The Marble Faun

“ Whether woman or sprite was a mystery, as was all else about her, except that her life and soul were somehow interfused throughout the gushing water. She was a fresh, cool, dewy thing, sunny and shadowy, full of pleasant little mischiefs, fitful and changeable with the whim of the moment, but yet as constant as her native stream, which kept the same gush and flow forever, while marble crumbled over and around it. The fountain woman loved the youth,--a knight, as Donatello called him,--for, according to the legend, his race was akin to hers. ”

“ It brims over from one stone basin to another, or gushes from a Naiad's urn, or spurts its many little jets from the mouths of nameless monsters, which were merely grotesque and artificial when Bernini, or whoever was their unnatural father, first produced them; but now the patches of moss, the tufts of grass, the trailing maiden-hair, and all sorts of verdant weeds that thrive in the cracks and crevices of moist marble, tell us that Nature takes the fountain back into her great heart, and cherishes it as kindly as if it were a woodland spring. ”

“ And still, the realization of the antique Faun, in the person of Donatello, gave a more vivid character to all these marble ghosts. Why should not each statue grow warm with life! Antinous might lift his brow, and tell us why he is forever sad. The Lycian Apollo might strike his lyre; and, at the first vibration, that other Faun in red marble, who keeps up a motionless dance, should frisk gayly forth, leading yonder Satyrs, with shaggy goat-shanks, to clatter their little hoofs upon the floor, and all join hands with Donatello! ”

“ Though set in an environment so amply pagan and Catholic, The Marble Faun is in some respects the most Puritan of all Hawthorne's romances. He who under the gray skies of New England had created Hester and Zenobia, when he came to a world in which they and their kind might have grown to their intended stature, seems to have turned partially back to an austerer code. Among the children of the Renaissance he missed that sense of sin which in his native province had been as regularly present as sea and hills. ”

“ And the sculptor directed the attention of the party to the ears of the beautiful statue which they were contemplating.
But we must do more than merely refer to this exquisite work of art; it must be described, however inadequate may be the effort to express its magic peculiarity in words.
The Faun is the marble image of a young man, leaning his right arm on the trunk or stump of a tree; one hand hangs carelessly by his side ”

“ He beheld the scene in his mind's eye, through the witchery of many intervening years, and faintly illuminated it as if with starlight instead of this broad glow of moonshine.
The party of our friends sat down, three or four of them on a prostrate column, another on a shapeless lump of marble, once a Roman altar; others on the steps of one of the Christian shrines. Goths and barbarians though they were, they chatted as gaily together as if they belonged to the gentle and pleasant race of people who now inhabit Italy. ”

“ Some of them, however, had great merit; and in the pure, fine glow of the new marble, it may be, they dazzled the judgment into awarding them higher praise than they deserved. Miriam admired the statue of a beautiful youth, a pearl fisher, who had got entangled in the weeds at the bottom of the sea, and lay dead among the pearl oysters, the rich shells, and the seaweeds, all of like value to him now.
"The poor young man has perished among the prizes that he sought," remarked she. "But what a strange efficacy there is in death! ”

“ Our illustration of the first (Fig. 153) is taken from the copy of which Hawthorne wrote so subtle a description in "The Marble Faun." The statue is somewhat restored, but the restoration is not open to doubt, except as regards the single pipe held in the right hand. No animal characteristic is to be found here save the pointed ears; the face, however, retains a suggestion of the traditional satyr-type. ”

“ The whole tribe of mythical creatures yet live in the moonlit seclusion of a young girl’s fancy, and find it a lovelier abode and play-place, I doubt not, than their Arcadian haunts of yore. What bliss, if a man of marble, like myself, could stray thither, too! ”

“ We should expect from him no sacrifice or effort for an abstract cause; there is not an atom of martyr's stuff in all that softened marble; but he has a capacity for strong and warm attachment, and might act devotedly through its impulse, and even die for it at need. ”

“ A spade can scarcely be put into that soil, so rich in lost and forgotten things, without hitting upon some discovery which would attract all eyes, in any other land. If you dig but a little way, you gather bits of precious marble, coins, rings, and engraved gems; if you go deeper, you break into columbaria, or into sculptured and richly frescoed apartments that look like festive halls, but were only sepulchres. ”

“ Some youths and maidens were running merry races across the open space, and playing at hide and seek a little way within the duskiness of the ground tier of arches, whence now and then you could hear the half-shriek, halflaugh of a frolicsome girl, whom the shadow had betrayed into a young man’s arms. Elder groups were seated on the fragments of pillars and blocks of marble that lay round the verge of the arena, talking in the quick, short ripple of the Italian tongue. ”

“ These foreign guests are indeed ungrateful, if they do not breathe a prayer for Pope Clement, or whatever Holy Father it may have been, who levelled the summit of the mount so skilfully, and bounded it with the parapet of the city wall; who laid out those broad walks and drives, and overhung them with the deepening shade of many kinds of tree; who scattered the flowers of all seasons, and of every clime, abundantly over those green, central lawns, who scooped out hollows, in fit places, and, setting great basins of marble in them, caused ever-gushing fountains to fill them to the brim ”

“ Even my adventure of the preceding evening with the lady of the beech-tree contributed to arouse the wild hope, that by some means life might be given to this form also, and that, breaking from her alabaster tomb, she might glorify my eyes with her presence. “For,” I argued, “who can tell but this cave may be the home of Marble, and this, essential Marble—that spirit of marble which, present throughout, makes it capable of being moulded into any form? Then if she should awake! But how to awake her? A kiss awoke the Sleeping Beauty! a kiss cannot reach her through the incrusting alabaster.” ”

“ The interest is still kept up and many visitors come every year and all go away well pleased that they have spent an hour in this quiet spot, around which there hangs a mystery.
Early in the winter of 1879 Mr. Marble contemplated visiting his relatives and friends in the West, but instead thereof, he started on that journey from whence no traveler returns,—in the body—and one bright day, in the middle of January 1880, the last good byes were spoken and his grave was made by the side of the rock, just above the house where he spent more than half of his earthly existence. ”

“ The cave was still as far distant as ever; faith had grown weak, and hope, which formed so tempting a breakfast, seemed about to prepare a very poor supper.
It is about this time that we find how great is the power of perseverance. Mr. Marble, after the other men had left, continued the work for some time with his only son, a young man about twenty years of age. And thus, it was after working a year by the guidance of mesmerism, that we find him consulting the first clairvoyant medium, and this led him into the mystic labyrinths of spiritualism, or spiritual philosophy. ”

“ Only by gilded flies in the daytime; they look like hornets, but can only buzz, not bite with their beak, nor sting with their tail. At night it is defended by daws and beetles, noisy but harmless. Here is marble, my son, not classic and famous as yet, but good as the Parian stone; quarry as much as you will, enough for a nymph or a temple. Say your wisest and do your best thing; nobody will hurt you! ”

“ The Strange Man, with his piping;
[They cross themselves]
And they went,—
And never came again.
HANS' WIFE
But they may come!
PETER the Cobbler
[pityingly]
Marble is final, woman;—nay, poor soul!
When once a man be buried, and over him
The stone doth say Hic Jacet, or Here Lies,
When did that man get up?—There is the stone.
They come no more, for piping or for prayer;
Until the trump of the Lord Gabriel.
And if they came, 'tis not in Hamelin men
To alter any stone, so graven.—Marble
Is final. Marble has the last word, ever.
[Groans from the burghers.] ”

“ The excavation is high enough and broad enough for two tall men to walk abreast, and on its winding way, screw fashion, doubling upon itself, it leads down one hundred and fifty feet into the bowels of the earth, all the way through solid rock that had remained undisturbed for centuries on centuries, until the work of this ill-directed Marble commenced. ”

“ One day in the forest he sees a splendid raven, and he sends an arrow through its heart. The raven falls upon a monumental tomb of the whitest marble, which there is there under the trees, besprinkling it with his blood. ”

“ For thirty years this task was carried on, both father and son dying without gaining any practical result, other than the discovery of an ancient scabbard in a rift. The heiress of the house of Marble alone reaped benefit from their labors, for-resuming on a petty scale the levies of the first dwellers in the rock—she boldly placarded the entrance to the workings “Ye who enter here leave twenty-five cents behind.” ”

“ One day, during that interesting season of the year when the farmers are busy making hay, Jake had [81] occasion to pass through Mr. Marble's meadow, with his fishing rod, on his way to the "deep hole," where, as every body in the neighborhood knew, multitudes of sun fish and perch were always to be found, ready for a nice bit of an angle-worm. ”

“ We do not need the keeper’s scissors and so forth when we are free, for old Mother Nature looks after those things for us.”
MARCH 7: The Marbles “The Marbles,” said daddy, “were very proud because they had been used so much by boys and girls—especially by boys.
“Then, too, the Elves had played marbles, as years before they had found out about them and thought they were lots of fun to play with.
“‘You are nothing but an ordinary Marble,’ said one large and very blue Marble to a little Marble.
“‘But I am useful for playing. And I joggle along and roll much better than you do. You are so big. ”

“ Scorn our heroes until they die, then put them in a marble cheese-box."
"One must die to become good," completed the Deficient, efficiently.
"Could an old lady sit upon a tomb of a marabout?" I inquired, cautiously.
Old ladies could—and did.
"But the ribbons?" asked the Illustrator in a low voice, hoping that we didn't hear him.
"Come with me this day," urged the Soudanese. "Come with me to El Hamel, and I shall show you the most beautiful tomb of the most wondrous marabout in Africa or the United States— yes, and hung-with ribbons!" ”

“ For in howsoever thoughtless a mood one may be when he first visits the archæological shrine in which the holiness of antique beauty reposes, the first glorious view of such a marble miracle compels the heart to slacken its motion in the awful wonder of that moment. One breathes low, as in sacred fear lest the vision might dissolve into nothingness—as though the witchery might be broken were living breath to touch with its warm moisture that wonderful marble cheek. ”

“ Do you mark yonder black marble slab, which is spread as over a tomb? It covers the most silvery fountain that ever mirrored the golden light of noon, or caught the fall of the evening dew, in an element bright as themselves. The radiant likeness of a Spirit rests on those waters. I bade him give duration to the shadow he flung upon the wave, that I might gaze on it during his absence. The first act of my immortality was to shut it from my sight. There must that black marble rest for ever. ”

“ Looking always at the girl in black, he said:
"Perhaps those doomed on dark mountains or in solitary deserts, or the last survivor at sea, drifting to certain destruction after the wreck has foundered, finds death no terror, being guided to it by those invisible to all save the surely doomed. That is really all that suggested the marble—quite illogical, you see." ”

“ When even his most degraded slaves urged him to have sufficient manliness to save himself from the fearful infamies which otherwise awaited him, he ordered his grave to be dug, and fragments of marble to be collected for its adornment, and water and wood for his funeral pyre, perpetually whining: "What an artist to perish!" ”

“ Others lay with dreadfully goggling eyes and labouring gills, clinging to life and slapping the marble slab desperately with their tails—until such time as their fate was at hand, when somebody would seize them and cut their throats with a crunching sound. ”

“ If too much colour (black) is thrown on, the result will be an invisible marble, or, as I once heard it expressed by a workman, "it could not be seen on account of the fog;" if too little, no matter how nicely the marble is formed, it will be weak and feeble.
Marbling on leather is produced by small drops of colouring liquids, drawn, by the flowing of water down an inclined plane, into veins and spread into fantastic forms resembling foliage—hence, often called tree-marble. ”