Maison Carrée

“ Perhaps there is not, on any part of the Continent, a city or town which has been so frequently sacked by foreign invaders, nor so deeply stained with human blood, by civil and religious wars, as this: every street and ancient building within its walls still exhibit many strong marks of the excesses committed by the hands of domestic as well as foreign barbarians, except only the Temple now called, and so called from its form, the Maison Carree, which has stood near eighteen hundred years, without receiving any other injuries than the injuries of time ”

“ The celebrated Maison Carrée at Nimes (Fig. 22) is probably the purest piece of Roman work to be found north of the Alps, and cannot fail strongly to impress the beholder, especially if he here sees for the first time a genuine Roman temple. The design doubtless owes much of its beauty and purity to the Grecian spirit of the locality. The building is small, being only about 80 feet by 40 feet. The portico, with its ten Corinthian columns, and enriched pediment, is very fine; but the effect of the flank view, in which the columns attached to the cella are visible, is not so satisfactory. ”

“ The Maison Carrée at Nimes, a pretty little Roman temple, will seem to you as big as Notre Dame. You will see that the only liar in the Midi, if there is one, is the sun; everything that he touches he exaggerates. Can you be surprised that this sun shining down on Tarascon has been able to make a retired Captain Quartermaster into the gallant Commandant Bravida, to make a thing like a turnip into a baobab and a man who almost went to Shanghai into one who has really been there. ”

“ Carrée was, no doubt, built by Roman hands, but entirely after Greek models. It is wholly of Athens: not at all of Rome—a Corinthian temple of the purest taste and divinest beauty—small, slight, without an atom of the ponderous majesty of the arena—reigning by love and smiles, like Venus; not by frowns and thunder, like Jove. Cardinal Alberoni said that the Maison Carrée was a gem which ought to be set in gold; and the two great Jupiters of France—Louis Quatorze and Napoleon—had both of them schemes for lifting the temple bodily out of the ground and carrying it to Paris. ”

“ Not till we reach Verona, or Rome itself, are monuments to be found comparable with the amphitheatres of Arles and Nimes, or the theatre of{89} Orange; and there is probably no temple even in Rome so complete and striking in its unity and spirit as the Maison Carrée at Nimes. But our way lies not across this border. We must now turn back and follow in the later edifices the course of Roman Art after the Fall of the Empire, and the growth and development of the new styles which sprung from it. ”

“ The brilliance of Nîmes at the beginning of the Christian era was unrivalled in the whole of Gaul. During this epoch, buildings of the most splendid character sprang up on all sides, until, in the time of Antoninus Pius (whose father was a Roman Consul in Nemausus) , the great Arena was erected.
The Maison Carrée, which has for centuries excited the admiration of the civilised world, is the finest classic temple extant. ”

“ As in the case of the arenas, mere measurement fails to convey any idea of its vastness. That it is 880 feet or so long and 160 feet high may be interesting to builders and engineers, but to the majority of spectators these figures utterly fail to express anything of the magnificence of the Pont du Gard. Like the Maison Carrée and the amphitheatres of Nîmes and Arles, the aqueduct has figured in many a picture and engraving. ”

“ Give me a healthy-minded youth, who has never heard of Alcibiades, Themistocles, Socrates, or Æschylus, but who has the natural appreciation of beauty—who can admire the droop of a lily, the spring of a deer, the flight of an eagle—set him opposite the Maison Carrée, and the sensation of divine, transcendant beauty, will rush into his heart and brain, as when contemplating the flower, or beast or bird. ”

“ I had begun to fear that Greek beauty was too subtle for me, or that Greek beauty was cant, when the Maison Carrée in a moment utterly undeceived me. The puzzle was solved: I had never seen Grecian architecture before. The things which our domestic Pecksniffs call Grecian—their St. Martin's porticoes, and St. Pancras churches—bear about the same relation to the divine original, as the old statue of George IV. at King's Cross to the Apollo Belvidere. ”

“ We changed the cold north for the bland south in one night, going from Paris to Avignon, where I had the pleasure of showing J. olive groves, old walled towns, and all sorts{569} of mediæval things; then at Nîmes I introduced her to the old Roman world in the well-preserved amphitheatre and the beautiful temple called Maison Carrée, ruins of temples, baths, pavements, and all that,—a charming place, of which I had very pleasant memories almost thirty years old. Then, to revive old memories, we went on to Montpellier ”

“ The warm climate and small stuffy rooms of many of the older buildings induce a preference for the open air, and one can often see the domestic drudges turning the drums of the coffee-roasters by the side of the Maison Carrée or sawing logs for firewood in the old way, holding the saw between the knees and with the hands passing the timber backwards and forwards over its jagged edge. ”

“ The George Forresters always decided that the house was the exact epitome of Aunt Carrie. It was stately, and stood on its dignity, making you feel that it had a position to keep up, and extended hospitality as in duty bound, but with no special enthusiasm. Houses are largely a reflection of their owners, and five minutes in a drawing-room will often suffice to give you the correct mental atmosphere of a family. If the picturesque general disorder of Windy Howe suggested art run riot, the well-kept but tasteless precision of The Firs expressed a totally opposite temperament. ”

“ MAISON CARRE, AT NISMES. If the amphitheater of Nismes strikes the spectator with an idea of greatness and sublimity, the Maison Carré enchants him with the most exquisite beauties of architecture and sculpture. This fine structure, as is evidenced by the inscription discovered on its front, was built by the inhabitants of Nismes, in honor of Caius Cæsar, and Lucius Cæsar, grandchildren of Augustus, by his daughter Julia, the wife of Agrippa. It stands upon a pediment six feet high, is eighty-two feet long, thirty-five broad, and thirty-seven in hight, without reckoning the pediment. ”

“ In its general architectural effect, as well as in all its details of sculpture and ornament, the Maison Carré of Nismes is ravishingly beautiful, and can not be paralleled by any structure of ancient or modern times. That which most excites the astonishment of the admiring spectator, is to see it standing entire, like the effect of enchantment, after such a succession of ages, subjected as several of them were, to the ravages of the barbarians who overran the most interesting parts of Europe. ”

“ The Careys lived in a fascinating house, of no particular style, the result of perpetual additions to the original and now very old nucleus. As Mr. Carey's father had bought it fifty years ago, and as his progenitors for some time further back had inhabited a much humbler dwelling, now vanished, in the same town, it was called, as such things go in America, their "ancestral home." It was the despair of architects and decorators, who were always being adjured to "get an effect something like the Carey house." ”

“ How cozy our little drawing-room always looked on our return! The lamp would be lighted on the round table, and the warm perfume of flowers seemed to steep the air with fragrance; sometimes the glass door would lie open, and gray moths come circling round the light, and outside lay the lawn, silvered with moonlight. Allan used to leave us regretfully to go back to the old house at Milnthorpe; he said we were such a snug party.
When Carrie began to visit the cottages and to gather the children round her couch on Sunday afternoons, I knew she was her old self again. ”

“ No one could accuse Aunt Carrie of being artistic: her rooms were handsome and spotlessly neat, but they gave you the sense of being furnished, not arranged, and their lack of beauty struck a chill to æsthetic souls. ”

“ I grumbled, as I sought wearily to evoke order out of chaos. "To work for one's family is as much a duty as visiting the poor." I could not solve the problem; Carrie was too vague for me there; but I went to bed at last, and dreamed that we two were building houses on the seashore. Carrie's was the prettier, for it was all of sea-weed and bright-colored shells that looked as though the sun were shining on them, while mine was made of clay, tempered by mortar. ”

“ The house, which was daily growing into a home, was full of the busy hum of labor from top to bottom and from morning till night, and there was hardly a moment when Mother Carey and the girls were not transporting articles of furniture through the rooms, and up and down the staircases, to see how they would look somewhere else. ”

“ And now to have the door closed between her mother's room and the closet which led into the nursery became the great desire of Carrie's mind as she lay in her little bed,—closed so that the mouse should not find its way through. ”

“ Mother Carey sat by the fireplace; little Peter, fairly radiant with excitement, leaning against her knee and waiting for his own great moment, now close at hand.
"When ye come into a house, salute it; and if the house be worthy, let your peace come upon it.
"To all those who may dwell therein from generation to generation may it be a house of God, a gate of heaven.
"For every house is builded by some man, but he that built all things is God, seeing that he giveth to every one of us life and breath and all good things." ”

“ I wonder if Carrie loved it as I did! The homely, sunny little parlors; the cozy tea table, over which old Martha would be hovering with careful face and hands; mother in her low chair by the garden window; Uncle Geoffrey with his books and papers at the little round table; Dot and Jack hidden in some corner, out of which Dot would come stumping on his poor little crutches to kiss me, and ask after his little friend Flurry. ”

“ Carrie was tremendously impressed by all she saw around her:—the size and grandeur of the room, the satin hangings of the bed, embroidered all over with crests and coats of arms, the silk coverlet under which Phil reposed, the solemn quiet of the room, and the weird whiteness of her little companion’s face. ”

“ THE CAREYS
Their new house stood just off the road,
A fine big brick two-storey,
All gabled, tiled, and porticoed,
To flaunt its owners’ glory.
We never had, to tell the truth,
At Carey’s door alighted,
We had good reasons too, forsooth—
We hadn’t been invited.
But down to Mass we passed the gate,
And passed it, too, returning,
And hid away in mien sedate
The grievance in us burning.
But in the Old Mass Shandrydan—
Well, envy little varies—
We heard “herself” and her good man
Discourse about the Careys:
“Wisha, that big house of Carey’s with its power of fal-de-daries.” ”

“ The furniture for each room was appropriate, and in the so-called parlour, or front room, was installed a piano, because Carrie said she would like to learn to play. She kept a servant and developed rapidly in household tactics and information. For the first time in her life she felt settled, and somewhat justified in the eyes of society as she conceived of it. Her thoughts were merry and innocent enough. For a long while she concerned herself over the arrangement of New York flats, and wondered at ten families living in one building and all remaining strange and indifferent to each other. ”

“ Digby, a lad of eighteen and master of only one trade instead of a dozen, like his father, had been deputed to paper Mother Carey's bedroom while she moved for a few days into the newly fitted guest room, which was almost too beautiful to sleep in, with its white satiny walls, its yellow and green garlands hanging from the ceiling, its yellow floor, and its old white chamber set repainted by the faithful and clever Popham. ”

“ I want to go to boarding school awfully bad, but—I believe—I would choose a home like Carrie Carson's."
"Carrie Carson's! What is the matter with your own? Isn't your house as big as theirs or as nice?"
"No, but I wasn't thinking of houses just now. A house isn't a home always. Our house isn't. Tom and I are the home part of our house. Aunt Maria is housekeeper and Dad just stops there once in a while. They don't care about having a home, I reckon." ”

“ The most quarrelsome family, if the house burns down over their heads, will stop disputing until the emergency is over and they get under a new roof. Somehow, in times of great trial, calamity, sorrow, the differences that separate people are forgotten. Isn't it rather like the process in mathematics where we reduce fractions to a common denominator?
It was no time for anything but superior behavior in the Carey household; that was distinctly felt from kitchen to nursery. Ellen the cook was tidier, Joanna the second maid more amiable. ”

“ Often would the fair maiden awake from her slumbers and find her stooping over her couch—with the saddest and most intense interest expressed in her countenance—and again she would glide through the silent apartments of the spacious mansion with a movement so shadowy and noiseless, that it seemed almost impossible to be effected by a substantial being. ”

“ The vicarage was a red, irregular house, shut off from the road by a low wall, with a court-yard planted somewhat thickly with shrubs: the living-rooms were chiefly at the back of the house, and their windows looked out on a pleasant garden: a glass door in the hall opened on a broad gravel terrace bordered by standard rose-trees, and beyond lay a smooth green lawn almost as level as a bowling-green; a laurel hedge divided it from an extensive kitchen-garden, to which Uncle Max and Mr. Tudor devoted a great deal of their spare time and superfluous energies. ”