round the subject by metaphor and symbol and figure of speech, but
cannot solve it like a problem in Euclid and add Q.E.D. at the end. The
writer's lure is the vividest way of saying things. It is a bolt shot
from the mind that hits the penman's mark. The writer's lure fixes you
even as a beautiful sympathetic picture holds you up by its witchery of
art. In the picture warmth of colour, grace of line, melting tints,
dreamy distance, and an added mystic charm brooding over all, voice
lovingly your taste in art, and, like a haunted man, you carry the
landscape about with you all day long. It intrudes on your mind midst
pressing business affairs; the sunlight sleeping on the hills creates a
pleasant interlude of thought when engrossed in life's little worries.
Turner's "Crossing the Brook" in the Tate Gallery is a picture that
bewitches me when I see it. It stimulates my imagination and sets my
thoughts sailing over the country carried on the breezes which blow
across the Turner landscape.
A book haunts you in the selfsame way as a picture. You read a book,
and it stirs your emotions and captivates your fancy, and for a time it
possesses you like a living spirit. The writer's lure holds you in its
grip. The book soaks into you. A sentence here and there leaps to
memory during odd moments of the day; the rhythm of the language ripples
musically as a chime of bells, and you repeat the sentence to yourself
again and again. The aptness of an image is lifelike, and a vision
floats across your mind; the happy turn of a sentence sticks. The fresh,
clear-cut thought shot out boldly from the writer's brain conveys a new
idea; you recall the touch of humour resembling a patch of warm sunshine
twinkling on the landscape, and your lips curve into a smile. There are
passages of tenderness also that you treasure, because they find your
heart like shafts of love feathered with joy. All these things in the
book come back to you vividly, and whisper their fond message over
again.
One cannot explain the writer's lure. You may name it, but you cannot
catch it in the reviewer's trap of criticism. It is illusive as the
angel who visited Manoah and his wife, wrought wondrously, and vanished
leaving no trace. It is a secret of pencraft which defies definitions
and eludes analysis, yet it is the vital element in composition. It is
not a question of conforming to correct standards of good writing by
which literary excellence is judged, the writer being blessed or cursed
by the censors according to the measure of his allegiance to their
literary creed. Some writers violate every literary canon set up to
guide their pen in the way of righteousness, but they are alive with
literary fire; the vital element is fecund within them, and they riot in
the power of it. There are no rules in art that great writers have not
shown us how to break with advantage. You cannot resolve the writer's
lure into its component parts as you can a potato. Like electricity, it
defies analysis, but, like the electric current, you feel it in your
bones.
Blind Emilio does not work by rules taught in popular garden manuals; he
gathers inspiration for his craft direct from the heavens. He is an
oracle of occult information and prevision almost uncanny, concerning
things in the garden and out of it. However, he is a cheerful soul and
a born optimist, so we consult him often and rely on his wisdom,
because, like honey, its flavour is pleasant to the taste.
The moon is the guiding providence regulating some of Emilio's important
duties. He observes the phases of the moon with the reverence of an
astrologer of legendary days. He awaits the waning moon in February to
prune the rose-trees. A potent mystic virtue dwells in a waning moon
according to his garden lore, which is old as his pagan ancestors. If
you prune rose-trees in a waxing moon the new growths will be long, weak
shoots, and the crop of roses in the summer poor, puny things. Prune in
the waning moon and the new growths will be short, sturdy rods bearing
large flowers, and an abundance of them. Garden seed must be sown under
the auspices of the waning moon if you want your flower-beds in the
summer-time to be renowned for beauty, to make your friends envious of
your success and yourself just swaggeringly happy.
What applies to roses and seed applies equally to pruning vines and
grafting fruit-trees. Bulbs and potatoes may be planted any time. They
move in the spring when Nature signals whether they are in the ground or
out of it. They are outside the ritual of the moon.
We had a heavy crop of diospyros last autumn, drawn from four trees in
the kitchen-garden. These fruits are fat, round, rosy fellows, plump as
overgrown tomatoes. The flesh of the ripe diospyros is Nature's jam,
soft and mushy, delicious in flavour, and eaten politely with a spoon.
Our neighbour who hails from Cincinnati grew a crop of small,
sickly-looking fruit. "Ah!" said Emilio, "now that you see the
difference in the two crops, you must believe me. Their diospyros were
gathered in the growing moon, and they shrivel and lose colour and
flavour; ours were gathered in the waning moon, and keep beautiful and
sound to the end of the season." There is good luck under the waning
moon. Another explanation of the difference in the crops has merit,
which Emilio considers treason to the honourable tradition of his
fathers. Our fruit was grown in the kitchen-garden on manured soil; our
American neighbour's trees stand on a rocky bank in the wild garden
which is never dressed with manure. The blessing of the moon falls on
the crop that is best nourished in the days of its youth.
In the garden is an avenue of lime-trees about one hundred and sixty
feet long. In the summer it forms a deliciously shady walk; in rainy
weather it is a clean and pleasant promenade, for it has a paved pathway
in it. The north end of the avenue terminates in a large semicircular
stone seat mounted on a stone base one step higher than the pathway.
The seat has no florid decorative carving on it to arouse hostility or
provoke criticism. It is just a plain seat of simple Roman type, roomy
and comfortable to sit on. Behind the seat curves a semicircle of
thirteen cypress-trees screening the north winds. Again, behind the
cypress-trees is an interesting old stone wall about twenty feet high,
forming the boundary of the garden. Above the wall, rising in gentle
slope, is the south shoulder of the hill, on the hill-top sits Fiesole,
the famous Etruscan city of history and legend. The slope is covered
with olives and vines, forming a mantle grey and green with its leafy
fringe dropping on our garden wall.
This great retaining wall is old as the villa which was purchased by
Domenico Mori in 1475. The history of the house earlier than this date
is lost in the mist of antiquity. The ancient wall is a feature in the
garden, for on two sides it towers like a cliff, forming a charming
background to the scene. It has weathered beautifully with the ages,
and is an immense stretch of canvas for the display of masses of colour.
In places it is bleached silvery-grey, and elsewhere the tinted lichen
mottle it with saffron and orange and brown, and every delectable shade
and tone which Time, the great decorator, with loving hand, imparts to
old stone. It looks warm and gay and friendly, and grows a rock-garden
of its own, for wild flowers bloom in its cracks and crannies and red
valerian flames upon its heights, side by side with golden broom. Ivy
clothes it in parts, and most mysteriously so, for years back the plants
were cut off their roots, and the ivy now exists only on nourishment
drawn from the wall, and it exists vigorously on the meagre diet the
wall supplies. When the sunshine pours down upon its hoary time-worn
face, the old wall is transfigured into a thing of triple splendour, for
its colours glow and blaze with spiritual fervour imparting that
artistic touch of nature which is the happy gift of garden plaisance.
Deeply set in the wall is the ruin of a small shrine. Once upon a time
this shrine was the home of the Madonna, but now no Madonna occupies the
niche. Some pious ancestor of the house implored gracious protection of
the Mother of Jesus on behalf of his vines and olives, fruits and
flowers, and he set up her Ladyship's sheltered image in the little
vaulted temple on the wall as guardian of the crops, hoping that fat
harvest would follow his devotion to Our Lady of Plenty. The vacant
shrine is desolate and crumbling and mossy now, and so is the
sentimental faith of those ancient days. It was a hallowed sentiment in
its way, this worship of the Madonna. Men lived up to it, and felt
happy in their prayers to the Lady of Heaven. Nowadays men win good
harvests on more scientific lines. They put trust in deep ploughing and
artificial manure rather than in prayers and oblations to the Mother of
God.
The personal intervention of the Deity in the affairs of men strikes a
homely note in the world's domestic management, and brings the Heavenly
Father in close touch with His earthly family; but the dear God's
blessing is level-handed, and favours His children, bad or good, who
work the hardest, and add intelligence to their toil.
*VI*
*THE LURE OF THE MONTELUPO PLATE*
My friend Federico wandering through Tuscany on one of those delightful
excursions that he loves, passing from town to town and village to
village picking up "old things" _en route_, called at a dealer's shop in
Bagni di Lucca. In the miscellaneous collection of antiquities there
offered for sale he found nothing to please him. To console him in the
hour of disappointment, the little dealer, named Grosso, said: "I know
of a beautiful Montelupo plate that will take your fancy. Come with me;
it is away up the hills, a pleasant ride for us. Give me a few francs
for my trouble, and you can buy the plate." So they took a vettura and
rode up the mountains in quest of the Montelupo plate. After an hour's
delightful drive they stopped at a contadino's cottage on the roadside,
and there, boldly on view to the passer-by and stuck on the
weather-beaten front of the cottage over the doorway, was the Montelupo
plate, the very heart's desire of the two adventurers. It was a brave
plate, round as the sun and about thirteen inches in diameter. In the
centre of it, painted in flaming colours, trotted a soldier on horseback
with drawn sword in hand, but no painted foeman visible into which to
bury the thirsty blade. The interior of the plate surrounding the
warrior was a mass of rich deep orange ground; the colour much esteemed
by collectors of this rural pottery. The contadinos in Tuscany once
owned numerous specimens of these rustic dishes, which were used daily
by them in their homes as common household crockery. They were nothing
thought of in those far-off days of the fifteenth and sixteenth
centuries. They were made for the peasants' service, and if a plate was
broken another was bought for half a franc in the next market town. The
day came when the supply stopped and the plates could not be replaced.
Some other novelty in kitchenware had the run of the market, and nobody
wanted Montelupo plates.
Fashion set in about twenty years ago to collect this crude, curious,
neglected pottery, so grotesque and humorous in design and coarse in
workmanship, but when reposing against the wall of a well-lit room
certainly showy and decorative for all time. They carry amusing and
picturesque subjects, comical or satirical in treatment. Not very
artistic, but cleverly and freely drawn with a few bold lines to catch
the peasant's sense of humour, which was easily tickled. The plates
revel in brightness and colour. Colour holds the eye and courts our
admiration, and fancy prices rule the market.
The rarest plates to find are those burlesquing the Churchman. The
soldier, the farmer, and the serving-maid took the joke kindly, but the
plates in which the monk was caricatured offended the Church
dignitaries, and these specimens were bought up mysteriously, quickly
destroyed, and now cannot be found.
When the fashion set in, wandering dealers and touring collectors made
haste to buy. They spread themselves over the country; knocked at
cottage doors in out-of-the-way places in Tuscany, begged a glass of
milk, admired the plates on the kitchen dresser, and offered to buy at a
few francs apiece. The contadino soon found he had something good, and
the price rose to ten francs each. Still the plates were admired by
tired travellers resting in out-of-the-way cottages drinking a glass of
milk. The price rose incontinently to twenty, thirty, fifty francs,
until the peasants discovered a gold-mine in their old kitchen crockery,
and now their stock is sold out. To-day the plates are found only in
the hands of dealers, and good specimens command prices anywhere between
a hundred and two hundred and fifty francs each.
The owner of the Montelupo plate over the cottage door asked sixty
francs for his family treasure. My friend borrowed a ladder, that he
might have it down to examine. "No," said the owner; "you must buy it
where it is, and pay for it first." Federico's fancy was caught with
the pretty toy; he submitted to the hard terms, and paid the sixty
francs. Little Grosso now mounted the ladder to bring down the plate.
"I can't move it; it is cemented into the wall," he called to the new
comer, standing below. So he borrowed a hammer and chisel, and ran
nimbly up the ladder again and began chipping round the plate.
Immediately the whole village was on the spot, standing round, excited,
chattering, watching the job. A noisy man, the cock of the village,
slung himself forward and shouted strenuously. He demanded to know what
they were doing: "That plate has been there for over a hundred years.
It is a very important piece, and is worth much money. It is of great
value. Who has bought it? What have you paid for it?"
"I have bought it," said my friend; "I have given sixty francs for it,
and as you think it so valuable, I will sell it to you for sixty francs.
Will you have it at the price I gave for it?"
Federico has a lovable disposition. He takes life placidly. He takes
taxes placidly, he takes bad trade placidly, he takes the war placidly,
he takes a human tornado placidly. The noisy man exploded--shouted
louder and louder, and scattered his arms about in the air,
gesticulating like the sails of a windmill racing in a stiff breeze, but
he did not buy the village treasure. Grosso on the ladder kept on
chipping round the plate, the crowd watching him critically.
Presently he called out, "Signore, the plate is in two pieces!" My
friend said to the noisy man: "Do you want to buy the plate? It is in
two pieces--you can have it for fifty francs." He did not take on, but
continued talking, gesticulating, and exciting the onlookers. Grosso
continued chipping round the plate. He called out again, "Signore, the
plate is even in three pieces." So my friend said to the village bully,
"You can have the plate for thirty francs." But he did not buy at the
price. Grosso resumed his work, hacking round the plate. He called out
again, "Signore, the plate is in many pieces!" So Federico shouted to
the troublesome man: "Now is your chance; you can have the plate for
twenty francs. I paid sixty for it; will you give me twenty?"
The man folded himself up and slunk off; the crowd also melted away, and
Grosso went on chipping, and put fragment after fragment of the plate in
his pocket as he released them from their cement setting. He came down
the ladder with the broken plate in his pocket in ten pieces. They rode
home to Bagni di Lucca, feeling a bit miserable on the journey. At
Bagni di Lucca my friend comforted Grosso with a good dinner in the
restaurant and gave him seven francs for his trouble. "And what about
the plate?" said Grosso, when my friend bid him good-bye. "You keep it,
Grosso. I don't want it." "No," said Grosso; "the plate is yours. You
have treated me well and given me seven francs. I am more than
satisfied." "Keep it," was the reply; and away Federico went home, just
a little disappointed with the result of his expedition up the
mountains. The lure of the Montelupo dish had proved a failure.
Next year he visited Bagni di Lucca in quest of antiques, and called
upon Grosso the dealer. On entering the shop he saw the Montelupo plate
hanging against the wall, looking gay as ever without visible crack or
cleavage on it. The dealer had cunningly dove-tailed the plate
together, and it looked faultless to the eye. "It is yours," said
Grosso; "I have kept it for you. Customers wanted to buy it. I knew
you would come again to see me." After much persuasion and a
consideration, Federico took the plate home and hung it in his studio
amongst a collection of treasured antiques which he has gathered round
him there and are the joy of his heart. It was much admired, and the
romance of its history, often related, was as often listened to with
amusement and laughter.
One day a Florentine dealer visited the studio and fell in love with the
Montelupo plate, and bought it for ninety francs.
*VII*
*THE LURE OF PLUCK*
It happened in Rome; in our apartment on the Piazza di Spagna. We had a
visit from a Countess. She was heralded by her visiting-card, on which
blazed a coronet--an awe-inspiring visiting-card, imposing enough to
reduce to the ground the most blatant democrat. What did the unknown
Countess want? we asked each other with palpitating hearts. Had she come
to invite us to visit her ancestral castle in the Sabine Hills? Was she
a messenger from the Queen of Italy summoning us to an audience in the
Quirinal Palace? What did this high-toned lady want? My wife faced the
music alone. She entered the room, and saw a shabbily dressed old lady
rambling about amongst the furniture.
"Ah!" exclaimed the Countess; "please excuse me the liberty of admiring
your old Italian furniture; it is very fine indeed. I am so fond of it.
I used to have my rooms full of it, but we sold it all to dealers. They
gave us a good price for it. We are reduced in circumstances now, and I
have called to ask if you would buy some jam from me. I make it myself,
and have good clients among the English and American residents. I
charge 3.50 lire for a jar, and allow 50 centimes for the empty jar if
returned when I call again."
She produced some glass jars of jam and honey from a basket she carried
under her cloak. Refined-looking jars; artistically labelled jars,
assuring the purchaser that the jam within was made under perfect
hygienic conditions. The wording of the labels was printed in accurate
English; but the Countess could not speak English, not a broken sentence
of it could she utter. The conversation was carried on in French. We
bought a jar of jam and a jar of honey, and are looking hopefully for
the return of the 50 centimes on the empty jars when next she calls on
business intent.
It is no hedgerow jam, no common cottage mixture of blackberry and apple
she offered us, but highly aristocratic peach jam from choicest fruits
grown in coroneted orchards. And the honey she offered was superior
honey; not the produce of old-fashioned garden flowers and wild heather
from the hills--anybody breeds that plebeian honey. Her bees were
classic to the core, lived in the garden of Hesperides, and fed only on
orange-blossoms and acacia. No honey had an aroma equal to hers.
Dear, good old soul! There was lots of fine metal in her character; she
was a piece of rare old silver plate with hall-mark clearly impressed on
it, but in somewhat battered and bruised condition. She had been
roughly handled in the hard-hammering world. She had lost everything
but manners and breeding. She could sell jam with the grace and dignity
of a Queen bestowing royal favours on a subject. She was striving to
maintain herself honourably in the sight of all men, and she would die
in the last ditch rather than beg. Her pluck lured her on to the
winning-post.
There are sensitive people who, when hard-hit by Fortune, mope like
moulting fowls and creep into dark corners of the earth; they do not
strut in the market-place and shout loud-throated their woes to the
crowd; they lower their flag and surrender themselves to fate. Their
vanity supports their poverty, and their poverty breaks their heart.
Really, these people are victims of false shame. False shame deludes
their common sense. It discolours their imagination, enfeebles their
will-power, and drives them on to the rocks to feed with the goats.
Their misfortune assumes an exaggerated character in their own minds.
They fancy that the world stares coldly on them in their adversity and
whispers contemptuously against them behind their backs, and they
collapse in the frigid atmosphere with which they surround themselves.
Their vanity betrays them into surmising unwholesome things. They
fidget about themselves in their supersensitiveness. They adore public
opinion, and fancy themselves filling a large place in its
consideration, and they dread the smiting lash of its hostile criticism.
The truth is humiliating but very refreshing to our morbid disposition,
and the truth is that people are not thinking much about us, however
conspicuously we imagine ourselves to be painted in the picture. We are
only one of a crowd of common people, nor even the most interesting
figure in it. It is unwise to esteem ourselves to be of immeasurably
more consequence than we really are. The busy world at best gives us
only a passing thought. Dr. Johnson bluntly said: "No man is much
regarded by the rest of the world. The utmost which we can reasonably
hope or fear is to fill a vacant hour with prattle and be forgotten."
If a man thinks no more seriously of his own misfortunes than his
neighbour thinks of them, his troubles will be lightly borne.
However, the world is much more good-natured than the man of morbid
temper gives it credit for. Penetrate through its cold reserve, and you
often find within a warm, sympathetic heart. The good English heart is
oft-times hedged by a _chevaux de frise_ of English hauteur hard to
break through, but get within the lines and you receive a cordial
welcome.
Our sturdy Countess was not afflicted with false shame. She had pride,
but not vanity. Vanity is a coquette and says, "What do you think of
me?" and tremblingly awaits your verdict. Pride says, "I am as good as
you are, and I don't care a damn." It is not every decadent Countess
who sells jam to keep her end up in this see-saw world. It requires
grit and a rare brand of pride uncommon in the quality to rise to the
occasion. There is a vain pride that welters into nothingness in the
dismal hour of failure, and starves tragically like a rat in a trap
rather than help itself or accept help from others. There is another
pride--robust, full-blooded pride--that spurns the conventionalities of
caste, takes off its coat and fights misfortune face to face resolutely
for its daily bread, and wins through. This is where our heroic
Countess steps in splendour.
Why immolate oneself on the altar of family pride? A false goddess sits
enshrined there on a false throne. Why live on the reputation a
forefather won in the Middle Ages? That reputation is now spent
capital; it is worthless scrip on the social market to-day. Build
another reputation for yourself, clean and sweet and new. If ill luck
drops you in the ditch, to maintain inviolate the family honour you must
get up and with ungloved hands work your way out of it like a man. Sell
jam.
Perhaps you hate wearing a brand-new reputation. It sets on you like a
misfitting coat. You are an heir of the glorious past, and exult on the
length in your ancient lineage. Remember also you are a trustee of the
splendid future; the shining days to come demand your thoughtful
consideration. Do rare credit to your sacred trust. It is better to
transmit honour to your descendants than to borrow fame from your
ancestors. It is better to be lovingly remembered than nobly born. That
grim old ancestor of yours who built the family fortune out of nothing
and grimly fought every inch of the way up to renown single-handed would
despise you for a poltroon lying derelict in the ditch of despair. If
the family fall throws you to the ground, are you going to lie there
indefinitely and rot like offal? Sell jam.