Edward Berdoe

“ God will come in thunder from the stars to save her, so he will triumph over his decay; when the calm comes again after the fever has subsided, he will do something equal to his conjecture. He can project himself into all forms of Nature, live the life of plants, mount bird-like, breathe in a fish the morning air in the sun-warm water. He will build a thought-world; he is inspired. Pauline shall come with him to the world of fancy through the ghostly night and sun-warmed morning; he is concentrated, he drinks in the life of all, yet cannot be immortal for all these struggling aims. ”

“ Prologue to Pacchiarotto. The poet is imprisoned on a long summer day with his feet on a grass plot and his eyes on a red brick wall. True, the wall is clothed with a luxuriant creeper through which the bricks laugh, and the robe of green pulsates with life, beautifying the barrier. He reflects that wall upon wall divide us from the subtle thing that is spirit: though cloistered here in the body-barrier, he will hope hard, and send his soul forth to the congenial spirit beyond the ring of neighbours which, like a fence of brick and stone, divides him from his love. ”

“ And so they crossed the world till they stopped at the miraculous dome of God, St. Peter’s Church at Rome, with its colonnade like outstretched arms, as if desiring to embrace all mankind. The whole interior of the vast basilica is alive with worshippers this Christmas Eve. It is the midnight mass of the Feast of the Nativity under Rome’s great dome. The incense rises in clouds; the organ holds its breath and grovels latent, as if hushed by the touch of God’s finger. The silence is broken only by the shrill tinkling of a silver bell. ”

“ Ixion had been admitted, all human as he was, to the company of the gods as their equal. He had faith in the good faith and the love of Zeus, and for acting upon it was cast from Olympus to Erebus. Man conceived Zeus as possessing his own virtues: he trusted, loved him because Zeus aspired to be equal in goodness to man. Ixion defies him, tells him he apes the man who made him; it is Zeus who is hollowness. The iris, born of Ixion’s tears, sweat and blood, bursting to vapour above, arching his torment, glorifies his pain; and man, even from hell’s triumph, may look up and rejoice. ”

“ You are a philosopher; you disbelieve, you give to dreams at night the weight I give to the work of active day; to be consistent, you should keep your bed, for you live to sleep as I to wake—to unbelieve, as I to still believe. Common-sense terms you bedridden: common-sense brings its good things to me; so it’s best believing if we can, is it not? Again, if we are to believe at all, we cannot be too decisive in our faith; we must be consistent in all our choice—succeed, or go hang in worldly matters. ”

“ As for her child, it should not be the Count’s at all—“only his mother’s, born of love, not hate!” Then, with her fast-failing mind-sight, she turns to the image of “the lover of her life, the soldier-saint.” Death shall not part her from him: her weak hand in his strong grasp shall rest in the new path she is about to tread. She bids them tell him she is arrayed for death in all the flowers of all he had said and done. He is a priest, and could not marry; nor would he if he could, she thinks: the true marriage is for heaven. ”

“ Then we learn that, as the Duchess seemed to be imbibing new life from the gipsy queen, virtue goes forth from every true lover of his kind, and degrees of rank, education, and station, are no barriers to the magnetism which streams forth from a human heart, however humble, towards another human heart, however highly placed. Life without love is a living death, and the Duchess no more did wrong when she rode off with the gipsy who saw the signs of her people in the marks on her forehead than the flowers do wrong when they bloom at the invitation of the Spring. ”

“ His heart was human once. He had loving friends in Würzburg; but love has gone, and his life’s one idea has absorbed him, to obtain at all costs his reward in the lump. God may take pleasure in confounding such pride. He may have been fighting sleep off for death’s sake. Is his mind stricken? He believes that God would warn him before He struck. And now from within he hears a voice. It is that of Aprile, the spirit of a departed poet, who has aspired to love beauty only. As Paracelsus has sought knowledge alone, Aprile would love infinitely all forms of art and all the delights of Nature. ”

“ Pietro at least had done no harm, and Violante, after all, how little! She did wrong, she knows; she did not think lies were real lies when they had good at heart: it was good for all she meant. She sees this now she is dying: she meant the pain for herself, the happiness all for Pompilia. And now the misery and the danger are over; as she sinks away from life, she finds that sorrows change into something which is not altogether sorrow-like. Her child is safe, her pain not very great. She is so happy that she is just absolved, washed fair. ”

“ All this terrifies the aged Pope—not the wrangling of the Roman soldiers for the garments of the Lord, but the greed in His apostles. But are not mankind real? Is the petty circle in which he moves, after all, the world? The instincts of humanity have helped mankind in every age; they will do so still. If, because Christianity is old, and familiarity with its teachings has bred a confidence which is ill grounded, the Christian heroism of past times can no longer be looked for, yet the heroism of mankind springs up eternally, and will suffice for all its needs. ”

“ Out of what poor elements does some great master create his new world! Shall we say that all this exuberant inventiveness is a mere ingenuity or trick of art, like some fashion of the day, without reality, without meaning?... Is it possible that inexhaustible evolution and disposition of notes, so rich yet so simple, so intricate yet so regulated, so various yet so majestic, should be a mere sound which is gone and perishes? ”

“ When Moses smote the rock and saved the Israelites, he had mocking and sneering for his reward: the ungrateful and unbelieving multitude behaved after their manner. Could Moses forget the ancient wrong he bore about him? Dare the man ever put off the prophet? But were there in all that crowd a woman’s face—a woman he could love—he would for her sake lay down the wonder-working rod, for he would be as the camel giving up its store of water with its life. ”

“ By slow degrees the music had done the first part of its work: the sluggish forces of his life began to tremble, the quiverings of returning vital force began to thrill his torpid nerves. The song went forward: the wild joys of living were celebrated, the value of man’s life, the good providence of God, the friendship, the kingship, the gifts combined to dower one head with the wealth of the world,—the stimulus of high ambition, the surpassing deeds, the crowning fame all concentrated in Saul, king of Israel. And the leap of David’s heart voicing itself in the cry “Saul!” ”

“ Our greatest punishment would be the gratification of our lowest aims. “All the world!” and the sense of infinite possession of all the beauty of earth, from fern leaf to Alpine heights, brought the warmth to the man’s heart and extinguished the terror inspired by the Judgment-seat of God. And the great Judge saw the thought, told him he was welcome so to rate the mere hangings of the vestibule of the Palace of the Supreme; and in the scorn of the awful gift the man read his error, and asked for Art in place of Nature. ”

“ Paul broke the bread of life; and as we stand on this sacred spot and recall the past in this strange city of a hundred memorials of antiquity—the temples of the gods, the amphitheatre, the vast altar, the Greek theatre, the walls of Epipolæ, the aqueducts, the forts, the harbour, the quarries, the Ear of Dionysius, the tombs, the streams and fountains famed in classic story and sung by poets—all fade into insignificance before the hallowed spot whence issued the fertilising influences of the Gospel preached by this same Paulus to a few poor slaves. ”

“ Here we discover the secret of the soullessness: the fellow has the tailor in his blood, even though the artist is supreme at the fingers’ ends. He is but the craftsman after all. Think of Fra Angelico painting his saints and angels on his knees, straining his eyes to catch the faintest glimpse of the heavenly radiance of Our Lady’s purity and holiness, feeling that he failed, too dazzled by the brightness of Divine light, to catch more than its shadow, and we shall know why there is soul in the great Dominican painter, and why there is none in the Sarto. ”

“ Each passion written on the countenance, whether Hope a-tiptoe for embrace, or Rapture with drooping eyes, or Confidence lighting up the forehead, all that human faces gave him, has he saved. He has dreamed of going forth in his pictures to pope or kaiser, to the whole world, with flowers cast upon the car which bore the freight, through streets re-named from the triumphal passing of his picture, to the house where learning and genius should greet his coming ”

“ We do not seek a thing’s solid self in its symbol: looking at Orion on a starry night, who asks to see the man’s flesh in the star-points? If it be objected that we have no need of symbols, and that we should be better taught by facts, it is answered that a myth may teach. The rising sun thrills earth to the very heart of things; creation acknowledges its life-giving impulse and murmurs not, but, unquestioning, uses the invigorating beams. Is man alone to wait till he comprehends the sun’s self to realise the energy that floods the universe? ”

“ Mites of men are sore that God made mites at all; love avails not from such men-animalculæ to coax a virile thought, but touch the elf with hate, and the insect swells to thrice its bulk “and cuckoo-spits some rose!” Nothing is to be gained from ruling men; women take nothing, and give all. Elvire and Fifine, in their degree, are alike in this respect. “To have secured a woman’s faith in me is to have centred my soul on a fact. Falseness and change I see all around me; I expect truth because Fifine knows me much more than Elvire does.” ”

“ Let stand Athenai!” and so, as Euripides had saved the Athenian exiles in Syracuse harbour, now he saved Athens herself. But her brave long walls were destroyed, destroyed to sound of flute and lyre, wrecked to the kordax step, and laid in the dust to the mocking laughter of a Comedy-chorus. And so no longer would Balaustion remain to see the shame of the beloved city. “Back to Rhodes!” she cried. “There are no gods, no gods! Glory to God—who saves Euripides!” ”

“ And then, with a clearer consciousness, he recognises Festus, who tells him that God will take him to His breast, and on earth splendour shall rest upon his name for ever,—the name of the master-mind, the thinker, the explorer. He sings of the gliding Mayne they knew so well; and the simple words loose the dying man’s heart, for he knows he is dying, and his varied life drifts by him. There is time yet to speak; but he will rise and speak standing, as becomes a teacher of men. He has sinned, he feels his need for mercy, and he can trust God. ”

“ The sun is fire, and more beside. Does the force know that it gives us what it does? Must our love go forth to fire? If we must thank it, there must be purpose with the power—a humanity like our own. Power has no need of will or purpose; and no occasion for beneficence when all that is, so is and so must be. As these qualities imply imperfection, let us ‘eject the man, retain the orb,’ and then ‘what remains to love and praise?’ We cannot be expected to thank insentient things. ”

“ An airy structure pitched beneath the tower appeared in the morning surmounted by a red pennon fluttering in the air, and frantic to be free. To be free!—the fever of the flag finds a response in my soul, my heart fires up for liberty from the restraints of law, I would lead the bohemian life these players lead. Why is it that disgraced people, those who have burst the bonds of conventional life, always seem to enjoy their existence more than others? ”

“ What is this passionate hunger for the All—this insatiable thirst for utmost pleasure? It is man’s cry for the satisfying presence of God in his soul. The alone to the Alone; nothing intervening can give peace and rest to the spirit of man; flame-like it tends upwards to its source. The only One, the Crucified, the Risen Christ—“Christus Consolator” is recognised as the remedy for his sense of infinite loss; and as he recognises the Divine love he is united with the purest earthly soul he knows:—“Pauline, I am thine for ever.” “Love me, Pauline—leave me not.” ”

“ Swooning with joy, he is carried back to Goïto, the poet’s crown on his brow and Palma’s scarf round his neck. Eglamor is dead with spite, and the troubadours have a new chief. Thus was Sordello poet, Master of the Realms of Song. He will slumber: he can arise in his strength any day. He is summoned to Mantua to sing to order. He finds the idea of work distasteful; but he conquers, and is crowned with honours. But he feels he has only been loving song’s results, not song for its own sake; his failure to reach his ideal destroys the pleasure derived from his success. ”