Complete Works of Harriet Beecher Stowe

by Harriet Beecher Stowe

  For it must be remarked in justice of the Christian religion, that the Italian people never rose to the honors of originality in the beautiful arts till inspired by Christianity. The Art of ancient Rome was a second-hand copy of the original and airy Greek, — often clever, but never vivid and self-originating. It is to the religious Art of the Middle Ages, to the Umbrian and Florentine schools particularly, that we look for the peculiar and characteristic flowering of the Italian mind. When the old Greek Art revived again in modern Europe, though at first it seemed to add richness and grace to this peculiar development, it smothered and killed it at last, as some brilliant tropical parasite exhausts the life of the tree it seems at first to adorn. Raphael and Michel Angelo mark both the perfected splendor and the commenced decline of original Italian Art; and just in proportion as their ideas grew less Christian and more Greek did the peculiar vividness and intense flavor of Italian nationality pass away from them. They became again like the ancient Romans, gigantic imitators and clever copyists, instead of inspired kings and priests of a national development.

  The tones of the monk’s morning hymn awakened both Agnes and Elsie, and the latter was on the alert instantly.

  “Bless my soul!” she said, “brother Antonio has a marvelous power of lungs; he is at it the first thing in the morning. It always used to be so; when he was a boy, he would wake me up before daylight singing.”

  “He is happy, like the birds,” said Agnes, “because he flies near heaven.”

  “Like enough: he was always a pious boy; his prayers and his pencil were ever uppermost: but he was a poor hand at work: he could draw you an olive-tree on paper; but set him to dress it, and any fool would have done better.”

  The morning rites of devotion and the simple repast being over, Elsie prepared to go to her business. It had occurred to her that the visit of her brother was an admirable pretext for withdrawing Agnes from the scene of her daily traffic, and of course, as she fondly supposed, keeping her from the sight of the suspected admirer.

  Neither Agnes nor the monk had disturbed her serenity by recounting the adventure of the evening before. Agnes had been silent from the habitual reserve which a difference of nature ever placed between her and her grandmother, — a difference which made confidence on her side an utter impossibility. There are natures which ever must be silent to other natures, because there is no common language between them. In the same house, at the same board, sharing the same pillow even, are those forever strangers and foreigners, whose whole stock of intercourse is limited to a few brief phrases on the commonest material wants of life, and who, as soon as they try to go farther, have no words that are mutually understood.

  “Agnes,” said her grandmother, “I shall not need you at the stand to-day. There is that new flax to be spun,112 and you may keep company with your uncle. I’ll warrant me, you’ll be glad enough of that!”

  “Certainly I shall,” said Agnes, cheerfully. “Uncle’s comings are my holidays.”

  “I will show you somewhat further on my Breviary,” said the monk. “Praised be God, many new ideas sprang up in my mind last night, and seemed to shoot forth in blossoms. Even my dreams have often been made fruitful in this divine work.”

  “Many a good thought comes in dreams,” said Elsie; “but, for my part, I work too hard and sleep too sound to get much that way.”

  “Well, brother,” said Elsie, after breakfast, “you must look well after Agnes to-day; for there be plenty of wolves go round, hunting these little lambs.”

  “Have no fear, sister,” said the monk, tranquilly; “the angels have her in charge. If our eyes were only clear-sighted, we should see that Christ’s little ones are never alone.”

  “All that is fine talk, brother; but I never found that the angels attended to any of my affairs, unless I looked after them pretty sharp myself; and as for girls, the dear Lord knows they need a legion apiece to look after them. What with roystering fellows and smooth-tongued gallants, and with silly, empty-headed hussies like that Giulietta, one has much ado to keep the best of them straight. Agnes is one of the best, too, — a well-brought up, pious, obedient girl, and industrious as a bee. Happy is the husband who gets her. I would I knew a man good enough for her.”

  This conversation took place while Agnes was in the garden picking oranges and lemons, and filling the basket which her grandmother was to take to the town. The silver ripple of a hymn that she was singing came through the open door; it was part of a sacred ballad in honor of Saint Agnes: —

  “Bring me no pearls to bind my hair,

  No sparkling jewels bring to me!

  Dearer by far the blood-red rose

  That speaks of Him who died for me.

  “Ah! vanish every earthly love,

  All earthly dreams forgotten be!

  My heart is gone beyond the stars,

  To live with Him who died for me.”

  “Hear you now, sister,” said the monk, “how the Lord keeps the door of this maiden’s heart? There is no fear of her; and I much doubt, sister, whether you would do well to interfere with the evident call this child hath to devote herself wholly to the Lord.”

  “Oh, you talk, brother Antonio, who never had a child in your life, and don’t know how a mother’s heart warms towards her children and her children’s children! The saints, as I said, must be reasonable, and oughtn’t to be putting vocations into the head of an old woman’s only staff and stay; and if they oughtn’t to, why, then, they won’t. Agnes is a pious child, and loves her prayers and hymns; and so she will love her husband, one of these days, as an honest woman should.”

  “But you know, sister, that the highest seats in Paradise are reserved for the virgins who follow the Lamb.”

  “Maybe so,” said Elsie, stiffly; “but the lower seats are good enough for Agnes and me. For my part, I would rather have a little comfort as I go along, and put up with less in Paradise (may our dear Lady bring us safely there!) say I.”

  So saying, Elsie raised the large, square basket of golden fruit to her head, and turned her stately figure towards the scene of her daily labors.

  The monk seated himself on the garden wall, with his portfolio by his side, and seemed busily sketching and retouching some of his ideas. Agnes wound some silvery-white flax round her distaff, and seated herself near him under an orange tree; and while her small fingers were twisting the flax, her large, thoughtful eyes were wandering off on the deep blue sea, pondering over and over the strange events of the day before, and the dreams of the night.

  “Dear child,” said the monk, “have you thought more of what I said to you?”

  A deep blush suffused her cheek as she answered, —

  “Yes, uncle; and I had a strange dream last night.”

  “A dream, my little heart? Come, then, and tell it to its uncle. Dreams are the hushing of the bodily senses, that the eyes of the Spirit may open.”

  “Well, then,” said Agnes, “I dreamed that I sat pondering as I did last evening in the moonlight, and that an angel came forth from the trees” —

  “Indeed!” said the monk, looking up with interest; “what form had he?”

  “He was a young man, in dazzling white raiment, and his eyes were deep as eternity; and over his forehead was a silver flame, and he bore a lily-stalk in his hand, which was like what you told of, with light in itself.”

  “That must have been the holy Gabriel,” said the monk, “the angel that came to our blessed Mother. Did he say aught?”

  “Yes, he touched my forehead with the lily, and a sort of cool rest and peace went all through me, and he said, ‘The Lord hath sealed thee for his own!’”

  “Even so,” said the monk, looking up, and crossing himself devoutly, “by this token I know that my prayers are answered.”

  “But, dear uncle,” said Agnes, hesitating and blushing painfully, “there was one singular thing about my dream, — this holy angel had yet a strange likeness to the young man that came here last night, so that I c
ould not but marvel at it.”

  “It may be that the holy angel took on him in part this likeness to show how glorious a redeemed soul might become, that you might be encouraged to pray. The holy Saint Monica thus saw the blessed Augustine standing clothed in white among the angels while he was yet a worldling and unbeliever, and thereby received the grace to continue her prayers for thirty years, till she saw him a holy bishop. This is a sure sign that this young man, whoever he may be, shall attain Paradise through your prayers. Tell me, dear little heart, is this the first angel thou hast seen?”

  “I never dreamed of them before. I have dreamed of our Lady, and Saint Agnes, and Saint Catharine of Siena, and sometimes it seemed that they sat a long time by my bed, and sometimes it seemed that they took me with them away to some beautiful place where the air was full of music, and sometimes they filled my hands with such lovely flowers that when I waked I was ready to weep that they could no more be found. Why, dear uncle, do you see angels often?”

  “Not often, dear child, but sometimes a little glimpse. But you should see the pictures of our holy Father Angelico, to whom the angels appeared constantly; for so blessed was the life he lived, that it was more in heaven than on earth. He would never cumber his mind with the things of this world, and would not paint for money, nor for princes’ favor; nor would he take places of power and trust in the Church, or else, so great was his piety, they had made a bishop of him; but he kept ever aloof and walked in the shade. He used to say, ‘They that would do Christ’s work must walk with Christ.’ His pictures of angels are indeed wonderful, and their robes are of all dazzling colors, like the rainbow. It is most surely believed among us that he painted to show forth what he saw in heavenly visions.”

  “Ah!” said Agnes, “how I wish I could see some of these things!”

  “You may well say so, dear child. There is one picture of Paradise painted on gold, and there you may see our Lord in the midst of the heavens crowning his blessed Mother, and all the saints and angels surrounding; and the colors are so bright that they seem like the sunset clouds, — golden, and rosy, and purple, and amethystine, and green like the new, tender leaves of spring: for, you see, the angels are the Lord’s flowers and birds that shine and sing to gladden his Paradise, and there is nothing bright on earth that is comparable to them, — so said the blessed Angelico, who saw them. And what seems worthy of note about them is their marvelous lightness, that they seem to float as naturally as the clouds do, and their garments have a divine grace of motion like vapor that curls and wavers in the sun. Their faces, too, are most wonderful; for they seem so full of purity and majesty, and withal humble, with an inexpressible sweetness; for, beyond all others it was given to the holy Angelico to paint the immortal beauty of the soul.”

  “It must be a great blessing and favor for you, dear uncle, to see all these things,” said Agnes; “I am never tired of hearing you tell of them.”

  “There is one little picture,” said the monk, “wherein he hath painted the death of our dear Lady; and surely no mortal could ever conceive anything like her sweet dying face, so faint and weak and tender that each man sees his own mother dying there, yet so holy that one feels that it can be no other than the mother of our Lord; and around her stand the disciples mourning; but above is our blessed Lord himself, who receives the parting spirit, as a tender new-born babe, into his bosom: for so the holy painters represented the death of saints, as of a birth in which each soul became a little child of heaven.”

  “How great grace must come from such pictures!” said Agnes. “It seems to me that the making of such holy things is one of the most blessed of good works. Dear uncle,” she said, after a pause, “they say that this deep gorge is haunted by evil spirits, who often waylay and bewilder the unwary, especially in the hours of darkness.”

  “I should not wonder in the least,” said the monk; “for you must know, child, that our beautiful Italy was of old so completely given up and gone over to idolatry that even her very soil casts up fragments of temples and stones that have been polluted. Especially around these shores there is scarcely a spot that hath not been violated in all times by vilenesses and impurities such as the Apostle saith it is a shame even to speak of. These very waters cast up marbles and fragments of colored mosaics from the halls which were polluted with devil-worship and abominable revelings; so that, as the Gospel saith that the evil spirits cast out by Christ walk through waste places, so do they cling to these fragments of their old estate.”

  “Well, uncle, I have longed to consecrate the gorge to Christ by having a shrine there, where I might keep a lamp burning.”

  “It is a most pious thought, child.”

  “And so, dear uncle, I thought that you would undertake the work. There is one Pietro hereabout who is a skillful worker in stone, and was a playfellow of mine, — though of late grandmamma has forbidden me to talk with him, — and I think he would execute it under your direction.”

  “Indeed, my little heart, it shall be done,” said the monk, cheerfully; “and I will engage to paint a fair picture of our Lady to be within; and I think it would be a good thought to have a pinnacle on the outside, where should stand a statue of Saint Michael with his sword. Saint Michael is a brave and wonderful angel, and all the devils and vile spirits are afraid of him. I will set about the devices to-day.” And cheerily the good monk began to intone a verse of an old hymn, —

  “Sub tutela Michaelis,

  Pax in terra, pax in cœlis.”4

  “‘Neath Saint Michael’s watch is given

  Peace on earth and peace in heaven.”

  In such talk and work the day passed to Agnes; but we will not say that she did not often fall into deep musings on the mysterious visitor of the night before. Often while the good monk was busy at his drawing, the distaff would droop over her knee and her large dark eyes become intently fixed on the ground, as if she were pondering some absorbing subject.

  Little could her literal, hard-working grandmother, or her artistic, simple-minded uncle, or the dreamy Mother Theresa, or her austere confessor, know of the strange forcing process which they were all together uniting to carry on in the mind of this sensitive young girl. Absolutely secluded by her grandmother’s watchful care from any actual knowledge and experience of real life, she had no practical tests by which to correct the dreams of that inner world in which she delighted to live and move, and which was peopled with martyrs, saints, and angels, whose deeds were possible or probable only in the most exalted regions of devout poetry.

  So she gave her heart at once and without reserve to an enthusiastic desire for the salvation of the stranger, whom Heaven, she believed, had directed to seek her intercessions; and when the spindle drooped from her hand, and her eyes became fixed on vacancy, she found herself wondering who he might really be, and longing to know yet a little more of him.

  Towards the latter part of the afternoon, a hasty messenger came to summon her uncle to administer the last rites to a man who had just fallen from a building, and who, it was feared, might breathe his last unshriven.

  “Dear daughter, I must hasten and carry Christ to this poor sinner,” said the monk, hastily putting all his sketches and pencils into her lap. “Have a care of these till I return, — that is my good little one!”

  Agnes carefully arranged the sketches and put them into the book, and then, kneeling before the shrine, began prayers for the soul of the dying man.

  She prayed long and fervently, and so absorbed did she become, that she neither saw nor heard anything that passed around her.

  It was therefore with a start of surprise, as she rose from prayer, that she saw the cavalier sitting on one end of the marble sarcophagus, with an air so composed and melancholy that he might have been taken for one of the marble knights that sometimes are found on tombs.

  “You are surprised to see me, dear Agnes,” he said, with a calm, slow utterance, like a man who has assumed a position he means fully to justify; “but I have watc
hed day and night, ever since I saw you, to find one moment to speak with you alone.”

  “My Lord,” said Agnes, “I humbly wait your pleasure. Anything that a poor maiden may rightly do, I will endeavor, in all loving duty.”

  “Whom do you take me for, Agnes, that you speak thus?” said the cavalier, smiling sadly.

  “Are you not the brother of our gracious King?” said Agnes.

  “No, dear maiden; and if the kind promise you lately made me is founded on this mistake, it may be retracted.”

  “No, my Lord,” said Agnes, “though I now know not who you are, yet if in any strait or need you seek such poor prayers as mine, God forbid I should refuse them!”

  “I am, indeed, in strait and need, Agnes; the sun does not shine on a more desolate man than I am, — one more utterly alone in the world; there is no one left to love me. Agnes, can you not love me a little? — let it be ever so little, it shall content me.”

  It was the first time that words of this purport had ever been addressed to Agnes; but they were said so simply, so sadly, so tenderly, that they somehow seemed to her the most natural and proper things in the world to be said; and this poor handsome knight, who looked so earnest and sorrowful, — how could she help answering, “Yes”? From her cradle she had always loved everybody and everything, and why should an exception be made in behalf of a very handsome, very strong, yet very gentle and submissive human being, who came and knocked so humbly at the door of her heart? Neither Mary nor the saints had taught her to be hard-hearted.