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

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

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Mac, with his sturdy good sense, and unerring mace-like judgment, speedily
became aware of this waste of function to which Clarian was subjecting
himself, and warned me accordingly.

"Why do you let that boy bother his brains about your stupid _Ego_ and
_Non-Ego_?" said he. "Don't you see he is injuring himself, beginning to
sink under a sort of mental _albumenurea_,--at the very time, too, when he
has most need of stamina? He does nothing but read, read, read,--and what,
forsooth? Not anything that will teach him the genuineness of life and
manhood, but those damnable spirit-exalting, body-despising emasculates of
Alexandria,--Madame Guyon's meditations, too, and Isaac Taylor's giddy
see-sawings,--all heresies, and bosh,--'Dead-Sea fruits that turn to
ashes', and not only disgust you, but blister tongue and lips most
vilely. You'll have him next trying to treat with the gods, to attain
Brahm's purification, Boodh's annihilation, to jump over the moon, or doing
something that will make him candidate for the shaved-head-and-blister
treatment. Remember, Ned, his brain is made of finer stuff than that stolid
sponge inside your _pia mater_, that can take in _quantum sufficit_ of
beer, fog, and tobacco-smoke, unharmed. He can't stand it, and he's too
rare and delicate a machine to go cranky thus soon. You've got the child
under your thumb,--bring him out o' that. Make him take a dose of Verulam,
get him back into the world again, and order him four hours _per diem_ at
the dumb-bells."

And so, the next time Clarian came to our rooms, and was eagerly soliciting
my opinion of a little essay he had written, to establish the identity of
the Logos with the Demiurgic Mind, ("Plato's World-Soul, called in 'Timaeus'
the best of Eternal Intelligences, the Noetic Partaker and Digester of
Reason", said Clarian in his tract,) with some corollaries for the purpose
of reconciling _Geist_ and _Freiheit_, all sauced down, _a l'Allemagne_,
with numerous capitals and a proper degree of incomprehensibility,--Mac
bluffly interrupted the colloquy, and accosted Clarian,--

"Younker! do you know you're a fool?"

Clarian colored up,--

"How, Mac?"

"What are we--Ned, and you, and I--here for?"

"To acquire knowledge."

"Ay, knowledge,--but what for?"

"To fit us for heaven."

"Phew! then you calculate to graduate from 'these classic shades' direct
into celestial regions, do you, without sojourning awhile in this terrene
purgatory? I do not, and, moreover, _je n'en ai pas l'envie_; I think the
world has some claims upon me, and I mean to pay that debt, D. V."

"So do I, Mac," rejoined Clarian, a little proudly.

"And do you suppose your present studies adapted to fit you for such work?
Now, if you want to be a monk, if you are willing, like Origen, to purchase
with your entire manhood some supposed facility of spiritual contemplation
and depth of insight into the Infinite, or if you intend to become a
Brahmin, and seek in your navel the dyspeptic divinity who there wields his
sceptre, while your despised body is given up to the predatory ravages of
_genus pediculus_, well and good. Follow your hest, go on and conquer the
[Greek: gnosis] and when you have got it, just inform me what it looks
like, and whether you will be more able to make use of it than the fellow
was of the elephant he bought at auction. But if you desire to take a man's
part in this grand world around you, you must leap off your shadow, and
never think about thinking, as the new Olympian has it. Let quiddities
alone, they are dry-bone vampires, that drain you of your blood without
growing fatter themselves."

"But how can truth harm? and that is what I seek,--truth, and beauty; if I
commune with the world-soul, then also I know the world."

"Faugh! let shadows alone; believe in the man; do not be persuaded that the
body is depraved and corrupt, and only the soul is worthy to be cultivated.
Hold fast to the tangible. We know that we have a body, spite the Bishop of
Cloyne, far more certainly than we know we have a soul. See, the soul is
this smoke, that evanishes so quickly; the body this meerschaum that I have
in my fingers, and will smoke again, please God."

"But it is the smoke, not the pipe, that gives you pleasure, and is the
important consideration, Mac."

"Confound analogies, and pert Freshmen!" growled my chum, puffing
vigorously. "Nevertheless, it is a noble and right royal thing, this
body,--a thing to be cared for and cultivated for its own sake, apart from
the fact of its being God's chosen sanctuary for what He lends us to see
Him by. And you are neglecting it, both in theory and practice, Clarian; so
you must give up these infernal Metaphysics. If you _will_ bother about
speculative matters, let Bacon teach you the correctives of error, and
Locke how to govern and rein in the understanding. But you'd better learn
first what men say about men. It may not make you happier, but it will make
you wiser, and wisdom ranks high in heaven: Gabriel, Raphael,
Michael,--'tis the second person in that archangelic trinity. Did you ever
read Shakspeare? No, of course not; and yet I'll wager you have been
hankering after the Bhagavat Ghita, and trying to get a copy of the
illustrious Trismegistan Gimander! Don't blush,--you're not the first young
man who has made an a--ahem--made a mistake. Fie! Learn men, Clarian, and
then you will come to know man,--the surest way, I take it, of knowing the
Multitudinous God. So read you Shakspeare, and AEschylus, save the
'Prometheus,'--_that_ was begotten of Bactrian lore upon the mysteries of
Karnac, and does not touch man nearly, spite of all its grandeur. Here,
listen, and I will give you a lesson in the Myriad-Minded whom
Stratford-upon-Avon blessed our little earth with."

Therewith, Mac began to read from the first act of "The Tempest." Now chum
was a Shakspeare enthusiast, and, withal, a very fine reader, as well as,
from long study, quite pervaded with the Master's diction and style of
thought. As he read on, he commented, in his brief, pointed way, upon the
text, contrasting the Boatswain's practical usefulness with the shivering
helplessness of the Courtiers. "Now this is your proper somatology," he
added. "What our Bo's'un says to Gonzalo, the world will say to you,
Clarian, when you propose to it any of your panaceas: Are you able to do
better than we? If so, save us from the shipwreck that threatens. If not,
go to your prayers. Anyhow, 'out of our way, I say!'"

"Bravo!" cried I, when the homily came to an end, "Mac is preaching
Carlylism, as I'm a sinner. The next utterance will be something about
roofing Hell over, or the Everlasting Yea, or Morrison's Pills! Proceed:
'lay on,' Mac! none of us will cry, 'Hold, enough!' save under risible
compulsion."

Mac sulked awhile, but soon resumed his reading,--sparing us further
comment, however. Thus was Clarian led over the threshold, and introduced
into Shakspeare's magic world. When Mac closed his book at the end of the
act, Clarian's face glowed with a flattering something that must have
pleased my chum, for he _was_ proud of his reading,--and the moisture
glittering in the lad's eye, his flushed cheek, and the tremor of his voice
as he asked to hear more, spoke volumes.

But Mac said, "No,--enough is as good as a feast, younker, and just now I
have to go with Bacchus in quest of a tragedian for Athens,--[Greek: brek
kek koax, koax], you know. Study the Master yourself: and let me by all
means advise your wisdom to detect a mystery in 'Hamlet,' and to essay the
solution of the same. Nobody else has done so, of course, and it will
become your long head. I've met several very mild, quiet people, whom you
would not suspect of the slightest impropriety; but mention the Dane, and,
_presto!_ off they go upon their hobbies, ('theories,' they call 'em,) and
canter around Bedlam at a most generous pace. '_Semel insanivimus omnes_,'
I suppose, and Hamlet and the Apocalypse offer rare opportunities."

"Now, Ned," said Mac, somewhat complacently, when Clarian was gone, "I
think I have done that young rascal some good, and the bard will advantage
him still more, if he can only be moderate enough."

And, indeed, these new pastures thus unbarred to Clarian's coltish fancies
made a great change in the lad. At first he simply revelled in the new
world of beauty that the Master's wand evoked, like a bird in the fresh,
warm sunshine of returning spring. But this did not last long; the bird
must busy himself with nest-building. Clarian's ardent, impetuous nature
must evolve results, would not content itself with mere sensations. So he
began to study Shakspeare,--not, as he had studied the philosophers, to
pluck out and make his own some cosmical, pervading thought, but to find
matter for Art-purposes. I think, that, if ever there was a born artist,
who united to a fine aesthetic sense the fervor of a devotee, Clarian was
that one, heart and soul. Some men make a mistress of Art, and sink down,
lost in sensual pleasure and excess, till the Siren grows tired and
destroys them. Other men wed Art, and from the union beget them fair,
lovely, ay, immortal children, as Raphael did. Some again, confounding Art
with their own inordinate vanity, grow stern and harsh with making
sacrifices to the stone idol, grinding down their own hearts in vain
experimenting after properer pigments, whereby themselves may attain to a
chill and profitless immortality. But there are others still, who,
elevating Art into a grand divinity, bow down and worship it, devote their
lives to its priesthood, and, as a reward, only ask the god to reveal to
them once his unveiled effulgence, content with the one communion, though
their rashness be fatal, and the god's benison prove but the ashes of
Semele. Towards this class Clarian tended, I knew very well, and hence,
from the first, I had thrown a damper upon his artistic aspirations, often
rewarded by his mournful and reproaching glances, as I sneered at his
sketches,--which, to tell the truth, were most admirable, showing at once a
keen poetic insight, fine composition, and an unusual mastery of technical
details. The obedient fellow had bowed to what he deemed my better
judgment, and turned away, with something of a sigh, from his dear love and
ambition. Now, however, this love came suddenly back, and with tenfold
intensity, as is always the case, and, though I dreaded its unhealthiness,
I could no longer thwart him. Indeed, the Art-sense took such complete
possession of him that I feared to interpose obstacles. He did not go about
his work like a boy, but bent himself to it with the calm, resolute purpose
of a man of forty. I could see the increasing mastery of the idea, in his
changed eye, in his compressed lip, in his statelier, calmer pose; and,
however incredulous we may be respecting _results_, these initiatory
motions never fail to impress us. Even Bluebeard would forbear to strike
down his pregnant wife, for the sake of what she bore under her bosom; and
I, seeing the boy's careful study, and his long and laborious preparation,
could not help looking forward to a result of commensurate importance.

Nevertheless, it was my duty to have combated Clarian's tendencies, for I
could not help seeing the daily injury they did him. _Ars longa, vita
brevis_, was an overpowering conviction of the lad's, and he went to work
to apply the maddest of correctives. Art so exacting and life so short,
then it was his office to labor so much the more earnestly, so much the
more eagerly, that he might squeeze dry this orange of the present, and
lose no opportunity, no moment. Thus it came to pass with him, as it does
with us all who overwork ourselves, that actually he did less than he might
have done, and warped himself in a most pitiable way indeed. A
conscientious fellow, as he was, Clarian had hitherto been very faithful to
his duties in the regular curriculum,--but now all this was changed. Here
was a grand something to be done, a something so grand, indeed, that his
whole life must bow before its exactions, and all minor duties step out of
the way of Juggernaut. Who thinks of etiquette, of drawing-room
trivialities, when here we are before this mistress, at whose feet we must
pour out our soul? for her love blesses us with new life, her scorn damns
us with eternal despair. In this cursed fashion always the Idea masters a
man's soul, when he has once listened to its Lurlei-song. Henceforth he is
only to see things in the light it chooses to shed upon them. Let your
Alchemist but seek his Elixir long enough for the poison to fairly fill his
veins, and behold what a slave and a monster the Idea shall make of him!
Projection awaits him; the elements are here, commingling _in balneo
Mariae_; already _Rosa Solis_ lends its generative warmth; already hath _Leo
Rubeus_ wooed and won his lily bride; already hath the tincture headed up
royally in ruby and in purple, and sublimed, and gone through the entire
circle of embryonic processes: quick! there lacks but the one element; in
with it, and we are masters of the Life-Secret, of wealth, and power, and
all else the world can bestow,--ay, and we can give back to the world all
it asks! Yes, but that element is _Sanguis Virginis_. Well, and why not a
virgin's blood? Great things must be purchased,--cannot be plucked, like
fruit, from every tree. Were it _Sanguis Senis_, now, who would tap a vein
more readily than we, ay, even were a drop from the carotid required? And
must the world lose all this divine gift for a simple? What did Abraham on
Moriah? Here is this child; of what use is she to the world?--yet a few
ounces of her blood, and man is regenerate. In her innocence, too,--why, a
Manichee would have done it for her own sake. Come, quick knife,--and, we
do murder! I tell you, by dwelling on it, tasting, smelling of it, taking
it into our bosoms, and making ourselves familiar with it, we poor men can
finally persuade ourselves that the most damning thought begot of Hell upon
a putrescent brain is the fairest, brightest, most glorious _Deus
vult_. Here was the danger that menaced Clarian, ay, had already begun to
insinuate its poison into his daily food. The simple fact of his neglecting
his studies proved this. It was a venial sin, doubtless,--but still, it was
his _premier pas_, and, as such, ominous enough.

Giving himself up to his art, he soon began to illustrate in his person the
effects of confinement and excessive thought. His pale cheek grew paler
still, the hollows under his eyes deepened, and his slim fingers waxed
slimmer and more transparent than ever. I could see also that he had
excessive bile,--not only ascertainable by looking at his imbrowned eye,
but deducible from a change in his temper that was by no means an
improvement. His room was full of sketches and drawing-material: these
attracted visitors, and visitors were a trouble. Perhaps there was
impertinence in their curiosity, very likely their presence hindered him;
but, nevertheless, it was by no means like the sweet-tempered Clarian to
show irritability and petulance, and finally, closing his door obstinately
against all comers, to elect for solitude and silence at his work.
No,--the boy was changed, grown morbid, a pervert, ripe for whatever
Devil's sickle might be put forth to gather him in.

Thus things went on from bad to worse, until the authorities began to take
notice of the lad's derelictions. The kind old President sent for me, and
made many inquiries about Clarian. Evidently the elders were not a trifle
bothered by my little _protege's_ proceedings, and did not know how to
act. He had been much liked, his character was unblemished, he had done
himself credit in his studies: what did all this change mean? The Faculty
made it a rule to respect every man's privacy as much as possible,--but
Mr. Blount well knew that the present state of things could not long be
permitted. In their eyes, the backslider was palpably a far more unsavory
fact than the original sinner. Could not Mr. Blount use his influence in
some way, or suggest some course? Mr. Blount presented Clarian's cause in
as favorable a light as possible; spoke of the youth's noble nature;
guarantied that there was no moral obliquity; strongly advised leniency;
venturing withal to hope, nay, to believe, that all this devotion, so
intense, to a single purpose, would not be fruitless, might possibly win
him credit. He certainly had fine imagination, and then he was so absorbed
in his work;--it was a question whether it would help him most to encourage
or to repress his ardor at present. The Doctor pondered, said he would take
the matter into consideration,--it were a pity to nip any wholesome
enthusiasm i' the bud,--"but it is very apparent, Mr. Blount, that the
young man, if he goes on, will experience the fate of Orpheus, and so needs
to be curbed in time. '_Medio tutissimus ibis_', saith Naso,--a maxim the
non-observance of which cost him the pain and disgrace of exile. And you
should strive to impress the truth of it upon Clarian; spare no pains to
rouse him. This seclusion is what I most dread. The poet Spenser hath made
all his viler passions dwellers in caves and darkness, and with truth; for
solitude is fatal, where there are morbid and melancholic tendencies. A
very wise German, remarking upon the text, 'It is not good for man to be
alone,' added, very finely,--'and above all, it is not good for man to
_work_ alone; he requires sympathy, encouragement, excitement, to succeed
in anything good.'"

But I found the worthy old Doctor's advice easier to inculcate than to
practise. Clarian did not need my sympathy, had excitement and
encouragement enough in his own hopes, and, in fact, like the Boatswain in
"The Tempest," only required to be let alone. Still, he paid us a visit now
and then, and gave us to understand that he denied himself our society, did
not thrust it aside as something useless and disagreeable. When he came, he
would talk freely, and give us but too plain evidence of the change and
confusion that were taking place in him. Mac never spared him at these
times, and on one occasion, only a fortnight previous to the exhibition of
the picture, fairly drove the boy into a passion.

"Well, Mr. Whitewash," said he, as Clarian came in, "how are you at this
present writing? You _look_ as if you had been dieting on Gamboge and Flake
White. Take care, young man, or you'll put us students to the cost of a
tombstone with a Latin epitaph for you, yet,--beginning, _Interfecit
se_.--How comes on the Art? You've given the go-by to _Ego_ and _Non-Ego_,
I suppose, and have resolved to achieve the very [Greek: kudos] upon a
ten-foot whitewashed wall, eh? _Soit_,--but what results? Can you say yet,
as Correggio did when he saw the St. Cecilia of Raphael, '_Anch' io son
pittore_'? or do you intend to limit your ambition, _a la_ Dick Tinto, to
the effecting of two liquidations in one by the restoration of
tavern-signs?"

"Please do not taunt me, Mac, for I am cast down, almost. I have the
grandest conception, but the life-touch escapes me. It is in vain I seek
it: we cannot do a thing properly, unless we _feel_ it; passion will not be
simulated. What we know, and can do well, must all be repeated from our own
experience, says St. Simon,--and I agree with him."

"St. Simon be--hanged!" quoth Mac. "So, it seems, the Metaphysic is not
abandoned. St. Simon, forsooth!--why, his doctrine was, that, to comprehend
the nature of crime, one had first to commit crime himself. Pah! according
to that, he who would most thoroughly learn the philosophy of our carnal
lusts must exchange natures with the goat. Pray, why do not you solicit
Herr Urian to give you a hircine metamorphosis, Clarian?"

"Nay, Mac, can it be thus put off with a jest and a sneer, after all? What
do you think of these words I came across last night?"--and opening his
note-book, Clarian read as follows: "For of old it hath been clearly
proven, action without passion is nought save idle folly. _Passio Christi
hominis redemptio_. For as sin came into the world by suffering, so also
the gift of knowledge, which man would have confessedly lacked, had he not
purchased it _pretio mortis_,--even whereat, meseemeth, 'tis not a
commodity too high-priced. And as Philo Judaeus hath well observed, (as that
arch heretic doth but seldom, wherefore let us ascribe to him the full
credit,) '_Materia parens est (etiam ipsa mater) peccali_,' so, to attain
to anything really spiritual, we have even to be born again of this our
parent, by the reentrance of whose womb, in pain and darkness, we come back
to the true and the living, and have provision given us wherewith we shall
conquer worlds. For, to fix the pure thought and to identify it with the
true and holy, we must first divide it from the base clogs of matter; and
how can we effect this disjunction, save, as it hath ever been done, by
passion,--not simulate nor taken at second hand, cold,'_bis coctum quasi_,'
but rather presently and in our very selves reiterate? So Naaman dipt in
Jordan,--a task unto him, a sin in the eyes of his gods, and painful
exceedingly to his pride-gorged humor, that would only have Abana and
Pharpar,--yet only so was his skin made whole again, and soft like an
infant's. So also did David the king come into tasting of the bliss of a
true repentance by the terrible gateways of shameful adultery and
blood-thirst."

"Oh, I agree with your author perfectly," said Mac, with inimitable
gravity, while I gazed at Clarian, wondering what would come next. "All the
greatest gifts man possesses have had evil sponsors or unrighteous
baptism. Even Prometheus _filched_ his fire from heaven, or t'other
place. Doing evil for the sake of a prospective good is an immemorial
custom, and well precedented. Revenue-farming, the _parc-aux-cerfs_, and Du
Barry only went down before _La Terreur_, Robespierre, and _Les Journees de
Septembre_."

"But seriously, Mac, is it not admissible, now and then, to employ
questionable means, ordinary ones failing?"

"Certainly. You may even sin, provided you believe in your cause. Faith is
the one save-all and cure-all. You smile? I can give you good
authority,--none other than Martin Luther, who, in one of his disputations,
says emphatically, '_Si in fide posset fieri adulterium, peccatum non
esset_'; and he wrote still more plainly upon this point in one of his
letters to Melancthon, saying, '_Ab hoc nos non avellet peccatum, etiamsi
millies millies uno die fornicamur aut occidamus._' [Footnote: _Vie de
Luther_, par AUDIN, Paris, 1839. An accurate book, but scathingly bitter.]
So follow your bent, younker, and they cannot say you are without
'precedent right reverend.'"

Clarian sprang to his feet, his pale face all ablaze with indignation. "You
have no right to say such things to me, Sir," he cried, "for you know well
enough"--

"I know well enough that you are a crack-brained jackanapes, with your
damned fantastics!" bellowed Mac, angry in his turn. "What do you
mean,--you, who are a perfect little saint in your life,--what do you mean
by thrusting all these foul heresies at me, as if you were a veritable
citizen of Sodom, or a rejuvenized Faust, who have just replenished your
stock of 'experiences,' as you call them, by seducing Margaret and stabbing
her brother? Burn your books, if that filth is all they teach you,--and
mend your manners, if you expect to be tolerated in respectable
company. Good-bye!" cried he, as Clarian rushed white-heated from the room.

"Pshaw, Ned, spare your remonstrances, if you please,--I'm tired of the
little fool's nonsense."

"But the boy is sick, my dear fellow, and requires to be treated more
gently. His mind is diseased, and it would not take much to drive him quite
desperate."

"No such good luck, Ned. I wish I _could_ make him pitch into somebody or
something. Nothing would do the beggar so much good, just now, as to get
himself into a regular scrape. It would act like a shower-bath, wake him
up, and purge him of these dismal humors."

"Still, you would not like to have it said that _you_ were the cause of his
getting into any difficulty; and you know very well he is not one to
extricate himself easily, if once involved."

"Never fear. '_Il y a un Dieu pour les enfants et les ivrognes_', says a
proverb in which I place implicit faith."

* * * * *

We saw nothing of Clarian until some three or four nights after this, when
he came hurriedly into our room. It was quite late, but Mac was still at
his Mathematics, while I was dawdling with my pipe and a volume of
Sternberg's pleasant tales. Clarian walked directly up to Mac, holding out
his hand, and saying, "I have come to ask your forgiveness, my dear Mac; I
was wrong and foolish the other day."

"Nonsense, you flighty canary-bird!" said Mac; "you owe me nothing, so
have done with that. Sit down and smoke a pipe with us."

"No,--I have come for you and Ned; I want you to see my picture to-night.
Come, I will take no denial,--I am about to finish it, and I want your
criticisms before I lay on the final touches."

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