor; with this fact, +above all, clearly impressed on it, that Moretto had attained full +intelligence of all the pictorial powers of white. In the clearness, +the cleanliness, the hieratic distinction, of this earnest and +deeply-felt composition, there is something "pre-Raphaelite"; as also +in a certain liturgical formality in the grouping of the virgins--the +[104] looks, "all one way," of the closely-ranged faces; while in the +long folds of the drapery we may see something of the severe grace of +early Tuscan sculpture--something of severity in the long, thin, +emphatic shadows. For the light is high, as with the level lights of +early morning, the air of which ruffles the banners borne by Ursula +in her two hands, her virgin companions laying their hands also upon +the tall staves, as if taking share, with a good will, in her self- +dedication, with all the hazard of battle. They bring us, +appropriately, close to the grave of this manly yet so virginal +painter, born in the year 1500, dead at forty-seven. + +Of Moretto and Romanino, whose works thus light up, or refine, the +dark churches of Brescia and its neighbourhood, Romanino is scarcely +to be seen beyond it. The National Gallery, however, is rich in +Moretto's work, with two of his rare poetic portraits; and if the +large altar-picture would hardly tell his secret to one who had not +studied him at Brescia, in those who already know him it will awake +many a reminiscence of his art at its best. The three white mitres, +for instance, grandly painted towards the centre of the picture, at +the feet of Saint Bernardino of Siena--the three bishoprics refused +by that lowly saint--may remind one of the great white mitre which, +in the genial picture of Saint Nicholas, in the Miracoli at Brescia, +one of the children, who as delightfully+ [105] unconventional +acolytes accompany their beloved patron into the presence of the +Madonna, carries along so willingly, laughing almost, with pleasure +and pride, at his part in so great a function. In the altar-piece at +the National Gallery those white mitres form the key-note from which +the pale, cloistral splendours of the whole picture radiate. You see +what a wealth of enjoyable colour Moretto, for one, can bring out of +monkish habits in themselves sad enough, and receive a new lesson in +the artistic value of reserve. + +Rarer still (the single work of Romanino, it is said, to be seen out +of Italy) is the elaborate composition in five parts on the opposite +side of the doorway. Painted for the high-altar of one of the many +churches of Brescia, it seems to have passed into secular hands about +a century ago. Alessandro, patron of the church, one of the many +youthful patrician converts Italy reveres from the ranks of the Roman +army, stands there on one side, with ample crimson banner superbly +furled about his lustrous black armour, and on the other--Saint +Jerome, Romanino's own namesake--neither more nor less than the +familiar, self-tormenting anchorite; for few painters (Bellini, to +some degree, in his picture of the saint's study) have perceived the +rare pictorial opportunities of Jerome; Jerome with the true cradle +of the Lord, first of Christian antiquaries, author of the fragrant +Vulgate version of the [106] Scriptures. Alessandro and Jerome +support the Mother and the Child in the central place. But the +loveliest subjects of this fine group of compositions are in the +corners above, half-length, life-sized figures--Gaudioso, Bishop of +Brescia, above Saint Jerome; above Alessandro, Saint Filippo Benizzi, +meek founder of the Order of Servites to which that church at Brescia +belonged, with his lily, and in the right hand a book; and what a +book! It was another very different painter, Giuseppe Caletti, of +Cremona, who, for the truth and beauty of his drawing of them, gained +the title of the "Painter of Books." But if you wish to see what can +be made of the leaves, the vellum cover, of a book, observe that in +Saint Philip's hand.--The writer? the contents? you ask: What may +they be? and whence did it come?--out of embalmed sacristy, or +antique coffin of some early Brescian martyr, or, through that bright +space of blue Italian sky, from the hands of an angel, like his +Annunciation lily, or the book received in the Apocalypse by John the +Divine? It is one of those old saints, Gaudioso (at home in every +church in Brescia), who looks out with full face from the opposite +corner of the altar-piece, from a background which, though it might +be the new heaven over a new earth, is in truth only the proper, +breathable air of Italy. As we see him here, Saint Gaudioso is one +of the more exquisite treasures of our National Gallery. It was thus +that at the magic [107] touch of Romanino's art the dim, early, +hunted-down Brescian church of the primitive centuries, crushed into +the dust, it might seem, was "brought to her king," out of those old +dark crypts, "in raiment of needle-work"--the delicate, richly +folded, pontifical white vestments, the mitre and staff and gloves, +and rich jewelled cope, blue or green. The face, of remarkable +beauty after a type which all feel though it is actually rare in art, +is probably a portrait of some distinguished churchman of Romanino's +own day; a second Gaudioso, perhaps, setting that later Brescian +church to rights after the terrible French occupation in the +painter's own time, as his saintly predecessor, the Gaudioso of the +earlier century here commemorated, had done after the invasion of the +Goths. The eloquent eyes are open upon some glorious vision. "He +hath made us kings and priests!" they seem to say for him, as the +clean, sensitive lips might do so eloquently. Beauty and Holiness +had "kissed each other," as in Borgognone's imperial deacons at the +Certosa. At the Renaissance the world might seem to have parted them +again. But here certainly, once more, Catholicism and the +Renaissance, religion and culture, holiness and beauty, might seem +reconciled, by one who had conceived neither after any feeble way, in +a gifted person. Here at least, by the skill of Romanino's hand, the +obscure martyr of the crypts shines as a [108] saint of the later +Renaissance, with a sanctity of which the elegant world itself would +hardly escape the fascination, and which reminds one how the great +Apostle Saint Paul has made courtesy part of the content of the +Divine charity itself. A Rubens in Italy!--so Romanino has been +called. In this gracious presence we might think that, like Rubens +also, he had been a courtier. + +NOTES + +90. *Published in the New Review, Nov. 1890, and now reprinted by the +kind permission of the proprietors. + + + +NOTRE-DAME D'AMIENS* + +[109] THE greatest and purest of Gothic churches, Notre-Dame +d'Amiens, illustrates, by its fine qualities, a characteristic +secular movement of the beginning of the thirteenth century. +Philosophic writers of French history have explained how, in that and +in the two preceding centuries, a great number of the more important +towns in eastern and northern France rose against the feudal +establishment, and developed severally the local and municipal life +of the commune. To guarantee their independence therein they +obtained charters from their formal superiors. The Charter of Amiens +served as the model for many other communes. Notre-Dame d'Amiens is +the church of a commune. In that century of Saint Francis, of Saint +Louis, they were still religious. But over against monastic +interests, as identified with a central authority--king, emperor, or +pope--they pushed forward the local, and, so to call it, secular +authority of their [110] bishops, the flower of the "secular clergy" +in all its mundane astuteness, ready enough to make their way as the +natural Protectors of such townships. The people of Amiens, for +instance, under a powerful episcopal patron, invested their civic +pride in a vast cathedral, outrivalling neighbours, as being in +effect their parochial church, and promoted there the new, +revolutionary, Gothic manner, at the expense of the derivative and +traditional, Roman or Romanesque, style, the imperial style, of the +great monastic churches. Nay, those grand and beautiful people's +churches of the thirteenth century, churches pre-eminently of "Our +Lady," concurred also with certain novel humanistic movements of +religion itself at that period, above all with the expansion of what +is reassuring and popular in the worship of Mary, as a tender and +accessible, though almost irresistible, intercessor with her severe +and awful Son. + +Hence the splendour, the space, the novelty, of the great French +cathedrals in the first Pointed style, monuments for the most part of +the artistic genius of laymen, significant pre-eminently of that +Queen of Gothic churches at Amiens. In most cases those early +Pointed churches are entangled, here or there, by the constructions +of the old round-arched style, the heavy, Norman or other, Romanesque +chapel or aisle, side by side, though in strong contrast with, the +soaring new Gothic of nave or transept. But of that older [111] +manner of the round arch, the plein-cintre, Amiens has nowhere, or +almost nowhere, a trace. The Pointed style, fully pronounced, but in +all the purity of its first period, found here its completest +expression. And while those venerable, Romanesque, profoundly +characteristic, monastic churches, the gregarious product of long +centuries, are for the most part anonymous, as if to illustrate from +the first a certain personal tendency which came in with the Gothic +manner, we know the name of the architect under whom, in the year +A.D. 1220, the building of the church of Amiens began--a layman, +Robert de Luzarches. + +Light and space--floods of light, space for a vast congregation, for +all the people of Amiens, for their movements, with something like +the height and width of heaven itself enclosed above them to breathe +in;--you see at a glance that this is what the ingenuity of the +Pointed method of building has here secured. For breadth, for the +easy flow of a processional torrent, there is nothing like the +"ambulatory," the aisle of the choir and transepts. And the entire +area is on one level. There are here no flights of steps upward, as +at Canterbury, no descending to dark crypts, as in so many Italian +churches--a few low, broad steps to gain the choir, two or three to +the high altar. To a large extent the old pavement remains, though +almost worn-out by the footsteps of centuries. Priceless, though not +composed of precious material, it gains its effect [112] by ingenuity +and variety in the patterning, zig-zags, chequers, mazes, prevailing +respectively, in white and grey, in great square, alternate spaces-- +the original floor of a medieval church for once untouched. The +massive square bases of the pillars of a Romanesque church, harshly +angular, obstruct, sometimes cruelly, the standing, the movements, of +a multitude of persons. To carry such a multitude conveniently round +them is the matter-of-fact motive of the gradual chiselling away, the +softening of the angles, the graceful compassing, of the Gothic base, +till in our own Perpendicular period it all but disappears. You may +study that tendency appropriately in the one church of Amiens; for +such in effect Notre-Dame has always been. That circumstance is +illustrated by the great font, the oldest thing here, an oblong +trough, perhaps an ancient saintly coffin, with four quaint prophetic +figures at the angles, carved from a single block of stone. To it, +as to the baptistery of an Italian town, not so long since all the +babes of Amiens used to come for christening. + +Strange as it may seem, in this "queen" of Gothic churches, l'eglise +ogivale par excellence, there is nothing of mystery in the vision, +which yet surprises, over and over again, the eye of the visitor who +enters at the western doorway. From the flagstone at one's foot to +the distant keystone of the chevet, noblest of its species-- [113] +reminding you of how many largely graceful things, sails of a ship in +the wind, and the like!--at one view the whole is visible, +intelligible;--the integrity of the first design; how later additions +affixed themselves thereto; how the rich ornament gathered upon it; +the increasing richness of the choir; its glazed triforium; the +realms of light which expand in the chapels beyond; the astonishing +boldness of the vault, the astonishing lightness of what keeps it +above one; the unity, yet the variety of perspective. There is no +mystery here, and indeed no repose. Like the age which projected it, +like the impulsive communal movement which was here its motive, the +Pointed style at Amiens is full of excitement. Go, for repose, to +classic work, with the simple vertical law of pressure downwards, or +to its Lombard, Rhenish, or Norman derivatives. Here, rather, you +are conscious restlessly of that sustained equilibrium of oblique +pressure on all sides, which is the essence of the hazardous Gothic +construction, a construction of which the "flying buttress" is the +most significant feature. Across the clear glass of the great +windows of the triforium you see it, feel it, at its Atlas-work +audaciously. "A pleasant thing it is to behold the sun" those first +Gothic builders would seem to have said to themselves; and at Amiens, +for instance, the walls have disappeared; the entire building is +composed of its windows. Those who built it [114] might have had for +their one and only purpose to enclose as large a space as possible +with the given material. + +No; the peculiar Gothic buttress, with its double, triple, fourfold +flights, while it makes such marvels possible, securing light and +space and graceful effect, relieving the pillars within of their +massiveness, is not a restful architectural feature. Consolidation +of matter naturally on the move, security for settlement in a very +complex system of construction--that is avowedly a part of the Gothic +situation, the Gothic problem. With the genius which contended, +though not always quite successfully, with this difficult problem, +came also novel aesthetic effect, a whole volume of delightful +aesthetic effects. For the mere melody of Greek architecture, for +the sense as it were of music in the opposition of successive sounds, +you got harmony, the richer music generated by opposition of sounds +in one and the same moment; and were gainers. And then, in contrast +with the classic manner, and the Romanesque survivals from it, the +vast complexity of the Gothic style seemed, as if consciously, to +correspond to the richness, the expressiveness, the thousandfold +influence of the Catholic religion, in the thirteenth century still +in natural movement in every direction. The later Gothic of the +fifteenth and sixteenth centuries tended to conceal, as it now took +for granted, the structural use of the buttress, for [115] example; +seemed to turn it into a mere occasion for ornament, not always +pleasantly:--while the ornament was out of place, the structure +failed. Such falsity is far enough away from what at Amiens is +really of the thirteenth century. In this pre-eminently "secular" +church, the execution, in all the defiance of its method, is direct, +frank, clearly apparent, with the result not only of reassuring the +intelligence, but of keeping one's curiosity also continually on the +alert, as we linger in these restless aisles. + +The integrity of the edifice, together with its volume of light, has +indeed been diminished by the addition of a range of chapels, beyond +the proper limits of the aisles, north and south. Not a part of the +original design, these chapels were formed for private uses in the +fourteenth century, by the device of walling in and vaulting the open +spaces between the great buttresses of the nave. Under the broad but +subdued sunshine which falls through range upon range of windows, +reflected from white wall and roof and gallery, soothing to the eye, +while it allows you to see the delicate carved work in all its +refinement of touch, it is only as an after-thought, an artificial +after-thought, that you regret the lost stained glass, or the +vanished mural colour, if such to any large extent there ever were. +The best stained glass is often that stained by weather, by centuries +of weather, [116] and we may well be grateful for the amazing +cheerfulness of the interior of Amiens, as we actually find it. +Windows of the richest remain, indeed, in the apsidal chapels; and +the rose-windows of the transepts are known, from the prevailing +tones of their stained glass, as Fire and Water, the western rose +symbolising in like manner Earth and Air, as respectively green and +blue. But there is no reason to suppose that the interior was ever +so darkened as to prevent one's seeing, really and clearly, the +dainty ornament, which from the first abounded here; the floriated +architectural detail; the broad band of flowers and foliage, thick +and deep and purely sculptured, above the arches of nave and choir +and transepts, and wreathing itself continuously round the embedded +piers which support the roof; with the woodwork, the illuminated +metal, the magnificent tombs, the jewellers' work in the chapels. +One precious, early thirteenth-century window of grisaille remains, +exquisite in itself, interesting as evidence of the sort of +decoration which originally filled the larger number of the windows. +Grisaille, with its lace-work of transparent grey, set here and there +with a ruby, a sapphire, a gemmed medallion, interrupts the clear +light on things hardly more than the plain glass, of which indeed +such windows are mainly composed. The finely designed frames of iron +for the support of the glass, in the windows from which even [117] +this decoration is gone, still remain, to the delight of those who +are knowing in the matter. + +Very ancient light, this seems, at any rate, as if it had been lying +imprisoned thus for long centuries; were in fact the light over which +the great vault originally closed, now become almost substance of +thought, one might fancy,--a mental object or medium. We are +reminded that after all we must of necessity look on the great +churches of the Middle Age with other eyes than those who built or +first worshipped in them; that there is something verily worth +having, and a just equivalent for something else lost, in the mere +effect of time, and that the salt of all aesthetic study is in the +question,--What, precisely what, is this to me? You and I, perhaps, +should not care much for the mural colouring of a medieval church, +could we see it as it was; might think it crude, and in the way. +What little remains of it at Amiens has parted, indeed, in the course +of ages, with its shrillness and its coarse grain. And in this +matter certainly, in view of Gothic polychrome, our difference from +the people of the thirteenth century is radical. We have, as it was +very unlikely they should have, a curiosity, a very pleasurable +curiosity, in the mere working of the stone they built with, and in +the minute facts of their construction, which their colouring, and +the layer of plaster it involved, disguised or hid. We may think +that in architecture stone is the most beautiful [118] of all things. +Modern hands have replaced the colour on some of the tombs here--the +effigies, the tabernacles above--skilfully as may be, and have but +deprived them of their dignity. Medieval colouring, in fact, must +have improved steadily, as it decayed, almost till there came to be +no question of colour at all. In architecture, close as it is to +men's lives and their history, the visible result of time is a large +factor in the realised aesthetic value, and what a true architect +will in due measure always trust to. A false restoration only +frustrates the proper ripening of his work. + +If we may credit our modern eyes, then, those old, very secular +builders aimed at, they achieved, an immense cheerfulness in their +great church, with a purpose which still pursued them into their +minuter decoration. The conventional vegetation of the Romanesque, +its blendings of human or animal with vegetable form, in cornice or +capital, have given way here, in the first Pointed style, to a +pleasanter, because more natural, mode of fancy; to veritable forms +of vegetable life, flower or leaf, from meadow and woodside, though +still indeed with a certain survival of the grotesque in a confusion +of the leaf with the flower, which the subsequent Decorated period +will wholly purge away in its perfect garden-borders. It was not +with monastic artists and artisans that the sheds and workshops +around Amiens Cathedral were filled, [119] as it rose from its +foundations through fifty years; and those lay schools of art, with +their communistic sentiment, to which in the thirteenth century the +great episcopal builders must needs resort, would in the natural +course of things tend towards naturalism. The subordinate arts also +were no longer at the monastic stage, borrowing inspiration +exclusively from the experiences of the cloister, but belonged to +guilds of laymen--smiths, painters, sculptors. The great +confederation of the "city," the commune, subdivided itself into +confederations of citizens. In the natural objects of the first +Pointed style there is the freshness as of nature itself, seen and +felt for the first time; as if, in contrast, those older cloistral +workmen had but fed their imagination in an embarrassed, imprisoned, +and really decadent manner, or mere reminiscence of, or prescriptions +about, things visible. + +Congruous again with the popularity of the builders of Amiens, of +their motives, is the wealth, the freedom and abundance, of popular, +almost secular, teaching, here afforded, in the carving especially, +within and without; an open Bible, in place of later legend, as at +monastic Vezelay,--the Bible treated as a book about men and women, +and other persons equally real, but blent with lessons, with the +liveliest observations, on the lives of men as they were then and +now, what they do, and how they do it, or did it then, and on the +doings of nature [120] which so greatly influence what man does; +together with certain impressive metaphysical and moral ideas, a sort +of popular scholastic philosophy, or as if it were the virtues and +vices Aristotle defines, or the characters of Theophrastus, +translated into stone. Above all, it is to be observed that as a +result of this spirit, this "free" spirit, in it, art has at last +become personal. The artist, as such, appears at Amiens, as +elsewhere, in the thirteenth century; and, by making his personal way +of conception and execution prevail there, renders his own work vivid +and organic, and apt to catch the interest of other people. He is no +longer a Byzantine, but a Greek--an unconscious Greek. Proof of this +is in the famous Beau-Dieu of Amiens, as they call that benign, +almost classically proportioned figure, on the central pillar of the +great west doorway; though in fact neither that, nor anything else on +the west front of Amiens, is quite the best work here. For that we +must look rather to the sculpture of the portal of the south +transept, called, from a certain image there, Portail de la Vierge +doree, gilded at the expense of some unknown devout person at the +beginning of the last century. A presentation of the mystic, the +delicately miraculous, story of Saint Honore, eighth Bishop of +Amiens, and his companions, with its voices, its intuitions, and +celestial intimations, it has evoked a correspondent method of work +at once [121] naive and nicely expressive. The rose, or roue, above +it, carries on the outer rim seventeen personages, ascending and +descending--another piece of popular philosophy--the wheel of +fortune, or of human life. + +And they were great brass-founders, surely, who at that early day +modelled and cast the tombs of the Bishops Evrard and Geoffrey, vast +plates of massive black bronze in half-relief, like abstract thoughts +of those grand old prelatic persons. The tomb of Evrard, who laid +the foundations (qui fundamenta hujus basilicae locavit), is not +quite as it was. Formerly it was sunk in the pavement, while the +tomb of Bishop Geoffrey opposite (it was he closed in the mighty +vault of the nave: hanc basilicam culmen usque perduxit), itself +vaulted-over the space of the grave beneath. The supreme excellence +of those original workmen, the journeymen of Robert de Luzarches and +his successor, would seem indeed to have inspired others, who have +been at their best here, down to the days of Louis the Fourteenth. +It prompted, we may think, a high level of execution, through many +revolutions of taste in such matters; in the marvellous furniture of +the choir, for instance, like a whole wood, say a thicket of old +hawthorn, with its curved topmost branches spared, slowly transformed +by the labour of a whole family of artists, during fourteen years, +into the stalls, in number one hundred and ten, with nearly four +[122] thousand figures. Yet they are but on a level with the +Flamboyant carved and coloured enclosures of the choir, with the +histories of John the Baptist, whose face-bones are here preserved, +and of Saint Firmin--popular saint, who protects the houses of Amiens +from fire. Even the screens of forged iron around the sanctuary, +work of the seventeenth century, appear actually to soar, in their +way, in concert with the airy Gothic structure; to let the daylight +pass as it will; to have come, they too, from smiths, odd as it may +seem at just that time, with some touch of inspiration in them. In +the beginning of the fifteenth century they had reared against a +certain bald space of wall, between the great portal and the western +"rose," an organ, a lofty, many-chambered, veritable house of church- +music, rich in azure and gold, finished above at a later day, not +incongruously, in the quaint, pretty manner of Henri-Deux. And those +who are interested in the curiosities of ritual, of the old +provincial Gallican "uses," will be surprised to find one where they +might least have expected it. The reserved Eucharist still hangs +suspended in a pyx, formed like a dove, in the midst of that +lamentable "glory" of the eighteenth century in the central bay of +the sanctuary, all the poor, gaudy, gilt rays converging towards it. +There are days in the year in which the great church is still +literally filled with reverent worshippers, and if you come late to +service you push the [123] doors in vain against the closely serried +shoulders of the good people of Amiens, one and all in black for +church-holiday attire. Then, one and all, they intone the Tantum +ergo (did it ever sound so in the Middle Ages?) as the Eucharist, +after a long procession, rises once more into its resting-place. + +If the Greeks, as at least one of them says, really believed there +could be no true beauty without bigness, that thought certainly is +most specious in regard to architecture; and the thirteenth-century +church of Amiens is one of the three or four largest buildings in the +world, out of all proportion to any Greek building, both in that and +in the multitude of its external sculpture. The chapels of the nave +are embellished without by a double range of single figures, or +groups, commemorative of the persons, the mysteries, to which they +are respectively dedicated--the gigantic form of Christopher, the +Mystery of the Annunciation. + +The builders of the church seem to have projected no very noticeable +towers; though it is conventional to regret their absence, especially +with visitors from England, where indeed cathedral and other towers +are apt to be good, and really make their mark. Robert de Luzarches +and his successors aimed rather at the domical outline, with its +central point at the centre of the church, in the spire or fleche. +The existing spire is a wonderful mass of carpentry [124] of the +beginning of the sixteenth century, at which time the lead that +carefully wraps every part of it was heavily gilt. The great western +towers are lost in the west front, the grandest, perhaps the +earliest, example of its species--three profound, sculptured portals; +a double gallery above, the upper gallery carrying colossal images of +twenty-two kings of the House of Judah, ancestors of Our Lady; then +the great rose; above it the ringers' gallery, half masking the gable +of the nave, and uniting at their top-most storeys the twin, but not +exactly equal or similar, towers, oddly oblong in plan, as if never +intended to carry pyramids or spires. They overlook an immense +distance in those flat, peat-digging, black and green regions, with +rather cheerless rivers, and are the centre of an architectural +region wider still--of a group to which Soissons, far beyond the +woods of Compiegne, belongs, with St. Quentin, and, towards the west, +a too ambitious rival, Beauvais, which has stood however--what we now +see of it--for six centuries. + +It is a spare, rather sad world at most times that Notre-Dame +d'Amiens thus broods over; a country with little else to be proud of; +the sort of world, in fact, which makes the range of conceptions +embodied in these cliffs of quarried and carved stone all the more +welcome as a hopeful complement to the meagreness of most people's +present existence, and its apparent ending in a [125] sparely built +coffin under the flinty soil, and grey, driving sea-winds. In Notre- +Dame, therefore, and her sisters, there is not only a common method +of construction, a single definable type, different from that of +other French latitudes, but a correspondent common sentiment also; +something which speaks, amid an immense achievement just here of what +is beautiful and great, of the necessity of an immense effort in the +natural course of things, of what you may see quaintly designed in +one of those hieroglyphic carvings--radix de terra sitienti: "a root +out of a dry ground." + +NOTES + +109. *Published in the Nineteenth Century, March 1894, and now +reprinted by the kind permission of the proprietors. + + + +VEZELAY* + +[126] As you discern the long unbroken line of its roof, low-pitched +for France, above the cottages and willow-shaded streams of the +place, you might think the abbey church of Pontigny, the largest +Cistercian church now remaining, only a great farm-building. On a +nearer view there is something unpretending, something pleasantly +English, in the plain grey walls, pierced with long "lancet" windows, +as if they overlooked the lowlands of Essex, or the meadows of Kent +or Berkshire, the sort of country from which came those saintly +exiles of our race who made the cloisters of Pontigny famous, and one +of whom, Saint Edmund of Abingdon, Saint-Edme, still lies enshrined +here. The country which the sons of Saint Bernard choose for their +abode is in fact but a patch of scanty pasture-land in the midst of a +heady wine-district. Like its majestic Cluniac rivals, the church +has its western portico, elegant in structure but of comparatively +humble [127] proportions, under a plain roof of tiles, pent-wise. +Within, a heavy coat of white-wash seems befitting to the simple +forms of the "Transition," or quite earliest "Pointed," style, to its +remarkable continence of spirit, its uniformity, and cleanness of +build. The long prospect of nave and choir ends, however, with a +sort of graceful smallness, in a chevet of seven closely packed, +narrow bays. It is like a nun's church, or like a nun's coif. + +The church of Pontigny, representative generally of the churches of +the Cistercian order, including some of the loveliest early English +ones, was in truth significant of a reaction, a reaction against +monasticism itself, as it had come to be in the order of Cluny, the +genius of which found its proper expression in the imperious, but +half-barbaric, splendours of the richest form of the Romanesque, the +monastic style pre-eminently, as we may still see it at La Charite- +sur-Loire, at Saint-Benoit, above all, on the hill of Vezelay. Saint +Bernard, who had lent his immense influence to the order of Citeaux +by way of a monastic reform, though he had a genius for hymns and was +in other ways an eminent religious poet, and though he gave new life +to the expiring romance of the crusades, was, as regards the visible +world, much of a Puritan. Was it he who, wrapt in thought upon the +world unseen, walked along the shores of Lake Leman without observing +it?--the eternal snows he might have taken for the walls of the New +Jerusalem; the blue waves he [128] might have fancied its pavement of +sapphire. In the churches, the worship, of his new order he required +simplicity, and even severity, being fortunate in finding so winsome +an exponent of that principle as the early Gothic of Pontigny, or of +the first Cistercian church, now destroyed, at Citeaux itself. +Strangely enough, while Bernard's own temper of mind was a survival +from the past (we see this in his contest with Abelard), hierarchic, +reactionary, suspicious of novelty, the architectural style of his +preference was largely of secular origin. It had a large share in +that inventive and innovating genius, that expansion of the natural +human soul, to which the art, the literature, the religious movements +of the thirteenth century in France, as in Italy, where it ends with +Dante, bear witness. + +In particular, Bernard had protested against the sculpture, rich and +fantastic, but gloomy, it might be indecent, developed more +abundantly than anywhere else in the churches of Burgundy, and +especially in those of the Cluniac order. "What is the use," he +asks, "of those grotesque monsters in painting and sculpture?" and +almost certainly he had in mind the marvellous carved work at +Vezelay, whither doubtless he came often--for example on Good Friday, +1146, to preach, as we know, the second crusade in the presence of +Louis the Seventh. He too might have wept at the sight of the doomed +multitude (one in ten, it is said, returned from the Holy [129] +Land), as its enthusiasm, under the charm of his fiery eloquence, +rose to the height of his purpose. Even the aisles of Vezelay were +not sufficient for the multitude of his hearers, and he preached to +them in the open air, from a rock still pointed out on the hillside. +Armies indeed have been encamped many times on the slopes and meadows +of the valley of the Cure, now to all seeming so impregnably +tranquil. The Cluniac order even then had already declined from its +first intention; and that decline became especially visible in the +Abbey of Vezelay itself not long after Bernard's day. Its majestic +immoveable church was complete by the middle of the twelfth century. +And there it still stands in spite of many a threat, while the +conventual buildings around it have disappeared; and the institution +it represented--secularised at its own request at the Reformation-- +had dwindled almost to nothing at all, till in the last century the +last Abbot built himself, in place of the old Gothic lodging below +those solemn walls, a sort of Chateau Gaillard, a dainty abode in the +manner of Louis Quinze--swept away that too at the Revolution--where +the great oaks now flourish, with the rooks and squirrels. + +Yet the order of Cluny, in its time, in that dark period of the +eleventh and twelfth centuries, had deserved well of those to whom +religion, and art, and social order are precious. The Cluniacs had +in fact represented monasticism in the most [130] legitimate form of +its activity; and, if the church of Vezelay was not quite the +grandest of their churches, it is certainly the grandest of them +which remains. It is also typical in character. As Notre-Dame +d'Amiens is pre-eminently the church of the city, of a commune, so +the Madeleine of Vezelay is typically the church of a monastery. + +The monastic style proper, then, in its peculiar power and influence, +was Romanesque, and with the Cluniac order; and here perhaps better +than anywhere else we may understand what it really came to, what was +its effect on the spirits, the imagination. + +As at Pontigny, the Cistercians, for the most part, built their +churches in lowly valleys, according to the intention of their +founder. The representative church of the Cluniacs, on the other +hand, lies amid the closely piled houses of the little town, which it +protected and could punish, on a steep hill-top, like a long massive +chest there, heavy above you, as you climb slowly the winding road, +the old unchanged pathway of Saint Bernard. In days gone by it +threatened the surrounding neighbourhood with four boldly built +towers; had then also a spire at the crossing; and must have been at +that time like a more magnificent version of the buildings which +still crown the hill of Laon. Externally, the proportions, the +squareness, of the nave (west and east, the vast narthex or porch, +and the [131] Gothic choir, rise above its roof-line), remind one of +another great Romanesque church at home--of the nave of Winchester, +out of which Wykeham carved his richly panelled Perpendicular +interior. + +At Vezelay however, the Romanesque, the Romanesque of Burgundy, alike +in the first conception of the whole structure, and in the actual +locking together of its big stones, its masses of almost unbroken +masonry, its inertia, figures as of more imperial character, and +nearer to the Romans of old, than its feebler kindred in England or +Normandy. We seem to have before us here a Romanesque architecture, +studied, not from Roman basilicas or Roman temples, but from the +arenas, the colossal gateways, the triumphal arches, of the people of +empire, such as remain even now, not in the South of France only. +The simple "flying," or rather leaning and almost couchant, +buttresses, quadrants of a circle, might be parts of a Roman +aqueduct. In contrast to the lightsome Gothic manner of the last +quarter of the twelfth century (as we shall presently find it here +too, like an escape for the eye, for the temper, out of some grim +underworld into genial daylight), the Cluniac church might seem a +still active instrument of the iron tyranny of Rome, of its tyranny +over the animal spirits. As the ghost of ancient Rome still lingers +"over the grave thereof," in the papacy, the hierarchy, so is it with +the material structures [132] also, the Cluniac and other Romanesque +churches, which most emphatically express the hierarchical, the papal +system. There is something about this church of Vezelay, in the +long-sustained patience of which it tells, that brings to mind the +labour of slaves, whose occasional Fescennine licence and fresh +memories of a barbaric life also find expression, now and again, in +the strange sculpture of the place. Yet here for once, around a +great French church, there is the kindly repose of English +"precincts," and the country which this monastic acropolis overlooks +southwards is a very pleasant one, as we emerge from the shadows of-- +yes! of that peculiarly sad place--a country all the pleasanter by +reason of the toil upon it, performed, or exacted from others, by the +monks, through long centuries; Le Morvan, with its distant blue hills +and broken foreground, the vineyards, the patches of woodland, the +roads winding into their cool shadows; though in truth the fortress- +like outline of the monastic church and the sombre hue of its +material lend themselves most readily to the effects of a stormy sky. + +By a door, which in the great days opened from a magnificent +cloister, you enter what might seem itself but the ambulatory of a +cloister, superbly vaulted and long and regular, and built of huge +stones of a metallic colour. It is the southern aisle of the nave, a +nave of ten bays, the grandest Romanesque interior in France, [133] +perhaps in the world. In its mortified light the very soul of +monasticism, Roman and half-military, as the completest outcome of a +religion of threats, seems to descend upon one. Monasticism is +indeed the product of many various tendencies of the religious soul, +one or another of which may very properly connect itself with the +Pointed style, as we saw in those lightsome aisles of Pontigny, so +expressive of the purity, the lowly sweetness, of the soul of +Bernard. But it is here at Vezelay, in this iron place, that +monasticism in its central, its historically most significant +purpose, presents itself as most completely at home. There is no +triforium. The monotonous cloistral length of wall above the long- +drawn series of stately round arches, is unbroken save by a plain +small window in each bay, placed as high as possible just below the +cornice, as a mere after-thought, you might fancy. Those windows +were probably unglazed, and closed only with wooden shutters as +occasion required. Furnished with the stained glass of the period, +they would have left the place almost in darkness, giving doubtless +full effect to the monkish candle-light in any case needful here. An +almost perfect cradle-roof, tunnel-like from end to end of the long +central aisle, adds by its simplicity of form to the magnificent +unity of effect. The bearing-arches, which span it from bay to bay, +being parti-coloured, with voussures of alternate white and a kind of +grey or green, [134] being also somewhat flat at the keystone, and +literally eccentric, have, at least for English eyes, something of a +Saracenic or other Oriental character. Again, it is as if the +architects--the engineers--who worked here, had seen things undreamt +of by other Romanesque builders, the builders in England and +Normandy. + +Here then, scarcely relieving the almost savage character of the +work, abundant on tympanum and doorway without, above all on the +immense capitals of the nave within, is the sculpture which offended +Bernard. A sumptuous band of it, a carved guipure of singular +boldness, passes continuously round the arches, and along the +cornices from bay to bay, and with the large bossy tendency of the +ornament throughout may be regarded as typical of Burgundian +richness. Of sculptured capitals, to like, or to dislike with Saint +Bernard, there are nearly a hundred, unwearied in variety, unique in +the energy of their conception, full of wild promise in their coarse +execution, cruel, you might say, in the realisation of human form and +features. Irresistibly they rivet attention. + +The subjects are for the most part Scriptural, chosen apparently as +being apt for strongly satiric treatment, the suicide of Judas, the +fall of Goliath. The legend of Saint Benedict, naturally at home in +a Benedictine church, presented the sculptor with a series of +forcible grotesques ready-made. Some monkish story, [135] half +moral, half facetious, perhaps a little coarse, like that of Sainte +Eugenie, from time to time makes variety; or an example of the +punishment of the wicked by men or by devils, who play a large, and +to themselves thoroughly enjoyable and merry, part here. The +sculptor would seem to have witnessed the punishment of the +blasphemer; how adroitly the executioner planted knee on the +culprit's bosom, as he lay on the ground, and out came the sinful +tongue, to meet the iron pincers. The minds of those who worked thus +seem to have been almost insanely preoccupied just then with the +human countenance, but by no means exclusively in its pleasantness or +dignity. Bold, crude, original, their work indicates delight in the +power of reproducing fact, curiosity in it, but little or no sense of +beauty. The humanity therefore here presented, as in the Cluniac +sculpture generally, is wholly unconventional. M. Viollet-le-Duc +thinks he can trace in it individual types still actually existing in +the peasantry of Le Morvan. Man and morality, however, disappearing +at intervals, the acanthine capitals have a kind of later Venetian +beauty about them, as the Venetian birds also, the conventional +peacocks, or birds wholly of fantasy, amid the long fantastic +foliage. There are still however no true flowers of the field here. +There is pity, it must be confessed, on the other hand, and the +delicacy, the beauty, which that always brings [136] with it, where +Jephtha peeps at the dead daughter's face, lifting timidly the great +leaves that cover it; in the hanging body of Absalom; in the child +carried away by the eagle, his long frock twisted in the wind as he +goes. The parents run out in dismay, and the devil grins, not +because it is the punishment of the child or of them; but because he +is the author of all mischief everywhere, as the monkish carver +conceived--so far wholesomely. + +We must remember that any sculpture less emphatic would have been +ineffective, because practically invisible, in this sombre place. +But at the west end there is an escape for the eye, for the soul, +towards the unhindered, natural, afternoon sun; not however into the +outer and open air, but through an arcade of three bold round arches, +high above the great closed western doors, into a somewhat broader +and loftier place than this, a reservoir of light, a veritable camera +lucida. The light is that which lies below the vault and within the +tribunes of the famous narthex (as they say), the vast fore-church or +vestibule, into which the nave is prolonged. A remarkable feature of +many Cluniac churches, the great western porch, on a scale which is +approached in England only at Peterborough, is found also in some of +the churches of the Cistercians. It is characteristic, in fact, +rather of Burgundy than of either of those religious orders +especially. + +[137] At Pontigny itself, for instance, there is a good one; and a +very early one at Paray-le-Monial. Saint-Pere-sous-Vezelay, daughter +of the great church, in the vale below, has a late Gothic example; +Semur also, with fantastic lodges above it. The cathedral of Autun, +a secular church in rivalry of the "religious," presents, by way of +such western porch or vestibule, two entire bays of the nave, +unglazed, with the vast western arch open to the air; the west front, +with its rich portals, being thrown back into the depths of the great +fore-church thus produced. + +The narthex of Vezelay, the largest of these singular structures, is +glazed, and closed towards the west by what is now the facade. It is +itself in fact a great church, a nave of three magnificent bays, and +of three aisles, with a spacious triforium. With their fantastic +sculpture, sheltered thus from accident and weather, in all its +original freshness, the great portals of the primitive facade serve +now for doorways, as a second, solemn, door of entrance, to the +church proper within. The very structure of the place, and its +relation to the main edifice, indicate that it was for use on +occasion, when, at certain great feasts, that of the Magdalen +especially, to whom the church of Vezelay is dedicated, the monastery +was swollen with pilgrims, too poor, too numerous, to be lodged in +the town, come hither to worship before the [138] relics of the +friend of Jesus, enshrined in a low-vaulted crypt, the floor of which +is the natural rocky surface of the hill-top. It may be that the +pilgrims were permitted to lie for the night, not only on the +pavement, but (if so favoured) in the high and dry chamber formed by +the spacious triforium over the north aisle, awaiting an early Mass. +The primitive west front, then, had become but a wall of partition; +and above its central portal, where the round arched west windows had +been, ran now a kind of broad, arcaded tribune, in full view of the +entire length of the church. In the midst of it stood an altar; and +here perhaps, the priest who officiated being visible to the whole +assembled multitude east and west, the early Mass was said. + +The great vestibule was finished about forty years after the +completion of the nave, towards the middle of the twelfth century. +And here, in the great pier-arches, and in the eastern bay of the +vault, still with the large masonry, the large, flat, unmoulded +surfaces, and amid the fantastic carvings of the Romanesque building +about it, the Pointed style, determined yet discreet, makes itself +felt--makes itself felt by appearing, if not for the first time, yet +for the first time in the organic or systematic development of French +architecture. Not in the unambitious facade of Saint-Denis, nor in +the austere aisles of Sens, but at Vezelay, in this grandiose fabric, +so worthy of the event, Viollet-le-Duc would [139] fain see the +birthplace of the Pointed style. Here at last, with no sense of +contrast, but by way of veritable "transition," and as if by its own +matured strength, the round arch breaks into the double curve, les +arcs brises, with a wonderful access of grace. And the imaginative +effect is forthwith enlarged. Beyond, far beyond, what is actually +presented to the eye in that peculiar curvature, its mysterious +grace, and by the stateliness, the elevation of the ogival method of +vaulting, the imagination is stirred to present one with what belongs +properly to it alone. The masonry, though large, is nicely fitted; a +large light is admitted through the now fully pronounced Gothic +windows towards the west. At Amiens we found the Gothic spirit, +reigning there exclusively, to be a restless one. At Vezelay, where +it breathes for the first time amid the heavy masses of the old +imperial style, it breathes the very genius of monastic repose. And +then, whereas at Amiens, and still more at Beauvais, at Saint- +Quentin, you wonder how these monuments of the past can have endured +so long, in strictly monastic Vezelay you have a sense of freshness, +such as, in spite of their ruin, we perceive in the buildings of +Greece. We enjoy here not so much, as at Amiens, the sentiment of +antiquity, but that of eternal duration. + +But let me place you once more where we stood for a while, on +entering by the doorway [140] in the midst of the long southern +aisle. Cross the aisle, and gather now in one view the perspective +of the whole. Away on the left hand the eye is drawn upward to the +tranquil light of the vaults of the fore-church, seeming doubtless +the more spacious because partly concealed from us by the wall of +partition below. But on the right hand, towards the east, as if with +the set purpose of a striking architectural contrast, an instruction +as to the place of this or that manner in the architectural series, +the long, tunnel-like, military work of the Romanesque nave opens +wide into the exhilarating daylight of choir and transepts, in the +sort of Gothic Bernard would have welcomed, with a vault rising now +high above the roof-line of the body of the church, sicut lilium +excelsum. The simple flowers, the flora, of the early Pointed style, +which could never have looked at home as an element in the half- +savage decoration of the nave, seem to be growing here upon the +sheaves of slender, reedy pillars, as if naturally in the carved +stone. Even here indeed, Roman, or Romanesque, taste still lingers +proudly in the monolith columns of the chevet. Externally, we may +note with what dexterity the Gothic choir has been inserted into its +place, below and within the great buttresses of the earlier +Romanesque one. + +Visitors to the great church of Assisi have sometimes found a kind of +parable in the threefold [141] ascent from the dark crypt where the +body of Saint Francis lies, through the gloomy "lower" church, into +the height and breadth, the physical and symbolic "illumination," of +the church above. At Vezelay that kind of contrast suggests itself +in one view; the hopeful, but transitory, glory upon which one +enters; the long, darksome, central avenue; the "open vision" into +which it conducts us. As a symbol of resurrection, its choir is a +fitting diadem to the church of the Magdalen, whose remains the monks +meant it to cover. + +And yet, after all, notwithstanding this assertion of the superiority +(are we so to call it?) of the new Gothic way, perhaps by the very +force of contrast, the Madeleine of Vezelay is still pre-eminently a +Romanesque, and thereby the typically monastic, church. In spite of +restoration even, as we linger here, the impression of the monastic +Middle Age, of a very exclusive monasticism, that has verily turned +its back upon common life, jealously closed inward upon itself, is a +singularly weighty one; the more so because, as the peasant said when +asked the way to an old sanctuary that had fallen to the occupation +of farm-labourers, and was now deserted even by them: Maintenant il +n'y a personne la. + +NOTES + +126. *Published in the Nineteenth Century, June 1894, and now +reprinted by the kind permission of the proprietors. + + + +APOLLO IN PICARDY* + +[142] "CONSECUTIVE upon Apollo in all his solar fervour and +effulgence," says a writer of Teutonic proclivities, "we may discern +even among the Greeks themselves, elusively, as would be natural with +such a being, almost like a mock sun amid the mists, the northern or +ultra-northern sun-god. In hints and fragments the lexicographers +and others have told us something of this Hyperborean Apollo, fancies +about him which evidence some knowledge of the Land of the Midnight +Sun, of the sun's ways among the Laplanders, of a hoary summer +breathing very softly on the violet beds, or say, the London-pride +and crab-apples, provided for those meagre people, somewhere amid the +remoteness of their icy seas. In such wise Apollo had already +anticipated his sad fortunes in the Middle Age as a god definitely in +exile, driven north of the Alps, and even here ever in flight before +the summer. Summer indeed he leaves now to the management of [143] +others, finding his way from France and Germany to still paler +countries, yet making or taking with him always a certain seductive +summer-in-winter, though also with a divine or titanic regret, a +titanic revolt in his heart, and consequent inversion at times of his +old beneficent and properly solar doings. For his favours, his +fallacious good-humour, which has in truth a touch of malign magic +about it, he makes men pay sometimes a terrible price, and is in fact +a devil!" + +Devilry, devil's work:--traces of such you might fancy were to be +found in a certain manuscript volume taken from an old monastic +library in France at the Revolution. It presented a strange example +of a cold and very reasonable spirit disturbed suddenly, thrown off +its balance, as by a violent beam, a blaze of new light, revealing, +as it glanced here and there, a hundred truths unguessed at before, +yet a curse, as it turned out, to its receiver, in dividing +hopelessly against itself the well-ordered kingdom of his thought. +Twelfth volume of a dry enough treatise on mathematics, applied, +still with no relaxation of strict method, to astronomy and music, it +should have concluded that work, and therewith the second period of +the life of its author, by drawing tight together the threads of a +long and intricate argument. In effect however, it began, or, in +perturbed manner, and as [144] with throes of childbirth, seemed the +preparation for, an argument of an entirely new and disparate +species, such as would demand a new period of life also, if it might +be, for its due expansion. + +But with what confusion, what baffling inequalities! How afflicting +to the mind's eye! It was a veritable "solar storm"--this +illumination, which had burst at the last moment upon the strenuous, +self-possessed, much-honoured monastic student, as he sat down +peacefully to write the last formal chapters of his work ere he +betook himself to its well-earned practical reward as superior, with +lordship and mitre and ring, of the abbey whose music and calendar +his mathematical knowledge had qualified him to reform. The very +shape of Volume Twelve, pieced together of quite irregularly formed +pages, was a solecism. It could never be bound. In truth, the man +himself, and what passed with him in one particular space of time, +had invaded a matter, which is nothing if not entirely abstract and +impersonal. Indirectly the volume was the record of an episode, an +interlude, an interpolated page of life. And whereas in the earlier +volumes you found by way of illustration no more than the simplest +indispensable diagrams, the scribe's hand had strayed here into mazy +borders, long spaces of hieroglyph, and as it were veritable pictures +of the theoretic elements of his subject. Soft wintry auroras seemed +to play behind whole pages of crabbed textual writing, line and +figure [145] bending, breathing, flaming, in, to lovely +"arrangements" that were like music made visible; till writing and +writer changed suddenly, "to one thing constant never," after the +known manner of madmen in such work. Finally, the whole matter broke +off with an unfinished word, as a later hand testified, adding the +date of the author's death, "deliquio animi." + +He had been brought to the monastery as a little child; was bred +there; had never yet left it, busy and satisfied through youth and +early manhood; was grown almost as necessary a part of the community +as the stones of its material abode, as a pillar of the great tower +he ascended to watch the movement of the stars. The structure of a +fortified medieval town barred in those who belonged to it very +effectively. High monastic walls intrenched the monk still further. +From the summit of the tower you looked straight down into the deep +narrow streets, upon the houses (in one of which Prior Saint-Jean was +born) climbing as high as they dared for breathing space within that +narrow compass. But you saw also the green breadth of Normandy and +Picardy, this way and that; felt on your face the free air of a still +wider realm beyond what was seen. The reviving scent of it, the mere +sight of the flowers brought thence, of the country produce at the +convent gate, stirred the ordinary monkish soul with desires, +sometimes with efforts, to be sent on duty there. Prior [146] Saint- +Jean, on the other hand, shuddered at the view, at the thoughts it +suggested to him; thoughts of unhallowed wild places, where the old +heathen had worshipped "stocks and stones," and where their +wickedness might still survive them in something worse than +mischievous tricks of nature, such as you might read of in Ovid, +whose verses, however, he for his part had never so much as touched +with a finger. He gave thanks rather, that his vocation to the +abstract sciences had kept him far apart from the whole crew of +miscreant poets--Abode of demons. + +Thither nevertheless he was now to depart, sent to the Grange or +Obedience of Notre-Dame De-Pratis by the aged Abbot (about to resign +in his favour) for the benefit of his body's health, a little +impaired at last by long intellectual effort, yet so invaluable to +the community. But let him beware! whispered his dearest friend, who +shared those strange misgivings, let him "take heed to his ways" when +he was come to that place. "The mere contact of one's feet with its +soil might change one." And that same night, disturbed perhaps by +thoughts of the coming journey with which his brain was full, Prior +Saint-Jean himself dreamed vividly, as he had been little used to do. +He saw the very place in which he lay (he knew it! his little inner +cell, the brown doors, the white breadth of wall, the black crucifix +upon it) alight, alight [147] softly; and looking, as he fancied, +from the window, saw also a low circlet of soundless flame, waving, +licking daintily up the black sky, but harmless, beautiful, closing +in upon that round dark space in the midst, which was the earth. He +seemed to feel upon his shoulder just then the touch of his friend +beside him. "It is hell-fire!" he said. + +The Prior took with him a very youthful though devoted companion-- +Hyacinthus, the pet of the community. They laughed admiringly at the +rebellious masses of his black hair, with blue in the depths of it, +like the wings of the swallow, which refused to conform to the +monkish pattern. It only grew twofold, crown upon crown, after the +half-yearly shaving. And he was as neat and serviceable as he was +delightful to be with. Prior Saint-Jean, then, and the boy started +before daybreak for the long journey; onwards, till darkness, a soft +twilight rather, was around them again. How unlike a winter night it +seemed, the further they went through the endless, lonely, turf-grown +tracts, and along the edge of a valley, at length--vallis monachorum, +monksvale--taken aback by its sudden steepness and depth, as of an +immense oval cup sunken in the grassy upland, over which a golden +moon now shone broadly. Ah! there it was at last, the white Grange, +the white gable of the chapel apart amid a few scattered white +gravestones, the white flocks crouched about on the hoar-frost, [148] +like the white clouds, packed somewhat heavily on the horizon, and +nacres as the clouds of June, with their own light and heat in them, +in their hollows, you might fancy. + +From the very first, the atmosphere, the light, the influence of +things, seemed different from what they knew; and how distant already +the dark buildings of their home! Was there the breath of surviving +summer blossom on the air? Now and then came a gentle, comfortable +bleating from the folds, and themselves slept soundly at last in the +great open upper chamber of the Grange; were awakened by the sound of +thunder. Strange, in the late November night! It had parted, +however, with its torrid fierceness; modulated by distance, seemed to +break away into musical notes. And the lightning lingered along with +it, but glancing softly; was in truth an aurora, such as persisted +month after month on the northern sky as they sojourned here. Like +Prospero's enchanted island, the whole place was "full of noises." +The wind it might have been, passing over metallic strings, but that +they were audible even when the night was breathless. + +So like veritable music, however, were they on that first night that, +upon reflexion, the Prior climbed softly the winding stair down which +they appeared to flow, to the great solar among the beams of the +roof, where the farm produce lay stored. A flood of moonlight now +fell through the unshuttered dormer-windows; and, [149] under the +glow of a lamp hanging from the low rafters, Prior Saint-Jean seemed +to be looking for the first time on the human form, on the old Adam +fresh from his Maker's hand. A servant of the house, or farm- +labourer, perhaps!--fallen asleep there by chance on the fleeces +heaped like golden stuff high in all the corners of the place. A +serf! But what unserflike ease, how lordly, or godlike rather, in +the posture! Could one fancy a single curve bettered in the rich, +warm, white limbs; in the haughty features of the face, with the +golden hair, tied in a mystic knot, fallen down across the inspired +brow? And yet what gentle sweetness also in the natural movement of +the bosom, the throat, the lips, of the sleeper! Could that be +diabolical, and really spotted with unseen evil, which was so +spotless to the eye? The rude sandals of the monastic serf lay +beside him apart, and all around was of the roughest, excepting only +two strange objects lying within reach (even in their own renowned +treasury Prior Saint-Jean had not seen the like of them), a harp, or +some such instrument, of silver-gilt once, but the gold had mostly +passed from it, and a bow, fashioned somehow of the same precious +substance. The very form of these things filled his mind with +inexplicable misgivings. He repeated a befitting collect, and trod +softly away. + +It was in truth but a rude place to which they were come. But, after +life in the [150] monastery, the severe discipline of which the Prior +himself had done much to restore, there was luxury in the free, self- +chosen hours, the irregular fare, in doing pretty much as one +pleased, in the sweet novelties of the country; to the boy Hyacinth +especially, who forgot himself, or rather found his true self for the +first time. Girding up his heavy frock, which he laid aside erelong +altogether to go in his coarse linen smock only, he seemed a monastic +novice no longer; yet, in his natural gladness, was found more +companionable than ever by his senior, surprised, delighted, for his +part, at the fresh springing of his brain, the spring of his +footsteps over the close greensward, as if smoothed by the art of +man. Cause of his renewed health, or concurrent with its effects, +the air here might have been that of a veritable paradise, still +unspoiled. "Could there be unnatural magic," he asked himself again, +"any secret evil, lurking in these tranquil vale-sides, in their +sweet low pastures, in the belt of scattered woodland above them, in +the rills of pure water which lisped from the open down beyond?" +Making what was really a boy's experience, he had a wholly boyish +delight in his holiday, and certainly did not reflect how much we +beget for ourselves in what we see and feel, nor how far a certain +diffused music in the very breath of the place was the creation of +his own ear or brain. + +[151] That strange enigmatic owner of the harp and the bow, whom he +had found sleeping so divinely, actually waited on them the next +morning with all obsequiousness, stirred the great fire of peat, +adjusted duly their monkish attire, laid their meal. It seemed an +odd thing to be served thus, like St. Jerome by the lion, as if by +some imperiously beautiful wild animal tamed. You hesitated to +permit, were a little afraid of, his services. Their silent tonsured +porter himself, contrast grim enough to any creature of that kind, +had been so far seduced as to permit him to sleep there in the +Grange, as he loved to do, instead of in ruder, rougher quarters; +and, coaxed into odd garrulity on this one matter, told the new- +comers the little he knew, with much also that he only suspected, +about him; among other things, as to the origin of those precious +objects, which might have belonged to some sanctuary or noble house, +found thus in the possession of a mere labourer, who is no Frenchman, +but a pagan, or gipsy, white as he looks, from far south or east, and +who works or plays furtively, by night for the most part, returning +to sleep awhile before daybreak. The other herdsmen of the valley +are bond-servants, but he a hireling at will, though coming regularly +at a certain season. He has come thus for any number of years past, +though seemingly never grown older (as the speaker reflects), singing +his way meagrely from farm to farm, to the sound of [152] his harp. +His name?--It was scarcely a name at all, in the diffident syllables +he uttered in answer to that question, on first coming there; but of +names known to them it came nearest to a malignant one in Scripture, +Apollyon. Apollyon had a just discernible tonsure, but probably no +right to it. + +Well skilled in architecture, Prior Saint-Jean was set, by way of a +holiday task, to superintend the completion of the great monastic +barn then in building. The visitor admires it still; perhaps +supposes it, with its noble aisle, though set north and south, to be +a desecrated church. If he be an expert in such matters, he will +remark a sort of classical harmony in its broad, very simple +proportions, with a certain suppression of Gothic emphasis, more +especially in that peculiarly Gothic feature, the buttresses, +scarcely marking the unbroken, windowless walls, which rise very +straight, taking the sun placidly. The silver-grey stone, cut, if it +came from this neighbourhood at all, from some now forgotten quarry, +has the fine, close-grained texture of antique marble. The great +northern gable is almost a classic pediment. The horizontal lines of +plinth and ridge and cornice are kept unbroken, the roof of sea-grey +slates being pitched less angularly than is usual in this rainy +clime. A welcome contrast, the Prior thought it, to the sort of +architectural nightmare he came from. He found the structure already +more than half- [153] way up, the low squat pillars ready for their +capitals. + +Yes! it must have so happened often in the Middle Age, as you feel +convinced, in looking sometimes at medieval building. Style must +have changed under the very hands of men who were no wilful +innovators. Thus it was here, in the later work of Prior Saint-Jean, +all unconsciously. The mysterious harper sat there always, at the +topmost point achieved; played, idly enough it might seem, on his +precious instrument, but kept in fact the hard taxed workmen +literally in tune, working for once with a ready will, and, so to +speak, with really inventive hands--working expeditiously, in this +favourable weather, till far into the night, as they joined unbidden +in a chorus, which hushed, or rather turned to music, the noise of +their chipping. It was hardly noise at all, even in the night-time. +Now and again Brother Apollyon descended nimbly to surprise them, at +an opportune moment, by the display of an immense strength. A great +cheer exploded suddenly, as single-handed he heaved a massive stone +into its place. He seemed to have no sense of weight: "Put there by +the devil!" the modern villager assures you. + +With a change then, not so much of style as of temper, of management, +in the application of acknowledged rules, Prior Saint-Jean shaping +only, adapting, simplifying, partly with a view [154] to economy, not +the heavy stones only, but the heavy manner of using them, turned +light. With no pronounced ornamentation, it is as if in the upper +story ponderous root and stem blossomed gracefully, blossomed in +cornice and capital and pliant arch-line, as vigorous as they were +graceful, and rose on high quickly. Almost suddenly tie-beam and +rafter knit themselves together into the stone, and the dark, dry, +roomy place was closed in securely to this day. Mere audible music, +certainly, had counted for something in the operations of an art, +held at its best (as we know) to be a sort of music made visible. +That idle singer, one might fancy, by an art beyond art, had +attracted beams and stones into their fit places. And there, sure +enough, he still sits, as a final decorative touch, by way of apex on +the gable which looks northward, though much weather-worn, and with +an ugly gap between the shoulder and the fingers on the harp,* as if, +literally, he had cut off his right hand and put it from him:--King +David, or an angel? guesses the careless tourist. The space below +has been lettered. After a little puzzling you recognise there the +relics of a familiar verse from a Latin psalm Nisi Dominus +aedificaverit domum,+ and the rest: inscribed as well as may be in +Greek characters. Prior Saint-Jean caused it to be so inscribed, +absurdly, during his last days there. + +[155] And is not the human body, too, a building, with architectural +laws, a structure, tending by the very forces which primarily held it +together to drop asunder in time? Not in vain, it seemed, had Prior +Saint-Jean come to this mystic place for the improvement of his +body's health. Thenceforth that fleshly tabernacle had housed him, +had housed his cunning, overwrought and excitable soul, ever the +better day by day, and he began to feel his bodily health to be a +positive quality or force, the presence near him of that singular +being having surely something to do with this result. He and his +fascinations, his music, himself, might at least be taken for an +embodiment of all those genial influences of earth and sky, and the +easy ways of living here, which made him turn, with less of an effort +than he had known for many years past, to his daily tasks, and sink +so regularly, so immediately, to wholesome rest on returning from +them. It was as if Brother Apollyon himself abhorred the spectacle +of distress, and mainly for his own satisfaction charmed away other +people's maladies. The mere touch of that ice-cold hand, laid on the +feverish brow, when the Prior lapsed from time to time into his +former troubles, certainly calmed the respiration of a troubled +sleeper. Was there magic in it, not wholly natural? The hand might +have been a dead one. But then, was it surprising, after all, that +the [156] methods of curing men's maladies, as being in very deed the +fruit of sin, should have something strange and unlooked-for about +them, like some of those Old Testament healings and purifications +which the Prior's biblical lore suggested to him? Yet Brother +Apollyon, if their surly Janitor, in his less kindly moments, spoke +truly, himself greatly needed purification, being not only a thief, +but a homicide in hiding from the law. Nay, once, on his annual +return from southern or eastern lands, he had been observed on his +way along the streets of the great town literally scattering the +seeds of disease till his serpent-skin bag was empty. And within +seven days the "black death" was there, reaping its thousands. As a +wise man declared, he who can best cure disease can also most +cunningly engender it. + +In short, these creatures of rule, these "regulars," the Prior and +his companion, were come in contact for the first time in their lives +with the power of untutored natural impulse, of natural inspiration. +The boy experienced it immediately in the games which suited his +years, but which he had never so much as seen before; as his superior +was to undergo its influence by-and-by in serious study. By night +chiefly, in its long, continuous twilights, Hyacinth became really a +boy at last, with immense gaiety; eyes, hands and feet awake, +expanding, as he raced his comrade over the [157] turf, with the +conical Druidic stone for a goal, or wrestled lithely enough with +him, though as with a rock; or, taking the silver bow in hand for a +moment, transfixed a mark, next a bird, on the bough, on the wing, +shedding blood for the first time, with a boy's delight, a boy's +remorse. Friend Apollyon seemed able to draw the wild animals too, +to share their sport, yet not altogether kindly. Tired, surfeited, +he destroys them when his game with them is at an end; breaks the +toy; deftly snaps asunder the fragile back. Though all alike would +come at his call, or the sound of his harp, he had his preferences; +and warred in the night-time, as if on principle, against the +creatures of the day. The small furry thing he pierced with his +arrow fled to him nevertheless caressingly, with broken limb, to die +palpitating in his hand. In this wonderful season, the migratory +birds, from Norway, from Britain beyond the seas, came there as usual +on the north wind, with sudden tumult of wings; but went that year no +further, and by Christmas-time had built their nests, filling that +belt of woodland around the vale with the chatter of their business +and love quarrels. In turn they drew after them strangers no one +here had ever known before; the like of which Hyacinth, who knew his +bestiary, had never seen even in a picture. The wild-cat, the wild- +swan--the boy peeped on these wonders as they floated over the vale, +or [158] glided with unwonted confidence over its turf, under the +moonlight, or that frequent continuous aurora which was not the dawn. +Even the modest rivulets of the hill-side felt that influence, and +"lisped" no longer, but babbled as they leapt, like mountain streams, +exposing their rocky bed. Were they angry, as they ran red sometimes +with blood-drops from the stricken bird caught there by rock or +bough, as it fell with rent breast among the waves? + +But say, think, what you might against him, the pagan outlaw was +worth his hire as a herdsman; seemingly loved his sheep; was an +"affectionate shepherd"; cured their diseases; brought them easily to +the birth, and if they strayed afar would bring them back tenderly +upon his shoulders. Monastic persons would have seen that image many +times before. Yet if Apollyon looked like the great carved figure +over the low doorway of their place of penitence at home, that could +be but an accident, or perhaps a deceit; so closely akin to those +soulless creatures did he still seem to the wondering Prior,-- +immersed in, or actually a part of, that irredeemable natural world +he had dreaded so greatly ere he came hither. And was he after all +making terms with it now, in the seductive person of this mysterious +being--man or demon--suspected of murder; who has an air of +unfathomable evil about him as from a distant but ineffaceable past, +and a sort of heathen [159] understanding with the dark realm of +matter; who is bringing the simple people, the women and lovesick +lads, back to those caves and cromlechs and blasted trees, resorts of +old godless secret-telling? And still he has all his own way with +beasts and man, with the Prior himself, much as all alike distrust +him. + +Most conspicuous in the little group of buildings, a feudal tower of +goodly white stone, cylindrical and smoothly polished without to +hinder the ascent of creeping things, and snugly plastered within to +resist the damp, was the pigeon-house--a veritable feudal tower, a +veritable feudal plaisance of birds, which the common people dared +not so much as ruffle. About a thousand of them were housed there, +each in its little chamber, encouraged to grow plump, and to breed, +in perfect self-content. From perch to perch of the great axle-tree +in the centre, monastic feet might climb, gentle monastic hands pass +round to every tiny compartment in turn. The arms of the monastery +were carved on the keystone of the doorway, and the tower finished in +a conical roof, with becoming aerial gaillardise, with pretty dormer- +windows for the inmates to pass in and out, little balconies for +brooding in the sun, little awnings to protect them from rough +breezes, and a great weather-vane, on which the birds crowded for the +chance of a ride. If the peasants of that day, whose small fields +they plundered, noting all this, perhaps [160] envied the birds +dumbly, for the brethren, on the other hand, it was a constant +delight to watch the feathered brotherhood, which supplied likewise +their daintiest fare. Who then, what hawk, or wild-cat, or other +savage beast, had ravaged it so wantonly, so very cruelly destroyed +the bright creatures in a single night--broken backs, rent away +limbs, pierced the wings? And what was that object there below? The +silver harp surely, lying broken likewise on the sanded floor, +soaking in the pale milky blood and torn plumage. + +Apollyon sobbed and wept audibly as he went about his ordinary doings +next day, for once fully, though very sadly, awake in it; and towards +evening, when the villagers came to the Prior to confess themselves, +the Feast of the Nativity being now at hand, he too came along with +them in his place meekly, like any other penitent, touched the +lustral water devoutly, knew all the ways, seemed to desire +absolution from some guilt of blood heavier than the slaughter of +beast or bird. The Prior and his attendant, on their side, are +reminded that by this time they have wellnigh forgotten the monastic +duties still incumbent upon them, especially in that matter of the +"Offices." On the vigil of the feast, however, Brother Apollyon +himself summoned the devout to Midnight Mass with the great bell, +which had hung silent for a generation, wedged in immoveably by a +beam of [161] the cradle fallen out of its place. With an immense +effort of strength he relieved it, hitched the bell back upon its +wheel; the thick rust cracked on the hinges, and the strokes tolled +forth betimes, with a hundred querulous, quaint creatures, bats and +owls, circling stupidly in the waves of sound, but allowed to settle +back again undisturbedly into their beds. + +People and priest, the Prior, vested as well as might be, with +Hyacinth as "server," come in due course, all alike amazed to find +that frozen neglected place, with its low-browed vault and narrow +windows, alight, and as if warmed with flowers from a summer more +radiant far than that of France, with ilex and laurel--gilt laurel-- +by way of holly and box. Prior Saint-Jean felt that he had never +really seen flowers before. Somewhat later they and the like of them +seemed to have grown into and over his brain; to have degraded the +scientific and abstract outlines of things into a tangle of useless +ornament. Whence were they procured? From what height, or hellish +depth perhaps? Apollyon, who entered the chapel just then, as if +quite naturally, though with a bleating lamb in his bosom ("dropped" +thus early in that wonderful season) by way of an offering, took his +place at the altar's very foot, and drawing forth his harp, now +restrung, at the right moment, turned to real silvery music the +hoarse Gloria in Excelsis of those rude worshippers, still [162] +shrinking from him, while they listened in a little circle, as he +stood there in his outlandish attire of skins strangely spotted and +striped. With that however the Mass broke off unconsummated. The +Prior felt obliged to desist from the sacred office, and had left the +altar hurriedly. + +But Brother Apollyon put his strange attire aside next day, and in a +much-worn monk's frock, drawn forth from a dark corner, came with +them, still like a Penitent, when they turned once more to their +neglected studies somewhat sadly. See them then, after a collect for +"Light" repeated by Hyacinth, skull-cap in hand, seated at their +desks in the little scriptorium, panelled off from their living-room +on the first floor, while the Prior makes an effort to recover the +last thought of his long-suspended work, in the execution of which +the boy is to assist with his skilful pen. The great glazed windows +remain open; admit, as if already on the soft air of spring, what +seems like a stream of flowery odours, the entire moonlit scene, with +the thorn bushes on the vale-side prematurely bursting into blossom, +and the sound of birds and flocks emphasising the deep silence of the +night. + +Apollyon then, as if by habit, as he had shared all their occupations +of late, had taken his seat beside them, meekly enough, at first with +the manner of a mere suppliant for the [163] crumbs of their high +studies. But, straightway again, he surprises by more than racing +forward incredibly on the road to facts, and from facts to luminous +doctrine; Prior Saint-Jean himself, in comparison, seeming to lag +incompetently behind. He can but wonder at this strange scholar's +knowledge of a distant past, evidenced in his familiarity (it was as +if he might once have spoken them) with the dead languages in which +their text-books are written. There was more surely than the utmost +merely natural acuteness in his guesses as to the words intended by +those crabbed contractions, of their meaning, in his sense of +allusions and the like. An ineffaceable memory it might rather seem +of the entire world of which those languages had been the living +speech, once more vividly awake under the Prior's cross- questioning, +and now more than supplementing his own laborious search. + +And at last something of the same kind happens with himself. Had he, +on his way hither from the convent, passed unwittingly through some +river or rivulet of Lethe, that had carried away from him all his so +carefully accumulated intellectual baggage of fact and theory? The +hard and abstract laws, or theory of the laws, of music, of the +stars, of mechanical structure, in hard and abstract formulae, adding +to the abstract austerity of the man, seemed to have deserted him; to +be revived in him again [164] however, at the contact of this +extraordinary pupil or fellow-inquirer, though in a very different +guise or attitude towards himself, as matters no longer to be +reasoned upon and understood, but to be seen rather, to be looked at +and heard. Did not he see the angle of the earth's axis with the +ecliptic, the deflexions of the stars from their proper orbits with +fatal results here below, and the earth--wicked, unscriptural truth!- +-moving round the sun, and those flashes of the eternal and unorbed +light such as bring water, flowers, living things, out of the rocks, +the dust? The singing of the planets: he could hear it, and might in +time effect its notation. Having seen and heard, he might erelong +speak also, truly and with authority, on such matters. Could one but +arrest it for one's self, for final transference to others, on the +written or printed page--this beam of insight, or of inspiration! + +Alas! one result of its coming was that it encouraged delay. If he +set hand to the page, the firm halo, here a moment since, was gone, +had flitted capriciously to the wall; passed next through the window, +to the wall of the garden; was dancing back in another moment upon +the innermost walls of one's own miserable brain, to swell there-- +that astounding white light!--rising steadily in the cup, the mental +receptacle, till it overflowed, and he lay faint and drowning in it. +Or he rose above it, as above a great liquid surface, and hung +giddily over it--light, [165] simple, and absolute--ere he fell. Or +there was a battle between light and darkness around him, with no way +of escape from the baffling strokes, the lightning flashes; flashes +of blindness one might rather call them. In truth, the intuitions of +the night (for they worked still, or tried to work, by night) became +the sickly nightmares of the day, in which Prior Saint-Jean slept, or +tried to sleep, or lay sometimes in a trance without food for many +hours, from which he would spring up suddenly to crowd, against time, +as much as he could into his book with pen or brush; winged flowers, +or stars with human limbs and faces, still intruding themselves, or +mere notes of light and darkness from the actual horizon. There it +all is still in the faded gold and colours of the ancient volume-- +"Prior Saint-Jean's folly":--till on a sudden the hand collapses, as +he becomes aware of that real, prosaic, broad daylight lying harsh +upon the page, making his delicately toned auroras seem but a patch +of grey, and himself for a moment, with a sigh of disgust, of self- +reproach, to be his old unimpassioned monastic self once more. + +The boy, for his part, was grown at last full of misgiving. He +ponders how he may get the Prior away, or escape by himself, find his +way back to the convent and report his master's condition, his +strange loss of memory for names and the like, his illusions about +himself and [166] others. And he is more than ever distrustful now +of his late beloved playmate, who quietly obstructs any movement of +the kind, and has undertaken, at the Prior's entreaty, to draw down +the moon from the sky, for some shameful price, known to the +magicians of that day. + +Yet Apollyon, at all events, would still play as gaily as ever on +occasion. Hitherto they had played as young animals do; without +playthings namely, applying hand or foot only to their games. But it +happened about this time that a grave was dug, a grave of unusual +depth, to be ready, in that fiery plaguesome weather, the first heat +of veritable summer come suddenly, for the body of an ancient +villager then at the point of death. In the drowsy afternoon +Hyacinth awakes Apollyon, to see the strange thing he has found at +the grave-side, among the gravel and yellow bones cast up there. He +had wrested it with difficulty from the hands of the half-crippled +gravedigger, at eighty still excitable by the mere touch of metal. + +The like of it had indeed been found before, within living memory, in +this place of immemorial use as a graveyard--"Devil's penny-pieces" +people called them. Five such lay hidden already in a dark corner of +the chapel, to keep them from superstitious employment. To-day they +came out of hiding at last. Apollyon knew the use of the thing at a +glance; had put an expert hand to it forthwith; poises the [167] +discus; sets it wheeling. How easily it spins round under one's arm, +in the groove of the bent fingers, slips thence smoothly like a knife +flung from its sheath, as if for a course of perpetual motion! +Splendescit eundo: it seems to burn as it goes. It is heavier many +times than it looks, and sharp-edged. By night they have scoured and +polished the corroded surfaces. Apollyon promises Hyacinth and +himself rare sport in the cool of the evening--an evening however, as +it turned out, not less breathless than the day. + +In the great heat Apollyon had flung aside, as if for ever, the last +sorry remnant of his workman's attire, and challenged the boy to do +the same. On the moonlit turf there, crouching, right foot foremost, +and with face turned backwards to the disk in his right hand, his +whole body, in that moment of rest, full of the circular motion he is +about to commit to it, he seemed--beautiful pale spectre--to shine +from within with a light of his own, like that of the glow-worm in +the thicket, or the dead and rotten roots of the old trees. And as +if they had a proper motion of their own in them, the disks, the +quoits, ran, amid the delighted shouts and laughter of the boy, as he +follows, scarcely less swift, to score the points of their contact +with the grass. Again and again they recommence, forgetful of the +hours; while the death-bell cries out harshly for the grave's +occupant, and [168] the corpse itself is borne along stealthily not +far from them, and, unnoticed by either, the entire aspect of things +has changed. Under the overcast sky it is in darkness they are +playing, by guess and touch chiefly; and suddenly an icy blast of +wind has lifted the roof from the old chapel, the trees are moaning +in wild circular motion, and their devil's penny-piece, when Apollyon +throws it for the last time, is itself but a twirling leaf in the +wind, till it sinks edgewise, sawing through the boy's face, uplifted +in the dark to trace it, crushing in the tender skull upon the brain. + +His shout of laughter is turned in an instant to a cry of pain, of +reproach; and in that which echoed it--an immense cry, as from the +very heart of ancient tragedy, over the Picard wolds--it was as if +that half-extinguished deity, its proper immensity, its old greatness +and power, were restored for a moment. The villagers in their beds +wondered. It was like the sound of some natural catastrophe. + +The storm which followed was still in possession, still moving +tearfully among the poplar groves, though it had spent its heat and +thunder. The last drops of the blood of Hyacinth still trickled +through the thick masses of dark hair, where the tonsure had been. +An abundant rain, mingling with the copious purple stream, had +coloured the grass all around where the corpse lay, stealing afar in +tiny channels. + +[169] So it was, when Apollyon, reduced in the morning light to his +smaller self, came with the other people of the Grange to gaze, to +enquire, and found the Prior already there, speechless. Clearly this +was no lightning stroke; and Apollyon straightway conceives certain +very human fears that, coming upon those antecedent suspicions of +himself, the boy's death may be thought the result of intention on +his part. He proposes to bury the body at once, with no delay for +religious rites, in that still uncovered grave, the bearers having +fled from it in the tempest. + +And next day, fulfilling his annual custom, he went his way +northward, without a word of farewell to Prior Saint-Jean, whom he +leaves in fact under suspicion of murder. From the profound slumber +which had followed the excitements of yesterday, the Prior awoke amid +the sound of voices, the voices of the peasants singing no Christian +song, certainly, but a song which Apollyon himself had taught them, +to dismiss him on his journey. For, strange or not as it might be, +they loved him, perhaps in spite of themselves; would certainly +protect him at any risk. Prior Saint-Jean arose, and looked forth-- +with wonder. A brief spell of sunshine amid the rain had clothed the +vale with a marvel of blue flowers, if it were not rather with +remnants of the blue sky itself, fallen among the woods there. But +there too, in the little courtyard, [170] the officers of justice +are already in waiting to take him, on the charge of having caused +the death of his young server by violence, in a fit of mania, induced +by dissolute living in that solitary place. One hitherto so +prosperous in life would, of course, have his enemies. + +The monastic authorities, however, claim him from the secular power, +to correct his offence in their own way, and with friendly +interpretation of the facts. Madness, however wicked, being still +madness, Prior, now simple Brother, Saint-Jean, is detained in a +sufficiently cheerful apartment, in a region of the atmosphere likely +to restore lost wits, whence indeed he can still see the country-- +vallis monachorum. The one desire which from time to time fitfully +rouses him again to animation for a few moments is to return thither. +Here then he remains in peace, ostensibly for the completion of his +great work. He never again set pen to it, consistent and clear now +on nothing save that longing to be once more at the Grange, that he +may get well, or die and be well so. He is like the damned spirit, +think some of the brethren, saying "I will return to the house whence +I came out." Gazing thither daily for many hours, he would mistake +mere blue distance, when that was visible, for blue flowers, for +hyacinths, and wept at the sight; though blue, as he observed, was +the colour of Holy Mary's gown on the illuminated page, the colour of +hope, of merciful [171] omnipresent deity. The necessary permission +came with difficulty, just too late. Brother Saint-Jean died, +standing upright with an effort to gaze forth once more, amid the +preparations for his departure. + +NOTES + +142. *Published in Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Nov. 1893, and now +reprinted by the kind permission of the proprietors. + +154. *Or sundial, as some maintain, though turned from the south. + +154. +Latin Vulgate (ed. Saint Jerome) Psalm 126, verse 1: +"canticum graduum Salomonis nisi Dominus aedificaverit domum in vanum +laboraverunt qui aedificant eam nisi Dominus custodierit civitatem +frustra vigilavit qui custodit." King James Bible's translation: +"When the Lord turned again the captivity of Zion, we were like them +that dream." + + + +THE CHILD IN THE HOUSE* + +[172] As Florian Deleal walked, one hot afternoon, he overtook by the +wayside a poor aged man, and, as he seemed weary with the road, +helped him on with the burden which he carried, a certain distance. +And as the man told his story, it chanced that he named the place, a +little place in the neighbourhood of a great city, where Florian had +passed his earliest years, but which he had never since seen, and, +the story told, went forward on his journey comforted. And that +night, like a reward for his pity, a dream of that place came to +Florian, a dream which did for him the office of the finer sort of +memory, bringing its object to mind with a great clearness, yet, as +sometimes happens in dreams, raised a little above itself, and above +ordinary retrospect. The true aspect of the place, especially of the +house there in which he had lived as a child, the fashion of its +doors, its hearths, its windows, the very scent upon the air of it, +was with him in sleep for a season; only, with tints more musically +blent on wall [173] and floor, and some finer light and shadow +running in and out along its curves and angles, and with all its +little carvings daintier. He awoke with a sigh at the thought of +almost thirty years which lay between him and that place, yet with a +flutter of pleasure still within him at the fair light, as if it +were a smile, upon it. And it happened that this accident of his +dream was just the thing needed for the beginning of a certain design +he then had in view, the noting, namely, of some things in the story +of his spirit--in that process of brain-building by which we are, +each one of us, what we are. With the image of the place so clear +and favourable upon him, he fell to thinking of himself therein, and +how his thoughts had grown up to him. In that half-spiritualised +house he could watch the better, over again, the gradual expansion of +the soul which had come to be there--of which indeed, through the law +which makes the material objects about them so large an element in +children's lives, it had actually become a part; inward and outward +being woven through and through each other into one inextricable +texture--half, tint and trace and accident of homely colour and form, +from the wood and the bricks; half, mere soul-stuff, floated thither +from who knows how far. In the house and garden of his dream he saw +a child moving, and could divide the main streams at least of +the winds that had played on [174] him, and study so the first stage +in that mental journey. + +The old house, as when Florian talked of it afterwards he always +called it, (as all children do, who can recollect a change of home, +soon enough but not too soon to mark a period in their lives) really +was an old house; and an element of French descent in its inmates-- +descent from Watteau, the old court-painter, one of whose gallant +pieces still hung in one of the rooms--might explain, together with +some other things, a noticeable trimness and comely whiteness about +everything there--the curtains, the couches, the paint on the walls +with which the light and shadow played so delicately; might explain +also the tolerance of the great poplar in the garden, a tree most +often despised by English people, but which French people love, +having observed a certain fresh way its leaves have of dealing with +the wind, making it sound, in never so slight a stirring of the air, +like running water. + +The old-fashioned, low wainscoting went round the rooms, and up the +staircase with carved balusters and shadowy angles, landing half-way +up at a broad window, with a swallow's nest below the sill, and the +blossom of an old pear-tree showing across it in late April, against +the blue, below which the perfumed juice of the find of fallen fruit +in autumn was so fresh. At the next turning came the closet which +held on its deep shelves the best china. Little angel [175] faces +and reedy flutings stood out round the fireplace of the children's +room. And on the top of the house, above the large attic, where the +white mice ran in the twilight--an infinite, unexplored wonderland of +childish treasures, glass beads, empty scent-bottles still sweet, +thrum of coloured silks, among its lumber--a flat space of roof, +railed round, gave a view of the neighbouring steeples; for the +house, as I said, stood near a great city, which sent up heavenwards, +over the twisting weather-vanes, not seldom, its beds of rolling +cloud and smoke, touched with storm or sunshine. But the child of +whom I am writing did not hate the fog because of the crimson lights +which fell from it sometimes upon the chimneys, and the whites which +gleamed through its openings, on summer mornings, on turret or +pavement. For it is false to suppose that a child's sense of beauty +is dependent on any choiceness or special fineness, in the objects +which present themselves to it, though this indeed comes to be the +rule with most of us in later life; earlier, in some degree, we see +inwardly; and the child finds for itself, and with unstinted delight, +a difference for the sense, in those whites and reds through the +smoke on very homely buildings, and in the gold of the dandelions at +the road-side, just beyond the houses, where not a handful of earth +is virgin and untouched, in the lack of better ministries to its +desire of beauty. + +[176] This house then stood not far beyond the gloom and rumours of +the town, among high garden-wall, bright all summer-time with Golden- +rod, and brown-and-golden Wall-flower--Flos Parietis, as the +children's Latin-reading father taught them to call it, while he was +with them. Tracing back the threads of his complex spiritual habit, +as he was used in after years to do, Florian found that he owed to +the place many tones of sentiment afterwards customary with him, +certain inward lights under which things most naturally presented +themselves to him. The coming and going of travellers to the town +along the way, the shadow of the streets, the sudden breath of the +neighbouring gardens, the singular brightness of bright weather +there, its singular darknesses which linked themselves in his mind to +certain engraved illustrations in the old big Bible at home, the +coolness of the dark, cavernous shops round the great church, with +its giddy winding stair up to the pigeons and the bells--a citadel of +peace in the heart of the trouble--all this acted on his childish +fancy, so that ever afterwards the like aspects and incidents never +failed to throw him into a well-recognised imaginative mood, seeming +actually to have become a part of the texture of his mind. Also, +Florian could trace home to this point a pervading preference in +himself for a kind of comeliness and dignity, an urbanity literally, +in modes of life, which he connected with the pale [177] people of +towns, and which made him susceptible to a kind of exquisite +satisfaction in the trimness and well-considered grace of certain +things and persons he afterwards met with, here and there, in his way +through the world. + +So the child of whom I am writing lived on there quietly; things +without thus ministering to him, as he sat daily at the window with +the birdcage hanging below it, and his mother taught him to read, +wondering at the ease with which he learned, and at the quickness of +his memory. The perfume of the little flowers of the lime-tree fell +through the air upon them like rain; while time seemed to move ever +more slowly to the murmur of the bees in it, till it almost stood +still on June afternoons. How insignificant, at the moment, seem the +influences of the sensible things which are tossed and fall and lie +about us, so, or so, in the environment of early childhood. How +indelibly, as we afterwards discover, they affect us; with what +capricious attractions and associations they figure themselves on the +white paper, the smooth wax, of our ingenuous souls, as "with lead in +the rock for ever," giving form and feature, and as it were assigned +house-room in our memory, to early experiences of feeling and +thought, which abide with us ever afterwards, thus, and not +otherwise. The realities and passions, the rumours of the greater +world without, steal in upon us, each by its own special little +passage-way, through the wall of custom [178] about us; and never +afterwards quite detach themselves from this or that accident, or +trick, in the mode of their first entrance to us. Our +susceptibilities, the discovery of our powers, manifold experiences-- +our various experiences of the coming and going of bodily pain, for +instance--belong to this or the other well-remembered place in the +material habitation--that little white room with the window across +which the heavy blossoms could beat so peevishly in the wind, with +just that particular catch or throb, such a sense of teasing in it, +on gusty mornings; and the early habitation thus gradually becomes a +sort of material shrine or sanctuary of sentiment; a system of +visible symbolism interweaves itself through all our thoughts and +passions; and irresistibly, little shapes, voices, accidents--the +angle at which the sun in the morning fell on the pillow--become +parts of the great chain wherewith we are bound. + +Thus far, for Florian, what all this had determined was a peculiarly +strong sense of home--so forcible a motive with all of us--prompting +to us our customary love of the earth, and the larger part of our +fear of death, that revulsion we have from it, as from something +strange, untried, unfriendly; though life-long imprisonment, they +tell you, and final banishment from home is a thing bitterer still; +the looking forward to but a short space, a mere childish gouter and +dessert of it, before the end, being so great a resource of [179] +effort to pilgrims and wayfarers, and the soldier in distant +quarters, and lending, in lack of that, some power of solace to the +thought of sleep in the home churchyard, at least--dead cheek by dead +cheek, and with the rain soaking in upon one from above. + +So powerful is this instinct, and yet accidents like those I have +been speaking of so mechanically determine it; its essence being +indeed the early familiar, as constituting our ideal, or typical +conception, of rest and security. Out of so many possible +conditions, just this for you and that for me, brings ever the +unmistakeable realisation of the delightful chez soi; this for the +Englishman, for me and you, with the closely-drawn white curtain and +the shaded lamp; that, quite other, for the wandering Arab, who folds +his tent every morning, and makes his sleeping-place among haunted +ruins, or in old tombs. + +With Florian then the sense of home became singularly intense, his +good fortune being that the special character of his home was in +itself so essentially home-like. As after many wanderings I have +come to fancy that some parts of Surrey and Kent are, for Englishmen, +the true landscape, true home-counties, by right, partly, of a +certain earthy warmth in the yellow of the sand below their gorse- +bushes, and of a certain grey-blue mist after rain, in the hollows of +the hills there, welcome to fatigued eyes, and never seen farther +south; so I think that the sort of [180] house I have described, with +precisely those proportions of red-brick and green, and with a just +perceptible monotony in the subdued order of it, for its +distinguishing note, is for Englishmen at least typically home-life. +And so for Florian that general human instinct was reinforced by this +special home-likeness in the place his wandering soul had happened to +light on, as, in the second degree, its body and earthly tabernacle; +the sense of harmony between his soul and its physical environment +became, for a time at least, like perfectly played music, and the +life led there singularly tranquil and filled with a curious sense of +self-possession. The love of security, of an habitually undisputed +standing-ground or sleeping-place, came to count for much in the +generation and correcting of his thoughts, and afterwards as a +salutary principle of restraint in all his wanderings of spirit. The +wistful yearning towards home, in absence from it, as the shadows of +evening deepened, and he followed in thought what was doing there +from hour to hour, interpreted to him much of a yearning and regret +he experienced afterwards, towards he knew not what, out of strange +ways of feeling and thought in which, from time to time, his spirit +found itself alone; and in the tears shed in such absences there +seemed always to be some soul-subduing foretaste of what his last +tears might be. + +And the sense of security could hardly have [181] been deeper, the +quiet of the child's soul being one with the quiet of its home, a +place "inclosed" and "sealed." But upon this assured place, upon the +child's assured soul which resembled it, there came floating in from +the larger world without, as at windows left ajar unknowingly, or +over the high garden walls, two streams of impressions, the +sentiments of beauty and pain--recognitions of the visible, tangible, +audible loveliness of things, as a very real and somewhat tyrannous +element in them--and of the sorrow of the world, of grown people and +children and animals, as a thing not to be put by in them. From this +point he could trace two predominant processes of mental change in +him--the growth of an almost diseased sensibility to the spectacle of +suffering, and, parallel with this, the rapid growth of a certain +capacity of fascination by bright colour and choice form--the sweet +curvings, for instance, of the lips of those who seemed to him comely +persons, modulated in such delicate unison to the things they said or +sang,--marking early the activity in him of a more than customary +sensuousness, "the lust of the eye," as the Preacher says, which +might lead him, one day, how far! Could he have foreseen the +weariness of the way! In music sometimes the two sorts of +impressions came together, and he would weep, to the surprise of +older people. Tears of joy too the child knew, also to older +people's surprise; real tears, once, of relief from long-strung, +[182] childish expectation, when he found returned at evening, with +new roses in her cheeks, the little sister who had been to a place +where there was a wood, and brought back for him a treasure of fallen +acorns, and black crow's feathers, and his peace at finding her again +near him mingled all night with some intimate sense of the distant +forest, the rumour of its breezes, with the glossy blackbirds aslant +and the branches lifted in them, and of the perfect nicety of the +little cups that fell. So those two elementary apprehensions of the +tenderness and of the colour in things grew apace in him, and were +seen by him afterwards to send their roots back into the beginnings +of life. + +Let me note first some of the occasions of his recognition of the +element of pain in things--incidents, now and again, which seemed +suddenly to awake in him the whole force of that sentiment which +Goethe has called the Weltschmerz, and in which the concentrated +sorrow of the world seemed suddenly to lie heavy upon him. A book +lay in an old book-case, of which he cared to remember one picture--a +woman sitting, with hands bound behind her, the dress, the cap, the +hair, folded with a simplicity which touched him strangely, as if not +by her own hands, but with some ambiguous care at the hands of +others--Queen Marie Antoinette, on her way to execution--we all +remember David's drawing, meant merely to make her ridiculous. The +face [183] that had been so high had learned to be mute and +resistless; but out of its very resistlessness, seemed now to call on +men to have pity, and forbear; and he took note of that, as he closed +the book, as a thing to look at again, if he should at any time +find himself tempted to be cruel. Again, he would never quite forget +the appeal in the small sister's face, in the garden under the +lilacs, terrified at a spider lighted on her sleeve. He could trace +back to the look then noted a certain mercy he conceived always for +people in fear, even of little things, which seemed to make him, +though but for a moment, capable of almost any sacrifice of himself. +Impressible, susceptible persons, indeed, who had had their sorrows, +lived about him; and this sensibility was due in part to the tacit +influence of their presence, enforcing upon him habitually the fact +that there are those who pass their days, as a matter of course, in a +sort of "going quietly." Most poignantly of all he could recall, in +unfading minutest circumstance, the cry on the stair, sounding +bitterly through the house, and struck into his soul for ever, of an +aged woman, his father's sister, come now to announce his death in +distant India; how it seemed to make the aged woman like a child +again; and, he knew not why, but this fancy was full of pity to him. +There were the little sorrows of the dumb animals too--of the white +angora, with a dark tail like an ermine's, and a face like a [184] +flower, who fell into a lingering sickness, and became quite +delicately human in its valetudinarianism, and came to have a hundred +different expressions of voice--how it grew worse and worse, till it +began to feel the light too much for it, and at last, after one wild +morning of pain, the little soul flickered away from the body, quite +worn to death already, and now but feebly retaining it. + +So he wanted another pet; and as there were starlings about the +place, which could be taught to speak, one of them was caught, and he +meant to treat it kindly; but in the night its young ones could be +heard crying after it, and the responsive cry of the mother-bird +towards them; and at last, with the first light, though not till +after some debate with himself, he went down and opened the cage, and +saw a sharp bound of the prisoner up to her nestlings; and therewith +came the sense of remorse,--that he too was become an accomplice in +moving, to the limit of his small power, the springs and handles of +that great machine in things, constructed so ingeniously to play +pain-fugues on the delicate nerve-work of living creatures. + +I have remarked how, in the process of our brain-building, as the +house of thought in which we live gets itself together, like some +airy bird's-nest of floating thistle-down and chance straws, compact +at last, little accidents have their consequence; and thus it +happened that, as he [185] walked one evening, a garden gate, usually +closed, stood open; and lo! within, a great red hawthorn in full +flower, embossing heavily the bleached and twisted trunk and +branches, so aged that there were but few green leaves thereon--a +plumage of tender, crimson fire out of the heart of the dry wood. +The perfume of the tree had now and again reached him, in the +currents of the wind, over the wall, and he had wondered what might +be behind it, and was now allowed to fill his arms with the flowers-- +flowers enough for all the old blue-china pots along the chimney- +piece, making fete in the children's room. Was it some periodic +moment in the expansion of soul within him, or mere trick of heat in +the heavily-laden summer air? + +But the beauty of the thing struck home to him feverishly; and in +dreams all night he loitered along a magic roadway of crimson +flowers, which seemed to open ruddily in thick, fresh masses about +his feet, and fill softly all the little hollows in the banks on +either side. Always afterwards, summer by summer, as the flowers +came on, the blossom of the red hawthorn still seemed to him +absolutely the reddest of all things; and the goodly crimson, still +alive in the works of old Venetian masters or old Flemish tapestries, +called out always from afar the recollection of the flame in those +perishing little petals, as it pulsed gradually out of them, kept +long in the drawers of an old cabinet. + +[186] Also then, for the first time, he seemed to experience a +passionateness in his relation to fair outward objects, an +inexplicable excitement in their presence, which disturbed him, and +from which he half longed to be free. A touch of regret or desire +mingled all night with the remembered presence of the red flowers, +and their perfume in the darkness about him; and the longing for some +undivined, entire possession of them was the beginning of a +revelation to him, growing ever clearer, with the coming of the +gracious summer guise of fields and trees and persons in each +succeeding year, of a certain, at times seemingly exclusive, +predominance in his interests, of beautiful physical things, a kind +of tyranny of the senses over him. + +In later years he came upon philosophies which occupied him much in +the estimate of the proportion of the sensuous and the ideal elements +in human knowledge, the relative parts they bear in it; and, in his +intellectual scheme, was led to assign very little to the abstract +thought, and much to its sensible vehicle or occasion. Such +metaphysical speculation did but reinforce what was instinctive in +his way of receiving the world, and for him, everywhere, that +sensible vehicle or occasion became, perhaps only too surely, the +necessary concomitant of any perception of things, real enough to be +of any weight or reckoning, in his house of thought. There were +times when he could think of the [187] necessity he was under of +associating all thoughts to touch and sight, as a sympathetic link +between himself and actual, feeling, living objects; a protest in +favour of real men and women against mere grey, unreal abstractions; +and he remembered gratefully how the Christian religion, hardly less +than the religion of the ancient Greeks, translating so much of its +spiritual verity into things that may be seen, condescends in part to +sanction this infirmity, if so it be, of our human existence, wherein +the world of sense is so much with us, and welcomed this thought as a +kind of keeper and sentinel over his soul therein. But certainly, he +came more and more to be unable to care for, or think of soul but as +in an actual body, or of any world but that wherein are water and +trees, and where men and women look, so or so, and press actual +hands. It was the trick even his pity learned, fastening those who +suffered in anywise to his affections by a kind of sensible +attachments. He would think of Julian, fallen into incurable +sickness, as spoiled in the sweet blossom of his skin like pale +amber, and his honey-like hair; of Cecil, early dead, as cut off from +the lilies, from golden summer days, from women's voices; and then +what comforted him a little was the thought of the turning of the +child's flesh to violets in the turf above him. And thinking of the +very poor, it was not the things which most men care most for that he +yearned to give them; [188] but fairer roses, perhaps, and power to +taste quite as they will, at their ease and not task-burdened, a +certain desirable, clear light in the new morning, through which +sometimes he had noticed them, quite unconscious of it, on their way +to their early toil. + +So he yielded himself to these things, to be played upon by them like +a musical instrument, and began to note with deepening watchfulness, +but always with some puzzled, unutterable longing in his enjoyment, +the phases of the seasons and of the growing or waning day, down even +to the shadowy changes wrought on bare wall or ceiling--the light +cast up from the snow, bringing out their darkest angles; the brown +light in the cloud, which meant rain; that almost too austere +clearness, in the protracted light of the lengthening day, before +warm weather began, as if it lingered but to make a severer workday, +with the school-books opened earlier and later; that beam of June +sunshine, at last, as he lay awake before the time, a way of gold- +dust across the darkness; all the humming, the freshness, the perfume +of the garden seemed to lie upon it--and coming in one afternoon in +September, along the red gravel walk, to look for a basket of yellow +crab-apples left in the cool, old parlour, he remembered it the more, +and how the colours struck upon him, because a wasp on one bitten +apple stung him, and he felt the passion of [189] sudden, severe +pain. For this too brought its curious reflexions; and, in relief +from it, he would wonder over it--how it had then been with him-- +puzzled at the depth of the charm or spell over him, which lay, for a +little while at least, in the mere absence of pain; once, especially, +when an older boy taught him to make flowers of sealing-wax, and he +had burnt his hand badly at the lighted taper, and been unable to +sleep. He remembered that also afterwards, as a sort of typical +thing--a white vision of heat about him, clinging closely, through +the languid scent of the ointments put upon the place to make it +well. + +Also, as he felt this pressure upon him of the sensible world, then, +as often afterwards, there would come another sort of curious +questioning how the last impressions of eye and ear might happen to +him, how they would find him--the scent of the last flower, the soft +yellowness of the last morning, the last recognition of some object +of affection, hand or voice; it could not be but that the latest look +of the eyes, before their final closing, would be strangely vivid; +one would go with the hot tears, the cry, the touch of the wistful +bystander, impressed how deeply on one! or would it be, perhaps, a +mere frail retiring of all things, great or little, away from one, +into a level distance? + +For with this desire of physical beauty mingled itself early the fear +of death--the fear of death [190] intensified by the desire of +beauty. Hitherto he had never gazed upon dead faces, as sometimes, +afterwards, at the Morgue in Paris, or in that fair cemetery at +Munich, where all the dead must go and lie in state before burial, +behind glass windows, among the flowers and incense and holy candles- +-the aged clergy with their sacred ornaments, the young men in their +dancing-shoes and spotless white linen--after which visits, those +waxen, resistless faces would always live with him for many days, +making the broadest sunshine sickly. The child had heard indeed of +the death of his father, and how, in the Indian station, a fever had +taken him, so that though not in action he had yet died as a soldier; +and hearing of the "resurrection of the just," he could think of him +as still abroad in the world, somehow, for his protection--a grand, +though perhaps rather terrible figure, in beautiful soldier's things, +like the figure in the picture of Joshua's Vision in the Bible--and +of that, round which the mourners moved so softly, and afterwards +with such solemn singing, as but a worn-out garment left at a +deserted lodging. So it was, until on a summer day he walked with +his mother through a fair churchyard. In a bright dress he rambled +among the graves, in the gay weather, and so came, in one corner, +upon an open grave for a child--a dark space on the brilliant grass-- +the black mould lying heaped up round it, weighing down the little +jewelled [191] branches of the dwarf rose-bushes in flower. And +therewith came, full-grown, never wholly to leave him, with the +certainty that even children do sometimes die, the physical horror of +death, with its wholly selfish recoil from the association of lower +forms of life, and the suffocating weight above. No benign, grave +figure in beautiful soldier's things any longer abroad in the world +for his protection! only a few poor, piteous bones; and above them, +possibly, a certain sort of figure he hoped not to see. For sitting +one day in the garden below an open window, he heard people talking, +and could not but listen, how, in a sleepless hour, a sick woman had +seen one of the dead sitting beside her, come to call her hence; and +from the broken talk evolved with much clearness the notion that not +all those dead people had really departed to the churchyard, nor were +quite so motionless as they looked, but led a secret, half-fugitive +life in their old homes, quite free by night, though sometimes +visible in the day, dodging from room to room, with no great goodwill +towards those who shared the place with them. All night the figure +sat beside him in the reveries of his broken sleep, and was not quite +gone in the morning--an odd, irreconcileable new member of the +household, making the sweet familiar chambers unfriendly and suspect +by its uncertain presence. He could have hated the dead he had +pitied so, for being [192] thus. Afterwards he came to think of +those poor, home-returning ghosts, which all men have fancied to +themselves--the revenants--pathetically, as crying, or beating with +vain hands at the doors, as the wind came, their cries +distinguishable in it as a wilder inner note. But, always making +death more unfamiliar still, that old experience would ever, from +time to time, return to him; even in the living he sometimes caught +its likeness; at any time or place, in a moment, the faint atmosphere +of the chamber of death would be breathed around him, and the image +with the bound chin, the quaint smile, the straight, stiff feet, shed +itself across the air upon the bright carpet, amid the gayest +company, or happiest communing with himself. + +To most children the sombre questionings to which impressions like +these attach themselves, if they come at all, are actually suggested +by religious books, which therefore they often regard with much +secret distaste, and dismiss, as far as possible, from their habitual +thoughts as a too depressing element in life. To Florian such +impressions, these misgivings as to the ultimate tendency of the +years, of the relationship between life and death, had been suggested +spontaneously in the natural course of his mental growth by a strong +innate sense for the soberer tones in things, further strengthened by +actual circumstances; and religious sentiment, that [193] system of +biblical ideas in which he had been brought up, presented itself to +him as a thing that might soften and dignify, and light up as with a +"lively hope," a melancholy already deeply settled in him. So he +yielded himself easily to religious impressions, and with a kind of +mystical appetite for sacred things; the more as they came to him +through a saintly person who loved him tenderly, and believed that +this early pre-occupation with them already marked the child out for +a saint. He began to love, for their own sakes, church lights, holy +days, all that belonged to the comely order of the sanctuary, the +secrets of its white linen, and holy vessels, and fonts of pure +water; and its hieratic purity and simplicity became the type of +something he desired always to have about him in actual life. He +pored over the pictures in religious books, and knew by heart the +exact mode in which the wrestling angel grasped Jacob, how Jacob +looked in his mysterious sleep, how the bells and pomegranates were +attached to the hem of Aaron's vestment, sounding sweetly as he +glided over the turf of the holy place. His way of conceiving +religion came then to be in effect what it ever afterwards remained-- +a sacred history indeed, but still more a sacred ideal, a +transcendent version or representation, under intenser and more +expressive light and shade, of human life and its familiar or +exceptional incidents, birth, death, marriage, [194] youth, age, +tears, joy, rest, sleep, waking--a mirror, towards which men might +turn away their eyes from vanity and dullness, and see themselves +therein as angels, with their daily meat and drink, even, become a +kind of sacred transaction--a complementary strain or burden, applied +to our every-day existence, whereby the stray snatches of music in it +re-set themselves, and fall into the scheme of some higher and more +consistent harmony. A place adumbrated itself in his thoughts, +wherein those sacred personalities, which are at once the reflex and +the pattern of our nobler phases of life, housed themselves; and this +region in his intellectual scheme all subsequent experience did but +tend still further to realise and define. Some ideal, hieratic +persons he would always need to occupy it and keep a warmth there. +And he could hardly understand those who felt no such need at all, +finding themselves quite happy without such heavenly companionship, +and sacred double of their life, beside them. + +Thus a constant substitution of the typical for the actual took place +in his thoughts. Angels might be met by the way, under English elm +or beech-tree; mere messengers seemed like angels, bound on celestial +errands; a deep mysticity brooded over real meetings and partings; +marriages were made in heaven; and deaths also, with hands of angels +thereupon, to bear soul and body quietly asunder, each to its [195] +appointed rest. All the acts and accidents of daily life borrowed a +sacred colour and significance; the very colours of things became +themselves weighty with meanings like the sacred stuffs of Moses' +tabernacle, full of penitence or peace. Sentiment, congruous in the +first instance only with those divine transactions, the deep, +effusive unction of the House of Bethany, was assumed as the due +attitude for the reception of our every-day existence; and for a time +he walked through the world in a sustained, not unpleasurable awe, +generated by the habitual recognition, beside every circumstance and +event of life, of its celestial correspondent. + +Sensibility--the desire of physical beauty--a strange biblical awe, +which made any reference to the unseen act on him like solemn music-- +these qualities the child took away with him, when, at about the age +of twelve years, he left the old house, and was taken to live in +another place. He had never left home before, and, anticipating much +from this change, had long dreamed over it, jealously counting the +days till the time fixed for departure should come; had been a little +careless about others even, in his strong desire for it--when Lewis +fell sick, for instance, and they must wait still two days longer. +At last the morning came, very fine; and all things--the very +pavement with its dust, at the roadside--seemed to have a white, +pearl-like lustre in them. They were to travel by a [196] favourite +road on which he had often walked a certain distance, and on one of +those two prisoner days, when Lewis was sick, had walked farther than +ever before, in his great desire to reach the new place. They had +started and gone a little way when a pet bird was found to have been +left behind, and must even now--so it presented itself to him--have +already all the appealing fierceness and wild self-pity at heart of +one left by others to perish of hunger in a closed house; and he +returned to fetch it, himself in hardly less stormy distress. But as +he passed in search of it from room to room, lying so pale, with a +look of meekness in their denudation, and at last through that +little, stripped white room, the aspect of the place touched him like +the face of one dead; and a clinging back towards it came over him, +so intense that he knew it would last long, and spoiling all his +pleasure in the realisation of a thing so eagerly anticipated. And +so, with the bird found, but himself in an agony of home-sickness, +thus capriciously sprung up within him, he was driven quickly away, +far into the rural distance, so fondly speculated on, of that +favourite country-road. + +NOTES + +172. *Published in Macmillan's Magazine, Aug. 1878. + + + +EMERALD UTHWART* + +[197] WE smile at epitaphs--at those recent enough to be read easily; +smile, for the most part, at what for the most part is an unreal and +often vulgar branch of literature; yet a wide one, with its flowers +here or there, such as make us regret now and again not to have +gathered more carefully in our wanderings a fair average of the like. +Their very simplicity, of course, may set one's thoughts in motion to +fill up the scanty tale, and those of the young at least are almost +always worth while. At Siena, for instance, in the great Dominican +church, even with the impassioned work of Sodoma at hand, you may +linger in a certain dimly lit chapel to spell out the black-letter +memorials of the German students who died here--aetatis flore!--at +the University, famous early in the last century; young nobles +chiefly, far from the Rhine, from Nuremberg, or Leipsic. Note one in +particular! Loving parents and elder brother meant to record [198] +carefully the very days of the lad's poor life--annos, menses, dies; +sent the order, doubtless, from the distant old castle in the +Fatherland, but not quite explicitly; the spaces for the numbers +remain still unfilled; and they never came to see. After two +centuries the omission is not to be rectified; and the young man's +memorial has perhaps its propriety as it stands, with those +unnumbered, or numberless, days. "Full of affections," observed, +once upon a time, a great lover of boys and young men, speaking to a +large company of them:--"full of affections, full of powers, full of +occupation, how naturally might the younger part of us especially +(more naturally than the older) receive the tidings that there are +things to be loved and things to be done which shall never pass away. +We feel strong, we feel active, we feel full of life; and these +feelings do not altogether deceive us, for we shall live for ever. +We see a long prospect before us, for which it is worth while to +work, even with much labour; for we are as yet young, and the past +portion of our lives is but small in comparison of that which +probably remains to us. It is most true! The past years of our life +are absolutely beyond proportion small in comparison with those which +certainly remain to us." + +In a very different neighbourhood, here at home, in a remote Sussex +churchyard, you may read that Emerald Uthwart was born on such a +[199] day, "at Chase Lodge, in this parish; and died there," on a day +in the year 18--, aged twenty-six. Think, thereupon, of the years of +a very English existence passed without a lost week in that bloomy +English place, amid its English lawns and flower-beds, its oldish +brick and raftered plaster; you may see it still, not far off, on a +clearing of the wooded hill-side sloping gradually to the sea. But +you think wrong. Emerald Uthwart, in almost unbroken absence from +his home, longed greatly for it, but left it early and came back +there only to die, in disgrace, as he conceived; of which it was he +died there, finding the sense of the place all around him at last, +like blessed oil in one's wounds. + +How they shook their musk from them!--those gardens, among which the +youngest son, but not the youngest child, grew up, little considered +till he returned there in those last years. The rippling note of the +birds he distinguished so acutely seemed a part of this tree-less +place, open freely to sun and air, such as rose and carnation loved, +in the midst of the old disafforested chase. Brothers and sisters, +all alike were gardeners, methodically intimate with their flowers. +You need words compact rather of perfume than of colour to describe +them, in nice annual order; terms for perfume, as immediate and +definite as red, purple, and yellow. Flowers there were which seemed +to yield their sweetest in the faint sea-salt, when the loosening +wind [200] was strong from the south-west; some which found their way +slowly towards the neighbourhood of the old oaks and beech-trees. +Others consorted most freely with the wall-fruit, or seemed made for +pot-pourri to sweeten the old black mahogany furniture. The sweet- +pea stacks loved the broad path through the kitchen garden; the old- +fashioned garden azalea was the making of a nosegay, with its honey +which clung to one's finger. There were flowers all the sweeter for +a battle with the rain; a flower like aromatic medicine; another like +summer lingering into winter; it ripened as fruit does; and another +was like August, his own birthday time, dropped into March. + +The very mould here, rich old black gardener's earth, was flower- +seed; and beyond, the fields, one after another, through the white +gates breaking the well-grown hedge-rows, were hardly less garden- +like; little velvety fields, little with the true sweet English +littleness of our little island, our land of vignettes. Here all was +little; the very church where they went to pray, to sit, the ancient +Uthwarts sleeping all around outside under the windows, deposited +there as quietly as fallen trees on their native soil, and almost +unrecorded, as there had been almost nothing to record; where +however, Sunday after Sunday, Emerald Uthwart reads, wondering, the +solitary memorial of one soldierly member of his race, who had,-- +well! who had not died here [201] at home, in his bed. How wretched! +how fine! how inconceivably great and difficult!--not for him! And +yet, amid all its littleness, how large his sense of liberty in the +place he, the cadet doomed to leave it--his birth-place, where he is +also so early to die--had loved better than any one of them! +Enjoying hitherto all the freedom of the almost grown-up brothers, +the unrepressed noise, the unchecked hours, the old rooms, all their +own way, he is literally without the consciousness of rule. Only, +when the long irresponsible day is over, amid the dew, the odours, of +summer twilight, they roll their cricket-field against to-morrow's +game. So it had always been with the Uthwarts; they never went to +school. In the great attic he has chosen for himself Emerald +awakes;--it was a rule, sanitary, almost medical, never to rouse the +children--rises to play betimes; or, if he choose, with window flung +open to the roses, the sea, turns to sleep again, deliberately, +deliciously, under the fine old blankets. + +A rather sensuous boy! you may suppose, amid the wholesome, natural +self-indulgence of a very English home. His days began there: it +closed again, after an interval of the larger number of them, +indulgently, mercifully, round his end. For awhile he became its +centre, old habits changing, the old furniture rearranged about him, +for the first time in many generations, though he left it now with +something like [202] resentment in his heart, as if thrust harshly +away, sent ablactatus a matre; made an effort thereon to snap the +last thread which bound him to it. Yet it would come back upon him +sometimes, amid so different a scene, as through a suddenly opened +door, or a rent in the wall, with softer thoughts of his people,-- +there, or not there,--and a sudden, dutiful effort on his part to +rekindle wasting affection. + +The youngest of four sons, but not the youngest of the family!--you +conceive the sort of negligence that creeps over even the kindest +maternities, in such case; unless, perhaps, sickness, or the sort of +misfortune, making the last first for the affectionate, that brought +Emerald back at length to die contentedly, interferes with the way of +nature. Little by little he comes to understand that, while the +brothers are indulged with lessons at home, are some of them free +even of these and placed already in the world, where, however, there +remains no place for him, he is to go to school, chiefly for the +convenience of others--they are going to be much away from home!-- +that now for the first time, as he says to himself, an old-English +Uthwart is to pass under the yoke. The tutor in the house, meantime, +aware of some fascination in the lad, teaches him, at his own +irregularly chosen hours, more carefully than the others; exerts all +his gifts for the purpose, winning him on almost insensibly to +youthful proficiency in those difficult rudiments. + +[203] See him as he stands, seemingly rooted in the spot where he has +come to flower! He departs, however, a few days before the departure +of the rest--some to foreign parts, the brothers, who shut up the old +place, to town. For a moment, he makes an effort to figure to +himself those coming absences as but exceptional intervals in his +life here; he will count the days, going more quickly so; find his +pleasure in watching the sands fall, as even the sands of time at +school must. In fact, he was scarcely ever to lie at ease here +again, till he came to take his final leave of it, lying at his +length so. In brief holidays he rejoins his people, anywhere, +anyhow, in a sort of hurry and makeshift:--Flos Parietis! thus +carelessly plucked forth. Emerald Uthwart was born on such a day "at +Chase Lodge, in this parish, and died there." + +See him then as he stands! counting now the hours that remain, on the +eve of that first emigration, and look away next at the other place, +which through centuries has been forming to receive him; from those +garden-beds, now at their richest, but where all is so winsomely +little, to that place of "great matters," great stones, great +memories out of reach. Why! the Uthwarts had scarcely had more +memories than their woods, noiselessly deciduous; or their +prehistoric, entirely unprogressive, unrecording forefathers, in or +before the days of the Druids. Centuries of almost "still" life--of +birth, death, [204] and the rest, as merely natural processes--had +made them and their home what we find them. Centuries of conscious +endeavour, on the other hand, had builded, shaped, and coloured the +place, a small cell, which Emerald Uthwart was now to occupy; a place +such as our most characteristic English education has rightly tended +to "find itself a house" in--a place full, for those who came within +its influence, of a will of its own. Here everything, one's very +games, have gone by rule onwards from the dim old monastic days, and +the Benedictine school for novices with the wholesome severities +which have descended to our own time. Like its customs,--there's a +book in the cathedral archives with the names, for centuries Past, of +the "scholars" who have missed church at the proper times for going +there--like its customs, well-worn yet well-preserved, time-stained, +time-engrained, time-mellowed, the venerable Norman or English stones +of this austere, beautifully proportioned place look like marble, to +which Emerald's softly nurtured being, his careless wild-growth must +now adapt itself, though somewhat painfully recoiling from contact +with what seems so hard also, and bright, and cold. From his native +world of soft garden touches, carnation and rose (they had been +everywhere in those last weeks), where every one did just what he +liked, he was passed now to this world of grey stone; and here it was +always the decisive word [205] of command. That old warrior +Uthwart's record in the church at home, so fine, yet so wretched, so +unspeakably great and difficult! seemed written here everywhere +around him, as he stood feeling himself fit only to be taught, to be +drilled into, his small compartment; in every movement of his +companions, with their quaint confining little cloth gowns; in the +keen, clear, well-authorised dominancy of some, the instant +submission of others. In fact, by one of our wise English +compromises, we still teach our so modern boys the Classics; a lesson +in attention and patience, at the least. Nay! by a double +compromise, with delightful physiognomic results sometimes, we teach +them their pagan Latin and Greek under the shadow of medieval church- +towers, amid the haunts, the traditions, and with something of the +discipline, of monasticism; for which, as is noticeable, the English +have never wholly lost an early inclination. The French and others +have swept their scholastic houses empty of it, with pedantic +fidelity to their theories. English pedants may succeed in doing the +like. But the result of our older method has had its value so far, +at least, say! for the careful aesthetic observer. It is of such +diagonal influences, through complication of influence, that +expression comes, in life, in our culture, in the very faces of men +and boys--of these boys. Nothing could better harmonise present with +past than the sight of them just here, as they [206] shout at their +games, or recite their lessons, over-arched by the work of medieval +priors, or pass to church meekly, into the seats occupied by the +young monks before them. + +If summer comes reluctantly to our English shores, it is also apt to +linger with us;--its flora of red and gold leaves on the branches +wellnigh to Christmas; the hot days that surprise you, and persist, +though heralded by white mornings, hinting that it is but the year's +indulgence so to deal with us. To the fanciful, such days may seem +most at home in the places where England has thus preferred to locate +the somewhat pensive education of its more favoured youth. As +Uthwart passes through the old ecclesiastical city, upon which any +more modern touch, modern door or window, seems a thing out of place +through negligence, the diluted sunlight itself seems driven along +with a sparing trace of gilded vane or red tile in it, under the +wholesome active wind from the East coast. The long, finely +weathered, leaden roof, and the great square tower, gravely +magnificent, emphatic from the first view of it over the grey down +above the hop-gardens, the gently-watered meadows, dwarf now +everything beside; have the bigness of nature's work, seated up there +so steadily amid the winds, as rain and fog and heat pass by. More +and more persistently, as he proceeds, in the "Green Court" at last, +they occupy the outlook. He is shown the narrow [207] cubicle in +which he is to sleep; and there it still is, with nothing else, in +the window-pane, as he lies;--"our tower," the "Angel Steeple," +noblest of its kind. Here, from morning to night, everything seems +challenged to follow the upward lead of its long, bold, +"perpendicular" lines. The very place one is in, its stone-work, its +empty spaces, invade you; invade all who belong to them, as Uthwart +belongs, yielding wholly from the first; seem to question you +masterfully as to your purpose in being here at all, amid the great +memories of the past, of this school;--challenge you, so to speak, to +make moral philosophy one of your acquirements, if you can, and to +systematise your vagrant self; which however will in any case be here +systematised for you. In Uthwart, then, is the plain tablet, for the +influences of place to inscribe. Say if you will, that he is under +the power of an "embodied ideal," somewhat repellent, but which he +cannot despise. He sits in the schoolroom--ancient, transformed +chapel of the pilgrims; sits in the sober white and brown place, at +the heavy old desks, carved this way and that, crowded as an old +churchyard with forgotten names, side by side with sympathetic or +antipathetic competitors, as it may chance. In a delightful, exactly +measured, quarter of an hour's rest, they come about him, seem to +wish to be friends at once, good and bad alike, dull and clever; +wonder a little at the name, and [208] the owner. A family name--he +explains, good-humouredly; tries to tell some story no one could ever +remember precisely of the ancestor from whom it came, the one story +of the Uthwarts; is spared; nay! petulantly forbidden to proceed. +But the name sticks the faster. Nicknames mark, for the most part, +popularity. Emerald! so every one called Uthwart, but shortened to +Aldy. They disperse; flock out into the court; acquaint him hastily +with the curiosities of the Precincts, the "dark entry," the rich +heraldries of the blackened and mouldering cloister, the ruined +overgrown spaces where the old monastery stood, the stones of which +furnished material for the rambling prebends houses, now +"antediluvian" in their turn; are ready also to climb the scaffold- +poles always to be found somewhere about the great church, or dive +along the odd, secret passages of the old builders, with quite +learned explanations (being proud of, and therefore painstaking +about, the place) of architectural periods, of Gothic "late" and +"early," layer upon layer, down to round-arched "Norman," like the +famous staircase of their school. + +The reader comprehends that Uthwart was come where the genius loci +was a strong one, with a claim to mould all who enter it to a +perfect, uninquiring, willing or unwilling, conformity to itself. On +Saturday half-holidays the scholars are taken to church in their +surplices, across the [209] court, under the lime-trees; emerge at +last up the dark winding passages into the melodious, mellow-lighted +space, always three days behind the temperature outside, so thick are +the walls;--how warm and nice! how cool and nice! The choir, to +which they glide in order to their places below the clergy, seems +conspicuously cold and sad. But the empty chapels lying beyond it +all about into the distance are a trap on sunny mornings for the +clouds of yellow effulgence. The Angel Steeple is a lantern within, +and sheds down a flood of the like just beyond the gates. You can +peep up into it where you sit, if you dare to gaze about you. If at +home there had been nothing great, here, to boyish sense, one seems +diminished to nothing at all, amid the grand waves, wave upon wave, +of patiently-wrought stone; the daring height, the daring severity, +of the innumerable, long, upward, ruled lines, rigidly bent just at +last, in due place, into the reserved grace of the perfect Gothic +arch; the peculiar daylight which seemed to come from further than +the light outside. Next morning they are here again. In contrast to +those irregularly broken hours at home, the passive length of things +impresses Uthwart now. It develops patience--that tale of hours, the +long chanted English service; our English manner of education is a +development of patience, of decorous and mannerly patience. "It is +good for a man that he bear the yoke in [210] his youth: he putteth +his mouth in the dust, he keepeth silence, because he hath borne it +upon him."--They have this for an anthem; sung however to wonderfully +cheerful and sprightly music, as if one liked the thought. + +The aim of a veritable community, says Plato, is not that this or +that member of it should be disproportionately at ease, but that the +whole should flourish; though indeed such general welfare might come +round again to the loyal unit therein, and rest with him, as a +privilege of his individual being after all. The social type he +preferred, as we know, was conservative Sparta and its youth; whose +unsparing discipline had doubtless something to do with the fact that +it was the handsomest and best-formed in all Greece. A school is not +made for one. It would misrepresent Uthwart's wholly unconscious +humility to say that he felt the beauty of the askesis+ (we need that +Greek word) to which he not merely finds himself subject, but as +under a fascination submissively yields himself, although another +might have been aware of the charm of it, half ethic, half physical, +as visibly effective in him. Its peculiarity would have lain in the +expression of a stress upon him and his customary daily existence, +beyond what any definitely proposed issue of it, at least for the +moment, explained. Something of that is involved in the very idea of +a classical education, at least for such as he; in its seeming +indirectness [211] or lack of purpose, amid so much difficulty, as +contrasted with forms of education more obviously useful or +practical. He found himself in a system of fixed rules, amid which, +it might be, some of his own tendencies and inclinations would die +out of him through disuse. The confident word of command, the +instantaneous obedience expected, the enforced silence, the very +games that go by rule, a sort of hardness natural to wholesome +English youths when they come together, but here de rigueur as a +point of good manners;--he accepts all these without hesitation; the +early hours also, naturally distasteful to him, which gave to actual +morning, to all that had passed in it, when in more self-conscious +mood he looked back on the morning of life, a preponderance, a +disproportionate place there, adding greatly to the effect of its +dreamy distance from him at this later time;--an ideal quality, he +might have said, had he ever used such words as that. + +Uthwart duly passes his examination; and, in their own chapel in the +transept of the choir, lighted up late for evening prayer after the +long day of trial, is received to the full privileges of a Scholar +with the accustomed Latin words:--Introitum tuum et exitum tuum +custodiat Dominus! He takes them, not to heart, but rather to mind, +as few, if they so much as heard them, were wont to do; ponders them +for a while. They seem scarcely meant for him--words like those! +[212] increase however his sense of responsibility to the place, of +which he is now more exclusively than before a part--that he belongs +to it, its great memories, great dim purposes; deepen the +consciousness he had on first coming hither of a demand in the world +about him, whereof the very stones are emphatic, to which no average +human creature could be sufficient; of reproof, reproaches, of this +or that in himself. + +It was reported, there was a funny belief, at school, that Aldy +Uthwart had no feeling and was incapable of tears. They never came +to him certainly, when, at nights for the most part, the very touch +of home, so soft, yet so indifferent to him, reached him, with a +sudden opulent rush of garden perfumes; came at the rattling of the +window-pane in the wind, with anything that expressed distance from +the bare white walls around him here. He thrust it from him +brusquely, being of a practical turn, and, though somewhat sensuous, +wholly without sentimentality. There is something however in the +lad's soldier-like, impassible self-command, in his sustained +expression of a certain indifference to things, which awakes suddenly +all the sentiment, the poetry, latent hitherto in another--James +Stokes, the prefect, his immediate superior; awakes for the first +time into ample flower something of genius in a seemingly plodding +scholar, and therewith also something of the waywardness popularly +thought to belong to [213] genius. Preceptores, condiscipuli, alike, +marvel at a sort of delicacy coming into the habits, the person, of +that tall, bashful, broad-shouldered, very Kentish, lad; so +unaffectedly nevertheless, that it is understood after all to be but +the smartness properly significant of change to early manhood, like +the down on his lip. Wistful anticipations of manhood are in fact +aroused in him, thoughts of the future; his ambition takes effective +outline. The well-worn, perhaps conventional, beauties of their +"dead" Greek and Latin books, associated directly now with the living +companion beside him, really shine for him at last with their +pristine freshness; seem more than to fulfil their claim upon the +patience, the attention, of modern youth. He notices as never before +minute points of meaning in Homer, in Virgil; points out thus, for +instance, to his junior, one day in the sunshine, how the Greeks had +a special word for the Fate which accompanied one who would come to a +violent end. The common Destinies of men, Moirai,+ Moerae--they +accompanied all men indifferently. But Ker,+ the extraordinary +Destiny, one's Doom, had a scent for distant blood-shedding; and, to +be in at a sanguinary death, one of their number came forth to the +very cradle, followed persistently all the way, over the waves, +through powder and shot, through the rose-gardens;--where not? +Looking back, one might trace the red footsteps all along, side by +[214] side. (Emerald Uthwart, you remember, was to "die there," of +lingering sickness, in disgrace, as he fancied, while the word glory +came to be softly whispered of them and of their end.) Classic +felicities, the choice expressions, with which James Stokes has so +patiently stored his memory, furnish now a dainty embroidery upon +every act, every change in time or place, of their daily life in +common. He finds the Greek or the Latin model of their antique +friendship or tries to find it, in the books they read together. +None fits exactly. It is of military glory they are really thinking, +amid those ecclesiastical surroundings, where however surplices and +uniforms are often mingled together; how they will lie, in costly +glory, costly to them, side by side, (as they work and walk and play +now, side by side) in the cathedral aisle, with a tattered flag +perhaps above them, and under a single epitaph, like that of those +two older scholars, Ensigns, Signiferi, in their respective +regiments, in hac ecclesia pueri instituti,+ with the sapphic stanza +in imitation of the Horace they had learned here, written by their +old master. + +Horace!--he was, had been always, the idol of their school; to know +him by heart, to translate him into effective English idiom, have an +apt phrase of his instinctively on one's lips for every occasion. +That boys should be made to spout him under penalties, would have +seemed doubtless to that sensitive, vain, winsome poet, [215] even +more than to grim Juvenal, quite the sorriest of fates; might have +seemed not so bad however, could he, from the "ashes" so persistently +in his thoughts, have peeped on these English boys, row upon row, +with black or golden heads, repeating him in the fresh morning, and +observed how well for once the thing was done; how well he was +understood by English James Stokes, feeling the old "fire" really +"quick" still, under the influence which now in truth quickened, +enlivened, everything around him. The old heathen's way of looking +at things, his melodious expression of it, blends, or contrasts +itself oddly with the everyday detail, with the very stones, the +Gothic stones, of a world he could hardly have conceived, its +medieval surroundings, their half-clerical life here. Yet not so +inconsistently after all! The builders of these aisles and cloisters +had known and valued as much of him as they could come by in their +own un-instructed time; had built up their intellectual edifice more +than they were aware of from fragments of pagan thought, as, quite +consciously, they constructed their churches of old Roman bricks and +pillars, or frank imitations of them. One's day, then, began with +him, for all alike, Sundays of course excepted,--with an Ode, learned +over-night by the prudent, who, observing how readily the words which +send us to sleep cling to the brain and seem an inherent part of it +next morning, kept him under [216] their pillows. Prefects, without +a book, heard the repetition of the Juniors, must be able to correct +their blunders. Odes and Epodes, thus acquired, were a score of days +and weeks; alcaic and sapphic verses like a bead-roll for counting +off the time that intervened before the holidays. Time--that tardy +servant of youthful appetite--brought them soon enough to the point +where they desired in vain "to see one of" those days, erased now so +willingly; and sentimental James Stokes has already a sense that this +"pause 'twixt cup and lip" of life is really worth pausing over, +worth deliberation:--all this poetry, yes! poetry, surely, of their +alternate work and play; light and shade, call it! Had it been, +after all, a life in itself less commonplace than theirs--that life, +the trivial details of which their Horace had touched so daintily, +gilded with real gold words? + +Regular, submissive, dutiful to play also, Aldy meantime enjoys his +triumphs in the Green Court; loves best however to run a paper-chase +afar over the marshes, till you come in sight, or within scent, of +the sea, in the autumn twilight; and his dutifulness to games at +least had its full reward. A wonderful hit of his at cricket was +long remembered; right over the lime-trees on to the cathedral roof, +was it? or over the roof, and onward into space, circling there +independently, minutely, as Sidus Cantiorum? A comic poem on it in +Latin, and a pretty one in English, [217] were penned by James +Stokes, still not so serious but that he forgets time altogether one +day, in a manner the converse of exemplary in a prefect, whereupon +Uthwart, his companion as usual, manages to take all the blame, and +the due penalty next morning. Stokes accepted the sacrifice the more +readily, believing--he too--that Aldy was "incapable of pain." What +surprised those who were in the secret was that, when it was over, he +rose, and facing the head-master--could it be insolence? or was it +the sense of untruthfulness in his friendly action, or sense of the +universal peccancy of all boys and men?--said submissively: "And now, +sir, that I have taken my punishment, I hope you will forgive my +fault." + +Submissiveness!--It had the force of genius with Emerald Uthwart. In +that very matter he had but yielded to a senior against his own +inclination. What he felt in Horace was the sense, original, active, +personal, of "things too high for me!", the sense, not really +unpleasing to him, of an unattainable height here too, in this royal +felicity of utterance, this literary art, the minute cares of which +had been really designed for the minute carefulness of a disciple +such as this--all attention. Well! the sense of authority, of a +large intellectual authority over us, impressed anew day after day, +of some impenetrable glory round "the masters of those who know," is, +of course, one of the effects we [218] look for from a classical +education:--that, and a full estimate of the preponderating value of +the manner of the doing of it in the thing done; which again, for +ingenuous youth, is an encouragement of good manners on its part:--"I +behave myself orderly." Just at those points, scholarship attains +something of a religious colour. And in that place, religion, +religious system, its claim to overpower one, presented itself in a +way of which even the least serious by nature could not be unaware. +Their great church, its customs and traditions, formed an element in +that esprit de corps into which the boyish mind throws itself so +readily. Afterwards, in very different scenes, the sentiment of that +place would come back upon him, as if resentfully, by contrast with +the conscious or unconscious profanities of others, crushed out about +him straightway, by the shadow of awe, the minatory flash, felt +around his unopened lips, in the glance, the changed manner. Not to +be "occupied with great matters" recommends in heavenly places, as we +know, the souls of some. Yet there were a few to whom it seemed +unfortunate that religion whose flag Uthwart would have borne in +hands so pure, touched him from first to last, and till his eyes were +finally closed on this world, only, again, as a thing immeasurable, +surely not meant for the like of him; its high claims, to which no +one could be equal; its reproaches. He would scarcely have proposed +to "enter into" [219] such matters; was constitutionally shy of them. +His submissiveness, you see, was a kind of genius; made him +therefore, of course, unlike those around him; was a secret; a thing, +you might say, "which no one knoweth, saving he that receiveth it." + +Thus repressible, self-restrained, always concurring with the +influence, the claim upon him, the rebuke, of others, in the bustle +of school life he did not count even with those who knew him best, +with those who taught him, for the intellectual capacity he really +had. In every generation of schoolboys there are a few who find out, +almost for themselves, the beauty and power of good literature, even +in the literature they must read perforce; and this, in turn, is but +the handsel of a beauty and power still active in the actual world, +should they have the good fortune, or rather, acquire the skill, to +deal with it properly. It has something of the stir and unction-- +this intellectual awaking with a leap--of the coming of love. So it +was with Uthwart about his seventeenth year. He felt it, felt the +intellectual passion, like the pressure outward of wings within him-- +he pterou dynamis,+ says Plato, in the Phaedrus; but again, as some do +with everyday love, withheld, restrained himself; the status of a +freeman in the world of intellect can hardly be for him. The sense +of intellectual ambition, ambitious thoughts such as sweeten the toil +of some of those about him, [220] coming to him once in a way, he is +frankly recommended to put them aside, and acquiesces; puts them from +him once for all, as he could do with besetting thoughts and +feelings, his preferences, (as he had put aside soft thoughts of home +as a disobedience to rule) and with a countenance more good-humoured +than ever, an absolute placidity. It is fit he should be treated +sparingly in this matter of intellectual enjoyment. He is made to +understand that there is at least a score of others as good scholars +as he. He will have of course all the pains, but must not expect the +prizes, of his work; of his loyal, incessant, cheerful industry. + +But only see him as he goes. It is as if he left music, delightfully +throbbing music, or flowers, behind him, as he passes, careless of +them, unconsciously, through the world, the school, the precincts, +the old city. Strangers' eyes, resting on him by chance, are +deterred for a while, even among the rich sights of the venerable +place, as he walks out and in, in his prim gown and purple-tasselled +cap; goes in, with the stream of sunlight, through the black shadows +of the mouldering Gothic gateway, like youth's very self, eternal, +immemorial, eternally renewed, about those immemorially ancient +stones. "Young Apollo!" people say--people who have pigeon-holes for +their impressions, watching the slim, trim figure with the exercise +books. His very dress seems touched [221] with Hellenic fitness to +the healthy youthful form. "Golden-haired, scholar Apollo!" they +repeat, foolishly, ignorantly. He was better; was more like a real +portrait of a real young Greek, like Tryphon, Son of Eutychos, for +instance, (as friends remembered him with regret, as you may see him +still on his tombstone in the British Museum) alive among the paler +physical and intellectual lights of modern England, under the old +monastic stonework of the Middle Age. That theatrical old Greek god +never took the expressiveness, the lines of delicate meaning, such as +were come into the face of the English lad, the physiognomy of his +race; ennobled now, as if by the writing, the signature, there, of a +grave intelligence, by grave information and a subdued will, though +without a touch of melancholy in this "best of playfellows." A +musical composer's notes, we know, are not themselves till the fit +executant comes, who can put all they may be into them. The somewhat +unmeaningly handsome facial type of the Uthwarts, moulded to a mere +animal or physical perfection through wholesome centuries, is +breathed on now, informed, by the touches, traces, complex influences +from past and present a thousandfold, crossing each other in this +late century, and yet at unity in the simple law of the system to +which he is now subject. Coming thus upon an otherwise vigorous and +healthy nature, an untainted [222] physique, and limited by it, those +combining mental influences leave the firm unconscious simplicity of +the boyish nature still unperplexed. The sisters, their friends, +when he comes rarely upon them in foreign places, are proud of the +schoolboy's company--to walk at his side; the brothers, when he sees +them for a day, more considerate than of old. Everywhere he leaves +behind him an odd regret for his presence, as he in turn wonders +sometimes at the deference paid to one so unimportant as himself by +those he meets by accident perhaps; at the ease, for example, with +which he attains to the social privileges denied to others. + +They tell him, he knows it already, he would "do for the army." +"Yes! that would suit you," people observe at once, when he tells +them what "he is to be"--undoubtedly suit him, that dainty, military, +very English kind of pride, in seeming precisely what one is, neither +more nor less. And the first mention of Uthwart's purpose defines +also the vague outlooks of James Stokes, who will be a soldier too. +Uniforms, their scarlet and white and blue, spruce leather and steel, +and gold lace, enlivening the old oak stalls at service time-- +uniforms and surplices were always close together here, where a +military garrison had been established in the suburbs for centuries +past, and there were always sons of its officers in the school. If +you stole out of an evening, it was like a stage scene-- [223] nay! +like the Middle Age, itself, with this multitude of soldiers mingling +in the crowd which filled the unchanged, gabled streets. A military +tradition had been continuous, from the days of crusading knights who +lay humbly on their backs in the "Warriors' Chapel" to the time of +the civil wars, when a certain heroic youth of eighteen was brought +to rest there, onward to Dutch and American wars, and to Harry, and +Geoffrey, and another James also, in hac ecclesia pueri instituti. +It was not so long since one of them sat on those very benches in the +sixth form; had come back and entered the school, in full uniform, to +say good-bye! Then the "colours" of his regiment had been brought, +to be deposited by Dean and Canons in the cathedral; and a few weeks +later they had passed, scholars and the rest in long procession, to +deposit Ensign--himself there under his flag, or what remained of it, +a sorry, tattered fringe, along the staff he had borne out of the +battle at the cost of his life, as a little tablet explained. There +were others in similar terms. Alas! for that extraordinary, +peculiarly-named, Destiny, or Doom, appointed to walk side by side +with one or another, aware from the first, but never warning him, +till the random or well-considered shot comes. + +Meantime however, the University, with work in preparation thereto, +fills up the thoughts, the hours, of these would-be soldiers, of +James [224] Stokes, and therefore of Emerald Uthwart, through the +long summer-time, till the Green Court is fragrant with lime-blossom, +and speech-day comes, on which, after their flower-service and sermon +from an old comrade, Emerald surprises masters and companions by the +fine quality of a recitation; still more when "Scholar Stokes" and he +are found bracketed together as "Victors" of the school, who will +proceed together to Oxford. His speech in the Chapter-house was from +that place in Homer, where the soul of the lad Elpenor, killed by +accident, entreats Ulysses for due burial rites. "Fix my oar over my +grave," he says, "the oar I rowed with when I lived, when I went with +my companions." And in effect what surprised, charmed the hearers +was the scruple with which those naturally graceful lips dealt with +every word, every syllable, put upon them. He seemed to be thinking +only of his author, except for just so much of self-consciousness as +was involved in the fact that he seemed also to be speaking a little +against his will; like a monk, it might be said, who sings in choir +with a really fine voice, but at the bidding of his superior, and +counting the notes all the while till his task be done, because his +whole nature revolts from so much as the bare opportunity for +personal display. It was his duty to speak on the occasion. They +had always been great in speech-making, in theatricals, from before +[225] the days when the Puritans destroyed the Dean's "Great Hall" +because "the King's Scholars had profaned it by acting plays there"; +and that peculiar note or accent, as being conspicuously free from +the egotism which vulgarises most of us, seemed to befit the person +of Emerald, impressing weary listeners pleasantly as a novelty in +that kind. Singular!--The words, because seemingly forced from him, +had been worth hearing. The cheers, the "Kentish Fire," of their +companions might have broken down the crumbling black arches of the +old cloister, or roused the dead under foot, as the "Victors" came +out of the Chapter-house side by side; side by side also out of that +delightful period of their life at school, to proceed in due course +to the University. + +They left it precipitately, after brief residence there, taking +advantage of a sudden outbreak of war to join the army at once, +regretted--James Stokes for his high academic promise, Uthwart for a +quality, or group of qualities, not strictly to be defined. He +seemed, in short, to harmonise by their combination in himself all +the various qualities proper to a large and varied community of +youths of nineteen or twenty, to which, when actually present there, +he was felt from hour to hour to be indispensable. In fact school +habits and standards had survived in a world not so different from +that of school for those who are faithful to its type. When he +looked back upon [226] it a little later, college seemed to him, +seemed indeed at the time, had he ventured to admit it, a strange +prolongation of boyhood, in its provisional character, the narrow +limitation of its duties and responsibility, the very divisions of +one's day, the routine of play and work, its formal, perhaps pedantic +rules. The veritable plunge from youth into manhood came when one +passed finally through those old Gothic gates, from a somewhat dreamy +or problematic preparation for it, into the world of peremptory +facts. A college, like a school, is not made for one; and as Uthwart +sat there, still but a scholar, still reading with care the books +prescribed for him by others--Greek and Latin books--the contrast +between his own position and that of the majority of his coevals +already at the business of life impressed itself sometimes with an +odd sense of unreality in the place around him. Yet the schoolboy's +sensitive awe for the great things of the intellectual world had but +matured itself, and was at its height here amid this larger +competition, which left him more than ever to find in doing his best +submissively the sole reward of so doing. He needs now in fact less +repression than encouragement not to be a "passman," as he may if he +likes, acquiescing in a lowly measure of culture which certainly will +not manufacture Miltons, nor turn serge into silk, broom-blossom into +verbenas, but only, perhaps not so faultily, leave Emerald Uthwart +and the like of him [227] essentially what they are. "He holds his +book in a peculiar way," notes in manuscript one of his tutors; +"holds on to it with both hands; clings as if from below, just as his +tough little mind clings to the sense of the Greek words he can +English so closely, precisely." Again, as at school, he had put his +neck under the yoke; though he has now also much reading quite at his +own choice; by preference, when he can come by such, about the place +where he finds himself, about the earlier youthful occupants, if it +might be, of his own quaint rooms on the second floor just below the +roof; of what he can see from his windows in the old black front +eastwards, with its inestimable patina of ancient smoke and weather +and natural decay (when you look close the very stone is a composite +of minute dead bodies) relieving heads like his so effectively on +summer mornings. On summer nights the scent of the hay, the wild- +flowers, comes across the narrow fringe of town to right and left; +seems to come from beyond the Oxford meadows, with sensitive, half- +repellent thoughts from the gardens at home. He looks down upon the +green square with the slim, quaint, black, young figures that cross +it on the way to chapel on yellow Sunday mornings, or upwards to the +dome, the spire; can watch them closely in freakish moonlight, or +flickering softly by an occasional bonfire in the quadrangle behind +him. Yet how hard, how forbidding sometimes, under [228] a late +stormy sky, the scheme of black, white, and grey, to which the group +of ancient buildings could attune itself. And what he reads most +readily is of the military life that intruded itself so oddly, during +the Civil War, into these half-monastic places, till the timid old +academic world scarcely knew itself. He treasures then every +incident which connects a soldier's coat with any still recognisable +object, wall, or tree, or garden-walk; that walk, for instance, under +Merton garden where young Colonel Windebank was shot for a traitor. +His body lies in Saint Mary Magdalen's churchyard. Unassociated to +such incident, the mere beauties of the place counted at the moment +for less than in retrospect. It was almost retrospect even now, with +an anticipation of regret, in rare moments of solitude perhaps, when +the oars splashed far up the narrow streamlets through the fields on +May evenings among the fritillaries--does the reader know them? that +strange remnant just here of a richer extinct flora--dry flowers, +though with a drop of dubious honey in each. Snakes' heads, the rude +call them, for their shape, scale-marked too, and in colour like +rusted blood, as if they grew from some forgotten battle-field, the +bodies, the rotten armour--yet delicate, beautiful, waving proudly. +In truth the memory of Oxford made almost everything he saw after it +seem vulgar. But he feels also nevertheless, characteristically, +that such local pride (fastus he terms it) is proper [229] only for +those whose occupations are wholly congruous with it; for the gifted, +the freemen who can enter into the genius, who possess the liberty, +of the place; that it has a reproach in it for the outsider, which +comes home to him. + +Here again then as he passes through the world, so delightfully to +others, they tell him, as if weighing him, his very self, against his +merely scholastic capacity and effects, that he would "do for the +army"; which he is now wholly glad to hear, for from first to last, +through all his successes there, the army had still been scholar +Stokes' choice, and he had no difficulty, as the reader sees, in +keeping Uthwart also faithful to first intentions. Their names were +already entered for commissions; but the war breaking out afresh, +information reaches them suddenly one morning that they may join +their regiment forthwith. Bidding good-bye therefore, gladly, +hastily, they set out with as little delay as possible for Flanders; +and passing the old school by their nearest road thither, stay for an +hour, find an excuse for coming into the hall in uniform, with which +it must be confessed they seem thoroughly satisfied--Uthwart quite +perversely at ease in the stiff make of his scarlet jacket with black +facings--and so pass onward on their way to Dover, Dunkirk, they +scarcely know whither finally, among the featureless villages, the +long monotonous lines of the windmills, the poplars, blurred with +cold fogs, but marking the [230] roads through the snow which covers +the endless plain, till they come in sight at last of the army in +motion, like machines moving--how little it looked on that endless +plain!--pass on their rapid way to fame, to unpurchased promotion, as +a matter of course to responsibility also, till, their fortune +turning upon them, they miscarry in the latter fatally. They joined +in fact a distinguished regiment in a gallant army, immediately after +a victory in those Flemish regions; shared its encouragement as fully +as if they had had a share in its perils; the high character of the +young officers consolidating itself easily, pleasantly for them, till +the hour of an act of thoughtless bravery, almost the sole irregular +or undisciplined act of Uthwart's life, he still following his +senior--criminal however to the military conscience, under the actual +circumstances, and in an enemy's country. The faulty thing was done, +certainly, with a scrupulous, a characteristic completeness on their +part; and with their prize actually in hand, an old weather-beaten +flag such as hung in the cathedral aisle at school, they bethought +them for the first time of its price, with misgivings now in rapid +growth, as they return to their posts as nearly as may be, for the +division has been ordered forward in their brief absence, to find +themselves under arrest, with that damning proof of heroism, of +guilt, in their possession, relinquished however along with the +swords they will never handle [231] again--toys, idolised toys of our +later youth, we weep at the thought of them as never to be handled +again!--as they enter the prison to await summary trial next day on +the charge of wantonly deserting their posts while in position of +high trust in time of war. + +The full details of what had happened could have been told only by +one or other of themselves; by Uthwart best, in the somewhat matter- +of-fact and prosaic journal he had managed to keep from the first, +noting there the incidents of each successive day, as if in +anticipation of its possible service by way of piece justificative, +should such become necessary, attesting hour by hour their single- +hearted devotion to soldierly duty. Had a draughtsman equally +truthful or equally "realistic," as we say, accompanied them and made +a like use of his pencil, he might have been mistaken at home for an +artist aiming at "effect," by skilful "arrangements" to tickle +people's interest in the spectacle of war--the sudden ruin of a +village street, the heap of bleeding horses in the half-ploughed +field, the gaping bridges, hand or face of the dead peeping from a +hastily made grave at the roadside, smoke-stained rents in cottage- +walls, ignoble ruin everywhere--ignoble but for its frank expression. + +But you find in Uthwart's journal, side by side with those ugly +patches, very precise and unadorned records of their common +gallantry, the more effective indeed for their simplicity; [232] and +not of gallantry only, but of the long-sustained patience also, the +essential monotony of military life, even on a campaign. Peril, +good-luck, promotion, the grotesque hardships which leave them smart +as ever, (as if, so others observe, dust and mire wouldn't hold on +them, so "spick and span" they were, more especially on days of any +exceptional risk or effort) the great confidence reposed in them at +last; all is noted, till, with a little quiet pride, he records a +gun-shot wound which keeps him a month alone in hospital wearily; and +at last, its hasty but seemingly complete healing. + +Following, leading, resting sometimes perforce, amid gun-shots, +putrefying wounds, green corpses, they never lacked good spirits, any +more than the birds warbling perennially afresh, as they will, over +such gangrened places, or the grass which so soon covers them. And +at length fortune, their misfortune, perversely determined that +heroism should take the form of patience under the walls of an +unimportant frontier town, with old Vauban fortifications seemingly +made only for appearance' sake, like the work in the trenches-- +gardener's work! round about the walls they are called upon to +superintend day after day. It was like a calm at sea, delaying one's +passage, one's purpose in being on board at all, a dead calm, yet +with an awful feeling of tension, intolerable at last for those who +were still all athirst for action. How dumb and [233] stupid the +place seemed, in its useless defiance of conquerors, anxious, for +reasons not indeed apparent, but which they were undoubtedly within +their rights in holding to, not to blow it at once into the air--the +steeple, the perky weathercock--to James Stokes in particular, always +eloquent in action, longing for heroic effort, and ready to pay its +price, maddened now by the palpable imposture in front of him morning +after morning, as he demonstrates conclusively to Uthwart, seduced at +last from the clearer sense of duty and discipline, not by the +demonstrated ease, but rather by the apparent difficulty of what +Stokes proposes to do. They might have been deterred by recent +example. Colonel --, who, as every one knew, had actually gained a +victory by disobeying orders, had not been suffered to remain in the +army of which he was an ornament. It was easy in fact for both, +though it seemed the heroic thing, to dash through the calm with +delightful sense of active powers renewed; to pass into the +beleaguered town with a handful of men, and no loss, after a manner +the feasibility of which Stokes had explained acutely but in vain at +headquarters. He proved it to Uthwart at all events, and a few +others. Delightful heroism! delightful self-indulgence! It was +delayed for a moment by orders to move forward at last, with hopes +checked almost immediately after by a countermand, bringing them +right round their [234] stupid dumb enemy to the same wearisome +position once again, to the trenches and the rest, but with their +thirst for action only stimulated the more. How great the +disappointment! encouraging a certain laxity of discipline that had +prevailed about them of late. They take advantage however of a vague +phrase in their instructions; determine in haste to proceed on their +plan as carefully, as sparingly of the lives of others as may be; +detach a small company, hazarding thereby an algebraically certain +scheme at headquarters of victory or secure retreat, which embraced +the entire country in its calculations; detach themselves; finally +pass into the place, and out again with their prize, themselves +secure. Themselves only could have told the details--the intensely +pleasant, the glorious sense of movement renewed once more; of +defiance, just for once, of a seemingly stupid control; their dismay +at finding their company led forward by others, their own posts +deserted, their handful of men--nowhere! + +In an ordinary trial at law, the motives, every detail of so +irregular an act might have been weighed, changing the colour of it. +Their general character would have told in their favour, but actually +told against them now; they had but won an exceptional trust to +betray it. Martial courts exist not for consideration, but for vivid +exemplary effect and prompt punishment. "There is a kind of tribunal +incidental [235] to service in the field," writes another diarist, +who may tell in his own words what remains to be told. "This court," +he says, "may consist of three staff-officers only, but has the power +of sentencing to death. On the --st two young officers of the --th +regiment, in whom it appears unusual confidence had been placed, were +brought before this court, on the charge of desertion and wantonly +exposing their company to danger. They were found guilty, and the +proper penalty death, to be inflicted next morning before the +regiment marches. The delinquents were understood to have appealed +to a general court-martial; desperately at last, to 'the judgment of +their country'; but were held to have no locus standi whatever for an +appeal under the actual circumstances. As a civilian I cannot but +doubt the justice, whatever may be thought of the expediency, of such +a summary process in regard to the capital penalty. The regiment to +which the culprits belonged, with some others, was quartered for the +night in the faubourg of Saint --, recently under blockade by a +portion of our forces. I was awoke at daybreak by the sound of +marching. The morning was a particularly clear one, though, as the +sun was not yet risen, it looked grey and sad along the empty street, +up which a party of grey soldiers were passing with steady pace. I +knew for what purpose. + +"The whole of the force in garrison here [236] had already marched to +the place of execution, the immense courtyard of a monastery, +surrounded irregularly by ancient buildings like those of some +cathedral precincts I have seen in England. Here the soldiers then +formed three sides of a great square, a grave having been dug on the +fourth side. Shortly afterwards the funeral procession came up. +First came the band of the --th, playing the Dead March; next the +firing party, consisting of twelve non-commissioned officers; then +the coffins, followed immediately by the unfortunate prisoners, +accompanied by a chaplain. Slowly and sadly did the mournful +procession approach, when it passed through three sides of the +square, the troops having been previously faced inwards, and then +halted opposite to the grave. The proceedings of the court-martial +were then read; and the elder prisoner having been blindfolded was +ordered to kneel down on his coffin, which had been placed close to +the grave, the firing party taking up a position exactly opposite at +a few yards' distance. The poor fellow's face was deadly pale, but +he had marched his last march as steadily as ever I saw a man step, +and bore himself throughout most bravely, though an oddly mixed +expression passed over his countenance when he was directed to remove +himself from the side of his companion, shaking his hand first. At +this moment there was hardly a dry eye, and several young soldiers +fainted, numberless as must be [237] the scenes of horror which even +they have witnessed during these last months. At length the +chaplain, who had remained praying with the prisoner, quietly +withdrew, and at a given signal, but without word of command, the +muskets were levelled, a volley was fired, and the body of the +unfortunate man sprang up, falling again on his back. One shot had +purposely been reserved; and as the presiding officer thought he was +not quite dead a musket was placed close to his head and fired. All +was now over; but the troops having been formed into columns were +marched close by the body as it lay on the ground, after which it was +placed in one of the coffins and buried. + +"I had almost forgotten his companion, the younger and more fortunate +prisoner, though I could scarcely tell, as I looked at him, whether +his fate was really preferable in leaving his own rough coffin +unoccupied behind him there. Lieutenant (I think Edward) Uthwart, as +being the younger of the two offenders, 'by the mercy of the court' +had his sentence commuted to dismissal from the army with disgrace. +A colour-sergeant then advanced with the former officer's sword, a +remarkably fine one, which he thereupon snapped in sunder over the +prisoner's head as he knelt. After this the prisoner's regimental +coat was handed forward and put upon him, the epaulettes and buttons +being then torn off and flung to a distance. This part of [238] such +sentences is almost invariably spared; but, I suppose through +unavoidable haste, was on the present occasion somewhat rudely +carried out. I shall never forget the expression of this man's +countenance, though I have seen many sad things in the course of my +profession. He had the sort of good looks which always rivet +attention, and in most minds friendly interest; and now, amid all his +pain and bewilderment, bore a look of humility and submission as he +underwent those extraordinary details of his punishment, which +touched me very oddly with a sort of desire (I cannot otherwise +express it) to share his lot, to be actually in his place for a +moment. Yet, alas! --no! say rather Thank Heaven! the nearest +approach to that look I have seen has been on the face of those whom +I have known from circumstances to be almost incapable at the time of +any feeling whatever. I would have offered him pecuniary aid, +supposing he needed it, but it was impossible. I went on with the +regiment, leaving the poor wretch to shift for himself, Heaven knows +how, the state of the country being what it is. He might join the +enemy!" + +What money Uthwart had about him had in fact passed that morning into +the hands of his guards. To tell what followed would be to accompany +him on a roundabout and really aimless journey, the details of which +he could never afterwards recall. See him lingering for morsels +[239] of food at some shattered farmstead, or assisted by others +almost as wretched as himself, sometimes without his asking. In his +worn military dress he seems a part of the ruin under which he creeps +for a night's rest as darkness comes on. He actually came round +again to the scene of his disgrace, of the execution; looked in vain +for the precise spot where he had knelt; then, almost envying him who +lay there, for the unmarked grave; passed over it perhaps +unrecognised for some change in that terrible place, or rather in +himself; wept then as never before in his life; dragged himself on +once more, till suddenly the whole country seems to move under the +rumour, the very thunder, of "the crowning victory," as he is made to +understand. Falling in with the tide of its heroes returning to +English shores, his vagrant footsteps are at last directed homewards. +He finds himself one afternoon at the gate, turning out of the quiet +Sussex road, through the fields for whose safety he had fought with +so much of undeniable gallantry and approval. + +On that July afternoon the gardens, the woods, mounted in flawless +sweetness all round him as he stood, to meet the circle of a flawless +sky. Not a cloud; not a motion on the grass! At the first he had +intended to return home no more; and it had been a proof of his great +dejection that he sent at last, as best he could, for money. They +knew his fate already [240] by report, and were touched naturally +when that had followed on the record of his honours. Had it been +possible they would have set forth at any risk to meet, to seek him; +were waiting now for the weary one to come to the gate, ready with +their oil and wine, to speak metaphorically, and from this time forth +underwent his charm to the utmost--the charm of an exquisite +character, felt in some way to be inseparable from his person, his +characteristic movements, touched also now with seemingly irreparable +sorrow. For his part, drinking in here the last sweets of the +sensible world, it was as if he, the lover of roses, had never before +been aware of them at all. The original softness of his temperament, +against which the sense of greater things thrust upon him had +successfully reacted, asserted itself again now as he lay at ease, +the ease well merited by his deeds, his sorrows. That he was going +to die moved those about him to humour this mood, to soften all +things to his touch; and looking back he might have pronounced those +four last years of doom the happiest of his life. The memory of the +grave into which he had gazed so steadily on the execution morning, +into which, as he feels, one half of himself had then descended, does +not lessen his shrinking from the fate before him, yet fortifies him +to face it manfully, gives a sort of fraternal familiarity to death; +in a few weeks' time this battle too is fought out; it is as if the +thing were ended. [241] The delightful summer heat, the freshness it +enhances--he contrasts such things no longer with the sort of place +to which he is hastening. The possible duration of life for him was +indeed uncertain, the future to some degree indefinite; but as +regarded any fairly distant date, anything like a term of years, from +the first there had been no doubt at all; he would be no longer here. +Meantime it was like a delightful few days' additional holiday from +school, with which perforce one must be content at last; or as though +he had not been pardoned on that terrible morning, but only reprieved +for two or three years. Yet how large a proportion they would have +seemed in the whole sum of his years. He would have liked to lie +finally in the garden among departed pets, dear dead dogs and horses; +faintly proposes it one day; but after a while comprehends the +churchyard, with its white spots in the distant flowery view, as +filling harmoniously its own proper place there. The weary soul +seemed to be settling deeper into the body and the earth it came of, +into the condition of the flowers, the grass, proper creatures of the +earth to which he is returning. The saintly vicar visits him +considerately; is repelled with politeness; goes on his way pondering +inwardly what kind of place there might be, in any possible scheme of +another world, for so absolutely unspiritual a subject. In fact, as +the breath of the infinite world came about him, he clung all [242] +the faster to the beloved finite things still in contact with him; he +had successfully hidden from his eyes all beside. + +His reprieve however lasted long enough, after all, for a certain +change of opinion of immense weight to him--a revision or reversal of +judgment. It came about in this way. When peace was arranged, with +question of rewards, pensions, and the like, certain battles or +incidents therein were fought over again, sometimes in the highest +places of debate. On such an occasion a certain speaker cites the +case of Lieutenant James Stokes and another, as being "pessimi +exempli": whereupon a second speaker gets up, prepared with full +detail, insists, brings that incidental matter to the front for an +hour, tells his unfortunate friend's story so effectively, +pathetically, that, as happens with our countrymen, they repent. The +matter gets into the newspapers, and, coming thus into sympathetic +public view, something like glory wins from Emerald Uthwart his last +touch of animation. Just not too late he received the offer of a +commission; kept the letter there open within sight. Aldy, who +"never shed tears and was incapable of pain," in his great physical +weakness, wept--shall we say for the second time in his life? A less +excitement would have been more favorable to any chance there might +be of the patient's surviving. In fact the old gun-shot wound, +wrongly thought to be cured, which had caused [243] the one illness +of his life, is now drawing out what remains of it, as he feels with +a kind of odd satisfaction and pride--his old glorious wound! And +then, as of old, an absolute submissiveness comes over him, as he +gazes round at the place, the relics of his uniform, the letter lying +there. It was as if there was nothing more that could be said. +Accounts thus settled, he stretched himself in the bed he had +occupied as a boy, more completely at his ease than since the day +when he had left home for the first time. Respited from death once, +he was twice believed to be dead before the date actually registered +on his tomb. "What will it matter a hundred years hence?" they used +to ask by way of simple comfort in boyish troubles at school, +overwhelming at the moment. Was that in truth part of a certain +revelation of the inmost truth of things to "babes," such as we have +heard of? What did it matter--the gifts, the good-fortune, its +terrible withdrawal, the long agony? Emerald Uthwart would have been +all but a centenarian to-day. + +Postscript, from the Diary of a Surgeon, +August --th, 18--. + +I was summoned by letter into the country to perform an operation on +the dead body of a young man, formerly an officer in the army. The +cause of death is held to have been some [244] kind of distress of +mind, concurrent with the effects of an old gun-shot wound, the ball +still remaining somewhere in the body. My instructions were to +remove this, at the express desire, as I understood, of the deceased, +rather than to ascertain the precise cause of death. This however +became apparent in the course of my search for the ball, which had +enveloped itself in the muscular substance in the region of the +heart, and was removed with difficulty. I have known cases of this +kind, where anxiety has caused incurable cardiac derangement (the +deceased seems to have been actually sentenced to death for some +military offence when on service in Flanders), and such mental strain +would of course have been aggravated by the presence of a foreign +object in that place. On arriving at my destination, a small village +in a remote part of Sussex, I proceeded through the little orderly +churchyard, where however the monthly roses were blooming all their +own way among the formal white marble monuments of the wealthier +people of the neighbourhood. At one of these the masons were at +work, picking and chipping in the otherwise absolute stillness of the +summer afternoon. They were in fact opening the family burial-place +of the people who summoned me hither; and the workmen pointed out +their abode, conspicuous on the slope beyond, towards which I bent my +steps accordingly. I was conducted to a large upper [245] room or +attic, set freely open to sun and air, and found the body lying in a +coffin, almost hidden under very rich-scented cut flowers, after a +manner I have never seen in this country, except in the case of one +or two Catholics laid out for burial. The mother of the deceased was +present, and actually assisted my operations, amid such tokens of +distress, though perfectly self-controlled, as I fervently hope I may +never witness again. + +Deceased was in his twenty-seventh year, but looked many years +younger; had indeed scarcely yet reached the full condition of +manhood. The extreme purity of the outlines, both of the face and +limbs, was such as is usually found only in quite early youth; the +brow especially, under an abundance of fair hair, finely formed, not +high, but arched and full, as is said to be the way with those +who have the imaginative temper in excess. Sad to think that had he +lived reason must have deserted that so worthy abode of it! I was +struck by the great beauty of the organic developments, in the +strictly anatomic sense; those of the throat and diaphragm in +particular might have been modelled for a teacher of normal +physiology, or a professor of design. The flesh was still almost as +firm as that of a living person; as happens when, as in this case, +death comes to all intents and purposes as gradually as in old age. + +This expression of health and life, under my seemingly merciless +doings, together with the mother's distress, touched me to a degree +very [246] unusual, I conceive, in persons of my years and +profession. Though I believed myself to be acting by his express +wish, I felt like a criminal. The ball, a small one, much corroded +with blood, was at length removed; and I was then directed to wrap it +in a partly-printed letter, or other document, and place it in the +breast-pocket of a faded and much-worn scarlet soldier's coat, put +over the shirt which enveloped the body. The flowers were then +hastily replaced, the hands and the peak of the handsome nose +remaining visible among them; the wind ruffled the fair hair a +little; the lips were still red. I shall not forget it. The lid was +then placed on the coffin and screwed down in my presence. There was +no plate or other inscription upon it. + +NOTES + +197. *Published in the New Review, June and July 1892, and now +reprinted by the kind permission of the proprietors. + +210. +Transliteration: askesis. Liddel and Scott definition: +"exercise, training." + +213. +Transliteration: Moirai. Liddel and Scott definition: +"[singular =] one's portion in life, lot, destiny." + +213. +Transliteration: Ker. Brief Liddel and Scott definition: +"doom, death, destruction." + +214. +Translation: "in this church established for boys." + +219. +Transliteration: he pterou dynamis. + + + +DIAPHANEITE + +[247] THERE are some unworldly types of character which the world is +able to estimate. It recognises certain moral types, or categories, +and regards whatever falls within them as having a right to exist. +The saint, the artist, even the speculative thinker, out of the +world's order as they are, yet work, so far as they work at all, in +and by means of the main current of the world's energy. Often it +gives them late, or scanty, or mistaken acknowledgment; still it has +room for them in its scheme of life, a place made ready for them in +its affections. It is also patient of doctrinaires of every degree +of littleness. As if dimly conscious of some great sickness and +weariness of heart in itself, it turns readily to those who theorise +about its unsoundness. To constitute one of these categories, or +types, a breadth and generality of character is required. There is +another type of character, which is not broad and general, rare, +precious above all to the artist, a character which seems to have +been the supreme moral charm in the Beatrice of the [248] Commedia. +It does not take the eye by breadth of colour; rather it is that fine +edge of light, where the elements of our moral nature refine +themselves to the burning point. It crosses rather than follows the +main current of the world's life. The world has no sense fine enough +for those evanescent shades, which fill up the blanks between +contrasted types of character--delicate provision in the organisation +of the moral world for the transmission to every part of it of the +life quickened at single points! For this nature there is no place +ready in its affections. This colourless, unclassified purity of +life it can neither use for its service, nor contemplate as an ideal. + +"Sibi unitus et simplificatus esse," that is the long struggle of the +Imitatio Christi. The spirit which it forms is the very opposite of +that which regards life as a game of skill, and values things and +persons as marks or counters of something to be gained, or achieved, +beyond them. It seeks to value everything at its eternal worth, not +adding to it, or taking from it, the amount of influence it may have +for or against its own special scheme of life. It is the spirit that +sees external circumstances as they are, its own power and tendencies +as they are, and realises the given conditions of its life, not +disquieted by the desire for change, or the preference of one part in +life rather than another, or passion, or opinion. The character we +mean to indicate achieves this [249] perfect life by a happy gift of +nature, without any struggle at all. Not the saint only, the artist +also, and the speculative thinker, confused, jarred, disintegrated in +the world, as sometimes they inevitably are, aspire for this +simplicity to the last. The struggle of this aspiration with a lower +practical aim in the mind of Savonarola has been subtly traced by the +author of Romola. As language, expression, is the function of +intellect, as art, the supreme expression, is the highest product of +intellect, so this desire for simplicity is a kind of indirect self- +assertion of the intellectual part of such natures. Simplicity in +purpose and act is a kind of determinate expression in dexterous +outline of one's personality. It is a kind of moral expressiveness; +there is an intellectual triumph implied in it. Such a simplicity is +characteristic of the repose of perfect intellectual culture. The +artist and he who has treated life in the spirit of art desires only +to be shown to the world as he really is; as he comes nearer and +nearer to perfection, the veil of an outer life not simply expressive +of the inward becomes thinner and thinner. This intellectual throne +is rarely won. Like the religious life, it is a paradox in the +world, denying the first conditions of man's ordinary existence, +cutting obliquely the spontaneous order of things. But the character +we have before us is a kind of prophecy of this repose and +simplicity, coming as it were in the order of grace, not of nature, +by [250] some happy gift, or accident of birth or constitution, +showing that it is indeed within the limits of man's destiny. Like +all the higher forms of inward life this character is a subtle +blending and interpenetration of intellectual, moral and spiritual +elements. But it is as a phase of intellect, of culture, that it is +most striking and forcible. It is a mind of taste lighted up by some +spiritual ray within. What is meant by taste is an imperfect +intellectual state; it is but a sterile kind of culture. It is the +mental attitude, the intellectual manner of perfect culture, assumed +by a happy instinct. Its beautiful way of handling everything that +appeals to the senses and the intellect is really directed by the +laws of the higher intellectual life, but while culture is able to +trace those laws, mere taste is unaware of them. In the character +before us, taste, without ceasing to be instructive, is far more than +a mental attitude or manner. A magnificent intellectual force is +latent within it. It is like the reminiscence of a forgotten culture +that once adorned the mind; as if the mind of one philosophesas pote +met' erotos,+ fallen into a new cycle, were beginning its spiritual +progress over again, but with a certain power of anticipating its +stages. It has the freshness without the shallowness of taste, the +range and seriousness of culture without its strain and over- +consciousness. Such a habit may be described as wistfulness of mind, +the feeling that there is "so much to [251] know," rather as a +longing after what is unattainable, than as a hope to apprehend. Its +ethical result is an intellectual guilelessness, or integrity, that +instinctively prefers what is direct and clear, lest one's own +confusion and intransparency should hinder the transmission from +without of light that is not yet inward. He who is ever looking for +the breaking of a light he knows not whence about him, notes with a +strange heedfulness the faintest paleness in the sky. That +truthfulness of temper, that receptivity, which professors often +strive in vain to form, is engendered here less by wisdom than by +innocence. Such a character is like a relic from the classical age, +laid open by accident to our alien modern atmosphere. It has +something of the clear ring, the eternal outline of the antique. +Perhaps it is nearly always found with a corresponding outward +semblance. The veil or mask of such a nature would be the very +opposite of the "dim blackguardism" of Danton, the type Carlyle has +made too popular for the true interest of art. It is just this sort +of entire transparency of nature that lets through unconsciously all +that is really lifegiving in the established order of things; it +detects without difficulty all sorts of affinities between its own +elements, and the nobler elements in that order. But then its +wistfulness and a confidence in perfection it has makes it love the +lords of change. What makes revolutionists is either self-pity, or +indignation [252] for the sake of others, or a sympathetic perception +of the dominant undercurrent of progress in things. The nature +before us is revolutionist from the direct sense of personal worth, +that chlide,+ that pride of life, which to the Greek was a heavenly +grace. How can he value what comes of accident, or usage, or +convention, whose individual life nature itself has isolated and +perfected? Revolution is often impious. They who prosecute +revolution have to violate again and again the instinct of reverence. +That is inevitable, since after all progress is a kind of violence. +But in this nature revolutionism is softened, harmonised, subdued as +by distance. It is the revolutionism of one who has slept a hundred +years. Most of us are neutralised by the play of circumstances. To +most of us only one chance is given in the life of the spirit and the +intellect, and circumstances prevent our dexterously seizing that one +chance. The one happy spot in our nature has no room to burst into +life. Our collective life, pressing equally on every part of every +one of us, reduces nearly all of us to the level of a colourless +uninteresting existence. Others are neutralised, not by suppression +of gifts, but by just equipoise among them. In these no single gift, +or virtue, or idea, has an unmusical predominance. The world easily +confounds these two conditions. It sees in the character before us +only indifferentism. Doubtless the chief vein of the life of +humanity [253] could hardly pass through it. Not by it could the +progress of the world be achieved. It is not the guise of Luther or +Spinoza; rather it is that of Raphael, who in the midst of the +Reformation and the Renaissance, himself lighted up by them, yielded +himself to neither, but stood still to live upon himself, even in +outward form a youth, almost an infant, yet surprising all the world. +The beauty of the Greek statues was a sexless beauty; the statues of +the gods had the least traces of sex. Here there is a moral +sexlessness, a kind of impotence, an ineffectual wholeness of nature, +yet with a divine beauty and significance of its own. + +Over and over again the world has been surprised by the heroism, the +insight, the passion, of this clear crystal nature. Poetry and +poetical history have dreamed of a crisis, where it must needs be +that some human victim be sent down into the grave. These are they +whom in its profound emotion humanity might choose to send. "What," +says Carlyle, of Charlotte Corday, "What if she had emerged from her +secluded stillness, suddenly like a star; cruel-lovely, with half- +angelic, half-daemonic splendour; to gleam for a moment, and in a +moment be extinguished; to be held in memory, so bright complete was +she, through long centuries!" + +Often the presence of this nature is felt like a sweet aroma in early +manhood. Afterwards, as the adulterated atmosphere of the world +assimilates [254] us to itself, the savour of it faints away. +Perhaps there are flushes of it in all of us; recurring moments of it +in every period of life. Certainly this is so with every man of +genius. It is a thread of pure white light that one might disentwine +from the tumultuary richness of Goethe's nature. It is a natural +prophecy of what the next generation will appear, renerved, modified +by the ideas of this. There is a violence, an impossibility about +men who have ideas, which makes one suspect that they could never be +the type of any widespread life. Society could not be conformed to +their image but by an unlovely straining from its true order. Well, +in this nature the idea appears softened, harmonised as by distance, +with an engaging naturalness, without the noise of axe or hammer. + +People have often tried to find a type of life that might serve as a +basement type. The philosopher, the saint, the artist, neither of +them can be this type; the order of nature itself makes them +exceptional. It cannot be the pedant, or the conservative, or +anything rash and irreverent. Also the type must be one discontented +with society as it is. The nature here indicated alone is worthy to +be this type. A majority of such would be the regeneration of the +world. + +July, 1864. + +NOTES + +250. +Transliteration: philosophesas pote met' erotos. + +252. +Transliteration: chlide. + +THE END + + +End of this Project Gutenberg Etext of Miscellaneous Studies by Walter Pater + diff --git a/old/7mstd10.zip b/old/7mstd10.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..adb76d9 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/7mstd10.zip diff --git a/old/8mstd10.txt b/old/8mstd10.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..9a8deb0 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/8mstd10.txt @@ -0,0 +1,6331 @@ +The Project Gutenberg Etext of Miscellaneous Studies, by Walter Pater +#9 in our series by Walter Pater + +Copyright laws are changing all over the world, be sure to check +the laws for your country before redistributing these files!!! + +Please take a look at the important information in this header. +We encourage you to keep this file on your own disk, keeping an +electronic path open for the next readers. + +Please do not remove this. + +This should be the first thing seen when anyone opens the book. +Do not change or edit it without written permission. 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A bracketed +numeral such as [22] indicates that the material immediately +following the number marks the beginning of the relevant page. I +have preserved paragraph structure except for first-line indentation. + +Hyphenation: I have not preserved original hyphenation since an +e-text does not require line-end or page-end hyphenation. + +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. + + + + +MISCELLANEOUS STUDIES: A SERIES OF ESSAYS +WALTER HORATIO PATER + + +CONTENTS + +C. Shadwell's Preface -- Publication Chronology: 1-7 + +Prosper Mérimée: 11-37 + +Raphael: 38-61 + +Pascal: 62-89 + +Art Notes in North Italy: 90-108 + +Notre Dame D'Amiens: 109-125 + +Vézelay: 126-141 + +Apollo in Picardy: 142-171 + +The Child in the House: 172-196 + +Emerald Uthwart: 197-246 + +Diaphaneité: 247-254 + + + +CHARLES L. SHADWELL'S PREFACE + +[1] The volume of Greek Studies, issued early in the present year, +dealt with Mr. Pater's contributions to the study of Greek art, +mythology, and poetry. The present volume has no such unifying +principle. Some of the papers would naturally find their place +alongside of those collected in Imaginary Portraits, or in +Appreciations, or in the Studies in the Renaissance. And there is no +doubt, in the case of several of them, that Mr. Pater, if he had +lived, would have subjected them to careful revision before allowing +them to reappear in a permanent form. The task, which he left +unexecuted, cannot now be taken up by any other hand. But it is +hoped that students of his writings will be glad to possess, in a +collected shape, what has hitherto only been accessible in the +scattered volumes of magazines. It is with some hesitation that the +paper on Diaphaneitè, the last in this volume, has been added, as the +only specimen known to [2] be preserved of those early essays of Mr. +Pater's, by which his literary gifts were first made known to the +small circle of his Oxford friends. + +Subjoined is a brief chronological list of his published writings. +It will be observed how considerable a period, 1880 to 1885, was +given up to the composition of Marius the Epicurean, the most highly +finished of all his works, and the expression of his deepest thought. + +August, 1895. + + + +A CHRONOLOGY OF PATER'S WORKS, 1866-1895 + +(Adapted from a compilation by Charles L. Shadwell in the 1895 +Macmillan edition of Miscellaneous Studies.) + +1866. + +COLERIDGE. Appeared in Westminster Review, January, 1866. Reprinted +1889 in Appreciations. + +1867. + +WINCKELMANN. Appeared in Westminster Review, January, 1867. Reprinted +1873 in Studies in the Renaissance. + +1868. + +*AESTHETIC POETRY. Written in 1868. First published 1889 in +Appreciations. (Not included in the 1910 Macmillan Library Edition, +but published separately at Project Gutenberg and +www.ajdrake.com/etexts.) + +1869. + +NOTES ON LEONARDO DA VINCI. Appeared in Fortnightly Review in Novermber, +1869. Reprinted 1873 in Studies in the Renaissance. + +1870. + +SANDRO BOTTICELLI. Appeared in Fortnightly Review in August, 1870, +entitled "A Fragment on Sandro Botticelli." Reprinted 1873 in +Studies in the Renaissance. + +1871. + +PICO DELLA MIRANDOLA. Appeared in Fortnightly Review in October, 1871. +Reprinted 1873 in Studies in the Renaissance. + +POETRY OF MICHELANGELO. Appeared in Fortnightly Review in November, +1871. Reprinted 1873 in Studies in the Renaissance. + +1873. + +STUDIES IN THE HISTORY OF THE RENAISSANCE. Published 1873 by Macmillan. +Contents: + +Aucassin and Nicolette. Entitled in second and later editions, "Two +Early French Stories." + +Pico della Mirandola. See 1871. + +Sandro Botticelli. See 1870. + +Luca della Robbia. + +Poetry of Michelangelo. See 1871. + +Leonardo da Vinci. See 1869. + +Joachim du Bellay. + +Winckelmann. See 1867. + +Conclusion. + +1874. + +WORDSWORTH. Appeared in Fortnightly Review in April, 1874. Reprinted +1889 in Appreciations. + +MEASURE FOR MEASURE. Appeared in Fortnightly Review in November, 1874. +Reprinted 1889 in Appreciations. + +1875. + +DEMETER AND PERSEPHONE. Written as two lectures, and delivered in 1875 +at the Birmingham and Midland Institute. Appeared in Fortnightly +Review in January and February, 1876. Reprinted 1895 in Greek +Studies. + +1876. + +ROMANTICISM. Appeared in Macmillan's Magazine in November, 1876. +Reprinted 1889 in Appreciations under the title "Postscript." + +A STUDY OF DIONYSUS. Appeared in Fortnightly Review in December, 1876. +Reprinted 1895 in Greek Studies. + +1877. + +THE SCHOOL OF GIORGIONE. Appeared in Fortnightly Review in October, +1877. Reprinted 1888 in third edition of The Renaissance. + +THE RENAISSANCE: STUDIES IN ART AND POETRY. Second edition. Macmillan. +Contents: + +Two Early French Stories. + +Pico della Mirandola. + +Sandro Botticelli. + +Luca della Robbia. + +The Poetry of Michelangelo. + +Leonardo da Vinci. + +Joachim du Bellay. + +Winckelmann. + +1878. + +THE CHILD IN THE HOUSE. Appeared in Macmillan's Magazine in August, +1878, under the heading, "Imaginary Portrait. The Child in the +House." Reprinted 1895 in Miscellaneous Studies. + +CHARLES LAMB. Appeared in Fortnightly Review in October, 1878. +Reprinted 1889 in Appreciations. + +LOVE'S LABOURS LOST. Written in 1878. Appeared in Macmillan's Magazine +in December, 1885. Reprinted 1889 in Appreciations. + +THE BACCHANALS OF EURIPIDES. Written in 1878. Appeared in Macmillan's +Magazine in May, 1889. Reprinted in Tyrrell's edition of the Bacchae +in 1892. Reprinted in 1895 in Greek Studies. + +1880. + +THE BEGINNINGS OF GREEK SCULPTURE. Appeared in Fortnightly Review in +February and March, 1880. Reprinted 1895 in Greek Studies. + +THE MARBLES OF AEGINA. Appeared in Fortnightly Review in April, 1880. +Reprinted 1895 in Greek Studies. + +1883. + +DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI. Written in 1883. Published 1889 in +Appreciations. + +1885. + +MARIUS THE EPICUREAN. Published in 1885 by Macmillan. Two volumes. + +A PRINCE OF COURT PAINTERS. Appeared in Macmillan's Magazine in October, +1885. Reprinted 1887 in Imaginary Portraits. + +1886. + +FEUILLET'S "LA MORTE." Written in 1886. Published 1890 in second +edition of Appreciations. + +SIR THOMAS BROWNE. Written in 1886. Published 1889 in Appreciations. + +SEBASTIAN VAN STORCK. Appeared in Macmillan's Magazine in March, 1886. +Reprinted 1887 in Imaginary Portraits. + +DENYS L'AUXERROIS. Appeared in Macmillan's Magazine in October, 1886. +Reprinted 1887 in Imaginary Portraits. + +1887. + +DUKE CARL OF ROSENMOLD. Appeared in Macmillan's Magazine in May, 1887. +Reprinted the same year in Imaginary Portraits. + +IMAGINARY PORTRAITS. Published 1887 by Macmillan. Contents: + +A Prince of Court Painters. See 1885. + +Denys l'Auxerrois. See 1886. + +Sebastian van Storck. See 1886. + +Duke Carl of Rosenmold. See above. + +1888. + +GASTON DE LATOUR. Appeared in Macmillan's Magazine as under: viz. + +Chapter I in June. + +Chapter II in July. + +Chapter III in August. + +Chapter IV in September. + +Chapter V in October. + +STYLE. Appeared in Fortnightly Review in December, 1888. Reprinted +1889 in Appreciations. + +THE RENAISSANCE. Third Edition. Macmillan. Contents: + +Two Early French Stories. + +Pico della Mirandola. + +Sandro Botticelli. + +Luca della Robbia. + +The Poetry of Michelangelo. + +Leonardo da Vinci. + +The School of Giorgione. See 1877. + +Joachim du Bellay. + +Winckelmann. + +Conclusion. + +1889. + +HIPPOLYTUS VEILED. Appeared in Macmillan's Magazine in August, 1889. +Reprinted 1895 in Greek Studies. + +*GIORDANO BRUNO. Appeared in Fortnightly Review in August, 1889. (Not +included in the 1910 Macmillan Library Edition, but published +separately online at Project Gutenberg and www.ajdrake.com/etexts.) + +APPRECIATIONS, WITH AN ESSAY ON STYLE. Published 1889 by Macmillan. +Contents: + +Style. See 1888. + +Wordsworth. See 1874. + +Coleridge. See 1866. + +Charles Lamb. See 1878. + +Sir Thomas Browne. See 1886. + +Love's Labours Lost. See 1878. + +Measure for Measure. See 1874. + +Shakespeare's English Kings. + +*Aesthetic Poetry. See 1868. + +Dante Gabriel Rossetti. See 1883. + +Postscript. See under "Romanticism," 1876. + +1890. + +ART NOTES IN NORTHERN ITALY. Appeared in New Review in November, 1890. +Reprinted 1895 in Miscellaneous Studies. + +PROSPER MÉRIMÉE. Delivered as a lecture at Oxford in November, 1890. +Appeared in Fortnightly Review in December, 1890. Reprinted 1895 in +Miscellaneous Studies. + +APPRECIATIONS. Second edition. Macmillan. Contents as in first +edition of 1889, but omitting Aesthetic Poetry and including a paper +on Feuillet's "La Morte" (See 1886). + +1892. + +THE GENIUS OF PLATO. Appeared in Contemporary Review in February, +1892. Reprinted 1893 as Chapter VI of Plato and Platonism. + +A CHAPTER ON PLATO. Appeared in Macmillan's Magazine in May, 1892. +Reprinted 1893 as Chapter I of Plato and Platonism. + +LACEDAEMON. Appeared in Contemporary Review in June, 1892. Reprinted +1893 as Chapter VIII of Plato and Platonism. + +EMERALD UTHWART. Appeared in New Review in June and July, 1892. +Reprinted 1895 in Miscellaneous Studies. + +RAPHAEL. Delivered as a lecture at Oxford in August, 1892. Appeared +in Fortnightly Review in October, 1892. Reprinted 1895 in +Miscellaneous Studies. + +1893. + +APOLLO IN PICARDY. Appeared in Harper's Magazine in November, 1893. +Reprinted 1895 in Miscellaneous Studies. + +PLATO AND PLATONISM. Published 1893 by Macmillan. Included, as +Chapters 1, 6, and 8, papers which had already appeared in Magazines +in 1892. Contents: + +1. Plato and the Doctrine of Motion. + +2. Plato and the Doctrine of Rest. + +3. Plato and the Doctrine of Number. + +4. Plato and Socrates. + +5. Plato and the Sophists. + +6. The Genius of Plato. + +7. The Doctrine of Plato-- + + I. The Theory of Ideas. + + II. Dialectic. + +8. Lacedaemon. + +9. The Republic. + +10. Plato's Aesthetics. + +1894. + +THE AGE OF ATHLETIC PRIZEMEN. Appeared in Contemporary Review in +February, 1894. Reprinted 1895 in Greek Studies. + +SOME GREAT CHURCHES IN FRANCE. 1) NOTRE-DAME D'AMIENS; 2) VÉZELAY. +Appeared in Nineteenth Century in March and June, 1894. Reprinted +1895 in Miscellaneous Studies as two separate essays. + +PASCAL. Written for delivery as a lecture at Oxford in July, 1894. +Appeared in Contemporary Review in December, 1894. Reprinted 1895 in +Miscellaneous Studies. + +1895. + +GREEK STUDIES. Published 1895 by Macmillan. Contents: + +A Study of Dionysus. See 1876. + +The Bacchanals of Euripides. See 1878. + +The Myth of Demeter and Persephone. See 1875. + +Hippolytus Veiled. See 1889. + +The Beginnings of Greek Sculpture. See 1880: + + 1) The Heroic Age of Greek Art. + + 2) The Age of Graven Images. + +The Marbles of Aegina. See 1880. + +The Age of Athletic Prizemen. See 1894. + + + +PROSPER MÉRIMÉE* + +FOR one born in eighteen hundred and three much was recently become +incredible that had at least warmed the imagination even of the +sceptical eighteenth century. Napoleon, sealing the tomb of the +Revolution, had foreclosed many a problem, extinguished many a hope, +in the sphere of practice. And the mental parallel was drawn by +Heine. In the mental world too a great outlook had lately been cut +off. After Kant's criticism of the mind, its pretensions to pass +beyond the limits of individual experience seemed as dead as those of +old French royalty. And Kant did but furnish its innermost theoretic +force to a more general criticism, which had withdrawn from every +department of action, underlying principles once thought eternal. A +time of disillusion followed. The typical personality of the day was +Obermann, the very genius of ennui, a Frenchman disabused even of +patriotism, who has hardly strength enough to die. + +[12] More energetic souls, however, would recover themselves, and +find some way of making the best of a changed world. Art: the +passions, above all, the ecstasy and sorrow of love: a purely +empirical knowledge of nature and man: these still remained, at least +for pastime, in a world of which it was no longer proposed to +calculate the remoter issues:--art, passion, science, however, in a +somewhat novel attitude towards the practical interests of life. The +désillusionné, who had found in Kant's negations the last word +concerning an unseen world, and is living, on the morrow of the +Revolution, under a monarchy made out of hand, might seem cut off +from certain ancient natural hopes, and will demand, from what is to +interest him at all, something in the way of artificial stimulus. He +has lost that sense of large proportion in things, that all-embracing +prospect of life as a whole (from end to end of time and space, it +had seemed), the utmost expanse of which was afforded from a +cathedral tower of the Middle Age: by the church of the thirteenth +century, that is to say, with its consequent aptitude for the +co-ordination of human effort. Deprived of that exhilarating yet +pacific outlook, imprisoned now in the narrow cell of its own +subjective experience, the action of a powerful nature will be +intense, but exclusive and peculiar. It will come to art, or +science, to the experience of life itself, not as to portions of +human nature's daily food, but as to [13] something that must be, by +the circumstances of the case, exceptional; almost as men turn in +despair to gambling or narcotics, and in a little while the narcotic, +the game of chance or skill, is valued for its own sake. The +vocation of the artist, of the student of life or books, will be +realised with something--say! of fanaticism, as an end in itself, +unrelated, unassociated. The science he turns to will be a science +of crudest fact; the passion extravagant, a passionate love of +passion, varied through all the exotic phases of French fiction as +inaugurated by Balzac; the art exaggerated, in matter or form, or +both, as in Hugo or Baudelaire. The development of these conditions +is the mental story of the nineteenth century, especially as +exemplified in France. + +In no century would Prosper Mérimée have been a theologian or +metaphysician. But that sense of negation, of theoretic insecurity, +was in the air, and conspiring with what was of like tendency in +himself made of him a central type of disillusion. In him the +passive ennui of Obermann became a satiric, aggressive, almost angry +conviction of the littleness of the world around; it was as if man's +fatal limitations constituted a kind of stupidity in him, what the +French call bêtise. Gossiping friends, indeed, linked what was +constitutional in him and in the age with an incident of his earliest +years. Corrected for some childish fault, in passionate distress, he +overhears a half-pitying laugh at his expense, and has determined, +[14] in a moment, never again to give credit--to be for ever on his +guard, especially against his own instinctive movements. Quite +unreserved, certainly, he never was again. Almost everywhere he +could detect the hollow ring of fundamental nothingness under the +apparent surface of things. Irony surely, habitual irony, would be +the proper complement thereto, on his part. In his infallible self- +possession, you might even fancy him a mere man of the world, with a +special aptitude for matters of fact. Though indifferent in +politics, he rises to social, to political eminence; but all the +while he is feeding all his scholarly curiosity, his imagination, the +very eye, with the, to him ever delightful, relieving, reassuring +spectacle, of those straightforward forces in human nature, which are +also matters of fact. There is the formula of Mérimée! the +enthusiastic amateur of rude, crude, naked force in men and women +wherever it could be found; himself carrying ever, as a mask, the +conventional attire of the modern world--carrying it with an +infinite, contemptuous grace, as if that, too, were an all-sufficient +end in itself. With a natural gift for words, for expression, it +will be his literary function to draw back the veil of time from the +true greatness of old Roman character; the veil of modern habit from +the primitive energy of the creatures of his fancy, as the Lettres à +une Inconnue discovered to general gaze, after his death, a certain +depth of [15] passionate force which had surprised him in himself. +And how forcible will be their outlines in an otherwise insignificant +world! Fundamental belief gone, in almost all of us, at least some +relics of it remain--queries, echoes, reactions, after-thoughts; and +they help to make an atmosphere, a mental atmosphere, hazy perhaps, +yet with many secrets of soothing light and shade, associating more +definite objects to each other by a perspective pleasant to the +inward eye against a hopefully receding background of remoter and +ever remoter possibilities. Not so with Mérimée! For him the +fundamental criticism has nothing more than it can do; and there are +no half-lights. The last traces of hypothesis, of supposition, are +evaporated. Sylla, the false Demetrius, Carmen, Colomba, that +impassioned self within himself, have no atmosphere. Painfully +distinct in outline, inevitable to sight, unrelieved, there they +stand, like solitary mountain forms on some hard, perfectly +transparent day. What Mérimée gets around his singularly +sculpturesque creations is neither more nor less than empty space. + +So disparate are his writings that at first sight you might fancy +them only the random efforts of a man of pleasure or affairs, who, +turning to this or that for the relief of a vacant hour, discovers to +his surprise a workable literary gift, of whose scope, however, he is +not precisely aware. His sixteen volumes nevertheless range +themselves in three compact groups. There are his letters [16] -- +those Lettres à une Inconnue, and his letters to the librarian +Panizzi, revealing him in somewhat close contact with political +intrigue. But in this age of novelists, it is as a writer of novels, +and of fiction in the form of highly descriptive drama, that he will +count for most:--Colomba, for instance, by its intellectual depth of +motive, its firmly conceived structure, by the faultlessness of its +execution, vindicating the function of the novel as no tawdry light +literature, but in very deed a fine art. The Chronique du Règne de +Charles IX., an unusually successful specimen of historical romance, +links his imaginative work to the third group of Mérimée's writings, +his historical essays. One resource of the disabused soul of our +century, as we saw, would be the empirical study of facts, the +empirical science of nature and man, surviving all dead metaphysical +philosophies. Mérimée, perhaps, may have had in him the making of a +master of such science, disinterested, patient, exact: scalpel in +hand, we may fancy, he would have penetrated far. But quite +certainly he had something of genius for the exact study of history, +for the pursuit of exact truth, with a keenness of scent as if that +alone existed, in some special area of historic fact, to be +determined by his own peculiar mental preferences. Power here too +again,--the crude power of men and women which mocks, while it makes +its use of, average human nature: it was the magic function of +history to put one in living [17] contact with that. To weigh the +purely physiognomic import of the memoir, of the pamphlet saved by +chance, the letter, the anecdote, the very gossip by which one came +face to face with energetic personalities: there lay the true +business of the historic student, not in that pretended theoretic +interpretation of events by their mechanic causes, with which he +dupes others if not invariably himself. In the great hero of the +Social War, in Sylla, studied, indeed, through his environment, but +only so far as that was in dynamic contact with himself, you saw, +without any manner of doubt, on one side, the solitary height of +human genius; on the other, though on the seemingly so heroic stage +of antique Roman story, the wholly inexpressive level of the humanity +of every day, the spectacle of man's eternal bêtise. Fascinated, +like a veritable son of the old pagan Renaissance, by the grandeur, +the concentration, the satiric hardness of ancient Roman character, +it is to Russia nevertheless that he most readily turns--youthful +Russia, whose native force, still unbelittled by our western +civilisation, seemed to have in it the promise of a more dignified +civilisation to come. It was as if old Rome itself were here again; +as, occasionally, a new quarry is laid open of what was thought long +since exhausted, ancient marble, cipollino or verde antique. +Mérimée, indeed, was not the first to discern the fitness for +imaginative service of the career of "the false Demetrius," pretended +[18] son of Ivan the Terrible; but he alone seeks its utmost force in +a calm, matter-of-fact carefully ascertained presentment of the naked +events. Yes! In the last years of the Valois, when its fierce +passions seemed to be bursting France to pieces, you might have seen, +far away beyond the rude Polish dominion of which one of those Valois +princes had become king, a display more effective still of +exceptional courage and cunning, of horror in circumstance, of +bêtise, of course, of bêtise and a slavish capacity of being duped, +in average mankind: all that under a mask of solemn Muscovite court- +ceremonial. And Mérimée's style, simple and unconcerned, but with +the eye ever on its object, lends itself perfectly to such purpose-- +to an almost phlegmatic discovery of the facts, in all their crude +natural colouring, as if he but held up to view, as a piece of +evidence, some harshly dyed oriental carpet from the sumptuous floor +of the Kremlin, on which blood had fallen. + +A lover of ancient Rome, its great character and incident, Mérimée +valued, as if it had been personal property of his, every extant +relic of it in the art that had been most expressive of its genius-- +architecture. In that grandiose art of building, the most national, +the most tenaciously rooted of all the arts in the stable conditions +of life, there were historic documents hardly less clearly legible +than the manuscript chronicle. By the mouth of those stately +Romanesque [19] churches, scattered in so many strongly characterised +varieties over the soil of France, above all in the hot, half-pagan +south, the people of empire still protested, as he understood, +against what must seem a smaller race. The Gothic enthusiasm indeed +was already born, and he shared it--felt intelligently the +fascination of the Pointed Style, but only as a further +transformation of old Roman structure; the round arch is for him +still the great architectural form, la forme noble, because it was to +be seen in the monuments of antiquity. Romanesque, Gothic, the +manner of the Renaissance, of Lewis the Fourteenth:--they were all, +as in a written record, in the old abbey church of Saint-Savin, of +which Mérimée was instructed to draw up a report. Again, it was as +if to his concentrated attention through many months that deserted +sanctuary of Benedict were the only thing on earth. Its beauties, +its peculiarities, its odd military features, its faded mural +paintings, are no merely picturesque matter for the pencil he could +use so well, but the lively record of a human society. With what +appetite! with all the animation of George Sand's Mauprat, he tells +the story of romantic violence having its way there, defiant of law, +so late as the year 1611; of the family of robber nobles perched, as +abbots in commendam, in those sacred places. That grey, pensive old +church in the little valley of Poitou, was for a time like Santa +Maria del Fiore to [20] Michelangelo, the mistress of his affections- +-of a practical affection; for the result of his elaborate report was +the Government grant which saved the place from ruin. In +architecture, certainly, he had what for that day was nothing less +than intuition--an intuitive sense, above all, of its logic, of the +necessity which draws into one all minor changes, as elements in a +reasonable development. And his care for it, his curiosity about it, +were symptomatic of his own genius. Structure, proportion, design, a +sort of architectural coherency: that was the aim of his method in +the art of literature, in that form of it, especially, which he will +live by, in fiction. + +As historian and archaeologist, as a man of erudition turned artist, +he is well seen in the Chronique du Règne de Charles IX., by which we +pass naturally from Mérimée's critical or scientific work to the +products of his imagination. What economy in the use of a large +antiquarian knowledge! what an instinct amid a hundred details, for +the detail that carries physiognomy in it, that really tells! And +again what outline, what absolute clarity of outline! For the +historian of that puzzling age which centres in the "Eve of Saint +Bartholomew," outward events themselves seem obscured by the +vagueness of motive of the actors in them. But Mérimée, disposing of +them as an artist, not in love with half-lights, compels events and +actors alike to the clearness he [21] desired; takes his side without +hesitation; and makes his hero a Huguenot of pure blood, allowing its +charm, in that charming youth, even to Huguenot piety. And as for +the incidents--however freely it may be undermined by historic doubt, +all reaches a perfectly firm surface, at least for the eye of the +reader. The Chronicle of Charles the Ninth is like a series of +masterly drawings in illustration of a period--the period in which +two other masters of French fiction have found their opportunity, +mainly by the development of its actual historic characters. Those +characters--Catherine de Medicis and the rest--Mérimée, with +significant irony and self-assertion, sets aside, preferring to think +of them as essentially commonplace. For him the interest lies in the +creatures of his own will, who carry in them, however, so lightly! a +learning equal to Balzac's, greater than that of Dumas. He knows +with like completeness the mere fashions of the time--how courtier +and soldier dressed themselves, and the large movements of the +desperate game which fate or chance was playing with those pretty +pieces. Comparing that favourite century of the French Renaissance +with our own, he notes a decadence of the more energetic passions in +the interest of general tranquillity, and perhaps (only perhaps!) of +general happiness. "Assassination," he observes, as if with regret, +"is no longer a part of our manners." In fact, the duel, and the +whole [22] morality of the duel, which does but enforce a certain +regularity on assassination, what has been well called le sentiment +du fer, the sentiment of deadly steel, had then the disposition of +refined existence. It was, indeed, very different, and is, in +Mérimée's romance. In his gallant hero, Bernard de Mergy, all the +promptings of the lad's virile goodness are in natural collusion with +that sentiment du fer. Amid his ingenuous blushes, his prayers, and +plentiful tears between-while, it is a part of his very sex. With +his delightful, fresh-blown air, he is for ever tossing the sheath +from the sword, but always as if into bright natural sunshine. A +winsome, yet withal serious and even piteous figure, he conveys his +pleasantness, in spite of its gloomy theme, into Mérimée's one quite +cheerful book. + +Cheerful, because, after all, the gloomy passions it presents are but +the accidents of a particular age, and not like the mental conditions +in which Mérimée was most apt to look for the spectacle of human +power, allied to madness or disease in the individual. For him, at +least, it was the office of fiction to carry one into a different if +not a better world than that actually around us; and if the Chronicle +of Charles the Ninth provided an escape from the tame circumstances +of contemporary life into an impassioned past, Colomba is a measure +of the resources for mental alteration which may be found even in the +modern age. There was a corner of [23] the French Empire, in the +manners of which assassination still had a large part. + +"The beauty of Corsica," says Mérimée, "is grave and sad. The aspect +of the capital does but augment the impression caused by the solitude +that surrounds it. There is no movement in the streets. You hear +there none of the laughter, the singing, the loud talking, common in +the towns of Italy. Sometimes, under the shadow of a tree on the +promenade, a dozen armed peasants will be playing cards, or looking +on at the game. The Corsican is naturally silent. Those who walk +the pavement are all strangers: the islanders stand at their doors: +every one seems to be on the watch, like a falcon on its nest. All +around the gulf there is but an expanse of tanglework; beyond it, +bleached mountains. Not a habitation! Only, here and there, on the +heights about the town, certain white constructions detach themselves +from the background of green. They are funeral chapels or family +tombs." + +Crude in colour, sombre, taciturn, Corsica, as Mérimée here describes +it, is like the national passion of the Corsican--that morbid +personal pride, usurping the place even of grief for the dead, which +centuries of traditional violence had concentrated into an all- +absorbing passion for bloodshed, for bloody revenges, in collusion +with the natural wildness, and the wild social condition of the +island still unaffected even by the finer [24] ethics of the duel. +The supremacy of that passion is well indicated by the cry, put into +the mouth of a young man in the presence of the corpse of his father +deceased in the course of nature--a young man meant to be +commonplace. "Ah! Would thou hadst died malamorte--by violence! We +might have avenged thee!" + +In Colomba, Mérimée's best known creation, it is united to a +singularly wholesome type of personal beauty, a natural grace of +manner which is irresistible, a cunning intellect patiently diverting +every circumstance to its design; and presents itself as a kind of +genius, allied to fatal disease of mind. The interest of Mérimée's +book is that it allows us to watch the action of this malignant power +on Colomba's brother, Orso della Robbia, as it discovers, rouses, +concentrates to the leaping-point, in the somewhat weakly diffused +nature of the youth, the dormant elements of a dark humour akin to +her own. Two years after his father's murder, presumably at the +instigation of his ancestral enemies, the young lieutenant is +returning home in the company of two humorously conventional English +people, himself now half Parisianised, with an immense natural +cheerfulness, and willing to believe an account of the crime which +relieves those hated Barricini of all complicity in its guilt. But +from the first, Colomba, with "voice soft and musical," is at his +side, gathering every accident and echo and circumstance, the very +lightest circumstance, [25] into the chain of necessity which draws +him to the action every one at home expects of him as the head of his +race. He is not unaware. Her very silence on the matter speaks so +plainly. "You are forming me!" he admits. "Well! 'Hot shot, or cold +steel!'--you see I have not forgotten my Corsican." More and more, +as he goes on his way with her, he finds himself accessible to the +damning thoughts he has so long combated. In horror, he tries to +disperse them by the memory of his comrades in the regiment, the +drawing-rooms of Paris, the English lady who has promised to be his +bride, and will shortly visit him in the humble manoir of his +ancestors. From his first step among them the villagers of +Pietranera, divided already into two rival camps, are watching him in +suspense--Pietranera, perched among those deep forests where the +stifled sense of violent death is everywhere. Colomba places in his +hands the little chest which contains the father's shirt covered with +great spots of blood. "Behold the lead that struck him!" and she +laid on the shirt two rusted bullets. "Orso! you will avenge him!" +She embraces him with a kind of madness, kisses wildly the bullets +and the shirt, leaves him with the terrible relics already exerting +their mystic power upon him. It is as if in the nineteenth century a +girl, amid Christian habits, had gone back to that primitive old +pagan version of the story of the Grail, which [26] identifies it not +with the Most Precious Blood, but only with the blood of a murdered +relation crying for vengeance. Awake at last in his old chamber at +Pietranera, the house of the Barricini at the other end of the +square, with its rival tower and rudely carved escutcheons, stares +him in the face. His ancestral enemy is there, an aged man now, but +with two well-grown sons, like two stupid dumb animals, whose +innocent blood will soon be on his so oddly lighted conscience. At +times, his better hope seemed to lie in picking a quarrel and killing +at least in fair fight, one of these two stupid dumb animals; with +rude ill-suppressed laughter one day, as they overhear Colomba's +violent utterances at a funeral feast, for she is a renowned +improvisatrice. "Your father is an old man," he finds himself +saying, "I could crush with my hands. 'Tis for you I am destined, +for you and your brother!" And if it is by course of nature that the +old man dies not long after the murder of these sons (self-provoked +after all), dies a fugitive at Pisa, as it happens, by an odd +accident, in the presence of Colomba, no violent death by Orso's own +hand could have been more to her mind. In that last hard page of +Mérimée's story, mere dramatic propriety itself for a moment seems to +plead for the forgiveness, which from Joseph and his brethren to the +present day, as we know, has been as winning in story as in actual +life. Such dramatic propriety, however, was by no means [27] in +Mérimée's way. "What I must have is the hand that fired the shot," +she had sung, "the eye that guided it; aye! and the mind moreover-- +the mind, which had conceived the deed!" And now, it is in idiotic +terror, a fugitive from Orso's vengeance, that the last of the +Barricini is dying. + +Exaggerated art! you think. But it was precisely such exaggerated +art, intense, unrelieved, an art of fierce colours, that is needed by +those who are seeking in art, as I said of Mérimée, a kind of +artificial stimulus. And if his style is still impeccably correct, +cold-blooded, impersonal, as impersonal as that of Scott himself, it +does but conduce the better to his one exclusive aim. It is like the +polish of the stiletto Colomba carried always under her mantle, or +the beauty of the fire-arms, that beauty coming of nice adaptation to +purpose, which she understood so well--a task characteristic also of +Mérimée himself, a sort of fanatic joy in the perfect pistol-shot, at +its height in the singular story he has translated from the Russian +of Pouchkine. Those raw colours he preferred; Spanish, Oriental, +African, perhaps, irritant certainly to cisalpine eyes, he +undoubtedly attained the colouring you associate with sun-stroke, +only possible under a sun in which dead things rot quickly. + +Pity and terror, we know, go to the making of the essential tragic +sense. In Mérimée, certainly, we have all its terror, but without +the [28] pity. Saint-Clair, the consent of his mistress barely +attained at last, rushes madly on self-destruction, that he may die +with the taste of his great love fresh on his lips. All the +grotesque accidents of violent death he records with visual +exactness, and no pains to relieve them; the ironic indifference, for +instance, with which, on the scaffold or the battle-field, a man will +seem to grin foolishly at the ugly rents through which his life has +passed. Seldom or never has the mere pen of a writer taken us so +close to the cannon's mouth as in the Taking of the Redoubt, while +Matteo Falcone--twenty-five short pages--is perhaps the cruellest +story in the world. + +Colomba, that strange, fanatic being, who has a code of action, of +self-respect, a conscience, all to herself, who with all her virginal +charm only does not make you hate her, is, in truth, the type of a +sort of humanity Mérimée found it pleasant to dream of--a humanity as +alien as the animals, with whose moral affinities to man his +imaginative work is often directly concerned. Were they so alien, +after all? Were there not survivals of the old wild creatures in the +gentlest, the politest of us? Stories that told of sudden freaks of +gentle, polite natures, straight back, not into Paradise, were always +welcome to men's fancies; and that could only be because they found a +psychologic truth in them. With much success, with a credibility +insured by his literary tact, Mérimée tried his own hand at such +stories: unfrocked the [29] bear in the amorous young Lithuanian +noble, the wolf in the revolting peasant of the Middle Age. There +were survivals surely in himself, in that stealthy presentment of his +favourite themes, in his own art. You seem to find your hand on a +serpent, in reading him. + +In such survivals, indeed, you see the operation of his favourite +motive, the sense of wild power, under a sort of mask, or assumed +habit, realised as the very genius of nature itself; and that +interest, with some superstitions closely allied to it, the belief in +the vampire, for instance, is evidenced especially in certain +pretended Illyrian compositions--prose translations, the reader was +to understand, of more or less ancient popular ballads; La Guzla, he +called the volume, The Lyre, as we might say; only that the +instrument of the Illyrian minstrel had but one string. Artistic +deception, a trick of which there is something in the historic +romance as such, in a book like his own Chronicle of Charles the +Ninth, was always welcome to Mérimée; it was part of the machinery of +his rooted habit of intellectual reserve. A master of irony also, in +Madame Lucrezia he seems to wish to expose his own method cynically; +to explain his art--how he takes you in--as a clever, confident +conjuror might do. So properly were the readers of La Guzla taken in +that he followed up his success in that line by the Theatre of Clara +Gazul, purporting to be from a rare Spanish original, the work [30] +of a nun, who, under tame, conventual reading, had felt the touch of +mundane, of physical passions; had become a dramatic poet, and +herself a powerful actress. It may dawn on you in reading her that +Mérimée was a kind of Webster, but with the superficial mildness of +our nineteenth century. At the bottom of the true drama there is +ever, logically at least, the ballad: the ballad dealing in a kind of +short-hand (or, say! in grand, simple, universal outlines) with those +passions, crimes, mistakes, which have a kind of fatality in them, a +kind of necessity to come to the surface of the human mind, if not to +the surface of our experience, as in the case of some frankly +supernatural incidents which Mérimée re-handled. Whether human love +or hatred has had most to do in shaping the universal fancy that the +dead come back, I cannot say. Certainly that old ballad literature +has instances in plenty, in which the voice, the hand, the brief +visit from the grave, is a natural response to the cry of the human +creature. That ghosts should return, as they do so often in +Mérimée's fiction, is but a sort of natural justice. Only, in +Mérimée's prose ballads, in those admirable, short, ballad-like +stories, where every word tells, of which he was a master, almost the +inventor, they are a kind of half-material ghosts--a vampire tribe-- +and never come to do people good; congruously with the mental +constitution of the writer, which, alike in fact and fiction, [31] +could hardly have horror enough--theme after theme. Mérimée himself +emphasises this almost constant motive of his fiction when he adds to +one of his volumes of short stories some letters on a matter of fact- +-a Spanish bull-fight, in which those old Romans, he regretted, might +seem, decadently, to have survived. It is as if you saw it. In +truth, Mérimée was the unconscious parent of much we may think of +dubious significance in later French literature. It is as if there +were nothing to tell of in this world but various forms of hatred, +and a love that is like lunacy; and the only other world, a world of +maliciously active, hideous, dead bodies. + +Mérimée, a literary artist, was not a man who used two words where +one would do better, and he shines especially in those brief +compositions which, like a minute intaglio, reveal at a glance his +wonderful faculty of design and proportion in the treatment of his +work, in which there is not a touch but counts. That is an art of +which there are few examples in English; our somewhat diffuse, or +slipshod, literary language hardly lending itself to the +concentration of thought and expression, which are of the essence of +such writing. It is otherwise in French, and if you wish to know +what art of that kind can come to, read Mérimée's little romances; +best of all, perhaps, La Vénus d'Ille and Arsène Guillot. The former +is a modern version of the beautiful old story of the Ring given to +Venus, given to her, in [32] this case, by a somewhat sordid creature +of the nineteenth century, whom she looks on with more than disdain. +The strange outline of the Canigou, one of the most imposing outlying +heights of the Pyrenees, down the mysterious slopes of which the +traveller has made his way towards nightfall into the great plain of +Toulouse, forms an impressive background, congruous with the many +relics of irrepressible old paganism there, but in entire contrast to +the bourgeois comfort of the place where his journey is to end, the +abode of an aged antiquary, loud and bright just now with the +celebration of a vulgar worldly marriage. In the midst of this well- +being, prosaic in spite of the neighbourhood, in spite of the pretty +old wedding customs, morsels of that local colour in which Mérimée +delights, the old pagan powers are supposed to reveal themselves once +more (malignantly, of course), in the person of a magnificent bronze +statue of Venus recently unearthed in the antiquary's garden. On her +finger, by ill-luck, the coarse young bridegroom on the morning of +his marriage places for a moment the bridal ring only too effectually +(the bronze hand closes, like a wilful living one, upon it), and +dies, you are to understand, in her angry metallic embraces on his +marriage night. From the first, indeed, she had seemed bent on +crushing out men's degenerate bodies and souls, though the +supernatural horror of the tale is adroitly made credible by a +certain vagueness in the [33] events, which covers a quite natural +account of the bridegroom's mysterious death. + +The intellectual charm of literary work so thoroughly designed as +Mérimée's depends in part on the sense as you read, hastily perhaps, +perhaps in need of patience, that you are dealing with a composition, +the full secret of which is only to be attained in the last +paragraph, that with the last word in mind you will retrace your +steps, more than once (it may be) noting then the minuter structure, +also the natural or wrought flowers by the way. Nowhere is such +method better illustrated than by another of Mérimée's quintessential +pieces, Arsène Guillotand here for once with a conclusion ethically +acceptable also. Mérimée loved surprises in human nature, but it is +not often that he surprises us by tenderness or generosity of +character, as another master of French fiction, M. Octave Feuillet, +is apt to do; and the simple pathos of Arsène Guillot gives it a +unique place in Mérimée's writings. It may be said, indeed, that +only an essentially pitiful nature could have told the exquisitely +cruel story of Matteo Falcone precisely as Mérimée has told it; and +those who knew him testify abundantly to his own capacity for +generous friendship. He was no more wanting than others in those +natural sympathies (sending tears to the eyes at the sight of +suffering age or childhood) which happily are no extraordinary +component in men's natures. It was, perhaps, no fitting return for a +[34] friendship of over thirty years to publish posthumously those +Lettres à une Inconnue, which reveal that reserved, sensitive, self- +centred nature, a little pusillanimously in the power, at the +disposition of another. For just there lies the interest, the +psychological interest, of those letters. An amateur of power, of +the spectacle of power and force, followed minutely but without +sensibility on his part, with a kind of cynic pride rather for the +mainspring of his method, both of thought and expression, you find +him here taken by surprise at last, and somewhat humbled, by an +unsuspected force of affection in himself. His correspondent, +unknown but for these letters except just by name, figures in them +as, in truth, a being only too much like himself, seen from one side; +reflects his taciturnity, his touchiness, his incredulity except for +self-torment. Agitated, dissatisfied, he is wrestling in her with +himself, his own difficult qualities. He demands from her a freedom, +a frankness, he would have been the last to grant. It is by first +thoughts, of course, that what is forcible and effective in human +nature, the force, therefore, of carnal love, discovers itself; and +for her first thoughts Mérimée is always pleading, but always +complaining that he gets only her second thoughts; the thoughts, that +is, of a reserved, self-limiting nature, well under the yoke of +convention, like his own. Strange conjunction! At the beginning of +the correspondence he seems to have been [35] seeking only a fine +intellectual companionship; the lady, perhaps, looking for something +warmer. Towards such companionship that likeness to himself in her +might have been helpful, but was not enough of a complement to his +own nature to be anything but an obstruction in love; and it is to +that, little by little, that his humour turns. He--the +Megalopsychus, as Aristotle defines him--acquires all the lover's +humble habits: himself displays all the tricks of love, its +casuistries, its exigency, its superstitions, aye! even its +vulgarities; involves with the significance of his own genius the +mere hazards and inconsequence of a perhaps average nature; but too +late in the day--the years. After the attractions and repulsions of +half a lifetime, they are but friends, and might forget to be that, +but for his death, clearly presaged in his last weak, touching +letter, just two hours before. There, too, had been the blind and +naked force of nature and circumstance, surprising him in the +uncontrollable movements of his own so carefully guarded heart. + +The intimacy, the effusion, the so freely exposed personality of +those letters does but emphasise the fact that impersonality was, in +literary art, Mérimée's central aim. Personality versus +impersonality in art:--how much or how little of one's self one may +put into one's work: whether anything at all of it: whether one can +put there anything else:--is clearly a far-reaching and complex +question. Serviceable as [36] the basis of a precautionary maxim +towards the conduct of our work, self-effacement, or impersonality, +in literary or artistic creation, is, perhaps, after all, as little +possible as a strict realism. "It has always been my rule to put +nothing of myself into my works," says another great master of French +prose, Gustave Flaubert; but, luckily as we may think, he often +failed in thus effacing himself, as he too was aware. "It has always +been my rule to put nothing of myself into my works" (to be +disinterested in his literary creations, so to speak), "yet I have +put much of myself into them": and where he failed Mérimée succeeded. +There they stand--Carmen, Colomba, the "False" Demetrius--as detached +from him as from each other, with no more filial likeness to their +maker than if they were the work of another person. And to his +method of conception, Mérimée's much-praised literary style, his +method of expression, is strictly conformable--impersonal in its +beauty, the perfection of nobody's style--thus vindicating anew by +its very impersonality that much worn, but not untrue saying, that +the style is the man:--a man, impassible, unfamiliar, impeccable, +veiling a deep sense of what is forcible, nay, terrible, in things, +under the sort of personal pride that makes a man a nice observer of +all that is most conventional. Essentially unlike other people, he +is always fastidiously in the fashion--an expert in all the little, +half- [37] contemptuous elegances of which it is capable. Mérimée's +superb self-effacement, his impersonality, is itself but an effective +personal trait, and, transferred to art, becomes a markedly peculiar +quality of literary beauty. For, in truth, this creature of +disillusion who had no care for half-lights, and, like his creations, +had no atmosphere about him, gifted as he was with pure mind, with +the quality which secures flawless literary structure, had, on the +other hand, nothing of what we call soul in literature:--hence, also, +that singular harshness in his ideal, as if, in theological language, +he were incapable of grace. He has none of those subjectivities, +colourings, peculiarities of mental refraction, which necessitate +varieties of style--could we spare such?--and render the perfections +of it no merely negative qualities. There are masters of French +prose whose art has begun where the art of Mérimée leaves off. + +NOTES + +11. *A lecture delivered at the Taylor Institution, Oxford, and at +the London Institution. Published in the Fortnightly Review, Dec. +1890, and now reprinted by the kind permission of the proprietors. + + + +RAPHAEL* + +[38] By his immense productiveness, by the even perfection of what he +produced, its fitness to its own day, its hold on posterity, in the +suavity of his life, some would add in the "opportunity" of his early +death, Raphael may seem a signal instance of the luckiness, of the +good fortune, of genius. Yet, if we follow the actual growth of his +powers, within their proper framework, the age of the Renaissance--an +age of which we may say, summarily, that it enjoyed itself, and found +perhaps its chief enjoyment in the attitude of the scholar, in the +enthusiastic acquisition of knowledge for its own sake:--if we thus +view Raphael and his works in their environment we shall find even +his seemingly mechanical good fortune hardly distinguishable from his +own patient disposal of the means at hand. Facile master as he may +seem, as indeed he is, he is also one of the world's typical +scholars, with [39] Plato, and Cicero, and Virgil, and Milton. The +formula of his genius, if we must have one, is this: genius by +accumulation; the transformation of meek scholarship into genius-- +triumphant power of genius. + +Urbino, where this prince of the Renaissance was born in 1483, year +also of the birth of Luther, leader of the other great movement of +that age, the Reformation--Urbino, under its dukes of the house of +Montefeltro, had wherewithal just then to make a boy of native +artistic faculty from the first a willing learner. The gloomy old +fortress of the feudal masters of the town had been replaced, in +those later years of the Quattro-cento, by a consummate monument of +Quattro-cento taste, a museum of ancient and modern art, the owners +of which lived there, gallantly at home, amid the choicer flowers of +living humanity. The ducal palace was, in fact, become nothing less +than a school of ambitious youth in all the accomplishments alike of +war and peace. Raphael's connexion with it seems to have become +intimate, and from the first its influence must have overflowed so +small a place. In the case of the lucky Raphael, for once, the +actual conditions of early life had been suitable, propitious, +accordant to what one's imagination would have required for the +childhood of the man. He was born amid the art he was, not to +transform, but to perfect, by a thousand reverential retouchings. In +no palace, however, but [40] in a modest abode, still shown, +containing the workshop of his father, Giovanni Santi. But here, +too, though in frugal form, art, the arts, were present. A store of +artistic objects was, or had recently been, made there, and now +especially, for fitting patrons, religious pictures in the old +Umbrian manner. In quiet nooks of the Apennines Giovanni's works +remain; and there is one of them, worth study, in spite of what +critics say of its crudity, in the National Gallery. Concede its +immaturity, at least, though an immaturity visibly susceptible of a +delicate grace, it wins you nevertheless to return again and again, +and ponder, by a sincere expression of sorrow, profound, yet +resigned, be the cause what it may, among all the many causes of +sorrow inherent in the ideal of maternity, human or divine. But if +you keep in mind when looking at it the facts of Raphael's childhood, +you will recognise in his father's picture, not the anticipated +sorrow of the "Mater Dolorosa" over the dead son, but the grief of a +simple household over the mother herself taken early from it. That +may have been the first picture the eyes of the world's great painter +of Madonnas rested on; and if he stood diligently before it to copy, +and so copying, quite unconsciously, and with no disloyalty to his +original, refined, improved, substituted,--substituted himself, in +fact, his finer self--he had already struck the persistent note of +his career. As with his age, it is [41] his vocation, ardent worker +as he is, to enjoy himself--to enjoy himself amiably, and to find his +chief enjoyment in the attitude of a scholar. And one by one, one +after another, his masters, the very greatest of them, go to school +to him. + +It was so especially with the artist of whom Raphael first became +certainly a learner--Perugino. Giovanni Santi had died in Raphael's +childhood, too early to have been in any direct sense his teacher. +The lad, however, from one and another, had learned much, when, with +his share of the patrimony in hand, enough to keep him, but not to +tempt him from scholarly ways, he came to Perugia, hoping still +further to improve himself. He was in his eighteenth year, and how +he looked just then you may see in a drawing of his own in the +University Galleries, of somewhat stronger mould than less genuine +likenesses may lead you to expect. There is something of a fighter +in the way in which the nose springs from the brow between the wide- +set, meditative eyes. A strenuous lad! capable of plodding, if you +dare apply that word to labour so impassioned as his--to any labour +whatever done at Perugia, centre of the dreamiest Apennine scenery. +Its various elements (one hardly knows whether one is thinking of +Italian nature or of Raphael's art in recounting them), the richly- +planted lowlands, the sensitive mountain lines in flight one beyond +the other into clear distance, the cool yet glowing atmosphere, [42] +the romantic morsels of architecture, which lend to the entire scene +I know not what expression of reposeful antiquity, arrange themselves +here as for set purpose of pictorial effect, and have gone with +little change into his painted backgrounds. In the midst of it, on +titanic old Roman and Etruscan foundations, the later Gothic town had +piled itself along the lines of a gigantic land of rock, stretched +out from the last slope of the Apennines into the plain. Between its +fingers steep dark lanes wind down into the olive gardens; on the +finger-tips military and monastic builders had perched their towns. +A place as fantastic in its attractiveness as the human life which +then surged up and down in it in contrast to the peaceful scene +around. The Baglioni who ruled there had brought certain tendencies +of that age to a typical completeness of expression, veiling crime-- +crime, it might seem, for its own sake, a whole octave of fantastic +crime--not merely under brilliant fashions and comely persons, but +under fashions and persons, an outward presentment of life and of +themselves, which had a kind of immaculate grace and discretion about +them, as if Raphael himself had already brought his unerring gift of +selection to bear upon it all for motives of art. With life in those +streets of Perugia, as with nature, with the work of his masters, +with the mere exercises of his fellow-students, his hand rearranges, +refines, renews, as if by simple contact; [43] but it is met here +half-way in its renewing office by some special aptitude for such +grace in the subject itself. Seemingly innocent, full of natural +gaiety, eternally youthful, those seven and more deadly sins, +embodied and attired in just the jaunty dress then worn, enter now +and afterwards as spectators, or assistants, into many a sacred +foreground and background among the friends and kinsmen of the Holy +Family, among the very angels, gazing, conversing, standing firmly +and unashamed. During his apprenticeship at Perugia Raphael visited +and left his work in more modest places round about, along those +seductive mountain or lowland roads, and copied for one of them +Perugino's "Marriage of the Virgin" significantly, did it by many +degrees better, with a very novel effect of motion everywhere, and +with that grace which natural motion evokes, introducing for a temple +in the background a lovely bit of his friend Bramante's sort of +architecture, the true Renaissance or perfected Quattro-cento +architecture. He goes on building a whole lordly new city of the +like as he paints to the end of his life. The subject, we may note, +as we leave Perugia in Raphael's company, had been suggested by the +famous mystic treasure of its cathedral church, the marriage ring of +the Blessed Virgin herself. + +Raphael's copy had been made for the little old Apennine town of +Città di Castello; and another place he visits at this time is still +more [44] effective in the development of his genius. About his +twentieth year he comes to Siena--that other rocky Titan's hand, just +lifted out of the surface of the plain. It is the most grandiose +place he has yet seen; it has not forgotten that it was once the +rival of Florence; and here the patient scholar passes under an +influence of somewhat larger scope than Perugino's. Perugino's +pictures are for the most part religious contemplations, painted and +made visible, to accompany the action of divine service--a visible +pattern to priests, attendants, worshippers, of what the course of +their invisible thoughts should be at those holy functions. Learning +in the workshop of Perugino to produce the like--such works as the +Ansidei Madonna--to produce them very much better than his master, +Raphael was already become a freeman of the most strictly religious +school of Italian art, the so devout Umbrian soul finding there its +purest expression, still untroubled by the naturalism, the +intellectualism, the antique paganism, then astir in the artistic +soul everywhere else in Italy. The lovely work of Perugino, very +lovely at its best, of the early Raphael also, is in fact +"conservative," and at various points slightly behind its day, though +not unpleasantly. In Perugino's allegoric frescoes of the Cambio, +the Hall of the Money-changers, for instance, under the mystic rule +of the Planets in person, pagan personages take their place indeed +side by side with the figures of the New [45] Testament, but are no +Romans or Greeks, neither are the Jews Jews, nor is any one of them, +warrior, sage, king, precisely of Perugino's own time and place, but +still contemplations only, after the manner of the personages in his +church-work; or, say, dreams--monastic dreams--thin, do-nothing +creatures, conjured from sky and cloud. Perugino clearly never broke +through the meditative circle of the Middle Age. + +Now Raphael, on the other hand, in his final period at Rome, exhibits +a wonderful narrative power in painting; and the secret of that +power--the power of developing a story in a picture, or series of +pictures--may be traced back from him to Pinturicchio, as that +painter worked on those vast, well-lighted walls of the cathedral +library at Siena, at the great series of frescoes illustrative of the +life of Pope Pius the Second. It had been a brilliant personal +history, in contact now and again with certain remarkable public +events--a career religious yet mundane, you scarcely know which, so +natural is the blending of lights, of interest in it. How unlike the +Peruginesque conception of life in its almost perverse other- +worldliness, which Raphael now leaves behind him, but, like a true +scholar, will not forget. Pinturicchio then had invited his +remarkable young friend hither, "to assist him by his counsels," who, +however, pupil-wise, after his habit also learns much as he thus +assists. He stands depicted there in person in the scene [46] of the +canonisation of Saint Catherine; and though his actual share in the +work is not to be defined, connoisseurs have felt his intellectual +presence, not at one place only, in touches at once finer and more +forcible than were usual in the steady-going, somewhat Teutonic, +Pinturicchio, Raphael's elder by thirty years. The meek scholar you +see again, with his tentative sketches and suggestions, had more than +learned his lesson; through all its changes that flexible +intelligence loses nothing; does but add continually to its store. +Henceforward Raphael will be able to tell a story in a picture, +better, with a truer economy, with surer judgment, more naturally and +easily than any one else. + +And here at Siena, of all Italian towns perhaps most deeply impressed +with medieval character--an impress it still retains--grotesque, +parti-coloured--parti-coloured, so to speak, in its genius--Satanic, +yet devout of humour, as depicted in its old chronicles, and +beautiful withal, dignified; it is here that Raphael becomes for the +first time aware of that old pagan world, which had already come to +be so much for the art-schools of Italy. There were points, as we +saw, at which the school of Perugia was behind its day. Amid those +intensely Gothic surroundings in the cathedral library where +Pinturicchio worked, stood, as it remained till recently, unashamed +there, a marble group of the three Graces--an average Roman work in +[47] effect--the sort of thing we are used to. That, perhaps, is the +only reason why for our part, except with an effort, we find it +conventional or even tame. For the youthful Raphael, on the other +hand, at that moment, antiquity, as with "the dew of herbs," seemed +therein "to awake and sing" out of the dust, in all its sincerity, +its cheerfulness and natural charm. He has turned it into a picture; +has helped to make his original only too familiar, perhaps, placing +the three sisters against his own favourite, so unclassic, Umbrian +background indeed, but with no trace of the Peruginesque ascetic, +Gothic meagreness in themselves; emphasising rather, with a hearty +acceptance, the nude, the flesh; making the limbs, in fact, a little +heavy. It was but one gleam he had caught just there in medieval +Siena of that large pagan world he was, not so long afterwards, more +completely than others to make his own. And when somewhat later +he painted the exquisite, still Peruginesque, Apollo and Marsyas, +semi-medieval habits again asserted themselves with delightfully +blent effects. It might almost pass for a parable--that little +picture in the Louvre--of the contention between classic art and the +romantic, superseded in the person of Marsyas, a homely, quaintly +poetical young monk, surely! Only, Apollo himself also is clearly of +the same brotherhood; has a touch, in truth, of Heine's fancied +Apollo "in exile," who, Christianity now triumphing, has served as +[48] a hired shepherd, or hidden himself under the cowl in a +cloister; and Raphael, as if at work on choir-book or missal, still +applies symbolical gilding for natural sunlight. It is as if he +wished to proclaim amid newer lights--this scholar who never forgot a +lesson--his loyal pupilage to Perugino, and retained still something +of medieval stiffness, of the monastic thoughts also, that were born +and lingered in places like Borgo San Sepolcro or Città di Castello. +Chef-d'oeuvre! you might exclaim, of the peculiar, tremulous, half- +convinced, monkish treatment of that after all damnable pagan world. +And our own generation certainly, with kindred tastes, loving or +wishing to love pagan art as sincerely as did the people of the +Renaissance, and medieval art as well, would accept, of course, of +work conceived in that so seductively mixed manner, ten per cent of +even Raphael's later, purely classical presentments. + +That picture was suggested by a fine old intaglio in the Medicean +collection at Florence, was painted, therefore, after Raphael's +coming thither, and therefore also a survival with him of a style +limited, immature, literally provincial; for in the phase on which he +had now entered he is under the influence of style in its most fully +determined sense, of what might be called the thorough-bass of the +pictorial art, of a fully realised intellectual system in regard to +its processes, well tested by experiment, upon a survey [49] of all +the conditions and various applications of it--of style as understood +by Da Vinci, then at work in Florence. Raphael's sojourn there +extends from his twenty-first to his twenty-fifth year. He came with +flattering recommendations from the Court of Urbino; was admitted as +an equal by the masters of his craft, being already in demand for +work, then and ever since duly prized; was, in fact, already famous, +though he alone is unaware--is in his own opinion still but a +learner, and as a learner yields himself meekly, systematically to +influence; would learn from Francia, whom he visits at Bologna; from +the earlier naturalistic works of Masolino and Masaccio; from the +solemn prophetic work of the venerable dominican, Bartolommeo, +disciple of Savonarola. And he has already habitually this strange +effect, not only on the whole body of his juniors, but on those whose +manner had been long since formed; they lose something of themselves +by contact with him, as if they went to school again. + +Bartolommeo, Da Vinci, were masters certainly of what we call "the +ideal" in art. Yet for Raphael, so loyal hitherto to the traditions +of Umbrian art, to its heavy weight of hieratic tradition, dealing +still somewhat conventionally with a limited, non-natural matter--for +Raphael to come from Siena, Perugia, Urbino, to sharp-witted, +practical, masterful Florence was in immediate effect a transition +from reverie to [50] realities--to a world of facts. Those masters +of the ideal were for him, in the first instance, masters also of +realism, as we say. Henceforth, to the end, he will be the analyst, +the faithful reporter, in his work, of what he sees. He will realise +the function of style as exemplified in the practice of Da Vinci, +face to face with the world of nature and man as they are; selecting +from, asserting one's self in a transcript of its veritable data; +like drawing to like there, in obedience to the master's preference +for the embodiment of the creative form within him. Portrait-art had +been nowhere in the school of Perugino, but it was the triumph of the +school of Florence. And here a faithful analyst of what he sees, yet +lifting it withal, unconsciously, inevitably, recomposing, +glorifying, Raphael too becomes, of course, a painter of portraits. +We may foresee them already in masterly series, from Maddalena Doni, +a kind of younger, more virginal sister of La Gioconda, to cardinals +and popes--to that most sensitive of all portraits, the "Violin- +player," if it be really his. But then, on the other hand, the +influence of such portraiture will be felt also in his inventive +work, in a certain reality there, a certain convincing loyalty to +experience and observation. In his most elevated religious work he +will still keep, for security at least, close to nature, and the +truth of nature. His modelling of the visible surface is lovely +because he understands, can see the hidden causes [51] of momentary +action in the face, the hands--how men and animals are really made +and kept alive. Set side by side, then, with that portrait of +Maddalena Doni, as forming together a measure of what he has learned +at Florence, the "Madonna del Gran Duca," which still remains there. +Call it on revision, and without hesitation, the loveliest of his +Madonnas, perhaps of all Madonnas; and let it stand as representative +of as many as fifty or sixty types of that subject, onwards to the +Sixtine Madonna, in all the triumphancy of his later days at Rome. +Observe the veritable atmosphere about it, the grand composition of +the drapery, the magic relief, the sweetness and dignity of the human +hands and faces, the noble tenderness of Mary's gesture, the unity of +the thing with itself, the faultless exclusion of all that does not +belong to its main purpose; it is like a single, simple axiomatic +thought. Note withal the novelty of its effect on the mind, and you +will see that this master of style (that's a consummate example of +what is meant by style) has been still a willing scholar in the hands +of Da Vinci. But then, with what ease also, and simplicity, and a +sort of natural success not his! + +It was in his twenty-fifth year that Raphael came to the city of the +popes, Michelangelo being already in high favour there. For the +remaining years of his life he paces the same streets with that grim +artist, who was so great a [52] contrast with himself, and for the +first time his attitude towards a gift different from his own is not +that of a scholar, but that of a rival. If he did not become the +scholar of Michelangelo, it would be difficult, on the other hand, to +trace anywhere in Michelangelo's work the counter influence usual +with those who had influenced him. It was as if he desired to add to +the strength of Michelangelo that sweetness which at first sight +seems to be wanting there. Ex forti dulcedo: and in the study of +Michelangelo certainly it is enjoyable to detect, if we may, sweet +savours amid the wonderful strength, the strangeness and potency of +what he pours forth for us: with Raphael, conversely, something of a +relief to find in the suavity of that so softly moving, tuneful +existence, an assertion of strength. There was the promise of it, as +you remember, in his very look as he saw himself at eighteen; and you +know that the lesson, the prophecy of those holy women and children +he has made his own, is that "the meek shall possess." So, when we +see him at Rome at last, in that atmosphere of greatness, of the +strong, he too is found putting forth strength, adding that element +in due proportion to the mere sweetness and charm of his genius; yet +a sort of strength, after all, still congruous with the line of +development that genius has hitherto taken, the special strength of +the scholar and his proper reward, a purely cerebral strength [53] +the strength, the power of an immense understanding. + +Now the life of Raphael at Rome seems as we read of it hasty and +perplexed, full of undertakings, of vast works not always to be +completed, of almost impossible demands on his industry, in a world +of breathless competition, amid a great company of spectators, for +great rewards. You seem to lose him, feel he may have lost himself, +in the multiplicity of his engagements; might fancy that, wealthy, +variously decorated, a courtier, cardinal in petto, he was "serving +tables." But, you know, he was forcing into this brief space of +years (he died at thirty-seven) more than the natural business of the +larger part of a long life; and one way of getting some kind of +clearness into it, is to distinguish the various divergent outlooks +or applications, and group the results of that immense intelligence, +that still untroubled, flawlessly operating, completely informed +understanding, that purely cerebral power, acting through his +executive, inventive or creative gifts, through the eye and the hand +with its command of visible colour and form. In that way you may +follow him along many various roads till brain and eye and hand +suddenly fail in the very midst of his work--along many various +roads, but you can follow him along each of them distinctly. + +At the end of one of them is the Galatea, and in quite a different +form of industry, the datum [54] for the beginnings of a great +literary work of pure erudition. Coming to the capital of +Christendom, he comes also for the first time under the full +influence of the antique world, pagan art, pagan life, and is +henceforth an enthusiastic archaeologist. On his first coming to +Rome a papal bull had authorised him to inspect all ancient marbles, +inscriptions, and the like, with a view to their adaptation in new +buildings then proposed. A consequent close acquaintance with +antiquity, with the very touch of it, blossomed literally in his +brain, and, under his facile hand, in artistic creations, of which +the Galatea is indeed the consummation. But the frescoes of the +Farnese palace, with a hundred minor designs, find their place along +that line of his artistic activity; they do not exhaust his knowledge +of antiquity, his interest in and control of it. The mere fragments +of it that still cling to his memory would have composed, had he +lived longer, a monumental illustrated survey of the monuments of +ancient Rome. + +To revive something of the proportionable spirit at least of antique +building in the architecture of the present, came naturally to +Raphael as the son of his age; and at the end of another of those +roads of diverse activity stands Saint Peter's, though unfinished. +What a proof again of that immense intelligence, by which, as I said, +the element of strength supplemented the element of mere sweetness +and charm in his [55] work, that at the age of thirty, known hitherto +only as a painter, at the dying request of the venerable Bramante +himself, he should have been chosen to succeed him as the director of +that vast enterprise! And if little in the great church, as we see +it, is directly due to him, yet we must not forget that his work in +the Vatican also was partly that of an architect. In the Loggie, or +open galleries of the Vatican, the last and most delicate effects of +Quattro-cento taste come from his hand, in that peculiar arabesque +decoration which goes by his name. + +Saint Peter's, as you know, had an indirect connexion with the +Teutonic reformation. When Leo X. pushed so far the sale of +indulgences to the overthrow of Luther's Catholicism, it was done +after all for the not entirely selfish purpose of providing funds to +build the metropolitan church of Christendom with the assistance of +Raphael; and yet, upon another of those diverse outways of his so +versatile intelligence, at the close of which we behold his +unfinished picture of the Transfiguration, what has been called +Raphael's Bible finds its place--that series of biblical scenes in +the Loggie of the Vatican. And here, while he has shown that he +could do something of Michelangelo's work a little more soothingly +than he, this graceful Roman Catholic rivals also what is perhaps +best in the work of the rude German reformer--of Luther, who came to +Rome about this very [56] time, to find nothing admirable there. +Place along with them the Cartoons, and observe that in this phase of +his artistic labour, as Luther printed his vernacular German version +of the Scriptures, so Raphael is popularising them for an even larger +world; he brings the simple, to their great delight, face to face +with the Bible as it is, in all its variety of incident, after they +had so long had to content themselves with but fragments of it, as +presented in the symbolism and in the brief lections of the Liturgy:- +-Biblia Pauperum, in a hundred forms of reproduction, though designed +for popes and princes. + +But then, for the wise, at the end of yet another of those divergent +ways, glows his painted philosophy in the Parnassus and the School of +Athens, with their numerous accessories. In the execution of those +works, of course, his antiquarian knowledge stood him in good stead; +and here, above all, is the pledge of his immense understanding, at +work on its own natural ground on a purely intellectual deposit, the +apprehension, the transmission to others of complex and difficult +ideas. We have here, in fact, the sort of intelligence to be found +in Lessing, in Herder, in Hegel, in those who, by the instrumentality +of an organised philosophic system, have comprehended in one view or +vision what poetry has been, or what Greek philosophy, as great +complex dynamic facts in the world. But then, with the artist of the +sixteenth century, [57] this synoptic intellectual power worked in +perfect identity with the pictorial imagination and a magic hand. By +him large theoretic conceptions are addressed, so to speak, to the +intelligence of the eye. There had been efforts at such abstract or +theoretic painting before, or say rather, leagues behind him. Modern +efforts, again, we know, and not in Germany alone, to do the like for +that larger survey of such matters which belongs to the philosophy of +our own century; but for one or many reasons they have seemed only to +prove the incapacity of philosophy to be expressed in terms of art. +They have seemed, in short, so far, not fit to be seen literally-- +those ideas of culture, religion, and the like. Yet Plato, as you +know, supposed a kind of visible loveliness about ideas. Well! in +Raphael, painted ideas, painted and visible philosophy, are for once +as beautiful as Plato thought they must be, if one truly apprehended +them. For note, above all, that with all his wealth of antiquarian +knowledge in detail, and with a perfect technique, it is after all +the beauty, the grace of poetry, of pagan philosophy, of religious +faith that he thus records. + +Of religious faith also. The Disputa, in which, under the form of a +council representative of all ages, he embodies the idea of theology, +divinarum rerum notitia, as constantly resident in the Catholic +Church, ranks with the "Parnassus" and the "School of Athens," if it +does not rather [58] close another of his long lines of intellectual +travail--a series of compositions, partly symbolic, partly +historical, in which the "Deliverance of St. Peter from Prison," the +"Expulsion of the Huns," and the "Coronation of Charlemagne," find +their places; and by which, painting in the great official chambers +of the Vatican, Raphael asserts, interprets the power and charm of +the Catholic ideal as realised in history. A scholar, a student of +the visible world, of the natural man, yet even more ardently of the +books, the art, the life of the old pagan world, the age of the +Renaissance, through all its varied activity, had, in spite of the +weakened hold of Catholicism on the critical intellect, been still +under its influence, the glow of it, as a religious ideal, and in the +presence of Raphael you cannot think it a mere after-glow. +Independently, that is, of less or more evidence for it, the whole +creed of the Middle Age, as a scheme of the world as it should be, as +we should be glad to find it, was still welcome to the heart, the +imagination. Now, in Raphael, all the various conditions of that age +discover themselves as characteristics of a vivid personal genius, +which may be said therefore to be conterminous with the genius of the +Renaissance itself. For him, then, in the breadth of his immense +cosmopolitan intelligence, for Raphael, who had done in part the work +of Luther also, the Catholic Church--through all its phases, as +reflected in its visible local centre, [59] the papacy--is alive +still as of old, one and continuous, and still true to itself. Ah! +what is local and visible, as you know, counts for so much with the +artistic temper! + +Old friends, or old foes with but new faces, events repeating +themselves, as his large, clear, synoptic vision can detect, the +invading King of France, Louis XII., appears as Attila: Leo X. as Leo +I.: and he thinks of, he sees, at one and the same moment, the +coronation of Charlemagne and the interview of Pope Leo with Francis +I., as a dutiful son of the Church: of the deliverance of Leo X. from +prison, and the deliverance of St. Peter. + +I have abstained from anything like description of Raphael's pictures +in speaking of him and his work, have aimed rather at preparing you +to look at his work for yourselves, by a sketch of his life, and +therein especially, as most appropriate to this place, of Raphael as +a scholar. And now if, in closing, I commend one of his pictures in +particular to your imagination or memory,, your purpose to see it, or +see it again, it will not be the Transfiguration nor the Sixtine +Madonna, nor even the "Madonna del Gran Duca," but the picture we +have in London--the Ansidei, or Blenheim, Madonna. I find there, at +first sight, with something of the pleasure one has in a proposition +of Euclid, a sense of the power of the understanding, in the economy +with which he has reduced his material to the [60] simplest terms, +has disentangled and detached its various elements. He is painting +in Florence, but for Perugia, and sends it a specimen of its own old +art--Mary and the babe enthroned, with St. Nicolas and the Baptist in +attendance on either side. The kind of thing people there had +already seen so many times, but done better, in a sense not to be +measured by degrees, with a wholly original freedom and life and +grace, though he perhaps is unaware, done better as a whole, because +better in every minute particular, than ever before. The scrupulous +scholar, aged twenty-three, is now indeed a master; but still goes +carefully. Note, therefore, how much mere exclusion counts for in +the positive effect of his work. There is a saying that the true +artist is known best by what he omits. Yes, because the whole +question of good taste is involved precisely in such jealous +omission. Note this, for instance, in the familiar Apennine +background, with its blue hills and brown towns, faultless, for once- +-for once only--and observe, in the Umbrian pictures around, how +often such background is marred by grotesque, natural, or +architectural detail, by incongruous or childish incident. In this +cool, pearl-grey, quiet place, where colour tells for double--the +jewelled cope, the painted book in the hand of Mary, the chaplet of +red coral--one is reminded that among all classical writers Raphael's +preference was for the faultless Virgil. How orderly, how divinely +[61] clean and sweet the flesh, the vesture, the floor, the earth and +sky! Ah, say rather the hand, the method of the painter! There is +an unmistakeable pledge of strength, of movement and animation in the +cast of the Baptist's countenance, but reserved, repressed. Strange, +Raphael has given him a staff of transparent crystal. Keep then to +that picture as the embodied formula of Raphael's genius. Amid all +he has here already achieved, full, we may think, of the quiet +assurance of what is to come, his attitude is still that of the +scholar; he seems still to be saying, before all things, from first +to last, "I am utterly purposed that I will not offend." + +NOTES + +38. *A lecture delivered to the University Extension Students, +Oxford, 2 August, 1892. Published in the Fortnightly Review, Oct. +1892, and now reprinted by the kind permission of the proprietors. + + + +PASCAL* + +[62] ABOUT the middle of the seventeenth century, two opposite views +of a question, upon which neither Scripture, nor Council, nor Pope, +had spoken with authority--the question as to the amount of freedom +left to man by the overpowering work of divine grace upon him--had +seemed likely for a moment to divide the Roman Church into two rival +sects. In the diocese of Paris, however, the controversy narrowed +itself into a mere personal quarrel between the Jesuit Fathers and +the religious community of Port-Royal, and might have been forgotten +but for the intervention of a new writer in whom French literature +made more than a new step. It became at once, as if by a new +creation, what it has remained--a pattern of absolutely unencumbered +expressiveness. + +In 1656 Pascal, then thirty-three years old, under the form of +"Letters to a Provincial by one of his Friends," put forth a series +of [63] pamphlets in which all that was vulnerable in the Jesuit +Fathers was laid bare to the profit of their opponents. At the +moment the quarrel turned on the proposed censure of Antoine Arnauld +by the Sorbonne, by the University of Paris as a religious body. +Pascal, intimate, like many another fine intellect of the day, with +the Port-Royalists, was Arnauld's friend, and it belonged to the +ardour of his genius, at least as he was then, to be a very active +friend. He took up the pen as other chivalrous gentlemen of the day +took up the sword, and showed himself a master of the art of fence +therewith. His delicate exercise of himself with that weapon was +nothing less than a revelation to all the world of the capabilities, +the true genius of the French language in prose. + +Those who think of Pascal in his final sanctity, his detachment of +soul from all but the greatest matters, may be surprised, when they +turn to the "Letters," to find him treating questions, as serious for +the friends he was defending as for their adversaries, ironically, +with a but half-veiled disdain for them, or an affected humility at +being unskilled in them and no theologian. He does not allow us to +forget that he is, after all, a layman; while he introduces us, +almost avowedly, into a world of unmeaning terms, and unreal +distinctions and suppositions that can never be verified. The world +in general, indeed, se paye des paroles. That saying belongs to +Pascal, and [64] he uses it with reference to the Jesuits and their +favourite expression of "sufficient grace." In the earliest +"Letters" he creates in us a feeling that, however orthodox one's +intention, it is scarcely possible to speak of the matters then so +abundantly discussed by religious people without heresy at some +unguarded point. The suspected proposition of Arnauld, it is +admitted by one of his foes, "would be Catholic in the mouth of any +one but M. Arnauld." "The truth," as it lay between Arnauld and his +opponents, is a thing so delicate that "pour peu qu'on s'en retire, +on tombe dans l'erreur; mais cette erreur est si déliée, que, pour +peu qu'on s'en éloigne, on se trouve dans la vérité." + +Some, indeed, may find in the very delicacy, the curiosity, with +which such distinctions are drawn, by Pascal's friends as well as by +their foes, only the impertinence, the profanities, of the theologian +by profession, all too intimate in laying down the law of the things +he deals with--the things "which eye hath not seen" pressing into the +secrets of God's sublime commerce with men, in which, it may be, He +differs with every single human soul, by forms of thought adapted +from the poorest sort of men's dealings with each other, from the +trader, or the attorney. Pascal notes too the "impious buffooneries" +of his opponents. The good Fathers, perhaps, only meant them to +promote geniality of temper in the debate. But of such failures-- +failures of taste, of respect towards one's [65] own point of view-- +the world is ever unamiably aware; and in the "Letters" there is much +to move the self-complacent smile of the worldling, as Pascal +describes his experiences, while he went from one authority to +another to find out what was really meant by the distinction between +grace "sufficient," grace "efficacious," grace "active," grace +"victorious." He heard, for instance, that all men have sufficient +grace to do God's will; but it is not always prochain, not always at +hand, at the moment of temptation to do otherwise. So far, then, +Pascal's charges are those which may seem to lie ready to hand +against all who study theology, a looseness of thought and language, +that would pass nowhere else, in making what are professedly very +fine distinctions; the insincerity with which terms are carefully +chosen to cover opposite meanings; the fatuity with which opposite +meanings revolve into one another, in the strange vacuous atmosphere +generated by professional divines. + +Up to this point, you see, Pascal is the countryman of Rabelais and +Montaigne, smiling with the fine malice of the one, laughing outright +with the gaiety of the other, all the world joining in the laugh-- +well, at the silliness of the clergy, who seem indeed not to know +their own business. It is we, the laity, he would urge, who are +serious, and disinterested, because sincerely interested, in these +great questionings. Jalousie de métier, the reader may suspect, has +something to do with [66] the Professional leaders on both sides of +the controversy; but at the actual turn controversy took just then, +it was against the Jesuit Fathers that Pascal's charges came home in +full force. And their sin is above all that sin, unpardonable with +men of the world sans peur et sans reproche, of a lack of self- +respect, sins against pride, if the paradox may be allowed, all the +undignified faults, in a word, of essentially little people when they +interfere in great matters--faults promoted in the direction of the +consciences of women and children, weak concessions to weak people +who want to be saved in some easy way quite other than Pascal's high, +fine, chivalrous way of gaining salvation, an incapacity to say what +one thinks with the glove thrown down. He supposes a Jansenist to +turn upon his opponent who uses the term "sufficient" grace, while +really meaning, as he alleges, insufficient, with the words:--"Your +explanation would be odious to men of the world. They speak more +sincerely than you on matters of far less importance than this." +With the world, Pascal, in the "Provincial Letters," had immediate +success. "All the world," we read in his friend's supposed reply to +the second "Letter," "sees them; all the world understands them. Men +of the world find them agreeable, and even women intelligible." A +century later Voltaire found them very agreeable. The spirit in +which Pascal deals with his opponents, his irony, may remind us of +the "Apology" of [67] Socrates; the style which secured them +immediate access to people who, as a rule, find the subjects there +treated hopelessly dry, reminds us of the "Apologia" of Newman. + +The essence of all good style, whatever its accidents may be, is +expressiveness. It is mastered in proportion to the justice, the +nicety with which words balance or match their meaning, and their +writer succeeds in saying what he wills, grave or gay, severe or +florid, simple or complex. Pascal was a master of style because, as +his sister tells us, recording his earliest years, he had a wonderful +natural facility à dire ce qu'il voulait en la manière qu'il voulait. + +Facit indignatio versus. The indignation which caused Pascal to +write the "Letters" was of a supercilious kind, and what he willed to +say in them led to the development of all those qualities that are +summed up in the French term l'esprit. Voltaire declared that the +best comedies of Molière n'ont pas plus de sel que les premières +lettres. "Vos maximes," Pascal assures the Jesuit Fathers, "ont je +ne sais quoi de divertissant, qui réjouit toujours le monde," and +they lose nothing of that character in his handling of them, so much +so that it was clear from the first that the world in general would +never ask whether Pascal had been quite fair to his opponents: +"N'êtes-vous donc pas ridicules, mes Pères? Qu'on satisfait au +précepte d'ouïr la messe en entendant quatre quarts de messe à la +fois de différents prêtres!" When [68] you have the like of that it +is impossible not to laugh, parce que rien n'y porte davantage qu'une +disproportion surprenante entre ce qu'on attend et ce qu'on voit. + +He has "salt" also, of another kind. He drives straight at the +Jesuits, for instance, rather than at those who do but copy them, +because, as he tells us: Les choses valent toujours mieux dans leur +source. What equity of expression, how brief, how untranslateable! +And the "Letters" abound in such things. + +But to his comparison of Pascal with Molière, Voltaire added that +Bossuet n'a rien de plus sublime que les dernières. And in truth the +more serious note of the impassioned servant of religion whose lips +have been touched with altar-fire, whose seriousness came to be like +some incurable malady, a visitation of God, as people used to say, is +presently struck when, in the natural course of his argument, his +thoughts are carried, from a mere passage of arms between one man or +one class of men and another, deep down to those awful encounters of +the individual soul with itself which are formulated in the eternal +problem of predestination. + +In their doctrine of "sufficient grace" the Jesuits had presented a +view of the conflict of good and evil in the soul, which is +honourable to God and encouraging to man, and which has catholicity +on its face. All to whom entrance into the Church, through its +formal ministries, [69] lies open are truly called of God, while +beyond it stretches the ocean of "His uncovenanted mercies." That is +a doctrine for the many, for those whose position in the religious +life is mediocrity, who so far as themselves or others can discern +have nothing about them of eternal or necessary or irresistible +reprobation, or of the eternal condition opposite to that. + +The so-called Jansenist doctrine, on the other hand, of [ ]+ but +irresistible grace was the appropriate view of the Port-Royalists, +high-pitched, eager souls as they were, and of their friend Pascal +himself, however much in his turn he might refine upon it. Whether +or not, as a matter of fact, upon which, as distinct from matters of +faith, an infallible pope can be mistaken, the dreary old Dutch +bishop Jansenius had really taught Jansenism, the Port-Royalists had +found in his "Augustinus" an incentive to devotion, and were avowedly +his adherents. In that somewhat gloomy, that too deeply impressed, +that fanatical age, they were the Calvinists of the Roman Catholic +Church, maintaining, emphasising in it a view, a tradition, really +constant in it from St. Augustin, from St. Paul himself. It is a +merit of Pascal, his literary merit, to have given a very fine-toned +expression to that doctrine, though mainly in the way of a criticism +of its opponents, to one side or aspect of an eternal controversy, +eternally suspended, as representing two opposite aspects of +experience [70] itself. Calvin and Arminius, Jansen and Molina sum +up, in fact, respectively, like the respective adherents of the +freedom or of the necessity of the human will, in the more general +question of moral philosophy, two opposed, two counter trains of +phenomena actually observable by us in human action, too large and +complex a matter, as it is, to be embodied or summed up in any one +single proposition or idea. + +There are moments of one's own life, aspects of the life of others, +of which the conclusion that the will is free seems to be the only-- +is the natural or reasonable--account. Yet those very moments on +reflexion, on second thoughts, present themselves again, as but links +in a chain, in an all-embracing network of chains. In all education +we assume, in some inexplicable combination, at once the freedom and +the necessity of the subject of it. And who on a survey of life from +outside would willingly lose the dramatic contrasts, the alternating +interests, for which the opposed ideas of freedom and necessity are +our respective points of view? How significant become the details we +might otherwise pass by almost unobserved, but to which we are put on +the alert by the abstract query whether a man be indeed a freeman or +a slave, as we watch from aside his devious course, his struggles, +his final tragedy or triumph. So much value at least there may be in +problems insoluble in themselves, such as that great controversy of +Pascal's day [71] between Jesuit and Jansenist. And here again who +would forego, in the spectacle of the religious history of the human +soul, the aspects, the details which the doctrines of universal and +particular grace respectively embody? The Jesuit doctrine of +sufficient grace is certainly, to use the familiar expression, a very +pleasant doctrine conducive to the due feeding of the whole flock of +Christ, as being, as assuming them to be, what they really are, at +the worst, God's silly sheep. It has something in it congruous with +the rising of the physical sun on the evil and on the good, while the +wheat and the tares grow naturally, peacefully together. But how +pleasant also the opposite doctrine, how true, how truly descriptive +of certain distinguished, magnifical, or elect souls, vessels of +election, épris des hauteurs, as we see them pass across the world's +stage, as if led on by a kind of thirst for God! Its necessary +counterpart, of course, we may find, at least dramatically true of +some; we can name them in history, perhaps from our own experience; +souls of whom it seems but an obvious story to tell that they seemed +to be in love with eternal death, to have borne on them from the +first signs of reprobation. Of certain quite visibly elect souls, at +all events, the theory of irresistible grace might seem the almost +necessary explanation. Most reasonable, most natural, most truly is +it descriptive of Pascal himself. + +[72] So far, indeed, up to the year 1656, Pascal's annus mirabilis, +the year of the "Letters," the world had been allowed to see only one +side of him. Early in life he had achieved brilliant overtures in +the abstract sciences, and, inheriting much of the quality of a fine +gentleman, he figures, with his trenchant manner, never at a loss, as +a quite secular person, stirred on occasion to take part in a +religious debate. But it is after the grand fashion of the mundane +quarrels of that day, the age of the sentiment of personal honour, in +which it was so natural for the good-natured Jesuits, stirring all +Pascal's satiric power, to excuse as well as they could the act de +tuer pour un simple médisance. The Church was still an estate of the +realm with all the obligations of the noblesse, and it was still +something worse than bad taste, it was dangerous to express religious +doubts. About the Catholic religion, as he conceived it, Pascal +displays the assured attitude of an ancient Crusader. He has the +full courage of his opinions, and by his elegant easy gallantry in +speaking for it he gives to religion then and now a kind of dignity +it had lost with other controversialists in the eyes of the world. +There is abundant gaiety also in the "Letters." He quotes from +Tertullian to the effect that c'est proprement à la vérité qu'il +appartient de rire parce qu'elle est gaie, et de se jouer de ses +ennemis parce qu'elle est assurée de sa victoire. For he could find +quotations to his purpose from recondite writers, [73] though he was +not a man of erudition; like a man of the world again, he read +little, but that absorbingly, was the master of two authors, +Epictetus and Montaigne, and, as appeared afterwards, of the +Scriptures in the Vulgate. + +So far, his imposing carriage of himself intellectually might lead us +to suspect that the forced humilities of his later years are +indirectly a discovery of what seems one leading quality of the +natural man in him, a pride that could be quite fierce on occasion. +And, like another rich young man whom Jesus loved, he lacked nothing +to make the world also love and confide in, as it already flattered, +him. He turned from it, decided to live a single life. Was it the +mere oddity of genius? Or its last fine dainty touch of difference +from ordinary people and their motives? Or that sanctity of which, +in some cases, the world itself instinctively feels the distinction, +though it shrinks from the true explanation of it? Certainly, all +things considered, on the morrow of the "Letters," Blaise Pascal, at +the age of thirty-three, had a brilliant worldly future before him, +had he cared duly to wait upon, to serve it. To develop the already +considerable position of his family among the gentry of Auvergne +would have been to follow the way of his time, in which so many noble +names had been founded on professional talents. Increasingly, +however, from early youth, he had been the subject of a malady so +hopeless [74] and inexplicable that in that superstitious age some +fancied it the result of a malign spell in infancy. Gradually, the +world almost loses sight of him, hears at last, some time after it +had looked for that event, that he had died, of course very piously, +among those sombre people, his friends and relations of Port-Royal, +with whom he had taken refuge, and seemed already to have been buried +alive. And in the year 1670, not till eight years after his death, +the "Pensées" appeared--"Pensées de M. Pascal sur la Religion et sur +quelques autres sujets"--or rather a selection from those "Thoughts" +by the Port-Royalists, still in fear of consequences to the +struggling Jansenist party, anxious to present Pascal's doctrine as +far as possible in conformity with the Jesuit sense, as also to +divert the vaguer parts of it more entirely into their own. The +incomparable words were altered, the order changed or lost, the +thoughts themselves omitted or retrenched. Written in short +intervals of relief from suffering, they were contributions to a +large and methodical work--"Pensées de M. Pascal sur la Religion et +sur quelques autres sujets"--on a good many things besides, as the +reader finds, on many of the great things of this world which seemed +to him to come in contact or competition with religion. In the true +version of the "Thoughts," edited at last by Faugère, in 1844, from +Pascal's own MSS., in the National Library, they group themselves +into certain definite trains [75] of speculation and study. But it +is still, nevertheless, as isolated thoughts, as inspirations, so to +call them, penetrating what seemed hopelessly dark, summarising what +seemed hopelessly confused, sticking fast in men's memories, floating +lightly, or going far, that they have left so deep a mark in +literature. For again the manner, also, their style precisely +becomes them. The merits of Pascal's style, indeed, as of the French +language itself, still is to say beaucoup de choses en peu de mots; +and the brevity, the discerning edge, the impassioned concentration +of the language are here one with the ardent immediate apprehensions +of his spirit. + +One of the literary merits of the "Provincial Letters" is that they +are really like letters; they are essentially a conversation by +writing with other persons. What we have in the "Thoughts" is the +conversation of the writer with himself, with himself and with God, +or rather concerning Him, for He is, in Pascal's favourite phrase +from the Vulgate, Deus absconditus, He who never directly shows +Himself. Choses de coeur the "Thoughts" are, indeed those of an +individual, though they seem to have determined the very outlines of +a great subject for all other persons. In Pascal, at the summit of +the Puy de Dôme in his native Auvergne, experimenting on the weight +of the invisible air, proving it to be ever all around by its +effects, we are presented with one of the more pleasing [76] aspects +of his earlier, more wholesome, open-air life. In the great work of +which the "Thoughts" are the first head, Pascal conceived himself to +be doing something of the same kind in the spiritual order by a +demonstration of this other invisible world all around us, with its +really ponderable forces, its movement, its attractions and +repulsions, the world of grace, unseen, but, as he thinks, the one +only hypothesis that can explain the experienced, admitted facts. +Whether or not he was fixing permanently in the "Pensées" the +outlines, the principles, of a great system of assent, of conviction, +for acceptance by the intellect, he was certainly fixing these with +all the imaginative depth and sufficiency of Shakespeare himself, the +fancied opposites, the attitudes, the necessary forms of pathos,+ of a +great tragedy in the heart, the soul, the essential human tragedy, as +typical and central in its expression here, as Hamlet--what the soul +passes, and must pass, through, aux abois with nothingness, or with +those offended mysterious powers that may really occupy it--or when +confronted with the thought of what are called the "four last things" +it yields this way or that. What might have passed with all its +fiery ways for an esprit de secte et de cabale is now revealed amid +the disputes not of a single generation but of eternal ones, by the +light of a phenomenal storm of blinding and blasting inspirations. + +[77] Observe, he is not a sceptic converted, a returned infidel, but +is seen there as if at the very centre of a perpetually maintained +tragic crisis holding the faith steadfastly, but amid the well-poised +points of essential doubt all around him and it. It is no mere calm +supersession of a state of doubt by a state of faith; the doubts +never die, they are only just kept down in a perpetual agonia. +Everywhere in the "Letters" he had seemed so great a master--a master +of himself--never at a loss, taking the conflict so lightly, with so +light a heart: in the great Atlantean travail of the "Thoughts" his +feet sometimes "are almost gone." In his soul's agony, theological +abstractions seem to become personal powers. It was as if just below +the surface of the green undulations, the stately woods, of his own +strange country of Auvergne, the volcanic fires had suddenly +discovered themselves anew. In truth into his typical diagnosis, as +it may seem, of the tragedy of the human soul, there have passed not +merely the personal feelings, the temperament of an individual, but +his malady also, a physical malady. Great genius, we know, has the +power of elevating, transmuting, serving itself by the accidental +conditions about it, however unpromising--poverty, and the like. It +was certainly so with Pascal's long-continued physical sufferings. +That aigreur, which is part of the native colour of Pascal's genius, +is reinforced in the [78] "Pensées" by insupportable languor, +alternating with supportable pain, as he died little by little +through the eight years of their composition. They are essentially +the utterance of a soul malade--a soul of great genius, whose malady +became a new quality of that genius, perfecting it thus, by its very +defect, as a type on the intellectual stage, and thereby guiding, +reassuring sympathetically, manning by a sense of good company that +large class of persons who are malade in the same way. "La maladie +est l'état naturel des Chrétiens," says Pascal himself. And we +concede that every one of us more or less is ailing thus, as another +has told us that life itself is a disease of the spirit. + +From Port-Royal also came, about the year 1670, a painful book, the +"Life of Pascal," a portrait painted slowly from the life or living +death, but with an almost exclusive preference for traits expressive +of disease. The post-mortem examination of Pascal's brain revealed, +we are now told, the secret, not merely of that long prostration, +those sudden passing torments, but of something analogous to them in +Pascal's genius and work. Well! the light cast indirectly on the +literary work of Pascal by Mme. Périer's "Life" is of a similar kind. +It is a veritable chapter in morbid pathology, though it may have +truly a beauty for experts, the beauty which belongs to all refined +cases even of cerebral disturbance. That he should [79] have sought +relief from his singular wretchedness, in that sombre company, is +like the second stroke of tragedy upon him. At moments Pascal +becomes almost a sectarian, and seems to pass out of the genial broad +heaven of the Catholic Church. He had lent himself in those last +years to a kind of pieties which do not make a winning picture, which +always have about them, even when they show themselves in men +physically strong, something of the small compass of the sick- +chamber. His medieval or oriental self-tortures, all the painful +efforts at absolute detachment, a perverse asceticism taking all +there still was to spare from the denuded and suffering body, might +well, you may think, have died with him, but are here recorded, +chiefly by way of showing the world, the Jesuits, that the +Jansenists, too, had a saint quite after their mind. + +But though, at first sight, you may find a pettiness in those minute +pieties, they have their signification as a testimony to the +wholeness of Pascal's assent, the entirety of his submission, his +immense sincerity, the heroic grandeur of his achieved faith. The +seventeenth century presents survivals of the gloomy mental habits of +the Middle Age, but for the most part of a somewhat theatrical kind, +imitations of Francis and Dominic or of their earlier imitators. In +Pascal they are original, and have all their seriousness. Que je +n'en sois [80] jamais séparé--pas séparé éternellement, he repeats, +or makes that strange sort of MS. amulet, of which his sister tells +us, repeat for him. Cast me not away from Thy presence; and take not +Thy Holy Spirit from me. It is table rase he is trying to make of +himself, that He might reign there absolutely alone, who, however, as +he was bound to think, had made and blest all those things he +declined to accept. Deeper and deeper, then, he retreated into the +renuncient life. He could not, had he wished, deprive himself of +that his greatest gift--literally a gift he might have thought it not +to be buried but accounted for--the gift of le beau dire, of writing +beautifully. "Il avoit renoncé depuis longtemps aux sciences +purement humains." To him who had known them so well, and as if by +intuition, those abstract and perdurable forms of service might well +have seemed a part of "the Lord's doing, marvellous in our eyes," as +his favourite Psalm cxix., the psalm des petites heures, the cxviii. +of the Vulgate, says.* These, too, he counts now as but a variety of +le néant and vanity of things. He no longer records, therefore, the +mathematical aperçus that may visit him; and in his scruples, his +suspicions of' visible beauty, he interests us as precisely an +inversion of what is called the aesthetic life. + +[81] Yet his faith, as in the days of the Middle Age, had been +supported, rewarded, by what he believed to be visible miracle among +the strange lights and shades of that retired place. Pascal's niece, +the daughter of Madame Périer, a girl ten years of age, suffered from +a disease of the eyes pronounced to be incurable. The disease was a +peculiarly distressing one, the sort of affliction which, falling on +a young child, may lead one to question the presence of divine +justice in the world, makes one long that miracles were possible. +Well! Pascal, for one, believed that on occasion that profound +aspiration had been followed up by the power desired. A thorn from +the crown of Jesus, as was believed, had been lately brought to the +Port-Royal du Faubourg S. Jacques in Paris, and was one day applied +devoutly to the eye of the suffering child. What followed was an +immediate and complete cure, fully attested by experts. Ah! Thou +hast given him his heart's desire: and hast not denied him the +request of his lips. Pascal, and the young girl herself, faithfully +to the end of a long life, believed the circumstances to have been +miraculous. Otherwise, we do not see that Pascal was ever permitted +to enjoy (so to speak) the religion for which he had exchanged so +much; that the sense of acceptance, of assurance, had come to him; +that for him the Spouse had ever penetrated the veil of the ordinary +routine of the means of grace; [82] nothing that corresponded as a +matter of clear personal intercourse of the very senses to the +greatness of his surrender--who had emptied himself of all other +things. Besides, there was some not wholly-explained delay in his +reception, in those his last days, of the Sacrament. It was brought +to him just in time--"Voici celui que vous avez tant désiré!"--the +ministrant says to the dying man. Pascal was then aged thirty-nine-- +an age you may remember fancifully noted as fatal to genius. + +Pascal's "Thoughts," then, we shall not rightly measure but as the +outcome, the utterance, of a soul diseased, a soul permanently ill at +ease. We find in their constant tension something of insomnia, of +that sleeplessness which can never be a quite healthful condition of +mind in a human body. Sometimes they are cries, cries of obscure +pain rather than thoughts--those great fine sayings which seem to +betray by their depth of sound the vast unseen hollow places of +nature, of humanity, just beneath one's feet or at one's side. +Reading them, so modern still are those thoughts, so rich and various +in suggestion, that one seems to witness the mental seed-sowing of +the next two centuries, and perhaps more, as to those matters with +which he concerns himself. Intuitions of a religious genius, they +may well be taken also as the final considerations of the natural +man, as a religious inquirer on doubt and faith, and their place in +[83] things. Listen now to some of these "Thoughts" taken at random: +taken at first for their brevity. Peu de chose nous console, parce +que peu de chose nous afflige. Par l'espace l'univers me comprend et +m'engloutit comme un point: par la pensée je le comprends. Things +like these put us en route with Pascal. Toutes les bonnes maximes +sont dans le monde: on ne manque que de les appliquer. The great +ascetic was always hard on amusements, on mere pastimes: Le +divertissement nous amuse, one and all of us, et nous fait arriver +insensiblement à la mort. Nous perdons encore la vie avec joie, +pourvu qu'on en parle. On ne peut faire une bonne physionomie (in a +portrait) qu'en accordant toutes nos contrariétés. L'homme n'est +qu'un roseau, le plus foible de la nature, mais c'est un roseau +pensant. Il ne faut pas que l'univers entier s'arme pour l'écraser. +Une vapeur, une goutte d'eau, suffit pour le tuer. Mais quand +l'univers l'écraseroit, l'homme seroit encore plus noble que se qui +le tue, parce qu'il sait qu'il meurt, et l'avantage que l'univers a +sur lui, l'univers n'en sait rien. It is not thought by which that +excels, but the convincing force of imagination which sublimates its +very triteness. Toute notre dignité consiste donc en la pensée. + +There, then, you have at random the sort of stuff of which the +"Pensees" are made. Let me now briefly indicate, also by quotation +again, some of the main leading tendencies in them. La chose la plus +importante à toute la vie c'est la [84] choix du métier: le hasard en +dispose. There we recognise the manner of thought of Montaigne. Now +one of the leading interests in the study of Pascal is to trace the +influence upon him of the typical sceptic of the preceding century. +Pascal's "Thoughts" we shall never understand unless we realise the +under-texture in them of Montaigne's very phrases, the fascination +the "Essays" had for Pascal in his capacity of one of the children of +light, as giving a veritable compte rendu of the Satanic course of +this world since the Fall, set forth with all the persuasiveness, the +power and charm, all the gifts of Satan, the veritable light on +things he has at his disposal. + +Pascal re-echoes Montaigne then in asserting the paradoxical +character of man and his experience. The old headings under which +the Port-Royalist editors grouped the "Thoughts" recall the titles of +Montaigne's "Essays"--"Of the Disproportion of Man," and the like. As +strongly as Montaigne he delights in asserting the relative, local, +ephemeral and merely provisional character of our ideas of law, vice, +virtue, happiness, and so forth. Comme la mode fait l'agrément aussi +fait-elle la justice. La justice et la vérité sont deux pointes si +subtiles, que nos instruments sont trop mousses pour y toucher +exactement. Bien suivant la seule raison n'est juste de soi: tout +branle avec le temps. Sometimes he strikes the express accent of +Montaigne: Ceux qui sont dans un vaisseau croient que ceux qui sont +[85] au bord fuient. Le langage est pareil de tous côtés. Il faut +avoir un point fixe pour en juger. Le port juge ceux qui sont dans +un vaisseau, mais où prendrons-nous un port dans la morale? At times +he seems to forget that he himself and Montaigne are after all not of +the same flock, as his mind grazes in those pleasant places. Qu'il +(man) se regarde comme égaré dans ce canton détourné de la nature, et +de ce petit cachot où il se trouve logé, qu'il apprenne the earth, et +soi-même à son juste prix. Il ffre, mais elle est ployable à tous +sens; et ainsi il n'y en a point. Un même sens change selon les +paroles qui l'expriment. He has touches even of what he calls the +malignity, the malign irony of Montaigne. Rien que la médiocrité +n'est bon, he says,--épris des hauteurs, as he so conspicuously was-- +C'est sortir de l'humanité que de sortir du milieu; la grandeur de +l'âme humaine consiste à savoir s'y tenir. Rien ne fortifie plus le +pyrrhonisme--that is ever his word for scepticism--que ce qu'il y en +a qui ne sont pas pyrrhoniens: si tous étaient ils auraient tort. +You may even credit him, like Montaigne, with a somewhat Satanic +intimacy with the ways, the cruel ways, the weakness, lâcheté, of the +human heart, so that, as he says of Montaigne, himself too might be a +pernicious study for those who have a native tendency to corruption. + +The paradoxical condition of the world, the natural inconsistency of +man, his strange [86] blending of meanness with ancient greatness, +the caprices of his status here, of his power and attainments, in the +issue of his existence--that is what the study of Montaigne had +enforced on Pascal as the sincere compte rendu of experience. But +then he passes at a tangent from the circle of the great sceptic's +apprehension. That prospect of man and the world, undulant, +capricious, inconsistent, contemptible, lâche, full of contradiction, +with a soul of evil in things good, irreducible to law, upon which, +after all, Montaigne looks out with a complacency so entire, fills +Pascal with terror. It is the world on the morrow of a great +catastrophe, the casual forces of which have by no means spent +themselves. Yes! this world we see, of which we are a part, with its +thousand dislocations, is precisely what we might expect as resultant +from the Fall of Man, with consequences in full working still. It +presents the appropriate aspect of a lost world, though with beams of +redeeming grace about it, those, too, distributed somewhat +capriciously to chosen people and elect souls, who, after all, can +have but an ill time of it here. Under the tragic éclairs of divine +wrath essentially implacable, the gentle, pleasantly undulating, +sunny, earthly prospect of poor loveable humanity which opens out for +one in Montaigne's "Essays," becomes for Pascal a scene of harsh +precipices, of threatening heights and depths--the depths of his own +nothingness. Vanity: nothingness: these [87] are his catchwords: +Nous sommes incapables et du vrai et du bien; nous sommes tous +condamnés. Ce qui y paraît (i.e., what we see in the world) ne +marque ni une exclusion totale ni une présence manifeste de divinité, +mais la présence d'un Dieu qui se cache: (Deus absconditus, that is a +recurrent favourite thought of his) tout porte ce caractère. In this +world of abysmal dilemmas, he is ready to push all things to their +extremes. All or nothing; for him real morality will be nothing +short of sanctity. En Jésus Christ toutes les contradictions sont +accordées. Yet what difficulties again in the religion of Christ! +Nulle autre religion n'a proposé de se haïr. La seule religion +contraire à la nature, contraire au sens commun, est la seule qui ait +toujours été. + +Multitudes in every generation have felt at least the aesthetic charm +of the rites of the Catholic Church. For Pascal, on the other hand, +a certain weariness, a certain puerility, a certain unprofitableness +in them is but an extra trial of faith. He seems to have little +sense of the beauty of holiness. And for his sombre, trenchant, +precipitous philosophy there could be no middle terms; irresistible +election, irresistible reprobation; only sometimes extremes meet, and +again it may be the trial of faith that the justified seem as +loveless and unlovely as the reprobate. Abêtissez-vous! A nature, +you may think, that would magnify things to the utmost, nurse, expand +them beyond their natural bounds by his [88] reflex action upon them. +Thus revelation is to be received on evidence, indeed, but an +evidence conclusive only on a presupposition or series of +presuppositions, evidence that is supplemented by an act of +imagination, or by the grace of faith, shall we say? At any rate, +the fact is, that the genius of the great reasoner, of this great +master of the abstract and deductive sciences, turned theologian, +carrying the methods of thought there formed into the things of +faith, was after all of the imaginative order. Now hear what he says +of imagination: Cette faculté trompeuse, qui semble nous être donnée +exprès pour nous induire à une erreur nécessaire. That has a sort of +necessity in it. What he says has again the air of Montaigne, and he +says much of the same kind: Cette superbe puissance ennemie de la +raison, combien toutes les richesses de la terre sont insuffisantes +sans son consentement. The imagination has the disposition of all +things: Elle fait la beauté, la justice, et le bonheur, qui est le +tout du monde. L'imagination dispose de tout. And what we have here +to note is its extraordinary power in himself. Strong in him as the +reasoning faculty, so to speak, it administered the reasoning faculty +in him à son grbut he was unaware of it, that power d'autant plus +fourbe qu'elle ne l'est pas toujours. Hidden under the apparent +rigidity of his favourite studies, imagination, even in them, played +a large part. Physics, mathematics were with him largely matters of +intuition, anticipation, [89] precocious discovery, short cuts, +superb guessing. It was the inventive element in his work and his +way of putting things that surprised those best able to judge. He +might have discovered the mathematical sciences for himself, it is +alleged, had his father, as he once had a mind to do, withheld him +from instruction in them. + +About the time when he was bidding adieu to the world, Pascal had an +accident. As he drove round a corner on the Seine side to cross the +bridge at Neuilly, the horses were precipitated down the bank into +the water. Pascal escaped, but with a nervous shock, a certain +hallucination, from which he never recovered. As he walked or sat he +was apt to perceive a yawning depth beside him; would set stick or +chair there to reassure himself. We are now told, indeed, that that +circumstance has been greatly exaggerated. But how true to Pascal's +temper, as revealed in his work, that alarmed precipitous character +in it! Intellectually the abyss was evermore at his side. Nous +avons, he observes, un autre principe d'erreur, les maladies. Now in +him the imagination itself was like a physical malady, troubling, +disturbing, or in active collusion with it. . . . + +NOTES + +62. *Published in the Contemporary Review, Feb. 1895, and now +reprinted by the kind permission of the proprietors. + +76. +Transliteration: pathos. + +80. *The words here cited are, however, from Psalm cxviii., the +cxvii. of the Vulgate, and not from Pascal's favourite Psalm. +(C.L.S.) +C.L.S. stands for Charles Shadwell, editor of the original +volume. + + + +ART NOTES IN NORTH ITALY* + +[90] TITIAN, as we see him in what some have thought his noblest +work, the large altar-piece, dated 1522, his forty-fifth year, of SS. +Nazaro e Celso, at Brescia, is certainly a religious--a great, +religious painter. The famous Gabriel of the Annunciation, aflight, +in all the effortless energy of an angel indeed, and Sebastian, +adapted, it was said, from an ancient statue, yet as novel in design +as if Titian had been the first to handle that so familiar figure in +old religious art--may represent for us a vast and varied amount of +work--in which he expands to their utmost artistic compass the +earlier religious dreams of Mantegna and the Bellini, affording +sufficient proof how sacred themes could rouse his imagination, and +all his manual skill, to heroic efforts. But he is also the painter +of the Venus of the Tribune and the Triumph of Bacchus; and such +frank acceptance of the voluptuous paganism of the Renaissance, the +motive of a large proportion of his work, [91] might make us think +that religion, grandly dramatic as was his conception of it, can have +been for him only one of many pictorial attitudes. There are however +painters of that date who, while their work is great enough to be +connected (perhaps groundlessly) with Titian's personal influence, or +directly attributed to his hand, possess at least this psychological +interest, that about their religiousness there can be no question. +Their work is to be looked for mainly in and about the two sub-alpine +towns of Brescia and Bergamo; in the former of which it becomes +definable as a school--the school of Moretto, in whom the perfected +art of the later Renaissance is to be seen in union with a +catholicism as convinced, towards the middle of the sixteenth +century, as that of Giotto or Angelico. + +Moretto of Brescia, for instance, is one of the few painters who have +fully understood the artistic opportunities of the subject of Saint +Paul, for whom, for the most part, art has found only the +conventional trappings of a Roman soldier (a soldier, as being in +charge of those prisoners to Damascus), or a somewhat commonplace old +age. Moretto also makes him a nobly accoutred soldier--the rim of +the helmet, thrown backward in his fall to the earth, rings the head +already with a faint circle of glory--but a soldier still in +possession of all those resources of unspoiled youth which he is +ready to offer in a [92] moment to the truth that has just dawned +visibly upon him. The terrified horse, very grandly designed, leaps +high against the suddenly darkened sky above the distant horizon of +Damascus, with all Moretto's peculiar understanding of the power of +black and white. But what signs the picture inalienably as Moretto's +own is the thought of the saint himself, at the moment of his +recovery from the stroke of Heaven. The pure, pale, beardless face, +in noble profile, might have had for its immediate model some +military monk of a later age, yet it breathes all the joy and +confidence of the Apostle who knows in a single flash of time that he +has found the veritable captain of his soul. It is indeed the Paul +whose genius of conviction has so greatly moved the minds of men--the +soldier who, bringing his prisoners "bound to Damascus," is become +the soldier of Jesus Christ. + +Moretto's picture has found its place (in a dark recess, alas!) in +the Church of Santa Maria presso San Celso, in the suburbs of Milan, +hard by the site of the old Roman cemetery, where Ambrose, at a +moment when in one of his many conflicts a "sign" was needed, found +the bodies of Nazarus and Celsus, youthful patrician martyrs in the +reign of Nero, overflowing now with miraculous powers, their blood +still fresh upon them--conspersa recenti sanguine. The body of Saint +Nazarus he removed into the city: that of Saint Celsus remained +within the little sanctuary [93] which still bears his name, and +beside which, in the fifteenth century, arose the glorious Church of +the Madonna, with spacious atrium after the Ambrosian manner, a +façade richly sculptured in the style of the Renaissance, and +sumptuously adorned within. Behind the massive silver tabernacle of +the altar of the miraculous picture which gave its origin to this +splendid building, the rare visitor, peeping as into some sacred +bird-nest, detects one of the loveliest works of Luini, a small, but +exquisitely finished "Holy Family." Among the fine pictures around +are works by two other very notable religious painters of the cinque- +cento. Both alike, Ferrari and Borgognone, may seem to have +introduced into fiery Italian latitudes a certain northern +temperature, and somewhat twilight, French, or Flemish, or German, +thoughts. Ferrari, coming from the neighbourhood of Varallo, after +work at Vercelli and Novara, returns thither to labour, as both +sculptor and painter, in the "stations" of the Sacro Monte, at a form +of religious art which would seem to have some natural kinship with +the temper of a mountain people. It is as if the living actors in +the "Passion Play" of Oberammergau had been transformed into almost +illusive groups in painted terra-cotta. The scenes of the Last +Supper, of the Martyrdom of the Innocents, of the Raising of Jairus' +daughter, for instance, are certainly touching in the naïve piety of +their life-sized realism. But Gaudenzio Ferrari had many [94] +helpmates at the Sacro Monte; and his lovelier work is in the +Franciscan Church at the foot of the hill, and in those two, truly +Italian, far-off towns of the Lombard plain. Even in his great, +many-storied fresco in the Franciscan Church at Varallo there are +traces of a somewhat barbaric hankering after solid form; the armour +of the Roman soldiers, for example, is raised and gilt. It is as if +this serious soul, going back to his mountain home, had lapsed again +into mountain "grotesque," with touches also, in truth, of a +peculiarly northern poetry--a mystic poetry, which now and again, in +his treatment, for instance, of angel forms and faces, reminds one of +Blake. There is something of it certainly in the little white +spectral soul of the penitent thief making its escape from the +dishonoured body along the beam of his cross. + +The contrast is a vigorous one when, in the space of a few hours, the +traveller finds himself at Vercelli, half-stifled in its thick +pressing crop of pumpkins and mulberry trees. The expression of the +prophet occurs to him: "A lodge in a garden of cucumbers." Garden of +cucumbers and half-tropical flowers, it has invaded the quiet open +spaces of the town. Search through them, through the almost +cloistral streets, for the Church of the Umiliati; and there, amid +the soft garden-shadows of the choir, you may find the sentiment of +the neighbourhood expressed with great refinement in what is perhaps +[95] the masterpiece of Ferrari, "Our Lady of the Fruit-garden," as +we might say--attended by twelve life-sized saints and the monkish +donors of the picture. The remarkable proportions of the tall panel, +up which the green-stuff is climbing thickly above the mitres and +sacred garniture of those sacred personages, lend themselves +harmoniously to the gigantic stature of Saint Christopher in the +foreground as the patron saint of the church. With the savour of +this picture in his memory, the visitor will look eagerly in some +half-dozen neighbouring churches and deserted conventual places for +certain other works from Ferrari's hand; and so, leaving the place +under the influence of his delicate religious ideal, may seem to have +been listening to much exquisite church-music there, violins and the +like, on that perfectly silent afternoon--such music as he may still +really hear on Sundays at the neighbouring town of Novara, famed for +it from of old. Here, again, the art of Gaudenzio Ferrari reigns. +Gaudenzio! It is the name of the saintly prelate on whom his pencil +was many times employed, First Bishop of Novara, and patron of the +magnificent basilica hard by which still covers his body, whose +earthly presence in cope and mitre Ferrari has commemorated in the +altar-piece of the "Marriage of St. Catherine," with its refined +richness of colour, like a bank of real flowers blooming there, and +like nothing else around it in the [96] vast duomo of old Roman +architecture, now heavily masked in modern stucco. The solemn +mountains, under the closer shadow of which his genius put on a +northern hue, are far away, telling at Novara only as the grandly +theatrical background to an entirely lowland life. And here, as at +Vercelli so at Novara, Ferrari is not less graciously Italian than +Luini himself. + +If the name of Luini's master, Borgognone, is no proof of northern +extraction, a northern temper is nevertheless a marked element of his +genius--something of the patience, especially, of the masters of +Dijon or Bruges, nowhere more clearly than in the two groups of male +and female heads in the National Gallery, family groups, painted in +the attitude of worship, with a lowly religious sincerity which may +remind us of the contemporary work of M. Legros. Like those northern +masters, he accepts piously, but can refine, what "has no +comeliness." And yet perhaps no painter has so adequately presented +that purely personal beauty (for which, indeed, even profane painters +for the most part have seemed to care very little) as Borgognone in +the two deacons, Stephen and Laurence, who, in one of the altar- +pieces of the Certosa, assist at the throne of Syrus, ancient, +sainted, First Bishop of Pavia--stately youths in quite imperial +dalmatics of black and gold. An indefatigable worker at many forms +of religious art, here and elsewhere, assisting at last in the [97] +carving and inlaying of the rich marble façade of the Certosa, the +rich carved and inlaid wood-work of Santa Maria at Bergamo, he is +seen perhaps at his best, certainly in his most significantly +religious mood, in the Church of the Incoronata at Lodi, especially +in one picture there, the "Presentation of Christ in the Temple." +The experienced visitor knows what to expect in the sacristies of the +great Italian churches; the smaller, choicer works of Luini, say, of +Della Robbia or Mino of Fiesole, the superb ambries and drawers and +presses of old oak or cedar, the still untouched morsel of fresco-- +like sacred priestly thoughts visibly lingering there in the half- +light. Well! the little octagonal Church of the Incoronata is like +one of these sacristies. The work of Bramante--you see it, as it is +so rarely one's luck to do, with its furniture and internal +decoration complete and unchanged, the coloured pavement, the +colouring which covers the walls, the elegant little organ of +Domenico da Lucca (1507), the altar-screens with their dainty rows of +brass cherubs. In Borgognone's picture of the "Presentation," there +the place is, essentially as we see it to-day. The ceremony, +invested with all the sentiment of a Christian sacrament, takes place +in this very church, this "Temple" of the Incoronata where you are +standing, reflected on the dimly glorious wall, as in a mirror. +Borgognone in his picture has [98] but added in long legend, letter +by letter, on the fascia below the cupola, the Song of Simeon. + +The Incoronata however is, after all, the monument less of Ambrogio +Borgognone than of the gifted Piazza family:--Callisto, himself born +at Lodi, his father, his uncle, his brothers, his son Fulvio, working +there in three generations, under marked religious influence, and +with so much power and grace that, quite gratuitously, portions of +their work have been attributed to the master-hand of Titian, in some +imaginary visit here to these painters, who were in truth the +disciples of another--Romanino of Brescia. At Lodi, the lustre of +Scipione Piazza is lost in that of Callisto, his elder brother; but +he might worthily be included in a list of painters memorable for a +single picture, such pictures as the solemn Madonna of Pierino del +Vaga, in the Duomo of Pisa, or the Holy Family of Pellegrino Piola, +in the Goldsmiths' Street at Genoa. A single picture, a single +figure in a picture, signed and dated, over the altar of Saint +Clement, in the Church of San Spirito, at Bergamo, might preserve the +fame of Scipione Piazza, who did not live to be old. The figure is +that of the youthful Clement of Rome himself, "who had seen the +blessed Apostles," writing at the dictation of Saint Paul. For a +moment he looks away from the letters of the book with all the +wistful intelligence of a boy softly touched already by the radiancy +of the [99] celestial Wisdom. "Her ways are ways of pleasantness!" +That is the lesson this winsome, docile, spotless creature--ingenui +vultus puer ingenuique pudoris--younger brother or cousin of +Borgognone's noble deacons at the Certosa--seems put there to teach +us. And in this church, indeed, as it happens, Scipione's work is +side by side with work of his. + +It is here, in fact, at Bergamo and at Brescia, that the late +survival of a really convinced religious spirit becomes a striking +fact in the history of Italian art. Vercelli and Novara, though +famous for their mountain neighbourhood, enjoy but a distant and +occasional view of Monte Rosa and its companions; and even then those +awful stairways to tracts of airy sunlight may seem hardly real. But +the beauty of the twin sub-alpine towns further eastward is shaped by +the circumstance that mountain and plain meet almost in their +streets, very effectively for all purposes of the picturesque. +Brescia, immediately below the "Falcon of Lombardy" (so they called +its masterful fortress on the last ledge of the Piè di Monte), to +which you may now ascend by gentle turfed paths, to watch the purple +mystery of evening mount gradually from the great plain up the +mountain-walls close at hand, is as level as a church pavement, home- +like, with a kind of easy walking from point to point about it, rare +in Italian towns--a town full of walled gardens, giving even to [100] +its smaller habitations the retirement of their more sumptuous +neighbours, and a certain English air. You may peep into them, +pacing its broad streets, from the blaze of which you are glad to +escape into the dim and sometimes gloomy churches, the twilight +sacristies, rich with carved and coloured woodwork. The art of +Romanino still lights up one of the darkest of those churches with +the altar-piece which is perhaps his most expressive and noblest +work. The veritable blue sky itself seems to be breaking into the +dark-cornered, low-vaulted, Gothic sanctuary of the Barefoot +Brethren, around the Virgin and Child, the bowed, adoring figures of +Bonaventura, Saint Francis, Saint Antony, the youthful majesty of +Saint Louis, to keep for ever in memory--not the King of France +however, in spite of the fleurs-de-lys on his cope of azure, but +Louis, Bishop of Toulouse. A Rubens in Italy! you may think, if you +care to rove from the delightful fact before you after vague +supposititious alliances--something between Titian and Rubens! +Certainly, Romanino's bold, contrasted colouring anticipates +something of the northern freshness of Rubens. But while the +peculiarity of the work of Rubens is a sense of momentary transition, +as if the colours were even now melting in it, Romanino's canvas +bears rather the steady glory of broad Italian noonday; while he is +distinguished also for a remarkable clearness of [101] design, which +has perhaps something to do, is certainly congruous with, a markedly +religious sentiment, like that of Angelico or Perugino, lingering +still in the soul of this Brescian painter towards the middle of the +sixteenth century. + +Romanino and Moretto, the two great masters of Brescia in successive +generations, both alike inspired above all else by the majesty, the +majestic beauty, of religion--its persons, its events, every +circumstance that belongs to it--are to be seen in friendly rivalry, +though with ten years' difference of age between them, in the Church +of San Giovanni Evangelista; Romanino approaching there, as near as +he might, in a certain candle-lighted scene, to that harmony in +black, white, and grey preferred by the younger painter. Before this +or that example of Moretto's work, in that admirably composed picture +of Saint Paul's Conversion, for instance, you might think of him as +but a very noble designer in grisaille. A more detailed study would +convince you that, whatever its component elements, there is a very +complex tone which almost exclusively belongs to him; the "Saint +Ursula" finally, that he is a great, though very peculiar colourist-- +a lord of colour who, while he knows the colour resources that may +lie even in black and white, has really included every delicate hue +whatever in that faded "silver grey," which yet lingers in one's +memory as their final effect. For some admirers indeed he is +definable [102] as a kind of really sanctified Titian. It must be +admitted, however, that whereas Titian sometimes lost a little of +himself in the greatness of his designs, or committed their +execution, in part, to others, Moretto, in his work, is always all +there--thorough, steady, even, in his workmanship. That, again, was +a result of his late-surviving religious conscience. And here, as in +other instances, the supposed influence of the greater master is only +a supposition. As a matter of fact, at least in his earlier life, +Moretto made no visit to Venice; developed his genius at home, under +such conditions for development as were afforded by the example of +the earlier masters of Brescia itself; left his work there +abundantly, and almost there alone, as the thoroughly representative +product of a charming place. In the little Church of San Clemente he +is still "at home" to his lovers; an intimately religious artist, +full of cheerfulness, of joy. Upon the airy galleries of his great +altar-piece, the angels dance against the sky above the Mother and +the Child; Saint Clement, patron of the church, being attendant in +pontifical white, with Dominic, Catherine, the Magdalen, and good, +big-faced Saint Florian in complete armour, benign and strong. He +knows many a saint not in the Roman breviary. Was there a single +sweet-sounding name without its martyr patron? Lucia, Agnes, Agatha, +Barbara, Cecilia--holy women, dignified, high-bred, intelligent-- +[103] have an altar of their own; and here, as in that festal high +altar-piece, the spectator may note yet another artistic alliance, +something of the pale effulgence of Correggio--an approach, at least, +to that peculiar treatment of light and shade, and a pre-occupation +with certain tricks therein of nature itself, by which Correggio +touches Rembrandt on the one hand, Da Vinci on the other. Here, in +Moretto's work, you may think that manner more delightful, perhaps +because more refined, than in Correggio himself. Those pensive, +tarnished, silver side-lights, like mere reflexions of natural +sunshine, may be noticed indeed in many another painter of that day, +in Lanini, for instance, at the National Gallery. In his "Nativity" +at the Brera, Procaccini of Verona almost anticipates Correggio's +Heilige Nacht. It is, in truth, the first step in the decomposition +of light, a touch of decadence, of sunset, along the whole horizon of +North-Italian art. It is, however, as the painter of the white- +stoled Ursula and her companions that the great master of Brescia is +most likely to remain in the memory of the visitor; with this fact, +above all, clearly impressed on it, that Moretto had attained full +intelligence of all the pictorial powers of white. In the clearness, +the cleanliness, the hieratic distinction, of this earnest and +deeply-felt composition, there is something "pre-Raphaelite"; as also +in a certain liturgical formality in the grouping of the virgins--the +[104] looks, "all one way," of the closely-ranged faces; while in the +long folds of the drapery we may see something of the severe grace of +early Tuscan sculpture--something of severity in the long, thin, +emphatic shadows. For the light is high, as with the level lights of +early morning, the air of which ruffles the banners borne by Ursula +in her two hands, her virgin companions laying their hands also upon +the tall staves, as if taking share, with a good will, in her self- +dedication, with all the hazard of battle. They bring us, +appropriately, close to the grave of this manly yet so virginal +painter, born in the year 1500, dead at forty-seven. + +Of Moretto and Romanino, whose works thus light up, or refine, the +dark churches of Brescia and its neighbourhood, Romanino is scarcely +to be seen beyond it. The National Gallery, however, is rich in +Moretto's work, with two of his rare poetic portraits; and if the +large altar-picture would hardly tell his secret to one who had not +studied him at Brescia, in those who already know him it will awake +many a reminiscence of his art at its best. The three white mitres, +for instance, grandly painted towards the centre of the picture, at +the feet of Saint Bernardino of Siena--the three bishoprics refused +by that lowly saint--may remind one of the great white mitre which, +in the genial picture of Saint Nicholas, in the Miracoli at Brescia, +one of the children, who as delightfully+ [105] unconventional +acolytes accompany their beloved patron into the presence of the +Madonna, carries along so willingly, laughing almost, with pleasure +and pride, at his part in so great a function. In the altar-piece at +the National Gallery those white mitres form the key-note from which +the pale, cloistral splendours of the whole picture radiate. You see +what a wealth of enjoyable colour Moretto, for one, can bring out of +monkish habits in themselves sad enough, and receive a new lesson in +the artistic value of reserve. + +Rarer still (the single work of Romanino, it is said, to be seen out +of Italy) is the elaborate composition in five parts on the opposite +side of the doorway. Painted for the high-altar of one of the many +churches of Brescia, it seems to have passed into secular hands about +a century ago. Alessandro, patron of the church, one of the many +youthful patrician converts Italy reveres from the ranks of the Roman +army, stands there on one side, with ample crimson banner superbly +furled about his lustrous black armour, and on the other--Saint +Jerome, Romanino's own namesake--neither more nor less than the +familiar, self-tormenting anchorite; for few painters (Bellini, to +some degree, in his picture of the saint's study) have perceived the +rare pictorial opportunities of Jerome; Jerome with the true cradle +of the Lord, first of Christian antiquaries, author of the fragrant +Vulgate version of the [106] Scriptures. Alessandro and Jerome +support the Mother and the Child in the central place. But the +loveliest subjects of this fine group of compositions are in the +corners above, half-length, life-sized figures--Gaudioso, Bishop of +Brescia, above Saint Jerome; above Alessandro, Saint Filippo Benizzi, +meek founder of the Order of Servites to which that church at Brescia +belonged, with his lily, and in the right hand a book; and what a +book! It was another very different painter, Giuseppe Caletti, of +Cremona, who, for the truth and beauty of his drawing of them, gained +the title of the "Painter of Books." But if you wish to see what can +be made of the leaves, the vellum cover, of a book, observe that in +Saint Philip's hand.--The writer? the contents? you ask: What may +they be? and whence did it come?--out of embalmed sacristy, or +antique coffin of some early Brescian martyr, or, through that bright +space of blue Italian sky, from the hands of an angel, like his +Annunciation lily, or the book received in the Apocalypse by John the +Divine? It is one of those old saints, Gaudioso (at home in every +church in Brescia), who looks out with full face from the opposite +corner of the altar-piece, from a background which, though it might +be the new heaven over a new earth, is in truth only the proper, +breathable air of Italy. As we see him here, Saint Gaudioso is one +of the more exquisite treasures of our National Gallery. It was thus +that at the magic [107] touch of Romanino's art the dim, early, +hunted-down Brescian church of the primitive centuries, crushed into +the dust, it might seem, was "brought to her king," out of those old +dark crypts, "in raiment of needle-work"--the delicate, richly +folded, pontifical white vestments, the mitre and staff and gloves, +and rich jewelled cope, blue or green. The face, of remarkable +beauty after a type which all feel though it is actually rare in art, +is probably a portrait of some distinguished churchman of Romanino's +own day; a second Gaudioso, perhaps, setting that later Brescian +church to rights after the terrible French occupation in the +painter's own time, as his saintly predecessor, the Gaudioso of the +earlier century here commemorated, had done after the invasion of the +Goths. The eloquent eyes are open upon some glorious vision. "He +hath made us kings and priests!" they seem to say for him, as the +clean, sensitive lips might do so eloquently. Beauty and Holiness +had "kissed each other," as in Borgognone's imperial deacons at the +Certosa. At the Renaissance the world might seem to have parted them +again. But here certainly, once more, Catholicism and the +Renaissance, religion and culture, holiness and beauty, might seem +reconciled, by one who had conceived neither after any feeble way, in +a gifted person. Here at least, by the skill of Romanino's hand, the +obscure martyr of the crypts shines as a [108] saint of the later +Renaissance, with a sanctity of which the elegant world itself would +hardly escape the fascination, and which reminds one how the great +Apostle Saint Paul has made courtesy part of the content of the +Divine charity itself. A Rubens in Italy!--so Romanino has been +called. In this gracious presence we might think that, like Rubens +also, he had been a courtier. + +NOTES + +90. *Published in the New Review, Nov. 1890, and now reprinted by the +kind permission of the proprietors. + + + +NOTRE-DAME D'AMIENS* + +[109] THE greatest and purest of Gothic churches, Notre-Dame +d'Amiens, illustrates, by its fine qualities, a characteristic +secular movement of the beginning of the thirteenth century. +Philosophic writers of French history have explained how, in that and +in the two preceding centuries, a great number of the more important +towns in eastern and northern France rose against the feudal +establishment, and developed severally the local and municipal life +of the commune. To guarantee their independence therein they +obtained charters from their formal superiors. The Charter of Amiens +served as the model for many other communes. Notre-Dame d'Amiens is +the church of a commune. In that century of Saint Francis, of Saint +Louis, they were still religious. But over against monastic +interests, as identified with a central authority--king, emperor, or +pope--they pushed forward the local, and, so to call it, secular +authority of their [110] bishops, the flower of the "secular clergy" +in all its mundane astuteness, ready enough to make their way as the +natural Protectors of such townships. The people of Amiens, for +instance, under a powerful episcopal patron, invested their civic +pride in a vast cathedral, outrivalling neighbours, as being in +effect their parochial church, and promoted there the new, +revolutionary, Gothic manner, at the expense of the derivative and +traditional, Roman or Romanesque, style, the imperial style, of the +great monastic churches. Nay, those grand and beautiful people's +churches of the thirteenth century, churches pre-eminently of "Our +Lady," concurred also with certain novel humanistic movements of +religion itself at that period, above all with the expansion of what +is reassuring and popular in the worship of Mary, as a tender and +accessible, though almost irresistible, intercessor with her severe +and awful Son. + +Hence the splendour, the space, the novelty, of the great French +cathedrals in the first Pointed style, monuments for the most part of +the artistic genius of laymen, significant pre-eminently of that +Queen of Gothic churches at Amiens. In most cases those early +Pointed churches are entangled, here or there, by the constructions +of the old round-arched style, the heavy, Norman or other, Romanesque +chapel or aisle, side by side, though in strong contrast with, the +soaring new Gothic of nave or transept. But of that older [111] +manner of the round arch, the plein-cintre, Amiens has nowhere, or +almost nowhere, a trace. The Pointed style, fully pronounced, but in +all the purity of its first period, found here its completest +expression. And while those venerable, Romanesque, profoundly +characteristic, monastic churches, the gregarious product of long +centuries, are for the most part anonymous, as if to illustrate from +the first a certain personal tendency which came in with the Gothic +manner, we know the name of the architect under whom, in the year +A.D. 1220, the building of the church of Amiens began--a layman, +Robert de Luzarches. + +Light and space--floods of light, space for a vast congregation, for +all the people of Amiens, for their movements, with something like +the height and width of heaven itself enclosed above them to breathe +in;--you see at a glance that this is what the ingenuity of the +Pointed method of building has here secured. For breadth, for the +easy flow of a processional torrent, there is nothing like the +"ambulatory," the aisle of the choir and transepts. And the entire +area is on one level. There are here no flights of steps upward, as +at Canterbury, no descending to dark crypts, as in so many Italian +churches--a few low, broad steps to gain the choir, two or three to +the high altar. To a large extent the old pavement remains, though +almost worn-out by the footsteps of centuries. Priceless, though not +composed of precious material, it gains its effect [112] by ingenuity +and variety in the patterning, zig-zags, chequers, mazes, prevailing +respectively, in white and grey, in great square, alternate spaces-- +the original floor of a medieval church for once untouched. The +massive square bases of the pillars of a Romanesque church, harshly +angular, obstruct, sometimes cruelly, the standing, the movements, of +a multitude of persons. To carry such a multitude conveniently round +them is the matter-of-fact motive of the gradual chiselling away, the +softening of the angles, the graceful compassing, of the Gothic base, +till in our own Perpendicular period it all but disappears. You may +study that tendency appropriately in the one church of Amiens; for +such in effect Notre-Dame has always been. That circumstance is +illustrated by the great font, the oldest thing here, an oblong +trough, perhaps an ancient saintly coffin, with four quaint prophetic +figures at the angles, carved from a single block of stone. To it, +as to the baptistery of an Italian town, not so long since all the +babes of Amiens used to come for christening. + +Strange as it may seem, in this "queen" of Gothic churches, l'église +ogivale par excellence, there is nothing of mystery in the vision, +which yet surprises, over and over again, the eye of the visitor who +enters at the western doorway. From the flagstone at one's foot to +the distant keystone of the chevet, noblest of its species-- [113] +reminding you of how many largely graceful things, sails of a ship in +the wind, and the like!--at one view the whole is visible, +intelligible;--the integrity of the first design; how later additions +affixed themselves thereto; how the rich ornament gathered upon it; +the increasing richness of the choir; its glazed triforium; the +realms of light which expand in the chapels beyond; the astonishing +boldness of the vault, the astonishing lightness of what keeps it +above one; the unity, yet the variety of perspective. There is no +mystery here, and indeed no repose. Like the age which projected it, +like the impulsive communal movement which was here its motive, the +Pointed style at Amiens is full of excitement. Go, for repose, to +classic work, with the simple vertical law of pressure downwards, or +to its Lombard, Rhenish, or Norman derivatives. Here, rather, you +are conscious restlessly of that sustained equilibrium of oblique +pressure on all sides, which is the essence of the hazardous Gothic +construction, a construction of which the "flying buttress" is the +most significant feature. Across the clear glass of the great +windows of the triforium you see it, feel it, at its Atlas-work +audaciously. "A pleasant thing it is to behold the sun" those first +Gothic builders would seem to have said to themselves; and at Amiens, +for instance, the walls have disappeared; the entire building is +composed of its windows. Those who built it [114] might have had for +their one and only purpose to enclose as large a space as possible +with the given material. + +No; the peculiar Gothic buttress, with its double, triple, fourfold +flights, while it makes such marvels possible, securing light and +space and graceful effect, relieving the pillars within of their +massiveness, is not a restful architectural feature. Consolidation +of matter naturally on the move, security for settlement in a very +complex system of construction--that is avowedly a part of the Gothic +situation, the Gothic problem. With the genius which contended, +though not always quite successfully, with this difficult problem, +came also novel aesthetic effect, a whole volume of delightful +aesthetic effects. For the mere melody of Greek architecture, for +the sense as it were of music in the opposition of successive sounds, +you got harmony, the richer music generated by opposition of sounds +in one and the same moment; and were gainers. And then, in contrast +with the classic manner, and the Romanesque survivals from it, the +vast complexity of the Gothic style seemed, as if consciously, to +correspond to the richness, the expressiveness, the thousandfold +influence of the Catholic religion, in the thirteenth century still +in natural movement in every direction. The later Gothic of the +fifteenth and sixteenth centuries tended to conceal, as it now took +for granted, the structural use of the buttress, for [115] example; +seemed to turn it into a mere occasion for ornament, not always +pleasantly:--while the ornament was out of place, the structure +failed. Such falsity is far enough away from what at Amiens is +really of the thirteenth century. In this pre-eminently "secular" +church, the execution, in all the defiance of its method, is direct, +frank, clearly apparent, with the result not only of reassuring the +intelligence, but of keeping one's curiosity also continually on the +alert, as we linger in these restless aisles. + +The integrity of the edifice, together with its volume of light, has +indeed been diminished by the addition of a range of chapels, beyond +the proper limits of the aisles, north and south. Not a part of the +original design, these chapels were formed for private uses in the +fourteenth century, by the device of walling in and vaulting the open +spaces between the great buttresses of the nave. Under the broad but +subdued sunshine which falls through range upon range of windows, +reflected from white wall and roof and gallery, soothing to the eye, +while it allows you to see the delicate carved work in all its +refinement of touch, it is only as an after-thought, an artificial +after-thought, that you regret the lost stained glass, or the +vanished mural colour, if such to any large extent there ever were. +The best stained glass is often that stained by weather, by centuries +of weather, [116] and we may well be grateful for the amazing +cheerfulness of the interior of Amiens, as we actually find it. +Windows of the richest remain, indeed, in the apsidal chapels; and +the rose-windows of the transepts are known, from the prevailing +tones of their stained glass, as Fire and Water, the western rose +symbolising in like manner Earth and Air, as respectively green and +blue. But there is no reason to suppose that the interior was ever +so darkened as to prevent one's seeing, really and clearly, the +dainty ornament, which from the first abounded here; the floriated +architectural detail; the broad band of flowers and foliage, thick +and deep and purely sculptured, above the arches of nave and choir +and transepts, and wreathing itself continuously round the embedded +piers which support the roof; with the woodwork, the illuminated +metal, the magnificent tombs, the jewellers' work in the chapels. +One precious, early thirteenth-century window of grisaille remains, +exquisite in itself, interesting as evidence of the sort of +decoration which originally filled the larger number of the windows. +Grisaille, with its lace-work of transparent grey, set here and there +with a ruby, a sapphire, a gemmed medallion, interrupts the clear +light on things hardly more than the plain glass, of which indeed +such windows are mainly composed. The finely designed frames of iron +for the support of the glass, in the windows from which even [117] +this decoration is gone, still remain, to the delight of those who +are knowing in the matter. + +Very ancient light, this seems, at any rate, as if it had been lying +imprisoned thus for long centuries; were in fact the light over which +the great vault originally closed, now become almost substance of +thought, one might fancy,--a mental object or medium. We are +reminded that after all we must of necessity look on the great +churches of the Middle Age with other eyes than those who built or +first worshipped in them; that there is something verily worth +having, and a just equivalent for something else lost, in the mere +effect of time, and that the salt of all aesthetic study is in the +question,--What, precisely what, is this to me? You and I, perhaps, +should not care much for the mural colouring of a medieval church, +could we see it as it was; might think it crude, and in the way. +What little remains of it at Amiens has parted, indeed, in the course +of ages, with its shrillness and its coarse grain. And in this +matter certainly, in view of Gothic polychrome, our difference from +the people of the thirteenth century is radical. We have, as it was +very unlikely they should have, a curiosity, a very pleasurable +curiosity, in the mere working of the stone they built with, and in +the minute facts of their construction, which their colouring, and +the layer of plaster it involved, disguised or hid. We may think +that in architecture stone is the most beautiful [118] of all things. +Modern hands have replaced the colour on some of the tombs here--the +effigies, the tabernacles above--skilfully as may be, and have but +deprived them of their dignity. Medieval colouring, in fact, must +have improved steadily, as it decayed, almost till there came to be +no question of colour at all. In architecture, close as it is to +men's lives and their history, the visible result of time is a large +factor in the realised aesthetic value, and what a true architect +will in due measure always trust to. A false restoration only +frustrates the proper ripening of his work. + +If we may credit our modern eyes, then, those old, very secular +builders aimed at, they achieved, an immense cheerfulness in their +great church, with a purpose which still pursued them into their +minuter decoration. The conventional vegetation of the Romanesque, +its blendings of human or animal with vegetable form, in cornice or +capital, have given way here, in the first Pointed style, to a +pleasanter, because more natural, mode of fancy; to veritable forms +of vegetable life, flower or leaf, from meadow and woodside, though +still indeed with a certain survival of the grotesque in a confusion +of the leaf with the flower, which the subsequent Decorated period +will wholly purge away in its perfect garden-borders. It was not +with monastic artists and artisans that the sheds and workshops +around Amiens Cathedral were filled, [119] as it rose from its +foundations through fifty years; and those lay schools of art, with +their communistic sentiment, to which in the thirteenth century the +great episcopal builders must needs resort, would in the natural +course of things tend towards naturalism. The subordinate arts also +were no longer at the monastic stage, borrowing inspiration +exclusively from the experiences of the cloister, but belonged to +guilds of laymen--smiths, painters, sculptors. The great +confederation of the "city," the commune, subdivided itself into +confederations of citizens. In the natural objects of the first +Pointed style there is the freshness as of nature itself, seen and +felt for the first time; as if, in contrast, those older cloistral +workmen had but fed their imagination in an embarrassed, imprisoned, +and really decadent manner, or mere reminiscence of, or prescriptions +about, things visible. + +Congruous again with the popularity of the builders of Amiens, of +their motives, is the wealth, the freedom and abundance, of popular, +almost secular, teaching, here afforded, in the carving especially, +within and without; an open Bible, in place of later legend, as at +monastic Vézelay,--the Bible treated as a book about men and women, +and other persons equally real, but blent with lessons, with the +liveliest observations, on the lives of men as they were then and +now, what they do, and how they do it, or did it then, and on the +doings of nature [120] which so greatly influence what man does; +together with certain impressive metaphysical and moral ideas, a sort +of popular scholastic philosophy, or as if it were the virtues and +vices Aristotle defines, or the characters of Theophrastus, +translated into stone. Above all, it is to be observed that as a +result of this spirit, this "free" spirit, in it, art has at last +become personal. The artist, as such, appears at Amiens, as +elsewhere, in the thirteenth century; and, by making his personal way +of conception and execution prevail there, renders his own work vivid +and organic, and apt to catch the interest of other people. He is no +longer a Byzantine, but a Greek--an unconscious Greek. Proof of this +is in the famous Beau-Dieu of Amiens, as they call that benign, +almost classically proportioned figure, on the central pillar of the +great west doorway; though in fact neither that, nor anything else on +the west front of Amiens, is quite the best work here. For that we +must look rather to the sculpture of the portal of the south +transept, called, from a certain image there, Portail de la Vierge +dorée, gilded at the expense of some unknown devout person at the +beginning of the last century. A presentation of the mystic, the +delicately miraculous, story of Saint Honoré, eighth Bishop of +Amiens, and his companions, with its voices, its intuitions, and +celestial intimations, it has evoked a correspondent method of work +at once [121] naïve and nicely expressive. The rose, or roue, above +it, carries on the outer rim seventeen personages, ascending and +descending--another piece of popular philosophy--the wheel of +fortune, or of human life. + +And they were great brass-founders, surely, who at that early day +modelled and cast the tombs of the Bishops Evrard and Geoffrey, vast +plates of massive black bronze in half-relief, like abstract thoughts +of those grand old prelatic persons. The tomb of Evrard, who laid +the foundations (qui fundamenta hujus basilicae locavit), is not +quite as it was. Formerly it was sunk in the pavement, while the +tomb of Bishop Geoffrey opposite (it was he closed in the mighty +vault of the nave: hanc basilicam culmen usque perduxit), itself +vaulted-over the space of the grave beneath. The supreme excellence +of those original workmen, the journeymen of Robert de Luzarches and +his successor, would seem indeed to have inspired others, who have +been at their best here, down to the days of Louis the Fourteenth. +It prompted, we may think, a high level of execution, through many +revolutions of taste in such matters; in the marvellous furniture of +the choir, for instance, like a whole wood, say a thicket of old +hawthorn, with its curved topmost branches spared, slowly transformed +by the labour of a whole family of artists, during fourteen years, +into the stalls, in number one hundred and ten, with nearly four +[122] thousand figures. Yet they are but on a level with the +Flamboyant carved and coloured enclosures of the choir, with the +histories of John the Baptist, whose face-bones are here preserved, +and of Saint Firmin--popular saint, who protects the houses of Amiens +from fire. Even the screens of forged iron around the sanctuary, +work of the seventeenth century, appear actually to soar, in their +way, in concert with the airy Gothic structure; to let the daylight +pass as it will; to have come, they too, from smiths, odd as it may +seem at just that time, with some touch of inspiration in them. In +the beginning of the fifteenth century they had reared against a +certain bald space of wall, between the great portal and the western +"rose," an organ, a lofty, many-chambered, veritable house of church- +music, rich in azure and gold, finished above at a later day, not +incongruously, in the quaint, pretty manner of Henri-Deux. And those +who are interested in the curiosities of ritual, of the old +provincial Gallican "uses," will be surprised to find one where they +might least have expected it. The reserved Eucharist still hangs +suspended in a pyx, formed like a dove, in the midst of that +lamentable "glory" of the eighteenth century in the central bay of +the sanctuary, all the poor, gaudy, gilt rays converging towards it. +There are days in the year in which the great church is still +literally filled with reverent worshippers, and if you come late to +service you push the [123] doors in vain against the closely serried +shoulders of the good people of Amiens, one and all in black for +church-holiday attire. Then, one and all, they intone the Tantum +ergo (did it ever sound so in the Middle Ages?) as the Eucharist, +after a long procession, rises once more into its resting-place. + +If the Greeks, as at least one of them says, really believed there +could be no true beauty without bigness, that thought certainly is +most specious in regard to architecture; and the thirteenth-century +church of Amiens is one of the three or four largest buildings in the +world, out of all proportion to any Greek building, both in that and +in the multitude of its external sculpture. The chapels of the nave +are embellished without by a double range of single figures, or +groups, commemorative of the persons, the mysteries, to which they +are respectively dedicated--the gigantic form of Christopher, the +Mystery of the Annunciation. + +The builders of the church seem to have projected no very noticeable +towers; though it is conventional to regret their absence, especially +with visitors from England, where indeed cathedral and other towers +are apt to be good, and really make their mark. Robert de Luzarches +and his successors aimed rather at the domical outline, with its +central point at the centre of the church, in the spire or flèche. +The existing spire is a wonderful mass of carpentry [124] of the +beginning of the sixteenth century, at which time the lead that +carefully wraps every part of it was heavily gilt. The great western +towers are lost in the west front, the grandest, perhaps the +earliest, example of its species--three profound, sculptured portals; +a double gallery above, the upper gallery carrying colossal images of +twenty-two kings of the House of Judah, ancestors of Our Lady; then +the great rose; above it the ringers' gallery, half masking the gable +of the nave, and uniting at their top-most storeys the twin, but not +exactly equal or similar, towers, oddly oblong in plan, as if never +intended to carry pyramids or spires. They overlook an immense +distance in those flat, peat-digging, black and green regions, with +rather cheerless rivers, and are the centre of an architectural +region wider still--of a group to which Soissons, far beyond the +woods of Compiègne, belongs, with St. Quentin, and, towards the west, +a too ambitious rival, Beauvais, which has stood however--what we now +see of it--for six centuries. + +It is a spare, rather sad world at most times that Notre-Dame +d'Amiens thus broods over; a country with little else to be proud of; +the sort of world, in fact, which makes the range of conceptions +embodied in these cliffs of quarried and carved stone all the more +welcome as a hopeful complement to the meagreness of most people's +present existence, and its apparent ending in a [125] sparely built +coffin under the flinty soil, and grey, driving sea-winds. In Notre- +Dame, therefore, and her sisters, there is not only a common method +of construction, a single definable type, different from that of +other French latitudes, but a correspondent common sentiment also; +something which speaks, amid an immense achievement just here of what +is beautiful and great, of the necessity of an immense effort in the +natural course of things, of what you may see quaintly designed in +one of those hieroglyphic carvings--radix de terra sitienti: "a root +out of a dry ground." + +NOTES + +109. *Published in the Nineteenth Century, March 1894, and now +reprinted by the kind permission of the proprietors. + + + +VÉZELAY* + +[126] As you discern the long unbroken line of its roof, low-pitched +for France, above the cottages and willow-shaded streams of the +place, you might think the abbey church of Pontigny, the largest +Cistercian church now remaining, only a great farm-building. On a +nearer view there is something unpretending, something pleasantly +English, in the plain grey walls, pierced with long "lancet" windows, +as if they overlooked the lowlands of Essex, or the meadows of Kent +or Berkshire, the sort of country from which came those saintly +exiles of our race who made the cloisters of Pontigny famous, and one +of whom, Saint Edmund of Abingdon, Saint-Edme, still lies enshrined +here. The country which the sons of Saint Bernard choose for their +abode is in fact but a patch of scanty pasture-land in the midst of a +heady wine-district. Like its majestic Cluniac rivals, the church +has its western portico, elegant in structure but of comparatively +humble [127] proportions, under a plain roof of tiles, pent-wise. +Within, a heavy coat of white-wash seems befitting to the simple +forms of the "Transition," or quite earliest "Pointed," style, to its +remarkable continence of spirit, its uniformity, and cleanness of +build. The long prospect of nave and choir ends, however, with a +sort of graceful smallness, in a chevet of seven closely packed, +narrow bays. It is like a nun's church, or like a nun's coif. + +The church of Pontigny, representative generally of the churches of +the Cistercian order, including some of the loveliest early English +ones, was in truth significant of a reaction, a reaction against +monasticism itself, as it had come to be in the order of Cluny, the +genius of which found its proper expression in the imperious, but +half-barbaric, splendours of the richest form of the Romanesque, the +monastic style pre-eminently, as we may still see it at La Charité- +sur-Loire, at Saint-Benoît, above all, on the hill of Vézelay. Saint +Bernard, who had lent his immense influence to the order of Cîteaux +by way of a monastic reform, though he had a genius for hymns and was +in other ways an eminent religious poet, and though he gave new life +to the expiring romance of the crusades, was, as regards the visible +world, much of a Puritan. Was it he who, wrapt in thought upon the +world unseen, walked along the shores of Lake Leman without observing +it?--the eternal snows he might have taken for the walls of the New +Jerusalem; the blue waves he [128] might have fancied its pavement of +sapphire. In the churches, the worship, of his new order he required +simplicity, and even severity, being fortunate in finding so winsome +an exponent of that principle as the early Gothic of Pontigny, or of +the first Cistercian church, now destroyed, at Cîteaux itself. +Strangely enough, while Bernard's own temper of mind was a survival +from the past (we see this in his contest with Abelard), hierarchic, +reactionary, suspicious of novelty, the architectural style of his +preference was largely of secular origin. It had a large share in +that inventive and innovating genius, that expansion of the natural +human soul, to which the art, the literature, the religious movements +of the thirteenth century in France, as in Italy, where it ends with +Dante, bear witness. + +In particular, Bernard had protested against the sculpture, rich and +fantastic, but gloomy, it might be indecent, developed more +abundantly than anywhere else in the churches of Burgundy, and +especially in those of the Cluniac order. "What is the use," he +asks, "of those grotesque monsters in painting and sculpture?" and +almost certainly he had in mind the marvellous carved work at +Vézelay, whither doubtless he came often--for example on Good Friday, +1146, to preach, as we know, the second crusade in the presence of +Louis the Seventh. He too might have wept at the sight of the doomed +multitude (one in ten, it is said, returned from the Holy [129] +Land), as its enthusiasm, under the charm of his fiery eloquence, +rose to the height of his purpose. Even the aisles of Vézelay were +not sufficient for the multitude of his hearers, and he preached to +them in the open air, from a rock still pointed out on the hillside. +Armies indeed have been encamped many times on the slopes and meadows +of the valley of the Cure, now to all seeming so impregnably +tranquil. The Cluniac order even then had already declined from its +first intention; and that decline became especially visible in the +Abbey of Vézelay itself not long after Bernard's day. Its majestic +immoveable church was complete by the middle of the twelfth century. +And there it still stands in spite of many a threat, while the +conventual buildings around it have disappeared; and the institution +it represented--secularised at its own request at the Reformation-- +had dwindled almost to nothing at all, till in the last century the +last Abbot built himself, in place of the old Gothic lodging below +those solemn walls, a sort of Château Gaillard, a dainty abode in the +manner of Louis Quinze--swept away that too at the Revolution--where +the great oaks now flourish, with the rooks and squirrels. + +Yet the order of Cluny, in its time, in that dark period of the +eleventh and twelfth centuries, had deserved well of those to whom +religion, and art, and social order are precious. The Cluniacs had +in fact represented monasticism in the most [130] legitimate form of +its activity; and, if the church of Vézelay was not quite the +grandest of their churches, it is certainly the grandest of them +which remains. It is also typical in character. As Notre-Dame +d'Amiens is pre-eminently the church of the city, of a commune, so +the Madeleine of Vézelay is typically the church of a monastery. + +The monastic style proper, then, in its peculiar power and influence, +was Romanesque, and with the Cluniac order; and here perhaps better +than anywhere else we may understand what it really came to, what was +its effect on the spirits, the imagination. + +As at Pontigny, the Cistercians, for the most part, built their +churches in lowly valleys, according to the intention of their +founder. The representative church of the Cluniacs, on the other +hand, lies amid the closely piled houses of the little town, which it +protected and could punish, on a steep hill-top, like a long massive +chest there, heavy above you, as you climb slowly the winding road, +the old unchanged pathway of Saint Bernard. In days gone by it +threatened the surrounding neighbourhood with four boldly built +towers; had then also a spire at the crossing; and must have been at +that time like a more magnificent version of the buildings which +still crown the hill of Laon. Externally, the proportions, the +squareness, of the nave (west and east, the vast narthex or porch, +and the [131] Gothic choir, rise above its roof-line), remind one of +another great Romanesque church at home--of the nave of Winchester, +out of which Wykeham carved his richly panelled Perpendicular +interior. + +At Vézelay however, the Romanesque, the Romanesque of Burgundy, alike +in the first conception of the whole structure, and in the actual +locking together of its big stones, its masses of almost unbroken +masonry, its inertia, figures as of more imperial character, and +nearer to the Romans of old, than its feebler kindred in England or +Normandy. We seem to have before us here a Romanesque architecture, +studied, not from Roman basilicas or Roman temples, but from the +arenas, the colossal gateways, the triumphal arches, of the people of +empire, such as remain even now, not in the South of France only. +The simple "flying," or rather leaning and almost couchant, +buttresses, quadrants of a circle, might be parts of a Roman +aqueduct. In contrast to the lightsome Gothic manner of the last +quarter of the twelfth century (as we shall presently find it here +too, like an escape for the eye, for the temper, out of some grim +underworld into genial daylight), the Cluniac church might seem a +still active instrument of the iron tyranny of Rome, of its tyranny +over the animal spirits. As the ghost of ancient Rome still lingers +"over the grave thereof," in the papacy, the hierarchy, so is it with +the material structures [132] also, the Cluniac and other Romanesque +churches, which most emphatically express the hierarchical, the papal +system. There is something about this church of Vézelay, in the +long-sustained patience of which it tells, that brings to mind the +labour of slaves, whose occasional Fescennine licence and fresh +memories of a barbaric life also find expression, now and again, in +the strange sculpture of the place. Yet here for once, around a +great French church, there is the kindly repose of English +"precincts," and the country which this monastic acropolis overlooks +southwards is a very pleasant one, as we emerge from the shadows of-- +yes! of that peculiarly sad place--a country all the pleasanter by +reason of the toil upon it, performed, or exacted from others, by the +monks, through long centuries; Le Morvan, with its distant blue hills +and broken foreground, the vineyards, the patches of woodland, the +roads winding into their cool shadows; though in truth the fortress- +like outline of the monastic church and the sombre hue of its +material lend themselves most readily to the effects of a stormy sky. + +By a door, which in the great days opened from a magnificent +cloister, you enter what might seem itself but the ambulatory of a +cloister, superbly vaulted and long and regular, and built of huge +stones of a metallic colour. It is the southern aisle of the nave, a +nave of ten bays, the grandest Romanesque interior in France, [133] +perhaps in the world. In its mortified light the very soul of +monasticism, Roman and half-military, as the completest outcome of a +religion of threats, seems to descend upon one. Monasticism is +indeed the product of many various tendencies of the religious soul, +one or another of which may very properly connect itself with the +Pointed style, as we saw in those lightsome aisles of Pontigny, so +expressive of the purity, the lowly sweetness, of the soul of +Bernard. But it is here at Vézelay, in this iron place, that +monasticism in its central, its historically most significant +purpose, presents itself as most completely at home. There is no +triforium. The monotonous cloistral length of wall above the long- +drawn series of stately round arches, is unbroken save by a plain +small window in each bay, placed as high as possible just below the +cornice, as a mere after-thought, you might fancy. Those windows +were probably unglazed, and closed only with wooden shutters as +occasion required. Furnished with the stained glass of the period, +they would have left the place almost in darkness, giving doubtless +full effect to the monkish candle-light in any case needful here. An +almost perfect cradle-roof, tunnel-like from end to end of the long +central aisle, adds by its simplicity of form to the magnificent +unity of effect. The bearing-arches, which span it from bay to bay, +being parti-coloured, with voussures of alternate white and a kind of +grey or green, [134] being also somewhat flat at the keystone, and +literally eccentric, have, at least for English eyes, something of a +Saracenic or other Oriental character. Again, it is as if the +architects--the engineers--who worked here, had seen things undreamt +of by other Romanesque builders, the builders in England and +Normandy. + +Here then, scarcely relieving the almost savage character of the +work, abundant on tympanum and doorway without, above all on the +immense capitals of the nave within, is the sculpture which offended +Bernard. A sumptuous band of it, a carved guipure of singular +boldness, passes continuously round the arches, and along the +cornices from bay to bay, and with the large bossy tendency of the +ornament throughout may be regarded as typical of Burgundian +richness. Of sculptured capitals, to like, or to dislike with Saint +Bernard, there are nearly a hundred, unwearied in variety, unique in +the energy of their conception, full of wild promise in their coarse +execution, cruel, you might say, in the realisation of human form and +features. Irresistibly they rivet attention. + +The subjects are for the most part Scriptural, chosen apparently as +being apt for strongly satiric treatment, the suicide of Judas, the +fall of Goliath. The legend of Saint Benedict, naturally at home in +a Benedictine church, presented the sculptor with a series of +forcible grotesques ready-made. Some monkish story, [135] half +moral, half facetious, perhaps a little coarse, like that of Sainte +Eugénie, from time to time makes variety; or an example of the +punishment of the wicked by men or by devils, who play a large, and +to themselves thoroughly enjoyable and merry, part here. The +sculptor would seem to have witnessed the punishment of the +blasphemer; how adroitly the executioner planted knee on the +culprit's bosom, as he lay on the ground, and out came the sinful +tongue, to meet the iron pincers. The minds of those who worked thus +seem to have been almost insanely preoccupied just then with the +human countenance, but by no means exclusively in its pleasantness or +dignity. Bold, crude, original, their work indicates delight in the +power of reproducing fact, curiosity in it, but little or no sense of +beauty. The humanity therefore here presented, as in the Cluniac +sculpture generally, is wholly unconventional. M. Viollet-le-Duc +thinks he can trace in it individual types still actually existing in +the peasantry of Le Morvan. Man and morality, however, disappearing +at intervals, the acanthine capitals have a kind of later Venetian +beauty about them, as the Venetian birds also, the conventional +peacocks, or birds wholly of fantasy, amid the long fantastic +foliage. There are still however no true flowers of the field here. +There is pity, it must be confessed, on the other hand, and the +delicacy, the beauty, which that always brings [136] with it, where +Jephtha peeps at the dead daughter's face, lifting timidly the great +leaves that cover it; in the hanging body of Absalom; in the child +carried away by the eagle, his long frock twisted in the wind as he +goes. The parents run out in dismay, and the devil grins, not +because it is the punishment of the child or of them; but because he +is the author of all mischief everywhere, as the monkish carver +conceived--so far wholesomely. + +We must remember that any sculpture less emphatic would have been +ineffective, because practically invisible, in this sombre place. +But at the west end there is an escape for the eye, for the soul, +towards the unhindered, natural, afternoon sun; not however into the +outer and open air, but through an arcade of three bold round arches, +high above the great closed western doors, into a somewhat broader +and loftier place than this, a reservoir of light, a veritable camera +lucida. The light is that which lies below the vault and within the +tribunes of the famous narthex (as they say), the vast fore-church or +vestibule, into which the nave is prolonged. A remarkable feature of +many Cluniac churches, the great western porch, on a scale which is +approached in England only at Peterborough, is found also in some of +the churches of the Cistercians. It is characteristic, in fact, +rather of Burgundy than of either of those religious orders +especially. + +[137] At Pontigny itself, for instance, there is a good one; and a +very early one at Paray-le-Monial. Saint-Père-sous-Vézelay, daughter +of the great church, in the vale below, has a late Gothic example; +Semur also, with fantastic lodges above it. The cathedral of Autun, +a secular church in rivalry of the "religious," presents, by way of +such western porch or vestibule, two entire bays of the nave, +unglazed, with the vast western arch open to the air; the west front, +with its rich portals, being thrown back into the depths of the great +fore-church thus produced. + +The narthex of Vézelay, the largest of these singular structures, is +glazed, and closed towards the west by what is now the façade. It is +itself in fact a great church, a nave of three magnificent bays, and +of three aisles, with a spacious triforium. With their fantastic +sculpture, sheltered thus from accident and weather, in all its +original freshness, the great portals of the primitive façade serve +now for doorways, as a second, solemn, door of entrance, to the +church proper within. The very structure of the place, and its +relation to the main edifice, indicate that it was for use on +occasion, when, at certain great feasts, that of the Magdalen +especially, to whom the church of Vézelay is dedicated, the monastery +was swollen with pilgrims, too poor, too numerous, to be lodged in +the town, come hither to worship before the [138] relics of the +friend of Jesus, enshrined in a low-vaulted crypt, the floor of which +is the natural rocky surface of the hill-top. It may be that the +pilgrims were permitted to lie for the night, not only on the +pavement, but (if so favoured) in the high and dry chamber formed by +the spacious triforium over the north aisle, awaiting an early Mass. +The primitive west front, then, had become but a wall of partition; +and above its central portal, where the round arched west windows had +been, ran now a kind of broad, arcaded tribune, in full view of the +entire length of the church. In the midst of it stood an altar; and +here perhaps, the priest who officiated being visible to the whole +assembled multitude east and west, the early Mass was said. + +The great vestibule was finished about forty years after the +completion of the nave, towards the middle of the twelfth century. +And here, in the great pier-arches, and in the eastern bay of the +vault, still with the large masonry, the large, flat, unmoulded +surfaces, and amid the fantastic carvings of the Romanesque building +about it, the Pointed style, determined yet discreet, makes itself +felt--makes itself felt by appearing, if not for the first time, yet +for the first time in the organic or systematic development of French +architecture. Not in the unambitious façade of Saint-Denis, nor in +the austere aisles of Sens, but at Vézelay, in this grandiose fabric, +so worthy of the event, Viollet-le-Duc would [139] fain see the +birthplace of the Pointed style. Here at last, with no sense of +contrast, but by way of veritable "transition," and as if by its own +matured strength, the round arch breaks into the double curve, les +arcs brisés, with a wonderful access of grace. And the imaginative +effect is forthwith enlarged. Beyond, far beyond, what is actually +presented to the eye in that peculiar curvature, its mysterious +grace, and by the stateliness, the elevation of the ogival method of +vaulting, the imagination is stirred to present one with what belongs +properly to it alone. The masonry, though large, is nicely fitted; a +large light is admitted through the now fully pronounced Gothic +windows towards the west. At Amiens we found the Gothic spirit, +reigning there exclusively, to be a restless one. At Vézelay, where +it breathes for the first time amid the heavy masses of the old +imperial style, it breathes the very genius of monastic repose. And +then, whereas at Amiens, and still more at Beauvais, at Saint- +Quentin, you wonder how these monuments of the past can have endured +so long, in strictly monastic Vézelay you have a sense of freshness, +such as, in spite of their ruin, we perceive in the buildings of +Greece. We enjoy here not so much, as at Amiens, the sentiment of +antiquity, but that of eternal duration. + +But let me place you once more where we stood for a while, on +entering by the doorway [140] in the midst of the long southern +aisle. Cross the aisle, and gather now in one view the perspective +of the whole. Away on the left hand the eye is drawn upward to the +tranquil light of the vaults of the fore-church, seeming doubtless +the more spacious because partly concealed from us by the wall of +partition below. But on the right hand, towards the east, as if with +the set purpose of a striking architectural contrast, an instruction +as to the place of this or that manner in the architectural series, +the long, tunnel-like, military work of the Romanesque nave opens +wide into the exhilarating daylight of choir and transepts, in the +sort of Gothic Bernard would have welcomed, with a vault rising now +high above the roof-line of the body of the church, sicut lilium +excelsum. The simple flowers, the flora, of the early Pointed style, +which could never have looked at home as an element in the half- +savage decoration of the nave, seem to be growing here upon the +sheaves of slender, reedy pillars, as if naturally in the carved +stone. Even here indeed, Roman, or Romanesque, taste still lingers +proudly in the monolith columns of the chevet. Externally, we may +note with what dexterity the Gothic choir has been inserted into its +place, below and within the great buttresses of the earlier +Romanesque one. + +Visitors to the great church of Assisi have sometimes found a kind of +parable in the threefold [141] ascent from the dark crypt where the +body of Saint Francis lies, through the gloomy "lower" church, into +the height and breadth, the physical and symbolic "illumination," of +the church above. At Vézelay that kind of contrast suggests itself +in one view; the hopeful, but transitory, glory upon which one +enters; the long, darksome, central avenue; the "open vision" into +which it conducts us. As a symbol of resurrection, its choir is a +fitting diadem to the church of the Magdalen, whose remains the monks +meant it to cover. + +And yet, after all, notwithstanding this assertion of the superiority +(are we so to call it?) of the new Gothic way, perhaps by the very +force of contrast, the Madeleine of Vézelay is still pre-eminently a +Romanesque, and thereby the typically monastic, church. In spite of +restoration even, as we linger here, the impression of the monastic +Middle Age, of a very exclusive monasticism, that has verily turned +its back upon common life, jealously closed inward upon itself, is a +singularly weighty one; the more so because, as the peasant said when +asked the way to an old sanctuary that had fallen to the occupation +of farm-labourers, and was now deserted even by them: Maintenant il +n'y a personne là. + +NOTES + +126. *Published in the Nineteenth Century, June 1894, and now +reprinted by the kind permission of the proprietors. + + + +APOLLO IN PICARDY* + +[142] "CONSECUTIVE upon Apollo in all his solar fervour and +effulgence," says a writer of Teutonic proclivities, "we may discern +even among the Greeks themselves, elusively, as would be natural with +such a being, almost like a mock sun amid the mists, the northern or +ultra-northern sun-god. In hints and fragments the lexicographers +and others have told us something of this Hyperborean Apollo, fancies +about him which evidence some knowledge of the Land of the Midnight +Sun, of the sun's ways among the Laplanders, of a hoary summer +breathing very softly on the violet beds, or say, the London-pride +and crab-apples, provided for those meagre people, somewhere amid the +remoteness of their icy seas. In such wise Apollo had already +anticipated his sad fortunes in the Middle Age as a god definitely in +exile, driven north of the Alps, and even here ever in flight before +the summer. Summer indeed he leaves now to the management of [143] +others, finding his way from France and Germany to still paler +countries, yet making or taking with him always a certain seductive +summer-in-winter, though also with a divine or titanic regret, a +titanic revolt in his heart, and consequent inversion at times of his +old beneficent and properly solar doings. For his favours, his +fallacious good-humour, which has in truth a touch of malign magic +about it, he makes men pay sometimes a terrible price, and is in fact +a devil!" + +Devilry, devil's work:--traces of such you might fancy were to be +found in a certain manuscript volume taken from an old monastic +library in France at the Revolution. It presented a strange example +of a cold and very reasonable spirit disturbed suddenly, thrown off +its balance, as by a violent beam, a blaze of new light, revealing, +as it glanced here and there, a hundred truths unguessed at before, +yet a curse, as it turned out, to its receiver, in dividing +hopelessly against itself the well-ordered kingdom of his thought. +Twelfth volume of a dry enough treatise on mathematics, applied, +still with no relaxation of strict method, to astronomy and music, it +should have concluded that work, and therewith the second period of +the life of its author, by drawing tight together the threads of a +long and intricate argument. In effect however, it began, or, in +perturbed manner, and as [144] with throes of childbirth, seemed the +preparation for, an argument of an entirely new and disparate +species, such as would demand a new period of life also, if it might +be, for its due expansion. + +But with what confusion, what baffling inequalities! How afflicting +to the mind's eye! It was a veritable "solar storm"--this +illumination, which had burst at the last moment upon the strenuous, +self-possessed, much-honoured monastic student, as he sat down +peacefully to write the last formal chapters of his work ere he +betook himself to its well-earned practical reward as superior, with +lordship and mitre and ring, of the abbey whose music and calendar +his mathematical knowledge had qualified him to reform. The very +shape of Volume Twelve, pieced together of quite irregularly formed +pages, was a solecism. It could never be bound. In truth, the man +himself, and what passed with him in one particular space of time, +had invaded a matter, which is nothing if not entirely abstract and +impersonal. Indirectly the volume was the record of an episode, an +interlude, an interpolated page of life. And whereas in the earlier +volumes you found by way of illustration no more than the simplest +indispensable diagrams, the scribe's hand had strayed here into mazy +borders, long spaces of hieroglyph, and as it were veritable pictures +of the theoretic elements of his subject. Soft wintry auroras seemed +to play behind whole pages of crabbed textual writing, line and +figure [145] bending, breathing, flaming, in, to lovely +"arrangements" that were like music made visible; till writing and +writer changed suddenly, "to one thing constant never," after the +known manner of madmen in such work. Finally, the whole matter broke +off with an unfinished word, as a later hand testified, adding the +date of the author's death, "deliquio animi." + +He had been brought to the monastery as a little child; was bred +there; had never yet left it, busy and satisfied through youth and +early manhood; was grown almost as necessary a part of the community +as the stones of its material abode, as a pillar of the great tower +he ascended to watch the movement of the stars. The structure of a +fortified medieval town barred in those who belonged to it very +effectively. High monastic walls intrenched the monk still further. +From the summit of the tower you looked straight down into the deep +narrow streets, upon the houses (in one of which Prior Saint-Jean was +born) climbing as high as they dared for breathing space within that +narrow compass. But you saw also the green breadth of Normandy and +Picardy, this way and that; felt on your face the free air of a still +wider realm beyond what was seen. The reviving scent of it, the mere +sight of the flowers brought thence, of the country produce at the +convent gate, stirred the ordinary monkish soul with desires, +sometimes with efforts, to be sent on duty there. Prior [146] Saint- +Jean, on the other hand, shuddered at the view, at the thoughts it +suggested to him; thoughts of unhallowed wild places, where the old +heathen had worshipped "stocks and stones," and where their +wickedness might still survive them in something worse than +mischievous tricks of nature, such as you might read of in Ovid, +whose verses, however, he for his part had never so much as touched +with a finger. He gave thanks rather, that his vocation to the +abstract sciences had kept him far apart from the whole crew of +miscreant poets--Abode of demons. + +Thither nevertheless he was now to depart, sent to the Grange or +Obedience of Notre-Dame De-Pratis by the aged Abbot (about to resign +in his favour) for the benefit of his body's health, a little +impaired at last by long intellectual effort, yet so invaluable to +the community. But let him beware! whispered his dearest friend, who +shared those strange misgivings, let him "take heed to his ways" when +he was come to that place. "The mere contact of one's feet with its +soil might change one." And that same night, disturbed perhaps by +thoughts of the coming journey with which his brain was full, Prior +Saint-Jean himself dreamed vividly, as he had been little used to do. +He saw the very place in which he lay (he knew it! his little inner +cell, the brown doors, the white breadth of wall, the black crucifix +upon it) alight, alight [147] softly; and looking, as he fancied, +from the window, saw also a low circlet of soundless flame, waving, +licking daintily up the black sky, but harmless, beautiful, closing +in upon that round dark space in the midst, which was the earth. He +seemed to feel upon his shoulder just then the touch of his friend +beside him. "It is hell-fire!" he said. + +The Prior took with him a very youthful though devoted companion-- +Hyacinthus, the pet of the community. They laughed admiringly at the +rebellious masses of his black hair, with blue in the depths of it, +like the wings of the swallow, which refused to conform to the +monkish pattern. It only grew twofold, crown upon crown, after the +half-yearly shaving. And he was as neat and serviceable as he was +delightful to be with. Prior Saint-Jean, then, and the boy started +before daybreak for the long journey; onwards, till darkness, a soft +twilight rather, was around them again. How unlike a winter night it +seemed, the further they went through the endless, lonely, turf-grown +tracts, and along the edge of a valley, at length--vallis monachorum, +monksvale--taken aback by its sudden steepness and depth, as of an +immense oval cup sunken in the grassy upland, over which a golden +moon now shone broadly. Ah! there it was at last, the white Grange, +the white gable of the chapel apart amid a few scattered white +gravestones, the white flocks crouched about on the hoar-frost, [148] +like the white clouds, packed somewhat heavily on the horizon, and +nacrés as the clouds of June, with their own light and heat in them, +in their hollows, you might fancy. + +From the very first, the atmosphere, the light, the influence of +things, seemed different from what they knew; and how distant already +the dark buildings of their home! Was there the breath of surviving +summer blossom on the air? Now and then came a gentle, comfortable +bleating from the folds, and themselves slept soundly at last in the +great open upper chamber of the Grange; were awakened by the sound of +thunder. Strange, in the late November night! It had parted, +however, with its torrid fierceness; modulated by distance, seemed to +break away into musical notes. And the lightning lingered along with +it, but glancing softly; was in truth an aurora, such as persisted +month after month on the northern sky as they sojourned here. Like +Prospero's enchanted island, the whole place was "full of noises." +The wind it might have been, passing over metallic strings, but that +they were audible even when the night was breathless. + +So like veritable music, however, were they on that first night that, +upon reflexion, the Prior climbed softly the winding stair down which +they appeared to flow, to the great solar among the beams of the +roof, where the farm produce lay stored. A flood of moonlight now +fell through the unshuttered dormer-windows; and, [149] under the +glow of a lamp hanging from the low rafters, Prior Saint-Jean seemed +to be looking for the first time on the human form, on the old Adam +fresh from his Maker's hand. A servant of the house, or farm- +labourer, perhaps!--fallen asleep there by chance on the fleeces +heaped like golden stuff high in all the corners of the place. A +serf! But what unserflike ease, how lordly, or godlike rather, in +the posture! Could one fancy a single curve bettered in the rich, +warm, white limbs; in the haughty features of the face, with the +golden hair, tied in a mystic knot, fallen down across the inspired +brow? And yet what gentle sweetness also in the natural movement of +the bosom, the throat, the lips, of the sleeper! Could that be +diabolical, and really spotted with unseen evil, which was so +spotless to the eye? The rude sandals of the monastic serf lay +beside him apart, and all around was of the roughest, excepting only +two strange objects lying within reach (even in their own renowned +treasury Prior Saint-Jean had not seen the like of them), a harp, or +some such instrument, of silver-gilt once, but the gold had mostly +passed from it, and a bow, fashioned somehow of the same precious +substance. The very form of these things filled his mind with +inexplicable misgivings. He repeated a befitting collect, and trod +softly away. + +It was in truth but a rude place to which they were come. But, after +life in the [150] monastery, the severe discipline of which the Prior +himself had done much to restore, there was luxury in the free, self- +chosen hours, the irregular fare, in doing pretty much as one +pleased, in the sweet novelties of the country; to the boy Hyacinth +especially, who forgot himself, or rather found his true self for the +first time. Girding up his heavy frock, which he laid aside erelong +altogether to go in his coarse linen smock only, he seemed a monastic +novice no longer; yet, in his natural gladness, was found more +companionable than ever by his senior, surprised, delighted, for his +part, at the fresh springing of his brain, the spring of his +footsteps over the close greensward, as if smoothed by the art of +man. Cause of his renewed health, or concurrent with its effects, +the air here might have been that of a veritable paradise, still +unspoiled. "Could there be unnatural magic," he asked himself again, +"any secret evil, lurking in these tranquil vale-sides, in their +sweet low pastures, in the belt of scattered woodland above them, in +the rills of pure water which lisped from the open down beyond?" +Making what was really a boy's experience, he had a wholly boyish +delight in his holiday, and certainly did not reflect how much we +beget for ourselves in what we see and feel, nor how far a certain +diffused music in the very breath of the place was the creation of +his own ear or brain. + +[151] That strange enigmatic owner of the harp and the bow, whom he +had found sleeping so divinely, actually waited on them the next +morning with all obsequiousness, stirred the great fire of peat, +adjusted duly their monkish attire, laid their meal. It seemed an +odd thing to be served thus, like St. Jerome by the lion, as if by +some imperiously beautiful wild animal tamed. You hesitated to +permit, were a little afraid of, his services. Their silent tonsured +porter himself, contrast grim enough to any creature of that kind, +had been so far seduced as to permit him to sleep there in the +Grange, as he loved to do, instead of in ruder, rougher quarters; +and, coaxed into odd garrulity on this one matter, told the new- +comers the little he knew, with much also that he only suspected, +about him; among other things, as to the origin of those precious +objects, which might have belonged to some sanctuary or noble house, +found thus in the possession of a mere labourer, who is no Frenchman, +but a pagan, or gipsy, white as he looks, from far south or east, and +who works or plays furtively, by night for the most part, returning +to sleep awhile before daybreak. The other herdsmen of the valley +are bond-servants, but he a hireling at will, though coming regularly +at a certain season. He has come thus for any number of years past, +though seemingly never grown older (as the speaker reflects), singing +his way meagrely from farm to farm, to the sound of [152] his harp. +His name?--It was scarcely a name at all, in the diffident syllables +he uttered in answer to that question, on first coming there; but of +names known to them it came nearest to a malignant one in Scripture, +Apollyon. Apollyon had a just discernible tonsure, but probably no +right to it. + +Well skilled in architecture, Prior Saint-Jean was set, by way of a +holiday task, to superintend the completion of the great monastic +barn then in building. The visitor admires it still; perhaps +supposes it, with its noble aisle, though set north and south, to be +a desecrated church. If he be an expert in such matters, he will +remark a sort of classical harmony in its broad, very simple +proportions, with a certain suppression of Gothic emphasis, more +especially in that peculiarly Gothic feature, the buttresses, +scarcely marking the unbroken, windowless walls, which rise very +straight, taking the sun placidly. The silver-grey stone, cut, if it +came from this neighbourhood at all, from some now forgotten quarry, +has the fine, close-grained texture of antique marble. The great +northern gable is almost a classic pediment. The horizontal lines of +plinth and ridge and cornice are kept unbroken, the roof of sea-grey +slates being pitched less angularly than is usual in this rainy +clime. A welcome contrast, the Prior thought it, to the sort of +architectural nightmare he came from. He found the structure already +more than half- [153] way up, the low squat pillars ready for their +capitals. + +Yes! it must have so happened often in the Middle Age, as you feel +convinced, in looking sometimes at medieval building. Style must +have changed under the very hands of men who were no wilful +innovators. Thus it was here, in the later work of Prior Saint-Jean, +all unconsciously. The mysterious harper sat there always, at the +topmost point achieved; played, idly enough it might seem, on his +precious instrument, but kept in fact the hard taxed workmen +literally in tune, working for once with a ready will, and, so to +speak, with really inventive hands--working expeditiously, in this +favourable weather, till far into the night, as they joined unbidden +in a chorus, which hushed, or rather turned to music, the noise of +their chipping. It was hardly noise at all, even in the night-time. +Now and again Brother Apollyon descended nimbly to surprise them, at +an opportune moment, by the display of an immense strength. A great +cheer exploded suddenly, as single-handed he heaved a massive stone +into its place. He seemed to have no sense of weight: "Put there by +the devil!" the modern villager assures you. + +With a change then, not so much of style as of temper, of management, +in the application of acknowledged rules, Prior Saint-Jean shaping +only, adapting, simplifying, partly with a view [154] to economy, not +the heavy stones only, but the heavy manner of using them, turned +light. With no pronounced ornamentation, it is as if in the upper +story ponderous root and stem blossomed gracefully, blossomed in +cornice and capital and pliant arch-line, as vigorous as they were +graceful, and rose on high quickly. Almost suddenly tie-beam and +rafter knit themselves together into the stone, and the dark, dry, +roomy place was closed in securely to this day. Mere audible music, +certainly, had counted for something in the operations of an art, +held at its best (as we know) to be a sort of music made visible. +That idle singer, one might fancy, by an art beyond art, had +attracted beams and stones into their fit places. And there, sure +enough, he still sits, as a final decorative touch, by way of apex on +the gable which looks northward, though much weather-worn, and with +an ugly gap between the shoulder and the fingers on the harp,* as if, +literally, he had cut off his right hand and put it from him:--King +David, or an angel? guesses the careless tourist. The space below +has been lettered. After a little puzzling you recognise there the +relics of a familiar verse from a Latin psalm Nisi Dominus +aedificaverit domum,+ and the rest: inscribed as well as may be in +Greek characters. Prior Saint-Jean caused it to be so inscribed, +absurdly, during his last days there. + +[155] And is not the human body, too, a building, with architectural +laws, a structure, tending by the very forces which primarily held it +together to drop asunder in time? Not in vain, it seemed, had Prior +Saint-Jean come to this mystic place for the improvement of his +body's health. Thenceforth that fleshly tabernacle had housed him, +had housed his cunning, overwrought and excitable soul, ever the +better day by day, and he began to feel his bodily health to be a +positive quality or force, the presence near him of that singular +being having surely something to do with this result. He and his +fascinations, his music, himself, might at least be taken for an +embodiment of all those genial influences of earth and sky, and the +easy ways of living here, which made him turn, with less of an effort +than he had known for many years past, to his daily tasks, and sink +so regularly, so immediately, to wholesome rest on returning from +them. It was as if Brother Apollyon himself abhorred the spectacle +of distress, and mainly for his own satisfaction charmed away other +people's maladies. The mere touch of that ice-cold hand, laid on the +feverish brow, when the Prior lapsed from time to time into his +former troubles, certainly calmed the respiration of a troubled +sleeper. Was there magic in it, not wholly natural? The hand might +have been a dead one. But then, was it surprising, after all, that +the [156] methods of curing men's maladies, as being in very deed the +fruit of sin, should have something strange and unlooked-for about +them, like some of those Old Testament healings and purifications +which the Prior's biblical lore suggested to him? Yet Brother +Apollyon, if their surly Janitor, in his less kindly moments, spoke +truly, himself greatly needed purification, being not only a thief, +but a homicide in hiding from the law. Nay, once, on his annual +return from southern or eastern lands, he had been observed on his +way along the streets of the great town literally scattering the +seeds of disease till his serpent-skin bag was empty. And within +seven days the "black death" was there, reaping its thousands. As a +wise man declared, he who can best cure disease can also most +cunningly engender it. + +In short, these creatures of rule, these "regulars," the Prior and +his companion, were come in contact for the first time in their lives +with the power of untutored natural impulse, of natural inspiration. +The boy experienced it immediately in the games which suited his +years, but which he had never so much as seen before; as his superior +was to undergo its influence by-and-by in serious study. By night +chiefly, in its long, continuous twilights, Hyacinth became really a +boy at last, with immense gaiety; eyes, hands and feet awake, +expanding, as he raced his comrade over the [157] turf, with the +conical Druidic stone for a goal, or wrestled lithely enough with +him, though as with a rock; or, taking the silver bow in hand for a +moment, transfixed a mark, next a bird, on the bough, on the wing, +shedding blood for the first time, with a boy's delight, a boy's +remorse. Friend Apollyon seemed able to draw the wild animals too, +to share their sport, yet not altogether kindly. Tired, surfeited, +he destroys them when his game with them is at an end; breaks the +toy; deftly snaps asunder the fragile back. Though all alike would +come at his call, or the sound of his harp, he had his preferences; +and warred in the night-time, as if on principle, against the +creatures of the day. The small furry thing he pierced with his +arrow fled to him nevertheless caressingly, with broken limb, to die +palpitating in his hand. In this wonderful season, the migratory +birds, from Norway, from Britain beyond the seas, came there as usual +on the north wind, with sudden tumult of wings; but went that year no +further, and by Christmas-time had built their nests, filling that +belt of woodland around the vale with the chatter of their business +and love quarrels. In turn they drew after them strangers no one +here had ever known before; the like of which Hyacinth, who knew his +bestiary, had never seen even in a picture. The wild-cat, the wild- +swan--the boy peeped on these wonders as they floated over the vale, +or [158] glided with unwonted confidence over its turf, under the +moonlight, or that frequent continuous aurora which was not the dawn. +Even the modest rivulets of the hill-side felt that influence, and +"lisped" no longer, but babbled as they leapt, like mountain streams, +exposing their rocky bed. Were they angry, as they ran red sometimes +with blood-drops from the stricken bird caught there by rock or +bough, as it fell with rent breast among the waves? + +But say, think, what you might against him, the pagan outlaw was +worth his hire as a herdsman; seemingly loved his sheep; was an +"affectionate shepherd"; cured their diseases; brought them easily to +the birth, and if they strayed afar would bring them back tenderly +upon his shoulders. Monastic persons would have seen that image many +times before. Yet if Apollyon looked like the great carved figure +over the low doorway of their place of penitence at home, that could +be but an accident, or perhaps a deceit; so closely akin to those +soulless creatures did he still seem to the wondering Prior,-- +immersed in, or actually a part of, that irredeemable natural world +he had dreaded so greatly ere he came hither. And was he after all +making terms with it now, in the seductive person of this mysterious +being--man or demon--suspected of murder; who has an air of +unfathomable evil about him as from a distant but ineffaceable past, +and a sort of heathen [159] understanding with the dark realm of +matter; who is bringing the simple people, the women and lovesick +lads, back to those caves and cromlechs and blasted trees, resorts of +old godless secret-telling? And still he has all his own way with +beasts and man, with the Prior himself, much as all alike distrust +him. + +Most conspicuous in the little group of buildings, a feudal tower of +goodly white stone, cylindrical and smoothly polished without to +hinder the ascent of creeping things, and snugly plastered within to +resist the damp, was the pigeon-house--a veritable feudal tower, a +veritable feudal plaisance of birds, which the common people dared +not so much as ruffle. About a thousand of them were housed there, +each in its little chamber, encouraged to grow plump, and to breed, +in perfect self-content. From perch to perch of the great axle-tree +in the centre, monastic feet might climb, gentle monastic hands pass +round to every tiny compartment in turn. The arms of the monastery +were carved on the keystone of the doorway, and the tower finished in +a conical roof, with becoming aerial gaillardise, with pretty dormer- +windows for the inmates to pass in and out, little balconies for +brooding in the sun, little awnings to protect them from rough +breezes, and a great weather-vane, on which the birds crowded for the +chance of a ride. If the peasants of that day, whose small fields +they plundered, noting all this, perhaps [160] envied the birds +dumbly, for the brethren, on the other hand, it was a constant +delight to watch the feathered brotherhood, which supplied likewise +their daintiest fare. Who then, what hawk, or wild-cat, or other +savage beast, had ravaged it so wantonly, so very cruelly destroyed +the bright creatures in a single night--broken backs, rent away +limbs, pierced the wings? And what was that object there below? The +silver harp surely, lying broken likewise on the sanded floor, +soaking in the pale milky blood and torn plumage. + +Apollyon sobbed and wept audibly as he went about his ordinary doings +next day, for once fully, though very sadly, awake in it; and towards +evening, when the villagers came to the Prior to confess themselves, +the Feast of the Nativity being now at hand, he too came along with +them in his place meekly, like any other penitent, touched the +lustral water devoutly, knew all the ways, seemed to desire +absolution from some guilt of blood heavier than the slaughter of +beast or bird. The Prior and his attendant, on their side, are +reminded that by this time they have wellnigh forgotten the monastic +duties still incumbent upon them, especially in that matter of the +"Offices." On the vigil of the feast, however, Brother Apollyon +himself summoned the devout to Midnight Mass with the great bell, +which had hung silent for a generation, wedged in immoveably by a +beam of [161] the cradle fallen out of its place. With an immense +effort of strength he relieved it, hitched the bell back upon its +wheel; the thick rust cracked on the hinges, and the strokes tolled +forth betimes, with a hundred querulous, quaint creatures, bats and +owls, circling stupidly in the waves of sound, but allowed to settle +back again undisturbedly into their beds. + +People and priest, the Prior, vested as well as might be, with +Hyacinth as "server," come in due course, all alike amazed to find +that frozen neglected place, with its low-browed vault and narrow +windows, alight, and as if warmed with flowers from a summer more +radiant far than that of France, with ilex and laurel--gilt laurel-- +by way of holly and box. Prior Saint-Jean felt that he had never +really seen flowers before. Somewhat later they and the like of them +seemed to have grown into and over his brain; to have degraded the +scientific and abstract outlines of things into a tangle of useless +ornament. Whence were they procured? From what height, or hellish +depth perhaps? Apollyon, who entered the chapel just then, as if +quite naturally, though with a bleating lamb in his bosom ("dropped" +thus early in that wonderful season) by way of an offering, took his +place at the altar's very foot, and drawing forth his harp, now +restrung, at the right moment, turned to real silvery music the +hoarse Gloria in Excelsis of those rude worshippers, still [162] +shrinking from him, while they listened in a little circle, as he +stood there in his outlandish attire of skins strangely spotted and +striped. With that however the Mass broke off unconsummated. The +Prior felt obliged to desist from the sacred office, and had left the +altar hurriedly. + +But Brother Apollyon put his strange attire aside next day, and in a +much-worn monk's frock, drawn forth from a dark corner, came with +them, still like a Penitent, when they turned once more to their +neglected studies somewhat sadly. See them then, after a collect for +"Light" repeated by Hyacinth, skull-cap in hand, seated at their +desks in the little scriptorium, panelled off from their living-room +on the first floor, while the Prior makes an effort to recover the +last thought of his long-suspended work, in the execution of which +the boy is to assist with his skilful pen. The great glazed windows +remain open; admit, as if already on the soft air of spring, what +seems like a stream of flowery odours, the entire moonlit scene, with +the thorn bushes on the vale-side prematurely bursting into blossom, +and the sound of birds and flocks emphasising the deep silence of the +night. + +Apollyon then, as if by habit, as he had shared all their occupations +of late, had taken his seat beside them, meekly enough, at first with +the manner of a mere suppliant for the [163] crumbs of their high +studies. But, straightway again, he surprises by more than racing +forward incredibly on the road to facts, and from facts to luminous +doctrine; Prior Saint-Jean himself, in comparison, seeming to lag +incompetently behind. He can but wonder at this strange scholar's +knowledge of a distant past, evidenced in his familiarity (it was as +if he might once have spoken them) with the dead languages in which +their text-books are written. There was more surely than the utmost +merely natural acuteness in his guesses as to the words intended by +those crabbed contractions, of their meaning, in his sense of +allusions and the like. An ineffaceable memory it might rather seem +of the entire world of which those languages had been the living +speech, once more vividly awake under the Prior's cross- questioning, +and now more than supplementing his own laborious search. + +And at last something of the same kind happens with himself. Had he, +on his way hither from the convent, passed unwittingly through some +river or rivulet of Lethe, that had carried away from him all his so +carefully accumulated intellectual baggage of fact and theory? The +hard and abstract laws, or theory of the laws, of music, of the +stars, of mechanical structure, in hard and abstract formulae, adding +to the abstract austerity of the man, seemed to have deserted him; to +be revived in him again [164] however, at the contact of this +extraordinary pupil or fellow-inquirer, though in a very different +guise or attitude towards himself, as matters no longer to be +reasoned upon and understood, but to be seen rather, to be looked at +and heard. Did not he see the angle of the earth's axis with the +ecliptic, the deflexions of the stars from their proper orbits with +fatal results here below, and the earth--wicked, unscriptural truth!- +-moving round the sun, and those flashes of the eternal and unorbed +light such as bring water, flowers, living things, out of the rocks, +the dust? The singing of the planets: he could hear it, and might in +time effect its notation. Having seen and heard, he might erelong +speak also, truly and with authority, on such matters. Could one but +arrest it for one's self, for final transference to others, on the +written or printed page--this beam of insight, or of inspiration! + +Alas! one result of its coming was that it encouraged delay. If he +set hand to the page, the firm halo, here a moment since, was gone, +had flitted capriciously to the wall; passed next through the window, +to the wall of the garden; was dancing back in another moment upon +the innermost walls of one's own miserable brain, to swell there-- +that astounding white light!--rising steadily in the cup, the mental +receptacle, till it overflowed, and he lay faint and drowning in it. +Or he rose above it, as above a great liquid surface, and hung +giddily over it--light, [165] simple, and absolute--ere he fell. Or +there was a battle between light and darkness around him, with no way +of escape from the baffling strokes, the lightning flashes; flashes +of blindness one might rather call them. In truth, the intuitions of +the night (for they worked still, or tried to work, by night) became +the sickly nightmares of the day, in which Prior Saint-Jean slept, or +tried to sleep, or lay sometimes in a trance without food for many +hours, from which he would spring up suddenly to crowd, against time, +as much as he could into his book with pen or brush; winged flowers, +or stars with human limbs and faces, still intruding themselves, or +mere notes of light and darkness from the actual horizon. There it +all is still in the faded gold and colours of the ancient volume-- +"Prior Saint-Jean's folly":--till on a sudden the hand collapses, as +he becomes aware of that real, prosaic, broad daylight lying harsh +upon the page, making his delicately toned auroras seem but a patch +of grey, and himself for a moment, with a sigh of disgust, of self- +reproach, to be his old unimpassioned monastic self once more. + +The boy, for his part, was grown at last full of misgiving. He +ponders how he may get the Prior away, or escape by himself, find his +way back to the convent and report his master's condition, his +strange loss of memory for names and the like, his illusions about +himself and [166] others. And he is more than ever distrustful now +of his late beloved playmate, who quietly obstructs any movement of +the kind, and has undertaken, at the Prior's entreaty, to draw down +the moon from the sky, for some shameful price, known to the +magicians of that day. + +Yet Apollyon, at all events, would still play as gaily as ever on +occasion. Hitherto they had played as young animals do; without +playthings namely, applying hand or foot only to their games. But it +happened about this time that a grave was dug, a grave of unusual +depth, to be ready, in that fiery plaguesome weather, the first heat +of veritable summer come suddenly, for the body of an ancient +villager then at the point of death. In the drowsy afternoon +Hyacinth awakes Apollyon, to see the strange thing he has found at +the grave-side, among the gravel and yellow bones cast up there. He +had wrested it with difficulty from the hands of the half-crippled +gravedigger, at eighty still excitable by the mere touch of metal. + +The like of it had indeed been found before, within living memory, in +this place of immemorial use as a graveyard--"Devil's penny-pieces" +people called them. Five such lay hidden already in a dark corner of +the chapel, to keep them from superstitious employment. To-day they +came out of hiding at last. Apollyon knew the use of the thing at a +glance; had put an expert hand to it forthwith; poises the [167] +discus; sets it wheeling. How easily it spins round under one's arm, +in the groove of the bent fingers, slips thence smoothly like a knife +flung from its sheath, as if for a course of perpetual motion! +Splendescit eundo: it seems to burn as it goes. It is heavier many +times than it looks, and sharp-edged. By night they have scoured and +polished the corroded surfaces. Apollyon promises Hyacinth and +himself rare sport in the cool of the evening--an evening however, as +it turned out, not less breathless than the day. + +In the great heat Apollyon had flung aside, as if for ever, the last +sorry remnant of his workman's attire, and challenged the boy to do +the same. On the moonlit turf there, crouching, right foot foremost, +and with face turned backwards to the disk in his right hand, his +whole body, in that moment of rest, full of the circular motion he is +about to commit to it, he seemed--beautiful pale spectre--to shine +from within with a light of his own, like that of the glow-worm in +the thicket, or the dead and rotten roots of the old trees. And as +if they had a proper motion of their own in them, the disks, the +quoits, ran, amid the delighted shouts and laughter of the boy, as he +follows, scarcely less swift, to score the points of their contact +with the grass. Again and again they recommence, forgetful of the +hours; while the death-bell cries out harshly for the grave's +occupant, and [168] the corpse itself is borne along stealthily not +far from them, and, unnoticed by either, the entire aspect of things +has changed. Under the overcast sky it is in darkness they are +playing, by guess and touch chiefly; and suddenly an icy blast of +wind has lifted the roof from the old chapel, the trees are moaning +in wild circular motion, and their devil's penny-piece, when Apollyon +throws it for the last time, is itself but a twirling leaf in the +wind, till it sinks edgewise, sawing through the boy's face, uplifted +in the dark to trace it, crushing in the tender skull upon the brain. + +His shout of laughter is turned in an instant to a cry of pain, of +reproach; and in that which echoed it--an immense cry, as from the +very heart of ancient tragedy, over the Picard wolds--it was as if +that half-extinguished deity, its proper immensity, its old greatness +and power, were restored for a moment. The villagers in their beds +wondered. It was like the sound of some natural catastrophe. + +The storm which followed was still in possession, still moving +tearfully among the poplar groves, though it had spent its heat and +thunder. The last drops of the blood of Hyacinth still trickled +through the thick masses of dark hair, where the tonsure had been. +An abundant rain, mingling with the copious purple stream, had +coloured the grass all around where the corpse lay, stealing afar in +tiny channels. + +[169] So it was, when Apollyon, reduced in the morning light to his +smaller self, came with the other people of the Grange to gaze, to +enquire, and found the Prior already there, speechless. Clearly this +was no lightning stroke; and Apollyon straightway conceives certain +very human fears that, coming upon those antecedent suspicions of +himself, the boy's death may be thought the result of intention on +his part. He proposes to bury the body at once, with no delay for +religious rites, in that still uncovered grave, the bearers having +fled from it in the tempest. + +And next day, fulfilling his annual custom, he went his way +northward, without a word of farewell to Prior Saint-Jean, whom he +leaves in fact under suspicion of murder. From the profound slumber +which had followed the excitements of yesterday, the Prior awoke amid +the sound of voices, the voices of the peasants singing no Christian +song, certainly, but a song which Apollyon himself had taught them, +to dismiss him on his journey. For, strange or not as it might be, +they loved him, perhaps in spite of themselves; would certainly +protect him at any risk. Prior Saint-Jean arose, and looked forth-- +with wonder. A brief spell of sunshine amid the rain had clothed the +vale with a marvel of blue flowers, if it were not rather with +remnants of the blue sky itself, fallen among the woods there. But +there too, in the little courtyard, [170] the officers of justice +are already in waiting to take him, on the charge of having caused +the death of his young server by violence, in a fit of mania, induced +by dissolute living in that solitary place. One hitherto so +prosperous in life would, of course, have his enemies. + +The monastic authorities, however, claim him from the secular power, +to correct his offence in their own way, and with friendly +interpretation of the facts. Madness, however wicked, being still +madness, Prior, now simple Brother, Saint-Jean, is detained in a +sufficiently cheerful apartment, in a region of the atmosphere likely +to restore lost wits, whence indeed he can still see the country-- +vallis monachorum. The one desire which from time to time fitfully +rouses him again to animation for a few moments is to return thither. +Here then he remains in peace, ostensibly for the completion of his +great work. He never again set pen to it, consistent and clear now +on nothing save that longing to be once more at the Grange, that he +may get well, or die and be well so. He is like the damned spirit, +think some of the brethren, saying "I will return to the house whence +I came out." Gazing thither daily for many hours, he would mistake +mere blue distance, when that was visible, for blue flowers, for +hyacinths, and wept at the sight; though blue, as he observed, was +the colour of Holy Mary's gown on the illuminated page, the colour of +hope, of merciful [171] omnipresent deity. The necessary permission +came with difficulty, just too late. Brother Saint-Jean died, +standing upright with an effort to gaze forth once more, amid the +preparations for his departure. + +NOTES + +142. *Published in Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Nov. 1893, and now +reprinted by the kind permission of the proprietors. + +154. *Or sundial, as some maintain, though turned from the south. + +154. +Latin Vulgate (ed. Saint Jerome) Psalm 126, verse 1: +"canticum graduum Salomonis nisi Dominus aedificaverit domum in vanum +laboraverunt qui aedificant eam nisi Dominus custodierit civitatem +frustra vigilavit qui custodit." King James Bible's translation: +"When the Lord turned again the captivity of Zion, we were like them +that dream." + + + +THE CHILD IN THE HOUSE* + +[172] As Florian Deleal walked, one hot afternoon, he overtook by the +wayside a poor aged man, and, as he seemed weary with the road, +helped him on with the burden which he carried, a certain distance. +And as the man told his story, it chanced that he named the place, a +little place in the neighbourhood of a great city, where Florian had +passed his earliest years, but which he had never since seen, and, +the story told, went forward on his journey comforted. And that +night, like a reward for his pity, a dream of that place came to +Florian, a dream which did for him the office of the finer sort of +memory, bringing its object to mind with a great clearness, yet, as +sometimes happens in dreams, raised a little above itself, and above +ordinary retrospect. The true aspect of the place, especially of the +house there in which he had lived as a child, the fashion of its +doors, its hearths, its windows, the very scent upon the air of it, +was with him in sleep for a season; only, with tints more musically +blent on wall [173] and floor, and some finer light and shadow +running in and out along its curves and angles, and with all its +little carvings daintier. He awoke with a sigh at the thought of +almost thirty years which lay between him and that place, yet with a +flutter of pleasure still within him at the fair light, as if it +were a smile, upon it. And it happened that this accident of his +dream was just the thing needed for the beginning of a certain design +he then had in view, the noting, namely, of some things in the story +of his spirit--in that process of brain-building by which we are, +each one of us, what we are. With the image of the place so clear +and favourable upon him, he fell to thinking of himself therein, and +how his thoughts had grown up to him. In that half-spiritualised +house he could watch the better, over again, the gradual expansion of +the soul which had come to be there--of which indeed, through the law +which makes the material objects about them so large an element in +children's lives, it had actually become a part; inward and outward +being woven through and through each other into one inextricable +texture--half, tint and trace and accident of homely colour and form, +from the wood and the bricks; half, mere soul-stuff, floated thither +from who knows how far. In the house and garden of his dream he saw +a child moving, and could divide the main streams at least of +the winds that had played on [174] him, and study so the first stage +in that mental journey. + +The old house, as when Florian talked of it afterwards he always +called it, (as all children do, who can recollect a change of home, +soon enough but not too soon to mark a period in their lives) really +was an old house; and an element of French descent in its inmates-- +descent from Watteau, the old court-painter, one of whose gallant +pieces still hung in one of the rooms--might explain, together with +some other things, a noticeable trimness and comely whiteness about +everything there--the curtains, the couches, the paint on the walls +with which the light and shadow played so delicately; might explain +also the tolerance of the great poplar in the garden, a tree most +often despised by English people, but which French people love, +having observed a certain fresh way its leaves have of dealing with +the wind, making it sound, in never so slight a stirring of the air, +like running water. + +The old-fashioned, low wainscoting went round the rooms, and up the +staircase with carved balusters and shadowy angles, landing half-way +up at a broad window, with a swallow's nest below the sill, and the +blossom of an old pear-tree showing across it in late April, against +the blue, below which the perfumed juice of the find of fallen fruit +in autumn was so fresh. At the next turning came the closet which +held on its deep shelves the best china. Little angel [175] faces +and reedy flutings stood out round the fireplace of the children's +room. And on the top of the house, above the large attic, where the +white mice ran in the twilight--an infinite, unexplored wonderland of +childish treasures, glass beads, empty scent-bottles still sweet, +thrum of coloured silks, among its lumber--a flat space of roof, +railed round, gave a view of the neighbouring steeples; for the +house, as I said, stood near a great city, which sent up heavenwards, +over the twisting weather-vanes, not seldom, its beds of rolling +cloud and smoke, touched with storm or sunshine. But the child of +whom I am writing did not hate the fog because of the crimson lights +which fell from it sometimes upon the chimneys, and the whites which +gleamed through its openings, on summer mornings, on turret or +pavement. For it is false to suppose that a child's sense of beauty +is dependent on any choiceness or special fineness, in the objects +which present themselves to it, though this indeed comes to be the +rule with most of us in later life; earlier, in some degree, we see +inwardly; and the child finds for itself, and with unstinted delight, +a difference for the sense, in those whites and reds through the +smoke on very homely buildings, and in the gold of the dandelions at +the road-side, just beyond the houses, where not a handful of earth +is virgin and untouched, in the lack of better ministries to its +desire of beauty. + +[176] This house then stood not far beyond the gloom and rumours of +the town, among high garden-wall, bright all summer-time with Golden- +rod, and brown-and-golden Wall-flower--Flos Parietis, as the +children's Latin-reading father taught them to call it, while he was +with them. Tracing back the threads of his complex spiritual habit, +as he was used in after years to do, Florian found that he owed to +the place many tones of sentiment afterwards customary with him, +certain inward lights under which things most naturally presented +themselves to him. The coming and going of travellers to the town +along the way, the shadow of the streets, the sudden breath of the +neighbouring gardens, the singular brightness of bright weather +there, its singular darknesses which linked themselves in his mind to +certain engraved illustrations in the old big Bible at home, the +coolness of the dark, cavernous shops round the great church, with +its giddy winding stair up to the pigeons and the bells--a citadel of +peace in the heart of the trouble--all this acted on his childish +fancy, so that ever afterwards the like aspects and incidents never +failed to throw him into a well-recognised imaginative mood, seeming +actually to have become a part of the texture of his mind. Also, +Florian could trace home to this point a pervading preference in +himself for a kind of comeliness and dignity, an urbanity literally, +in modes of life, which he connected with the pale [177] people of +towns, and which made him susceptible to a kind of exquisite +satisfaction in the trimness and well-considered grace of certain +things and persons he afterwards met with, here and there, in his way +through the world. + +So the child of whom I am writing lived on there quietly; things +without thus ministering to him, as he sat daily at the window with +the birdcage hanging below it, and his mother taught him to read, +wondering at the ease with which he learned, and at the quickness of +his memory. The perfume of the little flowers of the lime-tree fell +through the air upon them like rain; while time seemed to move ever +more slowly to the murmur of the bees in it, till it almost stood +still on June afternoons. How insignificant, at the moment, seem the +influences of the sensible things which are tossed and fall and lie +about us, so, or so, in the environment of early childhood. How +indelibly, as we afterwards discover, they affect us; with what +capricious attractions and associations they figure themselves on the +white paper, the smooth wax, of our ingenuous souls, as "with lead in +the rock for ever," giving form and feature, and as it were assigned +house-room in our memory, to early experiences of feeling and +thought, which abide with us ever afterwards, thus, and not +otherwise. The realities and passions, the rumours of the greater +world without, steal in upon us, each by its own special little +passage-way, through the wall of custom [178] about us; and never +afterwards quite detach themselves from this or that accident, or +trick, in the mode of their first entrance to us. Our +susceptibilities, the discovery of our powers, manifold experiences-- +our various experiences of the coming and going of bodily pain, for +instance--belong to this or the other well-remembered place in the +material habitation--that little white room with the window across +which the heavy blossoms could beat so peevishly in the wind, with +just that particular catch or throb, such a sense of teasing in it, +on gusty mornings; and the early habitation thus gradually becomes a +sort of material shrine or sanctuary of sentiment; a system of +visible symbolism interweaves itself through all our thoughts and +passions; and irresistibly, little shapes, voices, accidents--the +angle at which the sun in the morning fell on the pillow--become +parts of the great chain wherewith we are bound. + +Thus far, for Florian, what all this had determined was a peculiarly +strong sense of home--so forcible a motive with all of us--prompting +to us our customary love of the earth, and the larger part of our +fear of death, that revulsion we have from it, as from something +strange, untried, unfriendly; though life-long imprisonment, they +tell you, and final banishment from home is a thing bitterer still; +the looking forward to but a short space, a mere childish goûter and +dessert of it, before the end, being so great a resource of [179] +effort to pilgrims and wayfarers, and the soldier in distant +quarters, and lending, in lack of that, some power of solace to the +thought of sleep in the home churchyard, at least--dead cheek by dead +cheek, and with the rain soaking in upon one from above. + +So powerful is this instinct, and yet accidents like those I have +been speaking of so mechanically determine it; its essence being +indeed the early familiar, as constituting our ideal, or typical +conception, of rest and security. Out of so many possible +conditions, just this for you and that for me, brings ever the +unmistakeable realisation of the delightful chez soi; this for the +Englishman, for me and you, with the closely-drawn white curtain and +the shaded lamp; that, quite other, for the wandering Arab, who folds +his tent every morning, and makes his sleeping-place among haunted +ruins, or in old tombs. + +With Florian then the sense of home became singularly intense, his +good fortune being that the special character of his home was in +itself so essentially home-like. As after many wanderings I have +come to fancy that some parts of Surrey and Kent are, for Englishmen, +the true landscape, true home-counties, by right, partly, of a +certain earthy warmth in the yellow of the sand below their gorse- +bushes, and of a certain grey-blue mist after rain, in the hollows of +the hills there, welcome to fatigued eyes, and never seen farther +south; so I think that the sort of [180] house I have described, with +precisely those proportions of red-brick and green, and with a just +perceptible monotony in the subdued order of it, for its +distinguishing note, is for Englishmen at least typically home-life. +And so for Florian that general human instinct was reinforced by this +special home-likeness in the place his wandering soul had happened to +light on, as, in the second degree, its body and earthly tabernacle; +the sense of harmony between his soul and its physical environment +became, for a time at least, like perfectly played music, and the +life led there singularly tranquil and filled with a curious sense of +self-possession. The love of security, of an habitually undisputed +standing-ground or sleeping-place, came to count for much in the +generation and correcting of his thoughts, and afterwards as a +salutary principle of restraint in all his wanderings of spirit. The +wistful yearning towards home, in absence from it, as the shadows of +evening deepened, and he followed in thought what was doing there +from hour to hour, interpreted to him much of a yearning and regret +he experienced afterwards, towards he knew not what, out of strange +ways of feeling and thought in which, from time to time, his spirit +found itself alone; and in the tears shed in such absences there +seemed always to be some soul-subduing foretaste of what his last +tears might be. + +And the sense of security could hardly have [181] been deeper, the +quiet of the child's soul being one with the quiet of its home, a +place "inclosed" and "sealed." But upon this assured place, upon the +child's assured soul which resembled it, there came floating in from +the larger world without, as at windows left ajar unknowingly, or +over the high garden walls, two streams of impressions, the +sentiments of beauty and pain--recognitions of the visible, tangible, +audible loveliness of things, as a very real and somewhat tyrannous +element in them--and of the sorrow of the world, of grown people and +children and animals, as a thing not to be put by in them. From this +point he could trace two predominant processes of mental change in +him--the growth of an almost diseased sensibility to the spectacle of +suffering, and, parallel with this, the rapid growth of a certain +capacity of fascination by bright colour and choice form--the sweet +curvings, for instance, of the lips of those who seemed to him comely +persons, modulated in such delicate unison to the things they said or +sang,--marking early the activity in him of a more than customary +sensuousness, "the lust of the eye," as the Preacher says, which +might lead him, one day, how far! Could he have foreseen the +weariness of the way! In music sometimes the two sorts of +impressions came together, and he would weep, to the surprise of +older people. Tears of joy too the child knew, also to older +people's surprise; real tears, once, of relief from long-strung, +[182] childish expectation, when he found returned at evening, with +new roses in her cheeks, the little sister who had been to a place +where there was a wood, and brought back for him a treasure of fallen +acorns, and black crow's feathers, and his peace at finding her again +near him mingled all night with some intimate sense of the distant +forest, the rumour of its breezes, with the glossy blackbirds aslant +and the branches lifted in them, and of the perfect nicety of the +little cups that fell. So those two elementary apprehensions of the +tenderness and of the colour in things grew apace in him, and were +seen by him afterwards to send their roots back into the beginnings +of life. + +Let me note first some of the occasions of his recognition of the +element of pain in things--incidents, now and again, which seemed +suddenly to awake in him the whole force of that sentiment which +Goethe has called the Weltschmerz, and in which the concentrated +sorrow of the world seemed suddenly to lie heavy upon him. A book +lay in an old book-case, of which he cared to remember one picture--a +woman sitting, with hands bound behind her, the dress, the cap, the +hair, folded with a simplicity which touched him strangely, as if not +by her own hands, but with some ambiguous care at the hands of +others--Queen Marie Antoinette, on her way to execution--we all +remember David's drawing, meant merely to make her ridiculous. The +face [183] that had been so high had learned to be mute and +resistless; but out of its very resistlessness, seemed now to call on +men to have pity, and forbear; and he took note of that, as he closed +the book, as a thing to look at again, if he should at any time +find himself tempted to be cruel. Again, he would never quite forget +the appeal in the small sister's face, in the garden under the +lilacs, terrified at a spider lighted on her sleeve. He could trace +back to the look then noted a certain mercy he conceived always for +people in fear, even of little things, which seemed to make him, +though but for a moment, capable of almost any sacrifice of himself. +Impressible, susceptible persons, indeed, who had had their sorrows, +lived about him; and this sensibility was due in part to the tacit +influence of their presence, enforcing upon him habitually the fact +that there are those who pass their days, as a matter of course, in a +sort of "going quietly." Most poignantly of all he could recall, in +unfading minutest circumstance, the cry on the stair, sounding +bitterly through the house, and struck into his soul for ever, of an +aged woman, his father's sister, come now to announce his death in +distant India; how it seemed to make the aged woman like a child +again; and, he knew not why, but this fancy was full of pity to him. +There were the little sorrows of the dumb animals too--of the white +angora, with a dark tail like an ermine's, and a face like a [184] +flower, who fell into a lingering sickness, and became quite +delicately human in its valetudinarianism, and came to have a hundred +different expressions of voice--how it grew worse and worse, till it +began to feel the light too much for it, and at last, after one wild +morning of pain, the little soul flickered away from the body, quite +worn to death already, and now but feebly retaining it. + +So he wanted another pet; and as there were starlings about the +place, which could be taught to speak, one of them was caught, and he +meant to treat it kindly; but in the night its young ones could be +heard crying after it, and the responsive cry of the mother-bird +towards them; and at last, with the first light, though not till +after some debate with himself, he went down and opened the cage, and +saw a sharp bound of the prisoner up to her nestlings; and therewith +came the sense of remorse,--that he too was become an accomplice in +moving, to the limit of his small power, the springs and handles of +that great machine in things, constructed so ingeniously to play +pain-fugues on the delicate nerve-work of living creatures. + +I have remarked how, in the process of our brain-building, as the +house of thought in which we live gets itself together, like some +airy bird's-nest of floating thistle-down and chance straws, compact +at last, little accidents have their consequence; and thus it +happened that, as he [185] walked one evening, a garden gate, usually +closed, stood open; and lo! within, a great red hawthorn in full +flower, embossing heavily the bleached and twisted trunk and +branches, so aged that there were but few green leaves thereon--a +plumage of tender, crimson fire out of the heart of the dry wood. +The perfume of the tree had now and again reached him, in the +currents of the wind, over the wall, and he had wondered what might +be behind it, and was now allowed to fill his arms with the flowers-- +flowers enough for all the old blue-china pots along the chimney- +piece, making fête in the children's room. Was it some periodic +moment in the expansion of soul within him, or mere trick of heat in +the heavily-laden summer air? + +But the beauty of the thing struck home to him feverishly; and in +dreams all night he loitered along a magic roadway of crimson +flowers, which seemed to open ruddily in thick, fresh masses about +his feet, and fill softly all the little hollows in the banks on +either side. Always afterwards, summer by summer, as the flowers +came on, the blossom of the red hawthorn still seemed to him +absolutely the reddest of all things; and the goodly crimson, still +alive in the works of old Venetian masters or old Flemish tapestries, +called out always from afar the recollection of the flame in those +perishing little petals, as it pulsed gradually out of them, kept +long in the drawers of an old cabinet. + +[186] Also then, for the first time, he seemed to experience a +passionateness in his relation to fair outward objects, an +inexplicable excitement in their presence, which disturbed him, and +from which he half longed to be free. A touch of regret or desire +mingled all night with the remembered presence of the red flowers, +and their perfume in the darkness about him; and the longing for some +undivined, entire possession of them was the beginning of a +revelation to him, growing ever clearer, with the coming of the +gracious summer guise of fields and trees and persons in each +succeeding year, of a certain, at times seemingly exclusive, +predominance in his interests, of beautiful physical things, a kind +of tyranny of the senses over him. + +In later years he came upon philosophies which occupied him much in +the estimate of the proportion of the sensuous and the ideal elements +in human knowledge, the relative parts they bear in it; and, in his +intellectual scheme, was led to assign very little to the abstract +thought, and much to its sensible vehicle or occasion. Such +metaphysical speculation did but reinforce what was instinctive in +his way of receiving the world, and for him, everywhere, that +sensible vehicle or occasion became, perhaps only too surely, the +necessary concomitant of any perception of things, real enough to be +of any weight or reckoning, in his house of thought. There were +times when he could think of the [187] necessity he was under of +associating all thoughts to touch and sight, as a sympathetic link +between himself and actual, feeling, living objects; a protest in +favour of real men and women against mere grey, unreal abstractions; +and he remembered gratefully how the Christian religion, hardly less +than the religion of the ancient Greeks, translating so much of its +spiritual verity into things that may be seen, condescends in part to +sanction this infirmity, if so it be, of our human existence, wherein +the world of sense is so much with us, and welcomed this thought as a +kind of keeper and sentinel over his soul therein. But certainly, he +came more and more to be unable to care for, or think of soul but as +in an actual body, or of any world but that wherein are water and +trees, and where men and women look, so or so, and press actual +hands. It was the trick even his pity learned, fastening those who +suffered in anywise to his affections by a kind of sensible +attachments. He would think of Julian, fallen into incurable +sickness, as spoiled in the sweet blossom of his skin like pale +amber, and his honey-like hair; of Cecil, early dead, as cut off from +the lilies, from golden summer days, from women's voices; and then +what comforted him a little was the thought of the turning of the +child's flesh to violets in the turf above him. And thinking of the +very poor, it was not the things which most men care most for that he +yearned to give them; [188] but fairer roses, perhaps, and power to +taste quite as they will, at their ease and not task-burdened, a +certain desirable, clear light in the new morning, through which +sometimes he had noticed them, quite unconscious of it, on their way +to their early toil. + +So he yielded himself to these things, to be played upon by them like +a musical instrument, and began to note with deepening watchfulness, +but always with some puzzled, unutterable longing in his enjoyment, +the phases of the seasons and of the growing or waning day, down even +to the shadowy changes wrought on bare wall or ceiling--the light +cast up from the snow, bringing out their darkest angles; the brown +light in the cloud, which meant rain; that almost too austere +clearness, in the protracted light of the lengthening day, before +warm weather began, as if it lingered but to make a severer workday, +with the school-books opened earlier and later; that beam of June +sunshine, at last, as he lay awake before the time, a way of gold- +dust across the darkness; all the humming, the freshness, the perfume +of the garden seemed to lie upon it--and coming in one afternoon in +September, along the red gravel walk, to look for a basket of yellow +crab-apples left in the cool, old parlour, he remembered it the more, +and how the colours struck upon him, because a wasp on one bitten +apple stung him, and he felt the passion of [189] sudden, severe +pain. For this too brought its curious reflexions; and, in relief +from it, he would wonder over it--how it had then been with him-- +puzzled at the depth of the charm or spell over him, which lay, for a +little while at least, in the mere absence of pain; once, especially, +when an older boy taught him to make flowers of sealing-wax, and he +had burnt his hand badly at the lighted taper, and been unable to +sleep. He remembered that also afterwards, as a sort of typical +thing--a white vision of heat about him, clinging closely, through +the languid scent of the ointments put upon the place to make it +well. + +Also, as he felt this pressure upon him of the sensible world, then, +as often afterwards, there would come another sort of curious +questioning how the last impressions of eye and ear might happen to +him, how they would find him--the scent of the last flower, the soft +yellowness of the last morning, the last recognition of some object +of affection, hand or voice; it could not be but that the latest look +of the eyes, before their final closing, would be strangely vivid; +one would go with the hot tears, the cry, the touch of the wistful +bystander, impressed how deeply on one! or would it be, perhaps, a +mere frail retiring of all things, great or little, away from one, +into a level distance? + +For with this desire of physical beauty mingled itself early the fear +of death--the fear of death [190] intensified by the desire of +beauty. Hitherto he had never gazed upon dead faces, as sometimes, +afterwards, at the Morgue in Paris, or in that fair cemetery at +Munich, where all the dead must go and lie in state before burial, +behind glass windows, among the flowers and incense and holy candles- +-the aged clergy with their sacred ornaments, the young men in their +dancing-shoes and spotless white linen--after which visits, those +waxen, resistless faces would always live with him for many days, +making the broadest sunshine sickly. The child had heard indeed of +the death of his father, and how, in the Indian station, a fever had +taken him, so that though not in action he had yet died as a soldier; +and hearing of the "resurrection of the just," he could think of him +as still abroad in the world, somehow, for his protection--a grand, +though perhaps rather terrible figure, in beautiful soldier's things, +like the figure in the picture of Joshua's Vision in the Bible--and +of that, round which the mourners moved so softly, and afterwards +with such solemn singing, as but a worn-out garment left at a +deserted lodging. So it was, until on a summer day he walked with +his mother through a fair churchyard. In a bright dress he rambled +among the graves, in the gay weather, and so came, in one corner, +upon an open grave for a child--a dark space on the brilliant grass-- +the black mould lying heaped up round it, weighing down the little +jewelled [191] branches of the dwarf rose-bushes in flower. And +therewith came, full-grown, never wholly to leave him, with the +certainty that even children do sometimes die, the physical horror of +death, with its wholly selfish recoil from the association of lower +forms of life, and the suffocating weight above. No benign, grave +figure in beautiful soldier's things any longer abroad in the world +for his protection! only a few poor, piteous bones; and above them, +possibly, a certain sort of figure he hoped not to see. For sitting +one day in the garden below an open window, he heard people talking, +and could not but listen, how, in a sleepless hour, a sick woman had +seen one of the dead sitting beside her, come to call her hence; and +from the broken talk evolved with much clearness the notion that not +all those dead people had really departed to the churchyard, nor were +quite so motionless as they looked, but led a secret, half-fugitive +life in their old homes, quite free by night, though sometimes +visible in the day, dodging from room to room, with no great goodwill +towards those who shared the place with them. All night the figure +sat beside him in the reveries of his broken sleep, and was not quite +gone in the morning--an odd, irreconcileable new member of the +household, making the sweet familiar chambers unfriendly and suspect +by its uncertain presence. He could have hated the dead he had +pitied so, for being [192] thus. Afterwards he came to think of +those poor, home-returning ghosts, which all men have fancied to +themselves--the revenants--pathetically, as crying, or beating with +vain hands at the doors, as the wind came, their cries +distinguishable in it as a wilder inner note. But, always making +death more unfamiliar still, that old experience would ever, from +time to time, return to him; even in the living he sometimes caught +its likeness; at any time or place, in a moment, the faint atmosphere +of the chamber of death would be breathed around him, and the image +with the bound chin, the quaint smile, the straight, stiff feet, shed +itself across the air upon the bright carpet, amid the gayest +company, or happiest communing with himself. + +To most children the sombre questionings to which impressions like +these attach themselves, if they come at all, are actually suggested +by religious books, which therefore they often regard with much +secret distaste, and dismiss, as far as possible, from their habitual +thoughts as a too depressing element in life. To Florian such +impressions, these misgivings as to the ultimate tendency of the +years, of the relationship between life and death, had been suggested +spontaneously in the natural course of his mental growth by a strong +innate sense for the soberer tones in things, further strengthened by +actual circumstances; and religious sentiment, that [193] system of +biblical ideas in which he had been brought up, presented itself to +him as a thing that might soften and dignify, and light up as with a +"lively hope," a melancholy already deeply settled in him. So he +yielded himself easily to religious impressions, and with a kind of +mystical appetite for sacred things; the more as they came to him +through a saintly person who loved him tenderly, and believed that +this early pre-occupation with them already marked the child out for +a saint. He began to love, for their own sakes, church lights, holy +days, all that belonged to the comely order of the sanctuary, the +secrets of its white linen, and holy vessels, and fonts of pure +water; and its hieratic purity and simplicity became the type of +something he desired always to have about him in actual life. He +pored over the pictures in religious books, and knew by heart the +exact mode in which the wrestling angel grasped Jacob, how Jacob +looked in his mysterious sleep, how the bells and pomegranates were +attached to the hem of Aaron's vestment, sounding sweetly as he +glided over the turf of the holy place. His way of conceiving +religion came then to be in effect what it ever afterwards remained-- +a sacred history indeed, but still more a sacred ideal, a +transcendent version or representation, under intenser and more +expressive light and shade, of human life and its familiar or +exceptional incidents, birth, death, marriage, [194] youth, age, +tears, joy, rest, sleep, waking--a mirror, towards which men might +turn away their eyes from vanity and dullness, and see themselves +therein as angels, with their daily meat and drink, even, become a +kind of sacred transaction--a complementary strain or burden, applied +to our every-day existence, whereby the stray snatches of music in it +re-set themselves, and fall into the scheme of some higher and more +consistent harmony. A place adumbrated itself in his thoughts, +wherein those sacred personalities, which are at once the reflex and +the pattern of our nobler phases of life, housed themselves; and this +region in his intellectual scheme all subsequent experience did but +tend still further to realise and define. Some ideal, hieratic +persons he would always need to occupy it and keep a warmth there. +And he could hardly understand those who felt no such need at all, +finding themselves quite happy without such heavenly companionship, +and sacred double of their life, beside them. + +Thus a constant substitution of the typical for the actual took place +in his thoughts. Angels might be met by the way, under English elm +or beech-tree; mere messengers seemed like angels, bound on celestial +errands; a deep mysticity brooded over real meetings and partings; +marriages were made in heaven; and deaths also, with hands of angels +thereupon, to bear soul and body quietly asunder, each to its [195] +appointed rest. All the acts and accidents of daily life borrowed a +sacred colour and significance; the very colours of things became +themselves weighty with meanings like the sacred stuffs of Moses' +tabernacle, full of penitence or peace. Sentiment, congruous in the +first instance only with those divine transactions, the deep, +effusive unction of the House of Bethany, was assumed as the due +attitude for the reception of our every-day existence; and for a time +he walked through the world in a sustained, not unpleasurable awe, +generated by the habitual recognition, beside every circumstance and +event of life, of its celestial correspondent. + +Sensibility--the desire of physical beauty--a strange biblical awe, +which made any reference to the unseen act on him like solemn music-- +these qualities the child took away with him, when, at about the age +of twelve years, he left the old house, and was taken to live in +another place. He had never left home before, and, anticipating much +from this change, had long dreamed over it, jealously counting the +days till the time fixed for departure should come; had been a little +careless about others even, in his strong desire for it--when Lewis +fell sick, for instance, and they must wait still two days longer. +At last the morning came, very fine; and all things--the very +pavement with its dust, at the roadside--seemed to have a white, +pearl-like lustre in them. They were to travel by a [196] favourite +road on which he had often walked a certain distance, and on one of +those two prisoner days, when Lewis was sick, had walked farther than +ever before, in his great desire to reach the new place. They had +started and gone a little way when a pet bird was found to have been +left behind, and must even now--so it presented itself to him--have +already all the appealing fierceness and wild self-pity at heart of +one left by others to perish of hunger in a closed house; and he +returned to fetch it, himself in hardly less stormy distress. But as +he passed in search of it from room to room, lying so pale, with a +look of meekness in their denudation, and at last through that +little, stripped white room, the aspect of the place touched him like +the face of one dead; and a clinging back towards it came over him, +so intense that he knew it would last long, and spoiling all his +pleasure in the realisation of a thing so eagerly anticipated. And +so, with the bird found, but himself in an agony of home-sickness, +thus capriciously sprung up within him, he was driven quickly away, +far into the rural distance, so fondly speculated on, of that +favourite country-road. + +NOTES + +172. *Published in Macmillan's Magazine, Aug. 1878. + + + +EMERALD UTHWART* + +[197] WE smile at epitaphs--at those recent enough to be read easily; +smile, for the most part, at what for the most part is an unreal and +often vulgar branch of literature; yet a wide one, with its flowers +here or there, such as make us regret now and again not to have +gathered more carefully in our wanderings a fair average of the like. +Their very simplicity, of course, may set one's thoughts in motion to +fill up the scanty tale, and those of the young at least are almost +always worth while. At Siena, for instance, in the great Dominican +church, even with the impassioned work of Sodoma at hand, you may +linger in a certain dimly lit chapel to spell out the black-letter +memorials of the German students who died here--aetatis flore!--at +the University, famous early in the last century; young nobles +chiefly, far from the Rhine, from Nuremberg, or Leipsic. Note one in +particular! Loving parents and elder brother meant to record [198] +carefully the very days of the lad's poor life--annos, menses, dies; +sent the order, doubtless, from the distant old castle in the +Fatherland, but not quite explicitly; the spaces for the numbers +remain still unfilled; and they never came to see. After two +centuries the omission is not to be rectified; and the young man's +memorial has perhaps its propriety as it stands, with those +unnumbered, or numberless, days. "Full of affections," observed, +once upon a time, a great lover of boys and young men, speaking to a +large company of them:--"full of affections, full of powers, full of +occupation, how naturally might the younger part of us especially +(more naturally than the older) receive the tidings that there are +things to be loved and things to be done which shall never pass away. +We feel strong, we feel active, we feel full of life; and these +feelings do not altogether deceive us, for we shall live for ever. +We see a long prospect before us, for which it is worth while to +work, even with much labour; for we are as yet young, and the past +portion of our lives is but small in comparison of that which +probably remains to us. It is most true! The past years of our life +are absolutely beyond proportion small in comparison with those which +certainly remain to us." + +In a very different neighbourhood, here at home, in a remote Sussex +churchyard, you may read that Emerald Uthwart was born on such a +[199] day, "at Chase Lodge, in this parish; and died there," on a day +in the year 18--, aged twenty-six. Think, thereupon, of the years of +a very English existence passed without a lost week in that bloomy +English place, amid its English lawns and flower-beds, its oldish +brick and raftered plaster; you may see it still, not far off, on a +clearing of the wooded hill-side sloping gradually to the sea. But +you think wrong. Emerald Uthwart, in almost unbroken absence from +his home, longed greatly for it, but left it early and came back +there only to die, in disgrace, as he conceived; of which it was he +died there, finding the sense of the place all around him at last, +like blessed oil in one's wounds. + +How they shook their musk from them!--those gardens, among which the +youngest son, but not the youngest child, grew up, little considered +till he returned there in those last years. The rippling note of the +birds he distinguished so acutely seemed a part of this tree-less +place, open freely to sun and air, such as rose and carnation loved, +in the midst of the old disafforested chase. Brothers and sisters, +all alike were gardeners, methodically intimate with their flowers. +You need words compact rather of perfume than of colour to describe +them, in nice annual order; terms for perfume, as immediate and +definite as red, purple, and yellow. Flowers there were which seemed +to yield their sweetest in the faint sea-salt, when the loosening +wind [200] was strong from the south-west; some which found their way +slowly towards the neighbourhood of the old oaks and beech-trees. +Others consorted most freely with the wall-fruit, or seemed made for +pot-pourri to sweeten the old black mahogany furniture. The sweet- +pea stacks loved the broad path through the kitchen garden; the old- +fashioned garden azalea was the making of a nosegay, with its honey +which clung to one's finger. There were flowers all the sweeter for +a battle with the rain; a flower like aromatic medicine; another like +summer lingering into winter; it ripened as fruit does; and another +was like August, his own birthday time, dropped into March. + +The very mould here, rich old black gardener's earth, was flower- +seed; and beyond, the fields, one after another, through the white +gates breaking the well-grown hedge-rows, were hardly less garden- +like; little velvety fields, little with the true sweet English +littleness of our little island, our land of vignettes. Here all was +little; the very church where they went to pray, to sit, the ancient +Uthwarts sleeping all around outside under the windows, deposited +there as quietly as fallen trees on their native soil, and almost +unrecorded, as there had been almost nothing to record; where +however, Sunday after Sunday, Emerald Uthwart reads, wondering, the +solitary memorial of one soldierly member of his race, who had,-- +well! who had not died here [201] at home, in his bed. How wretched! +how fine! how inconceivably great and difficult!--not for him! And +yet, amid all its littleness, how large his sense of liberty in the +place he, the cadet doomed to leave it--his birth-place, where he is +also so early to die--had loved better than any one of them! +Enjoying hitherto all the freedom of the almost grown-up brothers, +the unrepressed noise, the unchecked hours, the old rooms, all their +own way, he is literally without the consciousness of rule. Only, +when the long irresponsible day is over, amid the dew, the odours, of +summer twilight, they roll their cricket-field against to-morrow's +game. So it had always been with the Uthwarts; they never went to +school. In the great attic he has chosen for himself Emerald +awakes;--it was a rule, sanitary, almost medical, never to rouse the +children--rises to play betimes; or, if he choose, with window flung +open to the roses, the sea, turns to sleep again, deliberately, +deliciously, under the fine old blankets. + +A rather sensuous boy! you may suppose, amid the wholesome, natural +self-indulgence of a very English home. His days began there: it +closed again, after an interval of the larger number of them, +indulgently, mercifully, round his end. For awhile he became its +centre, old habits changing, the old furniture rearranged about him, +for the first time in many generations, though he left it now with +something like [202] resentment in his heart, as if thrust harshly +away, sent ablactatus a matre; made an effort thereon to snap the +last thread which bound him to it. Yet it would come back upon him +sometimes, amid so different a scene, as through a suddenly opened +door, or a rent in the wall, with softer thoughts of his people,-- +there, or not there,--and a sudden, dutiful effort on his part to +rekindle wasting affection. + +The youngest of four sons, but not the youngest of the family!--you +conceive the sort of negligence that creeps over even the kindest +maternities, in such case; unless, perhaps, sickness, or the sort of +misfortune, making the last first for the affectionate, that brought +Emerald back at length to die contentedly, interferes with the way of +nature. Little by little he comes to understand that, while the +brothers are indulged with lessons at home, are some of them free +even of these and placed already in the world, where, however, there +remains no place for him, he is to go to school, chiefly for the +convenience of others--they are going to be much away from home!-- +that now for the first time, as he says to himself, an old-English +Uthwart is to pass under the yoke. The tutor in the house, meantime, +aware of some fascination in the lad, teaches him, at his own +irregularly chosen hours, more carefully than the others; exerts all +his gifts for the purpose, winning him on almost insensibly to +youthful proficiency in those difficult rudiments. + +[203] See him as he stands, seemingly rooted in the spot where he has +come to flower! He departs, however, a few days before the departure +of the rest--some to foreign parts, the brothers, who shut up the old +place, to town. For a moment, he makes an effort to figure to +himself those coming absences as but exceptional intervals in his +life here; he will count the days, going more quickly so; find his +pleasure in watching the sands fall, as even the sands of time at +school must. In fact, he was scarcely ever to lie at ease here +again, till he came to take his final leave of it, lying at his +length so. In brief holidays he rejoins his people, anywhere, +anyhow, in a sort of hurry and makeshift:--Flos Parietis! thus +carelessly plucked forth. Emerald Uthwart was born on such a day "at +Chase Lodge, in this parish, and died there." + +See him then as he stands! counting now the hours that remain, on the +eve of that first emigration, and look away next at the other place, +which through centuries has been forming to receive him; from those +garden-beds, now at their richest, but where all is so winsomely +little, to that place of "great matters," great stones, great +memories out of reach. Why! the Uthwarts had scarcely had more +memories than their woods, noiselessly deciduous; or their +prehistoric, entirely unprogressive, unrecording forefathers, in or +before the days of the Druids. Centuries of almost "still" life--of +birth, death, [204] and the rest, as merely natural processes--had +made them and their home what we find them. Centuries of conscious +endeavour, on the other hand, had builded, shaped, and coloured the +place, a small cell, which Emerald Uthwart was now to occupy; a place +such as our most characteristic English education has rightly tended +to "find itself a house" in--a place full, for those who came within +its influence, of a will of its own. Here everything, one's very +games, have gone by rule onwards from the dim old monastic days, and +the Benedictine school for novices with the wholesome severities +which have descended to our own time. Like its customs,--there's a +book in the cathedral archives with the names, for centuries Past, of +the "scholars" who have missed church at the proper times for going +there--like its customs, well-worn yet well-preserved, time-stained, +time-engrained, time-mellowed, the venerable Norman or English stones +of this austere, beautifully proportioned place look like marble, to +which Emerald's softly nurtured being, his careless wild-growth must +now adapt itself, though somewhat painfully recoiling from contact +with what seems so hard also, and bright, and cold. From his native +world of soft garden touches, carnation and rose (they had been +everywhere in those last weeks), where every one did just what he +liked, he was passed now to this world of grey stone; and here it was +always the decisive word [205] of command. That old warrior +Uthwart's record in the church at home, so fine, yet so wretched, so +unspeakably great and difficult! seemed written here everywhere +around him, as he stood feeling himself fit only to be taught, to be +drilled into, his small compartment; in every movement of his +companions, with their quaint confining little cloth gowns; in the +keen, clear, well-authorised dominancy of some, the instant +submission of others. In fact, by one of our wise English +compromises, we still teach our so modern boys the Classics; a lesson +in attention and patience, at the least. Nay! by a double +compromise, with delightful physiognomic results sometimes, we teach +them their pagan Latin and Greek under the shadow of medieval church- +towers, amid the haunts, the traditions, and with something of the +discipline, of monasticism; for which, as is noticeable, the English +have never wholly lost an early inclination. The French and others +have swept their scholastic houses empty of it, with pedantic +fidelity to their theories. English pedants may succeed in doing the +like. But the result of our older method has had its value so far, +at least, say! for the careful aesthetic observer. It is of such +diagonal influences, through complication of influence, that +expression comes, in life, in our culture, in the very faces of men +and boys--of these boys. Nothing could better harmonise present with +past than the sight of them just here, as they [206] shout at their +games, or recite their lessons, over-arched by the work of medieval +priors, or pass to church meekly, into the seats occupied by the +young monks before them. + +If summer comes reluctantly to our English shores, it is also apt to +linger with us;--its flora of red and gold leaves on the branches +wellnigh to Christmas; the hot days that surprise you, and persist, +though heralded by white mornings, hinting that it is but the year's +indulgence so to deal with us. To the fanciful, such days may seem +most at home in the places where England has thus preferred to locate +the somewhat pensive education of its more favoured youth. As +Uthwart passes through the old ecclesiastical city, upon which any +more modern touch, modern door or window, seems a thing out of place +through negligence, the diluted sunlight itself seems driven along +with a sparing trace of gilded vane or red tile in it, under the +wholesome active wind from the East coast. The long, finely +weathered, leaden roof, and the great square tower, gravely +magnificent, emphatic from the first view of it over the grey down +above the hop-gardens, the gently-watered meadows, dwarf now +everything beside; have the bigness of nature's work, seated up there +so steadily amid the winds, as rain and fog and heat pass by. More +and more persistently, as he proceeds, in the "Green Court" at last, +they occupy the outlook. He is shown the narrow [207] cubicle in +which he is to sleep; and there it still is, with nothing else, in +the window-pane, as he lies;--"our tower," the "Angel Steeple," +noblest of its kind. Here, from morning to night, everything seems +challenged to follow the upward lead of its long, bold, +"perpendicular" lines. The very place one is in, its stone-work, its +empty spaces, invade you; invade all who belong to them, as Uthwart +belongs, yielding wholly from the first; seem to question you +masterfully as to your purpose in being here at all, amid the great +memories of the past, of this school;--challenge you, so to speak, to +make moral philosophy one of your acquirements, if you can, and to +systematise your vagrant self; which however will in any case be here +systematised for you. In Uthwart, then, is the plain tablet, for the +influences of place to inscribe. Say if you will, that he is under +the power of an "embodied ideal," somewhat repellent, but which he +cannot despise. He sits in the schoolroom--ancient, transformed +chapel of the pilgrims; sits in the sober white and brown place, at +the heavy old desks, carved this way and that, crowded as an old +churchyard with forgotten names, side by side with sympathetic or +antipathetic competitors, as it may chance. In a delightful, exactly +measured, quarter of an hour's rest, they come about him, seem to +wish to be friends at once, good and bad alike, dull and clever; +wonder a little at the name, and [208] the owner. A family name--he +explains, good-humouredly; tries to tell some story no one could ever +remember precisely of the ancestor from whom it came, the one story +of the Uthwarts; is spared; nay! petulantly forbidden to proceed. +But the name sticks the faster. Nicknames mark, for the most part, +popularity. Emerald! so every one called Uthwart, but shortened to +Aldy. They disperse; flock out into the court; acquaint him hastily +with the curiosities of the Precincts, the "dark entry," the rich +heraldries of the blackened and mouldering cloister, the ruined +overgrown spaces where the old monastery stood, the stones of which +furnished material for the rambling prebends houses, now +"antediluvian" in their turn; are ready also to climb the scaffold- +poles always to be found somewhere about the great church, or dive +along the odd, secret passages of the old builders, with quite +learned explanations (being proud of, and therefore painstaking +about, the place) of architectural periods, of Gothic "late" and +"early," layer upon layer, down to round-arched "Norman," like the +famous staircase of their school. + +The reader comprehends that Uthwart was come where the genius loci +was a strong one, with a claim to mould all who enter it to a +perfect, uninquiring, willing or unwilling, conformity to itself. On +Saturday half-holidays the scholars are taken to church in their +surplices, across the [209] court, under the lime-trees; emerge at +last up the dark winding passages into the melodious, mellow-lighted +space, always three days behind the temperature outside, so thick are +the walls;--how warm and nice! how cool and nice! The choir, to +which they glide in order to their places below the clergy, seems +conspicuously cold and sad. But the empty chapels lying beyond it +all about into the distance are a trap on sunny mornings for the +clouds of yellow effulgence. The Angel Steeple is a lantern within, +and sheds down a flood of the like just beyond the gates. You can +peep up into it where you sit, if you dare to gaze about you. If at +home there had been nothing great, here, to boyish sense, one seems +diminished to nothing at all, amid the grand waves, wave upon wave, +of patiently-wrought stone; the daring height, the daring severity, +of the innumerable, long, upward, ruled lines, rigidly bent just at +last, in due place, into the reserved grace of the perfect Gothic +arch; the peculiar daylight which seemed to come from further than +the light outside. Next morning they are here again. In contrast to +those irregularly broken hours at home, the passive length of things +impresses Uthwart now. It develops patience--that tale of hours, the +long chanted English service; our English manner of education is a +development of patience, of decorous and mannerly patience. "It is +good for a man that he bear the yoke in [210] his youth: he putteth +his mouth in the dust, he keepeth silence, because he hath borne it +upon him."--They have this for an anthem; sung however to wonderfully +cheerful and sprightly music, as if one liked the thought. + +The aim of a veritable community, says Plato, is not that this or +that member of it should be disproportionately at ease, but that the +whole should flourish; though indeed such general welfare might come +round again to the loyal unit therein, and rest with him, as a +privilege of his individual being after all. The social type he +preferred, as we know, was conservative Sparta and its youth; whose +unsparing discipline had doubtless something to do with the fact that +it was the handsomest and best-formed in all Greece. A school is not +made for one. It would misrepresent Uthwart's wholly unconscious +humility to say that he felt the beauty of the askêsis+ (we need that +Greek word) to which he not merely finds himself subject, but as +under a fascination submissively yields himself, although another +might have been aware of the charm of it, half ethic, half physical, +as visibly effective in him. Its peculiarity would have lain in the +expression of a stress upon him and his customary daily existence, +beyond what any definitely proposed issue of it, at least for the +moment, explained. Something of that is involved in the very idea of +a classical education, at least for such as he; in its seeming +indirectness [211] or lack of purpose, amid so much difficulty, as +contrasted with forms of education more obviously useful or +practical. He found himself in a system of fixed rules, amid which, +it might be, some of his own tendencies and inclinations would die +out of him through disuse. The confident word of command, the +instantaneous obedience expected, the enforced silence, the very +games that go by rule, a sort of hardness natural to wholesome +English youths when they come together, but here de rigueur as a +point of good manners;--he accepts all these without hesitation; the +early hours also, naturally distasteful to him, which gave to actual +morning, to all that had passed in it, when in more self-conscious +mood he looked back on the morning of life, a preponderance, a +disproportionate place there, adding greatly to the effect of its +dreamy distance from him at this later time;--an ideal quality, he +might have said, had he ever used such words as that. + +Uthwart duly passes his examination; and, in their own chapel in the +transept of the choir, lighted up late for evening prayer after the +long day of trial, is received to the full privileges of a Scholar +with the accustomed Latin words:--Introitum tuum et exitum tuum +custodiat Dominus! He takes them, not to heart, but rather to mind, +as few, if they so much as heard them, were wont to do; ponders them +for a while. They seem scarcely meant for him--words like those! +[212] increase however his sense of responsibility to the place, of +which he is now more exclusively than before a part--that he belongs +to it, its great memories, great dim purposes; deepen the +consciousness he had on first coming hither of a demand in the world +about him, whereof the very stones are emphatic, to which no average +human creature could be sufficient; of reproof, reproaches, of this +or that in himself. + +It was reported, there was a funny belief, at school, that Aldy +Uthwart had no feeling and was incapable of tears. They never came +to him certainly, when, at nights for the most part, the very touch +of home, so soft, yet so indifferent to him, reached him, with a +sudden opulent rush of garden perfumes; came at the rattling of the +window-pane in the wind, with anything that expressed distance from +the bare white walls around him here. He thrust it from him +brusquely, being of a practical turn, and, though somewhat sensuous, +wholly without sentimentality. There is something however in the +lad's soldier-like, impassible self-command, in his sustained +expression of a certain indifference to things, which awakes suddenly +all the sentiment, the poetry, latent hitherto in another--James +Stokes, the prefect, his immediate superior; awakes for the first +time into ample flower something of genius in a seemingly plodding +scholar, and therewith also something of the waywardness popularly +thought to belong to [213] genius. Preceptores, condiscipuli, alike, +marvel at a sort of delicacy coming into the habits, the person, of +that tall, bashful, broad-shouldered, very Kentish, lad; so +unaffectedly nevertheless, that it is understood after all to be but +the smartness properly significant of change to early manhood, like +the down on his lip. Wistful anticipations of manhood are in fact +aroused in him, thoughts of the future; his ambition takes effective +outline. The well-worn, perhaps conventional, beauties of their +"dead" Greek and Latin books, associated directly now with the living +companion beside him, really shine for him at last with their +pristine freshness; seem more than to fulfil their claim upon the +patience, the attention, of modern youth. He notices as never before +minute points of meaning in Homer, in Virgil; points out thus, for +instance, to his junior, one day in the sunshine, how the Greeks had +a special word for the Fate which accompanied one who would come to a +violent end. The common Destinies of men, Moirai,+ Moerae--they +accompanied all men indifferently. But Kêr,+ the extraordinary +Destiny, one's Doom, had a scent for distant blood-shedding; and, to +be in at a sanguinary death, one of their number came forth to the +very cradle, followed persistently all the way, over the waves, +through powder and shot, through the rose-gardens;--where not? +Looking back, one might trace the red footsteps all along, side by +[214] side. (Emerald Uthwart, you remember, was to "die there," of +lingering sickness, in disgrace, as he fancied, while the word glory +came to be softly whispered of them and of their end.) Classic +felicities, the choice expressions, with which James Stokes has so +patiently stored his memory, furnish now a dainty embroidery upon +every act, every change in time or place, of their daily life in +common. He finds the Greek or the Latin model of their antique +friendship or tries to find it, in the books they read together. +None fits exactly. It is of military glory they are really thinking, +amid those ecclesiastical surroundings, where however surplices and +uniforms are often mingled together; how they will lie, in costly +glory, costly to them, side by side, (as they work and walk and play +now, side by side) in the cathedral aisle, with a tattered flag +perhaps above them, and under a single epitaph, like that of those +two older scholars, Ensigns, Signiferi, in their respective +regiments, in hac ecclesiâ pueri instituti,+ with the sapphic stanza +in imitation of the Horace they had learned here, written by their +old master. + +Horace!--he was, had been always, the idol of their school; to know +him by heart, to translate him into effective English idiom, have an +apt phrase of his instinctively on one's lips for every occasion. +That boys should be made to spout him under penalties, would have +seemed doubtless to that sensitive, vain, winsome poet, [215] even +more than to grim Juvenal, quite the sorriest of fates; might have +seemed not so bad however, could he, from the "ashes" so persistently +in his thoughts, have peeped on these English boys, row upon row, +with black or golden heads, repeating him in the fresh morning, and +observed how well for once the thing was done; how well he was +understood by English James Stokes, feeling the old "fire" really +"quick" still, under the influence which now in truth quickened, +enlivened, everything around him. The old heathen's way of looking +at things, his melodious expression of it, blends, or contrasts +itself oddly with the everyday detail, with the very stones, the +Gothic stones, of a world he could hardly have conceived, its +medieval surroundings, their half-clerical life here. Yet not so +inconsistently after all! The builders of these aisles and cloisters +had known and valued as much of him as they could come by in their +own un-instructed time; had built up their intellectual edifice more +than they were aware of from fragments of pagan thought, as, quite +consciously, they constructed their churches of old Roman bricks and +pillars, or frank imitations of them. One's day, then, began with +him, for all alike, Sundays of course excepted,--with an Ode, learned +over-night by the prudent, who, observing how readily the words which +send us to sleep cling to the brain and seem an inherent part of it +next morning, kept him under [216] their pillows. Prefects, without +a book, heard the repetition of the Juniors, must be able to correct +their blunders. Odes and Epodes, thus acquired, were a score of days +and weeks; alcaic and sapphic verses like a bead-roll for counting +off the time that intervened before the holidays. Time--that tardy +servant of youthful appetite--brought them soon enough to the point +where they desired in vain "to see one of" those days, erased now so +willingly; and sentimental James Stokes has already a sense that this +"pause 'twixt cup and lip" of life is really worth pausing over, +worth deliberation:--all this poetry, yes! poetry, surely, of their +alternate work and play; light and shade, call it! Had it been, +after all, a life in itself less commonplace than theirs--that life, +the trivial details of which their Horace had touched so daintily, +gilded with real gold words? + +Regular, submissive, dutiful to play also, Aldy meantime enjoys his +triumphs in the Green Court; loves best however to run a paper-chase +afar over the marshes, till you come in sight, or within scent, of +the sea, in the autumn twilight; and his dutifulness to games at +least had its full reward. A wonderful hit of his at cricket was +long remembered; right over the lime-trees on to the cathedral roof, +was it? or over the roof, and onward into space, circling there +independently, minutely, as Sidus Cantiorum? A comic poem on it in +Latin, and a pretty one in English, [217] were penned by James +Stokes, still not so serious but that he forgets time altogether one +day, in a manner the converse of exemplary in a prefect, whereupon +Uthwart, his companion as usual, manages to take all the blame, and +the due penalty next morning. Stokes accepted the sacrifice the more +readily, believing--he too--that Aldy was "incapable of pain." What +surprised those who were in the secret was that, when it was over, he +rose, and facing the head-master--could it be insolence? or was it +the sense of untruthfulness in his friendly action, or sense of the +universal peccancy of all boys and men?--said submissively: "And now, +sir, that I have taken my punishment, I hope you will forgive my +fault." + +Submissiveness!--It had the force of genius with Emerald Uthwart. In +that very matter he had but yielded to a senior against his own +inclination. What he felt in Horace was the sense, original, active, +personal, of "things too high for me!", the sense, not really +unpleasing to him, of an unattainable height here too, in this royal +felicity of utterance, this literary art, the minute cares of which +had been really designed for the minute carefulness of a disciple +such as this--all attention. Well! the sense of authority, of a +large intellectual authority over us, impressed anew day after day, +of some impenetrable glory round "the masters of those who know," is, +of course, one of the effects we [218] look for from a classical +education:--that, and a full estimate of the preponderating value of +the manner of the doing of it in the thing done; which again, for +ingenuous youth, is an encouragement of good manners on its part:--"I +behave myself orderly." Just at those points, scholarship attains +something of a religious colour. And in that place, religion, +religious system, its claim to overpower one, presented itself in a +way of which even the least serious by nature could not be unaware. +Their great church, its customs and traditions, formed an element in +that esprit de corps into which the boyish mind throws itself so +readily. Afterwards, in very different scenes, the sentiment of that +place would come back upon him, as if resentfully, by contrast with +the conscious or unconscious profanities of others, crushed out about +him straightway, by the shadow of awe, the minatory flash, felt +around his unopened lips, in the glance, the changed manner. Not to +be "occupied with great matters" recommends in heavenly places, as we +know, the souls of some. Yet there were a few to whom it seemed +unfortunate that religion whose flag Uthwart would have borne in +hands so pure, touched him from first to last, and till his eyes were +finally closed on this world, only, again, as a thing immeasurable, +surely not meant for the like of him; its high claims, to which no +one could be equal; its reproaches. He would scarcely have proposed +to "enter into" [219] such matters; was constitutionally shy of them. +His submissiveness, you see, was a kind of genius; made him +therefore, of course, unlike those around him; was a secret; a thing, +you might say, "which no one knoweth, saving he that receiveth it." + +Thus repressible, self-restrained, always concurring with the +influence, the claim upon him, the rebuke, of others, in the bustle +of school life he did not count even with those who knew him best, +with those who taught him, for the intellectual capacity he really +had. In every generation of schoolboys there are a few who find out, +almost for themselves, the beauty and power of good literature, even +in the literature they must read perforce; and this, in turn, is but +the handsel of a beauty and power still active in the actual world, +should they have the good fortune, or rather, acquire the skill, to +deal with it properly. It has something of the stir and unction-- +this intellectual awaking with a leap--of the coming of love. So it +was with Uthwart about his seventeenth year. He felt it, felt the +intellectual passion, like the pressure outward of wings within him-- +hê pterou dynamis,+ says Plato, in the Phaedrus; but again, as some do +with everyday love, withheld, restrained himself; the status of a +freeman in the world of intellect can hardly be for him. The sense +of intellectual ambition, ambitious thoughts such as sweeten the toil +of some of those about him, [220] coming to him once in a way, he is +frankly recommended to put them aside, and acquiesces; puts them from +him once for all, as he could do with besetting thoughts and +feelings, his preferences, (as he had put aside soft thoughts of home +as a disobedience to rule) and with a countenance more good-humoured +than ever, an absolute placidity. It is fit he should be treated +sparingly in this matter of intellectual enjoyment. He is made to +understand that there is at least a score of others as good scholars +as he. He will have of course all the pains, but must not expect the +prizes, of his work; of his loyal, incessant, cheerful industry. + +But only see him as he goes. It is as if he left music, delightfully +throbbing music, or flowers, behind him, as he passes, careless of +them, unconsciously, through the world, the school, the precincts, +the old city. Strangers' eyes, resting on him by chance, are +deterred for a while, even among the rich sights of the venerable +place, as he walks out and in, in his prim gown and purple-tasselled +cap; goes in, with the stream of sunlight, through the black shadows +of the mouldering Gothic gateway, like youth's very self, eternal, +immemorial, eternally renewed, about those immemorially ancient +stones. "Young Apollo!" people say--people who have pigeon-holes for +their impressions, watching the slim, trim figure with the exercise +books. His very dress seems touched [221] with Hellenic fitness to +the healthy youthful form. "Golden-haired, scholar Apollo!" they +repeat, foolishly, ignorantly. He was better; was more like a real +portrait of a real young Greek, like Tryphon, Son of Eutychos, for +instance, (as friends remembered him with regret, as you may see him +still on his tombstone in the British Museum) alive among the paler +physical and intellectual lights of modern England, under the old +monastic stonework of the Middle Age. That theatrical old Greek god +never took the expressiveness, the lines of delicate meaning, such as +were come into the face of the English lad, the physiognomy of his +race; ennobled now, as if by the writing, the signature, there, of a +grave intelligence, by grave information and a subdued will, though +without a touch of melancholy in this "best of playfellows." A +musical composer's notes, we know, are not themselves till the fit +executant comes, who can put all they may be into them. The somewhat +unmeaningly handsome facial type of the Uthwarts, moulded to a mere +animal or physical perfection through wholesome centuries, is +breathed on now, informed, by the touches, traces, complex influences +from past and present a thousandfold, crossing each other in this +late century, and yet at unity in the simple law of the system to +which he is now subject. Coming thus upon an otherwise vigorous and +healthy nature, an untainted [222] physique, and limited by it, those +combining mental influences leave the firm unconscious simplicity of +the boyish nature still unperplexed. The sisters, their friends, +when he comes rarely upon them in foreign places, are proud of the +schoolboy's company--to walk at his side; the brothers, when he sees +them for a day, more considerate than of old. Everywhere he leaves +behind him an odd regret for his presence, as he in turn wonders +sometimes at the deference paid to one so unimportant as himself by +those he meets by accident perhaps; at the ease, for example, with +which he attains to the social privileges denied to others. + +They tell him, he knows it already, he would "do for the army." +"Yes! that would suit you," people observe at once, when he tells +them what "he is to be"--undoubtedly suit him, that dainty, military, +very English kind of pride, in seeming precisely what one is, neither +more nor less. And the first mention of Uthwart's purpose defines +also the vague outlooks of James Stokes, who will be a soldier too. +Uniforms, their scarlet and white and blue, spruce leather and steel, +and gold lace, enlivening the old oak stalls at service time-- +uniforms and surplices were always close together here, where a +military garrison had been established in the suburbs for centuries +past, and there were always sons of its officers in the school. If +you stole out of an evening, it was like a stage scene-- [223] nay! +like the Middle Age, itself, with this multitude of soldiers mingling +in the crowd which filled the unchanged, gabled streets. A military +tradition had been continuous, from the days of crusading knights who +lay humbly on their backs in the "Warriors' Chapel" to the time of +the civil wars, when a certain heroic youth of eighteen was brought +to rest there, onward to Dutch and American wars, and to Harry, and +Geoffrey, and another James also, in hac ecclesiâ pueri instituti. +It was not so long since one of them sat on those very benches in the +sixth form; had come back and entered the school, in full uniform, to +say good-bye! Then the "colours" of his regiment had been brought, +to be deposited by Dean and Canons in the cathedral; and a few weeks +later they had passed, scholars and the rest in long procession, to +deposit Ensign--himself there under his flag, or what remained of it, +a sorry, tattered fringe, along the staff he had borne out of the +battle at the cost of his life, as a little tablet explained. There +were others in similar terms. Alas! for that extraordinary, +peculiarly-named, Destiny, or Doom, appointed to walk side by side +with one or another, aware from the first, but never warning him, +till the random or well-considered shot comes. + +Meantime however, the University, with work in preparation thereto, +fills up the thoughts, the hours, of these would-be soldiers, of +James [224] Stokes, and therefore of Emerald Uthwart, through the +long summer-time, till the Green Court is fragrant with lime-blossom, +and speech-day comes, on which, after their flower-service and sermon +from an old comrade, Emerald surprises masters and companions by the +fine quality of a recitation; still more when "Scholar Stokes" and he +are found bracketed together as "Victors" of the school, who will +proceed together to Oxford. His speech in the Chapter-house was from +that place in Homer, where the soul of the lad Elpenor, killed by +accident, entreats Ulysses for due burial rites. "Fix my oar over my +grave," he says, "the oar I rowed with when I lived, when I went with +my companions." And in effect what surprised, charmed the hearers +was the scruple with which those naturally graceful lips dealt with +every word, every syllable, put upon them. He seemed to be thinking +only of his author, except for just so much of self-consciousness as +was involved in the fact that he seemed also to be speaking a little +against his will; like a monk, it might be said, who sings in choir +with a really fine voice, but at the bidding of his superior, and +counting the notes all the while till his task be done, because his +whole nature revolts from so much as the bare opportunity for +personal display. It was his duty to speak on the occasion. They +had always been great in speech-making, in theatricals, from before +[225] the days when the Puritans destroyed the Dean's "Great Hall" +because "the King's Scholars had profaned it by acting plays there"; +and that peculiar note or accent, as being conspicuously free from +the egotism which vulgarises most of us, seemed to befit the person +of Emerald, impressing weary listeners pleasantly as a novelty in +that kind. Singular!--The words, because seemingly forced from him, +had been worth hearing. The cheers, the "Kentish Fire," of their +companions might have broken down the crumbling black arches of the +old cloister, or roused the dead under foot, as the "Victors" came +out of the Chapter-house side by side; side by side also out of that +delightful period of their life at school, to proceed in due course +to the University. + +They left it precipitately, after brief residence there, taking +advantage of a sudden outbreak of war to join the army at once, +regretted--James Stokes for his high academic promise, Uthwart for a +quality, or group of qualities, not strictly to be defined. He +seemed, in short, to harmonise by their combination in himself all +the various qualities proper to a large and varied community of +youths of nineteen or twenty, to which, when actually present there, +he was felt from hour to hour to be indispensable. In fact school +habits and standards had survived in a world not so different from +that of school for those who are faithful to its type. When he +looked back upon [226] it a little later, college seemed to him, +seemed indeed at the time, had he ventured to admit it, a strange +prolongation of boyhood, in its provisional character, the narrow +limitation of its duties and responsibility, the very divisions of +one's day, the routine of play and work, its formal, perhaps pedantic +rules. The veritable plunge from youth into manhood came when one +passed finally through those old Gothic gates, from a somewhat dreamy +or problematic preparation for it, into the world of peremptory +facts. A college, like a school, is not made for one; and as Uthwart +sat there, still but a scholar, still reading with care the books +prescribed for him by others--Greek and Latin books--the contrast +between his own position and that of the majority of his coevals +already at the business of life impressed itself sometimes with an +odd sense of unreality in the place around him. Yet the schoolboy's +sensitive awe for the great things of the intellectual world had but +matured itself, and was at its height here amid this larger +competition, which left him more than ever to find in doing his best +submissively the sole reward of so doing. He needs now in fact less +repression than encouragement not to be a "passman," as he may if he +likes, acquiescing in a lowly measure of culture which certainly will +not manufacture Miltons, nor turn serge into silk, broom-blossom into +verbenas, but only, perhaps not so faultily, leave Emerald Uthwart +and the like of him [227] essentially what they are. "He holds his +book in a peculiar way," notes in manuscript one of his tutors; +"holds on to it with both hands; clings as if from below, just as his +tough little mind clings to the sense of the Greek words he can +English so closely, precisely." Again, as at school, he had put his +neck under the yoke; though he has now also much reading quite at his +own choice; by preference, when he can come by such, about the place +where he finds himself, about the earlier youthful occupants, if it +might be, of his own quaint rooms on the second floor just below the +roof; of what he can see from his windows in the old black front +eastwards, with its inestimable patina of ancient smoke and weather +and natural decay (when you look close the very stone is a composite +of minute dead bodies) relieving heads like his so effectively on +summer mornings. On summer nights the scent of the hay, the wild- +flowers, comes across the narrow fringe of town to right and left; +seems to come from beyond the Oxford meadows, with sensitive, half- +repellent thoughts from the gardens at home. He looks down upon the +green square with the slim, quaint, black, young figures that cross +it on the way to chapel on yellow Sunday mornings, or upwards to the +dome, the spire; can watch them closely in freakish moonlight, or +flickering softly by an occasional bonfire in the quadrangle behind +him. Yet how hard, how forbidding sometimes, under [228] a late +stormy sky, the scheme of black, white, and grey, to which the group +of ancient buildings could attune itself. And what he reads most +readily is of the military life that intruded itself so oddly, during +the Civil War, into these half-monastic places, till the timid old +academic world scarcely knew itself. He treasures then every +incident which connects a soldier's coat with any still recognisable +object, wall, or tree, or garden-walk; that walk, for instance, under +Merton garden where young Colonel Windebank was shot for a traitor. +His body lies in Saint Mary Magdalen's churchyard. Unassociated to +such incident, the mere beauties of the place counted at the moment +for less than in retrospect. It was almost retrospect even now, with +an anticipation of regret, in rare moments of solitude perhaps, when +the oars splashed far up the narrow streamlets through the fields on +May evenings among the fritillaries--does the reader know them? that +strange remnant just here of a richer extinct flora--dry flowers, +though with a drop of dubious honey in each. Snakes' heads, the rude +call them, for their shape, scale-marked too, and in colour like +rusted blood, as if they grew from some forgotten battle-field, the +bodies, the rotten armour--yet delicate, beautiful, waving proudly. +In truth the memory of Oxford made almost everything he saw after it +seem vulgar. But he feels also nevertheless, characteristically, +that such local pride (fastus he terms it) is proper [229] only for +those whose occupations are wholly congruous with it; for the gifted, +the freemen who can enter into the genius, who possess the liberty, +of the place; that it has a reproach in it for the outsider, which +comes home to him. + +Here again then as he passes through the world, so delightfully to +others, they tell him, as if weighing him, his very self, against his +merely scholastic capacity and effects, that he would "do for the +army"; which he is now wholly glad to hear, for from first to last, +through all his successes there, the army had still been scholar +Stokes' choice, and he had no difficulty, as the reader sees, in +keeping Uthwart also faithful to first intentions. Their names were +already entered for commissions; but the war breaking out afresh, +information reaches them suddenly one morning that they may join +their regiment forthwith. Bidding good-bye therefore, gladly, +hastily, they set out with as little delay as possible for Flanders; +and passing the old school by their nearest road thither, stay for an +hour, find an excuse for coming into the hall in uniform, with which +it must be confessed they seem thoroughly satisfied--Uthwart quite +perversely at ease in the stiff make of his scarlet jacket with black +facings--and so pass onward on their way to Dover, Dunkirk, they +scarcely know whither finally, among the featureless villages, the +long monotonous lines of the windmills, the poplars, blurred with +cold fogs, but marking the [230] roads through the snow which covers +the endless plain, till they come in sight at last of the army in +motion, like machines moving--how little it looked on that endless +plain!--pass on their rapid way to fame, to unpurchased promotion, as +a matter of course to responsibility also, till, their fortune +turning upon them, they miscarry in the latter fatally. They joined +in fact a distinguished regiment in a gallant army, immediately after +a victory in those Flemish regions; shared its encouragement as fully +as if they had had a share in its perils; the high character of the +young officers consolidating itself easily, pleasantly for them, till +the hour of an act of thoughtless bravery, almost the sole irregular +or undisciplined act of Uthwart's life, he still following his +senior--criminal however to the military conscience, under the actual +circumstances, and in an enemy's country. The faulty thing was done, +certainly, with a scrupulous, a characteristic completeness on their +part; and with their prize actually in hand, an old weather-beaten +flag such as hung in the cathedral aisle at school, they bethought +them for the first time of its price, with misgivings now in rapid +growth, as they return to their posts as nearly as may be, for the +division has been ordered forward in their brief absence, to find +themselves under arrest, with that damning proof of heroism, of +guilt, in their possession, relinquished however along with the +swords they will never handle [231] again--toys, idolised toys of our +later youth, we weep at the thought of them as never to be handled +again!--as they enter the prison to await summary trial next day on +the charge of wantonly deserting their posts while in position of +high trust in time of war. + +The full details of what had happened could have been told only by +one or other of themselves; by Uthwart best, in the somewhat matter- +of-fact and prosaic journal he had managed to keep from the first, +noting there the incidents of each successive day, as if in +anticipation of its possible service by way of pièce justificative, +should such become necessary, attesting hour by hour their single- +hearted devotion to soldierly duty. Had a draughtsman equally +truthful or equally "realistic," as we say, accompanied them and made +a like use of his pencil, he might have been mistaken at home for an +artist aiming at "effect," by skilful "arrangements" to tickle +people's interest in the spectacle of war--the sudden ruin of a +village street, the heap of bleeding horses in the half-ploughed +field, the gaping bridges, hand or face of the dead peeping from a +hastily made grave at the roadside, smoke-stained rents in cottage- +walls, ignoble ruin everywhere--ignoble but for its frank expression. + +But you find in Uthwart's journal, side by side with those ugly +patches, very precise and unadorned records of their common +gallantry, the more effective indeed for their simplicity; [232] and +not of gallantry only, but of the long-sustained patience also, the +essential monotony of military life, even on a campaign. Peril, +good-luck, promotion, the grotesque hardships which leave them smart +as ever, (as if, so others observe, dust and mire wouldn't hold on +them, so "spick and span" they were, more especially on days of any +exceptional risk or effort) the great confidence reposed in them at +last; all is noted, till, with a little quiet pride, he records a +gun-shot wound which keeps him a month alone in hospital wearily; and +at last, its hasty but seemingly complete healing. + +Following, leading, resting sometimes perforce, amid gun-shots, +putrefying wounds, green corpses, they never lacked good spirits, any +more than the birds warbling perennially afresh, as they will, over +such gangrened places, or the grass which so soon covers them. And +at length fortune, their misfortune, perversely determined that +heroism should take the form of patience under the walls of an +unimportant frontier town, with old Vauban fortifications seemingly +made only for appearance' sake, like the work in the trenches-- +gardener's work! round about the walls they are called upon to +superintend day after day. It was like a calm at sea, delaying one's +passage, one's purpose in being on board at all, a dead calm, yet +with an awful feeling of tension, intolerable at last for those who +were still all athirst for action. How dumb and [233] stupid the +place seemed, in its useless defiance of conquerors, anxious, for +reasons not indeed apparent, but which they were undoubtedly within +their rights in holding to, not to blow it at once into the air--the +steeple, the perky weathercock--to James Stokes in particular, always +eloquent in action, longing for heroic effort, and ready to pay its +price, maddened now by the palpable imposture in front of him morning +after morning, as he demonstrates conclusively to Uthwart, seduced at +last from the clearer sense of duty and discipline, not by the +demonstrated ease, but rather by the apparent difficulty of what +Stokes proposes to do. They might have been deterred by recent +example. Colonel --, who, as every one knew, had actually gained a +victory by disobeying orders, had not been suffered to remain in the +army of which he was an ornament. It was easy in fact for both, +though it seemed the heroic thing, to dash through the calm with +delightful sense of active powers renewed; to pass into the +beleaguered town with a handful of men, and no loss, after a manner +the feasibility of which Stokes had explained acutely but in vain at +headquarters. He proved it to Uthwart at all events, and a few +others. Delightful heroism! delightful self-indulgence! It was +delayed for a moment by orders to move forward at last, with hopes +checked almost immediately after by a countermand, bringing them +right round their [234] stupid dumb enemy to the same wearisome +position once again, to the trenches and the rest, but with their +thirst for action only stimulated the more. How great the +disappointment! encouraging a certain laxity of discipline that had +prevailed about them of late. They take advantage however of a vague +phrase in their instructions; determine in haste to proceed on their +plan as carefully, as sparingly of the lives of others as may be; +detach a small company, hazarding thereby an algebraically certain +scheme at headquarters of victory or secure retreat, which embraced +the entire country in its calculations; detach themselves; finally +pass into the place, and out again with their prize, themselves +secure. Themselves only could have told the details--the intensely +pleasant, the glorious sense of movement renewed once more; of +defiance, just for once, of a seemingly stupid control; their dismay +at finding their company led forward by others, their own posts +deserted, their handful of men--nowhere! + +In an ordinary trial at law, the motives, every detail of so +irregular an act might have been weighed, changing the colour of it. +Their general character would have told in their favour, but actually +told against them now; they had but won an exceptional trust to +betray it. Martial courts exist not for consideration, but for vivid +exemplary effect and prompt punishment. "There is a kind of tribunal +incidental [235] to service in the field," writes another diarist, +who may tell in his own words what remains to be told. "This court," +he says, "may consist of three staff-officers only, but has the power +of sentencing to death. On the --st two young officers of the --th +regiment, in whom it appears unusual confidence had been placed, were +brought before this court, on the charge of desertion and wantonly +exposing their company to danger. They were found guilty, and the +proper penalty death, to be inflicted next morning before the +regiment marches. The delinquents were understood to have appealed +to a general court-martial; desperately at last, to 'the judgment of +their country'; but were held to have no locus standi whatever for an +appeal under the actual circumstances. As a civilian I cannot but +doubt the justice, whatever may be thought of the expediency, of such +a summary process in regard to the capital penalty. The regiment to +which the culprits belonged, with some others, was quartered for the +night in the faubourg of Saint --, recently under blockade by a +portion of our forces. I was awoke at daybreak by the sound of +marching. The morning was a particularly clear one, though, as the +sun was not yet risen, it looked grey and sad along the empty street, +up which a party of grey soldiers were passing with steady pace. I +knew for what purpose. + +"The whole of the force in garrison here [236] had already marched to +the place of execution, the immense courtyard of a monastery, +surrounded irregularly by ancient buildings like those of some +cathedral precincts I have seen in England. Here the soldiers then +formed three sides of a great square, a grave having been dug on the +fourth side. Shortly afterwards the funeral procession came up. +First came the band of the --th, playing the Dead March; next the +firing party, consisting of twelve non-commissioned officers; then +the coffins, followed immediately by the unfortunate prisoners, +accompanied by a chaplain. Slowly and sadly did the mournful +procession approach, when it passed through three sides of the +square, the troops having been previously faced inwards, and then +halted opposite to the grave. The proceedings of the court-martial +were then read; and the elder prisoner having been blindfolded was +ordered to kneel down on his coffin, which had been placed close to +the grave, the firing party taking up a position exactly opposite at +a few yards' distance. The poor fellow's face was deadly pale, but +he had marched his last march as steadily as ever I saw a man step, +and bore himself throughout most bravely, though an oddly mixed +expression passed over his countenance when he was directed to remove +himself from the side of his companion, shaking his hand first. At +this moment there was hardly a dry eye, and several young soldiers +fainted, numberless as must be [237] the scenes of horror which even +they have witnessed during these last months. At length the +chaplain, who had remained praying with the prisoner, quietly +withdrew, and at a given signal, but without word of command, the +muskets were levelled, a volley was fired, and the body of the +unfortunate man sprang up, falling again on his back. One shot had +purposely been reserved; and as the presiding officer thought he was +not quite dead a musket was placed close to his head and fired. All +was now over; but the troops having been formed into columns were +marched close by the body as it lay on the ground, after which it was +placed in one of the coffins and buried. + +"I had almost forgotten his companion, the younger and more fortunate +prisoner, though I could scarcely tell, as I looked at him, whether +his fate was really preferable in leaving his own rough coffin +unoccupied behind him there. Lieutenant (I think Edward) Uthwart, as +being the younger of the two offenders, 'by the mercy of the court' +had his sentence commuted to dismissal from the army with disgrace. +A colour-sergeant then advanced with the former officer's sword, a +remarkably fine one, which he thereupon snapped in sunder over the +prisoner's head as he knelt. After this the prisoner's regimental +coat was handed forward and put upon him, the epaulettes and buttons +being then torn off and flung to a distance. This part of [238] such +sentences is almost invariably spared; but, I suppose through +unavoidable haste, was on the present occasion somewhat rudely +carried out. I shall never forget the expression of this man's +countenance, though I have seen many sad things in the course of my +profession. He had the sort of good looks which always rivet +attention, and in most minds friendly interest; and now, amid all his +pain and bewilderment, bore a look of humility and submission as he +underwent those extraordinary details of his punishment, which +touched me very oddly with a sort of desire (I cannot otherwise +express it) to share his lot, to be actually in his place for a +moment. Yet, alas! --no! say rather Thank Heaven! the nearest +approach to that look I have seen has been on the face of those whom +I have known from circumstances to be almost incapable at the time of +any feeling whatever. I would have offered him pecuniary aid, +supposing he needed it, but it was impossible. I went on with the +regiment, leaving the poor wretch to shift for himself, Heaven knows +how, the state of the country being what it is. He might join the +enemy!" + +What money Uthwart had about him had in fact passed that morning into +the hands of his guards. To tell what followed would be to accompany +him on a roundabout and really aimless journey, the details of which +he could never afterwards recall. See him lingering for morsels +[239] of food at some shattered farmstead, or assisted by others +almost as wretched as himself, sometimes without his asking. In his +worn military dress he seems a part of the ruin under which he creeps +for a night's rest as darkness comes on. He actually came round +again to the scene of his disgrace, of the execution; looked in vain +for the precise spot where he had knelt; then, almost envying him who +lay there, for the unmarked grave; passed over it perhaps +unrecognised for some change in that terrible place, or rather in +himself; wept then as never before in his life; dragged himself on +once more, till suddenly the whole country seems to move under the +rumour, the very thunder, of "the crowning victory," as he is made to +understand. Falling in with the tide of its heroes returning to +English shores, his vagrant footsteps are at last directed homewards. +He finds himself one afternoon at the gate, turning out of the quiet +Sussex road, through the fields for whose safety he had fought with +so much of undeniable gallantry and approval. + +On that July afternoon the gardens, the woods, mounted in flawless +sweetness all round him as he stood, to meet the circle of a flawless +sky. Not a cloud; not a motion on the grass! At the first he had +intended to return home no more; and it had been a proof of his great +dejection that he sent at last, as best he could, for money. They +knew his fate already [240] by report, and were touched naturally +when that had followed on the record of his honours. Had it been +possible they would have set forth at any risk to meet, to seek him; +were waiting now for the weary one to come to the gate, ready with +their oil and wine, to speak metaphorically, and from this time forth +underwent his charm to the utmost--the charm of an exquisite +character, felt in some way to be inseparable from his person, his +characteristic movements, touched also now with seemingly irreparable +sorrow. For his part, drinking in here the last sweets of the +sensible world, it was as if he, the lover of roses, had never before +been aware of them at all. The original softness of his temperament, +against which the sense of greater things thrust upon him had +successfully reacted, asserted itself again now as he lay at ease, +the ease well merited by his deeds, his sorrows. That he was going +to die moved those about him to humour this mood, to soften all +things to his touch; and looking back he might have pronounced those +four last years of doom the happiest of his life. The memory of the +grave into which he had gazed so steadily on the execution morning, +into which, as he feels, one half of himself had then descended, does +not lessen his shrinking from the fate before him, yet fortifies him +to face it manfully, gives a sort of fraternal familiarity to death; +in a few weeks' time this battle too is fought out; it is as if the +thing were ended. [241] The delightful summer heat, the freshness it +enhances--he contrasts such things no longer with the sort of place +to which he is hastening. The possible duration of life for him was +indeed uncertain, the future to some degree indefinite; but as +regarded any fairly distant date, anything like a term of years, from +the first there had been no doubt at all; he would be no longer here. +Meantime it was like a delightful few days' additional holiday from +school, with which perforce one must be content at last; or as though +he had not been pardoned on that terrible morning, but only reprieved +for two or three years. Yet how large a proportion they would have +seemed in the whole sum of his years. He would have liked to lie +finally in the garden among departed pets, dear dead dogs and horses; +faintly proposes it one day; but after a while comprehends the +churchyard, with its white spots in the distant flowery view, as +filling harmoniously its own proper place there. The weary soul +seemed to be settling deeper into the body and the earth it came of, +into the condition of the flowers, the grass, proper creatures of the +earth to which he is returning. The saintly vicar visits him +considerately; is repelled with politeness; goes on his way pondering +inwardly what kind of place there might be, in any possible scheme of +another world, for so absolutely unspiritual a subject. In fact, as +the breath of the infinite world came about him, he clung all [242] +the faster to the beloved finite things still in contact with him; he +had successfully hidden from his eyes all beside. + +His reprieve however lasted long enough, after all, for a certain +change of opinion of immense weight to him--a revision or reversal of +judgment. It came about in this way. When peace was arranged, with +question of rewards, pensions, and the like, certain battles or +incidents therein were fought over again, sometimes in the highest +places of debate. On such an occasion a certain speaker cites the +case of Lieutenant James Stokes and another, as being "pessimi +exempli": whereupon a second speaker gets up, prepared with full +detail, insists, brings that incidental matter to the front for an +hour, tells his unfortunate friend's story so effectively, +pathetically, that, as happens with our countrymen, they repent. The +matter gets into the newspapers, and, coming thus into sympathetic +public view, something like glory wins from Emerald Uthwart his last +touch of animation. Just not too late he received the offer of a +commission; kept the letter there open within sight. Aldy, who +"never shed tears and was incapable of pain," in his great physical +weakness, wept--shall we say for the second time in his life? A less +excitement would have been more favorable to any chance there might +be of the patient's surviving. In fact the old gun-shot wound, +wrongly thought to be cured, which had caused [243] the one illness +of his life, is now drawing out what remains of it, as he feels with +a kind of odd satisfaction and pride--his old glorious wound! And +then, as of old, an absolute submissiveness comes over him, as he +gazes round at the place, the relics of his uniform, the letter lying +there. It was as if there was nothing more that could be said. +Accounts thus settled, he stretched himself in the bed he had +occupied as a boy, more completely at his ease than since the day +when he had left home for the first time. Respited from death once, +he was twice believed to be dead before the date actually registered +on his tomb. "What will it matter a hundred years hence?" they used +to ask by way of simple comfort in boyish troubles at school, +overwhelming at the moment. Was that in truth part of a certain +revelation of the inmost truth of things to "babes," such as we have +heard of? What did it matter--the gifts, the good-fortune, its +terrible withdrawal, the long agony? Emerald Uthwart would have been +all but a centenarian to-day. + +Postscript, from the Diary of a Surgeon, +August --th, 18--. + +I was summoned by letter into the country to perform an operation on +the dead body of a young man, formerly an officer in the army. The +cause of death is held to have been some [244] kind of distress of +mind, concurrent with the effects of an old gun-shot wound, the ball +still remaining somewhere in the body. My instructions were to +remove this, at the express desire, as I understood, of the deceased, +rather than to ascertain the precise cause of death. This however +became apparent in the course of my search for the ball, which had +enveloped itself in the muscular substance in the region of the +heart, and was removed with difficulty. I have known cases of this +kind, where anxiety has caused incurable cardiac derangement (the +deceased seems to have been actually sentenced to death for some +military offence when on service in Flanders), and such mental strain +would of course have been aggravated by the presence of a foreign +object in that place. On arriving at my destination, a small village +in a remote part of Sussex, I proceeded through the little orderly +churchyard, where however the monthly roses were blooming all their +own way among the formal white marble monuments of the wealthier +people of the neighbourhood. At one of these the masons were at +work, picking and chipping in the otherwise absolute stillness of the +summer afternoon. They were in fact opening the family burial-place +of the people who summoned me hither; and the workmen pointed out +their abode, conspicuous on the slope beyond, towards which I bent my +steps accordingly. I was conducted to a large upper [245] room or +attic, set freely open to sun and air, and found the body lying in a +coffin, almost hidden under very rich-scented cut flowers, after a +manner I have never seen in this country, except in the case of one +or two Catholics laid out for burial. The mother of the deceased was +present, and actually assisted my operations, amid such tokens of +distress, though perfectly self-controlled, as I fervently hope I may +never witness again. + +Deceased was in his twenty-seventh year, but looked many years +younger; had indeed scarcely yet reached the full condition of +manhood. The extreme purity of the outlines, both of the face and +limbs, was such as is usually found only in quite early youth; the +brow especially, under an abundance of fair hair, finely formed, not +high, but arched and full, as is said to be the way with those +who have the imaginative temper in excess. Sad to think that had he +lived reason must have deserted that so worthy abode of it! I was +struck by the great beauty of the organic developments, in the +strictly anatomic sense; those of the throat and diaphragm in +particular might have been modelled for a teacher of normal +physiology, or a professor of design. The flesh was still almost as +firm as that of a living person; as happens when, as in this case, +death comes to all intents and purposes as gradually as in old age. + +This expression of health and life, under my seemingly merciless +doings, together with the mother's distress, touched me to a degree +very [246] unusual, I conceive, in persons of my years and +profession. Though I believed myself to be acting by his express +wish, I felt like a criminal. The ball, a small one, much corroded +with blood, was at length removed; and I was then directed to wrap it +in a partly-printed letter, or other document, and place it in the +breast-pocket of a faded and much-worn scarlet soldier's coat, put +over the shirt which enveloped the body. The flowers were then +hastily replaced, the hands and the peak of the handsome nose +remaining visible among them; the wind ruffled the fair hair a +little; the lips were still red. I shall not forget it. The lid was +then placed on the coffin and screwed down in my presence. There was +no plate or other inscription upon it. + +NOTES + +197. *Published in the New Review, June and July 1892, and now +reprinted by the kind permission of the proprietors. + +210. +Transliteration: askêsis. Liddel and Scott definition: +"exercise, training." + +213. +Transliteration: Moirai. Liddel and Scott definition: +"[singular =] one's portion in life, lot, destiny." + +213. +Transliteration: Kêr. Brief Liddel and Scott definition: +"doom, death, destruction." + +214. +Translation: "in this church established for boys." + +219. +Transliteration: hê pterou dynamis. + + + +DIAPHANEITÉ + +[247] THERE are some unworldly types of character which the world is +able to estimate. It recognises certain moral types, or categories, +and regards whatever falls within them as having a right to exist. +The saint, the artist, even the speculative thinker, out of the +world's order as they are, yet work, so far as they work at all, in +and by means of the main current of the world's energy. Often it +gives them late, or scanty, or mistaken acknowledgment; still it has +room for them in its scheme of life, a place made ready for them in +its affections. It is also patient of doctrinaires of every degree +of littleness. As if dimly conscious of some great sickness and +weariness of heart in itself, it turns readily to those who theorise +about its unsoundness. To constitute one of these categories, or +types, a breadth and generality of character is required. There is +another type of character, which is not broad and general, rare, +precious above all to the artist, a character which seems to have +been the supreme moral charm in the Beatrice of the [248] Commedia. +It does not take the eye by breadth of colour; rather it is that fine +edge of light, where the elements of our moral nature refine +themselves to the burning point. It crosses rather than follows the +main current of the world's life. The world has no sense fine enough +for those evanescent shades, which fill up the blanks between +contrasted types of character--delicate provision in the organisation +of the moral world for the transmission to every part of it of the +life quickened at single points! For this nature there is no place +ready in its affections. This colourless, unclassified purity of +life it can neither use for its service, nor contemplate as an ideal. + +"Sibi unitus et simplificatus esse," that is the long struggle of the +Imitatio Christi. The spirit which it forms is the very opposite of +that which regards life as a game of skill, and values things and +persons as marks or counters of something to be gained, or achieved, +beyond them. It seeks to value everything at its eternal worth, not +adding to it, or taking from it, the amount of influence it may have +for or against its own special scheme of life. It is the spirit that +sees external circumstances as they are, its own power and tendencies +as they are, and realises the given conditions of its life, not +disquieted by the desire for change, or the preference of one part in +life rather than another, or passion, or opinion. The character we +mean to indicate achieves this [249] perfect life by a happy gift of +nature, without any struggle at all. Not the saint only, the artist +also, and the speculative thinker, confused, jarred, disintegrated in +the world, as sometimes they inevitably are, aspire for this +simplicity to the last. The struggle of this aspiration with a lower +practical aim in the mind of Savonarola has been subtly traced by the +author of Romola. As language, expression, is the function of +intellect, as art, the supreme expression, is the highest product of +intellect, so this desire for simplicity is a kind of indirect self- +assertion of the intellectual part of such natures. Simplicity in +purpose and act is a kind of determinate expression in dexterous +outline of one's personality. It is a kind of moral expressiveness; +there is an intellectual triumph implied in it. Such a simplicity is +characteristic of the repose of perfect intellectual culture. The +artist and he who has treated life in the spirit of art desires only +to be shown to the world as he really is; as he comes nearer and +nearer to perfection, the veil of an outer life not simply expressive +of the inward becomes thinner and thinner. This intellectual throne +is rarely won. Like the religious life, it is a paradox in the +world, denying the first conditions of man's ordinary existence, +cutting obliquely the spontaneous order of things. But the character +we have before us is a kind of prophecy of this repose and +simplicity, coming as it were in the order of grace, not of nature, +by [250] some happy gift, or accident of birth or constitution, +showing that it is indeed within the limits of man's destiny. Like +all the higher forms of inward life this character is a subtle +blending and interpenetration of intellectual, moral and spiritual +elements. But it is as a phase of intellect, of culture, that it is +most striking and forcible. It is a mind of taste lighted up by some +spiritual ray within. What is meant by taste is an imperfect +intellectual state; it is but a sterile kind of culture. It is the +mental attitude, the intellectual manner of perfect culture, assumed +by a happy instinct. Its beautiful way of handling everything that +appeals to the senses and the intellect is really directed by the +laws of the higher intellectual life, but while culture is able to +trace those laws, mere taste is unaware of them. In the character +before us, taste, without ceasing to be instructive, is far more than +a mental attitude or manner. A magnificent intellectual force is +latent within it. It is like the reminiscence of a forgotten culture +that once adorned the mind; as if the mind of one philosophêsas pote +met' erôtos,+ fallen into a new cycle, were beginning its spiritual +progress over again, but with a certain power of anticipating its +stages. It has the freshness without the shallowness of taste, the +range and seriousness of culture without its strain and over- +consciousness. Such a habit may be described as wistfulness of mind, +the feeling that there is "so much to [251] know," rather as a +longing after what is unattainable, than as a hope to apprehend. Its +ethical result is an intellectual guilelessness, or integrity, that +instinctively prefers what is direct and clear, lest one's own +confusion and intransparency should hinder the transmission from +without of light that is not yet inward. He who is ever looking for +the breaking of a light he knows not whence about him, notes with a +strange heedfulness the faintest paleness in the sky. That +truthfulness of temper, that receptivity, which professors often +strive in vain to form, is engendered here less by wisdom than by +innocence. Such a character is like a relic from the classical age, +laid open by accident to our alien modern atmosphere. It has +something of the clear ring, the eternal outline of the antique. +Perhaps it is nearly always found with a corresponding outward +semblance. The veil or mask of such a nature would be the very +opposite of the "dim blackguardism" of Danton, the type Carlyle has +made too popular for the true interest of art. It is just this sort +of entire transparency of nature that lets through unconsciously all +that is really lifegiving in the established order of things; it +detects without difficulty all sorts of affinities between its own +elements, and the nobler elements in that order. But then its +wistfulness and a confidence in perfection it has makes it love the +lords of change. What makes revolutionists is either self-pity, or +indignation [252] for the sake of others, or a sympathetic perception +of the dominant undercurrent of progress in things. The nature +before us is revolutionist from the direct sense of personal worth, +that chlidê,+ that pride of life, which to the Greek was a heavenly +grace. How can he value what comes of accident, or usage, or +convention, whose individual life nature itself has isolated and +perfected? Revolution is often impious. They who prosecute +revolution have to violate again and again the instinct of reverence. +That is inevitable, since after all progress is a kind of violence. +But in this nature revolutionism is softened, harmonised, subdued as +by distance. It is the revolutionism of one who has slept a hundred +years. Most of us are neutralised by the play of circumstances. To +most of us only one chance is given in the life of the spirit and the +intellect, and circumstances prevent our dexterously seizing that one +chance. The one happy spot in our nature has no room to burst into +life. Our collective life, pressing equally on every part of every +one of us, reduces nearly all of us to the level of a colourless +uninteresting existence. Others are neutralised, not by suppression +of gifts, but by just equipoise among them. In these no single gift, +or virtue, or idea, has an unmusical predominance. The world easily +confounds these two conditions. It sees in the character before us +only indifferentism. Doubtless the chief vein of the life of +humanity [253] could hardly pass through it. Not by it could the +progress of the world be achieved. It is not the guise of Luther or +Spinoza; rather it is that of Raphael, who in the midst of the +Reformation and the Renaissance, himself lighted up by them, yielded +himself to neither, but stood still to live upon himself, even in +outward form a youth, almost an infant, yet surprising all the world. +The beauty of the Greek statues was a sexless beauty; the statues of +the gods had the least traces of sex. Here there is a moral +sexlessness, a kind of impotence, an ineffectual wholeness of nature, +yet with a divine beauty and significance of its own. + +Over and over again the world has been surprised by the heroism, the +insight, the passion, of this clear crystal nature. Poetry and +poetical history have dreamed of a crisis, where it must needs be +that some human victim be sent down into the grave. These are they +whom in its profound emotion humanity might choose to send. "What," +says Carlyle, of Charlotte Corday, "What if she had emerged from her +secluded stillness, suddenly like a star; cruel-lovely, with half- +angelic, half-daemonic splendour; to gleam for a moment, and in a +moment be extinguished; to be held in memory, so bright complete was +she, through long centuries!" + +Often the presence of this nature is felt like a sweet aroma in early +manhood. Afterwards, as the adulterated atmosphere of the world +assimilates [254] us to itself, the savour of it faints away. +Perhaps there are flushes of it in all of us; recurring moments of it +in every period of life. Certainly this is so with every man of +genius. It is a thread of pure white light that one might disentwine +from the tumultuary richness of Goethe's nature. It is a natural +prophecy of what the next generation will appear, renerved, modified +by the ideas of this. There is a violence, an impossibility about +men who have ideas, which makes one suspect that they could never be +the type of any widespread life. Society could not be conformed to +their image but by an unlovely straining from its true order. Well, +in this nature the idea appears softened, harmonised as by distance, +with an engaging naturalness, without the noise of axe or hammer. + +People have often tried to find a type of life that might serve as a +basement type. The philosopher, the saint, the artist, neither of +them can be this type; the order of nature itself makes them +exceptional. It cannot be the pedant, or the conservative, or +anything rash and irreverent. Also the type must be one discontented +with society as it is. The nature here indicated alone is worthy to +be this type. A majority of such would be the regeneration of the +world. + +July, 1864. + +NOTES + +250. +Transliteration: philosophêsas pote met' erôtos. + +252. +Transliteration: chlidê. + +THE END + + +End of this Project Gutenberg Etext of Miscellaneous Studies by Walter Pater + diff --git a/old/8mstd10.zip b/old/8mstd10.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..e7cc328 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/8mstd10.zip |