Part 14 (1/2)

'By the G.o.ds! you have devised well. It is the talk all over Rome.

Cleopatra's tears have taken all hearts. Orders from the provinces will soon pour in. They shall follow you well secured, as you say.'

I enjoy a call upon this whole Roman, and yet half Jew, as much as upon the first citizens of the capital. The cup of Aurelian, is no fuller than the cup of Civilis. The perfect bliss that emanates from his countenance, and breathes from his form and gait, is pleasing to behold--upon whatever founded--seeing it is a state that is reached by so few. No addition could be made to the felicity of this fortunate man.

He conceives his occupation to be more honorable than the proconsuls.h.i.+p of a province, and his name, he pleases himself with believing, is familiar to more ears than any man's, save the Emperor's, and has been known in Rome for a longer period than any other person's living, excepting only the head of the Senate, the venerable Tacitus. This is all legible in the lines about his mouth and eyes.

Leaving the heaven of the happy man, I turned to the Forum of Augustus, to look at a statue of bra.s.s, of Aurelian, just placed among the great men of Rome in front of the Temple of Mars, the Avenger. This statue is the work of Periander, who, with that universality of power which marks the Greek, has made his genius as distinguished here for sculpture, as it was in Palmyra for military defence and architecture. Who, for perfection in this art of arts, is to be compared with the Greek? or for any work, of either the head or the hands, that implies the possession of what we mean by genius? The Greeks have not only originated all that we know of great and beautiful in letters, philosophy and the arts, but, what they have originated, they have also perfected. Whatever they have touched, they have finished; at least, so far as art, and the manner of working, is concerned. The depths of all wisdom and philosophy they have not sounded indeed, though they have gone deeper than any, only because they are in their own essence unfathomable. Time, as it flows on, bears us to new regions to be explored, whose riches constantly add new stores to our wisdom, and open new views to science. But in all art they have reached a point beyond which none have since advanced, and beyond which it hardly seems possible to go. A doric column, a doric temple, a corinthian capital, a corinthian temple--these perfectly satisfy and fill the mind; and, for seven hundred years, no change or addition has been made or attempted that has not been felt to be an injury. And I doubt not that seven thousand years hence, if time could but spare it so long, pilgrims would still go in search of the beautiful from the remotest parts of the world, from parts now unknown, to wors.h.i.+p before the Parthenon, and, may I not add, the Temple of the Sun in Palmyra!

Periander has gained new honors by this admirable piece of work. I had hardly commenced my examination of it, when a grating voice at my elbow, never, once heard, to be mistaken for any other, croaked out what was meant as a challenge.

'The greatest captain of this or of any age!'

It was Spurius, a man whom no slight can chill nor, even insult, cause to abate the least of his intrusive familiarity--a familiarity which he covets, too, only for the sake of disputation and satire. To me, however, he is never other than a source of amus.e.m.e.nt. He is a variety of the species I love occasionally to study.

I told him I was observing the workmans.h.i.+p, without thinking of the man represented.

'If you will allow me to say it,' he rejoined, 'a very inferior subject of contemplation. A statue--as I take it, the thing, that is, for which it is made, is commemoration. If one wants to see fine work in marble, there is the cornice for him just overhead: or in bra.s.s, let him look at the doors of the new temple, or the last table or couch of Syphax. The proper subject for man is man.'

'Well, Spurius, on your own ground then. In this bra.s.s I do not see bra.s.s, nor yet Aurelian--'

'What then, in the name of Hecate?'

'Nothing but intellect--the mind, the soul of the greater artist, Periander. That drapery never fell so upon Aurelian; nor was Aurelian's form or bearing ever like this. It is all enn.o.bled, and exalted above pure nature, by the divine power of genius. The true artist, under every form and every line of nature, sees another form and line of more perfect grace and beauty, which he chooses instead, and makes it visible and permanent in stone or bra.s.s. You see nothing in me, but merely Piso as he walks the streets. Periander sees another within, bearing no more resemblance to me--yet as much--than does this, to Aurelian.'

'That, I simply conceive, to be so much sophistry,' rejoined the poet, 'which no man would be guilty of, except he had been for the very purpose, as one must think, of degrading his intellect, to the Athenian schools. Still, as I said and think, the statue is made to commemorate the man represented, not the artist.'

'It is made for that. But, oftentimes, the very name of the man commemorated is lost, while that of the artist lives forever. In my judgment there is as much of Periander in the statue as there is of Aurelian.'

'I know not what the fame of this great Periander may be ages hence. It has not till now reached my ear.'

'It is not easy to reach the ear of some who dwell in the via coeli.'

I could not help saying that.

'My rooms, sir, I would inform you,' he rejoined sharply, 'are on the third floor.'

'Then I do wonder you should not have heard of Periander.'

'Greater than Aurelian! and I must wonder too. A poet may be greater than a general or an emperor, I grant: he is one of the family of the G.o.ds; but how a worker in bra.s.s or marble can be, pa.s.ses my poor understanding. It is vain to attempt to raise the mere artist, to the level of the historian or poet.'

'I think that too. I only said he was greater than Aurelian--'

'Than Aurelian,' replied Spurius, 'who has extended the bounds of the empire!'

'But narrowed those of human happiness,' I answered. 'Which is of more consequence, empire or man? But now, man was the great object! I grant you he is, and for that reason a man who, like an artist of genius, adds to the innocent sources of human enjoyment, is greater than the soldier and conqueror, whose business is the annoyance and destruction of life.

Aurelian has slain hundreds of thousands. Periander never injured a worm. He dwells in a calm and peaceful world of his own, and his works are designed to infuse the same spirit that fills himself into all who behold them. You must confess the superior power of art, and of the artist, in this very figure. Who thinks of conquest, blood, and death, as he looks upon these flowing outlines, this calm, majestic form--upon that still face? The artist here is the conqueror of the conqueror, and makes him subserve his own purposes; purposes, of a higher nature than the mere soldier ever dreamed of. No one can stand and contemplate this form, without being made a lover of beauty rather than of blood and death; and beauty is peace.'

'It must be impossible,' replied the bitter spirit, 'for one who loves Palmyra better than his native Rome, to see much merit in Aurelian. It is a common saying, Piso is a Palmyrene. The report is current too that Piso is about to turn author, and celebrate that great nation in history.'

'I wish I were worthy to do so,' I answered, 'I might then refute certain statements in another quarter. Yet events have already refuted them.'

'If my book,' replied Spurius, 'be copied a thousand times, the statements shall stand as they are. They are founded upon indisputable evidence and philosophical inferences.'