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

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

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"Why not to-morrow, Clarian?"

"Then everybody will want to see. No, it must be to-night."

Mac and I were by no means reluctant to humor the lad, for we were not
incurious respecting the picture, and we accompanied him forthwith. His
room was quite large, well lighted and airy, with a sleeping-closet
attached. Over the blank wall opposite the windows hung a black muslin
curtain of most funereal aspect, which rolled up to the ceiling by means of
a cord and pulley, and, being now down, effectually concealed from view
what we had come to see. Clarian placed three or four candles, made us be
seated, filling pipes for us, and taking one himself, a most rare
occurrence with him,--all the while talking with more vivacity than I had
seen him exhibit for several months. "I have carefully studied my subject,
fellows," said he, "and have striven after perfection. I went to Shakspeare
for it, Mac, and sought one that would give me at once a proper field, and
at the same time pervade me so that I could paint from myself. Singularly
enough, I have found this magnetic influence most completely in
'Macbeth'. Do you remember Scene Fourth of the Third Act? That is the
situation I have endeavored to portray. Macbeth, wretched criminal,
suspects every one of his own dark purposes, or fears their hatred, because
he feels himself hateful. He is not a coward, either physically or morally;
his fears are all intellectual; he knows that Banquo is too noble to serve
him, too powerful to be permitted to serve against him,--so he must out of
the way. The murderers have received their commission; the king, satisfied
now that all he has to fear will shortly be removed, has said, 'There's
comfort yet'; he has cheered his wife with words even merry, as he can with
some complacency, for it is truly his principle of action, that

'Things bad begun make strong themselves by ill';

and now, in this scene, he is to meet his courtiers at a state-banquet,
given in honor of Banquo, he tells them with hardihood. For we must
remember that this jealous king is no longer the warrior Thane whom we
first encounter upon the 'blasted heath', and whom we afterwards see
haunted by horrid visions of 'air-drawn daggers', as he turns his hand to
crime. He has gotten far beyond all this. Murders to him are become but
'trifles light as air'; use has blunted his sensibility, and to bring back
all that agony and horror needs a vastly stronger excitement than a mere
deed of blood. We see this in the cool way he tells the murderer, 'There's
blood upon thy face', as if it simply made him look less presentable.
Nevertheless, suffer for it Macbeth must. That is ordained; and the means
to it, and particularly the _effect_ of those means, are what I have tried
to represent here."

So saying, he drew up the curtain, and the picture stood before us. Mac and
I gave it one quick glance, and then, with a simultaneous impulse, extended
our hands to Clarian. The lad laughed a little laugh of joy as he returned
our embrace, and then silently nodded towards the picture again.

Those old Princetonians who have seen Clarian's Picture will easily be able
to explain our emotion upon beholding it thus for the first time. It was in
colored crayon, and covered a large portion of the wall, representing a
lofty, but entirely unornamented Gothic hall, with a table in the centre,
around which were grouped the guests. These showed in their faces and
disordered array that dismay and anxiety which were natural to them at
sight of their king so strangely and appallingly stricken, but evidently
they were entirely and happily unconscious of the THING that sat there in
their midst, touching them, consorting its charnel horrors with their
warm-blooded humanity,--so near, so close to them, that _he_ fancied the
smell of that trickling gore, that dank grave-soil, must necessarily enter
in at their nostrils, and he sickened at the thought for very sympathy. The
woe-wasted wife, comprehending what it meant, as she chiefly, from the dark
depths of her own spotted consciousness, _could_ comprehend, had yet flung
her fear aside for the sake of him whom she loved with a love so
bitter-costly, and now she stood at his side, fiercely clutching him, and
taunting him like a tigress with his unmanly fears. Ah, had that clutch
upon his elbow been the searing grasp of white-heated pincers, eating to
the bone, it had not stirred _him_. He stood there, a tall, large-limbed
man, brown and weather-stained, one who had endured much, wrinkled
somewhat, care-marked about the brow, but very capable, and evidently as
bold and daring, to the line, as he asserted himself,--he stood there,
flung back, fixed, petrified, as it were, by the baleful judgment that
lighted those unearthly eyes which watched him from across the table there;
and though his arm be flung up over his face, half to protect, half in
menace,--though his fist be clenched and swollen, his brow dark and
frowning, we know he will not spring forward, but will stand there still,
no life in all that mass of muscle, no will-power in that capable brain,
nought but impotent malignity in that murderous frown: for he is
stricken,--his sin has found him out,--ay, at the very altar, Orestes hears
the Furies shriek their hatred in his ears, exultingly proclaiming that for
him at least there is no rest, nor ever shall be!

Such was the impression of Clarian's Picture, and I felt my blood fairly
tingle with recognition of the boy's power.

"It is noble, great," said Mac, in those deep tones that spoke how he was
moved, "and men shall call you Artist when it is finished."

Finished! what more did it want? what more could be done to this so
perfect composition?

"Ah, Mac," said Clarian, enthusiastically seizing my chum's hands, "such
recognition as yours is what I have yearned for, and yet--'tis you who have
chiefly mocked me. It _shall_ be finished, Mac, and worthily! Do you not
think I have prayed for the inspiration, that I might bestow that final,
life-giving touch? Two months ago it was as near complete as it is
now,--but not until this very night have I felt the power of it. Now,
however, my soul is full of it, and it shall wax into a poem. This is why I
sought you, dear friends, to-night; for I am too gloriously happy to be
selfish, and I want you to share my happiness with me. Yes, Mac, it has
come at last, the warm Promethean fire, and at last I can proclaim, '_Anch'
io son pittore_!'"

I gazed at the lad as he raised his voice with these last words, and was
almost awed by his singular beauty. It seemed almost as if a halo should
encircle his brow. There was a delicate rose-flush on his cheek that
rivalled in strange loveliness the hectic color of the young mother when
her first-born nestles close and fondly to her thrilled bosom, and his eyes
glowed with a rare lambent light that touched one with the eloquence of a
beautiful dream. Mac eyed him with equal wonder and delight, but said,
teasingly,--

"Hey! so you have come at last to the 'true and the living,' have you? Art
regenerate? I hope thou hast also undergone that true baphometic
fire-baptism, whereof the worthy Diogenes Teufelsdroeckh hath discoursed so
appetizingly, causing us to long after it, none the less that he hath
scrupulously refrained from expounding whatever it is."

"Yes, Mac, the new life dawns upon me,--no Plotinian trance, no somnambulic
introspection, but a genuine awakening of the soul to a sense of its own
beauty."

"Prodigious! as Dominie Sampson would say. Nay, I am not laughing at you,
Clarian," said Mac, pointing to the picture; "_there_ is enough to make me
believe in you, though how you achieved it I cannot imagine."

"The means, Mac? Is not that rather my question than yours? We judge
ourselves from within; 'others judge us by what we have done,' says
Goethe. The means, ha, and the motive? Why will men seek stumblingly after
these, when actually their sole concern is with the thing done? So, you two
look at me,--I was but pondering,--putting a case;--so far, the means here
have been simple and innocent,--my hand, my eye, my brain, my purpose;
but--Mac!" added he, suddenly, after a pause, "did you never, in reading
Rabelais, feel that somehow there was a profound and reverential symbolism
underlying the wild froth of words in which the histories of Gargantua and
Pantagruel have come down to us? that in all that _olla-podrida_ of filth,
quip, jest, wicked folly, and mad wisdom, was yet hidden, like the pearl in
the oyster, a deep and most mystic system of world-philosophy?"

"Anan?" said Mac, looking at the boy curiously.

"For instance, in what the good Cure of Meudon says about the 'herb
Pantagruelion',--did the symbolism and esoteric meaning of all that never
strike you?"

"Oh, yes," cried Mac, with a singularly significant smile, "I see how it is
now. I understand. You are improving, Clarian, rapidly. Hum, wonder what
your mother would say, if she knew you were a friend of Panurge's, and did
draw such inferences from his wisdom! Yes, _mon enfant_, I have long felt
the profundity of Pantagruelion, not less than the oracular efficacy of
Bacbuc. And no one can deny that the thinnest strand of Manila, if not full
of mysteries _per se_, can at least open the way for us to the very
innermost crypts, and hence may be styled _potentially_ a very gateway to
Eleusinia."

"I do not mean that, Mac,--not the mere mechanical warp and woof of it, to
hang beggars and sots with,--but the more potent essence, the inner cosmic
power of it, to rouse the soul into grand expansive consciousness, and then
to suspend it far above the carks and cares of this weary world, to sew it
aloft to some leaf of the Tree of Life, like the nest of Jean Paul's
tailor-bird, that it may swing there, above the hum and dust of matter,
swayed and sung to sleep by the expanding breath of Infinity! Oh, yes!"
cried Clarian, while his cheek glowed warmer, his eye flamed brighter, and
his voice flowed on with a rhythmic throb, "oh, yes, I know it all, now!
The Idea is awake, and dwells in my soul, at once master there and slave. I
leap out of this base Present: I stand panting and glowing before the
mighty portals of Infinity, from whose inner masses I see the grand Gods
beckoning to me, greeting me as of their kindred, summoning me to take my
throne also, which awaits me in their midst. I have burst these narrow
bonds of flesh, and my soul shall soar henceforth in the grandeur realized
of the Spirit, like a proud falcon just unmewed and flung off in sight of
the noblest quarry. Art! what a dull, meaningless sound it was
yesterday!--but now, the entombing pyramid of matter is up-heaved, flung
off forever, and the Spirit stands erect in her bright Palingenesis,
half-intoxicate with the all-pervading sense of her own grand beauty. The
tree is rent asunder,--Ariel soars again in his element. Psyche has loosed
herself from the fettering contact of Daimon, and lo, now, how daintily she
poises on tiptoe, fluttering her wings ere she launches like a star into
the wide exhilarant ether! O divine Art! pride, glory, first love of my
soul! now, indeed, hast thou exchanged the yoke of dull Saturn and the
gloomy caverns of earth for the fair heights of Olympus, and the
companionship of Zeus [Greek: Nephelaegeretaes], him at whose nod the
heavens display themselves like a many-figured arras, all alive with
beauties and significance that the dull eye conjectures not, that the
impure, unpurged eye shrinks away from, lest it be seared by the too great
splendor! I know it all now. I began gropingly, in surmise, error,
darkness; but now my brow catches, ay, and reflects, the calm, pure,
effulgent light of Nature's definite day, and I bathe myself in its happy
warmth. Erst, I grovelled like a worm, blind and earth-fed: now, I shall
speed through very space, winged heel and shoulder, a swift, untiring
Hermes, who have drunk of the milk that flows rich in Nature's breasts, and
am emancipate forever in the decorous freedom of the beautiful
self-conscious spirit! Oh, the glory, oh, the boon of Art, the play-deity!
Phoebus no longer drives herds for Admetus, but is grown into Helios, feels
in his breast the freer life of the very Hyperion, the walker on high. Ay,
ay, smile on, Mac, you and Ned! I shall not quarrel with you for not
understanding me; it is only just now that I have learned to understand
myself. My Art will reward me; even now, while you doubt, it is already
doing so. I tell you, you two, whom I love and honor", cried he, rising to
his feet, lifted up, as it were, by the exaltation of his soul, while his
voice rose like the gush of a fine-toned flute, "I tell you, moreover, that
I am an artist, with a work to do that shall be done, and so done that you
two who love me will be the first to salute me Artist, to recognize me, and
acknowledge me for what I shall become."

"We do that already, Clarian," said Mac's emphatic voice.

"No," said Clarian, firmly, proudly, like a poet about to kneel that he may
receive the laurel crown, "no, you do not know me yet."

And he was right. We did not yet know him.

"That is a boy after my own heart", said Mac, after we had returned to our
room. He was standing by the open window, and I at his elbow, both of us
thinking of the strange child we had just left, while our eyes took note of
the fair night, how the silvery sheen of the moonlight glistened upon the
leaves, and sprinkled itself in dappling flecks between the trees on the
soft even sward of the campus below. "A boy after my own heart,--and, in
spite of all his twaddle, will make an artist. It's in him."

"But did you not think him strangely wild to-night? I never heard him talk
so fluently; but it was not the talk of a sane man."

Mac looked at me, laughing long and loud. "Thou dear innocent Ned!" cried
he at last, "what a diagnostic thou wouldst make! It was indeed the talk of
madness, good chum, and a very pretty madness was it, one that needeth not
any Anticyran purgatives to expel it. So thou must not fash thyself about
the lad, _du liebe dummkopf_, for he will come right very speedily. Didst
remark not what he said about the 'herb Pantagruelion,' which, in the
vulgar, meaneth only _hemp_? And surely you noted the warm flush of his
cheek, the dilatation of his eye, and its phosphorescent glow? Dr. Thorne
would soon enough tell you what these things signify. The boy is not crazy,
Ned, but drunk,--drunk in the decorous delirium of a Damascene Pacha,
propped against a Georgian maid, and fanned by Houris of Bethlehem
Judah. He has been reading Monte Cristo, perhaps, or has somehow heard
about the Indian Hemp, not the '_utilissima funibus cannabis_' of practical
Pliny, but _Cannabis Indica_, wherewith, I believe, Amrou spurred on his
Arabs to their miraculous feats of war, when he conquered Egypt and drove
Alexandria's Prefect into the sea,--the _bhang_ of amok-running Malays, the
_haschish_ of Syria and Cairo. This is what hath made him drunk, and, i'
faith, the intoxication does not ill become him. He will be all right in
the morning, and all the better for this little brush. And anyhow, Ned, you
must not watch the boy too closely, nor interfere with him. Let him 'gang
his ain gait.' He comes of another breed than ours, I begin to suspect,
and our rough fodder and grooming may not suit his higher blood.--_Ach,
Himmel!_ Ned," cried he, laughing, "it pleased me, though, to see how
adroitly he contrived to twist that new reading out of the _bon homme
Francois_. It was quite in the style of St. Augustine, and would have
delighted that ex-sophist hugely; for, great as he was, and self-denying as
he was, he always had a hankering after the dialectic flesh-pots. How he
would have rubbed his hands, when Clarian wanted to persuade us that the
herb Pantagruelion was no other than Haschish, the expander of
souls!--Hollo! yonder goes the lad now. I wonder what he is up to. See him,
Ned, yonder, just coming out of the shadow of North College. How fast he
walks! how he is swinging his arms! I'll bet he is repeating poetry. I
wonder what the lad is after, anyhow.--There he goes, round the corner of
West College,--over the fence. Can he mean to have a game of ball by
moonlight?--No,--he's making across the fields; if he had a pitcher with
him now, I'd say he was going to the spring in the hollow.--Confound that
tree! I've lost him."

I proposed following Clarian, being really uneasy about him, but Mac
entered his veto,--

"No, Ned,--there's no need, and--it's none of our business. Children like
him have a hundred baby-houses we do not know anything about. He wants a
bath in the moonlight, I suppose, and wouldn't thank you for playing Actaeon
to the naked Diana of his midnight musings. Come, 'tis bedtime; or do you
want to finish Sternberg's 'Herr von Mondschein'? It is _a propos_, and I
see your book is opened to the very place."

[To be continued.]

* * * * *

JAPAN.

The arrival in this country of an embassy from Japan, the first political
delegation ever vouchsafed to a foreign nation by that reticent and jealous
people, is now a topic of universal interest. It is well understood, that,
by the efforts of the government of the United States, the traditional
policy of Japan, which for more than two hundred years forbade all freedom
of intercourse with the surrounding world, has been so effectively
subverted that its reestablishment is now impossible. Within eight years
the barriers of Japanese seclusion have been removed, and the extreme
prejudice against foreign communications almost obliterated. That this has
been accomplished with a prudent and just regard for the rights and
feelings of this singular race, the appointment of an embassy to the
particular government which first successfully invaded its long cherished
privacy abundantly proves.

The countries of Japan and China, and everything directly concerning them,
have always claimed a peculiar consideration. Their self-imposed isolation,
the mystery with which they have sought to surround themselves, the
extraordinary habits and character of the people, the evidences of an
earlier civilization in China--formerly supposed also to have extended to
Japan--than is recorded of any other existing nation, account for the
curious attention that has been bestowed upon them. Although now known to
be entirely distinct, the Chinese and Japanese, by reason of the similarity
of their occupations, customs, religion, written language, dress, and so
forth, were for a long time looked upon as kindred races, and esteemed
alike. Probably even at this time popular appreciation makes little
distinction between the two countries. But since the necessities of
commerce have recently compelled a somewhat vigorous interference with
their seclusion, we begin to get a clearer understanding of the subject. We
find, that, while, on close examination, the imagined attractions of China
disappear, those of Japan become only more definite and substantial. The
old interest in China is transferred to its worthier neighbor; for, in
spite of all Celestial and Flowery preconceptions, it is impossible to view
with any sincere interest a nation so palsied, so corrupt, so wretchedly
degraded, and so enfeebled by misgovernment, as to be already more than
half sunk in decay; while, on the other hand, the real vigor, thrift, and
intelligence of Japan, its great and still advancing power, and the rich
promise of its future are such as to reward the most attentive study. Its
commanding position, its wealth, its commercial resources, and the quick
intelligence of its people--not at all inferior to that of the people of
the West, although naturally restricted in its development--give to Japan,
now that it is about to emerge from its chrysalis condition, and unfold
itself to the outer world, an importance far above that of any other
Eastern country.

We propose to relate, with necessary brevity, what is most important of the
little that is known of this interesting people. All records bearing upon
the subject are imperfect, and the best of them are more profuse in
speculation and surmise than in solid fact. The information possessed has
been drawn bit by bit from the reluctant Japanese. The difficulties of
investigation have been almost insurmountable,--no visitor, during two
hundred years, having been allowed the slightest freedom of association
with the people, or opportunity for travel. With very few exceptions,
foreigners have been confined to the extremest limit of the islands, and
forbidden even to leave the coast; and in no case has any disposition been
shown to satisfy the curious demands of those who have attempted to break
through the national reserve.

The origin of the Japanese is still involved in obscurity, and the date of
the settlement of the islands is unknown. The boldest theory is, that a
tribe proceeded thither directly from the land of Shinar, at the division
of the races. In support of this, the purity of the Japanese language,
which, in its primitive form, bears very slight affinity to any other
tongue, and the evident dissimilarity of the people to those of any other
Asiatic country, are adduced. The more general belief is, that the Japanese
are an offshoot of the Mongol family, and that their emigration to these
islands was at so remote a period that tradition has preserved no
recollection of it. The favorite idea, that the first settlements were by
Chinese, has long been set aside, except by the Chinese themselves, whose
custom is to claim the origin of everything, and who still assume to
consider Japan as a sort of province under their dominion. The fact is,
that, to the Japanese, a Chinaman is the most worthless and contemptible
object in Nature. The Chinese have, however, a fanciful legend in which
they find an irresistible argument upon their side of the question. A
certain Emperor, they say, seeking to prolong his life, demanded of the
court physician an elixir of immortality. The physician modestly declared
his ignorance of any such preparation, but, after receiving a significant
hint, involving the loss of his head, recollected himself, and acknowledged
that an herb of immortality did certainly exist, but that its delicacy was
so rare it could be properly culled only by the most chaste hands. He thus
succeeded in securing three hundred brave young men, and the same number of
virtuous young women, whose twelve hundred chaste hands were at once
consecrated to the plucking of the magical plant, which was declared to
grow only in the islands of the sea. Once out of the Emperor's reach, all
thought of the particular duty in hand was instantly abolished, and
superseded by a successful effort to establish a new nation, which in time
resolved itself into Japan.

This, although satisfactory to the Chinese, fails to convince less
credulous investigators. While the Japanese and Chinese have, perhaps, more
common characteristics than can be readily explained with our present
knowledge of them, yet no fact is better demonstrated than that they are
wholly distinct races. There is an opinion, for which there is reasonable
ground, that one of the earliest rulers of Japan was a Chinese invader, who
founded the dynasty of the Mikados, or Spiritual Emperors; but, if this
were so, it is evident that the conquerors must have mingled with the
native inhabitants, and soon lost their identity. This would in a measure
account for the prevalence of certain Chinese habits and customs in Japan.
The question of Japanese origin remains yet undecided. Its earlier history,
previous to the year 660 B.C., is mostly fabulous. There are the usual
legends of dignitaries in close relationship with every member of the solar
system, who were accustomed to reign an indefinite number of
years,--generally some thousands. Beginning with 660 B.C., we have
something authentic. At that time a warrior whose name signified "the
divine conqueror"--(the supposed Chinese invader)--entered Japan, and
assumed the control of its destinies. He called himself "Mikado," and
established his court at Miako, in Nipon, the largest of the group of
islands, where he built temples and palaces, both spiritual and
secular. Claiming to rule by divine right, he exercised the sole functions
of the government, which, upon his death, descended to his heir, and
thenceforward in direct order of succession. The Mikado, by reason of his
superhuman dignities, was invested with a sanctity that gradually became
irksome, shutting him out, as it did, from all fellowship with men, and
compelling him to forego all familiar intercourse with even the highest
nobles around his throne. Consequently arose the custom of abdication at a
very early age by the Mikados, in favor of their children, for whom they
acted as regents, circulating freely, upon their descent to mere mundane
authority, with the rest of the court. By this course, however, the
integrity of the government was weakened, and, dissensions arising, the
stability of the throne was endangered by the agressions of some of the
more powerful princes. In the twelfth century, it happened that a Mikado,
particularly alive to the vanities of the world, not only gave up his
station to his son, then three years old, but also renounced the labors of
the regency, which were intrusted to the infant monarch's grandfather,
whose first exercise of power was the immediate imprisonment of the
abdicator. This was worse than had been bargained for, and a contest
ensued, which terminated in favor of the ex-Mikado, owing to the valor of a
young warrior prince named Yoritomo. The prisoner was released, and himself
assumed the regency; but from that moment the strength of the Mikados was
gone. Yoritomo, having demonstrated that his power was superior to that of
the spiritual lord, demanded and obtained the rank and title of
"Ziogoon",--General, or General-in-Chief. He at first divided with the
Mikado the duties of the government, but by degrees succeeded in
concentrating in himself the real supremacy. From him descended the
temporal sovereignty of Japan, which has ever since overbalanced the
spiritual authority, although the first nominal rank is still accorded to
the Mikado.

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