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Berkley took no active part in the conversation, but did what was
much more to the purpose, that it is to say, arranged a drive for
the next day with the Ashburtons, and of course invited Flemming,
who went home that night with a halo round hishead; and wondering
much at a dandy, who stood at the door of the hotel, and said to his
companion, as Flemming passed;

"What do you call this place? I have been here two hours already,
and find it devilish dull!"




CHAPTER V. A RAINY DAY.



When Flemming awoke the next morning he saw the sky dark and
lowering. From the mountain tops hung a curtain of mist, whose heavy
folds waved to and fro in the valley below. Over all the landscape,
the soft, summer rain was falling. No admiring eyes would look up
that day at the Staubbach.

A rainy day in Switzerland puts a sudden stop to many diversions.
The coachman may drive to the tavern and then back to the stable;
but no farther. The sunburnt guide may sit at the ale-house door,
and welcome; and the boatman whistle and curse the clouds, at his
own sweet will; but no foot stirs abroad for all that; no traveller
moves, if he has time to stay. The rainy daygives him time for
reflection. He has leisure now to take cognizance of his
impressions, and make up his account with the mountains. He
remembers, too, that he has friends at home; and writes up the
Journal, neglected for a week or more; and letters neglected longer;
or finishes the rough pencil-sketch, begun yesterday in the open
air. On the whole he is not sorry it rains; though disappointed.

Flemming was both sorry and disappointed; but he did not on that
account fail to go over to the Ashburtons at the appointed hour. He
found them sitting in the parlour. The mother was reading, and the
daughter retouching a sketch of the Lake of Thun. After the usual
salutations, Flemming seated himself near the daughter, and
said;

"We shall have no Staubbach to-day, I presume; only this
Giessbach from the clouds."

"Nothing more, I suppose. So we must be content to stay in-doors;
and listen to the soundof the eves-dropping rain. It gives me time
to finish some of these rough sketches."

"It is a pleasant pastime," said Flemming; "and I perceive you
are very skilful. I am delighted to see, that you can draw a
straight line. I never before saw a lady's sketch-book, in which all
the towers did not resemble the leaning Tower of Pisa. I always
tremble for the little men under them."

"How absurd!" exclaimed Mary Ashburton, with a smile that passed
through the misty air of Flemming's thoughts, like a sunbeam; "For
one, I succeed much better in straight lines than in any others.
Here I have been trying a half-hour to make this water-wheel round;
and round it never will be."

"Then let it remain as it is. It looks uncommonly picturesque,
and may pass for a new invention."

The lady continued to sketch, and Flemming to gaze at her
beautiful face; often repeating to himself those lines in Marlow's
Faust;

"O thou art fairer than the evening air,

Clad in the beauty of a thousand stars!"

He certainly would have betrayed himself to the maternal eye of
Mrs. Ashburton, had she not been wholly absorbed in the follies of a
fashionable novel. Ere long the fair sketcher had paused for a
moment; and Flemming had taken her sketch-book in his hands and was
looking it through from the beginning with ever-increasing delight,
half of which he dared not express, though he favored her with some
comments and bursts of admiration.

"This is truly a very beautiful sketch of Murten and the
battle-field! How quietly the land-scape sleeps there by the lake,
after the battle! Did you ever read the ballad of Veit Weber, the
shoe-maker, on this subject? He says, the routed Burgundians jumped
into the lake, and the Swiss Leaguers shot them down like wild ducks
among the reeds. He fought in the battle and wrote the ballad
afterwards;--

'He had himself laid hand on sword,

He who this rhyme did write;

Till evening mowed he with the sword,

And sang the song at night.'"

"You must give me the whole ballad," said Miss Ashburton; "it
will serve to illustrate the sketch."

"And the sketch to illustrate the ballad. And now we suddenly
slide down the Alps into Italy, and are even in Rome, if I mistake
not. This is surely a head of Homer?"

"Yes," replied the lady, with a little enthusiasm. "Do you not
remember the marble bust at Rome? When I first beheld that bust, it
absolutely inspired me with awe. It is not the face of a man, but of
a god!"

"And you have done it no injustice in your copy," said Flemming,
catching a new enthusiasm from hers. "With what a classic grace the
fillet, passing round the majestic forehead, confines his flowing
locks, which mingle with his beard! The countenance, too, is calm,
majestic, godlike! Even the fixed and sightless eyeballs do not mar
the imageof the seer! Such were the sightless eyes of the blind old
man of Chios. They seem to look with mournful solemnity into the
mysterious future; and the marble lips to repeat that prophetic
passage in the Hymn to Apollo; 'Let me also hope to be remembered in
ages to come. And when any one, born of the tribes of men, comes
hither, a weary traveller, and inquires, who is the sweetest of the
Singing Men, that resort to your feasts, and whom you most delight
to hear, do you make answer for me. It is the Blind Man, who dwells
in Chios; his songs excel all that can ever be sung!' But do you
really believe, that this is a portrait of Homer?"

"Certainly not! It is only an artist's dream. It was thus, that
Homer appeared to him in his visions of the antique world. Every
one, you know, forms an image in his fancy of persons and things he
has never seen; and the artist reproduces them in marble or on
canvass."

"And what is the image in your fancy? Is it like this?"

"No; not entirely. I have drawn my impressions from another
source. Whenever I think of Homer, which is not often, he walks
before me, solemn and serene, as in the vision of the great Italian;
in countenance neither sorrowful nor glad, followed by other bards,
and holding in his right hand a sword!"

"That is a finer conception, than even this," said Flemming. "And
I perceive from your words, as well as from this book, that you have
a true feeling for art, and understand what it is. You have had
bright glimpses into the enchanted land."

"I trust," replied the lady modestly, "that I am not wholly
without this feeling. Certainly I have as strong and passionate a
love of Art as of Nature."

"But does it not often offend you to hear people speaking of Art
and Nature as opposite and discordant things? Surely nothing can be
more false. Nature is a revelation of God; Art a revelation of man.
Indeed, Art signifies no more than this. Art is Power. That is the
original meaning of the word. It is the creative power by which the
soul of man makes itself known, through some external manifestation
or outward sign. As we can always hear the voice of God, walking in
the garden, in the cool of the day, or under the star-light, where,
to quote one of this poet's verses, 'high prospects and the brows of
all steep hills and pinnacles thrust up themselves for shows';--so,
under the twilight and the starlight of past ages, do we hear the
voice of man, walking amid the works of his hands, and city walls
and towers and the spires of churches, thrust up themselves for
shows."

The lady smiled at his warmth; and he continued;

"This, however, is but a similitude; and Art and Nature are more
nearly allied than by similitudes only. Art is the revelation of
man; and not merely that, but likewise the revelation of Nature,
speaking through man. Art preëxists in Nature, and Nature is
reproduced in Art. As vaporsfrom the ocean, floating landward and
dissolved in rain, are carried back in rivers to the ocean, so
thoughts and the semblances of things that fall upon the soul of man
in showers, flow out again in living streams of Art, and lose
themselves in the great ocean, which is Nature. Art and Nature are
not, then, discordant, but ever harmoniously working in each
other."

Enthusiasm begets enthusiasm. Flemming spake with such evident
interest in the subject, that Miss Ashburton did not fail to
manifest some interest in what he said; and, encouraged by this, he
proceeded;

"Thus in this wondrous world wherein we live, which is the World
of Nature, man has made unto himself another world hardly less
wondrous, which is the World of Art. And it lies infolded and
compassed about by the other,

'And the clear region where 't was born,

Round in itself incloses.'

Taking this view of art, I think we understand more easily the
skill of the artist, and the differencebetween him and the mere
amateur. What we call miracles and wonders of art are not so to him
who created them. For they were created by the natural movements of
his own great soul. Statues, paintings, churches, poems, are but
shadows of himself;--shadows in marble, colors, stone, words. He
feels and recognises their beauty; but he thought these thoughts and
produced these things as easily as inferior minds do thoughts and
things inferior. Perhaps more easily. Vague images and shapes of
beauty floating through the soul, the semblances of things as yet
indefinite or ill-defined, and perfect only when put in art,--this
Possible Intellect, as the Scholastic Philosophers have termed
it,--the artist shares in common with us all. The lovers of art are
many. But the Active Intellect, the creative power,--the power to
put these shapes and images in art, to imbody the indefinite, and
render perfect, is his alone. He shares the gift with few. He knows
not even whence nor how this is. He knows only that it is; that God
has given him the power, which has been denied to others."

"I should have known you were just from Germany," said the lady,
with a smile, "even if you had not told me so. You are an enthusiast
for the Germans. For my part I cannot endure their harsh
language."

"You would like it better, if you knew it better," answered
Flemming. "It is not harsh to me; but homelike, hearty, and full of
feeling, like the sound of happy voices at a fireside, of a winter's
night, when the wind blows, and the fire crackles, and hisses, and
snaps. I do indeed love the Germans; the men are so hale and hearty,
and the Fräuleins so tender and true!"

"I always think of men with pipes and beer, and women with
knittingwork."

"O, those are English prejudices," exclaimed Flemming. "Nothing
can be more--"

"And their very literature presents itself to my imagination
under the same forms."

"I see you have read only English criticisms; and have an idea,
that all German books smell, as it were, 'of groceries, of brown
papers, filled withgreasy cakes and slices of bacon; and of fryings
in frowzy back-parlours; and this shuts you out from a glorious
world of poetry, romance, and dreams!"

Mary Ashburton smiled, and Flemming continued to turn over the
leaves of the sketch-book, with an occasional criticism and
witticism. At length he came to a leaf which was written in pencil.
People of a lively imagination are generally curious, and always so
when a little in love.

"Here is a pencil-sketch," said he, with an entreating look,
"which I would fain examine with the rest."

"You may do so, if you wish; but you will find it the poorest
sketch in the book. I was trying one day to draw the picture of an
artist's life in Rome, as it presented itself to my imagination; and
this is the result. Perhaps it may awaken some pleasant recollection
in your mind."

Flemming waited no longer; but read with the eyes of a lover, not
of a critic, the following description, which inspired him with a
new enthusiasm for Art, and for Mary Ashburton.

"I often reflect with delight upon the young artist's life in
Rome. A stranger from the cold and gloomy North, he has crossed the
Alps, and with the devotion of a pilgrim journeyed to the Eternal
City. He dwells perhaps upon the Pincian Hill; and hardly a house
there, which is not inhabited by artists from foreign lands. The
very room he lives in has been their abode from time out of mind.
Their names are written all over the walls; perhaps some further
record of them left in a rough sketch upon the window-shutter, with
an inscription and a date. These things consecrate the place, in his
imagination. Even these names, though unknown to him, are not
without associations in his mind.

"In that warm latitude he rises with the day. The night-vapors
are already rolling away over the Campagna sea-ward. As he looks
from his window, above and beyond their white folds he recognises
the tremulous blue sea at Ostia. Over Soracte rises the sun,--over
his own beloved mountain; though no longer worshipped there, asof
old. Before him, the antique house, where Raphael lived, casts its
long, brown shadow down into the heart of modern Rome. The city lies
still asleep and silent. But above its dark roofs, more than two
hundred steeples catch the sunshine on their gilded weather-cocks.
Presently the bells begin to ring, and, as the artist listens to
their pleasant chimes, he knows that in each of those churches over
the high altar, hangs a painting by some great master's hand, whose
beauty comes between him and heaven, so that he cannot pray, but
wonder only.

"Among these works of art he passes the day; but oftenest in St.
Peter's and the Vatican. Up the vast marble stair-case,--through the
Corridor Chiaramonti,--through vestibules, galleries, chambers,--he
passes, as in a dream. All are filled with busts and statues; or
painted in daring frescoes. What forms of strength and beauty! what
glorious creations of the human mind! and in that last chamber of
all, standing alone upon his pedestal, the Apollo found at
Actium,--in such a majestic attitude,--with such a noble
countenance, life-like, god-like!

"Or perhaps he passes into the chambers of the painters; but goes
no further than the second. For in the middle of that chamber a
large painting stands upon the heavy easel, as if unfinished, though
more than three hundred years ago the great artist completed it, and
then laid his pencil away forever, leaving this last benediction to
the world. It is the Transfiguration of Christ by Raphael. A child
looks not at the stars with greater wonder, than the artist at this
painting. He knows how many studious years are in that picture. He
knows the difficult path that leads to perfection, having himself
taken some of the first steps.--Thus he recalls the hour, when that
broad canvass was first stretched upon its frame, and Raphael stood
before it, and laid the first colors upon it, and beheld the figures
one by one born into life, and 'looked upon the work of his own
hands with a smile, that it should have succeeded so well.' He
recalls too, the hour, when, the task accomplished, the pencil
dropped from the master's dying hand, and his eyes closed to open on
a more glorious transfiguration, and at length the dead Raphael lay
in his own studio, before this wonderful painting, more glorious
than any conqueror under the banners and armorial hatchments of his
funeral!

"Think you, that such sights and thoughts as these do not move
the heart of a young man and an artist! And when he goes forth into
the open air, the sun is going down, and the gray ruins of an
antique world receive him. From the Palace of the Cæsars he looks
down into the Forum, or towards the Coliseum; or westward sees the
last sunshine strike the bronze Archangel, which stands upon the
Tomb of Adrian. He walks amid a world of Art in ruins. The very
street-lamps, that light him homeward, burn before some painted or
sculptured image of the Madonna! What wonder is it, if dreams visit
him in his sleep,--nay, if his whole life seem to him a dream! What
wonder, if, with a feverish heart and quick hand, he strive to
reproduce those dreams in marble or on canvass."

Foolish Paul Flemming! who both admired and praised this little
sketch, and yet was too blind to see, that it was written from the
heart, and not from the imagination! Foolish Paul Flemming! who
thought, that a girl of twenty could write thus, without a reason!
Close upon this followed another pencil sketch, which he likewise
read, with the lady's permission. It was this.

"The whole period of the Middle Ages seems very strange to me. At
times I cannot persuade myself that such things could have been, as
history tells us; that such a strange world was a part of our
world,--that such a strange life was a part of the life, which seems
to us who are living it now, so passionless and commonplace. It is
only when I stand amid ruined castles, that look at me so
mournfully, and behold the heavy armour of old knights, hanging upon
the wainscot of Gothic chambers; or when I walk amid the aisles of
some dusky minster, whose walls are narrative ofhoar antiquity, and
whose very bells have been baptized, and see the carved oaken stalls
in the choir, where so many generations of monks have sat and sung,
and the tombs, where now they sleep in silence, to awake no more to
their midnight psalms;--it is only at such times, that the history
of the Middle Ages is a reality to me, and not a passage in
romance.

"Likewise the illuminated manuscripts of those ages have
something of this power of making the dead Past a living Present in
my mind. What curious figures are emblazoned on the creaking
parchment, making its yellow leaves laugh with gay colors! You seem
to come upon them unawares. Their faces have an expression of
wonder. They seem all to be just startled from their sleep by the
sound you made when you unloosed the brazen clasps, and opened the
curiously-carved oaken covers, that turn on hinges, like the great
gates of a city. To the building of that city some diligent monk
gave the whole of a long life. With what strange denizens he peopled
it! Adam and Eve standing under a tree, she, with the apple in her
hand;--the patriarch Abraham, with a tree growing out of his body,
and his descendants sitting owl-like upon its branches;--ladies with
flowing locks of gold; knights in armour, with most fantastic,
long-toed shoes; jousts and tournaments; and Minnesingers, and
lovers, whose heads reach to the towers, where their ladies
sit;--and all so angular, so simple, so childlike,--all in such
simple attitudes, with such great eyes, and holding up such long,
lank fingers!--These things are characteristic of the Middle Ages,
and persuade me of the truth of history."

At this moment Berkley entered, with a Swiss cottage, which he
had just bought as a present for somebody's child in England; and a
cane with a chamois-horn on the end of it, which he had just bought
for himself. This was the first time, that Flemming had been sorry
to see the good-natured man. His presence interrupted the delightful
conversation he was carrying on "under four eyes," with Mary
Ashburton. He reallythought Berkley a bore, and wondered it had
never occurred to him before. Mrs. Ashburton, too, must needs lay
down her book; and the conversation became general. Strange to say,
the Swiss dinner-hour of one o'clock, did not come a moment too soon
for Flemming. It did not even occur to him that it was early; for he
was seated beside Mary Ashburton, and at dinner one can say so much,
without being overheard.




CHAPTER VI. AFTER DINNER, AND AFTER THE MANNER OF THE BEST CRITICS.



When the learned Thomas Diafoirus wooed the fair Angélique, he
drew from his pocket a medical thesis, and presented it to her, as
the first-fruits of his genius; and at the same time, invited her,
with her father's permission, to attend the dissection of a woman,
upon whom he was to lecture. Paul Flemming did nearly the same
thing; and so often, that it had become a habit. He was continually
drawing, from his pocket or his memory, some scrap of song or story;
and inviting some fair Angélique, either with her father's
permission or without, to attend the dissection of anauthor, upon
whom he was to discourse. He soon gave proofs of this to Mary
Ashburton.

"What books have we here for afternoon reading?" said Flemming,
taking a volume from the parlour table, when they had returned from
the dining-room. "O, it is Uhland's Poems. Have you read any thing
of his? He and Tieck are the best living poets of Germany. They
dispute the palm of superiority. Let me give you a lesson in German,
this afternoon, Miss Ashburton; so that no one may accuse you of
'omitting the sweet benefit of time, to clothe your age with
angel-like perfection.' I have opened at random upon the ballad of
the Black Knight. You repeat the German after me, and I will
translate to you. Pfingsten war, das Fest der Freude!"

"I should never persuade my unwilling lips to pronounce such
sounds. So I beg you not to perplex me with your German, but read me
the ballad in English."

"Well, then, listen. I will improvise a translation for your own
particular benefit.

"'T was Pentecost, the Feast of Gladness,

When woods and fields put off all sadness.

Thus began the King and spake;

'So from the halls

Of ancient Hofburg's walls,

A luxuriant Spring shall break.'

"Drums and trumpets echo loudly,

Wave the crimson banners proudly.

From balcony the King looked on;

In the play of spears,

Fell all the cavaliers,

Before the monarch's stalwart son.

"To the barrier of the fight,

Rode at last a sable Knight.

'Sir Knight! your name and scutcheon, say!'

'Should I speak it here,

Ye would stand aghast with fear;

Am a Prince of mighty sway!'

"When he rode into the lists,

The arch of heaven grew black with mists,

And the castle 'gan to rock.

At the first blow,

Fell the youth from saddle-bow,

Hardly rises from the shock.

"Pipe and viol call the dances,

Torch-light through the high halls glances;

Waves a mighty shadow in.

With manner bland

Doth ask the maiden's hand,

Doth with her the dance begin.

"Danced in sable iron sark,

Danced a measure weird and dark,

Coldly clasped her limbs around.

From breast and hair

Down fall from her the fair

Flowerets wilted to the ground.

"To the sumptuous banquet came

Every Knight and every Dame.

'Twixt son and daughter all distraught,

With mournful mind

The ancient King reclined,

Gazed at them in silent thought.

"Pale the children both did look,

But the guest a beaker took;

'Golden wine will make you whole!"

The children drank,

Gave many a courteous thank;

'O that draught was very cool!'

"Each the father's breast embraces,

Son and daughter; and their faces

Colorless grow utterly.

Whichever way

Looks the fear-struck father gray,

He beholds his children die.

" 'Woe! the blessed children both,

Takest thou in the joy of youth;

Take me, too, the joyless father!'

Spake the Grim Guest,

From his hollow, cavernous breast;

'Roses in the spring I gather!'"

"That is indeed a striking ballad!" said Miss Ashburton, "but
rather too grim and ghostly for this dull afternoon."

"It begins joyously enough with the feast of Pentecost, and the
crimson banners at the old castle. Then the contrast is well
managed. The Knight in black mail, and the waving in of the mighty
shadow in the dance, and the dropping of the faded flowers, are all
strikingly presented to the imagination. However, it tellsits own
story, and needs no explanation. Here is something in a different
vein, though still melancholy. The Castle by the Sea. Shall I read
it?"

"Yes, if you like."

Flemming read;

"Hast thou seen that lordly castle,

That Castle by the Sea?

Golden and red above it

The clouds float gorgeously.

"And fain it would stoop downward

To the mirrored wave below;

And fain it would soar upward

In the evening's crimson glow.

" 'Well have I seen that castle,

That Castle by the Sea,

And the moon above it standing,

And the mist rise solemnly.'

"The winds and the waves of ocean,

Had they a merry chime?

Didst thou hear, from those lofty chambers,

The harp and the minstrel's rhyme?

" 'The winds and the waves of ocean,

They rested quietly,

But I heard on the gale a sound of wail,

And tears came to my eye.'

"And sawest thou on the turrets

The King and his royal bride?

And the wave of their crimson mantles?

And the golden crown of pride?

"Led they not forth in rapture

A beauteous maiden there?

Resplendent as the morning sun,

Beaming with golden hair?

" 'Well saw I the ancient parents,

Without the crown of pride;

They were moving slow, in weeds of woe,

No maiden was by their side!'

How do you like that?"

"It is very graceful, and pretty. But Uhland seems to leave a
great deal to his reader's imagination. All his readers should be
poets themselves, or they will hardly comprehend him. I confess,
Ihardly understand the passage where he speaks of the castle's
stooping downward to the mirrored wave below, and then soaring
upward into the gleaming sky. I suppose, however, he wishes to
express the momentary illusion we experience at beholding a perfect
reflection of an old tower in the sea, and look at it as if it were
not a mere shadow in the water; and yet the real tower rises far
above, and seems to float in the crimson evening clouds. Is that the
meaning?"

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