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+SEPTEMBER
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+The barren, sterile emotions which Art gives us, though they have the
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+advantage of harmlessness over the emotions of Life itself, that tree of
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+sweet and bitter fruits, bear with them the inherent defects of their
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+unreality; and whereas there is hardly an emotion of Life which does not
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+leave us stronger and more vivified, there is hardly an emotion of Art
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+where one’s senses are stirred, not by actual events of joy or sorrow,
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+but the imagined scenes thereof, which does not leave us flat and
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+unbraced in proportion as the emotion excited has been keen. Love and
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+death, the two great _motifs_ on which the drama of Life is based,
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+whether they are whispered on the shivering strings, or piped on remote
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+flutes, or thundered with the blast of trumpets and the clash of
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+cymbals, leave us, when such actual experience has touched us, the
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+richer for it, and stronger and more vivified. But such is not the case
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+in the reflection of experience which Art gives us; vivid it may be--so
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+vivid, indeed, that reality after it seems shadow-like and unreal--but
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+its life is temporary. We thrill with ecstasies that are not really
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+ours; our soul, in its secret place, sickens with sin or withers with
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+renunciations which are not its own; and when the mimic spectacle is
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+over, and we wake from the storms or sunshine of a coloured dream to a
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+gray morning, and have to take up again the dispiriting thread of
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+uneventful hours, it is with an intolerable sense of flatness that we at
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+first look out over the undistinguished landscape of life. For a week,
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+perhaps, or a fortnight, we have agonized with the throes of Titans;
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+monstrous joys and sorrows have been our portion, and for the monstrous
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+we take up again the minute. We have been burning with alien fires and
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+passions not our own: the temptation of Kundry has shaken us; the sorrow
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+of Wotan, as wide as the world and as bitter as the sea, has for the
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+time been ours; we have been laid to sleep on a mountain-top, like
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+Brunehilde, and, like Siegfried, have dreamed in the green shade of
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+woods until the voice of Nature has become intelligible, and the
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+twittering of birds articulate through the murmur of the forest. The
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+quintessence of human emotion, in all its terror and beauty, has shaken
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+and enthralled us. Then--then the curtain came down, and we go out again
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+into the real world, which for the time Art has rendered shadow-like,
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+where a hundred petty duties await us, in no way refreshed or strung up
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+for their accomplishment, but impatient, irritated, and bored.
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+
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+Such, at least, were my own feelings when on a morning I awoke and
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+remembered (what at first seemed incredible) that there was to be no
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+opera that day, and that the curtain was down on the stage at Bayreuth
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+for two years. The little backwater of a town, which on arrival had
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+seemed so instinct with such sweet repose and tranquillity, was
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+insupportable: its tranquillity was the stagnation of decay; its repose
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+a creeping death-trance, with gray nightmare to ride its rest. Instead
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+of finding that the fiery dreams of the last fortnight had gilded its
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+streets and woven themselves into its gardens and trellises, it appeared
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+to me merely the most dismal little sun-baked suburb I had ever seen. A
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+glorious lamp had burned there, but the lamp was quenched, and instead
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+of a reflection of its light lingering there, there was only a smell of
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+oil. But the immediate and vital question was what to do and where to
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+go. I could not imagine myself finding existence tolerable anywhere, and
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+least of all, perhaps, could I imagine myself back in England in my own
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+quiet little house in the country town, since for the time being, at any
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+rate, all the minute pleasures which had built up that delightful life
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+and made it so full of happiness were incomprehensible. Not long ago a
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+quiet morning of work, with glances into the garden to see what new
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+plant had flowered, a game of golf over the breezy down, the face of a
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+friend, the hundred details of my life which I have tried to describe in
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+these pages, were overflowingly sufficient to make me more than content.
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+But now there was exasperation in the very multitude of them. And all
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+the time there were, so to speak, images of glorious brightness shut
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+away in some dark place of my brain. The Valkyries were there and
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+Parsifal, Hans Sachs, mellow and unembittered, looked on the love of
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+others and smiled, and Walter sang of spring-time, and everywhere was
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+melody.
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+
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+Here, if you please, is egotism _in excelsis_, for I solemnly told
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+myself that, instead of going back home like a sober and average person,
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+I was bound--no less--to go somewhere and to do something by which I
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+could the more fully apprehend and crystallize these images; and the
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+grounds on which I put this to myself--that is my only excuse--were
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+genuine. For I believe that one of the main duties of man to God and to
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+himself is to realize beauty and understand it, and that one of his main
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+duties to his neighbour is to produce beauty in some shape or form,
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+moral, mental, or physical--if, indeed, there is any real difference
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+between them. The last fortnight had given me new material; that part of
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+me which is capable in its small way of feeling beauty had been shown
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+wonderful things. If I went back home to the ordinary routine of daily
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+life, I felt that I should not only do my part in it exceedingly ill,
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+but also that the monotony and triviality of it would tarnish and dull
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+the brightness of my new possessions. In other words, I began--a solemn
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+prig--to think about my artistic temperament, and make plans for its
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+well-being. And that confession made--in the hope that _Qui s’accuse
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+s’excuse_ in some small degree--the mind-narrative can go on its way. My
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+body--after an effusion of telegrams--sped South to the house of a
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+friend in Capri, where it arrived two days later.
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+
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+ * * * * *
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+
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+Here in this remote island, separated by a few leagues of sea only from
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+that vividly modern and restless place called Naples, can be recaptured
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+without effort something of the early days of the world, and from the
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+steamer one steps out of all the responsibilities and codes which the
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+stupidity and wickedness of mankind have built up, into paganism and
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+fairyland. The gray walls compounded of priggishness and puritanism (yet
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+knitted together with the mortar of good intentions and morality) with
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+which this civilized century has fortressed itself fall as the walls of
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+Jericho fell at the blast of the trumpet, and there is left sunlight and
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+sea and the beauty of the seven days of creation, which was pronounced
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+by God to be good.
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+
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+The red, waxlike flowers of the pomegranate are in full bloom, and as
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+evening falls they glow like hot coals over the rough stone walls that
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+bound the path up to Capri, where the green lizards slip in and out. The
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+smell of the vines is in the air, heavy and warm, and once or twice as I
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+walked through the dusky trellises my heart hammered in me, for I knew
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+that but a little more and I should see Dionysus himself, with the
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+vine-leaves in his hair, and delicate hand holding the cup that brimmed
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+with purple; and at noonday often have I all but seen in the
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+briar-decked clefts of rock the great god Pan himself, to the music of
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+whose fluting the whole world dances. Up and down their steep paths,
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+with head erect beneath the wine-jars, walk the maidens of Capri, and
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+something of Aphrodite lives in their wine-painted faces and moulded
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+bosoms; and young Apollo, bare-footed and splashed to the knee in the
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+trodden vats, strips the nut-husks off with his gleaming teeth, and
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+looks at the passer-by with brown soft eye. He has pushed a pomegranate
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+flower behind his ear, and his shirt is open, so that the smooth brown
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+breast is seen. What thoughts fill day by day that gay, lazy Italian
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+brain? He is not religious, although he goes to Mass most regularly,
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+for from Mass he passes back again to paganism; and he only goes there
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+because he is a child and is vaguely afraid--or would be if he did not
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+go to Mass--of what the priests have told him about a remote bogie--for
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+so God seems to him--who can make him burn in unquenchable fires if he
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+does not. Nor does he weary his mind with any question of morality or
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+code of ethics: the sun is warm to him, or, if the sun be hot, the shade
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+is cool, and the almond fruit is sweet, and the fumes of the fermenting
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+vats mysteriously exciting, and the maiden with whom he is in treaty to
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+wed very fair and loving, and her dowry is good. And for the passer-by
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+he has his bright smile, and the expression of his hope that I have
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+enjoyed my bathe. No, he has not bathed to-day, for the work of the
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+vintage is heavy, and he is paid by the hour. Ah, a cigarette? The
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+signor is too kind. Will not the signor take his pomegranate flower?
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+Indeed the signor will.
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+
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+Day by day this sunny and innocent paganism gets more possession of me,
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+and day by day the beauty of that which I saw at Bayreuth glows more
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+brightly. Yesterday, about evening, a sudden summer squall came storming
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+over from Posillippo, gleaming with lightning and riotous with thunder,
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+and to me it was Wotan who steered from the north. On Monte Solaro the
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+Valkyries awaited his coming, and when the whistling winds had passed
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+away over our heads, while the house shuddered, and the moon again rose
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+in a velvet sky with stars swarming thick round her, I knew that on the
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+mountain-top Brunehilde slept within a ring of fire, waiting for the man
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+who should claim her with his kiss. But the morning again to-day was
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+very clear and hot, and instead of going up Mount Solaro, as I had
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+intended, I went, as usual, down to the Bagno, a white pebbly beach with
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+pockets of sand to lie on. I took with me a basket of figs and a flask
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+of wine stoppered with vine-leaves, and my friend took a book which we
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+often read and a straw case of cigarettes. And together we swam through
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+the chrysoprase of sunlit sea far out to a brown, seaweed-covered rock.
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+The water was very deep round it, and fathoms down something shone very
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+brightly with wavering, subaqueous gleam, and, half laughing at myself,
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+I dived and dived--for I knew it was the Rhinegold that shone
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+there--until I could dive no more. Yet still I could not get deep
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+enough. Then, having rested, we swam back, and lay on pockets of hot
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+sand, and drank from the leaf-stoppered bottle, and ate the purple of
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+the figs; and my friend read in the book which he had brought, beginning
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+at the seventh chapter, and to this effect:
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+
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+‘Did I seriously believe that that contemplation of God which is the
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+prime duty laid on us by religion must, or even could, legitimately give
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+us any touch of sadness of whatever kind, I would throw religion away as
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+heedlessly as I throw away the end of a smoked-out cigarette, for I have
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+no use for it. Yet although on every side, and most of all in every
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+pulpit, I see the lamentable Puritan jowl, and hear the lamentable
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+Puritan whine, which bids me look with horror on the sin of the world
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+and with sorrow on its sufferings, I do not for a moment believe that
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+this impious gabble is the result of religion, but rather of grossest
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+irreligion, on the part of its exponents. For me, I know that the
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+contemplation of God is my duty, and if I make it my whole and
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+absorbing duty I cannot go very far astray. For above all things is God
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+love, and above all things is He beauty, and the love which engirdles
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+Him joins without break to the human love which it is our duty always to
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+give and take, giving with both hands and taking by the armful. So, too,
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+His beauty joins without break to the beauty of all He has made, and in
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+the golden hair of women and in the rose-petal, in the smooth swift
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+limbs of youth and in the faceted diamond, in the curve of a girl’s lips
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+and in the rose-flushed clouds, in the blue chalice of the sky of
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+morning, equally and everywhere must we look for and absorb the beauty
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+which is implanted there.
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+
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+‘It is here that Christianity, with its mournful, man-invented morality,
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+has gone so far astray from its Founder that many Christians turn from
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+beauty as if beauty was evil, instead of ever seeking it and worshipping
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+it, find it where they will, until the dross of their gross minds is
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+burned up in that fine fire. Hence, too, sprang--by “hence,” I mean from
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+impious Puritanism--such phrases as the “temptations and dangers of
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+physical beauty,” whereas to the man whose mind is set on God it is by
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+and through beauty that the uttermost death-stroke is dealt to the
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+writhing earthworm of carnalism. For the truth is that no beauty of
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+soul, and no completeness, was ever framed on the mutilation or
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+starvation of self, and at the Last Day the gray and pallid ascetic will
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+find that what he thought was virtue, and what he taught as
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+self-control, was sheer darkness of soul and purblind vision.
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+
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+‘It is this that must be cast away. We are people that sit in darkness,
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+content that our religion should make us sad, and as such we have a
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+lesson humbly to learn from paganism, and in particular from the
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+paganism of the Greeks, whose hierarchy of gods were enthroned in
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+brightness, and the name thereof was Beauty. And that Beauty, the search
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+of which to them was worship and prayer and praise, they found
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+everywhere: in the sunlight and the blue dome of heaven; in the crisp,
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+curly acanthus leaf which they set to twine about the capitals of their
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+marble-hewn columns and on the necks of the vases of the dead; in the
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+radiance of jewels and in the tragedies of heroes; and above all in the
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+beauty of the human form. Disfigured and astray their worship often
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+went, and it wore strange garbs, but through all its sin and its
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+misconceptions, its thousand errors and distortions, we can see
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+gleaming, deep below, the bright shining of its truth. And this, to my
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+mind, gleams less brightly in the sadder worship of to-day.
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+
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+‘For I doubt very much whether anybody is in the least benefited by the
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+actual sorrow or repentance of anyone, though no doubt such--especially
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+to sour and brooding natures--is necessary. But the best repentance, if
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+one has sufficient vitality, will be momentary, a fiery sword-thrust,
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+which will leave no ache or throb behind. It is better, I dare say, that
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+a man should suffer the fires of remorse for years rather than that he
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+should not suffer them at all, but I think that the man who is capable
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+of throwing his remorse off and starting fresh and unwounded is the more
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+Godlike creature, for the reason that it is infinitely better to be
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+happy and smiling than to go frowning through the world. For sin is
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+seldom born of a happy impulse, stare as you may, unless from a happy
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+impulse which has been, so to speak, shut up in the dark and has gone
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+putrid.
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+
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+‘And here in this divine place’ (the book I am quoting from was written
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+at Athens), ‘where beauty is thrown broadcast over all one sees, and
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+happiness is so easy, it seems to me to follow as a corollary that
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+things which a Northern and gloomy people consider wrong are less wrong.
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+For supposing in foggy London every shopkeeper tried to cheat one, one
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+would say that the middle class was going to the dogs. Quite so--it
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+would be. But the middle class is not in the least going to the dogs
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+here. Why not? For a variety of reasons: partly because there is more
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+sun here and no fog, and because the Parthenon is near at hand. Ah, yes,
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+indeed it is so: Gaiety covers a multitude of sins, and while they are
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+covered, Beauty blots them out.
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+
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+‘O beautiful God of this beautiful world, let me make somebody laugh
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+to-day. Amen.’
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+
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+At that point I laughed.
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+
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+‘So his prayer is heard,’ said my friend. ‘Have you eaten all the figs
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+while I have been reading?’
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+
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+‘Yes; but don’t be unhappy. Remember it is your duty to be happy. You
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+may have the last cigarette. No--we’ll toss for it.’
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+
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+‘I’ll be shot if we do!’ said he.
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+
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+‘Well, I’ll cut it in half.’
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+
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+‘So that neither of us gets any,’ said he. ‘Give it me;’ and he very
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+rudely snatched at it. Here ensued a scuffle, and, the bowels of the
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+cigarette being scattered about the beach, neither of us got any, and
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+the occasion gave rise to moral reflections. Also immoral ones. Then
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+peace and plenty descended in the shape of a friend also coming down to
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+bathe with a supply of fresh tobacco, and the sun was warm again and the
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+sea blue. Then my friend (whom I must call Toby, because he objects to
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+his real name being known, saying that I am certain to keep all the
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+beautiful remarks for myself and give him all the idiocy) held forth:
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+
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+‘The man is shallow,’ he said; ‘it is only a gospel of surfaces he
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+preaches, and you think it profound merely because he loads it with
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+grave words. I have done for years exactly what he preaches: I have
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+succeeded in being always happy and usually gay, and I spend my whole
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+life in looking for what I consider beautiful. Yet what did you call me
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+last night? A second-hand sensualist, I think.’
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+
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+‘Very likely. That is because you are not strenuous. Your pursuit of
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+beauty must be passionate, and the pursuit must be an act of worship.
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+Your pursuit of beauty is not an act of worship; it is more like sucking
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+sweets.’
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+
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276
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+Toby laughed loudly and idiotically.
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+
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+‘Or eating all the figs,’ said he, and the discussion ended.
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+
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+It is close on noon, and only the faintest breeze is stirring. The bay
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+is silent and waveless, except that at intervals a ripple falls like the
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+happy sigh of some beautiful basking creature on to the hot, white
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+pebbles of the beach. There, like a living sapphire, lies the dear sea,
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+the thing in this world I love best and understand best, though I do not
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+understand it at all. Never have I seen it so luminous as it is to-day;
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+you would say that the sunlight of centuries had been lit in its depths.
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+Gray rocks run out from the precipitous land, fringed with seaweed, and
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+under the water the seaweed shows purple. A brown-sailed fishing-boat
|
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+lies becalmed a mile out, and across the bay Naples sparkles white and
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+remote, and only the thin line of smoke streaming upwards from Vesuvius
|
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+speaks of the fierce and everlasting stir of forces which underlie the
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+world. In the thickets which come down to the water’s edge of this
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+tideless sea there is now no sound of life, though an hour ago they were
|
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+resonant with the whirring of the cicalas. The lizards have crept out in
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295
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+the stillness and bask on the white stones, as still as if once more
|
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296
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+Orpheus charmed them; and high above me a hawk, with wings motionless,
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+floats slowly, in seeming sleep, down some breeze in the upper air.
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+
|
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299
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+And what if my nameless author is right? What if--this is the
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300
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+upshot--happiness is our first duty? It is certainly not true that if
|
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301
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+you are good you are happy; but may it not be true that by being happy
|
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302
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+you are in some degree good? The Puritan interpretation of Christianity
|
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+has had a fair trial, and, indeed, it seems to have made but a poor job
|
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+out of it. What is the result of all these sadnesses and renunciations?
|
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305
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+Nothing but starved lives and unrealized ideals. Such self-denial is
|
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306
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+touching, beautiful in theory, and based, of course, on Christ’s
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+teaching. But it is based awry if it brings sadness with it, if it sees
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+in beauty only a lure to lead the soul astray, rather than the signpost
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+which points by no winding road, but a royal highway, straight to God.
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+And that road resounds with praise, and the birds of St. Francis sit in
|
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311
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+the pleasant boughs of the trees that grow beside it, and the dear saint
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+smiles at them, and says: ‘Sing, my sisters, and praise the Lord.’ And
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+at his bidding they fill their throats with bubbling song, and thank God
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+for their warm feathers and the green habitations He has builded for
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+them. Then St. Francis, so the legend tells us, sits down at table with
|
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316
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+St. Blaise and others, the friends of St. Francis, and feeds his dear
|
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317
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+birds, so that they become very strong. That saint is more to my mind
|
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|
+than that foolish fellow Stylites, or the dour St. Bernard, who, being
|
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319
|
+plagued with the flies on a hot day, excommunicated them, and they all
|
|
320
|
+dropped down dead. For love, joy, and peace are the gifts of the Spirit,
|
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321
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+but we are too much given to let the joy take care of itself, to check
|
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|
+it even, as if salvation was clothed in sackcloth.
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+
|
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324
|
+Happiness is a home product. We cannot import it into ourselves, nor by
|
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325
|
+multiplying our pleasures can we come one whit nearer to it. But by
|
|
326
|
+being dull, by being slow to perceive, or having perceived to receive,
|
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327
|
+we can, and we often do, succeed in closing the doors of our souls to
|
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|
+it. Yet, though it comes not from without, nor is it the sum or product
|
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|
+of any pleasures, our soul must sit with doors and windows open to catch
|
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330
|
+if it be but one-millionth of the myriad sweet and beautiful things that
|
|
331
|
+stir and shine about us, or else, as in the darkness and stagnation of
|
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+some closed house, dust and airlessness overlay us. For there is nothing
|
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|
+in the world, except only that which the sin and folly of man have
|
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334
|
+wrought, which is not wholesome and innocent. It is our grossness which
|
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335
|
+makes things gross, our rebellion which makes us say that in beauty
|
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336
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+there lurk any seeds or germs that can ripen into or go to form anything
|
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|
+that is not beautiful.
|
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338
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+
|
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|
+ ‘O world as God has made it, all is beauty,
|
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340
|
+ And knowing this is love, and love is duty:
|
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341
|
+ What further can be sought for or declared?’
|
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+
|
|
343
|
+ * * * * *
|
|
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|
+
|
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345
|
+Seraphina and Francesco, with outside help when they want it, are the
|
|
346
|
+domestic staff of Toby’s house. They are engaged to be married, and, in
|
|
347
|
+fact, the marriage is going to come off in three months’ time.
|
|
348
|
+Domestically speaking, this is an ideal arrangement, because if
|
|
349
|
+Seraphina’s work happens on any day to be heavy (she cooks, though I
|
|
350
|
+cannot call her a cook) Francesco delights to help her; while, on the
|
|
351
|
+other hand, if her work is light, she lends her aid in the cleaning and
|
|
352
|
+embellishment of the house, for thus she is with her _promesso_. And in
|
|
353
|
+the evening, as often as not, when their work is finished, they stroll
|
|
354
|
+and sit in the garden as we do, and with a little encouragement join in
|
|
355
|
+our talk, and tell us the strange legends of the saints common to this
|
|
356
|
+countryside, or with bated breath speak of the days of the Emperor
|
|
357
|
+Tiberius, who still is the bogie of the island, so that a mother even
|
|
358
|
+to-day, if a child is troublesome, warns it that Tiberius is coming.
|
|
359
|
+High on the eastward end of Capri stand the ruins of one of his palaces;
|
|
360
|
+the walls are built to the sheer edge of the precipitous rock, and it
|
|
361
|
+was from here that he used to hurl down his victims when he was
|
|
362
|
+satiated with them, flinging them headlong, a glimmer of white limbs
|
|
363
|
+that turned over and over in the air till they splashed on the rocks
|
|
364
|
+three hundred feet below. Round this crag still hovers some poisonous
|
|
365
|
+breath of crime; sudden shrieks are heard of nights, so Francesco says,
|
|
366
|
+and shadows pace in the shadows. Here, too, that dark soul used to walk
|
|
367
|
+up and down in his corridor of mirrors, so that he could see that none
|
|
368
|
+came up behind him with the assassin’s knife; weary of life, he yet
|
|
369
|
+clung to it with a maniac force; longing for death, he fenced himself
|
|
370
|
+from it with a thousand guards. ‘And on us,’ said Francesco, when he
|
|
371
|
+told us of these things, with the poet that lurks in the Italian blood
|
|
372
|
+suddenly inspiring his tongue--‘on us, signor, those same stars look
|
|
373
|
+down that beheld Tiberius. Yet they do not care.’
|
|
374
|
+
|
|
375
|
+In this manner we were sitting in the garden on the evening of the day
|
|
376
|
+which I have been speaking of. There had been some small _festa_ in the
|
|
377
|
+town, and Seraphina, to make herself the more comely in her lover’s
|
|
378
|
+eyes, had put on, when her kitchen work was over, her _festa_ clothes,
|
|
379
|
+even though they would only glimmer for an hour in the dusk, before she
|
|
380
|
+went to bed. Her olive skin, flushed with the warm tints of wind and
|
|
381
|
+sun, was dusky in the moonlight, and her brown eyes, underneath her
|
|
382
|
+thin, straight eyebrows, were big and soft, as if made of velvet. But
|
|
383
|
+all the gaiety of the South was set in her laughing mouth, and her teeth
|
|
384
|
+were a band of ivory in the red of pomegranate. Her arms were bare above
|
|
385
|
+the elbows almost to the shoulder, and beneath the smooth satiny skin,
|
|
386
|
+as she moved them in Southern gesticulation at some story she was
|
|
387
|
+telling us, I could see the swift and supple play of the muscles. Round
|
|
388
|
+us the night was pricked with a thousand remote stars, and the warm,
|
|
389
|
+languid air stirred in the bushes and sighed among the vineyards like a
|
|
390
|
+lingering caress. Now and then a handful of hot air would be tossed over
|
|
391
|
+us from the veranda, where the sun had grilled the flagstones all the
|
|
392
|
+afternoon; now and then a breath of coolness--a handful of air that had
|
|
393
|
+been shaded all day by the thick vine-leaves--stirred from its place and
|
|
394
|
+refreshed us. Below gleamed the lights of Capri, and the murmur of the
|
|
395
|
+town stole softly to us, or a gay stanza would be flung into the air
|
|
396
|
+from some homeward-going peasant as he passed up the cobbled ways. To
|
|
397
|
+the north a great emptiness of gray showed where the Gulf of Naples
|
|
398
|
+basked beneath the moon, and high up on the horizon a thin necklace of
|
|
399
|
+light lying along the edge of the sea showed the town. This hour of warm
|
|
400
|
+night, especially with such a setting, is, to my mind, the most animal
|
|
401
|
+of all. In the moon-dusk a thousand subtle scents and hints float round
|
|
402
|
+one, not consciously perceived, but exciting to the primeval animal
|
|
403
|
+instincts which æons of evolution have not yet eradicated from our
|
|
404
|
+nature; and at such an hour the beast within us, prowling, predatory,
|
|
405
|
+hot on its slinking errands, is more than ever dominant.
|
|
406
|
+
|
|
407
|
+Soon Toby got up, stretching himself.
|
|
408
|
+
|
|
409
|
+‘Mail-day to-morrow,’ he said, ‘and I have two letters to write. Just
|
|
410
|
+get me some paper and envelopes, Francesco; there were none this
|
|
411
|
+morning.’
|
|
412
|
+
|
|
413
|
+Francesco jumped up.
|
|
414
|
+
|
|
415
|
+‘Eh, signor, I forgot,’ he said; ‘there are none in the house. I will
|
|
416
|
+run over to Capri; the shops are still open. Two minutes only;’ and he
|
|
417
|
+vaulted over the wall into the road.
|
|
418
|
+
|
|
419
|
+Toby strolled towards the house.
|
|
420
|
+
|
|
421
|
+‘Are you coming in?’ he said to me over his shoulder.
|
|
422
|
+
|
|
423
|
+‘Yes, in ten minutes,’ I answered, and he disappeared.
|
|
424
|
+
|
|
425
|
+Seraphina rose also, resting her weight for a moment on her arm.
|
|
426
|
+
|
|
427
|
+‘It is good beneath the stars in the evening, is it not?’ she said. ‘I
|
|
428
|
+must go in. Happy dreams, signor!’
|
|
429
|
+
|
|
430
|
+‘No; tell me one more story about Tiberius,’ I said.
|
|
431
|
+
|
|
432
|
+She laughed.
|
|
433
|
+
|
|
434
|
+‘Surely the signor is like a child,’ she said: ‘he is so fond of
|
|
435
|
+stories. Will he not tell me an English story for a change?’
|
|
436
|
+
|
|
437
|
+‘About what?’
|
|
438
|
+
|
|
439
|
+‘About yourself or your friends--about your customs in England. I like
|
|
440
|
+the ways of English folk;’ and she sat down again close to me,
|
|
441
|
+eager-eyed, with smiling mouth.
|
|
442
|
+
|
|
443
|
+Suddenly it seemed to me that the whole spirit of all I saw and felt
|
|
444
|
+was changed. The soft, innocent Southern night was alive with voices. No
|
|
445
|
+longer did a child sit by me, but a woman--dark-eyed like a stag,
|
|
446
|
+intoxicating to the sense. Passion and desire, those headlong twins,
|
|
447
|
+rushed down on me, with arms intertwined and purple-stained mouth,
|
|
448
|
+chanting with a meaning that was new to me, ‘All is beauty, and knowing
|
|
449
|
+this is love; and love----’ There she sat, exquisite, trembling between
|
|
450
|
+girlhood and womanhood, the eternal riddle of life, to solve which men
|
|
451
|
+have gladly died, and lightly dismissed honour, like a stale piece of
|
|
452
|
+unlikely gossip. But----
|
|
453
|
+
|
|
454
|
+‘It is mail-day to-morrow,’ I said, and I heard how unsteady was my
|
|
455
|
+voice; ‘I also have letters to write.’
|
|
456
|
+
|
|
457
|
+She rose at once.
|
|
458
|
+
|
|
459
|
+‘Good-night, signor,’ she said, and turned to go to the house.
|
|
460
|
+
|
|
461
|
+As she got further on her way, I think I would have given all I had for
|
|
462
|
+her to turn back again, so that I might say--well, nothing particular,
|
|
463
|
+but just let her guess, no more, that---- But she did not turn.
|
|
464
|
+
|
|
465
|
+So, then, what of my gospel about beauty? It remains exactly where it
|
|
466
|
+was, true, I believe, in every respect. Only in me, at any rate, there
|
|
467
|
+lurks the beast. To-night he growled and pulled at his chain.
|