Cleopatra: A Life, by Stacy Schiff

Few figures of the Ancient World hold so powerfully the allure of myth and mystery as does the Queen of Egypt, Cleopatra.  Much of the historical record of this most wondrous monarch is unknown, clouded in mystery, or garbled by a millennia of material penned by her enemies.  Most of what we know was written by Roman historians in a language – Latin – unsympathetic to her and to her world.  But despite these hindrances, the historical and mythical Cleopatra looms large in our consciousness.

Cleopatra has inspired artists as diverse as William Shakespeare, George Bernard Shaw and Cecil B. DeMille.  Even P. G. Wodehouse had a crack at her in this inspired lyric:

In days of old beside the Nile

A famous queen there dwelt.

Her clothes were few,

But full of style.

Her figure slim and svelte.

On every man that wandered by

She pulled the Theda Bara eye.

And every one observed with awe,

That her work was swift,

But never raw.

I'd be like Cleopatterer,

If I could have my way.

Each man she met she went and kissed.

And she'd dozens on her waiting list.

I wish that I had lived there.

Beside the pyramid.

For a girl today don't get the scope

That Cleopatterer did.

And when she tired as girls will do,

Of Bill or Jack or Jim,

The time had come, his friends all knew,

To say goodbye to him.

She couldn't stand by any means,

Reproachful, stormy farewell scenes.

To such coarse stuff she would not stoop,

So she just put poison in his soup.

When out with Cleopatterer,

Men always made their wills.

They knew there was no time to waste,

When the gumbo had that funny taste.

They'd take her hand and squeeze it.

They'd murmur "Oh you kid!"

But they never liked to start to feed,

Til Cleopatterer did.

She danced new dances now and then.

The sort that make you blush.

Each time she did them, scores of men

Got injured in the rush.

They'd stand there gaping in a line,

And watch her agitate her spine.

It simply use to knock them flat,

When she went like this and then like that.

At dancing Cleopatterer,

Was always on the spot.

She gave these poor Egyptian ginks,

Something else to watch besides the sphinx.

Marc Antony admitted,

That what first made him skid,

Was the wibbly, wobbly, wiggly dance,

That Cleopatterer did.

But that’s not all.  Cleopatra was the lover of the two most powerful men of her age: Julius Caesar and Marc Antony.  Her name is a synonym for feminine sexual power, for seduction, for unbridled ambition and for wanton sexuality.  (We should all be so lucky.)  With such baggage, what good does it do for the contemporary historian to set the record straight?

Well … much good.  With Cleopatra: A Life, Pulitzer Prize winning biographer Stacy Schiff has written what might be the single most readable biography of this fascinating figure.  Born in 69 BC, Cleopatra, like most of the ruling elite in Egypt, was Greek, descending from a long line of Ptolemies that traced ancestry back to Alexander the Great.  Family relations were a complicated affair – brothers married sisters and most questions of succession were settled by inter-family butchery.  But the Ptolemies had a genius for leadership and statecraft, and Cleopatra was one of the most accomplished of her line.

Cleopatra ruled from Alexandria, the most glorious city of the Ancient World.  It had the world’s greatest library, was richly laden with civic art and treasures from Greece, and was populated by a worldly, educated and cosmopolitan people.  It had a taste for luxury and spectacle, and may have been the richest nation in the civilized world.  However, by the time Cleopatra had come to power, her empire was in decline and it was necessary to maintain good relations with the rising Roman republic.  This she did through a heady mixture of bribery, bluff and bedroom shenanigans.  Most dramatizations of Cleopatra, Schiff argues, are always weak tea in comparison to the genuine article: Cleopatra’s combination of genius, guile and the grandiose are too heady to load into a single artistic construct.  Poets, playwrights and filmmakers often emphasize one component of her cosmic personality over another, distorting the complete picture.

Schiff’s book suffers somewhat from an overload of feminist sentiment.  While it is important to appreciate that Cleopatra was out-maneuvering the boys in the all-male game of world domination, Schiff seems to argue that Cleopatra was history’s only significant female world leader, which surely would be news to figures as diverse as Queens Elizabeth and Victoria, Indira Ghandi, Margaret Thatcher and the Empress Dowager Ci'an.  Schiff certainly would have scored higher points by detailing more of Cleopatra’s genius, sense of style, mastery of sexual politics and gift for statecraft and by harping less on her womanhood.

Where Schiff’s book excels is in her masterful evocation of the Ancient World, and the sense of scale, opulence and magnificence of Cleopatra’s Egypt.  Reading the story of Cleopatra and her relations with both Caesar and Antony, you see giants walking the world stage, and get a sense of how beautiful and wondrous Ancient Egypt must have been.

Aesthetes have been tormented by visions of Egyptian beauty, and Schiff’s pages emit the rich, heady perfume of a bygone era.  Here, in a particularly wonderful and particularly purple passage, Schiff details the preparations of Cleopatra and her barge for her first historic meeting with Marc Antony:  The queen of Egypt’s presence was always an occasion; Cleopatra saw to it that this was a special one.  In a semiliterate world, the imagery mattered.  She floated up the bright, crystalline river, through the plains, in a blinding explosion of color, sound, and smell.  She had no need for magic arts and charms given her barge with gilded stern and soaring purple sails; this was not the way Romans traveled.  As they dipped in and out of the water, silver oars glinted broadly in the sun.  Their slap and clatter provided a rhythm section for the orchestra of flutes, pipes, and lyres assembled on deck.  Had Cleopatra not already cemented her genius for stage management she did so now: “She herself reclined beneath a gold-spangle canopy, dressed as Venus in a painting, while beautiful young boys, like painted Cupids, stood at her sides and fanned her.  Her fairest maids were likewise dressed as sea nymphs and graces, some steering at the rudder, some working at the oars.  Wondrous odors from countless incense-offerings diffused themselves along the river-banks.”  She outdid even the Homeric inspiration … Earlier that evening or on a subsequent one Cleopatra prepared twelve banquet rooms.  She spread thirty-six couches with rich textiles.  Behind them hung purple tapestries; embroidered with glimmering threads.  She saw to it that her table was set with golden vessels, elaborately crafted and encrusted with gems.  Under the circumstances, it seems likely that she, too, rose to the occasion and draped herself in jewels.  Pearls aside, Egyptian taste ran to bright semiprecious stones – agate, lapis, amethyst, carnelian, garnet, malachite, topaz – set in gold pendants, sinuous, intricately worked bracelets, long, dangling earrings.  On his arrival Antony gaped at the extraordinary display.  Cleopatra smiled modestly.  She had been in a hurry.  She would do better next time.

This is delicious stuff, and your correspondent read Cleopatra: A Life with considerable relish.  This is a biography not to be missed.

   

On a Chinese Screen, by William Somerset Maugham (1922)

We have made little secret here at The Jade Sphinx of our love for writer William Somerset Maugham (1874-1965).  Maugham was a great literary artist and a rare one – often his books are related in first-person narration, but the point-of-view is seldom intrusive or misleading.  Maugham had the gift of being everywhere and nowhere; equally at home in a native hut in Burma as at a London society party.  Having earned a medical degree but never practicing medicine, Maugham cast a cold, clinical eye on human behavior, and mercilessly robbed us of our pretentions and affectations.  His is a voice that is missed.

Maugham’s biography makes that of overly macho writers like Hemmingway pale by comparison: world traveler, espionage agent, playwright, art collector, literary stylist.  Maugham travelled long enough and far enough to make Indiana Jones envious, and he used his wide experience as the basis of several of his most successful novels, including The Razor’s Edge (1944) and The Moon and Sixpence (1919).  For those who long for a world that is still exotic, or yearn for places before they were spoiled by fast-food chains and American consumer culture, a diet of Maugham is just what the doctor ordered.

In the winter of 1919, Maugham travelled 1,500 miles up the Yangtze River.  While on the road, Maugham noted down acute and finely crafted sketches of those he met on countless scraps of paper, gathering them together for publication in 1922 under the title On a Chinese Screen.  These scraps include views of Western missionaries, army officers and company managers who are culturally out of their depth in the immensity of the Chinese civilization.  With his typical precision, Maugham sheds light on the most vulnerable parts of their lives.

On a Chinese Screen is, in many ways, the perfect summer book.  There is no through narrative, and most of the ‘chapters’ run no more than a few paragraphs.  It is the perfect book for dipping or gobbling up – the vignettes that Maugham parades before us are mesmerizing.  Reading more like the rough notes of never-realized novels or short stories, the scraps in On a Chinese Screen will resonate in your memory much longer than more sustained and fully-crafted narratives.

Here, for example, is Maugham (celebrated playwright!) talking with a Chinese professor who has studied English theater:  "Does it require no more than that to write a play?" he inquired with a shade of dismay in his tone.

"You want a certain knack," I allowed, "but no more than to play billiards."

"They lecture on the technique of the drama in all the important universities of America," said he.

"The Americans are an extremely practical people," I answered. "I believe that Harvard is instituting a chair to instruct grandmothers how to suck eggs."

"I do not think I quite understand you."

"If you can't write a play no one can teach you and if you can it's as easy as falling off a log."

Here his face expressed a lively perplexity, but I think only because he could not make up his mind whether this operation came within the province of the professor of physics or within that of the professor of applied mechanics.

"But if it is so easy to write a play why do dramatists take so long about it?"

"They didn't, you know. Lope de la Vega and Shakespeare and a hundred others wrote copiously and with ease. Some modern playwrights have been perfectly illiterate men and have found it an almost insuperable difficulty to put two sentences together. A celebrated English dramatist once showed me a manuscript and I saw that he had written the question: will you have sugar in your tea, five times before he could put it in this form. A novelist would starve if he could not on the whole say what he wanted to without any beating about the bush."

"You would not call Ibsen an illiterate man and yet it is well known that he took two years to write a play."

"It is obvious that Ibsen found a prodigious difficulty in thinking of a plot. He racked his brain furiously, month after month, and at last in despair used the very same that he had used before."

"What do you mean?" the professor cried, his voice rising to a shrill scream. "I do not understand you at all."

"Have you not noticed that Ibsen uses the same plot over and over again? A number of people are living in a closed and stuffy room, then some one comes (from the mountains or from over the sea) and flings the window open; everyone gets a cold in the head and the curtain falls."

Or, better yet, here is Maugham, on a Chinese junk, thinking about the nature of adventure and romance.  This passage, perhaps more than ever, parses closest to the center of the Maugham persona, and provides a greater understanding of the sustained sense of living he sought abroad:  Then suddenly I had a feeling that here, facing me, touching me almost, was the romance I sought. It was a feeling like no other, just as specific as the thrill of art; but I could not for the life of me tell what it was that had given me just then that rare emotion.

In the course of my life I have been often in situations which, had I read of them, would have seemed to me sufficiently romantic; but it is only in retrospect, comparing them with my ideas of what was romantic, that I have seen them as at all out of the ordinary. It is only by an effort of the imagination, making myself as it were a spectator of myself acting a part, that I have caught anything of the precious quality in circumstances which in others would have seemed to me instinct with its fine flower. When I have danced with an actress whose fascination and whose genius made her the idol of my country, or wandered through the halls of some great house in which was gathered all that was distinguished by lineage or intellect that London could show, I have only recognized afterwards that here perhaps, though in somewhat Ouidaesque a fashion, was romance.

In battle, when, myself in no great danger, I was able to watch events with a thrill of interest, I had not the phlegm to assume the part of a spectator. I have sailed through the night, under the full moon, to a coral island in the Pacific, and then the beauty and the wonder of the scene gave me a conscious happiness, but only later the exhilarating sense that romance and I had touched fingers. I heard the flutter of its wings when once, in the bedroom of a hotel in New York, I sat round a table with half a dozen others and made plans to restore an ancient kingdom whose wrongs have for a century inspired the poet and the patriot ; but my chief feeling was a surprised amusement that through the hazards of war I found myself engaged in business so foreign to my bent. The authentic thrill of romance has seized me under circumstances which one would have thought far less romantic, and I remember that I knew it first one evening when I was playing cards in a cottage on the coast of Brittany. In the next room an old fisherman lay dying and the women of the house said that he would go out with the tide. Without a storm was raging and it seemed fit for the last moments of that aged warrior of the seas that his going should be accompanied by the wild cries of the wind as it hurled itself against the shuttered windows. The waves thundered upon the tortured rocks. I felt a sudden exultation, for I knew that here was romance.

And now the same exultation seized me, and once more romance, like a bodily presence, was before me. But it had come so unexpectedly that I was intrigued. I could not tell whether it had crept in among the shadows that the lamp threw on the bamboo matting or whether it was wafted down the river that I saw through the opening of my cabin. Curious to know what were the elements that made up the ineffable delight of the moment I went out to the stern of the boat. Alongside were moored half a dozen junks, going up river, for their masts were erect; and everything was silent in them. Their crews were long since asleep. The night was not dark, for though it was cloudy the moon was full, but the river in that veiled light was ghostly. A vague mist blurred the trees on the further bank. It was an enchanting sight, but there was in it nothing unaccustomed and what I sought was not there. I turned away. But when I returned to my bamboo shelter the magic which had given it so extraordinary a character was gone. Alas, I was like a man who should tear a butterfly to pieces in order to discover in what its beauty lay. And yet, as Moses descending from Mount Sinai wore on his face a brightness from his converse with the God of Israel, my little cabin, my dish of charcoal, my lamp, even my camp bed, had still about them something of the thrill which for a moment was mine. I could not see them any more quite indifferently, because for a moment I had seen them magically.

On a Chinese Screen is available for free download at the invaluable www.manybooks.net.  This is the perfect book with which to beguile the closing days of summer.

A Place of My Own, by Michael Pollan

Perhaps one of the most compelling of individual dreams is to have a place of one’s own.  Whether that be a study, studio, off-limits bedroom, basement hideaway or personal garage, many of us yearn for a secluded place situated to our own personalities, where our will was law.

Author Michael Pollan (born 1955) found himself in much the same place shortly before the birth of his first son, Isaac.  A writer and editor for Harper’s Magazine and a columnist for House & Garden, Pollan moved to a few acres in rural Connecticut in the late 1990s.  But while there, he began to dream of a little shack, a ‘writer’s hut’ where he could work, look at nature and collect his thoughts.

This dream took Pollan on a personal odyssey.  Though more at home with words and concepts than tools and building materials, Pollan decided to build his own little writer’s hut behind his home.  He hired an architect to design it up-to-code, but, other than that, he strove to build it himself with just the help of a local handyman.

The project, which should’ve taken just two months, took more than a year and taught Pollan a great deal about both the natural and theoretical worlds.  Though buildings first exist as constructs and drawings on pieces of paper, they must be translated into solid, three-dimensional entities.  And, more importantly, the materials must first be converted from raw materials – trees, stones, etc. – before they can be turned into building components.

While building, Pollan developed a new understanding of wood, of the complications that come with the execution of plans, and of landscape.  He investigated the mysteries of architecture, as well as such philosophies as feng shui and postmodernism.  He also had something of an imaginary dialogue with Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862) who faced many of the same challenges while building his shack at Walden Pond, and much of Pollen’s book detailing his experience, A Place of My Own: The Education of an Amateur Builder, is a prolonged discussion with the now-dead philosopher.

A Place of My Own benefits from Pollan’s jaunty writing style, as well as from his self-deprecating honesty.  He admits upfront that he is not handy, that he has no grasp of math, and that the idea of building something is entirely alien to his experience.  However, he also felt that dealing in a purely theoretical world of words and ideas kept him separate from some vital part of the human experience.  Moreover, he also believed that our technological advances had somehow separated us from some component of our basic humanity, and that building something that would last – like his writer’s hut – was a way of reconnecting with that missing link.

Here is Pollan on why he did it: For if the wish for a room of my own answered to a need I felt for the literal and psychic space, the wish to build it with my own hands, though slower to surface, may have reflected some doubts I was having about the sort of work I do.  Work is how we situation ourselves in the world, and like the work of many people nowadays, mine put me in a relationship to the world that often seemed abstract, glancing, secondhand.  Or thirdhand, in my case, for I spent much of my day working on other people’s words, rewriting, revising, rewording.  Oh, it was real work (I guess), but it didn’t always feel that way, possibly because there were whole parts of me it failed to address.  (Like my body, with the exception of the carpal tunnel in my wrist.)  Nor did what I do seem to add much, if anything, to the stock of reality, and though this might be a dated or romantic notion in an age of information, it seemed to me this was something real work should do.  Whenever I heard myself described as an “information-services worker” or a “symbolic analyst,” I wanted to reach for a hammer, or a hoe, and with it make something less virtual than a sentence.

A Place of My Own is a fascinating meditation on our relationship to man-made spaces, as well as how we incorporate ourselves into nature.  The main flaw of the book, however, is that it seems as if Pollan has never had an unrecorded thought, and many of his ruminations pad a fascinating story with irrelevancies.  Think of A Place of My Own is much like the world’s longest New Yorker article – filled with great stuff, sometimes numbingly repetitious or padded, but ultimately rewarding.  Recommended for anyone who is feeling penned in by our modern world.

Cornelia Presenting Her Children, the Gracchi, as Her Treasures, by Angelica Kauffman, 1785

Another notable depiction of motherhood by Angelica Kauffman (1741 – 1807), one of two women who belonged to the Royal Academy at its inception.  The next female members would join 115 years later.

Ever the neoclassicist, Kaffman once again goes to the ancient world with Cornelia Presenting Her Children, the Gracchi, as Her Treasures, painted in 1785.  This large-scale painting illuminates the importance of motherhood on the course of history.  Cornelia Africana, the daughter of the general Scipio Africanus, was a Roman matron who exemplified the virtues of modesty, chastity, and honor. Her family was part of Roman high society, and she was an important social figure.  She is remembered by history as the mother of two sons with an enduring political legacy. Her sons, Tiberius and Gaius Gracchus, who are often referred to as the Gracchi, were politicians in the 2nd century BC. They attempted to pass land reform and other progressive measures to ease the hardships of the lower classes, effectively attempting to make the Roman Republic more democratic. Both were assassinated during their tenures as tribunes by their peers in the patrician class for their liberal sentiments.

In this picture, Cornelia is talking with another society matron who is showing off her jewels.  Cornelia, however, shows jewels of quite another type:  her two sons, the Gracchi.  These are her greatest treasures; indeed, Cornelia was an important behind-the-scenes player in their eventual political ascendancy.

This is a subtly colored work, filled with deeply felt sentiment.  Neoclassical work can often feel cold or lacking in emotional vitality, but here is a picture filled with simple humanity.  Perhaps the most priceless element of the picture is the expression on the face of the anonymous matron.  You mean, these pearls aren’t better, she seems to ask.

Fortunately, Kauffman had the artistic virtuosity to realize such a subtle emotional moment.  Look at the expressions on Cornelia, as well as those of her children – they look alike.  Not only that, but Cornelia uses nearly the same expression with her hand used in another picture, Self-Portrait Torn Between Music and Painting, where Kauffman is also indicating the more important choice.

A remarkable work.

Self-Portrait Torn Between Music and Painting, by Angelica Kauffman, 1792

I must confess, I love this picture.  As noted in an earlier column, Angelica Kauffman (1741 – 1807) was a child prodigy in both painting and music.  (Winckelmann wrote that Kauffman had a sublimely beautiful voice.)  Her prowess as a painter was formidable, and she and her father toured Europe, painting portraits for high society much as young Mozart played pianoforte for royalty. 

But the decision between painting and music was not an easy one, as can be witnessed in this 1792 self-portrait.  (Self-triptych?)  It’s fascinating; centuries before the birth of Freud, Kauffman splits her personality into three parts, including a mediating Ego.  And at this point, the decision is clear – the musician will become a painter.

Look at the figures.  Kauffman left holds a music roll and the hand of the center Kauffman: her face is both imploring and wounded.  This is the look of a lover who knows she is being left. 

Now, look at the Kauffman right; she holds easel and brush and points dramatically to the distance: get to work!  Kauffman right does not touch Kauffman center, but there is no need; she has won.

Kauffman center looks guiltily at Kauffman left while motioning towards Kauffman right – the look says I love you, but I love her, more. 

Kauffman left has a garland of blue flowers in her hair; she is perhaps the more ethereal and artistic of the three.  Soulful, perhaps is the right word.  That quality of soul is missing from Kauffman right, and one wonders to what degree she felt forced to choose painting over music.  But these doubts are subverted somewhat by the neoclassical and painterly background.  Music never stood a chance.

Painters without number have executed self-portraits, but few have so explicitly illustrated their thinking. 

Questions of choice seemed to be a constant throughout Kauffman’s life.  Here is an excerpt from Nollekens and his Times, written in 1828 by J. T. Smith:

The reader will probably recollect the manner in which Angelica Kauffman was imposed upon by a gentleman’s servant, who married her under the name of Count Horn, and the way in which his treachery was discovered; as related in the early part of the present volume.  Angelica, however, was universally considered as a coquette, so that we cannot deeply sympathize in her disappointment; and as a proof how justly she deserved that character, I shall give an anecdote which have often heard Mr. Nollekens relate.  When Angelica was at Rome, previously to her marriage, she was ridiculously fond of displaying her person, and being admired; for which purpose she one evening took her station in one of the most conspicuous boxes of the Theatre, accompanied by [painter] Nathaniel Dance and another artist, both of whom, as well as many others, were desperately enamored of her.  Angelica, perhaps, might have recollected the remonstrance of Mrs. Peachum, where she says,

Oh, Polly! You might have toy’d and kiss’d

By keeping men off you keep them on:

However, while she was standing between her two beaux, and finding an arm of each most lovingly embracing her waist, she contrived, whilst her arms were folded before her on the front of the box over which she was leaning, to squeeze the hand of both, so that each lover concluded himself beyond all doubt the man of her choice.

More Kauffman tomorrow.

Pliny the Younger and His Mother at Miseno During the Eruption of Vesuvius, by Angelica Kauffman, 1785

We continue our look at Angelica Kauffman (1741 – 1807), one of two female painters inducted into the Royal Academy at its inception (the other being Mary Moser, 1744-1819).  Taught by her painter father, Kauffman displayed extraordinary talent at an early age.  She moved to Rome in 1763, where she met Johann Winckelmann (1717-1768), antiquarian and art historian who would prove to be one of the most powerful influences on an Aesthetic Movement he would never live to see.  Kauffman painted his portrait, along with other such luminaires as Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749 – 1832).

From 1766 to 1781, she lived in London, where she worked as a decorator and was instrumental in the founding of the Royal Academy.  After marrying painter Antonio Zucchi, she moved to Rome and lived among Continental European artists. 

Kauffman mainly painted history pictures and mythological subjects, where she displayed sentimental notes and a refined sense of color.  In today’s picture, Pliny the Younger and His Mother at Miseno During the Eruption of Vesuvius (1785), Kauffman dramatically depicts the destruction of the cities of Herculaneum and Pompeii, both doomed to be buried by mud and lava following the eruption of Vesuvius (AD 79).  Kauffman focuses on a family scene to illustrate the horror of the moment.  Here, Pliney is clearly interrupted from his studies with his mother by news of the catastrophe.  The volcano erupts in the background, and the resulting storm creates a tumultuous sea.  The mother, more in-the-moment than her son, uses her headpiece to protect herself from the tragedy; her scholarly son needs to be roused from his books and papers by a messenger before he notices. 

Pliney’s letter to the historian Tacitus is a first-hand account of the tragedy, and the starting point of Kauffman’s imaginings:

My dear Tacitus,

You ask me to write you something about the death of my uncle so that the account you transmit to posterity is as reliable as possible.   I am grateful to you, for I see that his death will be remembered forever if you treat it [sc. in your Histories]. He perished in a   devastation of the loveliest of lands, in a memorable disaster shared by peoples and cities, but this will be a kind of eternal life for him.  Although he wrote a great number of enduring works himself, the imperishable nature of your writings will add a great deal to his survival. Happy are they, in my opinion, to whom it is given either to do something worth writing about, or to write something worth reading; most happy, of course, those who do both. With his own books and yours, my uncle will be counted among the latter. It is therefore with great pleasure that I take up, or rather take upon myself the task you have set me.

He was at Misenum in his capacity as commander of the fleet on the 24th of August, when between 2 and 3 in the afternoon my mother drew his attention to a cloud of unusual size and appearance. He had had a sunbath, then a cold bath, and was reclining after dinner with his books. He called for his shoes and climbed up to where he could get the best view of the phenomenon.  The cloud was rising from a mountain -- at such a distance we couldn't tell which, but afterwards learned that it was Vesuvius. I can best describe its shape by likening it to a pine tree. It rose into the sky on a very long "trunk" from which spread some "branches." I imagine it had been raised by a sudden blast, which then weakened, leaving the cloud unsupported so that its own weight caused it to spread sideways. Some of the cloud was white, in other parts there were dark patches of dirt and ash. The sight of it made the scientist in my uncle determined to see it from closer at hand.

He ordered a boat made ready. He offered me the opportunity of going along, but I preferred to study -- he himself happened to have set me a writing exercise. As he was leaving the house he was brought a letter from Tascius' wife Rectina, who was terrified by the looming danger. Her villa lay at the foot of Vesuvius, and there was no way out except by boat. She begged him to get her away. He changed his plans. The expedition that started out as a quest for knowledge now called for courage. He launched the quadriremes and embarked himself, a source of aid for more people than just Rectina, for that delightful shore was a populous one. He hurried to a place from which others were fleeing, and held his course directly into danger. Was he afraid? It seems not, as he kept up a continuous observation of the various movements and shapes of that evil cloud, dictating what he saw.

Ash was falling onto the ships now, darker and denser the closer they went. Now it was bits of pumice, and rocks that were blackened and burned and shattered by the fire. Now the sea is shoal; debris from the mountain blocks the shore. He paused for a moment wondering whether to turn back as the helmsman urged him. "Fortune helps the brave," he said, "Head for Pomponianus."

At Stabiae, on the other side of the bay formed by the gradually curving shore, Pomponianus had loaded up his ships even before the danger arrived, though it was visible and indeed extremely close, once it intensified. He planned to put out as soon as the contrary wind let up. That very wind carried my uncle right in, and he embraced the frightened man and gave him comfort and courage. In order to   lessen the other's fear by showing his own unconcern he asked to be taken to the baths. He bathed and dined, carefree or at least appearing so (which is equally impressive). Meanwhile, broad sheets of flame were lighting up many parts of Vesuvius; their light and brightness were the more vivid for the darkness of the night. To alleviate people's fears my uncle claimed that the flames came from the deserted homes of farmers who had left in a panic with the hearth fires still alight.

Then he rested, and gave every indication of actually sleeping; people who passed by his door heard his snores, which were rather resonant since he was a heavy man. The ground outside his room rose so high with the mixture of ash and stones that if he had spent any more time there escape would have been impossible. He got up and came out, restoring himself to Pomponianus and the others who had been unable to sleep. They discussed what to do, whether to remain under cover or to try the open air. The buildings were being rocked by a series of strong tremors, and appeared to have come loose from their foundations and to be sliding this way and that. Outside, however, there was danger from the rocks that were coming down, light and fire-consumed as these bits of pumice were. Weighing the relative dangers they chose the outdoors; in my uncle's case it was a rational decision, others just chose the alternative that frightened them the least.

They tied pillows on top of their heads as protection against the shower of rock. It was daylight now elsewhere in the world, but there the darkness was darker and thicker than any night. But they had torches and other lights. They decided to go down to the shore, to see from close up if anything was possible by sea. But it remained as rough and uncooperative as before. Resting in the shade of a sail he drank once or twice from the cold water he had asked for. Then came a smell of sulfur, announcing the flames, and the flames themselves, sending others into flight but reviving him. Supported by two small slaves he stood up, and immediately collapsed. As I understand it, his breathing was obstructed by the dust-laden air, and his innards, which were never strong and often blocked or upset, simply shut down. When daylight came again 2 days after he died, his body was found untouched, unharmed, in the clothing that he  had had on. He looked more asleep than dead.

Meanwhile at Misenum, my mother and I -- but this has nothing to do with history, and you only asked for information about his death. I'll stop here then. But I will say one more thing, namely, that I have written out everything that I did at the time and heard while memories were still fresh. You will use the important bits, for it is one thing to write a letter, another to write history, one thing to write to a friend, another to write for the public.

Farewell. 

More Kauffman tomorrow.

Angelica Kauffman, Self Portrait, 1787

I was recently taken to task by New York arts advocate Clarissa Crabtree for the lack of women artists covered in The Jade Sphinx.  The simple – and lamentable – fact is that women, by and large, were not accorded opportunities to pursue artistic careers until the Modern Age.  There were exceptions, of course, and among them was Swiss-Austrian Neoclassical painter Angelica Kauffman.

Kauffman (1741 – 1807) was born in Switzerland, but grew up in Austria where her family originated; her father, Joseph Johann Kauffman, was a painter.  He taught her the fundamentals of drawing and painting, while her mother taught young Angelica several languages.  She also was a skilled musician, and the young woman was torn between which art was to be her master. 

However, her precocity in painting was immense, and Angelica was selling work and professionally painting portraits while still an adolescent.  When only 13 years old, Angelica went with her father to Milan, Rome, Bologna and Venice where, like the young Mozart and his music, she was displayed as a prodigy with the brush.  She spoke French, English and Italian (as well as German) and this facility with language allowed her to make a lucrative living painting portraits of visitors to Rome. 

She was introduced to Lady Wentworth, an English aristocrat, while in Venice, and returned with her to the UK.  There she painted the portrait of celebrated actor David Garrick (1771-1779) and became something of a society painter.  She also befriended painter Sir Joshua Reynolds (1723-1792), and worked with him to create the Royal Academy.  She was only one of two women (the other being Mary Moser, 1744-1819) to have R. A. after her name – however, her friendship with Reynolds and membership in the RA was not without dissent.  Painter Nathaniel Hone included a nude caricature of Kauffman in his satirical 1775 painting The Conjurer – but later painted it out.  The picture was not accepted by the Academy.

Kauffman was an annual exhibitor with the Royal Academy from 1769 until 1782, and in 1773 she was appointed by the Academy with others to decorate St Paul's Cathedral.  The work would never be completed. 

Upon the death of Kauffman’s first husband (they were separated – almost as much of a scandal as a lady painter!), she married Antonio Zucchi (1728–1795), a Venetian artist then living in the UK.  She became part of the social and artistic scene of Venice, and continued to contribute to the Royal Academy until 1797.  When she died in Rome in 1807, the entire Academy of St Luke followed her body to her tomb in Sant'Andrea delle Fratte, carrying two of her best pictures in the parade.

Today we look at Kauffman’s self-portrait from 1787.  It is a stunning work.  Kauffman does not paint herself as a society lady or a great beauty (though she is quite lovely), but, rather, as a working artist, complete with portfolio and drawing implement.  Her identification with her craft is clear.
 

Notice the exquisite handling of the images on the highly-cinched belt, which includes classical figures and clearly indicates her Italian sympathies.  Moreover, the landscape over her shoulder is clearly that of Italy, rather than England, Switzerland or Austria. 

She uses a great deal of transparent white to create the gauzy quality of her gown, and she depicts her oddly masculine hands with a deft touch.  Her hair is plaited atop her head and adorned with a simple ribbon.

One of the more interesting questions is – how did she do this picture?  In most self-portraits, the artist is looking at the viewer, mainly because the artist was – at the time – looking at a mirror.  But here, Kauffman has turned to the side – a remarkable act of virtuosity.

More Kauffman tomorrow.

The Lone Ranger’s Code of the West

We had so much fun writing about the new Lone Ranger film last week that I thought I would call to your attention a little-known gem of a book, The Lone Ranger’s Cold of the West by Jim Lichtman.  It is still available on Alibris and Abebooks, and comes recommended.

Billed as An action-packed adventure in values and ethics with the legendary champion of justice, Lichtman actually creates a guide to living-a-good-life as if imagined by the Lone Ranger.

The major conceit of the book is that Lichtman, an ethics specialist who created a training series to enhance individual responsibility, communication, and team performance, meets the Lone Ranger and Tonto while considering what it means to live as a good person.  Each chapter narrates a story from the Ranger’s fabled past, and each has a moral lesson that results in what Lichtman calls The Lone Ranger’s Code of the West.

To his credit, throughout the book Lichtman finds the Ranger and Tonto to be a bit of a drag – their relentless do-goodism and interferences on behalf of justice are sometimes overreaching or sanctimonious.  But despite the verbal sparring between the author and the Ranger and Tonto, Lichman comes to realize that the Lone Ranger was striving to live larger than all of us, to be both an ideal and an inspiration.  And though no one could really live up to the impossibly high bar of moral behavior the Ranger erects, it is certainly something to work towards.

In short, the Code says that the Lone Ranger is Honest, Fair, Caring, Respectful, Loyal, Tolerant, does his Duty and is Morally Courageous.  But, even more interesting, Lichtman plays the game of What Would the Lone Ranger Do – a tool for character-based decision making.  (And much more interesting than WWJD…)

What Would the Lone Ranger do rests on three principals:

First, the Lone Ranger considers the interests and well-being of all likely to be affected by his decisions.

Second, he makes decisions characterized by the core ethical values of honesty, fairness, caring, respect, loyalty, tolerance, duty and the moral courage to do what needs to be done. 

And finally, if it is clearly necessary to choose one ethical value over another, the Lone Ranger will do the thing that he sincerely believes to be the best for society in the long run.

Lichtman also hosted an extremely long-lasting seminar, “Values, Ethics and the Lone Ranger,” which further fleshed out what he considered the Ranger’s teachings.

Lichtman playing Plato to the Lone Ranger’s Socrates is a very amusing conceit, and he manages to bring the whole thing off with considerable style.  The Lone Ranger’s Code of the West can be found at many used book-sellers for as little as $5, and is well worth the investment.

And some day, you might find yourself asking, “what would the Lone Ranger do?”

Magic, A Fantastic Comedy, by G.K. Chesterton

This … philosophical comedy comes to us from 1913, and is an example of Chesterton at his mystical, questioning best.  The setting and set-up are simple: Patricia Carleon, daughter of a duke and a girl given to nature and fancies, meets a man who tells her that he is a fairy.  When it is revealed that he is really a conjurer there for a village entertainment, she is heartbroken.

However … is he really “just” a conjurer?  This becomes the subject of much debate between a clergyman, the Rev. Cyril Smith, the village doctor, Grimthorpe, and Patricia’s recently-arrived-from America brother, Morris.  The action takes place in the Duke’s drawing room, complete with French windows with a view out into the lawn and neighboring homes.

As practical, scientific Morris “exposes” the sham tricks of the conjurer, more and more inexplicable things occur which could only be the result of magic;  Morris has a fit and needs medical attention.  The following exchange occurs between Rev. Smith and Dr. Grimthorpe:

Doctor. I have got him into bed in the next room. His sister is looking after him.

Smith. His sister! Oh, then do you believe in fairies?

Doctor. Believe in fairies? What do you mean?

Smith. At least you put the person who does believe in them in charge of the person who doesn't.

Doctor. Well, I suppose I do.

Smith. You don't think she'll keep him awake all night with fairy tales?

Doctor. Certainly not.

Smith. You don't think she'll throw the medicine-bottle out of window and administer—er—a dewdrop, or anything of that sort? Or a four-leaved clover, say?

Doctor. No; of course not.

Smith. I only ask because you scientific men are a little hard on us clergymen. You don't believe in a priesthood; but you'll admit I'm more really a priest than this Conjurer is really a magician. You've been talking a lot about the Bible and the Higher Criticism. But even by the Higher Criticism the Bible is older than the language of the elves—which was, as far as I can make out, invented this afternoon. But Miss Carleon believed in the wizard. Miss Carleon believed in the language of the elves. And you put her in charge of an invalid without a flicker of doubt: because you trust women.

Doctor. [Very seriously.] Yes, I trust women.

Smith. You trust a woman with the practical issues of life and death, through sleepless hours when a shaking hand or an extra grain would kill.

Doctor. Yes.

Smith. But if the woman gets up to go to early service at my church, you call her weak-minded and say that nobody but women can believe in religion.

Doctor. I should never call this woman weak-minded—no, by God, not even if she went to church.

Smith. Yet there are many as strong-minded who believe passionately in going to church.

Doctor. Weren't there as many who believed passionately in Apollo?

Smith. And what harm came of believing in Apollo? And what a mass of harm may have come of not believing in Apollo? Does it never strike you that doubt can be a madness, as well be faith? That asking questions may be a disease, as well as proclaiming doctrines? You talk of religious mania! Is there no such thing as irreligious mania? Is there no such thing in the house at this moment?

Doctor. Then you think no one should question at all.

Smith. [With passion, pointing to the next room.] I think that is what comes of questioning! Why can't you leave the universe alone and let it mean what it likes? Why shouldn't the thunder be Jupiter? More men have made themselves silly by wondering what the devil it was if it wasn't Jupiter.

Doctor. [Looking at him.] Do you believe in your own religion?

Smith. [Returning the look equally steadily.] Suppose I don't: I should still be a fool to question it. The child who doubts about Santa Claus has insomnia. The child who believes has a good night's rest.

Doctor. You are a Pragmatist.

So, of course, we are now in familiar Chestertonian territory: the question of “reason” vs. “belief.”  Like Dickens before him (and GKC idolized Dickens), Chesterton saw magic in the everyday.  An almost pagan animism is rampant in the works of Dickens, and while Chesterton sees the mystery inherent in all the natural and man-made world around us, he, unlike Dickens, tends to put a more Christian spin on the great mystery.  However, Chesterton also believed that Christianity was merely one prism through which one could perceive the magic of the ordinary.

The era just before (and immediately after) the Great War was also the Golden Age of Fairies in England.  The little folk were seen everywhere, or perceived to be seen everywhere, and this is not surprising.  That period was perhaps the most dramatic break between the Old and New Worlds – more so than the Industrial Revolution.  Life had become increasingly more urban, methods of killing more efficient, and lore and legend that had survived for generations was becoming lost.  People felt ungrounded, as if the world that they had known for so long no longer existed, and was replaced with something foreign and profoundly unhealthy.  The cult of nature – and of natural gods, such as fairies, elves, Pan and assorted wee-folk – had its powerful last hurrah before being wiped away forever by progress.

Chesterton was, by nature and temperament, a man who would applaud the return of fairies into everyday life, and one who could resist what might be an eternal question: do things become real simply through the power of our believing in them?

All Things Considered, by G. K. Chesterton

Not many people today remember Gilbert Keith Chesterton, (1874 – 1936) outside of his delightful Father Brown detective stories.  This is a shame, because Chesterton was also one of the outstanding critics and thinkers of his age.  It has been argued that we are all born with a natural sense of wonder, but that by age 13 or so it is beaten, combed and prayed out of us.  Chesterton never lost that childlike innocence and clarity, and mixed that sensibility with a gargantuan intellect.  To read Chesterton on Dickens or Shakespeare, for example, is to see these writers anew, as if some profound truth were staring us in the face and it took a little boy to point it out.

Gargantuan was perhaps the perfect word for Chesterton in other respects.  He was simply enormous, both tall and hideously corpulent.  He wore a broad-brimmed slouch hat and cape, and often carried a sword cane.  Of such figures legends are made, and Chesterton, the man himself, influenced writers who converted the easily recognizable figure into a string of fictional characters.  (Most notably amateur detective Dr. Gideon Fell, created by author John Dickson Carr.)

Chesterton’s political thinking was fairly close to that of your correspondent, writing that the whole modern world has divided itself into Conservatives and Progressives. The business of Progressives is to go on making mistakes. The business of the Conservatives is to prevent the mistakes from being corrected.  Hauntingly prescient to 2013 America.  I have been reading a great deal of Chesterton latterly and have found him a balm for a somewhat bruised soul. 

Chesterton was also a journalist, and writing for the London Daily News.  His 1915 book All Things Considered features more than 30 columns on a variety of different subjects.  Leaving few stones unturned, Chesterton writes about daily annoyances, on literature, on missing trains, on Modernism … Chesterton wrote over 4,000 newspaper columns, and this is, understandably, the smallest sampling.  Anyone interested in learning more about this fascinating man should look at his newspaper columns while also reading his many novels and books of sustained criticism.

In the introduction, Chesterton writes This is a collection of crude and shapeless papers upon current subjects for it is mostly concerned with attacking attitudes which are in their nature accidental and incapable of enduring. Brief as is the career of such a book as this, it may last twenty minutes longer than most of the philosophies that it attacks.  So, yes, many of the bugaboos and cultural concerns are outdated, but the refreshing take on reality and the authorial voice remain magnificent.

Here are some quotes:

But I never succeeded in saying the quite clear and obvious thing that is rally the matter with modernism.  The real objection to modernism is simply that it is a form of snobbishness.  It is an attempt to crush a rational opponent not by reason, but by some mystery of superiority, by hinting that one is specially up to date or particularly “in the know.”  To flaunt the fact that we have had the last books from Germany is simply vulgar; like flaunting the fact that we have had all the last bonnets from Paris.  To introduce into philosophical discussion a sneer at a creed’s antiquity is like introducing a sneer at a lady’s age.  It is caddish because it is irrelevant.  The pure modernist is merely a snob; he cannot stand to be one month behind fashion.

Here’s something quite terrific: They are books showing men how to succeed in everything; they are written by men who cannot even succeed in writing books.

On reformers: It is a fact that optimists are more practical reformers than pessimists. Superficially, one would imagine that the railer would be a reformer; that the man who thought everything was wrong would be the man to put everything right. In historical practice the thing is quite the other way; curiously enough, it is the man who likes things as they are who really makes them better… It is because the optimist can look at wrong not only with indignation, but with startled indignation… The pessimist can be enraged at wrong, but only the optimist can be startled [enough to want to change it].

On Shakespeare: Nobody could say that a statue of Shakespeare, even fifty feet high, on top of St. Paul’s Cathedral, could define Shakespeare’s position. It only defines our position towards Shakespeare. It is he who is fixed. It is we who are unstable.

Like much of Chesterton’s criticism, this book is available for free on www.manybooks.net.  It is an invaluable site for bibliophiles.