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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/8858-8.txt b/8858-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..258cd0d --- /dev/null +++ b/8858-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,4623 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Earthwork Out Of Tuscany, by Maurice Hewlett + +Copyright laws are changing all over the world. Be sure to check the +copyright laws for your country before downloading or redistributing +this or any other Project Gutenberg eBook. + +This header should be the first thing seen when viewing this Project +Gutenberg file. Please do not remove it. Do not change or edit the +header without written permission. + +Please read the "legal small print," and other information about the +eBook and Project Gutenberg at the bottom of this file. Included is +important information about your specific rights and restrictions in +how the file may be used. You can also find out about how to make a +donation to Project Gutenberg, and how to get involved. + + +**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** + +**eBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** + +*****These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers!***** + + +Title: Earthwork Out Of Tuscany + +Author: Maurice Hewlett + +Release Date: September, 2005 [EBook #8858] +[This file was first posted on August 14, 2003] + +Edition: 10 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, EARTHWORK OUT OF TUSCANY *** + + + + +E-text prepared by Project Gutenberg Distributed Proofreaders + + + +EARTHWORK OUT OF TUSCANY + +Being Impressions and Translations of Maurice Hewlett + + + + + + + +"For as it is hurtful to drink wine or water alone; and as wine mingled +with water is pleasant and delighteth the taste: even so speech, finely +framed, delighteth the ears of them that read the story."--3 MACCABEES xv. +39. + + TO + + MY FATHER + + THIS LITTLE BOOK + + NOT AS BEING WORTHY BUT AS ALL I HAVE + + IS DEDICATED + +I cannot add one tendril to your bays, +Worn quietly where who love you sing your praise; +But I may stand +Among the household throng with lifted hand, +Upholding for sweet honour of the land +Your crown of days. + + + +PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION + +I cannot be for ever explaining what I intended when I wrote this book. +Upon this, its third appearance, even though it is to rank in that good +company which wears the crimson of Eversley, it must take its chance, +undefended by its conscious parent. He feels, indeed, with all the +anxieties, something of the pride of the hen, who conducts her brood of +ducklings to the water, sees them embark upon the flood, and must leave +them to their buoyant performances, dreadful, but aware also that they are +doing a finer thing than her own merits could have hoped to win them. So +it is here. I did not at the outset expect a third edition in any livery; +I may still fear a wreck for this cockboat of my early invention; but I +hope I am too respectful of myself to try throwing oil upon the waters. + +I leave the former prefaces as they stand. I felt them when I made them, +and feel them still; but I shall make no more. If _Earthwork_ has the +confidence, at this time of day, to carry a red coat, it shall carry it +alone. + +LONDON, 1901. + + +PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION + +Mr. Critics--to whom, kind or unkind, I confess obligations--and the +Public between them have produced, it appears, some sort of demand for +this Second Edition. While I do not think it either polite or politic to +enquire too deeply into reasons, I am not the man to disoblige them. It is +sufficient for me that in a world indifferent well peopled five hundred +souls have bought or acquired my book, and that other hundreds have +signified their desire to do likewise. Nevertheless--the vanity of authors +being notoriously hard-rooted--I must own to my mortification in the +discovery that not more than two in every hundred who have read me have +known what I was at. I have been told it is a good average, but, with +deference, I don't think so. No man has any right to take beautiful and +simple things out of their places, wrap them up in a tissue of his own +conceits, and hand them about the universe for gods and men to wonder +upon. If he must convey simple things let him convey them simply. If I, +for instance, must steal a loaf of bread, would it not be better to walk +out of the shop with it under my coat than to call for it in a hansom and +hoodwink the baker with a forged cheque on Coutts's bank? Surely. If, +then, I go to Italy, and convey the hawthor-scent of Della Robbia, the +straining of Botticelli to express the ineffable, the mellow autumn tones +of the life of Florence; if I do this, and make a parade of my magnanimity +in permitting the household to divide the spoil, how on earth should I mar +all my bravery by giving people what they don't want, or turn double knave +by fobbing them off with an empty box? + +I had hoped to have done better than this. I tried to express in the title +of my book what I thought I had done; more, I was bold enough to assume +that, having weathered the title, my readers would find a smooth channel +with leading-lights enough to bring them sound to port. _Mea culpa!_ +I believe that I was wrong. The book has been read as a collection of +essays and stories and dialogues only pulled together by the binder's +tapes; as otherwise disjointed, fragmentary, _décousue_, a "piebald +monstrous book," a sort of _kous-kous_, made out of the odds and ends +of a scribbler's note-book. Some have liked some morsels, others other +morsels: it has been a matter of the luck of the fork. Very few, one only +to my knowledge, can have seen the thing as it presented itself to my +flattering eye--not as a pudding, not as a case of confectionery even, but +as a little sanctuary of images such as a pious heathen might make of his +earthenware gods. Let us be serious: listen. The thing is Criticism; but +some of it is criticism by trope and figure. I hope that is plain enough. + +When the first man heard his first thunderstorm he said (or Human Nature +has bettered itself), "Certainly a God is angry." When after a night of +doubt and heaviness the sun rose out of the sea, the sea kindled, and all +its waves laughed innumerably, again he said, "God is stirring. Joy cometh +in the morning." Even in saying so much he was making images, poor man, +for one's soul is as dumb as a fish and can only talk by signs. But by +degrees, as his hand grew obedient to his heart, he set to work to make +more lasting images of these gods--Thunder Gods, Gods of the Sun and the +Morning. And as these gods were the sum of the best feelings he had, so +the images of them were the best things he made. And that goes on now +whenever a young man sees something new or strange or beautiful. He +wonders, he falls on his face, he would say his prayers; he rises up, he +would sing a pæan. But he is dumb, the wretch! He must make images. This +he does because Necessity drives him: this I have done. And part of the +world calls the result Criticism, and another part says, It may be Art. +But I know that it is the struggling of a dumb man to find an outlet, and +I call it Religion. + +"God first made man, and straightway man made God; +No wonder if a tang of that same sod, +Whereout we issued at a breath, should cling +To all we fashion. We can only plod +Lit by a starveling candle; and we sing +Of what we can remember of the road." + +The vague informed, the lovely indefinite defined: that is Art. As a sort +of _pâte sur pâte_ comes Criticism, to do for Art what Art does for +life. I have tried in this book to be the artist at second-hand, to make +pictures of pictures, images of images, poems of poems. You may call it +Criticism, you may call it Art: I call it Religion. It is making the best +thing I can out of the best things I feel. + +LONDON, 1898. + + +ADVERTISEMENT TO THE FIRST EDITION + +Polite reader, you who have travelled _Italy_, it will not be unknown +to you that the humbler sort in that country have ever believed certain +spots and recesses of their land--as wells, mountain-paths, farmsteads, +groves of ilex or olive, quiet pine-woods, creeks or bays of the sea, and +such like hidden ways--to be the chosen resort of familiar spirits, +baleful or beneficent, fate-ridden or amenable to prayer, half divine, +wholly out of rule or ordering; which rustic deities and _genii +locorum_, if it was not needful to propitiate, it was fascination to +observe. It is believed of them in the hill-country round about +_Perugia_ and in the quieter parts of _Tuscany_, that they are +still present, tolerated of God by reason of their origin (which is, +indeed, that of the very soil whose effluence they are), chastened, +circumscribed and, as it were, combed or pared of evil desire and import. +To them or their _avatars_ (it matters little which) the rude people +still bow down; they still humour them with gifts of flowers, songs, or +artless customs (as of Mayday, or the _Giorno de' Grilli_); you may +still see wayside shrines, votive tablets, humble offerings, set in a +farm-wall or country hedge, starry and fresh as a patch of yellow flowers +in a rye-field. If you say that they have made gods in their own image, +you do not convince them of Sin, for they do as their betters. If you say +their gods are earthy, they reply by asking, "What then are we?" For they +will admit, and you cannot deny, earthiness to have at least a part in all +of us. And you are forbidden to call this unhappy, since God made all. Out +of the drenched earth whence these worshippers arose, they made their +rough-cast gods; out of the same earth they still mould images to speak +the presentment of them which they have. Out of that earth, I, a northern +image-maker, have set up my conceits of their informing spirits, of the +spirits of themselves, their soil, and the fair works they have +accomplished. So I have called this book _Earthwork out of Tuscany. Qui +habet aures ad audiendum audiat._ + +LONDON, 1895. + + + +CONTENTS + + +PROEM: APOLOGIA PRO LIBELLO + + 1. EYE OF ITALY + + 2. LITTLE FLOWERS + + 3. A SACRIFICE AT PRATO + + 4. OF POETS AND NEEDLEWORK + + 5. OF BOILS AND THE IDEAL + + 6. THE SOUL OF A FACT + + 7. QUATTROCENTISTERIA + + 8. THE BURDEN OF NEW TYRE + + 9. ILARIA, MARIOTA, BETTINA + +10. CATS + +11. THE SOUL OF A CITY + +12. WITH THE BROWN BEAR + +13. DEAD CHURCHES AT FOLIGNO + +ENVOY: TO ALL YOU LADIES + + + +PROEM + + +APOLOGIA PRO LIBELLO: IN A LETTER TO A FRIEND + +Although you know your Italy well, you ask me, who see her now for the +first time, to tell you how I find her; how she sinks into me; wherein she +fulfils, and wherein fails to fulfil, certain dreams and fancies of mine +(old amusements of yours) about her. Here, truly, you show yourself the +diligent collector of human documents your friends have always believed +you; for I think it can only be appetite for acquisition, to see how a man +recognisant of the claims of modernity in Art bears the first brunt of the +Old Masters' assault, that tempts you to risk a _rechauffée_ of Paul +Bourget and Walter Pater, with _ana_ lightly culled from Symonds, +and, perchance, the questionable support of ponderous references out of +Burckhardt. In spite of my waiver of the title, you relish the notion of a +Modern face to face with Botticelli and Mantegna and Perugino (to say +nothing of that Giotto who had so much to say!), artists in whom, you +think and I agree, certain impressions strangely positive of many vanished +aspects of life remain to be accounted for, and (it may be) reconciled +with modern visions of Art and Beauty. Well! I am flattered and touched by +such confidence in my powers of expression and your own of endurance. I +look upon you as a late-in-time Maecenas, generously resolved to defray +the uttermost charge of weariness that a young writer may be encouraged to +unfold himself and splash in the pellucid Tuscan air. I cannot assert that +you are performing an act of charity to mankind, but I can at least assure +you that you are doing more for me than if you had settled my accounts +with Messr. Cook and Sons, or Signora Vedova Paolini, my esteemed +landlady. A writer who is worth anything accumulates more than he gives +off, and never lives up to his income. His difficulty is the old one of +digestion, Italian Art being as crucial for the modern as Italian cookery. +Crucial indeed! for diverse are the ways of the Hyperboreans cheek by jowl +with _asciutta_ and Tuscan tablewine, as any _osteria_ will +convince you. To one man the oil is a delight: he will soak himself in it +till his thought swims viscid in his pate. To another it is abhorrent: +straightway he calls for his German vinegar and drowns the native flavour +in floods as bitter as polemics. Your wine too! Overweak for water, says +one, who consumes a stout _fiaschone_ and spends a stertorous +afternoon in headache and cursing at the generous home-grown. +_Frizzante!_ cries your next to all his gods; and flushes the poison +with infected water. Crucial enough. So with art. Goethe went to Assisi. +"I left on my left," says he, "the vast mass of churches, piled Babel-wise +one over another, in one of which rest the remains of the Holy Saint +Francis of Assisi--with aversion, for I thought to myself that the people +who assembled in them were mostly of the same stamp with my captain and +travelling companion." + +Truly an odd ground of aversion to a painted church that there might be a +confessional-box in the nave! But he had no eyes for Gothic, being set on +the Temple of Minerva. The Right Honourable Joseph Addison's views of +Siena will be familiar to you; but an earlier still was our excellent Mr. +John Evelyn doing the grand tour; going to Pisa, but seeing no frescos in +the Campo Santo; going to Florence, but seeing neither Santa Croce nor +Santa Maria Novella; in his whole journey he would seem to have found no +earlier name than Perugino's affixed to a picture. Goethe was urbane to +Francia, "a very respectable artist"; he was astonished at Mantegna, "one +of the older painters," but accepted him as leading up to Titian: and so-- +"thus was art developed after the barbarous period." But Goethe had the +sweeping sublimity of youth with him. "I have now seen but two Italian +cities, and for the first time; and I have spoken with but few persons; +and yet I know my Italians pretty well!" Seriously, where in criticism do +you learn of an earlier painter than Perugino, until you come to our day? +And where now do you get the raptures over the Carracci and Domenichino +and Guercino and the rest of them which the last century expended upon +their unthrifty soil? Ruskin found Botticelli; yes, and Giotto. Roscoe +never so much as mentions either. Why should he, honest man? They couldn't +draw! Cookery is very like Art, as Socrates told Gorgias. Unfortunately, +it is far easier to verify your impressions in the former case than in the +latter. Yet that is the first and obvious duty of the critic--that is, the +writer whomsoever. In my degree it has been mine. Wherefore, if I unfold +anything at all, it shall not be the _Cicerone_ nor the veiled +"Anonymous," nor the _Wiederbelebung_, nor (I hope) the _Mornings +in Florence_, but that thing in which you place such touching reliance +--myself and my poor sensations, _Ecco_! I have nothing else. You take +a boy out of school; you set him to book-reading, give him Shakespere and +a Bible, set him sailing in the air with the poets; drench him with +painter's dreams, _via_, Titian's carmine and orange, Veronese's +rippling brocades, Umbrian morning skies, and Tuscan hues wrought of +moonbeams and flowing water--anon you turn him adrift in Italy, a country +where all poets' souls seem to be caged in crystal and set in the sun, and +say--"Here, dreamer of dreams, what of the day?" _Madonna!_ You ask +and you shall obtain. I proceed to expand under your benevolent eye. + +To me, Italy is not so much a place where pictures have been painted (some +of which remain to testify), as a place where pictures have been lived and +built; I fail to see how Perugia is not a picture by, say, Astorre +Baglione. Perhaps I should be nearer the mark if I said it was a frozen +epic. What I mean is, that in Italy it is still impossible to separate the +soul and body of the soil, to say, as you may say in London or Paris,-- +here behind this sordid grey mask of warehouses and suburban villas lurks +the soul that once was Shakespere or once was Villon. You will not say +that of Florence; you will hardly say it (though the time is at hand) of +Milan and Rome. Do the gondoliers still sing snatches of Ariosto? I don't +know Venice. M. Bourget assures me his _vetturino_ quoted Dante to +him between Monte Pulciano and Siena; and I believe him. At any rate, in +Italy as I have found it, the inner secret of Italian life can be read, +not in painting alone, nor poem alone, but in the swift sun, in the +streets and shrouded lanes, in the golden pastures, in the plains and blue +mountains; in flowery cloisters and carved church porches--out of doors as +well as in. The story of Troy is immortal--why not because the Trojans +themselves live immortal in their fabled sons? That being so, I by no +means promise you my sensations to be of the ear-measuring, nose-rubbing +sort now so popular. I am bad at dates and soon tire of symbols. My +theology may be to seek; you may catch me as much for the world as for +Athanase. With world and doctor I shall, indeed, have little enough to do, +for wherever I go I shall be only on the look-out for the soul of this +bright-eyed people, whom, being no Goethe, I do not profess to understand +or approve. Must the lover do more than love his mistress, and weave his +sonnets about her white brows? I may see my mistress Italy embowered in a +belfry, a fresco, the scope of a Piazza, the lilt of a _Stornello_, +the fragrance of a legend. If I don't find a legend to hand I may, as lief +as not, invent one. It shall be a legend fitted close to the soul of a +fact, if I succeed: and if I fail, put me behind you and take down your +four volumes of Rio, or your four-and-twenty of Rosini. Go to Crowe and +Cavalcaselle and be wise. Parables!--I like the word--to go round about +the thing, whose heart I cannot hit with my small-arm, marking the goodly +masses and unobtrusive meek beauties of it, and longing for them in vain. +No amount of dissecting shall reveal the core of Sandro's Venus. For after +you have pared off the husk of the restorer, or bled in your alembic the +very juices the craftsman conjured withal, you come down to the seamy +wood, and Art is gone. Nay, but your Morelli, your Crowe, ciphering as +they went for want of thought, what did they do but screw Art into test- +tubes, and serve you up the fruit of their litmus-paper assay with +vivacity, may be,--but with what kinship to the picture? I maintain that +the peeling and gutting of fact must be done in the kitchen: the king's +guests are not to know how many times the cook's finger went from cate to +mouth before the seasoning was proper to the table. The king is the +artist, you are the guest, I am the abstractor of quintessences, the cook. +Remember, the cook had not the ordering of the feast: that was the king's +business--mine is to mingle the flavours to the liking of the guest that +the dish be worthy the conception and the king's honour. + +Nor will I promise you that I shall not break into a more tripping stave +than our prose can afford, here and there. The pilgrim, if he is young and +his shoes or his belly pinch him not, sings as he goes, the very stones at +his heels (so music-steeped is this land) setting him the key. Jog the +foot-path way through Tuscany in my company, it's Lombard Street to my hat +I charm you out of your lassitude by my open humour. Things I say will +have been said before, and better; my tunes may be stale and my phrasing +rough: I may be irrelevant, irreverent, what you please. Eh, well! I am in +Italy,--the land of shrugs and laughing. Shrug me (or my book) away; but, +pray Heaven, laugh! And, as the young are always very wise when they find +their voice and have their confidence well put out to usury, laugh (but in +your cloak) when I am sententious or apt to tears. I have found _lacrimæ +rerum_ in Italy as elsewhere; and sometimes Life has seemed to me to +sail as near to tragedy as Art can do. I suppose I must be a very bad +Christian, for I remain sturdily an optimist, still convinced that it is +good for us to be here, while the sun is up. Men and pictures, poems, +cities, churches, comely deeds, grow like cabbages: they are of the soil, +spring from it to the sun, glow open-hearted while he is there; and when +he goes, they go. So grew Florence, and Shakespere, and Greek myth--the +three most lovely flowers of Nature's seeding I know of. And with the +flowers grow the weeds. My first weed shall sprout by Arno, in a cranny of +the Ponte Vecchio, or cling like a Dryad of the wood to some gnarly old +olive on the hill-side of Arcetri. If it bear no little gold-seeded +flower, or if its pert leaves don't blush under the sun's caress, it +shan't be my fault or the sun's. + +Take, then, my watered wine in the name of the Second Maccabæan, for here, +as he says, "will I make an end. And if I have done well, and as is +fitting the story, it is that which I desired: but if slenderly and +meanly, it is that which I could attain unto." + +I have killed you at the first cast. I feel it. Has any city, save, +perhaps, Cairo, been so written out as Florence? I hear you querulous; you +raise your eyebrows; you sigh as you watch the tottering ash of your +second cigar. Mrs. Brown comes to tell you it is late. I agree with you +quickly. Florence has often been sketched before--putting Browning aside +with his astounding fresco-music--by Ruskin and George Eliot and Mr. Henry +James, to name only masters. But that is no reason why I should not try my +prentice hand. Florence alters not at all. Men do. My picture, poor as you +like, shall be my own. It is not their Florence or yours--and, remember, I +would strike at Tuscany through Florence, and throughout Tuscany keep my +eye in her beam,--but my own mellow kingcup of a town, the glowing heart +of the whole Arno basin, whose suave and weather-warmed grace I shall try +to catch and distil. But Mrs. Brown is right; it Is late: the huntsmen are +up in America, as your good kinsman has it, and I would never have you act +your own Antipodes. Addio. + + + +I + + +EYE OF ITALY + +[Footnote: My thanks are due to the Editor of _Black and White_ for +permission to reprint the substance of this essay.] + +I have been here a few days only--perhaps a week: if it's impressionism +you're after, the time is now or a year hence. For, in these things of +three stages, two may be tolerable, the first clouding of the water with +the wine's red fire, or the final resolution of the two into one humane +consistence: the intermediate course is, like all times of process, +brumous and hesitant. After a dinner in the white piazza, shrinking slowly +to blue under the keen young moon's eye, watched over jealously by the +frowning bulk of Brunelleschi's globe--after a dinner of _pasta con +brodo_, veal cutlets, olives, and a bottle of right _Barbèra_, let +me give you a pastel (this is the medium for such evanescences) of +Florence herself. At present I only feel. No one should think--few people +can--after dinner. Be patient therefore; suffer me thus far. + +I would spare you, if I might, the horrors of my night-long journey from +Milan. There is little romance in a railway: the novelists have worked it +dry. That is, however, a part of my sum of perceptions which began, you +may put it, at the dawn which saw Florence and me face to face. So I must +in no wise omit it. + +I find, then, that Italian railway-carriages are constructed for the +convenience of luggage, and that passengers are an afterthought, as dogs +or grooms are with us, to be suffered only if there be room and on +condition they look after the luggage. In my case we had our full +complement of the staple; nevertheless every passenger assumed the god, +keeping watch on his traps, and thinking to shake the spheres at every +fresh arrival. Thoughtless behaviour! for there were thus twelve people +packed into a rocky landscape of cardboard portmanteaus and umbrella- +peaks; twenty-four legs, and urgent need of stretching-room as the night +wore on. There was jostling, there was asperity from those who could sleep +and from those who would; there was more when two shock-head drovers--like +First and Second Murderers in a tragedy--insisted on taking off their +boots. It was not that there was little room for boots; indeed I think +they nursed them on their thin knees. It was at any rate too much even for +an Italian passenger; for--well, well! their way had been a hot and a +dusty one, poor fellows. So the guard was summoned, and came with all the +implicit powers of an uniform and, I believe, a sword. The boots were +strained on sufficiently to preserve the amenities of the way: they could +not, of course, be what they had been; the carriage was by this a forcing- +house. And through the long night we ached away an intolerable span of +time with, for under-current, for sinister accompaniment to the pitiful +strain, the muffled interminable plodding of the engine, and the rack of +the wheels pulsing through space to the rhythm of some music-hall jingle +heard in snatches at home. At intervals came shocks of contrast when we +were brought suddenly face to face with a gaunt and bleached world. Then +we stirred from our stupor, and sat looking at each other's stale faces. +We had shrieked and clanked our way into some great naked station, +shivering raw and cold under the electric lights, streaked with black +shadows on its whitewash and patched with coarse advertisements. The +porters' voices echoed in the void, shouting _"Piacensa," "Parma," +"Reggio," "Modena," "Bologna,"_ with infinite relish for the varied +hues of a final _a_. One or two cowed travellers slippered up +responsive to the call, and we, the veterans who endured, set our teeth, +shuddered, and smoked feverish cigarettes on the platform among the +carriage-wheels and points; or, if we were new hands, watched awfully the +advent of another sleeping train, as dingy as our own--yet a hero of +romance! For it bore the hieratic and tremendous words "_Roma, Firenze, +Milano_" It was privileged then; it ministered in the sanctuary. We +glowed in our sordid skins, and could have kissed the foot-boards that +bore the dust of Rome. I will swear I shall never see those three words +printed on a carriage without a thrill, _Roma, Firenze, Milano_,-- +Lord! what a traverse. + +Or we held long purposeless rests at small wayside places where no station +could be known, and the shrouded land stretched away on either side, not +to be seen, but rather felt, in the cool airs that blew in, and the +rustling of secret trees near by. No further sound was, save the muttered +talking of the guards without and the simmering of the engine, on +somewhere in front. And then "_Partenza!_" rang out in the night, and +"_Pronti!_" came as a faint echo on before. We laboured on, and the +dreams began where they had broken off. For we dreamed in these times, +fitful and lurid, coloured dreams; flashes of horrible crises in one's +life; Interminable precipices; a river skiff engulfed in a swirl of green +sea-water; agonies of repentance; shameful failure, defeat, memories--and +then the steady pulsing of the engine, and thick, impermeable darkness +choking up the windows again. How I ached for the dawn! + +I awoke from what I believe to have been a panic of snoring to hear the +train clattering over the sleepers and points, and to see--oh, human, +brotherly sight!--the broad level light of morning stream out of the east. +We were stealing into a city asleep. Tall flat houses rose in the chill +mist to our left and stared blankly down upon us with close-barred green +eyelids. Gas-lamps in swept streets flickered dirty yellow in the garish +light. A great purple dome lay ahead, flanked by the ruddy roofs and +gables of a long church. My heart leapt for Florence. Pistoja! + +And then, at Prato, a nut-brown old woman with a placid face got into our +carriage with a basket of green figs and some bottles of milk for the +Florentine market. So we were nearing. And soon we ran in between lines of +white and pink villas edged with rows of planes drenched still with dews +and the night mists, among bullock-carts and queer shabby little +_vetture_, everything looking light and elfin in the brisk sunshine +and autumn bite--into the barrel-like station, and I into the arms, say +rather the arm-chair, of Signora Vedova Paolini, chattiest and most +motherly of landladies. + +Earth, Air, Fire, Water, Florence, form the five elements of our planet +according to the testimony of Boniface VIII. of clamant and not very +Catholic memory. That is true if you take it this way. You cannot resolve +an element; but you cannot resolve Florence; therefore Florence is an +element. _Ecco!_ She is like nothing else In Nature, or (which is +much the same thing) Art. You can have olives elsewhere, and Gothic +elsewhere; you can have both at Aries, for instance. You can have +_Campanili_ printed white (but not rose-and white, not rose-and-gold- +and-white) on blue anywhere along the Mediterranean from Tripoli to +Tangier: you will find Giotto at Padua, and statues growing in the open +air at Naples. But for the silvery magic of olives and blue; for a Gothic +which has the supernatural and always restless eagerness of the North, +held in check, reduced to our level by the blessedly human sanity of +Romanesque; for sculpture which sprouts from the crumbling church-sides +like some frankly happy stone-crop, or wall-flower, just as wholesomely +coloured and tenderly shaped, you must come to Florence. Come for choice +in this golden afternoon of the year. Green figs are twelve-a-penny; you +can get peaches for the asking, and grapes and melons without it; brown +men are treading the wine-fat in every little white hill-town, and in +Florence itself you may stumble upon them, as I once did, plying their +mystery in a battered old church--sight only to be seen in Italy, where +religions have been many, but religionists substantially the same. That is +the Italian way; there was the practical evidence. Imagine the sight. A +gaunt and empty old basilica, the beams of the Rood still left, the dye of +fresco still round the walls and tribune--here the dim figure of Sebastian +roped to his tree, there the cloudy forms of Apostles or the Heavenly Host +shadowed in masses of crimson or green--and, down below, a slippery purple +sea, frothed sanguine at the edges, and wild, half-naked creatures +treading out the juice, dancing in the oozy stuff rhythmically, to the +music of some wailing air of their own. _Saturnia regna_ indeed, and +in the haunt of Sant' Ambrogio, or under the hungry eye of San Bernardino, +or other lean ascetic of the Middle Age. But that, after all, is Italian, +not necessarily Florentine or Tuscan. I must needs abstract the unique +quintessential humours of this my Eye of Italy. Stendhal, do you remember? +didn't like one of these. He said that in Florence people talked about +"huesta hasa" when they would say "questa casa," and thus turned Italian +into a mad Arabic. So they do, especially the women: why not? The poor +Stendhal loved Milan, wrote himself down "Arrigo Milanese"--and what can +you expect from a Milanese? + +They tell me, who know Florence well, that she is growing unwieldy. Like a +bulky old _concierge_ they say, she sits in the passage of her Arno, +swollen, fat, and featureless, a kind of Chicago, a city of tame +conveniences ungraced by arts. That means that there are suburbs and +tramways; it means that the gates will not hold her in; it has a furtive +stab at the Railway Station and the omnibus in the Piazza del Duorno: it +is _Mornings in Florence_. The suggestion is that Art is some pale +remote virgin who must needs shiver and withdraw at the touch of actual +life: the art-lover must maunder over his mistress's wrongs instead of +manfully insisting upon her rights, her everlasting triumphant +justifications. Why this watery talk of an Art that was and may not be +again, because we go to bed by electricity and have our hair brushed by +machinery? Pray, has Nature ceased? or Life? Art will endure with these +fine things, which in Florence, let me say, are very fine indeed. But +there's a practical answer to the indictment. As a city she is a mere +cupful. You can walk from Cantagalli's, at the Roman Gate, to the Porta +San Gallo, at the end of the Via Cavour, in half the time it would take +you to go from Newgate to Kensington Gardens. Yet whereas in London such a +walk would lead you through a slice of a section, in Florence you would +cut through the whole city from hill to hill. You are never away from the +velvet flanks of the Tuscan hills. Every street-end smiles an enchanting +vista upon you. Houses frowning, machicolated and sombre, or gay and +golden-white with cool green jalousies and spreading eaves, stretch before +you through mellow air to a distance where they melt into hills, and hills +into sky; into sky so clear and rarely blue, so virgin pale at the +horizon, that the hills sleep brown upon it under the sun, and the +cypresses, nodding a-row, seem funeral weeds beside that radiant purity. +Some such adorable stretch of tilth and pasture, sky and cloud, hangs like +a god's crown beyond the city and her towers. In the long autumn twilight +Fiesole and the hills lie soft and purple below a pale green sky. There is +a pause at this time when the air seems washed for sleep-every shrub, +every feature of the landscape is cut clean as with a blade. The light +dies, the air deepens to wet violet, and the glimpses of the hill-town +gleam like snow. At such times Samminiato looms ghostly upon you and fades +slowly out. The flush in the East faints and fails and the evening star +shines like a gem. It is hot and still in the broad Piazza Santa Maria; +they are lighting the lamps; the swarm grows of the eager, shabby, +spendthrift crowd of young Italians, so light-hearted and fluent, and so +prodigal of this old Italy of theirs--and ours. All this I have been +watching as I might. Nature clings to the city, playing her rhythmic dance +at the end of every street. + +Nature clings. Yes; but she is within as well as without. What is that +sentimental platitude of somebody's (the worst kind of platitude, is it +not?) about the sun being to flowers what Art is to Life? It has the +further distinction of being untrue. In Florence you learn that what he is +to flowers, that he is to Art. For I soberly believe that under his rays +Florence has grown open like some rare white water-lily; that sun and sky +have set the conditions, struck, as it were, the chord. I have wandered +through and through her recessed ways the length of this bright and breezy +October week; and have marked where I walked the sun's great hand laid +upon palace and cloister and bell-tower. _He_ has summoned up these +flat-topped houses, these precipitous walls beneath which winds the +darkened causeway. One seems to be travelling in a mountain gorge with, +above, a thin ribbon of sky, fluid blue, flawless of cloud, like the sea. +_He_, that so masterful sun, has given Florence the apathetic, beaten +aspect of a southern town; he and the temperate sky have fixed the tone +for ever; and the nimble air--"nimbly and sweetly" recommending itself-- +has given the quaintness and the freaksomeness of the North. This bursts +out, young and irresponsible, in pinnacle, crocket, and gable, in towers +like spears, and in the eager lancet windows which peer upwards out of +Orsammichele and the Dominican Church. This mixture is Florence and has +made her art. The blue of the sky gives the key to her palette, the breath +of the west wind, the salt wind from our own Atlantic, tingles in her +_campanili_; and the Italian sun washes over all with his lazy gold. +Habit and inclination both speak. She rejects no wise thing and accepts +every lovely thing. Nature and Art have worked hand in hand, as they will +when, we let them. For what is an art so inimitable, so innocent, so +intimate as this of Tuscany, after all, but a high effort of creative +Nature--_Natura naturans_, as Spinosa calls her? Here, on the +weather-fretted walls, a Delia Robbia blossoms out in natural colours-- +blue and white and green. They are Spring's colours. You need not go into +the Bargello to understand Luca and Andrea at their happy task; as well go +to a botanical museum to read the secret of April. See them on the dusty +wall of Orsammichele. They have wrought the blossom of the stone--clusters +of bright-eyed flowers with the throats and eyes of angels, singing, you +might say, a children's hymn to Our Lady, throned and pure in the midst of +the bevy. See the Spedale degli Innocenti, where a score of little flowery +white children grow, open-armed, out of their sky-blue medallions. Really, +are they lilies, or children, or the embodied strophes of a psalter? you +ask. I mix my metaphors like an Irishman, but you will see my meaning. All +the arts blend in art: "rien ne fait mieux entendre combien un faux sonnet +est ridicule que de s'imaginer une femme ou une maison faite sur ce +modèle-là." Pascal knew; and so did Philip Sidney, "Nature never set forth +the earth in so rich tapestry as divers poets have done"; and the nearer +truth seems to be that Art is Nature made articulate, Nature's soul +inflamed with love and voicing her secrets through one man to many. So +there may be no difference between me and a cabbage-rose but this, that I +can consider my own flower, how it grows, or rather, when it is grown. + +It is very pleasant sometimes to think that wistful guess of Plato's true +in spite of everything--that the state is the man grown great, as the +universe is the state grown Infinite. It explains that Florence has a +soul, the broader image of her sons', and that this soul speaks in Art, +utters itself in flower of stone and starry stretches of fresco (like that +serene blue and grey band in the Sistine chapel which redeems so many of +Rome's waste places), sings colour-songs (there are such affairs) on +church and cloister walls. Seeing these good things, we should rather hear +the town's voice crying out her fancy to friendly hearts. Thus--let me run +the figure to death--if Luca's blue-eyed medallions are the crop of the +wall, they are also the soul of Florence, singing a blithe secular song +about gods whose abiding charm is the art that made them live. And if the +towers and domes are the statelier flowers of the garden, lily, hollyhock, +tulip of the red globe, so they are Florence again as she strains forward +and up, sternly defiant in the Palazzo Vecchio, bright and curious at +Santa Croce, pure, chaste as a seraph, when, thrilling with the touch of +Giotto, she gazes in the clarity of her golden and rosy marbles, tinted +like a pearl and shaped like an archangel, towards the blue vault whose +eye she is. + +Wandering, therefore, through this high city; loitering on the bridge +whereunder turbid Arno glitters like brass; standing by the yellow +Baptistery; or seeing in Santa Croce cloister--where I write these lines-- +seven centuries of enthusiasm mellowed down by sun and wind into a comely +dotage of grey and green, one is disposed to wonder whether we are only +just beginning to understand Art, or to misunderstand it? Has the world +slept for two thousand years? Is Degas the first artist? Was Aristotle the +first critic, and is Mr. George Moore the second? As a white pigeon cuts +the blue, and every opinion of him shines as burnished agate in the live +air, things shape themselves somewhat. I begin to see that Art _is_, +and that men have been, and shall be, but never _are_. Facts are an +integral part of life, but they are not life. I heard a metaphysician say +once that matter was the adjective of life, and thought it a mighty pretty +saying. In a true sense, it would seem, Art is that adjective. For so +surely as there are honest men to insist how true things are or how proper +to moralising, there will be Art to sing how lovely they are, and what +amiable dwellings for us. Thus fortified, I think I can understand +Magister Joctus Florentiæ. He lies behind these crumbling walls. Traces of +his crimson and blue still stain the cloister-walk. What was he telling us +in crimson and blue? How dumb Zacharias spelt out the name of his son John +in the roll of a book? Hardly that, I think. + + + +II + + +LITTLE FLOWERS + +The Via del Monte alle Croce is a leafy way cut between hedgerows, in the +morning time heavy with dew and the smell of wet flowers. Where it strays +out of the Giro al Monte there is a crumbly brick wall, a well, and a +little earthen shrine to Madonna--a daub, it is true, of glaring chromes +and blues, thick in glaze and tawdry devices of stout cupids and roses, +but somehow, on this suggestive Autumn morning, innocent and blue of eye +as the carolling throngs of Luca which it travesties. And a pious +inscription cut below testifieth how Saint Francis, "in friendly talk with +the Blessed Mariano di Lugo," paused here before it, and then vanished. It +is not necessary to believe in ghosts; but I'll go bail that story is +true. We are but two stones' throw from the gaunt hulk of a Franciscan +Church; a file of dusty cypresses marks the ruins of a painful Calvary cut +in the waste and shale of the hill-side. Below, as in a green pasture, +Florence shines like a dove's egg in her nest of hills; I can pick out +among the sheaf of spears which hedge her about the daintiest of them all, +the crocketed pinnacle of Santa Croce, grey on blue; and then the lean +ridge of a shrine the barest, simplest and most honest in all Tuscany. +Certainly Saint Francis, "familiarmente discorrendo," appeared in this +place. I need no reference to the Annals of the Seraphic Order--part, book +and page--to convince me. My stone gives them. "Ann. Ord. Min. Tom. cclii. +fasc. 3.," and so on. That is but a sorry concession to our short- +sightedness. For if we believe not the shrine which we have seen, how +shall we believe Giotto? What of Giotto? That is my point. + +Something too much, it may be, of modern art-criticism, which is ashamed +of thinking, snuffeth at pictures which tell you things, at literature in +books or music or church ornament. Is literature not good anywhere? Have +we exhausted the _Arabian Nights_ or the _Acta Sanctorum_? At +any rate, if we must choose between Giotto and the prophet of the +_Yellow Book_, my heart is fixed. I am for the teller of tales. +Story-telling it is, glorification of one whom Mr. George Moore would call +(has, indeed, called) a "squint-eyed Italian Saint"--and whether he +objected to malformity, nationality or calling, I never could learn--this +too it may be; it may tend to edification and I know not what beside. I +will grant all that. And though it is hard to prophesy what might have +happened five hundred years ago; though there might have been a Giotto +without a Francis of whom to speak; yet I never knew a case where a +painter (call him poet if you will; he will be none the worse for that) +fell so directly into the gap awaiting him. The Gospel living and tangible +again! Spirits, apparitions, as of three mysterious sisters, met you in +the open country, and crying "Hail! Lady Poverty," straightly vanished. A +legend was a-making round about the strange life not fifty years closed, a +life which seems, extravagance apart, to have been a lyrical outburst, a +strophe in the hymn of praise which certain happy people were singing just +then. It was a _Gloria in Excelsis_ for a second time in Christian +Annals which did not end in a wail of "Agnus Dei qui tollis peccata, +miserere." Why should it? Should the children of the bride-chamber fast +when the bridegroom was with them? And of all the "wreath'd singers at the +marriage-door," blithest and sanest was Master Joctus of Florence. This +being so, I hope I shall not be accused of any mischief if I say that in +Giotto I see one of the select company of immortals whose work can never +be surpassed because it is entirely adequate to the facts and atmosphere +he selected. The standard of a work of art must always be--Is it well +done? rather than--Is it well intentioned? Wherefore, if Giotto or anybody +else choose to spend himself upon a sermon or an essay or an article of +the Creed, and do well thereby, I may not blame him, nor call him back to +study the play of light across a marsh or the flight of pigeons in the +westering sun. Ma, basta, basta cosi, you may say with the Cavaliere of +Goldoni. + +Santa Croce church is of the barrack-room stamp, dim and enormous, grey +with years and seamed with work. Its impressiveness (for with Orvieto and +a fleet of churches at Ravenna it stands above all Italy in that) consists +mainly, I believe, in its being built of exactly the moral bones of the +religion it was intended to embody. An Italian religion, namely; perfectly +sane, at bottom practical, with a base of plain, everyday, ten-commandment +morality. That was the base of Saint Francis' good brown life: therefore +Santa Croce is admirably built, squared, mortised and compacted by skilled +workmen to whom brick-laying was a fine art. But, withal, this religion +had its lyric raptures, its "In fuoco Amor mi mise," or its sobbing at the +feet of the Crucified, its _Corotto_ and Seven Sorrowful Mysteries: +accordingly Santa Croce, like a pollarded lime, reserves its buds, +harbours and garners them, throws out no suckers or lateral adornments the +length of its trunk, but bursts into a flowery crown of them at the top--a +whole row of chapels along the cross-beam of the _tau_; and in the +place of honour a shallow apse pierced with red lancets and aglow like an +opal. Never a chapel of them but is worth study and a stiff neck. After +the Rule came the _Fioretti_; after Francis and Bonaventure came +Celano and Jacopone da Todi; after Arnolfo del Lapo and his attention to +business came the hours of ease when he planned the airy plume on which +the Church leaps skyward; and came also Giotto to weave the crown of Santa +Croce. + +I take the Tuscan nature to be so constituted that it will play with any +given subject of speculation in much the same way. With one or two mighty +exceptions to be sure--Dante, of course, Buonarroti, of course, and, for +all his secularities. Boccace--it is not imagination you find in Tuscany. +Rather, it is a sweet and delicate, a wholesome, home-grown fancy, +wantoning with thought which may be unpleasant, unhealthy, grave, +frivolous--what you will; yet playing in such a way, and with such +intuitive taste and breeding that no harm ensues nor any nausea. They +realise for me a fairy country; I can think no evil of a Tuscan. So I can +read Boccace the infidel, Poggio the gross, where Voltaire makes me a +bigot and Catulle Mendes ashamed. The fresh breeze blowing through the +_Decameron_ keeps the air sweet. Even Lorenzo is a child for me, and +Macchiavel, "the man without a soul," I decline to take seriously. +Consider, then, all Tuscan art from this point of view, the weaving of +innocent fancies round some chance-caught theme, Christianity may have +been the _point d'appui_. No doubt it generally was. What then? Have +you never heard two children dreaming aloud of the ways of God, or the +troubles of Christ? How they humanise, how they realise the Mystery! Just +such a pretty babble I find in the Spanish Chapel, which to take in any +other spirit would work a madness in the brain. You remember the North +wall, apotheosis of Saint Thomas and what-not, for all the world like a +paradigm of the irregular verb "Aquinizo." What are we to suppose Lippo +Memmi (or whoever else it was) to have been about when he hung in mid-air +on his swinging bridge and stained the wet square red and green? To read +Ruskin you would think he was fulminating _urbi et orbi_ with the +_Summa_ or _Cur Deus homo_ at his fingers' ends. Depend upon it +he was doing quite other, or the artistic temper (phrase rendered +loathsome by the halfpenny newspapers) suffered a relapse between the days +of King David and the days of his brother Lippo Lippi. Are we to suppose +that a man who could live in intimate commerce with fourteen such gracious +ladies as he has set there, ranged on their carved sedilia--his Britomart +trim and debonnair; his willowy Carità; his wimpled matron in clean white +who masquerades as I know not what branch of theology; his pretty girlish +Geometry of coiled and braided hair and the yet unloosed girdle of demure +virginity; his maid Musica crowned with roses, and Logica, the bold-eyed +and open-throated wench, hand to hip--is this the man for sententiousness? +Out, out! Could any one save a humourist of high order have given Moses +such a pair of horns, or set, under Music, such a shagged Tubal to +belabour an anvil? The wall sings like an anthology,--a Gothic anthology +where "Bele Aliz matin leva" is versicle, and "In un boschetto trovai +pastorella" antiphon. You might as well talk of Christian Mathematics as +of Christian Art, or bind the sweet influences of Pleiades as the volant +sallies of a poet's wit. + +Once we get it into our heads that the Tuscans were fanciful children, +always, and the discrepancy of critics, of Ruskin and Mr. George Moore, of +Rio and Mr. Addington Symonds, may vanish. For another thing, we shall +understand and allow for the standard of Santa Croce and the +_Fioretti_. From the latter nosegay! take this: + +"It happened one day as Brother Peter was standing to his prayer, thinking +earnestly about the Passion of Christ, how the blessed Mother of him, and +John Evangelist his best-beloved, and Saint Francis too, were painted at +the foot of the Cross, crucified indeed with him through anguish of the +mind, that there came upon him the longing to know which of these three +had endured the bitterest pains of that anguish, the Mother who bore our +Lord, or the Disciple familiar to his bosom, or Saint Francis crucified +also even as he was. And as he stood thinking on these things, lo! there +appeared before him the Virgin Mary with Saint John Evangelist and Saint +Francis, robed in splendid apparel and of glory wonderful; but Saint +Francis' robe was more cunningly wrought than Saint John's. Now Peter +stood quite scared at the sight; but Saint John bade him take comfort, +saying, 'Be not afraid, dearest brother, for we are come hither to dispel +thy doubt. You are to knows then, that above all creatures the Mother of +Christ and I grieved over the Passion of our Lord. But since that day +Saint Francis has felt more anguish than any other. Therefore, as you see, +he is in glory now.' Then Brother Peter asked him, and said, 'Most holy +Apostle of Christ, wherefore cometh it that the vesture of Saint Francis +is more glorious than thine?' Answered him Saint John, 'The reason is +this, for that when he was in the world he wore a viler than ever I did.' +So then Saint John gave him a vestment which he carried on his arm, and +the holy company vanished." + +This, be sure, is true; and I have its English parallel ready to hand. For +I once heard a father and his child talking of the goodness of God. "God," +says the father, "gives thee the milk to thy porridge"; and the child +thought it a good saying, yet puzzled over it, doubting, as it afterwards +appeared, the part to be assigned to a friend of his, the daily milkman. +And so he solved it. "God makes the milk and the milkman brings it," he +said. The _Fioretti_, if you must needs break a butterfly on your +dissecting-board, was written, as I judge, by a bare-foot Minorite of +forty; compiled, that is, from the wonderings, the pretty adjustments and +naive disquisitions of any such weatherworn brown men as you may see to- +day toiling up the Calvary to their Convent. And in this same story- +telling Giotto is an adept. He loves to gather his fellows round him and +speak of Saints and Archangels, where our youngsters talk of fairy +godmothers and white rabbits. To say this is not Art, as the critics +profanely teach, is monstrous. Is not the _Fioretti_ literature, or +the Gospel according to Saint Luke literature? And is not Religion the +highest art of all, the large elementary poetry in the core of the heart +of man? Just so was the craft which disposed the rings of that wonderful +ornament round about the Bardi chapel, rings of clean arabesque wrought in +line upon pale blue and pink and brown, and which in so doing fitted the +Franciscan thaumaturgy with an exact garment tenderly adjusted to every +wave of its abandonment--even so was this a great art indeed. For you ask +of an art no more than this, that it shall be adequately representative: +there are no comparative degrees. + +So when I learn from the works of Ruskin that he can "read a picture to +you as, if Mr. Spurgeon knew anything about art, Mr. Spurgeon would read +it,--that is to say, from the plain, common-sense Protestant side"; or +when I learn from the works of Mr. George Moore that Sir Frederick Burton +made of the National Gallery a Museum; or when one complains of a picture +that it is not didactic, and another that it holds a thought, I make haste +to laugh lest I should do wrong to Tuscany, that looked upon the world to +love it: for she saw that it was very good. + + + +III + + +A SACRIFICE AT PRATO + +_(An Old-fashioned Narrative)_ + +[Footnote: Perhaps I may be allowed to explain that this article was +written from the standpoint of a cultivated Pagan of the Empire, who +should have journeyed in Time as well as Space.] + +The rim of the sun was burning the hill tops, and already the vanguard of +his strength stemming the morning mists, when I and my companion first +trod the dust of a small town which stood in our path. It still lay very +hard and white, however, and sharply edged to its girdle of olives and +mulberry trees drenched in dews, a compactly folded town, well fortified +by strong walls and many towers, with the mist upon it and softly over it +like a veil. For it lay well under the shade of the hills awaiting the +sun's coming. In the streets, though they were by no means asleep, but, +contrariwise, busy with the traffic of men and pack-mules, there was a +shrewd bite as of night air; looking up we could perceive how faint the +blue of the sky was, and the cloud-flaw how rosy yet with the flush of +Aurora's beauty-sleep. Therefore we were glad to get into the market- +place, filled with people and set round with goodly brick buildings, and +to feel the light and warmth steal about our limbs. + +"It would seem fitting," said I, "seeing that day is at hand and already +we enjoy the first-fruits of his largess, that we should seek some +neighbouring shrine where we might praise the gods. For never yet was land +that had not, as its fairest work, gods: and in a land so fair as this +there must needs be gods yet fairer, and shrines to case them in." This I +said, having observed pious offerings laid upon the shrines of divers gods +by the road. At the which, looking curiously, it seemed to me that the +inhabitants of this country were favoured above the common with devout +thoughts and the objects of them--gods and goddesses. You might not pass a +farm without its tutelary altar to the genius of the place, some holy +shade, or--as she was figured as a matron--some great land-goddess, +perhaps Cybele, or the Bona Dea; and pleasant it was to me to see that the +tufts of common flowers set before her were for the most part smiling and +fresh with the dew that assured an early gathering. In the streets of the +city, moreover, I had seen many more such, slight affairs (it is true) of +painted earthenware, some gaudily adorned with green and yellow colour and +of workmanship as raw, some painted flat on the wall of a recess (in which +was more skill, though the device was often gross enough--to dwell upon +death and despair), and some again of choice beauty, both of form and +colour, and a most rare blitheness, as it might be the spirit of the +contrivers breaking through the hard stone. And all of these I knew to be +gods, but the devices upon them were hard to be read, or approved. There +was a naked youth pierced with arrows, wherein the texture of smooth flesh +accorded not well with the bitterness of his hurt; a young man also, +bearded, of spare and mournful habit and girt with a rope round his +middle; in his hands were wounds, as again of arrows, and there was a rent +in his garment where a javelin had torn a way into his side. Such +suffering of wounds and broken flesh stared sharply up against the young +flowers and grasses which spoke of healthy wind and rain and a sun-kissed +earth. Goddesses also I saw--a virgin of comely red and white visage; +yellow-haired she was, crowned like a king's daughter; at her side a +wheel, cruelly spiked on the outer edge and not easily to be related to so +heart-some a maid. But before them all (with one grim exception, to be +sure) I saw the Earth-Mother who had been upon the farm and homestead- +walls, of the same high perfection of form, and in raiment stately and +adorned, yet (it would seem) something sorrowful as she might mourn the +loss of lover or young child. Now the darkest sight I saw was that +exception before rehearsed; and it was this. A black cross stood In the +most joyful places of the city, and one suffered upon it to very death. +Whereat I marvelled greatly, saying, "Who Is the man thus tormented whom +the people worship as a god?" And my companion answered, + +"A great god he is, if the country report lie not, and has many names, +which amount to this, that he has freed this nation from bondage and died +that he may live again, and they too. And of the truth of what they say I +cannot speak; but I think he is Bacchus the Redeemer, who, as you, Balbus, +know, was no wanton reveller in lasciviousness, but a very god of great +benevolence and of wisdom truly dark and awful. Who also took our mortal +nature upon him and suffered in the shades: rising whence (for he was god +and man) like the dawn from the night's bosom, or the flooding of spring +weather from the iron gates of winter, he sped over land and sea, touching +earth and the dwellers upon it. And to those he touched tongues were given +and soothsaying, and to many the transports of inspiration and divine +madness, as of poets and rhapsodists. And tragedy and choral odes are his, +and the furious splendour of dances. But of the worship of Dionysus you +know something, having been at Eleusis and beheld the holy mysteries. + +"Now the god of this people has the same gift of tongues and madness of +possession. To him are also sacred priests of the oracle, and high +tragedies, and the wailing of music, and streaming processions of virgins +and young boys. He too agonised and arose stronger and more shining than +before, dying, indeed, and rising at the very vernal equinox we have +mentioned. He too is worshipped in certain Mysteries whereat the +confession of iniquity and the cleansing of hearts come first: and the +sacrifice is just that wheaten cake and fruit of the vine whereof, at +Eleusis, you have praised to me the simplicity and ethic beauty. And he +can inspire his devotees with frenzy. For I have heard that certain men of +the country, on a day, and urged by his dæmon, run naked from place to +place in honour of him, lashing their bare backs with ox-goads; and will +fast by the week together, they and the women alike; and that pious +virgins, under stress of these things, swoon and are floated betwixt earth +and heaven, and afterwards relate their blissful encounters and prophesy +strange matters; receiving also dolorous wounds (which nevertheless are +very sweet to them) like to the wounds which he himself received unto +death; and all these things they endure because they are mystically +fraught with the wisdom and efficacy of the god. Nay, I have been told +that in the parts over sea, towards the North and West, he is worshipped, +just as at Eleusis, with pipes and timbrels and brazen cymbals and all +excess of music; and there they dance in his service and suffer the +ecstasies of the Mænads and Corybants in the Dionysiac revel. But this I +find quaint to be believed." + +Now when I had heard so much, I was the more desirous to find some temple +where I could observe the cult of this wounded gods and so sought counsel +of my friend versed in the people's learning. To my questioning he replied +that it would be easy. We were (said he) in the market-place among the +buyers and chafferers of fruit, vegetables, earthenware, milk, eggs, and +such country produce; which honest folk, it being the hour of the morning +sacrifice and the temple facing us, would soon abandon their brisk toil +for religion's sake; whereupon we too would go. So I looked across the +square and saw a very fair building, lofty and many windowed, all of clean +white marble, banded over with bars of a smooth black stone, curiously +carved, moreover, in sculptured work of gods and men and of flowers and +fruits--all cut in the pure marble. At one side was a noble rostrum, of +the like fine stone, whereon young boys and girls, as it were fauns and +dryads and other woodland creatures, capered as they list: and above the +midmost door a semicircle of pale blue enamel, whereon was the image of +the Great Goddess in gleaming white. She was of smiling debonnair +countenance and in the full pride of her blossom-time--being as a young +woman whose girdle is new loosed to the will of her lord--and in her arms +was a naked child, finely wrought to the size of life. On either side of +her a beautiful youth (in whom I must needs admire the smoothness of their +chins and the bravery of their vesture shining in the clear light) did +reverence to the Goddess and the child: and there were beings, winged like +birds, with the faces of strong boys, but no bodies at all that I could +see, who flew above them all. This was brave work, very wonderful to me in +a people who, thus excellently inspired and having such comely smiling +divinities and so clear a vision of them before their eyes, could yet be +curious after suffering heroes and stabbed virgins and gods with mangled +limbs. But we went into the temple with the good people of the country- +side to the sound of bells from a high tower hard by. And I was something +surprised that they brought no beasts with them for the sacrifice, nor any +of the fruits which were so abundant in the land; but my companion +reminded me again that the sacrifice was ready prepared within, and was, +as it were, emblematical of all fruits and every sort of meat, being that +wine and bread into which you may comprehend all bodily and (by a figure) +ghostly sustenance. By this we were within the temple, which I now +perceived was a pantheon, having altars to all the gods, some only of +whose shrines I had remarked on the way thither. Dark and lofty it was, +with piered arches that soared into the mist, and jewelled windows +painfully worked in histories and fables of old time:--all as far apart as +conceivably might be from the holy places of my own country; for whereas, +with us, the level gaze of the sun is never absent, and through the +colonnades you would see stretches of the far blue country, or, perchance, +the shimmer of the restless sea, here no light of day could penetrate, and +all the senses might apprehend must be of solemn darkness, longing +thoughts to cleave it, and, afar off and dim, some flutter of even light +as of blest abodes. A strange people! to despise the sure and fair, for +the taunting shadows of desire. But, growing more familiar in the middle +of newness and the awe that comes of it, I was again amazed at the number +of the gods, their nature and sort. I saw again the arrow-stricken youth, +whom we call Asclepius (but never knew thus tormented--as with his +father's arrows!) and again the Maid of the Wheel, Fortune as I suppose: +but with us the wheel is not so manifestly bitter. Then also the wounded +hero, cowled and corded, ragged exceedingly, the like of whom we have not, +unless it be some stripling loved by an immortal and wounded to death by +grudging Fate, as Atys or Adonis. And if, indeed, this were one of them, +the image-maker did surely err in making him of so vile a presence--a +thing against all likelihood that the gods, being themselves of super- +excellent shapeliness, should stoop to anything of less favour. Yet he was +of singular sweetness in his pains, and high fortitude: and he was much +loved of the people, as I afterwards learned. And one was a young knight, +winged and with a sword in his hand; at his feet a grievous worm of many +folds. This I must take for Perseus but that his radiancy did rather point +him for Phoebus, the lord of days and the red sun. But in the centre of +the whole temple was an altar, high and broad, fenced about with steps and +a rail, which I took to be made unto the god of gods or perhaps the king +of that country, until I saw the black cross and the Agonist hanging from +it as one dead. Then I knew that the chief god of this people was Dionysus +the Redeemer, if it were really he. But I had reason to alter my opinion +on that matter as you shall hear. + +By this the temple was filled with the country folk who flocked In with +the very reek of their toil upon them and hardly so much as their +implements and marketable wares left behind. They were of all ages and +conditions, both youths and maids, arrowy, tall and open-eyed; and aged +ones there were, bowed by labour and seamed with the stress of weather or +the assaults of unstaying Fate: whereof, for the most part, the women sat +down against the wall and plied dextrously their fans; but the men stood +leaning against the pillars which held the timbers of the roof. And they +conversed easily together, and some were merry, and others, as I could +perceive, beset with affairs of government or business--for they talked +more vehemently of these matters than of others, as men will, even beneath +the very eyelids of the god. And so I could understand that this sacrifice +was not the yearly celebrating of high mysteries, but the common piety of +every day with which it is rather seemly than essential we should begin +our labouring. There were, indeed, signs in the apparelling of the temple +that more solemn festivals were sometimes held, as the delivery of +oracles, the calculation of auspices and such like: that, at least, I took +to be the intention of small recesses along the walls, that, through a +grating of fine brass, a priest of the sanctuary uttered the wisdom of the +god in sentences which the meaner sort should fit with what ease they +might to their circumstances. For, I suppose, it is still found good that +the dark saying of the Oracle shall be illumined by the subtlety of the +initiate and not by the necessities of the simple. And while I was thus +musing I found the ministrants in shining white about the great altar, +busied with the preparation for the rite, lighting the torches (very +inconsiderable for so large a building, but, mayhap, proportionate to the +condition of the people): and they placed a great book upon the altar, and +bowed themselves ere they left. And soon afterwards, to the ringing of a +bell, came the priest's boy carrying the offering of the altar, and the +priest himself in stiff garments of white and yellow. + +Now, for the sacrifice, I could not well understand it, save that it was +very shortly done and with a light heart accepted by the people, who (I +thought) held it as of the number of those services whose bare performance +is efficacious and wholesome--on account, partly of reverent antiquity and +long usage, and partly as having some hidden virtue best known to the god +in whose honour it is done. For in my own country, I know well there were +many such rites, whose commission edified the people more than their +omission would have dishonoured the god: wise men, therefore (as priests +and philosophers), who would live in peace, bow their bodies by rule, +knowing surely that their souls may be bolt upright notwithstanding. So +here were many solemn acts which, doubtless, once had some now +unfathomable design and purport, diligently rehearsed, while the +worshippers gazed about with dull unconcern, or being young, cast eyes of +longing upon the country wenches set laughing and rosy by the wall, or, +old, nursed their infirmities. And, on a sudden, a bell rang; and again +rang; and the packed body of men and women fell upon their faces, and so +remained in a horrific silence for a space where a man might count a +score. Thereafter another bell, as of release. So the assembly rose to +their feet and, as I saw, swept from their foreheads and breasts the dust +of the temple floor. But as soon as it was over, a very old priest came +through the press and offered the same sacrifice in a little guarded +shrine at the lower end, amid many lamps and wax torches and glittering +ornaments. Here was more devotion among the people, indeed a great +struggling and elbowing just so as to touch the altar, or the steps of it, +or the priest's hem, or even the rails which fenced the shrine. And with +some show of good reason was this hubbub, as I learned. For here was +indeed treasured the Girdle of Venus (this being her very sanctuary) and +as much desired as ever it was by women great with child or wanting to +conceive. And I looked very curiously upon it, but the Girdle I could +never see; only there was a painted image over the altar of the great +queen-mother, Venus Genetrix herself, depicted as a broad-browed, placid +matron giving of the fruits of her bounteous breasts to a male child. Then +I knew that this was that same Goddess who stood over the outer door of +the place, and was well pleased to find that the people, howsoever +ignorantly, adored the power that enwombs the world--Venus, the life- +bringer and quickener of things that breathe,--and could, in this matter, +touch hearts with the wise. So with this thought, that truly God was one +and men divers, I came out of the temple well pleased, into the level +light of the day's beam. + +In the tavern doorway, under a bush of green ilex, we sat down in company +to eat bread and peaches sopped in the wine of the country, and talked +very briskly of all the things we had seen and heard. And soon into the +current of our discourse was drawn a dark-faced youth, who had been +observing us earnestly for some time from under his hanging brows, and +who, growing mighty curious (as I find the way of them is), must know who +and whence we were and of what belief and condition in the world. So when +I had satisfied him, "Turn for turn," said I, "my honest friend: being +strangers, as you have learned, we have seen many things which touch us +nearly, and some which are hard of reading. But this very reading is to us +of high concernment, for these matters relate to religion, and religion, +of what sort soever it may be, no man can venture to despise. For certain +I am, that, as a man hath never seen the gods, so he may never be sure +that he hath ever conceived them, even darkly, as in a mirror. For we are +dwellers in a cave, my friend, with our backs to the light, and may not +tell of a truth whether the shadows that flit and fade be indeed gods or +no. Tell me, therefore (for I am puzzled by it), is the goddess whose +presentment I yet see over your temple-porch, that Mother of gods and men, +yea, even Mother of life itself, to whom we also bend the knee?" + +"She is, sir, as we believe, Mother of God; and therefore, God being +author of life. Mother of life and all things living." + +"It is as I had believed," said I, "and you, young sir, and I, may bow +together in that temple of hers without offence. For the temple is to her +honour as I conceive?" + +"Why, yes," he answered, "it is raised to her most holy name and to that +of our Lord." + +"And your Lord, who is this? and which altar is his? For there were many." + +"The great altar is His, and indeed He is to be worshipped in all," said +the young man. + +"He is then the tortured god, whose semblance hangs upon the black cross?" + +"He is." + +Then I begged him to tell me why these mournful images were scattered over +his goodly earth, these maimed gods, this blood and weeping; but I may not +set down all that he told me, seeing that much of it was dark, and much, +as I thought, not pertinent to the issue. Much again was said with his +hands, which I cannot interpret here. Suffice it that I learned this +concerning the Agonist, that he was the son of the goddess and greater +than she, though in a sense less. Mortal he was, and immortal, abject to +look upon, being indeed accounted a malefactor and crucified like a thief; +and yet a king of men, speaking wisdom whereof the like hath hardly been +heard. For of two things he taught there would seem to be no bottom to +them, so profound and unsearchable they are. And one of them was this,-- +"The kingdom is within you" (or some such words); and the other was, "Who +will lose his life shall save it." Whereof, methinks, the first +comprehends all the teaching of the Academy and the second that of the +Porch. So this man must needs have been a god, and whether the son or no +of the Soul of the World, greater than she. For what she did, as it were +by necessity and her blind inhering power, he knew. Therefore he must have +been Wisdom itself. And thus I knew that he could not be Dionysus the +Saviour, though he might have many of his attributes; nor simply that son +of Venus whom Ausonius alone of our poets saw fastened to a cross. So at +last, "I will tell you," said I, "who this god really is, as it seems to +me. Being of vile estate and yet greatest of all; being mortal and yet +immortal, god and man; being at once most wise and most simple, and (as +such his condition imports) intermediate between Earth and Heaven, he must +needs be the Divine Eros, concerning whom Plato's words are yet with us. +So I can understand why he is so wise, why he suffers always, and yet +cannot be driven by torment nor persuaded by sophisms to cease loving. For +the necessity of love is to crave ever; and he is Love himself. Wherefore +I am very sure he can lead men, if they will, from the fair things of the +world to those infinitely fairer things in themselves whereby what we now +have are so very fair to see. And he may well be son of this goddess and +nourished by her milk; for it behoves us that a god should stand between +Earth and Heaven and be compact of the elements of either, so that he +should condescend the wisdom of his head to instruct the clemency of his +heart. And we know, you and I, that the gods are but attributes of God, +whose intellect (as I say) may well be in Heaven, but His heart is in the +Earth, and is the core of it. For so we say of the poet that his heart is +ever in his fair work." + +Thus we took our wine and were well content to sit in the sunshine. + + + +IV + + +OF POETS AND NEEDLEWORK + +The man of our time to class poetry as a thing very pleasant and useful +shall hardly be found. At most the saying will suffer reprint as a +quaintness, a freak, or a paradox; and so it has proved. From Prato, dusty +little city of mid-Tuscany, and with the impress of its Reale Orfanotrofio +(nourisher, it would thus appear, of more Humanities than one) comes an +_"Opera Nova, nella quale si contengono bellissime historie, contrasti, +lamenti et frottole, con alcune canzoni a ballo, strambotti, geloghe, +farse, capitoli e bazellette di più eccellenti autori. Aggiuntevi assai +tramutationi, villanelle alla napolitana, sonetti alla bergamasca et +mariazi alla povana, indovinelli, ritoboli e passerotti"_; _cosa_, +this legend goes on to say, _molto piacevole et utile_. This is, no +doubt, rococo, and at best a pitiful, catchfarthing bit of ancientry: yet +it looks back to a time when it was indeed the fact that no choice work +could be but useful, and when eyes and ears, as conduits to the soul, had +that full of consideration we reserve for mouth and nose, purveyors to the +belly. + +Vasari, Giorgio, he too, _bourgeois_ though he were, and in so far +the best of testimony, knew it when he found Luca's blue and white to be +"molto utile per la state." We should say that of a white umbrella or suit +of flannels; why of earthenware or an adroit _strambotto_? That marks +the cleft, the incurable gulf of difference between a people like the +Tuscans with art in their marrow, and our present selves with our touching +reliance upon a most unseemly hunger after facts. I suppose I should be +stretching a point if I said that _Samson Agonistes_ was _cosa +molto piacevole ed utile_. And yet I name there a great poem and a +weighty, whence the general public suck, or claim to suck, no small +advantage. Is it more useful to them than Bradshaw? I doubt. But here, in +this Opera Nova so furthered, are sixty-three little snatches of Luigi +Pulci's, eight lines to the stave, about the idlest of make-believe love +affairs, full of such Petrarchisms as "Gl' occhi tuoi belli son li crudel +dardi," or + +"Tu m' ai trafitto il cor! donde io moro, + Se tu, iddea, non mi dai aiutoro."-- + + +the merest commonplaces of gallantry: called on what account by their +contrivers _molto utile_? + +I have urged in my Second Essay that the Tuscans were inveterate weavers +of fancy, choosing what came easiest to hand to weave withal. I dared to +see such airy spinning in that Spanish Chapel from which Mr. Ruskin has +nearly frightened the lovers of Art; I said that the _Summa_ was to +the painters there as good vantage ground as any novel of Sacchetti's. I +now say that Luigi Pulci and his kindred so treated the love-lore which +was solemn mystery to Guinicelli and Lapo and Fazio, or the young Dante +shuddering before his lord of terrible aspect. I would add Petrarch's name +to this honourable roll if I believed it fitting such a niche; but I find +him the greatest equivocator of them all, and owe him a grudge for making +a fifteenth-century Dante impossible. It is true, had there been such a +poet we should never have had our Milton; but that may not serve the Swan +of Vaucluse as justification for being miserable before a looking-glass, +that he starved his grandsons to serve ours. Take him then as a poser: +give him, for the argument's sake, Boccace to his company, Cino; give him +our Pulci, give him Ariosto, give him Lorenzo, Politian; give him Tasso +for aught I care; you have no one left but the sugar-cured Guarino. Dante +stands alone upon the skyey peaks of his great argument, steadied there +and holding his breath, as for the hush that precedes weighty endeavour; +and Bojardo (no Tuscan by birth) stands squarely to the plains, holding +out one hand to Rabelais over-Alps and another to Boccace grinning in his +grave. The fellow is such a sturdy pagan we must e'en forgive him some of +his quirks. Italian poesy, poor lady, stript to the smock, can still look +honestly out if she have but two such vestments whole and unclouted as the +_Commedia_ and the _Orlando_. Let us look at some of her spoiled +bravery. Take up my Opera Nova and pick over Pulci in his lightest mood. I +am minded to try my hand for your amusement. + +"Let him rejoice who can; for me, I'd grieve. +Peace be with all; for me yet shall be war. +Let him that hugs delight, hug on, and leave +To me sweet pain, lest day my night shall mar. +I am struck hard; the world, you may believe, +Laughs out;--rejoice, my world! I'll pet my scar. +Rogue love, that puttest me to such a pass, +They cry thee, 'It is well!' I sing, 'Alas!'" + +_Vers de société_? No; too rhetorical: your antithesis gives +headaches to fine ladies. Euphuist? Not in the applied sense: read +Shakespere's sonnets in that manner; or, if you object that Shakespere is +too high for such comparisons, read Drummond of Hawthornden. Poetry, which +has a soul, we cannot call it. Verse it assuredly is, and of the most +excellent. Just receive a quatrain of the pure spring, and judge for +yourself: + +"Chi gode goda, che pur io stento; +Chi è in pace si sia, ch' io son in guerra; +Chi ha diletto l' habbi, ch' io ho tormento; +Chi vive lieto, in me dolor afferra." + +Balance is there. Vocalisation, adjustment of sound, discriminate use of +long syllables and short, of subjunctive and indicative moods.[1] +Unpremeditated art it is not: indeed it is craft rather than art; for Art +demands a larger share of soul-expenditure than Pulci could afford. And of +such is the delicate ware which Tuscany, nothing doubting, took for +_lavoro molto utile_. For, believe it or not, of that kind were Delia +Robbia's enrichments, Ghirlandajo's frescos, Raphael's Madonnas, and +Alberti's broad marble churches: of that kind and of no other; on a level +with the painted lady smiling out of a painted window at Airolo, whose +frozen lips assure the traverser of the Saint Gothard that he has passed +the ridge and may soon smell the olives. + +[Footnote 1: More than that: the piece is an excellent example of the +skilful use of redundant syllables. It is certain that a study of Italian +poetry would help our, too often, tame blank verse to be (however bad +otherwise) at least not dull. It might bring it nearer to Milton, as Dante +brought Keats. Witness his revision of _Hyperion_. If the Tuscans +overrated the craft in Poetry, we assuredly underrate it.] + +Wherein, then, is the use? Why, it is in the art of it. I will convict you +out of Alberti's own mouth, or his biographer's, for he spake it truly. +"For he was wont to say," thus runs the passage, "that whatever might be +accomplished by the wit of man with a certain choiceness, that indeed was +next to the divine." To image the divine, you see, you must accomplish +somewhat, scrupulously weigh, select and refuse; in short adapt +exquisitely your means until they are adequate to your ends. And, keeping +the eye steadily on that, you might grow to discard solemn ends, or +momentous, altogether, until poetry and painting ceased to be arts at all, +and must be classed, at best, with needlework. So indeed it proved in the +case of poetry. After Politian (who really did catch some echo of other +times, and of manners more primal than his own, and did instil something +of it in his _Orfeo_) no poet of Italy had anything serious to say. I +doubt it even of Tasso, though Tasso, I know, has a vogue. I except, of +course, Michael Angelo, as I have already said; and I except Boccace and +Bojardo. Painting was drawn out of the pit laid privily for her by the +sheer necessity of an outlet; and painting, having much to say, became the +representative Italian art. Poetry, the most ancient of them all, as she +is the most majestic; the art which refuses to be taught, and alone of her +sisters must be acquired by self-spenditure (so that before you can learn +to string your words in music you must be shaken with a thought which, to +your torturing, you must spoil); poetry, at once music and soothsay, +knitted to us as touching her common speech, and to the spheres as +touching on the same immortal harmonies; poetry such as Dante's was, was +gone from Tuscany, and painting, to her own ruining, reigned instead, +drawing in sculpture and architecture to share her kingdom and attributes. +Which indeed they did, to their equal detriment and our discouragement +that read. + +When I want to see Death in small-clothes bowing in the drawing-room I +turn to my Petrarch and open at Sonnet cclxxxii., where it is written +how:-- + +_"It lies with Death to take the beauty of Laura but not the gracious +memory of her";_ + +As thus: + +"Now hast them touch'd thy stretch of power, O Death; +Thy brigandage hath beggar'd Love's demesne +And quench'd the lamp that lit it, and the queen +Of all the flowers snapped with thy ragged teeth. +Hollow and meagre stares our life beneath +The querulous moon, robb'd of its sovereign: +Yet the report of her, her deathless mien-- +Not thine, O churl! Not thine, thou greedy Death! +They are with her in Heaven, the which her grace, +Like some brave light, gladdens exceedingly +And shoots chance beams to this our dwelling-place; +So art thou swallowed in her victory. +Yet on me, beauty-whelmed in very sooth, +On me that last-born angel shall have ruth." + +Look in vain for the deep heart-cry that voiced Dante's passion in the +tremendous statements of this:-- + +"Beatrice is gone up into high Heaven, +The kingdom where the angels are at peace; +And lives with them: and to her friends is dead. +Not by the frost of winter was she driven +Away, like others; nor by summer heats; +But through a perfect gentleness instead. +For from the lamp of her meek lowlihead +Such an exceeding glory went up hence +That it woke wonder in the Eternal Sire, +Until a sweet desire +Entered Him for that lovely excellence, +So that He bade her to Himself aspire; +Counting this weary and most evil place +Unworthy of a thing so full of grace." + +[Footnote: This translation is Rossetti's.] + +Now and again it may happen that a poet, ridden by the images of his +thought, can "state the facts" and leave the rhyme to chance. The Greeks, +to whom facts were rarer and of more significance, one supposes, than they +are to us, did it habitually. That is what gives such irresistible import +to Homer and to Sophocles. They knew that the adjective is the natural +enemy of the verb. The naked act, the bare thought, a sequence of stately- +balanced rhythm and that ensuing harmony of sentences, gave their poetry +its distinction. They did not wilfully colour their verse, if they did, as +I suppose we must admit, their statues. "Now," says Sir Thomas, "there is +a musick wherever there is a harmony, order or proportion; and thus far we +may maintain the musick of the spheres; for those well-ordered motions, +and regular paces, though they give no sound unto the ear, yet to the +understanding they strike a note most full of harmony." After the Greeks, +Dante, who may have drawn _lo bello stile_ from Virgil, but hardly +his great notes, as of a bell, carried on the tradition of directness and +naked strength. But Petrarch, and after him all Tuscany, dallied with +light thinking, and beat all the images of Love's treasury into thin +conventions. + +_Però_, what gentlemen they were, these "ingegni fiorentini," these +Tuscan wits! What innate breeding and reticence! What punctilious loyalty +to the little observances of literature, of wall-decoration, call it, in +the most licentiously minded of them! Lorenzo Magnifico was a rake and +could write lewdly enough, as we all know. Yet, when he chose, that is +when Art bade him, how unerringly he chose the right momentum. His too was +"la mente che non erra." I found this of his the other day, and must needs +close up my notes with it. The very notion of it was, in his time, a +convention; a series of sonnets bound together by an argument; a _Vita +nova_ without its overmastering occasion. Simonetta was dead; whereupon +"tutti i fiorentini ingegni, come si conviene in si pubblica jattura, +diversamente ed avversamente si dolsono, chi in versi, chi in prosa." The +poor dead lady was, in fact, a butt for these sharpshooters. Yet hear +Lorenzo. + +"Died, as we have declared, in our city a certain lady, whereby all people +alike in Florence were moved to compassion. And this is no marvel, seeing +that with all earthly beauty and courtesy she was adorned as, before her +day, no other under heaven could have been. Among her other excellent +parts, she had a carriage so sweet and winsome that whosoever should have +any commerce or friendly dealing with her, straightway fell to believe +himself enamoured of her. Ladies also, and all youth of her degree, not +only suffered no harbourage to unkindly thought upon this her eminence +over all the rest, nor grudged it her at all, but stoutly upheld and took +pleasure in her loveliness and gracious bearing; and this so honestly that +you would have found it hard to be believed so many men without jealousy +could have loved her, or so many ladies without envy give her place. So, +the more her life by its comely ordering had endeared her to mankind, pity +also for her death, for the flower of her youth, and for a beauteousness +which in death, it may be, showed the more resplendently than in life, did +breed in the heart the smarting of great desire. Therefore she was carried +uncovered on the bier from her dwelling to the place of burial, and moved +all men, thronging there to see her, to abundant shedding of tears. And in +some, who before had not been aware of her, after pity grew great marvel +for that she, in death, had overcome that loveliness which had seemed +insuperable while she yet lived. Among which people, who before had not +known her, there grew a bitterness and, as it were, ground of reproach, +that they had not been acquainted with so fair a thing before that hour +when they must be shut off from it for ever; to know her thus and have +perpetual grief of her. But truly in her was made manifest that which our +Petrarch had spoken when he said, + +'Death showed him lovely in her lovely face.'" + +This is to write like a gentleman and an artist, with ear attuned to the +subtlest fall and cadence, with scrupulous weighing of words that their +true outline shall hold clear and sharp. It is _intarsiatura_, +skilful and clean at the edges. He goes on to play with his hammered +thought, always as delicately and precisely as before. + +"Falling, therefore, such an one to death, all the wits of Florence, as is +seemly in so public a calamity, lamented severally and mutually, some in +rhyme, some in prose, the ruefulness of it; and bound themselves to exalt +her excellence each after the contriving of his mind: in which company I, +too, must needs be; I, too, mingle rhymes with tears. So I did in the +sonnets below rehearsed; whereof the first began thus: + +'O limpid shining star that to thy beam.' + +"Night had fallen: together we walked, a dear friend and I, together +talking of our common sorrow: and so speaking, the night being wondrous +clear, I lifted my eyes to a star of exceeding brilliancy, which appeared +in the West, of such assured splendour as not alone to excel other stars, +but so eagerly to shine that it threw in shadow all the lights of heaven +about it. Whereof having great marvel, I turned to my friend, saying--'We +ought not to wonder at this sight, seeing that the soul of that most +gentle lady is of a truth either re-informed in this, a new star, or +conjoined to shine with it. Wherefore there is no marvel in such exceeding +brightness; and we who took comfort in her living delights, may even now +be appeased by her appearance in a limpid star. And if our vision for such +a light is tender and fragile, we should beseech her shade, that is the +god in her, to make us bolder by withholding some part of her beam that we +may sometimes look upon her, nor sear our eyes. But, to say sooth, this is +no over-boldness in her, endowed as she was with all the power of her +beauty, that she should strive to shine more excellently than all the +other stars, or even yet more proudly with Phoebus himself, asking of him +his very chariot, that she, rather, may rule our day. Which thing, if you +allow it without presumption in our star, how vilely shows the +impertinence of Death to have laid hands upon such loveliness and +authority as hers.' And since these my reasonings seemed of the stuff +proper for a sonnet, I took leave of my friend and composed that one which +follows; speaking in it of the above-mentioned star." + +The sonnet is in the right Petrarchian vein, adroit and shallow as you +please. With such a preface it could hardly be otherwise--the invocation +of the lady's shade, the twitting of Death (making his Mastership jig to +suit their occasions who had of late been in his presence) and the naive +acceptance of all gifts as "buona materia a an sonetto," In the end he +spins four to her memory; then finds another lady and doubles all his +superlatives for her. For the star, he remembers, may have been Lucifer; +and Lucifer is but herald of the day. To it then! with all the _buona +materia a un sonetto_ the dawn can give you. Thus flourished poetry in +the Tuscan _quattrocento_; for Politian was but little more poet than +Lorenzo, while he was no less dextrous as a rhymer and fashioner of +conceits. Not serious, but _piacevole_, with an _elegantia quædam +prope divinum_; therefore _molto utile_. Pen-work in fact, and kin +to needlework. Because Tuscany saw choicely-wrought things pleasing, and +pleasant things useful, we of to-day can see Florence as an open-air +Museum. But we wrap our own Poets in heavy bindings and let them lie on +drawing-room tables in company of Whitaker's Almanack and an album of +photographs. Well, well! We must teach them to say, _Philistia, be thou +glad of me_, I suppose. + + + +V + + +OF BOILS AND THE IDEAL + +[Footnote: This appeared in the _New Review_ for December 1896, and +is reproduced by leave of the Publisher.] + +_(A Colloquy with Perugino)_ + +"There," said my Roman escort, as we forded the Tiber near Torglano, "the +haze is lifting: behold august Perugia," I looked out over the misty +plain, and saw the spiked ridge of a hill, serried with towers and +belfries as a port with ships' masts; then the grey stone walls and +escarpments warm in the sun; finally a mouth to the city, which seemed to +engulph both the white road and the citizens walking to and fro upon it +like flies. But it was some time yet before I could decipher the image on +the gonfalon streaming in the breeze above the Signiory. It was actually, +on a field vert, a griffin rampant sable, langued gules. "So ho!" said the +guide when! had described it, "So ho! the Mountain Cat is at home +again.... And here comes scouring one of the whelps," he added in alarm. A +young man, black-avised, bare-headed, pressing a lathered horse, bore down +upon us. He seemed to gain exultation with every new pulse of his +strength: the Genius of Brute Force, handsome as he was evil. And yet not +evil, unless a wild beast is evil; which it probably is not. He soon +reached us, pulled up short with a clatter of hoofs, and hailed me in a +raw dialect, asking what I did, whence and who I was, whither I went, what +I would? As he spake--looking at me with fierce eyes in which pride, +suspicion, and the shyness of youth struggled and rent each other--he +fooled with a straight sword, and seemed to put his demands rather to +provoke a quarrel than to get an answer. I wished no quarrel with a boy, +so, as my custom is, I answered deliberately that I travelled, and from +Rome; that my name was Hewlett, at his service; that I was going to +Perugia; that I would be rid of him. I saw him grow loutish before my +adroit impassivity; his fencing was not with such tools. He sulked, and +must know next what I wanted at Perugia. I told him I had business with +Pietro Vannucci, called Il Perugino by those who admired him from a +distance; and he seemed relieved, withal a something of contempt for my +person fluttered on his pretty lip. At any rate, he left fingering his +steel toy. "Peter the Pious!" he scoffed, "Are you of his litter? Pots and +Pans? Off with you; you'll find him hoarding his money or his wife. To the +wife you may send these from Semonetto." Whereat my young gentleman fell +to kissing his hand in the air. I rose in my stirrups and bowed +elaborately, and, taking off my hat in the act, put him to some shame, for +he was without that equipment. He pulled a wry face at me, like any +schoolboy, and cantered off on his spent horse, arms akimbo, and his irons +rattling about him. My guide marked a furtive cross on his breast and +vowed, I am pretty sure, a score candles to Santa Maria in Cosmedin if +ever he reached home. "God is good," he said, "God is very good. That was +Simon Baglione." + +"He seemed a very unlicked cub," was all my reply. So we climbed the dusty +steep, winding twice or thrice round about the hill in a brown plain set +with stubbed trees, and entered the armed city by the Porta Eburnea. +Inside the walls, threading our way up a spiral lane among bullock-carts, +cloaked cavaliers, monks, fair-haired girls carrying pitchers and baskets, +bullies, bravoes, and well-to-do burgesses, we passed from one ambush to +another, by dark gullies, stinking traps, and twisted stairways, to the +Via Deliziosa, without ever a hint of the broad sunshine or whiff of the +balmy air which we had left outside on the plain. In a little mildewed +court, where one patch of light did indeed slope upon a lemon-tree loaded +with fruit and flowers, I found my man in a droll pass with his young +wife. He was, in fact, tiring her hair in the open: nothing more; +nevertheless there was that air of mystery in the performance which made +me at once squeamish of going further, and afraid to withdraw. I stood, +therefore, in confusion while the sport went on. It was of his seeking I +could see, for the poor girl looked shamefaced and weary enough. She was a +winsome child (no more), broad in the brows, full in the eye, yellow- +haired, like most of the women in this place, with a fine-shaped mouth, +rather voluptuously underlipped, and, as I then saw her, sitting in a +carven chair with her hands at a listless droop over the arms of it. Her +hair, which was loose about her and of great length and softness, lay at +the mercy of her master. He, a short, pursy man, well over middle age-- +"past the Grand Climacteric," as Bulwer Lytton used to say--red and +anxiously lined, stood behind her, barber fashion, and ran her hair +through his fingers, all the while talking to himself very fast. His eyes +were half-shut: he seemed ravished by the sight of so much gold (if common +reports belie him not) or the feel of so much silk (the likelier opinion), +I know not which. Assuredly so odd a beginning to my adventure, a hardier +man would have stumbled! + +The sport went on. The girl, as I considered her, was of slight, almost +mean figure; her good looks, which as yet lay rather in promise, resolved +themselves into a small compass, for they ended at her shoulders. Below +them she was slender to stooping, and with no shape to speak of. Allow her +a fine little head, the timid freshness natural to her age, a blush-rose +skin, slim neck, and that glorious weight of hair: there is Perugino's +wife! Add that she was vested in a milky green robe which was cut square +and low at the neck and fitted her close, and I have no more to say on her +score than she had on any. As for the Maestro himself, I got to know him +better. On mere sight I could guess something of him. A master evidently, +unhappy when not ordering something; fidgety by the same token; yet a +fellow of humours, and fertile of inventions whereon to feed them. The +more I considered him the more subtle ministry to his pleasures did I find +this morning's work to be. A man, finally, happiest in dreams. I looked at +him now in that vein. In and out, elbow-deep sometimes, went his hands and +arms, plunging, swimming in that luxurious mesh of hair. He sprayed it out +in a shower for Danaë; he clutched it hard and drew it into thick +burnished ropes of fine gold. Anon, as the whim caught him, he would pile +it up and hedge it with great silver pins, fan-shape, such as country +girls use, till it took the semblance, now of a tower, now of a wheel, now +of some winged beast--sphinx or basilisk--couching on the girl's head. +Then, stepping back a little, he would clasp his hands over his eyes, and +with head in air sing some snatch of triumph, or laugh aloud for the very +wildness of his power; and so the game went on, that seemed a feast of +delight to the man--a feast? an orgy of sense. But the woman might have +been cut in stone. Had she not breathed, or had not her fingers faintly +stirred now and again, you would have sworn her a wax doll. + +I know not how long the two might have stayed at their affairs, for here I +grew wearied and, coughing discreetly, slid my foot on the flags. The man +looked up, stopped his play at once; the spell was broken. The girl, I +noticed, stirred not at all, but sat on as she was with her hair about her +clasping her shoulders and flooding her with gold. But Master Peter was a +little disconcerted, I am pretty sure; certainly he was redder than usual +about the gills and gullet. He cleared his throat once or twice with an +attempt at pomposity which he vainly tried to sustain as he came out to +meet me. When I handed him the Prothonotary's letter, and he saw the broad +seal, he bowed quite low; the letter read, he took me by the hand and led +me to the loggia of his house. We had to pass Madam on the way thither; +but by this Master Peter carried off the affair as coolly as you choose. +"Imola, child," he said as we passed, "I have company. Put up thy hair and +fetch me out a fiaschone of Orvieto--that of the year before last. Be sure +thou makest no mistake; and break no bottles, girl, for the wine is good. +And hard enough to come by," he added with a sigh. The girl obeyed. +Without raising her eyes she rose; without raising them she put her hands +to her head and deftly braided and coiled her hair into a single twist; +still looking down to earth she passed into the house. + +Pietro began to talk briskly enough so soon as we were set. The air was +mild for mid-March; between the ridged tiles of the cortile, which ran up +to a great height, I could see a square of pale blue sky; gnats were busy +in the beam of dusty light which slanted across the shade; I heard the +bees about the lemon-bush droning of a quiet and opulent summer hovering +near-by. It was a very peaceful and well-disposed world just then. Pietro, +much at his ease, was apt to take life as he found it--nor do I wonder. +"Yes," he said, "the work goes; the work goes. I have much to do; you may +call me just now quite a man of affairs. This very morning, now, I +received a little deputation from Città di Castello--quite a company! The +Prior, the Sub-Prior, two Vicars-Choral, two Wardens of Guilds, and other +gentlemen, craving a piece by my own hand for the altar of Saint Roch. I +thank our Lord I can pick and choose in these days. I told them I would +think of it, whereat they seemed to know relief, but I added, How did they +wish the boil treated, on the Saint's left thigh? For I told them, and I +was very firm, that though Holy Church might aver the boil to have been a +grievous boil, a boil indeed, yet my art could have little to say to +boils, as boils. The boil must be a great boil, and a red, said they; for +the populace love best what they know best, and cannot worship, as you +might say, with maimed rites. Moreover, Poggibonsi had a Saint Roch done +by that luxurious Sienese Bazzi (a man of scandalous living, as I daresay +you know), where the boil was fiery to behold and as big as a man's ankle- +bone. This was a cause of new great devotion among the impious by reason +of its plain relationship to our frail flesh. Città was a poor city; in +fine, there must be a handsome boil, I said. Let me refine upon the boil, +and Saint Roch is yours, with Madonna, in addition, caught up in clouds of +pure light, and two fiddling angels, one at either hand. Finally, with the +petition that Madonna should be rarely adorned with pearls Flemish- +fashion, they let me have my way upon the boil. So the work goes on!" + +"But, good Master Peter," I exclaimed here, "I could find some discrepancy +in this. On the one hand you boggle at boils, on the other you suffer +pearls to be thrust upon you. Why, if you cleave to the one, should you +despise the other? For, for aught I see, your thesis should exclude +either." + +"And so it does," he said, smiling, "But for one man in Città that knows a +pearl there will be a hundred who can judge of a boil. My Madonna will be +a pearl-faced Umbrian maid, and her other pearls just as Flemish as I +choose. But I hear our glasses clinking." + +I, too, heard Imola's footfall on the flags, and ventured to say, "And I +know where your Madonna is, Master Peter," But he affected not to hear. + +She served us our amber cup with the same persistent, almost sullen, self- +continence. But, I thought, I must see your eyes, Mistress, for once; so +called to mind my encounter with the wild young Baglione of the morning. +Smiling as easily as I could, I accosted her with "Madonna, I am the +bearer of compliments to you, if you choose to hear them." Then she looked +me full for a second of time. I saw by her dilating eyes, wide as a hare's +(though of a sea-grey colour), that she was not always queen of herself, +and pitied her. For it is ill to think of broken-in hearts, or souls set +in bars, and I could fancy Master Peter's hand not so light upon her as +upon church-walls. But I went on, "Yes, Madonna, even as I rode up hither, +I met a young knight-at-arms who wished you as well as you were fair, and +kissed your hands as best he might, considering the distance, before he +rode off." Imola blushed, but said nothing. + +"Who was this youth, sir?" asked Master Peter, in a hurry. + +"It was plainly some young noble of your State," said I, "but for his name +I know nothing, for he told me nothing." I added this quickly, because I +could see our friend was keen enough for all his coat of unconcern, and I +feared the whip by-and-bye for Imola's thin shoulders. But I knew quite +well who the boy was. Imola went lightly away without any sign of twitter. +I turned to Master Peter again. + +"In this matter of boils and pearls," I began, "I would not deny but you +are in the right, and yet there is this to be said. The Greeks of whose +painting, truly, we have next to nothing. In all the work of theirs known +to us did what lay before them as well as ever they could. They stayed not +to theorise over this axiom and that, that formula and this. They said +rather, 'You wish for the presentment of a man with a boil on his leg? +Well.' And they produced both man and boil." + +"Why yes, yes," broke in my friend, "that is plain enough. But apart from +this, that you are talking of sculpture to me who do but paint, you should +know very well that your Greek copied no single boil, no, nor no probable +boil, but, as it were, the summary and perfect conclusion of ail possible +boils." + +"_To Pithanon?_ Yes; I admit it. For Aristotle says as much." + +"Right so do I, in my degree and by my art," said Perugino; "and without +knowing anything of Aristotle save that he was wise." + +"Your pardon, my brave Vannucci," I said, "but you have admitted the +opposite of this. Did you not hint to the deputation that you would give +Saint Roch no boils? And have you ever let creep into your pieces the +semblance of so much as a pimple? Remember, I know your _Sebastian_; +and know also Il Sodoma's, which he made as a banner for the Confraternity +of that famous Saint In Camollia." + +"I seek the essence of fact," he replied; "which, believe me, never lay in +the displacement of an arrow-point; no, nor in the head of a boil. Bazzi +is a sensualist: as his palate grows stale he whets it by stronger meat; +thinks to provoke appetite by disgust; would draw you on by a nasty +inference, as a dog by his hankering after fæcal odours. What nearness to +Art in his plumpy boy stuck with arrows like a skewered capon? Causes nuns +to weep, hey? and to dream dreams, hey? Nature would do that cleanlier; +and waxwork more powerfully! Form, my good sir, Form is your safeguard. +Lay hold on Form; you are as near to Essence as may be here below. Art +works for the rational enlargement of the fancy, not the titillation of +sense. And Invention is the more sacred the closer it apes the scope of +the divine plan. And this much, at least, of the Grecian work I have +learned, that it will never lick vulgar shoes, nor fawn to beastly eyes. +It is a stately order, a high pageant, a solemn gradual, wherein the +beholder will behold just so much as he is prepared, by litany and fasting +and long vigil, to receive. No more and no less." + +"Aristotle again," said I, "with his 'continual slight novelty.' No fits +and starts." + +"I have told you before I know nothing of the man," said Perugino, vexed, +it appeared, at such wounding of his vanity to be new; "let me tell you +this. There are fellows abroad who dub me dunce and dull-head. The young +Buonarroti, forsooth, who mistakes the large for the great, quantity for +quality; who in the indetermined pretends to see the mysterious. Mystery, +quotha! Mystery may be in an astrologer's horoscope, in a diagram. Mystery +needs no puckered virago, nor bully in the sulks. There is mystery in the +morning calms, mystery in a girl's melting mood, mystery in the +irresolution of a growing boy full of dreams. But behold! it is there, not +here. If you see it not, the fault is your own. It may be broad as day, +cut clean as with a knife, displayed at large before a brawling world too +busy lapping or grudging to heed it. The many shall pass it by as they run +huddling to the dark. Yet the few shall adore therein the excellency of +the mystery, even as the few (the very few) may discern in the flake of +wafer-bread the shining wholeness of the Divine Nature----" + +"'The few remain, the many change and pass,'" I interpolated in a murmur. +But Perugino never heeded me. He went on. + +"The Greek, young sir, took the fact and let it alone to breed. His act +lay in the taking and setting. Just so much import as it had borne it bore +still; just so much weight as separation from its fellows lent it was to +his credit who first cut it free. But nowadays glamour suits only with +serried muscles, frowns, and writhen lips; where darkness is we shudder, +saying, Behold a great mystery! Let a painter declare his incompetence to +utter, it shall be enough to assure you he has walked with God; for if he +stammers, look you, that testifies he is overwhelmed. Amen, I would +answer. Let his head swim and be welcome; but let him not set to painting +till he can stand straight again. For in one thing I am no Greek, in that +I cannot hold drunkenness divine." Here the good man stopped for want of +breath and I whipped in. + +"Your great _Crucifixion_ in Santa Maria Maddalena," I began. + +"Look you, sir," he took me up, "I know what you would be at. Take that +piece (which is of my very best) or another equally good, I mean the +_Charge to Peter_ in Pope Sixtus his new Chapel, and listen to me. +The first thing your painter must seek to do is to fill his wall. Let +there be no mistake about this. He is at first no prophet or man of God; +he is no juggler nor mountebank who shall be rewarded according to the +enormity of his grins; his calling, maybe, is humbler, for all he stands +for is to wash a wall so that no eye be set smarting because of it. Now +that seems a very simple matter; it is just as simple as the eye itself-- +so you may judge the validity of the arguments against me, that a +wholesome green or goodly red wash would suffice. It would suffice +indifferent well for a kennel of dogs. But mark this. Although your +painter may drop hints for the soul, let him not strain above his pitch +lest he crack his larynx. To his colour he may add form in the flat; but +he cannot escape the flat, however he may wriggle, any more than the +sculptor can escape the round, scrape he never so wisely. Buonarroti will +scrape and shift; the Fleming has scraped and shifted all his days to as +little purpose. His seed-pearls invite your touch. Touch them, my friend, +you will smear your fingers. _Ne sutor ultra crepidam._ Leave +miracles, O painter, to the Saint, and stick to your brush-work. Colour +and form in the flat; there is his armour to win the citadel of a man's +soul." + +"They call you mawkish," I dared to say. + +"I am in good company," said the little man with much pomposity. + +"You say boldly, then, if I catch the chain of your argument"--thus I +pursued him--"that you present (as by some formula which you have +elaborated) the facts of religion in colour and design? For I suppose you +will allow that your Art is concerned at least as much with religion as +with the washing of walls?" + +"Religion! Religion!" cried he. "What are you at? Concerned with religion! +Man alive, it is concerned with itself; it _is_ religion. I see you +are very far indeed from the truth, and as you have spoken of my +_Crucifixion_ in Florence, now you shall suffer me to speak of it. I +testify what I know, not that which I have not seen. And as mine eyes have +never filled with blood from Golgotha, so I do not conjure with tools I +have not learned to handle. But I will tell you what I have seen. The +Mass: whereof my piece is, as it were, the transfiguration or a parable. +For it grew out of a Mass I once heard, stately-ordered, solemnly and +punctiliously served in a great church. Mayhap, I dreamed of it; we shall +not quarrel over terms. It was a strange Mass, shorn of much ornament and +circumstance; I thought, as I knelt and wondered: Here are no +lamentations, no bruised breasts, no outpoured hearts, nor souls on +flames. The day for tears is past, the fires are red, not flaming; this is +a day for steadfast regard, for service, patience, and good hope; this is +a day for Art to chant what the soul hath endured. For Art is a fruit sown +in action and watered to utterance by tears. Two priests only, clothed in +fine linen, served the Mass: ornaments of candles, incense, prostration, +genuflection, there were none. Yet, step by step, and with every step +pondered reverently ere another was laid to Its fellow's foundation; with +full knowledge of the end ere yet was the beginning accomplished; In every +gesture, every pause, intonation, invocation, stave of song, phrase of +prayer; by painful degrees wrought in the soul's sweat and tears, +unadorned, cold as fine stone, yet glittering none the less like fair +marble set in the sun--was that solemn Mass sung through in the bare +Church to the glory of God and His angels, who must ever rejoice in a work +done so that the master-mind is straining and on watch over heart and +voice. And I said, Calvary is done and the woe of it turned to triumph. +Love is the fulfilling of the Law. Henceforth, for me Law shall be the +fulfilment of my Love. + +"Therefore I paint no terrors of death, no flesh torn by iron, no passion +of an anguish greater than we can ever conceive, no bittersweet ecstasy of +Self abandoned or Love inflaming; but instead, serenity, a morning sky, a +meek victim, Love fulfilling Law. Shorn of accidents, for the essence is +enough; not passionate, for that were as gross an affront in face of such +awful death as to be trivial. Nothing too much; Law fulfilling Love; +reasonable service. + +"And because we are of the earth earthy, and because what I work you must +behold with bodily eyes, I limn you angels and gods in your own image; not +of greater stature nor of more excellent beauty than many among you; not +of finer essence, maybe, than yourselves. But as the priests about that +naked altar, so stand they, that the love which transfigures them be +absorbed in the fulfilling of law; and the law they exquisitely follow be +at once the pattern and glass of their love." + +Master Peter drained a beaker of his Orvieto. I admired; for indeed the +little man spoke well. + +"Now the Lord be good to you, Master Peter," I said; "men do you a great +wrong. For there are some who aver that you doubt." + +"Who does not doubt?" replied my host. "We doubt whenever we cannot see." + +"I believe you are right," said I. "Your great Saint is, after all, your +great Seer. For you, then, to question the soul's immortality is but to +admit that you do not yet see your own life to come." + +"Leave it so," said Perugino. "Let us talk reasonably." + +"Did all men love the law as you do," I resumed after a painful pause--for +I felt the force of the Master's rebuke to my impertinence (and could hope +others will feel it also)--"did all love the law as you do, the world +would be a cooler place and passion at a discount. But I cannot conceive +Art without passion." + +"Nor I," said the painter, "and for the excellent reason that there is no +such thing. But remember this: passion is like the Alpheus. Hedge it about +with dams, you drive it deeper. Out of sight is not out of being. And the +issue must needs be the fairer." + +"Happy the passion," I said, "which hath an issue. There is passion of the +vexed sort, where the tears are frozen to ice as they start. Of the +tortured thus, remember-- + +"Lo pianto stesso li planger non lascia, +E il duol, che trova in su gli occhi rintoppo, +Si volve in entro a far crescer l' ambascia." + +"You know our Dante?" said Master Peter blandly (though I swear he knew +what I was at). "There may be such people; doubtless there are such +people. For me, I find a perpetual outlet in my art." I could not +forbear---- + +"Master Peter, Master Peter," I cried out, "how can I believe you when I +know that your Madonna's eyes are brimming; when I know why she turns them +to a misty heaven or an earth seen blotted by reason of tears? Do these +tears ever fall, Master Peter? or who freezes them as they start?" + +For I wondered where his patient Imola found her outlet, and whether young +Simone has shown her a way. Master Peter drummed on the table and nursed +one fat leg. + +Before I took leave of the urbane little painter, in fact while I stood in +the act of handshaking, I saw her white face at an upper window, looming +behind rigid bars. On a sudden impulse I concluded my farewells rapidly +and made to go. Vannucci turned back into the house and closed the door; +but I stayed in the cortile pretending a trouble with my spurs. Sure +enough, in a short time I heard a light footfall. Imola stood beside me. + +"Wish me a safe journey," I said smiling, "and no more bare-headed +cavaliers on the road." Her lips hardly moved, so still her voice was. +"Was he bare-headed?" she asked, as if in awe. + +"Love-locks floating free," I answered her gaily enough. "Shall I thank +him for his courtesies to you, Madonna, if we meet?" + +"You will not meet: he is gone to Spello," she began, and then stopped, +blushing painfully. + +"But I may stay in Spello this night and could seek him out." + +She was mistress of her lips, and could now look steadily at me. "I wish +him very well," said Imola. + + + +VI + + +THE SOUL OF A FACT + +In the days when it was verging on a question whether a man could be at +the same time a good Christian and an artist, the chosen subjects of +painting were significant of the approaching crisis--those glaring moral +contrasts in history which, for want of a happier term, we call dramatic. +Why this was so, whether Art took a hint from Politics, or had withdrawn +her more intimate manifestations to await likelier times, is a question it +were long to answer. The subjects, at any rate, were such as the Greeks, +with their surer instincts and saving grace of sanity in matters of this +kind, either forbore to meddle with or treated as decoratively as they +treated acanthus-wreaths. Today we call them "effective" subjects; we find +they produce shocks and tremors; we think it braces us to shudder, and we +think that Art is a kind of emotional pill; we measure it quantitatively, +and say that we "know what we like." And doubtless there is something +piquant in the quivering produced, for example, by the sight of white +innocence fluttering helpless in a grey shadow of lust. So long as the +Bible remained a god that piquancy was found in a _Massacre of the +Innocents_; in our own time we find it in a _Faust and Gretchen_, +in the Doré Gallery, or in the Royal Academy. It was a like appreciation +of the certain effect of vivid contrasts as powerful didactic agents +(coupled with, or drowning, a something purer and more devout) which had +inspired those most beautiful and distinctive of all the symbols of +Catholicism, the _Adoration of the Kings_, the Christ-child cycle, +and which raised the Holy Child and Maid-Mother to their place above the +mystic tapers and the Cross. Naturally the Old Testament, that garner of +grim tales, proved a rich mine: _David and Golias, Susanna and the +Elders_, the _Sacrifice of Isaac, Jethro's daughter_. But the +story of Judith did not come to be painted in Tuscan sanctuaries until +Donatello of Florence had first cast her in bronze at the prayer of Cosimo +_pater patria_. Her entry was dramatic enough at least: Dame Fortune +may well have sniggered as she spun round the city on her ball. Cosimo the +patriot and his splendid grandson were no sooner dead and their brood sent +flying, than Donatello's _Judith_ was set up in the Piazza as a fit +emblem of rescue from tyranny, with the vigorous motto, to make assurance +double, "EXEMPLVM SALVTIS PVBLICÆ CIVES POSVERE." Savonarola, who knew his +Bible, saw here a keener application of Judith's pious sin. A few years +later that same _Judith_ saw him burn. Thus, as an incarnate +cynicism, she will pass; as a work of art she is admittedly one of her +great creator's failures. Her neighbour _Perseus_ of the Loggia makes +this only too plain! For Cellini has seized the right moment in a deed of +horror, and Donatello, with all his downrightness and grip of the fact, +has hit upon the wrong. It is fatal to freeze a moment of time into an +eternity of waiting. His _Judith_ will never strike: her arm is +palsied where it swings. The Damoclean sword is a fine incident for +poetry; but Holofernes was no Damocles, and, if he had been, it were +intolerable to cast his experience in bronze. Donatello has essayed that +thing impossible for sculpture, to arrest a moment instead of denote a +permanent attribute. Art is adjectival, is it not, O Donatello? Her +business is to qualify facts, to say what things are, not to state them, +to affirm that they are. A sculptured _Judith_ was done not long +afterwards, carved, as we shall see, with a burin on a plate; and the man +who so carved her was a painter. + +Meantime, _pari passu_, almost, a painter who was a poet was trying +his hand; a man who knew his Bible and his mythology and was equally at +home with either. Perhaps it is not extravagant to say that you cannot be +an artist unless you are at home with mythology, unless mythology is the +swiftest and most direct expression of your being, so that you can be +measured by it as a man is known by his books, or a woman by her clothes, +her way of bowing, her amusements, or her charities. For mythopoeia is +just this, the incarnating the spirit of natural fact; and the generic +name of that power is Art. A kind of creation, a clothing of essence in +matter, an hypostatising (if you will have it) of an object of intuition +within the folds of an object of sense. Lessing did not dig so deep as his +Greek Voltaire (whose "dazzling antithesis," after all, touches the root +of the matter) for he did not see that rhythmic extension in time or +space, as the case may be, with all that that implies--colour, value, +proportion, all the convincing incidents of form--is simply the mode of +all arts, the thing with which Art's substance must be interpenetrated, +until the two form a whole, lovely, golden, irresistible, and inevitable +as Nature's pieces are. This substance, I have said, is the spirit of +natural fact. And so mythology is Art at its simplest and barest (where +the bodily medium is neither word, nor texture of stone, nor dye), the +parent art from which all the others were, so to speak, begotten by man's +need. Thus much of explanation, I am sorry to say, is necessary, before we +turn to our mytho-poet of Florence, to see what he made out of the story +of Judith. + +First of all, though, what has the story of Judith to do with mythology? +It is a legend, one of the finest of Semitic legends; and between legend +and myth there is as great a gulf as between Jew and Greek. I believe +there are no myths proper to Israel--I do not see how such magnificent +egoists could contract to the necessary state of awe--and I do not know +that there are any legends proper to Greece which are divorced from real +myths. For where a myth is the incarnation of the spirit of natural fact, +a legend is the embellishment of an historical event: a very different +thing. A natural fact is permanent and elemental, an historical event is +transient and superficial. Take one instance out of a score. The rainbow +links heaven and earth. Iris then, to the myth-making Greek, was Jove's +messenger, intermediary between God and Man. That is to incarnate a +constant, natural fact. Plato afterwards, making her daughter of Thaumas, +incarnated a fact, psychological, but none the less constant, none the +less natural. But to say, as the legend-loving Jew said, that Noah floated +his ark over a drowning world and secured for his posterity a standing +covenant with God, Who then and once for all set His bow in the heavens; +that is to indicate, somewhere, in the dim backward and abysm of time, an +historical event. The rainbow is suffered as the skirt of the robe of +Noah, who was an ancestor of Israel. So the Judith poem may be a decorated +event, or it may be the barest history in a splendid epical setting: the +point to remember is that it cannot be, as legend, a subject for creative +art. The artist, in the language of Neo-Platonism, is a demiurge; he only +of men can convert dead things into life. And now we will go into the +Uffizi. + +Mr. Ruskin, in his petulant-playful way, has touched upon the feeling of +amaze most people have who look for the first time at Botticelli's +_Judith_ tripping smoothly and lightly over the hill-country, her +steadfast maid dogging with intent patient eyes every step she takes. You +say it is flippant, affected, pedantic. For answer, I refer you to the +sage himself, who, from his point of view--that painting may fairly deal +with a chapter of history--is perfectly right. The prevailing strain of +the story is the strength of weakness--_ex dulci fortitude_, to +invert the old enigma. "O God, O my God, hear me also, a widow. Break down +their stateliness by the hand of a woman!" It is the refrain that runs +through the whole history of Israel, that reasonable complacency of a +little people in their God-fraught destiny. And, withal, a streak of +savage spite: that the audacious oppressor shall be done scornfully to +death. There is the motive of Jael and Sisera too. So "she smote twice +upon his neck with all her might, and she took away his head from him, and +tumbled his body down from the bed." Ho! what a fate for the emissary of +the Great King. Wherefore, once more, the jubilant paradox, "The Lord hath +smitten him by the hand of a woman!" That is it: the amazing, thrilling +antithesis insisted on over and over again by the old Hebrew bard. "Her +sandals ravished his eyes, her beauty took his mind prisoner, and the +fauchion passed through his neck." That is the _leit-motif_: Sandro +the poet knew it perfectly well and taught it, to the no small comfort of +Mr. Ruskin and his men. Giuditta, dainty, blue-eyed, a girl still and +three years a widow, flits homeward through a spring landscape of grey and +green and the smile of a milky sky, being herself the dominant of the +chord, with her bough of slipt olive and her jagged scimitar, with her +pretty blue fal-lals smocked and puffed, and her yellow curls floating +over her shoulders. On her slim feet are the sandals that ravished his +eyes; all her maiden bravery is dancing and fluttering like harebells in +the wind. Behind her plods the slave-girl folded in an orange scarf, +bearing that shapeless, nameless burden of hers, the head of the grim Lord +Holofernes. Oh, for that, it is the legend itself! For look at the girl's +eyes. What does their dreamy solemnity mean if not, "the Lord hath smitten +him by the hand of a woman"? One other delicate bit of symbolising he has +allowed himself, which I may not omit. You are to see by whom this deed +was done: by a woman who has unsexed herself. Judith is absorbed in her +awful service; her robe trails on the ground and clings about her knees; +she is unconscious of the hindrance. The gates of Bethulia are in sight, +the Chaldean horsemen are abroad, but she has no anxiety to escape. She is +swift because her life just now courses swiftly; but there is no haste. +The maid, you shall mark, picks up her skirts with careful hand, and steps +out the more lustily for it. + +So far Botticelli the poet, and so far also Mr. Ruskin, reader of +pictures. What says Botticelli the painter? Had he no instincts to tell +him that his art could have little to say to a legend? Or that a legend +might be the subject of an epic (here, indeed, was an epic ready made), +might, under conditions, be the subject of a drama; but could not, under +any conditions, be alone the subject of a picture? I don't for a moment +suggest that he had, or that any artist ever goes to work in this double- +entry, methodical way; but are we entitled to say that he was not +influenced by his predilections, his determinations as a draughtsman, when +he squared himself to illustrate the Bible? We say that the subject of a +picture is the spirit of natural fact. If Botticelli was a painter, +_that_ is what he must have looked for, and must have found, in every +picture he painted. Where, then, was he to get his natural facts in the +story of Judith? What is, in that story, the natural, essential (as +opposed to the historical, fleeting) fact? It is murder. Judith's deed was +what the old Scots law incisively calls _slauchter_. It may be +glossed over as assassination or even execution--in fact, in Florence, +where Giuliano was soon to be taken off, it did not fail to be so called: +it remains, however, just murder. Botticelli, not shirking the position at +all, judged murder to be a natural fact, and its spirit or essence +swiftness and stealth. Chaucer, let us note, had been of the same mind: + +"The smyler with the kayf under his cloke," + +and so on, in lines not to be matched for hasty and dreadful suggestion. +Swiftness and stealth, the ambush, the averted face and the sudden stab, +are the standing elements of murder: pare off all the rest, you come down +to that. Your staring looks, your blood, your "chirking," are accidentals. +They may be there (for each of us carries a carcase), but the horror of +sudden death is above them: a man may strangle with his thoughts cleaner +than with his pair of hands. And as "matter" is but the stuff wherewith +Nature works, and she is only insulted, not defied, when we flout or +mangle it, so it is against the high dignity of Art to insist upon the +carrion she must use. She will press, here the terror, there the radiance, +of essential fact; she will leave to us, seeing it in her face, to add +mentally the poor stage properties we have grown to trust. No blood, if +you please. Therefore, in Botticelli's _Judith_, nothing but the +essentials are insisted on; the rest we instantly imagine, but it is not +there to be sensed. The panel is in a tremor. So swift and secret is +Judith, so furtive the maid, we need no hurrying horsemen to remind us of +her oath,--"Hear me, and I will do a thing which shall go throughout all +generations to the children of our nation." Sudden death is in the air; +nature has been outraged. But there is no drop of blood--the thin scarlet +line along the sword-edge is a symbol if you will--the pale head in the +cloth is a mere "thing": yet we all know what has been done. Mr. Ruskin is +wrong to dwell here upon the heroism of the heroine, the beneficence of +the crime, the exhilaration of the patriot; he is traducing the painter by +so praising the poet All those things may be there; and why should they +not? But it is a pity to insist upon them until you have no space for the +pictorial something which is there too, and makes the picture. + +Other _Judiths_ there are; two here, one next door in the Pitti, any +number scattered over the galleries of Europe. There are Jacopo Palma of +Venice and Allori of Florence who used the old story, the one to +perpetuate a fat blonde, the other a handsome actress in a "strong" +situation; there is Sodoma; there are Horace Vernet and the moderns, the +Wests and Haydons of our grandfathers. It is a pet subject of the Salon. +These men have vulgarised an epic, and smirched poetry and painting alike +for the sake of a tawdry sensation. But enough: let us look at one more. +Mantegna's is worth looking at. It is a pen drawing, often repeated, best +known by the fine engraving he finally made of it. I think it Is the best +murder picture in the world. To begin with, the literary interest of the +story is practically gone. This wild, terrible, beautiful woman may be +Judith if you choose: she might be Medea or Agave, or Salome, or the +Lucrezia Borgia of popular fancy and Donizetti. The fact is she is part of +a scheme whose object is the æsthetic aspect of murder--murder considered +by one of the fine arts. Andrea was able, and I know not that anybody else +of his day could have been able, to contemplate murder purely objectively, +with no thought of its ethical relations. Botticelli had been fired by the +heroism and the moral grandeur of the special circumstances of a given +case: down they went into his picture with what rightly belonged to it. +There is none of that here. And Mantegna makes other distinctions in the +field common to both of them. Murder, for him, did not essentially subsist +in its shocking suddenness; it held something more specific, a witchery of +its own, a _macabre_ fascination, a mystery. Lionardo felt it when he +drew his _Medusa_; Shelley wrote it down "the tempestuous loveliness +of terror." Thus it had, for Mantegna, an unique emotional habit which set +it off from other vice and gave it a positive, appreciable, æsthetic value +of its own. With even more unerrancy than Botticelli, he gripped the +adjectival and qualifying function of his art. He saw that crime, too, had +its pictorial side. When Keats, writing of the Lamia sloughing her snake- +folds, tells us how-- + +"She writhed about, convulsed--with scarlet pain"; + +or when, of organ music, he says-- + +"Up aloft +The silver, snarling trumpets 'gan to chide," + +he is simply, in his own art and with his proper methods, getting +precisely the same kind of effect; he is incarnating the soul of a fact. +And so Mantegna, with his Roman kindness for whatever had breath and +vigour and boldness of design, carved his _Judith_ on the lines of a +Vestal Virgin, and gave her the rapt, dæmonic features of the Tragic Muse. +And, with his full share of that unhealthy craving for the mere nastiness +of crime, that Aminatrait which distinguished the later Empire and its +correlate the Renaissance, he drew together the elements of his picture to +express an eminently characteristic conception of curious murder. What +amplitude of outline; what severe grace of drapery! And what mad +affectation of attention to the ghastly baggage she is preparing for her +flight! I can only instance for a parallel the pitiful case of the young +Ophelia, decked with flowers and weeds, and faltering in her pretty treble +songs about lechery and dead bodies. It needs strong men to do these +things; men who have lived out all that the world can offer them of heaven +and hell, and, with the tolerance of maturity, are in the mind to see +something worth a thought in either. There is in murder something more +horrible than blood,--the spirit that breeds blood and plays with it. M. +Jan van Beers and his kindred of the dissecting-room and accidents'-ward +are passed by Mantegna, who gives no vulgar illusion of gaping wounds and +jetting blood; but, instead, holds up to us a beautiful woman daintily +fingering a corpse. + + + +VII + + +QUATTROCENTISTERIA + +_(How Sandro Botticelli saw Simonetta in the Spring)_ + +Up at Fiesole, among the olives and chestnuts which cloud the steeps, the +magnificent Lorenzo was entertaining his guests on a morning in April. The +olives were just whitening to silver; they stretched in a trembling sea +down the slope. Beyond lay Florence, misty and golden; and round about +were the mossy hills, cut sharp and definite against a grey-blue sky, +printed with starry buildings and sober ranks of cypress. The sun catching +the mosaics of San Miniato and the brazen cross on the fagade, made them +shine like sword-blades in the quiver of the heat between. For the valley +was just a lake of hot air, hot and murky--"fever weather," said the +people in the streets--with a glaring summer sun let in between two long +spells of fog. 'Twas unnatural at that season, _via_; but the blessed +Saints sent the weather and one could only be careful what one was about +at sundown. + +Up at the villa, with brisk morning airs rustling overhead, in the cool +shades of trees and lawns, it was pleasant to lie still, watching these +things, while a silky young exquisite sang to his lute a not too audacious +ballad about Selvaggia, or Becchina and the saucy Prior of Sant' Onofrio. +He sang well too, that dark-eyed boy; the girl at whose feet he was +crouched was laughing and blushing at once; and, being very fair, she +blushed hotly. She dared not raise her eyes to look into his, and he knew +it and was quietly measuring his strength--it was quite a comedy! At each +wanton _refrain_ he lowered his voice to a whisper and bent a little +forward. And the girl's laughter became hysterical; she was shaking with +the effort to control herself. At last she looked up with a sort of sob in +her breath and saw his mocking smile and the gleam of the wild beast in +his eyes. She grew white, rose hastily and turned away to join a group of +ladies sitting apart. A man with a heavy, rather sullen face and a bush of +yellow hair falling over his forehead in a wave, was standing aside +watching all this. He folded his arms and scowled under his big brows; and +when the girl moved away his eyes followed her. + +The lad ended his song in a broad sarcasm amid bursts of laughter and +applause. The Magnificent, sitting in his carved chair, nursed his sallow +face and smiled approval, "My brother boasts his invulnerability," he +said, turning to his neighbour, "let him look to it, Messer Cupido will +have him yet. Already, we can see, he has been let into some of the +secrets of the bower," The man bowed and smiled deferentially, "Signer +Giuliano has all the qualities to win the love of ladies, and to retain +it. Doubtless he awaits his destiny. The Wise Man has said that Beauty..." +The young poet enlarged on his text with some fire in his thin +cheeks, while the company kept very silent. It was much to their liking; +even Giuliano was absorbed; he sat on the ground clasping one knee between +his hands, smiling upwards into vacancy, as a man does whose imagination +is touched. Lorenzo nursed his sallow face and beat time to the orator's +cadences with his foot; he, too, was abstracted and smiling. At the end he +spoke: "Our Marsilio himself had never said nobler words, my Agnolo. The +mantle of the Attic prophet has descended indeed upon this Florence. And +Beauty, as thon sayest, is from heaven. But where shall it be found here +below, and how discerned?" The man of the heavy jowl was standing with +folded arms, looking from under his brows at the group of girls. Lorenzo +saw everything; he noticed him. "Our Sandro will tell us it is yonder. The +Star of Genoa shines over Florence and our poor little constellations are +gone out. _Ecco_, my Sandro, gravest and hardiest of painters, go +summon Madonna Simonetta and her handmaidens to our Symposium. Agnolo will +speak further to us of this sovereignty of Beauty." + +The painter bowed his head and moved away. + +A green alley vaulted with thick ilex and myrtle formed a tapering vista +where the shadows lay misty blue and pale shafts of light pierced through +fitfully. At the far end it ran out into an open space and a splash of +sunshine. A marble Ganymede with lifted arms rose in the middle like a +white flame. The girls were there, intent upon some commerce of their own, +flashing hither and thither over the grass in a flutter of saffron and +green and crimson. Simonetta--Sandro could see--was a little apart, a very +tall, isolated figure, clear and cold in a recess of shade, standing +easily, resting on one hip with her hands behind her. A soft, straight +robe of white clipped her close from shoulder to heel; the lines of her +figure were thrust forward by her poise. His eye followed the swell of her +bosom, very gentle and girlish, and the long folds of her dress falling +thence to her knee. While she stood there, proud and remote, a chance beam +of the sun shone on her head so that it seemed to burn. "Heaven salutes +the Queen of Heaven,--Venus Urania!" With an odd impulse he stopped, +crossed himself, and then hurried on. + +He told his errand to her, having no eyes for the others. + +"Signorina--I am to acquaint her Serenity that the divine poet Messer +Agnolo is to speak of the sovereign power of beauty; of the Heavenly +Beauty whereof Plato taught, as it is believed." + +Simonetta arched a slim neck and looked down at the obsequious speaker, or +at least he thought so. And he saw how fair she was, a creature how +delicate and gracious, with grey eyes frank and wide, and full red lips +where a smile (nervous and a little wistful, he judged, rather than +defiant) seemed always to hover. Such clear-cut, high beauty made him +ashamed; but her colouring (for he was a painter) made his heart beat. She +was no ice-bound shadow of deity then! but flesh and blood; a girl--a +child, of timid, soft contours, of warm roses and blue veins laced in a +pearly skin. And she was crowned with a heavy wealth of red-gold hair, +twisted in great coils, bound about with pearls, and smouldering like +molten metal where it fell rippling along her neck. She dazzled him, so +that he could not face her or look further. His eyes dropped. He stood +before her moody, disconcerted. + +The girls, who had dissolved their company at his approach, listened to +what he had to say linked in knots of twos and threes. They needed no +excuses to return; some were philosophers in their way, philosophers and +poetesses; some had left their lovers in the ring round Lorenzo. So they +went down the green alley still locked by the arms, by the waist or +shoulders. They did not wait for Simonetta. She was a Genoese, and proud +as the snow. Why did Giuliano love her? _Did_ he love her, indeed? He +was bewitched then, for she was cold, and a brazen creature in spite of +it. How dare she bare her neck so! Oh! 'twas Genoese. "Uomini senza fede e +donne senza vergogna," they quoted as they ran. + +And Simonetta walked alone down the way with her head high; but Sandro +stepped behind, at the edge of her trailing white robe.... + +... The poet was leaning against an ancient alabaster vase, soil-stained, +yellow with age and its long sojourn in the loam, but with traces of its +carved garlands clinging to it still. He fingered it lovingly as he +talked. His oration was concluding, and his voice rose high and tremulous; +there were sparks in his hollow eyes.... "And as this sovereign Beauty is +queen of herself, so she is subject to none other, owns to no constraining +custom, fears no reproach of man. What she wills, that has the force of a +law. Being Beauty, her deeds are lovely and worshipful. Therefore Phryne, +whom men, groping in darkness and the dull ways of earth, dubbed +courtesan, shone in a Court of Law before the assembled nobles of Athens, +naked and undismayed in the blaze of her fairness. And Athens discerned +the goddess and trembled. Yes, and more; even as Aphrodite, whose darling +she was, arose pure from the foam, so she too came up out of the sea in +the presence of a host, and the Athenians, seeing no shame, thought none, +but, rather, reverenced her the more. For what shame is it that the body +of one so radiant in clear perfections should be revealed? Is then the +garment of the soul, her very mould and image, so shameful? Shall we seek +to know her essence by the garment of a garment, or hope to behold that +which really is in the shadows we cast upon shadows? Shame is of the brute +dullard who thinks shame. The evil ever sees Evil glaring at him, Plato, +the golden-moutheds with the soul of pure fire, has said the truth of this +matter in his _De Republicâ_ the fifth book, where he speaks of young +maids sharing the exercise of the Palæstra, yea, and the Olympic contests +even! For he says, 'Let the wives of our wardens bare themselves, for +their virtue will be a robe; and let them share the toils of war and +defend their country. And for the man who laughs at naked women exercising +their bodies for high reasons, his laughter is a fruit of unripe wisdom, +and he himself knows not what he is about; for that is ever the best of +sayings that the useful is the noble and the hurtful the base'...." + +There was a pause. The name of Plato had had a strange effect upon the +company. You would have said they had suddenly entered a church and had +felt all lighter interests sink under the weight of the dim, echoing nave. +After a few moments the poet spoke again in a quieter tone, but his voice +had lost none of the unction which had enriched it.... "Beauty is queen: +by the virtue of Deity, whose image she is, she reigns, lifts up, fires. +Let us beware how we tempt Deity lest we perish ourselves. Actseon died +when he gazed unbidden upon the pure body of Artemis; but Artemis herself +rayed her splendour upon Endymion, and Endymion is among the immortals. We +fall when we rashly confront Beauty, but that Beauty who comes unawares +may nerve our souls to wing to heaven." He ended on a resonant note, and +then, still looking out over the valley, sank into his seat. Lorenzo, with +a fine humility, got up and kissed his thin hand. Giuliano looked at +Simonetta, trying to recall her gaze, but she remained standing in her +place, seeing nothing of her companions. She was thinking of something, +frowning a little and biting her lip, her hands were before her; her slim +fingers twisted and locked themselves nervously, like a tangle of snakes. +Then she tossed her head, as a young horse might, and looked at Giuliano +suddenly, full in the eyes. He rose to meet her with a deprecating smile, +cap in hand--but she walked past him, almost brushing him with her gown, +but never flinching her full gaze, threaded her way through the group to +the back, behind the poet, where Sandro was. He had seen her coming, +indeed he had watched her furtively throughout the oration, but her near +presence disconcerted him again--and he looked down. She was strongly +excited with her quick resolution; her colour had risen and her voice +faltered when she began to speak. She spoke eagerly, running her words +together. + +"_Ecco_, Messer Sandro," she whispered blushing. "You have heard +these sayings.... Who is there in Florence like me?" + +"There is no one," said Sandro simply. + +"I will be your Lady Venus," she went on breathlessly. "You shall paint +me, rising from the sea-foam.... The Genoese love the sea." She was still +eager and defiant; her bosom rose and fell unchecked. + +"The Signorina is mocking me; it is impossible; the Signorina knows it." + +"Eh, _Madonna!_ is it so shameful to be fair--Star of the Sea as your +poets sing at evening? Do you mean that I dare not do it? Listen then, +Signer Pittore; to-morrow morning at mass-time you will come to the Villa +Vespucci with your brushes and pans and you will ask for Monna Simonetta. +Then you will see. Leave it now; it is settled." And she walked away with +her head high and the same superb smile on her red lips. Mockery! She was +in dead earnest; all her child's feelings were in hot revolt. These women +who had whispered to each other, sniggered at her dress, her white neck +and her free carriage; Giuliano who had presumed so upon her candour-- +these prying, censorious Florentines---she would strike them dumb with her +amazing loveliness. They sang her a goddess that she might be flattered +and suffer their company: she would show herself a goddess indeed--the +star of her shining Genoa, where men were brave and silent and maidens +frank like the sea. Yes, and then she would withdraw herself suddenly and +leave them forlorn and dismayed. + +As for Sandro, he stood where she had left him, peering after her with a +mist in his eyes. He seemed to be looking over the hill-side, over the +city glowing afar off gold and purple in the hot air, to Mont' Oliveto and +the heights, where a line of black cypresses stood about a low white +building. At one angle of the building was a little turret with a +belvedere of round arches. The tallest cypress just topped the windows, +There his eyes seemed to rest. + + +II + +At mass-time Sandro, folded in his shabby green cloak, stepped into the +sun on the Ponte Vecchio. The morning mists were rolling back under the +heat; you began to see the yellow line of houses stretching along the +turbid river on the far side, and frowning down upon it with blank, mud- +stained faces. Above, through streaming air, the sky showed faintly blue, +and a _campanile_ to the right loomed pale and uncertain like a +ghost. The sound of innumerable bells floated over the still city. Hardly +a soul was abroad; here and there a couple of dusty peasants were trudging +in with baskets of eggs and jars of milk and oil; a boat passed down to +the fishing, and the oar knocked sleepily in the rowlock as she cleared +the bridge. And above, on the heights of Mont' Oliveto, the tapering forms +of cypresses were faintly outlined--straight bars of shadow--and the level +ridge of a roof ran lightly back into the soft shroud. + +Sandro could mark these things as he stepped resolutely on to the bridge, +crossed it, and went up a narrow street among the sleeping houses. The day +held golden promise; it was the day of his life! Meantime the mist clung +to him and nipped him; what had fate in store? What was to be the issue? +In the Piazza Santo Spirito, grey and hollow-sounding in the chilly +silences, his own footsteps echoed solemnly as he passed by the door of +the great ragged church. Through the heavy darkness within lights +flickered faintly and went; service was not begun. A drab crew of cripples +lounged on the steps yawning and shivering, and two country girls were +strolling to mass with brown arms round each other's waists. When Sandro's +footfall clattered on the stones they stopped by the door looking after +him and laughed to see his dull face and muffled figure. In the street +beyond he heard a bell jingling, hasty, incessant; soon a white-robed +procession swept by him, fluttering vestments, tapers, and the Host under +a canopy, silk and gold. Sandro snatched at his cap and dropped on his +knees in the road, crouching low and muttering under his breath as the +vision went past. He remained kneeling for a moment after it had gone, +then crossed himself--forehead, breast, lip--and hurried forward.... He +stepped under the archway into the Court. There was a youth with a cropped +head and swarthy neck lounging there teasing a spaniel. As the steps +sounded on the flags he looked up; the old green cloak and clumsy shoes of +the visitor did not interest him; he turned his back and went on with his +game. Sandro accosted him--Was the Signorina at the house? The boy went on +with his game. "Eh, Diavolo! I know nothing at all," he said. + +Sandro raised his voice till it rang round the courtyard. "You will go at +once and inquire. You will say to the Signorina that Sandro di Mariano +Filipepi the Florentine painter is here by her orders; that he waits her +pleasure below." + +The boy had got up; he and Sandro eyed each other for a little space. +Sandro was the taller and had the glance of a hawk. So the porter went.... + +... Presently with throbbing brows he stood on the threshold of +Simonetta's chamber. It was the turret room of the villa and its four +arched windows looked through a leafy tracery over towards Florence. +Sandro could see down below him in the haze the glitter of the Arno and +the dusky dome of Brunelleschi cleave the sward of the hills like a great +burnished bowl. In the room itself there was tapestry, the Clemency of +Scipio, with courtiers in golden cuirasses and tall plumes, and peacocks +and huge Flemish horses--a rich profusion of crimson and blue drapery and +stout-limbed soldiery. On a bracket, above a green silk curtain, was a +silver statuette of Madonna and the Bambino Gesu, with a red lamp +flickering feebly before. By the windows a low divan heaped with velvet +cushions and skins. But for a coffer and a prayer-desk and a curtained +recess which enshrined Simonetta's bed, the room looked wind-swept and +bare. + +When he entered, Simonetta was standing by the window leaning her hand +against the ledge for support. She was draped from top to toe in a rose- +coloured mantle which shrouded her head like a nun's wimple and then fell +in heavy folds to the ground. She flushed as he came in, but saluted him +with a grave inclination. Neither spoke. The silent greeting, the full +consciousness in each of their parts, gave a curious religious solemnity +to the scene--like some familiar but stately Church mystery. Sandro busied +himself mechanically with his preparations-he was a lover and his pulse +chaotic, but he had come to paint--and when these were done, on tip-toe, +as it were, he looked timidly about him round the room, seeking where to +pose her. Then he motioned her with the same reverential, preoccupied air, +silent still, to a place under the silver Madonna.... + +... There was a momentary quiver of withdrawal. Simonetta blushed vividly +and drooped her eyes down to her little bare foot peeping out below the +lines of the rosy cloak. The cloak's warmth shone on her smooth skin and +rayed over her cheeks. In her flowery loveliness she looked diaphanous, +ethereal; and yet you could see what a child she was, with her bright +audacity, her ardour and her wilfulness flushing and paling about her like +the dawn. There she stood trembling on the brink.... + +Suddenly all her waywardness shot into her eyes; she lifted her arms and +the cloak fell back like the shard of a young flower; then, delicate and +palpitating as a silver reed, she stood up in the soft light of the +morning, and the sun, slanting in between the golden leaves and tendrils, +kissed her neck and shrinking shoulder. + +Sandro stood facing her, moody and troubled, fingering his brushes and +bits of charcoal; his shaggy brows were knit, he seemed to be breathing +hard. He collected himself with an effort and looked up at her as she +stood before him shrinking, awe-struck, panting at the thing she had done. +Their eyes met, and the girl's distress increased; she raised her hand to +cover her bosom; her breath came in short gasps from parted lips, but her +wide eyes still looked fixedly into his, with such blank panic that a +sudden movement might really have killed her. He saw it all; she! there at +his mercy. Tears swam and he trembled. Ah! the gracious lady! what divine +condescension! what ineffable courtesy! But the artist in him was awakened +almost at the same moment; his looks wandered in spite of her piteous +candour and his own nothingness. Sandro the poet would have fallen on his +face with an "Exi a me, nam peccator sum." Sandro the painter was +different--no mercy there. He made a snatch at a carbon and raised his +other hand with a kind of command--"Holy Virgin! what a line! Stay as you +are, I implore you: swerve not one hair's breadth and I have you for +ever!" There was conquest in his voice. + +So Simonetta stood very still, hiding her bosom with her hand, but never +took her watch off the enemy. As he ran blindly about doing a hundred +urgent indispensable things--noting the lights, the line she made, how her +arm cut across the folds of the curtain--she dogged him with staring, +fascinated eyes, just as a hare, crouching in her form, watches a terrier +hunting round her and waits for the end. + +But the enemy was disarmed. Sandro the passionate, the lover, the brooding +devotee, was gone; so was _la bella Simonetta_ the beloved, the be- +hymned. Instead, here was a fretful painter, dashing lines and broad +smudges of shade on his paper, while before him rose an exquisite, +slender, swaying form, glistening carnation and silver, and, over all, the +maddening glow of red-gold hair. Could he but catch those velvet shadows, +those delicate, glossy, reflected-lights! Body of Bacchus! How could he +put them in! What a picture she was! Look at the sun on her shoulder! and +her hair--Christ! how it burned! It was a curious moment. The girl who had +never understood or cared to understand this humble lover, guessed now +that he was lost in the artist. She felt that she was simply an effect and +she resented it as a crowning insult. Her colour rose again, her red lips +gathered into a pout. If Sandro had but known, she was his at that +instant. He had but to drop the painter, throw down his brushes, set his +heart and hot eyes bare--to open his arms and she would have fled into +them and nestled there; so fierce was her instinct just then to be loved, +she, who had always been loved! But Sandro knew nothing and cared nothing. +He was absorbed in the gracious lines of her body, the lithe long neck, +the drooping shoulder, the tenderness of her youth; and then the grand +open curve of the hip and thigh on which she was poised. He drew them in +with a free hand in great sweeping lines, eagerly, almost angrily; once or +twice he broke his carbon and--body of a dog!--he snatched at another. + +This lasted a few minutes only: even Simonetta, with all her maiden +tremors still feverishly acute, hardly noticed the flight of time; she was +so hot with the feeling of her wrongs, the slight upon her victorious +fairness. Did she not _know_ how fair she was? She was getting very +angry; she had been made a fool of. All Florence would come and gape at +the picture and mock her in the streets with bad names and coarse gestures +as she rode by. She looked at Sandro. Santa Maria! how hot he was! His +hair was drooping over his eyes! He tossed it back every second! And his +mouth was open, one could see his tongue working! Why had she not noticed +that great mouth before? 'Twas the biggest in all Florence. O! why had he +come? She was frightened, remorseful, a child again, with a trembling +pathetic mouth and shrinking limbs. And then her heart began to beat under +her slim fingers. She pressed them down into her flesh to stay those great +masterful throbs. A tear gathered in her eye; larger and larger it grew, +and then fell. A shining drop rested on the round of her cheek and rolled +slowly down her chin to her protecting hand, and lay there half hidden, +shining like a rain-drop between two curving petals of a rose. + +It was just at that moment the painter looked up from his work and shook +his bush of hair back. Something in his sketch had displeased him; he +looked up frowning, with a brush between his teeth. When he saw the tear- +stained, distressful, beautiful face it had a strange effect upon him. He +dropped nerveless, like a wounded man, to his knees, and covered his eyes +with his hands. "Ah Madonna! for the pity of heaven forgive me! forgive +me! I have sinned, I have done thee fearful wrong; I, who still dare to +love thee." He uncovered his face and looked up radiant: his own words had +inspired him, "Yes," he went on, with a steadfast smile, "I, Sandro, the +painter, the poor devil of a painter, have seen thee and I dare to love!" +His triumph was short-lived. Simonetta had grown deadly white, her eyes +burned, she had forgotten herself. She was tall and slender as a lily, and +she rose, shaking, to her height. + +"Thou presumest strangely," she said, in a slow still voice, "Go! Go in +peace!" + +She was conqueror. In her calm scorn she was like a young immortal, some +cold victorious Cynthia whose chastity had been flouted. Sandro was pale +too: he said nothing and did not look at her again. She stood quivering +with excitement, watching him with the same intent alertness as he rolled +up his paper and crammed his brushes and pencils into the breast of his +jacket. She watched him still as he backed out of the room and disappeared +through the curtains of the archway. She listened to his footsteps along +the corridor, down the stair. She was alone in the silence of the sunny +room. Her first thought was for her cloak; she snatched it up and veiled +herself shivering as she looked fearfully round the walls. And then she +flung herself on the piled cushions before the window and sobbed +piteously, like an abandoned child. + +The sun slanted in between the golden leaves and tendrils and played in +the tangle of her hair.... + + +III + +At ten o'clock on the morning of April the twenty-sixth, a great bell +began to toll: two beats heavy and slow, and then silence, while the air +echoed the reverberation, moaning. Sandro, in shirt and breeches, with +bare feet spread broad, was at work in his garret on the old bridge. He +stayed his hand as the strong tone struck, bent his head and said a +prayer: "Miserere ei, Domine; requiem eternam dona, Domine"; the words +came out of due order as if he was very conscious of their import. Then he +went on. And the great bell went on; two beats together, and then silence. +It seemed to gather solemnity and a heavier message as he painted. Through +the open window a keen draught of air blew in with dust and a scrap of +shaving from the Lung' Arno down below; it circled round his workshop, +fluttering the sketches and rags pinned to the walls. He looked out on a +bleak landscape--San Miniato in heavy shade, and the white houses by the +river staring like dead faces. A strong breeze was abroad; it whipped the +brown water and raised little curling billows, ragged and white at the +edges, and tossed about snaps of surf. It was cold. Sandro shivered as he +shut to his casement; and the stiffening gale rattled at it fitfully. Once +again it thrust it open, bringing wild work among the litter in the room. +He made fast with the rain driving In his face. And above the howling of +the squall he heard the sound of the great bell, steady and unmoved as if +too full of its message to be put aside. Yet it was coming to him athwart +the wind. + +Sandro stood at his casement and looked at the weather-beating rain and +yeasty water. He counted, rather nervously, the pulses between each pair +of the bell's deep tones. He was impressionable to circumstances, and the +coincidence of storm and passing-bell awed him.... "Either the God of +Nature suffers or the fabric of the world is breaking";--he remembered a +scrap of talk wafted towards him (as he stood in attendance) from some +humanist at Lorenzo's table only yesterday, above the light laughter and +snatches of song. That breakfast party at the Camaldoli yesterday! What a +contrast--the even spring weather with the sun in a cloudless sky, and now +this icy dead morning with its battle of wind and bell, fighting, he +thought,--over the failing breath of some strong man. Man! God, more like. +"The God of Nature suffers," he murmured as he turned to his work.... + +Simonetta had not been there yesterday. He had not seen her, indeed, since +that nameless day when she had first transported him with the radiance of +her bare beauty and then struck him down with a level gaze from steel-cold +eyes. And he had deserved it, he had--she had said--"presumed strangely." +Three more words only had she uttered and he had slunk out from her +presence like a dog. What a Goddess! Venus Urania! So she, too, might have +ravished a worshipper as he prayed, and, after, slain him for a careless +word. Cruel? No, but a Goddess. Beauty had no laws; she was above them, +Agnolo himself had said it, from Plato.... Holy Michael! What a blast! +Black and desperate weather.... "Either the God of Nature suffers."... God +shield all Christian souls on such a day!.... + +One came and told him Simonetta Vespucci was dead. Some fever had torn at +her and raced through all her limbs, licking up her life as it passed. No +one had known of it--it was so swift! But there had just been time to +fetch a priest; Fra Matteo, they said, from the Carmine, had shrived her +(it was a bootless task, God knew, for the child had babbled so, her wits +wandered, look you), and then he had performed the last office. One had +fled to tell the Medici. Giuliano was wild with grief; 'twas as if +_he_ had killed her instead of the Spring-ague--but then, people said +he loved her well! And our Lorenzo had bid them swing the great bell of +the Duomo--Sandro had heard it perhaps?--and there was to be a public +procession, and a Requiem sung at Santa Croce before they took her back to +Genoa to lie with her fathers. Eh! Bacchus! She was fair and Giuliano had +loved her well. It was natural enough then. So the gossip ran out to tell +his news to more attentive ears, and Sandro stood in his place, intoning +softly "Te Deum Laudamus." + +He understood it all. There had been a dark and awful strife--earth +shuddering as the black shadow of death swept by. Through tears now the +sun beamed broad over the gentle city where she lay lapped in her mossy +hills. "Lux eterna lucet ei," he said with a steady smile; "atque +lucebit," he added after a pause. He had been painting that day an +agonising Christ, red and languid, crowned with thorns. Some of his own +torment seems to have entered it, for, looking at it now, we see, first of +all, wild eyeballs staring with the mad earnestness, the purposeless +intensity of one seized or "possessed." He put the panel away and looked +about for something else, the sketch he had made of Simonetta on that last +day. When he had found it, he rolled it straight and set it on his easel. +It was not the first charcoal study he had made from life, but a brush +drawing on dark paper, done in sepia-wash and the lights in white lead. He +stood looking into it with his hands clasped. About half a braccia high, +faint and shadowy in the pale tint he had used, he saw her there victim +rather than Goddess. Standing timidly and wistfully, shrinking rather, +veiling herself, maiden-like, with her hands and hair, with lips trembling +and dewy eyes, she seemed to him now an immortal who must needs suffer for +some great end; live and suffer and die; live again, and suffer and die. +It was a doom perpetual like Demeter's, to bear, to nurture, to lose and +to find her Persephone. She had stood there immaculate and apprehensive, a +wistful victim. Three days before he had seen her thus; and now she was +dead. He would see her no more. + +Ah, yes! Once more he would see her.... + + * * * * * + +They carried dead Simonetta through the streets of Florence with her pale +face uncovered and a crown of myrtle in her hair. People thronging there +held their breath, or wept to see such still loveliness; and her poor +parted lips wore a patient little smile, and her eyelids were pale violet +and lay heavy to her cheek. White, like a bride, with a nosegay of orange- +blossom and syringa at her throat, she lay there on her bed with lightly +folded hands and the strange aloofness and preoccupation all the dead +have. Only her hair burned about her like a molten copper; and the wreath +of myrtle leaves ran forward to her brows and leapt beyond them into a +tongue. + +The great procession swept forward; black brothers of Misericordia, +shrouded and awful, bore the bed or stalked before it with torches that +guttered and flared sootily in the dancing light of day. They held the +pick of Florence, those scowling shrouds--Giuliano and Lorenzo, Pazzi, +Tornabuoni, Soderini or Pulci; and behind, old Cattaneo, battered with +storms, walked heavily, swinging his long arms and looking into the day's +face as if he would try another fall with Death yet. Priests and acolytes, +tapers, banners, vestments and a great silver Crucifix, they drifted by, +chanting the dirge for Simonetta; and she, as if for a sacrifice, lifted +up on her silken bed, lay couched like a white flower edged colour of +flame.... + +... Santa Croce, the great church, stretched forward beyond her into the +distances of grey mist and cold spaces of light. Its bare vastness was +damp like a vault. And she lay in the midst listless, heavy-lidded, apart, +with the half-smile, as it seemed, of some secret mirth. Round her the +great candles smoked and flickered, and mass was sung at the High Altar +for her soul's repose. Sandro stood alone facing the shining altar but +looking fixedly at Simonetta on her couch. He was white and dry--parched +lips and eyes that ached and smarted. Was this the end? Was it possible, +my God! that the transparent, unearthly thing lying there so prone and +pale was dead? Had such loveliness aught to do with life or death? Ah! +sweet lady, dear heart, how tired she was, how deadly tired! From where he +stood he could see with intolerable anguish the sombre rings round her +eyes and the violet shadows on the lids, her folded hands and the +straight, meek line to her feet. And her poor wan face with its wistful, +pitiful little smile was turned half aside on the delicate throat, as if +in a last appeal:--"Leave me now, O Florentines, to my rest, I have given +you all I had: ask no more. I was a young girl, a child; too young for +your eager strivings. You have killed me with your play; let me be now, +let me sleep!" Poor child! Poor child! Sandro was on his knees with his +face pressed against the pulpit and tears running through his fingers as +he prayed.... + +As he had seen her, so he painted. As at the beginning of life in a cold +world, passively meeting the long trouble of it, he painted her a rapt +Presence floating evenly to our earth. A grey, translucent sea laps +silently upon a little creek, and in the hush of a still dawn the myrtles +and sedges on the water's brim are quiet. It is a dream in half tones that +he gives us, grey and green and steely blue; and just that, and some +homely magic of his own, hint the commerce of another world with man's +discarded domain. Men and women are asleep, and as in an early walk you +may startle the hares at their play, or see the creatures of the darkness-- +owls and night hawks and heavy moths--flit with fantastic purpose over +the familiar scene, so here it comes upon you suddenly that you have +surprised Nature's self at her mysteries; you are let into the secret; you +have caught the spirit of the April woodland as she glides over the +pasture to the copse. And that, indeed, was Sandro's fortune. He caught +her in just such a propitious hour. He saw the sweet wild thing, pure and +undefiled by touch of earth; caught her in that pregnant pause of time ere +she had lighted. Another moment and a buxom nymph of the grove would fold +her in a rosy mantle, coloured as the earliest wood-anemones are. She +would vanish, we know, into the daffodils or a bank of violets. And you +might tell her presence there, or in the rustle of the myrtles, or coo of +doves mating in the pines; you might feel her genius in the scent of the +earth or the kiss of the West wind; but you could only see her in mid- +April, and you should look for her over the sea. She always comes with the +first warmth of the year. + +But daily, before he painted, Sandro knelt in a dark chapel in Santa +Croce, while a blue-chinned priest said mass for the repose of Simonetta's +soul. + + + +VIII + + +THE BURDEN OF NEW TYRE + +For a short time in her motley history, an old-clothesman, one Domenico-- +he and his "Compagnia del Bruco," his _Company of the Worm_[1]-- +reigned over Siena and gave to her people a taste for blood. It was +bloodshed on easy terms they had; for surely no small nation (except that +tiger-cat Perugia) has achieved so much massacre with so little fighting. +Massacre considered as one of the Fine Arts? No indeed; but massacre as a +_viaticum_, as "title clear to mansions in the skies"; for, with more +complacency than discrimination, these sated citizens chose to dedicate +their most fantastic blood-orgies by a _Missa de Spiritu Sancto_ in +the Cathedral Church. The old-clothesman, who by some strange oversight +died in his bed, was floated up on the incense of this devout service to +show his hands, and--marvel!--Saint Catherine, the "amorosa sposa" of +Heaven, reigned in his stead. Certainly, for unction spiced with ferocity, +for a madness which alternately kissed the Crucifix and trampled on it, +for mandragora and _fleurs de lys_, saints and succubi, churches and +lupanars--commend me to Siena the red. + +[Footnote 1: This was one of the _Contrade_ into which the City was +divided, and of which each had its totem-sign.] + +You are not to suppose that she has not paid for all this, the red Siena. +None of it is absolved; it is there floating vaguely in the atmosphere. It +chokes the gully-trap streets in August when the air is like a hot bath; +it wails round the corners on stormy nights and you hear it battling among +the towers overhead, buffeting the stained walls of criminal old palaces +and churches grown hoary in iniquity--so many half-embodied centuries of +deadly sin gnawing their spleens or shrieking their infamous carouse over +again. So at least I found it. Without baring myself to the charge of any +sneaking kindness for bloodshedding, I may own to the fascination of the +precipitous fortress-town huddled red and grey on its three red crags, and +of its suggestion of all the old crimes of Italy from Ezzelino's to +Borgia's, of all unhappy deaths from Pia de' Tolomei's to Vittoria's, the +White Devil of Italy. Its air seemed "blood-boltered" (like the shade of +the hunted Banquho), its stones, curiously slippery for such dry weather, +cried "Haro!" or "Out! Havoc!" And above it all shone a marble church, +white as a bride; while now and again on a favourable waft of wind came +the fragrant memory of Saint Catherine. It is the peak of earth most +charged with wayward emotions--pity and terror blent together into a +poignant beauty, a sorcery. Imagine yourself one of those old Popes--Linus +or Anaclete or Damasius--whose heads spike the clerestory of the Duomo, +you would look down upon a sea of pictures (by the best pavement-artists +in the world)--the _Massacre of the Innocents_ like a patch of dry +blood by the altar-steps, a winking Madonna in the Capella del Voto +thronged with worshippers, Hermes Trismegistus, a freaksome wizard, by the +West door, and a gilded array of the great world smiling and debonnair in +the sacristy. Not far off is Sodoma's lovely Catherine fainting under the +sweet dolour of her spousals. Are you for the White or the Black Mass? +Cybelè or the Holy Ghost? Catherine or Hermes Trismegistus? Siena will +give you any and yet more cunning confections. It is very strange. + +The approach to her three hills, if you are not flattened by the +intolerable pilgrimage from Florence, is fine. Hints of what is to come +greet you in the frittered shale of the grey country-side broken abruptly +by little threatening hill-towns. The scar juts out of the earth's crust, +rising sheer, and there on a fretted peak hovers a fortress-village, steep +red roofs, an ancient bell-tower or two with a lean barrel of a church +beyond; all the lines cut sharp to the clean sky; a bullock-cart creaking +up homewards; the shiver and dust of olives round the walls. You could +swear you caught the glint of a long gun over the machicolations; but it +is only a casement fired by the westering sun. Such are San Miniato, +Castel Fiorentino, Poggibonsi (where stayed Lorenzo's Nencia--his Nancy, +we should call her), San Gimignano and its Fina, a little girl-saint of +fifteen springs; such, too, is Siena when you get there, but redder, her +grey stones blushing for her sins. And the country blushes for her as you +draw near, for all the vineyards are dotted with burning willows in the +autumn--osier-bushes flaming at the heart. Let it be night when you +arrive--the dead vast and middle of a still night. Then suffer yourself to +be whirled through the inky streets, over the flags, from one hill to +another. It is deathly quiet: no soul stirs. The palaces rise on either +hand like the ghosts of old reproaches; a flickering lamp reveals a gully +as black as a grave, and shines on the edge of a lane which falls you know +not whither. You turn corners which should complicate a maze, you scrape +and clatter down steeps, you groan up mountain-sides. All in the dark, +mind. And the great white houses slide down upon you to the very flags you +are beating; you could near touch either wall with a hand. So you swerve +round a column, under a votive lamp, and have left the stars and their +violet bed. You are in a _cortile_: men say there is an inn here with +reasonable entertainment. If it is the _Aquila Nera_, it will serve. +There is no sound beyond the labouring of our horses' wind and of some +outland dog in the far distance baying for a moon. This is Siena at her +black magic. + +I maintain that the impression you thus receive holds you. Next morning +there is a blare of sun. It will blind you at first, blister you. Rayed +out from plaster-walls which have been soaking in it for five centuries, +driven up in palpable waves of heat from the flags, lying like a lake of +white metal in the Piazza, however recklessly this truly royal sun may +beam, in Siena you will feel furtive and astare for sudden death. + +There is nothing frank and open about Siena; none of your robust, red- +lunged, open-air Paganism. Théophile Gautier, Baudelaire, Poe--such +supersensitive plants should have known it, instead of the ingenuous M. +Bourget and the deliberate Mr. Henry James. M. Bourget looked at the +Sodomas and Mr. James admired the view: what a romance we should have had +from Gautier of illicit joys and their requital by a knife, what a strophe +from Baudelaire half-obscene, half-mournful, wholly melodious. But +Théophile Gautier tarried in Venice, and, as for M. Charles, the man of +pronounced tastes and keen nose, stuck in the main to Paris. Failing them +as guides, go you first to the Piazza del Campo where horses race in +August--all roads lead thither. Contraries again! A square? It is a cup. A +field? It is a Gabbatha: a place of burning pavements. Were red brick and +Gothic ever so superbly compounded before, to be so strong and yet so +lithe? That is the Palazzo Publico, the shrine of Aristotle's +_Politics_ and the _Miracles of the Virgin_. What is that long +spear which seems to shake as it glances skywards? It isn't a spear; it's +the Torre del Mangia--the loveliest tower in Tuscany, the _filia +pulchrior_ of a beautiful mother, the Torre della Vacca of Florence. +That tower rises from the bottom of the cup and shoots straight upwards, +nor stays till it has out-topped the proudest belfry on the hills about +it. But what a square this is! The backs of the houses (whose front doors +are high above on the hill-top) stand like bald cliffs on every side. You +cannot see any outlets: most of them are winding stairways cut between the +houses. The lounging, shabby men and girls seem handsomer and lazier than +you found them in Florence. They seem to have room to stretch their fine +limbs against these naked walls. Their maturity is almost tropical. The +girls wear flopping straw hats: wide, sorrowful eyes stare at you from the +shady recesses, and the rounding of their chins and beautiful proud necks +are marked by glossy lights. "Morbida e bianca," sang Lorenzo. I suppose +they think of little more than the market price of spring onions: but +then, why do their eyes speak like that? And what do they speak of? _Dio +mio_, I am an honest man! So was not Lorenzo; listen to him:-- + +"Two eyes hath she so roguish and demure +That, lit they on a rock, they'd make it feel; +How shall poor melting man meet such a lure?" + +How indeed? Ah, Nenciozza mia! + +"My little Nancy shows nor fleck nor pimple; +Pliant and firm, is she, a reed for grace: +In her smooth chin there's just one pretty dimple; +That rounds the perfect measure of her face:" + +That dimple has been the destruction of many a heart:-- + +"So wise, withal, above us other simple +Plain folk--sure, Nature set her in this place +To bloom her tender whiteness all about us, +And break our hearts--and then bloom on without us." + +Yes indeed, my Lorenzo. But enough! Let us take shelter in the Duomo. + +Barred like a tiger, glistening snow and rose and gold, topped by a +flaunting angel, her door flanked by the lean Roman wolf; paved with +pictures, hemmed with the Popes from Peter to Pius, encrusted with marbles +and gemmy frescoes, it is a casket of delights this church, and the +quintessence of Siena--_molles Senæ_ as Beccadelli, himself of this +Tyre, dubbed his native town. Voluptuous as she was, tigerish Siena was +more consistent than you would think. True, Saints Catherine and +Bernardine consort oddly with the old-clothesman saying mass with wet +hands, and Beccadelli the soft singer of abominations, just as the +"Madones aux longs regards" of the Primitives--pious creatures of slim +idle fingers and desirous eyes, pining in brocade and jewels--seem in a +different sphere (as indeed they are) from Pinturricchio's well-found +Popes and Princesses, and Sodoma's languishing boys or half-ripe +Catherines dying of love. Have I not said this was once a city of +pleasure? And whether the pleasure was a blood-feast or an _Agapè_, +or a Platonic banquet where the flute-players and wine-cups and crowns +crushed out the high disquisition and philosophic undercurrent--it was all +one to soft Siena drowsing the days out on her hills. Her pleasures were +fierce, and beautiful as fierce. But the burden of Tyre is always the +same. And so the memories of a thousand ancient wrongs unpurged howl over +the red city, as once howled the ships of Tarshish. + + + +IX + + +ILARIA, MARIOTA, BETTINA + +(_Studies in Translation from Stone_) + +Greatest of great ladies is Ilaria, _potens Luccæ_, sleeping easily, +with chin firmly rounded to the vault, where she has slept for five +hundred years, and still a power in Lucca of the silver planes. It was a +white-hot September day I went to pay my devotions to her shrine. Lucca +drowsed in a haze, her bleached arcades of trees lifeless in the glare of +high noon; all the valley was winking, the very bells had no strength to +chime: and then I saw Ilaria lie in the deep shade waiting for the +judgment. Ilaria was a tall Tuscan--the girls of Lucca are out of the +common tall, and straight as larches--of fine birth and a life of +minstrels and gardens. Pompous processions, trapped horses, emblazonings, +were hers, and all refinements of High Masses and Cardinals. So she lived +once a life as stately-ordered as old dance-music, in the airy corridors +of a great marble palace, swept hourly by the thin, clear air of the +Lucchesan plain; and her lord, went out to war with Pisa or Pescia, or +even further afield, following Emperor or Pope to that Monteaperti which +made Arbia run colour of wine, or shrill Benevento, or Altopasdo which +cost the Florentines so dear.[1] But Ilaria stayed at home to trifle with +lap-dogs and jongleurs under the orange trees: heard boys make stammering +love, and laughed lightly at their Decameron travesty, being too proud to +be ashamed or angered; and sometimes (for she was not too proud but that +love should be of the party), she pulled a ring from one lithe finger, and +looked down while the lad kissed it for a holy relic and put it in his +bosom reverently,--pretending not to see. But, Ilaria, you knew well what +gave colour to the faint and worn old words about _Fior di spin giallo, +or O Dea fatale_, or + +"O Dio de' Dei! +La più bellina mi parete voi; +O quanto sete cara agli occhi miei!" + +[Footnote 1: Historically he could have done none of these things, except, +perhaps, fight at Altopascio.] + +And so the days passed in your square corner palace, until the plague came +down with the North wind, and you bowed your proud neck before it like a +mountain pine. Young to die, young to die and leave the pleasant ways of +Lucca, the green ramparts, the grassy walks in the pastures where the +hawks fly and the shadows fleet over the green and gold of early May. +Young enough, Ilaria. Scorner of love, now Death is at hand, with the +bats' wings and wet scythe they give him in the Piazza, when your lord +comes triumphing or God's Body takes the air: what of him, Madonna? Let +him come, says Ilaria, with raised eyebrows and a wintry smile. Yet she +fought: her thin hands held off the scythe at arms' length; she set her +teeth and battled with the winged beast. Whenas she knew it must be, +suddenly she relaxed her hold, and Death had his way with her. + +Then her women came about her and robed her in a long robe, colour of +olive leaves, and soft to the touch. And they covered soberly her feet and +placed them on a crouching dog, which was Lucca. But her fine hands they +folded peace-wise below her bosom, to rest quietly there like the clasps +of a girdle. Her gentle hair (bright brown it was, like a yearling +chestnut) they crowned also, and closed down her ringed eyes. So they let +her lie till judgment come. And when I saw her the close robe still folded +her about and ran up her throat lovingly to her chin, till her head seemed +to thrust from it as a flower from its calyx. It would seem, too, as if +her bosom rose and fell, that her nostrils quivered when the wind blew in +and touched them; and the hem of her garment being near me, I was fain to +kiss it and say a prayer to the divinity haunting that place. So I left +the presence well disposed in my heart to glorify God for so fair a sight. + +Whereafter I took the way to Florence among the vineyards and tangled +hill-sides; and, anon, in the broad plain I stayed at Prato to honour the +lady of the town. Madonna della Cintola she is called now, and one Luca, a +worker in clay, knew her mind most intimately and did all her will. Quiet +days she had lived at Prato, being wife to a decent metal-worker there and +keeper of his house and stuff. Mariota she was then called for all her +name, but as to her parentage none knew it, save that Marco's Vanna had +been both frail and fair, and when she had been in flower the great Lord +Ottoboni had flowered likewise--and often in her company. Giovanna I had +never known; she died before her lord married the lady Adhelidis of Verona +and the seven days' tilting were held in her honour in a field below the +city wall. But when Luca first knew Mariota and saw how her mother's pride +beaconed from her smooth brow, the girl was standing in the Piazza in a +tattered green kirtle and bodice that gaped at the hooks, played upon by +sun, and fallow wind, and longing looks driven at her eyes in vain. The +wench carried her head and light fardel of years like a Princess; would +laugh to show her fine teeth if your jest pleased her; and then she would +look straightly upon you and be glad of you. If you pleased her not, she +would look through you to the mountains or the church-tower. She had as +squarely a modelled chin as ever I saw, and her lips firmly set and redder +than strawberries in a wet May. None taught her anything; none, that Luca +could learn, gave her sup or bed. He was a boy then and would have given +her both. I think she knew he favoured her--what girl does not? Everybody +favoured Mariota, stayed as she passed, and followed her stealthily with +troubled eyes. But he was a moody boy then, at the mercy of dreams, and +stammered when he was near her, blushing. When he came back she was +seventeen years old, and the metal-worker's wife. It was then Luca saw +her, in the street called of the Eye, where climbing plants top the +convent wall and from the garden comes the scent of wall-flowers and sweet +marjoram. + +At her man's door she was standing, barefooted, fray-kirtled as of old; +but riper, of more assured and triumphant beauty. In her arms a boy-child, +lusty and half-naked, struggled to be fed, seeking with both fat hands to +forage for himself. Turning her grey eyes, where pride slumbered and shame +had never been, she knew Luca again, made him welcome at the door, with, +superb assurance set wine and olives and bread before him; and so stood at +the table while he ate, gravely recovering one by one the features of his +face, smiling, preoccupied with her pleasure and unconscious of the cooing +child. For with matronly composure she had eased my gentleman as soon as +she had provided for her guest. + +In comes the metal-worker, Sor Matteo, burly but watchful in a greasy +apron, eyes the lad up and down with much burdensome pondering of hand to +scrubby chin, as to say to Mariota "I'm no fool." With never a blush, nor +a quailing of the eyes' level beam, Mariota begs cousin Luca to become +conscious of her master. + +There were the makings of a piece of right Boccacesque in all this, and +the _padrone_ showed manifest disinclination for his accustomed part: +but Luca's candid face disclaimed all dark-entry work. Mariota hurried to +her task. A modeller in clay, a statuary, _via_, an admirer of the +choicer contrivings of Mother Nature! What and if he should find his +cousin, his scarce-remembered gossip Mariota, worth an artist's half- +closed eye! And the _bambinaccio_ (with a side-look and face averted +as she spoke)--_ecco_!--many a Gesulino showed a leaner thigh and +cheeks less peachy than he. Had Papa seen the new dimple in Beppino's +chin? And more soft piping to the same tune. Master Matteo was appeased; +but Luca was far adrift with other matters. Love, for him, lay not in +flesh and blood alone; rather, in what flesh and blood signified in +another clay, not Messer Domeneddio's, but his own chosen task-stuff. He +had come hither to Prato on the commission of the Opera, to work a +_Madonna col Bambino_ for the great door of the Duomo. Well! he had +his Madonna to hand, it would seem:--Mariota at the door of the smith's +house, confident, lissom and fresh, and the lusty child groping for his +breakfast. The light had been upon her, gleamed upon her skin, her +brimming eyes, her glossy brown hair. What a bravery was hers! What a +glorified presentment of young life, new-budded, was here! The town gaped, +the husband admired; but Mariota, with her square chin and high carriage, +looked as straightly before her, when in pale blue and silver-white, +Madonna with the Babe and the holy deacons Stephen and Laurence stood, +four months afterwards, within the shadow of the great church, and shone +out to the day. + +I pay silent respect to strapping Mariota and her baby-boy In the country +of Boccace. Then, when I am in Florence again, under the spell of the city +life, I lounge in the Borg' Ognissanti, or across Arno in the +_quartiere_ San Niccolo, or out by San Frediano where Botticelli in +his green old age pruned his vines, or in the pent streets between the Via +della Pergola and Santa Croce, and watch the townsfolk lead their lives of +patchwork and easy laughter, I fear I have a taste for such company. I am +fond of verdure; I like trees as well as men: every oak for me has its +hamadryad informing it, I like flowers better than men; and the most +beautiful flower I know is a girl, I have a sweetheart in the Bargello, as +you shall hear. I believe she is one of Donatello's sowing; but the +critics are divided, I cannot trace Verocchio's bluntened lineaments in +her, nor Mino's peaksomeness, nor anything of Desiderio. She's not very +pretty, but she's like a summer flower, say, a campanula; and that is why +I love to watch her and talk to her in this grandfatherly fashion. +Bettina, I say to her, are you, I wonder, twelve years old yet? You cannot +be much more I think, for you have let your bodice-strap slip off one of +your shoulders and betray you to the sun. You are but a round rose-bud now +and no one thinks any harm; but some day the sun will look at you in an +odd way, and then, suddenly, you will be ashamed, and draw your frock +right up to your neck. + +And your hair strays where it likes at present. I know you have a golden +fillet of box-leaves round your brow: that is because you are only a +little girl still, not more than twelve. And you have tied the ends up in +a sort of knot. But you romp so much and laugh so--I know you have two +bright rows of little teeth--that you can never expect to keep tidy. Why, +even now, while I am scolding you, you are itching to laugh and run away. +I see a wavy lock trailing down your neck, _ragazza_, and those heavy +tresses on your temples, instead of being drawn meekly back, droop down +over your temples, and cover up your little ears. Don't you know that +Florentine, ladies are proud of their foreheads, and when they have pretty +ears, always show them? Some day, my dear, you will go out into the world; +and your hair will be twisted up into coils with gold braid; perhaps you +will have on it a flowery garland of Messer Domenico's making, and a +string of Venice beads round your throat. And when that time comes, you +won't let the sun play with your neck any more; he won't know his romp +when he sees her in stiff velvet of Genoa and a high collar edged with +seed-pearls. + +And you won't look me in the eyes as you are doing now, saucy girl, with +your chin pushed forward and your mouth all in a pucker--who's to know +whether you are going to pout or giggle?--and your pert green eyes wide +open, as if to say "Who's this old thickhead staring at me so hard?" No, +Bettina, you will drop them instead; you will blush all over your neck and +cheeks, and hang your round head. You have chestnuts in your two fists +now, I know; there's some of the flour sticking to the corners of your +mouth, little slut. But then you will have a fan perhaps, or a spyglass, +or at least a mass-book in the mornings; and when I am looking at you, +your ringers will tie themselves in knots and be very interesting. In two +years' time, Bettina! + +But though I shan't love you half as much as I do now, I shall always come +to see you, I think; and, as I shall be a very old man by that time, +perhaps you will still sit on a stool at my knee and give me a kiss now +and then--oh, a mere bird's peck, just for kindness.... The Via de' Bardi +is grey, and you are there in yellow. You are like a young daffodil +dancing in the winter grass. But soon you will have strained to your full +flower-time, and I see you in your summering, lithe and rather languid, +with heavy-lidded eyes, and a slow smile. + +Then you will not dance; but, instead, you will stoop gravely like a tall +garden lily, and give your white hand to the lover kneeling below. + +And all in two years, my little Bettina! + + + +X + + +CATS + +There was once a man in Italy--so the story runs--who said that animals +were sacred because God had made them. People didn't believe him for a +long time; they came, you see, of a race which had found it amusing to +kill such things, and killed a great many of them too, until it struck +them one fine day that killing men was better sport still, and watching +men kill each other the best sport of all because it was the least +trouble. Animals! said they, why, how can they be sacred; things that you +call beef and mutton when they have left off being oxen and sheep, and +sell for so much a pound? They scoffed at this mad neighbour, looked at +each other waggishly, and shrugged their shoulders as he passed along the +street. Well! then, all of a sudden, as you may say, one morning he walked +into the town--Gubbio it was--with a wolf pacing at his heels--a certain +wolf which had been the terror of the country-side and eaten I don't know +how many children and goats. He walked up the main street till he got to +the open Piazza in front of the great church. And the long grey wolf +padded beside him with a limp tongue lolling out between the ragged +palings which stood him for teeth. In the middle of the Piazza was a +fountain, and above the fountain a tall stone crucifix. Our friend mounted +the steps of the cross in the alert way he had (like a little bird, the +story says), and the wolf, after lapping apologetically in the basin, +followed him up three steps at a time. Then with one arm round the shaft +to steady himself, he made a fine sermon to the neighbours crowding in the +Square, and the wolf stood with his forepaws on the edge of the fountain +and helped him. The sermon was all about wolves (naturally) and the best +way of treating them. I fancy the people came to agree with it in time; +anyhow when the man died they made a saint of him and built three +churches, one over another, to contain his body. And I believe it is +entirely his fault that there are a hundred-and-three cats in the convent- +garden of San Lorenzo in Florence. For what are you to do? Animals are +sacred, says Saint Francis. Animals are sacred, but cats have kittens; and +so it comes about that the people who agree with Saint Francis have to +suffer for the people who don't. + +The Canons of San Lorenzo agree with Saint Francis, and it seems to me +that they must suffer a good deal. The convent is large; it has a great +mildewed cloister with a covered-in walk all round it built on arches. In +the middle is a green garth with cypresses and yews dotted about; and when +you look up you see the blue sky cut square, and the hot tiles of a huge +dome staring up into it. Round the cloister walk are discreet brown doors, +and by the side of each door a brass plate tells you the name and titles +of the Canon who lives behind it. It is on the principle of Dean's Yard at +Westminster; only here there are more Canons--and more cats. + +The Canons live under the cloister; the cats live on the green garth, and +sometimes die there, I did not see much of the Canons; but the cats seemed +to me very sad-depressed, nostalgic even, I might describe them, if there +had not been something more languid, something faded and spiritless about +their habit. It was not that they quarrelled. I heard none of those long- +drawn wails, gloomy yet mellow soliloquies, with which our cats usher in +the crescent moon or hymn her when she swims at the full: there lacked +even that comely resignation we may see on any sunny window-ledge at +home;--the rounded back and neatly ordered tail, the immaculate fore-paws +peering sedately below the snowy chest, the squeezed-up eyes which so +resolutely shut off a bleak and (so to say) unenlightened world. That is +pensiveness, sedate chastened melancholy; but it is soothing, it speaks a +philosophy, and a certain balancing of pleasures and pains. In San Lorenzo +cloister, when I looked in one hot noon seeking a refuge from the glare +and white dust of the city, I was conscious of a something sinister that +forbade such an even existence for the smoothest tempered cat. There were +too many of them for companionship, and perhaps too few for the humour of +the thing to strike them: in and out the chilly shades they stalked +gloomily, hither and thither like lank and unquiet ghosts of starved cats. +They were of all colours--gay orange-tawny, tortoiseshell with the +becoming white patch over one eye, delicate tints of grey and fawn and +lavender, brindle, glossy sable; and yet the gloom and dampness of the +place seemed to mildew them all so that their brightness was glaring and +their softest gradations took on a shade as of rusty mourning. No cat +could be expected to do herself justice. + +To and fro they paced, balancing sometimes with hysterical precision on +the ledge of the parapet, passing each other at whisker's length, but +_cutting each other dead_! Not a cat had a look or a sniff for his +fellow; not a cat so much as guessed at another's existence. Among those +hundred-and-three restless spirits there was not a cat but did not affect +to believe that a hundred-and-two were away! It was horrible, the +_inhumanity_ of it. Here were these shreds and waifs, these +"unnecessary litters" of Florentine households, herded together in the +only asylum (short of the Arno) open to them, driven in like dead leaves +in November, flitting dismally round and round for a span, and watching +each other die without a mew or a lick! Saint Francis was not the wise man +I had thought him. + +It was about two o'clock in the afternoon. I had watched these beasts at +their feverish exercises for nearly an hour before I perceived that they +were gradually hemming me in. They seemed to be forming up, in ranks, on +the garth. Only a ditch separated us--I was in the cloister-walk, a +hundred-and-three gaunt, expectant, desperate cats facing me. Their +famished pale eyes pierced me through and through; and two-hundred-and-two +hungry eyes (four cats supported life in one apiece) is more than I can +stand, though I am a married man with a family. These brutes thought I was +going to feed them! I was preparing weakly for flight when I heard steps +in the gateway; a woman came in with a black bag. She must be going to +deposit a cat on Jean-Jacques' ingenious plan of avoiding domestic +trouble; it was surely impossible she wanted to borrow one! Neither: she +came confidently in, beaming on our mad fellowship with a pleasant smile +of preparation. The cats knew her better than I did. Their suspense was +really shocking to witness. While she was rolling her sleeves up and tying +on her apron--she was poor, evidently, but very neat and wholesome in her +black dress and the decent cap which crowned her grey hair--while she +unpacked the contents of the bag--two newspaper parcels full of rather +distressing viands, scissors, and a pair of gloves which had done duty +more than once--while all these preparations were soberly fulfilling, the +agitation of the hundred-and-three was desperate indeed. The air grew +thick, it quivered with the lashing of tails; hoarse mews echoed along the +stone walls, paws were raised and let fall with the rhythmical patter of +raindrops. A furtive beast played the thief: he was one of the one-eyed +fraternity, red with mange. Somehow he slipped in between us; we +discovered him crouched by the newspaper raking over the contents. This +was no time for ceremony; he got a prompt cuff over the head and slunk +away shivering and shaking his ears. And then the distribution began. Now, +your cat, at the best of times, is squeamish about his food; he stands no +tricks. He is a slow eater, though he can secure his dinner with the best +of us. A vicious snatch, like a snake, and he has it. Then he spreads +himself out to dispose of the prey-feet tucked well in, head low, tail +laid close along, eyes shut fast. That is how a cat of breeding loves to +dine, Alas! many a day of intolerable prowling, many a black vigil, had +taken the polish off the hundred-and-three. As a matter of fact they +behaved abominably: they leaped at the scraps, they clawed at them in the +air, they bolted them whole with starting eyes and portentous gulpings, +they growled all the while with the smothered ferocity of thunder in the +hills. No waiting of turns, no licking of lips and moustaches to get the +lingering flavours, no dalliance. They were as restless and suspicious +here as everywhere; their feast was the horrid hasty orgy of ghouls in a +churchyard. + +But an even distribution was made: I don't think any one got more than his +share. Of course there were underhand attempts in plenty, and, at least +once, open violence--a sudden rush from opposite sides, a growling and +spitting like sparks from a smithy; and then, with ears laid flat, two +ill-favoured beasts clawed blindly at each other, and a sly and tigerish +brindle made away with the morsel. My woman took the thing very coolly I +thought, served them all alike, and didn't resent (as I should have done) +the unfortunate want of delicacy there was about these vagrants. A cat +that takes your food and growls at you for the favour, a cat that would +eat _you_ if he dared, is a pretty revelation. _Ça donne +furieusement à penser_. It gives you a suspicion of just how far the +polish we most of us smirk over will go. My cats at San Lorenzo knew some +few moments of peace between two and three in the afternoon. That would +have been the time to get up a testimonial to the kind soul who fed them. +Try them at five and they would ignore you. But try them next morning! + +My knowledge of the Italian tongue, in those days, was severely limited to +the necessaries of existence; to take me on a fancy subject, like cats, +was to strike me dumb. But at this stage of our intercourse (hitherto +confined to smiles and eye-service) it became so evident my companion had +something to say that I must perforce take my hat off and stand attentive. +She pointed to the middle of the garth, and there, under the boughs of a +shrub, I saw the hundred-and-fourth cat, sorriest of them all. It was a +new-comer, she told me, and shy. Shy it certainly was, poor wretch; it +glowered upon me from under the branches like a bad conscience. Shyness +could not hide hunger--I never saw hungrier eyes than hers--but it could +hold it in check: the silkiest speech could not tempt her out, and when we +threw pieces she only winced! What was to be done next was my work. Plain +duty called me to scale the ditch with some of those dripping, slippery, +nameless cates in my fingers and to approach the stranger where she lurked +bodeful under her tree. My passage towards her lay over the rank +vegetation of the garth, in whose coarse herbage here and there I stumbled +upon a limp white form stretched out--a waif the less in the world! I +don't say it was a happy passage for me: it was made to the visible +consternation of her I wish to befriend. Her piteous yellow eyes searched +mine for sympathy; she wanted to tell me something and wouldn't +understand! As I neared her she shivered and mewed twice. Then she limped +painfully off--poor soul, she had but three feet!--to another tree, +leaving behind her, unwillingly enough, a much-licked dead kitten. That +was what she wanted to tell me then. As I was there, I deposited the +garbage by the side of the little corpse, knowing she would resume her +watch, and retired. My friend who had put up her parcels was prepared to +go. She thanked me with a smile as she went out, looking carefully round +lest she had missed out some other night-birds. One of the Canons had come +out of his door and was leaning against the lintel, thoughtfully rubbing +his chin. He was a spare dry man who seemed to have measured life and +found it a childish business. He jerked his head towards the gateway as he +glanced at me. "That is a good woman," he said in French, "she lendeth +unto the Lord.... Yes," he went on, nodding his head slowly backwards and +forwards, "lends Him something every day." The cats were sitting in the +shady cloister-garth licking their whiskers: one was actually cleaning his +paw. I went out into the sun thinking of Saint Francis and his wolf. + + + +XI + + +THE SOUL OF A CITY + +He hated Marco first of all because one day he undersold him in the Campo, +put him to shame in open market. Figs were going cheap that October in +spite of the waning year; but there was no earthly reason why he should +give the English ladies more than four for two _soldi_. What were +_soldi_ to English people? The scratch of a flea! He would have given +them a handful, taken as they came, for their piece of _cinquanta_, +and reaped a tidy little profit for himself. Who would have been the +worse? God knew he needed it. Mariola crumpled with the ague like a dried +leaf, and that long girl of his growing up so fast, and still running wild +with goat-herds and marble quarrymen. How could he send her to the nuns +for a place unless he bought her some shoes and a rosary? And then that +pig Marco--thieving old miser--peered forward with his mock candour and +silver-rimmed goggles and offered _ten_ for two _soldi_--ten! +with the market price, _Dio mio_, at twelve! And _fichi totati_ +too! Do you wonder that the ladies in striped blankets gave the cheek to +Maso Cecci and turned to Marco Zoppa? + +That wasn't all, but it was an accentuation of a long series of spiteful +injuries wrought him by the wrinkled old villain. Maso endured, hating the +old man daily more and more; tried little tricks, little revenges, upon +him, upset his baskets, hid his pipe; but they generally failed or +recoiled with a nasty swiftness upon himself. He only got deeper and +deeper into the bad odour of the neighbours who traded in the Piazza with +fruit and indifferent photographs. Nothing went very well--thanks to that +unspeakable old Marco! His girl grew longer and lazier and handsomer, with +a shapelier bust and a pair of arms like that snaky Bacchante in the +_Opera_. Maso had to quail more than he liked to admit before the +proud stare of her eyes; and when she dropped the heavy lids upon them and +sauntered away, arms akimbo under her shawl, he could only swear. And he +always cursed Marco Zoppa who gave her chestnuts and sage counsel for +nothing. God only knew what devilry he might be whispering to her in the +shady corner where the sun never came and the grass sprouted between the +flags--she leaning against the wall, looking down at her toes, and he +peering keen-eyed into her face and muttering in his beard, sometimes +laying an old brown hand on her shoulder--Lord! he _did_ hate the +man. + +Then came the August races. + +Maso had brought his Isotta into the city to see the fun and she had +disappeared in the press just before the procession stayed by the Palazzo +and the trumpets sounded for the first race. Maso shrugged his shoulders +and cursed his luck, but didn't budge. The girl must look after herself. +He was on the upper rim of the great fountain craning his neck over the +pack of people: then he got a dig under the ribs enough to take the breath +of an ox. It was the spout of old Marco's green umbrella. "Hey! silly +fool," spluttered the old liar, "dost want that loose-legged slut of thine +in trouble? I tell thee she's playing in a corner with Carlo Formaggia. +Already he's pinched her cheek twice, and who knows what the end may be? +Mud-coloured ass, wilt thou let thy child slip to the devil while thou +standest gaping at a horse-race?" And this before all the neighbours! What +to say to such a man? Maso babbled with rage; but he had to go, for Carlo +Formaggia was well known. He had ruined more girls than enough; he was in +league with vile houses, gambling dens, thieves' hells; Captain of an +infamous secret society; the police were only waiting for a pretext to get +him shipped off to the hulks. He must go of course. No thanks to Marco +though: in fact he hated him worse than ever, partly because he had drawn +all eyes and a fair share of sniggering and tongues thrust in the cheek +upon his account; but most because he knew he had been trapped into losing +a good place. For, as he mounted the narrow stair cut between old houses +steep as rocks, he turned and saw Zoppa placidly smoking his pipe in the +very spot he had held, squatted on the fountain-rim with his green +umbrella between his knees. He was beaming through his spectacles, in a +fatherly, indulgent sort of way, upon the shouting people; following the +race too, like one who had paid for his box. Maso, when he heard the +shatter of hoofs and the wild roar from thousands of throats down below +him in the Campo, cursed old Zoppa with a grey face, and went muttering +round the blinding sides of the Duomo to find his daughter. And when he +did find her she was eating chestnuts at the open door of her aunt's shop +in the Via Ghibellina! Bacchus! she was sick of all those folk in their +_festa_ clothes, was all the explanation she would give him from +between fine white teeth all clogged with chestnut-meal. If he chose to +dress his daughter like a beggar's brat he had better not take her to the +races. Maso's feeling of relief at finding her alone and looking her usual +sulky impassive self, gave way very rapidly to a sort of righteous wrath +against his triumphant enemy. So, by foul slanders of honest God-fearing +people that old Jew had not scrupled to rob him of his place! His place +and his day's fun. By Heaven, he was tricked, duped by a scaly-eyed Jew +pedlar, a vile old dog tottering down to Hell with lies in his beard. +Well! he would put this morning's work down to his score; some day there +would be a choice little reckoning for Ser Marco. + +Maso, green with impotent fury, poured out his flood of gutturals upon his +_insouciante_ child. General reproaches were always a failure in +cases of this sort. Some were sure to be wild guess-work and to drown the +real ones: you could never tell when you had hit the mark. Had she not-- +she fourteen, too!--slid astride down the railing into the Campo and been +caught up in the arms of Carlo Formaggia waiting and laughing at the +bottom? Had she not lain a whole minute in his arms, panting? And then, +_Dio mio_, with the sweat still on her forehead, she had slipped off +to San Domenico and confessed to coughing at mass the Sunday before! Pest! +he would give her the strap over her shoulders when he got her home. The +long, brown girl leaned against the lintel kicking one heel idly against +the other. She was smiling at him, smiling with her lazy, languid eyes and +with her glistening teeth. Every now and then she inspected a chestnut +critically--like an amateur!--and slipped it between her jaws. They split +it like a banana. And then she squeezed the half skins and dropped the +flour down her throat. She had a long sinewy throat, glossy as velvet, +with its silvery lights and dusky brown shadows. Maso stood helpless +before her as she drank down her flour; he chattered like a little +passionate ape. At last he lifted up both hands in a sudden frenzy of +despair and went away. + +Of course the races were over. The sober streets swarmed with people in +their holiday clothes. They all seemed laughing and smoking, and talking +fluently of something ridiculous. Maso, egoist, knew it must be about him-- +or his daughter. Arms and heads went like mill-sails or tall trees in a +gale of wind. Then, with a rattle and the sudden sliding of four hoofs on +the flags, a cart would be in the thick of them, and the people scoured to +the curb, still laughing, or spitting between the spasms of the +interrupted jest. The boys tried to peep under the sagging hats of the +girls, and the girls turned pettish shoulders to them and, as they turned, +you caught the glint of fun in their great roes' eyes and saw the lips +part before the quick breath. The streets were mere gullies, clefts hewn +in zig-zag between grey houses that tottered up and up, and lay over them +like cliffs. An ancient church with bleached stone saints under flowery +canopies, a guttering candle before a tinsel shrine, and the hoarse babel +of the streets--whips that cracked and spluttered like squibs, a swarming +coloured stream of men and maids, once the twang of a chance mandoline. +Siena was feasting, and the waiters furtively swept their foreheads with +their coat-sleeves as they ran in and out of the _trattorie_. + +In the _trattoria_ of the _Aquila Rossa_ old Marco Zoppa smoked +his pipe and talked, between the spurts of smoke, to his neighbours. Fate +brought him face to face with two enemies at once. Maso was battling his +way up the street, white and strained as a grave-cloth; and Carlo +Formaggia, the approved bravo--oiled and jaunty, with his brown felt +fantastically rolled and stuck over one ear, with a long cigar which he +alternately gnawed and sucked, Carlo the broad-chested, of the seared, +evil face, came down with the stream on the arms of two other gilded +youths. They met before the cafe, the man of intolerable wrongs and the +Pilia-Borsa of Siena. Maso scowled till his thick eyebrows cut his face +horizontally in two. He stood ostentatiously still, muttering with his +lips as the trio went lightly by. Then he made to go on. But old Marco +Zoppa stood up and made a speech. He had the wooden stem of his pipe +'twixt finger and thumb, and used it like a conductor's _bâton_ to +emphasise his points. As his voice shrilled and quavered, Carlo Formaggia +caught his own name and turned back to listen, prick-eared. He stood out +of sight resting one foot on a doorstep, and leaned forward on to his leg. +He might have been dreaming of some night of love, but he held every word +as it dropped. + +"Maso," Marco went on, "thou art but a thin fool. I know what I know; but +thou must needs stick dirt in thine ears and pass me by. Well, let be, let +be; the end will come soon enough--this night even. And I have warned +thee." + +"Spawn of a pig, wilt never have done irking me? See, I scratch thee off +me!" Maso drove home his gibe with a dramatic performance. The +_trattoria_ was agape. Every table held its three craning necks and +six piercing, twinkling eyes atop. + +"I grow old, my Maso, I grow very old, and thy monkey's tricks are nought. +'Tis thy slip of a girl and thy poor twisted Mariola I would save in spite +of thee. Listen then once more, and for the last time. Ser Carlo intends +to snare thy pigeon. He has limed his twigs; the bird flutters free for +this noon, but by to-night she will be caged. For me, I have done my +possible--but I am old. Life tingles fiercer in the blood of a young man. +Therefore beware. Wilt thou see that brawny assassin toying with thy girl; +leaning over her where she crouches, poisoning her with fat words? That's +how the snake licks the turtle before he gulps her--'tis to make her +sleek, look you! Well, go thy way, dolt and blunderhead. For me--old as I +am--I will shoot a last bolt for Mariola. This very night after supper I +go to the Sbirro: and thy thanks will be a rounder oath and some more +knave's tricks with my baskets." + +"No thanks are owing, Marco Zoppa"; Maso was ashy with shame and rage at +the old man's placid benevolence. "Marco Zoppa, thou hast been my enemy +ever, and I have borne it"--the Café roared with laughter; a fat old +Capuchin nearly had a fit. Maso looked round with fright in his eyes. He +went on, "Now thou hast gone too far--insulting me grossly before these +citizens. Thou hast brought thine end upon thyself." He ran away fighting +through the delighted crowd. Everybody who could get at him slapped him on +the back. A big carter stove his hat in. + +Old Marco shrugged his patient shoulders and sat down to read the +_Secolo_. He balanced his silver-rimmed spectacles on his nose and +held the journal at arm's length with hand a thought more shaky, perhaps, +than usual. Presently he looked up: "Mother of God! what a white-faced +rogue it is! Eh, Giuseppe?" "By Mars, if looks could stab, thou hadst been +riddled by the knife before this," said his friend. Marco shrugged and +went on reading--he was an old man. + +But when Carlo Formaggia had heard the debate, he turned a shade shinier, +and his eyes harder and brighter. As he motioned his friends off with a +look, he swallowed something hard in his throat. Then he turned down the +first side street, doubled round to the right, turned to the left down a +kind of black sewer-trap and let himself into a wine-shop, where he sat +down, breathing short. He drank brandy--but he drank like a machine. The +muscles of his jaw were working spasmodically as he sat rigid on a tub, +leaning against the counter. And he fingered something at his belt. His +eyes were in a cold stare: he saw nothing and didn't move. But he went on +drinking brandy till late in the afternoon, till the _Hail Mary_ +bells began to sound a tinkling chorus through the still air. + +And Maso Cecci, he too, rushed away white and chattering. Rage had past +definition with him, he saw things red, and they choked him. The air felt +thick to him, full of flies. He brushed his hands before his face, struck +out vaguely, and swore as the dazzling black things settled round him +again in a swarm. Irritated, maddened as he was, he still heard the +derisive yells of the crowd at the _birreria_ and saw Marco's calm +wise old face smiling urbanely behind silver spectacles. _Cristo +amore!_ how he loathed that old man. Siena could never hold the pair of +them: there must be an end--there _should_ be an end. His heart gave +a jerk under his vest as he thought of it. An end!--an end of his eternal +fretting jealousy in the Campo, his continued sense of being worsted, of +galling inferiority to that methodical old villain. An end of his worries +about Isotta; an end--ah! but there would be something rarer than that? To +a man like Maso, a small man, of immoderate self-esteem, and that self- +esteem always on the smart, there is another satisfaction--that of seeing +the better man totter and slip forward to his knees. This insufferable old +Marco who was always so right, with his slow methods and accursed +accuracy--to see him stumble and drop! That was what made Maso's heart +flutter and thud against his skin. And then, as he thought of it, it +seemed inevitable. It could be done in a minute, _via!_ The old man +was alone--it would be dusk--he would peer forward through the gloom to +open the door and--_Madre di Dio!_--and then! Maso was sweating; the +back of his palate itched intolerably; something hot and sticky clogged +his mouth and glued his tongue against the roof of it. His knees shook so +that he could scarcely walk. Some little boys stood to stare at him as he +lurched by, and laughed stealthily to see the hated Maso tipsy. But Maso +was unconscious of all this: he staggered on homewards with scorching +eyes.... + +Old Marco lived down beyond the Railway Station--a room in a crazy block +of buildings that had been run up for the needs of the factory hands. It +was like a great smooth cliff, this block, and was washed over a raw pink, +but it glowed in the setting sun that evening, like the city herself and +all the hills, the colour of bright blood. As Maso neared its blind face, +stepping warily with outstretched neck like some obscene bird, and with +one hand under his coat--the sun was going down into a purple bank of +cloud. He gilded the edges as he sank and shot broad rays of crimson light +up into the green sky. Here and there a star twinkled faint; the city lay +over him like a cloudy, silent company of rocks; the tower of the Palazzo +ran up into the pallor of the sky, a shaking spear. + +There was but one glimmer of light in the whole ghostly wall of tenements +and that, Maso knew, was Marco Zoppa's. Every soul else was crowded in the +Campo waiting for the fireworks. And, as he thought, he heard a dull thud +behind him, and turned; and there, far up, a single shaft of flame shot +aloft, and stayed, and burst into a fan of lights; and a puff told him it +was the first rocket. "_Ecco! Madre di Dio_, a sign! a sign! So will +_I_ go up; and so shall my enemy come down." And Maso crept up the +stairway breathing thick and short.... + +With a hand still under his cloak he rapped his knuckles on the door. No +answer. An echo, only, fluttered and grew faint down the stone steps. He +hoisted his cloak from the shoulder and swung his right arm free. Then he +knocked again. Nothing. No sign. Heavy silence; only a distant murmur of +voices, muffled and infinitely far, from the Campo on the hill. + +"The game has flown! Or the old dog sleeps." Maso sighed, for he wanted to +see him drop gurgling to his knees. Still, it made his affair easier. He +gave one fierce hoist to his cloak, twitched his right arm once or twice, +and gently turned the handle. Then he stepped lightly and daintily into +the room. + +A candle guttered on a little table in the corner, and the Crucified +showed white upon the black cross above. Marco Zoppa lay on his bed with +his throat cut from ear to ear. The cut was so resolute that his head +stuck out at an angle from his body--almost a right angle; and in some +struggle he had got his nostril sliced. That gave him an odd, +_mesquin_ expression, lying there with his mouth open and his yawning +nostril, as if he wanted to sneeze. The room smelt stale and sour; the +thick air gathered in a misty halo round the candle, and a fat shroud of +tallow drooped over the edges of the candlestick. + +Maso dropped his long, clean knife; dropped on to his knees and wailed +like a chained dog. He could not take his eyes from the horrible black pit +between the dead man's chin and trunk. Out of that pit a thin scarlet +stream was still slipping lazily, and crawling down the white coverlet to +the floor. Maso's wailing attracted a dog near by. He too set off howling +from behind his door: and then another, and another. There was a chorus of +howls, long-drawn, pitiful, desolate; and Maso, the only man in that +woeful company, howled like any dog of the pack. + +Gradually his moaning sank and then stopped with a dry sob. He crawled on +his knees a little nearer to the bed and eyed fearfully a patch of blood +on the counterpane. Just God! what was that patch? A faint circle smeared +with the finger, and through the midst of it a ragged dart. Carlo +Formaggia had been there! He knew that mark! And then the whole truth +blazed before him like a sheet of fire. He fell forward on his face. The +thin thread of scarlet from Marco Zoppa's gaping throat crawled drop by +drop on to his shoulder. + +Carlo Formaggia had limed his bird. + + + +XII + + +WITH THE BROWN BEAR + +The secret of happy travelling is contrast. Suffer, that you may drowse +thereafter: grill, that you may have a heat on you worth assuagement. +Wherefore, to the Italian wanderer, it will be worth while to endure the +fierceness of the Lombard plain, even the gilded modernisms of Milan +(blistering though they may be under the stroke of the naked sun) and the +dusty, painful traverse of the Apennines, to drop down at last into the +broad green peace of the Val D'Arno. Take, however, the first halting- +place you can. You will find yourself in a hollow of the hills, helping +the brown bear of Pistoja keep the Northern gates of Tuscany. It is not +unlikely that the Apennine may "walk abroad with the storm," or hide his +moss-brown slopes in great sheets of mist. This, while it means a fine +sight, means also rain for Pistoja. A quiet rain will accordingly fall +upon the little city, gently but persistently. Only in the gleams may you +guess that you have the Tuscan sky over you and the smiling Tuscan Art +round about. But the ways of the Pistolesi will confirm the feeble knees; +such at least was my case. + +For the Pistolesi were there beside foul weather, and splashed about under +green umbrellas with prodigious jokes to cut at each other's expense, of a +sort we reserve for Spring or early June. For them, with a vintage none +too good to be garnered, it might have been the finest weather in the +world: but I am bound to add my belief that they would have laughed were +it the worst. With no money, no weather, and taxes intolerable, Pistoja +laughed and looked handsome. Was not Boccaccio a Pistolese? I was reminded +of his book at every turn of the road: life is a wanton story there, or, +say, a Masque of Green Things, enacted by a splendid fairy rout. They were +still the well-favoured race Dino Compagni described them far back in the +fourteenth century--"formati di bella statura oltre a' Toscani," he says. +The words hold good of their grandsons--the men leaner and longer, hardier +and keener than you find them in Lucca or Siena; and the women carry their +heads high, and when they smile at you (as they will) you think the sun +must be shining. They are mountaineers, a strong race. At _pallone_ +one day, I saw muscles "all a-ripple down the back," arms and shoulders, +which would have intoxicated the great old "amatore del persona" himself. +For their vivacity, it is racial; I think all Tuscans, more or less, +retain the buoyant spirits, the alertness as of birds, which crowned Italy +with Florence instead of Rome or Milan. Tuscan Art is a proof of that, and +Tuscan Art can be studied at its roots in Pistoja: you see there the naked +thing itself with none of the wealth of Florence to make the head swim. If +Florence had stopped short at the death of Giuliano de' Medici, you might +say Pistoja was Florence seen through the diminishing-glass. Is not that +ribbed dome, with its purple mass domineering over the huddled roofs, +Brunelleschi's? It is a faithful copy of Vasari's hatching; but no matter. +So with the Baptistery, the towers, the grim old corniced palaces, the +_sdruccioli_ and gloomy clefts which serve for streets. But you would +be wrong. Pisa is the real parent of Pistoja, as indeed she is of +Florence-Dante's Florence. Pisa's magnificent building repeats to itself +here: Gothic with a touch of Latin sanity, a touch of the genuine Paganism +which loves the dædal earth and cannot bring itself to be out of touch +with it. San Giovanni _fuoricivitas_, what a rock-hewn church it is! +A rigid oblong, dark as the twilight, running with the street without +belfry or window or façade. Three tiers of shallow arcades on spiral +columns, never a window to be seen, and the whole of solemn black marble +narrowly striped with white. Is there such a beast as a black tiger--a +tiger where the tawny and black change places? San Giovanni is modelled +after that fashion. It is very old--twelfth century at latest--very shabby +and weather-beaten, dusty and deserted. But it will outlive Pistoja; and +that is probably what Pistoja desired. + +This black and white, which is so reminiscent of early Florence, is +carried out with more fidelity to the model in the Piazza. The octagonal +Baptistery is, no doubt, a copy of Dante's beloved church; but it is much +better placed, does not "shun to be admired" like its beautiful yellowed +sister. The Duomo is of Pisa again, and has a tower, half belfry, half +fortress, which once the Podestà seized and held while the plucky little +town endured a siege. The Brown Bear stood out long against the Lily. But +Lorenzo showed his teeth: and the Wolf prevailed at last. Sculpture apart, +the resemblance to Florence stops here. None of her Cinque-cento bravery +and little of her earlier and finer Renaissance came this way. But one +thing came; one clean breath from "that solemn fifteenth century" did blow +to this verge of Tuscan soil, a breath from Luca della Robbia and his men. +They may flower more exuberantly in Florence, those broad, blue-eyed +platters of theirs; nowhere is their purpose more explicit, their charm +more exquisitely appreciable than here. There is a chance of considering +the art on its own merits; better, you can see it more truly as it was at +home, since Florence has caught some little of Haussmannism and is not as +Luca left it. So here, perhaps best of all, you may try to plumb the +depths of the Della Robbia soul,--through its purity and limpid candour, +through its shining, sweetly wholesome homeliness, down to the crystal +sincerity burning recessed in the shrine. It is the fashion to say of +Angelico da Fiesole that his was a naïveté which amounted to genius: a +thin phrase, which may nevertheless pass to qualify the inspired +miniaturist. The religiosity of the Della Robbia, while no less naïve, is +really far other. It is not Gothic at all, nor ascetic, nor mystic. It +would be Latin, were it not blithe enough to be Greek. It speaks of what +is and must be, and is well content; not of what should, or might be, if +one could but tear off this crust. It seems probable that it speaks as +pure a Paganism--just that very Paganism which Pisan building represents-- +as has been seen since the workmen of Tanagra fashioned their little clay +familiars for the tombs, slim Greek girls in their reedy habit as they +lived, or chattering matrons like those you read of in Theocritus. Much +fine phrasing has been spent upon the effort to analyse the æsthetics of +Delia Robbia ware. Its inexhaustible charm is unquestionable; but just +where does it catch one's breath? Not altogether in the clean colouring, +like nothing so much as that of a cool, glazed dairy at home,--"milky- +blue," "cream-white," "butter-yellow," "parsley-green," all the dairy +names come pat to pen--; not necessarily in the sheer, April loveliness of +form and expression, though that would count for much; nor, I believe, as +Mr. Pater would have us acknowledge, in the evanescent delicacy of each +motive and sentiment,--the arresting of a single sigh, a single wave of +desire, a single stave of the Magnificat. All this is true, and true only +of Luca, and yet the whole charm is not there. Rather, I think, you will +find it in the fusing of humble material--the age-old clay of the potter +(of the Master-Potter, for that matter)--and fine art, whereby the wayside +shrine is linked to the high altar, and _contadino_ and Vicar- +Apostolic can hail a common ideal. Every lane, every cottage, has its +Madonna-shrine here; lumped in clay or daubed in raw colour, nothing can +obliterate the sweet sentiment of these poor weeds of art, these tawdry +little appeals to the better part of us. Madonna cries with a bared red +heart; she supports a white Christ; suave she stoops to enfold a legion of +children in her mantle. She is as Tuscan as the brownest of them; but a +Tuscan of the rarest mould, they would have you to see, of a cleanliness +quite unapproachable, of a benignity wholly divine. One learns the secret +of devotional art best of all in such ephemeral sanctuaries. And since +Fine Art is the flower of these shabby roots, Italy only, where +Cincinnatus worked in his garden, can furnish so wonderful a harmony of +opposites. Surely it is the most democratic country in Europe. I saw a +Colonel the other day, in Bologna, carrying a newspaper parcel. He was in +full uniform. It was the secret of Saint Francis that he knew how to +bridge the gulf on either side of which we, prisoners in feudal holds, +have cried to each other in vain. It was the secret of the Delia Robbia +too. The god shall sink that we may rise to meet him in the way. Why not? +Here in Pistoja are some precious pieces--a _Visitation_ in San +Giovanni, a pearly _Madonna Incoronata_ on the big door of San +Giacopo, concerning which it would be difficult to account to one's self +for the added zest given by the mantle of fine dust which has settled down +on the pale folds of the drapery and outlined the square blue panels of +the background. After all, is it not one more touch of the hedgerow, a +symbol of the hedgerow-faith not quite dead in the byeways of Italy? + +But I know I shall never convey the spontaneity with which Fra Paolino's +_Visitation_ strikes quick for the heart. The thing is so momentary, +a mere quiver of emotion passing from one woman to another. The pair of +them have looked in to the deeps. Then the older stumbles forward to her +knees, and the girl stoops down to raise her. One guesses the rest. They +will be sobbing together in a minute, the girl's face buried in the +other's shoulder. All you are to see is just the wistfulness,--"My dear! +my dear!" And then the Virgin, full of Grace, but a shy girl in her teens +for all that, hides her hot cheeks and cries her little wild heart to +quietness. Some of it is in Albertinelli's fine picture, but not all. All +of it--and here's the point--is to be seen in the street among these +clear-eyed Tuscan women, just as Fra Paolino (himself of Pistoja) saw it +before our time, and then fixed it for ever in blue and white. + +And now cross the Piazza and come down the steep incline by the Palazzo +Commune, turn to the left, and behold the crown of Pistoja, the Spedale +del Ceppo. Everybody knows Luca's masterpiece at Florence, the Foundling +Hospital on whose front are some twenty _bambini_ in pure white on +blue: babies or flowers, one does not know which. In 1514 the Pistolesi +remodelled their own hospital, and called in the successors to Luca's +mystery to make it joyful. Andrea, Giovanni, Luca II. and Girolamo came +and conjured in turn, and their wallflowers sprouted from the limewashed +sides. I fancy myself out in the patched Piazzo del Ceppo as I write, +looking again on the pleasant quietness of it all. It is a grey day with +thunder smouldering somewhere in the hills, close and heavy. The blind +walls about me stare hard in the raw light, but the wards of the hospital +are open back and front to the air; it is a rest for the eye to look into +their cool depths within the loggia. It is a square, very plain, yellow +building, this hospital, unrelieved save for its loggia, its painted +frieze of earthenware, and a rickety cross to denote its pious uses. +Through the wards I can see to the wet sky again and a gable-end of vivid +red and yellow. A thin black Christ on his cross stands up against this +bright square of distance, pathetic silhouette enough for me; reminder +something sinister, you might think, for the sick folk inside. But not so; +this is a crucifix, not a _Crucifixion_. This poor wooden Rood, +bowing in the shade, speaks not of high tragedy, but of the simple annals +of the poor again; not of St. John, but of St. Luke, I shall be called +sentimental; but with the band of garden colours before me I can't get +away from the streets and alleys, I am not sure the craftsmen intended I +should. + +The hospital itself is low and square; it is limewashed all over, and has +the blind and beaten aspect of all Italian houses:--red-purplish tiles +running into deep eaves, jalousied windows, and the loggia. It is on the +face of this that the workers in baked clay--"lavoro molto utile per la +state," so cool and fresh is it, so redolent of green pastures and the +winds of April--have moulded the Seven Acts of Pure Mercy in colours as +pure; blue of morning sky, grass-green, daffodil-yellow. Once more, no +heroics: here is what the workmen knew and we see. Black and white +_frati_, not idealised at all, but sleek and round in the jaw as a +monk will get on oil and _asciutta_, minister to sunburnt peasants, +and ruddy girls as massive in the waist and stout in the ankle as their +sisters of to-day. Then, of course, there is Allegory. Allegory of your +well-ordered, gravitated sort, which takes us no whit further from +wholesome earth and the men and women so plainly and happily made of it. +No soaring, no transcendentalism. Carità is a deep-breasted market-girl +nursing two brown babies, whom I have just seen sprawling over a gourd in +the Campo Marzio; Fortezza, Speranza, Fede, I know them all, bless their +sober, good eyes! in the fruit-market, or selling newspapers, or plaiting +straws in the Piazza. After this we slide into religion pure and direct, +the beautiful ridiculous Paganism which has never left the plain heathen- +folk. Wreathed medallions in the spandrils give us Mary warned, Mary +visited, Mary homing to her Son, Mary crowned; what would they do without +their Bona Dea in Tuscany? She is of them, and yet always a little beyond +their grasp. Not too far, however. That means Gothicism. The advantage of +the Italian religious ideal is obvious. Art may never leave for long +together the good brown earth; and it can serve religion well when it +plucks up a type to set, clean as God made it, just a little above our +reach, to show Whose is "the earth and the fulness thereof." + +An example. I leave the white and crumbling Piazza, its old marble well, +its beggars, its sick, and its meadow-fresh border of Delia Robbia +planting, and stray up the Via del Ceppo towards the ramparts. High at a +barred window a brown mother with a brown dependent baby smiles down upon +my wayfaring. She has fine broad brows and a patient face; when she +smiles, out of mere kindness for my solitary goings, it is pleasant to +note the gleam of light on her teeth and lips. I take off my hat, as Luca +or Lippo would have done, to "ma cousine la Reine des cieux." + +Thus goes life In Pistoja and the rest of the world. + + + +XIII + + +DEAD CHURCHES AT FOLIGNO + +From my roof-top, whither I am fled to snatch what cooler airs may drift +into this cup of earth, I can see above the straggling tiles of gable and +loggia the cupolas and belfries of many churches. I know they are all +dead; for I have wound a devious way through the close inhospitable +streets and met them or their ghosts at every corner. The ghost of a dead +church is the worst of all disembodied sighs: he wails and chatters at +you. Here I have seen churches whose towers were fallen and their tribunes +laid bare to the insults of the work-a-day world. There were churches with +ugly gashes in them, fresh and smarting still; some had sightless eyes, as +of skulls; and there were churches piecemeal and scattered like the +splinters of the True Cross. A great foliated arch of travertine would +frame a patch of plaster and soiled casement just broad enough for some +lolling pair of shoulders and shock-head atop; a sacred emblem, some +_Agnus_ indefinably venerable, some proud old cognisance of the See, +or frayed Byzantine symbol (plaited with infinite art by its former +contrivers), such and other consecrated fragments would stuff a hole to +keep the wind away from a donkey-stall or _Fabbrica di pasta_ in a +muddy lane. I met dismantled walls still blushing with the stains of +fresco--a saint's robe, the limp burden of the Addolorata;--I met texts +innumerable, shrines fly-ridden and, often as not, mocked with dead +flowers. And now, as I see these grey towers and the grand purple line of +the hills hemming in the Tiber Valley, I know I am come down to the sated +South, to the confines of Umbria, the country of dead churches, and of +Rome the metropolis of such deplorable broken toys. This appears to me the +disagreeable truth concerning the harbourage of Saint Francis and Saint +Bernardine, and of Roberto da Lecce, a man who, if everybody had his +rights, would be known as great in his way as either. You will remember +that Luther found it out before me. The religious enthusiasm we bring in +may serve our turn while we are here: it will be odd if any survive for +the return; impossible to go away as fervid as we come. Other enthusiasms +will fatten; but the wonderful Gothic adumbration of Christianity was born +in the North and has never been healthy anywhere else. Gothicism, driven +southward, runs speedily to seed; an amazing luxuriance, a riot, strange +flowers of heavy shapes and maddening savour; and then that worse +corruption to follow a perfection premature. So mediæval Christianity in +Umbria is a ruin, but not for Salvator Rosa; it has not been suffered a +dignified death. That is the sharpest cut of all, that the poor bleached +skull must be decked with paper roses. + +All this is forced upon me by my last days in Tuscany where a lower mean +has secured a serener reign. I had hardly realised the comeliness of its +intellectual vigour without this abrupt contrast. Pistoja, with its +pleasant worship of the wholesome in common life; Lucca, girdled with the +grey and green of her immemorial planes, and adorned with the silvery +gloss of old marble and stone-cutter's work exquisitely curious; then +Prato, dusty little handful of old brick palaces and black and white +towers, where I heard a mass before the high altar but two Sundays ago. +All Prato was in church that showery morning, I think. The air was close, +even in the depths of the great nave: the fans all about me kept up a +continual flicker, like bats' wings, and the men had to use their hats, or +handkerchiefs where they had them. To hear the responses rolling about the +chapels and echoing round the timbers of the roof you would have said the +thunder had come. It was too dark to see Lippi's light-hearted +secularities in the choir; one saw them, however, best in the +congregation--the same appealing innocence in the grey-eyed women, and the +men with the same grave self-possession and the same respectful but +deliberate concern with their own affairs which gives you the idea that +they are lending themselves to divine service rather out of politeness +than from any more intimate motive. Lippi saw this in Prato four centuries +ago, and I, after him, saw it all again in a rustic sacrifice which I +should find it hard to distinguish from earlier sacrifices in the same +spot. And indeed it is informed with precisely the same spirit, an +inarticulate reverence for the Dynamic in Nature. How many religions can +be reduced to that! In Florence again, what a hardy slip of the old stock +still survives! You may see how the worship of Venus Genetrix and Maria +Deipara merged in the work of Botticelli and Ghirlandajo, Michael Angelo +and Andrea del Sarto; you may see how, if asceticism has never thriven +there, there was (and still is) an effort after selection of some sort and +a scrupulous respect for the _elegantia quædam_ which Alberti held to +be almost divine; you may see, at least, a religion which still binds, and +which, making no great professions, has grown orderly and surely to +respect. Thus from a Tuscany, pagan, kindly, exuberant and desponding by +turns, but always ready with that long slow smile you first meet in the +Lorenzetti of Siena and afterwards find so tenderly expressed in its +different manifestations in the Delia Robbia and Botticelli--a smile where +patience and wistfulness struggle together and finally kiss,--I came down +to Umbria and a people dying of what M. Huysmans grandiosely calls "our +immense fatigue." Here is a people that has loved asceticism not wisely. +This asceticism, pushed to the limit where it becomes a kind of +sensuality, has bitten into Umbria's heart; and Umbria, with a cloyed +palate, sees her frescos peel and lets her sanctuaries out to bats and +green lizards. Surely the worst form of moral jaundice is where the +sufferer watches his affections palsy, but makes no stir. + +From the ramp of the citadel at Perugia you can guess what a hornet's nest +that grey stronghold of the Baglioni must have been. It commands the great +plain and bars the way to Rome. Westward, on a spur of rock, stands +Magione and a lonely tower: this was their outpost towards Siena. Eastward +there is a white patch on the distant hills--Spello, "mountain built with +quiet citadel," quiet enough now. There was always a Baglione at Spello +with his eyes set on chance comers from Foligno and Rome. Seen from +thence, _Augusta Perusia_ hangs like a storm cloud over her cliffs, +impregnable but by strategy, as wicked and beautiful as ever her former +masters, the Seven Deadly Sins, grandsons of Fortebraccio. The place is +like its history, of course, having, in fact, grown up with it: you might +say it was the incarnation of Perugia's spirit; it would only be to admit, +what is so obvious over here, that a town is the work of art of that +larger soul, the body politic. So to see the crazy streets cut in steps +and crevasses across and through the rocks, spanning a gorge with a stone +ladder or boring a twisted tunnel under the sheer of the Etruscan walls, +to note the churches innumerable and the foundations of the thirty +fortress-towers she once had--all this is to read the secret of Perugia's +two love affairs. Of her towers Julius II. left but two standing, blind +pillars of masonry; but there were thirty of them once, and the Baglioni +held them all, for a season. Now it was these wild Baglioni--"filling the +town with all manner of evil living," says Matarazzo, but nevertheless +intensely beloved for their bold bearing and beauty, as of young hawks;-- +it was just these blood-stained striplings, this Semonetto who rode +shouting into the Piazza after an affray and swept his clogged hair clear +of his eyes that he might see to kill, this black Astorre, "of the few +words," who was murdered in his shirt on his marriage-eve by his cousin +and best friend; it was this very cousin Grifone, so beautiful that "he +seemed an angel of Paradise," who, in his turn, was cut down and laid out +with his dead allies below San Lorenzo that his widow might not fail of +finding him and his marred fairness--it was just this stormy crew that +fell weeping at Suor Brigida's meek feet, confessed their sins and +received the Communion (encompassers and encompassed together, and all in +a rapture) on the very eve of the great slaughter of 1500; it was they who +adorned the Oratory of San Bernardino and made it the miracle of rose- +colour and blue that it is; who reared the enormous San Domenico below the +Gate of Mars, and who, in this hot-bed of enormity, nurtured Perugino's +dreamy Madonnas. What it meant I know not at all. There are other riddles +as hard in Umbria. Renan saw the gentle cadence of the landscape--violet +hills, the silver gauze of water, oliveyards all of a green mist; read the +_Fioretti_ and the dolorous ecstasies of Perugino's Sebastian, and +straightway adapted the high-flown parallel worked out in detail by +Giotto. Umbria for him was the Galilee of Italy, and Francis son of +Bernard an _avatar_ of Christ. But Renan was apt to allow his +emotions to ride him. Another dazzling contrast, which has recently +exercised another dextrous Frenchman, is Siena with her Saint Catherine +and her Sodoma who betrayed her--Saint Catherine, as great a force +politically as she was spiritually, and Sodoma, who painted her like a +Danaë with love-glazed eyes fainting before the apparition of the +Crucified Seraph. + +There is nothing like this in the history of Tuscany, whose palaces not +long were fortresses nor her monks at any time successful politicians. +Cosimo had pulled down the Florentine towers or ever the last Oddi had +loosed hold of Ridolfo's throat, I know that Siena is just within that +province geographically; in temperament, in art and manner, she has always +shown herself intensely Umbrian. Take, then, the case of Savonarola. The +Florentines received him gladly enough and heard him with honest +admiration, even enthusiasm. Still, there is reason to believe they took +him, in the main, spectacularly, as they also took that portentous old +monomaniac Gemisthos Pletho who made religions as we might make pills. +For, observe, Savonarola lost his head--and his life, good soul!--where +the Florentines did not. The cobbler went beyond his last when the +_Frate_ essayed politics. He suffered accordingly. But in Perugia, in +Siena, in Gubbio and Orvieto, the great revivalists Bernardine, Catherine, +Fra Roberto, held absolute rule over body and soul. For the moment +Baglione and Oddi kissed each other; all feuds were stayed; a man might +climb the black alleys of a night without any fear of a knife to yerk him +(the Ancient's word) under the ribs or noose round his neck to swing him +up to the archway withal. So Catherine brought back Boniface (and much +trouble) from Avignon, and Da Lecce wrote out a new constitution for some +rock-bound hive of the hills, whose crowd wailing in the market-place knew +the ecstasy of repentance, and ran riot in religious orgies very much +after the fashion of the Greater Dionysia or, say, the Salvation Army. And +how Niccolò Alunno would have painted the Salvation Army! + +So it does seem that the two great passions of Umbria burnt themselves out +together. They were, indeed, the two ends of the candle. When the Baglioni +fell in the black work of two August nights, only one escaped. And with +them died the love of the old lawless life and the infinite relish there +was for some positive foretaste of the life of the world to come. Both +lives had been lived too fast: from that day Perugia fell into a torpor, +as Perugino, the glass of his time and place, also fell. Perugino, we +know, had his doubts concerning the immortality of the soul, but painted +on his beautiful cloister-dreams, and knocked down his saints to the +highest bidder.[1] Vasari assures me that the chief solace of the old +prodigal in his end of days was to dress his young wife's hair in +fantastic coils and braids. A prodigal he was--true Peruginese in that-- +prodigal of the delicate meats his soul afforded. His end may have been +unedifying; it must at least have been very pitiful. Nowadays his name +stands upon the Corso Vannucci of the town he uttered, and in the court +wall of a little recessed and colonnaded house in the Via Deliziosa. +Meantime his frescos drop mildewed from chapel walls or are borne away to +a pauper funeral in the Palazzo Communale. + +[Footnote 1: See, however, what he has to say for himself in Chapter V. +_ante._] + +In his finely studied _Sensations_ M. Paul Bourget, it seems to me, +flogs the air and fails to climb it when he struggles to lay open the +causes of poor Vannucci's embittering. If ever painting took up the office +of literature it was in the fifteenth century. The _quattrocentisti_ +stand to Italy for our Elizabethan dramatists. This may have produced bad +painting: Mr. George Moore will tell you that it did. I am not sure that +it very greatly matters, for, failing a literature which was really +dramatic, really poetical, really in any sense representative, it was as +well that there led an outlet somewhere. At any rate Lippi and Botticelli, +to those who know them, are expressive of the Florentine temper when Pulci +and Politian are distorted echoes of another; Perugino leads us into the +recesses of Perugia while Graziani keeps us fumbling at the lock. And +Perugino's languorous boys and maids are the figments of a riotous erotic, +of a sensuous fancy without imagination or intelligence or humour. His +Alcibiades, or Michael Archangel, seems green-sick with a love mainly +physical; his Socrates has the combed resignation of his Jeromes and +Romualds--smoothly ordered old men set in the milky light of Umbrian +mornings and dreaming out placid lives by the side of a moonfaced Umbrian +beauty, who is now Mary and now Luna as chance motions his hand. How +penetrating, how distinctive by the side of them seems Sandro's slim and +tearful Anima Mundi shivering in the chill dawn! With what a strange magic +does Filippino usher in the pale apparition of the Mater Dolorosa to his +Bernard, or flush her up again to a heaven of blue-green and a glory of +burning cherubim! This he does, you remember, with rocket-like effect, in +a chapel of the Minerva in Rome. But it is the unquenchable thirst of the +Umbrians for some spiritual nutriment, some outlet for their passion to be +found only in bloodshed or fainting below the Cross, some fierce and +untameable animal quality such as you see to-day in the torn gables, the +towers and bastions of Perugia, it is the spirit which informed and made +these things you get in Perugino's pictures--in the hot sensualism of +their colour-scheme, the ripeness and bloom of physical beauty encasing +the vague longing of a too-rapid adolescence. The desire could never be +fed and the bloom wore off. Look at Duccio's work on the facade of San +Bernardino, Duccio was a Florentine, but where in Florence would you see +his like? What a revel of disproportion in these long-legged nymphs, full- +lipped and narrow-eyed as any of Rossetti's curious imaginings. Take the +Povertà, a weedy girl with the shrinking paps of a child. Here again +(exquisite as she is in modelling and intensity of expression) you get the +enticement of a malformation which is absolutely un-Greek--unless you are +to count Phrygia within the magic ring-fence--and only to be equalled by +the luxury of Beccadelli. You get that in Sodoma too, the handy Lombard; +you have it in Perugino and all the Umbrians (in some form or other); but +never, I think, in the genuine Tuscan--not even in Botticelli--and never, +of course, in the Venetians, Duccio modelled these things while the Delia +Robbia were at their Hellenics; and a few years after he did them came the +end of the Baglioai and all such gear. The end of real Umbrian art was not +long. Perugino awoke to have his doubts of the soul's immortality. No +great wonder there, perhaps, given he acknowledged a merciful heaven.... + +I chanced to meet an old woman the other day in a country omnibus. We +journeyed together from Prato to Florence and became very friendly. Your +dry old woman, who hath had losses, who has become, in fact, world-worn +and very wise, or like one of Shakespeare's veterans--the Grave-digger, or +the Countryman in _Antony and Cleopatra_--has probed the ball and +found it hollow; such a battered and fortified soul in petticoats is +peculiar to Italy, and countries where the women work and the men, +pocketing their hands, keep sleek looks. We had just passed a pleasant +little procession. It was Sunday, the hour Benediction. A staid nun was +convoying a party of school-girls to church; whereupon I remarked to my +neighbour on their pretty bearing, a sort of artless piety and of +attention for unknown but not impossible blessings which they had about +them. But my old woman took small comfort from it. She knew those cattle, +she said: Capuchins, Jacobins, Black, White and Grey,--knew them all. +Well! Everybody had his way of making a living: hers was knitting +stockings. A hard life, _via_, but an honest. Here it became me to +urge that the religious life might have its compensations, without which +it would perhaps be harder than knitting stockings; that one needed +relaxation and would do well to be sure that it was at least innocent. +Relaxation of a kind, said she, a man must have. Snuff now! She was +inveterate at the sport. The view was very dry; but I think its reasoned +limitations also very Tuscan, and by no means exclusive of a tolerable +amount of piety and honest dealing. Foligno, by mere contrast reminds me +of it--busy Foligno huddled between the mighty knees of a chalk down, city +of fallen churches and handsome girls, just now parading the streets with +their fans a-flutter and a pretty turn to each veiled head of them. + +As I write the light dies down, the wind drops, huge inky clouds hang over +the west; the sun, as he falls behind them, sets them kindling at the +edge. The worn old bleached domes, the bell-towers and turrets looming in +the blue dusk, seem to sigh that the century moves so slowly forward. How +many more must they endure of these? + +It is the hour of Ave Maria. But only two cracked bells ring it in. + + + +ENVOY: TO ALL YOU LADIES + + +Lovely and honourable ladies, it is, as I hold, no mean favour you have +accorded me, to sit still and smiling while I have sung to your very faces +a stave verging here and there on the familiar. You have sat thus enduring +me, because, being wrought for the most part out of stone or painter's +stuff, your necessities have indeed forbidden retirement. Yet my +obligations should not on that account be lighter. He would be a thin +spirit who should gain a lady's friendly regard, and then vilipend because +she knew no better, or could not choose. I hope indeed that I have done +you no wrong, _gentildonne_, I protest that I have meant none; but +have loved you all as a man may, who has, at most, but a bowing +acquaintance with your ladyships. As I recall your starry names, no blush +hinting unmannerliness suspect and unconfessed hits me on the cheek:-- +Simonetta, Ilaria, Nenciozza, Bettina; you too, candid Mariota of Prato; +you, flinching little Imola; and you, snuff-taking, wool-carding ancient +lady of the omnibus--scorner of monks, I have kissed your hands, I have at +least given our whole commerce frankly to the world; and I know not how +any shall say we have been closer acquainted than we should. You, tall +Ligurian Simonetta, loved of Sandro, mourned by Giuliano and, for a +seasons by his twisted brother and lord, have done well to utter but one +side of your wild humour? The side a man would take, struck, as your +Sandro was, by a nympholepsy, or, as Lorenzo was, by the rhymer's appetite +for wherewithal to sonnetteer? If I understand you, it was never pique or +a young girl's petulance drove you to Phryne's one justifiable act of +self-assertion. It was honesty. Madonna, or I have read your grey eyes in +vain; it was enthusiasm--that flame of our fire so sacred that though it +play the incendiary there shall be no crime--or where would be now the +"Vas d'elezione"?--nor though it reveal a bystander's grin, any shame at +all. I shall live to tell that story of thine, Lady Simonetta, to thy +honour and my own respect; for, as a poet says, + +"There is no holier flame +Than flatters torchwise in a stripling heart, +... a fire from Heaven +To ash the clay of us, and wing the God." + +I have seen all memorials of you left behind to be pondered by him who +played Dante to your Beatrice, Sandro the painting poet,--the proud +clearness of you as at the marriage feast of Nastagio degli Onesti; the +melting of the sorrow that wells from you in a tide, where you hold the +book of your overmastering honour and read _Magnificat Anima Mea_ +with a sob in your throat; your acquaintance, too, with that grief which +was your own hardening; your sojourn, wan and woebegone as would become +the wife of Moses (maker of jealous gods); all these guises of you, as +well as the presentments of your innocent youth, I have seen and adored. +But I have ever loved you most where you stand a wistful Venus Anadyomenè-- +"Una donzella non con uman volto," as Politian confessed; for I know your +heart, Madonna, and see on the sharp edge of your threatened life, Ardour +look back to maiden Reclusion, and on (with a pang of foreboding) to +mockery and evil judgment. Never fear but I brave your story out to the +world ere many days. And if any, with profane leer and tongue in the +cheek, take your sorrow for reproach or your pitifulness for a shame, let +them receive the lash of the whip from one who will trouble to wield it: +_non ragioniam di lor_. For your honourable women I give you Ilaria, +the slim Lucchesan, and my little Bettincina, a child yet with none of the +vaguer surmises of adolescence when it flushes and dawns, but likely +enough, if all prosper, to be no shame to your company. As yet she is +aptest to Donatello's fancy: she will grow to be of a statelier bevy. I +see her in Ghirlandajo's garden, pacing, still-eyed, calm and cold, with +Ginevra de' Benci and Giovanna of the Albizzi, those quiet streets on a +visit to the mother of John Baptist. + +Mariota, the hardy wife of the metal-smith, is not for one of your +quality, though the wench is well enough now with her baby on her arm and +the best of her seen by a poet and made enduring. He, like our Bernardo, +had motherhood in such esteem that he held it would ransom a sin. A sin? I +am no casuïst to discuss rewards and punishments; but if Socrates were +rightly informed and sin indeed ignorance, I have no whips for Mariota's +square shoulders. Her baby, I warrant, plucked her from the burning. I am +not so sure but you might find in that girl a responsive spirit, and--is +the saying too hard?--a teacher. Contentment with a few things was never +one of your virtues, madam. + +There is a lady whose name has been whispered through my pages, a lady +with whom I must make peace if I can. Had I known her, as Dante did, in +the time of her nine-year excellence and followed her (with an interlude, +to be sure, for Gentucca) through the slippery ways of two lives with much +eating of salt bread, I might have grown into her favour. But I never did +know Monna Beatrice Portinari; and when I met her afterwards as my Lady +Theologia I thought her something imperious and case-hardened. Now here +and there some words of mine (for she has a high stomach) may have given +offence. I have hinted that her court is a slender one in Italy, the +service paid her lip-service; the lowered eyes and bated breath reserved +for her; but for Fede her sister, tears and long kisses and the clinging. +Well! the Casa Cattolica is a broad foundation: I find Francis of Umbria +at the same board with Sicilian Thomas. If I cleave to the one must I +despise the other? Lady Fede has my heart and Lady Dottrina must put aside +the birch if she would share that little kingdom. _Religio habet_, +said Pico; _theologia autem invenit_. Let her find. But she must be +speedy, for I promise her the mood grows on me as I become +_italianato_; and I cannot predict when the other term of the +proposition may be accomplished. For one thing, Lady Theologia, I praise +you not. Sympathy seems to me of the essence, the healing touch an +excellent thing in woman. But you told Virgil, + +"Io son fatta da Dio, sua mercè, tale, +Che la vostra miseria non mi tange." + +Sympathy, Madonna? And Virgil hopeless! On these terms I had rather gloom +with the good poet (whose fault in your eyes was that he knew in what he +had believed) than freeze with you and Aquinas on your peak of hyaline. +And as I have found you, Donna Beatrice, so in the main have they of whom +I pitch my pipe. Here and there a man of them got exercise for his fingers +in your web; here and there one, as Pico the young Doctor of yellow hair +and nine hundred heresies, touched upon the back of your ivory dais that +he might jump from thence to the poets out beyond you in the Sun. Your +great Dante, too, loved you through all. But, Madonna, he had loved you +before when you were-- + +Donna pietosa e di novella etade, + +and, as became his lordly soul, might never depart from the faith he had +in you. For me, I protest I love Religion your warm-bosomed mate too well +to turn from her; yet I would not on that account grieve her (who treats +you well out of the cup of her abounding charity) by aspersing you. And if +I may not kiss your foot as you would desire, I may bow when I am in the +way with you; not thanking God I am not as you are, but, withal, wishing +you that degree of interest in a really excellent world with which He has +blessed me and my like, the humble fry. + +Lastly, to the Spirits which are in the shrines of the cities of Tuscany, +I lift up my hands with the offering of my thin book. To Lucca dove-like +and demure, to Prato, the brown country-girl, to Pisa, winsome maid-of- +honour to the lady of the land, to Pistoja, the ruddy-haired and ample, +and to Siena, the lovely wretch, black-eyed and keen as a hawk; even to +Perugia, the termagant, with a scar on her throat; but chiefest to the +Lady Firenze, the pale Queen crowned with olive--to all of you, adored and +adorable sisters, I offer homage as becomes a postulant, the repentance of +him who has not earned his reward, thanksgiving, and the praise I have not +been able to utter. And I send you, Book, out to those ladies with the +supplication of good Master Cino, schoolman and poet, saying, + +E se tu troverai donne gentile, +Ivi girai; chè là ti vo mandare; +E dono a lor d' audienza chiedi. + +Poi di a costor: Gittatevi a lor piedi, +E dite, chi vi manda e per che fare, +Udite donne, esti valletti umili. + + + + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, EARTHWORK OUT OF TUSCANY *** + +This file should be named 8858-8.txt or 8858-8.zip + +Project Gutenberg eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the US +unless a copyright notice is included. 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