CHAPTER 2.VII.
Learn to be poor in spirit, my son, if you would penetrate that
sacred night which environs truth. Learn of the Sages to allow
to the Devils no power in Nature, since the fatal stone has shut
'em up in the depth of the abyss. Learn of the Philosophers
always to look for natural causes in all extraordinary events;
and when such natural causes are wanting, recur to God.--The
Count de Gabalis.
All these additions to his knowledge of Zanoni, picked up in the
various lounging-places and resorts that he frequented, were
unsatisfactory to Glyndon. That night Viola did not perform at
the theatre; and the next day, still disturbed by bewildered
fancies, and averse to the sober and sarcastic companionship of
Mervale, Glyndon sauntered musingly into the public gardens, and
paused under the very tree under which he had first heard the
voice that had exercised upon his mind so singular an influence.
The gardens were deserted. He threw himself on one of the seats
placed beneath the shade; and again, in the midst of his reverie,
the same cold shudder came over him which Zanoni had so
distinctly defined, and to which he had ascribed so extraordinary
a cause.
He roused himself with a sudden effort, and started to see,
seated next him, a figure hideous enough to have personated one
of the malignant beings of whom Zanoni had spoken. It was a
small man, dressed in a fashion strikingly at variance with the
elaborate costume of the day: an affectation of homeliness and
poverty approaching to squalor, in the loose trousers, coarse as
a ship's sail; in the rough jacket, which appeared rent wilfully
into holes; and the black, ragged, tangled locks that streamed
from their confinement under a woollen cap, accorded but ill with
other details which spoke of comparative wealth. The shirt, open
at the throat, was fastened by a brooch of gaudy stones; and two
pendent massive gold chains announced the foppery of two watches.
The man's figure, if not absolutely deformed, was yet
marvellously ill-favoured; his shoulders high and square; his
chest flattened, as if crushed in; his gloveless hands were
knotted at the joints, and, large, bony, and muscular, dangled
from lean, emaciated wrists, as if not belonging to them. His
features had the painful distortion sometimes seen in the
countenance of a cripple,--large, exaggerated, with the nose
nearly touching the chin; the eyes small, but glowing with a
cunning fire as they dwelt on Glyndon; and the mouth was twisted
into a grin that displayed rows of jagged, black, broken teeth.
Yet over this frightful face there still played a kind of
disagreeable intelligence, an expression at once astute and bold;
and as Glyndon, recovering from the first impression, looked
again at his neighbour, he blushed at his own dismay, and
recognised a French artist, with whom he had formed an
acquaintance, and who was possessed of no inconsiderable talents
in his calling.
Indeed, it was to be remarked that this creature, whose externals
were so deserted by the Graces, particularly delighted in designs
aspiring to majesty and grandeur. Though his colouring was hard
and shallow, as was that generally of the French school at the
time, his DRAWINGS were admirable for symmetry, simple elegance,
and classic vigour; at the same time they unquestionably wanted
ideal grace. He was fond of selecting subjects from Roman
history, rather than from the copious world of Grecian beauty, or
those still more sublime stories of scriptural record from which
Raphael and Michael Angelo borrowed their inspirations. His
grandeur was that not of gods and saints, but mortals. His
delineation of beauty was that which the eye cannot blame and the
soul does not acknowledge. In a word, as it was said of
Dionysius, he was an Anthropographos, or Painter of Men. It was
also a notable contradiction in this person, who was addicted to
the most extravagant excesses in every passion, whether of hate
or love, implacable in revenge, and insatiable in debauch, that
he was in the habit of uttering the most beautiful sentiments of
exalted purity and genial philanthropy. The world was not good
enough for him; he was, to use the expressive German phrase, A
WORLD-BETTERER! Nevertheless, his sarcastic lip often seemed to
mock the sentiments he uttered, as if it sought to insinuate that
he was above even the world he would construct.
Finally, this painter was in close correspondence with the
Republicans of Paris, and was held to be one of those
missionaries whom, from the earliest period of the Revolution,
the regenerators of mankind were pleased to despatch to the
various states yet shackled, whether by actual tyranny or
wholesome laws. Certainly, as the historian of Italy (Botta.)
has observed, there was no city in Italy where these new
doctrines would be received with greater favour than Naples,
partly from the lively temper of the people, principally because
the most hateful feudal privileges, however partially curtailed
some years before by the great minister, Tanuccini, still
presented so many daily and practical evils as to make change
wear a more substantial charm than the mere and meretricious
bloom on the cheek of the harlot, Novelty. This man, whom I will
call Jean Nicot, was, therefore, an oracle among the younger and
bolder spirits of Naples; and before Glyndon had met Zanoni, the
former had not been among the least dazzled by the eloquent
aspirations of the hideous philanthropist.
"It is so long since we have met, cher confrere," said Nicot,
drawing his seat nearer to Glyndon's, "that you cannot be
surprised that I see you with delight, and even take the liberty
to intrude on your meditations.
"They were of no agreeable nature," said Glyndon; "and never was
intrusion more welcome."
"You will be charmed to hear," said Nicot, drawing several
letters from his bosom, "that the good work proceeds with
marvellous rapidity. Mirabeau, indeed, is no more; but, mort
Diable! the French people are now a Mirabeau themselves." With
this remark, Monsieur Nicot proceeded to read and to comment upon
several animated and interesting passages in his correspondence,
in which the word virtue was introduced twenty-seven times, and
God not once. And then, warmed by the cheering prospects thus
opened to him, he began to indulge in those anticipations of the
future, the outline of which we have already seen in the eloquent
extravagance of Condorcet. All the old virtues were dethroned
for a new Pantheon: patriotism was a narrow sentiment;
philanthropy was to be its successor. No love that did not
embrace all mankind, as warm for Indus and the Pole as for the
hearth of home, was worthy the breast of a generous man. Opinion
was to be free as air; and in order to make it so, it was
necessary to exterminate all those whose opinions were not the
same as Mons. Jean Nicot's. Much of this amused, much revolted
Glyndon; but when the painter turned to dwell upon a science that
all should comprehend, and the results of which all should
enjoy,--a science that, springing from the soil of equal
institutions and equal mental cultivation, should give to all the
races of men wealth without labour, and a life longer than the
Patriarchs', without care,--then Glyndon listened with interest
and admiration, not unmixed with awe. "Observe," said Nicot,
"how much that we now cherish as a virtue will then be rejected
as meanness. Our oppressors, for instance, preach to us of the
excellence of gratitude. Gratitude, the confession of
inferiority! What so hateful to a noble spirit as the
humiliating sense of obligation? But where there is equality
there can be no means for power thus to enslave merit. The
benefactor and the client will alike cease, and--"
"And in the mean time," said a low voice, at hand,--"in the mean
time, Jean Nicot?"
The two artists started, and Glyndon recognised Zanoni.
He gazed with a brow of unusual sternness on Nicot, who, lumped
together as he sat, looked up at him askew, and with an
expression of fear and dismay upon his distorted countenance.
Ho, ho! Messire Jean Nicot, thou who fearest neither God nor
Devil, why fearest thou the eye of a man?
"It is not the first time I have been a witness to your opinions
on the infirmity of gratitude," said Zanoni.
Nicot suppressed an exclamation, and, after gloomily surveying
Zanoni with an eye villanous and sinister, but full of hate
impotent and unutterable, said, "I know you not,--what would you
of me?"
"Your absence. Leave us!"
Nicot sprang forward a step, with hands clenched, and showing his
teeth from ear to ear, like a wild beast incensed. Zanoni stood
motionless, and smiled at him in scorn. Nicot halted abruptly,
as if fixed and fascinated by the look, shivered from head to
foot, and sullenly, and with a visible effort, as if impelled by
a power not his own, turned away.
Glyndon's eyes followed him in surprise.
"And what know you of this man?" said Zanoni.
"I know him as one like myself,--a follower of art."
"Of ART! Do not so profane that glorious word. What Nature is
to God, art should be to man,--a sublime, beneficent, genial, and
warm creation. That wretch may be a PAINTER, not an ARTIST."
"And pardon me if I ask what YOU know of one you thus disparage?"
"I know thus much, that you are beneath my care if it be
necessary to warn you against him; his own lips show the
hideousness of his heart. Why should I tell you of the crimes he
has committed? He SPEAKS crime!"
"You do not seem, Signor Zanoni, to be one of the admirers of the
dawning Revolution. Perhaps you are prejudiced against the man
because you dislike the opinions?"
"What opinions?"
Glyndon paused, somewhat puzzled to define; but at length he
said, "Nay, I must wrong you; for you, of all men, I suppose,
cannot discredit the doctrine that preaches the infinite
improvement of the human species."
"You are right; the few in every age improve the many; the many
now may be as wise as the few were; but improvement is at a
standstill, if you tell me that the many now are as wise as the
few ARE."
"I comprehend you; you will not allow the law of universal
equality!"
"Law! If the whole world conspired to enforce the falsehood they
could not make it LAW. Level all conditions to-day, and you only
smooth away all obstacles to tyranny to-morrow. A nation that
aspires to EQUALITY is unfit for FREEDOM. Throughout all
creation, from the archangel to the worm, from Olympus to the
pebble, from the radiant and completed planet to the nebula that
hardens through ages of mist and slime into the habitable world,
the first law of Nature is inequality."
"Harsh doctrine, if applied to states. Are the cruel disparities
of life never to be removed?"
"Disparities of the PHYSICAL life? Oh, let us hope so. But
disparities of the INTELLECTUAL and the MORAL, never! Universal
equality of intelligence, of mind, of genius, of virtue!--no
teacher left to the world! no men wiser, better than others,--
were it not an impossible condition, WHAT A HOPELESS PROSPECT FOR
HUMANITY! No, while the world lasts, the sun will gild the
mountain-top before it shines upon the plain. Diffuse all the
knowledge the earth contains equally over all mankind to-day, and
some men will be wiser than the rest to-morrow. And THIS is not
a harsh, but a loving law,--the REAL law of improvement; the
wiser the few in one generation, the wiser will be the multitude
the next!"
As Zanoni thus spoke, they moved on through the smiling gardens,
and the beautiful bay lay sparkling in the noontide. A gentle
breeze just cooled the sunbeam, and stirred the ocean; and in the
inexpressible clearness of the atmosphere there was something
that rejoiced the senses. The very soul seemed to grow lighter
and purer in that lucid air.
"And these men, to commence their era of improvement and
equality, are jealous even of the Creator. They would deny an
intelligence,--a God!" said Zanoni, as if involuntarily. "Are
you an artist, and, looking on the world, can you listen to such
a dogma? Between God and genius there is a necessary link,--
there is almost a correspondent language. Well said the
Pythagorean (Sextus, the Pythagorean.), 'A good intellect is the
chorus of divinity.'"
Struck and touched with these sentiments, which he little
expected to fall from one to whom he ascribed those powers which
the superstitions of childhood ascribe to the darker agencies,
Glyndon said: "And yet you have confessed that your life,
separated from that of others, is one that man should dread to
share. Is there, then, a connection between magic and religion?"
"Magic! And what is magic! When the traveller beholds in Persia
the ruins of palaces and temples, the ignorant inhabitants inform
him they were the work of magicians. What is beyond their own
power, the vulgar cannot comprehend to be lawfully in the power
of others. But if by magic you mean a perpetual research amongst
all that is more latent and obscure in Nature, I answer, I
profess that magic, and that he who does so comes but nearer to
the fountain of all belief. Knowest thou not that magic was
taught in the schools of old? But how, and by whom? As the last
and most solemn lesson, by the Priests who ministered to the
Temple. (Psellus de Daemon (MS.)) And you, who would be a
painter, is not there a magic also in that art you would advance?
Must you not, after long study of the Beautiful that has been,
seize upon new and airy combinations of a beauty that is to be?
See you not that the grander art, whether of poet or of painter,
ever seeking for the TRUE, abhors the REAL; that you must seize
Nature as her master, not lackey her as her slave?
You demand mastery over the past, a conception of the future.
Has not the art that is truly noble for its domain the future and
the past? You would conjure the invisible beings to your charm;
and what is painting but the fixing into substance the Invisible?
Are you discontented with this world? This world was never meant
for genius! To exist, it must create another. What magician can
do more; nay, what science can do as much? There are two avenues
from the little passions and the drear calamities of earth; both
lead to heaven and away from hell,--art and science. But art is
more godlike than science; science discovers, art creates. You
have faculties that may command art; be contented with your lot.
The astronomer who catalogues the stars cannot add one atom to
the universe; the poet can call a universe from the atom; the
chemist may heal with his drugs the infirmities of the human
form; the painter, or the sculptor, fixes into everlasting youth
forms divine, which no disease can ravage, and no years impair.
Renounce those wandering fancies that lead you now to myself, and
now to yon orator of the human race; to us two, who are the
antipodes of each other! Your pencil is your wand; your canvas
may raise Utopias fairer than Condorcet dreams of. I press not
yet for your decision; but what man of genius ever asked more to
cheer his path to the grave than love and glory?"
"But," said Glyndon, fixing his eyes earnestly on Zanoni, "if
there be a power to baffle the grave itself--"
Zanoni's brow darkened. "And were this so," he said, after a
pause, "would it be so sweet a lot to outlive all you loved, and
to recoil from every human tie? Perhaps the fairest immortality
on earth is that of a noble name."
"You do not answer me,--you equivocate. I have read of the long
lives far beyond the date common experience assigns to man,"
persisted Glyndon, "which some of the alchemists enjoyed. Is the
golden elixir but a fable?"
"If not, and these men discovered it, they died, because they
refused to live! There may be a mournful warning in your
conjecture. Turn once more to the easel and the canvas!"
So saying, Zanoni waved his hand, and, with downcast eyes and a
slow step, bent his way back into the city.
