A Legend for Husbands.—1699.
Which Wives, Too, May Read—possibly Not Without Profit.
My story is of people that have long since passed away, so that no one need take it as personal.
American travellers sometimes differ—though for my part, I do not see why they should—as to the relative attractions of Paris and London. But they seldom fail to concur in their estimate of Brussels as one of the most interesting and agreeable cities in Europe.
And really the Flemish metropolis presents a remarkable variety of attractions. Parks, boulevards, botanic gardens, museums, quaint old streets, quainter old houses, libraries, great pictures, treasures of Rubens, wealth of old MSS., and last, not least, grand specimens of middle-age architecture, such as the Hotel de Ville and the Cathedral of St. Gudule.
Indeed, in mediaeval monuments no country in Europe is richer than Belgium.
In presence of her grand old cathedrals you can well understand the enthusiasm of those artists who maintain that our age takes entirely too much credit to itself for its encouragement of the fine arts. Neither the past nor the present century, they maintain, will leave to posterity monuments of such grandeur, boldness, beauty, and originality as have been bequeathed to us by the period that immediately followed the crusades; and strangely enough, these bequests of the "dark ages" can bear any test of critical scrutiny, even in the full blaze of our nineteenth century enlightenment.
Will our architectural legacies appear as well in the eyes of future generations?
"Why, look around you," said to me a Flemish artist; "in those days the erection of a costly edifice was not handed over to mere mechanics. The body of it was intrusted to architects. Sculptors created its woodwork. Carvers executed what is now turned out by machinery; painters gave you pictures where you now get plaster, and the Benvenuto Cellinis of the day worked their miracles of art in metals which today the blacksmith hammers out at his forge. Ah! that was the golden age of artists, when the pulpits, the altars, the stalls, and the organ-lofts were monuments; when furniture, doors, chairs, and tables were poems in wood; when the family goblets, the mere handle of a poignard or a sword were chased and embellished; when exquisite miniatures, illuminated missals, and wood engravings made a picture-gallery of the dryest chronicle; when fresco and encaustic decorated the walls and floors; when ceilings and beams shone with arabesques, windows were bright with stained glass; when, in short, all the arts brought their tribute of beauty to a church or to a palace. It was in the fading twilight of these artistic glories that sculpture in wood still flourished among the artists of ancient Flanders."
Somewhat thus discoursed to me an enthusiastic young Belgian painter, as we stood together admiring that grand work of art, the carved oak pulpit in the cathedral of St. Gudule, at Brussels.
This pulpit is a work to which the term unique may be applied with scrupulous fidelity.
The admiration drawn from you by sculptures in wood elsewhere culminates in presence of this singular creation of genius. No description can adequately place it before you or render it justice. In its exquisite architecture and sculpture, a poem as grand as that of Milton is spread out before you.
An outline, only, the merest outline, can be attempted to supply description.
Adam and Eve apparently sustain the terrestrial globe. An angel chases them from Paradise, and Death pursues them. The life-size figure of Adam, in particular, is admirable. Carved in marble, it would have been something for Canova to have been proud of. The preacher stands in the concavity of the globe, which is overshadowed by the branches of the tree of good and evil, covered with birds and animals characteristically grouped. By the side of Adam is an eagle; on that of Eve, a peacock and a squirrel.
To the top of the tree is attached a canopy upheld by two angels and a female figure symbolical of truth. Above stands the Blessed Virgin with the infant Saviour, who, with a cross in his hand, crushes the head of the Serpent, whose hideous body, in huge folds, twines around the tree. "This pulpit was made," said, or rather sang, to me, the old gray-haired sexton or bedeau, to the tune in which he had shown the lions of the cathedral for more than thirty years—"This pulpit was made by Verbruggen, of Antwerp, in 1699, for the Jesuits of Louvain. Upon the suppression of their order, it was presented to this cathedral by the empress Maria Theresa. This pulpit—"
Here I interrupted him with questions as to Verbruggen—what was known of him? Had he left any other works? and so on, to the end of the chapter. All in vain; I could obtain nothing but a negative shake of the head, and a hint that it was time to close the cathedral doors.
My stay in Brussels was prolonged many weeks; and besides my attendance on Sundays, I frequently, in my rambles between the grand park and what Mrs. Major O'Dowd calls the Marchy O'flures, strayed into St. Gudule to admire the finest specimens of stained glass in the world; to read the inscriptions on the tombs of the Dukes of Brabant, and to feast my eyes and imagination on the grand old pulpit.
In the course of these visits I became better acquainted with the bedeau in charge, and after some persuasion and a few well-timed attentions, the old man at last acknowledged to me that there was something more than mere names and dates connected with the history of the pulpit.
Finally, upon my solemn assurance that I was not an Englishman, and would not write a book and put him and the pulpit therein, he promised to tell me all he knew about it.
Accordingly, by arrangement with him, I loitered in the cathedral one evening after vespers until the faithful had finished their devotions and left the church.
Taking a couple of rush-bottom chairs from one of the huge pyramids of them piled up at the lower end of the building, we seated ourselves just outside the grand portal, and the old man began his recital. Years have since gone by, and I cannot repeat it in his quaint manner; but, substantially, he thus told me the
Story Of The Carved Oak Pulpit.
Henry Verbruggen was heart and soul an artist. Gay, careless, pleasure-loving, he appeared to live but for two things; his art, first, and then his amusements.
Verbruggen married Martha Van Meeren, the pretty, the timid, the good Martha Van Meeren. In the mirage of his artist's enthusiasm her sweetness, her grace, her beauty, made her at first appear to him a sylph, a muse, an angel.
Alas! though gentle and attractive, Martha was, after all, only a woman, of the earth, earthy. In a quiet, well-ordered household Martha would have been a treasure; but in the eccentric home of the artist she was out of her element.
A pattern of neatness and economy, an accomplished Flemish house-wife, a neat domicil and well-spread table possessed for Martha more attraction than the imaginary world of beauty in which her artist husband revelled, even when poverty threatened or want oppressed them. Poor Martha! In vain she remonstrated; in vain she implored. Henry would neglect his work; he would be idle and spend his days at the cabaret, in the society of those who were even more idle and more dissipated than himself.
Thus years went on. Martha was not happy. A tinge of moroseness shaded the clear sunshine of her usual mildness. Occasionally, too, she came out of her quiet sadness and found sharp words of reproof for Henry, and anger for the companions who kept him from home. And so it came about that soon, in Verbruggen's eyes, Martha appeared harsh and repulsive. Then swiftly followed dispute and recrimination. His early enchantment had disappeared; Martha was not the wife for him, thought Verbruggen. He should have had one as careless, as enthusiastic as himself. Would such a wife have suited him, think you—you who know the human heart?
Meantime things went from bad to worse. Verbruggen scarcely came home, totally neglected his art, fell into utter idleness and the slough of despond, and his family was soon reduced to want—almost to beggary.
In this crisis—it was in the year 1699—a Jesuit father who had heard of Verbruggen's talent, called upon him, supplied him with means, and ordered a pulpit, the most beautiful his art could produce, for the church at Louvain.
Surprise, gratitude, joy, enthusiasm, all contributed to arouse the dormant energies of the artist. He set himself energetically at the composition of a design for his work.
"I will make," said he, "of this pulpit my greatest production. It shall be," he exclaimed, growing radiant with artistic inspiration, "something that shall display at a glance the history of the Christian religion. I will place," thus he mused, "under the terrestrial globe, Adam and Eve the moment after the fatal act of disobedience. This globe shall be the pulpit. Around it shall watch the four Evangelists. Over it shall hang the canopy of heaven, supported on the right by angels, on the left by Truth herself. The date-tree shall lend its shade. The long scaly wings of the serpent shall encircle it, reaching from man on earth to the Blessed Virgin in heaven. By the side of man I will place the cherubim armed with his flaming sword, and near Eve, young and beautiful, a hideous figure of Death. Higher up shall be the divine infant, with one foot on the head of the serpent; he shall stand by the side of his august mother, resplendent in her crown of stars, surrounded by angels, cherubs, and seraphs. Yes, all this and more will I do. The very wood shall grow into life under my hands, and ages yet unborn shall hear of Henry Verbruggen of Antwerp."
The artist went at his work with all the enthusiasm of genius, and had completed the body of the pulpit without placing the Evangelists according to his original design, when, in a moment of malicious spite, he imagined he would punish Martha by displaying near Eve various satirical emblems of her sex's qualities.
On the branches, then, that entwine the staircase leading up on the side of Eve, he placed a peacock, symbol of pride; a squirrel, symbol of destruction; a cock, symbol of noise; and an ape, image of malice; of all which defects, poor Martha, as the angels well knew, was as innocent as an infant.
Of the statue of Adam, Verbruggen made a chef d'oeuvre—a figure full of dignity and manly beauty. The figure of Eve is inferior, and has less grace and animation.
And now to complete his sculptured marital spite, on Adam's side he carved an eagle, symbol of genius.
Thus far had he progressed when poor Martha sickened and died. In his motherless household Verbruggen soon discovered the extent of his misfortune, and learned, as Shakespeare has so well told the world, that
"What we have we prize not to the worth; But being lacked and lost,
We then do know its value."
And now came the reaction. Verbruggen deeply mourned Martha. He sincerely deplored her. Her admirable qualities came fresh upon his memory, and he bitterly reproached himself for his unkindness and neglect.
Soon he fell into fits of despondency. Discouragement took possession of him, and his pulpit, begun with so much energy, stood unfinished.
Accustomed to find his home in order, his table spread, he soon discovered their loss, as well as the want of a thousand little attentions and kindnesses which none could now give him; and in short, as he was in the high road for discoveries, we may safely conclude that he found out, with Ben Franklin, that a lone man is but the half of a pair of scissors.
Twelve months passed by. Verbruggen's friends counselled him to remarry. "You are but thirty-six," said they. "You have sincerely mourned Martha's loss, and have done full justice to her excellent qualities; but you can yet do as well, if not better. There is Cecily Van Eyck, talented, a painter, an artist, like yourself. Your dispositions accord, and if she consents to have you, she will be a mother to your little girl and make you an admirable wife."
Henry listened to his friends, thought over what they said, and followed their advice. He became Cecily's suitor, and was accepted.
Now Cecily Van Eyck was very smiling, very sweet, very charming; but Cecily had a will of her own.
Scarcely had the honeymoon gone by, when she enlightened Henry with some new ideas, and gave him several very distinct notions as to the proper distribution of domestic power in a household. In a more propitious age Cecily would have made her mark in a Sorosis, and been a leader of the most advanced radical wing of a woman's rights party.
Her mastery over Verbruggen was complete, and the poor artist even kissed his chains.
One day she said to him, "What are you doing? Your apathy is complained of, and I am taunted with it. Remember, if you please, that Van Eyck is a name not unknown. Let me not lose, I pray you, by changing it for that of Verbruggen. Where is the pulpit, that chef d'oeuvre you so long since announced?"
In reply he led her to his studio. Cecily had an artist's eye, and more—a woman's.
"What mean," said she, "these emblems by the side of Eve?"
The sculptor blushed.
"When I made them," he answered, "I did not know Cecily Van Eyck."
"'Tis well. But after these emblems of defects, which perhaps women have not, what do you intend to bestow upon your own sex?"
"I had already commenced," stammered Verbruggen—"you see the eagle. 'Twas perhaps somewhat vain."
"Vain! Oh! no; not at all. The eagle—a bird of prey and rapine, the symbol of brutal tyranny—nothing could be fitter. Well, and what further do you intend?"
Verbruggen could find no reply.
"Well, then, listen," continued his wife, "to render full justice to your sex, near the eagle you will place a fox, emblem of deceit; a parrot, emblem of noisy chatter; a monkey eating grapes, symbol of intoxication; and a jackdaw, emblem of silly pride."
Verbruggen executed her orders with a docility most edifying. The pulpit was soon finished, and, fortunately for us, has been preserved intact through years of war and revolution. Higher teachings have been proclaimed from it, but to those who know its story even its dumb wood speaks a salutary lesson.
"Ah sir!" ejaculated the old sexton, when he had finished the story of the pulpit, "if I had known the history of that pulpit before I married a second time, I—"
Just then I came away.