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The eve of this great day he had enjoined him, as penance, to go to the Vatican, throw himself at the feet of the Pope, and ask pardon on his knees for the invective he had cast on the holy father in the chapel. Nicholas V. received him kindly, and said: "My son, Jesus Christ has pardoned you, and I could not do otherwise than he of whom I am vicar; I absolve you, not only for what you have said against me, but the crimes committed against society. I grant you full and entire pardon from the punishment you have merited, in the hope that your new life will atone for the past." The Greek prostrated himself with gratitude, and kissed his feet; then showed the picture from which he would never part. The Pope admired it, and said to the painter-monk: "Your pencil has worked another miracle of conversion." The humble artist replied that only to God must be given the glory, and recited the verse of David: "Non nobis, Domine, non nobis, sed nomini tuo da gloriam." This was the device of the Templars, and we have seen it in Venice engraved on the wall of the old palace Vendramini. "Most holy father," said the Greek. "I know with what goodness your Holiness has received my compatriots, Theodore Gaza, George of Trebizond, Calchondylos, and Gemistos Plethon, who after the taking of Constantinople took refuge on a Venetian galley, and have come to Italy, bringing with them the precious manuscripts of the ancient Greek authors and fathers of the Greek Church, which but for them would have been burned by the infidels. They have been most happy to repay your hospitality by enriching the library of the Vatican with these literary treasures." "It is true," said Nicholas V. "Thanks to their and other conquests, we have become able to reunite in the Vatican nearly five thousand manuscripts; it is, we believe, the richest collection made since the dispersion of the Alexandrian library. But I still have one gap to fill, and I have promised a reward of fifty thousand ducats to him who will bring me the gospel of St. Matthew in the original language." "O holy father, how can I express my happiness! I possess this manuscript, which I brought from Constantinople. After having committed the crime by which I merited death, I hid this book in a place in the Roman campagna, where I could easily find it again. To thank your Holiness for all your goodness, I am only too happy to offer you the gospel of St. Matthew," Nicholas V. was delighted, he who ever thanked God for the taste given him from his youth for literature, and the faculties necessary for its successful cultivation. On the receipt of the manuscript the Pope paid to the Greek the fifty thousand ducats, who, finding himself possessed of so great a fortune, resolved to go to Venice, and engage in commerce with one of his compatriots. He quitted Rome with regret to leave Fra Angelico, but returned at Easter to confess to the saviour of his soul, as he called him, and receive the communion from his hands in the church of Santa Maria sopra Minerva. The mass said by the Beato inspired him with great devotion, and he was happy to receive from such pure hands the body and blood of Jesus Christ. The year that followed 1455, the Greek appeared at the same epoch, carrying ever with him, in a casket of cedar, the precious painting which had been the determining cause of his conversion, [Footnote 194] and which, he never ceased to contemplate with love and, gratitude, repeating what Vasari said of another picture of the Beato: "I can affirm I never contemplate this work that it does not appear new to me, and I am never satisfied gazing upon it."
[Footnote 194: This picture on wood is painteda temperaand enriched with gold. It is twenty-seven centimetres high, and twenty-three broad. After various vicissitudes it was carried from Rome to Venice, from Florence to Turin, and finally found an asylum in Paris, in the celebrated Pourtales gallery. To-day it is in possession of him who relates the story, according to a traditional account received by him at Rome.]
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Scarcely landed at Rome, Argyropoulos hastened, according to his custom, to the convent of Santa Maria sopra Minerva and asked for Fra Angelico. At this name grief overshadowed the countenance of the brother porter, who replied: "Alas! signor, the blessed one has gone from earth and left us to sorrow. His death was as angelical as his life." The prior, who appeared, confirmed the sad news and gave the details to the heart-broken Greek. The holy father said he was so impatient to enjoy his beautiful chapel that he hurried continually our blessed brother to finish his work; and he, ever willing to be sacrificed to duty, and believing he worked for God in serving this vicar, would not even interrupt his work during the fever season, which is always more pernicious at the Vatican than elsewhere. His health was lost by it entirely, he languished, and died at last of malaria. Argyropoulos shed tears and asked to pray by the tomb of his friend. It is still seen at the left of the church choir, a simple tombstone encased vertically in the wall; the painter-monk is rudely sculptured in bas-relief in his Dominican robe, with hands joined, his head uplifted, and mouth partly opened as in prayer, as he was in life, as he was particularly in death. I have often contemplated this sepulchral stone, and recalled the verse of Dante, which could so well have described the heart of Argyropoulos:
"Come, perche di lor memoria sia,Sovr' a sepoiti le tombe terragnePorton segnato quel ch'elli eran pria;Onde li molte volte siripiagne.Por la pun ura della rimenbranzaChe solo a pii da della calcagne."
"As to preserve the memory of the dead, the tombs given them on earth bear the impress of their features as they were in life, so each time one weeps over them the pious heart is pierced with the remembrance." "Nicholas V.," said the prior to the Greek, "was inconsolable at the death of his painter and friend, and survived him but a few weeks. It is this great Pope who has erected this monument to Fra Angelico, and who composed the epitaph you can read on this stone:
"'Hic jacet ven. Pictor.Fr. Jo. de Flor. Ord. P.MCCCCLV.Non mihi sit laudi quod eram velut alter Apelles.Sed quod lucra tuis omnia Christe dabamAltera nam terris opera extant, altera caelo;Urbs me Joannem flos tulit Etruriae.'"
"Here lies the venerable painter. [Footnote 195] Brother John, of Florence, of the order of Brother Preachers; 1455. Let me not be praised because I have painted as another Apelles, but because I have given all I made to the poor. O Christ! I have worked for heaven at the same time as for earth. I am called John, the town which is the flower of Etruria was my country."
[Footnote 195: We must remark this title of venerable given the Angelico immediately after his death, and which justifies the popular canonization which has surnamed him in Italy, Il Beato.]
Argyropoulos remained long kneeling by the tomb, then on rising said to the prior: "Tell me exactly the day of his death; for me it will ever be an anniversary to be celebrated with prayers and tears." "It was the 18th of last March," replied the prior, "that the blessed one went to heaven, there to contemplate the true models of the dear and holy pictures which, with so much love, he painted on earth."
"I am the way." I well believe thy word;The truth of it is plain enough to see.For never was there yet a man, O Lord,So roughly trodden under foot like thee!
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[Footnote 196: Christine, and other Poems. By George H. Miles New-York: Lawrence Kehoe.]
The writer of the present remarks made his first acquaintance with the volume under consideration during the magic season of Indian summer, and perused many of its pages beneath the shade of sycamores by the side of a woodland streamlet, ever and anon lifting his eyes from the book to scan the many-colored foliage of trees mellowed by the distance and draped in luminous haze. He took it up a second time when driven into the house by equinoctial storms, and a third when the trees had doffed their painted leaves and stood as black and cold as the iron woods we read of in the Scandinavian Edda. But whether in-doors or out, by waterside or fireside, he always found Christine and her sisters the same genial and charming companions.
Who does not prefer the sunny side of a landscape to the dark one? Are not coins and medals more pleasing when viewed on the side bearing the principal legend and inscription? Juicy fruit, whether plum, peach, or apple—does not the eye dwell with more pleasure upon the side which is tinted with the finest blush and which glows with the rosiest bloom? The same may be said of a pigeon's neck, a maiden's cheek; and why not of a volume of poems? Let us, therefore, fix our eyes upon the bright points, the beauties; and as every human productionmusthave its imperfections, let us, when we discover these last, pass them over lightly and almost in silence. The poet, when he composed his book, hoped that its perusal would add to our enjoyment, and expected to accomplish this, not by means of its defects, but by reason of its many excellences.
Many, many such excellences belong to Christine. Open the book, reader, and as if by magic you will find yourself transported some eight hundred years backward in the world's history, and will fly on fancy's wings from the age of steam-cars and telegraphs to that of chivalry and the crusades. You will find yourself now in the south-east of France, now in Savoy, gazing in succession at the Rhone, the Isère, the Alps, Pilate's Peak, and the Grande Chartreuse, and, in short, wandering over that romantic land so dear to all true lovers of poetry, and so renowned of old for
"Dance, Provençal song, and sun-burnt mirth."
The story is founded on one of those old devotional legends of the early church, many of which have afforded such fine subjects both to the painter and poet. Were I to enumerate one-tenth part of the fine specimens of pictorial art which have been founded on such subjects, I should soon swell out the list to a sufficient number to constitute a good-sized picture-gallery. I will only allude, in passing, to a few masterpieces, most of which are familiar, even to the untravelled reader, from engravings, copies, and written descriptions. Among the most noted are the St. Cecilia by Raphael, the Vision of Constantine by the same artist, the the Assumption of the Virgin by Murillo, the Marriage of St. Catharine by the same, the Archangel Michael by Guido, and St. Patronilla by Guercino. These two last have been copied in mosaic to adorn the interior of St. Peter's. Of poems of this nature might be cited as among the best, Dryden's Ode to St. Cecilia, the Virgin Martyr by Massenger, the Golden Legend by Longfellow, and the Eve of St. Agnes by Keats.
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Christine, I think, may fairly be catalogued among the same sainted sisterhood.
These traditions and legends of an earlier and more credulous age may be likened to the eggs, beautifully spotted and fantastically marked, which some delighted school-boy finds in spring-time, after hours of climbing and nest-hunting. Such eggs, curious in themselves, and brooded over by genius, often break forth into winged and musical poems, which afterward soar high above the nests and the tree-tops in which they were first cradled. Such is the case with the one now under consideration. In a new world, in a land which was not then even dreamed to be in existence, it arises lark-like, soaring and singing toward "heaven's gate." Let us watch it for a few moments, reader, and listen to its matin melody; my word for it, we shall be none the worse, either in heart or head, for having done so.
I shall not mar the beauties of this radiant little poem by attempting a cold and prosaic outline; this would, indeed, be to offer a dingy silhouette in place of a picture glowing with all the colors of a Tintoretto. Instead of this, I say, let the volume speak for itself; procure it, read it aloud to your friend; there is music sleeping in the book, awaken it to the sound of your own voice, and even though you may be a Protestant of the strictest school, you will find here nothing to offend, nothing to call forth a word of disapprobation, with one proviso, however, and that is that you read it as the title-page directs. Remember always that it is supposed to be "A song by a Troubadour."
A troubadour? And what was a troubadour? And what were his mainsprings of action? Hear an answer in the language of one of the most gifted of their number.
"A Dien mon ame, ma vie au roi,Mon coeur aux dames, l'honneur pour moi!"
This, interpreted into tamer and more prosaic language, means that his ruling principles of action were religion, loyalty, gallantry, and honor; in other words, his soul, his life, his heart belonged respectively to God, to the king, to the ladies, and only his honor he reserved to himself. Such was his creed, such was the disinterested and noble spirit which animated him, and which breathed through all his lays, his vire-lays, his morning songs, his serenades, his sonnets, his idyls, his villanercas, his madrigals, and his canzonets. In this spirit acted the enthusiastic Rudel, who became enamored of the Countess of Tripoli from the reports which he heard of the hospitable manner in which she treated the Crusaders, and who, without having ever seen her, actually started of on a long voyage to visit the object of his admiration. Who has not heard of Blondel, and of the romantic incident by which he discovered the lion-hearted Richard while imprisoned in the castle of Lovenstein?
But in addition to the above-mentioned motive principles, the troubadour was influenced by another sentiment, which had a powerful effect on all the feelings and actions of his life. This was an intense and romantic veneration for the Virgin Mary. In fact, with little variation the following words, which we find in another poem in the same volume, entitled "Raphael Sanzio," might with equal propriety be attributed to one of the troubadours.
—"Her whose colors I have worn since firstI dreamed of beauty in the chestnut shadesOf Umbria—Her for whom my best of lifeHas been one labor—Her, the Nazareth maid,Who gave to heaven a queen, to man a God,To God a mother."
Such, then, was the troubadour. His birthplace was Provence. It was there, in fact, that during the darkness of the Middle Ages the muse relit her torch which had long been extinguished. Many years before Dante's great poem rose like a sun—never again to set—the troubadours, those morning-stars of poesy, "sang together and shouted for joy." The troubadour preceded the Saxon bard, the Anglo-Norman minstrel, and the German minnesinger. There were held those curious courts of love where{683}queens and noble ladies often presided, and there were exhibited, on green and flowery meadows, those poetical contests, those festive jousts and tournaments, the idea of which seems to have been caught from the neighboring Saracens of Spain. The cross and the crescent both added something to the great result, the one contributing the deep and earnest glow of devotion, the other the pomp and circumstance of chivalry.
Of all these circumstances our poet has, with exquisite tact and skill, availed himself. Christine herself, when only ten years old, had accompanied her father to the Holy Land. This throws an oriental richness around her whole bearing and manner of thinking:
"Sooth thou art fair,O ladye dear,Yet one may seeThe shadow of the East in thee;Tinting to a riper flushThe faint vermilion of thy blush;Deepening in thy dark-brown hairTill sunshine sleeps in starlight there."
The gray charger which plays so conspicuous a part in the action was born under the palm-trees of Palestine, and his name, Caliph, would seem to indicate an Arabian descent. By this subtle link the connection between Provençal and Arabic poesy seems delicately to be hinted at. The fact that the main poem concludes in sonnet-form, if accidental, is curious; if brought about by design, is a happy thought, inasmuch as the sonnet derived its birth in Provence, and also from the fact that, from the number of its lines (twiceseven), and the collocation of its rhymes, it is instinct with Christian symbolism.
The song itself, or story of Christine, is divided into five cantos or sub-songs, which, like the five acts of some romantic melodrama, arrest the attention from the start, and conduct the reader by five stages of increasing interest to the jubilant conclusion.
This main picture, as it may be called, has hanging on each side of it a smaller lateral one, one of which is a kind ofpreludeand the other thefinaleto the whole performance. This reminds us of some of those works of art by the older masters, in which a smaller side-picture may be seen to the right and left of the main representation. These appendages, though apparently slight and worded with extreme conciseness, are artistically conceived and add greatly to the general effect. They are also in fine keeping with the time and spirit of the legend itself, reminding us of one of those triple-arched emblazoned windows so often seen in old Gothic edifices. But the chief advantage derived from such an arrangement is, that the two smaller or lateral pieces serve as links to connect the more confined interests of the story with that grandest event in history, namely the Crusades, and thus to impart to the whole a breadth and grandeur of design which the size of the poem scarcely led us to expect. In the prelude we are presented with a view of the troubadour himself, who is supposed to sing the song, and not only himself, but his lady love, together with Richard of the Lion Heart, his queen, and all his chivalry. These last are at the time gazing over the blue Mediterranean, on which, in the distance, King Philip of France is seen sailing homeward with his receding vessels. The finale exhibits the arrival of a fleet under English banners. In both, a glimpse is caught of the troubadour who sings the song; in the one case, before he commences his romaunt, in the other, as he retires unnoticed and unthanked by the English monarch.
In the midst of so many beauties and artistic excellences, it is with reluctance that I notice two little circumstances which some might consider as slight blemishes. Caliph, the charger above alluded to, is spoken of as "the gallant gray." This expression sounds almost too trite and commonplace to find a place in so original a poem. Even if the color were preserved, I should{684}prefer some more novel and striking form of words. But would not purewhitebe a hue more suitable in itself, and also form a finer contrast with thecoal-blacksteed which is ridden by the Goblin Horseman of Pilate's Mount? The last personage forms the evil, as Christine forms thegood, principle of the poem. By placing one upon a white and the other on a black horse, the antagonism would be brought out in bolder relief, and we should be reminded of the fine allegory in Plato's Phaedra, where the chariot of Psyche is represented as drawn by two steeds of opposite colors, under the guidance of Reason, who is the charioteer.
The other—a trifle scarcely worthy of mention—is this: For the expression "Santo sudario" I should like to see substituted "Veronica," not so much on account of its effect upon the ear, as on account of those subtle trains of associated ideas which either lead usoff fromoronto poetical ground, as the case may be.
In justice to the author I must add that of these supposed blemishes I am doubtful, whereas of the beauties above alluded to I feel perfectly certain. It is much more easy to suggest alterations when a work is finished than by one's own effort to finish a perfect work. As a whole, there is a youthful fire and glow about the poem which cannot fail to render it captivating to the young, and a devotional and earnest tone of feeling which must be extremely acceptable to those more advanced. Reserving the "other poems" which accompany it for a future article, I shall conclude my remarks by a short extract taken almost at random from the third song:
"They are coming from this castle,A bevy of bright-eyed girls,Some with their long locks braided,Some with loose golden curls.Merrily 'mid the meadowsThey win their wilful way;Winding through sun and shadow,Rivulets at play.Brows with white rosebuds blowing,Necks with white pearl intertwined,Gowns whose white folds imprisonWafts of the wandering wind.The boughs of the charmed woodlandSing to the vision sweet,The daisies that couch in the cloverNod to their twinkling feetThey see Christine by the river,And, deeming the bridegroom near.They wave her a dewy rose-wreathFresh plucked from her dark-brown hair.Hand in hand tripping to meet herBird-like they carol their joy,Wedding soft Provençal numbersTo a dulcet old strain of Savoy."
How trippingly and buoyantly do these verses gallopade adown the jocund page, as if one of the blithest of the old masters of the "gaya scientia." had been thrown by Merlin into an enchanted sleep, and, awaking from his slumber of eight centuries, was even now pouring into verse one of the freshest of his matin visions. And that bevy of dancing maidens! long may they continue to bound in tiptoe jollity adown the salient page. The glad creatures are as yet ignorant of the fact that Christine's noble lover is lying in a death-like a swoon, and that Christine herself has just had an interview with the fearful demon who wishes to bear her off in triumph. Each one of them seems to be a kind of Provençal Minnehaha, and may be compared to one of those merry waterfalls which come tumbling down the mountain-side, leaping in joy from rock to rock, and quite heedless of the black precipices which surround them.
But enough. As Cleopatra's barge of old went sailing down the river Cydnus, with burnished hull and perfumed sails, and silver oars rowing in unison with dulcet flutes, so ever and anon, at long intervals, is launched into the world some rare poem, which moves sailing down the river of time, to the admiration of all beholders. It behooves us, when such an apparition heaves in sight, whether it be poem or vessel, to be on the lookout and not to miss the pleasure of saluting it with our heartiest cheers.
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[Footnote 197: In a private letter received from a member of the Guérin family—one whose name is held in gentle reverence by all the readers of Eugénie's Journal—we are asked if it would be possible to interest devout souls in America in the reconstruction of the little church of Andillac. We would gladly answer this question in the affirmative, for the restoration of Eugénie's parish church would be a monument that even her humility could not reject.The smallest sums for this purpose will be gratefully received and forwarded to Andillac by Miss E. P. Cary, Cambridge, Mass., or Office of THE CATHOLIC WORLD, 145 Nassau Street, New-York.]
In a former article [Footnote 198] we traced the course of Maurice de Guérin's career at La Chênaie; and left him in Paris, bewildered by the rush and whirl of such a city, one day to become so familiar to him. We will now let his journal and letters exhibit the curious change through which he passed in turning from the fair Utopian dreams of Lamennais to the work-day experiences of an unsuccessful author.
[Footnote 198: See article in THE CATHOLIC WORLD of June, 1866, entitled: Two Pictures of Life in France before 1848.]
To do this fully we must retrace our steps to Le Val, the asylum thrown open to him by Hippolyte de la Morvonnais when he left Ploërmel. Guérin's record of that peaceful sojourn in Brittany is as distinct from our popular ideas of French life as Eugénie's sketches of Rayssac and Le Cayla. The brother and sister have successfully proved that all Frenchmen are not deceitful and unbelieving, nor all Frenchwomen vain and perfidious. Surely no young man in any country ever met with influences more sound and elevating than Maurice found in the society of Eugénie and Mimin; of Louise de Bayne, Madame de la Morvonnais, and Caroline de Gervain; or with friends more enduring than Hippolyte, Paul Quemper, Marzan, Trébutien, and D'Aurevilly.
There is in France an undercurrent of domestic life as pure and fresh as the superficial existence in her great cities is shallow and turbid. Indeed, the more familiar one becomes with French life and manners, the more one appreciates the truth of themotof a certain cardinal: "There is no purgatory for Frenchmen; they go straight to heaven or hell." But we will no longer detain the reader, by moral reflections, from the perusal of the selections we have made from Guérin's writings.
LE VAL, Dec. 7th, 1833.
After a year of perfect calm, but for interior tempests for which I must not blame the solitude that has unfolded me in such silent peace that any soul less unquiet than mine would have slumbered deliciously therein; after a year, I say, of absolute tranquillity, Fate, who had let me enter the holy house to rest awhile, smote on the door to call me forth again; for she had not gone on her way, but had sat waiting on the threshold till I should gather strength to resume the journey. "You have tarried long enough," she said; "Come." And she took me by the hand and tramped on like the poor women you meet in the road, leading a tired, lagging child. But what folly it is to complain; are there no troubles in the world but mine to weep for? I will say henceforth to the fountain of my tears, "Dry up," and to the Lord, "Lord, heed not my complaints," whenever I am tempted to invoke God and my tears in my own behalf; for suffering is good for me, who can merit nothing in heaven by my actions, and, like all weak souls, can earn nothing there except through the virtue of suffering. Such souls have no wings to raise them up to heaven, and the Lord, who would fain possess them, sends help. He lays them on a pile of thorns, and kindles the fire of grief; the consuming{686}wood mounts up to heaven like a white vapor, or like the doves that used to spring upward from the dying flames of a martyr's stake. This is the soul which has completed its sacrifice, and grown light enough in the fire of tribulation to rise to heaven like a smoke. The wood is heavy and immovable; set fire to it, and a part of itself will ascend to the clouds.
8th.—Yesterday the west wind blew furiously. I watched the shaken ocean, but to me its sublime disorder was far from equalling the spectacle of a calm blue sea, and yet why say that one is not equal to the other? Who can measure these two sublimities and say that the second surpasses the first? Let us only say: "My soul delights rather in serenity than in a storm."
Yesterday there was a great battle fought in the watery plains. On came the bounding waves, like innumerable hordes of Tartar cavalry galloping to and fro on the plains of Asia—on to the chain of granite islets that bar the entrance to the bay. There we saw billows upon billows rushing to the assault, flinging themselves wildly against the rocky masses with hideous clamor, tearing along to leap over the black heads of the rocks. The boldest or lightest sprang over with a great outcry; the others dashed themselves with sluggish awkwardness against the ledges, throwing up great showers of dazzling foam, and then drew off growling, like dogs beaten back by a traveller's staff.
We watched the great struggle from the top of a cliff, where we could hardly keep our feet against the whirling wind. The awful tumult of the sea, the rushing boisterous, waves, the swift but silent passing of the clouds, the sea-birds floating in the sky, balancing their slender bodies on wide-arched wings; all this accumulation of wild, resounding harmonies, converging in the souls of two beings five feet (French) high, planted on the crest of a cliff, shaken like two leaves by the energy of the wind, and not more apparent on this immensity than two birds perched on a clod of earth. Oh! it was something strange and wonderful, one of those moments of sublime agitation and deep revery combined, when the soul and nature rear themselves in majesty before each other.
From this height we clambered down into a gorge which opens a marine retreat, such as the ancients could have described to peaceful waves that rock themselves to sleep there murmuring, while their frantic brethren lash the rocks, and wrestle among themselves. Huge blocks of gray granite, embossed with white lichens, are thrown in disorder on the slant of the hill which has hollowed out an inlet for this cove. They look, so strangely are they tossed about, half tipping toward the slope, as if a giant had amused himself with hauling them from the height above, and they had been checked by some obstacle, some a few feet from the point of departure, and others half way down; and yet they seem to have paused, not stopped, in their course, or rather they appear to be still rolling. The sound of the winds and waves pouring into this echoing recess makes glorious harmony. We stood there a long time, leaning on our walking-sticks, looking and listening and wondering.
9th.—The moon was shining with a few stars when the bell called us to mass. I especially enjoy this mass, celebrated in the early morning between the last rays of starlight and the first beams of the rising sun.
In the evening Hippolyte and I wandered along the coast, for we wished to see what the ocean is like at the close of a calm, gray December day. Mist veiled the distance, but left space enough to suggest infinity. We stationed ourselves on a point where a tidesman's hut stands, and leaned against the wall. To the right a wood, spreading over the slope of the coast, stretched its thin, naked branches out into the pale light with a faint, sighing sound. Far away to our left the tower of Ebihens vanished into the{687}mist, and then appeared again with a faint gleam upon its brow, as some furtive ray of twilight succeeded in eluding the clouds. The sound of the sea was calm and dreamy, as on the fairest days, but with a more plaintive tone. We followed this sound as it swelled along the shore, and only taking breath when the waves that had poured it forth gave place to another. I believe it is from the deep, grave tone of the advancing wave as it unfurls itself, and from the shrill, pebbly sound of the retreating wave, gritting against the shells and sand, that the marvellous voice of the sea is created. But why dissect such music? I could say nothing worth hearing on the subject, for I am no adept at analysis, so we'll go back to sentiment.
The shadows thickened around us, but we never thought of going away, for as the earth grew still, and the night unveiled its mysteries, grander grew the harmony of the sea. Like those statues set on promontories by the ancients, we stood immovable, fascinated and spell bound by the beauty of the ocean and the night, giving no sign of life except to look up when we heard the whistling wings of the wild duck overhead.
The thread of my wandering fortunes led me to a solitary headland in Brittany to dream away an autumn evening, there for several hours those interior sounds were hushed that never have been still since the first tempest arose in my breast. There a sweet, heavenly melancholy stole into my heart with the ocean chords, and my soul wandered in a paradise of revery. Oh! when I shall have left Le Val and poured my parting tears into the bosom of your friendship; when I shall be in Paris where there is neither vale nor ocean, nor any soul like yours; when I shall wander alone with my sadness and with an almost despairing heart; what tears I shall shed over the memory of our evenings; for happiness is a fine, gentle rain that sinks into the soul, and then gushes forth in torrents of tears.
21st.—For several days the weather has done its worst. The rain falls and the wind blows in gusts till it seems as if everything would be torn to pieces by the storm. These three nights I have started up wide awake as the gale swept by at midnight, besieging the house so furiously that everything in-doors shook and trembled. I spring up in my bed white, and listen to the hurricane, while a thousand thoughts that swept, some on the surface, others deep down in my soul, start into shuddering wakefulness.
All the sounds of nature; the winds, those awful breathings from an unknown mouth, rouse up the innumerable instruments in the plains or on the mountains, hidden in the hollow of valleys or massed among the forests; the waters with their marvellous scale of tone, ranging from the tinkling of a fountain through moss, to the wondrous harmonies of the ocean; thunder, the voice of that sea that floats above us; the rustling of dry leaves beneath a human foot or before a whirling breeze; in short, for I must stop short in enumerating innumerable sounds, this continual emission of tone, the floating rumor of the elements, dilates my thoughts into strange reveries, and throws me into unutterable amazement. The voice of nature has taken such hold upon me that I can hardly free myself from its perpetual influence, and in vain I try to turn a deaf ear. But to wake at midnight amid the cries of the storm, to be assailed in the darkness by a wild, tumultuous harmony, overthrowing night's peaceful empire, is something incomparable among strange impressions. It is ecstasy in the midst of terror.
CAEN, 24th January.
I have been wandering along the streets of this city by the dim light of the street lamps. What did I see? Black phantoms of steeples and churches, whose outline I could barely trace. The mystery of night, which enveloped them without limiting their dimensions{688}like dear daylight, added to their impressive influence, and filled me with an emotion that was worth more, I believe, than forms. My thoughts soared up to heaven with the never-ending spires, and wandered awe-struck through naves that were mournful as sepulchres. That was all. The streets were crowded, but what is a crowd by night, or even, by day? At night I enjoy more the sound of the wind, and in the daytime those grand assemblies, now silent and now rocking and roaring, called forests. Besides, I met several of that class of men who always put me to flight; students strutting along in gown and cap, and wearing in every feature a nameless expression that reduces me to rout and discomfiture. Oh! my dear journal, my gentle friend, how I felt that I loved thee, as I worked my way out of the multitude. And here I am with thee now, though the night is far advanced and I am half dead with fatigue; all alone with thee, telling thee my griefs, and letting thee peacefully into my secrets. Can I recall often enough those memories all steeped in tears, that will ever dwell incorruptible within my soul? Kind Hippolyte and his exquisite Marie! I bade her farewell; she answered me in a few words of touching kindness. I stammered out a few words more, and was running down the steps thinking that she had not come beyond the threshold, and that all was over; when I heard another farewell coming to me from above, and, looking up, saw her leaning over the balustrade. I answered very softly, for her voice had taken away the little strength I had to keep back my tears.
MAURICE DE GUÉRIN TOM. H. DE LA MORVONNAIS.PARIS, Feb. 1st, 1834
You thought you would receive news of me by the end of this week. Your calculation has proved false, and you are feeling impatient, and thinking that I am neglectful, and that the tumult of Paris has dulled my ear to the sweet, lovely voice of friendship that sings unceasingly in the depths of my soul. Imagine no such thing, my dear friend. God knows that since I came to Paris I have listened to nothing but the two farewells that I heard on that black Thursday evening, one from her whom you must let me call your sweet Marie, who, as I went down-stairs thinking that everything was at an end, leaned over the balustrade to say good-by once more; and the other from you, on the steps of the carriage, uttered half aloud as you clasped my hand. I hear these two voices incessantly, and never fail to listen to them, while all other sounds pass by as if they were not.
I did not see Quemper until two days after my arrival, Tuesday morning, when I surprised him in bed, dreaming, between sleeping and waking, of music, dancing, fresh garlands of young maidens, and all the other vague and enchanting images that float through the imagination long after the magic of a ball has passed away. Our friend had spent the night at one of those radiant entertainments, whose brilliancy his pen, fresh as if dipped in a dew-drop, depicts with such sparkling charm. All of a sudden my pale and melancholy visage appeared to put these fair dreams to flight; but though it must have looked among them much like one of those crows that we used to see flying among flocks of white sea-gulls, he embraced me with all the cordiality that you remember in him. I sat down by his bedside, and the vivacity of our first greetings having effervesced, a long and charming conversation gradually unrolled itself, of which this is the substance: remember that he was the speaker and that I interrupted him very seldom, so anxious was I to gather up all his instructions.
The most difficult task to accomplish at the beginning of the career which we have chosenis to get published, to bring one's name before the public;{689}and he mentioned the names of several young men who had been vainly knocking at the gates of journals for several years past. We are already far advanced, since two are thrown open to us, Catholic France and the European Review. Booksellers have no faith in the unknown, and would refuse obstinately to have a masterpiece printed if it were the first attempt of its author, while if they have seen his name ever so little in reviews and journals they would prove facile and accommodating. Therefore we must devote our whole strength to making our names known through magazines and papers.
But in order to write acceptably for this sort of publication one must adapt one's self to its habits, speak its language, and become all things to all men—in matters of style merely, you understand. Let us strive, then, to catch their ways, as the saying is, and to throw our thoughts into the conventional mould, until we shall have attained to such independence of pen as will leave us free to clothe our thoughts after our own fashion. There is no use in disguising the fact that as long as we serve under an editing committee (I dwell upon this point because it is an important one, and Quemper insisted upon it very strongly), we must, to a certain degree, renounce the habits of style peculiar to ourselves, and adopt those of the journal; so that, while preserving our individuality, we may blend and combine it with customs foreign to our nature. It is hard for men like us, with characteristic traits of their own, proud and independent of the fashions they have railed at and disdained; it is hard for such men to muffle themselves in the livery of the day, to follow instead of leading, to copy instead of designing; but necessity with her iron nail stands before us. Finally, the committee of the European Review refused an article of Cazalès himself because it was in Germanic form.
As to the Review, we must share the editing of it thus: Each number should contain a leading article purely philosophical, an article of a high order of literary criticism, and an article, artistic or imaginative, of a light character fitted to relax the mind after reading the first two. You, Duquesnel, and I could share the labor and play into each other's hands, so that each number should have as often as possible three articles from us, conceived in the manner that I have just indicated; only remember that you must leave the light article for me, because I know nothing of philosophy or criticism.
. . . . .
And now let me tell what my present position is. I have hired a little room at twenty francs a month, near my cousin. He could not take me into his own family; my friend, Lefebvre, could not accommodate me either; and besides, the fact is that one must be alone and quite independent if one would work well; it is better to have a house of one's own. I take my meals at my cousin's; in short, I am in a very tolerable position, and one that will allow me to try my fortune for three months to come, and I hope much longer.
Add to this a most charming perspective, from which I hope much for the advancement of my fortunes and the maintenance of my courage. At the end of this month Quemper is going to change his lodgings. He has in view, still, in the rue des Petits-Augustins, an apartment consisting of three rooms, two bed-chambers and a parlor. He proposes that I should take one of these rooms, which would cost me twenty francs, like the one I have at present, and that we should share the parlor. You may imagine that I accepted the plan with both hands, especially because it will be so delightful to live with such a friend. We have already laid out a life of uninterrupted happiness not to be described, a sort of Le Val for us two in the midst of Paris.{690}Can discouragement seize upon me there? and if it comes, cannot we put it to flight? Quemper has drawn up a rule of life for me, and given lessons in a double economy of which I knew nothing—that of time and money; in short, as he says, he will pilot me through life and Paris, two paths where I lose myself completely, though I number twenty-three years of life and eight years of Paris. I begin to believe that in spite of myself or any evil genius, I shall accomplish something.
If I turn to the source of all these blessings, I find you, my dear friend, who by your exhortations and generous reproaches, sowed in my soul the first germs of the courage that I feel stirring within me now. You urged me to come to Paris when I was contemplating a cowardly retreat; you bound me in that ripe sheaf of friendship with yourself, Quemper, and Duquesnel, an endless blessing from which, perhaps, all the success of my life will grow; to you I owe two months of beautiful impressions and pure happiness. You let me look upon Le Val as a second Le Cayla, love it with the affection that belongs to one's birthplace, for it was the June of my second birth; weep for it in momenta of sadness, and sing of its charms when I am glad.
My cousin's little girl is nine months old; she is charming, can stand alone already, without walking of course, has an enchanting smile; in short, would be a companion angel for Marie. When her tongue is loosed, I will teach her all the little words that her baby sister in Le Val can say, "Bon jour, ma, à tantôt, le v'la lia" and I will swing her in a napkin; in short, I will do everything I can to make her another Marie, her faithful and bewitching likeness.
I have not yet written to my sister. I shall do so this evening with exhortations and entreaties. How happy it would make me to see a firm friendship grow up between Madame de La Morvonnais and Eugénie! those two souls so formed for mutual understanding, and to draw forth the wealth of sweetness from each other's souls.
Offer my homage to her who will, I hope, soon call my sister friend, and win the same title from her; as it is between you and me, my dear friend. Countless kisses to Marie. Don't forget me, I beg, when you write to Mordreux and St. Malo. Love to Duquesnel and François.
At the time the following idyl was written, the pernicious style of literature which it satirizes was confined to France. To-day, when our bookstores teem with works of the same class, we fear that the allegory may meet with less favor among American readers than it would have aroused thirty years ago.
MAURICE DE GUÉRIN TOM. H. DE LA MORVONNAIS.PARIS, February, 1834.
I fear me much that the month of May will bring us snow-balls instead of roses.
When I left you, dear friend, your solitude was just ready to burst forth into flowers and verdure. The reddening fruit walls in your garden, and the little chilly shrubs that love the sun, were trusting their tender foliage, in all confidence, to the benign and gentle winter, smiling upon them with the grace of spring. The wood that stretches over your sloping shore, dipping almost into the sea, wore that look of life and gladness that trees put on as spring-time draws near. The sticky, oval buds of the Indian chestnut, glistened in the sun; beech buds, sharp and slim, pricked themselves up with pert vivacity, even the small round oak buds were beginning to gather in bunches at the end of the branches, and yet the oak leaves out later than other forest-trees. We saw the young shoots of undergrowth blushing with the red tint that colors them at the awakening of vegetation, as if blood were purling through their veins instead of sap. The grass, pushing its way up through the bed of dead leaves and withered vegetation, thrown over{691}it in autumn, was bordering the paths, and spreading a velvet carpet in every glade, decked with the enamel of a thousand Easter buds and daisies. Everything was gay in preparation for the great feast of nature. Oh! if nightingale, swallow, oriole, and sparrow knew all this, how they would bestir themselves to flydulcesque revisere nidos. It may be that their European brothers have sent messengers to tell them that everything is ready for their reception, woods, groves, hedge, and bush; that seeds and berries will come early; that, morning and evening, the gnats are whirling in myriads in the beams of the rising and setting sun; that all is lovely here, and they must hurry home to enjoy the glorious festival. I don't know that our domestic birds have paid this attention to their travelled brethren, but at least they have given themselves up to joy and harmony in awaiting their return. Do you remember, Hippolyte, how the blackbirds whistle, the gay, sweet warble of the thrush, or the twitter of some wren perched on the top of a wall, used to beguile us from our study, tempting us forth to pleasant rambles?
Such was your Thebaïd, as you call it, the day before I left you, full of warmth and animation, vivid with rising sap and the labor of vegetation. To-day I will wager that the eruption of leaves and flowers is far advanced, that the birds are hopping about in search of moss, twigs, stray feathers, and bits of down, and that you are wandering in spring revery under the first shade of your chestnut trees. But, my friend, are you slumbering serenely on these fair promises? Does it never occur to you that this may be all a stratagem of winter, and that the old despot may have manoeuvred, merely to draw out verdure and blossom, and kill them with his baleful breath? Do you never fear that thus the acme may be reached of our delusions? What if this balmy, perfumed air turned to a north wind; if a black, sharp cold condensed all this living sap, this fecundity now gushing through the veins of nature; if the frost crystallized your woods and their tender leaflets; if your little eddying brooks were to clasp in ice the flower, stems, and stalks of herbs that grow upon their beds and borders; if, instead of nightingales and singing-birds from southern shores, you should see triangles of long-necked geese and swans pouring down from the north, and files of those ducks that we used to hear cutting the clouds with whistling wings on December evenings; if the exterminator, winter, were to kill in one night all these first-born of the year; in short, if your Thebaïd were to turn into a Siberia, what would become of your dreams of plenty, fruits, and flowers, soft siestas under the shade of a tree, songs on the sea-shore, and of that whole existence, nourished upon sunlight, gentle breezes, and sweet odors, that you lead in your dear wilderness?
If you had power over nature, I should say to you: "Give your gardens and woods and birds a lesson of wisdom. Bid those buds that I saw gaping in the sunshine to hold back well in their envelope the leaves entrusted to their care, scare them with the rigors that may surprise them; the brightest sun is a deceiver. Put them on their guard against the wiles of a fair day, teach them to be austere, and tell them the thousand tales you know of flowers that have crumbled into dust because they heeded the lures of a passing breeze or of a glowing sunbeam. Tell them that, if perchance a few be saved amid the general havoc, they will one day bear shrivelled, meagre, tasteless fruit that no fair hand shall ever gather, and that shall wither on the branch or fall a prey to the vile appetite of insects. Tell them that their thin and pallid foliage shall draw disdain upon them from the panting traveller, the young maidens, and the winged musicians that take refuge under their shade to rest or dance or sing. Men will take them for useless cumberers of the earth, and one day{692}perhaps the axe will be laid at their root." As to the birds, the best advice you can give them is, to leave their brothers in exile until the first day of true spring shines. It is better to bear banishment a little longer than come home to find their country the wretched slave of winter. Let your birds beware how they recall their brethren or begin to build their own nests. The brood would not prosper; the poor mothers would shiver on their eggs, and the bitter cold, stealing under their wings, would kill the chicks in the shell, despite the warmth of the maternal bosom. Oh! if you had, power over nature, what a discourse I would send you for your Thebaïd, to save it from the seductions of this perfidious spring whose perils I know so well.
Do you take all this seriously, my friend? I fear not, and that you will dismiss it with a smile, as the prattle of a child. I even fear that you may regard my letter as very eccentric, and say to yourself: "What nonsense is this? Talking of woods and flowers to a hermit; wandering on into homilies addressed to birds and flowers, when he is writing from Paris, and not one word of what is stirring in the world! He deserves in punishment that I should send him an essay upon the dramas and romances of last year!" My friend, restrain your wrath, and contain yourself long enough to hear, my reasons.
Horace said: "At Rome I prate of Tiber, and at Tiber I prate of Rome." Don't imagine that my taste is light and changeable as the wind, and thus explain to yourself my long tirades on your solitude. When I was in your Thebaïd, did I ever speak regretfully of the joys of Paris? Did I not, on the contrary, say always that a city life is repugnant to my taste, and that I care not at all for any pleasures to be enjoyed here? Don't you remember how the little rough huts of your tidesmen used to excite my envy, and that I used to have dreams of hollowing out a cool, dark grotto in the heart of a rock in one of your creeks, and letting my life glide away in the contemplation of the vast ocean, like a sea-god? If you recall all this, you'll easily understand why in Paris I talk of the country and forget Paris. Indeed, you will see that it cannot be otherwise; for having said to the fields, as you know,
"Le corps s'en va, mals le cocur vous demeure," [Footnote 199]
my discourse must turn on them, and I can only live in this mad tornado of Paris as not belonging to it.
[Footnote 199: Froissart (manuscript note).]
If you know me well, these reasons will more than suffice to make you understand the beginning of my letter. But will you be able to resist the perpetual impulse that makes you look for mysteries in the clearest things, so insatiable is your taste for divining? No; you will look under the natural sense of my words, and think you have surprised a sly meaning, crouching like a serpent under flowers, beneath my sentences, which breathe only sweet images of spring. I'm not afraid of your discovering some political allusion in them, for you are too solitary, and hold yourself too much aloof from such things for that idea to occur to you. But, if your eyes turn from the arena of politics, they will settle on the noble field of literary doctrines; and because lately the combat has grown hot, and the noise of the mêlée is resounding far and wide, you will fancy that I am a passionate spectator of the struggle, amusing myself with winding the opposing party in subtle mocking allegories. Let me tell you that this interpretation, or any similar one given to my idyl on the precocious spring, misses its aim; that my idyl veils no satire; and that if it seems to you the least in the world insidious or guileful, 'tis only because you've breathed your own malice upon the innocent thing. I repeat, it conies merely to discourse with you about nature; and what can be more natural? Know that never has a ray of sunlight shone directly{693}into the room where I live; I receive it only by repercussion. Toward noon the sun strikes some garret windows opposite that send across to me a few pale reflections, without warmth or cheerfulness, like the rays of a lamp; and even this vague, languishing light vanishes in a quarter of an hour. These are the beams that gladden my eyes, accustomed to the broad overflowing liberality of a southern sky. A narrow, sombre court-yard, where there's not a blade of grass growing in the cracks of the pavement, nor a flower-pot on a window-sill to smile upon me—this is the horizon to which I am reduced; I, who so many, many times have scaled with you your rocks and downs and sea-cliffs, whence our eyes embraced the divine expanse of ocean, the marvellous indentures of your coast, and the wide fields all green with wheat and flax. And now that I've fallen from these fair heights into a hole that hardly admits the light of day, do you suppose I shall not try to live over again these charms in imagination, or that I shall talk to you of anything but yourself and your solitude? And you, you cynical recluse, would envenom these sweet, innocent recollections, and find some apologue or another in the images of nature among which I seek recreation? But as I have every reason to suppose that you are not attending to me, and are still working to disentangle the metaphors, let us see if perchance malice can make anything out of my precocious spring, and to what allusion it can be turned.
Interested as you are in literary matters, and attentive to the disturbances that have risen tip lately among our authors, I am sure that it will not be long before thefacile literaturecomes to your mind. Then you will think you have the clew, and with that thread you'll plunge into the labyrinth of my supposed allegory, hoping to emerge maliciously triumphant and content. I allow that, without any extraordinary flights, imagination might pass from the buds, opening prematurely on the faith of a brilliant winter sun, to this young literature, which has burst into blossom before its time, and innocently exposed itself to the returns of frost that I predict to your woods and groves. But, my friend, will you, who rejoice so ardently at sight of an almond-tree in flower, will you reproach severely these trusting souls that have opened in the broad-day light and displayed with touching faith their treasures to the graces of heaven? Blame rather the burning sun of our day, and the atmosphere all charged with fatal heat, which have hastened this development and perhaps reduced the harvest of our age to a few ears.
And the trees whose blossoms are only born to die, and those that bear bitter fruits which no one will ever pluck, or will gather only to throw away—ah! you'll not have much trouble in seeing in them the emblems of the many authors who have appeared once and vanished for ever; the many authors whose books, distasteful to a few grave judges, are welcomed by seekers after novelty and romance readers; and who, having filled these vain souls with vain ideas, often sink into the well of oblivion with hands relaxed by the lethargy that comes from dull satiety.
Will you have it that the trees shunned by travellers, young maidens, and birds figure those renowned books, worthy of their fame as works of art, which do not contain a grain of the hidden manna, nor one of the sweet, beneficent thoughts that nourish the soul and relax it after fatigue?—books that maidenly hands dare not touch, and that put to flight everything fresh and innocent—a thought to make one die of shame and grief! Will you have it so? I yield the point with good grace, for in truth my thoughts bear your interpretation as well as if I had really hidden it therein, and I will follow you no further in your suspicious investigations, feeling sure that my test will not suffer violence from you,{694}and that you will go on to the end without losing your way.
What conclusion do you draw from all this? First, that, resolved to enter the lists, I am preparing in secret my lance and chariot, and kindling my wrath. But are my peaceful inclinations unknown to you, or the weakness of my arm and my very doubtful courage? I a combatant! Just remember that the least tumult scares and routs me like a flying prey, and that my strength bravely suffices to drag me out of danger; so how could it drag me in?
In the second place, you will suppose that I am nursing an aversion for the new school and calling out for a classical reform. M. Nisard, of course, does not wish the new school to perish, but to amend its ways; and it is with that belief, and, I dare to say, on that condition, that I pray ardently for the success of the campaign he is about to open. The Catholic faith would never allow me to sympathize entirely with a sceptical and fatalist literature, that sets no value upon morality. But, on the other hand, the same faith makes me feel a certain interest in it; for is not this disorderly, frantic new school a truant from our fold?
No, dear friend, I am not a prey to devouring anger; but I must groan in solitude over the wanderings of this literature, which has forgotten the home and the teaching of its father, and has so hopelessly lost itself, until the last and most terrible romance, in that style, would now be its own history. Amid these sighs there come to me a few reflections upon the cause of the evil and the means to remedy it; and that is what I meant to announce to you in this incoherent letter, in which I beg you to see only a whimsical prelude of my imagination, turning, as it always does, toward you.