The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 06, No. 34, August, 1860

We first visited the University Museum. Numerous pictures, far beyond the ordinary degree of badness, occupy the upper rooms, where the only object of interest is a very fine and well-preserved bronze of Hercules and the Pompeian Fawn, half life-size. But far beyond all else in artistic importance are the metopes from Selinuntium, which, though much damaged, show marks of high excellence. They are of clearly different dates, though all very archaic. The oldest represent Perseus cutting off the Gorgon's head, and Hercules killing two thieves. Perseus has the calm, sleepy look of a Hindoo god,—while Gorgon's head, with goggle eyes and protruding tongue, resembles a Mexican idol. Hercules and the thieves have more of an Egyptian character. The material of these bas-reliefs is coarse limestone; and in the metopes on the opposite wall, which are clearly of later date, recourse has been had to a curious method of obtaining delicacy in the female forms: the faces, hands, and feet, which alone are visible from among the drapery, are formed of fine marble. An Actæon torn by his dogs is much corroded by sea air, but displays great nobleness of attitude. The vigor in the left arm, which has throttled one of the dogs, can hardly be surpassed. A portion of the cella, of one of the temples has been removed hither, and its brilliant polychromy is sufficient to decide the argument as to the existence of the practice, if, indeed, that point be yet in doubt. But it seems that the non-colorists have relinquished the parallel of architecture, which, be it observed, they formerly defended obstinately, and have now intrenched themselves in the citadel of sculpture, intending to hold it against all evidence. The only other object of much interest was a Pompeian fresco, representing two actors, whose attitudes and masks are so strikingly adapted to express the first scene of the "Heautontimorumenos," between Menalcas and Chremes, that it seems scarcely doubtful that this is actually the subject of the painting.

Near the upper end of the Toledo the Cathedral is situated, not very favorably for effect, as only the eastern side is sufficiently free from buildings. It is a noble pile: Northern power and piety expressed by the agency of Southern and Arabic workmen, and somewhat affected by the nationality of the artificer.

The stones are fretted and carved more elaborately than those of any French or English cathedral, but entirely in arabesques and diapering of low relief, so that the spectator misses with regret the solemn rows of saints and patriarchs that enrich the portals of our Gothic minsters. These, however, are reflections of a subsequent date, and did not interfere to mar the pleasure with which we sat in front of the southern door, beneath the two lofty arches, which, springing from the entrance tower, span the street high above our heads. For some time we sat, unwilling to change and it might be impair our sensations by passing inwards. Our reluctance was but too well founded: the whole interior has been modernized in detestable Renaissance style, and in place of highest honor, above the central doorway, sits in tight-buttoned uniform a fitting idol for so ugly a shrine, the double-chinned effigy of the reigning monarch. We turned for comfort to a chapel on the right, where in four sarcophagi of porphyry are deposited the remains of the Northern sovereigns. The bones of Roger repose in a plain oblong chest with a steep ridged roof, and the other three coffins, though somewhat more elaborate, are yet simple and massive, as befits their destined use. The inscription, on that of Constantia is touching, as it tells that she was "the last of the great race of Northmen,"—the good old bad Latin "Northmannorum" giving the proper title, which we have injudiciously softened into Norman.

In a small piazza near the intersection of the main streets is a Dominican church, whose black and white inlaid marbles are amazing in their elaborateness, astounding in their preposterously bad taste. They transcend description, and can be faintly imagined only by such as know a huge marble nightmare of waves and clouds in the south aisle of Westminster Abbey. This church contains one good painting of a triumphant experiment conducted by some Dominican friars in the presence of sundry Ulemas and Muftis: a Koran and Bible have been thrown into a blazing fire, and the result is as satisfactory as that of Hercules's death-grapple with the Nemean lion. To be sure, lions and Turks are not painters. The Martorana church is rich in gold-grounded mosaics, resembling Saint Mark's at Venice. One represents the coronation of Roger Guiscard by the Saviour: very curious, as showing at how early a date the invaders laid claim to the Right Divine. The inscription is also noteworthy: Rogerius Rex, in the Latin tongue, but the Greek characters, thus: [Greek: ROGERIOS RAEX].7 The Renaissance has invaded this church too, and flowery inlaid marbles with gilded scroll balconies (it is a nuns' church) mingle with the bold discs and oblong panels of porphyry and green serpentine. In the nave of the small church sat in comfortable arm-chairs two monks, one black, one white, leaning their ears to gilded grates and receiving the confessions of the sisterhood. The paschal candlestick stood in front of the high altar,—Ascension-Day not being past; but here, as in other Sicilian churches, it assumes the form of a seven-branched tree, generally of bronze bedecked with gold. These same nuns' balconies are not confined to the interior of churches, but form a distinct and picturesque feature in the long line of the Toledo. Projecting in a bold curve whose undersurface is gaily painted in arabesque, their thick bars and narrow openings nevertheless leave a gloomy impression on the mind, while they add to the Oriental character of the city. A somewhat unsuccessful effort to identify the church whose bell gave signal for the Sicilian Vespers closed our day's labor. The spot is clearly defined and easily recognizable, and a small church, now shut up, occupies the site. So far, so good; but the cloister which is distinctly mentioned cannot now be found, nor is it easy to perceive where it could have stood. Perhaps some change in the neighboring harbor may have swept it away.

23d April. To those who take interest in the efforts of that age when Christianity, devoid at once of artistic knowledge and of mechanical, strove from among the material and moral wreck of Paganism to create for herself a school of Art which should, despite of all short-comings, be the exponent of those high feelings which inspired her mind, the Royal Chapel of Palermo offers a delightful object of study. Less massive than the gloomily grand basilicas of Rome and Ravenna, surpassed in single features by other churches, as, for instance, the Cathedral of Salerno, it contains, nevertheless, such perfect specimens of Christian Art in its various phases, that this one small building seems a hand-book in itself. The floor and walls are covered with excellently preserved and highly polished Alexandrine mosaic, flowing in varied convolutions of green and gold and red round the broad crimson and gray shields, whose circular forms recall the mighty monolith columns of porphyry and granite which yielded such noble spoils. The honey-combed pendentines of the ceiling must be due to Arab workmen; their like may yet be found in Cairo or the Alhambra; while below the narrow windows, and extending downwards to the marble panelling, runs a grand series of gold-grounded mosaics, their subjects taken from the Old and New Testaments. But far older than even these are the colossal grim circles of saints and apostles who cling to the roof of the choir, and yield in size only to the awful figures of the Saviour, the Virgin, and Saint Paul, enthroned in the apsides of the nave and aisles. The ambones, though not so large as those of Salerno, are very gorgeous; and the paschal candlestick, here at all events in its usual shape, is of deeply-carved marble, and displays an incongruous assemblage of youths, maidens, beasts, birds, and bishops, hanging each from other like a curtain of swarming bees.

Service, which had been going on in the choir when we arrived, had now ceased; but from the crypt below arose a chant so harsh, vibratory, and void of solemnity, that we were irresistibly reminded of the subterranean chorus of demons in "Robert le Diable." Two of us ventured below and discovered the chapter, all robed in purple, sitting round a pall with a presumable coffin underneath. Little of reverence did they show,—it is true, the death was not recent, the service being merely commemorative, as we afterwards learned,—and as the procession shortly afterwards emerged and proceeded down the chapel, the unwashed, unshaven, and sensual countenances of some of highest rank among them gave small reason to believe that they could feel much reverence on any subject whatever.

The Palace itself is as tedious as any other palace: the Pompeian room follows the Louis Quinze, and is in turn followed by the Chinese, till, for our comfort, we emerged into one large square hall, whose stiff mosaics of archers killing stags, peacocks feeding at the foot of willow-pattern trees, date from the time of Roger. Another wearisome series of rooms succeeded, which we were bound to traverse in search of a bronze ram of old Greek workmanship, brought from Syracuse. The work is very good and well-preserved; in fact, no part is injured, save the tail and a hind leg, whose loss the custode ascribed to the villains of the late revolution. He even charged them with the destruction of another similar statue melted into bullets, if we may believe his incredible tale. A pavilion over the Monreale gate commands a view right down the Toledo to the sea.

The drive to Monreale is a continued ascent along the skirts of a limestone rock, whose precipices are thickly planted at every foothold with olive, Indian fig, and aloe. The valley, as it spread below our gaze, appeared one huge carpet of heavy-fruited orange-trees, save where at times a rent in the web left visible the bluish blades of wheat, or the intense green of a flax-plantation.

Monreale is a mere country-town, containing no object of interest, save the Cathedral. This is a noble basilica, grandly proportioned, the nave and aisles of which are separated by monolith pillars, mostly of gray granite, and some few of cipollino and other marbles, the spoils, no doubt, of the ancient Panormus. Above the cornice the walls are entirely sheeted with golden mosaics, representing, as usual, Scripture history. The series which begins, like the speech of the Intendant in "Les Plaideurs," "Avant la creation du monde" complies with the wish of (the judge?) by going on to the Deluge, in a train of singularly meagre figures, most haggard of whom is Cain, here represented (as in the Campo Santo of Pisa) receiving his death accidentally from the hand of Lamech. In the passage of the beasts to the Ark, Noah coaxes the lion on board, and in the next compartment the patriarch shoves the king of beasts down the plank in a most ludicrous fashion. The mosaics of the New Testament are less archaic, though still very old, too old to be infected by the tricks of later Romanism,—such, for instance, as introducing the Virgin among the receivers of the mysterious gift of tongues. Saint Paul, both here and at the Royal Chapel, appears under the earlier type adopted whether by fancy or tradition to represent that saint,—that is, a short, strong figure, with the head large, and almost devoid of hair, except at the sides, and one dark lock in the centre of the massive forehead. Over the western door-way is a mosaic of the Virgin with the following leonine and loyal distich beneath it:—

"Sponsa suae prolis, O Stella puerpera Solis,Pro cunctis ora, sed plus pro rege labora!"

There is an ample square cloister, with twenty-seven pairs of columns on each side, once richly decorated in mosaics like those of San Giovanni Laterano and San Paolo at Rome, but even more dilapidated than either of these latter. Indeed, so entirely non-existent is the mosaic, the twisted and channelled columns showing nothing but places "where the pasty is not," that the more probable solution may be that want of funds or of devotion has left the work unfinished. On the capital of one column may be seen the figure of William the Good, who founded the Cathedral in 1170. He bears in his arms a model of the building, which here appears with circular-headed windows instead of the lanceolated Gothic now existing.

In, perhaps, the very loveliest of the many lovely sites around Palermo stands the small Moorish building of La Ziza. Moorish it may be called; for the main feature of the edifice, a hall with a fountain trickling along a channel in the pavements, is clearly due to the Saracens. These, however, had availed themselves of Roman columns to support their fretted ceilings, once gorgeous in color, but now desecrated with whitewash. The Norman invaders have added their never-failing gold mosaic,—while the Spaniard, after painting sundry scenes from Ovid's "Metamorphoses" in a dreadfully barocco style, calls upon the world, in those magniloquent phrases which somehow belong as of right to your mighty Don, to admire the exquisite commingling of modern art with antique beauty, to which his fiat has given birth.

Somewhat of Spain, perhaps, might also be traced in an incident, promisingly romantic, but coming to a most lame and impotent conclusion, which occurred this afternoon to one of our party. While busily sketching, in the Martorana church, the previously mentioned mosaic of Roger's coronation, a hand protruded from the gilded lattice above, and a small scroll was dropped, not precisely at the feet, but in the neighborhood of the amazed artist. Sharp eyes, however, must be at work; for, ere he could appropriate this mysterious waif on Love's manor, a side-door opened, and an attendant in the very unpoetical garb of a carpenter bore off the prize. It maybe presumed that the next confessor who occupied an arm-chair in the church would have somewhat of novelty to enliven what some priests have stated to be the most wearisome of the work, namely, the hearing of confessions in a nunnery.

This evening was passed in the house of the British Consul, who, in amusing recognition of our nationalities, comprising, as they did, both branches of the Anglo-Saxon race, treated us to Lemann's captain's-biscuit and Boston crackers. Notwithstanding the interesting conversation of our host, who had not allowed a residence of many years in a mind-rusting city to impair his love of literature, a love dating from the time when Praed edited the "Etonian," and Metius Tarpa contributed to the "College Magazine," we were obliged to leave early. Our arrangements for a very early start next morning were completed, and a thirty miles' ride lay before us.

To save further allusion to them, it may be as well to describe these arrangements, which were made for us by Signor Ragusa, landlord of the Trinacria hotel. A guide, Giuseppe Agnello by name, took upon himself the whole responsibility of our board, lodging, and travelling, at a fixed rate of forty-two (?) carlini a head,—which sum, including his buonamano and return voyage from Syracuse or Messina, amounted to about twenty francs each per diem. For this sum he furnished us with good mules, a hearty breakfast at daybreak, cold meat and hard eggs at noon, and a plentiful dinner or supper, call it which you choose, on arriving at our night's quarters. Agnello himself was cook, and proved a very tolerable one. This is essential; for Spanish custom prevails in the inns, whose host considers his duty accomplished when he has provided ample stabling for the mules and dubious bedding for his biped guests.

[To be continued.]

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THE PROFESSOR'S STORY

CHAPTER XV

PHYSIOLOGICAL

If Master Bernard felt a natural gratitude to his young pupil for saving him from an imminent peril, he was in a state of infinite perplexity to know why he should have needed such aid. He, an active, muscular, courageous, adventurous young fellow, with a stick in his hand, ready to hold down the Old Serpent himself, if he had come in his way, to stand still, staring into those two eyes, until they came up close to him, and the strange, terrible sound seemed to freeze him stiff where he stood,—what was the meaning of it? Again, what was the influence this girl had exerted, under which the venomous creature had collapsed in such a sudden way? Whether he had been awake or dreaming he did not feel quite sure. He knew he had gone up The Mountain, at any rate; he knew he had come down The Mountain with the girl walking just before him;—there was no forgetting her figure, as she walked on in silence, her braided locks falling a little, for want of the lost hair-pin, perhaps, and looking like a wreathing coil of—Shame on such fancies!—to wrong that supreme crowning gift of abounding Nature, a rush of shining black hair, that, shaken loose, would cloud her all round, like Godiva, from brow to instep! He was sure he had sat down before the fissure or cave. He was sure that he was led softly away from the place, and that it was Elsie who had led him. There was the hair-pin to show that so far it was not a dream. But between these recollections came a strange confusion; and the more the master thought, the more he was perplexed to know whether she had waked him, sleeping, as he sat on the stone, from some frightful dream, such as may come in a very brief slumber, or whether she had bewitched him into a trance with those strange eyes of hers, or whether it was all true, and he must solve its problem as he best might.

There was another recollection connected with this mountain adventure. As they approached the mansion-house, they met a young man, whom Mr. Bernard remembered having seen once at least before, and whom he had heard of as a cousin of the young girl. As Cousin Richard Venner, the person in question, passed them, he took the measure, so to speak, of Mr. Bernard, with a look so piercing, so exhausting, so practised, so profoundly suspicious, that the young master felt in an instant that he had an enemy in this handsome youth,—an enemy, too, who was like to be subtle and dangerous.

Mr. Bernard had made up his mind, that, come what might, enemy or no enemy, live or die, he would solve the mystery of Elsie Venner, sooner or later. He was not a man to be frightened out of his resolution by a scowl, or a stiletto, or any unknown means of mischief, of which a whole armory was hinted at in that passing look Dick Venner had given him. Indeed, like most adventurous young persons, he found a kind of charm in feeling that there might be some dangers in the way of his investigations. Some rumors which had reached him about the supposed suitor of Elsie Venner, who was thought to be a desperate kind of fellow, and whom some believed to be an unscrupulous adventurer, added a curious, romantic kind of interest to the course of physiological and psychological inquiries he was about instituting.

The afternoon on The Mountain was still uppermost in his mind. Of course he knew the common stories about fascination. He had once been himself an eyewitness of the charming of a small bird by one of our common harmless serpents. Whether a human being could be reached by this subtile agency, he had been skeptical, notwithstanding the mysterious relation generally felt to exist between man and this creature, "cursed above all cattle and above every beast of the field,"—a relation which some interpret as the fruit of the curse, and others hold to be so instinctive that this animal has been for that reason adopted as the natural symbol of evil. There was another solution, however, supplied him by his professional reading. The curious work of Mr. Braid of Manchester had made him familiar with the phenomena of a state allied to that produced by animal magnetism, and called by that writer by the name of hypnotism. He found, by referring to his note-book, the statement was, that, by fixing the eyes on a bright object so placed as to produce a strain upon the eyes and eyelids, and to maintain a steady fixed stare, there comes on in a few seconds a very singular condition, characterized by muscular rigidity and inability to move, with a strange exaltation of most of the senses, and generally a closure of the eyelids,—this condition being followed by torpor.

Now this statement of Mr. Braid's, well known to the scientific world, and the truth of which had been confirmed by Mr. Bernard in certain experiments he had instituted, as it has been by many other experimenters, went far to explain the strange impressions, of which, waking or dreaming, he had certainly been the subject. His nervous system had been in a high state of exaltation at the time. He remembered how the little noises that made rings of sound in the silence of the woods, like pebbles dropped in still waters, had reached his inner consciousness. He remembered that singular sensation in the roots of the hair, when he came on the traces of the girl's presence, reminding him of a line in a certain poem which he had read lately with a new and peculiar interest. He even recalled a curious evidence of exalted sensibility and irritability, in the twitching of the minute muscles of the internal ear at every unexpected sound, producing an odd little snap in the middle of the head, that proved to him he was getting very nervous.

The next thing was to find out whether it were possible that the venomous creature's eyes should have served the purpose of Mr. Braid's "bright object" held very close to the person experimented on, or whether they had any special power which could be made the subject of exact observation.

For this purpose Mr. Bernard considered it necessary to get a live crotalus or two into his possession, if this were possible. On inquiry, he found that there was a certain family living far up the mountain-side, not a mile from the ledge, the members of which were said to have taken these creatures occasionally, and not to be in any danger, or at least in any fear, of being injured by them. He applied to these people, and offered a reward sufficient to set them at work to capture some of these animals, if such a thing were possible.

A few days after this, a dark, gypsy-looking woman presented herself at his door. She held up her apron as if it contained something precious in the bag she made with it.

"Y'wanted some rattlers," said the woman. "Here they be."

She opened her apron and showed a coil of rattlesnakes lying very peaceably in its fold. They lifted their heads up, as if they wanted to see what was going on, but showed no sign of anger.

"Are you crazy?" said Mr. Bernard. "You're dead in an hour, if one of those creatures strikes you!"

He drew back a little, as he spoke; it might be simple disgust; it might be fear; it might be what we call antipathy, which is different from either, and which will sometimes show itself in paleness, and even faintness, produced by objects perfectly harmless and not in themselves offensive to any sense.

"Lord bless you," said the woman, "rattlers never touches our folks. I'd jest 'z lieves handle them creaturs as so many striped snakes."

So saying, she put their heads down with her hand, and packed them together in her apron as if they had been bits of cart-rope.

Mr. Bernard had never heard of the power, or, at least, the belief in the possession of a power by certain persons, which enables them to handle these frightful reptiles with perfect impunity. The fact, however, is well known to others, and more especially to a very distinguished Professor in one of the leading institutions of the great city of the land, whose experiences in the neighborhood of Graylock, as he will doubtless inform the curious, were very much like those of the young master.

Mr. Bernard had a wired cage ready for his formidable captives, and studied their habits and expression with a strange sort of interest. What did the Creator mean to signify, when he made such shapes of horror, and, as if he had doubly cursed this envenomed wretch, had set a mark upon him and sent him forth, the Cain of the brotherhood of serpents? It was a very curious fact that the first train of thoughts Mr. Bernard's small menagerie suggested to him was the grave, though somewhat worn, subject of the origin of evil. There is now to be seen in a tall glass jar, in the Museum of Comparative Anatomy at Cantabridge in the territory of the Massachusetts, a huge crotalus, of a species which grows to more frightful dimensions than our own, under the hotter skies of South America. Look at it, ye who would know what is the tolerance, the freedom from prejudice, which can suffer such an incarnation of all that is devilish to lie unharmed in the cradle of Nature! Learn, too, that there are many things in this world which we are warned to shun, and are even suffered to slay, if need be, but which we must not hate, unless we would hate what God loves and cares for.