Seraphael had desired me to stay with him, therefore the next morning
I intended to give up my London lodgings on the road to Miss
Lawrence's square, or rather out of the road. When I came downstairs
into the sun-lit breakfast-room, I found Starwood alone and writing to
his father, but no Chevalier. Nor was he in his own room, for the sun
was streaming through the vine-shade on the tossed bed-clothes, and
the door and window were both open as I descended. Starwood said that
he had gone to walk in the garden, and that we were not to wait for
him. "What! without his breakfast?" said I. But Starwood smiled such a
meaning smile that I was astonished, and could only sit down.
We ate and drank, but neither of us spoke. I was anxious to be off,
and Star to finish his letter; though as we both arose and were still
alone, he yet looked naughty. I would not pretend to understand him,
for if he has a fault, that darling friend of mine, it is that he sees
through people rather too soon, construing their intentions before
they inform experience.
I could not make up my mind to ride, but set off on foot along the
sun-glittering road, through emerald shades, past gold-flecked
meadows, till through the mediant chaos of brick-fields and dust-heaps
I entered the dense halo surrounding London,--"smoke the tiara of
commerce," as a pearl of poets has called it. The square looked
positively lifeless when I came there. I almost shrank from my
expedition, not because of any fear I had on my own account, but
because all the inhabitants might have been asleep behind the glaze of
their many windows.
I was admitted noiselessly and as if expected, shown into the
drawing-room, so large, so light and splendid in the early sun. All
was noiseless, too, within; an air of affluent calm pervaded as an
atmosphere itself the rich-grouped furniture, the piano closed, the
stools withdrawn. I was not kept two minutes; Miss Lawrence entered,
in the act of holding out her hand. I was instantly at home with her,
though she was one of the grandest persons I ever saw. She accepted my
arm, and, not speaking, took me to a landing higher, and to a room
which appeared to form one of a suite; for a curtain extended across
one whole side,--a curtain as before an oratory in a dwelling-house.
Breakfast was outspread here; on the walls, a pale sea-green, shone
delectable pictures in dead-gold frames,--pictures even to an
inexperienced eye pure relics of art. The windows had no curtains,
only a broad gold cornice; the chairs were damask, white and green;
the carpet oak-leaves, on a lighter ground. It was evidently a retreat
of the lesser art,--it could not be called a boudoir; neither ornament
nor mirror, vase nor book-stand, broke the prevalent array. I said I
had breakfasted, but she made me sit by her and told me,--
"I have not, and I am sure you will excuse me. One must eat, and I am
not so capable to exist upon little as you are. Yet you shall not sit,
if you would rather see the pictures, because there are not too many
to tire you in walking round. Too many together is a worse mistake
than too few."
I arose immediately, but I took opportunity to examine my entertainer
in pauses as I moved from picture to picture. She wore black brocaded
silk this morning, with a Venetian chain and her watch, and a collar
all lace; her hair, the blackest I had ever seen except Maria's, was
coiled in snake-like wreaths to her head so small behind while it
arched so broadly and benevolently over her noble eyes. She was older
than I had imagined, and may have been forty at that time; the only
observation one could retain about the fact being that her gathered
years had but served to soften every crudity of an extremely decided
organization, and to crown wisdom with refinement.
She soon pushed back her cup and plate, and came to my side. She
looked suddenly, a little anxiously at me.
"You must be rather curious to know why I asked you to come to me
to-day; and were you not a gentleman, you would have been also
curious, I fancy, to know why I could not see you on Tuesday. I want
you to come this way."
I followed; she slid the curtain along its rings, and we entered the
oratory. I know not that it was so far unlike such precinct, for from
thence art reared her consecrated offerings to the presence of every
beauty. I felt this, and that the artist was pure in heart, even
before her entire character faced my own. The walls here, of the same
soft marine shade, were also lighted by pictures,--the strangest, the
wildest, the least assorted, yet all according.
A peculiar and unique style was theirs; each to each presented the
atmosphere of one imagination. Dark and sombrous woods, moon-pierced,
gleamed duskly from a chair where they were standing frameless;
resting against them, a crowd of baby faces clustered in a giant
flower-chalice; a great lotus was the hieroglyph of a third. On the
walls faces smiled or frowned,--huge profiles; dank pillars mirrored
in rushy pools; fragments of heathen temples; domes of diaphanous
distance in a violet sky; awful palms; dread oceans, with the last
ghost-shadow of a wandering wreck. I stood lost, unaccustomed either
to the freaks or the triumphs of pictorial art; I could only say in my
amaze, "Are these all yours? How wonderful!" She smiled very
carelessly.
"I did not intend you to look at those, except askance, if you were
kind enough. I keep them to advertise my own deficiencies and to
compare the present with the past. The present is very aspiring, and
_for_ the present devours my future. I hope it will dedicate itself
thereunto. I wish you to come here, to this light."
She was placed before an immense easel to the right of a large-paned
window, where the best London day streamed above the lower dimness. An
immense sheet of canvas was turned away from us upon the easel; but in
a moment she had placed it before us, and fell back in the same
moment, a little from me.
Nor shall I ever forget that moment's issue. I forgot it was a
picture, and all I could feel was a trance-like presence brought unto
me in a day-dream of immutable satisfaction. On either side, the
clouds, light golden and lucid crimson, passed into a central sphere
of the perfect blue. And reared into that, as it were the empyrean of
the azure, gleamed in full relief the head, life-sized, of Seraphael.
The bosom white-vested, the regal throat, shone as the transparent
depths of the moon, not moonlight, against the blue unshadowed. The
clouds deeper, heavier, and of a dense violet, were rolled upon the
rest of the form; the bases of those clouds as livid as the storm,
but their edges, where they flowed into the virgin raiment,
sun-fringed, glittering. The visage was raised, the head thrown back
into the ether; but the eyes were drooping, the snow-sealed lips at
rest. The mouth faint crimson, thrilling, spiritual, appalled by its
utter reminiscence; the smile so fiery-soft just touched the lips
unparted. No symbol strewed the cloudy calm below, neither lyre,
laurel-wreathed, nor flowery chaplet; but on either side, where the
clouds disparted in wavering flushes and golden pallors, two hands of
light, long, lambent, life-like, but not earthly, held over the brow a
crown.
Passing my eye among the cloud-lights,--for I cannot call them
shadows,--I could just gather with an eager vision, as one gathers the
thready moon-crescent in a mid-day sky, that on either side a visage
gleamed, veiled and drenched also in the rose-golden mist.
One countenance was dread and glorious, of sharp-toned ecstasy that
cut through the quivering medium,--a self-sheathed seraph; the other
was mild and awful, informed with steadfast beauty, a shining cherub.
They were Beethoven and Bach, as they might be known in heaven; but
who, except the musician, would have known them for themselves on
earth? It was not for me to speak their names,--I could not utter
them; my heart was dry,--I was thirsty for the realization of that
picture promise.
The crown they uplifted in those soft, shining hands was a circle of
stars gathered to each other out of that heavenly silence, and into
the azure vague arose that brow over which the conqueror's sign,
suspended, shook its silver terrors. For such awful fancies shivered
through the brain upon its contemplation that I can but call it
_transcendental_,--beyond expression; the feeling, the fear, the
mystery of starlight pressed upon the spirit and gave new pulses to
the heart. The luminous essence from the large white points seemed
rained upon that forehead and upon the deep tints of the god-like
locks; they turned all clear upon their orbed clusters, they melted
into the radiant halo which flooded, yet as with a glory one could not
penetrate, the impenetrable elevation of the lineaments.
I dared only gaze; had I spoken, I should have wept, and I would not
disturb the image by my tears. I soon perceived how awfully the
paintress had possessed herself of the inspiration, the melancholy,
and the joy. The crown, indeed, was grounded upon rest, and of
unbroken splendor; but it beamed upon the aspect of exhaustion and
longing strife, upon lips yet thirsty, and imploring patience.
I suppose my silence satisfied the artist; for before I had spoken, or
even unriveted my gaze, she said, herself--
"That I have worked upon for a year. I was allowing myself to dream
one day--just such a day as this--last spring; and insensibly my
vision framed itself into form. The faces came before I knew,--at
least those behind the clouds; and having caught them, I conceived the
rest. I could not, however, be certain of my impressions about the
chief countenance, and I waited with it unfinished enough until the
approach of the season, for I knew he was coming now, and before he
arrived I sent him a letter to his house in Germany. I had a pretty
business to find out the address, and wrote to all kinds of persons;
but at last I succeeded, and my suit was also successful. I had asked
him to sit to me."
"Then you had not known him before? You did not know him all those
years?"
"I had seen him often, but never known him. Oh, yes! I had seen his
face. You have a tolerable share of courage: could you have asked him
such a favor?"
"You see, Miss Lawrence, I have received so many favors from him
without asking for them. Had I possessed such genius as yours, I
should not only have done the same, but have felt to do it was my
duty. It is a portrait for all the ages, not only for men, but for
angels."
"Only for angels, if fit at all; for that face is something beyond
man's utmost apprehension of the beautiful. It must ever remain a
solitary idea to any one who has received it. You will be shocked if I
tell you that his beauty prevails more with _me_ than his music."
"But is it not the immediate consequence of such musical investment?"
"I believe, on the contrary, that the musical investment, as you
charmingly express it, is the direct consequence of the lofty
organization."
"That is a new notion for me; I must turn it over before I take it
home. I would rather consider the complement of his gifts to be that
heavenly heart of his which endows them each and all with what must
live forever in unaltered perfection."
"And it pleases me to feel that he is of like passions with us,
protected from the infraction of laws celestial by the image of the
Creator still conserved to his mortal nature, and stamping it with a
character beyond the age. But about his actual advent. He answered my
letter in person. I was certainly appalled to hear of his arrival, and
that he was downstairs. I was up here muddling with my brushes,
without knowing what to be at; up comes my servant--
"'Mr. Seraphael.'
"Imagine such an announcement! I descend, we meet,--for the first time
in private except, indeed, on the occasion when his shadow was
introduced to me, as you may remember. He was in the drawing-room,
pale from travelling, full of languor left by sea-sickness, looking
like a spirit escaped from prison. I was almost ashamed of my daring,
far more so than alarmed. I thought he was about to appoint a day; but
no. He said,--
"'I am at your service this morning, if it suits you; but as you did
not favor me with your address, I could not arrange beforehand. I went
to my music-sellers and asked them about you. I need not tell you that
you were known there, and that I am much obliged to them.'
"Actually it was a fact that I had not furnished him with my address;
but I was perfectly innocent of my folly. What could I do but not lose
a moment? I asked him to take refreshment; no, he had breakfasted, or
dined, or something, and we came up here directly. I never saw such
behavior. He did not even inquire what I was about, but sat, like a
god in marble, just where I had placed him,--out there. You perceive
that I have lost the eyes, or at least have rendered them up to
mystery. Well, when, having caught the outline of the forehead, and
touched the temples, I descended to those eyes, and saw they were full
upon me, I could do nothing with them. I cannot paint light, only its
ghost; nor fire, only its shade. His eyes are at once fire and
light,--I know not of which the most; or, at least, that which is the
light of fire. Even the streaming lashes scarcely tempered the
radiance there. I let them fall, and veiled what one scarcely dares to
meet,--at least I. He sat to me for hours; but though I knew not how
the time went, and may be forgiven for inconsideration, I had no idea
that he was going straight to the committee of the choir-day on the
top of that sitting. I kept him long enough for what I wanted, and as
he did not ask to see the picture, I did not show it him. He shall see
it when it is finished."
"What finish does it require? I see no change that it can need to
carry out the likeness, which is all we want."
"Oh, yes! more depth in the darkness, and more glory in the light;
less electric expression, more ideal serenity,--above all, more pain
above the forehead, more peace about the crown. Moonlight without a
moon, sunshine without the solar rays,--the day of heaven."
"I can only say, Miss Lawrence, that you deserve to be able to do as
you have done, and to feel that no one else could have done it."
"Very exclusive, that feeling, but perhaps necessary. I have it, but
my deserts will only be transcended if Seraphael himself shall
approve. And now for another question,--Will you go with me to this
choir-day?"
"I am trying to imagine what you mean. I have not heard the name until
you spoke it. Is it in the North?"
"Certainly not; though even York Minster would not be a bad
notion--that is to say, it would suit our Beethoven exactly; but this
is another hierarch. What do you think of an oratorio in Westminster
Abbey, the conductor our own, the whole affair of his? No wonder you
have heard nothing; it has been kept very snug, and was only arranged
by the interposition of various individuals whose influence is more of
mammon than of art,--the objection at first being chiefly on the part
of the profession; but that is overruled by their being pretty nearly
every one included in the orchestra. Such a thing is never likely to
occur again. Say that you will go with me. If it be anything to you, I
shall give you one of the best seats, in the very centre, where you
will see and hear better than most people. Imagine the music in that
place of tombs,--it is a melancholy but glorious project; may we
realize it!"
_I_ could not at present,--it was out of the question; nor could I
bear to stay,--there was nothing for it but to make haste out, where
the air made solitude. I bade the paintress good morning, and quitted
her. I believe she understood my frame.