The Atlantic Monthly/Volume 1/Number 6/Amours de Voyage

[Continued.]

III

Yet to the wondrous St. Peter's, and yet to the solemn Rotonda, Mingling with heroes and gods, yet to the Vatican walls, Yet may we go, and recline, while a whole mighty world seems above us   Gathered and fixed to all time into one roofing supreme; Yet may we, thinking on these things, exclude what is meaner around us; Yet, at the worst of the worst, books and a chamber remain; Yet may we think, and forget, and possess our souls in resistance.-- Ah, but away from the stir, shouting, and gossip of war, Where, upon Apennine slope, with the chestnut the oak-trees immingle, Where amid odorous copse bridle-paths wander and wind, Where under mulberry-branches the diligent rivulet sparkles, Or amid cotton and maize peasants their waterworks ply, Where, over fig-tree and orange in tier upon tier still repeated, Garden on garden upreared, balconies step to the sky,-- Ah, that I were, far away from the crowd and the streets of the city, Under the vine-trellis laid, O my beloved, with thee!

I.--MARY TREVELLYN TO MISS ROPER,--_on the way to Florence_.

Why doesn't Mr. Claude come with us? you ask.--We don't know. You should know better than we. He talked of the Vatican marbles; But I can't wholly believe that this was the actual reason,-- He was so ready before, when we asked him to come and escort us. Certainly he is odd, my dear Miss Roper. To change so Suddenly, just for a whim, was not quite fair to the party,-- Not quite right. I declare, I really am almost offended: I, his great friend, as you say, have doubtless a title to be so. Not that I greatly regret it, for dear Georgina distinctly Wishes for nothing so much as to show her adroitness. But, oh, my Pen will not write any more;--let us say nothing further about it.

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Yes, my dear Miss Roper, I certainly called him repulsive; So I think him, but cannot be sure I have used the expression Quite as your pupil should; yet he does most truly repel me. Was it to you I made use of the word? or who was it told you? Yes, repulsive; observe, it is but when he talks of ideas, That he is quite unaffected, and free, and expansive, and easy; I could pronounce him simply a cold intellectual being.-- When does he make advances?--He thinks that women should woo him; Yet, if a girl should do so, would be but alarmed and disgusted. She that should love him must look for small love in return,--like the ivy On the stone wall, must expect but rigid and niggard support, and Even to get that must go searching all round with her humble embraces.

II.--CLAUDE TO EUSTACE,--_from Rome_.

Tell me, my friend, do you think that the grain would sprout in the furrow, Did it not truly accept as its _summum et ultimum bonum_ That mere common and may-be indifferent soil it is set in? Would it have force to develope and open its young cotyledons, Could it compare, and reflect, and examine one thing with another? Would it endure to accomplish the round of its natural functions, Were it endowed with a sense of the general scheme of existence? While from Marseilles in the steamer we voyaged to Civita Vecchia, Vexed in the squally seas as we lay by Capraja and Elba, Standing, uplifted, alone on the heaving poop of the vessel, Looking around on the waste of the rushing incurious billows, "This is Nature," I said: "we are born as it were from her waters, Over her billows that buffet and beat us, her offspring uncared-for,  Casting one single regard of a painful victorious knowledge,  Into her billows that buffet and beat us we sink and are swallowed." This was the sense in my soul, as I swayed with the poop of the steamer; And as unthinking I sat in the ball of the famed Ariadne, Lo, it looked at me there from the face of a Triton in marble. It is the simpler thought, and I can believe it the truer. Let us not talk of growth; we are still in our Aqueous Ages.

III.--CLAUDE TO EUSTACE.

Farewell, Politics, utterly! What can I do? I cannot Fight, you know; and to talk I am wholly ashamed. And although I Gnash my teeth when I look in your French or your English papers, What is the good of that? Will swearing, I wonder, mend matters? Cursing and scolding repel the assailants? No, it is idle; No, whatever befalls, I will hide, will ignore or forget it. Let the tail shift for itself; I will bury my head. And what's the Roman Republic to me, or I to the Roman Republic? Why not fight?--In the first place, I haven't so much as a musket. In the next, if I had, I shouldn't know how I should use it. In the third, just at present I'm studying ancient marbles. In the fourth, I consider I owe my life to my country. In the fifth,--I forget; but four good reasons are ample. Meantime, pray, let 'em fight, and be killed. I delight in devotion. So that I 'list not, hurrah for the glorious army of martyrs! _Sanguis martyrum semen Ecclesiae_; though it would seem this Church is indeed of the purely Invisible, Kingdom-Come kind: Militant here on earth! Triumphant, of course, then, elsewhere! Ah, good Heaven, but I would I were out far away from the pother!

IV.--CLAUDE TO EUSTACE.

Not, as we read in the words of the olden-time inspiration, Are there two several trees in the place we are set to abide in; But on the apex most high of the Tree of Life in the Garden, Budding, unfolding, and falling, decaying and flowering ever, Flowering is set and decaying the transient blossom of Knowledge,--

Flowering alone, and decaying, the needless, unfruitful blossom. Or as the cypress-spires by the fair-flowing stream Hellespontine, Which from the mythical tomb of the godlike Protesilaus Rose, sympathetic in grief, to his lovelorn Laodamia, Evermore growing, and, when in their growth to the prospect attaining, Over the low sea-banks, of the fatal Ilian city, Withering still at the sight which still they upgrew to encounter. Ah, but ye that extrude from the ocean your helpless faces, Ye over stormy seas leading long and dreary processions, Ye, too, brood of the wind, whose coming is whence we discern not, Making your nest on the wave, and your bed on the crested billow, Skimming rough waters, and crowding wet sands that the tide shall return to, Cormorants, ducks, and gulls, fill ye my imagination! Let us not talk of growth; we are still in our Aqueous Ages.

V.--MARY TREVELLYN TO MISS ROPER,--_from Florence_.

Dearest Miss Roper,--Alas, we are all at Florence quite safe, and You, we hear, are shut up! indeed, it is sadly distressing! We were most lucky, they say, to get off when we did from the troubles. Now you are really besieged! They tell us it soon will be over; Only I hope and trust without any fight in the city. Do you see Mr. Claude?--I thought he might do something for you. I am quite sure on occasion he really would wish to be useful. What is he doing? I wonder;--still studying Vatican marbles? Letters, I hope, pass through. We trust your brother is better.

VI.--CLAUDE TO EUSTACE.

Juxtaposition, in fine; and what is juxtaposition? Look you, we travel along in the railway-carriage, or steamer, And, _pour passer le temps_, till the tedious journey be ended, Lay aside paper or book, to talk with the girl that is next one; And, _pour passer le temps_, with the terminus all but in      prospect, Talk of eternal ties and marriages made in heaven. Ah, did we really accept with a perfect heart the illusion! Ah, did we really believe that the Present indeed is the Only! Or through all transmutation, all shock and convulsion of passion, Feel we could carry undimmed, unextinguished, the light of our knowledge! But for his funeral train which the bridegroom sees in the distance, Would he so joyfully, think you, fall in with the marriage-procession? But for that final discharge, would he dare to enlist in that service? But for that certain release, ever sign to that perilous contract? But for that exit secure, ever bend to that treacherous doorway?-- Ah, but the bride, meantime,--do you think she sees it as he does? But for the steady fore-sense of a freer and larger existence, Think you that man could consent to be circumscribed here into action? But for assurance within of a limitless ocean divine, o'er Whose great tranquil depths unconscious the wind-tost surface Breaks into ripples of trouble that come and change and endure not,-- But that in this, of a truth, we have our being, and know it, Think you we men could submit to live and move as we do here? Ah, but the women,--God bless them!--they don't think at all about it.

Yet we must eat and drink, as you say. And as limited beings Scarcely can hope to attain upon earth to an Actual Abstract, Leaving to God contemplation, to His hands knowledge confiding, Sure that in us if it perish, in Him it abideth and dies not, Let us in His sight accomplish our petty particular doings,-- Yes, and contented sit down to the victual that He has provided. Allah is great, no doubt, and Juxtaposition his prophet. Ah, but the women, alas, they don't look at it in that way! Juxtaposition is great;--but, my friend, I fear me, the maiden Hardly would thank or acknowledge the lover that sought to obtain her, Not as the thing he would wish, but the thing he must even put up   with,-- Hardly would tender her hand to the wooer that candidly told her That she is but for a space, an _ad-interim_ solace and pleasure,-- That in the end she shall yield to a perfect and absolute something, Which I then for myself shall behold, and not another,-- Which amid fondest endearments, meantime I forget not, forsake not. Ah, ye feminine souls, so loving and so exacting, Since we cannot escape, must we even submit to deceive you? Since, so cruel is truth, sincerity shocks and revolts you, Will you have us your slaves to lie to you, flatter and--leave you?

VII.--CLAUDE TO EUSTACE.

Juxtaposition is great,--but, you tell me, affinity greater. Ah, my friend, there are many affinities, greater and lesser, Stronger and weaker; and each, by the favor of juxtaposition, Potent, efficient, in force,--for a time; but none, let me tell you, Save by the law of the land and the ruinous force of the will, ah, None, I fear me, at last quite sure to be final and perfect. Lo, as I pace in the street, from the peasant-girl to the princess, _Homo sum, nihil humani a me alienum puto,-- Vir sum, nihil faeminei_,--and e'en to the uttermost circle, All that is Nature's is I, and I all things that are Nature's. Yes, as I walk, I behold, in a luminous, large intuition, That I can be and become anything that I meet with or look at: I am the ox in the dray, the ass with the garden-stuff panniers; I am the dog in the doorway, the kitten that plays in the window, Here on the stones of the ruin the furtive and fugitive lizard, Swallow above me that twitters, and fly that is buzzing about me; Yea, and detect, as I go, by a faint, but a faithful assurance, E'en from the stones of the street, as from rocks or trees of the forest, Something of kindred, a common, though latent vitality, greet me, And, to escape from our strivings, mistakings, misgrowths, and perversions, Fain could demand to return to that perfect and primitive silence, Fain be enfolded and fixed, as of old, in their rigid embraces.

VIII.--CLAUDE TO EUSTACE.

And as I walk on my way, I behold them consorting and coupling; Faithful it seemeth, and fond, very fond, very probably faithful; And I proceed on my way with a pleasure sincere and unmingled. Life is beautiful, Eustace, entrancing, enchanting to look at; As are the streets of a city we pace while the carriage is changing, As is a chamber filled-in with harmonious, exquisite pictures, Even so beautiful Earth; and could we eliminate only This vile hungering impulse, this demon within us of craving, Life were beatitude, living a perfect divine satisfaction.

IX.--CLAUDE TO EUSTACE.

_Mild monastic faces in quiet collegiate cloisters:_ So let me offer a single and celibatarian phrase a Tribute to those whom perhaps you do not believe I can honor. But, from the tumult escaping, 'tis pleasant, of drumming and shouting, Hither, oblivious awhile, to withdraw, of the fact or the falsehood, And amid placid regards and mildly courteous greetings Yield to the calm and composure and gentle abstraction that reign o'er _Mild monastic faces in quiet collegiate cloisters._ Terrible word, Obligation! You should not, Eustace, you should not, No, you should not have used it. But, O great Heavens, I repel it! Oh, I cancel, reject, disavow, and repudiate wholly Every debt in this kind, disclaim every claim, and dishonor, Yea, my own heart's own writing, my soul's own signature! Ah, no! I will be free in this; you shall not, none shall, bind me. No, my friend, if you wish to be told, it was this above all things, This that charmed me, ah, yes, even this, that she held me to nothing. No, I could talk as I pleased; come close; fasten ties, as I fancied; Bind and engage myself deep;--and lo, on the following morning It was all e'en as before, like losings in games played for nothing. Yes, when I came, with mean fears in my soul, with a semi-performance At the first step breaking down in its pitiful rôle of evasion, When to shuffle I came, to compromise, not meet, engagements, Lo, with her calm eyes there she met me and knew nothing of it,-- Stood unexpecting, unconscious. _She_ spoke not of obligations, Knew not of debt,--ah, no, I believe you, for excellent reasons.

X.--CLAUDE TO EUSTACE.

Hang this thinking, at last! what good is it? oh, and what evil! Oh, what mischief and pain! like a clock in a sick man's chamber, Ticking and ticking, and still through each covert of slumber pursuing. What shall I do to thee, O thou Preserver of Men? Have compassion! Be favorable, and hear! Take from me this regal knowledge! Let me, contented and mute, with the beasts of the field, my brothers, Tranquilly, happily lie,--and eat grass, like Nebuchadnezzar!

XI.--CLAUDE TO EUSTACE.

Tibur is beautiful, too, and the orchard slopes, and the Anio Falling, falling yet, to the ancient lyrical cadence; Tibur and Anio's tide; and cool from Lucretilis ever, With the Digentian stream, and with the Bandusian fountain, Folded in Sabine recesses, the valley and villa of Horace:-- So not seeing I sung; so seeing and listening say I, Here as I sit by the stream, as I gaze at the cell of the Sibyl, Here with Albunea's home and the grove of Tiburnus beside me.[A] Tivoli beautiful is, and musical, O Teverone, Dashing from mountain to plain, thy parted impetuous waters! Tivoli's waters and rocks; and fair under Monte Gennaro, (Haunt even yet, I must think, as I wonder and gaze, of the shadows, Faded and pale, yet immortal, of Faunus, the Nymphs, and the Graces,) Fair in itself, and yet fairer with human completing creations, Folded in Sabine recesses the valley and villa of Horace:-- So not seeing I sung; so now,--nor seeing, nor hearing, Neither by waterfall lulled, nor folded in sylvan embraces, Neither by cell of the Sibyl, nor stepping the Monte Gennaro, Seated on Anio's bank, nor sipping Bandusian waters, But on Montorio's height, looking down on the tile-clad streets, the Cupolas, crosses, and domes, the bushes and kitchen-gardens, Which, by the grace of the Tiber, proclaim themselves Rome of the Romans,-- But on Montorio's height, looking forth to the vapory mountains, Cheating the prisoner Hope with illusions of vision and fancy,-- But on Montorio's height, with these weary soldiers by me, Waiting till Oudinot enter, to reinstate Pope and Tourist.

[Footnote A:

domus Albuneae resonantis, Et praeceps Anio, et Tiburni lucus, et uda Mobilibus pomaria rivis.]

XII.--MARY TREVELLYN TO MISS ROPER.

Dear Miss Roper,--It seems, George Vernon, before we left Rome, said Something to Mr. Claude about what they call his attentions. Susan, two nights ago, for the first time, heard this from Georgina. It is _so_ disagreeable, and so annoying, to think of! If it could only be known, though we never may meet him again, that It was all George's doing and we were entirely unconscious, It would extremely relieve--Your ever affectionate Mary.

P.S. (1). Here is your letter arrived this moment, just as I wanted. So you have seen him,--indeed,--and guessed,--how dreadfully clever! What did he really say? and what was your answer exactly? Charming!--but wait for a moment, I have not read through the letter.

P.S. (2). Ah, my dearest Miss Roper, do just as you fancy about it. If you think it sincerer to tell him I know of it, do so. Though I should most extremely dislike it, I know I could manage. It is the simplest thing, but surely wholly uncalled for. Do as you please; you know I trust implicitly to you. Say whatever is right and needful for ending the matter. Only don't tell Mr. Claude, what I will tell you as a secret, That I should like very well to show him myself I forget it.

P.S. (3). I am to say that the wedding is finally settled for Tuesday. Ah, my dear Miss Roper, you surely, surely can manage Not to let it appear that I know of that odious matter. It would be pleasanter far for myself to treat it exactly As if it had not occurred; and I do not think he would like it. I must remember to add, that as soon as the wedding is over We shall be off, I believe, in a hurry, and travel to Milan, There to meet friends of Papa's, I am told, at the Croce di Malta; Then I cannot say whither, but not at present to England.

XIII.--CLAUDE TO EUSTACE.

Yes, on Montorio's height for a last farewell of the city,-- So it appears; though then I was quite uncertain about it. So, however, it was. And now to explain the proceeding. I was to go, as I told you, I think, with the people to Florence. Only the day before, the foolish family Vernon Made some uneasy remarks, as we walked to our lodging together, As to intentions, forsooth, and so forth. I was astounded, Horrified quite; and obtaining just then, as it chanced, an offer (No common favor) of seeing the great Ludovisi collection, Why, I made this a pretence, and wrote that they must excuse me. How could I go? Great Heaven! to conduct a permitted flirtation Under those vulgar eyes, the observed of such observers! Well, but I now, by a series of fine diplomatic inquiries, Find from a sort of relation, a good and sensible woman, Who is remaining at Rome with a brother too ill for removal, That it was wholly unsanctioned, unknown,--not, I think, by Georgina: She, however, ere this,--and that is the best of the story,-- She and the Vernon, thank Heaven, are wedded and gone--honey-mooning. So--on Montorio's height for a last farewell of the city. Tibur I have not seen, nor the lakes that of old I had dreamt of; Tibur I shall not see, nor Anio's waters, nor deep en- Folded in Sabine recesses the valley and villa of Horace; Tibur I shall not see;--but something better I shall see. Twice I have tried before, and failed in getting the horses; Twice I have tried and failed: this time it shall not be a failure.

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Therefore farewell, ye hills, and ye, ye envineyarded ruins! Therefore farewell, ye walls, palaces, pillars, and domes! Therefore farewell, far seen, ye peaks of the mythic Albano, Seen from Montorio's height, Tibur and Aesula's hills! Ah, could we once, ere we go, could we stand, while, to ocean descending, Sinks o'er the yellow dark plain slowly the yellow broad sun, Stand, from the forest emerging at sunset, at once in the champaign, Open, but studded with trees, chestnuts umbrageous and old, E'en in those fair open fields that incurve to thy beautiful hollow, Nemi, imbedded in wood, Nemi, inurned in the hill!-- Therefore farewell, ye plains, and ye hills, and the City Eternal! Therefore farewell! We depart, but to behold you again!

[To be continued.]