[CHAPTER III.]
An hour passed in St. Peter's had been wont to compose her; and Corinne hoped to find the same effect from visiting the churches of fair Florence. She walked beneath the fine trees of the river's bank, in a lovely eve of June. Roses embalmed the air, and every face expressed the general felicity from which she felt herself excluded; yet she unenvyingly blessed her God for his kind care of man. "I am an exception to universal order," she said; "there is happiness for every one but me: this power of suffering, beneath which I die, is then peculiar to myself. My God! wherefore was I selected for such a doom? May I not say, like thy Divine Son, 'Father, let this cup be taken from me?'" The active air of the inhabitants astonished her: since she had lost all interest in life, she knew not why others seemed occupied; and, slowly pacing the large stoned pavement of Florence, she forgot where she had designed to go. At last, she found herself before the far-famed gate of brass, sculptured by Ghiberti, for the front of St. John's, which stands beside the cathedral. For some time she examined this stupendous work; where, wrought in bronze, the divers nations, though of minute proportions, are distinctly marked by their varied physiognomies; all of which express some thought of their artist. "What patience!" cried Corinne; "what respect for posterity! yet how few scrutinize these doors, through which so many daily pass, in heedlessness, ignorance, or disdain! How difficult it is to escape oblivion! how vast the power of death!"
In this cathedral was Julian de Medicis assassinated. Not far thence, in the church of St. Lorenzo, is shown the marble chapel, enriched with precious stones, where rise the tombs of that high family, and Michael Angelo's statues of Julian and Lorenzo: the latter, meditating vengeance on the murder of his brother, deserves the honor of having been called "la pensée de Michel Angelo!" At the feet of these figures are Aurora and Night. The awaking of the one is admirable; still more so is the other's sleep. A poet chose it for his theme, and concluded by saying: "Sound as is her slumber, she lives: if you believe not, wake her, she will speak." Angelo, who cultivated letters (without which imagination of all kinds must soon decay) replied:——
"Grato m'è il sono, e più l'esser di sasso.
Mentre che il danno e la vergogna dura,
Non veder, non sentir m'è gran ventura,
Perô non mi destar, deh parla basso!"
"It is well for me to sleep, still better to be stone; while shame and injustice last: not to see, not to hear, is a great blessing; therefore disturb me not! speak low!"
This great man was the only comparatively modern sculptor who neither gave the human figure the beauty of the antique nor the affected air of our own day. You see the grave energy of the Middle Ages—its perseverance, its passions, but no ideal beauty. He was the genius of his own school; and imitated no one, not even the ancients. This tomb is in the church of Santa Croce. At his desire, it faces a window whence may be seen the dome built by Filippo Brunelleschi: as if his ashes would stir, even beneath the marble, at the sight of a cupola copied from that of St. Peter's. Santa Croce contains some of the most illustrious dead in Europe. Galileo, persecuted by man, for having discovered the secrets of the sky—Machiavel, who revealed the arts of crime rather as an observer than an actor; yet whose lessons are more available to the oppressors than, the oppressed—Aretino, who consecrated his days to mirth, and found nothing serious in life except its end—Boccaccio, whose laughing fancy resisted the united scourges of civil war and plague—a picture in honor of Dante, showing that the Florentines, who permitted him to perish in exile, were not the less vain of his glory,[1] with many other worthy names, and some celebrated in their own day, but echoing less forcibly from age to age, so that their sound is now almost unheard.[2] This church, adorned with noble recollections, rekindled the enthusiasm of Corinne, which the living had repressed. The silent presence of the great revived, for a moment, that emulation which once she felt for fame. She stepped more steadfastly, and the high thoughts of other days arose within her breast. Some young priests came slowly down the aisle, chanting in subdued tones: she asked the meaning of this ceremony. "We are praying for our dead," said one of them. "Right," thought Corinne; "your dead! well may you boast them; they are the only noble relics left ye. Ah! why then, Oswald, have you stifled all the gifts Heaven granted me, with which I ought to excite the sympathy of kindred minds? O God!" she added, sinking on her knees, "it is not in vanity I dare entreat thee to give me back my talents: doubtless the lowly saints who lived and died for thee alone are greatest in thy sight; but there are different careers for mortals: genius, which illustrates our noblest virtues, devotes itself to generous humanity and truth, may trust to be received in some outer heaven." She cast her eyes to earth, and, on the stone where she had knelt, read this inscription:——
"Alone I rose, alone I sank, I am alone e'en here."
"Ah!" cried Corinne, "that is mine answer. What should embolden me to toil? what pride can I ever feel? who would participate in my success, or interest himself in my defeats? Oh, I should need his look for my reward." Another epitaph fixed her attention, that of a youth, who says:—
"Pity me not, if you can guess how many pangs the grave hath spared me."
How did those words wean her from life! amid the tumult of a city, this church opened to teach mankind the best of secrets, if they would learn: but no; they passed it by, and the miraculous forgetfulness of death kept all the world alive.