Enthusiasm begets enthusiasm. Flemming spake with such evident interest in the subject, that Miss Ashburton did not fail to manifest some interest in what he said; and, encouraged by this, he proceeded;
“Thus in this wondrous world wherein we live, which is the World of Nature, man has made unto himself another world hardly less wondrous, which is the World of Art. And it lies infolded and compassed about by the other,
‘And the clear region where ‘t was born,
Round in itself incloses.’
Taking this view of art, I think we understand more easily the skill of the artist, and the differencebetween him and the mere amateur. What we call miracles and wonders of art are not so to him who created them. For they were created by the natural movements of his own great soul. Statues, paintings, churches, poems, are but shadows of himself; — shadows in marble, colors, stone, words. He feels and recognises their beauty; but he thought these thoughts and produced these things as easily as inferior minds do thoughts and things inferior. Perhaps more easily. Vague images and shapes of beauty floating through the soul, the semblances of things as yet indefinite or ill-defined, and perfect only when put in art, — this Possible Intellect, as the Scholastic Philosophers have termed it, — the artist shares in common with us all. The lovers of art are many. But the Active Intellect, the creative power, — the power to put these shapes and images in art, to imbody the indefinite, and render perfect, is his alone. He shares the gift with few. He knows not even whence nor how this is. He knows only that it is; that God has given him the power, which has been denied to others.”
“I should have known you were just from Germany,” said the lady, with a smile, “even if you had not told me so. You are an enthusiast for the Germans. For my part I cannot endure their harsh language.”
“You would like it better, if you knew it better,” answered Flemming. “It is not harsh to me; but homelike, hearty, and full of feeling, like the sound of happy voices at a fireside, of a winter’s night, when the wind blows, and the fire crackles, and hisses, and snaps. I do indeed love the Germans; the men are so hale and hearty, and the Fräuleins so tender and true!”
“I always think of men with pipes and beer, and women with knittingwork.”
“O, those are English prejudices,” exclaimed Flemming. “Nothing can be more—”
“And their very literature presents itself to my imagination under the same forms.”
“I see you have read only English criticisms; and have an idea, that all German books smell, as it were, ‘of groceries, of brown papers, filled withgreasy cakes and slices of bacon; and of fryings in frowzy back-parlours; and this shuts you out from a glorious world of poetry, romance, and dreams!”
Mary Ashburton smiled, and Flemming continued to turn over the leaves of the sketch-book, with an occasional criticism and witticism. At length he came to a leaf which was written in pencil. People of a lively imagination are generally curious, and always so when a little in love.
“Here is a pencil-sketch,” said he, with an entreating look, “which I would fain examine with the rest.”
“You may do so, if you wish; but you will find it the poorest sketch in the book. I was trying one day to draw the picture of an artist’s life in Rome, as it presented itself to my imagination; and this is the result. Perhaps it may awaken some pleasant recollection in your mind.”
Flemming waited no longer; but read with the eyes of a lover, not of a critic, the following description, which inspired him with a new enthusiasm for Art, and for Mary Ashburton.
“I often reflect with delight upon the young artist’s life in Rome. A stranger from the cold and gloomy North, he has crossed the Alps, and with the devotion of a pilgrim journeyed to the Eternal City. He dwells perhaps upon the Pincian Hill; and hardly a house there, which is not inhabited by artists from foreign lands. The very room he lives in has been their abode from time out of mind. Their names are written all over the walls; perhaps some further record of them left in a rough sketch upon the window-shutter, with an inscription and a date. These things consecrate the place, in his imagination. Even these names, though unknown to him, are not without associations in his mind.
“In that warm latitude he rises with the day. The night-vapors are already rolling away over the Campagna sea-ward. As he looks from his window, above and beyond their white folds he recognises the tremulous blue sea at Ostia. Over Soracte rises the sun, — over his own beloved mountain; though no longer worshipped there, asof old. Before him, the antique house, where Raphael lived, casts its long, brown shadow down into the heart of modern Rome. The city lies still asleep and silent. But above its dark roofs, more than two hundred steeples catch the sunshine on their gilded weather-cocks. Presently the bells begin to ring, and, as the artist listens to their pleasant chimes, he knows that in each of those churches over the high altar, hangs a painting by some great master’s hand, whose beauty comes between him and heaven, so that he cannot pray, but wonder only.
“Among these works of art he passes the day; but oftenest in St. Peter’s and the Vatican. Up the vast marble stair-case, — through the Corridor Chiaramonti, — through vestibules, galleries, chambers, — he passes, as in a dream. All are filled with busts and statues; or painted in daring frescoes. What forms of strength and beauty! what glorious creations of the human mind! and in that last chamber of all, standing alone upon his pedestal, the Apollo found at Actium, — in such a majestic attitude, — with such a noble countenance, life-like, god-like!
“Or perhaps he passes into the chambers of the painters; but goes no further than the second. For in the middle of that chamber a large painting stands upon the heavy easel, as if unfinished, though more than three hundred years ago the great artist completed it, and then laid his pencil away forever, leaving this last benediction to the world. It is the Transfiguration of Christ by Raphael. A child looks not at the stars with greater wonder, than the artist at this painting. He knows how many studious years are in that picture. He knows the difficult path that leads to perfection, having himself taken some of the first steps. — Thus he recalls the hour, when that broad canvass was first stretched upon its frame, and Raphael stood before it, and laid the first colors upon it, and beheld the figures one by one born into life, and ‘looked upon the work of his own hands with a smile, that it should have succeeded so well.’ He recalls too, the hour, when, the task accomplished, the pencil dropped from the master’s dying hand, and his eyes closed to open on a more glorious transfiguration, and at length the dead Raphael lay in his own studio, before this wonderful painting, more glorious than any conqueror under the banners and armorial hatchments of his funeral!
“Think you, that such sights and thoughts as these do not move the heart of a young man and an artist! And when he goes forth into the open air, the sun is going down, and the gray ruins of an antique world receive him. From the Palace of the Cæsars he looks down into the Forum, or towards the Coliseum; or westward sees the last sunshine strike the bronze Archangel, which stands upon the Tomb of Adrian. He walks amid a world of Art in ruins. The very street-lamps, that light him homeward, burn before some painted or sculptured image of the Madonna! What wonder is it, if dreams visit him in his sleep, — nay, if his whole life seem to him a dream! What wonder, if, with a feverish heart and quick hand, he strive to reproduce those dreams in marble or on canvass.”
Foolish Paul Flemming! who both admired and praised this little sketch, and yet was too blind to see, that it was written from the heart, and not from the imagination! Foolish Paul Flemming! who thought, that a girl of twenty could write thus, without a reason! Close upon this followed another pencil sketch, which he likewise read, with the lady’s permission. It was this.
“The whole period of the Middle Ages seems very strange to me. At times I cannot persuade myself that such things could have been, as history tells us; that such a strange world was a part of our world, — that such a strange life was a part of the life, which seems to us wh
o are living it now, so passionless and commonplace. It is only when I stand amid ruined castles, that look at me so mournfully, and behold the heavy armour of old knights, hanging upon the wainscot of Gothic chambers; or when I walk amid the aisles of some dusky minster, whose walls are narrative ofhoar antiquity, and whose very bells have been baptized, and see the carved oaken stalls in the choir, where so many generations of monks have sat and sung, and the tombs, where now they sleep in silence, to awake no more to their midnight psalms; — it is only at such times, that the history of the Middle Ages is a reality to me, and not a passage in romance.
“Likewise the illuminated manuscripts of those ages have something of this power of making the dead Past a living Present in my mind. What curious figures are emblazoned on the creaking parchment, making its yellow leaves laugh with gay colors! You seem to come upon them unawares. Their faces have an expression of wonder. They seem all to be just startled from their sleep by the sound you made when you unloosed the brazen clasps, and opened the curiously-carved oaken covers, that turn on hinges, like the great gates of a city. To the building of that city some diligent monk gave the whole of a long life. With what strange denizens he peopled it! Adam and Eve standing under a tree, she, with the apple in her hand; — the patriarch Abraham, with a tree growing out of his body, and his descendants sitting owl-like upon its branches; — ladies with flowing locks of gold; knights in armour, with most fantastic, long-toed shoes; jousts and tournaments; and Minnesingers, and lovers, whose heads reach to the towers, where their ladies sit; — and all so angular, so simple, so childlike, — all in such simple attitudes, with such great eyes, and holding up such long, lank fingers! — These things are characteristic of the Middle Ages, and persuade me of the truth of history.”
At this moment Berkley entered, with a Swiss cottage, which he had just bought as a present for somebody’s child in England; and a cane with a chamois-horn on the end of it, which he had just bought for himself. This was the first time, that Flemming had been sorry to see the good-natured man. His presence interrupted the delightful conversation he was carrying on “under four eyes,” with Mary Ashburton. He reallythought Berkley a bore, and wondered it had never occurred to him before. Mrs. Ashburton, too, must needs lay down her book; and the conversation became general. Strange to say, the Swiss dinner-hour of one o’clock, did not come a moment too soon for Flemming. It did not even occur to him that it was early; for he was seated beside Mary Ashburton, and at dinner one can say so much, without being overheard.
CHAPTER VI. AFTER DINNER, AND AFTER THE MANNER OF THE BEST CRITICS.
When the learned Thomas Diafoirus wooed the fair Angélique, he drew from his pocket a medical thesis, and presented it to her, as the first-fruits of his genius; and at the same time, invited her, with her father’s permission, to attend the dissection of a woman, upon whom he was to lecture. Paul Flemming did nearly the same thing; and so often, that it had become a habit. He was continually drawing, from his pocket or his memory, some scrap of song or story; and inviting some fair Angélique, either with her father’s permission or without, to attend the dissection of anauthor, upon whom he was to discourse. He soon gave proofs of this to Mary Ashburton.
“What books have we here for afternoon reading?” said Flemming, taking a volume from the parlour table, when they had returned from the dining-room. “O, it is Uhland’s Poems. Have you read any thing of his? He and Tieck are the best living poets of Germany. They dispute the palm of superiority. Let me give you a lesson in German, this afternoon, Miss Ashburton; so that no one may accuse you of ‘omitting the sweet benefit of time, to clothe your age with angel-like perfection.’ I have opened at random upon the ballad of the Black Knight. You repeat the German after me, and I will translate to you. Pfingsten war, das Fest der Freude!”
“I should never persuade my unwilling lips to pronounce such sounds. So I beg you not to perplex me with your German, but read me the ballad in English.”
“Well, then, listen. I will improvise a translation for your own particular benefit.
“‘T was Pentecost, the Feast of Gladness,
When woods and fields put off all sadness.
Thus began the King and spake;
‘So from the halls
Of ancient Hofburg’s walls,
A luxuriant Spring shall break.’
“Drums and trumpets echo loudly,
Wave the crimson banners proudly.
From balcony the King looked on;
In the play of spears,
Fell all the cavaliers,
Before the monarch’s stalwart son.
“To the barrier of the fight,
Rode at last a sable Knight.
‘Sir Knight! your name and scutcheon, say!’
‘Should I speak it here,
Ye would stand aghast with fear;
Am a Prince of mighty sway!’
“When he rode into the lists,
The arch of heaven grew black with mists,
And the castle ‘gan to rock.
At the first blow,
Fell the youth from saddle-bow,
Hardly rises from the shock.
“Pipe and viol call the dances,
Torch-light through the high halls glances;
Waves a mighty shadow in.
With manner bland
Doth ask the maiden’s hand,
Doth with her the dance begin.
“Danced in sable iron sark,
Danced a measure weird and dark,
Coldly clasped her limbs around.
From breast and hair
Down fall from her the fair
Flowerets wilted to the ground.
“To the sumptuous banquet came
Every Knight and every Dame.
‘Twixt son and daughter all distraught,
With mournful mind
The ancient King reclined,
Gazed at them in silent thought.
“Pale the children both did look,
But the guest a beaker took;
‘Golden wine will make you whole!”
The children drank,
Gave many a courteous thank;
‘O that draught was very cool!’
“Each the father’s breast embraces,
Son and daughter; and their faces
Colorless grow utterly.
Whichever way
Looks the fear-struck father gray,
He beholds his children die.
“ ‘Woe! the blessed children both,
Takest thou in the joy of youth;
Take me, too, the joyless father!’
Spake the Grim Guest,
From his hollow, cavernous breast;
‘Roses in the spring I gather!’”
“That is indeed a striking ballad!” said Miss Ashburton, “but rather too grim and ghostly for this dull afternoon.”
“It begins joyously enough with the feast of Pentecost, and the crimson banners at the old castle. Then the contrast is well managed. The Knight in black mail, and the waving in of the mighty shadow in the dance, and the dropping of the faded flowers, are all strikingly presented to the imagination. However, it tellsits own story, and needs no explanation. Here is something in a different vein, though still melancholy. The Castle by the Sea. Shall I read it?”
“Yes, if you like.”
Flemming read;
“Hast thou seen that lordly castle,
That Castle by the Sea?
Golden and red above it
The clouds float gorgeously.
“And fain it would stoop downward
To the mirrored wave below;
And fain it would soar upward
In the evening’s crimson glow.
“ ‘Well have I seen that castle,
That Castle by the Sea,
And the moon above it standing,
And the mist rise solemnly.’
“The winds and the waves of ocean,
Had they a merry chime?
Didst thou hear, from those lofty chambers,
The harp and the minstrel’s rhyme?
“ ‘The winds and the waves of ocean,
They rested quietly,
But I heard on the gale a sound of wail,
And tears came to my eye.’
“And sawest thou on the turrets
The King and his royal bride?
And the wave of their crimson mantles?
And the golden crown of pride?
“Led they not forth in rapture
A beauteous maiden there?
Resplendent as the morning sun,
Beaming with golden hair?
“ ‘Well saw I the ancient parents,
Without the crown of pride;
They were moving slow, in weeds of woe,
No maiden was by their side!’
How do you like that?”
“It is very graceful, and pretty. But Uhland seems to leave a great deal to his reader’s imagination. All his readers should be poets themselves, or they will hardly comprehend him. I confess, Ihardly understand the passage where he speaks of the castle’s stooping downward to the mirrored wave below, and then soaring upward into the gleaming sky. I suppose, however, he wishes to express the momentary illusion we experience at beholding a perfect reflection of an old tower in the sea, and look at it as if it were not a mere shadow in the water; and yet the real tower rises far above, and seems to float in the crimson evening clouds. Is that the meaning?”
“I should think it was. To me it is all a beautiful cloud landscape, which I comprehend and feel, and yet should find some difficulty perhaps in explaining.”
“And why need one always explain? Some feelings are quite untranslatable. No language has yet been found for them. They gleam upon us beautifully through the dim twilight of fancy, and yet, when we bring them close to us, and hold them up to the light of reason, lose their beauty, all at once; just as glow-worms, which gleam with such a spiritual light in the shadows of evening, when brought in where the candlesare lighted, are found to be only worms, like so many others.”
Delphi Complete Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (Delphi Poets Series Book 13) Page 164
