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Life of John Sterling-Part25_Thomas Carlyle(1795-1881)_English Literature(文学名著)-第2页

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Century expecting every man to do his duty? Whether not perhaps, in

good part, temporary dilettante cloudland of our poor Century;--or can



it be the real diviner Pisgah height, and everlasting mount of vision,

for man's soul in any Century? And I think Sterling himself bent



towards a negativeconclusion, in the course of years. Certainly, of

all subjects this was the one I cared least to hear even Sterling talk



of: indeed it is a subject on which earnest men, abhorrent of

hypocrisy and speech that has no meaning, are admonished to silence in



this sad time, and had better, in such a Babel as we have got into for

the present, "perambulate their picture-gallery with little or no



speech."

Here is another and to me much more earnest kind of "Art," which



renders Rome unique among the cities of the world; of this we will, in

preference; take a glance through Sterling's eyes:--



"January 22d, 1839.--On Friday last there was a great Festival at St.

Peter's; the only one I have seen. The Church was decorated with



crimson hangings, and the choir fitted up with seats and galleries,

and a throne for the Pope. There were perhaps a couple of hundred



guards of different kinds; and three or four hundred English ladies,

and not so many foreign male spectators; so that the place looked



empty. The Cardinals in scarlet, and Monsignori in purple, were

there; and a body of officiating Clergy. The Pope was carried in in



his chair on men's shoulders, wearing the Triple Crown; which I have

thus actually seen: it is something like a gigantic Egg, and of the



same color, with three little bands of gold,--very large Egg-shell

with three streaks of the yolk smeared round it. He was dressed in



white silk robes, with gold trimmings.

"It was a fine piece of state-show; though, as there are three or four



such Festivals yearly, of course there is none of the eager interest

which breaks out at coronations and similar rare events; no explosion



of unwonted velvets, jewels, carriages and footmen, such as London and

Milan have lately enjoyed. I guessed all the people in St. Peter's,



including performers and spectators, at 2,000; where 20,000 would

hardly have been a crushing crowd. Mass was performed, and a stupid



but short Latin sermon delivered by a lad, in honor of St. Peter, who

would have been much astonished if he could have heard it. The



genuflections, and train-bearings, and folding up the tails of silk

petticoats while the Pontiff knelt, and the train of Cardinals going



up to kiss his Ring, and so forth,--made on me the impression of

something immeasurably old and sepulchral, such as might suit the



Grand Lama's court, or the inside of an Egyptian Pyramid; or as if the

Hieroglyphics on one of the Obelisks here should begin to pace and



gesticulate, and nod their bestial heads upon the granite tablets.

The careless bystanders, the London ladies with their eye-glasses and



look of an Opera-box, the yawning young gentlemen of the _Guarda

Nobile_, and the laugh of one of the file of vermilion Priests round



the steps of the altar at the whispered good thing of his neighbor,

brought one back to nothing indeed of a very lofty kind, but still to



the Nineteenth Century."--

"At the great Benediction of the City and the World on Easter Sunday



by the Pope," he writes afterwards, "there was a large crowd both

native and foreign, hundreds of carriages, and thousands of the lower



orders of people from the country; but even of the poor hardly one in

twenty took off his hat, and a still smaller number knelt down. A few



years ago, not a head was covered, nor was there a knee which did not

bow."--A very decadent "Holiness of our Lord the Pope," it would



appear!--

Sterling's view of the Pope, as seen in these his gala days, doing his



big play-actorism under God's earnest sky, was much more substantial

to me than his studies in the picture-galleries. To Mr. Hare also he



writes: "I have seen the Pope in all his pomp at St. Peter's; and he

looked to me a mere lie in livery. The Romish Controversy is



doubtless a much more difficult one than the managers of the

Religious-Tract Society fancy, because it is a theoretical dispute;



and in dealing with notions and authorities, I can quite understand

how a mere student in a library, with no eye for facts, should take



either one side or other. But how any man with clear head and honest

heart, and capable of seeing realities, and distinguishing them from



scenic falsehoods, should, after living in a Romanist country, and

especially at Rome, be inclined to side with Leo against Luther, I



cannot understand."[20]

It is fit surely to recognize with admiring joy any glimpse of the



Beautiful and the Eternal that is hung out for us, in color, in form

or tone, in canvas, stone, or atmospheric air, and made accessible by






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