Horace and His Influence | Page 4

he was growing mellower and
better with advancing years, his black hair was more than evenly
mingled with grey. The naturally dark and probably not too
finely-textured skin of face and expansive forehead was deepened by
the friendly breezes of both city and country to the vigorous golden
brown of the Italian. Feature and eye held the mirror up to a spirit quick
to anger but plenteous in good-nature. Altogether, Horace was a short,
rotund man, smiling but serious, of nothing very remarkable either in
appearance or in manner, and with a look of the plain citizen. Of all the
ancients who have left no material likeness, he is the least difficult to
know in person.
We see him in a carriage or at the shows with Maecenas, the Emperor's
fastidious counsellor. We have charming glimpses of him enjoying in
company the hospitable shade of huge pine and white poplar on the
grassy terrace of some rose-perfumed Italian garden with noisy
fountain and hurrying stream. He loiters, with eyes bent on the
pavement, along the winding Sacred Way that leads to the Forum, or on
his way home struggles against the crowd as it pushes its way down
town amid the dust and din of the busy city. He shrugs his shoulders in
good-humored despair as the sirocco brings lassitude and irritation

from beyond the Mediterranean, or he sits huddled up in some village
by the sea, shivering with the winds from the Alps, reading, and
waiting for the first swallow to herald the spring.
We see him at a mild game of tennis in the broad grounds of the
Campus Martius. We see him of an evening vagabonding among the
nameless common folk of Rome, engaging in small talk with dealers in
small merchandise. He may look in upon a party of carousing friends,
with banter that is not without reproof. We find him lionized in the
homes of the first men of the city in peace and war, where he mystifies
the not too intellectual fair guests with graceful and provokingly
passionless gallantry. He sits at ease with greater enjoyment under the
opaque vine and trellis of his own garden. He appears in the midst of
his household as it bustles with preparation for the birthday feast of a
friend, or he welcomes at a less formal board and with more
unrestrained joy the beloved comrade-in-arms of Philippi, prolonging
the genial intercourse
"Till Phoebus the red East unbars And puts to rout the trembling
stars."
Or we see him bestride an indifferent nag, cantering down the Appian
Way, with its border of tombs, toward the towering dark-green summits
of the Alban Mount, twenty miles away, or climbing the winding white
road to Tivoli where it reclines on the nearest slope of the Sabines, and
pursuing the way beyond it along the banks of headlong Anio where it
rushes from the mountains to join the Tiber. We see him finally arrived
at his Sabine farm, the gift of Maecenas, standing in tunic-sleeves at his
doorway in the morning sun, and contemplating with thankful heart
valley and hill-side opposite, and the cold stream of Digentia in the
valley-bottom below. We see him rambling about the wooded uplands
of his little estate, and resting in the shade of a decaying rustic temple
to indite a letter to the friend whose not being present is all that keeps
him from perfect happiness. He participates with the near-by villagers
in the joys of the rural holiday. He mingles homely philosophy and
fiction with country neighbors before his own hearth in the big
living-room of the farm-house.

Horace's place is not among the dim and uncertain figures of a hoary
antiquity. Only give him modern shoes, an Italian cloak, and a
walking-stick, instead of sandals and toga, and he may be seen on the
streets of Rome today. Nor is he less modern in character and bearing
than in appearance. We discern in his composition the same strange and
seemingly contradictory blend of the grave and gay, the lively and
severe, the constant and the mercurial, the austere and the trivial, the
dignified and the careless, that is so baffling to the observer of Italian
character and conduct today.

2. HORACE THE POET
To understand how Horace came to be a great poet as well as an
engaging person, it is necessary to look beneath this somewhat
commonplace exterior, and to discern the spiritual man.
The foundations of literature are laid in life. For the production of great
poetry two conditions are necessary. There must be, first, an age
pregnant with the celestial fires of deep emotion. Second, there must be
in its midst one of the rare men whom we call inspired. He must be of
such sensitive spiritual fiber as to vibrate to