The following three poems appeared some months ago in an
reaching a large circulation, and which
is now extinct. It con-
tained the writings of some of those
younger men who will win
fame for themselves, if they live, and who,
if they die before fame
comes to them, will have had what is better
than fame. These
poems show such power of expression, such depth of
sentiment,
such force of imagination, as are rarely found in modern
verse.
They were written by one of the leaders of the
Pre-Raphaelite
school in painting, and they are an interesting
illustration of the
imaginative tendencies, and of the tone, the
thought and feeling
which pervade that school.
[
“Burden. Heavy calamity; the chorus of a
song.”—Dictionary.
Nivevehis printed rather than
Nineveh.
“How should I your true love know
From another
one?
By his cockle-hat and staff
And his
sandal-shoon.”
Before any knowledge of painting was brought
to
Florence, there were already painters in Lucca, and Pisa,
and
Arezzo, who feared God and loved the art. The keen,
grave workmen
from Greece, whose trade it was to sell
their own works in Italy and
teach Italians to imitate
them, had already found in rivals of the
soil a skill that
could forestall their lessons and cheapen their
crucifixes
and addolorate
came at all
into Florence. The preëminence to which
Cimabue was
raised at once by his contemporaries, and
which he still retains to
a wide extent even in the modern
mind, is to be accounted for,
partly by the circumstances
under which he arose, and partly by
that extraordinary
purpose of fortune born with the lives of some few,
and
through which it is not a little thing for any who went
before,
if they are even remembered as the shadows of the coming
of
such an one, and the voices which prepared his way in the
wil-
derness. It is thus, almost exclusively, that the
painters
of whom I speak are now known. They have left
little,
and but little heed is taken of that which men hold
to
have been surpassed; it is gone like time gone—a
track
of dust and dead leaves that merely led to the fountain.
Nevertheless, of very late years, and in very rare in-
stances, some
signs of a better understanding have become
manifest. A case in
point is that of the tryptic and two
cruciform pictures at Dresden,
by Chiaro di Messer Bello
dell' Erma, to which the eloquent
pamphlet of Dr. Aemms-
ter has at length succeeded in attracting
the students.
There is another still more solemn and beautiful work
now
proved to be by the same hand, in the gallery at
Florence.
It is the one to which my narrative will relate.
This Chiaro dell' Erma was a young man of very honor-
able family in
Arezzo; where, conceiving art almost, as it
were, for himself, and
loving it deeply, he endeavored from
early boyhood towards the
imitation of any objects offered
in nature. The extreme longing
after a visible embodiment
of his thoughts strengthened as his
years increased, more
even than his sinews or the blood of his
life; until he
would feel faint in sunsets and at the sight of
stately per-
sons. When he had lived nineteen years, he heard of
the
famous Giunta Pisano; and, feeling much of admiration,
with, perhaps, a little of that envy which youth always
feels
until it has learned to measure success by time and
opportunity, he determined that he would seek out Giunta,
and, if possible, become his pupil.
Having arrived in Pisa, he clothed himself in humble
apparel, being
unwilling that any other thing than the de-
sire he had for
knowledge should be his plea with the great
painter; and then,
leaving his baggage at a house of enter-
tainment, he took his way
along the street, asking whom
he met for the lodgings of Giunta. It
soon chanced that
one of that city, conceiving him to be a stranger
and poor,
took him into his house, and refreshed him; afterwards
directing him on his way.
When he was brought to speech of Giunta, he said
merely that he was
a student, and that nothing in the
world was so much at his heart
as to become that which he
had heard told of him with whom he was
speaking. He
was received with courtesy and consideration, and
shown
into the study of the famous artist. But the forms he saw
there were lifeless and incomplete; and a sudden exultation
possessed him, as he said within himself, “I am the
master
of this man.” The blood came at first into his
face, but the
next moment he was quite pale and fell to trembling.
He was
able, however, to conceal his emotion; speaking very little
to Giunta, but when he took his leave, thanking him
respectfully.
After this, Chiaro's first resolve was, that he would work
out
thoroughly some one of his thoughts, and let the world
know him.
But the lesson which he had now learned, of
how small a greatness
might win fame, and how little there
was to strive against, served
to make him torpid, and ren-
dered his exertions less continual.
Also Pisa was a larger
and more luxurious city than Arezzo; and,
when in his
walks he saw the great gardens laid out for pleasure,
and
the beautiful women who passed to and fro, and heard the
music that was in the groves of the city at evening, he was
taken with wonder that he had never claimed his share of
the
inheritance of those years in which his youth was cast.
And women
loved Chiaro; for, in despite of the burden of
study, he was
well-favored and very manly in his walking;
and, seeing his face in
front, there was a glory upon it, as
upon the face of one who feels
a light round his hair.
So he put thought from him, and partook of his life.
But one night,
being in a certain company of ladies, a gentle-
man that was there
with him began to speak of the paintings
of a certain youth named
Bonaventura, which he had seen
in Lucca; adding that Giunta Pisano
might now look for
a rival. When Chiaro heard this, the lamps shook
before
him, and the music beat in his ears and made him giddy.
He rose up, alleging a sudden sickness, and went out of
that
house with his teeth set. And the same night he
wrote up inside his
door the name of Bonaventura, that it
might stop him when he would
go out.
He now took to work diligently; not returning to Arezzo,
only living
entirely to himself. Sometimes, after nightfall,
he would walk
abroad in the most solitary places he could
find; hardly feeling the
ground under him, because of the
thoughts of the day which held him
in fever.
The lodging he had chosen was in a house that looked
upon gardens
fast by the Church of San Rocco. During
the offices, as he sat at
work, he could hear the music of the
organ and the long murmur that
the chanting left; and if
his window were open, sometimes, at those
parts of the
mass where there is a silence throughout the church,
his ear
caught faintly the single voice of the priest. Beside the
matters of his art and a very few books, almost the only ob-
ject to be noticed in Chiaro's room was a small consecrated
image of St. Mary Virgin, wrought out of silver, before
which
stood always, in summer-time, a glass containing a
lily and a rose.
It was here, and at this time, that Chiaro painted the
Dresden
pictures; as also, in all likelihood, the one—infe-
rior
in merit, but certainly his—which is now at Munich.
For
the most part, he was calm and regular in his manner
of study;
though often he would remain at work through
the whole of a day,
not resting once so long as the light
lasted; flushed, and with the
hair from his face. Or, at
times, when he could not paint, he would
sit for hours in
thought of all the greatness the world had known
from of
old; until he was weak with yearning, like one who gazes
upon a path of stars.
He continued in this patient endeavor for about three
years, at the
end of which his name was spoken throughout
all Tuscany. As his
fame waxed, he began to be employed,
besides easel-pictures, upon
paintings in fresco: but I be-
lieve that no traces remain to us of
any of these latter.
He is said to have painted in the Duomo: and
D'Agin-
court mentions having seen some portions of a fresco by
him which originally had its place above the high altar in
the
Church of the Certosa; but which, at the time he saw it,
being very
dilapidated, had been hewn out of the wall, and
was preserved in
the stores of the convent. Before the
period of Dr. Aemmster's
researches, however, it had been
entirely destroyed.
Chiaro was now famous. It was for the race of fame
that he had
girded up his loins: and he had not paused
until fame was reached:
yet now, in taking breath, he
found that the weight was still at
his heart. The years
of his labor had fallen from him, and his life
was still in its
first painful desire.
With all that Chiaro had done during these three years,
and even
before, with the studies of his early youth, there
had always been
a feeling of worship and service. It was
the peace-offering that he
made to God and to his own soul
for the eager selfishness of his
aim. There was earth, in-
deed, upon the hem of his raiment: but
this was of the
heaven, heavenly. He had
seasons when he could endure to
think of no other feature of his
hope than this: and some-
times, in the ecstasy of prayer, it had
even seemed to him to
behold that day when his mistress—his mystical lady
(now
hardly in her ninth year, but whose solemn smile at meet-
ing had already lighted on his soul like the dove of the
Trinity)—even she, his own gracious and holy Italian
art—
with her virginal bosom, and her unfathomable eyes,
and
the thread of sunlight round her brows— should pass,
through the sun that never sets, into the circle of the
shadow
of the tree of life, and be seen of God, and found
good: and then
it had seemed to him, that he, with many
who, since his coming, had
joined the band of whom
he was one (for, in his dream, the body he
had worn on
earth had been dead a hundred years), were permitted to
gather round the blessed maiden, and worship with her
through
all ages and ages of ages, saying, Holy, holy, holy.
This thing he
had seen with the eyes of his spirit; and in
this thing had
trusted, believing that it would surely come
to pass.
But now (being at length led to inquire closely into
himself), even
as, in pursuit of fame, the unrest abiding
after attainment had
proved to him that he had misinterpreted
the craving of his own
spirit—so also, now that he would
willingly have fallen
back on devotion, he became aware
that much of that reverence which
he had mistaken for
faith had been no more than the worship of
beauty. There-
fore, after certain days passed in perplexity,
Chiaro said
within himself, “My life and my will are yet
before me: I
will take another aim to my life.”
From that moment Chiaro set a watch on his soul, and
put his hand to
no other works but only to such as had for
their end the
presentment of some moral greatness that
should impress the
beholder: and, in doing this, he did not
choose for his medium the
action and passion of human life,
but cold symbolism and abstract
impersonation. So the
people ceased to throng about his pictures as
heretofore;
and, when they were carried through town and town to
their
destination, they were no longer delayed by the crowds
eager to gaze and admire: and no prayers or offerings were
brought to them on their path, as to his Madonnas and his
Saints, and his Holy Children. Only the critical audience
remained to him; and these, in default of more worthy
matter,
would have turned their scrutiny on a puppet or a
mantle.
Meanwhile, he had no more of fever upon him;
but was calm and pale
each day in all that he did and in
his goings in and out. The works
he produced at this time
have perished—in all
likelihood, not unjustly. It is said
(and we may easily
believe it), that, though more labored
than his former
pictures, they were cold and unemphatic;
bearing marked out upon
them, as they must certainly have
done, the measure of that
boundary to which they were
made to conform.
And the weight was still close to Chiaro's heart: but he
held in his
breath, never resting (for he was afraid), and
would not know it.
Now it happened, within these days, that there fell a
great feast in
Pisa, for holy matters: and each man left his
occupation; and all
theguilds and companies of the city were
scarcely any
that stayed in the houses, except ladies who
lay or sat along their
balconies between open windows
which let the breeze beat through the
rooms and over the
spread tables from end to end. And the golden
cloths that
their arms lay upon drew all eyes upward to see
their
beauty; and the day was long; and every hour of the
day
was bright with the sun.
So Chiaro's model, when he awoke that morning on the
hot pavement of
the Piazza Nunziata, and saw the hurry
of people that passed him,
got up and went along with
them; and Chiaro waited for him in vain.
For the whole of that morning, the music was in Chiaro's
room from
the church close at hand: and he could hear
the sounds that the
crowd made in the streets; hushed only
at long intervals while the
processions for the feast-day
chanted in going under his windows.
Also, more than
once, there was a high clamor from the meeting of
factious
persons: for the ladies of both leagues were looking down;
and he who encountered his enemy could not choose but
draw
upon him. Chiaro waited a long time idle; and then
knew that his
model was gone elsewhere. When at his
work, he was blind and deaf
to all else; but he feared
sloth; for then his stealthy thoughts
would begin, as it
were, to beat round and round him, seeking a
point for
attack. He now rose, therefore, and went to the window.
It was within a short space of noon; and underneath him
a
throng of people was coming out through the porch of
San Rocco.
The two greatest houses of the feud in Pisa had filled the
church
for that mass. The first to leave had been the
Gherghiotti; who,
stopping on the threshold, had fallen
back in ranks along each side
of the archway: so that now,
in passing outward, the Marotoli had
to walk between two
files of men whom they hated, and whose fathers
had hated
theirs. All the chiefs were there and their whole ad-
herence; and each knew the name of each. Every
man of the
Marotoli, as he came forth and saw his foes,
laid back his hood and
gazed about him, to show the
badge upon the close cap that held his
hair. And of the
Gherghiotti there were some who tightened their
girdles;
and some shrilled and threw up their wrists scornfully,
as who flies a falcon; for that was the crest of their house.
On the walls within the entry, were a number of tall,
narrow
frescoes, presenting a moral allegory of Peace,
which Chiaro had
painted that year for the church. The
Gherghiotti stood with their
backs to these frescoes: and
among them Golzo Ninuccio, the
youngest noble of the
faction called by the people Golaghiotta, for
his debased
life. This youth had remained for some while talking
list-
lessly to his fellows, though with his sleepy sunken eyes
fixed on them who passed: but now, seeing that no man
jostled
another, he drew the long silver shoe off his foot,
and struck the
dust out of it on the cloak of him who was
going by, asking him how
far the tides rose at Viderza.
And he said so because it was three
months since, at that
place, the Gherghiotti had beaten the Marotoli to the
sands,
and held them there while the sea came in; whereby
many had been
drowned. And, when he had spoken, at
once the whole archway was
dazzling with the light of con-
fused swords; and they who had left
turned back; and
they who were still behind made haste to come
forth: and
there was so much blood cast up the walls on a sudden,
that it ran in long streams down Chiaro's paintings.
Chiaro turned himself from the window; for the light
felt dry
between his lids, and he could not look. He sat
down and heard the
noise of contention driven out of the
church-porch and a great way
through the streets; and
soon there was a deep murmur that heaved
and waxed
from the other side of the city, where those of both
parties
were gathering to join in the tumult.
Chiaro sat with his face in his open hands. Once again
he had wished
to set his foot on a place that looked green
and fertile; and once
again it seemed to him that the thin
rank mask was about to spread
away, and that this time
the chill of the water must leave leprosy
in his flesh. The
light still swam in his head, and bewildered him
at first;
but when he knew his thoughts they were these:
“Fame failed me: faith failed me: and now this
also,—
the hope that I nourished in this my generation
of men,—
shall pass from me, and leave my feet and my
hands gro-
ping. Yet, because of this, are my feet become slow and
my hands thin. I am as one who, through the whole
night,
holding his way diligently, hath smitten the steel
unto the flint,
to lead some whom he knew darkling; who
hath kept his eyes always
on the sparks that himself made,
lest they should fail; and who,
towards dawn, turning to
bid them that he had guided God speed,
sees the wet grass
untrodden except of his own feet. I am as the
last hour
of the day, whose chimes are a perfect number;whom the
next followeth not, nor light ensueth from him; but in the
same darkness is the old order begun afresh. Men say,
‘This is not God nor man; he is not as we are, neither
above us; let him sit beneath us, for we are many.’
Where
I write Peace, in that spot is the drawing of swords, and
there men's footprints are red. When I would sow, an-
other
harvest is ripe. Nay, it is much worse with me than
thus much. Am I
not as a cloth drawn before the light,
that the looker may not be
blinded; but which sheweth
thereby the grain of its own coarseness;
so that the light
seems defiled, and men say, ‘We will
not walk by it.’
Wherefore through me they shall be
doubly accursed, see-
ing that through me they reject the light.
May one be a
devil, and not know it?”
As Chiaro was in these thoughts, the fever encroached
slowly on his
veins, till he could sit no longer, and would
have risen; but
suddenly he found awe within him, and
held his head bowed, without
stirring. The warmth of the
air was not shaken; but there seemed a
pulse in the light,
and a living freshness like rain. The silence
was a painful
music, that made the blood ache in his temples; and
he
lifted his face and his deep eyes.
A woman was present in his room, clad to the hands and
feet with a
green and grey raiment, fashioned to that time.
It seemed that the
first thoughts he had ever known were
given him as at first from
her eyes, and he knew her hair
to be the golden veil through which
he beheld his dreams.
Though her hands were joined, her face was
not lifted, but
set forward; and though the gaze was austere, yet
her
mouth was supreme in gentleness. And as he looked,
Chiaro's spirit appeared abashed of its own intimate pre-
sence, and his lips shook with the thrill of tears; it
seemed
such a bitter while till the spirit might be indeed
alone.
She did not move closer towards him, but he felt her to
be as much
with him as his breath. He was like one who,
scaling a great
steepness, hears his own voice echoed in
some place much higher
than he can see, and the name of
which is not known to him. As the
woman stood, her
speech was with Chiaro: not, as it were, from her
mouth
or in his ears; but distinctly between them.
“I am an image, Chiaro, of thine own soul within thee.
See me, and know me as I am. Thou sayest that fame has
failed
thee, and faith failed thee; but because at least thou
hast not
laid thy life unto riches, therefore, though thus
late, I am
suffered to come into thy knowledge. Fame
sufficed not, for that
thou didst seek fame: seek thine own
conscience (not thy
mind's conscience, but thine heart's),
and all shall
approve and suffice. For Fame, in noble soils,
is a fruit of the
Spring: but not therefore should it be
said: ‘Lo! my
garden that I planted is barren; the
crocus is here, but the lily
is dead in the dry ground, and
shall not lift the earth that covers
it: therefore I will fling
my garden together, and give it unto the
builders.’ Take
heed rather that thou trouble not the
wise secret earth;
for in the mould that thou throwest up shall the
first ten-
der growth lie to waste, which else had been made strong
in its season. Yea, and even if the year fall past in all its
months, and the soil be indeed to thee peevish and incapa-
ble, and though thou indeed gather all thy harvest, and it
suffice for others, and thou remain vext with emptiness;
and
others drink of thy streams, and the drouth rasp thy
throat;—let it be enough that these have found the feast
good, and thanked the giver; remembering that, when the
winter
is striven through, there is another year, whose wind
is meek, and
whose sun fulfilleth all.”
While he heard, Chiaro went slowly on his knees. It
was not to her
that spoke, for the speech seemed within
him and his own. The air
brooded in sunshine, and though
the turmoil was great outside, the
air within was at peace.
But when he looked in her eyes, he wept.
And she came
to him, and cast her hair over him, and took her hands
about his forehead, and spoke again:
“Thou hast said,” she continued, gently,
“that faith
failed thee. This cannot be so. Either thou
hadst it
not, or thou hast it. But who bade thee strike the point
betwixt love and faith? Wouldst thou sift the warm
breeze from
the sun that quickens it? Who bade thee
turn upon God, and say: ‘Behold, my offering is of
earth,
and not worthy: thy fire comes not upon it; therefore,
though I slay not my brother, whom thou acceptest, I will
depart before thou smite me.’ Why shouldst thou rise up
and tell God He is not content? Had He, of his warrant,
certified so to thee? Be not nice to seek out division;
but
possess thy love in sufficiency: assuredly this is faith,
for the
heart must believe first. What He hath set in
thine heart to do,
that do thou; and even though thou do
it without thought of Him, it
shall be well done; it is this
sacrifice that He asketh of thee,
and His flame is upon it
for a sign. Think not of Him, but of His
love and thy
love. For God is no morbid exactor; He hath no hand
to bow beneath, nor a foot, that thou shouldst kiss it.”
And Chiaro held silence, and wept into her hair which
covered his
face; and the salt tears that he shed ran
through her hair upon his
lips; and he tasted the bitter-
ness of shame.
Then the fair woman, that was his soul, spoke again to
him, saying:
“And for this thy last purpose, and for those unprofit-
able truths of thy teaching,—thine heart hath already
put
them away, and it needs not that I lay my bidding upon
thee. How is it that thou, a man, wouldst say coldly to
the
mind what God hath said to the heart warmly? Thy
will was honest
and wholesome; but look well lest this
also be folly—to
say, ‘I, in doing this, do strengthen God
among
men.’ When, at any time, hath he cried unto thee,
saying, ‘My son, lend me thy shoulder, for I
fall?’ Deemest
thou that the men who enter God's temple
in malice, to the
provoking of blood, and neither for his love nor
for his
wrath will abate their purpose,—shall afterwards
stand with
thee in the porch, midway between Him and themselves, to
give ear unto thy thin voice, which merely the fall of their
visors can drown, and to see thy hands, stretched feebly,
tremble among their swords? Give thou to God no more
than he
asketh of thee; but to man also that which is
man's. In all that
thou doest, work from thine own heart,
simply; for his heart is as
thine, when thine is wise and
humble; and he shall have
understanding of thee. One
drop of rain is as another, and the
sun's prism in all: and
shalt not thou be as he, whose lives are
the breath of One?
Only by making thyself his equal can he learn to
hold com-
munion with thee, and at last own thee above him. Not
till thou lean over the water shalt thou see thine image
therein: stand erect, and it shall slope from thy feet and
be
lost. Know that there is but this means whereby thou
mayest serve
God with man:—set thine hand and thy soul
to serve man
with God.”
And when she that spoke had said these words within
Chiaro's
spirit,she left his side quietly, and stood up as he
had first seen
her, with her fingers laid together, and her
eyes stedfast, and
with the breadth of her long dress cover-
ing her feet on the
floor. And, speaking again, she said:
“Chiaro, servant of God, take now thine art unto thee,
and paint me thus, as I am, to know me: weak, as I am,
out labor,
and with a faith, not learned, yet jealous of
prayer. Do this; so
shall thy soul stand before thee
always, and perplex thee no
more.”
And Chiaro did as she bade him. While he worked, his
face grew
solemn with knowledge; and before the shadows
had turned, his work
was done. Having finished, he lay
back where he sat, and was asleep
immediately; for the
growth of that strong sunset was heavy about
him, and he
felt weak and haggard; like one just come out of a
dusk,
hollow country, bewildered with echoes, where he had lost
himself, and who has not slept for many days and nights.
And
when she saw him lie back, the beautiful woman came
to him, and sat
at his head, gazing, and quieted his sleep
with her voice.
The tumult of the factions had endured all that day
through all
Pisa, though Chiaro had not heard it; and the
last service of that
feast was a mass sung at midnight from
the windows of all the
churches for the many dead who lay
about the city, and who had to
be buried before morning,
because of the extreme heats.
In the spring of 1847 I was at Florence. Such as were
there at the
same time with myself—those, at least, to
whom Art is
something— will certainly recollect how many
rooms of
the Gallery were closed through that season, in
order that some of
the pictures they contained might be
examined and repaired without
the necessity of removal.
The hall, the staircases, and the vast
central suite of apart-
ments, were the only accessible portions;
and in these such
paintings as they could admit from the sealed penetralia
were profanely huddled together, without respect of dates,
schools, or persons.
I fear that, through this interdict, I may have missed
seeing many
of the best pictures. I do not mean only the
most
talked of, for these, as they were restored, generally
found their
way somehow into the open rooms, owing to
the clamors raised by the
students; and I remember how
old Ercoli's, the curator's,
spectacles used to be mirrored in
the reclaimed surface, as he
leaned mysteriously over these
works with some of the visitors, to
scrutinize and eluci-
date.
One picture that I saw that spring I shall not easily for-
get. It
was among those, I believe, brought from the
other rooms, and had
been hung, obviously out of all chro-
nology, immediately beneath
that head by Raphael so long
known as the
“Berrettino,” and now said to be the por-
trait of Cecco Ciulli.
The picture I speak of is a small one, and represents
merely the
figure of a woman, clad to the hands and feet
with a green and grey
raiment, chaste and early in its
fashion, but exceedingly simple.
She is standing: her
hands are held together lightly, and her eyes
set earnestly
open.
The face and hands in this picture, though wrought with
great
delicacy, have the appearance of being painted at
once, in a single sitting; the drapery is unfinished. As
soon
as I saw the figure, it drew an awe upon me like
water in shadow. I
shall not attempt to describe it more
than I have already done: for
the most absorbing wonder
of it was its literality. You knew that
figure, when
painted, had been seen; yet it was not a thing to be
seen
of men. This language will appear ridiculous to such as
have never looked on the work, and it may be even to some
among those who have.
ceived in one corner of the canvas the words Manus Ani- mam pinxit,*
I turned to my catalogue, but that was useless, for the
pictures
were all displaced. I then stepped up to the
Cavaliere Ercoli, who
was in the room at the moment, and
asked him regarding the subject
and authorship of the
painting. He treated the matter, I thought,
somewhat
slightingly, and said that he could show me the reference
in the catalogue, which he had compiled.
found, was not of much value, as it merely said,
“
d'autore
incerto,
have prolonged my inquiry, in the hope that it might
some-
how lead to some result; but I had disturbed the curator
from certain yards of Guido, and he was not communica-
tive. I
went back therefore, and stood before the picture
till it grew
dusk.
The next day I was there again, but this time a circle of
students
was round the spot, all copying the “Berrettino.”
I contrived, however, to find a place whence I could see my
picture, and where I seemed to be in nobody's way. For
some
minutes I remained undisturbed; and then I heard,
in an English
voice: “Might I beg of you, sir, to stand a
little more
to this side, as you interrupt my view.”
I felt vext, for, standing where he asked me, a glare
struck on the
picture from the windows, and I could
not see it. However, the
request was reasonably made, and
from a countryman, so I complied,
and turning away, stood
by his easel. I knew it was not worth
while, yet I referred
in some way to the work underneath the one he
was copy-
ing. He did not laugh, but he smiled as we do in Eng-
land: “Veryodd, is it not?”
said he.
The other students near us were all continental; and
seeing an
Englishman select an Englishman to speak with,
conceived, I
suppose, that he could understand no language
but his own. They had
evidently been noticing the inte-
rest which the little picture
appeared to excite in me.
One of them, an Italian, said something to another who * The Hand painted the Soul. † Sketch by an unknown artist. ‡ I should here say, that in the catalogue for the
year just over,
stood next to
him. He spoke with a Genoese accent,
and
(owing, as in cases before mentioned, to
the zeal and enthusiasm of
Dr. Aemmster), this, and several
other pictures, have been more com-
petently entered. The
work in question is now placed in the Sala Sessagona
described as “
by Chiaro dell'
Erma] and there is a brief notice of the author ap-
pended.
plied the other, lifting his
eyebrows towards the figure;
“
glia alle nebbie di lá.
There was a general laugh. My compatriot was evi-
dently a novice in
the language, and did not take in what
was said. I remained silent,
being amused.
to a student, whose birthplace was unmistakable, even
had
he been addressed in any other language:
“
ce
genre-là?
his
easel, and looking at me and at the figure, quite po-
litely,
though with an evident reservation: “
cher, que c'est une
spécialité dont je me fiche pas mal. Je
tiens que quand on ne comprend pas une chose, c'est qu'
elle ne signifie
rien.
My reader thinks possibly that the French student was right.
* What do I know?
† A mystical affair; these English are fools about
mysticism: it
esembles the fogs over there. It makes them think
of their country.
‡ And touches their heart [with remembrance of] the day
when
they said to their sweet friends farewell.
§ Of the night, you mean.
|| And you, now; what do you say of this sort of thing?
¶ I say that it is a speciality which I cannot well get
into my head. I hold
that when one does not understand a thing,
it is because there
is no meaning in it.