No More Learning

AN IDYL IN KABYLIA
From Mademoiselle de Mersac
I
N THE first days of June, when the Hôtel d'Orient and the
Hôtel de la Régence had bidden adieu to the last of their
winter guests; when the Governor-General had migrated from
the town to his fairy-like palace on the leafy heights of Musta-
pha; when the smaller fry of officials were, in imitation of him and
in preparation for the hot season, transplanting themselves and
their families to the coolest attainable villas; when the aloes were
in flower and the air was full of a hundred faint scents, and the
corn and barley fields were very nearly ripe for the sickle,— at
the time of year, in short, when the luxuriant life and rich beauty
of Algeria were at their climax,- it occurred to Léon that it would
be a good thing to make a journey into Kabylia. For in the
grassy plains of that region, near the first spurs of the great
Djurdjura range, dwelt one Señor Lopez, a Spanish colonist and


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WILLIAM EDWARD NORRIS
a breeder of horses, who was generally open to a deal, and who,
at this particular time, had a nice lot of foals on hand, out of
some of which a discriminating young man might see his way
to make honest profit. But as few people, be they never so self-
confident, like to rely upon their own judgment alone in so deli-
cate a matter as the purchase of a foal, Léon conceived it to
be a sine quâ non that his sister should accompany him. And
then M. de Saint-Luc, hearing of the projected expedition, must
needs declare that he could not possibly leave Algeria without
revisiting the scene of his former campaigns, and that the oppor-
tunity of doing so in congenial society was one that he would
not miss for any imaginable consideration. After which, oddly
enough, Mr. Barrington too found out that to make acquaint-
ance with the mountain scenery of Kabylia had always been one
of his fondest dreams; and added - Why not push on a little
farther, and see some of the hill villages and the famous Fort
Napoléon ?
Neither Léon nor Jeanne offered any objection to this plan;
but when it was communicated to the duchess, she held up her
hands in horror and amazement.
"And your chaperon, mademoiselle? " she ejaculated. And the
truth is that both the young folks had overlooked this necessary
addition to their party.
Now, as the duchess herself would no more have thought of
undertaking a weary drive of three or four days' duration over
stony places than of ordering a fiery chariot to drive her straight
to heaven, and as no other available lady of advanced years
could be discovered, it seemed for a time as if either Mademoi-
selle de Mersac or her two admirers would have to remain in
Algiers; but at the last moment a deus ex machina was found in
the person of M. de Fontvieille, who announced his willingness
to join the party, and who, as Léon politely remarked when he
was out of earshot, was to all intents and purposes as good as
any old woman.
Poor old M. de Fontvieille! Nobody thanked him for what
was an act of pure good-nature and self-sacrifice-nobody at
least except Jeanne, who, by way of testifying her gratitude,
spent a long morning with him, examining his collection of gems
and listening to the oft-told tale of their several acquisitions, and
at the end presented him with an exquisite Marshal Niel rose-
bud for his button-hole.


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WILLIAM EDWARD NORRIS
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"Ah, mademoiselle," said he, as he pinned the flower into his
coat, "you do well to reserve your roses for old men, who ap-
preciate such gifts at their right value. Give none to the young
fellows: it would only increase their vanity, which is great
enough already. "
"I never give roses to anybody," said Jeanne.
"So much the better. Continue, my child, to observe that
wise rule. And remember that if the Lily of France is a stiffer
flower than the Rose of England, it is still our own, and French-
women ought to love it best. "
"What do you mean? " asked Jeanne, who objected to insinu-
ations.
"I mean nothing, my dear: lilies, I am aware, are out of
fashion; choose violets if you prefer them," answered the old
gentleman with a chuckle.
And Jeanne, having no rejoinder ready, took up her sunshade
in dignified silence, and went home.
An hour later, she and Barrington were seated opposite to
one another in the dilapidated wagonette which Léon used for
country journeys. It was an ancient vehicle, with patched
cushions and travel-stained leather roof and curtains; but its
springs were strong, and it had outlived the jolts and shocks of
many an unmetaled road and stony watercourse. Jeanne loved
it for association's sake; and Barrington, in his then state of
mind, would not have changed it for the car of Aurora.
It is nine years or more since Mr. Barrington was borne
swiftly along the dusty road which leads eastward from Algiers
in that shabby old shandrydan; and in nine years, the doctors
tell us, our whole outer man has been renewed, so that the being
which calls itself I to-day inhabits a changed prison from that
which it dwelt in a hundred and eight months ago, and will, if
it survive, occupy a hundred and eight months hence. Mental
statistics are less easy to arrive at, and it may be that our minds
are not as subject to the inexorable law of change as our bodies.
Barrington, at all events, whose views upon more subjects than
one have unquestionably become modified by the lapse of nine
years, still asserts, in confidential moments, that he looks back
upon that drive into Kabylia as the happiest episode in his exist-
ence. "Life,” he says, in that melancholy tone which perfectly
prosperous men have a trick of assuming, "is a dull enough.
business, take it all in all; but it has its good days here and


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WILLIAM EDWARD NORRIS
there. " And then he sighs, and puffs silently at his cigar for a
minute or two. "Old De Fontvieille sat on the box," he goes
on presently, "and talked to the driver. Young De Mersac had
ridden ahead, and she and I were as completely alone together
as if we had been upon a desert island. It was a situation in
which human nature instinctively shakes itself free of common-
place conventionality. We did not flirt,- thank Heaven, we were
neither of us so vulgar as to think of flirting! - but we talked
together as freely and naturally as Adam and Eve in the Gar-
den of Eden. " And then he generally heaves another sigh, and
rhapsodizes on and on, till, patient as one is, one has to remind
him that it is long past bedtime.
As (to use a hackneyed illustration) the traveler looks back
upon distant purple mountains, forgetting, as he contemplates
their soft beauty, the roughness of the track by which he crossed.
them, so Barrington recalls the happy bygone days of his Kabyl-
ian journey, and ignores the petty annoyances which somewhat
marred his enjoyment of it while it lasted. To hear him talk
you would think that the sun had never been too hot, nor the
roads too dusty, during that memorable excursion; that good
food was obtainable at every halting-place, and that he had
never had cause to complain of the accommodation provided for
him for the night. Time has blotted out from his mental vision
all retrospect of dirt, bad food, and the virulent attacks of the
African flea-a most malignant insect; impiger, iracundus, inex-
orabilis, acer; an animal who dies as hard as a rhinoceros, and
is scarcely less venomous than a mosquito. He dwells not now
upon the horrors of his first night at Bon-Douaou, during which
he sat up in bed, through long wakeful hours, doggedly scatter-
ing insecticide among his savage assailants, and producing about
as much effect thereby as a man slinging stones at an iron-clad
might do. The place where there was nothing but briny bacon.
to eat, the place where there was nothing but a broken-down
billiard-table and a rug to sleep upon, and the place where there
was nothing to drink except bad absinthe,-all these have faded
out of his recollection. But in truth, these small discomforts were
soon forgotten, even at the time
When Thomas of Ercildoune took his famous ride with the
Queen of the Fairies, and reached a region unknown to man,
it will be remembered that the fair lady drew rein for a few
minutes, and indicated to her companion the various paths that


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WILLIAM EDWARD NORRIS
10703
lay before them. There was the thorny way of righteousness
and the broad road of iniquity,- neither of which have ever been
found entirely free from drawbacks by mortals,- but besides
these there was a third path:
--
"Oh, see ye not that bonny road,
That winds about the fernie brae?
That is the road to fair Elfland,
Where thou and I this night maun gae. "
And Thomas seems to have offered no objection to his leader's
choice.
Even so Barrington, though capable of distinguishing between
broad and narrow paths and their respective goals, capable also
- which is perhaps more to the purpose-of forecasting the re-
sults of prudence and folly, chose at this time to close his eyes,
and wander with Jeanne into that fairy-land of which every man
gets a glimpse in his time, though few have the good fortune to
linger within its precincts as long as did Thomas the Rhymer.
And so there came to him five days of which he will
probably never see the like again. Five days of glowing sun-
shine; five luminous, starlit nights-eighty hours, more or less
(making deductions for sleeping-time) of unreasoning, unthinking,
unmixed happiness: such was Barrington's share of Fairyland
—and a very fair share too, as the world goes. He would be
puzzled now-and indeed, for that matter, he would have been
puzzled a week after the excursion - to give any accurate de-
scription of the country between Algiers and Fort Napoléon.
The sum of his reminiscences was, that in the dewy mornings
and the cool evenings he drove through a wooded, hilly country
with Jeanne; that he rested in the noonday heat at spacious
whitewashed caravanserais or small wayside taverns, and talked
to Jeanne; that her tall, graceful figure was the first sight he
saw in the morning and the last at night; that he never left her
side for more than ten minutes at a time; that he discovered
some fresh charm in her with each succeeding hour; and that
when he arrived at Fort Napoléon, and the limit of his wander-
ings, he was as completely and irretrievably in love as ever man
was.
In truth, the incidents of the journey were well calculated to
enhance the mixture of admiration and reverence with which Bar-
rington had regarded Mademoiselle de Mersac from the moment.


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WILLIAM EDWARD NORRIS
of his first meeting with her. Her progress through Kabylia was
like that of a gracious queen among her subjects. The swarthy
Kabyle women, to whom she spoke in their own language,
and for the benefit of whose ragged children she had provided
herself with a multitude of toys, broke into shrill cries of wel-
come when they recognized her; the sparse French colonists at
whose farms she stopped came out to greet her with smiles
upon their careworn faces; at the caravanserai of the Issers,
where some hundreds of Arabs were assembled for the weekly
market, the Caïd of the tribe, a stately gray-bearded patriarch,
who wore the star of the Legion of Honor upon his white bur-
nous, stepped out from his tent as she approached, and bowing
profoundly, took her hand and raised it to his forehead; even
the villainous, low-browed, thin-lipped Spanish countenance of
Señor Lopez assumed an expression of deprecating amiability
when she addressed him; he faltered in the tremendous lies
which from mere force of habit he felt constrained to utter
about the pedigree of his colts; his sly little beady eyes dropped
before her great grave ones, he listened silently while she pointed
out the inconsistencies of his statements, and finally made a far
worse bargain with M. Léon than he had expected or intended
to do.
And if anything more had been needed to complete Barring-
ton's subjugation, the want would have been supplied by Jeanne's
demeanor towards himself. Up to the time of this memora-
ble journey she had treated him with a perceptible measure of
caprice, being kind or cold as the humor took her: sometimes
receiving him as an old friend, sometimes as a complete stranger,
and even snubbing him without mercy upon one or two occa-
sions. It was her way to behave so towards all men, and she
had not seen fit to exempt Mr. Barrington altogether from the
common lot of his fellows. But now perhaps because she had
escaped from the petty trammels and irritations of every-day
life, perhaps because the free air of the mountains which she
loved, disposed her to cast aside formality, or perhaps from causes
unacknowledged by herself-her intercourse with the English-
man assumed a wholly new character. She wandered willingly
with him into those quaint Kabyle villages which stand each
perched upon the apex of a conical hill-villages which took a
deal of fighting to capture, and might have to be taken all over
again, so Léon predicted, one fine day; she stood behind him


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WILLIAM EDWARD NORRIS
10705
and looked over his shoulder while he dashed off hasty likenesses
of such of the natives as he could induce, by means of bribes, to
overcome their strong natural aversion to having their portraits
taken; she never seemed to weary of his company; and if there
was still an occasional touch of condescension in her manner, it
is probable that Barrington, feeling as he then did, held such
manifestations to be only fitting and natural as coming from her
to him.
And then, by degrees, there sprang up between them a kind
of natural understanding, an intuitive perception of each other's
thoughts and wishes, and a habit of covertly alluding to small
matters and small jokes unknown to either of their companions.
And sometimes their eyes met for a second, and often an un-
intelligible smile appeared upon the lips of the one, to be instan-
taneously reflected upon those of the other. All of which things
were perceived by the observant M. de Fontvieille, and caused
him to remark aloud every night, in the solitude of his own
chamber, before going to bed: "Madame, I was not the insti-
gator of this expedition; on the contrary, I warned you against
it. I had no power and no authority to prevent its consequences,
and I wash my hands of them. "
The truth is that the poor old gentleman was looking forward
with some trepidation to an interview with the duchess, which
his prophetic soul saw looming in the future.
Fort Napoléon, frowning down from its rocky eminence upon
subjugated Kabylia, is the most important fortress of that once
turbulent country, and is rather a military post than a town or
village. It has however a modicum of civilian inhabitants, dwell-
ing in neat little white houses on either side of a broad street,
and at the eastern end of the street a small church has been
erected. Thither Jeanne betook herself one evening at the hour
of the Ave Maria, as her custom was.
The door swung back on its hinges, and Jeanne emerged from
the gloom of the church and met the dazzling blaze of the sun-
set, which streamed full upon her, making her cast her eyes upon
the ground.
She paused for a moment upon the threshold; and as she
stood there with her pale face, her drooped eyelids, and a sweet
grave smile upon her lips — Barrington, whose imagination was
for ever playing him tricks, mentally likened her to one of Fra
Angelico's angels. She did not in reality resemble one of those
XVIII-670


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WILLIAM EDWARD NORRIS
ethereal beings much more than she did the heathen goddess
to whom he had once before compared her; but something
the sanctity of the church seemed to cling about her, and that,
together with the tranquillity of the hour, kept Barrington silent
for a few minutes after they had walked away side by side. It
was not until they had reached the western ramparts, and leaning
over them, were gazing down into purple valleys lying in deep
shade beneath the glowing hill-tops, that he opened his lips.
"So we really go back again to-morrow," he sighed.
"Yes, to-morrow," she answered absently.
"Back to civilization - back to the dull, monotonous world.
What a bore it all is! I wish I could stay here for ever! ”
"What! You would like to spend the rest of your life at
Fort Napoléon? " said Jeanne with a smile. "How long would
it take you to tire of Kabylia? A week - two weeks?
Not per-
haps so much. "
"Of what does not one tire in time? " he answered. "I have
tried most things, and have found them all tolerably wearisome
in the end. But there is one thing of which I could never tire. "
"And that? " inquired Jeanne, facing him with raised eye-
brows of calm interrogation.
He had been going to say "Your society"; but somehow he
felt ashamed to utter so feeble a commonplace, and substituted
for it, rather tamely, "My friends. "
"Ah! there are many people who tire of them also, after a
time," remarked Jeanne. "As for me, I have so few friends,”
she added a little sadly.
"I hope you will always think of me as one of those few,"
said Barrington.
"You? Oh yes, if you wish it," she answered rather hur-
riedly. Then, as if desiring to change the subject, "How quiet
everything is! " she exclaimed. "Quite in the distance I can
hear that there is somebody riding up the hill from Tizi-Ouzou;
listen! "
Barrington bent his ear forward, and managed just to dis-
tinguish the faint ringing of a horse's hoofs upon the road far
below. Presently even this scarcely perceptible sound died away,
and a universal hush brooded over the earth and air. Then for
a long time neither of them spoke again,— Jeanne because her
thoughts were wandering; Barrington because he was half afraid
of what he might say if he trusted himself to open his lips.


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10707
CHARLES ELIOT NORTON
(1827-)
M
R. LOWELL and Colonel Higginson have given us vivid pictures
of the quiet suburban village of Cambridge, in which stood
the Harvard College of the early nineteenth century. Here
Charles Eliot Norton was born. By eight years the junior of Lowell
and by four of Higginson, Professor Norton is the youngest member
of a notable group, and will pass into the history of American letters
at the close of the little file which includes the Autocrat,- and by
all rights save that of birth, Longfellow as
well.

In the great rush to ever-changing West-
ern abodes, Mr. Norton has throughout his
threescore years and ten associated the word
"home with the ample roof and ancient
elms of "Shady Hill," where he was born
November 16th, 1827. The years 1849-50,
1855-57, 1868-73, indeed, were spent in con-
tented exile, beginning with a business voy-
age to India. Since 1874, however, he has
taught faithfully at Harvard; not, like his
father, a pillar of orthodoxy in the Divinity
School, but filling a collegiate chair as pro-
fessor of the history of art.
In one of the most impressive of his numerous essays on social
questions, Mr. Norton deplores the lack of permanency, of the deep-
struck local root, in our domestic and social life. The happiest illus-
tration of his thesis stood close at hand. In all the land there are
few homes so restful, so refined, so hospitable, as "Shady Hill. "
This is, however, by no means a spot secluded from the busy
world of men. More perhaps than any other American in our gen-
eration, Mr. Norton has been a stern and fearless critic of everything
in our social and intellectual life that falls short of his own highest
ideals. This is one of the best uses to which brave and generous
patriotism can devote itself. It is always easier to praise, or be
silent, than to blame; to swim with the current than to stem the
popular tide.
C. E. NORTON
The rapid material growth of our country, the successful strife
with savage nature, the rush of immigration from every land, the
fierce friction through which alone those motley forms of humanity


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CHARLES ELIOT NORTON
can be merged in the new national type,- all these conditions have
aided to mold many a heroic active career in America; but have
made difficult, if not impossible, the "life contemplative. " Perhaps it
is not desirable that the scholastic recluse should ever find it easy
to live out his selfish existence among us. The most self-centred
dreamer of the dream divine we have yet known - Emerson-de-
clared that he did but
"Go to the god of the wood
To fetch his word to men. »
Our danger is rather that we shall neglect altogether those periods
of solitude and meditation which are as necessary to the mind and
soul as slumber for the body. Yet those who best realize this truth
-strong-winged spirits like Ruskin, Carlyle, Matthew Arnold — are
oftenest tempted to disdain the contented average man or woman of
their time, precisely because their own eyes are fixed on
an ideal
existence as yet but half attainable even by themselves.
There is a wide-spread tradition that each of the three great Eng-
lishmen just mentioned has regarded Mr. Norton as the foremost
among American thinkers, scholars, or men of culture. In this last
class, indeed, he would doubtless be generally accorded the most
prominent place, especially since the death of his two dearest friends,
Lowell and Curtis. Mr. Norton has always seemed less optimistic
than either of these two. He has not appeared to share their buoy-
ant confidence in the future of the race, and of our nation in partic-
ular. Nevertheless, remembering all that Hosea Biglow did to uplift
and strengthen our patriotism, recalling how wisely, eloquently, and
genially the Easy Chair pleaded for every social and political reform,
we shall find decisive evidence of highest worth and general char-
acter even in this alone,- that Mr. Norton was the closest lifelong
friend of each, the literary executor of both.
Mr. Norton has not the technical training of an architect, sculptor,
or painter. Indeed, though he preaches sincerely the superior ethical
value and expressiveness of the material arts, he is himself a man of
books, a critic of thought and style. Far though he has journeyed
from the Calvinistic creed of an earlier generation, he retains all the
moral fibre of his Puritan ancestors.
Professor Norton's pathetic, almost despondent mental attitude
toward the conditions of our day has perhaps been confirmed by his
long devotion to the grim master-poet of Tuscany. For Italy his
heartiest affection is expressed in his 'Notes of Travel' (1859). It
is thirty years since he published a translation of the Vita Nuova,'
wherein Dante's love poems were duly rendered in English rhymed
verse. Mr. Norton and Mr. Lowell were the most faithful collabo-
rators also upon the poet Longfellow's careful rendering of Dante in


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CHARLES ELIOT NORTON
10709
blank verse.
Nevertheless, when Professor Norton's own translation
of the 'Divine Comedy,' which he had interpreted to many success-
ive classes of students, was finally printed (1891-2), it was wholly
in prose.
Of the faithful, lucid, somewhat calm and terse style
employed in this rendering, an extended example has been offered
already to readers of the 'Library. ' Of course a prose version of
a poem, itself a highly elaborated masterpiece of rhythmical form,
will not satisfy every reader; but all the thoughts of Dante are here
transferred. It is earnestly to be hoped that the 'Convito' also will
be given to the public in completed form. As originator, president,
and soul of the Dante Society, Mr. Norton must be credited with
most of the modest sum total thus far accomplished on American soil
in Dantesque research and publication.
In the direction of his professional teaching, Mr. Norton's chief
public volume is his 'Church Building in the Middle Ages. ' Here by
three noble examples - the cathedrals of Venice, Siena, and Florence
-the author illustrates his favorite thesis. A poem, more perhaps
than a picture or a statue, may be in large part the miracle of a
moment, the fruit of creative genius manifested in a single man:
into a supreme masterpiece of architecture the physical and moral
character of a whole race is built, and therefore finds therein its
fullest expression.
Mr. Norton may also well count as a great service to art the
foundation of an "Archæological Institute of America," which he
served for many years as president and most active member. This
society sent out the first American archæological expedition,—to As-
sos in Asia Minor, 1881-3,-founded the American School of Classical
Studies at Athens, and has just shared in the creation of the sister
school in Rome. This movement has already gone far toward revo-
lutionizing and giving fresh life to the study of classical antiquity
in America. For a series of years also Mr. Norton shared with his
friend Lowell the editorial work of the scholarly old North American
Review: a publication which is still painfully missed, for it has no
real successor.
Amid all these heavy cares, shared by comparatively few help-
ers, Mr. Norton has answered cheerfully in every crisis to the call
of civic and patriotic duty. (The remarkable reappearance of the
"scholar in politics » during the last two decades has indeed nowhere
been more striking than at Harvard. ) Lastly, this busy student,
teacher, and author has responded no less patiently to every call,
however unreasonable, on his personal sympathy. Many an old Har-
vard man will recall, with sincere remorse, how often his crude intel-
lectual ambitions or moral perplexities were suffered to encroach on
crowded hours and limited physical strength. Toward his chosen


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10710
CHARLES ELIOT NORTON
friends, death itself does not interrupt his devotion. Not only Low-
ell's poetry and letters and Curtis's speeches, but Emerson's and
Carlyle's correspondence, have found in Mr. Norton a judicious and
laborious editor.
Altogether, it would be difficult to find a better example than
this to illustrate the happy use of moderate wealth and of inherited
scholarly tastes, for lifelong self-improvement and many-sided useful-
ness. The man of unwearying self-culture, moreover, sets an exam-
ple of that ideal which all may in due measure attain.
THE BUILDING OF ORVIETO CATHEDRAL
From Notes of Travel and Study in Italy. Copyright 1859, by Charles Eliot
Norton. Reprinted by consent of the Author, and of Houghton, Mifflin
& Co. , publishers.
THE
HE best Gothic architecture, wherever it may be found, af-
fords evidence that the men who executed it were moved
by a true fervor of religious faith. In building a church,
they did not forget that it was to be the house of God. No
portion of their building was too minute, no portion too obscure,
to be perfected with thorough and careful labor. The work was
not let out by contract, or taken up as a profitable job. The
architect of a cathedral might live all his life within the shadow
of its rising walls, and die no richer than when he gave the
sketch; but he was well repaid by the delight of seeing his
design grow from an imagination to a reality, and by spending
his days in the accepted service of the Lord.
For the building of a cathedral, however, there needs not
only a spirit of religious zeal among the workmen, but a faith
no less ardent among the people for whom the church is de-
signed. The enormous expense of construction - an expense
which for generations must be continued without intermission —
is not to be met except by liberal and willing general contribu-
tions. Papal indulgences and the offerings of pilgrims may add
something to the revenues; but the main cost of building must
be borne by the community over whose house-tops the cathedral
is to rise and to extend its benign protection.
Cathedrals were essentially expressions of the popular will
and the popular faith. They were the work neither of eccle-
siastics nor of feudal barons. They represent in a measure


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CHARLES ELIOT NORTON
10711
the decline of feudalism, and the prevalence of the democratic
element in society. No sooner did a city achieve its freedom
than its people began to take thought for a cathedral. Of all the
arts, architecture is the most quickly responsive to the instincts.
and the desires of a people. And in the cathedrals, the popular
beliefs, hopes, fears, fancies, and aspirations, found expression,
and were perpetuated in a language intelligible to all. The life
of the Middle Ages is recorded on their walls. When the demo-
cratic element was subdued, as in Cologne by a Prince Bishop,
or in Milan by a succession of tyrants, the cathedral was left
unfinished. When in the fifteenth century, all over Europe, the
turbulent but energetic liberties of the people were suppressed,
the building of cathedrals ceased.
The grandeur, beauty, and lavish costliness of the Duomo at
Orvieto, or of any other of the greater cathedrals, implies a per-
sistency and strength of purpose which could be the result only
of the influence over the souls of men of a deep and abiding
emotion. Minor motives may often have borne a part in the
excitement of feeling,- motives of personal ambition, civic pride,
boastfulness, and rivalry; but a work that requires the combined
and voluntary offerings and labor of successive generations pre-
supposes a condition of the higher spiritual nature which no mo-
tives but those connected with religion are sufficient to support.
It becomes then a question of more than merely historic inter-
est, a question indeed touching the very foundation of the spir-
itual development and civilization of modern Europe, to investigate
the nature and origin of that wide-spread impulse which for two
centuries led the people of different races, and widely diverse
habits of life and thought, to the construction of cathedrals,—
buildings such as our own age, no less than those which have
immediately preceded it, seems incompetent to execute, and in-
different to attempt.
It is impossible to fix a precise date for the first signs of vig-
orous and vital consciousness which gave token of the birth of a
new life out of the dead remains of the ancient world. The tenth
century is often spoken of as the darkest period of the Dark
Ages; but even in its dull sky there were some breaks of light,
and very soon after it had passed the dawn began to brighten.
The epoch of the completion of a thousand years from the birth
of Christ, which had, almost from the first preaching of Christ-
ianity, been looked forward to as the time for the destruction


## p. 10712 (#592) ##########################################

10712
CHARLES ELIOT NORTON
of the world and the advent of the Lord to judge the earth,
had passed without the fulfillment of these ecclesiastical prophe-
cies and popular anticipations. There can be little doubt that
among the mass of men there was a sense of relief, naturally
followed by a certain invigoration of spirit. The eleventh cen-
tury was one of comparative intellectual vigor. The twelfth was
still more marked by mental activity and force. The world was
fairly awake. Civilization was taking the first steps of its mod-
ern course. The relations of the various classes of society were
changing. A wider liberty of thought and action was estab-
lished; and while this led to a fresh exercise of individual power
and character, it conduced also to combine men together in new
forms of united effort for the attainment of common objects and
in the pursuit of common interests.
Corresponding with, but perhaps subsequent by a short inter-
val to, the pervading intellectual movement, was a strong and
quickening development of the moral sense among men. The
periods distinguished in modern history by a condition of intel-
lectual excitement and fervor have been usually, perhaps always,
followed at a short interval by epochs of more or less intense
moral energy, which has borne a near relation to the nature
of the moral elements in the previous intellectual movement.
The Renaissance, an intellectual period of pure immorality, was
followed close by the Reformation, whose first characteristic was
that of protest. The Elizabethan age, in which the minds of
men were full of large thoughts, and their imaginations rose to
the highest flights, led in the noble sacrifices, the great achieve-
ments, the wild vagaries of Puritanism. The age of Voltaire and
the infidels was followed by the fierce energy, the infidel moral-
ity of the French Revolution. And so at this earlier period, the
general intellectual awakening, characterized as it was by simple
impulses, and regulated in great measure by the teachings of
the Church, produced a strong outbreak of moral earnestness
which exhibited itself in curiously similar forms through the
whole of Europe.
The immense amount of labor employed in the construction,
and of labor of the most diverse description, from the highest
efforts of the inventive imagination to the simplest mechanical
hammering of blocks of stone,-led to a careful organization of
the whole body of workmen, and to the setting aside of a special
building, the Loggia, on the Cathedral square, for the use of the


## p. 10713 (#593) ##########################################

CHARLES ELIOT NORTON
10713
masters in the different arts. Each art had its chief, and over
all presided "the Master of the Masters," skilled no less in paint-
ing, mosaic, and sculpture, than in architecture. The larger
number of the most accomplished artists came at this time from
Siena and Pisa, where the growth of the arts had a little earlier
spring than in Florence. Whatever designs and models were
required for any portion of the work were first submitted for
approval to the head of the special art to which they belonged;
and if approved by him, were then laid before the Master of the
Masters, and the Board of Superintendents of the work. These
officers occupied a house opposite the front of the Duomo, in
which they assembled for deliberation, and where the records of
their proceedings were kept in due form by a notary, who every
week registered the works accomplished, the cost of materials,
and the wages of those employed on the building.
Beside the masters and men at work at Orvieto, many others
were distributed in various parts of Italy, employed in obtaining
materials, and especially in quarrying and cutting marble for the
Cathedral. Black marble was got from the quarries near Siena,
alabaster from Sant' Antimo, near Radicofani, and white marble
from the mountains of Carrara. But the supply of the richest
and rarest marbles came from Rome, the ruins of whose ancient
magnificence afforded ample stores of costliest material to the
builders not only of the Papal city itself, but of Naples, of Orvi-
eto, and of many another Italian town. The Greek statuary
marble which had once formed part of some ancient temple was
transferred to the hands of the new sculptors, to be worked into
forms far different in character and in execution from those of
Grecian art. The accumulated riches of pagan Rome were dis-
tributed for the adornment of Christian churches.
To destroy the remains of paganism was regarded as a
scarcely less acceptable service than to erect new buildings for
Christian worship. Petrarch had not yet begun to lament the
barbarism of such destruction. The beauty of the ancient world
was recognized as yet only by a few artists, powerless to save its
vanishing remains. Not yet had the intoxicating sense of this
beauty begun to recorrupt and re-effeminate Italy. A century
later, Rome began to preserve in part the few remaining memo-
rials of her ancient splendor; and not many years after, the
Renaissance, with its degraded taste and debasing principles, set
in, and the influence of ancient art on modern morals was dis-
played.


## p. 10714 (#594) ##########################################

CHARLES ELIOT NORTON
10714
The workmen who labored in quarrying at Rome during the
winter retired in summer to the healthy heights of the Alban
mountains; and there, among the ruins of ancient villas, continued
their work, and thence dispatched the blocks, on wagons drawn
by buffaloes, to their distant destination. The entries in the
book of the records of the Fabbrica show with what a network
of laborers, in the service of the Cathedral, the neighboring prov-
inces were overspread. Thus, under date of the 13th of Sep-
tember, 1321, there is an entry of the expense of the transport
of marbles, and of travertine for coarse work, from Valle del
Cero, from Barontoli, from Tivoli, and from Rigo on the Tiber;
and on the 11th of the same month, sixty florins of gold and
fourteen lire in silver were paid for the transport, with sixteen
pairs of buffaloes, from the forest of Aspretolo, of sixteen loads
of fir timber for the soffit of the Cathedral, and one beam of the
largest size. Again, there is an entry of the payment for bring-
ing four great pieces of marble, of the weight of 8,100 pounds,
from the quarter of St. Paul at Rome; and a little later another
for 14,250 pounds of marble, also from Rome. On the 21st of
June, nine lire and eleven soldi had been spent in the purchase
of an ass,-"quem somarium Mag. Laurentius caput Magistrorum
operis et Camerarius emerunt pro portandis ferris et rebus Magis-
trorum operis Romam. " From the quarry of Montepisi came
loads of marble for the main portal and for the side-doors; and
from Arezzo, famous of old for its red vases; was brought clay
for the glass furnace for the making of mosaics. On the 3d of
August, a messenger was dispatched with letters from the archi-
tect to the workmen at Albano, "Magistris operis qui laborant
marmora apud Castrum Albani, prope Urbem. " Such entries as
these extend over many years; and show not only the activ-
ity displayed in the building, but also its enormous costliness, and
the long foresight and wide knowledge of means required in its
architect.
Trains of wagons, loaded with material for the Cathedral, made
their slow progress toward the city from the north and the south,
from the shores of the Adriatic and of the Mediterranean. The
heavy carts which had creaked under their burdens along the
solitudes of the Campagna of the Maremma, which had toiled
up the forest-covered heights that overhang Viterbo, through
the wild passes of Monte Cimino, or whose shouting teamsters
had held back their straining buffaloes down the bare sides of the
mountains of Radicofani, arrived in unending succession in the


## p. 10715 (#595) ##########################################

CHARLES ELIOT NORTON
10715
valley of the Paglia. The worst part of the way, however, still
lay before them in the steep ascent to the uplifted city. But here
the zeal of voluntary labor came in to lighten the work of the
tugging buffaloes. Bands of citizens enrolled themselves to drag
the carts up the rise of the mountain; and on feast days the
people of the neighboring towns flocked in to take their share
in the work, and to gain the indulgences offered to those who
should give a helping hand. We may imagine these processions
of laborers in the service of the house of the Lord advancing to
the sound of the singing of hymns or the chanting of penitential
psalms; but of these scenes no formal description has been left.
The enthusiasm which was displayed was of the same order as
that which, a century before, had been shown at the building of
the magnificent Cathedral of Chartres, but probably less intense
in its expression, owing to the change in the spirit of the times.
Then men and women, sometimes to the number of a thousand,
of all ranks and conditions, harnessed themselves to the wagons
loaded with materials for building, or with supplies for the work-
men. No one was admitted into the company who did not first
make confession of his sins, "and lay down at the foot of the
altar all hatred and anger. " As cart after cart was dragged in
by its band of devotees, it was set in its place in a circle of
wagons around the church. Candles were lighted upon them all,
as upon so many altars. At night the people watched, singing
hymns and songs of praise, or inflicting discipline upon them-
selves, with prayers for the forgiveness of their sins.
Processions of Juggernaut, camp-meetings, the excitements of
a revival, are exhibitions under another form of the spirit shown
in these enrollments of the people as beasts of burden. Such
excitements rarely leave any noble or permanent result. But
it was the distinctive characteristic of this period of religious
enthusiasm that there were men honestly partaking in the gen-
eral emotion, yet of such strong individuality of genius that
instead of being carried away by the wasteful current of feeling,
they were able to guide and control to great and noble purposes
the impulsive activity and bursting energies of the time. Reli-
gious excitements so called, of whatever kind, imply one of two
things: either a morbid state of the physical or mental system, or
a low and materialistic conception of the truths of the spiritual
life. They belong as much to the body as to the soul, and they
seek vent for the energies they arouse, in physical manifestations.


## p. 10716 (#596) ##########################################

10716
CHARLES ELIOT NORTON
Between the groaning of a set of miserable sinners on the anx-
ious seats, and the toiling of men and women at the ropes of
carts laden with stone for a church, there is a close relation.
The cause and nature of the emotion which influences them are
the same. The difference of its mode of exhibition arises from
original differences of character, from changes in religious creeds,
from the varied circumstances of different ages. It is a difference
exhibited in the contrast between the bare boards of a Methodist
meeting-house and the carved walls of a Catholic cathedral.
THE DOME OF BRUNELLESCHI
From Historical Studies of Church Building in the Middle Ages. ' Copyright
1880, by Harper & Brothers. Reprinted by consent of Author and
Publishers.
IN
N THE chapter-house- the so-called Spanish chapel- of Santa
Maria Novella, is one of the most interesting pictures of the
fourteenth century. It has been ascribed, rightly or wrongly
is of little consequence, to the great Sienese master Simone
Memmi. It represents, in a varied and crowded composition of
many scenes, the services and the exaltation of St. Dominic and
his order. The artist may well have had in his mind the splen-
did eulogy of the saint which Dante heard from St. Bonaventura
in Paradise. As the type and image of the visible Church, the
painter had depicted the Duomo of Florence-not unfinished, as
it was at the time, but completed, and representing, we may
believe, in its general features, the original project of Arnolfo,
although the details are rather in the spirit of the delicate Gothic
work of Orcagna's school than in that of an earlier time.
central area of the church is covered by an octagonal dome that
rises from a cornice on a level with a roof of the nave, and is
adorned at each angle with the figure of an angel.
When the church now, at the beginning of the fifteenth
century, was approaching completion, this original project of
an octagonal dome still seemed the only plan practicable for the
covering of the intersection of nave and transept; but the con-
struction of such a work had been rendered vastly more difficult
by the immense increase in the original dimensions. The area to
be spanned was enormous, for the diameter of the octagon was
now about one hundred and thirty-five feet. The difficulty was


## p. 10717 (#597) ##########################################

CHARLES ELIOT NORTON
10717
the greater from the height of the walls from which the dome
must spring. No Gothic builder had vaulted such an area as
this. Since the Pantheon was built, no architect had attempted
a dome with such a span; and the dome of the Pantheon itself,
with a diameter of one hundred and forty-three feet, rose from
a wall that was but seventy-two feet in height. The dome of
St. Sophia, the supreme work of the Byzantine builders, with the
resources of the Empire at their command, had a diameter of
but one hundred and four feet, and the height from the ground
to its very summit was but one hundred and seventy-nine feet.
The records of architecture could not show such a dome as this
must be. Where was the architect to be found who would
venture to undertake its construction? What were the means he
could employ for its execution? Such were the questions that
pressed upon those who had the work in charge, and which
busied the thoughts of the builders of the time.
It cannot now be determined, and it is of little importance,
whether Brunelleschi's object in going to Rome was as distinctly
defined beforehand in his own mind as Vasari declares in the
statement that he had two most grand designs: one to bring to
light again good architecture; the other to find the means, if he
could, of vaulting the cupola of St. Mary of the Flower, "an
intention of which he said nothing to Donatello or any living.
soul; "or whether, as the anonymous biographer implies, this
object gradually took shape in his thought as he studied the
remains of Roman antiquity, acquainting himself with the forms
and proportions of classic buildings, and with the unsurpassed
methods of Roman construction. But this journey of Brunelles-
chi and Donatello, that they might learn, and learning revive, "the
good ancient art," is one of the capital incidents in the modern
Renaissance. These were the two men in all Florence, at the
beginning of the fifteenth century, of deepest nature, of most
various and original genius. They were in little sympathy with
the temper of the Middle Ages. For them the charm of its
finest moods was lost. The spirit that had given form to Gothic
art had always been foreign to Tuscan artists. The traditions of
an earlier time had never wholly failed to influence their work.
And now the worth and significance of ancient art, first recog-
nized by Niccola Pisano a century and a half earlier, were felt
as never before. The work of the scholars of the fourteenth
century, in the collection and study of the fragments of ancient
.


## p. 10718 (#598) ##########################################

10718
CHARLES ELIOT NORTON
culture, was bearing fruit. For a hundred years the progress in
letters and the arts in Italy had been quickened by the increas-
ing knowledge of the past; and with each step of advance men
had not only felt deeper and more inspiring delight in the ideals
of the classic world, but had found more and more instruction
in the models which its works presented. Through the creations
of the art of former days nature herself was revealed to them in
new aspects. Their reverence for the teachings of the ancients
was often uncritical and indiscriminate, but the zeal with which
they sought them was sincere and invigorating. It was not till
a later time, when the first eagerness of enthusiasm had given
place to a dry pedantry of investigation, that the study of classic
models allured a weaker generation from the paths of nature and
independence into those of artificiality and imitation.
Brunelleschi was the first artist to visit Rome with fully open
modern eyes.
From morning till night, day after day, he and
Donatello were at work unearthing half-buried ruins, measuring
columns and entablatures, digging up hidden fragments, search-
ing for whatever might reveal the secrets of ancient time. The
common people fancied them to be seekers for buried treasure;
but the treasure for which they sought was visible only to one
who had, like Brunelleschi, as his biographer says, "buono occhio
mentale," a clear mental eye.
For many years the greater part of Brunelleschi's life was
spent in Rome. He had sold a little farm that he owned at
Settignano, near Florence, to obtain the means of living; but
falling short of money after a while, he turned to the art in
which he had served his apprenticeship, and gained his livelihood
by work as a goldsmith. The condition of Rome at this time.
was wretched in the extreme. Nothing was left of the dignity
of the ancient city but its ruins. There was no settled civic
order, no regular administration of law or justice. Life and
property were insecure. The people were poor, suffering, and
turbulent. Rome was the least civilized city of Italy. Its aspect
was as wretched as its condition. Large tracts within its walls
were vacant. Its inhabited portions were a labyrinth of filthy
lanes. Many churches, built in earlier centuries, were neglected
and falling to ruin. There was no respect for the monuments
of former times. Many were buried under heaps of the foul-
est rubbish; many were used as quarries of stone for common
walls; many were cumbered by mean buildings, or occupied as
―


## p. 10719 (#599) ##########################################

CHARLES ELIOT NORTON
10719
strongholds. The portico of the Pantheon was filled with stalls
and booths; the arcades of the Colosseum were blocked up with
rude structures used for the most various purposes; the Forum
was crowded with a confused mass of low dwellings. Ancient
marbles, fragments of splendid sculpture, were often calcined for
lime. The reawakening interest in antiquity which was inspiring
the scholars and artists of Florence, and which was beginning
to modify profoundly the culture and the life of Europe, was
not yet shared by those who dwelt within the city which was its
chief source, and reverence for Rome was nowhere less felt than
in Rome itself.
But the example and the labors of Brunelleschi were opening
the way to change. He was the pioneer along a path leading
to modern times. In the midst of conditions that must have
weighed heavily upon him, he continued the diligent study of
the remains of ancient art, investigating especially such struct-
ures as the Pantheon and the Baths, for the purpose of learning
the methods adopted in their construction.
Meantime his repute was slowly advancing at home; and
when at intervals he visited Florence, he was consulted in re-
spect to the public and private buildings with which the flour-
ishing city was adorning herself. The work on the Duomo was
steadily proceeding. The eastern tribune was finished in 1407;
the others were approaching completion. The original plan of a
dome springing from the level of the roof of the nave had been
recognized as unfit for the larger church. Such a dome would
have had too heavy and too low a look. It had been decided
that the dome must be lifted above the level of the roof upon a
massive octagonal drum; and already in 1417 the occhi, or round
lights, of the drum were constructing, and the time was close at
hand when the structure would be ready for the beginning of
the dome itself. The overseers of the work were embarrassed
by the difficulty of the task by which they were confronted,
and knew not how to proceed. If a framework for the centring
of the dome were to be built up from the ground, they stood
aghast at the quantity of timber required for it, and at the enor-
mous cost; so that it seemed to them well-nigh an impossibility,
or to speak more truly, absolutely impossible.
«<
The Board of Works sought advice from Brunelleschi. But
if the master builders had seen difficulties, Philip showed them
far more. And some one asking, Is there, then, no mode of


## p. 10720 (#600) ##########################################

10720
CHARLES ELIOT NORTON
-
erecting it? Philip, who was ingenious also in discourse, replied
that if the thing were really impossible, it could not be done:
but that if it were not so, there ought to be some one in the
world who could do the work; and seeing that it was a religious
edifice, the Lord God, to whom nothing was impossible, would
surely not abandon it. " Further consultations were held; and on
May 19th, 1417, the Opera voted to give Philip di Ser Brunellesco
"pro bona gratuitate" — for his labors in making drawings and
employing himself concerning the cupola - ten golden florins.
No more characteristic or remarkable design was pro-
duced during the whole period of the Renaissance than this with
which its great architectural achievements began. It was the
manifesto of a revolution in architecture. It marks an epoch
in the art. Such a dome as Brunelleschi proposed to erect had
never been built. The great domes of former times- the dome
of the Pantheon, the dome of Santa Sophia-had been designed
solely for their interior effect: they were not impressive or noble
structures from without. But Brunelleschi had conceived a dome
which, grand in its interior aspect, should be even more superb
from without than from within, and which in its stately dimen-
sions and proportions, in its magnificent lift above all the other
edifices of the city of which it formed the centre, should give
the fullest satisfaction to the desire common in the Italian cit-
ies for a monumental expression of the political unity and the
religious faith of their people. His work fulfilled the highest
aim of architecture as a civic art, in being a political symbol,
an image of the life of the State itself. As such no other of the
ultimate forms of architecture was so appropriate as the dome.
Its absolute unity and symmetry, the beautiful shape and pro-
portions of its broad divisions, the strong and simple energy
of its upwardly converging lines, all satisfied the sentiment of
Florence, compounded as it was of the most varied elements,-
civic, political, religious, and æsthetic.
At last, in 1420, all these masters from beyond the mountains
were assembled in Florence, together with those of Tuscany, and
all the ingenious architects of the city, among them Brunelleschi
himself. On a certain day they all met at the works of S. Maria
del Fiore, together with the consuls and the Board of Works
and a choice of the most intelligent citizens; and then one after
another spoke his mind as to the mode in which the dome might
be built. "It was a fine thing to hear the strange and diverse


## p. 10721 (#601) ##########################################

CHARLES ELIOT NORTON
10721
opinions on the matter. " Some advised to build up a structure
from the ground to support the cupola while it was in process of
building. Others, for the same end, proposed heaping up a high
mound of earth, in which pieces of money should be buried, so
that when the work was done the common people would carry
away the earth for the sake of what they might find in it. Others.
again urged that the cupola be built of pumice-stone, for the
sake of lightness. Only Philip said that the dome could be
built without any such support of timber or masonry or earth,
and was laughed at by all for such a wild and impracticable
notion; and growing hot in the explanation and defense of his
plan of construction, and being told to go but not consenting,
he was at last carried by main force from the assembly, "fu
portato di peso fuori," - all men holding him stark mad. And
Philip was accustomed to say afterwards that he was ashamed at
this time to go about Florence, for fear of hearing it said, "See
that fool there, who talks so wildly. " The overseers of the work
were distracted by the bewildering diversity of counsels; and
"Philip, who had spent so many years in studies for the sake
of having this work, knew not what to do, and was oftentimes
tempted to depart from Florence. Yet, wishing to win his
object, he armed himself with patience, as was needful, having
so much to endure; for he knew the brains of that city never
stood long fixed on one resolve. Philip might have shown a
little model which he had below, but he did not wish to show
it; being aware of the small understanding of the consuls, the
envy of the workmen, and the little stability of the citizens, who
favored now this, now that, according to their pleasure. What,
then, Philip had not been able to do in the assembly he began
to try with individuals; and speaking now to this consul, now to
this member of the Board of Works, and in like wise to many
citizens, showing them part of his design, he brought them to
determine to assign the work either to him or to one of the
foreigners. Whereby the consuls and the Board of Works and
the citizens being encouraged, they caused a new assembly to be
held, and the architects disputed of the matter; but they were
all beaten down and overcome by Philip with abundant reasons.
And here it is said that the dispute about the egg arose in this
manner. " The other architects urged him to explain his scheme
in detail, and to show them the model he had made of the
structure; but this he refused, and finally proposed to them that
XVIII-671


## p. 10722 (#602) ##########################################

CHARLES ELIOT NORTON
10722
the man who could prove his capacity by making an egg stand
on end on a smooth bit of marble should build the cupola. To
this they assented. All tried in vain; and then Philip, taking
the egg and striking it upon the marble, made it stand. The
others, offended, declared they could have done as much. "Ay,"
said Philip, "and so, after seeing my model, you could build the
cupola. "
It was accordingly resolved that he should have charge of the
conduct of the work; and he was directed to give fuller infor-
mation concerning his plans to the consuls and Board of Works.
Towards the end of the year 1425, in January (it is to be
remembered that the Florentine year began in March), Brunelles-
chi and Ghiberti, together with one of the Officials of the Cupola
and the head-master of the works, united in an important report
to the Board, as to the work in progress and that which was
to be next undertaken. It is plain from it that the difficulties
of building such a vault without centring were increasing as the
curve ascended. On the inner side of the vault a parapet of
planks was to be made, to protect the scaffolding and to cut off
the sight of the masters from the void beneath them, for their
greater security. "We say nothing of centring," say the builders:
"not that it might not have given greater strength and beauty
to the work," which may well be doubted; "but not having been
started with, a centring would now be undesirable, and could
hardly be made without armature, for the sake of avoiding which
the centring was dispensed with at the beginning. " Brunelles-
chi's genius was sufficient to overcome all the difficulties met
with in accomplishing the bold experiment which he had devised,
and which in its kind still remains without parallel.