But the sciolist taps you on the
arm. Well, what have we gained? Many years I
strayed about, seeing many cities and many minds, like Odysseus; being
no saint, but, at the same time, being no thief and no liar. The open air breeds Leonidas, the factory
room Felix Pyat. A pipe is a pocket philosopher, a truer one than
Socrates. Arnold of Brescia had it, and so had Masaniello. Lamartine had it, and
so had Jack Cade. She looked at me with a smile. "You have given me hope; and I am in Rome, and I am young." She was right. But some true instinct in her taught her that
this is peace, but is not more than peace. They were so like us!--straining after the light, and only finding
bricks and gossamer and wasps'-nests! As it is with the earth, so it is with our life; our own poor, short,
little life, that is all we can really call our own. Then wise people say, he
or she has "got over it." Alas, alas! Yet we live; because grief does not
always kill, and often does not speak. We have no faith. When we carve a
Venus now, she is but a light woman; when we paint a Jesus now, it is
but a little suckling, or a sorrowful prisoner. We want a great
inspiration. We ought to find it in the things that are really
beautiful, but we are not sure enough, perhaps, what is so. Other and weaker natures than hers might forget,
but she never. Her fame will be short-lived as that rose, for she sees
but your face, and the world will tire of that, but she will not. She
can dream no more. It is by the very genius in her that you have had such power to
wound, such power to blight and to destroy. To touch Art without a right to touch it,
merely as a means to find bread--you are too honest to think of such a
thing. Unless Art be adored for its own sake and purely, it must be
left alone. Of course the modern fancy of making nature
answer to all human moods, like an Eölian harp, is morbid and
exaggerated, but it has a beauty in it, and a certain truth. Let us
cover her dishonour if we see it, lest we should provoke the Erinyes. Never purely
classic, never frankly modern. Louis XIV. That is just where we err. It always
comes. Oh, the day will come! you will kiss the feet of your idol then, and they will not stay; they
will go away, away, away, and they will not tarry for your prayers or
your tears--ay, it is always so. Two love, and one tires. And you know
nothing of that; you who would have love immortal." And I laughed again, for it seemed to me so horrible, and I was half
mad. I said, with cruel iteration. "Ah, never!" "We are together for ever; he has said so. If he would wish to wound me, so he
should. I am his own as the dogs are. Think!--he looked at me, and all
the world grew beautiful; he touched me, and I was happy--I, who never
had been happy in my life. Why? I do not know why you should look so. Perhaps I
was so. What he wished, that I did. Even
Rome itself was for me nothing, and the gods--there is only one for me;
and he is with me always. And I think the serpents and the apes are gone
for ever from the tree, and he only hears the nightingales--now. Very often. I want nothing now. Ah! Oh yes, no
doubt. It must always
be so--at least, so I think. Oh, how true that poem was! She was my Ariadnê, born again to suffer the same fate. I knew, but I had not the
courage to tell her. Oh, my dear! You were of those
who dwell alone, but whom the gods are with. Oh, just
Heaven! Oh, my dear, my heart is broken; how can I tell you? He will kill your
soul, and still you will kiss his hand. When he
leaves you, what will you do? The weak
are consoled, but the strong never. Nay, nay! Love does not come at will; and of goodness it is not born, nor of
gratitude, nor of any right or reason on the earth. Ay, it is hard. Ah, well might Love laugh. Oh, my dear, my dear, I come too late! he has done
worse than murder, for that only kills the body; but he has killed the
soul in you. He has done worse than murder,
and I came to take his life. Ay, I would slay him now as I would
strangle the snake in my path. Take my knife, lest I should see
him--take it. Then I turned without looking once at her, and went away. I do not know how the day waned and passed; the skies seemed red with
fire, and the canals with blood. I do not know how I found my road over
the marble floors and out into the air. I do not know whether a minute had gone by or many hours, when some
shivering sense of sound made me look up at the casement above, a high,
vast casement fretted with dusky gold and many colours, and all kinds of
sculptured stone. I could
see her, with all her loveliness, melting, as it were, into his embrace,
and see her mouth meet his. The people traffic in such things here, in the square of
Agrippa; it had fallen, doubtless, off some market stall. Woe is me; the sorrow of the world is great. "Make the little cold throat sing at sunrise," I said to him. "When you
can do that, then think to undo what you have done." It makes one
sad, mankind looks such a fool. It is a terrible poem, and terrible because it is true. Well, no doubt it is heaven's mercy that we can do so; it saves from
madness such thinking souls as are amongst us. It is
a lie--it is a blasphemy. He whom it has left misses the angel at his ear, but he is
alone for ever. He
would have come hither with riches about him, and the loveliness he had
worshipped would have been his own beyond the touch of any rival's hand. Then a moment, and it was gone. Fame!--it is the flower of a day, that
dies when the next sun rises. "I know it,--I
who am but a wine-cup rioter and love nothing but my summer-day fooling. "I should be content could I believe it would be reaped then." You may be so." A century, and history will scarce chronicle them." We may love
Truth and strive to serve her, disregarding what she brings us. "In your sense, no. There was truth in the old feudal saying, 'Oignez vilain,
il vous poindra; poignez vilain, il vous oindra.' There was terrible truth in the words: this man of princely blood, who
disdained all sceptres and wanted nothing of the world, could look
through and through it with his bold sunlit eyes, and see its
rottenness to the core. "You are right,--only too right. "Chandos, you live twenty centuries too late. You would have been
crowned in Athens, and throned in Asia. But here, as a saving grace,
they will call you--'mad!'" "Well, if they do? The title has its honours. "I would not have you as others are, Lulli," he said, softly. "Ah, what is the best that I reach?--the breath of the wind which
passes, and sighs, and is heard no more." he went on, throwing himself down a moment on
the thyme and grass. "An old Elizabethan musician's," answered Lulli, as he looked up. "Yes;
the years take all,--our youth, our work, our life, even our graves." "Yes: the years take all," he said, with a certain sadness on him. Bichât died at thirty-one:--if he had
lived, his name would now have outshone Aristotle's." "We live too little time to do anything even for the art we give our
life to," murmured Lulli. "No, if _it_ could live!" murmured Lulli, softly, with a musing pain in
the broken words. It is gone, as a laugh or a sob dies
off the ear, leaving no echo behind. His name signed here tells nothing
to the men for whom he laboured, adds nothing to the art for which he
lived. As it is with him, so will it be with me." "Wait," said Chandos, gently. "Trevenna will beat us all with his tongue, if we tempt him to try
conclusions. Very good
for mediocre people, I dare say; but it wouldn't suit _me_. There are
some people, you know, that won't iron down for the hardest rollers. "Yes, I know it. But a duke may bawl, and nobody shuts out _him_; a
prince might hop on one leg, and everybody would begin to hop too. no one can declare his rights till he can do much more,
and--purchase them. "Ah, I know! "And so are you." "Hush, madame. Few of the
people could read, and fewer still could write. It has known the best, it has known the worst that ever can befall it. Then he took it up,
and cut it to the root, and killed it; killed it as a reed--but breathed
into it a song audible and beautiful to all the ears of men. So it
is even, perhaps. Look. The house was empty; the people no doubt were
gone to labour in the fields; there was a wicker cage hanging to the
wall, and in the cage there was a blackbird. asked the old man, still breaking his stones with a
monotonous rise and fall of his hammer. She vaguely knew the meaning it bore to
herself, but it was beyond her to express it. she said at last, "that means something that one has not,
and that is to come--is it so?" your God is Love." What business have you here, who do neither the one nor the
other?" There was music still in this trampled reed of the river, into which the
gods had once bidden the stray winds and the wandering waters breathe
their melody; but there, in the press, the buyers and sellers only saw
in it a frail thing of the sand and the stream, only made to be woven
for barter, or bind together the sheaves of the roses of pleasure. He had none of these, he desired none of them;
and his genius sufficed to him in their stead. His works were great, but they were such as the public mind deems
impious. They were compounded of an idealism clear
and cold as crystal, and of a reality cruel and voluptuous as love. What he has
done is great. The world rightly seeing must fear it; and fear is the
highest homage the world ever gives. I would--if I
were He. Look--at dawn, the other day, I was out in the wood. Its thighs were broken in the iron teeth;
the trap held it tight; it could not escape, it could only
scream--scream--scream. All in vain. I laid it down in the
bracken, and put water to its mouth, and did what I could; but it was of
no use. "Child,--men care for a god only as a god means a good to them. Is it true?--if the world's choice
were wrong once, why not twice?" It is always the Barabbas--the trickster in talent,
the forger of stolen wisdom, the bravo of political crime, the huckster
of plundered thoughts, the charlatan of false art, whom the vox populi
elects and sets free, and sends on his way rejoicing. She pondered awhile, then her face cleared. she asked. be quiet," he said to her, almost harshly, "I have thought of
something." There was not a form in all this close-packed throng which had not a
terrible irony in it, which was not in itself a symbol of some appetite
or of some vice, for which women and men abjure the godhead in them. When he had finished it his arm dropped to his side, he stood
motionless; the red glow of the dawn lighting the depths of his
sleepless eyes. But she did not say so. Her feet ached, and her heart throbbed; her limbs were heavy like lead
in the heat and the toil. But she did not tell him so. He took the denial as it was given, and pressed onward up the ascent. He bade her close her eyes, and she obeyed him. "Now look." For what she saw was the sea. When the first
paroxysm of her emotion had exhausted itself, she stood motionless, her
figure like a statue of bronze against the sun, her head sunk upon her
breast, her arms outstretched as though beseeching that wondrous
brightness which she saw to take her to itself and make her one with it. "Before the land, the sea was." "You never knew," he made answer. There was no sound near them, nor was there anything in sight except
where above against the deepest azure of the sky two curlews were
circling around each other, and in the distance a single ship was
gliding, with sails silvered by the sun. "Since it pains you, come away." "Give me that pain," she muttered, "sooner than any joy. pain?--it
is life, heaven--liberty!" In the still, cold, moonlit air their shadows stood together. But
they,--their empire was the universe. There was a sharp crisp coldness as of lingering frost in the gloom and
the dulness. He lived amidst
the poor, and the poor to the poor are good, though they are bad and
bitter to the rich. But he did not open either his lips or his hand. To hear as that captive heard, the hearer must have hope, and a
kingdom,--if only in dreams. Nothing arrested it; nothing retarded it, as nothing hastened it. It was beautiful exceedingly, with the brilliant tropical beauty of a
life that is short-lived. He saw the dead thrush in her hand, and chuckled to himself as he went
by. She said nothing; but the darkness of disgust swept over her face, as he
came in sight in the distance. For this king was weary of his life. "His buckler was sown with gems, but his heart beneath it was sore. "Now the world is too like that king, and in its greed of gold it will
barter its life away. He has made them rich, and their riches shall kill them. It has known the best, it has known the worst, that ever can befall it. I?--the mind of a man, the
breath of a god?" Amongst them there was one colossal form, on which the sun poured with
its full radiance. For it was the great Apollo in Pheræ. Immortal music only is left thee, and the vision foreseeing
the future. Thus he saw them, thus he heard, whilst the pale
and watery sunlight lit up the form of the toiler in Pheræ. And as he looked upon this symbol of his life, the captivity and the
calamity, the strength and the slavery of his existence overcame him;
and for the first hour since he had been born of a woman Arslàn buried
his face in his hands and wept. He paused and gazed at her with eyes half content, half cold. Art is so vast, and human life is so little. "That is not the fault of the reeds?" "I was trying to think. If he heard
you, he would think you mad." "Nothing at all;--that I know. Her voice was low, and thrilled with a curious eager pain. Then he took it up, and cut it to the root, and killed
it;--killed it as a reed,--but breathed into it a song audible and
beautiful to all the ears of men. It was high noon, and the highest tide of the market. She turned, as she spoke, towards the western waters, where the sea-line
of the Ægean lay, while in her eyes came the look of a royal pride and
of a deathless love. No matter what the land be now, Greece--_our_
Greece--must live for ever. Her language lives; the children of Europe
learn it, even if they halt it in imperfect numbers. No deed of heroism
is done but, to crown it, it is named parallel to hers. They dream of freedom, and to reach
it they remember Salamis. They talk of progress, and while they talk
they sigh for all that they have lost in Academus. "But to have done that would have been to attain the Impossible," he
answered her. I have the blood of the Commneni in me. she repeated. She turned her face to him, with its most beautiful smile on her lips
and in her eyes. "No, I would not: you are right. "I am a pagan, you see: I do not fancy that you care much for
creeds yourself." "No. The world sees the few who do reach freedom, and, watching their bold
upright flight, says rashly, "will can work all things." There was only a dim silvery haze that seemed
to float over the whiteness of the tall-stemmed arum lilies and the
foam-bells of the water that here and there glimmered under the rank
vegetation, where it had broken from its hidden channels up to air and
space. It is a vast, dim,
exhaustless pity to all the world. They were silent; she stirred their souls--she had not bound their
passions. "A traitor merits death," they muttered. Not so. If you would give him justice, make him live. Say to him as I say, 'Your sin was great, go forth and sin no
more.'" Take the word boldly
by the beard, and look at it. Judith, Samuel, David, Moses, Joab. Brutus. Cicero, while
he murmurs '_Vixerunt!_' after slaying Lentulus. Marius,
who nails the senators' heads to the rostræ. Charles,
who murders Strafford. Christianity, that has burnt
and slain millions. Calvin, who destroys Servetus; or
Pole, who kills Latimer, which you like. George of
Cappadocia, who slaughters right and left. Sulla, who
slays Ofella. 'Monsieur, you are an assassin,' says
an impolite world. "That you would outwit Belial with words, and beguile Beelzebub out of
his kingdom with sophistry." He was only a
clerk at fifty pounds a year; but he had a soul above all scruples, and
a heart as hard as a millstone. Such is Progress. "It is a place where the poor souls have no wine of their own, I think;
and they make cannons and cheese. We must build iron houses that float, and go on the
sea and meet them." _PUCK._
"Animalism," forsooth!--a more unfair word don't exist. "Animalism!" "Animalism," forsooth! I have seen these often in the peasantry, in
the poor. Now she warn't, she spoke i'
all innocence, and she mint what she said--she mint it. Worldly experiences, I mean. Intellectually, I am not sure that I
acquired much. "_Autres temps, autres mæurs._" You are a very odd mixture. I am afraid it is not very good for you. I
don't mean for your morals; I don't care the least about them, I am a
dog of the world; I mean for your manners. It makes you slangy, inert,
rude, lazy. If
you have not met a woman like that, I wonder where you have lived. They do
not choose you to know that they know it, very probably; but there is
nothing that is hidden from them, I promise you. "Not a single thought, I know, all these twelve years of our marriage." The
farm, happily, was not far: I sped with them. his wife asked in her torture. "On the contrary," said the great censor, taking his snuff; "they owe me
much, or might have owed me much. Ah! "Ah, my dear!" So she died to-day in a
garret, my dear." Ah! Ambrose bent his head, silently. "Last simmar-time, i' th' aftermath." He'd allus thoct as he'd dee that way, you know. and then he
turned him on his side, and hid his face upo' the sod. sighed Daffe, softly. He niver were the same--niver. "It did," said Ambrose, brokenly. "Na. "Niver--niver. What think 'ee, Daffe? Well, we
couldna gae agin him--we poor min, an' he a squire and passon tew. I were mad with
grief like, thin; it were awfu' ta ha' him forbad Christian burial." asked the gentle Daffe, wistfully. 'Tis allus so still there, an' peacefu'. It dew seem so. Ah! "Exactly what I am saying, my dear. "Sophist!" "Pardon me, but it is not possible to have art at all on the stage. You can have it in a statue, a melody, a poem; but
you cannot have it on the stage, which is at its highest but a graphic
realism. asked the critic, who
was young, and deferred to him. "Impossible, sir. Now the stage
paints rudely, often tawdrily; still it does paint. "I imagine not one, in our day. "Take care of them, dear Bronze," she murmured; "and wait till I come
back. Wait here." I
am always glad to think that as she went she turned, and kissed him once
again. The boat flew fast over the water. The boat flew like a seagull, the sun bright upon her sail. Bronze, left
upon the rock, lifted his head and gave one long, low wail. It echoed
woefully and terribly over the wide, quiet waters. It was very still there. There was only one sound at all;
and that was the low, soft, ceaseless murmuring of the tide as it glided
inward. I was light, and a strong swimmer. The boat was pushed into the surf; they threw me in. They could see
nothing, and trusted to my guidance. It sank from sight. The foam
was white about his feet, and still he stood there--upon guard. He rose, grasping in his teeth the
kreel of weed and shells. Three times he sank, three times he rose. With each yard that the tide bore him forward, by so
much it bore us backward. There was but the length of a spar between us,
and yet it was enough! It struck him as he rose; struck him across the brow. HE WAS A DOG." "There are many lamentations, from Lycidas to Lesbia, which prove that
whether for a hero or a sparrow--" I began timidly to suggest. "That's only a commonplace," snapped my lady. "No, my dear, they don't," the little worldling admitted. "They do to
women; they're so material, you see. Of course we can easily be sentimental and above this sort of thing,
when the chicken _is_ in our mouths where we sit by the fire; but if we
were gnawing wretched bones, out in the cold of the streets, I doubt if
we should feel in such a sublime mood. Well, to my fancy, you may be utterly wrong. They go in flocks, and can't
give a reason why. They bleat loud at imagined evils,
while they tumble straight into real dangers. And for going off the
line, there's nothing like them. You may bark at them right and left; go they will,
though they break their legs down a limekiln. Oh, men and sheep are
wonderfully similar; take them all in all." You see such
things, but you are indifferent to them. "It is only a dog," you say;
"what matter if the brute fret to death?" "I think very well of men," returned Fanfreluche. "You are mistaken, my
dear. "If you do, you are not complimentary to them," I grumbled. "Can't help that, my dear," returned Fanfreluche. Ah, well, it may be so! Dishonour is like the Aaron's Beard in the hedgerows, it can
only poison if it be plucked." If a woman be celebrated, the world
always thinks she must be wicked. If she's wise, she laughs. But the
cream would clog without it, and the combination is piquant." With him was a very noble deer-hound, whom he had owned for
four years. "Please pardon him, my lord," he said, all in a quiver and a tremble. He don't know no better,
my lord--he's only a dog." Ah, indeed, dogs are
far behind you! But there is something tragically stupid about your
dogged acceptation of any social construction of a private life, damned
out of all possibility of redemption by the flippant deductions of
chatter-box or of slanderer. But, alas! said the miner, with practical wisdom. "We doan't," confessed the East Anglian, "we doan't. But now the machine, he dew all theer is to dew, and dew
it up so quick. "Machine's o' use i' mill-work," suggested one of the northerners. Wi' six
children, mebbe, biggest ony seven or eight, a crazin' ye for bread. It is women's deficiency in intellect, you will observe. The cottage was very old, and the rose-thorn
was the growth of centuries. she added, sharply; "I daresay you do, my dear. We sigh over her absence, and we glorify her perfections. But
Virtue is always a trifle stuck-up, you know, and she is very difficult
to please. "Not a bit, child. "Good gracious me, why should he? Men are always optimists
when they look inwards, and pessimists when they look round them." It has
blue and pink, and yellow and green, on its awnings and on its
house-fronts. She forgot everything. She forgot the cherries at home, and the children
even. For she was alone, though she had so many friends. There was something so novel, so sleepy, so harmless, so mediæval, in
the Flemish life, that it soothed him. "_You_ are of the people of Rubes' country, are you not?" she asked him. "Of what country, my dear?" "In the galleries, you know. "Do you not want to see Rubes' world, little one? "No," said Bébée, simply. "I should like to see it--just to see it, as
one looks through a grating into the king's grapehouses here. But I
should not like to live in it. I could not anyhow, anywhere be any happier than I
am. But what I want is to know
things, to know all about what _was_ before ever I was living. Ste. We did what never will die, but our
names are as dead as the stones.' And I want to know more. "No," she answered him. For the angels must be tired,
you know; always pointing to God and always seeing men turn away. God made the trees,
and they were more wonderful, he thought, for his part. And so perhaps
they are, but that is no answer. And I do _want_ to know. He smiled. "Ah, dear Sun!" she cried to it. "I am going to be wise. Are you not glad
for me, O Sun?" The Sun came over the trees, and heard and said nothing. He can wait. He knows the end. It is always the same. The Sun is not a cynic; he is only wise because he is Life and He is
death, the creator and the corrupter of all things. "No, my dear. He did a terrible bit of cobbling once, when he made
Woman. But he did not shoe her feet with swiftness that I know of; she
only runs away to be run after, and if you do not pursue her, she comes
back--always." she said, a little awe-stricken. "But people are not merry when they are wise, Bébée," said Franz, the
biggest boy. "Perhaps not," said Bébée; "but one cannot be everything, you know,
Franz." "I think there is something better, Franz. "Who has put that into your head, Bébée?" The child went out of the place sadly, as the carillon rang. It is very ancient, there still; there are all manner of old buildings,
black and brown and grey, peaked roofs, gabled windows, arched doors,
crumbling bridges, twisted galleries leaning to touch the dark surface
of the canal, dusky wharves crowded with barrels, and bales, and cattle,
and timber, and all the various freightage that the good ships come and
go with all the year round, to and from the Zuyder Zee, and the Baltic
water, and the wild Northumbrian shores, and the iron-bound Scottish
headlands, and the pretty grey Norman seaports, and the white sandy
dunes of Holland, with the toy towns and the straight poplar-trees. She was eighty-five years old, and
could hardly keep body and soul together. Bébée, running to her, kissed her. "O mother Annémie, look here! Beautiful red and white currants, and a
roll; I saved them for you. oh, for me, I have eaten more than are good! You know I
pick fruit like a sparrow, always. Dear mother Annémie, are you better? "Why had you not a grandmother of your own, my little one?" she mumbled. "How good you would have been to her, Bébée?" "Yes," said Bébée seriously, but her mind could not grasp the idea. "How much work have you done, Annémie? Oh, all that? But there is enough for a week. You work too early and too late, you
dear Annémie." "Nay, Bébée, when one has to get one's bread, that cannot be. That rose now, is it well done?" sharp enough, sharp enough--that is true. And you know it is not age with _me_, Annémie?" "You have a merry heart, dear little one," said old Annémie. "To be sure, dear, and thank you too. I have not much time, you see; and
somehow my back aches badly when I stoop." "And it is so damp here for you, over all that water!" "It is so damp here. They are such
mischievous little souls; as soon as my back is turned one or other is
sure to push through the roof, and get out amongst the flower-beds. It is so bright there, and green and sweet-smelling, and to
think you never even have seen it!--and the swans and all,--it is a
shame." "No, dear," said old Annémie, eating her last bunch of currants. "You
have said so so often, and you are good and mean it, that I know. It would kill me. Never, never, never, you know. "So you see, dear, I could not leave here. "And I could not do without the window, you know. But none did. They were worse than faulty--they were commonplace. But he had minded neither curse nor
blow. He had always said to himself, "I am a painter." Fame is very capricious, but Failure is seldom inconstant. Where it once
clings, there it tarries. At this season
Bavaria grows green, and all is fresh and radiant. thought her mother, in the superior
wisdom of her popular little life. "If she would only kiss a few women
in the morning, and flirt with a few men in the evening, it would set
her all right with them in a month. But to be pleasant, always to be pleasant, that is the thing. Hardly. But that was all. It is a sublime
instinct, like genius of all kinds. Ah, the pity of it! The webs come out of the great
weaver's loom lovely enough, but the moths of the world eat them all. Pehl is calm and
sedate, and simple and decorous. No: her horses hated masks, and she hated noise. She said it was well done, but what charm was there in it? "Tout va bien," he thought to himself; "Miladi must be very much in love
to be so cross." You want notoriety; you want to indulge your fancies, and yet
keep your place in the world. That is what all you people call love; I am content enough
to have no knowledge of it." "The application was original, and the sentiment they brought to it. They were never long stationary. They wandered about
decorating at their fancy, now here and now there; now a vase for a
pharmacy, and now a stove for a king. But on
the whole they were happy, no doubt; men of simple habits and of worthy
lives." "You care for art yourself, M. Della Rocca?" "Every Italian does," he answered her. "I do not think we are ever, or I
think, if ever, very seldom connoisseurs in the way that your Englishman
or Frenchman is so. It is a familiar affection with us, and
affection is never very analytical. Women, believe me, never have any principle. Principle is a
backbone, and no woman--except bodily--ever possesses any backbone. Virtue is, after all, as Mme. Still, when she did come to think of it, she was not so very sure. The Huron Indians pray to the souls of the fish
they catch; well, why should they not? "Everything that is artificial, you mean. I know it is the fashion to say that a love of Nature belongs only
to the Moderns, but I do not think so. You are often very unfaithful; but _while_ you are faithful
you are ardent, and you are absorbed in the woman. Compared with you, all other men are children. Frou-frou, who stands for her, is not in the least the true type. In a word, Madame Mila was a type of the women of her time. Well, no doubt there is
death, but they do not realise it; they hardly believe in it, they think
about it so little. These women are not all bad; oh, no! they are like sheep, that is all. If it were fashionable to be virtuous, very likely they would be so. They are like the barber, who said, with much pride, to Voltaire, "Je ne
suis qu'un pauvre diable de perruquier, mais je ne crois pas en Dieu
plus que les autres." You
are not likely, if you know them. Still, they are apprehensive. Though one were to arise from the dead to preach to them, they would
only make of him a nine days' wonder, and then laugh a little, and yawn
a little, and go on in their own paths. It had no city near it, and no town nearer than four leagues. Ah, yes, my little ones--yes, though you doubt it, you little
birds that have just tried your wings--it is well to be so old. The village was
a lake of fire, into which the statue of the Christ, burning and
reeling, fell. It
is gone, and its place can know it never more. Never more. Well, they pulled that down and put
up a red one. That toppled and fell, and there was one of three
colours. For
the city which is the tomb of Rubens still lives to us through him, and
him alone. Without Rubens, what were Antwerp? In his life she glorified this greatest of her sons, and in his death
she magnifies his name. But her wisdom is very rare. There was only the dog out in the cruel cold--old and
famished and full of pain, but with the strength and the patience of a
great love to sustain him in his search. There was scarce a sound save the riot
of the winds down the passages as they tossed the creaking signs and
shook the tall lamp-irons. He crept up noiselessly,
and touched the face of the boy. I--a dog?" "Let us lie down and die together," he murmured. "Men have no need of
us, and we are all alone." "O God, it is enough!" "We shall see His face--_there_," he murmured; "and He will not part us,
I think; He will have mercy." On the morrow, by the chancel of the cathedral, the people of Antwerp
found them both. They were both dead: the cold of the night had frozen
into stillness alike the young life and the old. As the day grew on there came an old, hard-featured man, who wept as
women weep. But
there was greatness for the future in it. I would fain find him, and
take him with me and teach him art." It was not the truth exactly
that was ever told at the poor wine-shops and about the harvest-fields,
but it was near enough to the truth to be horrible. "You have a good sight," I said to her. Ah, well! they are all gone, those days and nights. I am ugly, and very poor, and of no account; and I die at
sunrise, so they say. So they say. We only see clearly, I think,
when we have reached the depths of woe. No one
did; so it was all of no use. Guerillas like us can do much, very much, but to do so much that it is
victory we must have a genius amidst us. And we had none. It is blood-red, and it blinds them. Then we see one, and she holds for
us life or death, and plays with them idly so often--as idly as a child
with toys. It has all Boccaccio between its walls, all Petrarca in its leaves,
all Raffaelle in its skies. Fate is so old, and weary of her task; she must
have some diversion. Indeed,
who can tell? echoed Istriel. he asked, with a changed sound in his voice,
and with his fair cheek paler. Istriel rose, and looked at him; he had not remembered dead Pippa for
many a year. Now, all at once, Pippa's hand seemed to touch him--Pippa's voice seemed
to rouse him--Pippa's eyes seemed to look at him. He did not know how time went; but he knew the look of the daybreak. But he had no pity on himself. But he had
no pity on himself. "My soul for his," he had said; and he cleaved to his word and kept it. He was no less so to himself. He had tried to follow God's will and to
drive the tempter from him, for the boy's sake; and it had all been of
no avail. Yet he was willing to say, "Evil, be thou my good!" "There is but one way," he said to himself;--there was but one way to
cut the cords of this hideous, tangled knot of destiny and let free the
boy to the old ways of innocence. He could face the thought of an eternity of pain, and not turn pale, nor
pause. "It is selfishness to pause," he told himself. When he sees his mother in heaven some day, then she will say
to him--'It was done for your sake.' And I shall know that he sees then,
as God sees. When Mozart wept, it was for the world he could never reach--not for the
world he left. The iron of a wasted love, of a useless sacrifice, was in his heart. he muttered; "shall I never muzzle and yoke you ever
again?" His throat grew dry, his eyes grew dim. Multitudes, well used to wander, would have laughed at him. There was no one there to see his weakness, and year on year he had
decked them with their garlands of hedge flowers and led them up on
God's day to have their strength blessed by the priest--their strength
that laboured with his own from dawn to dark over the bare brown fields. It only seemed to him, that day would never come. He could have none of that mental solace which supports the scholar;
none of that sense of natural loveliness which consoles the poet; his
mind could not travel beyond the narrow circlet of its own pain; his
eyes could not see beauty everywhere from the green fly at his foot to
the sapphire mountains above his head; he only noticed the sunset to
tell the weather; he only looked across the plain to see if the
rain-fall would cross the river. But there was no fear for him. Let him be." If they felt it wrongly, or felt it not at all, he would stop,
and run away. "If they are deaf I will be dumb," he said. I suppose they are always hearing their own steps
and voices and wheels and windlasses and the cries of the children and
the hiss of the frying-pans. I suppose that is why. Well, let them be
deaf. "They were not deaf," resumed Palma. "I played what came to me," said Signa. "Yes. "Oh, Signa!" "I think they must doubt it," said Signa. "But the beasts are not Christians, the priests say so," said Palma, who
was a very true believer. "I know. But I think they are. For they forgive. We never do." "Some of us do." "Not as the beasts do. Agnoto's house-lamb, the other day, licked his
hand as he cut its throat. He told me so." "That was because it loved him," said Palma. said Signa. "Yes," said Signa, with the unconscious cruelty of one in whom Art is
born predominant. "We do care," said the girl gently. "Oh, in a way. "You all care; you all sing; it is as the finches do in the fields,
without knowing at all what it is that you do. You are all like birds. You pipe--pipe--pipe, as you eat, as you work, as you play. I do not even know whether
what I do is worth much or nothing. I think if I could hear great music
once--if I could go to Florence----"
"To Florence?" A narrow life, no doubt, yet not without much to be said for it. She has ruined him. Women like her are like the
Indian drugs, that sleep and kill. There was a sculptor once, you know, that fell to
lascivious worship of the marble image he had made; well,--poets are not
even so far wise as that. Those who are happy die before their dreams. The world had not yet driven the sweet, fair follies from Signa's head,
nor had it yet made him selfish. All genius now is, at its best, but a
servitor--well or ill fed. "Lippo is a lizard. No dog ever caught him napping, though he looks so
lazy in the sun." He did not repine. He made no reproach, even in his
own thoughts. Never. Bells rang. Toads are kindly in their way, and will get friendly. The toad is a fakeer, and thinks the beatitude of life lies in
contemplation. Men fret and fuss and fume, and are for ever in haste;
the toad eyes them with contempt. I do not know: there can be
nothing like it, I think:--a thing you create, that is all your own,
that is the very breath of your mouth, and the very voice of your soul;
which is all that is best in you, the very gift of God; and then to know
that all this may be lost eternally, killed, stifled, buried, just for
want of men's faith and a little gold! Its very charm is, that it says so little. And the mandoline, though so mournful and full of languor as Love is,
yet can be gay with that caressing joy born of beautiful nothings, which
makes the laughter of lovers the lightest-hearted laughter that ever
gives silver wings to time. Our Signa, who is going to be great!" Now, I think the boy is like the bells--to you." "The man was a fool," said he. He could hear some of them as other people did, no doubt, ringing
far away against the skies while he was in the mud. Good-day." I think they must. It would be hard if the bells got everything, the
makers nothing." He met another man he
knew, a farmer from Montelupo. "A gala night to-night for the
foreign prince, and your boy summoned, so they say. The boy wanted no king or prince. Yet he was proud. He was proud, and
glad. Here there was a large crowd, pushing to buy the frothing, savoury hot
meats. Then he went to a shop near,
and bought some delicate white bread, and some foreign chocolate, and
some snowy sugar. As swiftly as he could make the mule fly, he drove home across the
plain. The boy was there, no doubt; and would be cold and hungry, and alone. There was no sound anywhere. The house was empty. He put the things down on the settle, and went to put up the mule. It hurt him; as the star Argol had done. Then he went to see his sheep. There was no train by the seaway from Rome until night. Signa would not
come that way now, since he had to be in the town for the evening. He did not think of going into the city
again himself. The evening seemed very long. The boy, no doubt,
he thought, would drive to the foot of the hill, and walk the rest. That was how he would have gone, had he been told. He
lighted two great lanthorns, and hung them up against the doorposts; it
was so dark upon the hills. One hour went; another; then another. There was no sound. He threw himself on his bed for a little time, and closed the door. He slept little; he was up while it was still dark, and the robins were
beginning their first twittering notes. Then he went and saw to his beasts and to his work. The sun leapt up in the cold, broad, white skies. The day grew. Bruno sat down on the bench by the door, not
having broken his fast. He sat still a few moments, but he did not eat. "I was to bring this to you," he said, holding out a long gun in its
case. Ah, Lord! There was such fuss with him in the city. I am only a messenger. He sat still a little while, the gun lying on his knees; there was a
great darkness on his face. he called. "It is I," said a peasant's voice. "There is so much smoke, I thought
you were on fire. I was on the lower hill, so I ran up--is all right
with you?" "All is right with me." "I bake my bread." "I make it, and I eat it. Then he went out, and drew the door behind him, and locked it. The last red rose dropped, withered by the heat. In the red clover, the labourers will
whet their scythes to a trick of melody. Some suffer a lifetime in a day,
and so grow old between the rising and the setting of a sun. Only you must love them truly, else
you will see them never. When the faith drops, spring is
over. The breath of its lips is like ether; purer than the air around it,
it changes the air for others into ice. Bruno asked him when they rose, and
they went on under the tall green quivering trees. "No," said Signa under his breath. "I prayed for the devil." "For him?" echoed Bruno aghast; "what are you about, child? "I prayed for him," said Signa. "It is he who wants it. To be wicked
_there_ where God is, and the sun, and the bells"----
"But he is the foe of God. "No," said Signa, sturdily. "God says we are to forgive our enemies, and
help them. But the scene in its loveliness was so old to her, so familiar, that it
was scarcely lovely, only monotonous. "The world is vain, frivolous, reckless of that which is earnest; it is
a courtesan who thinks only of pleasure, of adornment, of gewgaws, of
the toys of the hour!" Why, my Waif? Nature has been very good, very generous to you, Viva. No. Let me not covet, for that were akin to theft. Let me not
repine, for that were weakness." She has killed her conscience, Viva;
there is no murder more awful. Life lies before you, Viva, and you alone can mould it for
yourself. We have not our
choice to be rich or poor, to be happy or unhappy, to be in health or in
sickness; but we have our choice to be worthy or worthless. fie, for shame! When all the love that is fair and false goes begging for believers, and
all the passion that is a sham fails to find one fool to buy it; when
all the priests and politicians clap in vain together the brazen cymbals
of their tongues, because their listeners will not hearken to brass
clangour, nor accept it for the music of the spheres; when all the
creeds, that feast and fatten upon the cowardice and selfishness of men,
are driven out of hearth and home, and mart and temple, as impostors
that put on the white beard of reverence and righteousness to pass
current a cheater's coin; when all the kings that promise peace while
they swell their armouries and armies; when all the statesmen that
chatter of the people's weal as they steal up to the locked casket where
coronets are kept; when all the men who talk of "glory," and prate of an
"idea" that they may stretch their nation's boundary, and filch their
neighbour's province--when all these are no longer in the land, and no
more looked on with favour, then I will believe your cry that you hate
the toys which are hollow. So may it do in my music. They begged of Krishna, one day, to test their wisdom,
and Krishna gave them three drops of dew. As he drew
near he heard her mutter,
"Mother, mother! She will die of hunger!--it was for her, only for her!" "That is it, monsieur, that is it. Messieurs les gendarmes, let her go! It was my
mistake. they were soon left
almost alone, none were within hearing. She caught his hands, she tried to bless him and to thank him, and broke
down in hysterical sobs. I took it for my mother. She is
old, and blind, and without food. "I saw it was your first theft. "Ah, child! And know your trade she must, soon or late. Sin no
more, were it only for that love you bear her." he thought. "How can it feel, to live like _that?_" he asked, in a wistful,
tremulous voice. he muttered; "how strange it seems that people are there who
never once knew what it was to want bread, and to find it nowhere,
though the lands all teemed with harvest! They never feel hungry, or
cold, or hot, or tired, or thirsty: they never feel their bones ache,
and their throat parch, and their entrails gnaw! "'Verily they have their reward,' you mean? "It may be so," he murmured; "but then--they _have_ enjoyed! Ah, Christ! that is what I envy them. she said, with a certain emotion, whose meaning he could
not analyse. said Tricotrin, rapidly; he could not trust himself to hear her
speak in his own defence. I have the genius of
indolence, if you like. As to my belonging to a bygone age,--well! Ah, my Lord of Estmere! he murmured. says Society, when it means--"a great Scamp!" That
is all." Of course. "Oh yes, it is rare--rare like kingfishers, and sandpipers, and herons,
and black eagles. said Tricotrin, impatiently, and with none of his habitual
courtesy. When I tell you this, do you dream that I spare you? Wait, and live so that the right to judge, to rebuke, to
avenge, to purify, become yours through your earning of them. Live
nobly, first; and then teach others how to live. said Tricotrin,
without ceremony. "That was a good work of yours. It is her way. It is always so." asked Lélis, with a smile. I want nothing of her. It is an affair of the reason,
indeed; but it is an affair of the emotions also." "Not always; but for my music I do. "Surely not. I thank you. "You are right! Tricotrin, indifferent to the hint as to the rebuff, looked at him
amusedly. "Oh, I know you well, Lord Estmere; I told you so not long ago, to your
great disgust. Ah! "I!" "To be sure," answered Tricotrin. "You have chapel and chaplain yonder
at your château, I believe? they cried. 'To be
sure,' said Marat. 'It is the most republican book in the world, and
sends all the rich people to hell.' Life was going out rapidly, as the flame sinks fast in a lamp whose oil
is spent. The thrush sang on, and on, and on; but to the prayer of the dying eyes
no answer came. she cried. "Perhaps. "Why, yes. Well, there is one consolation. Men must
believe as I do in thee, one day. It had as many
chambers as one of the palaces down in Rome; but life is homely and
frugal here, and has few graces. You know
what I mean, you who know Italy. No?--ay, then you know not love. That is love. Few rulers, little or big, remember that. That's a golden rule,
Arthur; take it to heart. He did not
write, I would swear, without fellow-feeling, and yearning over souls
similarly shipwrecked, that wise saw, "A young man married is a man
that's marred." sighs some poet. I pity those who, in such a moment,
have not done likewise. Those are phrases. he cried, while his voice rang like a
trumpet-call. "Listen here, then, little lady, and learn better. The people cannot read, but they can rhyme. I do. But they did a noble work in their day; and leisure for meditation is no
mean treasure, though the modern world does not number it amongst its
joys. Nay, there is a real truth in it. Every line, every rood, every gable, every tower, has some story of the
past present in it. "She amassed wealth," they say: no doubt she did--and why? She always spent to great ends, and to mighty uses. "But she had so many great men, so many mighty masters!" Moreover, it was not only the great men that made her what she was. It was not only Orcagna planning the Loggia, but every workman who
chiselled out a piece of its stone, that put all his head and heart into
the doing thereof. It was not only Michaelangelo in his studio, but
every poor painter who taught the mere a, b, c, d of the craft to a
crowd of pupils out of the streets, who did whatsoever came before them
to do mightily and with reverence. The evening falls. People pass softly in shadow, like a dream. Nay?--oh, for shame! So to them the good Lord said: "Look at those odds and ends, that are
all lying about after the earth is set rolling. Gather them up, and make
them into four living nations to people the globe." Then St. Michael sent his creation to earth, and called it the Italian. Yonder in the plains we have done much; the rest will lie with you, the
Freed Nation. But I am but an outcast, you know; and my
wisdom is not of the world. Ah, that is the error. So they say now-a-days. They were old as the old Latin land, indeed. Oh, altro! The world when it reckons its saviours should rate high all it owed to
the Pantomimi,--the privileged Pantomimi--who first dared take license
to say in their quips and cranks, in their capers and jests, what had
sent all speakers before them to the rack and the faggots. A proud boast that. The air is cool, almost cold, and clear as glass. No; you have not genius, cara mia. Look at Machiavelli. I, for one, at any rate, am thoroughly convinced of that truth of
truths. Is there no glory at all worth having, then? I murmured. "Donatello did that, and it
killed him. When he had done that Saint George, he
showed it to his master. And the master said, 'It wants one thing only.' The master smiled, and
said, 'Only--speech.' 'Then I die happy,' said our Donatello. And he
died--indeed, that hour." to his statue, as
it was carried through the city. "That is glory, if you will. The tall plumes of the canes, new-born, by the side of every
stream and rivulet. But she was yet more than these: she was the light of the world: a light
set on a hill, a light unquenchable. "Of all men the artist was nearest to heaven, therefore of all men was
he held most blessed. Nothing. "All is twice told--in verse, in stone, in colour. "It is dreary--very dreary--that. "'He,' even now, so long, long after, to the people of his birthplace. There was only a little heap of fine dust when we reach the spot. "If, indeed, it were laid on
sometimes too roughly. oh,
of course. She passed on, helpless. After all, it was ruin to me, but it is
not much of a story; a tale-teller with his guitar on a vintage night
would soon make a better one. I loved a woman. She lived in Mantua. So
did I, too. We lived in Mantua. He felt the home sickness of the exile, of the wanderer who knows not
where to lay his head. No one cared. No one cared. There was no voice upon the
blood-stained waters. There was no rebuke from the offended heavens. In the distance were puffs of white and grey, like smoke or mist; those
mists were Corsica and Caprajà. Maremma is wide, and its people are scattered. the child asked him this day,
the words of Joconda being with her. "Oh, that is sure," said Andreino, half in jest and half in earnest. So they said. I do not know. You are a female
thing, Musa; your heart will be the first to burn, the first of all!" "Ay, for sure; you will be a woman!" said Andreino, hammering into his
boat. "Yes," said Musa again. It was nothing to her, and she heeded but little. She
thinks it is all true, though it has all been said before in his own
hills to other ears. That is how it goes in Maremma." The world has grown grey and joyless in the twilight of age and fatigue,
but these birds keep the colour of its morning. Eos has kissed them. "O God, Thou hast not forgotten!" "All that is very well," said Joconda with a little nod. "I do not say
it is not. I have done my best, but that is little. I suppose the good God
knows best--if one could be sure of that--I am a hard working woman, and
I have done no great sin that I know of, but up in heaven they never
take any thought of me. Priests say it is
best; priests are not mothers. Now, men are afraid or ashamed,
or they have no remembrance. That is what I think so cowardly,
so thankless. When our lips are once shut, there is on us for ever eternal
silence. they cry. They can only see the mouldy
cheese, they cannot see the sunrise glory. It is a
dreary creed. It is a dreary prospect." If there were only good and bad in this world it would not
matter so much," said Corrèze a little recklessly and at random. It would be almost as absurd to
condemn them as to admire them. They are like tracts of shifting sand,
in which nothing good or bad can take root. It is very
strange. It is very odd; there is such a cry for
naturalism in other arts--we have Millet instead of Claude; we have Zola
instead of Georges Sand; we have Dumas _fils_ instead of Corneille; we
have Mercié instead of Canova; but in music we have precisely the
reverse, and we have the elephantine creations, the elaborate and
pompous combinations of Baireuth, and the Tone school, instead of the
old sweet strains of melody that went straight and clear to the ear and
the heart of man. But they do not mean to do so. I trust to melody. I was taught music in its own country, and
I will not sin against the canons of the Italians. They are right. Rhetoric is one thing, and song is another. It is a sublime instinct, like genius of all kinds. "Christ said so. The back of their garret, the roof of their hovel,
touches the wall of your palace, and the wall is thick. "There are poor there, and great misery," she answered him reluctantly;
she did not care to speak of these things at any time. said Zouroff with a little laugh, and drew back
and let her pass onward. Cloud. Your daughter
somehow or other has escaped it, and so you find her odd, and the world
thinks her stiff. I am not one of them." The old, old story--how it repeats
itself! They never knew him drunk, they never
heard him swear, they never found him unjust, even to a poverty-stricken
_indigène_, or brutal, even to a _fille de joie_. On my life, civilisation develops comfort, but I
do believe it kills nobility. Individuality dies in it, and egotism
grows strong and specious. Every soldier carries it in his
wallet, and it may jump out on him any minute. His rivals, too, were beyond par in fitness and in condition, and there
were magnificent animals among them. "You're a wise 'un, you are!" And now only, Cecil loosened the King to his full will and his full
speed. His race was run. "Violet's
winning, Violet's winning!" "Not
yet, not yet!" "No, no, no, NO!" a leap
no horse should have been given, no steward should have set. "Oh, my darling, my beauty--_now_!" And as he galloped up the straight run-in, he was alone. Now here they know that, and Lord! Ah! Now, if only one of them little bits smarts, the whole crittur goes
wrong--there's the mischief." While there should be breath in her, she would go on to the
end. She looked across, southward
and northward, east and west, to see if there were aught near from which
she could get aid. If there were none, the horse must drop down to die,
and with his life the other life would perish as surely as the sun would
rise. "Any other way
he is lost." They were the
remnant who had escaped from the carnage of Zaraila; they knew her with
all the rapid unerring surety of hate. "I surrender," she said briefly. "I surrender," she said, with the same tranquillity. Well, I am here; do it. He was a young
man, and his ear was caught by that tuneful voice, his eyes by that
youthful face. "Speak on," he said briefly to her. "You have sworn to take my body, sawn in two, to Ben-Ihreddin?" But you are
bold men, and the bold are never mean; therefore I will ask one thing of
you. He is innocent. If it is not there by sunrise, he will be shot; and he
is guiltless as a child unborn. he asked. They were quite still now, closed around her; these ferocious
plunderers, who had been thirsty a moment before to sheathe their
weapons in her body, were spell-bound by the sympathy of courageous
souls, by some vague perception that there was a greatness in this
little tigress of France, whom they had sworn to hunt down and
slaughter, which surpassed all they had known or dreamed. "Maiden," he said gently, "we are Arabs, but we are not brutes. She looked at him in stupor; the sense of his words was not tangible to
her; she had had no hope, no thought, that they would ever deal thus
with her; all she had ever dreamed of was so to touch their hearts and
their generosity that they would spare one from among their troop to do
the errand of mercy she had begged of them. "Go in peace," he said simply; "it is not with such as thee that we
war." "We do not do the thing that is right for the sake that men may
recompense us," he answered her gently. It was full noon. _En fête_, for it did honour to its darling. There was not one in
all those hosts whose eyes did not turn on her with gratitude, and
reverence, and delight in her as their own. As for impressing her, or hoping
to impress her, with rank--pooh! she would have said, "what did that mean in '15? There was a group before her, large
and brilliant, but at them Cigarette never looked; what she saw were the
sunburnt faces of her "children," of men who, in the majority, were old
enough to be her grandsires, who had been with her through so many
darksome hours, and whose black and rugged features lightened and grew
tender whenever they looked upon their Little One. In the name of France, I thank you. In the name of the
Emperor, I bring to you the Cross of the Legion of Honour." "I see, Zackrist; you are right. tiens!_ I did him wrong," murmured Cigarette. "That is what
they are--the children of France--even when they are at their worst,
like that devil, Zackrist. "You do not
want to say anything to him," he muttered to Cigarette. "I am of
leather, you know; I have not felt it." She nodded; she understood him. "It was nothing," she answered them; "it was nothing. It was for
France." that is simple enough, isn't it? Fetch him, some of you--fetch him to me." We hold it in our hands every
hour, we soldiers, and toss it in change for a draught of wine. I shall live longest that way, and
I have much to tell. _Mes soldats_, do not
make that grief and that rage over me. They are sorry they fired; that
is foolish. They were only doing their duty, and they could not hear me
in time." "Oh, my child, my child!" he moaned, as the full might and meaning of
this devotion which had saved him at such cost rushed on him. Such nobility, such sacrifice, such love!" we are comrades, and you are a brave man. A fair face, a brave face! That is well. There was a ghastly stricken silence round her. Listen, just one moment. "That is good; they will be happy with you. It will all _end_ now,
will it not? That is horrible, horrible!" You could not help it; you were doing your duty. "She is content," she whispered softly. he murmured, while the tears fell from his blinded eyes, and his head
drooped until his lips met hers. It came too late, this warmth of love. she answered, with a look that pierced his soul. She will have the right to love you; she is of your
'_aristocrates_,' she is not 'unsexed.' As for me,--I am only a little
trooper who has saved my comrade! My soldiers, come round me one
instant; I shall not long find words." "I cannot speak as I would," she said at length, while her voice grew
very faint. "But I have loved you. "She had loved them." "I have been too quick in anger sometimes--forgive it," she said gently. Bury my Cross with me, if they will let you; and let the colours be over
my grave, if you can. There was yet time. It
was for him to fire first, and the doom written in his look never
relaxed. He turned--in seeming carelessness, as you may turn to aim at
carrion bird--but his shot sped home. Life
was the sole price that his revenge had set; his purpose had been as
iron, and his soul was as bronze. He went nearer, leisurely, and stooped
and looked at the work of his hand. I forgive--I forgive. He did not know"----
Then his head fell back, and his eyes gazed upward without sight or
sense, and murmuring low a woman's name, "Lucille! His next, "Poor fellow,
what a pity!" "You have spoilt all my sport," said the boy Hermes, angry and weeping. "Nay," said the elder brother with a smile. "Be comforted. They are good to one another amongst the
poor, you say! Oh, that I don't know anything about. Society makes them. Oh, you very
clever people always do laugh at these things. But you must study
Society, or suffer from it, sooner or later. "O child, what use is that? Words shall not tell them, nor colour portray them. If
you would live--love. Society, after all, is only
Humanity _en masse_, and the opinion of it must be the opinion of the
bulk of human minds. They're
knifed first, and then caricatured--as the lions were. The effort is
happiness, but the fruit always seems poor." But even from your point of view on your rock, I can't
quite believe it. To look back
and say, 'I have achieved!' "Perhaps; but the world, at least, does its best that it should not. Always has had, since Apelles painted. "You are very perverse. Of course I talk of an unsullied fame, not of an
infamous notoriety." "You are very thankless to Fate, my dear, but I
suppose it is always so." It is very queer. It is very odd. I suppose he hadn't. I think if I were one of them and had to choose, I
would rather have only a Style too." In real truth romance is common in
life, commoner, perhaps, than the commonplace. Abdication is
grand, no doubt. "A well-bred dog
does not wait to be kicked out," says the old see-saw. People, after all, soon get tired of kicking a dog that
never will go. The world takes high-breeding now as only a
form of insolence. "The world is only a big Harpagon, and you and such as you are Maître
Jacques. No offence to you, my dear. There is hope for him in the one, but only a dreary
despair in the other. said the frog. She must please, or perish. "Amuse me, and I will receive you." "Receive me, and I will amuse you." You pop
into them in a second, and no cold wind can find you out, my dear. Without
your husband's countenance, you have scenes. With scenes, you have
scandal. With scandal, you come to a suit. With a suit, you most likely
lose your settlements. Happily for us,
Society only requires the shadow. There never was an age when people were so voracious of
amusement, and so tired of it, both in one. If you can do anything to amuse us you are
safe--till we get used to you--and then you amuse no longer, and must go
to the wall. They never see this; not they; they
are caught on the edge of great passions, and swept away by them. They
cling to their affections like commanders to sinking ships, and go down
with them. They put their whole heart into the hands of others, who only
laugh and wring out their lifeblood. Laugh like Rabelais, smile like
Montaigne; that is the way to take the world. You trumpet our own littleness in our ear, and we know it so well
that we do not care to hear much about it. We do
not want to hear. Only give us a good
dinner and plenty of money, and let us outshine our neighbours. My dear, if Ecclesiasticus himself came
he would preach in vain. Well, perhaps nothing does
matter. Only one wonders why ever so many of us were all created, only
just to find _that_ out. Thus she, self-discrowned, lost both her
lover and her kingdom. Love lives best in this soft twilight, where it
only hears its own heart and one other's beat in the solitude. As it is, she
only enjoys herself. But, like Sganarelle also, she always premised that the right to give
the blows should be hers. said one lady, and felt herself aggrieved. Nobody's story agreed with anybody else's, but that did not matter at
all. The chief offence of the poet, as of the philosopher, is that the world
as it is fails to satisfy them. Society, which is after all only a conglomerate of hosts, has the host's
weakness--all its guests must smile. The poet sighs, the philosopher yawns. The death is slow and unperceived, but it is sure; and it is a death
that has no resurrection. When the
light of love is faded, and its joys are over, its duties and its
mercies remain. "Men make their own position; they cannot make a name (at least, not to
my thinking). "They admire rural
life, but they remain for all that with Augustus." "Yes; we never see either. "There is your bread." If they be
_chic_, and marry well, I for one shall ask no more of them. he said irrelevantly, with his face
averted. Forgiveness, I think, would
surely depend on repentance." said Sabran, with some impatience and
contempt. "Yes. "I am no casuist," she said, vaguely troubled. "I spoke of earth. Some come in chained; some free." Loyola and Francis d'Assisi are not the same
thing, are not on the same plane." It would be a cruel
gift, yet my hand is incapable of holding out any other. Goethe was right. But taking life even as you do, it is surely a casket
of mysteries. This is fanciful, may be, but
it is not illogical. I would hang up an etching
from Jordaens where you would hang up, perhaps, the programme of
Proudhon." "I hope that I teach them content," she continued. One old man
said to me, 'It is like being born again!' When all the habits of life are suddenly rent asunder, they are like a
rope cut in two. Though one may be glad
they are gone, yet there is a certain sadness in it. She had
her scholars taught their "ABC," and that was all. Those who wished to
write were taught, but writing was not enforced. "I think it is what is wanted," she said. We want a new
generation to be helpful, to have eyes, and to know the beauty of
silence. "It is egotism. My language is involved. I do not envy
you the faculty of doing it, of course; I could do it myself to-morrow. The world has gone farther and farther from peace since larger and
larger have grown its cities, and its shepherd kings are no more." She looked across to the last, and a shudder passed over her; a
sense of sickness and revulsion came on her. He did not dare to salute her, or go near to her; he stood
like a banished man, disgraced, a few yards from her seat. "I have but little to say to you, but that little is best said, not
written." He did not reply; his eyes were watching her with a terrible appeal, a
very agony of longing. She
had been near the gates of the grave, within the shadow of death. He
would have given his life for a word of pity, a touch, a regard--and he
dared not approach her! She dared not look at him. The law gives you
many rights, no doubt, but I believe you will not be so base as to
enforce them." he muttered. The
law will free you from me, if you choose." "I do not choose," she said coldly; "you understand me ill. The world need know nothing. "If you divorce me"---- he murmured. She breathed heavily, and again pressed her hand on her breast. she repeated. Other women would have made their
moan aloud, and cursed him. "I wish no words between us," she said, with renewed calmness. The title was mine to give, I gave it you; no wrong is done
save to my fathers, who were brave men." he muttered faintly, in an unuttered supplication. On him all the ties of their past
passion were sweet, precious, unchanged in their dominion. "That is not true," he said wearily. he
muttered. The world need
suspect nothing. The world will only believe that
we are tired of one another, like so many. You are a brilliant comedian, and can please and humour it. He staggered slightly, as if under some sword-stroke from an unseen
hand. Despite her bodily weakness she rose to her full height, and for the
first time looked at him. "You have heard me," she said; "now go!" But instead, blindly, not knowing what he did, he fell at her feet. "But you loved me," he cried, "you loved me so well!" "Do not recall _that_," she said, with a bitter smile. he cried to her. She was mute. he cried, beside himself in
his misery and impotence. "Believe that, at the least!" She turned from him. He looked, then passed the threshold and closed the door behind him. THE END.