CHAPTER X.

At breakfast on Tuesday morning the plans for the day were talked over. Mr. Blake began by saying, "I suppose you know, ladies, that I am engaged to go with Mr. Barkley to the Accademia at eleven; but in the afternoon I shall be at your service."

"Which is a polite intimation, uncle," said Mina, "that our company is not wished for in the morning."

"Really, I never thought about your coming with us, for after we have been to the Accademia we are to go to San Marco; and you know that ladies are not permitted to pass the outer cloister. There's one of your pretty Roman rules for you!"

"Not badly turned, uncle. I suppose that closing observation was intended to excite our indignation, and so make us forget the truth that you do not want us to go with you. But don't be afraid,--we shall have no design upon you; indeed, before we came down we had agreed to go to the Pitti."

"Then the morning is disposed of; and what do you mean to do in the afternoon?"

"Mamma and Marie are going to drive with the Pentons," answered Flora, "and as for the rest of us, we have not thought about what we shall do."

"Then you two girls had better come with me to San Miniato. The church is well worth a visit, and the walk round the hill upon which it stands is most lovely. Will you come also, Agatha?"

"Perhaps," replied his sister-in-law; "if I am not very tired after the Pitti. _My_ going, however, is not a matter of any importance; the girls can go with you whether I do or not."

"Well then, young ladies, I shall be ready for you at any time after three; and now, adieu for the present."

The ladies remained some time longer at the breakfast table laughing at Marie's animated description of the people whom she saw on the Cascine on the day before, and at the theatre in the evening. She was most enthusiastic in her praise of Mrs. Penton and her brother's kindness, and asked naively if Englishmen--meaning natives of the United Kingdom--were generally as handsome and as charming as Mr. Barkley, adding that there were not any so nice at Mrs. Elton's ball.

"You think so, Mignonne, do you?" said Flora. "Well, I should say that, had he been at Mrs. Elton's, he would not have been unrivalled, or perhaps unsurpassed."

"But who den, Flore, was so seducing (_séduisant_) as he?"

"Oh! _I_ should say _this_ person; somebody else would say _that_ person; it is all an affair of taste, you know," answered Flora, smiling at the question itself, and also at the _very_ literal translation of _séduisant_, as she stood up and went to look out of the window. Marie jumped up and followed her, put her arm round her waist, and leaning her little curly head upon Flora's shoulder, she looked up coaxingly at her and said, "Flore, will you not tell your Mignonne who it is dat you have found better than Mr. Barkley _chez_ Madame Elton?"

"What a little goose you are, Marie. I did not speak of any one in particular. I only said that he would not have been unrivalled. You know--as I also said--that it is all a matter of taste. Helena Elton, I dare say, would prefer Mr. Caulfield."

"Mr. Caulfield! But you are not of her advice, Flore?"

"_Opinion_ you mean, Mignonne, and not _advice_, which is the English for _conseil_. For your satisfaction I am glad to be able to say that I do not agree with Helena; and as you are going again to enjoy this afternoon the society of the person who suits _your_ taste best, I consider that you are a most enviable little being. But see, they are all gone,--we must go also."

Marie held up her fair face for a kiss, which was cordially given, and then they left the room.

The difference in their characters, as shown in their manner, was most striking. Marie was shy in the simple acceptation of the word, but she was not reserved. She knew nothing of Flora's bugbear--that dread of importuning or wearying others. As soon as Marie had got over the childish timidity which she always felt on a first acquaintance, she was demonstratively affectionate. It never crossed her simple little mind that her caresses might bore any one; so that whilst Flora would stand at a distance from those whom she liked, longing to be near them, yet afraid to go to them without a word or look which seemed to call her, Marie would at once run to _her_ favourites, throw her arms round their necks, and tell them how much she loved them, without stopping to think whether they wanted her or not.

How Flora envied this simplicity, and wished that she had a little more of it. It would have saved her so much pain; but it is one of those things which cannot be acquired, at least by a person like Flora, who could not summon up sufficient courage even to touch the hand of any one whom she liked extremely, unless she were unmistakably made to feel that it would give pleasure. Flora had said after reading Marie's history, "We shall be such contrasts!" and so they were; but this difference of disposition only seemed to make them greater friends.

But it is time for us to leave the ladies, and follow the two gentlemen to the Accademia. As it was Mr. Barkley's first visit to Florence, he had still most of Beato Angelico's masterpieces to see. He had indeed seen his works, on the day before, at the Uffizi, and the "Crowning of the Blessed Virgin," in the Louvre, was an old familiar friend to him; but another treat was now in store for him, for Beato Angelico was his master-painter.

On their way they talked of the different subjects from his pencil which they were about to see, and especially of the "Descent from the Cross" and the "Last Judgment." Mr. Barkley said that he meant to keep these for a _bonne bouche_, and begged to be taken straight to il Beato's "poem in painting," the "Life of our Lord." Mr. Blake could not help rallying his friend a little about his desperate enthusiasm for the _Frate_, which he thought somewhat extravagant.

"But here we are," he exclaimed, "so you will soon be gratified. I shall, as you wish, take you straight to the 'Life of our Lord,' and then leave you to your ecstasies for a time. When I come back, be pleased to impart some of them to me."

Accordingly Mr. Blake left him to the contemplation of this august history, and did not join him again for a considerable time, which he spent in paying long visits to his favourite pictures. He was not at a loss for occupation during this time, as a most varied experience and a fair share of study had rendered him capable of really enjoying fine paintings.

When he did at length return to Mr. Barkley, he found him at the closing subject--the "Last Judgment;" not the great picture on that subject, but an older one, and asked, "Well?"

"Well!" echoed Mr. Barkley, "this _is_ art indeed! Here we see that the painter had a higher aim in view than that of displaying his own talent in originality of design, or even correctness of outline. These indeed have not been neglected, but they have been used only as means to a great end, and that end was to teach a sublime lesson. Each of these thirty-eight compartments is a study in itself, a study in which the mind of the angelic painter speaks to us through his works, causing us to know, and by knowing, to love something of 'the splendour of unity'--the Beautiful itself. To produce this--you will agree with me--is the highest triumph of art. Where this is not, what do we see but the works of copyists, who portray, more or less well, what they see with their mortal eyes?"

"I quite agree with you that we cannot rightly call anything a work of real art which is not in some degree a creation, and a teacher, whose purpose it is to draw us from the lower and material world to the contemplation of higher things. But we must have a standard of truth, and therefore I cannot altogether share in your admiration of Angelico's 'History of our Lord,' as there are many things represented in it for which we have no authority, and in some places the meaning is obscure and unintelligible. Much of it seems to be inspired rather by the mystic imagination of a pious monk than by the grand and simple written record of our Saviour's life upon earth, the beauty of which these paintings ought only to illustrate. When your favourite keeps to this he is truly great, as in the 'Descent from the Cross,' for instance."

"Ah, true! Will you forgive me if I say that you can hardly seize _all_ the speaking beauty depicted in this great history? I do not say this, as you will believe, in any way to depreciate your judgment, but in regard only to the _extent_ of your belief."

"I do not quite catch your meaning. Have we not an unerring standard to direct us here?"

"The _letter_ of Scripture, no doubt?... Yes, you have _that_, but you have it surely without the spirit. Moreover, you have, so to say, dislocated yourselves from the family traditions of Christianity--from the memory of Christendom; and having lost this, and therewith all traditional intercourse with the past, you hopelessly seize upon our first written records, and in them alone have you any knowledge or faith. The living voice which from age to age has handed down every detail of the glory of Christ and His saints, is silent for you. You are strangers here, and these family records, which to us are so precious, are the objects of your suspicion, are even rejected by you as unworthy of belief; it is thus, I mean, that you are unable to seize _all_ the speaking beauty depicted here."

"Would you have us then to accept as truth the wild fantasies of individual painters?... It is far too much."

"Most assuredly not; that would, I should say, be to fall into another snare like the very one which has already caught you. When I said that you can hardly seize _all_ the beauty of il Beato's poem on our Lord, my meaning was, that having rejected the recognised sources of sacred Tradition, you can receive nothing but what is written; although, by the way, even there it is said that 'there are also many other things which Jesus did, which if they were written the whole world itself could not contain the books that should be written.' Think for a moment: if you so confine the works of art to the text of Scripture, how greatly you limit and narrow their field, and how many great pictures, which through ages Christendom has honoured as its family heirlooms, you will be forced to condemn as false. You object to the touching scene of Saint Veronica--to this exquisite painting of Jesus carrying His Cross and meeting His blessed Mother on her way to Calvary. Scripture does not say that He _did_ meet her; therefore, to you it appears to be a deviation from truth; but these facts are household words in Christendom, resting upon the highest of all moral certainty--Christian Tradition. The spoken testimony of His chosen companions and the dogmas of our faith, in harmony with the loving memory of Christendom, hand down these family records to us with holy and unerring care. You would hardly believe how jealous we are of any mutilation of them. Numberless, however, would be the great pictures which must thus seem to you to be false or unintelligible, whilst to us they are rich in truth and supernatural meaning. I love Saint Paul's cry, '_Be ye enlarged!_' You know not how much you lose even of Scripture itself;--the very parables of our Lord, which, you will remember, are not so to those 'to whom it is given to know,' are parables indeed, or at very best but beautiful histories, to _you_."

"You are too hard upon us. I grant you that the principle of limitation, in our sense, fully admitted and carried into practice, would go far to strip our galleries of their treasures, and leave us without connection with the past. I am a sincere lover of art, and I am old enough to have the courage to confess to you that the consequences of the proper application of such a principle terrify me. I frankly acknowledge that it would hardly leave a monument standing of more than a few centuries old, and how few, I fear even to say. I comfort myself by the hope that the great storm has already past, and there I rest, with the principle still in my belief, that you must not venture into the work of God--Scripture itself,--there all is holy, because all is Divine. The parables are far more to us--believe me--than beautiful histories."

"Let me explain what I have expressed with, I hope, pardonable enthusiasm. It is not a question, as you seem to suppose, of _criticising_ the divine work, but of _appreciating_ it in a greater or lesser degree. You will grant us, I think, the larger comprehension of what was intended to be, to some, simply parables or riddles. In the parable of the prodigal son, for instance, _we_ learn how God receives repentant sinners. The young man leaves his father's house, and, in a far country, wastes his substance in wrong-doing; he soon feels the want of the _spiritual life_ which he has squandered away, and of which there is a famine in that country. Still he cleaves to one of the chief citizens there, who sends him to feed swine; but his hunger is unappeased. At last he resolves to return to his father and confess his error and his sin. His father runs to meet him while he is yet a great way off, and falls upon his neck and kisses him. Then He says _to His servants_, 'Clothe him quickly with the robe of innocence, put the ring of adoption upon his finger, the shoes of safe direction upon his feet, offer the Holy Sacrifice, and feed him with the food of life, for this my son was dead and is alive again, he was lost and is found!' Here, we have Dogma, Tradition, and Scripture, harmoniously illustrating this, as indeed all the other parables. To us they are neither riddles nor beautiful histories, but sublime declarations and proofs of the divinity of our faith, since to us--by our Divine teaching--'it is given to know the mysteries of the kingdom of God.' Now how would one of your painters portray this? Were he merely to represent it as Scripture relates it, it would be simply a riddle; or did he attempt a higher meaning, there would be evident discrepancy between the truth of Scripture and your belief and practice. So that should he aim at anything beyond drawing graceful figures and giving dramatic effect to his picture, he would be forced to abandon the subject altogether, or turn to us for its true illustration. So it is, and it is a very momentous fact that no country fallen away from Christian unity ever produces real artists; it may even outstrip all the rest in material discoveries and progress--'the children of this world,' you know, 'are wiser _in their generation_ than the children of light'--but it has lost the Divine power of creation. Like Mirabeau to Barnave, we may indeed say to each of them, 'There is no divinity in thee!' You may find painters who can copy a dog to a hair, a blade of grass, a battle, anything that the eye of man can see and measure; but you will never find an Angelico where 'the evidence, the light, the splendour of unity' is no longer intact."

"I have listened to you with all the admiration of an artist, although with some patience, since I cannot admit your starting-point--namely, that you have an unerring source of tradition and knowledge. There are few subjects, however, in which I feel so wide an interest: so let us return to it again on another occasion. We have forgotten time: it is already one o'clock, and we ought to be with the Padre in half-an-hour, as that is the best time for seeing the convent; and I suppose you would not be willing to leave this gallery without having a look at the two pictures which you said you would keep for a '_bonne bouche_?'"

"Certainly not. I must have a look, as you say--if nothing more. Let us go to them."

If Mr. Barkley was pleased with the "Last Judgment," which closes the "Life of our Lord," what must have been his delight with that later one, and with the "Descent from the Cross?"

After a little time spent in admiring these two masterpieces, our friends proceeded to San Marco, and found the Padre at home. He received them most graciously, and took them over the convent, sparing no trouble in showing Mr. Barkley everything of interest, and especially the matchless frescoes of il Beato.

When they had made the tour of the convent, they were shown the relics of Savonarola, the church, and its exquisitely illuminated choir books. Having now seen all San Marco's treasures, they thanked the good Padre for the great pleasure he had afforded them, and took an affectionate leave of him.

As they walked home, Mr. Blake said--

"You will confess, I suppose, that the relics of Savonarola rightly belong to us; that soaring spirit, who could not submit to injustice and tyranny in the person of Alexander VI., and so became the forerunner of the great emancipation of mind which was brought about a century later. Savonarola is truly one of our most illustrious forerunners and martyrs."

"His brother--our kind friend, the Padre--would not like to hear you so slander him! The whole life of our great Dominican,--all his teaching,--his public acknowledgment of the supremacy of the Pope, accepting his absolution on the way to death,--all will rise up against you. We have no lack of reformers of morals; but we have no reformers of Divine dogmas amongst us. The life of the illustrious Savonarola has yet to be written; but if you will read one, published not long ago by Villari, and which is already in English, you will hardly have the courage to talk of Savonarola as one of your 'forerunners and martyrs.' He died as he lived, in the unity of the Christian faith."

Mr. Blake looked at his watch, and exclaimed--

"I declare it is three o'clock! and I promised to be at home by that time. I had no idea it was so late!"

"Nor had I. So it seems that all our battling only made the time fly?"

"Indeed it did. I have seldom spent a shorter or a pleasanter morning."

"Thanks. Then I hope you will feel inclined to spend another in the same way very soon."

"Shall it be to-morrow?"

"Most willingly! At the same time as to-day?"

"If you please. And now I must say good-bye, and hasten home to keep my appointment with the young ladies."

"With many thanks."