Martini

“ About that same to-morrow morning, I want both you and Martini to understand clearly that I am quite happy and satisfied, and could ask no better thing of Fate. Tell that to Martini as a message from me; he is a good fellow and a good comrade, and he will understand. You see, dear, I know that the stick-in-the-mud people are doing us a good turn and themselves a bad one by going back to secret trials and executions so soon, and I know that if you who are left stand together steadily and hit hard, you will see great things. ”

“ Herr Martini bowed in his chair.
“Your skill,” continued Klaus Heinrich, “must be a source of great pleasure to you—an ideal recreation. What is your calling, Herr Martini?”
Herr Martini showed that he did not understand, by describing a note of interrogation with the upper half of his body.
“I mean your main calling. Are you in the Civil Service?”
“No, Royal Highness, I have no calling; I occupy myself exclusively with poetry....”
“None at all.... Oh, I understand. So unusual a gift deserves that a man's whole powers be devoted to it.” ”

“ This Herr Martini, who, while the unhealthy flush glowed under his eyes, kept crying: "How beautiful; how strong is life!" yet was careful to go to bed at ten, shut himself off from life on hygienic grounds, as he said, and avoided every serious tie with it—this poet with his frayed collar, his watery eyes, and his envy of the young Weber who scorched over the country with village girls: he left a mixed impression, it was difficult to come to any certain conclusion about him. ”

“ In proportion as his frank countenance was inviting to conversation, when he had no [70] inclination to repel it; a dignified reserve, which few persons would dare disturb, occupied every feature when he wished to be left to his own thoughts. There was nothing severe in the look, but it had the air of one accustomed to deference; and though Martini would rather have met the social smile which Louis wore on the Danube, he saw every thing to respect, but nothing to fear, in the tacit command of his countenance. ”

“ We must have someone here whom we can trust, in case of any special difficulty; and of all the set here Martini is the man in whom I have most confidence. Riccardo would do anything he could for us, of course; but I think Martini has a steadier head. ”

“ Martini wasn’t much liked among us. He was a cynic, feared for his dexterity at fencing and for his sure aim with the revolver. He liked to mock, with special malevolence, at every sacred feeling known to man. He himself had not an atom of sentiment. Of his parents or home he never spoke a word. His soldiers he treated roughly and without a touch of feeling. He had never liked Šetina, probably because of the popularity the latter enjoyed, due to the charm of his personality. ”

“ Like the rest, it was covered with thicket; and they clambered down from bush to bush and projecting roots of trees now no more, till they arrived at the brink of the fosse.
Martini had tried the ford the night before; and plunging in, which example [305] Ripperda followed, both found a firm footing in the water. They crossed in safety; and Martini, taking up a fragment of the ruin, rolled the Duke's sumptuous garments round it, and also his own, and sunk it in the ditch. ”

“ Martini assented, catching at a subject of conversation which might lead her away from the dreadful memory called up by the river, “and he is, apart from his voice, about the finest preacher I have ever heard. But I believe the secret of his influence lies deeper than that. It is the way his life stands out from that of almost all the other prelates. I don't know whether you could lay your hand on one other high dignitary in all the Italian Church—except the Pope himself—whose reputation is so utterly spotless. ”

“ At the invitation of amateurs and professional friends he opened a school of composition at which several celebrated musicians were trained; as a teacher he consistently declared his preference for the traditions of the old Roman school of composition. Padre Martini was a zealous collector of musical literature, and possessed an extensive musical library. Burney estimated it at 17,000 volumes; after Martini’s death a portion of it passed to the Imperial library at Vienna, the rest remaining in Bologna, now in the Liceo Rossini. ”

“ Martini glanced at her anxiously. They had come out on to the Lung'Arno, and she was staring absently across the water, with a look on her face that he hated to see.
“Gemma, dear,” he said after a moment; “are you going to let that miserable business haunt you all your life? We have all made mistakes when we were seventeen.”
“We have not all killed our dearest friend when we were seventeen,” she answered wearily; and, leaning her arm on the stone balustrade of the bridge, looked down into the river. Martini held his tongue ”

“ He opened them instinctively, and saw the white light of day streaming through the open door, and Lorenzo [70] bending over him. His torpid faculties aroused themselves at sight of the well-known countenance; and the faithful servant as gladly made a response, which answered the demand of where they were, though he could hardly speak for joy, at seeing his master restored from the stupor, which had immediately followed his recovery from the swoon in which Martini had committed him to his arms in the felucca. ”

“ Moreover, three separate letters containing bad news arrived during the day, and the wind was in the east, so that Martini felt out of sorts and out of temper; and when, at the group meeting, Dr. Riccardo asked, “Isn't Rivarez here?” he answered rather sulkily: “No; he seems to have got something more interesting on hand, and can't come, or doesn't want to.”
“Really, Martini,” said Galli irritably, “you are about the most prejudiced person in Florence. Once you object to a man, everything he does is wrong. ”

“ This splendid old British warrior calling for his Martini is a case in point, and I am sure my own compatriots here to-night at any rate will realize the vast gulfs of separation that exist between the Britons and ourselves when I ask them what they would bring to a dying American soldier, delirious or otherwise, if he were to call for a Martini. ”

“ That press at Pistoja is very inefficiently managed, to my thinking; and the way the leaflets are taken across, always rolled in those everlasting cigars, is more than primitive.”
“It has answered pretty well up till now,” said Martini contumaciously. He was getting wearied of hearing Galli and Riccardo always put the Gadfly forward as a model to copy, and inclined to think that the world had gone well enough before this “lackadaisical buccaneer” turned up to set everyone to rights. ”

“ As he spoke, he pointed with his finger to the spot on the map which marked the Rock of Gibraltar. Martini readily came into all his master's plans; and gladly heard him discuss them, with all his former sobriety of manner, and decision of command.
"But," asked the faithful servant, "should the Marquis visit this prison when we are gone, how is he to know where to follow you?"
"My actions shall proclaim to him and to the world where to follow me!" replied the Duke; "If he be the parricide these people represent, he will then repent the poor part he has now [294] taken ”

“ The people are all critics, who go to be amused by the art and delicacy of the holy teachers. The more obscure and involved the propositions of their preachers, the more are they praised. The Martinians are indifferent to every thing they can easily understand.
Martinia is the paradise of project-makers. The more inconsistent and useless a scheme, the surer is it of general approbation.
When I once spoke with an enthusiastic monkey, of the earth and its inhabitants, he fell upon the notion, to bore through to the surface, and make a convenient and easy way of communication. ”

“ Meanwhile the knocking continued to thunder on; and it seemed as if she distinguished a voice at intervals, crying out "Open the door, pour l'amour de Dieu,—open the door!—At last, in great agitation, Martiniere siezed the candle, and ran out into the corridor, where she plainly heard the stranger's voice, repeating anxiously and vehemently, "For God's sake open the door!" In truth," thought Martiniere, "no robber would speak in this manner; who knows whether it may not be some poor persecuted man, who seeks protection from my lady, knowing that she is ever inclined to succor the distressed? ”

“ Wherein worthy Martin quits him like a man, I warrant you in the modest defence of his self and his learned pistles, and makes the Cooper's hoops to fly off, and the bishops' tubs to leak out of all cry. Penned and compiled by Martin the metropolitan. Printed in Europe, not far from some of the bouncing priests.
The actual authorship of the Martinist Tracts is still purely a matter of hypothesis. Penry has been the general favourite, and perhaps the argument from the difference of style in his known works is not quite convincing. The American writer Dr. ”

“ The rite of the Martinistes was broadly divided into two classes, in the first of which was represented the fall of man and in the second his final restoration--a further variation on the masonic theme of a loss and a recovery. ”

“ Martinique (176, of which a few are white) , a West Indian French possession, one of the Lesser Antilles; has a much-indented precipitous coast; a mountain range in the centre is densely wooded; the plains are fertile, and produce sugar, coffee, and cotton, which with fruit are the exports; the climate is hot and not salubrious; the island has been French, with three short intervals, since 1635.
Martyn, Henry, a Christian missionary, born at Truro, in Cornwall; was a Fellow of St. John's College, Cambridge; went to India as a chaplain, settled in various stations and in Persia ”

“ Martin himself has developed a literary style noteworthy for its simple directness. Some day, if he survives, he may tell his own story.
When the last of twelve hundred prisoners had been mustered in the Grande Place of Armentières, when the attacking battalions had been relieved and the reserve artillery was shelling Fritz’s hastily formed gun positions, when the last ambulance wagon of the “special” division had sped over the pavé to the base hospital at Bailleul, Martin thought he was free to go to bed. ”

“ Martin dividing his cloak with the beggar second only, in Mediæval art, to the Gospel records of the Lord’s own acts of tender grace and Divine self-emptying. As we trace, step by step, the unceasing service of Henry Martyn to men for love of his Master, we shall find a succession of modern parallels to the act of St. Martin, who, when a lad of eighteen with his regiment at Amiens, himself moneyless, answered the appeal of a beggar, shivering at the city gates in a cruel winter, by drawing his dagger, dividing his military cloak, and giving half of it to the naked man. ”

“ And running to Colombaik, on whose neck she threw herself, Martine cried out: "Did you hear your father? There is to be no war! What happiness! It is over! Let's rejoice!"
"Upon my soul, dear Martine, so much the better!" remarked the young tanner, returning the embrace of his wife. "We shall not recoil before war, but peace is better. So, then, father, everything is adjusted? The bishop pays, or surrenders the horse? Justice will be enforced against that scamp of a Black John? And the King, true to his oath, backs the Commune against the bishop?" ”

“ The old monk was launched on an endless subject when he began with St. Martin.
“But, alas!” he sighed in conclusion, “times are changed. The ravages of the barbarians and the exactions of the Romans have impoverished us all; and now the frightful hordes of these savage Huns may be on us any day. Perhaps also we are poorer in ourselves; we care more for the splendour of our churches than for the poverty of our brothers. We want Martin’s poverty of spirit to make us rich as Martin to help and save. We want his love and faith before we can see the visions he saw. ”

“ Let your worldly great men lead before their chariots captives with their hands bound behind their backs. Those accompanied the body of Martin who, under his guidance, had overcome the world. Let madness honor these earthly warriors with the united praises of nations. Martin is praised with the divine psalms, Martin is honored in heavenly hymns. Those worldly men, after their triumphs here are over, shall be thrust into cruel Tartarus, while Martin is joyfully received into the bosom of Abraham. Martin, poor and insignificant on earth, has a rich entrance granted him into heaven. ”

“ I questioned.
"Now let us divide our treasure, Martin—"
"But I bartered my share for the lives of—"
"Tush!" says he, and reaching a valise from shadowy corner he opened it and I beheld such a glory of flashing gems as nigh dazzled me with their splendour. "Look at 'em, Martin, look at 'em!" he whispered. "Here's love and hate, life and death, every good and all the sins—look at 'em!" And catching up a handful he let them fall, glittering, through his fingers. "Lord love me, Martin," he whispered, "'tis enough to turn a man's brain! Have ye counted 'em over, comrade?" ”

“ How say ye, Martin?"
"No!"
"Why no, pal?"
"Because, after to-night, if I chance to be neither dead nor in prison, I'm for shipboard."
"'Tis an ill life, pal!"
"Why, life is an ill thing!" says I.
"Nay, look'ee, Martin, life may be worth whiles now and then—aye, lad, there be times, good times."
"What times?"
"Well, Martin, to lie snug 'neath hedge o' star-time, when your fire's low an' the stars peep down through leaves at a man—wink, they go, and wink, wink, till, watching 'em, a man forgets his troubles awhile and knows something o' content. ”