Humanly Speaking Part 3

But Rome is disconcerting. The actual refuses to make terms with the ideal. It is a vast storehouse of historical material, but the imagination is baffled in the attempt to put the material together.

When Scott was in Rome his friend "advised him to wait to see the procession of Corpus Domini, and hear the Pope

Saying the high, high ma.s.s All on St. Peter's day.

He smiled and said that these things were more poetical in the description than in reality, and that it was all the better for him not to have seen it before he wrote about it."

Sir Walter's instinct was a true one. Rome is not favorable to historical romance. Its atmosphere is eminently realistic. The historical romancer is flying through time as the air-men fly through s.p.a.ce. But the air-men complain that they sometimes come upon what they call "air holes." The atmosphere seems suddenly to give way under them. In Rome the element of Time on which the imagination has been flying seems to lose its usual density. We drop through a Time-hole, and find ourselves in an inglorious anachronism.

I am not sure that Bagster has had a more difficult time than his predecessors, who have attempted to a.s.sort their historical material.

For in the days before historical criticism was invented, the history of Rome was very luxuriant. "Seeing Rome" was a strenuous undertaking, if one tried to be intelligent.

There was an admirable little guide-book published in the twelfth century called "Mirabilia Urbis Romae." One can imagine the old-time tourist with this mediaeval Baedeker in hand, issuing forth, resolved to see Rome in three days. At the end of the first day his courage would ooze away as he realized the extent of his ignorance. With a hurried look at the guide-book and a glance at the varied a.s.sortment of ruins, he would try to get his bearings. All the worthies of sacred and profane history would be pa.s.sing by in swift procession.

"After the sons of Noah built the tower of confusion, Noah with all his sons came to Italy. And not far from the place where Rome now is they founded a city in his name, where he brought his travail and life to an end." To come to the city of Noah was worth a long journey. Just think of actually standing on the spot where Shem, Ham, and j.a.phet soothed the declining years of their father! It was hard to realize it all. And it appears that j.a.phet, always an enterprising person, built a city of his own on the Palatine Hill. There is the Palatine, somewhat cluttered up with modern buildings of the Caesars, but essentially, in its outlines, as j.a.phet saw it.

But there were other pioneers to be remembered. "Saturn, being shamefully entreated by his son Jupiter," founded a city on the Capitoline Hill. One wonders what Shem, Ham, and j.a.phet thought of this, and whether their sympathies were with Jupiter who was seeking to get a place in the sun.

It is hard to understand the complicated politics of the day. At any rate, a short time after, Hercules came with a band of Argives and established a rival civic centre. In the meantime, Ja.n.u.s had become mixed up with Roman history and was working manfully for the New Italy. On very much the same spot "Tibris, King of the Aborigines"

built a city, which must be carefully distinguished from those before mentioned.

All this happened before Romulus appeared upon the scene. One with a clear and comprehensive understanding of this early history might enjoy his first morning's walk in Rome. But to the middle-aged pilgrim from the West Riding of Yorks.h.i.+re, who had come to Rome merely to see the tomb of St. Peter, it was exhausting.

But perhaps mediaeval tradition did not form a more confusing atmosphere than the sentimental admiration of a later day. In the early part of the nineteenth century a writer begins a book on Rome in this fas.h.i.+on: "I have ventured to hope that this work may be a guide to those who visit this wonderful city, which boasts at once the n.o.blest remains of antiquity, and the most faultless works of art; which possesses more claims to interest than any other city; which has in every age stood foremost in the world; which has been the light of the earth in ages past, the guiding star through the long night of ignorance, the fountain of civilization to the whole Western world, and which every nation reverences as the common nurse, preceptor, and parent."

This notion of Rome as the venerable parent of civilization, to be approached with tenderly reverential feelings, was easier to hold a hundred years ago than it is to-day. There was nothing to contradict it. One might muse on "the grandeur that was Rome," among picturesque ruins covered with flowering weeds. But now a Rome that is obtrusively modern claims attention. And it is not merely that the modern world is here, but that our view of antiquity is modernized. We see it, not through the mists of time, but as a contemporary might.

When Ferrero published his history we were startled by his realistic treatment. It was as if we were reading a newspaper and following the course of current events. Caesar and Pompey and Cicero were treated as if they were New York politicians. Where we had expected to see stately figures in togas we were made to see hustling real-estate speculators, and millionaires, and labor leaders, and ward politicians, who were working for the prosperity of the city and, incidentally, for themselves. It was all very different from our notions of cla.s.sic times which we had imbibed from our Latin lessons in school. But it is the impression which Rome itself makes upon the mind.

One afternoon, among the vast ruins of Hadrian's Villa, I tried to picture the villa as it was when its first owner walked among the buildings which his whim had created. The moment Hadrian himself appeared upon the scene, antiquity seemed an illusion. How ultra-modern he was, this man whom his contemporaries called "a searcher out of strange things"! These ruins could not by the mere process of time become venerable, for they were in their very nature novelties. They were the playthings of a very rich man. There they lie upon the ground like so many broken toys. They are just such things as an enormously rich man would make to-day if he had originality enough to think of them. Why should not Hadrian have a Vale of Tempe and a Greek theatre and a Valley of Canopus, and ever so many other things which he had seen in his travels, reproduced on his estate near Tivoli?

An historian of the Empire says: "The character of Hadrian was in the highest degree complex, and this presents to the student a series of apparently unreconciled contrasts which have proved so hard for many modern historians to resolve. A thorough soldier and yet the inaugurator of a peace policy, a 'Greekling' as his Roman subjects called him, and saturated with h.e.l.lenic ideas, and yet a lover of Roman antiquity; a poet and an artist, but with a pa.s.sion for business and finance; a voluptuary determined to drain the cup of human experience and, at the same time, a ruler who labored strenuously for the well-being of his subjects; such were a few of the diverse parts which Hadrian played."

It is evident that the difficulty with the historians who find these unreconciled contrasts is that they try to treat Hadrian as an "ancient" rather than as a modern. The enormously rich men who are at present most in the public eye present the same contradictions.

Hadrian was a thorough man of the world. There was nothing venerable about him, though much that was interesting and admirable.

Now what a man of the world is to a simple character like a saint or a hero, that Rome has been to cities of the simpler sort. It has been a city of the world. It has been cosmopolitan. "Urbs et orbis" suggests the historic fact. The fortunes of the city have become inextricably involved in the fortunes of the world.

A part of the confusion of the traveler comes from the fact that the Roman city and the Roman world are not clearly distinguished one from the other. The New Testament writer distinguishes between Jerusalem as a geographical fact and Jerusalem as a spiritual ideal. There has been, he says, a Jerusalem that belongs to the Jews, but there is also Jerusalem which belongs to humanity, which is free, which is "the mother of us all."

So there has been a local Rome with its local history. And there has been the greater Rome that has impressed itself on the imagination of the world. Since the destruction of Carthage the meaning of the word "Roman" has been largely allegorical. It has stood for the successive ideas of earthly power and spiritual authority.

Rome absorbed the glory of deeds done elsewhere. Battles were fought in far-off Asia and Africa. But the battlefield did not become the historic spot. The victor must bring his captives to Rome for his triumph. Here the pomp of war could be seen, on a carefully arranged stage, and before admiring thousands. It was the triumph rather than the battle that was remembered. All the interest culminated at this dramatic moment. Rome thus became, not the place where history was made, but the place where it was celebrated. Here the trumpets of fame perpetually sounded.

This process continued after the Empire of the Caesars pa.s.sed away. The continuity of Roman history has been psychological. Humanity has "held a thought." Rome became a fixed idea. It exerted an hypnotic influence over the barbarians who had overcome all else. The Holy Roman Empire was a creation of the Germanic imagination, and yet it was a real power. Many a hard-headed Teutonic monarch crossed the Alps at the head of his army to demand a higher sanction for his own rule of force. When he got himself crowned in the turbulent city on the Tiber he felt that something very important had happened. Just how important it was he did not fully realize till he was back among his own people and saw how much impressed they were by his new dignities.

Hans Christian Andersen begins one of his stories with the a.s.sertion, "You must know that the Emperor of China is a Chinaman and that all whom he has about him are Chinamen also." The a.s.sertion is so logical in form that we are inclined to accept it without question. Then we remember that in Hans Christian Andersen's day, and for a long time before, the Emperor of China was not a Chinaman and the great grievance was that Chinamen were the very people he would not have about him.

When we speak of the Roman Catholic Church, we jump at the conclusion that it is the church of the Romans and that the people of Rome have had the most to do with its extension. This theory has nothing to recommend it but its extreme verbal simplicity. As a matter of fact, Rome has never been noted for its pious zeal. Such warmth as it has had has been imparted to it by the faithful who have been drawn from other lands; as, according to some theorists, the sun's heat is kept up by a continuous shower of meteors falling into it.

To-day, the Roman Church is more conscious of its strength in Ma.s.sachusetts than it is near the Vatican. At the period when the Papacy was at its height, and kings and emperors trembled before it in England and in Germany, the Popes had a precarious hold on their own city. Rome was a religious capital rather than a religious centre. It did not originate new movements. Missionaries of the faith have not gone forth from it, as they went from Ireland. It is not in Rome that we find the places where the saints received their spiritual illuminations, and fought the good fight, and gathered their disciples. Rome was the place to which they came for judgment, as Paul did when he appealed to Caesar. Here heretics were condemned, and here saints, long dead, were canonized. Neither the doctrines nor the inst.i.tutions of the Catholic Church originated here. Rome was the mint, not the mine. That which received the Roman stamp pa.s.sed current throughout the world.

In the political struggle for the New Italy, Rome had the same symbolic character. Mazzini was never so eloquent as when portraying the glories of the free Rome that was to be recognized, indeed, as the mother of us all. The Eternal City, he believed, was to be the regenerating influence, not only for Europe but for all the world. All the romantic enthusiasm of Garibaldi flamed forth at the sight of Rome. All other triumphs signified nothing till Rome was the acknowledged capital of Italy. Silently and steadily Cavour worked toward the same end. And at last Rome gathered to herself the glory of the heroes who were not her own children.

If we recognize the symbolic and representative character of Roman history, we can begin to understand the reason for the bewilderment which comes to the traveler who attempts to realize it in imagination.

Roman history is not, like the tariff, a local issue. The most important events in that history did not occur here at all, though they were here commemorated. So it happens that every nation finds here its own, and reinforces its traditions. In the Middle Ages, the Jewish traveler, Benjamin of Tudela, found much to interest him. In Rome were to be found two brazen pillars of Solomon's Temple, and there was a crypt where t.i.tus hid the holy vessels taken from Jerusalem. There was also a statue of Samson and another of Absalom.

The worthy Benjamin doubtless felt the same thrill that I did when looking up at the ceiling of the Church of Santa Maria Maggiore. I was told that it was gilded with the first gold brought from America. The statement, that the church was founded on this spot because of a vision that came to Pope Liberius in the year 305 A.D., left me unmoved. It was of course a long time ago; but then, I had no mental a.s.sociations with Pope Liberius, and there was no encyclopaedia at hand in which I might look him up. Besides, "the church was reerected by Sixtus III in the year 432, and was much altered in the twelfth century." But the gold on the ceiling was a different matter. That was romantically historical. It came from America in the heroic age. I thought of the Spanish galleons that brought it over, and of Columbus and Cortes and Alvarado. After that, to go into the Church of Santa Maria Maggiore was like taking a trip to Mexico.

In the course of my daily walks, I pa.s.sed the Church of Santa Pudenziana, said to be the oldest in Rome, and recently modernized. It is on the spot where Pudens, the host of St. Peter, is said to have lived with his daughters Praxedis and Pudentiana. This is interesting, but the English-speaking traveler is likely to pa.s.s by Pudaentiana's church, and seek out the church of her sister St. Praxed. And this not for the sake of St. Praxed or her father Pudens or even of his guest St. Peter, but for the sake of a certain English poet who had visited the church once.

Close to the Porta San Paolo is the great tomb of the Roman magnate, Gaius Cestius, which was built before the birth of Christ. One can hardly miss seeing it, because it is near one of the most sacred pilgrimage places of Rome, the grave of John Keats.

Each traveler makes his own Rome; and the memories which he takes away are the memories which he brought with him.

III

As for my friend Bagster, now that he has come to Rome, I hope he may stay long enough to allow it to produce a more tranquilizing effect upon him. When he gives up the attempt to take it all in by an intellectual and moral effort, he may, as the saying is, "relax."

There is no other place in which one may so readily learn the meaning of that misused word "urbanity." Urbanity is the state of mind adapted to a city, as rusticity is adapted to the country. In each case the perfection of the adaptation is evidenced by a certain ease of manner in the presence of the environment. There is an absence of fret and worry over what is involved in the situation. A countryman does not fret over dust or mud; he knows that they are forms of the good earth out of which he makes his living. He may grumble at the weather, but he is not surprised at it, and he is ready to make the best of it.

This adaptation to nature is easy for us, for we are rustics by inheritance. Our ancestors lived in the open, and kept their flocks and were mighty hunters long before towns were ever thought of. So when we go into the woods in the spring, our self-consciousness leaves us and we speedily make ourselves at home. We take things for granted, and are not careful about trifles. A great many things are going on, but the multiplicity does not distract us. We do not need to understand.

For we have primal sympathies which are very good subst.i.tutes for intelligence. We do not worry because nature does not get on faster with her work. When we go out on the hills on a spring morning, as our forbears did ten thousand years ago, it does not fret us to consider that things are going on very much as they did then. The sap is mounting in the trees; the wild flowers are pus.h.i.+ng out of the sod; the free citizens of the woods are pursuing their vocations without regard to our moralities. A great deal is going on, but nothing has come to a dramatic culmination.

Our innate rusticity makes us accept all this in the spirit in which it is offered to us. It is nature's way and we like it, because we are used to it. We take what is set before us and ask no questions. It is spring. We do not stop to inquire as to whether this spring is an improvement on last spring or on the spring of the year 400 B.C. There is a timelessness about our enjoyment. We are not thinking of events set in a chronological order, but of a process which loses nothing by reason of repet.i.tion.

Our att.i.tude toward a city is usually quite different. We are not at our ease. We are querulous and anxious, and our interest takes a feverish turn. For the cities of our Western world are new-fangled contrivances which we are not used to, and we are worried as we try to find out whether they will work. These aggregations of humanity have not existed long enough to seem to belong to the nature of things. It is exciting to be invited to "see Seattle grow," but the exhibition does not yield a "harvest of a quiet eye." If Seattle should cease to grow while we are looking at it, what should we do then?

But with Rome it is different. Here is a city which has been so long in existence that we look upon it as a part of nature. It is not accidental or artificial. Nothing can happen to it but what has happened already. It has been burned with fire, it has been ravaged by the sword, it has been ruined by luxury, it has been pillaged by barbarians and left for dead. And here it is to-day the scene of eager life. Pagans, Christians, reformers, priests, artists, soldiers, honest workmen, idlers, philosophers, saints, were here centuries ago.

They are here to-day. They have continuously opposed each other, and yet no species has been exterminated. Their combined activities make the city.

When one comes to feel the stirring of primal sympathies for the manifold life of the city, as he does for the manifold life of the woods, Rome ceases to be distracting. The old city is like the mountain which has withstood the hurts of time, and remains for us, "the grand affirmer of the present tense."

THE AMERICAN TEMPERAMENT

I

Stopping at some selected spot on the mountain road, the stage-driver will direct the stranger's attention to a projecting ma.s.s of rock which bears some resemblance to a human countenance. There is the "Old Man of the Mountains," or the "Old Woman," as the case may be.

If the stranger be of a docile disposition he will see what he is told to see. But he will be content with the vague suggestion and will not push the a.n.a.logy too far. The similitude is strictly confined to the locality. It is enough if from a single point the mountain seems almost human. From any other point it will seem to be merely mountainous.

A similar caution is necessary in regard to the resemblances between a nation and an individual. When we talk of a national character or temperament, we are using an interesting and bold figure of speech.

We speak of millions of people as if they were one. Of course, a nation is not one kind of person; it is composed of many kinds of persons. These persons are diverse in character. All Scotchmen are not canny, nor all Irishmen happy-go-lucky. Those who know a great many Chinamen are acquainted with those who are idealists with little taste for plodding industry. It is only the outsider who is greatly impressed by the family resemblance. To the more a.n.a.lytic mind of the parent each child is, in a most remarkable degree, different from the others.