"No, my dear, no," I answered, and then I gulped hard to keep back some very foolish tears. "No, I did not meet Michelangelo," I said, "I expected to, and was always looking for him; but these eyes never looked into his, for he died just three hundred years before I was born." But how natural was this question from this bright, country girl! She had been examining a lot of photographs of the Sistine Chapel, and had seen pictures of "Il Penseroso," the "Night" and "Morning," the "Moses"; and then she had seen on my desk a bronze cast of the hand of the "David"—that imperial hand with the gently curved wrist.
These things lured her—the splendid strength and suggestion of power in it all, had caught her fancy, and the heroic spirit of the Master seemed very near to her. It all meant pulsating life and hope that was deathless; and the thought that the man who did the work had turned to dust three centuries ago, never occurred to this naive, budding soul.
"Did you see Michelangelo while you were in Rome?" No, dear girl, no. But I saw Saint Peter's that he planned, and I saw the result of his efforts—things worked out and materialized by his hands—hands that surely were just like this hand of the "David."
The artist gives us his best—gives it to us forever, for our very own. He grows aweary and lies down to sleep—to sleep and wake no more, deeding to us the mintage of his love. And as love does not grow old, neither does Art. Fashions change, but hope, aspiration and love are as old as Fate who sits and spins the web of life. The Artist is one who is educated in the three H's—head heart and hand. He is God's child—no less are we—and he has done for us the things we would have liked to do ourselves.
The classic is that which does not grow old—the classic is the eternally true.
"Did you meet Michelangelo in Rome?" Why, it is the most natural question in the world! At Stratford I expected to see Shakespeare; at Weimar I was sure to meet Goethe; Rubens just eluded me at Antwerp; at Amsterdam I caught a glimpse of Rembrandt; in the dim cloisters of Saint Mark's at Florence I saw Savonarola in cowl and robe; over Whitehall in London I beheld the hovering smoke of martyr-fires, and knew that just beyond the walls Ridley and Latimer were burned; and only a little way outside of Jerusalem a sign greets the disappointed traveler, thus: "He is risen—He is not here!"
n one of his delightful talks—talks that are as fine as his feats of leadership—Walter Damrosch has referred to Handel as a contemporary. Surely the expression is fitting, for in the realm of truth time is an illusion and the days are shadows.
George Frederick Handel was born in Sixteen Hundred Eighty-five, and died in Seventeen Hundred Fifty-nine. His dust rests in Westminster Abbey, and above the tomb towers his form cut in enduring marble. There he stands, serene and poised, accepting benignly the homage of the swift-passing generations. For over a hundred years this figure has stood there in its colossal calm, and through the cathedral shrines, the aisles, and winding ways of dome and tower, Handel's music still peals its solemn harmonies.