The Catholic World Volume I Part 46

Never since have I tasted that vivid sense of delight in any achievement of my own. I have worked as zealously, and more successfully, but it has been with a humbler heart. And looking backward, I now believe that it was my inner happiness which haloed my creation with a beauty that was half in my own glad eyes.

VIII.

The succeeding few months were quiet, in the dullest sense of the word. Strive as I would, the sunshine had gone from our home. Hessie was no longer the bright Hessie of old days.

I tried to forget my dear sketch of "Enid," and made several attempts to paint some other picture; but the Exhibition drew near, and I had nothing done.

One bright May morning I read in the newspaper an account of the Academy Exhibition. The list of artists and their works stirred me with a strange trouble. Tears rose in my eyes and blotted out the words. I spread the paper on the table before me, pressed my temples with my fingers, and travelled slowly through the criticisms and praises which occupied some columns. Why was there no work of mine mentioned there? Why had I lost my time so miserably during the past months? And questioning myself thus, I was conscious of two sins upon my own head. The first was in glorying in and worshipping the creation of my own labor: the second, in exalting myself upon an imaginary pinnacle of heroism by a fancied self-sacrifice, and having brought deeper trouble upon the sister whose happiness I thought to compa.s.s. I wept the choking tears out of my throat and read on.

Something dazzled my eyes for a moment, and brought the blood to my forehead. A picture was mentioned with enthusiastic praise; a picture by E. Vance. It was called "Enid," and was interpreted by a quotation from the poem; my pa.s.sage--the subject of my lost sketch! A strange idea glanced across my mind. I half smiled at it and put it away. But all day I was restless; and that evening I proposed to Hessie an expedition early next morning to see the pictures. My mother longed to go with us; but as she could not, I promised to bring home a catalogue, and describe each painting to the best of my memory.

With a feverish haste I sought out the picture of "Enid" by E. Vance.

Was I dreaming? I pa.s.sed my hand across my eyes as though some imaginary scene had come between me and the canvas. I did not feel Hessie's hand dropping from my arm. I stood transfixed, grasping the catalogue, and staring at the picture before me.

It was my "Enid." My own in form, att.i.tude, tint, and expression. It was the "Enid" of my dreams realized; the "Enid" of my labor wrought to completion; the "Enid" of my lost sketch enn.o.bled, perfected, glorified.

My work on which I had lavished my love and toil was there, and it was not mine.

Another, a more skilled, a subtler hand, had brought out its meaning with delicate appreciation, ripened its original purpose, enriched the subdued depths of its coloring, etherealized the whole by the purest finish. But that hand had robbed me, with cruel cowardly deliberation.

It had stolen my mellow fruit; taken my sweetest rose and planted it in a strange garden. I felt the wrong heavy and sore upon me. I resented it fiercely. I could not endure to look at the admiring faces around me. I turned away sick and trembling, while the blood pulsed indignantly in my throat and beat painfully at my temples.

Why should he who had already so troubled my life enjoy success and gold which should have been mine? {322} "O mother, mother!" I inwardly cried, "how much would the price of this picture have done for you!"

And I thought of her yearnings for the scent of sea spray, and the taste of sea breath, which the scanty purse forbade to be satisfied.

I sought Hessie, and found her sitting alone and very pale. I said, "Come home, Hessie;" and she followed me, obeying like a child.

When we reached our house, I was thankful that my mother slept upon the couch, for I needed a time to calm myself, and think and pray. I threw away my bonnet, and sat down by our bedside. Hessie came and crept to my feet.

"Grace," she sobbed, "can you ever forgive me? I gave him the sketch; but I declare on my knees that I did not know why he wanted it."

For a moment I felt very harsh and stern, but my woman's nature conquered. What were all the pictures in the world compared with my little sister's grief? I bent over her, and wiped away the tears from her face.

"Don't say any more about it, Hessie," I said; "I'd rather not hear any more. I know that you meant to do me no wrong. It is with him that the injustice lies. But, Hessie, I will only ask you one question: Can you--do you think you ought to waste a regret on such a person?"

Hessie dried up her tears with more resolution than I had ever seen her show before, and answered:

"No, no, Grace dear; I am cured now."

And then she put her arms about my neck, asking my pardon for all her past wilful conduct; and in one long embrace all the estrangement was swept away, and we two sisters were restored to one another. Hessie went off to get tea ready with a cheerful step, and I to make the room cosy and kiss my mother awake, when the fire glowed and the pleasant meal was on the table. We both sat by her with bright faces, and told her all about the pictures we could remember; all except one.

IX.

I have outlived all that trouble about the picture of "Enid," and many troubles beside; I have kissed my mother's dear face in her coffin. I have won success, and I have won gold; and neither seem to me quite the boons some hold them to be.

Hessie's early grief pa.s.sed away like a spring shower. She is now a happy wife; and I have at this moment by my side a little gold-haired fairy thing, her child. My dear sister's happiness is secured; her boat of life is safe at anchor. Edward Vance's shadow only crossed her path and pa.s.sed away. She never met him since the old days; I but once. His career has strangely disappointed his friends.

For me, my life is calm and contented. I think the healthy-spirited always make for themselves happiness out of whatever materials may be around them; and I find rich un-wrought treasure on every side, whithersoever I turn my eyes. My sister's glad smile is a blessing on my life; and one rare joy is the bright-faced little lisper at my side, who peers over my shoulder with spiritual eyes, and asks mysterious questions about my work. And, standing always by my side like an angel, bearing the wand of power and the wings of peace, I have my friend, my beautiful art. She fills my days with purpose and my nights with sweet rest and dreams. She places in my hands the means of doing good to others. While illumining my upward path, she seems to beckon me higher and yet higher. Looking ever in her dear eyes, I bless G.o.d for the abundance of his gifts; and I muse serenely on the time when she, the interpreter of the ideal here on earth, will conduct me to the gates of eternal beauty.

{323}

From Once a Week.

IMPERIAL AND ROYAL AUTHORS.

BY S. BARING GOULD.

Is the present Emperor of the French aware that in publishing his _Vie de Cesar_, he is treading a beaten path? that his predecessors on the French throne have, from a remote age, sought to unite the fame of authorship with the glory of regal position? and is he aware of the fact, that their efforts in this quarter have not unfrequently been accounted dead failures? Julius Caesar has already been handled by one of them, and with poor success, for Louis XIV., at the age of sixteen, produced a translation of the first book of the Commentaries of Caesar, under the t.i.tle _Guerre des Suisses, traduite dupremier livre des Commentaires de Jules Cesar, par Louis XI V., Dieu-Donne, roi de France et de Navarre_. This work, consisting of eighteen pages, was printed at the royal press in folio, 1651.

Louis XIV., however, was not the first French monarch to try his hand upon Julius Caesar; he had been preceded by Henry IV., who translated the whole work, and did not give it up after the first book. Will the present _Vie de Cesar_ reach a second volume? and, if it does, will it extend to a fourth? Those who know best the occupations of the imperial writer, say that it might be rash to feel sure beyond the first volume, or to calculate on more than a second. Let us see whether there is much novelty in the circ.u.mstance of a monarch becoming an author. We shall only look at the emperors of Rome and the kings of France. We know well enough that our own Alfred translated Boethius, Orosius, and Bede, and that Henry VIII. won the t.i.tle of "Defender of the Faith" by his literary tilt with Luther; and that James I. wrote against tobacco; and we are not disposed to revive the dispute about the Eikon Basilike.

Let us then turn to the Roman emperors after Caesar, who was an author himself, or neither Henry IV., nor Louis XIV., nor Louis Napoleon, would have had much to say about him.

Augustus, we are told by Suetonius, composed several works, which he was wont to read to a circle of friends. Among these were, "Exhortations to the Study of Philosophy," which we have no doubt the select circle listened to with possible edification, and probable ennui. He wrote likewise his own memoirs in thirteen books, but he never finished them, or brought them beyond the Cantabrian war. His epigrams were written in his bath. He commenced a tragedy upon Ajax, but, little pleased with it, he destroyed it; and in answer to the select circle which asked, "What had become of Ajax?" "Ah! poor fellow!" replied the emperor, "he fell upon the sponge, and perished;"

meaning that he had washed the composition off his papyrus.

Tiberius, says the same author, composed a lyric poem on the death of Julius Caesar, but his style was full of affectation and conceits.

Claudius suffered from the same pa.s.sion for becoming an author, and composed several books of history, as well as memoirs of his own life, and these were read in public, for the friendly circle was too narrow for his ambition.

He also invented three letters, which he supposed were necessary for the perfection of the alphabet, and he wrote a pamphlet on the subject, before a.s.suming the purple. {324} After having become emperor, he enforced their use. He wrote also, in Greek, twenty books of Tyrian, and eight of Carthaginian history, which were read publicly every year in Alexandria. Nero composed verses, Domitian a treatise on hair-dressing, Adrian his own life; Marcus Aurelius wrote his commentaries, which are lost, and his moral reflections, and letters to Fronto, which are still extant. Julian the Apostate was the author of a curious work, the "Misopogon, or Foe to the Beard," a clever and witty squib directed against the effeminate inhabitants of Antioch. A few pa.s.sages from this work will not be out of place.

"I begin at my face, which is wanting in all that is agreeable, n.o.ble, and good; so I, morose and old, have tacked on to it this long beard, to punish it for its ugliness. In this dense beard perhaps little insects stroll, as do beasts in a forest; I leave them alone. This beard constrains me to eat and to drink with the utmost circ.u.mspection, or I should infallibly make a mess of it. As good luck will have it, I am not given to kissing, or to receiving kisses, for a beard like mine is inconvenient on that head, as it does not allow the contact of lips. .... You say that you could twine ropes out of my beard; try it, only take care that the roughness of the hair does not take the skin off your soft and delicate hands."

Valentinian I. is said to have emulated Ausonius in licentious poetry.

Of the later emperors some have obtained celebrity by their writings.

Leo VI., surnamed the Wise, was the author of a very interesting and precious treatise on the art of warfare. He also composed some prophecies, sufficiently obscure to make the Greeks in after ages find them apply to various events as they occurred. Constantine VI. was also an eminent contributor to literature. This prince had been early kept from public affairs by his uncle Alexander, and his mother Zoe, so that he had sought pleasure and employment in study. After having collected an enormous library, which he threw open to the public, he employed both himself and numerous scribes in making collections of extracts from the princ.i.p.al cla.s.sic authors. The most important of these, and that to which he attached his own name, consisted of a ma.s.s of choice fragments, gathered into fifty-three books. This vast work is lost, together with many of the books cited, except only two parts: one treating of emba.s.sies, the other of virtues and vices. Constantine also wrote a curious geographical account of the provinces of the Greek empire, a treatise on the administration of government, and another on the ceremonies observed in the Byzantine Court; a life of the Emperor Basil, an account of the famous image of Edessa, and a few other trifles.

Let us now turn to the French monarchs, and we shall find that they began early to take the pen in hand; and, unfortunately, the very first royal literary work in France was a blunder. King Chilperic wrote a treatise on the Trinity, under the impression that he had a gift for theological definition, and he signalized his error by a.s.serting that the word person should not be used in speaking of the three members of the Trinity. Having burned his fingers by touching theology, the semi-barbarian king attempted poetry with like success.

But his pretensions did not end there. He added the Greek letter u to the Latin alphabet, and three characters of his own invention, so as to introduce into that language certain Teutonic sounds. "He sent orders," writes Gregory of Tours, "into every city of his kingdom, that all children should be taught in this manner, and that ancient written books should be effaced, and rewritten in the new style."

The great and wise Charlemagne, perceiving the glories of his native tongue, and the beauties of his national poetry, carefully collected the Teutonic national poems, and commenced a grammar of the language.

Robert II. {325} was not only a scholar, but a musician; he composed some of the Latin hymns still in use in the Church, with their accompanying melodies. His queen, Constantia, seeing him engaged on his sacred poetry, one day, in joke, asked him to write something in memory of her. He at once composed the hymn, _O constantia martyrum_, which the queen, not understanding Latin, but hearing her name occurring in the first line, supposed to be a poem in her honor.

Louis XI. is supposed to have contributed to the _Cent Nouvelles nouvelles_, which collection, however much credit it may do him in a literary point of view, is inexcusably wanting in decency.

A volume of poems by Francis I. exists in MS. in the Imperial Library.

It contains, among other interesting matter, a prose letter, and another in verse, written from his prison to one of his mistresses.

The king was bad in his orthography, as may be judged from the following portion of a letter written by him to his mother at the raising of the siege of Mezieres:--