The Madonna of the Future | Page 5

extort an "order" from a sauntering tourist? But I
was not called to defend myself. A great brazen note broke suddenly
from the far-off summit of the bell-tower above us, and sounded the
first stroke of midnight. My companion started, apologised for
detaining me, and prepared to retire. But he seemed to offer so lively a
promise of further entertainment that I was indisposed to part with him,
and suggested that we should stroll homeward together. He cordially
assented; so we turned out of the Piazza, passed down before the
statued arcade of the Uffizi, and came out upon the Arno. What course
we took I hardly remember, but we roamed slowly about for an hour,
my companion delivering by snatches a sort of moon-touched aesthetic
lecture. I listened in puzzled fascination, and wondered who the deuce
he was. He confessed with a melancholy but all-respectful head-shake
to his American origin.
"We are the disinherited of Art!" he cried. "We are condemned to be
superficial! We are excluded from the magic circle. The soil of
American perception is a poor little barren artificial deposit. Yes! we
are wedded to imperfection. An American, to excel, has just ten times
as much to learn as a European. We lack the deeper sense. We have
neither taste, nor tact, nor power. How should we have them? Our
crude and garish climate, our silent past, our deafening present, the
constant pressure about us of unlovely circumstance, are as void of all
that nourishes and prompts and inspires the artist, as my sad heart is
void of bitterness in saying so! We poor aspirants must live in perpetual
exile."
"You seem fairly at home in exile," I answered, "and Florence seems to
me a very pretty Siberia. But do you know my own thought? Nothing is
so idle as to talk about our want of a nutritive soil, of opportunity, of
inspiration, and all the rest of it. The worthy part is to do something
fine! There is no law in our glorious Constitution against that. Invent,
create, achieve! No matter if you have to study fifty times as much as
one of these! What else are you an artist for? Be you our Moses," I
added, laughing, and laying my hand on his shoulder, "and lead us out
of the house of bondage!"
"Golden words--golden words, young man!" he cried, with a tender

smile. "'Invent, create, achieve!' Yes, that's our business; I know it well.
Don't take me, in Heaven's name, for one of your barren
complainers--impotent cynics who have neither talent nor faith! I am at
work!"--and he glanced about him and lowered his voice as if this were
a quite peculiar secret--"I'm at work night and day. I have undertaken a
CREATION! I am no Moses; I am only a poor patient artist; but it
would be a fine thing if I were to cause some slender stream of beauty
to flow in our thirsty land! Don't think me a monster of conceit," he
went on, as he saw me smile at the avidity with which he adopted my
illustration; "I confess that I am in one of those moods when great
things seem possible! This is one of my nervous nights--I dream
waking! When the south wind blows over Florence at midnight it
seems to coax the soul from all the fair things locked away in her
churches and galleries; it comes into my own little studio with the
moonlight, and sets my heart beating too deeply for rest. You see I am
always adding a thought to my conception! This evening I felt that I
couldn't sleep unless I had communed with the genius of Buonarotti!"
He seemed deeply versed in local history and tradition, and he
expatiated con amore on the charms of Florence. I gathered that he was
an old resident, and that he had taken the lovely city into his heart. "I
owe her everything," he declared. "It's only since I came here that I
have really lived, intellectually. One by one, all profane desires, all
mere worldly aims, have dropped away from me, and left me nothing
but my pencil, my little note-book" (and he tapped his breast-pocket),
"and the worship of the pure masters-- those who were pure because
they were innocent, and those who were pure because they were
strong!"
"And have you been very productive all this time?" I asked
sympathetically.
He was silent a while before replying. "Not in the vulgar sense!" he
said at last. "I have chosen never to manifest myself by imperfection.
The good in every performance I have re-absorbed into the generative
force of new creations; the bad--there is always plenty of that--I have
religiously destroyed. I may say, with some satisfaction, that I have not
added a mite