Hyperion Part 19

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 preexists in Nature, and Nature is reproduced in Art. As vaporsfrom 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 compa.s.sed about by the other,

'And the clear region where 't was born,

Round in itself incloses.'

Taking this view of art, I think we understand more easily the skill of the artist, and the differencebetween him and the mere amateur. What we call miracles and wonders of art are not so to him who created them. For they were created by the natural movements of his own great soul. Statues, paintings, churches, poems, are but shadows of himself;--shadows in marble, colors, stone, words. He feels and recognises their beauty; but he thought these thoughts and produced these things as easily as inferior minds do thoughts and things inferior. Perhaps more easily. Vague images and shapes of beauty floating through the soul, the semblances of things as yet indefinite or ill-defined, and perfect only when put in art,--this Possible Intellect, as the Scholastic Philosophers have termed it,--the artist shares in common with us all. The lovers of art are many. But the Active Intellect, the creative power,--the power to put these shapes and images in art, to imbody the indefinite, and render perfect, is his alone. He shares the gift with few. He knows not even whence nor how this is. He knows only that it is; that G.o.d has given him the power, which has been denied to others."

"I should have known you were just from Germany," said the lady, with a smile, "even if you had not told me so. You are an enthusiast for the Germans. For my part I cannot endure their harsh language."

"You would like it better, if you knew it better," answered Flemming. "It is not harsh to me; but homelike, hearty, and full of feeling, like the sound of happy voices at a fireside, of a winter's night, when the wind blows, and the fire crackles, and hisses, and snaps. I do indeed love the Germans; the men are so hale and hearty, and the Frauleins so tender and true!"

"I always think of men with pipes and beer, and women with knittingwork."

"O, those are English prejudices," exclaimed Flemming. "Nothing can be more--"

"And their very literature presents itself to my imagination under the same forms."

"I see you have read only English criticisms; and have an idea, that all German books smell, as it were, 'of groceries, of brown papers, filled withgreasy cakes and slices of bacon; and of fryings in frowzy back-parlours; and this shuts you out from a glorious world of poetry, romance, and dreams!"

Mary Ashburton smiled, and Flemming continued to turn over the leaves of the sketch-book, with an occasional criticism and witticism. At length he came to a leaf which was written in pencil.

People of a lively imagination are generally curious, and always so when a little in love.

"Here is a pencil-sketch," said he, with an entreating look, "which I would fain examine with the rest."

"You may do so, if you wish; but you will find it the poorest sketch in the book. I was trying one day to draw the picture of an artist's life in Rome, as it presented itself to my imagination; and this is the result. Perhaps it may awaken some pleasant recollection in your mind."

Flemming waited no longer; but read with the eyes of a lover, not of a critic, the following description, which inspired him with a new enthusiasm for Art, and for Mary Ashburton.

"I often reflect with delight upon the young artist's life in Rome. A stranger from the cold and gloomy North, he has crossed the Alps, and with the devotion of a pilgrim journeyed to the Eternal City. He dwells perhaps upon the Pincian Hill; and hardly a house there, which is not inhabited by artists from foreign lands. The very room he lives in has been their abode from time out of mind.

Their names are written all over the walls; perhaps some further record of them left in a rough sketch upon the window-shutter, with an inscription and a date. These things consecrate the place, in his imagination. Even these names, though unknown to him, are not without a.s.sociations in his mind.

"In that warm lat.i.tude 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 wors.h.i.+pped there, asof old. Before him, the antique house, where Raphael lived, casts its long, brown shadow down into the heart of modern Rome. The city lies still asleep and silent. But above its dark roofs, more than two hundred steeples catch the suns.h.i.+ne on their gilded weather-c.o.c.ks.

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 pa.s.ses 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 pa.s.ses, as in a dream. All are filled with busts and statues; or painted in daring frescoes. What forms of strength and beauty! what glorious creations of the human mind! and in that last chamber of all, standing alone upon his pedestal, the Apollo found at Actium,--in such a majestic att.i.tude,--with such a n.o.ble countenance, life-like, G.o.d-like!

"Or perhaps he pa.s.ses 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 canva.s.s was first stretched upon its frame, and Raphael stood before it, and laid the first colors upon it, and beheld the figures one by one born into life, and 'looked upon the work of his own hands with a smile, that it should have succeeded so well.' He recalls too, the hour, when, the task accomplished, the pencil dropped from the master's dying hand, and his eyes closed to open on a more glorious transfiguration, and at length the dead Raphael lay in his own studio, before this wonderful painting, more glorious than any conqueror under the banners and armorial hatchments of his funeral!

"Think you, that such sights and thoughts as these do not move the heart of a young man and an artist! And when he goes forth into the open air, the sun is going down, and the gray ruins of an antique world receive him. From the Palace of the Caesars he looks down into the Forum, or towards the Coliseum; or westward sees the last suns.h.i.+ne strike the bronze Archangel, which stands upon the Tomb of Adrian. He walks amid a world of Art in ruins. The very street-lamps, that light him homeward, burn before some painted or sculptured image of the Madonna! What wonder is it, if dreams visit him in his sleep,--nay, if his whole life seem to him a dream! What wonder, if, with a feverish heart and quick hand, he strive to reproduce those dreams in marble or on canva.s.s."

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 pa.s.sionless 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 ofh.o.a.r 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 pa.s.sage in romance.

"Likewise the illuminated ma.n.u.scripts of those ages have something of this power of making the dead Past a living Present in my mind. What curious figures are emblazoned on the creaking parchment, making its yellow leaves laugh with gay colors! You seem to come upon them unawares. Their faces have an expression of wonder. They seem all to be just startled from their sleep by the sound you made when you unloosed the brazen clasps, and opened the curiously-carved oaken covers, that turn on hinges, like the great gates of a city. To the building of that city some diligent monk gave the whole of a long life. With what strange denizens he peopled it! Adam and Eve standing under a tree, she, with the apple in her hand;--the patriarch Abraham, with a tree growing out of his body, and his descendants sitting owl-like upon its branches;--ladies with flowing locks of gold; knights in armour, with most fantastic, long-toed shoes; jousts and tournaments; and Minnesingers, and lovers, whose heads reach to the towers, where their ladies sit;--and all so angular, so simple, so childlike,--all in such simple att.i.tudes, with such great eyes, and holding up such long, lank fingers!--These things are characteristic of the Middle Ages, and persuade me of the truth of history."

At this moment Berkley entered, with a Swiss cottage, which he had just bought as a present for somebody's child in England; and a cane with a chamois-horn on the end of it, which he had just bought for himself. This was the first time, that Flemming had been sorry to see the good-natured man. His presence interrupted the delightful conversation he was carrying on "under four eyes," with Mary Ashburton. He reallythought Berkley a bore, and wondered it had never occurred to him before. Mrs. Ashburton, too, must needs lay down her book; and the conversation became general. Strange to say, the Swiss dinner-hour of one o'clock, did not come a moment too soon for Flemming. It did not even occur to him that it was early; for he was seated beside Mary Ashburton, and at dinner one can say so much, without being overheard.

CHAPTER VI. AFTER DINNER, AND AFTER THE MANNER OF THE BEST CRITICS.

When the learned Thomas Diafoirus wooed the fair Angelique, he drew from his pocket a medical thesis, and presented it to her, as the first-fruits of his genius; and at the same time, invited her, with her father's permission, to attend the dissection of a woman, upon whom he was to lecture. Paul Flemming did nearly the same thing; and so often, that it had become a habit. He was continually drawing, from his pocket or his memory, some sc.r.a.p of song or story; and inviting some fair Angelique, either with her father's permission or without, to attend the dissection of anauthor, upon whom he was to discourse. He soon gave proofs of this to Mary Ashburton.

"What books have we here for afternoon reading?" said Flemming, taking a volume from the parlour table, when they had returned from the dining-room. "O, it is Uhland's Poems. Have you read any thing of his? He and Tieck are the best living poets of Germany. They dispute the palm of superiority. Let me give you a lesson in German, this afternoon, Miss Ashburton; so that no one may accuse you of 'omitting the sweet benefit of time, to clothe your age with angel-like perfection.' I have opened at random upon the ballad of the Black Knight. You repeat the German after me, and I will translate to you. Pfingsten war, das Fest der Freude!"

"I should never persuade my unwilling lips to p.r.o.nounce such sounds. So I beg you not to perplex me with your German, but read me the ballad in English."

"Well, then, listen. I will improvise a translation for your own particular benefit.

"'T was Pentecost, the Feast of Gladness,

When woods and fields put off all sadness.

Thus began the King and spake;

'So from the halls

Of ancient Hofburg's walls,

A luxuriant Spring shall break.'

"Drums and trumpets echo loudly,

Wave the crimson banners proudly.

From balcony the King looked on;

In the play of spears,

Fell all the cavaliers,

Before the monarch's stalwart son.

"To the barrier of the fight,

Rode at last a sable Knight.