Amours de Voyage | Page 4

in all thy recenter efforts,
Is a something, I think, more RATIONAL
far, more earthly,
Actual, less ideal, devout not in scorn and refusal,

But in a positive, calm, Stoic-Epicurean acceptance.
This I begin to
detect in St. Peter's and some of the churches,
Mostly in all that I see
of the sixteenth-century masters;
Overlaid of course with infinite
gauds and gewgaws,
Innocent, playful follies, the toys and trinkets of
childhood,
Forced on maturer years, as the serious one thing needful,

By the barbarian will of the rigid and ignorant Spaniard.
Curious
work, meantime, re-entering society: how we
Walk a livelong day,
great Heaven, and watch our shadows!
What our shadows seem,

forsooth, we will ourselves be.
Do I look like that? you think me that:
then I AM that.
V. Claude to Eustace.
Luther, they say, was unwise; like a half-taught German, he could not

See that old follies were passing most tranquilly out of remembrance;

Leo the Tenth was employing all efforts to clear out abuses;
Jupiter,
Juno, and Venus, Fine Arts, and Fine Letters, the Poets,
Scholars, and
Sculptors, and Painters, were quietly clearing away the
Martyrs, and
Virgins, and Saints, or at any rate Thomas Aquinas:
He must forsooth
make a fuss and distend his huge Wittenberg lungs, and
Bring back
Theology once yet again in a flood upon Europe:
Lo you, for forty
days from the windows of heaven it fell; the
Waters prevail on the
earth yet more for a hundred and fifty;
Are they abating at last? the
doves that are sent to explore are
Wearily fain to return, at the best
with a leaflet of promise,--
Fain to return, as they went, to the
wandering wave-tost vessel,--
Fain to re-enter the roof which covers
the clean and the unclean,--
Luther, they say, was unwise; he didn't
see how things were going;
Luther was foolish,--but, O great God!
what call you Ignatius?
O my tolerant soul, be still! but you talk of
barbarians,
Alaric, Attila, Genseric;--why, they came, they killed,
they
Ravaged, and went on their way; but these vile, tyrannous
Spaniards,
These are here still,--how long, O ye heavens, in the
country of Dante?
These, that fanaticized Europe, which now can
forget them, release not
This, their choicest of prey, this Italy; here
you see them,--
Here, with emasculate pupils and gimcrack churches
of Gesu,
Pseudo-learning and lies, confessional-boxes and postures,--

Here, with metallic beliefs and regimental devotions,--
Here,
overcrusting with slime, perverting, defacing, debasing,
Michael
Angelo's Dome, that had hung the Pantheon in heaven,
Raphael's
Joys and Graces, and thy clear stars, Galileo!
VI. Claude to Eustace.

Which of three Misses Trevellyn it is that Vernon shall marry
Is not a
thing to be known; for our friend is one of those natures
Which have
their perfect delight in the general tender-domestic,
So that he trifles
with Mary's shawl, ties Susan's bonnet,
Dances with all, but at home
is most, they say, with Georgina,
Who is, however, TOO silly in my
apprehension for Vernon.
I, as before when I wrote, continue to see
them a little;
Not that I like them much or care a bajocco for Vernon,

But I am slow at Italian, have not many English acquaintance,
And
I am asked, in short, and am not good at excuses.
Middle-class people
these, bankers very likely, not wholly
Pure of the taint of the shop;
will at table d'hote and restaurant
Have their shilling's worth, their
penny's pennyworth even:
Neither man's aristocracy this, nor God's,
God knoweth!
Yet they are fairly descended, they give you to know,
well connected;
Doubtless somewhere in some neighbourhood have,
and are careful to keep, some
Threadbare-genteel relations, who in
their turn are enchanted
Grandly among county people to introduce at
assemblies
To the unpennied cadets our cousins with excellent
fortunes.
Neither man's aristocracy this, nor God's, God knoweth!
VII. Claude to Eustace.
Ah, what a shame, indeed, to abuse these most worthy people!
Ah,
what a sin to have sneered at their innocent rustic pretensions!
Is it
not laudable really, this reverent worship of station?
Is it not fitting
that wealth should tender this homage to culture?
Is it not touching to
witness these efforts, if little availing,
Painfully made, to perform the
old ritual service of manners?
Shall not devotion atone for the
absence of knowledge? and fervour
Palliate, cover, the fault of a
superstitious observance?
Dear, dear, what do I say? but, alas! just
now, like Iago,
I can be nothing at all, if it is not critical wholly;
So
in fantastic height, in coxcomb exaltation,
Here in the garden I walk,
can freely concede to the Maker
That the works of His hand are all
very good: His creatures,
Beast of the field and fowl, He brings them

before me; I name them;
That which I name them, they are,--the bird,
the beast, and the cattle.
But for Adam,--alas, poor critical coxcomb
Adam!
But for Adam there is not found an help-meet for him.
VIII. Claude to Eustace.
No, great Dome of Agrippa, thou art not Christian! canst not,
Strip
and replaster and daub and do what they will with thee, be so!
Here
underneath the great porch of colossal Corinthian columns,
Here as I
walk, do I dream of the Christian