The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 01, No. 06, April, 1858

III.—CLAUDE TO EUSTACE

  Farewell, Politics, utterly! What can I do? I cannot  Fight, you know; and to talk I am wholly ashamed. And although I  Gnash my teeth when I look in your French or your English papers,  What is the good of that? Will swearing, I wonder, mend matters?  Cursing and scolding repel the assailants? No, it is idle;  No, whatever befalls, I will hide, will ignore or forget it.  Let the tail shift for itself; I will bury my head. And what's the  Roman Republic to me, or I to the Roman Republic?    Why not fight?—In the first place, I haven't so much as a musket.  In the next, if I had, I shouldn't know how I should use it.  In the third, just at present I'm studying ancient marbles.  In the fourth, I consider I owe my life to my country.  In the fifth,—I forget; but four good reasons are ample.  Meantime, pray, let 'em fight, and be killed. I delight in devotion.  So that I 'list not, hurrah for the glorious army of martyrs!  Sanguis martyrum semen Ecclesiae; though it would seem this  Church is indeed of the purely Invisible, Kingdom-Come kind:  Militant here on earth! Triumphant, of course, then, elsewhere!  Ah, good Heaven, but I would I were out far away from the pother!

IV.—CLAUDE TO EUSTACE

  Not, as we read in the words of the olden-time inspiration,  Are there two several trees in the place we are set to abide in;  But on the apex most high of the Tree of Life in the Garden,  Budding, unfolding, and falling, decaying and flowering ever,  Flowering is set and decaying the transient blossom of Knowledge,—  Flowering alone, and decaying, the needless, unfruitful blossom.  Or as the cypress-spires by the fair-flowing stream Hellespontine,  Which from the mythical tomb of the godlike Protesilaus  Rose, sympathetic in grief, to his lovelorn Laodamia,  Evermore growing, and, when in their growth to the prospect attaining,  Over the low sea-banks, of the fatal Ilian city,  Withering still at the sight which still they upgrew to encounter.    Ah, but ye that extrude from the ocean your helpless faces,  Ye over stormy seas leading long and dreary processions,  Ye, too, brood of the wind, whose coming is whence we discern not,  Making your nest on the wave, and your bed on the crested billow,  Skimming rough waters, and crowding wet sands that the tide shall       return to,  Cormorants, ducks, and gulls, fill ye my imagination!  Let us not talk of growth; we are still in our Aqueous Ages.V.—MARY TREVELLYN TO MISS ROPER,—from Florence  Dearest Miss Roper,—Alas, we are all at Florence quite safe, and  You, we hear, are shut up! indeed, it is sadly distressing!  We were most lucky, they say, to get off when we did from the       troubles.  Now you are really besieged! They tell us it soon will be over;  Only I hope and trust without any fight in the city.  Do you see Mr. Claude?—I thought he might do something for you.  I am quite sure on occasion he really would wish to be useful.  What is he doing? I wonder;—still studying Vatican marbles?  Letters, I hope, pass through. We trust your brother is better.

VI.—CLAUDE TO EUSTACE

  Juxtaposition, in fine; and what is juxtaposition?  Look you, we travel along in the railway-carriage, or steamer,  And, pour passer le temps, till the tedious journey be ended,  Lay aside paper or book, to talk with the girl that is next one;  And, pour passer le temps, with the terminus all but in       prospect,  Talk of eternal ties and marriages made in heaven.    Ah, did we really accept with a perfect heart the illusion!  Ah, did we really believe that the Present indeed is the Only!  Or through all transmutation, all shock and convulsion of passion,  Feel we could carry undimmed, unextinguished, the light of our       knowledge!    But for his funeral train which the bridegroom sees in the distance,  Would he so joyfully, think you, fall in with the marriage-procession?  But for that final discharge, would he dare to enlist in that service?  But for that certain release, ever sign to that perilous contract?  But for that exit secure, ever bend to that treacherous doorway?—  Ah, but the bride, meantime,—do you think she sees it as he does?    But for the steady fore-sense of a freer and larger existence,  Think you that man could consent to be circumscribed here into action?  But for assurance within of a limitless ocean divine, o'er  Whose great tranquil depths unconscious the wind-tost surface  Breaks into ripples of trouble that come and change and endure not,—  But that in this, of a truth, we have our being, and know it,  Think you we men could submit to live and move as we do here?  Ah, but the women,—God bless them!—they don't think at all about it.    Yet we must eat and drink, as you say. And as limited beings  Scarcely can hope to attain upon earth to an Actual Abstract,  Leaving to God contemplation, to His hands knowledge confiding,  Sure that in us if it perish, in Him it abideth and dies not,  Let us in His sight accomplish our petty particular doings,—  Yes, and contented sit down to the victual that He has provided.  Allah is great, no doubt, and Juxtaposition his prophet.  Ah, but the women, alas, they don't look at it in that way!    Juxtaposition is great;—but, my friend, I fear me, the maiden  Hardly would thank or acknowledge the lover that sought to obtain her,  Not as the thing he would wish, but the thing he must even put up    with,—  Hardly would tender her hand to the wooer that candidly told her  That she is but for a space, an ad-interim solace and       pleasure,—  That in the end she shall yield to a perfect and absolute something,  Which I then for myself shall behold, and not another,—  Which amid fondest endearments, meantime I forget not, forsake not.  Ah, ye feminine souls, so loving and so exacting,  Since we cannot escape, must we even submit to deceive you?  Since, so cruel is truth, sincerity shocks and revolts you,  Will you have us your slaves to lie to you, flatter and—leave you?

VII.—CLAUDE TO EUSTACE

  Juxtaposition is great,—but, you tell me, affinity greater.  Ah, my friend, there are many affinities, greater and lesser,  Stronger and weaker; and each, by the favor of juxtaposition,  Potent, efficient, in force,—for a time; but none, let me tell you,  Save by the law of the land and the ruinous force of the will, ah,  None, I fear me, at last quite sure to be final and perfect.    Lo, as I pace in the street, from the peasant-girl to the princess,  Homo sum, nihil humani a me alienum puto,—  Vir sum, nihil faeminei,—and e'en to the uttermost circle,  All that is Nature's is I, and I all things that are Nature's.  Yes, as I walk, I behold, in a luminous, large intuition,  That I can be and become anything that I meet with or look at:  I am the ox in the dray, the ass with the garden-stuff panniers;  I am the dog in the doorway, the kitten that plays in the window,  Here on the stones of the ruin the furtive and fugitive lizard,  Swallow above me that twitters, and fly that is buzzing about me;  Yea, and detect, as I go, by a faint, but a faithful assurance,  E'en from the stones of the street, as from rocks or trees of the       forest,  Something of kindred, a common, though latent vitality, greet me,  And, to escape from our strivings, mistakings, misgrowths, and       perversions,  Fain could demand to return to that perfect and primitive silence,  Fain be enfolded and fixed, as of old, in their rigid embraces.

VIII.—CLAUDE TO EUSTACE

  And as I walk on my way, I behold them consorting and coupling;  Faithful it seemeth, and fond, very fond, very probably faithful;  And I proceed on my way with a pleasure sincere and unmingled.    Life is beautiful, Eustace, entrancing, enchanting to look at;  As are the streets of a city we pace while the carriage is changing,  As is a chamber filled-in with harmonious, exquisite pictures,  Even so beautiful Earth; and could we eliminate only  This vile hungering impulse, this demon within us of craving,  Life were beatitude, living a perfect divine satisfaction.

IX.—CLAUDE TO EUSTACE

  Mild monastic faces in quiet collegiate cloisters:  So let me offer a single and celibatarian phrase a  Tribute to those whom perhaps you do not believe I can honor.  But, from the tumult escaping, 'tis pleasant, of drumming and       shouting,  Hither, oblivious awhile, to withdraw, of the fact or the falsehood,  And amid placid regards and mildly courteous greetings  Yield to the calm and composure and gentle abstraction that reign o'er  Mild monastic faces in quiet collegiate cloisters.    Terrible word, Obligation! You should not, Eustace, you should not,  No, you should not have used it. But, O great Heavens, I repel it!  Oh, I cancel, reject, disavow, and repudiate wholly  Every debt in this kind, disclaim every claim, and dishonor,  Yea, my own heart's own writing, my soul's own signature! Ah, no!  I will be free in this; you shall not, none shall, bind me.  No, my friend, if you wish to be told, it was this above all things,  This that charmed me, ah, yes, even this, that she held me to nothing.  No, I could talk as I pleased; come close; fasten ties, as I fancied;  Bind and engage myself deep;—and lo, on the following morning  It was all e'en as before, like losings in games played for nothing.  Yes, when I came, with mean fears in my soul, with a semi-performance  At the first step breaking down in its pitiful rôle of evasion,  When to shuffle I came, to compromise, not meet, engagements,  Lo, with her calm eyes there she met me and knew nothing of it,—  Stood unexpecting, unconscious. She spoke not of obligations,  Knew not of debt,—ah, no, I believe you, for excellent reasons.

X.—CLAUDE TO EUSTACE

  Hang this thinking, at last! what good is it? oh, and what evil!  Oh, what mischief and pain! like a clock in a sick man's chamber,  Ticking and ticking, and still through each covert of slumber       pursuing.    What shall I do to thee, O thou Preserver of Men? Have compassion!  Be favorable, and hear! Take from me this regal knowledge!  Let me, contented and mute, with the beasts of the field, my brothers,  Tranquilly, happily lie,—and eat grass, like Nebuchadnezzar!

XI.—CLAUDE TO EUSTACE

  Tibur is beautiful, too, and the orchard slopes, and the Anio  Falling, falling yet, to the ancient lyrical cadence;  Tibur and Anio's tide; and cool from Lucretilis ever,  With the Digentian stream, and with the Bandusian fountain,  Folded in Sabine recesses, the valley and villa of Horace:—  So not seeing I sung; so seeing and listening say I,  Here as I sit by the stream, as I gaze at the cell of the Sibyl,  Here with Albunea's home and the grove of Tiburnus beside me.2  Tivoli beautiful is, and musical, O Teverone,  Dashing from mountain to plain, thy parted impetuous waters!  Tivoli's waters and rocks; and fair under Monte Gennaro,  (Haunt even yet, I must think, as I wonder and gaze, of the shadows,  Faded and pale, yet immortal, of Faunus, the Nymphs, and the Graces,)  Fair in itself, and yet fairer with human completing creations,  Folded in Sabine recesses the valley and villa of Horace:—  So not seeing I sung; so now,—nor seeing, nor hearing,  Neither by waterfall lulled, nor folded in sylvan embraces,  Neither by cell of the Sibyl, nor stepping the Monte Gennaro,  Seated on Anio's bank, nor sipping Bandusian waters,  But on Montorio's height, looking down on the tile-clad streets, the  Cupolas, crosses, and domes, the bushes and kitchen-gardens,  Which, by the grace of the Tiber, proclaim themselves Rome of the       Romans,—  But on Montorio's height, looking forth to the vapory mountains,  Cheating the prisoner Hope with illusions of vision and fancy,—  But on Montorio's height, with these weary soldiers by me,  Waiting till Oudinot enter, to reinstate Pope and Tourist.

XII.—MARY TREVELLYN TO MISS ROPER

  Dear Miss Roper,—It seems, George Vernon, before we left Rome, said  Something to Mr. Claude about what they call his attentions.  Susan, two nights ago, for the first time, heard this from Georgina.  It is so disagreeable, and so annoying, to think of!  If it could only be known, though we never may meet him again, that  It was all George's doing and we were entirely unconscious,  It would extremely relieve—Your ever affectionate Mary.  P.S. (1).    Here is your letter arrived this moment, just as I wanted.  So you have seen him,—indeed,—and guessed,—how dreadfully clever!  What did he really say? and what was your answer exactly?  Charming!—but wait for a moment, I have not read through the letter.  P.S. (2).    Ah, my dearest Miss Roper, do just as you fancy about it.  If you think it sincerer to tell him I know of it, do so.  Though I should most extremely dislike it, I know I could manage.  It is the simplest thing, but surely wholly uncalled for.  Do as you please; you know I trust implicitly to you.  Say whatever is right and needful for ending the matter.  Only don't tell Mr. Claude, what I will tell you as a secret,  That I should like very well to show him myself I forget it.  P.S. (3).    I am to say that the wedding is finally settled for Tuesday.  Ah, my dear Miss Roper, you surely, surely can manage  Not to let it appear that I know of that odious matter.  It would be pleasanter far for myself to treat it exactly  As if it had not occurred; and I do not think he would like it.  I must remember to add, that as soon as the wedding is over  We shall be off, I believe, in a hurry, and travel to Milan,  There to meet friends of Papa's, I am told, at the Croce di Malta;  Then I cannot say whither, but not at present to England.

XIII.—CLAUDE TO EUSTACE

  Yes, on Montorio's height for a last farewell of the city,—  So it appears; though then I was quite uncertain about it.  So, however, it was. And now to explain the proceeding.    I was to go, as I told you, I think, with the people to Florence.  Only the day before, the foolish family Vernon  Made some uneasy remarks, as we walked to our lodging together,  As to intentions, forsooth, and so forth. I was astounded,  Horrified quite; and obtaining just then, as it chanced, an offer  (No common favor) of seeing the great Ludovisi collection,  Why, I made this a pretence, and wrote that they must excuse me.  How could I go? Great Heaven! to conduct a permitted flirtation  Under those vulgar eyes, the observed of such observers!  Well, but I now, by a series of fine diplomatic inquiries,  Find from a sort of relation, a good and sensible woman,  Who is remaining at Rome with a brother too ill for removal,  That it was wholly unsanctioned, unknown,—not, I think, by Georgina:  She, however, ere this,—and that is the best of the story,—  She and the Vernon, thank Heaven, are wedded and gone—honey-mooning.  So—on Montorio's height for a last farewell of the city.  Tibur I have not seen, nor the lakes that of old I had dreamt of;  Tibur I shall not see, nor Anio's waters, nor deep en-  Folded in Sabine recesses the valley and villa of Horace;  Tibur I shall not see;—but something better I shall see.    Twice I have tried before, and failed in getting the horses;  Twice I have tried and failed: this time it shall not be a failure.* * * * *  Therefore farewell, ye hills, and ye, ye envineyarded ruins!    Therefore farewell, ye walls, palaces, pillars, and domes!  Therefore farewell, far seen, ye peaks of the mythic Albano,    Seen from Montorio's height, Tibur and Aesula's hills!  Ah, could we once, ere we go, could we stand, while, to ocean       descending,    Sinks o'er the yellow dark plain slowly the yellow broad sun,  Stand, from the forest emerging at sunset, at once in the champaign,    Open, but studded with trees, chestnuts umbrageous and old,  E'en in those fair open fields that incurve to thy beautiful hollow,    Nemi, imbedded in wood, Nemi, inurned in the hill!—  Therefore farewell, ye plains, and ye hills, and the City Eternal!    Therefore farewell! We depart, but to behold you again![To be continued.]

THE CATACOMBS OF ROME.

[Continued.]

  Vix fama nota est, abditis  Quam plena sancti Roma sit;  Quam dives urbanum solum  Sacris sepulchris floreat.                           PRUDENTIUS.  Mille victoriose chiare palme.                           PETRARCH.

II

The results of the investigations in the catacombs during the last three or four years have well rewarded the zeal of their explorers. Since the great work of the French government was published, in 1851-55, very curious and important discoveries have been made, and many new minor facts brought to light. The interest in the investigations has become more general, and no visit to Rome is now complete without a visit to one at least of the catacombs. Strangely enough, however, the Romans themselves, for the most part, feel less concern in these new revelations of their underground city than the strangers who come from year to year to make their pilgrimages to Rome. It is an old complaint, that the Romans care little for their city. "Who are there to-day," says Petrarch, in one of his letters, "more ignorant of Roman things than the Roman citizens? And nowhere is Rome less known than in Rome itself." It is, however, to the Cavaliere de Rossi, himself a Roman, that the most important of these discoveries are due,—the result of his marvellous learning and sagacity, and of his hard-working and unwearied energy. The discovery of the ancient entrance to the Catacombs of St. Callixtus, and of the chapel within, where St. Cecilia was originally buried, is a piece of the very romance of Archaeology. The whole history of St. Cecilia, the glorious Virgin Martyr and the Saint of Music, as connected with the catacombs, is, indeed, one of the most curious to be found in the annals of the Church. Legend and fact are strangely mingled in it, and over it hangs a perplexing mist of doubt, but not so dense as wholly to conceal all certainty. It is a story of suffering, of piety, of enthusiasm, of superstition, and of science;—it connects itself in many points with the progress of corruption in the Church, and it has been a favorite subject for Art in all ages. The story is at last finished. Begun sixteen hundred years ago, it has just reached its last chapter. In order to understand it, we must go back almost to its introduction.

According to the legend of the Roman Church, as preserved in the "Acts of St. Cecilia," this young and beautiful saint was martyred in the year of our Lord 230.3 She had devoted herself to perpetual virginity, but her parents had insisted upon marrying her to a youthful and noble Roman, named Valerian. On the night of her marriage, she succeeded in so far prevailing upon her husband as to induce him to visit the pope, Urban, who was lying concealed from his persecutors in the catacombs which were called after and still bear the name of his predecessor, Callixtus,4 on the Appian Way, about two miles from the present walls of the city. The young man was converted to the Christian faith. The next day witnessed the conversion of his brother, Tiburtius. Their lives soon gave evidence of the change in their religion; they were brought before the prefect, and, refusing to sacrifice to the heathen gods, were condemned to death. Maximus, an officer of the prefect, was converted by the young men on the way to execution. They suffered death with constancy, and Maximus soon underwent the same fate. Nor was Cecilia long spared. The prefect ordered that she should be put to death in her own house, by being stifled in the caldarium, or hot-air chamber of her baths. The order was obeyed, and Cecilia entered the place of death; but a heavenly air and cooling dews filled the chamber, and the fire built up around it produced no effect. For a whole day and night the flames were kept up, but the Saint was unharmed. Then Almachius sent an order that she should be beheaded. The executioner struck her neck three times with his sword, and left her bleeding, but not dead, upon the pavement of the bathroom. For three days she lived, attended by faithful friends, whose hearts were cheered by her courageous constancy; "for she did not cease to comfort those whom she had nurtured in the faith of the Lord, and divided among them everything which she had." To Pope Urban, who visited her as she lay dying, she left in charge the poor whom she had cared for, and her house, that it might be consecrated as a church. With this her life ended.5 Her wasted body was reverently lifted, its position undisturbed, and laid in the attitude and clothing of life within a coffin of cypress-wood. The linen cloths with which the blood of the Martyr had been soaked up were placed at her feet, with that care that no precious drop should be lost,—a care, of which many evidences are afforded in the catacombs. In the night, the coffin was carried out of the city secretly to the Cemetery of Callixtus, and there deposited by Urban in a grave near to a chamber destined for the graves of the popes themselves. Here the "Acts of St. Cecilia" close, and, leaving her pure body to repose for centuries in its tomb hollowed out of the rock, we trace the history of the catacombs during those centuries in other sources and by other ways.

The consequences of the conversion of Constantine exhibited themselves not more in the internal character and spirit of the Church than in its outward forms and arrangements. The period of worldly prosperity succeeded speedily to a period of severest suffering, and many who had been exposed to the persecution of Diocletian now rejoiced in the imperial favor shown to their religion. Such contrasts in life are not favorable to the growth of the finer spiritual qualities; and the sunshine of state and court is not that which is needed for quickening faith or developing simplicity and purity of heart. Churches above ground could now be frequented without risk, and were the means by which the wealth and the piety of Christians were to be displayed. The newly imperialized religion must have its imperial temples, and the little dark chapels of the catacombs were exchanged for the vast and ornamental spaces of the new basilicas. It was no longer needful that the dead should be laid in the secret paths of the rock, and the luxury of magnificent Christian tombs began to rival that of the sepulchres of the earlier Romans. The body of St. Peter, which had long, according to popular tradition, rested in the catacombs of the Vatican, was now transferred to the great basilica which Constantine, despoiling for the purpose the tomb of Hadrian of its marbles, erected over the entrance to the underground cemetery. So, too, the Basilica of St. Paul, on the way to Ostia, was built over his old grave; and the Catacombs of St. Agnes were marked by a beautiful church in honor of the Saint, built in part beneath the soil, that its pavement might be on a level with the upper story of the catacombs and the faithful might enter them from the church.

The older catacombs, whose narrow graves had been filled during the last quarter of the third century with the bodies of many new martyrs, were now less used for the purposes of burial, and more for those of worship. New chapels were hollowed out in their walls; new paintings adorned the brown rock; the bodies of martyrs were often removed from their original graves to new and more elaborate tombs; the entrances to the cemeteries were no longer concealed, but new and ampler ones were made; new stairways, lined with marble, led down to the streets beneath; luminaria, or passages for light and air, were opened from the surface of the ground to the most frequented places; and at almost every entrance a church or an oratory of more or less size was built, for the shelter of those who might assemble to go down into the catacombs, and for the performance of the sacred services upon ground hallowed by so many sacred memories. The worship of the saints began to take form, at first, in simple, natural, and pious ways, in the fourth century; and as it grew stronger and stronger with the continually increasing predominance of the material element in the Roman Church, so the catacombs, the burial-places of the saints, were more and more visited by those who desired the protection or the intercession of their occupants. St. Jerome, who was born about this time in Rome, [A.D. 331,] has a curious passage concerning his own experiences in the catacombs. He says: "When I was a boy at Rome, being instructed in liberal studies, I was accustomed, with others of the same age and disposition, to go on Sundays to the tombs of the apostles and martyrs, and often to go into the crypts, which, being dug out in the depths of the earth, have for walls, on either side of those who enter, the bodies of the buried; and they are so dark, that the saying of the prophet seems almost fulfilled, The living descend into hell." But as the chapels and sacred tombs in the catacombs became thus more and more resorted to as places for worship, the number of burials within them was continually growing less,—and the change in the spirit of the religion was marked by the change of character in the paintings and inscriptions on their walls. By the middle of the fifth century the extension of the catacombs had ceased, and nearly about the same time the assemblies in them fell off. The desolation of the Campagna had already begun; Rome had sunk rapidly; and the churches and burial-places within the walls afforded all the space that was needed for the assemblies of the living or the dead.