Gifts of Genius Part 3

VII.

I have just been discarded by Annie.

Let me endeavor to collect my thoughts and recall what she said to me. My head is troubled to-day--it is strange what a want of self-control I have!

I thought I was strong--and I am weaker than a child.

I told her that I loved her--had loved her for years--that she was dearer, far, to me than all on earth beside my mother. And she answered me--agitated, but perfectly resolved:

"I cannot marry you, Mr. Cleave."

A long pause followed, in which she evidently labored with great distress--then she continued:

"I will frankly and faithfully say _why_ I cannot. I know all--I know your feelings for me once. You went away because you were poor, and you thought I was rich. Shall I be less strong than yourself? I am poor now; I do not regret it, except--pardon me, sir, I am confused--I meant to say, that _you_ are now the richer. It humbles me to speak of this--why did you not"--

There she stopped, blushing and trembling.

"Why did I not? Oh! do not stop there, I pray you."

She replied to my words in a broken and agitated voice:

"I cannot finish. I was thinking of--of--the day when I mended your coat!"

And a smile broke through the tears in her eyes, as she gazed timidly at me. I shall not prolong the account of our interview. She soon left me, resolute to the last; and I came away, perfectly miserable.

What shall I do? I cannot live without her. My life would be a miserable mockery. To see her there near me, at the window, in the street; to see her tresses in the sunlight, her little slipper as it flits through the flower-enveloped gate; to feel that she is near me, but lost to me! Never could I endure it! But what can I do? Is there anything that can move her?

--Ah! that may! Let me try it. Oh, fortunate accident. To-morrow, or very soon--very soon!

VIII.

A week after my rejection, I went up to my chamber, and drew from the depths of my wardrobe, the old coat which Annie had mended. I had promised her to preserve it. I had kept my promise. Yes, there it was, just as I had worn it at the hall--my shabby old coat of five years ago! I put it on, smiling, and surveyed myself in a mirror. It was strangely old-fashioned; but I did not think of that. I seemed to have returned, all at once, to the past; its atmosphere embraced me; all its flowers bloomed gaily before my eyes.

I looked at the hole in the elbow. There were Annie's st.i.tches--her fingers had clasped the worn, decayed cloth--the old garment had rested on her arm!

I think I must have gazed at the coat for an hour, motionless in the sunlight, and thinking of old days. Then I aroused myself, suddenly, put on my hat, and, with a beating heart, went to ask if Annie remembered.

I shall not relate the details of our interview. She remembered! Oh, word so sweet or so filled with sadness! with a world of sorrow or delight in its sound! She remembered--and her heart could resist no longer. She remembered the poor youth who had loved her so dearly--whom she, too, had loved in the far away past. She remembered the days when her father was well and happy--when his kind voice greeted me, and his smile gave me friendly welcome. She remembered the old days, with their flowers and sunshine--the old hall, and the lawn, and the singing birds. Can you wonder that her soft, tender bosom throbbed, that her heart was "melted in her breast?"

So she plighted me her troth--the dream and joy of my youth. We shall very soon be married. The ship which I sent from the sh.o.r.e long ago has come again to port, with a grander treasure than the earth holds beside--it is the precious, young head which reclined upon my heart!

--And again I can say, as I said long ago: "how good a thing it is to live!"

MY SECRET.

(FROM THE FRENCH.)

BY HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW.

My soul its secret has, my life too has its mystery, A love eternal in a moment's s.p.a.ce conceived; Hopeless the evil is, I have not told its history, And she who was the cause, nor knew it, nor believed.

Alas! I shall have pa.s.sed close by her unperceived, Forever at her side, and yet forever lonely, I shall unto the end have made life's journey, only Daring to ask for naught, and having naught received.

For her, though G.o.d has made her gentle and endearing, She will go on her way distraught and without hearing These murmurings of love that round her steps ascend, Piously faithful still unto her austere duty, Will say, when she shall read these lines full of her beauty, "Who can this woman be?" and will not comprehend.

A LEAF

FROM MY PARIS NOTE-BOOK.

BY H.T. TUCKERMAN.

Fresh from Italy, we enter the gallery of the Louvre with a feeling that it is but a grand prolongation of the glorious array of pictured and sculptured trophies, scattered in such memorable luxuriance, through that chosen land of art; but the sensation is that of delightful surprise when we have but recently explored the dim chambers of the National Gallery, or obtained formal access to a private British collection. To cross the now magnificent hall of Apollo, with its grand proportions flooded by a cloudless sun, expands the mind and brightens the vision for their feast of beauty. Here too, a magic improvement has been recently wrought, and the architectural renovation lends new effect to the ancient treasures, so admirably preserved and arranged. I stood long at one of the windows and looked down upon the Seine; it was thence that the people were fired upon at the ma.s.sacre of St. Bartholomew; there rose, dark and fretted, the antique tower of Notre Dame, here was the site of the Tour de Nesle, that legend of crime wrought in stone; gracefully looked the bridges as they spanned the swollen current of the river; cheerfully lay the sunshine on quay and parapet; it was a scene where the glow of nature and the shadows of history unite to lend a charm to the panorama of modern civilization.

And turning the gaze within, how calm and refreshing seemed the long and high vistas of the gallery; how happy the artists at their easels;--girls with their frugal dinners in a basket on the pavement, copying a Flemish scene; youths drawing intently some head of an old master; veterans of the palette reproducing the tints born under Venetian skies; and groups standing in silent admiration before some exquisite gem or wonderful conception. It is like an audience with the peers of art to range the Louvre; in radiant state and majestic silence they receive their reverend guests; first smiles down upon him the celestial meekness of Raphael's holy women, then the rustic truth of Murillo's peasant mothers, and the most costly, though, to our mind, not the most expressive, of all his pictures--the late acquisition for which kings competed at Marshal Soult's sale; now we are warmed by the rosy flush of Rubens--like a mellow sunset beaming from the walls; and now startled at the life-like individuality of Vand.y.k.e's portraits, as they gaze down with such placid dignity and keen intelligence; at one point, we examine with mere curiosity the stiff outlines of early religious limning; and, at another, smile at the homely nature of the Dutch school; Philip de Champagne's portraits, Wouverman's white horses, Cuyp's meadows and kine, Steen's rural _fetes_, Claude's sunsets, Pannini's architecture and Sneyder's animals; David's melodramatic pieces, Isabey's miniatures, Oudny's dogs, Robert's "Harvest Home," all hint a chapter, not only in the history of art, but in the philosophy of life and the secrets of the beautiful--enshrined there for the world's enjoyment, with a liberal policy yet more aptly ill.u.s.trated by the vast and lofty colonnades, the courteous custodes, and the provisions for students in the drawings of successive schools.

In order to exchange the fascinations of the moment for the lessons of the past, one cloudy morning we drove through the avenue of the Champs Elysees, by the triumphal arch of Napoleon, to the palace of St. Cloud, and from the esplanade gazed back upon the city, over the plain below, to the dense ma.s.s of buildings surmounted by the domes of the Invalids, and the Pantheon and the towers of Notre Dame. To the eye of contemplation it is one of the most memorable of landscapes; a stand-point for historical reverie, which attunes the mind for subsequent and less discursive retrospection. Enter the apartment where Bonaparte dispersed the a.s.sembly of five hundred--the initatory act of his rule; it is now a conservatory, whence rising terrace walks, statues and fountains only are visible; in the fresh silence of morning, they offered a striking contrast to that eventful scene. In an adjacent room a picture representing Maria de Medici's interview with Sully after the death of Henry IV., carries us back to an earlier era. Here Blucher had his headquarters, and here was settled the convention by which Paris was yielded to the allies. The saloon of Vernet, the well-trimmed vine-trees of the garden, the vivid hues of the tapestry, the newly waxed floors, the hangings and couches of Lyons silk, the elegant Sevres vases, and Florentine tables of _pietra dura_, the velvet cushions of the chapel, and late publications on the library desks--all free of speck or stain--proclaim this summer palace as great a favorite now as when resorted to by the princes of Orleans. In this hall the two Napoleons were proclaimed; and the brilliant memory of those summer festivals that lately made St. Cloud dazzling with light and beauty, was reflected from mirror, cornice, and tinted fabric; from this gilt on the iron chain of usurped dominion, a glance through the window revealed its origin: a throng of people were on their way to ma.s.s and a regiment was on parade--the one ill.u.s.trating the blind exaction of bigoted authority, the other the machinery of brute force--the church and the army, the mitre, and the sword, superst.i.tion and violence; with these, in all ages, have the mult.i.tude been subdued; and between these two representations of elemental despotism, cl.u.s.tered on a high wall, stood a crowd to watch the meek procession of worshippers, and the exact.i.tude of the manual, or admire the spirited, yet controlled, evolutions of the officer on his n.o.ble charger. The whole scene typified France as she is; uneducated devotees, a military organization at the beck of its chief, and a surplus of curious, intimidated or acquiescent spectators.

To pa.s.s from St. Cloud to Versailles is like turning from the last to the first chapters of French history. The vast court of the palace is lined with colossal statues; and thus we enter the vestibule through a file of pale and majestic sentinels, summoned, as it were, from the tomb to guard the trophies of nationality. Our pilgrimage through such a world of effigies begins with Clovis and Charlemagne, and ends with Louis Philippe: the place itself is the ancient home of royalty; the gardens, visible from every window, have been trod by generations of monarchs and courtiers; the ceilings bear the arms of the n.o.ble families of the kingdom; while around are the faces and figures of the men of valor and of genius that consecrate her history. Through this panorama move peasants, workmen, citizens, and foreigners, gazing unrestricted, as upon a procession evoked from the inexorable past, in which are all those of whom they have heard or read as ill.u.s.trious in France; they see the battles, the leaders, the kings, the poets, the human material of history. This grand conception, which has of late years been mainly realized by the last king, is certainly one of the most grand and significant of modern times.

Even in this, our one day's observation, how many ideas are revived, how many characters brought into view; what events, a.s.sociations and people throng upon our consciousness, as slowly gazing, we tread the interminable halls and scan the countless memorials of Versailles!

Taking up the thread of reminiscence when looking at the old moldy mortar that belonged to the knights of St. John when at Rhodes, the expiring chivalry of Europe gleams fitfully upon us, once more, to provoke a mortifying comparison with the not yet completed pictures of the capture of Abd-el-Kader and the last siege of Rome; thence turn to the "Jeu de Paume," where the ardent figure of Mirabeau represents the genius of the Revolution, and from it to "Louis XVIII. and the Charter," emblematic of the Restoration; how shines on this canvas the "helmet of Navarre" in the "Battle of Ivry," as in Macaulay's spirited lyric, and chastely beautiful in its stainless marble, stands the heroic Maid of Orleans; while, appropriately in the midst of these historic characters, we find the bust of that ideal of picturesque narrators, Froissart. The modern rule of France is abruptly and almost grotesquely suggested amid such a.s.sociations, by the figure of De Joinville on the deck of a man-of-war, well described by Talfourd, as "the type of dandified, melodramatic seamanship." The cycles of kingly sway is abruptly broken by the meteoric episode of Bonaparte: first he appears dispersing the a.s.sembly, and then in his early victories, wounded at Ratisbon, at the tomb of Frederick the Great, distributing the Legion of Honor at the Invalides, quelling an insurrection at Cairo, engaged in his unparalleled succession of battles, and at the altar with Maria Louisa. The divorce from Josephine and the murder of the Duc D'Enghien, are events that only recur more impressively to the mind of the spectator because uncommemorated. From the career of military genius which transformed the destinies of France, we pa.s.s to apartments where still breathes the vestiges of legitimacy as in the hour of its prime. The equestrian statue of Louis XIV. in the court-yard, his bed and crown, his clock and chair in the long suite of rooms kept sacred to his memory, typify the age when genius and beauty mingled their charms in the corrupt atmosphere of intrigue and profligacy. The n.o.ble expanse of wood, water, and meadow; the paths lined with stately myrtles and ancient box, spread as invitingly to the eye from this embayed window, as when the _grand monarque_ stood there to watch the graceful walk of La Valliere, or the staid carriage of Maintenon. The abandonment and quietude of these chambers, mirrored, tapestried, and solitary, owe not a little of the spell they exercise over the imagination, to the vicinity of the galleries devoted to the men of the Revolution and the campaigns of '92; amid the smoke of conflict ever appears that resolute, olive face with the dark eye fixed and the thin lip curved in decision or expectancy. We mechanically repeat Campbell's elegy as we mark "Hohenlinden," and linger with patriotic grat.i.tude over "Yorktown," notwithstanding the absurd prominence given to the French officers; Conde, Turenne, Moreau, Lannes, Ma.s.sena, and Lafayette fight over again before us the wars of the Fronde, the Empire, or the Republic. The monotony of these scenes of destruction is only relieved by the individual memories of the chiefs; they link a certain individuality with the flame and shroud of war, the fragmentary conquests, and the struggles that make up so large a portion of external history; and we emerge from the crowd of warriors into the company of statesmen, wits, and poets, with a sensation of refreshment. Each single triumph of thought, each victory of imagination and memorial of character, has an absolute worth and charm that the exploits of armies can never emulate.

Racine's portrait revives the long controversy between the cla.s.sic and romantic schools; that of La Bruy re the art of character-painting now one of the highest functions of popular literature; that of Bossuet the pulpit eloquence of France and the persecution of Fenelon, and that of Saint Cyr the Jansenist discussion. A blank like that which designates the place of Marino Faliero in the Ducal palace at Venice, is left here for Le Sage, as the nativity of the author of Gil Blas is yet disputed. We look at Rousseau to revert to the social reforms, of which he was the pioneer; at La Place to realize the achievements of the exact sciences, and at St.

Pierre to remember the poetry of nature. Voltaire's likeness is not labelled for the same reason that there is no name on the tomb of Ney; both are too well known to require announcement. How incongruous become the a.s.sociations as we proceed; old Pere la Chaise cheek by jowl with the American Presidents; Cagliostro, who died before the word his career incarnated had become indispensable to the English tongue--the apotheosis of humbug; Marmontel, dear to our novitiate as royal leaders; and near to the original Pamela; Chateaubriand's ancestor the Marshal; Bisson going below to ignite the magazine, rather than "give up the ship;" and the battered war dog, with a single eye and leg, beneath whose fragmentary portrait is inscribed that Mars left him only a heart.

It is with singular interest that we look upon the authentic resemblance of persons with whose minds and career literature has made us familiar, and compare what we have imagined of their appearance with the reality. Of such characters as Gluck, Klopstock and Madame Le Brun, whose ministry of art has excited a vague delight, we may have formed no very distinct image; but a.s.sociated as is the name of Madame Roland with courage, suffering and affliction, we naturally expect a more dignified and less vivacious expression than here meets us, until we remember the earlier development of her rare and sympathetic intelligence. Count Mirabeau has a look of mildness and _sang froid_ instead of the earnestness we fancied.

Who would have supposed the fair a.s.sa.s.sin of Marat such a thin, delicate and spirituelle blonde? The sensuous face of George IV. and the tragic one of Charles I., in the ever recurring Vand.y.k.e, with Sheridan's confident, handsome and genial physiognomy, seem grouped to make more elevated, by comparison, the n.o.ble abstraction of Flaxman. Talleyrand resembles a keen, selfish, humorous and gentlemanly man of the world, in an unexceptionable white wig. Richelieu is piquant and Madame de Stael impa.s.sioned and Amazonian. What decadence even in the warlike notabilities is hinted by glancing from Soult to Oudinot! I thought of the French fleet in the memorable storm off Newport, as I recognized the portrait of the Count d'Estaing; and realized anew the military instinct of the nation in the preponderance of battle-scenes and heroes, and marked the interest with which groups of soldiers lingered and talked before them.

THE RETURN OF THE G.o.dDESS.

BY BAYARD TAYLOR.

Not as in youth, with steps outspeeding morn, And cheeks all bright from rapture of the way, But in strange mood, half cheerful, half forlorn, She comes to me to-day.

Does she forget the trysts we used to keep, When dead leaves rustled on autumnal ground?

Or the lone garret, whence she banished sleep With threats of silver sound?