"How, Mac?"
"What are we--Ned, and you, and I--here for?"
"To acquire knowledge."
"Ay, knowledge,--but what for?"
"To fit us for heaven."
"Phew! then you calculate to graduate from 'these classic shades' direct
into celestial regions, do you, without sojourning awhile in this terrene
purgatory? I do not, and, moreover, _je n'en ai pas l'envie_; I think the
world has some claims upon me, and I mean to pay that debt, D. V."
"So do I, Mac," rejoined Clarian, a little proudly.
"And do you suppose your present studies adapted to fit you for such work?
Now, if you want to be a monk, if you are willing, like Origen, to purchase
with your entire manhood some supposed facility of spiritual contemplation
and depth of insight into the Infinite, or if you intend to become a
Brahmin, and seek in your navel the dyspeptic divinity who there wields his
sceptre, while your despised body is given up to the predatory ravages of
_genus pediculus_, well and good. Follow your hest, go on and conquer the
[Greek: gnosis] and when you have got it, just inform me what it looks
like, and whether you will be more able to make use of it than the fellow
was of the elephant he bought at auction. But if you desire to take a man's
part in this grand world around you, you must leap off your shadow, and
never think about thinking, as the new Olympian has it. Let quiddities
alone, they are dry-bone vampires, that drain you of your blood without
growing fatter themselves."
"But how can truth harm? and that is what I seek,--truth, and beauty; if I
commune with the world-soul, then also I know the world."
"Faugh! let shadows alone; believe in the man; do not be persuaded that the
body is depraved and corrupt, and only the soul is worthy to be cultivated.
Hold fast to the tangible. We know that we have a body, spite the Bishop of
Cloyne, far more certainly than we know we have a soul. See, the soul is
this smoke, that evanishes so quickly; the body this meerschaum that I have
in my fingers, and will smoke again, please God."
"But it is the smoke, not the pipe, that gives you pleasure, and is the
important consideration, Mac."
"Confound analogies, and pert Freshmen!" growled my chum, puffing
vigorously. "Nevertheless, it is a noble and right royal thing, this
body,--a thing to be cared for and cultivated for its own sake, apart from
the fact of its being God's chosen sanctuary for what He lends us to see
Him by. And you are neglecting it, both in theory and practice, Clarian; so
you must give up these infernal Metaphysics. If you _will_ bother about
speculative matters, let Bacon teach you the correctives of error, and
Locke how to govern and rein in the understanding. But you'd better learn
first what men say about men. It may not make you happier, but it will make
you wiser, and wisdom ranks high in heaven: Gabriel, Raphael,
Michael,--'tis the second person in that archangelic trinity. Did you ever
read Shakspeare? No, of course not; and yet I'll wager you have been
hankering after the Bhagavat Ghita, and trying to get a copy of the
illustrious Trismegistan Gimander! Don't blush,--you're not the first young
man who has made an a--ahem--made a mistake. Fie! Learn men, Clarian, and
then you will come to know man,--the surest way, I take it, of knowing the
Multitudinous God. So read you Shakspeare, and Æschylus, save the
'Prometheus,'--_that_ was begotten of Bactrian lore upon the mysteries of
Karnac, and does not touch man nearly, spite of all its grandeur. Here,
listen, and I will give you a lesson in the Myriad-Minded whom
Stratford-upon-Avon blessed our little earth with."
Therewith, Mac began to read from the first act of "The Tempest." Now chum
was a Shakspeare enthusiast, and, withal, a very fine reader, as well as,
from long study, quite pervaded with the Master's diction and style of
thought. As he read on, he commented, in his brief, pointed way, upon the
text, contrasting the Boatswain's practical usefulness with the shivering
helplessness of the Courtiers. "Now this is your proper somatology," he
added. "What our Bo's'un says to Gonzalo, the world will say to you,
Clarian, when you propose to it any of your panaceas: Are you able to do
better than we? If so, save us from the shipwreck that threatens. If not,
go to your prayers. Anyhow, 'out of our way, I say!'"
"Bravo!" cried I, when the homily came to an end, "Mac is preaching
Carlylism, as I'm a sinner. The next utterance will be something about
roofing Hell over, or the Everlasting Yea, or Morrison's Pills! Proceed:
'lay on,' Mac! none of us will cry, 'Hold, enough!' save under risible
compulsion."
Mac sulked awhile, but soon resumed his reading,--sparing us further
comment, however. Thus was Clarian led over the threshold, and introduced
into Shakspeare's magic world. When Mac closed his book at the end of the
act, Clarian's face glowed with a flattering something that must have
pleased my chum, for he _was_ proud of his reading,--and the moisture
glittering in the lad's eye, his flushed cheek, and the tremor of his voice
as he asked to hear more, spoke volumes.
But Mac said, "No,--enough is as good as a feast, younker, and just now I
have to go with Bacchus in quest of a tragedian for Athens,--[Greek: brek
kek koax, koax], you know. Study the Master yourself: and let me by all
means advise your wisdom to detect a mystery in 'Hamlet,' and to essay the
solution of the same. Nobody else has done so, of course, and it will
become your long head. I've met several very mild, quiet people, whom you
would not suspect of the slightest impropriety; but mention the Dane, and,
_presto!_ off they go upon their hobbies, ('theories,' they call 'em,) and
canter around Bedlam at a most generous pace. '_Semel insanivimus omnes_,'
I suppose, and Hamlet and the Apocalypse offer rare opportunities."
"Now, Ned," said Mac, somewhat complacently, when Clarian was gone, "I
think I have done that young rascal some good, and the bard will advantage
him still more, if he can only be moderate enough."
And, indeed, these new pastures thus unbarred to Clarian's coltish fancies
made a great change in the lad. At first he simply revelled in the new
world of beauty that the Master's wand evoked, like a bird in the fresh,
warm sunshine of returning spring. But this did not last long; the bird
must busy himself with nest-building. Clarian's ardent, impetuous nature
must evolve results, would not content itself with mere sensations. So he
began to study Shakspeare,--not, as he had studied the philosophers, to
pluck out and make his own some cosmical, pervading thought, but to find
matter for Art-purposes. I think, that, if ever there was a born artist,
who united to a fine æsthetic sense the fervor of a devotee, Clarian was
that one, heart and soul. Some men make a mistress of Art, and sink down,
lost in sensual pleasure and excess, till the Siren grows tired and
destroys them. Other men wed Art, and from the union beget them fair,
lovely, ay, immortal children, as Raphael did. Some again, confounding Art
with their own inordinate vanity, grow stern and harsh with making
sacrifices to the stone idol, grinding down their own hearts in vain
experimenting after properer pigments, whereby themselves may attain to a
chill and profitless immortality. But there are others still, who,
elevating Art into a grand divinity, bow down and worship it, devote their
lives to its priesthood, and, as a reward, only ask the god to reveal to
them once his unveiled effulgence, content with the one communion, though
their rashness be fatal, and the god's benison prove but the ashes of
Semele. Towards this class Clarian tended, I knew very well, and hence,
from the first, I had thrown a damper upon his artistic aspirations, often
rewarded by his mournful and reproaching glances, as I sneered at his
sketches,--which, to tell the truth, were most admirable, showing at once a
keen poetic insight, fine composition, and an unusual mastery of technical
details. The obedient fellow had bowed to what he deemed my better
judgment, and turned away, with something of a sigh, from his dear love and
ambition. Now, however, this love came suddenly back, and with tenfold
intensity, as is always the case, and, though I dreaded its unhealthiness,
I could no longer thwart him. Indeed, the Art-sense took such complete
possession of him that I feared to interpose obstacles. He did not go about
his work like a boy, but bent himself to it with the calm, resolute purpose
of a man of forty. I could see the increasing mastery of the idea, in his
changed eye, in his compressed lip, in his statelier, calmer pose; and,
however incredulous we may be respecting _results_, these initiatory
motions never fail to impress us. Even Bluebeard would forbear to strike
down his pregnant wife, for the sake of what she bore under her bosom; and
I, seeing the boy's careful study, and his long and laborious preparation,
could not help looking forward to a result of commensurate importance.
Nevertheless, it was my duty to have combated Clarian's tendencies, for I
could not help seeing the daily injury they did him. _Ars longa, vita
brevis_, was an overpowering conviction of the lad's, and he went to work
to apply the maddest of correctives. Art so exacting and life so short,
then it was his office to labor so much the more earnestly, so much the
more eagerly, that he might squeeze dry this orange of the present, and
lose no opportunity, no moment. Thus it came to pass with him, as it does
with us all who overwork ourselves, that actually he did less than he might
have done, and warped himself in a most pitiable way indeed. A
conscientious fellow, as he was, Clarian had hitherto been very faithful to
his duties in the regular curriculum,--but now all this was changed. Here
was a grand something to be done, a something so grand, indeed, that his
whole life must bow before its exactions, and all minor duties step out of
the way of Juggernaut. Who thinks of etiquette, of drawing-room
trivialities, when here we are before this mistress, at whose feet we must
pour out our soul? for her love blesses us with new life, her scorn damns
us with eternal despair. In this cursed fashion always the Idea masters a
man's soul, when he has once listened to its Lurlei-song. Henceforth he is
only to see things in the light it chooses to shed upon them. Let your
Alchemist but seek his Elixir long enough for the poison to fairly fill his
veins, and behold what a slave and a monster the Idea shall make of him!
Projection awaits him; the elements are here, commingling _in balneo
Mariæ_; already _Rosa Solis_ lends its generative warmth; already hath _Leo
Rubeus_ wooed and won his lily bride; already hath the tincture headed up
royally in ruby and in purple, and sublimed, and gone through the entire
circle of embryonic processes: quick! there lacks but the one element; in
with it, and we are masters of the Life-Secret, of wealth, and power, and
all else the world can bestow,--ay, and we can give back to the world all
it asks! Yes, but that element is _Sanguis Virginis_. Well, and why not a
virgin's blood? Great things must be purchased,--cannot be plucked, like
fruit, from every tree. Were it _Sanguis Senis_, now, who would tap a vein
more readily than we, ay, even were a drop from the carotid required? And
must the world lose all this divine gift for a simple? What did Abraham on
Moriah? Here is this child; of what use is she to the world?--yet a few
ounces of her blood, and man is regenerate. In her innocence, too,--why, a
Manichee would have done it for her own sake. Come, quick knife,--and, we
do murder! I tell you, by dwelling on it, tasting, smelling of it, taking
it into our bosoms, and making ourselves familiar with it, we poor men can
finally persuade ourselves that the most damning thought begot of Hell upon
a putrescent brain is the fairest, brightest, most glorious _Deus
vult_. Here was the danger that menaced Clarian, ay, had already begun to
insinuate its poison into his daily food. The simple fact of his neglecting
his studies proved this. It was a venial sin, doubtless,--but still, it was
his _premier pas_, and, as such, ominous enough.
Giving himself up to his art, he soon began to illustrate in his person the
effects of confinement and excessive thought. His pale cheek grew paler
still, the hollows under his eyes deepened, and his slim fingers waxed
slimmer and more transparent than ever. I could see also that he had
excessive bile,--not only ascertainable by looking at his imbrowned eye,
but deducible from a change in his temper that was by no means an
improvement. His room was full of sketches and drawing-material: these
attracted visitors, and visitors were a trouble. Perhaps there was
impertinence in their curiosity, very likely their presence hindered him;
but, nevertheless, it was by no means like the sweet-tempered Clarian to
show irritability and petulance, and finally, closing his door obstinately
against all comers, to elect for solitude and silence at his work.
No,--the boy was changed, grown morbid, a pervert, ripe for whatever
Devil's sickle might be put forth to gather him in.
Thus things went on from bad to worse, until the authorities began to take
notice of the lad's derelictions. The kind old President sent for me, and
made many inquiries about Clarian. Evidently the elders were not a trifle
bothered by my little _protégé's_ proceedings, and did not know how to
act. He had been much liked, his character was unblemished, he had done
himself credit in his studies: what did all this change mean? The Faculty
made it a rule to respect every man's privacy as much as possible,--but
Mr. Blount well knew that the present state of things could not long be
permitted. In their eyes, the backslider was palpably a far more unsavory
fact than the original sinner. Could not Mr. Blount use his influence in
some way, or suggest some course? Mr. Blount presented Clarian's cause in
as favorable a light as possible; spoke of the youth's noble nature;
guarantied that there was no moral obliquity; strongly advised leniency;
venturing withal to hope, nay, to believe, that all this devotion, so
intense, to a single purpose, would not be fruitless, might possibly win
him credit. He certainly had fine imagination, and then he was so absorbed
in his work;--it was a question whether it would help him most to encourage
or to repress his ardor at present. The Doctor pondered, said he would take
the matter into consideration,--it were a pity to nip any wholesome
enthusiasm i' the bud,--"but it is very apparent, Mr. Blount, that the
young man, if he goes on, will experience the fate of Orpheus, and so needs
to be curbed in time. '_Medio tutissimus ibis_', saith Naso,--a maxim the
non-observance of which cost him the pain and disgrace of exile. And you
should strive to impress the truth of it upon Clarian; spare no pains to
rouse him. This seclusion is what I most dread. The poet Spenser hath made
all his viler passions dwellers in caves and darkness, and with truth; for
solitude is fatal, where there are morbid and melancholic tendencies. A
very wise German, remarking upon the text, 'It is not good for man to be
alone,' added, very finely,--'and above all, it is not good for man to
_work_ alone; he requires sympathy, encouragement, excitement, to succeed
in anything good.'"
But I found the worthy old Doctor's advice easier to inculcate than to
practise. Clarian did not need my sympathy, had excitement and
encouragement enough in his own hopes, and, in fact, like the Boatswain in
"The Tempest," only required to be let alone. Still, he paid us a visit now
and then, and gave us to understand that he denied himself our society, did
not thrust it aside as something useless and disagreeable. When he came, he
would talk freely, and give us but too plain evidence of the change and
confusion that were taking place in him. Mac never spared him at these
times, and on one occasion, only a fortnight previous to the exhibition of
the picture, fairly drove the boy into a passion.
"Well, Mr. Whitewash," said he, as Clarian came in, "how are you at this
present writing? You _look_ as if you had been dieting on Gamboge and Flake
White. Take care, young man, or you'll put us students to the cost of a
tombstone with a Latin epitaph for you, yet,--beginning, _Interfecit
se_.--How comes on the Art? You've given the go-by to _Ego_ and _Non-Ego_,
I suppose, and have resolved to achieve the very [Greek: kudos] upon a
ten-foot whitewashed wall, eh? _Soit_,--but what results? Can you say yet,
as Correggio did when he saw the St. Cecilia of Raphael, '_Anch' io son
pittore_'? or do you intend to limit your ambition, _à la_ Dick Tinto, to
the effecting of two liquidations in one by the restoration of
tavern-signs?"
"Please do not taunt me, Mac, for I am cast down, almost. I have the
grandest conception, but the life-touch escapes me. It is in vain I seek
it: we cannot do a thing properly, unless we _feel_ it; passion will not be
simulated. What we know, and can do well, must all be repeated from our own
experience, says St. Simon,--and I agree with him."
"St. Simon be--hanged!" quoth Mac. "So, it seems, the Metaphysic is not
abandoned. St. Simon, forsooth!--why, his doctrine was, that, to comprehend
the nature of crime, one had first to commit crime himself. Pah! according
to that, he who would most thoroughly learn the philosophy of our carnal
lusts must exchange natures with the goat. Pray, why do not you solicit
Herr Urian to give you a hircine metamorphosis, Clarian?"
"Nay, Mac, can it be thus put off with a jest and a sneer, after all? What
do you think of these words I came across last night?"--and opening his
note-book, Clarian read as follows: "For of old it hath been clearly
proven, action without passion is nought save idle folly. _Passio Christi
hominis redemptio_. For as sin came into the world by suffering, so also
the gift of knowledge, which man would have confessedly lacked, had he not
purchased it _pretio mortis_,--even whereat, meseemeth, 'tis not a
commodity too high-priced. And as Philo Judæus hath well observed, (as that
arch heretic doth but seldom, wherefore let us ascribe to him the full
credit,) '_Materia parens est (etiam ipsa mater) peccali_,' so, to attain
to anything really spiritual, we have even to be born again of this our
parent, by the reëntrance of whose womb, in pain and darkness, we come back
to the true and the living, and have provision given us wherewith we shall
conquer worlds. For, to fix the pure thought and to identify it with the
true and holy, we must first divide it from the base clogs of matter; and
how can we effect this disjunction, save, as it hath ever been done, by
passion,--not simulate nor taken at second hand, cold,'_bis coctum quasi_,'
but rather presently and in our very selves reiterate? So Naaman dipt in
Jordan,--a task unto him, a sin in the eyes of his gods, and painful
exceedingly to his pride-gorged humor, that would only have Abana and
Pharpar,--yet only so was his skin made whole again, and soft like an
infant's. So also did David the king come into tasting of the bliss of a
true repentance by the terrible gateways of shameful adultery and
blood-thirst."
"Oh, I agree with your author perfectly," said Mac, with inimitable
gravity, while I gazed at Clarian, wondering what would come next. "All the
greatest gifts man possesses have had evil sponsors or unrighteous
baptism. Even Prometheus _filched_ his fire from heaven, or t'other
place. Doing evil for the sake of a prospective good is an immemorial
custom, and well precedented. Revenue-farming, the _parc-aux-cerfs_, and Du
Barry only went down before _La Terreur_, Robespierre, and _Les Journées de
Septembre_."
"But seriously, Mac, is it not admissible, now and then, to employ
questionable means, ordinary ones failing?"
"Certainly. You may even sin, provided you believe in your cause. Faith is
the one save-all and cure-all. You smile? I can give you good
authority,--none other than Martin Luther, who, in one of his disputations,
says emphatically, '_Si in fide posset fieri adulterium, peccatum non
esset_'; and he wrote still more plainly upon this point in one of his
letters to Melancthon, saying, '_Ab hoc nos non avellet peccatum, etiamsi
millies millies uno die fornicamur aut occidamus._' [Footnote: _Vie de
Luther_, par AUDIN, Paris, 1839. An accurate book, but scathingly bitter.]
So follow your bent, younker, and they cannot say you are without
'precedent right reverend.'"
Clarian sprang to his feet, his pale face all ablaze with indignation. "You
have no right to say such things to me, Sir," he cried, "for you know well
enough"--
"I know well enough that you are a crack-brained jackanapes, with your
damned fantastics!" bellowed Mac, angry in his turn. "What do you
mean,--you, who are a perfect little saint in your life,--what do you mean
by thrusting all these foul heresies at me, as if you were a veritable
citizen of Sodom, or a rejuvenized Faust, who have just replenished your
stock of 'experiences,' as you call them, by seducing Margaret and stabbing
her brother? Burn your books, if that filth is all they teach you,--and
mend your manners, if you expect to be tolerated in respectable
company. Good-bye!" cried he, as Clarian rushed white-heated from the room.
"Pshaw, Ned, spare your remonstrances, if you please,--I'm tired of the
little fool's nonsense."
"But the boy is sick, my dear fellow, and requires to be treated more
gently. His mind is diseased, and it would not take much to drive him quite
desperate."
"No such good luck, Ned. I wish I _could_ make him pitch into somebody or
something. Nothing would do the beggar so much good, just now, as to get
himself into a regular scrape. It would act like a shower-bath, wake him
up, and purge him of these dismal humors."
"Still, you would not like to have it said that _you_ were the cause of his
getting into any difficulty; and you know very well he is not one to
extricate himself easily, if once involved."
"Never fear. '_Il y a un Dieu pour les enfants et les ivrognes_', says a
proverb in which I place implicit faith."
* * * * *
We saw nothing of Clarian until some three or four nights after this, when
he came hurriedly into our room. It was quite late, but Mac was still at
his Mathematics, while I was dawdling with my pipe and a volume of
Sternberg's pleasant tales. Clarian walked directly up to Mac, holding out
his hand, and saying, "I have come to ask your forgiveness, my dear Mac; I
was wrong and foolish the other day."
"Nonsense, you flighty canary-bird!" said Mac; "you owe me nothing, so
have done with that. Sit down and smoke a pipe with us."
"No,--I have come for you and Ned; I want you to see my picture to-night.
Come, I will take no denial,--I am about to finish it, and I want your
criticisms before I lay on the final touches."
"Why not to-morrow, Clarian?"
"Then everybody will want to see. No, it must be to-night."
Mac and I were by no means reluctant to humor the lad, for we were not
incurious respecting the picture, and we accompanied him forthwith. His
room was quite large, well lighted and airy, with a sleeping-closet
attached. Over the blank wall opposite the windows hung a black muslin
curtain of most funereal aspect, which rolled up to the ceiling by means of
a cord and pulley, and, being now down, effectually concealed from view
what we had come to see. Clarian placed three or four candles, made us be
seated, filling pipes for us, and taking one himself, a most rare
occurrence with him,--all the while talking with more vivacity than I had
seen him exhibit for several months. "I have carefully studied my subject,
fellows," said he, "and have striven after perfection. I went to Shakspeare
for it, Mac, and sought one that would give me at once a proper field, and
at the same time pervade me so that I could paint from myself. Singularly
enough, I have found this magnetic influence most completely in
'Macbeth'. Do you remember Scene Fourth of the Third Act? That is the
situation I have endeavored to portray. Macbeth, wretched criminal,
suspects every one of his own dark purposes, or fears their hatred, because
he feels himself hateful. He is not a coward, either physically or morally;
his fears are all intellectual; he knows that Banquo is too noble to serve
him, too powerful to be permitted to serve against him,--so he must out of
the way. The murderers have received their commission; the king, satisfied
now that all he has to fear will shortly be removed, has said, 'There's
comfort yet'; he has cheered his wife with words even merry, as he can with
some complacency, for it is truly his principle of action, that
'Things bad begun make strong themselves by ill';
and now, in this scene, he is to meet his courtiers at a state-banquet,
given in honor of Banquo, he tells them with hardihood. For we must
remember that this jealous king is no longer the warrior Thane whom we
first encounter upon the 'blasted heath', and whom we afterwards see
haunted by horrid visions of 'air-drawn daggers', as he turns his hand to
crime. He has gotten far beyond all this. Murders to him are become but
'trifles light as air'; use has blunted his sensibility, and to bring back
all that agony and horror needs a vastly stronger excitement than a mere
deed of blood. We see this in the cool way he tells the murderer, 'There's
blood upon thy face', as if it simply made him look less presentable.
Nevertheless, suffer for it Macbeth must. That is ordained; and the means
to it, and particularly the _effect_ of those means, are what I have tried
to represent here."
So saying, he drew up the curtain, and the picture stood before us. Mac and
I gave it one quick glance, and then, with a simultaneous impulse, extended
our hands to Clarian. The lad laughed a little laugh of joy as he returned
our embrace, and then silently nodded towards the picture again.
Those old Princetonians who have seen Clarian's Picture will easily be able
to explain our emotion upon beholding it thus for the first time. It was in
colored crayon, and covered a large portion of the wall, representing a
lofty, but entirely unornamented Gothic hall, with a table in the centre,
around which were grouped the guests. These showed in their faces and
disordered array that dismay and anxiety which were natural to them at
sight of their king so strangely and appallingly stricken, but evidently
they were entirely and happily unconscious of the THING that sat there in
their midst, touching them, consorting its charnel horrors with their
warm-blooded humanity,--so near, so close to them, that _he_ fancied the
smell of that trickling gore, that dank grave-soil, must necessarily enter
in at their nostrils, and he sickened at the thought for very sympathy. The
woe-wasted wife, comprehending what it meant, as she chiefly, from the dark
depths of her own spotted consciousness, _could_ comprehend, had yet flung
her fear aside for the sake of him whom she loved with a love so
bitter-costly, and now she stood at his side, fiercely clutching him, and
taunting him like a tigress with his unmanly fears. Ah, had that clutch
upon his elbow been the searing grasp of white-heated pincers, eating to
the bone, it had not stirred _him_. He stood there, a tall, large-limbed
man, brown and weather-stained, one who had endured much, wrinkled
somewhat, care-marked about the brow, but very capable, and evidently as
bold and daring, to the line, as he asserted himself,--he stood there,
flung back, fixed, petrified, as it were, by the baleful judgment that
lighted those unearthly eyes which watched him from across the table there;
and though his arm be flung up over his face, half to protect, half in
menace,--though his fist be clenched and swollen, his brow dark and
frowning, we know he will not spring forward, but will stand there still,
no life in all that mass of muscle, no will-power in that capable brain,
nought but impotent malignity in that murderous frown: for he is
stricken,--his sin has found him out,--ay, at the very altar, Orestes hears
the Furies shriek their hatred in his ears, exultingly proclaiming that for
him at least there is no rest, nor ever shall be!
Such was the impression of Clarian's Picture, and I felt my blood fairly
tingle with recognition of the boy's power.
"It is noble, great," said Mac, in those deep tones that spoke how he was
moved, "and men shall call you Artist when it is finished."
Finished! what more did it want? what more could be done to this so
perfect composition?
"Ah, Mac," said Clarian, enthusiastically seizing my chum's hands, "such
recognition as yours is what I have yearned for, and yet--'tis you who have
chiefly mocked me. It _shall_ be finished, Mac, and worthily! Do you not
think I have prayed for the inspiration, that I might bestow that final,
life-giving touch? Two months ago it was as near complete as it is
now,--but not until this very night have I felt the power of it. Now,
however, my soul is full of it, and it shall wax into a poem. This is why I
sought you, dear friends, to-night; for I am too gloriously happy to be
selfish, and I want you to share my happiness with me. Yes, Mac, it has
come at last, the warm Promethean fire, and at last I can proclaim, '_Anch'
io son pittore_!'"
I gazed at the lad as he raised his voice with these last words, and was
almost awed by his singular beauty. It seemed almost as if a halo should
encircle his brow. There was a delicate rose-flush on his cheek that
rivalled in strange loveliness the hectic color of the young mother when
her first-born nestles close and fondly to her thrilled bosom, and his eyes
glowed with a rare lambent light that touched one with the eloquence of a
beautiful dream. Mac eyed him with equal wonder and delight, but said,
teasingly,--
"Hey! so you have come at last to the 'true and the living,' have you? Art
regenerate? I hope thou hast also undergone that true baphometic
fire-baptism, whereof the worthy Diogenes Teufelsdröckh hath discoursed so
appetizingly, causing us to long after it, none the less that he hath
scrupulously refrained from expounding whatever it is."
"Yes, Mac, the new life dawns upon me,--no Plotinian trance, no somnambulic
introspection, but a genuine awakening of the soul to a sense of its own
beauty."
"Prodigious! as Dominie Sampson would say. Nay, I am not laughing at you,
Clarian," said Mac, pointing to the picture; "_there_ is enough to make me
believe in you, though how you achieved it I cannot imagine."
"The means, Mac? Is not that rather my question than yours? We judge
ourselves from within; 'others judge us by what we have done,' says
Goethe. The means, ha, and the motive? Why will men seek stumblingly after
these, when actually their sole concern is with the thing done? So, you two
look at me,--I was but pondering,--putting a case;--so far, the means here
have been simple and innocent,--my hand, my eye, my brain, my purpose;
but--Mac!" added he, suddenly, after a pause, "did you never, in reading
Rabelais, feel that somehow there was a profound and reverential symbolism
underlying the wild froth of words in which the histories of Gargantua and
Pantagruel have come down to us? that in all that _olla-podrida_ of filth,
quip, jest, wicked folly, and mad wisdom, was yet hidden, like the pearl in
the oyster, a deep and most mystic system of world-philosophy?"
"Anan?" said Mac, looking at the boy curiously.
"For instance, in what the good Curé of Meudon says about the 'herb
Pantagruelion',--did the symbolism and esoteric meaning of all that never
strike you?"
"Oh, yes," cried Mac, with a singularly significant smile, "I see how it is
now. I understand. You are improving, Clarian, rapidly. Hum, wonder what
your mother would say, if she knew you were a friend of Panurge's, and did
draw such inferences from his wisdom! Yes, _mon enfant_, I have long felt
the profundity of Pantagruelion, not less than the oracular efficacy of
Bacbuc. And no one can deny that the thinnest strand of Manila, if not full
of mysteries _per se_, can at least open the way for us to the very
innermost crypts, and hence may be styled _potentially_ a very gateway to
Eleusinia."
"I do not mean that, Mac,--not the mere mechanical warp and woof of it, to
hang beggars and sots with,--but the more potent essence, the inner cosmic
power of it, to rouse the soul into grand expansive consciousness, and then
to suspend it far above the carks and cares of this weary world, to sew it
aloft to some leaf of the Tree of Life, like the nest of Jean Paul's
tailor-bird, that it may swing there, above the hum and dust of matter,
swayed and sung to sleep by the expanding breath of Infinity! Oh, yes!"
cried Clarian, while his cheek glowed warmer, his eye flamed brighter, and
his voice flowed on with a rhythmic throb, "oh, yes, I know it all, now!
The Idea is awake, and dwells in my soul, at once master there and slave. I
leap out of this base Present: I stand panting and glowing before the
mighty portals of Infinity, from whose inner masses I see the grand Gods
beckoning to me, greeting me as of their kindred, summoning me to take my
throne also, which awaits me in their midst. I have burst these narrow
bonds of flesh, and my soul shall soar henceforth in the grandeur realized
of the Spirit, like a proud falcon just unmewed and flung off in sight of
the noblest quarry. Art! what a dull, meaningless sound it was
yesterday!--but now, the entombing pyramid of matter is up-heaved, flung
off forever, and the Spirit stands erect in her bright Palingenesis,
half-intoxicate with the all-pervading sense of her own grand beauty. The
tree is rent asunder,--Ariel soars again in his element. Psyche has loosed
herself from the fettering contact of Daimon, and lo, now, how daintily she
poises on tiptoe, fluttering her wings ere she launches like a star into
the wide exhilarant ether! O divine Art! pride, glory, first love of my
soul! now, indeed, hast thou exchanged the yoke of dull Saturn and the
gloomy caverns of earth for the fair heights of Olympus, and the
companionship of Zeus [Greek: Nephelaegeretaes], him at whose nod the
heavens display themselves like a many-figured arras, all alive with
beauties and significance that the dull eye conjectures not, that the
impure, unpurged eye shrinks away from, lest it be seared by the too great
splendor! I know it all now. I began gropingly, in surmise, error,
darkness; but now my brow catches, ay, and reflects, the calm, pure,
effulgent light of Nature's definite day, and I bathe myself in its happy
warmth. Erst, I grovelled like a worm, blind and earth-fed: now, I shall
speed through very space, winged heel and shoulder, a swift, untiring
Hermes, who have drunk of the milk that flows rich in Nature's breasts, and
am emancipate forever in the decorous freedom of the beautiful
self-conscious spirit! Oh, the glory, oh, the boon of Art, the play-deity!
Phoebus no longer drives herds for Admetus, but is grown into Helios, feels
in his breast the freer life of the very Hyperion, the walker on high. Ay,
ay, smile on, Mac, you and Ned! I shall not quarrel with you for not
understanding me; it is only just now that I have learned to understand
myself. My Art will reward me; even now, while you doubt, it is already
doing so. I tell you, you two, whom I love and honor", cried he, rising to
his feet, lifted up, as it were, by the exaltation of his soul, while his
voice rose like the gush of a fine-toned flute, "I tell you, moreover, that
I am an artist, with a work to do that shall be done, and so done that you
two who love me will be the first to salute me Artist, to recognize me, and
acknowledge me for what I shall become."
"We do that already, Clarian," said Mac's emphatic voice.
"No," said Clarian, firmly, proudly, like a poet about to kneel that he may
receive the laurel crown, "no, you do not know me yet."
And he was right. We did not yet know him.
"That is a boy after my own heart", said Mac, after we had returned to our
room. He was standing by the open window, and I at his elbow, both of us
thinking of the strange child we had just left, while our eyes took note of
the fair night, how the silvery sheen of the moonlight glistened upon the
leaves, and sprinkled itself in dappling flecks between the trees on the
soft even sward of the campus below. "A boy after my own heart,--and, in
spite of all his twaddle, will make an artist. It's in him."
"But did you not think him strangely wild to-night? I never heard him talk
so fluently; but it was not the talk of a sane man."
Mac looked at me, laughing long and loud. "Thou dear innocent Ned!" cried
he at last, "what a diagnostic thou wouldst make! It was indeed the talk of
madness, good chum, and a very pretty madness was it, one that needeth not
any Anticyran purgatives to expel it. So thou must not fash thyself about
the lad, _du liebe dummkopf_, for he will come right very speedily. Didst
remark not what he said about the 'herb Pantagruelion,' which, in the
vulgar, meaneth only _hemp_? And surely you noted the warm flush of his
cheek, the dilatation of his eye, and its phosphorescent glow? Dr. Thorne
would soon enough tell you what these things signify. The boy is not crazy,
Ned, but drunk,--drunk in the decorous delirium of a Damascene Pacha,
propped against a Georgian maid, and fanned by Houris of Bethlehem
Judah. He has been reading Monte Cristo, perhaps, or has somehow heard
about the Indian Hemp, not the '_utilissima funibus cannabis_' of practical
Pliny, but _Cannabis Indica_, wherewith, I believe, Amrou spurred on his
Arabs to their miraculous feats of war, when he conquered Egypt and drove
Alexandria's Prefect into the sea,--the _bhang_ of amok-running Malays, the
_haschish_ of Syria and Cairo. This is what hath made him drunk, and, i'
faith, the intoxication does not ill become him. He will be all right in
the morning, and all the better for this little brush. And anyhow, Ned, you
must not watch the boy too closely, nor interfere with him. Let him 'gang
his ain gait.' He comes of another breed than ours, I begin to suspect,
and our rough fodder and grooming may not suit his higher blood.--_Ach,
Himmel!_ Ned," cried he, laughing, "it pleased me, though, to see how
adroitly he contrived to twist that new reading out of the _bon homme
François_. It was quite in the style of St. Augustine, and would have
delighted that ex-sophist hugely; for, great as he was, and self-denying as
he was, he always had a hankering after the dialectic flesh-pots. How he
would have rubbed his hands, when Clarian wanted to persuade us that the
herb Pantagruelion was no other than Haschish, the expander of
souls!--Hollo! yonder goes the lad now. I wonder what he is up to. See him,
Ned, yonder, just coming out of the shadow of North College. How fast he
walks! how he is swinging his arms! I'll bet he is repeating poetry. I
wonder what the lad is after, anyhow.--There he goes, round the corner of
West College,--over the fence. Can he mean to have a game of ball by
moonlight?--No,--he's making across the fields; if he had a pitcher with
him now, I'd say he was going to the spring in the hollow.--Confound that
tree! I've lost him."
I proposed following Clarian, being really uneasy about him, but Mac
entered his veto,--
"No, Ned,--there's no need, and--it's none of our business. Children like
him have a hundred baby-houses we do not know anything about. He wants a
bath in the moonlight, I suppose, and wouldn't thank you for playing Actæon
to the naked Diana of his midnight musings. Come, 'tis bedtime; or do you
want to finish Sternberg's 'Herr von Mondschein'? It is _à propos_, and I
see your book is opened to the very place."
[To be continued.]
* * * * *