Fair and flowery as in the idyllic dawn when Theocritus sang its
pafatoral charms, was that sunny Sicilian land where, one May morning,
Leo Gordon wandered with a gay party in quest of historic sites, which
the slow silting of the stream of time had not obliterated. Viewed from
the heights of Achradina, whence all the vestiges of magnificence and
luxury have vanished, and only the hideous monument of "man's
inhumanity to man" remains, what a vast panorama stretched far as the
horizon on every side.
To the north, girding the fire-furrowed plain of Catania where olive,
lemon, oleander and orange springing out of black lava, mingled hues
like paints on an ebony palette--rose vast, lonely, purple at base,
snowy at summit, brooding Etna; dozing in the soft, sweet springtime,
with red, wrathful eyes veiled by a silvery haze. An unlimited expanse
of crinkling blue sea, shot like Persian silk with gleams of gold, and
laced here and there with foam scallops, bounded the east; smiling
treacherously above the ghastly wreck sepultured in its coral crypts,
that might have told of the crash of triremes, the flames of sinking
galleys, which twenty-two centuries ago lit the bloody waves that
closed over slaughtered hosts.
Westward lay green, wimpling vales, studded with laurel, arched with
vine-draped pergolas, dotted widi flocks, dimpled with reedy marshes
where red oxen browsed; and beyond the pale pink flush of almond
groves--
"A smoke of blue olives, a vision of towers."
Bucolic paradise of Battus and Bombyce, of Corydon and Daphnis, may it
please the hierophants of Sanskrit lore, of derivative Aryan philology,
of iconoclastic euhemerism, to spare us yet awhile the lovely myths
that dance across the asphodel meads of sunny Sicily.
On the verge of the parapet of the Latomia, where the breath of the
sirocco, the gnawing tooth of time, and the slow ravelling of rain had
serrated the ledge, stood Leo, gazing into the dizzying depths of the
charnel house that swarmed with the ghosts of nine thousand men, who
once were huddled within its stony embrace.
As if pitying nature had striven to appease the manes of the unburied
dead, a pall of luxuriant ivy and glossy acanthus covered the bottom
and sides of the quarry, one hundred feet below; but out of the dust of
centuries stared the rayless eyes of corpses, and the gaunt despairing
faces seemed still uplifted, now in invocation, anon in imprecation to
the overarching sky, where blistering suns mocked them by day, and
glittering moons and silver stars paused in their westward march
through dewy night, to tell them tantalizing tales of how musically
Aegean wavelets broke against the marbles at Piraeus; how loud the
nightingales sang in the plane and poplar groves at home; how the white
glory of the Parthenon smiled down on violet-crowned Athens, where
their wives and children thronged the temples, in sacrificial rites to
insure their safety.
In crevices of the perpendicular walls lush creepers tapestried the
gray stone, and far down, out of the mould of the subterranean dungeon,
sprang slim lemon trees snowed over with fragrant bloom, clumps of
oleander waving banners of vivid rose, and golden-green pomegranate
bushes, where scarlet flakes glowed like the wings of tropical birds.
"Well, is the game worth the candle? After voyaging thousands of miles,
do you feel repaid; or down there, in the heart of the desolation, do
you see only the grinning mask of jeering disappointment, which
generally follows American realists into the dusty haunts of Old World
idealism?"
As she spoke, Alma Cutting stepped back under the cool canopy of a
spreading fig-tree, and fanned herself with a tuft of papyrus leaves.
She was a tall, handsome woman, pronouncedly brunette in type, with
large black eyes whose customary indolent indifference of expression
did not entirely veil the fires "banked" under the velvet iris; and a
square, firm mouth, around whose full crimson lips lurked a certain
haughtiness, that despite the curb of good breeding, bordered at times
closely upon insolence. Thirty years had tripped over this dark head,
where the hair, innocent of crimp or curl, hung in a straight jet
fringe low on her wide forehead; and though no lines marred the smooth,
health-tinted skin, she was perceptibly "sun burnt by the glare of
life," and the dew of youth had vanished before the vampire lips of
ennui.
"Disappointed? Certainly not; and I were exacting and unreasonable
indeed, if I did not feel abundantly repaid. Alma, since the days when
I pored over Thucydides, Plutarch, Rollin and Grote, this spot has
beckoned to my imagination with all the uplifted hands of the nine
thousand captives; and the longing of years is to-day completely
gratified."
"Am I unusually stupid, or are you rapt, beyond the realm of reason and
mid-day common sense? Pray what is the fascination? It is neither so
vast, nor so picturesque as the Colosseum. There, one expects to hear
the roar of the beasts springing on their human prey; the ring of steel
on steel, when the gladiators have bowed like dancing-masters to the
bloated old bald-headed Neros and Vespasians; and you fancy that you
smell the fountains of perfume that toss their spray from tier to tier;
and see the rainbow of the silk awning flapping overhead. Better than
all, you imagine you can watch the ravishing toilettes of the
Faustinas, and Fulvias and Messalinas who flirt with the handsome,
straight-nosed beaux so immensely classical in their togas; and when
their thunder-browed husbands unexpectedly step in behind, it is so
easy to conjecture the sudden change of theme, as they spread their
fans to cover the message just written on their ivory tablets, and
straightway fall to clawing the characters of all the Cornelias, and
Calpurnias, and Octavias and Julia Domnas, and other respectable wives!
All that I quite enjoyed because I understood. Eight years' campaigning
in New York, and London and Paris would teach even an idiot that
nineteenth century 'best society' can lift you so close to the
naughtiness of the golden Roman era, that one only has to strain a very
little on tip-toe, to feel at one's ease with the jeunesse doree of
dead ages. Here--what do you find in a huge stone well sunk into the
bowels of the earth? About as enticing as a plunge into a dry cistern,
suddenly unroofed? If spectres we must hunt, do let them be festive,
like those Faust danced with on the Brocken!"
"You should be ashamed, Alma! Miss Gordon is the very soul of courteous
toleration, or she would resent the teasing goad of your Philistinism,"
cried the brother, Rivers Cutting, who in his new style yachting suit
of blue cloth appeared veritably the jaunty genius of fashionable
modernity, confronting the ghost of antiquity.
"You forget, Rivers, some of the sage dicta you brought back from the
'Summer School of Philosophy', when you followed your last Boston flame
to Concord, where she went poaching on the sacred preserves of the
'Illuminati,' hunting a new sensation. 'We must be as courteous to
human beings as we are to a picture, which we are willing to give the
advantage of a good light.' Now being Leo's very sincere friend, and
knowing that the supreme moment of her facial triumph is when, like a
startled fawn, she opens her eyes wide in horrified amazement at some
inconceivable heresy, do you suppose I am so recreant to loyalty as to
fail in providing her occasionally with the necessary Gorgon, ethical
or archaeolegical, as surroundings warrant?
"History was never the fetich of my girlhood, and that quartette of
dry-as-dust worthies whom Leo carries around in leash, as other women
carry pugs and poodles, came near giving me meningitis in my tender
years. My first governess, a Puritan spinster, full of zeal, and
conscientiously bent on earning her wages, by exercising my brains to
their utmost capacity, undertook to introduce me to all the highly
immoral personages and practices that made the Punic Wars famous. By
way of making Imilco a lifelong acquaintance, she illustrated the siege
of Agrigentum by a huge, hideous image of Phalaris' 'Brazen Bull,'
drawn with chalk on the school-room blackboard.
"A wonderful beast it certainly was; that taurus with head lowered,
tail lashing the air, one hoof pawing savagely, worthy representative
of all the horrors it typified, and which she explained with maddening
perspicuity. That night, when papa tore himself away from the club room
at one o'clock, and met mamma on the doorstep--just coming home from a
supper at Delmonico's after an opera party--they were ascending the
stairs, when frantic cries drove from her ears the echoes of
'Traviata's' witching strain. Thinking only a conflagration would
justify the din, papa threw up the hall sash and shouted 'fire!' and
the police sounded the alarm, and all pandemonium broke loose.
Investigation discovered me, wriggled half way down to the foot of my
bed, buried under the blankets, and shrieking 'Perillus' Bull! I am
roasting in the Brass Bull!' Being not very ardent disciples of Clio,
my solicitous parents failed to understand the nightmare; hence cracked
ice was folded over my head (mid-winter), and the family physician
ordered a mustard plaster half a yard long, down my spine. I vividly
remember Imilco, and the bovine fury pawing the blackboard; but of the
three Punic Wars, then and there tabooed, I recall only the brass
monster at Agrigentum. Leo, when we reach Girgenti, the remaining Mecca
of your historic hopes, some time to-morrow, you will understand why,
instead of climbing to the temples of the cliff, I shall lock the door
of our cabin, and drown the bellowing of the beast in Daudet's new
book."
"I wish, indeed I do, that you had staid there to-day, instead of
coming ashore to dampen all our ardor and enthusiasm by your constant
thin drizzle of scorn. One should suppose that in this idyllic region,
some ray of poetic warmth must melt your frigid, scoffing soul. Daudet
suits my sister far better than Theocritus," answered her brother,
fastening a sprig of orange blossom in his button hole.
Pushing back her sailor hat, Alma looked obliquely at him from beneath
her drooping lids.
"Try me. Perhaps infection haunts the air. Spare us the Greek, come
down from your Yale and Harvard heights to the level of my ignorance,
and warble for me in English some of your Sicilian lark's melodies. At
least I have heard of Amaryllis and Simaetha."
Mr. Cutting shook his head.
"What--? Ashamed of your bucolic hobby! No wonder--since after all it's
only a goat. I dare you, brother mine, to produce me a Theocritan
fragment."
"Take the consequences of your rash levity; though I have a dawning
suspicion some 'Imp of the Perverse' has coached you for the occasion."
He stroked his mustache, pondered a moment, then struck an attitude,
and declaimed:
"I go a serenading to Amaryllis; what time my flocks browse on the
mountains, and Tityrus drives them. Tityrus beloved of me in the
highest degree, feed my flocks and lead them to the fountain, etc."
Mimicking his tone exactly, Alma finished the line:
"And mind, Tityrus, that tawny Libyan he-goat lest he butt thee!' Come,
Rivers; free translation is allowable, considering surroundings, but
not garbling; and every time you know you substituted flocks for goats.
Proceed, and do not insult your pet author with emendations."
With his hat on the back of his head, and his thumbs in the armholes of
his vest, Mr. Cutting resumed:
"Sweet Amaryllis! though by death defiled,
Thee shall I ne'er forget; dear to my heart
As are my frisking goats, thou did'st depart.
To what a lot--was I, unhappy, born!"
Again the mocking voice responded:
"But see! yon calves devour
The olive branches. Pelt them off I pray.
"Confound the calves! 'St--! you white-skin thief--away!' Thanks, no
more at present. Doubtless it sounds very fine in Greek, because then,
I could not possibly understand that it is the melody and the rhythmic
dance of bleating calves, and capering goats. Here come the stragglers
laden with plunder. Oh, papa! Do give me those exquisite acacia
clusters."
"My dear, I have ordered luncheon spread down there, in that strange
garden. It is the queerest place imaginable; and looking up, the effect
is quite indescribable."
"Have you had the skulls polished for drinking cups, and printed the
menus on cross-bones? What shocking taste to add insult to injury by
spreading all our wealth of canned dainties on the very stones where
sit the ghosts of those who perished from hunger and thirst! Eminently
Dantesque, but the sacrilege appalls Leo. She would sooner attend an
oyster supper, or a clam-bake in the Catacombs, or--" bowing to a young
Englishman standing near, "lead a German in the Poets' corner of
Westminster Abbey. My dear girl, under which flag do you fight?
Athenian, Roman, Carthagenian, Syracusan?
"The child of a man who fell in defence of his own fireside, could
scarcely fail to sympathize with the holy cause of the invaded; yet
here, in view of the horrors inflicted upon the captives, one almost
leans to Athens. It seems to me the most enduring monument of Syracusan
glory survives in the eloquent protest of Nicolaus against her cruelty;
especially when we recollect that it came from one who, of all others,
had most to forgive. Old, decrepit, unable to walk, the venerable
sorrow-laden man whose only children, two sons, had died fighting to
save Syracuse--was carried on a litter into the midst of the shouting
thousands, who were drunk with the wine of victory. 'Behold an unhappy
father, who has most cause to detest the Athenians, the authors of this
war, the murderers of my children! But I am less sensible of my private
afflictions than of the honor of my country, when I see it ready to
expose itself to eternal infamy by violating the law of nations, and
dishonoring our victory by barbarous cruelty. What! Will you tarnish
your glory, and have all the world say that a nation who first
dedicated a temple in their city, to Clemency, found none in yours?
Triumphs and victories do not give immortal glory to a city; but the
use of moderation in the greatest prosperity, the exercise of mercy
toward a vanquished enemy, the fear of offending the gods by a haughty
and insolent pride.' What a theme for Dore or Munkacsy?"
"Thank you ever so much, Miss Gordon, for brushing away the library
dust from that historic cameo. I had so utterly forgotten it lay in the
musty tomes, that it has all the charm of a curio." Mr. Cutting took
off his hat, and bowed.
"Acknowledgments are due rather to my cousin, Dr. Douglass, who called
my attention to the passage. The best of all things good abide with
him; and out of his overflowing store, he shares with the needy. Only
last night he reminded me of an illustration of the vanitas vanitatum
of human fame and national gratitude, to be found over yonder in the
necropolis. Less than a hundred and forty years after his death,
Archimedes was so completely forgotten by the city he had immortalized,
that Syracuse denied he was buried on her soil; and a foreigner had the
honor of clearing away rubbish and brambles, in order to show the grave
to his own countrymen."
Leighton Douglass handed to his cousin a bunch of the delicate lilac
blossoms of acanthus, tied with a wisp of some ribbon-like grass, and
taking off his spectacles, replied:
"Leo unduly exalts my memory at the expense of her own; and we have all
levied heavily on her fund of topographical accuracy."
"If I travel much longer with two such learned and philosophical
scholars, I shall inevitably degenerate into an intellectual Dodder,"
yawned Alma.
"Into a what?" asked her father.
"A Dodder, sir. Pray, papa, be more considerate than to force Doctor
Douglass to believe that instead of listening to the sermon he preached
us last year, you either slept ignominiously throughout its delivery,
or else allowed your unregenerate thoughts to dwell on those devices of
Lucifer, 'puts,' 'calls, 'spreads,' 'corners, 'spots' and 'futures'. Of
course you remember that he believes in evolution? There was a time,
even in my extremely recent day, when that word was more frightful to
the orthodox than a ton of nitro-glycerine; was to the elect, a fouler
abomination even than opera bouffe and the can can. But 'the thoughts
of men are widened with the process of the suns', and now it appears
that the immortal soul of us must be evolved, somewhat in the same
fashion as protoplasm, and unless we fight for 'survival' elsewhere, we
shall not be numbered among the spirited 'fittest', but degenerate into
parasites, dodders, backsliders. So, drawing nutriment from the
Doctor's historic brains, and from Leo's, I fall back into worse than a
dodder, a torpid violator of the Law of Work, a hopeless Sacculina!
Doctor Douglass, it was the bravest hour of your life when you stood up
in--church pulpit, and told us the scientists whom we were wont to
regard as more dreadful than the cannibals and Calmucks, are only a
devoted sect of truth seekers, preaching from older texts, and drawing
nearer and nearer to the kingdom of Heaven. To throw that ethical bomb,
required more courage than Balaklava."
"Mine was merely a feeble attempt to follow out the analogical
reasoning of one of the most original and scientific thinkers of our
day in Great Britain; but the fact that you recall so correctly the
line of argument in a sermon delivered more than a year ago, is
certainly complimentary assurance of at least approximate success in my
effort."
"After all, I am sorry I humored Leo's whim, and persuaded papa to
bring us here."
"Why, my dear? We are enjoying it immensely," said her father.
"Because Syracuse has proved my 'crumpled rose leaf', by destroying the
prestige of the 'Cleopatra'. Hitherto, I deemed our yacht quite the
most complete and gorgeous floating palace since the days of its highly
improper namesake's marauding sails on the Cydnus."
"And so she is; there is nothing afloat comparable to her in speed,
appointments, comfort and beauty," interrupted Mr. Cutting.
"Poor papa! How he bristles at the bare suggestion of rivalry. Be
comforted, sir, in the knowledge that at least we shall not be run down
by a phantom cruiser. It is very humiliating to American pride--after
winning the international prizes, and boasting so inordinately, to find
out that we are only about--how many centuries, Leo?--twenty-five
centuries behind Syracuse in building pleasure crafts. Think of a
superb cabin with staterooms containing beds (not bunks) for one
hundred and twenty guests, and the floors all covered with agates and
other precious stones, that formed a mosaic copy of the Iliad! If you
wished to emphasize a discussion on connubial devotion, behold! there
on your right, Andromache and Hector; if one's husband objected to a
harmless flirtation, lo! on the left, Agamemnon and Briseis; and to
point the moral of 'pretty is, as pretty does'--how very convenient to
indicate with the tip of your satin slipper, the demure figure of Helen
standing on the walls, to watch the duel between Menelaus and Paris!
Fancy the consolation a person of my indolent Sacculina temperament
might have derived from the untimely fate of Cassandra, oppressed with
knowledge in advance of her day and generation! There was the gymnasium
for the beaux; and for the belles bona fide gardens, with walks and
arbors covered with ivy and flowering vines whose roots rested in great
stone vessels filled with earth. Imagine the boudoir and bathrooms
paved with precious stones, encrusted with carved ivory and statues--"
"Pooh! Alma. That rigmarole is not in the guide books. Come, Dixon is
waving his handkerchief down there, as a signal that luncheon is ready."
"I prefer to wait here. Alma, bring me some anemones, and a sprig of
ivy from the circular garden, when you come back," said Leo.
Doctor Douglass drew closer, and asked:
"Will you let me stay also, and enjoy with you the wonderful charm of
this opalescent air, this beautiful cincturing sea?"
"I would rather be alone. Solitude is a luxury rarely allowed on a
yacht cruise; and I want a few quiet moments. By day, poor Aunt Patty
has so much to tell me; at night, Alma is a chattering owl."
There are hours when the ghost of a happy past, from which we have
persistently fled, constrains us to give audience; and Leo surrendered
herself to memories that brought a very mournful shadow into her brave
brown eyes. Thirteen months had passed since her departure from X---and
despite changing scenes and novel incidents, she could not escape the
haunting face that met her on mountains, was mirrored in every sea; the
brilliant mesmeric face set in its frame of crisp black locks, with
dark blue eyes whose intense lustre had the cold, hard gleam of jewels.
Sleeping or waking, always that dear, powerful face daring her to
forget.
When Doctor Douglass and Miss Patty joined the yacht party at Palermo,
the former had brought a letter and a package, which sorely tested
Leo's strength of will. Leaning to-day against the twisted body of an
old olive tree, she opened and read once more, the final message.
"When Leighton places this sheet in your hands, the year of release
which I could not refuse you, will have expired. Once your noble heart
was wholly mine; and the proudest moment of my life was, and will be,
that in which you promised to be my wife. All that you ever were, you
shall always remain to me; and if you can confide your happiness to my
keeping, I will never betray the sacred trust. Life has grown sombre to
me, during the past eighteen months; and the only companionship that I
can hope to cheer it, you alone can bring me. I have not willingly or
intentionally forfeited your confidence; but that I have suffered, I
shall not deny. If you love me, as in days gone by, our future rests
once more in your hands; and you must renew the pledges that at your
request I surrendered. In behalf of our past, I beg that you will
retain the ring, hallowed forever by the touch of your hand; and its
acceptance will typify, if not a renewal of our engagement, at least
the perpetuity of a sacred friendship. Awaiting your final decision, I
am, my dear Leo,
"Yours as of yore, LENNOX."
All that she had ever been; no more. The graceful, well-bred heiress
whom he admired, who commanded his profoundest respect, whom he had
known from his boyhood, and who of all others he had desired should
preside over his home and wear his name; but not the woman who reigned
in his heart; whose touch had lighted the glowing tenderness that so
transfigured his countenance, as she saw it that day, bending over a
sick convict in a penitentiary.
He offered her formal allegiance, and that pale phantom of affection
grounded in reverence, which is to the ardent love that a true woman
demands in exchange for her own, as--
"Moonlight unto sunlight; and as water unto wine."
She knew that he was no willing victim of a fascination, which had
audaciously deranged his carefully mapped campaign of life; that he
would have set his heel on his own insurgent heart, had it been
possible; and she honored him for the stern integrity that forbade his
affectation of a warmth of feeling which she was now conscious she had
never evoked.
Accepting the theory that the young convict was sustained and animated
by her devotion to a guilty lover, Leo fully understood that Lennox,
even were he mad enough to sacrifice his pride, could indulge no
expectation of ever winning the love of the prisoner; and despite her
efforts to regard their rupture as final, she had faintly hoped that he
would cross the ocean, and in person urge a renewal of the betrothal.
The test of absence had proved as effectual as she intended it should
be, and his letter proclaimed the humiliating fact, that while honor
inspired him to hold out his wrists for conjugal manacles, honor
equally constrained him to spare her the wrong and insult of insincere
professions of tenderness.
Had she found it possible to condemn him as unworthy, it would have
diminished the pain of surrendering the brightest hope of her life; for
contempt is the balm a lofty soul offers a bruised heart, but she was
just, even in her anguish; and that when barbed the arrow, was the
mortifying consciousness that compassion for her was the strongest
motive which dictated the carefully phrased letter. She was far too
proud to parley with the temptation to accept the shadow in lieu of the
substance; and twenty-four hours after the arrival of the final appeal,
her answer was speeding with wings of steam across the ocean.
"DEAR LENNOX:
"My heart overflows with gratitude for all the affectionate interest,
the kind solicitude, the innumerable thoughtful attentions you have so
indefatigably shown to Aunt Patty, in the sad complication of
misfortunes that so suddenly overwhelmed her; and I feel the inadequacy
of any attempt to express my thanks. Your letter can only rivet more
indissolubly the links of an affectionate friendship that must always
bind you and me; but the future can hold no renewal of pledges which I
feel assured would conduce neither to your happiness, nor to mine. Let
us embalm the past and bury it tenderly; raising no mound to trip our
friendly feet in years to come. The serenity of our future might be
marred by retrospective gleams of the beautiful ring that once enclosed
two lives; hence, I have ordered the diamonds reset in the form of a
four-leaved clover, which will be sent to dear Kittie as an auspicious
omen.
"With undiminished esteem, and unshaken confidence, and with a prayer
for your happiness, which will always be dear to me, I remain,
"Your sincerely attached friend,
"LEO."
The majority of men, and a large class of women, bury their dead, and
straightway begin assiduously the cultivation of all that promises
oblivion; but Leo's nature was deeper, more intense; and while she made
no audible moan, and shed no tears, she accepted the fact that earthly
existence had lost its coveted crown, and that her aching heart was the
dark grave of a beautiful hope that could know no resurrection. To-day
she asked herself: "What shall I do with my life?"
Upon the warm air, sweet with the breath of lemon flowers, floated the
peculiar, jeering, yet subdued and musical laughter, which told that
Alma had flown straight at some luckless quarry. She held in one hand a
cluster of crimson anemones, and purple stars of periwinkle, and
walking between two English gentlemen, whose yacht, the "Albatross",
lay anchored close to the "Cleopatra" in the harbor below, slowly
approached Leo, saying:
"Don't stone your prophets. Especially one hedged about with the triple
sanctity of Brasenose! 'Consider that thy marbles are but the earth's
callosities, thy gold and silver its faeces; thy silken robe but a
worm's bedding; and thy purple an unclean fish.' That is one
sugar-coated pill that I administer to my humility now and then to keep
it healthy. Hear him again;--'sitting on the marble bench of one of the
exhedrea on the edge of the Appian Way, close to the fragrant borders
of a rose farm': 'So it is, with the philosophers; all alike are in
search of happiness, what kind of thing it is. It is pleasure, it is
virtue; what not? All philosophers, so to speak, are but fighting about
the ass' shadow. I saw one who poured water into a mortar, and ground
it with all his might with a pestle of iron, fancying he did a thing
useful; but it remained water only, none the less.' Stoicism, hedonism,
the gospel of 'Sweetness and Light'; what is it, may I ask, that your
aesthetic priests furnish, to feed immortal British souls? Knee
breeches, sun flowers, niello, cretonne, Nanking bowls, lily dados? To
us it savors sorrowfully of that which one of your prophets
foreshadowed, 'Despair, baying as the poet heard her, in the ruins of
old Rome'."
"Beg pardon, Miss Cutting; but you quite surprise me. The tone of many
American papers and magazines led us to suppose, really, that the rosy
dawn of Culture was beginning to flush the night of Philistinism
brooding over your Western world."
"Believe it not. Primeval gloom, raw realism so weigh upon our
apathetic souls, that we rub our eyes and stare at sight of your
aesthetic catechism: 'Harmony, but no system; instinct, but no logic;
eternal growth and no maturity; everlasting movement, and nothing
attained; infinite possibilities of everything; the becoming all
things, the being nothing.' We have too much Philistine honesty to
pretend that we understand that, but like other ambitious parrots we
can commit to memory. One of your seers tells us that: 'Renaissance art
will make our lives like what seems one of the loveliest things in
nature, the iridescent film on the face of stagnant water!' Now it will
require at least a decade, to train us to appreciate the subtile
symphonies of ditch slime. An English friend compassionating my
American stupidity, essayed to initiate me in the cult of 'culture',
and gave me a leaf to study, from the latter-day gospel. I learned it
after a time, as I did the multiplication table. 'Culture steps in, and
points out the grossness of untempered belief. It tells us the beauty
of picturesque untruth; the grotesqueness of unmannerly conviction;
truth and error have kissed each other in a sweet, serener sphere; this
becomes that, and that is something else. The harmonious, the suave,
the well bred waft the bright particular being into a peculiar and
reserved parterre of paradise, where bloom at once the graces of
Panthism, the simplicity of Deism, and the pathos of Catholicism; where
he can sip elegances and spiritualities from flowerets of every faith!'
Fancy my crass ignorance, when I assure you that I actually laughed
over that verbal syllabub, thinking it intended as a famous bit of
satire."
"Then it is pathetically true that reverence for the Renaissance has
not crossed the Atlantic?" asked one of the "Albatross" party, who with
his sketch book half open, was surreptitiously making an
"impressionist" view of Leo's profile, as she stood listening to Alma's
persiflage, and mechanically arranging her lilac acanthus blossoms.
"Devoted British colporteurs have philanthropically scattered a few art
primers and tracts, and there is a possibility that in the near future,
our people may search the maps for Orvieto, and the dictionaries for
Campo Santo, to compass the mysteries of the 'Triumph of Death', and of
'Symmetria Prisca'. Some of us have even heard of 'Aucassin et
Nicolette', and of 'Nencia da Barberino', picking salad in her garden;
and I am almost sure a Vassar girl once spoke to me of Delia Quercia's
Ilaria; but with all my national pride, candor compels me to admit
that it is a 'far cry' to the day when we can devoutly fall on our
knees before the bronze Devil of Giovanni da Bologna. Aesthetic
paupers, we sit on the lowest bench at the foot of the class, in your
Dame's Art School, to learn the alphabet of the wonderful Renaissance;
and in our chastened and reverent mood, it almost takes our breath away
when your high-priestess unrolls the last pronunciamento, and tells us
her startling story of 'Euphorion!' Why? Ah!--don't you know? The
Puritan leaven of prudery, and the stern, stolid, phlegmatic decorum of
Knickerbockerdom mingle in that consummate flower of the nineteenth
century occident, the 'American Girl', who pales and flushes at sight
of the carnival of the undraped--in English art and literature. Here,
Leo, take your anemones; red, are they not, as the blood once chilled
down yonder, in that huge stone kennel? Dr. Douglass has the ivy root;
and he and I have concluded, that after all, Syracuse was not more
cruel here in the Latomia, than some States in America, where convicts
are leased to mining companies, and kept quarrying coal, without even
the sweet consolation of staring up at this magical blue sky. We leave
hideous moral and physical leprosy at home, and come here to shed
dilettante tears over classic tatters twenty-five centuries old! O
immortal and ubiquitous Tartufe!"
As Leo walked with her cousin toward the spot, where the "Cleopatra"
rose and fell on the crest of waves racing before Libeccio, she
suddenly laid her hand on his arm.
"Leighton, I have decided to leave the yacht at Venice and take Aunt
Patty to Udine for rest and quiet. When summer is over, I shall be
ready to make arrangements for the journey to Syria and Egypt, and you
must complete your church mission to England in time to accompany us to
Jerusalem."
"Is this your itinerary, or Aunt Patty's?"
"She has set her heart upon it; and it will be agreeable to me."