All towns should be made capable of purification by fire, or of decay,
within each half-century. Otherwise, they become the hereditary haunts
of vermin and noisomeness, besides standing apart from the possibility
of such improvements as are constantly introduced into the rest of
man's contrivances and accommodations. It is beautiful, no doubt, and
exceedingly satisfactory to some of our natural instincts, to imagine
our far posterity dwelling under the same roof-tree as ourselves. Still,
when people insist on building indestructible houses, they incur, or
their children do, a misfortune analogous to that of the Sibyl, when
she obtained the grievous boon of immortality. So we may build almost
immortal habitations, it is true; but we cannot keep them from growing
old, musty, unwholesome, dreary,--full of death scents, ghosts, and
murder stains; in short, such habitations as one sees everywhere in
Italy, be they hovels or palaces.
"You should go with me to my native country," observed the sculptor to
Donatello. "In that fortunate land, each generation has only its own
sins and sorrows to bear. Here, it seems as if all the weary and dreary
Past were piled upon the back of the Present. If I were to lose my
spirits in this country,--if I were to suffer any heavy misfortune
here,--methinks it would be impossible to stand up against it, under
such adverse influences."
"The sky itself is an old roof, now," answered the Count; "and, no
doubt, the sins of mankind have made it gloomier than it used to be."
"O, my poor Faun," thought Kenyon to himself, "how art thou changed!"
A city, like this of which we speak, seems a sort of stony growth out
of the hillside, or a fossilized town; so ancient and strange it looks,
without enough of life and juiciness in it to be any longer susceptible
of decay. An earthquake would afford it the only chance of being ruined,
beyond its present ruin.
Yet, though dead to all the purposes for which we live to-day, the place
has its glorious recollections, and not merely rude and warlike ones,
but those of brighter and milder triumphs, the fruits of which we still
enjoy. Italy can count several of these lifeless towns which, four or
five hundred years ago, were each the birthplace of its own school of
art; nor have they yet forgotten to be proud of the dark old pictures,
and the faded frescos, the pristine beauty of which was a light and
gladness to the world. But now, unless one happens to be a painter,
these famous works make us miserably desperate. They are poor, dim
ghosts of what, when Giotto or Cimabue first created them, threw a
splendor along the stately aisles; so far gone towards nothingness,
in our day, that scarcely a hint of design or expression can glimmer
through the dusk. Those early artists did well to paint their frescos.
Glowing on the church-walls, they might be looked upon as symbols of the
living spirit that made Catholicism a true religion, and that glorified
it as long as it retained a genuine life; they filled the transepts with
a radiant throng of saints and angels, and threw around the high altar
a faint reflection--as much as mortals could see, or bear--of a Diviner
Presence. But now that the colors are so wretchedly bedimmed,--now that
blotches of plastered wall dot the frescos all over, like a mean reality
thrusting itself through life's brightest illusions,--the next best
artist to Cimabue or Giotto or Ghirlandaio or Pinturicchio will be he
that shall reverently cover their ruined masterpieces with whitewash!