Returning then to the amiable artifice with which she had before prevented Oswald from abandoning himself to passionate disquietudes, she desired to interest his mind and his imagination anew, by the wonders of the fine arts which he had not yet seen, and by this means retard the moment when their fate should be cleared up and decided. Such a situation would be insupportable, governed by any other sentiment than that of love; but so much is it in the power of love to sweeten every hour, to give a charm to every minute, that although it need an indefinite future, it becomes, intoxicated with the present, and is filled every day with such a multitude of emotions and ideas that it becomes an age of happiness or pain!
Undoubtedly it is love alone that can give an idea of eternity; it confounds every notion of time; it effaces every idea of beginning and end; we believe that we have always loved the object of our affection; so difficult is it to conceive that we have ever been able to live without him. The more dreadful separation appears, the less it seems probable; it becomes, like death, a fear which is more spoken of than believed—a future event which seems impossible, even at the very moment we know it to be inevitable.
Corinne, among her innocent stratagems to vary the amusements of Oswald, had still in reserve the statues and the paintings. One day therefore, when Oswald was perfectly restored, she proposed that they should go together to see the most beautiful specimens of painting and sculpture that Rome contains. "It is a reproach," said she to him, smiling, "not to be acquainted with our statues and our pictures; so to-morrow we will commence our tour of the museums and the galleries."—"It is your wish," answered Nelville, "and I agree. But in truth, Corinne, you have no need of these foreign resources to retain me; on the contrary, it is a sacrifice that I make whenever I turn my eyes from you to any object whatever."
They went first to the Museum of the Vatican, that palace of statues where the human figure is deified by Paganism, in the same manner as the sentiments of the soul are now by Christianity. Corinne directed the observation of Lord Nelville to those silent halls, where the images of the gods and the heroes are assembled, and where the most perfect beauty seems to enjoy itself in eternal repose. In contemplating these admirable features and forms, the intentions of the Deity towards man, seems, I know not how, to be revealed by the noble figure which He has been pleased to give him. The soul is uplifted by this contemplation to hopes full of enthusiasm and virtue; for beauty is one and the same throughout the universe, and under whatever form it presents itself, it always excites a religious emotion in the heart of man. What poetic language, there is in those countenances where the most sublime expression is for ever imprinted,—where the grandest thoughts are clad with an image so worthy of them!
In some instances, an ancient sculptor only produced one statue during his life—it was his whole history.—He perfected it every day: if he loved, if he was beloved, if he received from nature or the fine arts any new impression, he adorned the features of his hero with his memories and affections: he could thus express to outward eyes all the sentiments of his soul. The grief of our modern times, in the midst of our cold and oppressive social conditions, contains all that is most noble in man; and in our days, he who has not suffered, can never have thought or felt. But there was in antiquity, something more noble than grief—an heroic calm—the sense of conscious strength, which was cherished by free and liberal institutions. The finest Grecian statues have hardly ever indicated anything but repose. The Laocoon and Niobe are the only ones which paint violent grief and pain; but it is the vengeance of heaven which they represent, and not any passion born in the human heart; the moral being was of so sound an organization among the ancients, the air circulated so freely in their deep bosoms, and the order politic was so much in harmony with their faculties, that troubled minds hardly ever existed then, as at the present day. This state causes the discovery of many fine ideas, but does not furnish the arts, particularly sculpture, with those simple affections, those primitive elements of sentiment, which can alone be expressed by eternal marble. Hardly do we find any traces of melancholy; a head of Apollo, at the Justinian palace, another of the dying Alexander, are the only ones in which the thoughtful and suffering dispositions of the soul are indicated; but according to all appearances they both belong to the time when Greece was enslaved. Since that epoch, we no longer see that boldness, nor that tranquillity of soul, which among the ancients, has produced masterpieces of sculpture, and poetry composed in the same spirit.
That thought which has nothing to nourish it from without, turns upon itself, analyses, labours, and dives into every inward sentiment; but it has no longer that creative power which supposes happiness, and that plenitude of strength which happiness alone can give. Even the sarcophagi, among the ancients, only recall warlike or pleasing ideas: in the multitude of those which are to be found at the museum of the Vatican, are seen battles and games represented in bas-relief on the tombs. The remembrance of living activity was thought to be the finest homage that could be rendered to the dead; nothing relaxed, nothing diminished strength. Encouragement and emulation were the principles of the fine arts as well as of politics; they afforded scope for every virtue, and for every talent. The vulgar gloried in knowing how to admire, and the worship of genius was served even by those who could not aspire to its rewards.
The religion of Greece was not, like Christianity, the consolation of misfortune, the riches of poverty, the future hope of the dying—it sought glory and triumph;—in a manner it deified man: in this perishable religion, beauty itself was a religious dogma. If the artists were called to paint the base and ferocious passions, they rescued the human form from shame, by joining to it, as in Fauns and Centaurs, some traits of the animal figure; and in order to give to beauty its most sublime character, they alternately blended in their statues (as in the warlike Minerva and in the Apollo Musagetus), the charms of both sexes—strength and softness, softness and strength; a happy mixture of two opposite qualities, without which neither of the two would be perfect.
Corinne, continuing her observations, retained Oswald some time before those sleeping statues which are placed on the tombs, and which display the art of sculpture in the most agreeable point of view. She pointed out to him, that whenever statues are supposed to represent an action, the arrested movement produces a sort of astonishment which is sometimes painful. But statues asleep, or merely in the attitude of complete repose, offer an image of eternal tranquillity which wonderfully accords with the general effect of a southern climate upon man. The fine arts appear there to be peaceful spectators of nature, and genius, which in the north agitates the soul of man, seems beneath a beautiful sky, only an added harmony.
Oswald and Corinne passed on to the hall where are collected together the sculptured images of animals and reptiles; and the statue of Tiberius is found, by chance, in the midst of this court. This assemblage is without design. Those statues appear to have ranged themselves of their own accord about their master. Another hall enclosed the dull and rigid monuments of the Egyptians; of that people whose statues resembled mummies more than men, and who by their silent, stiff, and servile institutions, seem to have assimilated as much as possible, life to death. The Egyptians excelled much more in the art of imitating animals than in representing men: the dominion of the soul seems to have been inaccessible to them.
After these come the porticos of the museum, where at each step is seen a new masterpiece. Vases, altars, ornaments of every kind, encircle the Apollo, the Laocoon, and the Muses. It is there that we learn to feel Homer and Sophocles: it is there that a knowledge of antiquity is awakened in the soul, which cannot be acquired elsewhere. It is in vain that we trust to the reading of history to comprehend the spirit of nations; what we see inspires us with more ideas than what we read, and external objects cause in us a strong emotion, which gives that living interest to the study of the past which we find in the observation of contemporary facts and events.