Mende

“ DURAND, GUILLAUME (Guillelmus Durandus) , also known as Duranti or Durantis, from the Italian form of Durandi filius, as he sometimes signed himself (c. 1230–1296) , French canonist and liturgical writer, and bishop of Mende, was born at Puimisson, near Beziers, of a noble family of Languedoc. He studied law at Bologna, especially with Bernardus of Parma, and about 1264 was teaching canon law with success at Modena. ”

“ Never had Mendel seen anything so glorious, so rich, so dream-like, so clearly corresponding to that marvellous region where all his thoughts ended, passed out of his reach, and took on a brilliant and mighty life of their own, a glory greater than that of the Emperor at home. ”

“ She herself had a love of flowers and of moonlight and the stars shining through the smoky sky, and she would sometimes find herself being urged to the use of strange words, which would make Mendel raise his head and cock his ears as though he were listening to the very beat of her heart. ”

“ The spectacle smote him in cold blood. "Shaya smoke on the holy Sabbath! It's a lie!"
He started in the direction of Mendele's residence, bent upon thrashing the red-haired talebearer to death. Soon, however, he halted and turned homeward. ”

“ Such, thought Mendel, should the life of an artist be. But how was it possible if life would not let him alone, but was perpetually dragging him down into the mud? What mud, what filth he had had to flounder through to get even so far as he had! ”

“ In the midst of the struggles between Guelfs and Ghibellines, Durandus successfully defended the papal territories, both by diplomacy and by arms. Honorius IV. retained him in his offices, and although elected bishop of Mende in 1286, he remained in Italy until 1291. ”

“ Mendez was a half-breed, whose mentality was hardly up to par, but whose pistol ability and cold-blooded nerve were seldom equaled.
“We tak’ care of de yong man, eh?” queried Mendez, his voice like the purring of a cat. “Dat be easy, eh, Beel?” ”

“ Such a state of licence, which threatened to spread farther and farther, awoke the religious solicitude of Messire Francois Langlade de Duchayla, Prior of Laval, Inspector of Missions of Gevaudan, and Arch-priest of the Cevennes. He therefore resolved to leave his residence at Mende and to visit the parishes in which heresy had taken the strongest hold, in order to oppose it by every mean’s which God and the king had put in his power. ”

“ In Mendel, too, this desire for God became active and kindled his creative will. He plunged into his work with a frenzy, but soon recognized that he was committing the old offence and was “overseen.” . . . Yet how shall a man approach his God if not through art?
“Something is lacking!” cried Mendel desperately. “Something is lacking!”
His imagination flew back to that last sublime moment of friendship with Logan, but it lacked warmth. It seemed that he could not take it back into life with him, or that until he had established contact with life its force could not be kindled. ”

“ Now you are afraid.”
“Mendez not ’fraid! white man lie!” the warrior thundered as he laid his hand on his knife.
“I am not afraid of you, Mendez, but you have been too good a friend of the white people for any of them to wish to harm you. But I repeat your own words. Shall I tell you what is the matter with you?”
“No matter wi’ Mendez! He brave—he strong—he fight.”
“There is much the matter with you; you have been drinking tiswin; you are not yourself; but for the tiswin you would be the true, brave, noble Mendez.” ”

“ Recha felt the truth of her husband's words and dried her eyes.
"I look into the year just begun with great hopes," continued Mendel. "Among our own people the greatest harmony prevails. The sorrows we have suffered in common have served to knit our souls more closely together, and the little quarrels and petty jealousies that formerly agitated our community have ceased. ”

“ It was a hard and tedious task and progress was necessarily slow, but Mendel possessed two great essentials to progress, indomitable perseverance and an active intellect, and his teacher displayed the painstaking care and patience with which love for his pupil inspired him. ”

“ Mendez came down the black passage evidently in rare good humour, humming a tune, with one hand pressed upon the wall to better guide his movements. So dark it was, even the outlines of his form were indistinguishable, yet, as he felt no need for caution, it was easy enough to trace his forward progress. The girl stood erect, the revolver gripped in one hand, the other pressing back her companion into the recess. She had lost all sense of fear in the determination to act; better risk all than surrender without a struggle. ”

“ His only prejudice seemed to be against pink, fleshy young men who had to do nothing for a living—young men like her brothers, for instance, of whom she had drawn an amusing series of caricatures showing the effect of introducing Mendel to them. . . . Sometimes she wondered if her own longing for freedom was not just her ignorance, just a craven desire to escape from knowing anything about life, to remain an amused but fundamentally indifferent onlooker. ”

“ He had thrown off the spell of the horrible stuff, as a Roman warrior might fling off his cloak to give his limbs freer play.
“Mendez is brave: he is a great warrior; he is greater than Geronimo or Cochise; he is not afraid of them; he will bring back the child to his white brother; let his white brother wait here and soon his heart shall be made glad; he shall sing with joy like the birds in the trees. Mendez will soon return; let my brother have patience.”
Maurice Freeman was amazed. ”

“ Little enough material, it is true, exists at present, but that we now see to be largely a question of time and means. Whatever be the outcome, whatever the form of the structure which is eventually to emerge, we owe it first of all to Mendel that the foundations can be well and truly laid. ”

“ It is the seat of a prefect and a court of assizes, and has a tribunal of first instance and a chamber of commerce. The chief industry is the manufacture of serges and shalloons, known as Mende stuffs, exported to Spain, Italy and Germany. ”

“ Unless some people love knowledge for its own sake, quite independently of its possible uses, the new discoveries will only concern the working out of ideas inherited from disinterested investigators. Mendelism is now studied by hosts of agriculturists and stock-breeders, but Mendel was a monk who spent his leisure enjoying his peas-blossoms. A million years of practical agriculturists would never have discovered Mendelism. ”

“ Harry held his peace. That settled it for him, and even Mendel was shaken by the storm his Christian inclinations had let loose.
“The Christians are liars,” said Jacob. “Every one of them is a liar, and they eat filth.”
There was a passion of belief in his father which Mendel could not but honour, and that other faith, so far as he knew, was held but mildly. ”

“ In each man, each woman was enough of God and of the universe to keep them poised for their little hour.
What, then, was love? What but the sense of being poised, of being borne up by God, an intimation that could only be won through contact with life at its purest. And beyond that again lay a further degree of purity which could only find expression in art, since life, even at its rarest, was too gross.
Often Mendel kissed his reproduction reverently and hugged it to his bosom, thinking childishly that some of its spirit could enter into him by contact. ”

“ FIRST LOVE FOR Mendel every day became romantic, though he suffered tortures of shyness and used to bolt like a rabbit through the doors of the Polytechnic, rush upstairs to his easel, and never raise his eyes from it except to gaze at the objects placed before him. He worked in a frenzy, convinced that it was his business to translate the object on to the canvas. ”

“ MR. TILNEY TYSOE LOGAN with Oliver was more startling and exhilarating than before. He was filled with a ferocious energy, and his programme was distended with it.
He said to Mendel:—
“She’s an inspiration. I have found what I was seeking. You have given me the inspiration of art. Through you I shall reach the heights of the spirit. She has given me the inspiration of life, and through her I shall plumb the very depths of humanity. She is marvellous. All the exasperation of modern life is in her, all the impatient brooding on the threshold of new marvels. ”

“ Nevertheless, Plooie prowled about, uttering his cracked and lugubrious cry in the forlorn hope of picking up a parapluie to raccommode. I was one of the few left to hear him, because Mendel, the jeweler, had most inconsiderately gone to view royalty, leaving my unrepaired glasses locked in his shop; otherwise I, too, would have been on the Fifth Avenue curb shouting with the best of them. Do not misinterpret me. For the divinity that doth hedge a king I care as little as one should whose forbears fought in the Revolution. ”

“ She smiled and shook the smile away when Mitchell spoke of Mendel Kühler. She remembered once meeting Mendel on the stairs at the Detmold. She had often noticed him—strange-looking, white-faced, romantic, with a look of suffering in his eyes that marked him out from [Pg 132] all the other young men. ”

“ If we take very strong gum in very minute quantity on the point of a camel’s-hair brush, we may often succeed with great care in perfectly reuniting the edges. Observe that in this, as in everything, the mender should not draw his conclusions from the first effort, which will probably be a failure, but from frequent careful observation and experiment. There are marvellously few people in the world who take the pains to become really good menders of anything—excepting lace and the like—hence there are few things mended at all except by botchers and amateurs. ”

“ In the glitter and the excitement, the brilliance, the colour, the women with their painted faces, the white marble-topped tables, the mirrors along the walls, the blue wreathing tobacco-smoke, Calthrop’s personality was magnified and concentrated as in a theatre. The café without him was Denmark without the Prince, and Mendel found the hours before he came or the evenings when he did not come almost insupportable. Yet it was not the man’s success or his fame or his notoriety that fascinated the boy, whose instinct went straight to the immense vitality which was the cause of all. ”

“ And while you are walking back to the town, teniente, meditate on the fact that a hairpin can sometimes give a man an unexpected shock. Tell the general about that; and tell him to beware of hairpins and of those who use them. Adios!”
With a mirthful gurgle of the exhaust, the launch backed, swung, and sped away. Mendez hissed something under his breath and, red-faced, turned to his hot, hard tramp along the shore. ”

“ My father’s a great man. He’ll stir you up. And you must come along with me and Weldon and Kessler and see life while you’re young. Good-bye.”
He shook hands vigorously with Mendel and strode off with his long, raking stride, while Mendel stood glowing with the happiness of having found a friend, some one to whom he could talk almost as he talked to Golda: a fine young Englishman, pink and oozing robustious health, ease, refinement, and comfort. ”

“ Mendenhall has her instant answer for every such question. But do the philosophers?”
Paula shook her head.
“No. All they have is ideas. They immediately proceed to talk about it, and talk and talk and talk, and with all their erudition reach no conclusion whatever. And I am just as bad. I listen and listen, and talk and talk, as I am talking now, and remain convictionless. ”

“ Delighted!” he said as he coiled his long white hand round Mendel’s workmanlike paw. “My wife, I regret to say, is away. She will be so sorry to have missed you. Like me, she is tired of the shallow, artificial people we live among. We both adore sincere, real people. I adore sincerity. Sincerity is genius.”
“That is true,” said Logan in a sepulchral voice that made Mendel jump. “At least, where you find sincerity, you may be sure that genius is not far behind.”
“I bought a picture of yours the other day, Mr. Kühler,” said Tysoe. ”

“ It makes me sick to think of all the dabbling in paint that goes on, not to speak of all the dabbling in love. Love? The word has become foolish and empty. I don’t wish to hear it uttered ever again. . . . I swear that if it doesn’t come out in paint I shall write poetry. Oh! I can feel the marrow in my bones again, and my veins are full of sap. . . . But I want to talk business.”
“Business?” said Mendel, who had been upset and bewildered by this outburst.
“Yes. I want you to approve my programme, [Pg 222] for you must have a programme. It is all very well to work by the light of inspiration. ”

“ So perfect a vision had no need to be tender or affectionate or sensual, or to call in aid any of the emotions of life. It needed no force but the rare religious ecstasy which has no need of ideas or common human feelings, and this vision of a woman gave Mendel [Pg 355] a new appreciation of life and love and art. It gave human beings a new value. It was enough that they were alive and upon the earth with all that they contained of good and evil. ”

“ Sadly Mendel wandered on until he met a kindly disposed woman, who directed him to the Jewish quarter.
"At the house of prayer there is always someone to be found," thought Mendel, and thither he bent his steps. Half-a-dozen men at once surrounded him and listened to his harrowing story ”

“ Mendel waited outside and paced up and down, oppressed with the idea that his friendship with Mitchell was at an end. He was left helpless and exposed, for all that had been built on the friendship had come toppling down, and with it came the extra personality he had developed for dealing with the Detmold and the polite world—the Kühler who had assiduously learned manners and phrases, vices and enthusiasms, as a part to be played at the Paris Café and in the drawing-rooms of the languid ladies who were interested in art and artists. ”