to some extent. Ask a Roman how this is, and he will answer, as one did to me the other day,–“_Si dice, e per me veramente mi pare di si_”: “They say so; and as for me, really it seems to me true. If he have not the _jettatura_, it is very odd that everything he blesses makes _fiasco_. We all did very well in the campaign of ’48 against the Austrians. We were winning battle after battle, and all was gayety and hope, when suddenly he blesses the cause, and everything goes to the Devil at once. Nothing succeeds with anybody or anything when he wishes well to them. See, here the other day he went to Santa Agnese to have a great festival, and down goes the floor, and the people are all smashed together. Then he visits the column to the Madonna in the Piazza di Spagna, and blesses it and the workmen, and of course one falls from the scaffolding the same day and kills himself. A week or two ago he arranged to meet the King of Naples at Porto d’Anzo, and up comes a violent storm and gale that lasts a week; then another arrangement was made, and then the fracas about the ex-queen of Spain. Then, again, here was Lord O—– came in the other day from Albano, being rather unwell; so the Pope sends him his special blessing, when pop! he dies right off in a twinkling. There is nothing so fatal as his blessing. We were a great deal better off under Gregory, before he blessed us. Now, if he hasn’t the _jettatura_, what is it that makes everything turn out at cross purposes with him? For my part, I don’t wonder the workmen at the Column refused to work the other day in raising it, unless the Pope stayed away.”
No less a person than Rachel seems also to have been affected with this same superstition in regard to the Pope, if we may place confidence in the strange story which Madame de B—– relates in her memoirs of that celebrated daughter of Israel. According to her account, Rachel had been on a visit to her sister, who was quite ill in the Pyrenees, when one day the disease appeared to take so favorable a turn that Rachel left her to visit another sister. There she met several friends, and, (to continue the story in Madame de B—–‘s words,) “exhilarated by the good news she had brought, and the hopes all hastened to build on the change, she began to chat and laugh quite merrily. In the midst of this exuberant gayety, her maid broke into the room in a state of great excitement; a fit had come on, the patient was in much danger, the physician desired Mdlle. Rachel’s immediate presence. Rising with the bound of a wounded tigress, the _tragedienne_ seemed to seek, bewildered, some cause for the blow that had fallen thus unexpectedly. Her eye lighted on a rosary blessed by the Pope, and which she had worn round her arm as a bracelet ever since her visit to Rome. Without, perhaps, accounting to herself for the belief, she had attached some talismanic virtue to the beads. Now, however, in the height of her rage and disappointment, she tore them from her wrist, and, dashing them to the ground, exclaimed, ‘Oh, fatal gift! ’tis thou hast entailed this curse upon me!’ With these words, she sprang out of the room, leaving every one in mute astonishment at her frantic action.” On the 23d of June, immediately after, the sister died.
And yet the Pope does not at all answer to the accredited portraits of those who have the Evil Eye. He is fat, smiling, and most pleasant of aspect, as he is good in heart. But, certainly, nothing has prospered that he has touched. Read Dumas’ description, and see if you should have recognized the Pope as a _jettatore_. “_Le Jettatore_,” says he, “_est ordinairement pale et maigre. II a un nez en bec de corbin, de gros yeux qui ont quelque chose de ceux de crapaud, et qu’il recouvre ordinairement pour les dissimuler d’une paire de lunettes._” But it is the exception that proves the rule, say those who insist on the _jettatura_ of Pius IX.
Dumas also speaks of a work on the _jettatura_, which I have vainly endeavored to procure, written by Nicola Valetta; and from what one can gather from the heads of the chapters which Dumas gives, it must be a very amusing book. [Footnote: The title of this work is _Cicalata sul Fascino, volgarmente detto Jettatura_, by Nicola Valetta. It was published more than fifty years since, and copies are now rare.] These heads are as follows. They speak for themselves, and show the fear entertained of a monk. He examines:–
“1. If a man inflicts a more terrible _jettatura_ than a woman?
“2. If he who wears a peruke is more to be feared than he who wears none?
“3. If he who wears spectacles is not more to be feared than he who wears a peruke?
“4. If he who takes tobacco is not more to be feared than he who wears spectacles? and if spectacles, peruke, and snuff-box combined do not triple the force of the _jettatura?_
“5. If the woman _jettatrice_ is more to be feared when she is _enceinte?_
“6. If there is still more to be feared from her when she is certain that she is not _enceinte?_
“7. If monks are more generally _jettatori_ than other men? and among monks what order is most to be feared?
“8. At what distance can _jettatura_ be made?
“9. Must it be made in front, or at the side, or behind?
“10. If there are really gestures, sounds of voice, and particular looks, by which _jettatura_ may be recognized?
“11. If there are prayers which can guaranty us against the _jettatura?_ and if so, whether there are any special prayers to guaranty us against the _jettatura_ of monks?
“12. Lastly, whether the power of modern talismans is equal to the power of ancient talismans? and whether the single or the double horn is most efficacious?”
Luckless, indeed, is he who has the misfortune to possess, or the reputation of possessing this fatal power. From that time forward the world flees him, as the water did Thalaba. A curse is on him, and from the very terror at seeing him accidents are most likely to follow. Keep him from your children, or they will break their legs, arms, or necks. Look not at him from your carriage, or it will upset. Let him not see your wife when she is _enceinte,_ or she will miscarry, or you will have a monster for a son. Never invite him to a ball, unless you wish to see your chandelier smash, or the floor give way. Invite him not to dinner, or your mushrooms will poison you, and your fish will smell. If he wishes you _buon viaggio_, abandon the journey, if you would return alive. Nor be deceived by his good manners and kind heart. It is of no avail that he is amiable and good in all his intentions,–his _jettatura_ is without and beyond his will,–nay, worse, is contrary to it; for all _jettatura_ goes like dreams, by contraries. Therefore shudder when he wishes you well, for he can do no worse thing.
If you do not believe what I tell you, read the wonderful story of Count —– which is told by Dumas in his “Corriccolo,” and at least you will be amused, if not convinced. Listen, however, to this one historical incident, and believe it or not, as you please. Ferdinand of Naples died on the night of the 3d of January, 1825, and was found dead in the morning. The physicians attributed his death to a stroke of apoplexy; but that was in consequence of their pretended science and real ignorance. The actual cause of his death was this,–and if you do not believe it, ask any true Neapolitan, or Alexander Dumas, if you put more faith in him.–A certain _canonico,_ named Don Ojori, had for many years desired an audience of Ferdinand, to present him a certain book, of which Don Ojori was the author. The King had his good reasons for refusing, for Don Ojori was well known to be the greatest _jettatore_ in Naples. Finally, on the 2d of January, the King was persuaded to grant him the desired favor the next day, much against his will. The _canonico_ came, and after a long audience left his book and many prayers for the King’s prosperity. But Ferdinand did not survive the interview a whole day; and if this be not proof that Don Ojori bewitched him to his destruction, what is?
* * * * *
PYTHAGORAS.
Above the petty passions of the crowd I stand in frozen marble like a god,
Inviolate, and ancient as the moon. The thing I am, and not the thing Man is, Fills these blank sockets. Let him moan and die; For he is dust that shall be laid again: I know my own creation was divine.
Strewn on the breezy continents I see The veined shells and glistening scales which once Enwrapt my being,–husks that had their use; I brood on all the shapes I must attain
Before I reach the Perfect, which is God, And dream my dream, and let the rabble go: For I am of the mountains and the sea,
The deserts, and the caverns in the earth, The catacombs and fragments of old worlds.
I was a spirit on the mountain-tops,– A perfume in the valleys,–a simoom
On arid deserts,–a nomadic wind
Roaming the universe,–a tireless Voice. I was ere Romulus and Remus were;
I was ere Nineveh and Babylon;
I was, and am, and evermore shall be,– Progressing, never reaching to the end.
A hundred years I trembled in the grass, The delicate trefoil that muffled warm
A slope on Ida; for a hundred years Moved in the purple gyre of those dark flowers The Grecian women strew upon the dead.
Under the earth, in fragrant glooms, I dwelt; Then in the veins and sinews of a pine
On a lone isle, where, from the Cyclades, A mighty wind, like a leviathan,
Ploughed through the brine, and from those solitudes Sent Silence, frightened. To and fro I swayed, Drawing the sunshine from the stooping clouds. Suns came and went,–and many a mystic moon, Orbing and waning,–and fierce meteor,
Leaving its lurid ghost to haunt the night I heard loud voices by the sounding shore, The stormy sea-gods,–and from ivory conchs Wild music; and strange shadows floated by, Some moaning and some singing. So the years Clustered about me, till the hand of God Let down the lightning from a sultry sky, Splintered the pine and split the iron rock; And from my odorous prison-house, a bird, I in its bosom, darted: so we fled,
Turning the brittle edge of one high wave,– Island and tree and sea-gods left behind!
Free as the air, from zone to zone I flew, Far from the tumult to the quiet gates
Of daybreak; and beneath me I beheld Vineyards, and rivers that like silver threads Ran through the green, and gold of pasture-lands,– And here and there a hamlet, a white rose,– And here and there a city, whose slim spires And palace-roofs and swollen domes uprose Like scintillant stalagmites in the sun; I saw huge navies battling with a storm
By ragged reefs along the desolate coasts,– And lazy merchantmen, that crawled, like flies, Over the blue enamel of the sea
To India or the icy Labradors.
A century was as a single day.
What is a day to an immortal soul?
A breath,–no more. And yet I hold one hour Beyond all price,–that hour when from the heavens I circled near and nearer to the earth,
Nearer and nearer, till I brushed my wings Against the pointed chestnuts, where a stream That foamed and chattered over pebbly shoals Fled through the bryony, and with a shout Leaped headlong down a precipice: and there, Gathering wild-flowers in the cool ravine, Wandered a woman more divinely shaped
Than any of the creatures of the air, Or river-goddesses, or restless shades
Of noble matrons marvellous in their time For beauty and great suffering; and I sung, I charmed her thought, I gave her dreams; and then Down from the sunny atmosphere I stole
And nestled in her bosom. There I slept From moon to moon, while in her eyes a thought Grew sweet and sweeter, deepening like the dawn, A mystical forewarning! When the stream, Breaking through leafless brambles and dead leaves, Piped shriller treble, and from chestnut-boughs The fruit dropped noiseless through the autumn night, I gave a quick, low cry, as infants do:
We weep when we are born, not when we die! So was it destined; and thus came I here, To walk the earth and wear the form of man, To suffer bravely as becomes my state,– One step, one grade, one cycle nearer God.
And knowing these things, can I stoop to fret And lie and haggle in the market-place,
Give dross for dross, or everything for nought? No! let me sit above the crowd, and sing, Waiting with hope for that miraculous change Which seems like sleep; and though I waiting starve, I cannot kiss the idols that are set
By every gate, in every street and park,– I cannot fawn, I cannot soil my soul:
For I am of the mountains and the sea, The deserts, and the caverns in the earth, The catacombs and fragments of old worlds.
* * * * *
CLARIAN’S PICTURE.
A LEGEND OF NASSAU HALL.
“Turbine raptus ingenii.”–SCALIGER.
Mac and I dined together yesterday,–as we are used to do at least once or twice every year, for the sake of our ever-mellowing friendship, and those good old times in which it began. Like all who are ripe enough to have memories, we delight to recall the period of our vernal equinox, and to moralize, with gentle sadness and many wise wags of our frosty polls, upon the events in which that period was prolific; and so, when the cloth was removed yesterday, and we sat toying with our cigars and our Sherry, our talk insensibly drifted back to those merry college-days when we not infrequently “heard the chimes at midnight.”
“Ah, old fellow,” quoth I to my chum, “those good old days are gone by, now, and Israel worships strange gods. Old Nassau will never be what she was before the fire of ’55. Those precious heirlooms of our day are sunk from sight forever, dear and mossy as they were,–swept down, like cobwebs, before the flame-besom. _’Fuit Ilium!’_ The old bell will never again ring out the gay ‘larums of a ‘Third Entry’ barring-out. Homer’s head no longer perches owl-like and wise over the central door-way. _’Ai, Adonai!’_ No more wilt proud fingers point to the spot whereat entered–not like ‘Casca’s envious dagger’–that well-aimed cannon-ball which pierced the picture-gallery, punched ‘Georgius Res’ on the head, and frightened away forever the Hessians that were stabled there, fouling the nest of stout old John Witherspoon. They call other rolls now in chapel and in class-room, and chant other songs at their revels and their feasts. ‘_Eheu, Posthume!_'”
“Pshaw, Ned Blount! there’s corn in Egypt still. Out of that bug-riddled old barn we used to know a new and comely Phoenix has been born unto Princeton; the fire hath purged, not destroyed; and we wiseacres who flourished in the old ‘flush times’ yet survive in tradition, patterns for our children, very Turveydrops of collegiate deportment. The belfry clangs with a louder peal; even Clarian’s Picture, though it hath utterly perished to the eye of sense, lives vivid in a thousand memories, and, having found in the tenderness of tradition and legend an engraver whose burin is as faithful as Raphael Morghen’s, has left the damp dark wall, like Leonardo’s _Cenacolo_, to accompany all of us to our firesides.”
Clarian’s Picture! what memories the mention of it stirred up!
“Poor Clarian!” I murmured.
“Poor, indeed I” repeated Mac, with a sneer. “He is only worth a lovely wife and six children, with half a million to back them. And he only weighs two hundred pounds, with I forget how many inches of fat over the brisket. Poor, indeed! ‘Tis pity you and I have not experienced a slight attack of that same poverty, Ned Blount!”
“Poor Clarian!” repeated I, sturdily. “To think that a man who could paint such a picture, a soul of imagination so compact, a so delicate ether-breathing spirit, should settle down at last into a mere mechanical, a plodding, every-day merchant, whose finest fancies are given to the condition of the money-market, who governs his actions by a decline of Erie, and narrows his ideas down to the requirements of filthy lucre, like a mere ‘wintry clod of earth’! Ay, poor Clarian, poor anybody, when we wake from our bright youth-dream and tread the rough pathway of a reality like this!”
“_Potz tausend_! the man is _fou_!” shouted Mac. “Come, drink your wine, Ned, and we’ll have our coffee. It is quite time, I think,–and he used to be a three-bottle fellow,” muttered my dear old friend, _sotto voce_. “‘_Heu, heu! tempora mutantur, et nos_’–well, well, well!”
* * * * *
Clarian’s Picture! What a gush of recollection the words evoke! I was in the heyday and blossom of my youth then, and now–well, ’tis some years since; yet how vividly I remember that pleasant noontide of a day of early summer, when, as a party of us students were lounging about the gates that opened from our shady campus upon the street, “Dennis” handed me a note from Clarian, in which my little friend announced that his picture was finished at last, and invited Mac and myself to call and see it “exhibited,” at nine o’clock that very evening. We were talking about Clarian and his picture, at the time,–as, indeed, we had been doing for a month,–and when I mentioned the purport of the note, curiosity rose to the tiptoe of expectation, and numerous surmises were set afloat. I could have satisfied their queries as to the subject and character of the picture, for Mac and I had seen it only a few days before, but Clarian expected us to be secret about it; so I only listened and smiled, while the eager talk ran on, and a thousand conjectures were hazarded.
“So the _magnum opus_ is finished at last,” said Clayt Zoile, showing by his manner, as he joined us, that he at least had not received an invitation; “a precious specimen of Art it will prove, I doubt not, after all the outcry about it. ‘_Montes parturiunt_’ etc.”
“You’ll lose your wish this time, Clayt,” drawled Mounchersey, carelessly; “Mr. Cosine told me yesterday that ‘Boss’ has called on Clarian about his cutting so many prayers and recites, and that, after seeing the unfinished picture, he gave the youngster _carte blanche_ as to time, till it is completed;–so it must be something worth looking at”
“I guess Ned Blount’s glad the picture is finished,” said Tone Ninyan, turning to me,–“a’n’t you, Ned?”
I confessed I was not by any means sorry, for Clarian’s sake.
“No,” laughed Zoile, “Ned isn’t sorry,–be sure of that; for he wants his dear ‘Whitewash’ restored again to the bosom of society, lest the walls of his reputation should by chance suffer from fly-speck.”
These words created a laugh at my expense; for Clarian had shown himself, in his warm, generous way, such a zealous advocate of my immaculate perfection, that he was quite generally known by the _sobriquet_ of “Ned Blount’s Whitewash.”
Just then Mac came along, on his way to the post-office, and I joined him, showing him Ciarian’s note.
“Hum,” growled my good old chum, as he read it, “don’t want to be disturbed to-day; sick, is he? I’d like to know who’s to blame, if he isn’t. Wishes me to bring my Shakspeare along;–it’s a wonder he had not said Plotinus, or Jacob Boehme’s ‘Aurora’; they’re more in his style. The deuse take that boy and his picture, Ned! What if we two fools have been playing too roughly with such plastic clay? I wish to-night were come and gone safely. I’ll go see Dr. Thorne, and ask him to accompany us to-night. He claims to be something of a connoisseur, and the picture is really worth seeing, if the lad has not spoiled it with his ‘final touches’. And anyhow, the boy will be a study for a psychological monomaniac like Thorne.”
“You apprehend, then….”
“_Sapperment_, you owl-face! I apprehend nothing; only it will be as well to have Thorne present, for the boy is out of sorts, and his nerves were never very strong. Now look here, Ned Blount! don’t put on that lugubrious phiz, I pray you;–and, moreover, don’t you ever dare introduce any more of your Freshmen _protege’s_ to me; for, I warn you, I’ll insult them, and you, too,–I will, by Jove!”
I was not less impatient than Mac for the night to come, for I was very anxious about Clarian, dreading lest some catastrophe was about to overtake him,–and the thought was by no means pleasant. For, as Mac had said, the lad was a _protege_ of mine; he had been given into my charge by his sweet lady-mother; he had looked up to me as his senior and his friend; and I could not help feeling, that, if anything untoward should happen to him, it would be partly my fault.
From the very first I had been strongly attracted towards Clarian. Indeed, the lad was remarkable for a peculiar spiritual beauty of person and sweetness of manner that made almost every one love him. He was, in fact, _lovely_, in the etymological sense of that misused word, and people softened towards him as to a young, guileless child. I have known men cease swearing when he drew near, drop ribaldry, and take up some more innocent topic, simply through an unconscious impulse of fitness,–feeling that such things had no business to be repeated in his presence. And they were right; for a purer spirit than Clarian’s I have never encountered in man or woman. His face most reminded one of the portraits of Raphael at twenty. He had the same broad, smooth forehead,–the same soft skin, delicate, yet rich as the inner leaves of a pale rose,–the same finely shaped nose, and ripe, womanly mouth, which a Persian, in default of a more tangible analogy, would have likened to the seal of Solomon. But his lower face was somewhat less full than Raphael’s, the chin being shorter and sharper, and the jaw curving less sensuously. His hair was of the purest chestnut hue, rich and silken, showing here and there a thread of gold; he wore it long, and flowing in half-ringlets upon his neck and shoulders. Clarian’s eye was large and dark, tender, rather sad, with now and then a speculative depth, now and then a hint of the Romeo fore-doom, now and then a warm eloquence, when meeting yours, that reminded strangely of a woman loving and in love. Other womanly traits he had, such as the ingenuous blush with which he asked or did a favor, and a certain not very boyish fondness for softness and elegance of dress. Not that Clarian was effeminate, or in any material respect deficient in manly character; but his mother was a widow, and he her only son, and consequently he had been brought up like a girl, at home, without any slightest opportunity to acquire those rough-and-tumble experiences of ordinary boyhood which are so necessary to fit us for battling in the world; for the world, though not unfeeling at core, wears yet a sufficiently rough rind, and pretends but little sympathy with persons of Clarian’s stamp.
Hence, when Clarian came to college, he knew very little of life indeed,–and, moreover, he cherished not a few ascetic notions, deeming this world “all a fleeting show,” from whose vain illusions it was one’s chief duty to shield one’s self. He had never read a novel, save “some of Scott’s,”–nor ever seen or read a play, not even of Shakspeare’s. How I envied him this new world, in whose usages I had been _blase_ long before I was of an age to appreciate its beauties,–this bright, fancy-fostering world, to which he was to go all fresh and unsophisticated, like a bride to the nuptial sheets! In literature of a more solid kind his practice was quite considerable: he had surveyed many fields of Art, History, and Theology, all of which, however, had first been submitted to the test of that anxious maternal _Index Expurgatorius_, lest some drop of infidelity or impurity should trickle in unawares, to darken or embitter the pure crystal waters of his soul. Ah, thou poor fond mother, so unreasoningly ignoring the fact that each of us must somehow eat his “peck of dirt”!
Thus intrusted to my charge, and having such attractive elements in his character, I naturally took great interest in Clarian, and particularly spared no effort to give him use in college ways. I saw that the lad was not one to bear being laughed at, and so did all I could to screen him from the embarrassments of ignorance,–taught him our customs, our fashions, and gave him lessons upon that immemorial dialect in which college sublegists delight. I chicaned to secure him a fine room, which his lady-mother furnished “like a bridal chamher”, if our Nassau cynics were to be credited,–introduced him where it was necessary, and exercised generally towards him that distinguished patronage which one who “knows the ropes” is able to bestow upon a very Freshman.
A fine generous fellow was Clarian, for all his apron-string antecedents,–bold as a lion, and as trustworthy as he was enthusiastic. He was of rather too nervous a temperament to be precisely healthy in all mental respects, but nevertheless had a fine comprehensive mind, very capable of sustained and concentrated effort. He had been well taught, and, unfortunately, was so far advanced beyond the studies of his class as to have a great deal of leisure. In consequence he turned to reading, and here, again unfortunately, he put himself under my guidance, and suffered me to govern him in his choice of books: unfortunately, I say, for I was then a worshipper of that clay-footed Nebuchadnezzar-image, Metaphysics, which I fondly deemed all of gold, and the most genuine of things. So, when Clarian came to me, I was eager enough to put to his lips the wine of which I was drunken. The boy took his first sip from Coleridge’s “Biographia Literaria”,–that cracked Bohemian glass, which, handed in a golden salver that might have come from the cunning graver of Cellini, yet forces one to taste, over a flawed and broken edge, the sourest drop of ill-made _vin du pays_, heavily drugged and made bitter with Paracelsian laudanum. Under that strange patchwork quilt so imaginative a soul as Clarian could not fail to dream. It was a great pity I had not been more circumspect, for the boy was already too deeply steeped in those Acherontic waters. His mother, like many other women, had loved to wander along the dreamy paths of sentimental theology, clothing from her own beautiful mind the dim, unsubstantial spectres that beckoned her, and accepting all their mystic utterances, in blind faith, for genuine oracles of God. Into these by-ways he had followed her, and his clearer vision had just sufficed to reveal to him the ghosts, without teaching him how to master or dispel them. Thus, Cowper’s sweetness, which charmed her, became to him Cowper’s dejection and despairing sadness, perplexing enough to his young brain. Where she took up and fed her soul upon John Wesley’s conclusions, the boy found himself involved in John Wesley’s perplexities, and struggling in desperate wrestle with the haunting shapes to which John Wesley had given successful battle. Thus prepared, no wonder my eager little friend plunged headlong into the sea of doubts, impatient to cry, “Eureka!” and plant his foot upon the Islands of the Blessed. The new excitement completely swept his feet from under him. ‘Twas but a step from Coleridge and _Esemplastic_ matters to Plotinus, and in a month he had taken that step,–the more readily, that he was a right good Grecian, and found no unpleasant philological difficulties in the “Enneades”. Thence he went on in feverish unrest, wildly running up and down all _Niffelheim_ in quest of some centre-point upon which he could stand firm and look around him. He had an excellent mind, and, unexcited, could take sufficiently common-sense views of most matters; but this was too much for him. He made substance of shadows, and then exhausted himself in giving them battle. He became anxious, uneasy, nervous,–showing very plainly, that, in his search after the Alkahest, he had injured his powers by making trial of too many drugs.
Mac, with his sturdy good sense, and unerring mace-like judgment, speedily became aware of this waste of function to which Clarian was subjecting himself, and warned me accordingly.
“Why do you let that boy bother his brains about your stupid _Ego_ and _Non-Ego_?” said he. “Don’t you see he is injuring himself, beginning to sink under a sort of mental _albumenurea_,–at the very time, too, when he has most need of stamina? He does nothing but read, read, read,–and what, forsooth? Not anything that will teach him the genuineness of life and manhood, but those damnable spirit-exalting, body-despising emasculates of Alexandria,–Madame Guyon’s meditations, too, and Isaac Taylor’s giddy see-sawings,–all heresies, and bosh,–‘Dead-Sea fruits that turn to ashes’, and not only disgust you, but blister tongue and lips most vilely. You’ll have him next trying to treat with the gods, to attain Brahm’s purification, Boodh’s annihilation, to jump over the moon, or doing something that will make him candidate for the shaved-head-and-blister treatment. Remember, Ned, his brain is made of finer stuff than that stolid sponge inside your _pia mater_, that can take in _quantum sufficit_ of beer, fog, and tobacco-smoke, unharmed. He can’t stand it, and he’s too rare and delicate a machine to go cranky thus soon. You’ve got the child under your thumb,–bring him out o’ that. Make him take a dose of Verulam, get him back into the world again, and order him four hours _per diem_ at the dumb-bells.”
And so, the next time Clarian came to our rooms, and was eagerly soliciting my opinion of a little essay he had written, to establish the identity of the Logos with the Demiurgic Mind, (“Plato’s World-Soul, called in ‘Timaeus’ the best of Eternal Intelligences, the Noetic Partaker and Digester of Reason”, said Clarian in his tract,) with some corollaries for the purpose of reconciling _Geist_ and _Freiheit_, all sauced down, _a l’Allemagne_, with numerous capitals and a proper degree of incomprehensibility,–Mac bluffly interrupted the colloquy, and accosted Clarian,–
“Younker! do you know you’re a fool?”
Clarian colored up,–
“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 AEschylus, 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 aesthetic 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 Mariae_; 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 _protege’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, _a 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 Judaeus 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 reentrance 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 Journees 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 Teufelsdroeckh 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 Cure 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 Francois_. 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 Actaeon to the naked Diana of his midnight musings. Come, ’tis bedtime; or do you want to finish Sternberg’s ‘Herr von Mondschein’? It is _a propos_, and I see your book is opened to the very place.”
[To be continued.]
* * * * *
JAPAN.
The arrival in this country of an embassy from Japan, the first political delegation ever vouchsafed to a foreign nation by that reticent and jealous people, is now a topic of universal interest. It is well understood, that, by the efforts of the government of the United States, the traditional policy of Japan, which for more than two hundred years forbade all freedom of intercourse with the surrounding world, has been so effectively subverted that its reestablishment is now impossible. Within eight years the barriers of Japanese seclusion have been removed, and the extreme prejudice against foreign communications almost obliterated. That this has been accomplished with a prudent and just regard for the rights and feelings of this singular race, the appointment of an embassy to the particular government which first successfully invaded its long cherished privacy abundantly proves.
The countries of Japan and China, and everything directly concerning them, have always claimed a peculiar consideration. Their self-imposed isolation, the mystery with which they have sought to surround themselves, the extraordinary habits and character of the people, the evidences of an earlier civilization in China–formerly supposed also to have extended to Japan–than is recorded of any other existing nation, account for the curious attention that has been bestowed upon them. Although now known to be entirely distinct, the Chinese and Japanese, by reason of the similarity of their occupations, customs, religion, written language, dress, and so forth, were for a long time looked upon as kindred races, and esteemed alike. Probably even at this time popular appreciation makes little distinction between the two countries. But since the necessities of commerce have recently compelled a somewhat vigorous interference with their seclusion, we begin to get a clearer understanding of the subject. We find, that, while, on close examination, the imagined attractions of China disappear, those of Japan become only more definite and substantial. The old interest in China is transferred to its worthier neighbor; for, in spite of all Celestial and Flowery preconceptions, it is impossible to view with any sincere interest a nation so palsied, so corrupt, so wretchedly degraded, and so enfeebled by misgovernment, as to be already more than half sunk in decay; while, on the other hand, the real vigor, thrift, and intelligence of Japan, its great and still advancing power, and the rich promise of its future are such as to reward the most attentive study. Its commanding position, its wealth, its commercial resources, and the quick intelligence of its people–not at all inferior to that of the people of the West, although naturally restricted in its development–give to Japan, now that it is about to emerge from its chrysalis condition, and unfold itself to the outer world, an importance far above that of any other Eastern country.
We propose to relate, with necessary brevity, what is most important of the little that is known of this interesting people. All records bearing upon the subject are imperfect, and the best of them are more profuse in speculation and surmise than in solid fact. The information possessed has been drawn bit by bit from the reluctant Japanese. The difficulties of investigation have been almost insurmountable,–no visitor, during two hundred years, having been allowed the slightest freedom of association with the people, or opportunity for travel. With very few exceptions, foreigners have been confined to the extremest limit of the islands, and forbidden even to leave the coast; and in no case has any disposition been shown to satisfy the curious demands of those who have attempted to break through the national reserve.
The origin of the Japanese is still involved in obscurity, and the date of the settlement of the islands is unknown. The boldest theory is, that a tribe proceeded thither directly from the land of Shinar, at the division of the races. In support of this, the purity of the Japanese language, which, in its primitive form, bears very slight affinity to any other tongue, and the evident dissimilarity of the people to those of any other Asiatic country, are adduced. The more general belief is, that the Japanese are an offshoot of the Mongol family, and that their emigration to these islands was at so remote a period that tradition has preserved no recollection of it. The favorite idea, that the first settlements were by Chinese, has long been set aside, except by the Chinese themselves, whose custom is to claim the origin of everything, and who still assume to consider Japan as a sort of province under their dominion. The fact is, that, to the Japanese, a Chinaman is the most worthless and contemptible object in Nature. The Chinese have, however, a fanciful legend in which they find an irresistible argument upon their side of the question. A certain Emperor, they say, seeking to prolong his life, demanded of the court physician an elixir of immortality. The physician modestly declared his ignorance of any such preparation, but, after receiving a significant hint, involving the loss of his head, recollected himself, and acknowledged that an herb of immortality did certainly exist, but that its delicacy was so rare it could be properly culled only by the most chaste hands. He thus succeeded in securing three hundred brave young men, and the same number of virtuous young women, whose twelve hundred chaste hands were at once consecrated to the plucking of the magical plant, which was declared to grow only in the islands of the sea. Once out of the Emperor’s reach, all thought of the particular duty in hand was instantly abolished, and superseded by a successful effort to establish a new nation, which in time resolved itself into Japan.
This, although satisfactory to the Chinese, fails to convince less credulous investigators. While the Japanese and Chinese have, perhaps, more common characteristics than can be readily explained with our present knowledge of them, yet no fact is better demonstrated than that they are wholly distinct races. There is an opinion, for which there is reasonable ground, that one of the earliest rulers of Japan was a Chinese invader, who founded the dynasty of the Mikados, or Spiritual Emperors; but, if this were so, it is evident that the conquerors must have mingled with the native inhabitants, and soon lost their identity. This would in a measure account for the prevalence of certain Chinese habits and customs in Japan. The question of Japanese origin remains yet undecided. Its earlier history, previous to the year 660 B.C., is mostly fabulous. There are the usual legends of dignitaries in close relationship with every member of the solar system, who were accustomed to reign an indefinite number of years,–generally some thousands. Beginning with 660 B.C., we have something authentic. At that time a warrior whose name signified “the divine conqueror”–(the supposed Chinese invader)–entered Japan, and assumed the control of its destinies. He called himself “Mikado,” and established his court at Miako, in Nipon, the largest of the group of islands, where he built temples and palaces, both spiritual and secular. Claiming to rule by divine right, he exercised the sole functions of the government, which, upon his death, descended to his heir, and thenceforward in direct order of succession. The Mikado, by reason of his superhuman dignities, was invested with a sanctity that gradually became irksome, shutting him out, as it did, from all fellowship with men, and compelling him to forego all familiar intercourse with even the highest nobles around his throne. Consequently arose the custom of abdication at a very early age by the Mikados, in favor of their children, for whom they acted as regents, circulating freely, upon their descent to mere mundane authority, with the rest of the court. By this course, however, the integrity of the government was weakened, and, dissensions arising, the stability of the throne was endangered by the agressions of some of the more powerful princes. In the twelfth century, it happened that a Mikado, particularly alive to the vanities of the world, not only gave up his station to his son, then three years old, but also renounced the labors of the regency, which were intrusted to the infant monarch’s grandfather, whose first exercise of power was the immediate imprisonment of the abdicator. This was worse than had been bargained for, and a contest ensued, which terminated in favor of the ex-Mikado, owing to the valor of a young warrior prince named Yoritomo. The prisoner was released, and himself assumed the regency; but from that moment the strength of the Mikados was gone. Yoritomo, having demonstrated that his power was superior to that of the spiritual lord, demanded and obtained the rank and title of “Ziogoon”,–General, or General-in-Chief. He at first divided with the Mikado the duties of the government, but by degrees succeeded in concentrating in himself the real supremacy. From him descended the temporal sovereignty of Japan, which has ever since overbalanced the spiritual authority, although the first nominal rank is still accorded to the Mikado.
In the year 1295, the existence of Japan was first announced to the Western world. Marco Polo, returning from his Asiatic travels, related all that he had learned of a vast island lying to the east of China, and even designated its position on his maps. He called it Zipangu, the name he had heard in China. This narration was not received with much credit, and was, until the sixteenth century, generally forgotten. It is a singular fact, that the record left by Marco Polo had a strong influence in deciding the convictions of Christopher Columbus, whose expectation in sailing from Spain was to discover the island spoken of by the Venetian voyager. But the ambition of Columbus was otherwise satisfied, and Japan was not visited by the representatives of any Western nation until the year 1543, or 1545, when a party of Portuguese, among whom was Ferdinand Mendez Pinto, were driven by a storm upon the coast, and forced to take shelter in the province of Bungo, upon the island of Kiu-siu. The account of this visit, given by Pinto, is full of interest, and, notwithstanding the questionable character that clings to his writings, is without doubt correct in almost every particular.
At the time when fortune threw these wanderers upon the Japanese coast, there was disinclination to admit strangers, or to communicate with them in the most liberal manner. They were warmly received, and treated with great consideration. The same friendship appeared to animate both parties. The Portuguese made presents of arms and ammunition to the Japanese, who, with ready skill, soon discovered the methods of manufacturing others for themselves. The Japanese consented that Portuguese commerce should be introduced, and the King of Bungo authorized an annual visit from a Portuguese ship. Thus commercial relations were established, and at the same time a religious mission, led by St. Francis Xavier, was despatched to Japan. The prospects of trade and the new principles of religion were welcomed with equal readiness. The visitors were restricted in no manner whatever. Converts to Christianity were almost without number. When Xavier departed from Japan, in 1551, he left behind him thousands of ardent and enthusiastic professors of his faith, and a religious sentiment that promised speedily to extend its influences throughout the land.
The government openly encouraged the diffusion of Christianity. The Ziogoon Nobanunga, who then reigned, having been importuned by native priests to expel the foreign missionaries, inquired how many different religions there were in Japan. “Thirty-five”, was the reply. “Well,” said he, “where thirty-five sects can be tolerated, we can easily bear with thirty-six. Leave the strangers in peace”. Some of the most powerful princes espoused the Christian religion, and about the year 1584, a mission, consisting of two young Japanese noblemen, attended by two counsellors of less rank, was sent to Rome by the subordinate kings of Bungo and Arima, and the Prince of Omura, in testimony of the devotion of those rulers. The people themselves hastened to the new faith with such zeal as to win the warmest affections of all the missionaries who went among them. Xavier wrote of them, “I know not when to cease, in speaking of the Japanese; they are truly the delight of my heart.”
So long as the mild teachings of Xavier and his Jesuit band prevailed, the cause of Christianity advanced and prospered. But their field of labor was soon invaded by multitudes of Dominicans and Franciscans from various Portuguese settlements in Asia. By the persistent exercise of their best faculties for mischief, these friars succeeded without much delay in working irreparable injury where their predecessors had effected so much good. They quarrelled, first among themselves, and then with the Jesuits, until their strifes became the mockery of the people. The native priests of the Siutoo and Buddhist religions took advantage of this state of things to make a bold stand against the spread of the new doctrines. They organized a force in the dominions of Omura, destroyed a Jesuit settlement and church, and marched about in open rebellion against the authority of the Prince. This movement, however, was checked without difficulty, and the insurgents were overthrown in battle. The church was rebuilt at the place now known as Nagasaki, which, an inferior village at that time, soon became the centre of Portuguese commerce, and grew to great importance among Japanese cities. But the friars continued their intrigues and tumults, in spite of the growing contempt shown by the Japanese. Many of the Roman clergy, moreover, assuming too great confidence in their easily gained power, began to defy the usages of the country, and to adopt airs of superiority quite at variance with the notions of the inhabitants upon that subject. At the commencement of this altered condition of affairs, the Ziogoon Nobanunga, who certainly was not unfavorably disposed to the Christians, was assassinated, and his office and rank, after a series of violent struggles, which lasted five years, fell to a man of humble origin, but great talents, named Fide-yosi. This person had in his youth served Nobanunga in the most menial capacity, but, owing partly to his remarkable abilities, and partly to the circumstances which threw the succession into so much confusion, he contrived to place himself, in the year 1587, at the head of the nation. He then married the Mikado’s daughter, and assumed the name of Taiko-sama, with a view, perhaps, of dissociating himself as completely as possible, in his exaltation, from the obscure individual Fide-yosi, with whom, otherwise, he might not unnaturally be confounded.
The new Ziogoon cared very little for the operations of the Christians, while they kept themselves free from interference in the political affairs of the country, and respected its customs. But the offensive spirit of the Portuguese laity was not to be repressed. Their manners grew more intolerable, from year to year. In time the progress of conversion almost ceased, and yet the Portuguese, blind to danger, disdained to retrace their steps. At length the Ziogoon, having journeyed through that part of the country mostly under Christian influences, suddenly determined to rid himself of so dangerous an element, and issued an order for the expulsion of all missionaries throughout the empire. This was resisted by some of the converted nobles, and particularly by the young prince of Omura, whose obstinacy was punished in a very summary way,–the Ziogoon seizing upon the port of Nagasaki, and transferring it to his own immediate government. On paying a heavy ransom, however, the prince was permitted to resume authority in Nagasaki, and Taiko-sama, busily occupied with more important affairs of state, neglected to enforce his decree of expulsion, and left the Christians undisturbed for some years, until a new evidence of affront once more aroused his indignation against them.
A Japanese nobleman and a Portuguese bishop, riding in their sedans, met, one day, on a high-road of Nagasaki. The duty of the bishop, according to the law of the country, was to alight and respectfully recognize the nobleman. But, instead of doing this, he refused to tarry, and even turned his head to the other side. Full of wrath, the nobleman made bitter complaint to the Ziogoon, who from that time turned his heart more resolutely than ever against the presumptuous and insolent foreigners. He again assumed the direct government of Nagasaki, and was about to adopt more vigorous measures, when he unexpectedly died, leaving the Christians a few remaining years of probation.
Taiko-sama was undoubtedly the greatest monarch that ever reigned in Japan. He succeeded in bringing for the first time into complete subjection the numerous powerful princes who had previously held an almost undivided sway in the larger provinces. By this means he consolidated the strength of the nation, and was enabled to undertake some very brilliant conquests. A letter sent by him to the Portuguese viceroy of Goa shows his own estimate of his power, and his general opinion of the insignificance of the external world.
“This vast monarchy,” he wrote, “is like an immovable rock, and all the efforts of its enemies will not be able to shake it. Thus not only am I at peace at home, but persons come even from the most distant countries to render me that homage which is my due. _Just now I am projecting the subjugation of China;_ and as I have no doubt that I shall succeed in this design, I trust that we shall soon be much nearer to each other…. As to that which regards religion, Japan is the kingdom of the Kamis, that is to say, of Xim, which is the principle of everything…. The [Jesuit] fathers are come into these islands to teach another religion; but as that of the Kamis is too well established to be abolished, this new law can only serve to introduce into Japan a diversity of religion prejudicial to the welfare of the state. That is why I have prohibited, by imperial edict, these foreign doctors from continuing to preach their doctrine…. I desire, nevertheless, that our commercial relations shall remain upon the same footing.”
In regard to the religion of Japan, which Taiko-sama lucidly and felicitously expounds by pronouncing it the religion “of the Kamis, [Princes, or Nobles,] that is to say, of Xim, which is the principle of everything,” it may be assumed that the Ziogoon had little thought of any theological troubles that might arise. His apprehensions were purely of a political nature. It is related that the captain of a Spanish man-of-war, in attempting to explain the secret of the vast colonial possessions of Spain, incautiously told Taiko that the introduction of Christianity into heathen nations was the first step, and the only difficult one, conquest naturally and easily following. Such an avowal was not likely to be lost upon so acute a mind as Taiko’s, and it may very probably have been one of the immediate causes which induced his extreme hostility to the diffusion of Christianity.
Taiko’s warlike declarations were by no means vain boasts. He did invade China, and spread such terror among the timid Celestials that they yielded him all possible submission, giving him a number of Corean provinces, a daughter of their Emperor in marriage, and the promise of an annual tribute to Japan, in token of Japanese supremacy. The tribute not appearing at the proper time, the Ziogoon immediately despatched a few armies to the Corea and again destroyed the Celestial balance of mind. These forces, however, were soon after recalled, in consequence of Taiko-sama’s death.
During the first year of the reign of his successor, Ogosho-sama, the Dutch appeared in Japan. A fleet of five ships, sent from Holland by the Indian Company, had been dispersed in the Pacific, and, sickness breaking out among the crews, only one ship remained. On board was an English pilot, a man of some education, named William Adams, who suggested visiting Japan, which was finally decided upon. In April, 1600, the Dutch vessel anchored in the harbor of Bungo, and the crew were cordially received by the people. But they found formidable enemies in the Portuguese and Spaniards of Nagasaki, who assailed them with the most unjust aspersions, and endeavored in every way to turn the prejudices of the Japanese against them. Notwithstanding this, however, the Dutch were kindly treated, although never permitted to leave the country again, on account of the suspicions aroused by the imputations of the Portuguese. William Adams was taken in charge by the Ziogoon himself, who found the Englishman so valuable and instructive a person that he would never hear of his leaving the imperial presence.
In 1609, other Dutch ships came to Japan, and, the scruples of the Ziogoon having been set at rest, commercial relations were entered into. The Dutch established a factory at Firando, in opposition to the Portuguese factory at Nagasaki. A rivalry arose, heightened by the political and religious feud between the nations, which was actively carried on for a number of years. The Portuguese at first beset the Ziogoon with importunities for the expulsion of the Dutch; but Ogosho-sama, in the most catholic spirit, intimated, that, if devils from hell should take a fancy to visit his realm, they should be treated like angels from heaven, so long as they respected his laws.
In the midst of the jealous struggles of Dutch and Portuguese, came a new application for Japanese favor. In June, 1613, a vessel, despatched for the purpose by the English government, arrived at Firando, bearing letters and presents from King James I. to the Ziogoon. These were graciously received, and a commercial treaty of the most favorable character was at once negotiated. Among other not less important privileges, the Ziogoon gave to English merchants the following:–“Free license forever safely to come into any of our ports of our Empire of Japan, with their ships and merchandise, without any hindrance to them or their goods; and to abide, buy, sell, and barter, according to their own manner with all nations; to tarry here as long as they think good, and to depart at their pleasure”; also, “that, without other passport, they shall and may set out upon the discovery of Jesso or any other port in or about our Empire”. The Ziogoon also sent a letter, assuring the English monarch of his love and esteem, and announcing that every facility desired in the way of trade would be gladly granted, even to the establishment of a factory at Firando. A settlement was accordingly made at that place, and commercial communications were continued until about 1623, when they were voluntarily abandoned by the English. It appears that their affairs were less successful than those of the Dutch, who were stationed at the same port; but, whether from their own misapprehension of the kind of merchandise needed for Japan, or from the opposition of their rivals, who sought, in this case as in others, to secure for themselves the monopoly of trade, is uncertain.
For some years after the departure of the English, the contests between the Portuguese and Dutch grew more bitter and violent, and the arrogance of the Portuguese more unbearable, until at length, in 1637, the climax of their offences was reached, and the affections of the Japanese rulers, which, but for their own follies, would always have been with them, were turned into the most unrelenting hatred. The Portuguese, not content with the great privileges they already enjoyed, formed a conspiracy with certain of the native Christian princes to depose the Ziogoon, overturn the government, and take the power into their own hands. Letters containing the details of this plot were discovered by the Dutch, and straightway sent to the monarch. The statement has been made by Spanish writers, that this conspiracy had no existence excepting in Dutch invention, and that the proofs of guilt were all forged for the purpose of more completely destroying the Portuguese; but the evidence is too strong to be overthrown by any such allegation. The result was, that imperial edicts were immediately put forth, enjoining the expulsion of all Portuguese from the islands, and the utter extirpation of the Christian religion. For nearly two years there was a series of the most terrible persecutions. The Portuguese were at length banished, and the native converts who rose in rebellion against the decree were slaughtered by thousands, _the Dutch themselves cooperating in the work of destruction_. The history of these massacres is one of the most remarkable that the annals of Christianity can show. It stands forever, an ineffaceable record, covering with shame those pretended disciples of the religion of Christ, who by their reckless and wicked course not only invited their own destruction, but compelled that of thousands of innocent fellow-beings, and interrupted for centuries the progress of the cause they had so poorly essayed to promote.
It is thus evident, that, for the system of seclusion which during nearly two hundred and fifty years was closely adhered to, the Japanese themselves are in no degree to be blamed. The fault lay with the representatives of two refined and enlightened nations, who, by a persistent career of selfish folly and pride, covered themselves with the deserved reproach of a people to whose untutored apprehension such extraordinary principles of civilization appeared unworthy of cultivation. That the Japanese were at first amiably and liberally disposed toward foreigners, their frank admission of the Portuguese, Spaniards, Dutch, and especially of the English, amply shows. Until constrained for their own safety to do so, they took no step toward interfering with the almost unlimited privileges they had granted. It is, indeed, difficult to condemn their course, when we consider the enormity of their provocation, and the dangers to which they believed themselves exposed. If Christianity has suffered, the errors of those who misrepresented it were the cause. How soon it may be possible to again attempt its introduction is doubtful; for, of all foreign evils, the Japanese look upon Christianity as the worst, viewing it simply as the covert means of conquest, and reducing to submission those over whom its influences extend.
Beyond the removal of their rivals, the Dutch had little upon which to congratulate themselves in this movement. The monopoly of trade was theirs, but with the most degrading and humiliating conditions. They were obliged to give up their factory at Firando, and take a new station upon the small island of Desima, in the harbor of Nagasaki. To preserve even the most limited intercourse with the Japanese, they were forced to relinquish all sense of dignity and self-respect. The history of their relations with Japan, for the past two hundred years, is a continual record of absolute contempt and pitiless constraint on the one hand, and the most abject and disgraceful servitude on the other.
During the excitements which followed the expulsion of the Portuguese, a second effort to enter Japan was made by the English; but, owing, it is supposed, to the interference of the Dutch, this attempt was wholly unsuccessful. In 1673, the East India Company despatched another vessel, which was also received with distrust. The Japanese had learned, through the Dutch, that the English king, Charles II., had allied himself by marriage to the royal family of Portugal. On this account, and on this only, the Japanese declared that no English ship could be admitted. Two other equally fruitless attempts were made in 1791 and 1803. In 1808, an English ship of war, by showing Dutch colors, gained entrance to the port of Nagasaki, where, instead of peaceably deporting himself, the captain began by capturing the Dutch officials who came on board, and setting at defiance the requisitions of the Japanese. This English ship had been cruising after the Dutch traders, England and Holland being at war at the time, and, failing to meet them, the captain concluded they had eluded him, and sought them at Nagasaki. A plan to attack the ship and burn it was devised by the Japanese, but before it could be carried out the Englishman had sailed. Conscious that his dignity was forfeited by this invasion, the Japanese governor of Nagasaki, notwithstanding he was in no wise censurable, in pursuance of the national custom, immediately destroyed himself, and his example was followed by twelve of his subordinate officers. The garrison of Nagasaki was reinforced, and the most warlike attitude was assumed by the inhabitants, who are noted for their courage. The affair caused great indignation, and is yet remembered to the discredit of the English. In 1813, only five years later, a somewhat similar stratagem was employed by the English. It was an ingenious scheme on the part of the English governor of Java, which had, within a few years, been ceded to England. The independence of Holland had ceased, and the governor of Java undertook, by despatching English vessels under the Dutch flag, to secure the trade which Holland had alone enjoyed. But the Dutch director at Desima refused compliance, and the plan fell through. Three other ventures, all resulting in the same way, were made by the English in 1814, 1818, and 1849.
Of other European nations, Russia alone has sought to secure a position and influence in Japan. The proximity of the islands to the Siberian coast, and the fact that they lie directly between the American and Asian possessions of that nation, render it important that Russia should forego no opportunity to extend its relations in this direction. It does not appear, however, that much has been accomplished. About the year 1780, a Japanese junk was wrecked upon an island belonging to Russia. The crew were taken to Siberia, and there detained ten years, after which an attempt was made to return them to their homes. They were conveyed in a Russian ship to Hakodadi, on the island of Yesso, but were refused admission, on account of the edict issued at the time of the Portuguese expulsion, forbidding the return of any Japanese after once leaving the country. In 1804, a second mission was sent by the Emperor Alexander I., with the purpose of effecting a treaty of some sort; but the ambassador, whose name was Resanoff, commenced operations by disputing points of etiquette with the Japanese, who, in return, treated him with more courtesy than ever, and insisted upon paying all his expenses while in their country, but sent him away unsatisfied. Enraged at his failure, Resanoff despatched two armed vessels to the Kurile Islands, where, under his directions, a wanton attack was made upon a number of villages, the inhabitants being killed or taken prisoners, and the houses plundered. This was an offence not to be forgiven; and when, in 1811, Captain Golownin was despatched by the Russian government to make renewed applications, he was captured by stratagem, with one or two attendants, and imprisoned for several years. But he was always treated with kindness, and was finally released, without having received the slightest injury. He was intrusted, when sent away, with a message to the Russian government, setting forth the impossibility of any understanding between the two nations.
Previous to the expedition of Commodore Perry, few efforts to intrude upon the Japanese had proceeded from the United States. An unsuccessful attempt was made in 1837, by an American merchantman, to return a party of Japanese who had been shipwrecked on our Western coast. In 1846, Commodore Biddle was deputed to open negotiations, and entered the Bay of Yedo with two ships of war. Receiving an unfavorable answer to his demands, he immediately sailed away. In 1849, Commodore Glynn, having learned of the imprisonment of sixteen American sailors, who had been driven ashore on one of the Japanese islands, entered the harbor of Nagasaki with the United States ship Preble, and demanded the release of his countrymen. For a time a disposition was shown to evade his claim and to affect ignorance of the alleged captivity; but upon his assuming a bolder and more determined tone, the native officials became suddenly conscious of the state of affairs, and forthwith delivered up the seamen. Commodore Glynn then set sail, and until the visit of Commodore Perry, in 1853, the tranquillity of Japan was disturbed by no American intrusion.
It may be observed, that, of the nations which up to this time had undertaken to effect communications with Japan, all excepting the United States had given reasonable cause for offence, and some of them for deep enmity. The Dutch, though disliked, were tolerated; but the Portuguese, Spanish, English, and Russians had forfeited the good opinion of the islanders by their unprovoked and unjustifiable aggressions. It is not improbable that the selection of the United States for their first foreign embassy may have been induced by the consideration that the relations between the Japanese and their American neighbors have always been pacific, and that they have never suffered injustice or ill-treatment at our hands.
Meanwhile, until 1852, the Dutch had held exclusive commercial privileges in Japan. In return for these, they submitted to all sorts of indignities. They were restricted to the narrow limits of the artificially constructed island of Desima, which is only six hundred feet in length, and two hundred and forty in breadth. Here they were confined within high fences fringed with spikes. Their houses were all of wood, no stone buildings being permitted, undoubtedly with a view to preventing the slightest chance of fortification. At the northern extremity of the island was a large water-gate, which was kept continually closed, under a guard, except upon the arrival of the Dutch vessels. These restrictions were in great part continued almost to the present day, and many of them are still in force. On the arrival of a Dutch ship, all the Bibles on board were obliged to be put into a chest, which, after being nailed down, was given in charge of the Japanese officials, to be retained by them until the time of departure. All arms and ammunition, also, were required to be given up. The crew, on landing at Desima, were placed under rigorous surveillance, which was never relaxed. Even the permanent Dutch residents received but little better treatment. They were unable to make any open avowal of the Christian religion, and the Japanese officers who came in contact with them were compelled to make frequent disavowals of Christianity, and publicly to trample the cross, its symbol, under foot. The island of Desima was infested with Japanese spies, whom the Dutch were required to employ and pay as secretaries and servants, while knowing their real office, If a Dutch resident aspired to occasional egress from his prison, it was necessary to petition the governor of Nagasaki for the privilege. As a general thing, the application was granted, but with such conditions as to destroy all possibility of enjoyment; for, upon appearing in Nagasaki, the unfortunate Dutchman was set upon by a band of spies and policemen, who accompanied him wherever he turned and who were always pleasantly inviting themselves to be entertained at his expense,–a proposition which he was not at liberty to decline. These spies gradually got into the habit of taking with them as many of their acquaintances as they could gather together, until the cost of a stroll about Nagasaki became too heavy to be endured. But there was no remedy; he must either pay or stay at home; and even upon these extravagant terms, he was not allowed to enter any Japanese house, or to remain within the city after sunset. For the rare favor of visiting the residence of a native Nagasakian, a special petition was needed, and if granted, the number of spies on such an occasion was multiplied at a most appalling rate. The Dutch were, moreover, forbidden the companionship of their own countrywomen, and only the most degraded female class of Nagasaki were allowed to visit them. In every way they were forced to acknowledge their inferiority and undergo deprivations and mortifications, for which, let us hope, they succeeded in finding some compensation in the scant privileges of their trade.
At length the time arrived when the reluctant Japanese were to be taught the uselessness of further efforts to resist the advances of other nations. In November, 1852, an expedition, long contemplated and carefully prearranged, set sail from the United States under the command of Commodore M.C. Perry. Although this mission was the subject of much discussion abroad, no very general hope of its success was expressed. The opinion appeared to be, that, under all circumstances, Japan would still continue locked in its seclusion. The result proved how easily, by the exercise of firmness, prudence, and energy, all of which Commodore Perry displayed in every movement, the much desired end could be accomplished. The secret of two hundred years was solved in a day. The path once opened, there were plenty to follow it: Russia, England, and France were quick to share the benefits which had in the first place been gained by the United States. But thus far the best fruits of Japanese intercourse have fallen to the United States, and it seems clear that only a continuance of the same ability hitherto shown in the management of our affairs with that nation is needed to preserve to this country the superior advantages it now holds.
On the 8th of July, 1853, Commodore Perry, with two steamers and two sloops-of-war, entered the Bay of Yedo, having purposely avoided the port of Nagasaki, at which all strangers had previously been accustomed to hold communications with the government. In this, as in other movements, the Commodore acted independently of much opposing counsel. By first visiting the Loo-choo and Bonin islands, which are under Japanese control, and mostly peopled by Japanese, he had acquired a considerable knowledge of the character of those with whom he was to deal, and had been enabled to trace for himself a policy which the result proved to be eminently just and effective. He determined boldly to insist upon, rather than to beseech, the privileges he had been deputed to gain. Understanding perfectly the vexatious and embarrassing expedients by which the Japanese had been accustomed to hamper and resist the endeavors of even the best-disposed of their visitors, he resolved to listen to no suggestions of delay, and to push vigorously forward with his mission, in spite of every obstacle their wily ingenuity could oppose to him. Their assumptions of exclusiveness and superiority he met by precisely the same sort of display, allowing no familiarity on the part of the natives until all was definitely settled as he desired, and intrenching himself in a mysterious seclusion which rather exceeded even their own notions of personal dignity. Until one of the first noblemen in the nation was sent to treat with him, the Commodore shunned all intercourse with the people, and systematically refused to expose himself to the profane eyes of the multitude. This unusual course took the Japanese quite by surprise, and, not without some feeling of trepidation, they bestirred themselves with unexampled alacrity to satisfy, so far as they were able, his reasonable demands. Of course it was impossible for them to set aside all their prejudices, and the record of their schemes to impede the Commodore’s progress, all of which were quietly overcome by his firmness and decision, is equally amusing and instructive.[1] At the moment of his entering the Bay of Yedo, he was surrounded by guard-boats, and saluted with various warnings of peril, which might have deterred a less resolute man. But, wholly indifferent to Japanese guard-boats, he sent out his own for surveying purposes without hesitation, taking it for granted that perfect fearlessness would secure the crews from molestation. In answer to the remonstrances received at the outset, he simply pushed still farther up the bay, until, finding it impossible to obtain compliance with their requirements, the Japanese concluded to yield to his; and after as much hesitation as the Commodore thought proper to give them opportunity for, the letters from President Fillmore were received by the Emperor, or Tycoon,[2] negotiations were opened, and, finally, a treaty, yielding all the important points that had been asked for, was agreed upon. This treaty proclaimed “a perfect, permanent, and universal peace, and a sincere and cordial amity”, between the two nations; designated certain ports where American ships should obtain supplies; promised protection to American seamen who should chance to be shipwrecked on the coast; and contained the important stipulation, that no further privileges should be vouchsafed to any other government except on condition of their being fully shared by the United States.
[Footnote 1: The details are to be found in the _Narratives of the Expedition_, by Francis L. Hawks, D.D., LL.D., published by Congress at Washington, in 1856.]
[Footnote 2: As will be shown hereafter, the military functions of the temporal ruler long ago ceased, and the title of Tycoon has been substituted for that of Ziogoon.]
The communications between Commodore Perry and the Japanese were carried on in the most friendly manner. While the Commodore allowed no interference with what he regarded as his own rights in the case, he was careful to check any disposition on the part of his officers to defy those of the islanders. Thus the utmost cordiality was preserved throughout. The Japanese received the presents from the American government with delight, and were quite overcome at the sight of the steam-engine and the magnetic telegraph. A series of agreeable entertainments followed the signing of the treaty, in which the Japanese showed themselves especially alive to the civilizing influences of foreign cookery, and appreciation of such refinements as whiskey and Champagne, to whose beneficent influences they gave themselves up with ardor. Commodore Perry, on his departure, after freely visiting various Japanese ports, was intrusted with a number of presents for the American government, and entreated to bear with him the assurance of entire confidence and amity.
In August, 1853, subsequently to the arrival of Commodore Perry, a Russian squadron visited Nagasaki, but, after protracted negotiations, departed without obtaining a treaty. In September, 1854, Admiral James Stirling, on behalf of the English government, effected a treaty at Nagasaki, the terms of which were rather less liberal and advantageous than those granted to the United States. But the inevitable result of Commodore Perry’s success could not long be delayed. Since the time of his mission, the governments of France, England, Holland, and Russia have secured treaties guarantying important privileges. It appears, however, that the superiority of influence remains with the United States, owing, in a measure, no doubt, to the excellent abilities of the Consul-General, Mr. Townsend Harris, who has permitted no opportunity to escape of pressing the claims of his government. As early as July, 1858, he negotiated a fair commercial treaty. Mr. Harris is the only foreigner who was ever permitted to enter the palace of the Tycoon of Japan without the degrading forms of submission formerly exacted from the Dutch. He was received there with every testimonial of respect. At a time when Mr. Harris was seriously ill, the Tycoon despatched his own physician to attend him, while her Majesty continually sent him the most delicate preparations of food, the work of her own imperial hands. The ease with which the missions of Lord Elgin and Baron Gros,[1] in 1858, were accomplished, may fairly be attributed to the effects already produced by American influences. It was through Mr. Harris’s exertions that the Japanese embassy to this government was secured. The English government endeavored to obtain first this important mark of recognition, but, as it appears, unsuccessfully.
[Footnote 1: Mr. Oliphant’s account of Lord Elgin’s expedition (_Narrative of the Earl of Elgin’s Mission_, etc., by Lawrence Oliphant, Esq.) is one of the most valuable contributions from Japan. His observations, which at Yedo were more extended and unimpeded than those of any preceding visitor, are recorded in the most lively and charming manner. The history of the embassy of Baron Gros (_Souvenirs d’une Ambassade en Chine et au Japon_, par le Marquis de Moges) is less complete and entertaining, but by no means destitute of interest.]
At the present moment, all seems favorable for the development of the long hidden resources of the Empire. But there are still difficulties in the way; for a powerful class of nobles, those who trace their descent from the ancient spiritual dynasty, are strongly opposed to the overthrow of the old system. It is only by constant struggles that the more progressive class can make way against them. The arrival of this embassy, and the recent visit of a Japanese ship to California, are hopeful signs; for these could have been permitted only on the abrogation of the old law of seclusion, proclaimed at the time of the Portuguese expulsion; and such are the peculiar principles of the Japanese government, that, as will hereafter be shown, an important law like this cannot be revoked without a general change of its policy. Within the city of Yedo are now the representatives of three powerful nations, England, France, and the United States; others are seeking admission; and the period when Japan shall mingle freely with the world it has so long affected to contemn can hardly be long deferred.
In a future number we shall speak of the present condition of Japan, the forms of government, so far as known, its social state and prospects, and the character of the people, as represented in the embassy which is now receiving the hospitalities of our own government.
* * * * *
THE VINEYARD-SAINT.
She, pacing down the vineyard walks,
Put back the branches, one by one,
Stripped the dry foliage from the stalks, And gave their bunches to the sun.
On fairer hill-sides, looking south,
The vines were brown with cankerous rust, The earth was hot with summer drouth,
And all the grapes were dim with dust.
Yet here some blessed influence rained From kinder skies, the season through;
On every bunch the bloom remained,
And every leaf was washed in dew.
I saw her blue eyes, clear and calm;
I saw the aureole of her hair;
I heard her chant some unknown psalm, In triumph half, and half in prayer.
“Hail, maiden of the vines!” I cried: “Hail, Oread of the purple hill!
For vineyard fauns too fair a bride, For me thy cup of welcome fill!
“Unlatch the wicket; let me in,
And, sharing, make thy toil more dear: No riper vintage holds the bin
Than that our feet shall trample here.
“Beneath thy beauty’s light I glow,
As in the sun those grapes of thine: Touch thou my heart with love, and lo!
The foaming must is turned to wine!”
She, pausing, stayed her careful task, And, lifting eyes of steady ray,
Blew, as a wind the mountain’s mask Of mist, my cloudy words away.
No troubled flush o’erran her cheek;
But when her quiet lips did stir,
My heart knelt down to hear her speak, And mine the blush I sought in her.
“Oh, not for me,” she said, “the vow
So lightly breathed, to break erelong; The vintage-garland on the brow;
The revels of the dancing throng!
“To maiden love I shut my heart,
Yet none the less a stainless bride; I work alone, I dwell apart,
Because my work is sanctified.
“A virgin hand must tend the vine,
By virgin feet the vat be trod,
Whose consecrated gush of wine
Becomes the blessed blood of God!
“No sinful purple here shall stain,
Nor juice profane these grapes afford; But reverent lips their sweetness drain
Around the table of the Lord.
“The cup I fill, of chaster gold,
Upon the lighted altar stands;
There, when the gates of heaven unfold, The priest exalts it in his hands.
“The censer yields adoring breath,
The awful anthem sinks and dies,
While God, who suffered life and death, Renews His ancient sacrifice.
“O sacred garden of the vine!
And blessed she, ordained to press
God’s chosen vintage, for the wine
Of pardon and of holiness!”
* * * * *
THE PROFESSOR’S STORY.
CHAPTER XI.
COUSIN RICHARD’S VISIT.
The Doctor was roused from his reverie by the clatter of approaching hoofs. He looked forward and saw a young fellow galloping rapidly towards him.
A common New-England rider with his toes turned out, his elbows jerking and the daylight showing under him at every step, bestriding a cantering beast of the plebeian breed, thick at every point where he should be thin, and thin at every point where he should be thick, is not one of those noble