The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2, No 3, September, 1862

But it may be objected that in trying to improve a thought we often mar it; just as in transplanting shrubs from the barren soil in which they have become fast rooted, to one more fertile, we destroy them. 'Just as the fabled lamps in the tomb of Terentia burned underground for ages, but when removed into the light of day, went out in darkness.' That this sometimes occurs, we own. Some ideas are as fragile as butterflies, whom to handle is to destroy. But such are exceptions only, and should not preclude attempts at improvement. If a bungler tries and fails, let him be Anathema, Maranathema; but let not his failure deter from trial a genuine artist. Nor is it an ignoble office to be thus shapers only of great thinkers' thoughts—Python interpreters to oracles. Nor is his work of slight account who thus—as sunbeams gift dark thunder-clouds with 'silver lining' and a fringe of purple, as Time with ivy drapes a rugged wall—hangs the beauties of expression round a rude but sterling thought. Nay, oftentimes the shaper's labor is worth more than the thought he shapes. For if the stock out of which the work is wrought be ever more valuable than the workman's skill, then let canvas and paint-pots impeach the fame of Raphael; rough blocks from Paros and Pentelicus, the gold and ivory of the Olympian Jove; tear from the brow of Phidias the laurel wreath with which the world has crowned him. Supply of raw material is little without the ability to use it. Furnish three men with stone and mortar, and while one is building an unsightly heap of clumsy masonry, the architect will rear up a magnificent cathedral—an Angelo, a St. Peter's. And so when ideas, which in their crudeness are often as hard to be digested as unground corn, are run through the mill of another's mind, and appear in a shape suited to satisfy the most dyspeptic stomachs, does not the miller deserve a toll?

Finally, author-borrowing has been hallowed by its practice, in their first essays, by all our greatest writers. Turn to the scroll on which the world has written the names of those it holds as most illustrious. How was it with him whom English readers love to call the 'myriad-minded?' Shakespeare began by altering old plays, and his indebtedness to history and old legends is by no means slight. How with him who sang 'of man's first disobedience' and exodus from Eden? Even Milton did not, Elijah-like, draw down his fire direct from heaven, but kindled with brands, borrowed from Greek and Hebrew altars, the inspiration which sent up the incense-poetry of a Lost Paradise. And all the while that Maro sang 'Arms and the Man,' a refrain from the harp of Homer was sounding in his ears, unto whose tones so piously he keyed and measured his own notes, that oftentimes we fancy we can hear the strains of 'rocky Scio's blind old bard' mingling in the Mantuan's melody. If thus it has been with those who sit highest and fastest on Parnassus—the crowned kings of mind—how has it been with the mere nobility? What are Scott's poetic romances, but blossomings of engrafted scions on that slender shoot from out the main trunk of English poetry—the old border balladry? Campbell's polished elegance of style, and the 'ivory mechanism of his verse,' was born the natural child of Beattie and Pope. Byron had Gifford in his eye when he wrote 'English Bards and Scotch Reviewers,' and Spenser when he penned the 'Pilgrimage.' Pope, despairing of originality, and taking Dryden for his model, sought only to polish and to perfect. Gray borrowed from Spenser, Spenser from Chaucer, Chaucer from Dante, and Dante had ne'er been Dante but for the old Pagan mythology. Sterne and Hunt and Keats were only

Bees, in their own volumes hiving
Borrowed sweets from others' gardens.

And thus it ever is. The inceptions of true genius are always essentially imitations. A great writer does not begin by ransacking for the odd and new. He re-models—betters. Trusting not hypotheses unproven, he demonstrates himself the proposition ere he wagers his faith on the corollary; and it is thus that in time he grows to be a discoverer, an inventor, an originator.

Toward originality all should steer; but can only hope to reach it through imitation. For if originality be the Colchis where the golden fleece of immortality is won, imitation must be the Argo in which we sail thither.

INTERVENTION

Intervene! and see what you'll catch
In a powder-mill with a lighted match.
Intervene! if you think fit,
By jumping into the bottomless pit.
Intervene! How you'll gape and gaze
When you see all Europe in a blaze!
Russia gobbling your world half in,
Red Republicans settling with sin;
Satan broke loose and nothing between—
That's what you'll catch if you intervene!

MACCARONI AND CANVAS

VII

'A REEL TITIANO FOR SAL.'

There was a shop occupied by a dealer in paintings, engravings, intaglios, old crockery, and Bric-à-brac-ery generally, down the Via Condotti, and into this shop Mr. William Browne, of St. Louis, one morning found his way. He had been induced to enter by reading in the window, written on a piece of paper,

'A REEL TITIANO FOR SAL,'

and as he wisely surmised that the dealer intended to notify the English that he had a painting by Titian for sale, he went in to see it.

Unfortunately for Mr. Browne, familiarly known as Uncle Bill, he had one of those faces that invariably induced Roman tradesmen to resort to the Oriental mode of doing business, namely, charging three hundred per cent profit; and as this dealer having formerly been a courier, commissionaire and pander to English and American travelers, naturally spoke a disgusting jargon of Italianized English, and had what he believed were the most distinguished manners: he charged five hundred per cent.

'I want,' said Uncle Bill to the 'brick-Bat' man, 'to see your Titian.'

'I shall expose 'im to you in one moment, sare; you walk this way. He's var' fine pickshoor, var' fine. You ben long time in Rome, sare?'

No reply from Uncle Bill: his idea was, even a wise man may ask questions, but none but fools answer fools.

Brick-bat man finds that his customer has ascended the human scale one step; he prepares 'to spring dodge' Number two on him.

'Thare, sar, thare is Il Tiziano! I spose you say you see notheeng bote large peas board: zat peas board was one táble for two, tree hundret yars; all zat time ze pickshoor was unbeknounst undair ze táble. Zey torn up ze table, and you see a none-doubted Tiziano. Var' fine pickshoor!'

'Do you know,' asked Uncle Bill, 'if it was in a temperance family all that time?'

'I am not acquent zat word, demprance—wot it means?'

'Sober,' was the answer.

'Yas, zat was in var' sobair fam'ly—in convent of nons.'

'That will account for its being undiscovered so long—all the world knows they are not inquisitive! If it had been in a drinking-house, some body falling under the table would have seen it—wouldn't they?'

Brick-bat reflects, and comes to the conclusion that the 'eldairly cove' is wider-awake than he believed him, at first sight.

'Now I torne zis board you see on ze othaire side, ze Bella Donna of Tiziano. Zere is one in ze Sciarra palace, bote betwane you and I, I don't believe it is gin'wine.'

'I don't know much about paintings,' spoke Uncle Bill, 'but I know I've seen seventy-six of these Belli Donners, and each one was sworn to as the original picture!'

'Var' true, sare, var' true, Tiziano Vermecellio was grate pantaire, man of grate mind, and when he got holt onto fine subjick he work him ovair and ovair feefty, seexty times. Ze chiaro-'scuro is var' fine, and ze depfs of his tone somethings var' deep, vary. Look at ze flaish, sare, you can pinch him, and, sare, you look here, I expose grand secret to you. I take zis pensnife, I scratgis ze pant. Look zare!'

'Well,' said Uncle Bill, 'I don't see any thing.'

'You don't see anne theengs! Wot you see under ze pant?'

'It looks like dirt.'

'Cospetto! zat is ze gr-and prep-par-ra-tion zat makes ze flaish of Tiziano more natooral as life. You know grate pantaire, Mistaire Leaf, as lives in ze Ripetta? Zat man has spend half his lifes scratging Tiziano all to peases, for find out 'ow he mak's flaish: now he believes he found out ze way, bote, betwane you and I–' Here the Brick-bat man conveyed, by a shake of his head and a tremolo movement of his left hand, the idea that 'it was all in vain.'

'What do you ask for the picture?' asked Uncle Bill

The head of the Brick-bat man actually disappeared between his shoulders as he shrugged them up, and extended his hands at his sides like the flappers of a turtle. Uncle Bill looked at the man in admiration; he had never seen such a performance before, save by a certain contortionist in a traveling circus, and in his delight he asked the man, when his head appeared, if he wouldn't do that once more, only once more!

In his surprise at being asked to perform the trick, he actually went through it again. For which, Uncle Bill thanked him, kindly, and again asked the price of the Titian.

'I tak' seex t'ousand scudi for him, not one baiocch less.'

'It an't dear,'specially for those who have the money to scatterlophisticate,' replied Uncle Bill cheerfully.

'No, sare, it ees dogs chip, var' chip. I have sevral Englis' want to buy him bad; I shall sell him some days to some bodies. Bote, sare, will you 'ave ze goodniss to write down on peas paper zat word, var' fine word, you use him minit 'go—scatolofistico sometheengs—I wis' to larn ze Englis' better as I spiks him.'

'Certainly; give me a pencil and paper, I'll write it down, and you'll astonish some Englishman with it, I'll bet a hat.'

So it was written down; and if any one ever entered a shop in the Condotti where there was a Titiano for Sal, and was 'astonished' by hearing that word used, they may know whence it came.

Mr. Browne, after carefully examining the usual yellow marble model of the column of Trajan, the alabaster pyramid of Caius Cestius, the verd antique obelisks, the bronze lamps, lizards, marble tazze, and paste-gems of the modern-antique factories, the ever-present Beatrice Cenci on canvas, and the water-color costumes of Italy, made a purchase of a Roman mosaic paper-weight, wherein there was a green parrot with a red tail and blue legs, let in with minute particles of composition resembling stone, and left the Brick-bat man alone with his Titiano for Sal.

SO LONG!

Rocjean came into Caper's studio one morning, evidently having something to communicate.

'Are you busy this morning? If not, come along with me; there is something to be seen—something that beats the Mahmoudy Canal of the Past, or the Suez Canal of the Present, for wholesale slaughter; for I do assure you, on the authority of Hassel, that nine hundred and thirty-six million four hundred and sixty-one thousand people died before it was finished!'

'That must be a work worth looking at. Why, the Pyramids must be as anthills to Chimborazo in comparison to it! Nine hundred and odd millions of mortals! Why, that is about the number dying in a generation—and these have passed away while it was being completed? It ought to be a master-piece.'