Romance and Reality (Landon)/Chapter 40
CHAPTER XVI.
"Full many shapes that shadows were."
Coleridge.
"These forms of beauty have not been to me
As is a landscape in a blind man's eye;
But oft in lonely rooms, and mid the din
Of crowds and cities, I have owed to them,
In hours of weariness, sensations sweet,
Felt in the blood, and felt along the heart,
And passing even unto my purer mind
With tranquil restoration."
Wordsworth.
It is not of much use making up your mind very positively, for it is a thousand chances whether you ever do exactly what you intended. The Mandevilles had resolved to pass through London as quickly as possible; but once there, unavoidable business prolonged their stay. This, to Emily at least, was very delightful—for the morning following her dining with Mrs. Trefusis, Edward Lorraine came to breakfast. One great peculiarity in a woman's attachment is its entire concentration in the present. Whatever she was engaged in, if Edward was present, was the most delightful thing in the world. And, moreover, it was very satisfactory to hear him reiterate his intention of joining them in Italy. Besides, this wilderness of brick was still all novelty and amusement to one who knew so little of it.
Among the many universal propensities in human nature, the love of sight-seeing is about as universal as any. Now, sight-seeing gratifies us in different ways. First, there is the pleasure of novelty; secondly, either that of admiration or fault-finding—the latter a very animated enjoyment. London against the world for spectacles; and yet it is a curious fact that those who live amongst sights are those who go the least to see them. A genuine Londoner is the most incurious animal in nature. Divide your acquaintance into two parts; the one set will never have seen Westminster Abbey—the other will be equally ignorant of St. Paul's. That which is always within our reach is always the last thing we take; and the chances are, that what we can do every day, we never do at all.
Emily, who came up with all the curiosity of the country, would have liked to have seen much more than she did; but young ladies are like the pieces of looking-glass let into chiffonniers and doorways—only meant to reflect the actions of others.
"Very well," said Lady Mandeville, in answer, one day, to a wish she was expressing; "when we are at Rome we will study architecture—there you may explore the Colosseum; but to go on a course of 'amusing and instructive rambles' through London!—pray leave that to the good little books you read in your childhood."
Emily was silenced. One evening, however, Mr. Morland, who was one of the governors of the British Institution, proposed their going to see the gallery lighted up. Lady Mandeville agreed; and Emily was all smiles—a little brightened, perhaps, because Lorraine was to join their party.
The effect on entrance is very striking: a crowd, where the majority are females, with gay-coloured dresses, and their heads unbonneted, always gives the idea of festival: figures animated with motion, and faces with expression, are in such strong contrast to the beautiful but moveless creations on the wall. At first all is pleasant confusion—all catches, and nothing fixes the eye—and the exclamation is as general as the gaze; but, as in all other cases, general admiration soon became individual—and Emily was very ready to pause in delight before Lorraine's favourite pictures. Whether their selection might have pleased Mr. Morland, who was a connoisseur, admits of a question—for the taste of the young is very much matter of feeling.
"Is not this little picture a proof of the truth of my assertion the other morning, that a glance out of a window was enough to annihilate a cavalier's peace of mind for a twelvemonth?"
It was "a lovely female face of seventeen"—the beauty of a coquette rather than that of a heroine—a coquette, though, of nature's making. She leant on the casement, some gathered flowers in her hand, speaking well for the simple and natural taste that loved them; the face downcast, and pensive; the long lash resting almost on the cheek, with the inward look of its dreaming mood.
There is something very suspicious in its present seriousness. It is to be doubted whether the lover (there is a lover unquestionably in the case) will not have the softened affection of to-day visited on his head in the double caprice of to morrow."
"'A Dutch Girl, by Newton.'*[1] Calumniated people!" exclaimed Lorraine; "and yet calumniated they deserve to be: instead of quarrelling among themselves, what patriotic phraseology is best suited to a newspaper, they ought to be voting the 'Golden Fleece' to Mr. Newton, for thus redeeming their share of female fascination."
The next was a "Florentine Girl, by Howard;"—a dark and passionate beauty of the South—large black eyes, that turned all they touched into poetry—flowing luxuriant ringlets, that were confined but with jewels, and knew no ruder air than that of palaces—with a lute, whose gentle science answered the chivalric songs of the brave and high-born.
"These two portraits seem to me," observed Lorraine, "to realise two sweet extremes of womanhood. Under the first I would write Wordsworth's lines—
'A countenance in which did meet
Sweet records, promises as sweet;
A creature not too bright or good
For human nature's daily food—
For transient sorrows, simple wiles,
Praise, blame, love, kisses, tears, and smiles.'
Under the fair Florentine I would inscribe Byron's lines; hers being
'The high Dama's brow, more melancholy—
Soft as her climate, sunny as her skies,
Heart on her lips, and soul within her eyes.'"
"Oh, do look at this picture!" exclaimed Emily.
The pretty moral of one of M. Bouilly's pretty tales—that "Ce qu'on possède double le prix quand on a le bonheur de le partager"—is especially true of delight. Both drew near to admire. It was a small, antique-looking room, such as is to be found in many an old English mansion—its Gothic architecture lightened by modern luxury. In a richly-carved arm chair, and as richly wrought in its brocade covering, sat a beautiful and evidently English girl: her aristocratic loveliness was of the most pure and lofty kind—her dress
"Such as bespoke a lady in the land,"
"The Bridemaid, by Parris;"—she who has that day lost the companion of her childhood—who looks on her lute to remember the songs they sang together—who turns from the flowers which were the last they gathered—and who sits alone in her solitary apartment, to think that that morning has broken one of affection's nearest and dearest ties—the love between two sisters—which can never again be what it has been, in unreserved confidence and entire companionship. The beholder turned away, as if it were unkind to "leave her to her sorrow." Portraits seem singularly beautiful by lamp-light—the softness gives them an air of so much reality. Landscapes are better by day—they require sunshine to bring out their own sunny greens.
Mr. Morland now took them across the room, to look at some works of a favourite artist.
"If there be any thing," said Mr. Morland, "In the doctrine of sympathies, Mr. Webster must have been the very worst child that ever figured in those stories of wilful urchins, whose bad ways are held up as a warning in the story-books that de lighted our youth. He is the Sir Thomas Lawrence of naughty children. Look at this 'Shooting a Prisoner.' Can any thing exceed the mirthful, mischievous, or—let me use a nurse's common phrase—audacious expression of the boys' faces, unless it be the half-inclined-to-laugh, the half-resolving-to-cry face of the girl, who sees the little cannon pointed at her poor doll?—Here is another picture which ought to be engraved for the benefit of the national schools. A young culprit has been caught in the fact of robbing an orchard, and brought back to his master, who stands over him with an iron face of angry authority;—the very apples, as if anxious to bear witness against him, are tumbling from his satchel. But—oh the moral of example, the efficacy of fear!—only observe the utter dismay, the excess of dread, on the face of a younger boy, who is seated on a form, with a fool's-cap on. He looks the very epitome of fright: I do not think he could eat one of those apples, if it were given him."
"I should think," said Lorraine, "the juvenile models, required to sit equally picturesque and patient, must be very troublesome."
"A curious dilemma," replied Mr. Morland, "has just occurred to me. I called one morning at Collins's, then painting his exquisite picture of the 'Young Crab-catchers.' Every one must recollect the round-faced sturdy child in the front. I need not say it was taken from life. For the first sitting or two, the little urchin behaved with most exemplary patience. At length, his awe of strangers having vanished, and the dignity which he evidently attached to his position having lost its attraction with its novelty, he became weary and restless. Still, the good-natured artist contrived to keep him in tolerable content; and, with a view of exciting his interest, endeavoured to make him understand that the boy on the canvass was himself, and asked him, 'Now, shan't you like to be put in this pretty picture?' To the painter's no small dismay, the child, on this question, set up one of those bursts of crying, the extremity of whose sorrow is only to be equalled by its vociferation, and at length sobbed out, 'If you put me in the picture, how shall I get out, to go home to my mother?'
"What a pity!" exclaimed Edward, "that one forgets one's childish thoughts; their originality would produce such an effect, properly managed! It is curious to observe that by far the most useful part of our knowledge is acquired unconsciously. We remember learning to read and write; but we do not remember how we learned to talk, to distinguish colours, &c. The first thought that a child wilfully conceals is an epoch—one of life's most important—and yet who can recall it?"
"Of all false assertions," answered Mr. Morland, "that ever went into the world under the banner of a great name and the mail-armour of a well-turned phrase, Locke's comparison of the mind to a blank sheet of paper appears to me among the most untrue."
"Memory is a much stranger faculty," added Edward, "than hope. Hope I can understand; I can divide its mixture of desire and fear; I know when I wish for any thing—and hope is the expectation of wishing. But memory is unfathomable and indefinite. Why do we so often forget what we the most desire to remember? and why, without any volition of our own, do we suddenly recall things, people, places, we know not why or wherefore? Sometimes that very remembrance will haunt us like a ghost, and quite as causelessly, which at another time is a blank. Alas for love! whose very existence depends on a faculty over which we have so little control."
"It is a curious fact," replied Mr. Morland, "that those events which are of the greatest consequence are not the best remembered; the stirring and important acts of our manhood do not rise on the mind half so vividly as the simple and comparatively uninteresting occurrences of childhood. And another observation is, that we never remember any thing accurately, I should rather say exactly, as it happened."
"For my part," exclaimed Edward, "I am often tempted to liken our mental world to a shadow flung on water from some other world—broken, wavering and of uncertain brightness."
"Well, well, as they said to the lover of the beautiful Indian queen, when he was turned into a dog, 'your misfortune is irreparable, so have patience.' In this world we must live for the present at least; but I own I think it is made up of odds and ends."
"'Quand on n'a pas ce qu'on aime,
II faut aimer ce qu'on a,'"
said Edward; "a doctrine of practical philosophy which I hope Miss Arundel has been practising. I doubt the polite disclaimer of weariness which she has smiled, and is about to say."
He was quite wrong; Emily would have listened to him with delight, even if he had spoken Sanscrit. When have the words of a loved one dropped other than honey?
"That woman's heart is not mine," said a modern philosopher; "she yawned while I demonstrated to her the 48th problem in Euclid." This, we own, was expecting a great deal; but not more than love has a right to do. You do not love if there is not some nameless fascination in the lightest act. What would be absurd, ridiculous, nay disagreeable, in another, has in the beloved a fairy spell. Love's is the true alchemy, turning what it touches to gold. The most remarkable instance of its devotion I remember was in a village clerk. During the life of his first wife he regularly dined every Sunday at the Squire's; she died, and he married again. After that, he always, on the Sunday, in spite of the united attractions of beef, ale, and pudding, dined at home—"His wife," he said, "was so lonely."
Now, I do call the giving up a good dinner, week after week, an act of very romantic affection. This, however, is digressing; and we return to our party. Mr. Morland was pointing Emily's attention to two portraits—one of his nephew, a Mr. Cecil Spenser, the other of his daughter.
"I expect you, Miss Arundel," said he, "to take a great interest in my family penates. You have my full consent to fall in love with my nephew, if you will admire my daughter."
"To tell you the truth, I like her most," replied Emily; "I do so very much prefer portraits of my own sex. We really look best in pictures."
"That is because an artificial state is natural to you; but do you like them? Young M'Clise is such a favourite artist of mine."
"I never saw," said Lorraine, "anything so like as this is to Cecil Spenser: it has caught him just as he used to sit in the club window, as if it had been the Castle of Indolence. We called him le beau fainéant."
"Cecil's indolence is the result of circumstance, not nature; so I have hopes of him. All he wants is motive. I wish, on the continent, where he now is, he may have an unhappy attachment, or be taken prisoner by the Algerines. It would do him all the good in the world."
Helen Morland's picture was placed in the best light. The young painter had done his loveliest. It was that of a child; her eyes, full of poetry and of light, gazing upwards on a star, which seemed mirrored in their depths with that earnest and melancholy expression so touching in childhood—perhaps because our own heart gives a tone of prophecy to its sadness. The hair hung in dark, clustering ringlets, parted on a forehead,
"So like the moonlight, fair and melancholy."
"Do you not observe in this picture a likeness to Miss Arundel?" said Lorraine.
"Nay," replied Emily, "do not at once put a stop to the admiration I was going to express. What I was about to say of the portrait, I must now say of the painting, with which I am enchanted."
"And you think very rightly," returned Mr. Morland: "M'Clise is an exquisite painter: he has a fine perception of the beautiful, and a natural delicacy of feeling, which always communicates itself to the taste. I could wish him to illustrate the poetry of actual life—the grace, the beauty, which is seen so often—and with just one touch of the imaginative given it, from passing through the colouring of his own mind."
"I was very much struck," said Edward, "when Spenser was sitting to him, to mark his devotion to his art. Enthusiasm is the royal road to success. Now, call it fame, vanity—what you will—how strange and how strong is the feeling which urges on the painter or the author! We, who are neither, ought to marvel less at the works produced than at the efforts made. Their youth given to hopes, or rather fears—now brightening and now darkening, on equally slight grounds—
'A breath can mar them, as a breath has made:'
hours of ceaseless exertion in solitude, of feverish solicitude in society; doomed to censure, which is always in earnest, and to praise, which is not. Alas! we talk of their vanity; we forget that, in doling forth the careless commendation, or as careless sneer, we are bestowing but the passing thought of a moment to that which has been the work of an existence. Truly genius, like virtue, ought to be its own reward; but it cannot. Bitter though the toil, and vain the hope, human exertion must still look to human approbation."
"Artists," observed Mr. Morland, "are generally an enthusiastic, unworldly race; jealous of praise, as the enthusiastic almost always are; and exaggerating trifles, as the unworldly always do. But society is no school for the artist: the colours of his mind, like those of his pictures, lose their brilliancy by being exposed to the open air. Sir Joshua Reynolds said 'a painter should sew up his mouth'—a rather inconvenient proof of devotion to his art. But it is with painting as with every thing else—first-rate excellence is always a solitary one."
"It is curious," replied Lorraine, "to remark the incitement of obstacles. Under what difficulties almost all our great painters and poets have laboured!"
"I have," returned Mr. Morland, "a favourite theory of my own, that early encouragement is bad for any of the imaginative pursuits. No—place difficulties before them; let the impediments be many in number. If the true spirit be in the possessor, he will overcome them all. Genius is the Hannibal of the mind. The Alps, which to the common observer seemed insurmountable, served only to immortalise his passage. The imagination is to work with its own resources; the more it is thrown on them, the better. Making as it were a mental Simplon, is only opening a road to inferior artists and common-place poets."
"West is a great instance in your favour. Do you recall a most delightful incident in his early life? He was, as you know, a member of the Society of Friends—their doctrines forbid any cultivation of the fine arts. When his extraordinary talent developed itself, a meeting of their society was held to debate on the propriety of its exercise—and their judgment was, that so evident a gift of Heaven ought not to be neglected. Young West left the assembly with their blessing and sanction."
"What a beautiful story!" exclaimed Emily.
"It has only one fault," answered Mr. Morland, "that, like many other beautiful stories, it is not true. I questioned one of his nearest relatives about this very circumstance, which he declared not to be a fact."
It was now getting late, and Mr. Morland summoned them to depart; for he was a constitutionalist in the best sense of the word. It was his own constitution to which he attended.
- ↑ * I have here taken what, I trust, will not exceed an author's allowed poetical license. The British Gallery is only lighted up during the exhibition of the old masters. My excuse is, that I could think of something to say about the moderns, while I had nothing to remark touching the ancients.