There are four very celebrated lines written by Walter Savage Landor
which you may have heard quoted; they were written towards the close
of his life, and are certainly distinguished and memorable:--
"I strove with none, for none was worth my strife;
Nature I loved, and next to Nature Art;
I warmed both hands before the fire of life;
It sinks, and I am ready to depart."
It does not detract from the merit of the lines that as a fact Landor was
of a fiery disposition, and strove a great deal with many adversaries,
often of his own creation, throughout his long life[1]; and although he
was of a fierce and combative nature he displayed in his writings a
classical restraint and tender beauty hardly achieved by his
contemporaries.
In the form of an imaginary conversation between Æsop and Rhodope,
Landor makes the latter describe how her father, in the famine,
unbeknown to her, starved that she might have plenty, and, when all
was gone, took her to the market-place to sell her that she might live.
There is an exquisite delicacy in this dialogue that places it among the
wonders of literature:--
"_Rhodope_. Never shall I forget the morning when my father,
sitting in the coolest part of the house, exchanged his last
measure of grain for a chlamys of scarlet cloth, fringed with
silver. He watched the merchant out of the door, and then looked
wistfully into the cornchest. I, who thought there was something
worth seeing, looked in also, and finding it empty, expressed my
disappointment, not thinking, however, about the corn. A faint and
transient smile came over his countenance at the sight of mine. He
unfolded the chlamys, stretched it out with both hands before me,
and then cast it over my shoulders. I looked down on the
glittering fringe and screamed with joy. He then went out; and I
know not what flowers he gathered, but he gathered many; and some
he placed in my bosom, and some in my hair. But I told him with
captious pride, first that I could arrange them better, and again
that I would have only the white. However, when he had selected
all the white and I had placed a few of them according to my
fancy, I told him (rising in my slipper) he might crown me with
the remainder.
"The splendour of my apparel gave me a sensation of authority.
Soon as the flowers had taken their station on my head, I
expressed a dignified satisfaction at the taste displayed by my
father, just as if I could have seen how they appeared! But he
knew that there was at least as much pleasure as pride in it, and
perhaps we divided the latter (alas! not both) pretty equally.
"He now took me into the market-place, where a concourse of people
were waiting for the purchase of slaves. Merchants came and looked
at me; some commending, others disparaging; but all agreeing that
I was slender and delicate, that I could not live long, and that I
should give much trouble. Many would have bought the chlamys, but
there was something less saleable in the child and flowers.
"_Æsop_. Had thy features been coarse and thy voice rustic, they
would all have patted thy cheeks and found no fault in thee.
"_Rhodope_. As it was, every one had bought exactly such another
in time past, and been a loser by it. At these speeches, I
perceived the flowers tremble slightly on my bosom, from my
father's agitation. Although he scoffed at them, knowing my
healthiness, he was troubled internally, and said many short
prayers, not very unlike imprecations, turning his head aside.
Proud was I, prouder than ever, when at last several talents were
offered for me, and by the very man who in the beginning had
undervalued me most, and prophesied the worst of me. My father
scowled at him and refused the money. I thought he was playing a
game, and began to wonder what it could be, since I had never seen
it played before. Then I fancied it might be some celebration
because plenty had returned to the city, insomuch that my father
had bartered the last of the corn he hoarded.
"I grew more and more delighted at the sport. But soon there
advanced an elderly man, who said gravely, 'Thou hast stolen this
child; her vesture alone is worth a hundred drachmas. Carry her
home again to her parents, and do it directly, or Nemesis and the
Eumenides will overtake thee.' Knowing the estimation in which my
father had always been holden by his fellow-citizens, I laughed
again and pinched his ear. He, although naturally choleric, burst
forth into no resentment at these reproaches, but said calmly, 'I
think I know thee by name, O guest! Surely thou art Xanthus, the
Samian. Deliver this child from famine.'
"Again I laughed aloud and heartily, and thinking it was now part
of the game, I held out both my arms, and protruded my whole body
toward the stranger. He would not receive me from my father's
neck, but he asked me with benignity and solicitude if I was
hungry; at which I laughed again, and more than ever; for it was
early in the morning, soon after the first meal, and my father had
nourished me most carefully and plentifully in all the days of the
famine. But Xanthus, waiting for no answer, took out of a sack,
which one of his slaves carried at his side, a cake of wheaten
bread and a piece of honeycomb, and gave them to me. I held the
honeycomb to my father's mouth, thinking it the most of a dainty.
He dashed it to the ground, but seizing the bread he began to
devour it ferociously. This also I thought was in the play, and I
clapped my hands at his distortions. But Xanthus looked at him
like one afraid, and smote the cake from him, crying aloud, 'Name
the price,' My father now placed me in his arms, naming a price
much below what the other had offered, saying, 'The gods are ever
with thee, O Xanthus! therefore to thee do I consign my child.'
"But while Xanthus was counting out the silver my father seized
the cake again, which the slave had taken up and was about to
replace in the wallet. His hunger was exasperated by the taste,
and the delay. Suddenly there arose much tumult. Turning round in
the old woman's bosom who had received me from Xanthus, I saw my
beloved father struggling on the ground, livid and speechless. The
more violent my cries, the more rapidly they hurried me away; and
many were soon between us.
"Little was I suspicious that he had suffered the pangs of famine
long before: alas! and he had suffered them for me. Do I weep
while I am telling you they ended? I could not have closed his
eyes; I was too young; but I might have received his last breath,
the only comfort of an orphan's bosom. Do you now think him
blameable, O Æsop?"
"_Æsop_. It was sublime humanity; it was forbearance and
self-denial which even the immortal gods have never shown us."
The _Dream of Petrarca_ is, I think, more famous but not more
beautiful than this narrative of Rhodope; it lacks the deep human
tragedy and infinite charity of the winsome child, and the
self-contained father silently perishing of hunger for her; but if the
_Æsop and Rhodope_ had never been written, the _Dream of Petrarca_
would secure its author a place among the immortals:--
"... Wearied with the length of my walk over the mountains, and
finding a soft molehill, covered with grey moss, by the wayside, I
laid my head upon it and slept. I cannot tell how long it was
before a species of dream or vision came over me.
"Two beautiful youths appeared beside me; each was winged; but the
wings were hanging down and seemed ill-adapted to flight. One of
them, whose voice was the softest I ever heard, looking at me
frequently, said to the other, 'He is under my guardianship for
the present; do not awaken him with that feather.' Methought, on
hearing the whisper, I saw something like the feather on an arrow;
and then the arrow itself; the whole of it, even to the point,
although he carried it in such a manner that it was difficult at
first to discover more than a palm's length of it; the rest of the
shaft (and the whole of the barb) was behind his ankles.
"'This feather never awakens anyone,' replied he, rather
petulantly, 'but it brings more of confident security, and more of
cherished dreams, than you, without me, are capable of imparting.'
"'Be it so!' answered the gentler; 'none is less inclined to
quarrel or dispute than am I. Many whom you have wounded
grievously call upon me for succour; but so little am I disposed
to thwart you, it is seldom I venture to do more for them than to
whisper a few words of comfort in passing. How many reproaches on
these occasions have been cast upon me for indifference and
infidelity! Nearly as many, and nearly in the same terms as upon
you.'
"'Odd enough that we, O Sleep! should be thought so alike!' said
Love contemptuously. 'Yonder is he who bears a nearer resemblance
to you; the dullest have observed it.' I fancied I turned my eyes
to where he was pointing, and saw at a distance the figure he
designated. Meanwhile the contention went on uninterruptedly.
Sleep was slow in asserting his power or his benefits. Love
recapitulated them; but only that he might assert his own above
them.
"Suddenly he called upon me to decide, and to choose my patron.
Under the influence, first of the one, then of the other, I sprang
from repose to rapture, I alighted from rapture on repose, and
knew not which was sweetest. Love was very angry with me, and
declared he would cross me through the whole of my existence.
Whatever I might on other occasions have thought of his veracity,
I now felt too surely that he would keep his word.
"At last, before the close of the altercation, the third Genius
had advanced, and stood near us. I cannot tell you how I knew him,
but I knew him to be the Genius of Death. Breathless as I was at
beholding him, I soon became familiar with his features. First
they seemed only calm; presently they grew contemplative; and
lastly beautiful; those of the Graces themselves are less regular,
less harmonious, less composed.
"Love glanced at him unsteadily, with a countenance in which there
was somewhat of anxiety, somewhat of disdain; and cried, 'Go away!
go away! nothing that thou touchest, lives!' 'Say rather, child!'
replied the advancing form, and advancing grew loftier and
statelier, 'say rather that nothing of beautiful or of glorious
lives its own true life until my wing hath passed over it.'
"Love pouted, and rumpled and bent down with his forefinger the
stiff short feathers on his arrow-head, but replied not. Although
he frowned worse than ever, and at me, I dreaded him less and
less, and scarcely looked towards him. The milder and calmer
Genius, the third, in proportion as I took courage to contemplate
him, regarded me with more and more complacency. He held neither
flower nor arrow as the others did, but throwing back the clusters
of dark curls that overshadowed his countenance, he presented to
me his hand, openly and benignly. I shrank on looking at him so
near, and yet I sighed to love him. He smiled, not without an
expression of pity, at perceiving my diffidence, my timidity; for
I remembered how soft was the hand of Sleep, how warm and
entrancing was Love's.
"By degrees I became ashamed of my ingratitude, and turning my
face away, I held out my arms, and I felt my neck within his; the
coolness of freshest morning breathed around; the heavens seemed to
open above me, while the beautiful cheek of my deliverer rested on
my head. I would now have looked for those others, but knowing my
intention by my gesture, he said consolatorily, 'Sleep is on his
way to the Earth, where many are calling him; but it is not to
these he hastens, for every call only makes him fly further off.
Sedately and gravely as he looks, he is nearly as capricious and
volatile as the more arrogant and ferocious one.'
"'And Love!' said I, 'whither is he departed? If not too late, I
would propitiate and appease him.'
"'He who cannot follow me; he who cannot overtake and pass me,'
said the Genius, 'is unworthy of the name, the most glorious in
earth or heaven. Look up! Love is yonder, and ready to receive
thee.'
"I looked: the earth was under me: I saw only the clear blue sky,
and something brighter above it."
There is something most rare and refined and precious in this vision,
told as it is with a sweet serenity. But it does not touch the heart like
the _Æsop and Rhodope_.
Your loving old
G.P.
[Footnote 1: Born 1775, died 1864.]
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