Many years ago in London I went to the private view of the Royal Academy
at Burlington House. I went in the afternoon, when the galleries were
crowded with politicians and artists, with dealers, gossips, quidnuncs,
and _flaneurs_; with authors, fashionable lawyers, and doctors; with men
and women of the world; with young dandies and actresses _en vogue_.
A roar of voices went up to the roof. Every one was talking, smiling,
laughing, commenting, and criticizing. It was a little picture of the
very worldly world that loves the things of to-day and the chime of the
passing hours. And suddenly some people near me were silent, and some
turned their heads to stare with a strangely fixed attention. And I saw
coming toward me an emaciated figure, rather bent, much drawn together,
walking slowly on legs like sticks. It was clad in black, with a gleam
of color. Above it was a face so intensely thin that it was like the
face of death. And in this face shone two eyes that seemed full of--the
other world. And, like a breath from the other world passing, this man
went by me and was hidden from me by the throng. It was Cardinal Manning
in the last days of his life.
The face of the king is like his, but it has an even deeper pathos as it
looks upward to the rock. And the king's silence bids you be silent,
and his immobility bids you be still. And his sad, and unutterable
resignation sifts awe, as by the desert wind the sand is sifted into the
temples, into the temple of your heart.
Pages:
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
87
88
89
90