Ye, too, marvellous Twain, that erect on the Monte Cavallo Stand by your rearing steeds in the grace of your motionless movement, Stand with your upstretched arms and tranquil regardant faces, Stand as instinct with life in the might of immutable manhood,--O ye mighty and strange, ye ancient divine ones of Hellas.
Are ye Christian too? to convert and redeem and renew you, Will the brief form have sufficed, that a Pope has set up on the apex Of the Egyptian stone that o'ertops you, the Christian symbol?
And ye, silent, supreme in serene and victorious marble, Ye that encircle the walls of the stately Vatican chambers, Juno and Ceres, Minerva, Apollo, the Muses and Bacchus, Ye unto whom far and near come posting the Christian pilgrims, Ye that are ranged in the halls of the mystic Christian Pontiff, Are ye also baptized? are ye of the kingdom of Heaven?
Utter, O some one, the word that shall reconcile Ancient and Modern!
Am I to turn me from this unto thee, great Chapel of Sixtus?
XI. Claude to Eustace.
These are the facts. The uncle, the elder brother, the squire (a Little embarrassed, I fancy), resides in the family place in Cornwall, of course; 'Papa is in business,' Mary informs me;He's a good sensible man, whatever his trade is. The mother Is--shall I call it fine?--herself she would tell you refined, and Greatly, I fear me, looks down on my bookish and maladroit manners;Somewhat affecteth the blue; would talk to me often of poets;Quotes, which I hate, Childe Harold; but also appreciates Wordsworth;Sometimes adventures on Schiller; and then to religion diverges;Questions me much about Oxford; and yet, in her loftiest flights still Grates the fastidious ear with the slightly mercantile accent.
Is it contemptible, Eustace--I'm perfectly ready to think so,--Is it,--the horrible pleasure of pleasing inferior people?
I am ashamed of my own self; and yet true it is, if disgraceful, That for the first time in life I am living and moving with freedom.
I, who never could talk to the people I meet with my uncle,--I, who have always failed,--I, trust me, can suit the Trevellyns;I, believe me,--great conquest, am liked by the country bankers.
And I am glad to be liked, and like in return very kindly.
So it proceeds; laissez faire, laissez aller,--such is the watchword.
Well, I know there are thousands as pretty and hundreds as pleasant, Girls by the dozen as good, and girls in abundance with polish Higher and manners more perfect than Susan or Mary Trevellyn.
Well, I know, after all, it is only juxtaposition,--Juxtaposition, in short; and what is juxtaposition?
XII. Claude to Eustace.
But I am in for it now,--laissez faire, of a truth, laissez aller.
Yes, I am going,--I feel it, I feel and cannot recall it,--Fusing with this thing and that, entering into all sorts of relations, Tying I know not what ties, which, whatever they are, I know one thing, Will, and must, woe is me, be one day painfully broken,--Broken with painful remorses, with shrinkings of soul, and relentings, Foolish delays, more foolish evasions, most foolish renewals.