Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 27, January, 1860 by Various

V >> Various >> Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 27, January, 1860

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The Eve of Epiphany, or Twelfth-Night, is to the children of Rome what
Christmas Eve is to us. It is then that the _Bifana_ comes with her
presents. This personage is neither merry nor male, like Santa Claus,
nor beautiful and childlike, like Christ-kindchen,--but is described as
a very tall, dark woman, ugly, and rather terrible, "_d' una fisionomia
piuttosto imponente_" who comes down the chimney, on the Eve of
Epiphany, armed with a long _canna_ and shaking a bell, to put
playthings into the stockings of the good children, and bags of ashes
into those of the bad. It is a night of fearful joy for all the little
ones. When they hear her bell ring, they shake in their sheets; for the
Bifana is used as a threat to the wilful, and their hope is tempered by
a wholesome apprehension. It is supposed to be a distorted image of the
visit of the kings and wise men with their presents at the Nativity, as
Santa Claus may be of the shepherds, and the Christ-kindchen of Christ
himself. However this may be, it is curious to observe the different
characters this superstition assumes among different nations and under
different influences.

The great festival of the Bifana (a corruption, undoubtedly, of
_Epifania_) takes place on the Eve of Twelfth-Night, in the Piazza di
San Eustachio,--and a curious spectacle it is. The Piazza itself, (which
is situated in the centre of the city, just beyond the Pantheon,) and
all the adjacent streets, are lined with booths covered with every kind
of plaything for children. Most of these are of Roman make, very rudely
fashioned, and very cheap; but for those who have longer purses, there
are not wanting heaps of German and French toys. These booths are gayly
illuminated with rows of candles and the three-wicked brass _lucerne_
of Rome; and, at intervals, painted posts are set into the pavement,
crowned with pans of grease, with a wisp of tow for wick, which blaze
and flare about. Besides these, numbers of torches carried about by hand
lend a wavering and picturesque light to the scene. By eight o'clock in
the evening, crowds begin to fill the Piazza and the adjacent streets.
Long before one arrives, the squeak of penny-trumpets is heard at
intervals; but in the Piazza itself the mirth is wild and furious, and
the din that salutes one's ears on entering is almost deafening. The
object of every one is to make as much noise as possible, and every kind
of instrument for this purpose is sold at the booths. There are
drums beating, _tamburelli_ thumping and jingling, pipes squeaking,
watchmen's-rattles clacking, penny-trumpets and tin horns shrilling, and
the sharpest whistles shrieking everywhere. Besides this, there are the
din of voices, screams of laughter, and the confused burr and buzz of
a great crowd. On all sides you are saluted by the strangest noises.
Instead of being spoken to, you are whistled at. Companies of people are
marching together in platoons, or piercing through the crowd in long
files, and dancing and blowing like mad on their instruments. It is a
perfect witches' Sabbath. Here, huge dolls dressed as Polichinello or
Pantaloon are borne about for sale,--or over the heads of the crowd
great black-faced jumping-jacks, lifted on a stick, twitch themselves in
fantastic fits,--or, what is more Roman than all, men carry about long
poles strung with rings of hundreds of _giambelli_, (a light cake,
called jumble in English,) which they scream for sale at a _mezzo
baiocco_ each. There is no alternative but to get a drum, whistle, or
trumpet, and join in the racket,--and to fill one's pockets with toys
for the children and absurd presents for one's older friends. The moment
you are once in for it, and making as much noise as you can, you begin
to relish the jest. The toys are very odd,--particularly the Roman
whistles;--some of these are made of pewter, with a little wheel that
whirls as you blow; others are of terra-cotta, very rudely modelled into
every shape of bird, beast, and human deformity, each with a whistle in
its head, breast, or tail, which it is no joke to hear, when blown close
to your ears by a stout pair of lungs. The scene is very picturesque.
Above, the dark vault of night, with its far stars, the blazing and
flaring of lights below, and the great, dark walls of the Sapienza and
Church looking grimly down upon the mirth. Everywhere in the crowd are
the glistening helmets of soldiers, who are mixing in the sport, and the
_chapeaux_ of white-strapped _gendarmes_, standing at intervals to keep
the peace. At about half-past eleven o'clock the theatres are emptied,
and the upper classes flock to the Piazza. I have never been there later
than half-past twelve, but the riotous fun still continued at that hour;
and, for a week afterwards, the squeak of whistles may be heard at
intervals in the streets.

At the two periods of Christmas and Easter, the young Roman girls take
their first communion. The former, however, is generally preferred, as
it is a season of rejoicing in the Church, and the ceremonies are not so
sad as at Easter. In entering upon this religious phase of their life,
it is their custom to retire to a convent, and pass a week in prayer and
reciting the offices of the Church. During this period, no friend, not
even their parents, are allowed to visit them, and information as to
their health and condition is very reluctantly and sparingly given at
the door. In case of illness, the physician of the convent is called;
and even then neither parent is allowed to see them, except, perhaps, in
very severe cases. Of course, during their stay in the convent, every
exertion is made by the sisters to render a monastic life agreeable, and
to stimulate the religious sensibilities of the young communicant. The
pleasures of society and the world are decried, and the charms of
peace, devotion, and spiritual exercises eulogized, until the excited
imagination of the communicant leaves her no rest, before she has
returned to the convent and taken the veil as a nun. The happiness of
families is thus sometimes destroyed; and I knew one very united and
pleasant Roman family which in this way was sadly broken up. Two of
three sisters were so worked upon at their first communion, that the
prayers of family and friends proved unavailing to retain them in their
home. The more they were urged to remain, the more they desired to go,
and the parents, brothers, and remaining sister were forced to yield a
most reluctant consent. They retired into the convent and became nuns.
It was almost as if they had died. From that time forward, the home
was no longer a home. I saw them when they took the veil, and a sadder
spectacle was not easily to be seen. The girls were happy, but the
parents and family wretched, and the parting was very tearful and sad.
They do not seem since to have regretted the step they then took;
but regret would be unavailing--and even if they felt it, they could
scarcely show it. The occupation of the sisters in the monastery they
have joined is prayers, the offices of the Church, and, I believe, a
little instruction of poor children. But gossip among themselves, of the
pettiest kind, must make up for the want of wider worldly interests. In
such limited relations, little jealousies engender great hypocrisies;
a restricted horizon enlarges small objects. The repressed heart and
introverted mind, deprived of their natural scope, consume themselves in
self-consciousness, and duties easily degenerate into routine. We are
not all in all to ourselves; the world has claims upon us, which it is
cowardice to shrink from, and folly to deny. Self-forgetfulness is
a great virtue, and selfishness a great vice. After all, the best
religious service is worthy occupation. Large interests keep the heart
sound; and the best of prayers is the doing of a good act with a pure
purpose.

"He prayeth best who loveth best
All things, both great and small;
For the dear God who loveth us,
He made and loveth all."

ABDEL-HASSAN.

The compensations of calamity are made apparent after long intervals of
time.
The sure years reveal the deep remedial force that underlies all fact.
--EMERSON.

Abdel-Hassan o'er the Desert journeyed with his caravan,--
Many a richly laden camel, many a faithful serving-man.

And before the haughty master bowed alike the man and beast;
For the power of Abdel-Hassan was the wonder of the East.

It was now the twelfth day's journey, but its closing did not bring
Abdel-Hassan and his servants to the long-expected spring.

From the ancient line of travel they had wandered far away,
And at evening, faint and weary, on a waste of Desert lay.

Fainting men and famished camels stretched them round the master's tent;
For the water-skins were empty, and the dates were nearly spent.

All the night, as Abdel-Hassan on the Desert lay apart,
Nothing broke the lifeless silence but the throbbing of his heart;

All the night he heard it beating, while his sleepless, anxious eyes
Watched the shining constellations wheeling onward through the skies.

When the glowing orbs, receding, paled before the coming day,
Abdel-Hassan called his servants and devoutly knelt to pray.

Then his words were few and solemn to the leader of his train:--
"Thirty men and eighty camels, Haroun, in thy care remain.

"Keep the beasts and guard the treasure till the needed aid I bring.
God is great! His name is mighty!--I, alone, will seek the spring."

Mounted on his strongest camel, Abdel-Hassan rode away,
While his faithful followers watched him passing, in the blaze of day,

Like a speck upon the Desert, like a moving human hand,
Where the fiery skies were sweeping down to meet the burning sand.

Passed he then their far horizon, and beyond it rode alone;--
They alone, with Arab patience, lay within its flaming zone.

Day by day the servants waited, but the master never came,--
Day by day, in feebler accents, called on Allah's holy name.

One by one they killed the camels, loathing still the proffered food,
But in weakness or in frenzy slaked their burning thirst in blood.

On unheeded heaps of treasure rested each unconscious head;
While, with pious care, the dying struggled to entomb the dead.

So they perished. Gaunt with famine, still did Haroun's trusty hand
For his latest dead companion scoop sepulture in the sand.

Then he died; and pious Nature, where he lay so gaunt and grim,
Moved by her divine compassion, did the same kind thing for him.

Earth upon her burning bosom held him in his final rest,
While the hot winds of the Desert piled the sand above his breast.--

Onward in his fiery travel Abdel-Hassan held his way,
Yielding to the camel's instinct, halting not, by night or day,

'Till the faithful beast, exhausted in her fearful journey, fell,
With her eye upon the palm-trees rising o'er the lonely well:

With a faint, convulsive struggle, and a feeble moan, she died,
While her still surviving master lay unconscious by her side.

So he lay until the evening, when a passing caravan
From the dead incumbering camel brought to life the dying man.

Slowly murmured Abdel-Hassan, as they bathed his fainting head,
"All is lost, for all have perished!--they are numbered with the dead!

"I, who had such power and treasure but a single moon ago,
Now my life and poor subsistence to a stranger's bounty owe.

"God is great! His name is mighty! He is victor in the strife!
Stripped of pride and power and substance, He hath left me faith
and life."--

Sixty years had Abdel-Hassan, since the stranger's friendly hand
Saved him from the burning Desert, lived and prospered in the land;

And his life of peaceful labor, in its pure and simple ways,
For his loss fourfold returned him, and a mighty length of days.

Sixty years of faith and patience gave him wisdom's mural crown;
Sons and daughters brought him honor with his riches and renown.

Men beheld his reverend aspect, and revered his blameless name;
And in peace he dwelt with strangers, in the fulness of his fame.

But the heart of Abdel-Hassan yearned, as yearns the heart of man,
Still to die among his kindred, ending life where it began.

So he summoned all his household, and he gave the brief command,--
"Go and gather all our substance;--we depart from out the land."

Then they journeyed to the Desert with a great and numerous train,
To his old nomadic instinct trusting life and wealth again.

It was now the sixth day's journey, when they met the moving sand,
On the great wind of the Desert, driving o'er that arid land;

And the air was red and fervid with the Simoom's fiery breath;--
None could see his nearest fellow in the stifling blast of death.

Blinded men from prostrate camels piled the stores to windward round,
And within the barrier herded, on the hot, unstable ground.

Two whole days the great wind lasted, when the living of the train
From the hot drifts dug the camels and resumed their way again.

But the lines of care grew deeper on the master's swarthy cheek,
While around the weakest fainted and the strongest waxed weak;

And the water-skins were empty, and a silent murmur ran
From the faint, bewildered servants through the straggling caravan:--

"Let the land we left be blessed!--that to which we go, accurst!--
From our pleasant wells of water came we here to die of thirst?"

But the master stilled the murmur with his steadfast, quiet eye:--
"God is great," he said, devoutly,--"when _He_ wills it, we shall die."

As he spake, he swept the Desert with his vision clear and calm,
And along the far horizon saw the green crest of the palm.

Man and beast, with weak steps quickened, hasted to the lonely well,
And around it, faint and panting, in a grateful tumult fell.

Many days they stayed and rested, and amidst his fervent prayer
Abdel-Hassan pondered deeply that strange bond which held him there.

Then there came an aged stranger, journeying with his caravan;
And when each had each saluted, Abdel-Hassan thus began:--

"Knowest thou this well of water? lies it on the travelled ways?"
And he answered,--"From the highway thou art distant many days.

"Where thou seest this well of water, where these thorns and
palm-trees stand,
Once the Desert swept unbroken in a waste of burning sand;

"There was neither life nor herbage, not a drop of water lay,
All along the arid valley where thou seest this well to-day.

"Sixty years have wrought their changes since a man of wealth
and pride,
With his servants and his camels, here, amidst his riches, died.

"As we journeyed o'er the Desert, dead beneath the blazing sky,
Here I saw them, beasts and masters, in a common burial lie;

"Thirty men and eighty camels did the shrouding sand infold;
And we gathered up their treasure, spices, precious stones, and gold;

"Then we heaped the sand above them, and, beneath the burning sun,
With a friendly care we finished what the winds had well begun.

"Still I hold that master's treasure, and his record, and his name;
Long I waited for his kindred, but no kindred ever came.

"Time, who beareth all things onward, hither bore our steps again,
When around this spot were scattered whitened bones of beasts and men;

"And from out the heaving hillocks of the mingled sand and mould
Lo! the little palms were springing, which to-day are great and old.

"From the shrubs we held the camels; for I felt that life of man,
Breaking to new forms of being, through that tender herbage ran.

"In the graves of men and camels long the dates unheeded lay,
Till their germs of life commanded larger life from that decay;

"And the falling dews, arrested, nourished every tender shoot,
While beneath, the hidden moisture gathered to each wandering root.

"So they grew; and I have watched them, as we journeyed, year by year;
And we digged this well beneath them, where thou seest it, fresh and
clear.

"Thus from waste and loss and sorrow still are joy and beauty born,
Like the fruitage of these palm-trees and the blossom of the thorn;

"Life from death, and good from evil!--from that buried caravan
Springs the life to save the living, many a weak, despairing man."

As he ended, Abdel-Hassan, quivering through his aged frame,
Asked, in accents slow and broken, "Knowest thou that master's name?"

"He was known as Abdel-Hassan, famed for wealth and power and pride;
But the proud have often fallen, and, as he, the great have died!"

Then, upon the ground before them, prostrate Abdel-Hassan fell,
With his aged hands extended, trembling, to the lonely well,--

And the sacred soil beneath him cast upon his hoary head,--
Named the servants and the camels,--summoned Haroun from the dead,--

Clutched the unconscious palms around him, as if they were living men,--
And before him, in their order, rose his buried train again.

Moved by pity, spake the stranger, bending o'er him in his grief:--
"What affects the man of sorrow? Speak,--for speaking is relief."

Then he answered, rising slowly to that aged stranger's knee,--
"Thou beholdest Abdel-Hassan! They were mine, and I am he!"

Wondering, stood they all around him, and a reverent silence kept,
While, amidst them, Abdel-Hassan lifted up his voice and wept.

Joy and grief, and faith and triumph, mingled in his flowing tears;
Refluent on his patient spirit rolled the tide of sixty years.

As the past and present blended, lo! his larger vision saw,
In his own life's compensation, Nature's universal law.

"God is good, O reverend stranger! He hath taught me of His ways,
By this great and crowning lesson, in the evening of my days.

"Keep the treasure,--I have plenty,--and am richer that I see
Life ascend, through change and evil, to that perfect life to be,--

"In each woe a blessing folded, from all loss a greater gain,
Joy and hope from fear and sorrow, rest and peace from toil and pain.

"God is great! His name is mighty! He is victor in the strife!
For He bringeth Good from Evil, and from Death commandeth Life!"

ABOUT SPIRES.

When the children of Shem said one to another at Babel,--"Go to, let us
build us a city and a tower whose top shall reach unto heaven," they
typified a remarkable trait of the human mind,--a desire for a tangible
and material exponent of itself in its most heroic moods. In the earlier
ages of the world, when humanity, as it were, was becoming conscious of
itself and its godlike energies, it seems as if this desire could find
no nobler expression than in towers. The same spirit of enterprise which
in our own day stretches forth inquiring hands into unexplored realms of
physical and intellectual being, and acknowledges in the spoils of such
search its noblest and proudest attainments, in more primeval times
appears to have been content with the actual and visible invasion of
high building into that sky which to them was the great type of the
unknown and mysterious.

The birth of these structures was not of the practical necessities of
life, but of that fond desire of the soul which has ever haunted
mankind with intimations of immortality. Towers thus became the boldest
imaginable symbols of energy and power. And when, in the course of time,
they became exigencies of society, and familiarized by the idea of
usefulness, even then they could not but be recognized as expressions of
the more heroic elements of human nature.

Founded in superabundant massiveness, and built in prodigality of
strength, the tower seems to defy the elements and to outlive tradition.
Old age restores it to more than its primeval significance; and when
humbler erections have passed away and crumbled in ruins, it appears
once more to rise above the customary uses of men, and to become a
companion for tempests and clouds. Dismantled, deserted, and bearing,

"Inscribed upon its visionary sides,
This history of many a winter's storm,
And obscure record of the path of fire,"

Nature lays claim to it, and with moss and ivy and eld, with weeds and
flowers, she takes it to her bosom.

"Dying insensibly away
From human thoughts and purposes,"

we at length associate it with no achievements of man, and its masonry
becomes venerable to us, as shaped by mysterious beings,--Ghouls or
Titans,--no fellow-workers of ours.

Let us for a while forget the tedious realisms around us, and eat of the
dreamy Lotos. Let us look eastward over the wide waters, and behold,
along the horizon, the "dim rich cities" printing themselves against the
morning. Let us listen to their mellow chimes that come faintly to us,
and bless those deep-toned utterances so full of the tenderness of
ancient days and the melody of gray traditions. Let us bless them; for,
like lyres of Amphion, at their sound arose the bell-bearing tower,
which made cities beautiful and their people happy. O St. Chrysostom!
there were other golden mouths than thine that preached by the
Bosphorus, and their pulpits were the airy chambers of the first
Christian towers. Where the muezzin every hour from the lofty minaret
now calls the faithful Mahometan to prayer, were first heard those matin
and vesper chimes which since then throughout Catholic Europe have
accompanied the rising and the setting of the sun. Thus the Christian
tower immediately becomes associated with the tenderest and most
poetical ideas of monastic and pastoral religion. It seemed emulous from
the beginning to be the first to catch the beams of morning, and, like
the statue of Memnon, to respond to the golden touch by sounds of music.
Then the fervid heart of Italy took fire, and from her bosom uprose over
all her cities the beautiful campanile. Still and solemn it stood on
the plains of Lombardy, like a sentinel on the outskirts of our faith,
whispering to the vast of space that all was well. Over the lagunes of
Venice the weary toil of two centuries piled up the tower of St. Mark.
Ravenna, with barbaric pride, built her round-cinctured towers to the
glory of the Exarchate. Rome followed with her square campaniles, whose
arcaded chambers looked down on a hundred cloisters. Then there were
La Ghirlandina at Modena, Il Torazzo at Cremona, Torre della Mangia at
Siena, the Garisenda at Bologna, the Leaning Tower at Pisa. Everywhere
they sought the skies with emulous heights, and ere long they arose in
such number as to give a distinctive aspect to the Christian city, and
to warn the traveller from afar that he approached walls within which
religion was a pride and a power. Who has not admired the Giotto
Campanile, called "the Beautiful," at Florence? And who has not wondered
at the splendor of her citizens, whose command was, "to construct an
edifice whose magnificence should be beyond the conception even of
the _cognoscenti_, and whose height and quality of workmanship should
surpass all that has been built in any style, in Greece or Rome, even at
the most florid period of their power!"

But the spiritualization and glory of the tower are yet wanting. There
is a very human expression about it, as it stands in the midst of
those glimmering lands, with its haughty summit commanding far-distant
plains,--

"Far as the wild swan wings, to where the sky
Dips down to sea and sands,"--

a very human expression of scornful pride and imperious dominion. We
shall see how it outgrew its mere humanities and became an expression
of immortal aspirations, a symbol of our relationship with ethereal
existences.

These Italian campaniles had either flat summits, or were crowned with a
low, unimportant roof. But as they approached the North of Lombardy, and
found their way into Germany, France, and Britain, these roofs, through
the necessities of climate, became steeper and sharper. Many of the
little gray mountain-chapels in the South of Switzerland still lift up
these pointed towers amid the hamlets of the valley, having gathered
in the hardy flocks at eventide for seven or eight centuries. The same
early modifications may yet be seen on the banks of the Rhine, where the
conical, stork-haunted caps of the round towers are so picturesquely
associated with that legendary scenery. Those dear, time-worn, rugged,
red-tiled roofs, with their peaks coming in just where they are
needed,--what could the artist do without them? Then the same
necessities made the early French and Norman builders push up into the
air those gaunt, quaint old camelbacks, with spindles or pinnacles
astride. You cannot but love them for their strangeness and the surprise
they make against the quiet sky. In Britain, too, you might have beheld
this tendency, where the lordly curfew quenched the lights in castle and
cot from beneath a very extinguisher of a roof. Now, as, in the natural
growth of the human mind, the heart became more and more impregnated
with the beauty of holiness, and the prayers of men ascended with
somewhat of purer aspiration to heaven, so did they build their
tower-roofs higher and higher into the air, till at length the spire was
born. In one of those quaint antique towers of Normandy, Coutances, it
was first fully developed; and it is curious to see how in this
instance its roof-origin was still remembered: for it has tall, gabled
garret-windows rising from its base, connected by rude cross-bars to the
slope of the spire; and it has a kind of scaly mail, Ruskin says, which
is nothing more than the copying in stone of the common wooden shingles
of the house-roof. Now the proud Italian architects, disdainful though
they were of the arts of the rude Northern builders, could not but admit
the expressiveness of the pointed roof; so they placed a form of it on
some of their campaniles, as on those of Venice and Cremona, in both
these instances making it a third of the whole height. But the spire,
though an effective, was as yet an unambitious structure,--scarcely more
than an exaltation or an apotheosis of the roof. For a long time it
continued to be merely a supplementary addition in wood to the solid
masonry of the tower, and in the thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth
centuries was often added to substructures of the tenth, eleventh, and
twelfth.

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