Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 32, June, 1860

V >> Various >> Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 32, June, 1860

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19

No less a person than Rachel seems also to have been affected with this
same superstition in regard to the Pope, if we may place confidence in the
strange story which Madame de B----- relates in her memoirs of that
celebrated daughter of Israel. According to her account, Rachel had been on
a visit to her sister, who was quite ill in the Pyrenees, when one day the
disease appeared to take so favorable a turn that Rachel left her to visit
another sister. There she met several friends, and, (to continue the story
in Madame de B-----'s words,) "exhilarated by the good news she had
brought, and the hopes all hastened to build on the change, she began to
chat and laugh quite merrily. In the midst of this exuberant gayety, her
maid broke into the room in a state of great excitement; a fit had come on,
the patient was in much danger, the physician desired Mdlle. Rachel's
immediate presence. Rising with the bound of a wounded tigress, the
_tragedienne_ seemed to seek, bewildered, some cause for the blow that had
fallen thus unexpectedly. Her eye lighted on a rosary blessed by the Pope,
and which she had worn round her arm as a bracelet ever since her visit to
Rome. Without, perhaps, accounting to herself for the belief, she had
attached some talismanic virtue to the beads. Now, however, in the height
of her rage and disappointment, she tore them from her wrist, and, dashing
them to the ground, exclaimed, 'Oh, fatal gift! 'tis thou hast entailed
this curse upon me!' With these words, she sprang out of the room, leaving
every one in mute astonishment at her frantic action." On the 23d of June,
immediately after, the sister died.

And yet the Pope does not at all answer to the accredited portraits of
those who have the Evil Eye. He is fat, smiling, and most pleasant of
aspect, as he is good in heart. But, certainly, nothing has prospered that
he has touched. Read Dumas' description, and see if you should have
recognized the Pope as a _jettatore_. "_Le Jettatore_," says he, "_est
ordinairement pale et maigre. II a un nez en bec de corbin, de gros yeux
qui ont quelque chose de ceux de crapaud, et qu'il recouvre ordinairement
pour les dissimuler d'une paire de lunettes._" But it is the exception that
proves the rule, say those who insist on the _jettatura_ of Pius IX.

Dumas also speaks of a work on the _jettatura_, which I have vainly
endeavored to procure, written by Nicola Valetta; and from what one can
gather from the heads of the chapters which Dumas gives, it must be a very
amusing book. [Footnote: The title of this work is _Cicalata sul Fascino,
volgarmente detto Jettatura_, by Nicola Valetta. It was published more than
fifty years since, and copies are now rare.] These heads are as
follows. They speak for themselves, and show the fear entertained of a
monk. He examines:--

"1. If a man inflicts a more terrible _jettatura_ than a woman?

"2. If he who wears a peruke is more to be feared than he who wears none?

"3. If he who wears spectacles is not more to be feared than he who wears a
peruke?

"4. If he who takes tobacco is not more to be feared than he who wears
spectacles? and if spectacles, peruke, and snuff-box combined do not triple
the force of the _jettatura?_

"5. If the woman _jettatrice_ is more to be feared when she is _enceinte?_

"6. If there is still more to be feared from her when she is certain that
she is not _enceinte?_

"7. If monks are more generally _jettatori_ than other men? and among monks
what order is most to be feared?

"8. At what distance can _jettatura_ be made?

"9. Must it be made in front, or at the side, or behind?

"10. If there are really gestures, sounds of voice, and particular looks,
by which _jettatura_ may be recognized?

"11. If there are prayers which can guaranty us against the _jettatura?_
and if so, whether there are any special prayers to guaranty us against the
_jettatura_ of monks?

"12. Lastly, whether the power of modern talismans is equal to the power of
ancient talismans? and whether the single or the double horn is most
efficacious?"

Luckless, indeed, is he who has the misfortune to possess, or the
reputation of possessing this fatal power. From that time forward the world
flees him, as the water did Thalaba. A curse is on him, and from the very
terror at seeing him accidents are most likely to follow. Keep him from
your children, or they will break their legs, arms, or necks. Look not at
him from your carriage, or it will upset. Let him not see your wife when
she is _enceinte,_ or she will miscarry, or you will have a monster for a
son. Never invite him to a ball, unless you wish to see your chandelier
smash, or the floor give way. Invite him not to dinner, or your mushrooms
will poison you, and your fish will smell. If he wishes you _buon viaggio_,
abandon the journey, if you would return alive. Nor be deceived by his good
manners and kind heart. It is of no avail that he is amiable and good in
all his intentions,--his _jettatura_ is without and beyond his will,--nay,
worse, is contrary to it; for all _jettatura_ goes like dreams, by
contraries. Therefore shudder when he wishes you well, for he can do no
worse thing.

If you do not believe what I tell you, read the wonderful story of Count
----- which is told by Dumas in his "Corriccolo," and at least you will be
amused, if not convinced. Listen, however, to this one historical incident,
and believe it or not, as you please. Ferdinand of Naples died on the night
of the 3d of January, 1825, and was found dead in the morning. The
physicians attributed his death to a stroke of apoplexy; but that was in
consequence of their pretended science and real ignorance. The actual cause
of his death was this,--and if you do not believe it, ask any true
Neapolitan, or Alexander Dumas, if you put more faith in him.--A certain
_canonico,_ named Don Ojori, had for many years desired an audience of
Ferdinand, to present him a certain book, of which Don Ojori was the
author. The King had his good reasons for refusing, for Don Ojori was well
known to be the greatest _jettatore_ in Naples. Finally, on the 2d of
January, the King was persuaded to grant him the desired favor the next
day, much against his will. The _canonico_ came, and after a long audience
left his book and many prayers for the King's prosperity. But Ferdinand did
not survive the interview a whole day; and if this be not proof that Don
Ojori bewitched him to his destruction, what is?

* * * * *

PYTHAGORAS.

Above the petty passions of the crowd
I stand in frozen marble like a god,
Inviolate, and ancient as the moon.
The thing I am, and not the thing Man is,
Fills these blank sockets. Let him moan and die;
For he is dust that shall be laid again:
I know my own creation was divine.
Strewn on the breezy continents I see
The veined shells and glistening scales which once
Enwrapt my being,--husks that had their use;
I brood on all the shapes I must attain
Before I reach the Perfect, which is God,
And dream my dream, and let the rabble go:
For I am of the mountains and the sea,
The deserts, and the caverns in the earth,
The catacombs and fragments of old worlds.

I was a spirit on the mountain-tops,--
A perfume in the valleys,--a simoom
On arid deserts,--a nomadic wind
Roaming the universe,--a tireless Voice.
I was ere Romulus and Remus were;
I was ere Nineveh and Babylon;
I was, and am, and evermore shall be,--
Progressing, never reaching to the end.

A hundred years I trembled in the grass,
The delicate trefoil that muffled warm
A slope on Ida; for a hundred years
Moved in the purple gyre of those dark flowers
The Grecian women strew upon the dead.
Under the earth, in fragrant glooms, I dwelt;
Then in the veins and sinews of a pine
On a lone isle, where, from the Cyclades,
A mighty wind, like a leviathan,
Ploughed through the brine, and from those solitudes
Sent Silence, frightened. To and fro I swayed,
Drawing the sunshine from the stooping clouds.
Suns came and went,--and many a mystic moon,
Orbing and waning,--and fierce meteor,
Leaving its lurid ghost to haunt the night
I heard loud voices by the sounding shore,
The stormy sea-gods,--and from ivory conchs
Wild music; and strange shadows floated by,
Some moaning and some singing. So the years
Clustered about me, till the hand of God
Let down the lightning from a sultry sky,
Splintered the pine and split the iron rock;
And from my odorous prison-house, a bird,
I in its bosom, darted: so we fled,
Turning the brittle edge of one high wave,--
Island and tree and sea-gods left behind!

Free as the air, from zone to zone I flew,
Far from the tumult to the quiet gates
Of daybreak; and beneath me I beheld
Vineyards, and rivers that like silver threads
Ran through the green, and gold of pasture-lands,--
And here and there a hamlet, a white rose,--
And here and there a city, whose slim spires
And palace-roofs and swollen domes uprose
Like scintillant stalagmites in the sun;
I saw huge navies battling with a storm
By ragged reefs along the desolate coasts,--
And lazy merchantmen, that crawled, like flies,
Over the blue enamel of the sea
To India or the icy Labradors.

A century was as a single day.
What is a day to an immortal soul?
A breath,--no more. And yet I hold one hour
Beyond all price,--that hour when from the heavens
I circled near and nearer to the earth,
Nearer and nearer, till I brushed my wings
Against the pointed chestnuts, where a stream
That foamed and chattered over pebbly shoals
Fled through the bryony, and with a shout
Leaped headlong down a precipice: and there,
Gathering wild-flowers in the cool ravine,
Wandered a woman more divinely shaped
Than any of the creatures of the air,
Or river-goddesses, or restless shades
Of noble matrons marvellous in their time
For beauty and great suffering; and I sung,
I charmed her thought, I gave her dreams; and then
Down from the sunny atmosphere I stole
And nestled in her bosom. There I slept
From moon to moon, while in her eyes a thought
Grew sweet and sweeter, deepening like the dawn,
A mystical forewarning! When the stream,
Breaking through leafless brambles and dead leaves,
Piped shriller treble, and from chestnut-boughs
The fruit dropped noiseless through the autumn night,
I gave a quick, low cry, as infants do:
We weep when we are born, not when we die!
So was it destined; and thus came I here,
To walk the earth and wear the form of man,
To suffer bravely as becomes my state,--
One step, one grade, one cycle nearer God.

And knowing these things, can I stoop to fret
And lie and haggle in the market-place,
Give dross for dross, or everything for nought?
No! let me sit above the crowd, and sing,
Waiting with hope for that miraculous change
Which seems like sleep; and though I waiting starve,
I cannot kiss the idols that are set
By every gate, in every street and park,--
I cannot fawn, I cannot soil my soul:
For I am of the mountains and the sea,
The deserts, and the caverns in the earth,
The catacombs and fragments of old worlds.

* * * * *

CLARIAN'S PICTURE.

A LEGEND OF NASSAU HALL.

"Turbine raptus ingenii."--SCALIGER.

Mac and I dined together yesterday,--as we are used to do at least once or
twice every year, for the sake of our ever-mellowing friendship, and those
good old times in which it began. Like all who are ripe enough to have
memories, we delight to recall the period of our vernal equinox, and to
moralize, with gentle sadness and many wise wags of our frosty polls, upon
the events in which that period was prolific; and so, when the cloth was
removed yesterday, and we sat toying with our cigars and our Sherry, our
talk insensibly drifted back to those merry college-days when we not
infrequently "heard the chimes at midnight."

"Ah, old fellow," quoth I to my chum, "those good old days are gone by,
now, and Israel worships strange gods. Old Nassau will never be what she
was before the fire of '55. Those precious heirlooms of our day are sunk
from sight forever, dear and mossy as they were,--swept down, like cobwebs,
before the flame-besom. _'Fuit Ilium!'_ The old bell will never again ring
out the gay 'larums of a 'Third Entry' barring-out. Homer's head no longer
perches owl-like and wise over the central door-way. _'Ai, Adonai!'_ No
more wilt proud fingers point to the spot whereat entered--not like
'Casca's envious dagger'--that well-aimed cannon-ball which pierced the
picture-gallery, punched 'Georgius Res' on the head, and frightened away
forever the Hessians that were stabled there, fouling the nest of stout old
John Witherspoon. They call other rolls now in chapel and in class-room,
and chant other songs at their revels and their feasts. '_Eheu,
Posthume!_'"

"Pshaw, Ned Blount! there's corn in Egypt still. Out of that bug-riddled
old barn we used to know a new and comely Phoenix has been born unto
Princeton; the fire hath purged, not destroyed; and we wiseacres who
flourished in the old 'flush times' yet survive in tradition, patterns for
our children, very Turveydrops of collegiate deportment. The belfry clangs
with a louder peal; even Clarian's Picture, though it hath utterly perished
to the eye of sense, lives vivid in a thousand memories, and, having found
in the tenderness of tradition and legend an engraver whose burin is as
faithful as Raphael Morghen's, has left the damp dark wall, like Leonardo's
_Cenacolo_, to accompany all of us to our firesides."

Clarian's Picture! what memories the mention of it stirred up!

"Poor Clarian!" I murmured.

"Poor, indeed I" repeated Mac, with a sneer. "He is only worth a lovely
wife and six children, with half a million to back them. And he only weighs
two hundred pounds, with I forget how many inches of fat over the
brisket. Poor, indeed! 'Tis pity you and I have not experienced a slight
attack of that same poverty, Ned Blount!"

"Poor Clarian!" repeated I, sturdily. "To think that a man who could paint
such a picture, a soul of imagination so compact, a so delicate
ether-breathing spirit, should settle down at last into a mere mechanical,
a plodding, every-day merchant, whose finest fancies are given to the
condition of the money-market, who governs his actions by a decline of
Erie, and narrows his ideas down to the requirements of filthy lucre, like
a mere 'wintry clod of earth'! Ay, poor Clarian, poor anybody, when we wake
from our bright youth-dream and tread the rough pathway of a reality like
this!"

"_Potz tausend_! the man is _fou_!" shouted Mac. "Come, drink your wine,
Ned, and we'll have our coffee. It is quite time, I think,--and he used to
be a three-bottle fellow," muttered my dear old friend, _sotto
voce_. "'_Heu, heu! tempora mutantur, et nos_'--well, well, well!"

* * * * *

Clarian's Picture! What a gush of recollection the words evoke! I was in
the heyday and blossom of my youth then, and now--well, 'tis some years
since; yet how vividly I remember that pleasant noontide of a day of early
summer, when, as a party of us students were lounging about the gates that
opened from our shady campus upon the street, "Dennis" handed me a note
from Clarian, in which my little friend announced that his picture was
finished at last, and invited Mac and myself to call and see it
"exhibited," at nine o'clock that very evening. We were talking about
Clarian and his picture, at the time,--as, indeed, we had been doing for a
month,--and when I mentioned the purport of the note, curiosity rose to the
tiptoe of expectation, and numerous surmises were set afloat. I could have
satisfied their queries as to the subject and character of the picture, for
Mac and I had seen it only a few days before, but Clarian expected us to be
secret about it; so I only listened and smiled, while the eager talk ran
on, and a thousand conjectures were hazarded.

"So the _magnum opus_ is finished at last," said Clayt Zoile, showing by
his manner, as he joined us, that he at least had not received an
invitation; "a precious specimen of Art it will prove, I doubt not, after
all the outcry about it. '_Montes parturiunt_' etc."

"You'll lose your wish this time, Clayt," drawled Mounchersey, carelessly;
"Mr. Cosine told me yesterday that 'Boss' has called on Clarian about his
cutting so many prayers and recites, and that, after seeing the unfinished
picture, he gave the youngster _carte blanche_ as to time, till it is
completed;--so it must be something worth looking at"

"I guess Ned Blount's glad the picture is finished," said Tone Ninyan,
turning to me,--"a'n't you, Ned?"

I confessed I was not by any means sorry, for Clarian's sake.

"No," laughed Zoile, "Ned isn't sorry,--be sure of that; for he wants his
dear 'Whitewash' restored again to the bosom of society, lest the walls of
his reputation should by chance suffer from fly-speck."

These words created a laugh at my expense; for Clarian had shown himself,
in his warm, generous way, such a zealous advocate of my immaculate
perfection, that he was quite generally known by the _sobriquet_ of "Ned
Blount's Whitewash."

Just then Mac came along, on his way to the post-office, and I joined him,
showing him Ciarian's note.

"Hum," growled my good old chum, as he read it, "don't want to be disturbed
to-day; sick, is he? I'd like to know who's to blame, if he isn't. Wishes
me to bring my Shakspeare along;--it's a wonder he had not said Plotinus,
or Jacob Boehme's 'Aurora'; they're more in his style. The deuse take that
boy and his picture, Ned! What if we two fools have been playing too
roughly with such plastic clay? I wish to-night were come and gone
safely. I'll go see Dr. Thorne, and ask him to accompany us to-night. He
claims to be something of a connoisseur, and the picture is really worth
seeing, if the lad has not spoiled it with his 'final touches'. And anyhow,
the boy will be a study for a psychological monomaniac like Thorne."

"You apprehend, then...."

"_Sapperment_, you owl-face! I apprehend nothing; only it will be as well
to have Thorne present, for the boy is out of sorts, and his nerves were
never very strong. Now look here, Ned Blount! don't put on that lugubrious
phiz, I pray you;--and, moreover, don't you ever dare introduce any more of
your Freshmen _protege's_ to me; for, I warn you, I'll insult them, and
you, too,--I will, by Jove!"

I was not less impatient than Mac for the night to come, for I was very
anxious about Clarian, dreading lest some catastrophe was about to overtake
him,--and the thought was by no means pleasant. For, as Mac had said, the
lad was a _protege_ of mine; he had been given into my charge by his sweet
lady-mother; he had looked up to me as his senior and his friend; and I
could not help feeling, that, if anything untoward should happen to him, it
would be partly my fault.

From the very first I had been strongly attracted towards Clarian. Indeed,
the lad was remarkable for a peculiar spiritual beauty of person and
sweetness of manner that made almost every one love him. He was, in fact,
_lovely_, in the etymological sense of that misused word, and people
softened towards him as to a young, guileless child. I have known men cease
swearing when he drew near, drop ribaldry, and take up some more innocent
topic, simply through an unconscious impulse of fitness,--feeling that such
things had no business to be repeated in his presence. And they were right;
for a purer spirit than Clarian's I have never encountered in man or woman.
His face most reminded one of the portraits of Raphael at twenty. He had
the same broad, smooth forehead,--the same soft skin, delicate, yet rich as
the inner leaves of a pale rose,--the same finely shaped nose, and ripe,
womanly mouth, which a Persian, in default of a more tangible analogy,
would have likened to the seal of Solomon. But his lower face was somewhat
less full than Raphael's, the chin being shorter and sharper, and the jaw
curving less sensuously. His hair was of the purest chestnut hue, rich and
silken, showing here and there a thread of gold; he wore it long, and
flowing in half-ringlets upon his neck and shoulders. Clarian's eye was
large and dark, tender, rather sad, with now and then a speculative depth,
now and then a hint of the Romeo fore-doom, now and then a warm eloquence,
when meeting yours, that reminded strangely of a woman loving and in
love. Other womanly traits he had, such as the ingenuous blush with which
he asked or did a favor, and a certain not very boyish fondness for
softness and elegance of dress. Not that Clarian was effeminate, or in any
material respect deficient in manly character; but his mother was a widow,
and he her only son, and consequently he had been brought up like a girl,
at home, without any slightest opportunity to acquire those
rough-and-tumble experiences of ordinary boyhood which are so necessary to
fit us for battling in the world; for the world, though not unfeeling at
core, wears yet a sufficiently rough rind, and pretends but little sympathy
with persons of Clarian's stamp.

Hence, when Clarian came to college, he knew very little of life
indeed,--and, moreover, he cherished not a few ascetic notions, deeming
this world "all a fleeting show," from whose vain illusions it was one's
chief duty to shield one's self. He had never read a novel, save "some of
Scott's,"--nor ever seen or read a play, not even of Shakspeare's. How I
envied him this new world, in whose usages I had been _blase_ long before I
was of an age to appreciate its beauties,--this bright, fancy-fostering
world, to which he was to go all fresh and unsophisticated, like a bride to
the nuptial sheets! In literature of a more solid kind his practice was
quite considerable: he had surveyed many fields of Art, History, and
Theology, all of which, however, had first been submitted to the test of
that anxious maternal _Index Expurgatorius_, lest some drop of infidelity
or impurity should trickle in unawares, to darken or embitter the pure
crystal waters of his soul. Ah, thou poor fond mother, so unreasoningly
ignoring the fact that each of us must somehow eat his "peck of dirt"!

Thus intrusted to my charge, and having such attractive elements in his
character, I naturally took great interest in Clarian, and particularly
spared no effort to give him use in college ways. I saw that the lad was
not one to bear being laughed at, and so did all I could to screen him from
the embarrassments of ignorance,--taught him our customs, our fashions, and
gave him lessons upon that immemorial dialect in which college sublegists
delight. I chicaned to secure him a fine room, which his lady-mother
furnished "like a bridal chamher", if our Nassau cynics were to be
credited,--introduced him where it was necessary, and exercised generally
towards him that distinguished patronage which one who "knows the ropes" is
able to bestow upon a very Freshman.

A fine generous fellow was Clarian, for all his apron-string
antecedents,--bold as a lion, and as trustworthy as he was enthusiastic.
He was of rather too nervous a temperament to be precisely healthy in all
mental respects, but nevertheless had a fine comprehensive mind, very
capable of sustained and concentrated effort. He had been well taught, and,
unfortunately, was so far advanced beyond the studies of his class as to
have a great deal of leisure. In consequence he turned to reading, and
here, again unfortunately, he put himself under my guidance, and suffered
me to govern him in his choice of books: unfortunately, I say, for I was
then a worshipper of that clay-footed Nebuchadnezzar-image, Metaphysics,
which I fondly deemed all of gold, and the most genuine of things. So, when
Clarian came to me, I was eager enough to put to his lips the wine of which
I was drunken. The boy took his first sip from Coleridge's "Biographia
Literaria",--that cracked Bohemian glass, which, handed in a golden salver
that might have come from the cunning graver of Cellini, yet forces one to
taste, over a flawed and broken edge, the sourest drop of ill-made _vin du
pays_, heavily drugged and made bitter with Paracelsian laudanum. Under
that strange patchwork quilt so imaginative a soul as Clarian could not
fail to dream. It was a great pity I had not been more circumspect, for the
boy was already too deeply steeped in those Acherontic waters. His mother,
like many other women, had loved to wander along the dreamy paths of
sentimental theology, clothing from her own beautiful mind the dim,
unsubstantial spectres that beckoned her, and accepting all their mystic
utterances, in blind faith, for genuine oracles of God. Into these by-ways
he had followed her, and his clearer vision had just sufficed to reveal to
him the ghosts, without teaching him how to master or dispel them. Thus,
Cowper's sweetness, which charmed her, became to him Cowper's dejection and
despairing sadness, perplexing enough to his young brain. Where she took up
and fed her soul upon John Wesley's conclusions, the boy found himself
involved in John Wesley's perplexities, and struggling in desperate wrestle
with the haunting shapes to which John Wesley had given successful
battle. Thus prepared, no wonder my eager little friend plunged headlong
into the sea of doubts, impatient to cry, "Eureka!" and plant his foot upon
the Islands of the Blessed. The new excitement completely swept his feet
from under him. 'Twas but a step from Coleridge and _Esemplastic_ matters
to Plotinus, and in a month he had taken that step,--the more readily, that
he was a right good Grecian, and found no unpleasant philological
difficulties in the "Enneades". Thence he went on in feverish unrest,
wildly running up and down all _Niffelheim_ in quest of some centre-point
upon which he could stand firm and look around him. He had an excellent
mind, and, unexcited, could take sufficiently common-sense views of most
matters; but this was too much for him. He made substance of shadows, and
then exhausted himself in giving them battle. He became anxious, uneasy,
nervous,--showing very plainly, that, in his search after the Alkahest, he
had injured his powers by making trial of too many drugs.

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19