CHAPTER V. A RAINY DAY.
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When Flemming awoke the next morning he
saw the sky dark and lowering. From the mountain
tops hung a curtain of mist, whose heavy folds
waved to and fro in the valley below. Over all
the landscape, the soft, summer rain was falling.
No admiring eyes would look up that day at the
Staubbach.
A rainy day in Switzerland puts a sudden stop
to many diversions. The coachman may drive to
the tavern and then back to the stable; but no
farther. The sunburnt guide may sit at the ale-house
door, and welcome; and the boatman whistle
and curse the clouds, at his own sweet will;
but no foot stirs abroad for all that; no traveller
moves, if he has time to stay. The rainy day
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gives him time for reflection. He has leisure now
to take cognizance of his impressions, and make
up his account with the mountains. He remembers,
too, that he has friends at home; and writes
up the Journal, neglected for a week or more;
and letters neglected longer; or finishes the rough
pencil-sketch, begun yesterday in the open air.
On the whole he is not sorry it rains; though disappointed.
Flemming was both sorry and disappointed;
but he did not on that account fail to go over to
the Ashburtons at the appointed hour. He found
them sitting in the parlour. The mother was
reading, and the daughter retouching a sketch of
the Lake of Thun. After the usual salutations,
Flemming seated himself near the daughter, and
said;
“We shall have no Staubbach to-day, I presume;
only this Giessbach from the clouds.”
“Nothing more, I suppose. So we must be
content to stay in-doors; and listen to the sound
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of the eves-dropping rain. It gives me time to
finish some of these rough sketches.”
“It is a pleasant pastime,” said Flemming;
“and I perceive you are very skilful. I am delighted
to see, that you can draw a straight line. I never
before saw a lady's sketch-book, in which all the
towers did not resemble the leaning Tower of
Pisa. I always tremble for the little men under
them.”
“How absurd!” exclaimed Mary Ashburton,
with a smile that passed through the misty air of
Flemming's thoughts, like a sunbeam; “For one,
I succeed much better in straight lines than in any
others. Here I have been trying a half-hour to
make this water-wheel round; and round it never
will be.”
“Then let it remain as it is. It looks uncommonly
picturesque, and may pass for a new invention.”
The lady continued to sketch, and Flemming to
gaze at her beautiful face; often repeating to himself
those lines in Marlow's Faust;
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“O thou art fairer than the evening air,
Clad in the beauty of a thousand stars!”
He certainly would have betrayed himself to
the maternal eye of Mrs. Ashburton, had she not
been wholly absorbed in the follies of a fashionable
novel. Ere long the fair sketcher had paused for
a moment; and Flemming had taken her sketch-book
in his hands and was looking it through from
the beginning with ever-increasing delight, half of
which he dared not express, though he favored
her with some comments and bursts of admiration.
“This is truly a very beautiful sketch of Murten
and the battle-field! How quietly the land-scape
sleeps there by the lake, after the battle!
Did you ever read the ballad of Veit Weber, the
shoe-maker, on this subject? He says, the routed
Burgundians jumped into the lake, and the Swiss
Leaguers shot them down like wild ducks among
the reeds. He fought in the battle and wrote the
ballad afterwards;—
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`He had himself laid hand on sword,
He who this rhyme did write;
Till evening mowed he with the sword,
And sang the song at night.' ”
“You must give me the whole ballad,” said Miss
Ashburton; “it will serve to illustrate the sketch.”
“And the sketch to illustrate the ballad. And
now we suddenly slide down the Alps into Italy,
and are even in Rome, if I mistake not. This is
surely a head of Homer?”
“Yes,” replied the lady, with a little enthusiasm.
“Do you not remember the marble bust at
Rome? When I first beheld that bust, it absolutely
inspired me with awe. It is not the face of
a man, but of a god!”
“And you have done it no injustice in your
copy,” said Flemming, catching a new enthusiasm
from hers. “With what a classic grace the fillet,
passing round the majestic forehead, confines his
flowing locks, which mingle with his beard! The
countenance, too, is calm, majestic, godlike! Even
the fixed and sightless eyeballs do not mar the
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image of the seer! Such were the sightless eyes of
the blind old man of Chios. They seem to look
with mournful solemnity into the mysterious future;
and the marble lips to repeat that prophetic passage
in the Hymn to Apollo; `Let me also hope
to be remembered in ages to come. And when
any one, born of the tribes of men, comes hither,
a weary traveller, and inquires, who is the sweetest
of the Singing Men, that resort to your feasts,
and whom you most delight to hear, do you make
answer for me. It is the Blind Man, who dwells
in Chios; his songs excel all that can ever be
sung!' But do you really believe, that this is a
portrait of Homer?”
“Certainly not! It is only an artist's dream.
It was thus, that Homer appeared to him in his
visions of the antique world. Every one, you
know, forms an image in his fancy of persons and
things he has never seen; and the artist reproduces
them in marble or on canvass.”
“And what is the image in your fancy? Is it
like this?”
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“No; not entirely. I have drawn my impressions
from another source. Whenever I think of
Homer, which is not often, he walks before me,
solemn and serene, as in the vision of the great
Italian; in countenance neither sorrowful nor glad,
followed by other bards, and holding in his right
hand a sword!”
“That is a finer conception, than even this,”
said Flemming. “And I perceive from your
words, as well as from this book, that you have a
true feeling for art, and understand what it is.
You have had bright glimpses into the enchanted
land.”
“I trust,” replied the lady modestly, “that I
am not wholly without this feeling. Certainly I
have as strong and passionate a love of Art as of
Nature.”
“But does it not often offend you to hear people
speaking of Art and Nature as opposite and discordant
things? Surely nothing can be more false.
Nature is a revelation of God; Art a revelation of
man. Indeed, Art signifies no more than this.
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Art is Power. That is the original meaning of the
word. It is the creative power by which the soul
of man makes itself known, through some external
manifestation or outward sign. As we can always
hear the voice of God, walking in the garden,
in the cool of the day, or under the star-light,
where, to quote one of this poet's verses, `high
prospects and the brows of all steep hills and pinnacles
thrust up themselves for shows';—so,
under the twilight and the starlight of past ages,
do we hear the voice of man, walking amid the
works of his hands, and city walls and towers and
the spires of churches, thrust up themselves for
shows.”
The lady smiled at his warmth; and he continued;
“This, however, is but a similitude; and Art
and Nature are more nearly allied than by similitudes
only. Art is the revelation of man; and
not merely that, but likewise the revelation of Nature,
speaking through man. Art preëxists in Nature,
and Nature is reproduced in Art. As vapors
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from the ocean, floating landward and dissolved in
rain, are carried back in rivers to the ocean, so
thoughts and the semblances of things that fall
upon the soul of man in showers, flow out again
in living streams of Art, and lose themselves in
the great ocean, which is Nature. Art and Nature
are not, then, discordant, but ever harmoniously
working in each other.”
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
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difference between 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.”
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“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 with
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greasy 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.
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“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, as
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of 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
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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
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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,
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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 who 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 of
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hoar 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
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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 really
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thought 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.
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Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth, 1807-1882 [1839], Hyperion. Volume 2 (Samuel Colman, New York) [word count] [eaf259v2].
