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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/12628-0.txt b/12628-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..9aa177c --- /dev/null +++ b/12628-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,12008 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 12628 *** + +[Transcriber's notes: + +Bold text is denoted with ~. + +Footnotes: +In the original, footnote numbering restarted on each page, and they +were collated at the end of the text in page number order. In this +e-text, footnotes have been renumbered consecutively through the text. +However, they are still to be found in their original position after the +text, and the original page numbers have been retained in the +footnotes. + +There is one footnote in the Preface, which is to be found in its +original position at the end of the Preface.] + + * * * * * + + + +Riverside College Classics + +SELECTIONS + +FROM THE PROSE WORKS OF + +MATTHEW ARNOLD + +_EDITED WITH INTRODUCTION AND NOTES_ + +BY + +WILLIAM SAVAGE JOHNSON, PH.D. + +_Professor of English Literature in the University of Kansas_ + +HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY + +BOSTON NEW YORK CHICAGO SAN FRANCISCO + +The Riverside Press Cambridge + + + +_The essays included in this issue of the Riverside College Classics are +reprinted by permission of, and by arrangement with, The Macmillan +Company, the American publishers of Arnold's writings._ + +1913, HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY + +ALL RIGHTS RESERVED + +The Riverside Press +CAMBRIDGE MASSACHUSETTS +PRINTED IN THE U.S.A. + + + + +PREFACE + +This book of selections aims to furnish examples of Arnold's prose in +all the fields in which it characteristically employed itself except +that of religion. It has seemed better to omit all such material than to +attempt inclusion of a few extracts which could hardly give any adequate +notion of Arnold's work in this department. Something, however, of his +method in religious criticism can be discerned by a perusal of the +chapter on _Hebraism and Hellenism_, selected from _Culture and +Anarchy_. Most of Arnold's leading ideas are represented in this volume, +but the decision to use entire essays so far as feasible has naturally +precluded the possibility of gathering all the important utterances +together. The basis of division and grouping of the selections is made +sufficiently obvious by the headings. In the division of literary +criticism the endeavor has been to illustrate Arnold's cosmopolitanism +by essays of first-rate importance dealing with the four literatures +with which he was well acquainted. In the notes, conciseness with a +reasonable degree of thoroughness has been the principle followed. + + + + +CONTENTS + + +INTRODUCTION + +BIBLIOGRAPHY + +SELECTIONS: + +I. THEORIES OF LITERATURE AND CRITICISM: + + 1. Poetry and the Classics (1853) + 2. The Function of Criticism at the Present Time (1864) + 3. The Study of Poetry (1880) + 4. Literature and Science (1882) + +II. LITERARY CRITICISM: + + 1. Heinrich Heine (1863) + 2. Marcus Aurelius (1863) + 3. The Contribution of the Celts to English Literature (1866) + 4. George Sand (1877) + 5. Wordsworth (1879) + +III. SOCIAL AND POLITICAL STUDIES: + + 1. Sweetness and Light (1867) + 2. Hebraism and Hellenism (1867) + 3. Equality (1878) + +NOTES + + + + + +INTRODUCTION + + +I + +[Sidenote: Life and Personality] + +"The gray hairs on my head are becoming more and more numerous, and I +sometimes grow impatient of getting old amidst a press of occupations +and labor for which, after all, I was not born. But we are not here to +have facilities found us for doing the work we like, but to make them." +This sentence, written in a letter to his mother in his fortieth year, +admirably expresses Arnold's courage, cheerfulness, and devotion in the +midst of an exacting round of commonplace duties, and at the same time +the energy and determination with which he responded to the imperative +need of liberating work of a higher order, that he might keep himself, +as he says in another letter, "from feeling starved and shrunk up." The +two feelings directed the course of his life to the end, a life +characterized no less by allegiance to "the lowliest duties" than by +brilliant success in a more attractive field. + +Matthew Arnold was born at Laleham, December 24, 1822, the eldest son of +Thomas Arnold, the great head master of Rugby. He was educated at +Laleham, Winchester, Rugby, and Balliol College, Oxford. In 1845 he was +elected a fellow of Oriel, but Arnold desired to be a man of the world, +and the security of college cloisters and garden walls could not long +attract him. Of a deep affection for Oxford his letters and his books +speak unmistakably, but little record of his Oxford life remains aside +from the well-known lines of Principal Shairp, in which he is spoken of +as + + So full of power, yet blithe and debonair, + Rallying his friends with pleasant banter gay. + +From Oxford he returned to teach classics at Rugby, and +in 1847 he was appointed private secretary to Lord Lansdowne, then Lord +President of the Council. In 1851, the year of his marriage, he became +inspector of schools, and in this service he continued until two years +before his death. As an inspector, the letters give us a picture of +Arnold toiling over examination papers, and hurrying from place to +place, covering great distances, often going without lunch or dinner, or +seeking the doubtful solace of a bun, eaten "before the astonished +school." His services to the cause of English education were great, both +in the direction of personal inspiration to teachers and students, and +in thoughtful discussion of national problems. Much time was spent in +investigating foreign systems, and his _Report upon Schools and +Universities on the Continent_ was enlightened and suggestive. + +Arnold's first volume of poems appeared in 1849, and by 1853 the larger +part of his poetry was published. Four years later he was appointed +Professor of Poetry at Oxford. Of his prose, the first book to attract +wide notice was that containing the lectures _On Translating Homer_ +delivered from the chair of Poetry and published in 1861-62. From this +time until the year of his death appeared the remarkable series of +critical writings which have placed him in the front rank of the men of +letters of his century. He continued faithfully to fulfill his duties as +school inspector until April, 1886, when he resigned after a service of +thirty-five years. He died of heart trouble on April 15, 1888, at +Liverpool. + +The testimony to Arnold's personal charm, to his cheerfulness, his +urbanity, his tolerance and charity, is remarkably uniform. He is +described by one who knew him as "the most sociable, the most lovable, +the most companionable of men"; by another as "preëminently a good man, +gentle, generous, enduring, laborious." His letters are among the +precious writings of our time, not because of the beauty or +inimitableness of detail, but because of the completed picture which +they make. They do not, like the Carlyle-Emerson correspondence, show a +hand that could not set pen to paper without writing picturesquely, but +they do reveal a character of great soundness and sweetness, and one in +which the affections play a surprisingly important part, the love of +flowers and books, of family and friends, and of his fellow men. His +life was human, kindly and unselfish, and he allowed no clash between +the pursuit of personal perfection and devotion to the public cause, +even when the latter demanded sacrifice of the most cherished projects +and adherence to the most irritating drudgery. + + +II + +[Sidenote: Arnold's Place among Nineteenth-Century Teachers] + +By those who go to literature primarily for a practical wisdom presented +in terms applicable to modern life, the work of Arnold will be reckoned +highly important, if not indispensable. He will be placed by them among +the great humanizers of the last century, and by comparison with his +contemporaries will be seen to have furnished a complementary +contribution of the highest value. Of the other great teachers whose +work may most fitly be compared with his, two were preëminently men of +feeling. Carlyle was governed by an overmastering moral fervor which +gave great weight to his utterances, but which exercised itself in a +narrow field and which often distorted and misinterpreted the facts. +Ruskin was governed by his affections, and though an ardent lover of +truth and beauty, was often the victim of caprice and extravagance. +Emerson and Arnold, on the other hand, were governed primarily by the +intellect, but with quite different results. Emerson presents life in +its ideality; he comparatively neglects life in its phenomenal aspect, +that is, as it appears to the ordinary man. Arnold, while not without +emotional equipment, and inspired by idealism of a high order, +introduces a yet larger element of practical season. _Tendens manus ripæ +ulterioris amore_, he is yet first of all a man of this world. His chief +instrument is common sense, and he looks at questions from the point of +view of the highly intelligent and cultivated man. His dislike of +metaphysics was as deep as Ruskin's, and he was impatient of +abstractions of any sort. With as great a desire to further the true +progress of his time as Carlyle or Ruskin, he joined a greater calmness +and disinterestedness. "To be less and less personal in one's desires +and workings" he learned to look upon as after all the great matter. Of +the lessons that are impressed upon us by his whole life and work rather +than by specific teachings, perhaps the most precious is the inspiration +to live our lives thoughtfully, in no haphazard and hand-to-mouth way, +and to live always for the idea and the spirit, making all things else +subservient. He does not dazzle us with extraordinary power prodigally +spent, but he was a good steward of natural gifts, high, though below +the highest. His life of forethought and reason may be profitably +compared with a life spoiled by passion and animalism like that of Byron +or of Burns. His counsels are the fruit of this well-ordered life and +are perfectly in consonance with it. While he was a man of less striking +personality and less brilliant literary gift than some of his +contemporaries, and though his appeal was without the moving power that +comes from great emotion, we find a compensation in his greater balance +and sanity. He makes singularly few mistakes, and these chiefly of +detail. Of all the teachings of the age his ideal of perfection is the +wisest and the most permanent. + + +III + +[Sidenote: His Teachers and his Personal Philosophy] + +Arnold's poetry is the poetry of meditation and not the poetry of +passion; it comes from "the depth and not the tumult of the soul"; it +does not make us more joyful, but it helps us to greater depth of +vision, greater detachment, greater power of self-possession. Our +concern here is chiefly with its relation to the prose, and this, too, +is a definite and important relation. In his prose Arnold gives such +result of his observation and meditation as he believes may be gathered +into the form of counsel, criticism, and warning to his age. In his +poetry, which preceded the prose, we find rather the processes through +which he reached these conclusions; we learn what is the nature of his +communing upon life, not as it affects society, but as it fronts the +individual; we learn who are the great thinkers of the past who came to +his help in the straits of life, and what is the armor which they +furnished for his soul in its times of stress. + +One result of a perusal of the poems is to counteract the impression +often produced by the jaunty air assumed in the prose. The real +substance of Arnold's thought is characterized by a deep seriousness; no +one felt more deeply the spiritual unrest and distraction of his age. +More than one poem is an expression of its mental and spiritual +sickness, its doubt, ennui, and melancholy. Yet beside such poems as +_Dover Beach_ and _Stagirius_ should be placed the lines from +_Westminster Abbey_:-- + + For this and that way swings + The flux of mortal things, + Though moving inly to one far-set goal. + +Out of this entanglement and distraction Arnold turned for help to those +writers who seemed most perfectly to have seized upon the eternal +verities, to have escaped out of the storm of conflict and to have +gained calm and peaceful seats. Carlyle and Ruskin, Byron and Shelley, +were stained with the blood of battle, they raged in the heat of +controversy; Arnold could not accept them as his teachers. But the Greek +poets and the ancient Stoic philosophers have nothing of this dust and +heat about them, and to them Arnold turns to gather truth and to imitate +their spirit. Similarly, two poets of modern times, Goethe and +Wordsworth, have won tranquillity. They, too, become his teachers. +Arnold's chief guides for life are, then, these: two Greek poets, +Sophocles and Homer; two ancient philosophers, Marcus Aurelius and +Epictetus; two modern poets, Goethe and Wordsworth. + +In Homer and Sophocles, Arnold sought what we may call the Greek spirit. +What he conceived this spirit to be as expressed in art, we find in the +essay on _Literature and Science_, "fit details strictly combined, in +view of a large general result nobly conceived." In Sophocles, Arnold +found the same spirit interpreting life with a vision that "saw life +steadily and saw it whole." In another Greek idea, that of fate, he is +also greatly interested, though his conception of it is modified by the +influence of Christianity. From the Greek poets, then, Arnold derived a +sense of the large part which destiny plays in our lives and the wisdom +of conforming our lives to necessity; the importance of conceiving of +life as directed toward a simple, large, and noble end; and the +desirability of maintaining a balance among the demands that life makes +on us, of adapting fit details to the main purpose of life. + +Among modern writers Arnold turned first to Goethe, "Europe's sagest +head, Physician of the Iron Age." One of the things that he learned from +this source was the value of detachment. In the midst of the turmoil of +life, Goethe found refuge in Art. He is the great modern example of a +man who has been able to separate himself from the struggle of life and +watch it calmly. + + He who hath watch'd, not shared the strife, + Knows how the day hath gone. + +Aloofness, provided it be not selfish, has its own value, and, indeed, +isolation must be recognized as a law of our existence. + + Thin, thin the pleasant human noises grow, + And faint the city gleams; + Rare the lone pastoral huts--Marvel not thou! + The solemn peaks but to the stars are known, + But to the stars and the cold lunar beams; + Alone the sun rises, and alone + Spring the great streams. + +From Goethe, also, Arnold derived the gospel of culture and faith in the +intellectual life. It is significant that while Carlyle and Arnold may +both be looked upon as disciples of Goethe, Carlyle's most +characteristic quotation from his master is his injunction to us to "do +the task that lies nearest us," while Arnold's is such a maxim as, "To +act is easy, to think is hard." + +In some ways Wordsworth was for Arnold a personality even more congenial +than Goethe. His range, to be sure, is narrow, but he, too, has attained +spiritual peace. His life, secure among its English hills and lakes, was +untroubled in its faith. Wordsworth strongly reinforces three things in +Arnold, the ability to derive from nature its "healing power" and to +share and be glad in "the wonder and bloom of the world"; truth to the +deeper spiritual life and strength to keep his soul + + Fresh, undiverted to the world without, + Firm to the mark, not spent on other things; + +and finally, a satisfaction in the cheerful and serene performance of +duty, the spirit of "toil unsevered from tranquillity," sharing in the +world's work, yet keeping "free from dust and soil." + +From the Emperor Marcus Aurelius and from the slave Epictetus alike, +Arnold learned to look within for "the aids to noble life." Overshadowed +on all sides by the "uno'erleaped mountains of necessity," we must learn +to resign our passionate hopes "for quiet and a fearless mind," to merge +the self in obedience to universal law, and to keep ever before our +minds + + The pure eternal course of life, + Not human combatings with death. + +No conviction is more frequently reiterated in Arnold's poetry than that +of the wisdom of resignation and self-dependence. + +These great masters, then, strengthened Arnold in those high instincts +which needed nourishment in a day of spiritual unrest. From the Greek +poets he learned to look at life steadily and as a whole, to direct it +toward simple and noble ends, and to preserve in it a balance and +perfection of parts. From Goethe he derived the lessons of detachment +and self-culture. From Wordsworth he learned to find peace in nature, to +pursue an unworldly purpose, and to be content with humble duties. From +the Stoics he learned, especially, self-dependence and resignation. In +general, he endeavored to follow an ideal of perfection and to +distinguish always between temporary demands and eternal values. + + +IV + +[Sidenote: Theory of Criticism and Equipment as a Critic] + +In passing from poetry to criticism, Arnold did not feel that he was +descending to a lower level. Rather he felt that he was helping to lift +criticism to a position of equality with more properly creative work. +The most noticeable thing about his definition of criticism is its lofty +ambition. It is "the disinterested endeavor to learn and propagate the +best that is known and thought in the world," and its more ultimate +purpose is "to keep man from a self-satisfaction which is retarding and +vulgarizing, to lead him towards perfection." It is not to be confined +to art and literature, but is to include within its scope society, +politics, and religion. It is not only to censure that which is +blameworthy, but to appreciate and popularize the best. + +For this work great virtues are demanded of the critic. Foremost of +these is disinterestedness. "If I know your sect, I anticipate your +argument," says Emerson in the essay on _Self-Reliance_. Similarly +Arnold warns the critic against partisanship. It is better that he +refrain from active participation in politics, social or humanitarian +work. Connected with this is another requisite, that of clearness of +vision. One of the great disadvantages of partisanship is that it blinds +the partisan. But the critical effort is described as "the effort to see +the object as in itself it really is." This is best accomplished by +approaching truth in as many ways and from as many sides as possible. + +Another precaution for the critic who would retain clearness of vision +is the avoidance of abstract systems, which petrify and hinder the +necessary flexibility of mind. Coolness of temper is also enjoined and +scrupulously practiced. "It is only by remaining collected ... that the +critic can do the practical man any service"; and again: "Even in one's +ridicule one must preserve a sweetness and good humor" (letter to his +mother, October 27, 1863). In addition to these virtues, which in +Arnold's opinion comprised the qualities most requisite for salutary +criticism, certain others are strikingly illustrated by Arnold's own +mind and methods: the endeavor to understand, to sympathize with, and to +guide intelligently the main tendencies of his age, rather than +violently to oppose them; at the same time the courage to present +unpleasant antidotes to its faults and to keep from fostering a people +in its own conceit; and finally, amidst many discouragements, the +retention of a high faith in spiritual progress and an unwavering belief +that the ideal life is "the normal life as we shall one day see it." + +Criticism, to be effective, requires also an adequate style. In Arnold's +discussion of style, much stress is laid on its basis in character, and +much upon the transparent quality of true style which allows that basic +character to shine through. Such words as "limpidness," "simplicity," +"lucidity," are favorites. Clearness and effectiveness are the qualities +that he most highly valued. The latter he gained especially through the +crystallization of his thought into certain telling phrases, such as +"Philistinism," "sweetness and light," "the grand style," etc. That this +habit was attended with dangers, that his readers were likely to get +hold of his phrases and think that they had thereby mastered his +thought, he realized. Perhaps he hardly realized the danger to the +coiner of apothegms himself, that of being content with a half truth +when the whole truth cannot be conveniently crowded into narrow compass. +Herein lies, I think, the chief source of Arnold's occasional failure to +quite satisfy our sense of adequacy or of justice, as, for instance, in +his celebrated handling of the four ways of regarding nature, or the +passage in which he describes the sterner self of the working-class as +liking "bawling, hustling, and smashing; the lighter self, beer." + +By emotionalism, however, he does not allow himself to be betrayed, and +he does not indulge in rhythmical prose or rhapsody, though occasionally +his writing has a truly poetical quality resulting from the quiet but +deep feeling which rises in connection with a subject on which the mind +has long brooded with affection, as in the tribute to Oxford at the +beginning of the _Essay on Emerson_. Sometimes, on the other hand, a +certain pedagogic stiffness appears, as if the writer feared that the +dullness of comprehension of his readers would not allow them to grasp +even the simplest conceptions without a patient insistence on the +literal fact. + +One can by no means pass over Arnold's humor in a discussion of his +style, yet humor is certainly a secondary matter with him, in spite of +the frequency of its appearance. It is not much found in his more +intimate and personal writing, his poetry and his familiar letters. In +such a book as _Friendship's Garland_, where it is most in evidence, it +is plainly a literary weapon deliberately assumed. In fact, Arnold is +almost too conscious of the value of humor in the gentle warfare in +which he had enlisted. Its most frequent form is that of playful satire; +it is the product of keen wit and sane mind, and it is always directed +toward some serious purpose, rarely, if ever, existing as an end in +itself. + + +V + +[Sidenote: Literary Criticism] + +The first volume of _Essays in Criticism_ was published in 1865. That a +book of essays on literary subjects, apparently so diverse in character, +so lacking in outer unity, and so little subject to system of any sort, +should take so definite a place in the history of criticism and make so +single an impression upon the reader proves its possession of a dominant +and important idea, impelled by a new and weighty power of personality. +What Arnold called his "sinuous, easy, unpolemical mode of proceeding" +tends to disguise the seriousness and unity of purpose which lie behind +nearly all of these essays, but an uninterrupted perusal of the two +volumes of _Essays in Criticism_ and the volume of _Mixed Essays_ +discloses what that purpose is. The essays may roughly be divided into +two classes, those which deal with single writers and those discussing +subjects of more general nature. The purpose of both is what Arnold +himself has called "the humanization of man in society." In the former +he selects some person exemplifying a trait, in the latter he selects +some general idea, which he deems of importance for our further +humanization, and in easy, unsystematic fashion unfolds and illustrates +it for us. But in spite of this unlabored method he takes care somewhere +in the essay to seize upon a phrase that shall bring home to us the +essence of his theme and to make it salient enough so as not to escape +us. How much space shall be devoted to exposition, and how much to +illustration, depends largely on the familiarity of his subject to his +readers. Besides the general purpose of humanization, two other +considerations guide him: the racial shortcomings of the English people +and the needs of his age. The English are less in need of energizing and +moralizing than of intellectualizing, refining, and inspiring with the +passion for perfection. This need accordingly determines the choice in +most cases. So Milton presents an example of "sure and flawless +perfection of rhythm and diction"; Joubert is characterized by his +intense care of "perfecting himself"; Falkland is "our martyr of +sweetness and light, of lucidity of mind and largeness of temper"; +George Sand is admirable because of her desire to make the ideal life +the normal one; Emerson is "the friend and aider of those who would live +in the spirit." + +The belief that poetry is our best instrument for humanization +determines Arnold's loyalty to that form of art; that classical art is +superior to modern in clarity, harmony, and wholeness of effect, +determines his preference for classic, especially for Greek poetry. He +thus represents a reaction against the romantic movement, yet has +experienced the emotional deepening which that movement brought with it. +Accordingly, he finds a shallowness in the pseudo-classicism of Pope and +his contemporaries, and turns rather to Sophocles on the one hand and +Goethe on the other for his exemplars. He feels "the peculiar charm and +aroma of the Middle Age," but retains "a strong sense of the +irrationality of that period and of those who take it seriously, and +play at restoring it" (letter to Miss Arnold, December 17, 1860); and +again: "No one has a stronger and more abiding sense than I have of the +'dæmonic' element--as Goethe called it--which underlies and encompasses +our life; but I think, as Goethe thought, that the right thing is while +conscious of this element, and of all that there is inexplicable round +one, to keep pushing on one's posts into the darkness, and to establish +no post that is not perfectly in light and firm" (letter to his mother, +March 3, 1865). + + +VI + +[Sidenote: Criticism of Society, Politics, and Religion] + +Like the work of all clear thinkers, Arnold's writing proceeds from a +few governing and controlling principles. It is natural, therefore, that +we should find in his criticism of society a repetition of the ideas +already encountered in his literary criticism. Of these, the chief is +that of "culture," the theme of his most typical book, _Culture and +Anarchy_, published in 1869. Indeed, it is interesting to see how +closely related his doctrine of culture is to his theory of criticism, +already expounded. True criticism, we have seen, consists in an +"endeavor to learn and propagate the best that is known and thought in +the world." The shortest definition that Arnold gives of culture is "a +study of perfection." But how may one pursue perfection? Evidently by +putting oneself in the way of learning the best that is known and +thought, and by making it a part of oneself. The relation of the critic +to culture thereupon becomes evident. He is the appointed apostle of +culture. He undertakes as his duty in life to seek out and to minister +to others the means of self-improvement, discriminating the evil and the +specious from the good and the genuine, rendering the former +contemptible and the latter attractive. But in a degree all seekers +after culture must be critics also. Both pursue the same objects, the +best that is thought and known. Both, too, must propagate it; for +culture consists in general expansion, and the last degree of personal +perfection is attained only when shared with one's fellows. The critic +and the true man of culture are, therefore, at bottom, the same, though +Arnold does not specifically point this out. But the two ideals united +in himself direct all his endeavor. As a man of culture he is intent +chiefly upon the acquisition of the means of perfection; as a critic, +upon their elucidation and propagation. + +This sufficiently answers the charge of selfishness that in frequently +brought against the gospel of culture. It would never have been brought +if its critics had not perversely shut their eyes to Arnold's express +statements that perfection consists in "a general expansion"; that it +"is not possible while the individual remains isolated"; that one of its +characteristics is "increased sympathy," as well as "increased +sweetness, increased light, increased life." The other common charge of +dilettanteism, brought by such opponents as Professor Huxley and Mr. +Frederic Harrison, deserves hardly more consideration. Arnold has made +it sufficiently clear that he does not mean by culture "a smattering of +Greek and Latin," but a deepening and strengthening of our whole +spiritual nature by all the means at our command. No other ideal of the +century is so satisfactory as this of Arnold's. The ideal of social +democracy, as commonly followed, tends, as Arnold has pointed out, to +exalt the average man, while culture exalts man at his best. The +scientific ideal, divorced from a general cultural aim, appeals "to a +limited faculty and not to the whole man." The religious ideal, too +exclusively cultivated, dwarfs the sense of beauty and is marked by +narrowness. Culture includes religion as its most valuable component, +but goes beyond it. + +The fact that Arnold, in his social as in his literary criticism, laid +the chief stress upon the intellectual rather than the moral elements of +culture, was due to his constant desire to adapt his thought to the +condition of his age and nation. The prevailing characteristics of the +English people he believed to be energy and honesty. These he contrasts +with the chief characteristics of the Athenians, openness of mind and +flexibility of intelligence. As the best type of culture, that is, of +perfected humanity, for the Englishman to emulate, he turns, therefore, +to Greece in the time of Sophocles, Greece, to be sure, failed because +of the lack of that very Hebraism which England possesses and to which +she owes her strength. But if to this strength of moral fiber could be +added the openness of mind, flexibility of intelligence, and love of +beauty which distinguished the Greeks in their best period, a truly +great civilization would result. That this ideal will in the end +prevail, he has little doubt. The strain of sadness, melancholy, and +depression which appears in Arnold's poetry is rigidly excluded from his +prose. Both despondency and violence are forbidden to the believer in +culture. "We go the way the human race is going," he says at the close +of _Culture and Anarchy_. + +Arnold's incursion into the field of religion has been looked upon by +many as a mistake. Religion is with most people a matter of closer +interest and is less discussable than literary criticism. _Literature +and Dogma_, aroused much antagonism on this account. Moreover, it cannot +be denied that Arnold was not well enough equipped in this field to +prevent him from making a good many mistakes. But that the upshot of his +religious teaching is wholesome and edifying can hardly be denied. +Arnold's spirit is a deeply religious one, and his purpose in his +religious books was to save what was valuable in religion by separating +it from what was non-essential. He thought of himself always as a +friend, not as an enemy, of religion. The purpose of all his religious +writings, of which _St. Paul and Protestantism_, 1870, and _Literature +and Dogma_, 1873, are the most important, is the same, to show the +natural truth of religion and to strengthen its position by freeing it +from dependence on dogma and historical evidence, and especially to make +clear the essential value of Christianity. Conformity with reason, true +spirituality, and freedom from materialistic interpretation were for him +the bases of sound faith. That Arnold's religious writing is thoroughly +spiritual in its aim and tendency has, I think, never been questioned, +and we need only examine some of his leading definitions to become +convinced of this. Thus, religion is described as "that which binds and +holds us to the practice of righteousness"; faith is the "power, +preëminently, of holding fast to an unseen power of goodness"; God is +"the power, not ourselves, that makes for righteousness"; immortality is +a union of one's life with an eternal order that never dies. Arnold did +not without reluctance enter into religious controversy, but when once +entered he did his best to make order and reason prevail there. His +attitude is well stated in an early essay not since reprinted:-- + + "And you are masters in Israel, and know not these things; and you + require a voice from the world of literature to tell them to you! + Those who ask nothing better than to remain silent on such topics, who + have to quit their own sphere to speak of them, who cannot touch them + without being reminded that they survive those who touched them with + far different power, you compel, in the mere interest of letters, of + intelligence, of general culture, to proclaim truths which it was your + function to have made familiar. And when you have thus forced the very + stones to cry out, and the dumb to speak, you call them singular + because they know these truths, and arrogant because they declare + them!"[1] + +In political discussion as in all other forms of criticism Arnold aimed +at disinterestedness. "I am a Liberal," he says in the Introduction to +_Culture and Anarchy_, "yet I am a Liberal tempered by experience, +reflection, and self-renouncement." In the last condition he believed +that his particular strength lay. "I do not wish to see men of culture +entrusted with power." In his coolness and freedom from bitterness is to +be found his chief superiority to his more violent contemporaries. This +saved him from magnifying the faults inseparable from the social +movements of his day. In contrast with Carlyle he retains to the end a +sympathy with the advance of democracy and a belief in the principles of +liberty and equality, while not blinded to the weaknesses of Liberalism. +Political discussion in the hands of its express partisans is always +likely to become violent and one-sided. This violence and one-sidedness +Arnold believes it the work of criticism to temper, or as he expresses +it, in _Culture and Anarchy_, "Culture is the eternal opponent of the +two things which are the signal marks of Jacobinism,--its fierceness and +its addiction to an abstract system." + + +VII + +[Sidenote: Conclusion] + +"Un Milton jeune et voyageant" was George Sand's description of the +young Arnold. The eager pursuit of high aims, implied in this +description, he carried from youth into manhood and age. The innocence, +the hopefulness, and the noble curiosity of youth he retained to the +end. But these became tempered with the ripe wisdom of maturity, a +wisdom needed for the helpful interpretation of a perplexing period. His +prose writings are surpassed, in that spontaneous and unaccountable +inspiration which we call genius, by those of certain of his +contemporaries, but when we become exhausted by the perversities of +ill-controlled passion and find ourselves unable to breathe the rarified +air of transcendentalism, we may turn to him for the clarifying and +strengthening effect of calm intelligence and pure spirituality. + +[Footnote 1: From _Dr. Stanley's Lectures on the Jewish Church, +Macmillan's Magazine_, February, 1863, vol. 7, p. 336.] + + + + + +~BIBLIOGRAPHY~ + +ARNOLD'S POEMS. + +1849. _The Strayed Reveller, and other Poems_. 1852. ~Empedocles on +Etna, and other Poems~. 1853. _Poems_. 1855. _Poems_ (Second Series). +1858. _Merope_. 1867. _New Poems_. 1869. _Poems_ (First Collected +Edition). (A few new poems were added in the later collections of 1877, +1881, 1885, and 1890.) + + +ARNOLD'S PROSE. + +1859. _England and the Italian Question_. 1861. _Popular Education in +France_. 1861. _On Translating Homer_. 1862. _Last Words on Translating +Homer_. 1864. _A French Eton_. 1865. _Essays in Criticism_. 1867. _On +the Study of Celtic Literature_. 1868. _Schools and Universities on the +Continent_. 1869. _Culture and Anarchy_. 1870. _St. Paul and +Protestantism_. 1871. _Friendship's Garland_. 1873. _Literature and +Dogma_. 1875. _God and the Bible_. 1877. _Last Essays on Church and +Religion_. 1879. _Mixed Essays_. 1882. _Irish Essays_. 1885. _Discourses +in America_. 1888. _Essays in Criticism_ (Second Series). 1888. +_Civilization in the United States_. 1891. _On Home Rule for Ireland_. +1910. _Essays in Criticism_ (Third Series). + +For a complete bibliography of Arnold's writings and of Arnold +criticism, see _Bibliography of Matthew Arnold_, by T.B. Smart, London, +1892. The letters of Matthew Arnold, 1848-88, were edited by G.W.E. +Russell in 1896. + + +CRITICISM OF ARNOLD'S PROSE. + +BIRRELL, AUGUSTINE: _Res Judicatæ_, London, 1892. + +BROWNELL, W.C.: _Victorian Prose Masters_, New York, 1902. + +BURROUGHS, JOHN: _Indoor Studies_, Boston, 1889. + +DAWSON, W.H.: _Matthew Arnold and his Relation to the Thought of our +Time_, New York, 1904. + +FITCH, SIR JOSHUA: _Thomas and Matthew Arnold and their Influence on +English Education_, New York, 1897. + +GATES, L.E.: _Selections from the Prose Writings of Matthew Arnold_, New +York, 1898. + +HARRISON, FREDERIC: _Culture; A Dialogue_. In _The Choice of Books_, +London, 1886. + +HUTTON, R.H.: _Modern Guides of English Thought in Matters of Faith_, +London, 1887. + +JACOBS, JOSEPH: _Literary Studies_, London, 1895. + +PAUL, HERBERT W.: _Matthew Arnold_. In _English Men of Letters Series_, +London and New York, 1902. + +ROBERTSON, JOHN M.: _Modern Humanists_, London, 1891. + +RUSSELL, G.W.E.: _Matthew Arnold_, New York, 1904. + +SAINTSBURY, GEORGE: _Corrected Impressions_, London, 1895. _Matthew +Arnold_. In _Modern English Writers Series_, London, 1899. + +SHAIRP, J.C.: _Culture and Religion_, Edinburgh, 1870. + +SPEDDING, JAMES: _Reviews and Discussions_, London, 1879. + +STEPHEN, SIR LESLIE: _Studies of a Biographer_, vol. 2, London, 1898. + +WOODBERRY, GEORGE E.: _Makers of Literature_, London, 1900. + + + + + +~SELECTIONS FROM MATTHEW ARNOLD~ + + + + +I. THEORIES OF LITERATURE AND CRITICISM + + + +POETRY AND THE CLASSICS[1] + + +In two small volumes of Poems, published anonymously, one in 1849, the +other in 1852, many of the Poems which compose the present volume have +already appeared. The rest are now published for the first time. + +I have, in the present collection, omitted the poem[2] from which the +volume published in 1852 took its title. I have done so, not because the +subject of it was a Sicilian Greek born between two and three thousand +years ago, although many persons would think this a sufficient reason. +Neither have I done so because I had, in my own opinion, failed in the +delineation which I intended to effect. I intended to delineate the +feelings of one of the last of the Greek religious philosophers, one of +the family of Orpheus and Musæus, having survived his fellows, living on +into a time when the habits of Greek thought and feeling had begun fast +to change, character to dwindle, the influence of the Sophists[3] to +prevail. Into the feelings of a man so situated there are entered much +that we are accustomed to consider as exclusively modern; how much, the +fragments of Empedocles himself which remain to us are sufficient at +least to indicate. What those who are familiar only with the great +monuments of early Greek genius suppose to be its exclusive +characteristics, have disappeared; the calm, the cheerfulness, the +disinterested objectivity have disappeared; the dialogue of the mind +with itself has commenced; modern problems have presented themselves; we +hear already the doubts, we witness the discouragement, of Hamlet and of +Faust. + +The representation of such a man's feelings must be interesting, if +consistently drawn. We all naturally take pleasure, says Aristotle,[4] +in any imitation or representation whatever: this is the basis of our +love of poetry: and we take pleasure in them, he adds, because all +knowledge is naturally agreeable to us; not to the philosopher only, but +to mankind at large. Every representation therefore which is +consistently drawn may be supposed to be interesting, inasmuch as it +gratifies this natural interest in knowledge of all kinds. What is _not_ +interesting, is that which does not add to our knowledge of any kind; +that which is vaguely conceived and loosely drawn; a representation +which is general, indeterminate, and faint, instead of being particular, +precise, and firm. + +Any accurate representation may therefore be expected to be interesting; +but, if the representation be a poetical one, more than this is +demanded. It is demanded, not only that it shall interest, but also that +it shall inspirit and rejoice the reader: that it shall convey a charm, +and infuse delight. For the Muses, as Hesiod[5] says, were born that +they might be "a forgetfulness of evils, and a truce from cares": and it +is not enough that the poet should add to the knowledge of men, it is +required of him also that he should add to their happiness. "All art," +says Schiller, "is dedicated to joy, and there is no higher and no more +serious problem, than how to make men happy. The right art is that +alone, which creates the highest enjoyment." + +A poetical work, therefore, is not yet justified when it has been shown +to be an accurate, and therefore interesting representation; it has to +be shown also that it is a representation from which men can derive +enjoyment. In presence of the most tragic circumstances, represented in +a work of art, the feeling of enjoyment, as is well known, may still +subsist: the representation of the most utter calamity, of the liveliest +anguish, is not sufficient to destroy it: the more tragic the situation, +the deeper becomes the enjoyment; and the situation is more tragic in +proportion as it becomes more terrible. + +What then are the situations, from the representation of which, though +accurate, no poetical enjoyment can be derived? They are those in which +the suffering finds no vent in action; in which a continuous state of +mental distress is prolonged, unrelieved by incident, hope, or +resistance; in which there is everything to be endured, nothing to be +done. In such situations there is inevitably something morbid, in the +description of them something monotonous. When they occur in actual +life, they are painful, not tragic; the representation of them in poetry +is painful also. + +To this class of situations, poetically faulty as it appears to me, that +of Empedocles, as I have endeavored to represent him, belongs; and I +have therefore excluded the poem from the present collection. + +And why, it may be asked, have I entered into this explanation +respecting a matter so unimportant as the admission or exclusion of the +poem in question? I have done so, because I was anxious to avow that the +sole reason for its exclusion was that which has been stated above; and +that it has not been excluded in deference to the opinion which many +critics of the present day appear to entertain against subjects chosen +from distant times and countries: against the choice, in short, of any +subjects but modern ones. + +"The poet," it is said,[6] and by an intelligent critic, "the poet who +would really fix the public attention must leave the exhausted past, and +draw his subjects from matters of present import, and _therefore_ both +of interest and novelty." + +Now this view I believe to be completely false. It is worth examining, +inasmuch as it is a fair sample of a class of critical dicta everywhere +current at the present day, having a philosophical form and air, but no +real basis in fact; and which are calculated to vitiate the judgment of +readers of poetry, while they exert, so far as they are adopted, a +misleading influence on the practice of those who make it. + +What are the eternal objects of poetry, among all nations and at all +times? They are actions; human actions; possessing an inherent interest +in themselves, and which are to be communicated in an interesting manner +by the art of the poet. Vainly will the latter imagine that he has +everything in his own power; that he can make an intrinsically inferior +action equally delightful with a more excellent one by his treatment of +it: he may indeed compel us to admire his skill, but his work will +possess, within itself, an incurable defect. + +The poet, then, has in the first place to select an excellent action; +and what actions are the most excellent? Those, certainly, which most +powerfully appeal to the great primary human affections: to those +elementary feelings which subsist permanently in the race, and which are +independent of time. These feelings are permanent and the same; that +which interests them is permanent and the same also. The modernness or +antiquity of an action, therefore, has nothing to do with its fitness +for poetical representation; this depends upon its inherent qualities. +To the elementary part of our nature, to our passions, that which is +great and passionate is eternally interesting; and interesting solely in +proportion to its greatness and to its passion. A great human action of +a thousand years ago is more interesting to it than a smaller human +action of to-day, even though upon the representation of this last the +most consummate skill may have been expended, and though it has the +advantage of appealing by its modern language, familiar manners, and +contemporary allusions, to all our transient feelings and interests. +These, however, have no right to demand of a poetical work that it shall +satisfy them; their claims are to be directed elsewhere. Poetical works +belong to the domain of our permanent passions: let them interest these, +and the voice of all subordinate claims upon them is at once silenced. + +Achilles, Prometheus, Clytemnestra, Dido[7]--what modern poem presents +personages as interesting, even to us moderns, as these personages of an +"exhausted past"? We have the domestic epic dealing with the details of +modern life, which pass daily under our eyes; we have poems representing +modern personages in contact with the problems of modern life, moral, +intellectual, and social; these works have been produced by poets the +most distinguished of their nation and time; yet I fearlessly assert +that _Hermann and Dorothea_, _Childe Harold_, _Jocelyn_, the +_Excursion_,[8] leave the reader cold in comparison with the effect +produced upon him by the latter books of the _Iliad_, by the _Oresteia_, +or by the episode of Dido. And why is this? Simply because in the three +last-named cases the action is greater, the personages nobler, the +situations more intense: and this is the true basis of the interest in a +poetical work, and this alone. + +It may be urged, however, that past actions may be interesting in +themselves, but that they are not to be adopted by the modern poet, +because it is impossible for him to have them clearly present to his own +mind, and he cannot therefore feel them deeply, nor represent them +forcibly. But this is not necessarily the case. The externals of a past +action, indeed, he cannot know with the precision of a contemporary; but +his business is with its essentials. The outward man of Oedipus[9] or of +Macbeth, the houses in which they lived, the ceremonies of their courts, +he cannot accurately figure to himself; but neither do they essentially +concern him. His business is with their inward man; with their feelings +and behavior in certain tragic situations, which engage their passions +as men; these have in them nothing local and casual; they are as +accessible to the modern poet as to a contemporary. + +The date of an action, then, signifies nothing: the action itself, its +selection and construction, this is what is all-important. This the +Greeks understood far more clearly than we do. The radical difference +between their poetical theory and ours consists, as it appears to me, in +this: that, with them, the poetical character of the action in itself, +and the conduct of it, was the first consideration; with us, attention +is fixed mainly on the value of the separate thoughts and images which +occur in the treatment of an action. They regarded the whole; we regard +the parts. With them, the action predominated over the expression of it; +with us, the expression predominates over the action. Not that they +failed in expression, or were inattentive to it; on the contrary, they +are the highest models of expression, the unapproached masters of the +_grand style_:[10] but their expression is so excellent because it is so +admirably kept in its right degree of prominence; because it is so +simple and so well subordinated; because it draws its force directly +from the pregnancy of the matter which it conveys. For what reason was +the Greek tragic poet confined to so limited a range of subjects? +Because there are so few actions which unite in themselves, in the +highest degree, the conditions of excellence; and it was not thought +that on any but an excellent subject could an excellent poem be +constructed. A few actions, therefore, eminently adapted for tragedy, +maintained almost exclusive possession of the Greek tragic stage. Their +significance appeared inexhaustible; they were as permanent problems, +perpetually offered to the genius of every fresh poet. This too is the +reason of what appears to us moderns a certain baldness of expression in +Greek tragedy; of the triviality with which we often reproach the +remarks of the chorus, where it takes part in the dialogue: that the +action itself, the situation of Orestes, or Merope, or Alcmæon,[11] was +to stand the central point of interest, unforgotten, absorbing, +principal; that no accessories were for a moment to distract the +spectator's attention from this, that the tone of the parts was to be +perpetually kept down, in order not to impair the grandiose effect of +the whole. The terrible old mythic story on which the drama was founded +stood, before he entered the theatre, traced in its bare outlines upon +the spectator's mind; it stood in his memory, as a group of statuary, +faintly seen, at the end of a long and dark vista: then came the poet, +embodying outlines, developing situations, not a word wasted, not a +sentiment capriciously thrown in: stroke upon stroke, the drama +proceeded: the light deepened upon the group; more and more it revealed +itself to the riveted gaze of the spectator: until at last, when the +final words were spoken, it stood before him in broad sunlight, a model +of immortal beauty. This was what a Greek critic demanded; this was +what a Greek poet endeavored to effect. It signified nothing to what +time an action belonged. We do not find that the _Persæ_ occupied a +particularly high rank among the dramas of Æschylus because it +represented a matter of contemporary interest: this was not what a +cultivated Athenian required. He required that the permanent elements of +his nature should be moved; and dramas of which the action, though taken +from a long-distant mythic time, yet was calculated to accomplish this +in a higher degree than that of the _Persæ_, stood higher in his +estimation accordingly. The Greeks felt, no doubt, with their exquisite +sagacity of taste, that an action of present times was too near them, +too much mixed up with what was accidental and passing, to form a +sufficiently grand, detached, and self-subsistent object for a tragic +poem. Such objects belonged to the domain of the comic poet, and of the +lighter kinds of poetry. For the more serious kinds, for _pragmatic_ +poetry, to use an excellent expression of Polybius,[12] they were more +difficult and severe in the range of subjects which they permitted. +Their theory and practice alike, the admirable treatise of Aristotle, +and the unrivalled works of their poets, exclaim with a thousand +tongues--"All depends upon the subject; choose a fitting action, +penetrate yourself with the feeling of its situations; this done, +everything else will follow." + +But for all kinds of poetry alike there was one point on which they were +rigidly exacting; the adaptability of the subject to the kind of poetry +selected, and the careful construction of the poem. + +How different a way of thinking from this is ours! We can hardly at the +present day understand what Menander[13] meant, when he told a man who +enquired as to the progress of his comedy that he had finished it, not +having yet written a single line, because he had constructed the action +of it in his mind. A modern critic would have assured him that the merit +of his piece depended on the brilliant things which arose under his pen +as he went along. We have poems which seem to exist merely for the sake +of single lines and passages; not for the sake of producing any +total-impression. We have critics who seem to direct their attention +merely to detached expressions, to the language about the action, not to +the action itself. I verily think that the majority of them do not in +their hearts believe that there is such a thing as a total-impression to +be derived from a poem at all, or to be demanded from a poet; they think +the term a commonplace of metaphysical criticism. They will permit the +poet to select any action he pleases, and to suffer that action to go as +it will, provided he gratifies them with occasional bursts of fine +writing, and with a shower of isolated thoughts and images. That is, +they permit him to leave their poetical sense ungratified, provided that +he gratifies their rhetorical sense and their curiosity. Of his +neglecting to gratify these, there is little danger; he needs rather to +be warned against the danger of attempting to gratify these alone; he +needs rather to be perpetually reminded to prefer his action to +everything else; so to treat this, as to permit its inherent excellences +to develop themselves, without interruption from the intrusion of his +personal peculiarities: most fortunate when he most entirely succeeds in +effacing himself, and in enabling a noble action to subsist as it did in +nature. + +But the modern critic not only permits a false practice: he absolutely +prescribes false aims. "A true allegory of the state of one's own mind +in a representative history," the poet is told, "is perhaps the highest +thing that one can attempt in the way of poetry." And accordingly he +attempts it. An allegory of the state of one's own mind, the highest +problem of an art which imitates actions! No assuredly, it is not, it +never can be so: no great poetical work has ever been produced with such +an aim. _Faust_ itself, in which something of the kind is attempted, +wonderful passages as it contains, and in spite of the unsurpassed +beauty of the scenes which relate to Margaret, _Faust_ itself, judged as +a whole, and judged strictly as a poetical work, is defective: its +illustrious author, the greatest poet of modern times, the greatest +critic of all times, would have been the first to acknowledge it; he +only defended his work, indeed, by asserting it to be "something +incommensurable." + +The confusion of the present times is great, the multitude of voices +counselling different things bewildering, the number of existing works +capable of attracting a young writer's attention and of becoming his +models, immense: what he wants is a hand to guide him through the +confusion, a voice to prescribe to him the aim which he should keep in +view, and to explain to him that the value of the literary works which +offer themselves to his attention is relative to their power of helping +him forward on his road towards this aim. Such a guide the English +writer at the present day will nowhere find. Failing this, all that can +be looked for, all indeed that can be desired, is, that his attention +should be fixed on excellent models; that he may reproduce, at any rate, +something of their excellence, by penetrating himself with their works +and by catching their spirit, if he cannot be taught to produce what is +excellent independently. + +Foremost among these models for the English writer stands Shakespeare: a +name the greatest perhaps of all poetical names; a name never to be +mentioned without reverence. I will venture, however, to express a doubt +whether the influence of his works, excellent and fruitful for the +readers of poetry, for the great majority, has been an unmixed advantage +to the writers of it. Shakespeare indeed chose excellent subjects--the +world could afford no better than _Macbeth_, or _Romeo and Juliet_, or +_Othello_: he had no theory respecting the necessity of choosing +subjects of present import, or the paramount interest attaching to +allegories of the state of one's own mind; like all great poets, he knew +well what constituted a poetical action; like them, wherever he found +such an action, he took it; like them, too, he found his best in past +times. But to these general characteristics of all great poets he added +a special one of his own; a gift, namely, of happy, abundant, and +ingenious expression, eminent and unrivalled: so eminent as irresistibly +to strike the attention first in him and even to throw into comparative +shade his other excellences as a poet. Here has been the mischief. These +other excellences were his fundamental excellences, _as a poet_; what +distinguishes the artist from the mere amateur, says Goethe, is +_Architectonicè_ in the highest sense; that power of execution which +creates, forms, and constitutes: not the profoundness of single +thoughts, not the richness of imagery, not the abundance of +illustration. But these attractive accessories of a poetical work being +more easily seized than the spirit of the whole, and these accessories +being possessed by Shakespeare in an unequalled degree, a young writer +having recourse to Shakespeare as his model runs great risk of being +vanquished and absorbed by them, and, in consequence, of reproducing, +according to the measure of his power, these, and these alone. Of this +prepondering quality of Shakespeare's genius, accordingly, almost the +whole of modern English poetry has, it appears to me, felt the +influence. To the exclusive attention on the part of his imitators to +this, it is in a great degree owing that of the majority of modern +poetical works the details alone are valuable, the composition +worthless. In reading them one is perpetually reminded of that terrible +sentence on a modern French poet,--_il dit tout ce qu'il veut, mais +malheureusement il n'a rien a dire._[14] + +Let me give an instance of what I mean. I will take it from the works of +the very chief among those who seem to have been formed in the school of +Shakespeare; of one whose exquisite genius and pathetic death render him +forever interesting. I will take the poem of _Isabella, or the Pot of +Basil_, by Keats. I choose this rather than the _Endymion_, because the +latter work (which a modern critic has classed with the Faery Queen!), +although undoubtedly there blows through it the breath of genius, is yet +as a whole so utterly incoherent, as not strictly to merit the name of a +poem at all. The poem of _Isabella_, then, is a perfect treasure-house +of graceful and felicitous words and images: almost in every stanza +there occurs one of those vivid and picturesque turns of expression, by +which the object is made to flash upon the eye of the mind, and which +thrill the reader with a sudden delight. This one short poem contains, +perhaps, a greater number of happy single expressions which one could +quote than all the extant tragedies of Sophocles. But the action, the +story? The action in itself is an excellent one; but so feebly is it +conceived by the poet, so loosely constructed, that the effect produced +by it, in and for itself, is absolutely null. Let the reader, after he +has finished the poem of Keats, turn to the same story in the +_Decameron_:[15] he will then feel how pregnant and interesting the same +action has become in the hands of a great artist, who above all things +delineates his object; who subordinates expression to that which it is +designed to express. + +I have said that the imitators of Shakespeare, fixing their attention on +his wonderful gift of expression, have directed their imitation to this, +neglecting his other excellences. These excellences, the fundamental +excellences of poetical art, Shakespeare no doubt possessed them-- +possessed many of them in a splendid degree; but it may perhaps be +doubted whether even he himself did not sometimes give scope to his +faculty of expression to the prejudice of a higher poetical duty. For we +must never forget that Shakespeare is the great poet he is from his +skill in discerning and firmly conceiving an excellent action, from his +power of intensely feeling a situation, of intimately associating +himself with a character; not from his gift of expression, which rather +even leads him astray, degenerating sometimes into a fondness for +curiosity of expression, into an irritability of fancy, which seems to +make it impossible for him to say a thing plainly, even when the press +of the action demands the very directest language, or its level +character the very simplest. Mr. Hallam,[16] than whom it is impossible +to find a saner and more judicious critic, has had the courage (for at +the present day it needs courage) to remark, how extremely and faultily +difficult Shakespeare's language often is. It is so: you may find main +scenes in some of his greatest tragedies, _King Lear_, for instance, +where the language is so artificial, so curiously tortured, and so +difficult, that every speech has to be read two or three times before +its meaning can be comprehended. This over-curiousness of expression is +indeed but the excessive employment of a wonderful gift--of the power +of saying a thing in a happier way than any other man; nevertheless, it +is carried so far that one understands what M. Guizot[17] meant when he +said that Shakespeare appears in his language to have tried all styles +except that of simplicity. He has not the severe and scrupulous +self-restraint of the ancients, partly, no doubt, because he had a far +less cultivated and exacting audience. He has indeed a far wider range +than they had, a far richer fertility of thought; in this respect he +rises above them. In his strong conception of his subject, in the +genuine way in which he is penetrated with it, he resembles them, and is +unlike the moderns. But in the accurate limitation of it, the +conscientious rejection of superfluities, the simple and rigorous +development of it from the first line of his work to the last, he falls +below them, and comes nearer to the moderns. In his chief works, besides +what he has of his own, he has the elementary soundness of the ancients; +he has their important action and their large and broad manner; but he +has not their purity of method. He is therefore a less safe model; for +what he has of his own is personal, and inseparable from his own rich +nature; it may be imitated and exaggerated, it cannot be learned or +applied as an art. He is above all suggestive; more valuable, therefore, +to young writers as men than as artists. But clearness of arrangement, +rigor of development, simplicity of style--these may to a certain extent +be learned: and these may, I am convinced, be learned best from the +ancients, who, although infinitely less suggestive than Shakespeare, are +thus, to the artist, more instructive. + +What then, it will be asked, are the ancients to be our sole models? the +ancients with their comparatively narrow range of experience, and their +widely different circumstances? Not, certainly, that which is narrow in +the ancients, nor that in which we can no longer sympathize. An action +like the action of the _Antigone_ of Sophocles, which turns upon the +conflict between the heroine's duty to her brother's corpse and that to +the laws of her country, is no longer one in which it is possible that +we should feel a deep interest. I am speaking too, it will be +remembered, not of the best sources of intellectual stimulus for the +general reader, but of the best models of instruction for the individual +writer. This last may certainly learn of the ancients, better than +anywhere else, three things which it is vitally important for him to +know:--the all-importance of the choice of a subject; the necessity of +accurate construction; and the subordinate character of expression. He +will learn from them how unspeakably superior is the effect of the one +moral impression left by a great action treated as a whole, to the +effect produced by the most striking single thought or by the happiest +image. As he penetrates into the spirit of the great classical works, as +he becomes gradually aware of their intense significance, their noble +simplicity, and their calm pathos, he will be convinced that it is this +effect, unity and profoundness of moral impression, at which the ancient +poets aimed; that it is this which constitutes the grandeur of their +works, and which makes them immortal. He will desire to direct his own +efforts towards producing the same effect. Above all, he will deliver +himself from the jargon of modern criticism, and escape the danger of +producing poetical works conceived in the spirit of the passing time, +and which partake of its transitoriness. + +The present age makes great claims upon us: we owe it service, it will +not be satisfied without our admiration. I know not how it is, but their +commerce with the ancients appears to me to produce, in those who +constantly practise it, a steadying and composing effect upon their +judgment, not of literary works only, but of men and events in general. +They are like persons who have had a very weighty and impressive +experience; they are more truly than others under the empire of facts, +and more independent of the language current among those with whom they +live. They wish neither to applaud nor to revile their age: they wish to +know what it is, what it can give them, and whether this is what they +want. What they want, they know very well; they want to educe and +cultivate what is best and noblest in themselves: they know, too, that +this is no easy task--[Greek: Chalepon] as Pittacus[18] said,[Greek: +Chalepon esthlonemmenai]--and they ask themselves sincerely whether +their age and its literature can assist them in the attempt. If they are +endeavoring to practise any art, they remember the plain and simple +proceedings of the old artists, who attained their grand results by +penetrating themselves with some noble and significant action, not by +inflating themselves with a belief in the preëminent importance and +greatness of their own times. They do not talk of their mission, nor of +interpreting their age, nor of the coming poet; all this, they know, is +the mere delirium of vanity; their business is not to praise their age, +but to afford to the men who live in it the highest pleasure which they +are capable of feeling. If asked to afford this by means of subjects +drawn from the age itself, they ask what special fitness the present age +has for supplying them. They are told that it is an era of progress, an +age commissioned to carry out the great ideas of industrial development +and social amelioration. They reply that with all this they can do +nothing; that the elements they need for the exercise of their art are +great actions, calculated powerfully and delightfully to affect what is +permanent in the human soul; that so far as the present age can supply +such actions, they will gladly make use of them; but that an age wanting +in moral grandeur can with difficulty supply such, and an age of +spiritual discomfort with difficulty be powerfully and delightfully +affected by them. + +A host of voices will indignantly rejoin that the present age is +inferior to the past neither in moral grandeur nor in spiritual health. +He who possesses the discipline I speak of will content himself with +remembering the judgments passed upon the present age, in this respect, +by the men of strongest head and widest culture whom it has produced; by +Goethe and by Niebuhr.[19] It will be sufficient for him that he knows +the opinions held by these two great men respecting the present age and +its literature; and that he feels assured in his own mind that their +aims and demands upon life were such as he would wish, at any rate, his +own to be; and their judgment as to what is impeding and disabling such +as he may safely follow. He will not, however, maintain a hostile +attitude towards the false pretensions of his age; he will content +himself with not being overwhelmed by them. He will esteem himself +fortunate if he can succeed in banishing from his mind all feelings of +contradiction, and irritation, and impatience; in order to delight +himself with the contemplation of some noble action of a heroic time, +and to enable others, through his representation of it, to delight in it +also. + +I am far indeed from making any claim, for myself, that I possess this +discipline; or for the following poems, that they breathe its spirit. +But I say, that in the sincere endeavor to learn and practise, amid the +bewildering confusion of our times, what is sound and true in poetical +art, I seemed to myself to find the only sure guidance, the only solid +footing, among the ancients. They, at any rate, knew what they wanted in +art, and we do not. It is this uncertainty which is disheartening, and +not hostile criticism. How often have I felt this when reading words of +disparagement or of cavil: that it is the uncertainty as to what is +really to be aimed at which makes our difficulty, not the +dissatisfaction of the critic, who himself suffers from the same +uncertainty. _Non me tua fervida terrent Dicta; ... Dii me terrent, et +Jupiter hostis._[20] Two kinds of _dilettanti_, says Goethe, there are +in poetry: he who neglects the indispensable mechanical part, and thinks +he has done enough if he shows spirituality and feeling; and he who +seeks to arrive at poetry merely by mechanism, in which he can acquire +an artisan's readiness, and is without soul and matter. And he adds, +that the first does most harm to art, and the last to himself. If we +must be _dilettanti_: if it is impossible for us, under the +circumstances amidst which we live, to think clearly, to feel nobly, and +to delineate firmly: if we cannot attain to the mastery of the great +artists--let us, at least, have so much respect for our art as to prefer +it to ourselves. Let us not bewilder our successors: let us transmit to +them the practice of poetry, with its boundaries and wholesome +regulative laws, under which excellent works may again, perhaps, at some +future time, be produced, not yet fallen into oblivion through our +neglect, not yet condemned and cancelled by the influence of their +eternal enemy, caprice. + + + +THE FUNCTION OF CRITICISM AT THE PRESENT TIME[21] + + +Many objections have been made to a proposition which, in some remarks +of mine[22] on translating Homer, I ventured to put forth; a proposition +about criticism, and its importance at the present day. I said: "Of the +literature of France and Germany, as of the intellect of Europe in +general, the main effort, for now many years, has been a critical +effort; the endeavor, in all branches of knowledge, theology, +philosophy, history, art, science, to see the object as in itself it +really is." I added, that owing to the operation in English literature +of certain causes, "almost the last thing for which one would come to +English literature is just that very thing which now Europe most +desires,--criticism"; and that the power and value of English literature +was thereby impaired. More than one rejoinder declared that the +importance I here assigned to criticism was excessive, and asserted the +inherent superiority of the creative effort of the human spirit over its +critical effort. And the other day, having been led by a Mr. +Shairp's[23] excellent notice of Wordsworth[24] to turn again to his +biography, I found, in the words of this great man, whom I, for one, +must always listen to with the profoundest respect, a sentence passed on +the critic's business, which seems to justify every possible +disparagement of it. Wordsworth says in one of his letters[25]:-- + +"The writers in these publications" (the Reviews), "while they prosecute +their inglorious employment, cannot be supposed to be in a state of mind +very favorable for being affected by the finer influences of a thing so +pure as genuine poetry." + +And a trustworthy reporter of his conversation quotes a more elaborate +judgment to the same effect:-- + +"Wordsworth holds the critical power very low, infinitely lower than the +inventive; and he said to-day that if the quantity of time consumed in +writing critiques on the works of others were given to original +composition, of whatever kind it might be, it would be much better +employed; it would make a man find out sooner his own level, and it +would do infinitely less mischief. A false or malicious criticism may do +much injury to the minds of others, a stupid invention, either in prose +or verse, is quite harmless." + +It is almost too much to expect of poor human nature, that a man capable +of producing some effect in one line of literature, should, for the +greater good of society, voluntarily doom himself to impotence and +obscurity in another. Still less is this to be expected from men +addicted to the composition of the "false or malicious criticism" of +which Wordsworth speaks. However, everybody would admit that a false or +malicious criticism had better never have been written. Everybody, too, +would be willing to admit, as a general proposition, that the critical +faculty is lower than the inventive. But is it true that criticism is +really, in itself, a baneful and injurious employment; is it true that +all time given to writing critiques on the works of others would be much +better employed if it were given to original composition, of whatever +kind this may be? Is it true that Johnson had better have gone on +producing more _Irenes_[26] instead of writing his _Lives of the Poets_; +nay, is it certain that Wordsworth himself was better employed in making +his Ecclesiastical Sonnets than when he made his celebrated Preface[27] +so full of criticism, and criticism of the works of others? Wordsworth +was himself a great critic, and it is to be sincerely regretted that he +has not left us more criticism; Goethe was one of the greatest of +critics, and we may sincerely congratulate ourselves that he has left us +so much criticism. Without wasting time over the exaggeration which +Wordsworth's judgment on criticism clearly contains, or over an attempt +to trace the causes,--not difficult, I think, to be traced,--which may +have led Wordsworth to this exaggeration, a critic may with advantage +seize an occasion for trying his own conscience, and for asking himself +of what real service at any given moment the practice of criticism +either is or may be made to his own mind and spirit, and to the minds +and spirits of others. + +The critical power is of lower rank than the creative. True; but in +assenting to this proposition, one or two things are to be kept in mind. +It is undeniable that the exercise of a creative power, that a free +creative activity, is the highest function of man; it is proved to be so +by man's finding in it his true happiness. But it is undeniable, also, +that men may have the sense of exercising this free creative activity in +other ways than in producing great works of literature or art; if it +were not so, all but a very few men would be shut out from the true +happiness of all men. They may have it in well-doing, they may have it +in learning, they may have it even in criticizing. This is one thing to +be kept in mind. Another is, that the exercise of the creative power in +the production of great works of literature or art, however high this +exercise of it may rank, is not at all epochs and under all conditions +possible; and that therefore labor may be vainly spent in attempting it, +which might with more fruit be used in preparing for it, in rendering it +possible. This creative power works with elements, with materials; what +if it has not those materials, those elements, ready for its use? In +that case it must surely wait till they are ready. Now, in literature,-- +I will limit myself to literature, for it is about literature that the +question arises,--the elements with which the creative power works are +ideas; the best ideas on every matter which literature touches, current +at the time. At any rate we may lay it down as certain that in modern +literature no manifestation of the creative power not working with these +can be very important or fruitful. And I say _current_ at the time, not +merely accessible at the time; for creative literary genius does not +principally show itself in discovering new ideas: that is rather the +business of the philosopher. The grand work of literary genius is a work +of synthesis and exposition, not of analysis and discovery; its gift +lies in the faculty of being happily inspired by a certain intellectual +and spiritual atmosphere, by a certain order of ideas, when it finds +itself in them; of dealing divinely with these ideas, presenting them in +the most effective and attractive combinations,--making beautiful works +with them, in short. But it must have the atmosphere, it must find +itself amidst the order of ideas, in order to work freely; and these it +is not so easy to command. This is why great creative epochs in +literature are so rare, this is why there is so much that is +unsatisfactory in the productions of many men of real genius; because, +for the creation of a master-work of literature two powers must concur, +the power of the man and the power of the moment, and the man is not +enough without the moment; the creative power has, for its happy +exercise, appointed elements, and those elements are not in its own +control. + +Nay, they are more within the control of the critical power. It is the +business of the critical power, as I said in the words already quoted, +"in all branches of knowledge, theology, philosophy, history, art, +science, to see the object as in itself it really is." Thus it tends, at +last, to make an intellectual situation of which the creative power can +profitably avail itself. It tends to establish an order of ideas, if not +absolutely true, yet true by comparison with that which it displaces; to +make the best ideas prevail. Presently these new ideas reach society, +the touch of truth is the touch of life, and there is a stir and growth +everywhere; out of this stir and growth come the creative epochs of +literature. + +Or, to narrow our range, and quit these considerations of the general +march of genius and of society,--considerations which are apt to become +too abstract and impalpable,--every one can see that a poet, for +instance, ought to know life and the world before dealing with them in +poetry; and life and the world being in modern times very complex +things, the creation of a modern poet, to be worth much, implies a great +critical effort behind it; else it must be a comparatively poor, barren, +and short-lived affair. This is why Byron's poetry had so little +endurance in it, and Goethe's so much; both Byron and Goethe had a great +productive power, but Goethe's was nourished by a great critical effort +providing the true materials for it, and Byron's was not; Goethe knew +life and the world, the poet's necessary subjects, much more +comprehensively and thoroughly than Byron. He knew a great deal more of +them, and he knew them much more as they really are. + +It has long seemed to me that the burst of creative activity in our +literature, through the first quarter of this century, had about it in +fact something premature; and that from this cause its productions are +doomed, most of them, in spite of the sanguine hopes which accompanied +and do still accompany them, to prove hardly more lasting than the +productions of far less splendid epochs. And this prematureness comes +from its having proceeded without having its proper data, without +sufficient materials to work with. In other words, the English poetry of +the first quarter of this century, with plenty of energy, plenty of +creative force, did not know enough. This makes Byron so empty of +matter, Shelley so incoherent, Wordsworth even, profound as he is, yet +so wanting in completeness and variety. Wordsworth cared little for +books, and disparaged Goethe. I admire Wordsworth, as he is, so much +that I cannot wish him different; and it is vain, no doubt, to imagine +such a man different from what he is, to suppose that he _could_ have +been different. But surely the one thing wanting to make Wordsworth an +even greater poet than he is,--his thought richer, and his influence of +wider application,--was that he should have read more books, among them, +no doubt, those of that Goethe whom he disparaged without reading him. + +But to speak of books and reading may easily lead to a misunderstanding +here. It was not really books and reading that lacked to our poetry at +this epoch: Shelley had plenty of reading, Coleridge had immense +reading. Pindar and Sophocles--as we all say so glibly, and often with +so little discernment of the real import of what we are saying--had not +many books; Shakespeare was no deep reader. True; but in the Greece of +Pindar and Sophocles, in the England of Shakespeare, the poet lived in a +current of ideas in the highest degree animating and nourishing to the +creative power; society was, in the fullest measure, permeated by fresh +thought, intelligent and alive. And this state of things is the true +basis for the creative power's exercise, in this it finds its data, its +materials, truly ready for its hand; all the books and reading in the +world are only valuable as they are helps to this. Even when this does +not actually exist, books and reading may enable a man to construct a +kind of semblance of it in his own mind, a world of knowledge and +intelligence in which he may live and work. This is by no means an +equivalent to the artist for the nationally diffused life and thought of +the epochs of Sophocles or Shakespeare; but, besides that it may be a +means of preparation for such epochs, it does really constitute, if many +share in it, a quickening and sustaining atmosphere of great value. Such +an atmosphere the many-sided learning and the long and widely combined +critical effort of Germany formed for Goethe, when he lived and worked. +There was no national glow of life and thought there as in the Athens of +Pericles or the England of Elizabeth. That was the poet's weakness. But +there was a sort of equivalent for it in the complete culture and +unfettered thinking of a large body of Germans. That was his strength. +In the England of the first quarter of this century there was neither a +national glow of life and thought, such as we had in the age of +Elizabeth, nor yet a culture and a force of learning and criticism such +as were to be found in Germany. Therefore the creative power of poetry +wanted, for success in the highest sense, materials and a basis; a +thorough interpretation of the world was necessarily denied to it. + +At first sight it seems strange that out of the immense stir of the +French Revolution and its age should not have come a crop of works of +genius equal to that which came out of the stir of the great productive +time of Greece, or out of that of the Renascence, with its powerful +episode the Reformation. But the truth is that the stir of the French +Revolution took a character which essentially distinguished it from such +movements as these. These were, in the main, disinterestedly +intellectual and spiritual movements; movements in which the human +spirit looked for its satisfaction in itself and in the increased play +of its own activity. The French Revolution took a political, practical +character. The movement, which went on in France under the old régime, +from 1700 to 1789, was far more really akin than that of the Revolution +itself to the movement of the Renascence; the France of Voltaire and +Rousseau told far more powerfully upon the mind of Europe than the +France of the Revolution. Goethe reproached this last expressly with +having "thrown quiet culture back." Nay, and the true key to how much in +our Byron, even in our Wordsworth, is this!--that they had their source +in a great movement of feeling, not in a great movement of mind. The +French Revolution, however,--that object of so much blind love and so +much blind hatred,--found undoubtedly its motive-power in the +intelligence of men, and not in their practical sense; this is what +distinguishes it from the English Revolution of Charles the First's +time. This is what makes it a more spiritual event than our Revolution, +an event of much more powerful and world-wide interest, though +practically less successful; it appeals to an order of ideas which are +universal, certain, permanent. 1789 asked of a thing, Is it rational? +1642 asked of a thing, Is it legal? or, when it went furthest, Is it +according to conscience? This is the English fashion, a fashion to be +treated, within its own sphere, with the highest respect; for its +success, within its own sphere, has been prodigious. But what is law in +one place is not law in another; what is law here to-day is not law even +here to-morrow; and as for conscience, what is binding on one man's +conscience is not binding on another's. The old woman[28] who threw her +stool at the head of the surpliced minister in St. Giles's Church at +Edinburgh obeyed an impulse to which millions of the human race may be +permitted to remain strangers. But the prescriptions of reason are +absolute, unchanging, of universal validity; _to count by tens is the +easiest way of counting_--that is a proposition of which every one, from +here to the Antipodes, feels the force; at least I should say so if we +did not live in a country where it is not impossible that any morning we +may find a letter in the _Times_ declaring that a decimal coinage is an +absurdity. That a whole nation should have been penetrated with an +enthusiasm for pure reason, and with an ardent zeal for making its +prescriptions triumph, is a very remarkable thing, when we consider how +little of mind, or anything so worthy and quickening as mind, comes into +the motives which alone, in general, impel great masses of men. In spite +of the extravagant direction given to this enthusiasm, in spite of the +crimes and follies in which it lost itself, the French Revolution +derives from the force, truth, and universality of the ideas which it +took for its law, and from the passion with which it could inspire a +multitude for these ideas, a unique and still living power; it is,--it +will probably long remain,--the greatest, the most animating event in +history. And as no sincere passion for the things of the mind, even +though it turn out in many respects an unfortunate passion, is ever +quite thrown away and quite barren of good, France has reaped from hers +one fruit--the natural and legitimate fruit though not precisely the +grand fruit she expected: she is the country in Europe where _the +people_ is most alive. + +But the mania for giving an immediate political and practical +application to all these fine ideas of the reason was fatal. Here an +Englishman is in his element: on this theme we can all go on for hours. +And all we are in the habit of saying on it has undoubtedly a great deal +of truth. Ideas cannot be too much prized in and for themselves, cannot +be too much lived with; but to transport them abruptly into the world of +politics and practice, violently to revolutionize this world to their +bidding,--that is quite another thing. There is the world of ideas and +there is the world of practice; the French are often for suppressing the +one and the English the other; but neither is to be suppressed. A member +of the House of Commons said to me the other day: "That a thing is an +anomaly, I consider to be no objection to it whatever." I venture to +think he was wrong; that a thing is an anomaly _is_ an objection to it, +but absolutely and in the sphere of ideas: it is not necessarily, under +such and such circumstances, or at such and such a moment, an objection +to it in the sphere of politics and practice. Joubert has said +beautifully: "C'est la force et le droit qui règlent toutes choses dans +le monde; la force en attendant le droit."[29] (Force and right are the +governors of this world; force till right is ready.) _Force till right +is ready_; and till right is ready, force, the existing order of things, +is justified, is the legitimate ruler. But right is something moral, and +implies inward recognition, free assent of the will; we are not ready +for right,--_right_, so far as we are concerned, _is not ready_,--until +we have attained this sense of seeing it and willing it. The way in +which for us it may change and transform force, the existing order of +things, and become, in its turn, the legitimate ruler of the world, +should depend on the way in which, when our time comes, we see it and +will it. Therefore for other people enamored of their own newly +discerned right, to attempt to impose it upon us as ours, and violently +to substitute their right for our force, is an act of tyranny, and to be +resisted. It sets at naught the second great half of our maxim, _force +till right is ready_. This was the grand error of the French Revolution; +and its movement of ideas, by quitting the intellectual sphere and +rushing furiously into the political sphere, ran, indeed, a prodigious +and memorable course, but produced no such intellectual fruit as the +movement of ideas of the Renascence, and created, in opposition to +itself, what I may call an _epoch of concentration_. The great force of +that epoch of concentration was England; and the great voice of that +epoch of concentration was Burke. It is the fashion to treat Burke's +writings on the French Revolution[30] as superannuated and conquered by +the event; as the eloquent but unphilosophical tirades of bigotry and +prejudice. I will not deny that they are often disfigured by the +violence and passion of the moment, and that in some directions Burke's +view was bounded, and his observation therefore at fault. But on the +whole, and for those who can make the needful corrections, what +distinguishes these writings is their profound, permanent, fruitful, +philosophical truth. They contain the true philosophy of an epoch of +concentration, dissipate the heavy atmosphere which its own nature is +apt to engender round it, and make its resistance rational instead of +mechanical. + +But Burke is so great because, almost alone in England, he brings +thought to bear upon politics, he saturates politics with thought. It is +his accident that his ideas were at the service of an epoch of +concentration, not of an epoch of expansion; it is his characteristic +that he so lived by ideas, and had such a source of them welling up +within him, that he could float even an epoch of concentration and +English Tory politics with them. It does not hurt him that Dr. Price[31] +and the Liberals were enraged with him; it does not even hurt him that +George the Third and the Tories were enchanted with him. His greatness +is that he lived in a world which neither English Liberalism nor English +Toryism is apt to enter;--the world of ideas, not the world of +catchwords and party habits. So far is it from being really true of him +that he "to party gave up what was meant for mankind,"[32] that at the +very end of his fierce struggle with the French Revolution, after all +his invectives against its false pretensions, hollowness, and madness, +with his sincere convictions of its mischievousness, he can close a +memorandum on the best means of combating it, some of the last pages he +ever wrote,--the _Thoughts on French Affairs_, in December 1791,--with +these striking words:-- + +"The evil is stated, in my opinion, as it exists. The remedy must be +where power, wisdom, and information, I hope, are more united with good +intentions than they can be with me. I have done with this subject, I +believe, forever. It has given me many anxious moments for the last two +years. _If a great change is to be made in human affairs, the minds of +men will be fitted to it; the general opinions and feelings will draw +that way. Every fear, every hope will forward it: and then they who +persist in opposing this mighty current in human affairs, will appear +rather to resist the decrees of Providence itself, than the mere designs +of men. They will not be resolute and firm, but perverse and +obstinate._" + +That return of Burke upon himself has always seemed to me one of the +finest things in English literature, or indeed in any literature. That +is what I call living by ideas: when one side of a question has long had +your earnest support, when all your feelings are engaged, when you hear +all round you no language but one, when your party talks this language +like a steam-engine and can imagine no other,--still to be able to +think, still to be irresistibly carried, if so it be, by the current of +thought to the opposite side of the question, and, like Balaam,[33] to +be unable to speak anything _but what the Lord has put in your mouth_. I +know nothing more striking, and I must add that I know nothing more +un-English. + +For the Englishman in general is like my friend the Member of +Parliament, and believes, point-blank, that for a thing to be an anomaly +is absolutely no objection to it whatever. He is like the Lord +Auckland[34] of Burke's day, who, in a memorandum on the French +Revolution, talks of "certain miscreants, assuming the name of +philosophers, who have presumed themselves capable of establishing a new +system of society." The Englishman has been called a political animal, +and he values what is political and practical so much that ideas easily +become objects of dislike in his eyes, and thinkers "miscreants," +because ideas and thinkers have rashly meddled with politics and +practice. This would be all very well if the dislike and neglect +confined themselves to ideas transported out of their own sphere, and +meddling rashly with practice; but they are inevitably extended to ideas +as such, and to the whole life of intelligence; practice is everything, +a free play of the mind is nothing. The notion of the free play of the +mind upon all subjects being a pleasure in itself, being an object of +desire, being an essential provider of elements without which a nation's +spirit, whatever compensations it may have for them, must, in the long +run, die of inanition, hardly enters into an Englishman's thoughts. It +is noticeable that the word _curiosity_, which in other languages is +used in a good sense, to mean, as a high and fine quality of man's +nature, just this disinterested love of a free play of the mind on all +subjects, for its own sake,--it is noticeable, I say, that this word has +in our language no sense of the kind, no sense but a rather bad and +disparaging one. But criticism, real criticism, is essentially the +exercise of this very quality. It obeys an instinct prompting it to try +to know the best that is known and thought in the world, irrespectively +of practice, politics, and everything of the kind; and to value +knowledge and thought as they approach this best, without the intrusion +of any other considerations whatever. This is an instinct for which +there is, I think, little original sympathy in the practical English +nature, and what there was of it has undergone a long benumbing period +of blight and suppression in the epoch of concentration which followed +the French Revolution. + +But epochs of concentration cannot well endure forever; epochs of +expansion, in the due course of things, follow them. Such an epoch of +expansion seems to be opening in this country. In the first place all +danger of a hostile forcible pressure of foreign ideas upon our practice +has long disappeared; like the traveller in the fable, therefore, we +begin to wear our cloak a little more loosely. Then, with a long peace, +the ideas of Europe steal gradually and amicably in, and mingle, though +in infinitesimally small quantities at a time, with our own notions. +Then, too, in spite of all that is said about the absorbing and +brutalizing influence of our passionate material progress, it seems to +me indisputable that this progress is likely, though not certain, to +lead in the end to an apparition of intellectual life; and that man, +after he has made himself perfectly comfortable and has now to determine +what to do with himself next, may begin to remember that he has a mind, +and that the mind may be made the source of great pleasure. I grant it +is mainly the privilege of faith, at present, to discern this end to our +railways, our business, and our fortune-making; but we shall see if, +here as elsewhere, faith is not in the end the true prophet. Our ease, +our travelling, and our unbounded liberty to hold just as hard and +securely as we please to the practice to which our notions have given +birth, all tend to beget an inclination to deal a little more freely +with these notions themselves, to canvass them a little, to penetrate a +little into their real nature. Flutterings of curiosity, in the foreign +sense of the word, appear amongst us, and it is in these that criticism +must look to find its account. Criticism first; a time of true creative +activity, perhaps,--which, as I have said, must inevitably be preceded +amongst us by a time of criticism,--hereafter, when criticism has done +its work. + +It is of the last importance that English criticism should clearly +discern what rule for its course, in order to avail itself of the field +now opening to it, and to produce fruit for the future, it ought to +take. The rule may be summed up in one word,--_disinterestedness_. And +how is criticism to show disinterestedness? By keeping aloof from what +is called "the practical view of things"; by resolutely following the +law of its own nature, which is to be a free play of the mind on all +subjects which it touches. By steadily refusing to lend itself to any of +those ulterior, political, practical considerations about ideas, which +plenty of people will be sure to attach to them, which perhaps ought +often to be attached to them, which in this country at any rate are +certain to be attached to them quite sufficiently, but which criticism +has really nothing to do with. Its business is, as I have said, simply +to know the best that is known and thought in the world, and by in its +turn making this known, to create a current of true and fresh ideas. Its +business is to do this with inflexible honesty, with due ability; but +its business is to do no more, and to leave alone all questions of +practical consequences and applications, questions which will never fail +to have due prominence given to them. Else criticism, besides being +really false to its own nature, merely continues in the old rut which it +has hitherto followed in this country, and will certainly miss the +chance now given to it. For what is at present the bane of criticism in +this country? It is that practical considerations cling to it and stifle +it. It subserves interests not its own. Our organs of criticism are +organs of men and parties having practical ends to serve, and with them +those practical ends are the first thing and the play of mind the +second; so much play of mind as is compatible with the prosecution of +those practical ends is all that is wanted. An organ like the _Revue des +Deux Mondes_,[35] having for its main function to understand and utter +the best that is known and thought in the world, existing, it may be +said, as just an organ for a free play of the mind, we have not. But we +have the _Edinburgh Review_, existing as an organ of the old Whigs, and +for as much play of the mind as may suit its being that; we have the +_Quarterly Review_, existing as an organ of the Tories, and for as much +play of mind as may suit its being that; we have the _British Quarterly +Review_, existing as an organ of the political Dissenters, and for as +much play of mind as may suit its being that; we have the _Times_, +existing as an organ of the common, satisfied, well-to-do Englishman, +and for as much play of mind as may suit its being that. And so on +through all the various fractions, political and religious, of our +society; every fraction has, as such, its organ of criticism, but the +notion of combining all fractions in the common pleasure of a free +disinterested play of mind meets with no favor. Directly this play of +mind wants to have more scope, and to forget the pressure of practical +considerations a little, it is checked, it is made to feel the chain. We +saw this the other day in the extinction, so much to be regretted, of +the _Home and Foreign Review_.[36] Perhaps in no organ of criticism in +this country was there so much knowledge, so much play of mind; but +these could not save it. The _Dublin Review_ subordinates play of mind +to the practical business of English and Irish Catholicism, and lives. +It must needs be that men should act in sects and parties, that each of +these sects and parties should have its organ, and should make this +organ subserve the interests of its action; but it would be well, too, +that there should be a criticism, not the minister of these interests, +not their enemy, but absolutely and entirely independent of them. No +other criticism will ever attain any real authority or make any real way +towards its end,--the creating a current of true and fresh ideas. + +It is because criticism has so little kept in the pure intellectual +sphere, has so little detached itself from practice, has been so +directly polemical and controversial, that it has so ill accomplished, +in this country, its best spiritual work; which is to keep man from a +self-satisfaction which is retarding and vulgarizing, to lead him +towards perfection, by making his mind dwell upon what is excellent in +itself, and the absolute beauty and fitness of things. A polemical +practical criticism makes men blind even to the ideal imperfection of +their practice, makes them willingly assert its ideal perfection, in +order the better to secure it against attack: and clearly this is +narrowing and baneful for them. If they were reassured on the practical +side, speculative considerations of ideal perfection they might be +brought to entertain, and their spiritual horizon would thus gradually +widen. Sir Charles Adderley[37] says to the Warwickshire farmers:-- + +"Talk of the improvement of breed! Why, the race we ourselves +represent, the men and women, the old Anglo-Saxon race, are the best +breed in the whole world.... The absence of a too enervating climate, +too unclouded skies, and a too luxurious nature, has produced so +vigorous a race of people, and has rendered us so superior to all the +world." + +Mr. Roebuck[38] says to the Sheffield cutlers:-- + +"I look around me and ask what is the state of England? Is not property +safe? Is not every man able to say what he likes? Can you not walk from +one end of England to the other in perfect security? I ask you whether, +the world over or in past history, there is anything like it? Nothing. I +pray that our unrivalled happiness may last." + +Now obviously there is a peril for poor human nature in words and +thoughts of such exuberant self-satisfaction, until we find ourselves +safe in the streets of the Celestial City. + + "Das wenige verschwindet leicht dem Blicke + Der vorwärts sieht, wie viel noch übrig bleibt--"[39] + +says Goethe; "the little that is done seems nothing when we look forward +and see how much we have yet to do." Clearly this is a better line of +reflection for weak humanity, so long as it remains on this earthly +field of labor and trial. + +But neither Sir Charles Adderley nor Mr. Roebuck is by nature +inaccessible to considerations of this sort. They only lose sight of +them owing to the controversial life we all lead, and the practical form +which all speculation takes with us. They have in view opponents whose +aim is not ideal, but practical; and in their zeal to uphold their own +practice against these innovators, they go so far as even to attribute +to this practice an ideal perfection. Somebody has been wanting to +introduce a six-pound franchise, or to abolish church-rates, or to +collect agricultural statistics by force, or to diminish local +self-government. How natural, in reply to such proposals, very likely +improper or ill-timed, to go a little beyond the mark and to say +stoutly, "Such a race of people as we stand, so superior to all the +world! The old Anglo-Saxon race, the best breed in the whole world! I +pray that our unrivalled happiness may last! I ask you whether, the +world over or in past history, there is anything like it?" And so long +as criticism answers this dithyramb by insisting that the old +Anglo-Saxon race would be still more superior to all others if it had no +church-rates, or that our unrivalled happiness would last yet longer +with a six-pound franchise, so long will the strain, "The best breed in +the whole world!" swell louder and louder, everything ideal and refining +will be lost out of sight, and both the assailed and their critics will +remain in a sphere, to say the truth, perfectly unvital, a sphere in +which spiritual progression is impossible. But let criticism leave +church-rates and the franchise alone, and in the most candid spirit, +without a single lurking thought of practical innovation, confront with +our dithyramb this paragraph on which I stumbled in a newspaper +immediately after reading Mr. Roebuck:-- + +"A shocking child murder has just been committed at Nottingham. A girl +named Wragg left the workhouse there on Saturday morning with her young +illegitimate child. The child was soon afterwards found dead on Mapperly +Hills, having been strangled. Wragg is in custody." + +Nothing but that; but, in juxtaposition with the absolute eulogies of +Sir Charles Adderley and Mr. Roebuck, how eloquent, how suggestive are +those few lines! "Our old Anglo-Saxon breed, the best in the whole +world!"--how much that is harsh and ill-favored there is in this best! +_Wragg!_ If we are to talk of ideal perfection, of "the best in the +whole world," has any one reflected what a touch of grossness in our +race, what an original short-coming in the more delicate spiritual +perceptions, is shown by the natural growth amongst us of such hideous +names,--Higginbottom, Stiggins, Bugg! In Ionia and Attica they were +luckier in this respect than "the best race in the world"; by the +Ilissus there was no Wragg, poor thing! And "our unrivalled happiness"; +--what an element of grimness, bareness, and hideousness mixes with it +and blurs it; the workhouse, the dismal Mapperly Hills,--how dismal +those who have seen them will remember;--the gloom, the smoke, the cold, +the strangled illegitimate child! "I ask you whether, the world over or +in past history, there is anything like it?" Perhaps not, one is +inclined to answer; but at any rate, in that case, the world is very +much to be pitied. And the final touch,--short, bleak and inhuman: +_Wragg is in custody_. The sex lost in the confusion of our unrivalled +happiness; or (shall I say?) the superfluous Christian name lopped off +by the straightforward vigor of our old Anglo-Saxon breed! There is +profit for the spirit in such contrasts as this; criticism serves the +cause of perfection by establishing them. By eluding sterile conflict, +by refusing to remain in the sphere where alone narrow and relative +conceptions have any worth and validity, criticism may diminish its +momentary importance, but only in this way has it a chance of gaining +admittance for those wider and more perfect conceptions to which all its +duty is really owed. Mr. Roebuck will have a poor opinion of an +adversary who replies to his defiant songs of triumph only by murmuring +under his breath, _Wragg is in custody_; but in no other way will these +songs of triumph be induced gradually to moderate themselves, to get rid +of what in them is excessive and offensive, and to fall into a softer +and truer key. + +It will be said that it is a very subtle and indirect action which I am +thus prescribing for criticism, and that, by embracing in this manner +the Indian virtue of detachment[40] and abandoning the sphere of +practical life, it condemns itself to a slow and obscure work. Slow and +obscure it may be, but it is the only proper work of criticism. The mass +of mankind will never have any ardent zeal for seeing things as they +are; very inadequate ideas will always satisfy them. On these inadequate +ideas reposes, and must repose, the general practice of the world. That +is as much as saying that whoever sets himself to see things as they are +will find himself one of a very small circle; but it is only by this +small circle resolutely doing its own work that adequate ideas will ever +get current at all. The rush and roar of practical life will always have +a dizzying and attracting effect upon the most collected spectator, and +tend to draw him into its vortex; most of all will this be the case +where that life is so powerful as it is in England. But it is only by +remaining collected, and refusing to lend himself to the point of view +of the practical man, that the critic can do the practical man any +service; and it is only by the greatest sincerity in pursuing his own +course, and by at last convincing even the practical man of his +sincerity, that he can escape misunderstandings which perpetually +threaten him. + +For the practical man is not apt for fine distinctions, and yet in these +distinctions truth and the highest culture greatly find their account. +But it is not easy to lead a practical man,--unless you reassure him as +to your practical intentions, you have no chance of leading him,--to see +that a thing which he has always been used to look at from one side +only, which he greatly values, and which, looked at from that side, +quite deserves, perhaps, all the prizing and admiring which he bestows +upon it,--that this thing, looked at from another side, may appear much +less beneficent and beautiful, and yet retain all its claims to our +practical allegiance. Where shall we find language innocent enough, how +shall we make the spotless purity of our intentions evident enough, to +enable us to say to the political Englishmen that the British +Constitution itself, which, seen from the practical side, looks such a +magnificent organ of progress and virtue, seen from the speculative +side,--with its compromises, its love of facts, its horror of theory, +its studied avoidance of clear thoughts,--that, seen from this side, our +august Constitution sometimes looks,--forgive me, shade of Lord +Somers![41]--a colossal machine for the manufacture of Philistines? How +is Cobbett[42] to say this and not be misunderstood, blackened as he is +with the smoke of a lifelong conflict in the field of political +practice? how is Mr. Carlyle to say it and not be misunderstood, after +his furious raid into this field with his _Latter-day Pamphlets?_[43] +how is Mr. Ruskin,[44] after his pugnacious political economy? I say, +the critic must keep out of the region of immediate practice in the +political, social, humanitarian sphere, if he wants to make a beginning +for that more free speculative treatment of things, which may perhaps +one day make its benefits felt even in this sphere, but in a natural and +thence irresistible manner. + +Do what he will, however, the critic will still remain exposed to +frequent misunderstandings, and nowhere so much as in this country. For +here people are particularly indisposed even to comprehend that without +this free disinterested treatment of things, truth and the highest +culture are out of the question. So immersed are they in practical life, +so accustomed to take all their notions from this life and its +processes, that they are apt to think that truth and culture themselves +can be reached by the processes of this life, and that it is an +impertinent singularity to think of reaching them in any other. "We are +all _terræ filii_,"[45] cries their eloquent advocate; "all +Philistines[46] together. Away with the notion of proceeding by any +other course than the course dear to the Philistines; let us have a +social movement, let us organize and combine a party to pursue truth and +new thought, let us call it _the liberal party_, and let us all stick to +each other, and back each other up. Let us have no nonsense about +independent criticism, and intellectual delicacy, and the few and the +many. Don't let us trouble ourselves about foreign thought; we shall +invent the whole thing for ourselves as we go along. If one of us speaks +well, applaud him; if one of us speaks ill, applaud him too; we are all +in the same movement, we are all liberals, we are all in pursuit of +truth." In this way the pursuit of truth becomes really a social, +practical, pleasurable affair, almost requiring a chairman, a secretary, +and advertisements; with the excitement of an occasional scandal, with a +little resistance to give the happy sense of difficulty overcome; but, +in general, plenty of bustle and very little thought. To act is so easy, +as Goethe says; to think is so hard![47] It is true that the critic has +many temptations to go with the stream, to make one of the party +movement, one of these _terræ filii_; it seems ungracious to refuse to +be a _terræ filius_, when so many excellent people are; but the critic's +duty is to refuse, or, if resistance is vain, at least to cry with +Obermann: _Périssons en résistant_[48]. + +How serious a matter it is to try and resist, I had ample opportunity of +experiencing when I ventured some time ago to criticize the celebrated +first volume of Bishop Colenso.[49] The echoes of the storm which was +then raised I still, from time to time, hear grumbling round me. That +storm arose out of a misunderstanding almost inevitable. It is a result +of no little culture to attain to a clear perception that science and +religion are two wholly different things. The multitude will forever +confuse them; but happily that is of no great real importance, for while +the multitude imagines itself to live by its false science, it does +really live by its true religion. Dr. Colenso, however, in his first +volume did all he could to strengthen the confusion,[50] and to make it +dangerous. He did this with the best intentions, I freely admit, and +with the most candid ignorance that this was the natural effect of what +he was doing; but, says Joubert, "Ignorance, which in matters of morals +extenuates the crime, is itself, in intellectual matters, a crime of the +first order."[51] I criticized Bishop Colenso's speculative confusion. +Immediately there was a cry raised: "What is this? here is a liberal +attacking a liberal. Do not you belong to the movement? are not you a +friend of truth? Is not Bishop Colenso in pursuit of truth? then speak +with proper respect of his book. Dr. Stanley[52] is another friend of +truth, and you speak with proper respect of his book; why make these +invidious differences? both books are excellent, admirable, liberal; +Bishop Colenso's perhaps the most so, because it is the boldest, and +will have the best practical consequences for the liberal cause. Do you +want to encourage to the attack of a brother liberal his, and your, and +our implacable enemies, the _Church and State Review_ or the _Record_,-- +the High Church rhinoceros and the Evangelical hyena? Be silent, +therefore; or rather speak, speak as loud as ever you can! and go into +ecstasies over the eighty and odd pigeons." + +But criticism cannot follow this coarse and indiscriminate method. It is +unfortunately possible for a man in pursuit of truth to write a book +which reposes upon a false conception. Even the practical consequences +of a book are to genuine criticism no recommendation of it, if the book +is, in the highest sense, blundering. I see that a lady[53] who herself, +too, is in pursuit of truth, and who writes with great ability, but a +little too much, perhaps, under the influence of the practical spirit of +the English liberal movement, classes Bishop Colenso's book and M. +Renan's[54] together, in her survey of the religious state of Europe, as +facts of the same order, works, both of them, of "great importance"; +"great ability, power, and skill"; Bishop Colenso's, perhaps, the most +powerful; at least, Miss Cobbe gives special expression to her gratitude +that to Bishop Colenso "has been given the strength to grasp, and the +courage to teach, truths of such deep import." In the same way, more +than one popular writer has compared him to Luther. Now it is just this +kind of false estimate which the critical spirit is, it seems to me, +bound to resist. It is really the strongest possible proof of the low +ebb at which, in England, the critical spirit is, that while the +critical hit in the religious literature of Germany is Dr. Strauss's[55] +book, in that of France M. Renan's book, the book of Bishop Colenso is +the critical hit in the religious literature of England. Bishop +Colenso's book reposes on a total misconception of the essential +elements of the religious problem, as that problem is now presented for +solution. To criticism, therefore, which seeks to have the best that is +known and thought on this problem, it is, however well meant, of no +importance whatever. M. Renan's book attempts a new synthesis of the +elements furnished to us by the Four Gospels. It attempts, in my +opinion, a synthesis, perhaps premature, perhaps impossible, certainly +not successful. Up to the present time, at any rate, we must acquiesce +in Fleury's sentence on such recastings of the Gospel story: _Quiconque +s'imagine la pouvoir mieux écrire, ne l'entend pas_.[56] M. Renan had +himself passed by anticipation a like sentence on his own work, when he +said: "If a new presentation of the character of Jesus were offered to +me, I would not have it; its very clearness would be, in my opinion, the +best proof of its insufficiency." His friends may with perfect justice +rejoin that at the sight of the Holy Land, and of the actual scene of +the Gospel story, all the current of M. Renan's thoughts may have +naturally changed, and a new casting of that story irresistibly +suggested itself to him; and that this is just a case for applying +Cicero's maxim: Change of mind is not inconsistency--_nemo doctus unquam +mutationem consilii inconstantiam dixit esse_.[57] Nevertheless, for +criticism, M. Renan's first thought must still be the truer one, as long +as his new casting so fails more fully to commend itself, more fully (to +use Coleridge's happy phrase[58] about the Bible) to _find_ us. Still M. +Renan's attempt is, for criticism, of the most real interest and +importance, since, with all its difficulty, a fresh synthesis of the New +Testament _data_--not a making war on them, in Voltaire's fashion, not a +leaving them out of mind, in the world's fashion, but the putting a new +construction upon them, the taking them from under the old, traditional, +conventional point of view and placing them under a new one--is the very +essence of the religious problem, as now presented; and only by efforts +in this direction can it receive a solution. + +Again, in the same spirit in which she judges Bishop Colenso, Miss +Cobbe, like so many earnest liberals of our practical race, both here +and in America, herself sets vigorously about a positive reconstruction +of religion, about making a religion of the future out of hand, or at +least setting about making it. We must not rest, she and they are always +thinking and saying, in negative criticism, we must be creative and +constructive; hence we have such works as her recent _Religious Duty_, +and works still more considerable, perhaps, by others, which will be in +every one's mind. These works often have much ability; they often spring +out of sincere convictions, and a sincere wish to do good; and they +sometimes, perhaps, do good. Their fault is (if I may be permitted to +say so) one which they have in common with the British College of +Health, in the New Road. Every one knows the British College of Health; +it is that building with the lion and the statue of the Goddess Hygeia +before it; at least I am sure about the lion, though I am not absolutely +certain about the Goddess Hygeia. This building does credit, perhaps, to +the resources of Dr. Morrison and his disciples; but it falls a good +deal short of one's idea of what a British College of Health ought to +be. In England, where we hate public interference and love individual +enterprise, we have a whole crop of places like the British College of +Health; the grand name without the grand thing. Unluckily, creditable to +individual enterprise as they are, they tend to impair our taste by +making us forget what more grandiose, noble, or beautiful character +properly belongs to a public institution. The same may be said of the +religions of the future of Miss Cobbe and others. Creditable, like the +British College of Health, to the resources of their authors, they yet +tend to make us forget what more grandiose, noble, or beautiful +character properly belongs to religious constructions. The historic +religions, with all their faults, have had this; it certainly belongs to +the religious sentiment, when it truly flowers, to have this; and we +impoverish our spirit if we allow a religion of the future without it. +What then is the duty of criticism here? To take the practical point of +view, to applaud the liberal movement and all its works,--its New Road +religions of the future into the bargain,--for their general utility's +sake? By no means; but to be perpetually dissatisfied with these works, +while they perpetually fall short of a high and perfect ideal. For +criticism, these are elementary laws; but they never can be popular, and +in this country they have been very little followed, and one meets with +immense obstacles in following them. That is a reason for asserting them +again and again. Criticism must maintain its independence of the +practical spirit and its aims. Even with well-meant efforts of the +practical spirit it must express dissatisfaction, if in the sphere of +the ideal they seem impoverishing and limiting. It must not hurry on to +the goal because of its practical importance. It must be patient, and +know how to wait; and flexible, and know how to attach itself to things +and how to withdraw from them. It must be apt to study and praise +elements that for the fulness of spiritual perfection are wanted, even +though they belong to a power which in the practical sphere may be +maleficent. It must be apt to discern the spiritual shortcomings or +illusions of powers that in the practical sphere may be beneficent. And +this without any notion of favoring or injuring, in the practical +sphere, one power or the other; without any notion of playing off, in +this sphere, one power against the other. When one looks, for instance, +at the English Divorce Court--an institution which perhaps has its +practical conveniences, but which in the ideal sphere is so hideous; an +institution which neither makes divorce impossible nor makes it decent, +which allows a man to get rid of his wife, or a wife of her husband, but +makes them drag one another first, for the public edification, through a +mire of unutterable infamy,--when one looks at this charming +institution, I say, with its crowded trials, its newspaper reports, and +its money compensations, this institution in which the gross +unregenerate British Philistine has indeed stamped an image of himself, +--one may be permitted to find the marriage theory of Catholicism +refreshing and elevating. Or when Protestantism, in virtue of its +supposed rational and intellectual origin, gives the law to criticism +too magisterially, criticism may and must remind it that its +pretensions, in this respect, are illusive and do it harm; that the +Reformation was a moral rather than an intellectual event; that Luther's +theory of grace[59] no more exactly reflects the mind of the spirit than +Bossuet's philosophy of history[60] reflects it; and that there is no +more antecedent probability of the Bishop of Durham's stock of ideas +being agreeable to perfect reason than of Pope Pius the Ninth's. But +criticism will not on that account forget the achievements of +Protestantism in the practical and moral sphere; nor that, even in the +intellectual sphere, Protestantism, though in a blind and stumbling +manner, carried forward the Renascence, while Catholicism threw itself +violently across its path. + +I lately heard a man of thought and energy contrasting the want of ardor +and movement which he now found amongst young men in this country with +what he remembered in his own youth, twenty years ago. "What reformers +we were then!" he exclaimed; "What a zeal we had! how we canvassed every +institution in Church and State, and were prepared to remodel them all +on first principles!" He was inclined to regret, as a spiritual +flagging, the lull which he saw. I am disposed rather to regard it as a +pause in which the turn to a new mode of spiritual progress is being +accomplished. Everything was long seen, by the young and ardent amongst +us, in inseparable connection with politics and practical life. We have +pretty well exhausted the benefits of seeing things in this connection, +we have got all that can be got by so seeing them. Let us try a more +disinterested mode of seeing them; let us betake ourselves more to the +serener life of the mind and spirit. This life, too, may have its +excesses and dangers; but they are not for us at present. Let us think +of quietly enlarging our stock of true and fresh ideas, and not, as soon +as we get an idea or half an idea, be running out with it into the +street, and trying to make it rule there. Our ideas will, in the end, +shape the world all the better for maturing a little. Perhaps in fifty +years' time it will in the English House of Commons be an objection to +an institution that it is an anomaly, and my friend the Member of +Parliament will shudder in his grave. But let us in the meanwhile rather +endeavor that in twenty years' time it may, in English literature, be an +objection to a proposition that it is absurd. That will be a change so +vast, that the imagination almost fails to grasp it. _Ab Integro +soeclorum nascitur ordo_.[61] + +If I have insisted so much on the course which criticism must take where +politics and religion are concerned, it is because, where these burning +matters are in question, it is most likely to go astray. I have wished, +above all, to insist on the attitude which criticism should adopt +towards things in general; on its right tone and temper of mind. But +then comes another question as to the subject-matter which literary +criticism should most seek. Here, in general, its course is determined +for it by the idea which is the law of its being: the idea of a +disinterested endeavor to learn and propagate the best that is known and +thought in the world, and thus to establish a current of fresh and true +ideas. By the very nature of things, as England is not all the world, +much of the best that is known and thought in the world cannot be of +English growth, must be foreign; by the nature of things, again, it is +just this that we are least likely to know, while English thought is +streaming in upon us from all sides, and takes excellent care that we +shall not be ignorant of its existence. The English critic of +literature, therefore, must dwell much on foreign thought, and with +particular heed on any part of it, which, while significant and fruitful +in itself, is for any reason specially likely to escape him. Again, +judging is often spoken of as the critic's one business, and so in some +sense it is; but the judgment which almost insensibly forms itself in a +fair and clear mind, along with fresh knowledge, is the valuable one; +and thus knowledge, and ever fresh knowledge, must be the critic's great +concern for himself. And it is by communicating fresh knowledge, and +letting his own judgment pass along with it,--but insensibly, and in the +second place, not the first, as a sort of companion and clue, not as an +abstract lawgiver,--that the critic will generally do most good to his +readers. Sometimes, no doubt, for the sake of establishing an author's +place in literature, and his relation to a central standard (and if this +is not done, how are we to get at our _best in the world?_) criticism +may have to deal with a subject-matter so familiar that fresh knowledge +is out of the question, and then it must be all judgment; an enunciation +and detailed application of principles. Here the great safeguard is +never to let oneself become abstract, always to retain an intimate and +lively consciousness of the truth of what one is saying, and, the moment +this fails us, to be sure that something is wrong. Still under all +circumstances, this mere judgment and application of principles is, in +itself, not the most satisfactory work to the critic; like mathematics, +it is tautological, and cannot well give us, like fresh learning, the +sense of creative activity. + +But stop, some one will say; all this talk is of no practical use to us +whatever; this criticism of yours is not what we have in our minds when +we speak of criticism; when we speak of critics and criticism, we mean +critics and criticism of the current English literature of the day: when +you offer to tell criticism its function, it is to this criticism that +we expect you to address yourself. I am sorry for it, for I am afraid I +must disappoint these expectations. I am bound by my own definition of +criticism; _a disinterested endeavor to learn and propagate the best +that is known and thought in the world._. How much of current English +literature comes into this "best that is known and thought in the +world"? Not very much I fear; certainly less, at this moment, than of +the current literature of France or Germany. Well, then, am I to alter +my definition of criticism, in order to meet the requirements of a +number of practising English critics, who, after all, are free in their +choice of a business? That would be making criticism lend itself just to +one of those alien practical considerations, which, I have said, are so +fatal to it. One may say, indeed, to those who have to deal with the +mass--so much better disregarded--of current English literature, that +they may at all events endeavor, in dealing with this, to try it, so far +as they can, by the standard of the best that is known and thought in +the world; one may say, that to get anywhere near this standard, every +critic should try and possess one great literature, at least, besides +his own; and the more unlike his own, the better. But, after all, the +criticism I am really concerned with,--the criticism which alone can +much help us for the future, the criticism which, throughout Europe, is +at the present day meant, when so much stress is laid on the importance +of criticism and the critical spirit,--is a criticism which regards +Europe as being, for intellectual and spiritual purposes, one great +confederation, bound to a joint action and working to a common result; +and whose members have, for their proper outfit, a knowledge of Greek, +Roman, and Eastern antiquity, and of one another. Special, local, and +temporary advantages being put out of account, that modern nation will +in the intellectual and spiritual sphere make most progress, which most +thoroughly carries out this program. And what is that but saying that we +too, all of us, as individuals, the more thoroughly we carry it out, +shall make the more progress? + +There is so much inviting us!--what are we to take? what will nourish us +in growth towards perfection? That is the question which, with the +immense field of life and of literature lying before him, the critic has +to answer; for himself first, and afterwards for others. In this idea of +the critic's business the essays brought together in the following pages +have had their origin; in this idea, widely different as are their +subjects, they have, perhaps, their unity. + +I conclude with what I said at the beginning: to have the sense of +creative activity is the great happiness and the great proof of being +alive, and it is not denied to criticism to have it; but then criticism +must be sincere, simple, flexible, ardent, ever widening its knowledge. +Then it may have, in no contemptible measure, a joyful sense of creative +activity; a sense which a man of insight and conscience will prefer to +what he might derive from a poor, starved, fragmentary, inadequate +creation. And at some epochs no other creation is possible. + +Still, in full measure, the sense of creative activity belongs only to +genuine creation; in literature we must never forget that. But what true +man of letters ever can forget it? It is no such common matter for a +gifted nature to come into possession of a current of true and living +ideas, and to produce amidst the inspiration of them, that we are likely +to underrate it. The epochs of Æschylus and Shakespeare make us feel +their preëminence. In an epoch like those is, no doubt, the true life of +literature; there is the promised land, towards which criticism can only +beckon. That promised land it will not be ours to enter, and we shall +die in the wilderness: but to have desired to enter it, to have saluted +it from afar, is already, perhaps, the best distinction among +contemporaries; it will certainly be the best title to esteem with +posterity. + + + +THE STUDY OF POETRY[62] + + +"The future of poetry is immense, because in poetry, where it is worthy +of its high destinies, our race, as time goes on, will find an ever +surer and surer stay. There is not a creed which is not shaken, not an +accredited dogma which is not shown to be questionable, not a received +tradition which does not threaten to dissolve. Our religion has +materialized itself in the fact, in the supposed fact; it has attached +its emotion to the fact, and how the fact is failing it. But for poetry +the idea is everything; the rest is a world of illusion, of divine +illusion. Poetry attaches its emotion to the idea; the idea _is_ the +fact. The strongest part of our religion today is its unconscious +poetry."[63] + +Let me be permitted to quote these words of my own, as uttering the +thought which should, in my opinion, go with us and govern us in all our +study of poetry. In the present work it is the course of one great +contributory stream to the world-river of poetry that we are invited to +follow. We are here invited to trace the stream of English poetry. But +whether we set ourselves, as here, to follow only one of the several +streams that make the mighty river of poetry, or whether we seek to know +them all, our governing thought should be the same. We should conceive +of poetry worthily, and more highly than it has been the custom to +conceive of it. We should conceive of it as capable of higher uses, and +called to higher destinies than those which in general men have +assigned to it hitherto. More and more mankind will discover that we +have to turn to poetry to interpret life for us, to console us, to +sustain us. Without poetry, our science will appear incomplete; and most +of what now passes with us for religion and philosophy will be replaced +by poetry. Science, I say, will appear incomplete without it. For finely +and truly does Wordsworth call poetry "the impassioned expression which +is in a countenance of all science"[64] and what is a countenance +without its expression? Again, Wordsworth finely and truly calls poetry +"the breath and finer spirit of all knowledge":[64] our religion, +parading evidences such as those on which the popular mind relies now; +our philosophy, pluming itself on its reasonings about causation and +finite and infinite being; what are they but the shadows and dreams and +false shows of knowledge? The day will come when we shall wonder at +ourselves for having trusted to them, for having taken them seriously; +and the more we perceive their hollowness, the more we shall prize "the +breath and finer spirit of knowledge" offered to us by poetry. + +But if we conceive thus highly of the destinies of poetry, we must also +set our standard for poetry high, since poetry, to be capable of +fulfilling such high destinies, must be poetry of a high order of +excellence. We must accustom ourselves to a high standard and to a +strict judgment. Sainte-Beuve relates that Napoleon one day said, when +somebody was spoken of in his presence as a charlatan: "Charlatan as +much as you please; but where is there _not_ charlatanism?"--"Yes," +answers Sainte-Beuve,[65] "in politics, in the art of governing mankind, +that is perhaps true. But in the order of thought, in art, the glory, +the eternal honor is that charlatanism shall find no entrance; herein +lies the inviolableness of that noble portion of man's being." It is +admirably said, and let us hold fast to it. In poetry, which is thought +and art in one, it is the glory, the eternal honor, that charlatanism +shall find no entrance; that this noble sphere be kept inviolate and +inviolable. Charlatanism is for confusing or obliterating the +distinctions between excellent and inferior, sound and unsound or only +half-sound, true and untrue or only half-true. It is charlatanism, +conscious or unconscious, whenever we confuse or obliterate these. And +in poetry, more than anywhere else, it is unpermissible to confuse or +obliterate them. For in poetry the distinction between excellent and +inferior, sound and unsound or only half-sound, true and untrue or only +half-true, is of paramount importance. It is of paramount importance +because of the high destinies of poetry. In poetry, as a criticism of +life[66] under the conditions fixed for such a criticism by the laws of +poetic truth and poetic beauty, the spirit of our race will find, we +have said, as time goes on and as other helps fail, its consolation and +stay. But the consolation and stay will be of power in proportion to the +power of the criticism of life. And the criticism of life will be of +power in proportion as the poetry conveying it is excellent rather than +inferior, sound rather than unsound or half-sound, true rather than +untrue or half-true. + +The best poetry is what we want; the best poetry will be found to have a +power of forming, sustaining, and delighting us, as nothing else can. A +clearer, deeper sense of the best[67] is the most precious benefit which +we can gather from a poetical collection such as the present. And yet in +the very nature and conduct of such a collection there is inevitably +something which tends to obscure in us the consciousness of what our +benefit should be, and to distract us from the pursuit of it. We should +therefore steadily set it before our minds at the outset, and should +compel ourselves to revert constantly to the thought of it as we +proceed. + +Yes; constantly in reading poetry, a sense for the best, the really +excellent, and of the strength and joy to be drawn from it, should be +present in our minds and should govern our estimate of what we read. But +this real estimate, the only true one, is liable to be superseded, if we +are not watchful, by two other kinds of estimate, the historic estimate +and the personal estimate, both of which are fallacious. A poet or a +poem may count to us historically, they may count to us on grounds +personal to ourselves, and they may count to us really. They may count +to us historically. The course of development of a nation's language, +thought, and poetry, is profoundly interesting; and by regarding a +poet's work as a stage in this course of development we may easily bring +ourselves to make it of more importance as poetry than in itself it +really is, we may come to use a language of quite exaggerated praise in +criticising it; in short, to over-rate it. So arises in our poetic +judgments the fallacy caused by the estimate which we may call historic. +Then, again, a poet or a poem may count to us on grounds personal to +ourselves. Our personal affinities, likings, and circumstances, have +great power to sway our estimate of this or that poet's work, and to +make us attach more importance to it as poetry than in itself it really +possesses, because to us it is, or has been, of high importance. Here +also we over-rate the object of our interest, and apply to it a language +of praise which is quite exaggerated. And thus we get the source of a +second fallacy in our poetic judgments--the fallacy caused by an +estimate which we may call personal. + +Both fallacies are natural. It is evident how naturally the study of the +history and development of a poetry may incline a man to pause over +reputations and works once conspicuous but now obscure, and to quarrel +with a careless public for skipping, in obedience to mere tradition and +habit, from one famous name or work in its national poetry to another, +ignorant of what it misses, and of the reason for keeping what it keeps, +and of the whole process of growth in its poetry. The French have become +diligent students of their own early poetry, which they long neglected; +the study makes many of them dissatisfied with their so-called classical +poetry, the court-tragedy of the seventeenth century, a poetry which +Pellisson[68] long ago reproached with its want of the true poetic +stamp, with its _politesse sterile et rampante?_[69] but which +nevertheless has reigned in France as absolutely as if it had been the +perfection of classical poetry indeed. The dissatisfaction is natural; +yet a lively and accomplished critic, M. Charles d'Héricault,[70] the +editor of Clement Marot, goes too far when he says that "the cloud of +glory playing round a classic is a mist as dangerous to the future of a +literature as it is intolerable for the purposes of history." "It +hinders," he goes on, "it hinders us from seeing more than one single +point, the culminating and exceptional point, the summary, fictitious +and arbitrary, of a thought and of a work. It substitutes a halo for a +physiognomy, it puts a statue where there was once a man, and hiding +from us all trace of the labor, the attempts, the weaknesses, the +failures, it claims not study but veneration; it does not show us how +the thing is done, it imposes upon us a model. Above all, for the +historian this creation of classic personages is inadmissible; for it +withdraws the poet from his time, from his proper life, it breaks +historical relationships, it blinds criticism by conventional +admiration, and renders the investigation of literary origins +unacceptable. It gives us a human personage no longer, but a God seated +immovable amidst His perfect work, like Jupiter on Olympus; and hardly +will it be possible for the young student, to whom such work is +exhibited at such a distance from him, to believe that it did not issue +ready made from that divine head." + +All this is brilliantly and tellingly said, but we must plead for a +distinction. Everything depends on the reality of a poet's classic +character. If he is a dubious classic, let us sift him; if he is a false +classic, let us explode him. But if he is a real classic, if his work +belongs to the class of the very best (for this is the true and right +meaning of the word _classic, classical_), then the great thing for us +is to feel and enjoy his work as deeply as ever we can, and to +appreciate the wide difference between it and all work which has not the +same high character. This is what is salutary, this is what is +formative; this is the great benefit to be got from the study of poetry. +Everything which interferes with it, which hinders it, is injurious. +True, we must read our classic with open eyes, and not with eyes blinded +with superstition; we must perceive when his work comes short, when it +drops out of the class of the very best, and we must rate it, in such +cases, at its proper value. But the use of this negative criticism is +not in itself, it is entirely in its enabling us to have a clearer sense +and a deeper enjoyment of what is truly excellent. To trace the labor, +the attempts, the weaknesses, the failures of a genuine classic, to +acquaint oneself with his time and his life and his historical +relationships, is mere literary dilettantism unless it has that clear +sense and deeper enjoyment for its end. It may be said that the more we +know about a classic the better we shall enjoy him; and, if we lived as +long as Methuselah and had all of us heads of perfect clearness and +wills of perfect steadfastness, this might be true in fact as it is +plausible in theory. But the case here is much the same as the case with +the Greek and Latin studies of our schoolboys. The elaborate +philological groundwork which we requite them to lay is in theory an +admirable preparation for appreciating the Greek and Latin authors +worthily. The more thoroughly we lay the groundwork, the better we shall +be able, it may be said, to enjoy the authors. True, if time were not so +short, and schoolboys' wits not so soon tired and their power of +attention exhausted; only, as it is, the elaborate philological +preparation goes on, but the authors are little known and less enjoyed. +So with the investigator of "historic origins" in poetry. He ought to +enjoy the true classic all the better for his investigations; he often +is distracted from the enjoyment of the best, and with the less good he +overbusies himself, and is prone to over-rate it in proportion to the +trouble which it has cost him. + +The idea of tracing historic origins and historical relationships cannot +be absent from a compilation like the present. And naturally the poets +to be exhibited in it will be assigned to those persons for exhibition +who are known to prize them highly, rather than to those who have no +special inclination towards them. Moreover the very occupation with an +author, and the business of exhibiting him, disposes us to affirm and +amplify his importance. In the present work, therefore, we are sure of +frequent temptation to adopt the historic estimate, or the personal +estimate, and to forget the real estimate; which latter, nevertheless, +we must employ if we are to make poetry yield us its full benefit. So +high is that benefit, the benefit of clearly feeling and of deeply +enjoying the really excellent, the truly classic in poetry, that we do +well, I say, to set it fixedly before our minds as our object in +studying poets and poetry, and to make the desire of attaining it the +one principle to which, as the _Imitation_ says, whatever we may read or +come to know, we always return. _Cum multa legeris et cognoveris, ad +unum semper oportet redire principium._[71] + +The historic estimate is likely in especial to affect our judgment and +our language when we are dealing with ancient poets; the personal +estimate when we are dealing with poets our contemporaries, or at any +rate modern. The exaggerations due to the historic estimate are not in +themselves, perhaps, of very much gravity. Their report hardly enters +the general ear; probably they do not always impose even on the literary +men who adopt them. But they lead to a dangerous abuse of language. So +we hear Cædmon,[72] amongst, our own poets, compared to Milton. I have +already noticed the enthusiasm of one accomplished French critic for +"historic origins." Another eminent French critic, M. Vitet,[73] +comments upon that famous document of the early poetry of his nation, +the _Chanson de Roland._[74] It is indeed a most interesting document. +The _joculator_ or _jongleur_ Taillefer, who was with William the +Conqueror's army at Hastings, marched before the Norman troops, so said +the tradition, singing "of Charlemagne and of Roland and of Oliver, and +of the vassals who died at Roncevaux"; and it is suggested that in the +_Chanson de Roland_ by one Turoldus or Theroulde, a poem preserved in a +manuscript of the twelfth century in the Bodleian Library at Oxford, we +have certainly the matter, perhaps even some of the words, of the chant +which Taillefer sang. The poem has vigor and freshness; it is not +without pathos. But M. Vitet is not satisfied with seeing in it a +document of some poetic value, and of very high historic and linguistic +value; he sees in it a grand and beautiful work, a monument of epic +genius. In its general design he finds the grandiose conception, in its +details he finds the constant union of simplicity with greatness, which +are the marks, he truly says, of the genuine epic, and distinguish it +from the artificial epic of literary ages. One thinks of Homer; this is +the sort of praise which is given to Homer, and justly given. Higher +praise there cannot well be, and it is the praise due to epic poetry of +the highest order only, and to no other. Let us try, then, the _Chanson +de Roland_ at its best. Roland, mortally wounded, lays himself down +under a pine-tree, with his face turned towards Spain and the enemy-- + + "De plusurs choses à remembrer li prist, + De tantes teres cume li bers cunquist, + De dulce France, des humes de sun lign, + De Carlemagne sun seignor ki l'nurrit."[75] + +That is primitive work, I repeat, with an undeniable poetic quality of +its own. It deserves such praise, and such praise is sufficient for it. +But now turn to Homer-- + + [Greek: + Os phato tous d aedae katecheu phusizoos aia + en Lakedaimoni authi, philm en patridi gaim][76] + + +We are here in another world, another order of poetry altogether; here +is rightly due such supreme praise as that which M. Vitet gives to the +_Chanson de Roland_. If our words are to have any meaning, if our +judgments are to have any solidity, we must not heap that supreme praise +upon poetry of an order immeasurably inferior. + +Indeed there can be no more useful help for discovering what poetry +belongs to the class of the truly excellent, and can therefore do us +most good, than to have always in one's mind lines and expressions of +the great masters, and to apply them as a touchstone to other poetry. Of +course we are not to require this other poetry to resemble them; it may +be very dissimilar. But if we have any tact we shall find them, when we +have lodged them well in our minds, an infallible touchstone for +detecting the presence or absence of high poetic quality, and also the +degree of this quality, in all other poetry which we may place beside +them. Short passages, even single lines, will serve our turn quite +sufficiently. Take the two lines which I have just quoted from Homer, +the poet's comment on Helen's mention of her brothers;--or take his + + [Greek:] + A delo, to sphoi domen Paelaei anakti + Thnaeta; umeis d eston agaero t athanato te. + ae ina dustaenoiosi met andrasin alge echaeton;[77] + +the address of Zeus to the horses of Peleus;--or take finally his + + [Greek:] + Kai se, geron, to prin men akouomen olbion einar[78] + +the words of Achilles to Priam, a suppliant before him. Take that +incomparable line and a half of Dante, Ugolino's tremendous words-- + + "Io no piangeva; sì dentro impietrai. + Piangevan elli ..."[79] + +take the lovely words of Beatrice to Virgil-- + + "Io son fatta da Dio, sua mercè, tale, + Che la vostra miseria non mi tange, + Nè fiamma d'esto incendio non m'assale ..."[80] + +take the simple, but perfect, single line-- + + "In la sua volontade è nostra pace."[81] + +Take of Shakespeare a line or two of Henry the Fourth's expostulation +with sleep-- + + "Wilt thou upon the high and giddy mast + Seal up the ship-boy's eyes, and rock his brains + In cradle of the rude imperious surge ..."[82] + +and take, as well, Hamlet's dying request to Horatio-- + + "If thou didst ever hold me in thy heart, + Absent thee from felicity awhile, + And in this harsh world draw thy breath in pain + To tell my story ..."[83] + +Take of Milton that Miltonic passage-- + + "Darken'd so, yet shone + Above them all the archangel; but his face + Deep scars of thunder had intrench'd, and care + Sat on his faded cheek ..."[84] + +add two such lines as-- + + "And courage never to submit or yield + And what is else not to be overcome ..."[85] + +and finish with the exquisite close to the loss of Proserpine, the loss + + " ... which cost Ceres all that pain + To seek her through the world."[86] + +These few lines, if we have tact and can use them, are enough even of +themselves to keep clear and sound our judgments about poetry, to save +us from fallacious estimates of it, to conduct us to a real estimate. + +The specimens I have quoted differ widely from one another, but they +have in common this: the possession of the very highest poetical +quality. If we are thoroughly penetrated by their power, we shall find +that we have acquired a sense enabling us, whatever poetry may be laid +before us, to feel the degree in which a high poetical quality is +present or wanting there. Critics give themselves great labor to draw +out what in the abstract constitutes the characters of a high quality of +poetry. It is much better simply to have recourse to concrete examples; +--to take specimens of poetry of the high, the very highest quality, and +to say: The characters of a high quality of poetry are what is expressed +_there_. They are far better recognized by being felt in the verse of +the master, than by being perused in the prose of the critic. +Nevertheless if we are urgently pressed to give some critical account of +them, we may safely, perhaps, venture on laying down, not indeed how and +why the characters arise, but where and in what they arise. They are in +the matter and substance of the poetry, and they are in its manner and +style. Both of these, the substance and matter on the one hand, the +style and manner on the other, have a mark, an accent, of high beauty, +worth, and power. But if we are asked to define this mark and accent in +the abstract, our answer must be: No, for we should thereby be darkening +the question, not clearing it. The mark and accent are as given by the +substance and matter of that poetry, by the style and manner of that +poetry, and of all other poetry which is akin to it in quality. + +Only one thing we may add as to the substance and matter of poetry, +guiding ourselves by Aristotle's profound observation[87] that the +superiority of poetry over history consists in its possessing a higher +truth and a higher seriousness ([Greek: philosophoteron kahi +spondaioteron]). Let us add, therefore, to what we have said, this: that +the substance and matter of the best poetry acquire their special +character from possessing, in an eminent degree, truth and seriousness. +We may add yet further, what is in itself evident, that to the style and +manner of the best poetry their special character, their accent, is +given by their diction, and, even yet more, by their movement. And +though we distinguish between the two characters, the two accents, of +superiority, yet they are nevertheless vitally connected one with the +other. The superior character of truth and seriousness, in the matter +and substance of the best poetry, is inseparable from the superiority of +diction and movement marking its style and manner. The two superiorities +are closely related, and are in steadfast proportion one to the other. +So far as high poetic truth and seriousness are wanting to a poet's +matter and substance, so far also, we may be sure, will a high poetic +stamp of diction and movement be wanting to his style and manner. In +proportion as this high stamp of diction and movement, again, is absent +from a poet's style and manner, we shall find, also, that high poetic +truth and seriousness are absent from his substance and matter. + +So stated, these are but dry generalities; their whole force lies in +their application. And I could wish every student of poetry to make the +application of them for himself. Made by himself, the application would +impress itself upon his mind far more deeply than made by me. Neither +will my limits allow me to make any full application of the generalities +above propounded; but in the hope of bringing out, at any rate, some +significance in them, and of establishing an important principle more +firmly by their means, I will, in the space which remains to me, follow +rapidly from the commencement the course of our English poetry with them +in my view. + +Once more I return to the early poetry of France, with which our own +poetry, in its origins, is indissolubly connected. In the twelfth and +thirteenth centuries, that seed-time of all modern language and +literature, the poetry of France had a clear predominance in Europe. Of +the two divisions of that poetry, its productions in the _langue d'oïl_ +and its productions in the _langue d'oc_, the poetry of the _langue +d'oc_,[88] of southern France, of the troubadours, is of importance +because of its effect on Italian literature;--the first literature of +modern Europe to strike the true and grand note, and to bring forth, as +in Dante and Petrarch it brought forth, classics. But the predominance +of French poetry in Europe, during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, +is due to its poetry of the _langue d'oïl_, the poetry of northern +France and of the tongue which is now the French language. In the +twelfth century the bloom of this romance-poetry was earlier and +stronger in England, at the court of our Anglo-Norman kings, than in +France itself. But it was a bloom of French poetry; and as our native +poetry formed itself, it formed itself out of this. The romance-poems +which took possession of the heart and imagination of Europe in the +twelfth and thirteenth centuries are French; "they are," as Southey +justly says, "the pride of French literature, nor have we anything which +can be placed in competition with them." Themes were supplied from all +quarters: but the romance-setting which was common to them all, and +which gained the ear of Europe, was French. This constituted for the +French poetry, literature, and language, at the height of the Middle +Age, an unchallenged predominance. The Italian Brunetto Latini,[89] the +master of Dante, wrote his _Treasure_ in French because, he says, "la +parleure en est plus délitable et plus commune à toutes gens." In the +same century, the thirteenth, the French romance-writer, Christian of +Troyes,[90] formulates the claims, in chivalry and letters, of France, +his native country, as follows:-- + + "Or vous ert par ce livre apris, + Que Gresse ot de chevalerie + Le premier los et de clergie; + Puis vint chevalerie à Rome, + Et de la clergie la some, + Qui ore est en France venue. + Diex doinst qu'ele i soit retenue + Et que li lius li abelisse + Tant que de France n'isse + L'onor qui s'i est arestee!" + +"Now by this book you will learn that first Greece had the renown for +chivalry and letters: then chivalry and the primacy in letters passed to +Rome, and now it is come to France. God grant it may be kept there; and +that the place may please it so well, that the honor which has come to +make stay in France may never depart thence!" + +Yet it is now all gone, this French romance-poetry, of which the weight +of substance and the power of style are not unfairly represented by this +extract from Christian of Troyes. Only by means of the historic estimate +can we persuade ourselves now to think that any of it is of poetical +importance. + +But in the fourteenth century there comes an Englishman nourished on +this poetry; taught his trade by this poetry, getting words, rhyme, +meter from this poetry; for even of that stanza[91] which the Italians +used, and which Chaucer derived immediately from the Italians, the basis +and suggestion was probably given in France. Chaucer (I have already +named him) fascinated his contemporaries, but so too did Christian of +Troyes and Wolfram of Eschenbach.[92] Chaucer's power of fascination, +however, is enduring; his poetical importance does not need the +assistance of the historic estimate; it is real. He is a genuine source +of joy and strength, which is flowing still for us and will flow always. +He will be read, as time goes on, far more generally than he is read +now. His language is a cause of difficulty for us; but so also, and I +think in quite as great a degree, is the language of Burns. In +Chaucer's case, as in that of Burns, it is a difficulty to be +unhesitatingly accepted and overcome. + +If we ask ourselves wherein consists the immense superiority of +Chaucer's poetry over the romance-poetry--why it is that in passing from +this to Chaucer we suddenly feel ourselves to be in another world, we +shall find that his superiority is both in the substance of his poetry +and in the style of his poetry. His superiority in substance is given by +his large, free, simple, clear yet kindly view of human life,--so unlike +the total want, in the romance-poets, of all intelligent command of it. +Chaucer has not their helplessness; he has gained the power to survey +the world from a central, a truly human point of view. We have only to +call to mind the Prologue to _The Canterbury Tales_. The right comment +upon it is Dryden's: "It is sufficient to say, according to the proverb, +that _here is God's plenty_."[93] And again: "He is a perpetual fountain +of good sense." It is by a large, free, sound representation of things, +that poetry, this high criticism of life, has truth of substance; and +Chaucer's poetry has truth of substance. + +Of his style and manner, if we think first of the romance-poetry and +then of Chaucer's divine liquidness of diction, his divine fluidity of +movement, it is difficult to speak temperately. They are irresistible, +and justify all the rapture with which his successors speak of his "gold +dew-drops of speech." Johnson misses the point entirely when he finds +fault with Dryden for ascribing to Chaucer the first refinement of our +numbers, and says that Gower[94] also can show smooth numbers and easy +rhymes. The refinement of our numbers means something far more than +this. A nation may have versifiers with smooth numbers and easy rhymes, +and yet may have no real poetry at all. Chaucer is the father of our +splendid English poetry; he is our "well of English undefiled," because +by the lovely charm of his diction, the lovely charm of his movement, he +makes an epoch and founds a tradition. + +In Spenser, Shakespeare, Milton, Keats, we can follow the tradition of +the liquid diction, the fluid movement, of Chaucer; at one time it is +his liquid diction of which in these poets we feel the virtue, and at +another time it is his fluid movement. And the virtue is irresistible. + +Bounded as is my space, I must yet find room for an example of Chaucer's +virtue, as I have given examples to show the virtue of the great +classics. I feel disposed to say that a single line is enough to show +the charm of Chaucer's verse; that merely one line like this-- + + "O martyr souded[95] in virginitee!" + +has a virtue of manner and movement such as we shall not find in all the +verse of romance-poetry;--but this is saying nothing. The virtue is such +as we shall not find, perhaps, in all English poetry, outside the poets +whom I have named as the special inheritors of Chaucer's tradition. A +single line, however, is too little if we have not the strain of +Chaucer's verse well in our memory; let us take a stanza. It is from +_The Prioress's Tale_, the story of the Christian child murdered in a +Jewry-- + + "My throte is cut unto my nekke-bone + Saidè this child, and as by way of kinde + I should have deyd, yea, longè time agone; + But Jesu Christ, as ye in bookès finde, + Will that his glory last and be in minde, + And for the worship of his mother dere + Yet may I sing _O Alma_ loud and clere." + +Wordsworth has modernized this Tale, and to feel how delicate and +evanescent is the charm of verse, we have only to read Wordsworth's +first three lines of this stanza after Chaucer's-- + + "My throat is cut unto the bone, I trow, + Said this young child, and by the law of kind + I should have died, yea, many hours ago." + +The charm is departed. It is often said that the power of liquidness and +fluidity in Chaucer's verse was dependent upon a free, a licentious +dealing with language, such as is now impossible; upon a liberty, such +as Burns too enjoyed, of making words like _neck_, _bird_, into a +dissyllable by adding to them, and words like _cause_, _rhyme_, into a +dissyllable by sounding the _e_ mute. It is true that Chaucer's fluidity +is conjoined with this liberty, and is admirably served by it; but we +ought not to say that it was dependent upon it. It was dependent upon +his talent. Other poets with a like liberty do not attain to the +fluidity of Chaucer; Burns himself does not attain to it. Poets, again, +who have a talent akin to Chaucer's, such as Shakespeare or Keats, have +known how to attain to his fluidity without the like liberty. + +And yet Chaucer is not one of the great classics. His poetry transcends +and effaces, easily and without effort, all the romance-poetry of +Catholic Christendom; it transcends and effaces all the English poetry +contemporary with it, it transcends and effaces all the English poetry +subsequent to it down to the age of Elizabeth. Of such avail is poetic +truth of substance, in its natural and necessary union with poetic truth +of style. And yet, I say, Chaucer is not one of the great classics. He +has not their accent. What is wanting to him is suggested by the mere +mention of the name of the first great classic of Christendom, the +immortal poet who died eighty years before Chaucer,--Dante. The accent +of such verse as + + "In la sua volontade è nostra pace ..." + +is altogether beyond Chaucer's reach; we praise him, but we feel that +this accent is out of the question for him. It may be said that it was +necessarily out of the reach of any poet in the England of that stage of +growth. Possibly; but we are to adopt a real, not a historic, estimate +of poetry. However we may account for its absence, something is wanting, +then, to the poetry of Chaucer, which poetry must have before it can be +placed in the glorious class of the best. And there is no doubt what +that something is. It is the[Greek: spoudaiotaes] the high and +excellent seriousness, which Aristotle assigns as one of the grand +virtues of poetry. The substance of Chaucer's poetry, his view of things +and his criticism of life, has largeness, freedom, shrewdness, +benignity; but it has not this high seriousness. Homer's criticism of +life has it, Dante's has it, Shakespeare's has it. It is this chiefly +which gives to our spirits what they can rest upon; and with the +increasing demands of our modern ages upon poetry, this virtue of giving +us what we can rest upon will be more and more highly esteemed. A voice +from the slums of Paris, fifty or sixty years after Chaucer, the voice +of poor Villon[96] out of his life of riot and crime, has at its happy +moments (as, for instance, in the last stanza of _La Belle Heaulmière_ +[97]) more of this important poetic virtue of seriousness than all the +productions of Chaucer. But its apparition in Villon, and in men like +Villon, is fitful; the greatness of the great poets, the power of their +criticism of life, is that their virtue is sustained. + +To our praise, therefore, of Chaucer as a poet there must be this +limitation: he lacks the high seriousness of the great classics, and +therewith an important part of their virtue. Still, the main fact for us +to bear in mind about Chaucer is his sterling value according to that +real estimate which we firmly adopt for all poets. He has poetic truth +of substance, though he has not high poetic seriousness, and +corresponding to his truth of substance he has an exquisite virtue of +style and manner. With him is born our real poetry. + +For my present purpose I need not dwell on our Elizabethan poetry, or on +the continuation and close of this poetry in Milton. We all of us +profess to be agreed in the estimate of this poetry; we all of us +recognize it as great poetry, our greatest, and Shakespeare and Milton +as our poetical classics. The real estimate, here, has universal +currency. With the next age of our poetry divergency and difficulty +begin. An historic estimate of that poetry has established itself; and +the question is, whether it will be found to coincide with the real +estimate. + +The age of Dryden, together with our whole eighteenth century which +followed it, sincerely believed itself to have produced poetical +classics of its own, and even to have made advance, in poetry, beyond +all its predecessors. Dryden regards as not seriously disputable the +opinion "that the sweetness of English verse was never understood or +practised by our fathers."[98] Cowley could see nothing at all in +Chaucer's poetry.[99] Dryden heartily admired it, and, as we have seen, +praised its matter admirably; but of its exquisite manner and movement +all he can find to say is that "there is the rude sweetness of a Scotch +tune in it, which is natural and pleasing, though not perfect."[100] +Addison, wishing to praise Chaucer's numbers, compares them with +Dryden's own. And all through the eighteenth century, and down even into +our own times, the stereotyped phrase of approbation for good verse +found in our early poetry has been, that it even approached the verse of +Dryden, Addison, Pope, and Johnson. + +Are Dryden and Pope poetical classics? Is the historic estimate, which +represents them as such, and which has been so long established that it +cannot easily give way, the real estimate? Wordsworth and Coleridge, as +is well known, denied it;[101] but the authority of Wordsworth and +Coleridge does not weigh much with the young generation, and there are +many signs to show that the eighteenth century and its judgments are +coming into favor again. Are the favorite poets of the eighteenth +century classics? + +It is impossible within my present limits to discuss the question fully. +And what man of letters would not shrink from seeming to dispose +dictatorially of the claims of two men who are, at any rate, such +masters in letters as Dryden and Pope; two men of such admirable talent, +both of them, and one of them, Dryden, a man, on all sides, of such +energetic and genial power? And yet, if we are to gain the full benefit +from poetry, we must have the real estimate of it. I cast about for some +mode of arriving, in the present case, at such an estimate without +offence. And perhaps the best way is to begin, as it is easy to begin, +with cordial praise. + +When we find Chapman, the Elizabethan translator of Homer, expressing +himself in his preface thus: "Though truth in her very nakedness sits in +so deep a pit, that from Gades to Aurora and Ganges few eyes can sound +her, I hope yet those few here will so discover and confirm that, the +date being out of her darkness in this morning of our poet, he shall now +gird his temples with the sun,"--we pronounce that such a prose is +intolerable. When we find Milton writing: "And long it was not after, +when I was confirmed in this opinion, that he, who would not be +frustrate of his hope to write well hereafter in laudable things, ought +himself to be a true poem,"[102]--we pronounce that such a prose has its +own grandeur, but that it is obsolete and inconvenient. But when we find +Dryden telling us: "What Virgil wrote in the vigor of his age, in plenty +and at ease, I have undertaken to translate in my declining years; +struggling with wants, oppressed with sickness, curbed in my genius, +liable to be misconstrued in all I write,"[103]--then we exclaim that +here at last we have the true English prose, a prose such as we would +all gladly use if we only knew how. Yet Dryden was Milton's +contemporary. + +But after the Restoration the time had come when our nation felt the +imperious need of a fit prose. So, too, the time had likewise come when +our nation felt the imperious need of freeing itself from the absorbing +preoccupation which religion in the Puritan age had exercised. It was +impossible that this freedom should be brought about without some +negative excess, without some neglect and impairment of the religious +life of the soul; and the spiritual history of the eighteenth century +shows us that the freedom was not achieved without them. Still, the +freedom was achieved; the preoccupation, an undoubtedly baneful and +retarding one if it had continued, was got rid of. And as with religion +amongst us at that period, so it was also with letters. A fit prose was +a necessity; but it was impossible that a fit prose should establish +itself amongst us without some touch of frost to the imaginative life of +the soul. The needful qualities for a fit prose are regularity, +uniformity, precision, balance. The men of letters, whose destiny it may +be to bring their nation to the attainment of a fit prose, must of +necessity, whether they work in prose or in verse, give a predominating, +an almost exclusive attention to the qualities of regularity, +uniformity, precision, balance. But an almost exclusive attention to +these qualities involves some repression and silencing of poetry. + +We are to regard Dryden as the puissant and glorious founder, Pope as +the splendid high priest, of our age of prose and reason, of our +excellent and indispensable eighteenth century. For the purposes of +their mission and destiny their poetry, like their prose, is admirable. +Do you ask me whether Dryden's verse, take it almost where you will, is +not good? + + "A milk-white Hind, immortal and unchanged, + Fed on the lawns and in the forest ranged."[104] + +I answer: Admirable for the purposes of the inaugurator of an age of +prose and reason. Do you ask me whether Pope's verse, take it almost +where you will, is not good? + + "To Hounslow Heath I point, and Banstead Down; + Thence comes your mutton, and these chicks my own."[105] + +I answer: Admirable for the purposes of the high priest of an age of +prose and reason. But do you ask me whether such verse proceeds from men +with an adequate poetic criticism of life, from men whose criticism of +life has a high seriousness, or even, without that high seriousness, has +poetic largeness, freedom, insight, benignity? Do you ask me whether the +application of ideas to life in the verse of these men, often a powerful +application, no doubt, is a powerful _poetic_ application? Do you ask me +whether the poetry of these men has either the matter or the inseparable +manner of such an adequate poetic criticism; whether it has the accent +of + + "Absent thee from felicity awhile ... " + +or of + + "And what is else not to be overcome ... " + +or of + + "O martyr sonded in virginitee!" + +I answer: It has not and cannot have them; it is the poetry of the +builders of an age of prose and reason. + +Though they may write in verse, though they may in a certain sense be +masters of the art of versification, Dryden and Pope are not classics of +our poetry, they are classics of our prose. + +Gray is our poetical classic of that literature and age; the position of +Gray is singular, and demands a word of notice here. He has not the +volume or the power of poets who, coming in times more favorable, have +attained to an independent criticism of life. But he lived with the +great poets, he lived, above all, with the Greeks, through perpetually +studying and enjoying them; and he caught their poetic point of view for +regarding life, caught their poetic manner. The point of view and the +manner are not self-sprung in him, he caught them of others; and he had +not the free and abundant use of them. But whereas Addison and Pope +never had the use of them, Gray had the use of them at times. He is the +scantiest and frailest of classics in our poetry, but he is a classic. + +And now, after Gray, we are met, as we draw towards the end of the +eighteenth century, we are met by the great name of Burns. We enter now +on times where the personal estimate of poets begins to be rife, and +where the real estimate of them is not reached without difficulty. But +in spite of the disturbing pressures of personal partiality, of national +partiality, let us try to reach a real estimate of the poetry of Burns. +By his English poetry Burns in general belongs to the eighteenth +century, and has little importance for us. + + "Mark ruffian Violence, distain'd with crimes, + Rousing elate in these degenerate times; + View unsuspecting Innocence a prey, + As guileful Fraud points out the erring way; + While subtle Litigation's pliant tongue + The life-blood equal sucks of Right and Wrong!"[106] + +Evidently this is not the real Burns, or his name and fame would have +disappeared long ago. Nor is Clarinda's[107] love-poet, Sylvander, the +real Burns either. But he tells us himself: "These English songs gravel +me to death. I have not the command of the language that I have of my +native tongue. In fact, I think that my ideas are more barren in English +than in Scotch. I have been at _Duncan Gray_ to dress it in English, but +all I can do is desperately stupid."[108] We English turn naturally, in +Burns, to the poems in our own language, because we can read them +easily; but in those poems we have not the real Burns. + +The real Burns is of course in his Scotch poems. Let us boldly say that +of much of this poetry, a poetry dealing perpetually with Scotch drink, +Scotch religion, and Scotch manners, a Scotchman's estimate is apt to be +personal. A Scotchman is used to this world of Scotch drink, Scotch +religion, and Scotch manners; he has a tenderness for it; he meets its +poet half way. In this tender mood he reads pieces like the _Holy Fair +or Halloween_. But this world of Scotch drink, Scotch religion, and +Scotch manners is against a poet, not for him, when it is not a partial +countryman who reads him; for in itself it is not a beautiful world, and +no one can deny that it is of advantage to a poet to deal with a +beautiful world. Burns's world of Scotch drink, Scotch religion, and +Scotch manners, is often a harsh, a sordid, a repulsive world; even the +world of his _Cotter's Saturday Night_ is not a beautiful world. No +doubt a poet's criticism of life may have such truth and power that it +triumphs over its world and delights us. Burns may triumph over his +world, often he does triumph over his world, but let us observe how and +where. Burns is the first case we have had where the bias of the +personal estimate tends to mislead; let us look at him closely, he can +bear it. + +Many of his admirers will tell us that we have Burns, convivial, +genuine, delightful, here-- + + + "Leeze me on drink! it gies us mair + Than either school or college; + It kindles wit, it waukens lair, + It pangs us fou o' knowledge. + Be't whisky gill or penny wheep + Or ony stronger potion, + It never fails, on drinking deep, + To kittle up our notion + By night or day."[109] + +There is a great deal of that sort of thing in Burns, and it is +unsatisfactory, not because it is bacchanalian poetry, but because it +has not that accent of sincerity which bacchanalian poetry, to do it +justice, very often has. There is something in it of bravado, something +which makes us feel that we have not the man speaking to us with his +real voice: something, therefore, poetically unsound. + +With still more confidence will his admirers tell us that we have the +genuine Burns, the great poet, when his strain asserts the independence, +equality, dignity, of men, as in the famous song _For a' that and a' +that_-- + + "A prince can mak' a belted knight, + A marquis, duke, and a' that; + But an honest man's a boon his might, + Guid faith he manna fa' that! + For a' that, and a' that, + Their dignities, and a' that, + The pith o' sense, and pride o' worth, + Are higher rank than a' that." + +Here they find his grand, genuine touches; and still more, when this +puissant genius, who so often set morality at defiance, falls +moralizing-- + + "The sacred lowe o' weel placed love + Luxuriantly indulge it; + But never tempt th' illicit rove, + Tho' naething should divulge it. + I waive the quantum o' the sin, + The hazard o' concealing, + But och! it hardens a' within, + And petrifies the feeling."[110] + +Or in a higher strain-- + + "Who made the heart, 'tis He alone + Decidedly can try us; + He knows each chord, its various tone; + Each spring, its various bias. + Then at the balance let's be mute, + We never can adjust it; + What's _done_ we partly may compute, + But know not what's resisted."[111] + +Or in a better strain yet, a strain, his admirers will say, +unsurpassable-- + + "To make a happy fire-side clime + To weans and wife, + That's the true pathos and sublime + Of human life."[112] + +There is criticism of life for you, the admirers of Burns will say to +us; there is the application of ideas to life! There is, undoubtedly. +The doctrine of the last-quoted lines coincides almost exactly with what +was the aim and end, Xenophon tells us, of all the teaching of Socrates. +And the application is a powerful one; made by a man of vigorous +understanding, and (need I say?) a master of language. + +But for supreme poetical success more is required than the powerful +application of ideas to life; it must be an application under the +conditions fixed by the laws of poetic truth and poetic beauty. Those +laws fix as an essential condition, in the poet's treatment of such +matters as are here in question, high seriousness;--the high seriousness +which comes from absolute sincerity. The accent of high seriousness, +born of absolute sincerity, is what gives to such verse as + + "In la sua volontade è nostra pace..." + +to such criticism of life as Dante's, its power. Is this accent felt in +the passages which I have been quoting from Burns? Surely not; surely, +if our sense is quick, we must perceive that we have not in those +passages a voice from the very inmost soul of the genuine Burns; he is +not speaking to us from these depths, he is more or less preaching. And +the compensation for admiring such passages less, for missing the +perfect poetic accent in them, will be that we shall admire more the +poetry where that accent is found. + +No; Burns, like Chaucer, comes short of the high seriousness of the +great classics, and the virtue of matter and manner which goes with that +high seriousness is wanting to his work. At moments he touches it in a +profound and passionate melancholy, as in those four immortal lines +taken by Byron as a motto for _The Bride of Abydos_, but which have in +them a depth of poetic quality such as resides in no verse of Byron's +own-- + + "Had we never loved sae kindly, + Had we never loved sae blindly, + Never met, or never parted, + We had ne'er been broken-hearted." + +But a whole poem of that quality Burns cannot make; the rest, in the +_Farewell to Nancy_, is verbiage. + +We arrive best at the real estimate of Burns, I think, by conceiving his +work as having truth of matter and truth of manner, but not the accent +or the poetic virtue of the highest masters. His genuine criticism of +life, when the sheer poet in him speaks, is ironic; it is not-- + + "Thou Power Supreme, whose mighty scheme + These woes of mine fulfil, + Here firm I rest, they must be best + Because they are Thy will!"[113] + +It is far rather: _Whistle owre the lave o't!_ Yet we may say of him as +of Chaucer, that of life and the world, as they come before him, his +view is large, free, shrewd, benignant,--truly poetic, therefore; and +his manner of rendering what he sees is to match. But we must note, at +the same time, his great difference from Chaucer. The freedom of Chaucer +is heightened, in Burns, by a fiery, reckless energy; the benignity of +Chaucer deepens, in Burns, into an overwhelming sense of the pathos of +things;--of the pathos of human nature, the pathos, also, of non-human +nature. Instead of the fluidity of Chaucer's manner, the manner of Burns +has spring, bounding swiftness. Burns is by far the greater force, +though he has perhaps less charm. The world of Chaucer is fairer, +richer, more significant than that of Burns; but when the largeness and +freedom of Burns get full sweep, as in _Tam o' Shanter_, or still more +in that puissant and splendid production, _The Jolly Beggars_, his world +may be what it will, his poetic genius triumphs over it. In the world of +_The Jolly Beggars_ there is more than hideousness and squalor, there is +bestiality; yet the piece is a superb poetic success. It has a breadth, +truth, and power which make the famous scene in Auerbach's Cellar, of +Goethe's _Faust_, seem artificial and tame beside it, and which are only +matched by Shakespeare and Aristophanes. + +Here, where his largeness and freedom serve him so admirably, and also +in those poems and songs where to shrewdness he adds infinite archness +and, wit, and to benignity infinite pathos, where his manner is +flawless, and a perfect poetic whole is the result,--in things like the +address to the mouse whose home he had ruined, in things like _Duncan +Gray, Tarn Glen, Whistle and I'll come to you my Lad, Auld Lang Syne_ +(this list might be made much longer),--here we have the genuine Burns, +of whom the real estimate must be high indeed. Not a classic, nor with +the excellent[Greek: spoudaihotaes] of the great classics, nor with a +verse rising to a criticism of life and a virtue like theirs; but a poet +with thorough truth of substance and an answering truth of style, giving +us a poetry sound to the core. We all of us have a leaning towards the +pathetic, and may be inclined perhaps to prize Burns most for his +touches of piercing, sometimes almost intolerable, pathos; for verse +like-- + + "We twa hae paidl't i' the burn + From mornin' sun till dine; + But seas between us braid hae roar'd + Sin auld lang syne ..." + +where he is as lovely as he is sound. But perhaps it is by the +perfection of soundness of his lighter and archer masterpieces that he +is poetically most wholesome for us. For the votary misled by a personal +estimate of Shelley, as so many of us have been, are, and will be,--of +that beautiful spirit building his many-colored haze of words and images + + "Pinnacled dim in the intense inane"--[114] + +no contact can be wholesomer than the contact with Burns at his archest +and soundest. Side by side with the + + "On the brink of the night and the morning + My coursers are wont to respire, + But the Earth has just whispered a warning + That their flight must be swifter than fire ..."[115] + +of _Prometheus Unbound_, how salutary, how very salutary, to place this +from _Tam Glen_-- + + "My minnie does constantly deave me + and bids me beware o' young men; + They flatter, she says, to deceive me; + But wha can think sae o' Tam Glen?" + +But we enter on burning ground as we approach the poetry of times so +near to us--poetry like that of Byron, Shelley, and Wordsworth--of which +the estimates are so often not only personal, but personal with passion. +For my purpose, it is enough to have taken the single case of Burns, the +first poet we come to of whose work the estimate formed is evidently apt +to be personal, and to have suggested how we may proceed, using the +poetry of the great classics as a sort of touchstone, to correct this +estimate, as we had previously corrected by the same means the historic +estimate where we met with it. A collection like the present, with its +succession of celebrated names and celebrated poems, offers a good +opportunity to us for resolutely endeavoring to make our estimates of +poetry real. I have sought to point out a method which will help us in +making them so, and to exhibit it in use so far as to put any one who +likes in a way of applying it for himself. + +At any rate the end to which the method and the estimate are designed to +lead, and from leading to which, if they do lead to it, they get their +whole value,--the benefit of being able clearly to feel and deeply to +enjoy the best, the truly classic, in poetry,--is an end, let me say it +once more at parting, of supreme importance. We are often told that an +era is opening in which we are to see multitudes of a common sort of +readers, and masses of a common sort of literature; that such readers do +not want and could not relish anything better than such literature, and +that to provide it is becoming a vast and profitable industry. Even if +good literature entirely lost currency with the world, it would still be +abundantly worth while to continue to enjoy it by oneself. But it never +will lose currency with the world, in spite of momentary appearances; it +never will lose supremacy. Currency and supremacy are insured to it, not +indeed by the world's deliberate and conscious choice, but by something +far deeper,--by the instinct of self-preservation in humanity. + + + +LITERATURE AND SCIENCE[116] + + +Practical people talk with a smile of Plato and of his absolute ideas; +and it is impossible to deny that Plato's ideas do often seem +unpractical and impracticable, and especially when one views them in +connection with the life of a great work-a-day world like the United +States. The necessary staple of the life of such a world Plato regards +with disdain; handicraft and trade and the working professions he +regards with disdain; but what becomes of the life of an industrial +modern community if you take handicraft and trade and the working +professions out of it? The base mechanic arts and handicrafts, says +Plato, bring about a natural weakness in the principle of excellence in +a man, so that he cannot govern the ignoble growths in him, but nurses +them, and cannot understand fostering any other. Those who exercise such +arts and trades, as they have their bodies, he says, marred by their +vulgar businesses, so they have their souls, too, bowed and broken by +them. And if one of these uncomely people has a mind to seek +self-culture and philosophy, Plato compares him to a bald little +tinker,[117] who has scraped together money, and has got his release +from service, and has had a bath, and bought a new coat, and is rigged +out like a bridegroom about to marry the daughter of his master who has +fallen into poor and helpless estate. + +Nor do the working professions fare any better than trade at the hands +of Plato. He draws for us an inimitable picture of the working +lawyer,[118] and of his life of bondage; he shows how this bondage from +his youth up has stunted and warped him, and made him small and crooked +of soul, encompassing him with difficulties which he is not man enough +to rely on justice and truth as means to encounter, but has recourse, +for help out of them, to falsehood and wrong. And so, says Plato, this +poor creature is bent and broken, and grows up from boy to man without a +particle of soundness in him, although exceedingly smart and clever in +his own esteem. + +One cannot refuse to admire the artist who draws these pictures. But we +say to ourselves that his ideas show the influence of a primitive and +obsolete order of things, when the warrior caste and the priestly caste +were alone in honor, and the humble work of the world was done by +slaves. We have now changed all that; the modern majesty[119] consists +in work, as Emerson declares; and in work, we may add, principally of +such plain and dusty kind as the work of cultivators of the ground, +handicraftsmen, men of trade and business, men of the working +professions. Above all is this true in a great industrious community +such as that of the United States. + +Now education, many people go on to say, is still mainly governed by the +ideas of men like Plato, who lived when the warrior caste and the +priestly or philosophical class were alone in honor, and the really +useful part of the community were slaves. It is an education fitted for +persons of leisure in such a community. This education passed from +Greece and Rome to the feudal communities of Europe, where also the +warrior caste and the priestly caste were alone held in honor, and where +the really useful and working part of the community, though not +nominally slaves as in the pagan world, were practically not much better +off than slaves, and not more seriously regarded. And how absurd it is, +people end by saying, to inflict this education upon an industrious +modern community, where very few indeed are persons of leisure, and the +mass to be considered has not leisure, but is bound, for its own great +good, and for the great good of the world at large, to plain labor and +to industrial pursuits, and the education in question tends necessarily +to make men dissatisfied with these pursuits and unfitted for them! + +That is what is said. So far I must defend Plato, as to plead that his +view of education and studies is in the general, as it seems to me, +sound enough, and fitted for all sorts and conditions of men, whatever +their pursuits may be. "An intelligent man," says Plato, "will prize +those studies, which result in his soul getting soberness, +righteousness, and wisdom, and will less value the others."[120] I +cannot consider _that_ a bad description of the aim of education, and of +the motives which should govern us in the choice of studies, whether we +are preparing ourselves for a hereditary seat in the English House of +Lords or for the pork trade in Chicago. + +Still I admit that Plato's world was not ours, that his scorn of trade +and handicraft is fantastic, that he had no conception of a great +industrial community such as that of the United States, and that such a +community must and will shape its education to suit its own needs. If +the usual education handed down to it from the past does not suit it, it +will certainly before long drop this and try another. The usual +education in the past has been mainly literary. The question is whether +the studies which were long supposed to be the best for all of us are +practically the best now; whether others are not better. The tyranny of +the past, many think, weighs on us injuriously in the predominance given +to letters in education. The question is raised whether, to meet the +needs of our modern life, the predominance ought not now to pass from +letters to science; and naturally the question is nowhere raised with +more energy than here in the United States. The design of abasing what +is called "mere literary instruction and education," and of exalting +what is called "sound, extensive, and practical scientific knowledge," +is, in this intensely modern world of the United States, even more +perhaps than in Europe, a very popular design, and makes great and rapid +progress. + +I am going to ask whether the present movement for ousting letters from +their old predominance in education, and for transferring the +predominance in education to the natural sciences, whether this brisk +and flourishing movement ought to prevail, and whether it is likely that +in the end it really will prevail. An objection may be raised which I +will anticipate. My own studies have been almost wholly in letters, and +my visits to the field of the natural sciences have been very slight and +inadequate, although those sciences have always strongly moved my +curiosity. A man of letters, it will perhaps be said, is not competent +to discuss the comparative merits of letters and natural science as +means of education. To this objection I reply, first of all, that his +incompetence, if he attempts the discussion but is really incompetent +for it, will be abundantly visible; nobody will be taken in; he will +have plenty of sharp observers and critics to save mankind from that +danger. But the line I am going to follow is, as you will soon discover, +so extremely simple, that perhaps it may be followed without failure +even by one who for a more ambitious line of discussion would be quite +incompetent. + +Some of you may possibly remember a phrase of mine which has been the +object of a good deal of comment; an observation to the effect that in +our culture, the aim being _to know ourselves and the world_, we have, +as the means to this end, _to know the best which has been thought and +said in the world_.[121] A man of science, who is also an excellent +writer and the very prince of debaters, Professor Huxley, in a discourse +[122] at the opening of Sir Josiah Mason's college at Birmingham, laying +hold of this phrase, expanded it by quoting some more words of mine, +which are these: "The civilized world is to be regarded as now being, +for intellectual and spiritual purposes, one great confederation, bound +to a joint action and working to a common result; and whose members have +for their proper outfit a knowledge of Greek, Roman, and Eastern +antiquity, and of one another. Special local and temporary advantages +being put out of account, that modern nation will in the intellectual +and spiritual sphere make most progress, which most thoroughly carries +out this programme."[123] + +Now on my phrase, thus enlarged, Professor Huxley remarks that when I +speak of the above-mentioned knowledge as enabling us to know ourselves +and the world, I assert _literature_ to contain the materials which +suffice for thus making us know ourselves and the world. But it is not +by any means clear, says he, that after having learnt all which ancient +and modern literatures have to tell us, we have laid a sufficiently +broad and deep foundation for that criticism of life, that knowledge of +ourselves and the world, which constitutes culture. On the contrary, +Professor Huxley declares that he finds himself "wholly unable to admit +that either nations or individuals will really advance, if their outfit +draws nothing from the stores of physical science. An army without +weapons of precision, and with no particular base of operations, might +more hopefully enter upon a campaign on the Rhine, than a man, devoid of +a knowledge of what physical science has done in the last century, upon +a criticism of life." + +This shows how needful it is for those who are to discuss any matter +together, to have a common understanding as to the sense of the terms +they employ,--how needful, and how difficult. What Professor Huxley +says, implies just the reproach which is so often brought against the +study of _belles lettres_, as they are called: that the study is an +elegant one, but slight and ineffectual; a smattering of Greek and Latin +and other ornamental things, of little use for any one whose object is +to get at truth, and to be a practical man. So, too, M. Renan[124] +talks of the "superficial humanism" of a school-course which treats us +as if we were all going to be poets, writers, preachers, orators, and he +opposes this humanism to positive science, or the critical search after +truth. And there is always a tendency in those who are remonstrating +against the predominance of letters in education, to understand by +letters _belles lettres_, and by _belles lettres_ a superficial humanism +the opposite of science or true knowledge. + +But when we talk of knowing Greek and Roman antiquity, for instance, +which is the knowledge people have called the humanities, I for my part +mean a knowledge which is something more than a superficial humanism, +mainly decorative. "I call all teaching _scientific_" says Wolf, the +critic of Homer, "which is systematically laid out and followed up to +its original sources. For example: a knowledge of classical antiquity is +scientific when the remains of classical antiquity are correctly studied +in the original languages." There can be no doubt that Wolf[125] is +perfectly right; that all learning is scientific which is systematically +laid out and followed up to its original sources, and that a genuine +humanism is scientific. + +When I speak of knowing Greek and Roman antiquity, therefore, as a help +to knowing ourselves and the world, I mean more than a knowledge of so +much vocabulary, so much grammar, so many portions of authors in the +Greek and Latin languages, I mean knowing the Greeks and Romans, and +their life and genius, and what they were and did in the world; what we +get from them, and what is its value. That, at least, is the ideal; and +when we talk of endeavoring to know Greek and Roman antiquity, as a help +to knowing ourselves and the world, we mean endeavoring so to know them +as to satisfy this ideal, however much we may still fall short of it. + +The same also as to knowing our own and other modern nations, with the +like aim of getting to understand ourselves and the world. To know the +best that has been thought and said by the modern nations, is to know, +says Professor Huxley, "only what modern _literatures_ have to tell us; +it is the criticism of life contained in modern literature." And yet +"the distinctive character of our times," he urges, "lies in the vast +and constantly increasing part which is played by natural knowledge." +And how, therefore, can a man, devoid of knowledge of what physical +science has done in the last century, enter hopefully upon a criticism +of modern life? + +Let us, I say, be agreed about the meaning of the terms we are using. I +talk of knowing the best which has been thought and uttered in the +world; Professor Huxley says this means knowing _literature_. Literature +is a large word; it may mean everything written with letters or printed +in a book. Euclid's _Elements_ and Newton's _Principia_ are thus +literature. All knowledge that reaches us through books is literature. +But by literature Professor Huxley means _belles lettres_. He means to +make me say, that knowing the best which has been thought and said by +the modern nations is knowing their _belles lettres_ and no more. And +this is no sufficient equipment, he argues, for a criticism of modern +life. But as I do not mean, by knowing ancient Rome, knowing merely more +or less of Latin _belles lettres_, and taking no account of Rome's +military, and political, and legal, and administrative work in the +world; and as, by knowing ancient Greece, I understand knowing her as +the giver of Greek art, and the guide to a free and right use of reason +and to scientific method, and the founder of our mathematics and physics +and astronomy and biology,--I understand knowing her as all this, and +not merely knowing certain Greek poems, and histories, and treatises, +and speeches,--so as to the knowledge of modern nations also. By knowing +modern nations, I mean not merely knowing their _belles lettres_, but +knowing also what has been done by such men as Copernicus, Galileo, +Newton, Darwin. "Our ancestors learned," says Professor Huxley, "that +the earth is the centre of the visible universe, and that man is the +cynosure of things terrestrial; and more especially was it inculcated +that the course of nature had no fixed order, but that it could be, and +constantly was, altered." But for us now, continues Professor Huxley, +"the notions of the beginning and the end of the world entertained by +our forefathers are no longer credible. It is very certain that the +earth is not the chief body in the material universe, and that the world +is not subordinated to man's use. It is even more certain that nature is +the expression of a definite order, with which nothing interferes." "And +yet," he cries, "the purely classical education advocated by the +representatives of the humanists in our day gives no inkling of all +this!" + +In due place and time I will just touch upon that vexed question of +classical education; but at present the question is as to what is meant +by knowing the best which modern nations have thought and said. It is +not knowing their _belles lettres_ merely which is meant. To know +Italian _belles lettres_, is not to know Italy, and to know English +_belles lettres_ is not to know England. Into knowing Italy and England +there comes a great deal more, Galileo and Newton amongst it. The +reproach of being a superficial humanism, a tincture of _belles +lettres_, may attach rightly enough to some other disciplines; but to +the particular discipline recommended when I proposed knowing the best +that has been thought and said in the world, it does not apply. In that +best I certainly include what in modern times has been thought and said +by the great observers and knowers of nature. + +There is, therefore, really no question between Professor Huxley and me +as to whether knowing the great results of the modern scientific study +of nature is not required as a part of our culture, as well as knowing +the products of literature and art. But to follow the processes by which +those results are reached, ought, say the friends of physical science, +to be made the staple of education for the bulk of mankind. And here +there does arise a question between those whom Professor Huxley calls +with playful sarcasm "the Levites of culture," and those whom the poor +humanist is sometimes apt to regard as its Nebuchadnezzars. + +The great results of the scientific investigation of nature we are +agreed upon knowing, but how much of our study are we bound to give to +the processes by which those results are reached? The results have their +visible bearing on human life. But all the processes, too, all the items +of fact, by which those results are reached and established, are +interesting. All knowledge is interesting to a wise man, and the +knowledge of nature is interesting to all men. It is very interesting to +know, that, from the albuminous white of the egg, the chick in the egg +gets the materials for its flesh, bones, blood, and feathers; while from +the fatty yolk of the egg, it gets the heat and energy which enable it +at length to break its shell and begin the world. It is less +interesting, perhaps, but still it is interesting, to know that when a +taper burns, the wax is converted into carbonic acid and water. +Moreover, it is quite true that the habit of dealing with facts, which +is given by the study of nature, is, as the friends of physical science +praise it for being, an excellent discipline. The appeal, in the study +of nature, is constantly to observation and experiment; not only is it +said that the thing is so, but we can be made to see that it is so. Not +only does a man tell us that when a taper burns the wax is converted +into carbonic acid and water, as a man may tell us, if he likes, that +Charon is punting his ferry-boat on the river Styx, or that Victor Hugo +is a sublime poet, or Mr. Gladstone the most admirable of statesmen; but +we are made to see that the conversion into carbonic acid and water does +actually happen. This reality of natural knowledge it is, which makes +the friends of physical science contrast it, as a knowledge of things, +with the humanist's knowledge, which is, say they, a knowledge of words. +And hence Professor Huxley is moved to lay it down that, "for the +purpose of attaining real culture, an exclusively scientific education +is at least as effectual as an exclusively literary education." And a +certain President of the Section for Mechanical Science in the British +Association is, in Scripture phrase, "very bold," and declares that if a +man, in his mental training, "has substituted literature and history for +natural science, he has chosen the less useful alternative." But whether +we go these lengths or not, we must all admit that in natural science +the habit gained of dealing with facts is a most valuable discipline, +and that every one should have some experience of it. + +More than this, however, is demanded by the reformers. It is proposed to +make the training in natural science the main part of education, for the +great majority of mankind at any rate. And here, I confess, I part +company with the friends of physical science, with whom up to this point +I have been agreeing. In differing from them, however, I wish to proceed +with the utmost caution and diffidence. The smallness of my own +acquaintance with the disciplines of natural science is ever before my +mind, and I am fearful of doing these disciplines an injustice. The +ability and pugnacity of the partisans of natural science make them +formidable persons to contradict. The tone of tentative inquiry, which +befits a being of dim faculties and bounded knowledge, is the tone I +would wish to take and not to depart from. At present it seems to me, +that those who are for giving to natural knowledge, as they call it, the +chief place in the education of the majority of mankind, leave one +important thing out of their account: the constitution of human nature. +But I put this forward on the strength of some facts not at all +recondite, very far from it; facts capable of being stated in the +simplest possible fashion, and to which, if I so state them, the man of +science will, I am sure, be willing to allow their due weight. + +Deny the facts altogether, I think, he hardly can. He can hardly deny, +that when we set ourselves to enumerate the powers which go to the +building up of human life, and say that they are the power of conduct, +the power of intellect and knowledge, the power of beauty, and the power +of social life and manners,--he can hardly deny that this scheme, +though drawn in rough and plain lines enough, and not pretending to +scientific exactness, does yet give a fairly true representation of the +matter. Human nature is built up by these powers; we have the need for +them all. When we have rightly met and adjusted the claims of them all, +we shall then be in a fair way for getting soberness, and righteousness +with wisdom. This is evident enough, and the friends of physical science +would admit it. + +But perhaps they may not have sufficiently observed another thing: +namely, that the several powers just mentioned are not isolated, but +there is, in the generality of mankind, a perpetual tendency to relate +them one to another in divers ways. With one such way of relating them I +am particularly concerned now. Following our instinct for intellect and +knowledge, we acquire pieces of knowledge; and presently in the +generality of men, there arises the desire to relate these pieces of +knowledge to our sense for conduct, to our sense for beauty,--and there +is weariness and dissatisfaction if the desire is balked. Now in this +desire lies, I think, the strength of that hold which letters have upon +us. + +All knowledge is, as I said just now, interesting; and even items of +knowledge which from the nature of the case cannot well be related, but +must stand isolated in our thoughts, have their interest. Even lists of +exceptions have their interest. If we are studying Greek accents it is +interesting to know that _pais_ and _pas_, and some other monosyllables +of the same form of declension, do not take the circumflex upon the last +syllable of the genitive plural, but vary, in this respect, from the +common rule. If we are studying physiology, it is interesting to know +that the pulmonary artery carries dark blood and the pulmonary vein +carries bright blood, departing in this respect from the common rule for +the division of labor between the veins and the arteries. But every one +knows how we seek naturally to combine the pieces of our knowledge +together, to bring them under general rules, to relate them to +principles; and how unsatisfactory and tiresome it would be to go on +forever learning lists of exceptions, or accumulating items of fact +which must stand isolated. + +Well, that same need of relating our knowledge, which operates here +within the sphere of our knowledge itself, we shall find operating, +also, outside that sphere. We experience, as we go on learning and +knowing,--the vast majority of us experience,--the need of relating what +we have learnt and known to the sense which we have in us for conduct, +to the sense which we have in us for beauty. + +A certain Greek prophetess of Mantineia in Arcadia, Diotima[126] by +name, once explained to the philosopher Socrates that love, and impulse, +and bent of all kinds, is, in fact, nothing else but the desire in men +that good should forever be present to them. This desire for good, +Diotima assured Socrates, is our fundamental desire, of which +fundamental desire every impulse in us is only some one particular form. +And therefore this fundamental desire it is, I suppose,--this desire in +men that good should be forever present to them,--which acts in us when +we feel the impulse for relating our knowledge to our sense for conduct +and to our sense for beauty. At any rate, with men in general the +instinct exists. Such is human nature. And the instinct, it will be +admitted, is innocent, and human nature is preserved by our following +the lead of its innocent instincts. Therefore, in seeking to gratify +this instinct in question, we are following the instinct of +self-preservation in humanity. + +But, no doubt, some kinds of knowledge cannot be made to directly serve +the instinct in question, cannot be directly related to the sense for +beauty, to the sense for conduct. These are instrument-knowledges; they +lead on to other knowledges, which can. A man who passes his life in +instrument-knowledges is a specialist. They may be invaluable as +instruments to something beyond, for those who have the gift thus to +employ them; and they may be disciplines in themselves wherein it is +useful for every one to have some schooling. But it is inconceivable +that the generality of men should pass all their mental life with Greek +accents or with formal logic. My friend Professor Sylvester,[127] who is +one of the first mathematicians in the world, holds transcendental +doctrines as to the virtue of mathematics, but those doctrines are not +for common men. In the very Senate House and heart of our English +Cambridge I once ventured, though not without an apology for my +profaneness, to hazard the opinion that for the majority of mankind a +little of mathematics, even, goes a long way. Of course this is quite +consistent with their being of immense importance as an instrument to +something else; but it is the few who have the aptitude for thus using +them, not the bulk of mankind. + +The natural sciences do not, however, stand on the same footing with +these instrument-knowledges. Experience shows us that the generality of +men will find more interest in learning that, when a taper burns, the +wax is converted into carbonic acid and water, or in learning the +explanation of the phenomenon of dew, or in learning how the circulation +of the blood is carried on, than they find in learning that the genitive +plural of _pais_ and _pas_ does not take the circumflex on the +termination. And one piece of natural knowledge is added to another, and +others are added to that, and at last we come to propositions so +interesting as Mr. Darwin's famous proposition[128] that "our ancestor +was a hairy quadruped furnished with a tail and pointed ears, probably +arboreal in his habits." Or we come to propositions of such reach and +magnitude as those which Professor Huxley delivers, when he says that +the notions of our forefathers about the beginning and the end of the +world were all wrong, and that nature is the expression of a definite +order with which nothing interferes. + +Interesting, indeed, these results of science are, important they are, +and we should all of us be acquainted with them. But what I now wish you +to mark is, that we are still, when they are propounded to us and we +receive them, we are still in the sphere of intellect and knowledge. And +for the generality of men there will be found, I say, to arise, when +they have duly taken in the proposition that their ancestor was "a hairy +quadruped furnished with a tail and pointed ears, probably arboreal in +his habits," there will be found to arise an invincible desire to relate +this proposition to the sense in us for conduct, and to the sense in us +for beauty. But this the men of science will not do for us, and will +hardly even profess to do. They will give us other pieces of knowledge, +other facts, about other animals and their ancestors, or about plants, +or about stones, or about stars; and they may finally bring us to those +great "general conceptions of the universe, which are forced upon us +all," says Professor Huxley, "by the progress of physical science." But +still it will be _knowledge_, only which they give us; knowledge not put +for us into relation with our sense for conduct, our sense for beauty, +and touched with emotion by being so put; not thus put for us, and +therefore, to the majority of mankind, after a certain while, +unsatisfying, wearying. + +Not to the born naturalist, I admit. But what do we mean by a born +naturalist? We mean a man in whom the zeal for observing nature is so +uncommonly strong and eminent, that it marks him off from the bulk of +mankind. Such a man will pass his life happily in collecting natural +knowledge and reasoning upon it, and will ask for nothing, or hardly +anything, more. I have heard it said that the sagacious and admirable +naturalist whom we lost not very long ago, Mr. Darwin, once owned to a +friend that for his part he did not experience the necessity for two +things which most men find so necessary to them,--religion and poetry; +science and the domestic affections, he thought, were enough. To a born +naturalist, I can well understand that this should seem so. So absorbing +is his occupation with nature, so strong his love for his occupation, +that he goes on acquiring natural knowledge and reasoning upon it, and +has little time or inclination for thinking about getting it related to +the desire in man for conduct, the desire in man for beauty. He relates +it to them for himself as he goes along, so far as he feels the need; +and he draws from the domestic affections all the additional solace +necessary. But then Darwins are extremely rare. Another great and +admirable master of natural knowledge, Faraday, was a Sandemanian.[129]. +That is to say, he related his knowledge to his instinct for conduct and +to his instinct for beauty, by the aid of that respectable Scottish +sectary, Robert Sandeman. And so strong, in general, is the demand of +religion and poetry to have their share in a man, to associate +themselves with his knowing, and to relieve and rejoice it, that, +probably, for one man amongst us with the disposition to do as Darwin +did in this respect, there are at least fifty with the disposition to do +as Faraday. + +Education lays hold upon us, in fact, by satisfying this demand. +Professor Huxley holds up to scorn mediæval education, with its neglect +of the knowledge of nature, its poverty even of literary studies, its +formal logic devoted to "showing how and why that which the Church said +was true must be true." But the great mediæval Universities were not +brought into being, we may be sure, by the zeal for giving a jejune and +contemptible education. Kings have been their nursing fathers, and +queens have been their nursing mothers, but not for this. The mediæval +Universities came into being, because the supposed knowledge, delivered +by Scripture and the Church, so deeply engaged men's hearts, by so +simply, easily, and powerfully relating itself to their desire for +conduct, their desire for beauty. All other knowledge was dominated by +this supposed knowledge and was subordinated to it, because of the +surpassing strength of the hold which it gained upon the affections of +men, by allying itself profoundly with their sense for conduct, their +sense for beauty. + +But now, says Professor Huxley, conceptions of the universe fatal to the +notions held by our forefathers have been forced upon us by physical +science. Grant to him that they are thus fatal, that the new conceptions +must and will soon become current everywhere, and that every one will +finally perceive them to be fatal to the beliefs of our forefathers. The +need of humane letters, as they are truly called, because they serve the +paramount desire in men that good should be forever present to them,-- +the need of humane letters, to establish a relation between the new +conceptions, and our instinct for beauty, our instinct for conduct, is +only the more visible. The Middle Age could do without humane letters, +as it could do without the study of nature, because its supposed +knowledge was made to engage its emotions so powerfully. Grant that the +supposed knowledge disappears, its power of being made to engage the +emotions will of course disappear along with it,--but the emotions +themselves, and their claim to be engaged and satisfied, will remain. +Now if we find by experience that humane letters have an undeniable +power of engaging the emotions, the importance of humane letters in a +man's training becomes not less, but greater, in proportion to the +success of modern science in extirpating what it calls "mediæval +thinking." + +Have humane letters, then, have poetry and eloquence, the power here +attributed to them of engaging the emotions, and do they exercise it? +And if they have it and exercise it, _how_ do they exercise it, so as to +exert an influence upon man's sense for conduct, his sense for beauty? +Finally, even if they both can and do exert an influence upon the senses +in question, how are they to relate to them the results--the modern +results--of natural science? All these questions may be asked. First, +have poetry and eloquence the power of calling out the emotions? The +appeal is to experience. Experience shows that for the vast majority of +men, for mankind in general, they have the power. Next, do they exercise +it? They do. But then, _how_ do they exercise it so as to affect man's +sense for conduct, his sense for beauty? And this is perhaps a case for +applying the Preacher's words: "Though a man labor to seek it out, yet +he shall not find it; yea, farther, though a wise man think to know it, +yet shall he not be able to find it."[130] Why should it be one thing, +in its effect upon the emotions, to say, "Patience is a virtue," and +quite another thing, in its effect upon the emotions, to say with Homer, + + [Greek: tlaeton gar Moirai thnmontheoan anthropoisin]--[131] + +"for an enduring heart have the destinies appointed to the children of +men"? Why should it be one thing, in its effect upon the emotions, to +say with the philosopher Spinoza, _Felicitas in ea consistit quod homo +suum esse conservare potest_--"Man's happiness consists in his being +able to preserve his own essence," and quite another thing, in its +effect upon the emotions, to say with the Gospel, "What is a man +advantaged, if he gain the whole world, and lose himself, forfeit +himself?"[132] How does this difference of effect arise? I cannot tell, +and I am not much concerned to know; the important thing is that it does +arise, and that we can profit by it. But how, finally, are poetry and +eloquence to exercise the power of relating the modern results of +natural science to man's instinct for conduct, his instinct for beauty? +And here again I answer that I do not know _how_ they will exercise it, +but that they can and will exercise it I am sure. I do not mean that +modern philosophical poets and modern philosophical moralists are to +come and relate for us, in express terms, the results of modern +scientific research to our instinct for conduct, our instinct for +beauty. But I mean that we shall find, as a matter of experience, if we +know the best that has been thought and uttered in the world, we shall +find that the art and poetry and eloquence of men who lived, perhaps, +long ago, who had the most limited natural knowledge, who had the most +erroneous conceptions about many important matters, we shall find that +this art, and poetry, and eloquence, have in fact not only the power of +refreshing and delighting us, they have also the power,--such is the +strength and worth, in essentials, of their authors' criticism of life, +--they have a fortifying, and elevating, and quickening, and suggestive +power, capable of wonderfully helping us to relate the results of modern +science to our need for conduct, our need for beauty. Homer's +conceptions of the physical universe were, I imagine, grotesque; but +really, under the shock of hearing from modern science that "the world +is not subordinated to man's use, and that man is not the cynosure of +things terrestrial," I could, for my own part, desire no better comfort +than Homer's line which I quoted just now, + + [Greek: tlaeton gar Moirai thnmontheoan anthropoisin--] + +"for an enduring heart have the destinies appointed to the children of +men"! + +And the more that men's minds are cleared, the more that the results of +science are frankly accepted, the more that poetry and eloquence come to +be received and studied as what in truth they really are,--the +criticism of life by gifted men, alive and active with extraordinary +power at an unusual number of points;--so much the more will the value +of humane letters, and of art also, which is an utterance having a like +kind of power with theirs, be felt and acknowledged, and their place in +education be secured. + +Let us, therefore, all of us, avoid indeed as much as possible any +invidious comparison between the merits of humane letters, as means of +education, and the merits of the natural sciences. But when some +President of a Section for Mechanical Science insists on making the +comparison, and tells us that "he who in his training has substituted +literature and history for natural science has chosen the less useful +alternative," let us make answer to him that the student of humane +letters only, will, at least, know also the great general conceptions +brought in by modern physical science: for science, as Professor Huxley +says, forces them upon us all. But the student of the natural sciences +only, will, by our very hypothesis, know nothing of humane letters; not +to mention that in setting himself to be perpetually accumulating +natural knowledge, he sets himself to do what only specialists have in +general the gift for doing genially. And so he will probably be +unsatisfied, or at any rate incomplete, and even more incomplete than +the student of humane letters only. + +I once mentioned in a school-report, how a young man in one of our +English training colleges having to paraphrase the passage in _Macbeth_ +beginning, + + "Can'st thou not minister to a mind diseased?"[133] + +turned this line into, "Can you not wait upon the lunatic?" And I +remarked what a curious state of things it would be, if every pupil of +our national schools knew, let us say, that the moon is two thousand one +hundred and sixty miles in diameter, and thought at the same time that a +good paraphrase for + + "Can'st thou not minister to a mind diseased?" + +was, "Can you not wait upon the lunatic?" If one is driven to choose, I +think I would rather have a young person ignorant about the moon's +diameter, but aware that "Can you not wait upon the lunatic?" is bad, +than a young person whose education had been such as to manage things +the other way. + +Or to go higher than the pupils of our national schools. I have in my +mind's eye a member of our British Parliament who comes to travel here +in America, who afterwards relates his travels, and who shows a really +masterly knowledge of the geology of this great country and of its +mining capabilities, but who ends by gravely suggesting that the United +States should borrow a prince from our Royal Family, and should make him +their king, and should create a House of Lords of great landed +proprietors after the pattern of ours; and then America, he thinks, +would have her future happily and perfectly secured. Surely, in this +case, the President of the Section for Mechanical Science would himself +hardly say that our member of Parliament, by concentrating himself upon +geology and mineralogy, and so on, and not attending to literature and +history, had "chosen the more useful alternative." + +If then there is to be separation and option between humane letters on +the one hand, and the natural sciences on the other, the great majority +of mankind, all who have not exceptional and overpowering aptitudes for +the study of nature, would do well, I cannot but think, to choose to be +educated in humane letters rather than in the natural sciences. Letters +will call out their being at more points, will make them live more. + +I said that before I ended I would just touch on the question of +classical education, and I will keep my word. Even if literature is to +retain a large place in our education, yet Latin and Greek, say the +friends of progress, will certainly have to go. Greek is the grand +offender in the eyes of these gentlemen. The attackers of the +established course of study think that against Greek, at any rate, they +have irresistible arguments. Literature may perhaps be needed in +education, they say; but why on earth should it be Greek literature? Why +not French or German? Nay, "has not an Englishman models in his own +literature of every kind of excellence?" As before, it is not on any +weak pleadings of my own that I rely for convincing the gainsayers; it +is on the constitution of human nature itself, and on the instinct of +self-preservation in humanity. The instinct for beauty is set in human +nature, as surely as the instinct for knowledge is set there, or the +instinct for conduct. If the instinct for beauty is served by Greek +literature and art as it is served by no other literature and art, we +may trust to the instinct of self-preservation in humanity for keeping +Greek as part of our culture. We may trust to it for even making the +study of Greek more prevalent than it is now. Greek will come, I hope, +some day to be studied more rationally than at present; but it will be +increasingly studied as men increasingly feel the need in them for +beauty, and how powerfully Greek art and Greek literature can serve this +need. Women will again study Greek, as Lady Jane Grey[134] did; I +believe that in that chain of forts, with which the fair host of the +Amazons are now engirdling our English universities, I find that here in +America, in colleges like Smith College in Massachusetts, and Vassar +College in the State of New York, and in the happy families of the mixed +universities out West, they are studying it already. + +_Defuit una mihi symmetria prisca_,--"The antique symmetry was the one +thing wanting to me," said Leonardo da Vinci; and he was an Italian. I +will not presume to speak for the Americans, but I am sure that, in the +Englishman, the want of this admirable symmetry of the Greeks is a +thousand times more great and crying than in any Italian. The results of +the want show themselves most glaringly, perhaps, in our architecture, +but they show themselves, also, in all our art. _Fit details strictly +combined, in view of a large general result nobly conceived_; that is +just the beautiful _symmetria prisca_ of the Greeks, and it is just +where we English fail, where all our art fails. Striking ideas we have, +and well executed details we have; but that high symmetry which, with +satisfying and delightful effect, combines them, we seldom or never +have. The glorious beauty of the Acropolis at Athens did not come from +single fine things stuck about on that hill, a statue here, a gateway +there;--no, it arose from all things being perfectly combined for a +supreme total effect. What must not an Englishman feel about our +deficiencies in this respect, as the sense for beauty, whereof this +symmetry is an essential element, awakens and strengthens within him! +what will not one day be his respect and desire for Greece and its +_symmetria prisca_, when the scales drop from his eyes as he walks the +London streets, and he sees such a lesson in meanness, as the Strand, +for instance, in its true deformity! But here we are coming to our +friend Mr. Ruskin's province, and I will not intrude upon it, for he is +its very sufficient guardian. + +And so we at last find, it seems, we find flowing in favor of the +humanities the natural and necessary stream of things, which seemed +against them when we started. The "hairy quadruped furnished with a tail +and pointed ears, probably arboreal in his habits," this good fellow +carried hidden in his nature, apparently, something destined to develop +into a necessity for humane letters. Nay, more; we seem finally to be +even led to the further conclusion that our hairy ancestor carried in +his nature, also, a necessity for Greek. + +And, therefore, to say the truth, I cannot really think that humane +letters are in much actual danger of being thrust out from their leading +place in education, in spite of the array of authorities against them at +this moment. So long as human nature is what it is, their attractions +will remain irresistible. As with Greek, so with letters generally: they +will some day come, we may hope, to be studied more rationally but they +will not lose their place. What will happen will rather be that there +will be crowded into education other matters besides, far too many; +there will be, perhaps, a period of unsettlement and confusion and false +tendency; but letters will not in the end lose their leading place. If +they lose it for a time, they will get it back again. We shall be +brought back to them by our wants and aspirations. And a poor humanist +may possess his soul in patience, neither strive nor cry, admit the +energy and brilliancy of the partisans of physical science, and their +present favor with the public, to be far greater than his own, and still +have a happy faith that the nature of things works silently on behalf of +the studies which he loves, and that, while we shall all have to +acquaint ourselves with the great results reached by modern science, and +to give ourselves as much training in its disciplines as we can +conveniently carry, yet the majority of men will always require humane +letters; and so much the more, as they have the more and the greater +results of science to relate to the need in man for conduct, and to the +need in him for beauty. + + + + +II. LITERARY CRITICISM + + + +HEINRICH HEINE[135] + + +"I know not if I deserve that a laurel-wreath should one day be laid on +my coffin. Poetry, dearly as I have loved it, has always been to me but +a divine plaything. I have never attached any great value to poetical +fame; and I trouble myself very little whether people praise my verses +or blame them. But lay on my coffin a _sword_; for I was a brave soldier +in the Liberation War of humanity."[136] + +Heine had his full share of love of fame, and cared quite as much as his +brethren of the _genus irritabile_ whether people praised his verses or +blamed them. And he was very little of a hero. Posterity will certainly +decorate his tomb with the emblem of the laurel rather than with the +emblem of the sword. Still, for his contemporaries, for us, for the +Europe of the present century, he is significant chiefly for the reason +which he himself in the words just quoted assigns. He is significant +because he was, if not pre-eminently a brave, yet a brilliant, a most +effective soldier in the Liberation War of humanity. + +To ascertain the master-current in the literature of an epoch, and to +distinguish this from all minor currents, is one of the critic's highest +functions; in discharging it he shows how far he possesses the most +indispensable quality of his office,--justness of spirit. The living +writer who has done most to make England acquainted with German authors, +a man of genius, but to whom precisely this one quality of justness of +spirit is perhaps wanting,--I mean Mr. Carlyle,--seems to me in the +result of his labors on German literature to afford a proof how very +necessary to the critic this quality is. Mr. Carlyle has spoken +admirably of Goethe; but then Goethe stands before all men's eyes, the +manifest centre of German literature; and from this central source many +rivers flow. Which of these rivers is the main stream? which of the +courses of spirit which we see active in Goethe is the course which will +most influence the future, and attract and be continued by the most +powerful of Goethe's successors?--that is the question. Mr. Carlyle +attaches, it seems to me, far too much importance to the romantic school +of Germany,--Tieck, Novalis, Jean Paul Richter,[137]--and gives to these +writers, really gifted as two, at any rate, of them are, an undue +prominence. These writers, and others with aims and a general tendency +the same as theirs, are not the real inheritors and continuators of +Goethe's power; the current of their activity is not the main current of +German literature after Goethe. Far more in Heine's works flows this +main current; Heine, far more than Tieck or Jean Paul Richter, is the +continuator of that which, in Goethe's varied activity, is the most +powerful and vital; on Heine, of all German authors who survived Goethe, +incomparably the largest portion of Goethe's mantle fell. I do not +forget that when Mr. Carlyle was dealing with German literature, Heine, +though he was clearly risen above the horizon, had not shone forth with +all his strength; I do not forget, too, that after ten or twenty years +many things may come out plain before the critic which before were hard +to be discerned by him; and assuredly no one would dream of imputing it +as a fault to Mr. Carlyle that twenty years ago he mistook the central +current in German literature, overlooked the rising Heine, and attached +undue importance to that romantic school which Heine was to destroy; one +may rather note it as a misfortune, sent perhaps as a delicate +chastisement to a critic, who--man of genius as he is, and no one +recognizes his genius more admirably than I do--has, for the functions +of the critic, a little too much of the self-will and eccentricity of a +genuine son of Great Britain. + +Heine is noteworthy, because he is the most important German successor +and continuator of Goethe in Goethe's most important line of activity. +And which of Goethe's lines of activity is this?--His line of activity +as "a soldier in the war of liberation of humanity." + +Heine himself would hardly have admitted this affiliation, though he was +far too powerful-minded a man to decry, with some of the vulgar German +liberals, Goethe's genius. "The wind of the Paris Revolution," he writes +after the three days of 1830, "blew about the candles a little in the +dark night of Germany, so that the red curtains of a German throne or +two caught fire; but the old watchmen, who do the police of the German +kingdoms, are already bringing out the fire engines, and will keep the +candles closer snuffed for the future. Poor, fast-bound German people, +lose not all heart in thy bonds! The fashionable coating of ice melts +off from my heart, my soul quivers and my eyes burn, and that is a +disadvantageous state of things for a writer, who should control his +subject-matter and keep himself beautifully objective, as the artistic +school would have us, and as Goethe has done; he has come to be eighty +years old doing this, and minister, and in good condition:--poor German +people! that is thy greatest man!"[138] + +But hear Goethe himself: "If I were to say what I had really been to the +Germans in general, and to the young German poets in particular, I +should say I had been their _liberator_." + +Modern times find themselves with an immense system of institutions, +established facts, accredited dogmas, customs, rules, which have come to +them from times not modern. In this system their life has to be carried +forward; yet they have a sense that this system is not of their own +creation, that it by no means corresponds exactly with the wants of +their actual life, that, for them, it is customary, not rational. The +awakening of this sense is the awakening of the modern spirit. The +modern spirit is now awake almost everywhere; the sense of want of +correspondence between the forms of modern Europe and its spirit, +between the new wine of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and the +old bottles of the eleventh and twelfth centuries, or even of the +sixteenth and seventeenth, almost every one now perceives; it is no +longer dangerous to affirm that this want of correspondence exists; +people are even beginning to be shy of denying it. To remove this want +of correspondence is beginning to be the settled endeavor of most +persons of good sense. Dissolvents of the old European system of +dominant ideas and facts we must all be, all of us who have any power of +working; what we have to study is that we may not be acrid dissolvents +of it. + +And how did Goethe, that grand dissolvent in his age when there were +fewer of them than at present, proceed in his task of dissolution, of +liberation of the modern European from the old routine? He shall tell us +himself. "Through me the German poets have become aware that, as man +must live from within outwards, so the artist must work from within +outwards, seeing that, make what contortions he will, he can only bring +to light his own individuality. I can clearly mark where this influence +of mine has made itself felt; there arises out of it a kind of poetry of +nature, and only in this way is it possible to be original." + +My voice shall never be joined to those which decry Goethe, and if it is +said that the foregoing is a lame and impotent conclusion to Goethe's +declaration that he had been the liberator of the Germans in general, +and of the young German poets in particular, I say it is not. Goethe's +profound, imperturbable naturalism is absolutely fatal to all routine +thinking, he puts the standard, once for all, inside every man instead +of outside him; when he is told, such a thing must be so, there is +immense authority and custom in favor of its being so, it has been held +to be so for a thousand years, he answers with Olympian politeness, "But +_is_ it so? is it so to _me_?" Nothing could be more really subversive +of the foundations on which the old European order rested; and it may be +remarked that no persons are so radically detached from this order, no +persons so thoroughly modern, as those who have felt Goethe's influence +most deeply. If it is said that Goethe professes to have in this way +deeply influenced but a few persons, and those persons poets, one may +answer that he could have taken no better way to secure, in the end, the +ear of the world; for poetry is simply the most beautiful, impressive, +and widely effective mode of saying things, and hence its importance. +Nevertheless the process of liberation, as Goethe worked it, though +sure, is undoubtedly slow; he came, as Heine says, to be eighty years +old in thus working it, and at the end of that time the old Middle-Age +machine was still creaking on, the thirty German courts and their +chamberlains subsisted in all their glory; Goethe himself was a +minister, and the visible triumph of the modern spirit over prescription +and routine seemed as far off as ever. It was the year 1830; the German +sovereigns had passed the preceding fifteen years in breaking the +promises of freedom they had made to their subjects when they wanted +their help in the final struggle with Napoleon. Great events were +happening in France; the revolution, defeated in 1815, had arisen from +its defeat, and was wresting from its adversaries the power. Heinrich +Heine, a young man of genius, born at Hamburg,[139] and with all the +culture of Germany, but by race a Jew; with warm sympathies for France, +whose revolution had given to his race the rights of citizenship, and +whose rule had been, as is well known, popular in the Rhine provinces, +where he passed his youth; with a passionate admiration for the great +French Emperor, with a passionate contempt for the sovereigns who had +overthrown him, for their agents, and for their policy,--Heinrich Heine +was in 1830 in no humor for any such gradual process of liberation from +the old order of things as that which Goethe had followed. His counsel +was for open war. Taking that terrible modern weapon, the pen, in his +hand, he passed the remainder of his life in one fierce battle. What was +that battle? the reader will ask. It was a life and death battle with +Philistinism. + +_Philistinism!_[140]--we have not the expression in English. Perhaps we +have not the word because we have so much of the thing. At Soli, I +imagine, they did not talk of solecisms;[141] and here, at the very +headquarters of Goliath, nobody talks of Philistinism. The French have +adopted the term _épicier_ (grocer), to designate the sort of being whom +the Germans designate by the Philistine; but the French term--besides +that it casts a slur upon a respectable class, composed of living and +susceptible members, while the original Philistines are dead and buried +long ago--is really, I think, in itself much less apt and expressive +than the German term. Efforts have been made to obtain in English some +term equivalent to _Philister_ or _épicier_; Mr. Carlyle has made +several such efforts: "respectability with its thousand gigs,"[142] he +says;--well, the occupant of every one of these gigs is, Mr. Carlyle +means, a Philistine. However, the word _respectable_ is far too valuable +a word to be thus perverted from its proper meaning; if the English are +ever to have a word for the thing we are speaking of,--and so +prodigious are the changes which the modern spirit is introducing, that +even we English shall perhaps one day come to want such a word,--I think +we had much better take the term _Philistine_ itself. + +_Philistine_ must have originally meant, in the mind of those who +invented the nickname, a strong, dogged, unenlightened opponent of the +chosen people, of the children of the light. The party of change, the +would-be remodellers of the old traditional European order, the invokers +of reason against custom, the representatives of the modern spirit in +every sphere where it is applicable, regarded themselves, with the +robust self-confidence natural to reformers as a chosen people, as +children of the light. They regarded their adversaries as humdrum +people, slaves to routine, enemies to light; stupid and oppressive, but +at the same time very strong. This explains the love which Heine, that +Paladin of the modern spirit, has for France; it explains the preference +which he gives to France over Germany: "The French," he says, "are the +chosen people of the new religion, its first gospels and dogmas have +been drawn up in their language; Paris is the new Jerusalem, and the +Rhine is the Jordan which divides the consecrated land of freedom from +the land of the Philistines."[143] He means that the French, as a +people, have shown more accessibility to ideas than any other people; +that prescription and routine have had less hold upon them than upon any +other people; that they have shown most readiness to move and to alter +at the bidding (real or supposed) of reason. This explains, too, the +detestation which Heine had for the English: "I might settle in +England," he says, in his exile, "if it were not that I should find +there two things, coal-smoke and Englishmen; I cannot abide either." +What he hated in the English was the "ächtbrittische Beschränktheit," as +he calls it,--the _genuine British narrowness_. In truth, the English, +profoundly as they have modified the old Middle-Age order, great as is +the liberty which they have secured for themselves, have in all their +changes proceeded, to use a familiar expression, by the rule of thumb; +what was intolerably inconvenient to them they have suppressed, and as +they have suppressed it, not because it was irrational, but because it +was practically inconvenient, they have seldom in suppressing it +appealed to reason, but always, if possible, to some precedent, or form, +or letter, which served as a convenient instrument for their purpose, +and which saved them from the necessity of recurring to general +principles. They have thus become, in a certain sense, of all people the +most inaccessible to ideas and the most impatient of them; inaccessible +to them, because of their want of familiarity with them; and impatient +of them because they have got on so well without them, that they despise +those who, not having got on as well as themselves, still make a fuss +for what they themselves have done so well without. But there has +certainly followed from hence, in this country, somewhat of a general +depression of pure intelligence: Philistia has come to be thought by us +the true Land of Promise, and it is anything but that; the born lover of +ideas, the born hater of commonplaces, must feel in this country, that +the sky over his head is of brass and iron. The enthusiast for the idea, +for reason, values reason, the idea, in and for themselves; he values +them, irrespectively of the practical conveniences which their triumph +may obtain for him; and the man who regards the possession of these +practical conveniences as something sufficient in itself, something +which compensates for the absence or surrender of the idea, of reason, +is, in his eyes, a Philistine. This is why Heine so often and so +mercilessly attacks the liberals; much as he hates conservatism he hates +Philistinism even more, and whoever attacks conservatism itself ignobly, +not as a child of light, not in the name of the idea, is a Philistine. +Our Cobbett[144] is thus for him, much as he disliked our clergy and +aristocracy whom Cobbett attacked, a Philistine with six fingers on +every hand and on every foot six toes, four-and-twenty in number: a +Philistine, the staff of whose spear is like a weaver's beam. Thus he +speaks of him:-- + +"While I translate Cobbett's words, the man himself comes bodily before +my mind's eye, as I saw him at that uproarious dinner at the Crown and +Anchor Tavern, with his scolding red face and his radical laugh, in +which venomous hate mingles with a mocking exultation at his enemies' +surely approaching downfall. He is a chained cur, who falls with equal +fury on every one whom he does not know, often bites the best friend of +the house in his calves, barks incessantly, and just because of this +incessantness of his barking cannot get listened to, even when he barks +at a real thief. Therefore the distinguished thieves who plunder England +do not think it necessary to throw the growling Cobbett a bone to stop +his mouth. This makes the dog furiously savage, and he shows all his +hungry teeth. Poor old Cobbett! England's dog! I have no love for thee, +for every vulgar nature my soul abhors: but thou touchest me to the +inmost soul with pity, as I see how thou strainest in vain to break +loose and to get at those thieves, who make off with their booty before +thy very eyes, and mock at thy fruitless springs and thine impotent +howling."[145] + +There is balm in Philistia as well as in Gilead. A chosen circle of +children of the modern spirit, perfectly emancipated from prejudice and +commonplace, regarding the ideal side of things in all its efforts for +change, passionately despising half-measures and condescension to human +folly and obstinacy,--with a bewildered, timid, torpid multitude +behind,--conducts a country to the government of Herr von Bismarck. A +nation regarding the practical side of things in its efforts for change, +attacking not what is irrational, but what is pressingly inconvenient, +and attacking this as one body, "moving altogether if it move at all," +[146] and treating children of light like the very harshest of +step-mothers, comes to the prosperity and liberty of modern England. For +all that, however, Philistia (let me say it again) is not the true +promised land, as we English commonly imagine it to be; and our +excessive neglect of the idea, and consequent inaptitude for it, +threatens us, at a moment when the idea is beginning to exercise a real +power in human society, with serious future inconvenience, and, in the +meanwhile, cuts us off from the sympathy of other nations, which feel +its power more than we do. + +But, in 1830, Heine very soon found that the fire-engines of the German +governments were too much for his direct efforts at incendiarism. "What +demon drove me," he cries, "to write my _Reisebilder_, to edit a +newspaper, to plague myself with our time and its interests, to try and +shake the poor German Hodge out of his thousand years' sleep in his +hole? What good did I get by it? Hodge opened his eyes, only to shut +them again immediately; he yawned, only to begin snoring again the next +minute louder than ever; he stretched his stiff ungainly limbs, only to +sink down again directly afterwards, and lie like a dead man in the old +bed of his accustomed habits. I must have rest; but where am I to find a +resting-place? In Germany I can no longer stay." + +This is Heine's jesting account of his own efforts to rouse Germany: now +for his pathetic account of them; it is because he unites so much wit +with so much pathos that he is so effective a writer:-- + +"The Emperor Charles the Fifth[147] sate in sore straits, in the Tyrol, +encompassed by his enemies. All his knights and courtiers had forsaken +him; not one came to his help. I know not if he had at that time the +cheese face with which Holbein has painted him for us. But I am sure +that under lip of his, with its contempt for mankind, stuck out even +more than it does in his portraits. How could he but contemn the tribe +which in the sunshine of his prosperity had fawned on him so devotedly, +and now, in his dark distress, left him all alone? Then suddenly his +door opened, and there came in a man in disguise, and, as he threw back +his cloak, the Kaiser recognized in him his faithful Conrad von der +Rosen, the court jester. This man brought him comfort and counsel, and +he was the court jester! + +"'O German fatherland! dear German people! I am thy Conrad von der +Rosen. The man whose proper business was to amuse thee, and who in good +times should have catered only for thy mirth, makes his way into thy +prison in time of need; here, under my cloak, I bring thee thy sceptre +and crown; dost thou not recognize me, my Kaiser? If I cannot free thee, +I will at least comfort thee, and thou shalt at least have one with thee +who will prattle with thee about thy sorest affliction, and whisper +courage to thee, and love thee, and whose best joke and best blood shall +be at thy service. For thou, my people, art the true Kaiser, the true +lord of the land; thy will is sovereign, and more legitimate far than +that purple _Tel est notre plaisir_, which invokes a divine right with +no better warrant than the anointings of shaven and shorn jugglers; thy +will, my people, is the sole rightful source of power. Though now thou +liest down in thy bonds, yet in the end will thy rightful cause prevail; +the day of deliverance is at hand, a new time is beginning. My Kaiser, +the night is over, and out there glows the ruddy dawn.' + +"'Conrad von der Rosen, my fool, thou art mistaken; perhaps thou takest +a headsman's gleaming axe for the sun, and the red of dawn is only +blood.' + +"'No, my Kaiser, it is the sun, though it is rising in the west; these +six thousand years it has always risen in the east; it is high time +there should come a change.' + +"'Conrad von der Rosen, my fool, thou hast lost the bells out of thy red +cap, and it has now such an odd look, that red cap of thine!' + +"'Ah, my Kaiser, thy distress has made me shake my head so hard and +fierce, that the fool's bells have dropped off my cap; the cap is none +the worse for that.' + +"'Conrad von der Rosen, my fool, what is that noise of breaking and +cracking outside there?' + +"'Hush! that is the saw and the carpenter's axe, and soon the doors of +thy prison will be burst open, and thou wilt be free, my Kaiser!' + +"'Am I then really Kaiser? Ah, I forgot, it is the fool who tells me +so!' + +"'Oh, sigh not, my dear master, the air of thy prison makes thee so +desponding! when once thou hast got thy rights again, thou wilt feel +once more the bold imperial blood in thy veins, and thou wilt be proud +like a Kaiser, and violent, and gracious, and unjust, and smiling, and +ungrateful, as princes are.' + +"'Conrad von der Rosen, my fool, when I am free, what wilt thou do +then?' + +"'I will then sew new bells on to my cap.' + +"'And how shall I recompense thy fidelity?' + +"'Ah, dear master, by not leaving me to die in a ditch!'"[148] + +I wish to mark Heine's place in modern European literature, the scope of +his activity, and his value. I cannot attempt to give here a detailed +account of his life, or a description of his separate works. In May 1831 +he went over his Jordan, the Rhine, and fixed himself in his new +Jerusalem, Paris. There, henceforward, he lived, going in general to +some French watering-place in the summer, but making only one or two +short visits to Germany during the rest of his life. His works, in verse +and prose, succeeded each other without stopping; a collected edition of +them, filling seven closely-printed octavo volumes, has been published +in America;[149] in the collected editions of few people's works is +there so little to skip. Those who wish for a single good specimen of +him should read his first important work, the work which made his +reputation, the _Reisebilder_, or "Travelling Sketches": prose and +verse, wit and seriousness, are mingled in it, and the mingling of these +is characteristic of Heine, and is nowhere to be seen practised more +naturally and happily than in his _Reisebilder_. In 1847 his health, +which till then had always been perfectly good, gave way. He had a kind +of paralytic stroke. His malady proved to be a softening of the spinal +marrow: it was incurable; it made rapid progress. In May 1848, not a +year after his first attack, he went out of doors for the last time; but +his disease took more than eight years to kill him. For nearly eight +years he lay helpless on a couch, with the use of his limbs gone, wasted +almost to the proportions of a child, wasted so that a woman could carry +him about; the sight of one eye lost, that of the other greatly dimmed, +and requiring, that it might be exercised, to have the palsied eyelid +lifted and held up by the finger; all this, and besides this, suffering +at short intervals paroxysms of nervous agony. I have said he was not +preëminently brave; but in the astonishing force of spirit with which he +retained his activity of mind, even his gayety, amid all his suffering, +and went on composing with undiminished fire to the last, he was truly +brave. Nothing could clog that aërial lightness. "Pouvez-vous siffler?" +his doctor asked him one day, when he was almost at his last gasp;-- +"siffler," as every one knows, has the double meaning of _to whistle_ +and _to hiss_:--"Hélas! non," was his whispered answer; "pas même une +comédie de M. Scribe!" M. Scribe[150] is, or was, the favorite +dramatist of the French Philistine. "My nerves," he said to some one who +asked him about them in 1855, the year of the great Exhibition in Paris, +"my nerves are of that quite singularly remarkable miserableness of +nature, that I am convinced they would get at the Exhibition the grand +medal for pain and misery." He read all the medical books which treated +of his complaint. "But," said he to some one who found him thus engaged, +"what good this reading is to do me I don't know, except that it will +qualify me to give lectures in heaven on the ignorance of doctors on +earth about diseases of the spinal marrow." What a matter of grim +seriousness are our own ailments to most of us! yet with this gayety +Heine treated his to the end. That end, so long in coming, came at last. +Heine died on the 17th of February, 1856, at the age of fifty-eight. By +his will he forbade that his remains should be transported to Germany. +He lies buried in the cemetery of Montmartre, at Paris. + +His direct political action was null, and this is neither to be wondered +at nor regretted; direct political action is not the true function of +literature, and Heine was a born man of letters. Even in his favorite +France the turn taken by public affairs was not at all what he wished, +though he read French politics by no means as we in England, most of us, +read them. He thought things were tending there to the triumph of +communism; and to a champion of the idea like Heine, what there is gross +and narrow in communism was very repulsive. "It is all of no use," he +cried on his death-bed, "the future belongs to our enemies, the +Communists, and Louis Napoleon[151] is their John the Baptist." "And +yet,"--he added with all his old love for that remarkable entity, so +full of attraction for him, so profoundly unknown in England, the French +people,--"do not believe that God lets all this go forward merely as a +grand comedy. Even though the Communists deny him to-day, he knows +better than they do, that a time will come when they will learn to +believe in him." After 1831, his hopes of soon upsetting the German +Governments had died away, and his propagandism took another, a more +truly literary, character. + +It took the character of an intrepid application of the modern spirit to +literature. To the ideas with which the burning questions of modern life +filled him, he made all his subject-matter minister. He touched all the +great points in the career of the human race, and here he but followed +the tendency of the wide culture of Germany; but he touched them with a +wand which brought them all under a light where the modern eye cares +most to see them, and here he gave a lesson to the culture of Germany,-- +so wide, so impartial, that it is apt to become slack and powerless, and +to lose itself in its materials for want of a strong central idea round +which to group all its other ideas. So the mystic and romantic school of +Germany lost itself in the Middle Ages, was overpowered by their +influence, came to ruin by its vain dreams of renewing them. Heine, with +a far profounder sense of the mystic and romantic charm of the Middle +Age than Goerres, or Brentano, or Arnim,[152] Heine the chief romantic +poet of Germany, is yet also much more than a romantic poet: he is a +great modern poet, he is not conquered by the Middle Age, he has a +talisman by which he can feel--along with but above the power of the +fascinating Middle Age itself--the power of modern ideas. + +A French critic of Heine thinks he has said enough in saying that Heine +proclaimed in German countries, with beat of drum, the ideas of 1789, +and that at the cheerful noise of his drum the ghosts of the Middle Age +took to flight. But this is rather too French an account of the matter. +Germany, that vast mine of ideas, had no need to import ideas, as such, +from any foreign country; and if Heine had carried ideas, as such, from +France into Germany, he would but have been carrying coals to Newcastle. +But that for which, France, far less meditative than Germany, is +eminent, is the prompt, ardent, and practical application of an idea, +when she seizes it, in all departments of human activity which admit it. +And that in which Germany most fails, and by failing in which she +appears so helpless and impotent, is just the practical application of +her innumerable ideas. "When Candide," says Heine himself, "came to +Eldorado, he saw in the streets a number of boys who were playing with +gold-nuggets instead of marbles. This degree of luxury made him imagine +that they must be the king's children, and he was not a little +astonished when he found that in Eldorado gold-nuggets are of no more +value than marbles are with us, and that the schoolboys play with them. +A similar thing happened to a friend of mine, a foreigner, when he came +to Germany and first read German books. He was perfectly astounded at +the wealth of ideas which he found in them; but he soon remarked that +ideas in Germany are as plentiful as gold-nuggets in Eldorado, and that +those writers whom he had taken for intellectual princes, were in +reality only common schoolboys."[153] Heine was, as he calls himself, +a "Child of the French Revolution," an "Initiator," because he +vigorously assured the Germans that ideas were not counters or marbles, +to be played with for their own sake; because he exhibited in literature +modern ideas applied with the utmost freedom, clearness, and +originality. And therefore he declared that the great task of his life +had been the endeavor to establish a cordial relation between France and +Germany. It is because he thus operates a junction between the French +spirit and German ideas and German culture, that he founds something +new, opens a fresh period, and deserves the attention of criticism far +more than the German poets his contemporaries, who merely continue an +old period till it expires. It may be predicted that in the literature +of other countries, too, the French spirit is destined to make its +influence felt,--as an element, in alliance with the native spirit, of +novelty and movement,--as it has made its influence felt in German +literature; fifty years hence a critic will be demonstrating to our +grandchildren how this phenomenon has come to pass. + +We in England, in our great burst of literature during the first thirty +years of the present century, had no manifestation of the modern spirit, +as this spirit manifests itself in Goethe's works or Heine's. And the +reason is not far to seek. We had neither the German wealth of ideas, +nor the French enthusiasm for applying ideas. There reigned in the mass +of the nation that inveterate inaccessibility to ideas, that +Philistinism,--to use the German nickname,--which reacts even on the +individual genius that is exempt from it. In our greatest literary +epoch, that of the Elizabethan age,[154] English society at large was +accessible to ideas, was permeated by them, was vivified by them, to a +degree which has never been reached in England since. Hence the unique +greatness in English literature of Shakespeare and his contemporaries. +They were powerfully upheld by the intellectual life of their nation; +they applied freely in literature the then modern ideas,--the ideas of +the Renascence and the Reformation. A few years afterwards the great +English middle class, the kernel of the nation, the class whose +intelligent sympathy had upheld a Shakespeare, entered the prison of +Puritanism, and had the key turned on its spirit there for two hundred +years. _He enlargeth a nation_, says Job, _and straiteneth it again._ +[155] + +In the literary movement of the beginning of the nineteenth century the +signal attempt to apply freely the modern spirit was made in England by +two members of the aristocratic class, Byron and Shelley. Aristocracies +are, as such, naturally impenetrable by ideas; but their individual +members have a high courage and a turn for breaking bounds; and a man of +genius, who is the born child of the idea, happening to be born in the +aristocratic ranks, chafes against the obstacles which prevent him from +freely developing it. But Byron and Shelley did not succeed in their +attempt freely to apply the modern spirit in English literature; they +could not succeed in it; the resistance to baffle them, the want of +intelligent sympathy to guide and uphold them, were too great. Their +literary creation, compared with the literary creation of Shakespeare +and Spenser, compared with the literary creation of Goethe and Heine, is +a failure. The best literary creation of that time in England proceeded +from men who did not make the same bold attempt as Byron and Shelley. +What, in fact, was the career of the chief English men of letters, their +contemporaries? The gravest of them, Wordsworth, retired (in Middle-Age +phrase) into a monastery. I mean, he plunged himself in the inward life, +he voluntarily cut himself off from the modern spirit. Coleridge took to +opium. Scott became the historiographer-royal of feudalism. Keats +passionately gave himself up to a sensuous genius, to his faculty for +interpreting nature; and he died of consumption at twenty-five. +Wordsworth, Scott, and Keats have left admirable works; far more solid +and complete works than those which Byron and Shelley have left. But +their works have this defect,--they do not belong to that which is the +main current of the literature of modern epochs, they do not apply +modern ideas to life; they constitute, therefore, _minor currents_, and +all other literary work of our day, however popular, which has the same +defect, also constitutes but a minor current. Byron and Shelley will +long be remembered, long after the inadequacy of their actual work is +clearly recognized, for their passionate, their Titanic effort to flow +in the main stream of modern literature; their names will be greater +than their writings; _stat magni nominis umbra_.[156] Heine's literary +good fortune was superior to that of Byron and Shelley. His theatre of +operations was Germany, whose Philistinism does not consist in her want +of ideas, or in her inaccessibility to ideas, for she teems with them +and loves them, but, as I have said, in her feeble and hesitating +application of modern ideas to life. Heine's intense modernism, his +absolute freedom, his utter rejection of stock classicism and stock +romanticism, his bringing all things under the point of view of the +nineteenth century, were understood and laid to heart by Germany, +through virtue of her immense, tolerant intellectualism, much as there +was in all Heine said to affront and wound Germany. The wit and ardent +modern spirit of France Heine joined to the culture, the sentiment, the +thought of Germany. This is what makes him so remarkable: his wonderful +clearness, lightness, and freedom, united with such power of feeling, +and width of range. Is there anywhere keener wit than in his story of +the French abbé who was his tutor, and who wanted to get from him that +_la religion_ is French for _der Glaube_: "Six times did he ask me the +question: 'Henry, what is _der Glaube_ in French?' and six times, and +each time with a greater burst of tears, did I answer him--'It is _le +crédit_' And at the seventh time, his face purple with rage, the +infuriated questioner screamed out: 'It is _la religion_'; and a rain of +cuffs descended upon me, and all the other boys burst out laughing. +Since that day I have never been able to hear _la religion_ mentioned, +without feeling a tremor run through my back, and my cheeks grow red +with shame."[157] Or in that comment on the fate of Professor Saalfeld, +who had been addicted to writing furious pamphlets against Napoleon, and +who was a professor at Göttingen, a great seat, according to Heine, of +pedantry and Philistinism. "It is curious," says Heine, "the three +greatest adversaries of Napoleon have all of them ended miserably. +Castlereagh[158] cut his own throat; Louis the Eighteenth rotted upon +his throne; and Professor Saalfeld is still a professor at Göttingen." +[159] It is impossible to go beyond that. + +What wit, again, in that saying which every one has heard: "The +Englishman loves liberty like his lawful wife, the Frenchman loves her +like his mistress, the German loves her like his old grandmother." But +the turn Heine gives to this incomparable saying is not so well known; +and it is by that turn he shows himself the born poet he is,--full of +delicacy and tenderness, of inexhaustible resource, infinitely new and +striking:-- + +"And yet, after all, no one can ever tell how things may turn out. The +grumpy Englishman, in an ill-temper with his wife, is capable of some +day putting a rope round her neck, and taking her to be sold at +Smithfield. The inconstant Frenchman may become unfaithful to his adored +mistress, and be seen fluttering about the Palais Royal after another. +_But the German will never quite abandon his old grandmother_; he will +always keep for her a nook by the chimney-corner, where she can tell her +fairy stories to the listening children."[160] + +Is it possible to touch more delicately and happily both the weakness +and the strength of Germany; pedantic, simple, enslaved, free, +ridiculous, admirable Germany? + +And Heine's verse,--his _Lieder?_ Oh, the comfort, after dealing with +French people of genius, irresistibly impelled to try and express +themselves in verse, launching out into a deep which destiny has sown +with so many rocks for them,--the comfort of coming to a man of genius, +who finds in verse his freest and most perfect expression, whose voyage +over the deep of poetry destiny makes smooth! After the rhythm, to us, +at any rate, with the German paste in our composition, so deeply +unsatisfying, of-- + + "Ah! que me dites-vous, et qne vous dit mon âme? + Que dit le ciel a l'aube et la flamme à la flamme?" + +what a blessing to arrive at rhythms like-- + + "Take, oh, take those lips away, + That so sweetly were forsworn--"[161] + +or-- + + "Siehst sehr sterbeblässlich aus, + Doch getrost! du bist zu Haus--"[162] + +in which one's soul can take pleasure! The magic of Heine's poetical +form is incomparable; he chiefly uses a form of old German popular +poetry, a ballad-form which has more rapidity and grace than any +ballad-form of ours; he employs this form with the most exquisite +lightness and ease, and yet it has at the same time the inborn fulness, +pathos, and old-world charm of all true forms of popular poetry. Thus in +Heine's poetry, too, one perpetually blends the impression of French +modernism and clearness, with that of German sentiment and fulness; and +to give this blended impression is, as I have said, Heine's great +characteristic. To feel it, one must read him; he gives it in his form +as well as in his contents, and by translation I can only reproduce it +so far as his contents give it. But even the contents of many of his +poems are capable of giving a certain sense of it. Here, for instance, +is a poem in which he makes his profession of faith to an innocent +beautiful soul, a sort of Gretchen, the child of some simple mining +people having their hut among the pines at the foot of the Hartz +Mountains, who reproaches him with not holding the old articles of the +Christian creed:-- + +"Ah, my child, while I was yet a little boy, while I yet sate upon my +mother's knee, I believed in God the Father, who rules up there in +Heaven, good and great; + +"Who created the beautiful earth, and the beautiful men and women +thereon; who ordained for sun, moon, and stars their courses. + +"When I got bigger, my child, I comprehended yet a great deal more than +this, and comprehended, and grew intelligent; and I believe on the Son +also; + +"On the beloved Son, who loved us, and revealed love to us; and, for his +reward, as always happens, was crucified by the people. + +"Now, when I am grown up, have read much, have travelled much, my heart +swells within me, and with my whole heart I believe on the Holy Ghost. + +"The greatest miracles were of his working, and still greater miracles +doth he even now work; he burst in sunder the oppressor's stronghold, +and he burst in sunder the bondsman's yoke. + +"He heals old death-wounds, and renews the old right; all mankind are +one race of noble equals before him. + +"He chases away the evil clouds and the dark cobwebs of the brain, which +have spoilt love and joy for us, which day and night have loured on us. + +"A thousand knights, well harnessed, has the Holy Ghost chosen out to +fulfil his will, and he has put courage into their souls. + +"Their good swords flash, their bright banners wave; what, thou wouldst +give much, my child, to look upon such gallant knights? + +"Well, on me, my child, look! kiss me, and look boldly upon me! one of +those knights of the Holy Ghost am I."[163] + +One has only to turn over the pages of his _Romancero_,[164]--a +collection of poems written in the first years of his illness, with his +whole power and charm still in them, and not, like his latest poems of +all, painfully touched by the air of his _Matrazzen-gruft_, his +"mattress-grave,"--to see Heine's width of range; the most varied +figures succeed one another,--Rhampsinitus,[165] Edith with the Swan +Neck,[166] Charles the First, Marie Antoinette, King David, a heroine of +_Mabille_, Melisanda of Tripoli,[167] Richard Coeur de Lion, Pedro the +Cruel[168], Firdusi[169], Cortes, Dr. Döllinger[170];--but never does +Heine attempt to be _hubsch objectiv_, "beautifully objective," to +become in spirit an old Egyptian, or an old Hebrew, or a Middle-Age +knight, or a Spanish adventurer, or an English royalist; he always +remains Heinrich Heine, a son of the nineteenth century. To give a +notion of his tone, I will quote a few stanzas at the end of the +_Spanish Atridæ_[171] in which he describes, in the character of a +visitor at the court of Henry of Transtamare[172] at Segovia, Henry's +treatment of the children of his brother, Pedro the Cruel. Don Diego +Albuquerque, his neighbor, strolls after dinner through the castle with +him:-- + +"In the cloister-passage, which leads to the kennels where are kept the +king's hounds, that with their growling and yelping let you know a long +way off where they are, + +"There I saw, built into the wall, and with a strong iron grating for +its outer face, a cell like a cage. + +"Two human figures sate therein, two young boys; chained by the leg, +they crouched in the dirty straw. + +"Hardly twelve years old seemed the one, the other not much older; their +faces fair and noble, but pale and wan with sickness. + +"They were all in rags, almost naked; and their lean bodies showed +wounds, the marks of ill-usage; both of them shivered with fever. + +"They looked up at me out of the depth of their misery; 'Who,' I cried +in horror to Don Diego, 'are these pictures of wretchedness?' + +"Don Diego seemed embarrassed; he looked round to see that no one was +listening; then he gave a deep sigh; and at last, putting on the easy +tone of a man of the world, he said:-- + +"'These are a pair of king's sons, who were early left orphans; the name +of their father was King Pedro, the name of their mother, Maria de +Padilla. + +"'After the great battle of Navarette, when Henry of Transtamare had +relieved his brother, King Pedro, of the troublesome burden of the +crown, + +"'And likewise of that still more troublesome burden, which is called +life, then Don Henry's victorious magnanimity had to deal with his +brother's children. + +"'He has adopted them, as an uncle should; and he has given them free +quarters in his own castle. + +"'The room which he has assigned to them is certainly rather small, but +then it is cool in summer, and not intolerably cold in winter. + +"'Their fare is rye-bread, which tastes as sweet as if the goddess Ceres +had baked it express for her beloved Proserpine. + +"'Not unfrequently, too, he sends a scullion to them with +garbanzos,[173]and then the young gentlemen know that it is Sunday in +Spain. + +"'But it is not Sunday every day, and garbanzos do not come every day; +and the master of the hounds gives them the treat of his whip. + +"'For the master of the hounds, who has under his superintendence the +kennels and the pack, and the nephews' cage also, + +"'Is the unfortunate husband of that lemon-faced woman with the white +ruff, whom we remarked to-day at dinner. + +"'And she scolds so sharp, that often her husband snatches his whip, and +rushes down here, and gives it to the dogs and to the poor little boys. + +"'But his majesty has expressed his disapproval of such proceedings, and +has given orders that for the future his nephews are to be treated +differently from the dogs. + +"'He has determined no longer to entrust the disciplining of his nephews +to a mercenary stranger, but to carry it out with his own hands.' + +"Don Diego stopped abruptly; for the seneschal of the castle joined us, +and politely expressed his hope that we had dined to our satisfaction." + +Observe how the irony of the whole of that, finishing with the grim +innuendo of the last stanza but one, is at once truly masterly and truly +modern. + +No account of Heine is complete which does not notice the Jewish element +in him. His race he treated with the same freedom with which he treated +everything else, but he derived a great force from it, and no one knew +this better than he himself. He has excellently pointed out how in the +sixteenth century there was a double renascence,--a Hellenic renascence +and a Hebrew renascence--and how both have been great powers ever since. +He himself had in him both the spirit of Greece and the spirit of Judæa; +both these spirits reach the infinite, which is the true goal of all +poetry and all art,--the Greek spirit by beauty, the Hebrew spirit by +sublimity. By his perfection of literary form, by his love of clearness, +by his love of beauty, Heine is Greek; by his intensity, by his +untamableness, by his "longing which cannot be uttered,"[174] he is +Hebrew. Yet what Hebrew ever treated the things of the Hebrews like +this?--"There lives at Hamburg, in a one-roomed lodging in the Baker's +Broad Walk, a man whose name is Moses Lump; all the week he goes about +in wind and rain, with his pack on his back, to earn his few shillings; +but when on Friday evening he comes home, he finds the candlestick with +seven candles lighted, and the table covered with a fair white cloth, +and he puts away from him his pack and his cares, and he sits down to +table with his squinting wife and yet more squinting daughter, and eats +fish with them, fish which has been dressed in beautiful white garlic +sauce, sings therewith the grandest psalms of King David, rejoices with +his whole heart over the deliverance of the children of Israel out of +Egypt, rejoices, too, that all the wicked ones who have done the +children of Israel hurt, have ended by taking themselves off; that King +Pharaoh, Nebuchadnezzar, Haman, Antiochus, Titus, and all such people, +are well dead, while he, Moses Lump, is yet alive, and eating fish with +wife and daughter; and I can tell you, Doctor, the fish is delicate and +the man is happy, he has no call to torment himself about culture, he +sits contented in his religion and in his green bedgown, like Diogenes +in his tub, he contemplates with satisfaction his candles, which he on +no account will snuff for himself; and I can tell you, if the candles +burn a little dim, and the snuffers-woman, whose business it is to snuff +them, is not at hand, and Rothschild the Great were at that moment to +come in, with all his brokers, bill discounters, agents, and chief +clerks, with whom he conquers the world, and Rothschild were to say: +'Moses Lump, ask of me what favor you will, and it shall be granted +you';--Doctor, I am convinced, Moses Lump would quietly answer: 'Snuff +me those candles!' and Rothschild the Great would exclaim with +admiration: 'If I were not Rothschild, I would be Moses Lump.'"[175] + +There Heine shows us his own people by its comic side; in the poem of +the _Princess Sabbath_[176] he shows it to us by a more serious side. +The Princess Sabbath, "the _tranquil Princess_, pearl and flower of all +beauty, fair as the Queen of Sheba, Solomon's bosom friend, that blue +stocking from Ethiopia, who wanted to shine by her _esprit_, and with +her wise riddles made herself in the long run a bore" (with Heine the +sarcastic turn is never far off), this princess has for her betrothed a +prince whom sorcery has transformed into an animal of lower race, the +Prince Israel. + +"A dog with the desires of a dog, he wallows all the week long in the +filth and refuse of life, amidst the jeers of the boys in the street. + +"But every Friday evening, at the twilight hour, suddenly the magic +passes off, and the dog becomes once more a human being. + +"A man with the feelings of a man, with head and heart raised aloft, in +festal garb, in almost clean garb he enters the halls of his Father. + +"Hail, beloved halls of my royal Father! Ye tents of Jacob, I kiss with +my lips your holy door-posts!" + +Still more he shows us this serious side in his beautiful poem on Jehuda +ben Halevy,[176] a poet belonging to "the great golden age of the +Arabian, Old-Spanish, Jewish school of poets," a contemporary of the +troubadours:-- + +"He, too,--the hero whom we sing,--Jehuda ben Halevy, too, had his +lady-love; but she was of a special sort. + +"She was no Laura,[177] whose eyes, mortal stars, in the cathedral on +Good Friday kindled that world-renowned flame. + +"She was no chatelaine, who in the blooming glory of her youth presided +at tourneys, and awarded the victor's crown. + +"No casuistess in the Gay Science was she, no lady _doctrinaire_, who +delivered her oracles in the judgment-chamber of a Court of Love.[178] + +"She, whom the Rabbi loved, was a woe-begone poor darling, a mourning +picture of desolation ... and her name was Jerusalem." + +Jehuda ben Halevy, like the Crusaders, makes his pilgrimage to +Jerusalem; and there, amid the ruins, sings a song of Sion which has +become famous among his people:-- + +"That lay of pearled tears is the wide-famed Lament, which is sung in +all the scattered tents of Jacob throughout the world. + +"On the ninth day of the month which is called Ab, on the anniversary of +Jerusalem's destruction by Titus Vespasianus. + +"Yes, that is the song of Sion, which Jehuda ben Halevy sang with his +dying breath amid the holy ruins of Jerusalem. + +"Barefoot, and in penitential weeds, he sat there upon the fragment of a +fallen column; down to his breast fell, + +"Like a gray forest, his hair; and cast a weird shadow on the face which +looked out through it,--his troubled pale face, with the spiritual +eyes. + +"So he sat and sang, like unto a seer out of the foretime to look upon; +Jeremiah, the Ancient, seemed to have risen out of his grave. + +"But a bold Saracen came riding that way, aloft on his barb, lolling in +his saddle, and brandishing a naked javelin; + +"Into the breast of the poor singer he plunged his deadly shaft, and +shot away like a winged shadow. + +"Quietly flowed the Rabbi's life-blood, quietly he sang his song to an +end; and his last dying sigh was Jerusalem!" + +But, most of all, Heine shows us this side in a strange poem describing +a public dispute, before King Pedro and his Court, between a Jewish and +a Christian champion, on the merits of their respective faiths. In the +strain of the Jew all the fierceness of the old Hebrew genius, all its +rigid defiant Monotheism, appear:-- + +"Our God has not died like a poor innocent lamb for mankind; he is no +gushing philanthropist, no declaimer. + +"Our God is not love, caressing is not his line; but he is a God of +thunder, and he is a God of revenge. + +"The lightnings of his wrath strike inexorably every sinner, and the +sins of the fathers are often visited upon their remote posterity. + +"Our God, he is alive, and in his hall of heaven he goes on existing +away, throughout all the eternities. + +"Our God, too, is a God in robust health, no myth, pale and thin as +sacrificial wafers, or as shadows by Cocytus. + +"Our God is strong. In his hand he upholds sun, moon, and stars; thrones +break, nations reel to and fro, when he knits his forehead. + +"Our God loves music, the voice of the harp and the song of feasting; +but the sound of church-bells he hates, as he hates the grunting of +pigs."[179] + +Nor must Heine's sweetest note be unheard,--his plaintive note, his note +of melancholy. Here is a strain which came from him as he lay, in the +winter night, on his "mattress-grave" at Paris, and let his thoughts +wander home to Germany, "the great child, entertaining herself with her +Christmas-tree." "Thou tookest,"--he cries to the German exile,-- + +"Thou tookest thy flight towards sunshine and happiness; naked and poor +returnest thou back. German truth, German shirts,--one gets them worn to +tatters in foreign parts. + +"Deadly pale are thy looks, but take comfort, thou art at home! one lies +warm in German earth, warm as by the old pleasant fireside. + +"Many a one, alas, became crippled, and could get home no more! +longingly he stretches out his arms; God have mercy upon him!"[180] + +God have mercy upon him! for what remain of the days of the years of his +life are few and evil. "Can it be that I still actually exist? My body +is so shrunk that there is hardly anything of me left but my voice, and +my bed makes me think of the melodious grave of the enchanter Merlin, +which is in the forest of Broceliand in Brittany, under high oaks whose +tops shine like green flames to heaven. Ah, I envy thee those trees, +brother Merlin, and their fresh waving! for over my mattress-grave here +in Paris no green leaves rustle; and early and late I hear nothing but +the rattle of carriages, hammering, scolding, and the jingle of the +piano. A grave without rest, death without the privileges of the +departed, who have no longer any need to spend money, or to write +letters, or to compose books What a melancholy situation!"[181] + +He died, and has left a blemished name; with his crying faults,--his +intemperate susceptibility, his unscrupulousness in passion, his +inconceivable attacks on his enemies, his still more inconceivable +attacks on his friends, his want of generosity, his sensuality, his +incessant mocking,--how could it be otherwise? Not only was he not one +of Mr. Carlyle's "respectable" people, he was profoundly +_dis_respectable; and not even the merit of not being a Philistine can +make up for a man's being that. To his intellectual deliverance there +was an addition of something else wanting, and that something else was +something immense: the old-fashioned, laborious, eternally needful moral +deliverance. Goethe says that he was deficient in _love_; to me his +weakness seems to be not so much a deficiency in love as a deficiency in +self-respect, in true dignity of character. But on this negative side of +one's criticism of a man of great genius, I for my part, when I have +once clearly marked that this negative side is and must be there, have +no pleasure in dwelling. I prefer to say of Heine something positive. He +is not an adequate interpreter of the modern world. He is only a +brilliant soldier in the Liberation War of humanity. But, such as he is, +he is (and posterity too, I am quite sure, will say this), in the +European poetry of that quarter of a century which follows the death of +Goethe, incomparably the most important figure. + +What a spendthrift, one is tempted to cry, is Nature! With what +prodigality, in the march of generations, she employs human power, +content to gather almost always little result from it, sometimes none! +Look at Byron, that Byron whom the present generation of Englishmen are +forgetting; Byron, the greatest natural force, the greatest elementary +power, I cannot but think, which has appeared in our literature since +Shakespeare. And what became of this wonderful production of nature? He +shattered himself, he inevitably shattered himself to pieces against the +huge, black, cloud-topped, interminable precipice of British +Philistinism. But Byron, it may be said, was eminent only by his genius, +only by his inborn force and fire; he had not the intellectual equipment +of a supreme modern poet; except for his genius he was an ordinary +nineteenth-century English gentleman, with little culture and with no +ideas. Well, then, look at Heine. Heine had all the culture of Germany; +in his head fermented all the ideas of modern Europe. And what have we +got from Heine? A half-result, for want of moral balance, and of +nobleness of soul and character. That is what I say; there is so much +power, so many seem able to run well, so many give promise of running +well;--so few reach the goal, so few are chosen. _Many are called, few +chosen._ + + + +MARCUS AURELIUS[182] + + +Mr. Mill[183] says, in his book on Liberty, that "Christian morality is +in great part merely a protest against paganism; its ideal is negative +rather than positive, passive rather than active." He says, that, in +certain most important respects, "it falls far below the best morality +of the ancients." Now, the object of systems of morality is to take +possession of human life, to save it from being abandoned to passion or +allowed to drift at hazard, to give it happiness by establishing it in +the practice of virtue; and this object they seek to attain by +prescribing to human life fixed principles of action, fixed rules of +conduct. In its uninspired as well as in its inspired moments, in its +days of languor and gloom as well as in its days of sunshine and energy, +human life has thus always a clue to follow, and may always be making +way towards its goal. Christian morality has not failed to supply to +human life aids of this sort. It has supplied them far more abundantly +than many of its critics imagine. The most exquisite document after +those of the New Testament, of all the documents the Christian spirit +has ever inspired,--the _Imitation_,[184]--by no means contains the +whole of Christian morality; nay, the disparagers of this morality would +think themselves sure of triumphing if one agreed to look for it in the +_Imitation_ only. But even the _Imitation_ is full of passages like +these: "Vita sine proposito languida et vaga est";--"Omni die renovare +debemus propositum nostrum, dicentes: nunc hodie perfecte incipiamus, +quia nihil est quod hactenus fecimus";--"Secundum propositum nostrum +est cursus profectus nostri";--"Raro etiam unum vitium perfecte +vincimus, et ad _quotidianum_ profectum non accendimur"; "Semper aliquid +certi proponendum est"; "Tibi ipsi violentiam frequenter fac." (_A life +without a purpose is a languid, drifting thing;--Every day we ought to +renew our purpose, saying to ourselves: This day let us make a sound +beginning, for what we have hitherto done is nought;--Our improvement is +in proportion to our purpose;--We hardly ever manage to get completely +rid even of one fault, and do not set our hearts on _daily_ +improvement;--Always place a definite purpose before thee;--Get the +habit of mastering thine inclination._) These are moral precepts, and +moral precepts of the best kind. As rules to hold possession of our +conduct, and to keep us in the right course through outward troubles and +inward perplexity, they are equal to the best ever furnished by the +great masters of morals--Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius. + +But moral rules, apprehended as ideas first, and then rigorously +followed as laws, are, and must be, for the sage only. The mass of +mankind have neither force of intellect enough to apprehend them clearly +as ideas, nor force of character enough to follow them strictly as laws. +The mass of mankind can be carried along a course full of hardship for +the natural man, can be borne over the thousand impediments of the +narrow way, only by the tide of a joyful and bounding emotion. It is +impossible to rise from reading Epictetus[185]or Marcus Aurelius +without a sense of constraint and melancholy, without feeling that the +burden laid upon man is well-nigh greater than he can bear. Honor to the +sages who have felt this, and yet have borne it! Yet, even for the sage, +this sense of labor and sorrow in his march towards the goal constitutes +a relative inferiority; the noblest souls of whatever creed, the pagan +Empedocles[186] as well as the Christian Paul, have insisted on the +necessity of an inspiration, a joyful emotion, to make moral action +perfect; an obscure indication of this necessity is the one drop of +truth in the ocean of verbiage with which the controversy on +justification by faith has flooded the world. But, for the ordinary man, +this sense of labor and sorrow constitutes an absolute disqualification; +it paralyzes him; under the weight of it, he cannot make way towards the +goal at all. The paramount virtue of religion is, that it has _lighted +up_ morality; that it has supplied the emotion and inspiration needful +for carrying the sage along the narrow way perfectly, for carrying the +ordinary man along it at all. Even the religions with most dross in them +have had something of this virtue; but the Christian religion manifests +it with unexampled splendor. "Lead me, Zeus and Destiny!" says the +prayer of Epictetus, "whithersoever I am appointed to go; I will follow +without wavering; even though I turn coward and shrink, I shall have to +follow all the same."[187] The fortitude of that is for the strong, for +the few; even for them the spiritual atmosphere with which it surrounds +them is bleak and gray. But, "Let thy loving spirit lead me forth into +the land of righteousness";[188]--"The Lord shall be unto thee an +everlasting light, and thy God thy glory";[189]--"Unto you that fear my +name shall the sun of righteousness arise with healing in his wings," +[190] says the Old Testament; "Born, not of blood, nor of the will of +the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God";[191]--"Except a man be +born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God";[192]--"Whatsoever is +born of God, overcometh the world,"[193] says the New. The ray of +sunshine is there, the glow of a divine warmth;--the austerity of the +sage melts away under it, the paralysis of the weak is healed; he who is +vivified by it renews his strength; "all things are possible to him +";[194] "he is a new creature."[195] + +Epictetus says: "Every matter has two handles, one of which will bear +taking hold of, the other not. If thy brother sin against thee, lay not +hold of the matter by this, that he sins against thee; for by this +handle the matter will not bear taking hold of. But rather lay hold of +it by this, that he is thy brother, thy born mate; and thou wilt take +hold of it by what will bear handling."[196] Jesus, being asked whether +a man is bound to forgive his brother as often as seven times, answers: +"I say not unto thee, until seven times, but until seventy times seven." +[197] Epictetus here suggests to the reason grounds for forgiveness of +injuries which Jesus does not; but it is vain to say that Epictetus is +on that account a better moralist than Jesus, if the warmth, the +emotion, of Jesus's answer fires his hearer to the practice of +forgiveness of injuries, while the thought in Epictetus's leaves him +cold. So with Christian morality in general: its distinction is not that +it propounds the maxim, "Thou shalt love God and thy neighbor,"[198] +with more development, closer reasoning, truer sincerity, than other +moral systems; it is that it propounds this maxim with an inspiration +which wonderfully catches the hearer and makes him act upon it. It is +because Mr. Mill has attained to the perception of truths of this +nature, that he is,--instead of being, like the school from which he +proceeds, doomed to sterility,--a writer of distinguished mark and +influence, a writer deserving all attention and respect; it is (I must +be pardoned for saying) because he is not sufficiently leavened with +them, that he falls just short of being a great writer. + +That which gives to the moral writings of the Emperor Marcus Aurelius +their peculiar character and charm, is their being suffused and softened +by something of this very sentiment whence Christian morality draws its +best power. Mr. Long[199] has recently published in a convenient form a +translation of these writings, and has thus enabled English readers to +judge Marcus Aurelius for themselves; he has rendered his countrymen a +real service by so doing. Mr. Long's reputation as a scholar is a +sufficient guarantee of the general fidelity and accuracy of his +translation; on these matters, besides, I am hardly entitled to speak, +and my praise is of no value. But that for which I and the rest of the +unlearned may venture to praise Mr. Long is this: that he treats Marcus +Aurelius's writings, as he treats all the other remains of Greek and +Roman antiquity which he touches, not as a dead and dry matter of +learning, but as documents with a side of modern applicability and +living interest, and valuable mainly so far as this side in them can be +made clear; that as in his notes on Plutarch's Roman Lives he deals with +the modern epoch of Cæsar and Cicero, not as food for schoolboys, but as +food for men, and men engaged in the current of contemporary life and +action, so in his remarks and essays on Marcus Aurelius he treats this +truly modern striver and thinker not as a Classical Dictionary hero, but +as a present source from which to draw "example of life, and instruction +of manners." Why may not a son of Dr. Arnold[200] say, what might +naturally here be said by any other critic, that in this lively and +fruitful way of considering the men and affairs of ancient Greece and +Rome, Mr. Long resembles Dr. Arnold? + +One or two little complaints, however, I have against Mr. Long, and I +will get them off my mind at once. In the first place, why could he not +have found gentler and juster terms to describe the translation of his +predecessor, Jeremy Collier,[201]--the redoubtable enemy of stage +plays,--than these: "a most coarse and vulgar copy of the original?" As +a matter of taste, a translator should deal leniently with his +predecessor; but putting that out of the question, Mr. Long's language +is a great deal too hard. Most English people who knew Marcus Aurelius +before Mr. Long appeared as his introducer, knew him through Jeremy +Collier. And the acquaintance of a man like Marcus Aurelius is such an +imperishable benefit, that one can never lose a peculiar sense of +obligation towards the man who confers it. Apart from this claim upon +one's tenderness, however, Jeremy Collier's version deserves respect for +its genuine spirit and vigor, the spirit and vigor of the age of Dryden. +Jeremy Collier too, like Mr. Long, regarded in Marcus Aurelius the +living moralist, and not the dead classic; and his warmth of feeling +gave to his style an impetuosity and rhythm which from Mr. Long's style +(I do not blame it on that account) are absent. Let us place the two +side by side. The impressive opening of Marcus Aurelius's fifth book, +Mr. Long translates thus:-- + +"In the morning when thou risest unwillingly, let this thought be +present: I am rising to the work of a human being. Why then am I +dissatisfied if I am going to do the things for which I exist and for +which I was brought into the world? Or have I been made for this, to lie +in the bed clothes and keep myself warm?--But this is more pleasant.-- +Dost thou exist then to take thy pleasure, and not at all for action or +exertion?" + +Jeremy Collier has:-- + +"When you find an unwillingness to rise early in the morning, make this +short speech to yourself: 'I am getting up now to do the business of a +man; and am I out of humor for going about that which I was made for, +and for the sake of which I was sent into the world? Was I then designed +for nothing but to doze and batten beneath the counterpane? I thought +action had been the end of your being.'" + +In another striking passage, again, Mr. Long has:-- + +"No longer wonder at hazard; for neither wilt thou read thy own memoirs, +nor the acts of the ancient Romans and Hellenes, and the selections from +books which thou wast reserving for thy old age. Hasten then to the end +which thou hast before thee, and, throwing away idle hopes, come to +thine own aid, if thou carest at all for thyself, while it is in thy +power."[202] + +Here his despised predecessor has:-- + +"Don't go too far in your books and overgrasp yourself. Alas, you have +no time left to peruse your diary, to read over the Greek and Roman +history: come, don't flatter and deceive yourself; look to the main +chance, to the end and design of reading, and mind life more than +notion: I say, if you have a kindness for your person, drive at the +practice and help yourself, for that is in your own power." + +It seems to me that here for style and force Jeremy Collier can (to say +the least) perfectly stand comparison with Mr. Long. Jeremy Collier's +real defect as a translator is not his coarseness and vulgarity, but his +imperfect acquaintance with Greek; this is a serious defect, a fatal +one; it rendered a translation like Mr. Long's necessary. Jeremy +Collier's work will now be forgotten, and Mr. Long stands master of the +field, but he may be content, at any rate, to leave his predecessor's +grave unharmed, even if he will not throw upon it, in passing, a handful +of kindly earth. + +Another complaint I have against Mr. Long is, that he is not quite +idiomatic and simple enough. It is a little formal, at least, if not +pedantic, to say _Ethic_ and _Dialectic_, instead of _Ethics_ and +_Dialectics_, and to say "_Hellenes_ and Romans" instead of "_Greeks_ +and Romans." And why, too,--the name of Antoninus being preoccupied by +Antoninus Pius,[203]--will Mr. Long call his author Marcus _Antoninus_ +instead of Marcus _Aurelius?_ Small as these matters appear, they are +important when one has to deal with the general public, and not with a +small circle of scholars; and it is the general public that the +translator of a short masterpiece on morals, such as is the book of +Marcus Aurelius, should have in view; his aim should be to make Marcus +Aurelius's work as popular as the _Imitation_, and Marcus Aurelius's +name as familiar as Socrates's. In rendering or naming him, therefore, +punctilious accuracy of phrase is not so much to be sought as +accessibility and currency; everything which may best enable the Emperor +and his precepts _volitare per ora virum_[204] It is essential to +render him in language perfectly plain and unprofessional, and to call +him by the name by which he is best and most distinctly known. The +translators of the Bible talk of _pence_ and not _denarii_, and the +admirers of Voltaire do not celebrate him under the name of Arouet.[205] + +But, after these trifling complaints are made, one must end, as one +began, in unfeigned gratitude to Mr. Long for his excellent and +substantial reproduction in English of an invaluable work. In general +the substantiality, soundness, and precision of Mr. Long's rendering are +(I will venture, after all, to give my opinion about them) as +conspicuous as the living spirit with which he treats antiquity; and +these qualities are particularly desirable in the translator of a work +like that of Marcus Aurelius, of which the language is often corrupt, +almost always hard and obscure. Any one who wants to appreciate Mr. +Long's merits as a translator may read, in the original and in Mr. +Long's translation, the seventh chapter of the tenth book; he will see +how, through all the dubiousness and involved manner of the Greek, Mr. +Long has firmly seized upon the clear thought which is certainly at the +bottom of that troubled wording, and, in distinctly rendering this +thought, has at the same time thrown round its expression a +characteristic shade of painfulness and difficulty which just suits it. +And Marcus Aurelius's book is one which, when it is rendered so +accurately as Mr. Long renders it, even those who know Greek tolerably +well may choose to read rather in the translation than in the original. +For not only are the contents here incomparably more valuable than the +external form, but this form, the Greek of a Roman, is not exactly one +of those styles which have a physiognomy, which are an essential part of +their author, which stamp an indelible impression of him on the reader's +mind. An old Lyons commentator finds, indeed, in Marcus Aurelius's +Greek, something characteristic, something specially firm and imperial; +but I think an ordinary mortal will hardly find this: he will find +crabbed Greek, without any great charm of distinct physiognomy. The +Greek of Thucydides and Plato has this charm, and he who reads them in a +translation, however accurate, loses it, and loses much in losing it; +but the Greek of Marcus Aurelius, like the Greek of the New Testament, +and even more than the Greek of the New Testament, is wanting in it. If +one could be assured that the English Testament were made perfectly +accurate, one might be almost content never to open a Greek Testament +again; and, Mr. Long's version of Marcus Aurelius being what it is, an +Englishman who reads to live, and does not live to read, may henceforth +let the Greek original repose upon its shelf. + +The man whose thoughts Mr. Long has thus faithfully reproduced, is +perhaps the most beautiful figure in history. He is one of those +consoling and hope-inspiring marks, which stand forever to remind our +weak and easily discouraged race how high human goodness and +perseverance have once been carried, and may be carried again. The +interest of mankind is peculiarly attracted by examples of signal +goodness in high places; for that testimony to the worth of goodness is +the most striking which is borne by those to whom all the means of +pleasure and self-indulgence lay open, by those who had at their command +the kingdoms of the world and the glory of them. Marcus Aurelius was the +ruler of the grandest of empires; and he was one of the best of men. +Besides him, history presents one or two sovereigns eminent for their +goodness, such as Saint Louis or Alfred. But Marcus Aurelius has, for us +moderns, this great superiority in interest over Saint Louis or Alfred, +that he lived and acted in a state of society modern by its essential +characteristics, in an epoch akin to our own, in a brilliant centre of +civilization. Trajan talks of "our enlightened age" just as glibly as +the _Times_[206] talks of it. Marcus Aurelius thus becomes for us a man +like ourselves, a man in all things tempted as we are. Saint Louis[207] +inhabits an atmosphere of mediæval Catholicism, which the man of the +nineteenth century may admire, indeed, may even passionately wish to +inhabit, but which, strive as he will, he cannot really inhabit. Alfred +belongs to a state of society (I say it with all deference to the +_Saturday Review_[208] critic who keeps such jealous watch over the +honor of our Saxon ancestors) half barbarous. Neither Alfred nor Saint +Louis can be morally and intellectually as near to us as Marcus +Aurelius. + +The record of the outward life of this admirable man has in it little of +striking incident. He was born at Rome on the 26th of April, in the year +121 of the Christian era. He was nephew and son-in-law to his +predecessor on the throne, Antoninus Pius. When Antoninus died, he was +forty years old, but from the time of his earliest manhood he had +assisted in administering public affairs. Then, after his uncle's death +in 161, for nineteen years he reigned as emperor. The barbarians were +pressing on the Roman frontier, and a great part of Marcus Aurelius's +nineteen years of reign was passed in campaigning. His absences from +Rome were numerous and long. We hear of him in Asia Minor, Syria, Egypt, +Greece; but, above all, in the countries on the Danube, where the war +with the barbarians was going on,--in Austria, Moravia, Hungary. In +these countries much of his Journal seems to have been written; parts of +it are dated from them; and there, a few weeks before his fifty-ninth +birthday, he fell sick and died.[209] The record of him on which his +fame chiefly rests is the record of his inward life,--his _Journal_, or +_Commentaries_, or _Meditations_, or _Thoughts_, for by all these names +has the work been called. Perhaps the most interesting of the records of +his outward life is that which the first book of this work supplies, +where he gives an account of his education, recites the names of those +to whom he is indebted for it, and enumerates his obligations to each of +them. It is a refreshing and consoling picture, a priceless treasure for +those, who, sick of the "wild and dreamlike trade of blood and guile," +which seems to be nearly the whole of what history has to offer to our +view, seek eagerly for that substratum of right thinking and well-doing +which in all ages must surely have somewhere existed, for without it the +continued life of humanity would have been impossible. "From my mother I +learnt piety and beneficence, and abstinence not only from evil deeds +but even from evil thoughts; and further, simplicity in my way of +living, far removed from the habits of the rich." Let us remember that, +the next time we are reading the sixth satire of Juvenal.[210] "From my +tutor I learnt" (hear it, ye tutors of princes!) "endurance of labor, +and to want little and to work with my own hands, and not to meddle with +other people's affairs, and not to be ready to listen to slander." The +vices and foibles of the Greek sophist or rhetorician--the _Græculus +esuriens_[211]--are in everybody's mind; but he who reads Marcus +Aurelius's account of his Greek teachers and masters, will understand +how it is that, in spite of the vices and foibles of individual +_Græculi_, the education of the human race owes to Greece a debt which +can never be overrated. The vague and colorless praise of history leaves +on the mind hardly any impression of Antoninus Pius: it is only from the +private memoranda of his nephew that we learn what a disciplined, +hard-working, gentle, wise, virtuous man he was; a man who, perhaps, +interests mankind less than his immortal nephew only because he has left +in writing no record of his inner life,--_caret quia vate sacro_.[212] + +Of the outward life and circumstances of Marcus Aurelius, beyond these +notices which he has himself supplied, there are few of much interest +and importance. There is the fine anecdote of his speech when he heard +of the assassination of the revolted Avidius Cassius,[213] against whom +he was marching; _he was sorry_, he said, _to be deprived of the +pleasure of pardoning him_. And there are one or two more anecdotes of +him which show the same spirit. But the great record for the outward +life of a man who has left such a record of his lofty inward aspirations +as that which Marcus Aurelius has left, is the clear consenting voice of +all his contemporaries,--high and low, friend and enemy, pagan and +Christian,--in praise of his sincerity, justice, and goodness. The +world's charity does not err on the side of excess, and here was a man +occupying the most conspicuous station in the world, and professing the +highest possible standard of conduct;--yet the world was obliged to +declare that he walked worthily of his profession. Long after his death, +his bust was to be seen in the houses of private men through the wide +Roman empire. It may be the vulgar part of human nature which busies +itself with the semblance and doings of living sovereigns, it is its +nobler part which busies itself with those of the dead; these busts of +Marcus Aurelius, in the homes of Gaul, Britain, and Italy, bear witness, +not to the inmates' frivolous curiosity about princes and palaces, but +to their reverential memory of the passage of a great man upon the +earth. + +Two things, however, before one turns from the outward to the inward +life of Marcus Aurelius, force themselves upon one's notice, and demand +a word of comment; he persecuted the Christians, and he had for his son +the vicious and brutal Commodus.[214] The persecution at Lyons, in which +Attalus[215] and Pothinus suffered, the persecution at Smyrna, in which +Polycarp[216] suffered, took place in his reign. Of his humanity, of his +tolerance, of his horror of cruelty and violence, of his wish to refrain +from severe measures against the Christians, of his anxiety to temper +the severity of these measures when they appeared to him indispensable, +there is no doubt: but, on the one hand, it is certain that the letter, +attributed to him, directing that no Christian should be punished for +being a Christian, is spurious; it is almost certain that his alleged +answer to the authorities of Lyons, in which he directs that Christians +persisting in their profession shall be dealt with according to law, is +genuine. Mr. Long seems inclined to try and throw doubt over the +persecution at Lyons, by pointing out that the letter of the Lyons +Christians relating it, alleges it to have been attended by miraculous +and incredible incidents. "A man," he says, "can only act consistently +by accepting all this letter or rejecting it all, and we cannot blame +him for either." But it is contrary to all experience to say that +because a fact is related with incorrect additions, and embellishments, +therefore it probably never happened at all; or that it is not, in +general, easy for an impartial mind to distinguish between the fact and +the embellishments. I cannot doubt that the Lyons persecution took +place, and that the punishment of Christians for being Christians was +sanctioned by Marcus Aurelius. But then I must add that nine modern +readers out of ten, when they read this, will, I believe, have a +perfectly false notion of what the moral action of Marcus Aurelius, in +sanctioning that punishment, really was. They imagine Trajan, or +Antoninus Pius, or Marcus Aurelius, fresh from the perusal of the +Gospel, fully aware of the spirit and holiness of the Christian saints, +ordering their extermination because he loved darkness rather than +light. Far from this, the Christianity which these emperors aimed at +repressing was, in their conception of it, something philosophically +contemptible, politically subversive, and morally abominable. As men, +they sincerely regarded it much as well-conditioned people, with us, +regard Mormonism; as rulers, they regarded it much as Liberal statesmen, +with us, regard the Jesuits. A kind of Mormonism, constituted as a vast +secret society, with obscure aims of political and social subversion, +was what Antoninus Pius and Marcus Aurelius believed themselves to be +repressing when they punished Christians. The early Christian apologists +again and again declare to us under what odious imputations the +Christians lay, how general was the belief that these imputations were +well-grounded, how sincere was the horror which the belief inspired. The +multitude, convinced that the Christians were atheists who ate human +flesh and thought incest no crime, displayed against them a fury so +passionate as to embarrass and alarm their rulers. The severe +expressions of Tacitus, _exitiabilis superstitio--odio humani generis +convicti_,[217] show how deeply the prejudices of the multitude imbued +the educated class also. One asks oneself with astonishment how a +doctrine so benign as that of Jesus Christ can have incurred +misrepresentation so monstrous. The inner and moving cause of the +misrepresentation lay, no doubt, in this,--that Christianity was a new +spirit in the Roman world, destined to act in that world as its +dissolvent; and it was inevitable that Christianity in the Roman world, +like democracy in the modern world, like every new spirit with a similar +mission assigned to it, should at its first appearance occasion an +instinctive shrinking and repugnance in the world which it was to +dissolve. The outer and palpable causes of the misrepresentation were, +for the Roman public at large, the confounding of the Christians with +the Jews, that isolated, fierce, and stubborn race, whose stubbornness, +fierceness, and isolation, real as they were, the fancy of a civilized +Roman yet further exaggerated; the atmosphere of mystery and novelty +which surrounded the Christian rites; the very simplicity of Christian +theism. For the Roman statesman, the cause of mistake lay in that +character of secret assemblages which the meetings of the Christian +community wore, under a State-system as jealous of unauthorized +associations as is the State-system of modern France. + +A Roman of Marcus Aurelius's time and position could not well see the +Christians except through the mist of these prejudices. Seen through +such a mist, the Christians appeared with a thousand faults not their +own; but it has not been sufficiently remarked that faults really their +own many of them assuredly appeared with besides, faults especially +likely to strike such an observer as Marcus Aurelius, and to confirm him +in the prejudices of his race, station, and rearing. We look back upon +Christianity after it has proved what a future it bore within it, and +for us the sole representatives of its early struggles are the pure and +devoted spirits through whom it proved this; Marcus Aurelius saw it with +its future yet unshown, and with the tares among its professed progeny +not less conspicuous than the wheat. Who can doubt that among the +professing Christians of the second century, as among the professing +Christians of the nineteenth, there was plenty of folly, plenty of rabid +nonsense, plenty of gross fanaticism? who will even venture to affirm +that, separated in great measure from the intellect and civilization of +the world for one or two centuries, Christianity, wonderful as have been +its fruits, had the development perfectly worthy of its inestimable +germ? Who will venture to affirm that, by the alliance of Christianity +with the virtue and intelligence of men like the Antonines,--of the best +product of Greek and Roman civilization, while Greek and Roman +civilization had yet life and power,--Christianity and the world, as +well as the Antonines themselves, would not have been gainers? That +alliance was not to be. The Antonines lived and died with an utter +misconception of Christianity; Christianity grew up in the Catacombs, +not on the Palatine. And Marcus Aurelius incurs no moral reproach by +having authorized the punishment of the Christians; he does not thereby +become in the least what we mean by a _persecutor_. One may concede that +it was impossible for him to see Christianity as it really was;--as +impossible as for even the moderate and sensible Fleury[218] to see the +Antonines as they really were;--one may concede that the point of view +from which Christianity appeared something anti-civil and anti-social, +which the State had the faculty to judge and the duty to suppress, was +inevitably his. Still, however, it remains true that this sage, who made +perfection his aim and reason his law, did Christianity an immense +injustice and rested in an idea of State-attributes which was illusive. +And this is, in truth, characteristic of Marcus Aurelius, that he is +blameless, yet, in a certain sense, unfortunate; in his character, +beautiful as it is, there is something melancholy, circumscribed, and +ineffectual. + +For of his having such a son as Commodus, too, one must say that he is +not to be blamed on that account, but that he is unfortunate. +Disposition and temperament are inexplicable things; there are natures +on which the best education and example are thrown away; excellent +fathers may have, without any fault of theirs, incurably vicious sons. +It is to be remembered, also, that Commodus was left, at the perilous +age of nineteen, master of the world; while his father, at that age, was +but beginning a twenty years' apprenticeship to wisdom, labor, and +self-command, under the sheltering teachership of his uncle Antoninus. +Commodus was a prince apt to be led by favorites; and if the story is +true which says that he left, all through his reign, the Christians +untroubled, and ascribes this lenity to the influence of his mistress +Marcia, it shows that he could be led to good as well as to evil. But +for such a nature to be left at a critical age with absolute power, and +wholly without good counsel and direction, was the more fatal. Still one +cannot help wishing that the example of Marcus Aurelius could have +availed more with his own only son. One cannot but think that with such +virtue as his there should go, too, the ardor which removes mountains, +and that the ardor which removes mountains might have even won Commodus. +The word _ineffectual_ again rises to one's mind; Marcus Aurelius saved +his own soul by his righteousness, and he could do no more. Happy they +who can do this! but still happier, who can do more! + +Yet, when one passes from his outward to his inward life, when one turns +over the pages of his _Meditations_,--entries jotted down from day to +day, amid the business of the city or the fatigues of the camp, for his +own guidance and support, meant for no eye but his own, without the +slightest attempt at style, with no care, even, for correct writing, not +to be surpassed for naturalness and sincerity,--all disposition to carp +and cavil dies away, and one is overpowered by the charm of a character +of such purity, delicacy, and virtue. He fails neither in small things +nor in great; he keeps watch over himself both that the great springs of +action may be right in him, and that the minute details of action may be +right also. How admirable in a hard-tasked ruler, and a ruler too, with +a passion for thinking and reading, is such a memorandum as the +following:-- + +"Not frequently nor without necessity to say to any one, or to write in +a letter, that I have no leisure; nor continually to excuse the neglect +of duties required by our relation to those with whom we live, by +alleging urgent occupation."[219] + +And, when that ruler is a Roman emperor, what an "idea" is this to be +written down and meditated by him:-- + +"The idea of a polity in which there is the same law for all, a polity +administered with regard to equal rights and equal freedom of speech, +and the idea of a kingly government which respects most of all the +freedom of the governed."[220] And, for all men who "drive at +practice," what practical rules may not one accumulate out of these +_Meditations_:-- + +"The greatest part of what we say or do being unnecessary, if a man +takes this away, he will have more leisure and less uneasiness. +Accordingly, on every occasion a man should ask himself: 'Is this one of +the unnecessary things?' Now a man should take away not only unnecessary +acts, but also unnecessary thoughts, for thus superfluous acts will not +follow after."[221] + +And again:-- + +"We ought to check in the series of our thoughts everything that is +without a purpose and useless, but most of all the over curious feeling +and the malignant; and a man should use himself to think of those things +only about which if one should suddenly ask, 'What hast thou now in thy +thoughts?' with perfect openness thou mightest immediately answer, 'This +or That'; so that from thy words it should be plain that everything in +thee is simple and benevolent, and such as befits a social animal, and +one that cares not for thoughts about sensual enjoyments, or any rivalry +or envy and suspicion, or anything else for which thou wouldst blush if +thou shouldst say thou hadst it in thy mind."[222] + +So, with a stringent practicalness worthy of Franklin, he discourses on +his favorite text, _Let nothing be done without a purpose_. But it is +when he enters the region where Franklin cannot follow him, when he +utters his thoughts on the ground-motives of human action, that he is +most interesting; that he becomes the unique, the incomparable Marcus +Aurelius. Christianity uses language very liable to be misunderstood +when it seems to tell men to do good, not, certainly, from the vulgar +motives of worldly interest, or vanity, or love of human praise, but +"that their Father which, seeth in secret may reward them openly." The +motives of reward and punishment have come, from the misconception of +language of this kind, to be strangely overpressed by many Christian +moralists, to the deterioration and disfigurement of Christianity. +Marcus Aurelius says, truly and nobly:-- + +"One man, when he has done a service to another, is ready to set it down +to his account as a favor conferred. Another is not ready to do this, +but still in his own mind he thinks of the man as his debtor, and he +knows what he has done. A third in a manner does not even know what he +has done, _but he is like a vine which has produced grapes, and seeks +for nothing more after it has once produced its proper fruit_. As a +horse when he has run, a dog when he has caught the game, a bee when it +has made its honey, so a man when he has done a good act, does not call +out for others to come and see, but he goes on to another act, as a vine +goes on to produce again the grapes in season. Must a man, then, be one +of these, who in a manner acts thus without observing it? Yes."[223] + +And again:-- + +"What more dost thou want when thou hast done a man a service? Art thou +not content that thou hast done something conformable to thy nature, and +dost thou seek to be paid for it, _just as if the eye demanded a +recompense for seeing, or the feet for walking_?"[224] + +Christianity, in order to match morality of this strain, has to correct +its apparent offers of external reward, and to say: _The kingdom of God +is within you._ + +I have said that it is by its accent of emotion that the morality of +Marcus Aurelius acquires a special character, and reminds one of +Christian morality. The sentences of Seneca[225] are stimulating to the +intellect; the sentences of Epictetus are fortifying to the character; +the sentences of Marcus Aurelius find their way to the soul. I have said +that religious emotion has the power to _light up_ morality: the emotion +of Marcus Aurelius does not quite light up his morality, but it suffuses +it; it has not power to melt the clouds of effort and austerity quite +away, but it shines through them and glorifies them; it is a spirit, not +so much of gladness and elation, as of gentleness and sweetness; a +delicate and tender sentiment, which is less than joy and more than +resignation. He says that in his youth he learned from Maximus, one of +his teachers, "cheerfulness in all circumstances as well as in illness; +_and a just admixture in the moral character of sweetness and dignity_": +and it is this very admixture of sweetness with his dignity which makes +him so beautiful a moralist. It enables him to carry even into his +observation of nature, a delicate penetration, a sympathetic tenderness, +worthy of Wordsworth; the spirit of such a remark as the following has +hardly a parallel, so far as my knowledge goes, in the whole range of +Greek and Roman literature:-- + +"Figs, when they are quite ripe, gape open; and in the ripe olives the +very circumstance of their being near to rottenness adds a peculiar +beauty to the fruit. And the ears of corn bending down, and the lion's +eyebrows, and the foam which flows from the mouth of wild boars, and +many other things,--though they are far from being beautiful, in a +certain sense,--still, because they come in the course of nature, have a +beauty in them, and they please the mind; so that if a man should have a +feeling and a deeper insight with respect to the things which are +produced in the universe, there is hardly anything which comes in the +course of nature which will not seem to him to be in a manner disposed +so as to give pleasure."[226] + +But it is when his strain passes to directly moral subjects that his +delicacy and sweetness lend to it the greatest charm. Let those who can +feel the beauty of spiritual refinement read this, the reflection of an +emperor who prized mental superiority highly:-- + +"Thou sayest, 'Men cannot admire the sharpness of thy wits.' Be it so; +but there are many other things of which thou canst not say, 'I am not +formed for them by nature.' Show those qualities, then, which are +altogether in thy power,--sincerity, gravity, endurance of labor, +aversion to pleasure, contentment with thy portion and with few things, +benevolence, frankness, no love of superfluity, freedom from trifling, +magnanimity. Dost thou not see how many qualities thou art at once able +to exhibit, as to which there is no excuse of natural incapacity and +unfitness, and yet thou still remainest voluntarily below the mark? Or +art thou compelled, through being defectively furnished by nature, to +murmur, and to be mean, and to flatter, and to find fault with thy poor +body, and to try to please men, and to make great display, and to be so +restless in thy mind? No, indeed; but thou mightest have been delivered +from these things long ago. Only, if in truth thou canst be charged with +being rather slow and dull of comprehension, thou must exert thyself +about this also, not neglecting nor yet taking pleasure in thy dulness." +[227] + +The same sweetness enables him to fix his mind, when he sees the +isolation and moral death caused by sin, not on the cheerless thought of +the misery of this condition, but on the inspiriting thought that man is +blest with the power to escape from it:-- + +"Suppose that thou hast detached thyself from the natural unity,--for +thou wast made by nature a part, but thou hast cut thyself off,--yet +here is this beautiful provision, that it is in thy power again to unite +thyself. God has allowed this to no other part,--after it has been +separated and cut asunder, to come together again. But consider the +goodness with which he has privileged man; for he has put it in his +power, when he has been separated, to return and to be united and to +resume his place."[228] + +It enables him to control even the passion for retreat and solitude, so +strong in a soul like his, to which the world could offer no abiding +city:-- + +"Men seek retreat for themselves, houses in the country, seashores, and +mountains; and thou, too, art wont to desire such things very much. But +this is altogether a mark of the most common sort of men, for it is in +thy power whenever thou shalt choose to retire into thyself. For nowhere +either with more quiet or more freedom from trouble does a man retire +than into his own soul, particularly when he has within him such +thoughts that by looking into them he is immediately in perfect +tranquillity. Constantly, then, give to thyself this retreat, and renew +thyself; and let thy principles be brief and fundamental, which as soon +as thou shalt recur to them, will be sufficient to cleanse the soul +completely, and to send thee back free from all discontent with the +things to which thou returnest."[229] + +Against this feeling of discontent and weariness, so natural to the +great for whom there seems nothing left to desire or to strive after, +but so enfeebling to them, so deteriorating, Marcus Aurelius never +ceased to struggle. With resolute thankfulness he kept in remembrance +the blessings of his lot; the true blessings of it, not the false:-- + +"I have to thank Heaven that I was subjected to a ruler and a father +(Antoninus Pius) who was able to take away all pride from me, and to +bring me to the knowledge that it is possible for a man to live in a +palace without either guards, or embroidered dresses, or any show of +this kind; but that it is in such a man's power to bring himself very +near to the fashion of a private person, without being for this reason +either meaner in thought or more remiss in action with respect to the +things which must be done for public interest.... I have to be thankful +that my children have not been stupid nor deformed in body; that I did +not make more proficiency in rhetoric, poetry, and the other studies, by +which I should perhaps have been completely engrossed, if I had seen +that I was making great progress in them; ... that I knew Apollonius, +Rusticus, Maximus; ... that I received clear and frequent impressions +about living according to nature, and what kind of a life that is, so +that, so far as depended on Heaven, and its gifts, help, and +inspiration, nothing hindered me from forthwith living according to +nature, though I still fall short of it through my own fault, and +through not observing the admonitions of Heaven, and, I may almost say, +its direct instructions; that my body has held out so long in such a +kind of life as mine; that though it was my mother's lot to die young, +she spent the last years of her life with me; that whenever I wished to +help any man in his need, I was never told that I had not the means of +doing it; that, when I had an inclination to philosophy, I did not fall +into the hands of a sophist."[230] + +And, as he dwelt with gratitude on these helps and blessings vouchsafed +to him, his mind (so, at least, it seems to me) would sometimes revert +with awe to the perils and temptations of the lonely height where he +stood, to the lives of Tiberius, Caligula, Nero, Domitian,[231] in their +hideous blackness and ruin; and then he wrote down for himself such a +warning entry as this, significant and terrible in its abruptness:-- + +"A black character, a womanish character, a stubborn character, bestial, +childish, animal, stupid, counterfeit, scurrilous, fraudulent, +tyrannical!"[232] + +Or this:-- + +"About what am I now employing my soul? On every occasion I must ask +myself this question, and inquire, What have I now in this part of me +which they call the ruling principle, and whose soul have I now?--that +of a child, or of a young man, or of a weak woman, or of a tyrant, or of +one of the lower animals in the service of man, or of a wild +beast?"[233] + +The character he wished to attain he knew well, and beautifully he has +marked it, and marked, too, his sense of shortcoming:-- + +"When thou hast assumed these names,--good, modest, true, rational, +equal-minded, magnanimous,--take care that thou dost not change these +names; and, if thou shouldst lose them, quickly return to them. If thou +maintainest thyself in possession of these names without desiring that +others should call thee by them, thou wilt be another being, and wilt +enter on another life. For to continue to be such as thou hast hitherto +been, and to be torn in pieces and defiled in such a life, is the +character of a very stupid man, and one overfond of his life, and like +those half-devoured fighters with wild beasts, who though covered with +wounds and gore still entreat to be kept to the following day, though +they will be exposed in the same state to the same claws and bites. +Therefore fix thyself in the possession of these few names: and if thou +art able to abide in them, abide as if thou wast removed to the Happy +Islands."[234] + +For all his sweetness and serenity, however, man's point of life +"between two infinities" (of that expression Marcus Aurelius is the real +owner) was to him anything but a Happy Island, and the performances on +it he saw through no veils of illusion. Nothing is in general more +gloomy and monotonous than declamations on the hollowness and +transitoriness of human life and grandeur: but here, too, the great +charm of Marcus Aurelius, his emotion, comes in to relieve the monotony +and to break through the gloom; and even on this eternally used topic he +is imaginative, fresh, and striking:-- + +"Consider, for example, the times of Vespasian. Thou wilt see all these +things, people marrying, bringing up children, sick, dying, warring, +feasting, trafficking, cultivating the ground, flattering, obstinately +arrogant, suspecting, plotting, wishing for somebody to die, grumbling +about the present, loving, heaping up treasure, desiring to be consuls +or kings. Well then that life of these people no longer exists at all. +Again, go to the times of Trajan. All is again the same. Their life too +is gone. But chiefly thou shouldst think of those whom thou hast thyself +known distracting themselves about idle things, neglecting to do what +was in accordance with their proper constitution, and to hold firmly to +this and to be content with it."[235] + +Again:-- + +"The things which are much valued in life are empty, and rotten, and +trifling; and people are like little dogs, biting one another, and +little children quarrelling, crying, and then straightway laughing. But +fidelity, and modesty, and justice, and truth, are fled + + 'Up to Olympus from the wide-spread earth.' + +What then is there which still detains thee here?"[236] + +And once more:-- + +"Look down from above on the countless herds of men, and their countless +solemnities, and the infinitely varied voyagings in storms and calms, +and the differences among those who are born, who live together, and +die. And consider too the life lived by others in olden time, and the +life now lived among barbarous nations, and how many know not even thy +name, and how many will soon forget it, and how they who perhaps now are +praising thee will very soon blame thee and that neither a posthumous +name is of any value, nor reputation, nor anything else."[237] + +He recognized, indeed, that (to use his own words) "the prime principle +in man's constitution is the social";[238] and he labored sincerely to +make not only his acts towards his fellow-men, but his thoughts also, +suitable to this conviction:-- + +"When thou wishest to delight thyself, think of the virtues of those who +live with thee; for instance, the activity of one, and the modesty of +another, and the liberality of a third, and some other good quality of a +fourth."[239] + +Still, it is hard for a pure and thoughtful man to live in a state of +rapture at the spectacle afforded to him by his fellow-creatures; above +all it is hard, when such a man is placed as Marcus Aurelius was placed, +and has had the meanness and perversity of his fellow-creatures thrust, +in no common measure, upon his notice,--has had, time after time, to +experience how "within ten days thou wilt seem a god to those to whom +thou art now a beast and an ape." His true strain of thought as to his +relations with his fellow-men is rather the following. He has been +enumerating the higher consolations which may support a man at the +approach of death, and he goes on:-- + +"But if thou requirest also a vulgar kind of comfort which shall reach +thy heart, thou wilt be made best reconciled to death by observing the +objects from which thou art going to be removed, and the morals of those +with whom thy soul will no longer be mingled. For it is no way right to +be offended with men, but it is thy duty to care for them and to bear +with them gently; and yet to remember that thy departure will not be +from men who have the same principles as thyself. For this is the only +thing, if there be any, which could draw us the contrary way and attach +us to life, to be permitted to live with those who have the same +principles as ourselves. But now thou seest how great is the distress +caused by the difference of those who live together, so that thou mayest +say: 'Come quick, O death, lest perchance I too should forget +myself.'"[240] + +_O faithless and perverse generation! how long shall I be with you? how +long shall I suffer you?_[241] Sometimes this strain rises even to +passion:-- + +"Short is the little which remains to thee of life. Live as on a +mountain. Let men see, let them know, a real man, who lives as he was +meant to live. If they cannot endure him, let them kill him. For that is +better than to live as men do."[242] + +It is remarkable how little of a merely local and temporary character, +how little of those _scoriæ_ which a reader has to clear away before he +gets to the precious ore, how little that even admits of doubt or +question, the morality of Marcus Aurelius exhibits. Perhaps as to one +point we must make an exception. Marcus Aurelius is fond of urging as a +motive for man's cheerful acquiescence in whatever befalls him, that +"whatever happens to every man _is for the interest of the +universal_";[243] that the whole contains nothing _which is not for its +advantage_; that everything which happens to a man is to be accepted, +"even if it seems disagreeable, _because it leads to the health of the +universe_."[244] And the whole course of the universe, he adds, has a +providential reference to man's welfare: "_all other things have been +made for the sake of rational beings_."[245] Religion has in all ages +freely used this language, and it is not religion which will object to +Marcus Aurelius's use of it; but science can hardly accept as severely +accurate this employment of the terms _interest_ and _advantage_. To a +sound nature and a clear reason the proposition that things happen "for +the interest of the universal," as men conceive of interest, may seem to +have no meaning at all, and the proposition that "all things have been +made for the sake of rational beings" may seem to be false. Yet even to +this language, not irresistibly cogent when it is thus absolutely used, +Marcus Aurelius gives a turn which makes it true and useful, when he +says: "The ruling part of man can make a material for itself out of that +which opposes it, as fire lays hold of what falls into it, and rises +higher by means of this very material";[246]--when he says: "What else +are all things except exercises for the reason? Persevere then until +thou shalt have made all things thine own, as the stomach which is +strengthened makes all things its own, as the blazing fire makes flame +and brightness out of everything that is thrown into it";[247]--when he +says: "Thou wilt not cease to be miserable till thy mind is in such a +condition, that, what luxury is to those who enjoy pleasure, such shall +be to thee, in every matter which presents itself, the doing of the +things which are conformable to man's constitution; for a man ought to +consider as an enjoyment everything which it is in his power to do +according to his own nature,--and it is in his power everywhere."[248] +In this sense it is, indeed, most true that "all things have been made +for the sake of rational beings"; that "all things work together for +good." + +In general, however, the action Marcus Aurelius prescribes is action +which every sound nature must recognize as right, and the motives he +assigns are motives which every clear reason must recognize as valid. +And so he remains the especial friend and comforter of all clear-headed +and scrupulous, yet pure-hearted and upward striving men, in those ages +most especially that walk by sight, not by faith, but yet have no open +vision. He cannot give such souls, perhaps, all they yearn for, but he +gives them much; and what he gives them, they can receive. + +Yet no, it is not for what he thus gives them that such souls love him +most! it is rather because of the emotion which lends to his voice so +touching an accent, it is because he too yearns as they do for something +unattained by him. What an affinity for Christianity had this persecutor +of the Christians! The effusion of Christianity, its relieving tears, +its happy self-sacrifice, were the very element, one feels, for which +his soul longed; they were near him, they brushed him, he touched them, +he passed them by. One feels, too, that the Marcus Aurelius one reads +must still have remained, even had Christianity been fully known to him, +in a great measure himself; he would have been no Justin;--but how would +Christianity have affected him? in what measure would it have changed +him? Granted that he might have found, like the _Alogi_[249] of modern +times, in the most beautiful of the Gospels, the Gospel which has +leavened Christendom most powerfully, the Gospel of St. John, too much +Greek metaphysics, too much _gnosis_;[250] granted that this Gospel +might have looked too like what he knew already to be a total surprise +to him: what, then, would he have said to the Sermon on the Mount, to +the twenty-sixth chapter of St. Matthew? What would have become of his +notions of the _exitiabilis superstitio_, of the "obstinacy of the +Christians"? Vain question! yet the greatest charm of Marcus Aurelius is +that he makes us ask it. We see him wise, just, self-governed, tender, +thankful, blameless; yet, with all this, agitated, stretching out his +arms for something beyond,--_tendentemque manus ripæ ulterioris +amore_.[251] + + + +THE CONTRIBUTION OF THE CELTS TO ENGLISH LITERATURE[252] + + +If I were asked where English poetry got these three things, its turn +for style, its turn for melancholy, and its turn for natural magic, for +catching and rendering the charm of nature in a wonderfully near and +vivid way,--I should answer, with some doubt, that it got much of its +turn for style from a Celtic source; with less doubt, that it got much +of its melancholy from a Celtic source; with no doubt at all, that from +a Celtic source it got nearly all its natural magic. + +Any German with penetration and tact in matters of literary criticism +will own that the principal deficiency of German poetry is in style; +that for style, in the highest sense, it shows but little feeling. Take +the eminent masters of style, the poets who best give the idea of what +the peculiar power which lies in style is--Pindar, Virgil, Dante, +Milton. An example of the peculiar effect which these poets produce, you +can hardly give from German poetry. Examples enough you can give from +German poetry of the effect produced by genius, thought, and feeling +expressing themselves in clear language, simple language, passionate +language, eloquent language, with harmony and melody: but not of the +peculiar effect exercised by eminent power of style. Every reader of +Dante can at once call to mind what the peculiar effect I mean is; I +spoke of it in my lectures on translating Homer, and there I took an +example of it from Dante, who perhaps manifests it more eminently than +any other poet. + +But from Milton, too, one may take examples of it abundantly; compare +this from Milton:-- + + "... nor sometimes forget + Those other two equal with me in fate, + So were I equall'd with them in renown, + Blind Thamyris and blind Mæonides--"[253] + +with this from Goethe:-- + + "Es bildet ein Talent sich in der Stille, + Sich ein Character in dem Strom der Welt."[254] + +Nothing can be better in its way than the style in which Goethe there +presents his thought, but it is the style of prose as much as of poetry; +it is lucid, harmonious, earnest, eloquent, but it has not received that +peculiar kneading, heightening, and recasting which is observable in the +style of the passage from Milton--a style which seems to have for its +cause a certain pressure of emotion, and an ever-surging, yet bridled, +excitement in the poet, giving a special intensity to his way of +delivering himself. In poetical races and epochs this turn for style is +peculiarly observable; and perhaps it is only on condition of having +this somewhat heightened and difficult manner, so different from the +plain manner of prose, that poetry gets the privilege of being loosed, +at its best moments, into that perfectly simple, limpid style, which is +the supreme style of all, but the simplicity of which is still not the +simplicity of prose. The simplicity of Menander's[255] style is the +simplicity of prose, and is the same kind of simplicity as that which +Goethe's style, in the passage I have quoted, exhibits; but Menander +does not belong to a great poetical moment, he comes too late for it; it +is the simple passages in poets like Pindar or Dante which are perfect, +being masterpieces of _poetical_ simplicity. One may say the same of the +simple passages in Shakespeare; they are perfect, their simplicity being +a _poetical_ simplicity. They are the golden, easeful, crowning moments +of a manner which is always pitched in another key from that of prose, a +manner changed and heightened; the Elizabethan style, regnant in most of +our dramatic poetry to this day, is mainly the continuation of this +manner of Shakespeare's. It was a manner much more turbid and strewn +with blemishes than the manner of Pindar, Dante, or Milton; often it was +detestable; but it owed its existence to Shakespeare's instinctive +impulse towards _style_ in poetry, to his native sense of the necessity +for it; and without the basis of style everywhere, faulty though it may +in some places be, we should not have had the beauty of expression, +unsurpassable for effectiveness and charm, which is reached in +Shakespeare's best passages. The turn for style is perceptible all +through English poetry, proving, to my mind, the genuine poetical gift +of the race; this turn imparts to our poetry a stamp of high +distinction, and sometimes it doubles the force of a poet not by nature +of the very highest order, such as Gray, and raises him to a rank beyond +what his natural richness and power seem to promise. Goethe, with his +fine critical perception, saw clearly enough both the power of style in +itself, and the lack of style in the literature of his own country; and +perhaps if we regard him solely as a German, not as a European, his +great work was that he labored all his life to impart style into German +literature, and firmly to establish it there. Hence the immense +importance to him of the world of classical art, and of the productions +of Greek or Latin genius, where style so eminently manifests its power. +Had he found in the German genius and literature an element of style +existing by nature and ready to his hand, half his work, one may say, +would have been saved him, and he might have done much more in poetry. +But as it was, he had to try and create, out of his own powers, a style +for German poetry, as well as to provide contents for this style to +carry; and thus his labor as a poet was doubled. + +It is to be observed that power of style, in the sense in which I am +here speaking of style, is something quite different from the power of +idiomatic, simple, nervous, racy expression, such as the expression of +healthy, robust natures so often is, such as Luther's was in a striking +degree. Style, in my sense of the word, is a peculiar recasting and +heightening, under a certain condition of spiritual excitement, of what +a man has to say, in such a manner as to add dignity and distinction to +it; and dignity and distinction are not terms which suit many acts or +words of Luther. Deeply touched with the _Gemeinheit_[256] which is the +bane of his nation, as he is at the same time a grand example of the +honesty which is his nation's excellence, he can seldom even show +himself brave, resolute, and truthful, without showing a strong dash of +coarseness and commonness all the while; the right definition of Luther, +as of our own Bunyan, is that he is a Philistine of genius. So Luther's +sincere idiomatic German,--such language as this: "Hilf, lieber Gott, +wie manchen Jammer habe ich gesehen, dass der gemeine Mann doch so gar +nichts weiss von der christlichen Lehre!"--no more proves a power of +style in German literature, than Cobbett's[257] sinewy idiomatic English +proves it in English literature. Power of style, properly so-called, as +manifested in masters of style like Dante or Milton in poetry, Cicero, +Bossuet[258] or Bolingbroke[259] in prose, is something quite different, +and has, as I have said, for its characteristic effect, this: to add +dignity and distinction. + + * * * * * + +This something is _style_, and the Celts certainly have it in a +wonderful measure. Style is the most striking quality of their poetry. +Celtic poetry seems to make up to itself for being unable to master the +world and give an adequate interpretation of it, by throwing all its +force into style, by bending language at any rate to its will, and +expressing the ideas it has with unsurpassable intensity, elevation, and +effect. It has all through it a sort of intoxication of style--a +_Pindarism_, to use a word formed from the name of the poet, on whom, +above all other poets, the power of style seems to have exercised an +inspiring and intoxicating effect; and not in its great poets only, in +Taliesin, or Llywarch Hen, or Ossian,[260] does the Celtic genius show +this Pindarism, but in all its productions:-- + + "The grave of March is this, and this the grave of Gwythyr; + Here is the grave of Gwgawn Gleddyfreidd; + But unknown is the grave of Arthur."[261] + +That comes from the _Welsh Memorials of the Graves of the Warriors_, and +if we compare it with the familiar memorial inscriptions of an English +churchyard (for we English have so much Germanism in us that our +productions offer abundant examples of German want of style as well as +of its opposite):-- + + "Afflictions sore long time I bore, + Physicians were in vain, + Till God did please Death should me seize + And ease me of my pain--" + +if, I say, we compare the Welsh memorial lines with the English, which +in their _Gemeinheit_ of style are truly Germanic, we shall get a clear +sense of what that Celtic talent for style I have been speaking of is. + + * * * * * + +Its chord of penetrating passion and melancholy, again, its _Titanism_ +as we see it in Byron,--what other European poetry possesses that like +the English, and where do we get it from? The Celts, with their vehement +reaction against the despotism of fact, with their sensuous nature, +their manifold striving, their adverse destiny, their immense +calamities, the Celts are the prime authors of this vein of piercing +regret and passion,--of this Titanism in poetry. A famous book, +Macpherson's _Ossian_,[262] carried in the last century this vein like a +flood of lava through Europe. I am not going to criticize Macpherson's +_Ossian_ here. Make the part of what is forged, modern, tawdry, +spurious, in the book, as large as you please; strip Scotland, if you +like, of every feather of borrowed plumes which on the strength of +Macpherson's _Ossian_ she may have stolen from that _vetus et major +Scotia_, the true home of the Ossianic poetry, Ireland; I make no +objection. But there will still be left in the book a residue with the +very soul of the Celtic genius in it, and which has the proud +distinction of having brought this soul of the Celtic genius into +contact with the genius of the nations of modern Europe, and enriched +all our poetry by it. Woody Morven, and echoing Sora, and Selma with its +silent halls!--we all owe them a debt of gratitude, and when we are +unjust enough to forget it, may the Muse forget us! Choose any one of +the better passages in Macpherson's _Ossian_ and you can see even at +this time of day what an apparition of newness and power such a strain +must have been to the eighteenth century:-- + +"I have seen the walls of Balclutha, but they were desolate. The fox +looked out from the windows, the rank grass of the wall waved round her +head. Raise the song of mourning, O bards, over the land of strangers. +They have but fallen before us, for one day we must fall. Why dost thou +build the hall, son of the winged days? Thou lookest from thy towers +today; yet a few years, and the blast of the desert comes; it howls in +thy empty court, and whistles round thy half-worn shield. Let the blast +of the desert come! we shall be renowned in our day." + +All Europe felt the power of that melancholy; but what I wish to point +out is, that no nation of Europe so caught in its poetry the passionate +penetrating accent of the Celtic genius, its strain of Titanism, as the +English. Goethe, like Napoleon, felt the spell of Ossian very +powerfully, and he quotes a long passage from him in his _Werther_.[263] +But what is there Celtic, turbulent, and Titanic about the German +Werther, that amiable, cultivated and melancholy young man, having for +his sorrow and suicide the perfectly definite motive that Lotte cannot +be his? Faust, again, has nothing unaccountable, defiant, and Titanic in +him; his knowledge does not bring him the satisfaction he expected from +it, and meanwhile he finds himself poor and growing old, and balked of +the palpable enjoyment of life; and here is the motive for Faust's +discontent. In the most energetic and impetuous of Goethe's creations,-- +his _Prometheus_,[264]--it is not Celtic self-will and passion, it is +rather the Germanic sense of justice and reason, which revolts against +the despotism of Zeus. The German _Sehnsucht_ itself is a wistful, soft, +tearful longing, rather than a struggling, fierce, passionate one. But +the Celtic melancholy is struggling, fierce, passionate; to catch its +note, listen to Llywarch Hen in old age, addressing his crutch:-- + +"O my crutch! is it not autumn, when the fern is red, the water-flag +yellow? Have I not hated that which I love? + +O my crutch! is it not winter-time now, when men talk together after +that they have drunken? Is not the side of my bed left desolate? + +O my crutch! is it not spring, when the cuckoo passes through the air, +when the foam sparkles on the sea? The young maidens no longer love me. + +O my crutch! is it not the first day of May? The furrows, are they not +shining; the young corn, is it not springing? Ah! the sight of thy +handle makes me wroth. + +O my crutch! stand straight, thou wilt support me the better; it is very +long since I was Llywarch. + +Behold old age, which makes sport of me, from the hair of my head to my +teeth, to my eyes, which women loved. + +The four things I have all my life most hated fall upon me together,-- +coughing and old age, sickness and sorrow. + +I am old, I am alone, shapeliness and warmth are gone from me; the couch +of honor shall be no more mine; I am miserable, I am bent on my crutch. + +How evil was the lot allotted to Llywarch, the night when he was brought +forth! sorrows without end, and no deliverance from his burden."[265] + +There is the Titanism of the Celt, his passionate, turbulent, +indomitable reaction against the despotism of fact; and of whom does it +remind us so much as of Byron? + + "The fire which on my bosom preys + Is lone as some volcanic isle; + No torch is kindled at its blaze; + A funeral pile!"[266] + +Or, again:-- + + "Count o'er the joys thine hours have seen, + Count o'er thy days from anguish free, + And know, whatever thou hast been, + 'Tis something better not to be."[267] + +One has only to let one's memory begin to fetch passages from Byron +striking the same note as that passage from Llywarch Hen, and she will +not soon stop. And all Byron's heroes, not so much in collision with +outward things, as breaking on some rock of revolt and misery in the +depths of their own nature; Manfred, self-consumed, fighting blindly and +passionately with I know not what, having nothing of the consistent +development and intelligible motive of Faust,--Manfred, Lara, Cain,[268] +what are they but Titanic? Where in European poetry are we to find this +Celtic passion of revolt so warm-breathing, puissant, and sincere; +except perhaps in the creation of a yet greater poet than Byron, but an +English poet, too, like Byron,--in the Satan of Milton? + + "... What though the field be lost? + All is not lost; the unconquerable will, + And study of revenge, immortal hate, + And courage never to submit or yield, + And what is else not to be overcome."[269] + +There, surely, speaks a genius to whose composition the Celtic fibre was +not wholly a stranger! + + * * * * * + +The Celt's quick feeling for what is noble and distinguished gave his +poetry style; his indomitable personality gave it pride and passion; his +sensibility and nervous exaltation gave it a better gift still, the gift +of rendering with wonderful felicity the magical charm of nature. The +forest solitude, the bubbling spring, the wild flowers, are everywhere +in romance. They have a mysterious life and grace there; they are +Nature's own children, and utter her secret in a way which makes them +something quite different from the woods, waters, and plants of Greek +and Latin poetry. Now of this delicate magic, Celtic romance is so +pre-eminent a mistress, that it seems impossible to believe the power +did not come into romance from the Celts.[270] Magic is just the word +for it,--the magic of nature; not merely the beauty of nature,--that the +Greeks and Latins had; not merely an honest smack of the soil, a +faithful realism,--that the Germans had; but the intimate life of +Nature, her weird power and her fairy charm. As the Saxon names of +places, with the pleasant wholesome smack of the soil in them,-- +Weathersfield, Thaxted, Shalford,--are to the Celtic names of places, +with their penetrating, lofty beauty,--Velindra, Tyntagel, Caernarvon,-- +so is the homely realism of German and Norse nature to the fairy-like +loveliness of Celtic nature. Gwydion wants a wife for his pupil: "Well," +says Math, "we will seek, I and thou, by charms and illusions, to form a +wife for him out of flowers. So they took the blossoms of the oak, and +the blossoms of the broom, and the blossoms of the meadow-sweet, and +produced from them a maiden, the fairest and most graceful that +man ever saw. And they baptized her, and gave her the name of +Flower-Aspect."[271] Celtic romance is full of exquisite touches like +that, showing the delicacy of the Celt's feeling in these matters, and +how deeply Nature lets him come into her secrets. The quick dropping of +blood is called "faster than the fall of the dewdrop from the blade of +reed-grass upon the earth, when the dew of June is at the heaviest." And +thus is Olwen described: "More yellow was her hair than the flower of +the broom, and her skin was whiter than the foam of the wave, and fairer +were her hands and her fingers than the blossoms of the wood-anemony +amidst the spray of the meadow fountains."[272] For loveliness it would +be hard to beat that; and for magical clearness and nearness take the +following:-- + +"And in the evening Peredur entered a valley, and at the head of the +valley he came to a hermit's cell, and the hermit welcomed him gladly, +and there he spent the night. And in the morning he arose, and when he +went forth, behold, a shower of snow had fallen the night before, and a +hawk had killed a wild-fowl in front of the cell. And the noise of the +horse scared the hawk away, and a raven alighted upon the bird. And +Peredur stood and compared the blackness of the raven, and the whiteness +of the snow, and the redness of the blood, to the hair of the lady whom +best he loved, which was blacker than the raven, and to her skin, which +was whiter than the snow, and to her two cheeks which were redder than +the blood upon the snow appeared to be."[273] + +And this, which is perhaps less striking, is not less beautiful:-- + +"And early in the day Geraint and Enid left the wood, and they came to +an open country, with meadows on one hand and mowers mowing the meadows. +And there was a river before them, and the horses bent down and drank +the water. And they went up out of the river by a steep bank, and there +they met a slender stripling with a satchel about his neck; and he had a +small blue pitcher in his hand, and a bowl on the mouth of the +pitcher."[274] + +And here the landscape, up to this point so Greek in its clear beauty, +is suddenly magicalized by the romance touch,-- + +"And they saw a tall tree by the side of the river, one-half of which +was in flames from the root to the top, and the other half was green and +in full leaf." + +Magic is the word to insist upon,--a magically vivid and near +interpretation of nature; since it is this which constitutes the special +charm and power of the effect I am calling attention to, and it is for +this that the Celt's sensibility gives him a peculiar aptitude. But the +matter needs rather fine handling, and it is easy to make mistakes here +in our criticism. In the first place, Europe tends constantly to become +more and more one community, and we tend to become Europeans instead of +merely Englishmen, Frenchmen, Germans, Italians; so whatever aptitude or +felicity one people imparts into spiritual work, gets imitated by the +others, and thus tends to become the common property of all. Therefore +anything so beautiful and attractive as the natural magic I am speaking +of, is sure, nowadays, if it appears in the productions of the Celts, or +of the English, or of the French, to appear in the productions of the +Germans also, or in the productions of the Italians; but there will be a +stamp of perfectness and inimitableness about it in the literatures +where it is native, which it will not have in the literatures where it +is not native. Novalis[275] or Rückert,[276] for instance, have their +eye fixed on nature, and have undoubtedly a feeling for natural magic; a +rough-and-ready critic easily credits them and the Germans with the +Celtic fineness of tact, the Celtic nearness to nature and her secret; +but the question is whether the strokes in the German's picture of +nature[277] have ever the indefinable delicacy, charm, and perfection of +the Celt's touch in the pieces I just now quoted, or of Shakespeare's +touch in his daffodil,[278] Wordsworth's in his cuckoo,[279] Keats's in +his Autumn, Obermann's in his mountain birch-tree, or his Easter-daisy +among the Swiss farms.[280] To decide where the gift for natural magic +originally lies, whether it is properly Celtic or Germanic, we must +decide this question. + +In the second place, there are many ways of handling nature, and we are +here only concerned with one of them; but a rough-and-ready critic +imagines that it is all the same so long as nature is handled at all, +and fails to draw the needful distinction between modes of handling her. +But these modes are many; I will mention four of them now: there is the +conventional way of handling nature, there is the faithful way of +handling nature, there is the Greek way of handling nature, there is the +magical way of handling nature. In all these three last the eye is on +the object, but with a difference; in the faithful way of handling +nature, the eye is on the object, and that is all you can say; in the +Greek, the eye is on the object, but lightness and brightness are added; +in the magical, the eye is on the object, but charm and magic are added. +In the conventional way of handling nature, the eye is not on the +object; what that means we all know, we have only to think of our +eighteenth-century poetry:-- + + "As when the moon, refulgent lamp of night--"[281] + +to call up any number of instances. Latin poetry supplies plenty of +instances too; if we put this from Propertius's _Hylas_:-- + + + "... manus heroum ... + Mollia composita litora fronde tegit--"[282] + + +side by side with the line of Theocritus by which it was suggested:-- + +[Greek: leimon gar sphin ekeito megas, stibadessin oneiar--][283] + + +we get at the same moment a good specimen both of the conventional and +of the Greek way of handling nature. But from our own poetry we may get +specimens of the Greek way of handling nature, as well as of the +conventional: for instance, Keats's:-- + + "What little town by river or seashore, + Or mountain-built with quiet citadel, + Is emptied of its folk, this pious morn?"[284] + +is Greek, as Greek as a thing from Homer or Theocritus; it is composed +with the eye on the object, a radiancy and light clearness being added. +German poetry abounds in specimens of the faithful way of handling +nature; an excellent example is to be found in the stanzas called +_Zueignung_[285], prefixed to Goethe's poems; the morning walk, the +mist, the dew, the sun, are as faithful as they can be, they are given +with the eye on the object, but there the merit of the work, as a +handling of nature, stops; neither Greek radiance nor Celtic magic is +added; the power of these is not what gives the poem in question its +merit, but a power of quite another kind, a power of moral and spiritual +emotion. But the power of Greek radiance Goethe could give to his +handling of nature, and nobly too, as any one who will read his +_Wanderer_,--the poem in which a wanderer falls in with a peasant woman +and her child by their hut, built out of the ruins of a temple near +Cuma,--may see. Only the power of natural magic Goethe does not, I +think, give; whereas Keats passes at will from the Greek power to that +power which is, as I say, Celtic; from his + + "What little town, by river or seashore--" + +to his + + "White hawthorn and the pastoral eglantine, + Fast-fading violets cover'd up in leaves--"[286] + +or his + + "... magic casements, opening on the foam + Of perilous seas, in fairy lands forlorn--"[287] + +in which the very same note is struck as in those extracts which I +quoted from Celtic romance, and struck with authentic and unmistakable +power. + +Shakespeare, in handling nature, touches this Celtic note so +exquisitely, that perhaps one is inclined to be always looking for the +Celtic note in him, and not to recognize his Greek note when it comes. +But if one attends well to the difference between the two notes, and +bears in mind, to guide one, such things as Virgil's "moss-grown springs +and grass softer than sleep:"-- + + "Muscosi fontes et somno mollior herba--"[288] + +as his charming flower-gatherer, who-- + + "Pallentes violas et summa papavera carpens + Narcissum et florem jungit bene olentis anethi--"[289] + +as his quinces and chestnuts:-- + + " ... cana legam tenera lanugine mala + Castaneasque nuces ..."[290] + +then, I think, we shall be disposed to say that in Shakespeare's + + "I know a bank where the wild thyme blows, + Where oxlips and the nodding violet grows, + Quite over-canopied with luscious woodbine, + With sweet musk-roses and with eglantine--"[291] + +it is mainly a Greek note which is struck. Then, again in his + + " ... look how the floor of heaven + Is thick inlaid with patines of bright gold!"[292] + +we are at the very point of transition from the Greek note to the +Celtic; there is the Greek clearness and brightness, with the Celtic +aërialness and magic coming in. Then we have the sheer, inimitable +Celtic note in passages like this:-- + + "Met we on hill, in dale, forest or mead, + By paved fountain or by rushy brook, + Or in the beached margent of the sea--"[293] + +or this, the last I will quote:-- + + "The moon shines bright. In such a night as this, + When the sweet wind did gently kiss the trees, + And they did make no noise, in such a night + Troilus, methinks, mounted the Trojan walls-- + + ... in such a night + Did Thisbe fearfully o'ertrip the dew-- + ... in such a night + _Stood Dido, with a willow in her hand, + Upon the wild sea-banks, and waved her love + To come again to Carthage._"[294] + +And those last lines of all are so drenched and intoxicated with the +fairy-dew of that natural magic which is our theme, that I cannot do +better than end with them. + +And now, with the pieces of evidence in our hand, let us go to those who +say it is vain to look for Celtic elements in any Englishman, and let us +ask them, first, if they seize what we mean by the power of natural +magic in Celtic poetry: secondly, if English poetry does not eminently +exhibit this power; and, thirdly, where they suppose English poetry got +it from? + + + +GEORGE SAND[295] + + +The months go round, and anniversaries return; on the ninth of June +George Sand will have been dead just one year. She was born in 1804; she +was almost seventy-two years old when she died. She came to Paris after +the revolution of 1830, with her _Indiana_[296] written, and began her +life of independence, her life of authorship, her life as _George Sand_. +She continued at work till she died. For forty-five years she was +writing and publishing, and filled Europe with her name. + +It seems to me but the other day that I saw her, yet it was in the +August of 1846, more than thirty years ago. I saw her in her own Berry, +at Nohant,[297] where her childhood and youth were passed, where she +returned to live after she became famous, where she died and has now her +grave. There must be many who, after reading her books, have felt the +same desire which in those days of my youth, in 1846, took me to Nohant, +--the desire to see the country and the places of which the books that +so charmed us were full. Those old provinces of the centre of France, +primitive and slumbering,--Berry, La Marche, Bourbonnais; those sites +and streams in them, of name once so indifferent to us, but to which +George Sand gave such a music for our ear,--La Châtre, Ste. Sévère, the +_Vallée Noire_, the Indre, the Creuse; how many a reader of George Sand +must have desired, as I did, after frequenting them so much in thought, +fairly to set eyes upon them! + +I had been reading _Jeanne_.[298] I made up my mind to go and see Toulx +Ste. Croix, Boussac, and the Druidical stones on Mont Barlot, the +_Pierres Jaunâtres_.[299] + +I remember looking out Toulx in Cassini's great map[300] at the +Bodleian Library. The railway through the centre of France went in those +days no farther than Vierzon. From Vierzon to Châteauroux one travelled +by an ordinary diligence, from Châteauroux to La Châtre by a humbler +diligence, from La Châtre to Boussac by the humblest diligence of all. +At Boussac diligence ended, and _patache_[301] began. Between +Châteauroux and La Châtre, a mile or two before reaching the latter +place, the road passes by the village of Nohant. The Château of Nohant, +in which Madame Sand lived, is a plain house by the road-side, with a +walled garden. Down in the meadows, not far off, flows the Indre, +bordered by trees. I passed Nohant without stopping, at La Châtre I +dined and changed diligence, and went on by night up the valley of the +Indre, the _Vallée Noire_, past Ste. Sévère to Boussac. At Ste. Sévère +the Indre is quite a small stream. In the darkness we quitted its +valley, and when day broke we were in the wilder and barer country of La +Marche, with Boussac before us, and its high castle on a precipitous +rock over the Little Creuse. + +That day and the next I wandered through a silent country of heathy and +ferny _landes_,[302] a region of granite boulders, holly, and broom, of +copsewood and great chestnut trees; a region of broad light, and fresh +breezes and wide horizons. I visited the _Pierres Jaunâtres._ I stood at +sunset on the platform of Toulx Ste. Croix, by the scrawled and almost +effaced stone lions,--a relic, it is said, of the English rule,--and +gazed on the blue mountains of Auvergne filling the distance, and +southeastward of them, in a still further and fainter distance, on what +seemed to be the mountains over Le Puy and the high valley of the Loire. + +From Boussac I addressed to Madame Sand the sort of letter of which she +must in her lifetime have had scores, a letter conveying to her, in bad +French, the homage of a youthful and enthusiastic foreigner who had read +her works with delight. She received the infliction good-naturedly, for +on my return to La Châtre I found a message left at the inn by a servant +from Nohant that Madame Sand would be glad to see me if I called. The +mid-day breakfast at Nohant was not yet over when I reached the house, +and I found a large party assembled. I entered with some trepidation, as +well I might, considering how I had got there; but the simplicity of +Madame Sand's manner put me at ease in a moment. She named some of those +present; amongst them were her son and daughter, the Maurice and Solange +[303] so familiar to us from her books, and Chopin[304] with his +wonderful eyes. There was at that time nothing astonishing in Madame +Sand's appearance. She was not in man's clothes, she wore a sort of +costume not impossible, I should think (although on these matters I +speak with hesitation), to members of the fair sex at this hour amongst +ourselves, as an outdoor dress for the country or for Scotland. She made +me sit by her and poured out for me the insipid and depressing beverage, +_boisson fade et mélancolique_, as Balzac called it, for which English +people are thought abroad to be always thirsting,--tea. She conversed of +the country through which I had been wandering, of the Berry peasants +and their mode of life, of Switzerland, whither I was going; she touched +politely, by a few questions and remarks, upon England and things and +persons English,--upon Oxford and Cambridge, Byron, Bulwer. As she +spoke, her eyes, head, bearing, were all of them striking; but the main +impression she made was an impression of what I have already mentioned, +--of _simplicity_, frank, cordial simplicity. After breakfast she led +the way into the garden, asked me a few kind questions about myself and +my plans, gathered a flower or two and gave them to me, shook hands +heartily at the gate, and I saw her no more. In 1859 M. Michelet[305] +gave me a letter to her, which would have enabled me to present myself +in more regular fashion. Madame Sand was then in Paris. But a day or two +passed before I could call, and when I called, Madame Sand had left +Paris and had gone back to Nohant. The impression of 1846 has remained +my single impression of her. + +Of her gaze, form, and speech, that one impression is enough; better +perhaps than a mixed impression from seeing her at sundry times and +after successive changes. But as the first anniversary of her death +[306] draws near, there arises again a desire which I felt when she +died, the desire, not indeed to take a critical survey of her,--very far +from it. I feel no inclination at all to go regularly through her +productions, to classify and value them one by one, to pick out from +them what the English public may most like, or to present to that +public, for the most part ignorant of George Sand and for the most part +indifferent to her, a full history and a judicial estimate of the woman +and of her writings. But I desire to recall to my own mind, before the +occasion offered by her death passes quite away,--to recall and collect +the elements of that powerful total-impression which, as a writer, she +made upon me; to recall and collect them, to bring them distinctly into +view, to feel them in all their depth and power once more. What I here +attempt is not for the benefit of the indifferent; it is for my own +satisfaction, it is for myself. But perhaps those for whom George Sand +has been a friend and a power will find an interest in following me. + +_Le sentiment de la vie idéale, qui n'est autre que la vie normale telle +que nous sommes appelés à la connaître_;[307]--"the sentiment of the +ideal life, which is none other than man's normal life as we shall some +day know it,"--those words from one of her last publications give the +ruling thought of George Sand, the ground-_motive_, as they say in +music, of all her strain. It is as a personage inspired by this motive +that she interests us. + +The English public conceives of her as of a novel-writer who wrote +stories more or less interesting; the earlier ones objectionable and +dangerous, the later ones, some of them, unexceptionable and fit to be +put into the hands of the youth of both sexes. With such a conception of +George Sand, a story of hers like _Consuelo_[308] comes to be elevated +in England into quite an undue relative importance, and to pass with +very many people for her typical work, displaying all that is really +valuable and significant in the author. _Consuelo_ is a charming story. +But George Sand is something more than a maker of charming stories, and +only a portion of her is shown in _Consuelo_. She is more, likewise, +than a creator of characters. She has created, with admirable truth to +nature, characters most attractive and attaching, such as Edmee, +Genevieve, Germain.[309] But she is not adequately expressed by them. +We do not know her unless we feel the spirit which goes through her work +as a whole. + +In order to feel this spirit it is not, indeed, necessary to read all +that she ever produced. Even three or four only out of her many books +might suffice to show her to us, if they were well chosen; let us say, +the _Lettres d'un Voyageur, Mauprat, François le Champi_,[310] and a +story which I was glad to see Mr. Myers,[311] in his appreciative +notice of Madame Sand, single out for praise,--_Valvèdre_.[312] In these +may be found all the principal elements of their author's strain: the +cry of agony and revolt, the trust in nature and beauty, the aspiration +towards a purged and renewed human society. + +Of George Sand's strain, during forty years, these are the grand +elements. Now it is one of them which appears most prominently, now it +is another. The cry of agony and revolt is in her earlier work only, and +passes away in her later. But in the evolution of these three elements, +--the passion of agony and revolt, the consolation from nature and from +beauty, the ideas of social renewal,--in the evolution of these is +George Sand and George Sand's life and power. Through their evolution +her constant motive declares and unfolds itself, that motive which we +have set forth above: "the sentiment of the ideal life, which is none +other than man's normal life as we shall one day know it." This is the +motive, and through these elements is its evolution: an evolution +pursued, moreover, with the most unfailing resolve, the most absolute +sincerity. + +The hour of agony and revolt passed away for George Sand, as it passed +away for Goethe, as it passes away for their readers likewise. It passes +away and does not return; yet those who, amid the agitations, more or +less stormy, of their youth, betook themselves to the early works of +George Sand, may in later life cease to read them, indeed, but they can +no more forget them than they can forget _Werther_[313]. George Sand +speaks somewhere of her "days of _Corinne_."[314] Days of _Valentine_, +many of us may in like manner say,--days of _Valentine_, days of +_Lélia_[315], days never to return! They are gone, we shall read the +books no more, and yet how ineffaceable is their impression! How the +sentences from George Sand's works of that period still linger in our +memory and haunt the ear with their cadences! Grandiose and moving, they +come, those cadences, like the sighing of the wind through the forest, +like the breaking of the waves on the seashore. Lélia in her cell on the +mountain of the Camaldoli-- + +"Sibyl, Sibyl forsaken; spirit of the days of old, joined to a brain +which rebels against the divine inspiration; broken lyre, mute +instrument, whose tones the world of to-day, if it heard them, could not +understand, but yet in whose depth the eternal harmony murmurs +imprisoned; priestess of death, I, I who feel and know that before now I +have been Pythia, have wept before now, before now have spoken, but who +cannot recollect, alas, cannot utter the word of healing! Yes, yes! I +remember the cavern of truth and the access of revelation; but the word +of human destiny, I have forgotten it; but the talisman of deliverance, +it is lost from my hand. And yet, indeed, much, much have I seen! and +when suffering presses me sore, when indignation takes hold of me, when +I feel Prometheus wake up in my heart and beat his puissant wings +against the stone which confines him,--oh! then, in prey to a frenzy +without a name, to a despair without bounds, I invoke the unknown master +and friend who might illumine my spirit and set free my tongue; but I +grope in darkness, and my tired arms grasp nothing save delusive +shadows. And for ten thousand years, as the sole answer to my cries, as +the sole comfort in my agony, I hear astir, over this earth accurst, the +despairing sob of impotent agony. For ten thousand years I have cried in +infinite space: _Truth! Truth!_ For ten thousand years infinite space +keeps answering me: _Desire, Desire_. O Sibyl forsaken! O mute Pythia! +dash then thy head against the rocks of thy cavern, and mingle thy +raging blood with the foam of the sea; for thou deemest thyself to have +possessed the almighty Word, and these ten thousand years thou art +seeking him in vain."[316] + +Or Sylvia's cry over Jacques[317] by his glacier in the Tyrol-- + +"When such a man as thou art is born into a world where he can do no +true service; when, with the soul of an apostle and the courage of a +martyr, he has simply to push his way among the heartless and aimless +crowds which vegetate without living; the atmosphere suffocates him and +he dies. Hated by sinners, the mock of fools, disliked by the envious, +abandoned by the weak, what can he do but return to God, weary with +having labored in vain, in sorrow at having accomplished nothing? The +world remains in all its vileness and in all its hatefulness; this is +what men call, 'the triumph of good sense over enthusiasm.'"[318] + +Or Jacques himself, and his doctrine-- + +"Life is arid and terrible, repose is a dream, prudence is useless; mere +reason alone serves simply to dry up the heart; there is but one virtue, +the eternal sacrifice of oneself." + +Or George Sand speaking in her own person, in the _Lettres d'un +Voyageur_-- + +"Ah, no, I was not born to be a poet, I was born to love. It is the +misfortune of my destiny, it is the enmity of others, which have made me +a wanderer and an artist. What I wanted was to live a human life; I had +a heart, it has been torn violently from my breast. All that has been +left me is a head, a head full of noise and pain, of horrible memories, +of images of woe, of scenes of outrage. And because in writing stories +to earn my bread I could not help remembering my sorrows, because I had +the audacity to say that in married life there were to be found +miserable beings, by reason of the weakness which is enjoined upon the +woman, by reason of the brutality which is permitted to the man, by +reason of the turpitudes which society covers and protects with a veil, +I am pronounced immoral, I am treated as if I were the enemy of the +human race."[319] + +If only, alas, together with her honesty and her courage, she could feel +within herself that she had also light and hope and power; that she was +able to lead those whom she loved, and who looked to her for guidance! +But no; her very own children, witnesses of her suffering, her +uncertainty, her struggles, her evil report, may come to doubt her:-- + +"My poor children, my own flesh and blood, will perhaps turn upon me and +say: 'You are leading us wrong, you mean to ruin us as well as yourself. +Are you not unhappy, reprobated, evil spoken of? What have you gained by +these unequal struggles, by these much trumpeted duels of yours with +custom and belief? Let us do as others do; let us get what is to be got +out of this easy and tolerant world.' + +"This is what they will say to me. Or at best, if, out of tenderness for +me, or from their own natural disposition, they give ear to my words and +believe me, whither shall I guide them? Into what abysses shall we go +and plunge ourselves, we three?--for we shall be our own three upon +earth, and not one soul with us. What shall I reply to them if they come +and say to me; 'Yes, life is unbearable in a world like this. Let us die +together. Show us the path of Bernica, or the lake of Sténio, or the +glaciers of Jacques.'"[320] + +Nevertheless the failure of the impassioned seekers of a new and better +world proves nothing, George Sand maintains, for the world as it is. +Ineffectual they may be, but the world is still more ineffectual, and it +is the world's course which is doomed to ruin, not theirs. "What has it +done," exclaims George Sand in her preface to Guérin's _Centaure_, "what +has it done for our moral education, and what is it doing for our +children, this society shielded with such care?" Nothing. Those whom it +calls vain complainers and rebels and madmen, may reply:-- + +"Suffer us to bewail our martyrs, poets without a country that we are, +forlorn singers, well versed in the causes of their misery and of our +own. You do not comprehend the malady which killed them; they themselves +did not comprehend it. If one or two of us at the present day open our +eyes to a new light, is it not by a strange and unaccountable good +Providence; and have we not to seek our grain of faith in storm and +darkness, combated by doubt, irony, the absence of all sympathy, all +example, all brotherly aid, all protection and countenance in high +places? Try yourselves to speak to your brethren heart to heart, +conscience to conscience! Try it!--but you cannot, busied as you are +with watching and patching up in all directions your dykes which the +flood is invading. The material existence of this society of yours +absorbs all your care, and requires more than all your efforts. +Meanwhile the powers of human thought are growing into strength, and +rise on all sides around you. Amongst these threatening apparitions, +there are some which fade away and reënter the darkness, because the +hour of life has not yet struck, and the fiery spirit which quickened +them could strive no longer with the horrors of this present chaos; but +there are others that can wait, and you will find them confronting you, +up and alive, to say: 'You have allowed the death of our brethren, and +we, we do not mean to die.'" + +She did not, indeed. How should she faint and fail before her time, +because of a world out of joint, because of the reign of stupidity, +because of the passions of youth, because of the difficulties and +disgusts of married life in the native seats of the _homme sensuel +moyen_, the average sensual man, she who could feel so well the power of +those eternal consolers, nature and beauty? From the very first they +introduce a note of suavity in her strain of grief and passion. Who can +forget the lanes and meadows of _Valentine_? + +George Sand is one of the few French writers who keep us closely and +truly intimate with rural nature. She gives us the wild-flowers by their +actual names,--snowdrop, primrose, columbine, iris, scabious. Nowhere +has she touched her native Berry and its little-known landscape, its +_campagnes ignorées_, with a lovelier charm than in _Valentine_. The +winding and deep lanes running out of the high road on either side, the +fresh and calm spots they take us to, "meadows of a tender green, +plaintive brooks, clumps of alder and mountain ash, a whole world of +suave and pastoral nature,"--how delicious it all is! The grave and +silent peasant whose very dog will hardly deign to bark at you, the +great white ox, "the unfailing dean of these pastures," staring solemnly +at you from the thicket; the farmhouse "with its avenue of maples, and +the Indre, here hardly more than a bright rivulet, stealing along +through rushes and yellow iris, in the field below,"--who, I say, can +forget them? And that one lane in especial, the lane where Athenais puts +her arm out of the side window of the rustic carriage and gathers May +from the overarching hedge,--that lane with its startled blackbirds, and +humming insects, and limpid water, and swaying water-plants, and +shelving gravel, and yellow wagtails hopping, half-pert, +half-frightened, on the sand,--that lane with its rushes, cresses, and +mint below, its honeysuckle and traveller's-joy above,--how gladly might +one give all that strangely English picture in English, if the charm of +Madame Sand's language did not here defy translation! Let us try +something less difficult, and yet something where we may still have her +in this her beloved world of "simplicity, and sky, and fields and trees, +and peasant life,--peasant life looked at, by preference, on its good +and sound side." _Voyez donc la simplicité, vous autres, voyez le ciel +et les champs, et les arbres, et les paysans, surtout dans ce qu'ils ont +de bon et de vrai._ + +The introduction to _La Mare au Diable_ will give us what we want. +George Sand has been looking at an engraving of Holbein's _Laborer._ +[321] An old thick-set peasant, in rags, is driving his plough in the +midst of a field. All around spreads a wild landscape, dotted with a few +poor huts. The sun is setting behind a hill; the day of toil is nearly +over. It has been a hard one; the ground is rugged and stony, the +laborer's horses are but skin and bone, weak and exhausted. There is but +one alert figure, the skeleton Death, who with a whip skips nimbly along +at the horses' side and urges the team. Under the picture is a quotation +in old French, to the effect that after the laborer's life of travail +and service, in which he has to gain his bread by the sweat of his brow, +here comes Death to fetch him away. And from so rude a life does Death +take him, says George Sand, that Death is hardly unwelcome; and in +another composition by Holbein, where men of almost every condition,-- +popes, sovereigns, lovers, gamblers, monks, soldiers,--are taunted with +their fear of Death and do indeed see his approach with terror, Lazarus +alone is easy and composed, and sitting on his dunghill at the rich +man's door, tells Death that he does not dread him. + +With her thoughts full of Holbein's mournful picture, George Sand goes +out into the fields of her own Berry:-- + +"My walk was by the border of a field which some peasants were getting +ready for being sown presently. The space to be ploughed was wide, as in +Holbein's picture. The landscape was vast also; the great lines of green +which it contained were just touched with russet by the approach of +autumn; on the rich brown soil recent rain had left, in a good many +furrows, lines of water, which shone in the sun like silver threads. The +day was clear and soft, and the earth gave out a light smoke where it +had been freshly laid open by the ploughshare. At the top of the field +an old man, whose broad back and severe face were like those of the old +peasant of Holbein, but whose clothes told no tale of poverty, was +gravely driving his plough of an antique shape, drawn by two tranquil +oxen, with coats of a pale buff, real patriarchs of the fallow, tall of +make, somewhat thin, with long and backward-sloping horns, the kind of +old workmen who by habit have got to be _brothers_ to one another, as +throughout our country-side they are called, and who, if one loses the +other, refuse to work with a new comrade, and fret themselves to death. +People unacquainted with the country will not believe in this affection +of the ox for his yoke-fellow. They should come and see one of the poor +beasts in a corner of his stable, thin, wasted, lashing with his +restless tail his lean flanks, blowing uneasily and fastidiously on the +provender offered to him, his eyes forever turned towards the stable +door, scratching with his foot the empty place left at his side, +sniffing the yokes and bands which his companion has worn, and +incessantly calling for him with piteous lowings. The ox-herd will tell +you: There is a pair of oxen done for! his _brother_ is dead, and this +one will work no more. He ought to be fattened for killing; but we +cannot get him to eat, and in a short time he will have starved himself +to death."[322] + +How faithful and close it is, this contact of George Sand with country +things, with the life of nature in its vast plenitude and pathos! And +always in the end the human interest, as is right, emerges and +predominates. What is the central figure in the fresh and calm rural +world of George Sand? It is the peasant. And what is the peasant? He is +France, life, the future. And this is the strength of George Sand, and +of her second movement, after the first movement of energy and revolt +was over, towards nature and beauty, towards the country, towards +primitive life, the peasant. She regarded nature and beauty, not with +the selfish and solitary joy of the artist who but seeks to appropriate +them for his own purposes, she regarded them as a treasure of immense +and hitherto unknown application, as a vast power of healing and delight +for all, and for the peasant first and foremost. Yes she cries, the +simple life is the true one! but the peasant, the great organ of that +life, "the minister in that vast temple which only the sky is vast +enough to embrace," the peasant is not doomed to toil and moil in it +forever, overdone and unawakened, like Holbein's laborer, and to have +for his best comfort the thought that death will set him free. _Non, +nous n'avons plus affaire à la mort, mais à la vie._[323] "Our business +henceforth is not with death, but with life." + +Joy is the great lifter of men, the great unfolder. _Il faut que la vie +soit bonne afin qu'elle soit féconde._ "For life to be fruitful, life +must be felt as a blessing":-- + +"Nature is eternally young, beautiful, bountiful. She pours out beauty +and poetry for all that live, she pours it out on all plants, and the +plants are permitted to expand in it freely. She possesses the secret of +happiness, and no man has been able to take it away from her. The +happiest of men would be he who possessing the science of his labor and +working with his hands, earning his comfort and his freedom by the +exercise of his intelligent force, found time to live by the heart and +by the brain, to understand his own work and to love the work of God. +The artist has satisfactions of this kind in the contemplation and +reproduction of nature's beauty; but when he sees the affliction of +those who people this paradise of earth, the upright and human-hearted +artist feels a trouble in the midst of his enjoyment. The happy day will +be when mind, heart, and hands shall be alive together, shall work in +concert; when there shall be a harmony between God's munificence and +man's delight in it. Then, instead of the piteous and frightful figure +of Death, skipping along whip in hand by the peasant's side in the +field, the allegorical painter will place there a radiant angel, sowing +with full hands the blessed grain in the smoking furrow. + +"And the dream of a kindly, free, poetic, laborious, simple existence +for the tiller of the field is not so hard to realize that it must be +banished into the world of chimæras. Virgil's sweet and sad cry: 'O +happy peasants, if they but knew their own blessings!' is a regret; but +like all regrets, it is at the same time a prediction. The day will come +when the laborer may be also an artist;--not in the sense of rendering +nature's beauty, a matter which will be then of much less importance, +but in the sense of feeling it. Does not this mysterious intuition of +poetic beauty exist in him already in the form of instinct and of vague +reverie?"[324] + +It exists in him, too, adds Madame Sand, in the form of that +_nostalgia_, that homesickness, which forever pursues the genuine French +peasant if you transplant him. The peasant has here, then, the elements +of the poetic sense, and of its high and pure satisfactions. + +"But one part of the enjoyment which we possess is wanting to him, a +pure and lofty pleasure which is surely his due, minister that he is in +that vast temple which only the sky is vast enough to embrace. He has +not the conscious knowledge of his sentiment. Those who have sentenced +him to servitude from his mother's womb, not being able to debar him +from reverie, have debarred him from reflection. + +"Well, for all that, taking the peasant as he is, incomplete and +seemingly condemned to an eternal childhood, I yet find him a more +beautiful object than the man in whom his acquisition of knowledge has +stifled sentiment. Do not rate yourselves so high above him, many of you +who imagine that you have an imprescriptible right to his obedience; for +you yourselves are the most incomplete and the least seeing of men. That +simplicity of his soul is more to be loved than the false lights of +yours."[325] + +In all this we are passing from the second element in George Sand to the +third,--her aspiration for a social new-birth, a _renaissance sociale_. +It is eminently the ideal of France; it was hers. Her religion connected +itself with this ideal. In the convent where she was brought up, she had +in youth had an awakening of fervent mystical piety in the Catholic +form. That form she could not keep. Popular religion of all kinds, with +its deep internal impossibilities, its "heaven and hell serving to cover +the illogical manifestations of the Divinity's apparent designs +respecting us," its "God made in our image, silly and malicious, vain +and puerile, irritable or tender, after our fashion," lost all sort of +hold upon her:-- + +"Communion with such a God is impossible to me, I confess it. He is +wiped out from my memory: there is no corner where I can find him any +more. Nor do I find such a God out of doors either; he is not in the +fields and waters, he is not in the starry sky. No, nor yet in the +churches where men bow themselves; it is an extinct message, a dead +letter, a thought that has done its day. Nothing of this belief, nothing +of this God, subsists in me any longer."[326] + +She refused to lament over the loss, to esteem it other than a +benefit:-- + +"It is an addition to our stock of light, this detachment from the +idolatrous conception of religion. It is no loss of the religious sense, +as the persisters in idolatry maintain. It is quite the contrary, it is +a restitution of allegiance to the true Divinity. It is a step made in +the direction of this Divinity, it is an abjuration of the dogmas which +did him dishonor."[327] + +She does not attempt to give of this Divinity an account much more +precise than that which we have in Wordsworth,--"_a presence that +disturbs me with the joy of animating thoughts_."[328] + +"Everything is divine (she says), even matter; everything is superhuman, +even man. God is everywhere; he is in me in a measure proportioned to +the little that I am. My present life separates me from him just in the +degree determined by the actual state of childhood of our race. Let me +content myself, in all my seeking, to feel after him, and to possess of +him as much as this imperfect soul can take in with the intellectual +sense I have."[329] + +And she concludes:-- + +"The day will come when we shall no longer talk about God idly, nay, +when we shall talk about him as little as possible. We shall cease to +set him forth dogmatically, to dispute about his nature. We shall put +compulsion on no one to pray to him, we shall leave the whole business +of worship within the sanctuary of each man's conscience. And this will +happen when we are really religious."[330] + +Meanwhile the sense of this spirit or presence which animates us, the +sense of the divine, is our stronghold and our consolation. A man may +say of it: "It comes not by my desert, but the atom of divine sense +given to me nothing can rob me of." _Divine sense_,--the phrase is a +vague one; but it stands to Madame Sand for that to which are to be +referred "all the best thoughts and the best actions of life, suffering +endured, duty achieved, whatever purifies our existence, whatever +vivifies our love." + +Madame Sand is a Frenchwoman, and her religion is therefore, as we might +expect, with peculiar fervency social. Always she has before her mind +"the natural law which _will have it_ (the italics are her own) that the +species _man_ cannot subsist and prosper but by _association_." Whatever +else we may be in creation, we are, first and foremost, "at the head of +the species which are called by instinct, and led by necessity, to the +life of _association_." The word _love_--the great word, as she justly +says, of the New Testament--acquires from her social enthusiasm a +peculiar significance to her:-- + +"The word is a great one, because it involves infinite consequences. To +love means to help one another, to have joint aspirations, to act in +concert, to labor for the same end, to develop to its ideal consummation +the fraternal instinct, thanks to which mankind have brought the earth +under their dominion. Every time that he has been false to this instinct +which is his law of life, his natural destiny, man has seen his temples +crumble, his societies dissolve, his intellectual sense go wrong, his +moral sense die out. The future is founded on love."[331] + +So long as love is thus spoken of in the general, the ordinary serious +Englishman will have no difficulty in inclining himself with respect +while Madame Sand speaks of it. But when he finds that love implies, +with her, social equality, he will begin to be staggered. And in truth +for almost every Englishman Madame Sand's strong language about +equality, and about France as the chosen vessel for exhibiting it, will +sound exaggerated. "The human ideal," she says, "as well as the social +ideal, is to achieve equality."[332] France, which has made equality its +rallying cry, is therefore "the nation which loves and is loved," _la +nation qui aime et qu'on aime_. The republic of equality is in her eyes +"an ideal, a philosophy, a religion." She invokes the "holy doctrine of +social liberty and fraternal equality, ever reappearing as a ray of love +and truth amidst the storm." She calls it "the goal of man and the law +of the future." She thinks it the secret of the civilization of France, +the most civilized of nations. Amid the disasters of the late war she +cannot forbear a cry of astonishment at the neutral nations, +_insensibles à l'égorgement d'une civilisation comme la nôtre_, "looking +on with insensibility while a civilization such as ours has its throat +cut." Germany, with its stupid ideal of corporalism and _Kruppism_, is +contrasted with France, full of social dreams, too civilized for war, +incapable of planning and preparing war for twenty years, she is so +incapable of hatred;--_nous sommes si incapables de haïr!_ We seem to be +listening, not to George Sand, but to M. Victor Hugo, half genius, half +charlatan; to M. Victor Hugo, or even to one of those French declaimers +in whom we come down to no genius and all charlatan. + +The form of such outbursts as we have quoted will always be distasteful +to an Englishman. It is to be remembered that they came from Madame Sand +under the pressure and anguish of the terrible calamities of 1870. But +what we are most concerned with, and what Englishmen in general regard +too little, is the degree of truth contained in these allegations that +France is the most civilized of nations, and that she is so, above all, +by her "holy doctrine of equality." How comes the idea to be so current; +and to be passionately believed in, as we have seen, by such a woman as +George Sand? It was so passionately believed in by her, that when one +seeks, as I am now seeking, to recall her image, the image is incomplete +if the passionate belief is kept from appearing. + +I will not, with my scanty space, now discuss the belief; but I will +seek to indicate how it must have commended itself, I think, to George +Sand. I have somewhere called France "the country of Europe where _the +people_ is most alive."[333] _The people_ is what interested George +Sand. And in France _the people_ is, above all, the peasant. The workman +in Paris or in other great towns of France may afford material for such +pictures as those which M. Zola[334] has lately given us in +_L'Assommoir_--pictures of a kind long ago labelled by Madame Sand as +"_the literature of mysteries of iniquity_, which men of talent and +imagination try to bring into fashion." But the real _people_ in France, +the foundation of things there, both in George Sand's eyes and in +reality, is the peasant. The peasant was the object of Madame Sand's +fondest predilections in the present, and happiest hopes in the future. +The Revolution and its doctrine of equality had made the French peasant. +What wonder, then, if she saluted the doctrine as a holy and paramount +one? + +And the French peasant is really, so far as I can see, the largest and +strongest element of soundness which the body social of any European +nation possesses. To him is due that astonishing recovery which France +has made since her defeat, and which George Sand predicted in the very +hour of ruin. Yes, in 1870 she predicted _ce reveil général qui va +suivre, à la grande surprise des autres nations, l'espèce d'agonie où +elles nous voient tombés_,[335] "the general re-arising which, to the +astonishment of other nations, is about to follow the sort of agony in +which they now see us lying." To the condition, character, and qualities +of the French peasant this recovery is in the main due. His material +well-being is known to all of us. M. de Laveleye,[336] the well-known +economist, a Belgian and a Protestant, says that France, being the +country of Europe where the soil is more divided than anywhere except in +Switzerland and Norway, is at the same time the country where well-being +is most widely spread, where wealth has of late years increased most, +and where population is least outrunning the limits which, for the +comfort and progress of the working classes themselves, seem necessary. +George Sand could see, of course, the well-being of the French peasant, +for we can all see it. + +But there is more. George Sand was a woman, with a woman's ideal of +gentleness, of "the charm of good manners," as essential to +civilization. She has somewhere spoken admirably of the variety and +balance of forces which go to make up true civilization; "certain forces +of weakness, docility, attractiveness, suavity, are here just as real +forces as forces of vigor, encroachment, violence, or brutality." Yes, +as real _forces_, although Prince Bismarck cannot see it; because human +nature requires them, and, often as they may be baffled, and slow as may +be the process of their asserting themselves, mankind is not satisfied +with its own civilization, and keeps fidgeting at it and altering it +again and again, until room is made for them. George Sand thought the +French people,--meaning principally, again, by the French people the +_people_ properly so called, the peasant,--she thought it "the most +kindly, the most amiable, of all peoples." Nothing is more touching than +to read in her _Journal_, written in 1870, while she was witnessing what +seemed to be "the agony of the Latin races," and undergoing what seemed +to be the process of "dying in a general death of one's family, one's +country, and one's nation," how constant is her defence of the people, +the peasant, against her Republican friends. Her Republican friends were +furious with the peasant; accused him of stolidity, cowardice, want of +patriotism; accused him of having given them the Empire, with all its +vileness; wanted to take away from him the suffrage. Again and again +does George Sand take up his defence, and warn her friends of the folly +and danger of their false estimate of him. "The contempt of the masses, +there," she cries, "is the misfortune and crime of the present +moment!"[337] "To execrate the people," she exclaims again, "is real +blasphemy; the people is worth more than we are." + +If the peasant gave us the Empire, says Madame Sand, it was because he +saw the parties of liberals disputing, gesticulating, and threatening to +tear one another asunder and France too; he was told _the Empire is +peace_, and he accepted the Empire. The peasant was deceived, he is +uninstructed, he moves slowly; but he moves, he has admirable virtues, +and in him, says George Sand, is our life:-- + +"Poor Jacques Bonhomme! accuse thee and despise thee who will; for my +part I pity thee, and in spite of thy faults I shall always love thee. +Never will I forget how, a child, I was carried asleep on thy shoulders, +how I was given over to thy care and followed thee everywhere, to the +field, the stall, the cottage. They are all dead, those good old people +who have borne me in their arms; but I remember them well, and I +appreciate at this hour, to the minutest detail, the pureness, the +kindness, the patience, the good humor, the poetry, which presided over +that rustic education amidst disasters of like kind with those which we +are undergoing now. Why should I quarrel with the peasant because on +certain points he feels and thinks differently from what I do? There are +other essential points on which we may feel eternally at one with him,-- +probity and charity."[338] + +Another generation of peasants had grown up since that first +revolutionary generation of her youth, and equality, as its reign +proceeded, had not deteriorated but improved them. + + "They have advanced greatly in self-respect and well-being, these +peasants from twenty years old to forty: they never ask for anything. +When one meets them they no longer take off their hat. If they know you +they come up to you and hold out their hand. All foreigners who stay +with us are struck with their good bearing, with their amenity, and the +simple, friendly, and polite ease of their behavior. In presence of +people whom they esteem they are, like their fathers, models of tact and +politeness; but they have more than that mere _sentiment_ of equality +which was all that their fathers had,--they have the _idea_ of equality, +and the determination to maintain it. This step upwards they owe to +their having the franchise. Those who would fain treat them as creatures +of a lower order dare not now show this disposition to their face; it +would not be pleasant."[339] + +Mr. Hamerton's[340] interesting book about French life has much, I +think, to confirm this account of the French peasant. What I have seen +of France myself (and I have seen something) is fully in agreement with +it. Of a civilization and an equality which makes the peasant thus +_human_, gives to the bulk of the people well-being, probity, charity, +self-respect, tact, and good manners, let us pardon Madame Sand if she +feels and speaks enthusiastically. Some little variation on our own +eternal trio of Barbarians, Philistines, Populace,[341] or on the +eternal solo of Philistinism among our brethren of the United States and +the Colonies, is surely permissible. + +Where one is more inclined to differ from Madame Sand is in her estimate +of her Republican friends of the educated classes. They may stand, she +says, for the genius and the soul of France; they represent its "exalted +imagination and profound sensibility," while the peasant represents its +humble, sound, indispensable body. Her protégé, the peasant, is much +ruder with those eloquent gentlemen, and has his own name for one and +all of them, _l'avocat_, by which he means to convey his belief that +words are more to be looked for from that quarter than seriousness and +profit. It seems to me by no means certain but that the peasant is in +the right. + +George Sand herself has said admirable things of these friends of hers; +of their want of patience, temper, wisdom; of their "vague and violent +way of talking"; of their interminable flow of "stimulating phrases, +cold as death." Her own place is of course with the party and propaganda +of organic change. But George Sand felt the poetry of the past; she had +no hatreds; the furies, the follies, the self-deceptions of secularist +and revolutionist fanatics filled her with dismay. They are, indeed, the +great danger of France, and it is amongst the educated and articulate +classes of France that they prevail. If the educated and articulate +classes in France were as sound in their way as the inarticulate peasant +is in his, France would present a different spectacle. Not "imagination +and sensibility" are so much required from the educated classes of +France, as simpler, more serious views of life; a knowledge how great a +part _conduct_ (if M. Challemel-Lacour[342] will allow me to say so) +fills in it; a better example. The few who see this, such as Madame Sand +among the dead, and M. Renan[343] among the living, perhaps awaken on +that account, amongst quiet observers at a distance, all the more +sympathy; but in France they are isolated. + +All the later work of George Sand, however, all her hope of genuine +social renovation, take the simple and serious ground so necessary. "The +cure for us is far more simple than we will believe. All the better +natures amongst us see it and feel it. It is a good direction given by +ourselves to our hearts and consciences;--_une bonne direction donnée +par nous-mêmes à nos coeurs et à nos consciences_."[344] These are among +the last words of her _Journal_ of 1870. + + * * * * * + +Whether or not the number of George Sand's works--always fresh, always +attractive, but poured out too lavishly and rapidly--is likely to prove +a hindrance to her fame, I do not care to consider. Posterity, alarmed +at the way in which its literary baggage grows upon it, always seeks to +leave behind it as much as it can, as much as it dares,--everything but +masterpieces. But the immense vibration of George Sand's voice upon the +ear of Europe will not soon die away. Her passions and her errors have +been abundantly talked of. She left them behind her, and men's memory of +her will leave them behind also. There will remain of her to mankind the +sense of benefit and stimulus from the passage upon earth of that large +and frank nature, of that large and pure utterance,--the _the large +utterance of the early gods_. There will remain an admiring and ever +widening report of that great and ingenuous soul, simple, affectionate, +without vanity, without pedantry, human, equitable, patient, kind. She +believed herself, she said, "to be in sympathy, across time and space, +with a multitude of honest wills which interrogate their conscience and +try to put themselves in accord with it." This chain of sympathy will +extend more and more. + +It is silent, that eloquent voice! it is sunk, that noble, that speaking +head! we sum up, as we best can, what she said to us, and we bid her +adieu. From many hearts in many lands a troop of tender and grateful +regrets converge towards her humble churchyard in Berry. Let them be +joined by these words of sad homage from one of a nation which she +esteemed, and which knew her very little and very ill. Her guiding +thought, the guiding thought which she did her best to make ours too, +"the sentiment of the ideal life, which is none other than man's normal +life as we shall one day know it," is in harmony with words and promises +familiar to that sacred place where she lies. _Exspectat resurrectionem +mortuorum, et vitam venturi sæculi._[345] + + + +WORDSWORTH[346] + + +I remember hearing Lord Macaulay say, after Wordsworth's death, when +subscriptions were being collected to found a memorial of him, that ten +years earlier more money could have been raised in Cambridge alone, to +do honor to Wordsworth, than was now raised all through the country. +Lord Macaulay had, as we know, his own heightened and telling way of +putting things, and we must always make allowance for it. But probably +it is true that Wordsworth has never, either before or since, been so +accepted and popular, so established in possession of the minds of all +who profess to care for poetry, as he was between the years 1830 and +1840, and at Cambridge. From the very first, no doubt, he had his +believers and witnesses. But I have myself heard him declare that, for +he knew not how many years, his poetry had never brought him in enough +to buy his shoe-strings. The poetry-reading public was very slow to +recognize him, and was very easily drawn away from him. Scott effaced +him with this public. Byron effaced him. + +The death of Byron seemed, however, to make an opening for Wordsworth. +Scott, who had for some time ceased to produce poetry himself, and stood +before the public as a great novelist; Scott, too genuine himself not to +feel the profound genuineness of Wordsworth, and with an instinctive +recognition of his firm hold on nature and of his local truth, always +admired him sincerely, and praised him generously. The influence of +Coleridge upon young men of ability was then powerful, and was still +gathering strength; this influence told entirely in favor of +Wordsworth's poetry. Cambridge was a place where Coleridge's influence +had great action, and where Wordsworth's poetry, therefore, flourished +especially. But even amongst the general public its sale grew large, the +eminence of its author was widely recognized, and Rydal Mount[347] +became an object of pilgrimage. I remember Wordsworth relating how one +of the pilgrims, a clergyman, asked him if he had ever written anything +besides the _Guide to the Lakes_. Yes, he answered modestly, he had +written verses. Not every pilgrim was a reader, but the vogue was +established, and the stream of pilgrims came. + +Mr. Tennyson's decisive appearance dates from 1842.[348] One cannot say +that he effaced Wordsworth as Scott and Byron had effaced him. The +poetry of Wordsworth had been so long before the public, the suffrage of +good judges was so steady and so strong in its favor, that by 1842 the +verdict of posterity, one may almost say, had been already pronounced, +and Wordsworth's English fame was secure. But the vogue, the ear and +applause of the great body of poetry-readers, never quite thoroughly +perhaps his, he gradually lost more and more, and Mr. Tennyson gained +them. Mr. Tennyson drew to himself, and away from Wordsworth, the +poetry-reading public, and the new generations. Even in 1850, when +Wordsworth died, this diminution of popularity was visible, and +occasioned the remark of Lord Macaulay which I quoted at starting. + +The diminution has continued. The influence of Coleridge has waned, and +Wordsworth's poetry can no longer draw succor from this ally. The poetry +has not, however, wanted eulogists; and it may be said to have brought +its eulogists luck, for almost every one who has praised Wordsworth's +poetry has praised it well. But the public has remained cold, or, at +least, undetermined. Even the abundance of Mr. Palgrave's fine and +skilfully chosen specimens of Wordsworth, in the _Golden Treasury_, +surprised many readers, and gave offense to not a few. To tenth-rate +critics and compilers, for whom any violent shock to the public taste +would be a temerity not to be risked, it is still quite permissible to +speak of Wordsworth's poetry, not only with ignorance, but with +impertinence. On the Continent he is almost unknown. + +I cannot think, then, that Wordsworth has, up to this time, at all +obtained his deserts. "Glory," said M. Renan the other day, "glory after +all is the thing which has the best chance of not being altogether +vanity." Wordsworth was a homely man, and himself would certainly never +have thought of talking of glory as that which, after all, has the best +chance of not being altogether vanity. Yet we may well allow that few +things are less vain than _real_ glory. Let us conceive of the whole +group of civilized nations as being, for intellectual and spiritual +purposes, one great confederation, bound to a joint action and working +towards a common result; a confederation whose members have a due +knowledge both of the past, out of which they all proceed, and of one +another. This was the ideal of Goethe, and it is an ideal which will +impose itself upon the thoughts of our modern societies more and more. +Then to be recognized by the verdict of such a confederation as a +master, or even as a seriously and eminently worthy workman, in one's +own line of intellectual or spiritual activity, is indeed glory; a glory +which it would be difficult to rate too highly. For what could be more +beneficent, more salutary? The world is forwarded by having its +attention fixed on the best things; and here is a tribunal, free from +all suspicion of national and provincial partiality, putting a stamp on +the best things, and recommending them for general honor and acceptance. +A nation, again, is furthered by recognition of its real gifts and +successes; it is encouraged to develop them further. And here is an +honest verdict, telling us which of our supposed successes are really, +in the judgment of the great impartial world, and not in our private +judgment only, successes, and which are not. + +It is so easy to feel pride and satisfaction in one's own things, so +hard to make sure that one is right in feeling it! We have a great +empire. But so had Nebuchadnezzar. We extol the "unrivalled happiness" +of our national civilization. But then comes a candid friend,[349] and +remarks that our upper class is materialized, our middle class +vulgarized, and our lower class brutalized. We are proud of our +painting, our music. But we find that in the judgment of other people +our painting is questionable, and our music non-existent. We are proud +of our men of science. And here it turns out that the world is with us; +we find that in the judgment of other people, too, Newton among the +dead, and Mr. Darwin among the living, hold as high a place as they hold +in our national opinion. + +Finally, we are proud of our poets and poetry. Now poetry is nothing +less than the most perfect speech of man, that in which he comes nearest +to being able to utter the truth. It is no small thing, therefore, to +succeed eminently in poetry. And so much is required for duly estimating +success here, that about poetry it is perhaps hardest to arrive at a +sure general verdict, and takes longest. Meanwhile, our own conviction +of the superiority of our national poets is not decisive, is almost +certain to be mingled, as we see constantly in English eulogy of +Shakespeare, with much of provincial infatuation. And we know what was +the opinion current amongst our neighbors the French--people of taste, +acuteness, and quick literary tact--not a hundred years ago, about our +great poets. The old _Biographie Universelle_[350] notices the +pretension of the English to a place for their poets among the chief +poets of the world, and says that this is a pretension which to no one +but an Englishman can ever seem admissible. And the scornful, +disparaging things said by foreigners about Shakespeare and Milton, and +about our national over-estimate of them, have been often quoted, and +will be in every one's remembrance. + +A great change has taken place, and Shakespeare is now generally +recognized, even in France, as one of the greatest of poets. Yes, some +anti-Gallican cynic will say, the French rank him with Corneille and +with Victor Hugo! But let me have the pleasure of quoting a sentence +about Shakespeare, which I met with by accident not long ago in the +_Correspondant_, a French review which not a dozen English people, I +suppose, look at. The writer is praising Shakespeare's prose. With +Shakespeare, he says, "prose comes in whenever the subject, being more +familiar, is unsuited to the majestic English iambic." And he goes on: +"Shakespeare is the king of poetic rhythm and style, as well as the king +of the realm of thought: along with his dazzling prose, Shakespeare has +succeeded in giving us the most varied, the most harmonious verse which +has ever sounded upon the human ear since the verse of the Greeks." M. +Henry Cochin,[351] the writer of this sentence, deserves our gratitude +for it; it would not be easy to praise Shakespeare, in a single +sentence, more justly. And when a foreigner and a Frenchman writes thus +of Shakespeare, and when Goethe says of Milton, in whom there was so +much to repel Goethe rather than to attract him, that "nothing has been +ever done so entirely in the sense of the Greeks as _Samson Agonistes_," +and that "Milton is in very truth a poet whom we must treat with all +reverence," then we understand what constitutes a European recognition +of poets and poetry as contradistinguished from a merely national +recognition, and that in favor both of Milton and of Shakespeare the +judgment of the high court of appeal has finally gone. + +I come back to M. Renan's praise of glory, from which I started. Yes, +real glory is a most serious thing, glory authenticated by the +Amphictyonic Court[352] of final appeal, definite glory. And even for +poets and poetry, long and difficult as may be the process of arriving +at the right award, the right award comes at last, the definitive glory +rests where it is deserved. Every establishment of such a real glory is +good and wholesome for mankind at large, good and wholesome for the +nation which produced the poet crowned with it. To the poet himself it +can seldom do harm; for he, poor man, is in his grave, probably, long +before his glory crowns him. + +Wordsworth has been in his grave for some thirty years, and certainly +his lovers and admirers cannot flatter themselves that this great and +steady light of glory as yet shines over him. He is not fully recognized +at home; he is not recognized at all abroad. Yet I firmly believe that +the poetical performance of Wordsworth is, after that of Shakespeare and +Milton, of which all the world now recognizes the worth, undoubtedly the +most considerable in our language from the Elizabethan age to the +present time. Chaucer is anterior; and on other grounds, too, he cannot +well be brought into the comparison. But taking the roll of our chief +poetical names, besides Shakespeare and Milton, from the age of +Elizabeth downwards, and going through it,--Spenser, Dryden, Pope, Gray, +Goldsmith, Cowper, Burns, Coleridge, Scott, Campbell, Moore, Byron, +Shelley, Keats (I mention those only who are dead),--I think it certain +that Wordsworth's name deserves to stand, and will finally stand, above +them all. Several of the poets named have gifts and excellences which +Wordsworth has not. But taking the performance of each as a whole, I say +that Wordsworth seems to me to have left a body of poetical work +superior in power, in interest, in the qualities which give enduring +freshness, to that which any one of the others has left. + +But this is not enough to say. I think it certain, further, that if we +take the chief poetical names of the Continent since the death of +Molière, and, omitting Goethe, confront the remaining names with that of +Wordsworth, the result is the same. Let us take Klopstock,[353] +Lessing,[354] Schiller, Uhland,[355] Rückert,[356] and Heine[357] for +Germany; Filicaja,[358] Alfieri,[359] Manzoni,[360] and Leopardi[361] +for Italy; Racine,[362] Boileau,[363] Voltaire, André Chénier,[364] +Béranger,[365] Lamartine,[366] Musset,[367] M. Victor Hugo (he has been +so long celebrated that although he still lives I may be permitted to +name him) for France. Several of these, again, have evidently gifts and +excellences to which Wordsworth can make no pretension. But in real +poetical achievement it seems to me indubitable that to Wordsworth, here +again, belongs the palm. It seems to me that Wordsworth has left behind +him a body of poetical work which wears, and will wear, better on the +whole than the performance of any one of these personages, so far more +brilliant and celebrated, most of them, than the homely poet of Rydal. +Wordsworth's performance in poetry is on the whole, in power, in +interest, in the qualities which give enduring freshness, superior to +theirs. + +This is a high claim to make for Wordsworth. But if it is a just claim, +if Wordsworth's place among the poets who have appeared in the last two +or three centuries is after Shakespeare, Molière, Milton, Goethe, +indeed, but before all the rest, then in time Wordsworth will have his +due. We shall recognize him in his place, as we recognize Shakespeare +and Milton; and not only we ourselves shall recognize him, but he will +be recognized by Europe also. Meanwhile, those who recognize him already +may do well, perhaps, to ask themselves whether there are not in the +case of Wordsworth certain special obstacles which hinder or delay his +due recognition by others, and whether these obstacles are not in some +measure removable. + +The _Excursion_ and the _Prelude_, his poems of greatest bulk, are by no +means Wordsworth's best work. His best work is in his shorter pieces, +and many indeed are there of these which are of first-rate excellence. +But in his seven volumes the pieces of high merit are mingled with a +mass of pieces very inferior to them; so inferior to them that it seems +wonderful how the same poet should have produced both. Shakespeare +frequently has lines and passages in a strain quite false, and which are +entirely unworthy of him. But one can imagine him smiling if one could +meet him in the Elysian Fields and tell him so; smiling and replying +that he knew it perfectly well himself, and what did it matter? But with +Wordsworth the case is different. Work altogether inferior, work quite +uninspired, flat and dull, is produced by him with evident +unconsciousness of its defects, and he presents it to us with the same +faith and seriousness as his best work. Now a drama or an epic fill the +mind, and one does not look beyond them; but in a collection of short +pieces the impression made by one piece requires to be continued and +sustained by the piece following. In reading Wordsworth the impression +made by one of his fine pieces is too often dulled and spoiled by a very +inferior piece coming after it. + +Wordsworth composed verses during a space of some sixty years; and it is +no exaggeration to say that within one single decade of those years, +between 1798 and 1808, almost all his really first-rate work was +produced. A mass of inferior work remains, work done before and after +this golden prime, imbedding the first-rate work and clogging it, +obstructing our approach to it, chilling, not unfrequently, the +high-wrought mood with which we leave it. To be recognized far and wide +as a great poet, to be possible and receivable as a classic, Wordsworth +needs to be relieved of a great deal of the poetical baggage which now +encumbers him. To administer this relief is indispensable, unless he is +to continue to be a poet for the few only,--a poet valued far below his +real worth by the world. + +There is another thing. Wordsworth classified his poems not according to +any commonly received plan of arrangement, but according to a scheme of +mental physiology. He has poems of the fancy, poems of the imagination, +poems of sentiment and reflection, and so on. His categories are +ingenious but far-fetched, and the result of his employment of them is +unsatisfactory. Poems are separated one from another which possess a +kinship of subject or of treatment far more vital and deep than the +supposed unity of mental origin, which was Wordsworth's reason for +joining them with others. + +The tact of the Greeks in matters of this kind was infallible. We may +rely upon it that we shall not improve upon the classification adopted +by the Greeks for kinds of poetry; that their categories of epic, +dramatic, lyric, and so forth, have a natural propriety, and should be +adhered to. It may sometimes seem doubtful to which of two categories a +poem belongs; whether this or that poem is to be called, for instance, +narrative or lyric, lyric or elegiac. But there is to be found in every +good poem a strain, a predominant note, which determines the poem as +belonging to one of these kinds rather than the other; and here is the +best proof of the value of the classification, and of the advantage of +adhering to it. Wordsworth's poems will never produce their due effect +until they are freed from their present artificial arrangement, and +grouped more naturally. + +Disengaged from the quantity of inferior work which now obscures them, +the best poems of Wordsworth, I hear many people say, would indeed stand +out in great beauty, but they would prove to be very few in number, +scarcely more than a half a dozen. I maintain, on the other hand, that +what strikes me with admiration, what establishes in my opinion +Wordsworth's superiority, is the great and ample body of powerful work +which remains to him, even after all his inferior work has been cleared +away. He gives us so much to rest upon, so much which communicates his +spirit and engages ours! + +This is of very great importance. If it were a comparison of single +pieces, or of three or four pieces, by each poet, I do not say that +Wordsworth would stand decisively above Gray, or Burns, or Coleridge, or +Keats, or Manzoni, or Heine. It is in his ampler body of powerful work +that I find his superiority. His good work itself, his work which +counts, is not all of it, of course, of equal value. Some kinds of +poetry are in themselves lower kinds than others. The ballad kind is a +lower kind; the didactic kind, still more, is a lower kind. Poetry of +this latter sort counts, too, sometimes, by its biographical interest +partly, not by its poetical interest pure and simple; but then this can +only be when the poet producing it has the power and importance of +Wordsworth, a power and importance which he assuredly did not establish +by such didactic poetry alone. Altogether, it is, I say, by the great +body of powerful and significant work which remains to him, after every +reduction and deduction has been made, that Wordsworth's superiority is +proved. + +To exhibit this body of Wordsworth's best work, to clear away +obstructions from around it, and to let it speak for itself, is what +every lover of Wordsworth should desire. Until this has been done, +Wordsworth, whom we, to whom he is dear, all of us know and feel to be +so great a poet, has not had a fair chance before the world. When once +it has been done, he will make his way best, not by our advocacy of him, +but by his own worth and power. We may safely leave him to make his way +thus, we who believe that a superior worth and power in poetry finds in +mankind a sense responsive to it and disposed at last to recognize it. +Yet at the outset, before he has been duly known and recognized, we may +do Wordsworth a service, perhaps, by indicating in what his superior +power and worth will be found to consist, and in what it will not. + +Long ago, in speaking of Homer, I said that the noble and profound +application of ideas to life is the most essential part of poetic +greatness[Transcriber's note: no punctuation here] I said that a great +poet receives his distinctive character of superiority from his +application, under the conditions immutably fixed by the laws of poetic +beauty and poetic truth, from his application, I say, to his subject, +whatever it may be, of the ideas + + "On man, on nature, and on human life,"[368] + +which he has acquired for himself. The line quoted is Wordsworth's own; +and his superiority arises from his powerful use, in his best pieces, his +powerful application to his subject, of ideas "on man, on nature, and on +human life." + +Voltaire, with his signal acuteness, most truly remarked that "no nation +has treated in poetry moral ideas with more energy and depth than the +English nation." And he adds; "There, it seems to me, is the great merit +of the English poets." Voltaire does not mean by treating in poetry +moral ideas, the composing moral and didactic poems;--that brings us +but a very little way in poetry. He means just the same thing as was +meant when I spoke above "of the noble and profound application of ideas +to life"; and he means the application of these ideas under the +conditions fixed for us by the laws of poetic beauty and poetic truth. +If it is said that to call these ideas _moral_ ideas is to introduce a +strong and injurious limitation, I answer that it is to do nothing of +the kind, because moral ideas are really so main a part of human life. +The question, _how to live_, is itself a moral idea; and it is the +question which most interests every man, and with which, in some way or +other, he is perpetually occupied. A large sense is of course to be +given to the term _moral_. Whatever bears upon the question, "how to +live," comes under it. + +"Nor love thy life, nor hate; but, what thou liv'st, Live well; how long +or short, permit to heaven."[369] + +In those fine lines Milton utters, as every one at once perceives, a +moral idea. Yes, but so too, when Keats consoles the forward-bending +lover on the Grecian Urn, the lover arrested and presented in immortal +relief by the sculptor's hand before he can kiss, with the line, + +"Forever wilt thou love, and she be fair--" + +he utters a moral idea. When Shakespeare says, that + + "We are such stuff +As dreams are made of, and our little life +Is rounded with a sleep,"[370] + +he utters a moral idea. + +Voltaire was right in thinking that the energetic and profound treatment +of moral ideas, in this large sense, is what distinguishes the English +poetry. He sincerely meant praise, no dispraise or hint of limitation; +and they err who suppose that poetic limitation is a necessary +consequence of the fact, the fact being granted as Voltaire states it. +If what distinguishes the greatest poets is their powerful and profound +application of ideas to life, which surely no good critic will deny, +then to prefix to the term ideas here the term moral makes hardly any +difference, because human life itself is in so preponderating a degree +moral. + +It is important, therefore, to hold fast to this: that poetry is at +bottom a criticism of life;[371] that the greatness of a poet lies in +his powerful and beautiful application of ideas to life,--to the +question: How to live. Morals are often treated in a narrow and false +fashion; they are bound up with systems of thought and belief which have +had their day; they are fallen into the hands of pedants and +professional dealers; they grow tiresome to some of us. We find +attraction, at times, even in a poetry of revolt against them; in a +poetry which might take for its motto Omar Khayyám's words: "Let us make +up in the tavern for the time which we have wasted in the mosque." Or we +find attractions in a poetry indifferent to them; in a poetry where the +contents may be what they will, but where the form is studied and +exquisite. We delude ourselves in either case; and the best cure for our +delusion is to let our minds rest upon that great and inexhaustible word +_life_, until we learn to enter into its meaning. A poetry of revolt +against moral ideas is a poetry of revolt against _life_; a poetry of +indifference towards moral ideas is a poetry of indifference towards +_life_. + +Epictetus had a happy figure for things like the play of the senses, or +literary form and finish, or argumentative ingenuity, in comparison with +"the best and master thing" for us, as he called it, the concern, how to +live. Some people were afraid of them, he said, or they disliked and +undervalued them. Such people were wrong; they were unthankful or +cowardly. But the things might also be over-prized, and treated as final +when they are not. They bear to life the relation which inns bear to +home. "As if a man, journeying home, and finding a nice inn on the road, +and liking it, were to stay forever at the inn! Man, thou hast +forgotten thine object; thy journey was not _to_ this, but _through_ +this. 'But this inn is taking.' And how many other inns, too, are +taking, and how many fields and meadows! but as places of passage +merely, you have an object, which is this: to get home, to do your duty +to your family, friends, and fellow-countrymen, to attain inward +freedom, serenity, happiness, contentment. Style takes your fancy, +arguing takes your fancy, and you forget your home and want to make your +abode with them and to stay with them, on the plea that they are taking. +Who denies that they are taking? but as places of passage, as inns. And +when I say this, you suppose me to be attacking the care for style, the +care for argument. I am not; I attack the resting in them, the not +looking to the end which is beyond them."[372] + +Now, when we come across a poet like Théophile Gautier,[373] we have a +poet who has taken up his abode at an inn, and never got farther. There +may be inducements to this or that one of us, at this or that moment, to +find delight in him, to cleave to him; but after all, we do not change +the truth about him,--we only stay ourselves in his inn along with him. +And when we come across a poet like Wordsworth, who sings + + "Of truth, of grandeur, beauty, love and hope, + And melancholy fear subdued by faith, + Of blessed consolations in distress, + Of moral strength and intellectual power, + Of joy in widest commonalty spread--"[374] + +then we have a poet intent on "the best and master thing," and who +prosecutes his journey home. We say, for brevity's sake, that he deals +with _life_, because he deals with that in which life really consists. +This is what Voltaire means to praise in the English poets,--this +dealing with what is really life. But always it is the mark of the +greatest poets that they deal with it; and to say that the English poets +are remarkable for dealing with it, is only another way of saying, what +is true, that in poetry the English genius has especially shown its +power. + +Wordsworth deals with it, and his greatness lies in his dealing with it +so powerfully. I have named a number of celebrated poets above all of +whom he, in my opinion, deserves to be placed. He is to be placed above +poets like Voltaire, Dryden, Pope, Lessing, Schiller, because these +famous personages, with a thousand gifts and merits, never, or scarcely +ever, attain the distinctive accent and utterance of the high and +genuine poets-- + + "Quique pii vates et Phoebo digna locuti,"[375] + +at all. Burns, Keats, Heine, not to speak of others in our list, have +this accent;--who can doubt it? And at the same time they have treasures +of humor, felicity, passion, for which in Wordsworth we shall look in +vain. Where, then, is Wordsworth's superiority? It is here; he deals +with more of _life_ than they do; he deals with _life_ as a whole, more +powerfully. + +No Wordsworthian will doubt this. Nay, the fervent Wordsworthian will +add, as Mr. Leslie Stephen[376] does, that Wordsworth's poetry is +precious because his philosophy is sound; that his "ethical system is as +distinctive and capable of exposition as Bishop Butler's"; that his +poetry is informed by ideas which "fall spontaneously into a scientific +system of thought." But we must be on our guard against the +Wordsworthians, if we want to secure for Wordsworth his due rank as a +poet. The Wordsworthians are apt to praise him for the wrong things, and +to lay far too much stress upon what they call his philosophy. His +poetry is the reality, his philosophy--so far, at least, as it may put +on the form and habit of "a scientific system of thought," and the more +that it puts them on--is the illusion. Perhaps we shall one day learn to +make this proposition general, and to say: Poetry is the reality, +philosophy the illusion. But in Wordsworth's case, at any rate, we +cannot do him justice until we dismiss his formal philosophy. + +The _Excursion_ abounds with philosophy and therefore the _Excursion_ is +to the Wordsworthian what it never can be to the disinterested lover of +poetry,--a satisfactory work. "Duty exists," says Wordsworth, in the +_Excursion_; and then he proceeds thus-- + + " ... Immutably survive, + For our support, the measures and the forms, + Which an abstract Intelligence supplies, + Whose kingdom is, where time and space are not."[377] + +And the Wordsworthian is delighted, and thinks that here is a sweet +union of philosophy and poetry. But the disinterested lover of poetry +will feel that the lines carry us really not a step farther than the +proposition which they would interpret; that they are a tissue of +elevated but abstract verbiage, alien to the very nature of poetry. + +Or let us come direct to the centre of Wordsworth's philosophy, as "an +ethical system, as distinctive and capable of systematical exposition as +Bishop Butler's"-- + + "... One adequate support + For the calamities of mortal life + Exists, one only;--an assured belief + That the procession of our fate, howe'er + Sad or disturbed, is ordered by a Being + Of infinite benevolence and power; + Whose everlasting purposes embrace + All accidents, converting them to good."[378] + + + +That is doctrine such as we hear in church too, religious and +philosophic doctrine; and the attached Wordsworthian loves passages of +such doctrine, and brings them forward in proof of his poet's +excellence. But however true the doctrine may be, it has, as here +presented, none of the characters of _poetic_ truth, the kind of truth +which we require from a poet, and in which Wordsworth is really strong. + +Even the "intimations" of the famous Ode,[379] those corner-stones of +the supposed philosophic system of Wordsworth,--the idea of the high +instincts and affections coming out in childhood, testifying of a divine +home recently left, and fading away as our life proceeds,--this idea, of +undeniable beauty as a play of fancy, has itself not the character of +poetic truth of the best kind; it has no real solidity. The instinct of +delight in Nature and her beauty had no doubt extraordinary strength in +Wordsworth himself as a child. + +But to say that universally this instinct is mighty in childhood, and +tends to die away afterwards, is to say what is extremely doubtful. In +many people, perhaps with the majority of educated persons, the love of +nature is nearly imperceptible at ten years old, but strong and +operative at thirty. In general we may say of these high instincts of +early childhood, the base of the alleged systematic philosophy of +Wordsworth, what Thucydides says of the early achievements of the Greek +race: "It is impossible to speak with certainty of what is so remote; +but from all that we can really investigate, I should say that they were +no very great things." + +Finally, the "scientific system of thought" in Wordsworth gives us at +least such poetry as this, which the devout Wordsworthian accepts-- + + + + "O for the coming of that glorious time + When, prizing knowledge as her noblest wealth + And best protection, this Imperial Realm, + While she exacts allegiance, shall admit + An obligation, on her part, to _teach_ + Them who are born to serve her and obey; + Binding herself by statute to secure, + For all the children whom her soil maintains, + The rudiments of letters, and inform + The mind with moral and religious truth."[380] + +Wordsworth calls Voltaire dull, and surely the production of these +un-Voltairian lines must have been imposed on him as a judgment! One can +hear them being quoted at a Social Science Congress; one can call up the +whole scene. A great room in one of our dismal provincial towns; dusty +air and jaded afternoon daylight; benches full of men with bald heads +and women in spectacles; an orator lifting up his face from a manuscript +written within and without to declaim these lines of Wordsworth; and in +the soul of any poor child of nature who may have wandered in thither, +an unutterable sense of lamentation, and mourning, and woe! + +"But turn we," as Wordsworth says, "from these bold, bad men," the +haunters of Social Science Congresses. And let us be on our guard, too, +against the exhibitors and extollers of a "scientific system of thought" +in Wordsworth's poetry. The poetry will never be seen aright while they +thus exhibit it. The cause of its greatness is simple, and may be told +quite simply. Wordsworth's poetry is great because of the extraordinary +power with which Wordsworth feels the joy offered to us in nature, the +joy offered to us in the simple primary affections and duties; and +because of the extraordinary power with which, in case after case, he +shows us this joy, and renders it so as to make us share it. + +The source of joy from which he thus draws is the truest and most +unfailing source of joy accessible to man. It is also accessible +universally. Wordsworth brings us word, therefore, according to his own +strong and characteristic line, he brings us word + + "Of joy in widest commonalty spread."[381] + +Here is an immense advantage for a poet. Wordsworth tells of what all +seek, and tells of it at its truest and best source, and yet a source +where all may go and draw for it. + +Nevertheless, we are not to suppose that everything is precious which +Wordsworth, standing even at this perennial and beautiful source, may +give us. Wordsworthians are apt to talk as if it must be. They will +speak with the same reverence of _The Sailor's Mother_, for example, as +of _Lucy Gray_. They do their master harm by such lack of +discrimination. _Lucy Gray_ is a beautiful success; _The Sailor's +Mother_ is a failure. To give aright what he wishes to give, to +interpret and render successfully, is not always within Wordsworth's own +command. It is within no poet's command; here is the part of the Muse, +the inspiration, the God, the "not ourselves."[382] In Wordsworth's +case, the accident, for so it may almost be called, of inspiration, is +of peculiar importance. No poet, perhaps, is so evidently filled with a +new and sacred energy when the inspiration is upon him; no poet, when it +fails him, is so left "weak as is a breaking wave." I remember hearing +him say that "Goethe's poetry was not inevitable enough." The remark is +striking and true; no line in Goethe, as Goethe said himself, but its +maker knew well how it came there. Wordsworth is right, Goethe's poetry +is not inevitable; not inevitable enough. But Wordsworth's poetry, when +he is at his best, is inevitable, as inevitable as Nature herself. It +might seem that Nature not only gave him the matter for his poem, but +wrote his poem for him. He has no style. He was too conversant with +Milton not to catch at times his master's manner, and he has fine +Miltonic lines; but he has no assured poetic style of his own, like +Milton. When he seeks to have a style he falls into ponderosity and +pomposity. In the _Excursion_ we have his style, as an artistic product +of his own creation; and although Jeffrey completely failed to recognize +Wordsworth's real greatness, he was yet not wrong in saying of the +_Excursion_, as a work of poetic style: "This will never do."[383]. And +yet magical as is that power, which Wordsworth has not, of assured and +possessed poetic style, he has something which is an equivalent for it. + +Every one who has any sense for these things feels the subtle turn, the +heightening, which is given to a poet's verse by his genius for style. +We can feel it in the + + "After life's fitful fever, he sleeps well"--[384] + +of Shakespeare; in the + + "... though fall'n on evil days, + On evil days though fall'n, and evil tongues"--[385] + +of Milton. It is the incomparable charm of Milton's power of poetic +style which gives such worth to _Paradise Regained_, and makes a great +poem of a work in which Milton's imagination does not soar high. +Wordsworth has in constant possession, and at command, no style of this +kind; but he had too poetic a nature, and had read the great poets too +well, not to catch, as I have already remarked, something of it +occasionally. We find it not only in his Miltonic lines; we find it in +such a phrase as this, where the manner is his own, not Milton's-- + + "the fierce confederate storm + Of sorrow barricadoed evermore + Within the walls of cities;"[386] + + + +although even here, perhaps, the power of style which is undeniable, is +more properly that of eloquent prose than the subtle heightening and +change wrought by genuine poetic style. It is style, again, and the +elevation given by style, which chiefly makes the effectiveness of +_Laodameia_. Still, the right sort of verse to choose from Wordsworth, +if we are to seize his true and most characteristic form of expression, +is a line like this from _Michael_-- + + "And never lifted up a single stone." + +There is nothing subtle in it, no heightening, no study of poetic style, +strictly so called, at all; yet it is expression of the highest and most +truly expressive kind. + +Wordsworth owed much to Burns, and a style of perfect plainness, relying +for effect solely on the weight and force of that which with entire +fidelity it utters, Burns could show him. + + "The poor inhabitant below + Was quick to learn and wise to know, + And keenly felt the friendly glow + And softer flame; + But thoughtless follies laid him low + And stain'd his name."[387] + +Every one will be conscious of a likeness here to Wordsworth; and if +Wordsworth did great things with this nobly plain manner, we must +remember, what indeed he himself would always have been forward to +acknowledge, that Burns used it before him. + +Still Wordsworth's use of it has something unique and unmatchable. +Nature herself seems, I say, to take the pen out of his hand, and to +write for him with her own bare, sheer, penetrating power. This arises +from two causes; from the profound sincereness with which Wordsworth +feels his subject, and also from the profoundly sincere and natural +character of his subject itself. He can and will treat such a subject +with nothing but the most plain, first-hand, almost austere naturalness. +His expression may often be called bald, as, for instance, in the poem +of _Resolution and Independence_; but it is bald as the bare mountain +tops are bald, with a baldness which is full of grandeur. + +Wherever we meet with the successful balance, in Wordsworth, of profound +truth of subject with profound truth of execution, he is unique. His +best poems are those which most perfectly exhibit this balance. I have a +warm admiration for _Laodameia_ and for the great _Ode_; but if I am to +tell the very truth, I find _Laodameia_ not wholly free from something +artificial, and the great _Ode_ not wholly free from something +declamatory. If I had to pick out poems of a kind most perfectly to show +Wordsworth's unique power, I should rather choose poems such as +_Michael, The Fountain, The Highland Reaper_.[388] And poems with the +peculiar and unique beauty which distinguishes these, Wordsworth +produced in considerable number; besides very many other poems of which +the worth, although not so rare as the worth of these, is still +exceedingly high. + +On the whole, then, as I said at the beginning, not only is Wordsworth +eminent by reason of the goodness of his best work, but he is eminent +also by reason of the great body of good work which he has left to us. +With the ancients I will not compare him. In many respects the ancients +are far above us, and yet there is something that we demand which they +can never give. Leaving the ancients, let us come to the poets and +poetry of Christendom. Dante, Shakespeare, Molière, Milton, Goethe, are +altogether larger and more splendid luminaries in the poetical heaven +than Wordsworth. But I know not where else, among the moderns, we are to +find his superiors. + +To disengage the poems which show his power, and to present them to the +English-speaking public and to the world, is the object of this volume. +I by no means say that it contains all which in Wordsworth's poems is +interesting. Except in the case of _Margaret_, a story composed +separately from the rest of the _Excursion_, and which belongs to a +different part of England, I have not ventured on detaching portions of +poems, or on giving any piece otherwise than as Wordsworth himself gave +it. But under the conditions imposed by this reserve, the volume +contains, I think, everything, or nearly everything, which may best +serve him with the majority of lovers of poetry, nothing which may +disserve him. + +I have spoken lightly of Wordsworthians; and if we are to get Wordsworth +recognized by the public and by the world, we must recommend him not in +the spirit of a clique, but in the spirit of disinterested lovers of +poetry. But I am a Wordsworthian myself. I can read with pleasure and +edification _Peter Bell_, and the whole series of _Ecclesiastical +Sonnets_, and the address to Mr. Wilkinson's spade, and even the +_Thanksgiving Ode_;--everything of Wordsworth, I think, except +_Vaudracour and Julia_. It is not for nothing that one has been brought +up in the veneration of a man so truly worthy of homage; that one has +seen him and heard him, lived in his neighborhood, and been familiar +with his country. No Wordsworthian has a tenderer affection for this +pure and sage master than I, or is less really offended by his defects. +But Wordsworth is something more than the pure and sage master of a +small band of devoted followers, and we ought not to rest satisfied +until he is seen to be what he is. He is one of the very chief glories +of English Poetry; and by nothing is England so glorious as by her +poetry. Let us lay aside every weight which hinders our getting him +recognized as this, and let our one study be to bring to pass, as widely +as possible and as truly as possible, his own word concerning his poems: +"They will coöoperate with the benign tendencies in human nature and +society, and will, in their degree, be efficacious in making men wiser, +better, and happier." + + + + +III. SOCIAL AND POLITICAL STUDIES + + + +SWEETNESS AND LIGHT[389] + + +The disparagers of culture make its motive curiosity; +sometimes, indeed, they make its motive mere exclusiveness +and vanity. The culture which is supposed to plume itself on a +smattering of Greek and Latin is a culture which is begotten by nothing +so intellectual as curiosity; it is valued either out of sheer vanity +and ignorance or else as an engine of social and class distinction, +separating its holder, like a badge or title, from other people who have +not got it. No serious man would call this _culture_, or attach any +value to it, as culture, at all. To find the real ground for the very +differing estimate which serious people will set upon culture, we must +find some motive for culture in the terms of which may lie a real +ambiguity; and such a motive the word _curiosity_ gives us. + +I have before now pointed out that we English do not, like the +foreigners, use this word in a good sense as well as in a bad sense. +With us the word is always used in a somewhat disapproving sense. A +liberal and intelligent eagerness about the things of the mind may be +meant by a foreigner when he speaks of curiosity, but with us the word +always conveys a certain notion of frivolous and unedifying activity. In +the _Quarterly Review_, some little time ago, was an estimate of the +celebrated French critic, M. Sainte-Beuve,[390] and a very inadequate +estimate it in my judgment was. And its inadequacy consisted chiefly in +this: that in our English way it left out of sight the double sense +really involved in the word _curiosity_, thinking enough was said to +stamp M. Sainte-Beuve with blame if it was said that he was impelled in +his operations as a critic by curiosity, and omitting either to perceive +that M. Sainte-Beuve himself, and many other people with him, would +consider that this was praiseworthy and not blameworthy, or to point out +why it ought really to be accounted worthy of blame and not of praise. +For as there is a curiosity about intellectual matters which is futile, +and merely a disease, so there is certainly a curiosity,--a desire after +the things of the mind simply for their own sakes and for the pleasure +of seeing them as they are,--which is, in an intelligent being, natural +and laudable. Nay, and the very desire to see things as they are, +implies a balance and regulation of mind which is not often attained +without fruitful effort, and which is the very opposite of the blind and +diseased impulse of mind which is what we mean to blame when we blame +curiosity. Montesquieu says: "The first motive which ought to impel us +to study is the desire to augment the excellence of our nature, and to +render an intelligent being yet more intelligent."[391] This is the true +ground to assign for the genuine scientific passion, however manifested, +and for culture, viewed simply as a fruit of this passion; and it is a +worthy ground, even though we let the term _curiosity_ stand to describe +it. But there is of culture another view, in which not solely the +scientific passion, the sheer desire to see things as they are, natural +and proper in an intelligent being, appears as the ground of it. There +is a view in which all the love of our neighbor, the impulses towards +action, help, and beneficence, the desire for removing human error, +clearing human confusion, and diminishing human misery, the noble +aspiration to leave the world better and happier than we found it,-- +motives eminently such as are called social,--come in as part of the +grounds of culture, and the main and preëminent part. Culture is then +properly described not as having its origin in curiosity, but as having +its origin in the love of perfection; it is _a study of perfection_. It +moves by the force, not merely or primarily of the scientific passion +for pure knowledge, but also of the moral and social passion for doing +good. As, in the first view of it, we took for its worthy motto +Montesquieu's words: "To render an intelligent being yet more +intelligent!" so, in the second view of it, there is no better motto +which it can have than these words of Bishop Wilson:[392] "To make +reason and the will of God prevail!"[393] + +Only, whereas the passion for doing good is apt to be overhasty in +determining what reason and the will of God say, because its turn is for +acting rather than thinking and it wants to be beginning to act; and +whereas it is apt to take its own conceptions, which proceed from its +own state of development and share in all the imperfections and +immaturities of this, for a basis of action; what distinguishes culture +is, that it is possessed by the scientific passion as well as by the +passion of doing good; that it demands worthy notions of reason and the +will of God, and does not readily suffer its own crude conceptions to +substitute themselves for them. And knowing that no action or +institution can be salutary and stable which is not based on reason and +the will of God, it is not so bent on acting and instituting, even with +the great aim of diminishing human error and misery ever before its +thoughts, but that it can remember that acting and instituting are of +little use, unless we know how and what we ought to act and to +institute. + +This culture is more interesting and more far-reaching than that other, +which is founded solely on the scientific passion for knowing. But it +needs times of faith and ardor, times when the intellectual horizon is +opening and widening all around us, to flourish in. And is not the close +and bounded intellectual horizon within which we have long lived and +moved now lifting up, and are not new lights finding free passage to +shine in upon us? For a long time there was no passage for them to make +their way in upon us, and then it was of no use to think of adapting the +world's action to them. Where was the hope of making reason and the will +of God prevail among people who had a routine which they had christened +reason and the will of God, in which they were inextricably bound, and +beyond which they had no power of looking? But now, the iron force of +adhesion to the old routine,--social, political, religious,--has +wonderfully yielded; the iron force of exclusion of all which is new has +wonderfully yielded. The danger now is, not that people should +obstinately refuse to allow anything but their old routine to pass for +reason and the will of God, but either that they should allow some +novelty or other to pass for these too easily, or else that they should +underrate the importance of them altogether, and think it enough to +follow action for its own sake, without troubling themselves to make +reason and the will of God prevail therein. Now, then, is the moment for +culture to be of service, culture which believes in making reason and +the will of God prevail, believes in perfection, is the study and +pursuit of perfection, and is no longer debarred, by a rigid invincible +exclusion of whatever is new, from getting acceptance for its ideas, +simply because they are new. + +The moment this view of culture is seized, the moment it is regarded not +solely as the endeavor to see things as they are, to draw towards a +knowledge of the universal order which seems to be intended and aimed at +in the world, and which it is a man's happiness to go along with or his +misery to go counter to,--to learn, in short, the will of God,--the +moment, I say, culture is considered not merely as the endeavor to _see_ +and _learn_ this, but as the endeavor, also, to make it _prevail_, the +moral, social, and beneficent character of culture becomes manifest. The +mere endeavor to see and learn the truth for our own personal +satisfaction is indeed a commencement for making it prevail, a preparing +the way for this, which always serves this, and is wrongly, therefore, +stamped with blame absolutely in itself and not only in its caricature +and degeneration. But perhaps it has got stamped with blame, and +disparaged with the dubious title of curiosity, because in comparison +with this wider endeavor of such great and plain utility it looks +selfish, petty, and unprofitable. + +And religion, the greatest and most important of the efforts by which +the human race has manifested its impulse to perfect itself,--religion, +that voice of the deepest human experience,--does not only enjoin and +sanction the aim which is the great aim of culture, the aim of setting +ourselves to ascertain what perfection is and to make it prevail; but +also, in determining generally in what human perfection consists, +religion comes to a conclusion identical with that which culture,-- +culture seeking the determination of this question through _all_ the +voices of human experience which have been heard upon it, of art, +science, poetry, philosophy, history, as well as of religion, in order +to give a greater fulness and certainty to its solution,--likewise +reaches. Religion says: _The kingdom of God_ _is within you_; and +culture, in like manner, places human perfection in an _internal_ +condition, in the growth and predominance of our humanity proper, as +distinguished from our animality. It places it in the ever-increasing +efficacy and in the general harmonious expansion of those gifts of +thought and feeling, which make the peculiar dignity, wealth, and +happiness of human nature. As I have said on a former occasion: "It is +in making endless additions to itself, in the endless expansion of its +powers, in endless growth in wisdom and beauty, that the spirit of the +human race finds its ideal. To reach this ideal, culture is an +indispensable aid, and that is the true value of culture." Not a having +and a resting, but a growing and a becoming, is the character of +perfection as culture conceives it; and here, too, it coincides with +religion. + +And because men are all members of one great whole, and the sympathy +which is in human nature will not allow one member to be indifferent to +the rest or to have a perfect welfare independent of the rest, the +expansion of our humanity, to suit the idea of perfection which culture +forms, must be a _general_ expansion. Perfection, as culture conceives +it, is not possible while the individual remains isolated. The +individual is required, under pain of being stunted and enfeebled in his +own development if he disobeys, to carry others along with him in his +march towards perfection, to be continually doing all he can to enlarge +and increase the volume of the human stream sweeping thitherward. And, +here, once more, culture lays on us the same obligation as religion, +which says, as Bishop Wilson has admirably put it, that "to promote the +kingdom of God is to increase and hasten one's own happiness."[394] + +But, finally, perfection,--as culture from a thorough disinterested +study of human nature and human experience learns to conceive it,--is a +harmonious expansion of _all_ the powers which make the beauty and worth +of human nature, and is not consistent with the over-development of any +one power at the expense of the rest. Here culture goes beyond religion +as religion is generally conceived by us. + +If culture, then, is a study of perfection, and of harmonious +perfection, general perfection, and perfection which consists in +becoming something rather than in having something, in an inward +condition of the mind and spirit, not in an outward set of +circumstances,--it is clear that culture, instead or being the +frivolous and useless thing which Mr. Bright,[395] and Mr. Frederic +Harrison,[396] and many other Liberals are apt to call it, has a very +important function to fulfil for mankind. And this function is +particularly important in our modern world, of which the whole +civilization is, to a much greater degree than the civilization of +Greece and Rome, mechanical and external, and tends constantly to become +more so. But above all in our own country has culture a weighty part to +perform, because here that mechanical character, which civilization +tends to take everywhere, is shown in the most eminent degree. Indeed +nearly all the characters of perfection, as culture teaches us to fix +them, meet in this country with some powerful tendency which thwarts +them and sets them at defiance. The idea of perfection as an _inward_ +condition of the mind and spirit is at variance with the mechanical and +material civilization in esteem with us, and nowhere, as I have said, so +much in esteem as with us. The idea of perfection as a _general_ +expansion of the human family is at variance with our strong +individualism, our hatred of all limits to the unrestrained swing of the +individual's personality, our maxim of "every man for himself." Above +all, the idea of perfection as a _harmonious_ expansion of human nature +is at variance with our want of flexibility, with our inaptitude for +seeing more than one side of a thing, with our intense energetic +absorption in the particular pursuit we happen to be following. So +culture has a rough task to achieve in this country. Its preachers have, +and are likely long to have, a hard time of it, and they will much +oftener be regarded, for a great while to come, as elegant or spurious +Jeremiahs than as friends and benefactors. That, however, will not +prevent their doing in the end good service if they persevere. And, +meanwhile, the mode of action they have to pursue, and the sort of +habits they must fight against, ought to be made quite clear for every +one to see, who may be willing to look at the matter attentively and +dispassionately. + +Faith in machinery is, I said, our besetting danger; often in machinery +most absurdly disproportioned to the end which this machinery, if it is +to do any good at all, is to serve; but always in machinery, as if it +had a value in and for itself. What is freedom but machinery? what is +population but machinery? what is coal but machinery? what are railroads +but machinery? what is wealth but machinery? what are, even, religious +organizations but machinery? Now almost every voice in England is +accustomed to speak of these things as if they were precious ends in +themselves, and therefore had some of the characters of perfection +indisputably joined to them. I have before now noticed Mr. +Roebuck's[397] stock argument for proving the greatness and happiness of +England as she is, and for quite stopping the mouths of all gainsayers. +Mr. Roebuck is never weary of reiterating this argument of his, so I do +not know why I should be weary of noticing it. "May not every man in +England say what he likes?"--Mr. Roebuck perpetually asks: and that, he +thinks, is quite sufficient, and when every man may say what he likes, +our aspirations ought to be satisfied. But the aspirations of culture, +which is the study of perfection, are not satisfied, unless what men +say, when they may say what they like, is worth saying,--has good in +it, and more good than bad. In the same way the _Times_, replying to +some foreign strictures on the dress, looks, and behavior of the English +abroad, urges that the English ideal is that every one should be free to +do and to look just as he likes. But culture indefatigably tries, not to +make what each raw person may like, the rule by which he fashions +himself; but to draw ever nearer to a sense of what is indeed beautiful, +graceful, and becoming, and to get the raw person to like that. + +And in the same way with respect to railroads and coal. Every one must +have observed the strange language current during the late discussions +as to the possible failure of our supplies of coal. Our coal, thousands +of people were saying, is the real basis of our national greatness; if +our coal runs short, there is an end of the greatness of England. But +what _is_ greatness?--culture makes us ask. Greatness is a spiritual +condition worthy to excite love, interest, and admiration; and the +outward proof of possessing greatness is that we excite love, interest, +and admiration. If England were swallowed up by the sea to-morrow, which +of the two, a hundred years hence, would most excite the love, interest, +and admiration of mankind,--would most, therefore, show the evidences of +having possessed greatness,--the England of the last twenty years, or +the England of Elizabeth, of a time of splendid spiritual effort, but +when our coal, and our industrial operations depending on coal, were +very little developed? Well, then, what an unsound habit of mind it must +be which makes us talk of things like coal or iron as constituting the +greatness of England, and how salutary a friend is culture, bent on +seeing things as they are, and thus dissipating delusions of this kind +and fixing standards of perfection that are real! + +Wealth, again, that end to which our prodigious works for material +advantage are directed,--the commonest of commonplaces tells us how men +are always apt to regard wealth as a precious end in itself: and +certainly they have never been so apt thus to regard it as they are in +England at the present time. Never did people believe anything more +firmly than nine Englishmen out of ten at the present day believe that +our greatness and welfare are proved by our being so very rich. Now, the +use of culture is that it helps us, by means of its spiritual standard +of perfection, to regard wealth as but machinery, and not only to say as +a matter of words that we regard wealth as but machinery, but really to +perceive and feel that it is so. If it were not for this purging effect +wrought upon our minds by culture, the whole world, the future as well +as the present, would inevitably belong to the Philistines. The people +who believe most that our greatness and welfare are proved by our being +very rich, and who most give their lives and thoughts to becoming rich, +are just the very people whom we call Philistines. Culture says: +"Consider these people, then, their way of life, their habits, their +manners, the very tones of their voice; look at them attentively; +observe the literature they read, the things which give them pleasure, +the words which come forth out of their mouths, the thoughts which make +the furniture of their minds; would any amount of wealth be worth having +with the condition that one was to become just like these people by +having it?" And thus culture begets a dissatisfaction which is of the +highest possible value in stemming the common tide of men's thoughts in +a wealthy and industrial community, and which saves the future, as one +may hope, from being vulgarized, even if it cannot save the present. + +Population, again, and bodily health and vigor, are things which are +nowhere treated in such an unintelligent, misleading, exaggerated way as +in England. Both are really machinery; yet how many people all around us +do we see rest in them and fail to look beyond them! Why, one has heard +people, fresh from reading certain articles of the _Times_ on the +Registrar-General's returns of marriages and births in this country, who +would talk of our large English families in quite a solemn strain, as if +they had something in itself beautiful, elevating, and meritorious in +them; as if the British Philistine would have only to present himself +before the Great Judge with his twelve children, in order to be received +among the sheep as a matter of right! + +But bodily health and vigor, it may be said, are not to be classed with +wealth and population as mere machinery; they have a more real and +essential value. True; but only as they are more intimately connected +with a perfect spiritual condition than wealth or population are. The +moment we disjoin them from the idea of a perfect spiritual condition, +and pursue them, as we do pursue them, for their own sake and as ends in +themselves, our worship of them becomes as mere worship of machinery, as +our worship of wealth or population, and as unintelligent and +vulgarizing a worship as that is. Every one with anything like an +adequate idea of human perfection has distinctly marked this +subordination to higher and spiritual ends of the cultivation of bodily +vigor and activity. "Bodily exercise profiteth little; but godliness is +profitable unto all things,"[398] says the author of the Epistle to +Timothy. And the utilitarian Franklin says just as explicitly:--"Eat and +drink such an exact quantity as suits the constitution of thy body, _in +reference to the services of the mind_."[399] But the point of view of +culture, keeping the mark of human perfection simply and broadly in +view, and not assigning to this perfection, as religion or +utilitarianism assigns to it, a special and limited character, this +point of view, I say, of culture is best given by these words of +Epictetus: "It is a sign of[Greek: aphuia]," says he,--that is, of a +nature not finely tempered,--"to give yourselves up to things which +relate to the body; to make, for instance, a great fuss about exercise, +a great fuss about eating, a great fuss about drinking, a great fuss +about walking, a great fuss about riding. All these things ought to be +done merely by the way: the formation of the spirit and character must +be our real concern."[400] This is admirable; and, indeed, the Greek +word[Greek: euphuia], a finely tempered nature, gives exactly the +notion of perfection as culture brings us to conceive it: a harmonious +perfection, a perfection in which the characters of beauty and +intelligence are both present, which unites "the two noblest of +things,"--as Swift, who of one of the two, at any rate, had himself all +too little, most happily calls them in his _Battle of the Books_,--"the +two noblest of things, _sweetness and light_."[401] The[Greek: +euphuaes] is the man who tends towards sweetness and light; the[Greek: +aphuaes], on the other hand, is our Philistine. The immense spiritual +significance of the Greeks is due to their having been inspired with +this central and happy idea of the essential character of human +perfection; and Mr. Bright's misconception of culture, as a smattering +of Greek and Latin, comes itself, after all, from this wonderful +significance of the Greeks having affected the very machinery of our +education, and is in itself a kind of homage to it. + +In thus making sweetness and light to be characters of perfection, +culture is of like spirit with poetry, follows one law with poetry. Far +more than on our freedom, our population, and our industrialism, many +amongst us rely upon our religious organizations to save us. I have +called religion a yet more important manifestation of human nature than +poetry, because it has worked on a broader scale for perfection, and +with greater masses of men. But the idea of beauty and of a human nature +perfect on all its sides, which is the dominant idea of poetry, is a +true and invaluable idea, though it has not yet had the success that the +idea of conquering the obvious faults of our animality, and of a human +nature perfect on the moral side,--which is the dominant idea of +religion,--has been enabled to have; and it is destined, adding to +itself the religious idea of a devout energy, to transform and govern +the other. + +The best art and poetry of the Greeks, in which religion and poetry are +one, in which the idea of beauty and of a human nature perfect on all +sides adds to itself a religious and devout energy, and works in the +strength of that, is on this account of such surpassing interest and +instructiveness for us, though it was,--as, having regard to the human +race in general, and, indeed, having regard to the Greeks themselves, we +must own,--a premature attempt, an attempt which for success needed the +moral and religious fibre in humanity to be more braced and developed +than it had yet been. But Greece did not err in having the idea of +beauty, harmony, and complete human perfection, so present and +paramount. It is impossible to have this idea too present and paramount; +only, the moral fibre must be braced too. And we, because we have braced +the moral fibre, are not on that account in the right way, if at the +same time the idea of beauty, harmony, and complete human perfection, is +wanting or misapprehended amongst us; and evidently it _is_ wanting or +misapprehended at present. And when we rely as we do on our religious +organizations, which in themselves do not and cannot give us this idea, +and think we have done enough if we make them spread and prevail, then, +I say, we fall into our common fault of overvaluing machinery. + +Nothing is more common than for people to confound the inward peace and +satisfaction which follows the subduing of the obvious faults of our +animality with what I may call absolute inward peace and satisfaction,-- +the peace and satisfaction which are reached as we draw near to complete +spiritual perfection, and not merely to moral perfection, or rather to +relative moral perfection. No people in the world have done more and +struggled more to attain this relative moral perfection than our English +race has. For no people in the world has the command to _resist the +devil_, to _overcome the wicked one_, in the nearest and most obvious +sense of those words, had such a pressing force and reality. And we have +had our reward, not only in the great worldly prosperity which our +obedience to this command has brought us, but also, and far more, in +great inward peace and satisfaction. But to me few things are more +pathetic than to see people, on the strength of the inward peace and +satisfaction which their rudimentary efforts towards perfection have +brought them, employ, concerning their incomplete perfection and the +religious organizations within which they have found it, language which +properly applies only to complete perfection, and is a far-off echo of +the human soul's prophecy of it. Religion itself, I need hardly say, +supplies them in abundance with this grand language. And very freely do +they use it; yet it is really the severest possible criticism of such an +incomplete perfection as alone we have yet reached through our religious +organizations. + +The impulse of the English race towards moral development and +self-conquest has nowhere so powerfully manifested itself as in +Puritanism. Nowhere has Puritanism found so adequate an expression as in +the religious organization of the Independents.[402] The modern +Independents have a newspaper, the _Nonnconformist_, written with great +sincerity and ability. The motto, the standard, the profession of faith +which this organ of theirs carries aloft, is: "The Dissidence of Dissent +and the Protestantism of the Protestant religion."[403] There is +sweetness and light, and an ideal of complete harmonious human +perfection! One need not go to culture and poetry to find language to +judge it. Religion, with its instinct for perfection, supplies language +to judge it, language, too, which is in our mouths every day. "Finally, +be of one mind, united in feeling,"[404] says St. Peter. There is an +ideal which judges the Puritan ideal: "The Dissidence of Dissent and the +Protestantism of the Protestant religion!" And religious organizations +like this are what people believe in, rest in, would give their lives +for! Such, I say, is the wonderful virtue of even the beginnings of +perfection, of having conquered even the plain faults of our animality, +that the religious organization which has helped us to do it can seem to +us something precious, salutary, and to be propagated, even when it +wears such a brand of imperfection on its forehead as this. And men have +got such a habit of giving to the language of religion a special +application, of making it a mere jargon, that for the condemnation which +religion itself passes on the shortcomings of their religious +organizations they have no ear; they are sure to cheat themselves and to +explain this condemnation away. They can only be reached by the +criticism which culture, like poetry, speaking a language not to be +sophisticated, and resolutely testing these organizations by the ideal +of a human perfection complete on all sides, applies to them. + +But men of culture and poetry, it will be said, are again and again +failing, and failing conspicuously, in the necessary first stage to a +harmonious perfection, in the subduing of the great obvious faults of +our animality, which it is the glory of these religious organizations to +have helped us to subdue. True, they do often so fail. They have often +been without the virtues as well as the faults of the Puritan; it has +been one of their dangers that they so felt the Puritan's faults that +they too much neglected the practice of his virtues. I will not, +however, exculpate them at the Puritan's expense. They have often failed +in morality, and morality is indispensable. And they have been punished +for their failure, as the Puritan has been rewarded for his performance. +They have been punished wherein they erred; but their ideal of beauty, +of sweetness and light, and a human nature complete on all its sides, +remains the true ideal of perfection still; just as the Puritan's ideal +of perfection remains narrow and inadequate, although for what he did +well he has been richly rewarded. Notwithstanding the mighty results of +the Pilgrim Fathers' voyage, they and their standard of perfection are +rightly judged when we figure to ourselves Shakespeare or Virgil,--souls +in whom sweetness and light, and all that in human nature is most +humane, were eminent,--accompanying them on their voyage, and think what +intolerable company Shakespeare and Virgil would have found them! In the +same way let us judge the religious organizations which we see all +around us. Do not let us deny the good and the happiness which they have +accomplished; but do not let us fail to see clearly that their idea of +human perfection is narrow and inadequate, and that the Dissidence of +Dissent and the Protestantism of the Protestant religion will never +bring humanity to its true goal. As I said with regard to wealth: Let us +look at the life of those who live in and for it,--so I say with regard +to the religious organizations. Look at the life imaged in such a +newspaper as the _Nonnconformist_,--a life of jealousy of the +Establishment, disputes, tea-meetings, openings of chapels, sermons; and +then think of it as an ideal of a human life completing itself on all +sides, and aspiring with all its organs after sweetness, light, and +perfection! + +Another newspaper, representing, like the _Nonconformist_, one of the +religious organizations of this country, was a short time ago giving an +account of the crowd at Epsom[405] on the Derby day, and of all the vice +and hideousness which was to be seen in that crowd; and then the writer +turned suddenly round upon Professor Huxley, and asked him how he +proposed to cure all this vice and hideousness without religion. I +confess I felt disposed to ask the asker this question: and how do you +propose to cure it with such a religion as yours? How is the ideal of a +life so unlovely, so unattractive, so incomplete, so narrow, so far +removed from a true and satisfying ideal of human perfection, as is the +life of your religious organization as you yourself reflect it, to +conquer and transform all this vice and hideousness? Indeed, the +strongest plea for the study of perfection as pursued by culture, the +clearest proof of the actual inadequacy of the idea of perfection held +by the religious organizations,--expressing, as I have said, the most +widespread effort which the human race has yet made after perfection,-- +is to be found in the state of our life and society with these in +possession of it, and having been in possession of it I know not how +many hundred years. We are all of us included in some religious +organization or other; we all call ourselves, in the sublime and +aspiring language of religion which I have before noticed, _children of +God_. Children of God;--it is an immense pretension!--and how are we to +justify it? By the works which we do, and the words which we speak. And +the work which we collective children of God do, our grand centre of +life, our _city_ which we have builded for us to dwell in, is London! +London, with its unutterable external hideousness, and with its internal +canker of _publice egestas, privatim opulentia_,[406]--to use the words +which Sallust puts into Cato's mouth about Rome,--unequalled in the +world! The word, again, which we children of God speak, the voice which +most hits our collective thought, the newspaper with the largest +circulation in England, nay, with the largest circulation in the whole +world, is the _Daily Telegraph_![407] I say that when our religious +organizations--which I admit to express the most considerable effort +after perfection that our race has yet made--land us in no better result +than this, it is high time to examine carefully their idea of +perfection, to see whether it does not leave out of account sides and +forces of human nature which we might turn to great use; whether it +would not be more operative if it were more complete. And I say that the +English reliance on our religious organizations and on their ideas of +human perfection just as they stand, is like our reliance on freedom, on +muscular Christianity, on population, on coal, on wealth,--mere belief +in machinery, and unfruitful; and that it is wholesomely counteracted by +culture, bent on seeing things as they are, and on drawing the human +race onwards to a more complete, a harmonious perfection. + +Culture, however, shows its single-minded love of perfection, its desire +simply to make reason and the will of God prevail, its freedom from +fanaticism, by its attitude towards all this machinery, even while it +insists that it _is_ machinery. Fanatics, seeing the mischief men do +themselves by their blind belief in some machinery or other,--whether it +is wealth and industrialism, or whether it is the cultivation of bodily +strength and activity, or whether it is a political organization,--or +whether it is a religious organization,--oppose with might and main the +tendency to this or that political and religious organization, or to +games and athletic exercises, or to wealth and industrialism, and try +violently to stop it. But the flexibility which sweetness and light +give, and which is one of the rewards of culture pursued in good faith, +enables a man to see that a tendency may be necessary, and even, as a +preparation for something in the future, salutary, and yet that the +generations or individuals who obey this tendency are sacrificed to it, +that they fall short of the hope of perfection by following it; and that +its mischiefs are to be criticized, lest it should take too firm a hold +and last after it has served its purpose. + +Mr. Gladstone well pointed out, in a speech at Paris,--and others have +pointed out the same thing,--how necessary is the present great +movement towards wealth and industrialism, in order to lay broad +foundations of material well-being for the society of the future. The +worst of these justifications is, that they are generally addressed to +the very people engaged, body and soul, in the movement in question; at +all events, that they are always seized with the greatest avidity by +these people, and taken by them as quite justifying their life; and that +thus they tend to harden them in their sins. Now, culture admits the +necessity of the movement towards fortune-making and exaggerated +industrialism, readily allows that the future may derive benefit from +it; but insists, at the same time, that the passing generations of +industrialists,--forming, for the most part, the stout main body of +Philistinism,--are sacrificed to it. In the same way, the result of all +the games and sports which occupy the passing generation of boys and +young men may be the establishment of a better and sounder physical type +for the future to work with. Culture does not set itself against the +games and sports; it congratulates the future, and hopes it will make a +good use of its improved physical basis; but it points out that our +passing generation of boys and young men is, meantime, sacrificed. +Puritanism was perhaps necessary to develop the moral fibre of the +English race, Nonconformity to break the yoke of ecclesiastical +domination over men's minds and to prepare the way for freedom of +thought in the distant future; still, culture points out that the +harmonious perfection of generations of Puritans and Nonconformists has +been, in consequence, sacrificed. Freedom of speech may be necessary for +the society of the future, but the young lions[408] of the _Daily +Telegraph_ in the meanwhile are sacrificed. A voice for every man in his +country's government may be necessary for the society of the future, but +meanwhile Mr. Beales[409]and Mr. Bradlaugh[410] are sacrificed. + +Oxford, the Oxford of the past, has many faults; and she has heavily +paid for them in defeat, in isolation, in want of hold upon the modern +world. Yet we in Oxford, brought up amidst the beauty and sweetness of +that beautiful place, have not failed to seize one truth,--the truth +that beauty and sweetness are essential characters of a complete human +perfection. When I insist on this, I am all in the faith and tradition +of Oxford. I say boldly that this our sentiment for beauty and +sweetness, our sentiment against hideousness and rawness, has been at +the bottom of our attachment to so many beaten causes, of our opposition +to so many triumphant movements. And the sentiment is true, and has +never been wholly defeated, and has shown its power even in its defeat. +We have not won our political battles, we have not carried our main +points, we have not stopped our adversaries' advance, we have not +marched victoriously with the modern world; but we have told silently +upon the mind of the country, we have prepared currents of feeling which +sap our adversaries' position when it seems gained, we have kept up our +own communications with the future. Look at the course of the great +movement which shook Oxford to its centre some thirty years ago! It was +directed, as any one who reads Dr. Newman's _Apology_[411] may see, +against what in one word may be called "Liberalism." Liberalism +prevailed; it was the appointed force to do the work of the hour; it was +necessary, it was inevitable that it should prevail. The Oxford movement +was broken, it failed; our wrecks are scattered on every shore:-- + + "Quæ regio in terris nostri non plena laboris?"[412] + +But what was it, this liberalism, as Dr. Newman saw it, and as it really +broke the Oxford movement? It was the great middle-class liberalism, +which had for the cardinal points of its belief the Reform Bill of +1832,[413] and local self-government, in politics; in the social sphere, +free-trade, unrestricted competition, and the making of large industrial +fortunes; in the religious sphere, the Dissidence of Dissent and the +Protestantism of the Protestant religion. I do not say that other and +more intelligent forces than this were not opposed to the Oxford +movement: but this was the force which really beat it; this was the +force which Dr. Newman felt himself fighting with; this was the force +which till only the other day seemed to be the paramount force in this +country, and to be in possession of the future; this was the force whose +achievements fill Mr. Lowe[414] with such inexpressible admiration, and +whose rule he was so horror-struck to see threatened. And where is this +great force of Philistinism now? It is thrust into the second rank, it +is become a power of yesterday, it has lost the future. A new power has +suddenly appeared, a power which it is impossible yet to judge fully, +but which is certainly a wholly different force from middle-class +liberalism; different in its cardinal points of belief, different in its +tendencies in every sphere. It loves and admires neither the legislation +of middle-class Parliaments, nor the local self-government of +middle-class vestries, nor the unrestricted competition of middle-class +industrialists, nor the dissidence of middle-class Dissent and the +Protestantism of middle-class Protestant religion. I am not now praising +this new force, or saying that its own ideals are better; all I say is, +that they are wholly different. And who will estimate how much the +currents of feeling created by Dr. Newman's movements, the keen desire +for beauty and sweetness which it nourished, the deep aversion it +manifested to the hardness and vulgarity of middle-class liberalism, the +strong light it turned on the hideous and grotesque illusions of +middle-class Protestantism,--who will estimate how much all these +contributed to swell the tide of secret dissatisfaction which has mined +the ground under self-confident liberalism of the last thirty years, and +has prepared the way for its sudden collapse and supersession? It is in +this manner that the sentiment of Oxford for beauty and sweetness +conquers, and in this manner long may it continue to conquer! + +In this manner it works to the same end as culture, and there is plenty +of work for it yet to do. I have said that the new and more democratic +force which is now superseding our old middle-class liberalism cannot +yet be rightly judged. It has its main tendencies still to form. We hear +promises of its giving us administrative reform, law reform, reform of +education, and I know not what; but those promises come rather from its +advocates, wishing to make a good plea for it and to justify it for +superseding middle-class liberalism, than from clear tendencies which it +has itself yet developed. But meanwhile it has plenty of +well-intentioned friends against whom culture may with advantage +continue to uphold steadily its ideal of human perfection; that this is +_an inward spiritual activity, having for its characters increased +sweetness, increased light, increased life, increased sympathy_. Mr. +Bright, who has a foot in both worlds, the world of middle-class +liberalism and the world of democracy, but who brings most of his ideas +from the world of middle-class liberalism in which he was bred, always +inclines to inculcate that faith in machinery to which, as we have seen, +Englishmen are so prone, and which has been the bane of middle-class +liberalism. He complains with a sorrowful indignation of people who +"appear to have no proper estimate of the value of the franchise"; he +leads his disciples to believe--what the Englishman is always too ready +to believe--that the having a vote, like the having a large family, or +a large business, or large muscles, has in itself some edifying and +perfecting effect upon human nature. Or else he cries out to the +democracy,--"the men," as he calls them," upon whose shoulders the +greatness of England rests,"--he cries out to them: "See what you have +done! I look over this country and see the cities you have built, the +railroads you have made, the manufactures you have produced, the cargoes +which freight the ships of the greatest mercantile navy the world has +ever seen! I see that you have converted by your labors what was once a +wilderness, these islands, into a fruitful garden; I know that you have +created this wealth, and are a nation whose name is a word of power +throughout all the world." Why, this is just the very style of laudation +with which Mr. Roebuck or Mr. Lowe debauches the minds of the middle +classes, and makes such Philistines of them. It is the same fashion of +teaching a man to value himself not on what he _is_, not on his progress +in sweetness and light, but on the number of the railroads he has +constructed, or the bigness of the tabernacle he has built. Only the +middle classes are told they have done it all with their energy, +self-reliance, and capital, and the democracy are told they have done it +all with their hands and sinews. But teaching the democracy to put its +trust in achievements of this kind is merely training them to be +Philistines to take the place of the Philistines whom they are +superseding; and they, too, like the middle class, will be encouraged to +sit down at the banquet of the future without having on a wedding +garment, and nothing excellent can then come from them. Those who know +their besetting faults, or those who have watched them and listened to +them, or those who will read the instructive account recently given of +them by one of themselves, the _Journeyman Engineer_, will agree that +the idea which culture sets before us of perfection,--an increased +spiritual activity, having for its characters increased sweetness, +increased light, increased life, increased sympathy,--is an idea which +the new democracy needs far more than the idea of the blessedness of the +franchise, or the wonderfulness of its own industrial performances. + +Other well-meaning friends of this new power are for leading it, not in +the old ruts of middle-class Philistinism, but in ways which are +naturally alluring to the feet of democracy, though in this country they +are novel and untried ways. I may call them the ways of Jacobinism.[415] +Violent indignation with the past, abstract systems of renovation +applied wholesale, a new doctrine drawn up in black and white for +elaborating down to the very smallest details a rational society for the +future,--these are the ways of Jacobinism. Mr. Frederic Harrison[416] +and other disciples of Comte,[417]--one of them, Mr. Congreve,[418] is +an old friend of mine, and I am glad to have an opportunity of publicly +expressing my respect for his talents and character,--are among the +friends of democracy who are for leading it in paths of this kind. Mr. +Frederic Harrison is very hostile to culture, and from a natural enough +motive; for culture is the eternal opponent of the two things which are +the signal marks of Jacobinism,--its fierceness, and its addiction to +an abstract system. Culture is always assigning to system-makers and +systems a smaller share in the bent of human destiny than their friends +like. A current in people's minds sets towards new ideas; people are +dissatisfied with their old narrow stock of Philistine ideas, +Anglo-Saxon ideas, or any other; and some man, some Bentham[419] or +Comte, who has the real merit of having early and strongly felt and +helped the new current, but who brings plenty of narrowness and mistakes +of his own into his feeling and help of it, is credited with being the +author of the whole current, the fit person to be entrusted with its +regulation and to guide the human race. + +The excellent German historian of the mythology of Rome, Preller,[420] +relating the introduction at Rome under the Tarquins of the worship of +Apollo, the god of light, healing, and reconciliation, will have us +observe that it was not so much the Tarquins who brought to Rome the new +worship of Apollo, as a current in the mind of the Roman people which +set powerfully at that time towards a new worship of this kind, and away +from the old run of Latin and Sabine religious ideas. In a similar way, +culture directs our attention to the natural current there is in human +affairs, and to its continual working, and will not let us rivet our +faith upon any one man and his doings. It makes us see not only his good +side, but also how much in him was of necessity limited and transient; +nay, it even feels a pleasure, a sense of an increased freedom and of an +ampler future, in so doing. + +I remember, when I was under the influence of a mind to which I feel the +greatest obligations, the mind of a man who was the very incarnation of +sanity and clear sense, a man the most considerable, it seems to me, +whom America has yet produced,--Benjamin Franklin,--I remember the +relief with which, after long feeling the sway of Franklin's +imperturbable common-sense, I came upon a project of his for a new +version of the Book of Job,[421] to replace the old version, the style +of which, says Franklin, has become obsolete, and thence less +agreeable. "I give," he continues, "a few verses, which may serve as a +sample of the kind of version I would recommend." We all recollect the +famous verse in our translation: "Then Satan answered the Lord and said: +'Doth Job fear God for nought?'" Franklin makes this: "Does your Majesty +imagine that Job's good conduct is the effect of mere personal +attachment and affection?" I well remember how, when first I read that, +I drew a deep breath of relief and said to myself: "After all, there is +a stretch of humanity beyond Franklin's victorious good sense!" So, +after hearing Bentham cried loudly up as the renovator of modern +society, and Bentham's mind and ideas proposed as the rulers of our +future, I open the _Deontology._[422] There I read: "While Xenophon was +writing his history and Euclid teaching geometry, Socrates and Plato +were talking nonsense under pretense of talking wisdom and morality. +This morality of theirs consisted in words; this wisdom of theirs was +the denial of matters known to every man's experience." From the moment +of reading that, I am delivered from the bondage of Bentham! the +fanaticism of his adherents can touch me no longer. I feel the +inadequacy of his mind and ideas for supplying the rule of human +society, for perfection. + +Culture tends always thus to deal with the men of a system, of +disciples, of a school; with men like Comte, or the late Mr. Buckle, +[423] or Mr. Mill.[424] However much it may find to admire in these +personages, or in some of them, it nevertheless remembers the text: "Be +not ye called Rabbi!" and it soon passes on from any Rabbi. But +Jacobinism loves a Rabbi; it does not want to pass on from its Rabbi in +pursuit of a future and still unreached perfection; it wants its Rabbi +and his ideas to stand for perfection, that they may with the more +authority recast the world; and for Jacobinism, therefore, culture,-- +eternally passing onwards and seeking,--is an impertinence and an +offence. But culture, just because it resists this tendency of +Jacobinism to impose on us a man with limitations and errors of his own +along with the true ideas of which he is the organ, really does the +world and Jacobinism itself a service. + +So, too, Jacobinism, in its fierce hatred of the past and of those whom +it makes liable for the sins of the past, cannot away with the +inexhaustible indulgence proper to culture, the consideration of +circumstances, the severe judgment of actions joined to the merciful +judgment of persons. "The man of culture is in politics," cries Mr. +Frederic Harrison, "one of the poorest mortals alive!" Mr. Frederic +Harrison wants to be doing business, and he complains that the man of +culture stops him with a "turn for small fault-finding, love of selfish +ease, and indecision in action." Of what use is culture, he asks, except +for "a critic of new books or a professor of _belles-lettres_?"[425] +Why, it is of use because, in presence of the fierce exasperation which +breathes, or rather, I may say, hisses through the whole production in +which Mr. Frederic Harrison asks that question, it reminds us that the +perfection of human nature is sweetness and light. It is of use, +because, like religion,--that other effort after perfection,--it +testifies that, where bitter envying and strife are, there is confusion +and every evil work. + +The pursuit of perfection, then, is the pursuit of sweetness and light. +He who works for sweetness and light, works to make reason and the will +of God prevail. He who works for machinery, he who works for hatred, +works only for confusion. Culture looks beyond machinery, culture hates +hatred; culture has one great passion, the passion for sweetness and +light. It has one even yet greater!--the passion for making them +_prevail_. It is not satisfied till we _all_ come to a perfect man; it +knows that the sweetness and light of the few must be imperfect until +the raw and unkindled masses of humanity are touched with sweetness and +light. If I have not shrunk from saying that we must work for sweetness +and light, so neither have I shrunk from saying that we must have a +broad basis, must have sweetness and light for as many as possible. +Again and again I have insisted how those are the happy moments of +humanity, how those are the marking epochs of a people's life, how those +are the flowering times for literature and art and all the creative +power of genius, when there is a _national_ glow of life and thought, +when the whole of society is in the fullest measure permeated by +thought, sensible to beauty, intelligent and alive. Only it must be +_real_ thought and _real_ beauty; _real_ sweetness and _real_ light. +Plenty of people will try to give the masses, as they call them, an +intellectual food prepared and adapted in the way they think proper for +the actual condition of the masses. The ordinary popular literature is +an example of this way of working on the masses. Plenty of people will +try to indoctrinate the masses with the set of ideas and judgments +constituting the creed of their own profession or party. Our religious +and political organizations give an example of this way of working on +the masses. I condemn neither way; but culture works differently. It +does not try to teach down to the level of inferior classes; it does not +try to win them for this or that sect of its own, with ready-made +judgments and watchwords. It seeks to do away with classes; to make the +best that has been thought and known in the world current everywhere; to +make all men live in an atmosphere of sweetness and light, where they +may use ideas, as it uses them itself, freely,--nourished, and not bound +by them. + +This is the _social idea_; and the men of culture are the true apostles +of equality. The great men of culture are those who have had a passion +for diffusing, for making prevail, for carrying from one end of society +to the other, the best knowledge, the best ideas of their time; who have +labored to divest knowledge of all that was harsh, uncouth, difficult, +abstract, professional, exclusive; to humanize it, to make it efficient +outside the clique of the cultivated and learned, yet still remaining +the _best_ knowledge and thought of the time, and a true source, +therefore, of sweetness and light. Such a man was Abelard[426] in the +Middle Ages, in spite of all his imperfections; and thence the boundless +emotion and enthusiasm which Abelard excited. Such were Lessing[427] +and Herder[428] in Germany, at the end of the last century; and their +services to Germany were in this way inestimably precious. Generations +will pass, and literary monuments will accumulate, and works far more +perfect than the works of Lessing and Herder will be produced in +Germany; and yet the names of these two men will fill a German with a +reverence and enthusiasm such as the names of the most gifted masters +will hardly awaken. And why? Because they _humanized_ knowledge; because +they broadened the basis of life and intelligence; because they worked +powerfully to diffuse sweetness and light, to make reason and the will +of God prevail. With Saint Augustine they said: "Let us not leave thee +alone to make in the secret of thy knowledge, as thou didst before the +creation of the firmament, the division of light from darkness; let the +children of thy spirit, placed in their firmament, make their light +shine upon the earth, mark the division of night and day, and announce +the revolution of the times; for the old order is passed, and the new +arises; the night is spent, the day is come forth; and thou shalt crown +the year with thy blessing, when thou shalt send forth laborers into thy +harvest sown by other hands than theirs; when thou shalt send forth new +laborers to new seed-times, whereof the harvest shall be not yet."[429] + + + +HEBRAISM AND HELLENISM[430] + + +This fundamental ground is our preference of doing to thinking. Now this +preference is a main element in our nature and as we study it we find +ourselves opening up a number of large questions on every side. + +Let me go back for a moment to Bishop Wilson,[431] who says: "First, +never go against the best light you have; secondly, take care that your +light be not darkness." We show, as a nation, laudable energy and +persistence in walking according to the best light we have, but are not +quite careful enough, perhaps, to see that our light be not darkness. +This is only another version of the old story that energy is our strong +point and favorable characteristic, rather than intelligence. But we may +give to this idea a more general form still, in which it will have a yet +larger range of application. We may regard this energy driving at +practice, this paramount sense of the obligation of duty, self-control, +and work, this earnestness in going manfully with the best light we +have, as one force. And we may regard the intelligence driving at those +ideas which are, after all, the basis of right practice, the ardent +sense for all the new and changing combinations of them which man's +development brings with it, the indomitable impulse to know and adjust +them perfectly, as another force. And these two forces we may regard as +in some sense rivals,--rivals not by the necessity of their own nature, +but as exhibited in man and his history,--and rivals dividing the empire +of the world between them. And to give these forces names from the two +races of men who have supplied the most signal and splendid +manifestations of them, we may call them respectively the forces of +Hebraism and Hellenism. Hebraism and Hellenism,--between these two +points of influence moves our world. At one time it feels more +powerfully the attraction of one of them, at another time of the other; +and it ought to be, though it never is, evenly and happily balanced +between them. + +The final aim of both Hellenism and Hebraism, as of all great spiritual +disciplines, is no doubt the same: man's perfection or salvation. The +very language which they both of them use in schooling us to reach this +aim is often identical. Even when their language indicates by +variation,--sometimes a broad variation, often a but slight and subtle +variation,--the different courses of thought which are uppermost in each +discipline, even then the unity of the final end and aim is still +apparent. To employ the actual words of that discipline with which we +ourselves are all of us most familiar, and the words of which, +therefore, come most home to us, that final end and aim is "that we +might be partakers of the divine nature."[432] These are the words of a +Hebrew apostle, but of Hellenism and Hebraism alike this is, I say, the +aim. When the two are confronted, as they very often are confronted, it +is nearly always with what I may call a rhetorical purpose; the +speaker's whole design is to exalt and enthrone one of the two, and he +uses the other only as a foil and to enable him the better to give +effect to his purpose. Obviously, with us, it is usually Hellenism which +is thus reduced to minister to the triumph of Hebraism. There is a +sermon on Greece and the Greek spirit by a man never to be mentioned +without interest and respect, Frederick Robertson,[433] in which this +rhetorical use of Greece and the Greek spirit, and the inadequate +exhibition of them necessarily consequent upon this, is almost +ludicrous, and would be censurable if it were not to be explained by the +exigencies of a sermon. On the other hand, Heinrich Heine,[434] and +other writers of his sort give us the spectacle of the tables completely +turned, and of Hebraism brought in just as a foil and contrast to +Hellenism, and to make the superiority of Hellenism more manifest. In +both these cases there is injustice and misrepresentation. The aim and +end of both Hebraism and Hellenism is, as I have said, one and the same, +and this aim and end is august and admirable. + +Still, they pursue this aim by very different courses. The uppermost +idea with Hellenism is to see things as they really are; the uppermost +idea with Hebraism is conduct and obedience. Nothing can do away with +this ineffaceable difference. The Greek quarrel with the body and its +desires is, that they hinder right thinking; the Hebrew quarrel with +them is, that they hinder right acting. "He that keepeth the law, happy +is he";[435] "Blessed is the man that feareth the Eternal, that +delighteth greatly in his commandments";--[436] that is the Hebrew +notion of felicity; and, pursued with passion and tenacity, this notion +would not let the Hebrew rest till, as is well known, he had at last got +out of the law a network of prescriptions to enwrap his whole life, to +govern every moment of it, every impulse, every action. The Greek notion +of felicity, on the other hand, is perfectly conveyed in these words of +a great French moralist: "_C'est le bonheur des hommes_,"--when? when +they abhor that which is evil?--no; when they exercise themselves in the +law of the Lord day and night?--no; when they die daily?--no; when they +walk about the New Jerusalem with palms in their hands?--no; but when +they think aright, when their thought hits: "_quand ils pensent juste_." +At the bottom of both the Greek and the Hebrew notion is the desire, +native in man, for reason and the will of God, the feeling after the +universal order,--in a word, the love of God. But, while Hebraism seizes +upon certain plain, capital intimations of, the universal order, and +rivets itself, one may say, with unequalled grandeur of earnestness and +intensity on the study and observance of them, the bent of Hellenism is +to follow, with flexible activity, the whole play of the universal +order, to be apprehensive of missing any part of it, of sacrificing one +part to another, to slip away from resting in this or that intimation of +it, however capital. An unclouded clearness of mind, an unimpeded play +of thought, is what this bent drives at. The governing idea of Hellenism +is _spontaneity of consciousness_; that of Hebraism, _strictness of +conscience_. + +Christianity changed nothing in this essential bent of Hebraism to set +doing above knowing. Self-conquest, self-devotion, the following not our +own individual will, but the will of God, _obedience_, is the +fundamental idea of this form, also, of the discipline to which we have +attached the general name of Hebraism. Only, as the old law and the +network of prescriptions with which it enveloped human life were +evidently a motive-power not driving and searching enough to produce the +result aimed at,--patient continuance in well-doing, self-conquest,-- +Christianity substituted for them boundless devotion to that inspiring +and affecting pattern of self-conquest offered by Jesus Christ; and by +the new motive-power, of which the essence was this, though the love and +admiration of Christian churches have for centuries been employed in +varying, amplifying, and adorning the plain description of it, +Christianity, as St. Paul truly says, "establishes the law,"[437] and in +the strength of the ampler power which she has thus supplied to fulfill +it, has accomplished the miracles, which we all see, of her history. + +So long as we do not forget that both Hellenism and Hebraism are +profound and admirable manifestations of man's life, tendencies, and +powers, and that both of them aim at a like final result, we can hardly +insist too strongly on the divergence of line and of operation with +which they proceed. It is a divergence so great that it most truly, as +the prophet Zechariah says, "has raised up thy sons, O Zion, against thy +sons, O Greece!"[438] The difference whether it is by doing or by +knowing that we set most store, and the practical consequences which +follow from this difference, leave their mark on all the history of our +race and of its development. Language may be abundantly quoted from both +Hellenism and Hebraism to make it seem that one follows the same current +as the other towards the same goal. They are, truly, borne towards the +same goal; but the currents which bear them are infinitely different. It +is true, Solomon will praise knowing: "Understanding is a well-spring of +life unto him that hath it."[439] And in the New Testament, again, Jesus +Christ is a "light,"[440] and "truth makes us free."[441] It is true, +Aristotle will undervalue knowing: "In what concerns virtue," says he, +"three things are necessary--knowledge, deliberate will, and +perseverance; but, whereas the two last are all-important, the first is +a matter of little importance."[442] It is true that with the same +impatience with which St. James enjoins a man to be not a forgetful +hearer, but a _doer of the work_,[443] Epictetus[444] exhorts us to _do_ +what we have demonstrated to ourselves we ought to do; or he taunts us +with futility, for being armed at all points to prove that lying is +wrong, yet all the time continuing to lie. It is true, Plato, in words +which are almost the words of the New Testament or the Imitation, calls +life a learning to die.[445] But underneath the superficial agreement +the fundamental divergence still subsists. The understanding of Solomon +is "the walking in the way of the commandments"; this is "the way of +peace," and it is of this that blessedness comes. In the New Testament, +the truth which gives us the peace of God and makes us free, is the love +of Christ constraining us[446] to crucify, as he did, and with a like +purpose of moral regeneration, the flesh with its affections and lusts, +and thus establishing, as we have seen, the law. The moral virtues, on +the other hand, are with Aristotle but the porch[447] and access to the +intellectual, and with these last is blessedness. That partaking of the +divine life, which both Hellenism and Hebraism, as we have said, fix as +their crowning aim, Plato expressly denies to the man of practical +virtue merely, of self-conquest with any other motive than that of +perfect intellectual vision. He reserves it for the lover of pure +knowledge, of seeing things as they really are,--the[Greek: +philomathhaes][448] + +Both Hellenism and Hebraism arise out of the wants of human nature, and +address themselves to satisfying those wants. But their methods are so +different, they lay stress on such different points, and call into being +by their respective disciplines such different activities, that the face +which human nature presents when it passes from the hands of one of them +to those of the other, is no longer the same. To get rid of one's +ignorance, to see things as they are, and by seeing them as they are to +see them in their beauty, is the simple and attractive ideal which +Hellenism holds out before human nature; and from the simplicity and +charm of this ideal, Hellenism, and human life in the hands of +Hellenism, is invested with a kind of aërial ease, clearness, and +radiancy; they are full of what we call sweetness and light. +Difficulties are kept out of view, and the beauty and rationalness of +the ideal have all our thoughts. "The best man is he who most tries to +perfect himself, and the happiest man is he who most feels that he _is_ +perfecting himself,"[449]--this account of the matter by Socrates, the +true Socrates of the _Memorabilia_, has something so simple, +spontaneous, and unsophisticated about it, that it seems to fill us with +clearness and hope when we hear it. But there is a saying which I have +heard attributed to Mr. Carlyle about Socrates--a very happy saying, +whether it is really Mr. Carlyle's or not,--which excellently marks the +essential point in which Hebraism differs from Hellenism. "Socrates," +this saying goes, "is terribly _at ease in Zion_." Hebraism--and here is +the source of its wonderful strength--has always been severely +preoccupied with an awful sense of the impossibility of being at ease in +Zion; of the difficulties which oppose themselves to man's pursuit or +attainment of that perfection of which Socrates talks so hopefully, and, +as from this point of view one might almost say, so glibly. It is all +very well to talk of getting rid of one's ignorance, of seeing things in +their reality, seeing them in their beauty; but how is this to be done +when there is something which thwarts and spoils all our efforts? + +This something is _sin_; and the space which sin fills in Hebraism, as +compared with Hellenism, is indeed prodigious. This obstacle to +perfection fills the whole scene, and perfection appears remote and +rising away from earth, in the background. Under the name of sin, the +difficulties of knowing oneself and conquering oneself which impede +man's passage to perfection, become, for Hebraism, a positive, active +entity hostile to man, a mysterious power which I heard Dr. Pusey[450] +the other day, in one of his impressive sermons, compare to a hideous +hunchback seated on our shoulders, and which it is the main business of +our lives to hate and oppose. The discipline of the Old Testament may be +summed up as a discipline teaching us to abhor and flee from sin; the +discipline of the New Testament, as a discipline teaching us to die to +it. As Hellenism speaks of thinking clearly, seeing things in their +essence and beauty, as a grand and precious feat for man to achieve, so +Hebraism speaks of becoming conscious of sin, of awakening to a sense of +sin, as a feat of this kind. It is obvious to what wide divergence these +differing tendencies, actively followed, must lead. As one passes and +repasses from Hellenism to Hebraism, from Plato to St. Paul, one feels +inclined to rub one's eyes and ask oneself whether man is indeed a +gentle and simple being, showing the traces of a noble and divine +nature; or an unhappy chained captive, laboring with groanings that +cannot be uttered to free himself from the body of this death. + +Apparently it was the Hellenic conception of human nature which was +unsound, for the world could not live by it. Absolutely to call it +unsound, however, is to fall into the common error of its Hebraizing +enemies; but it was unsound at that particular moment of man's +development, it was premature. The indispensable basis of conduct and +self-control, the platform upon which alone the perfection aimed at by +Greece can come into bloom, was not to be reached by our race so easily; +centuries of probation and discipline were needed to bring us to it. +Therefore the bright promise of Hellenism faded, and Hebraism ruled the +world. Then was seen that astonishing spectacle, so well marked by the +often-quoted words of the prophet Zechariah, when men of all languages +and nations took hold of the skirt of him that was a Jew, saying:--"_We +will go with you, for we have heard that God is with you_."[451] And the +Hebraism which thus received and ruled a world all gone out of the way +and altogether become unprofitable, was, and could not but be, the +later, the more spiritual, the more attractive development of Hebraism. +It was Christianity; that is to say, Hebraism aiming at self-conquest +and rescue from the thrall of vile affections, not by obedience to the +letter of a law, but by conformity to the image of a self-sacrificing +example. To a world stricken with moral enervation Christianity offered +its spectacle of an inspired self-sacrifice; to men who refused +themselves nothing, it showed one who refused himself everything;--"_my +Saviour banished joy!_"[452] says George Herbert. When the _alma Venus_, +the life-giving and joy-giving power of nature, so fondly cherished by +the pagan world, could not save her followers from self-dissatisfaction +and ennui, the severe words of the apostle came bracingly and +refreshingly: "Let no man deceive you with vain words, for because of +these things cometh the wrath of God upon the children of +disobedience."[453] Through age after age and generation after +generation, our race, or all that part of our race which was most living +and progressive, was _baptized into a death_; and endeavored, by +suffering in the flesh, to cease from sin. Of this endeavor, the +animating labors and afflictions of early Christianity, the touching +asceticism of mediæval Christianity, are the great historical +manifestations. Literary monuments of it, each in its own way +incomparable, remain in the _Epistles_ of St. Paul, in St. Augustine's +_Confessions_, and in the two original and simplest books of the +_Imitation_.[454] + +Of two disciplines laying their main stress, the one, on clear +intelligence, the other, on firm obedience; the one, on comprehensively +knowing the ground of one's duty, the other, on diligently practising +it; the one, on taking all possible care (to use Bishop Wilson's words +again) that the light we have be not darkness, the other, that according +to the best light we have we diligently walk,--the priority naturally +belongs to that discipline which braces all man's moral powers, and +founds for him an indispensable basis of character. And, therefore, it +is justly said of the Jewish people, who were charged with setting +powerfully forth that side of the divine order to which the words +_conscience_ and _self-conquest_ point, that they were "entrusted with +the oracles of God";[455] as it is justly said of Christianity, which +followed Judaism and which set forth this side with a much deeper +effectiveness and a much wider influence, that the wisdom of the old +pagan world was foolishness[456] compared to it. No words of devotion +and admiration can be too strong to render thanks to these beneficent +forces which have so borne forward humanity in its appointed work of +coming to the knowledge and possession of itself; above all, in those +great moments when their action was the wholesomest and the most +necessary. + +But the evolution of these forces, separately and in themselves, is not +the whole evolution of humanity,--their single history is not the whole +history of man; whereas their admirers are always apt to make it stand +for the whole history. Hebraism and Hellenism are, neither of them, the +_law_ of human development, as their admirers are prone to make them; +they are, each of them, _contributions_ to human development,--august +contributions, invaluable contributions; and each showing itself to us +more august, more invaluable, more preponderant over the other, +according to the moment in which we take them, and the relation in which +we stand to them. The nations of our modern world, children of that +immense and salutary movement which broke up the pagan world, inevitably +stand to Hellenism in a relation which dwarfs it, and to Hebraism in a +relation which magnifies it. They are inevitably prone to take Hebraism +as the law of human development, and not as simply a contribution to it, +however precious. And yet the lesson must perforce be learned, that the +human spirit is wider than the most priceless of the forces which bear +it onward, and that to the whole development of man Hebraism itself is, +like Hellenism, but a contribution. + +Perhaps we may help ourselves to see this clearer by an illustration +drawn from the treatment of a single great idea which has profoundly +engaged the human spirit, and has given it eminent opportunities for +showing its nobleness and energy. It surely must be perceived that the +idea of immortality, as this idea rises in its generality before the +human spirit, is something grander, truer, and more satisfying, than it +is in the particular forms by which St. Paul, in the famous fifteenth +chapter of the Epistle to the Corinthians, and Plato, in the +_Phaedo_[457] endeavor to develop and establish it. Surely we cannot but +feel, that the argumentation with which the Hebrew apostle goes about to +expound this great idea is, after all, confused and inconclusive; and +that the reasoning, drawn from analogies of likeness and equality, which +is employed upon it by the Greek philosopher, is over-subtle and +sterile. Above and beyond the inadequate solutions which Hebraism and +Hellenism here attempt, extends the immense and august problem itself, +and the human spirit which gave birth to it. And this single +illustration may suggest to us how the same thing happens in other cases +also. + +But meanwhile, by alternations of Hebraism and Hellenism, of a man's +intellectual and moral impulses, of the effort to see things as they +really are, and the effort to win peace by self-conquest, the human +spirit proceeds; and each of these two forces has its appointed hours of +culmination and seasons of rule. As the great movement of Christianity +was a triumph of Hebraism and man's moral impulses, so the great +movement which goes by the name of the Renascence[458] was an uprising +and reinstatement of man's intellectual impulses and of Hellenism. We in +England, the devoted children of Protestantism, chiefly know the +Renascence by its subordinate and secondary side of the Reformation. The +Reformation has been often called a Hebraizing revival, a return to the +ardor and sincereness of primitive Christianity. No one, however, can +study the development of Protestantism and of Protestant churches +without feeling that into the Reforrmation, too,--Hebraizing child of +the Renascence and offspring of its fervor, rather than its +intelligence, as it undoubtedly was,--the subtle Hellenic leaven of the +Renascence found its way, and that the exact respective parts, in the +Reformation, of Hebraism and of Hellenism, are not easy to separate. But +what we may with truth say is, that all which Protestantism was to +itself clearly conscious of, all which it succeeded in clearly setting +forth in words, had the characters of Hebraism rather than of Hellenism. +The Reformation was strong, in that it was an earnest return to the +Bible and to doing from the heart the will of God as there written. It +was weak, in that it never consciously grasped or applied the central +idea of the Renascence,--the Hellenic idea of pursuing, in all lines of +activity, the law and science, to use Plato's words, of things as they +really are. Whatever direct superiority, therefore, Protestantism had +over Catholicism was a moral superiority, a superiority arising out of +its greater sincerity and earnestness,--at the moment of its apparition +at any rate,--in dealing with the heart and conscience. Its pretensions +to an intellectual superiority are in general quite illusory. For +Hellenism, for the thinking side in man as distinguished from the acting +side, the attitude of mind of Protestantism towards the Bible in no +respect differs from the attitude of mind of Catholicism towards the +Church. The mental habit of him who imagines that Balaam's ass spoke, in +no respect differs from the mental habit of him who imagines that a +Madonna of wood or stone winked; and the one, who says that God's Church +makes him believe what he believes, and the other, who says that God's +Word makes him believe what he believes, are for the philosopher +perfectly alike in not really and truly knowing, when they say _God's +Church_ and _God's Word_, what it is they say, or whereof they affirm. + +In the sixteenth century, therefore, Hellenism re-entered the world, +and again stood in presence of Hebraism,--a Hebraism renewed and purged. +Now, it has not been enough observed, how, in the seventeenth century, a +fate befell Hellenism in some respects analogous to that which befell it +at the commencement of our era. The Renascence, that great reawakening +of Hellenism, that irresistible return of humanity to nature and to +seeing things as they are, which in art, in literature, and in physics, +produced such splendid fruits, had, like the anterior Hellenism of the +pagan world, a side of moral weakness and of relaxation or insensibility +of the moral fibre, which in Italy showed itself with the most startling +plainness, but which in France, England, and other countries was very +apparent, too. Again this loss of spiritual balance, this exclusive +preponderance given to man's perceiving and knowing side, this unnatural +defect of his feeling and acting side, provoked a reaction. Let us trace +that reaction where it most nearly concerns us. + +Science has now made visible to everybody the great and pregnant +elements of difference which lie in race, and in how signal a manner +they make the genius and history of an Indo-European people vary from +those of a Semitic people. Hellenism is of Indo-European growth, +Hebraism is of Semitic growth; and we English, a nation of Indo-European +stock, seem to belong naturally to the movement of Hellenism. But +nothing more strongly marks the essential unity of man, than the +affinities we can perceive, in this point or that, between members of +one family of peoples and members of another. And no affinity of this +kind is more strongly marked than that likeness in the strength and +prominence of the moral fibre, which, notwithstanding immense elements +of difference, knits in some special sort the genius and history of us +English, and our American descendants across the Atlantic, to the genius +and history of the Hebrew people. Puritanism, which has been so great a +power in the English nation, and in the strongest part of the English +nation, was originally the reaction in the seventeenth century of the +conscience and moral sense of our race, against the moral indifference +and lax rule of conduct which in the sixteenth century came in with the +Renascence. It was a reaction of Hebraism against Hellenism; and it +powerfully manifested itself, as was natural, in a people with much of +what we call a Hebraizing turn, with a signal affinity for the bent +which, was the master-bent of Hebrew life. Eminently Indo-European by +its _humor_, by the power it shows, through this gift, of imaginatively +acknowledging the multiform aspects of the problem of life, and of thus +getting itself unfixed from its own over-certainty, of smiling at its +own over-tenacity, our race has yet (and a great part of its strength +lies here), in matters of practical life and moral conduct, a strong +share of the assuredness, the tenacity, the intensity of the Hebrews. +This turn manifested itself in Puritanism, and has had a great part in +shaping our history for the last two hundred years. Undoubtedly it +checked and changed amongst us that movement of the Renascence which we +see producing in the reign of Elizabeth such wonderful fruits. +Undoubtedly it stopped the prominent rule and direct development of that +order of ideas which we call by the name of Hellenism, and gave the +first rank to a different order of ideas. Apparently, too, as we said of +the former defeat of Hellenism, if Hellenism was defeated, this shows +that Hellenism was imperfect, and that its ascendency at that moment +would not have been for the world's good. + +Yet there is a very important difference between the defeat inflicted on +Hellenism by Christianity eighteen hundred years ago, and the check +given to the Renascence by Puritanism. The greatness of the difference +is well measured by the difference in force, beauty, significance, and +usefulness, between primitive Christianity and Protestantism. Eighteen +hundred years ago it was altogether the hour of Hebraism. Primitive +Christianity was legitimately and truly the ascendant force in the world +at that time, and the way of mankind's progress lay through its full +development. Another hour in man's development began in the fifteenth +century, and the main road of his progress then lay for a time through +Hellenism. Puritanism was no longer the central current of the world's +progress, it was a side stream crossing the central current and checking +it. The cross and the check may have been necessary and salutary, but +that does not do away with the essential difference between the main +stream of man's advance and a cross or side stream. For more than two +hundred years the main stream of man's advance has moved towards knowing +himself and the world, seeing things as they are, spontaneity of +consciousness; the main impulse of a great part, and that the strongest +part, of our nation has been towards strictness of conscience. They have +made the secondary the principal at the wrong moment, and the principal +they have at the wrong moment treated as secondary. This contravention +of the natural order has produced, as such contravention always must +produce, a certain confusion and false movement, of which we are now +beginning to feel, in almost every direction, the inconvenience. In all +directions our habitual causes of action seem to be losing +efficaciousness, credit, and control, both with others and even with +ourselves. Everywhere we see the beginnings of confusion, and we want a +clue to some sound order and authority. This we can only get by going +back upon the actual instincts and forces which rule our life, seeing +them as they really are, connecting them with other instincts and +forces, and enlarging our whole view and rule of life. + + + +EQUALITY[459] + + +When we talk of man's advance towards his full humanity, we think of an +advance, not along one line only, but several. Certain races and +nations, as we know, are on certain lines preëminent and representative. +The Hebrew nation was preëminent on one great line. "What nation," it +was justly asked by their lawgiver, "hath statutes and judgments so +righteous as the law which I set before you this day? Keep therefore and +do them; for this is your wisdom and your understanding in the sight of +the nations which shall hear all these statutes and say: Surely this +great nation is a wise and understanding people!" The Hellenic race was +preëminent on other lines. Isocrates[460] could say of Athens: "Our city +has left the rest of the world so far behind in philosophy and +eloquence, that those educated by Athens have become the teachers of the +rest of mankind; and so well has she done her part, that the name of +Greeks seems no longer to stand for a race but to stand for intelligence +itself, and they who share in our culture are called Greeks even before +those who are merely of our own blood." The power of intellect and +science, the power of beauty, the power of social life and manners,-- +these are what Greece so felt, and fixed, and may stand for. They are +great elements in our humanization. The power of conduct is another +great element; and this was so felt and fixed by Israel that we can +never with justice refuse to permit Israel, in spite of all his +shortcomings, to stand for it. + +So you see that in being humanized we have to move along several lines, +and that on certain lines certain nations find their strength and take a +lead. We may elucidate the thing yet further. Nations now existing may +be said to feel or to have felt the power of this or that element in our +humanization so signally that they are characterized by it. No one who +knows this country would deny that it is characterized, in a remarkable +degree, by a sense of the power of conduct. Our feeling for religion is +one part of this; our industry is another. What foreigners so much +remark in us--our public spirit, our love, amidst all our liberty, for +public order and for stability--are parts of it too. Then the power of +beauty was so felt by the Italians that their art revived, as we know, +the almost lost idea of beauty, and the serious and successful pursuit +of it. Cardinal Antonelli,[461] speaking to me about the education of +the common people in Rome, said that they were illiterate, indeed, but +whoever mingled with them at any public show, and heard them pass +judgment on the beauty or ugliness of what came before them,--"_e +brutto_," "_e bello_,"--would find that their judgment agreed admirably, +in general, with just what the most cultivated people would say. Even at +the present time, then, the Italians are preëminent in feeling the power +of beauty. The power of knowledge, in the same way, is eminently an +influence with the Germans. This by no means implies, as is sometimes +supposed, a high and fine general culture. What it implies is a strong +sense of the necessity of knowing _scientifically_, as the expression +is, the things which have to be known by us; of knowing them +systematically, by the regular and right process, and in the only real +way. And this sense the Germans especially have. Finally, there is the +power of social life and manners. And even the Athenians themselves, +perhaps, have hardly felt this power so much as the French. + +Voltaire, in a famous passage[462] where he extols the age of Louis the +Fourteenth and ranks it with the chief epochs in the civilization of our +race, has to specify the gift bestowed on us by the age of Louis the +Fourteenth, as the age of Pericles, for instance, bestowed on us its art +and literature, and the Italian Renascence its revival of art and +literature. And Voltaire shows all his acuteness in fixing on the gift +to name. It is not the sort of gift which we expect to see named. The +great gift of the age of Louis the Fourteenth to the world, says +Voltaire, was this: _l'esprit de société_, the spirit of society, the +social spirit. And another French writer, looking for the good points in +the old French nobility, remarks that this at any rate is to be said in +their favor: they established a high and charming ideal of social +intercourse and manners, for a nation formed to profit by such an ideal, +and which has profited by it ever since. And in America, perhaps, we see +the disadvantages of having social equality before there has been any +such high standard of social life and manners formed. + +We are not disposed in England, most of us, to attach all this +importance to social intercourse and manners. Yet Burke says: "There +ought to be a system of manners in every nation which a well-formed mind +would be disposed to relish." And the power of social life and manners +is truly, as we have seen, one of the great elements in our +humanization. Unless we have cultivated it, we are incomplete. The +impulse for cultivating it is not, indeed, a moral impulse. It is by no +means identical with the moral impulse to help our neighbor and to do +him good. Yet in many ways it works to a like end. It brings men +together, makes them feel the need of one another, be considerate of one +another, understand one another. But, above all things, it is a promoter +of equality. It is by the humanity of their manners that men are made +equal. "A man thinks to show himself my equal," says Goethe, "by being +_grob_,--that is to say, coarse and rude; he does not show himself my +equal, he shows himself _grob_." But a community having humane manners +is a community of equals, and in such a community great social +inequalities have really no meaning, while they are at the same time a +menace and an embarrassment to perfect ease of social intercourse. A +community with the spirit of society is eminently, therefore, a +community with the spirit of equality. A nation with a genius for +society, like the French or the Athenians, is irresistibly drawn towards +equality. From the first moment when the French people, with its +congenital sense for the power of social intercourse and manners, came +into existence, it was on the road to equality. When it had once got a +high standard of social manners abundantly established, and at the same +time the natural, material necessity for the feudal inequality of +classes and property pressed upon it no longer, the French people +introduced equality and made the French Revolution. It was not the +spirit of philanthropy which mainly impelled the French to that +Revolution, neither was it the spirit of envy, neither was it the love +of abstract ideas, though all these did something towards it; but what +did most was the spirit of society. + +The well-being of the many comes out more and more distinctly, in +proportion as time goes on, as the object we must pursue. An individual +or a class, concentrating their efforts upon their own well-being +exclusively, do but beget troubles both for others and for themselves +also. No individual life can be truly prosperous, passed, as Obermann +says, in the midst of men who suffer; _passée au milieu des générations +qui souffrent_. To the noble soul, it cannot be happy; to the ignoble, +it cannot be secure. Socialistic and communistic schemes have generally, +however, a fatal defect; they are content with too low and material a +standard of well-being. That instinct of perfection, which is the +master-power in humanity, always rebels at this, and frustrates the +work. Many are to be made partakers of well-being, true; but the ideal +of well-being is not to be, on that account, lowered and coarsened. M. +de Laveleye,[463] the political economist, who is a Belgian and a +Protestant, and whose testimony, therefore, we may the more readily take +about France, says that France, being the country of Europe where the +soil is more divided than anywhere except in Switzerland and Norway, is +at the same time the country where material well-being is most widely +spread, where wealth has of late years increased most, and where +population is least outrunning the limits, which, for the comfort and +progress of the working classes themselves, seem necessary. This may go +for a good deal. It supplies an answer to what Sir Erskine May[464] says +about the bad effects of equality upon French prosperity. But I will +quote to you from Mr. Hamerton[465] what goes, I think, for yet more. +Mr. Hamerton is an excellent observer and reporter, and has lived for +many years in France. He says of the French peasantry that they are +exceedingly ignorant. So they are. But he adds: "They are at the same +time full of intelligence; their manners are excellent, they have +delicate perceptions, they have tact, they have a certain refinement +which a brutalized peasantry could not possibly have. If you talk to one +of them at his own home, or in his field, he will enter into +conversation with you quite easily, and sustain his part in a perfectly +becoming way, with a pleasant combination of dignity and quiet humor. +The interval between him and a Kentish laborer is enormous." + +This is, indeed, worth your attention. Of course all mankind are, as Mr. +Gladstone says, of our own flesh and blood. But you know how often it +happens in England that a cultivated person, a person of the sort that +Mr. Charles Sumner[466] describes, talking to one of the lower class, or +even of the middle class, feels and cannot but feel, that there is +somehow a wall of partition between himself and the other, that they +seem to belong to two different worlds. Thoughts, feelings, perceptions, +susceptibilities, language, manners,--everything is different. Whereas, +with a French peasant, the most cultivated man may find himself in +sympathy, may feel that he is talking to an equal. This is an experience +which has been made a thousand times, and which may be made again any +day. And it may be carried beyond the range of mere conversation, it may +be extended to things like pleasures, recreations, eating and drinking, +and so on. In general the pleasures, recreations, eating and drinking of +English people, when once you get below that class which Mr. Charles +Sumner calls the class of gentlemen, are to one of that class +unpalatable and impossible. In France there is not this incompatibility. +Whether he mix with high or low, the gentleman feels himself in a world +not alien or repulsive, but a world where people make the same sort of +demands upon life, in things of this sort, which he himself does. In all +these respects France is the country where the people, as distinguished +from a wealthy refined class, most lives what we call a humane life, the +life of civilized man. + +Of course, fastidious persons can and do pick holes in it. There is just +now, in France, a _noblesse_ newly revived, full of pretension, full of +airs and graces and disdains; but its sphere is narrow, and out of its +own sphere no one cares very much for it. There is a general equality in +a humane kind of life. This is the secret of the passionate attachment +with which France inspires all Frenchmen, in spite of her fearful +troubles, her checked prosperity, her disconnected units, and the rest +of it. There is so much of the goodness and agreeableness of life there, +and for so many. It is the secret of her having been able to attach so +ardently to her the German and Protestant people of Alsace,[467] while +we have been so little able to attach the Celtic and Catholic people of +Ireland. France brings the Alsatians into a social system so full of the +goodness and agreeableness of life; we offer to the Irish no such +attraction. It is the secret, finally, of the prevalence which we have +remarked in other continental countries of a legislation tending, like +that of France, to social equality. The social system which equality +creates in France is, in the eyes of others, such a giver of the +goodness and agreeableness of life, that they seek to get the goodness +by getting the equality. + +Yet France has had her fearful troubles, as Sir Erskine May justly says. +She suffers too, he adds, from demoralization and intellectual stoppage. +Let us admit, if he likes, this to be true also. His error is that he +attributes all this to equality. Equality, as we have seen, has brought +France to a really admirable and enviable pitch of humanization in one +important line. And this, the work of equality, is so much a good in Sir +Erskine May's eyes, that he has mistaken it for the whole of which it is +a part, frankly identifies it with civilization, and is inclined to +pronounce France the most civilized of nations. + +But we have seen how much goes to full humanization, to true +civilization, besides the power of social life and manners. There is the +power of conduct, the power of intellect and knowledge, the power of +beauty. The power of conduct is the greatest of all. And without in the +least wishing to preach, I must observe, as a mere matter of natural +fact and experience, that for the power of conduct France has never had +anything like the same sense which she has had for the power of social +life and manners. Michelet,[468] himself a Frenchman, gives us the +reason why the Reformation did not succeed in France. It did not +succeed, he says, because _la France ne voulait pas de réforme morale_-- +moral reform France would not have; and the Reformation was above all a +moral movement. The sense in France for the power of conduct has not +greatly deepened, I think, since. The sense for the power of intellect +and knowledge has not been adequate either. The sense for beauty has not +been adequate. Intelligence and beauty have been, in general, but so far +reached, as they can be and are reached by men who, of the elements of +perfect humanization, lay thorough hold upon one only,--the power of +social intercourse and manners. I speak of France in general; she has +had, and she has, individuals who stand out and who form exceptions. +Well, then, if a nation laying no sufficient hold upon the powers of +beauty and knowledge, and a most failing and feeble hold upon the power +of conduct, comes to demoralization and intellectual stoppage and +fearful troubles, we need not be inordinately surprised. What we should +rather marvel at is the healing and bountiful operation of Nature, +whereby the laying firm hold on one real element in our humanization has +had for France results so beneficent. + +And thus, when Sir Erskine May gets bewildered between France's equality +and fearful troubles on the one hand, and the civilization of France on +the other, let us suggest to him that perhaps he is bewildered by his +data because he combines them ill. France has not exemplary disaster and +ruin as the fruits of equality, and at the same time, and independently +of this, an exemplary civilization. She has a large measure of happiness +and success as the fruits of equality, and she has a very large measure +of dangers and troubles as the fruits of something else. + +We have more to do, however, than to help Sir Erskine May out of his +scrape about France. We have to see whether the considerations which we +have been employing may not be of use to us about England. + +We shall not have much difficulty in admitting whatever good is to be +said of ourselves, and we will try not to be unfair by excluding all +that is not so favorable. Indeed, our less favorable side is the one +which we should be the most anxious to note, in order that we may mend +it. But we will begin with the good. Our people has energy and honesty +as its good characteristics. We have a strong sense for the chief power +in the life and progress of man,--the power of conduct. So far we speak +of the English people as a whole. Then we have a rich, refined, and +splendid aristocracy. And we have, according to Mr. Charles Sumner's +acute and true remark, a class of gentlemen, not of the nobility, but +well-bred, cultivated, and refined, larger than is to be found in any +other country. For these last we have Mr. Sumner's testimony. As to the +splendor of our aristocracy, all the world is agreed. Then we have a +middle class and a lower class; and they, after all, are the immense +bulk of the nation. + +Let us see how the civilization of these classes appears to a Frenchman, +who has witnessed, in his own country, the considerable humanization of +these classes by equality. To such an observer our middle class divides +itself into a serious portion and a gay or rowdy portion; both are a +marvel to him. With the gay or rowdy portion we need not much concern +ourselves; we shall figure it to our minds sufficiently if we conceive +it as the source of that war-song produced in these recent days of +excitement:-- + + "We don't want to fight, but by jingo, if we do, + We've got the ships, we've got the men, and we're got the money + too."[469] + + +We may also partly judge its standard of life, and the needs of its +nature, by the modern English theatre, perhaps the most contemptible in +Europe. But the real strength of the English middle class is in its +serious portion. And of this a Frenchman, who was here some little time +ago as the correspondent, I think, of the _Siècle_ newspaper, and whose +letters were afterwards published in a volume, writes as follows. He had +been attending some of the Moody and Sankey[470] meetings, and he says: +"To understand the success of Messrs. Moody and Sankey, one must be +familiar with English manners, one must know the mind-deadening +influence of a narrow Biblism, one must have experienced the sense of +acute ennui, which the aspect and the frequentation of this great +division of English society produce in others, the want of elasticity +and the chronic ennui which characterize this class itself, petrified in +a narrow Protestantism and in a perpetual reading of the Bible." + +You know the French;--a little more Biblism, one may take leave to say, +would do them no harm. But an audience like this--and here, as I said, +is the advantage of an audience like this--will have no difficulty in +admitting the amount of truth which there is in the Frenchman's picture. +It is the picture of a class which, driven by its sense for the power of +conduct, in the beginning of the seventeenth century entered,--as I have +more than once said, and as I may more than once have occasion in future +to say,--_entered the prison of Puritanism, and had the key turned upon +its spirit there for two hundred years_.[471] They did not know, good +and earnest people as they were, that to the building up of human life +there belong all those other powers also,--the power of intellect and +knowledge, the power of beauty, the power of social life and manners. +And something, by what they became, they gained, and the whole nation +with them; they deepened and fixed for this nation the sense of conduct. +But they created a type of life and manners, of which they themselves, +indeed, are slow to recognize the faults, but which is fatally condemned +by its hideousness, its immense ennui, and against which the instinct of +self-preservation in humanity rebels. + +Partisans fight against facts in vain. Mr. Goldwin Smith,[472] a writer +of eloquence and power, although too prone to acerbity, is a partisan of +the Puritans, and of the nonconformists who are the special inheritors +of the Puritan tradition. He angrily resents the imputation upon that +Puritan type of life, by which the life of our serious middle class has +been formed, that it was doomed to hideousness, to immense ennui. He +protests that it had beauty, amenity, accomplishment. Let us go to +facts. Charles the First, who, with all his faults, had the just idea +that art and letters are great civilizers, made, as you know, a famous +collection of pictures,--our first National Gallery. It was, I suppose, +the best collection at that time north of the Alps. It contained nine +Raphaels, eleven Correggios, twenty-eight Titians. What became of that +collection? The journals of the House of Commons will tell you. There +you may see the Puritan Parliament disposing of this Whitehall or York +House collection as follows: "Ordered, that all such pictures and +statues there as are without any superstition, shall be forthwith +sold.... Ordered, that all such pictures there as have the +representation of the Second Person in the Trinity upon them, shall be +forthwith burnt. Ordered, that all such pictures there as have the +representation of the Virgin Mary upon them, shall be forthwith burnt." +There we have the weak side of our parliamentary government and our +serious middle class. We are incapable of sending Mr. Gladstone to be +tried at the Old Bailey because he proclaims his antipathy to Lord +Beaconsfield. A majority in our House of Commons is incapable of +hailing, with frantic laughter and applause, a string of indecent jests +against Christianity and its Founder. But we are not, or were not +incapable of producing a Parliament which burns or sells the +masterpieces of Italian art. And one may surely say of such a Puritan +Parliament, and of those who determine its line for it, that they had +not the spirit of beauty. + +What shall we say of amenity? Milton was born a humanist, but the +Puritan temper, as we know, mastered him. There is nothing more unlovely +and unamiable than Milton the Puritan disputant. Some one answers his +_Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce_. "I mean not," rejoins Milton, "to +dispute philosophy with this pork, who never read any." However, he does +reply to him, and throughout the reply Milton's great joke is, that his +adversary, who was anonymous, is a serving-man. "Finally, he winds up +his text with much doubt and trepidation; for it may be his trenchers +were not scraped, and that which never yet afforded corn of favor to his +noddle--the salt-cellar--was not rubbed; and therefore, in this haste, +easily granting that his answers fall foul upon each other, and praying +you would not think he writes as a prophet, but as a man, he runs to the +black jack, fills his flagon, spreads the table, and serves up +dinner."[473] There you have the same spirit of urbanity and amenity, as +much of it, and as little, as generally informs the religious +controversies of our Puritan middle class to this day. + +But Mr. Goldwin Smith[474] insists, and picks out his own exemplar of +the Puritan type of life and manners; and even here let us follow him. +He picks out the most favorable specimen he can find,--Colonel +Hutchinson,[475] whose well-known memoirs, written by his widow, we have +all read with interest. "Lucy Hutchinson," says Mr. Goldwin Smith, "is +painting what she thought a perfect Puritan would be; and her picture +presents to us not a coarse, crop-eared, and snuffling fanatic, but a +highly accomplished, refined, gallant, and most amiable, though +religious and seriously minded, gentleman." Let us, I say, in this +example of Mr. Goldwin Smith's own choosing, lay our finger upon the +points where this type deflects from the truly humane ideal. + +Mrs. Hutchinson relates a story which gives us a good notion of what the +amiable and accomplished social intercourse, even of a picked Puritan +family, was. Her husband was governor of Nottingham. He had occasion, +she said, "to go and break up a private meeting in the cannoneer's +chamber"; and in the cannoneer's chamber "were found some notes +concerning pædobaptism,[476] which, being brought into the governor's +lodgings, his wife having perused them and compared them with the +Scriptures, found not what to say against the truths they asserted +concerning the mis-application of that ordinance to infants." Soon +afterwards she expects her confinement, and communicates the cannoneer's +doubts about pædobaptism to her husband. The fatal cannoneer makes a +breach in him too. "Then he bought and read all the eminent treatises on +both sides, which at that time came thick from the presses, and still +was cleared in the error of the pædobaptists." Finally, Mrs. Hutchinson +is confined. Then the governor "invited all the ministers to dinner, and +propounded his doubt and the ground thereof to them. None of them could +defend their practice with any satisfactory reason, but the tradition of +the Church from the primitive times, and their main buckler of federal +holiness, which Tombs and Denne had excellently overthrown. He and his +wife then, professing themselves unsatisfied, desired their opinions." +With the opinions I will not trouble you, but hasten to the result: +"Whereupon that infant was not baptised." + +No doubt to a large division of English society at this very day, that +sort of dinner and discussion, and indeed, the whole manner of life and +conversation here suggested by Mrs. Hutchinson's narrative, will seem +both natural and amiable, and such as to meet the needs of man as a +religious and social creature. You know the conversation which reigns in +thousands of middle-class families at this hour, about nunneries, +teetotalism, the confessional, eternal punishment, ritualism, +disestablishment. It goes wherever the class goes which is moulded on +the Puritan type of life. In the long winter evenings of Toronto Mr. +Goldwin Smith has had, probably, abundant experience of it. What is its +enemy? The instinct of self-preservation in humanity. Men make crude +types and try to impose them, but to no purpose. "_L'homme s'agite, Dieu +le mene_,"[477] says Bossuet. "There are many devices in a man's heart; +nevertheless the counsel of the Eternal, that shall stand."[478] Those +who offer us the Puritan type of life offer us a religion not true, the +claims of intellect and knowledge not satisfied, the claim of beauty not +satisfied, the claim of manners not satisfied. In its strong sense for +conduct that life touches truth; but its other imperfections hinder it +from employing even this sense aright. The type mastered our nation for +a time. Then came the reaction. The nation said: "This type, at any +rate, is amiss; we are not going to be all like _that!_" The type +retired into our middle class, and fortified itself there. It seeks to +endure, to emerge, to deny its own imperfections, to impose itself +again;--impossible! If we continue to live, we must outgrow it. The very +class in which it is rooted, our middle class, will have to acknowledge +the type's inadequacy, will have to acknowledge the hideousness, the +immense ennui of the life which this type has created, will have to +transform itself thoroughly. It will have to admit the large part of +truth which there is in the criticisms of our Frenchman, whom we have +too long forgotten. + +After our middle class he turns his attention to our lower class. And of +the lower and larger portion of this, the portion not bordering on the +middle class and sharing its faults, he says: "I consider this multitude +to be absolutely devoid, not only of political principles, but even of +the most simple notions of good and evil. Certainly it does not appeal, +this mob, to the principles of '89, which you English make game of; it +does not insist on the rights of man; what it wants is beer, gin, and +_fun_."[479] + +That is a description of what Mr. Bright[480] would call the residuum, +only our author seems to think the residuum a very large body. And its +condition strikes him with amazement and horror. And surely well it may. +Let us recall Mr. Hamerton's account of the most illiterate class in +France; what an amount of civilization they have notwithstanding! And +this is always to be understood, in hearing or reading a Frenchman's +praise of England. He envies our liberty, our public spirit, our trade, +our stability. But there is always a reserve in his mind. He never means +for a moment that he would like to change with us. Life seems to him so +much better a thing in France for so many more people, that, in spite of +the fearful troubles of France, it is best to be a Frenchman. A +Frenchman might agree with Mr. Cobden,[481] that life is good in England +for those people who have at least £5000 a year. But the civilization of +that immense majority who have not £5000 a year, or, £500, or even +£100,--of our middle and lower class,--seems to him too deplorable. + +And now what has this condition of our middle and lower class to tell us +about equality? How is it, must we not ask, how is it that, being +without fearful troubles, having so many achievements to show and so +much success, having as a nation a deep sense for conduct, having signal +energy and honesty, having a splendid aristocracy, having an +exceptionally large class of gentlemen, we are yet so little civilized? +How is it that our middle and lower classes, in spite of the individuals +among them who are raised by happy gifts of nature to a more humane +life, in spite of the seriousness of the middle class, in spite of the +honesty and power of true work, the _virtus verusque labor_, which are +to be found in abundance throughout the lower, do yet present, as a +whole, the characters which we have seen? + +And really it seems as if the current of our discourse carried us of +itself to but one conclusion. It seems as if we could not avoid +concluding, that just as France owes her fearful troubles to other +things and her civilizedness to equality, so we owe our immunity from +fearful troubles to other things, and our uncivilizedness to inequality. +"Knowledge is easy," says the wise man, "to him that understandeth";[482] +easy, he means, to him who will use his mind simply and rationally, and +not to make him think he can know what he cannot, or to maintain, _per +fas et nefas_, a false thesis with which he fancies his interests to be +bound up. And to him who will use his mind as the wise man recommends, +surely it is easy to see that our shortcomings in civilization are due +to our inequality; or, in other words, that the great inequality of +classes and property, which came to us from the Middle Age and which we +maintain because we have the religion of inequality, that this +constitution of things, I say, has the natural and necessary effect, +under present circumstances, of materializing our upper class, +vulgarizing our middle class, and brutalizing our lower class.[483] And +this is to fail in civilization. + +For only just look how the facts combine themselves. I have said little +as yet about our aristocratic class, except that it is splendid. Yet +these, "our often very unhappy brethren," as Burke calls them, are by no +means matter for nothing but ecstasy. Our charity ought certainly, Burke +says, to "extend a due and anxious sensation of pity to the distresses +of the miserable great." Burke's extremely strong language about their +miseries and defects I will not quote. For my part, I am always disposed +to marvel that human beings, in a position so false, should be so good +as these are. Their reason for existing was to serve as a number of +centres in a world disintegrated after the ruin of the Roman Empire, and +slowly re-constituting itself. Numerous centres of material force were +needed, and these a feudal aristocracy supplied. Their large and +hereditary estates served this public end. The owners had a positive +function, for which their estates were essential. In our modern world +the function is gone; and the great estates, with an infinitely +multiplied power of ministering to mere pleasure and indulgence, remain. +The energy and honesty of our race does not leave itself without witness +in this class, and nowhere are there more conspicuous examples of +individuals raised by happy gifts of nature far above their fellows and +their circumstances. For distinction of all kinds this class has an +esteem. Everything which succeeds they tend to welcome, to win over, to +put on their side; genius may generally make, if it will, not bad terms +for itself with them. But the total result of the class, its effect on +society at large and on national progress, are what we must regard. And +on the whole, with no necessary function to fulfil, never conversant +with life as it really is, tempted, flattered, and spoiled from +childhood to old age, our aristocratic class is inevitably materialized, +and the more so the more the development of industry and ingenuity +augments the means of luxury. Every one can see how bad is the action of +such an aristocracy upon the class of newly enriched people, whose great +danger is a materialistic ideal, just because it is the ideal they can +easiest comprehend. Nor is the mischief of this action now compensated +by signal services of a public kind. Turn even to that sphere which +aristocracies think specially their own, and where they have under other +circumstances been really effective,--the sphere of politics. When there +is need, as now, for any large forecast of the course of human affairs, +for an acquaintance with the ideas which in the end sway mankind, and +for an estimate of their power, aristocracies are out of their element, +and materialized aristocracies most of all. In the immense spiritual +movement of our day, the English aristocracy, as I have elsewhere said, +always reminds me of Pilate confronting the phenomenon of Christianity. +Nor can a materialized class have any serious and fruitful sense for the +power of beauty. They may imagine themselves to be in pursuit of beauty; +but how often, alas, does the pursuit come to little more than dabbling +a little in what they are pleased to call art, and making a great deal +of what they are pleased to call love! + +Let us return to their merits. For the power of manners an aristocratic +class, whether materialized or not, will always, from its circumstances, +have a strong sense. And although for this power of social life and +manners, so important to civilization, our English race has no special +natural turn, in our aristocracy this power emerges and marks them. When +the day of general humanization comes, they will have fixed the standard +of manners. The English simplicity, too, makes the best of the English +aristocracy more frank and natural than the best of the like class +anywhere else, and even the worst of them it makes free from the +incredible fatuities and absurdities of the worst. Then the sense of +conduct they share with their countrymen at large. In no class has it +such trials to undergo; in none is it more often and more grievously +overborne. But really the right comment on this is the comment of +Pepys[484] upon the evil courses of Charles the Second and the Duke of +York and the court of that day: "At all which I am sorry; but it is the +effect of idleness, and having nothing else to employ their great +spirits upon." + +Heaven forbid that I should speak in dispraise of that unique and most +English class which Mr. Charles Sumner extols--the large class of +gentlemen, not of the landed class or of the nobility, but cultivated +and refined. They are a seemly product of the energy and of the power to +rise in our race. Without, in general, rank and splendor and wealth and +luxury to polish them, they have made their own the high standard of +life and manners of an aristocratic and refined class. Not having all +the dissipations and distractions of this class, they are much more +seriously alive to the power of intellect and knowledge, to the power of +beauty. The sense of conduct, too, meets with fewer trials in this +class. To some extent, however, their contiguousness to the aristocratic +class has now the effect of materializing them, as it does the class of +newly enriched people. The most palpable action is on the young amongst +them, and on their standard of life and enjoyment. But in general, for +this whole class, established facts, the materialism which they see +regnant, too much block their mental horizon, and limit the +possibilities of things to them. They are deficient in openness and +flexibility of mind, in free play of ideas, in faith and ardor. +Civilized they are, but they are not much of a civilizing force; they +are somehow bounded and ineffective. + +So on the middle class they produce singularly little effect. What the +middle class sees is that splendid piece of materialism, the +aristocratic class, with a wealth and luxury utterly out of their reach, +with a standard of social life and manners, the offspring of that wealth +and luxury, seeming utterly out of their reach also. And thus they are +thrown back upon themselves--upon a defective type of religion, a narrow +range of intellect and knowledge, a stunted sense of beauty, a low +standard of manners. And the lower class see before them the +aristocratic class, and its civilization, such as it is, even infinitely +more out of _their_ reach than out of that of the middle class; while +the life of the middle class, with its unlovely types of religion, +thought, beauty, and manners, has naturally, in general, no great +attractions for them either. And so they, too, are thrown back upon +themselves; upon their beer, their gin, and their _fun_. Now, then, you +will understand what I meant by saying that our inequality materializes +our upper class, vulgarizes our middle class, brutalizes our lower. + +And the greater the inequality the more marked is its bad action upon +the middle and lower classes. In Scotland the landed aristocracy fills +the scene, as is well known, still more than in England; the other +classes are more squeezed back and effaced. And the social civilization +of the lower middle class and of the poorest class, in Scotland, is an +example of the consequences. Compared with the same class even in +England, the Scottish lower middle class is most visibly, to vary Mr. +Charles Sumner's phrase, _less_ well-bred, _less_ careful in personal +habits and in social conventions, _less_ refined. Let any one who doubts +it go, after issuing from the aristocratic solitudes which possess Loch +Lomond, let him go and observe the shopkeepers and the middle class in +Dumbarton, and Greenock, and Gourock, and the places along the mouth of +the Clyde. And for the poorest class, who that has seen it can ever +forget the hardly human horror, the abjection and uncivilizedness of +Glasgow? + +What a strange religion, then, is our religion of inequality! Romance +often helps a religion to hold its ground, and romance is good in its +way; but ours is not even a romantic religion. No doubt our aristocracy +is an object of very strong public interest. The _Times_ itself bestows +a leading article by way of epithalamium on the Duke of Norfolk's +marriage. And those journals of a new type, full of talent, and which +interest me particularly because they seem as if they were written by +the young lion[485] of our youth,--the young lion grown mellow and, as +the French say, _viveur_, arrived at his full and ripe knowledge of the +world, and minded to enjoy the smooth evening of his days,--those +journals, in the main a sort of social gazette of the aristocracy, are +apparently not read by that class only which they most concern, but are +read with great avidity by other classes also. And the common people, +too, have undoubtedly, as Mr. Gladstone says, a wonderful preference for +a lord. Yet our aristocracy, from the action upon it of the Wars of the +Roses, the Tudors, and the political necessities of George the Third, is +for the imagination a singularly modern and uninteresting one. Its +splendor of station, its wealth, show, and luxury, is then what the +other classes really admire in it; and this is not an elevating +admiration. Such an admiration will never lift us out of our vulgarity +and brutality, if we chance to be vulgar and brutal to start with; it +will rather feed them and be fed by them. So that when Mr. Gladstone +invites us to call our love of inequality "the complement of the love of +freedom or its negative pole, or the shadow which the love of freedom +casts, or the reverberation of its voice in the halls of the +constitution," we must surely answer that all this mystical eloquence is +not in the least necessary to explain so simple a matter; that our love +of inequality is really the vulgarity in us, and the brutality, admiring +and worshipping the splendid materiality. + +Our present social organization, however, will and must endure until our +middle class is provided with some better ideal of life than it has now. +Our present organization has been an appointed stage in our growth; it +has been of good use, and has enabled us to do great things. But the use +is at an end, and the stage is over. Ask yourselves if you do not +sometimes feel in yourselves a sense, that in spite of the strenuous +efforts for good of so many excellent persons amongst us, we begin +somehow to flounder and to beat the air; that we seem to be finding +ourselves stopped on this line of advance and on that, and to be +threatened with a sort of standstill. It is that we are trying to live +on with a social organization of which the day is over. Certainly +equality will never of itself alone give us a perfect civilization. But, +with such inequality as ours, a perfect civilization is impossible. + +To that conclusion, facts, and the stream itself of this discourse, do +seem, I think, to carry us irresistibly. We arrive at it because they so +choose, not because we so choose. Our tendencies are all the other way. +We are all of us politicians, and in one of two camps, the Liberal or +the Conservative. Liberals tend to accept the middle class as it is, and +to praise the nonconformists; while Conservatives tend to accept the +upper class as it is, and to praise the aristocracy. And yet here we are +at the conclusion, that whereas one of the great obstacles to our +civilization is, as I have often said, British nonconformity, another +main obstacle to our civilization is British aristocracy! And this while +we are yet forced to recognize excellent special qualities as well as +the general English energy and honesty, and a number of emergent humane +individuals, in both nonconformists and aristocracy. Clearly such a +conclusion can be none of our own seeking. + +Then again, to remedy our inequality, there must be a change in the law +of bequest, as there has been in France; and the faults and +inconveniences of the present French law of bequest are obvious. It +tends to over-divide property; it is unequal in operation, and can be +eluded by people limiting their families; it makes the children, however +ill they may behave, independent of the parent. To be sure, Mr. +Mill[486] and others have shown that a law of bequest fixing the +maximum, whether of land or money, which any one individual may take by +bequest or inheritance, but in other respects leaving the testator quite +free, has none of the inconveniences of the French law, and is in every +way preferable. But evidently these are not questions of practical +politics. Just imagine Lord Hartington[487] going down to Glasgow, and +meeting his Scotch Liberals there, and saying to them: "You are ill at +ease, and you are calling for change, and very justly. But the cause of +your being ill at ease is not what you suppose. The cause of your being +ill at ease is the profound imperfectness of your social civilization. +Your social civilization is, indeed, such as I forbear to characterize. +But the remedy is not disestablishment. The remedy is social equality. +Let me direct your attention to a reform in the law of bequest and +entail." One can hardly speak of such a thing without laughing. No, the +matter is at present one for the thoughts of those who think. It is a +thing to be turned over in the minds of those who, on the one hand, have +the spirit of scientific inquirers, bent on seeing things as they really +are; and, on the other hand, the spirit of friends of the humane life, +lovers of perfection. To your thoughts I commit it. And perhaps, the +more you think of it, the more you will be persuaded that Menander[488] +showed his wisdom quite as much when he said _Choose equality_, as when +he assured us that _Evil communications corrupt good manners_. + + + + +NOTES + + + + +POETRY AND THE CLASSICS + + +PAGE 1 + +[1] ~Poetry and the Classics~. Published as Preface to _Poems_: 1853 +(dated Fox How, Ambleside, October 1, 1853). It was reprinted in Irish +Essays, 1882. + +[2] ~the poem~. _Empedocles on Etna_. + +[3] ~the Sophists~. "A name given by the Greeks about the middle of the +fifth century B.C. to certain teachers of a superior grade who, +distinguishing themselves from philosophers on the one hand and from +artists and craftsmen on the other, claimed to prepare their pupils, not +for any particular study or profession, but for civic life." +_Encyclopædia Britannica_. + +PAGE 2 + +[4] _Poetics_, 4. + +[5] _Theognis_, ll. 54-56. + +PAGE 4 + +[6] ~"The poet," it is said~. In the _Spectator_ of April 2, 1853. The +words quoted were not used with reference to poems of mine.[Arnold.] + +PAGE 5 + +[7] ~Dido~. See the _Iliad_, the _Oresteia_ (_Agamemnon, Choëpharæ_, and +_Eumenides_) of Æschylus, and the _Æneid_. + +[8] ~Hermann and Dorothea, Childe Harold, Jocelyn, the Excursion~. Long +narrative poems by Goethe, Byron, Lamartine, and Wordsworth. + +PAGE 6 + +[9] ~Oedipus~. See the _Oedipus Tyrannus_ and _Oedipus Coloneus_ of +Sophocles. + +PAGE 7 + +[10] ~grand style~. Arnold, while admitting that the term ~grand~ style, +which he repeatedly uses, is incapable of exact verbal definition, +describes it most adequately in the essay _On Translating Homer_: "I +think it will be found that the grand style arises in poetry when a +noble nature, poetically gifted, treats with simplicity or with severity +a serious subject." See _On the Study of Celtic Literature and on +Translating Homer_, ed. 1895, pp. 264-69. + +[11] ~Orestes, or Merope, or Alcmæon~. The story of ~Orestes~ was +dramatized by Æschylus, by Sophocles, and by Euripides. Merope was the +subject of a lost tragedy by Euripides and of several modern plays, +including one by Matthew Arnold himself. The story of ~Alcmæon~ was the +subject of several tragedies which have not been preserved. + +PAGE 8 + +[12] ~Polybius~. A Greek historian (c. 204-122 B.C.) + +PAGE 9 + +[13]. ~Menander~. See _Contribution of the Celts, Selections_, Note 3, +p. 177.[Transcriber's note: this is Footnote 255 in this e-text.] + +PAGE 12 + +[14] ~rien à dire~. He says all that he wishes to, but unfortunately he +has nothing to say. + +PAGE 13 + +[15] Boccaccio's _Decameron_, 4th day, 5th novel. + +[16] ~Henry Hallam~ (1777-1859). English historian. See his +_Introduction to the Literature of Europe in the Fifteenth, Sixteenth +and Seventeenth Centuries_, chap. 23, §§ 51, 52. + +PAGE 14 + +[17] ~François Pierre Guillaume Guizot~ (1787-1874), historian, orator, +and statesman of France. + +PAGE 16 + +[18] ~Pittacus~, of Mytilene in Lesbos (c. 650-569 B.C.), was one of the +Seven Sages of Greece. His favorite sayings were: "It is hard to be +excellent" ([Greek: chalepon esthlon emenai]), and "Know when to act." + +PAGE 17 + +[19] ~Barthold Georg Niebuhr~ (1776-1831) was a German statesman and +historian. His _Roman History_ (1827-32) is an epoch-making work. For +his opinion of his age see his Life and Letters, London, 1852, II, 396. + +PAGE 18 + +[20] _Æneid_, XII, 894-95. + + +THE FUNCTION OF CRITICISM AT THE PRESENT TIME + +PAGE 20 + +[21] Reprinted from _The National Review_, November, 1864, in the +_Essays in Criticism_, Macmillan & Co., 1865. + +[22] In _On Translating Homer_, ed. 1903, pp. 216-17. + +[23] An essay called _Wordsworth: The Man and the Poet_, published in +_The North British Review_ for August, 1864, vol. 41. ~John Campbell +Shairp~ (1819-85), Scottish critic and man of letters, was professor of +poetry at Oxford from 1877 to 1884. The best of his lectures from this +chair were published in 1881 as _Aspects of Poetry_. + +[24] I cannot help thinking that a practice, common in England during +the last century, and still followed in France, of printing a notice of +this kind,--a notice by a competent critic,--to serve as an introduction +to an eminent author's works, might be revived among us with advantage. +To introduce all succeeding editions of Wordsworth, Mr. Shairp's notice +might, it seems to me, excellently serve; it is written from the point +of view of an admirer, nay, of a disciple, and that is right; but then +the disciple must be also, as in this case he is, a critic, a man of +letters, not, as too often happens, some relation or friend with no +qualification for his task except affection for his author.[Arnold.] + +[25] See _Memoirs of William Wordsworth_, ed. 1851, II, 151, letter to +Bernard Barton. + +PAGE 21 + +[26] ~Irene~. An unsuccessful play of Dr. Johnson's. + +PAGE 22 + +[27] ~Preface~. Prefixed to the second edition (1800) of the _Lyrical +Ballads_. + +PAGE 28 + +[28] ~The old woman~. At the first attempt to read the newly prescribed +liturgy in St. Giles's Church, Edinburgh, on July 23, 1637, a riot took +place, in which the "fauld-stools," or folding stools, of the +congregation were hurled as missiles. An untrustworthy tradition +attributes the flinging of the first stool to a certain Jenny or Janet +Geddes. + +PAGE 29 + +[29] _Pensées de J. Joubert_, ed. 1850, I, 355, titre 15, 2. + +PAGE 30 + +[30] ~French Revolution~. The latter part of Burke's life was largely +devoted to a conflict with the upholders of the French Revolution. +_Reflections on the Revolution in France_, 1790, and _Letters on a +Regicide Peace_, 1796, are his most famous writings in this cause. + +PAGE 31 + +[31] ~Richard Price, D.D.~ (1723-91), was strongly opposed to the war +with America and in sympathy with the French revolutionists. + +[32] From Goldsmith's epitaph on Burke in the _Retaliation_. + +PAGE 32 + +[33] ~Num. XXII~, 35. + +[34] ~William Eden, First Baron Auckland~ (1745-1814), English +statesman. Among other services he represented English interests in +Holland during the critical years 1790-93. + +PAGE 35 + +[35] ~Revue des deux Mondes~. The best-known of the French magazines +devoted to literature, art, and general criticism, founded in Paris in +1831 by Francois Buloz. + +PAGE 36 + +[36] ~Home and Foreign Review~. Published in London 1862-64. + +PAGE 37 + +[37] ~Charles Bowyer Adderley, First Baron Norton~ (1814-1905), English +politician, inherited valuable estates in Warwickshire. He was a strong +churchman and especially interested in education and the colonies. + +[38] ~John Arthur Roebuck~ (1801-79), a leading radical and utilitarian +reformer, conspicuous for his eloquence, honesty, and strong hostility +to the government of his day. He held a seat for Sheffield from 1849 +until his death. + +PAGE 38 + +[39] From Goethe's _Iphigenie auf Tauris_, I, ii, 91-92. + +PAGE 40 + +[40] ~detachment~. In the Buddhistic religion salvation is found through +an emancipation from the craving for the gratification of the senses, +for a future life, and for prosperity. + +PAGE 42 + +[41] ~John Somers, Baron Somers~ (1651-1716), was the most trusted +minister of William III, and a stanch supporter of the English +Constitution. See Addison, _The Freeholder_, May 14, 1716, and +Macauley's _History_, iv, 53. + +[42] ~William Cobbett~ (1762-1835). English politician and writer. As a +pamphleteer his reputation was injured by his pugnacity, self-esteem, +and virulence of language. See _Heine, Selections_, p. 120, +[Transcriber's note: This is Footnote 144 in this e-text] and _The +Contribution of the Celts, Selections_, p. 179.[Transcriber's note: +This is Footnote 257 in this e-text.] + +[43] ~Carlyle's~ _Latter-Day Pamphlets_ (1850) contain much violent +denunciation of the society of his day. + +[44] ~Ruskin~ turned to political economy about 1860. In 1862, he +published _Unto this Last_, followed by other works of similar nature. + +[45] ~terrae filii~. Sons of Mother Earth; hence, obscure, mean persons. + +[46] See _Heine, Selections_, Note 2, p. 117.[Transcriber's note: This +is Footnote 140 in this e-text.] + +PAGE 43 + +[47] ~To think is so hard~. Goethe's _Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship_, +Book VII, chap. IX. + +[48] See Sénancour's _Obermann_, letter 90. Arnold was much influenced +by this remarkable book. For an account of the author (1770-1846) and +the book see Arnold's _Stanzas in Memory of the Author of "Obermann_," +with note on the poem, and the essay on Obermann in _Essays in +Criticism_, third series. + +[49] So sincere is my dislike to all personal attack and controversy, +that I abstain from reprinting, at this distance of time from the +occasion which called them forth, the essays in which I criticized Dr. +Colenso's book; I feel bound, however, after all that has passed, to +make here a final declaration of my sincere impenitence for having +published them. Nay, I cannot forbear repeating yet once more, for his +benefit and that of his readers, this sentence from my original remarks +upon him; _There is truth of science and truth of religion; truth of +science does not become truth of religion till it is made religious._ +And I will add: Let us have all the science there is from the men of +science; from the men of religion let us have religion.[Arnold.] + +~John William Colenso~ (1814-83), Bishop of Natal, published a series of +treatises on the _Pentateuch_, extending from 1862-1879, opposing the +traditional views about the literal inspiration of the Scriptures and +the actual historical character of the Mosaic story. Arnold's censorious +criticism of the first volume of this work is entitled _The Bishop and +the Philosopher_ (_Macmillan's Magazine_, January, 1863). As an example +of the Bishop's cheap "arithmetical demonstrations" he describes him as +presenting the case of Leviticus as follows: "'_If three priests have to +eat 264 pigeons a day, how many must each priest eat?_' That disposes of +Leviticus." The essay is devoted chiefly to contrasting Bishop Colenso's +unedifying methods with those of the philosopher Spinoza. In passing, +Arnold refers also to Dr. Stanley's _Sinai and Palestine_ (1856), +quotations from which are characterized as "the refreshing spots" in the +Bishop's volume. + +[50] It has been said I make it "a crime against literary criticism and +the higher culture to attempt to inform the ignorant." Need I point out +that the ignorant are not informed by being confirmed in a confusion? +[Arnold.] + +PAGE 44 + +[51] Joubert's _Pensées_, ed. 1850, II, 102, titre 23, 54. + +[52] ~Arthur Penrhyn Stanley~ (1815-81), Dean of Westminster. He was the +author of a _Life_ of (Thomas) _Arnold_, 1844. In university politics +and in religious discussions he was a Liberal and the advocate of +toleration and comprehension. + +[53] ~Frances Power Cobbe~ (1822-1904), a prominent English +philanthropist and woman of letters. The quotation below is from _Broken +Lights_ (1864), p. 134. Her _Religious Duty_ (1857), referred to on p. +46, is a book of religious and ethical instruction written from the +Unitarian point of view. + +[54] ~Ernest Renan~ (1823-92), French philosopher and Orientalist. The +_Vie de Jésus_ (1863), here referred to, was begun in Syria and is +filled with the atmosphere of the East, but is a work of literary rather +than of scholarly importance. + +PAGE 45 + +[55] ~David Friedrich Strauss~ (1808-74), German theologian and man of +letters. The work referred to is the _Leben Jesu_ 1835. A popular +edition was published in 1864. + +[56] From "Fleury (Preface) on the Gospel."--Arnold's _Note Book_. + +PAGE 46 + +[57] Cicero's _Att._ 16. 7. 3. + +[58] ~Coleridge's happy phrase~. Coleridge's _Confessions of an +Inquiring Spirit_, letter 2. + +PAGE 49 + +[59] ~Luther's theory of grace~. The question concerning the "means of +grace," i.e. whether the efficacy of the sacraments as channels of the +divine grace is _ex opere operato_, or dependent on the faith of the +recipient, was the chief subject of controversy between Catholics and +Protestants during the period of the Reformation. + +[60] ~Jacques Bénigne Bossuet~ (1627-1704), French divine, orator, and +writer. His _Discours sur l'histoire universelle_ (1681) was an attempt +to provide ecclesiastical authority with a rational basis. It is +dominated by the conviction that "the establishment of Christianity was +the one point of real importance in the whole history of the world." + +PAGE 50 + +[61] From Virgil's _Eclogues_, iv, 5. Translated in Shelley's _Hellas_: +"The world's great age begins anew." + + + +THE STUDY OF POETRY + + +PAGE 55 + +[62] Published in 1880 as the General Introduction to _The English +Poets_, edited by T.H. Ward. Reprinted in _Essays in Criticism_, Second +Series, Macmillan & Co., 1888. + +[63] This quotation is taken, slightly condensed, from the closing +paragraph of a short introduction contributed by Arnold to _The Hundred +Greatest Men_, Sampson, Low & Co., London, 1885. + +PAGE 56 + +[64] From the Preface to the second edition of the _Lyrical Ballads_, +1800. + +[65] ~Charles Augustin Sainte-Beuve~ (1804-69), French critic, was +looked upon by Arnold as in certain respects his master in the art of +criticism. + +PAGE 57 + +[66] ~a criticism of life~. This celebrated phrase was first used by +Arnold in the essay on _Joubert_ (1864), though the theory is implied in +_On Translating Homer_, 1861. In _Joubert_ it is applied to literature: +"The end and aim of all literature, if one considers it attentively, is, +in truth, nothing but that." It was much attacked, especially as applied +to poetry, and is defended as so applied in the essay on _Byron_ (1881). +See also _Wordsworth, Selections_, p. 230.[Transcriber's note: This is +Footnote 371 in this e-text.] + +[67] Compare Arnold's definition of the function of criticism, +_Selections_, p. 52.[Transcriber's note: This approximates to the +section following the text reference for Footnote 61 in this e-text.] + +PAGE 59 + +[68] ~Paul Pellisson~ (1624-93). French author, friend of Mlle. Scudéry, +and historiographer to the king. + +[69] Barren and servile civility. + +70. ~M. Charles d' Hericault~ was joint editor of the Jannet edition +(1868-72) of the poems of ~Clément Marot~ (1496-1544). + +PAGE 62 + +[71] _Imitation of Christ_, Book III, chap. 43, 2. + +[72] ~Cædmon~. The first important religious poet in Old English +literature. Died about 680 A.D. + +[73] ~Ludovic Vitet~ (1802-73). French dramatist and politician. + +[74] ~Chanson de Roland~. The greatest of the _Chansons des Gestes_, +long narrative poems dealing with warfare and adventure popular in +France during the Middle Ages. It was composed in the eleventh century. +Taillefer was the surname of a bard and warrior of the eleventh century. +The tradition concerning him is related by Wace, _Roman de Rou_, third +part, v., 8035-62, ed. Andreson, Heilbronn, 1879. The Bodleian _Roland_ +ends with the words: "ci folt la geste, que Turoldus declinet." Turold +has not been identified. + +PAGE 63 + +[75] "Then began he to call many things to remembrance,--all the lands +which his valor conquered, and pleasant France, and the men of his +lineage, and Charlemagne his liege lord who nourished him."--_Chanson de +Roland_, III, 939-42.[Arnold.] + +[76] + "So said she; they long since in Earth's soft arms were reposing, + There, in their own dear land, their fatherland, Lacedæmon." +_Iliad_, III, 243, 244 (translated by Dr. Hawtrey).[Arnold.] + +PAGE 64 + +[77] "Ah, unhappy pair, why gave we you to King Peleus, to a mortal? but +ye are without old age, and immortal. Was it that with men born to +misery ye might have sorrow?"--_Iliad_, XVII, 443-445.[Arnold.] + +[78] "Nay, and thou too, old man, in former days wast, as we hear, +happy."--_Iliad_, XXIV, 543.[Arnold.] + +[79] "I wailed not, so of stone grew I within;--_they_ wailed."-- +_Inferno_, XXXIII, 39, 40.[Arnold.] + +[80] "Of such sort hath God, thanked be His mercy, made me, that your +misery toucheth me not, neither doth the flame of this fire strike me." +--_Inferno_, II, 91-93.[Arnold.] + +[81] "In His will is our peace."--_Paradiso_, III, 85.[Arnold.] + +[82] _Henry IV_, part 2, III, i, 18-20. + +PAGE 65 + +[83] _Hamlet_, V, ii, 361-62. + +[84] _Paradise Lost_, I, 599-602. + +[85] _Ibid._, I, 108-9. + +[86] _Ibid._, IV, 271. + +PAGE 66 + +[87] _Poetics_, § 9. + +PAGE 67 + +[88] ~Provençal~, the language of southern France, from the southern +French _oc_ instead of the northern _oïl_ for "yes." + +PAGE 68 + +[89] Dante acknowledges his debt to ~Latini~ (c. 1230-c. 1294), but the +latter was probably not his tutor. He is the author of the _Tesoretto_, +a heptasyllabic Italian poem, and the prose _Livres dou Trésor_, a sort +of encyclopedia of medieval lore, written in French because that +language "is more delightful and more widely known." + +[90] ~Christian of Troyes~. A French poet of the second half of the +twelfth century, author of numerous narrative poems dealing with legends +of the Round Table. The present quotation is from the _Cligés_, ll. +30-39. + +PAGE 69 + +[91] Chaucer's two favorite stanzas, the seven-line and eight-line +stanzas in heroic verse, were imitated from Old French poetry. See B. +ten Brink's _The Language and Meter of Chaucer_, 1901, pp. 353-57. + +[92] ~Wolfram von Eschenbach~. A medieval German poet, born in the end +of the twelfth century. His best-known poem is the epic _Parzival_. + +PAGE 70 + +[93] From Dryden's _Preface to the Fables_, 1700. + +[94] The _Confessio Amantis_, the single English poem of ~John Gower~ +(c. 1330-1408), was in existence in 1392-93. + +PAGE 71 + +[95] ~souded~. The French _soudé_, soldered, fixed fast.[Arnold.] From +the _Prioress's Tale_, ed. Skeat, 1894, B. 1769. The line should read, +"O martir, souded to virginitee." + +PAGE 73 + +[96] ~François Villon~, born in or near Paris in 1431, thief and poet. +His best-known poems are his _ballades_. See R.L. Stevenson's essay. + +[97] The name _Heaulmière_ is said to be derived from a headdress (helm) +worn as a mark by courtesans. In Villon's ballad, a poor old creature of +this class laments her days of youth and beauty. The last stanza of the +ballad runs thus: + + "Ainsi le bon temps regretons + Entre nous, pauvres vieilles sottes, + Assises bas, à croppetons, + Tout en ung tas comme pelottes; + A petit feu de chenevottes + Tost allumées, tost estainctes. + Et jadis fusmes si mignottes! + Ainsi en prend à maintz et maintes." + +"Thus amongst ourselves we regret the good time, poor silly old things, +low-seated on our heels, all in a heap like so many balls; by a little +fire of hemp-stalks, soon lighted, soon spent. And once we were such +darlings! So fares it with many and many a one."[Arnold.] + +PAGE 74 + +[98] From _An Essay of Dramatic Poesy_, 1688. + +[99] A statement to this effect is made by Dryden in the _Preface to the +Fables_. + +[100] From _Preface to the Fables_. + +PAGE 75 + +[101] See Wordsworth's _Essay, Supplementary to the Preface_, 1815, and +Coleridge's _Biographia Literaria_. + +[102] _An Apology for Smectymnuus_, Prose Works, ed. 1843, III, 117-18. +Milton was thirty-four years old at this time. + +PAGE 76 + +[103] The opening words of Dryden's _Postscript to the Reader_ in the +translation of Virgil, 1697. + +PAGE 77 + +[104] The opening lines of _The Hind and the Panther_. + +[105] _Imitations of Horace_, Book II, Satire 2, ll. 143-44. + +PAGE 78 + +[106] From _On the Death of Robert Dundas, Esq._ + +PAGE 79 + +[107] ~Clarinda~. A name assumed by Mrs. Maclehose in her sentimental +connection with Burns, who corresponded with her under the name of +Sylvander. + +[108] Burns to Mr. Thomson, October 19, 1794. + +PAGE 80 + +[109] From _The Holy Fair_. + +PAGE 81 + +[110] From _Epistle: To a Young Friend_. + +[111] From _Address to the Unco' Quid, or the Rigidly Righteous_. + +[112] From _Epistle: To Dr. Blacklock_. + +[Footnote 4: See his _Memorabilia_.][Transcriber's note: The reference +for this footnote is missing from the original text.] + +PAGE 83 + +[113] From _Winter: A Dirge_. + +PAGE 84 + +[114] From Shelley's _Prometheus Unbound_, III, iv, last line. + +[115] _Ibid._, II, v. + + +LITERATURE AND SCIENCE + +PAGE 87 + +[116] Reprinted (considerably revised) from the _Nineteenth Century_, +August, 1882, vol. XII, in _Discourses in America_, Macmillan & Co., +1885. It was the most popular of the three lectures given by Arnold +during his visit to America in 1883-84. + +[117] Plato's _Republic_, 6. 495, _Dialogues_, ed. Jowett, 1875, vol. 3, +p. 194. + +[118] ~working lawyer~. Plato's _Theoetetus,_ 172-73, _Dialogues_, IV, +231. + +PAGE 88 + +[119] ~majesty~. All editions read "majority." What Emerson said was +"majesty," which is therefore substituted here. See Emerson's _Literary +Ethics, Works_, Centenary ed., I, 179. + +PAGE 89 + +[120] "His whole soul is perfected and ennobled by the acquirement of +justice and temperance and wisdom. ... And in the first place, he will +honor studies which impress these qualities on his soul and will +disregard others."--_Republic_, IX, 591, _Dialogues_, III, 305. + +PAGE 91 + +[121] See _The Function of Criticism, Selections_, p. 52.[Transcriber's +note: This approximates to the section following the text reference for +Footnote 61 in this e-text.] + +[122] Delivered October 1, 1880, and printed in _Science and Culture and +Other Essays_, Macmillan & Co., 1881. + +[123] See _The Function of Criticism, Selections_, pp. 52-53. +[Transcriber's note: This approximates to the section following the text +reference for Footnote 61 in this e-text.] + +PAGE 92 + +[124] See _L'Instruction supérieur en France_ in Renan's _Questions +Contemporaines_, Paris, 1868. + +PAGE 93 + +[125] ~Friedrich August Wolf~ (1759-1824), German philologist and +critic. + +PAGE 99 + +[126] See Plato's _Symposium, Dialogues_, II, 52-63. + +PAGE 100 + +[127] ~James Joseph Sylvester~ (1814-97), English mathematician. In +1883, the year of Arnold's lecture, he resigned a position as teacher in +Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, to accept the Savilian Chair of +Geometry at Oxford. + +PAGE 101 + +[128] Darwin's famous proposition. _Descent of Man_, Part III, chap. +XXI, ed. 1888, II, 424. + +PAGE 103 + +[129] ~Michael Faraday~ (1791-1867), English chemist and physicist, and +the discoverer of the induction of electrical currents. He belonged to +the very small Christian sect called after ~Robert Sandeman~, and his +opinion with respect to the relation between his science and his +religion is expressed in a lecture on mental education printed at the +end of his _Researches in Chemistry and Physics_. + +PAGE 105 + +[130] Eccles. VIII, 17.[Arnold.] + +[131] _Iliad_, XXIV, 49.[Arnold.] + +[132] Luke IX, 25. + +PAGE 107 + +[133] _Macbeth_, V, iii. + +PAGE 109 + +[134] A touching account of the devotion of ~Lady Jane Grey~ (1537-54) +to her studies is to be found in Ascham's _Scholemaster_, Arber's ed., +46-47. + + +HEINRICH HEINE. + +PAGE 112 + +[135] Reprinted from the _Cornhill Magazine_, vol. VIII, August, 1863, +in _Essays in Criticism_, 1st series, 1865. + +[136] Written from Paris, March 30, 1855. See Heine's _Memoirs_, ed. +1910, II, 270. + +PAGE 113 + +[137] The German Romantic school of ~Tieck~ (1773-1853), ~Novalis~ +(1772-1801), and ~Richter~ (1763-1825) followed the classical school of +Schiller and Goethe. It was characterized by a return to individualism, +subjectivity, and the supernatural. Carlyle translated extracts from +Tieck and Richter in his _German Romance_ (1827), and his _Critical and +Miscellaneous Essays_ contain essays on Richter and Novalis. + +PAGE 114 + +[138] From _English Fragments; Conclusion_, in _Pictures of Travel_, ed. +1891, Leland's translation, _Works_, III, 466-67. + +PAGE 117 + +[139] ~Heine's~ birthplace was not ~Hamburg~, but ~Düsseldorf~. + +[140] ~Philistinism~. In German university slang the term _Philister_ +was applied to townsmen by students, and corresponded to the English +university "snob." Hence it came to mean a person devoid of culture and +enlightenment, and is used in this sense by Goethe in 1773. Heine was +especially instrumental in popularizing the expression outside of +Germany. Carlyle first introduced it into English literature in 1827. In +a note to the discussion of Goethe in the second edition of _German +Romance_, he speaks of a Philistine as one who "judged of Brunswick mum, +by its _utility_." He adds: "Stray specimens of the Philistine nation +are said to exist in our own Islands; but we have no name for them like +the Germans." The term occurs also in Carlyle's essays on _The State of +German Literature_, 1827, and _Historic Survey of German Poetry_, 1831. +Arnold, however, has done most to establish the word in English usage. +He applies it especially to members of the middle class who are swayed +chiefly by material interests and are blind to the force of ideas and +the value of culture. Leslie Stephen, who is always ready to plead the +cause of the Philistine, remarks: "As a clergyman always calls every one +from whom he differs an atheist, and a bargee has one or two favorite +but unmentionable expressions for the same purpose, so a prig always +calls his adversary a Philistine." _Mr. Matthew Arnold and the Church of +England, Fraser's Magazine_, October, 1870. + +[141] The word ~solecism~ is derived from[Greek: soloi], in Cilicia, +owing to the corruption of the Attic dialect among the Athenian +colonists of that place. + +PAGE 118 + +[142] The "~gig~" as Carlyle's symbol of philistinism takes its origin +from a dialogue which took place in Thurtell's trial: "I always thought +him a respectable man." "What do you mean by 'respectable'?" "He kept a +gig." From this he coins the words "gigman," "gigmanity," "gigmania," +which are of frequent occurrence in his writings. + +PAGE 119 + +[143] _English Fragments, Pictures of Travel, Works_, III, 464. + +PAGE 120 + +[144] See _The Function of Criticism, Selections_, Note 2, p. 42. +[Transcriber's note: This is Footnote 42 in this e-text.] + +PAGE 121 + +[145] _English Fragments_, chap. IX, in _Pictures of Travel, Works_, +III, 410-11. + +[146] Adapted from a line in Wordsworth's _Resolution and Independence_. + +PAGE 122 + +[147] ~Charles the Fifth~. Ruler of The Holy Roman Empire, 1500-58. + +PAGE 124 + +[148] _English Fragments, Conclusion_, in _Pictures of Travel, Works_, +III, 468-70. + +[149] A complete edition has at last appeared in Germany.[Arnold.] + +PAGE 125 + +[150] ~Augustin Eugène Scribe~ (1791-1861), French dramatist, for fifty +years the best exponent of the ideas of the French middle class. + +PAGE 126 + +[151] ~Charles Louis Napoleon Bonaparte~ (Napoleon III), 1808-73, son of +Louis Bonaparte, brother of Napoleon I, by the _coup d'état_ of +December, 1851, became Emperor of France. This was accomplished against +the resistance of the Moderate Republicans, partly through the favor of +his democratic theories with the mass of the French people. Heine was +mistaken, however, in believing that the rule of Louis Napoleon had +prepared the way for Communism. An attempt to bring about a Communistic +revolution was easily crushed in 1871. + +PAGE 127 + +[152] ~J.J. von Goerres~ (1776-1848), ~Klemens Brentano~ (1778-1842), +and ~Ludwig Achim von Arnim~ (1781-1831) were the leaders of the second +German Romantic school and constitute the Heidelberg group of writers. +They were much interested in the German past, and strengthened the +national and patriotic spirit. Their work, however, is often marred by +exaggeration and affectation. + +PAGE 128 + +[153] From _The Baths of Lucca_, chap. X, in _Pictures of Travel, +Works_, III, 199. + +PAGE 129 + +[154] Cf. _Function of Criticism, Selections_, p. 26.[Transcriber's +note: This approximates to the section following the text reference for +Footnote 27 in this e-text.] + +[155] Job XII, 23: "He enlargeth the nations and straiteneth them +again." + +PAGE 131 + +[156] Lucan, _Pharsalia_, book I, 135: "he stands the shadow of a great +name." + +PAGE 132 + +[157] From _Ideas_, in _Pictures of Travel, Works_, II, 312-13. + +[158] ~Robert Stewart, Viscount Castlereagh~ (1769-1822), as Foreign +Secretary under Lord Liverpool, became the soul of the coalition against +Napoleon, which, during the campaigns of 1813-14, was kept together by +him alone. He committed suicide with a penknife in a fit of insanity in +August, 1822. + +[159] From _Ideas_, in _Pictures of Travel, Works_, II, 324. + +[160] From _English Fragments_, 1828, in _Pictures of Travel, Works_, +III, 340-42. + +PAGE 133 + +[161] Song in _Measure for Measure_, IV, i. + +[162][Transcriber's note: "From _The Dying One_: for translation see p. +142." in original. Please see reference in text for Footnote 180.] + +PAGE 135 + +[163] From _Mountain Idyll, Travels in the Hartz Mountains, Book of +Songs. Works_, ed. 1904, pp. 219-21. + +[164] Published 1851. + +[165] ~Rhampsinitus~. A Greek corruption of _Ra-messu-pa-neter_, the +popular name of Rameses III, King of Egypt. + +[166] ~Edith with the Swan Neck~. A mistress of King Harold of England. + +[167] ~Melisanda of Tripoli~. Mistress of Geoffrey Rudel, the +troubadour. + +[168] ~Pedro the Cruel~. King of Castile (1334-69). + +[169] ~Firdusi~. A Persian poet, author of the epic poem, the +_Shahnama_, or "Book of Kings," a complete history of Persia in nearly +sixty thousand verses. + +[170] ~Dr. Döllinger~. A German theologian and church historian +(1799-1890). + +[171] _Spanish Atrides, Romancero, Works_, ed. 1905, pp. 200-04. + +[172] ~Henry of Trastamare~. King of Castile (1369-79). + +PAGE 137 + +[173] ~garbanzos~. A kind of pulse much esteemed in Spain. + +PAGE 138 + +[174] Adapted from Rom. VIII, 26. + +PAGE 139 + +[175] From _The Baths of Lucca_, chap. IX, in _Pictures of Travel, +Works_, III, 184-85. + +[176] _Romancero_, book III. + +PAGE 140 + +[177] ~Laura~. The heroine of Petrarch's famous series of love lyrics +known as the _Canzoniere_. + +[178] ~Court of Love~. For a discussion of this supposed medieval +tribunal see William A. Neilson's _The Origins and Sources of the Court +of Love, Studies and Notes in Philology and Literature_, Boston, 1899, +chap. VIII. + +PAGE 142 + +[179] _Disputation, Romancero_, book III. + +[180] _The Dying One, Romancero_, book II, quoted entire. + +PAGE 143 + +[181] Written from Paris, September 30, 1850. See _Memoirs_, ed. 1910, +II, 226-27. + + +MARCUS AURELIUS. + +PAGE 145 + +[182] Reprinted from _The Victoria Magazine_, II, 1-9, November, 1863, +in _Essays in Criticism_, 1865. + +[183] ~John Stuart Mill~ (1806-73), English philosopher and economist. +_On Liberty_ (1859) is his most finished writing. + +[184] The _Imitation of Christ_ (_Imitatio Christi_), a famous medieval +Christian devotional work, is usually ascribed to Thomas à Kempis +(1380-1471), an Augustinian canon of Mont St. Agnes in the diocese of +Utrecht. + +PAGE 146 + +[185] ~Epictetus~. Greek Stoic philosopher (born c. A.D. 60). He is an +earnest preacher of righteousness and his philosophy is eminently +practical. For Arnold's personal debt to him see his sonnet _To a +Friend_. + +PAGE 147 + +[186] ~Empedocles~. A Greek philosopher and statesman (c. 490-430 B.C.). +He is the subject of Arnold's early poetical drama, _Empedocles on +Etna_, which he later suppressed for reasons which he states in the +Preface to the _Poems_ of 1853. See _Selections_, pp. 1-3. +[Transcriber's note: This approximates to the section following the text +reference for Footnote 1 in this e-text.] + +[187] _Encheiridion_, chap. LII. + +[188] Ps. CXLIII, 10; incorrectly quoted. + +[189] Is. LX, 19. + +[190] Mal. IV, 2. + +[191] John I, 13. + +[192] John III, 5. + +PAGE 148 + +[193] 1 John V, 4. + +[194] Matt. XIX, 26. + +[195] 2 Cor. V, 17. + +[196] _Encheiridion_, chap. XLIII. + +[197] Matt. XVIII, 22. + +[198] Matt. XXII, 37-39, etc. + +PAGE 149 + +[199] ~George Long~ (1800-79), classical scholar. He published +_Selections from Plutarch's Lives_, 1862; _Thoughts of Marcus Aurelius_, +1862; etc. + +[200] ~Thomas Arnold~ (1795-1842), English clergyman and headmaster of +Rugby School, father of Matthew Arnold. + +PAGE 150 + +[201] ~Jeremy Collier~ (1650-1726). His best-known work is his _Short +View of the Immorality and Profaneness of the English Stage_, 1698, a +sharp and efficacious attack on the Post-Restoration drama. _The Emperor +M. Aurelius Antoninus, his Conversation with himself_, appeared in 1701. + +PAGE 151 + +[202] _Meditations_, III, 14. + +PAGE 152 + +203. ~Antoninus Pius~. Roman Emperor, A.D. 138-161, and foster-father of +M. Aurelius. + +[204] To become current in men's speech. + +[205] The real name of ~Voltaire~ was ~François Marie Arouet~. The name +Voltaire was assumed in 1718 and is supposed to be an anagram of Arouet +le j(eune). + +PAGE 154 + +[206] See _Function of Criticism, Selections_, p. 36.[Transcriber's +note: This approximates to the section following the text reference for +Footnote 36 in this e-text.] + +[207] ~Louis IX of France~ (1215-70), the leader of the crusade of 1248. + +PAGE 155 + +[208] ~The Saturday Review~, begun in 1855, was pronouncedly +conservative in politics. It devoted much space to pure criticism and +scholarship, and Arnold's essays are frequently criticized in its +columns. + +[209] He died on the 17th of March, A.D. 180.[Arnold.] + +PAGE 156 + +[210] ~Juvenal's sixth satire~ is a scathing arraignment of the vices +and follies of the women of Rome during the reign of Domitian. + +[211] See Juvenal, _Sat._ 3, 76. + +[212] Because he lacks an inspired poet (to sing his praises). Horace, +_Odes_, IV, 9, 28. + +PAGE 157 + +[213] ~Avidius Cassius~, a distinguished general, declared himself +Emperor in Syria in 176 A.D. Aurelius proceeded against him, deploring +the necessity of taking up arms against a trusted officer. Cassius was +slain by his own officers while M. Aurelius was still in Illyria. + +[214] ~Commodus~. Emperor of Rome, 180-192 A.D. He was dissolute and +tyrannical. + +[215] ~Attalus~, a Roman citizen, was put to death with other Christians +in A.D. 177. + +[216] ~Polycarp~, Bishop of Smyrna, and one of the Apostolic Fathers, +suffered martyrdom in 155 A.D. + +PAGE 159 + +[217] ~Tacitus~, _Ab Excessu Augusti_, XV, 44. + +PAGE 161 + +[218] ~Claude Fleury~ (1640-1723), French ecclesiastical historian, +author of the _Histoire Ecclésiastique_, 20 vols., 1691. + +PAGE 163 + +[219] _Med._, I, 12. + +[220] _Ibid._, I, 14. + +[221] _Ibid._, IV, 24. + +PAGE 164 + +[222] _Ibid._, III, 4. + +PAGE 165 + +[223] _Ibid._, V, 6. + +[224] _Ibid._, IX, 42. + +[225] ~Lucius Annæus Seneca~ (c. 3 B.C.-A.D. 65), statesman and +philosopher. His twelve so-called _Dialogues_ are Stoic sermons of a +practical and earnest character. + +PAGE 166 + +[226] _Med._, III, 2. + +PAGE 167 + +[227] _Ibid._, V, 5. + +[228] _Ibid._, VIII, 34. + +PAGE 168 + +[229] _Ibid._, IV, 3. + +PAGE 169 + +[230] _Ibid._, I, 17. + +[231] ~Tiberius, Caligula, Nero, Domitian~. Roman Emperors, 14-37 A.D., +37-41 A.D., 54-68 A.D., and 81-96 A.D. + +[232] _Med._, IV, 28. + +[233] _Ibid._, V, 11. + +PAGE 170 + +[234] _Ibid._, X, 8. + +PAGE 171 + +[235] _Ibid._, IV, 32. + +[236] _Ibid._, V, 33. + +[237] _Ibid._, IX, 30. + +[238] _Ibid._, VII, 55. + +PAGE 172 + +[239] _Ibid._, VI, 48. + +[240] _Ibid._, IX, 3. + +PAGE 173 + +[241] Matt. XVII, 17. + +[242] _Med._, X, 15. + +[243] _Ibid._, VI, 45. + +[244] _Ibid._, V, 8. + +[245] _Ibid._, VII, 55. + +PAGE 174 + +[246] _Ibid._, IV, 1. + +[247] _Ibid._, X, 31. + +[248] _Ibid._ + +PAGE 175 + +[249] ~Alogi~. An ancient sect that rejected the Apocalypse and the +Gospel of St. John. + +[250] ~Gnosis~. Knowledge of spiritual truth or of matters commonly +conceived to pertain to faith alone, such as was claimed by the +Gnostics, a heretical Christian sect of the second century. + +[251] The correct reading is _tendebantque_ (_Æneid_, VI, 314), which +Arnold has altered to apply to the present case. + + +THE CONTRIBUTION OF THE CELTS TO ENGLISH LITERATURE + +PAGE 176 + +[252] From _On The Study of Celtic Literature_, London, 1867, chap. VI. +It was previously published in the _Cornhill Magazine_, vols. XIII and +XIV, March-July, 1866. In the Introduction to the book Arnold says: "The +following remarks on the study of Celtic literature formed the substance +of four lectures given by me last year and the year before in the chair +of poetry at Oxford." The chapter is slightly abridged in the present +selection. + +PAGE 177 + +[253] _Paradise Lost_, III, 32-35. + +[254] _Tasso_, I, 2, 304-05. + +[255] ~Menander~. The most famous Greek poet of the New Comedy (342-291 +B.C.). + +PAGE 179 + +[256] ~Gemeinheit~. Arnold defines the word five lines below. + +[257] See _The Function of Criticism, Selections_, Note 2, p. 42. +[Transcriber's note: This is Footnote 42 in this e-text.] + +[258] ~Bossuet~. See _The Function of Criticism, Selections_, Note 2, p. +49.[Transcriber's note: This is Footnote 60 in this e-text.] + +[259] ~Henry St. John, Viscount Bolingbroke~ (1678-1751), English +statesman and man of letters, was author of the _Idea of a Patriot +King_. Arnold is inclined to overestimate the quality of his style. + +PAGE 180 + +[260] ~Taliessin~ and ~Llywarch Hen~ are the names of Welsh bards, +supposedly of the late sixth century, whose poems are contained in the +_Red Book of Hergest_, a manuscript formerly preserved in Jesus College, +Oxford, and now in the Bodleian. Nothing further is known of them. +~Ossian~, ~Ossin~, or ~Oisin~, was a legendary Irish third century hero +and poet, the son of Finn. In Scotland the Ossianic revival was due to +James Macpherson. See Note 1, p. 181.[Transcriber's note: This is +Footnote 262 in this e-text.] + +[261] From the _Black Book of Caermarthen_, 19. + +PAGE 181 + +[262] ~James Macpherson~ (1736-96) published anonymously in 1760 his +_Fragments of Ancient Poetry, collected in the Highlands of Scotland and +translated from the Gaelic or Erse language_. This was followed by an +epic _Fingal_ and other poems. Their authenticity was early doubted and +a controversy followed. They are now generally believed to be forgeries. +The passage quoted, as well as references to Selma, "woody Morven," and +"echoing Lora" (not _Sora_), is from _Carthon: a Poem_. + +PAGE 182 + +[263] ~Werther~. Goethe's _Die Leiden des jungen Werthers_ (1774) was a +product of the _Sturm und Drang_ movement in German literature, and +responsible for its sentimental excesses. Goethe mentions Ossian in +connection with Homer in _Werther_, book II, "am 12. October," and +translates several passages of considerable length toward the close of +this book. + +[264] ~Prometheus~. An unfinished drama of Goethe's, of which a fine +fragment remains. + +PAGE 183 + +[265] For ~Llywarch Hen~, see Note 1, p. 180.[Transcriber's note: This +is Footnote 260 in this e-text.] The present quotation is from book II +of the _Red Book_. A translation of the poem differing somewhat from the +one quoted by Arnold is contained in W.F. Skene's _The Four Ancient +Books of Wales_, Edinburgh, 1868. + +[266] From _On this day I complete my thirty-sixth year_, 1824. + +[267] From _Euthanasia_, 1812. + +PAGE 184 + +[268] ~Manfred, Lara, Cain~. Heroes of Byron's poems so named. + +[269] From _Paradise Lost_, I, 105-09. + +PAGE 185 + +[270] Rhyme,--the most striking characteristic of our modern poetry as +distinguished from that of the ancients, and a main source, to our +poetry, of its magic and charm, of what we call its _romantic element_-- +rhyme itself, all the weight of evidence tends to show, comes into our +poetry from the Celts.[Arnold.] A different explanation is given by J. +Schipper, _A History of English Versification_, Oxford, 1910: "End-rhyme +or full-rhyme seems to have arisen independently and without historical +connection in several nations.... Its adoption into all modern +literature is due to the extensive use made of it in the hymns of the +church." + +[271] Lady Guest's _Mabinogion, Math the Son of Mathonwy_, ed. 1819, +III, 239. + +[272] _Mabinogion, Kilhwch and Olwen_, II, 275. + +PAGE 186 + +[273] _Mabinogion, Peredur the Son of Evrawc_, I, 324. + +[274] _Mabinogion, Geraint the Son of Erbin_, II, 112. + + +PAGE 187 + +[275] ~Novalis~. The pen-name of ~Friedrich von Hardenberg~ (1772-1801), +sometimes called the "Prophet of Romanticism." See Carlyle's essay on +Novalis. + +[276] For ~Rückert~, see _Wordsworth, Selections_, Note 4, p. 224. +[Transcriber's note: This is Footnote 356 in this e-text.] + +[277] Take the following attempt to render the natural magic supposed to +pervade Tieck's poetry: "In diesen Dichtungen herrscht eine +geheimnissvolle Innigkeit, ein sonderbares Einverständniss mit der +Natur, besonders mit der Pflanzen-und Steinreich. Der Leser fühlt sich +da wie in einem verzauberten Walde; er hört die unterirdischen Quellen +melodisch rauschen; wildfremde Wunderblumen schauen ihn an mit ihren +bunten sehnsüchtigen Augen; unsichtbare Lippen küssen seine Wangen mit +neckender Zärtlichkeit; _hohe Pilze, wie goldne Glocken, wachsen +klingend empor am Fusse der Bäume_"; and so on. Now that stroke of the +_hohe Pilze_, the great funguses, would have been impossible to the tact +and delicacy of a born lover of nature like the Celt; and could only +have come from a German who has _hineinstudirt_ himself into natural +magic. It is a crying false note, which carries us at once out of the +world of nature-magic, and the breath of the woods, into the world of +theatre-magic and the smell of gas and orange-peel.[Arnold.] + +~Johann Ludwig Tieck~ (1773-1853) was one of the most prominent of the +German romanticists. He was especially felicitous in the rehandling of +the old German fairy tales. The passage quoted above is from Heine's +_Germany_, Part II, book II, chap. II. The following is the translation +of C.G. Leland, slightly altered: "In these compositions we feel a +mysterious depth of meaning, a marvellous union with nature, especially +with the realm of plants and stones. The reader seems to be in an +enchanted forest; he hears subterranean springs and streams rustling +melodiously and his own name whispered by the trees. Broad-leaved +clinging plants wind vexingly about his feet, wild and strange +wonderflowers look at him with vari-colored longing eyes, invisible lips +kiss his cheeks with mocking tenderness, great funguses like golden +bells grow singing about the roots of trees." + +[278] _Winter's Tale_, IV, iii, 118-20. + +[279] Arnold doubtless refers to the passage in _The Solitary Reaper_ +referred to in a similar connection in the essay on Maurice de Guérin, +though Wordsworth has written two poems _To the Cuckoo_. + +[280] The passage on the mountain birch-tree, which is quoted in the +essay on Maurice de Guérin, is from Sénancour's _Obermann_, letter 11. +For his delicate appreciation of the Easter daisy see _Obermann_, letter +91. + +PAGE 188 + +[281]. Pope's _Iliad_, VIII, 687. + +[282] Propertius, _Elegies_, book I, 20, 21-22: "The band of heroes +covered the pleasant beach with leaves and branches woven together." + +[283] _Idylls_, XIII, 34. The present reading of the line gives[Greek: +hekeito, mega]: "A meadow lay before them, very good for beds." + +[284] From the _Ode to a Grecian Urn_. + +PAGE 189 + +[285] That is, _Dedication_. + +[286] From the _Ode to a Nightingale_. + +[287] _Ibid._ + +PAGE 190 + +[288] Virgil, _Eclogues_, VII, 45. + +[289] _Ibid._, II, 47-48: "Plucking pale violets and the tallest +poppies, she joins with them the narcissus and the flower of the +fragrant dill." + +[290] _Ibid._, II, 51-52: "I will gather quinces, white with delicate +down, and chestnuts." + +[291] _Midsummer Night's Dream_, II, i, 249-52. + +[292] _Merchant of Venice_, V, i, 58-59. + +[293] _Midsummer Night's Dream_, II, i, 83-85. + +PAGE 191 + +[294] _Merchant of Venice_, V, i, 1 ff. + + +GEORGE SAND + +PAGE 192 + +[295] Reprinted from the _Fortnightly Review_ for June, 1877, in _Mixed +Essays_, Smith, Elder & Co., 1879. ~Amandine Lucile Aurore Dudevant~, +née ~Dupin~ (1804-76), was the most prolific woman writer of France. The +pseudonym ~George Sand~ was a combination of George, the typical +Berrichon name, and Sand, abbreviated from (Jules) Sandeau, in +collaboration with whom she began her literary career. + +[296] ~Indiana~, George Sand's first novel, 1832. + +[297] ~Nohant~ is a village of Berry, one of the ancient provinces of +France, comprising the modern departments of Cher and Indre. The ~Indre~ +and the ~Creuse~ are its chief rivers. ~Vierzon, Châteauroux, Le +Châtre~, and ~Ste.-Sévère~ are towns of the province. ~Le Puy~ is in the +neighboring department of Haute-Loire, and ~La Marche~ is in the +department of Vosges. For the ~Vallée Noire~ see Sand's _The Miller of +Angibault_, chap. III, etc. + +[298] ~Jeanne~. The first of a series of novels in which the pastoral +element prevails. It was published in 1844. + +[299] The ~Pierres Jaunâtres~ (or ~Jomâtres~) is a district in the +mountains of the Creuse (see _Jeanne, Prologue_). ~Touix Ste.-Croix~ is +a ruined Gallic town (_Jeanne_, chap. I). For the druidical stones of +~Mont Barlot~ see _Jeanne_, chap. VII. + +PAGE 193 + +[300] ~Cassini's great map~. A huge folio volume containing 183 charts +of the various districts of France, published by Mess. Maraldi and +Cassini de Thury, Paris, 1744. + +[301] For an interesting description of the patache, or rustic carriage, +see George Sand's _Miller of Angibault_, chap. II. + +[302] ~landes~. An infertile moor. + +PAGE 194 + +[303] ~Maurice and Solange~. See, for example, the _Letters of a +Traveller_. + +[304] ~Chopin~. George Sand's friendship for the composer Chopin began +in 1837. + +PAGE 195 + +[305] ~Jules Michelet~ (1798-1874), French historian. + +[306] ~her death~. George Sand died at Nohant, June 8, 1876. + +PAGE 196 + +[307]. From the _Journal d'un Voyageur_, September 15, 1870, ed. 1871, +p. 2. + +[308] ~Consuelo~ (1842-44) is George Sand's best-known novel. + +[309] ~Edmée, Geneviève, Germain~. Characters in the novels _Mauprat, +André_, and _La Mare au Diable_. + +[310] ~Lettres d'un Voyageur, Mauprat, François le Champi~. Published in +1830-36, 1836, and 1848. + +[311] ~F.W.H. Myers~ (1843-1901), poet and essayist. See his _Essays, +Modern_, ed. 1883, pp. 70-103. + +PAGE 197 + +[312] ~Valvèdre~. Published in 1861. + +[313] ~Werther~. See _The Contribution of the Celts, Selections_, Note +1, p. 182.[Transcriber's note: This is Footnote 263 in this e-text.] + +[314] ~Corinne~. An esthetic romance (1807) by Mme. de Staël. + +[315] ~Valentine~ (1832), George Sand's second novel, pointed out "the +dangers and pains of an ill-assorted marriage." ~Lélia~ (1833) was a +still more outspoken diatribe against society and the marriage law. + +PAGE 199 + +[316] From _Lélia_, chap. LXVII. + +[317] ~Jacques~ (1834), the hero of which is George Sand in man's +disguise, sets forth the author's doctrine of free love. + +[318] From _Jacques_, letter 95. + +PAGE 200 + +[319] From _Lettres d'un Voyageur_, letter 9. + +[320] _Ibid._, à Rollinat, September, 1834. + +PAGE 203 + +[321] ~Hans Holbein~, the younger (1497-1543), German artist. + +PAGE 205 + +[322] From _La Mare au Diable_, chap. 1. + +[323] _Ibid._, _The Author to the Reader_. + +PAGE 206 + +[324] _Ibid._, chap. 1. + +PAGE 207 + +[325] _Ibid._, chap. 1. + +PAGE 208 + +[326] From _Impressions et Souvenirs_, ed. 1873, p. 135. + +[327] _Ibid._, p. 137. + +[328] From Wordsworth's _Lines Composed a few Miles above Tintern +Abbey_. + +[329] From _Impressions et Souvenirs_, p. 136. + +PAGE 209 + +[330] _Ibid._, p. 139. + +PAGE 210 + +[331] _Ibid._, p. 269. + +[332] _Ibid._, p. 253. + +PAGE 211 + +[333] See _The Function of Criticism, Selections_, p. 29.[Transcriber's +note: This approximates to the section following the text reference for +Footnote 29 in this e-text.] + +[334] ~Émile Zola~ (1840-1902), French novelist, was the apostle of the +"realistic" or "naturalistic" school. _L'Assommoir_ (1877) depicts +especially the vice of drunkenness. + +PAGE 212 + +[335] From _Journal d'un Voyageur_, February 10, 1871, p. 305. + +[336] ~Émile Louis Victor de Laveleye~ (1822-92), Belgian economist. He +was especially interested in bimetallism, primitive property, and +nationalism. + +PAGE 213 + +[337] From _Journal d'un Voyageur_, December 21, 1870, p. 202. + +PAGE 214 + +[338] _Ibid._, December 21, 1870, p. 220. + +PAGE 215 + +[339] _Ibid._, February 7, 1871, p. 228. + +[340] _Round my House: Notes of Rural Life in France in Peace and War_ +(1876), by ~Philip Gilbert Hamerton~. See especially chapters XI and +XII. + +[341] ~Barbarians, Philistines, Populace~. Arnold's designations for the +aristocratic, middle, and lower classes of England in _Culture and +Anarchy_. + +PAGE 216 + +[342] ~Paul Amand Challemel-Lacour~ (1827-96), French statesman and man +of letters. + +[343] See _The Function of Criticism, Selections_, Note 4, p. 44. +[Transcriber's note: This is Footnote 54 in this e-text.] + +[344] From _Journal d'un Voyageur_, February 10, 1871, p. 309. + +PAGE 217 + +[345] The closing sentence of the Nicene Creed with _expecto_ changed to +_exspectat_. For the English translation see Morning Prayer in the +Episcopal Prayer Book; for the Greek and Latin see Schaff, _Creeds of +Christendom_, II, 58, 59. + + +WORDSWORTH + +PAGE 218 + +[346] Published in _Macmillan's Magazine_, July, 1879, vol. XL; as +Preface to _The Poems of Wordsworth_, chosen and edited by Arnold in +1879; and in _Essays in Criticism_, Second Series, 1888. + +PAGE 219 + +[347] ~Rydal Mount~. Wordsworth's home in the Lake District from 1813 +until his death in 1850. + +[348] ~1842~. The year of publication of the two-volume edition of +Tennyson's poems, containing _Locksley Hall_, _Ulysses_, etc. + +PAGE 221 + +[349] ~candid friend~. Arnold himself. + +PAGE 222 + +[350] The _Biographie Universelle, ou Dictionnaire historique_ of F.X. +de Feller (1735-1802) was originally published in 1781. + +[351] ~Henry Cochin~. A brilliant lawyer and writer of Paris, 1687-1747. + +PAGE 223 + +[352] ~Amphictyonic Court~. An association of Ancient Greek communities +centering in a shrine. + +PAGE 224 + +[353] ~Gottlieb Friedrich Klopstock~ (1724-1803) was author of _Der +Messias_. + +[354] ~Lessing~. See _Sweetness and Light, Selections_, Note 2, p. +271.[Transcriber's note: This is Footnote 427 in this e-text.] + +[355] ~Johann Ludwig Uhland~ (1787-1862), romantic lyric poet. + +[356] ~Friedrich Rückert~ (1788-1866) was the author of _Liebesfrühling_ +and other poems. + +[357] ~Heine~. See _Heinrich Heine, Selections_, pp. 112-144. + +[358] The greatest poems of ~Vicenzo da Filicaja~ (1642-1707) are six +odes inspired by the victory of Sobieski. + +[359] ~Vittorio, Count Alfieri~ (1749-1803), Italian dramatist. His +best-known drama is his _Saul_. + +[360] ~Manzoni~ (1785-1873) was a poet and novelist, author of _I +Promessi Sposi_. + +[361] ~Giacomo, Count Leopardi~ (1798-1837), Italian poet. His writings +are characterized by deep-seated melancholy. + +[362] ~Jean Racine~ (1639-99), tragic dramatist. + +[363] ~Nicolas Boileau-Despréaux~ (1636-1711), poet and critic. + +[364] ~André de Chénier~ (1762-94), poet, author of _Jeune Captive_, +etc. + +[365] ~Pierre Jean de Béranger~ (1780-1857), song-writer. + +[366] ~Alphonse Marie Louis de Prat de Lamartine~ (1790-1869), poet, +historian, and statesman. + +[367] ~Louis Charles Alfred de Musset~ (1810-57), poet, play-writer, and +novelist. + +PAGE 228 + +[368] From _The Recluse_, l. 754. + +PAGE 229 + +[369] _Paradise Lost_, XI, 553-54. + +PAGE 230 + +[370] _The Tempest_, IV, i, 156-58. + +[371] ~criticism of life~. See _The Study of Poetry, Selections_, Note +1, p. 57.[Transcriber's note: This is Footnote 66 in this e-text.] + + +PAGE 231 + +[372] _Discourses_ of Epictetus, trans. Long, 1903, vol. I, book II, +chap. XXIII, p. 248. + +PAGE 232 + +[373] ~Théophile Gautier~. A noted French poet, critic, and novelist, +and a leader of the French Romantic Movement (1811-72). + +[374] _The Recluse_, ll. 767-71. + +[375] _Æneid_, VI, 662. + +PAGE 233 + +[376] ~Leslie Stephen~. English biographer and literary critic +(1832-1904). He was the first editor of the _Dictionary of National +Biography_. Arnold quotes from the essay on _Wordsworth's Ethics_ in +_Hours in a Library_ (1874-79), vol. III. + +[377] _Excursion_, IV, 73-76. + +PAGE 234 + +[378] _Ibid._, II, 10-17. + +[379] _Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early +Childhood_. + +PAGE 235 + +[380] _Excursion_, IX, 293-302. + +PAGE 236 + +[381] See p. 232.[Transcriber's note: This approximates to the section +following the text reference for Footnote 373 in this e-text.] + +PAGE 237 + +[382] ~the "not ourselves."~ Arnold quotes his own definition of God as +"the enduring power, not ourselves, which makes for righteousness." See +_Literature and Dogma_, chap. I. + +[383] The opening sentence of a famous criticism of the _Excursion_ +published in the _Edinburgh Review_ for November, 1814, no. 47. It was +written by ~Francis Jeffrey, Lord Jeffrey~ (1773-1850), Scottish judge +and literary critic, and first editor of the _Edinburgh Review_. + +PAGE 238 + +[384] _Macbeth_, III, ii. + +[385] _Paradise Lost_, VII, 23-24. + +[386] _The Recluse_, l. 831. + +PAGE 239 + +[387] From Burns's _A Bard's Epitaph_. + +PAGE 240 + +[388] The correct title is _The Solitary Reaper_. + + +SWEETNESS AND LIGHT + +PAGE 242 + +[389] This selection is the first chapter of _Culture and Anarchy_. It +originally formed a part of the last lecture delivered by Arnold as +Professor of Poetry at Oxford. _Culture and Anarchy_ was first printed +in _The Cornhill Magazine_, July 1867,-August, 1868, vols. XVI-XVIII. It +was published as a book in 1869. + +[390] For ~Sainte-Beuve~, see _The Study of Poetry, Selections_, Note 2, +p. 56.[Transcriber's note: This is Footnote 65 in this e-text.] + The article referred to appeared in the _Quarterly Review_ for January, +1866, vol. CXIX, p. 80. It finds fault with Sainte-Beuve's lack of +conclusiveness, and describes him as having "spent his life in fitting +his mind to be an elaborate receptacle for well-arranged doubts." In +this respect a comparison is made with Arnold's "graceful but perfectly +unsatisfactory essays." + +PAGE 243 + +[391] From Montesquieu's _Discours sur les motifs qui doivent nous +encourager aux sciences, prononcé le 15 Novembre, 1725_. Montesquieu's +_Oeuvres complètes_, ed. Laboulaye, VII, 78. + +PAGE 244 + +[392] ~Thomas Wilson~ (1663-1755) was consecrated Bishop of Sodor and +Man in 1698. His episcopate was marked by a number of reforms in the +Isle of Man. The opening pages of Arnold's _Preface_ to _Culture and +Anarchy_ are devoted to an appreciation of Wilson. He says: "On a lower +range than the _Imitation_, and awakening in our nature chords less +poetical and delicate, the _Maxims_ of Bishop Wilson are, as a religious +work, far more solid. To the most sincere ardor and unction, Bishop +Wilson unites, in these _Maxims_, that downright honesty and plain good +sense which our English race has so powerfully applied to the divine +impossibilities of religion; by which it has brought religion so much +into practical life, and has done its allotted part in promoting upon +earth the kingdom of God." + +[393] ~will of God prevail~. _Maxim_ 450 reads: "A prudent Christian +will resolve at all times to sacrifice his inclinations to reason, and +his reason to the will and word of God." + +PAGE 247 + +[394] From Bishop Wilson's _Sacra Privata_, Noon Prayers, _Works_, ed. +1781, I, 199. + +PAGE 248 + +[395] ~John Bright~ (1811-89) was a leader with Cobden in the agitation +for repeal of the Corn Laws and other measures of reform, and was one of +England's greatest masters of oratory. + +[396] ~Frederic Harrison~ (1831-), English jurist and historian, was +president of the English Positivist Committee, 1880-1905. His _Creed of +a Layman_ (1907) is a statement of his religious position. + +PAGE 249 + +[397] See _The Function of Criticism, Selections_, Note 2, p. 37. +[Transcriber's note: This is Footnote 38 in this e-text.] + + +PAGE 253 + +[398] 1 Tim., IV, 8. + +[399] The first of the "Rules of Health and Long Life" in _Poor +Richard's Almanac_ for December, 1742. The quotation should read: "as +the Constitution of thy Body allows of." + +[400] Epictetus, _Encheiridion_, chap. XLI. + +[401] ~Sweetness and Light~. The phrase is from Swift's _The Battle of +the Books, Works_, ed. Scott, 1824, X, 240. In the apologue of the +Spider and the Bee the superiority of the ancient over the modern +writers is thus summarized: "Instead of dirt and poison we have rather +chose to fill our hives with honey and wax, thus furnishing mankind with +the two noblest of things, which are sweetness and light." + +PAGE 256 + +[402] ~Independents~. The name applied in England during the seventeenth +and eighteenth centuries to the denomination now known as +Congregationalists. + +[403] From Burke's Speech on _Conciliation with America, Works_, ed. +1834, I, 187. + +[404] 1 Pet., III, 8. + +PAGE 258 + +[405] ~Epsom~. A market town in Surrey, where are held the famous Derby +races, founded in 1780. + +PAGE 259 + +[406] Sallust's _Catiline_, chap. LII, § 22. + +[407] The ~Daily Telegraph~ was begun in June, 1855, as a twopenny +newspaper. It became the great organ of the middle classes and has been +distinguished for its enterprise in many fields. Up to 1878 it was +consistently Liberal in politics. It is a frequent object of Arnold's +irony as the mouthpiece of English philistinism. + +PAGE 261 + +[408] ~Young Leo~ (or ~Leo Adolescens~) is Arnold's name for the typical +writer of the _Daily Telegraph_ (see above). He is a prominent character +of _Friendship's Garland_. + +PAGE 262 + +[409] ~Edmond Beales~ (1803-81), political agitator, was especially +identified with the movement for manhood suffrage and the ballot, and +was the leading spirit in two large popular demonstrations in London in +1866. + +[410] ~Charles Bradlaugh~ (1833-91), freethought advocate and +politician. His efforts were especially directed toward maintaining the +freedom of the press in issuing criticisms on religious belief and +sociological questions. In 1880 he became a Member of Parliament, and +began a long and finally successful struggle for the right to take his +seat in Parliament without the customary oath on the Bible. + +[411] ~John Henry Newman~ (1801-90) was the leader of the Oxford +Movement in the English Church. His _Apologia pro Vita Sua_ (1864) was a +defense of his religious life and an account of the causes which led him +from Anglicanism to Romanism. For his hostility to Liberalism see the +_Apologia_, ed. 1907, pp. 34, 212, and 288. + +[412] _Æneid_, I, 460. + +PAGE 263 + +[413] ~The Reform Bill of 1832~ abolished fifty-six "rotten" boroughs +and made other changes in representation to Parliament, thus +transferring a large share of political power from the landed +aristocracy to the middle classes. + +[414] ~Robert Lowe~ (1811-92), afterwards Viscount Sherbrooke, held +offices in the Board of Education and Board of Trade. He was liberal, +but opposed the Reform Bill of that party in 1866-67. His speeches on +the subject were printed in 1867. + +PAGE 266 + +[415] ~Jacobinism~. The _Société des Jacobins_ was the most famous of +the political clubs of the French Revolution. Later the term ~Jacobin~ +was applied to any promulgator of extreme revolutionary or radical +opinions. + +[416] See _ante_, Note 2, p. 248. + +[417] ~Auguste Comte~ (1798-1857), French philosopher and founder of +Positivism. This system of thought attempts to base religion on the +verifiable facts of existence, opposes devotion to the study of +metaphysics, and substitutes the worship of Humanity for supernatural +religion. + +[418] ~Richard Congreve~ (1818-99) resigned a fellowship at Oxford in +1855, and devoted the remainder of his life to the propagation of the +Positive philosophy. + +PAGE 267 + +[419] ~Jeremy Bentham~ (1748-1832), philosopher and jurist, was leader +of the English school of Utilitarianism, which recognizes "the greatest +happiness of the greatest number" as the proper foundation of morality +and legislation. + +[420] ~Ludwig Preller~ (1809-61), German philologist and antiquarian. + +PAGE 268 + +[421] ~Book of Job~. Arnold must have read Franklin's piece hastily, +since he has mistaken a bit of ironic trifling for a serious attempt to +rewrite the Scriptures. The _Proposed New Version of the Bible_ is +merely a bit of amusing burlesque in which six verses of the Book of Job +are rewritten in the style of modern politics. According to Mr. William +Temple Franklin the _Bagatelles_, of which the _Proposed New Version_ is +a part, were "chiefly written by Dr. Franklin for the amusement of his +intimate society in London and Paris." See Franklin's _Complete Works_, +ed. 1844, II, 164. + +[422] ~The Deontology~, or _The Science of Morality_, was arranged and +edited by John Bowring, in 1834, two years after Bentham's death, and it +is doubtful how far it represents Bentham's thoughts. + +[423] ~Henry Thomas Buckle~ (1821-62) was the author of the _History of +Civilization in England_, a book which, though full of inaccuracies, has +had a great influence on the theory and method of historical writing. + +[424] ~Mr. Mill~. See _Marcus Aurelius, Selections_, Note 2, p. 145. +[Transcriber's note: This is Footnote 183 in this e-text.] + + +PAGE 269 + +[425] The article from which Arnold quotes these extracts is not +Frederic Harrison's _Culture: A Dialogue_, but an earlier essay in the +_Fortnightly Review_ for March 1, 1867, called _Our Venetian +Constitution_, See pages 276-77 of the article. + +PAGE 271 + +[426] ~Peter Abelard~ (1079-1142) was a scholastic philosopher and a +leader in the more liberal thought of his day. + +[427] ~Gotthold Ephraim Lessing~ (1729-81), German critic and dramatist. +His best-known writings are the epoch-making critical work, _Laokoön_ +(1766), and the drama _Minna van Barnhelm_ (1767). His ideas were in the +highest degree stimulating and fruitful to the German writers who +followed him. + +[428] ~Johann Gottfried von Herder~ (1744-1803), a voluminous and +influential German writer, was a pioneer of the Romantic Movement. He +championed adherence to the national type in literature, and helped to +found the historical method in literature and science. + +PAGE 272 + +[429] _Confessions of St. Augustine_, XIII, 18, 22, Everyman's +Library ed., p. 326. + +HEBRAISM AND HELLENISM + +PAGE 273 + +[430] The present selection comprises chapter IV, of _Culture and +Anarchy_. In the preceding chapter Arnold has been pointing out the +imperfection of the various classes of English society, which he +describes as "Barbarians, Philistines, and Populace." For the correction +of this imperfection he pleads for "some public recognition and +establishment of our best self, or right reason." In chapter III, he has +shown how "our habits and practice oppose themselves to such a +recognition." He now proposes to find, "beneath our actual habits and +practice, the very ground and cause out of which they spring." Then +follows the selection here given. + +Professor Gates has pointed out the fact that Arnold probably borrows +the terms here contrasted from Heine. In _Ãœber Ludwig Börne_ (_Werke_, +ed. Stuttgart, X, 12), Heine says: "All men are either Jews or Hellenes, +men ascetic in their instincts, hostile to culture, spiritual fanatics, +or men of vigorous good cheer, full of the pride of life, Naturalists." +For Heine's own relation to Hebraism and Hellenism, see the present +selection, p. 275. + +[431] See _Sweetness and Light, Selections_, Note 1, p. 244. +[Transcriber's note: This is Footnote 392 in this e-text.] _Maxim_ 452 +reads: "Two things a Christian will never do--never go against the best +light he has, this will prove his sincerity, and, 2, to take care that +his light be not darkness, i.e., that he mistake not his rule by which +he ought to go." + +PAGE 274 + +[432] 2 Pet. I, 4. + +[433] ~Frederick William Robertson~ (1816-53) began his famous ministry +at Brighton in 1847. He was a man of deep spirituality and great +sincerity. The latter part of his life was clouded by opposition roused +by his sympathy with the revolutionary ideas of the 1848 epoch and by +the mental trouble which eventually resulted in his death. The sermon +referred to seems to be the first Advent Lecture on _The Greek_. Arnold +objects to Robertson's rather facile summarizing. Four characteristics +are mentioned as marking Grecian life and religion: restlessness, +worldliness, worship of the beautiful, and worship of the human. The +second of these has three results, disappointment, degradation, +disbelief in immortality. + +PAGE 275 + +[434] ~Heinrich Heine~. See _Heine, Selections_, pp. 112-144. +[Transcriber's note: This section begins at the text reference for +Footnote 135 in this e-text.] + +[435] Prov. XXIX, 18. + +[436] Ps. CXII, 1. + +PAGE 277 + +[437] Rom. III, 31. + +[438] Zech. IX, 13. + +[439] Prov. XVI, 22. + +[440] John I, 4-9; 8-12; Luke II, 32, etc. + +[441] John VIII, 32. + +[442] _Nichomachæan Ethics_, bk. II, chap. III. + +[443] Jas. I, 25. + +[444] _Discourses of Epictetus_, bk. II, chap. XIX, trans. Long, I, +214 ff. + +PAGE 278 + +[445] ~Learning to die~. Arnold seems to be thinking of _Phædo_, 64, +_Dialogues_, II, 202: "For I deem that the true votary of philosophy is +likely to be misunderstood by other men; they do not perceive that he is +always pursuing death and dying; and if this be so, and he has had the +desire of death all his life long, why when his time comes should he +repine at that which he has been always pursuing and desiring?" Plato +goes on to show that life is best when it is most freed from the +concerns of the body. Cf. also _Phædrus_ (_Dialogues_, II, 127) and +_Gorgias_ (_Dialogues_, II, 369). + +[446] 2 Cor. V, 14. + +[447] See Aristotle, _Nichomachæan Ethics_, bk. X, chaps. VIII, IX. + +[448] _Phædo_, 82D, _Dialogues_, I, 226. + +PAGE 279 + +[449] Xenophon's _Memorabilia_, bk. IV, chap. VIII, § 6. + +PAGE 280 + +[450] ~Edward Bouverie Pusey~ (1800-82), English divine and leader of +the High Church party in the Oxford Movement. + +PAGE 281 + +[451] Zech. VIII, 23. + +[452] ~my Saviour banished joy~. The sentence is an incorrect quotation +from George Herbert's _The Size_, the fifth stanza of which begins:-- + + "Thy Savior sentenced joy, + And in the flesh condemn'd it as unfit,-- + At least in lump." + +[453] Eph. V, 6. + +PAGE 282 + +[454] The first two books.[Arnold.] + +[455] See Rom. III, 2. + +[456] See Cor. III, 19. + +PAGE 283 + +[457] ~Phædo~. In this dialogue Plato attempts to substantiate the +doctrine of immortality by narrating the last hours of Socrates and his +conversation on this subject when his own death was at hand. + +PAGE 284 + +[458] ~Renascence~. I have ventured to give to the foreign word +_Renaissance_--destined to become of more common use amongst us as the +movement which it denotes comes, as it will come, increasingly to +interest us,--an English form.[Arnold.] + + +EQUALITY + +PAGE 289 + +[459] This essay, originally an address delivered at the Royal +Institution, was published in the _Fortnightly Review_, for March, 1878, +and reprinted in _Mixed Essays_, 1879. In the present selection the +opening pages have been omitted. Arnold begins with a statement of +England's tendency to maintain a condition of inequality between +classes. This is reinforced by the English freedom of bequest, a freedom +greater than in most of the Continental countries. The question of the +advisability of altering the English law of bequest is a matter not of +abstract right, but of expediency. That the maintenance of inequality is +expedient for English civilization and welfare is generally assumed. +Whether or not this assumption is well founded, Arnold proposes to +examine in the concluding pages. As a preliminary step he defines +civilization as the humanization of man in society. Then follows the +selected passage. + +[460] ~Isocrates~. An Attic orator (436-338 B.C.). He was an ardent +advocate of Greek unity. The passage quoted occurs in the _Panegyricus_, +§ 50, _Orations_, ed. 1894, p. 67. + +PAGE 290 + +[461] ~Giacomo Antonelli~ (1806-76), Italian cardinal. From 1850 until +his death his activity was chiefly devoted to the struggle between the +Papacy and the Italian Risorgimento. + +PAGE 291 + +[462] ~famous passage~. The _Introduction_ to his _Age of Louis XIV_. + +PAGE 293 + +[463] ~Laveleye~. See _George Sand_, _Selections_, Note 2, p. 212. +[Transcriber's note: This is Footnote 336 in this e-text.] + + +[464] ~Sir Thomas Erskine May, Lord Farnborough~ (1815-86), +constitutional jurist. Arnold in the omitted portion of the present +essay has quoted several sentences from his _History of Democracy_: +"France has aimed at social equality. The fearful troubles through which +she has passed have checked her prosperity, demoralised her society, and +arrested the intellectual growth of her people. Yet is she high, if not +the first, in the scale of civilised nations." + +[465] ~Hamerton~. See _George Sand_, _Selections_, Note 2, p. 215. +[Transcriber's note: This is Footnote 340 in this e-text.] The quotation +is from _Round My House_, chap, XI, ed. 1876, pp. 229-30. + +PAGE 294 + +[466] ~Charles Sumner~ (1811-74), American statesman, was the most +brilliant and uncompromising of the anti-slavery leaders. + +PAGE 295 + +[467] ~Alsace~. The people of Alsace, though German in origin, showed a +very strong feeling against Prussian rule in the Franco-Prussian War of +1870-71. In September, 1872, 45,000 elected to be still French and +transferred their domicile to France. + +PAGE 296 + +[468] ~Michelet~. See _George Sand_, _Selections_, Note 1, p. 195. +[Transcriber's note: This is Footnote 305 in this e-text.] + + +PAGE 298 + +[469] The chorus of a popular music-hall song of the time. From it was +derived the word _jingoism_. For the original application of this term +see Webster's _Dictionary_. + +[470] ~Dwight L. Moody~ (1837-99) and ~Ira D. Sankey~ (1840-1908), the +famous American evangelists, held notable revival meetings in England in +1873-75. + +PAGE 299 + +[471] See, e.g., _Heine_, _Selections_, p. 129.[Transcriber's note: +This approximates to the section following the text reference for +Footnote 154 in this e-text.] + +[472] ~Goldwin Smith~. See Note 2, p. 301. + +PAGE 301 + +[473] See Milton's _Colasterion_, _Works_, ed. 1843, III, 445 and 452. + +[474] ~Goldwin Smith~ (1824-1910), British publicist and historian, has +taken an active part in educational questions both in England and +America. The passage quoted below is from an article entitled _Falkland +and the Puritans_, published in the _Contemporary Review_ as a reply to +Arnold's essay on Falkland. See _Lectures and Essays_, New York, 1881. + +[475] ~John Hutchinson~ (1616-64), Puritan soldier. The _Memoirs of the +Life of Colonel Hutchinson_, written by his wife Lucy, but not published +until 1806, are remarkable both for the picture which they give of the +man and the time, and also for their simple beauty of style. For the +passage quoted see Everyman's Library ed., pp. 182-83. + +[476] ~pædobaptism~. Infant baptism. + +PAGE 303 + +[477] Man disquiets himself, but God manages the matter. For ~Bossuet~ +see _The Function of Criticism_, _Selections_, Note 2, p. 49. +[Transcriber's note: This is Footnote 60 in this e-text.] + +[478] Prov. XIX, 21. + +[479] So in the original.[Arnold.] + +PAGE 304 + +[480] ~Bright~. See _Sweetness and Light_, _Selections_, Note 1, p. +248.[Transcriber's note: This is Footnote 395 in this e-text.] + +[481] ~Richard Cobden~ (1804-65), English manufacturer and Radical +politician. He was a leader in the agitation for repeal of the Corn Laws +and in advocacy of free trade. + +PAGE 305 + +[482] Prov. XIV, 6. + +[483] Compare _Culture and Anarchy_, chaps. II and III, and _Ecce +Convertimur ad Gentes, Irish Essays_, ed. 1903, p. 115. + +PAGE 307 + +[484] ~Samuel Pepys~ (1633-1703), English diarist. + +PAGE 310 + +[485] ~young lion~. See _Sweetness and Light_, _Selections_, Note 1, p. +261.[Transcriber's note: This is Footnote 408 in this e-text.] + +PAGE 312 + +[486] ~Mill~. See _Marcus Aurelius_, _Selections_, Note 2, p. 145. +[Transcriber's note: This is Footnote 183 in this e-text.] + +[487] ~Spencer Compton Cavendish~ (1833-1908), Marquis of ~Hartington~ +(since 1891 Duke of Devonshire), became Liberal leader in the House of +Commons after the defeat and withdrawal of Gladstone in January, 1875. + +PAGE 313 + +[488] ~Menander~. See _Contribution of the Celts_, _Selections_, Note 3, +p. 177.[Transcriber's note: This is Footnote 255 in this e-text.] + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Selections from the Prose Works of +Matthew Arnold, by Matthew Arnold + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 12628 *** diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Selections from the Prose Works of Matthew Arnold + +Author: Matthew Arnold + +Release Date: June 15, 2004 [EBook #12628] +Last Updated: December 28, 2008 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WORKS OF MATTHEW ARNOLD *** + + + + +Produced by Charles Franks, Carol David and PG Distributed Proofreaders + + + + +[Transcriber's notes: + +Bold text is denoted with ~. + +Footnotes: +In the original, footnote numbering restarted on each page, and they +were collated at the end of the text in page number order. In this +e-text, footnotes have been renumbered consecutively through the text. +However, they are still to be found in their original position after the +text, and the original page numbers have been retained in the +footnotes. + +There is one footnote in the Preface, which is to be found in its +original position at the end of the Preface.] + + * * * * * + + + +Riverside College Classics + +SELECTIONS + +FROM THE PROSE WORKS OF + +MATTHEW ARNOLD + +_EDITED WITH INTRODUCTION AND NOTES_ + +BY + +WILLIAM SAVAGE JOHNSON, PH.D. + +_Professor of English Literature in the University of Kansas_ + +HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY + +BOSTON NEW YORK CHICAGO SAN FRANCISCO + +The Riverside Press Cambridge + + + +_The essays included in this issue of the Riverside College Classics are +reprinted by permission of, and by arrangement with, The Macmillan +Company, the American publishers of Arnold's writings._ + +1913, HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY + +ALL RIGHTS RESERVED + +The Riverside Press +CAMBRIDGE MASSACHUSETTS +PRINTED IN THE U.S.A. + + + + +PREFACE + +This book of selections aims to furnish examples of Arnold's prose in +all the fields in which it characteristically employed itself except +that of religion. It has seemed better to omit all such material than to +attempt inclusion of a few extracts which could hardly give any adequate +notion of Arnold's work in this department. Something, however, of his +method in religious criticism can be discerned by a perusal of the +chapter on _Hebraism and Hellenism_, selected from _Culture and +Anarchy_. Most of Arnold's leading ideas are represented in this volume, +but the decision to use entire essays so far as feasible has naturally +precluded the possibility of gathering all the important utterances +together. The basis of division and grouping of the selections is made +sufficiently obvious by the headings. In the division of literary +criticism the endeavor has been to illustrate Arnold's cosmopolitanism +by essays of first-rate importance dealing with the four literatures +with which he was well acquainted. In the notes, conciseness with a +reasonable degree of thoroughness has been the principle followed. + + + + +CONTENTS + + +INTRODUCTION + +BIBLIOGRAPHY + +SELECTIONS: + +I. THEORIES OF LITERATURE AND CRITICISM: + + 1. Poetry and the Classics (1853) + 2. The Function of Criticism at the Present Time (1864) + 3. The Study of Poetry (1880) + 4. Literature and Science (1882) + +II. LITERARY CRITICISM: + + 1. Heinrich Heine (1863) + 2. Marcus Aurelius (1863) + 3. The Contribution of the Celts to English Literature (1866) + 4. George Sand (1877) + 5. Wordsworth (1879) + +III. SOCIAL AND POLITICAL STUDIES: + + 1. Sweetness and Light (1867) + 2. Hebraism and Hellenism (1867) + 3. Equality (1878) + +NOTES + + + + + +INTRODUCTION + + +I + +[Sidenote: Life and Personality] + +"The gray hairs on my head are becoming more and more numerous, and I +sometimes grow impatient of getting old amidst a press of occupations +and labor for which, after all, I was not born. But we are not here to +have facilities found us for doing the work we like, but to make them." +This sentence, written in a letter to his mother in his fortieth year, +admirably expresses Arnold's courage, cheerfulness, and devotion in the +midst of an exacting round of commonplace duties, and at the same time +the energy and determination with which he responded to the imperative +need of liberating work of a higher order, that he might keep himself, +as he says in another letter, "from feeling starved and shrunk up." The +two feelings directed the course of his life to the end, a life +characterized no less by allegiance to "the lowliest duties" than by +brilliant success in a more attractive field. + +Matthew Arnold was born at Laleham, December 24, 1822, the eldest son of +Thomas Arnold, the great head master of Rugby. He was educated at +Laleham, Winchester, Rugby, and Balliol College, Oxford. In 1845 he was +elected a fellow of Oriel, but Arnold desired to be a man of the world, +and the security of college cloisters and garden walls could not long +attract him. Of a deep affection for Oxford his letters and his books +speak unmistakably, but little record of his Oxford life remains aside +from the well-known lines of Principal Shairp, in which he is spoken of +as + + So full of power, yet blithe and debonair, + Rallying his friends with pleasant banter gay. + +From Oxford he returned to teach classics at Rugby, and +in 1847 he was appointed private secretary to Lord Lansdowne, then Lord +President of the Council. In 1851, the year of his marriage, he became +inspector of schools, and in this service he continued until two years +before his death. As an inspector, the letters give us a picture of +Arnold toiling over examination papers, and hurrying from place to +place, covering great distances, often going without lunch or dinner, or +seeking the doubtful solace of a bun, eaten "before the astonished +school." His services to the cause of English education were great, both +in the direction of personal inspiration to teachers and students, and +in thoughtful discussion of national problems. Much time was spent in +investigating foreign systems, and his _Report upon Schools and +Universities on the Continent_ was enlightened and suggestive. + +Arnold's first volume of poems appeared in 1849, and by 1853 the larger +part of his poetry was published. Four years later he was appointed +Professor of Poetry at Oxford. Of his prose, the first book to attract +wide notice was that containing the lectures _On Translating Homer_ +delivered from the chair of Poetry and published in 1861-62. From this +time until the year of his death appeared the remarkable series of +critical writings which have placed him in the front rank of the men of +letters of his century. He continued faithfully to fulfill his duties as +school inspector until April, 1886, when he resigned after a service of +thirty-five years. He died of heart trouble on April 15, 1888, at +Liverpool. + +The testimony to Arnold's personal charm, to his cheerfulness, his +urbanity, his tolerance and charity, is remarkably uniform. He is +described by one who knew him as "the most sociable, the most lovable, +the most companionable of men"; by another as "preëminently a good man, +gentle, generous, enduring, laborious." His letters are among the +precious writings of our time, not because of the beauty or +inimitableness of detail, but because of the completed picture which +they make. They do not, like the Carlyle-Emerson correspondence, show a +hand that could not set pen to paper without writing picturesquely, but +they do reveal a character of great soundness and sweetness, and one in +which the affections play a surprisingly important part, the love of +flowers and books, of family and friends, and of his fellow men. His +life was human, kindly and unselfish, and he allowed no clash between +the pursuit of personal perfection and devotion to the public cause, +even when the latter demanded sacrifice of the most cherished projects +and adherence to the most irritating drudgery. + + +II + +[Sidenote: Arnold's Place among Nineteenth-Century Teachers] + +By those who go to literature primarily for a practical wisdom presented +in terms applicable to modern life, the work of Arnold will be reckoned +highly important, if not indispensable. He will be placed by them among +the great humanizers of the last century, and by comparison with his +contemporaries will be seen to have furnished a complementary +contribution of the highest value. Of the other great teachers whose +work may most fitly be compared with his, two were preëminently men of +feeling. Carlyle was governed by an overmastering moral fervor which +gave great weight to his utterances, but which exercised itself in a +narrow field and which often distorted and misinterpreted the facts. +Ruskin was governed by his affections, and though an ardent lover of +truth and beauty, was often the victim of caprice and extravagance. +Emerson and Arnold, on the other hand, were governed primarily by the +intellect, but with quite different results. Emerson presents life in +its ideality; he comparatively neglects life in its phenomenal aspect, +that is, as it appears to the ordinary man. Arnold, while not without +emotional equipment, and inspired by idealism of a high order, +introduces a yet larger element of practical season. _Tendens manus ripæ +ulterioris amore_, he is yet first of all a man of this world. His chief +instrument is common sense, and he looks at questions from the point of +view of the highly intelligent and cultivated man. His dislike of +metaphysics was as deep as Ruskin's, and he was impatient of +abstractions of any sort. With as great a desire to further the true +progress of his time as Carlyle or Ruskin, he joined a greater calmness +and disinterestedness. "To be less and less personal in one's desires +and workings" he learned to look upon as after all the great matter. Of +the lessons that are impressed upon us by his whole life and work rather +than by specific teachings, perhaps the most precious is the inspiration +to live our lives thoughtfully, in no haphazard and hand-to-mouth way, +and to live always for the idea and the spirit, making all things else +subservient. He does not dazzle us with extraordinary power prodigally +spent, but he was a good steward of natural gifts, high, though below +the highest. His life of forethought and reason may be profitably +compared with a life spoiled by passion and animalism like that of Byron +or of Burns. His counsels are the fruit of this well-ordered life and +are perfectly in consonance with it. While he was a man of less striking +personality and less brilliant literary gift than some of his +contemporaries, and though his appeal was without the moving power that +comes from great emotion, we find a compensation in his greater balance +and sanity. He makes singularly few mistakes, and these chiefly of +detail. Of all the teachings of the age his ideal of perfection is the +wisest and the most permanent. + + +III + +[Sidenote: His Teachers and his Personal Philosophy] + +Arnold's poetry is the poetry of meditation and not the poetry of +passion; it comes from "the depth and not the tumult of the soul"; it +does not make us more joyful, but it helps us to greater depth of +vision, greater detachment, greater power of self-possession. Our +concern here is chiefly with its relation to the prose, and this, too, +is a definite and important relation. In his prose Arnold gives such +result of his observation and meditation as he believes may be gathered +into the form of counsel, criticism, and warning to his age. In his +poetry, which preceded the prose, we find rather the processes through +which he reached these conclusions; we learn what is the nature of his +communing upon life, not as it affects society, but as it fronts the +individual; we learn who are the great thinkers of the past who came to +his help in the straits of life, and what is the armor which they +furnished for his soul in its times of stress. + +One result of a perusal of the poems is to counteract the impression +often produced by the jaunty air assumed in the prose. The real +substance of Arnold's thought is characterized by a deep seriousness; no +one felt more deeply the spiritual unrest and distraction of his age. +More than one poem is an expression of its mental and spiritual +sickness, its doubt, ennui, and melancholy. Yet beside such poems as +_Dover Beach_ and _Stagirius_ should be placed the lines from +_Westminster Abbey_:-- + + For this and that way swings + The flux of mortal things, + Though moving inly to one far-set goal. + +Out of this entanglement and distraction Arnold turned for help to those +writers who seemed most perfectly to have seized upon the eternal +verities, to have escaped out of the storm of conflict and to have +gained calm and peaceful seats. Carlyle and Ruskin, Byron and Shelley, +were stained with the blood of battle, they raged in the heat of +controversy; Arnold could not accept them as his teachers. But the Greek +poets and the ancient Stoic philosophers have nothing of this dust and +heat about them, and to them Arnold turns to gather truth and to imitate +their spirit. Similarly, two poets of modern times, Goethe and +Wordsworth, have won tranquillity. They, too, become his teachers. +Arnold's chief guides for life are, then, these: two Greek poets, +Sophocles and Homer; two ancient philosophers, Marcus Aurelius and +Epictetus; two modern poets, Goethe and Wordsworth. + +In Homer and Sophocles, Arnold sought what we may call the Greek spirit. +What he conceived this spirit to be as expressed in art, we find in the +essay on _Literature and Science_, "fit details strictly combined, in +view of a large general result nobly conceived." In Sophocles, Arnold +found the same spirit interpreting life with a vision that "saw life +steadily and saw it whole." In another Greek idea, that of fate, he is +also greatly interested, though his conception of it is modified by the +influence of Christianity. From the Greek poets, then, Arnold derived a +sense of the large part which destiny plays in our lives and the wisdom +of conforming our lives to necessity; the importance of conceiving of +life as directed toward a simple, large, and noble end; and the +desirability of maintaining a balance among the demands that life makes +on us, of adapting fit details to the main purpose of life. + +Among modern writers Arnold turned first to Goethe, "Europe's sagest +head, Physician of the Iron Age." One of the things that he learned from +this source was the value of detachment. In the midst of the turmoil of +life, Goethe found refuge in Art. He is the great modern example of a +man who has been able to separate himself from the struggle of life and +watch it calmly. + + He who hath watch'd, not shared the strife, + Knows how the day hath gone. + +Aloofness, provided it be not selfish, has its own value, and, indeed, +isolation must be recognized as a law of our existence. + + Thin, thin the pleasant human noises grow, + And faint the city gleams; + Rare the lone pastoral huts--Marvel not thou! + The solemn peaks but to the stars are known, + But to the stars and the cold lunar beams; + Alone the sun rises, and alone + Spring the great streams. + +From Goethe, also, Arnold derived the gospel of culture and faith in the +intellectual life. It is significant that while Carlyle and Arnold may +both be looked upon as disciples of Goethe, Carlyle's most +characteristic quotation from his master is his injunction to us to "do +the task that lies nearest us," while Arnold's is such a maxim as, "To +act is easy, to think is hard." + +In some ways Wordsworth was for Arnold a personality even more congenial +than Goethe. His range, to be sure, is narrow, but he, too, has attained +spiritual peace. His life, secure among its English hills and lakes, was +untroubled in its faith. Wordsworth strongly reinforces three things in +Arnold, the ability to derive from nature its "healing power" and to +share and be glad in "the wonder and bloom of the world"; truth to the +deeper spiritual life and strength to keep his soul + + Fresh, undiverted to the world without, + Firm to the mark, not spent on other things; + +and finally, a satisfaction in the cheerful and serene performance of +duty, the spirit of "toil unsevered from tranquillity," sharing in the +world's work, yet keeping "free from dust and soil." + +From the Emperor Marcus Aurelius and from the slave Epictetus alike, +Arnold learned to look within for "the aids to noble life." Overshadowed +on all sides by the "uno'erleaped mountains of necessity," we must learn +to resign our passionate hopes "for quiet and a fearless mind," to merge +the self in obedience to universal law, and to keep ever before our +minds + + The pure eternal course of life, + Not human combatings with death. + +No conviction is more frequently reiterated in Arnold's poetry than that +of the wisdom of resignation and self-dependence. + +These great masters, then, strengthened Arnold in those high instincts +which needed nourishment in a day of spiritual unrest. From the Greek +poets he learned to look at life steadily and as a whole, to direct it +toward simple and noble ends, and to preserve in it a balance and +perfection of parts. From Goethe he derived the lessons of detachment +and self-culture. From Wordsworth he learned to find peace in nature, to +pursue an unworldly purpose, and to be content with humble duties. From +the Stoics he learned, especially, self-dependence and resignation. In +general, he endeavored to follow an ideal of perfection and to +distinguish always between temporary demands and eternal values. + + +IV + +[Sidenote: Theory of Criticism and Equipment as a Critic] + +In passing from poetry to criticism, Arnold did not feel that he was +descending to a lower level. Rather he felt that he was helping to lift +criticism to a position of equality with more properly creative work. +The most noticeable thing about his definition of criticism is its lofty +ambition. It is "the disinterested endeavor to learn and propagate the +best that is known and thought in the world," and its more ultimate +purpose is "to keep man from a self-satisfaction which is retarding and +vulgarizing, to lead him towards perfection." It is not to be confined +to art and literature, but is to include within its scope society, +politics, and religion. It is not only to censure that which is +blameworthy, but to appreciate and popularize the best. + +For this work great virtues are demanded of the critic. Foremost of +these is disinterestedness. "If I know your sect, I anticipate your +argument," says Emerson in the essay on _Self-Reliance_. Similarly +Arnold warns the critic against partisanship. It is better that he +refrain from active participation in politics, social or humanitarian +work. Connected with this is another requisite, that of clearness of +vision. One of the great disadvantages of partisanship is that it blinds +the partisan. But the critical effort is described as "the effort to see +the object as in itself it really is." This is best accomplished by +approaching truth in as many ways and from as many sides as possible. + +Another precaution for the critic who would retain clearness of vision +is the avoidance of abstract systems, which petrify and hinder the +necessary flexibility of mind. Coolness of temper is also enjoined and +scrupulously practiced. "It is only by remaining collected ... that the +critic can do the practical man any service"; and again: "Even in one's +ridicule one must preserve a sweetness and good humor" (letter to his +mother, October 27, 1863). In addition to these virtues, which in +Arnold's opinion comprised the qualities most requisite for salutary +criticism, certain others are strikingly illustrated by Arnold's own +mind and methods: the endeavor to understand, to sympathize with, and to +guide intelligently the main tendencies of his age, rather than +violently to oppose them; at the same time the courage to present +unpleasant antidotes to its faults and to keep from fostering a people +in its own conceit; and finally, amidst many discouragements, the +retention of a high faith in spiritual progress and an unwavering belief +that the ideal life is "the normal life as we shall one day see it." + +Criticism, to be effective, requires also an adequate style. In Arnold's +discussion of style, much stress is laid on its basis in character, and +much upon the transparent quality of true style which allows that basic +character to shine through. Such words as "limpidness," "simplicity," +"lucidity," are favorites. Clearness and effectiveness are the qualities +that he most highly valued. The latter he gained especially through the +crystallization of his thought into certain telling phrases, such as +"Philistinism," "sweetness and light," "the grand style," etc. That this +habit was attended with dangers, that his readers were likely to get +hold of his phrases and think that they had thereby mastered his +thought, he realized. Perhaps he hardly realized the danger to the +coiner of apothegms himself, that of being content with a half truth +when the whole truth cannot be conveniently crowded into narrow compass. +Herein lies, I think, the chief source of Arnold's occasional failure to +quite satisfy our sense of adequacy or of justice, as, for instance, in +his celebrated handling of the four ways of regarding nature, or the +passage in which he describes the sterner self of the working-class as +liking "bawling, hustling, and smashing; the lighter self, beer." + +By emotionalism, however, he does not allow himself to be betrayed, and +he does not indulge in rhythmical prose or rhapsody, though occasionally +his writing has a truly poetical quality resulting from the quiet but +deep feeling which rises in connection with a subject on which the mind +has long brooded with affection, as in the tribute to Oxford at the +beginning of the _Essay on Emerson_. Sometimes, on the other hand, a +certain pedagogic stiffness appears, as if the writer feared that the +dullness of comprehension of his readers would not allow them to grasp +even the simplest conceptions without a patient insistence on the +literal fact. + +One can by no means pass over Arnold's humor in a discussion of his +style, yet humor is certainly a secondary matter with him, in spite of +the frequency of its appearance. It is not much found in his more +intimate and personal writing, his poetry and his familiar letters. In +such a book as _Friendship's Garland_, where it is most in evidence, it +is plainly a literary weapon deliberately assumed. In fact, Arnold is +almost too conscious of the value of humor in the gentle warfare in +which he had enlisted. Its most frequent form is that of playful satire; +it is the product of keen wit and sane mind, and it is always directed +toward some serious purpose, rarely, if ever, existing as an end in +itself. + + +V + +[Sidenote: Literary Criticism] + +The first volume of _Essays in Criticism_ was published in 1865. That a +book of essays on literary subjects, apparently so diverse in character, +so lacking in outer unity, and so little subject to system of any sort, +should take so definite a place in the history of criticism and make so +single an impression upon the reader proves its possession of a dominant +and important idea, impelled by a new and weighty power of personality. +What Arnold called his "sinuous, easy, unpolemical mode of proceeding" +tends to disguise the seriousness and unity of purpose which lie behind +nearly all of these essays, but an uninterrupted perusal of the two +volumes of _Essays in Criticism_ and the volume of _Mixed Essays_ +discloses what that purpose is. The essays may roughly be divided into +two classes, those which deal with single writers and those discussing +subjects of more general nature. The purpose of both is what Arnold +himself has called "the humanization of man in society." In the former +he selects some person exemplifying a trait, in the latter he selects +some general idea, which he deems of importance for our further +humanization, and in easy, unsystematic fashion unfolds and illustrates +it for us. But in spite of this unlabored method he takes care somewhere +in the essay to seize upon a phrase that shall bring home to us the +essence of his theme and to make it salient enough so as not to escape +us. How much space shall be devoted to exposition, and how much to +illustration, depends largely on the familiarity of his subject to his +readers. Besides the general purpose of humanization, two other +considerations guide him: the racial shortcomings of the English people +and the needs of his age. The English are less in need of energizing and +moralizing than of intellectualizing, refining, and inspiring with the +passion for perfection. This need accordingly determines the choice in +most cases. So Milton presents an example of "sure and flawless +perfection of rhythm and diction"; Joubert is characterized by his +intense care of "perfecting himself"; Falkland is "our martyr of +sweetness and light, of lucidity of mind and largeness of temper"; +George Sand is admirable because of her desire to make the ideal life +the normal one; Emerson is "the friend and aider of those who would live +in the spirit." + +The belief that poetry is our best instrument for humanization +determines Arnold's loyalty to that form of art; that classical art is +superior to modern in clarity, harmony, and wholeness of effect, +determines his preference for classic, especially for Greek poetry. He +thus represents a reaction against the romantic movement, yet has +experienced the emotional deepening which that movement brought with it. +Accordingly, he finds a shallowness in the pseudo-classicism of Pope and +his contemporaries, and turns rather to Sophocles on the one hand and +Goethe on the other for his exemplars. He feels "the peculiar charm and +aroma of the Middle Age," but retains "a strong sense of the +irrationality of that period and of those who take it seriously, and +play at restoring it" (letter to Miss Arnold, December 17, 1860); and +again: "No one has a stronger and more abiding sense than I have of the +'dæmonic' element--as Goethe called it--which underlies and encompasses +our life; but I think, as Goethe thought, that the right thing is while +conscious of this element, and of all that there is inexplicable round +one, to keep pushing on one's posts into the darkness, and to establish +no post that is not perfectly in light and firm" (letter to his mother, +March 3, 1865). + + +VI + +[Sidenote: Criticism of Society, Politics, and Religion] + +Like the work of all clear thinkers, Arnold's writing proceeds from a +few governing and controlling principles. It is natural, therefore, that +we should find in his criticism of society a repetition of the ideas +already encountered in his literary criticism. Of these, the chief is +that of "culture," the theme of his most typical book, _Culture and +Anarchy_, published in 1869. Indeed, it is interesting to see how +closely related his doctrine of culture is to his theory of criticism, +already expounded. True criticism, we have seen, consists in an +"endeavor to learn and propagate the best that is known and thought in +the world." The shortest definition that Arnold gives of culture is "a +study of perfection." But how may one pursue perfection? Evidently by +putting oneself in the way of learning the best that is known and +thought, and by making it a part of oneself. The relation of the critic +to culture thereupon becomes evident. He is the appointed apostle of +culture. He undertakes as his duty in life to seek out and to minister +to others the means of self-improvement, discriminating the evil and the +specious from the good and the genuine, rendering the former +contemptible and the latter attractive. But in a degree all seekers +after culture must be critics also. Both pursue the same objects, the +best that is thought and known. Both, too, must propagate it; for +culture consists in general expansion, and the last degree of personal +perfection is attained only when shared with one's fellows. The critic +and the true man of culture are, therefore, at bottom, the same, though +Arnold does not specifically point this out. But the two ideals united +in himself direct all his endeavor. As a man of culture he is intent +chiefly upon the acquisition of the means of perfection; as a critic, +upon their elucidation and propagation. + +This sufficiently answers the charge of selfishness that in frequently +brought against the gospel of culture. It would never have been brought +if its critics had not perversely shut their eyes to Arnold's express +statements that perfection consists in "a general expansion"; that it +"is not possible while the individual remains isolated"; that one of its +characteristics is "increased sympathy," as well as "increased +sweetness, increased light, increased life." The other common charge of +dilettanteism, brought by such opponents as Professor Huxley and Mr. +Frederic Harrison, deserves hardly more consideration. Arnold has made +it sufficiently clear that he does not mean by culture "a smattering of +Greek and Latin," but a deepening and strengthening of our whole +spiritual nature by all the means at our command. No other ideal of the +century is so satisfactory as this of Arnold's. The ideal of social +democracy, as commonly followed, tends, as Arnold has pointed out, to +exalt the average man, while culture exalts man at his best. The +scientific ideal, divorced from a general cultural aim, appeals "to a +limited faculty and not to the whole man." The religious ideal, too +exclusively cultivated, dwarfs the sense of beauty and is marked by +narrowness. Culture includes religion as its most valuable component, +but goes beyond it. + +The fact that Arnold, in his social as in his literary criticism, laid +the chief stress upon the intellectual rather than the moral elements of +culture, was due to his constant desire to adapt his thought to the +condition of his age and nation. The prevailing characteristics of the +English people he believed to be energy and honesty. These he contrasts +with the chief characteristics of the Athenians, openness of mind and +flexibility of intelligence. As the best type of culture, that is, of +perfected humanity, for the Englishman to emulate, he turns, therefore, +to Greece in the time of Sophocles, Greece, to be sure, failed because +of the lack of that very Hebraism which England possesses and to which +she owes her strength. But if to this strength of moral fiber could be +added the openness of mind, flexibility of intelligence, and love of +beauty which distinguished the Greeks in their best period, a truly +great civilization would result. That this ideal will in the end +prevail, he has little doubt. The strain of sadness, melancholy, and +depression which appears in Arnold's poetry is rigidly excluded from his +prose. Both despondency and violence are forbidden to the believer in +culture. "We go the way the human race is going," he says at the close +of _Culture and Anarchy_. + +Arnold's incursion into the field of religion has been looked upon by +many as a mistake. Religion is with most people a matter of closer +interest and is less discussable than literary criticism. _Literature +and Dogma_, aroused much antagonism on this account. Moreover, it cannot +be denied that Arnold was not well enough equipped in this field to +prevent him from making a good many mistakes. But that the upshot of his +religious teaching is wholesome and edifying can hardly be denied. +Arnold's spirit is a deeply religious one, and his purpose in his +religious books was to save what was valuable in religion by separating +it from what was non-essential. He thought of himself always as a +friend, not as an enemy, of religion. The purpose of all his religious +writings, of which _St. Paul and Protestantism_, 1870, and _Literature +and Dogma_, 1873, are the most important, is the same, to show the +natural truth of religion and to strengthen its position by freeing it +from dependence on dogma and historical evidence, and especially to make +clear the essential value of Christianity. Conformity with reason, true +spirituality, and freedom from materialistic interpretation were for him +the bases of sound faith. That Arnold's religious writing is thoroughly +spiritual in its aim and tendency has, I think, never been questioned, +and we need only examine some of his leading definitions to become +convinced of this. Thus, religion is described as "that which binds and +holds us to the practice of righteousness"; faith is the "power, +preëminently, of holding fast to an unseen power of goodness"; God is +"the power, not ourselves, that makes for righteousness"; immortality is +a union of one's life with an eternal order that never dies. Arnold did +not without reluctance enter into religious controversy, but when once +entered he did his best to make order and reason prevail there. His +attitude is well stated in an early essay not since reprinted:-- + + "And you are masters in Israel, and know not these things; and you + require a voice from the world of literature to tell them to you! + Those who ask nothing better than to remain silent on such topics, who + have to quit their own sphere to speak of them, who cannot touch them + without being reminded that they survive those who touched them with + far different power, you compel, in the mere interest of letters, of + intelligence, of general culture, to proclaim truths which it was your + function to have made familiar. And when you have thus forced the very + stones to cry out, and the dumb to speak, you call them singular + because they know these truths, and arrogant because they declare + them!"[1] + +In political discussion as in all other forms of criticism Arnold aimed +at disinterestedness. "I am a Liberal," he says in the Introduction to +_Culture and Anarchy_, "yet I am a Liberal tempered by experience, +reflection, and self-renouncement." In the last condition he believed +that his particular strength lay. "I do not wish to see men of culture +entrusted with power." In his coolness and freedom from bitterness is to +be found his chief superiority to his more violent contemporaries. This +saved him from magnifying the faults inseparable from the social +movements of his day. In contrast with Carlyle he retains to the end a +sympathy with the advance of democracy and a belief in the principles of +liberty and equality, while not blinded to the weaknesses of Liberalism. +Political discussion in the hands of its express partisans is always +likely to become violent and one-sided. This violence and one-sidedness +Arnold believes it the work of criticism to temper, or as he expresses +it, in _Culture and Anarchy_, "Culture is the eternal opponent of the +two things which are the signal marks of Jacobinism,--its fierceness and +its addiction to an abstract system." + + +VII + +[Sidenote: Conclusion] + +"Un Milton jeune et voyageant" was George Sand's description of the +young Arnold. The eager pursuit of high aims, implied in this +description, he carried from youth into manhood and age. The innocence, +the hopefulness, and the noble curiosity of youth he retained to the +end. But these became tempered with the ripe wisdom of maturity, a +wisdom needed for the helpful interpretation of a perplexing period. His +prose writings are surpassed, in that spontaneous and unaccountable +inspiration which we call genius, by those of certain of his +contemporaries, but when we become exhausted by the perversities of +ill-controlled passion and find ourselves unable to breathe the rarified +air of transcendentalism, we may turn to him for the clarifying and +strengthening effect of calm intelligence and pure spirituality. + +[Footnote 1: From _Dr. Stanley's Lectures on the Jewish Church, +Macmillan's Magazine_, February, 1863, vol. 7, p. 336.] + + + + + +~BIBLIOGRAPHY~ + +ARNOLD'S POEMS. + +1849. _The Strayed Reveller, and other Poems_. 1852. ~Empedocles on +Etna, and other Poems~. 1853. _Poems_. 1855. _Poems_ (Second Series). +1858. _Merope_. 1867. _New Poems_. 1869. _Poems_ (First Collected +Edition). (A few new poems were added in the later collections of 1877, +1881, 1885, and 1890.) + + +ARNOLD'S PROSE. + +1859. _England and the Italian Question_. 1861. _Popular Education in +France_. 1861. _On Translating Homer_. 1862. _Last Words on Translating +Homer_. 1864. _A French Eton_. 1865. _Essays in Criticism_. 1867. _On +the Study of Celtic Literature_. 1868. _Schools and Universities on the +Continent_. 1869. _Culture and Anarchy_. 1870. _St. Paul and +Protestantism_. 1871. _Friendship's Garland_. 1873. _Literature and +Dogma_. 1875. _God and the Bible_. 1877. _Last Essays on Church and +Religion_. 1879. _Mixed Essays_. 1882. _Irish Essays_. 1885. _Discourses +in America_. 1888. _Essays in Criticism_ (Second Series). 1888. +_Civilization in the United States_. 1891. _On Home Rule for Ireland_. +1910. _Essays in Criticism_ (Third Series). + +For a complete bibliography of Arnold's writings and of Arnold +criticism, see _Bibliography of Matthew Arnold_, by T.B. Smart, London, +1892. The letters of Matthew Arnold, 1848-88, were edited by G.W.E. +Russell in 1896. + + +CRITICISM OF ARNOLD'S PROSE. + +BIRRELL, AUGUSTINE: _Res Judicatæ_, London, 1892. + +BROWNELL, W.C.: _Victorian Prose Masters_, New York, 1902. + +BURROUGHS, JOHN: _Indoor Studies_, Boston, 1889. + +DAWSON, W.H.: _Matthew Arnold and his Relation to the Thought of our +Time_, New York, 1904. + +FITCH, SIR JOSHUA: _Thomas and Matthew Arnold and their Influence on +English Education_, New York, 1897. + +GATES, L.E.: _Selections from the Prose Writings of Matthew Arnold_, New +York, 1898. + +HARRISON, FREDERIC: _Culture; A Dialogue_. In _The Choice of Books_, +London, 1886. + +HUTTON, R.H.: _Modern Guides of English Thought in Matters of Faith_, +London, 1887. + +JACOBS, JOSEPH: _Literary Studies_, London, 1895. + +PAUL, HERBERT W.: _Matthew Arnold_. In _English Men of Letters Series_, +London and New York, 1902. + +ROBERTSON, JOHN M.: _Modern Humanists_, London, 1891. + +RUSSELL, G.W.E.: _Matthew Arnold_, New York, 1904. + +SAINTSBURY, GEORGE: _Corrected Impressions_, London, 1895. _Matthew +Arnold_. In _Modern English Writers Series_, London, 1899. + +SHAIRP, J.C.: _Culture and Religion_, Edinburgh, 1870. + +SPEDDING, JAMES: _Reviews and Discussions_, London, 1879. + +STEPHEN, SIR LESLIE: _Studies of a Biographer_, vol. 2, London, 1898. + +WOODBERRY, GEORGE E.: _Makers of Literature_, London, 1900. + + + + + +~SELECTIONS FROM MATTHEW ARNOLD~ + + + + +I. THEORIES OF LITERATURE AND CRITICISM + + + +POETRY AND THE CLASSICS[1] + + +In two small volumes of Poems, published anonymously, one in 1849, the +other in 1852, many of the Poems which compose the present volume have +already appeared. The rest are now published for the first time. + +I have, in the present collection, omitted the poem[2] from which the +volume published in 1852 took its title. I have done so, not because the +subject of it was a Sicilian Greek born between two and three thousand +years ago, although many persons would think this a sufficient reason. +Neither have I done so because I had, in my own opinion, failed in the +delineation which I intended to effect. I intended to delineate the +feelings of one of the last of the Greek religious philosophers, one of +the family of Orpheus and Musæus, having survived his fellows, living on +into a time when the habits of Greek thought and feeling had begun fast +to change, character to dwindle, the influence of the Sophists[3] to +prevail. Into the feelings of a man so situated there are entered much +that we are accustomed to consider as exclusively modern; how much, the +fragments of Empedocles himself which remain to us are sufficient at +least to indicate. What those who are familiar only with the great +monuments of early Greek genius suppose to be its exclusive +characteristics, have disappeared; the calm, the cheerfulness, the +disinterested objectivity have disappeared; the dialogue of the mind +with itself has commenced; modern problems have presented themselves; we +hear already the doubts, we witness the discouragement, of Hamlet and of +Faust. + +The representation of such a man's feelings must be interesting, if +consistently drawn. We all naturally take pleasure, says Aristotle,[4] +in any imitation or representation whatever: this is the basis of our +love of poetry: and we take pleasure in them, he adds, because all +knowledge is naturally agreeable to us; not to the philosopher only, but +to mankind at large. Every representation therefore which is +consistently drawn may be supposed to be interesting, inasmuch as it +gratifies this natural interest in knowledge of all kinds. What is _not_ +interesting, is that which does not add to our knowledge of any kind; +that which is vaguely conceived and loosely drawn; a representation +which is general, indeterminate, and faint, instead of being particular, +precise, and firm. + +Any accurate representation may therefore be expected to be interesting; +but, if the representation be a poetical one, more than this is +demanded. It is demanded, not only that it shall interest, but also that +it shall inspirit and rejoice the reader: that it shall convey a charm, +and infuse delight. For the Muses, as Hesiod[5] says, were born that +they might be "a forgetfulness of evils, and a truce from cares": and it +is not enough that the poet should add to the knowledge of men, it is +required of him also that he should add to their happiness. "All art," +says Schiller, "is dedicated to joy, and there is no higher and no more +serious problem, than how to make men happy. The right art is that +alone, which creates the highest enjoyment." + +A poetical work, therefore, is not yet justified when it has been shown +to be an accurate, and therefore interesting representation; it has to +be shown also that it is a representation from which men can derive +enjoyment. In presence of the most tragic circumstances, represented in +a work of art, the feeling of enjoyment, as is well known, may still +subsist: the representation of the most utter calamity, of the liveliest +anguish, is not sufficient to destroy it: the more tragic the situation, +the deeper becomes the enjoyment; and the situation is more tragic in +proportion as it becomes more terrible. + +What then are the situations, from the representation of which, though +accurate, no poetical enjoyment can be derived? They are those in which +the suffering finds no vent in action; in which a continuous state of +mental distress is prolonged, unrelieved by incident, hope, or +resistance; in which there is everything to be endured, nothing to be +done. In such situations there is inevitably something morbid, in the +description of them something monotonous. When they occur in actual +life, they are painful, not tragic; the representation of them in poetry +is painful also. + +To this class of situations, poetically faulty as it appears to me, that +of Empedocles, as I have endeavored to represent him, belongs; and I +have therefore excluded the poem from the present collection. + +And why, it may be asked, have I entered into this explanation +respecting a matter so unimportant as the admission or exclusion of the +poem in question? I have done so, because I was anxious to avow that the +sole reason for its exclusion was that which has been stated above; and +that it has not been excluded in deference to the opinion which many +critics of the present day appear to entertain against subjects chosen +from distant times and countries: against the choice, in short, of any +subjects but modern ones. + +"The poet," it is said,[6] and by an intelligent critic, "the poet who +would really fix the public attention must leave the exhausted past, and +draw his subjects from matters of present import, and _therefore_ both +of interest and novelty." + +Now this view I believe to be completely false. It is worth examining, +inasmuch as it is a fair sample of a class of critical dicta everywhere +current at the present day, having a philosophical form and air, but no +real basis in fact; and which are calculated to vitiate the judgment of +readers of poetry, while they exert, so far as they are adopted, a +misleading influence on the practice of those who make it. + +What are the eternal objects of poetry, among all nations and at all +times? They are actions; human actions; possessing an inherent interest +in themselves, and which are to be communicated in an interesting manner +by the art of the poet. Vainly will the latter imagine that he has +everything in his own power; that he can make an intrinsically inferior +action equally delightful with a more excellent one by his treatment of +it: he may indeed compel us to admire his skill, but his work will +possess, within itself, an incurable defect. + +The poet, then, has in the first place to select an excellent action; +and what actions are the most excellent? Those, certainly, which most +powerfully appeal to the great primary human affections: to those +elementary feelings which subsist permanently in the race, and which are +independent of time. These feelings are permanent and the same; that +which interests them is permanent and the same also. The modernness or +antiquity of an action, therefore, has nothing to do with its fitness +for poetical representation; this depends upon its inherent qualities. +To the elementary part of our nature, to our passions, that which is +great and passionate is eternally interesting; and interesting solely in +proportion to its greatness and to its passion. A great human action of +a thousand years ago is more interesting to it than a smaller human +action of to-day, even though upon the representation of this last the +most consummate skill may have been expended, and though it has the +advantage of appealing by its modern language, familiar manners, and +contemporary allusions, to all our transient feelings and interests. +These, however, have no right to demand of a poetical work that it shall +satisfy them; their claims are to be directed elsewhere. Poetical works +belong to the domain of our permanent passions: let them interest these, +and the voice of all subordinate claims upon them is at once silenced. + +Achilles, Prometheus, Clytemnestra, Dido[7]--what modern poem presents +personages as interesting, even to us moderns, as these personages of an +"exhausted past"? We have the domestic epic dealing with the details of +modern life, which pass daily under our eyes; we have poems representing +modern personages in contact with the problems of modern life, moral, +intellectual, and social; these works have been produced by poets the +most distinguished of their nation and time; yet I fearlessly assert +that _Hermann and Dorothea_, _Childe Harold_, _Jocelyn_, the +_Excursion_,[8] leave the reader cold in comparison with the effect +produced upon him by the latter books of the _Iliad_, by the _Oresteia_, +or by the episode of Dido. And why is this? Simply because in the three +last-named cases the action is greater, the personages nobler, the +situations more intense: and this is the true basis of the interest in a +poetical work, and this alone. + +It may be urged, however, that past actions may be interesting in +themselves, but that they are not to be adopted by the modern poet, +because it is impossible for him to have them clearly present to his own +mind, and he cannot therefore feel them deeply, nor represent them +forcibly. But this is not necessarily the case. The externals of a past +action, indeed, he cannot know with the precision of a contemporary; but +his business is with its essentials. The outward man of Oedipus[9] or of +Macbeth, the houses in which they lived, the ceremonies of their courts, +he cannot accurately figure to himself; but neither do they essentially +concern him. His business is with their inward man; with their feelings +and behavior in certain tragic situations, which engage their passions +as men; these have in them nothing local and casual; they are as +accessible to the modern poet as to a contemporary. + +The date of an action, then, signifies nothing: the action itself, its +selection and construction, this is what is all-important. This the +Greeks understood far more clearly than we do. The radical difference +between their poetical theory and ours consists, as it appears to me, in +this: that, with them, the poetical character of the action in itself, +and the conduct of it, was the first consideration; with us, attention +is fixed mainly on the value of the separate thoughts and images which +occur in the treatment of an action. They regarded the whole; we regard +the parts. With them, the action predominated over the expression of it; +with us, the expression predominates over the action. Not that they +failed in expression, or were inattentive to it; on the contrary, they +are the highest models of expression, the unapproached masters of the +_grand style_:[10] but their expression is so excellent because it is so +admirably kept in its right degree of prominence; because it is so +simple and so well subordinated; because it draws its force directly +from the pregnancy of the matter which it conveys. For what reason was +the Greek tragic poet confined to so limited a range of subjects? +Because there are so few actions which unite in themselves, in the +highest degree, the conditions of excellence; and it was not thought +that on any but an excellent subject could an excellent poem be +constructed. A few actions, therefore, eminently adapted for tragedy, +maintained almost exclusive possession of the Greek tragic stage. Their +significance appeared inexhaustible; they were as permanent problems, +perpetually offered to the genius of every fresh poet. This too is the +reason of what appears to us moderns a certain baldness of expression in +Greek tragedy; of the triviality with which we often reproach the +remarks of the chorus, where it takes part in the dialogue: that the +action itself, the situation of Orestes, or Merope, or Alcmæon,[11] was +to stand the central point of interest, unforgotten, absorbing, +principal; that no accessories were for a moment to distract the +spectator's attention from this, that the tone of the parts was to be +perpetually kept down, in order not to impair the grandiose effect of +the whole. The terrible old mythic story on which the drama was founded +stood, before he entered the theatre, traced in its bare outlines upon +the spectator's mind; it stood in his memory, as a group of statuary, +faintly seen, at the end of a long and dark vista: then came the poet, +embodying outlines, developing situations, not a word wasted, not a +sentiment capriciously thrown in: stroke upon stroke, the drama +proceeded: the light deepened upon the group; more and more it revealed +itself to the riveted gaze of the spectator: until at last, when the +final words were spoken, it stood before him in broad sunlight, a model +of immortal beauty. This was what a Greek critic demanded; this was +what a Greek poet endeavored to effect. It signified nothing to what +time an action belonged. We do not find that the _Persæ_ occupied a +particularly high rank among the dramas of Æschylus because it +represented a matter of contemporary interest: this was not what a +cultivated Athenian required. He required that the permanent elements of +his nature should be moved; and dramas of which the action, though taken +from a long-distant mythic time, yet was calculated to accomplish this +in a higher degree than that of the _Persæ_, stood higher in his +estimation accordingly. The Greeks felt, no doubt, with their exquisite +sagacity of taste, that an action of present times was too near them, +too much mixed up with what was accidental and passing, to form a +sufficiently grand, detached, and self-subsistent object for a tragic +poem. Such objects belonged to the domain of the comic poet, and of the +lighter kinds of poetry. For the more serious kinds, for _pragmatic_ +poetry, to use an excellent expression of Polybius,[12] they were more +difficult and severe in the range of subjects which they permitted. +Their theory and practice alike, the admirable treatise of Aristotle, +and the unrivalled works of their poets, exclaim with a thousand +tongues--"All depends upon the subject; choose a fitting action, +penetrate yourself with the feeling of its situations; this done, +everything else will follow." + +But for all kinds of poetry alike there was one point on which they were +rigidly exacting; the adaptability of the subject to the kind of poetry +selected, and the careful construction of the poem. + +How different a way of thinking from this is ours! We can hardly at the +present day understand what Menander[13] meant, when he told a man who +enquired as to the progress of his comedy that he had finished it, not +having yet written a single line, because he had constructed the action +of it in his mind. A modern critic would have assured him that the merit +of his piece depended on the brilliant things which arose under his pen +as he went along. We have poems which seem to exist merely for the sake +of single lines and passages; not for the sake of producing any +total-impression. We have critics who seem to direct their attention +merely to detached expressions, to the language about the action, not to +the action itself. I verily think that the majority of them do not in +their hearts believe that there is such a thing as a total-impression to +be derived from a poem at all, or to be demanded from a poet; they think +the term a commonplace of metaphysical criticism. They will permit the +poet to select any action he pleases, and to suffer that action to go as +it will, provided he gratifies them with occasional bursts of fine +writing, and with a shower of isolated thoughts and images. That is, +they permit him to leave their poetical sense ungratified, provided that +he gratifies their rhetorical sense and their curiosity. Of his +neglecting to gratify these, there is little danger; he needs rather to +be warned against the danger of attempting to gratify these alone; he +needs rather to be perpetually reminded to prefer his action to +everything else; so to treat this, as to permit its inherent excellences +to develop themselves, without interruption from the intrusion of his +personal peculiarities: most fortunate when he most entirely succeeds in +effacing himself, and in enabling a noble action to subsist as it did in +nature. + +But the modern critic not only permits a false practice: he absolutely +prescribes false aims. "A true allegory of the state of one's own mind +in a representative history," the poet is told, "is perhaps the highest +thing that one can attempt in the way of poetry." And accordingly he +attempts it. An allegory of the state of one's own mind, the highest +problem of an art which imitates actions! No assuredly, it is not, it +never can be so: no great poetical work has ever been produced with such +an aim. _Faust_ itself, in which something of the kind is attempted, +wonderful passages as it contains, and in spite of the unsurpassed +beauty of the scenes which relate to Margaret, _Faust_ itself, judged as +a whole, and judged strictly as a poetical work, is defective: its +illustrious author, the greatest poet of modern times, the greatest +critic of all times, would have been the first to acknowledge it; he +only defended his work, indeed, by asserting it to be "something +incommensurable." + +The confusion of the present times is great, the multitude of voices +counselling different things bewildering, the number of existing works +capable of attracting a young writer's attention and of becoming his +models, immense: what he wants is a hand to guide him through the +confusion, a voice to prescribe to him the aim which he should keep in +view, and to explain to him that the value of the literary works which +offer themselves to his attention is relative to their power of helping +him forward on his road towards this aim. Such a guide the English +writer at the present day will nowhere find. Failing this, all that can +be looked for, all indeed that can be desired, is, that his attention +should be fixed on excellent models; that he may reproduce, at any rate, +something of their excellence, by penetrating himself with their works +and by catching their spirit, if he cannot be taught to produce what is +excellent independently. + +Foremost among these models for the English writer stands Shakespeare: a +name the greatest perhaps of all poetical names; a name never to be +mentioned without reverence. I will venture, however, to express a doubt +whether the influence of his works, excellent and fruitful for the +readers of poetry, for the great majority, has been an unmixed advantage +to the writers of it. Shakespeare indeed chose excellent subjects--the +world could afford no better than _Macbeth_, or _Romeo and Juliet_, or +_Othello_: he had no theory respecting the necessity of choosing +subjects of present import, or the paramount interest attaching to +allegories of the state of one's own mind; like all great poets, he knew +well what constituted a poetical action; like them, wherever he found +such an action, he took it; like them, too, he found his best in past +times. But to these general characteristics of all great poets he added +a special one of his own; a gift, namely, of happy, abundant, and +ingenious expression, eminent and unrivalled: so eminent as irresistibly +to strike the attention first in him and even to throw into comparative +shade his other excellences as a poet. Here has been the mischief. These +other excellences were his fundamental excellences, _as a poet_; what +distinguishes the artist from the mere amateur, says Goethe, is +_Architectonicè_ in the highest sense; that power of execution which +creates, forms, and constitutes: not the profoundness of single +thoughts, not the richness of imagery, not the abundance of +illustration. But these attractive accessories of a poetical work being +more easily seized than the spirit of the whole, and these accessories +being possessed by Shakespeare in an unequalled degree, a young writer +having recourse to Shakespeare as his model runs great risk of being +vanquished and absorbed by them, and, in consequence, of reproducing, +according to the measure of his power, these, and these alone. Of this +prepondering quality of Shakespeare's genius, accordingly, almost the +whole of modern English poetry has, it appears to me, felt the +influence. To the exclusive attention on the part of his imitators to +this, it is in a great degree owing that of the majority of modern +poetical works the details alone are valuable, the composition +worthless. In reading them one is perpetually reminded of that terrible +sentence on a modern French poet,--_il dit tout ce qu'il veut, mais +malheureusement il n'a rien a dire._[14] + +Let me give an instance of what I mean. I will take it from the works of +the very chief among those who seem to have been formed in the school of +Shakespeare; of one whose exquisite genius and pathetic death render him +forever interesting. I will take the poem of _Isabella, or the Pot of +Basil_, by Keats. I choose this rather than the _Endymion_, because the +latter work (which a modern critic has classed with the Faery Queen!), +although undoubtedly there blows through it the breath of genius, is yet +as a whole so utterly incoherent, as not strictly to merit the name of a +poem at all. The poem of _Isabella_, then, is a perfect treasure-house +of graceful and felicitous words and images: almost in every stanza +there occurs one of those vivid and picturesque turns of expression, by +which the object is made to flash upon the eye of the mind, and which +thrill the reader with a sudden delight. This one short poem contains, +perhaps, a greater number of happy single expressions which one could +quote than all the extant tragedies of Sophocles. But the action, the +story? The action in itself is an excellent one; but so feebly is it +conceived by the poet, so loosely constructed, that the effect produced +by it, in and for itself, is absolutely null. Let the reader, after he +has finished the poem of Keats, turn to the same story in the +_Decameron_:[15] he will then feel how pregnant and interesting the same +action has become in the hands of a great artist, who above all things +delineates his object; who subordinates expression to that which it is +designed to express. + +I have said that the imitators of Shakespeare, fixing their attention on +his wonderful gift of expression, have directed their imitation to this, +neglecting his other excellences. These excellences, the fundamental +excellences of poetical art, Shakespeare no doubt possessed them-- +possessed many of them in a splendid degree; but it may perhaps be +doubted whether even he himself did not sometimes give scope to his +faculty of expression to the prejudice of a higher poetical duty. For we +must never forget that Shakespeare is the great poet he is from his +skill in discerning and firmly conceiving an excellent action, from his +power of intensely feeling a situation, of intimately associating +himself with a character; not from his gift of expression, which rather +even leads him astray, degenerating sometimes into a fondness for +curiosity of expression, into an irritability of fancy, which seems to +make it impossible for him to say a thing plainly, even when the press +of the action demands the very directest language, or its level +character the very simplest. Mr. Hallam,[16] than whom it is impossible +to find a saner and more judicious critic, has had the courage (for at +the present day it needs courage) to remark, how extremely and faultily +difficult Shakespeare's language often is. It is so: you may find main +scenes in some of his greatest tragedies, _King Lear_, for instance, +where the language is so artificial, so curiously tortured, and so +difficult, that every speech has to be read two or three times before +its meaning can be comprehended. This over-curiousness of expression is +indeed but the excessive employment of a wonderful gift--of the power +of saying a thing in a happier way than any other man; nevertheless, it +is carried so far that one understands what M. Guizot[17] meant when he +said that Shakespeare appears in his language to have tried all styles +except that of simplicity. He has not the severe and scrupulous +self-restraint of the ancients, partly, no doubt, because he had a far +less cultivated and exacting audience. He has indeed a far wider range +than they had, a far richer fertility of thought; in this respect he +rises above them. In his strong conception of his subject, in the +genuine way in which he is penetrated with it, he resembles them, and is +unlike the moderns. But in the accurate limitation of it, the +conscientious rejection of superfluities, the simple and rigorous +development of it from the first line of his work to the last, he falls +below them, and comes nearer to the moderns. In his chief works, besides +what he has of his own, he has the elementary soundness of the ancients; +he has their important action and their large and broad manner; but he +has not their purity of method. He is therefore a less safe model; for +what he has of his own is personal, and inseparable from his own rich +nature; it may be imitated and exaggerated, it cannot be learned or +applied as an art. He is above all suggestive; more valuable, therefore, +to young writers as men than as artists. But clearness of arrangement, +rigor of development, simplicity of style--these may to a certain extent +be learned: and these may, I am convinced, be learned best from the +ancients, who, although infinitely less suggestive than Shakespeare, are +thus, to the artist, more instructive. + +What then, it will be asked, are the ancients to be our sole models? the +ancients with their comparatively narrow range of experience, and their +widely different circumstances? Not, certainly, that which is narrow in +the ancients, nor that in which we can no longer sympathize. An action +like the action of the _Antigone_ of Sophocles, which turns upon the +conflict between the heroine's duty to her brother's corpse and that to +the laws of her country, is no longer one in which it is possible that +we should feel a deep interest. I am speaking too, it will be +remembered, not of the best sources of intellectual stimulus for the +general reader, but of the best models of instruction for the individual +writer. This last may certainly learn of the ancients, better than +anywhere else, three things which it is vitally important for him to +know:--the all-importance of the choice of a subject; the necessity of +accurate construction; and the subordinate character of expression. He +will learn from them how unspeakably superior is the effect of the one +moral impression left by a great action treated as a whole, to the +effect produced by the most striking single thought or by the happiest +image. As he penetrates into the spirit of the great classical works, as +he becomes gradually aware of their intense significance, their noble +simplicity, and their calm pathos, he will be convinced that it is this +effect, unity and profoundness of moral impression, at which the ancient +poets aimed; that it is this which constitutes the grandeur of their +works, and which makes them immortal. He will desire to direct his own +efforts towards producing the same effect. Above all, he will deliver +himself from the jargon of modern criticism, and escape the danger of +producing poetical works conceived in the spirit of the passing time, +and which partake of its transitoriness. + +The present age makes great claims upon us: we owe it service, it will +not be satisfied without our admiration. I know not how it is, but their +commerce with the ancients appears to me to produce, in those who +constantly practise it, a steadying and composing effect upon their +judgment, not of literary works only, but of men and events in general. +They are like persons who have had a very weighty and impressive +experience; they are more truly than others under the empire of facts, +and more independent of the language current among those with whom they +live. They wish neither to applaud nor to revile their age: they wish to +know what it is, what it can give them, and whether this is what they +want. What they want, they know very well; they want to educe and +cultivate what is best and noblest in themselves: they know, too, that +this is no easy task--[Greek: Chalepon] as Pittacus[18] said,[Greek: +Chalepon esthlonemmenai]--and they ask themselves sincerely whether +their age and its literature can assist them in the attempt. If they are +endeavoring to practise any art, they remember the plain and simple +proceedings of the old artists, who attained their grand results by +penetrating themselves with some noble and significant action, not by +inflating themselves with a belief in the preëminent importance and +greatness of their own times. They do not talk of their mission, nor of +interpreting their age, nor of the coming poet; all this, they know, is +the mere delirium of vanity; their business is not to praise their age, +but to afford to the men who live in it the highest pleasure which they +are capable of feeling. If asked to afford this by means of subjects +drawn from the age itself, they ask what special fitness the present age +has for supplying them. They are told that it is an era of progress, an +age commissioned to carry out the great ideas of industrial development +and social amelioration. They reply that with all this they can do +nothing; that the elements they need for the exercise of their art are +great actions, calculated powerfully and delightfully to affect what is +permanent in the human soul; that so far as the present age can supply +such actions, they will gladly make use of them; but that an age wanting +in moral grandeur can with difficulty supply such, and an age of +spiritual discomfort with difficulty be powerfully and delightfully +affected by them. + +A host of voices will indignantly rejoin that the present age is +inferior to the past neither in moral grandeur nor in spiritual health. +He who possesses the discipline I speak of will content himself with +remembering the judgments passed upon the present age, in this respect, +by the men of strongest head and widest culture whom it has produced; by +Goethe and by Niebuhr.[19] It will be sufficient for him that he knows +the opinions held by these two great men respecting the present age and +its literature; and that he feels assured in his own mind that their +aims and demands upon life were such as he would wish, at any rate, his +own to be; and their judgment as to what is impeding and disabling such +as he may safely follow. He will not, however, maintain a hostile +attitude towards the false pretensions of his age; he will content +himself with not being overwhelmed by them. He will esteem himself +fortunate if he can succeed in banishing from his mind all feelings of +contradiction, and irritation, and impatience; in order to delight +himself with the contemplation of some noble action of a heroic time, +and to enable others, through his representation of it, to delight in it +also. + +I am far indeed from making any claim, for myself, that I possess this +discipline; or for the following poems, that they breathe its spirit. +But I say, that in the sincere endeavor to learn and practise, amid the +bewildering confusion of our times, what is sound and true in poetical +art, I seemed to myself to find the only sure guidance, the only solid +footing, among the ancients. They, at any rate, knew what they wanted in +art, and we do not. It is this uncertainty which is disheartening, and +not hostile criticism. How often have I felt this when reading words of +disparagement or of cavil: that it is the uncertainty as to what is +really to be aimed at which makes our difficulty, not the +dissatisfaction of the critic, who himself suffers from the same +uncertainty. _Non me tua fervida terrent Dicta; ... Dii me terrent, et +Jupiter hostis._[20] Two kinds of _dilettanti_, says Goethe, there are +in poetry: he who neglects the indispensable mechanical part, and thinks +he has done enough if he shows spirituality and feeling; and he who +seeks to arrive at poetry merely by mechanism, in which he can acquire +an artisan's readiness, and is without soul and matter. And he adds, +that the first does most harm to art, and the last to himself. If we +must be _dilettanti_: if it is impossible for us, under the +circumstances amidst which we live, to think clearly, to feel nobly, and +to delineate firmly: if we cannot attain to the mastery of the great +artists--let us, at least, have so much respect for our art as to prefer +it to ourselves. Let us not bewilder our successors: let us transmit to +them the practice of poetry, with its boundaries and wholesome +regulative laws, under which excellent works may again, perhaps, at some +future time, be produced, not yet fallen into oblivion through our +neglect, not yet condemned and cancelled by the influence of their +eternal enemy, caprice. + + + +THE FUNCTION OF CRITICISM AT THE PRESENT TIME[21] + + +Many objections have been made to a proposition which, in some remarks +of mine[22] on translating Homer, I ventured to put forth; a proposition +about criticism, and its importance at the present day. I said: "Of the +literature of France and Germany, as of the intellect of Europe in +general, the main effort, for now many years, has been a critical +effort; the endeavor, in all branches of knowledge, theology, +philosophy, history, art, science, to see the object as in itself it +really is." I added, that owing to the operation in English literature +of certain causes, "almost the last thing for which one would come to +English literature is just that very thing which now Europe most +desires,--criticism"; and that the power and value of English literature +was thereby impaired. More than one rejoinder declared that the +importance I here assigned to criticism was excessive, and asserted the +inherent superiority of the creative effort of the human spirit over its +critical effort. And the other day, having been led by a Mr. +Shairp's[23] excellent notice of Wordsworth[24] to turn again to his +biography, I found, in the words of this great man, whom I, for one, +must always listen to with the profoundest respect, a sentence passed on +the critic's business, which seems to justify every possible +disparagement of it. Wordsworth says in one of his letters[25]:-- + +"The writers in these publications" (the Reviews), "while they prosecute +their inglorious employment, cannot be supposed to be in a state of mind +very favorable for being affected by the finer influences of a thing so +pure as genuine poetry." + +And a trustworthy reporter of his conversation quotes a more elaborate +judgment to the same effect:-- + +"Wordsworth holds the critical power very low, infinitely lower than the +inventive; and he said to-day that if the quantity of time consumed in +writing critiques on the works of others were given to original +composition, of whatever kind it might be, it would be much better +employed; it would make a man find out sooner his own level, and it +would do infinitely less mischief. A false or malicious criticism may do +much injury to the minds of others, a stupid invention, either in prose +or verse, is quite harmless." + +It is almost too much to expect of poor human nature, that a man capable +of producing some effect in one line of literature, should, for the +greater good of society, voluntarily doom himself to impotence and +obscurity in another. Still less is this to be expected from men +addicted to the composition of the "false or malicious criticism" of +which Wordsworth speaks. However, everybody would admit that a false or +malicious criticism had better never have been written. Everybody, too, +would be willing to admit, as a general proposition, that the critical +faculty is lower than the inventive. But is it true that criticism is +really, in itself, a baneful and injurious employment; is it true that +all time given to writing critiques on the works of others would be much +better employed if it were given to original composition, of whatever +kind this may be? Is it true that Johnson had better have gone on +producing more _Irenes_[26] instead of writing his _Lives of the Poets_; +nay, is it certain that Wordsworth himself was better employed in making +his Ecclesiastical Sonnets than when he made his celebrated Preface[27] +so full of criticism, and criticism of the works of others? Wordsworth +was himself a great critic, and it is to be sincerely regretted that he +has not left us more criticism; Goethe was one of the greatest of +critics, and we may sincerely congratulate ourselves that he has left us +so much criticism. Without wasting time over the exaggeration which +Wordsworth's judgment on criticism clearly contains, or over an attempt +to trace the causes,--not difficult, I think, to be traced,--which may +have led Wordsworth to this exaggeration, a critic may with advantage +seize an occasion for trying his own conscience, and for asking himself +of what real service at any given moment the practice of criticism +either is or may be made to his own mind and spirit, and to the minds +and spirits of others. + +The critical power is of lower rank than the creative. True; but in +assenting to this proposition, one or two things are to be kept in mind. +It is undeniable that the exercise of a creative power, that a free +creative activity, is the highest function of man; it is proved to be so +by man's finding in it his true happiness. But it is undeniable, also, +that men may have the sense of exercising this free creative activity in +other ways than in producing great works of literature or art; if it +were not so, all but a very few men would be shut out from the true +happiness of all men. They may have it in well-doing, they may have it +in learning, they may have it even in criticizing. This is one thing to +be kept in mind. Another is, that the exercise of the creative power in +the production of great works of literature or art, however high this +exercise of it may rank, is not at all epochs and under all conditions +possible; and that therefore labor may be vainly spent in attempting it, +which might with more fruit be used in preparing for it, in rendering it +possible. This creative power works with elements, with materials; what +if it has not those materials, those elements, ready for its use? In +that case it must surely wait till they are ready. Now, in literature,-- +I will limit myself to literature, for it is about literature that the +question arises,--the elements with which the creative power works are +ideas; the best ideas on every matter which literature touches, current +at the time. At any rate we may lay it down as certain that in modern +literature no manifestation of the creative power not working with these +can be very important or fruitful. And I say _current_ at the time, not +merely accessible at the time; for creative literary genius does not +principally show itself in discovering new ideas: that is rather the +business of the philosopher. The grand work of literary genius is a work +of synthesis and exposition, not of analysis and discovery; its gift +lies in the faculty of being happily inspired by a certain intellectual +and spiritual atmosphere, by a certain order of ideas, when it finds +itself in them; of dealing divinely with these ideas, presenting them in +the most effective and attractive combinations,--making beautiful works +with them, in short. But it must have the atmosphere, it must find +itself amidst the order of ideas, in order to work freely; and these it +is not so easy to command. This is why great creative epochs in +literature are so rare, this is why there is so much that is +unsatisfactory in the productions of many men of real genius; because, +for the creation of a master-work of literature two powers must concur, +the power of the man and the power of the moment, and the man is not +enough without the moment; the creative power has, for its happy +exercise, appointed elements, and those elements are not in its own +control. + +Nay, they are more within the control of the critical power. It is the +business of the critical power, as I said in the words already quoted, +"in all branches of knowledge, theology, philosophy, history, art, +science, to see the object as in itself it really is." Thus it tends, at +last, to make an intellectual situation of which the creative power can +profitably avail itself. It tends to establish an order of ideas, if not +absolutely true, yet true by comparison with that which it displaces; to +make the best ideas prevail. Presently these new ideas reach society, +the touch of truth is the touch of life, and there is a stir and growth +everywhere; out of this stir and growth come the creative epochs of +literature. + +Or, to narrow our range, and quit these considerations of the general +march of genius and of society,--considerations which are apt to become +too abstract and impalpable,--every one can see that a poet, for +instance, ought to know life and the world before dealing with them in +poetry; and life and the world being in modern times very complex +things, the creation of a modern poet, to be worth much, implies a great +critical effort behind it; else it must be a comparatively poor, barren, +and short-lived affair. This is why Byron's poetry had so little +endurance in it, and Goethe's so much; both Byron and Goethe had a great +productive power, but Goethe's was nourished by a great critical effort +providing the true materials for it, and Byron's was not; Goethe knew +life and the world, the poet's necessary subjects, much more +comprehensively and thoroughly than Byron. He knew a great deal more of +them, and he knew them much more as they really are. + +It has long seemed to me that the burst of creative activity in our +literature, through the first quarter of this century, had about it in +fact something premature; and that from this cause its productions are +doomed, most of them, in spite of the sanguine hopes which accompanied +and do still accompany them, to prove hardly more lasting than the +productions of far less splendid epochs. And this prematureness comes +from its having proceeded without having its proper data, without +sufficient materials to work with. In other words, the English poetry of +the first quarter of this century, with plenty of energy, plenty of +creative force, did not know enough. This makes Byron so empty of +matter, Shelley so incoherent, Wordsworth even, profound as he is, yet +so wanting in completeness and variety. Wordsworth cared little for +books, and disparaged Goethe. I admire Wordsworth, as he is, so much +that I cannot wish him different; and it is vain, no doubt, to imagine +such a man different from what he is, to suppose that he _could_ have +been different. But surely the one thing wanting to make Wordsworth an +even greater poet than he is,--his thought richer, and his influence of +wider application,--was that he should have read more books, among them, +no doubt, those of that Goethe whom he disparaged without reading him. + +But to speak of books and reading may easily lead to a misunderstanding +here. It was not really books and reading that lacked to our poetry at +this epoch: Shelley had plenty of reading, Coleridge had immense +reading. Pindar and Sophocles--as we all say so glibly, and often with +so little discernment of the real import of what we are saying--had not +many books; Shakespeare was no deep reader. True; but in the Greece of +Pindar and Sophocles, in the England of Shakespeare, the poet lived in a +current of ideas in the highest degree animating and nourishing to the +creative power; society was, in the fullest measure, permeated by fresh +thought, intelligent and alive. And this state of things is the true +basis for the creative power's exercise, in this it finds its data, its +materials, truly ready for its hand; all the books and reading in the +world are only valuable as they are helps to this. Even when this does +not actually exist, books and reading may enable a man to construct a +kind of semblance of it in his own mind, a world of knowledge and +intelligence in which he may live and work. This is by no means an +equivalent to the artist for the nationally diffused life and thought of +the epochs of Sophocles or Shakespeare; but, besides that it may be a +means of preparation for such epochs, it does really constitute, if many +share in it, a quickening and sustaining atmosphere of great value. Such +an atmosphere the many-sided learning and the long and widely combined +critical effort of Germany formed for Goethe, when he lived and worked. +There was no national glow of life and thought there as in the Athens of +Pericles or the England of Elizabeth. That was the poet's weakness. But +there was a sort of equivalent for it in the complete culture and +unfettered thinking of a large body of Germans. That was his strength. +In the England of the first quarter of this century there was neither a +national glow of life and thought, such as we had in the age of +Elizabeth, nor yet a culture and a force of learning and criticism such +as were to be found in Germany. Therefore the creative power of poetry +wanted, for success in the highest sense, materials and a basis; a +thorough interpretation of the world was necessarily denied to it. + +At first sight it seems strange that out of the immense stir of the +French Revolution and its age should not have come a crop of works of +genius equal to that which came out of the stir of the great productive +time of Greece, or out of that of the Renascence, with its powerful +episode the Reformation. But the truth is that the stir of the French +Revolution took a character which essentially distinguished it from such +movements as these. These were, in the main, disinterestedly +intellectual and spiritual movements; movements in which the human +spirit looked for its satisfaction in itself and in the increased play +of its own activity. The French Revolution took a political, practical +character. The movement, which went on in France under the old régime, +from 1700 to 1789, was far more really akin than that of the Revolution +itself to the movement of the Renascence; the France of Voltaire and +Rousseau told far more powerfully upon the mind of Europe than the +France of the Revolution. Goethe reproached this last expressly with +having "thrown quiet culture back." Nay, and the true key to how much in +our Byron, even in our Wordsworth, is this!--that they had their source +in a great movement of feeling, not in a great movement of mind. The +French Revolution, however,--that object of so much blind love and so +much blind hatred,--found undoubtedly its motive-power in the +intelligence of men, and not in their practical sense; this is what +distinguishes it from the English Revolution of Charles the First's +time. This is what makes it a more spiritual event than our Revolution, +an event of much more powerful and world-wide interest, though +practically less successful; it appeals to an order of ideas which are +universal, certain, permanent. 1789 asked of a thing, Is it rational? +1642 asked of a thing, Is it legal? or, when it went furthest, Is it +according to conscience? This is the English fashion, a fashion to be +treated, within its own sphere, with the highest respect; for its +success, within its own sphere, has been prodigious. But what is law in +one place is not law in another; what is law here to-day is not law even +here to-morrow; and as for conscience, what is binding on one man's +conscience is not binding on another's. The old woman[28] who threw her +stool at the head of the surpliced minister in St. Giles's Church at +Edinburgh obeyed an impulse to which millions of the human race may be +permitted to remain strangers. But the prescriptions of reason are +absolute, unchanging, of universal validity; _to count by tens is the +easiest way of counting_--that is a proposition of which every one, from +here to the Antipodes, feels the force; at least I should say so if we +did not live in a country where it is not impossible that any morning we +may find a letter in the _Times_ declaring that a decimal coinage is an +absurdity. That a whole nation should have been penetrated with an +enthusiasm for pure reason, and with an ardent zeal for making its +prescriptions triumph, is a very remarkable thing, when we consider how +little of mind, or anything so worthy and quickening as mind, comes into +the motives which alone, in general, impel great masses of men. In spite +of the extravagant direction given to this enthusiasm, in spite of the +crimes and follies in which it lost itself, the French Revolution +derives from the force, truth, and universality of the ideas which it +took for its law, and from the passion with which it could inspire a +multitude for these ideas, a unique and still living power; it is,--it +will probably long remain,--the greatest, the most animating event in +history. And as no sincere passion for the things of the mind, even +though it turn out in many respects an unfortunate passion, is ever +quite thrown away and quite barren of good, France has reaped from hers +one fruit--the natural and legitimate fruit though not precisely the +grand fruit she expected: she is the country in Europe where _the +people_ is most alive. + +But the mania for giving an immediate political and practical +application to all these fine ideas of the reason was fatal. Here an +Englishman is in his element: on this theme we can all go on for hours. +And all we are in the habit of saying on it has undoubtedly a great deal +of truth. Ideas cannot be too much prized in and for themselves, cannot +be too much lived with; but to transport them abruptly into the world of +politics and practice, violently to revolutionize this world to their +bidding,--that is quite another thing. There is the world of ideas and +there is the world of practice; the French are often for suppressing the +one and the English the other; but neither is to be suppressed. A member +of the House of Commons said to me the other day: "That a thing is an +anomaly, I consider to be no objection to it whatever." I venture to +think he was wrong; that a thing is an anomaly _is_ an objection to it, +but absolutely and in the sphere of ideas: it is not necessarily, under +such and such circumstances, or at such and such a moment, an objection +to it in the sphere of politics and practice. Joubert has said +beautifully: "C'est la force et le droit qui règlent toutes choses dans +le monde; la force en attendant le droit."[29] (Force and right are the +governors of this world; force till right is ready.) _Force till right +is ready_; and till right is ready, force, the existing order of things, +is justified, is the legitimate ruler. But right is something moral, and +implies inward recognition, free assent of the will; we are not ready +for right,--_right_, so far as we are concerned, _is not ready_,--until +we have attained this sense of seeing it and willing it. The way in +which for us it may change and transform force, the existing order of +things, and become, in its turn, the legitimate ruler of the world, +should depend on the way in which, when our time comes, we see it and +will it. Therefore for other people enamored of their own newly +discerned right, to attempt to impose it upon us as ours, and violently +to substitute their right for our force, is an act of tyranny, and to be +resisted. It sets at naught the second great half of our maxim, _force +till right is ready_. This was the grand error of the French Revolution; +and its movement of ideas, by quitting the intellectual sphere and +rushing furiously into the political sphere, ran, indeed, a prodigious +and memorable course, but produced no such intellectual fruit as the +movement of ideas of the Renascence, and created, in opposition to +itself, what I may call an _epoch of concentration_. The great force of +that epoch of concentration was England; and the great voice of that +epoch of concentration was Burke. It is the fashion to treat Burke's +writings on the French Revolution[30] as superannuated and conquered by +the event; as the eloquent but unphilosophical tirades of bigotry and +prejudice. I will not deny that they are often disfigured by the +violence and passion of the moment, and that in some directions Burke's +view was bounded, and his observation therefore at fault. But on the +whole, and for those who can make the needful corrections, what +distinguishes these writings is their profound, permanent, fruitful, +philosophical truth. They contain the true philosophy of an epoch of +concentration, dissipate the heavy atmosphere which its own nature is +apt to engender round it, and make its resistance rational instead of +mechanical. + +But Burke is so great because, almost alone in England, he brings +thought to bear upon politics, he saturates politics with thought. It is +his accident that his ideas were at the service of an epoch of +concentration, not of an epoch of expansion; it is his characteristic +that he so lived by ideas, and had such a source of them welling up +within him, that he could float even an epoch of concentration and +English Tory politics with them. It does not hurt him that Dr. Price[31] +and the Liberals were enraged with him; it does not even hurt him that +George the Third and the Tories were enchanted with him. His greatness +is that he lived in a world which neither English Liberalism nor English +Toryism is apt to enter;--the world of ideas, not the world of +catchwords and party habits. So far is it from being really true of him +that he "to party gave up what was meant for mankind,"[32] that at the +very end of his fierce struggle with the French Revolution, after all +his invectives against its false pretensions, hollowness, and madness, +with his sincere convictions of its mischievousness, he can close a +memorandum on the best means of combating it, some of the last pages he +ever wrote,--the _Thoughts on French Affairs_, in December 1791,--with +these striking words:-- + +"The evil is stated, in my opinion, as it exists. The remedy must be +where power, wisdom, and information, I hope, are more united with good +intentions than they can be with me. I have done with this subject, I +believe, forever. It has given me many anxious moments for the last two +years. _If a great change is to be made in human affairs, the minds of +men will be fitted to it; the general opinions and feelings will draw +that way. Every fear, every hope will forward it: and then they who +persist in opposing this mighty current in human affairs, will appear +rather to resist the decrees of Providence itself, than the mere designs +of men. They will not be resolute and firm, but perverse and +obstinate._" + +That return of Burke upon himself has always seemed to me one of the +finest things in English literature, or indeed in any literature. That +is what I call living by ideas: when one side of a question has long had +your earnest support, when all your feelings are engaged, when you hear +all round you no language but one, when your party talks this language +like a steam-engine and can imagine no other,--still to be able to +think, still to be irresistibly carried, if so it be, by the current of +thought to the opposite side of the question, and, like Balaam,[33] to +be unable to speak anything _but what the Lord has put in your mouth_. I +know nothing more striking, and I must add that I know nothing more +un-English. + +For the Englishman in general is like my friend the Member of +Parliament, and believes, point-blank, that for a thing to be an anomaly +is absolutely no objection to it whatever. He is like the Lord +Auckland[34] of Burke's day, who, in a memorandum on the French +Revolution, talks of "certain miscreants, assuming the name of +philosophers, who have presumed themselves capable of establishing a new +system of society." The Englishman has been called a political animal, +and he values what is political and practical so much that ideas easily +become objects of dislike in his eyes, and thinkers "miscreants," +because ideas and thinkers have rashly meddled with politics and +practice. This would be all very well if the dislike and neglect +confined themselves to ideas transported out of their own sphere, and +meddling rashly with practice; but they are inevitably extended to ideas +as such, and to the whole life of intelligence; practice is everything, +a free play of the mind is nothing. The notion of the free play of the +mind upon all subjects being a pleasure in itself, being an object of +desire, being an essential provider of elements without which a nation's +spirit, whatever compensations it may have for them, must, in the long +run, die of inanition, hardly enters into an Englishman's thoughts. It +is noticeable that the word _curiosity_, which in other languages is +used in a good sense, to mean, as a high and fine quality of man's +nature, just this disinterested love of a free play of the mind on all +subjects, for its own sake,--it is noticeable, I say, that this word has +in our language no sense of the kind, no sense but a rather bad and +disparaging one. But criticism, real criticism, is essentially the +exercise of this very quality. It obeys an instinct prompting it to try +to know the best that is known and thought in the world, irrespectively +of practice, politics, and everything of the kind; and to value +knowledge and thought as they approach this best, without the intrusion +of any other considerations whatever. This is an instinct for which +there is, I think, little original sympathy in the practical English +nature, and what there was of it has undergone a long benumbing period +of blight and suppression in the epoch of concentration which followed +the French Revolution. + +But epochs of concentration cannot well endure forever; epochs of +expansion, in the due course of things, follow them. Such an epoch of +expansion seems to be opening in this country. In the first place all +danger of a hostile forcible pressure of foreign ideas upon our practice +has long disappeared; like the traveller in the fable, therefore, we +begin to wear our cloak a little more loosely. Then, with a long peace, +the ideas of Europe steal gradually and amicably in, and mingle, though +in infinitesimally small quantities at a time, with our own notions. +Then, too, in spite of all that is said about the absorbing and +brutalizing influence of our passionate material progress, it seems to +me indisputable that this progress is likely, though not certain, to +lead in the end to an apparition of intellectual life; and that man, +after he has made himself perfectly comfortable and has now to determine +what to do with himself next, may begin to remember that he has a mind, +and that the mind may be made the source of great pleasure. I grant it +is mainly the privilege of faith, at present, to discern this end to our +railways, our business, and our fortune-making; but we shall see if, +here as elsewhere, faith is not in the end the true prophet. Our ease, +our travelling, and our unbounded liberty to hold just as hard and +securely as we please to the practice to which our notions have given +birth, all tend to beget an inclination to deal a little more freely +with these notions themselves, to canvass them a little, to penetrate a +little into their real nature. Flutterings of curiosity, in the foreign +sense of the word, appear amongst us, and it is in these that criticism +must look to find its account. Criticism first; a time of true creative +activity, perhaps,--which, as I have said, must inevitably be preceded +amongst us by a time of criticism,--hereafter, when criticism has done +its work. + +It is of the last importance that English criticism should clearly +discern what rule for its course, in order to avail itself of the field +now opening to it, and to produce fruit for the future, it ought to +take. The rule may be summed up in one word,--_disinterestedness_. And +how is criticism to show disinterestedness? By keeping aloof from what +is called "the practical view of things"; by resolutely following the +law of its own nature, which is to be a free play of the mind on all +subjects which it touches. By steadily refusing to lend itself to any of +those ulterior, political, practical considerations about ideas, which +plenty of people will be sure to attach to them, which perhaps ought +often to be attached to them, which in this country at any rate are +certain to be attached to them quite sufficiently, but which criticism +has really nothing to do with. Its business is, as I have said, simply +to know the best that is known and thought in the world, and by in its +turn making this known, to create a current of true and fresh ideas. Its +business is to do this with inflexible honesty, with due ability; but +its business is to do no more, and to leave alone all questions of +practical consequences and applications, questions which will never fail +to have due prominence given to them. Else criticism, besides being +really false to its own nature, merely continues in the old rut which it +has hitherto followed in this country, and will certainly miss the +chance now given to it. For what is at present the bane of criticism in +this country? It is that practical considerations cling to it and stifle +it. It subserves interests not its own. Our organs of criticism are +organs of men and parties having practical ends to serve, and with them +those practical ends are the first thing and the play of mind the +second; so much play of mind as is compatible with the prosecution of +those practical ends is all that is wanted. An organ like the _Revue des +Deux Mondes_,[35] having for its main function to understand and utter +the best that is known and thought in the world, existing, it may be +said, as just an organ for a free play of the mind, we have not. But we +have the _Edinburgh Review_, existing as an organ of the old Whigs, and +for as much play of the mind as may suit its being that; we have the +_Quarterly Review_, existing as an organ of the Tories, and for as much +play of mind as may suit its being that; we have the _British Quarterly +Review_, existing as an organ of the political Dissenters, and for as +much play of mind as may suit its being that; we have the _Times_, +existing as an organ of the common, satisfied, well-to-do Englishman, +and for as much play of mind as may suit its being that. And so on +through all the various fractions, political and religious, of our +society; every fraction has, as such, its organ of criticism, but the +notion of combining all fractions in the common pleasure of a free +disinterested play of mind meets with no favor. Directly this play of +mind wants to have more scope, and to forget the pressure of practical +considerations a little, it is checked, it is made to feel the chain. We +saw this the other day in the extinction, so much to be regretted, of +the _Home and Foreign Review_.[36] Perhaps in no organ of criticism in +this country was there so much knowledge, so much play of mind; but +these could not save it. The _Dublin Review_ subordinates play of mind +to the practical business of English and Irish Catholicism, and lives. +It must needs be that men should act in sects and parties, that each of +these sects and parties should have its organ, and should make this +organ subserve the interests of its action; but it would be well, too, +that there should be a criticism, not the minister of these interests, +not their enemy, but absolutely and entirely independent of them. No +other criticism will ever attain any real authority or make any real way +towards its end,--the creating a current of true and fresh ideas. + +It is because criticism has so little kept in the pure intellectual +sphere, has so little detached itself from practice, has been so +directly polemical and controversial, that it has so ill accomplished, +in this country, its best spiritual work; which is to keep man from a +self-satisfaction which is retarding and vulgarizing, to lead him +towards perfection, by making his mind dwell upon what is excellent in +itself, and the absolute beauty and fitness of things. A polemical +practical criticism makes men blind even to the ideal imperfection of +their practice, makes them willingly assert its ideal perfection, in +order the better to secure it against attack: and clearly this is +narrowing and baneful for them. If they were reassured on the practical +side, speculative considerations of ideal perfection they might be +brought to entertain, and their spiritual horizon would thus gradually +widen. Sir Charles Adderley[37] says to the Warwickshire farmers:-- + +"Talk of the improvement of breed! Why, the race we ourselves +represent, the men and women, the old Anglo-Saxon race, are the best +breed in the whole world.... The absence of a too enervating climate, +too unclouded skies, and a too luxurious nature, has produced so +vigorous a race of people, and has rendered us so superior to all the +world." + +Mr. Roebuck[38] says to the Sheffield cutlers:-- + +"I look around me and ask what is the state of England? Is not property +safe? Is not every man able to say what he likes? Can you not walk from +one end of England to the other in perfect security? I ask you whether, +the world over or in past history, there is anything like it? Nothing. I +pray that our unrivalled happiness may last." + +Now obviously there is a peril for poor human nature in words and +thoughts of such exuberant self-satisfaction, until we find ourselves +safe in the streets of the Celestial City. + + "Das wenige verschwindet leicht dem Blicke + Der vorwärts sieht, wie viel noch übrig bleibt--"[39] + +says Goethe; "the little that is done seems nothing when we look forward +and see how much we have yet to do." Clearly this is a better line of +reflection for weak humanity, so long as it remains on this earthly +field of labor and trial. + +But neither Sir Charles Adderley nor Mr. Roebuck is by nature +inaccessible to considerations of this sort. They only lose sight of +them owing to the controversial life we all lead, and the practical form +which all speculation takes with us. They have in view opponents whose +aim is not ideal, but practical; and in their zeal to uphold their own +practice against these innovators, they go so far as even to attribute +to this practice an ideal perfection. Somebody has been wanting to +introduce a six-pound franchise, or to abolish church-rates, or to +collect agricultural statistics by force, or to diminish local +self-government. How natural, in reply to such proposals, very likely +improper or ill-timed, to go a little beyond the mark and to say +stoutly, "Such a race of people as we stand, so superior to all the +world! The old Anglo-Saxon race, the best breed in the whole world! I +pray that our unrivalled happiness may last! I ask you whether, the +world over or in past history, there is anything like it?" And so long +as criticism answers this dithyramb by insisting that the old +Anglo-Saxon race would be still more superior to all others if it had no +church-rates, or that our unrivalled happiness would last yet longer +with a six-pound franchise, so long will the strain, "The best breed in +the whole world!" swell louder and louder, everything ideal and refining +will be lost out of sight, and both the assailed and their critics will +remain in a sphere, to say the truth, perfectly unvital, a sphere in +which spiritual progression is impossible. But let criticism leave +church-rates and the franchise alone, and in the most candid spirit, +without a single lurking thought of practical innovation, confront with +our dithyramb this paragraph on which I stumbled in a newspaper +immediately after reading Mr. Roebuck:-- + +"A shocking child murder has just been committed at Nottingham. A girl +named Wragg left the workhouse there on Saturday morning with her young +illegitimate child. The child was soon afterwards found dead on Mapperly +Hills, having been strangled. Wragg is in custody." + +Nothing but that; but, in juxtaposition with the absolute eulogies of +Sir Charles Adderley and Mr. Roebuck, how eloquent, how suggestive are +those few lines! "Our old Anglo-Saxon breed, the best in the whole +world!"--how much that is harsh and ill-favored there is in this best! +_Wragg!_ If we are to talk of ideal perfection, of "the best in the +whole world," has any one reflected what a touch of grossness in our +race, what an original short-coming in the more delicate spiritual +perceptions, is shown by the natural growth amongst us of such hideous +names,--Higginbottom, Stiggins, Bugg! In Ionia and Attica they were +luckier in this respect than "the best race in the world"; by the +Ilissus there was no Wragg, poor thing! And "our unrivalled happiness"; +--what an element of grimness, bareness, and hideousness mixes with it +and blurs it; the workhouse, the dismal Mapperly Hills,--how dismal +those who have seen them will remember;--the gloom, the smoke, the cold, +the strangled illegitimate child! "I ask you whether, the world over or +in past history, there is anything like it?" Perhaps not, one is +inclined to answer; but at any rate, in that case, the world is very +much to be pitied. And the final touch,--short, bleak and inhuman: +_Wragg is in custody_. The sex lost in the confusion of our unrivalled +happiness; or (shall I say?) the superfluous Christian name lopped off +by the straightforward vigor of our old Anglo-Saxon breed! There is +profit for the spirit in such contrasts as this; criticism serves the +cause of perfection by establishing them. By eluding sterile conflict, +by refusing to remain in the sphere where alone narrow and relative +conceptions have any worth and validity, criticism may diminish its +momentary importance, but only in this way has it a chance of gaining +admittance for those wider and more perfect conceptions to which all its +duty is really owed. Mr. Roebuck will have a poor opinion of an +adversary who replies to his defiant songs of triumph only by murmuring +under his breath, _Wragg is in custody_; but in no other way will these +songs of triumph be induced gradually to moderate themselves, to get rid +of what in them is excessive and offensive, and to fall into a softer +and truer key. + +It will be said that it is a very subtle and indirect action which I am +thus prescribing for criticism, and that, by embracing in this manner +the Indian virtue of detachment[40] and abandoning the sphere of +practical life, it condemns itself to a slow and obscure work. Slow and +obscure it may be, but it is the only proper work of criticism. The mass +of mankind will never have any ardent zeal for seeing things as they +are; very inadequate ideas will always satisfy them. On these inadequate +ideas reposes, and must repose, the general practice of the world. That +is as much as saying that whoever sets himself to see things as they are +will find himself one of a very small circle; but it is only by this +small circle resolutely doing its own work that adequate ideas will ever +get current at all. The rush and roar of practical life will always have +a dizzying and attracting effect upon the most collected spectator, and +tend to draw him into its vortex; most of all will this be the case +where that life is so powerful as it is in England. But it is only by +remaining collected, and refusing to lend himself to the point of view +of the practical man, that the critic can do the practical man any +service; and it is only by the greatest sincerity in pursuing his own +course, and by at last convincing even the practical man of his +sincerity, that he can escape misunderstandings which perpetually +threaten him. + +For the practical man is not apt for fine distinctions, and yet in these +distinctions truth and the highest culture greatly find their account. +But it is not easy to lead a practical man,--unless you reassure him as +to your practical intentions, you have no chance of leading him,--to see +that a thing which he has always been used to look at from one side +only, which he greatly values, and which, looked at from that side, +quite deserves, perhaps, all the prizing and admiring which he bestows +upon it,--that this thing, looked at from another side, may appear much +less beneficent and beautiful, and yet retain all its claims to our +practical allegiance. Where shall we find language innocent enough, how +shall we make the spotless purity of our intentions evident enough, to +enable us to say to the political Englishmen that the British +Constitution itself, which, seen from the practical side, looks such a +magnificent organ of progress and virtue, seen from the speculative +side,--with its compromises, its love of facts, its horror of theory, +its studied avoidance of clear thoughts,--that, seen from this side, our +august Constitution sometimes looks,--forgive me, shade of Lord +Somers![41]--a colossal machine for the manufacture of Philistines? How +is Cobbett[42] to say this and not be misunderstood, blackened as he is +with the smoke of a lifelong conflict in the field of political +practice? how is Mr. Carlyle to say it and not be misunderstood, after +his furious raid into this field with his _Latter-day Pamphlets?_[43] +how is Mr. Ruskin,[44] after his pugnacious political economy? I say, +the critic must keep out of the region of immediate practice in the +political, social, humanitarian sphere, if he wants to make a beginning +for that more free speculative treatment of things, which may perhaps +one day make its benefits felt even in this sphere, but in a natural and +thence irresistible manner. + +Do what he will, however, the critic will still remain exposed to +frequent misunderstandings, and nowhere so much as in this country. For +here people are particularly indisposed even to comprehend that without +this free disinterested treatment of things, truth and the highest +culture are out of the question. So immersed are they in practical life, +so accustomed to take all their notions from this life and its +processes, that they are apt to think that truth and culture themselves +can be reached by the processes of this life, and that it is an +impertinent singularity to think of reaching them in any other. "We are +all _terræ filii_,"[45] cries their eloquent advocate; "all +Philistines[46] together. Away with the notion of proceeding by any +other course than the course dear to the Philistines; let us have a +social movement, let us organize and combine a party to pursue truth and +new thought, let us call it _the liberal party_, and let us all stick to +each other, and back each other up. Let us have no nonsense about +independent criticism, and intellectual delicacy, and the few and the +many. Don't let us trouble ourselves about foreign thought; we shall +invent the whole thing for ourselves as we go along. If one of us speaks +well, applaud him; if one of us speaks ill, applaud him too; we are all +in the same movement, we are all liberals, we are all in pursuit of +truth." In this way the pursuit of truth becomes really a social, +practical, pleasurable affair, almost requiring a chairman, a secretary, +and advertisements; with the excitement of an occasional scandal, with a +little resistance to give the happy sense of difficulty overcome; but, +in general, plenty of bustle and very little thought. To act is so easy, +as Goethe says; to think is so hard![47] It is true that the critic has +many temptations to go with the stream, to make one of the party +movement, one of these _terræ filii_; it seems ungracious to refuse to +be a _terræ filius_, when so many excellent people are; but the critic's +duty is to refuse, or, if resistance is vain, at least to cry with +Obermann: _Périssons en résistant_[48]. + +How serious a matter it is to try and resist, I had ample opportunity of +experiencing when I ventured some time ago to criticize the celebrated +first volume of Bishop Colenso.[49] The echoes of the storm which was +then raised I still, from time to time, hear grumbling round me. That +storm arose out of a misunderstanding almost inevitable. It is a result +of no little culture to attain to a clear perception that science and +religion are two wholly different things. The multitude will forever +confuse them; but happily that is of no great real importance, for while +the multitude imagines itself to live by its false science, it does +really live by its true religion. Dr. Colenso, however, in his first +volume did all he could to strengthen the confusion,[50] and to make it +dangerous. He did this with the best intentions, I freely admit, and +with the most candid ignorance that this was the natural effect of what +he was doing; but, says Joubert, "Ignorance, which in matters of morals +extenuates the crime, is itself, in intellectual matters, a crime of the +first order."[51] I criticized Bishop Colenso's speculative confusion. +Immediately there was a cry raised: "What is this? here is a liberal +attacking a liberal. Do not you belong to the movement? are not you a +friend of truth? Is not Bishop Colenso in pursuit of truth? then speak +with proper respect of his book. Dr. Stanley[52] is another friend of +truth, and you speak with proper respect of his book; why make these +invidious differences? both books are excellent, admirable, liberal; +Bishop Colenso's perhaps the most so, because it is the boldest, and +will have the best practical consequences for the liberal cause. Do you +want to encourage to the attack of a brother liberal his, and your, and +our implacable enemies, the _Church and State Review_ or the _Record_,-- +the High Church rhinoceros and the Evangelical hyena? Be silent, +therefore; or rather speak, speak as loud as ever you can! and go into +ecstasies over the eighty and odd pigeons." + +But criticism cannot follow this coarse and indiscriminate method. It is +unfortunately possible for a man in pursuit of truth to write a book +which reposes upon a false conception. Even the practical consequences +of a book are to genuine criticism no recommendation of it, if the book +is, in the highest sense, blundering. I see that a lady[53] who herself, +too, is in pursuit of truth, and who writes with great ability, but a +little too much, perhaps, under the influence of the practical spirit of +the English liberal movement, classes Bishop Colenso's book and M. +Renan's[54] together, in her survey of the religious state of Europe, as +facts of the same order, works, both of them, of "great importance"; +"great ability, power, and skill"; Bishop Colenso's, perhaps, the most +powerful; at least, Miss Cobbe gives special expression to her gratitude +that to Bishop Colenso "has been given the strength to grasp, and the +courage to teach, truths of such deep import." In the same way, more +than one popular writer has compared him to Luther. Now it is just this +kind of false estimate which the critical spirit is, it seems to me, +bound to resist. It is really the strongest possible proof of the low +ebb at which, in England, the critical spirit is, that while the +critical hit in the religious literature of Germany is Dr. Strauss's[55] +book, in that of France M. Renan's book, the book of Bishop Colenso is +the critical hit in the religious literature of England. Bishop +Colenso's book reposes on a total misconception of the essential +elements of the religious problem, as that problem is now presented for +solution. To criticism, therefore, which seeks to have the best that is +known and thought on this problem, it is, however well meant, of no +importance whatever. M. Renan's book attempts a new synthesis of the +elements furnished to us by the Four Gospels. It attempts, in my +opinion, a synthesis, perhaps premature, perhaps impossible, certainly +not successful. Up to the present time, at any rate, we must acquiesce +in Fleury's sentence on such recastings of the Gospel story: _Quiconque +s'imagine la pouvoir mieux écrire, ne l'entend pas_.[56] M. Renan had +himself passed by anticipation a like sentence on his own work, when he +said: "If a new presentation of the character of Jesus were offered to +me, I would not have it; its very clearness would be, in my opinion, the +best proof of its insufficiency." His friends may with perfect justice +rejoin that at the sight of the Holy Land, and of the actual scene of +the Gospel story, all the current of M. Renan's thoughts may have +naturally changed, and a new casting of that story irresistibly +suggested itself to him; and that this is just a case for applying +Cicero's maxim: Change of mind is not inconsistency--_nemo doctus unquam +mutationem consilii inconstantiam dixit esse_.[57] Nevertheless, for +criticism, M. Renan's first thought must still be the truer one, as long +as his new casting so fails more fully to commend itself, more fully (to +use Coleridge's happy phrase[58] about the Bible) to _find_ us. Still M. +Renan's attempt is, for criticism, of the most real interest and +importance, since, with all its difficulty, a fresh synthesis of the New +Testament _data_--not a making war on them, in Voltaire's fashion, not a +leaving them out of mind, in the world's fashion, but the putting a new +construction upon them, the taking them from under the old, traditional, +conventional point of view and placing them under a new one--is the very +essence of the religious problem, as now presented; and only by efforts +in this direction can it receive a solution. + +Again, in the same spirit in which she judges Bishop Colenso, Miss +Cobbe, like so many earnest liberals of our practical race, both here +and in America, herself sets vigorously about a positive reconstruction +of religion, about making a religion of the future out of hand, or at +least setting about making it. We must not rest, she and they are always +thinking and saying, in negative criticism, we must be creative and +constructive; hence we have such works as her recent _Religious Duty_, +and works still more considerable, perhaps, by others, which will be in +every one's mind. These works often have much ability; they often spring +out of sincere convictions, and a sincere wish to do good; and they +sometimes, perhaps, do good. Their fault is (if I may be permitted to +say so) one which they have in common with the British College of +Health, in the New Road. Every one knows the British College of Health; +it is that building with the lion and the statue of the Goddess Hygeia +before it; at least I am sure about the lion, though I am not absolutely +certain about the Goddess Hygeia. This building does credit, perhaps, to +the resources of Dr. Morrison and his disciples; but it falls a good +deal short of one's idea of what a British College of Health ought to +be. In England, where we hate public interference and love individual +enterprise, we have a whole crop of places like the British College of +Health; the grand name without the grand thing. Unluckily, creditable to +individual enterprise as they are, they tend to impair our taste by +making us forget what more grandiose, noble, or beautiful character +properly belongs to a public institution. The same may be said of the +religions of the future of Miss Cobbe and others. Creditable, like the +British College of Health, to the resources of their authors, they yet +tend to make us forget what more grandiose, noble, or beautiful +character properly belongs to religious constructions. The historic +religions, with all their faults, have had this; it certainly belongs to +the religious sentiment, when it truly flowers, to have this; and we +impoverish our spirit if we allow a religion of the future without it. +What then is the duty of criticism here? To take the practical point of +view, to applaud the liberal movement and all its works,--its New Road +religions of the future into the bargain,--for their general utility's +sake? By no means; but to be perpetually dissatisfied with these works, +while they perpetually fall short of a high and perfect ideal. For +criticism, these are elementary laws; but they never can be popular, and +in this country they have been very little followed, and one meets with +immense obstacles in following them. That is a reason for asserting them +again and again. Criticism must maintain its independence of the +practical spirit and its aims. Even with well-meant efforts of the +practical spirit it must express dissatisfaction, if in the sphere of +the ideal they seem impoverishing and limiting. It must not hurry on to +the goal because of its practical importance. It must be patient, and +know how to wait; and flexible, and know how to attach itself to things +and how to withdraw from them. It must be apt to study and praise +elements that for the fulness of spiritual perfection are wanted, even +though they belong to a power which in the practical sphere may be +maleficent. It must be apt to discern the spiritual shortcomings or +illusions of powers that in the practical sphere may be beneficent. And +this without any notion of favoring or injuring, in the practical +sphere, one power or the other; without any notion of playing off, in +this sphere, one power against the other. When one looks, for instance, +at the English Divorce Court--an institution which perhaps has its +practical conveniences, but which in the ideal sphere is so hideous; an +institution which neither makes divorce impossible nor makes it decent, +which allows a man to get rid of his wife, or a wife of her husband, but +makes them drag one another first, for the public edification, through a +mire of unutterable infamy,--when one looks at this charming +institution, I say, with its crowded trials, its newspaper reports, and +its money compensations, this institution in which the gross +unregenerate British Philistine has indeed stamped an image of himself, +--one may be permitted to find the marriage theory of Catholicism +refreshing and elevating. Or when Protestantism, in virtue of its +supposed rational and intellectual origin, gives the law to criticism +too magisterially, criticism may and must remind it that its +pretensions, in this respect, are illusive and do it harm; that the +Reformation was a moral rather than an intellectual event; that Luther's +theory of grace[59] no more exactly reflects the mind of the spirit than +Bossuet's philosophy of history[60] reflects it; and that there is no +more antecedent probability of the Bishop of Durham's stock of ideas +being agreeable to perfect reason than of Pope Pius the Ninth's. But +criticism will not on that account forget the achievements of +Protestantism in the practical and moral sphere; nor that, even in the +intellectual sphere, Protestantism, though in a blind and stumbling +manner, carried forward the Renascence, while Catholicism threw itself +violently across its path. + +I lately heard a man of thought and energy contrasting the want of ardor +and movement which he now found amongst young men in this country with +what he remembered in his own youth, twenty years ago. "What reformers +we were then!" he exclaimed; "What a zeal we had! how we canvassed every +institution in Church and State, and were prepared to remodel them all +on first principles!" He was inclined to regret, as a spiritual +flagging, the lull which he saw. I am disposed rather to regard it as a +pause in which the turn to a new mode of spiritual progress is being +accomplished. Everything was long seen, by the young and ardent amongst +us, in inseparable connection with politics and practical life. We have +pretty well exhausted the benefits of seeing things in this connection, +we have got all that can be got by so seeing them. Let us try a more +disinterested mode of seeing them; let us betake ourselves more to the +serener life of the mind and spirit. This life, too, may have its +excesses and dangers; but they are not for us at present. Let us think +of quietly enlarging our stock of true and fresh ideas, and not, as soon +as we get an idea or half an idea, be running out with it into the +street, and trying to make it rule there. Our ideas will, in the end, +shape the world all the better for maturing a little. Perhaps in fifty +years' time it will in the English House of Commons be an objection to +an institution that it is an anomaly, and my friend the Member of +Parliament will shudder in his grave. But let us in the meanwhile rather +endeavor that in twenty years' time it may, in English literature, be an +objection to a proposition that it is absurd. That will be a change so +vast, that the imagination almost fails to grasp it. _Ab Integro +soeclorum nascitur ordo_.[61] + +If I have insisted so much on the course which criticism must take where +politics and religion are concerned, it is because, where these burning +matters are in question, it is most likely to go astray. I have wished, +above all, to insist on the attitude which criticism should adopt +towards things in general; on its right tone and temper of mind. But +then comes another question as to the subject-matter which literary +criticism should most seek. Here, in general, its course is determined +for it by the idea which is the law of its being: the idea of a +disinterested endeavor to learn and propagate the best that is known and +thought in the world, and thus to establish a current of fresh and true +ideas. By the very nature of things, as England is not all the world, +much of the best that is known and thought in the world cannot be of +English growth, must be foreign; by the nature of things, again, it is +just this that we are least likely to know, while English thought is +streaming in upon us from all sides, and takes excellent care that we +shall not be ignorant of its existence. The English critic of +literature, therefore, must dwell much on foreign thought, and with +particular heed on any part of it, which, while significant and fruitful +in itself, is for any reason specially likely to escape him. Again, +judging is often spoken of as the critic's one business, and so in some +sense it is; but the judgment which almost insensibly forms itself in a +fair and clear mind, along with fresh knowledge, is the valuable one; +and thus knowledge, and ever fresh knowledge, must be the critic's great +concern for himself. And it is by communicating fresh knowledge, and +letting his own judgment pass along with it,--but insensibly, and in the +second place, not the first, as a sort of companion and clue, not as an +abstract lawgiver,--that the critic will generally do most good to his +readers. Sometimes, no doubt, for the sake of establishing an author's +place in literature, and his relation to a central standard (and if this +is not done, how are we to get at our _best in the world?_) criticism +may have to deal with a subject-matter so familiar that fresh knowledge +is out of the question, and then it must be all judgment; an enunciation +and detailed application of principles. Here the great safeguard is +never to let oneself become abstract, always to retain an intimate and +lively consciousness of the truth of what one is saying, and, the moment +this fails us, to be sure that something is wrong. Still under all +circumstances, this mere judgment and application of principles is, in +itself, not the most satisfactory work to the critic; like mathematics, +it is tautological, and cannot well give us, like fresh learning, the +sense of creative activity. + +But stop, some one will say; all this talk is of no practical use to us +whatever; this criticism of yours is not what we have in our minds when +we speak of criticism; when we speak of critics and criticism, we mean +critics and criticism of the current English literature of the day: when +you offer to tell criticism its function, it is to this criticism that +we expect you to address yourself. I am sorry for it, for I am afraid I +must disappoint these expectations. I am bound by my own definition of +criticism; _a disinterested endeavor to learn and propagate the best +that is known and thought in the world._. How much of current English +literature comes into this "best that is known and thought in the +world"? Not very much I fear; certainly less, at this moment, than of +the current literature of France or Germany. Well, then, am I to alter +my definition of criticism, in order to meet the requirements of a +number of practising English critics, who, after all, are free in their +choice of a business? That would be making criticism lend itself just to +one of those alien practical considerations, which, I have said, are so +fatal to it. One may say, indeed, to those who have to deal with the +mass--so much better disregarded--of current English literature, that +they may at all events endeavor, in dealing with this, to try it, so far +as they can, by the standard of the best that is known and thought in +the world; one may say, that to get anywhere near this standard, every +critic should try and possess one great literature, at least, besides +his own; and the more unlike his own, the better. But, after all, the +criticism I am really concerned with,--the criticism which alone can +much help us for the future, the criticism which, throughout Europe, is +at the present day meant, when so much stress is laid on the importance +of criticism and the critical spirit,--is a criticism which regards +Europe as being, for intellectual and spiritual purposes, one great +confederation, bound to a joint action and working to a common result; +and whose members have, for their proper outfit, a knowledge of Greek, +Roman, and Eastern antiquity, and of one another. Special, local, and +temporary advantages being put out of account, that modern nation will +in the intellectual and spiritual sphere make most progress, which most +thoroughly carries out this program. And what is that but saying that we +too, all of us, as individuals, the more thoroughly we carry it out, +shall make the more progress? + +There is so much inviting us!--what are we to take? what will nourish us +in growth towards perfection? That is the question which, with the +immense field of life and of literature lying before him, the critic has +to answer; for himself first, and afterwards for others. In this idea of +the critic's business the essays brought together in the following pages +have had their origin; in this idea, widely different as are their +subjects, they have, perhaps, their unity. + +I conclude with what I said at the beginning: to have the sense of +creative activity is the great happiness and the great proof of being +alive, and it is not denied to criticism to have it; but then criticism +must be sincere, simple, flexible, ardent, ever widening its knowledge. +Then it may have, in no contemptible measure, a joyful sense of creative +activity; a sense which a man of insight and conscience will prefer to +what he might derive from a poor, starved, fragmentary, inadequate +creation. And at some epochs no other creation is possible. + +Still, in full measure, the sense of creative activity belongs only to +genuine creation; in literature we must never forget that. But what true +man of letters ever can forget it? It is no such common matter for a +gifted nature to come into possession of a current of true and living +ideas, and to produce amidst the inspiration of them, that we are likely +to underrate it. The epochs of Æschylus and Shakespeare make us feel +their preëminence. In an epoch like those is, no doubt, the true life of +literature; there is the promised land, towards which criticism can only +beckon. That promised land it will not be ours to enter, and we shall +die in the wilderness: but to have desired to enter it, to have saluted +it from afar, is already, perhaps, the best distinction among +contemporaries; it will certainly be the best title to esteem with +posterity. + + + +THE STUDY OF POETRY[62] + + +"The future of poetry is immense, because in poetry, where it is worthy +of its high destinies, our race, as time goes on, will find an ever +surer and surer stay. There is not a creed which is not shaken, not an +accredited dogma which is not shown to be questionable, not a received +tradition which does not threaten to dissolve. Our religion has +materialized itself in the fact, in the supposed fact; it has attached +its emotion to the fact, and how the fact is failing it. But for poetry +the idea is everything; the rest is a world of illusion, of divine +illusion. Poetry attaches its emotion to the idea; the idea _is_ the +fact. The strongest part of our religion today is its unconscious +poetry."[63] + +Let me be permitted to quote these words of my own, as uttering the +thought which should, in my opinion, go with us and govern us in all our +study of poetry. In the present work it is the course of one great +contributory stream to the world-river of poetry that we are invited to +follow. We are here invited to trace the stream of English poetry. But +whether we set ourselves, as here, to follow only one of the several +streams that make the mighty river of poetry, or whether we seek to know +them all, our governing thought should be the same. We should conceive +of poetry worthily, and more highly than it has been the custom to +conceive of it. We should conceive of it as capable of higher uses, and +called to higher destinies than those which in general men have +assigned to it hitherto. More and more mankind will discover that we +have to turn to poetry to interpret life for us, to console us, to +sustain us. Without poetry, our science will appear incomplete; and most +of what now passes with us for religion and philosophy will be replaced +by poetry. Science, I say, will appear incomplete without it. For finely +and truly does Wordsworth call poetry "the impassioned expression which +is in a countenance of all science"[64] and what is a countenance +without its expression? Again, Wordsworth finely and truly calls poetry +"the breath and finer spirit of all knowledge":[64] our religion, +parading evidences such as those on which the popular mind relies now; +our philosophy, pluming itself on its reasonings about causation and +finite and infinite being; what are they but the shadows and dreams and +false shows of knowledge? The day will come when we shall wonder at +ourselves for having trusted to them, for having taken them seriously; +and the more we perceive their hollowness, the more we shall prize "the +breath and finer spirit of knowledge" offered to us by poetry. + +But if we conceive thus highly of the destinies of poetry, we must also +set our standard for poetry high, since poetry, to be capable of +fulfilling such high destinies, must be poetry of a high order of +excellence. We must accustom ourselves to a high standard and to a +strict judgment. Sainte-Beuve relates that Napoleon one day said, when +somebody was spoken of in his presence as a charlatan: "Charlatan as +much as you please; but where is there _not_ charlatanism?"--"Yes," +answers Sainte-Beuve,[65] "in politics, in the art of governing mankind, +that is perhaps true. But in the order of thought, in art, the glory, +the eternal honor is that charlatanism shall find no entrance; herein +lies the inviolableness of that noble portion of man's being." It is +admirably said, and let us hold fast to it. In poetry, which is thought +and art in one, it is the glory, the eternal honor, that charlatanism +shall find no entrance; that this noble sphere be kept inviolate and +inviolable. Charlatanism is for confusing or obliterating the +distinctions between excellent and inferior, sound and unsound or only +half-sound, true and untrue or only half-true. It is charlatanism, +conscious or unconscious, whenever we confuse or obliterate these. And +in poetry, more than anywhere else, it is unpermissible to confuse or +obliterate them. For in poetry the distinction between excellent and +inferior, sound and unsound or only half-sound, true and untrue or only +half-true, is of paramount importance. It is of paramount importance +because of the high destinies of poetry. In poetry, as a criticism of +life[66] under the conditions fixed for such a criticism by the laws of +poetic truth and poetic beauty, the spirit of our race will find, we +have said, as time goes on and as other helps fail, its consolation and +stay. But the consolation and stay will be of power in proportion to the +power of the criticism of life. And the criticism of life will be of +power in proportion as the poetry conveying it is excellent rather than +inferior, sound rather than unsound or half-sound, true rather than +untrue or half-true. + +The best poetry is what we want; the best poetry will be found to have a +power of forming, sustaining, and delighting us, as nothing else can. A +clearer, deeper sense of the best[67] is the most precious benefit which +we can gather from a poetical collection such as the present. And yet in +the very nature and conduct of such a collection there is inevitably +something which tends to obscure in us the consciousness of what our +benefit should be, and to distract us from the pursuit of it. We should +therefore steadily set it before our minds at the outset, and should +compel ourselves to revert constantly to the thought of it as we +proceed. + +Yes; constantly in reading poetry, a sense for the best, the really +excellent, and of the strength and joy to be drawn from it, should be +present in our minds and should govern our estimate of what we read. But +this real estimate, the only true one, is liable to be superseded, if we +are not watchful, by two other kinds of estimate, the historic estimate +and the personal estimate, both of which are fallacious. A poet or a +poem may count to us historically, they may count to us on grounds +personal to ourselves, and they may count to us really. They may count +to us historically. The course of development of a nation's language, +thought, and poetry, is profoundly interesting; and by regarding a +poet's work as a stage in this course of development we may easily bring +ourselves to make it of more importance as poetry than in itself it +really is, we may come to use a language of quite exaggerated praise in +criticising it; in short, to over-rate it. So arises in our poetic +judgments the fallacy caused by the estimate which we may call historic. +Then, again, a poet or a poem may count to us on grounds personal to +ourselves. Our personal affinities, likings, and circumstances, have +great power to sway our estimate of this or that poet's work, and to +make us attach more importance to it as poetry than in itself it really +possesses, because to us it is, or has been, of high importance. Here +also we over-rate the object of our interest, and apply to it a language +of praise which is quite exaggerated. And thus we get the source of a +second fallacy in our poetic judgments--the fallacy caused by an +estimate which we may call personal. + +Both fallacies are natural. It is evident how naturally the study of the +history and development of a poetry may incline a man to pause over +reputations and works once conspicuous but now obscure, and to quarrel +with a careless public for skipping, in obedience to mere tradition and +habit, from one famous name or work in its national poetry to another, +ignorant of what it misses, and of the reason for keeping what it keeps, +and of the whole process of growth in its poetry. The French have become +diligent students of their own early poetry, which they long neglected; +the study makes many of them dissatisfied with their so-called classical +poetry, the court-tragedy of the seventeenth century, a poetry which +Pellisson[68] long ago reproached with its want of the true poetic +stamp, with its _politesse sterile et rampante?_[69] but which +nevertheless has reigned in France as absolutely as if it had been the +perfection of classical poetry indeed. The dissatisfaction is natural; +yet a lively and accomplished critic, M. Charles d'Héricault,[70] the +editor of Clement Marot, goes too far when he says that "the cloud of +glory playing round a classic is a mist as dangerous to the future of a +literature as it is intolerable for the purposes of history." "It +hinders," he goes on, "it hinders us from seeing more than one single +point, the culminating and exceptional point, the summary, fictitious +and arbitrary, of a thought and of a work. It substitutes a halo for a +physiognomy, it puts a statue where there was once a man, and hiding +from us all trace of the labor, the attempts, the weaknesses, the +failures, it claims not study but veneration; it does not show us how +the thing is done, it imposes upon us a model. Above all, for the +historian this creation of classic personages is inadmissible; for it +withdraws the poet from his time, from his proper life, it breaks +historical relationships, it blinds criticism by conventional +admiration, and renders the investigation of literary origins +unacceptable. It gives us a human personage no longer, but a God seated +immovable amidst His perfect work, like Jupiter on Olympus; and hardly +will it be possible for the young student, to whom such work is +exhibited at such a distance from him, to believe that it did not issue +ready made from that divine head." + +All this is brilliantly and tellingly said, but we must plead for a +distinction. Everything depends on the reality of a poet's classic +character. If he is a dubious classic, let us sift him; if he is a false +classic, let us explode him. But if he is a real classic, if his work +belongs to the class of the very best (for this is the true and right +meaning of the word _classic, classical_), then the great thing for us +is to feel and enjoy his work as deeply as ever we can, and to +appreciate the wide difference between it and all work which has not the +same high character. This is what is salutary, this is what is +formative; this is the great benefit to be got from the study of poetry. +Everything which interferes with it, which hinders it, is injurious. +True, we must read our classic with open eyes, and not with eyes blinded +with superstition; we must perceive when his work comes short, when it +drops out of the class of the very best, and we must rate it, in such +cases, at its proper value. But the use of this negative criticism is +not in itself, it is entirely in its enabling us to have a clearer sense +and a deeper enjoyment of what is truly excellent. To trace the labor, +the attempts, the weaknesses, the failures of a genuine classic, to +acquaint oneself with his time and his life and his historical +relationships, is mere literary dilettantism unless it has that clear +sense and deeper enjoyment for its end. It may be said that the more we +know about a classic the better we shall enjoy him; and, if we lived as +long as Methuselah and had all of us heads of perfect clearness and +wills of perfect steadfastness, this might be true in fact as it is +plausible in theory. But the case here is much the same as the case with +the Greek and Latin studies of our schoolboys. The elaborate +philological groundwork which we requite them to lay is in theory an +admirable preparation for appreciating the Greek and Latin authors +worthily. The more thoroughly we lay the groundwork, the better we shall +be able, it may be said, to enjoy the authors. True, if time were not so +short, and schoolboys' wits not so soon tired and their power of +attention exhausted; only, as it is, the elaborate philological +preparation goes on, but the authors are little known and less enjoyed. +So with the investigator of "historic origins" in poetry. He ought to +enjoy the true classic all the better for his investigations; he often +is distracted from the enjoyment of the best, and with the less good he +overbusies himself, and is prone to over-rate it in proportion to the +trouble which it has cost him. + +The idea of tracing historic origins and historical relationships cannot +be absent from a compilation like the present. And naturally the poets +to be exhibited in it will be assigned to those persons for exhibition +who are known to prize them highly, rather than to those who have no +special inclination towards them. Moreover the very occupation with an +author, and the business of exhibiting him, disposes us to affirm and +amplify his importance. In the present work, therefore, we are sure of +frequent temptation to adopt the historic estimate, or the personal +estimate, and to forget the real estimate; which latter, nevertheless, +we must employ if we are to make poetry yield us its full benefit. So +high is that benefit, the benefit of clearly feeling and of deeply +enjoying the really excellent, the truly classic in poetry, that we do +well, I say, to set it fixedly before our minds as our object in +studying poets and poetry, and to make the desire of attaining it the +one principle to which, as the _Imitation_ says, whatever we may read or +come to know, we always return. _Cum multa legeris et cognoveris, ad +unum semper oportet redire principium._[71] + +The historic estimate is likely in especial to affect our judgment and +our language when we are dealing with ancient poets; the personal +estimate when we are dealing with poets our contemporaries, or at any +rate modern. The exaggerations due to the historic estimate are not in +themselves, perhaps, of very much gravity. Their report hardly enters +the general ear; probably they do not always impose even on the literary +men who adopt them. But they lead to a dangerous abuse of language. So +we hear Cædmon,[72] amongst, our own poets, compared to Milton. I have +already noticed the enthusiasm of one accomplished French critic for +"historic origins." Another eminent French critic, M. Vitet,[73] +comments upon that famous document of the early poetry of his nation, +the _Chanson de Roland._[74] It is indeed a most interesting document. +The _joculator_ or _jongleur_ Taillefer, who was with William the +Conqueror's army at Hastings, marched before the Norman troops, so said +the tradition, singing "of Charlemagne and of Roland and of Oliver, and +of the vassals who died at Roncevaux"; and it is suggested that in the +_Chanson de Roland_ by one Turoldus or Theroulde, a poem preserved in a +manuscript of the twelfth century in the Bodleian Library at Oxford, we +have certainly the matter, perhaps even some of the words, of the chant +which Taillefer sang. The poem has vigor and freshness; it is not +without pathos. But M. Vitet is not satisfied with seeing in it a +document of some poetic value, and of very high historic and linguistic +value; he sees in it a grand and beautiful work, a monument of epic +genius. In its general design he finds the grandiose conception, in its +details he finds the constant union of simplicity with greatness, which +are the marks, he truly says, of the genuine epic, and distinguish it +from the artificial epic of literary ages. One thinks of Homer; this is +the sort of praise which is given to Homer, and justly given. Higher +praise there cannot well be, and it is the praise due to epic poetry of +the highest order only, and to no other. Let us try, then, the _Chanson +de Roland_ at its best. Roland, mortally wounded, lays himself down +under a pine-tree, with his face turned towards Spain and the enemy-- + + "De plusurs choses à remembrer li prist, + De tantes teres cume li bers cunquist, + De dulce France, des humes de sun lign, + De Carlemagne sun seignor ki l'nurrit."[75] + +That is primitive work, I repeat, with an undeniable poetic quality of +its own. It deserves such praise, and such praise is sufficient for it. +But now turn to Homer-- + + [Greek: + Os phato tous d aedae katecheu phusizoos aia + en Lakedaimoni authi, philm en patridi gaim][76] + + +We are here in another world, another order of poetry altogether; here +is rightly due such supreme praise as that which M. Vitet gives to the +_Chanson de Roland_. If our words are to have any meaning, if our +judgments are to have any solidity, we must not heap that supreme praise +upon poetry of an order immeasurably inferior. + +Indeed there can be no more useful help for discovering what poetry +belongs to the class of the truly excellent, and can therefore do us +most good, than to have always in one's mind lines and expressions of +the great masters, and to apply them as a touchstone to other poetry. Of +course we are not to require this other poetry to resemble them; it may +be very dissimilar. But if we have any tact we shall find them, when we +have lodged them well in our minds, an infallible touchstone for +detecting the presence or absence of high poetic quality, and also the +degree of this quality, in all other poetry which we may place beside +them. Short passages, even single lines, will serve our turn quite +sufficiently. Take the two lines which I have just quoted from Homer, +the poet's comment on Helen's mention of her brothers;--or take his + + [Greek:] + A delo, to sphoi domen Paelaei anakti + Thnaeta; umeis d eston agaero t athanato te. + ae ina dustaenoiosi met andrasin alge echaeton;[77] + +the address of Zeus to the horses of Peleus;--or take finally his + + [Greek:] + Kai se, geron, to prin men akouomen olbion einar[78] + +the words of Achilles to Priam, a suppliant before him. Take that +incomparable line and a half of Dante, Ugolino's tremendous words-- + + "Io no piangeva; sì dentro impietrai. + Piangevan elli ..."[79] + +take the lovely words of Beatrice to Virgil-- + + "Io son fatta da Dio, sua mercè, tale, + Che la vostra miseria non mi tange, + Nè fiamma d'esto incendio non m'assale ..."[80] + +take the simple, but perfect, single line-- + + "In la sua volontade è nostra pace."[81] + +Take of Shakespeare a line or two of Henry the Fourth's expostulation +with sleep-- + + "Wilt thou upon the high and giddy mast + Seal up the ship-boy's eyes, and rock his brains + In cradle of the rude imperious surge ..."[82] + +and take, as well, Hamlet's dying request to Horatio-- + + "If thou didst ever hold me in thy heart, + Absent thee from felicity awhile, + And in this harsh world draw thy breath in pain + To tell my story ..."[83] + +Take of Milton that Miltonic passage-- + + "Darken'd so, yet shone + Above them all the archangel; but his face + Deep scars of thunder had intrench'd, and care + Sat on his faded cheek ..."[84] + +add two such lines as-- + + "And courage never to submit or yield + And what is else not to be overcome ..."[85] + +and finish with the exquisite close to the loss of Proserpine, the loss + + " ... which cost Ceres all that pain + To seek her through the world."[86] + +These few lines, if we have tact and can use them, are enough even of +themselves to keep clear and sound our judgments about poetry, to save +us from fallacious estimates of it, to conduct us to a real estimate. + +The specimens I have quoted differ widely from one another, but they +have in common this: the possession of the very highest poetical +quality. If we are thoroughly penetrated by their power, we shall find +that we have acquired a sense enabling us, whatever poetry may be laid +before us, to feel the degree in which a high poetical quality is +present or wanting there. Critics give themselves great labor to draw +out what in the abstract constitutes the characters of a high quality of +poetry. It is much better simply to have recourse to concrete examples; +--to take specimens of poetry of the high, the very highest quality, and +to say: The characters of a high quality of poetry are what is expressed +_there_. They are far better recognized by being felt in the verse of +the master, than by being perused in the prose of the critic. +Nevertheless if we are urgently pressed to give some critical account of +them, we may safely, perhaps, venture on laying down, not indeed how and +why the characters arise, but where and in what they arise. They are in +the matter and substance of the poetry, and they are in its manner and +style. Both of these, the substance and matter on the one hand, the +style and manner on the other, have a mark, an accent, of high beauty, +worth, and power. But if we are asked to define this mark and accent in +the abstract, our answer must be: No, for we should thereby be darkening +the question, not clearing it. The mark and accent are as given by the +substance and matter of that poetry, by the style and manner of that +poetry, and of all other poetry which is akin to it in quality. + +Only one thing we may add as to the substance and matter of poetry, +guiding ourselves by Aristotle's profound observation[87] that the +superiority of poetry over history consists in its possessing a higher +truth and a higher seriousness ([Greek: philosophoteron kahi +spondaioteron]). Let us add, therefore, to what we have said, this: that +the substance and matter of the best poetry acquire their special +character from possessing, in an eminent degree, truth and seriousness. +We may add yet further, what is in itself evident, that to the style and +manner of the best poetry their special character, their accent, is +given by their diction, and, even yet more, by their movement. And +though we distinguish between the two characters, the two accents, of +superiority, yet they are nevertheless vitally connected one with the +other. The superior character of truth and seriousness, in the matter +and substance of the best poetry, is inseparable from the superiority of +diction and movement marking its style and manner. The two superiorities +are closely related, and are in steadfast proportion one to the other. +So far as high poetic truth and seriousness are wanting to a poet's +matter and substance, so far also, we may be sure, will a high poetic +stamp of diction and movement be wanting to his style and manner. In +proportion as this high stamp of diction and movement, again, is absent +from a poet's style and manner, we shall find, also, that high poetic +truth and seriousness are absent from his substance and matter. + +So stated, these are but dry generalities; their whole force lies in +their application. And I could wish every student of poetry to make the +application of them for himself. Made by himself, the application would +impress itself upon his mind far more deeply than made by me. Neither +will my limits allow me to make any full application of the generalities +above propounded; but in the hope of bringing out, at any rate, some +significance in them, and of establishing an important principle more +firmly by their means, I will, in the space which remains to me, follow +rapidly from the commencement the course of our English poetry with them +in my view. + +Once more I return to the early poetry of France, with which our own +poetry, in its origins, is indissolubly connected. In the twelfth and +thirteenth centuries, that seed-time of all modern language and +literature, the poetry of France had a clear predominance in Europe. Of +the two divisions of that poetry, its productions in the _langue d'oïl_ +and its productions in the _langue d'oc_, the poetry of the _langue +d'oc_,[88] of southern France, of the troubadours, is of importance +because of its effect on Italian literature;--the first literature of +modern Europe to strike the true and grand note, and to bring forth, as +in Dante and Petrarch it brought forth, classics. But the predominance +of French poetry in Europe, during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, +is due to its poetry of the _langue d'oïl_, the poetry of northern +France and of the tongue which is now the French language. In the +twelfth century the bloom of this romance-poetry was earlier and +stronger in England, at the court of our Anglo-Norman kings, than in +France itself. But it was a bloom of French poetry; and as our native +poetry formed itself, it formed itself out of this. The romance-poems +which took possession of the heart and imagination of Europe in the +twelfth and thirteenth centuries are French; "they are," as Southey +justly says, "the pride of French literature, nor have we anything which +can be placed in competition with them." Themes were supplied from all +quarters: but the romance-setting which was common to them all, and +which gained the ear of Europe, was French. This constituted for the +French poetry, literature, and language, at the height of the Middle +Age, an unchallenged predominance. The Italian Brunetto Latini,[89] the +master of Dante, wrote his _Treasure_ in French because, he says, "la +parleure en est plus délitable et plus commune à toutes gens." In the +same century, the thirteenth, the French romance-writer, Christian of +Troyes,[90] formulates the claims, in chivalry and letters, of France, +his native country, as follows:-- + + "Or vous ert par ce livre apris, + Que Gresse ot de chevalerie + Le premier los et de clergie; + Puis vint chevalerie à Rome, + Et de la clergie la some, + Qui ore est en France venue. + Diex doinst qu'ele i soit retenue + Et que li lius li abelisse + Tant que de France n'isse + L'onor qui s'i est arestee!" + +"Now by this book you will learn that first Greece had the renown for +chivalry and letters: then chivalry and the primacy in letters passed to +Rome, and now it is come to France. God grant it may be kept there; and +that the place may please it so well, that the honor which has come to +make stay in France may never depart thence!" + +Yet it is now all gone, this French romance-poetry, of which the weight +of substance and the power of style are not unfairly represented by this +extract from Christian of Troyes. Only by means of the historic estimate +can we persuade ourselves now to think that any of it is of poetical +importance. + +But in the fourteenth century there comes an Englishman nourished on +this poetry; taught his trade by this poetry, getting words, rhyme, +meter from this poetry; for even of that stanza[91] which the Italians +used, and which Chaucer derived immediately from the Italians, the basis +and suggestion was probably given in France. Chaucer (I have already +named him) fascinated his contemporaries, but so too did Christian of +Troyes and Wolfram of Eschenbach.[92] Chaucer's power of fascination, +however, is enduring; his poetical importance does not need the +assistance of the historic estimate; it is real. He is a genuine source +of joy and strength, which is flowing still for us and will flow always. +He will be read, as time goes on, far more generally than he is read +now. His language is a cause of difficulty for us; but so also, and I +think in quite as great a degree, is the language of Burns. In +Chaucer's case, as in that of Burns, it is a difficulty to be +unhesitatingly accepted and overcome. + +If we ask ourselves wherein consists the immense superiority of +Chaucer's poetry over the romance-poetry--why it is that in passing from +this to Chaucer we suddenly feel ourselves to be in another world, we +shall find that his superiority is both in the substance of his poetry +and in the style of his poetry. His superiority in substance is given by +his large, free, simple, clear yet kindly view of human life,--so unlike +the total want, in the romance-poets, of all intelligent command of it. +Chaucer has not their helplessness; he has gained the power to survey +the world from a central, a truly human point of view. We have only to +call to mind the Prologue to _The Canterbury Tales_. The right comment +upon it is Dryden's: "It is sufficient to say, according to the proverb, +that _here is God's plenty_."[93] And again: "He is a perpetual fountain +of good sense." It is by a large, free, sound representation of things, +that poetry, this high criticism of life, has truth of substance; and +Chaucer's poetry has truth of substance. + +Of his style and manner, if we think first of the romance-poetry and +then of Chaucer's divine liquidness of diction, his divine fluidity of +movement, it is difficult to speak temperately. They are irresistible, +and justify all the rapture with which his successors speak of his "gold +dew-drops of speech." Johnson misses the point entirely when he finds +fault with Dryden for ascribing to Chaucer the first refinement of our +numbers, and says that Gower[94] also can show smooth numbers and easy +rhymes. The refinement of our numbers means something far more than +this. A nation may have versifiers with smooth numbers and easy rhymes, +and yet may have no real poetry at all. Chaucer is the father of our +splendid English poetry; he is our "well of English undefiled," because +by the lovely charm of his diction, the lovely charm of his movement, he +makes an epoch and founds a tradition. + +In Spenser, Shakespeare, Milton, Keats, we can follow the tradition of +the liquid diction, the fluid movement, of Chaucer; at one time it is +his liquid diction of which in these poets we feel the virtue, and at +another time it is his fluid movement. And the virtue is irresistible. + +Bounded as is my space, I must yet find room for an example of Chaucer's +virtue, as I have given examples to show the virtue of the great +classics. I feel disposed to say that a single line is enough to show +the charm of Chaucer's verse; that merely one line like this-- + + "O martyr souded[95] in virginitee!" + +has a virtue of manner and movement such as we shall not find in all the +verse of romance-poetry;--but this is saying nothing. The virtue is such +as we shall not find, perhaps, in all English poetry, outside the poets +whom I have named as the special inheritors of Chaucer's tradition. A +single line, however, is too little if we have not the strain of +Chaucer's verse well in our memory; let us take a stanza. It is from +_The Prioress's Tale_, the story of the Christian child murdered in a +Jewry-- + + "My throte is cut unto my nekke-bone + Saidè this child, and as by way of kinde + I should have deyd, yea, longè time agone; + But Jesu Christ, as ye in bookès finde, + Will that his glory last and be in minde, + And for the worship of his mother dere + Yet may I sing _O Alma_ loud and clere." + +Wordsworth has modernized this Tale, and to feel how delicate and +evanescent is the charm of verse, we have only to read Wordsworth's +first three lines of this stanza after Chaucer's-- + + "My throat is cut unto the bone, I trow, + Said this young child, and by the law of kind + I should have died, yea, many hours ago." + +The charm is departed. It is often said that the power of liquidness and +fluidity in Chaucer's verse was dependent upon a free, a licentious +dealing with language, such as is now impossible; upon a liberty, such +as Burns too enjoyed, of making words like _neck_, _bird_, into a +dissyllable by adding to them, and words like _cause_, _rhyme_, into a +dissyllable by sounding the _e_ mute. It is true that Chaucer's fluidity +is conjoined with this liberty, and is admirably served by it; but we +ought not to say that it was dependent upon it. It was dependent upon +his talent. Other poets with a like liberty do not attain to the +fluidity of Chaucer; Burns himself does not attain to it. Poets, again, +who have a talent akin to Chaucer's, such as Shakespeare or Keats, have +known how to attain to his fluidity without the like liberty. + +And yet Chaucer is not one of the great classics. His poetry transcends +and effaces, easily and without effort, all the romance-poetry of +Catholic Christendom; it transcends and effaces all the English poetry +contemporary with it, it transcends and effaces all the English poetry +subsequent to it down to the age of Elizabeth. Of such avail is poetic +truth of substance, in its natural and necessary union with poetic truth +of style. And yet, I say, Chaucer is not one of the great classics. He +has not their accent. What is wanting to him is suggested by the mere +mention of the name of the first great classic of Christendom, the +immortal poet who died eighty years before Chaucer,--Dante. The accent +of such verse as + + "In la sua volontade è nostra pace ..." + +is altogether beyond Chaucer's reach; we praise him, but we feel that +this accent is out of the question for him. It may be said that it was +necessarily out of the reach of any poet in the England of that stage of +growth. Possibly; but we are to adopt a real, not a historic, estimate +of poetry. However we may account for its absence, something is wanting, +then, to the poetry of Chaucer, which poetry must have before it can be +placed in the glorious class of the best. And there is no doubt what +that something is. It is the[Greek: spoudaiotaes] the high and +excellent seriousness, which Aristotle assigns as one of the grand +virtues of poetry. The substance of Chaucer's poetry, his view of things +and his criticism of life, has largeness, freedom, shrewdness, +benignity; but it has not this high seriousness. Homer's criticism of +life has it, Dante's has it, Shakespeare's has it. It is this chiefly +which gives to our spirits what they can rest upon; and with the +increasing demands of our modern ages upon poetry, this virtue of giving +us what we can rest upon will be more and more highly esteemed. A voice +from the slums of Paris, fifty or sixty years after Chaucer, the voice +of poor Villon[96] out of his life of riot and crime, has at its happy +moments (as, for instance, in the last stanza of _La Belle Heaulmière_ +[97]) more of this important poetic virtue of seriousness than all the +productions of Chaucer. But its apparition in Villon, and in men like +Villon, is fitful; the greatness of the great poets, the power of their +criticism of life, is that their virtue is sustained. + +To our praise, therefore, of Chaucer as a poet there must be this +limitation: he lacks the high seriousness of the great classics, and +therewith an important part of their virtue. Still, the main fact for us +to bear in mind about Chaucer is his sterling value according to that +real estimate which we firmly adopt for all poets. He has poetic truth +of substance, though he has not high poetic seriousness, and +corresponding to his truth of substance he has an exquisite virtue of +style and manner. With him is born our real poetry. + +For my present purpose I need not dwell on our Elizabethan poetry, or on +the continuation and close of this poetry in Milton. We all of us +profess to be agreed in the estimate of this poetry; we all of us +recognize it as great poetry, our greatest, and Shakespeare and Milton +as our poetical classics. The real estimate, here, has universal +currency. With the next age of our poetry divergency and difficulty +begin. An historic estimate of that poetry has established itself; and +the question is, whether it will be found to coincide with the real +estimate. + +The age of Dryden, together with our whole eighteenth century which +followed it, sincerely believed itself to have produced poetical +classics of its own, and even to have made advance, in poetry, beyond +all its predecessors. Dryden regards as not seriously disputable the +opinion "that the sweetness of English verse was never understood or +practised by our fathers."[98] Cowley could see nothing at all in +Chaucer's poetry.[99] Dryden heartily admired it, and, as we have seen, +praised its matter admirably; but of its exquisite manner and movement +all he can find to say is that "there is the rude sweetness of a Scotch +tune in it, which is natural and pleasing, though not perfect."[100] +Addison, wishing to praise Chaucer's numbers, compares them with +Dryden's own. And all through the eighteenth century, and down even into +our own times, the stereotyped phrase of approbation for good verse +found in our early poetry has been, that it even approached the verse of +Dryden, Addison, Pope, and Johnson. + +Are Dryden and Pope poetical classics? Is the historic estimate, which +represents them as such, and which has been so long established that it +cannot easily give way, the real estimate? Wordsworth and Coleridge, as +is well known, denied it;[101] but the authority of Wordsworth and +Coleridge does not weigh much with the young generation, and there are +many signs to show that the eighteenth century and its judgments are +coming into favor again. Are the favorite poets of the eighteenth +century classics? + +It is impossible within my present limits to discuss the question fully. +And what man of letters would not shrink from seeming to dispose +dictatorially of the claims of two men who are, at any rate, such +masters in letters as Dryden and Pope; two men of such admirable talent, +both of them, and one of them, Dryden, a man, on all sides, of such +energetic and genial power? And yet, if we are to gain the full benefit +from poetry, we must have the real estimate of it. I cast about for some +mode of arriving, in the present case, at such an estimate without +offence. And perhaps the best way is to begin, as it is easy to begin, +with cordial praise. + +When we find Chapman, the Elizabethan translator of Homer, expressing +himself in his preface thus: "Though truth in her very nakedness sits in +so deep a pit, that from Gades to Aurora and Ganges few eyes can sound +her, I hope yet those few here will so discover and confirm that, the +date being out of her darkness in this morning of our poet, he shall now +gird his temples with the sun,"--we pronounce that such a prose is +intolerable. When we find Milton writing: "And long it was not after, +when I was confirmed in this opinion, that he, who would not be +frustrate of his hope to write well hereafter in laudable things, ought +himself to be a true poem,"[102]--we pronounce that such a prose has its +own grandeur, but that it is obsolete and inconvenient. But when we find +Dryden telling us: "What Virgil wrote in the vigor of his age, in plenty +and at ease, I have undertaken to translate in my declining years; +struggling with wants, oppressed with sickness, curbed in my genius, +liable to be misconstrued in all I write,"[103]--then we exclaim that +here at last we have the true English prose, a prose such as we would +all gladly use if we only knew how. Yet Dryden was Milton's +contemporary. + +But after the Restoration the time had come when our nation felt the +imperious need of a fit prose. So, too, the time had likewise come when +our nation felt the imperious need of freeing itself from the absorbing +preoccupation which religion in the Puritan age had exercised. It was +impossible that this freedom should be brought about without some +negative excess, without some neglect and impairment of the religious +life of the soul; and the spiritual history of the eighteenth century +shows us that the freedom was not achieved without them. Still, the +freedom was achieved; the preoccupation, an undoubtedly baneful and +retarding one if it had continued, was got rid of. And as with religion +amongst us at that period, so it was also with letters. A fit prose was +a necessity; but it was impossible that a fit prose should establish +itself amongst us without some touch of frost to the imaginative life of +the soul. The needful qualities for a fit prose are regularity, +uniformity, precision, balance. The men of letters, whose destiny it may +be to bring their nation to the attainment of a fit prose, must of +necessity, whether they work in prose or in verse, give a predominating, +an almost exclusive attention to the qualities of regularity, +uniformity, precision, balance. But an almost exclusive attention to +these qualities involves some repression and silencing of poetry. + +We are to regard Dryden as the puissant and glorious founder, Pope as +the splendid high priest, of our age of prose and reason, of our +excellent and indispensable eighteenth century. For the purposes of +their mission and destiny their poetry, like their prose, is admirable. +Do you ask me whether Dryden's verse, take it almost where you will, is +not good? + + "A milk-white Hind, immortal and unchanged, + Fed on the lawns and in the forest ranged."[104] + +I answer: Admirable for the purposes of the inaugurator of an age of +prose and reason. Do you ask me whether Pope's verse, take it almost +where you will, is not good? + + "To Hounslow Heath I point, and Banstead Down; + Thence comes your mutton, and these chicks my own."[105] + +I answer: Admirable for the purposes of the high priest of an age of +prose and reason. But do you ask me whether such verse proceeds from men +with an adequate poetic criticism of life, from men whose criticism of +life has a high seriousness, or even, without that high seriousness, has +poetic largeness, freedom, insight, benignity? Do you ask me whether the +application of ideas to life in the verse of these men, often a powerful +application, no doubt, is a powerful _poetic_ application? Do you ask me +whether the poetry of these men has either the matter or the inseparable +manner of such an adequate poetic criticism; whether it has the accent +of + + "Absent thee from felicity awhile ... " + +or of + + "And what is else not to be overcome ... " + +or of + + "O martyr sonded in virginitee!" + +I answer: It has not and cannot have them; it is the poetry of the +builders of an age of prose and reason. + +Though they may write in verse, though they may in a certain sense be +masters of the art of versification, Dryden and Pope are not classics of +our poetry, they are classics of our prose. + +Gray is our poetical classic of that literature and age; the position of +Gray is singular, and demands a word of notice here. He has not the +volume or the power of poets who, coming in times more favorable, have +attained to an independent criticism of life. But he lived with the +great poets, he lived, above all, with the Greeks, through perpetually +studying and enjoying them; and he caught their poetic point of view for +regarding life, caught their poetic manner. The point of view and the +manner are not self-sprung in him, he caught them of others; and he had +not the free and abundant use of them. But whereas Addison and Pope +never had the use of them, Gray had the use of them at times. He is the +scantiest and frailest of classics in our poetry, but he is a classic. + +And now, after Gray, we are met, as we draw towards the end of the +eighteenth century, we are met by the great name of Burns. We enter now +on times where the personal estimate of poets begins to be rife, and +where the real estimate of them is not reached without difficulty. But +in spite of the disturbing pressures of personal partiality, of national +partiality, let us try to reach a real estimate of the poetry of Burns. +By his English poetry Burns in general belongs to the eighteenth +century, and has little importance for us. + + "Mark ruffian Violence, distain'd with crimes, + Rousing elate in these degenerate times; + View unsuspecting Innocence a prey, + As guileful Fraud points out the erring way; + While subtle Litigation's pliant tongue + The life-blood equal sucks of Right and Wrong!"[106] + +Evidently this is not the real Burns, or his name and fame would have +disappeared long ago. Nor is Clarinda's[107] love-poet, Sylvander, the +real Burns either. But he tells us himself: "These English songs gravel +me to death. I have not the command of the language that I have of my +native tongue. In fact, I think that my ideas are more barren in English +than in Scotch. I have been at _Duncan Gray_ to dress it in English, but +all I can do is desperately stupid."[108] We English turn naturally, in +Burns, to the poems in our own language, because we can read them +easily; but in those poems we have not the real Burns. + +The real Burns is of course in his Scotch poems. Let us boldly say that +of much of this poetry, a poetry dealing perpetually with Scotch drink, +Scotch religion, and Scotch manners, a Scotchman's estimate is apt to be +personal. A Scotchman is used to this world of Scotch drink, Scotch +religion, and Scotch manners; he has a tenderness for it; he meets its +poet half way. In this tender mood he reads pieces like the _Holy Fair +or Halloween_. But this world of Scotch drink, Scotch religion, and +Scotch manners is against a poet, not for him, when it is not a partial +countryman who reads him; for in itself it is not a beautiful world, and +no one can deny that it is of advantage to a poet to deal with a +beautiful world. Burns's world of Scotch drink, Scotch religion, and +Scotch manners, is often a harsh, a sordid, a repulsive world; even the +world of his _Cotter's Saturday Night_ is not a beautiful world. No +doubt a poet's criticism of life may have such truth and power that it +triumphs over its world and delights us. Burns may triumph over his +world, often he does triumph over his world, but let us observe how and +where. Burns is the first case we have had where the bias of the +personal estimate tends to mislead; let us look at him closely, he can +bear it. + +Many of his admirers will tell us that we have Burns, convivial, +genuine, delightful, here-- + + + "Leeze me on drink! it gies us mair + Than either school or college; + It kindles wit, it waukens lair, + It pangs us fou o' knowledge. + Be't whisky gill or penny wheep + Or ony stronger potion, + It never fails, on drinking deep, + To kittle up our notion + By night or day."[109] + +There is a great deal of that sort of thing in Burns, and it is +unsatisfactory, not because it is bacchanalian poetry, but because it +has not that accent of sincerity which bacchanalian poetry, to do it +justice, very often has. There is something in it of bravado, something +which makes us feel that we have not the man speaking to us with his +real voice: something, therefore, poetically unsound. + +With still more confidence will his admirers tell us that we have the +genuine Burns, the great poet, when his strain asserts the independence, +equality, dignity, of men, as in the famous song _For a' that and a' +that_-- + + "A prince can mak' a belted knight, + A marquis, duke, and a' that; + But an honest man's a boon his might, + Guid faith he manna fa' that! + For a' that, and a' that, + Their dignities, and a' that, + The pith o' sense, and pride o' worth, + Are higher rank than a' that." + +Here they find his grand, genuine touches; and still more, when this +puissant genius, who so often set morality at defiance, falls +moralizing-- + + "The sacred lowe o' weel placed love + Luxuriantly indulge it; + But never tempt th' illicit rove, + Tho' naething should divulge it. + I waive the quantum o' the sin, + The hazard o' concealing, + But och! it hardens a' within, + And petrifies the feeling."[110] + +Or in a higher strain-- + + "Who made the heart, 'tis He alone + Decidedly can try us; + He knows each chord, its various tone; + Each spring, its various bias. + Then at the balance let's be mute, + We never can adjust it; + What's _done_ we partly may compute, + But know not what's resisted."[111] + +Or in a better strain yet, a strain, his admirers will say, +unsurpassable-- + + "To make a happy fire-side clime + To weans and wife, + That's the true pathos and sublime + Of human life."[112] + +There is criticism of life for you, the admirers of Burns will say to +us; there is the application of ideas to life! There is, undoubtedly. +The doctrine of the last-quoted lines coincides almost exactly with what +was the aim and end, Xenophon tells us, of all the teaching of Socrates. +And the application is a powerful one; made by a man of vigorous +understanding, and (need I say?) a master of language. + +But for supreme poetical success more is required than the powerful +application of ideas to life; it must be an application under the +conditions fixed by the laws of poetic truth and poetic beauty. Those +laws fix as an essential condition, in the poet's treatment of such +matters as are here in question, high seriousness;--the high seriousness +which comes from absolute sincerity. The accent of high seriousness, +born of absolute sincerity, is what gives to such verse as + + "In la sua volontade è nostra pace..." + +to such criticism of life as Dante's, its power. Is this accent felt in +the passages which I have been quoting from Burns? Surely not; surely, +if our sense is quick, we must perceive that we have not in those +passages a voice from the very inmost soul of the genuine Burns; he is +not speaking to us from these depths, he is more or less preaching. And +the compensation for admiring such passages less, for missing the +perfect poetic accent in them, will be that we shall admire more the +poetry where that accent is found. + +No; Burns, like Chaucer, comes short of the high seriousness of the +great classics, and the virtue of matter and manner which goes with that +high seriousness is wanting to his work. At moments he touches it in a +profound and passionate melancholy, as in those four immortal lines +taken by Byron as a motto for _The Bride of Abydos_, but which have in +them a depth of poetic quality such as resides in no verse of Byron's +own-- + + "Had we never loved sae kindly, + Had we never loved sae blindly, + Never met, or never parted, + We had ne'er been broken-hearted." + +But a whole poem of that quality Burns cannot make; the rest, in the +_Farewell to Nancy_, is verbiage. + +We arrive best at the real estimate of Burns, I think, by conceiving his +work as having truth of matter and truth of manner, but not the accent +or the poetic virtue of the highest masters. His genuine criticism of +life, when the sheer poet in him speaks, is ironic; it is not-- + + "Thou Power Supreme, whose mighty scheme + These woes of mine fulfil, + Here firm I rest, they must be best + Because they are Thy will!"[113] + +It is far rather: _Whistle owre the lave o't!_ Yet we may say of him as +of Chaucer, that of life and the world, as they come before him, his +view is large, free, shrewd, benignant,--truly poetic, therefore; and +his manner of rendering what he sees is to match. But we must note, at +the same time, his great difference from Chaucer. The freedom of Chaucer +is heightened, in Burns, by a fiery, reckless energy; the benignity of +Chaucer deepens, in Burns, into an overwhelming sense of the pathos of +things;--of the pathos of human nature, the pathos, also, of non-human +nature. Instead of the fluidity of Chaucer's manner, the manner of Burns +has spring, bounding swiftness. Burns is by far the greater force, +though he has perhaps less charm. The world of Chaucer is fairer, +richer, more significant than that of Burns; but when the largeness and +freedom of Burns get full sweep, as in _Tam o' Shanter_, or still more +in that puissant and splendid production, _The Jolly Beggars_, his world +may be what it will, his poetic genius triumphs over it. In the world of +_The Jolly Beggars_ there is more than hideousness and squalor, there is +bestiality; yet the piece is a superb poetic success. It has a breadth, +truth, and power which make the famous scene in Auerbach's Cellar, of +Goethe's _Faust_, seem artificial and tame beside it, and which are only +matched by Shakespeare and Aristophanes. + +Here, where his largeness and freedom serve him so admirably, and also +in those poems and songs where to shrewdness he adds infinite archness +and, wit, and to benignity infinite pathos, where his manner is +flawless, and a perfect poetic whole is the result,--in things like the +address to the mouse whose home he had ruined, in things like _Duncan +Gray, Tarn Glen, Whistle and I'll come to you my Lad, Auld Lang Syne_ +(this list might be made much longer),--here we have the genuine Burns, +of whom the real estimate must be high indeed. Not a classic, nor with +the excellent[Greek: spoudaihotaes] of the great classics, nor with a +verse rising to a criticism of life and a virtue like theirs; but a poet +with thorough truth of substance and an answering truth of style, giving +us a poetry sound to the core. We all of us have a leaning towards the +pathetic, and may be inclined perhaps to prize Burns most for his +touches of piercing, sometimes almost intolerable, pathos; for verse +like-- + + "We twa hae paidl't i' the burn + From mornin' sun till dine; + But seas between us braid hae roar'd + Sin auld lang syne ..." + +where he is as lovely as he is sound. But perhaps it is by the +perfection of soundness of his lighter and archer masterpieces that he +is poetically most wholesome for us. For the votary misled by a personal +estimate of Shelley, as so many of us have been, are, and will be,--of +that beautiful spirit building his many-colored haze of words and images + + "Pinnacled dim in the intense inane"--[114] + +no contact can be wholesomer than the contact with Burns at his archest +and soundest. Side by side with the + + "On the brink of the night and the morning + My coursers are wont to respire, + But the Earth has just whispered a warning + That their flight must be swifter than fire ..."[115] + +of _Prometheus Unbound_, how salutary, how very salutary, to place this +from _Tam Glen_-- + + "My minnie does constantly deave me + and bids me beware o' young men; + They flatter, she says, to deceive me; + But wha can think sae o' Tam Glen?" + +But we enter on burning ground as we approach the poetry of times so +near to us--poetry like that of Byron, Shelley, and Wordsworth--of which +the estimates are so often not only personal, but personal with passion. +For my purpose, it is enough to have taken the single case of Burns, the +first poet we come to of whose work the estimate formed is evidently apt +to be personal, and to have suggested how we may proceed, using the +poetry of the great classics as a sort of touchstone, to correct this +estimate, as we had previously corrected by the same means the historic +estimate where we met with it. A collection like the present, with its +succession of celebrated names and celebrated poems, offers a good +opportunity to us for resolutely endeavoring to make our estimates of +poetry real. I have sought to point out a method which will help us in +making them so, and to exhibit it in use so far as to put any one who +likes in a way of applying it for himself. + +At any rate the end to which the method and the estimate are designed to +lead, and from leading to which, if they do lead to it, they get their +whole value,--the benefit of being able clearly to feel and deeply to +enjoy the best, the truly classic, in poetry,--is an end, let me say it +once more at parting, of supreme importance. We are often told that an +era is opening in which we are to see multitudes of a common sort of +readers, and masses of a common sort of literature; that such readers do +not want and could not relish anything better than such literature, and +that to provide it is becoming a vast and profitable industry. Even if +good literature entirely lost currency with the world, it would still be +abundantly worth while to continue to enjoy it by oneself. But it never +will lose currency with the world, in spite of momentary appearances; it +never will lose supremacy. Currency and supremacy are insured to it, not +indeed by the world's deliberate and conscious choice, but by something +far deeper,--by the instinct of self-preservation in humanity. + + + +LITERATURE AND SCIENCE[116] + + +Practical people talk with a smile of Plato and of his absolute ideas; +and it is impossible to deny that Plato's ideas do often seem +unpractical and impracticable, and especially when one views them in +connection with the life of a great work-a-day world like the United +States. The necessary staple of the life of such a world Plato regards +with disdain; handicraft and trade and the working professions he +regards with disdain; but what becomes of the life of an industrial +modern community if you take handicraft and trade and the working +professions out of it? The base mechanic arts and handicrafts, says +Plato, bring about a natural weakness in the principle of excellence in +a man, so that he cannot govern the ignoble growths in him, but nurses +them, and cannot understand fostering any other. Those who exercise such +arts and trades, as they have their bodies, he says, marred by their +vulgar businesses, so they have their souls, too, bowed and broken by +them. And if one of these uncomely people has a mind to seek +self-culture and philosophy, Plato compares him to a bald little +tinker,[117] who has scraped together money, and has got his release +from service, and has had a bath, and bought a new coat, and is rigged +out like a bridegroom about to marry the daughter of his master who has +fallen into poor and helpless estate. + +Nor do the working professions fare any better than trade at the hands +of Plato. He draws for us an inimitable picture of the working +lawyer,[118] and of his life of bondage; he shows how this bondage from +his youth up has stunted and warped him, and made him small and crooked +of soul, encompassing him with difficulties which he is not man enough +to rely on justice and truth as means to encounter, but has recourse, +for help out of them, to falsehood and wrong. And so, says Plato, this +poor creature is bent and broken, and grows up from boy to man without a +particle of soundness in him, although exceedingly smart and clever in +his own esteem. + +One cannot refuse to admire the artist who draws these pictures. But we +say to ourselves that his ideas show the influence of a primitive and +obsolete order of things, when the warrior caste and the priestly caste +were alone in honor, and the humble work of the world was done by +slaves. We have now changed all that; the modern majesty[119] consists +in work, as Emerson declares; and in work, we may add, principally of +such plain and dusty kind as the work of cultivators of the ground, +handicraftsmen, men of trade and business, men of the working +professions. Above all is this true in a great industrious community +such as that of the United States. + +Now education, many people go on to say, is still mainly governed by the +ideas of men like Plato, who lived when the warrior caste and the +priestly or philosophical class were alone in honor, and the really +useful part of the community were slaves. It is an education fitted for +persons of leisure in such a community. This education passed from +Greece and Rome to the feudal communities of Europe, where also the +warrior caste and the priestly caste were alone held in honor, and where +the really useful and working part of the community, though not +nominally slaves as in the pagan world, were practically not much better +off than slaves, and not more seriously regarded. And how absurd it is, +people end by saying, to inflict this education upon an industrious +modern community, where very few indeed are persons of leisure, and the +mass to be considered has not leisure, but is bound, for its own great +good, and for the great good of the world at large, to plain labor and +to industrial pursuits, and the education in question tends necessarily +to make men dissatisfied with these pursuits and unfitted for them! + +That is what is said. So far I must defend Plato, as to plead that his +view of education and studies is in the general, as it seems to me, +sound enough, and fitted for all sorts and conditions of men, whatever +their pursuits may be. "An intelligent man," says Plato, "will prize +those studies, which result in his soul getting soberness, +righteousness, and wisdom, and will less value the others."[120] I +cannot consider _that_ a bad description of the aim of education, and of +the motives which should govern us in the choice of studies, whether we +are preparing ourselves for a hereditary seat in the English House of +Lords or for the pork trade in Chicago. + +Still I admit that Plato's world was not ours, that his scorn of trade +and handicraft is fantastic, that he had no conception of a great +industrial community such as that of the United States, and that such a +community must and will shape its education to suit its own needs. If +the usual education handed down to it from the past does not suit it, it +will certainly before long drop this and try another. The usual +education in the past has been mainly literary. The question is whether +the studies which were long supposed to be the best for all of us are +practically the best now; whether others are not better. The tyranny of +the past, many think, weighs on us injuriously in the predominance given +to letters in education. The question is raised whether, to meet the +needs of our modern life, the predominance ought not now to pass from +letters to science; and naturally the question is nowhere raised with +more energy than here in the United States. The design of abasing what +is called "mere literary instruction and education," and of exalting +what is called "sound, extensive, and practical scientific knowledge," +is, in this intensely modern world of the United States, even more +perhaps than in Europe, a very popular design, and makes great and rapid +progress. + +I am going to ask whether the present movement for ousting letters from +their old predominance in education, and for transferring the +predominance in education to the natural sciences, whether this brisk +and flourishing movement ought to prevail, and whether it is likely that +in the end it really will prevail. An objection may be raised which I +will anticipate. My own studies have been almost wholly in letters, and +my visits to the field of the natural sciences have been very slight and +inadequate, although those sciences have always strongly moved my +curiosity. A man of letters, it will perhaps be said, is not competent +to discuss the comparative merits of letters and natural science as +means of education. To this objection I reply, first of all, that his +incompetence, if he attempts the discussion but is really incompetent +for it, will be abundantly visible; nobody will be taken in; he will +have plenty of sharp observers and critics to save mankind from that +danger. But the line I am going to follow is, as you will soon discover, +so extremely simple, that perhaps it may be followed without failure +even by one who for a more ambitious line of discussion would be quite +incompetent. + +Some of you may possibly remember a phrase of mine which has been the +object of a good deal of comment; an observation to the effect that in +our culture, the aim being _to know ourselves and the world_, we have, +as the means to this end, _to know the best which has been thought and +said in the world_.[121] A man of science, who is also an excellent +writer and the very prince of debaters, Professor Huxley, in a discourse +[122] at the opening of Sir Josiah Mason's college at Birmingham, laying +hold of this phrase, expanded it by quoting some more words of mine, +which are these: "The civilized world is to be regarded as now being, +for intellectual and spiritual purposes, one great confederation, bound +to a joint action and working to a common result; and whose members have +for their proper outfit a knowledge of Greek, Roman, and Eastern +antiquity, and of one another. Special local and temporary advantages +being put out of account, that modern nation will in the intellectual +and spiritual sphere make most progress, which most thoroughly carries +out this programme."[123] + +Now on my phrase, thus enlarged, Professor Huxley remarks that when I +speak of the above-mentioned knowledge as enabling us to know ourselves +and the world, I assert _literature_ to contain the materials which +suffice for thus making us know ourselves and the world. But it is not +by any means clear, says he, that after having learnt all which ancient +and modern literatures have to tell us, we have laid a sufficiently +broad and deep foundation for that criticism of life, that knowledge of +ourselves and the world, which constitutes culture. On the contrary, +Professor Huxley declares that he finds himself "wholly unable to admit +that either nations or individuals will really advance, if their outfit +draws nothing from the stores of physical science. An army without +weapons of precision, and with no particular base of operations, might +more hopefully enter upon a campaign on the Rhine, than a man, devoid of +a knowledge of what physical science has done in the last century, upon +a criticism of life." + +This shows how needful it is for those who are to discuss any matter +together, to have a common understanding as to the sense of the terms +they employ,--how needful, and how difficult. What Professor Huxley +says, implies just the reproach which is so often brought against the +study of _belles lettres_, as they are called: that the study is an +elegant one, but slight and ineffectual; a smattering of Greek and Latin +and other ornamental things, of little use for any one whose object is +to get at truth, and to be a practical man. So, too, M. Renan[124] +talks of the "superficial humanism" of a school-course which treats us +as if we were all going to be poets, writers, preachers, orators, and he +opposes this humanism to positive science, or the critical search after +truth. And there is always a tendency in those who are remonstrating +against the predominance of letters in education, to understand by +letters _belles lettres_, and by _belles lettres_ a superficial humanism +the opposite of science or true knowledge. + +But when we talk of knowing Greek and Roman antiquity, for instance, +which is the knowledge people have called the humanities, I for my part +mean a knowledge which is something more than a superficial humanism, +mainly decorative. "I call all teaching _scientific_" says Wolf, the +critic of Homer, "which is systematically laid out and followed up to +its original sources. For example: a knowledge of classical antiquity is +scientific when the remains of classical antiquity are correctly studied +in the original languages." There can be no doubt that Wolf[125] is +perfectly right; that all learning is scientific which is systematically +laid out and followed up to its original sources, and that a genuine +humanism is scientific. + +When I speak of knowing Greek and Roman antiquity, therefore, as a help +to knowing ourselves and the world, I mean more than a knowledge of so +much vocabulary, so much grammar, so many portions of authors in the +Greek and Latin languages, I mean knowing the Greeks and Romans, and +their life and genius, and what they were and did in the world; what we +get from them, and what is its value. That, at least, is the ideal; and +when we talk of endeavoring to know Greek and Roman antiquity, as a help +to knowing ourselves and the world, we mean endeavoring so to know them +as to satisfy this ideal, however much we may still fall short of it. + +The same also as to knowing our own and other modern nations, with the +like aim of getting to understand ourselves and the world. To know the +best that has been thought and said by the modern nations, is to know, +says Professor Huxley, "only what modern _literatures_ have to tell us; +it is the criticism of life contained in modern literature." And yet +"the distinctive character of our times," he urges, "lies in the vast +and constantly increasing part which is played by natural knowledge." +And how, therefore, can a man, devoid of knowledge of what physical +science has done in the last century, enter hopefully upon a criticism +of modern life? + +Let us, I say, be agreed about the meaning of the terms we are using. I +talk of knowing the best which has been thought and uttered in the +world; Professor Huxley says this means knowing _literature_. Literature +is a large word; it may mean everything written with letters or printed +in a book. Euclid's _Elements_ and Newton's _Principia_ are thus +literature. All knowledge that reaches us through books is literature. +But by literature Professor Huxley means _belles lettres_. He means to +make me say, that knowing the best which has been thought and said by +the modern nations is knowing their _belles lettres_ and no more. And +this is no sufficient equipment, he argues, for a criticism of modern +life. But as I do not mean, by knowing ancient Rome, knowing merely more +or less of Latin _belles lettres_, and taking no account of Rome's +military, and political, and legal, and administrative work in the +world; and as, by knowing ancient Greece, I understand knowing her as +the giver of Greek art, and the guide to a free and right use of reason +and to scientific method, and the founder of our mathematics and physics +and astronomy and biology,--I understand knowing her as all this, and +not merely knowing certain Greek poems, and histories, and treatises, +and speeches,--so as to the knowledge of modern nations also. By knowing +modern nations, I mean not merely knowing their _belles lettres_, but +knowing also what has been done by such men as Copernicus, Galileo, +Newton, Darwin. "Our ancestors learned," says Professor Huxley, "that +the earth is the centre of the visible universe, and that man is the +cynosure of things terrestrial; and more especially was it inculcated +that the course of nature had no fixed order, but that it could be, and +constantly was, altered." But for us now, continues Professor Huxley, +"the notions of the beginning and the end of the world entertained by +our forefathers are no longer credible. It is very certain that the +earth is not the chief body in the material universe, and that the world +is not subordinated to man's use. It is even more certain that nature is +the expression of a definite order, with which nothing interferes." "And +yet," he cries, "the purely classical education advocated by the +representatives of the humanists in our day gives no inkling of all +this!" + +In due place and time I will just touch upon that vexed question of +classical education; but at present the question is as to what is meant +by knowing the best which modern nations have thought and said. It is +not knowing their _belles lettres_ merely which is meant. To know +Italian _belles lettres_, is not to know Italy, and to know English +_belles lettres_ is not to know England. Into knowing Italy and England +there comes a great deal more, Galileo and Newton amongst it. The +reproach of being a superficial humanism, a tincture of _belles +lettres_, may attach rightly enough to some other disciplines; but to +the particular discipline recommended when I proposed knowing the best +that has been thought and said in the world, it does not apply. In that +best I certainly include what in modern times has been thought and said +by the great observers and knowers of nature. + +There is, therefore, really no question between Professor Huxley and me +as to whether knowing the great results of the modern scientific study +of nature is not required as a part of our culture, as well as knowing +the products of literature and art. But to follow the processes by which +those results are reached, ought, say the friends of physical science, +to be made the staple of education for the bulk of mankind. And here +there does arise a question between those whom Professor Huxley calls +with playful sarcasm "the Levites of culture," and those whom the poor +humanist is sometimes apt to regard as its Nebuchadnezzars. + +The great results of the scientific investigation of nature we are +agreed upon knowing, but how much of our study are we bound to give to +the processes by which those results are reached? The results have their +visible bearing on human life. But all the processes, too, all the items +of fact, by which those results are reached and established, are +interesting. All knowledge is interesting to a wise man, and the +knowledge of nature is interesting to all men. It is very interesting to +know, that, from the albuminous white of the egg, the chick in the egg +gets the materials for its flesh, bones, blood, and feathers; while from +the fatty yolk of the egg, it gets the heat and energy which enable it +at length to break its shell and begin the world. It is less +interesting, perhaps, but still it is interesting, to know that when a +taper burns, the wax is converted into carbonic acid and water. +Moreover, it is quite true that the habit of dealing with facts, which +is given by the study of nature, is, as the friends of physical science +praise it for being, an excellent discipline. The appeal, in the study +of nature, is constantly to observation and experiment; not only is it +said that the thing is so, but we can be made to see that it is so. Not +only does a man tell us that when a taper burns the wax is converted +into carbonic acid and water, as a man may tell us, if he likes, that +Charon is punting his ferry-boat on the river Styx, or that Victor Hugo +is a sublime poet, or Mr. Gladstone the most admirable of statesmen; but +we are made to see that the conversion into carbonic acid and water does +actually happen. This reality of natural knowledge it is, which makes +the friends of physical science contrast it, as a knowledge of things, +with the humanist's knowledge, which is, say they, a knowledge of words. +And hence Professor Huxley is moved to lay it down that, "for the +purpose of attaining real culture, an exclusively scientific education +is at least as effectual as an exclusively literary education." And a +certain President of the Section for Mechanical Science in the British +Association is, in Scripture phrase, "very bold," and declares that if a +man, in his mental training, "has substituted literature and history for +natural science, he has chosen the less useful alternative." But whether +we go these lengths or not, we must all admit that in natural science +the habit gained of dealing with facts is a most valuable discipline, +and that every one should have some experience of it. + +More than this, however, is demanded by the reformers. It is proposed to +make the training in natural science the main part of education, for the +great majority of mankind at any rate. And here, I confess, I part +company with the friends of physical science, with whom up to this point +I have been agreeing. In differing from them, however, I wish to proceed +with the utmost caution and diffidence. The smallness of my own +acquaintance with the disciplines of natural science is ever before my +mind, and I am fearful of doing these disciplines an injustice. The +ability and pugnacity of the partisans of natural science make them +formidable persons to contradict. The tone of tentative inquiry, which +befits a being of dim faculties and bounded knowledge, is the tone I +would wish to take and not to depart from. At present it seems to me, +that those who are for giving to natural knowledge, as they call it, the +chief place in the education of the majority of mankind, leave one +important thing out of their account: the constitution of human nature. +But I put this forward on the strength of some facts not at all +recondite, very far from it; facts capable of being stated in the +simplest possible fashion, and to which, if I so state them, the man of +science will, I am sure, be willing to allow their due weight. + +Deny the facts altogether, I think, he hardly can. He can hardly deny, +that when we set ourselves to enumerate the powers which go to the +building up of human life, and say that they are the power of conduct, +the power of intellect and knowledge, the power of beauty, and the power +of social life and manners,--he can hardly deny that this scheme, +though drawn in rough and plain lines enough, and not pretending to +scientific exactness, does yet give a fairly true representation of the +matter. Human nature is built up by these powers; we have the need for +them all. When we have rightly met and adjusted the claims of them all, +we shall then be in a fair way for getting soberness, and righteousness +with wisdom. This is evident enough, and the friends of physical science +would admit it. + +But perhaps they may not have sufficiently observed another thing: +namely, that the several powers just mentioned are not isolated, but +there is, in the generality of mankind, a perpetual tendency to relate +them one to another in divers ways. With one such way of relating them I +am particularly concerned now. Following our instinct for intellect and +knowledge, we acquire pieces of knowledge; and presently in the +generality of men, there arises the desire to relate these pieces of +knowledge to our sense for conduct, to our sense for beauty,--and there +is weariness and dissatisfaction if the desire is balked. Now in this +desire lies, I think, the strength of that hold which letters have upon +us. + +All knowledge is, as I said just now, interesting; and even items of +knowledge which from the nature of the case cannot well be related, but +must stand isolated in our thoughts, have their interest. Even lists of +exceptions have their interest. If we are studying Greek accents it is +interesting to know that _pais_ and _pas_, and some other monosyllables +of the same form of declension, do not take the circumflex upon the last +syllable of the genitive plural, but vary, in this respect, from the +common rule. If we are studying physiology, it is interesting to know +that the pulmonary artery carries dark blood and the pulmonary vein +carries bright blood, departing in this respect from the common rule for +the division of labor between the veins and the arteries. But every one +knows how we seek naturally to combine the pieces of our knowledge +together, to bring them under general rules, to relate them to +principles; and how unsatisfactory and tiresome it would be to go on +forever learning lists of exceptions, or accumulating items of fact +which must stand isolated. + +Well, that same need of relating our knowledge, which operates here +within the sphere of our knowledge itself, we shall find operating, +also, outside that sphere. We experience, as we go on learning and +knowing,--the vast majority of us experience,--the need of relating what +we have learnt and known to the sense which we have in us for conduct, +to the sense which we have in us for beauty. + +A certain Greek prophetess of Mantineia in Arcadia, Diotima[126] by +name, once explained to the philosopher Socrates that love, and impulse, +and bent of all kinds, is, in fact, nothing else but the desire in men +that good should forever be present to them. This desire for good, +Diotima assured Socrates, is our fundamental desire, of which +fundamental desire every impulse in us is only some one particular form. +And therefore this fundamental desire it is, I suppose,--this desire in +men that good should be forever present to them,--which acts in us when +we feel the impulse for relating our knowledge to our sense for conduct +and to our sense for beauty. At any rate, with men in general the +instinct exists. Such is human nature. And the instinct, it will be +admitted, is innocent, and human nature is preserved by our following +the lead of its innocent instincts. Therefore, in seeking to gratify +this instinct in question, we are following the instinct of +self-preservation in humanity. + +But, no doubt, some kinds of knowledge cannot be made to directly serve +the instinct in question, cannot be directly related to the sense for +beauty, to the sense for conduct. These are instrument-knowledges; they +lead on to other knowledges, which can. A man who passes his life in +instrument-knowledges is a specialist. They may be invaluable as +instruments to something beyond, for those who have the gift thus to +employ them; and they may be disciplines in themselves wherein it is +useful for every one to have some schooling. But it is inconceivable +that the generality of men should pass all their mental life with Greek +accents or with formal logic. My friend Professor Sylvester,[127] who is +one of the first mathematicians in the world, holds transcendental +doctrines as to the virtue of mathematics, but those doctrines are not +for common men. In the very Senate House and heart of our English +Cambridge I once ventured, though not without an apology for my +profaneness, to hazard the opinion that for the majority of mankind a +little of mathematics, even, goes a long way. Of course this is quite +consistent with their being of immense importance as an instrument to +something else; but it is the few who have the aptitude for thus using +them, not the bulk of mankind. + +The natural sciences do not, however, stand on the same footing with +these instrument-knowledges. Experience shows us that the generality of +men will find more interest in learning that, when a taper burns, the +wax is converted into carbonic acid and water, or in learning the +explanation of the phenomenon of dew, or in learning how the circulation +of the blood is carried on, than they find in learning that the genitive +plural of _pais_ and _pas_ does not take the circumflex on the +termination. And one piece of natural knowledge is added to another, and +others are added to that, and at last we come to propositions so +interesting as Mr. Darwin's famous proposition[128] that "our ancestor +was a hairy quadruped furnished with a tail and pointed ears, probably +arboreal in his habits." Or we come to propositions of such reach and +magnitude as those which Professor Huxley delivers, when he says that +the notions of our forefathers about the beginning and the end of the +world were all wrong, and that nature is the expression of a definite +order with which nothing interferes. + +Interesting, indeed, these results of science are, important they are, +and we should all of us be acquainted with them. But what I now wish you +to mark is, that we are still, when they are propounded to us and we +receive them, we are still in the sphere of intellect and knowledge. And +for the generality of men there will be found, I say, to arise, when +they have duly taken in the proposition that their ancestor was "a hairy +quadruped furnished with a tail and pointed ears, probably arboreal in +his habits," there will be found to arise an invincible desire to relate +this proposition to the sense in us for conduct, and to the sense in us +for beauty. But this the men of science will not do for us, and will +hardly even profess to do. They will give us other pieces of knowledge, +other facts, about other animals and their ancestors, or about plants, +or about stones, or about stars; and they may finally bring us to those +great "general conceptions of the universe, which are forced upon us +all," says Professor Huxley, "by the progress of physical science." But +still it will be _knowledge_, only which they give us; knowledge not put +for us into relation with our sense for conduct, our sense for beauty, +and touched with emotion by being so put; not thus put for us, and +therefore, to the majority of mankind, after a certain while, +unsatisfying, wearying. + +Not to the born naturalist, I admit. But what do we mean by a born +naturalist? We mean a man in whom the zeal for observing nature is so +uncommonly strong and eminent, that it marks him off from the bulk of +mankind. Such a man will pass his life happily in collecting natural +knowledge and reasoning upon it, and will ask for nothing, or hardly +anything, more. I have heard it said that the sagacious and admirable +naturalist whom we lost not very long ago, Mr. Darwin, once owned to a +friend that for his part he did not experience the necessity for two +things which most men find so necessary to them,--religion and poetry; +science and the domestic affections, he thought, were enough. To a born +naturalist, I can well understand that this should seem so. So absorbing +is his occupation with nature, so strong his love for his occupation, +that he goes on acquiring natural knowledge and reasoning upon it, and +has little time or inclination for thinking about getting it related to +the desire in man for conduct, the desire in man for beauty. He relates +it to them for himself as he goes along, so far as he feels the need; +and he draws from the domestic affections all the additional solace +necessary. But then Darwins are extremely rare. Another great and +admirable master of natural knowledge, Faraday, was a Sandemanian.[129]. +That is to say, he related his knowledge to his instinct for conduct and +to his instinct for beauty, by the aid of that respectable Scottish +sectary, Robert Sandeman. And so strong, in general, is the demand of +religion and poetry to have their share in a man, to associate +themselves with his knowing, and to relieve and rejoice it, that, +probably, for one man amongst us with the disposition to do as Darwin +did in this respect, there are at least fifty with the disposition to do +as Faraday. + +Education lays hold upon us, in fact, by satisfying this demand. +Professor Huxley holds up to scorn mediæval education, with its neglect +of the knowledge of nature, its poverty even of literary studies, its +formal logic devoted to "showing how and why that which the Church said +was true must be true." But the great mediæval Universities were not +brought into being, we may be sure, by the zeal for giving a jejune and +contemptible education. Kings have been their nursing fathers, and +queens have been their nursing mothers, but not for this. The mediæval +Universities came into being, because the supposed knowledge, delivered +by Scripture and the Church, so deeply engaged men's hearts, by so +simply, easily, and powerfully relating itself to their desire for +conduct, their desire for beauty. All other knowledge was dominated by +this supposed knowledge and was subordinated to it, because of the +surpassing strength of the hold which it gained upon the affections of +men, by allying itself profoundly with their sense for conduct, their +sense for beauty. + +But now, says Professor Huxley, conceptions of the universe fatal to the +notions held by our forefathers have been forced upon us by physical +science. Grant to him that they are thus fatal, that the new conceptions +must and will soon become current everywhere, and that every one will +finally perceive them to be fatal to the beliefs of our forefathers. The +need of humane letters, as they are truly called, because they serve the +paramount desire in men that good should be forever present to them,-- +the need of humane letters, to establish a relation between the new +conceptions, and our instinct for beauty, our instinct for conduct, is +only the more visible. The Middle Age could do without humane letters, +as it could do without the study of nature, because its supposed +knowledge was made to engage its emotions so powerfully. Grant that the +supposed knowledge disappears, its power of being made to engage the +emotions will of course disappear along with it,--but the emotions +themselves, and their claim to be engaged and satisfied, will remain. +Now if we find by experience that humane letters have an undeniable +power of engaging the emotions, the importance of humane letters in a +man's training becomes not less, but greater, in proportion to the +success of modern science in extirpating what it calls "mediæval +thinking." + +Have humane letters, then, have poetry and eloquence, the power here +attributed to them of engaging the emotions, and do they exercise it? +And if they have it and exercise it, _how_ do they exercise it, so as to +exert an influence upon man's sense for conduct, his sense for beauty? +Finally, even if they both can and do exert an influence upon the senses +in question, how are they to relate to them the results--the modern +results--of natural science? All these questions may be asked. First, +have poetry and eloquence the power of calling out the emotions? The +appeal is to experience. Experience shows that for the vast majority of +men, for mankind in general, they have the power. Next, do they exercise +it? They do. But then, _how_ do they exercise it so as to affect man's +sense for conduct, his sense for beauty? And this is perhaps a case for +applying the Preacher's words: "Though a man labor to seek it out, yet +he shall not find it; yea, farther, though a wise man think to know it, +yet shall he not be able to find it."[130] Why should it be one thing, +in its effect upon the emotions, to say, "Patience is a virtue," and +quite another thing, in its effect upon the emotions, to say with Homer, + + [Greek: tlaeton gar Moirai thnmontheoan anthropoisin]--[131] + +"for an enduring heart have the destinies appointed to the children of +men"? Why should it be one thing, in its effect upon the emotions, to +say with the philosopher Spinoza, _Felicitas in ea consistit quod homo +suum esse conservare potest_--"Man's happiness consists in his being +able to preserve his own essence," and quite another thing, in its +effect upon the emotions, to say with the Gospel, "What is a man +advantaged, if he gain the whole world, and lose himself, forfeit +himself?"[132] How does this difference of effect arise? I cannot tell, +and I am not much concerned to know; the important thing is that it does +arise, and that we can profit by it. But how, finally, are poetry and +eloquence to exercise the power of relating the modern results of +natural science to man's instinct for conduct, his instinct for beauty? +And here again I answer that I do not know _how_ they will exercise it, +but that they can and will exercise it I am sure. I do not mean that +modern philosophical poets and modern philosophical moralists are to +come and relate for us, in express terms, the results of modern +scientific research to our instinct for conduct, our instinct for +beauty. But I mean that we shall find, as a matter of experience, if we +know the best that has been thought and uttered in the world, we shall +find that the art and poetry and eloquence of men who lived, perhaps, +long ago, who had the most limited natural knowledge, who had the most +erroneous conceptions about many important matters, we shall find that +this art, and poetry, and eloquence, have in fact not only the power of +refreshing and delighting us, they have also the power,--such is the +strength and worth, in essentials, of their authors' criticism of life, +--they have a fortifying, and elevating, and quickening, and suggestive +power, capable of wonderfully helping us to relate the results of modern +science to our need for conduct, our need for beauty. Homer's +conceptions of the physical universe were, I imagine, grotesque; but +really, under the shock of hearing from modern science that "the world +is not subordinated to man's use, and that man is not the cynosure of +things terrestrial," I could, for my own part, desire no better comfort +than Homer's line which I quoted just now, + + [Greek: tlaeton gar Moirai thnmontheoan anthropoisin--] + +"for an enduring heart have the destinies appointed to the children of +men"! + +And the more that men's minds are cleared, the more that the results of +science are frankly accepted, the more that poetry and eloquence come to +be received and studied as what in truth they really are,--the +criticism of life by gifted men, alive and active with extraordinary +power at an unusual number of points;--so much the more will the value +of humane letters, and of art also, which is an utterance having a like +kind of power with theirs, be felt and acknowledged, and their place in +education be secured. + +Let us, therefore, all of us, avoid indeed as much as possible any +invidious comparison between the merits of humane letters, as means of +education, and the merits of the natural sciences. But when some +President of a Section for Mechanical Science insists on making the +comparison, and tells us that "he who in his training has substituted +literature and history for natural science has chosen the less useful +alternative," let us make answer to him that the student of humane +letters only, will, at least, know also the great general conceptions +brought in by modern physical science: for science, as Professor Huxley +says, forces them upon us all. But the student of the natural sciences +only, will, by our very hypothesis, know nothing of humane letters; not +to mention that in setting himself to be perpetually accumulating +natural knowledge, he sets himself to do what only specialists have in +general the gift for doing genially. And so he will probably be +unsatisfied, or at any rate incomplete, and even more incomplete than +the student of humane letters only. + +I once mentioned in a school-report, how a young man in one of our +English training colleges having to paraphrase the passage in _Macbeth_ +beginning, + + "Can'st thou not minister to a mind diseased?"[133] + +turned this line into, "Can you not wait upon the lunatic?" And I +remarked what a curious state of things it would be, if every pupil of +our national schools knew, let us say, that the moon is two thousand one +hundred and sixty miles in diameter, and thought at the same time that a +good paraphrase for + + "Can'st thou not minister to a mind diseased?" + +was, "Can you not wait upon the lunatic?" If one is driven to choose, I +think I would rather have a young person ignorant about the moon's +diameter, but aware that "Can you not wait upon the lunatic?" is bad, +than a young person whose education had been such as to manage things +the other way. + +Or to go higher than the pupils of our national schools. I have in my +mind's eye a member of our British Parliament who comes to travel here +in America, who afterwards relates his travels, and who shows a really +masterly knowledge of the geology of this great country and of its +mining capabilities, but who ends by gravely suggesting that the United +States should borrow a prince from our Royal Family, and should make him +their king, and should create a House of Lords of great landed +proprietors after the pattern of ours; and then America, he thinks, +would have her future happily and perfectly secured. Surely, in this +case, the President of the Section for Mechanical Science would himself +hardly say that our member of Parliament, by concentrating himself upon +geology and mineralogy, and so on, and not attending to literature and +history, had "chosen the more useful alternative." + +If then there is to be separation and option between humane letters on +the one hand, and the natural sciences on the other, the great majority +of mankind, all who have not exceptional and overpowering aptitudes for +the study of nature, would do well, I cannot but think, to choose to be +educated in humane letters rather than in the natural sciences. Letters +will call out their being at more points, will make them live more. + +I said that before I ended I would just touch on the question of +classical education, and I will keep my word. Even if literature is to +retain a large place in our education, yet Latin and Greek, say the +friends of progress, will certainly have to go. Greek is the grand +offender in the eyes of these gentlemen. The attackers of the +established course of study think that against Greek, at any rate, they +have irresistible arguments. Literature may perhaps be needed in +education, they say; but why on earth should it be Greek literature? Why +not French or German? Nay, "has not an Englishman models in his own +literature of every kind of excellence?" As before, it is not on any +weak pleadings of my own that I rely for convincing the gainsayers; it +is on the constitution of human nature itself, and on the instinct of +self-preservation in humanity. The instinct for beauty is set in human +nature, as surely as the instinct for knowledge is set there, or the +instinct for conduct. If the instinct for beauty is served by Greek +literature and art as it is served by no other literature and art, we +may trust to the instinct of self-preservation in humanity for keeping +Greek as part of our culture. We may trust to it for even making the +study of Greek more prevalent than it is now. Greek will come, I hope, +some day to be studied more rationally than at present; but it will be +increasingly studied as men increasingly feel the need in them for +beauty, and how powerfully Greek art and Greek literature can serve this +need. Women will again study Greek, as Lady Jane Grey[134] did; I +believe that in that chain of forts, with which the fair host of the +Amazons are now engirdling our English universities, I find that here in +America, in colleges like Smith College in Massachusetts, and Vassar +College in the State of New York, and in the happy families of the mixed +universities out West, they are studying it already. + +_Defuit una mihi symmetria prisca_,--"The antique symmetry was the one +thing wanting to me," said Leonardo da Vinci; and he was an Italian. I +will not presume to speak for the Americans, but I am sure that, in the +Englishman, the want of this admirable symmetry of the Greeks is a +thousand times more great and crying than in any Italian. The results of +the want show themselves most glaringly, perhaps, in our architecture, +but they show themselves, also, in all our art. _Fit details strictly +combined, in view of a large general result nobly conceived_; that is +just the beautiful _symmetria prisca_ of the Greeks, and it is just +where we English fail, where all our art fails. Striking ideas we have, +and well executed details we have; but that high symmetry which, with +satisfying and delightful effect, combines them, we seldom or never +have. The glorious beauty of the Acropolis at Athens did not come from +single fine things stuck about on that hill, a statue here, a gateway +there;--no, it arose from all things being perfectly combined for a +supreme total effect. What must not an Englishman feel about our +deficiencies in this respect, as the sense for beauty, whereof this +symmetry is an essential element, awakens and strengthens within him! +what will not one day be his respect and desire for Greece and its +_symmetria prisca_, when the scales drop from his eyes as he walks the +London streets, and he sees such a lesson in meanness, as the Strand, +for instance, in its true deformity! But here we are coming to our +friend Mr. Ruskin's province, and I will not intrude upon it, for he is +its very sufficient guardian. + +And so we at last find, it seems, we find flowing in favor of the +humanities the natural and necessary stream of things, which seemed +against them when we started. The "hairy quadruped furnished with a tail +and pointed ears, probably arboreal in his habits," this good fellow +carried hidden in his nature, apparently, something destined to develop +into a necessity for humane letters. Nay, more; we seem finally to be +even led to the further conclusion that our hairy ancestor carried in +his nature, also, a necessity for Greek. + +And, therefore, to say the truth, I cannot really think that humane +letters are in much actual danger of being thrust out from their leading +place in education, in spite of the array of authorities against them at +this moment. So long as human nature is what it is, their attractions +will remain irresistible. As with Greek, so with letters generally: they +will some day come, we may hope, to be studied more rationally but they +will not lose their place. What will happen will rather be that there +will be crowded into education other matters besides, far too many; +there will be, perhaps, a period of unsettlement and confusion and false +tendency; but letters will not in the end lose their leading place. If +they lose it for a time, they will get it back again. We shall be +brought back to them by our wants and aspirations. And a poor humanist +may possess his soul in patience, neither strive nor cry, admit the +energy and brilliancy of the partisans of physical science, and their +present favor with the public, to be far greater than his own, and still +have a happy faith that the nature of things works silently on behalf of +the studies which he loves, and that, while we shall all have to +acquaint ourselves with the great results reached by modern science, and +to give ourselves as much training in its disciplines as we can +conveniently carry, yet the majority of men will always require humane +letters; and so much the more, as they have the more and the greater +results of science to relate to the need in man for conduct, and to the +need in him for beauty. + + + + +II. LITERARY CRITICISM + + + +HEINRICH HEINE[135] + + +"I know not if I deserve that a laurel-wreath should one day be laid on +my coffin. Poetry, dearly as I have loved it, has always been to me but +a divine plaything. I have never attached any great value to poetical +fame; and I trouble myself very little whether people praise my verses +or blame them. But lay on my coffin a _sword_; for I was a brave soldier +in the Liberation War of humanity."[136] + +Heine had his full share of love of fame, and cared quite as much as his +brethren of the _genus irritabile_ whether people praised his verses or +blamed them. And he was very little of a hero. Posterity will certainly +decorate his tomb with the emblem of the laurel rather than with the +emblem of the sword. Still, for his contemporaries, for us, for the +Europe of the present century, he is significant chiefly for the reason +which he himself in the words just quoted assigns. He is significant +because he was, if not pre-eminently a brave, yet a brilliant, a most +effective soldier in the Liberation War of humanity. + +To ascertain the master-current in the literature of an epoch, and to +distinguish this from all minor currents, is one of the critic's highest +functions; in discharging it he shows how far he possesses the most +indispensable quality of his office,--justness of spirit. The living +writer who has done most to make England acquainted with German authors, +a man of genius, but to whom precisely this one quality of justness of +spirit is perhaps wanting,--I mean Mr. Carlyle,--seems to me in the +result of his labors on German literature to afford a proof how very +necessary to the critic this quality is. Mr. Carlyle has spoken +admirably of Goethe; but then Goethe stands before all men's eyes, the +manifest centre of German literature; and from this central source many +rivers flow. Which of these rivers is the main stream? which of the +courses of spirit which we see active in Goethe is the course which will +most influence the future, and attract and be continued by the most +powerful of Goethe's successors?--that is the question. Mr. Carlyle +attaches, it seems to me, far too much importance to the romantic school +of Germany,--Tieck, Novalis, Jean Paul Richter,[137]--and gives to these +writers, really gifted as two, at any rate, of them are, an undue +prominence. These writers, and others with aims and a general tendency +the same as theirs, are not the real inheritors and continuators of +Goethe's power; the current of their activity is not the main current of +German literature after Goethe. Far more in Heine's works flows this +main current; Heine, far more than Tieck or Jean Paul Richter, is the +continuator of that which, in Goethe's varied activity, is the most +powerful and vital; on Heine, of all German authors who survived Goethe, +incomparably the largest portion of Goethe's mantle fell. I do not +forget that when Mr. Carlyle was dealing with German literature, Heine, +though he was clearly risen above the horizon, had not shone forth with +all his strength; I do not forget, too, that after ten or twenty years +many things may come out plain before the critic which before were hard +to be discerned by him; and assuredly no one would dream of imputing it +as a fault to Mr. Carlyle that twenty years ago he mistook the central +current in German literature, overlooked the rising Heine, and attached +undue importance to that romantic school which Heine was to destroy; one +may rather note it as a misfortune, sent perhaps as a delicate +chastisement to a critic, who--man of genius as he is, and no one +recognizes his genius more admirably than I do--has, for the functions +of the critic, a little too much of the self-will and eccentricity of a +genuine son of Great Britain. + +Heine is noteworthy, because he is the most important German successor +and continuator of Goethe in Goethe's most important line of activity. +And which of Goethe's lines of activity is this?--His line of activity +as "a soldier in the war of liberation of humanity." + +Heine himself would hardly have admitted this affiliation, though he was +far too powerful-minded a man to decry, with some of the vulgar German +liberals, Goethe's genius. "The wind of the Paris Revolution," he writes +after the three days of 1830, "blew about the candles a little in the +dark night of Germany, so that the red curtains of a German throne or +two caught fire; but the old watchmen, who do the police of the German +kingdoms, are already bringing out the fire engines, and will keep the +candles closer snuffed for the future. Poor, fast-bound German people, +lose not all heart in thy bonds! The fashionable coating of ice melts +off from my heart, my soul quivers and my eyes burn, and that is a +disadvantageous state of things for a writer, who should control his +subject-matter and keep himself beautifully objective, as the artistic +school would have us, and as Goethe has done; he has come to be eighty +years old doing this, and minister, and in good condition:--poor German +people! that is thy greatest man!"[138] + +But hear Goethe himself: "If I were to say what I had really been to the +Germans in general, and to the young German poets in particular, I +should say I had been their _liberator_." + +Modern times find themselves with an immense system of institutions, +established facts, accredited dogmas, customs, rules, which have come to +them from times not modern. In this system their life has to be carried +forward; yet they have a sense that this system is not of their own +creation, that it by no means corresponds exactly with the wants of +their actual life, that, for them, it is customary, not rational. The +awakening of this sense is the awakening of the modern spirit. The +modern spirit is now awake almost everywhere; the sense of want of +correspondence between the forms of modern Europe and its spirit, +between the new wine of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and the +old bottles of the eleventh and twelfth centuries, or even of the +sixteenth and seventeenth, almost every one now perceives; it is no +longer dangerous to affirm that this want of correspondence exists; +people are even beginning to be shy of denying it. To remove this want +of correspondence is beginning to be the settled endeavor of most +persons of good sense. Dissolvents of the old European system of +dominant ideas and facts we must all be, all of us who have any power of +working; what we have to study is that we may not be acrid dissolvents +of it. + +And how did Goethe, that grand dissolvent in his age when there were +fewer of them than at present, proceed in his task of dissolution, of +liberation of the modern European from the old routine? He shall tell us +himself. "Through me the German poets have become aware that, as man +must live from within outwards, so the artist must work from within +outwards, seeing that, make what contortions he will, he can only bring +to light his own individuality. I can clearly mark where this influence +of mine has made itself felt; there arises out of it a kind of poetry of +nature, and only in this way is it possible to be original." + +My voice shall never be joined to those which decry Goethe, and if it is +said that the foregoing is a lame and impotent conclusion to Goethe's +declaration that he had been the liberator of the Germans in general, +and of the young German poets in particular, I say it is not. Goethe's +profound, imperturbable naturalism is absolutely fatal to all routine +thinking, he puts the standard, once for all, inside every man instead +of outside him; when he is told, such a thing must be so, there is +immense authority and custom in favor of its being so, it has been held +to be so for a thousand years, he answers with Olympian politeness, "But +_is_ it so? is it so to _me_?" Nothing could be more really subversive +of the foundations on which the old European order rested; and it may be +remarked that no persons are so radically detached from this order, no +persons so thoroughly modern, as those who have felt Goethe's influence +most deeply. If it is said that Goethe professes to have in this way +deeply influenced but a few persons, and those persons poets, one may +answer that he could have taken no better way to secure, in the end, the +ear of the world; for poetry is simply the most beautiful, impressive, +and widely effective mode of saying things, and hence its importance. +Nevertheless the process of liberation, as Goethe worked it, though +sure, is undoubtedly slow; he came, as Heine says, to be eighty years +old in thus working it, and at the end of that time the old Middle-Age +machine was still creaking on, the thirty German courts and their +chamberlains subsisted in all their glory; Goethe himself was a +minister, and the visible triumph of the modern spirit over prescription +and routine seemed as far off as ever. It was the year 1830; the German +sovereigns had passed the preceding fifteen years in breaking the +promises of freedom they had made to their subjects when they wanted +their help in the final struggle with Napoleon. Great events were +happening in France; the revolution, defeated in 1815, had arisen from +its defeat, and was wresting from its adversaries the power. Heinrich +Heine, a young man of genius, born at Hamburg,[139] and with all the +culture of Germany, but by race a Jew; with warm sympathies for France, +whose revolution had given to his race the rights of citizenship, and +whose rule had been, as is well known, popular in the Rhine provinces, +where he passed his youth; with a passionate admiration for the great +French Emperor, with a passionate contempt for the sovereigns who had +overthrown him, for their agents, and for their policy,--Heinrich Heine +was in 1830 in no humor for any such gradual process of liberation from +the old order of things as that which Goethe had followed. His counsel +was for open war. Taking that terrible modern weapon, the pen, in his +hand, he passed the remainder of his life in one fierce battle. What was +that battle? the reader will ask. It was a life and death battle with +Philistinism. + +_Philistinism!_[140]--we have not the expression in English. Perhaps we +have not the word because we have so much of the thing. At Soli, I +imagine, they did not talk of solecisms;[141] and here, at the very +headquarters of Goliath, nobody talks of Philistinism. The French have +adopted the term _épicier_ (grocer), to designate the sort of being whom +the Germans designate by the Philistine; but the French term--besides +that it casts a slur upon a respectable class, composed of living and +susceptible members, while the original Philistines are dead and buried +long ago--is really, I think, in itself much less apt and expressive +than the German term. Efforts have been made to obtain in English some +term equivalent to _Philister_ or _épicier_; Mr. Carlyle has made +several such efforts: "respectability with its thousand gigs,"[142] he +says;--well, the occupant of every one of these gigs is, Mr. Carlyle +means, a Philistine. However, the word _respectable_ is far too valuable +a word to be thus perverted from its proper meaning; if the English are +ever to have a word for the thing we are speaking of,--and so +prodigious are the changes which the modern spirit is introducing, that +even we English shall perhaps one day come to want such a word,--I think +we had much better take the term _Philistine_ itself. + +_Philistine_ must have originally meant, in the mind of those who +invented the nickname, a strong, dogged, unenlightened opponent of the +chosen people, of the children of the light. The party of change, the +would-be remodellers of the old traditional European order, the invokers +of reason against custom, the representatives of the modern spirit in +every sphere where it is applicable, regarded themselves, with the +robust self-confidence natural to reformers as a chosen people, as +children of the light. They regarded their adversaries as humdrum +people, slaves to routine, enemies to light; stupid and oppressive, but +at the same time very strong. This explains the love which Heine, that +Paladin of the modern spirit, has for France; it explains the preference +which he gives to France over Germany: "The French," he says, "are the +chosen people of the new religion, its first gospels and dogmas have +been drawn up in their language; Paris is the new Jerusalem, and the +Rhine is the Jordan which divides the consecrated land of freedom from +the land of the Philistines."[143] He means that the French, as a +people, have shown more accessibility to ideas than any other people; +that prescription and routine have had less hold upon them than upon any +other people; that they have shown most readiness to move and to alter +at the bidding (real or supposed) of reason. This explains, too, the +detestation which Heine had for the English: "I might settle in +England," he says, in his exile, "if it were not that I should find +there two things, coal-smoke and Englishmen; I cannot abide either." +What he hated in the English was the "ächtbrittische Beschränktheit," as +he calls it,--the _genuine British narrowness_. In truth, the English, +profoundly as they have modified the old Middle-Age order, great as is +the liberty which they have secured for themselves, have in all their +changes proceeded, to use a familiar expression, by the rule of thumb; +what was intolerably inconvenient to them they have suppressed, and as +they have suppressed it, not because it was irrational, but because it +was practically inconvenient, they have seldom in suppressing it +appealed to reason, but always, if possible, to some precedent, or form, +or letter, which served as a convenient instrument for their purpose, +and which saved them from the necessity of recurring to general +principles. They have thus become, in a certain sense, of all people the +most inaccessible to ideas and the most impatient of them; inaccessible +to them, because of their want of familiarity with them; and impatient +of them because they have got on so well without them, that they despise +those who, not having got on as well as themselves, still make a fuss +for what they themselves have done so well without. But there has +certainly followed from hence, in this country, somewhat of a general +depression of pure intelligence: Philistia has come to be thought by us +the true Land of Promise, and it is anything but that; the born lover of +ideas, the born hater of commonplaces, must feel in this country, that +the sky over his head is of brass and iron. The enthusiast for the idea, +for reason, values reason, the idea, in and for themselves; he values +them, irrespectively of the practical conveniences which their triumph +may obtain for him; and the man who regards the possession of these +practical conveniences as something sufficient in itself, something +which compensates for the absence or surrender of the idea, of reason, +is, in his eyes, a Philistine. This is why Heine so often and so +mercilessly attacks the liberals; much as he hates conservatism he hates +Philistinism even more, and whoever attacks conservatism itself ignobly, +not as a child of light, not in the name of the idea, is a Philistine. +Our Cobbett[144] is thus for him, much as he disliked our clergy and +aristocracy whom Cobbett attacked, a Philistine with six fingers on +every hand and on every foot six toes, four-and-twenty in number: a +Philistine, the staff of whose spear is like a weaver's beam. Thus he +speaks of him:-- + +"While I translate Cobbett's words, the man himself comes bodily before +my mind's eye, as I saw him at that uproarious dinner at the Crown and +Anchor Tavern, with his scolding red face and his radical laugh, in +which venomous hate mingles with a mocking exultation at his enemies' +surely approaching downfall. He is a chained cur, who falls with equal +fury on every one whom he does not know, often bites the best friend of +the house in his calves, barks incessantly, and just because of this +incessantness of his barking cannot get listened to, even when he barks +at a real thief. Therefore the distinguished thieves who plunder England +do not think it necessary to throw the growling Cobbett a bone to stop +his mouth. This makes the dog furiously savage, and he shows all his +hungry teeth. Poor old Cobbett! England's dog! I have no love for thee, +for every vulgar nature my soul abhors: but thou touchest me to the +inmost soul with pity, as I see how thou strainest in vain to break +loose and to get at those thieves, who make off with their booty before +thy very eyes, and mock at thy fruitless springs and thine impotent +howling."[145] + +There is balm in Philistia as well as in Gilead. A chosen circle of +children of the modern spirit, perfectly emancipated from prejudice and +commonplace, regarding the ideal side of things in all its efforts for +change, passionately despising half-measures and condescension to human +folly and obstinacy,--with a bewildered, timid, torpid multitude +behind,--conducts a country to the government of Herr von Bismarck. A +nation regarding the practical side of things in its efforts for change, +attacking not what is irrational, but what is pressingly inconvenient, +and attacking this as one body, "moving altogether if it move at all," +[146] and treating children of light like the very harshest of +step-mothers, comes to the prosperity and liberty of modern England. For +all that, however, Philistia (let me say it again) is not the true +promised land, as we English commonly imagine it to be; and our +excessive neglect of the idea, and consequent inaptitude for it, +threatens us, at a moment when the idea is beginning to exercise a real +power in human society, with serious future inconvenience, and, in the +meanwhile, cuts us off from the sympathy of other nations, which feel +its power more than we do. + +But, in 1830, Heine very soon found that the fire-engines of the German +governments were too much for his direct efforts at incendiarism. "What +demon drove me," he cries, "to write my _Reisebilder_, to edit a +newspaper, to plague myself with our time and its interests, to try and +shake the poor German Hodge out of his thousand years' sleep in his +hole? What good did I get by it? Hodge opened his eyes, only to shut +them again immediately; he yawned, only to begin snoring again the next +minute louder than ever; he stretched his stiff ungainly limbs, only to +sink down again directly afterwards, and lie like a dead man in the old +bed of his accustomed habits. I must have rest; but where am I to find a +resting-place? In Germany I can no longer stay." + +This is Heine's jesting account of his own efforts to rouse Germany: now +for his pathetic account of them; it is because he unites so much wit +with so much pathos that he is so effective a writer:-- + +"The Emperor Charles the Fifth[147] sate in sore straits, in the Tyrol, +encompassed by his enemies. All his knights and courtiers had forsaken +him; not one came to his help. I know not if he had at that time the +cheese face with which Holbein has painted him for us. But I am sure +that under lip of his, with its contempt for mankind, stuck out even +more than it does in his portraits. How could he but contemn the tribe +which in the sunshine of his prosperity had fawned on him so devotedly, +and now, in his dark distress, left him all alone? Then suddenly his +door opened, and there came in a man in disguise, and, as he threw back +his cloak, the Kaiser recognized in him his faithful Conrad von der +Rosen, the court jester. This man brought him comfort and counsel, and +he was the court jester! + +"'O German fatherland! dear German people! I am thy Conrad von der +Rosen. The man whose proper business was to amuse thee, and who in good +times should have catered only for thy mirth, makes his way into thy +prison in time of need; here, under my cloak, I bring thee thy sceptre +and crown; dost thou not recognize me, my Kaiser? If I cannot free thee, +I will at least comfort thee, and thou shalt at least have one with thee +who will prattle with thee about thy sorest affliction, and whisper +courage to thee, and love thee, and whose best joke and best blood shall +be at thy service. For thou, my people, art the true Kaiser, the true +lord of the land; thy will is sovereign, and more legitimate far than +that purple _Tel est notre plaisir_, which invokes a divine right with +no better warrant than the anointings of shaven and shorn jugglers; thy +will, my people, is the sole rightful source of power. Though now thou +liest down in thy bonds, yet in the end will thy rightful cause prevail; +the day of deliverance is at hand, a new time is beginning. My Kaiser, +the night is over, and out there glows the ruddy dawn.' + +"'Conrad von der Rosen, my fool, thou art mistaken; perhaps thou takest +a headsman's gleaming axe for the sun, and the red of dawn is only +blood.' + +"'No, my Kaiser, it is the sun, though it is rising in the west; these +six thousand years it has always risen in the east; it is high time +there should come a change.' + +"'Conrad von der Rosen, my fool, thou hast lost the bells out of thy red +cap, and it has now such an odd look, that red cap of thine!' + +"'Ah, my Kaiser, thy distress has made me shake my head so hard and +fierce, that the fool's bells have dropped off my cap; the cap is none +the worse for that.' + +"'Conrad von der Rosen, my fool, what is that noise of breaking and +cracking outside there?' + +"'Hush! that is the saw and the carpenter's axe, and soon the doors of +thy prison will be burst open, and thou wilt be free, my Kaiser!' + +"'Am I then really Kaiser? Ah, I forgot, it is the fool who tells me +so!' + +"'Oh, sigh not, my dear master, the air of thy prison makes thee so +desponding! when once thou hast got thy rights again, thou wilt feel +once more the bold imperial blood in thy veins, and thou wilt be proud +like a Kaiser, and violent, and gracious, and unjust, and smiling, and +ungrateful, as princes are.' + +"'Conrad von der Rosen, my fool, when I am free, what wilt thou do +then?' + +"'I will then sew new bells on to my cap.' + +"'And how shall I recompense thy fidelity?' + +"'Ah, dear master, by not leaving me to die in a ditch!'"[148] + +I wish to mark Heine's place in modern European literature, the scope of +his activity, and his value. I cannot attempt to give here a detailed +account of his life, or a description of his separate works. In May 1831 +he went over his Jordan, the Rhine, and fixed himself in his new +Jerusalem, Paris. There, henceforward, he lived, going in general to +some French watering-place in the summer, but making only one or two +short visits to Germany during the rest of his life. His works, in verse +and prose, succeeded each other without stopping; a collected edition of +them, filling seven closely-printed octavo volumes, has been published +in America;[149] in the collected editions of few people's works is +there so little to skip. Those who wish for a single good specimen of +him should read his first important work, the work which made his +reputation, the _Reisebilder_, or "Travelling Sketches": prose and +verse, wit and seriousness, are mingled in it, and the mingling of these +is characteristic of Heine, and is nowhere to be seen practised more +naturally and happily than in his _Reisebilder_. In 1847 his health, +which till then had always been perfectly good, gave way. He had a kind +of paralytic stroke. His malady proved to be a softening of the spinal +marrow: it was incurable; it made rapid progress. In May 1848, not a +year after his first attack, he went out of doors for the last time; but +his disease took more than eight years to kill him. For nearly eight +years he lay helpless on a couch, with the use of his limbs gone, wasted +almost to the proportions of a child, wasted so that a woman could carry +him about; the sight of one eye lost, that of the other greatly dimmed, +and requiring, that it might be exercised, to have the palsied eyelid +lifted and held up by the finger; all this, and besides this, suffering +at short intervals paroxysms of nervous agony. I have said he was not +preëminently brave; but in the astonishing force of spirit with which he +retained his activity of mind, even his gayety, amid all his suffering, +and went on composing with undiminished fire to the last, he was truly +brave. Nothing could clog that aërial lightness. "Pouvez-vous siffler?" +his doctor asked him one day, when he was almost at his last gasp;-- +"siffler," as every one knows, has the double meaning of _to whistle_ +and _to hiss_:--"Hélas! non," was his whispered answer; "pas même une +comédie de M. Scribe!" M. Scribe[150] is, or was, the favorite +dramatist of the French Philistine. "My nerves," he said to some one who +asked him about them in 1855, the year of the great Exhibition in Paris, +"my nerves are of that quite singularly remarkable miserableness of +nature, that I am convinced they would get at the Exhibition the grand +medal for pain and misery." He read all the medical books which treated +of his complaint. "But," said he to some one who found him thus engaged, +"what good this reading is to do me I don't know, except that it will +qualify me to give lectures in heaven on the ignorance of doctors on +earth about diseases of the spinal marrow." What a matter of grim +seriousness are our own ailments to most of us! yet with this gayety +Heine treated his to the end. That end, so long in coming, came at last. +Heine died on the 17th of February, 1856, at the age of fifty-eight. By +his will he forbade that his remains should be transported to Germany. +He lies buried in the cemetery of Montmartre, at Paris. + +His direct political action was null, and this is neither to be wondered +at nor regretted; direct political action is not the true function of +literature, and Heine was a born man of letters. Even in his favorite +France the turn taken by public affairs was not at all what he wished, +though he read French politics by no means as we in England, most of us, +read them. He thought things were tending there to the triumph of +communism; and to a champion of the idea like Heine, what there is gross +and narrow in communism was very repulsive. "It is all of no use," he +cried on his death-bed, "the future belongs to our enemies, the +Communists, and Louis Napoleon[151] is their John the Baptist." "And +yet,"--he added with all his old love for that remarkable entity, so +full of attraction for him, so profoundly unknown in England, the French +people,--"do not believe that God lets all this go forward merely as a +grand comedy. Even though the Communists deny him to-day, he knows +better than they do, that a time will come when they will learn to +believe in him." After 1831, his hopes of soon upsetting the German +Governments had died away, and his propagandism took another, a more +truly literary, character. + +It took the character of an intrepid application of the modern spirit to +literature. To the ideas with which the burning questions of modern life +filled him, he made all his subject-matter minister. He touched all the +great points in the career of the human race, and here he but followed +the tendency of the wide culture of Germany; but he touched them with a +wand which brought them all under a light where the modern eye cares +most to see them, and here he gave a lesson to the culture of Germany,-- +so wide, so impartial, that it is apt to become slack and powerless, and +to lose itself in its materials for want of a strong central idea round +which to group all its other ideas. So the mystic and romantic school of +Germany lost itself in the Middle Ages, was overpowered by their +influence, came to ruin by its vain dreams of renewing them. Heine, with +a far profounder sense of the mystic and romantic charm of the Middle +Age than Goerres, or Brentano, or Arnim,[152] Heine the chief romantic +poet of Germany, is yet also much more than a romantic poet: he is a +great modern poet, he is not conquered by the Middle Age, he has a +talisman by which he can feel--along with but above the power of the +fascinating Middle Age itself--the power of modern ideas. + +A French critic of Heine thinks he has said enough in saying that Heine +proclaimed in German countries, with beat of drum, the ideas of 1789, +and that at the cheerful noise of his drum the ghosts of the Middle Age +took to flight. But this is rather too French an account of the matter. +Germany, that vast mine of ideas, had no need to import ideas, as such, +from any foreign country; and if Heine had carried ideas, as such, from +France into Germany, he would but have been carrying coals to Newcastle. +But that for which, France, far less meditative than Germany, is +eminent, is the prompt, ardent, and practical application of an idea, +when she seizes it, in all departments of human activity which admit it. +And that in which Germany most fails, and by failing in which she +appears so helpless and impotent, is just the practical application of +her innumerable ideas. "When Candide," says Heine himself, "came to +Eldorado, he saw in the streets a number of boys who were playing with +gold-nuggets instead of marbles. This degree of luxury made him imagine +that they must be the king's children, and he was not a little +astonished when he found that in Eldorado gold-nuggets are of no more +value than marbles are with us, and that the schoolboys play with them. +A similar thing happened to a friend of mine, a foreigner, when he came +to Germany and first read German books. He was perfectly astounded at +the wealth of ideas which he found in them; but he soon remarked that +ideas in Germany are as plentiful as gold-nuggets in Eldorado, and that +those writers whom he had taken for intellectual princes, were in +reality only common schoolboys."[153] Heine was, as he calls himself, +a "Child of the French Revolution," an "Initiator," because he +vigorously assured the Germans that ideas were not counters or marbles, +to be played with for their own sake; because he exhibited in literature +modern ideas applied with the utmost freedom, clearness, and +originality. And therefore he declared that the great task of his life +had been the endeavor to establish a cordial relation between France and +Germany. It is because he thus operates a junction between the French +spirit and German ideas and German culture, that he founds something +new, opens a fresh period, and deserves the attention of criticism far +more than the German poets his contemporaries, who merely continue an +old period till it expires. It may be predicted that in the literature +of other countries, too, the French spirit is destined to make its +influence felt,--as an element, in alliance with the native spirit, of +novelty and movement,--as it has made its influence felt in German +literature; fifty years hence a critic will be demonstrating to our +grandchildren how this phenomenon has come to pass. + +We in England, in our great burst of literature during the first thirty +years of the present century, had no manifestation of the modern spirit, +as this spirit manifests itself in Goethe's works or Heine's. And the +reason is not far to seek. We had neither the German wealth of ideas, +nor the French enthusiasm for applying ideas. There reigned in the mass +of the nation that inveterate inaccessibility to ideas, that +Philistinism,--to use the German nickname,--which reacts even on the +individual genius that is exempt from it. In our greatest literary +epoch, that of the Elizabethan age,[154] English society at large was +accessible to ideas, was permeated by them, was vivified by them, to a +degree which has never been reached in England since. Hence the unique +greatness in English literature of Shakespeare and his contemporaries. +They were powerfully upheld by the intellectual life of their nation; +they applied freely in literature the then modern ideas,--the ideas of +the Renascence and the Reformation. A few years afterwards the great +English middle class, the kernel of the nation, the class whose +intelligent sympathy had upheld a Shakespeare, entered the prison of +Puritanism, and had the key turned on its spirit there for two hundred +years. _He enlargeth a nation_, says Job, _and straiteneth it again._ +[155] + +In the literary movement of the beginning of the nineteenth century the +signal attempt to apply freely the modern spirit was made in England by +two members of the aristocratic class, Byron and Shelley. Aristocracies +are, as such, naturally impenetrable by ideas; but their individual +members have a high courage and a turn for breaking bounds; and a man of +genius, who is the born child of the idea, happening to be born in the +aristocratic ranks, chafes against the obstacles which prevent him from +freely developing it. But Byron and Shelley did not succeed in their +attempt freely to apply the modern spirit in English literature; they +could not succeed in it; the resistance to baffle them, the want of +intelligent sympathy to guide and uphold them, were too great. Their +literary creation, compared with the literary creation of Shakespeare +and Spenser, compared with the literary creation of Goethe and Heine, is +a failure. The best literary creation of that time in England proceeded +from men who did not make the same bold attempt as Byron and Shelley. +What, in fact, was the career of the chief English men of letters, their +contemporaries? The gravest of them, Wordsworth, retired (in Middle-Age +phrase) into a monastery. I mean, he plunged himself in the inward life, +he voluntarily cut himself off from the modern spirit. Coleridge took to +opium. Scott became the historiographer-royal of feudalism. Keats +passionately gave himself up to a sensuous genius, to his faculty for +interpreting nature; and he died of consumption at twenty-five. +Wordsworth, Scott, and Keats have left admirable works; far more solid +and complete works than those which Byron and Shelley have left. But +their works have this defect,--they do not belong to that which is the +main current of the literature of modern epochs, they do not apply +modern ideas to life; they constitute, therefore, _minor currents_, and +all other literary work of our day, however popular, which has the same +defect, also constitutes but a minor current. Byron and Shelley will +long be remembered, long after the inadequacy of their actual work is +clearly recognized, for their passionate, their Titanic effort to flow +in the main stream of modern literature; their names will be greater +than their writings; _stat magni nominis umbra_.[156] Heine's literary +good fortune was superior to that of Byron and Shelley. His theatre of +operations was Germany, whose Philistinism does not consist in her want +of ideas, or in her inaccessibility to ideas, for she teems with them +and loves them, but, as I have said, in her feeble and hesitating +application of modern ideas to life. Heine's intense modernism, his +absolute freedom, his utter rejection of stock classicism and stock +romanticism, his bringing all things under the point of view of the +nineteenth century, were understood and laid to heart by Germany, +through virtue of her immense, tolerant intellectualism, much as there +was in all Heine said to affront and wound Germany. The wit and ardent +modern spirit of France Heine joined to the culture, the sentiment, the +thought of Germany. This is what makes him so remarkable: his wonderful +clearness, lightness, and freedom, united with such power of feeling, +and width of range. Is there anywhere keener wit than in his story of +the French abbé who was his tutor, and who wanted to get from him that +_la religion_ is French for _der Glaube_: "Six times did he ask me the +question: 'Henry, what is _der Glaube_ in French?' and six times, and +each time with a greater burst of tears, did I answer him--'It is _le +crédit_' And at the seventh time, his face purple with rage, the +infuriated questioner screamed out: 'It is _la religion_'; and a rain of +cuffs descended upon me, and all the other boys burst out laughing. +Since that day I have never been able to hear _la religion_ mentioned, +without feeling a tremor run through my back, and my cheeks grow red +with shame."[157] Or in that comment on the fate of Professor Saalfeld, +who had been addicted to writing furious pamphlets against Napoleon, and +who was a professor at Göttingen, a great seat, according to Heine, of +pedantry and Philistinism. "It is curious," says Heine, "the three +greatest adversaries of Napoleon have all of them ended miserably. +Castlereagh[158] cut his own throat; Louis the Eighteenth rotted upon +his throne; and Professor Saalfeld is still a professor at Göttingen." +[159] It is impossible to go beyond that. + +What wit, again, in that saying which every one has heard: "The +Englishman loves liberty like his lawful wife, the Frenchman loves her +like his mistress, the German loves her like his old grandmother." But +the turn Heine gives to this incomparable saying is not so well known; +and it is by that turn he shows himself the born poet he is,--full of +delicacy and tenderness, of inexhaustible resource, infinitely new and +striking:-- + +"And yet, after all, no one can ever tell how things may turn out. The +grumpy Englishman, in an ill-temper with his wife, is capable of some +day putting a rope round her neck, and taking her to be sold at +Smithfield. The inconstant Frenchman may become unfaithful to his adored +mistress, and be seen fluttering about the Palais Royal after another. +_But the German will never quite abandon his old grandmother_; he will +always keep for her a nook by the chimney-corner, where she can tell her +fairy stories to the listening children."[160] + +Is it possible to touch more delicately and happily both the weakness +and the strength of Germany; pedantic, simple, enslaved, free, +ridiculous, admirable Germany? + +And Heine's verse,--his _Lieder?_ Oh, the comfort, after dealing with +French people of genius, irresistibly impelled to try and express +themselves in verse, launching out into a deep which destiny has sown +with so many rocks for them,--the comfort of coming to a man of genius, +who finds in verse his freest and most perfect expression, whose voyage +over the deep of poetry destiny makes smooth! After the rhythm, to us, +at any rate, with the German paste in our composition, so deeply +unsatisfying, of-- + + "Ah! que me dites-vous, et qne vous dit mon âme? + Que dit le ciel a l'aube et la flamme à la flamme?" + +what a blessing to arrive at rhythms like-- + + "Take, oh, take those lips away, + That so sweetly were forsworn--"[161] + +or-- + + "Siehst sehr sterbeblässlich aus, + Doch getrost! du bist zu Haus--"[162] + +in which one's soul can take pleasure! The magic of Heine's poetical +form is incomparable; he chiefly uses a form of old German popular +poetry, a ballad-form which has more rapidity and grace than any +ballad-form of ours; he employs this form with the most exquisite +lightness and ease, and yet it has at the same time the inborn fulness, +pathos, and old-world charm of all true forms of popular poetry. Thus in +Heine's poetry, too, one perpetually blends the impression of French +modernism and clearness, with that of German sentiment and fulness; and +to give this blended impression is, as I have said, Heine's great +characteristic. To feel it, one must read him; he gives it in his form +as well as in his contents, and by translation I can only reproduce it +so far as his contents give it. But even the contents of many of his +poems are capable of giving a certain sense of it. Here, for instance, +is a poem in which he makes his profession of faith to an innocent +beautiful soul, a sort of Gretchen, the child of some simple mining +people having their hut among the pines at the foot of the Hartz +Mountains, who reproaches him with not holding the old articles of the +Christian creed:-- + +"Ah, my child, while I was yet a little boy, while I yet sate upon my +mother's knee, I believed in God the Father, who rules up there in +Heaven, good and great; + +"Who created the beautiful earth, and the beautiful men and women +thereon; who ordained for sun, moon, and stars their courses. + +"When I got bigger, my child, I comprehended yet a great deal more than +this, and comprehended, and grew intelligent; and I believe on the Son +also; + +"On the beloved Son, who loved us, and revealed love to us; and, for his +reward, as always happens, was crucified by the people. + +"Now, when I am grown up, have read much, have travelled much, my heart +swells within me, and with my whole heart I believe on the Holy Ghost. + +"The greatest miracles were of his working, and still greater miracles +doth he even now work; he burst in sunder the oppressor's stronghold, +and he burst in sunder the bondsman's yoke. + +"He heals old death-wounds, and renews the old right; all mankind are +one race of noble equals before him. + +"He chases away the evil clouds and the dark cobwebs of the brain, which +have spoilt love and joy for us, which day and night have loured on us. + +"A thousand knights, well harnessed, has the Holy Ghost chosen out to +fulfil his will, and he has put courage into their souls. + +"Their good swords flash, their bright banners wave; what, thou wouldst +give much, my child, to look upon such gallant knights? + +"Well, on me, my child, look! kiss me, and look boldly upon me! one of +those knights of the Holy Ghost am I."[163] + +One has only to turn over the pages of his _Romancero_,[164]--a +collection of poems written in the first years of his illness, with his +whole power and charm still in them, and not, like his latest poems of +all, painfully touched by the air of his _Matrazzen-gruft_, his +"mattress-grave,"--to see Heine's width of range; the most varied +figures succeed one another,--Rhampsinitus,[165] Edith with the Swan +Neck,[166] Charles the First, Marie Antoinette, King David, a heroine of +_Mabille_, Melisanda of Tripoli,[167] Richard Coeur de Lion, Pedro the +Cruel[168], Firdusi[169], Cortes, Dr. Döllinger[170];--but never does +Heine attempt to be _hubsch objectiv_, "beautifully objective," to +become in spirit an old Egyptian, or an old Hebrew, or a Middle-Age +knight, or a Spanish adventurer, or an English royalist; he always +remains Heinrich Heine, a son of the nineteenth century. To give a +notion of his tone, I will quote a few stanzas at the end of the +_Spanish Atridæ_[171] in which he describes, in the character of a +visitor at the court of Henry of Transtamare[172] at Segovia, Henry's +treatment of the children of his brother, Pedro the Cruel. Don Diego +Albuquerque, his neighbor, strolls after dinner through the castle with +him:-- + +"In the cloister-passage, which leads to the kennels where are kept the +king's hounds, that with their growling and yelping let you know a long +way off where they are, + +"There I saw, built into the wall, and with a strong iron grating for +its outer face, a cell like a cage. + +"Two human figures sate therein, two young boys; chained by the leg, +they crouched in the dirty straw. + +"Hardly twelve years old seemed the one, the other not much older; their +faces fair and noble, but pale and wan with sickness. + +"They were all in rags, almost naked; and their lean bodies showed +wounds, the marks of ill-usage; both of them shivered with fever. + +"They looked up at me out of the depth of their misery; 'Who,' I cried +in horror to Don Diego, 'are these pictures of wretchedness?' + +"Don Diego seemed embarrassed; he looked round to see that no one was +listening; then he gave a deep sigh; and at last, putting on the easy +tone of a man of the world, he said:-- + +"'These are a pair of king's sons, who were early left orphans; the name +of their father was King Pedro, the name of their mother, Maria de +Padilla. + +"'After the great battle of Navarette, when Henry of Transtamare had +relieved his brother, King Pedro, of the troublesome burden of the +crown, + +"'And likewise of that still more troublesome burden, which is called +life, then Don Henry's victorious magnanimity had to deal with his +brother's children. + +"'He has adopted them, as an uncle should; and he has given them free +quarters in his own castle. + +"'The room which he has assigned to them is certainly rather small, but +then it is cool in summer, and not intolerably cold in winter. + +"'Their fare is rye-bread, which tastes as sweet as if the goddess Ceres +had baked it express for her beloved Proserpine. + +"'Not unfrequently, too, he sends a scullion to them with +garbanzos,[173]and then the young gentlemen know that it is Sunday in +Spain. + +"'But it is not Sunday every day, and garbanzos do not come every day; +and the master of the hounds gives them the treat of his whip. + +"'For the master of the hounds, who has under his superintendence the +kennels and the pack, and the nephews' cage also, + +"'Is the unfortunate husband of that lemon-faced woman with the white +ruff, whom we remarked to-day at dinner. + +"'And she scolds so sharp, that often her husband snatches his whip, and +rushes down here, and gives it to the dogs and to the poor little boys. + +"'But his majesty has expressed his disapproval of such proceedings, and +has given orders that for the future his nephews are to be treated +differently from the dogs. + +"'He has determined no longer to entrust the disciplining of his nephews +to a mercenary stranger, but to carry it out with his own hands.' + +"Don Diego stopped abruptly; for the seneschal of the castle joined us, +and politely expressed his hope that we had dined to our satisfaction." + +Observe how the irony of the whole of that, finishing with the grim +innuendo of the last stanza but one, is at once truly masterly and truly +modern. + +No account of Heine is complete which does not notice the Jewish element +in him. His race he treated with the same freedom with which he treated +everything else, but he derived a great force from it, and no one knew +this better than he himself. He has excellently pointed out how in the +sixteenth century there was a double renascence,--a Hellenic renascence +and a Hebrew renascence--and how both have been great powers ever since. +He himself had in him both the spirit of Greece and the spirit of Judæa; +both these spirits reach the infinite, which is the true goal of all +poetry and all art,--the Greek spirit by beauty, the Hebrew spirit by +sublimity. By his perfection of literary form, by his love of clearness, +by his love of beauty, Heine is Greek; by his intensity, by his +untamableness, by his "longing which cannot be uttered,"[174] he is +Hebrew. Yet what Hebrew ever treated the things of the Hebrews like +this?--"There lives at Hamburg, in a one-roomed lodging in the Baker's +Broad Walk, a man whose name is Moses Lump; all the week he goes about +in wind and rain, with his pack on his back, to earn his few shillings; +but when on Friday evening he comes home, he finds the candlestick with +seven candles lighted, and the table covered with a fair white cloth, +and he puts away from him his pack and his cares, and he sits down to +table with his squinting wife and yet more squinting daughter, and eats +fish with them, fish which has been dressed in beautiful white garlic +sauce, sings therewith the grandest psalms of King David, rejoices with +his whole heart over the deliverance of the children of Israel out of +Egypt, rejoices, too, that all the wicked ones who have done the +children of Israel hurt, have ended by taking themselves off; that King +Pharaoh, Nebuchadnezzar, Haman, Antiochus, Titus, and all such people, +are well dead, while he, Moses Lump, is yet alive, and eating fish with +wife and daughter; and I can tell you, Doctor, the fish is delicate and +the man is happy, he has no call to torment himself about culture, he +sits contented in his religion and in his green bedgown, like Diogenes +in his tub, he contemplates with satisfaction his candles, which he on +no account will snuff for himself; and I can tell you, if the candles +burn a little dim, and the snuffers-woman, whose business it is to snuff +them, is not at hand, and Rothschild the Great were at that moment to +come in, with all his brokers, bill discounters, agents, and chief +clerks, with whom he conquers the world, and Rothschild were to say: +'Moses Lump, ask of me what favor you will, and it shall be granted +you';--Doctor, I am convinced, Moses Lump would quietly answer: 'Snuff +me those candles!' and Rothschild the Great would exclaim with +admiration: 'If I were not Rothschild, I would be Moses Lump.'"[175] + +There Heine shows us his own people by its comic side; in the poem of +the _Princess Sabbath_[176] he shows it to us by a more serious side. +The Princess Sabbath, "the _tranquil Princess_, pearl and flower of all +beauty, fair as the Queen of Sheba, Solomon's bosom friend, that blue +stocking from Ethiopia, who wanted to shine by her _esprit_, and with +her wise riddles made herself in the long run a bore" (with Heine the +sarcastic turn is never far off), this princess has for her betrothed a +prince whom sorcery has transformed into an animal of lower race, the +Prince Israel. + +"A dog with the desires of a dog, he wallows all the week long in the +filth and refuse of life, amidst the jeers of the boys in the street. + +"But every Friday evening, at the twilight hour, suddenly the magic +passes off, and the dog becomes once more a human being. + +"A man with the feelings of a man, with head and heart raised aloft, in +festal garb, in almost clean garb he enters the halls of his Father. + +"Hail, beloved halls of my royal Father! Ye tents of Jacob, I kiss with +my lips your holy door-posts!" + +Still more he shows us this serious side in his beautiful poem on Jehuda +ben Halevy,[176] a poet belonging to "the great golden age of the +Arabian, Old-Spanish, Jewish school of poets," a contemporary of the +troubadours:-- + +"He, too,--the hero whom we sing,--Jehuda ben Halevy, too, had his +lady-love; but she was of a special sort. + +"She was no Laura,[177] whose eyes, mortal stars, in the cathedral on +Good Friday kindled that world-renowned flame. + +"She was no chatelaine, who in the blooming glory of her youth presided +at tourneys, and awarded the victor's crown. + +"No casuistess in the Gay Science was she, no lady _doctrinaire_, who +delivered her oracles in the judgment-chamber of a Court of Love.[178] + +"She, whom the Rabbi loved, was a woe-begone poor darling, a mourning +picture of desolation ... and her name was Jerusalem." + +Jehuda ben Halevy, like the Crusaders, makes his pilgrimage to +Jerusalem; and there, amid the ruins, sings a song of Sion which has +become famous among his people:-- + +"That lay of pearled tears is the wide-famed Lament, which is sung in +all the scattered tents of Jacob throughout the world. + +"On the ninth day of the month which is called Ab, on the anniversary of +Jerusalem's destruction by Titus Vespasianus. + +"Yes, that is the song of Sion, which Jehuda ben Halevy sang with his +dying breath amid the holy ruins of Jerusalem. + +"Barefoot, and in penitential weeds, he sat there upon the fragment of a +fallen column; down to his breast fell, + +"Like a gray forest, his hair; and cast a weird shadow on the face which +looked out through it,--his troubled pale face, with the spiritual +eyes. + +"So he sat and sang, like unto a seer out of the foretime to look upon; +Jeremiah, the Ancient, seemed to have risen out of his grave. + +"But a bold Saracen came riding that way, aloft on his barb, lolling in +his saddle, and brandishing a naked javelin; + +"Into the breast of the poor singer he plunged his deadly shaft, and +shot away like a winged shadow. + +"Quietly flowed the Rabbi's life-blood, quietly he sang his song to an +end; and his last dying sigh was Jerusalem!" + +But, most of all, Heine shows us this side in a strange poem describing +a public dispute, before King Pedro and his Court, between a Jewish and +a Christian champion, on the merits of their respective faiths. In the +strain of the Jew all the fierceness of the old Hebrew genius, all its +rigid defiant Monotheism, appear:-- + +"Our God has not died like a poor innocent lamb for mankind; he is no +gushing philanthropist, no declaimer. + +"Our God is not love, caressing is not his line; but he is a God of +thunder, and he is a God of revenge. + +"The lightnings of his wrath strike inexorably every sinner, and the +sins of the fathers are often visited upon their remote posterity. + +"Our God, he is alive, and in his hall of heaven he goes on existing +away, throughout all the eternities. + +"Our God, too, is a God in robust health, no myth, pale and thin as +sacrificial wafers, or as shadows by Cocytus. + +"Our God is strong. In his hand he upholds sun, moon, and stars; thrones +break, nations reel to and fro, when he knits his forehead. + +"Our God loves music, the voice of the harp and the song of feasting; +but the sound of church-bells he hates, as he hates the grunting of +pigs."[179] + +Nor must Heine's sweetest note be unheard,--his plaintive note, his note +of melancholy. Here is a strain which came from him as he lay, in the +winter night, on his "mattress-grave" at Paris, and let his thoughts +wander home to Germany, "the great child, entertaining herself with her +Christmas-tree." "Thou tookest,"--he cries to the German exile,-- + +"Thou tookest thy flight towards sunshine and happiness; naked and poor +returnest thou back. German truth, German shirts,--one gets them worn to +tatters in foreign parts. + +"Deadly pale are thy looks, but take comfort, thou art at home! one lies +warm in German earth, warm as by the old pleasant fireside. + +"Many a one, alas, became crippled, and could get home no more! +longingly he stretches out his arms; God have mercy upon him!"[180] + +God have mercy upon him! for what remain of the days of the years of his +life are few and evil. "Can it be that I still actually exist? My body +is so shrunk that there is hardly anything of me left but my voice, and +my bed makes me think of the melodious grave of the enchanter Merlin, +which is in the forest of Broceliand in Brittany, under high oaks whose +tops shine like green flames to heaven. Ah, I envy thee those trees, +brother Merlin, and their fresh waving! for over my mattress-grave here +in Paris no green leaves rustle; and early and late I hear nothing but +the rattle of carriages, hammering, scolding, and the jingle of the +piano. A grave without rest, death without the privileges of the +departed, who have no longer any need to spend money, or to write +letters, or to compose books What a melancholy situation!"[181] + +He died, and has left a blemished name; with his crying faults,--his +intemperate susceptibility, his unscrupulousness in passion, his +inconceivable attacks on his enemies, his still more inconceivable +attacks on his friends, his want of generosity, his sensuality, his +incessant mocking,--how could it be otherwise? Not only was he not one +of Mr. Carlyle's "respectable" people, he was profoundly +_dis_respectable; and not even the merit of not being a Philistine can +make up for a man's being that. To his intellectual deliverance there +was an addition of something else wanting, and that something else was +something immense: the old-fashioned, laborious, eternally needful moral +deliverance. Goethe says that he was deficient in _love_; to me his +weakness seems to be not so much a deficiency in love as a deficiency in +self-respect, in true dignity of character. But on this negative side of +one's criticism of a man of great genius, I for my part, when I have +once clearly marked that this negative side is and must be there, have +no pleasure in dwelling. I prefer to say of Heine something positive. He +is not an adequate interpreter of the modern world. He is only a +brilliant soldier in the Liberation War of humanity. But, such as he is, +he is (and posterity too, I am quite sure, will say this), in the +European poetry of that quarter of a century which follows the death of +Goethe, incomparably the most important figure. + +What a spendthrift, one is tempted to cry, is Nature! With what +prodigality, in the march of generations, she employs human power, +content to gather almost always little result from it, sometimes none! +Look at Byron, that Byron whom the present generation of Englishmen are +forgetting; Byron, the greatest natural force, the greatest elementary +power, I cannot but think, which has appeared in our literature since +Shakespeare. And what became of this wonderful production of nature? He +shattered himself, he inevitably shattered himself to pieces against the +huge, black, cloud-topped, interminable precipice of British +Philistinism. But Byron, it may be said, was eminent only by his genius, +only by his inborn force and fire; he had not the intellectual equipment +of a supreme modern poet; except for his genius he was an ordinary +nineteenth-century English gentleman, with little culture and with no +ideas. Well, then, look at Heine. Heine had all the culture of Germany; +in his head fermented all the ideas of modern Europe. And what have we +got from Heine? A half-result, for want of moral balance, and of +nobleness of soul and character. That is what I say; there is so much +power, so many seem able to run well, so many give promise of running +well;--so few reach the goal, so few are chosen. _Many are called, few +chosen._ + + + +MARCUS AURELIUS[182] + + +Mr. Mill[183] says, in his book on Liberty, that "Christian morality is +in great part merely a protest against paganism; its ideal is negative +rather than positive, passive rather than active." He says, that, in +certain most important respects, "it falls far below the best morality +of the ancients." Now, the object of systems of morality is to take +possession of human life, to save it from being abandoned to passion or +allowed to drift at hazard, to give it happiness by establishing it in +the practice of virtue; and this object they seek to attain by +prescribing to human life fixed principles of action, fixed rules of +conduct. In its uninspired as well as in its inspired moments, in its +days of languor and gloom as well as in its days of sunshine and energy, +human life has thus always a clue to follow, and may always be making +way towards its goal. Christian morality has not failed to supply to +human life aids of this sort. It has supplied them far more abundantly +than many of its critics imagine. The most exquisite document after +those of the New Testament, of all the documents the Christian spirit +has ever inspired,--the _Imitation_,[184]--by no means contains the +whole of Christian morality; nay, the disparagers of this morality would +think themselves sure of triumphing if one agreed to look for it in the +_Imitation_ only. But even the _Imitation_ is full of passages like +these: "Vita sine proposito languida et vaga est";--"Omni die renovare +debemus propositum nostrum, dicentes: nunc hodie perfecte incipiamus, +quia nihil est quod hactenus fecimus";--"Secundum propositum nostrum +est cursus profectus nostri";--"Raro etiam unum vitium perfecte +vincimus, et ad _quotidianum_ profectum non accendimur"; "Semper aliquid +certi proponendum est"; "Tibi ipsi violentiam frequenter fac." (_A life +without a purpose is a languid, drifting thing;--Every day we ought to +renew our purpose, saying to ourselves: This day let us make a sound +beginning, for what we have hitherto done is nought;--Our improvement is +in proportion to our purpose;--We hardly ever manage to get completely +rid even of one fault, and do not set our hearts on _daily_ +improvement;--Always place a definite purpose before thee;--Get the +habit of mastering thine inclination._) These are moral precepts, and +moral precepts of the best kind. As rules to hold possession of our +conduct, and to keep us in the right course through outward troubles and +inward perplexity, they are equal to the best ever furnished by the +great masters of morals--Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius. + +But moral rules, apprehended as ideas first, and then rigorously +followed as laws, are, and must be, for the sage only. The mass of +mankind have neither force of intellect enough to apprehend them clearly +as ideas, nor force of character enough to follow them strictly as laws. +The mass of mankind can be carried along a course full of hardship for +the natural man, can be borne over the thousand impediments of the +narrow way, only by the tide of a joyful and bounding emotion. It is +impossible to rise from reading Epictetus[185]or Marcus Aurelius +without a sense of constraint and melancholy, without feeling that the +burden laid upon man is well-nigh greater than he can bear. Honor to the +sages who have felt this, and yet have borne it! Yet, even for the sage, +this sense of labor and sorrow in his march towards the goal constitutes +a relative inferiority; the noblest souls of whatever creed, the pagan +Empedocles[186] as well as the Christian Paul, have insisted on the +necessity of an inspiration, a joyful emotion, to make moral action +perfect; an obscure indication of this necessity is the one drop of +truth in the ocean of verbiage with which the controversy on +justification by faith has flooded the world. But, for the ordinary man, +this sense of labor and sorrow constitutes an absolute disqualification; +it paralyzes him; under the weight of it, he cannot make way towards the +goal at all. The paramount virtue of religion is, that it has _lighted +up_ morality; that it has supplied the emotion and inspiration needful +for carrying the sage along the narrow way perfectly, for carrying the +ordinary man along it at all. Even the religions with most dross in them +have had something of this virtue; but the Christian religion manifests +it with unexampled splendor. "Lead me, Zeus and Destiny!" says the +prayer of Epictetus, "whithersoever I am appointed to go; I will follow +without wavering; even though I turn coward and shrink, I shall have to +follow all the same."[187] The fortitude of that is for the strong, for +the few; even for them the spiritual atmosphere with which it surrounds +them is bleak and gray. But, "Let thy loving spirit lead me forth into +the land of righteousness";[188]--"The Lord shall be unto thee an +everlasting light, and thy God thy glory";[189]--"Unto you that fear my +name shall the sun of righteousness arise with healing in his wings," +[190] says the Old Testament; "Born, not of blood, nor of the will of +the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God";[191]--"Except a man be +born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God";[192]--"Whatsoever is +born of God, overcometh the world,"[193] says the New. The ray of +sunshine is there, the glow of a divine warmth;--the austerity of the +sage melts away under it, the paralysis of the weak is healed; he who is +vivified by it renews his strength; "all things are possible to him +";[194] "he is a new creature."[195] + +Epictetus says: "Every matter has two handles, one of which will bear +taking hold of, the other not. If thy brother sin against thee, lay not +hold of the matter by this, that he sins against thee; for by this +handle the matter will not bear taking hold of. But rather lay hold of +it by this, that he is thy brother, thy born mate; and thou wilt take +hold of it by what will bear handling."[196] Jesus, being asked whether +a man is bound to forgive his brother as often as seven times, answers: +"I say not unto thee, until seven times, but until seventy times seven." +[197] Epictetus here suggests to the reason grounds for forgiveness of +injuries which Jesus does not; but it is vain to say that Epictetus is +on that account a better moralist than Jesus, if the warmth, the +emotion, of Jesus's answer fires his hearer to the practice of +forgiveness of injuries, while the thought in Epictetus's leaves him +cold. So with Christian morality in general: its distinction is not that +it propounds the maxim, "Thou shalt love God and thy neighbor,"[198] +with more development, closer reasoning, truer sincerity, than other +moral systems; it is that it propounds this maxim with an inspiration +which wonderfully catches the hearer and makes him act upon it. It is +because Mr. Mill has attained to the perception of truths of this +nature, that he is,--instead of being, like the school from which he +proceeds, doomed to sterility,--a writer of distinguished mark and +influence, a writer deserving all attention and respect; it is (I must +be pardoned for saying) because he is not sufficiently leavened with +them, that he falls just short of being a great writer. + +That which gives to the moral writings of the Emperor Marcus Aurelius +their peculiar character and charm, is their being suffused and softened +by something of this very sentiment whence Christian morality draws its +best power. Mr. Long[199] has recently published in a convenient form a +translation of these writings, and has thus enabled English readers to +judge Marcus Aurelius for themselves; he has rendered his countrymen a +real service by so doing. Mr. Long's reputation as a scholar is a +sufficient guarantee of the general fidelity and accuracy of his +translation; on these matters, besides, I am hardly entitled to speak, +and my praise is of no value. But that for which I and the rest of the +unlearned may venture to praise Mr. Long is this: that he treats Marcus +Aurelius's writings, as he treats all the other remains of Greek and +Roman antiquity which he touches, not as a dead and dry matter of +learning, but as documents with a side of modern applicability and +living interest, and valuable mainly so far as this side in them can be +made clear; that as in his notes on Plutarch's Roman Lives he deals with +the modern epoch of Cæsar and Cicero, not as food for schoolboys, but as +food for men, and men engaged in the current of contemporary life and +action, so in his remarks and essays on Marcus Aurelius he treats this +truly modern striver and thinker not as a Classical Dictionary hero, but +as a present source from which to draw "example of life, and instruction +of manners." Why may not a son of Dr. Arnold[200] say, what might +naturally here be said by any other critic, that in this lively and +fruitful way of considering the men and affairs of ancient Greece and +Rome, Mr. Long resembles Dr. Arnold? + +One or two little complaints, however, I have against Mr. Long, and I +will get them off my mind at once. In the first place, why could he not +have found gentler and juster terms to describe the translation of his +predecessor, Jeremy Collier,[201]--the redoubtable enemy of stage +plays,--than these: "a most coarse and vulgar copy of the original?" As +a matter of taste, a translator should deal leniently with his +predecessor; but putting that out of the question, Mr. Long's language +is a great deal too hard. Most English people who knew Marcus Aurelius +before Mr. Long appeared as his introducer, knew him through Jeremy +Collier. And the acquaintance of a man like Marcus Aurelius is such an +imperishable benefit, that one can never lose a peculiar sense of +obligation towards the man who confers it. Apart from this claim upon +one's tenderness, however, Jeremy Collier's version deserves respect for +its genuine spirit and vigor, the spirit and vigor of the age of Dryden. +Jeremy Collier too, like Mr. Long, regarded in Marcus Aurelius the +living moralist, and not the dead classic; and his warmth of feeling +gave to his style an impetuosity and rhythm which from Mr. Long's style +(I do not blame it on that account) are absent. Let us place the two +side by side. The impressive opening of Marcus Aurelius's fifth book, +Mr. Long translates thus:-- + +"In the morning when thou risest unwillingly, let this thought be +present: I am rising to the work of a human being. Why then am I +dissatisfied if I am going to do the things for which I exist and for +which I was brought into the world? Or have I been made for this, to lie +in the bed clothes and keep myself warm?--But this is more pleasant.-- +Dost thou exist then to take thy pleasure, and not at all for action or +exertion?" + +Jeremy Collier has:-- + +"When you find an unwillingness to rise early in the morning, make this +short speech to yourself: 'I am getting up now to do the business of a +man; and am I out of humor for going about that which I was made for, +and for the sake of which I was sent into the world? Was I then designed +for nothing but to doze and batten beneath the counterpane? I thought +action had been the end of your being.'" + +In another striking passage, again, Mr. Long has:-- + +"No longer wonder at hazard; for neither wilt thou read thy own memoirs, +nor the acts of the ancient Romans and Hellenes, and the selections from +books which thou wast reserving for thy old age. Hasten then to the end +which thou hast before thee, and, throwing away idle hopes, come to +thine own aid, if thou carest at all for thyself, while it is in thy +power."[202] + +Here his despised predecessor has:-- + +"Don't go too far in your books and overgrasp yourself. Alas, you have +no time left to peruse your diary, to read over the Greek and Roman +history: come, don't flatter and deceive yourself; look to the main +chance, to the end and design of reading, and mind life more than +notion: I say, if you have a kindness for your person, drive at the +practice and help yourself, for that is in your own power." + +It seems to me that here for style and force Jeremy Collier can (to say +the least) perfectly stand comparison with Mr. Long. Jeremy Collier's +real defect as a translator is not his coarseness and vulgarity, but his +imperfect acquaintance with Greek; this is a serious defect, a fatal +one; it rendered a translation like Mr. Long's necessary. Jeremy +Collier's work will now be forgotten, and Mr. Long stands master of the +field, but he may be content, at any rate, to leave his predecessor's +grave unharmed, even if he will not throw upon it, in passing, a handful +of kindly earth. + +Another complaint I have against Mr. Long is, that he is not quite +idiomatic and simple enough. It is a little formal, at least, if not +pedantic, to say _Ethic_ and _Dialectic_, instead of _Ethics_ and +_Dialectics_, and to say "_Hellenes_ and Romans" instead of "_Greeks_ +and Romans." And why, too,--the name of Antoninus being preoccupied by +Antoninus Pius,[203]--will Mr. Long call his author Marcus _Antoninus_ +instead of Marcus _Aurelius?_ Small as these matters appear, they are +important when one has to deal with the general public, and not with a +small circle of scholars; and it is the general public that the +translator of a short masterpiece on morals, such as is the book of +Marcus Aurelius, should have in view; his aim should be to make Marcus +Aurelius's work as popular as the _Imitation_, and Marcus Aurelius's +name as familiar as Socrates's. In rendering or naming him, therefore, +punctilious accuracy of phrase is not so much to be sought as +accessibility and currency; everything which may best enable the Emperor +and his precepts _volitare per ora virum_[204] It is essential to +render him in language perfectly plain and unprofessional, and to call +him by the name by which he is best and most distinctly known. The +translators of the Bible talk of _pence_ and not _denarii_, and the +admirers of Voltaire do not celebrate him under the name of Arouet.[205] + +But, after these trifling complaints are made, one must end, as one +began, in unfeigned gratitude to Mr. Long for his excellent and +substantial reproduction in English of an invaluable work. In general +the substantiality, soundness, and precision of Mr. Long's rendering are +(I will venture, after all, to give my opinion about them) as +conspicuous as the living spirit with which he treats antiquity; and +these qualities are particularly desirable in the translator of a work +like that of Marcus Aurelius, of which the language is often corrupt, +almost always hard and obscure. Any one who wants to appreciate Mr. +Long's merits as a translator may read, in the original and in Mr. +Long's translation, the seventh chapter of the tenth book; he will see +how, through all the dubiousness and involved manner of the Greek, Mr. +Long has firmly seized upon the clear thought which is certainly at the +bottom of that troubled wording, and, in distinctly rendering this +thought, has at the same time thrown round its expression a +characteristic shade of painfulness and difficulty which just suits it. +And Marcus Aurelius's book is one which, when it is rendered so +accurately as Mr. Long renders it, even those who know Greek tolerably +well may choose to read rather in the translation than in the original. +For not only are the contents here incomparably more valuable than the +external form, but this form, the Greek of a Roman, is not exactly one +of those styles which have a physiognomy, which are an essential part of +their author, which stamp an indelible impression of him on the reader's +mind. An old Lyons commentator finds, indeed, in Marcus Aurelius's +Greek, something characteristic, something specially firm and imperial; +but I think an ordinary mortal will hardly find this: he will find +crabbed Greek, without any great charm of distinct physiognomy. The +Greek of Thucydides and Plato has this charm, and he who reads them in a +translation, however accurate, loses it, and loses much in losing it; +but the Greek of Marcus Aurelius, like the Greek of the New Testament, +and even more than the Greek of the New Testament, is wanting in it. If +one could be assured that the English Testament were made perfectly +accurate, one might be almost content never to open a Greek Testament +again; and, Mr. Long's version of Marcus Aurelius being what it is, an +Englishman who reads to live, and does not live to read, may henceforth +let the Greek original repose upon its shelf. + +The man whose thoughts Mr. Long has thus faithfully reproduced, is +perhaps the most beautiful figure in history. He is one of those +consoling and hope-inspiring marks, which stand forever to remind our +weak and easily discouraged race how high human goodness and +perseverance have once been carried, and may be carried again. The +interest of mankind is peculiarly attracted by examples of signal +goodness in high places; for that testimony to the worth of goodness is +the most striking which is borne by those to whom all the means of +pleasure and self-indulgence lay open, by those who had at their command +the kingdoms of the world and the glory of them. Marcus Aurelius was the +ruler of the grandest of empires; and he was one of the best of men. +Besides him, history presents one or two sovereigns eminent for their +goodness, such as Saint Louis or Alfred. But Marcus Aurelius has, for us +moderns, this great superiority in interest over Saint Louis or Alfred, +that he lived and acted in a state of society modern by its essential +characteristics, in an epoch akin to our own, in a brilliant centre of +civilization. Trajan talks of "our enlightened age" just as glibly as +the _Times_[206] talks of it. Marcus Aurelius thus becomes for us a man +like ourselves, a man in all things tempted as we are. Saint Louis[207] +inhabits an atmosphere of mediæval Catholicism, which the man of the +nineteenth century may admire, indeed, may even passionately wish to +inhabit, but which, strive as he will, he cannot really inhabit. Alfred +belongs to a state of society (I say it with all deference to the +_Saturday Review_[208] critic who keeps such jealous watch over the +honor of our Saxon ancestors) half barbarous. Neither Alfred nor Saint +Louis can be morally and intellectually as near to us as Marcus +Aurelius. + +The record of the outward life of this admirable man has in it little of +striking incident. He was born at Rome on the 26th of April, in the year +121 of the Christian era. He was nephew and son-in-law to his +predecessor on the throne, Antoninus Pius. When Antoninus died, he was +forty years old, but from the time of his earliest manhood he had +assisted in administering public affairs. Then, after his uncle's death +in 161, for nineteen years he reigned as emperor. The barbarians were +pressing on the Roman frontier, and a great part of Marcus Aurelius's +nineteen years of reign was passed in campaigning. His absences from +Rome were numerous and long. We hear of him in Asia Minor, Syria, Egypt, +Greece; but, above all, in the countries on the Danube, where the war +with the barbarians was going on,--in Austria, Moravia, Hungary. In +these countries much of his Journal seems to have been written; parts of +it are dated from them; and there, a few weeks before his fifty-ninth +birthday, he fell sick and died.[209] The record of him on which his +fame chiefly rests is the record of his inward life,--his _Journal_, or +_Commentaries_, or _Meditations_, or _Thoughts_, for by all these names +has the work been called. Perhaps the most interesting of the records of +his outward life is that which the first book of this work supplies, +where he gives an account of his education, recites the names of those +to whom he is indebted for it, and enumerates his obligations to each of +them. It is a refreshing and consoling picture, a priceless treasure for +those, who, sick of the "wild and dreamlike trade of blood and guile," +which seems to be nearly the whole of what history has to offer to our +view, seek eagerly for that substratum of right thinking and well-doing +which in all ages must surely have somewhere existed, for without it the +continued life of humanity would have been impossible. "From my mother I +learnt piety and beneficence, and abstinence not only from evil deeds +but even from evil thoughts; and further, simplicity in my way of +living, far removed from the habits of the rich." Let us remember that, +the next time we are reading the sixth satire of Juvenal.[210] "From my +tutor I learnt" (hear it, ye tutors of princes!) "endurance of labor, +and to want little and to work with my own hands, and not to meddle with +other people's affairs, and not to be ready to listen to slander." The +vices and foibles of the Greek sophist or rhetorician--the _Græculus +esuriens_[211]--are in everybody's mind; but he who reads Marcus +Aurelius's account of his Greek teachers and masters, will understand +how it is that, in spite of the vices and foibles of individual +_Græculi_, the education of the human race owes to Greece a debt which +can never be overrated. The vague and colorless praise of history leaves +on the mind hardly any impression of Antoninus Pius: it is only from the +private memoranda of his nephew that we learn what a disciplined, +hard-working, gentle, wise, virtuous man he was; a man who, perhaps, +interests mankind less than his immortal nephew only because he has left +in writing no record of his inner life,--_caret quia vate sacro_.[212] + +Of the outward life and circumstances of Marcus Aurelius, beyond these +notices which he has himself supplied, there are few of much interest +and importance. There is the fine anecdote of his speech when he heard +of the assassination of the revolted Avidius Cassius,[213] against whom +he was marching; _he was sorry_, he said, _to be deprived of the +pleasure of pardoning him_. And there are one or two more anecdotes of +him which show the same spirit. But the great record for the outward +life of a man who has left such a record of his lofty inward aspirations +as that which Marcus Aurelius has left, is the clear consenting voice of +all his contemporaries,--high and low, friend and enemy, pagan and +Christian,--in praise of his sincerity, justice, and goodness. The +world's charity does not err on the side of excess, and here was a man +occupying the most conspicuous station in the world, and professing the +highest possible standard of conduct;--yet the world was obliged to +declare that he walked worthily of his profession. Long after his death, +his bust was to be seen in the houses of private men through the wide +Roman empire. It may be the vulgar part of human nature which busies +itself with the semblance and doings of living sovereigns, it is its +nobler part which busies itself with those of the dead; these busts of +Marcus Aurelius, in the homes of Gaul, Britain, and Italy, bear witness, +not to the inmates' frivolous curiosity about princes and palaces, but +to their reverential memory of the passage of a great man upon the +earth. + +Two things, however, before one turns from the outward to the inward +life of Marcus Aurelius, force themselves upon one's notice, and demand +a word of comment; he persecuted the Christians, and he had for his son +the vicious and brutal Commodus.[214] The persecution at Lyons, in which +Attalus[215] and Pothinus suffered, the persecution at Smyrna, in which +Polycarp[216] suffered, took place in his reign. Of his humanity, of his +tolerance, of his horror of cruelty and violence, of his wish to refrain +from severe measures against the Christians, of his anxiety to temper +the severity of these measures when they appeared to him indispensable, +there is no doubt: but, on the one hand, it is certain that the letter, +attributed to him, directing that no Christian should be punished for +being a Christian, is spurious; it is almost certain that his alleged +answer to the authorities of Lyons, in which he directs that Christians +persisting in their profession shall be dealt with according to law, is +genuine. Mr. Long seems inclined to try and throw doubt over the +persecution at Lyons, by pointing out that the letter of the Lyons +Christians relating it, alleges it to have been attended by miraculous +and incredible incidents. "A man," he says, "can only act consistently +by accepting all this letter or rejecting it all, and we cannot blame +him for either." But it is contrary to all experience to say that +because a fact is related with incorrect additions, and embellishments, +therefore it probably never happened at all; or that it is not, in +general, easy for an impartial mind to distinguish between the fact and +the embellishments. I cannot doubt that the Lyons persecution took +place, and that the punishment of Christians for being Christians was +sanctioned by Marcus Aurelius. But then I must add that nine modern +readers out of ten, when they read this, will, I believe, have a +perfectly false notion of what the moral action of Marcus Aurelius, in +sanctioning that punishment, really was. They imagine Trajan, or +Antoninus Pius, or Marcus Aurelius, fresh from the perusal of the +Gospel, fully aware of the spirit and holiness of the Christian saints, +ordering their extermination because he loved darkness rather than +light. Far from this, the Christianity which these emperors aimed at +repressing was, in their conception of it, something philosophically +contemptible, politically subversive, and morally abominable. As men, +they sincerely regarded it much as well-conditioned people, with us, +regard Mormonism; as rulers, they regarded it much as Liberal statesmen, +with us, regard the Jesuits. A kind of Mormonism, constituted as a vast +secret society, with obscure aims of political and social subversion, +was what Antoninus Pius and Marcus Aurelius believed themselves to be +repressing when they punished Christians. The early Christian apologists +again and again declare to us under what odious imputations the +Christians lay, how general was the belief that these imputations were +well-grounded, how sincere was the horror which the belief inspired. The +multitude, convinced that the Christians were atheists who ate human +flesh and thought incest no crime, displayed against them a fury so +passionate as to embarrass and alarm their rulers. The severe +expressions of Tacitus, _exitiabilis superstitio--odio humani generis +convicti_,[217] show how deeply the prejudices of the multitude imbued +the educated class also. One asks oneself with astonishment how a +doctrine so benign as that of Jesus Christ can have incurred +misrepresentation so monstrous. The inner and moving cause of the +misrepresentation lay, no doubt, in this,--that Christianity was a new +spirit in the Roman world, destined to act in that world as its +dissolvent; and it was inevitable that Christianity in the Roman world, +like democracy in the modern world, like every new spirit with a similar +mission assigned to it, should at its first appearance occasion an +instinctive shrinking and repugnance in the world which it was to +dissolve. The outer and palpable causes of the misrepresentation were, +for the Roman public at large, the confounding of the Christians with +the Jews, that isolated, fierce, and stubborn race, whose stubbornness, +fierceness, and isolation, real as they were, the fancy of a civilized +Roman yet further exaggerated; the atmosphere of mystery and novelty +which surrounded the Christian rites; the very simplicity of Christian +theism. For the Roman statesman, the cause of mistake lay in that +character of secret assemblages which the meetings of the Christian +community wore, under a State-system as jealous of unauthorized +associations as is the State-system of modern France. + +A Roman of Marcus Aurelius's time and position could not well see the +Christians except through the mist of these prejudices. Seen through +such a mist, the Christians appeared with a thousand faults not their +own; but it has not been sufficiently remarked that faults really their +own many of them assuredly appeared with besides, faults especially +likely to strike such an observer as Marcus Aurelius, and to confirm him +in the prejudices of his race, station, and rearing. We look back upon +Christianity after it has proved what a future it bore within it, and +for us the sole representatives of its early struggles are the pure and +devoted spirits through whom it proved this; Marcus Aurelius saw it with +its future yet unshown, and with the tares among its professed progeny +not less conspicuous than the wheat. Who can doubt that among the +professing Christians of the second century, as among the professing +Christians of the nineteenth, there was plenty of folly, plenty of rabid +nonsense, plenty of gross fanaticism? who will even venture to affirm +that, separated in great measure from the intellect and civilization of +the world for one or two centuries, Christianity, wonderful as have been +its fruits, had the development perfectly worthy of its inestimable +germ? Who will venture to affirm that, by the alliance of Christianity +with the virtue and intelligence of men like the Antonines,--of the best +product of Greek and Roman civilization, while Greek and Roman +civilization had yet life and power,--Christianity and the world, as +well as the Antonines themselves, would not have been gainers? That +alliance was not to be. The Antonines lived and died with an utter +misconception of Christianity; Christianity grew up in the Catacombs, +not on the Palatine. And Marcus Aurelius incurs no moral reproach by +having authorized the punishment of the Christians; he does not thereby +become in the least what we mean by a _persecutor_. One may concede that +it was impossible for him to see Christianity as it really was;--as +impossible as for even the moderate and sensible Fleury[218] to see the +Antonines as they really were;--one may concede that the point of view +from which Christianity appeared something anti-civil and anti-social, +which the State had the faculty to judge and the duty to suppress, was +inevitably his. Still, however, it remains true that this sage, who made +perfection his aim and reason his law, did Christianity an immense +injustice and rested in an idea of State-attributes which was illusive. +And this is, in truth, characteristic of Marcus Aurelius, that he is +blameless, yet, in a certain sense, unfortunate; in his character, +beautiful as it is, there is something melancholy, circumscribed, and +ineffectual. + +For of his having such a son as Commodus, too, one must say that he is +not to be blamed on that account, but that he is unfortunate. +Disposition and temperament are inexplicable things; there are natures +on which the best education and example are thrown away; excellent +fathers may have, without any fault of theirs, incurably vicious sons. +It is to be remembered, also, that Commodus was left, at the perilous +age of nineteen, master of the world; while his father, at that age, was +but beginning a twenty years' apprenticeship to wisdom, labor, and +self-command, under the sheltering teachership of his uncle Antoninus. +Commodus was a prince apt to be led by favorites; and if the story is +true which says that he left, all through his reign, the Christians +untroubled, and ascribes this lenity to the influence of his mistress +Marcia, it shows that he could be led to good as well as to evil. But +for such a nature to be left at a critical age with absolute power, and +wholly without good counsel and direction, was the more fatal. Still one +cannot help wishing that the example of Marcus Aurelius could have +availed more with his own only son. One cannot but think that with such +virtue as his there should go, too, the ardor which removes mountains, +and that the ardor which removes mountains might have even won Commodus. +The word _ineffectual_ again rises to one's mind; Marcus Aurelius saved +his own soul by his righteousness, and he could do no more. Happy they +who can do this! but still happier, who can do more! + +Yet, when one passes from his outward to his inward life, when one turns +over the pages of his _Meditations_,--entries jotted down from day to +day, amid the business of the city or the fatigues of the camp, for his +own guidance and support, meant for no eye but his own, without the +slightest attempt at style, with no care, even, for correct writing, not +to be surpassed for naturalness and sincerity,--all disposition to carp +and cavil dies away, and one is overpowered by the charm of a character +of such purity, delicacy, and virtue. He fails neither in small things +nor in great; he keeps watch over himself both that the great springs of +action may be right in him, and that the minute details of action may be +right also. How admirable in a hard-tasked ruler, and a ruler too, with +a passion for thinking and reading, is such a memorandum as the +following:-- + +"Not frequently nor without necessity to say to any one, or to write in +a letter, that I have no leisure; nor continually to excuse the neglect +of duties required by our relation to those with whom we live, by +alleging urgent occupation."[219] + +And, when that ruler is a Roman emperor, what an "idea" is this to be +written down and meditated by him:-- + +"The idea of a polity in which there is the same law for all, a polity +administered with regard to equal rights and equal freedom of speech, +and the idea of a kingly government which respects most of all the +freedom of the governed."[220] And, for all men who "drive at +practice," what practical rules may not one accumulate out of these +_Meditations_:-- + +"The greatest part of what we say or do being unnecessary, if a man +takes this away, he will have more leisure and less uneasiness. +Accordingly, on every occasion a man should ask himself: 'Is this one of +the unnecessary things?' Now a man should take away not only unnecessary +acts, but also unnecessary thoughts, for thus superfluous acts will not +follow after."[221] + +And again:-- + +"We ought to check in the series of our thoughts everything that is +without a purpose and useless, but most of all the over curious feeling +and the malignant; and a man should use himself to think of those things +only about which if one should suddenly ask, 'What hast thou now in thy +thoughts?' with perfect openness thou mightest immediately answer, 'This +or That'; so that from thy words it should be plain that everything in +thee is simple and benevolent, and such as befits a social animal, and +one that cares not for thoughts about sensual enjoyments, or any rivalry +or envy and suspicion, or anything else for which thou wouldst blush if +thou shouldst say thou hadst it in thy mind."[222] + +So, with a stringent practicalness worthy of Franklin, he discourses on +his favorite text, _Let nothing be done without a purpose_. But it is +when he enters the region where Franklin cannot follow him, when he +utters his thoughts on the ground-motives of human action, that he is +most interesting; that he becomes the unique, the incomparable Marcus +Aurelius. Christianity uses language very liable to be misunderstood +when it seems to tell men to do good, not, certainly, from the vulgar +motives of worldly interest, or vanity, or love of human praise, but +"that their Father which, seeth in secret may reward them openly." The +motives of reward and punishment have come, from the misconception of +language of this kind, to be strangely overpressed by many Christian +moralists, to the deterioration and disfigurement of Christianity. +Marcus Aurelius says, truly and nobly:-- + +"One man, when he has done a service to another, is ready to set it down +to his account as a favor conferred. Another is not ready to do this, +but still in his own mind he thinks of the man as his debtor, and he +knows what he has done. A third in a manner does not even know what he +has done, _but he is like a vine which has produced grapes, and seeks +for nothing more after it has once produced its proper fruit_. As a +horse when he has run, a dog when he has caught the game, a bee when it +has made its honey, so a man when he has done a good act, does not call +out for others to come and see, but he goes on to another act, as a vine +goes on to produce again the grapes in season. Must a man, then, be one +of these, who in a manner acts thus without observing it? Yes."[223] + +And again:-- + +"What more dost thou want when thou hast done a man a service? Art thou +not content that thou hast done something conformable to thy nature, and +dost thou seek to be paid for it, _just as if the eye demanded a +recompense for seeing, or the feet for walking_?"[224] + +Christianity, in order to match morality of this strain, has to correct +its apparent offers of external reward, and to say: _The kingdom of God +is within you._ + +I have said that it is by its accent of emotion that the morality of +Marcus Aurelius acquires a special character, and reminds one of +Christian morality. The sentences of Seneca[225] are stimulating to the +intellect; the sentences of Epictetus are fortifying to the character; +the sentences of Marcus Aurelius find their way to the soul. I have said +that religious emotion has the power to _light up_ morality: the emotion +of Marcus Aurelius does not quite light up his morality, but it suffuses +it; it has not power to melt the clouds of effort and austerity quite +away, but it shines through them and glorifies them; it is a spirit, not +so much of gladness and elation, as of gentleness and sweetness; a +delicate and tender sentiment, which is less than joy and more than +resignation. He says that in his youth he learned from Maximus, one of +his teachers, "cheerfulness in all circumstances as well as in illness; +_and a just admixture in the moral character of sweetness and dignity_": +and it is this very admixture of sweetness with his dignity which makes +him so beautiful a moralist. It enables him to carry even into his +observation of nature, a delicate penetration, a sympathetic tenderness, +worthy of Wordsworth; the spirit of such a remark as the following has +hardly a parallel, so far as my knowledge goes, in the whole range of +Greek and Roman literature:-- + +"Figs, when they are quite ripe, gape open; and in the ripe olives the +very circumstance of their being near to rottenness adds a peculiar +beauty to the fruit. And the ears of corn bending down, and the lion's +eyebrows, and the foam which flows from the mouth of wild boars, and +many other things,--though they are far from being beautiful, in a +certain sense,--still, because they come in the course of nature, have a +beauty in them, and they please the mind; so that if a man should have a +feeling and a deeper insight with respect to the things which are +produced in the universe, there is hardly anything which comes in the +course of nature which will not seem to him to be in a manner disposed +so as to give pleasure."[226] + +But it is when his strain passes to directly moral subjects that his +delicacy and sweetness lend to it the greatest charm. Let those who can +feel the beauty of spiritual refinement read this, the reflection of an +emperor who prized mental superiority highly:-- + +"Thou sayest, 'Men cannot admire the sharpness of thy wits.' Be it so; +but there are many other things of which thou canst not say, 'I am not +formed for them by nature.' Show those qualities, then, which are +altogether in thy power,--sincerity, gravity, endurance of labor, +aversion to pleasure, contentment with thy portion and with few things, +benevolence, frankness, no love of superfluity, freedom from trifling, +magnanimity. Dost thou not see how many qualities thou art at once able +to exhibit, as to which there is no excuse of natural incapacity and +unfitness, and yet thou still remainest voluntarily below the mark? Or +art thou compelled, through being defectively furnished by nature, to +murmur, and to be mean, and to flatter, and to find fault with thy poor +body, and to try to please men, and to make great display, and to be so +restless in thy mind? No, indeed; but thou mightest have been delivered +from these things long ago. Only, if in truth thou canst be charged with +being rather slow and dull of comprehension, thou must exert thyself +about this also, not neglecting nor yet taking pleasure in thy dulness." +[227] + +The same sweetness enables him to fix his mind, when he sees the +isolation and moral death caused by sin, not on the cheerless thought of +the misery of this condition, but on the inspiriting thought that man is +blest with the power to escape from it:-- + +"Suppose that thou hast detached thyself from the natural unity,--for +thou wast made by nature a part, but thou hast cut thyself off,--yet +here is this beautiful provision, that it is in thy power again to unite +thyself. God has allowed this to no other part,--after it has been +separated and cut asunder, to come together again. But consider the +goodness with which he has privileged man; for he has put it in his +power, when he has been separated, to return and to be united and to +resume his place."[228] + +It enables him to control even the passion for retreat and solitude, so +strong in a soul like his, to which the world could offer no abiding +city:-- + +"Men seek retreat for themselves, houses in the country, seashores, and +mountains; and thou, too, art wont to desire such things very much. But +this is altogether a mark of the most common sort of men, for it is in +thy power whenever thou shalt choose to retire into thyself. For nowhere +either with more quiet or more freedom from trouble does a man retire +than into his own soul, particularly when he has within him such +thoughts that by looking into them he is immediately in perfect +tranquillity. Constantly, then, give to thyself this retreat, and renew +thyself; and let thy principles be brief and fundamental, which as soon +as thou shalt recur to them, will be sufficient to cleanse the soul +completely, and to send thee back free from all discontent with the +things to which thou returnest."[229] + +Against this feeling of discontent and weariness, so natural to the +great for whom there seems nothing left to desire or to strive after, +but so enfeebling to them, so deteriorating, Marcus Aurelius never +ceased to struggle. With resolute thankfulness he kept in remembrance +the blessings of his lot; the true blessings of it, not the false:-- + +"I have to thank Heaven that I was subjected to a ruler and a father +(Antoninus Pius) who was able to take away all pride from me, and to +bring me to the knowledge that it is possible for a man to live in a +palace without either guards, or embroidered dresses, or any show of +this kind; but that it is in such a man's power to bring himself very +near to the fashion of a private person, without being for this reason +either meaner in thought or more remiss in action with respect to the +things which must be done for public interest.... I have to be thankful +that my children have not been stupid nor deformed in body; that I did +not make more proficiency in rhetoric, poetry, and the other studies, by +which I should perhaps have been completely engrossed, if I had seen +that I was making great progress in them; ... that I knew Apollonius, +Rusticus, Maximus; ... that I received clear and frequent impressions +about living according to nature, and what kind of a life that is, so +that, so far as depended on Heaven, and its gifts, help, and +inspiration, nothing hindered me from forthwith living according to +nature, though I still fall short of it through my own fault, and +through not observing the admonitions of Heaven, and, I may almost say, +its direct instructions; that my body has held out so long in such a +kind of life as mine; that though it was my mother's lot to die young, +she spent the last years of her life with me; that whenever I wished to +help any man in his need, I was never told that I had not the means of +doing it; that, when I had an inclination to philosophy, I did not fall +into the hands of a sophist."[230] + +And, as he dwelt with gratitude on these helps and blessings vouchsafed +to him, his mind (so, at least, it seems to me) would sometimes revert +with awe to the perils and temptations of the lonely height where he +stood, to the lives of Tiberius, Caligula, Nero, Domitian,[231] in their +hideous blackness and ruin; and then he wrote down for himself such a +warning entry as this, significant and terrible in its abruptness:-- + +"A black character, a womanish character, a stubborn character, bestial, +childish, animal, stupid, counterfeit, scurrilous, fraudulent, +tyrannical!"[232] + +Or this:-- + +"About what am I now employing my soul? On every occasion I must ask +myself this question, and inquire, What have I now in this part of me +which they call the ruling principle, and whose soul have I now?--that +of a child, or of a young man, or of a weak woman, or of a tyrant, or of +one of the lower animals in the service of man, or of a wild +beast?"[233] + +The character he wished to attain he knew well, and beautifully he has +marked it, and marked, too, his sense of shortcoming:-- + +"When thou hast assumed these names,--good, modest, true, rational, +equal-minded, magnanimous,--take care that thou dost not change these +names; and, if thou shouldst lose them, quickly return to them. If thou +maintainest thyself in possession of these names without desiring that +others should call thee by them, thou wilt be another being, and wilt +enter on another life. For to continue to be such as thou hast hitherto +been, and to be torn in pieces and defiled in such a life, is the +character of a very stupid man, and one overfond of his life, and like +those half-devoured fighters with wild beasts, who though covered with +wounds and gore still entreat to be kept to the following day, though +they will be exposed in the same state to the same claws and bites. +Therefore fix thyself in the possession of these few names: and if thou +art able to abide in them, abide as if thou wast removed to the Happy +Islands."[234] + +For all his sweetness and serenity, however, man's point of life +"between two infinities" (of that expression Marcus Aurelius is the real +owner) was to him anything but a Happy Island, and the performances on +it he saw through no veils of illusion. Nothing is in general more +gloomy and monotonous than declamations on the hollowness and +transitoriness of human life and grandeur: but here, too, the great +charm of Marcus Aurelius, his emotion, comes in to relieve the monotony +and to break through the gloom; and even on this eternally used topic he +is imaginative, fresh, and striking:-- + +"Consider, for example, the times of Vespasian. Thou wilt see all these +things, people marrying, bringing up children, sick, dying, warring, +feasting, trafficking, cultivating the ground, flattering, obstinately +arrogant, suspecting, plotting, wishing for somebody to die, grumbling +about the present, loving, heaping up treasure, desiring to be consuls +or kings. Well then that life of these people no longer exists at all. +Again, go to the times of Trajan. All is again the same. Their life too +is gone. But chiefly thou shouldst think of those whom thou hast thyself +known distracting themselves about idle things, neglecting to do what +was in accordance with their proper constitution, and to hold firmly to +this and to be content with it."[235] + +Again:-- + +"The things which are much valued in life are empty, and rotten, and +trifling; and people are like little dogs, biting one another, and +little children quarrelling, crying, and then straightway laughing. But +fidelity, and modesty, and justice, and truth, are fled + + 'Up to Olympus from the wide-spread earth.' + +What then is there which still detains thee here?"[236] + +And once more:-- + +"Look down from above on the countless herds of men, and their countless +solemnities, and the infinitely varied voyagings in storms and calms, +and the differences among those who are born, who live together, and +die. And consider too the life lived by others in olden time, and the +life now lived among barbarous nations, and how many know not even thy +name, and how many will soon forget it, and how they who perhaps now are +praising thee will very soon blame thee and that neither a posthumous +name is of any value, nor reputation, nor anything else."[237] + +He recognized, indeed, that (to use his own words) "the prime principle +in man's constitution is the social";[238] and he labored sincerely to +make not only his acts towards his fellow-men, but his thoughts also, +suitable to this conviction:-- + +"When thou wishest to delight thyself, think of the virtues of those who +live with thee; for instance, the activity of one, and the modesty of +another, and the liberality of a third, and some other good quality of a +fourth."[239] + +Still, it is hard for a pure and thoughtful man to live in a state of +rapture at the spectacle afforded to him by his fellow-creatures; above +all it is hard, when such a man is placed as Marcus Aurelius was placed, +and has had the meanness and perversity of his fellow-creatures thrust, +in no common measure, upon his notice,--has had, time after time, to +experience how "within ten days thou wilt seem a god to those to whom +thou art now a beast and an ape." His true strain of thought as to his +relations with his fellow-men is rather the following. He has been +enumerating the higher consolations which may support a man at the +approach of death, and he goes on:-- + +"But if thou requirest also a vulgar kind of comfort which shall reach +thy heart, thou wilt be made best reconciled to death by observing the +objects from which thou art going to be removed, and the morals of those +with whom thy soul will no longer be mingled. For it is no way right to +be offended with men, but it is thy duty to care for them and to bear +with them gently; and yet to remember that thy departure will not be +from men who have the same principles as thyself. For this is the only +thing, if there be any, which could draw us the contrary way and attach +us to life, to be permitted to live with those who have the same +principles as ourselves. But now thou seest how great is the distress +caused by the difference of those who live together, so that thou mayest +say: 'Come quick, O death, lest perchance I too should forget +myself.'"[240] + +_O faithless and perverse generation! how long shall I be with you? how +long shall I suffer you?_[241] Sometimes this strain rises even to +passion:-- + +"Short is the little which remains to thee of life. Live as on a +mountain. Let men see, let them know, a real man, who lives as he was +meant to live. If they cannot endure him, let them kill him. For that is +better than to live as men do."[242] + +It is remarkable how little of a merely local and temporary character, +how little of those _scoriæ_ which a reader has to clear away before he +gets to the precious ore, how little that even admits of doubt or +question, the morality of Marcus Aurelius exhibits. Perhaps as to one +point we must make an exception. Marcus Aurelius is fond of urging as a +motive for man's cheerful acquiescence in whatever befalls him, that +"whatever happens to every man _is for the interest of the +universal_";[243] that the whole contains nothing _which is not for its +advantage_; that everything which happens to a man is to be accepted, +"even if it seems disagreeable, _because it leads to the health of the +universe_."[244] And the whole course of the universe, he adds, has a +providential reference to man's welfare: "_all other things have been +made for the sake of rational beings_."[245] Religion has in all ages +freely used this language, and it is not religion which will object to +Marcus Aurelius's use of it; but science can hardly accept as severely +accurate this employment of the terms _interest_ and _advantage_. To a +sound nature and a clear reason the proposition that things happen "for +the interest of the universal," as men conceive of interest, may seem to +have no meaning at all, and the proposition that "all things have been +made for the sake of rational beings" may seem to be false. Yet even to +this language, not irresistibly cogent when it is thus absolutely used, +Marcus Aurelius gives a turn which makes it true and useful, when he +says: "The ruling part of man can make a material for itself out of that +which opposes it, as fire lays hold of what falls into it, and rises +higher by means of this very material";[246]--when he says: "What else +are all things except exercises for the reason? Persevere then until +thou shalt have made all things thine own, as the stomach which is +strengthened makes all things its own, as the blazing fire makes flame +and brightness out of everything that is thrown into it";[247]--when he +says: "Thou wilt not cease to be miserable till thy mind is in such a +condition, that, what luxury is to those who enjoy pleasure, such shall +be to thee, in every matter which presents itself, the doing of the +things which are conformable to man's constitution; for a man ought to +consider as an enjoyment everything which it is in his power to do +according to his own nature,--and it is in his power everywhere."[248] +In this sense it is, indeed, most true that "all things have been made +for the sake of rational beings"; that "all things work together for +good." + +In general, however, the action Marcus Aurelius prescribes is action +which every sound nature must recognize as right, and the motives he +assigns are motives which every clear reason must recognize as valid. +And so he remains the especial friend and comforter of all clear-headed +and scrupulous, yet pure-hearted and upward striving men, in those ages +most especially that walk by sight, not by faith, but yet have no open +vision. He cannot give such souls, perhaps, all they yearn for, but he +gives them much; and what he gives them, they can receive. + +Yet no, it is not for what he thus gives them that such souls love him +most! it is rather because of the emotion which lends to his voice so +touching an accent, it is because he too yearns as they do for something +unattained by him. What an affinity for Christianity had this persecutor +of the Christians! The effusion of Christianity, its relieving tears, +its happy self-sacrifice, were the very element, one feels, for which +his soul longed; they were near him, they brushed him, he touched them, +he passed them by. One feels, too, that the Marcus Aurelius one reads +must still have remained, even had Christianity been fully known to him, +in a great measure himself; he would have been no Justin;--but how would +Christianity have affected him? in what measure would it have changed +him? Granted that he might have found, like the _Alogi_[249] of modern +times, in the most beautiful of the Gospels, the Gospel which has +leavened Christendom most powerfully, the Gospel of St. John, too much +Greek metaphysics, too much _gnosis_;[250] granted that this Gospel +might have looked too like what he knew already to be a total surprise +to him: what, then, would he have said to the Sermon on the Mount, to +the twenty-sixth chapter of St. Matthew? What would have become of his +notions of the _exitiabilis superstitio_, of the "obstinacy of the +Christians"? Vain question! yet the greatest charm of Marcus Aurelius is +that he makes us ask it. We see him wise, just, self-governed, tender, +thankful, blameless; yet, with all this, agitated, stretching out his +arms for something beyond,--_tendentemque manus ripæ ulterioris +amore_.[251] + + + +THE CONTRIBUTION OF THE CELTS TO ENGLISH LITERATURE[252] + + +If I were asked where English poetry got these three things, its turn +for style, its turn for melancholy, and its turn for natural magic, for +catching and rendering the charm of nature in a wonderfully near and +vivid way,--I should answer, with some doubt, that it got much of its +turn for style from a Celtic source; with less doubt, that it got much +of its melancholy from a Celtic source; with no doubt at all, that from +a Celtic source it got nearly all its natural magic. + +Any German with penetration and tact in matters of literary criticism +will own that the principal deficiency of German poetry is in style; +that for style, in the highest sense, it shows but little feeling. Take +the eminent masters of style, the poets who best give the idea of what +the peculiar power which lies in style is--Pindar, Virgil, Dante, +Milton. An example of the peculiar effect which these poets produce, you +can hardly give from German poetry. Examples enough you can give from +German poetry of the effect produced by genius, thought, and feeling +expressing themselves in clear language, simple language, passionate +language, eloquent language, with harmony and melody: but not of the +peculiar effect exercised by eminent power of style. Every reader of +Dante can at once call to mind what the peculiar effect I mean is; I +spoke of it in my lectures on translating Homer, and there I took an +example of it from Dante, who perhaps manifests it more eminently than +any other poet. + +But from Milton, too, one may take examples of it abundantly; compare +this from Milton:-- + + "... nor sometimes forget + Those other two equal with me in fate, + So were I equall'd with them in renown, + Blind Thamyris and blind Mæonides--"[253] + +with this from Goethe:-- + + "Es bildet ein Talent sich in der Stille, + Sich ein Character in dem Strom der Welt."[254] + +Nothing can be better in its way than the style in which Goethe there +presents his thought, but it is the style of prose as much as of poetry; +it is lucid, harmonious, earnest, eloquent, but it has not received that +peculiar kneading, heightening, and recasting which is observable in the +style of the passage from Milton--a style which seems to have for its +cause a certain pressure of emotion, and an ever-surging, yet bridled, +excitement in the poet, giving a special intensity to his way of +delivering himself. In poetical races and epochs this turn for style is +peculiarly observable; and perhaps it is only on condition of having +this somewhat heightened and difficult manner, so different from the +plain manner of prose, that poetry gets the privilege of being loosed, +at its best moments, into that perfectly simple, limpid style, which is +the supreme style of all, but the simplicity of which is still not the +simplicity of prose. The simplicity of Menander's[255] style is the +simplicity of prose, and is the same kind of simplicity as that which +Goethe's style, in the passage I have quoted, exhibits; but Menander +does not belong to a great poetical moment, he comes too late for it; it +is the simple passages in poets like Pindar or Dante which are perfect, +being masterpieces of _poetical_ simplicity. One may say the same of the +simple passages in Shakespeare; they are perfect, their simplicity being +a _poetical_ simplicity. They are the golden, easeful, crowning moments +of a manner which is always pitched in another key from that of prose, a +manner changed and heightened; the Elizabethan style, regnant in most of +our dramatic poetry to this day, is mainly the continuation of this +manner of Shakespeare's. It was a manner much more turbid and strewn +with blemishes than the manner of Pindar, Dante, or Milton; often it was +detestable; but it owed its existence to Shakespeare's instinctive +impulse towards _style_ in poetry, to his native sense of the necessity +for it; and without the basis of style everywhere, faulty though it may +in some places be, we should not have had the beauty of expression, +unsurpassable for effectiveness and charm, which is reached in +Shakespeare's best passages. The turn for style is perceptible all +through English poetry, proving, to my mind, the genuine poetical gift +of the race; this turn imparts to our poetry a stamp of high +distinction, and sometimes it doubles the force of a poet not by nature +of the very highest order, such as Gray, and raises him to a rank beyond +what his natural richness and power seem to promise. Goethe, with his +fine critical perception, saw clearly enough both the power of style in +itself, and the lack of style in the literature of his own country; and +perhaps if we regard him solely as a German, not as a European, his +great work was that he labored all his life to impart style into German +literature, and firmly to establish it there. Hence the immense +importance to him of the world of classical art, and of the productions +of Greek or Latin genius, where style so eminently manifests its power. +Had he found in the German genius and literature an element of style +existing by nature and ready to his hand, half his work, one may say, +would have been saved him, and he might have done much more in poetry. +But as it was, he had to try and create, out of his own powers, a style +for German poetry, as well as to provide contents for this style to +carry; and thus his labor as a poet was doubled. + +It is to be observed that power of style, in the sense in which I am +here speaking of style, is something quite different from the power of +idiomatic, simple, nervous, racy expression, such as the expression of +healthy, robust natures so often is, such as Luther's was in a striking +degree. Style, in my sense of the word, is a peculiar recasting and +heightening, under a certain condition of spiritual excitement, of what +a man has to say, in such a manner as to add dignity and distinction to +it; and dignity and distinction are not terms which suit many acts or +words of Luther. Deeply touched with the _Gemeinheit_[256] which is the +bane of his nation, as he is at the same time a grand example of the +honesty which is his nation's excellence, he can seldom even show +himself brave, resolute, and truthful, without showing a strong dash of +coarseness and commonness all the while; the right definition of Luther, +as of our own Bunyan, is that he is a Philistine of genius. So Luther's +sincere idiomatic German,--such language as this: "Hilf, lieber Gott, +wie manchen Jammer habe ich gesehen, dass der gemeine Mann doch so gar +nichts weiss von der christlichen Lehre!"--no more proves a power of +style in German literature, than Cobbett's[257] sinewy idiomatic English +proves it in English literature. Power of style, properly so-called, as +manifested in masters of style like Dante or Milton in poetry, Cicero, +Bossuet[258] or Bolingbroke[259] in prose, is something quite different, +and has, as I have said, for its characteristic effect, this: to add +dignity and distinction. + + * * * * * + +This something is _style_, and the Celts certainly have it in a +wonderful measure. Style is the most striking quality of their poetry. +Celtic poetry seems to make up to itself for being unable to master the +world and give an adequate interpretation of it, by throwing all its +force into style, by bending language at any rate to its will, and +expressing the ideas it has with unsurpassable intensity, elevation, and +effect. It has all through it a sort of intoxication of style--a +_Pindarism_, to use a word formed from the name of the poet, on whom, +above all other poets, the power of style seems to have exercised an +inspiring and intoxicating effect; and not in its great poets only, in +Taliesin, or Llywarch Hen, or Ossian,[260] does the Celtic genius show +this Pindarism, but in all its productions:-- + + "The grave of March is this, and this the grave of Gwythyr; + Here is the grave of Gwgawn Gleddyfreidd; + But unknown is the grave of Arthur."[261] + +That comes from the _Welsh Memorials of the Graves of the Warriors_, and +if we compare it with the familiar memorial inscriptions of an English +churchyard (for we English have so much Germanism in us that our +productions offer abundant examples of German want of style as well as +of its opposite):-- + + "Afflictions sore long time I bore, + Physicians were in vain, + Till God did please Death should me seize + And ease me of my pain--" + +if, I say, we compare the Welsh memorial lines with the English, which +in their _Gemeinheit_ of style are truly Germanic, we shall get a clear +sense of what that Celtic talent for style I have been speaking of is. + + * * * * * + +Its chord of penetrating passion and melancholy, again, its _Titanism_ +as we see it in Byron,--what other European poetry possesses that like +the English, and where do we get it from? The Celts, with their vehement +reaction against the despotism of fact, with their sensuous nature, +their manifold striving, their adverse destiny, their immense +calamities, the Celts are the prime authors of this vein of piercing +regret and passion,--of this Titanism in poetry. A famous book, +Macpherson's _Ossian_,[262] carried in the last century this vein like a +flood of lava through Europe. I am not going to criticize Macpherson's +_Ossian_ here. Make the part of what is forged, modern, tawdry, +spurious, in the book, as large as you please; strip Scotland, if you +like, of every feather of borrowed plumes which on the strength of +Macpherson's _Ossian_ she may have stolen from that _vetus et major +Scotia_, the true home of the Ossianic poetry, Ireland; I make no +objection. But there will still be left in the book a residue with the +very soul of the Celtic genius in it, and which has the proud +distinction of having brought this soul of the Celtic genius into +contact with the genius of the nations of modern Europe, and enriched +all our poetry by it. Woody Morven, and echoing Sora, and Selma with its +silent halls!--we all owe them a debt of gratitude, and when we are +unjust enough to forget it, may the Muse forget us! Choose any one of +the better passages in Macpherson's _Ossian_ and you can see even at +this time of day what an apparition of newness and power such a strain +must have been to the eighteenth century:-- + +"I have seen the walls of Balclutha, but they were desolate. The fox +looked out from the windows, the rank grass of the wall waved round her +head. Raise the song of mourning, O bards, over the land of strangers. +They have but fallen before us, for one day we must fall. Why dost thou +build the hall, son of the winged days? Thou lookest from thy towers +today; yet a few years, and the blast of the desert comes; it howls in +thy empty court, and whistles round thy half-worn shield. Let the blast +of the desert come! we shall be renowned in our day." + +All Europe felt the power of that melancholy; but what I wish to point +out is, that no nation of Europe so caught in its poetry the passionate +penetrating accent of the Celtic genius, its strain of Titanism, as the +English. Goethe, like Napoleon, felt the spell of Ossian very +powerfully, and he quotes a long passage from him in his _Werther_.[263] +But what is there Celtic, turbulent, and Titanic about the German +Werther, that amiable, cultivated and melancholy young man, having for +his sorrow and suicide the perfectly definite motive that Lotte cannot +be his? Faust, again, has nothing unaccountable, defiant, and Titanic in +him; his knowledge does not bring him the satisfaction he expected from +it, and meanwhile he finds himself poor and growing old, and balked of +the palpable enjoyment of life; and here is the motive for Faust's +discontent. In the most energetic and impetuous of Goethe's creations,-- +his _Prometheus_,[264]--it is not Celtic self-will and passion, it is +rather the Germanic sense of justice and reason, which revolts against +the despotism of Zeus. The German _Sehnsucht_ itself is a wistful, soft, +tearful longing, rather than a struggling, fierce, passionate one. But +the Celtic melancholy is struggling, fierce, passionate; to catch its +note, listen to Llywarch Hen in old age, addressing his crutch:-- + +"O my crutch! is it not autumn, when the fern is red, the water-flag +yellow? Have I not hated that which I love? + +O my crutch! is it not winter-time now, when men talk together after +that they have drunken? Is not the side of my bed left desolate? + +O my crutch! is it not spring, when the cuckoo passes through the air, +when the foam sparkles on the sea? The young maidens no longer love me. + +O my crutch! is it not the first day of May? The furrows, are they not +shining; the young corn, is it not springing? Ah! the sight of thy +handle makes me wroth. + +O my crutch! stand straight, thou wilt support me the better; it is very +long since I was Llywarch. + +Behold old age, which makes sport of me, from the hair of my head to my +teeth, to my eyes, which women loved. + +The four things I have all my life most hated fall upon me together,-- +coughing and old age, sickness and sorrow. + +I am old, I am alone, shapeliness and warmth are gone from me; the couch +of honor shall be no more mine; I am miserable, I am bent on my crutch. + +How evil was the lot allotted to Llywarch, the night when he was brought +forth! sorrows without end, and no deliverance from his burden."[265] + +There is the Titanism of the Celt, his passionate, turbulent, +indomitable reaction against the despotism of fact; and of whom does it +remind us so much as of Byron? + + "The fire which on my bosom preys + Is lone as some volcanic isle; + No torch is kindled at its blaze; + A funeral pile!"[266] + +Or, again:-- + + "Count o'er the joys thine hours have seen, + Count o'er thy days from anguish free, + And know, whatever thou hast been, + 'Tis something better not to be."[267] + +One has only to let one's memory begin to fetch passages from Byron +striking the same note as that passage from Llywarch Hen, and she will +not soon stop. And all Byron's heroes, not so much in collision with +outward things, as breaking on some rock of revolt and misery in the +depths of their own nature; Manfred, self-consumed, fighting blindly and +passionately with I know not what, having nothing of the consistent +development and intelligible motive of Faust,--Manfred, Lara, Cain,[268] +what are they but Titanic? Where in European poetry are we to find this +Celtic passion of revolt so warm-breathing, puissant, and sincere; +except perhaps in the creation of a yet greater poet than Byron, but an +English poet, too, like Byron,--in the Satan of Milton? + + "... What though the field be lost? + All is not lost; the unconquerable will, + And study of revenge, immortal hate, + And courage never to submit or yield, + And what is else not to be overcome."[269] + +There, surely, speaks a genius to whose composition the Celtic fibre was +not wholly a stranger! + + * * * * * + +The Celt's quick feeling for what is noble and distinguished gave his +poetry style; his indomitable personality gave it pride and passion; his +sensibility and nervous exaltation gave it a better gift still, the gift +of rendering with wonderful felicity the magical charm of nature. The +forest solitude, the bubbling spring, the wild flowers, are everywhere +in romance. They have a mysterious life and grace there; they are +Nature's own children, and utter her secret in a way which makes them +something quite different from the woods, waters, and plants of Greek +and Latin poetry. Now of this delicate magic, Celtic romance is so +pre-eminent a mistress, that it seems impossible to believe the power +did not come into romance from the Celts.[270] Magic is just the word +for it,--the magic of nature; not merely the beauty of nature,--that the +Greeks and Latins had; not merely an honest smack of the soil, a +faithful realism,--that the Germans had; but the intimate life of +Nature, her weird power and her fairy charm. As the Saxon names of +places, with the pleasant wholesome smack of the soil in them,-- +Weathersfield, Thaxted, Shalford,--are to the Celtic names of places, +with their penetrating, lofty beauty,--Velindra, Tyntagel, Caernarvon,-- +so is the homely realism of German and Norse nature to the fairy-like +loveliness of Celtic nature. Gwydion wants a wife for his pupil: "Well," +says Math, "we will seek, I and thou, by charms and illusions, to form a +wife for him out of flowers. So they took the blossoms of the oak, and +the blossoms of the broom, and the blossoms of the meadow-sweet, and +produced from them a maiden, the fairest and most graceful that +man ever saw. And they baptized her, and gave her the name of +Flower-Aspect."[271] Celtic romance is full of exquisite touches like +that, showing the delicacy of the Celt's feeling in these matters, and +how deeply Nature lets him come into her secrets. The quick dropping of +blood is called "faster than the fall of the dewdrop from the blade of +reed-grass upon the earth, when the dew of June is at the heaviest." And +thus is Olwen described: "More yellow was her hair than the flower of +the broom, and her skin was whiter than the foam of the wave, and fairer +were her hands and her fingers than the blossoms of the wood-anemony +amidst the spray of the meadow fountains."[272] For loveliness it would +be hard to beat that; and for magical clearness and nearness take the +following:-- + +"And in the evening Peredur entered a valley, and at the head of the +valley he came to a hermit's cell, and the hermit welcomed him gladly, +and there he spent the night. And in the morning he arose, and when he +went forth, behold, a shower of snow had fallen the night before, and a +hawk had killed a wild-fowl in front of the cell. And the noise of the +horse scared the hawk away, and a raven alighted upon the bird. And +Peredur stood and compared the blackness of the raven, and the whiteness +of the snow, and the redness of the blood, to the hair of the lady whom +best he loved, which was blacker than the raven, and to her skin, which +was whiter than the snow, and to her two cheeks which were redder than +the blood upon the snow appeared to be."[273] + +And this, which is perhaps less striking, is not less beautiful:-- + +"And early in the day Geraint and Enid left the wood, and they came to +an open country, with meadows on one hand and mowers mowing the meadows. +And there was a river before them, and the horses bent down and drank +the water. And they went up out of the river by a steep bank, and there +they met a slender stripling with a satchel about his neck; and he had a +small blue pitcher in his hand, and a bowl on the mouth of the +pitcher."[274] + +And here the landscape, up to this point so Greek in its clear beauty, +is suddenly magicalized by the romance touch,-- + +"And they saw a tall tree by the side of the river, one-half of which +was in flames from the root to the top, and the other half was green and +in full leaf." + +Magic is the word to insist upon,--a magically vivid and near +interpretation of nature; since it is this which constitutes the special +charm and power of the effect I am calling attention to, and it is for +this that the Celt's sensibility gives him a peculiar aptitude. But the +matter needs rather fine handling, and it is easy to make mistakes here +in our criticism. In the first place, Europe tends constantly to become +more and more one community, and we tend to become Europeans instead of +merely Englishmen, Frenchmen, Germans, Italians; so whatever aptitude or +felicity one people imparts into spiritual work, gets imitated by the +others, and thus tends to become the common property of all. Therefore +anything so beautiful and attractive as the natural magic I am speaking +of, is sure, nowadays, if it appears in the productions of the Celts, or +of the English, or of the French, to appear in the productions of the +Germans also, or in the productions of the Italians; but there will be a +stamp of perfectness and inimitableness about it in the literatures +where it is native, which it will not have in the literatures where it +is not native. Novalis[275] or Rückert,[276] for instance, have their +eye fixed on nature, and have undoubtedly a feeling for natural magic; a +rough-and-ready critic easily credits them and the Germans with the +Celtic fineness of tact, the Celtic nearness to nature and her secret; +but the question is whether the strokes in the German's picture of +nature[277] have ever the indefinable delicacy, charm, and perfection of +the Celt's touch in the pieces I just now quoted, or of Shakespeare's +touch in his daffodil,[278] Wordsworth's in his cuckoo,[279] Keats's in +his Autumn, Obermann's in his mountain birch-tree, or his Easter-daisy +among the Swiss farms.[280] To decide where the gift for natural magic +originally lies, whether it is properly Celtic or Germanic, we must +decide this question. + +In the second place, there are many ways of handling nature, and we are +here only concerned with one of them; but a rough-and-ready critic +imagines that it is all the same so long as nature is handled at all, +and fails to draw the needful distinction between modes of handling her. +But these modes are many; I will mention four of them now: there is the +conventional way of handling nature, there is the faithful way of +handling nature, there is the Greek way of handling nature, there is the +magical way of handling nature. In all these three last the eye is on +the object, but with a difference; in the faithful way of handling +nature, the eye is on the object, and that is all you can say; in the +Greek, the eye is on the object, but lightness and brightness are added; +in the magical, the eye is on the object, but charm and magic are added. +In the conventional way of handling nature, the eye is not on the +object; what that means we all know, we have only to think of our +eighteenth-century poetry:-- + + "As when the moon, refulgent lamp of night--"[281] + +to call up any number of instances. Latin poetry supplies plenty of +instances too; if we put this from Propertius's _Hylas_:-- + + + "... manus heroum ... + Mollia composita litora fronde tegit--"[282] + + +side by side with the line of Theocritus by which it was suggested:-- + +[Greek: leimon gar sphin ekeito megas, stibadessin oneiar--][283] + + +we get at the same moment a good specimen both of the conventional and +of the Greek way of handling nature. But from our own poetry we may get +specimens of the Greek way of handling nature, as well as of the +conventional: for instance, Keats's:-- + + "What little town by river or seashore, + Or mountain-built with quiet citadel, + Is emptied of its folk, this pious morn?"[284] + +is Greek, as Greek as a thing from Homer or Theocritus; it is composed +with the eye on the object, a radiancy and light clearness being added. +German poetry abounds in specimens of the faithful way of handling +nature; an excellent example is to be found in the stanzas called +_Zueignung_[285], prefixed to Goethe's poems; the morning walk, the +mist, the dew, the sun, are as faithful as they can be, they are given +with the eye on the object, but there the merit of the work, as a +handling of nature, stops; neither Greek radiance nor Celtic magic is +added; the power of these is not what gives the poem in question its +merit, but a power of quite another kind, a power of moral and spiritual +emotion. But the power of Greek radiance Goethe could give to his +handling of nature, and nobly too, as any one who will read his +_Wanderer_,--the poem in which a wanderer falls in with a peasant woman +and her child by their hut, built out of the ruins of a temple near +Cuma,--may see. Only the power of natural magic Goethe does not, I +think, give; whereas Keats passes at will from the Greek power to that +power which is, as I say, Celtic; from his + + "What little town, by river or seashore--" + +to his + + "White hawthorn and the pastoral eglantine, + Fast-fading violets cover'd up in leaves--"[286] + +or his + + "... magic casements, opening on the foam + Of perilous seas, in fairy lands forlorn--"[287] + +in which the very same note is struck as in those extracts which I +quoted from Celtic romance, and struck with authentic and unmistakable +power. + +Shakespeare, in handling nature, touches this Celtic note so +exquisitely, that perhaps one is inclined to be always looking for the +Celtic note in him, and not to recognize his Greek note when it comes. +But if one attends well to the difference between the two notes, and +bears in mind, to guide one, such things as Virgil's "moss-grown springs +and grass softer than sleep:"-- + + "Muscosi fontes et somno mollior herba--"[288] + +as his charming flower-gatherer, who-- + + "Pallentes violas et summa papavera carpens + Narcissum et florem jungit bene olentis anethi--"[289] + +as his quinces and chestnuts:-- + + " ... cana legam tenera lanugine mala + Castaneasque nuces ..."[290] + +then, I think, we shall be disposed to say that in Shakespeare's + + "I know a bank where the wild thyme blows, + Where oxlips and the nodding violet grows, + Quite over-canopied with luscious woodbine, + With sweet musk-roses and with eglantine--"[291] + +it is mainly a Greek note which is struck. Then, again in his + + " ... look how the floor of heaven + Is thick inlaid with patines of bright gold!"[292] + +we are at the very point of transition from the Greek note to the +Celtic; there is the Greek clearness and brightness, with the Celtic +aërialness and magic coming in. Then we have the sheer, inimitable +Celtic note in passages like this:-- + + "Met we on hill, in dale, forest or mead, + By paved fountain or by rushy brook, + Or in the beached margent of the sea--"[293] + +or this, the last I will quote:-- + + "The moon shines bright. In such a night as this, + When the sweet wind did gently kiss the trees, + And they did make no noise, in such a night + Troilus, methinks, mounted the Trojan walls-- + + ... in such a night + Did Thisbe fearfully o'ertrip the dew-- + ... in such a night + _Stood Dido, with a willow in her hand, + Upon the wild sea-banks, and waved her love + To come again to Carthage._"[294] + +And those last lines of all are so drenched and intoxicated with the +fairy-dew of that natural magic which is our theme, that I cannot do +better than end with them. + +And now, with the pieces of evidence in our hand, let us go to those who +say it is vain to look for Celtic elements in any Englishman, and let us +ask them, first, if they seize what we mean by the power of natural +magic in Celtic poetry: secondly, if English poetry does not eminently +exhibit this power; and, thirdly, where they suppose English poetry got +it from? + + + +GEORGE SAND[295] + + +The months go round, and anniversaries return; on the ninth of June +George Sand will have been dead just one year. She was born in 1804; she +was almost seventy-two years old when she died. She came to Paris after +the revolution of 1830, with her _Indiana_[296] written, and began her +life of independence, her life of authorship, her life as _George Sand_. +She continued at work till she died. For forty-five years she was +writing and publishing, and filled Europe with her name. + +It seems to me but the other day that I saw her, yet it was in the +August of 1846, more than thirty years ago. I saw her in her own Berry, +at Nohant,[297] where her childhood and youth were passed, where she +returned to live after she became famous, where she died and has now her +grave. There must be many who, after reading her books, have felt the +same desire which in those days of my youth, in 1846, took me to Nohant, +--the desire to see the country and the places of which the books that +so charmed us were full. Those old provinces of the centre of France, +primitive and slumbering,--Berry, La Marche, Bourbonnais; those sites +and streams in them, of name once so indifferent to us, but to which +George Sand gave such a music for our ear,--La Châtre, Ste. Sévère, the +_Vallée Noire_, the Indre, the Creuse; how many a reader of George Sand +must have desired, as I did, after frequenting them so much in thought, +fairly to set eyes upon them! + +I had been reading _Jeanne_.[298] I made up my mind to go and see Toulx +Ste. Croix, Boussac, and the Druidical stones on Mont Barlot, the +_Pierres Jaunâtres_.[299] + +I remember looking out Toulx in Cassini's great map[300] at the +Bodleian Library. The railway through the centre of France went in those +days no farther than Vierzon. From Vierzon to Châteauroux one travelled +by an ordinary diligence, from Châteauroux to La Châtre by a humbler +diligence, from La Châtre to Boussac by the humblest diligence of all. +At Boussac diligence ended, and _patache_[301] began. Between +Châteauroux and La Châtre, a mile or two before reaching the latter +place, the road passes by the village of Nohant. The Château of Nohant, +in which Madame Sand lived, is a plain house by the road-side, with a +walled garden. Down in the meadows, not far off, flows the Indre, +bordered by trees. I passed Nohant without stopping, at La Châtre I +dined and changed diligence, and went on by night up the valley of the +Indre, the _Vallée Noire_, past Ste. Sévère to Boussac. At Ste. Sévère +the Indre is quite a small stream. In the darkness we quitted its +valley, and when day broke we were in the wilder and barer country of La +Marche, with Boussac before us, and its high castle on a precipitous +rock over the Little Creuse. + +That day and the next I wandered through a silent country of heathy and +ferny _landes_,[302] a region of granite boulders, holly, and broom, of +copsewood and great chestnut trees; a region of broad light, and fresh +breezes and wide horizons. I visited the _Pierres Jaunâtres._ I stood at +sunset on the platform of Toulx Ste. Croix, by the scrawled and almost +effaced stone lions,--a relic, it is said, of the English rule,--and +gazed on the blue mountains of Auvergne filling the distance, and +southeastward of them, in a still further and fainter distance, on what +seemed to be the mountains over Le Puy and the high valley of the Loire. + +From Boussac I addressed to Madame Sand the sort of letter of which she +must in her lifetime have had scores, a letter conveying to her, in bad +French, the homage of a youthful and enthusiastic foreigner who had read +her works with delight. She received the infliction good-naturedly, for +on my return to La Châtre I found a message left at the inn by a servant +from Nohant that Madame Sand would be glad to see me if I called. The +mid-day breakfast at Nohant was not yet over when I reached the house, +and I found a large party assembled. I entered with some trepidation, as +well I might, considering how I had got there; but the simplicity of +Madame Sand's manner put me at ease in a moment. She named some of those +present; amongst them were her son and daughter, the Maurice and Solange +[303] so familiar to us from her books, and Chopin[304] with his +wonderful eyes. There was at that time nothing astonishing in Madame +Sand's appearance. She was not in man's clothes, she wore a sort of +costume not impossible, I should think (although on these matters I +speak with hesitation), to members of the fair sex at this hour amongst +ourselves, as an outdoor dress for the country or for Scotland. She made +me sit by her and poured out for me the insipid and depressing beverage, +_boisson fade et mélancolique_, as Balzac called it, for which English +people are thought abroad to be always thirsting,--tea. She conversed of +the country through which I had been wandering, of the Berry peasants +and their mode of life, of Switzerland, whither I was going; she touched +politely, by a few questions and remarks, upon England and things and +persons English,--upon Oxford and Cambridge, Byron, Bulwer. As she +spoke, her eyes, head, bearing, were all of them striking; but the main +impression she made was an impression of what I have already mentioned, +--of _simplicity_, frank, cordial simplicity. After breakfast she led +the way into the garden, asked me a few kind questions about myself and +my plans, gathered a flower or two and gave them to me, shook hands +heartily at the gate, and I saw her no more. In 1859 M. Michelet[305] +gave me a letter to her, which would have enabled me to present myself +in more regular fashion. Madame Sand was then in Paris. But a day or two +passed before I could call, and when I called, Madame Sand had left +Paris and had gone back to Nohant. The impression of 1846 has remained +my single impression of her. + +Of her gaze, form, and speech, that one impression is enough; better +perhaps than a mixed impression from seeing her at sundry times and +after successive changes. But as the first anniversary of her death +[306] draws near, there arises again a desire which I felt when she +died, the desire, not indeed to take a critical survey of her,--very far +from it. I feel no inclination at all to go regularly through her +productions, to classify and value them one by one, to pick out from +them what the English public may most like, or to present to that +public, for the most part ignorant of George Sand and for the most part +indifferent to her, a full history and a judicial estimate of the woman +and of her writings. But I desire to recall to my own mind, before the +occasion offered by her death passes quite away,--to recall and collect +the elements of that powerful total-impression which, as a writer, she +made upon me; to recall and collect them, to bring them distinctly into +view, to feel them in all their depth and power once more. What I here +attempt is not for the benefit of the indifferent; it is for my own +satisfaction, it is for myself. But perhaps those for whom George Sand +has been a friend and a power will find an interest in following me. + +_Le sentiment de la vie idéale, qui n'est autre que la vie normale telle +que nous sommes appelés à la connaître_;[307]--"the sentiment of the +ideal life, which is none other than man's normal life as we shall some +day know it,"--those words from one of her last publications give the +ruling thought of George Sand, the ground-_motive_, as they say in +music, of all her strain. It is as a personage inspired by this motive +that she interests us. + +The English public conceives of her as of a novel-writer who wrote +stories more or less interesting; the earlier ones objectionable and +dangerous, the later ones, some of them, unexceptionable and fit to be +put into the hands of the youth of both sexes. With such a conception of +George Sand, a story of hers like _Consuelo_[308] comes to be elevated +in England into quite an undue relative importance, and to pass with +very many people for her typical work, displaying all that is really +valuable and significant in the author. _Consuelo_ is a charming story. +But George Sand is something more than a maker of charming stories, and +only a portion of her is shown in _Consuelo_. She is more, likewise, +than a creator of characters. She has created, with admirable truth to +nature, characters most attractive and attaching, such as Edmee, +Genevieve, Germain.[309] But she is not adequately expressed by them. +We do not know her unless we feel the spirit which goes through her work +as a whole. + +In order to feel this spirit it is not, indeed, necessary to read all +that she ever produced. Even three or four only out of her many books +might suffice to show her to us, if they were well chosen; let us say, +the _Lettres d'un Voyageur, Mauprat, François le Champi_,[310] and a +story which I was glad to see Mr. Myers,[311] in his appreciative +notice of Madame Sand, single out for praise,--_Valvèdre_.[312] In these +may be found all the principal elements of their author's strain: the +cry of agony and revolt, the trust in nature and beauty, the aspiration +towards a purged and renewed human society. + +Of George Sand's strain, during forty years, these are the grand +elements. Now it is one of them which appears most prominently, now it +is another. The cry of agony and revolt is in her earlier work only, and +passes away in her later. But in the evolution of these three elements, +--the passion of agony and revolt, the consolation from nature and from +beauty, the ideas of social renewal,--in the evolution of these is +George Sand and George Sand's life and power. Through their evolution +her constant motive declares and unfolds itself, that motive which we +have set forth above: "the sentiment of the ideal life, which is none +other than man's normal life as we shall one day know it." This is the +motive, and through these elements is its evolution: an evolution +pursued, moreover, with the most unfailing resolve, the most absolute +sincerity. + +The hour of agony and revolt passed away for George Sand, as it passed +away for Goethe, as it passes away for their readers likewise. It passes +away and does not return; yet those who, amid the agitations, more or +less stormy, of their youth, betook themselves to the early works of +George Sand, may in later life cease to read them, indeed, but they can +no more forget them than they can forget _Werther_[313]. George Sand +speaks somewhere of her "days of _Corinne_."[314] Days of _Valentine_, +many of us may in like manner say,--days of _Valentine_, days of +_Lélia_[315], days never to return! They are gone, we shall read the +books no more, and yet how ineffaceable is their impression! How the +sentences from George Sand's works of that period still linger in our +memory and haunt the ear with their cadences! Grandiose and moving, they +come, those cadences, like the sighing of the wind through the forest, +like the breaking of the waves on the seashore. Lélia in her cell on the +mountain of the Camaldoli-- + +"Sibyl, Sibyl forsaken; spirit of the days of old, joined to a brain +which rebels against the divine inspiration; broken lyre, mute +instrument, whose tones the world of to-day, if it heard them, could not +understand, but yet in whose depth the eternal harmony murmurs +imprisoned; priestess of death, I, I who feel and know that before now I +have been Pythia, have wept before now, before now have spoken, but who +cannot recollect, alas, cannot utter the word of healing! Yes, yes! I +remember the cavern of truth and the access of revelation; but the word +of human destiny, I have forgotten it; but the talisman of deliverance, +it is lost from my hand. And yet, indeed, much, much have I seen! and +when suffering presses me sore, when indignation takes hold of me, when +I feel Prometheus wake up in my heart and beat his puissant wings +against the stone which confines him,--oh! then, in prey to a frenzy +without a name, to a despair without bounds, I invoke the unknown master +and friend who might illumine my spirit and set free my tongue; but I +grope in darkness, and my tired arms grasp nothing save delusive +shadows. And for ten thousand years, as the sole answer to my cries, as +the sole comfort in my agony, I hear astir, over this earth accurst, the +despairing sob of impotent agony. For ten thousand years I have cried in +infinite space: _Truth! Truth!_ For ten thousand years infinite space +keeps answering me: _Desire, Desire_. O Sibyl forsaken! O mute Pythia! +dash then thy head against the rocks of thy cavern, and mingle thy +raging blood with the foam of the sea; for thou deemest thyself to have +possessed the almighty Word, and these ten thousand years thou art +seeking him in vain."[316] + +Or Sylvia's cry over Jacques[317] by his glacier in the Tyrol-- + +"When such a man as thou art is born into a world where he can do no +true service; when, with the soul of an apostle and the courage of a +martyr, he has simply to push his way among the heartless and aimless +crowds which vegetate without living; the atmosphere suffocates him and +he dies. Hated by sinners, the mock of fools, disliked by the envious, +abandoned by the weak, what can he do but return to God, weary with +having labored in vain, in sorrow at having accomplished nothing? The +world remains in all its vileness and in all its hatefulness; this is +what men call, 'the triumph of good sense over enthusiasm.'"[318] + +Or Jacques himself, and his doctrine-- + +"Life is arid and terrible, repose is a dream, prudence is useless; mere +reason alone serves simply to dry up the heart; there is but one virtue, +the eternal sacrifice of oneself." + +Or George Sand speaking in her own person, in the _Lettres d'un +Voyageur_-- + +"Ah, no, I was not born to be a poet, I was born to love. It is the +misfortune of my destiny, it is the enmity of others, which have made me +a wanderer and an artist. What I wanted was to live a human life; I had +a heart, it has been torn violently from my breast. All that has been +left me is a head, a head full of noise and pain, of horrible memories, +of images of woe, of scenes of outrage. And because in writing stories +to earn my bread I could not help remembering my sorrows, because I had +the audacity to say that in married life there were to be found +miserable beings, by reason of the weakness which is enjoined upon the +woman, by reason of the brutality which is permitted to the man, by +reason of the turpitudes which society covers and protects with a veil, +I am pronounced immoral, I am treated as if I were the enemy of the +human race."[319] + +If only, alas, together with her honesty and her courage, she could feel +within herself that she had also light and hope and power; that she was +able to lead those whom she loved, and who looked to her for guidance! +But no; her very own children, witnesses of her suffering, her +uncertainty, her struggles, her evil report, may come to doubt her:-- + +"My poor children, my own flesh and blood, will perhaps turn upon me and +say: 'You are leading us wrong, you mean to ruin us as well as yourself. +Are you not unhappy, reprobated, evil spoken of? What have you gained by +these unequal struggles, by these much trumpeted duels of yours with +custom and belief? Let us do as others do; let us get what is to be got +out of this easy and tolerant world.' + +"This is what they will say to me. Or at best, if, out of tenderness for +me, or from their own natural disposition, they give ear to my words and +believe me, whither shall I guide them? Into what abysses shall we go +and plunge ourselves, we three?--for we shall be our own three upon +earth, and not one soul with us. What shall I reply to them if they come +and say to me; 'Yes, life is unbearable in a world like this. Let us die +together. Show us the path of Bernica, or the lake of Sténio, or the +glaciers of Jacques.'"[320] + +Nevertheless the failure of the impassioned seekers of a new and better +world proves nothing, George Sand maintains, for the world as it is. +Ineffectual they may be, but the world is still more ineffectual, and it +is the world's course which is doomed to ruin, not theirs. "What has it +done," exclaims George Sand in her preface to Guérin's _Centaure_, "what +has it done for our moral education, and what is it doing for our +children, this society shielded with such care?" Nothing. Those whom it +calls vain complainers and rebels and madmen, may reply:-- + +"Suffer us to bewail our martyrs, poets without a country that we are, +forlorn singers, well versed in the causes of their misery and of our +own. You do not comprehend the malady which killed them; they themselves +did not comprehend it. If one or two of us at the present day open our +eyes to a new light, is it not by a strange and unaccountable good +Providence; and have we not to seek our grain of faith in storm and +darkness, combated by doubt, irony, the absence of all sympathy, all +example, all brotherly aid, all protection and countenance in high +places? Try yourselves to speak to your brethren heart to heart, +conscience to conscience! Try it!--but you cannot, busied as you are +with watching and patching up in all directions your dykes which the +flood is invading. The material existence of this society of yours +absorbs all your care, and requires more than all your efforts. +Meanwhile the powers of human thought are growing into strength, and +rise on all sides around you. Amongst these threatening apparitions, +there are some which fade away and reënter the darkness, because the +hour of life has not yet struck, and the fiery spirit which quickened +them could strive no longer with the horrors of this present chaos; but +there are others that can wait, and you will find them confronting you, +up and alive, to say: 'You have allowed the death of our brethren, and +we, we do not mean to die.'" + +She did not, indeed. How should she faint and fail before her time, +because of a world out of joint, because of the reign of stupidity, +because of the passions of youth, because of the difficulties and +disgusts of married life in the native seats of the _homme sensuel +moyen_, the average sensual man, she who could feel so well the power of +those eternal consolers, nature and beauty? From the very first they +introduce a note of suavity in her strain of grief and passion. Who can +forget the lanes and meadows of _Valentine_? + +George Sand is one of the few French writers who keep us closely and +truly intimate with rural nature. She gives us the wild-flowers by their +actual names,--snowdrop, primrose, columbine, iris, scabious. Nowhere +has she touched her native Berry and its little-known landscape, its +_campagnes ignorées_, with a lovelier charm than in _Valentine_. The +winding and deep lanes running out of the high road on either side, the +fresh and calm spots they take us to, "meadows of a tender green, +plaintive brooks, clumps of alder and mountain ash, a whole world of +suave and pastoral nature,"--how delicious it all is! The grave and +silent peasant whose very dog will hardly deign to bark at you, the +great white ox, "the unfailing dean of these pastures," staring solemnly +at you from the thicket; the farmhouse "with its avenue of maples, and +the Indre, here hardly more than a bright rivulet, stealing along +through rushes and yellow iris, in the field below,"--who, I say, can +forget them? And that one lane in especial, the lane where Athenais puts +her arm out of the side window of the rustic carriage and gathers May +from the overarching hedge,--that lane with its startled blackbirds, and +humming insects, and limpid water, and swaying water-plants, and +shelving gravel, and yellow wagtails hopping, half-pert, +half-frightened, on the sand,--that lane with its rushes, cresses, and +mint below, its honeysuckle and traveller's-joy above,--how gladly might +one give all that strangely English picture in English, if the charm of +Madame Sand's language did not here defy translation! Let us try +something less difficult, and yet something where we may still have her +in this her beloved world of "simplicity, and sky, and fields and trees, +and peasant life,--peasant life looked at, by preference, on its good +and sound side." _Voyez donc la simplicité, vous autres, voyez le ciel +et les champs, et les arbres, et les paysans, surtout dans ce qu'ils ont +de bon et de vrai._ + +The introduction to _La Mare au Diable_ will give us what we want. +George Sand has been looking at an engraving of Holbein's _Laborer._ +[321] An old thick-set peasant, in rags, is driving his plough in the +midst of a field. All around spreads a wild landscape, dotted with a few +poor huts. The sun is setting behind a hill; the day of toil is nearly +over. It has been a hard one; the ground is rugged and stony, the +laborer's horses are but skin and bone, weak and exhausted. There is but +one alert figure, the skeleton Death, who with a whip skips nimbly along +at the horses' side and urges the team. Under the picture is a quotation +in old French, to the effect that after the laborer's life of travail +and service, in which he has to gain his bread by the sweat of his brow, +here comes Death to fetch him away. And from so rude a life does Death +take him, says George Sand, that Death is hardly unwelcome; and in +another composition by Holbein, where men of almost every condition,-- +popes, sovereigns, lovers, gamblers, monks, soldiers,--are taunted with +their fear of Death and do indeed see his approach with terror, Lazarus +alone is easy and composed, and sitting on his dunghill at the rich +man's door, tells Death that he does not dread him. + +With her thoughts full of Holbein's mournful picture, George Sand goes +out into the fields of her own Berry:-- + +"My walk was by the border of a field which some peasants were getting +ready for being sown presently. The space to be ploughed was wide, as in +Holbein's picture. The landscape was vast also; the great lines of green +which it contained were just touched with russet by the approach of +autumn; on the rich brown soil recent rain had left, in a good many +furrows, lines of water, which shone in the sun like silver threads. The +day was clear and soft, and the earth gave out a light smoke where it +had been freshly laid open by the ploughshare. At the top of the field +an old man, whose broad back and severe face were like those of the old +peasant of Holbein, but whose clothes told no tale of poverty, was +gravely driving his plough of an antique shape, drawn by two tranquil +oxen, with coats of a pale buff, real patriarchs of the fallow, tall of +make, somewhat thin, with long and backward-sloping horns, the kind of +old workmen who by habit have got to be _brothers_ to one another, as +throughout our country-side they are called, and who, if one loses the +other, refuse to work with a new comrade, and fret themselves to death. +People unacquainted with the country will not believe in this affection +of the ox for his yoke-fellow. They should come and see one of the poor +beasts in a corner of his stable, thin, wasted, lashing with his +restless tail his lean flanks, blowing uneasily and fastidiously on the +provender offered to him, his eyes forever turned towards the stable +door, scratching with his foot the empty place left at his side, +sniffing the yokes and bands which his companion has worn, and +incessantly calling for him with piteous lowings. The ox-herd will tell +you: There is a pair of oxen done for! his _brother_ is dead, and this +one will work no more. He ought to be fattened for killing; but we +cannot get him to eat, and in a short time he will have starved himself +to death."[322] + +How faithful and close it is, this contact of George Sand with country +things, with the life of nature in its vast plenitude and pathos! And +always in the end the human interest, as is right, emerges and +predominates. What is the central figure in the fresh and calm rural +world of George Sand? It is the peasant. And what is the peasant? He is +France, life, the future. And this is the strength of George Sand, and +of her second movement, after the first movement of energy and revolt +was over, towards nature and beauty, towards the country, towards +primitive life, the peasant. She regarded nature and beauty, not with +the selfish and solitary joy of the artist who but seeks to appropriate +them for his own purposes, she regarded them as a treasure of immense +and hitherto unknown application, as a vast power of healing and delight +for all, and for the peasant first and foremost. Yes she cries, the +simple life is the true one! but the peasant, the great organ of that +life, "the minister in that vast temple which only the sky is vast +enough to embrace," the peasant is not doomed to toil and moil in it +forever, overdone and unawakened, like Holbein's laborer, and to have +for his best comfort the thought that death will set him free. _Non, +nous n'avons plus affaire à la mort, mais à la vie._[323] "Our business +henceforth is not with death, but with life." + +Joy is the great lifter of men, the great unfolder. _Il faut que la vie +soit bonne afin qu'elle soit féconde._ "For life to be fruitful, life +must be felt as a blessing":-- + +"Nature is eternally young, beautiful, bountiful. She pours out beauty +and poetry for all that live, she pours it out on all plants, and the +plants are permitted to expand in it freely. She possesses the secret of +happiness, and no man has been able to take it away from her. The +happiest of men would be he who possessing the science of his labor and +working with his hands, earning his comfort and his freedom by the +exercise of his intelligent force, found time to live by the heart and +by the brain, to understand his own work and to love the work of God. +The artist has satisfactions of this kind in the contemplation and +reproduction of nature's beauty; but when he sees the affliction of +those who people this paradise of earth, the upright and human-hearted +artist feels a trouble in the midst of his enjoyment. The happy day will +be when mind, heart, and hands shall be alive together, shall work in +concert; when there shall be a harmony between God's munificence and +man's delight in it. Then, instead of the piteous and frightful figure +of Death, skipping along whip in hand by the peasant's side in the +field, the allegorical painter will place there a radiant angel, sowing +with full hands the blessed grain in the smoking furrow. + +"And the dream of a kindly, free, poetic, laborious, simple existence +for the tiller of the field is not so hard to realize that it must be +banished into the world of chimæras. Virgil's sweet and sad cry: 'O +happy peasants, if they but knew their own blessings!' is a regret; but +like all regrets, it is at the same time a prediction. The day will come +when the laborer may be also an artist;--not in the sense of rendering +nature's beauty, a matter which will be then of much less importance, +but in the sense of feeling it. Does not this mysterious intuition of +poetic beauty exist in him already in the form of instinct and of vague +reverie?"[324] + +It exists in him, too, adds Madame Sand, in the form of that +_nostalgia_, that homesickness, which forever pursues the genuine French +peasant if you transplant him. The peasant has here, then, the elements +of the poetic sense, and of its high and pure satisfactions. + +"But one part of the enjoyment which we possess is wanting to him, a +pure and lofty pleasure which is surely his due, minister that he is in +that vast temple which only the sky is vast enough to embrace. He has +not the conscious knowledge of his sentiment. Those who have sentenced +him to servitude from his mother's womb, not being able to debar him +from reverie, have debarred him from reflection. + +"Well, for all that, taking the peasant as he is, incomplete and +seemingly condemned to an eternal childhood, I yet find him a more +beautiful object than the man in whom his acquisition of knowledge has +stifled sentiment. Do not rate yourselves so high above him, many of you +who imagine that you have an imprescriptible right to his obedience; for +you yourselves are the most incomplete and the least seeing of men. That +simplicity of his soul is more to be loved than the false lights of +yours."[325] + +In all this we are passing from the second element in George Sand to the +third,--her aspiration for a social new-birth, a _renaissance sociale_. +It is eminently the ideal of France; it was hers. Her religion connected +itself with this ideal. In the convent where she was brought up, she had +in youth had an awakening of fervent mystical piety in the Catholic +form. That form she could not keep. Popular religion of all kinds, with +its deep internal impossibilities, its "heaven and hell serving to cover +the illogical manifestations of the Divinity's apparent designs +respecting us," its "God made in our image, silly and malicious, vain +and puerile, irritable or tender, after our fashion," lost all sort of +hold upon her:-- + +"Communion with such a God is impossible to me, I confess it. He is +wiped out from my memory: there is no corner where I can find him any +more. Nor do I find such a God out of doors either; he is not in the +fields and waters, he is not in the starry sky. No, nor yet in the +churches where men bow themselves; it is an extinct message, a dead +letter, a thought that has done its day. Nothing of this belief, nothing +of this God, subsists in me any longer."[326] + +She refused to lament over the loss, to esteem it other than a +benefit:-- + +"It is an addition to our stock of light, this detachment from the +idolatrous conception of religion. It is no loss of the religious sense, +as the persisters in idolatry maintain. It is quite the contrary, it is +a restitution of allegiance to the true Divinity. It is a step made in +the direction of this Divinity, it is an abjuration of the dogmas which +did him dishonor."[327] + +She does not attempt to give of this Divinity an account much more +precise than that which we have in Wordsworth,--"_a presence that +disturbs me with the joy of animating thoughts_."[328] + +"Everything is divine (she says), even matter; everything is superhuman, +even man. God is everywhere; he is in me in a measure proportioned to +the little that I am. My present life separates me from him just in the +degree determined by the actual state of childhood of our race. Let me +content myself, in all my seeking, to feel after him, and to possess of +him as much as this imperfect soul can take in with the intellectual +sense I have."[329] + +And she concludes:-- + +"The day will come when we shall no longer talk about God idly, nay, +when we shall talk about him as little as possible. We shall cease to +set him forth dogmatically, to dispute about his nature. We shall put +compulsion on no one to pray to him, we shall leave the whole business +of worship within the sanctuary of each man's conscience. And this will +happen when we are really religious."[330] + +Meanwhile the sense of this spirit or presence which animates us, the +sense of the divine, is our stronghold and our consolation. A man may +say of it: "It comes not by my desert, but the atom of divine sense +given to me nothing can rob me of." _Divine sense_,--the phrase is a +vague one; but it stands to Madame Sand for that to which are to be +referred "all the best thoughts and the best actions of life, suffering +endured, duty achieved, whatever purifies our existence, whatever +vivifies our love." + +Madame Sand is a Frenchwoman, and her religion is therefore, as we might +expect, with peculiar fervency social. Always she has before her mind +"the natural law which _will have it_ (the italics are her own) that the +species _man_ cannot subsist and prosper but by _association_." Whatever +else we may be in creation, we are, first and foremost, "at the head of +the species which are called by instinct, and led by necessity, to the +life of _association_." The word _love_--the great word, as she justly +says, of the New Testament--acquires from her social enthusiasm a +peculiar significance to her:-- + +"The word is a great one, because it involves infinite consequences. To +love means to help one another, to have joint aspirations, to act in +concert, to labor for the same end, to develop to its ideal consummation +the fraternal instinct, thanks to which mankind have brought the earth +under their dominion. Every time that he has been false to this instinct +which is his law of life, his natural destiny, man has seen his temples +crumble, his societies dissolve, his intellectual sense go wrong, his +moral sense die out. The future is founded on love."[331] + +So long as love is thus spoken of in the general, the ordinary serious +Englishman will have no difficulty in inclining himself with respect +while Madame Sand speaks of it. But when he finds that love implies, +with her, social equality, he will begin to be staggered. And in truth +for almost every Englishman Madame Sand's strong language about +equality, and about France as the chosen vessel for exhibiting it, will +sound exaggerated. "The human ideal," she says, "as well as the social +ideal, is to achieve equality."[332] France, which has made equality its +rallying cry, is therefore "the nation which loves and is loved," _la +nation qui aime et qu'on aime_. The republic of equality is in her eyes +"an ideal, a philosophy, a religion." She invokes the "holy doctrine of +social liberty and fraternal equality, ever reappearing as a ray of love +and truth amidst the storm." She calls it "the goal of man and the law +of the future." She thinks it the secret of the civilization of France, +the most civilized of nations. Amid the disasters of the late war she +cannot forbear a cry of astonishment at the neutral nations, +_insensibles à l'égorgement d'une civilisation comme la nôtre_, "looking +on with insensibility while a civilization such as ours has its throat +cut." Germany, with its stupid ideal of corporalism and _Kruppism_, is +contrasted with France, full of social dreams, too civilized for war, +incapable of planning and preparing war for twenty years, she is so +incapable of hatred;--_nous sommes si incapables de haïr!_ We seem to be +listening, not to George Sand, but to M. Victor Hugo, half genius, half +charlatan; to M. Victor Hugo, or even to one of those French declaimers +in whom we come down to no genius and all charlatan. + +The form of such outbursts as we have quoted will always be distasteful +to an Englishman. It is to be remembered that they came from Madame Sand +under the pressure and anguish of the terrible calamities of 1870. But +what we are most concerned with, and what Englishmen in general regard +too little, is the degree of truth contained in these allegations that +France is the most civilized of nations, and that she is so, above all, +by her "holy doctrine of equality." How comes the idea to be so current; +and to be passionately believed in, as we have seen, by such a woman as +George Sand? It was so passionately believed in by her, that when one +seeks, as I am now seeking, to recall her image, the image is incomplete +if the passionate belief is kept from appearing. + +I will not, with my scanty space, now discuss the belief; but I will +seek to indicate how it must have commended itself, I think, to George +Sand. I have somewhere called France "the country of Europe where _the +people_ is most alive."[333] _The people_ is what interested George +Sand. And in France _the people_ is, above all, the peasant. The workman +in Paris or in other great towns of France may afford material for such +pictures as those which M. Zola[334] has lately given us in +_L'Assommoir_--pictures of a kind long ago labelled by Madame Sand as +"_the literature of mysteries of iniquity_, which men of talent and +imagination try to bring into fashion." But the real _people_ in France, +the foundation of things there, both in George Sand's eyes and in +reality, is the peasant. The peasant was the object of Madame Sand's +fondest predilections in the present, and happiest hopes in the future. +The Revolution and its doctrine of equality had made the French peasant. +What wonder, then, if she saluted the doctrine as a holy and paramount +one? + +And the French peasant is really, so far as I can see, the largest and +strongest element of soundness which the body social of any European +nation possesses. To him is due that astonishing recovery which France +has made since her defeat, and which George Sand predicted in the very +hour of ruin. Yes, in 1870 she predicted _ce reveil général qui va +suivre, à la grande surprise des autres nations, l'espèce d'agonie où +elles nous voient tombés_,[335] "the general re-arising which, to the +astonishment of other nations, is about to follow the sort of agony in +which they now see us lying." To the condition, character, and qualities +of the French peasant this recovery is in the main due. His material +well-being is known to all of us. M. de Laveleye,[336] the well-known +economist, a Belgian and a Protestant, says that France, being the +country of Europe where the soil is more divided than anywhere except in +Switzerland and Norway, is at the same time the country where well-being +is most widely spread, where wealth has of late years increased most, +and where population is least outrunning the limits which, for the +comfort and progress of the working classes themselves, seem necessary. +George Sand could see, of course, the well-being of the French peasant, +for we can all see it. + +But there is more. George Sand was a woman, with a woman's ideal of +gentleness, of "the charm of good manners," as essential to +civilization. She has somewhere spoken admirably of the variety and +balance of forces which go to make up true civilization; "certain forces +of weakness, docility, attractiveness, suavity, are here just as real +forces as forces of vigor, encroachment, violence, or brutality." Yes, +as real _forces_, although Prince Bismarck cannot see it; because human +nature requires them, and, often as they may be baffled, and slow as may +be the process of their asserting themselves, mankind is not satisfied +with its own civilization, and keeps fidgeting at it and altering it +again and again, until room is made for them. George Sand thought the +French people,--meaning principally, again, by the French people the +_people_ properly so called, the peasant,--she thought it "the most +kindly, the most amiable, of all peoples." Nothing is more touching than +to read in her _Journal_, written in 1870, while she was witnessing what +seemed to be "the agony of the Latin races," and undergoing what seemed +to be the process of "dying in a general death of one's family, one's +country, and one's nation," how constant is her defence of the people, +the peasant, against her Republican friends. Her Republican friends were +furious with the peasant; accused him of stolidity, cowardice, want of +patriotism; accused him of having given them the Empire, with all its +vileness; wanted to take away from him the suffrage. Again and again +does George Sand take up his defence, and warn her friends of the folly +and danger of their false estimate of him. "The contempt of the masses, +there," she cries, "is the misfortune and crime of the present +moment!"[337] "To execrate the people," she exclaims again, "is real +blasphemy; the people is worth more than we are." + +If the peasant gave us the Empire, says Madame Sand, it was because he +saw the parties of liberals disputing, gesticulating, and threatening to +tear one another asunder and France too; he was told _the Empire is +peace_, and he accepted the Empire. The peasant was deceived, he is +uninstructed, he moves slowly; but he moves, he has admirable virtues, +and in him, says George Sand, is our life:-- + +"Poor Jacques Bonhomme! accuse thee and despise thee who will; for my +part I pity thee, and in spite of thy faults I shall always love thee. +Never will I forget how, a child, I was carried asleep on thy shoulders, +how I was given over to thy care and followed thee everywhere, to the +field, the stall, the cottage. They are all dead, those good old people +who have borne me in their arms; but I remember them well, and I +appreciate at this hour, to the minutest detail, the pureness, the +kindness, the patience, the good humor, the poetry, which presided over +that rustic education amidst disasters of like kind with those which we +are undergoing now. Why should I quarrel with the peasant because on +certain points he feels and thinks differently from what I do? There are +other essential points on which we may feel eternally at one with him,-- +probity and charity."[338] + +Another generation of peasants had grown up since that first +revolutionary generation of her youth, and equality, as its reign +proceeded, had not deteriorated but improved them. + + "They have advanced greatly in self-respect and well-being, these +peasants from twenty years old to forty: they never ask for anything. +When one meets them they no longer take off their hat. If they know you +they come up to you and hold out their hand. All foreigners who stay +with us are struck with their good bearing, with their amenity, and the +simple, friendly, and polite ease of their behavior. In presence of +people whom they esteem they are, like their fathers, models of tact and +politeness; but they have more than that mere _sentiment_ of equality +which was all that their fathers had,--they have the _idea_ of equality, +and the determination to maintain it. This step upwards they owe to +their having the franchise. Those who would fain treat them as creatures +of a lower order dare not now show this disposition to their face; it +would not be pleasant."[339] + +Mr. Hamerton's[340] interesting book about French life has much, I +think, to confirm this account of the French peasant. What I have seen +of France myself (and I have seen something) is fully in agreement with +it. Of a civilization and an equality which makes the peasant thus +_human_, gives to the bulk of the people well-being, probity, charity, +self-respect, tact, and good manners, let us pardon Madame Sand if she +feels and speaks enthusiastically. Some little variation on our own +eternal trio of Barbarians, Philistines, Populace,[341] or on the +eternal solo of Philistinism among our brethren of the United States and +the Colonies, is surely permissible. + +Where one is more inclined to differ from Madame Sand is in her estimate +of her Republican friends of the educated classes. They may stand, she +says, for the genius and the soul of France; they represent its "exalted +imagination and profound sensibility," while the peasant represents its +humble, sound, indispensable body. Her protégé, the peasant, is much +ruder with those eloquent gentlemen, and has his own name for one and +all of them, _l'avocat_, by which he means to convey his belief that +words are more to be looked for from that quarter than seriousness and +profit. It seems to me by no means certain but that the peasant is in +the right. + +George Sand herself has said admirable things of these friends of hers; +of their want of patience, temper, wisdom; of their "vague and violent +way of talking"; of their interminable flow of "stimulating phrases, +cold as death." Her own place is of course with the party and propaganda +of organic change. But George Sand felt the poetry of the past; she had +no hatreds; the furies, the follies, the self-deceptions of secularist +and revolutionist fanatics filled her with dismay. They are, indeed, the +great danger of France, and it is amongst the educated and articulate +classes of France that they prevail. If the educated and articulate +classes in France were as sound in their way as the inarticulate peasant +is in his, France would present a different spectacle. Not "imagination +and sensibility" are so much required from the educated classes of +France, as simpler, more serious views of life; a knowledge how great a +part _conduct_ (if M. Challemel-Lacour[342] will allow me to say so) +fills in it; a better example. The few who see this, such as Madame Sand +among the dead, and M. Renan[343] among the living, perhaps awaken on +that account, amongst quiet observers at a distance, all the more +sympathy; but in France they are isolated. + +All the later work of George Sand, however, all her hope of genuine +social renovation, take the simple and serious ground so necessary. "The +cure for us is far more simple than we will believe. All the better +natures amongst us see it and feel it. It is a good direction given by +ourselves to our hearts and consciences;--_une bonne direction donnée +par nous-mêmes à nos coeurs et à nos consciences_."[344] These are among +the last words of her _Journal_ of 1870. + + * * * * * + +Whether or not the number of George Sand's works--always fresh, always +attractive, but poured out too lavishly and rapidly--is likely to prove +a hindrance to her fame, I do not care to consider. Posterity, alarmed +at the way in which its literary baggage grows upon it, always seeks to +leave behind it as much as it can, as much as it dares,--everything but +masterpieces. But the immense vibration of George Sand's voice upon the +ear of Europe will not soon die away. Her passions and her errors have +been abundantly talked of. She left them behind her, and men's memory of +her will leave them behind also. There will remain of her to mankind the +sense of benefit and stimulus from the passage upon earth of that large +and frank nature, of that large and pure utterance,--the _the large +utterance of the early gods_. There will remain an admiring and ever +widening report of that great and ingenuous soul, simple, affectionate, +without vanity, without pedantry, human, equitable, patient, kind. She +believed herself, she said, "to be in sympathy, across time and space, +with a multitude of honest wills which interrogate their conscience and +try to put themselves in accord with it." This chain of sympathy will +extend more and more. + +It is silent, that eloquent voice! it is sunk, that noble, that speaking +head! we sum up, as we best can, what she said to us, and we bid her +adieu. From many hearts in many lands a troop of tender and grateful +regrets converge towards her humble churchyard in Berry. Let them be +joined by these words of sad homage from one of a nation which she +esteemed, and which knew her very little and very ill. Her guiding +thought, the guiding thought which she did her best to make ours too, +"the sentiment of the ideal life, which is none other than man's normal +life as we shall one day know it," is in harmony with words and promises +familiar to that sacred place where she lies. _Exspectat resurrectionem +mortuorum, et vitam venturi sæculi._[345] + + + +WORDSWORTH[346] + + +I remember hearing Lord Macaulay say, after Wordsworth's death, when +subscriptions were being collected to found a memorial of him, that ten +years earlier more money could have been raised in Cambridge alone, to +do honor to Wordsworth, than was now raised all through the country. +Lord Macaulay had, as we know, his own heightened and telling way of +putting things, and we must always make allowance for it. But probably +it is true that Wordsworth has never, either before or since, been so +accepted and popular, so established in possession of the minds of all +who profess to care for poetry, as he was between the years 1830 and +1840, and at Cambridge. From the very first, no doubt, he had his +believers and witnesses. But I have myself heard him declare that, for +he knew not how many years, his poetry had never brought him in enough +to buy his shoe-strings. The poetry-reading public was very slow to +recognize him, and was very easily drawn away from him. Scott effaced +him with this public. Byron effaced him. + +The death of Byron seemed, however, to make an opening for Wordsworth. +Scott, who had for some time ceased to produce poetry himself, and stood +before the public as a great novelist; Scott, too genuine himself not to +feel the profound genuineness of Wordsworth, and with an instinctive +recognition of his firm hold on nature and of his local truth, always +admired him sincerely, and praised him generously. The influence of +Coleridge upon young men of ability was then powerful, and was still +gathering strength; this influence told entirely in favor of +Wordsworth's poetry. Cambridge was a place where Coleridge's influence +had great action, and where Wordsworth's poetry, therefore, flourished +especially. But even amongst the general public its sale grew large, the +eminence of its author was widely recognized, and Rydal Mount[347] +became an object of pilgrimage. I remember Wordsworth relating how one +of the pilgrims, a clergyman, asked him if he had ever written anything +besides the _Guide to the Lakes_. Yes, he answered modestly, he had +written verses. Not every pilgrim was a reader, but the vogue was +established, and the stream of pilgrims came. + +Mr. Tennyson's decisive appearance dates from 1842.[348] One cannot say +that he effaced Wordsworth as Scott and Byron had effaced him. The +poetry of Wordsworth had been so long before the public, the suffrage of +good judges was so steady and so strong in its favor, that by 1842 the +verdict of posterity, one may almost say, had been already pronounced, +and Wordsworth's English fame was secure. But the vogue, the ear and +applause of the great body of poetry-readers, never quite thoroughly +perhaps his, he gradually lost more and more, and Mr. Tennyson gained +them. Mr. Tennyson drew to himself, and away from Wordsworth, the +poetry-reading public, and the new generations. Even in 1850, when +Wordsworth died, this diminution of popularity was visible, and +occasioned the remark of Lord Macaulay which I quoted at starting. + +The diminution has continued. The influence of Coleridge has waned, and +Wordsworth's poetry can no longer draw succor from this ally. The poetry +has not, however, wanted eulogists; and it may be said to have brought +its eulogists luck, for almost every one who has praised Wordsworth's +poetry has praised it well. But the public has remained cold, or, at +least, undetermined. Even the abundance of Mr. Palgrave's fine and +skilfully chosen specimens of Wordsworth, in the _Golden Treasury_, +surprised many readers, and gave offense to not a few. To tenth-rate +critics and compilers, for whom any violent shock to the public taste +would be a temerity not to be risked, it is still quite permissible to +speak of Wordsworth's poetry, not only with ignorance, but with +impertinence. On the Continent he is almost unknown. + +I cannot think, then, that Wordsworth has, up to this time, at all +obtained his deserts. "Glory," said M. Renan the other day, "glory after +all is the thing which has the best chance of not being altogether +vanity." Wordsworth was a homely man, and himself would certainly never +have thought of talking of glory as that which, after all, has the best +chance of not being altogether vanity. Yet we may well allow that few +things are less vain than _real_ glory. Let us conceive of the whole +group of civilized nations as being, for intellectual and spiritual +purposes, one great confederation, bound to a joint action and working +towards a common result; a confederation whose members have a due +knowledge both of the past, out of which they all proceed, and of one +another. This was the ideal of Goethe, and it is an ideal which will +impose itself upon the thoughts of our modern societies more and more. +Then to be recognized by the verdict of such a confederation as a +master, or even as a seriously and eminently worthy workman, in one's +own line of intellectual or spiritual activity, is indeed glory; a glory +which it would be difficult to rate too highly. For what could be more +beneficent, more salutary? The world is forwarded by having its +attention fixed on the best things; and here is a tribunal, free from +all suspicion of national and provincial partiality, putting a stamp on +the best things, and recommending them for general honor and acceptance. +A nation, again, is furthered by recognition of its real gifts and +successes; it is encouraged to develop them further. And here is an +honest verdict, telling us which of our supposed successes are really, +in the judgment of the great impartial world, and not in our private +judgment only, successes, and which are not. + +It is so easy to feel pride and satisfaction in one's own things, so +hard to make sure that one is right in feeling it! We have a great +empire. But so had Nebuchadnezzar. We extol the "unrivalled happiness" +of our national civilization. But then comes a candid friend,[349] and +remarks that our upper class is materialized, our middle class +vulgarized, and our lower class brutalized. We are proud of our +painting, our music. But we find that in the judgment of other people +our painting is questionable, and our music non-existent. We are proud +of our men of science. And here it turns out that the world is with us; +we find that in the judgment of other people, too, Newton among the +dead, and Mr. Darwin among the living, hold as high a place as they hold +in our national opinion. + +Finally, we are proud of our poets and poetry. Now poetry is nothing +less than the most perfect speech of man, that in which he comes nearest +to being able to utter the truth. It is no small thing, therefore, to +succeed eminently in poetry. And so much is required for duly estimating +success here, that about poetry it is perhaps hardest to arrive at a +sure general verdict, and takes longest. Meanwhile, our own conviction +of the superiority of our national poets is not decisive, is almost +certain to be mingled, as we see constantly in English eulogy of +Shakespeare, with much of provincial infatuation. And we know what was +the opinion current amongst our neighbors the French--people of taste, +acuteness, and quick literary tact--not a hundred years ago, about our +great poets. The old _Biographie Universelle_[350] notices the +pretension of the English to a place for their poets among the chief +poets of the world, and says that this is a pretension which to no one +but an Englishman can ever seem admissible. And the scornful, +disparaging things said by foreigners about Shakespeare and Milton, and +about our national over-estimate of them, have been often quoted, and +will be in every one's remembrance. + +A great change has taken place, and Shakespeare is now generally +recognized, even in France, as one of the greatest of poets. Yes, some +anti-Gallican cynic will say, the French rank him with Corneille and +with Victor Hugo! But let me have the pleasure of quoting a sentence +about Shakespeare, which I met with by accident not long ago in the +_Correspondant_, a French review which not a dozen English people, I +suppose, look at. The writer is praising Shakespeare's prose. With +Shakespeare, he says, "prose comes in whenever the subject, being more +familiar, is unsuited to the majestic English iambic." And he goes on: +"Shakespeare is the king of poetic rhythm and style, as well as the king +of the realm of thought: along with his dazzling prose, Shakespeare has +succeeded in giving us the most varied, the most harmonious verse which +has ever sounded upon the human ear since the verse of the Greeks." M. +Henry Cochin,[351] the writer of this sentence, deserves our gratitude +for it; it would not be easy to praise Shakespeare, in a single +sentence, more justly. And when a foreigner and a Frenchman writes thus +of Shakespeare, and when Goethe says of Milton, in whom there was so +much to repel Goethe rather than to attract him, that "nothing has been +ever done so entirely in the sense of the Greeks as _Samson Agonistes_," +and that "Milton is in very truth a poet whom we must treat with all +reverence," then we understand what constitutes a European recognition +of poets and poetry as contradistinguished from a merely national +recognition, and that in favor both of Milton and of Shakespeare the +judgment of the high court of appeal has finally gone. + +I come back to M. Renan's praise of glory, from which I started. Yes, +real glory is a most serious thing, glory authenticated by the +Amphictyonic Court[352] of final appeal, definite glory. And even for +poets and poetry, long and difficult as may be the process of arriving +at the right award, the right award comes at last, the definitive glory +rests where it is deserved. Every establishment of such a real glory is +good and wholesome for mankind at large, good and wholesome for the +nation which produced the poet crowned with it. To the poet himself it +can seldom do harm; for he, poor man, is in his grave, probably, long +before his glory crowns him. + +Wordsworth has been in his grave for some thirty years, and certainly +his lovers and admirers cannot flatter themselves that this great and +steady light of glory as yet shines over him. He is not fully recognized +at home; he is not recognized at all abroad. Yet I firmly believe that +the poetical performance of Wordsworth is, after that of Shakespeare and +Milton, of which all the world now recognizes the worth, undoubtedly the +most considerable in our language from the Elizabethan age to the +present time. Chaucer is anterior; and on other grounds, too, he cannot +well be brought into the comparison. But taking the roll of our chief +poetical names, besides Shakespeare and Milton, from the age of +Elizabeth downwards, and going through it,--Spenser, Dryden, Pope, Gray, +Goldsmith, Cowper, Burns, Coleridge, Scott, Campbell, Moore, Byron, +Shelley, Keats (I mention those only who are dead),--I think it certain +that Wordsworth's name deserves to stand, and will finally stand, above +them all. Several of the poets named have gifts and excellences which +Wordsworth has not. But taking the performance of each as a whole, I say +that Wordsworth seems to me to have left a body of poetical work +superior in power, in interest, in the qualities which give enduring +freshness, to that which any one of the others has left. + +But this is not enough to say. I think it certain, further, that if we +take the chief poetical names of the Continent since the death of +Molière, and, omitting Goethe, confront the remaining names with that of +Wordsworth, the result is the same. Let us take Klopstock,[353] +Lessing,[354] Schiller, Uhland,[355] Rückert,[356] and Heine[357] for +Germany; Filicaja,[358] Alfieri,[359] Manzoni,[360] and Leopardi[361] +for Italy; Racine,[362] Boileau,[363] Voltaire, André Chénier,[364] +Béranger,[365] Lamartine,[366] Musset,[367] M. Victor Hugo (he has been +so long celebrated that although he still lives I may be permitted to +name him) for France. Several of these, again, have evidently gifts and +excellences to which Wordsworth can make no pretension. But in real +poetical achievement it seems to me indubitable that to Wordsworth, here +again, belongs the palm. It seems to me that Wordsworth has left behind +him a body of poetical work which wears, and will wear, better on the +whole than the performance of any one of these personages, so far more +brilliant and celebrated, most of them, than the homely poet of Rydal. +Wordsworth's performance in poetry is on the whole, in power, in +interest, in the qualities which give enduring freshness, superior to +theirs. + +This is a high claim to make for Wordsworth. But if it is a just claim, +if Wordsworth's place among the poets who have appeared in the last two +or three centuries is after Shakespeare, Molière, Milton, Goethe, +indeed, but before all the rest, then in time Wordsworth will have his +due. We shall recognize him in his place, as we recognize Shakespeare +and Milton; and not only we ourselves shall recognize him, but he will +be recognized by Europe also. Meanwhile, those who recognize him already +may do well, perhaps, to ask themselves whether there are not in the +case of Wordsworth certain special obstacles which hinder or delay his +due recognition by others, and whether these obstacles are not in some +measure removable. + +The _Excursion_ and the _Prelude_, his poems of greatest bulk, are by no +means Wordsworth's best work. His best work is in his shorter pieces, +and many indeed are there of these which are of first-rate excellence. +But in his seven volumes the pieces of high merit are mingled with a +mass of pieces very inferior to them; so inferior to them that it seems +wonderful how the same poet should have produced both. Shakespeare +frequently has lines and passages in a strain quite false, and which are +entirely unworthy of him. But one can imagine him smiling if one could +meet him in the Elysian Fields and tell him so; smiling and replying +that he knew it perfectly well himself, and what did it matter? But with +Wordsworth the case is different. Work altogether inferior, work quite +uninspired, flat and dull, is produced by him with evident +unconsciousness of its defects, and he presents it to us with the same +faith and seriousness as his best work. Now a drama or an epic fill the +mind, and one does not look beyond them; but in a collection of short +pieces the impression made by one piece requires to be continued and +sustained by the piece following. In reading Wordsworth the impression +made by one of his fine pieces is too often dulled and spoiled by a very +inferior piece coming after it. + +Wordsworth composed verses during a space of some sixty years; and it is +no exaggeration to say that within one single decade of those years, +between 1798 and 1808, almost all his really first-rate work was +produced. A mass of inferior work remains, work done before and after +this golden prime, imbedding the first-rate work and clogging it, +obstructing our approach to it, chilling, not unfrequently, the +high-wrought mood with which we leave it. To be recognized far and wide +as a great poet, to be possible and receivable as a classic, Wordsworth +needs to be relieved of a great deal of the poetical baggage which now +encumbers him. To administer this relief is indispensable, unless he is +to continue to be a poet for the few only,--a poet valued far below his +real worth by the world. + +There is another thing. Wordsworth classified his poems not according to +any commonly received plan of arrangement, but according to a scheme of +mental physiology. He has poems of the fancy, poems of the imagination, +poems of sentiment and reflection, and so on. His categories are +ingenious but far-fetched, and the result of his employment of them is +unsatisfactory. Poems are separated one from another which possess a +kinship of subject or of treatment far more vital and deep than the +supposed unity of mental origin, which was Wordsworth's reason for +joining them with others. + +The tact of the Greeks in matters of this kind was infallible. We may +rely upon it that we shall not improve upon the classification adopted +by the Greeks for kinds of poetry; that their categories of epic, +dramatic, lyric, and so forth, have a natural propriety, and should be +adhered to. It may sometimes seem doubtful to which of two categories a +poem belongs; whether this or that poem is to be called, for instance, +narrative or lyric, lyric or elegiac. But there is to be found in every +good poem a strain, a predominant note, which determines the poem as +belonging to one of these kinds rather than the other; and here is the +best proof of the value of the classification, and of the advantage of +adhering to it. Wordsworth's poems will never produce their due effect +until they are freed from their present artificial arrangement, and +grouped more naturally. + +Disengaged from the quantity of inferior work which now obscures them, +the best poems of Wordsworth, I hear many people say, would indeed stand +out in great beauty, but they would prove to be very few in number, +scarcely more than a half a dozen. I maintain, on the other hand, that +what strikes me with admiration, what establishes in my opinion +Wordsworth's superiority, is the great and ample body of powerful work +which remains to him, even after all his inferior work has been cleared +away. He gives us so much to rest upon, so much which communicates his +spirit and engages ours! + +This is of very great importance. If it were a comparison of single +pieces, or of three or four pieces, by each poet, I do not say that +Wordsworth would stand decisively above Gray, or Burns, or Coleridge, or +Keats, or Manzoni, or Heine. It is in his ampler body of powerful work +that I find his superiority. His good work itself, his work which +counts, is not all of it, of course, of equal value. Some kinds of +poetry are in themselves lower kinds than others. The ballad kind is a +lower kind; the didactic kind, still more, is a lower kind. Poetry of +this latter sort counts, too, sometimes, by its biographical interest +partly, not by its poetical interest pure and simple; but then this can +only be when the poet producing it has the power and importance of +Wordsworth, a power and importance which he assuredly did not establish +by such didactic poetry alone. Altogether, it is, I say, by the great +body of powerful and significant work which remains to him, after every +reduction and deduction has been made, that Wordsworth's superiority is +proved. + +To exhibit this body of Wordsworth's best work, to clear away +obstructions from around it, and to let it speak for itself, is what +every lover of Wordsworth should desire. Until this has been done, +Wordsworth, whom we, to whom he is dear, all of us know and feel to be +so great a poet, has not had a fair chance before the world. When once +it has been done, he will make his way best, not by our advocacy of him, +but by his own worth and power. We may safely leave him to make his way +thus, we who believe that a superior worth and power in poetry finds in +mankind a sense responsive to it and disposed at last to recognize it. +Yet at the outset, before he has been duly known and recognized, we may +do Wordsworth a service, perhaps, by indicating in what his superior +power and worth will be found to consist, and in what it will not. + +Long ago, in speaking of Homer, I said that the noble and profound +application of ideas to life is the most essential part of poetic +greatness[Transcriber's note: no punctuation here] I said that a great +poet receives his distinctive character of superiority from his +application, under the conditions immutably fixed by the laws of poetic +beauty and poetic truth, from his application, I say, to his subject, +whatever it may be, of the ideas + + "On man, on nature, and on human life,"[368] + +which he has acquired for himself. The line quoted is Wordsworth's own; +and his superiority arises from his powerful use, in his best pieces, his +powerful application to his subject, of ideas "on man, on nature, and on +human life." + +Voltaire, with his signal acuteness, most truly remarked that "no nation +has treated in poetry moral ideas with more energy and depth than the +English nation." And he adds; "There, it seems to me, is the great merit +of the English poets." Voltaire does not mean by treating in poetry +moral ideas, the composing moral and didactic poems;--that brings us +but a very little way in poetry. He means just the same thing as was +meant when I spoke above "of the noble and profound application of ideas +to life"; and he means the application of these ideas under the +conditions fixed for us by the laws of poetic beauty and poetic truth. +If it is said that to call these ideas _moral_ ideas is to introduce a +strong and injurious limitation, I answer that it is to do nothing of +the kind, because moral ideas are really so main a part of human life. +The question, _how to live_, is itself a moral idea; and it is the +question which most interests every man, and with which, in some way or +other, he is perpetually occupied. A large sense is of course to be +given to the term _moral_. Whatever bears upon the question, "how to +live," comes under it. + +"Nor love thy life, nor hate; but, what thou liv'st, Live well; how long +or short, permit to heaven."[369] + +In those fine lines Milton utters, as every one at once perceives, a +moral idea. Yes, but so too, when Keats consoles the forward-bending +lover on the Grecian Urn, the lover arrested and presented in immortal +relief by the sculptor's hand before he can kiss, with the line, + +"Forever wilt thou love, and she be fair--" + +he utters a moral idea. When Shakespeare says, that + + "We are such stuff +As dreams are made of, and our little life +Is rounded with a sleep,"[370] + +he utters a moral idea. + +Voltaire was right in thinking that the energetic and profound treatment +of moral ideas, in this large sense, is what distinguishes the English +poetry. He sincerely meant praise, no dispraise or hint of limitation; +and they err who suppose that poetic limitation is a necessary +consequence of the fact, the fact being granted as Voltaire states it. +If what distinguishes the greatest poets is their powerful and profound +application of ideas to life, which surely no good critic will deny, +then to prefix to the term ideas here the term moral makes hardly any +difference, because human life itself is in so preponderating a degree +moral. + +It is important, therefore, to hold fast to this: that poetry is at +bottom a criticism of life;[371] that the greatness of a poet lies in +his powerful and beautiful application of ideas to life,--to the +question: How to live. Morals are often treated in a narrow and false +fashion; they are bound up with systems of thought and belief which have +had their day; they are fallen into the hands of pedants and +professional dealers; they grow tiresome to some of us. We find +attraction, at times, even in a poetry of revolt against them; in a +poetry which might take for its motto Omar Khayyám's words: "Let us make +up in the tavern for the time which we have wasted in the mosque." Or we +find attractions in a poetry indifferent to them; in a poetry where the +contents may be what they will, but where the form is studied and +exquisite. We delude ourselves in either case; and the best cure for our +delusion is to let our minds rest upon that great and inexhaustible word +_life_, until we learn to enter into its meaning. A poetry of revolt +against moral ideas is a poetry of revolt against _life_; a poetry of +indifference towards moral ideas is a poetry of indifference towards +_life_. + +Epictetus had a happy figure for things like the play of the senses, or +literary form and finish, or argumentative ingenuity, in comparison with +"the best and master thing" for us, as he called it, the concern, how to +live. Some people were afraid of them, he said, or they disliked and +undervalued them. Such people were wrong; they were unthankful or +cowardly. But the things might also be over-prized, and treated as final +when they are not. They bear to life the relation which inns bear to +home. "As if a man, journeying home, and finding a nice inn on the road, +and liking it, were to stay forever at the inn! Man, thou hast +forgotten thine object; thy journey was not _to_ this, but _through_ +this. 'But this inn is taking.' And how many other inns, too, are +taking, and how many fields and meadows! but as places of passage +merely, you have an object, which is this: to get home, to do your duty +to your family, friends, and fellow-countrymen, to attain inward +freedom, serenity, happiness, contentment. Style takes your fancy, +arguing takes your fancy, and you forget your home and want to make your +abode with them and to stay with them, on the plea that they are taking. +Who denies that they are taking? but as places of passage, as inns. And +when I say this, you suppose me to be attacking the care for style, the +care for argument. I am not; I attack the resting in them, the not +looking to the end which is beyond them."[372] + +Now, when we come across a poet like Théophile Gautier,[373] we have a +poet who has taken up his abode at an inn, and never got farther. There +may be inducements to this or that one of us, at this or that moment, to +find delight in him, to cleave to him; but after all, we do not change +the truth about him,--we only stay ourselves in his inn along with him. +And when we come across a poet like Wordsworth, who sings + + "Of truth, of grandeur, beauty, love and hope, + And melancholy fear subdued by faith, + Of blessed consolations in distress, + Of moral strength and intellectual power, + Of joy in widest commonalty spread--"[374] + +then we have a poet intent on "the best and master thing," and who +prosecutes his journey home. We say, for brevity's sake, that he deals +with _life_, because he deals with that in which life really consists. +This is what Voltaire means to praise in the English poets,--this +dealing with what is really life. But always it is the mark of the +greatest poets that they deal with it; and to say that the English poets +are remarkable for dealing with it, is only another way of saying, what +is true, that in poetry the English genius has especially shown its +power. + +Wordsworth deals with it, and his greatness lies in his dealing with it +so powerfully. I have named a number of celebrated poets above all of +whom he, in my opinion, deserves to be placed. He is to be placed above +poets like Voltaire, Dryden, Pope, Lessing, Schiller, because these +famous personages, with a thousand gifts and merits, never, or scarcely +ever, attain the distinctive accent and utterance of the high and +genuine poets-- + + "Quique pii vates et Phoebo digna locuti,"[375] + +at all. Burns, Keats, Heine, not to speak of others in our list, have +this accent;--who can doubt it? And at the same time they have treasures +of humor, felicity, passion, for which in Wordsworth we shall look in +vain. Where, then, is Wordsworth's superiority? It is here; he deals +with more of _life_ than they do; he deals with _life_ as a whole, more +powerfully. + +No Wordsworthian will doubt this. Nay, the fervent Wordsworthian will +add, as Mr. Leslie Stephen[376] does, that Wordsworth's poetry is +precious because his philosophy is sound; that his "ethical system is as +distinctive and capable of exposition as Bishop Butler's"; that his +poetry is informed by ideas which "fall spontaneously into a scientific +system of thought." But we must be on our guard against the +Wordsworthians, if we want to secure for Wordsworth his due rank as a +poet. The Wordsworthians are apt to praise him for the wrong things, and +to lay far too much stress upon what they call his philosophy. His +poetry is the reality, his philosophy--so far, at least, as it may put +on the form and habit of "a scientific system of thought," and the more +that it puts them on--is the illusion. Perhaps we shall one day learn to +make this proposition general, and to say: Poetry is the reality, +philosophy the illusion. But in Wordsworth's case, at any rate, we +cannot do him justice until we dismiss his formal philosophy. + +The _Excursion_ abounds with philosophy and therefore the _Excursion_ is +to the Wordsworthian what it never can be to the disinterested lover of +poetry,--a satisfactory work. "Duty exists," says Wordsworth, in the +_Excursion_; and then he proceeds thus-- + + " ... Immutably survive, + For our support, the measures and the forms, + Which an abstract Intelligence supplies, + Whose kingdom is, where time and space are not."[377] + +And the Wordsworthian is delighted, and thinks that here is a sweet +union of philosophy and poetry. But the disinterested lover of poetry +will feel that the lines carry us really not a step farther than the +proposition which they would interpret; that they are a tissue of +elevated but abstract verbiage, alien to the very nature of poetry. + +Or let us come direct to the centre of Wordsworth's philosophy, as "an +ethical system, as distinctive and capable of systematical exposition as +Bishop Butler's"-- + + "... One adequate support + For the calamities of mortal life + Exists, one only;--an assured belief + That the procession of our fate, howe'er + Sad or disturbed, is ordered by a Being + Of infinite benevolence and power; + Whose everlasting purposes embrace + All accidents, converting them to good."[378] + + + +That is doctrine such as we hear in church too, religious and +philosophic doctrine; and the attached Wordsworthian loves passages of +such doctrine, and brings them forward in proof of his poet's +excellence. But however true the doctrine may be, it has, as here +presented, none of the characters of _poetic_ truth, the kind of truth +which we require from a poet, and in which Wordsworth is really strong. + +Even the "intimations" of the famous Ode,[379] those corner-stones of +the supposed philosophic system of Wordsworth,--the idea of the high +instincts and affections coming out in childhood, testifying of a divine +home recently left, and fading away as our life proceeds,--this idea, of +undeniable beauty as a play of fancy, has itself not the character of +poetic truth of the best kind; it has no real solidity. The instinct of +delight in Nature and her beauty had no doubt extraordinary strength in +Wordsworth himself as a child. + +But to say that universally this instinct is mighty in childhood, and +tends to die away afterwards, is to say what is extremely doubtful. In +many people, perhaps with the majority of educated persons, the love of +nature is nearly imperceptible at ten years old, but strong and +operative at thirty. In general we may say of these high instincts of +early childhood, the base of the alleged systematic philosophy of +Wordsworth, what Thucydides says of the early achievements of the Greek +race: "It is impossible to speak with certainty of what is so remote; +but from all that we can really investigate, I should say that they were +no very great things." + +Finally, the "scientific system of thought" in Wordsworth gives us at +least such poetry as this, which the devout Wordsworthian accepts-- + + + + "O for the coming of that glorious time + When, prizing knowledge as her noblest wealth + And best protection, this Imperial Realm, + While she exacts allegiance, shall admit + An obligation, on her part, to _teach_ + Them who are born to serve her and obey; + Binding herself by statute to secure, + For all the children whom her soil maintains, + The rudiments of letters, and inform + The mind with moral and religious truth."[380] + +Wordsworth calls Voltaire dull, and surely the production of these +un-Voltairian lines must have been imposed on him as a judgment! One can +hear them being quoted at a Social Science Congress; one can call up the +whole scene. A great room in one of our dismal provincial towns; dusty +air and jaded afternoon daylight; benches full of men with bald heads +and women in spectacles; an orator lifting up his face from a manuscript +written within and without to declaim these lines of Wordsworth; and in +the soul of any poor child of nature who may have wandered in thither, +an unutterable sense of lamentation, and mourning, and woe! + +"But turn we," as Wordsworth says, "from these bold, bad men," the +haunters of Social Science Congresses. And let us be on our guard, too, +against the exhibitors and extollers of a "scientific system of thought" +in Wordsworth's poetry. The poetry will never be seen aright while they +thus exhibit it. The cause of its greatness is simple, and may be told +quite simply. Wordsworth's poetry is great because of the extraordinary +power with which Wordsworth feels the joy offered to us in nature, the +joy offered to us in the simple primary affections and duties; and +because of the extraordinary power with which, in case after case, he +shows us this joy, and renders it so as to make us share it. + +The source of joy from which he thus draws is the truest and most +unfailing source of joy accessible to man. It is also accessible +universally. Wordsworth brings us word, therefore, according to his own +strong and characteristic line, he brings us word + + "Of joy in widest commonalty spread."[381] + +Here is an immense advantage for a poet. Wordsworth tells of what all +seek, and tells of it at its truest and best source, and yet a source +where all may go and draw for it. + +Nevertheless, we are not to suppose that everything is precious which +Wordsworth, standing even at this perennial and beautiful source, may +give us. Wordsworthians are apt to talk as if it must be. They will +speak with the same reverence of _The Sailor's Mother_, for example, as +of _Lucy Gray_. They do their master harm by such lack of +discrimination. _Lucy Gray_ is a beautiful success; _The Sailor's +Mother_ is a failure. To give aright what he wishes to give, to +interpret and render successfully, is not always within Wordsworth's own +command. It is within no poet's command; here is the part of the Muse, +the inspiration, the God, the "not ourselves."[382] In Wordsworth's +case, the accident, for so it may almost be called, of inspiration, is +of peculiar importance. No poet, perhaps, is so evidently filled with a +new and sacred energy when the inspiration is upon him; no poet, when it +fails him, is so left "weak as is a breaking wave." I remember hearing +him say that "Goethe's poetry was not inevitable enough." The remark is +striking and true; no line in Goethe, as Goethe said himself, but its +maker knew well how it came there. Wordsworth is right, Goethe's poetry +is not inevitable; not inevitable enough. But Wordsworth's poetry, when +he is at his best, is inevitable, as inevitable as Nature herself. It +might seem that Nature not only gave him the matter for his poem, but +wrote his poem for him. He has no style. He was too conversant with +Milton not to catch at times his master's manner, and he has fine +Miltonic lines; but he has no assured poetic style of his own, like +Milton. When he seeks to have a style he falls into ponderosity and +pomposity. In the _Excursion_ we have his style, as an artistic product +of his own creation; and although Jeffrey completely failed to recognize +Wordsworth's real greatness, he was yet not wrong in saying of the +_Excursion_, as a work of poetic style: "This will never do."[383]. And +yet magical as is that power, which Wordsworth has not, of assured and +possessed poetic style, he has something which is an equivalent for it. + +Every one who has any sense for these things feels the subtle turn, the +heightening, which is given to a poet's verse by his genius for style. +We can feel it in the + + "After life's fitful fever, he sleeps well"--[384] + +of Shakespeare; in the + + "... though fall'n on evil days, + On evil days though fall'n, and evil tongues"--[385] + +of Milton. It is the incomparable charm of Milton's power of poetic +style which gives such worth to _Paradise Regained_, and makes a great +poem of a work in which Milton's imagination does not soar high. +Wordsworth has in constant possession, and at command, no style of this +kind; but he had too poetic a nature, and had read the great poets too +well, not to catch, as I have already remarked, something of it +occasionally. We find it not only in his Miltonic lines; we find it in +such a phrase as this, where the manner is his own, not Milton's-- + + "the fierce confederate storm + Of sorrow barricadoed evermore + Within the walls of cities;"[386] + + + +although even here, perhaps, the power of style which is undeniable, is +more properly that of eloquent prose than the subtle heightening and +change wrought by genuine poetic style. It is style, again, and the +elevation given by style, which chiefly makes the effectiveness of +_Laodameia_. Still, the right sort of verse to choose from Wordsworth, +if we are to seize his true and most characteristic form of expression, +is a line like this from _Michael_-- + + "And never lifted up a single stone." + +There is nothing subtle in it, no heightening, no study of poetic style, +strictly so called, at all; yet it is expression of the highest and most +truly expressive kind. + +Wordsworth owed much to Burns, and a style of perfect plainness, relying +for effect solely on the weight and force of that which with entire +fidelity it utters, Burns could show him. + + "The poor inhabitant below + Was quick to learn and wise to know, + And keenly felt the friendly glow + And softer flame; + But thoughtless follies laid him low + And stain'd his name."[387] + +Every one will be conscious of a likeness here to Wordsworth; and if +Wordsworth did great things with this nobly plain manner, we must +remember, what indeed he himself would always have been forward to +acknowledge, that Burns used it before him. + +Still Wordsworth's use of it has something unique and unmatchable. +Nature herself seems, I say, to take the pen out of his hand, and to +write for him with her own bare, sheer, penetrating power. This arises +from two causes; from the profound sincereness with which Wordsworth +feels his subject, and also from the profoundly sincere and natural +character of his subject itself. He can and will treat such a subject +with nothing but the most plain, first-hand, almost austere naturalness. +His expression may often be called bald, as, for instance, in the poem +of _Resolution and Independence_; but it is bald as the bare mountain +tops are bald, with a baldness which is full of grandeur. + +Wherever we meet with the successful balance, in Wordsworth, of profound +truth of subject with profound truth of execution, he is unique. His +best poems are those which most perfectly exhibit this balance. I have a +warm admiration for _Laodameia_ and for the great _Ode_; but if I am to +tell the very truth, I find _Laodameia_ not wholly free from something +artificial, and the great _Ode_ not wholly free from something +declamatory. If I had to pick out poems of a kind most perfectly to show +Wordsworth's unique power, I should rather choose poems such as +_Michael, The Fountain, The Highland Reaper_.[388] And poems with the +peculiar and unique beauty which distinguishes these, Wordsworth +produced in considerable number; besides very many other poems of which +the worth, although not so rare as the worth of these, is still +exceedingly high. + +On the whole, then, as I said at the beginning, not only is Wordsworth +eminent by reason of the goodness of his best work, but he is eminent +also by reason of the great body of good work which he has left to us. +With the ancients I will not compare him. In many respects the ancients +are far above us, and yet there is something that we demand which they +can never give. Leaving the ancients, let us come to the poets and +poetry of Christendom. Dante, Shakespeare, Molière, Milton, Goethe, are +altogether larger and more splendid luminaries in the poetical heaven +than Wordsworth. But I know not where else, among the moderns, we are to +find his superiors. + +To disengage the poems which show his power, and to present them to the +English-speaking public and to the world, is the object of this volume. +I by no means say that it contains all which in Wordsworth's poems is +interesting. Except in the case of _Margaret_, a story composed +separately from the rest of the _Excursion_, and which belongs to a +different part of England, I have not ventured on detaching portions of +poems, or on giving any piece otherwise than as Wordsworth himself gave +it. But under the conditions imposed by this reserve, the volume +contains, I think, everything, or nearly everything, which may best +serve him with the majority of lovers of poetry, nothing which may +disserve him. + +I have spoken lightly of Wordsworthians; and if we are to get Wordsworth +recognized by the public and by the world, we must recommend him not in +the spirit of a clique, but in the spirit of disinterested lovers of +poetry. But I am a Wordsworthian myself. I can read with pleasure and +edification _Peter Bell_, and the whole series of _Ecclesiastical +Sonnets_, and the address to Mr. Wilkinson's spade, and even the +_Thanksgiving Ode_;--everything of Wordsworth, I think, except +_Vaudracour and Julia_. It is not for nothing that one has been brought +up in the veneration of a man so truly worthy of homage; that one has +seen him and heard him, lived in his neighborhood, and been familiar +with his country. No Wordsworthian has a tenderer affection for this +pure and sage master than I, or is less really offended by his defects. +But Wordsworth is something more than the pure and sage master of a +small band of devoted followers, and we ought not to rest satisfied +until he is seen to be what he is. He is one of the very chief glories +of English Poetry; and by nothing is England so glorious as by her +poetry. Let us lay aside every weight which hinders our getting him +recognized as this, and let our one study be to bring to pass, as widely +as possible and as truly as possible, his own word concerning his poems: +"They will coöoperate with the benign tendencies in human nature and +society, and will, in their degree, be efficacious in making men wiser, +better, and happier." + + + + +III. SOCIAL AND POLITICAL STUDIES + + + +SWEETNESS AND LIGHT[389] + + +The disparagers of culture make its motive curiosity; +sometimes, indeed, they make its motive mere exclusiveness +and vanity. The culture which is supposed to plume itself on a +smattering of Greek and Latin is a culture which is begotten by nothing +so intellectual as curiosity; it is valued either out of sheer vanity +and ignorance or else as an engine of social and class distinction, +separating its holder, like a badge or title, from other people who have +not got it. No serious man would call this _culture_, or attach any +value to it, as culture, at all. To find the real ground for the very +differing estimate which serious people will set upon culture, we must +find some motive for culture in the terms of which may lie a real +ambiguity; and such a motive the word _curiosity_ gives us. + +I have before now pointed out that we English do not, like the +foreigners, use this word in a good sense as well as in a bad sense. +With us the word is always used in a somewhat disapproving sense. A +liberal and intelligent eagerness about the things of the mind may be +meant by a foreigner when he speaks of curiosity, but with us the word +always conveys a certain notion of frivolous and unedifying activity. In +the _Quarterly Review_, some little time ago, was an estimate of the +celebrated French critic, M. Sainte-Beuve,[390] and a very inadequate +estimate it in my judgment was. And its inadequacy consisted chiefly in +this: that in our English way it left out of sight the double sense +really involved in the word _curiosity_, thinking enough was said to +stamp M. Sainte-Beuve with blame if it was said that he was impelled in +his operations as a critic by curiosity, and omitting either to perceive +that M. Sainte-Beuve himself, and many other people with him, would +consider that this was praiseworthy and not blameworthy, or to point out +why it ought really to be accounted worthy of blame and not of praise. +For as there is a curiosity about intellectual matters which is futile, +and merely a disease, so there is certainly a curiosity,--a desire after +the things of the mind simply for their own sakes and for the pleasure +of seeing them as they are,--which is, in an intelligent being, natural +and laudable. Nay, and the very desire to see things as they are, +implies a balance and regulation of mind which is not often attained +without fruitful effort, and which is the very opposite of the blind and +diseased impulse of mind which is what we mean to blame when we blame +curiosity. Montesquieu says: "The first motive which ought to impel us +to study is the desire to augment the excellence of our nature, and to +render an intelligent being yet more intelligent."[391] This is the true +ground to assign for the genuine scientific passion, however manifested, +and for culture, viewed simply as a fruit of this passion; and it is a +worthy ground, even though we let the term _curiosity_ stand to describe +it. But there is of culture another view, in which not solely the +scientific passion, the sheer desire to see things as they are, natural +and proper in an intelligent being, appears as the ground of it. There +is a view in which all the love of our neighbor, the impulses towards +action, help, and beneficence, the desire for removing human error, +clearing human confusion, and diminishing human misery, the noble +aspiration to leave the world better and happier than we found it,-- +motives eminently such as are called social,--come in as part of the +grounds of culture, and the main and preëminent part. Culture is then +properly described not as having its origin in curiosity, but as having +its origin in the love of perfection; it is _a study of perfection_. It +moves by the force, not merely or primarily of the scientific passion +for pure knowledge, but also of the moral and social passion for doing +good. As, in the first view of it, we took for its worthy motto +Montesquieu's words: "To render an intelligent being yet more +intelligent!" so, in the second view of it, there is no better motto +which it can have than these words of Bishop Wilson:[392] "To make +reason and the will of God prevail!"[393] + +Only, whereas the passion for doing good is apt to be overhasty in +determining what reason and the will of God say, because its turn is for +acting rather than thinking and it wants to be beginning to act; and +whereas it is apt to take its own conceptions, which proceed from its +own state of development and share in all the imperfections and +immaturities of this, for a basis of action; what distinguishes culture +is, that it is possessed by the scientific passion as well as by the +passion of doing good; that it demands worthy notions of reason and the +will of God, and does not readily suffer its own crude conceptions to +substitute themselves for them. And knowing that no action or +institution can be salutary and stable which is not based on reason and +the will of God, it is not so bent on acting and instituting, even with +the great aim of diminishing human error and misery ever before its +thoughts, but that it can remember that acting and instituting are of +little use, unless we know how and what we ought to act and to +institute. + +This culture is more interesting and more far-reaching than that other, +which is founded solely on the scientific passion for knowing. But it +needs times of faith and ardor, times when the intellectual horizon is +opening and widening all around us, to flourish in. And is not the close +and bounded intellectual horizon within which we have long lived and +moved now lifting up, and are not new lights finding free passage to +shine in upon us? For a long time there was no passage for them to make +their way in upon us, and then it was of no use to think of adapting the +world's action to them. Where was the hope of making reason and the will +of God prevail among people who had a routine which they had christened +reason and the will of God, in which they were inextricably bound, and +beyond which they had no power of looking? But now, the iron force of +adhesion to the old routine,--social, political, religious,--has +wonderfully yielded; the iron force of exclusion of all which is new has +wonderfully yielded. The danger now is, not that people should +obstinately refuse to allow anything but their old routine to pass for +reason and the will of God, but either that they should allow some +novelty or other to pass for these too easily, or else that they should +underrate the importance of them altogether, and think it enough to +follow action for its own sake, without troubling themselves to make +reason and the will of God prevail therein. Now, then, is the moment for +culture to be of service, culture which believes in making reason and +the will of God prevail, believes in perfection, is the study and +pursuit of perfection, and is no longer debarred, by a rigid invincible +exclusion of whatever is new, from getting acceptance for its ideas, +simply because they are new. + +The moment this view of culture is seized, the moment it is regarded not +solely as the endeavor to see things as they are, to draw towards a +knowledge of the universal order which seems to be intended and aimed at +in the world, and which it is a man's happiness to go along with or his +misery to go counter to,--to learn, in short, the will of God,--the +moment, I say, culture is considered not merely as the endeavor to _see_ +and _learn_ this, but as the endeavor, also, to make it _prevail_, the +moral, social, and beneficent character of culture becomes manifest. The +mere endeavor to see and learn the truth for our own personal +satisfaction is indeed a commencement for making it prevail, a preparing +the way for this, which always serves this, and is wrongly, therefore, +stamped with blame absolutely in itself and not only in its caricature +and degeneration. But perhaps it has got stamped with blame, and +disparaged with the dubious title of curiosity, because in comparison +with this wider endeavor of such great and plain utility it looks +selfish, petty, and unprofitable. + +And religion, the greatest and most important of the efforts by which +the human race has manifested its impulse to perfect itself,--religion, +that voice of the deepest human experience,--does not only enjoin and +sanction the aim which is the great aim of culture, the aim of setting +ourselves to ascertain what perfection is and to make it prevail; but +also, in determining generally in what human perfection consists, +religion comes to a conclusion identical with that which culture,-- +culture seeking the determination of this question through _all_ the +voices of human experience which have been heard upon it, of art, +science, poetry, philosophy, history, as well as of religion, in order +to give a greater fulness and certainty to its solution,--likewise +reaches. Religion says: _The kingdom of God_ _is within you_; and +culture, in like manner, places human perfection in an _internal_ +condition, in the growth and predominance of our humanity proper, as +distinguished from our animality. It places it in the ever-increasing +efficacy and in the general harmonious expansion of those gifts of +thought and feeling, which make the peculiar dignity, wealth, and +happiness of human nature. As I have said on a former occasion: "It is +in making endless additions to itself, in the endless expansion of its +powers, in endless growth in wisdom and beauty, that the spirit of the +human race finds its ideal. To reach this ideal, culture is an +indispensable aid, and that is the true value of culture." Not a having +and a resting, but a growing and a becoming, is the character of +perfection as culture conceives it; and here, too, it coincides with +religion. + +And because men are all members of one great whole, and the sympathy +which is in human nature will not allow one member to be indifferent to +the rest or to have a perfect welfare independent of the rest, the +expansion of our humanity, to suit the idea of perfection which culture +forms, must be a _general_ expansion. Perfection, as culture conceives +it, is not possible while the individual remains isolated. The +individual is required, under pain of being stunted and enfeebled in his +own development if he disobeys, to carry others along with him in his +march towards perfection, to be continually doing all he can to enlarge +and increase the volume of the human stream sweeping thitherward. And, +here, once more, culture lays on us the same obligation as religion, +which says, as Bishop Wilson has admirably put it, that "to promote the +kingdom of God is to increase and hasten one's own happiness."[394] + +But, finally, perfection,--as culture from a thorough disinterested +study of human nature and human experience learns to conceive it,--is a +harmonious expansion of _all_ the powers which make the beauty and worth +of human nature, and is not consistent with the over-development of any +one power at the expense of the rest. Here culture goes beyond religion +as religion is generally conceived by us. + +If culture, then, is a study of perfection, and of harmonious +perfection, general perfection, and perfection which consists in +becoming something rather than in having something, in an inward +condition of the mind and spirit, not in an outward set of +circumstances,--it is clear that culture, instead or being the +frivolous and useless thing which Mr. Bright,[395] and Mr. Frederic +Harrison,[396] and many other Liberals are apt to call it, has a very +important function to fulfil for mankind. And this function is +particularly important in our modern world, of which the whole +civilization is, to a much greater degree than the civilization of +Greece and Rome, mechanical and external, and tends constantly to become +more so. But above all in our own country has culture a weighty part to +perform, because here that mechanical character, which civilization +tends to take everywhere, is shown in the most eminent degree. Indeed +nearly all the characters of perfection, as culture teaches us to fix +them, meet in this country with some powerful tendency which thwarts +them and sets them at defiance. The idea of perfection as an _inward_ +condition of the mind and spirit is at variance with the mechanical and +material civilization in esteem with us, and nowhere, as I have said, so +much in esteem as with us. The idea of perfection as a _general_ +expansion of the human family is at variance with our strong +individualism, our hatred of all limits to the unrestrained swing of the +individual's personality, our maxim of "every man for himself." Above +all, the idea of perfection as a _harmonious_ expansion of human nature +is at variance with our want of flexibility, with our inaptitude for +seeing more than one side of a thing, with our intense energetic +absorption in the particular pursuit we happen to be following. So +culture has a rough task to achieve in this country. Its preachers have, +and are likely long to have, a hard time of it, and they will much +oftener be regarded, for a great while to come, as elegant or spurious +Jeremiahs than as friends and benefactors. That, however, will not +prevent their doing in the end good service if they persevere. And, +meanwhile, the mode of action they have to pursue, and the sort of +habits they must fight against, ought to be made quite clear for every +one to see, who may be willing to look at the matter attentively and +dispassionately. + +Faith in machinery is, I said, our besetting danger; often in machinery +most absurdly disproportioned to the end which this machinery, if it is +to do any good at all, is to serve; but always in machinery, as if it +had a value in and for itself. What is freedom but machinery? what is +population but machinery? what is coal but machinery? what are railroads +but machinery? what is wealth but machinery? what are, even, religious +organizations but machinery? Now almost every voice in England is +accustomed to speak of these things as if they were precious ends in +themselves, and therefore had some of the characters of perfection +indisputably joined to them. I have before now noticed Mr. +Roebuck's[397] stock argument for proving the greatness and happiness of +England as she is, and for quite stopping the mouths of all gainsayers. +Mr. Roebuck is never weary of reiterating this argument of his, so I do +not know why I should be weary of noticing it. "May not every man in +England say what he likes?"--Mr. Roebuck perpetually asks: and that, he +thinks, is quite sufficient, and when every man may say what he likes, +our aspirations ought to be satisfied. But the aspirations of culture, +which is the study of perfection, are not satisfied, unless what men +say, when they may say what they like, is worth saying,--has good in +it, and more good than bad. In the same way the _Times_, replying to +some foreign strictures on the dress, looks, and behavior of the English +abroad, urges that the English ideal is that every one should be free to +do and to look just as he likes. But culture indefatigably tries, not to +make what each raw person may like, the rule by which he fashions +himself; but to draw ever nearer to a sense of what is indeed beautiful, +graceful, and becoming, and to get the raw person to like that. + +And in the same way with respect to railroads and coal. Every one must +have observed the strange language current during the late discussions +as to the possible failure of our supplies of coal. Our coal, thousands +of people were saying, is the real basis of our national greatness; if +our coal runs short, there is an end of the greatness of England. But +what _is_ greatness?--culture makes us ask. Greatness is a spiritual +condition worthy to excite love, interest, and admiration; and the +outward proof of possessing greatness is that we excite love, interest, +and admiration. If England were swallowed up by the sea to-morrow, which +of the two, a hundred years hence, would most excite the love, interest, +and admiration of mankind,--would most, therefore, show the evidences of +having possessed greatness,--the England of the last twenty years, or +the England of Elizabeth, of a time of splendid spiritual effort, but +when our coal, and our industrial operations depending on coal, were +very little developed? Well, then, what an unsound habit of mind it must +be which makes us talk of things like coal or iron as constituting the +greatness of England, and how salutary a friend is culture, bent on +seeing things as they are, and thus dissipating delusions of this kind +and fixing standards of perfection that are real! + +Wealth, again, that end to which our prodigious works for material +advantage are directed,--the commonest of commonplaces tells us how men +are always apt to regard wealth as a precious end in itself: and +certainly they have never been so apt thus to regard it as they are in +England at the present time. Never did people believe anything more +firmly than nine Englishmen out of ten at the present day believe that +our greatness and welfare are proved by our being so very rich. Now, the +use of culture is that it helps us, by means of its spiritual standard +of perfection, to regard wealth as but machinery, and not only to say as +a matter of words that we regard wealth as but machinery, but really to +perceive and feel that it is so. If it were not for this purging effect +wrought upon our minds by culture, the whole world, the future as well +as the present, would inevitably belong to the Philistines. The people +who believe most that our greatness and welfare are proved by our being +very rich, and who most give their lives and thoughts to becoming rich, +are just the very people whom we call Philistines. Culture says: +"Consider these people, then, their way of life, their habits, their +manners, the very tones of their voice; look at them attentively; +observe the literature they read, the things which give them pleasure, +the words which come forth out of their mouths, the thoughts which make +the furniture of their minds; would any amount of wealth be worth having +with the condition that one was to become just like these people by +having it?" And thus culture begets a dissatisfaction which is of the +highest possible value in stemming the common tide of men's thoughts in +a wealthy and industrial community, and which saves the future, as one +may hope, from being vulgarized, even if it cannot save the present. + +Population, again, and bodily health and vigor, are things which are +nowhere treated in such an unintelligent, misleading, exaggerated way as +in England. Both are really machinery; yet how many people all around us +do we see rest in them and fail to look beyond them! Why, one has heard +people, fresh from reading certain articles of the _Times_ on the +Registrar-General's returns of marriages and births in this country, who +would talk of our large English families in quite a solemn strain, as if +they had something in itself beautiful, elevating, and meritorious in +them; as if the British Philistine would have only to present himself +before the Great Judge with his twelve children, in order to be received +among the sheep as a matter of right! + +But bodily health and vigor, it may be said, are not to be classed with +wealth and population as mere machinery; they have a more real and +essential value. True; but only as they are more intimately connected +with a perfect spiritual condition than wealth or population are. The +moment we disjoin them from the idea of a perfect spiritual condition, +and pursue them, as we do pursue them, for their own sake and as ends in +themselves, our worship of them becomes as mere worship of machinery, as +our worship of wealth or population, and as unintelligent and +vulgarizing a worship as that is. Every one with anything like an +adequate idea of human perfection has distinctly marked this +subordination to higher and spiritual ends of the cultivation of bodily +vigor and activity. "Bodily exercise profiteth little; but godliness is +profitable unto all things,"[398] says the author of the Epistle to +Timothy. And the utilitarian Franklin says just as explicitly:--"Eat and +drink such an exact quantity as suits the constitution of thy body, _in +reference to the services of the mind_."[399] But the point of view of +culture, keeping the mark of human perfection simply and broadly in +view, and not assigning to this perfection, as religion or +utilitarianism assigns to it, a special and limited character, this +point of view, I say, of culture is best given by these words of +Epictetus: "It is a sign of[Greek: aphuia]," says he,--that is, of a +nature not finely tempered,--"to give yourselves up to things which +relate to the body; to make, for instance, a great fuss about exercise, +a great fuss about eating, a great fuss about drinking, a great fuss +about walking, a great fuss about riding. All these things ought to be +done merely by the way: the formation of the spirit and character must +be our real concern."[400] This is admirable; and, indeed, the Greek +word[Greek: euphuia], a finely tempered nature, gives exactly the +notion of perfection as culture brings us to conceive it: a harmonious +perfection, a perfection in which the characters of beauty and +intelligence are both present, which unites "the two noblest of +things,"--as Swift, who of one of the two, at any rate, had himself all +too little, most happily calls them in his _Battle of the Books_,--"the +two noblest of things, _sweetness and light_."[401] The[Greek: +euphuaes] is the man who tends towards sweetness and light; the[Greek: +aphuaes], on the other hand, is our Philistine. The immense spiritual +significance of the Greeks is due to their having been inspired with +this central and happy idea of the essential character of human +perfection; and Mr. Bright's misconception of culture, as a smattering +of Greek and Latin, comes itself, after all, from this wonderful +significance of the Greeks having affected the very machinery of our +education, and is in itself a kind of homage to it. + +In thus making sweetness and light to be characters of perfection, +culture is of like spirit with poetry, follows one law with poetry. Far +more than on our freedom, our population, and our industrialism, many +amongst us rely upon our religious organizations to save us. I have +called religion a yet more important manifestation of human nature than +poetry, because it has worked on a broader scale for perfection, and +with greater masses of men. But the idea of beauty and of a human nature +perfect on all its sides, which is the dominant idea of poetry, is a +true and invaluable idea, though it has not yet had the success that the +idea of conquering the obvious faults of our animality, and of a human +nature perfect on the moral side,--which is the dominant idea of +religion,--has been enabled to have; and it is destined, adding to +itself the religious idea of a devout energy, to transform and govern +the other. + +The best art and poetry of the Greeks, in which religion and poetry are +one, in which the idea of beauty and of a human nature perfect on all +sides adds to itself a religious and devout energy, and works in the +strength of that, is on this account of such surpassing interest and +instructiveness for us, though it was,--as, having regard to the human +race in general, and, indeed, having regard to the Greeks themselves, we +must own,--a premature attempt, an attempt which for success needed the +moral and religious fibre in humanity to be more braced and developed +than it had yet been. But Greece did not err in having the idea of +beauty, harmony, and complete human perfection, so present and +paramount. It is impossible to have this idea too present and paramount; +only, the moral fibre must be braced too. And we, because we have braced +the moral fibre, are not on that account in the right way, if at the +same time the idea of beauty, harmony, and complete human perfection, is +wanting or misapprehended amongst us; and evidently it _is_ wanting or +misapprehended at present. And when we rely as we do on our religious +organizations, which in themselves do not and cannot give us this idea, +and think we have done enough if we make them spread and prevail, then, +I say, we fall into our common fault of overvaluing machinery. + +Nothing is more common than for people to confound the inward peace and +satisfaction which follows the subduing of the obvious faults of our +animality with what I may call absolute inward peace and satisfaction,-- +the peace and satisfaction which are reached as we draw near to complete +spiritual perfection, and not merely to moral perfection, or rather to +relative moral perfection. No people in the world have done more and +struggled more to attain this relative moral perfection than our English +race has. For no people in the world has the command to _resist the +devil_, to _overcome the wicked one_, in the nearest and most obvious +sense of those words, had such a pressing force and reality. And we have +had our reward, not only in the great worldly prosperity which our +obedience to this command has brought us, but also, and far more, in +great inward peace and satisfaction. But to me few things are more +pathetic than to see people, on the strength of the inward peace and +satisfaction which their rudimentary efforts towards perfection have +brought them, employ, concerning their incomplete perfection and the +religious organizations within which they have found it, language which +properly applies only to complete perfection, and is a far-off echo of +the human soul's prophecy of it. Religion itself, I need hardly say, +supplies them in abundance with this grand language. And very freely do +they use it; yet it is really the severest possible criticism of such an +incomplete perfection as alone we have yet reached through our religious +organizations. + +The impulse of the English race towards moral development and +self-conquest has nowhere so powerfully manifested itself as in +Puritanism. Nowhere has Puritanism found so adequate an expression as in +the religious organization of the Independents.[402] The modern +Independents have a newspaper, the _Nonnconformist_, written with great +sincerity and ability. The motto, the standard, the profession of faith +which this organ of theirs carries aloft, is: "The Dissidence of Dissent +and the Protestantism of the Protestant religion."[403] There is +sweetness and light, and an ideal of complete harmonious human +perfection! One need not go to culture and poetry to find language to +judge it. Religion, with its instinct for perfection, supplies language +to judge it, language, too, which is in our mouths every day. "Finally, +be of one mind, united in feeling,"[404] says St. Peter. There is an +ideal which judges the Puritan ideal: "The Dissidence of Dissent and the +Protestantism of the Protestant religion!" And religious organizations +like this are what people believe in, rest in, would give their lives +for! Such, I say, is the wonderful virtue of even the beginnings of +perfection, of having conquered even the plain faults of our animality, +that the religious organization which has helped us to do it can seem to +us something precious, salutary, and to be propagated, even when it +wears such a brand of imperfection on its forehead as this. And men have +got such a habit of giving to the language of religion a special +application, of making it a mere jargon, that for the condemnation which +religion itself passes on the shortcomings of their religious +organizations they have no ear; they are sure to cheat themselves and to +explain this condemnation away. They can only be reached by the +criticism which culture, like poetry, speaking a language not to be +sophisticated, and resolutely testing these organizations by the ideal +of a human perfection complete on all sides, applies to them. + +But men of culture and poetry, it will be said, are again and again +failing, and failing conspicuously, in the necessary first stage to a +harmonious perfection, in the subduing of the great obvious faults of +our animality, which it is the glory of these religious organizations to +have helped us to subdue. True, they do often so fail. They have often +been without the virtues as well as the faults of the Puritan; it has +been one of their dangers that they so felt the Puritan's faults that +they too much neglected the practice of his virtues. I will not, +however, exculpate them at the Puritan's expense. They have often failed +in morality, and morality is indispensable. And they have been punished +for their failure, as the Puritan has been rewarded for his performance. +They have been punished wherein they erred; but their ideal of beauty, +of sweetness and light, and a human nature complete on all its sides, +remains the true ideal of perfection still; just as the Puritan's ideal +of perfection remains narrow and inadequate, although for what he did +well he has been richly rewarded. Notwithstanding the mighty results of +the Pilgrim Fathers' voyage, they and their standard of perfection are +rightly judged when we figure to ourselves Shakespeare or Virgil,--souls +in whom sweetness and light, and all that in human nature is most +humane, were eminent,--accompanying them on their voyage, and think what +intolerable company Shakespeare and Virgil would have found them! In the +same way let us judge the religious organizations which we see all +around us. Do not let us deny the good and the happiness which they have +accomplished; but do not let us fail to see clearly that their idea of +human perfection is narrow and inadequate, and that the Dissidence of +Dissent and the Protestantism of the Protestant religion will never +bring humanity to its true goal. As I said with regard to wealth: Let us +look at the life of those who live in and for it,--so I say with regard +to the religious organizations. Look at the life imaged in such a +newspaper as the _Nonnconformist_,--a life of jealousy of the +Establishment, disputes, tea-meetings, openings of chapels, sermons; and +then think of it as an ideal of a human life completing itself on all +sides, and aspiring with all its organs after sweetness, light, and +perfection! + +Another newspaper, representing, like the _Nonconformist_, one of the +religious organizations of this country, was a short time ago giving an +account of the crowd at Epsom[405] on the Derby day, and of all the vice +and hideousness which was to be seen in that crowd; and then the writer +turned suddenly round upon Professor Huxley, and asked him how he +proposed to cure all this vice and hideousness without religion. I +confess I felt disposed to ask the asker this question: and how do you +propose to cure it with such a religion as yours? How is the ideal of a +life so unlovely, so unattractive, so incomplete, so narrow, so far +removed from a true and satisfying ideal of human perfection, as is the +life of your religious organization as you yourself reflect it, to +conquer and transform all this vice and hideousness? Indeed, the +strongest plea for the study of perfection as pursued by culture, the +clearest proof of the actual inadequacy of the idea of perfection held +by the religious organizations,--expressing, as I have said, the most +widespread effort which the human race has yet made after perfection,-- +is to be found in the state of our life and society with these in +possession of it, and having been in possession of it I know not how +many hundred years. We are all of us included in some religious +organization or other; we all call ourselves, in the sublime and +aspiring language of religion which I have before noticed, _children of +God_. Children of God;--it is an immense pretension!--and how are we to +justify it? By the works which we do, and the words which we speak. And +the work which we collective children of God do, our grand centre of +life, our _city_ which we have builded for us to dwell in, is London! +London, with its unutterable external hideousness, and with its internal +canker of _publice egestas, privatim opulentia_,[406]--to use the words +which Sallust puts into Cato's mouth about Rome,--unequalled in the +world! The word, again, which we children of God speak, the voice which +most hits our collective thought, the newspaper with the largest +circulation in England, nay, with the largest circulation in the whole +world, is the _Daily Telegraph_![407] I say that when our religious +organizations--which I admit to express the most considerable effort +after perfection that our race has yet made--land us in no better result +than this, it is high time to examine carefully their idea of +perfection, to see whether it does not leave out of account sides and +forces of human nature which we might turn to great use; whether it +would not be more operative if it were more complete. And I say that the +English reliance on our religious organizations and on their ideas of +human perfection just as they stand, is like our reliance on freedom, on +muscular Christianity, on population, on coal, on wealth,--mere belief +in machinery, and unfruitful; and that it is wholesomely counteracted by +culture, bent on seeing things as they are, and on drawing the human +race onwards to a more complete, a harmonious perfection. + +Culture, however, shows its single-minded love of perfection, its desire +simply to make reason and the will of God prevail, its freedom from +fanaticism, by its attitude towards all this machinery, even while it +insists that it _is_ machinery. Fanatics, seeing the mischief men do +themselves by their blind belief in some machinery or other,--whether it +is wealth and industrialism, or whether it is the cultivation of bodily +strength and activity, or whether it is a political organization,--or +whether it is a religious organization,--oppose with might and main the +tendency to this or that political and religious organization, or to +games and athletic exercises, or to wealth and industrialism, and try +violently to stop it. But the flexibility which sweetness and light +give, and which is one of the rewards of culture pursued in good faith, +enables a man to see that a tendency may be necessary, and even, as a +preparation for something in the future, salutary, and yet that the +generations or individuals who obey this tendency are sacrificed to it, +that they fall short of the hope of perfection by following it; and that +its mischiefs are to be criticized, lest it should take too firm a hold +and last after it has served its purpose. + +Mr. Gladstone well pointed out, in a speech at Paris,--and others have +pointed out the same thing,--how necessary is the present great +movement towards wealth and industrialism, in order to lay broad +foundations of material well-being for the society of the future. The +worst of these justifications is, that they are generally addressed to +the very people engaged, body and soul, in the movement in question; at +all events, that they are always seized with the greatest avidity by +these people, and taken by them as quite justifying their life; and that +thus they tend to harden them in their sins. Now, culture admits the +necessity of the movement towards fortune-making and exaggerated +industrialism, readily allows that the future may derive benefit from +it; but insists, at the same time, that the passing generations of +industrialists,--forming, for the most part, the stout main body of +Philistinism,--are sacrificed to it. In the same way, the result of all +the games and sports which occupy the passing generation of boys and +young men may be the establishment of a better and sounder physical type +for the future to work with. Culture does not set itself against the +games and sports; it congratulates the future, and hopes it will make a +good use of its improved physical basis; but it points out that our +passing generation of boys and young men is, meantime, sacrificed. +Puritanism was perhaps necessary to develop the moral fibre of the +English race, Nonconformity to break the yoke of ecclesiastical +domination over men's minds and to prepare the way for freedom of +thought in the distant future; still, culture points out that the +harmonious perfection of generations of Puritans and Nonconformists has +been, in consequence, sacrificed. Freedom of speech may be necessary for +the society of the future, but the young lions[408] of the _Daily +Telegraph_ in the meanwhile are sacrificed. A voice for every man in his +country's government may be necessary for the society of the future, but +meanwhile Mr. Beales[409]and Mr. Bradlaugh[410] are sacrificed. + +Oxford, the Oxford of the past, has many faults; and she has heavily +paid for them in defeat, in isolation, in want of hold upon the modern +world. Yet we in Oxford, brought up amidst the beauty and sweetness of +that beautiful place, have not failed to seize one truth,--the truth +that beauty and sweetness are essential characters of a complete human +perfection. When I insist on this, I am all in the faith and tradition +of Oxford. I say boldly that this our sentiment for beauty and +sweetness, our sentiment against hideousness and rawness, has been at +the bottom of our attachment to so many beaten causes, of our opposition +to so many triumphant movements. And the sentiment is true, and has +never been wholly defeated, and has shown its power even in its defeat. +We have not won our political battles, we have not carried our main +points, we have not stopped our adversaries' advance, we have not +marched victoriously with the modern world; but we have told silently +upon the mind of the country, we have prepared currents of feeling which +sap our adversaries' position when it seems gained, we have kept up our +own communications with the future. Look at the course of the great +movement which shook Oxford to its centre some thirty years ago! It was +directed, as any one who reads Dr. Newman's _Apology_[411] may see, +against what in one word may be called "Liberalism." Liberalism +prevailed; it was the appointed force to do the work of the hour; it was +necessary, it was inevitable that it should prevail. The Oxford movement +was broken, it failed; our wrecks are scattered on every shore:-- + + "Quæ regio in terris nostri non plena laboris?"[412] + +But what was it, this liberalism, as Dr. Newman saw it, and as it really +broke the Oxford movement? It was the great middle-class liberalism, +which had for the cardinal points of its belief the Reform Bill of +1832,[413] and local self-government, in politics; in the social sphere, +free-trade, unrestricted competition, and the making of large industrial +fortunes; in the religious sphere, the Dissidence of Dissent and the +Protestantism of the Protestant religion. I do not say that other and +more intelligent forces than this were not opposed to the Oxford +movement: but this was the force which really beat it; this was the +force which Dr. Newman felt himself fighting with; this was the force +which till only the other day seemed to be the paramount force in this +country, and to be in possession of the future; this was the force whose +achievements fill Mr. Lowe[414] with such inexpressible admiration, and +whose rule he was so horror-struck to see threatened. And where is this +great force of Philistinism now? It is thrust into the second rank, it +is become a power of yesterday, it has lost the future. A new power has +suddenly appeared, a power which it is impossible yet to judge fully, +but which is certainly a wholly different force from middle-class +liberalism; different in its cardinal points of belief, different in its +tendencies in every sphere. It loves and admires neither the legislation +of middle-class Parliaments, nor the local self-government of +middle-class vestries, nor the unrestricted competition of middle-class +industrialists, nor the dissidence of middle-class Dissent and the +Protestantism of middle-class Protestant religion. I am not now praising +this new force, or saying that its own ideals are better; all I say is, +that they are wholly different. And who will estimate how much the +currents of feeling created by Dr. Newman's movements, the keen desire +for beauty and sweetness which it nourished, the deep aversion it +manifested to the hardness and vulgarity of middle-class liberalism, the +strong light it turned on the hideous and grotesque illusions of +middle-class Protestantism,--who will estimate how much all these +contributed to swell the tide of secret dissatisfaction which has mined +the ground under self-confident liberalism of the last thirty years, and +has prepared the way for its sudden collapse and supersession? It is in +this manner that the sentiment of Oxford for beauty and sweetness +conquers, and in this manner long may it continue to conquer! + +In this manner it works to the same end as culture, and there is plenty +of work for it yet to do. I have said that the new and more democratic +force which is now superseding our old middle-class liberalism cannot +yet be rightly judged. It has its main tendencies still to form. We hear +promises of its giving us administrative reform, law reform, reform of +education, and I know not what; but those promises come rather from its +advocates, wishing to make a good plea for it and to justify it for +superseding middle-class liberalism, than from clear tendencies which it +has itself yet developed. But meanwhile it has plenty of +well-intentioned friends against whom culture may with advantage +continue to uphold steadily its ideal of human perfection; that this is +_an inward spiritual activity, having for its characters increased +sweetness, increased light, increased life, increased sympathy_. Mr. +Bright, who has a foot in both worlds, the world of middle-class +liberalism and the world of democracy, but who brings most of his ideas +from the world of middle-class liberalism in which he was bred, always +inclines to inculcate that faith in machinery to which, as we have seen, +Englishmen are so prone, and which has been the bane of middle-class +liberalism. He complains with a sorrowful indignation of people who +"appear to have no proper estimate of the value of the franchise"; he +leads his disciples to believe--what the Englishman is always too ready +to believe--that the having a vote, like the having a large family, or +a large business, or large muscles, has in itself some edifying and +perfecting effect upon human nature. Or else he cries out to the +democracy,--"the men," as he calls them," upon whose shoulders the +greatness of England rests,"--he cries out to them: "See what you have +done! I look over this country and see the cities you have built, the +railroads you have made, the manufactures you have produced, the cargoes +which freight the ships of the greatest mercantile navy the world has +ever seen! I see that you have converted by your labors what was once a +wilderness, these islands, into a fruitful garden; I know that you have +created this wealth, and are a nation whose name is a word of power +throughout all the world." Why, this is just the very style of laudation +with which Mr. Roebuck or Mr. Lowe debauches the minds of the middle +classes, and makes such Philistines of them. It is the same fashion of +teaching a man to value himself not on what he _is_, not on his progress +in sweetness and light, but on the number of the railroads he has +constructed, or the bigness of the tabernacle he has built. Only the +middle classes are told they have done it all with their energy, +self-reliance, and capital, and the democracy are told they have done it +all with their hands and sinews. But teaching the democracy to put its +trust in achievements of this kind is merely training them to be +Philistines to take the place of the Philistines whom they are +superseding; and they, too, like the middle class, will be encouraged to +sit down at the banquet of the future without having on a wedding +garment, and nothing excellent can then come from them. Those who know +their besetting faults, or those who have watched them and listened to +them, or those who will read the instructive account recently given of +them by one of themselves, the _Journeyman Engineer_, will agree that +the idea which culture sets before us of perfection,--an increased +spiritual activity, having for its characters increased sweetness, +increased light, increased life, increased sympathy,--is an idea which +the new democracy needs far more than the idea of the blessedness of the +franchise, or the wonderfulness of its own industrial performances. + +Other well-meaning friends of this new power are for leading it, not in +the old ruts of middle-class Philistinism, but in ways which are +naturally alluring to the feet of democracy, though in this country they +are novel and untried ways. I may call them the ways of Jacobinism.[415] +Violent indignation with the past, abstract systems of renovation +applied wholesale, a new doctrine drawn up in black and white for +elaborating down to the very smallest details a rational society for the +future,--these are the ways of Jacobinism. Mr. Frederic Harrison[416] +and other disciples of Comte,[417]--one of them, Mr. Congreve,[418] is +an old friend of mine, and I am glad to have an opportunity of publicly +expressing my respect for his talents and character,--are among the +friends of democracy who are for leading it in paths of this kind. Mr. +Frederic Harrison is very hostile to culture, and from a natural enough +motive; for culture is the eternal opponent of the two things which are +the signal marks of Jacobinism,--its fierceness, and its addiction to +an abstract system. Culture is always assigning to system-makers and +systems a smaller share in the bent of human destiny than their friends +like. A current in people's minds sets towards new ideas; people are +dissatisfied with their old narrow stock of Philistine ideas, +Anglo-Saxon ideas, or any other; and some man, some Bentham[419] or +Comte, who has the real merit of having early and strongly felt and +helped the new current, but who brings plenty of narrowness and mistakes +of his own into his feeling and help of it, is credited with being the +author of the whole current, the fit person to be entrusted with its +regulation and to guide the human race. + +The excellent German historian of the mythology of Rome, Preller,[420] +relating the introduction at Rome under the Tarquins of the worship of +Apollo, the god of light, healing, and reconciliation, will have us +observe that it was not so much the Tarquins who brought to Rome the new +worship of Apollo, as a current in the mind of the Roman people which +set powerfully at that time towards a new worship of this kind, and away +from the old run of Latin and Sabine religious ideas. In a similar way, +culture directs our attention to the natural current there is in human +affairs, and to its continual working, and will not let us rivet our +faith upon any one man and his doings. It makes us see not only his good +side, but also how much in him was of necessity limited and transient; +nay, it even feels a pleasure, a sense of an increased freedom and of an +ampler future, in so doing. + +I remember, when I was under the influence of a mind to which I feel the +greatest obligations, the mind of a man who was the very incarnation of +sanity and clear sense, a man the most considerable, it seems to me, +whom America has yet produced,--Benjamin Franklin,--I remember the +relief with which, after long feeling the sway of Franklin's +imperturbable common-sense, I came upon a project of his for a new +version of the Book of Job,[421] to replace the old version, the style +of which, says Franklin, has become obsolete, and thence less +agreeable. "I give," he continues, "a few verses, which may serve as a +sample of the kind of version I would recommend." We all recollect the +famous verse in our translation: "Then Satan answered the Lord and said: +'Doth Job fear God for nought?'" Franklin makes this: "Does your Majesty +imagine that Job's good conduct is the effect of mere personal +attachment and affection?" I well remember how, when first I read that, +I drew a deep breath of relief and said to myself: "After all, there is +a stretch of humanity beyond Franklin's victorious good sense!" So, +after hearing Bentham cried loudly up as the renovator of modern +society, and Bentham's mind and ideas proposed as the rulers of our +future, I open the _Deontology._[422] There I read: "While Xenophon was +writing his history and Euclid teaching geometry, Socrates and Plato +were talking nonsense under pretense of talking wisdom and morality. +This morality of theirs consisted in words; this wisdom of theirs was +the denial of matters known to every man's experience." From the moment +of reading that, I am delivered from the bondage of Bentham! the +fanaticism of his adherents can touch me no longer. I feel the +inadequacy of his mind and ideas for supplying the rule of human +society, for perfection. + +Culture tends always thus to deal with the men of a system, of +disciples, of a school; with men like Comte, or the late Mr. Buckle, +[423] or Mr. Mill.[424] However much it may find to admire in these +personages, or in some of them, it nevertheless remembers the text: "Be +not ye called Rabbi!" and it soon passes on from any Rabbi. But +Jacobinism loves a Rabbi; it does not want to pass on from its Rabbi in +pursuit of a future and still unreached perfection; it wants its Rabbi +and his ideas to stand for perfection, that they may with the more +authority recast the world; and for Jacobinism, therefore, culture,-- +eternally passing onwards and seeking,--is an impertinence and an +offence. But culture, just because it resists this tendency of +Jacobinism to impose on us a man with limitations and errors of his own +along with the true ideas of which he is the organ, really does the +world and Jacobinism itself a service. + +So, too, Jacobinism, in its fierce hatred of the past and of those whom +it makes liable for the sins of the past, cannot away with the +inexhaustible indulgence proper to culture, the consideration of +circumstances, the severe judgment of actions joined to the merciful +judgment of persons. "The man of culture is in politics," cries Mr. +Frederic Harrison, "one of the poorest mortals alive!" Mr. Frederic +Harrison wants to be doing business, and he complains that the man of +culture stops him with a "turn for small fault-finding, love of selfish +ease, and indecision in action." Of what use is culture, he asks, except +for "a critic of new books or a professor of _belles-lettres_?"[425] +Why, it is of use because, in presence of the fierce exasperation which +breathes, or rather, I may say, hisses through the whole production in +which Mr. Frederic Harrison asks that question, it reminds us that the +perfection of human nature is sweetness and light. It is of use, +because, like religion,--that other effort after perfection,--it +testifies that, where bitter envying and strife are, there is confusion +and every evil work. + +The pursuit of perfection, then, is the pursuit of sweetness and light. +He who works for sweetness and light, works to make reason and the will +of God prevail. He who works for machinery, he who works for hatred, +works only for confusion. Culture looks beyond machinery, culture hates +hatred; culture has one great passion, the passion for sweetness and +light. It has one even yet greater!--the passion for making them +_prevail_. It is not satisfied till we _all_ come to a perfect man; it +knows that the sweetness and light of the few must be imperfect until +the raw and unkindled masses of humanity are touched with sweetness and +light. If I have not shrunk from saying that we must work for sweetness +and light, so neither have I shrunk from saying that we must have a +broad basis, must have sweetness and light for as many as possible. +Again and again I have insisted how those are the happy moments of +humanity, how those are the marking epochs of a people's life, how those +are the flowering times for literature and art and all the creative +power of genius, when there is a _national_ glow of life and thought, +when the whole of society is in the fullest measure permeated by +thought, sensible to beauty, intelligent and alive. Only it must be +_real_ thought and _real_ beauty; _real_ sweetness and _real_ light. +Plenty of people will try to give the masses, as they call them, an +intellectual food prepared and adapted in the way they think proper for +the actual condition of the masses. The ordinary popular literature is +an example of this way of working on the masses. Plenty of people will +try to indoctrinate the masses with the set of ideas and judgments +constituting the creed of their own profession or party. Our religious +and political organizations give an example of this way of working on +the masses. I condemn neither way; but culture works differently. It +does not try to teach down to the level of inferior classes; it does not +try to win them for this or that sect of its own, with ready-made +judgments and watchwords. It seeks to do away with classes; to make the +best that has been thought and known in the world current everywhere; to +make all men live in an atmosphere of sweetness and light, where they +may use ideas, as it uses them itself, freely,--nourished, and not bound +by them. + +This is the _social idea_; and the men of culture are the true apostles +of equality. The great men of culture are those who have had a passion +for diffusing, for making prevail, for carrying from one end of society +to the other, the best knowledge, the best ideas of their time; who have +labored to divest knowledge of all that was harsh, uncouth, difficult, +abstract, professional, exclusive; to humanize it, to make it efficient +outside the clique of the cultivated and learned, yet still remaining +the _best_ knowledge and thought of the time, and a true source, +therefore, of sweetness and light. Such a man was Abelard[426] in the +Middle Ages, in spite of all his imperfections; and thence the boundless +emotion and enthusiasm which Abelard excited. Such were Lessing[427] +and Herder[428] in Germany, at the end of the last century; and their +services to Germany were in this way inestimably precious. Generations +will pass, and literary monuments will accumulate, and works far more +perfect than the works of Lessing and Herder will be produced in +Germany; and yet the names of these two men will fill a German with a +reverence and enthusiasm such as the names of the most gifted masters +will hardly awaken. And why? Because they _humanized_ knowledge; because +they broadened the basis of life and intelligence; because they worked +powerfully to diffuse sweetness and light, to make reason and the will +of God prevail. With Saint Augustine they said: "Let us not leave thee +alone to make in the secret of thy knowledge, as thou didst before the +creation of the firmament, the division of light from darkness; let the +children of thy spirit, placed in their firmament, make their light +shine upon the earth, mark the division of night and day, and announce +the revolution of the times; for the old order is passed, and the new +arises; the night is spent, the day is come forth; and thou shalt crown +the year with thy blessing, when thou shalt send forth laborers into thy +harvest sown by other hands than theirs; when thou shalt send forth new +laborers to new seed-times, whereof the harvest shall be not yet."[429] + + + +HEBRAISM AND HELLENISM[430] + + +This fundamental ground is our preference of doing to thinking. Now this +preference is a main element in our nature and as we study it we find +ourselves opening up a number of large questions on every side. + +Let me go back for a moment to Bishop Wilson,[431] who says: "First, +never go against the best light you have; secondly, take care that your +light be not darkness." We show, as a nation, laudable energy and +persistence in walking according to the best light we have, but are not +quite careful enough, perhaps, to see that our light be not darkness. +This is only another version of the old story that energy is our strong +point and favorable characteristic, rather than intelligence. But we may +give to this idea a more general form still, in which it will have a yet +larger range of application. We may regard this energy driving at +practice, this paramount sense of the obligation of duty, self-control, +and work, this earnestness in going manfully with the best light we +have, as one force. And we may regard the intelligence driving at those +ideas which are, after all, the basis of right practice, the ardent +sense for all the new and changing combinations of them which man's +development brings with it, the indomitable impulse to know and adjust +them perfectly, as another force. And these two forces we may regard as +in some sense rivals,--rivals not by the necessity of their own nature, +but as exhibited in man and his history,--and rivals dividing the empire +of the world between them. And to give these forces names from the two +races of men who have supplied the most signal and splendid +manifestations of them, we may call them respectively the forces of +Hebraism and Hellenism. Hebraism and Hellenism,--between these two +points of influence moves our world. At one time it feels more +powerfully the attraction of one of them, at another time of the other; +and it ought to be, though it never is, evenly and happily balanced +between them. + +The final aim of both Hellenism and Hebraism, as of all great spiritual +disciplines, is no doubt the same: man's perfection or salvation. The +very language which they both of them use in schooling us to reach this +aim is often identical. Even when their language indicates by +variation,--sometimes a broad variation, often a but slight and subtle +variation,--the different courses of thought which are uppermost in each +discipline, even then the unity of the final end and aim is still +apparent. To employ the actual words of that discipline with which we +ourselves are all of us most familiar, and the words of which, +therefore, come most home to us, that final end and aim is "that we +might be partakers of the divine nature."[432] These are the words of a +Hebrew apostle, but of Hellenism and Hebraism alike this is, I say, the +aim. When the two are confronted, as they very often are confronted, it +is nearly always with what I may call a rhetorical purpose; the +speaker's whole design is to exalt and enthrone one of the two, and he +uses the other only as a foil and to enable him the better to give +effect to his purpose. Obviously, with us, it is usually Hellenism which +is thus reduced to minister to the triumph of Hebraism. There is a +sermon on Greece and the Greek spirit by a man never to be mentioned +without interest and respect, Frederick Robertson,[433] in which this +rhetorical use of Greece and the Greek spirit, and the inadequate +exhibition of them necessarily consequent upon this, is almost +ludicrous, and would be censurable if it were not to be explained by the +exigencies of a sermon. On the other hand, Heinrich Heine,[434] and +other writers of his sort give us the spectacle of the tables completely +turned, and of Hebraism brought in just as a foil and contrast to +Hellenism, and to make the superiority of Hellenism more manifest. In +both these cases there is injustice and misrepresentation. The aim and +end of both Hebraism and Hellenism is, as I have said, one and the same, +and this aim and end is august and admirable. + +Still, they pursue this aim by very different courses. The uppermost +idea with Hellenism is to see things as they really are; the uppermost +idea with Hebraism is conduct and obedience. Nothing can do away with +this ineffaceable difference. The Greek quarrel with the body and its +desires is, that they hinder right thinking; the Hebrew quarrel with +them is, that they hinder right acting. "He that keepeth the law, happy +is he";[435] "Blessed is the man that feareth the Eternal, that +delighteth greatly in his commandments";--[436] that is the Hebrew +notion of felicity; and, pursued with passion and tenacity, this notion +would not let the Hebrew rest till, as is well known, he had at last got +out of the law a network of prescriptions to enwrap his whole life, to +govern every moment of it, every impulse, every action. The Greek notion +of felicity, on the other hand, is perfectly conveyed in these words of +a great French moralist: "_C'est le bonheur des hommes_,"--when? when +they abhor that which is evil?--no; when they exercise themselves in the +law of the Lord day and night?--no; when they die daily?--no; when they +walk about the New Jerusalem with palms in their hands?--no; but when +they think aright, when their thought hits: "_quand ils pensent juste_." +At the bottom of both the Greek and the Hebrew notion is the desire, +native in man, for reason and the will of God, the feeling after the +universal order,--in a word, the love of God. But, while Hebraism seizes +upon certain plain, capital intimations of, the universal order, and +rivets itself, one may say, with unequalled grandeur of earnestness and +intensity on the study and observance of them, the bent of Hellenism is +to follow, with flexible activity, the whole play of the universal +order, to be apprehensive of missing any part of it, of sacrificing one +part to another, to slip away from resting in this or that intimation of +it, however capital. An unclouded clearness of mind, an unimpeded play +of thought, is what this bent drives at. The governing idea of Hellenism +is _spontaneity of consciousness_; that of Hebraism, _strictness of +conscience_. + +Christianity changed nothing in this essential bent of Hebraism to set +doing above knowing. Self-conquest, self-devotion, the following not our +own individual will, but the will of God, _obedience_, is the +fundamental idea of this form, also, of the discipline to which we have +attached the general name of Hebraism. Only, as the old law and the +network of prescriptions with which it enveloped human life were +evidently a motive-power not driving and searching enough to produce the +result aimed at,--patient continuance in well-doing, self-conquest,-- +Christianity substituted for them boundless devotion to that inspiring +and affecting pattern of self-conquest offered by Jesus Christ; and by +the new motive-power, of which the essence was this, though the love and +admiration of Christian churches have for centuries been employed in +varying, amplifying, and adorning the plain description of it, +Christianity, as St. Paul truly says, "establishes the law,"[437] and in +the strength of the ampler power which she has thus supplied to fulfill +it, has accomplished the miracles, which we all see, of her history. + +So long as we do not forget that both Hellenism and Hebraism are +profound and admirable manifestations of man's life, tendencies, and +powers, and that both of them aim at a like final result, we can hardly +insist too strongly on the divergence of line and of operation with +which they proceed. It is a divergence so great that it most truly, as +the prophet Zechariah says, "has raised up thy sons, O Zion, against thy +sons, O Greece!"[438] The difference whether it is by doing or by +knowing that we set most store, and the practical consequences which +follow from this difference, leave their mark on all the history of our +race and of its development. Language may be abundantly quoted from both +Hellenism and Hebraism to make it seem that one follows the same current +as the other towards the same goal. They are, truly, borne towards the +same goal; but the currents which bear them are infinitely different. It +is true, Solomon will praise knowing: "Understanding is a well-spring of +life unto him that hath it."[439] And in the New Testament, again, Jesus +Christ is a "light,"[440] and "truth makes us free."[441] It is true, +Aristotle will undervalue knowing: "In what concerns virtue," says he, +"three things are necessary--knowledge, deliberate will, and +perseverance; but, whereas the two last are all-important, the first is +a matter of little importance."[442] It is true that with the same +impatience with which St. James enjoins a man to be not a forgetful +hearer, but a _doer of the work_,[443] Epictetus[444] exhorts us to _do_ +what we have demonstrated to ourselves we ought to do; or he taunts us +with futility, for being armed at all points to prove that lying is +wrong, yet all the time continuing to lie. It is true, Plato, in words +which are almost the words of the New Testament or the Imitation, calls +life a learning to die.[445] But underneath the superficial agreement +the fundamental divergence still subsists. The understanding of Solomon +is "the walking in the way of the commandments"; this is "the way of +peace," and it is of this that blessedness comes. In the New Testament, +the truth which gives us the peace of God and makes us free, is the love +of Christ constraining us[446] to crucify, as he did, and with a like +purpose of moral regeneration, the flesh with its affections and lusts, +and thus establishing, as we have seen, the law. The moral virtues, on +the other hand, are with Aristotle but the porch[447] and access to the +intellectual, and with these last is blessedness. That partaking of the +divine life, which both Hellenism and Hebraism, as we have said, fix as +their crowning aim, Plato expressly denies to the man of practical +virtue merely, of self-conquest with any other motive than that of +perfect intellectual vision. He reserves it for the lover of pure +knowledge, of seeing things as they really are,--the[Greek: +philomathhaes][448] + +Both Hellenism and Hebraism arise out of the wants of human nature, and +address themselves to satisfying those wants. But their methods are so +different, they lay stress on such different points, and call into being +by their respective disciplines such different activities, that the face +which human nature presents when it passes from the hands of one of them +to those of the other, is no longer the same. To get rid of one's +ignorance, to see things as they are, and by seeing them as they are to +see them in their beauty, is the simple and attractive ideal which +Hellenism holds out before human nature; and from the simplicity and +charm of this ideal, Hellenism, and human life in the hands of +Hellenism, is invested with a kind of aërial ease, clearness, and +radiancy; they are full of what we call sweetness and light. +Difficulties are kept out of view, and the beauty and rationalness of +the ideal have all our thoughts. "The best man is he who most tries to +perfect himself, and the happiest man is he who most feels that he _is_ +perfecting himself,"[449]--this account of the matter by Socrates, the +true Socrates of the _Memorabilia_, has something so simple, +spontaneous, and unsophisticated about it, that it seems to fill us with +clearness and hope when we hear it. But there is a saying which I have +heard attributed to Mr. Carlyle about Socrates--a very happy saying, +whether it is really Mr. Carlyle's or not,--which excellently marks the +essential point in which Hebraism differs from Hellenism. "Socrates," +this saying goes, "is terribly _at ease in Zion_." Hebraism--and here is +the source of its wonderful strength--has always been severely +preoccupied with an awful sense of the impossibility of being at ease in +Zion; of the difficulties which oppose themselves to man's pursuit or +attainment of that perfection of which Socrates talks so hopefully, and, +as from this point of view one might almost say, so glibly. It is all +very well to talk of getting rid of one's ignorance, of seeing things in +their reality, seeing them in their beauty; but how is this to be done +when there is something which thwarts and spoils all our efforts? + +This something is _sin_; and the space which sin fills in Hebraism, as +compared with Hellenism, is indeed prodigious. This obstacle to +perfection fills the whole scene, and perfection appears remote and +rising away from earth, in the background. Under the name of sin, the +difficulties of knowing oneself and conquering oneself which impede +man's passage to perfection, become, for Hebraism, a positive, active +entity hostile to man, a mysterious power which I heard Dr. Pusey[450] +the other day, in one of his impressive sermons, compare to a hideous +hunchback seated on our shoulders, and which it is the main business of +our lives to hate and oppose. The discipline of the Old Testament may be +summed up as a discipline teaching us to abhor and flee from sin; the +discipline of the New Testament, as a discipline teaching us to die to +it. As Hellenism speaks of thinking clearly, seeing things in their +essence and beauty, as a grand and precious feat for man to achieve, so +Hebraism speaks of becoming conscious of sin, of awakening to a sense of +sin, as a feat of this kind. It is obvious to what wide divergence these +differing tendencies, actively followed, must lead. As one passes and +repasses from Hellenism to Hebraism, from Plato to St. Paul, one feels +inclined to rub one's eyes and ask oneself whether man is indeed a +gentle and simple being, showing the traces of a noble and divine +nature; or an unhappy chained captive, laboring with groanings that +cannot be uttered to free himself from the body of this death. + +Apparently it was the Hellenic conception of human nature which was +unsound, for the world could not live by it. Absolutely to call it +unsound, however, is to fall into the common error of its Hebraizing +enemies; but it was unsound at that particular moment of man's +development, it was premature. The indispensable basis of conduct and +self-control, the platform upon which alone the perfection aimed at by +Greece can come into bloom, was not to be reached by our race so easily; +centuries of probation and discipline were needed to bring us to it. +Therefore the bright promise of Hellenism faded, and Hebraism ruled the +world. Then was seen that astonishing spectacle, so well marked by the +often-quoted words of the prophet Zechariah, when men of all languages +and nations took hold of the skirt of him that was a Jew, saying:--"_We +will go with you, for we have heard that God is with you_."[451] And the +Hebraism which thus received and ruled a world all gone out of the way +and altogether become unprofitable, was, and could not but be, the +later, the more spiritual, the more attractive development of Hebraism. +It was Christianity; that is to say, Hebraism aiming at self-conquest +and rescue from the thrall of vile affections, not by obedience to the +letter of a law, but by conformity to the image of a self-sacrificing +example. To a world stricken with moral enervation Christianity offered +its spectacle of an inspired self-sacrifice; to men who refused +themselves nothing, it showed one who refused himself everything;--"_my +Saviour banished joy!_"[452] says George Herbert. When the _alma Venus_, +the life-giving and joy-giving power of nature, so fondly cherished by +the pagan world, could not save her followers from self-dissatisfaction +and ennui, the severe words of the apostle came bracingly and +refreshingly: "Let no man deceive you with vain words, for because of +these things cometh the wrath of God upon the children of +disobedience."[453] Through age after age and generation after +generation, our race, or all that part of our race which was most living +and progressive, was _baptized into a death_; and endeavored, by +suffering in the flesh, to cease from sin. Of this endeavor, the +animating labors and afflictions of early Christianity, the touching +asceticism of mediæval Christianity, are the great historical +manifestations. Literary monuments of it, each in its own way +incomparable, remain in the _Epistles_ of St. Paul, in St. Augustine's +_Confessions_, and in the two original and simplest books of the +_Imitation_.[454] + +Of two disciplines laying their main stress, the one, on clear +intelligence, the other, on firm obedience; the one, on comprehensively +knowing the ground of one's duty, the other, on diligently practising +it; the one, on taking all possible care (to use Bishop Wilson's words +again) that the light we have be not darkness, the other, that according +to the best light we have we diligently walk,--the priority naturally +belongs to that discipline which braces all man's moral powers, and +founds for him an indispensable basis of character. And, therefore, it +is justly said of the Jewish people, who were charged with setting +powerfully forth that side of the divine order to which the words +_conscience_ and _self-conquest_ point, that they were "entrusted with +the oracles of God";[455] as it is justly said of Christianity, which +followed Judaism and which set forth this side with a much deeper +effectiveness and a much wider influence, that the wisdom of the old +pagan world was foolishness[456] compared to it. No words of devotion +and admiration can be too strong to render thanks to these beneficent +forces which have so borne forward humanity in its appointed work of +coming to the knowledge and possession of itself; above all, in those +great moments when their action was the wholesomest and the most +necessary. + +But the evolution of these forces, separately and in themselves, is not +the whole evolution of humanity,--their single history is not the whole +history of man; whereas their admirers are always apt to make it stand +for the whole history. Hebraism and Hellenism are, neither of them, the +_law_ of human development, as their admirers are prone to make them; +they are, each of them, _contributions_ to human development,--august +contributions, invaluable contributions; and each showing itself to us +more august, more invaluable, more preponderant over the other, +according to the moment in which we take them, and the relation in which +we stand to them. The nations of our modern world, children of that +immense and salutary movement which broke up the pagan world, inevitably +stand to Hellenism in a relation which dwarfs it, and to Hebraism in a +relation which magnifies it. They are inevitably prone to take Hebraism +as the law of human development, and not as simply a contribution to it, +however precious. And yet the lesson must perforce be learned, that the +human spirit is wider than the most priceless of the forces which bear +it onward, and that to the whole development of man Hebraism itself is, +like Hellenism, but a contribution. + +Perhaps we may help ourselves to see this clearer by an illustration +drawn from the treatment of a single great idea which has profoundly +engaged the human spirit, and has given it eminent opportunities for +showing its nobleness and energy. It surely must be perceived that the +idea of immortality, as this idea rises in its generality before the +human spirit, is something grander, truer, and more satisfying, than it +is in the particular forms by which St. Paul, in the famous fifteenth +chapter of the Epistle to the Corinthians, and Plato, in the +_Phaedo_[457] endeavor to develop and establish it. Surely we cannot but +feel, that the argumentation with which the Hebrew apostle goes about to +expound this great idea is, after all, confused and inconclusive; and +that the reasoning, drawn from analogies of likeness and equality, which +is employed upon it by the Greek philosopher, is over-subtle and +sterile. Above and beyond the inadequate solutions which Hebraism and +Hellenism here attempt, extends the immense and august problem itself, +and the human spirit which gave birth to it. And this single +illustration may suggest to us how the same thing happens in other cases +also. + +But meanwhile, by alternations of Hebraism and Hellenism, of a man's +intellectual and moral impulses, of the effort to see things as they +really are, and the effort to win peace by self-conquest, the human +spirit proceeds; and each of these two forces has its appointed hours of +culmination and seasons of rule. As the great movement of Christianity +was a triumph of Hebraism and man's moral impulses, so the great +movement which goes by the name of the Renascence[458] was an uprising +and reinstatement of man's intellectual impulses and of Hellenism. We in +England, the devoted children of Protestantism, chiefly know the +Renascence by its subordinate and secondary side of the Reformation. The +Reformation has been often called a Hebraizing revival, a return to the +ardor and sincereness of primitive Christianity. No one, however, can +study the development of Protestantism and of Protestant churches +without feeling that into the Reforrmation, too,--Hebraizing child of +the Renascence and offspring of its fervor, rather than its +intelligence, as it undoubtedly was,--the subtle Hellenic leaven of the +Renascence found its way, and that the exact respective parts, in the +Reformation, of Hebraism and of Hellenism, are not easy to separate. But +what we may with truth say is, that all which Protestantism was to +itself clearly conscious of, all which it succeeded in clearly setting +forth in words, had the characters of Hebraism rather than of Hellenism. +The Reformation was strong, in that it was an earnest return to the +Bible and to doing from the heart the will of God as there written. It +was weak, in that it never consciously grasped or applied the central +idea of the Renascence,--the Hellenic idea of pursuing, in all lines of +activity, the law and science, to use Plato's words, of things as they +really are. Whatever direct superiority, therefore, Protestantism had +over Catholicism was a moral superiority, a superiority arising out of +its greater sincerity and earnestness,--at the moment of its apparition +at any rate,--in dealing with the heart and conscience. Its pretensions +to an intellectual superiority are in general quite illusory. For +Hellenism, for the thinking side in man as distinguished from the acting +side, the attitude of mind of Protestantism towards the Bible in no +respect differs from the attitude of mind of Catholicism towards the +Church. The mental habit of him who imagines that Balaam's ass spoke, in +no respect differs from the mental habit of him who imagines that a +Madonna of wood or stone winked; and the one, who says that God's Church +makes him believe what he believes, and the other, who says that God's +Word makes him believe what he believes, are for the philosopher +perfectly alike in not really and truly knowing, when they say _God's +Church_ and _God's Word_, what it is they say, or whereof they affirm. + +In the sixteenth century, therefore, Hellenism re-entered the world, +and again stood in presence of Hebraism,--a Hebraism renewed and purged. +Now, it has not been enough observed, how, in the seventeenth century, a +fate befell Hellenism in some respects analogous to that which befell it +at the commencement of our era. The Renascence, that great reawakening +of Hellenism, that irresistible return of humanity to nature and to +seeing things as they are, which in art, in literature, and in physics, +produced such splendid fruits, had, like the anterior Hellenism of the +pagan world, a side of moral weakness and of relaxation or insensibility +of the moral fibre, which in Italy showed itself with the most startling +plainness, but which in France, England, and other countries was very +apparent, too. Again this loss of spiritual balance, this exclusive +preponderance given to man's perceiving and knowing side, this unnatural +defect of his feeling and acting side, provoked a reaction. Let us trace +that reaction where it most nearly concerns us. + +Science has now made visible to everybody the great and pregnant +elements of difference which lie in race, and in how signal a manner +they make the genius and history of an Indo-European people vary from +those of a Semitic people. Hellenism is of Indo-European growth, +Hebraism is of Semitic growth; and we English, a nation of Indo-European +stock, seem to belong naturally to the movement of Hellenism. But +nothing more strongly marks the essential unity of man, than the +affinities we can perceive, in this point or that, between members of +one family of peoples and members of another. And no affinity of this +kind is more strongly marked than that likeness in the strength and +prominence of the moral fibre, which, notwithstanding immense elements +of difference, knits in some special sort the genius and history of us +English, and our American descendants across the Atlantic, to the genius +and history of the Hebrew people. Puritanism, which has been so great a +power in the English nation, and in the strongest part of the English +nation, was originally the reaction in the seventeenth century of the +conscience and moral sense of our race, against the moral indifference +and lax rule of conduct which in the sixteenth century came in with the +Renascence. It was a reaction of Hebraism against Hellenism; and it +powerfully manifested itself, as was natural, in a people with much of +what we call a Hebraizing turn, with a signal affinity for the bent +which, was the master-bent of Hebrew life. Eminently Indo-European by +its _humor_, by the power it shows, through this gift, of imaginatively +acknowledging the multiform aspects of the problem of life, and of thus +getting itself unfixed from its own over-certainty, of smiling at its +own over-tenacity, our race has yet (and a great part of its strength +lies here), in matters of practical life and moral conduct, a strong +share of the assuredness, the tenacity, the intensity of the Hebrews. +This turn manifested itself in Puritanism, and has had a great part in +shaping our history for the last two hundred years. Undoubtedly it +checked and changed amongst us that movement of the Renascence which we +see producing in the reign of Elizabeth such wonderful fruits. +Undoubtedly it stopped the prominent rule and direct development of that +order of ideas which we call by the name of Hellenism, and gave the +first rank to a different order of ideas. Apparently, too, as we said of +the former defeat of Hellenism, if Hellenism was defeated, this shows +that Hellenism was imperfect, and that its ascendency at that moment +would not have been for the world's good. + +Yet there is a very important difference between the defeat inflicted on +Hellenism by Christianity eighteen hundred years ago, and the check +given to the Renascence by Puritanism. The greatness of the difference +is well measured by the difference in force, beauty, significance, and +usefulness, between primitive Christianity and Protestantism. Eighteen +hundred years ago it was altogether the hour of Hebraism. Primitive +Christianity was legitimately and truly the ascendant force in the world +at that time, and the way of mankind's progress lay through its full +development. Another hour in man's development began in the fifteenth +century, and the main road of his progress then lay for a time through +Hellenism. Puritanism was no longer the central current of the world's +progress, it was a side stream crossing the central current and checking +it. The cross and the check may have been necessary and salutary, but +that does not do away with the essential difference between the main +stream of man's advance and a cross or side stream. For more than two +hundred years the main stream of man's advance has moved towards knowing +himself and the world, seeing things as they are, spontaneity of +consciousness; the main impulse of a great part, and that the strongest +part, of our nation has been towards strictness of conscience. They have +made the secondary the principal at the wrong moment, and the principal +they have at the wrong moment treated as secondary. This contravention +of the natural order has produced, as such contravention always must +produce, a certain confusion and false movement, of which we are now +beginning to feel, in almost every direction, the inconvenience. In all +directions our habitual causes of action seem to be losing +efficaciousness, credit, and control, both with others and even with +ourselves. Everywhere we see the beginnings of confusion, and we want a +clue to some sound order and authority. This we can only get by going +back upon the actual instincts and forces which rule our life, seeing +them as they really are, connecting them with other instincts and +forces, and enlarging our whole view and rule of life. + + + +EQUALITY[459] + + +When we talk of man's advance towards his full humanity, we think of an +advance, not along one line only, but several. Certain races and +nations, as we know, are on certain lines preëminent and representative. +The Hebrew nation was preëminent on one great line. "What nation," it +was justly asked by their lawgiver, "hath statutes and judgments so +righteous as the law which I set before you this day? Keep therefore and +do them; for this is your wisdom and your understanding in the sight of +the nations which shall hear all these statutes and say: Surely this +great nation is a wise and understanding people!" The Hellenic race was +preëminent on other lines. Isocrates[460] could say of Athens: "Our city +has left the rest of the world so far behind in philosophy and +eloquence, that those educated by Athens have become the teachers of the +rest of mankind; and so well has she done her part, that the name of +Greeks seems no longer to stand for a race but to stand for intelligence +itself, and they who share in our culture are called Greeks even before +those who are merely of our own blood." The power of intellect and +science, the power of beauty, the power of social life and manners,-- +these are what Greece so felt, and fixed, and may stand for. They are +great elements in our humanization. The power of conduct is another +great element; and this was so felt and fixed by Israel that we can +never with justice refuse to permit Israel, in spite of all his +shortcomings, to stand for it. + +So you see that in being humanized we have to move along several lines, +and that on certain lines certain nations find their strength and take a +lead. We may elucidate the thing yet further. Nations now existing may +be said to feel or to have felt the power of this or that element in our +humanization so signally that they are characterized by it. No one who +knows this country would deny that it is characterized, in a remarkable +degree, by a sense of the power of conduct. Our feeling for religion is +one part of this; our industry is another. What foreigners so much +remark in us--our public spirit, our love, amidst all our liberty, for +public order and for stability--are parts of it too. Then the power of +beauty was so felt by the Italians that their art revived, as we know, +the almost lost idea of beauty, and the serious and successful pursuit +of it. Cardinal Antonelli,[461] speaking to me about the education of +the common people in Rome, said that they were illiterate, indeed, but +whoever mingled with them at any public show, and heard them pass +judgment on the beauty or ugliness of what came before them,--"_e +brutto_," "_e bello_,"--would find that their judgment agreed admirably, +in general, with just what the most cultivated people would say. Even at +the present time, then, the Italians are preëminent in feeling the power +of beauty. The power of knowledge, in the same way, is eminently an +influence with the Germans. This by no means implies, as is sometimes +supposed, a high and fine general culture. What it implies is a strong +sense of the necessity of knowing _scientifically_, as the expression +is, the things which have to be known by us; of knowing them +systematically, by the regular and right process, and in the only real +way. And this sense the Germans especially have. Finally, there is the +power of social life and manners. And even the Athenians themselves, +perhaps, have hardly felt this power so much as the French. + +Voltaire, in a famous passage[462] where he extols the age of Louis the +Fourteenth and ranks it with the chief epochs in the civilization of our +race, has to specify the gift bestowed on us by the age of Louis the +Fourteenth, as the age of Pericles, for instance, bestowed on us its art +and literature, and the Italian Renascence its revival of art and +literature. And Voltaire shows all his acuteness in fixing on the gift +to name. It is not the sort of gift which we expect to see named. The +great gift of the age of Louis the Fourteenth to the world, says +Voltaire, was this: _l'esprit de société_, the spirit of society, the +social spirit. And another French writer, looking for the good points in +the old French nobility, remarks that this at any rate is to be said in +their favor: they established a high and charming ideal of social +intercourse and manners, for a nation formed to profit by such an ideal, +and which has profited by it ever since. And in America, perhaps, we see +the disadvantages of having social equality before there has been any +such high standard of social life and manners formed. + +We are not disposed in England, most of us, to attach all this +importance to social intercourse and manners. Yet Burke says: "There +ought to be a system of manners in every nation which a well-formed mind +would be disposed to relish." And the power of social life and manners +is truly, as we have seen, one of the great elements in our +humanization. Unless we have cultivated it, we are incomplete. The +impulse for cultivating it is not, indeed, a moral impulse. It is by no +means identical with the moral impulse to help our neighbor and to do +him good. Yet in many ways it works to a like end. It brings men +together, makes them feel the need of one another, be considerate of one +another, understand one another. But, above all things, it is a promoter +of equality. It is by the humanity of their manners that men are made +equal. "A man thinks to show himself my equal," says Goethe, "by being +_grob_,--that is to say, coarse and rude; he does not show himself my +equal, he shows himself _grob_." But a community having humane manners +is a community of equals, and in such a community great social +inequalities have really no meaning, while they are at the same time a +menace and an embarrassment to perfect ease of social intercourse. A +community with the spirit of society is eminently, therefore, a +community with the spirit of equality. A nation with a genius for +society, like the French or the Athenians, is irresistibly drawn towards +equality. From the first moment when the French people, with its +congenital sense for the power of social intercourse and manners, came +into existence, it was on the road to equality. When it had once got a +high standard of social manners abundantly established, and at the same +time the natural, material necessity for the feudal inequality of +classes and property pressed upon it no longer, the French people +introduced equality and made the French Revolution. It was not the +spirit of philanthropy which mainly impelled the French to that +Revolution, neither was it the spirit of envy, neither was it the love +of abstract ideas, though all these did something towards it; but what +did most was the spirit of society. + +The well-being of the many comes out more and more distinctly, in +proportion as time goes on, as the object we must pursue. An individual +or a class, concentrating their efforts upon their own well-being +exclusively, do but beget troubles both for others and for themselves +also. No individual life can be truly prosperous, passed, as Obermann +says, in the midst of men who suffer; _passée au milieu des générations +qui souffrent_. To the noble soul, it cannot be happy; to the ignoble, +it cannot be secure. Socialistic and communistic schemes have generally, +however, a fatal defect; they are content with too low and material a +standard of well-being. That instinct of perfection, which is the +master-power in humanity, always rebels at this, and frustrates the +work. Many are to be made partakers of well-being, true; but the ideal +of well-being is not to be, on that account, lowered and coarsened. M. +de Laveleye,[463] the political economist, who is a Belgian and a +Protestant, and whose testimony, therefore, we may the more readily take +about France, says that France, being the country of Europe where the +soil is more divided than anywhere except in Switzerland and Norway, is +at the same time the country where material well-being is most widely +spread, where wealth has of late years increased most, and where +population is least outrunning the limits, which, for the comfort and +progress of the working classes themselves, seem necessary. This may go +for a good deal. It supplies an answer to what Sir Erskine May[464] says +about the bad effects of equality upon French prosperity. But I will +quote to you from Mr. Hamerton[465] what goes, I think, for yet more. +Mr. Hamerton is an excellent observer and reporter, and has lived for +many years in France. He says of the French peasantry that they are +exceedingly ignorant. So they are. But he adds: "They are at the same +time full of intelligence; their manners are excellent, they have +delicate perceptions, they have tact, they have a certain refinement +which a brutalized peasantry could not possibly have. If you talk to one +of them at his own home, or in his field, he will enter into +conversation with you quite easily, and sustain his part in a perfectly +becoming way, with a pleasant combination of dignity and quiet humor. +The interval between him and a Kentish laborer is enormous." + +This is, indeed, worth your attention. Of course all mankind are, as Mr. +Gladstone says, of our own flesh and blood. But you know how often it +happens in England that a cultivated person, a person of the sort that +Mr. Charles Sumner[466] describes, talking to one of the lower class, or +even of the middle class, feels and cannot but feel, that there is +somehow a wall of partition between himself and the other, that they +seem to belong to two different worlds. Thoughts, feelings, perceptions, +susceptibilities, language, manners,--everything is different. Whereas, +with a French peasant, the most cultivated man may find himself in +sympathy, may feel that he is talking to an equal. This is an experience +which has been made a thousand times, and which may be made again any +day. And it may be carried beyond the range of mere conversation, it may +be extended to things like pleasures, recreations, eating and drinking, +and so on. In general the pleasures, recreations, eating and drinking of +English people, when once you get below that class which Mr. Charles +Sumner calls the class of gentlemen, are to one of that class +unpalatable and impossible. In France there is not this incompatibility. +Whether he mix with high or low, the gentleman feels himself in a world +not alien or repulsive, but a world where people make the same sort of +demands upon life, in things of this sort, which he himself does. In all +these respects France is the country where the people, as distinguished +from a wealthy refined class, most lives what we call a humane life, the +life of civilized man. + +Of course, fastidious persons can and do pick holes in it. There is just +now, in France, a _noblesse_ newly revived, full of pretension, full of +airs and graces and disdains; but its sphere is narrow, and out of its +own sphere no one cares very much for it. There is a general equality in +a humane kind of life. This is the secret of the passionate attachment +with which France inspires all Frenchmen, in spite of her fearful +troubles, her checked prosperity, her disconnected units, and the rest +of it. There is so much of the goodness and agreeableness of life there, +and for so many. It is the secret of her having been able to attach so +ardently to her the German and Protestant people of Alsace,[467] while +we have been so little able to attach the Celtic and Catholic people of +Ireland. France brings the Alsatians into a social system so full of the +goodness and agreeableness of life; we offer to the Irish no such +attraction. It is the secret, finally, of the prevalence which we have +remarked in other continental countries of a legislation tending, like +that of France, to social equality. The social system which equality +creates in France is, in the eyes of others, such a giver of the +goodness and agreeableness of life, that they seek to get the goodness +by getting the equality. + +Yet France has had her fearful troubles, as Sir Erskine May justly says. +She suffers too, he adds, from demoralization and intellectual stoppage. +Let us admit, if he likes, this to be true also. His error is that he +attributes all this to equality. Equality, as we have seen, has brought +France to a really admirable and enviable pitch of humanization in one +important line. And this, the work of equality, is so much a good in Sir +Erskine May's eyes, that he has mistaken it for the whole of which it is +a part, frankly identifies it with civilization, and is inclined to +pronounce France the most civilized of nations. + +But we have seen how much goes to full humanization, to true +civilization, besides the power of social life and manners. There is the +power of conduct, the power of intellect and knowledge, the power of +beauty. The power of conduct is the greatest of all. And without in the +least wishing to preach, I must observe, as a mere matter of natural +fact and experience, that for the power of conduct France has never had +anything like the same sense which she has had for the power of social +life and manners. Michelet,[468] himself a Frenchman, gives us the +reason why the Reformation did not succeed in France. It did not +succeed, he says, because _la France ne voulait pas de réforme morale_-- +moral reform France would not have; and the Reformation was above all a +moral movement. The sense in France for the power of conduct has not +greatly deepened, I think, since. The sense for the power of intellect +and knowledge has not been adequate either. The sense for beauty has not +been adequate. Intelligence and beauty have been, in general, but so far +reached, as they can be and are reached by men who, of the elements of +perfect humanization, lay thorough hold upon one only,--the power of +social intercourse and manners. I speak of France in general; she has +had, and she has, individuals who stand out and who form exceptions. +Well, then, if a nation laying no sufficient hold upon the powers of +beauty and knowledge, and a most failing and feeble hold upon the power +of conduct, comes to demoralization and intellectual stoppage and +fearful troubles, we need not be inordinately surprised. What we should +rather marvel at is the healing and bountiful operation of Nature, +whereby the laying firm hold on one real element in our humanization has +had for France results so beneficent. + +And thus, when Sir Erskine May gets bewildered between France's equality +and fearful troubles on the one hand, and the civilization of France on +the other, let us suggest to him that perhaps he is bewildered by his +data because he combines them ill. France has not exemplary disaster and +ruin as the fruits of equality, and at the same time, and independently +of this, an exemplary civilization. She has a large measure of happiness +and success as the fruits of equality, and she has a very large measure +of dangers and troubles as the fruits of something else. + +We have more to do, however, than to help Sir Erskine May out of his +scrape about France. We have to see whether the considerations which we +have been employing may not be of use to us about England. + +We shall not have much difficulty in admitting whatever good is to be +said of ourselves, and we will try not to be unfair by excluding all +that is not so favorable. Indeed, our less favorable side is the one +which we should be the most anxious to note, in order that we may mend +it. But we will begin with the good. Our people has energy and honesty +as its good characteristics. We have a strong sense for the chief power +in the life and progress of man,--the power of conduct. So far we speak +of the English people as a whole. Then we have a rich, refined, and +splendid aristocracy. And we have, according to Mr. Charles Sumner's +acute and true remark, a class of gentlemen, not of the nobility, but +well-bred, cultivated, and refined, larger than is to be found in any +other country. For these last we have Mr. Sumner's testimony. As to the +splendor of our aristocracy, all the world is agreed. Then we have a +middle class and a lower class; and they, after all, are the immense +bulk of the nation. + +Let us see how the civilization of these classes appears to a Frenchman, +who has witnessed, in his own country, the considerable humanization of +these classes by equality. To such an observer our middle class divides +itself into a serious portion and a gay or rowdy portion; both are a +marvel to him. With the gay or rowdy portion we need not much concern +ourselves; we shall figure it to our minds sufficiently if we conceive +it as the source of that war-song produced in these recent days of +excitement:-- + + "We don't want to fight, but by jingo, if we do, + We've got the ships, we've got the men, and we're got the money + too."[469] + + +We may also partly judge its standard of life, and the needs of its +nature, by the modern English theatre, perhaps the most contemptible in +Europe. But the real strength of the English middle class is in its +serious portion. And of this a Frenchman, who was here some little time +ago as the correspondent, I think, of the _Siècle_ newspaper, and whose +letters were afterwards published in a volume, writes as follows. He had +been attending some of the Moody and Sankey[470] meetings, and he says: +"To understand the success of Messrs. Moody and Sankey, one must be +familiar with English manners, one must know the mind-deadening +influence of a narrow Biblism, one must have experienced the sense of +acute ennui, which the aspect and the frequentation of this great +division of English society produce in others, the want of elasticity +and the chronic ennui which characterize this class itself, petrified in +a narrow Protestantism and in a perpetual reading of the Bible." + +You know the French;--a little more Biblism, one may take leave to say, +would do them no harm. But an audience like this--and here, as I said, +is the advantage of an audience like this--will have no difficulty in +admitting the amount of truth which there is in the Frenchman's picture. +It is the picture of a class which, driven by its sense for the power of +conduct, in the beginning of the seventeenth century entered,--as I have +more than once said, and as I may more than once have occasion in future +to say,--_entered the prison of Puritanism, and had the key turned upon +its spirit there for two hundred years_.[471] They did not know, good +and earnest people as they were, that to the building up of human life +there belong all those other powers also,--the power of intellect and +knowledge, the power of beauty, the power of social life and manners. +And something, by what they became, they gained, and the whole nation +with them; they deepened and fixed for this nation the sense of conduct. +But they created a type of life and manners, of which they themselves, +indeed, are slow to recognize the faults, but which is fatally condemned +by its hideousness, its immense ennui, and against which the instinct of +self-preservation in humanity rebels. + +Partisans fight against facts in vain. Mr. Goldwin Smith,[472] a writer +of eloquence and power, although too prone to acerbity, is a partisan of +the Puritans, and of the nonconformists who are the special inheritors +of the Puritan tradition. He angrily resents the imputation upon that +Puritan type of life, by which the life of our serious middle class has +been formed, that it was doomed to hideousness, to immense ennui. He +protests that it had beauty, amenity, accomplishment. Let us go to +facts. Charles the First, who, with all his faults, had the just idea +that art and letters are great civilizers, made, as you know, a famous +collection of pictures,--our first National Gallery. It was, I suppose, +the best collection at that time north of the Alps. It contained nine +Raphaels, eleven Correggios, twenty-eight Titians. What became of that +collection? The journals of the House of Commons will tell you. There +you may see the Puritan Parliament disposing of this Whitehall or York +House collection as follows: "Ordered, that all such pictures and +statues there as are without any superstition, shall be forthwith +sold.... Ordered, that all such pictures there as have the +representation of the Second Person in the Trinity upon them, shall be +forthwith burnt. Ordered, that all such pictures there as have the +representation of the Virgin Mary upon them, shall be forthwith burnt." +There we have the weak side of our parliamentary government and our +serious middle class. We are incapable of sending Mr. Gladstone to be +tried at the Old Bailey because he proclaims his antipathy to Lord +Beaconsfield. A majority in our House of Commons is incapable of +hailing, with frantic laughter and applause, a string of indecent jests +against Christianity and its Founder. But we are not, or were not +incapable of producing a Parliament which burns or sells the +masterpieces of Italian art. And one may surely say of such a Puritan +Parliament, and of those who determine its line for it, that they had +not the spirit of beauty. + +What shall we say of amenity? Milton was born a humanist, but the +Puritan temper, as we know, mastered him. There is nothing more unlovely +and unamiable than Milton the Puritan disputant. Some one answers his +_Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce_. "I mean not," rejoins Milton, "to +dispute philosophy with this pork, who never read any." However, he does +reply to him, and throughout the reply Milton's great joke is, that his +adversary, who was anonymous, is a serving-man. "Finally, he winds up +his text with much doubt and trepidation; for it may be his trenchers +were not scraped, and that which never yet afforded corn of favor to his +noddle--the salt-cellar--was not rubbed; and therefore, in this haste, +easily granting that his answers fall foul upon each other, and praying +you would not think he writes as a prophet, but as a man, he runs to the +black jack, fills his flagon, spreads the table, and serves up +dinner."[473] There you have the same spirit of urbanity and amenity, as +much of it, and as little, as generally informs the religious +controversies of our Puritan middle class to this day. + +But Mr. Goldwin Smith[474] insists, and picks out his own exemplar of +the Puritan type of life and manners; and even here let us follow him. +He picks out the most favorable specimen he can find,--Colonel +Hutchinson,[475] whose well-known memoirs, written by his widow, we have +all read with interest. "Lucy Hutchinson," says Mr. Goldwin Smith, "is +painting what she thought a perfect Puritan would be; and her picture +presents to us not a coarse, crop-eared, and snuffling fanatic, but a +highly accomplished, refined, gallant, and most amiable, though +religious and seriously minded, gentleman." Let us, I say, in this +example of Mr. Goldwin Smith's own choosing, lay our finger upon the +points where this type deflects from the truly humane ideal. + +Mrs. Hutchinson relates a story which gives us a good notion of what the +amiable and accomplished social intercourse, even of a picked Puritan +family, was. Her husband was governor of Nottingham. He had occasion, +she said, "to go and break up a private meeting in the cannoneer's +chamber"; and in the cannoneer's chamber "were found some notes +concerning pædobaptism,[476] which, being brought into the governor's +lodgings, his wife having perused them and compared them with the +Scriptures, found not what to say against the truths they asserted +concerning the mis-application of that ordinance to infants." Soon +afterwards she expects her confinement, and communicates the cannoneer's +doubts about pædobaptism to her husband. The fatal cannoneer makes a +breach in him too. "Then he bought and read all the eminent treatises on +both sides, which at that time came thick from the presses, and still +was cleared in the error of the pædobaptists." Finally, Mrs. Hutchinson +is confined. Then the governor "invited all the ministers to dinner, and +propounded his doubt and the ground thereof to them. None of them could +defend their practice with any satisfactory reason, but the tradition of +the Church from the primitive times, and their main buckler of federal +holiness, which Tombs and Denne had excellently overthrown. He and his +wife then, professing themselves unsatisfied, desired their opinions." +With the opinions I will not trouble you, but hasten to the result: +"Whereupon that infant was not baptised." + +No doubt to a large division of English society at this very day, that +sort of dinner and discussion, and indeed, the whole manner of life and +conversation here suggested by Mrs. Hutchinson's narrative, will seem +both natural and amiable, and such as to meet the needs of man as a +religious and social creature. You know the conversation which reigns in +thousands of middle-class families at this hour, about nunneries, +teetotalism, the confessional, eternal punishment, ritualism, +disestablishment. It goes wherever the class goes which is moulded on +the Puritan type of life. In the long winter evenings of Toronto Mr. +Goldwin Smith has had, probably, abundant experience of it. What is its +enemy? The instinct of self-preservation in humanity. Men make crude +types and try to impose them, but to no purpose. "_L'homme s'agite, Dieu +le mene_,"[477] says Bossuet. "There are many devices in a man's heart; +nevertheless the counsel of the Eternal, that shall stand."[478] Those +who offer us the Puritan type of life offer us a religion not true, the +claims of intellect and knowledge not satisfied, the claim of beauty not +satisfied, the claim of manners not satisfied. In its strong sense for +conduct that life touches truth; but its other imperfections hinder it +from employing even this sense aright. The type mastered our nation for +a time. Then came the reaction. The nation said: "This type, at any +rate, is amiss; we are not going to be all like _that!_" The type +retired into our middle class, and fortified itself there. It seeks to +endure, to emerge, to deny its own imperfections, to impose itself +again;--impossible! If we continue to live, we must outgrow it. The very +class in which it is rooted, our middle class, will have to acknowledge +the type's inadequacy, will have to acknowledge the hideousness, the +immense ennui of the life which this type has created, will have to +transform itself thoroughly. It will have to admit the large part of +truth which there is in the criticisms of our Frenchman, whom we have +too long forgotten. + +After our middle class he turns his attention to our lower class. And of +the lower and larger portion of this, the portion not bordering on the +middle class and sharing its faults, he says: "I consider this multitude +to be absolutely devoid, not only of political principles, but even of +the most simple notions of good and evil. Certainly it does not appeal, +this mob, to the principles of '89, which you English make game of; it +does not insist on the rights of man; what it wants is beer, gin, and +_fun_."[479] + +That is a description of what Mr. Bright[480] would call the residuum, +only our author seems to think the residuum a very large body. And its +condition strikes him with amazement and horror. And surely well it may. +Let us recall Mr. Hamerton's account of the most illiterate class in +France; what an amount of civilization they have notwithstanding! And +this is always to be understood, in hearing or reading a Frenchman's +praise of England. He envies our liberty, our public spirit, our trade, +our stability. But there is always a reserve in his mind. He never means +for a moment that he would like to change with us. Life seems to him so +much better a thing in France for so many more people, that, in spite of +the fearful troubles of France, it is best to be a Frenchman. A +Frenchman might agree with Mr. Cobden,[481] that life is good in England +for those people who have at least £5000 a year. But the civilization of +that immense majority who have not £5000 a year, or, £500, or even +£100,--of our middle and lower class,--seems to him too deplorable. + +And now what has this condition of our middle and lower class to tell us +about equality? How is it, must we not ask, how is it that, being +without fearful troubles, having so many achievements to show and so +much success, having as a nation a deep sense for conduct, having signal +energy and honesty, having a splendid aristocracy, having an +exceptionally large class of gentlemen, we are yet so little civilized? +How is it that our middle and lower classes, in spite of the individuals +among them who are raised by happy gifts of nature to a more humane +life, in spite of the seriousness of the middle class, in spite of the +honesty and power of true work, the _virtus verusque labor_, which are +to be found in abundance throughout the lower, do yet present, as a +whole, the characters which we have seen? + +And really it seems as if the current of our discourse carried us of +itself to but one conclusion. It seems as if we could not avoid +concluding, that just as France owes her fearful troubles to other +things and her civilizedness to equality, so we owe our immunity from +fearful troubles to other things, and our uncivilizedness to inequality. +"Knowledge is easy," says the wise man, "to him that understandeth";[482] +easy, he means, to him who will use his mind simply and rationally, and +not to make him think he can know what he cannot, or to maintain, _per +fas et nefas_, a false thesis with which he fancies his interests to be +bound up. And to him who will use his mind as the wise man recommends, +surely it is easy to see that our shortcomings in civilization are due +to our inequality; or, in other words, that the great inequality of +classes and property, which came to us from the Middle Age and which we +maintain because we have the religion of inequality, that this +constitution of things, I say, has the natural and necessary effect, +under present circumstances, of materializing our upper class, +vulgarizing our middle class, and brutalizing our lower class.[483] And +this is to fail in civilization. + +For only just look how the facts combine themselves. I have said little +as yet about our aristocratic class, except that it is splendid. Yet +these, "our often very unhappy brethren," as Burke calls them, are by no +means matter for nothing but ecstasy. Our charity ought certainly, Burke +says, to "extend a due and anxious sensation of pity to the distresses +of the miserable great." Burke's extremely strong language about their +miseries and defects I will not quote. For my part, I am always disposed +to marvel that human beings, in a position so false, should be so good +as these are. Their reason for existing was to serve as a number of +centres in a world disintegrated after the ruin of the Roman Empire, and +slowly re-constituting itself. Numerous centres of material force were +needed, and these a feudal aristocracy supplied. Their large and +hereditary estates served this public end. The owners had a positive +function, for which their estates were essential. In our modern world +the function is gone; and the great estates, with an infinitely +multiplied power of ministering to mere pleasure and indulgence, remain. +The energy and honesty of our race does not leave itself without witness +in this class, and nowhere are there more conspicuous examples of +individuals raised by happy gifts of nature far above their fellows and +their circumstances. For distinction of all kinds this class has an +esteem. Everything which succeeds they tend to welcome, to win over, to +put on their side; genius may generally make, if it will, not bad terms +for itself with them. But the total result of the class, its effect on +society at large and on national progress, are what we must regard. And +on the whole, with no necessary function to fulfil, never conversant +with life as it really is, tempted, flattered, and spoiled from +childhood to old age, our aristocratic class is inevitably materialized, +and the more so the more the development of industry and ingenuity +augments the means of luxury. Every one can see how bad is the action of +such an aristocracy upon the class of newly enriched people, whose great +danger is a materialistic ideal, just because it is the ideal they can +easiest comprehend. Nor is the mischief of this action now compensated +by signal services of a public kind. Turn even to that sphere which +aristocracies think specially their own, and where they have under other +circumstances been really effective,--the sphere of politics. When there +is need, as now, for any large forecast of the course of human affairs, +for an acquaintance with the ideas which in the end sway mankind, and +for an estimate of their power, aristocracies are out of their element, +and materialized aristocracies most of all. In the immense spiritual +movement of our day, the English aristocracy, as I have elsewhere said, +always reminds me of Pilate confronting the phenomenon of Christianity. +Nor can a materialized class have any serious and fruitful sense for the +power of beauty. They may imagine themselves to be in pursuit of beauty; +but how often, alas, does the pursuit come to little more than dabbling +a little in what they are pleased to call art, and making a great deal +of what they are pleased to call love! + +Let us return to their merits. For the power of manners an aristocratic +class, whether materialized or not, will always, from its circumstances, +have a strong sense. And although for this power of social life and +manners, so important to civilization, our English race has no special +natural turn, in our aristocracy this power emerges and marks them. When +the day of general humanization comes, they will have fixed the standard +of manners. The English simplicity, too, makes the best of the English +aristocracy more frank and natural than the best of the like class +anywhere else, and even the worst of them it makes free from the +incredible fatuities and absurdities of the worst. Then the sense of +conduct they share with their countrymen at large. In no class has it +such trials to undergo; in none is it more often and more grievously +overborne. But really the right comment on this is the comment of +Pepys[484] upon the evil courses of Charles the Second and the Duke of +York and the court of that day: "At all which I am sorry; but it is the +effect of idleness, and having nothing else to employ their great +spirits upon." + +Heaven forbid that I should speak in dispraise of that unique and most +English class which Mr. Charles Sumner extols--the large class of +gentlemen, not of the landed class or of the nobility, but cultivated +and refined. They are a seemly product of the energy and of the power to +rise in our race. Without, in general, rank and splendor and wealth and +luxury to polish them, they have made their own the high standard of +life and manners of an aristocratic and refined class. Not having all +the dissipations and distractions of this class, they are much more +seriously alive to the power of intellect and knowledge, to the power of +beauty. The sense of conduct, too, meets with fewer trials in this +class. To some extent, however, their contiguousness to the aristocratic +class has now the effect of materializing them, as it does the class of +newly enriched people. The most palpable action is on the young amongst +them, and on their standard of life and enjoyment. But in general, for +this whole class, established facts, the materialism which they see +regnant, too much block their mental horizon, and limit the +possibilities of things to them. They are deficient in openness and +flexibility of mind, in free play of ideas, in faith and ardor. +Civilized they are, but they are not much of a civilizing force; they +are somehow bounded and ineffective. + +So on the middle class they produce singularly little effect. What the +middle class sees is that splendid piece of materialism, the +aristocratic class, with a wealth and luxury utterly out of their reach, +with a standard of social life and manners, the offspring of that wealth +and luxury, seeming utterly out of their reach also. And thus they are +thrown back upon themselves--upon a defective type of religion, a narrow +range of intellect and knowledge, a stunted sense of beauty, a low +standard of manners. And the lower class see before them the +aristocratic class, and its civilization, such as it is, even infinitely +more out of _their_ reach than out of that of the middle class; while +the life of the middle class, with its unlovely types of religion, +thought, beauty, and manners, has naturally, in general, no great +attractions for them either. And so they, too, are thrown back upon +themselves; upon their beer, their gin, and their _fun_. Now, then, you +will understand what I meant by saying that our inequality materializes +our upper class, vulgarizes our middle class, brutalizes our lower. + +And the greater the inequality the more marked is its bad action upon +the middle and lower classes. In Scotland the landed aristocracy fills +the scene, as is well known, still more than in England; the other +classes are more squeezed back and effaced. And the social civilization +of the lower middle class and of the poorest class, in Scotland, is an +example of the consequences. Compared with the same class even in +England, the Scottish lower middle class is most visibly, to vary Mr. +Charles Sumner's phrase, _less_ well-bred, _less_ careful in personal +habits and in social conventions, _less_ refined. Let any one who doubts +it go, after issuing from the aristocratic solitudes which possess Loch +Lomond, let him go and observe the shopkeepers and the middle class in +Dumbarton, and Greenock, and Gourock, and the places along the mouth of +the Clyde. And for the poorest class, who that has seen it can ever +forget the hardly human horror, the abjection and uncivilizedness of +Glasgow? + +What a strange religion, then, is our religion of inequality! Romance +often helps a religion to hold its ground, and romance is good in its +way; but ours is not even a romantic religion. No doubt our aristocracy +is an object of very strong public interest. The _Times_ itself bestows +a leading article by way of epithalamium on the Duke of Norfolk's +marriage. And those journals of a new type, full of talent, and which +interest me particularly because they seem as if they were written by +the young lion[485] of our youth,--the young lion grown mellow and, as +the French say, _viveur_, arrived at his full and ripe knowledge of the +world, and minded to enjoy the smooth evening of his days,--those +journals, in the main a sort of social gazette of the aristocracy, are +apparently not read by that class only which they most concern, but are +read with great avidity by other classes also. And the common people, +too, have undoubtedly, as Mr. Gladstone says, a wonderful preference for +a lord. Yet our aristocracy, from the action upon it of the Wars of the +Roses, the Tudors, and the political necessities of George the Third, is +for the imagination a singularly modern and uninteresting one. Its +splendor of station, its wealth, show, and luxury, is then what the +other classes really admire in it; and this is not an elevating +admiration. Such an admiration will never lift us out of our vulgarity +and brutality, if we chance to be vulgar and brutal to start with; it +will rather feed them and be fed by them. So that when Mr. Gladstone +invites us to call our love of inequality "the complement of the love of +freedom or its negative pole, or the shadow which the love of freedom +casts, or the reverberation of its voice in the halls of the +constitution," we must surely answer that all this mystical eloquence is +not in the least necessary to explain so simple a matter; that our love +of inequality is really the vulgarity in us, and the brutality, admiring +and worshipping the splendid materiality. + +Our present social organization, however, will and must endure until our +middle class is provided with some better ideal of life than it has now. +Our present organization has been an appointed stage in our growth; it +has been of good use, and has enabled us to do great things. But the use +is at an end, and the stage is over. Ask yourselves if you do not +sometimes feel in yourselves a sense, that in spite of the strenuous +efforts for good of so many excellent persons amongst us, we begin +somehow to flounder and to beat the air; that we seem to be finding +ourselves stopped on this line of advance and on that, and to be +threatened with a sort of standstill. It is that we are trying to live +on with a social organization of which the day is over. Certainly +equality will never of itself alone give us a perfect civilization. But, +with such inequality as ours, a perfect civilization is impossible. + +To that conclusion, facts, and the stream itself of this discourse, do +seem, I think, to carry us irresistibly. We arrive at it because they so +choose, not because we so choose. Our tendencies are all the other way. +We are all of us politicians, and in one of two camps, the Liberal or +the Conservative. Liberals tend to accept the middle class as it is, and +to praise the nonconformists; while Conservatives tend to accept the +upper class as it is, and to praise the aristocracy. And yet here we are +at the conclusion, that whereas one of the great obstacles to our +civilization is, as I have often said, British nonconformity, another +main obstacle to our civilization is British aristocracy! And this while +we are yet forced to recognize excellent special qualities as well as +the general English energy and honesty, and a number of emergent humane +individuals, in both nonconformists and aristocracy. Clearly such a +conclusion can be none of our own seeking. + +Then again, to remedy our inequality, there must be a change in the law +of bequest, as there has been in France; and the faults and +inconveniences of the present French law of bequest are obvious. It +tends to over-divide property; it is unequal in operation, and can be +eluded by people limiting their families; it makes the children, however +ill they may behave, independent of the parent. To be sure, Mr. +Mill[486] and others have shown that a law of bequest fixing the +maximum, whether of land or money, which any one individual may take by +bequest or inheritance, but in other respects leaving the testator quite +free, has none of the inconveniences of the French law, and is in every +way preferable. But evidently these are not questions of practical +politics. Just imagine Lord Hartington[487] going down to Glasgow, and +meeting his Scotch Liberals there, and saying to them: "You are ill at +ease, and you are calling for change, and very justly. But the cause of +your being ill at ease is not what you suppose. The cause of your being +ill at ease is the profound imperfectness of your social civilization. +Your social civilization is, indeed, such as I forbear to characterize. +But the remedy is not disestablishment. The remedy is social equality. +Let me direct your attention to a reform in the law of bequest and +entail." One can hardly speak of such a thing without laughing. No, the +matter is at present one for the thoughts of those who think. It is a +thing to be turned over in the minds of those who, on the one hand, have +the spirit of scientific inquirers, bent on seeing things as they really +are; and, on the other hand, the spirit of friends of the humane life, +lovers of perfection. To your thoughts I commit it. And perhaps, the +more you think of it, the more you will be persuaded that Menander[488] +showed his wisdom quite as much when he said _Choose equality_, as when +he assured us that _Evil communications corrupt good manners_. + + + + +NOTES + + + + +POETRY AND THE CLASSICS + + +PAGE 1 + +[1] ~Poetry and the Classics~. Published as Preface to _Poems_: 1853 +(dated Fox How, Ambleside, October 1, 1853). It was reprinted in Irish +Essays, 1882. + +[2] ~the poem~. _Empedocles on Etna_. + +[3] ~the Sophists~. "A name given by the Greeks about the middle of the +fifth century B.C. to certain teachers of a superior grade who, +distinguishing themselves from philosophers on the one hand and from +artists and craftsmen on the other, claimed to prepare their pupils, not +for any particular study or profession, but for civic life." +_Encyclopædia Britannica_. + +PAGE 2 + +[4] _Poetics_, 4. + +[5] _Theognis_, ll. 54-56. + +PAGE 4 + +[6] ~"The poet," it is said~. In the _Spectator_ of April 2, 1853. The +words quoted were not used with reference to poems of mine.[Arnold.] + +PAGE 5 + +[7] ~Dido~. See the _Iliad_, the _Oresteia_ (_Agamemnon, Choëpharæ_, and +_Eumenides_) of Æschylus, and the _Æneid_. + +[8] ~Hermann and Dorothea, Childe Harold, Jocelyn, the Excursion~. Long +narrative poems by Goethe, Byron, Lamartine, and Wordsworth. + +PAGE 6 + +[9] ~Oedipus~. See the _Oedipus Tyrannus_ and _Oedipus Coloneus_ of +Sophocles. + +PAGE 7 + +[10] ~grand style~. Arnold, while admitting that the term ~grand~ style, +which he repeatedly uses, is incapable of exact verbal definition, +describes it most adequately in the essay _On Translating Homer_: "I +think it will be found that the grand style arises in poetry when a +noble nature, poetically gifted, treats with simplicity or with severity +a serious subject." See _On the Study of Celtic Literature and on +Translating Homer_, ed. 1895, pp. 264-69. + +[11] ~Orestes, or Merope, or Alcmæon~. The story of ~Orestes~ was +dramatized by Æschylus, by Sophocles, and by Euripides. Merope was the +subject of a lost tragedy by Euripides and of several modern plays, +including one by Matthew Arnold himself. The story of ~Alcmæon~ was the +subject of several tragedies which have not been preserved. + +PAGE 8 + +[12] ~Polybius~. A Greek historian (c. 204-122 B.C.) + +PAGE 9 + +[13]. ~Menander~. See _Contribution of the Celts, Selections_, Note 3, +p. 177.[Transcriber's note: this is Footnote 255 in this e-text.] + +PAGE 12 + +[14] ~rien à dire~. He says all that he wishes to, but unfortunately he +has nothing to say. + +PAGE 13 + +[15] Boccaccio's _Decameron_, 4th day, 5th novel. + +[16] ~Henry Hallam~ (1777-1859). English historian. See his +_Introduction to the Literature of Europe in the Fifteenth, Sixteenth +and Seventeenth Centuries_, chap. 23, §§ 51, 52. + +PAGE 14 + +[17] ~François Pierre Guillaume Guizot~ (1787-1874), historian, orator, +and statesman of France. + +PAGE 16 + +[18] ~Pittacus~, of Mytilene in Lesbos (c. 650-569 B.C.), was one of the +Seven Sages of Greece. His favorite sayings were: "It is hard to be +excellent" ([Greek: chalepon esthlon emenai]), and "Know when to act." + +PAGE 17 + +[19] ~Barthold Georg Niebuhr~ (1776-1831) was a German statesman and +historian. His _Roman History_ (1827-32) is an epoch-making work. For +his opinion of his age see his Life and Letters, London, 1852, II, 396. + +PAGE 18 + +[20] _Æneid_, XII, 894-95. + + +THE FUNCTION OF CRITICISM AT THE PRESENT TIME + +PAGE 20 + +[21] Reprinted from _The National Review_, November, 1864, in the +_Essays in Criticism_, Macmillan & Co., 1865. + +[22] In _On Translating Homer_, ed. 1903, pp. 216-17. + +[23] An essay called _Wordsworth: The Man and the Poet_, published in +_The North British Review_ for August, 1864, vol. 41. ~John Campbell +Shairp~ (1819-85), Scottish critic and man of letters, was professor of +poetry at Oxford from 1877 to 1884. The best of his lectures from this +chair were published in 1881 as _Aspects of Poetry_. + +[24] I cannot help thinking that a practice, common in England during +the last century, and still followed in France, of printing a notice of +this kind,--a notice by a competent critic,--to serve as an introduction +to an eminent author's works, might be revived among us with advantage. +To introduce all succeeding editions of Wordsworth, Mr. Shairp's notice +might, it seems to me, excellently serve; it is written from the point +of view of an admirer, nay, of a disciple, and that is right; but then +the disciple must be also, as in this case he is, a critic, a man of +letters, not, as too often happens, some relation or friend with no +qualification for his task except affection for his author.[Arnold.] + +[25] See _Memoirs of William Wordsworth_, ed. 1851, II, 151, letter to +Bernard Barton. + +PAGE 21 + +[26] ~Irene~. An unsuccessful play of Dr. Johnson's. + +PAGE 22 + +[27] ~Preface~. Prefixed to the second edition (1800) of the _Lyrical +Ballads_. + +PAGE 28 + +[28] ~The old woman~. At the first attempt to read the newly prescribed +liturgy in St. Giles's Church, Edinburgh, on July 23, 1637, a riot took +place, in which the "fauld-stools," or folding stools, of the +congregation were hurled as missiles. An untrustworthy tradition +attributes the flinging of the first stool to a certain Jenny or Janet +Geddes. + +PAGE 29 + +[29] _Pensées de J. Joubert_, ed. 1850, I, 355, titre 15, 2. + +PAGE 30 + +[30] ~French Revolution~. The latter part of Burke's life was largely +devoted to a conflict with the upholders of the French Revolution. +_Reflections on the Revolution in France_, 1790, and _Letters on a +Regicide Peace_, 1796, are his most famous writings in this cause. + +PAGE 31 + +[31] ~Richard Price, D.D.~ (1723-91), was strongly opposed to the war +with America and in sympathy with the French revolutionists. + +[32] From Goldsmith's epitaph on Burke in the _Retaliation_. + +PAGE 32 + +[33] ~Num. XXII~, 35. + +[34] ~William Eden, First Baron Auckland~ (1745-1814), English +statesman. Among other services he represented English interests in +Holland during the critical years 1790-93. + +PAGE 35 + +[35] ~Revue des deux Mondes~. The best-known of the French magazines +devoted to literature, art, and general criticism, founded in Paris in +1831 by Francois Buloz. + +PAGE 36 + +[36] ~Home and Foreign Review~. Published in London 1862-64. + +PAGE 37 + +[37] ~Charles Bowyer Adderley, First Baron Norton~ (1814-1905), English +politician, inherited valuable estates in Warwickshire. He was a strong +churchman and especially interested in education and the colonies. + +[38] ~John Arthur Roebuck~ (1801-79), a leading radical and utilitarian +reformer, conspicuous for his eloquence, honesty, and strong hostility +to the government of his day. He held a seat for Sheffield from 1849 +until his death. + +PAGE 38 + +[39] From Goethe's _Iphigenie auf Tauris_, I, ii, 91-92. + +PAGE 40 + +[40] ~detachment~. In the Buddhistic religion salvation is found through +an emancipation from the craving for the gratification of the senses, +for a future life, and for prosperity. + +PAGE 42 + +[41] ~John Somers, Baron Somers~ (1651-1716), was the most trusted +minister of William III, and a stanch supporter of the English +Constitution. See Addison, _The Freeholder_, May 14, 1716, and +Macauley's _History_, iv, 53. + +[42] ~William Cobbett~ (1762-1835). English politician and writer. As a +pamphleteer his reputation was injured by his pugnacity, self-esteem, +and virulence of language. See _Heine, Selections_, p. 120, +[Transcriber's note: This is Footnote 144 in this e-text] and _The +Contribution of the Celts, Selections_, p. 179.[Transcriber's note: +This is Footnote 257 in this e-text.] + +[43] ~Carlyle's~ _Latter-Day Pamphlets_ (1850) contain much violent +denunciation of the society of his day. + +[44] ~Ruskin~ turned to political economy about 1860. In 1862, he +published _Unto this Last_, followed by other works of similar nature. + +[45] ~terrae filii~. Sons of Mother Earth; hence, obscure, mean persons. + +[46] See _Heine, Selections_, Note 2, p. 117.[Transcriber's note: This +is Footnote 140 in this e-text.] + +PAGE 43 + +[47] ~To think is so hard~. Goethe's _Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship_, +Book VII, chap. IX. + +[48] See Sénancour's _Obermann_, letter 90. Arnold was much influenced +by this remarkable book. For an account of the author (1770-1846) and +the book see Arnold's _Stanzas in Memory of the Author of "Obermann_," +with note on the poem, and the essay on Obermann in _Essays in +Criticism_, third series. + +[49] So sincere is my dislike to all personal attack and controversy, +that I abstain from reprinting, at this distance of time from the +occasion which called them forth, the essays in which I criticized Dr. +Colenso's book; I feel bound, however, after all that has passed, to +make here a final declaration of my sincere impenitence for having +published them. Nay, I cannot forbear repeating yet once more, for his +benefit and that of his readers, this sentence from my original remarks +upon him; _There is truth of science and truth of religion; truth of +science does not become truth of religion till it is made religious._ +And I will add: Let us have all the science there is from the men of +science; from the men of religion let us have religion.[Arnold.] + +~John William Colenso~ (1814-83), Bishop of Natal, published a series of +treatises on the _Pentateuch_, extending from 1862-1879, opposing the +traditional views about the literal inspiration of the Scriptures and +the actual historical character of the Mosaic story. Arnold's censorious +criticism of the first volume of this work is entitled _The Bishop and +the Philosopher_ (_Macmillan's Magazine_, January, 1863). As an example +of the Bishop's cheap "arithmetical demonstrations" he describes him as +presenting the case of Leviticus as follows: "'_If three priests have to +eat 264 pigeons a day, how many must each priest eat?_' That disposes of +Leviticus." The essay is devoted chiefly to contrasting Bishop Colenso's +unedifying methods with those of the philosopher Spinoza. In passing, +Arnold refers also to Dr. Stanley's _Sinai and Palestine_ (1856), +quotations from which are characterized as "the refreshing spots" in the +Bishop's volume. + +[50] It has been said I make it "a crime against literary criticism and +the higher culture to attempt to inform the ignorant." Need I point out +that the ignorant are not informed by being confirmed in a confusion? +[Arnold.] + +PAGE 44 + +[51] Joubert's _Pensées_, ed. 1850, II, 102, titre 23, 54. + +[52] ~Arthur Penrhyn Stanley~ (1815-81), Dean of Westminster. He was the +author of a _Life_ of (Thomas) _Arnold_, 1844. In university politics +and in religious discussions he was a Liberal and the advocate of +toleration and comprehension. + +[53] ~Frances Power Cobbe~ (1822-1904), a prominent English +philanthropist and woman of letters. The quotation below is from _Broken +Lights_ (1864), p. 134. Her _Religious Duty_ (1857), referred to on p. +46, is a book of religious and ethical instruction written from the +Unitarian point of view. + +[54] ~Ernest Renan~ (1823-92), French philosopher and Orientalist. The +_Vie de Jésus_ (1863), here referred to, was begun in Syria and is +filled with the atmosphere of the East, but is a work of literary rather +than of scholarly importance. + +PAGE 45 + +[55] ~David Friedrich Strauss~ (1808-74), German theologian and man of +letters. The work referred to is the _Leben Jesu_ 1835. A popular +edition was published in 1864. + +[56] From "Fleury (Preface) on the Gospel."--Arnold's _Note Book_. + +PAGE 46 + +[57] Cicero's _Att._ 16. 7. 3. + +[58] ~Coleridge's happy phrase~. Coleridge's _Confessions of an +Inquiring Spirit_, letter 2. + +PAGE 49 + +[59] ~Luther's theory of grace~. The question concerning the "means of +grace," i.e. whether the efficacy of the sacraments as channels of the +divine grace is _ex opere operato_, or dependent on the faith of the +recipient, was the chief subject of controversy between Catholics and +Protestants during the period of the Reformation. + +[60] ~Jacques Bénigne Bossuet~ (1627-1704), French divine, orator, and +writer. His _Discours sur l'histoire universelle_ (1681) was an attempt +to provide ecclesiastical authority with a rational basis. It is +dominated by the conviction that "the establishment of Christianity was +the one point of real importance in the whole history of the world." + +PAGE 50 + +[61] From Virgil's _Eclogues_, iv, 5. Translated in Shelley's _Hellas_: +"The world's great age begins anew." + + + +THE STUDY OF POETRY + + +PAGE 55 + +[62] Published in 1880 as the General Introduction to _The English +Poets_, edited by T.H. Ward. Reprinted in _Essays in Criticism_, Second +Series, Macmillan & Co., 1888. + +[63] This quotation is taken, slightly condensed, from the closing +paragraph of a short introduction contributed by Arnold to _The Hundred +Greatest Men_, Sampson, Low & Co., London, 1885. + +PAGE 56 + +[64] From the Preface to the second edition of the _Lyrical Ballads_, +1800. + +[65] ~Charles Augustin Sainte-Beuve~ (1804-69), French critic, was +looked upon by Arnold as in certain respects his master in the art of +criticism. + +PAGE 57 + +[66] ~a criticism of life~. This celebrated phrase was first used by +Arnold in the essay on _Joubert_ (1864), though the theory is implied in +_On Translating Homer_, 1861. In _Joubert_ it is applied to literature: +"The end and aim of all literature, if one considers it attentively, is, +in truth, nothing but that." It was much attacked, especially as applied +to poetry, and is defended as so applied in the essay on _Byron_ (1881). +See also _Wordsworth, Selections_, p. 230.[Transcriber's note: This is +Footnote 371 in this e-text.] + +[67] Compare Arnold's definition of the function of criticism, +_Selections_, p. 52.[Transcriber's note: This approximates to the +section following the text reference for Footnote 61 in this e-text.] + +PAGE 59 + +[68] ~Paul Pellisson~ (1624-93). French author, friend of Mlle. Scudéry, +and historiographer to the king. + +[69] Barren and servile civility. + +70. ~M. Charles d' Hericault~ was joint editor of the Jannet edition +(1868-72) of the poems of ~Clément Marot~ (1496-1544). + +PAGE 62 + +[71] _Imitation of Christ_, Book III, chap. 43, 2. + +[72] ~Cædmon~. The first important religious poet in Old English +literature. Died about 680 A.D. + +[73] ~Ludovic Vitet~ (1802-73). French dramatist and politician. + +[74] ~Chanson de Roland~. The greatest of the _Chansons des Gestes_, +long narrative poems dealing with warfare and adventure popular in +France during the Middle Ages. It was composed in the eleventh century. +Taillefer was the surname of a bard and warrior of the eleventh century. +The tradition concerning him is related by Wace, _Roman de Rou_, third +part, v., 8035-62, ed. Andreson, Heilbronn, 1879. The Bodleian _Roland_ +ends with the words: "ci folt la geste, que Turoldus declinet." Turold +has not been identified. + +PAGE 63 + +[75] "Then began he to call many things to remembrance,--all the lands +which his valor conquered, and pleasant France, and the men of his +lineage, and Charlemagne his liege lord who nourished him."--_Chanson de +Roland_, III, 939-42.[Arnold.] + +[76] + "So said she; they long since in Earth's soft arms were reposing, + There, in their own dear land, their fatherland, Lacedæmon." +_Iliad_, III, 243, 244 (translated by Dr. Hawtrey).[Arnold.] + +PAGE 64 + +[77] "Ah, unhappy pair, why gave we you to King Peleus, to a mortal? but +ye are without old age, and immortal. Was it that with men born to +misery ye might have sorrow?"--_Iliad_, XVII, 443-445.[Arnold.] + +[78] "Nay, and thou too, old man, in former days wast, as we hear, +happy."--_Iliad_, XXIV, 543.[Arnold.] + +[79] "I wailed not, so of stone grew I within;--_they_ wailed."-- +_Inferno_, XXXIII, 39, 40.[Arnold.] + +[80] "Of such sort hath God, thanked be His mercy, made me, that your +misery toucheth me not, neither doth the flame of this fire strike me." +--_Inferno_, II, 91-93.[Arnold.] + +[81] "In His will is our peace."--_Paradiso_, III, 85.[Arnold.] + +[82] _Henry IV_, part 2, III, i, 18-20. + +PAGE 65 + +[83] _Hamlet_, V, ii, 361-62. + +[84] _Paradise Lost_, I, 599-602. + +[85] _Ibid._, I, 108-9. + +[86] _Ibid._, IV, 271. + +PAGE 66 + +[87] _Poetics_, § 9. + +PAGE 67 + +[88] ~Provençal~, the language of southern France, from the southern +French _oc_ instead of the northern _oïl_ for "yes." + +PAGE 68 + +[89] Dante acknowledges his debt to ~Latini~ (c. 1230-c. 1294), but the +latter was probably not his tutor. He is the author of the _Tesoretto_, +a heptasyllabic Italian poem, and the prose _Livres dou Trésor_, a sort +of encyclopedia of medieval lore, written in French because that +language "is more delightful and more widely known." + +[90] ~Christian of Troyes~. A French poet of the second half of the +twelfth century, author of numerous narrative poems dealing with legends +of the Round Table. The present quotation is from the _Cligés_, ll. +30-39. + +PAGE 69 + +[91] Chaucer's two favorite stanzas, the seven-line and eight-line +stanzas in heroic verse, were imitated from Old French poetry. See B. +ten Brink's _The Language and Meter of Chaucer_, 1901, pp. 353-57. + +[92] ~Wolfram von Eschenbach~. A medieval German poet, born in the end +of the twelfth century. His best-known poem is the epic _Parzival_. + +PAGE 70 + +[93] From Dryden's _Preface to the Fables_, 1700. + +[94] The _Confessio Amantis_, the single English poem of ~John Gower~ +(c. 1330-1408), was in existence in 1392-93. + +PAGE 71 + +[95] ~souded~. The French _soudé_, soldered, fixed fast.[Arnold.] From +the _Prioress's Tale_, ed. Skeat, 1894, B. 1769. The line should read, +"O martir, souded to virginitee." + +PAGE 73 + +[96] ~François Villon~, born in or near Paris in 1431, thief and poet. +His best-known poems are his _ballades_. See R.L. Stevenson's essay. + +[97] The name _Heaulmière_ is said to be derived from a headdress (helm) +worn as a mark by courtesans. In Villon's ballad, a poor old creature of +this class laments her days of youth and beauty. The last stanza of the +ballad runs thus: + + "Ainsi le bon temps regretons + Entre nous, pauvres vieilles sottes, + Assises bas, à croppetons, + Tout en ung tas comme pelottes; + A petit feu de chenevottes + Tost allumées, tost estainctes. + Et jadis fusmes si mignottes! + Ainsi en prend à maintz et maintes." + +"Thus amongst ourselves we regret the good time, poor silly old things, +low-seated on our heels, all in a heap like so many balls; by a little +fire of hemp-stalks, soon lighted, soon spent. And once we were such +darlings! So fares it with many and many a one."[Arnold.] + +PAGE 74 + +[98] From _An Essay of Dramatic Poesy_, 1688. + +[99] A statement to this effect is made by Dryden in the _Preface to the +Fables_. + +[100] From _Preface to the Fables_. + +PAGE 75 + +[101] See Wordsworth's _Essay, Supplementary to the Preface_, 1815, and +Coleridge's _Biographia Literaria_. + +[102] _An Apology for Smectymnuus_, Prose Works, ed. 1843, III, 117-18. +Milton was thirty-four years old at this time. + +PAGE 76 + +[103] The opening words of Dryden's _Postscript to the Reader_ in the +translation of Virgil, 1697. + +PAGE 77 + +[104] The opening lines of _The Hind and the Panther_. + +[105] _Imitations of Horace_, Book II, Satire 2, ll. 143-44. + +PAGE 78 + +[106] From _On the Death of Robert Dundas, Esq._ + +PAGE 79 + +[107] ~Clarinda~. A name assumed by Mrs. Maclehose in her sentimental +connection with Burns, who corresponded with her under the name of +Sylvander. + +[108] Burns to Mr. Thomson, October 19, 1794. + +PAGE 80 + +[109] From _The Holy Fair_. + +PAGE 81 + +[110] From _Epistle: To a Young Friend_. + +[111] From _Address to the Unco' Quid, or the Rigidly Righteous_. + +[112] From _Epistle: To Dr. Blacklock_. + +[Footnote 4: See his _Memorabilia_.][Transcriber's note: The reference +for this footnote is missing from the original text.] + +PAGE 83 + +[113] From _Winter: A Dirge_. + +PAGE 84 + +[114] From Shelley's _Prometheus Unbound_, III, iv, last line. + +[115] _Ibid._, II, v. + + +LITERATURE AND SCIENCE + +PAGE 87 + +[116] Reprinted (considerably revised) from the _Nineteenth Century_, +August, 1882, vol. XII, in _Discourses in America_, Macmillan & Co., +1885. It was the most popular of the three lectures given by Arnold +during his visit to America in 1883-84. + +[117] Plato's _Republic_, 6. 495, _Dialogues_, ed. Jowett, 1875, vol. 3, +p. 194. + +[118] ~working lawyer~. Plato's _Theoetetus,_ 172-73, _Dialogues_, IV, +231. + +PAGE 88 + +[119] ~majesty~. All editions read "majority." What Emerson said was +"majesty," which is therefore substituted here. See Emerson's _Literary +Ethics, Works_, Centenary ed., I, 179. + +PAGE 89 + +[120] "His whole soul is perfected and ennobled by the acquirement of +justice and temperance and wisdom. ... And in the first place, he will +honor studies which impress these qualities on his soul and will +disregard others."--_Republic_, IX, 591, _Dialogues_, III, 305. + +PAGE 91 + +[121] See _The Function of Criticism, Selections_, p. 52.[Transcriber's +note: This approximates to the section following the text reference for +Footnote 61 in this e-text.] + +[122] Delivered October 1, 1880, and printed in _Science and Culture and +Other Essays_, Macmillan & Co., 1881. + +[123] See _The Function of Criticism, Selections_, pp. 52-53. +[Transcriber's note: This approximates to the section following the text +reference for Footnote 61 in this e-text.] + +PAGE 92 + +[124] See _L'Instruction supérieur en France_ in Renan's _Questions +Contemporaines_, Paris, 1868. + +PAGE 93 + +[125] ~Friedrich August Wolf~ (1759-1824), German philologist and +critic. + +PAGE 99 + +[126] See Plato's _Symposium, Dialogues_, II, 52-63. + +PAGE 100 + +[127] ~James Joseph Sylvester~ (1814-97), English mathematician. In +1883, the year of Arnold's lecture, he resigned a position as teacher in +Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, to accept the Savilian Chair of +Geometry at Oxford. + +PAGE 101 + +[128] Darwin's famous proposition. _Descent of Man_, Part III, chap. +XXI, ed. 1888, II, 424. + +PAGE 103 + +[129] ~Michael Faraday~ (1791-1867), English chemist and physicist, and +the discoverer of the induction of electrical currents. He belonged to +the very small Christian sect called after ~Robert Sandeman~, and his +opinion with respect to the relation between his science and his +religion is expressed in a lecture on mental education printed at the +end of his _Researches in Chemistry and Physics_. + +PAGE 105 + +[130] Eccles. VIII, 17.[Arnold.] + +[131] _Iliad_, XXIV, 49.[Arnold.] + +[132] Luke IX, 25. + +PAGE 107 + +[133] _Macbeth_, V, iii. + +PAGE 109 + +[134] A touching account of the devotion of ~Lady Jane Grey~ (1537-54) +to her studies is to be found in Ascham's _Scholemaster_, Arber's ed., +46-47. + + +HEINRICH HEINE. + +PAGE 112 + +[135] Reprinted from the _Cornhill Magazine_, vol. VIII, August, 1863, +in _Essays in Criticism_, 1st series, 1865. + +[136] Written from Paris, March 30, 1855. See Heine's _Memoirs_, ed. +1910, II, 270. + +PAGE 113 + +[137] The German Romantic school of ~Tieck~ (1773-1853), ~Novalis~ +(1772-1801), and ~Richter~ (1763-1825) followed the classical school of +Schiller and Goethe. It was characterized by a return to individualism, +subjectivity, and the supernatural. Carlyle translated extracts from +Tieck and Richter in his _German Romance_ (1827), and his _Critical and +Miscellaneous Essays_ contain essays on Richter and Novalis. + +PAGE 114 + +[138] From _English Fragments; Conclusion_, in _Pictures of Travel_, ed. +1891, Leland's translation, _Works_, III, 466-67. + +PAGE 117 + +[139] ~Heine's~ birthplace was not ~Hamburg~, but ~Düsseldorf~. + +[140] ~Philistinism~. In German university slang the term _Philister_ +was applied to townsmen by students, and corresponded to the English +university "snob." Hence it came to mean a person devoid of culture and +enlightenment, and is used in this sense by Goethe in 1773. Heine was +especially instrumental in popularizing the expression outside of +Germany. Carlyle first introduced it into English literature in 1827. In +a note to the discussion of Goethe in the second edition of _German +Romance_, he speaks of a Philistine as one who "judged of Brunswick mum, +by its _utility_." He adds: "Stray specimens of the Philistine nation +are said to exist in our own Islands; but we have no name for them like +the Germans." The term occurs also in Carlyle's essays on _The State of +German Literature_, 1827, and _Historic Survey of German Poetry_, 1831. +Arnold, however, has done most to establish the word in English usage. +He applies it especially to members of the middle class who are swayed +chiefly by material interests and are blind to the force of ideas and +the value of culture. Leslie Stephen, who is always ready to plead the +cause of the Philistine, remarks: "As a clergyman always calls every one +from whom he differs an atheist, and a bargee has one or two favorite +but unmentionable expressions for the same purpose, so a prig always +calls his adversary a Philistine." _Mr. Matthew Arnold and the Church of +England, Fraser's Magazine_, October, 1870. + +[141] The word ~solecism~ is derived from[Greek: soloi], in Cilicia, +owing to the corruption of the Attic dialect among the Athenian +colonists of that place. + +PAGE 118 + +[142] The "~gig~" as Carlyle's symbol of philistinism takes its origin +from a dialogue which took place in Thurtell's trial: "I always thought +him a respectable man." "What do you mean by 'respectable'?" "He kept a +gig." From this he coins the words "gigman," "gigmanity," "gigmania," +which are of frequent occurrence in his writings. + +PAGE 119 + +[143] _English Fragments, Pictures of Travel, Works_, III, 464. + +PAGE 120 + +[144] See _The Function of Criticism, Selections_, Note 2, p. 42. +[Transcriber's note: This is Footnote 42 in this e-text.] + +PAGE 121 + +[145] _English Fragments_, chap. IX, in _Pictures of Travel, Works_, +III, 410-11. + +[146] Adapted from a line in Wordsworth's _Resolution and Independence_. + +PAGE 122 + +[147] ~Charles the Fifth~. Ruler of The Holy Roman Empire, 1500-58. + +PAGE 124 + +[148] _English Fragments, Conclusion_, in _Pictures of Travel, Works_, +III, 468-70. + +[149] A complete edition has at last appeared in Germany.[Arnold.] + +PAGE 125 + +[150] ~Augustin Eugène Scribe~ (1791-1861), French dramatist, for fifty +years the best exponent of the ideas of the French middle class. + +PAGE 126 + +[151] ~Charles Louis Napoleon Bonaparte~ (Napoleon III), 1808-73, son of +Louis Bonaparte, brother of Napoleon I, by the _coup d'état_ of +December, 1851, became Emperor of France. This was accomplished against +the resistance of the Moderate Republicans, partly through the favor of +his democratic theories with the mass of the French people. Heine was +mistaken, however, in believing that the rule of Louis Napoleon had +prepared the way for Communism. An attempt to bring about a Communistic +revolution was easily crushed in 1871. + +PAGE 127 + +[152] ~J.J. von Goerres~ (1776-1848), ~Klemens Brentano~ (1778-1842), +and ~Ludwig Achim von Arnim~ (1781-1831) were the leaders of the second +German Romantic school and constitute the Heidelberg group of writers. +They were much interested in the German past, and strengthened the +national and patriotic spirit. Their work, however, is often marred by +exaggeration and affectation. + +PAGE 128 + +[153] From _The Baths of Lucca_, chap. X, in _Pictures of Travel, +Works_, III, 199. + +PAGE 129 + +[154] Cf. _Function of Criticism, Selections_, p. 26.[Transcriber's +note: This approximates to the section following the text reference for +Footnote 27 in this e-text.] + +[155] Job XII, 23: "He enlargeth the nations and straiteneth them +again." + +PAGE 131 + +[156] Lucan, _Pharsalia_, book I, 135: "he stands the shadow of a great +name." + +PAGE 132 + +[157] From _Ideas_, in _Pictures of Travel, Works_, II, 312-13. + +[158] ~Robert Stewart, Viscount Castlereagh~ (1769-1822), as Foreign +Secretary under Lord Liverpool, became the soul of the coalition against +Napoleon, which, during the campaigns of 1813-14, was kept together by +him alone. He committed suicide with a penknife in a fit of insanity in +August, 1822. + +[159] From _Ideas_, in _Pictures of Travel, Works_, II, 324. + +[160] From _English Fragments_, 1828, in _Pictures of Travel, Works_, +III, 340-42. + +PAGE 133 + +[161] Song in _Measure for Measure_, IV, i. + +[162][Transcriber's note: "From _The Dying One_: for translation see p. +142." in original. Please see reference in text for Footnote 180.] + +PAGE 135 + +[163] From _Mountain Idyll, Travels in the Hartz Mountains, Book of +Songs. Works_, ed. 1904, pp. 219-21. + +[164] Published 1851. + +[165] ~Rhampsinitus~. A Greek corruption of _Ra-messu-pa-neter_, the +popular name of Rameses III, King of Egypt. + +[166] ~Edith with the Swan Neck~. A mistress of King Harold of England. + +[167] ~Melisanda of Tripoli~. Mistress of Geoffrey Rudel, the +troubadour. + +[168] ~Pedro the Cruel~. King of Castile (1334-69). + +[169] ~Firdusi~. A Persian poet, author of the epic poem, the +_Shahnama_, or "Book of Kings," a complete history of Persia in nearly +sixty thousand verses. + +[170] ~Dr. Döllinger~. A German theologian and church historian +(1799-1890). + +[171] _Spanish Atrides, Romancero, Works_, ed. 1905, pp. 200-04. + +[172] ~Henry of Trastamare~. King of Castile (1369-79). + +PAGE 137 + +[173] ~garbanzos~. A kind of pulse much esteemed in Spain. + +PAGE 138 + +[174] Adapted from Rom. VIII, 26. + +PAGE 139 + +[175] From _The Baths of Lucca_, chap. IX, in _Pictures of Travel, +Works_, III, 184-85. + +[176] _Romancero_, book III. + +PAGE 140 + +[177] ~Laura~. The heroine of Petrarch's famous series of love lyrics +known as the _Canzoniere_. + +[178] ~Court of Love~. For a discussion of this supposed medieval +tribunal see William A. Neilson's _The Origins and Sources of the Court +of Love, Studies and Notes in Philology and Literature_, Boston, 1899, +chap. VIII. + +PAGE 142 + +[179] _Disputation, Romancero_, book III. + +[180] _The Dying One, Romancero_, book II, quoted entire. + +PAGE 143 + +[181] Written from Paris, September 30, 1850. See _Memoirs_, ed. 1910, +II, 226-27. + + +MARCUS AURELIUS. + +PAGE 145 + +[182] Reprinted from _The Victoria Magazine_, II, 1-9, November, 1863, +in _Essays in Criticism_, 1865. + +[183] ~John Stuart Mill~ (1806-73), English philosopher and economist. +_On Liberty_ (1859) is his most finished writing. + +[184] The _Imitation of Christ_ (_Imitatio Christi_), a famous medieval +Christian devotional work, is usually ascribed to Thomas à Kempis +(1380-1471), an Augustinian canon of Mont St. Agnes in the diocese of +Utrecht. + +PAGE 146 + +[185] ~Epictetus~. Greek Stoic philosopher (born c. A.D. 60). He is an +earnest preacher of righteousness and his philosophy is eminently +practical. For Arnold's personal debt to him see his sonnet _To a +Friend_. + +PAGE 147 + +[186] ~Empedocles~. A Greek philosopher and statesman (c. 490-430 B.C.). +He is the subject of Arnold's early poetical drama, _Empedocles on +Etna_, which he later suppressed for reasons which he states in the +Preface to the _Poems_ of 1853. See _Selections_, pp. 1-3. +[Transcriber's note: This approximates to the section following the text +reference for Footnote 1 in this e-text.] + +[187] _Encheiridion_, chap. LII. + +[188] Ps. CXLIII, 10; incorrectly quoted. + +[189] Is. LX, 19. + +[190] Mal. IV, 2. + +[191] John I, 13. + +[192] John III, 5. + +PAGE 148 + +[193] 1 John V, 4. + +[194] Matt. XIX, 26. + +[195] 2 Cor. V, 17. + +[196] _Encheiridion_, chap. XLIII. + +[197] Matt. XVIII, 22. + +[198] Matt. XXII, 37-39, etc. + +PAGE 149 + +[199] ~George Long~ (1800-79), classical scholar. He published +_Selections from Plutarch's Lives_, 1862; _Thoughts of Marcus Aurelius_, +1862; etc. + +[200] ~Thomas Arnold~ (1795-1842), English clergyman and headmaster of +Rugby School, father of Matthew Arnold. + +PAGE 150 + +[201] ~Jeremy Collier~ (1650-1726). His best-known work is his _Short +View of the Immorality and Profaneness of the English Stage_, 1698, a +sharp and efficacious attack on the Post-Restoration drama. _The Emperor +M. Aurelius Antoninus, his Conversation with himself_, appeared in 1701. + +PAGE 151 + +[202] _Meditations_, III, 14. + +PAGE 152 + +203. ~Antoninus Pius~. Roman Emperor, A.D. 138-161, and foster-father of +M. Aurelius. + +[204] To become current in men's speech. + +[205] The real name of ~Voltaire~ was ~François Marie Arouet~. The name +Voltaire was assumed in 1718 and is supposed to be an anagram of Arouet +le j(eune). + +PAGE 154 + +[206] See _Function of Criticism, Selections_, p. 36.[Transcriber's +note: This approximates to the section following the text reference for +Footnote 36 in this e-text.] + +[207] ~Louis IX of France~ (1215-70), the leader of the crusade of 1248. + +PAGE 155 + +[208] ~The Saturday Review~, begun in 1855, was pronouncedly +conservative in politics. It devoted much space to pure criticism and +scholarship, and Arnold's essays are frequently criticized in its +columns. + +[209] He died on the 17th of March, A.D. 180.[Arnold.] + +PAGE 156 + +[210] ~Juvenal's sixth satire~ is a scathing arraignment of the vices +and follies of the women of Rome during the reign of Domitian. + +[211] See Juvenal, _Sat._ 3, 76. + +[212] Because he lacks an inspired poet (to sing his praises). Horace, +_Odes_, IV, 9, 28. + +PAGE 157 + +[213] ~Avidius Cassius~, a distinguished general, declared himself +Emperor in Syria in 176 A.D. Aurelius proceeded against him, deploring +the necessity of taking up arms against a trusted officer. Cassius was +slain by his own officers while M. Aurelius was still in Illyria. + +[214] ~Commodus~. Emperor of Rome, 180-192 A.D. He was dissolute and +tyrannical. + +[215] ~Attalus~, a Roman citizen, was put to death with other Christians +in A.D. 177. + +[216] ~Polycarp~, Bishop of Smyrna, and one of the Apostolic Fathers, +suffered martyrdom in 155 A.D. + +PAGE 159 + +[217] ~Tacitus~, _Ab Excessu Augusti_, XV, 44. + +PAGE 161 + +[218] ~Claude Fleury~ (1640-1723), French ecclesiastical historian, +author of the _Histoire Ecclésiastique_, 20 vols., 1691. + +PAGE 163 + +[219] _Med._, I, 12. + +[220] _Ibid._, I, 14. + +[221] _Ibid._, IV, 24. + +PAGE 164 + +[222] _Ibid._, III, 4. + +PAGE 165 + +[223] _Ibid._, V, 6. + +[224] _Ibid._, IX, 42. + +[225] ~Lucius Annæus Seneca~ (c. 3 B.C.-A.D. 65), statesman and +philosopher. His twelve so-called _Dialogues_ are Stoic sermons of a +practical and earnest character. + +PAGE 166 + +[226] _Med._, III, 2. + +PAGE 167 + +[227] _Ibid._, V, 5. + +[228] _Ibid._, VIII, 34. + +PAGE 168 + +[229] _Ibid._, IV, 3. + +PAGE 169 + +[230] _Ibid._, I, 17. + +[231] ~Tiberius, Caligula, Nero, Domitian~. Roman Emperors, 14-37 A.D., +37-41 A.D., 54-68 A.D., and 81-96 A.D. + +[232] _Med._, IV, 28. + +[233] _Ibid._, V, 11. + +PAGE 170 + +[234] _Ibid._, X, 8. + +PAGE 171 + +[235] _Ibid._, IV, 32. + +[236] _Ibid._, V, 33. + +[237] _Ibid._, IX, 30. + +[238] _Ibid._, VII, 55. + +PAGE 172 + +[239] _Ibid._, VI, 48. + +[240] _Ibid._, IX, 3. + +PAGE 173 + +[241] Matt. XVII, 17. + +[242] _Med._, X, 15. + +[243] _Ibid._, VI, 45. + +[244] _Ibid._, V, 8. + +[245] _Ibid._, VII, 55. + +PAGE 174 + +[246] _Ibid._, IV, 1. + +[247] _Ibid._, X, 31. + +[248] _Ibid._ + +PAGE 175 + +[249] ~Alogi~. An ancient sect that rejected the Apocalypse and the +Gospel of St. John. + +[250] ~Gnosis~. Knowledge of spiritual truth or of matters commonly +conceived to pertain to faith alone, such as was claimed by the +Gnostics, a heretical Christian sect of the second century. + +[251] The correct reading is _tendebantque_ (_Æneid_, VI, 314), which +Arnold has altered to apply to the present case. + + +THE CONTRIBUTION OF THE CELTS TO ENGLISH LITERATURE + +PAGE 176 + +[252] From _On The Study of Celtic Literature_, London, 1867, chap. VI. +It was previously published in the _Cornhill Magazine_, vols. XIII and +XIV, March-July, 1866. In the Introduction to the book Arnold says: "The +following remarks on the study of Celtic literature formed the substance +of four lectures given by me last year and the year before in the chair +of poetry at Oxford." The chapter is slightly abridged in the present +selection. + +PAGE 177 + +[253] _Paradise Lost_, III, 32-35. + +[254] _Tasso_, I, 2, 304-05. + +[255] ~Menander~. The most famous Greek poet of the New Comedy (342-291 +B.C.). + +PAGE 179 + +[256] ~Gemeinheit~. Arnold defines the word five lines below. + +[257] See _The Function of Criticism, Selections_, Note 2, p. 42. +[Transcriber's note: This is Footnote 42 in this e-text.] + +[258] ~Bossuet~. See _The Function of Criticism, Selections_, Note 2, p. +49.[Transcriber's note: This is Footnote 60 in this e-text.] + +[259] ~Henry St. John, Viscount Bolingbroke~ (1678-1751), English +statesman and man of letters, was author of the _Idea of a Patriot +King_. Arnold is inclined to overestimate the quality of his style. + +PAGE 180 + +[260] ~Taliessin~ and ~Llywarch Hen~ are the names of Welsh bards, +supposedly of the late sixth century, whose poems are contained in the +_Red Book of Hergest_, a manuscript formerly preserved in Jesus College, +Oxford, and now in the Bodleian. Nothing further is known of them. +~Ossian~, ~Ossin~, or ~Oisin~, was a legendary Irish third century hero +and poet, the son of Finn. In Scotland the Ossianic revival was due to +James Macpherson. See Note 1, p. 181.[Transcriber's note: This is +Footnote 262 in this e-text.] + +[261] From the _Black Book of Caermarthen_, 19. + +PAGE 181 + +[262] ~James Macpherson~ (1736-96) published anonymously in 1760 his +_Fragments of Ancient Poetry, collected in the Highlands of Scotland and +translated from the Gaelic or Erse language_. This was followed by an +epic _Fingal_ and other poems. Their authenticity was early doubted and +a controversy followed. They are now generally believed to be forgeries. +The passage quoted, as well as references to Selma, "woody Morven," and +"echoing Lora" (not _Sora_), is from _Carthon: a Poem_. + +PAGE 182 + +[263] ~Werther~. Goethe's _Die Leiden des jungen Werthers_ (1774) was a +product of the _Sturm und Drang_ movement in German literature, and +responsible for its sentimental excesses. Goethe mentions Ossian in +connection with Homer in _Werther_, book II, "am 12. October," and +translates several passages of considerable length toward the close of +this book. + +[264] ~Prometheus~. An unfinished drama of Goethe's, of which a fine +fragment remains. + +PAGE 183 + +[265] For ~Llywarch Hen~, see Note 1, p. 180.[Transcriber's note: This +is Footnote 260 in this e-text.] The present quotation is from book II +of the _Red Book_. A translation of the poem differing somewhat from the +one quoted by Arnold is contained in W.F. Skene's _The Four Ancient +Books of Wales_, Edinburgh, 1868. + +[266] From _On this day I complete my thirty-sixth year_, 1824. + +[267] From _Euthanasia_, 1812. + +PAGE 184 + +[268] ~Manfred, Lara, Cain~. Heroes of Byron's poems so named. + +[269] From _Paradise Lost_, I, 105-09. + +PAGE 185 + +[270] Rhyme,--the most striking characteristic of our modern poetry as +distinguished from that of the ancients, and a main source, to our +poetry, of its magic and charm, of what we call its _romantic element_-- +rhyme itself, all the weight of evidence tends to show, comes into our +poetry from the Celts.[Arnold.] A different explanation is given by J. +Schipper, _A History of English Versification_, Oxford, 1910: "End-rhyme +or full-rhyme seems to have arisen independently and without historical +connection in several nations.... Its adoption into all modern +literature is due to the extensive use made of it in the hymns of the +church." + +[271] Lady Guest's _Mabinogion, Math the Son of Mathonwy_, ed. 1819, +III, 239. + +[272] _Mabinogion, Kilhwch and Olwen_, II, 275. + +PAGE 186 + +[273] _Mabinogion, Peredur the Son of Evrawc_, I, 324. + +[274] _Mabinogion, Geraint the Son of Erbin_, II, 112. + + +PAGE 187 + +[275] ~Novalis~. The pen-name of ~Friedrich von Hardenberg~ (1772-1801), +sometimes called the "Prophet of Romanticism." See Carlyle's essay on +Novalis. + +[276] For ~Rückert~, see _Wordsworth, Selections_, Note 4, p. 224. +[Transcriber's note: This is Footnote 356 in this e-text.] + +[277] Take the following attempt to render the natural magic supposed to +pervade Tieck's poetry: "In diesen Dichtungen herrscht eine +geheimnissvolle Innigkeit, ein sonderbares Einverständniss mit der +Natur, besonders mit der Pflanzen-und Steinreich. Der Leser fühlt sich +da wie in einem verzauberten Walde; er hört die unterirdischen Quellen +melodisch rauschen; wildfremde Wunderblumen schauen ihn an mit ihren +bunten sehnsüchtigen Augen; unsichtbare Lippen küssen seine Wangen mit +neckender Zärtlichkeit; _hohe Pilze, wie goldne Glocken, wachsen +klingend empor am Fusse der Bäume_"; and so on. Now that stroke of the +_hohe Pilze_, the great funguses, would have been impossible to the tact +and delicacy of a born lover of nature like the Celt; and could only +have come from a German who has _hineinstudirt_ himself into natural +magic. It is a crying false note, which carries us at once out of the +world of nature-magic, and the breath of the woods, into the world of +theatre-magic and the smell of gas and orange-peel.[Arnold.] + +~Johann Ludwig Tieck~ (1773-1853) was one of the most prominent of the +German romanticists. He was especially felicitous in the rehandling of +the old German fairy tales. The passage quoted above is from Heine's +_Germany_, Part II, book II, chap. II. The following is the translation +of C.G. Leland, slightly altered: "In these compositions we feel a +mysterious depth of meaning, a marvellous union with nature, especially +with the realm of plants and stones. The reader seems to be in an +enchanted forest; he hears subterranean springs and streams rustling +melodiously and his own name whispered by the trees. Broad-leaved +clinging plants wind vexingly about his feet, wild and strange +wonderflowers look at him with vari-colored longing eyes, invisible lips +kiss his cheeks with mocking tenderness, great funguses like golden +bells grow singing about the roots of trees." + +[278] _Winter's Tale_, IV, iii, 118-20. + +[279] Arnold doubtless refers to the passage in _The Solitary Reaper_ +referred to in a similar connection in the essay on Maurice de Guérin, +though Wordsworth has written two poems _To the Cuckoo_. + +[280] The passage on the mountain birch-tree, which is quoted in the +essay on Maurice de Guérin, is from Sénancour's _Obermann_, letter 11. +For his delicate appreciation of the Easter daisy see _Obermann_, letter +91. + +PAGE 188 + +[281]. Pope's _Iliad_, VIII, 687. + +[282] Propertius, _Elegies_, book I, 20, 21-22: "The band of heroes +covered the pleasant beach with leaves and branches woven together." + +[283] _Idylls_, XIII, 34. The present reading of the line gives[Greek: +hekeito, mega]: "A meadow lay before them, very good for beds." + +[284] From the _Ode to a Grecian Urn_. + +PAGE 189 + +[285] That is, _Dedication_. + +[286] From the _Ode to a Nightingale_. + +[287] _Ibid._ + +PAGE 190 + +[288] Virgil, _Eclogues_, VII, 45. + +[289] _Ibid._, II, 47-48: "Plucking pale violets and the tallest +poppies, she joins with them the narcissus and the flower of the +fragrant dill." + +[290] _Ibid._, II, 51-52: "I will gather quinces, white with delicate +down, and chestnuts." + +[291] _Midsummer Night's Dream_, II, i, 249-52. + +[292] _Merchant of Venice_, V, i, 58-59. + +[293] _Midsummer Night's Dream_, II, i, 83-85. + +PAGE 191 + +[294] _Merchant of Venice_, V, i, 1 ff. + + +GEORGE SAND + +PAGE 192 + +[295] Reprinted from the _Fortnightly Review_ for June, 1877, in _Mixed +Essays_, Smith, Elder & Co., 1879. ~Amandine Lucile Aurore Dudevant~, +née ~Dupin~ (1804-76), was the most prolific woman writer of France. The +pseudonym ~George Sand~ was a combination of George, the typical +Berrichon name, and Sand, abbreviated from (Jules) Sandeau, in +collaboration with whom she began her literary career. + +[296] ~Indiana~, George Sand's first novel, 1832. + +[297] ~Nohant~ is a village of Berry, one of the ancient provinces of +France, comprising the modern departments of Cher and Indre. The ~Indre~ +and the ~Creuse~ are its chief rivers. ~Vierzon, Châteauroux, Le +Châtre~, and ~Ste.-Sévère~ are towns of the province. ~Le Puy~ is in the +neighboring department of Haute-Loire, and ~La Marche~ is in the +department of Vosges. For the ~Vallée Noire~ see Sand's _The Miller of +Angibault_, chap. III, etc. + +[298] ~Jeanne~. The first of a series of novels in which the pastoral +element prevails. It was published in 1844. + +[299] The ~Pierres Jaunâtres~ (or ~Jomâtres~) is a district in the +mountains of the Creuse (see _Jeanne, Prologue_). ~Touix Ste.-Croix~ is +a ruined Gallic town (_Jeanne_, chap. I). For the druidical stones of +~Mont Barlot~ see _Jeanne_, chap. VII. + +PAGE 193 + +[300] ~Cassini's great map~. A huge folio volume containing 183 charts +of the various districts of France, published by Mess. Maraldi and +Cassini de Thury, Paris, 1744. + +[301] For an interesting description of the patache, or rustic carriage, +see George Sand's _Miller of Angibault_, chap. II. + +[302] ~landes~. An infertile moor. + +PAGE 194 + +[303] ~Maurice and Solange~. See, for example, the _Letters of a +Traveller_. + +[304] ~Chopin~. George Sand's friendship for the composer Chopin began +in 1837. + +PAGE 195 + +[305] ~Jules Michelet~ (1798-1874), French historian. + +[306] ~her death~. George Sand died at Nohant, June 8, 1876. + +PAGE 196 + +[307]. From the _Journal d'un Voyageur_, September 15, 1870, ed. 1871, +p. 2. + +[308] ~Consuelo~ (1842-44) is George Sand's best-known novel. + +[309] ~Edmée, Geneviève, Germain~. Characters in the novels _Mauprat, +André_, and _La Mare au Diable_. + +[310] ~Lettres d'un Voyageur, Mauprat, François le Champi~. Published in +1830-36, 1836, and 1848. + +[311] ~F.W.H. Myers~ (1843-1901), poet and essayist. See his _Essays, +Modern_, ed. 1883, pp. 70-103. + +PAGE 197 + +[312] ~Valvèdre~. Published in 1861. + +[313] ~Werther~. See _The Contribution of the Celts, Selections_, Note +1, p. 182.[Transcriber's note: This is Footnote 263 in this e-text.] + +[314] ~Corinne~. An esthetic romance (1807) by Mme. de Staël. + +[315] ~Valentine~ (1832), George Sand's second novel, pointed out "the +dangers and pains of an ill-assorted marriage." ~Lélia~ (1833) was a +still more outspoken diatribe against society and the marriage law. + +PAGE 199 + +[316] From _Lélia_, chap. LXVII. + +[317] ~Jacques~ (1834), the hero of which is George Sand in man's +disguise, sets forth the author's doctrine of free love. + +[318] From _Jacques_, letter 95. + +PAGE 200 + +[319] From _Lettres d'un Voyageur_, letter 9. + +[320] _Ibid._, à Rollinat, September, 1834. + +PAGE 203 + +[321] ~Hans Holbein~, the younger (1497-1543), German artist. + +PAGE 205 + +[322] From _La Mare au Diable_, chap. 1. + +[323] _Ibid._, _The Author to the Reader_. + +PAGE 206 + +[324] _Ibid._, chap. 1. + +PAGE 207 + +[325] _Ibid._, chap. 1. + +PAGE 208 + +[326] From _Impressions et Souvenirs_, ed. 1873, p. 135. + +[327] _Ibid._, p. 137. + +[328] From Wordsworth's _Lines Composed a few Miles above Tintern +Abbey_. + +[329] From _Impressions et Souvenirs_, p. 136. + +PAGE 209 + +[330] _Ibid._, p. 139. + +PAGE 210 + +[331] _Ibid._, p. 269. + +[332] _Ibid._, p. 253. + +PAGE 211 + +[333] See _The Function of Criticism, Selections_, p. 29.[Transcriber's +note: This approximates to the section following the text reference for +Footnote 29 in this e-text.] + +[334] ~Émile Zola~ (1840-1902), French novelist, was the apostle of the +"realistic" or "naturalistic" school. _L'Assommoir_ (1877) depicts +especially the vice of drunkenness. + +PAGE 212 + +[335] From _Journal d'un Voyageur_, February 10, 1871, p. 305. + +[336] ~Émile Louis Victor de Laveleye~ (1822-92), Belgian economist. He +was especially interested in bimetallism, primitive property, and +nationalism. + +PAGE 213 + +[337] From _Journal d'un Voyageur_, December 21, 1870, p. 202. + +PAGE 214 + +[338] _Ibid._, December 21, 1870, p. 220. + +PAGE 215 + +[339] _Ibid._, February 7, 1871, p. 228. + +[340] _Round my House: Notes of Rural Life in France in Peace and War_ +(1876), by ~Philip Gilbert Hamerton~. See especially chapters XI and +XII. + +[341] ~Barbarians, Philistines, Populace~. Arnold's designations for the +aristocratic, middle, and lower classes of England in _Culture and +Anarchy_. + +PAGE 216 + +[342] ~Paul Amand Challemel-Lacour~ (1827-96), French statesman and man +of letters. + +[343] See _The Function of Criticism, Selections_, Note 4, p. 44. +[Transcriber's note: This is Footnote 54 in this e-text.] + +[344] From _Journal d'un Voyageur_, February 10, 1871, p. 309. + +PAGE 217 + +[345] The closing sentence of the Nicene Creed with _expecto_ changed to +_exspectat_. For the English translation see Morning Prayer in the +Episcopal Prayer Book; for the Greek and Latin see Schaff, _Creeds of +Christendom_, II, 58, 59. + + +WORDSWORTH + +PAGE 218 + +[346] Published in _Macmillan's Magazine_, July, 1879, vol. XL; as +Preface to _The Poems of Wordsworth_, chosen and edited by Arnold in +1879; and in _Essays in Criticism_, Second Series, 1888. + +PAGE 219 + +[347] ~Rydal Mount~. Wordsworth's home in the Lake District from 1813 +until his death in 1850. + +[348] ~1842~. The year of publication of the two-volume edition of +Tennyson's poems, containing _Locksley Hall_, _Ulysses_, etc. + +PAGE 221 + +[349] ~candid friend~. Arnold himself. + +PAGE 222 + +[350] The _Biographie Universelle, ou Dictionnaire historique_ of F.X. +de Feller (1735-1802) was originally published in 1781. + +[351] ~Henry Cochin~. A brilliant lawyer and writer of Paris, 1687-1747. + +PAGE 223 + +[352] ~Amphictyonic Court~. An association of Ancient Greek communities +centering in a shrine. + +PAGE 224 + +[353] ~Gottlieb Friedrich Klopstock~ (1724-1803) was author of _Der +Messias_. + +[354] ~Lessing~. See _Sweetness and Light, Selections_, Note 2, p. +271.[Transcriber's note: This is Footnote 427 in this e-text.] + +[355] ~Johann Ludwig Uhland~ (1787-1862), romantic lyric poet. + +[356] ~Friedrich Rückert~ (1788-1866) was the author of _Liebesfrühling_ +and other poems. + +[357] ~Heine~. See _Heinrich Heine, Selections_, pp. 112-144. + +[358] The greatest poems of ~Vicenzo da Filicaja~ (1642-1707) are six +odes inspired by the victory of Sobieski. + +[359] ~Vittorio, Count Alfieri~ (1749-1803), Italian dramatist. His +best-known drama is his _Saul_. + +[360] ~Manzoni~ (1785-1873) was a poet and novelist, author of _I +Promessi Sposi_. + +[361] ~Giacomo, Count Leopardi~ (1798-1837), Italian poet. His writings +are characterized by deep-seated melancholy. + +[362] ~Jean Racine~ (1639-99), tragic dramatist. + +[363] ~Nicolas Boileau-Despréaux~ (1636-1711), poet and critic. + +[364] ~André de Chénier~ (1762-94), poet, author of _Jeune Captive_, +etc. + +[365] ~Pierre Jean de Béranger~ (1780-1857), song-writer. + +[366] ~Alphonse Marie Louis de Prat de Lamartine~ (1790-1869), poet, +historian, and statesman. + +[367] ~Louis Charles Alfred de Musset~ (1810-57), poet, play-writer, and +novelist. + +PAGE 228 + +[368] From _The Recluse_, l. 754. + +PAGE 229 + +[369] _Paradise Lost_, XI, 553-54. + +PAGE 230 + +[370] _The Tempest_, IV, i, 156-58. + +[371] ~criticism of life~. See _The Study of Poetry, Selections_, Note +1, p. 57.[Transcriber's note: This is Footnote 66 in this e-text.] + + +PAGE 231 + +[372] _Discourses_ of Epictetus, trans. Long, 1903, vol. I, book II, +chap. XXIII, p. 248. + +PAGE 232 + +[373] ~Théophile Gautier~. A noted French poet, critic, and novelist, +and a leader of the French Romantic Movement (1811-72). + +[374] _The Recluse_, ll. 767-71. + +[375] _Æneid_, VI, 662. + +PAGE 233 + +[376] ~Leslie Stephen~. English biographer and literary critic +(1832-1904). He was the first editor of the _Dictionary of National +Biography_. Arnold quotes from the essay on _Wordsworth's Ethics_ in +_Hours in a Library_ (1874-79), vol. III. + +[377] _Excursion_, IV, 73-76. + +PAGE 234 + +[378] _Ibid._, II, 10-17. + +[379] _Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early +Childhood_. + +PAGE 235 + +[380] _Excursion_, IX, 293-302. + +PAGE 236 + +[381] See p. 232.[Transcriber's note: This approximates to the section +following the text reference for Footnote 373 in this e-text.] + +PAGE 237 + +[382] ~the "not ourselves."~ Arnold quotes his own definition of God as +"the enduring power, not ourselves, which makes for righteousness." See +_Literature and Dogma_, chap. I. + +[383] The opening sentence of a famous criticism of the _Excursion_ +published in the _Edinburgh Review_ for November, 1814, no. 47. It was +written by ~Francis Jeffrey, Lord Jeffrey~ (1773-1850), Scottish judge +and literary critic, and first editor of the _Edinburgh Review_. + +PAGE 238 + +[384] _Macbeth_, III, ii. + +[385] _Paradise Lost_, VII, 23-24. + +[386] _The Recluse_, l. 831. + +PAGE 239 + +[387] From Burns's _A Bard's Epitaph_. + +PAGE 240 + +[388] The correct title is _The Solitary Reaper_. + + +SWEETNESS AND LIGHT + +PAGE 242 + +[389] This selection is the first chapter of _Culture and Anarchy_. It +originally formed a part of the last lecture delivered by Arnold as +Professor of Poetry at Oxford. _Culture and Anarchy_ was first printed +in _The Cornhill Magazine_, July 1867,-August, 1868, vols. XVI-XVIII. It +was published as a book in 1869. + +[390] For ~Sainte-Beuve~, see _The Study of Poetry, Selections_, Note 2, +p. 56.[Transcriber's note: This is Footnote 65 in this e-text.] + The article referred to appeared in the _Quarterly Review_ for January, +1866, vol. CXIX, p. 80. It finds fault with Sainte-Beuve's lack of +conclusiveness, and describes him as having "spent his life in fitting +his mind to be an elaborate receptacle for well-arranged doubts." In +this respect a comparison is made with Arnold's "graceful but perfectly +unsatisfactory essays." + +PAGE 243 + +[391] From Montesquieu's _Discours sur les motifs qui doivent nous +encourager aux sciences, prononcé le 15 Novembre, 1725_. Montesquieu's +_Oeuvres complètes_, ed. Laboulaye, VII, 78. + +PAGE 244 + +[392] ~Thomas Wilson~ (1663-1755) was consecrated Bishop of Sodor and +Man in 1698. His episcopate was marked by a number of reforms in the +Isle of Man. The opening pages of Arnold's _Preface_ to _Culture and +Anarchy_ are devoted to an appreciation of Wilson. He says: "On a lower +range than the _Imitation_, and awakening in our nature chords less +poetical and delicate, the _Maxims_ of Bishop Wilson are, as a religious +work, far more solid. To the most sincere ardor and unction, Bishop +Wilson unites, in these _Maxims_, that downright honesty and plain good +sense which our English race has so powerfully applied to the divine +impossibilities of religion; by which it has brought religion so much +into practical life, and has done its allotted part in promoting upon +earth the kingdom of God." + +[393] ~will of God prevail~. _Maxim_ 450 reads: "A prudent Christian +will resolve at all times to sacrifice his inclinations to reason, and +his reason to the will and word of God." + +PAGE 247 + +[394] From Bishop Wilson's _Sacra Privata_, Noon Prayers, _Works_, ed. +1781, I, 199. + +PAGE 248 + +[395] ~John Bright~ (1811-89) was a leader with Cobden in the agitation +for repeal of the Corn Laws and other measures of reform, and was one of +England's greatest masters of oratory. + +[396] ~Frederic Harrison~ (1831-), English jurist and historian, was +president of the English Positivist Committee, 1880-1905. His _Creed of +a Layman_ (1907) is a statement of his religious position. + +PAGE 249 + +[397] See _The Function of Criticism, Selections_, Note 2, p. 37. +[Transcriber's note: This is Footnote 38 in this e-text.] + + +PAGE 253 + +[398] 1 Tim., IV, 8. + +[399] The first of the "Rules of Health and Long Life" in _Poor +Richard's Almanac_ for December, 1742. The quotation should read: "as +the Constitution of thy Body allows of." + +[400] Epictetus, _Encheiridion_, chap. XLI. + +[401] ~Sweetness and Light~. The phrase is from Swift's _The Battle of +the Books, Works_, ed. Scott, 1824, X, 240. In the apologue of the +Spider and the Bee the superiority of the ancient over the modern +writers is thus summarized: "Instead of dirt and poison we have rather +chose to fill our hives with honey and wax, thus furnishing mankind with +the two noblest of things, which are sweetness and light." + +PAGE 256 + +[402] ~Independents~. The name applied in England during the seventeenth +and eighteenth centuries to the denomination now known as +Congregationalists. + +[403] From Burke's Speech on _Conciliation with America, Works_, ed. +1834, I, 187. + +[404] 1 Pet., III, 8. + +PAGE 258 + +[405] ~Epsom~. A market town in Surrey, where are held the famous Derby +races, founded in 1780. + +PAGE 259 + +[406] Sallust's _Catiline_, chap. LII, § 22. + +[407] The ~Daily Telegraph~ was begun in June, 1855, as a twopenny +newspaper. It became the great organ of the middle classes and has been +distinguished for its enterprise in many fields. Up to 1878 it was +consistently Liberal in politics. It is a frequent object of Arnold's +irony as the mouthpiece of English philistinism. + +PAGE 261 + +[408] ~Young Leo~ (or ~Leo Adolescens~) is Arnold's name for the typical +writer of the _Daily Telegraph_ (see above). He is a prominent character +of _Friendship's Garland_. + +PAGE 262 + +[409] ~Edmond Beales~ (1803-81), political agitator, was especially +identified with the movement for manhood suffrage and the ballot, and +was the leading spirit in two large popular demonstrations in London in +1866. + +[410] ~Charles Bradlaugh~ (1833-91), freethought advocate and +politician. His efforts were especially directed toward maintaining the +freedom of the press in issuing criticisms on religious belief and +sociological questions. In 1880 he became a Member of Parliament, and +began a long and finally successful struggle for the right to take his +seat in Parliament without the customary oath on the Bible. + +[411] ~John Henry Newman~ (1801-90) was the leader of the Oxford +Movement in the English Church. His _Apologia pro Vita Sua_ (1864) was a +defense of his religious life and an account of the causes which led him +from Anglicanism to Romanism. For his hostility to Liberalism see the +_Apologia_, ed. 1907, pp. 34, 212, and 288. + +[412] _Æneid_, I, 460. + +PAGE 263 + +[413] ~The Reform Bill of 1832~ abolished fifty-six "rotten" boroughs +and made other changes in representation to Parliament, thus +transferring a large share of political power from the landed +aristocracy to the middle classes. + +[414] ~Robert Lowe~ (1811-92), afterwards Viscount Sherbrooke, held +offices in the Board of Education and Board of Trade. He was liberal, +but opposed the Reform Bill of that party in 1866-67. His speeches on +the subject were printed in 1867. + +PAGE 266 + +[415] ~Jacobinism~. The _Société des Jacobins_ was the most famous of +the political clubs of the French Revolution. Later the term ~Jacobin~ +was applied to any promulgator of extreme revolutionary or radical +opinions. + +[416] See _ante_, Note 2, p. 248. + +[417] ~Auguste Comte~ (1798-1857), French philosopher and founder of +Positivism. This system of thought attempts to base religion on the +verifiable facts of existence, opposes devotion to the study of +metaphysics, and substitutes the worship of Humanity for supernatural +religion. + +[418] ~Richard Congreve~ (1818-99) resigned a fellowship at Oxford in +1855, and devoted the remainder of his life to the propagation of the +Positive philosophy. + +PAGE 267 + +[419] ~Jeremy Bentham~ (1748-1832), philosopher and jurist, was leader +of the English school of Utilitarianism, which recognizes "the greatest +happiness of the greatest number" as the proper foundation of morality +and legislation. + +[420] ~Ludwig Preller~ (1809-61), German philologist and antiquarian. + +PAGE 268 + +[421] ~Book of Job~. Arnold must have read Franklin's piece hastily, +since he has mistaken a bit of ironic trifling for a serious attempt to +rewrite the Scriptures. The _Proposed New Version of the Bible_ is +merely a bit of amusing burlesque in which six verses of the Book of Job +are rewritten in the style of modern politics. According to Mr. William +Temple Franklin the _Bagatelles_, of which the _Proposed New Version_ is +a part, were "chiefly written by Dr. Franklin for the amusement of his +intimate society in London and Paris." See Franklin's _Complete Works_, +ed. 1844, II, 164. + +[422] ~The Deontology~, or _The Science of Morality_, was arranged and +edited by John Bowring, in 1834, two years after Bentham's death, and it +is doubtful how far it represents Bentham's thoughts. + +[423] ~Henry Thomas Buckle~ (1821-62) was the author of the _History of +Civilization in England_, a book which, though full of inaccuracies, has +had a great influence on the theory and method of historical writing. + +[424] ~Mr. Mill~. See _Marcus Aurelius, Selections_, Note 2, p. 145. +[Transcriber's note: This is Footnote 183 in this e-text.] + + +PAGE 269 + +[425] The article from which Arnold quotes these extracts is not +Frederic Harrison's _Culture: A Dialogue_, but an earlier essay in the +_Fortnightly Review_ for March 1, 1867, called _Our Venetian +Constitution_, See pages 276-77 of the article. + +PAGE 271 + +[426] ~Peter Abelard~ (1079-1142) was a scholastic philosopher and a +leader in the more liberal thought of his day. + +[427] ~Gotthold Ephraim Lessing~ (1729-81), German critic and dramatist. +His best-known writings are the epoch-making critical work, _Laokoön_ +(1766), and the drama _Minna van Barnhelm_ (1767). His ideas were in the +highest degree stimulating and fruitful to the German writers who +followed him. + +[428] ~Johann Gottfried von Herder~ (1744-1803), a voluminous and +influential German writer, was a pioneer of the Romantic Movement. He +championed adherence to the national type in literature, and helped to +found the historical method in literature and science. + +PAGE 272 + +[429] _Confessions of St. Augustine_, XIII, 18, 22, Everyman's +Library ed., p. 326. + +HEBRAISM AND HELLENISM + +PAGE 273 + +[430] The present selection comprises chapter IV, of _Culture and +Anarchy_. In the preceding chapter Arnold has been pointing out the +imperfection of the various classes of English society, which he +describes as "Barbarians, Philistines, and Populace." For the correction +of this imperfection he pleads for "some public recognition and +establishment of our best self, or right reason." In chapter III, he has +shown how "our habits and practice oppose themselves to such a +recognition." He now proposes to find, "beneath our actual habits and +practice, the very ground and cause out of which they spring." Then +follows the selection here given. + +Professor Gates has pointed out the fact that Arnold probably borrows +the terms here contrasted from Heine. In _Über Ludwig Börne_ (_Werke_, +ed. Stuttgart, X, 12), Heine says: "All men are either Jews or Hellenes, +men ascetic in their instincts, hostile to culture, spiritual fanatics, +or men of vigorous good cheer, full of the pride of life, Naturalists." +For Heine's own relation to Hebraism and Hellenism, see the present +selection, p. 275. + +[431] See _Sweetness and Light, Selections_, Note 1, p. 244. +[Transcriber's note: This is Footnote 392 in this e-text.] _Maxim_ 452 +reads: "Two things a Christian will never do--never go against the best +light he has, this will prove his sincerity, and, 2, to take care that +his light be not darkness, i.e., that he mistake not his rule by which +he ought to go." + +PAGE 274 + +[432] 2 Pet. I, 4. + +[433] ~Frederick William Robertson~ (1816-53) began his famous ministry +at Brighton in 1847. He was a man of deep spirituality and great +sincerity. The latter part of his life was clouded by opposition roused +by his sympathy with the revolutionary ideas of the 1848 epoch and by +the mental trouble which eventually resulted in his death. The sermon +referred to seems to be the first Advent Lecture on _The Greek_. Arnold +objects to Robertson's rather facile summarizing. Four characteristics +are mentioned as marking Grecian life and religion: restlessness, +worldliness, worship of the beautiful, and worship of the human. The +second of these has three results, disappointment, degradation, +disbelief in immortality. + +PAGE 275 + +[434] ~Heinrich Heine~. See _Heine, Selections_, pp. 112-144. +[Transcriber's note: This section begins at the text reference for +Footnote 135 in this e-text.] + +[435] Prov. XXIX, 18. + +[436] Ps. CXII, 1. + +PAGE 277 + +[437] Rom. III, 31. + +[438] Zech. IX, 13. + +[439] Prov. XVI, 22. + +[440] John I, 4-9; 8-12; Luke II, 32, etc. + +[441] John VIII, 32. + +[442] _Nichomachæan Ethics_, bk. II, chap. III. + +[443] Jas. I, 25. + +[444] _Discourses of Epictetus_, bk. II, chap. XIX, trans. Long, I, +214 ff. + +PAGE 278 + +[445] ~Learning to die~. Arnold seems to be thinking of _Phædo_, 64, +_Dialogues_, II, 202: "For I deem that the true votary of philosophy is +likely to be misunderstood by other men; they do not perceive that he is +always pursuing death and dying; and if this be so, and he has had the +desire of death all his life long, why when his time comes should he +repine at that which he has been always pursuing and desiring?" Plato +goes on to show that life is best when it is most freed from the +concerns of the body. Cf. also _Phædrus_ (_Dialogues_, II, 127) and +_Gorgias_ (_Dialogues_, II, 369). + +[446] 2 Cor. V, 14. + +[447] See Aristotle, _Nichomachæan Ethics_, bk. X, chaps. VIII, IX. + +[448] _Phædo_, 82D, _Dialogues_, I, 226. + +PAGE 279 + +[449] Xenophon's _Memorabilia_, bk. IV, chap. VIII, § 6. + +PAGE 280 + +[450] ~Edward Bouverie Pusey~ (1800-82), English divine and leader of +the High Church party in the Oxford Movement. + +PAGE 281 + +[451] Zech. VIII, 23. + +[452] ~my Saviour banished joy~. The sentence is an incorrect quotation +from George Herbert's _The Size_, the fifth stanza of which begins:-- + + "Thy Savior sentenced joy, + And in the flesh condemn'd it as unfit,-- + At least in lump." + +[453] Eph. V, 6. + +PAGE 282 + +[454] The first two books.[Arnold.] + +[455] See Rom. III, 2. + +[456] See Cor. III, 19. + +PAGE 283 + +[457] ~Phædo~. In this dialogue Plato attempts to substantiate the +doctrine of immortality by narrating the last hours of Socrates and his +conversation on this subject when his own death was at hand. + +PAGE 284 + +[458] ~Renascence~. I have ventured to give to the foreign word +_Renaissance_--destined to become of more common use amongst us as the +movement which it denotes comes, as it will come, increasingly to +interest us,--an English form.[Arnold.] + + +EQUALITY + +PAGE 289 + +[459] This essay, originally an address delivered at the Royal +Institution, was published in the _Fortnightly Review_, for March, 1878, +and reprinted in _Mixed Essays_, 1879. In the present selection the +opening pages have been omitted. Arnold begins with a statement of +England's tendency to maintain a condition of inequality between +classes. This is reinforced by the English freedom of bequest, a freedom +greater than in most of the Continental countries. The question of the +advisability of altering the English law of bequest is a matter not of +abstract right, but of expediency. That the maintenance of inequality is +expedient for English civilization and welfare is generally assumed. +Whether or not this assumption is well founded, Arnold proposes to +examine in the concluding pages. As a preliminary step he defines +civilization as the humanization of man in society. Then follows the +selected passage. + +[460] ~Isocrates~. An Attic orator (436-338 B.C.). He was an ardent +advocate of Greek unity. The passage quoted occurs in the _Panegyricus_, +§ 50, _Orations_, ed. 1894, p. 67. + +PAGE 290 + +[461] ~Giacomo Antonelli~ (1806-76), Italian cardinal. From 1850 until +his death his activity was chiefly devoted to the struggle between the +Papacy and the Italian Risorgimento. + +PAGE 291 + +[462] ~famous passage~. The _Introduction_ to his _Age of Louis XIV_. + +PAGE 293 + +[463] ~Laveleye~. See _George Sand_, _Selections_, Note 2, p. 212. +[Transcriber's note: This is Footnote 336 in this e-text.] + + +[464] ~Sir Thomas Erskine May, Lord Farnborough~ (1815-86), +constitutional jurist. Arnold in the omitted portion of the present +essay has quoted several sentences from his _History of Democracy_: +"France has aimed at social equality. The fearful troubles through which +she has passed have checked her prosperity, demoralised her society, and +arrested the intellectual growth of her people. Yet is she high, if not +the first, in the scale of civilised nations." + +[465] ~Hamerton~. See _George Sand_, _Selections_, Note 2, p. 215. +[Transcriber's note: This is Footnote 340 in this e-text.] The quotation +is from _Round My House_, chap, XI, ed. 1876, pp. 229-30. + +PAGE 294 + +[466] ~Charles Sumner~ (1811-74), American statesman, was the most +brilliant and uncompromising of the anti-slavery leaders. + +PAGE 295 + +[467] ~Alsace~. The people of Alsace, though German in origin, showed a +very strong feeling against Prussian rule in the Franco-Prussian War of +1870-71. In September, 1872, 45,000 elected to be still French and +transferred their domicile to France. + +PAGE 296 + +[468] ~Michelet~. See _George Sand_, _Selections_, Note 1, p. 195. +[Transcriber's note: This is Footnote 305 in this e-text.] + + +PAGE 298 + +[469] The chorus of a popular music-hall song of the time. From it was +derived the word _jingoism_. For the original application of this term +see Webster's _Dictionary_. + +[470] ~Dwight L. Moody~ (1837-99) and ~Ira D. Sankey~ (1840-1908), the +famous American evangelists, held notable revival meetings in England in +1873-75. + +PAGE 299 + +[471] See, e.g., _Heine_, _Selections_, p. 129.[Transcriber's note: +This approximates to the section following the text reference for +Footnote 154 in this e-text.] + +[472] ~Goldwin Smith~. See Note 2, p. 301. + +PAGE 301 + +[473] See Milton's _Colasterion_, _Works_, ed. 1843, III, 445 and 452. + +[474] ~Goldwin Smith~ (1824-1910), British publicist and historian, has +taken an active part in educational questions both in England and +America. The passage quoted below is from an article entitled _Falkland +and the Puritans_, published in the _Contemporary Review_ as a reply to +Arnold's essay on Falkland. See _Lectures and Essays_, New York, 1881. + +[475] ~John Hutchinson~ (1616-64), Puritan soldier. The _Memoirs of the +Life of Colonel Hutchinson_, written by his wife Lucy, but not published +until 1806, are remarkable both for the picture which they give of the +man and the time, and also for their simple beauty of style. For the +passage quoted see Everyman's Library ed., pp. 182-83. + +[476] ~pædobaptism~. Infant baptism. + +PAGE 303 + +[477] Man disquiets himself, but God manages the matter. For ~Bossuet~ +see _The Function of Criticism_, _Selections_, Note 2, p. 49. +[Transcriber's note: This is Footnote 60 in this e-text.] + +[478] Prov. XIX, 21. + +[479] So in the original.[Arnold.] + +PAGE 304 + +[480] ~Bright~. See _Sweetness and Light_, _Selections_, Note 1, p. +248.[Transcriber's note: This is Footnote 395 in this e-text.] + +[481] ~Richard Cobden~ (1804-65), English manufacturer and Radical +politician. He was a leader in the agitation for repeal of the Corn Laws +and in advocacy of free trade. + +PAGE 305 + +[482] Prov. XIV, 6. + +[483] Compare _Culture and Anarchy_, chaps. II and III, and _Ecce +Convertimur ad Gentes, Irish Essays_, ed. 1903, p. 115. + +PAGE 307 + +[484] ~Samuel Pepys~ (1633-1703), English diarist. + +PAGE 310 + +[485] ~young lion~. See _Sweetness and Light_, _Selections_, Note 1, p. +261.[Transcriber's note: This is Footnote 408 in this e-text.] + +PAGE 312 + +[486] ~Mill~. See _Marcus Aurelius_, _Selections_, Note 2, p. 145. +[Transcriber's note: This is Footnote 183 in this e-text.] + +[487] ~Spencer Compton Cavendish~ (1833-1908), Marquis of ~Hartington~ +(since 1891 Duke of Devonshire), became Liberal leader in the House of +Commons after the defeat and withdrawal of Gladstone in January, 1875. + +PAGE 313 + +[488] ~Menander~. See _Contribution of the Celts_, _Selections_, Note 3, +p. 177.[Transcriber's note: This is Footnote 255 in this e-text.] + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Selections from the Prose Works of +Matthew Arnold, by Matthew Arnold + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WORKS OF MATTHEW ARNOLD *** + +***** This file should be named 12628-8.txt or 12628-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/2/6/2/12628/ + +Produced by Charles Franks, Carol David and PG Distributed Proofreaders + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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Thus, we do not necessarily +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + + +Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: + + https://www.gutenberg.org + +This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. diff --git a/old/12628-8.zip b/old/12628-8.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..5ef2cdf --- /dev/null +++ b/old/12628-8.zip diff --git a/old/12628.txt b/old/12628.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..ef21c5c --- /dev/null +++ b/old/12628.txt @@ -0,0 +1,12394 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Selections from the Prose Works of Matthew +Arnold, by Matthew Arnold + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Selections from the Prose Works of Matthew Arnold + +Author: Matthew Arnold + +Release Date: June 15, 2004 [EBook #12628] +Last Updated: December 28, 2008 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WORKS OF MATTHEW ARNOLD *** + + + + +Produced by Charles Franks, Carol David and PG Distributed Proofreaders + + + + +[Transcriber's notes: + +Bold text is denoted with ~. + +Footnotes: +In the original, footnote numbering restarted on each page, and they +were collated at the end of the text in page number order. In this +e-text, footnotes have been renumbered consecutively through the text. +However, they are still to be found in their original position after the +text, and the original page numbers have been retained in the +footnotes. + +There is one footnote in the Preface, which is to be found in its +original position at the end of the Preface.] + + * * * * * + + + +Riverside College Classics + +SELECTIONS + +FROM THE PROSE WORKS OF + +MATTHEW ARNOLD + +_EDITED WITH INTRODUCTION AND NOTES_ + +BY + +WILLIAM SAVAGE JOHNSON, PH.D. + +_Professor of English Literature in the University of Kansas_ + +HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY + +BOSTON NEW YORK CHICAGO SAN FRANCISCO + +The Riverside Press Cambridge + + + +_The essays included in this issue of the Riverside College Classics are +reprinted by permission of, and by arrangement with, The Macmillan +Company, the American publishers of Arnold's writings._ + +1913, HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY + +ALL RIGHTS RESERVED + +The Riverside Press +CAMBRIDGE MASSACHUSETTS +PRINTED IN THE U.S.A. + + + + +PREFACE + +This book of selections aims to furnish examples of Arnold's prose in +all the fields in which it characteristically employed itself except +that of religion. It has seemed better to omit all such material than to +attempt inclusion of a few extracts which could hardly give any adequate +notion of Arnold's work in this department. Something, however, of his +method in religious criticism can be discerned by a perusal of the +chapter on _Hebraism and Hellenism_, selected from _Culture and +Anarchy_. Most of Arnold's leading ideas are represented in this volume, +but the decision to use entire essays so far as feasible has naturally +precluded the possibility of gathering all the important utterances +together. The basis of division and grouping of the selections is made +sufficiently obvious by the headings. In the division of literary +criticism the endeavor has been to illustrate Arnold's cosmopolitanism +by essays of first-rate importance dealing with the four literatures +with which he was well acquainted. In the notes, conciseness with a +reasonable degree of thoroughness has been the principle followed. + + + + +CONTENTS + + +INTRODUCTION + +BIBLIOGRAPHY + +SELECTIONS: + +I. THEORIES OF LITERATURE AND CRITICISM: + + 1. Poetry and the Classics (1853) + 2. The Function of Criticism at the Present Time (1864) + 3. The Study of Poetry (1880) + 4. Literature and Science (1882) + +II. LITERARY CRITICISM: + + 1. Heinrich Heine (1863) + 2. Marcus Aurelius (1863) + 3. The Contribution of the Celts to English Literature (1866) + 4. George Sand (1877) + 5. Wordsworth (1879) + +III. SOCIAL AND POLITICAL STUDIES: + + 1. Sweetness and Light (1867) + 2. Hebraism and Hellenism (1867) + 3. Equality (1878) + +NOTES + + + + + +INTRODUCTION + + +I + +[Sidenote: Life and Personality] + +"The gray hairs on my head are becoming more and more numerous, and I +sometimes grow impatient of getting old amidst a press of occupations +and labor for which, after all, I was not born. But we are not here to +have facilities found us for doing the work we like, but to make them." +This sentence, written in a letter to his mother in his fortieth year, +admirably expresses Arnold's courage, cheerfulness, and devotion in the +midst of an exacting round of commonplace duties, and at the same time +the energy and determination with which he responded to the imperative +need of liberating work of a higher order, that he might keep himself, +as he says in another letter, "from feeling starved and shrunk up." The +two feelings directed the course of his life to the end, a life +characterized no less by allegiance to "the lowliest duties" than by +brilliant success in a more attractive field. + +Matthew Arnold was born at Laleham, December 24, 1822, the eldest son of +Thomas Arnold, the great head master of Rugby. He was educated at +Laleham, Winchester, Rugby, and Balliol College, Oxford. In 1845 he was +elected a fellow of Oriel, but Arnold desired to be a man of the world, +and the security of college cloisters and garden walls could not long +attract him. Of a deep affection for Oxford his letters and his books +speak unmistakably, but little record of his Oxford life remains aside +from the well-known lines of Principal Shairp, in which he is spoken of +as + + So full of power, yet blithe and debonair, + Rallying his friends with pleasant banter gay. + +From Oxford he returned to teach classics at Rugby, and +in 1847 he was appointed private secretary to Lord Lansdowne, then Lord +President of the Council. In 1851, the year of his marriage, he became +inspector of schools, and in this service he continued until two years +before his death. As an inspector, the letters give us a picture of +Arnold toiling over examination papers, and hurrying from place to +place, covering great distances, often going without lunch or dinner, or +seeking the doubtful solace of a bun, eaten "before the astonished +school." His services to the cause of English education were great, both +in the direction of personal inspiration to teachers and students, and +in thoughtful discussion of national problems. Much time was spent in +investigating foreign systems, and his _Report upon Schools and +Universities on the Continent_ was enlightened and suggestive. + +Arnold's first volume of poems appeared in 1849, and by 1853 the larger +part of his poetry was published. Four years later he was appointed +Professor of Poetry at Oxford. Of his prose, the first book to attract +wide notice was that containing the lectures _On Translating Homer_ +delivered from the chair of Poetry and published in 1861-62. From this +time until the year of his death appeared the remarkable series of +critical writings which have placed him in the front rank of the men of +letters of his century. He continued faithfully to fulfill his duties as +school inspector until April, 1886, when he resigned after a service of +thirty-five years. He died of heart trouble on April 15, 1888, at +Liverpool. + +The testimony to Arnold's personal charm, to his cheerfulness, his +urbanity, his tolerance and charity, is remarkably uniform. He is +described by one who knew him as "the most sociable, the most lovable, +the most companionable of men"; by another as "preeminently a good man, +gentle, generous, enduring, laborious." His letters are among the +precious writings of our time, not because of the beauty or +inimitableness of detail, but because of the completed picture which +they make. They do not, like the Carlyle-Emerson correspondence, show a +hand that could not set pen to paper without writing picturesquely, but +they do reveal a character of great soundness and sweetness, and one in +which the affections play a surprisingly important part, the love of +flowers and books, of family and friends, and of his fellow men. His +life was human, kindly and unselfish, and he allowed no clash between +the pursuit of personal perfection and devotion to the public cause, +even when the latter demanded sacrifice of the most cherished projects +and adherence to the most irritating drudgery. + + +II + +[Sidenote: Arnold's Place among Nineteenth-Century Teachers] + +By those who go to literature primarily for a practical wisdom presented +in terms applicable to modern life, the work of Arnold will be reckoned +highly important, if not indispensable. He will be placed by them among +the great humanizers of the last century, and by comparison with his +contemporaries will be seen to have furnished a complementary +contribution of the highest value. Of the other great teachers whose +work may most fitly be compared with his, two were preeminently men of +feeling. Carlyle was governed by an overmastering moral fervor which +gave great weight to his utterances, but which exercised itself in a +narrow field and which often distorted and misinterpreted the facts. +Ruskin was governed by his affections, and though an ardent lover of +truth and beauty, was often the victim of caprice and extravagance. +Emerson and Arnold, on the other hand, were governed primarily by the +intellect, but with quite different results. Emerson presents life in +its ideality; he comparatively neglects life in its phenomenal aspect, +that is, as it appears to the ordinary man. Arnold, while not without +emotional equipment, and inspired by idealism of a high order, +introduces a yet larger element of practical season. _Tendens manus ripae +ulterioris amore_, he is yet first of all a man of this world. His chief +instrument is common sense, and he looks at questions from the point of +view of the highly intelligent and cultivated man. His dislike of +metaphysics was as deep as Ruskin's, and he was impatient of +abstractions of any sort. With as great a desire to further the true +progress of his time as Carlyle or Ruskin, he joined a greater calmness +and disinterestedness. "To be less and less personal in one's desires +and workings" he learned to look upon as after all the great matter. Of +the lessons that are impressed upon us by his whole life and work rather +than by specific teachings, perhaps the most precious is the inspiration +to live our lives thoughtfully, in no haphazard and hand-to-mouth way, +and to live always for the idea and the spirit, making all things else +subservient. He does not dazzle us with extraordinary power prodigally +spent, but he was a good steward of natural gifts, high, though below +the highest. His life of forethought and reason may be profitably +compared with a life spoiled by passion and animalism like that of Byron +or of Burns. His counsels are the fruit of this well-ordered life and +are perfectly in consonance with it. While he was a man of less striking +personality and less brilliant literary gift than some of his +contemporaries, and though his appeal was without the moving power that +comes from great emotion, we find a compensation in his greater balance +and sanity. He makes singularly few mistakes, and these chiefly of +detail. Of all the teachings of the age his ideal of perfection is the +wisest and the most permanent. + + +III + +[Sidenote: His Teachers and his Personal Philosophy] + +Arnold's poetry is the poetry of meditation and not the poetry of +passion; it comes from "the depth and not the tumult of the soul"; it +does not make us more joyful, but it helps us to greater depth of +vision, greater detachment, greater power of self-possession. Our +concern here is chiefly with its relation to the prose, and this, too, +is a definite and important relation. In his prose Arnold gives such +result of his observation and meditation as he believes may be gathered +into the form of counsel, criticism, and warning to his age. In his +poetry, which preceded the prose, we find rather the processes through +which he reached these conclusions; we learn what is the nature of his +communing upon life, not as it affects society, but as it fronts the +individual; we learn who are the great thinkers of the past who came to +his help in the straits of life, and what is the armor which they +furnished for his soul in its times of stress. + +One result of a perusal of the poems is to counteract the impression +often produced by the jaunty air assumed in the prose. The real +substance of Arnold's thought is characterized by a deep seriousness; no +one felt more deeply the spiritual unrest and distraction of his age. +More than one poem is an expression of its mental and spiritual +sickness, its doubt, ennui, and melancholy. Yet beside such poems as +_Dover Beach_ and _Stagirius_ should be placed the lines from +_Westminster Abbey_:-- + + For this and that way swings + The flux of mortal things, + Though moving inly to one far-set goal. + +Out of this entanglement and distraction Arnold turned for help to those +writers who seemed most perfectly to have seized upon the eternal +verities, to have escaped out of the storm of conflict and to have +gained calm and peaceful seats. Carlyle and Ruskin, Byron and Shelley, +were stained with the blood of battle, they raged in the heat of +controversy; Arnold could not accept them as his teachers. But the Greek +poets and the ancient Stoic philosophers have nothing of this dust and +heat about them, and to them Arnold turns to gather truth and to imitate +their spirit. Similarly, two poets of modern times, Goethe and +Wordsworth, have won tranquillity. They, too, become his teachers. +Arnold's chief guides for life are, then, these: two Greek poets, +Sophocles and Homer; two ancient philosophers, Marcus Aurelius and +Epictetus; two modern poets, Goethe and Wordsworth. + +In Homer and Sophocles, Arnold sought what we may call the Greek spirit. +What he conceived this spirit to be as expressed in art, we find in the +essay on _Literature and Science_, "fit details strictly combined, in +view of a large general result nobly conceived." In Sophocles, Arnold +found the same spirit interpreting life with a vision that "saw life +steadily and saw it whole." In another Greek idea, that of fate, he is +also greatly interested, though his conception of it is modified by the +influence of Christianity. From the Greek poets, then, Arnold derived a +sense of the large part which destiny plays in our lives and the wisdom +of conforming our lives to necessity; the importance of conceiving of +life as directed toward a simple, large, and noble end; and the +desirability of maintaining a balance among the demands that life makes +on us, of adapting fit details to the main purpose of life. + +Among modern writers Arnold turned first to Goethe, "Europe's sagest +head, Physician of the Iron Age." One of the things that he learned from +this source was the value of detachment. In the midst of the turmoil of +life, Goethe found refuge in Art. He is the great modern example of a +man who has been able to separate himself from the struggle of life and +watch it calmly. + + He who hath watch'd, not shared the strife, + Knows how the day hath gone. + +Aloofness, provided it be not selfish, has its own value, and, indeed, +isolation must be recognized as a law of our existence. + + Thin, thin the pleasant human noises grow, + And faint the city gleams; + Rare the lone pastoral huts--Marvel not thou! + The solemn peaks but to the stars are known, + But to the stars and the cold lunar beams; + Alone the sun rises, and alone + Spring the great streams. + +From Goethe, also, Arnold derived the gospel of culture and faith in the +intellectual life. It is significant that while Carlyle and Arnold may +both be looked upon as disciples of Goethe, Carlyle's most +characteristic quotation from his master is his injunction to us to "do +the task that lies nearest us," while Arnold's is such a maxim as, "To +act is easy, to think is hard." + +In some ways Wordsworth was for Arnold a personality even more congenial +than Goethe. His range, to be sure, is narrow, but he, too, has attained +spiritual peace. His life, secure among its English hills and lakes, was +untroubled in its faith. Wordsworth strongly reinforces three things in +Arnold, the ability to derive from nature its "healing power" and to +share and be glad in "the wonder and bloom of the world"; truth to the +deeper spiritual life and strength to keep his soul + + Fresh, undiverted to the world without, + Firm to the mark, not spent on other things; + +and finally, a satisfaction in the cheerful and serene performance of +duty, the spirit of "toil unsevered from tranquillity," sharing in the +world's work, yet keeping "free from dust and soil." + +From the Emperor Marcus Aurelius and from the slave Epictetus alike, +Arnold learned to look within for "the aids to noble life." Overshadowed +on all sides by the "uno'erleaped mountains of necessity," we must learn +to resign our passionate hopes "for quiet and a fearless mind," to merge +the self in obedience to universal law, and to keep ever before our +minds + + The pure eternal course of life, + Not human combatings with death. + +No conviction is more frequently reiterated in Arnold's poetry than that +of the wisdom of resignation and self-dependence. + +These great masters, then, strengthened Arnold in those high instincts +which needed nourishment in a day of spiritual unrest. From the Greek +poets he learned to look at life steadily and as a whole, to direct it +toward simple and noble ends, and to preserve in it a balance and +perfection of parts. From Goethe he derived the lessons of detachment +and self-culture. From Wordsworth he learned to find peace in nature, to +pursue an unworldly purpose, and to be content with humble duties. From +the Stoics he learned, especially, self-dependence and resignation. In +general, he endeavored to follow an ideal of perfection and to +distinguish always between temporary demands and eternal values. + + +IV + +[Sidenote: Theory of Criticism and Equipment as a Critic] + +In passing from poetry to criticism, Arnold did not feel that he was +descending to a lower level. Rather he felt that he was helping to lift +criticism to a position of equality with more properly creative work. +The most noticeable thing about his definition of criticism is its lofty +ambition. It is "the disinterested endeavor to learn and propagate the +best that is known and thought in the world," and its more ultimate +purpose is "to keep man from a self-satisfaction which is retarding and +vulgarizing, to lead him towards perfection." It is not to be confined +to art and literature, but is to include within its scope society, +politics, and religion. It is not only to censure that which is +blameworthy, but to appreciate and popularize the best. + +For this work great virtues are demanded of the critic. Foremost of +these is disinterestedness. "If I know your sect, I anticipate your +argument," says Emerson in the essay on _Self-Reliance_. Similarly +Arnold warns the critic against partisanship. It is better that he +refrain from active participation in politics, social or humanitarian +work. Connected with this is another requisite, that of clearness of +vision. One of the great disadvantages of partisanship is that it blinds +the partisan. But the critical effort is described as "the effort to see +the object as in itself it really is." This is best accomplished by +approaching truth in as many ways and from as many sides as possible. + +Another precaution for the critic who would retain clearness of vision +is the avoidance of abstract systems, which petrify and hinder the +necessary flexibility of mind. Coolness of temper is also enjoined and +scrupulously practiced. "It is only by remaining collected ... that the +critic can do the practical man any service"; and again: "Even in one's +ridicule one must preserve a sweetness and good humor" (letter to his +mother, October 27, 1863). In addition to these virtues, which in +Arnold's opinion comprised the qualities most requisite for salutary +criticism, certain others are strikingly illustrated by Arnold's own +mind and methods: the endeavor to understand, to sympathize with, and to +guide intelligently the main tendencies of his age, rather than +violently to oppose them; at the same time the courage to present +unpleasant antidotes to its faults and to keep from fostering a people +in its own conceit; and finally, amidst many discouragements, the +retention of a high faith in spiritual progress and an unwavering belief +that the ideal life is "the normal life as we shall one day see it." + +Criticism, to be effective, requires also an adequate style. In Arnold's +discussion of style, much stress is laid on its basis in character, and +much upon the transparent quality of true style which allows that basic +character to shine through. Such words as "limpidness," "simplicity," +"lucidity," are favorites. Clearness and effectiveness are the qualities +that he most highly valued. The latter he gained especially through the +crystallization of his thought into certain telling phrases, such as +"Philistinism," "sweetness and light," "the grand style," etc. That this +habit was attended with dangers, that his readers were likely to get +hold of his phrases and think that they had thereby mastered his +thought, he realized. Perhaps he hardly realized the danger to the +coiner of apothegms himself, that of being content with a half truth +when the whole truth cannot be conveniently crowded into narrow compass. +Herein lies, I think, the chief source of Arnold's occasional failure to +quite satisfy our sense of adequacy or of justice, as, for instance, in +his celebrated handling of the four ways of regarding nature, or the +passage in which he describes the sterner self of the working-class as +liking "bawling, hustling, and smashing; the lighter self, beer." + +By emotionalism, however, he does not allow himself to be betrayed, and +he does not indulge in rhythmical prose or rhapsody, though occasionally +his writing has a truly poetical quality resulting from the quiet but +deep feeling which rises in connection with a subject on which the mind +has long brooded with affection, as in the tribute to Oxford at the +beginning of the _Essay on Emerson_. Sometimes, on the other hand, a +certain pedagogic stiffness appears, as if the writer feared that the +dullness of comprehension of his readers would not allow them to grasp +even the simplest conceptions without a patient insistence on the +literal fact. + +One can by no means pass over Arnold's humor in a discussion of his +style, yet humor is certainly a secondary matter with him, in spite of +the frequency of its appearance. It is not much found in his more +intimate and personal writing, his poetry and his familiar letters. In +such a book as _Friendship's Garland_, where it is most in evidence, it +is plainly a literary weapon deliberately assumed. In fact, Arnold is +almost too conscious of the value of humor in the gentle warfare in +which he had enlisted. Its most frequent form is that of playful satire; +it is the product of keen wit and sane mind, and it is always directed +toward some serious purpose, rarely, if ever, existing as an end in +itself. + + +V + +[Sidenote: Literary Criticism] + +The first volume of _Essays in Criticism_ was published in 1865. That a +book of essays on literary subjects, apparently so diverse in character, +so lacking in outer unity, and so little subject to system of any sort, +should take so definite a place in the history of criticism and make so +single an impression upon the reader proves its possession of a dominant +and important idea, impelled by a new and weighty power of personality. +What Arnold called his "sinuous, easy, unpolemical mode of proceeding" +tends to disguise the seriousness and unity of purpose which lie behind +nearly all of these essays, but an uninterrupted perusal of the two +volumes of _Essays in Criticism_ and the volume of _Mixed Essays_ +discloses what that purpose is. The essays may roughly be divided into +two classes, those which deal with single writers and those discussing +subjects of more general nature. The purpose of both is what Arnold +himself has called "the humanization of man in society." In the former +he selects some person exemplifying a trait, in the latter he selects +some general idea, which he deems of importance for our further +humanization, and in easy, unsystematic fashion unfolds and illustrates +it for us. But in spite of this unlabored method he takes care somewhere +in the essay to seize upon a phrase that shall bring home to us the +essence of his theme and to make it salient enough so as not to escape +us. How much space shall be devoted to exposition, and how much to +illustration, depends largely on the familiarity of his subject to his +readers. Besides the general purpose of humanization, two other +considerations guide him: the racial shortcomings of the English people +and the needs of his age. The English are less in need of energizing and +moralizing than of intellectualizing, refining, and inspiring with the +passion for perfection. This need accordingly determines the choice in +most cases. So Milton presents an example of "sure and flawless +perfection of rhythm and diction"; Joubert is characterized by his +intense care of "perfecting himself"; Falkland is "our martyr of +sweetness and light, of lucidity of mind and largeness of temper"; +George Sand is admirable because of her desire to make the ideal life +the normal one; Emerson is "the friend and aider of those who would live +in the spirit." + +The belief that poetry is our best instrument for humanization +determines Arnold's loyalty to that form of art; that classical art is +superior to modern in clarity, harmony, and wholeness of effect, +determines his preference for classic, especially for Greek poetry. He +thus represents a reaction against the romantic movement, yet has +experienced the emotional deepening which that movement brought with it. +Accordingly, he finds a shallowness in the pseudo-classicism of Pope and +his contemporaries, and turns rather to Sophocles on the one hand and +Goethe on the other for his exemplars. He feels "the peculiar charm and +aroma of the Middle Age," but retains "a strong sense of the +irrationality of that period and of those who take it seriously, and +play at restoring it" (letter to Miss Arnold, December 17, 1860); and +again: "No one has a stronger and more abiding sense than I have of the +'daemonic' element--as Goethe called it--which underlies and encompasses +our life; but I think, as Goethe thought, that the right thing is while +conscious of this element, and of all that there is inexplicable round +one, to keep pushing on one's posts into the darkness, and to establish +no post that is not perfectly in light and firm" (letter to his mother, +March 3, 1865). + + +VI + +[Sidenote: Criticism of Society, Politics, and Religion] + +Like the work of all clear thinkers, Arnold's writing proceeds from a +few governing and controlling principles. It is natural, therefore, that +we should find in his criticism of society a repetition of the ideas +already encountered in his literary criticism. Of these, the chief is +that of "culture," the theme of his most typical book, _Culture and +Anarchy_, published in 1869. Indeed, it is interesting to see how +closely related his doctrine of culture is to his theory of criticism, +already expounded. True criticism, we have seen, consists in an +"endeavor to learn and propagate the best that is known and thought in +the world." The shortest definition that Arnold gives of culture is "a +study of perfection." But how may one pursue perfection? Evidently by +putting oneself in the way of learning the best that is known and +thought, and by making it a part of oneself. The relation of the critic +to culture thereupon becomes evident. He is the appointed apostle of +culture. He undertakes as his duty in life to seek out and to minister +to others the means of self-improvement, discriminating the evil and the +specious from the good and the genuine, rendering the former +contemptible and the latter attractive. But in a degree all seekers +after culture must be critics also. Both pursue the same objects, the +best that is thought and known. Both, too, must propagate it; for +culture consists in general expansion, and the last degree of personal +perfection is attained only when shared with one's fellows. The critic +and the true man of culture are, therefore, at bottom, the same, though +Arnold does not specifically point this out. But the two ideals united +in himself direct all his endeavor. As a man of culture he is intent +chiefly upon the acquisition of the means of perfection; as a critic, +upon their elucidation and propagation. + +This sufficiently answers the charge of selfishness that in frequently +brought against the gospel of culture. It would never have been brought +if its critics had not perversely shut their eyes to Arnold's express +statements that perfection consists in "a general expansion"; that it +"is not possible while the individual remains isolated"; that one of its +characteristics is "increased sympathy," as well as "increased +sweetness, increased light, increased life." The other common charge of +dilettanteism, brought by such opponents as Professor Huxley and Mr. +Frederic Harrison, deserves hardly more consideration. Arnold has made +it sufficiently clear that he does not mean by culture "a smattering of +Greek and Latin," but a deepening and strengthening of our whole +spiritual nature by all the means at our command. No other ideal of the +century is so satisfactory as this of Arnold's. The ideal of social +democracy, as commonly followed, tends, as Arnold has pointed out, to +exalt the average man, while culture exalts man at his best. The +scientific ideal, divorced from a general cultural aim, appeals "to a +limited faculty and not to the whole man." The religious ideal, too +exclusively cultivated, dwarfs the sense of beauty and is marked by +narrowness. Culture includes religion as its most valuable component, +but goes beyond it. + +The fact that Arnold, in his social as in his literary criticism, laid +the chief stress upon the intellectual rather than the moral elements of +culture, was due to his constant desire to adapt his thought to the +condition of his age and nation. The prevailing characteristics of the +English people he believed to be energy and honesty. These he contrasts +with the chief characteristics of the Athenians, openness of mind and +flexibility of intelligence. As the best type of culture, that is, of +perfected humanity, for the Englishman to emulate, he turns, therefore, +to Greece in the time of Sophocles, Greece, to be sure, failed because +of the lack of that very Hebraism which England possesses and to which +she owes her strength. But if to this strength of moral fiber could be +added the openness of mind, flexibility of intelligence, and love of +beauty which distinguished the Greeks in their best period, a truly +great civilization would result. That this ideal will in the end +prevail, he has little doubt. The strain of sadness, melancholy, and +depression which appears in Arnold's poetry is rigidly excluded from his +prose. Both despondency and violence are forbidden to the believer in +culture. "We go the way the human race is going," he says at the close +of _Culture and Anarchy_. + +Arnold's incursion into the field of religion has been looked upon by +many as a mistake. Religion is with most people a matter of closer +interest and is less discussable than literary criticism. _Literature +and Dogma_, aroused much antagonism on this account. Moreover, it cannot +be denied that Arnold was not well enough equipped in this field to +prevent him from making a good many mistakes. But that the upshot of his +religious teaching is wholesome and edifying can hardly be denied. +Arnold's spirit is a deeply religious one, and his purpose in his +religious books was to save what was valuable in religion by separating +it from what was non-essential. He thought of himself always as a +friend, not as an enemy, of religion. The purpose of all his religious +writings, of which _St. Paul and Protestantism_, 1870, and _Literature +and Dogma_, 1873, are the most important, is the same, to show the +natural truth of religion and to strengthen its position by freeing it +from dependence on dogma and historical evidence, and especially to make +clear the essential value of Christianity. Conformity with reason, true +spirituality, and freedom from materialistic interpretation were for him +the bases of sound faith. That Arnold's religious writing is thoroughly +spiritual in its aim and tendency has, I think, never been questioned, +and we need only examine some of his leading definitions to become +convinced of this. Thus, religion is described as "that which binds and +holds us to the practice of righteousness"; faith is the "power, +preeminently, of holding fast to an unseen power of goodness"; God is +"the power, not ourselves, that makes for righteousness"; immortality is +a union of one's life with an eternal order that never dies. Arnold did +not without reluctance enter into religious controversy, but when once +entered he did his best to make order and reason prevail there. His +attitude is well stated in an early essay not since reprinted:-- + + "And you are masters in Israel, and know not these things; and you + require a voice from the world of literature to tell them to you! + Those who ask nothing better than to remain silent on such topics, who + have to quit their own sphere to speak of them, who cannot touch them + without being reminded that they survive those who touched them with + far different power, you compel, in the mere interest of letters, of + intelligence, of general culture, to proclaim truths which it was your + function to have made familiar. And when you have thus forced the very + stones to cry out, and the dumb to speak, you call them singular + because they know these truths, and arrogant because they declare + them!"[1] + +In political discussion as in all other forms of criticism Arnold aimed +at disinterestedness. "I am a Liberal," he says in the Introduction to +_Culture and Anarchy_, "yet I am a Liberal tempered by experience, +reflection, and self-renouncement." In the last condition he believed +that his particular strength lay. "I do not wish to see men of culture +entrusted with power." In his coolness and freedom from bitterness is to +be found his chief superiority to his more violent contemporaries. This +saved him from magnifying the faults inseparable from the social +movements of his day. In contrast with Carlyle he retains to the end a +sympathy with the advance of democracy and a belief in the principles of +liberty and equality, while not blinded to the weaknesses of Liberalism. +Political discussion in the hands of its express partisans is always +likely to become violent and one-sided. This violence and one-sidedness +Arnold believes it the work of criticism to temper, or as he expresses +it, in _Culture and Anarchy_, "Culture is the eternal opponent of the +two things which are the signal marks of Jacobinism,--its fierceness and +its addiction to an abstract system." + + +VII + +[Sidenote: Conclusion] + +"Un Milton jeune et voyageant" was George Sand's description of the +young Arnold. The eager pursuit of high aims, implied in this +description, he carried from youth into manhood and age. The innocence, +the hopefulness, and the noble curiosity of youth he retained to the +end. But these became tempered with the ripe wisdom of maturity, a +wisdom needed for the helpful interpretation of a perplexing period. His +prose writings are surpassed, in that spontaneous and unaccountable +inspiration which we call genius, by those of certain of his +contemporaries, but when we become exhausted by the perversities of +ill-controlled passion and find ourselves unable to breathe the rarified +air of transcendentalism, we may turn to him for the clarifying and +strengthening effect of calm intelligence and pure spirituality. + +[Footnote 1: From _Dr. Stanley's Lectures on the Jewish Church, +Macmillan's Magazine_, February, 1863, vol. 7, p. 336.] + + + + + +~BIBLIOGRAPHY~ + +ARNOLD'S POEMS. + +1849. _The Strayed Reveller, and other Poems_. 1852. ~Empedocles on +Etna, and other Poems~. 1853. _Poems_. 1855. _Poems_ (Second Series). +1858. _Merope_. 1867. _New Poems_. 1869. _Poems_ (First Collected +Edition). (A few new poems were added in the later collections of 1877, +1881, 1885, and 1890.) + + +ARNOLD'S PROSE. + +1859. _England and the Italian Question_. 1861. _Popular Education in +France_. 1861. _On Translating Homer_. 1862. _Last Words on Translating +Homer_. 1864. _A French Eton_. 1865. _Essays in Criticism_. 1867. _On +the Study of Celtic Literature_. 1868. _Schools and Universities on the +Continent_. 1869. _Culture and Anarchy_. 1870. _St. Paul and +Protestantism_. 1871. _Friendship's Garland_. 1873. _Literature and +Dogma_. 1875. _God and the Bible_. 1877. _Last Essays on Church and +Religion_. 1879. _Mixed Essays_. 1882. _Irish Essays_. 1885. _Discourses +in America_. 1888. _Essays in Criticism_ (Second Series). 1888. +_Civilization in the United States_. 1891. _On Home Rule for Ireland_. +1910. _Essays in Criticism_ (Third Series). + +For a complete bibliography of Arnold's writings and of Arnold +criticism, see _Bibliography of Matthew Arnold_, by T.B. Smart, London, +1892. The letters of Matthew Arnold, 1848-88, were edited by G.W.E. +Russell in 1896. + + +CRITICISM OF ARNOLD'S PROSE. + +BIRRELL, AUGUSTINE: _Res Judicatae_, London, 1892. + +BROWNELL, W.C.: _Victorian Prose Masters_, New York, 1902. + +BURROUGHS, JOHN: _Indoor Studies_, Boston, 1889. + +DAWSON, W.H.: _Matthew Arnold and his Relation to the Thought of our +Time_, New York, 1904. + +FITCH, SIR JOSHUA: _Thomas and Matthew Arnold and their Influence on +English Education_, New York, 1897. + +GATES, L.E.: _Selections from the Prose Writings of Matthew Arnold_, New +York, 1898. + +HARRISON, FREDERIC: _Culture; A Dialogue_. In _The Choice of Books_, +London, 1886. + +HUTTON, R.H.: _Modern Guides of English Thought in Matters of Faith_, +London, 1887. + +JACOBS, JOSEPH: _Literary Studies_, London, 1895. + +PAUL, HERBERT W.: _Matthew Arnold_. In _English Men of Letters Series_, +London and New York, 1902. + +ROBERTSON, JOHN M.: _Modern Humanists_, London, 1891. + +RUSSELL, G.W.E.: _Matthew Arnold_, New York, 1904. + +SAINTSBURY, GEORGE: _Corrected Impressions_, London, 1895. _Matthew +Arnold_. In _Modern English Writers Series_, London, 1899. + +SHAIRP, J.C.: _Culture and Religion_, Edinburgh, 1870. + +SPEDDING, JAMES: _Reviews and Discussions_, London, 1879. + +STEPHEN, SIR LESLIE: _Studies of a Biographer_, vol. 2, London, 1898. + +WOODBERRY, GEORGE E.: _Makers of Literature_, London, 1900. + + + + + +~SELECTIONS FROM MATTHEW ARNOLD~ + + + + +I. THEORIES OF LITERATURE AND CRITICISM + + + +POETRY AND THE CLASSICS[1] + + +In two small volumes of Poems, published anonymously, one in 1849, the +other in 1852, many of the Poems which compose the present volume have +already appeared. The rest are now published for the first time. + +I have, in the present collection, omitted the poem[2] from which the +volume published in 1852 took its title. I have done so, not because the +subject of it was a Sicilian Greek born between two and three thousand +years ago, although many persons would think this a sufficient reason. +Neither have I done so because I had, in my own opinion, failed in the +delineation which I intended to effect. I intended to delineate the +feelings of one of the last of the Greek religious philosophers, one of +the family of Orpheus and Musaeus, having survived his fellows, living on +into a time when the habits of Greek thought and feeling had begun fast +to change, character to dwindle, the influence of the Sophists[3] to +prevail. Into the feelings of a man so situated there are entered much +that we are accustomed to consider as exclusively modern; how much, the +fragments of Empedocles himself which remain to us are sufficient at +least to indicate. What those who are familiar only with the great +monuments of early Greek genius suppose to be its exclusive +characteristics, have disappeared; the calm, the cheerfulness, the +disinterested objectivity have disappeared; the dialogue of the mind +with itself has commenced; modern problems have presented themselves; we +hear already the doubts, we witness the discouragement, of Hamlet and of +Faust. + +The representation of such a man's feelings must be interesting, if +consistently drawn. We all naturally take pleasure, says Aristotle,[4] +in any imitation or representation whatever: this is the basis of our +love of poetry: and we take pleasure in them, he adds, because all +knowledge is naturally agreeable to us; not to the philosopher only, but +to mankind at large. Every representation therefore which is +consistently drawn may be supposed to be interesting, inasmuch as it +gratifies this natural interest in knowledge of all kinds. What is _not_ +interesting, is that which does not add to our knowledge of any kind; +that which is vaguely conceived and loosely drawn; a representation +which is general, indeterminate, and faint, instead of being particular, +precise, and firm. + +Any accurate representation may therefore be expected to be interesting; +but, if the representation be a poetical one, more than this is +demanded. It is demanded, not only that it shall interest, but also that +it shall inspirit and rejoice the reader: that it shall convey a charm, +and infuse delight. For the Muses, as Hesiod[5] says, were born that +they might be "a forgetfulness of evils, and a truce from cares": and it +is not enough that the poet should add to the knowledge of men, it is +required of him also that he should add to their happiness. "All art," +says Schiller, "is dedicated to joy, and there is no higher and no more +serious problem, than how to make men happy. The right art is that +alone, which creates the highest enjoyment." + +A poetical work, therefore, is not yet justified when it has been shown +to be an accurate, and therefore interesting representation; it has to +be shown also that it is a representation from which men can derive +enjoyment. In presence of the most tragic circumstances, represented in +a work of art, the feeling of enjoyment, as is well known, may still +subsist: the representation of the most utter calamity, of the liveliest +anguish, is not sufficient to destroy it: the more tragic the situation, +the deeper becomes the enjoyment; and the situation is more tragic in +proportion as it becomes more terrible. + +What then are the situations, from the representation of which, though +accurate, no poetical enjoyment can be derived? They are those in which +the suffering finds no vent in action; in which a continuous state of +mental distress is prolonged, unrelieved by incident, hope, or +resistance; in which there is everything to be endured, nothing to be +done. In such situations there is inevitably something morbid, in the +description of them something monotonous. When they occur in actual +life, they are painful, not tragic; the representation of them in poetry +is painful also. + +To this class of situations, poetically faulty as it appears to me, that +of Empedocles, as I have endeavored to represent him, belongs; and I +have therefore excluded the poem from the present collection. + +And why, it may be asked, have I entered into this explanation +respecting a matter so unimportant as the admission or exclusion of the +poem in question? I have done so, because I was anxious to avow that the +sole reason for its exclusion was that which has been stated above; and +that it has not been excluded in deference to the opinion which many +critics of the present day appear to entertain against subjects chosen +from distant times and countries: against the choice, in short, of any +subjects but modern ones. + +"The poet," it is said,[6] and by an intelligent critic, "the poet who +would really fix the public attention must leave the exhausted past, and +draw his subjects from matters of present import, and _therefore_ both +of interest and novelty." + +Now this view I believe to be completely false. It is worth examining, +inasmuch as it is a fair sample of a class of critical dicta everywhere +current at the present day, having a philosophical form and air, but no +real basis in fact; and which are calculated to vitiate the judgment of +readers of poetry, while they exert, so far as they are adopted, a +misleading influence on the practice of those who make it. + +What are the eternal objects of poetry, among all nations and at all +times? They are actions; human actions; possessing an inherent interest +in themselves, and which are to be communicated in an interesting manner +by the art of the poet. Vainly will the latter imagine that he has +everything in his own power; that he can make an intrinsically inferior +action equally delightful with a more excellent one by his treatment of +it: he may indeed compel us to admire his skill, but his work will +possess, within itself, an incurable defect. + +The poet, then, has in the first place to select an excellent action; +and what actions are the most excellent? Those, certainly, which most +powerfully appeal to the great primary human affections: to those +elementary feelings which subsist permanently in the race, and which are +independent of time. These feelings are permanent and the same; that +which interests them is permanent and the same also. The modernness or +antiquity of an action, therefore, has nothing to do with its fitness +for poetical representation; this depends upon its inherent qualities. +To the elementary part of our nature, to our passions, that which is +great and passionate is eternally interesting; and interesting solely in +proportion to its greatness and to its passion. A great human action of +a thousand years ago is more interesting to it than a smaller human +action of to-day, even though upon the representation of this last the +most consummate skill may have been expended, and though it has the +advantage of appealing by its modern language, familiar manners, and +contemporary allusions, to all our transient feelings and interests. +These, however, have no right to demand of a poetical work that it shall +satisfy them; their claims are to be directed elsewhere. Poetical works +belong to the domain of our permanent passions: let them interest these, +and the voice of all subordinate claims upon them is at once silenced. + +Achilles, Prometheus, Clytemnestra, Dido[7]--what modern poem presents +personages as interesting, even to us moderns, as these personages of an +"exhausted past"? We have the domestic epic dealing with the details of +modern life, which pass daily under our eyes; we have poems representing +modern personages in contact with the problems of modern life, moral, +intellectual, and social; these works have been produced by poets the +most distinguished of their nation and time; yet I fearlessly assert +that _Hermann and Dorothea_, _Childe Harold_, _Jocelyn_, the +_Excursion_,[8] leave the reader cold in comparison with the effect +produced upon him by the latter books of the _Iliad_, by the _Oresteia_, +or by the episode of Dido. And why is this? Simply because in the three +last-named cases the action is greater, the personages nobler, the +situations more intense: and this is the true basis of the interest in a +poetical work, and this alone. + +It may be urged, however, that past actions may be interesting in +themselves, but that they are not to be adopted by the modern poet, +because it is impossible for him to have them clearly present to his own +mind, and he cannot therefore feel them deeply, nor represent them +forcibly. But this is not necessarily the case. The externals of a past +action, indeed, he cannot know with the precision of a contemporary; but +his business is with its essentials. The outward man of Oedipus[9] or of +Macbeth, the houses in which they lived, the ceremonies of their courts, +he cannot accurately figure to himself; but neither do they essentially +concern him. His business is with their inward man; with their feelings +and behavior in certain tragic situations, which engage their passions +as men; these have in them nothing local and casual; they are as +accessible to the modern poet as to a contemporary. + +The date of an action, then, signifies nothing: the action itself, its +selection and construction, this is what is all-important. This the +Greeks understood far more clearly than we do. The radical difference +between their poetical theory and ours consists, as it appears to me, in +this: that, with them, the poetical character of the action in itself, +and the conduct of it, was the first consideration; with us, attention +is fixed mainly on the value of the separate thoughts and images which +occur in the treatment of an action. They regarded the whole; we regard +the parts. With them, the action predominated over the expression of it; +with us, the expression predominates over the action. Not that they +failed in expression, or were inattentive to it; on the contrary, they +are the highest models of expression, the unapproached masters of the +_grand style_:[10] but their expression is so excellent because it is so +admirably kept in its right degree of prominence; because it is so +simple and so well subordinated; because it draws its force directly +from the pregnancy of the matter which it conveys. For what reason was +the Greek tragic poet confined to so limited a range of subjects? +Because there are so few actions which unite in themselves, in the +highest degree, the conditions of excellence; and it was not thought +that on any but an excellent subject could an excellent poem be +constructed. A few actions, therefore, eminently adapted for tragedy, +maintained almost exclusive possession of the Greek tragic stage. Their +significance appeared inexhaustible; they were as permanent problems, +perpetually offered to the genius of every fresh poet. This too is the +reason of what appears to us moderns a certain baldness of expression in +Greek tragedy; of the triviality with which we often reproach the +remarks of the chorus, where it takes part in the dialogue: that the +action itself, the situation of Orestes, or Merope, or Alcmaeon,[11] was +to stand the central point of interest, unforgotten, absorbing, +principal; that no accessories were for a moment to distract the +spectator's attention from this, that the tone of the parts was to be +perpetually kept down, in order not to impair the grandiose effect of +the whole. The terrible old mythic story on which the drama was founded +stood, before he entered the theatre, traced in its bare outlines upon +the spectator's mind; it stood in his memory, as a group of statuary, +faintly seen, at the end of a long and dark vista: then came the poet, +embodying outlines, developing situations, not a word wasted, not a +sentiment capriciously thrown in: stroke upon stroke, the drama +proceeded: the light deepened upon the group; more and more it revealed +itself to the riveted gaze of the spectator: until at last, when the +final words were spoken, it stood before him in broad sunlight, a model +of immortal beauty. This was what a Greek critic demanded; this was +what a Greek poet endeavored to effect. It signified nothing to what +time an action belonged. We do not find that the _Persae_ occupied a +particularly high rank among the dramas of AEschylus because it +represented a matter of contemporary interest: this was not what a +cultivated Athenian required. He required that the permanent elements of +his nature should be moved; and dramas of which the action, though taken +from a long-distant mythic time, yet was calculated to accomplish this +in a higher degree than that of the _Persae_, stood higher in his +estimation accordingly. The Greeks felt, no doubt, with their exquisite +sagacity of taste, that an action of present times was too near them, +too much mixed up with what was accidental and passing, to form a +sufficiently grand, detached, and self-subsistent object for a tragic +poem. Such objects belonged to the domain of the comic poet, and of the +lighter kinds of poetry. For the more serious kinds, for _pragmatic_ +poetry, to use an excellent expression of Polybius,[12] they were more +difficult and severe in the range of subjects which they permitted. +Their theory and practice alike, the admirable treatise of Aristotle, +and the unrivalled works of their poets, exclaim with a thousand +tongues--"All depends upon the subject; choose a fitting action, +penetrate yourself with the feeling of its situations; this done, +everything else will follow." + +But for all kinds of poetry alike there was one point on which they were +rigidly exacting; the adaptability of the subject to the kind of poetry +selected, and the careful construction of the poem. + +How different a way of thinking from this is ours! We can hardly at the +present day understand what Menander[13] meant, when he told a man who +enquired as to the progress of his comedy that he had finished it, not +having yet written a single line, because he had constructed the action +of it in his mind. A modern critic would have assured him that the merit +of his piece depended on the brilliant things which arose under his pen +as he went along. We have poems which seem to exist merely for the sake +of single lines and passages; not for the sake of producing any +total-impression. We have critics who seem to direct their attention +merely to detached expressions, to the language about the action, not to +the action itself. I verily think that the majority of them do not in +their hearts believe that there is such a thing as a total-impression to +be derived from a poem at all, or to be demanded from a poet; they think +the term a commonplace of metaphysical criticism. They will permit the +poet to select any action he pleases, and to suffer that action to go as +it will, provided he gratifies them with occasional bursts of fine +writing, and with a shower of isolated thoughts and images. That is, +they permit him to leave their poetical sense ungratified, provided that +he gratifies their rhetorical sense and their curiosity. Of his +neglecting to gratify these, there is little danger; he needs rather to +be warned against the danger of attempting to gratify these alone; he +needs rather to be perpetually reminded to prefer his action to +everything else; so to treat this, as to permit its inherent excellences +to develop themselves, without interruption from the intrusion of his +personal peculiarities: most fortunate when he most entirely succeeds in +effacing himself, and in enabling a noble action to subsist as it did in +nature. + +But the modern critic not only permits a false practice: he absolutely +prescribes false aims. "A true allegory of the state of one's own mind +in a representative history," the poet is told, "is perhaps the highest +thing that one can attempt in the way of poetry." And accordingly he +attempts it. An allegory of the state of one's own mind, the highest +problem of an art which imitates actions! No assuredly, it is not, it +never can be so: no great poetical work has ever been produced with such +an aim. _Faust_ itself, in which something of the kind is attempted, +wonderful passages as it contains, and in spite of the unsurpassed +beauty of the scenes which relate to Margaret, _Faust_ itself, judged as +a whole, and judged strictly as a poetical work, is defective: its +illustrious author, the greatest poet of modern times, the greatest +critic of all times, would have been the first to acknowledge it; he +only defended his work, indeed, by asserting it to be "something +incommensurable." + +The confusion of the present times is great, the multitude of voices +counselling different things bewildering, the number of existing works +capable of attracting a young writer's attention and of becoming his +models, immense: what he wants is a hand to guide him through the +confusion, a voice to prescribe to him the aim which he should keep in +view, and to explain to him that the value of the literary works which +offer themselves to his attention is relative to their power of helping +him forward on his road towards this aim. Such a guide the English +writer at the present day will nowhere find. Failing this, all that can +be looked for, all indeed that can be desired, is, that his attention +should be fixed on excellent models; that he may reproduce, at any rate, +something of their excellence, by penetrating himself with their works +and by catching their spirit, if he cannot be taught to produce what is +excellent independently. + +Foremost among these models for the English writer stands Shakespeare: a +name the greatest perhaps of all poetical names; a name never to be +mentioned without reverence. I will venture, however, to express a doubt +whether the influence of his works, excellent and fruitful for the +readers of poetry, for the great majority, has been an unmixed advantage +to the writers of it. Shakespeare indeed chose excellent subjects--the +world could afford no better than _Macbeth_, or _Romeo and Juliet_, or +_Othello_: he had no theory respecting the necessity of choosing +subjects of present import, or the paramount interest attaching to +allegories of the state of one's own mind; like all great poets, he knew +well what constituted a poetical action; like them, wherever he found +such an action, he took it; like them, too, he found his best in past +times. But to these general characteristics of all great poets he added +a special one of his own; a gift, namely, of happy, abundant, and +ingenious expression, eminent and unrivalled: so eminent as irresistibly +to strike the attention first in him and even to throw into comparative +shade his other excellences as a poet. Here has been the mischief. These +other excellences were his fundamental excellences, _as a poet_; what +distinguishes the artist from the mere amateur, says Goethe, is +_Architectonice_ in the highest sense; that power of execution which +creates, forms, and constitutes: not the profoundness of single +thoughts, not the richness of imagery, not the abundance of +illustration. But these attractive accessories of a poetical work being +more easily seized than the spirit of the whole, and these accessories +being possessed by Shakespeare in an unequalled degree, a young writer +having recourse to Shakespeare as his model runs great risk of being +vanquished and absorbed by them, and, in consequence, of reproducing, +according to the measure of his power, these, and these alone. Of this +prepondering quality of Shakespeare's genius, accordingly, almost the +whole of modern English poetry has, it appears to me, felt the +influence. To the exclusive attention on the part of his imitators to +this, it is in a great degree owing that of the majority of modern +poetical works the details alone are valuable, the composition +worthless. In reading them one is perpetually reminded of that terrible +sentence on a modern French poet,--_il dit tout ce qu'il veut, mais +malheureusement il n'a rien a dire._[14] + +Let me give an instance of what I mean. I will take it from the works of +the very chief among those who seem to have been formed in the school of +Shakespeare; of one whose exquisite genius and pathetic death render him +forever interesting. I will take the poem of _Isabella, or the Pot of +Basil_, by Keats. I choose this rather than the _Endymion_, because the +latter work (which a modern critic has classed with the Faery Queen!), +although undoubtedly there blows through it the breath of genius, is yet +as a whole so utterly incoherent, as not strictly to merit the name of a +poem at all. The poem of _Isabella_, then, is a perfect treasure-house +of graceful and felicitous words and images: almost in every stanza +there occurs one of those vivid and picturesque turns of expression, by +which the object is made to flash upon the eye of the mind, and which +thrill the reader with a sudden delight. This one short poem contains, +perhaps, a greater number of happy single expressions which one could +quote than all the extant tragedies of Sophocles. But the action, the +story? The action in itself is an excellent one; but so feebly is it +conceived by the poet, so loosely constructed, that the effect produced +by it, in and for itself, is absolutely null. Let the reader, after he +has finished the poem of Keats, turn to the same story in the +_Decameron_:[15] he will then feel how pregnant and interesting the same +action has become in the hands of a great artist, who above all things +delineates his object; who subordinates expression to that which it is +designed to express. + +I have said that the imitators of Shakespeare, fixing their attention on +his wonderful gift of expression, have directed their imitation to this, +neglecting his other excellences. These excellences, the fundamental +excellences of poetical art, Shakespeare no doubt possessed them-- +possessed many of them in a splendid degree; but it may perhaps be +doubted whether even he himself did not sometimes give scope to his +faculty of expression to the prejudice of a higher poetical duty. For we +must never forget that Shakespeare is the great poet he is from his +skill in discerning and firmly conceiving an excellent action, from his +power of intensely feeling a situation, of intimately associating +himself with a character; not from his gift of expression, which rather +even leads him astray, degenerating sometimes into a fondness for +curiosity of expression, into an irritability of fancy, which seems to +make it impossible for him to say a thing plainly, even when the press +of the action demands the very directest language, or its level +character the very simplest. Mr. Hallam,[16] than whom it is impossible +to find a saner and more judicious critic, has had the courage (for at +the present day it needs courage) to remark, how extremely and faultily +difficult Shakespeare's language often is. It is so: you may find main +scenes in some of his greatest tragedies, _King Lear_, for instance, +where the language is so artificial, so curiously tortured, and so +difficult, that every speech has to be read two or three times before +its meaning can be comprehended. This over-curiousness of expression is +indeed but the excessive employment of a wonderful gift--of the power +of saying a thing in a happier way than any other man; nevertheless, it +is carried so far that one understands what M. Guizot[17] meant when he +said that Shakespeare appears in his language to have tried all styles +except that of simplicity. He has not the severe and scrupulous +self-restraint of the ancients, partly, no doubt, because he had a far +less cultivated and exacting audience. He has indeed a far wider range +than they had, a far richer fertility of thought; in this respect he +rises above them. In his strong conception of his subject, in the +genuine way in which he is penetrated with it, he resembles them, and is +unlike the moderns. But in the accurate limitation of it, the +conscientious rejection of superfluities, the simple and rigorous +development of it from the first line of his work to the last, he falls +below them, and comes nearer to the moderns. In his chief works, besides +what he has of his own, he has the elementary soundness of the ancients; +he has their important action and their large and broad manner; but he +has not their purity of method. He is therefore a less safe model; for +what he has of his own is personal, and inseparable from his own rich +nature; it may be imitated and exaggerated, it cannot be learned or +applied as an art. He is above all suggestive; more valuable, therefore, +to young writers as men than as artists. But clearness of arrangement, +rigor of development, simplicity of style--these may to a certain extent +be learned: and these may, I am convinced, be learned best from the +ancients, who, although infinitely less suggestive than Shakespeare, are +thus, to the artist, more instructive. + +What then, it will be asked, are the ancients to be our sole models? the +ancients with their comparatively narrow range of experience, and their +widely different circumstances? Not, certainly, that which is narrow in +the ancients, nor that in which we can no longer sympathize. An action +like the action of the _Antigone_ of Sophocles, which turns upon the +conflict between the heroine's duty to her brother's corpse and that to +the laws of her country, is no longer one in which it is possible that +we should feel a deep interest. I am speaking too, it will be +remembered, not of the best sources of intellectual stimulus for the +general reader, but of the best models of instruction for the individual +writer. This last may certainly learn of the ancients, better than +anywhere else, three things which it is vitally important for him to +know:--the all-importance of the choice of a subject; the necessity of +accurate construction; and the subordinate character of expression. He +will learn from them how unspeakably superior is the effect of the one +moral impression left by a great action treated as a whole, to the +effect produced by the most striking single thought or by the happiest +image. As he penetrates into the spirit of the great classical works, as +he becomes gradually aware of their intense significance, their noble +simplicity, and their calm pathos, he will be convinced that it is this +effect, unity and profoundness of moral impression, at which the ancient +poets aimed; that it is this which constitutes the grandeur of their +works, and which makes them immortal. He will desire to direct his own +efforts towards producing the same effect. Above all, he will deliver +himself from the jargon of modern criticism, and escape the danger of +producing poetical works conceived in the spirit of the passing time, +and which partake of its transitoriness. + +The present age makes great claims upon us: we owe it service, it will +not be satisfied without our admiration. I know not how it is, but their +commerce with the ancients appears to me to produce, in those who +constantly practise it, a steadying and composing effect upon their +judgment, not of literary works only, but of men and events in general. +They are like persons who have had a very weighty and impressive +experience; they are more truly than others under the empire of facts, +and more independent of the language current among those with whom they +live. They wish neither to applaud nor to revile their age: they wish to +know what it is, what it can give them, and whether this is what they +want. What they want, they know very well; they want to educe and +cultivate what is best and noblest in themselves: they know, too, that +this is no easy task--[Greek: Chalepon] as Pittacus[18] said,[Greek: +Chalepon esthlonemmenai]--and they ask themselves sincerely whether +their age and its literature can assist them in the attempt. If they are +endeavoring to practise any art, they remember the plain and simple +proceedings of the old artists, who attained their grand results by +penetrating themselves with some noble and significant action, not by +inflating themselves with a belief in the preeminent importance and +greatness of their own times. They do not talk of their mission, nor of +interpreting their age, nor of the coming poet; all this, they know, is +the mere delirium of vanity; their business is not to praise their age, +but to afford to the men who live in it the highest pleasure which they +are capable of feeling. If asked to afford this by means of subjects +drawn from the age itself, they ask what special fitness the present age +has for supplying them. They are told that it is an era of progress, an +age commissioned to carry out the great ideas of industrial development +and social amelioration. They reply that with all this they can do +nothing; that the elements they need for the exercise of their art are +great actions, calculated powerfully and delightfully to affect what is +permanent in the human soul; that so far as the present age can supply +such actions, they will gladly make use of them; but that an age wanting +in moral grandeur can with difficulty supply such, and an age of +spiritual discomfort with difficulty be powerfully and delightfully +affected by them. + +A host of voices will indignantly rejoin that the present age is +inferior to the past neither in moral grandeur nor in spiritual health. +He who possesses the discipline I speak of will content himself with +remembering the judgments passed upon the present age, in this respect, +by the men of strongest head and widest culture whom it has produced; by +Goethe and by Niebuhr.[19] It will be sufficient for him that he knows +the opinions held by these two great men respecting the present age and +its literature; and that he feels assured in his own mind that their +aims and demands upon life were such as he would wish, at any rate, his +own to be; and their judgment as to what is impeding and disabling such +as he may safely follow. He will not, however, maintain a hostile +attitude towards the false pretensions of his age; he will content +himself with not being overwhelmed by them. He will esteem himself +fortunate if he can succeed in banishing from his mind all feelings of +contradiction, and irritation, and impatience; in order to delight +himself with the contemplation of some noble action of a heroic time, +and to enable others, through his representation of it, to delight in it +also. + +I am far indeed from making any claim, for myself, that I possess this +discipline; or for the following poems, that they breathe its spirit. +But I say, that in the sincere endeavor to learn and practise, amid the +bewildering confusion of our times, what is sound and true in poetical +art, I seemed to myself to find the only sure guidance, the only solid +footing, among the ancients. They, at any rate, knew what they wanted in +art, and we do not. It is this uncertainty which is disheartening, and +not hostile criticism. How often have I felt this when reading words of +disparagement or of cavil: that it is the uncertainty as to what is +really to be aimed at which makes our difficulty, not the +dissatisfaction of the critic, who himself suffers from the same +uncertainty. _Non me tua fervida terrent Dicta; ... Dii me terrent, et +Jupiter hostis._[20] Two kinds of _dilettanti_, says Goethe, there are +in poetry: he who neglects the indispensable mechanical part, and thinks +he has done enough if he shows spirituality and feeling; and he who +seeks to arrive at poetry merely by mechanism, in which he can acquire +an artisan's readiness, and is without soul and matter. And he adds, +that the first does most harm to art, and the last to himself. If we +must be _dilettanti_: if it is impossible for us, under the +circumstances amidst which we live, to think clearly, to feel nobly, and +to delineate firmly: if we cannot attain to the mastery of the great +artists--let us, at least, have so much respect for our art as to prefer +it to ourselves. Let us not bewilder our successors: let us transmit to +them the practice of poetry, with its boundaries and wholesome +regulative laws, under which excellent works may again, perhaps, at some +future time, be produced, not yet fallen into oblivion through our +neglect, not yet condemned and cancelled by the influence of their +eternal enemy, caprice. + + + +THE FUNCTION OF CRITICISM AT THE PRESENT TIME[21] + + +Many objections have been made to a proposition which, in some remarks +of mine[22] on translating Homer, I ventured to put forth; a proposition +about criticism, and its importance at the present day. I said: "Of the +literature of France and Germany, as of the intellect of Europe in +general, the main effort, for now many years, has been a critical +effort; the endeavor, in all branches of knowledge, theology, +philosophy, history, art, science, to see the object as in itself it +really is." I added, that owing to the operation in English literature +of certain causes, "almost the last thing for which one would come to +English literature is just that very thing which now Europe most +desires,--criticism"; and that the power and value of English literature +was thereby impaired. More than one rejoinder declared that the +importance I here assigned to criticism was excessive, and asserted the +inherent superiority of the creative effort of the human spirit over its +critical effort. And the other day, having been led by a Mr. +Shairp's[23] excellent notice of Wordsworth[24] to turn again to his +biography, I found, in the words of this great man, whom I, for one, +must always listen to with the profoundest respect, a sentence passed on +the critic's business, which seems to justify every possible +disparagement of it. Wordsworth says in one of his letters[25]:-- + +"The writers in these publications" (the Reviews), "while they prosecute +their inglorious employment, cannot be supposed to be in a state of mind +very favorable for being affected by the finer influences of a thing so +pure as genuine poetry." + +And a trustworthy reporter of his conversation quotes a more elaborate +judgment to the same effect:-- + +"Wordsworth holds the critical power very low, infinitely lower than the +inventive; and he said to-day that if the quantity of time consumed in +writing critiques on the works of others were given to original +composition, of whatever kind it might be, it would be much better +employed; it would make a man find out sooner his own level, and it +would do infinitely less mischief. A false or malicious criticism may do +much injury to the minds of others, a stupid invention, either in prose +or verse, is quite harmless." + +It is almost too much to expect of poor human nature, that a man capable +of producing some effect in one line of literature, should, for the +greater good of society, voluntarily doom himself to impotence and +obscurity in another. Still less is this to be expected from men +addicted to the composition of the "false or malicious criticism" of +which Wordsworth speaks. However, everybody would admit that a false or +malicious criticism had better never have been written. Everybody, too, +would be willing to admit, as a general proposition, that the critical +faculty is lower than the inventive. But is it true that criticism is +really, in itself, a baneful and injurious employment; is it true that +all time given to writing critiques on the works of others would be much +better employed if it were given to original composition, of whatever +kind this may be? Is it true that Johnson had better have gone on +producing more _Irenes_[26] instead of writing his _Lives of the Poets_; +nay, is it certain that Wordsworth himself was better employed in making +his Ecclesiastical Sonnets than when he made his celebrated Preface[27] +so full of criticism, and criticism of the works of others? Wordsworth +was himself a great critic, and it is to be sincerely regretted that he +has not left us more criticism; Goethe was one of the greatest of +critics, and we may sincerely congratulate ourselves that he has left us +so much criticism. Without wasting time over the exaggeration which +Wordsworth's judgment on criticism clearly contains, or over an attempt +to trace the causes,--not difficult, I think, to be traced,--which may +have led Wordsworth to this exaggeration, a critic may with advantage +seize an occasion for trying his own conscience, and for asking himself +of what real service at any given moment the practice of criticism +either is or may be made to his own mind and spirit, and to the minds +and spirits of others. + +The critical power is of lower rank than the creative. True; but in +assenting to this proposition, one or two things are to be kept in mind. +It is undeniable that the exercise of a creative power, that a free +creative activity, is the highest function of man; it is proved to be so +by man's finding in it his true happiness. But it is undeniable, also, +that men may have the sense of exercising this free creative activity in +other ways than in producing great works of literature or art; if it +were not so, all but a very few men would be shut out from the true +happiness of all men. They may have it in well-doing, they may have it +in learning, they may have it even in criticizing. This is one thing to +be kept in mind. Another is, that the exercise of the creative power in +the production of great works of literature or art, however high this +exercise of it may rank, is not at all epochs and under all conditions +possible; and that therefore labor may be vainly spent in attempting it, +which might with more fruit be used in preparing for it, in rendering it +possible. This creative power works with elements, with materials; what +if it has not those materials, those elements, ready for its use? In +that case it must surely wait till they are ready. Now, in literature,-- +I will limit myself to literature, for it is about literature that the +question arises,--the elements with which the creative power works are +ideas; the best ideas on every matter which literature touches, current +at the time. At any rate we may lay it down as certain that in modern +literature no manifestation of the creative power not working with these +can be very important or fruitful. And I say _current_ at the time, not +merely accessible at the time; for creative literary genius does not +principally show itself in discovering new ideas: that is rather the +business of the philosopher. The grand work of literary genius is a work +of synthesis and exposition, not of analysis and discovery; its gift +lies in the faculty of being happily inspired by a certain intellectual +and spiritual atmosphere, by a certain order of ideas, when it finds +itself in them; of dealing divinely with these ideas, presenting them in +the most effective and attractive combinations,--making beautiful works +with them, in short. But it must have the atmosphere, it must find +itself amidst the order of ideas, in order to work freely; and these it +is not so easy to command. This is why great creative epochs in +literature are so rare, this is why there is so much that is +unsatisfactory in the productions of many men of real genius; because, +for the creation of a master-work of literature two powers must concur, +the power of the man and the power of the moment, and the man is not +enough without the moment; the creative power has, for its happy +exercise, appointed elements, and those elements are not in its own +control. + +Nay, they are more within the control of the critical power. It is the +business of the critical power, as I said in the words already quoted, +"in all branches of knowledge, theology, philosophy, history, art, +science, to see the object as in itself it really is." Thus it tends, at +last, to make an intellectual situation of which the creative power can +profitably avail itself. It tends to establish an order of ideas, if not +absolutely true, yet true by comparison with that which it displaces; to +make the best ideas prevail. Presently these new ideas reach society, +the touch of truth is the touch of life, and there is a stir and growth +everywhere; out of this stir and growth come the creative epochs of +literature. + +Or, to narrow our range, and quit these considerations of the general +march of genius and of society,--considerations which are apt to become +too abstract and impalpable,--every one can see that a poet, for +instance, ought to know life and the world before dealing with them in +poetry; and life and the world being in modern times very complex +things, the creation of a modern poet, to be worth much, implies a great +critical effort behind it; else it must be a comparatively poor, barren, +and short-lived affair. This is why Byron's poetry had so little +endurance in it, and Goethe's so much; both Byron and Goethe had a great +productive power, but Goethe's was nourished by a great critical effort +providing the true materials for it, and Byron's was not; Goethe knew +life and the world, the poet's necessary subjects, much more +comprehensively and thoroughly than Byron. He knew a great deal more of +them, and he knew them much more as they really are. + +It has long seemed to me that the burst of creative activity in our +literature, through the first quarter of this century, had about it in +fact something premature; and that from this cause its productions are +doomed, most of them, in spite of the sanguine hopes which accompanied +and do still accompany them, to prove hardly more lasting than the +productions of far less splendid epochs. And this prematureness comes +from its having proceeded without having its proper data, without +sufficient materials to work with. In other words, the English poetry of +the first quarter of this century, with plenty of energy, plenty of +creative force, did not know enough. This makes Byron so empty of +matter, Shelley so incoherent, Wordsworth even, profound as he is, yet +so wanting in completeness and variety. Wordsworth cared little for +books, and disparaged Goethe. I admire Wordsworth, as he is, so much +that I cannot wish him different; and it is vain, no doubt, to imagine +such a man different from what he is, to suppose that he _could_ have +been different. But surely the one thing wanting to make Wordsworth an +even greater poet than he is,--his thought richer, and his influence of +wider application,--was that he should have read more books, among them, +no doubt, those of that Goethe whom he disparaged without reading him. + +But to speak of books and reading may easily lead to a misunderstanding +here. It was not really books and reading that lacked to our poetry at +this epoch: Shelley had plenty of reading, Coleridge had immense +reading. Pindar and Sophocles--as we all say so glibly, and often with +so little discernment of the real import of what we are saying--had not +many books; Shakespeare was no deep reader. True; but in the Greece of +Pindar and Sophocles, in the England of Shakespeare, the poet lived in a +current of ideas in the highest degree animating and nourishing to the +creative power; society was, in the fullest measure, permeated by fresh +thought, intelligent and alive. And this state of things is the true +basis for the creative power's exercise, in this it finds its data, its +materials, truly ready for its hand; all the books and reading in the +world are only valuable as they are helps to this. Even when this does +not actually exist, books and reading may enable a man to construct a +kind of semblance of it in his own mind, a world of knowledge and +intelligence in which he may live and work. This is by no means an +equivalent to the artist for the nationally diffused life and thought of +the epochs of Sophocles or Shakespeare; but, besides that it may be a +means of preparation for such epochs, it does really constitute, if many +share in it, a quickening and sustaining atmosphere of great value. Such +an atmosphere the many-sided learning and the long and widely combined +critical effort of Germany formed for Goethe, when he lived and worked. +There was no national glow of life and thought there as in the Athens of +Pericles or the England of Elizabeth. That was the poet's weakness. But +there was a sort of equivalent for it in the complete culture and +unfettered thinking of a large body of Germans. That was his strength. +In the England of the first quarter of this century there was neither a +national glow of life and thought, such as we had in the age of +Elizabeth, nor yet a culture and a force of learning and criticism such +as were to be found in Germany. Therefore the creative power of poetry +wanted, for success in the highest sense, materials and a basis; a +thorough interpretation of the world was necessarily denied to it. + +At first sight it seems strange that out of the immense stir of the +French Revolution and its age should not have come a crop of works of +genius equal to that which came out of the stir of the great productive +time of Greece, or out of that of the Renascence, with its powerful +episode the Reformation. But the truth is that the stir of the French +Revolution took a character which essentially distinguished it from such +movements as these. These were, in the main, disinterestedly +intellectual and spiritual movements; movements in which the human +spirit looked for its satisfaction in itself and in the increased play +of its own activity. The French Revolution took a political, practical +character. The movement, which went on in France under the old regime, +from 1700 to 1789, was far more really akin than that of the Revolution +itself to the movement of the Renascence; the France of Voltaire and +Rousseau told far more powerfully upon the mind of Europe than the +France of the Revolution. Goethe reproached this last expressly with +having "thrown quiet culture back." Nay, and the true key to how much in +our Byron, even in our Wordsworth, is this!--that they had their source +in a great movement of feeling, not in a great movement of mind. The +French Revolution, however,--that object of so much blind love and so +much blind hatred,--found undoubtedly its motive-power in the +intelligence of men, and not in their practical sense; this is what +distinguishes it from the English Revolution of Charles the First's +time. This is what makes it a more spiritual event than our Revolution, +an event of much more powerful and world-wide interest, though +practically less successful; it appeals to an order of ideas which are +universal, certain, permanent. 1789 asked of a thing, Is it rational? +1642 asked of a thing, Is it legal? or, when it went furthest, Is it +according to conscience? This is the English fashion, a fashion to be +treated, within its own sphere, with the highest respect; for its +success, within its own sphere, has been prodigious. But what is law in +one place is not law in another; what is law here to-day is not law even +here to-morrow; and as for conscience, what is binding on one man's +conscience is not binding on another's. The old woman[28] who threw her +stool at the head of the surpliced minister in St. Giles's Church at +Edinburgh obeyed an impulse to which millions of the human race may be +permitted to remain strangers. But the prescriptions of reason are +absolute, unchanging, of universal validity; _to count by tens is the +easiest way of counting_--that is a proposition of which every one, from +here to the Antipodes, feels the force; at least I should say so if we +did not live in a country where it is not impossible that any morning we +may find a letter in the _Times_ declaring that a decimal coinage is an +absurdity. That a whole nation should have been penetrated with an +enthusiasm for pure reason, and with an ardent zeal for making its +prescriptions triumph, is a very remarkable thing, when we consider how +little of mind, or anything so worthy and quickening as mind, comes into +the motives which alone, in general, impel great masses of men. In spite +of the extravagant direction given to this enthusiasm, in spite of the +crimes and follies in which it lost itself, the French Revolution +derives from the force, truth, and universality of the ideas which it +took for its law, and from the passion with which it could inspire a +multitude for these ideas, a unique and still living power; it is,--it +will probably long remain,--the greatest, the most animating event in +history. And as no sincere passion for the things of the mind, even +though it turn out in many respects an unfortunate passion, is ever +quite thrown away and quite barren of good, France has reaped from hers +one fruit--the natural and legitimate fruit though not precisely the +grand fruit she expected: she is the country in Europe where _the +people_ is most alive. + +But the mania for giving an immediate political and practical +application to all these fine ideas of the reason was fatal. Here an +Englishman is in his element: on this theme we can all go on for hours. +And all we are in the habit of saying on it has undoubtedly a great deal +of truth. Ideas cannot be too much prized in and for themselves, cannot +be too much lived with; but to transport them abruptly into the world of +politics and practice, violently to revolutionize this world to their +bidding,--that is quite another thing. There is the world of ideas and +there is the world of practice; the French are often for suppressing the +one and the English the other; but neither is to be suppressed. A member +of the House of Commons said to me the other day: "That a thing is an +anomaly, I consider to be no objection to it whatever." I venture to +think he was wrong; that a thing is an anomaly _is_ an objection to it, +but absolutely and in the sphere of ideas: it is not necessarily, under +such and such circumstances, or at such and such a moment, an objection +to it in the sphere of politics and practice. Joubert has said +beautifully: "C'est la force et le droit qui reglent toutes choses dans +le monde; la force en attendant le droit."[29] (Force and right are the +governors of this world; force till right is ready.) _Force till right +is ready_; and till right is ready, force, the existing order of things, +is justified, is the legitimate ruler. But right is something moral, and +implies inward recognition, free assent of the will; we are not ready +for right,--_right_, so far as we are concerned, _is not ready_,--until +we have attained this sense of seeing it and willing it. The way in +which for us it may change and transform force, the existing order of +things, and become, in its turn, the legitimate ruler of the world, +should depend on the way in which, when our time comes, we see it and +will it. Therefore for other people enamored of their own newly +discerned right, to attempt to impose it upon us as ours, and violently +to substitute their right for our force, is an act of tyranny, and to be +resisted. It sets at naught the second great half of our maxim, _force +till right is ready_. This was the grand error of the French Revolution; +and its movement of ideas, by quitting the intellectual sphere and +rushing furiously into the political sphere, ran, indeed, a prodigious +and memorable course, but produced no such intellectual fruit as the +movement of ideas of the Renascence, and created, in opposition to +itself, what I may call an _epoch of concentration_. The great force of +that epoch of concentration was England; and the great voice of that +epoch of concentration was Burke. It is the fashion to treat Burke's +writings on the French Revolution[30] as superannuated and conquered by +the event; as the eloquent but unphilosophical tirades of bigotry and +prejudice. I will not deny that they are often disfigured by the +violence and passion of the moment, and that in some directions Burke's +view was bounded, and his observation therefore at fault. But on the +whole, and for those who can make the needful corrections, what +distinguishes these writings is their profound, permanent, fruitful, +philosophical truth. They contain the true philosophy of an epoch of +concentration, dissipate the heavy atmosphere which its own nature is +apt to engender round it, and make its resistance rational instead of +mechanical. + +But Burke is so great because, almost alone in England, he brings +thought to bear upon politics, he saturates politics with thought. It is +his accident that his ideas were at the service of an epoch of +concentration, not of an epoch of expansion; it is his characteristic +that he so lived by ideas, and had such a source of them welling up +within him, that he could float even an epoch of concentration and +English Tory politics with them. It does not hurt him that Dr. Price[31] +and the Liberals were enraged with him; it does not even hurt him that +George the Third and the Tories were enchanted with him. His greatness +is that he lived in a world which neither English Liberalism nor English +Toryism is apt to enter;--the world of ideas, not the world of +catchwords and party habits. So far is it from being really true of him +that he "to party gave up what was meant for mankind,"[32] that at the +very end of his fierce struggle with the French Revolution, after all +his invectives against its false pretensions, hollowness, and madness, +with his sincere convictions of its mischievousness, he can close a +memorandum on the best means of combating it, some of the last pages he +ever wrote,--the _Thoughts on French Affairs_, in December 1791,--with +these striking words:-- + +"The evil is stated, in my opinion, as it exists. The remedy must be +where power, wisdom, and information, I hope, are more united with good +intentions than they can be with me. I have done with this subject, I +believe, forever. It has given me many anxious moments for the last two +years. _If a great change is to be made in human affairs, the minds of +men will be fitted to it; the general opinions and feelings will draw +that way. Every fear, every hope will forward it: and then they who +persist in opposing this mighty current in human affairs, will appear +rather to resist the decrees of Providence itself, than the mere designs +of men. They will not be resolute and firm, but perverse and +obstinate._" + +That return of Burke upon himself has always seemed to me one of the +finest things in English literature, or indeed in any literature. That +is what I call living by ideas: when one side of a question has long had +your earnest support, when all your feelings are engaged, when you hear +all round you no language but one, when your party talks this language +like a steam-engine and can imagine no other,--still to be able to +think, still to be irresistibly carried, if so it be, by the current of +thought to the opposite side of the question, and, like Balaam,[33] to +be unable to speak anything _but what the Lord has put in your mouth_. I +know nothing more striking, and I must add that I know nothing more +un-English. + +For the Englishman in general is like my friend the Member of +Parliament, and believes, point-blank, that for a thing to be an anomaly +is absolutely no objection to it whatever. He is like the Lord +Auckland[34] of Burke's day, who, in a memorandum on the French +Revolution, talks of "certain miscreants, assuming the name of +philosophers, who have presumed themselves capable of establishing a new +system of society." The Englishman has been called a political animal, +and he values what is political and practical so much that ideas easily +become objects of dislike in his eyes, and thinkers "miscreants," +because ideas and thinkers have rashly meddled with politics and +practice. This would be all very well if the dislike and neglect +confined themselves to ideas transported out of their own sphere, and +meddling rashly with practice; but they are inevitably extended to ideas +as such, and to the whole life of intelligence; practice is everything, +a free play of the mind is nothing. The notion of the free play of the +mind upon all subjects being a pleasure in itself, being an object of +desire, being an essential provider of elements without which a nation's +spirit, whatever compensations it may have for them, must, in the long +run, die of inanition, hardly enters into an Englishman's thoughts. It +is noticeable that the word _curiosity_, which in other languages is +used in a good sense, to mean, as a high and fine quality of man's +nature, just this disinterested love of a free play of the mind on all +subjects, for its own sake,--it is noticeable, I say, that this word has +in our language no sense of the kind, no sense but a rather bad and +disparaging one. But criticism, real criticism, is essentially the +exercise of this very quality. It obeys an instinct prompting it to try +to know the best that is known and thought in the world, irrespectively +of practice, politics, and everything of the kind; and to value +knowledge and thought as they approach this best, without the intrusion +of any other considerations whatever. This is an instinct for which +there is, I think, little original sympathy in the practical English +nature, and what there was of it has undergone a long benumbing period +of blight and suppression in the epoch of concentration which followed +the French Revolution. + +But epochs of concentration cannot well endure forever; epochs of +expansion, in the due course of things, follow them. Such an epoch of +expansion seems to be opening in this country. In the first place all +danger of a hostile forcible pressure of foreign ideas upon our practice +has long disappeared; like the traveller in the fable, therefore, we +begin to wear our cloak a little more loosely. Then, with a long peace, +the ideas of Europe steal gradually and amicably in, and mingle, though +in infinitesimally small quantities at a time, with our own notions. +Then, too, in spite of all that is said about the absorbing and +brutalizing influence of our passionate material progress, it seems to +me indisputable that this progress is likely, though not certain, to +lead in the end to an apparition of intellectual life; and that man, +after he has made himself perfectly comfortable and has now to determine +what to do with himself next, may begin to remember that he has a mind, +and that the mind may be made the source of great pleasure. I grant it +is mainly the privilege of faith, at present, to discern this end to our +railways, our business, and our fortune-making; but we shall see if, +here as elsewhere, faith is not in the end the true prophet. Our ease, +our travelling, and our unbounded liberty to hold just as hard and +securely as we please to the practice to which our notions have given +birth, all tend to beget an inclination to deal a little more freely +with these notions themselves, to canvass them a little, to penetrate a +little into their real nature. Flutterings of curiosity, in the foreign +sense of the word, appear amongst us, and it is in these that criticism +must look to find its account. Criticism first; a time of true creative +activity, perhaps,--which, as I have said, must inevitably be preceded +amongst us by a time of criticism,--hereafter, when criticism has done +its work. + +It is of the last importance that English criticism should clearly +discern what rule for its course, in order to avail itself of the field +now opening to it, and to produce fruit for the future, it ought to +take. The rule may be summed up in one word,--_disinterestedness_. And +how is criticism to show disinterestedness? By keeping aloof from what +is called "the practical view of things"; by resolutely following the +law of its own nature, which is to be a free play of the mind on all +subjects which it touches. By steadily refusing to lend itself to any of +those ulterior, political, practical considerations about ideas, which +plenty of people will be sure to attach to them, which perhaps ought +often to be attached to them, which in this country at any rate are +certain to be attached to them quite sufficiently, but which criticism +has really nothing to do with. Its business is, as I have said, simply +to know the best that is known and thought in the world, and by in its +turn making this known, to create a current of true and fresh ideas. Its +business is to do this with inflexible honesty, with due ability; but +its business is to do no more, and to leave alone all questions of +practical consequences and applications, questions which will never fail +to have due prominence given to them. Else criticism, besides being +really false to its own nature, merely continues in the old rut which it +has hitherto followed in this country, and will certainly miss the +chance now given to it. For what is at present the bane of criticism in +this country? It is that practical considerations cling to it and stifle +it. It subserves interests not its own. Our organs of criticism are +organs of men and parties having practical ends to serve, and with them +those practical ends are the first thing and the play of mind the +second; so much play of mind as is compatible with the prosecution of +those practical ends is all that is wanted. An organ like the _Revue des +Deux Mondes_,[35] having for its main function to understand and utter +the best that is known and thought in the world, existing, it may be +said, as just an organ for a free play of the mind, we have not. But we +have the _Edinburgh Review_, existing as an organ of the old Whigs, and +for as much play of the mind as may suit its being that; we have the +_Quarterly Review_, existing as an organ of the Tories, and for as much +play of mind as may suit its being that; we have the _British Quarterly +Review_, existing as an organ of the political Dissenters, and for as +much play of mind as may suit its being that; we have the _Times_, +existing as an organ of the common, satisfied, well-to-do Englishman, +and for as much play of mind as may suit its being that. And so on +through all the various fractions, political and religious, of our +society; every fraction has, as such, its organ of criticism, but the +notion of combining all fractions in the common pleasure of a free +disinterested play of mind meets with no favor. Directly this play of +mind wants to have more scope, and to forget the pressure of practical +considerations a little, it is checked, it is made to feel the chain. We +saw this the other day in the extinction, so much to be regretted, of +the _Home and Foreign Review_.[36] Perhaps in no organ of criticism in +this country was there so much knowledge, so much play of mind; but +these could not save it. The _Dublin Review_ subordinates play of mind +to the practical business of English and Irish Catholicism, and lives. +It must needs be that men should act in sects and parties, that each of +these sects and parties should have its organ, and should make this +organ subserve the interests of its action; but it would be well, too, +that there should be a criticism, not the minister of these interests, +not their enemy, but absolutely and entirely independent of them. No +other criticism will ever attain any real authority or make any real way +towards its end,--the creating a current of true and fresh ideas. + +It is because criticism has so little kept in the pure intellectual +sphere, has so little detached itself from practice, has been so +directly polemical and controversial, that it has so ill accomplished, +in this country, its best spiritual work; which is to keep man from a +self-satisfaction which is retarding and vulgarizing, to lead him +towards perfection, by making his mind dwell upon what is excellent in +itself, and the absolute beauty and fitness of things. A polemical +practical criticism makes men blind even to the ideal imperfection of +their practice, makes them willingly assert its ideal perfection, in +order the better to secure it against attack: and clearly this is +narrowing and baneful for them. If they were reassured on the practical +side, speculative considerations of ideal perfection they might be +brought to entertain, and their spiritual horizon would thus gradually +widen. Sir Charles Adderley[37] says to the Warwickshire farmers:-- + +"Talk of the improvement of breed! Why, the race we ourselves +represent, the men and women, the old Anglo-Saxon race, are the best +breed in the whole world.... The absence of a too enervating climate, +too unclouded skies, and a too luxurious nature, has produced so +vigorous a race of people, and has rendered us so superior to all the +world." + +Mr. Roebuck[38] says to the Sheffield cutlers:-- + +"I look around me and ask what is the state of England? Is not property +safe? Is not every man able to say what he likes? Can you not walk from +one end of England to the other in perfect security? I ask you whether, +the world over or in past history, there is anything like it? Nothing. I +pray that our unrivalled happiness may last." + +Now obviously there is a peril for poor human nature in words and +thoughts of such exuberant self-satisfaction, until we find ourselves +safe in the streets of the Celestial City. + + "Das wenige verschwindet leicht dem Blicke + Der vorwaerts sieht, wie viel noch uebrig bleibt--"[39] + +says Goethe; "the little that is done seems nothing when we look forward +and see how much we have yet to do." Clearly this is a better line of +reflection for weak humanity, so long as it remains on this earthly +field of labor and trial. + +But neither Sir Charles Adderley nor Mr. Roebuck is by nature +inaccessible to considerations of this sort. They only lose sight of +them owing to the controversial life we all lead, and the practical form +which all speculation takes with us. They have in view opponents whose +aim is not ideal, but practical; and in their zeal to uphold their own +practice against these innovators, they go so far as even to attribute +to this practice an ideal perfection. Somebody has been wanting to +introduce a six-pound franchise, or to abolish church-rates, or to +collect agricultural statistics by force, or to diminish local +self-government. How natural, in reply to such proposals, very likely +improper or ill-timed, to go a little beyond the mark and to say +stoutly, "Such a race of people as we stand, so superior to all the +world! The old Anglo-Saxon race, the best breed in the whole world! I +pray that our unrivalled happiness may last! I ask you whether, the +world over or in past history, there is anything like it?" And so long +as criticism answers this dithyramb by insisting that the old +Anglo-Saxon race would be still more superior to all others if it had no +church-rates, or that our unrivalled happiness would last yet longer +with a six-pound franchise, so long will the strain, "The best breed in +the whole world!" swell louder and louder, everything ideal and refining +will be lost out of sight, and both the assailed and their critics will +remain in a sphere, to say the truth, perfectly unvital, a sphere in +which spiritual progression is impossible. But let criticism leave +church-rates and the franchise alone, and in the most candid spirit, +without a single lurking thought of practical innovation, confront with +our dithyramb this paragraph on which I stumbled in a newspaper +immediately after reading Mr. Roebuck:-- + +"A shocking child murder has just been committed at Nottingham. A girl +named Wragg left the workhouse there on Saturday morning with her young +illegitimate child. The child was soon afterwards found dead on Mapperly +Hills, having been strangled. Wragg is in custody." + +Nothing but that; but, in juxtaposition with the absolute eulogies of +Sir Charles Adderley and Mr. Roebuck, how eloquent, how suggestive are +those few lines! "Our old Anglo-Saxon breed, the best in the whole +world!"--how much that is harsh and ill-favored there is in this best! +_Wragg!_ If we are to talk of ideal perfection, of "the best in the +whole world," has any one reflected what a touch of grossness in our +race, what an original short-coming in the more delicate spiritual +perceptions, is shown by the natural growth amongst us of such hideous +names,--Higginbottom, Stiggins, Bugg! In Ionia and Attica they were +luckier in this respect than "the best race in the world"; by the +Ilissus there was no Wragg, poor thing! And "our unrivalled happiness"; +--what an element of grimness, bareness, and hideousness mixes with it +and blurs it; the workhouse, the dismal Mapperly Hills,--how dismal +those who have seen them will remember;--the gloom, the smoke, the cold, +the strangled illegitimate child! "I ask you whether, the world over or +in past history, there is anything like it?" Perhaps not, one is +inclined to answer; but at any rate, in that case, the world is very +much to be pitied. And the final touch,--short, bleak and inhuman: +_Wragg is in custody_. The sex lost in the confusion of our unrivalled +happiness; or (shall I say?) the superfluous Christian name lopped off +by the straightforward vigor of our old Anglo-Saxon breed! There is +profit for the spirit in such contrasts as this; criticism serves the +cause of perfection by establishing them. By eluding sterile conflict, +by refusing to remain in the sphere where alone narrow and relative +conceptions have any worth and validity, criticism may diminish its +momentary importance, but only in this way has it a chance of gaining +admittance for those wider and more perfect conceptions to which all its +duty is really owed. Mr. Roebuck will have a poor opinion of an +adversary who replies to his defiant songs of triumph only by murmuring +under his breath, _Wragg is in custody_; but in no other way will these +songs of triumph be induced gradually to moderate themselves, to get rid +of what in them is excessive and offensive, and to fall into a softer +and truer key. + +It will be said that it is a very subtle and indirect action which I am +thus prescribing for criticism, and that, by embracing in this manner +the Indian virtue of detachment[40] and abandoning the sphere of +practical life, it condemns itself to a slow and obscure work. Slow and +obscure it may be, but it is the only proper work of criticism. The mass +of mankind will never have any ardent zeal for seeing things as they +are; very inadequate ideas will always satisfy them. On these inadequate +ideas reposes, and must repose, the general practice of the world. That +is as much as saying that whoever sets himself to see things as they are +will find himself one of a very small circle; but it is only by this +small circle resolutely doing its own work that adequate ideas will ever +get current at all. The rush and roar of practical life will always have +a dizzying and attracting effect upon the most collected spectator, and +tend to draw him into its vortex; most of all will this be the case +where that life is so powerful as it is in England. But it is only by +remaining collected, and refusing to lend himself to the point of view +of the practical man, that the critic can do the practical man any +service; and it is only by the greatest sincerity in pursuing his own +course, and by at last convincing even the practical man of his +sincerity, that he can escape misunderstandings which perpetually +threaten him. + +For the practical man is not apt for fine distinctions, and yet in these +distinctions truth and the highest culture greatly find their account. +But it is not easy to lead a practical man,--unless you reassure him as +to your practical intentions, you have no chance of leading him,--to see +that a thing which he has always been used to look at from one side +only, which he greatly values, and which, looked at from that side, +quite deserves, perhaps, all the prizing and admiring which he bestows +upon it,--that this thing, looked at from another side, may appear much +less beneficent and beautiful, and yet retain all its claims to our +practical allegiance. Where shall we find language innocent enough, how +shall we make the spotless purity of our intentions evident enough, to +enable us to say to the political Englishmen that the British +Constitution itself, which, seen from the practical side, looks such a +magnificent organ of progress and virtue, seen from the speculative +side,--with its compromises, its love of facts, its horror of theory, +its studied avoidance of clear thoughts,--that, seen from this side, our +august Constitution sometimes looks,--forgive me, shade of Lord +Somers![41]--a colossal machine for the manufacture of Philistines? How +is Cobbett[42] to say this and not be misunderstood, blackened as he is +with the smoke of a lifelong conflict in the field of political +practice? how is Mr. Carlyle to say it and not be misunderstood, after +his furious raid into this field with his _Latter-day Pamphlets?_[43] +how is Mr. Ruskin,[44] after his pugnacious political economy? I say, +the critic must keep out of the region of immediate practice in the +political, social, humanitarian sphere, if he wants to make a beginning +for that more free speculative treatment of things, which may perhaps +one day make its benefits felt even in this sphere, but in a natural and +thence irresistible manner. + +Do what he will, however, the critic will still remain exposed to +frequent misunderstandings, and nowhere so much as in this country. For +here people are particularly indisposed even to comprehend that without +this free disinterested treatment of things, truth and the highest +culture are out of the question. So immersed are they in practical life, +so accustomed to take all their notions from this life and its +processes, that they are apt to think that truth and culture themselves +can be reached by the processes of this life, and that it is an +impertinent singularity to think of reaching them in any other. "We are +all _terrae filii_,"[45] cries their eloquent advocate; "all +Philistines[46] together. Away with the notion of proceeding by any +other course than the course dear to the Philistines; let us have a +social movement, let us organize and combine a party to pursue truth and +new thought, let us call it _the liberal party_, and let us all stick to +each other, and back each other up. Let us have no nonsense about +independent criticism, and intellectual delicacy, and the few and the +many. Don't let us trouble ourselves about foreign thought; we shall +invent the whole thing for ourselves as we go along. If one of us speaks +well, applaud him; if one of us speaks ill, applaud him too; we are all +in the same movement, we are all liberals, we are all in pursuit of +truth." In this way the pursuit of truth becomes really a social, +practical, pleasurable affair, almost requiring a chairman, a secretary, +and advertisements; with the excitement of an occasional scandal, with a +little resistance to give the happy sense of difficulty overcome; but, +in general, plenty of bustle and very little thought. To act is so easy, +as Goethe says; to think is so hard![47] It is true that the critic has +many temptations to go with the stream, to make one of the party +movement, one of these _terrae filii_; it seems ungracious to refuse to +be a _terrae filius_, when so many excellent people are; but the critic's +duty is to refuse, or, if resistance is vain, at least to cry with +Obermann: _Perissons en resistant_[48]. + +How serious a matter it is to try and resist, I had ample opportunity of +experiencing when I ventured some time ago to criticize the celebrated +first volume of Bishop Colenso.[49] The echoes of the storm which was +then raised I still, from time to time, hear grumbling round me. That +storm arose out of a misunderstanding almost inevitable. It is a result +of no little culture to attain to a clear perception that science and +religion are two wholly different things. The multitude will forever +confuse them; but happily that is of no great real importance, for while +the multitude imagines itself to live by its false science, it does +really live by its true religion. Dr. Colenso, however, in his first +volume did all he could to strengthen the confusion,[50] and to make it +dangerous. He did this with the best intentions, I freely admit, and +with the most candid ignorance that this was the natural effect of what +he was doing; but, says Joubert, "Ignorance, which in matters of morals +extenuates the crime, is itself, in intellectual matters, a crime of the +first order."[51] I criticized Bishop Colenso's speculative confusion. +Immediately there was a cry raised: "What is this? here is a liberal +attacking a liberal. Do not you belong to the movement? are not you a +friend of truth? Is not Bishop Colenso in pursuit of truth? then speak +with proper respect of his book. Dr. Stanley[52] is another friend of +truth, and you speak with proper respect of his book; why make these +invidious differences? both books are excellent, admirable, liberal; +Bishop Colenso's perhaps the most so, because it is the boldest, and +will have the best practical consequences for the liberal cause. Do you +want to encourage to the attack of a brother liberal his, and your, and +our implacable enemies, the _Church and State Review_ or the _Record_,-- +the High Church rhinoceros and the Evangelical hyena? Be silent, +therefore; or rather speak, speak as loud as ever you can! and go into +ecstasies over the eighty and odd pigeons." + +But criticism cannot follow this coarse and indiscriminate method. It is +unfortunately possible for a man in pursuit of truth to write a book +which reposes upon a false conception. Even the practical consequences +of a book are to genuine criticism no recommendation of it, if the book +is, in the highest sense, blundering. I see that a lady[53] who herself, +too, is in pursuit of truth, and who writes with great ability, but a +little too much, perhaps, under the influence of the practical spirit of +the English liberal movement, classes Bishop Colenso's book and M. +Renan's[54] together, in her survey of the religious state of Europe, as +facts of the same order, works, both of them, of "great importance"; +"great ability, power, and skill"; Bishop Colenso's, perhaps, the most +powerful; at least, Miss Cobbe gives special expression to her gratitude +that to Bishop Colenso "has been given the strength to grasp, and the +courage to teach, truths of such deep import." In the same way, more +than one popular writer has compared him to Luther. Now it is just this +kind of false estimate which the critical spirit is, it seems to me, +bound to resist. It is really the strongest possible proof of the low +ebb at which, in England, the critical spirit is, that while the +critical hit in the religious literature of Germany is Dr. Strauss's[55] +book, in that of France M. Renan's book, the book of Bishop Colenso is +the critical hit in the religious literature of England. Bishop +Colenso's book reposes on a total misconception of the essential +elements of the religious problem, as that problem is now presented for +solution. To criticism, therefore, which seeks to have the best that is +known and thought on this problem, it is, however well meant, of no +importance whatever. M. Renan's book attempts a new synthesis of the +elements furnished to us by the Four Gospels. It attempts, in my +opinion, a synthesis, perhaps premature, perhaps impossible, certainly +not successful. Up to the present time, at any rate, we must acquiesce +in Fleury's sentence on such recastings of the Gospel story: _Quiconque +s'imagine la pouvoir mieux ecrire, ne l'entend pas_.[56] M. Renan had +himself passed by anticipation a like sentence on his own work, when he +said: "If a new presentation of the character of Jesus were offered to +me, I would not have it; its very clearness would be, in my opinion, the +best proof of its insufficiency." His friends may with perfect justice +rejoin that at the sight of the Holy Land, and of the actual scene of +the Gospel story, all the current of M. Renan's thoughts may have +naturally changed, and a new casting of that story irresistibly +suggested itself to him; and that this is just a case for applying +Cicero's maxim: Change of mind is not inconsistency--_nemo doctus unquam +mutationem consilii inconstantiam dixit esse_.[57] Nevertheless, for +criticism, M. Renan's first thought must still be the truer one, as long +as his new casting so fails more fully to commend itself, more fully (to +use Coleridge's happy phrase[58] about the Bible) to _find_ us. Still M. +Renan's attempt is, for criticism, of the most real interest and +importance, since, with all its difficulty, a fresh synthesis of the New +Testament _data_--not a making war on them, in Voltaire's fashion, not a +leaving them out of mind, in the world's fashion, but the putting a new +construction upon them, the taking them from under the old, traditional, +conventional point of view and placing them under a new one--is the very +essence of the religious problem, as now presented; and only by efforts +in this direction can it receive a solution. + +Again, in the same spirit in which she judges Bishop Colenso, Miss +Cobbe, like so many earnest liberals of our practical race, both here +and in America, herself sets vigorously about a positive reconstruction +of religion, about making a religion of the future out of hand, or at +least setting about making it. We must not rest, she and they are always +thinking and saying, in negative criticism, we must be creative and +constructive; hence we have such works as her recent _Religious Duty_, +and works still more considerable, perhaps, by others, which will be in +every one's mind. These works often have much ability; they often spring +out of sincere convictions, and a sincere wish to do good; and they +sometimes, perhaps, do good. Their fault is (if I may be permitted to +say so) one which they have in common with the British College of +Health, in the New Road. Every one knows the British College of Health; +it is that building with the lion and the statue of the Goddess Hygeia +before it; at least I am sure about the lion, though I am not absolutely +certain about the Goddess Hygeia. This building does credit, perhaps, to +the resources of Dr. Morrison and his disciples; but it falls a good +deal short of one's idea of what a British College of Health ought to +be. In England, where we hate public interference and love individual +enterprise, we have a whole crop of places like the British College of +Health; the grand name without the grand thing. Unluckily, creditable to +individual enterprise as they are, they tend to impair our taste by +making us forget what more grandiose, noble, or beautiful character +properly belongs to a public institution. The same may be said of the +religions of the future of Miss Cobbe and others. Creditable, like the +British College of Health, to the resources of their authors, they yet +tend to make us forget what more grandiose, noble, or beautiful +character properly belongs to religious constructions. The historic +religions, with all their faults, have had this; it certainly belongs to +the religious sentiment, when it truly flowers, to have this; and we +impoverish our spirit if we allow a religion of the future without it. +What then is the duty of criticism here? To take the practical point of +view, to applaud the liberal movement and all its works,--its New Road +religions of the future into the bargain,--for their general utility's +sake? By no means; but to be perpetually dissatisfied with these works, +while they perpetually fall short of a high and perfect ideal. For +criticism, these are elementary laws; but they never can be popular, and +in this country they have been very little followed, and one meets with +immense obstacles in following them. That is a reason for asserting them +again and again. Criticism must maintain its independence of the +practical spirit and its aims. Even with well-meant efforts of the +practical spirit it must express dissatisfaction, if in the sphere of +the ideal they seem impoverishing and limiting. It must not hurry on to +the goal because of its practical importance. It must be patient, and +know how to wait; and flexible, and know how to attach itself to things +and how to withdraw from them. It must be apt to study and praise +elements that for the fulness of spiritual perfection are wanted, even +though they belong to a power which in the practical sphere may be +maleficent. It must be apt to discern the spiritual shortcomings or +illusions of powers that in the practical sphere may be beneficent. And +this without any notion of favoring or injuring, in the practical +sphere, one power or the other; without any notion of playing off, in +this sphere, one power against the other. When one looks, for instance, +at the English Divorce Court--an institution which perhaps has its +practical conveniences, but which in the ideal sphere is so hideous; an +institution which neither makes divorce impossible nor makes it decent, +which allows a man to get rid of his wife, or a wife of her husband, but +makes them drag one another first, for the public edification, through a +mire of unutterable infamy,--when one looks at this charming +institution, I say, with its crowded trials, its newspaper reports, and +its money compensations, this institution in which the gross +unregenerate British Philistine has indeed stamped an image of himself, +--one may be permitted to find the marriage theory of Catholicism +refreshing and elevating. Or when Protestantism, in virtue of its +supposed rational and intellectual origin, gives the law to criticism +too magisterially, criticism may and must remind it that its +pretensions, in this respect, are illusive and do it harm; that the +Reformation was a moral rather than an intellectual event; that Luther's +theory of grace[59] no more exactly reflects the mind of the spirit than +Bossuet's philosophy of history[60] reflects it; and that there is no +more antecedent probability of the Bishop of Durham's stock of ideas +being agreeable to perfect reason than of Pope Pius the Ninth's. But +criticism will not on that account forget the achievements of +Protestantism in the practical and moral sphere; nor that, even in the +intellectual sphere, Protestantism, though in a blind and stumbling +manner, carried forward the Renascence, while Catholicism threw itself +violently across its path. + +I lately heard a man of thought and energy contrasting the want of ardor +and movement which he now found amongst young men in this country with +what he remembered in his own youth, twenty years ago. "What reformers +we were then!" he exclaimed; "What a zeal we had! how we canvassed every +institution in Church and State, and were prepared to remodel them all +on first principles!" He was inclined to regret, as a spiritual +flagging, the lull which he saw. I am disposed rather to regard it as a +pause in which the turn to a new mode of spiritual progress is being +accomplished. Everything was long seen, by the young and ardent amongst +us, in inseparable connection with politics and practical life. We have +pretty well exhausted the benefits of seeing things in this connection, +we have got all that can be got by so seeing them. Let us try a more +disinterested mode of seeing them; let us betake ourselves more to the +serener life of the mind and spirit. This life, too, may have its +excesses and dangers; but they are not for us at present. Let us think +of quietly enlarging our stock of true and fresh ideas, and not, as soon +as we get an idea or half an idea, be running out with it into the +street, and trying to make it rule there. Our ideas will, in the end, +shape the world all the better for maturing a little. Perhaps in fifty +years' time it will in the English House of Commons be an objection to +an institution that it is an anomaly, and my friend the Member of +Parliament will shudder in his grave. But let us in the meanwhile rather +endeavor that in twenty years' time it may, in English literature, be an +objection to a proposition that it is absurd. That will be a change so +vast, that the imagination almost fails to grasp it. _Ab Integro +soeclorum nascitur ordo_.[61] + +If I have insisted so much on the course which criticism must take where +politics and religion are concerned, it is because, where these burning +matters are in question, it is most likely to go astray. I have wished, +above all, to insist on the attitude which criticism should adopt +towards things in general; on its right tone and temper of mind. But +then comes another question as to the subject-matter which literary +criticism should most seek. Here, in general, its course is determined +for it by the idea which is the law of its being: the idea of a +disinterested endeavor to learn and propagate the best that is known and +thought in the world, and thus to establish a current of fresh and true +ideas. By the very nature of things, as England is not all the world, +much of the best that is known and thought in the world cannot be of +English growth, must be foreign; by the nature of things, again, it is +just this that we are least likely to know, while English thought is +streaming in upon us from all sides, and takes excellent care that we +shall not be ignorant of its existence. The English critic of +literature, therefore, must dwell much on foreign thought, and with +particular heed on any part of it, which, while significant and fruitful +in itself, is for any reason specially likely to escape him. Again, +judging is often spoken of as the critic's one business, and so in some +sense it is; but the judgment which almost insensibly forms itself in a +fair and clear mind, along with fresh knowledge, is the valuable one; +and thus knowledge, and ever fresh knowledge, must be the critic's great +concern for himself. And it is by communicating fresh knowledge, and +letting his own judgment pass along with it,--but insensibly, and in the +second place, not the first, as a sort of companion and clue, not as an +abstract lawgiver,--that the critic will generally do most good to his +readers. Sometimes, no doubt, for the sake of establishing an author's +place in literature, and his relation to a central standard (and if this +is not done, how are we to get at our _best in the world?_) criticism +may have to deal with a subject-matter so familiar that fresh knowledge +is out of the question, and then it must be all judgment; an enunciation +and detailed application of principles. Here the great safeguard is +never to let oneself become abstract, always to retain an intimate and +lively consciousness of the truth of what one is saying, and, the moment +this fails us, to be sure that something is wrong. Still under all +circumstances, this mere judgment and application of principles is, in +itself, not the most satisfactory work to the critic; like mathematics, +it is tautological, and cannot well give us, like fresh learning, the +sense of creative activity. + +But stop, some one will say; all this talk is of no practical use to us +whatever; this criticism of yours is not what we have in our minds when +we speak of criticism; when we speak of critics and criticism, we mean +critics and criticism of the current English literature of the day: when +you offer to tell criticism its function, it is to this criticism that +we expect you to address yourself. I am sorry for it, for I am afraid I +must disappoint these expectations. I am bound by my own definition of +criticism; _a disinterested endeavor to learn and propagate the best +that is known and thought in the world._. How much of current English +literature comes into this "best that is known and thought in the +world"? Not very much I fear; certainly less, at this moment, than of +the current literature of France or Germany. Well, then, am I to alter +my definition of criticism, in order to meet the requirements of a +number of practising English critics, who, after all, are free in their +choice of a business? That would be making criticism lend itself just to +one of those alien practical considerations, which, I have said, are so +fatal to it. One may say, indeed, to those who have to deal with the +mass--so much better disregarded--of current English literature, that +they may at all events endeavor, in dealing with this, to try it, so far +as they can, by the standard of the best that is known and thought in +the world; one may say, that to get anywhere near this standard, every +critic should try and possess one great literature, at least, besides +his own; and the more unlike his own, the better. But, after all, the +criticism I am really concerned with,--the criticism which alone can +much help us for the future, the criticism which, throughout Europe, is +at the present day meant, when so much stress is laid on the importance +of criticism and the critical spirit,--is a criticism which regards +Europe as being, for intellectual and spiritual purposes, one great +confederation, bound to a joint action and working to a common result; +and whose members have, for their proper outfit, a knowledge of Greek, +Roman, and Eastern antiquity, and of one another. Special, local, and +temporary advantages being put out of account, that modern nation will +in the intellectual and spiritual sphere make most progress, which most +thoroughly carries out this program. And what is that but saying that we +too, all of us, as individuals, the more thoroughly we carry it out, +shall make the more progress? + +There is so much inviting us!--what are we to take? what will nourish us +in growth towards perfection? That is the question which, with the +immense field of life and of literature lying before him, the critic has +to answer; for himself first, and afterwards for others. In this idea of +the critic's business the essays brought together in the following pages +have had their origin; in this idea, widely different as are their +subjects, they have, perhaps, their unity. + +I conclude with what I said at the beginning: to have the sense of +creative activity is the great happiness and the great proof of being +alive, and it is not denied to criticism to have it; but then criticism +must be sincere, simple, flexible, ardent, ever widening its knowledge. +Then it may have, in no contemptible measure, a joyful sense of creative +activity; a sense which a man of insight and conscience will prefer to +what he might derive from a poor, starved, fragmentary, inadequate +creation. And at some epochs no other creation is possible. + +Still, in full measure, the sense of creative activity belongs only to +genuine creation; in literature we must never forget that. But what true +man of letters ever can forget it? It is no such common matter for a +gifted nature to come into possession of a current of true and living +ideas, and to produce amidst the inspiration of them, that we are likely +to underrate it. The epochs of AEschylus and Shakespeare make us feel +their preeminence. In an epoch like those is, no doubt, the true life of +literature; there is the promised land, towards which criticism can only +beckon. That promised land it will not be ours to enter, and we shall +die in the wilderness: but to have desired to enter it, to have saluted +it from afar, is already, perhaps, the best distinction among +contemporaries; it will certainly be the best title to esteem with +posterity. + + + +THE STUDY OF POETRY[62] + + +"The future of poetry is immense, because in poetry, where it is worthy +of its high destinies, our race, as time goes on, will find an ever +surer and surer stay. There is not a creed which is not shaken, not an +accredited dogma which is not shown to be questionable, not a received +tradition which does not threaten to dissolve. Our religion has +materialized itself in the fact, in the supposed fact; it has attached +its emotion to the fact, and how the fact is failing it. But for poetry +the idea is everything; the rest is a world of illusion, of divine +illusion. Poetry attaches its emotion to the idea; the idea _is_ the +fact. The strongest part of our religion today is its unconscious +poetry."[63] + +Let me be permitted to quote these words of my own, as uttering the +thought which should, in my opinion, go with us and govern us in all our +study of poetry. In the present work it is the course of one great +contributory stream to the world-river of poetry that we are invited to +follow. We are here invited to trace the stream of English poetry. But +whether we set ourselves, as here, to follow only one of the several +streams that make the mighty river of poetry, or whether we seek to know +them all, our governing thought should be the same. We should conceive +of poetry worthily, and more highly than it has been the custom to +conceive of it. We should conceive of it as capable of higher uses, and +called to higher destinies than those which in general men have +assigned to it hitherto. More and more mankind will discover that we +have to turn to poetry to interpret life for us, to console us, to +sustain us. Without poetry, our science will appear incomplete; and most +of what now passes with us for religion and philosophy will be replaced +by poetry. Science, I say, will appear incomplete without it. For finely +and truly does Wordsworth call poetry "the impassioned expression which +is in a countenance of all science"[64] and what is a countenance +without its expression? Again, Wordsworth finely and truly calls poetry +"the breath and finer spirit of all knowledge":[64] our religion, +parading evidences such as those on which the popular mind relies now; +our philosophy, pluming itself on its reasonings about causation and +finite and infinite being; what are they but the shadows and dreams and +false shows of knowledge? The day will come when we shall wonder at +ourselves for having trusted to them, for having taken them seriously; +and the more we perceive their hollowness, the more we shall prize "the +breath and finer spirit of knowledge" offered to us by poetry. + +But if we conceive thus highly of the destinies of poetry, we must also +set our standard for poetry high, since poetry, to be capable of +fulfilling such high destinies, must be poetry of a high order of +excellence. We must accustom ourselves to a high standard and to a +strict judgment. Sainte-Beuve relates that Napoleon one day said, when +somebody was spoken of in his presence as a charlatan: "Charlatan as +much as you please; but where is there _not_ charlatanism?"--"Yes," +answers Sainte-Beuve,[65] "in politics, in the art of governing mankind, +that is perhaps true. But in the order of thought, in art, the glory, +the eternal honor is that charlatanism shall find no entrance; herein +lies the inviolableness of that noble portion of man's being." It is +admirably said, and let us hold fast to it. In poetry, which is thought +and art in one, it is the glory, the eternal honor, that charlatanism +shall find no entrance; that this noble sphere be kept inviolate and +inviolable. Charlatanism is for confusing or obliterating the +distinctions between excellent and inferior, sound and unsound or only +half-sound, true and untrue or only half-true. It is charlatanism, +conscious or unconscious, whenever we confuse or obliterate these. And +in poetry, more than anywhere else, it is unpermissible to confuse or +obliterate them. For in poetry the distinction between excellent and +inferior, sound and unsound or only half-sound, true and untrue or only +half-true, is of paramount importance. It is of paramount importance +because of the high destinies of poetry. In poetry, as a criticism of +life[66] under the conditions fixed for such a criticism by the laws of +poetic truth and poetic beauty, the spirit of our race will find, we +have said, as time goes on and as other helps fail, its consolation and +stay. But the consolation and stay will be of power in proportion to the +power of the criticism of life. And the criticism of life will be of +power in proportion as the poetry conveying it is excellent rather than +inferior, sound rather than unsound or half-sound, true rather than +untrue or half-true. + +The best poetry is what we want; the best poetry will be found to have a +power of forming, sustaining, and delighting us, as nothing else can. A +clearer, deeper sense of the best[67] is the most precious benefit which +we can gather from a poetical collection such as the present. And yet in +the very nature and conduct of such a collection there is inevitably +something which tends to obscure in us the consciousness of what our +benefit should be, and to distract us from the pursuit of it. We should +therefore steadily set it before our minds at the outset, and should +compel ourselves to revert constantly to the thought of it as we +proceed. + +Yes; constantly in reading poetry, a sense for the best, the really +excellent, and of the strength and joy to be drawn from it, should be +present in our minds and should govern our estimate of what we read. But +this real estimate, the only true one, is liable to be superseded, if we +are not watchful, by two other kinds of estimate, the historic estimate +and the personal estimate, both of which are fallacious. A poet or a +poem may count to us historically, they may count to us on grounds +personal to ourselves, and they may count to us really. They may count +to us historically. The course of development of a nation's language, +thought, and poetry, is profoundly interesting; and by regarding a +poet's work as a stage in this course of development we may easily bring +ourselves to make it of more importance as poetry than in itself it +really is, we may come to use a language of quite exaggerated praise in +criticising it; in short, to over-rate it. So arises in our poetic +judgments the fallacy caused by the estimate which we may call historic. +Then, again, a poet or a poem may count to us on grounds personal to +ourselves. Our personal affinities, likings, and circumstances, have +great power to sway our estimate of this or that poet's work, and to +make us attach more importance to it as poetry than in itself it really +possesses, because to us it is, or has been, of high importance. Here +also we over-rate the object of our interest, and apply to it a language +of praise which is quite exaggerated. And thus we get the source of a +second fallacy in our poetic judgments--the fallacy caused by an +estimate which we may call personal. + +Both fallacies are natural. It is evident how naturally the study of the +history and development of a poetry may incline a man to pause over +reputations and works once conspicuous but now obscure, and to quarrel +with a careless public for skipping, in obedience to mere tradition and +habit, from one famous name or work in its national poetry to another, +ignorant of what it misses, and of the reason for keeping what it keeps, +and of the whole process of growth in its poetry. The French have become +diligent students of their own early poetry, which they long neglected; +the study makes many of them dissatisfied with their so-called classical +poetry, the court-tragedy of the seventeenth century, a poetry which +Pellisson[68] long ago reproached with its want of the true poetic +stamp, with its _politesse sterile et rampante?_[69] but which +nevertheless has reigned in France as absolutely as if it had been the +perfection of classical poetry indeed. The dissatisfaction is natural; +yet a lively and accomplished critic, M. Charles d'Hericault,[70] the +editor of Clement Marot, goes too far when he says that "the cloud of +glory playing round a classic is a mist as dangerous to the future of a +literature as it is intolerable for the purposes of history." "It +hinders," he goes on, "it hinders us from seeing more than one single +point, the culminating and exceptional point, the summary, fictitious +and arbitrary, of a thought and of a work. It substitutes a halo for a +physiognomy, it puts a statue where there was once a man, and hiding +from us all trace of the labor, the attempts, the weaknesses, the +failures, it claims not study but veneration; it does not show us how +the thing is done, it imposes upon us a model. Above all, for the +historian this creation of classic personages is inadmissible; for it +withdraws the poet from his time, from his proper life, it breaks +historical relationships, it blinds criticism by conventional +admiration, and renders the investigation of literary origins +unacceptable. It gives us a human personage no longer, but a God seated +immovable amidst His perfect work, like Jupiter on Olympus; and hardly +will it be possible for the young student, to whom such work is +exhibited at such a distance from him, to believe that it did not issue +ready made from that divine head." + +All this is brilliantly and tellingly said, but we must plead for a +distinction. Everything depends on the reality of a poet's classic +character. If he is a dubious classic, let us sift him; if he is a false +classic, let us explode him. But if he is a real classic, if his work +belongs to the class of the very best (for this is the true and right +meaning of the word _classic, classical_), then the great thing for us +is to feel and enjoy his work as deeply as ever we can, and to +appreciate the wide difference between it and all work which has not the +same high character. This is what is salutary, this is what is +formative; this is the great benefit to be got from the study of poetry. +Everything which interferes with it, which hinders it, is injurious. +True, we must read our classic with open eyes, and not with eyes blinded +with superstition; we must perceive when his work comes short, when it +drops out of the class of the very best, and we must rate it, in such +cases, at its proper value. But the use of this negative criticism is +not in itself, it is entirely in its enabling us to have a clearer sense +and a deeper enjoyment of what is truly excellent. To trace the labor, +the attempts, the weaknesses, the failures of a genuine classic, to +acquaint oneself with his time and his life and his historical +relationships, is mere literary dilettantism unless it has that clear +sense and deeper enjoyment for its end. It may be said that the more we +know about a classic the better we shall enjoy him; and, if we lived as +long as Methuselah and had all of us heads of perfect clearness and +wills of perfect steadfastness, this might be true in fact as it is +plausible in theory. But the case here is much the same as the case with +the Greek and Latin studies of our schoolboys. The elaborate +philological groundwork which we requite them to lay is in theory an +admirable preparation for appreciating the Greek and Latin authors +worthily. The more thoroughly we lay the groundwork, the better we shall +be able, it may be said, to enjoy the authors. True, if time were not so +short, and schoolboys' wits not so soon tired and their power of +attention exhausted; only, as it is, the elaborate philological +preparation goes on, but the authors are little known and less enjoyed. +So with the investigator of "historic origins" in poetry. He ought to +enjoy the true classic all the better for his investigations; he often +is distracted from the enjoyment of the best, and with the less good he +overbusies himself, and is prone to over-rate it in proportion to the +trouble which it has cost him. + +The idea of tracing historic origins and historical relationships cannot +be absent from a compilation like the present. And naturally the poets +to be exhibited in it will be assigned to those persons for exhibition +who are known to prize them highly, rather than to those who have no +special inclination towards them. Moreover the very occupation with an +author, and the business of exhibiting him, disposes us to affirm and +amplify his importance. In the present work, therefore, we are sure of +frequent temptation to adopt the historic estimate, or the personal +estimate, and to forget the real estimate; which latter, nevertheless, +we must employ if we are to make poetry yield us its full benefit. So +high is that benefit, the benefit of clearly feeling and of deeply +enjoying the really excellent, the truly classic in poetry, that we do +well, I say, to set it fixedly before our minds as our object in +studying poets and poetry, and to make the desire of attaining it the +one principle to which, as the _Imitation_ says, whatever we may read or +come to know, we always return. _Cum multa legeris et cognoveris, ad +unum semper oportet redire principium._[71] + +The historic estimate is likely in especial to affect our judgment and +our language when we are dealing with ancient poets; the personal +estimate when we are dealing with poets our contemporaries, or at any +rate modern. The exaggerations due to the historic estimate are not in +themselves, perhaps, of very much gravity. Their report hardly enters +the general ear; probably they do not always impose even on the literary +men who adopt them. But they lead to a dangerous abuse of language. So +we hear Caedmon,[72] amongst, our own poets, compared to Milton. I have +already noticed the enthusiasm of one accomplished French critic for +"historic origins." Another eminent French critic, M. Vitet,[73] +comments upon that famous document of the early poetry of his nation, +the _Chanson de Roland._[74] It is indeed a most interesting document. +The _joculator_ or _jongleur_ Taillefer, who was with William the +Conqueror's army at Hastings, marched before the Norman troops, so said +the tradition, singing "of Charlemagne and of Roland and of Oliver, and +of the vassals who died at Roncevaux"; and it is suggested that in the +_Chanson de Roland_ by one Turoldus or Theroulde, a poem preserved in a +manuscript of the twelfth century in the Bodleian Library at Oxford, we +have certainly the matter, perhaps even some of the words, of the chant +which Taillefer sang. The poem has vigor and freshness; it is not +without pathos. But M. Vitet is not satisfied with seeing in it a +document of some poetic value, and of very high historic and linguistic +value; he sees in it a grand and beautiful work, a monument of epic +genius. In its general design he finds the grandiose conception, in its +details he finds the constant union of simplicity with greatness, which +are the marks, he truly says, of the genuine epic, and distinguish it +from the artificial epic of literary ages. One thinks of Homer; this is +the sort of praise which is given to Homer, and justly given. Higher +praise there cannot well be, and it is the praise due to epic poetry of +the highest order only, and to no other. Let us try, then, the _Chanson +de Roland_ at its best. Roland, mortally wounded, lays himself down +under a pine-tree, with his face turned towards Spain and the enemy-- + + "De plusurs choses a remembrer li prist, + De tantes teres cume li bers cunquist, + De dulce France, des humes de sun lign, + De Carlemagne sun seignor ki l'nurrit."[75] + +That is primitive work, I repeat, with an undeniable poetic quality of +its own. It deserves such praise, and such praise is sufficient for it. +But now turn to Homer-- + + [Greek: + Os phato tous d aedae katecheu phusizoos aia + en Lakedaimoni authi, philm en patridi gaim][76] + + +We are here in another world, another order of poetry altogether; here +is rightly due such supreme praise as that which M. Vitet gives to the +_Chanson de Roland_. If our words are to have any meaning, if our +judgments are to have any solidity, we must not heap that supreme praise +upon poetry of an order immeasurably inferior. + +Indeed there can be no more useful help for discovering what poetry +belongs to the class of the truly excellent, and can therefore do us +most good, than to have always in one's mind lines and expressions of +the great masters, and to apply them as a touchstone to other poetry. Of +course we are not to require this other poetry to resemble them; it may +be very dissimilar. But if we have any tact we shall find them, when we +have lodged them well in our minds, an infallible touchstone for +detecting the presence or absence of high poetic quality, and also the +degree of this quality, in all other poetry which we may place beside +them. Short passages, even single lines, will serve our turn quite +sufficiently. Take the two lines which I have just quoted from Homer, +the poet's comment on Helen's mention of her brothers;--or take his + + [Greek:] + A delo, to sphoi domen Paelaei anakti + Thnaeta; umeis d eston agaero t athanato te. + ae ina dustaenoiosi met andrasin alge echaeton;[77] + +the address of Zeus to the horses of Peleus;--or take finally his + + [Greek:] + Kai se, geron, to prin men akouomen olbion einar[78] + +the words of Achilles to Priam, a suppliant before him. Take that +incomparable line and a half of Dante, Ugolino's tremendous words-- + + "Io no piangeva; si dentro impietrai. + Piangevan elli ..."[79] + +take the lovely words of Beatrice to Virgil-- + + "Io son fatta da Dio, sua merce, tale, + Che la vostra miseria non mi tange, + Ne fiamma d'esto incendio non m'assale ..."[80] + +take the simple, but perfect, single line-- + + "In la sua volontade e nostra pace."[81] + +Take of Shakespeare a line or two of Henry the Fourth's expostulation +with sleep-- + + "Wilt thou upon the high and giddy mast + Seal up the ship-boy's eyes, and rock his brains + In cradle of the rude imperious surge ..."[82] + +and take, as well, Hamlet's dying request to Horatio-- + + "If thou didst ever hold me in thy heart, + Absent thee from felicity awhile, + And in this harsh world draw thy breath in pain + To tell my story ..."[83] + +Take of Milton that Miltonic passage-- + + "Darken'd so, yet shone + Above them all the archangel; but his face + Deep scars of thunder had intrench'd, and care + Sat on his faded cheek ..."[84] + +add two such lines as-- + + "And courage never to submit or yield + And what is else not to be overcome ..."[85] + +and finish with the exquisite close to the loss of Proserpine, the loss + + " ... which cost Ceres all that pain + To seek her through the world."[86] + +These few lines, if we have tact and can use them, are enough even of +themselves to keep clear and sound our judgments about poetry, to save +us from fallacious estimates of it, to conduct us to a real estimate. + +The specimens I have quoted differ widely from one another, but they +have in common this: the possession of the very highest poetical +quality. If we are thoroughly penetrated by their power, we shall find +that we have acquired a sense enabling us, whatever poetry may be laid +before us, to feel the degree in which a high poetical quality is +present or wanting there. Critics give themselves great labor to draw +out what in the abstract constitutes the characters of a high quality of +poetry. It is much better simply to have recourse to concrete examples; +--to take specimens of poetry of the high, the very highest quality, and +to say: The characters of a high quality of poetry are what is expressed +_there_. They are far better recognized by being felt in the verse of +the master, than by being perused in the prose of the critic. +Nevertheless if we are urgently pressed to give some critical account of +them, we may safely, perhaps, venture on laying down, not indeed how and +why the characters arise, but where and in what they arise. They are in +the matter and substance of the poetry, and they are in its manner and +style. Both of these, the substance and matter on the one hand, the +style and manner on the other, have a mark, an accent, of high beauty, +worth, and power. But if we are asked to define this mark and accent in +the abstract, our answer must be: No, for we should thereby be darkening +the question, not clearing it. The mark and accent are as given by the +substance and matter of that poetry, by the style and manner of that +poetry, and of all other poetry which is akin to it in quality. + +Only one thing we may add as to the substance and matter of poetry, +guiding ourselves by Aristotle's profound observation[87] that the +superiority of poetry over history consists in its possessing a higher +truth and a higher seriousness ([Greek: philosophoteron kahi +spondaioteron]). Let us add, therefore, to what we have said, this: that +the substance and matter of the best poetry acquire their special +character from possessing, in an eminent degree, truth and seriousness. +We may add yet further, what is in itself evident, that to the style and +manner of the best poetry their special character, their accent, is +given by their diction, and, even yet more, by their movement. And +though we distinguish between the two characters, the two accents, of +superiority, yet they are nevertheless vitally connected one with the +other. The superior character of truth and seriousness, in the matter +and substance of the best poetry, is inseparable from the superiority of +diction and movement marking its style and manner. The two superiorities +are closely related, and are in steadfast proportion one to the other. +So far as high poetic truth and seriousness are wanting to a poet's +matter and substance, so far also, we may be sure, will a high poetic +stamp of diction and movement be wanting to his style and manner. In +proportion as this high stamp of diction and movement, again, is absent +from a poet's style and manner, we shall find, also, that high poetic +truth and seriousness are absent from his substance and matter. + +So stated, these are but dry generalities; their whole force lies in +their application. And I could wish every student of poetry to make the +application of them for himself. Made by himself, the application would +impress itself upon his mind far more deeply than made by me. Neither +will my limits allow me to make any full application of the generalities +above propounded; but in the hope of bringing out, at any rate, some +significance in them, and of establishing an important principle more +firmly by their means, I will, in the space which remains to me, follow +rapidly from the commencement the course of our English poetry with them +in my view. + +Once more I return to the early poetry of France, with which our own +poetry, in its origins, is indissolubly connected. In the twelfth and +thirteenth centuries, that seed-time of all modern language and +literature, the poetry of France had a clear predominance in Europe. Of +the two divisions of that poetry, its productions in the _langue d'oil_ +and its productions in the _langue d'oc_, the poetry of the _langue +d'oc_,[88] of southern France, of the troubadours, is of importance +because of its effect on Italian literature;--the first literature of +modern Europe to strike the true and grand note, and to bring forth, as +in Dante and Petrarch it brought forth, classics. But the predominance +of French poetry in Europe, during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, +is due to its poetry of the _langue d'oil_, the poetry of northern +France and of the tongue which is now the French language. In the +twelfth century the bloom of this romance-poetry was earlier and +stronger in England, at the court of our Anglo-Norman kings, than in +France itself. But it was a bloom of French poetry; and as our native +poetry formed itself, it formed itself out of this. The romance-poems +which took possession of the heart and imagination of Europe in the +twelfth and thirteenth centuries are French; "they are," as Southey +justly says, "the pride of French literature, nor have we anything which +can be placed in competition with them." Themes were supplied from all +quarters: but the romance-setting which was common to them all, and +which gained the ear of Europe, was French. This constituted for the +French poetry, literature, and language, at the height of the Middle +Age, an unchallenged predominance. The Italian Brunetto Latini,[89] the +master of Dante, wrote his _Treasure_ in French because, he says, "la +parleure en est plus delitable et plus commune a toutes gens." In the +same century, the thirteenth, the French romance-writer, Christian of +Troyes,[90] formulates the claims, in chivalry and letters, of France, +his native country, as follows:-- + + "Or vous ert par ce livre apris, + Que Gresse ot de chevalerie + Le premier los et de clergie; + Puis vint chevalerie a Rome, + Et de la clergie la some, + Qui ore est en France venue. + Diex doinst qu'ele i soit retenue + Et que li lius li abelisse + Tant que de France n'isse + L'onor qui s'i est arestee!" + +"Now by this book you will learn that first Greece had the renown for +chivalry and letters: then chivalry and the primacy in letters passed to +Rome, and now it is come to France. God grant it may be kept there; and +that the place may please it so well, that the honor which has come to +make stay in France may never depart thence!" + +Yet it is now all gone, this French romance-poetry, of which the weight +of substance and the power of style are not unfairly represented by this +extract from Christian of Troyes. Only by means of the historic estimate +can we persuade ourselves now to think that any of it is of poetical +importance. + +But in the fourteenth century there comes an Englishman nourished on +this poetry; taught his trade by this poetry, getting words, rhyme, +meter from this poetry; for even of that stanza[91] which the Italians +used, and which Chaucer derived immediately from the Italians, the basis +and suggestion was probably given in France. Chaucer (I have already +named him) fascinated his contemporaries, but so too did Christian of +Troyes and Wolfram of Eschenbach.[92] Chaucer's power of fascination, +however, is enduring; his poetical importance does not need the +assistance of the historic estimate; it is real. He is a genuine source +of joy and strength, which is flowing still for us and will flow always. +He will be read, as time goes on, far more generally than he is read +now. His language is a cause of difficulty for us; but so also, and I +think in quite as great a degree, is the language of Burns. In +Chaucer's case, as in that of Burns, it is a difficulty to be +unhesitatingly accepted and overcome. + +If we ask ourselves wherein consists the immense superiority of +Chaucer's poetry over the romance-poetry--why it is that in passing from +this to Chaucer we suddenly feel ourselves to be in another world, we +shall find that his superiority is both in the substance of his poetry +and in the style of his poetry. His superiority in substance is given by +his large, free, simple, clear yet kindly view of human life,--so unlike +the total want, in the romance-poets, of all intelligent command of it. +Chaucer has not their helplessness; he has gained the power to survey +the world from a central, a truly human point of view. We have only to +call to mind the Prologue to _The Canterbury Tales_. The right comment +upon it is Dryden's: "It is sufficient to say, according to the proverb, +that _here is God's plenty_."[93] And again: "He is a perpetual fountain +of good sense." It is by a large, free, sound representation of things, +that poetry, this high criticism of life, has truth of substance; and +Chaucer's poetry has truth of substance. + +Of his style and manner, if we think first of the romance-poetry and +then of Chaucer's divine liquidness of diction, his divine fluidity of +movement, it is difficult to speak temperately. They are irresistible, +and justify all the rapture with which his successors speak of his "gold +dew-drops of speech." Johnson misses the point entirely when he finds +fault with Dryden for ascribing to Chaucer the first refinement of our +numbers, and says that Gower[94] also can show smooth numbers and easy +rhymes. The refinement of our numbers means something far more than +this. A nation may have versifiers with smooth numbers and easy rhymes, +and yet may have no real poetry at all. Chaucer is the father of our +splendid English poetry; he is our "well of English undefiled," because +by the lovely charm of his diction, the lovely charm of his movement, he +makes an epoch and founds a tradition. + +In Spenser, Shakespeare, Milton, Keats, we can follow the tradition of +the liquid diction, the fluid movement, of Chaucer; at one time it is +his liquid diction of which in these poets we feel the virtue, and at +another time it is his fluid movement. And the virtue is irresistible. + +Bounded as is my space, I must yet find room for an example of Chaucer's +virtue, as I have given examples to show the virtue of the great +classics. I feel disposed to say that a single line is enough to show +the charm of Chaucer's verse; that merely one line like this-- + + "O martyr souded[95] in virginitee!" + +has a virtue of manner and movement such as we shall not find in all the +verse of romance-poetry;--but this is saying nothing. The virtue is such +as we shall not find, perhaps, in all English poetry, outside the poets +whom I have named as the special inheritors of Chaucer's tradition. A +single line, however, is too little if we have not the strain of +Chaucer's verse well in our memory; let us take a stanza. It is from +_The Prioress's Tale_, the story of the Christian child murdered in a +Jewry-- + + "My throte is cut unto my nekke-bone + Saide this child, and as by way of kinde + I should have deyd, yea, longe time agone; + But Jesu Christ, as ye in bookes finde, + Will that his glory last and be in minde, + And for the worship of his mother dere + Yet may I sing _O Alma_ loud and clere." + +Wordsworth has modernized this Tale, and to feel how delicate and +evanescent is the charm of verse, we have only to read Wordsworth's +first three lines of this stanza after Chaucer's-- + + "My throat is cut unto the bone, I trow, + Said this young child, and by the law of kind + I should have died, yea, many hours ago." + +The charm is departed. It is often said that the power of liquidness and +fluidity in Chaucer's verse was dependent upon a free, a licentious +dealing with language, such as is now impossible; upon a liberty, such +as Burns too enjoyed, of making words like _neck_, _bird_, into a +dissyllable by adding to them, and words like _cause_, _rhyme_, into a +dissyllable by sounding the _e_ mute. It is true that Chaucer's fluidity +is conjoined with this liberty, and is admirably served by it; but we +ought not to say that it was dependent upon it. It was dependent upon +his talent. Other poets with a like liberty do not attain to the +fluidity of Chaucer; Burns himself does not attain to it. Poets, again, +who have a talent akin to Chaucer's, such as Shakespeare or Keats, have +known how to attain to his fluidity without the like liberty. + +And yet Chaucer is not one of the great classics. His poetry transcends +and effaces, easily and without effort, all the romance-poetry of +Catholic Christendom; it transcends and effaces all the English poetry +contemporary with it, it transcends and effaces all the English poetry +subsequent to it down to the age of Elizabeth. Of such avail is poetic +truth of substance, in its natural and necessary union with poetic truth +of style. And yet, I say, Chaucer is not one of the great classics. He +has not their accent. What is wanting to him is suggested by the mere +mention of the name of the first great classic of Christendom, the +immortal poet who died eighty years before Chaucer,--Dante. The accent +of such verse as + + "In la sua volontade e nostra pace ..." + +is altogether beyond Chaucer's reach; we praise him, but we feel that +this accent is out of the question for him. It may be said that it was +necessarily out of the reach of any poet in the England of that stage of +growth. Possibly; but we are to adopt a real, not a historic, estimate +of poetry. However we may account for its absence, something is wanting, +then, to the poetry of Chaucer, which poetry must have before it can be +placed in the glorious class of the best. And there is no doubt what +that something is. It is the[Greek: spoudaiotaes] the high and +excellent seriousness, which Aristotle assigns as one of the grand +virtues of poetry. The substance of Chaucer's poetry, his view of things +and his criticism of life, has largeness, freedom, shrewdness, +benignity; but it has not this high seriousness. Homer's criticism of +life has it, Dante's has it, Shakespeare's has it. It is this chiefly +which gives to our spirits what they can rest upon; and with the +increasing demands of our modern ages upon poetry, this virtue of giving +us what we can rest upon will be more and more highly esteemed. A voice +from the slums of Paris, fifty or sixty years after Chaucer, the voice +of poor Villon[96] out of his life of riot and crime, has at its happy +moments (as, for instance, in the last stanza of _La Belle Heaulmiere_ +[97]) more of this important poetic virtue of seriousness than all the +productions of Chaucer. But its apparition in Villon, and in men like +Villon, is fitful; the greatness of the great poets, the power of their +criticism of life, is that their virtue is sustained. + +To our praise, therefore, of Chaucer as a poet there must be this +limitation: he lacks the high seriousness of the great classics, and +therewith an important part of their virtue. Still, the main fact for us +to bear in mind about Chaucer is his sterling value according to that +real estimate which we firmly adopt for all poets. He has poetic truth +of substance, though he has not high poetic seriousness, and +corresponding to his truth of substance he has an exquisite virtue of +style and manner. With him is born our real poetry. + +For my present purpose I need not dwell on our Elizabethan poetry, or on +the continuation and close of this poetry in Milton. We all of us +profess to be agreed in the estimate of this poetry; we all of us +recognize it as great poetry, our greatest, and Shakespeare and Milton +as our poetical classics. The real estimate, here, has universal +currency. With the next age of our poetry divergency and difficulty +begin. An historic estimate of that poetry has established itself; and +the question is, whether it will be found to coincide with the real +estimate. + +The age of Dryden, together with our whole eighteenth century which +followed it, sincerely believed itself to have produced poetical +classics of its own, and even to have made advance, in poetry, beyond +all its predecessors. Dryden regards as not seriously disputable the +opinion "that the sweetness of English verse was never understood or +practised by our fathers."[98] Cowley could see nothing at all in +Chaucer's poetry.[99] Dryden heartily admired it, and, as we have seen, +praised its matter admirably; but of its exquisite manner and movement +all he can find to say is that "there is the rude sweetness of a Scotch +tune in it, which is natural and pleasing, though not perfect."[100] +Addison, wishing to praise Chaucer's numbers, compares them with +Dryden's own. And all through the eighteenth century, and down even into +our own times, the stereotyped phrase of approbation for good verse +found in our early poetry has been, that it even approached the verse of +Dryden, Addison, Pope, and Johnson. + +Are Dryden and Pope poetical classics? Is the historic estimate, which +represents them as such, and which has been so long established that it +cannot easily give way, the real estimate? Wordsworth and Coleridge, as +is well known, denied it;[101] but the authority of Wordsworth and +Coleridge does not weigh much with the young generation, and there are +many signs to show that the eighteenth century and its judgments are +coming into favor again. Are the favorite poets of the eighteenth +century classics? + +It is impossible within my present limits to discuss the question fully. +And what man of letters would not shrink from seeming to dispose +dictatorially of the claims of two men who are, at any rate, such +masters in letters as Dryden and Pope; two men of such admirable talent, +both of them, and one of them, Dryden, a man, on all sides, of such +energetic and genial power? And yet, if we are to gain the full benefit +from poetry, we must have the real estimate of it. I cast about for some +mode of arriving, in the present case, at such an estimate without +offence. And perhaps the best way is to begin, as it is easy to begin, +with cordial praise. + +When we find Chapman, the Elizabethan translator of Homer, expressing +himself in his preface thus: "Though truth in her very nakedness sits in +so deep a pit, that from Gades to Aurora and Ganges few eyes can sound +her, I hope yet those few here will so discover and confirm that, the +date being out of her darkness in this morning of our poet, he shall now +gird his temples with the sun,"--we pronounce that such a prose is +intolerable. When we find Milton writing: "And long it was not after, +when I was confirmed in this opinion, that he, who would not be +frustrate of his hope to write well hereafter in laudable things, ought +himself to be a true poem,"[102]--we pronounce that such a prose has its +own grandeur, but that it is obsolete and inconvenient. But when we find +Dryden telling us: "What Virgil wrote in the vigor of his age, in plenty +and at ease, I have undertaken to translate in my declining years; +struggling with wants, oppressed with sickness, curbed in my genius, +liable to be misconstrued in all I write,"[103]--then we exclaim that +here at last we have the true English prose, a prose such as we would +all gladly use if we only knew how. Yet Dryden was Milton's +contemporary. + +But after the Restoration the time had come when our nation felt the +imperious need of a fit prose. So, too, the time had likewise come when +our nation felt the imperious need of freeing itself from the absorbing +preoccupation which religion in the Puritan age had exercised. It was +impossible that this freedom should be brought about without some +negative excess, without some neglect and impairment of the religious +life of the soul; and the spiritual history of the eighteenth century +shows us that the freedom was not achieved without them. Still, the +freedom was achieved; the preoccupation, an undoubtedly baneful and +retarding one if it had continued, was got rid of. And as with religion +amongst us at that period, so it was also with letters. A fit prose was +a necessity; but it was impossible that a fit prose should establish +itself amongst us without some touch of frost to the imaginative life of +the soul. The needful qualities for a fit prose are regularity, +uniformity, precision, balance. The men of letters, whose destiny it may +be to bring their nation to the attainment of a fit prose, must of +necessity, whether they work in prose or in verse, give a predominating, +an almost exclusive attention to the qualities of regularity, +uniformity, precision, balance. But an almost exclusive attention to +these qualities involves some repression and silencing of poetry. + +We are to regard Dryden as the puissant and glorious founder, Pope as +the splendid high priest, of our age of prose and reason, of our +excellent and indispensable eighteenth century. For the purposes of +their mission and destiny their poetry, like their prose, is admirable. +Do you ask me whether Dryden's verse, take it almost where you will, is +not good? + + "A milk-white Hind, immortal and unchanged, + Fed on the lawns and in the forest ranged."[104] + +I answer: Admirable for the purposes of the inaugurator of an age of +prose and reason. Do you ask me whether Pope's verse, take it almost +where you will, is not good? + + "To Hounslow Heath I point, and Banstead Down; + Thence comes your mutton, and these chicks my own."[105] + +I answer: Admirable for the purposes of the high priest of an age of +prose and reason. But do you ask me whether such verse proceeds from men +with an adequate poetic criticism of life, from men whose criticism of +life has a high seriousness, or even, without that high seriousness, has +poetic largeness, freedom, insight, benignity? Do you ask me whether the +application of ideas to life in the verse of these men, often a powerful +application, no doubt, is a powerful _poetic_ application? Do you ask me +whether the poetry of these men has either the matter or the inseparable +manner of such an adequate poetic criticism; whether it has the accent +of + + "Absent thee from felicity awhile ... " + +or of + + "And what is else not to be overcome ... " + +or of + + "O martyr sonded in virginitee!" + +I answer: It has not and cannot have them; it is the poetry of the +builders of an age of prose and reason. + +Though they may write in verse, though they may in a certain sense be +masters of the art of versification, Dryden and Pope are not classics of +our poetry, they are classics of our prose. + +Gray is our poetical classic of that literature and age; the position of +Gray is singular, and demands a word of notice here. He has not the +volume or the power of poets who, coming in times more favorable, have +attained to an independent criticism of life. But he lived with the +great poets, he lived, above all, with the Greeks, through perpetually +studying and enjoying them; and he caught their poetic point of view for +regarding life, caught their poetic manner. The point of view and the +manner are not self-sprung in him, he caught them of others; and he had +not the free and abundant use of them. But whereas Addison and Pope +never had the use of them, Gray had the use of them at times. He is the +scantiest and frailest of classics in our poetry, but he is a classic. + +And now, after Gray, we are met, as we draw towards the end of the +eighteenth century, we are met by the great name of Burns. We enter now +on times where the personal estimate of poets begins to be rife, and +where the real estimate of them is not reached without difficulty. But +in spite of the disturbing pressures of personal partiality, of national +partiality, let us try to reach a real estimate of the poetry of Burns. +By his English poetry Burns in general belongs to the eighteenth +century, and has little importance for us. + + "Mark ruffian Violence, distain'd with crimes, + Rousing elate in these degenerate times; + View unsuspecting Innocence a prey, + As guileful Fraud points out the erring way; + While subtle Litigation's pliant tongue + The life-blood equal sucks of Right and Wrong!"[106] + +Evidently this is not the real Burns, or his name and fame would have +disappeared long ago. Nor is Clarinda's[107] love-poet, Sylvander, the +real Burns either. But he tells us himself: "These English songs gravel +me to death. I have not the command of the language that I have of my +native tongue. In fact, I think that my ideas are more barren in English +than in Scotch. I have been at _Duncan Gray_ to dress it in English, but +all I can do is desperately stupid."[108] We English turn naturally, in +Burns, to the poems in our own language, because we can read them +easily; but in those poems we have not the real Burns. + +The real Burns is of course in his Scotch poems. Let us boldly say that +of much of this poetry, a poetry dealing perpetually with Scotch drink, +Scotch religion, and Scotch manners, a Scotchman's estimate is apt to be +personal. A Scotchman is used to this world of Scotch drink, Scotch +religion, and Scotch manners; he has a tenderness for it; he meets its +poet half way. In this tender mood he reads pieces like the _Holy Fair +or Halloween_. But this world of Scotch drink, Scotch religion, and +Scotch manners is against a poet, not for him, when it is not a partial +countryman who reads him; for in itself it is not a beautiful world, and +no one can deny that it is of advantage to a poet to deal with a +beautiful world. Burns's world of Scotch drink, Scotch religion, and +Scotch manners, is often a harsh, a sordid, a repulsive world; even the +world of his _Cotter's Saturday Night_ is not a beautiful world. No +doubt a poet's criticism of life may have such truth and power that it +triumphs over its world and delights us. Burns may triumph over his +world, often he does triumph over his world, but let us observe how and +where. Burns is the first case we have had where the bias of the +personal estimate tends to mislead; let us look at him closely, he can +bear it. + +Many of his admirers will tell us that we have Burns, convivial, +genuine, delightful, here-- + + + "Leeze me on drink! it gies us mair + Than either school or college; + It kindles wit, it waukens lair, + It pangs us fou o' knowledge. + Be't whisky gill or penny wheep + Or ony stronger potion, + It never fails, on drinking deep, + To kittle up our notion + By night or day."[109] + +There is a great deal of that sort of thing in Burns, and it is +unsatisfactory, not because it is bacchanalian poetry, but because it +has not that accent of sincerity which bacchanalian poetry, to do it +justice, very often has. There is something in it of bravado, something +which makes us feel that we have not the man speaking to us with his +real voice: something, therefore, poetically unsound. + +With still more confidence will his admirers tell us that we have the +genuine Burns, the great poet, when his strain asserts the independence, +equality, dignity, of men, as in the famous song _For a' that and a' +that_-- + + "A prince can mak' a belted knight, + A marquis, duke, and a' that; + But an honest man's a boon his might, + Guid faith he manna fa' that! + For a' that, and a' that, + Their dignities, and a' that, + The pith o' sense, and pride o' worth, + Are higher rank than a' that." + +Here they find his grand, genuine touches; and still more, when this +puissant genius, who so often set morality at defiance, falls +moralizing-- + + "The sacred lowe o' weel placed love + Luxuriantly indulge it; + But never tempt th' illicit rove, + Tho' naething should divulge it. + I waive the quantum o' the sin, + The hazard o' concealing, + But och! it hardens a' within, + And petrifies the feeling."[110] + +Or in a higher strain-- + + "Who made the heart, 'tis He alone + Decidedly can try us; + He knows each chord, its various tone; + Each spring, its various bias. + Then at the balance let's be mute, + We never can adjust it; + What's _done_ we partly may compute, + But know not what's resisted."[111] + +Or in a better strain yet, a strain, his admirers will say, +unsurpassable-- + + "To make a happy fire-side clime + To weans and wife, + That's the true pathos and sublime + Of human life."[112] + +There is criticism of life for you, the admirers of Burns will say to +us; there is the application of ideas to life! There is, undoubtedly. +The doctrine of the last-quoted lines coincides almost exactly with what +was the aim and end, Xenophon tells us, of all the teaching of Socrates. +And the application is a powerful one; made by a man of vigorous +understanding, and (need I say?) a master of language. + +But for supreme poetical success more is required than the powerful +application of ideas to life; it must be an application under the +conditions fixed by the laws of poetic truth and poetic beauty. Those +laws fix as an essential condition, in the poet's treatment of such +matters as are here in question, high seriousness;--the high seriousness +which comes from absolute sincerity. The accent of high seriousness, +born of absolute sincerity, is what gives to such verse as + + "In la sua volontade e nostra pace..." + +to such criticism of life as Dante's, its power. Is this accent felt in +the passages which I have been quoting from Burns? Surely not; surely, +if our sense is quick, we must perceive that we have not in those +passages a voice from the very inmost soul of the genuine Burns; he is +not speaking to us from these depths, he is more or less preaching. And +the compensation for admiring such passages less, for missing the +perfect poetic accent in them, will be that we shall admire more the +poetry where that accent is found. + +No; Burns, like Chaucer, comes short of the high seriousness of the +great classics, and the virtue of matter and manner which goes with that +high seriousness is wanting to his work. At moments he touches it in a +profound and passionate melancholy, as in those four immortal lines +taken by Byron as a motto for _The Bride of Abydos_, but which have in +them a depth of poetic quality such as resides in no verse of Byron's +own-- + + "Had we never loved sae kindly, + Had we never loved sae blindly, + Never met, or never parted, + We had ne'er been broken-hearted." + +But a whole poem of that quality Burns cannot make; the rest, in the +_Farewell to Nancy_, is verbiage. + +We arrive best at the real estimate of Burns, I think, by conceiving his +work as having truth of matter and truth of manner, but not the accent +or the poetic virtue of the highest masters. His genuine criticism of +life, when the sheer poet in him speaks, is ironic; it is not-- + + "Thou Power Supreme, whose mighty scheme + These woes of mine fulfil, + Here firm I rest, they must be best + Because they are Thy will!"[113] + +It is far rather: _Whistle owre the lave o't!_ Yet we may say of him as +of Chaucer, that of life and the world, as they come before him, his +view is large, free, shrewd, benignant,--truly poetic, therefore; and +his manner of rendering what he sees is to match. But we must note, at +the same time, his great difference from Chaucer. The freedom of Chaucer +is heightened, in Burns, by a fiery, reckless energy; the benignity of +Chaucer deepens, in Burns, into an overwhelming sense of the pathos of +things;--of the pathos of human nature, the pathos, also, of non-human +nature. Instead of the fluidity of Chaucer's manner, the manner of Burns +has spring, bounding swiftness. Burns is by far the greater force, +though he has perhaps less charm. The world of Chaucer is fairer, +richer, more significant than that of Burns; but when the largeness and +freedom of Burns get full sweep, as in _Tam o' Shanter_, or still more +in that puissant and splendid production, _The Jolly Beggars_, his world +may be what it will, his poetic genius triumphs over it. In the world of +_The Jolly Beggars_ there is more than hideousness and squalor, there is +bestiality; yet the piece is a superb poetic success. It has a breadth, +truth, and power which make the famous scene in Auerbach's Cellar, of +Goethe's _Faust_, seem artificial and tame beside it, and which are only +matched by Shakespeare and Aristophanes. + +Here, where his largeness and freedom serve him so admirably, and also +in those poems and songs where to shrewdness he adds infinite archness +and, wit, and to benignity infinite pathos, where his manner is +flawless, and a perfect poetic whole is the result,--in things like the +address to the mouse whose home he had ruined, in things like _Duncan +Gray, Tarn Glen, Whistle and I'll come to you my Lad, Auld Lang Syne_ +(this list might be made much longer),--here we have the genuine Burns, +of whom the real estimate must be high indeed. Not a classic, nor with +the excellent[Greek: spoudaihotaes] of the great classics, nor with a +verse rising to a criticism of life and a virtue like theirs; but a poet +with thorough truth of substance and an answering truth of style, giving +us a poetry sound to the core. We all of us have a leaning towards the +pathetic, and may be inclined perhaps to prize Burns most for his +touches of piercing, sometimes almost intolerable, pathos; for verse +like-- + + "We twa hae paidl't i' the burn + From mornin' sun till dine; + But seas between us braid hae roar'd + Sin auld lang syne ..." + +where he is as lovely as he is sound. But perhaps it is by the +perfection of soundness of his lighter and archer masterpieces that he +is poetically most wholesome for us. For the votary misled by a personal +estimate of Shelley, as so many of us have been, are, and will be,--of +that beautiful spirit building his many-colored haze of words and images + + "Pinnacled dim in the intense inane"--[114] + +no contact can be wholesomer than the contact with Burns at his archest +and soundest. Side by side with the + + "On the brink of the night and the morning + My coursers are wont to respire, + But the Earth has just whispered a warning + That their flight must be swifter than fire ..."[115] + +of _Prometheus Unbound_, how salutary, how very salutary, to place this +from _Tam Glen_-- + + "My minnie does constantly deave me + and bids me beware o' young men; + They flatter, she says, to deceive me; + But wha can think sae o' Tam Glen?" + +But we enter on burning ground as we approach the poetry of times so +near to us--poetry like that of Byron, Shelley, and Wordsworth--of which +the estimates are so often not only personal, but personal with passion. +For my purpose, it is enough to have taken the single case of Burns, the +first poet we come to of whose work the estimate formed is evidently apt +to be personal, and to have suggested how we may proceed, using the +poetry of the great classics as a sort of touchstone, to correct this +estimate, as we had previously corrected by the same means the historic +estimate where we met with it. A collection like the present, with its +succession of celebrated names and celebrated poems, offers a good +opportunity to us for resolutely endeavoring to make our estimates of +poetry real. I have sought to point out a method which will help us in +making them so, and to exhibit it in use so far as to put any one who +likes in a way of applying it for himself. + +At any rate the end to which the method and the estimate are designed to +lead, and from leading to which, if they do lead to it, they get their +whole value,--the benefit of being able clearly to feel and deeply to +enjoy the best, the truly classic, in poetry,--is an end, let me say it +once more at parting, of supreme importance. We are often told that an +era is opening in which we are to see multitudes of a common sort of +readers, and masses of a common sort of literature; that such readers do +not want and could not relish anything better than such literature, and +that to provide it is becoming a vast and profitable industry. Even if +good literature entirely lost currency with the world, it would still be +abundantly worth while to continue to enjoy it by oneself. But it never +will lose currency with the world, in spite of momentary appearances; it +never will lose supremacy. Currency and supremacy are insured to it, not +indeed by the world's deliberate and conscious choice, but by something +far deeper,--by the instinct of self-preservation in humanity. + + + +LITERATURE AND SCIENCE[116] + + +Practical people talk with a smile of Plato and of his absolute ideas; +and it is impossible to deny that Plato's ideas do often seem +unpractical and impracticable, and especially when one views them in +connection with the life of a great work-a-day world like the United +States. The necessary staple of the life of such a world Plato regards +with disdain; handicraft and trade and the working professions he +regards with disdain; but what becomes of the life of an industrial +modern community if you take handicraft and trade and the working +professions out of it? The base mechanic arts and handicrafts, says +Plato, bring about a natural weakness in the principle of excellence in +a man, so that he cannot govern the ignoble growths in him, but nurses +them, and cannot understand fostering any other. Those who exercise such +arts and trades, as they have their bodies, he says, marred by their +vulgar businesses, so they have their souls, too, bowed and broken by +them. And if one of these uncomely people has a mind to seek +self-culture and philosophy, Plato compares him to a bald little +tinker,[117] who has scraped together money, and has got his release +from service, and has had a bath, and bought a new coat, and is rigged +out like a bridegroom about to marry the daughter of his master who has +fallen into poor and helpless estate. + +Nor do the working professions fare any better than trade at the hands +of Plato. He draws for us an inimitable picture of the working +lawyer,[118] and of his life of bondage; he shows how this bondage from +his youth up has stunted and warped him, and made him small and crooked +of soul, encompassing him with difficulties which he is not man enough +to rely on justice and truth as means to encounter, but has recourse, +for help out of them, to falsehood and wrong. And so, says Plato, this +poor creature is bent and broken, and grows up from boy to man without a +particle of soundness in him, although exceedingly smart and clever in +his own esteem. + +One cannot refuse to admire the artist who draws these pictures. But we +say to ourselves that his ideas show the influence of a primitive and +obsolete order of things, when the warrior caste and the priestly caste +were alone in honor, and the humble work of the world was done by +slaves. We have now changed all that; the modern majesty[119] consists +in work, as Emerson declares; and in work, we may add, principally of +such plain and dusty kind as the work of cultivators of the ground, +handicraftsmen, men of trade and business, men of the working +professions. Above all is this true in a great industrious community +such as that of the United States. + +Now education, many people go on to say, is still mainly governed by the +ideas of men like Plato, who lived when the warrior caste and the +priestly or philosophical class were alone in honor, and the really +useful part of the community were slaves. It is an education fitted for +persons of leisure in such a community. This education passed from +Greece and Rome to the feudal communities of Europe, where also the +warrior caste and the priestly caste were alone held in honor, and where +the really useful and working part of the community, though not +nominally slaves as in the pagan world, were practically not much better +off than slaves, and not more seriously regarded. And how absurd it is, +people end by saying, to inflict this education upon an industrious +modern community, where very few indeed are persons of leisure, and the +mass to be considered has not leisure, but is bound, for its own great +good, and for the great good of the world at large, to plain labor and +to industrial pursuits, and the education in question tends necessarily +to make men dissatisfied with these pursuits and unfitted for them! + +That is what is said. So far I must defend Plato, as to plead that his +view of education and studies is in the general, as it seems to me, +sound enough, and fitted for all sorts and conditions of men, whatever +their pursuits may be. "An intelligent man," says Plato, "will prize +those studies, which result in his soul getting soberness, +righteousness, and wisdom, and will less value the others."[120] I +cannot consider _that_ a bad description of the aim of education, and of +the motives which should govern us in the choice of studies, whether we +are preparing ourselves for a hereditary seat in the English House of +Lords or for the pork trade in Chicago. + +Still I admit that Plato's world was not ours, that his scorn of trade +and handicraft is fantastic, that he had no conception of a great +industrial community such as that of the United States, and that such a +community must and will shape its education to suit its own needs. If +the usual education handed down to it from the past does not suit it, it +will certainly before long drop this and try another. The usual +education in the past has been mainly literary. The question is whether +the studies which were long supposed to be the best for all of us are +practically the best now; whether others are not better. The tyranny of +the past, many think, weighs on us injuriously in the predominance given +to letters in education. The question is raised whether, to meet the +needs of our modern life, the predominance ought not now to pass from +letters to science; and naturally the question is nowhere raised with +more energy than here in the United States. The design of abasing what +is called "mere literary instruction and education," and of exalting +what is called "sound, extensive, and practical scientific knowledge," +is, in this intensely modern world of the United States, even more +perhaps than in Europe, a very popular design, and makes great and rapid +progress. + +I am going to ask whether the present movement for ousting letters from +their old predominance in education, and for transferring the +predominance in education to the natural sciences, whether this brisk +and flourishing movement ought to prevail, and whether it is likely that +in the end it really will prevail. An objection may be raised which I +will anticipate. My own studies have been almost wholly in letters, and +my visits to the field of the natural sciences have been very slight and +inadequate, although those sciences have always strongly moved my +curiosity. A man of letters, it will perhaps be said, is not competent +to discuss the comparative merits of letters and natural science as +means of education. To this objection I reply, first of all, that his +incompetence, if he attempts the discussion but is really incompetent +for it, will be abundantly visible; nobody will be taken in; he will +have plenty of sharp observers and critics to save mankind from that +danger. But the line I am going to follow is, as you will soon discover, +so extremely simple, that perhaps it may be followed without failure +even by one who for a more ambitious line of discussion would be quite +incompetent. + +Some of you may possibly remember a phrase of mine which has been the +object of a good deal of comment; an observation to the effect that in +our culture, the aim being _to know ourselves and the world_, we have, +as the means to this end, _to know the best which has been thought and +said in the world_.[121] A man of science, who is also an excellent +writer and the very prince of debaters, Professor Huxley, in a discourse +[122] at the opening of Sir Josiah Mason's college at Birmingham, laying +hold of this phrase, expanded it by quoting some more words of mine, +which are these: "The civilized world is to be regarded as now being, +for intellectual and spiritual purposes, one great confederation, bound +to a joint action and working to a common result; and whose members have +for their proper outfit a knowledge of Greek, Roman, and Eastern +antiquity, and of one another. Special local and temporary advantages +being put out of account, that modern nation will in the intellectual +and spiritual sphere make most progress, which most thoroughly carries +out this programme."[123] + +Now on my phrase, thus enlarged, Professor Huxley remarks that when I +speak of the above-mentioned knowledge as enabling us to know ourselves +and the world, I assert _literature_ to contain the materials which +suffice for thus making us know ourselves and the world. But it is not +by any means clear, says he, that after having learnt all which ancient +and modern literatures have to tell us, we have laid a sufficiently +broad and deep foundation for that criticism of life, that knowledge of +ourselves and the world, which constitutes culture. On the contrary, +Professor Huxley declares that he finds himself "wholly unable to admit +that either nations or individuals will really advance, if their outfit +draws nothing from the stores of physical science. An army without +weapons of precision, and with no particular base of operations, might +more hopefully enter upon a campaign on the Rhine, than a man, devoid of +a knowledge of what physical science has done in the last century, upon +a criticism of life." + +This shows how needful it is for those who are to discuss any matter +together, to have a common understanding as to the sense of the terms +they employ,--how needful, and how difficult. What Professor Huxley +says, implies just the reproach which is so often brought against the +study of _belles lettres_, as they are called: that the study is an +elegant one, but slight and ineffectual; a smattering of Greek and Latin +and other ornamental things, of little use for any one whose object is +to get at truth, and to be a practical man. So, too, M. Renan[124] +talks of the "superficial humanism" of a school-course which treats us +as if we were all going to be poets, writers, preachers, orators, and he +opposes this humanism to positive science, or the critical search after +truth. And there is always a tendency in those who are remonstrating +against the predominance of letters in education, to understand by +letters _belles lettres_, and by _belles lettres_ a superficial humanism +the opposite of science or true knowledge. + +But when we talk of knowing Greek and Roman antiquity, for instance, +which is the knowledge people have called the humanities, I for my part +mean a knowledge which is something more than a superficial humanism, +mainly decorative. "I call all teaching _scientific_" says Wolf, the +critic of Homer, "which is systematically laid out and followed up to +its original sources. For example: a knowledge of classical antiquity is +scientific when the remains of classical antiquity are correctly studied +in the original languages." There can be no doubt that Wolf[125] is +perfectly right; that all learning is scientific which is systematically +laid out and followed up to its original sources, and that a genuine +humanism is scientific. + +When I speak of knowing Greek and Roman antiquity, therefore, as a help +to knowing ourselves and the world, I mean more than a knowledge of so +much vocabulary, so much grammar, so many portions of authors in the +Greek and Latin languages, I mean knowing the Greeks and Romans, and +their life and genius, and what they were and did in the world; what we +get from them, and what is its value. That, at least, is the ideal; and +when we talk of endeavoring to know Greek and Roman antiquity, as a help +to knowing ourselves and the world, we mean endeavoring so to know them +as to satisfy this ideal, however much we may still fall short of it. + +The same also as to knowing our own and other modern nations, with the +like aim of getting to understand ourselves and the world. To know the +best that has been thought and said by the modern nations, is to know, +says Professor Huxley, "only what modern _literatures_ have to tell us; +it is the criticism of life contained in modern literature." And yet +"the distinctive character of our times," he urges, "lies in the vast +and constantly increasing part which is played by natural knowledge." +And how, therefore, can a man, devoid of knowledge of what physical +science has done in the last century, enter hopefully upon a criticism +of modern life? + +Let us, I say, be agreed about the meaning of the terms we are using. I +talk of knowing the best which has been thought and uttered in the +world; Professor Huxley says this means knowing _literature_. Literature +is a large word; it may mean everything written with letters or printed +in a book. Euclid's _Elements_ and Newton's _Principia_ are thus +literature. All knowledge that reaches us through books is literature. +But by literature Professor Huxley means _belles lettres_. He means to +make me say, that knowing the best which has been thought and said by +the modern nations is knowing their _belles lettres_ and no more. And +this is no sufficient equipment, he argues, for a criticism of modern +life. But as I do not mean, by knowing ancient Rome, knowing merely more +or less of Latin _belles lettres_, and taking no account of Rome's +military, and political, and legal, and administrative work in the +world; and as, by knowing ancient Greece, I understand knowing her as +the giver of Greek art, and the guide to a free and right use of reason +and to scientific method, and the founder of our mathematics and physics +and astronomy and biology,--I understand knowing her as all this, and +not merely knowing certain Greek poems, and histories, and treatises, +and speeches,--so as to the knowledge of modern nations also. By knowing +modern nations, I mean not merely knowing their _belles lettres_, but +knowing also what has been done by such men as Copernicus, Galileo, +Newton, Darwin. "Our ancestors learned," says Professor Huxley, "that +the earth is the centre of the visible universe, and that man is the +cynosure of things terrestrial; and more especially was it inculcated +that the course of nature had no fixed order, but that it could be, and +constantly was, altered." But for us now, continues Professor Huxley, +"the notions of the beginning and the end of the world entertained by +our forefathers are no longer credible. It is very certain that the +earth is not the chief body in the material universe, and that the world +is not subordinated to man's use. It is even more certain that nature is +the expression of a definite order, with which nothing interferes." "And +yet," he cries, "the purely classical education advocated by the +representatives of the humanists in our day gives no inkling of all +this!" + +In due place and time I will just touch upon that vexed question of +classical education; but at present the question is as to what is meant +by knowing the best which modern nations have thought and said. It is +not knowing their _belles lettres_ merely which is meant. To know +Italian _belles lettres_, is not to know Italy, and to know English +_belles lettres_ is not to know England. Into knowing Italy and England +there comes a great deal more, Galileo and Newton amongst it. The +reproach of being a superficial humanism, a tincture of _belles +lettres_, may attach rightly enough to some other disciplines; but to +the particular discipline recommended when I proposed knowing the best +that has been thought and said in the world, it does not apply. In that +best I certainly include what in modern times has been thought and said +by the great observers and knowers of nature. + +There is, therefore, really no question between Professor Huxley and me +as to whether knowing the great results of the modern scientific study +of nature is not required as a part of our culture, as well as knowing +the products of literature and art. But to follow the processes by which +those results are reached, ought, say the friends of physical science, +to be made the staple of education for the bulk of mankind. And here +there does arise a question between those whom Professor Huxley calls +with playful sarcasm "the Levites of culture," and those whom the poor +humanist is sometimes apt to regard as its Nebuchadnezzars. + +The great results of the scientific investigation of nature we are +agreed upon knowing, but how much of our study are we bound to give to +the processes by which those results are reached? The results have their +visible bearing on human life. But all the processes, too, all the items +of fact, by which those results are reached and established, are +interesting. All knowledge is interesting to a wise man, and the +knowledge of nature is interesting to all men. It is very interesting to +know, that, from the albuminous white of the egg, the chick in the egg +gets the materials for its flesh, bones, blood, and feathers; while from +the fatty yolk of the egg, it gets the heat and energy which enable it +at length to break its shell and begin the world. It is less +interesting, perhaps, but still it is interesting, to know that when a +taper burns, the wax is converted into carbonic acid and water. +Moreover, it is quite true that the habit of dealing with facts, which +is given by the study of nature, is, as the friends of physical science +praise it for being, an excellent discipline. The appeal, in the study +of nature, is constantly to observation and experiment; not only is it +said that the thing is so, but we can be made to see that it is so. Not +only does a man tell us that when a taper burns the wax is converted +into carbonic acid and water, as a man may tell us, if he likes, that +Charon is punting his ferry-boat on the river Styx, or that Victor Hugo +is a sublime poet, or Mr. Gladstone the most admirable of statesmen; but +we are made to see that the conversion into carbonic acid and water does +actually happen. This reality of natural knowledge it is, which makes +the friends of physical science contrast it, as a knowledge of things, +with the humanist's knowledge, which is, say they, a knowledge of words. +And hence Professor Huxley is moved to lay it down that, "for the +purpose of attaining real culture, an exclusively scientific education +is at least as effectual as an exclusively literary education." And a +certain President of the Section for Mechanical Science in the British +Association is, in Scripture phrase, "very bold," and declares that if a +man, in his mental training, "has substituted literature and history for +natural science, he has chosen the less useful alternative." But whether +we go these lengths or not, we must all admit that in natural science +the habit gained of dealing with facts is a most valuable discipline, +and that every one should have some experience of it. + +More than this, however, is demanded by the reformers. It is proposed to +make the training in natural science the main part of education, for the +great majority of mankind at any rate. And here, I confess, I part +company with the friends of physical science, with whom up to this point +I have been agreeing. In differing from them, however, I wish to proceed +with the utmost caution and diffidence. The smallness of my own +acquaintance with the disciplines of natural science is ever before my +mind, and I am fearful of doing these disciplines an injustice. The +ability and pugnacity of the partisans of natural science make them +formidable persons to contradict. The tone of tentative inquiry, which +befits a being of dim faculties and bounded knowledge, is the tone I +would wish to take and not to depart from. At present it seems to me, +that those who are for giving to natural knowledge, as they call it, the +chief place in the education of the majority of mankind, leave one +important thing out of their account: the constitution of human nature. +But I put this forward on the strength of some facts not at all +recondite, very far from it; facts capable of being stated in the +simplest possible fashion, and to which, if I so state them, the man of +science will, I am sure, be willing to allow their due weight. + +Deny the facts altogether, I think, he hardly can. He can hardly deny, +that when we set ourselves to enumerate the powers which go to the +building up of human life, and say that they are the power of conduct, +the power of intellect and knowledge, the power of beauty, and the power +of social life and manners,--he can hardly deny that this scheme, +though drawn in rough and plain lines enough, and not pretending to +scientific exactness, does yet give a fairly true representation of the +matter. Human nature is built up by these powers; we have the need for +them all. When we have rightly met and adjusted the claims of them all, +we shall then be in a fair way for getting soberness, and righteousness +with wisdom. This is evident enough, and the friends of physical science +would admit it. + +But perhaps they may not have sufficiently observed another thing: +namely, that the several powers just mentioned are not isolated, but +there is, in the generality of mankind, a perpetual tendency to relate +them one to another in divers ways. With one such way of relating them I +am particularly concerned now. Following our instinct for intellect and +knowledge, we acquire pieces of knowledge; and presently in the +generality of men, there arises the desire to relate these pieces of +knowledge to our sense for conduct, to our sense for beauty,--and there +is weariness and dissatisfaction if the desire is balked. Now in this +desire lies, I think, the strength of that hold which letters have upon +us. + +All knowledge is, as I said just now, interesting; and even items of +knowledge which from the nature of the case cannot well be related, but +must stand isolated in our thoughts, have their interest. Even lists of +exceptions have their interest. If we are studying Greek accents it is +interesting to know that _pais_ and _pas_, and some other monosyllables +of the same form of declension, do not take the circumflex upon the last +syllable of the genitive plural, but vary, in this respect, from the +common rule. If we are studying physiology, it is interesting to know +that the pulmonary artery carries dark blood and the pulmonary vein +carries bright blood, departing in this respect from the common rule for +the division of labor between the veins and the arteries. But every one +knows how we seek naturally to combine the pieces of our knowledge +together, to bring them under general rules, to relate them to +principles; and how unsatisfactory and tiresome it would be to go on +forever learning lists of exceptions, or accumulating items of fact +which must stand isolated. + +Well, that same need of relating our knowledge, which operates here +within the sphere of our knowledge itself, we shall find operating, +also, outside that sphere. We experience, as we go on learning and +knowing,--the vast majority of us experience,--the need of relating what +we have learnt and known to the sense which we have in us for conduct, +to the sense which we have in us for beauty. + +A certain Greek prophetess of Mantineia in Arcadia, Diotima[126] by +name, once explained to the philosopher Socrates that love, and impulse, +and bent of all kinds, is, in fact, nothing else but the desire in men +that good should forever be present to them. This desire for good, +Diotima assured Socrates, is our fundamental desire, of which +fundamental desire every impulse in us is only some one particular form. +And therefore this fundamental desire it is, I suppose,--this desire in +men that good should be forever present to them,--which acts in us when +we feel the impulse for relating our knowledge to our sense for conduct +and to our sense for beauty. At any rate, with men in general the +instinct exists. Such is human nature. And the instinct, it will be +admitted, is innocent, and human nature is preserved by our following +the lead of its innocent instincts. Therefore, in seeking to gratify +this instinct in question, we are following the instinct of +self-preservation in humanity. + +But, no doubt, some kinds of knowledge cannot be made to directly serve +the instinct in question, cannot be directly related to the sense for +beauty, to the sense for conduct. These are instrument-knowledges; they +lead on to other knowledges, which can. A man who passes his life in +instrument-knowledges is a specialist. They may be invaluable as +instruments to something beyond, for those who have the gift thus to +employ them; and they may be disciplines in themselves wherein it is +useful for every one to have some schooling. But it is inconceivable +that the generality of men should pass all their mental life with Greek +accents or with formal logic. My friend Professor Sylvester,[127] who is +one of the first mathematicians in the world, holds transcendental +doctrines as to the virtue of mathematics, but those doctrines are not +for common men. In the very Senate House and heart of our English +Cambridge I once ventured, though not without an apology for my +profaneness, to hazard the opinion that for the majority of mankind a +little of mathematics, even, goes a long way. Of course this is quite +consistent with their being of immense importance as an instrument to +something else; but it is the few who have the aptitude for thus using +them, not the bulk of mankind. + +The natural sciences do not, however, stand on the same footing with +these instrument-knowledges. Experience shows us that the generality of +men will find more interest in learning that, when a taper burns, the +wax is converted into carbonic acid and water, or in learning the +explanation of the phenomenon of dew, or in learning how the circulation +of the blood is carried on, than they find in learning that the genitive +plural of _pais_ and _pas_ does not take the circumflex on the +termination. And one piece of natural knowledge is added to another, and +others are added to that, and at last we come to propositions so +interesting as Mr. Darwin's famous proposition[128] that "our ancestor +was a hairy quadruped furnished with a tail and pointed ears, probably +arboreal in his habits." Or we come to propositions of such reach and +magnitude as those which Professor Huxley delivers, when he says that +the notions of our forefathers about the beginning and the end of the +world were all wrong, and that nature is the expression of a definite +order with which nothing interferes. + +Interesting, indeed, these results of science are, important they are, +and we should all of us be acquainted with them. But what I now wish you +to mark is, that we are still, when they are propounded to us and we +receive them, we are still in the sphere of intellect and knowledge. And +for the generality of men there will be found, I say, to arise, when +they have duly taken in the proposition that their ancestor was "a hairy +quadruped furnished with a tail and pointed ears, probably arboreal in +his habits," there will be found to arise an invincible desire to relate +this proposition to the sense in us for conduct, and to the sense in us +for beauty. But this the men of science will not do for us, and will +hardly even profess to do. They will give us other pieces of knowledge, +other facts, about other animals and their ancestors, or about plants, +or about stones, or about stars; and they may finally bring us to those +great "general conceptions of the universe, which are forced upon us +all," says Professor Huxley, "by the progress of physical science." But +still it will be _knowledge_, only which they give us; knowledge not put +for us into relation with our sense for conduct, our sense for beauty, +and touched with emotion by being so put; not thus put for us, and +therefore, to the majority of mankind, after a certain while, +unsatisfying, wearying. + +Not to the born naturalist, I admit. But what do we mean by a born +naturalist? We mean a man in whom the zeal for observing nature is so +uncommonly strong and eminent, that it marks him off from the bulk of +mankind. Such a man will pass his life happily in collecting natural +knowledge and reasoning upon it, and will ask for nothing, or hardly +anything, more. I have heard it said that the sagacious and admirable +naturalist whom we lost not very long ago, Mr. Darwin, once owned to a +friend that for his part he did not experience the necessity for two +things which most men find so necessary to them,--religion and poetry; +science and the domestic affections, he thought, were enough. To a born +naturalist, I can well understand that this should seem so. So absorbing +is his occupation with nature, so strong his love for his occupation, +that he goes on acquiring natural knowledge and reasoning upon it, and +has little time or inclination for thinking about getting it related to +the desire in man for conduct, the desire in man for beauty. He relates +it to them for himself as he goes along, so far as he feels the need; +and he draws from the domestic affections all the additional solace +necessary. But then Darwins are extremely rare. Another great and +admirable master of natural knowledge, Faraday, was a Sandemanian.[129]. +That is to say, he related his knowledge to his instinct for conduct and +to his instinct for beauty, by the aid of that respectable Scottish +sectary, Robert Sandeman. And so strong, in general, is the demand of +religion and poetry to have their share in a man, to associate +themselves with his knowing, and to relieve and rejoice it, that, +probably, for one man amongst us with the disposition to do as Darwin +did in this respect, there are at least fifty with the disposition to do +as Faraday. + +Education lays hold upon us, in fact, by satisfying this demand. +Professor Huxley holds up to scorn mediaeval education, with its neglect +of the knowledge of nature, its poverty even of literary studies, its +formal logic devoted to "showing how and why that which the Church said +was true must be true." But the great mediaeval Universities were not +brought into being, we may be sure, by the zeal for giving a jejune and +contemptible education. Kings have been their nursing fathers, and +queens have been their nursing mothers, but not for this. The mediaeval +Universities came into being, because the supposed knowledge, delivered +by Scripture and the Church, so deeply engaged men's hearts, by so +simply, easily, and powerfully relating itself to their desire for +conduct, their desire for beauty. All other knowledge was dominated by +this supposed knowledge and was subordinated to it, because of the +surpassing strength of the hold which it gained upon the affections of +men, by allying itself profoundly with their sense for conduct, their +sense for beauty. + +But now, says Professor Huxley, conceptions of the universe fatal to the +notions held by our forefathers have been forced upon us by physical +science. Grant to him that they are thus fatal, that the new conceptions +must and will soon become current everywhere, and that every one will +finally perceive them to be fatal to the beliefs of our forefathers. The +need of humane letters, as they are truly called, because they serve the +paramount desire in men that good should be forever present to them,-- +the need of humane letters, to establish a relation between the new +conceptions, and our instinct for beauty, our instinct for conduct, is +only the more visible. The Middle Age could do without humane letters, +as it could do without the study of nature, because its supposed +knowledge was made to engage its emotions so powerfully. Grant that the +supposed knowledge disappears, its power of being made to engage the +emotions will of course disappear along with it,--but the emotions +themselves, and their claim to be engaged and satisfied, will remain. +Now if we find by experience that humane letters have an undeniable +power of engaging the emotions, the importance of humane letters in a +man's training becomes not less, but greater, in proportion to the +success of modern science in extirpating what it calls "mediaeval +thinking." + +Have humane letters, then, have poetry and eloquence, the power here +attributed to them of engaging the emotions, and do they exercise it? +And if they have it and exercise it, _how_ do they exercise it, so as to +exert an influence upon man's sense for conduct, his sense for beauty? +Finally, even if they both can and do exert an influence upon the senses +in question, how are they to relate to them the results--the modern +results--of natural science? All these questions may be asked. First, +have poetry and eloquence the power of calling out the emotions? The +appeal is to experience. Experience shows that for the vast majority of +men, for mankind in general, they have the power. Next, do they exercise +it? They do. But then, _how_ do they exercise it so as to affect man's +sense for conduct, his sense for beauty? And this is perhaps a case for +applying the Preacher's words: "Though a man labor to seek it out, yet +he shall not find it; yea, farther, though a wise man think to know it, +yet shall he not be able to find it."[130] Why should it be one thing, +in its effect upon the emotions, to say, "Patience is a virtue," and +quite another thing, in its effect upon the emotions, to say with Homer, + + [Greek: tlaeton gar Moirai thnmontheoan anthropoisin]--[131] + +"for an enduring heart have the destinies appointed to the children of +men"? Why should it be one thing, in its effect upon the emotions, to +say with the philosopher Spinoza, _Felicitas in ea consistit quod homo +suum esse conservare potest_--"Man's happiness consists in his being +able to preserve his own essence," and quite another thing, in its +effect upon the emotions, to say with the Gospel, "What is a man +advantaged, if he gain the whole world, and lose himself, forfeit +himself?"[132] How does this difference of effect arise? I cannot tell, +and I am not much concerned to know; the important thing is that it does +arise, and that we can profit by it. But how, finally, are poetry and +eloquence to exercise the power of relating the modern results of +natural science to man's instinct for conduct, his instinct for beauty? +And here again I answer that I do not know _how_ they will exercise it, +but that they can and will exercise it I am sure. I do not mean that +modern philosophical poets and modern philosophical moralists are to +come and relate for us, in express terms, the results of modern +scientific research to our instinct for conduct, our instinct for +beauty. But I mean that we shall find, as a matter of experience, if we +know the best that has been thought and uttered in the world, we shall +find that the art and poetry and eloquence of men who lived, perhaps, +long ago, who had the most limited natural knowledge, who had the most +erroneous conceptions about many important matters, we shall find that +this art, and poetry, and eloquence, have in fact not only the power of +refreshing and delighting us, they have also the power,--such is the +strength and worth, in essentials, of their authors' criticism of life, +--they have a fortifying, and elevating, and quickening, and suggestive +power, capable of wonderfully helping us to relate the results of modern +science to our need for conduct, our need for beauty. Homer's +conceptions of the physical universe were, I imagine, grotesque; but +really, under the shock of hearing from modern science that "the world +is not subordinated to man's use, and that man is not the cynosure of +things terrestrial," I could, for my own part, desire no better comfort +than Homer's line which I quoted just now, + + [Greek: tlaeton gar Moirai thnmontheoan anthropoisin--] + +"for an enduring heart have the destinies appointed to the children of +men"! + +And the more that men's minds are cleared, the more that the results of +science are frankly accepted, the more that poetry and eloquence come to +be received and studied as what in truth they really are,--the +criticism of life by gifted men, alive and active with extraordinary +power at an unusual number of points;--so much the more will the value +of humane letters, and of art also, which is an utterance having a like +kind of power with theirs, be felt and acknowledged, and their place in +education be secured. + +Let us, therefore, all of us, avoid indeed as much as possible any +invidious comparison between the merits of humane letters, as means of +education, and the merits of the natural sciences. But when some +President of a Section for Mechanical Science insists on making the +comparison, and tells us that "he who in his training has substituted +literature and history for natural science has chosen the less useful +alternative," let us make answer to him that the student of humane +letters only, will, at least, know also the great general conceptions +brought in by modern physical science: for science, as Professor Huxley +says, forces them upon us all. But the student of the natural sciences +only, will, by our very hypothesis, know nothing of humane letters; not +to mention that in setting himself to be perpetually accumulating +natural knowledge, he sets himself to do what only specialists have in +general the gift for doing genially. And so he will probably be +unsatisfied, or at any rate incomplete, and even more incomplete than +the student of humane letters only. + +I once mentioned in a school-report, how a young man in one of our +English training colleges having to paraphrase the passage in _Macbeth_ +beginning, + + "Can'st thou not minister to a mind diseased?"[133] + +turned this line into, "Can you not wait upon the lunatic?" And I +remarked what a curious state of things it would be, if every pupil of +our national schools knew, let us say, that the moon is two thousand one +hundred and sixty miles in diameter, and thought at the same time that a +good paraphrase for + + "Can'st thou not minister to a mind diseased?" + +was, "Can you not wait upon the lunatic?" If one is driven to choose, I +think I would rather have a young person ignorant about the moon's +diameter, but aware that "Can you not wait upon the lunatic?" is bad, +than a young person whose education had been such as to manage things +the other way. + +Or to go higher than the pupils of our national schools. I have in my +mind's eye a member of our British Parliament who comes to travel here +in America, who afterwards relates his travels, and who shows a really +masterly knowledge of the geology of this great country and of its +mining capabilities, but who ends by gravely suggesting that the United +States should borrow a prince from our Royal Family, and should make him +their king, and should create a House of Lords of great landed +proprietors after the pattern of ours; and then America, he thinks, +would have her future happily and perfectly secured. Surely, in this +case, the President of the Section for Mechanical Science would himself +hardly say that our member of Parliament, by concentrating himself upon +geology and mineralogy, and so on, and not attending to literature and +history, had "chosen the more useful alternative." + +If then there is to be separation and option between humane letters on +the one hand, and the natural sciences on the other, the great majority +of mankind, all who have not exceptional and overpowering aptitudes for +the study of nature, would do well, I cannot but think, to choose to be +educated in humane letters rather than in the natural sciences. Letters +will call out their being at more points, will make them live more. + +I said that before I ended I would just touch on the question of +classical education, and I will keep my word. Even if literature is to +retain a large place in our education, yet Latin and Greek, say the +friends of progress, will certainly have to go. Greek is the grand +offender in the eyes of these gentlemen. The attackers of the +established course of study think that against Greek, at any rate, they +have irresistible arguments. Literature may perhaps be needed in +education, they say; but why on earth should it be Greek literature? Why +not French or German? Nay, "has not an Englishman models in his own +literature of every kind of excellence?" As before, it is not on any +weak pleadings of my own that I rely for convincing the gainsayers; it +is on the constitution of human nature itself, and on the instinct of +self-preservation in humanity. The instinct for beauty is set in human +nature, as surely as the instinct for knowledge is set there, or the +instinct for conduct. If the instinct for beauty is served by Greek +literature and art as it is served by no other literature and art, we +may trust to the instinct of self-preservation in humanity for keeping +Greek as part of our culture. We may trust to it for even making the +study of Greek more prevalent than it is now. Greek will come, I hope, +some day to be studied more rationally than at present; but it will be +increasingly studied as men increasingly feel the need in them for +beauty, and how powerfully Greek art and Greek literature can serve this +need. Women will again study Greek, as Lady Jane Grey[134] did; I +believe that in that chain of forts, with which the fair host of the +Amazons are now engirdling our English universities, I find that here in +America, in colleges like Smith College in Massachusetts, and Vassar +College in the State of New York, and in the happy families of the mixed +universities out West, they are studying it already. + +_Defuit una mihi symmetria prisca_,--"The antique symmetry was the one +thing wanting to me," said Leonardo da Vinci; and he was an Italian. I +will not presume to speak for the Americans, but I am sure that, in the +Englishman, the want of this admirable symmetry of the Greeks is a +thousand times more great and crying than in any Italian. The results of +the want show themselves most glaringly, perhaps, in our architecture, +but they show themselves, also, in all our art. _Fit details strictly +combined, in view of a large general result nobly conceived_; that is +just the beautiful _symmetria prisca_ of the Greeks, and it is just +where we English fail, where all our art fails. Striking ideas we have, +and well executed details we have; but that high symmetry which, with +satisfying and delightful effect, combines them, we seldom or never +have. The glorious beauty of the Acropolis at Athens did not come from +single fine things stuck about on that hill, a statue here, a gateway +there;--no, it arose from all things being perfectly combined for a +supreme total effect. What must not an Englishman feel about our +deficiencies in this respect, as the sense for beauty, whereof this +symmetry is an essential element, awakens and strengthens within him! +what will not one day be his respect and desire for Greece and its +_symmetria prisca_, when the scales drop from his eyes as he walks the +London streets, and he sees such a lesson in meanness, as the Strand, +for instance, in its true deformity! But here we are coming to our +friend Mr. Ruskin's province, and I will not intrude upon it, for he is +its very sufficient guardian. + +And so we at last find, it seems, we find flowing in favor of the +humanities the natural and necessary stream of things, which seemed +against them when we started. The "hairy quadruped furnished with a tail +and pointed ears, probably arboreal in his habits," this good fellow +carried hidden in his nature, apparently, something destined to develop +into a necessity for humane letters. Nay, more; we seem finally to be +even led to the further conclusion that our hairy ancestor carried in +his nature, also, a necessity for Greek. + +And, therefore, to say the truth, I cannot really think that humane +letters are in much actual danger of being thrust out from their leading +place in education, in spite of the array of authorities against them at +this moment. So long as human nature is what it is, their attractions +will remain irresistible. As with Greek, so with letters generally: they +will some day come, we may hope, to be studied more rationally but they +will not lose their place. What will happen will rather be that there +will be crowded into education other matters besides, far too many; +there will be, perhaps, a period of unsettlement and confusion and false +tendency; but letters will not in the end lose their leading place. If +they lose it for a time, they will get it back again. We shall be +brought back to them by our wants and aspirations. And a poor humanist +may possess his soul in patience, neither strive nor cry, admit the +energy and brilliancy of the partisans of physical science, and their +present favor with the public, to be far greater than his own, and still +have a happy faith that the nature of things works silently on behalf of +the studies which he loves, and that, while we shall all have to +acquaint ourselves with the great results reached by modern science, and +to give ourselves as much training in its disciplines as we can +conveniently carry, yet the majority of men will always require humane +letters; and so much the more, as they have the more and the greater +results of science to relate to the need in man for conduct, and to the +need in him for beauty. + + + + +II. LITERARY CRITICISM + + + +HEINRICH HEINE[135] + + +"I know not if I deserve that a laurel-wreath should one day be laid on +my coffin. Poetry, dearly as I have loved it, has always been to me but +a divine plaything. I have never attached any great value to poetical +fame; and I trouble myself very little whether people praise my verses +or blame them. But lay on my coffin a _sword_; for I was a brave soldier +in the Liberation War of humanity."[136] + +Heine had his full share of love of fame, and cared quite as much as his +brethren of the _genus irritabile_ whether people praised his verses or +blamed them. And he was very little of a hero. Posterity will certainly +decorate his tomb with the emblem of the laurel rather than with the +emblem of the sword. Still, for his contemporaries, for us, for the +Europe of the present century, he is significant chiefly for the reason +which he himself in the words just quoted assigns. He is significant +because he was, if not pre-eminently a brave, yet a brilliant, a most +effective soldier in the Liberation War of humanity. + +To ascertain the master-current in the literature of an epoch, and to +distinguish this from all minor currents, is one of the critic's highest +functions; in discharging it he shows how far he possesses the most +indispensable quality of his office,--justness of spirit. The living +writer who has done most to make England acquainted with German authors, +a man of genius, but to whom precisely this one quality of justness of +spirit is perhaps wanting,--I mean Mr. Carlyle,--seems to me in the +result of his labors on German literature to afford a proof how very +necessary to the critic this quality is. Mr. Carlyle has spoken +admirably of Goethe; but then Goethe stands before all men's eyes, the +manifest centre of German literature; and from this central source many +rivers flow. Which of these rivers is the main stream? which of the +courses of spirit which we see active in Goethe is the course which will +most influence the future, and attract and be continued by the most +powerful of Goethe's successors?--that is the question. Mr. Carlyle +attaches, it seems to me, far too much importance to the romantic school +of Germany,--Tieck, Novalis, Jean Paul Richter,[137]--and gives to these +writers, really gifted as two, at any rate, of them are, an undue +prominence. These writers, and others with aims and a general tendency +the same as theirs, are not the real inheritors and continuators of +Goethe's power; the current of their activity is not the main current of +German literature after Goethe. Far more in Heine's works flows this +main current; Heine, far more than Tieck or Jean Paul Richter, is the +continuator of that which, in Goethe's varied activity, is the most +powerful and vital; on Heine, of all German authors who survived Goethe, +incomparably the largest portion of Goethe's mantle fell. I do not +forget that when Mr. Carlyle was dealing with German literature, Heine, +though he was clearly risen above the horizon, had not shone forth with +all his strength; I do not forget, too, that after ten or twenty years +many things may come out plain before the critic which before were hard +to be discerned by him; and assuredly no one would dream of imputing it +as a fault to Mr. Carlyle that twenty years ago he mistook the central +current in German literature, overlooked the rising Heine, and attached +undue importance to that romantic school which Heine was to destroy; one +may rather note it as a misfortune, sent perhaps as a delicate +chastisement to a critic, who--man of genius as he is, and no one +recognizes his genius more admirably than I do--has, for the functions +of the critic, a little too much of the self-will and eccentricity of a +genuine son of Great Britain. + +Heine is noteworthy, because he is the most important German successor +and continuator of Goethe in Goethe's most important line of activity. +And which of Goethe's lines of activity is this?--His line of activity +as "a soldier in the war of liberation of humanity." + +Heine himself would hardly have admitted this affiliation, though he was +far too powerful-minded a man to decry, with some of the vulgar German +liberals, Goethe's genius. "The wind of the Paris Revolution," he writes +after the three days of 1830, "blew about the candles a little in the +dark night of Germany, so that the red curtains of a German throne or +two caught fire; but the old watchmen, who do the police of the German +kingdoms, are already bringing out the fire engines, and will keep the +candles closer snuffed for the future. Poor, fast-bound German people, +lose not all heart in thy bonds! The fashionable coating of ice melts +off from my heart, my soul quivers and my eyes burn, and that is a +disadvantageous state of things for a writer, who should control his +subject-matter and keep himself beautifully objective, as the artistic +school would have us, and as Goethe has done; he has come to be eighty +years old doing this, and minister, and in good condition:--poor German +people! that is thy greatest man!"[138] + +But hear Goethe himself: "If I were to say what I had really been to the +Germans in general, and to the young German poets in particular, I +should say I had been their _liberator_." + +Modern times find themselves with an immense system of institutions, +established facts, accredited dogmas, customs, rules, which have come to +them from times not modern. In this system their life has to be carried +forward; yet they have a sense that this system is not of their own +creation, that it by no means corresponds exactly with the wants of +their actual life, that, for them, it is customary, not rational. The +awakening of this sense is the awakening of the modern spirit. The +modern spirit is now awake almost everywhere; the sense of want of +correspondence between the forms of modern Europe and its spirit, +between the new wine of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and the +old bottles of the eleventh and twelfth centuries, or even of the +sixteenth and seventeenth, almost every one now perceives; it is no +longer dangerous to affirm that this want of correspondence exists; +people are even beginning to be shy of denying it. To remove this want +of correspondence is beginning to be the settled endeavor of most +persons of good sense. Dissolvents of the old European system of +dominant ideas and facts we must all be, all of us who have any power of +working; what we have to study is that we may not be acrid dissolvents +of it. + +And how did Goethe, that grand dissolvent in his age when there were +fewer of them than at present, proceed in his task of dissolution, of +liberation of the modern European from the old routine? He shall tell us +himself. "Through me the German poets have become aware that, as man +must live from within outwards, so the artist must work from within +outwards, seeing that, make what contortions he will, he can only bring +to light his own individuality. I can clearly mark where this influence +of mine has made itself felt; there arises out of it a kind of poetry of +nature, and only in this way is it possible to be original." + +My voice shall never be joined to those which decry Goethe, and if it is +said that the foregoing is a lame and impotent conclusion to Goethe's +declaration that he had been the liberator of the Germans in general, +and of the young German poets in particular, I say it is not. Goethe's +profound, imperturbable naturalism is absolutely fatal to all routine +thinking, he puts the standard, once for all, inside every man instead +of outside him; when he is told, such a thing must be so, there is +immense authority and custom in favor of its being so, it has been held +to be so for a thousand years, he answers with Olympian politeness, "But +_is_ it so? is it so to _me_?" Nothing could be more really subversive +of the foundations on which the old European order rested; and it may be +remarked that no persons are so radically detached from this order, no +persons so thoroughly modern, as those who have felt Goethe's influence +most deeply. If it is said that Goethe professes to have in this way +deeply influenced but a few persons, and those persons poets, one may +answer that he could have taken no better way to secure, in the end, the +ear of the world; for poetry is simply the most beautiful, impressive, +and widely effective mode of saying things, and hence its importance. +Nevertheless the process of liberation, as Goethe worked it, though +sure, is undoubtedly slow; he came, as Heine says, to be eighty years +old in thus working it, and at the end of that time the old Middle-Age +machine was still creaking on, the thirty German courts and their +chamberlains subsisted in all their glory; Goethe himself was a +minister, and the visible triumph of the modern spirit over prescription +and routine seemed as far off as ever. It was the year 1830; the German +sovereigns had passed the preceding fifteen years in breaking the +promises of freedom they had made to their subjects when they wanted +their help in the final struggle with Napoleon. Great events were +happening in France; the revolution, defeated in 1815, had arisen from +its defeat, and was wresting from its adversaries the power. Heinrich +Heine, a young man of genius, born at Hamburg,[139] and with all the +culture of Germany, but by race a Jew; with warm sympathies for France, +whose revolution had given to his race the rights of citizenship, and +whose rule had been, as is well known, popular in the Rhine provinces, +where he passed his youth; with a passionate admiration for the great +French Emperor, with a passionate contempt for the sovereigns who had +overthrown him, for their agents, and for their policy,--Heinrich Heine +was in 1830 in no humor for any such gradual process of liberation from +the old order of things as that which Goethe had followed. His counsel +was for open war. Taking that terrible modern weapon, the pen, in his +hand, he passed the remainder of his life in one fierce battle. What was +that battle? the reader will ask. It was a life and death battle with +Philistinism. + +_Philistinism!_[140]--we have not the expression in English. Perhaps we +have not the word because we have so much of the thing. At Soli, I +imagine, they did not talk of solecisms;[141] and here, at the very +headquarters of Goliath, nobody talks of Philistinism. The French have +adopted the term _epicier_ (grocer), to designate the sort of being whom +the Germans designate by the Philistine; but the French term--besides +that it casts a slur upon a respectable class, composed of living and +susceptible members, while the original Philistines are dead and buried +long ago--is really, I think, in itself much less apt and expressive +than the German term. Efforts have been made to obtain in English some +term equivalent to _Philister_ or _epicier_; Mr. Carlyle has made +several such efforts: "respectability with its thousand gigs,"[142] he +says;--well, the occupant of every one of these gigs is, Mr. Carlyle +means, a Philistine. However, the word _respectable_ is far too valuable +a word to be thus perverted from its proper meaning; if the English are +ever to have a word for the thing we are speaking of,--and so +prodigious are the changes which the modern spirit is introducing, that +even we English shall perhaps one day come to want such a word,--I think +we had much better take the term _Philistine_ itself. + +_Philistine_ must have originally meant, in the mind of those who +invented the nickname, a strong, dogged, unenlightened opponent of the +chosen people, of the children of the light. The party of change, the +would-be remodellers of the old traditional European order, the invokers +of reason against custom, the representatives of the modern spirit in +every sphere where it is applicable, regarded themselves, with the +robust self-confidence natural to reformers as a chosen people, as +children of the light. They regarded their adversaries as humdrum +people, slaves to routine, enemies to light; stupid and oppressive, but +at the same time very strong. This explains the love which Heine, that +Paladin of the modern spirit, has for France; it explains the preference +which he gives to France over Germany: "The French," he says, "are the +chosen people of the new religion, its first gospels and dogmas have +been drawn up in their language; Paris is the new Jerusalem, and the +Rhine is the Jordan which divides the consecrated land of freedom from +the land of the Philistines."[143] He means that the French, as a +people, have shown more accessibility to ideas than any other people; +that prescription and routine have had less hold upon them than upon any +other people; that they have shown most readiness to move and to alter +at the bidding (real or supposed) of reason. This explains, too, the +detestation which Heine had for the English: "I might settle in +England," he says, in his exile, "if it were not that I should find +there two things, coal-smoke and Englishmen; I cannot abide either." +What he hated in the English was the "aechtbrittische Beschraenktheit," as +he calls it,--the _genuine British narrowness_. In truth, the English, +profoundly as they have modified the old Middle-Age order, great as is +the liberty which they have secured for themselves, have in all their +changes proceeded, to use a familiar expression, by the rule of thumb; +what was intolerably inconvenient to them they have suppressed, and as +they have suppressed it, not because it was irrational, but because it +was practically inconvenient, they have seldom in suppressing it +appealed to reason, but always, if possible, to some precedent, or form, +or letter, which served as a convenient instrument for their purpose, +and which saved them from the necessity of recurring to general +principles. They have thus become, in a certain sense, of all people the +most inaccessible to ideas and the most impatient of them; inaccessible +to them, because of their want of familiarity with them; and impatient +of them because they have got on so well without them, that they despise +those who, not having got on as well as themselves, still make a fuss +for what they themselves have done so well without. But there has +certainly followed from hence, in this country, somewhat of a general +depression of pure intelligence: Philistia has come to be thought by us +the true Land of Promise, and it is anything but that; the born lover of +ideas, the born hater of commonplaces, must feel in this country, that +the sky over his head is of brass and iron. The enthusiast for the idea, +for reason, values reason, the idea, in and for themselves; he values +them, irrespectively of the practical conveniences which their triumph +may obtain for him; and the man who regards the possession of these +practical conveniences as something sufficient in itself, something +which compensates for the absence or surrender of the idea, of reason, +is, in his eyes, a Philistine. This is why Heine so often and so +mercilessly attacks the liberals; much as he hates conservatism he hates +Philistinism even more, and whoever attacks conservatism itself ignobly, +not as a child of light, not in the name of the idea, is a Philistine. +Our Cobbett[144] is thus for him, much as he disliked our clergy and +aristocracy whom Cobbett attacked, a Philistine with six fingers on +every hand and on every foot six toes, four-and-twenty in number: a +Philistine, the staff of whose spear is like a weaver's beam. Thus he +speaks of him:-- + +"While I translate Cobbett's words, the man himself comes bodily before +my mind's eye, as I saw him at that uproarious dinner at the Crown and +Anchor Tavern, with his scolding red face and his radical laugh, in +which venomous hate mingles with a mocking exultation at his enemies' +surely approaching downfall. He is a chained cur, who falls with equal +fury on every one whom he does not know, often bites the best friend of +the house in his calves, barks incessantly, and just because of this +incessantness of his barking cannot get listened to, even when he barks +at a real thief. Therefore the distinguished thieves who plunder England +do not think it necessary to throw the growling Cobbett a bone to stop +his mouth. This makes the dog furiously savage, and he shows all his +hungry teeth. Poor old Cobbett! England's dog! I have no love for thee, +for every vulgar nature my soul abhors: but thou touchest me to the +inmost soul with pity, as I see how thou strainest in vain to break +loose and to get at those thieves, who make off with their booty before +thy very eyes, and mock at thy fruitless springs and thine impotent +howling."[145] + +There is balm in Philistia as well as in Gilead. A chosen circle of +children of the modern spirit, perfectly emancipated from prejudice and +commonplace, regarding the ideal side of things in all its efforts for +change, passionately despising half-measures and condescension to human +folly and obstinacy,--with a bewildered, timid, torpid multitude +behind,--conducts a country to the government of Herr von Bismarck. A +nation regarding the practical side of things in its efforts for change, +attacking not what is irrational, but what is pressingly inconvenient, +and attacking this as one body, "moving altogether if it move at all," +[146] and treating children of light like the very harshest of +step-mothers, comes to the prosperity and liberty of modern England. For +all that, however, Philistia (let me say it again) is not the true +promised land, as we English commonly imagine it to be; and our +excessive neglect of the idea, and consequent inaptitude for it, +threatens us, at a moment when the idea is beginning to exercise a real +power in human society, with serious future inconvenience, and, in the +meanwhile, cuts us off from the sympathy of other nations, which feel +its power more than we do. + +But, in 1830, Heine very soon found that the fire-engines of the German +governments were too much for his direct efforts at incendiarism. "What +demon drove me," he cries, "to write my _Reisebilder_, to edit a +newspaper, to plague myself with our time and its interests, to try and +shake the poor German Hodge out of his thousand years' sleep in his +hole? What good did I get by it? Hodge opened his eyes, only to shut +them again immediately; he yawned, only to begin snoring again the next +minute louder than ever; he stretched his stiff ungainly limbs, only to +sink down again directly afterwards, and lie like a dead man in the old +bed of his accustomed habits. I must have rest; but where am I to find a +resting-place? In Germany I can no longer stay." + +This is Heine's jesting account of his own efforts to rouse Germany: now +for his pathetic account of them; it is because he unites so much wit +with so much pathos that he is so effective a writer:-- + +"The Emperor Charles the Fifth[147] sate in sore straits, in the Tyrol, +encompassed by his enemies. All his knights and courtiers had forsaken +him; not one came to his help. I know not if he had at that time the +cheese face with which Holbein has painted him for us. But I am sure +that under lip of his, with its contempt for mankind, stuck out even +more than it does in his portraits. How could he but contemn the tribe +which in the sunshine of his prosperity had fawned on him so devotedly, +and now, in his dark distress, left him all alone? Then suddenly his +door opened, and there came in a man in disguise, and, as he threw back +his cloak, the Kaiser recognized in him his faithful Conrad von der +Rosen, the court jester. This man brought him comfort and counsel, and +he was the court jester! + +"'O German fatherland! dear German people! I am thy Conrad von der +Rosen. The man whose proper business was to amuse thee, and who in good +times should have catered only for thy mirth, makes his way into thy +prison in time of need; here, under my cloak, I bring thee thy sceptre +and crown; dost thou not recognize me, my Kaiser? If I cannot free thee, +I will at least comfort thee, and thou shalt at least have one with thee +who will prattle with thee about thy sorest affliction, and whisper +courage to thee, and love thee, and whose best joke and best blood shall +be at thy service. For thou, my people, art the true Kaiser, the true +lord of the land; thy will is sovereign, and more legitimate far than +that purple _Tel est notre plaisir_, which invokes a divine right with +no better warrant than the anointings of shaven and shorn jugglers; thy +will, my people, is the sole rightful source of power. Though now thou +liest down in thy bonds, yet in the end will thy rightful cause prevail; +the day of deliverance is at hand, a new time is beginning. My Kaiser, +the night is over, and out there glows the ruddy dawn.' + +"'Conrad von der Rosen, my fool, thou art mistaken; perhaps thou takest +a headsman's gleaming axe for the sun, and the red of dawn is only +blood.' + +"'No, my Kaiser, it is the sun, though it is rising in the west; these +six thousand years it has always risen in the east; it is high time +there should come a change.' + +"'Conrad von der Rosen, my fool, thou hast lost the bells out of thy red +cap, and it has now such an odd look, that red cap of thine!' + +"'Ah, my Kaiser, thy distress has made me shake my head so hard and +fierce, that the fool's bells have dropped off my cap; the cap is none +the worse for that.' + +"'Conrad von der Rosen, my fool, what is that noise of breaking and +cracking outside there?' + +"'Hush! that is the saw and the carpenter's axe, and soon the doors of +thy prison will be burst open, and thou wilt be free, my Kaiser!' + +"'Am I then really Kaiser? Ah, I forgot, it is the fool who tells me +so!' + +"'Oh, sigh not, my dear master, the air of thy prison makes thee so +desponding! when once thou hast got thy rights again, thou wilt feel +once more the bold imperial blood in thy veins, and thou wilt be proud +like a Kaiser, and violent, and gracious, and unjust, and smiling, and +ungrateful, as princes are.' + +"'Conrad von der Rosen, my fool, when I am free, what wilt thou do +then?' + +"'I will then sew new bells on to my cap.' + +"'And how shall I recompense thy fidelity?' + +"'Ah, dear master, by not leaving me to die in a ditch!'"[148] + +I wish to mark Heine's place in modern European literature, the scope of +his activity, and his value. I cannot attempt to give here a detailed +account of his life, or a description of his separate works. In May 1831 +he went over his Jordan, the Rhine, and fixed himself in his new +Jerusalem, Paris. There, henceforward, he lived, going in general to +some French watering-place in the summer, but making only one or two +short visits to Germany during the rest of his life. His works, in verse +and prose, succeeded each other without stopping; a collected edition of +them, filling seven closely-printed octavo volumes, has been published +in America;[149] in the collected editions of few people's works is +there so little to skip. Those who wish for a single good specimen of +him should read his first important work, the work which made his +reputation, the _Reisebilder_, or "Travelling Sketches": prose and +verse, wit and seriousness, are mingled in it, and the mingling of these +is characteristic of Heine, and is nowhere to be seen practised more +naturally and happily than in his _Reisebilder_. In 1847 his health, +which till then had always been perfectly good, gave way. He had a kind +of paralytic stroke. His malady proved to be a softening of the spinal +marrow: it was incurable; it made rapid progress. In May 1848, not a +year after his first attack, he went out of doors for the last time; but +his disease took more than eight years to kill him. For nearly eight +years he lay helpless on a couch, with the use of his limbs gone, wasted +almost to the proportions of a child, wasted so that a woman could carry +him about; the sight of one eye lost, that of the other greatly dimmed, +and requiring, that it might be exercised, to have the palsied eyelid +lifted and held up by the finger; all this, and besides this, suffering +at short intervals paroxysms of nervous agony. I have said he was not +preeminently brave; but in the astonishing force of spirit with which he +retained his activity of mind, even his gayety, amid all his suffering, +and went on composing with undiminished fire to the last, he was truly +brave. Nothing could clog that aerial lightness. "Pouvez-vous siffler?" +his doctor asked him one day, when he was almost at his last gasp;-- +"siffler," as every one knows, has the double meaning of _to whistle_ +and _to hiss_:--"Helas! non," was his whispered answer; "pas meme une +comedie de M. Scribe!" M. Scribe[150] is, or was, the favorite +dramatist of the French Philistine. "My nerves," he said to some one who +asked him about them in 1855, the year of the great Exhibition in Paris, +"my nerves are of that quite singularly remarkable miserableness of +nature, that I am convinced they would get at the Exhibition the grand +medal for pain and misery." He read all the medical books which treated +of his complaint. "But," said he to some one who found him thus engaged, +"what good this reading is to do me I don't know, except that it will +qualify me to give lectures in heaven on the ignorance of doctors on +earth about diseases of the spinal marrow." What a matter of grim +seriousness are our own ailments to most of us! yet with this gayety +Heine treated his to the end. That end, so long in coming, came at last. +Heine died on the 17th of February, 1856, at the age of fifty-eight. By +his will he forbade that his remains should be transported to Germany. +He lies buried in the cemetery of Montmartre, at Paris. + +His direct political action was null, and this is neither to be wondered +at nor regretted; direct political action is not the true function of +literature, and Heine was a born man of letters. Even in his favorite +France the turn taken by public affairs was not at all what he wished, +though he read French politics by no means as we in England, most of us, +read them. He thought things were tending there to the triumph of +communism; and to a champion of the idea like Heine, what there is gross +and narrow in communism was very repulsive. "It is all of no use," he +cried on his death-bed, "the future belongs to our enemies, the +Communists, and Louis Napoleon[151] is their John the Baptist." "And +yet,"--he added with all his old love for that remarkable entity, so +full of attraction for him, so profoundly unknown in England, the French +people,--"do not believe that God lets all this go forward merely as a +grand comedy. Even though the Communists deny him to-day, he knows +better than they do, that a time will come when they will learn to +believe in him." After 1831, his hopes of soon upsetting the German +Governments had died away, and his propagandism took another, a more +truly literary, character. + +It took the character of an intrepid application of the modern spirit to +literature. To the ideas with which the burning questions of modern life +filled him, he made all his subject-matter minister. He touched all the +great points in the career of the human race, and here he but followed +the tendency of the wide culture of Germany; but he touched them with a +wand which brought them all under a light where the modern eye cares +most to see them, and here he gave a lesson to the culture of Germany,-- +so wide, so impartial, that it is apt to become slack and powerless, and +to lose itself in its materials for want of a strong central idea round +which to group all its other ideas. So the mystic and romantic school of +Germany lost itself in the Middle Ages, was overpowered by their +influence, came to ruin by its vain dreams of renewing them. Heine, with +a far profounder sense of the mystic and romantic charm of the Middle +Age than Goerres, or Brentano, or Arnim,[152] Heine the chief romantic +poet of Germany, is yet also much more than a romantic poet: he is a +great modern poet, he is not conquered by the Middle Age, he has a +talisman by which he can feel--along with but above the power of the +fascinating Middle Age itself--the power of modern ideas. + +A French critic of Heine thinks he has said enough in saying that Heine +proclaimed in German countries, with beat of drum, the ideas of 1789, +and that at the cheerful noise of his drum the ghosts of the Middle Age +took to flight. But this is rather too French an account of the matter. +Germany, that vast mine of ideas, had no need to import ideas, as such, +from any foreign country; and if Heine had carried ideas, as such, from +France into Germany, he would but have been carrying coals to Newcastle. +But that for which, France, far less meditative than Germany, is +eminent, is the prompt, ardent, and practical application of an idea, +when she seizes it, in all departments of human activity which admit it. +And that in which Germany most fails, and by failing in which she +appears so helpless and impotent, is just the practical application of +her innumerable ideas. "When Candide," says Heine himself, "came to +Eldorado, he saw in the streets a number of boys who were playing with +gold-nuggets instead of marbles. This degree of luxury made him imagine +that they must be the king's children, and he was not a little +astonished when he found that in Eldorado gold-nuggets are of no more +value than marbles are with us, and that the schoolboys play with them. +A similar thing happened to a friend of mine, a foreigner, when he came +to Germany and first read German books. He was perfectly astounded at +the wealth of ideas which he found in them; but he soon remarked that +ideas in Germany are as plentiful as gold-nuggets in Eldorado, and that +those writers whom he had taken for intellectual princes, were in +reality only common schoolboys."[153] Heine was, as he calls himself, +a "Child of the French Revolution," an "Initiator," because he +vigorously assured the Germans that ideas were not counters or marbles, +to be played with for their own sake; because he exhibited in literature +modern ideas applied with the utmost freedom, clearness, and +originality. And therefore he declared that the great task of his life +had been the endeavor to establish a cordial relation between France and +Germany. It is because he thus operates a junction between the French +spirit and German ideas and German culture, that he founds something +new, opens a fresh period, and deserves the attention of criticism far +more than the German poets his contemporaries, who merely continue an +old period till it expires. It may be predicted that in the literature +of other countries, too, the French spirit is destined to make its +influence felt,--as an element, in alliance with the native spirit, of +novelty and movement,--as it has made its influence felt in German +literature; fifty years hence a critic will be demonstrating to our +grandchildren how this phenomenon has come to pass. + +We in England, in our great burst of literature during the first thirty +years of the present century, had no manifestation of the modern spirit, +as this spirit manifests itself in Goethe's works or Heine's. And the +reason is not far to seek. We had neither the German wealth of ideas, +nor the French enthusiasm for applying ideas. There reigned in the mass +of the nation that inveterate inaccessibility to ideas, that +Philistinism,--to use the German nickname,--which reacts even on the +individual genius that is exempt from it. In our greatest literary +epoch, that of the Elizabethan age,[154] English society at large was +accessible to ideas, was permeated by them, was vivified by them, to a +degree which has never been reached in England since. Hence the unique +greatness in English literature of Shakespeare and his contemporaries. +They were powerfully upheld by the intellectual life of their nation; +they applied freely in literature the then modern ideas,--the ideas of +the Renascence and the Reformation. A few years afterwards the great +English middle class, the kernel of the nation, the class whose +intelligent sympathy had upheld a Shakespeare, entered the prison of +Puritanism, and had the key turned on its spirit there for two hundred +years. _He enlargeth a nation_, says Job, _and straiteneth it again._ +[155] + +In the literary movement of the beginning of the nineteenth century the +signal attempt to apply freely the modern spirit was made in England by +two members of the aristocratic class, Byron and Shelley. Aristocracies +are, as such, naturally impenetrable by ideas; but their individual +members have a high courage and a turn for breaking bounds; and a man of +genius, who is the born child of the idea, happening to be born in the +aristocratic ranks, chafes against the obstacles which prevent him from +freely developing it. But Byron and Shelley did not succeed in their +attempt freely to apply the modern spirit in English literature; they +could not succeed in it; the resistance to baffle them, the want of +intelligent sympathy to guide and uphold them, were too great. Their +literary creation, compared with the literary creation of Shakespeare +and Spenser, compared with the literary creation of Goethe and Heine, is +a failure. The best literary creation of that time in England proceeded +from men who did not make the same bold attempt as Byron and Shelley. +What, in fact, was the career of the chief English men of letters, their +contemporaries? The gravest of them, Wordsworth, retired (in Middle-Age +phrase) into a monastery. I mean, he plunged himself in the inward life, +he voluntarily cut himself off from the modern spirit. Coleridge took to +opium. Scott became the historiographer-royal of feudalism. Keats +passionately gave himself up to a sensuous genius, to his faculty for +interpreting nature; and he died of consumption at twenty-five. +Wordsworth, Scott, and Keats have left admirable works; far more solid +and complete works than those which Byron and Shelley have left. But +their works have this defect,--they do not belong to that which is the +main current of the literature of modern epochs, they do not apply +modern ideas to life; they constitute, therefore, _minor currents_, and +all other literary work of our day, however popular, which has the same +defect, also constitutes but a minor current. Byron and Shelley will +long be remembered, long after the inadequacy of their actual work is +clearly recognized, for their passionate, their Titanic effort to flow +in the main stream of modern literature; their names will be greater +than their writings; _stat magni nominis umbra_.[156] Heine's literary +good fortune was superior to that of Byron and Shelley. His theatre of +operations was Germany, whose Philistinism does not consist in her want +of ideas, or in her inaccessibility to ideas, for she teems with them +and loves them, but, as I have said, in her feeble and hesitating +application of modern ideas to life. Heine's intense modernism, his +absolute freedom, his utter rejection of stock classicism and stock +romanticism, his bringing all things under the point of view of the +nineteenth century, were understood and laid to heart by Germany, +through virtue of her immense, tolerant intellectualism, much as there +was in all Heine said to affront and wound Germany. The wit and ardent +modern spirit of France Heine joined to the culture, the sentiment, the +thought of Germany. This is what makes him so remarkable: his wonderful +clearness, lightness, and freedom, united with such power of feeling, +and width of range. Is there anywhere keener wit than in his story of +the French abbe who was his tutor, and who wanted to get from him that +_la religion_ is French for _der Glaube_: "Six times did he ask me the +question: 'Henry, what is _der Glaube_ in French?' and six times, and +each time with a greater burst of tears, did I answer him--'It is _le +credit_' And at the seventh time, his face purple with rage, the +infuriated questioner screamed out: 'It is _la religion_'; and a rain of +cuffs descended upon me, and all the other boys burst out laughing. +Since that day I have never been able to hear _la religion_ mentioned, +without feeling a tremor run through my back, and my cheeks grow red +with shame."[157] Or in that comment on the fate of Professor Saalfeld, +who had been addicted to writing furious pamphlets against Napoleon, and +who was a professor at Goettingen, a great seat, according to Heine, of +pedantry and Philistinism. "It is curious," says Heine, "the three +greatest adversaries of Napoleon have all of them ended miserably. +Castlereagh[158] cut his own throat; Louis the Eighteenth rotted upon +his throne; and Professor Saalfeld is still a professor at Goettingen." +[159] It is impossible to go beyond that. + +What wit, again, in that saying which every one has heard: "The +Englishman loves liberty like his lawful wife, the Frenchman loves her +like his mistress, the German loves her like his old grandmother." But +the turn Heine gives to this incomparable saying is not so well known; +and it is by that turn he shows himself the born poet he is,--full of +delicacy and tenderness, of inexhaustible resource, infinitely new and +striking:-- + +"And yet, after all, no one can ever tell how things may turn out. The +grumpy Englishman, in an ill-temper with his wife, is capable of some +day putting a rope round her neck, and taking her to be sold at +Smithfield. The inconstant Frenchman may become unfaithful to his adored +mistress, and be seen fluttering about the Palais Royal after another. +_But the German will never quite abandon his old grandmother_; he will +always keep for her a nook by the chimney-corner, where she can tell her +fairy stories to the listening children."[160] + +Is it possible to touch more delicately and happily both the weakness +and the strength of Germany; pedantic, simple, enslaved, free, +ridiculous, admirable Germany? + +And Heine's verse,--his _Lieder?_ Oh, the comfort, after dealing with +French people of genius, irresistibly impelled to try and express +themselves in verse, launching out into a deep which destiny has sown +with so many rocks for them,--the comfort of coming to a man of genius, +who finds in verse his freest and most perfect expression, whose voyage +over the deep of poetry destiny makes smooth! After the rhythm, to us, +at any rate, with the German paste in our composition, so deeply +unsatisfying, of-- + + "Ah! que me dites-vous, et qne vous dit mon ame? + Que dit le ciel a l'aube et la flamme a la flamme?" + +what a blessing to arrive at rhythms like-- + + "Take, oh, take those lips away, + That so sweetly were forsworn--"[161] + +or-- + + "Siehst sehr sterbeblaesslich aus, + Doch getrost! du bist zu Haus--"[162] + +in which one's soul can take pleasure! The magic of Heine's poetical +form is incomparable; he chiefly uses a form of old German popular +poetry, a ballad-form which has more rapidity and grace than any +ballad-form of ours; he employs this form with the most exquisite +lightness and ease, and yet it has at the same time the inborn fulness, +pathos, and old-world charm of all true forms of popular poetry. Thus in +Heine's poetry, too, one perpetually blends the impression of French +modernism and clearness, with that of German sentiment and fulness; and +to give this blended impression is, as I have said, Heine's great +characteristic. To feel it, one must read him; he gives it in his form +as well as in his contents, and by translation I can only reproduce it +so far as his contents give it. But even the contents of many of his +poems are capable of giving a certain sense of it. Here, for instance, +is a poem in which he makes his profession of faith to an innocent +beautiful soul, a sort of Gretchen, the child of some simple mining +people having their hut among the pines at the foot of the Hartz +Mountains, who reproaches him with not holding the old articles of the +Christian creed:-- + +"Ah, my child, while I was yet a little boy, while I yet sate upon my +mother's knee, I believed in God the Father, who rules up there in +Heaven, good and great; + +"Who created the beautiful earth, and the beautiful men and women +thereon; who ordained for sun, moon, and stars their courses. + +"When I got bigger, my child, I comprehended yet a great deal more than +this, and comprehended, and grew intelligent; and I believe on the Son +also; + +"On the beloved Son, who loved us, and revealed love to us; and, for his +reward, as always happens, was crucified by the people. + +"Now, when I am grown up, have read much, have travelled much, my heart +swells within me, and with my whole heart I believe on the Holy Ghost. + +"The greatest miracles were of his working, and still greater miracles +doth he even now work; he burst in sunder the oppressor's stronghold, +and he burst in sunder the bondsman's yoke. + +"He heals old death-wounds, and renews the old right; all mankind are +one race of noble equals before him. + +"He chases away the evil clouds and the dark cobwebs of the brain, which +have spoilt love and joy for us, which day and night have loured on us. + +"A thousand knights, well harnessed, has the Holy Ghost chosen out to +fulfil his will, and he has put courage into their souls. + +"Their good swords flash, their bright banners wave; what, thou wouldst +give much, my child, to look upon such gallant knights? + +"Well, on me, my child, look! kiss me, and look boldly upon me! one of +those knights of the Holy Ghost am I."[163] + +One has only to turn over the pages of his _Romancero_,[164]--a +collection of poems written in the first years of his illness, with his +whole power and charm still in them, and not, like his latest poems of +all, painfully touched by the air of his _Matrazzen-gruft_, his +"mattress-grave,"--to see Heine's width of range; the most varied +figures succeed one another,--Rhampsinitus,[165] Edith with the Swan +Neck,[166] Charles the First, Marie Antoinette, King David, a heroine of +_Mabille_, Melisanda of Tripoli,[167] Richard Coeur de Lion, Pedro the +Cruel[168], Firdusi[169], Cortes, Dr. Doellinger[170];--but never does +Heine attempt to be _hubsch objectiv_, "beautifully objective," to +become in spirit an old Egyptian, or an old Hebrew, or a Middle-Age +knight, or a Spanish adventurer, or an English royalist; he always +remains Heinrich Heine, a son of the nineteenth century. To give a +notion of his tone, I will quote a few stanzas at the end of the +_Spanish Atridae_[171] in which he describes, in the character of a +visitor at the court of Henry of Transtamare[172] at Segovia, Henry's +treatment of the children of his brother, Pedro the Cruel. Don Diego +Albuquerque, his neighbor, strolls after dinner through the castle with +him:-- + +"In the cloister-passage, which leads to the kennels where are kept the +king's hounds, that with their growling and yelping let you know a long +way off where they are, + +"There I saw, built into the wall, and with a strong iron grating for +its outer face, a cell like a cage. + +"Two human figures sate therein, two young boys; chained by the leg, +they crouched in the dirty straw. + +"Hardly twelve years old seemed the one, the other not much older; their +faces fair and noble, but pale and wan with sickness. + +"They were all in rags, almost naked; and their lean bodies showed +wounds, the marks of ill-usage; both of them shivered with fever. + +"They looked up at me out of the depth of their misery; 'Who,' I cried +in horror to Don Diego, 'are these pictures of wretchedness?' + +"Don Diego seemed embarrassed; he looked round to see that no one was +listening; then he gave a deep sigh; and at last, putting on the easy +tone of a man of the world, he said:-- + +"'These are a pair of king's sons, who were early left orphans; the name +of their father was King Pedro, the name of their mother, Maria de +Padilla. + +"'After the great battle of Navarette, when Henry of Transtamare had +relieved his brother, King Pedro, of the troublesome burden of the +crown, + +"'And likewise of that still more troublesome burden, which is called +life, then Don Henry's victorious magnanimity had to deal with his +brother's children. + +"'He has adopted them, as an uncle should; and he has given them free +quarters in his own castle. + +"'The room which he has assigned to them is certainly rather small, but +then it is cool in summer, and not intolerably cold in winter. + +"'Their fare is rye-bread, which tastes as sweet as if the goddess Ceres +had baked it express for her beloved Proserpine. + +"'Not unfrequently, too, he sends a scullion to them with +garbanzos,[173]and then the young gentlemen know that it is Sunday in +Spain. + +"'But it is not Sunday every day, and garbanzos do not come every day; +and the master of the hounds gives them the treat of his whip. + +"'For the master of the hounds, who has under his superintendence the +kennels and the pack, and the nephews' cage also, + +"'Is the unfortunate husband of that lemon-faced woman with the white +ruff, whom we remarked to-day at dinner. + +"'And she scolds so sharp, that often her husband snatches his whip, and +rushes down here, and gives it to the dogs and to the poor little boys. + +"'But his majesty has expressed his disapproval of such proceedings, and +has given orders that for the future his nephews are to be treated +differently from the dogs. + +"'He has determined no longer to entrust the disciplining of his nephews +to a mercenary stranger, but to carry it out with his own hands.' + +"Don Diego stopped abruptly; for the seneschal of the castle joined us, +and politely expressed his hope that we had dined to our satisfaction." + +Observe how the irony of the whole of that, finishing with the grim +innuendo of the last stanza but one, is at once truly masterly and truly +modern. + +No account of Heine is complete which does not notice the Jewish element +in him. His race he treated with the same freedom with which he treated +everything else, but he derived a great force from it, and no one knew +this better than he himself. He has excellently pointed out how in the +sixteenth century there was a double renascence,--a Hellenic renascence +and a Hebrew renascence--and how both have been great powers ever since. +He himself had in him both the spirit of Greece and the spirit of Judaea; +both these spirits reach the infinite, which is the true goal of all +poetry and all art,--the Greek spirit by beauty, the Hebrew spirit by +sublimity. By his perfection of literary form, by his love of clearness, +by his love of beauty, Heine is Greek; by his intensity, by his +untamableness, by his "longing which cannot be uttered,"[174] he is +Hebrew. Yet what Hebrew ever treated the things of the Hebrews like +this?--"There lives at Hamburg, in a one-roomed lodging in the Baker's +Broad Walk, a man whose name is Moses Lump; all the week he goes about +in wind and rain, with his pack on his back, to earn his few shillings; +but when on Friday evening he comes home, he finds the candlestick with +seven candles lighted, and the table covered with a fair white cloth, +and he puts away from him his pack and his cares, and he sits down to +table with his squinting wife and yet more squinting daughter, and eats +fish with them, fish which has been dressed in beautiful white garlic +sauce, sings therewith the grandest psalms of King David, rejoices with +his whole heart over the deliverance of the children of Israel out of +Egypt, rejoices, too, that all the wicked ones who have done the +children of Israel hurt, have ended by taking themselves off; that King +Pharaoh, Nebuchadnezzar, Haman, Antiochus, Titus, and all such people, +are well dead, while he, Moses Lump, is yet alive, and eating fish with +wife and daughter; and I can tell you, Doctor, the fish is delicate and +the man is happy, he has no call to torment himself about culture, he +sits contented in his religion and in his green bedgown, like Diogenes +in his tub, he contemplates with satisfaction his candles, which he on +no account will snuff for himself; and I can tell you, if the candles +burn a little dim, and the snuffers-woman, whose business it is to snuff +them, is not at hand, and Rothschild the Great were at that moment to +come in, with all his brokers, bill discounters, agents, and chief +clerks, with whom he conquers the world, and Rothschild were to say: +'Moses Lump, ask of me what favor you will, and it shall be granted +you';--Doctor, I am convinced, Moses Lump would quietly answer: 'Snuff +me those candles!' and Rothschild the Great would exclaim with +admiration: 'If I were not Rothschild, I would be Moses Lump.'"[175] + +There Heine shows us his own people by its comic side; in the poem of +the _Princess Sabbath_[176] he shows it to us by a more serious side. +The Princess Sabbath, "the _tranquil Princess_, pearl and flower of all +beauty, fair as the Queen of Sheba, Solomon's bosom friend, that blue +stocking from Ethiopia, who wanted to shine by her _esprit_, and with +her wise riddles made herself in the long run a bore" (with Heine the +sarcastic turn is never far off), this princess has for her betrothed a +prince whom sorcery has transformed into an animal of lower race, the +Prince Israel. + +"A dog with the desires of a dog, he wallows all the week long in the +filth and refuse of life, amidst the jeers of the boys in the street. + +"But every Friday evening, at the twilight hour, suddenly the magic +passes off, and the dog becomes once more a human being. + +"A man with the feelings of a man, with head and heart raised aloft, in +festal garb, in almost clean garb he enters the halls of his Father. + +"Hail, beloved halls of my royal Father! Ye tents of Jacob, I kiss with +my lips your holy door-posts!" + +Still more he shows us this serious side in his beautiful poem on Jehuda +ben Halevy,[176] a poet belonging to "the great golden age of the +Arabian, Old-Spanish, Jewish school of poets," a contemporary of the +troubadours:-- + +"He, too,--the hero whom we sing,--Jehuda ben Halevy, too, had his +lady-love; but she was of a special sort. + +"She was no Laura,[177] whose eyes, mortal stars, in the cathedral on +Good Friday kindled that world-renowned flame. + +"She was no chatelaine, who in the blooming glory of her youth presided +at tourneys, and awarded the victor's crown. + +"No casuistess in the Gay Science was she, no lady _doctrinaire_, who +delivered her oracles in the judgment-chamber of a Court of Love.[178] + +"She, whom the Rabbi loved, was a woe-begone poor darling, a mourning +picture of desolation ... and her name was Jerusalem." + +Jehuda ben Halevy, like the Crusaders, makes his pilgrimage to +Jerusalem; and there, amid the ruins, sings a song of Sion which has +become famous among his people:-- + +"That lay of pearled tears is the wide-famed Lament, which is sung in +all the scattered tents of Jacob throughout the world. + +"On the ninth day of the month which is called Ab, on the anniversary of +Jerusalem's destruction by Titus Vespasianus. + +"Yes, that is the song of Sion, which Jehuda ben Halevy sang with his +dying breath amid the holy ruins of Jerusalem. + +"Barefoot, and in penitential weeds, he sat there upon the fragment of a +fallen column; down to his breast fell, + +"Like a gray forest, his hair; and cast a weird shadow on the face which +looked out through it,--his troubled pale face, with the spiritual +eyes. + +"So he sat and sang, like unto a seer out of the foretime to look upon; +Jeremiah, the Ancient, seemed to have risen out of his grave. + +"But a bold Saracen came riding that way, aloft on his barb, lolling in +his saddle, and brandishing a naked javelin; + +"Into the breast of the poor singer he plunged his deadly shaft, and +shot away like a winged shadow. + +"Quietly flowed the Rabbi's life-blood, quietly he sang his song to an +end; and his last dying sigh was Jerusalem!" + +But, most of all, Heine shows us this side in a strange poem describing +a public dispute, before King Pedro and his Court, between a Jewish and +a Christian champion, on the merits of their respective faiths. In the +strain of the Jew all the fierceness of the old Hebrew genius, all its +rigid defiant Monotheism, appear:-- + +"Our God has not died like a poor innocent lamb for mankind; he is no +gushing philanthropist, no declaimer. + +"Our God is not love, caressing is not his line; but he is a God of +thunder, and he is a God of revenge. + +"The lightnings of his wrath strike inexorably every sinner, and the +sins of the fathers are often visited upon their remote posterity. + +"Our God, he is alive, and in his hall of heaven he goes on existing +away, throughout all the eternities. + +"Our God, too, is a God in robust health, no myth, pale and thin as +sacrificial wafers, or as shadows by Cocytus. + +"Our God is strong. In his hand he upholds sun, moon, and stars; thrones +break, nations reel to and fro, when he knits his forehead. + +"Our God loves music, the voice of the harp and the song of feasting; +but the sound of church-bells he hates, as he hates the grunting of +pigs."[179] + +Nor must Heine's sweetest note be unheard,--his plaintive note, his note +of melancholy. Here is a strain which came from him as he lay, in the +winter night, on his "mattress-grave" at Paris, and let his thoughts +wander home to Germany, "the great child, entertaining herself with her +Christmas-tree." "Thou tookest,"--he cries to the German exile,-- + +"Thou tookest thy flight towards sunshine and happiness; naked and poor +returnest thou back. German truth, German shirts,--one gets them worn to +tatters in foreign parts. + +"Deadly pale are thy looks, but take comfort, thou art at home! one lies +warm in German earth, warm as by the old pleasant fireside. + +"Many a one, alas, became crippled, and could get home no more! +longingly he stretches out his arms; God have mercy upon him!"[180] + +God have mercy upon him! for what remain of the days of the years of his +life are few and evil. "Can it be that I still actually exist? My body +is so shrunk that there is hardly anything of me left but my voice, and +my bed makes me think of the melodious grave of the enchanter Merlin, +which is in the forest of Broceliand in Brittany, under high oaks whose +tops shine like green flames to heaven. Ah, I envy thee those trees, +brother Merlin, and their fresh waving! for over my mattress-grave here +in Paris no green leaves rustle; and early and late I hear nothing but +the rattle of carriages, hammering, scolding, and the jingle of the +piano. A grave without rest, death without the privileges of the +departed, who have no longer any need to spend money, or to write +letters, or to compose books What a melancholy situation!"[181] + +He died, and has left a blemished name; with his crying faults,--his +intemperate susceptibility, his unscrupulousness in passion, his +inconceivable attacks on his enemies, his still more inconceivable +attacks on his friends, his want of generosity, his sensuality, his +incessant mocking,--how could it be otherwise? Not only was he not one +of Mr. Carlyle's "respectable" people, he was profoundly +_dis_respectable; and not even the merit of not being a Philistine can +make up for a man's being that. To his intellectual deliverance there +was an addition of something else wanting, and that something else was +something immense: the old-fashioned, laborious, eternally needful moral +deliverance. Goethe says that he was deficient in _love_; to me his +weakness seems to be not so much a deficiency in love as a deficiency in +self-respect, in true dignity of character. But on this negative side of +one's criticism of a man of great genius, I for my part, when I have +once clearly marked that this negative side is and must be there, have +no pleasure in dwelling. I prefer to say of Heine something positive. He +is not an adequate interpreter of the modern world. He is only a +brilliant soldier in the Liberation War of humanity. But, such as he is, +he is (and posterity too, I am quite sure, will say this), in the +European poetry of that quarter of a century which follows the death of +Goethe, incomparably the most important figure. + +What a spendthrift, one is tempted to cry, is Nature! With what +prodigality, in the march of generations, she employs human power, +content to gather almost always little result from it, sometimes none! +Look at Byron, that Byron whom the present generation of Englishmen are +forgetting; Byron, the greatest natural force, the greatest elementary +power, I cannot but think, which has appeared in our literature since +Shakespeare. And what became of this wonderful production of nature? He +shattered himself, he inevitably shattered himself to pieces against the +huge, black, cloud-topped, interminable precipice of British +Philistinism. But Byron, it may be said, was eminent only by his genius, +only by his inborn force and fire; he had not the intellectual equipment +of a supreme modern poet; except for his genius he was an ordinary +nineteenth-century English gentleman, with little culture and with no +ideas. Well, then, look at Heine. Heine had all the culture of Germany; +in his head fermented all the ideas of modern Europe. And what have we +got from Heine? A half-result, for want of moral balance, and of +nobleness of soul and character. That is what I say; there is so much +power, so many seem able to run well, so many give promise of running +well;--so few reach the goal, so few are chosen. _Many are called, few +chosen._ + + + +MARCUS AURELIUS[182] + + +Mr. Mill[183] says, in his book on Liberty, that "Christian morality is +in great part merely a protest against paganism; its ideal is negative +rather than positive, passive rather than active." He says, that, in +certain most important respects, "it falls far below the best morality +of the ancients." Now, the object of systems of morality is to take +possession of human life, to save it from being abandoned to passion or +allowed to drift at hazard, to give it happiness by establishing it in +the practice of virtue; and this object they seek to attain by +prescribing to human life fixed principles of action, fixed rules of +conduct. In its uninspired as well as in its inspired moments, in its +days of languor and gloom as well as in its days of sunshine and energy, +human life has thus always a clue to follow, and may always be making +way towards its goal. Christian morality has not failed to supply to +human life aids of this sort. It has supplied them far more abundantly +than many of its critics imagine. The most exquisite document after +those of the New Testament, of all the documents the Christian spirit +has ever inspired,--the _Imitation_,[184]--by no means contains the +whole of Christian morality; nay, the disparagers of this morality would +think themselves sure of triumphing if one agreed to look for it in the +_Imitation_ only. But even the _Imitation_ is full of passages like +these: "Vita sine proposito languida et vaga est";--"Omni die renovare +debemus propositum nostrum, dicentes: nunc hodie perfecte incipiamus, +quia nihil est quod hactenus fecimus";--"Secundum propositum nostrum +est cursus profectus nostri";--"Raro etiam unum vitium perfecte +vincimus, et ad _quotidianum_ profectum non accendimur"; "Semper aliquid +certi proponendum est"; "Tibi ipsi violentiam frequenter fac." (_A life +without a purpose is a languid, drifting thing;--Every day we ought to +renew our purpose, saying to ourselves: This day let us make a sound +beginning, for what we have hitherto done is nought;--Our improvement is +in proportion to our purpose;--We hardly ever manage to get completely +rid even of one fault, and do not set our hearts on _daily_ +improvement;--Always place a definite purpose before thee;--Get the +habit of mastering thine inclination._) These are moral precepts, and +moral precepts of the best kind. As rules to hold possession of our +conduct, and to keep us in the right course through outward troubles and +inward perplexity, they are equal to the best ever furnished by the +great masters of morals--Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius. + +But moral rules, apprehended as ideas first, and then rigorously +followed as laws, are, and must be, for the sage only. The mass of +mankind have neither force of intellect enough to apprehend them clearly +as ideas, nor force of character enough to follow them strictly as laws. +The mass of mankind can be carried along a course full of hardship for +the natural man, can be borne over the thousand impediments of the +narrow way, only by the tide of a joyful and bounding emotion. It is +impossible to rise from reading Epictetus[185]or Marcus Aurelius +without a sense of constraint and melancholy, without feeling that the +burden laid upon man is well-nigh greater than he can bear. Honor to the +sages who have felt this, and yet have borne it! Yet, even for the sage, +this sense of labor and sorrow in his march towards the goal constitutes +a relative inferiority; the noblest souls of whatever creed, the pagan +Empedocles[186] as well as the Christian Paul, have insisted on the +necessity of an inspiration, a joyful emotion, to make moral action +perfect; an obscure indication of this necessity is the one drop of +truth in the ocean of verbiage with which the controversy on +justification by faith has flooded the world. But, for the ordinary man, +this sense of labor and sorrow constitutes an absolute disqualification; +it paralyzes him; under the weight of it, he cannot make way towards the +goal at all. The paramount virtue of religion is, that it has _lighted +up_ morality; that it has supplied the emotion and inspiration needful +for carrying the sage along the narrow way perfectly, for carrying the +ordinary man along it at all. Even the religions with most dross in them +have had something of this virtue; but the Christian religion manifests +it with unexampled splendor. "Lead me, Zeus and Destiny!" says the +prayer of Epictetus, "whithersoever I am appointed to go; I will follow +without wavering; even though I turn coward and shrink, I shall have to +follow all the same."[187] The fortitude of that is for the strong, for +the few; even for them the spiritual atmosphere with which it surrounds +them is bleak and gray. But, "Let thy loving spirit lead me forth into +the land of righteousness";[188]--"The Lord shall be unto thee an +everlasting light, and thy God thy glory";[189]--"Unto you that fear my +name shall the sun of righteousness arise with healing in his wings," +[190] says the Old Testament; "Born, not of blood, nor of the will of +the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God";[191]--"Except a man be +born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God";[192]--"Whatsoever is +born of God, overcometh the world,"[193] says the New. The ray of +sunshine is there, the glow of a divine warmth;--the austerity of the +sage melts away under it, the paralysis of the weak is healed; he who is +vivified by it renews his strength; "all things are possible to him +";[194] "he is a new creature."[195] + +Epictetus says: "Every matter has two handles, one of which will bear +taking hold of, the other not. If thy brother sin against thee, lay not +hold of the matter by this, that he sins against thee; for by this +handle the matter will not bear taking hold of. But rather lay hold of +it by this, that he is thy brother, thy born mate; and thou wilt take +hold of it by what will bear handling."[196] Jesus, being asked whether +a man is bound to forgive his brother as often as seven times, answers: +"I say not unto thee, until seven times, but until seventy times seven." +[197] Epictetus here suggests to the reason grounds for forgiveness of +injuries which Jesus does not; but it is vain to say that Epictetus is +on that account a better moralist than Jesus, if the warmth, the +emotion, of Jesus's answer fires his hearer to the practice of +forgiveness of injuries, while the thought in Epictetus's leaves him +cold. So with Christian morality in general: its distinction is not that +it propounds the maxim, "Thou shalt love God and thy neighbor,"[198] +with more development, closer reasoning, truer sincerity, than other +moral systems; it is that it propounds this maxim with an inspiration +which wonderfully catches the hearer and makes him act upon it. It is +because Mr. Mill has attained to the perception of truths of this +nature, that he is,--instead of being, like the school from which he +proceeds, doomed to sterility,--a writer of distinguished mark and +influence, a writer deserving all attention and respect; it is (I must +be pardoned for saying) because he is not sufficiently leavened with +them, that he falls just short of being a great writer. + +That which gives to the moral writings of the Emperor Marcus Aurelius +their peculiar character and charm, is their being suffused and softened +by something of this very sentiment whence Christian morality draws its +best power. Mr. Long[199] has recently published in a convenient form a +translation of these writings, and has thus enabled English readers to +judge Marcus Aurelius for themselves; he has rendered his countrymen a +real service by so doing. Mr. Long's reputation as a scholar is a +sufficient guarantee of the general fidelity and accuracy of his +translation; on these matters, besides, I am hardly entitled to speak, +and my praise is of no value. But that for which I and the rest of the +unlearned may venture to praise Mr. Long is this: that he treats Marcus +Aurelius's writings, as he treats all the other remains of Greek and +Roman antiquity which he touches, not as a dead and dry matter of +learning, but as documents with a side of modern applicability and +living interest, and valuable mainly so far as this side in them can be +made clear; that as in his notes on Plutarch's Roman Lives he deals with +the modern epoch of Caesar and Cicero, not as food for schoolboys, but as +food for men, and men engaged in the current of contemporary life and +action, so in his remarks and essays on Marcus Aurelius he treats this +truly modern striver and thinker not as a Classical Dictionary hero, but +as a present source from which to draw "example of life, and instruction +of manners." Why may not a son of Dr. Arnold[200] say, what might +naturally here be said by any other critic, that in this lively and +fruitful way of considering the men and affairs of ancient Greece and +Rome, Mr. Long resembles Dr. Arnold? + +One or two little complaints, however, I have against Mr. Long, and I +will get them off my mind at once. In the first place, why could he not +have found gentler and juster terms to describe the translation of his +predecessor, Jeremy Collier,[201]--the redoubtable enemy of stage +plays,--than these: "a most coarse and vulgar copy of the original?" As +a matter of taste, a translator should deal leniently with his +predecessor; but putting that out of the question, Mr. Long's language +is a great deal too hard. Most English people who knew Marcus Aurelius +before Mr. Long appeared as his introducer, knew him through Jeremy +Collier. And the acquaintance of a man like Marcus Aurelius is such an +imperishable benefit, that one can never lose a peculiar sense of +obligation towards the man who confers it. Apart from this claim upon +one's tenderness, however, Jeremy Collier's version deserves respect for +its genuine spirit and vigor, the spirit and vigor of the age of Dryden. +Jeremy Collier too, like Mr. Long, regarded in Marcus Aurelius the +living moralist, and not the dead classic; and his warmth of feeling +gave to his style an impetuosity and rhythm which from Mr. Long's style +(I do not blame it on that account) are absent. Let us place the two +side by side. The impressive opening of Marcus Aurelius's fifth book, +Mr. Long translates thus:-- + +"In the morning when thou risest unwillingly, let this thought be +present: I am rising to the work of a human being. Why then am I +dissatisfied if I am going to do the things for which I exist and for +which I was brought into the world? Or have I been made for this, to lie +in the bed clothes and keep myself warm?--But this is more pleasant.-- +Dost thou exist then to take thy pleasure, and not at all for action or +exertion?" + +Jeremy Collier has:-- + +"When you find an unwillingness to rise early in the morning, make this +short speech to yourself: 'I am getting up now to do the business of a +man; and am I out of humor for going about that which I was made for, +and for the sake of which I was sent into the world? Was I then designed +for nothing but to doze and batten beneath the counterpane? I thought +action had been the end of your being.'" + +In another striking passage, again, Mr. Long has:-- + +"No longer wonder at hazard; for neither wilt thou read thy own memoirs, +nor the acts of the ancient Romans and Hellenes, and the selections from +books which thou wast reserving for thy old age. Hasten then to the end +which thou hast before thee, and, throwing away idle hopes, come to +thine own aid, if thou carest at all for thyself, while it is in thy +power."[202] + +Here his despised predecessor has:-- + +"Don't go too far in your books and overgrasp yourself. Alas, you have +no time left to peruse your diary, to read over the Greek and Roman +history: come, don't flatter and deceive yourself; look to the main +chance, to the end and design of reading, and mind life more than +notion: I say, if you have a kindness for your person, drive at the +practice and help yourself, for that is in your own power." + +It seems to me that here for style and force Jeremy Collier can (to say +the least) perfectly stand comparison with Mr. Long. Jeremy Collier's +real defect as a translator is not his coarseness and vulgarity, but his +imperfect acquaintance with Greek; this is a serious defect, a fatal +one; it rendered a translation like Mr. Long's necessary. Jeremy +Collier's work will now be forgotten, and Mr. Long stands master of the +field, but he may be content, at any rate, to leave his predecessor's +grave unharmed, even if he will not throw upon it, in passing, a handful +of kindly earth. + +Another complaint I have against Mr. Long is, that he is not quite +idiomatic and simple enough. It is a little formal, at least, if not +pedantic, to say _Ethic_ and _Dialectic_, instead of _Ethics_ and +_Dialectics_, and to say "_Hellenes_ and Romans" instead of "_Greeks_ +and Romans." And why, too,--the name of Antoninus being preoccupied by +Antoninus Pius,[203]--will Mr. Long call his author Marcus _Antoninus_ +instead of Marcus _Aurelius?_ Small as these matters appear, they are +important when one has to deal with the general public, and not with a +small circle of scholars; and it is the general public that the +translator of a short masterpiece on morals, such as is the book of +Marcus Aurelius, should have in view; his aim should be to make Marcus +Aurelius's work as popular as the _Imitation_, and Marcus Aurelius's +name as familiar as Socrates's. In rendering or naming him, therefore, +punctilious accuracy of phrase is not so much to be sought as +accessibility and currency; everything which may best enable the Emperor +and his precepts _volitare per ora virum_[204] It is essential to +render him in language perfectly plain and unprofessional, and to call +him by the name by which he is best and most distinctly known. The +translators of the Bible talk of _pence_ and not _denarii_, and the +admirers of Voltaire do not celebrate him under the name of Arouet.[205] + +But, after these trifling complaints are made, one must end, as one +began, in unfeigned gratitude to Mr. Long for his excellent and +substantial reproduction in English of an invaluable work. In general +the substantiality, soundness, and precision of Mr. Long's rendering are +(I will venture, after all, to give my opinion about them) as +conspicuous as the living spirit with which he treats antiquity; and +these qualities are particularly desirable in the translator of a work +like that of Marcus Aurelius, of which the language is often corrupt, +almost always hard and obscure. Any one who wants to appreciate Mr. +Long's merits as a translator may read, in the original and in Mr. +Long's translation, the seventh chapter of the tenth book; he will see +how, through all the dubiousness and involved manner of the Greek, Mr. +Long has firmly seized upon the clear thought which is certainly at the +bottom of that troubled wording, and, in distinctly rendering this +thought, has at the same time thrown round its expression a +characteristic shade of painfulness and difficulty which just suits it. +And Marcus Aurelius's book is one which, when it is rendered so +accurately as Mr. Long renders it, even those who know Greek tolerably +well may choose to read rather in the translation than in the original. +For not only are the contents here incomparably more valuable than the +external form, but this form, the Greek of a Roman, is not exactly one +of those styles which have a physiognomy, which are an essential part of +their author, which stamp an indelible impression of him on the reader's +mind. An old Lyons commentator finds, indeed, in Marcus Aurelius's +Greek, something characteristic, something specially firm and imperial; +but I think an ordinary mortal will hardly find this: he will find +crabbed Greek, without any great charm of distinct physiognomy. The +Greek of Thucydides and Plato has this charm, and he who reads them in a +translation, however accurate, loses it, and loses much in losing it; +but the Greek of Marcus Aurelius, like the Greek of the New Testament, +and even more than the Greek of the New Testament, is wanting in it. If +one could be assured that the English Testament were made perfectly +accurate, one might be almost content never to open a Greek Testament +again; and, Mr. Long's version of Marcus Aurelius being what it is, an +Englishman who reads to live, and does not live to read, may henceforth +let the Greek original repose upon its shelf. + +The man whose thoughts Mr. Long has thus faithfully reproduced, is +perhaps the most beautiful figure in history. He is one of those +consoling and hope-inspiring marks, which stand forever to remind our +weak and easily discouraged race how high human goodness and +perseverance have once been carried, and may be carried again. The +interest of mankind is peculiarly attracted by examples of signal +goodness in high places; for that testimony to the worth of goodness is +the most striking which is borne by those to whom all the means of +pleasure and self-indulgence lay open, by those who had at their command +the kingdoms of the world and the glory of them. Marcus Aurelius was the +ruler of the grandest of empires; and he was one of the best of men. +Besides him, history presents one or two sovereigns eminent for their +goodness, such as Saint Louis or Alfred. But Marcus Aurelius has, for us +moderns, this great superiority in interest over Saint Louis or Alfred, +that he lived and acted in a state of society modern by its essential +characteristics, in an epoch akin to our own, in a brilliant centre of +civilization. Trajan talks of "our enlightened age" just as glibly as +the _Times_[206] talks of it. Marcus Aurelius thus becomes for us a man +like ourselves, a man in all things tempted as we are. Saint Louis[207] +inhabits an atmosphere of mediaeval Catholicism, which the man of the +nineteenth century may admire, indeed, may even passionately wish to +inhabit, but which, strive as he will, he cannot really inhabit. Alfred +belongs to a state of society (I say it with all deference to the +_Saturday Review_[208] critic who keeps such jealous watch over the +honor of our Saxon ancestors) half barbarous. Neither Alfred nor Saint +Louis can be morally and intellectually as near to us as Marcus +Aurelius. + +The record of the outward life of this admirable man has in it little of +striking incident. He was born at Rome on the 26th of April, in the year +121 of the Christian era. He was nephew and son-in-law to his +predecessor on the throne, Antoninus Pius. When Antoninus died, he was +forty years old, but from the time of his earliest manhood he had +assisted in administering public affairs. Then, after his uncle's death +in 161, for nineteen years he reigned as emperor. The barbarians were +pressing on the Roman frontier, and a great part of Marcus Aurelius's +nineteen years of reign was passed in campaigning. His absences from +Rome were numerous and long. We hear of him in Asia Minor, Syria, Egypt, +Greece; but, above all, in the countries on the Danube, where the war +with the barbarians was going on,--in Austria, Moravia, Hungary. In +these countries much of his Journal seems to have been written; parts of +it are dated from them; and there, a few weeks before his fifty-ninth +birthday, he fell sick and died.[209] The record of him on which his +fame chiefly rests is the record of his inward life,--his _Journal_, or +_Commentaries_, or _Meditations_, or _Thoughts_, for by all these names +has the work been called. Perhaps the most interesting of the records of +his outward life is that which the first book of this work supplies, +where he gives an account of his education, recites the names of those +to whom he is indebted for it, and enumerates his obligations to each of +them. It is a refreshing and consoling picture, a priceless treasure for +those, who, sick of the "wild and dreamlike trade of blood and guile," +which seems to be nearly the whole of what history has to offer to our +view, seek eagerly for that substratum of right thinking and well-doing +which in all ages must surely have somewhere existed, for without it the +continued life of humanity would have been impossible. "From my mother I +learnt piety and beneficence, and abstinence not only from evil deeds +but even from evil thoughts; and further, simplicity in my way of +living, far removed from the habits of the rich." Let us remember that, +the next time we are reading the sixth satire of Juvenal.[210] "From my +tutor I learnt" (hear it, ye tutors of princes!) "endurance of labor, +and to want little and to work with my own hands, and not to meddle with +other people's affairs, and not to be ready to listen to slander." The +vices and foibles of the Greek sophist or rhetorician--the _Graeculus +esuriens_[211]--are in everybody's mind; but he who reads Marcus +Aurelius's account of his Greek teachers and masters, will understand +how it is that, in spite of the vices and foibles of individual +_Graeculi_, the education of the human race owes to Greece a debt which +can never be overrated. The vague and colorless praise of history leaves +on the mind hardly any impression of Antoninus Pius: it is only from the +private memoranda of his nephew that we learn what a disciplined, +hard-working, gentle, wise, virtuous man he was; a man who, perhaps, +interests mankind less than his immortal nephew only because he has left +in writing no record of his inner life,--_caret quia vate sacro_.[212] + +Of the outward life and circumstances of Marcus Aurelius, beyond these +notices which he has himself supplied, there are few of much interest +and importance. There is the fine anecdote of his speech when he heard +of the assassination of the revolted Avidius Cassius,[213] against whom +he was marching; _he was sorry_, he said, _to be deprived of the +pleasure of pardoning him_. And there are one or two more anecdotes of +him which show the same spirit. But the great record for the outward +life of a man who has left such a record of his lofty inward aspirations +as that which Marcus Aurelius has left, is the clear consenting voice of +all his contemporaries,--high and low, friend and enemy, pagan and +Christian,--in praise of his sincerity, justice, and goodness. The +world's charity does not err on the side of excess, and here was a man +occupying the most conspicuous station in the world, and professing the +highest possible standard of conduct;--yet the world was obliged to +declare that he walked worthily of his profession. Long after his death, +his bust was to be seen in the houses of private men through the wide +Roman empire. It may be the vulgar part of human nature which busies +itself with the semblance and doings of living sovereigns, it is its +nobler part which busies itself with those of the dead; these busts of +Marcus Aurelius, in the homes of Gaul, Britain, and Italy, bear witness, +not to the inmates' frivolous curiosity about princes and palaces, but +to their reverential memory of the passage of a great man upon the +earth. + +Two things, however, before one turns from the outward to the inward +life of Marcus Aurelius, force themselves upon one's notice, and demand +a word of comment; he persecuted the Christians, and he had for his son +the vicious and brutal Commodus.[214] The persecution at Lyons, in which +Attalus[215] and Pothinus suffered, the persecution at Smyrna, in which +Polycarp[216] suffered, took place in his reign. Of his humanity, of his +tolerance, of his horror of cruelty and violence, of his wish to refrain +from severe measures against the Christians, of his anxiety to temper +the severity of these measures when they appeared to him indispensable, +there is no doubt: but, on the one hand, it is certain that the letter, +attributed to him, directing that no Christian should be punished for +being a Christian, is spurious; it is almost certain that his alleged +answer to the authorities of Lyons, in which he directs that Christians +persisting in their profession shall be dealt with according to law, is +genuine. Mr. Long seems inclined to try and throw doubt over the +persecution at Lyons, by pointing out that the letter of the Lyons +Christians relating it, alleges it to have been attended by miraculous +and incredible incidents. "A man," he says, "can only act consistently +by accepting all this letter or rejecting it all, and we cannot blame +him for either." But it is contrary to all experience to say that +because a fact is related with incorrect additions, and embellishments, +therefore it probably never happened at all; or that it is not, in +general, easy for an impartial mind to distinguish between the fact and +the embellishments. I cannot doubt that the Lyons persecution took +place, and that the punishment of Christians for being Christians was +sanctioned by Marcus Aurelius. But then I must add that nine modern +readers out of ten, when they read this, will, I believe, have a +perfectly false notion of what the moral action of Marcus Aurelius, in +sanctioning that punishment, really was. They imagine Trajan, or +Antoninus Pius, or Marcus Aurelius, fresh from the perusal of the +Gospel, fully aware of the spirit and holiness of the Christian saints, +ordering their extermination because he loved darkness rather than +light. Far from this, the Christianity which these emperors aimed at +repressing was, in their conception of it, something philosophically +contemptible, politically subversive, and morally abominable. As men, +they sincerely regarded it much as well-conditioned people, with us, +regard Mormonism; as rulers, they regarded it much as Liberal statesmen, +with us, regard the Jesuits. A kind of Mormonism, constituted as a vast +secret society, with obscure aims of political and social subversion, +was what Antoninus Pius and Marcus Aurelius believed themselves to be +repressing when they punished Christians. The early Christian apologists +again and again declare to us under what odious imputations the +Christians lay, how general was the belief that these imputations were +well-grounded, how sincere was the horror which the belief inspired. The +multitude, convinced that the Christians were atheists who ate human +flesh and thought incest no crime, displayed against them a fury so +passionate as to embarrass and alarm their rulers. The severe +expressions of Tacitus, _exitiabilis superstitio--odio humani generis +convicti_,[217] show how deeply the prejudices of the multitude imbued +the educated class also. One asks oneself with astonishment how a +doctrine so benign as that of Jesus Christ can have incurred +misrepresentation so monstrous. The inner and moving cause of the +misrepresentation lay, no doubt, in this,--that Christianity was a new +spirit in the Roman world, destined to act in that world as its +dissolvent; and it was inevitable that Christianity in the Roman world, +like democracy in the modern world, like every new spirit with a similar +mission assigned to it, should at its first appearance occasion an +instinctive shrinking and repugnance in the world which it was to +dissolve. The outer and palpable causes of the misrepresentation were, +for the Roman public at large, the confounding of the Christians with +the Jews, that isolated, fierce, and stubborn race, whose stubbornness, +fierceness, and isolation, real as they were, the fancy of a civilized +Roman yet further exaggerated; the atmosphere of mystery and novelty +which surrounded the Christian rites; the very simplicity of Christian +theism. For the Roman statesman, the cause of mistake lay in that +character of secret assemblages which the meetings of the Christian +community wore, under a State-system as jealous of unauthorized +associations as is the State-system of modern France. + +A Roman of Marcus Aurelius's time and position could not well see the +Christians except through the mist of these prejudices. Seen through +such a mist, the Christians appeared with a thousand faults not their +own; but it has not been sufficiently remarked that faults really their +own many of them assuredly appeared with besides, faults especially +likely to strike such an observer as Marcus Aurelius, and to confirm him +in the prejudices of his race, station, and rearing. We look back upon +Christianity after it has proved what a future it bore within it, and +for us the sole representatives of its early struggles are the pure and +devoted spirits through whom it proved this; Marcus Aurelius saw it with +its future yet unshown, and with the tares among its professed progeny +not less conspicuous than the wheat. Who can doubt that among the +professing Christians of the second century, as among the professing +Christians of the nineteenth, there was plenty of folly, plenty of rabid +nonsense, plenty of gross fanaticism? who will even venture to affirm +that, separated in great measure from the intellect and civilization of +the world for one or two centuries, Christianity, wonderful as have been +its fruits, had the development perfectly worthy of its inestimable +germ? Who will venture to affirm that, by the alliance of Christianity +with the virtue and intelligence of men like the Antonines,--of the best +product of Greek and Roman civilization, while Greek and Roman +civilization had yet life and power,--Christianity and the world, as +well as the Antonines themselves, would not have been gainers? That +alliance was not to be. The Antonines lived and died with an utter +misconception of Christianity; Christianity grew up in the Catacombs, +not on the Palatine. And Marcus Aurelius incurs no moral reproach by +having authorized the punishment of the Christians; he does not thereby +become in the least what we mean by a _persecutor_. One may concede that +it was impossible for him to see Christianity as it really was;--as +impossible as for even the moderate and sensible Fleury[218] to see the +Antonines as they really were;--one may concede that the point of view +from which Christianity appeared something anti-civil and anti-social, +which the State had the faculty to judge and the duty to suppress, was +inevitably his. Still, however, it remains true that this sage, who made +perfection his aim and reason his law, did Christianity an immense +injustice and rested in an idea of State-attributes which was illusive. +And this is, in truth, characteristic of Marcus Aurelius, that he is +blameless, yet, in a certain sense, unfortunate; in his character, +beautiful as it is, there is something melancholy, circumscribed, and +ineffectual. + +For of his having such a son as Commodus, too, one must say that he is +not to be blamed on that account, but that he is unfortunate. +Disposition and temperament are inexplicable things; there are natures +on which the best education and example are thrown away; excellent +fathers may have, without any fault of theirs, incurably vicious sons. +It is to be remembered, also, that Commodus was left, at the perilous +age of nineteen, master of the world; while his father, at that age, was +but beginning a twenty years' apprenticeship to wisdom, labor, and +self-command, under the sheltering teachership of his uncle Antoninus. +Commodus was a prince apt to be led by favorites; and if the story is +true which says that he left, all through his reign, the Christians +untroubled, and ascribes this lenity to the influence of his mistress +Marcia, it shows that he could be led to good as well as to evil. But +for such a nature to be left at a critical age with absolute power, and +wholly without good counsel and direction, was the more fatal. Still one +cannot help wishing that the example of Marcus Aurelius could have +availed more with his own only son. One cannot but think that with such +virtue as his there should go, too, the ardor which removes mountains, +and that the ardor which removes mountains might have even won Commodus. +The word _ineffectual_ again rises to one's mind; Marcus Aurelius saved +his own soul by his righteousness, and he could do no more. Happy they +who can do this! but still happier, who can do more! + +Yet, when one passes from his outward to his inward life, when one turns +over the pages of his _Meditations_,--entries jotted down from day to +day, amid the business of the city or the fatigues of the camp, for his +own guidance and support, meant for no eye but his own, without the +slightest attempt at style, with no care, even, for correct writing, not +to be surpassed for naturalness and sincerity,--all disposition to carp +and cavil dies away, and one is overpowered by the charm of a character +of such purity, delicacy, and virtue. He fails neither in small things +nor in great; he keeps watch over himself both that the great springs of +action may be right in him, and that the minute details of action may be +right also. How admirable in a hard-tasked ruler, and a ruler too, with +a passion for thinking and reading, is such a memorandum as the +following:-- + +"Not frequently nor without necessity to say to any one, or to write in +a letter, that I have no leisure; nor continually to excuse the neglect +of duties required by our relation to those with whom we live, by +alleging urgent occupation."[219] + +And, when that ruler is a Roman emperor, what an "idea" is this to be +written down and meditated by him:-- + +"The idea of a polity in which there is the same law for all, a polity +administered with regard to equal rights and equal freedom of speech, +and the idea of a kingly government which respects most of all the +freedom of the governed."[220] And, for all men who "drive at +practice," what practical rules may not one accumulate out of these +_Meditations_:-- + +"The greatest part of what we say or do being unnecessary, if a man +takes this away, he will have more leisure and less uneasiness. +Accordingly, on every occasion a man should ask himself: 'Is this one of +the unnecessary things?' Now a man should take away not only unnecessary +acts, but also unnecessary thoughts, for thus superfluous acts will not +follow after."[221] + +And again:-- + +"We ought to check in the series of our thoughts everything that is +without a purpose and useless, but most of all the over curious feeling +and the malignant; and a man should use himself to think of those things +only about which if one should suddenly ask, 'What hast thou now in thy +thoughts?' with perfect openness thou mightest immediately answer, 'This +or That'; so that from thy words it should be plain that everything in +thee is simple and benevolent, and such as befits a social animal, and +one that cares not for thoughts about sensual enjoyments, or any rivalry +or envy and suspicion, or anything else for which thou wouldst blush if +thou shouldst say thou hadst it in thy mind."[222] + +So, with a stringent practicalness worthy of Franklin, he discourses on +his favorite text, _Let nothing be done without a purpose_. But it is +when he enters the region where Franklin cannot follow him, when he +utters his thoughts on the ground-motives of human action, that he is +most interesting; that he becomes the unique, the incomparable Marcus +Aurelius. Christianity uses language very liable to be misunderstood +when it seems to tell men to do good, not, certainly, from the vulgar +motives of worldly interest, or vanity, or love of human praise, but +"that their Father which, seeth in secret may reward them openly." The +motives of reward and punishment have come, from the misconception of +language of this kind, to be strangely overpressed by many Christian +moralists, to the deterioration and disfigurement of Christianity. +Marcus Aurelius says, truly and nobly:-- + +"One man, when he has done a service to another, is ready to set it down +to his account as a favor conferred. Another is not ready to do this, +but still in his own mind he thinks of the man as his debtor, and he +knows what he has done. A third in a manner does not even know what he +has done, _but he is like a vine which has produced grapes, and seeks +for nothing more after it has once produced its proper fruit_. As a +horse when he has run, a dog when he has caught the game, a bee when it +has made its honey, so a man when he has done a good act, does not call +out for others to come and see, but he goes on to another act, as a vine +goes on to produce again the grapes in season. Must a man, then, be one +of these, who in a manner acts thus without observing it? Yes."[223] + +And again:-- + +"What more dost thou want when thou hast done a man a service? Art thou +not content that thou hast done something conformable to thy nature, and +dost thou seek to be paid for it, _just as if the eye demanded a +recompense for seeing, or the feet for walking_?"[224] + +Christianity, in order to match morality of this strain, has to correct +its apparent offers of external reward, and to say: _The kingdom of God +is within you._ + +I have said that it is by its accent of emotion that the morality of +Marcus Aurelius acquires a special character, and reminds one of +Christian morality. The sentences of Seneca[225] are stimulating to the +intellect; the sentences of Epictetus are fortifying to the character; +the sentences of Marcus Aurelius find their way to the soul. I have said +that religious emotion has the power to _light up_ morality: the emotion +of Marcus Aurelius does not quite light up his morality, but it suffuses +it; it has not power to melt the clouds of effort and austerity quite +away, but it shines through them and glorifies them; it is a spirit, not +so much of gladness and elation, as of gentleness and sweetness; a +delicate and tender sentiment, which is less than joy and more than +resignation. He says that in his youth he learned from Maximus, one of +his teachers, "cheerfulness in all circumstances as well as in illness; +_and a just admixture in the moral character of sweetness and dignity_": +and it is this very admixture of sweetness with his dignity which makes +him so beautiful a moralist. It enables him to carry even into his +observation of nature, a delicate penetration, a sympathetic tenderness, +worthy of Wordsworth; the spirit of such a remark as the following has +hardly a parallel, so far as my knowledge goes, in the whole range of +Greek and Roman literature:-- + +"Figs, when they are quite ripe, gape open; and in the ripe olives the +very circumstance of their being near to rottenness adds a peculiar +beauty to the fruit. And the ears of corn bending down, and the lion's +eyebrows, and the foam which flows from the mouth of wild boars, and +many other things,--though they are far from being beautiful, in a +certain sense,--still, because they come in the course of nature, have a +beauty in them, and they please the mind; so that if a man should have a +feeling and a deeper insight with respect to the things which are +produced in the universe, there is hardly anything which comes in the +course of nature which will not seem to him to be in a manner disposed +so as to give pleasure."[226] + +But it is when his strain passes to directly moral subjects that his +delicacy and sweetness lend to it the greatest charm. Let those who can +feel the beauty of spiritual refinement read this, the reflection of an +emperor who prized mental superiority highly:-- + +"Thou sayest, 'Men cannot admire the sharpness of thy wits.' Be it so; +but there are many other things of which thou canst not say, 'I am not +formed for them by nature.' Show those qualities, then, which are +altogether in thy power,--sincerity, gravity, endurance of labor, +aversion to pleasure, contentment with thy portion and with few things, +benevolence, frankness, no love of superfluity, freedom from trifling, +magnanimity. Dost thou not see how many qualities thou art at once able +to exhibit, as to which there is no excuse of natural incapacity and +unfitness, and yet thou still remainest voluntarily below the mark? Or +art thou compelled, through being defectively furnished by nature, to +murmur, and to be mean, and to flatter, and to find fault with thy poor +body, and to try to please men, and to make great display, and to be so +restless in thy mind? No, indeed; but thou mightest have been delivered +from these things long ago. Only, if in truth thou canst be charged with +being rather slow and dull of comprehension, thou must exert thyself +about this also, not neglecting nor yet taking pleasure in thy dulness." +[227] + +The same sweetness enables him to fix his mind, when he sees the +isolation and moral death caused by sin, not on the cheerless thought of +the misery of this condition, but on the inspiriting thought that man is +blest with the power to escape from it:-- + +"Suppose that thou hast detached thyself from the natural unity,--for +thou wast made by nature a part, but thou hast cut thyself off,--yet +here is this beautiful provision, that it is in thy power again to unite +thyself. God has allowed this to no other part,--after it has been +separated and cut asunder, to come together again. But consider the +goodness with which he has privileged man; for he has put it in his +power, when he has been separated, to return and to be united and to +resume his place."[228] + +It enables him to control even the passion for retreat and solitude, so +strong in a soul like his, to which the world could offer no abiding +city:-- + +"Men seek retreat for themselves, houses in the country, seashores, and +mountains; and thou, too, art wont to desire such things very much. But +this is altogether a mark of the most common sort of men, for it is in +thy power whenever thou shalt choose to retire into thyself. For nowhere +either with more quiet or more freedom from trouble does a man retire +than into his own soul, particularly when he has within him such +thoughts that by looking into them he is immediately in perfect +tranquillity. Constantly, then, give to thyself this retreat, and renew +thyself; and let thy principles be brief and fundamental, which as soon +as thou shalt recur to them, will be sufficient to cleanse the soul +completely, and to send thee back free from all discontent with the +things to which thou returnest."[229] + +Against this feeling of discontent and weariness, so natural to the +great for whom there seems nothing left to desire or to strive after, +but so enfeebling to them, so deteriorating, Marcus Aurelius never +ceased to struggle. With resolute thankfulness he kept in remembrance +the blessings of his lot; the true blessings of it, not the false:-- + +"I have to thank Heaven that I was subjected to a ruler and a father +(Antoninus Pius) who was able to take away all pride from me, and to +bring me to the knowledge that it is possible for a man to live in a +palace without either guards, or embroidered dresses, or any show of +this kind; but that it is in such a man's power to bring himself very +near to the fashion of a private person, without being for this reason +either meaner in thought or more remiss in action with respect to the +things which must be done for public interest.... I have to be thankful +that my children have not been stupid nor deformed in body; that I did +not make more proficiency in rhetoric, poetry, and the other studies, by +which I should perhaps have been completely engrossed, if I had seen +that I was making great progress in them; ... that I knew Apollonius, +Rusticus, Maximus; ... that I received clear and frequent impressions +about living according to nature, and what kind of a life that is, so +that, so far as depended on Heaven, and its gifts, help, and +inspiration, nothing hindered me from forthwith living according to +nature, though I still fall short of it through my own fault, and +through not observing the admonitions of Heaven, and, I may almost say, +its direct instructions; that my body has held out so long in such a +kind of life as mine; that though it was my mother's lot to die young, +she spent the last years of her life with me; that whenever I wished to +help any man in his need, I was never told that I had not the means of +doing it; that, when I had an inclination to philosophy, I did not fall +into the hands of a sophist."[230] + +And, as he dwelt with gratitude on these helps and blessings vouchsafed +to him, his mind (so, at least, it seems to me) would sometimes revert +with awe to the perils and temptations of the lonely height where he +stood, to the lives of Tiberius, Caligula, Nero, Domitian,[231] in their +hideous blackness and ruin; and then he wrote down for himself such a +warning entry as this, significant and terrible in its abruptness:-- + +"A black character, a womanish character, a stubborn character, bestial, +childish, animal, stupid, counterfeit, scurrilous, fraudulent, +tyrannical!"[232] + +Or this:-- + +"About what am I now employing my soul? On every occasion I must ask +myself this question, and inquire, What have I now in this part of me +which they call the ruling principle, and whose soul have I now?--that +of a child, or of a young man, or of a weak woman, or of a tyrant, or of +one of the lower animals in the service of man, or of a wild +beast?"[233] + +The character he wished to attain he knew well, and beautifully he has +marked it, and marked, too, his sense of shortcoming:-- + +"When thou hast assumed these names,--good, modest, true, rational, +equal-minded, magnanimous,--take care that thou dost not change these +names; and, if thou shouldst lose them, quickly return to them. If thou +maintainest thyself in possession of these names without desiring that +others should call thee by them, thou wilt be another being, and wilt +enter on another life. For to continue to be such as thou hast hitherto +been, and to be torn in pieces and defiled in such a life, is the +character of a very stupid man, and one overfond of his life, and like +those half-devoured fighters with wild beasts, who though covered with +wounds and gore still entreat to be kept to the following day, though +they will be exposed in the same state to the same claws and bites. +Therefore fix thyself in the possession of these few names: and if thou +art able to abide in them, abide as if thou wast removed to the Happy +Islands."[234] + +For all his sweetness and serenity, however, man's point of life +"between two infinities" (of that expression Marcus Aurelius is the real +owner) was to him anything but a Happy Island, and the performances on +it he saw through no veils of illusion. Nothing is in general more +gloomy and monotonous than declamations on the hollowness and +transitoriness of human life and grandeur: but here, too, the great +charm of Marcus Aurelius, his emotion, comes in to relieve the monotony +and to break through the gloom; and even on this eternally used topic he +is imaginative, fresh, and striking:-- + +"Consider, for example, the times of Vespasian. Thou wilt see all these +things, people marrying, bringing up children, sick, dying, warring, +feasting, trafficking, cultivating the ground, flattering, obstinately +arrogant, suspecting, plotting, wishing for somebody to die, grumbling +about the present, loving, heaping up treasure, desiring to be consuls +or kings. Well then that life of these people no longer exists at all. +Again, go to the times of Trajan. All is again the same. Their life too +is gone. But chiefly thou shouldst think of those whom thou hast thyself +known distracting themselves about idle things, neglecting to do what +was in accordance with their proper constitution, and to hold firmly to +this and to be content with it."[235] + +Again:-- + +"The things which are much valued in life are empty, and rotten, and +trifling; and people are like little dogs, biting one another, and +little children quarrelling, crying, and then straightway laughing. But +fidelity, and modesty, and justice, and truth, are fled + + 'Up to Olympus from the wide-spread earth.' + +What then is there which still detains thee here?"[236] + +And once more:-- + +"Look down from above on the countless herds of men, and their countless +solemnities, and the infinitely varied voyagings in storms and calms, +and the differences among those who are born, who live together, and +die. And consider too the life lived by others in olden time, and the +life now lived among barbarous nations, and how many know not even thy +name, and how many will soon forget it, and how they who perhaps now are +praising thee will very soon blame thee and that neither a posthumous +name is of any value, nor reputation, nor anything else."[237] + +He recognized, indeed, that (to use his own words) "the prime principle +in man's constitution is the social";[238] and he labored sincerely to +make not only his acts towards his fellow-men, but his thoughts also, +suitable to this conviction:-- + +"When thou wishest to delight thyself, think of the virtues of those who +live with thee; for instance, the activity of one, and the modesty of +another, and the liberality of a third, and some other good quality of a +fourth."[239] + +Still, it is hard for a pure and thoughtful man to live in a state of +rapture at the spectacle afforded to him by his fellow-creatures; above +all it is hard, when such a man is placed as Marcus Aurelius was placed, +and has had the meanness and perversity of his fellow-creatures thrust, +in no common measure, upon his notice,--has had, time after time, to +experience how "within ten days thou wilt seem a god to those to whom +thou art now a beast and an ape." His true strain of thought as to his +relations with his fellow-men is rather the following. He has been +enumerating the higher consolations which may support a man at the +approach of death, and he goes on:-- + +"But if thou requirest also a vulgar kind of comfort which shall reach +thy heart, thou wilt be made best reconciled to death by observing the +objects from which thou art going to be removed, and the morals of those +with whom thy soul will no longer be mingled. For it is no way right to +be offended with men, but it is thy duty to care for them and to bear +with them gently; and yet to remember that thy departure will not be +from men who have the same principles as thyself. For this is the only +thing, if there be any, which could draw us the contrary way and attach +us to life, to be permitted to live with those who have the same +principles as ourselves. But now thou seest how great is the distress +caused by the difference of those who live together, so that thou mayest +say: 'Come quick, O death, lest perchance I too should forget +myself.'"[240] + +_O faithless and perverse generation! how long shall I be with you? how +long shall I suffer you?_[241] Sometimes this strain rises even to +passion:-- + +"Short is the little which remains to thee of life. Live as on a +mountain. Let men see, let them know, a real man, who lives as he was +meant to live. If they cannot endure him, let them kill him. For that is +better than to live as men do."[242] + +It is remarkable how little of a merely local and temporary character, +how little of those _scoriae_ which a reader has to clear away before he +gets to the precious ore, how little that even admits of doubt or +question, the morality of Marcus Aurelius exhibits. Perhaps as to one +point we must make an exception. Marcus Aurelius is fond of urging as a +motive for man's cheerful acquiescence in whatever befalls him, that +"whatever happens to every man _is for the interest of the +universal_";[243] that the whole contains nothing _which is not for its +advantage_; that everything which happens to a man is to be accepted, +"even if it seems disagreeable, _because it leads to the health of the +universe_."[244] And the whole course of the universe, he adds, has a +providential reference to man's welfare: "_all other things have been +made for the sake of rational beings_."[245] Religion has in all ages +freely used this language, and it is not religion which will object to +Marcus Aurelius's use of it; but science can hardly accept as severely +accurate this employment of the terms _interest_ and _advantage_. To a +sound nature and a clear reason the proposition that things happen "for +the interest of the universal," as men conceive of interest, may seem to +have no meaning at all, and the proposition that "all things have been +made for the sake of rational beings" may seem to be false. Yet even to +this language, not irresistibly cogent when it is thus absolutely used, +Marcus Aurelius gives a turn which makes it true and useful, when he +says: "The ruling part of man can make a material for itself out of that +which opposes it, as fire lays hold of what falls into it, and rises +higher by means of this very material";[246]--when he says: "What else +are all things except exercises for the reason? Persevere then until +thou shalt have made all things thine own, as the stomach which is +strengthened makes all things its own, as the blazing fire makes flame +and brightness out of everything that is thrown into it";[247]--when he +says: "Thou wilt not cease to be miserable till thy mind is in such a +condition, that, what luxury is to those who enjoy pleasure, such shall +be to thee, in every matter which presents itself, the doing of the +things which are conformable to man's constitution; for a man ought to +consider as an enjoyment everything which it is in his power to do +according to his own nature,--and it is in his power everywhere."[248] +In this sense it is, indeed, most true that "all things have been made +for the sake of rational beings"; that "all things work together for +good." + +In general, however, the action Marcus Aurelius prescribes is action +which every sound nature must recognize as right, and the motives he +assigns are motives which every clear reason must recognize as valid. +And so he remains the especial friend and comforter of all clear-headed +and scrupulous, yet pure-hearted and upward striving men, in those ages +most especially that walk by sight, not by faith, but yet have no open +vision. He cannot give such souls, perhaps, all they yearn for, but he +gives them much; and what he gives them, they can receive. + +Yet no, it is not for what he thus gives them that such souls love him +most! it is rather because of the emotion which lends to his voice so +touching an accent, it is because he too yearns as they do for something +unattained by him. What an affinity for Christianity had this persecutor +of the Christians! The effusion of Christianity, its relieving tears, +its happy self-sacrifice, were the very element, one feels, for which +his soul longed; they were near him, they brushed him, he touched them, +he passed them by. One feels, too, that the Marcus Aurelius one reads +must still have remained, even had Christianity been fully known to him, +in a great measure himself; he would have been no Justin;--but how would +Christianity have affected him? in what measure would it have changed +him? Granted that he might have found, like the _Alogi_[249] of modern +times, in the most beautiful of the Gospels, the Gospel which has +leavened Christendom most powerfully, the Gospel of St. John, too much +Greek metaphysics, too much _gnosis_;[250] granted that this Gospel +might have looked too like what he knew already to be a total surprise +to him: what, then, would he have said to the Sermon on the Mount, to +the twenty-sixth chapter of St. Matthew? What would have become of his +notions of the _exitiabilis superstitio_, of the "obstinacy of the +Christians"? Vain question! yet the greatest charm of Marcus Aurelius is +that he makes us ask it. We see him wise, just, self-governed, tender, +thankful, blameless; yet, with all this, agitated, stretching out his +arms for something beyond,--_tendentemque manus ripae ulterioris +amore_.[251] + + + +THE CONTRIBUTION OF THE CELTS TO ENGLISH LITERATURE[252] + + +If I were asked where English poetry got these three things, its turn +for style, its turn for melancholy, and its turn for natural magic, for +catching and rendering the charm of nature in a wonderfully near and +vivid way,--I should answer, with some doubt, that it got much of its +turn for style from a Celtic source; with less doubt, that it got much +of its melancholy from a Celtic source; with no doubt at all, that from +a Celtic source it got nearly all its natural magic. + +Any German with penetration and tact in matters of literary criticism +will own that the principal deficiency of German poetry is in style; +that for style, in the highest sense, it shows but little feeling. Take +the eminent masters of style, the poets who best give the idea of what +the peculiar power which lies in style is--Pindar, Virgil, Dante, +Milton. An example of the peculiar effect which these poets produce, you +can hardly give from German poetry. Examples enough you can give from +German poetry of the effect produced by genius, thought, and feeling +expressing themselves in clear language, simple language, passionate +language, eloquent language, with harmony and melody: but not of the +peculiar effect exercised by eminent power of style. Every reader of +Dante can at once call to mind what the peculiar effect I mean is; I +spoke of it in my lectures on translating Homer, and there I took an +example of it from Dante, who perhaps manifests it more eminently than +any other poet. + +But from Milton, too, one may take examples of it abundantly; compare +this from Milton:-- + + "... nor sometimes forget + Those other two equal with me in fate, + So were I equall'd with them in renown, + Blind Thamyris and blind Maeonides--"[253] + +with this from Goethe:-- + + "Es bildet ein Talent sich in der Stille, + Sich ein Character in dem Strom der Welt."[254] + +Nothing can be better in its way than the style in which Goethe there +presents his thought, but it is the style of prose as much as of poetry; +it is lucid, harmonious, earnest, eloquent, but it has not received that +peculiar kneading, heightening, and recasting which is observable in the +style of the passage from Milton--a style which seems to have for its +cause a certain pressure of emotion, and an ever-surging, yet bridled, +excitement in the poet, giving a special intensity to his way of +delivering himself. In poetical races and epochs this turn for style is +peculiarly observable; and perhaps it is only on condition of having +this somewhat heightened and difficult manner, so different from the +plain manner of prose, that poetry gets the privilege of being loosed, +at its best moments, into that perfectly simple, limpid style, which is +the supreme style of all, but the simplicity of which is still not the +simplicity of prose. The simplicity of Menander's[255] style is the +simplicity of prose, and is the same kind of simplicity as that which +Goethe's style, in the passage I have quoted, exhibits; but Menander +does not belong to a great poetical moment, he comes too late for it; it +is the simple passages in poets like Pindar or Dante which are perfect, +being masterpieces of _poetical_ simplicity. One may say the same of the +simple passages in Shakespeare; they are perfect, their simplicity being +a _poetical_ simplicity. They are the golden, easeful, crowning moments +of a manner which is always pitched in another key from that of prose, a +manner changed and heightened; the Elizabethan style, regnant in most of +our dramatic poetry to this day, is mainly the continuation of this +manner of Shakespeare's. It was a manner much more turbid and strewn +with blemishes than the manner of Pindar, Dante, or Milton; often it was +detestable; but it owed its existence to Shakespeare's instinctive +impulse towards _style_ in poetry, to his native sense of the necessity +for it; and without the basis of style everywhere, faulty though it may +in some places be, we should not have had the beauty of expression, +unsurpassable for effectiveness and charm, which is reached in +Shakespeare's best passages. The turn for style is perceptible all +through English poetry, proving, to my mind, the genuine poetical gift +of the race; this turn imparts to our poetry a stamp of high +distinction, and sometimes it doubles the force of a poet not by nature +of the very highest order, such as Gray, and raises him to a rank beyond +what his natural richness and power seem to promise. Goethe, with his +fine critical perception, saw clearly enough both the power of style in +itself, and the lack of style in the literature of his own country; and +perhaps if we regard him solely as a German, not as a European, his +great work was that he labored all his life to impart style into German +literature, and firmly to establish it there. Hence the immense +importance to him of the world of classical art, and of the productions +of Greek or Latin genius, where style so eminently manifests its power. +Had he found in the German genius and literature an element of style +existing by nature and ready to his hand, half his work, one may say, +would have been saved him, and he might have done much more in poetry. +But as it was, he had to try and create, out of his own powers, a style +for German poetry, as well as to provide contents for this style to +carry; and thus his labor as a poet was doubled. + +It is to be observed that power of style, in the sense in which I am +here speaking of style, is something quite different from the power of +idiomatic, simple, nervous, racy expression, such as the expression of +healthy, robust natures so often is, such as Luther's was in a striking +degree. Style, in my sense of the word, is a peculiar recasting and +heightening, under a certain condition of spiritual excitement, of what +a man has to say, in such a manner as to add dignity and distinction to +it; and dignity and distinction are not terms which suit many acts or +words of Luther. Deeply touched with the _Gemeinheit_[256] which is the +bane of his nation, as he is at the same time a grand example of the +honesty which is his nation's excellence, he can seldom even show +himself brave, resolute, and truthful, without showing a strong dash of +coarseness and commonness all the while; the right definition of Luther, +as of our own Bunyan, is that he is a Philistine of genius. So Luther's +sincere idiomatic German,--such language as this: "Hilf, lieber Gott, +wie manchen Jammer habe ich gesehen, dass der gemeine Mann doch so gar +nichts weiss von der christlichen Lehre!"--no more proves a power of +style in German literature, than Cobbett's[257] sinewy idiomatic English +proves it in English literature. Power of style, properly so-called, as +manifested in masters of style like Dante or Milton in poetry, Cicero, +Bossuet[258] or Bolingbroke[259] in prose, is something quite different, +and has, as I have said, for its characteristic effect, this: to add +dignity and distinction. + + * * * * * + +This something is _style_, and the Celts certainly have it in a +wonderful measure. Style is the most striking quality of their poetry. +Celtic poetry seems to make up to itself for being unable to master the +world and give an adequate interpretation of it, by throwing all its +force into style, by bending language at any rate to its will, and +expressing the ideas it has with unsurpassable intensity, elevation, and +effect. It has all through it a sort of intoxication of style--a +_Pindarism_, to use a word formed from the name of the poet, on whom, +above all other poets, the power of style seems to have exercised an +inspiring and intoxicating effect; and not in its great poets only, in +Taliesin, or Llywarch Hen, or Ossian,[260] does the Celtic genius show +this Pindarism, but in all its productions:-- + + "The grave of March is this, and this the grave of Gwythyr; + Here is the grave of Gwgawn Gleddyfreidd; + But unknown is the grave of Arthur."[261] + +That comes from the _Welsh Memorials of the Graves of the Warriors_, and +if we compare it with the familiar memorial inscriptions of an English +churchyard (for we English have so much Germanism in us that our +productions offer abundant examples of German want of style as well as +of its opposite):-- + + "Afflictions sore long time I bore, + Physicians were in vain, + Till God did please Death should me seize + And ease me of my pain--" + +if, I say, we compare the Welsh memorial lines with the English, which +in their _Gemeinheit_ of style are truly Germanic, we shall get a clear +sense of what that Celtic talent for style I have been speaking of is. + + * * * * * + +Its chord of penetrating passion and melancholy, again, its _Titanism_ +as we see it in Byron,--what other European poetry possesses that like +the English, and where do we get it from? The Celts, with their vehement +reaction against the despotism of fact, with their sensuous nature, +their manifold striving, their adverse destiny, their immense +calamities, the Celts are the prime authors of this vein of piercing +regret and passion,--of this Titanism in poetry. A famous book, +Macpherson's _Ossian_,[262] carried in the last century this vein like a +flood of lava through Europe. I am not going to criticize Macpherson's +_Ossian_ here. Make the part of what is forged, modern, tawdry, +spurious, in the book, as large as you please; strip Scotland, if you +like, of every feather of borrowed plumes which on the strength of +Macpherson's _Ossian_ she may have stolen from that _vetus et major +Scotia_, the true home of the Ossianic poetry, Ireland; I make no +objection. But there will still be left in the book a residue with the +very soul of the Celtic genius in it, and which has the proud +distinction of having brought this soul of the Celtic genius into +contact with the genius of the nations of modern Europe, and enriched +all our poetry by it. Woody Morven, and echoing Sora, and Selma with its +silent halls!--we all owe them a debt of gratitude, and when we are +unjust enough to forget it, may the Muse forget us! Choose any one of +the better passages in Macpherson's _Ossian_ and you can see even at +this time of day what an apparition of newness and power such a strain +must have been to the eighteenth century:-- + +"I have seen the walls of Balclutha, but they were desolate. The fox +looked out from the windows, the rank grass of the wall waved round her +head. Raise the song of mourning, O bards, over the land of strangers. +They have but fallen before us, for one day we must fall. Why dost thou +build the hall, son of the winged days? Thou lookest from thy towers +today; yet a few years, and the blast of the desert comes; it howls in +thy empty court, and whistles round thy half-worn shield. Let the blast +of the desert come! we shall be renowned in our day." + +All Europe felt the power of that melancholy; but what I wish to point +out is, that no nation of Europe so caught in its poetry the passionate +penetrating accent of the Celtic genius, its strain of Titanism, as the +English. Goethe, like Napoleon, felt the spell of Ossian very +powerfully, and he quotes a long passage from him in his _Werther_.[263] +But what is there Celtic, turbulent, and Titanic about the German +Werther, that amiable, cultivated and melancholy young man, having for +his sorrow and suicide the perfectly definite motive that Lotte cannot +be his? Faust, again, has nothing unaccountable, defiant, and Titanic in +him; his knowledge does not bring him the satisfaction he expected from +it, and meanwhile he finds himself poor and growing old, and balked of +the palpable enjoyment of life; and here is the motive for Faust's +discontent. In the most energetic and impetuous of Goethe's creations,-- +his _Prometheus_,[264]--it is not Celtic self-will and passion, it is +rather the Germanic sense of justice and reason, which revolts against +the despotism of Zeus. The German _Sehnsucht_ itself is a wistful, soft, +tearful longing, rather than a struggling, fierce, passionate one. But +the Celtic melancholy is struggling, fierce, passionate; to catch its +note, listen to Llywarch Hen in old age, addressing his crutch:-- + +"O my crutch! is it not autumn, when the fern is red, the water-flag +yellow? Have I not hated that which I love? + +O my crutch! is it not winter-time now, when men talk together after +that they have drunken? Is not the side of my bed left desolate? + +O my crutch! is it not spring, when the cuckoo passes through the air, +when the foam sparkles on the sea? The young maidens no longer love me. + +O my crutch! is it not the first day of May? The furrows, are they not +shining; the young corn, is it not springing? Ah! the sight of thy +handle makes me wroth. + +O my crutch! stand straight, thou wilt support me the better; it is very +long since I was Llywarch. + +Behold old age, which makes sport of me, from the hair of my head to my +teeth, to my eyes, which women loved. + +The four things I have all my life most hated fall upon me together,-- +coughing and old age, sickness and sorrow. + +I am old, I am alone, shapeliness and warmth are gone from me; the couch +of honor shall be no more mine; I am miserable, I am bent on my crutch. + +How evil was the lot allotted to Llywarch, the night when he was brought +forth! sorrows without end, and no deliverance from his burden."[265] + +There is the Titanism of the Celt, his passionate, turbulent, +indomitable reaction against the despotism of fact; and of whom does it +remind us so much as of Byron? + + "The fire which on my bosom preys + Is lone as some volcanic isle; + No torch is kindled at its blaze; + A funeral pile!"[266] + +Or, again:-- + + "Count o'er the joys thine hours have seen, + Count o'er thy days from anguish free, + And know, whatever thou hast been, + 'Tis something better not to be."[267] + +One has only to let one's memory begin to fetch passages from Byron +striking the same note as that passage from Llywarch Hen, and she will +not soon stop. And all Byron's heroes, not so much in collision with +outward things, as breaking on some rock of revolt and misery in the +depths of their own nature; Manfred, self-consumed, fighting blindly and +passionately with I know not what, having nothing of the consistent +development and intelligible motive of Faust,--Manfred, Lara, Cain,[268] +what are they but Titanic? Where in European poetry are we to find this +Celtic passion of revolt so warm-breathing, puissant, and sincere; +except perhaps in the creation of a yet greater poet than Byron, but an +English poet, too, like Byron,--in the Satan of Milton? + + "... What though the field be lost? + All is not lost; the unconquerable will, + And study of revenge, immortal hate, + And courage never to submit or yield, + And what is else not to be overcome."[269] + +There, surely, speaks a genius to whose composition the Celtic fibre was +not wholly a stranger! + + * * * * * + +The Celt's quick feeling for what is noble and distinguished gave his +poetry style; his indomitable personality gave it pride and passion; his +sensibility and nervous exaltation gave it a better gift still, the gift +of rendering with wonderful felicity the magical charm of nature. The +forest solitude, the bubbling spring, the wild flowers, are everywhere +in romance. They have a mysterious life and grace there; they are +Nature's own children, and utter her secret in a way which makes them +something quite different from the woods, waters, and plants of Greek +and Latin poetry. Now of this delicate magic, Celtic romance is so +pre-eminent a mistress, that it seems impossible to believe the power +did not come into romance from the Celts.[270] Magic is just the word +for it,--the magic of nature; not merely the beauty of nature,--that the +Greeks and Latins had; not merely an honest smack of the soil, a +faithful realism,--that the Germans had; but the intimate life of +Nature, her weird power and her fairy charm. As the Saxon names of +places, with the pleasant wholesome smack of the soil in them,-- +Weathersfield, Thaxted, Shalford,--are to the Celtic names of places, +with their penetrating, lofty beauty,--Velindra, Tyntagel, Caernarvon,-- +so is the homely realism of German and Norse nature to the fairy-like +loveliness of Celtic nature. Gwydion wants a wife for his pupil: "Well," +says Math, "we will seek, I and thou, by charms and illusions, to form a +wife for him out of flowers. So they took the blossoms of the oak, and +the blossoms of the broom, and the blossoms of the meadow-sweet, and +produced from them a maiden, the fairest and most graceful that +man ever saw. And they baptized her, and gave her the name of +Flower-Aspect."[271] Celtic romance is full of exquisite touches like +that, showing the delicacy of the Celt's feeling in these matters, and +how deeply Nature lets him come into her secrets. The quick dropping of +blood is called "faster than the fall of the dewdrop from the blade of +reed-grass upon the earth, when the dew of June is at the heaviest." And +thus is Olwen described: "More yellow was her hair than the flower of +the broom, and her skin was whiter than the foam of the wave, and fairer +were her hands and her fingers than the blossoms of the wood-anemony +amidst the spray of the meadow fountains."[272] For loveliness it would +be hard to beat that; and for magical clearness and nearness take the +following:-- + +"And in the evening Peredur entered a valley, and at the head of the +valley he came to a hermit's cell, and the hermit welcomed him gladly, +and there he spent the night. And in the morning he arose, and when he +went forth, behold, a shower of snow had fallen the night before, and a +hawk had killed a wild-fowl in front of the cell. And the noise of the +horse scared the hawk away, and a raven alighted upon the bird. And +Peredur stood and compared the blackness of the raven, and the whiteness +of the snow, and the redness of the blood, to the hair of the lady whom +best he loved, which was blacker than the raven, and to her skin, which +was whiter than the snow, and to her two cheeks which were redder than +the blood upon the snow appeared to be."[273] + +And this, which is perhaps less striking, is not less beautiful:-- + +"And early in the day Geraint and Enid left the wood, and they came to +an open country, with meadows on one hand and mowers mowing the meadows. +And there was a river before them, and the horses bent down and drank +the water. And they went up out of the river by a steep bank, and there +they met a slender stripling with a satchel about his neck; and he had a +small blue pitcher in his hand, and a bowl on the mouth of the +pitcher."[274] + +And here the landscape, up to this point so Greek in its clear beauty, +is suddenly magicalized by the romance touch,-- + +"And they saw a tall tree by the side of the river, one-half of which +was in flames from the root to the top, and the other half was green and +in full leaf." + +Magic is the word to insist upon,--a magically vivid and near +interpretation of nature; since it is this which constitutes the special +charm and power of the effect I am calling attention to, and it is for +this that the Celt's sensibility gives him a peculiar aptitude. But the +matter needs rather fine handling, and it is easy to make mistakes here +in our criticism. In the first place, Europe tends constantly to become +more and more one community, and we tend to become Europeans instead of +merely Englishmen, Frenchmen, Germans, Italians; so whatever aptitude or +felicity one people imparts into spiritual work, gets imitated by the +others, and thus tends to become the common property of all. Therefore +anything so beautiful and attractive as the natural magic I am speaking +of, is sure, nowadays, if it appears in the productions of the Celts, or +of the English, or of the French, to appear in the productions of the +Germans also, or in the productions of the Italians; but there will be a +stamp of perfectness and inimitableness about it in the literatures +where it is native, which it will not have in the literatures where it +is not native. Novalis[275] or Rueckert,[276] for instance, have their +eye fixed on nature, and have undoubtedly a feeling for natural magic; a +rough-and-ready critic easily credits them and the Germans with the +Celtic fineness of tact, the Celtic nearness to nature and her secret; +but the question is whether the strokes in the German's picture of +nature[277] have ever the indefinable delicacy, charm, and perfection of +the Celt's touch in the pieces I just now quoted, or of Shakespeare's +touch in his daffodil,[278] Wordsworth's in his cuckoo,[279] Keats's in +his Autumn, Obermann's in his mountain birch-tree, or his Easter-daisy +among the Swiss farms.[280] To decide where the gift for natural magic +originally lies, whether it is properly Celtic or Germanic, we must +decide this question. + +In the second place, there are many ways of handling nature, and we are +here only concerned with one of them; but a rough-and-ready critic +imagines that it is all the same so long as nature is handled at all, +and fails to draw the needful distinction between modes of handling her. +But these modes are many; I will mention four of them now: there is the +conventional way of handling nature, there is the faithful way of +handling nature, there is the Greek way of handling nature, there is the +magical way of handling nature. In all these three last the eye is on +the object, but with a difference; in the faithful way of handling +nature, the eye is on the object, and that is all you can say; in the +Greek, the eye is on the object, but lightness and brightness are added; +in the magical, the eye is on the object, but charm and magic are added. +In the conventional way of handling nature, the eye is not on the +object; what that means we all know, we have only to think of our +eighteenth-century poetry:-- + + "As when the moon, refulgent lamp of night--"[281] + +to call up any number of instances. Latin poetry supplies plenty of +instances too; if we put this from Propertius's _Hylas_:-- + + + "... manus heroum ... + Mollia composita litora fronde tegit--"[282] + + +side by side with the line of Theocritus by which it was suggested:-- + +[Greek: leimon gar sphin ekeito megas, stibadessin oneiar--][283] + + +we get at the same moment a good specimen both of the conventional and +of the Greek way of handling nature. But from our own poetry we may get +specimens of the Greek way of handling nature, as well as of the +conventional: for instance, Keats's:-- + + "What little town by river or seashore, + Or mountain-built with quiet citadel, + Is emptied of its folk, this pious morn?"[284] + +is Greek, as Greek as a thing from Homer or Theocritus; it is composed +with the eye on the object, a radiancy and light clearness being added. +German poetry abounds in specimens of the faithful way of handling +nature; an excellent example is to be found in the stanzas called +_Zueignung_[285], prefixed to Goethe's poems; the morning walk, the +mist, the dew, the sun, are as faithful as they can be, they are given +with the eye on the object, but there the merit of the work, as a +handling of nature, stops; neither Greek radiance nor Celtic magic is +added; the power of these is not what gives the poem in question its +merit, but a power of quite another kind, a power of moral and spiritual +emotion. But the power of Greek radiance Goethe could give to his +handling of nature, and nobly too, as any one who will read his +_Wanderer_,--the poem in which a wanderer falls in with a peasant woman +and her child by their hut, built out of the ruins of a temple near +Cuma,--may see. Only the power of natural magic Goethe does not, I +think, give; whereas Keats passes at will from the Greek power to that +power which is, as I say, Celtic; from his + + "What little town, by river or seashore--" + +to his + + "White hawthorn and the pastoral eglantine, + Fast-fading violets cover'd up in leaves--"[286] + +or his + + "... magic casements, opening on the foam + Of perilous seas, in fairy lands forlorn--"[287] + +in which the very same note is struck as in those extracts which I +quoted from Celtic romance, and struck with authentic and unmistakable +power. + +Shakespeare, in handling nature, touches this Celtic note so +exquisitely, that perhaps one is inclined to be always looking for the +Celtic note in him, and not to recognize his Greek note when it comes. +But if one attends well to the difference between the two notes, and +bears in mind, to guide one, such things as Virgil's "moss-grown springs +and grass softer than sleep:"-- + + "Muscosi fontes et somno mollior herba--"[288] + +as his charming flower-gatherer, who-- + + "Pallentes violas et summa papavera carpens + Narcissum et florem jungit bene olentis anethi--"[289] + +as his quinces and chestnuts:-- + + " ... cana legam tenera lanugine mala + Castaneasque nuces ..."[290] + +then, I think, we shall be disposed to say that in Shakespeare's + + "I know a bank where the wild thyme blows, + Where oxlips and the nodding violet grows, + Quite over-canopied with luscious woodbine, + With sweet musk-roses and with eglantine--"[291] + +it is mainly a Greek note which is struck. Then, again in his + + " ... look how the floor of heaven + Is thick inlaid with patines of bright gold!"[292] + +we are at the very point of transition from the Greek note to the +Celtic; there is the Greek clearness and brightness, with the Celtic +aerialness and magic coming in. Then we have the sheer, inimitable +Celtic note in passages like this:-- + + "Met we on hill, in dale, forest or mead, + By paved fountain or by rushy brook, + Or in the beached margent of the sea--"[293] + +or this, the last I will quote:-- + + "The moon shines bright. In such a night as this, + When the sweet wind did gently kiss the trees, + And they did make no noise, in such a night + Troilus, methinks, mounted the Trojan walls-- + + ... in such a night + Did Thisbe fearfully o'ertrip the dew-- + ... in such a night + _Stood Dido, with a willow in her hand, + Upon the wild sea-banks, and waved her love + To come again to Carthage._"[294] + +And those last lines of all are so drenched and intoxicated with the +fairy-dew of that natural magic which is our theme, that I cannot do +better than end with them. + +And now, with the pieces of evidence in our hand, let us go to those who +say it is vain to look for Celtic elements in any Englishman, and let us +ask them, first, if they seize what we mean by the power of natural +magic in Celtic poetry: secondly, if English poetry does not eminently +exhibit this power; and, thirdly, where they suppose English poetry got +it from? + + + +GEORGE SAND[295] + + +The months go round, and anniversaries return; on the ninth of June +George Sand will have been dead just one year. She was born in 1804; she +was almost seventy-two years old when she died. She came to Paris after +the revolution of 1830, with her _Indiana_[296] written, and began her +life of independence, her life of authorship, her life as _George Sand_. +She continued at work till she died. For forty-five years she was +writing and publishing, and filled Europe with her name. + +It seems to me but the other day that I saw her, yet it was in the +August of 1846, more than thirty years ago. I saw her in her own Berry, +at Nohant,[297] where her childhood and youth were passed, where she +returned to live after she became famous, where she died and has now her +grave. There must be many who, after reading her books, have felt the +same desire which in those days of my youth, in 1846, took me to Nohant, +--the desire to see the country and the places of which the books that +so charmed us were full. Those old provinces of the centre of France, +primitive and slumbering,--Berry, La Marche, Bourbonnais; those sites +and streams in them, of name once so indifferent to us, but to which +George Sand gave such a music for our ear,--La Chatre, Ste. Severe, the +_Vallee Noire_, the Indre, the Creuse; how many a reader of George Sand +must have desired, as I did, after frequenting them so much in thought, +fairly to set eyes upon them! + +I had been reading _Jeanne_.[298] I made up my mind to go and see Toulx +Ste. Croix, Boussac, and the Druidical stones on Mont Barlot, the +_Pierres Jaunatres_.[299] + +I remember looking out Toulx in Cassini's great map[300] at the +Bodleian Library. The railway through the centre of France went in those +days no farther than Vierzon. From Vierzon to Chateauroux one travelled +by an ordinary diligence, from Chateauroux to La Chatre by a humbler +diligence, from La Chatre to Boussac by the humblest diligence of all. +At Boussac diligence ended, and _patache_[301] began. Between +Chateauroux and La Chatre, a mile or two before reaching the latter +place, the road passes by the village of Nohant. The Chateau of Nohant, +in which Madame Sand lived, is a plain house by the road-side, with a +walled garden. Down in the meadows, not far off, flows the Indre, +bordered by trees. I passed Nohant without stopping, at La Chatre I +dined and changed diligence, and went on by night up the valley of the +Indre, the _Vallee Noire_, past Ste. Severe to Boussac. At Ste. Severe +the Indre is quite a small stream. In the darkness we quitted its +valley, and when day broke we were in the wilder and barer country of La +Marche, with Boussac before us, and its high castle on a precipitous +rock over the Little Creuse. + +That day and the next I wandered through a silent country of heathy and +ferny _landes_,[302] a region of granite boulders, holly, and broom, of +copsewood and great chestnut trees; a region of broad light, and fresh +breezes and wide horizons. I visited the _Pierres Jaunatres._ I stood at +sunset on the platform of Toulx Ste. Croix, by the scrawled and almost +effaced stone lions,--a relic, it is said, of the English rule,--and +gazed on the blue mountains of Auvergne filling the distance, and +southeastward of them, in a still further and fainter distance, on what +seemed to be the mountains over Le Puy and the high valley of the Loire. + +From Boussac I addressed to Madame Sand the sort of letter of which she +must in her lifetime have had scores, a letter conveying to her, in bad +French, the homage of a youthful and enthusiastic foreigner who had read +her works with delight. She received the infliction good-naturedly, for +on my return to La Chatre I found a message left at the inn by a servant +from Nohant that Madame Sand would be glad to see me if I called. The +mid-day breakfast at Nohant was not yet over when I reached the house, +and I found a large party assembled. I entered with some trepidation, as +well I might, considering how I had got there; but the simplicity of +Madame Sand's manner put me at ease in a moment. She named some of those +present; amongst them were her son and daughter, the Maurice and Solange +[303] so familiar to us from her books, and Chopin[304] with his +wonderful eyes. There was at that time nothing astonishing in Madame +Sand's appearance. She was not in man's clothes, she wore a sort of +costume not impossible, I should think (although on these matters I +speak with hesitation), to members of the fair sex at this hour amongst +ourselves, as an outdoor dress for the country or for Scotland. She made +me sit by her and poured out for me the insipid and depressing beverage, +_boisson fade et melancolique_, as Balzac called it, for which English +people are thought abroad to be always thirsting,--tea. She conversed of +the country through which I had been wandering, of the Berry peasants +and their mode of life, of Switzerland, whither I was going; she touched +politely, by a few questions and remarks, upon England and things and +persons English,--upon Oxford and Cambridge, Byron, Bulwer. As she +spoke, her eyes, head, bearing, were all of them striking; but the main +impression she made was an impression of what I have already mentioned, +--of _simplicity_, frank, cordial simplicity. After breakfast she led +the way into the garden, asked me a few kind questions about myself and +my plans, gathered a flower or two and gave them to me, shook hands +heartily at the gate, and I saw her no more. In 1859 M. Michelet[305] +gave me a letter to her, which would have enabled me to present myself +in more regular fashion. Madame Sand was then in Paris. But a day or two +passed before I could call, and when I called, Madame Sand had left +Paris and had gone back to Nohant. The impression of 1846 has remained +my single impression of her. + +Of her gaze, form, and speech, that one impression is enough; better +perhaps than a mixed impression from seeing her at sundry times and +after successive changes. But as the first anniversary of her death +[306] draws near, there arises again a desire which I felt when she +died, the desire, not indeed to take a critical survey of her,--very far +from it. I feel no inclination at all to go regularly through her +productions, to classify and value them one by one, to pick out from +them what the English public may most like, or to present to that +public, for the most part ignorant of George Sand and for the most part +indifferent to her, a full history and a judicial estimate of the woman +and of her writings. But I desire to recall to my own mind, before the +occasion offered by her death passes quite away,--to recall and collect +the elements of that powerful total-impression which, as a writer, she +made upon me; to recall and collect them, to bring them distinctly into +view, to feel them in all their depth and power once more. What I here +attempt is not for the benefit of the indifferent; it is for my own +satisfaction, it is for myself. But perhaps those for whom George Sand +has been a friend and a power will find an interest in following me. + +_Le sentiment de la vie ideale, qui n'est autre que la vie normale telle +que nous sommes appeles a la connaitre_;[307]--"the sentiment of the +ideal life, which is none other than man's normal life as we shall some +day know it,"--those words from one of her last publications give the +ruling thought of George Sand, the ground-_motive_, as they say in +music, of all her strain. It is as a personage inspired by this motive +that she interests us. + +The English public conceives of her as of a novel-writer who wrote +stories more or less interesting; the earlier ones objectionable and +dangerous, the later ones, some of them, unexceptionable and fit to be +put into the hands of the youth of both sexes. With such a conception of +George Sand, a story of hers like _Consuelo_[308] comes to be elevated +in England into quite an undue relative importance, and to pass with +very many people for her typical work, displaying all that is really +valuable and significant in the author. _Consuelo_ is a charming story. +But George Sand is something more than a maker of charming stories, and +only a portion of her is shown in _Consuelo_. She is more, likewise, +than a creator of characters. She has created, with admirable truth to +nature, characters most attractive and attaching, such as Edmee, +Genevieve, Germain.[309] But she is not adequately expressed by them. +We do not know her unless we feel the spirit which goes through her work +as a whole. + +In order to feel this spirit it is not, indeed, necessary to read all +that she ever produced. Even three or four only out of her many books +might suffice to show her to us, if they were well chosen; let us say, +the _Lettres d'un Voyageur, Mauprat, Francois le Champi_,[310] and a +story which I was glad to see Mr. Myers,[311] in his appreciative +notice of Madame Sand, single out for praise,--_Valvedre_.[312] In these +may be found all the principal elements of their author's strain: the +cry of agony and revolt, the trust in nature and beauty, the aspiration +towards a purged and renewed human society. + +Of George Sand's strain, during forty years, these are the grand +elements. Now it is one of them which appears most prominently, now it +is another. The cry of agony and revolt is in her earlier work only, and +passes away in her later. But in the evolution of these three elements, +--the passion of agony and revolt, the consolation from nature and from +beauty, the ideas of social renewal,--in the evolution of these is +George Sand and George Sand's life and power. Through their evolution +her constant motive declares and unfolds itself, that motive which we +have set forth above: "the sentiment of the ideal life, which is none +other than man's normal life as we shall one day know it." This is the +motive, and through these elements is its evolution: an evolution +pursued, moreover, with the most unfailing resolve, the most absolute +sincerity. + +The hour of agony and revolt passed away for George Sand, as it passed +away for Goethe, as it passes away for their readers likewise. It passes +away and does not return; yet those who, amid the agitations, more or +less stormy, of their youth, betook themselves to the early works of +George Sand, may in later life cease to read them, indeed, but they can +no more forget them than they can forget _Werther_[313]. George Sand +speaks somewhere of her "days of _Corinne_."[314] Days of _Valentine_, +many of us may in like manner say,--days of _Valentine_, days of +_Lelia_[315], days never to return! They are gone, we shall read the +books no more, and yet how ineffaceable is their impression! How the +sentences from George Sand's works of that period still linger in our +memory and haunt the ear with their cadences! Grandiose and moving, they +come, those cadences, like the sighing of the wind through the forest, +like the breaking of the waves on the seashore. Lelia in her cell on the +mountain of the Camaldoli-- + +"Sibyl, Sibyl forsaken; spirit of the days of old, joined to a brain +which rebels against the divine inspiration; broken lyre, mute +instrument, whose tones the world of to-day, if it heard them, could not +understand, but yet in whose depth the eternal harmony murmurs +imprisoned; priestess of death, I, I who feel and know that before now I +have been Pythia, have wept before now, before now have spoken, but who +cannot recollect, alas, cannot utter the word of healing! Yes, yes! I +remember the cavern of truth and the access of revelation; but the word +of human destiny, I have forgotten it; but the talisman of deliverance, +it is lost from my hand. And yet, indeed, much, much have I seen! and +when suffering presses me sore, when indignation takes hold of me, when +I feel Prometheus wake up in my heart and beat his puissant wings +against the stone which confines him,--oh! then, in prey to a frenzy +without a name, to a despair without bounds, I invoke the unknown master +and friend who might illumine my spirit and set free my tongue; but I +grope in darkness, and my tired arms grasp nothing save delusive +shadows. And for ten thousand years, as the sole answer to my cries, as +the sole comfort in my agony, I hear astir, over this earth accurst, the +despairing sob of impotent agony. For ten thousand years I have cried in +infinite space: _Truth! Truth!_ For ten thousand years infinite space +keeps answering me: _Desire, Desire_. O Sibyl forsaken! O mute Pythia! +dash then thy head against the rocks of thy cavern, and mingle thy +raging blood with the foam of the sea; for thou deemest thyself to have +possessed the almighty Word, and these ten thousand years thou art +seeking him in vain."[316] + +Or Sylvia's cry over Jacques[317] by his glacier in the Tyrol-- + +"When such a man as thou art is born into a world where he can do no +true service; when, with the soul of an apostle and the courage of a +martyr, he has simply to push his way among the heartless and aimless +crowds which vegetate without living; the atmosphere suffocates him and +he dies. Hated by sinners, the mock of fools, disliked by the envious, +abandoned by the weak, what can he do but return to God, weary with +having labored in vain, in sorrow at having accomplished nothing? The +world remains in all its vileness and in all its hatefulness; this is +what men call, 'the triumph of good sense over enthusiasm.'"[318] + +Or Jacques himself, and his doctrine-- + +"Life is arid and terrible, repose is a dream, prudence is useless; mere +reason alone serves simply to dry up the heart; there is but one virtue, +the eternal sacrifice of oneself." + +Or George Sand speaking in her own person, in the _Lettres d'un +Voyageur_-- + +"Ah, no, I was not born to be a poet, I was born to love. It is the +misfortune of my destiny, it is the enmity of others, which have made me +a wanderer and an artist. What I wanted was to live a human life; I had +a heart, it has been torn violently from my breast. All that has been +left me is a head, a head full of noise and pain, of horrible memories, +of images of woe, of scenes of outrage. And because in writing stories +to earn my bread I could not help remembering my sorrows, because I had +the audacity to say that in married life there were to be found +miserable beings, by reason of the weakness which is enjoined upon the +woman, by reason of the brutality which is permitted to the man, by +reason of the turpitudes which society covers and protects with a veil, +I am pronounced immoral, I am treated as if I were the enemy of the +human race."[319] + +If only, alas, together with her honesty and her courage, she could feel +within herself that she had also light and hope and power; that she was +able to lead those whom she loved, and who looked to her for guidance! +But no; her very own children, witnesses of her suffering, her +uncertainty, her struggles, her evil report, may come to doubt her:-- + +"My poor children, my own flesh and blood, will perhaps turn upon me and +say: 'You are leading us wrong, you mean to ruin us as well as yourself. +Are you not unhappy, reprobated, evil spoken of? What have you gained by +these unequal struggles, by these much trumpeted duels of yours with +custom and belief? Let us do as others do; let us get what is to be got +out of this easy and tolerant world.' + +"This is what they will say to me. Or at best, if, out of tenderness for +me, or from their own natural disposition, they give ear to my words and +believe me, whither shall I guide them? Into what abysses shall we go +and plunge ourselves, we three?--for we shall be our own three upon +earth, and not one soul with us. What shall I reply to them if they come +and say to me; 'Yes, life is unbearable in a world like this. Let us die +together. Show us the path of Bernica, or the lake of Stenio, or the +glaciers of Jacques.'"[320] + +Nevertheless the failure of the impassioned seekers of a new and better +world proves nothing, George Sand maintains, for the world as it is. +Ineffectual they may be, but the world is still more ineffectual, and it +is the world's course which is doomed to ruin, not theirs. "What has it +done," exclaims George Sand in her preface to Guerin's _Centaure_, "what +has it done for our moral education, and what is it doing for our +children, this society shielded with such care?" Nothing. Those whom it +calls vain complainers and rebels and madmen, may reply:-- + +"Suffer us to bewail our martyrs, poets without a country that we are, +forlorn singers, well versed in the causes of their misery and of our +own. You do not comprehend the malady which killed them; they themselves +did not comprehend it. If one or two of us at the present day open our +eyes to a new light, is it not by a strange and unaccountable good +Providence; and have we not to seek our grain of faith in storm and +darkness, combated by doubt, irony, the absence of all sympathy, all +example, all brotherly aid, all protection and countenance in high +places? Try yourselves to speak to your brethren heart to heart, +conscience to conscience! Try it!--but you cannot, busied as you are +with watching and patching up in all directions your dykes which the +flood is invading. The material existence of this society of yours +absorbs all your care, and requires more than all your efforts. +Meanwhile the powers of human thought are growing into strength, and +rise on all sides around you. Amongst these threatening apparitions, +there are some which fade away and reenter the darkness, because the +hour of life has not yet struck, and the fiery spirit which quickened +them could strive no longer with the horrors of this present chaos; but +there are others that can wait, and you will find them confronting you, +up and alive, to say: 'You have allowed the death of our brethren, and +we, we do not mean to die.'" + +She did not, indeed. How should she faint and fail before her time, +because of a world out of joint, because of the reign of stupidity, +because of the passions of youth, because of the difficulties and +disgusts of married life in the native seats of the _homme sensuel +moyen_, the average sensual man, she who could feel so well the power of +those eternal consolers, nature and beauty? From the very first they +introduce a note of suavity in her strain of grief and passion. Who can +forget the lanes and meadows of _Valentine_? + +George Sand is one of the few French writers who keep us closely and +truly intimate with rural nature. She gives us the wild-flowers by their +actual names,--snowdrop, primrose, columbine, iris, scabious. Nowhere +has she touched her native Berry and its little-known landscape, its +_campagnes ignorees_, with a lovelier charm than in _Valentine_. The +winding and deep lanes running out of the high road on either side, the +fresh and calm spots they take us to, "meadows of a tender green, +plaintive brooks, clumps of alder and mountain ash, a whole world of +suave and pastoral nature,"--how delicious it all is! The grave and +silent peasant whose very dog will hardly deign to bark at you, the +great white ox, "the unfailing dean of these pastures," staring solemnly +at you from the thicket; the farmhouse "with its avenue of maples, and +the Indre, here hardly more than a bright rivulet, stealing along +through rushes and yellow iris, in the field below,"--who, I say, can +forget them? And that one lane in especial, the lane where Athenais puts +her arm out of the side window of the rustic carriage and gathers May +from the overarching hedge,--that lane with its startled blackbirds, and +humming insects, and limpid water, and swaying water-plants, and +shelving gravel, and yellow wagtails hopping, half-pert, +half-frightened, on the sand,--that lane with its rushes, cresses, and +mint below, its honeysuckle and traveller's-joy above,--how gladly might +one give all that strangely English picture in English, if the charm of +Madame Sand's language did not here defy translation! Let us try +something less difficult, and yet something where we may still have her +in this her beloved world of "simplicity, and sky, and fields and trees, +and peasant life,--peasant life looked at, by preference, on its good +and sound side." _Voyez donc la simplicite, vous autres, voyez le ciel +et les champs, et les arbres, et les paysans, surtout dans ce qu'ils ont +de bon et de vrai._ + +The introduction to _La Mare au Diable_ will give us what we want. +George Sand has been looking at an engraving of Holbein's _Laborer._ +[321] An old thick-set peasant, in rags, is driving his plough in the +midst of a field. All around spreads a wild landscape, dotted with a few +poor huts. The sun is setting behind a hill; the day of toil is nearly +over. It has been a hard one; the ground is rugged and stony, the +laborer's horses are but skin and bone, weak and exhausted. There is but +one alert figure, the skeleton Death, who with a whip skips nimbly along +at the horses' side and urges the team. Under the picture is a quotation +in old French, to the effect that after the laborer's life of travail +and service, in which he has to gain his bread by the sweat of his brow, +here comes Death to fetch him away. And from so rude a life does Death +take him, says George Sand, that Death is hardly unwelcome; and in +another composition by Holbein, where men of almost every condition,-- +popes, sovereigns, lovers, gamblers, monks, soldiers,--are taunted with +their fear of Death and do indeed see his approach with terror, Lazarus +alone is easy and composed, and sitting on his dunghill at the rich +man's door, tells Death that he does not dread him. + +With her thoughts full of Holbein's mournful picture, George Sand goes +out into the fields of her own Berry:-- + +"My walk was by the border of a field which some peasants were getting +ready for being sown presently. The space to be ploughed was wide, as in +Holbein's picture. The landscape was vast also; the great lines of green +which it contained were just touched with russet by the approach of +autumn; on the rich brown soil recent rain had left, in a good many +furrows, lines of water, which shone in the sun like silver threads. The +day was clear and soft, and the earth gave out a light smoke where it +had been freshly laid open by the ploughshare. At the top of the field +an old man, whose broad back and severe face were like those of the old +peasant of Holbein, but whose clothes told no tale of poverty, was +gravely driving his plough of an antique shape, drawn by two tranquil +oxen, with coats of a pale buff, real patriarchs of the fallow, tall of +make, somewhat thin, with long and backward-sloping horns, the kind of +old workmen who by habit have got to be _brothers_ to one another, as +throughout our country-side they are called, and who, if one loses the +other, refuse to work with a new comrade, and fret themselves to death. +People unacquainted with the country will not believe in this affection +of the ox for his yoke-fellow. They should come and see one of the poor +beasts in a corner of his stable, thin, wasted, lashing with his +restless tail his lean flanks, blowing uneasily and fastidiously on the +provender offered to him, his eyes forever turned towards the stable +door, scratching with his foot the empty place left at his side, +sniffing the yokes and bands which his companion has worn, and +incessantly calling for him with piteous lowings. The ox-herd will tell +you: There is a pair of oxen done for! his _brother_ is dead, and this +one will work no more. He ought to be fattened for killing; but we +cannot get him to eat, and in a short time he will have starved himself +to death."[322] + +How faithful and close it is, this contact of George Sand with country +things, with the life of nature in its vast plenitude and pathos! And +always in the end the human interest, as is right, emerges and +predominates. What is the central figure in the fresh and calm rural +world of George Sand? It is the peasant. And what is the peasant? He is +France, life, the future. And this is the strength of George Sand, and +of her second movement, after the first movement of energy and revolt +was over, towards nature and beauty, towards the country, towards +primitive life, the peasant. She regarded nature and beauty, not with +the selfish and solitary joy of the artist who but seeks to appropriate +them for his own purposes, she regarded them as a treasure of immense +and hitherto unknown application, as a vast power of healing and delight +for all, and for the peasant first and foremost. Yes she cries, the +simple life is the true one! but the peasant, the great organ of that +life, "the minister in that vast temple which only the sky is vast +enough to embrace," the peasant is not doomed to toil and moil in it +forever, overdone and unawakened, like Holbein's laborer, and to have +for his best comfort the thought that death will set him free. _Non, +nous n'avons plus affaire a la mort, mais a la vie._[323] "Our business +henceforth is not with death, but with life." + +Joy is the great lifter of men, the great unfolder. _Il faut que la vie +soit bonne afin qu'elle soit feconde._ "For life to be fruitful, life +must be felt as a blessing":-- + +"Nature is eternally young, beautiful, bountiful. She pours out beauty +and poetry for all that live, she pours it out on all plants, and the +plants are permitted to expand in it freely. She possesses the secret of +happiness, and no man has been able to take it away from her. The +happiest of men would be he who possessing the science of his labor and +working with his hands, earning his comfort and his freedom by the +exercise of his intelligent force, found time to live by the heart and +by the brain, to understand his own work and to love the work of God. +The artist has satisfactions of this kind in the contemplation and +reproduction of nature's beauty; but when he sees the affliction of +those who people this paradise of earth, the upright and human-hearted +artist feels a trouble in the midst of his enjoyment. The happy day will +be when mind, heart, and hands shall be alive together, shall work in +concert; when there shall be a harmony between God's munificence and +man's delight in it. Then, instead of the piteous and frightful figure +of Death, skipping along whip in hand by the peasant's side in the +field, the allegorical painter will place there a radiant angel, sowing +with full hands the blessed grain in the smoking furrow. + +"And the dream of a kindly, free, poetic, laborious, simple existence +for the tiller of the field is not so hard to realize that it must be +banished into the world of chimaeras. Virgil's sweet and sad cry: 'O +happy peasants, if they but knew their own blessings!' is a regret; but +like all regrets, it is at the same time a prediction. The day will come +when the laborer may be also an artist;--not in the sense of rendering +nature's beauty, a matter which will be then of much less importance, +but in the sense of feeling it. Does not this mysterious intuition of +poetic beauty exist in him already in the form of instinct and of vague +reverie?"[324] + +It exists in him, too, adds Madame Sand, in the form of that +_nostalgia_, that homesickness, which forever pursues the genuine French +peasant if you transplant him. The peasant has here, then, the elements +of the poetic sense, and of its high and pure satisfactions. + +"But one part of the enjoyment which we possess is wanting to him, a +pure and lofty pleasure which is surely his due, minister that he is in +that vast temple which only the sky is vast enough to embrace. He has +not the conscious knowledge of his sentiment. Those who have sentenced +him to servitude from his mother's womb, not being able to debar him +from reverie, have debarred him from reflection. + +"Well, for all that, taking the peasant as he is, incomplete and +seemingly condemned to an eternal childhood, I yet find him a more +beautiful object than the man in whom his acquisition of knowledge has +stifled sentiment. Do not rate yourselves so high above him, many of you +who imagine that you have an imprescriptible right to his obedience; for +you yourselves are the most incomplete and the least seeing of men. That +simplicity of his soul is more to be loved than the false lights of +yours."[325] + +In all this we are passing from the second element in George Sand to the +third,--her aspiration for a social new-birth, a _renaissance sociale_. +It is eminently the ideal of France; it was hers. Her religion connected +itself with this ideal. In the convent where she was brought up, she had +in youth had an awakening of fervent mystical piety in the Catholic +form. That form she could not keep. Popular religion of all kinds, with +its deep internal impossibilities, its "heaven and hell serving to cover +the illogical manifestations of the Divinity's apparent designs +respecting us," its "God made in our image, silly and malicious, vain +and puerile, irritable or tender, after our fashion," lost all sort of +hold upon her:-- + +"Communion with such a God is impossible to me, I confess it. He is +wiped out from my memory: there is no corner where I can find him any +more. Nor do I find such a God out of doors either; he is not in the +fields and waters, he is not in the starry sky. No, nor yet in the +churches where men bow themselves; it is an extinct message, a dead +letter, a thought that has done its day. Nothing of this belief, nothing +of this God, subsists in me any longer."[326] + +She refused to lament over the loss, to esteem it other than a +benefit:-- + +"It is an addition to our stock of light, this detachment from the +idolatrous conception of religion. It is no loss of the religious sense, +as the persisters in idolatry maintain. It is quite the contrary, it is +a restitution of allegiance to the true Divinity. It is a step made in +the direction of this Divinity, it is an abjuration of the dogmas which +did him dishonor."[327] + +She does not attempt to give of this Divinity an account much more +precise than that which we have in Wordsworth,--"_a presence that +disturbs me with the joy of animating thoughts_."[328] + +"Everything is divine (she says), even matter; everything is superhuman, +even man. God is everywhere; he is in me in a measure proportioned to +the little that I am. My present life separates me from him just in the +degree determined by the actual state of childhood of our race. Let me +content myself, in all my seeking, to feel after him, and to possess of +him as much as this imperfect soul can take in with the intellectual +sense I have."[329] + +And she concludes:-- + +"The day will come when we shall no longer talk about God idly, nay, +when we shall talk about him as little as possible. We shall cease to +set him forth dogmatically, to dispute about his nature. We shall put +compulsion on no one to pray to him, we shall leave the whole business +of worship within the sanctuary of each man's conscience. And this will +happen when we are really religious."[330] + +Meanwhile the sense of this spirit or presence which animates us, the +sense of the divine, is our stronghold and our consolation. A man may +say of it: "It comes not by my desert, but the atom of divine sense +given to me nothing can rob me of." _Divine sense_,--the phrase is a +vague one; but it stands to Madame Sand for that to which are to be +referred "all the best thoughts and the best actions of life, suffering +endured, duty achieved, whatever purifies our existence, whatever +vivifies our love." + +Madame Sand is a Frenchwoman, and her religion is therefore, as we might +expect, with peculiar fervency social. Always she has before her mind +"the natural law which _will have it_ (the italics are her own) that the +species _man_ cannot subsist and prosper but by _association_." Whatever +else we may be in creation, we are, first and foremost, "at the head of +the species which are called by instinct, and led by necessity, to the +life of _association_." The word _love_--the great word, as she justly +says, of the New Testament--acquires from her social enthusiasm a +peculiar significance to her:-- + +"The word is a great one, because it involves infinite consequences. To +love means to help one another, to have joint aspirations, to act in +concert, to labor for the same end, to develop to its ideal consummation +the fraternal instinct, thanks to which mankind have brought the earth +under their dominion. Every time that he has been false to this instinct +which is his law of life, his natural destiny, man has seen his temples +crumble, his societies dissolve, his intellectual sense go wrong, his +moral sense die out. The future is founded on love."[331] + +So long as love is thus spoken of in the general, the ordinary serious +Englishman will have no difficulty in inclining himself with respect +while Madame Sand speaks of it. But when he finds that love implies, +with her, social equality, he will begin to be staggered. And in truth +for almost every Englishman Madame Sand's strong language about +equality, and about France as the chosen vessel for exhibiting it, will +sound exaggerated. "The human ideal," she says, "as well as the social +ideal, is to achieve equality."[332] France, which has made equality its +rallying cry, is therefore "the nation which loves and is loved," _la +nation qui aime et qu'on aime_. The republic of equality is in her eyes +"an ideal, a philosophy, a religion." She invokes the "holy doctrine of +social liberty and fraternal equality, ever reappearing as a ray of love +and truth amidst the storm." She calls it "the goal of man and the law +of the future." She thinks it the secret of the civilization of France, +the most civilized of nations. Amid the disasters of the late war she +cannot forbear a cry of astonishment at the neutral nations, +_insensibles a l'egorgement d'une civilisation comme la notre_, "looking +on with insensibility while a civilization such as ours has its throat +cut." Germany, with its stupid ideal of corporalism and _Kruppism_, is +contrasted with France, full of social dreams, too civilized for war, +incapable of planning and preparing war for twenty years, she is so +incapable of hatred;--_nous sommes si incapables de hair!_ We seem to be +listening, not to George Sand, but to M. Victor Hugo, half genius, half +charlatan; to M. Victor Hugo, or even to one of those French declaimers +in whom we come down to no genius and all charlatan. + +The form of such outbursts as we have quoted will always be distasteful +to an Englishman. It is to be remembered that they came from Madame Sand +under the pressure and anguish of the terrible calamities of 1870. But +what we are most concerned with, and what Englishmen in general regard +too little, is the degree of truth contained in these allegations that +France is the most civilized of nations, and that she is so, above all, +by her "holy doctrine of equality." How comes the idea to be so current; +and to be passionately believed in, as we have seen, by such a woman as +George Sand? It was so passionately believed in by her, that when one +seeks, as I am now seeking, to recall her image, the image is incomplete +if the passionate belief is kept from appearing. + +I will not, with my scanty space, now discuss the belief; but I will +seek to indicate how it must have commended itself, I think, to George +Sand. I have somewhere called France "the country of Europe where _the +people_ is most alive."[333] _The people_ is what interested George +Sand. And in France _the people_ is, above all, the peasant. The workman +in Paris or in other great towns of France may afford material for such +pictures as those which M. Zola[334] has lately given us in +_L'Assommoir_--pictures of a kind long ago labelled by Madame Sand as +"_the literature of mysteries of iniquity_, which men of talent and +imagination try to bring into fashion." But the real _people_ in France, +the foundation of things there, both in George Sand's eyes and in +reality, is the peasant. The peasant was the object of Madame Sand's +fondest predilections in the present, and happiest hopes in the future. +The Revolution and its doctrine of equality had made the French peasant. +What wonder, then, if she saluted the doctrine as a holy and paramount +one? + +And the French peasant is really, so far as I can see, the largest and +strongest element of soundness which the body social of any European +nation possesses. To him is due that astonishing recovery which France +has made since her defeat, and which George Sand predicted in the very +hour of ruin. Yes, in 1870 she predicted _ce reveil general qui va +suivre, a la grande surprise des autres nations, l'espece d'agonie ou +elles nous voient tombes_,[335] "the general re-arising which, to the +astonishment of other nations, is about to follow the sort of agony in +which they now see us lying." To the condition, character, and qualities +of the French peasant this recovery is in the main due. His material +well-being is known to all of us. M. de Laveleye,[336] the well-known +economist, a Belgian and a Protestant, says that France, being the +country of Europe where the soil is more divided than anywhere except in +Switzerland and Norway, is at the same time the country where well-being +is most widely spread, where wealth has of late years increased most, +and where population is least outrunning the limits which, for the +comfort and progress of the working classes themselves, seem necessary. +George Sand could see, of course, the well-being of the French peasant, +for we can all see it. + +But there is more. George Sand was a woman, with a woman's ideal of +gentleness, of "the charm of good manners," as essential to +civilization. She has somewhere spoken admirably of the variety and +balance of forces which go to make up true civilization; "certain forces +of weakness, docility, attractiveness, suavity, are here just as real +forces as forces of vigor, encroachment, violence, or brutality." Yes, +as real _forces_, although Prince Bismarck cannot see it; because human +nature requires them, and, often as they may be baffled, and slow as may +be the process of their asserting themselves, mankind is not satisfied +with its own civilization, and keeps fidgeting at it and altering it +again and again, until room is made for them. George Sand thought the +French people,--meaning principally, again, by the French people the +_people_ properly so called, the peasant,--she thought it "the most +kindly, the most amiable, of all peoples." Nothing is more touching than +to read in her _Journal_, written in 1870, while she was witnessing what +seemed to be "the agony of the Latin races," and undergoing what seemed +to be the process of "dying in a general death of one's family, one's +country, and one's nation," how constant is her defence of the people, +the peasant, against her Republican friends. Her Republican friends were +furious with the peasant; accused him of stolidity, cowardice, want of +patriotism; accused him of having given them the Empire, with all its +vileness; wanted to take away from him the suffrage. Again and again +does George Sand take up his defence, and warn her friends of the folly +and danger of their false estimate of him. "The contempt of the masses, +there," she cries, "is the misfortune and crime of the present +moment!"[337] "To execrate the people," she exclaims again, "is real +blasphemy; the people is worth more than we are." + +If the peasant gave us the Empire, says Madame Sand, it was because he +saw the parties of liberals disputing, gesticulating, and threatening to +tear one another asunder and France too; he was told _the Empire is +peace_, and he accepted the Empire. The peasant was deceived, he is +uninstructed, he moves slowly; but he moves, he has admirable virtues, +and in him, says George Sand, is our life:-- + +"Poor Jacques Bonhomme! accuse thee and despise thee who will; for my +part I pity thee, and in spite of thy faults I shall always love thee. +Never will I forget how, a child, I was carried asleep on thy shoulders, +how I was given over to thy care and followed thee everywhere, to the +field, the stall, the cottage. They are all dead, those good old people +who have borne me in their arms; but I remember them well, and I +appreciate at this hour, to the minutest detail, the pureness, the +kindness, the patience, the good humor, the poetry, which presided over +that rustic education amidst disasters of like kind with those which we +are undergoing now. Why should I quarrel with the peasant because on +certain points he feels and thinks differently from what I do? There are +other essential points on which we may feel eternally at one with him,-- +probity and charity."[338] + +Another generation of peasants had grown up since that first +revolutionary generation of her youth, and equality, as its reign +proceeded, had not deteriorated but improved them. + + "They have advanced greatly in self-respect and well-being, these +peasants from twenty years old to forty: they never ask for anything. +When one meets them they no longer take off their hat. If they know you +they come up to you and hold out their hand. All foreigners who stay +with us are struck with their good bearing, with their amenity, and the +simple, friendly, and polite ease of their behavior. In presence of +people whom they esteem they are, like their fathers, models of tact and +politeness; but they have more than that mere _sentiment_ of equality +which was all that their fathers had,--they have the _idea_ of equality, +and the determination to maintain it. This step upwards they owe to +their having the franchise. Those who would fain treat them as creatures +of a lower order dare not now show this disposition to their face; it +would not be pleasant."[339] + +Mr. Hamerton's[340] interesting book about French life has much, I +think, to confirm this account of the French peasant. What I have seen +of France myself (and I have seen something) is fully in agreement with +it. Of a civilization and an equality which makes the peasant thus +_human_, gives to the bulk of the people well-being, probity, charity, +self-respect, tact, and good manners, let us pardon Madame Sand if she +feels and speaks enthusiastically. Some little variation on our own +eternal trio of Barbarians, Philistines, Populace,[341] or on the +eternal solo of Philistinism among our brethren of the United States and +the Colonies, is surely permissible. + +Where one is more inclined to differ from Madame Sand is in her estimate +of her Republican friends of the educated classes. They may stand, she +says, for the genius and the soul of France; they represent its "exalted +imagination and profound sensibility," while the peasant represents its +humble, sound, indispensable body. Her protege, the peasant, is much +ruder with those eloquent gentlemen, and has his own name for one and +all of them, _l'avocat_, by which he means to convey his belief that +words are more to be looked for from that quarter than seriousness and +profit. It seems to me by no means certain but that the peasant is in +the right. + +George Sand herself has said admirable things of these friends of hers; +of their want of patience, temper, wisdom; of their "vague and violent +way of talking"; of their interminable flow of "stimulating phrases, +cold as death." Her own place is of course with the party and propaganda +of organic change. But George Sand felt the poetry of the past; she had +no hatreds; the furies, the follies, the self-deceptions of secularist +and revolutionist fanatics filled her with dismay. They are, indeed, the +great danger of France, and it is amongst the educated and articulate +classes of France that they prevail. If the educated and articulate +classes in France were as sound in their way as the inarticulate peasant +is in his, France would present a different spectacle. Not "imagination +and sensibility" are so much required from the educated classes of +France, as simpler, more serious views of life; a knowledge how great a +part _conduct_ (if M. Challemel-Lacour[342] will allow me to say so) +fills in it; a better example. The few who see this, such as Madame Sand +among the dead, and M. Renan[343] among the living, perhaps awaken on +that account, amongst quiet observers at a distance, all the more +sympathy; but in France they are isolated. + +All the later work of George Sand, however, all her hope of genuine +social renovation, take the simple and serious ground so necessary. "The +cure for us is far more simple than we will believe. All the better +natures amongst us see it and feel it. It is a good direction given by +ourselves to our hearts and consciences;--_une bonne direction donnee +par nous-memes a nos coeurs et a nos consciences_."[344] These are among +the last words of her _Journal_ of 1870. + + * * * * * + +Whether or not the number of George Sand's works--always fresh, always +attractive, but poured out too lavishly and rapidly--is likely to prove +a hindrance to her fame, I do not care to consider. Posterity, alarmed +at the way in which its literary baggage grows upon it, always seeks to +leave behind it as much as it can, as much as it dares,--everything but +masterpieces. But the immense vibration of George Sand's voice upon the +ear of Europe will not soon die away. Her passions and her errors have +been abundantly talked of. She left them behind her, and men's memory of +her will leave them behind also. There will remain of her to mankind the +sense of benefit and stimulus from the passage upon earth of that large +and frank nature, of that large and pure utterance,--the _the large +utterance of the early gods_. There will remain an admiring and ever +widening report of that great and ingenuous soul, simple, affectionate, +without vanity, without pedantry, human, equitable, patient, kind. She +believed herself, she said, "to be in sympathy, across time and space, +with a multitude of honest wills which interrogate their conscience and +try to put themselves in accord with it." This chain of sympathy will +extend more and more. + +It is silent, that eloquent voice! it is sunk, that noble, that speaking +head! we sum up, as we best can, what she said to us, and we bid her +adieu. From many hearts in many lands a troop of tender and grateful +regrets converge towards her humble churchyard in Berry. Let them be +joined by these words of sad homage from one of a nation which she +esteemed, and which knew her very little and very ill. Her guiding +thought, the guiding thought which she did her best to make ours too, +"the sentiment of the ideal life, which is none other than man's normal +life as we shall one day know it," is in harmony with words and promises +familiar to that sacred place where she lies. _Exspectat resurrectionem +mortuorum, et vitam venturi saeculi._[345] + + + +WORDSWORTH[346] + + +I remember hearing Lord Macaulay say, after Wordsworth's death, when +subscriptions were being collected to found a memorial of him, that ten +years earlier more money could have been raised in Cambridge alone, to +do honor to Wordsworth, than was now raised all through the country. +Lord Macaulay had, as we know, his own heightened and telling way of +putting things, and we must always make allowance for it. But probably +it is true that Wordsworth has never, either before or since, been so +accepted and popular, so established in possession of the minds of all +who profess to care for poetry, as he was between the years 1830 and +1840, and at Cambridge. From the very first, no doubt, he had his +believers and witnesses. But I have myself heard him declare that, for +he knew not how many years, his poetry had never brought him in enough +to buy his shoe-strings. The poetry-reading public was very slow to +recognize him, and was very easily drawn away from him. Scott effaced +him with this public. Byron effaced him. + +The death of Byron seemed, however, to make an opening for Wordsworth. +Scott, who had for some time ceased to produce poetry himself, and stood +before the public as a great novelist; Scott, too genuine himself not to +feel the profound genuineness of Wordsworth, and with an instinctive +recognition of his firm hold on nature and of his local truth, always +admired him sincerely, and praised him generously. The influence of +Coleridge upon young men of ability was then powerful, and was still +gathering strength; this influence told entirely in favor of +Wordsworth's poetry. Cambridge was a place where Coleridge's influence +had great action, and where Wordsworth's poetry, therefore, flourished +especially. But even amongst the general public its sale grew large, the +eminence of its author was widely recognized, and Rydal Mount[347] +became an object of pilgrimage. I remember Wordsworth relating how one +of the pilgrims, a clergyman, asked him if he had ever written anything +besides the _Guide to the Lakes_. Yes, he answered modestly, he had +written verses. Not every pilgrim was a reader, but the vogue was +established, and the stream of pilgrims came. + +Mr. Tennyson's decisive appearance dates from 1842.[348] One cannot say +that he effaced Wordsworth as Scott and Byron had effaced him. The +poetry of Wordsworth had been so long before the public, the suffrage of +good judges was so steady and so strong in its favor, that by 1842 the +verdict of posterity, one may almost say, had been already pronounced, +and Wordsworth's English fame was secure. But the vogue, the ear and +applause of the great body of poetry-readers, never quite thoroughly +perhaps his, he gradually lost more and more, and Mr. Tennyson gained +them. Mr. Tennyson drew to himself, and away from Wordsworth, the +poetry-reading public, and the new generations. Even in 1850, when +Wordsworth died, this diminution of popularity was visible, and +occasioned the remark of Lord Macaulay which I quoted at starting. + +The diminution has continued. The influence of Coleridge has waned, and +Wordsworth's poetry can no longer draw succor from this ally. The poetry +has not, however, wanted eulogists; and it may be said to have brought +its eulogists luck, for almost every one who has praised Wordsworth's +poetry has praised it well. But the public has remained cold, or, at +least, undetermined. Even the abundance of Mr. Palgrave's fine and +skilfully chosen specimens of Wordsworth, in the _Golden Treasury_, +surprised many readers, and gave offense to not a few. To tenth-rate +critics and compilers, for whom any violent shock to the public taste +would be a temerity not to be risked, it is still quite permissible to +speak of Wordsworth's poetry, not only with ignorance, but with +impertinence. On the Continent he is almost unknown. + +I cannot think, then, that Wordsworth has, up to this time, at all +obtained his deserts. "Glory," said M. Renan the other day, "glory after +all is the thing which has the best chance of not being altogether +vanity." Wordsworth was a homely man, and himself would certainly never +have thought of talking of glory as that which, after all, has the best +chance of not being altogether vanity. Yet we may well allow that few +things are less vain than _real_ glory. Let us conceive of the whole +group of civilized nations as being, for intellectual and spiritual +purposes, one great confederation, bound to a joint action and working +towards a common result; a confederation whose members have a due +knowledge both of the past, out of which they all proceed, and of one +another. This was the ideal of Goethe, and it is an ideal which will +impose itself upon the thoughts of our modern societies more and more. +Then to be recognized by the verdict of such a confederation as a +master, or even as a seriously and eminently worthy workman, in one's +own line of intellectual or spiritual activity, is indeed glory; a glory +which it would be difficult to rate too highly. For what could be more +beneficent, more salutary? The world is forwarded by having its +attention fixed on the best things; and here is a tribunal, free from +all suspicion of national and provincial partiality, putting a stamp on +the best things, and recommending them for general honor and acceptance. +A nation, again, is furthered by recognition of its real gifts and +successes; it is encouraged to develop them further. And here is an +honest verdict, telling us which of our supposed successes are really, +in the judgment of the great impartial world, and not in our private +judgment only, successes, and which are not. + +It is so easy to feel pride and satisfaction in one's own things, so +hard to make sure that one is right in feeling it! We have a great +empire. But so had Nebuchadnezzar. We extol the "unrivalled happiness" +of our national civilization. But then comes a candid friend,[349] and +remarks that our upper class is materialized, our middle class +vulgarized, and our lower class brutalized. We are proud of our +painting, our music. But we find that in the judgment of other people +our painting is questionable, and our music non-existent. We are proud +of our men of science. And here it turns out that the world is with us; +we find that in the judgment of other people, too, Newton among the +dead, and Mr. Darwin among the living, hold as high a place as they hold +in our national opinion. + +Finally, we are proud of our poets and poetry. Now poetry is nothing +less than the most perfect speech of man, that in which he comes nearest +to being able to utter the truth. It is no small thing, therefore, to +succeed eminently in poetry. And so much is required for duly estimating +success here, that about poetry it is perhaps hardest to arrive at a +sure general verdict, and takes longest. Meanwhile, our own conviction +of the superiority of our national poets is not decisive, is almost +certain to be mingled, as we see constantly in English eulogy of +Shakespeare, with much of provincial infatuation. And we know what was +the opinion current amongst our neighbors the French--people of taste, +acuteness, and quick literary tact--not a hundred years ago, about our +great poets. The old _Biographie Universelle_[350] notices the +pretension of the English to a place for their poets among the chief +poets of the world, and says that this is a pretension which to no one +but an Englishman can ever seem admissible. And the scornful, +disparaging things said by foreigners about Shakespeare and Milton, and +about our national over-estimate of them, have been often quoted, and +will be in every one's remembrance. + +A great change has taken place, and Shakespeare is now generally +recognized, even in France, as one of the greatest of poets. Yes, some +anti-Gallican cynic will say, the French rank him with Corneille and +with Victor Hugo! But let me have the pleasure of quoting a sentence +about Shakespeare, which I met with by accident not long ago in the +_Correspondant_, a French review which not a dozen English people, I +suppose, look at. The writer is praising Shakespeare's prose. With +Shakespeare, he says, "prose comes in whenever the subject, being more +familiar, is unsuited to the majestic English iambic." And he goes on: +"Shakespeare is the king of poetic rhythm and style, as well as the king +of the realm of thought: along with his dazzling prose, Shakespeare has +succeeded in giving us the most varied, the most harmonious verse which +has ever sounded upon the human ear since the verse of the Greeks." M. +Henry Cochin,[351] the writer of this sentence, deserves our gratitude +for it; it would not be easy to praise Shakespeare, in a single +sentence, more justly. And when a foreigner and a Frenchman writes thus +of Shakespeare, and when Goethe says of Milton, in whom there was so +much to repel Goethe rather than to attract him, that "nothing has been +ever done so entirely in the sense of the Greeks as _Samson Agonistes_," +and that "Milton is in very truth a poet whom we must treat with all +reverence," then we understand what constitutes a European recognition +of poets and poetry as contradistinguished from a merely national +recognition, and that in favor both of Milton and of Shakespeare the +judgment of the high court of appeal has finally gone. + +I come back to M. Renan's praise of glory, from which I started. Yes, +real glory is a most serious thing, glory authenticated by the +Amphictyonic Court[352] of final appeal, definite glory. And even for +poets and poetry, long and difficult as may be the process of arriving +at the right award, the right award comes at last, the definitive glory +rests where it is deserved. Every establishment of such a real glory is +good and wholesome for mankind at large, good and wholesome for the +nation which produced the poet crowned with it. To the poet himself it +can seldom do harm; for he, poor man, is in his grave, probably, long +before his glory crowns him. + +Wordsworth has been in his grave for some thirty years, and certainly +his lovers and admirers cannot flatter themselves that this great and +steady light of glory as yet shines over him. He is not fully recognized +at home; he is not recognized at all abroad. Yet I firmly believe that +the poetical performance of Wordsworth is, after that of Shakespeare and +Milton, of which all the world now recognizes the worth, undoubtedly the +most considerable in our language from the Elizabethan age to the +present time. Chaucer is anterior; and on other grounds, too, he cannot +well be brought into the comparison. But taking the roll of our chief +poetical names, besides Shakespeare and Milton, from the age of +Elizabeth downwards, and going through it,--Spenser, Dryden, Pope, Gray, +Goldsmith, Cowper, Burns, Coleridge, Scott, Campbell, Moore, Byron, +Shelley, Keats (I mention those only who are dead),--I think it certain +that Wordsworth's name deserves to stand, and will finally stand, above +them all. Several of the poets named have gifts and excellences which +Wordsworth has not. But taking the performance of each as a whole, I say +that Wordsworth seems to me to have left a body of poetical work +superior in power, in interest, in the qualities which give enduring +freshness, to that which any one of the others has left. + +But this is not enough to say. I think it certain, further, that if we +take the chief poetical names of the Continent since the death of +Moliere, and, omitting Goethe, confront the remaining names with that of +Wordsworth, the result is the same. Let us take Klopstock,[353] +Lessing,[354] Schiller, Uhland,[355] Rueckert,[356] and Heine[357] for +Germany; Filicaja,[358] Alfieri,[359] Manzoni,[360] and Leopardi[361] +for Italy; Racine,[362] Boileau,[363] Voltaire, Andre Chenier,[364] +Beranger,[365] Lamartine,[366] Musset,[367] M. Victor Hugo (he has been +so long celebrated that although he still lives I may be permitted to +name him) for France. Several of these, again, have evidently gifts and +excellences to which Wordsworth can make no pretension. But in real +poetical achievement it seems to me indubitable that to Wordsworth, here +again, belongs the palm. It seems to me that Wordsworth has left behind +him a body of poetical work which wears, and will wear, better on the +whole than the performance of any one of these personages, so far more +brilliant and celebrated, most of them, than the homely poet of Rydal. +Wordsworth's performance in poetry is on the whole, in power, in +interest, in the qualities which give enduring freshness, superior to +theirs. + +This is a high claim to make for Wordsworth. But if it is a just claim, +if Wordsworth's place among the poets who have appeared in the last two +or three centuries is after Shakespeare, Moliere, Milton, Goethe, +indeed, but before all the rest, then in time Wordsworth will have his +due. We shall recognize him in his place, as we recognize Shakespeare +and Milton; and not only we ourselves shall recognize him, but he will +be recognized by Europe also. Meanwhile, those who recognize him already +may do well, perhaps, to ask themselves whether there are not in the +case of Wordsworth certain special obstacles which hinder or delay his +due recognition by others, and whether these obstacles are not in some +measure removable. + +The _Excursion_ and the _Prelude_, his poems of greatest bulk, are by no +means Wordsworth's best work. His best work is in his shorter pieces, +and many indeed are there of these which are of first-rate excellence. +But in his seven volumes the pieces of high merit are mingled with a +mass of pieces very inferior to them; so inferior to them that it seems +wonderful how the same poet should have produced both. Shakespeare +frequently has lines and passages in a strain quite false, and which are +entirely unworthy of him. But one can imagine him smiling if one could +meet him in the Elysian Fields and tell him so; smiling and replying +that he knew it perfectly well himself, and what did it matter? But with +Wordsworth the case is different. Work altogether inferior, work quite +uninspired, flat and dull, is produced by him with evident +unconsciousness of its defects, and he presents it to us with the same +faith and seriousness as his best work. Now a drama or an epic fill the +mind, and one does not look beyond them; but in a collection of short +pieces the impression made by one piece requires to be continued and +sustained by the piece following. In reading Wordsworth the impression +made by one of his fine pieces is too often dulled and spoiled by a very +inferior piece coming after it. + +Wordsworth composed verses during a space of some sixty years; and it is +no exaggeration to say that within one single decade of those years, +between 1798 and 1808, almost all his really first-rate work was +produced. A mass of inferior work remains, work done before and after +this golden prime, imbedding the first-rate work and clogging it, +obstructing our approach to it, chilling, not unfrequently, the +high-wrought mood with which we leave it. To be recognized far and wide +as a great poet, to be possible and receivable as a classic, Wordsworth +needs to be relieved of a great deal of the poetical baggage which now +encumbers him. To administer this relief is indispensable, unless he is +to continue to be a poet for the few only,--a poet valued far below his +real worth by the world. + +There is another thing. Wordsworth classified his poems not according to +any commonly received plan of arrangement, but according to a scheme of +mental physiology. He has poems of the fancy, poems of the imagination, +poems of sentiment and reflection, and so on. His categories are +ingenious but far-fetched, and the result of his employment of them is +unsatisfactory. Poems are separated one from another which possess a +kinship of subject or of treatment far more vital and deep than the +supposed unity of mental origin, which was Wordsworth's reason for +joining them with others. + +The tact of the Greeks in matters of this kind was infallible. We may +rely upon it that we shall not improve upon the classification adopted +by the Greeks for kinds of poetry; that their categories of epic, +dramatic, lyric, and so forth, have a natural propriety, and should be +adhered to. It may sometimes seem doubtful to which of two categories a +poem belongs; whether this or that poem is to be called, for instance, +narrative or lyric, lyric or elegiac. But there is to be found in every +good poem a strain, a predominant note, which determines the poem as +belonging to one of these kinds rather than the other; and here is the +best proof of the value of the classification, and of the advantage of +adhering to it. Wordsworth's poems will never produce their due effect +until they are freed from their present artificial arrangement, and +grouped more naturally. + +Disengaged from the quantity of inferior work which now obscures them, +the best poems of Wordsworth, I hear many people say, would indeed stand +out in great beauty, but they would prove to be very few in number, +scarcely more than a half a dozen. I maintain, on the other hand, that +what strikes me with admiration, what establishes in my opinion +Wordsworth's superiority, is the great and ample body of powerful work +which remains to him, even after all his inferior work has been cleared +away. He gives us so much to rest upon, so much which communicates his +spirit and engages ours! + +This is of very great importance. If it were a comparison of single +pieces, or of three or four pieces, by each poet, I do not say that +Wordsworth would stand decisively above Gray, or Burns, or Coleridge, or +Keats, or Manzoni, or Heine. It is in his ampler body of powerful work +that I find his superiority. His good work itself, his work which +counts, is not all of it, of course, of equal value. Some kinds of +poetry are in themselves lower kinds than others. The ballad kind is a +lower kind; the didactic kind, still more, is a lower kind. Poetry of +this latter sort counts, too, sometimes, by its biographical interest +partly, not by its poetical interest pure and simple; but then this can +only be when the poet producing it has the power and importance of +Wordsworth, a power and importance which he assuredly did not establish +by such didactic poetry alone. Altogether, it is, I say, by the great +body of powerful and significant work which remains to him, after every +reduction and deduction has been made, that Wordsworth's superiority is +proved. + +To exhibit this body of Wordsworth's best work, to clear away +obstructions from around it, and to let it speak for itself, is what +every lover of Wordsworth should desire. Until this has been done, +Wordsworth, whom we, to whom he is dear, all of us know and feel to be +so great a poet, has not had a fair chance before the world. When once +it has been done, he will make his way best, not by our advocacy of him, +but by his own worth and power. We may safely leave him to make his way +thus, we who believe that a superior worth and power in poetry finds in +mankind a sense responsive to it and disposed at last to recognize it. +Yet at the outset, before he has been duly known and recognized, we may +do Wordsworth a service, perhaps, by indicating in what his superior +power and worth will be found to consist, and in what it will not. + +Long ago, in speaking of Homer, I said that the noble and profound +application of ideas to life is the most essential part of poetic +greatness[Transcriber's note: no punctuation here] I said that a great +poet receives his distinctive character of superiority from his +application, under the conditions immutably fixed by the laws of poetic +beauty and poetic truth, from his application, I say, to his subject, +whatever it may be, of the ideas + + "On man, on nature, and on human life,"[368] + +which he has acquired for himself. The line quoted is Wordsworth's own; +and his superiority arises from his powerful use, in his best pieces, his +powerful application to his subject, of ideas "on man, on nature, and on +human life." + +Voltaire, with his signal acuteness, most truly remarked that "no nation +has treated in poetry moral ideas with more energy and depth than the +English nation." And he adds; "There, it seems to me, is the great merit +of the English poets." Voltaire does not mean by treating in poetry +moral ideas, the composing moral and didactic poems;--that brings us +but a very little way in poetry. He means just the same thing as was +meant when I spoke above "of the noble and profound application of ideas +to life"; and he means the application of these ideas under the +conditions fixed for us by the laws of poetic beauty and poetic truth. +If it is said that to call these ideas _moral_ ideas is to introduce a +strong and injurious limitation, I answer that it is to do nothing of +the kind, because moral ideas are really so main a part of human life. +The question, _how to live_, is itself a moral idea; and it is the +question which most interests every man, and with which, in some way or +other, he is perpetually occupied. A large sense is of course to be +given to the term _moral_. Whatever bears upon the question, "how to +live," comes under it. + +"Nor love thy life, nor hate; but, what thou liv'st, Live well; how long +or short, permit to heaven."[369] + +In those fine lines Milton utters, as every one at once perceives, a +moral idea. Yes, but so too, when Keats consoles the forward-bending +lover on the Grecian Urn, the lover arrested and presented in immortal +relief by the sculptor's hand before he can kiss, with the line, + +"Forever wilt thou love, and she be fair--" + +he utters a moral idea. When Shakespeare says, that + + "We are such stuff +As dreams are made of, and our little life +Is rounded with a sleep,"[370] + +he utters a moral idea. + +Voltaire was right in thinking that the energetic and profound treatment +of moral ideas, in this large sense, is what distinguishes the English +poetry. He sincerely meant praise, no dispraise or hint of limitation; +and they err who suppose that poetic limitation is a necessary +consequence of the fact, the fact being granted as Voltaire states it. +If what distinguishes the greatest poets is their powerful and profound +application of ideas to life, which surely no good critic will deny, +then to prefix to the term ideas here the term moral makes hardly any +difference, because human life itself is in so preponderating a degree +moral. + +It is important, therefore, to hold fast to this: that poetry is at +bottom a criticism of life;[371] that the greatness of a poet lies in +his powerful and beautiful application of ideas to life,--to the +question: How to live. Morals are often treated in a narrow and false +fashion; they are bound up with systems of thought and belief which have +had their day; they are fallen into the hands of pedants and +professional dealers; they grow tiresome to some of us. We find +attraction, at times, even in a poetry of revolt against them; in a +poetry which might take for its motto Omar Khayyam's words: "Let us make +up in the tavern for the time which we have wasted in the mosque." Or we +find attractions in a poetry indifferent to them; in a poetry where the +contents may be what they will, but where the form is studied and +exquisite. We delude ourselves in either case; and the best cure for our +delusion is to let our minds rest upon that great and inexhaustible word +_life_, until we learn to enter into its meaning. A poetry of revolt +against moral ideas is a poetry of revolt against _life_; a poetry of +indifference towards moral ideas is a poetry of indifference towards +_life_. + +Epictetus had a happy figure for things like the play of the senses, or +literary form and finish, or argumentative ingenuity, in comparison with +"the best and master thing" for us, as he called it, the concern, how to +live. Some people were afraid of them, he said, or they disliked and +undervalued them. Such people were wrong; they were unthankful or +cowardly. But the things might also be over-prized, and treated as final +when they are not. They bear to life the relation which inns bear to +home. "As if a man, journeying home, and finding a nice inn on the road, +and liking it, were to stay forever at the inn! Man, thou hast +forgotten thine object; thy journey was not _to_ this, but _through_ +this. 'But this inn is taking.' And how many other inns, too, are +taking, and how many fields and meadows! but as places of passage +merely, you have an object, which is this: to get home, to do your duty +to your family, friends, and fellow-countrymen, to attain inward +freedom, serenity, happiness, contentment. Style takes your fancy, +arguing takes your fancy, and you forget your home and want to make your +abode with them and to stay with them, on the plea that they are taking. +Who denies that they are taking? but as places of passage, as inns. And +when I say this, you suppose me to be attacking the care for style, the +care for argument. I am not; I attack the resting in them, the not +looking to the end which is beyond them."[372] + +Now, when we come across a poet like Theophile Gautier,[373] we have a +poet who has taken up his abode at an inn, and never got farther. There +may be inducements to this or that one of us, at this or that moment, to +find delight in him, to cleave to him; but after all, we do not change +the truth about him,--we only stay ourselves in his inn along with him. +And when we come across a poet like Wordsworth, who sings + + "Of truth, of grandeur, beauty, love and hope, + And melancholy fear subdued by faith, + Of blessed consolations in distress, + Of moral strength and intellectual power, + Of joy in widest commonalty spread--"[374] + +then we have a poet intent on "the best and master thing," and who +prosecutes his journey home. We say, for brevity's sake, that he deals +with _life_, because he deals with that in which life really consists. +This is what Voltaire means to praise in the English poets,--this +dealing with what is really life. But always it is the mark of the +greatest poets that they deal with it; and to say that the English poets +are remarkable for dealing with it, is only another way of saying, what +is true, that in poetry the English genius has especially shown its +power. + +Wordsworth deals with it, and his greatness lies in his dealing with it +so powerfully. I have named a number of celebrated poets above all of +whom he, in my opinion, deserves to be placed. He is to be placed above +poets like Voltaire, Dryden, Pope, Lessing, Schiller, because these +famous personages, with a thousand gifts and merits, never, or scarcely +ever, attain the distinctive accent and utterance of the high and +genuine poets-- + + "Quique pii vates et Phoebo digna locuti,"[375] + +at all. Burns, Keats, Heine, not to speak of others in our list, have +this accent;--who can doubt it? And at the same time they have treasures +of humor, felicity, passion, for which in Wordsworth we shall look in +vain. Where, then, is Wordsworth's superiority? It is here; he deals +with more of _life_ than they do; he deals with _life_ as a whole, more +powerfully. + +No Wordsworthian will doubt this. Nay, the fervent Wordsworthian will +add, as Mr. Leslie Stephen[376] does, that Wordsworth's poetry is +precious because his philosophy is sound; that his "ethical system is as +distinctive and capable of exposition as Bishop Butler's"; that his +poetry is informed by ideas which "fall spontaneously into a scientific +system of thought." But we must be on our guard against the +Wordsworthians, if we want to secure for Wordsworth his due rank as a +poet. The Wordsworthians are apt to praise him for the wrong things, and +to lay far too much stress upon what they call his philosophy. His +poetry is the reality, his philosophy--so far, at least, as it may put +on the form and habit of "a scientific system of thought," and the more +that it puts them on--is the illusion. Perhaps we shall one day learn to +make this proposition general, and to say: Poetry is the reality, +philosophy the illusion. But in Wordsworth's case, at any rate, we +cannot do him justice until we dismiss his formal philosophy. + +The _Excursion_ abounds with philosophy and therefore the _Excursion_ is +to the Wordsworthian what it never can be to the disinterested lover of +poetry,--a satisfactory work. "Duty exists," says Wordsworth, in the +_Excursion_; and then he proceeds thus-- + + " ... Immutably survive, + For our support, the measures and the forms, + Which an abstract Intelligence supplies, + Whose kingdom is, where time and space are not."[377] + +And the Wordsworthian is delighted, and thinks that here is a sweet +union of philosophy and poetry. But the disinterested lover of poetry +will feel that the lines carry us really not a step farther than the +proposition which they would interpret; that they are a tissue of +elevated but abstract verbiage, alien to the very nature of poetry. + +Or let us come direct to the centre of Wordsworth's philosophy, as "an +ethical system, as distinctive and capable of systematical exposition as +Bishop Butler's"-- + + "... One adequate support + For the calamities of mortal life + Exists, one only;--an assured belief + That the procession of our fate, howe'er + Sad or disturbed, is ordered by a Being + Of infinite benevolence and power; + Whose everlasting purposes embrace + All accidents, converting them to good."[378] + + + +That is doctrine such as we hear in church too, religious and +philosophic doctrine; and the attached Wordsworthian loves passages of +such doctrine, and brings them forward in proof of his poet's +excellence. But however true the doctrine may be, it has, as here +presented, none of the characters of _poetic_ truth, the kind of truth +which we require from a poet, and in which Wordsworth is really strong. + +Even the "intimations" of the famous Ode,[379] those corner-stones of +the supposed philosophic system of Wordsworth,--the idea of the high +instincts and affections coming out in childhood, testifying of a divine +home recently left, and fading away as our life proceeds,--this idea, of +undeniable beauty as a play of fancy, has itself not the character of +poetic truth of the best kind; it has no real solidity. The instinct of +delight in Nature and her beauty had no doubt extraordinary strength in +Wordsworth himself as a child. + +But to say that universally this instinct is mighty in childhood, and +tends to die away afterwards, is to say what is extremely doubtful. In +many people, perhaps with the majority of educated persons, the love of +nature is nearly imperceptible at ten years old, but strong and +operative at thirty. In general we may say of these high instincts of +early childhood, the base of the alleged systematic philosophy of +Wordsworth, what Thucydides says of the early achievements of the Greek +race: "It is impossible to speak with certainty of what is so remote; +but from all that we can really investigate, I should say that they were +no very great things." + +Finally, the "scientific system of thought" in Wordsworth gives us at +least such poetry as this, which the devout Wordsworthian accepts-- + + + + "O for the coming of that glorious time + When, prizing knowledge as her noblest wealth + And best protection, this Imperial Realm, + While she exacts allegiance, shall admit + An obligation, on her part, to _teach_ + Them who are born to serve her and obey; + Binding herself by statute to secure, + For all the children whom her soil maintains, + The rudiments of letters, and inform + The mind with moral and religious truth."[380] + +Wordsworth calls Voltaire dull, and surely the production of these +un-Voltairian lines must have been imposed on him as a judgment! One can +hear them being quoted at a Social Science Congress; one can call up the +whole scene. A great room in one of our dismal provincial towns; dusty +air and jaded afternoon daylight; benches full of men with bald heads +and women in spectacles; an orator lifting up his face from a manuscript +written within and without to declaim these lines of Wordsworth; and in +the soul of any poor child of nature who may have wandered in thither, +an unutterable sense of lamentation, and mourning, and woe! + +"But turn we," as Wordsworth says, "from these bold, bad men," the +haunters of Social Science Congresses. And let us be on our guard, too, +against the exhibitors and extollers of a "scientific system of thought" +in Wordsworth's poetry. The poetry will never be seen aright while they +thus exhibit it. The cause of its greatness is simple, and may be told +quite simply. Wordsworth's poetry is great because of the extraordinary +power with which Wordsworth feels the joy offered to us in nature, the +joy offered to us in the simple primary affections and duties; and +because of the extraordinary power with which, in case after case, he +shows us this joy, and renders it so as to make us share it. + +The source of joy from which he thus draws is the truest and most +unfailing source of joy accessible to man. It is also accessible +universally. Wordsworth brings us word, therefore, according to his own +strong and characteristic line, he brings us word + + "Of joy in widest commonalty spread."[381] + +Here is an immense advantage for a poet. Wordsworth tells of what all +seek, and tells of it at its truest and best source, and yet a source +where all may go and draw for it. + +Nevertheless, we are not to suppose that everything is precious which +Wordsworth, standing even at this perennial and beautiful source, may +give us. Wordsworthians are apt to talk as if it must be. They will +speak with the same reverence of _The Sailor's Mother_, for example, as +of _Lucy Gray_. They do their master harm by such lack of +discrimination. _Lucy Gray_ is a beautiful success; _The Sailor's +Mother_ is a failure. To give aright what he wishes to give, to +interpret and render successfully, is not always within Wordsworth's own +command. It is within no poet's command; here is the part of the Muse, +the inspiration, the God, the "not ourselves."[382] In Wordsworth's +case, the accident, for so it may almost be called, of inspiration, is +of peculiar importance. No poet, perhaps, is so evidently filled with a +new and sacred energy when the inspiration is upon him; no poet, when it +fails him, is so left "weak as is a breaking wave." I remember hearing +him say that "Goethe's poetry was not inevitable enough." The remark is +striking and true; no line in Goethe, as Goethe said himself, but its +maker knew well how it came there. Wordsworth is right, Goethe's poetry +is not inevitable; not inevitable enough. But Wordsworth's poetry, when +he is at his best, is inevitable, as inevitable as Nature herself. It +might seem that Nature not only gave him the matter for his poem, but +wrote his poem for him. He has no style. He was too conversant with +Milton not to catch at times his master's manner, and he has fine +Miltonic lines; but he has no assured poetic style of his own, like +Milton. When he seeks to have a style he falls into ponderosity and +pomposity. In the _Excursion_ we have his style, as an artistic product +of his own creation; and although Jeffrey completely failed to recognize +Wordsworth's real greatness, he was yet not wrong in saying of the +_Excursion_, as a work of poetic style: "This will never do."[383]. And +yet magical as is that power, which Wordsworth has not, of assured and +possessed poetic style, he has something which is an equivalent for it. + +Every one who has any sense for these things feels the subtle turn, the +heightening, which is given to a poet's verse by his genius for style. +We can feel it in the + + "After life's fitful fever, he sleeps well"--[384] + +of Shakespeare; in the + + "... though fall'n on evil days, + On evil days though fall'n, and evil tongues"--[385] + +of Milton. It is the incomparable charm of Milton's power of poetic +style which gives such worth to _Paradise Regained_, and makes a great +poem of a work in which Milton's imagination does not soar high. +Wordsworth has in constant possession, and at command, no style of this +kind; but he had too poetic a nature, and had read the great poets too +well, not to catch, as I have already remarked, something of it +occasionally. We find it not only in his Miltonic lines; we find it in +such a phrase as this, where the manner is his own, not Milton's-- + + "the fierce confederate storm + Of sorrow barricadoed evermore + Within the walls of cities;"[386] + + + +although even here, perhaps, the power of style which is undeniable, is +more properly that of eloquent prose than the subtle heightening and +change wrought by genuine poetic style. It is style, again, and the +elevation given by style, which chiefly makes the effectiveness of +_Laodameia_. Still, the right sort of verse to choose from Wordsworth, +if we are to seize his true and most characteristic form of expression, +is a line like this from _Michael_-- + + "And never lifted up a single stone." + +There is nothing subtle in it, no heightening, no study of poetic style, +strictly so called, at all; yet it is expression of the highest and most +truly expressive kind. + +Wordsworth owed much to Burns, and a style of perfect plainness, relying +for effect solely on the weight and force of that which with entire +fidelity it utters, Burns could show him. + + "The poor inhabitant below + Was quick to learn and wise to know, + And keenly felt the friendly glow + And softer flame; + But thoughtless follies laid him low + And stain'd his name."[387] + +Every one will be conscious of a likeness here to Wordsworth; and if +Wordsworth did great things with this nobly plain manner, we must +remember, what indeed he himself would always have been forward to +acknowledge, that Burns used it before him. + +Still Wordsworth's use of it has something unique and unmatchable. +Nature herself seems, I say, to take the pen out of his hand, and to +write for him with her own bare, sheer, penetrating power. This arises +from two causes; from the profound sincereness with which Wordsworth +feels his subject, and also from the profoundly sincere and natural +character of his subject itself. He can and will treat such a subject +with nothing but the most plain, first-hand, almost austere naturalness. +His expression may often be called bald, as, for instance, in the poem +of _Resolution and Independence_; but it is bald as the bare mountain +tops are bald, with a baldness which is full of grandeur. + +Wherever we meet with the successful balance, in Wordsworth, of profound +truth of subject with profound truth of execution, he is unique. His +best poems are those which most perfectly exhibit this balance. I have a +warm admiration for _Laodameia_ and for the great _Ode_; but if I am to +tell the very truth, I find _Laodameia_ not wholly free from something +artificial, and the great _Ode_ not wholly free from something +declamatory. If I had to pick out poems of a kind most perfectly to show +Wordsworth's unique power, I should rather choose poems such as +_Michael, The Fountain, The Highland Reaper_.[388] And poems with the +peculiar and unique beauty which distinguishes these, Wordsworth +produced in considerable number; besides very many other poems of which +the worth, although not so rare as the worth of these, is still +exceedingly high. + +On the whole, then, as I said at the beginning, not only is Wordsworth +eminent by reason of the goodness of his best work, but he is eminent +also by reason of the great body of good work which he has left to us. +With the ancients I will not compare him. In many respects the ancients +are far above us, and yet there is something that we demand which they +can never give. Leaving the ancients, let us come to the poets and +poetry of Christendom. Dante, Shakespeare, Moliere, Milton, Goethe, are +altogether larger and more splendid luminaries in the poetical heaven +than Wordsworth. But I know not where else, among the moderns, we are to +find his superiors. + +To disengage the poems which show his power, and to present them to the +English-speaking public and to the world, is the object of this volume. +I by no means say that it contains all which in Wordsworth's poems is +interesting. Except in the case of _Margaret_, a story composed +separately from the rest of the _Excursion_, and which belongs to a +different part of England, I have not ventured on detaching portions of +poems, or on giving any piece otherwise than as Wordsworth himself gave +it. But under the conditions imposed by this reserve, the volume +contains, I think, everything, or nearly everything, which may best +serve him with the majority of lovers of poetry, nothing which may +disserve him. + +I have spoken lightly of Wordsworthians; and if we are to get Wordsworth +recognized by the public and by the world, we must recommend him not in +the spirit of a clique, but in the spirit of disinterested lovers of +poetry. But I am a Wordsworthian myself. I can read with pleasure and +edification _Peter Bell_, and the whole series of _Ecclesiastical +Sonnets_, and the address to Mr. Wilkinson's spade, and even the +_Thanksgiving Ode_;--everything of Wordsworth, I think, except +_Vaudracour and Julia_. It is not for nothing that one has been brought +up in the veneration of a man so truly worthy of homage; that one has +seen him and heard him, lived in his neighborhood, and been familiar +with his country. No Wordsworthian has a tenderer affection for this +pure and sage master than I, or is less really offended by his defects. +But Wordsworth is something more than the pure and sage master of a +small band of devoted followers, and we ought not to rest satisfied +until he is seen to be what he is. He is one of the very chief glories +of English Poetry; and by nothing is England so glorious as by her +poetry. Let us lay aside every weight which hinders our getting him +recognized as this, and let our one study be to bring to pass, as widely +as possible and as truly as possible, his own word concerning his poems: +"They will cooeoperate with the benign tendencies in human nature and +society, and will, in their degree, be efficacious in making men wiser, +better, and happier." + + + + +III. SOCIAL AND POLITICAL STUDIES + + + +SWEETNESS AND LIGHT[389] + + +The disparagers of culture make its motive curiosity; +sometimes, indeed, they make its motive mere exclusiveness +and vanity. The culture which is supposed to plume itself on a +smattering of Greek and Latin is a culture which is begotten by nothing +so intellectual as curiosity; it is valued either out of sheer vanity +and ignorance or else as an engine of social and class distinction, +separating its holder, like a badge or title, from other people who have +not got it. No serious man would call this _culture_, or attach any +value to it, as culture, at all. To find the real ground for the very +differing estimate which serious people will set upon culture, we must +find some motive for culture in the terms of which may lie a real +ambiguity; and such a motive the word _curiosity_ gives us. + +I have before now pointed out that we English do not, like the +foreigners, use this word in a good sense as well as in a bad sense. +With us the word is always used in a somewhat disapproving sense. A +liberal and intelligent eagerness about the things of the mind may be +meant by a foreigner when he speaks of curiosity, but with us the word +always conveys a certain notion of frivolous and unedifying activity. In +the _Quarterly Review_, some little time ago, was an estimate of the +celebrated French critic, M. Sainte-Beuve,[390] and a very inadequate +estimate it in my judgment was. And its inadequacy consisted chiefly in +this: that in our English way it left out of sight the double sense +really involved in the word _curiosity_, thinking enough was said to +stamp M. Sainte-Beuve with blame if it was said that he was impelled in +his operations as a critic by curiosity, and omitting either to perceive +that M. Sainte-Beuve himself, and many other people with him, would +consider that this was praiseworthy and not blameworthy, or to point out +why it ought really to be accounted worthy of blame and not of praise. +For as there is a curiosity about intellectual matters which is futile, +and merely a disease, so there is certainly a curiosity,--a desire after +the things of the mind simply for their own sakes and for the pleasure +of seeing them as they are,--which is, in an intelligent being, natural +and laudable. Nay, and the very desire to see things as they are, +implies a balance and regulation of mind which is not often attained +without fruitful effort, and which is the very opposite of the blind and +diseased impulse of mind which is what we mean to blame when we blame +curiosity. Montesquieu says: "The first motive which ought to impel us +to study is the desire to augment the excellence of our nature, and to +render an intelligent being yet more intelligent."[391] This is the true +ground to assign for the genuine scientific passion, however manifested, +and for culture, viewed simply as a fruit of this passion; and it is a +worthy ground, even though we let the term _curiosity_ stand to describe +it. But there is of culture another view, in which not solely the +scientific passion, the sheer desire to see things as they are, natural +and proper in an intelligent being, appears as the ground of it. There +is a view in which all the love of our neighbor, the impulses towards +action, help, and beneficence, the desire for removing human error, +clearing human confusion, and diminishing human misery, the noble +aspiration to leave the world better and happier than we found it,-- +motives eminently such as are called social,--come in as part of the +grounds of culture, and the main and preeminent part. Culture is then +properly described not as having its origin in curiosity, but as having +its origin in the love of perfection; it is _a study of perfection_. It +moves by the force, not merely or primarily of the scientific passion +for pure knowledge, but also of the moral and social passion for doing +good. As, in the first view of it, we took for its worthy motto +Montesquieu's words: "To render an intelligent being yet more +intelligent!" so, in the second view of it, there is no better motto +which it can have than these words of Bishop Wilson:[392] "To make +reason and the will of God prevail!"[393] + +Only, whereas the passion for doing good is apt to be overhasty in +determining what reason and the will of God say, because its turn is for +acting rather than thinking and it wants to be beginning to act; and +whereas it is apt to take its own conceptions, which proceed from its +own state of development and share in all the imperfections and +immaturities of this, for a basis of action; what distinguishes culture +is, that it is possessed by the scientific passion as well as by the +passion of doing good; that it demands worthy notions of reason and the +will of God, and does not readily suffer its own crude conceptions to +substitute themselves for them. And knowing that no action or +institution can be salutary and stable which is not based on reason and +the will of God, it is not so bent on acting and instituting, even with +the great aim of diminishing human error and misery ever before its +thoughts, but that it can remember that acting and instituting are of +little use, unless we know how and what we ought to act and to +institute. + +This culture is more interesting and more far-reaching than that other, +which is founded solely on the scientific passion for knowing. But it +needs times of faith and ardor, times when the intellectual horizon is +opening and widening all around us, to flourish in. And is not the close +and bounded intellectual horizon within which we have long lived and +moved now lifting up, and are not new lights finding free passage to +shine in upon us? For a long time there was no passage for them to make +their way in upon us, and then it was of no use to think of adapting the +world's action to them. Where was the hope of making reason and the will +of God prevail among people who had a routine which they had christened +reason and the will of God, in which they were inextricably bound, and +beyond which they had no power of looking? But now, the iron force of +adhesion to the old routine,--social, political, religious,--has +wonderfully yielded; the iron force of exclusion of all which is new has +wonderfully yielded. The danger now is, not that people should +obstinately refuse to allow anything but their old routine to pass for +reason and the will of God, but either that they should allow some +novelty or other to pass for these too easily, or else that they should +underrate the importance of them altogether, and think it enough to +follow action for its own sake, without troubling themselves to make +reason and the will of God prevail therein. Now, then, is the moment for +culture to be of service, culture which believes in making reason and +the will of God prevail, believes in perfection, is the study and +pursuit of perfection, and is no longer debarred, by a rigid invincible +exclusion of whatever is new, from getting acceptance for its ideas, +simply because they are new. + +The moment this view of culture is seized, the moment it is regarded not +solely as the endeavor to see things as they are, to draw towards a +knowledge of the universal order which seems to be intended and aimed at +in the world, and which it is a man's happiness to go along with or his +misery to go counter to,--to learn, in short, the will of God,--the +moment, I say, culture is considered not merely as the endeavor to _see_ +and _learn_ this, but as the endeavor, also, to make it _prevail_, the +moral, social, and beneficent character of culture becomes manifest. The +mere endeavor to see and learn the truth for our own personal +satisfaction is indeed a commencement for making it prevail, a preparing +the way for this, which always serves this, and is wrongly, therefore, +stamped with blame absolutely in itself and not only in its caricature +and degeneration. But perhaps it has got stamped with blame, and +disparaged with the dubious title of curiosity, because in comparison +with this wider endeavor of such great and plain utility it looks +selfish, petty, and unprofitable. + +And religion, the greatest and most important of the efforts by which +the human race has manifested its impulse to perfect itself,--religion, +that voice of the deepest human experience,--does not only enjoin and +sanction the aim which is the great aim of culture, the aim of setting +ourselves to ascertain what perfection is and to make it prevail; but +also, in determining generally in what human perfection consists, +religion comes to a conclusion identical with that which culture,-- +culture seeking the determination of this question through _all_ the +voices of human experience which have been heard upon it, of art, +science, poetry, philosophy, history, as well as of religion, in order +to give a greater fulness and certainty to its solution,--likewise +reaches. Religion says: _The kingdom of God_ _is within you_; and +culture, in like manner, places human perfection in an _internal_ +condition, in the growth and predominance of our humanity proper, as +distinguished from our animality. It places it in the ever-increasing +efficacy and in the general harmonious expansion of those gifts of +thought and feeling, which make the peculiar dignity, wealth, and +happiness of human nature. As I have said on a former occasion: "It is +in making endless additions to itself, in the endless expansion of its +powers, in endless growth in wisdom and beauty, that the spirit of the +human race finds its ideal. To reach this ideal, culture is an +indispensable aid, and that is the true value of culture." Not a having +and a resting, but a growing and a becoming, is the character of +perfection as culture conceives it; and here, too, it coincides with +religion. + +And because men are all members of one great whole, and the sympathy +which is in human nature will not allow one member to be indifferent to +the rest or to have a perfect welfare independent of the rest, the +expansion of our humanity, to suit the idea of perfection which culture +forms, must be a _general_ expansion. Perfection, as culture conceives +it, is not possible while the individual remains isolated. The +individual is required, under pain of being stunted and enfeebled in his +own development if he disobeys, to carry others along with him in his +march towards perfection, to be continually doing all he can to enlarge +and increase the volume of the human stream sweeping thitherward. And, +here, once more, culture lays on us the same obligation as religion, +which says, as Bishop Wilson has admirably put it, that "to promote the +kingdom of God is to increase and hasten one's own happiness."[394] + +But, finally, perfection,--as culture from a thorough disinterested +study of human nature and human experience learns to conceive it,--is a +harmonious expansion of _all_ the powers which make the beauty and worth +of human nature, and is not consistent with the over-development of any +one power at the expense of the rest. Here culture goes beyond religion +as religion is generally conceived by us. + +If culture, then, is a study of perfection, and of harmonious +perfection, general perfection, and perfection which consists in +becoming something rather than in having something, in an inward +condition of the mind and spirit, not in an outward set of +circumstances,--it is clear that culture, instead or being the +frivolous and useless thing which Mr. Bright,[395] and Mr. Frederic +Harrison,[396] and many other Liberals are apt to call it, has a very +important function to fulfil for mankind. And this function is +particularly important in our modern world, of which the whole +civilization is, to a much greater degree than the civilization of +Greece and Rome, mechanical and external, and tends constantly to become +more so. But above all in our own country has culture a weighty part to +perform, because here that mechanical character, which civilization +tends to take everywhere, is shown in the most eminent degree. Indeed +nearly all the characters of perfection, as culture teaches us to fix +them, meet in this country with some powerful tendency which thwarts +them and sets them at defiance. The idea of perfection as an _inward_ +condition of the mind and spirit is at variance with the mechanical and +material civilization in esteem with us, and nowhere, as I have said, so +much in esteem as with us. The idea of perfection as a _general_ +expansion of the human family is at variance with our strong +individualism, our hatred of all limits to the unrestrained swing of the +individual's personality, our maxim of "every man for himself." Above +all, the idea of perfection as a _harmonious_ expansion of human nature +is at variance with our want of flexibility, with our inaptitude for +seeing more than one side of a thing, with our intense energetic +absorption in the particular pursuit we happen to be following. So +culture has a rough task to achieve in this country. Its preachers have, +and are likely long to have, a hard time of it, and they will much +oftener be regarded, for a great while to come, as elegant or spurious +Jeremiahs than as friends and benefactors. That, however, will not +prevent their doing in the end good service if they persevere. And, +meanwhile, the mode of action they have to pursue, and the sort of +habits they must fight against, ought to be made quite clear for every +one to see, who may be willing to look at the matter attentively and +dispassionately. + +Faith in machinery is, I said, our besetting danger; often in machinery +most absurdly disproportioned to the end which this machinery, if it is +to do any good at all, is to serve; but always in machinery, as if it +had a value in and for itself. What is freedom but machinery? what is +population but machinery? what is coal but machinery? what are railroads +but machinery? what is wealth but machinery? what are, even, religious +organizations but machinery? Now almost every voice in England is +accustomed to speak of these things as if they were precious ends in +themselves, and therefore had some of the characters of perfection +indisputably joined to them. I have before now noticed Mr. +Roebuck's[397] stock argument for proving the greatness and happiness of +England as she is, and for quite stopping the mouths of all gainsayers. +Mr. Roebuck is never weary of reiterating this argument of his, so I do +not know why I should be weary of noticing it. "May not every man in +England say what he likes?"--Mr. Roebuck perpetually asks: and that, he +thinks, is quite sufficient, and when every man may say what he likes, +our aspirations ought to be satisfied. But the aspirations of culture, +which is the study of perfection, are not satisfied, unless what men +say, when they may say what they like, is worth saying,--has good in +it, and more good than bad. In the same way the _Times_, replying to +some foreign strictures on the dress, looks, and behavior of the English +abroad, urges that the English ideal is that every one should be free to +do and to look just as he likes. But culture indefatigably tries, not to +make what each raw person may like, the rule by which he fashions +himself; but to draw ever nearer to a sense of what is indeed beautiful, +graceful, and becoming, and to get the raw person to like that. + +And in the same way with respect to railroads and coal. Every one must +have observed the strange language current during the late discussions +as to the possible failure of our supplies of coal. Our coal, thousands +of people were saying, is the real basis of our national greatness; if +our coal runs short, there is an end of the greatness of England. But +what _is_ greatness?--culture makes us ask. Greatness is a spiritual +condition worthy to excite love, interest, and admiration; and the +outward proof of possessing greatness is that we excite love, interest, +and admiration. If England were swallowed up by the sea to-morrow, which +of the two, a hundred years hence, would most excite the love, interest, +and admiration of mankind,--would most, therefore, show the evidences of +having possessed greatness,--the England of the last twenty years, or +the England of Elizabeth, of a time of splendid spiritual effort, but +when our coal, and our industrial operations depending on coal, were +very little developed? Well, then, what an unsound habit of mind it must +be which makes us talk of things like coal or iron as constituting the +greatness of England, and how salutary a friend is culture, bent on +seeing things as they are, and thus dissipating delusions of this kind +and fixing standards of perfection that are real! + +Wealth, again, that end to which our prodigious works for material +advantage are directed,--the commonest of commonplaces tells us how men +are always apt to regard wealth as a precious end in itself: and +certainly they have never been so apt thus to regard it as they are in +England at the present time. Never did people believe anything more +firmly than nine Englishmen out of ten at the present day believe that +our greatness and welfare are proved by our being so very rich. Now, the +use of culture is that it helps us, by means of its spiritual standard +of perfection, to regard wealth as but machinery, and not only to say as +a matter of words that we regard wealth as but machinery, but really to +perceive and feel that it is so. If it were not for this purging effect +wrought upon our minds by culture, the whole world, the future as well +as the present, would inevitably belong to the Philistines. The people +who believe most that our greatness and welfare are proved by our being +very rich, and who most give their lives and thoughts to becoming rich, +are just the very people whom we call Philistines. Culture says: +"Consider these people, then, their way of life, their habits, their +manners, the very tones of their voice; look at them attentively; +observe the literature they read, the things which give them pleasure, +the words which come forth out of their mouths, the thoughts which make +the furniture of their minds; would any amount of wealth be worth having +with the condition that one was to become just like these people by +having it?" And thus culture begets a dissatisfaction which is of the +highest possible value in stemming the common tide of men's thoughts in +a wealthy and industrial community, and which saves the future, as one +may hope, from being vulgarized, even if it cannot save the present. + +Population, again, and bodily health and vigor, are things which are +nowhere treated in such an unintelligent, misleading, exaggerated way as +in England. Both are really machinery; yet how many people all around us +do we see rest in them and fail to look beyond them! Why, one has heard +people, fresh from reading certain articles of the _Times_ on the +Registrar-General's returns of marriages and births in this country, who +would talk of our large English families in quite a solemn strain, as if +they had something in itself beautiful, elevating, and meritorious in +them; as if the British Philistine would have only to present himself +before the Great Judge with his twelve children, in order to be received +among the sheep as a matter of right! + +But bodily health and vigor, it may be said, are not to be classed with +wealth and population as mere machinery; they have a more real and +essential value. True; but only as they are more intimately connected +with a perfect spiritual condition than wealth or population are. The +moment we disjoin them from the idea of a perfect spiritual condition, +and pursue them, as we do pursue them, for their own sake and as ends in +themselves, our worship of them becomes as mere worship of machinery, as +our worship of wealth or population, and as unintelligent and +vulgarizing a worship as that is. Every one with anything like an +adequate idea of human perfection has distinctly marked this +subordination to higher and spiritual ends of the cultivation of bodily +vigor and activity. "Bodily exercise profiteth little; but godliness is +profitable unto all things,"[398] says the author of the Epistle to +Timothy. And the utilitarian Franklin says just as explicitly:--"Eat and +drink such an exact quantity as suits the constitution of thy body, _in +reference to the services of the mind_."[399] But the point of view of +culture, keeping the mark of human perfection simply and broadly in +view, and not assigning to this perfection, as religion or +utilitarianism assigns to it, a special and limited character, this +point of view, I say, of culture is best given by these words of +Epictetus: "It is a sign of[Greek: aphuia]," says he,--that is, of a +nature not finely tempered,--"to give yourselves up to things which +relate to the body; to make, for instance, a great fuss about exercise, +a great fuss about eating, a great fuss about drinking, a great fuss +about walking, a great fuss about riding. All these things ought to be +done merely by the way: the formation of the spirit and character must +be our real concern."[400] This is admirable; and, indeed, the Greek +word[Greek: euphuia], a finely tempered nature, gives exactly the +notion of perfection as culture brings us to conceive it: a harmonious +perfection, a perfection in which the characters of beauty and +intelligence are both present, which unites "the two noblest of +things,"--as Swift, who of one of the two, at any rate, had himself all +too little, most happily calls them in his _Battle of the Books_,--"the +two noblest of things, _sweetness and light_."[401] The[Greek: +euphuaes] is the man who tends towards sweetness and light; the[Greek: +aphuaes], on the other hand, is our Philistine. The immense spiritual +significance of the Greeks is due to their having been inspired with +this central and happy idea of the essential character of human +perfection; and Mr. Bright's misconception of culture, as a smattering +of Greek and Latin, comes itself, after all, from this wonderful +significance of the Greeks having affected the very machinery of our +education, and is in itself a kind of homage to it. + +In thus making sweetness and light to be characters of perfection, +culture is of like spirit with poetry, follows one law with poetry. Far +more than on our freedom, our population, and our industrialism, many +amongst us rely upon our religious organizations to save us. I have +called religion a yet more important manifestation of human nature than +poetry, because it has worked on a broader scale for perfection, and +with greater masses of men. But the idea of beauty and of a human nature +perfect on all its sides, which is the dominant idea of poetry, is a +true and invaluable idea, though it has not yet had the success that the +idea of conquering the obvious faults of our animality, and of a human +nature perfect on the moral side,--which is the dominant idea of +religion,--has been enabled to have; and it is destined, adding to +itself the religious idea of a devout energy, to transform and govern +the other. + +The best art and poetry of the Greeks, in which religion and poetry are +one, in which the idea of beauty and of a human nature perfect on all +sides adds to itself a religious and devout energy, and works in the +strength of that, is on this account of such surpassing interest and +instructiveness for us, though it was,--as, having regard to the human +race in general, and, indeed, having regard to the Greeks themselves, we +must own,--a premature attempt, an attempt which for success needed the +moral and religious fibre in humanity to be more braced and developed +than it had yet been. But Greece did not err in having the idea of +beauty, harmony, and complete human perfection, so present and +paramount. It is impossible to have this idea too present and paramount; +only, the moral fibre must be braced too. And we, because we have braced +the moral fibre, are not on that account in the right way, if at the +same time the idea of beauty, harmony, and complete human perfection, is +wanting or misapprehended amongst us; and evidently it _is_ wanting or +misapprehended at present. And when we rely as we do on our religious +organizations, which in themselves do not and cannot give us this idea, +and think we have done enough if we make them spread and prevail, then, +I say, we fall into our common fault of overvaluing machinery. + +Nothing is more common than for people to confound the inward peace and +satisfaction which follows the subduing of the obvious faults of our +animality with what I may call absolute inward peace and satisfaction,-- +the peace and satisfaction which are reached as we draw near to complete +spiritual perfection, and not merely to moral perfection, or rather to +relative moral perfection. No people in the world have done more and +struggled more to attain this relative moral perfection than our English +race has. For no people in the world has the command to _resist the +devil_, to _overcome the wicked one_, in the nearest and most obvious +sense of those words, had such a pressing force and reality. And we have +had our reward, not only in the great worldly prosperity which our +obedience to this command has brought us, but also, and far more, in +great inward peace and satisfaction. But to me few things are more +pathetic than to see people, on the strength of the inward peace and +satisfaction which their rudimentary efforts towards perfection have +brought them, employ, concerning their incomplete perfection and the +religious organizations within which they have found it, language which +properly applies only to complete perfection, and is a far-off echo of +the human soul's prophecy of it. Religion itself, I need hardly say, +supplies them in abundance with this grand language. And very freely do +they use it; yet it is really the severest possible criticism of such an +incomplete perfection as alone we have yet reached through our religious +organizations. + +The impulse of the English race towards moral development and +self-conquest has nowhere so powerfully manifested itself as in +Puritanism. Nowhere has Puritanism found so adequate an expression as in +the religious organization of the Independents.[402] The modern +Independents have a newspaper, the _Nonnconformist_, written with great +sincerity and ability. The motto, the standard, the profession of faith +which this organ of theirs carries aloft, is: "The Dissidence of Dissent +and the Protestantism of the Protestant religion."[403] There is +sweetness and light, and an ideal of complete harmonious human +perfection! One need not go to culture and poetry to find language to +judge it. Religion, with its instinct for perfection, supplies language +to judge it, language, too, which is in our mouths every day. "Finally, +be of one mind, united in feeling,"[404] says St. Peter. There is an +ideal which judges the Puritan ideal: "The Dissidence of Dissent and the +Protestantism of the Protestant religion!" And religious organizations +like this are what people believe in, rest in, would give their lives +for! Such, I say, is the wonderful virtue of even the beginnings of +perfection, of having conquered even the plain faults of our animality, +that the religious organization which has helped us to do it can seem to +us something precious, salutary, and to be propagated, even when it +wears such a brand of imperfection on its forehead as this. And men have +got such a habit of giving to the language of religion a special +application, of making it a mere jargon, that for the condemnation which +religion itself passes on the shortcomings of their religious +organizations they have no ear; they are sure to cheat themselves and to +explain this condemnation away. They can only be reached by the +criticism which culture, like poetry, speaking a language not to be +sophisticated, and resolutely testing these organizations by the ideal +of a human perfection complete on all sides, applies to them. + +But men of culture and poetry, it will be said, are again and again +failing, and failing conspicuously, in the necessary first stage to a +harmonious perfection, in the subduing of the great obvious faults of +our animality, which it is the glory of these religious organizations to +have helped us to subdue. True, they do often so fail. They have often +been without the virtues as well as the faults of the Puritan; it has +been one of their dangers that they so felt the Puritan's faults that +they too much neglected the practice of his virtues. I will not, +however, exculpate them at the Puritan's expense. They have often failed +in morality, and morality is indispensable. And they have been punished +for their failure, as the Puritan has been rewarded for his performance. +They have been punished wherein they erred; but their ideal of beauty, +of sweetness and light, and a human nature complete on all its sides, +remains the true ideal of perfection still; just as the Puritan's ideal +of perfection remains narrow and inadequate, although for what he did +well he has been richly rewarded. Notwithstanding the mighty results of +the Pilgrim Fathers' voyage, they and their standard of perfection are +rightly judged when we figure to ourselves Shakespeare or Virgil,--souls +in whom sweetness and light, and all that in human nature is most +humane, were eminent,--accompanying them on their voyage, and think what +intolerable company Shakespeare and Virgil would have found them! In the +same way let us judge the religious organizations which we see all +around us. Do not let us deny the good and the happiness which they have +accomplished; but do not let us fail to see clearly that their idea of +human perfection is narrow and inadequate, and that the Dissidence of +Dissent and the Protestantism of the Protestant religion will never +bring humanity to its true goal. As I said with regard to wealth: Let us +look at the life of those who live in and for it,--so I say with regard +to the religious organizations. Look at the life imaged in such a +newspaper as the _Nonnconformist_,--a life of jealousy of the +Establishment, disputes, tea-meetings, openings of chapels, sermons; and +then think of it as an ideal of a human life completing itself on all +sides, and aspiring with all its organs after sweetness, light, and +perfection! + +Another newspaper, representing, like the _Nonconformist_, one of the +religious organizations of this country, was a short time ago giving an +account of the crowd at Epsom[405] on the Derby day, and of all the vice +and hideousness which was to be seen in that crowd; and then the writer +turned suddenly round upon Professor Huxley, and asked him how he +proposed to cure all this vice and hideousness without religion. I +confess I felt disposed to ask the asker this question: and how do you +propose to cure it with such a religion as yours? How is the ideal of a +life so unlovely, so unattractive, so incomplete, so narrow, so far +removed from a true and satisfying ideal of human perfection, as is the +life of your religious organization as you yourself reflect it, to +conquer and transform all this vice and hideousness? Indeed, the +strongest plea for the study of perfection as pursued by culture, the +clearest proof of the actual inadequacy of the idea of perfection held +by the religious organizations,--expressing, as I have said, the most +widespread effort which the human race has yet made after perfection,-- +is to be found in the state of our life and society with these in +possession of it, and having been in possession of it I know not how +many hundred years. We are all of us included in some religious +organization or other; we all call ourselves, in the sublime and +aspiring language of religion which I have before noticed, _children of +God_. Children of God;--it is an immense pretension!--and how are we to +justify it? By the works which we do, and the words which we speak. And +the work which we collective children of God do, our grand centre of +life, our _city_ which we have builded for us to dwell in, is London! +London, with its unutterable external hideousness, and with its internal +canker of _publice egestas, privatim opulentia_,[406]--to use the words +which Sallust puts into Cato's mouth about Rome,--unequalled in the +world! The word, again, which we children of God speak, the voice which +most hits our collective thought, the newspaper with the largest +circulation in England, nay, with the largest circulation in the whole +world, is the _Daily Telegraph_![407] I say that when our religious +organizations--which I admit to express the most considerable effort +after perfection that our race has yet made--land us in no better result +than this, it is high time to examine carefully their idea of +perfection, to see whether it does not leave out of account sides and +forces of human nature which we might turn to great use; whether it +would not be more operative if it were more complete. And I say that the +English reliance on our religious organizations and on their ideas of +human perfection just as they stand, is like our reliance on freedom, on +muscular Christianity, on population, on coal, on wealth,--mere belief +in machinery, and unfruitful; and that it is wholesomely counteracted by +culture, bent on seeing things as they are, and on drawing the human +race onwards to a more complete, a harmonious perfection. + +Culture, however, shows its single-minded love of perfection, its desire +simply to make reason and the will of God prevail, its freedom from +fanaticism, by its attitude towards all this machinery, even while it +insists that it _is_ machinery. Fanatics, seeing the mischief men do +themselves by their blind belief in some machinery or other,--whether it +is wealth and industrialism, or whether it is the cultivation of bodily +strength and activity, or whether it is a political organization,--or +whether it is a religious organization,--oppose with might and main the +tendency to this or that political and religious organization, or to +games and athletic exercises, or to wealth and industrialism, and try +violently to stop it. But the flexibility which sweetness and light +give, and which is one of the rewards of culture pursued in good faith, +enables a man to see that a tendency may be necessary, and even, as a +preparation for something in the future, salutary, and yet that the +generations or individuals who obey this tendency are sacrificed to it, +that they fall short of the hope of perfection by following it; and that +its mischiefs are to be criticized, lest it should take too firm a hold +and last after it has served its purpose. + +Mr. Gladstone well pointed out, in a speech at Paris,--and others have +pointed out the same thing,--how necessary is the present great +movement towards wealth and industrialism, in order to lay broad +foundations of material well-being for the society of the future. The +worst of these justifications is, that they are generally addressed to +the very people engaged, body and soul, in the movement in question; at +all events, that they are always seized with the greatest avidity by +these people, and taken by them as quite justifying their life; and that +thus they tend to harden them in their sins. Now, culture admits the +necessity of the movement towards fortune-making and exaggerated +industrialism, readily allows that the future may derive benefit from +it; but insists, at the same time, that the passing generations of +industrialists,--forming, for the most part, the stout main body of +Philistinism,--are sacrificed to it. In the same way, the result of all +the games and sports which occupy the passing generation of boys and +young men may be the establishment of a better and sounder physical type +for the future to work with. Culture does not set itself against the +games and sports; it congratulates the future, and hopes it will make a +good use of its improved physical basis; but it points out that our +passing generation of boys and young men is, meantime, sacrificed. +Puritanism was perhaps necessary to develop the moral fibre of the +English race, Nonconformity to break the yoke of ecclesiastical +domination over men's minds and to prepare the way for freedom of +thought in the distant future; still, culture points out that the +harmonious perfection of generations of Puritans and Nonconformists has +been, in consequence, sacrificed. Freedom of speech may be necessary for +the society of the future, but the young lions[408] of the _Daily +Telegraph_ in the meanwhile are sacrificed. A voice for every man in his +country's government may be necessary for the society of the future, but +meanwhile Mr. Beales[409]and Mr. Bradlaugh[410] are sacrificed. + +Oxford, the Oxford of the past, has many faults; and she has heavily +paid for them in defeat, in isolation, in want of hold upon the modern +world. Yet we in Oxford, brought up amidst the beauty and sweetness of +that beautiful place, have not failed to seize one truth,--the truth +that beauty and sweetness are essential characters of a complete human +perfection. When I insist on this, I am all in the faith and tradition +of Oxford. I say boldly that this our sentiment for beauty and +sweetness, our sentiment against hideousness and rawness, has been at +the bottom of our attachment to so many beaten causes, of our opposition +to so many triumphant movements. And the sentiment is true, and has +never been wholly defeated, and has shown its power even in its defeat. +We have not won our political battles, we have not carried our main +points, we have not stopped our adversaries' advance, we have not +marched victoriously with the modern world; but we have told silently +upon the mind of the country, we have prepared currents of feeling which +sap our adversaries' position when it seems gained, we have kept up our +own communications with the future. Look at the course of the great +movement which shook Oxford to its centre some thirty years ago! It was +directed, as any one who reads Dr. Newman's _Apology_[411] may see, +against what in one word may be called "Liberalism." Liberalism +prevailed; it was the appointed force to do the work of the hour; it was +necessary, it was inevitable that it should prevail. The Oxford movement +was broken, it failed; our wrecks are scattered on every shore:-- + + "Quae regio in terris nostri non plena laboris?"[412] + +But what was it, this liberalism, as Dr. Newman saw it, and as it really +broke the Oxford movement? It was the great middle-class liberalism, +which had for the cardinal points of its belief the Reform Bill of +1832,[413] and local self-government, in politics; in the social sphere, +free-trade, unrestricted competition, and the making of large industrial +fortunes; in the religious sphere, the Dissidence of Dissent and the +Protestantism of the Protestant religion. I do not say that other and +more intelligent forces than this were not opposed to the Oxford +movement: but this was the force which really beat it; this was the +force which Dr. Newman felt himself fighting with; this was the force +which till only the other day seemed to be the paramount force in this +country, and to be in possession of the future; this was the force whose +achievements fill Mr. Lowe[414] with such inexpressible admiration, and +whose rule he was so horror-struck to see threatened. And where is this +great force of Philistinism now? It is thrust into the second rank, it +is become a power of yesterday, it has lost the future. A new power has +suddenly appeared, a power which it is impossible yet to judge fully, +but which is certainly a wholly different force from middle-class +liberalism; different in its cardinal points of belief, different in its +tendencies in every sphere. It loves and admires neither the legislation +of middle-class Parliaments, nor the local self-government of +middle-class vestries, nor the unrestricted competition of middle-class +industrialists, nor the dissidence of middle-class Dissent and the +Protestantism of middle-class Protestant religion. I am not now praising +this new force, or saying that its own ideals are better; all I say is, +that they are wholly different. And who will estimate how much the +currents of feeling created by Dr. Newman's movements, the keen desire +for beauty and sweetness which it nourished, the deep aversion it +manifested to the hardness and vulgarity of middle-class liberalism, the +strong light it turned on the hideous and grotesque illusions of +middle-class Protestantism,--who will estimate how much all these +contributed to swell the tide of secret dissatisfaction which has mined +the ground under self-confident liberalism of the last thirty years, and +has prepared the way for its sudden collapse and supersession? It is in +this manner that the sentiment of Oxford for beauty and sweetness +conquers, and in this manner long may it continue to conquer! + +In this manner it works to the same end as culture, and there is plenty +of work for it yet to do. I have said that the new and more democratic +force which is now superseding our old middle-class liberalism cannot +yet be rightly judged. It has its main tendencies still to form. We hear +promises of its giving us administrative reform, law reform, reform of +education, and I know not what; but those promises come rather from its +advocates, wishing to make a good plea for it and to justify it for +superseding middle-class liberalism, than from clear tendencies which it +has itself yet developed. But meanwhile it has plenty of +well-intentioned friends against whom culture may with advantage +continue to uphold steadily its ideal of human perfection; that this is +_an inward spiritual activity, having for its characters increased +sweetness, increased light, increased life, increased sympathy_. Mr. +Bright, who has a foot in both worlds, the world of middle-class +liberalism and the world of democracy, but who brings most of his ideas +from the world of middle-class liberalism in which he was bred, always +inclines to inculcate that faith in machinery to which, as we have seen, +Englishmen are so prone, and which has been the bane of middle-class +liberalism. He complains with a sorrowful indignation of people who +"appear to have no proper estimate of the value of the franchise"; he +leads his disciples to believe--what the Englishman is always too ready +to believe--that the having a vote, like the having a large family, or +a large business, or large muscles, has in itself some edifying and +perfecting effect upon human nature. Or else he cries out to the +democracy,--"the men," as he calls them," upon whose shoulders the +greatness of England rests,"--he cries out to them: "See what you have +done! I look over this country and see the cities you have built, the +railroads you have made, the manufactures you have produced, the cargoes +which freight the ships of the greatest mercantile navy the world has +ever seen! I see that you have converted by your labors what was once a +wilderness, these islands, into a fruitful garden; I know that you have +created this wealth, and are a nation whose name is a word of power +throughout all the world." Why, this is just the very style of laudation +with which Mr. Roebuck or Mr. Lowe debauches the minds of the middle +classes, and makes such Philistines of them. It is the same fashion of +teaching a man to value himself not on what he _is_, not on his progress +in sweetness and light, but on the number of the railroads he has +constructed, or the bigness of the tabernacle he has built. Only the +middle classes are told they have done it all with their energy, +self-reliance, and capital, and the democracy are told they have done it +all with their hands and sinews. But teaching the democracy to put its +trust in achievements of this kind is merely training them to be +Philistines to take the place of the Philistines whom they are +superseding; and they, too, like the middle class, will be encouraged to +sit down at the banquet of the future without having on a wedding +garment, and nothing excellent can then come from them. Those who know +their besetting faults, or those who have watched them and listened to +them, or those who will read the instructive account recently given of +them by one of themselves, the _Journeyman Engineer_, will agree that +the idea which culture sets before us of perfection,--an increased +spiritual activity, having for its characters increased sweetness, +increased light, increased life, increased sympathy,--is an idea which +the new democracy needs far more than the idea of the blessedness of the +franchise, or the wonderfulness of its own industrial performances. + +Other well-meaning friends of this new power are for leading it, not in +the old ruts of middle-class Philistinism, but in ways which are +naturally alluring to the feet of democracy, though in this country they +are novel and untried ways. I may call them the ways of Jacobinism.[415] +Violent indignation with the past, abstract systems of renovation +applied wholesale, a new doctrine drawn up in black and white for +elaborating down to the very smallest details a rational society for the +future,--these are the ways of Jacobinism. Mr. Frederic Harrison[416] +and other disciples of Comte,[417]--one of them, Mr. Congreve,[418] is +an old friend of mine, and I am glad to have an opportunity of publicly +expressing my respect for his talents and character,--are among the +friends of democracy who are for leading it in paths of this kind. Mr. +Frederic Harrison is very hostile to culture, and from a natural enough +motive; for culture is the eternal opponent of the two things which are +the signal marks of Jacobinism,--its fierceness, and its addiction to +an abstract system. Culture is always assigning to system-makers and +systems a smaller share in the bent of human destiny than their friends +like. A current in people's minds sets towards new ideas; people are +dissatisfied with their old narrow stock of Philistine ideas, +Anglo-Saxon ideas, or any other; and some man, some Bentham[419] or +Comte, who has the real merit of having early and strongly felt and +helped the new current, but who brings plenty of narrowness and mistakes +of his own into his feeling and help of it, is credited with being the +author of the whole current, the fit person to be entrusted with its +regulation and to guide the human race. + +The excellent German historian of the mythology of Rome, Preller,[420] +relating the introduction at Rome under the Tarquins of the worship of +Apollo, the god of light, healing, and reconciliation, will have us +observe that it was not so much the Tarquins who brought to Rome the new +worship of Apollo, as a current in the mind of the Roman people which +set powerfully at that time towards a new worship of this kind, and away +from the old run of Latin and Sabine religious ideas. In a similar way, +culture directs our attention to the natural current there is in human +affairs, and to its continual working, and will not let us rivet our +faith upon any one man and his doings. It makes us see not only his good +side, but also how much in him was of necessity limited and transient; +nay, it even feels a pleasure, a sense of an increased freedom and of an +ampler future, in so doing. + +I remember, when I was under the influence of a mind to which I feel the +greatest obligations, the mind of a man who was the very incarnation of +sanity and clear sense, a man the most considerable, it seems to me, +whom America has yet produced,--Benjamin Franklin,--I remember the +relief with which, after long feeling the sway of Franklin's +imperturbable common-sense, I came upon a project of his for a new +version of the Book of Job,[421] to replace the old version, the style +of which, says Franklin, has become obsolete, and thence less +agreeable. "I give," he continues, "a few verses, which may serve as a +sample of the kind of version I would recommend." We all recollect the +famous verse in our translation: "Then Satan answered the Lord and said: +'Doth Job fear God for nought?'" Franklin makes this: "Does your Majesty +imagine that Job's good conduct is the effect of mere personal +attachment and affection?" I well remember how, when first I read that, +I drew a deep breath of relief and said to myself: "After all, there is +a stretch of humanity beyond Franklin's victorious good sense!" So, +after hearing Bentham cried loudly up as the renovator of modern +society, and Bentham's mind and ideas proposed as the rulers of our +future, I open the _Deontology._[422] There I read: "While Xenophon was +writing his history and Euclid teaching geometry, Socrates and Plato +were talking nonsense under pretense of talking wisdom and morality. +This morality of theirs consisted in words; this wisdom of theirs was +the denial of matters known to every man's experience." From the moment +of reading that, I am delivered from the bondage of Bentham! the +fanaticism of his adherents can touch me no longer. I feel the +inadequacy of his mind and ideas for supplying the rule of human +society, for perfection. + +Culture tends always thus to deal with the men of a system, of +disciples, of a school; with men like Comte, or the late Mr. Buckle, +[423] or Mr. Mill.[424] However much it may find to admire in these +personages, or in some of them, it nevertheless remembers the text: "Be +not ye called Rabbi!" and it soon passes on from any Rabbi. But +Jacobinism loves a Rabbi; it does not want to pass on from its Rabbi in +pursuit of a future and still unreached perfection; it wants its Rabbi +and his ideas to stand for perfection, that they may with the more +authority recast the world; and for Jacobinism, therefore, culture,-- +eternally passing onwards and seeking,--is an impertinence and an +offence. But culture, just because it resists this tendency of +Jacobinism to impose on us a man with limitations and errors of his own +along with the true ideas of which he is the organ, really does the +world and Jacobinism itself a service. + +So, too, Jacobinism, in its fierce hatred of the past and of those whom +it makes liable for the sins of the past, cannot away with the +inexhaustible indulgence proper to culture, the consideration of +circumstances, the severe judgment of actions joined to the merciful +judgment of persons. "The man of culture is in politics," cries Mr. +Frederic Harrison, "one of the poorest mortals alive!" Mr. Frederic +Harrison wants to be doing business, and he complains that the man of +culture stops him with a "turn for small fault-finding, love of selfish +ease, and indecision in action." Of what use is culture, he asks, except +for "a critic of new books or a professor of _belles-lettres_?"[425] +Why, it is of use because, in presence of the fierce exasperation which +breathes, or rather, I may say, hisses through the whole production in +which Mr. Frederic Harrison asks that question, it reminds us that the +perfection of human nature is sweetness and light. It is of use, +because, like religion,--that other effort after perfection,--it +testifies that, where bitter envying and strife are, there is confusion +and every evil work. + +The pursuit of perfection, then, is the pursuit of sweetness and light. +He who works for sweetness and light, works to make reason and the will +of God prevail. He who works for machinery, he who works for hatred, +works only for confusion. Culture looks beyond machinery, culture hates +hatred; culture has one great passion, the passion for sweetness and +light. It has one even yet greater!--the passion for making them +_prevail_. It is not satisfied till we _all_ come to a perfect man; it +knows that the sweetness and light of the few must be imperfect until +the raw and unkindled masses of humanity are touched with sweetness and +light. If I have not shrunk from saying that we must work for sweetness +and light, so neither have I shrunk from saying that we must have a +broad basis, must have sweetness and light for as many as possible. +Again and again I have insisted how those are the happy moments of +humanity, how those are the marking epochs of a people's life, how those +are the flowering times for literature and art and all the creative +power of genius, when there is a _national_ glow of life and thought, +when the whole of society is in the fullest measure permeated by +thought, sensible to beauty, intelligent and alive. Only it must be +_real_ thought and _real_ beauty; _real_ sweetness and _real_ light. +Plenty of people will try to give the masses, as they call them, an +intellectual food prepared and adapted in the way they think proper for +the actual condition of the masses. The ordinary popular literature is +an example of this way of working on the masses. Plenty of people will +try to indoctrinate the masses with the set of ideas and judgments +constituting the creed of their own profession or party. Our religious +and political organizations give an example of this way of working on +the masses. I condemn neither way; but culture works differently. It +does not try to teach down to the level of inferior classes; it does not +try to win them for this or that sect of its own, with ready-made +judgments and watchwords. It seeks to do away with classes; to make the +best that has been thought and known in the world current everywhere; to +make all men live in an atmosphere of sweetness and light, where they +may use ideas, as it uses them itself, freely,--nourished, and not bound +by them. + +This is the _social idea_; and the men of culture are the true apostles +of equality. The great men of culture are those who have had a passion +for diffusing, for making prevail, for carrying from one end of society +to the other, the best knowledge, the best ideas of their time; who have +labored to divest knowledge of all that was harsh, uncouth, difficult, +abstract, professional, exclusive; to humanize it, to make it efficient +outside the clique of the cultivated and learned, yet still remaining +the _best_ knowledge and thought of the time, and a true source, +therefore, of sweetness and light. Such a man was Abelard[426] in the +Middle Ages, in spite of all his imperfections; and thence the boundless +emotion and enthusiasm which Abelard excited. Such were Lessing[427] +and Herder[428] in Germany, at the end of the last century; and their +services to Germany were in this way inestimably precious. Generations +will pass, and literary monuments will accumulate, and works far more +perfect than the works of Lessing and Herder will be produced in +Germany; and yet the names of these two men will fill a German with a +reverence and enthusiasm such as the names of the most gifted masters +will hardly awaken. And why? Because they _humanized_ knowledge; because +they broadened the basis of life and intelligence; because they worked +powerfully to diffuse sweetness and light, to make reason and the will +of God prevail. With Saint Augustine they said: "Let us not leave thee +alone to make in the secret of thy knowledge, as thou didst before the +creation of the firmament, the division of light from darkness; let the +children of thy spirit, placed in their firmament, make their light +shine upon the earth, mark the division of night and day, and announce +the revolution of the times; for the old order is passed, and the new +arises; the night is spent, the day is come forth; and thou shalt crown +the year with thy blessing, when thou shalt send forth laborers into thy +harvest sown by other hands than theirs; when thou shalt send forth new +laborers to new seed-times, whereof the harvest shall be not yet."[429] + + + +HEBRAISM AND HELLENISM[430] + + +This fundamental ground is our preference of doing to thinking. Now this +preference is a main element in our nature and as we study it we find +ourselves opening up a number of large questions on every side. + +Let me go back for a moment to Bishop Wilson,[431] who says: "First, +never go against the best light you have; secondly, take care that your +light be not darkness." We show, as a nation, laudable energy and +persistence in walking according to the best light we have, but are not +quite careful enough, perhaps, to see that our light be not darkness. +This is only another version of the old story that energy is our strong +point and favorable characteristic, rather than intelligence. But we may +give to this idea a more general form still, in which it will have a yet +larger range of application. We may regard this energy driving at +practice, this paramount sense of the obligation of duty, self-control, +and work, this earnestness in going manfully with the best light we +have, as one force. And we may regard the intelligence driving at those +ideas which are, after all, the basis of right practice, the ardent +sense for all the new and changing combinations of them which man's +development brings with it, the indomitable impulse to know and adjust +them perfectly, as another force. And these two forces we may regard as +in some sense rivals,--rivals not by the necessity of their own nature, +but as exhibited in man and his history,--and rivals dividing the empire +of the world between them. And to give these forces names from the two +races of men who have supplied the most signal and splendid +manifestations of them, we may call them respectively the forces of +Hebraism and Hellenism. Hebraism and Hellenism,--between these two +points of influence moves our world. At one time it feels more +powerfully the attraction of one of them, at another time of the other; +and it ought to be, though it never is, evenly and happily balanced +between them. + +The final aim of both Hellenism and Hebraism, as of all great spiritual +disciplines, is no doubt the same: man's perfection or salvation. The +very language which they both of them use in schooling us to reach this +aim is often identical. Even when their language indicates by +variation,--sometimes a broad variation, often a but slight and subtle +variation,--the different courses of thought which are uppermost in each +discipline, even then the unity of the final end and aim is still +apparent. To employ the actual words of that discipline with which we +ourselves are all of us most familiar, and the words of which, +therefore, come most home to us, that final end and aim is "that we +might be partakers of the divine nature."[432] These are the words of a +Hebrew apostle, but of Hellenism and Hebraism alike this is, I say, the +aim. When the two are confronted, as they very often are confronted, it +is nearly always with what I may call a rhetorical purpose; the +speaker's whole design is to exalt and enthrone one of the two, and he +uses the other only as a foil and to enable him the better to give +effect to his purpose. Obviously, with us, it is usually Hellenism which +is thus reduced to minister to the triumph of Hebraism. There is a +sermon on Greece and the Greek spirit by a man never to be mentioned +without interest and respect, Frederick Robertson,[433] in which this +rhetorical use of Greece and the Greek spirit, and the inadequate +exhibition of them necessarily consequent upon this, is almost +ludicrous, and would be censurable if it were not to be explained by the +exigencies of a sermon. On the other hand, Heinrich Heine,[434] and +other writers of his sort give us the spectacle of the tables completely +turned, and of Hebraism brought in just as a foil and contrast to +Hellenism, and to make the superiority of Hellenism more manifest. In +both these cases there is injustice and misrepresentation. The aim and +end of both Hebraism and Hellenism is, as I have said, one and the same, +and this aim and end is august and admirable. + +Still, they pursue this aim by very different courses. The uppermost +idea with Hellenism is to see things as they really are; the uppermost +idea with Hebraism is conduct and obedience. Nothing can do away with +this ineffaceable difference. The Greek quarrel with the body and its +desires is, that they hinder right thinking; the Hebrew quarrel with +them is, that they hinder right acting. "He that keepeth the law, happy +is he";[435] "Blessed is the man that feareth the Eternal, that +delighteth greatly in his commandments";--[436] that is the Hebrew +notion of felicity; and, pursued with passion and tenacity, this notion +would not let the Hebrew rest till, as is well known, he had at last got +out of the law a network of prescriptions to enwrap his whole life, to +govern every moment of it, every impulse, every action. The Greek notion +of felicity, on the other hand, is perfectly conveyed in these words of +a great French moralist: "_C'est le bonheur des hommes_,"--when? when +they abhor that which is evil?--no; when they exercise themselves in the +law of the Lord day and night?--no; when they die daily?--no; when they +walk about the New Jerusalem with palms in their hands?--no; but when +they think aright, when their thought hits: "_quand ils pensent juste_." +At the bottom of both the Greek and the Hebrew notion is the desire, +native in man, for reason and the will of God, the feeling after the +universal order,--in a word, the love of God. But, while Hebraism seizes +upon certain plain, capital intimations of, the universal order, and +rivets itself, one may say, with unequalled grandeur of earnestness and +intensity on the study and observance of them, the bent of Hellenism is +to follow, with flexible activity, the whole play of the universal +order, to be apprehensive of missing any part of it, of sacrificing one +part to another, to slip away from resting in this or that intimation of +it, however capital. An unclouded clearness of mind, an unimpeded play +of thought, is what this bent drives at. The governing idea of Hellenism +is _spontaneity of consciousness_; that of Hebraism, _strictness of +conscience_. + +Christianity changed nothing in this essential bent of Hebraism to set +doing above knowing. Self-conquest, self-devotion, the following not our +own individual will, but the will of God, _obedience_, is the +fundamental idea of this form, also, of the discipline to which we have +attached the general name of Hebraism. Only, as the old law and the +network of prescriptions with which it enveloped human life were +evidently a motive-power not driving and searching enough to produce the +result aimed at,--patient continuance in well-doing, self-conquest,-- +Christianity substituted for them boundless devotion to that inspiring +and affecting pattern of self-conquest offered by Jesus Christ; and by +the new motive-power, of which the essence was this, though the love and +admiration of Christian churches have for centuries been employed in +varying, amplifying, and adorning the plain description of it, +Christianity, as St. Paul truly says, "establishes the law,"[437] and in +the strength of the ampler power which she has thus supplied to fulfill +it, has accomplished the miracles, which we all see, of her history. + +So long as we do not forget that both Hellenism and Hebraism are +profound and admirable manifestations of man's life, tendencies, and +powers, and that both of them aim at a like final result, we can hardly +insist too strongly on the divergence of line and of operation with +which they proceed. It is a divergence so great that it most truly, as +the prophet Zechariah says, "has raised up thy sons, O Zion, against thy +sons, O Greece!"[438] The difference whether it is by doing or by +knowing that we set most store, and the practical consequences which +follow from this difference, leave their mark on all the history of our +race and of its development. Language may be abundantly quoted from both +Hellenism and Hebraism to make it seem that one follows the same current +as the other towards the same goal. They are, truly, borne towards the +same goal; but the currents which bear them are infinitely different. It +is true, Solomon will praise knowing: "Understanding is a well-spring of +life unto him that hath it."[439] And in the New Testament, again, Jesus +Christ is a "light,"[440] and "truth makes us free."[441] It is true, +Aristotle will undervalue knowing: "In what concerns virtue," says he, +"three things are necessary--knowledge, deliberate will, and +perseverance; but, whereas the two last are all-important, the first is +a matter of little importance."[442] It is true that with the same +impatience with which St. James enjoins a man to be not a forgetful +hearer, but a _doer of the work_,[443] Epictetus[444] exhorts us to _do_ +what we have demonstrated to ourselves we ought to do; or he taunts us +with futility, for being armed at all points to prove that lying is +wrong, yet all the time continuing to lie. It is true, Plato, in words +which are almost the words of the New Testament or the Imitation, calls +life a learning to die.[445] But underneath the superficial agreement +the fundamental divergence still subsists. The understanding of Solomon +is "the walking in the way of the commandments"; this is "the way of +peace," and it is of this that blessedness comes. In the New Testament, +the truth which gives us the peace of God and makes us free, is the love +of Christ constraining us[446] to crucify, as he did, and with a like +purpose of moral regeneration, the flesh with its affections and lusts, +and thus establishing, as we have seen, the law. The moral virtues, on +the other hand, are with Aristotle but the porch[447] and access to the +intellectual, and with these last is blessedness. That partaking of the +divine life, which both Hellenism and Hebraism, as we have said, fix as +their crowning aim, Plato expressly denies to the man of practical +virtue merely, of self-conquest with any other motive than that of +perfect intellectual vision. He reserves it for the lover of pure +knowledge, of seeing things as they really are,--the[Greek: +philomathhaes][448] + +Both Hellenism and Hebraism arise out of the wants of human nature, and +address themselves to satisfying those wants. But their methods are so +different, they lay stress on such different points, and call into being +by their respective disciplines such different activities, that the face +which human nature presents when it passes from the hands of one of them +to those of the other, is no longer the same. To get rid of one's +ignorance, to see things as they are, and by seeing them as they are to +see them in their beauty, is the simple and attractive ideal which +Hellenism holds out before human nature; and from the simplicity and +charm of this ideal, Hellenism, and human life in the hands of +Hellenism, is invested with a kind of aerial ease, clearness, and +radiancy; they are full of what we call sweetness and light. +Difficulties are kept out of view, and the beauty and rationalness of +the ideal have all our thoughts. "The best man is he who most tries to +perfect himself, and the happiest man is he who most feels that he _is_ +perfecting himself,"[449]--this account of the matter by Socrates, the +true Socrates of the _Memorabilia_, has something so simple, +spontaneous, and unsophisticated about it, that it seems to fill us with +clearness and hope when we hear it. But there is a saying which I have +heard attributed to Mr. Carlyle about Socrates--a very happy saying, +whether it is really Mr. Carlyle's or not,--which excellently marks the +essential point in which Hebraism differs from Hellenism. "Socrates," +this saying goes, "is terribly _at ease in Zion_." Hebraism--and here is +the source of its wonderful strength--has always been severely +preoccupied with an awful sense of the impossibility of being at ease in +Zion; of the difficulties which oppose themselves to man's pursuit or +attainment of that perfection of which Socrates talks so hopefully, and, +as from this point of view one might almost say, so glibly. It is all +very well to talk of getting rid of one's ignorance, of seeing things in +their reality, seeing them in their beauty; but how is this to be done +when there is something which thwarts and spoils all our efforts? + +This something is _sin_; and the space which sin fills in Hebraism, as +compared with Hellenism, is indeed prodigious. This obstacle to +perfection fills the whole scene, and perfection appears remote and +rising away from earth, in the background. Under the name of sin, the +difficulties of knowing oneself and conquering oneself which impede +man's passage to perfection, become, for Hebraism, a positive, active +entity hostile to man, a mysterious power which I heard Dr. Pusey[450] +the other day, in one of his impressive sermons, compare to a hideous +hunchback seated on our shoulders, and which it is the main business of +our lives to hate and oppose. The discipline of the Old Testament may be +summed up as a discipline teaching us to abhor and flee from sin; the +discipline of the New Testament, as a discipline teaching us to die to +it. As Hellenism speaks of thinking clearly, seeing things in their +essence and beauty, as a grand and precious feat for man to achieve, so +Hebraism speaks of becoming conscious of sin, of awakening to a sense of +sin, as a feat of this kind. It is obvious to what wide divergence these +differing tendencies, actively followed, must lead. As one passes and +repasses from Hellenism to Hebraism, from Plato to St. Paul, one feels +inclined to rub one's eyes and ask oneself whether man is indeed a +gentle and simple being, showing the traces of a noble and divine +nature; or an unhappy chained captive, laboring with groanings that +cannot be uttered to free himself from the body of this death. + +Apparently it was the Hellenic conception of human nature which was +unsound, for the world could not live by it. Absolutely to call it +unsound, however, is to fall into the common error of its Hebraizing +enemies; but it was unsound at that particular moment of man's +development, it was premature. The indispensable basis of conduct and +self-control, the platform upon which alone the perfection aimed at by +Greece can come into bloom, was not to be reached by our race so easily; +centuries of probation and discipline were needed to bring us to it. +Therefore the bright promise of Hellenism faded, and Hebraism ruled the +world. Then was seen that astonishing spectacle, so well marked by the +often-quoted words of the prophet Zechariah, when men of all languages +and nations took hold of the skirt of him that was a Jew, saying:--"_We +will go with you, for we have heard that God is with you_."[451] And the +Hebraism which thus received and ruled a world all gone out of the way +and altogether become unprofitable, was, and could not but be, the +later, the more spiritual, the more attractive development of Hebraism. +It was Christianity; that is to say, Hebraism aiming at self-conquest +and rescue from the thrall of vile affections, not by obedience to the +letter of a law, but by conformity to the image of a self-sacrificing +example. To a world stricken with moral enervation Christianity offered +its spectacle of an inspired self-sacrifice; to men who refused +themselves nothing, it showed one who refused himself everything;--"_my +Saviour banished joy!_"[452] says George Herbert. When the _alma Venus_, +the life-giving and joy-giving power of nature, so fondly cherished by +the pagan world, could not save her followers from self-dissatisfaction +and ennui, the severe words of the apostle came bracingly and +refreshingly: "Let no man deceive you with vain words, for because of +these things cometh the wrath of God upon the children of +disobedience."[453] Through age after age and generation after +generation, our race, or all that part of our race which was most living +and progressive, was _baptized into a death_; and endeavored, by +suffering in the flesh, to cease from sin. Of this endeavor, the +animating labors and afflictions of early Christianity, the touching +asceticism of mediaeval Christianity, are the great historical +manifestations. Literary monuments of it, each in its own way +incomparable, remain in the _Epistles_ of St. Paul, in St. Augustine's +_Confessions_, and in the two original and simplest books of the +_Imitation_.[454] + +Of two disciplines laying their main stress, the one, on clear +intelligence, the other, on firm obedience; the one, on comprehensively +knowing the ground of one's duty, the other, on diligently practising +it; the one, on taking all possible care (to use Bishop Wilson's words +again) that the light we have be not darkness, the other, that according +to the best light we have we diligently walk,--the priority naturally +belongs to that discipline which braces all man's moral powers, and +founds for him an indispensable basis of character. And, therefore, it +is justly said of the Jewish people, who were charged with setting +powerfully forth that side of the divine order to which the words +_conscience_ and _self-conquest_ point, that they were "entrusted with +the oracles of God";[455] as it is justly said of Christianity, which +followed Judaism and which set forth this side with a much deeper +effectiveness and a much wider influence, that the wisdom of the old +pagan world was foolishness[456] compared to it. No words of devotion +and admiration can be too strong to render thanks to these beneficent +forces which have so borne forward humanity in its appointed work of +coming to the knowledge and possession of itself; above all, in those +great moments when their action was the wholesomest and the most +necessary. + +But the evolution of these forces, separately and in themselves, is not +the whole evolution of humanity,--their single history is not the whole +history of man; whereas their admirers are always apt to make it stand +for the whole history. Hebraism and Hellenism are, neither of them, the +_law_ of human development, as their admirers are prone to make them; +they are, each of them, _contributions_ to human development,--august +contributions, invaluable contributions; and each showing itself to us +more august, more invaluable, more preponderant over the other, +according to the moment in which we take them, and the relation in which +we stand to them. The nations of our modern world, children of that +immense and salutary movement which broke up the pagan world, inevitably +stand to Hellenism in a relation which dwarfs it, and to Hebraism in a +relation which magnifies it. They are inevitably prone to take Hebraism +as the law of human development, and not as simply a contribution to it, +however precious. And yet the lesson must perforce be learned, that the +human spirit is wider than the most priceless of the forces which bear +it onward, and that to the whole development of man Hebraism itself is, +like Hellenism, but a contribution. + +Perhaps we may help ourselves to see this clearer by an illustration +drawn from the treatment of a single great idea which has profoundly +engaged the human spirit, and has given it eminent opportunities for +showing its nobleness and energy. It surely must be perceived that the +idea of immortality, as this idea rises in its generality before the +human spirit, is something grander, truer, and more satisfying, than it +is in the particular forms by which St. Paul, in the famous fifteenth +chapter of the Epistle to the Corinthians, and Plato, in the +_Phaedo_[457] endeavor to develop and establish it. Surely we cannot but +feel, that the argumentation with which the Hebrew apostle goes about to +expound this great idea is, after all, confused and inconclusive; and +that the reasoning, drawn from analogies of likeness and equality, which +is employed upon it by the Greek philosopher, is over-subtle and +sterile. Above and beyond the inadequate solutions which Hebraism and +Hellenism here attempt, extends the immense and august problem itself, +and the human spirit which gave birth to it. And this single +illustration may suggest to us how the same thing happens in other cases +also. + +But meanwhile, by alternations of Hebraism and Hellenism, of a man's +intellectual and moral impulses, of the effort to see things as they +really are, and the effort to win peace by self-conquest, the human +spirit proceeds; and each of these two forces has its appointed hours of +culmination and seasons of rule. As the great movement of Christianity +was a triumph of Hebraism and man's moral impulses, so the great +movement which goes by the name of the Renascence[458] was an uprising +and reinstatement of man's intellectual impulses and of Hellenism. We in +England, the devoted children of Protestantism, chiefly know the +Renascence by its subordinate and secondary side of the Reformation. The +Reformation has been often called a Hebraizing revival, a return to the +ardor and sincereness of primitive Christianity. No one, however, can +study the development of Protestantism and of Protestant churches +without feeling that into the Reforrmation, too,--Hebraizing child of +the Renascence and offspring of its fervor, rather than its +intelligence, as it undoubtedly was,--the subtle Hellenic leaven of the +Renascence found its way, and that the exact respective parts, in the +Reformation, of Hebraism and of Hellenism, are not easy to separate. But +what we may with truth say is, that all which Protestantism was to +itself clearly conscious of, all which it succeeded in clearly setting +forth in words, had the characters of Hebraism rather than of Hellenism. +The Reformation was strong, in that it was an earnest return to the +Bible and to doing from the heart the will of God as there written. It +was weak, in that it never consciously grasped or applied the central +idea of the Renascence,--the Hellenic idea of pursuing, in all lines of +activity, the law and science, to use Plato's words, of things as they +really are. Whatever direct superiority, therefore, Protestantism had +over Catholicism was a moral superiority, a superiority arising out of +its greater sincerity and earnestness,--at the moment of its apparition +at any rate,--in dealing with the heart and conscience. Its pretensions +to an intellectual superiority are in general quite illusory. For +Hellenism, for the thinking side in man as distinguished from the acting +side, the attitude of mind of Protestantism towards the Bible in no +respect differs from the attitude of mind of Catholicism towards the +Church. The mental habit of him who imagines that Balaam's ass spoke, in +no respect differs from the mental habit of him who imagines that a +Madonna of wood or stone winked; and the one, who says that God's Church +makes him believe what he believes, and the other, who says that God's +Word makes him believe what he believes, are for the philosopher +perfectly alike in not really and truly knowing, when they say _God's +Church_ and _God's Word_, what it is they say, or whereof they affirm. + +In the sixteenth century, therefore, Hellenism re-entered the world, +and again stood in presence of Hebraism,--a Hebraism renewed and purged. +Now, it has not been enough observed, how, in the seventeenth century, a +fate befell Hellenism in some respects analogous to that which befell it +at the commencement of our era. The Renascence, that great reawakening +of Hellenism, that irresistible return of humanity to nature and to +seeing things as they are, which in art, in literature, and in physics, +produced such splendid fruits, had, like the anterior Hellenism of the +pagan world, a side of moral weakness and of relaxation or insensibility +of the moral fibre, which in Italy showed itself with the most startling +plainness, but which in France, England, and other countries was very +apparent, too. Again this loss of spiritual balance, this exclusive +preponderance given to man's perceiving and knowing side, this unnatural +defect of his feeling and acting side, provoked a reaction. Let us trace +that reaction where it most nearly concerns us. + +Science has now made visible to everybody the great and pregnant +elements of difference which lie in race, and in how signal a manner +they make the genius and history of an Indo-European people vary from +those of a Semitic people. Hellenism is of Indo-European growth, +Hebraism is of Semitic growth; and we English, a nation of Indo-European +stock, seem to belong naturally to the movement of Hellenism. But +nothing more strongly marks the essential unity of man, than the +affinities we can perceive, in this point or that, between members of +one family of peoples and members of another. And no affinity of this +kind is more strongly marked than that likeness in the strength and +prominence of the moral fibre, which, notwithstanding immense elements +of difference, knits in some special sort the genius and history of us +English, and our American descendants across the Atlantic, to the genius +and history of the Hebrew people. Puritanism, which has been so great a +power in the English nation, and in the strongest part of the English +nation, was originally the reaction in the seventeenth century of the +conscience and moral sense of our race, against the moral indifference +and lax rule of conduct which in the sixteenth century came in with the +Renascence. It was a reaction of Hebraism against Hellenism; and it +powerfully manifested itself, as was natural, in a people with much of +what we call a Hebraizing turn, with a signal affinity for the bent +which, was the master-bent of Hebrew life. Eminently Indo-European by +its _humor_, by the power it shows, through this gift, of imaginatively +acknowledging the multiform aspects of the problem of life, and of thus +getting itself unfixed from its own over-certainty, of smiling at its +own over-tenacity, our race has yet (and a great part of its strength +lies here), in matters of practical life and moral conduct, a strong +share of the assuredness, the tenacity, the intensity of the Hebrews. +This turn manifested itself in Puritanism, and has had a great part in +shaping our history for the last two hundred years. Undoubtedly it +checked and changed amongst us that movement of the Renascence which we +see producing in the reign of Elizabeth such wonderful fruits. +Undoubtedly it stopped the prominent rule and direct development of that +order of ideas which we call by the name of Hellenism, and gave the +first rank to a different order of ideas. Apparently, too, as we said of +the former defeat of Hellenism, if Hellenism was defeated, this shows +that Hellenism was imperfect, and that its ascendency at that moment +would not have been for the world's good. + +Yet there is a very important difference between the defeat inflicted on +Hellenism by Christianity eighteen hundred years ago, and the check +given to the Renascence by Puritanism. The greatness of the difference +is well measured by the difference in force, beauty, significance, and +usefulness, between primitive Christianity and Protestantism. Eighteen +hundred years ago it was altogether the hour of Hebraism. Primitive +Christianity was legitimately and truly the ascendant force in the world +at that time, and the way of mankind's progress lay through its full +development. Another hour in man's development began in the fifteenth +century, and the main road of his progress then lay for a time through +Hellenism. Puritanism was no longer the central current of the world's +progress, it was a side stream crossing the central current and checking +it. The cross and the check may have been necessary and salutary, but +that does not do away with the essential difference between the main +stream of man's advance and a cross or side stream. For more than two +hundred years the main stream of man's advance has moved towards knowing +himself and the world, seeing things as they are, spontaneity of +consciousness; the main impulse of a great part, and that the strongest +part, of our nation has been towards strictness of conscience. They have +made the secondary the principal at the wrong moment, and the principal +they have at the wrong moment treated as secondary. This contravention +of the natural order has produced, as such contravention always must +produce, a certain confusion and false movement, of which we are now +beginning to feel, in almost every direction, the inconvenience. In all +directions our habitual causes of action seem to be losing +efficaciousness, credit, and control, both with others and even with +ourselves. Everywhere we see the beginnings of confusion, and we want a +clue to some sound order and authority. This we can only get by going +back upon the actual instincts and forces which rule our life, seeing +them as they really are, connecting them with other instincts and +forces, and enlarging our whole view and rule of life. + + + +EQUALITY[459] + + +When we talk of man's advance towards his full humanity, we think of an +advance, not along one line only, but several. Certain races and +nations, as we know, are on certain lines preeminent and representative. +The Hebrew nation was preeminent on one great line. "What nation," it +was justly asked by their lawgiver, "hath statutes and judgments so +righteous as the law which I set before you this day? Keep therefore and +do them; for this is your wisdom and your understanding in the sight of +the nations which shall hear all these statutes and say: Surely this +great nation is a wise and understanding people!" The Hellenic race was +preeminent on other lines. Isocrates[460] could say of Athens: "Our city +has left the rest of the world so far behind in philosophy and +eloquence, that those educated by Athens have become the teachers of the +rest of mankind; and so well has she done her part, that the name of +Greeks seems no longer to stand for a race but to stand for intelligence +itself, and they who share in our culture are called Greeks even before +those who are merely of our own blood." The power of intellect and +science, the power of beauty, the power of social life and manners,-- +these are what Greece so felt, and fixed, and may stand for. They are +great elements in our humanization. The power of conduct is another +great element; and this was so felt and fixed by Israel that we can +never with justice refuse to permit Israel, in spite of all his +shortcomings, to stand for it. + +So you see that in being humanized we have to move along several lines, +and that on certain lines certain nations find their strength and take a +lead. We may elucidate the thing yet further. Nations now existing may +be said to feel or to have felt the power of this or that element in our +humanization so signally that they are characterized by it. No one who +knows this country would deny that it is characterized, in a remarkable +degree, by a sense of the power of conduct. Our feeling for religion is +one part of this; our industry is another. What foreigners so much +remark in us--our public spirit, our love, amidst all our liberty, for +public order and for stability--are parts of it too. Then the power of +beauty was so felt by the Italians that their art revived, as we know, +the almost lost idea of beauty, and the serious and successful pursuit +of it. Cardinal Antonelli,[461] speaking to me about the education of +the common people in Rome, said that they were illiterate, indeed, but +whoever mingled with them at any public show, and heard them pass +judgment on the beauty or ugliness of what came before them,--"_e +brutto_," "_e bello_,"--would find that their judgment agreed admirably, +in general, with just what the most cultivated people would say. Even at +the present time, then, the Italians are preeminent in feeling the power +of beauty. The power of knowledge, in the same way, is eminently an +influence with the Germans. This by no means implies, as is sometimes +supposed, a high and fine general culture. What it implies is a strong +sense of the necessity of knowing _scientifically_, as the expression +is, the things which have to be known by us; of knowing them +systematically, by the regular and right process, and in the only real +way. And this sense the Germans especially have. Finally, there is the +power of social life and manners. And even the Athenians themselves, +perhaps, have hardly felt this power so much as the French. + +Voltaire, in a famous passage[462] where he extols the age of Louis the +Fourteenth and ranks it with the chief epochs in the civilization of our +race, has to specify the gift bestowed on us by the age of Louis the +Fourteenth, as the age of Pericles, for instance, bestowed on us its art +and literature, and the Italian Renascence its revival of art and +literature. And Voltaire shows all his acuteness in fixing on the gift +to name. It is not the sort of gift which we expect to see named. The +great gift of the age of Louis the Fourteenth to the world, says +Voltaire, was this: _l'esprit de societe_, the spirit of society, the +social spirit. And another French writer, looking for the good points in +the old French nobility, remarks that this at any rate is to be said in +their favor: they established a high and charming ideal of social +intercourse and manners, for a nation formed to profit by such an ideal, +and which has profited by it ever since. And in America, perhaps, we see +the disadvantages of having social equality before there has been any +such high standard of social life and manners formed. + +We are not disposed in England, most of us, to attach all this +importance to social intercourse and manners. Yet Burke says: "There +ought to be a system of manners in every nation which a well-formed mind +would be disposed to relish." And the power of social life and manners +is truly, as we have seen, one of the great elements in our +humanization. Unless we have cultivated it, we are incomplete. The +impulse for cultivating it is not, indeed, a moral impulse. It is by no +means identical with the moral impulse to help our neighbor and to do +him good. Yet in many ways it works to a like end. It brings men +together, makes them feel the need of one another, be considerate of one +another, understand one another. But, above all things, it is a promoter +of equality. It is by the humanity of their manners that men are made +equal. "A man thinks to show himself my equal," says Goethe, "by being +_grob_,--that is to say, coarse and rude; he does not show himself my +equal, he shows himself _grob_." But a community having humane manners +is a community of equals, and in such a community great social +inequalities have really no meaning, while they are at the same time a +menace and an embarrassment to perfect ease of social intercourse. A +community with the spirit of society is eminently, therefore, a +community with the spirit of equality. A nation with a genius for +society, like the French or the Athenians, is irresistibly drawn towards +equality. From the first moment when the French people, with its +congenital sense for the power of social intercourse and manners, came +into existence, it was on the road to equality. When it had once got a +high standard of social manners abundantly established, and at the same +time the natural, material necessity for the feudal inequality of +classes and property pressed upon it no longer, the French people +introduced equality and made the French Revolution. It was not the +spirit of philanthropy which mainly impelled the French to that +Revolution, neither was it the spirit of envy, neither was it the love +of abstract ideas, though all these did something towards it; but what +did most was the spirit of society. + +The well-being of the many comes out more and more distinctly, in +proportion as time goes on, as the object we must pursue. An individual +or a class, concentrating their efforts upon their own well-being +exclusively, do but beget troubles both for others and for themselves +also. No individual life can be truly prosperous, passed, as Obermann +says, in the midst of men who suffer; _passee au milieu des generations +qui souffrent_. To the noble soul, it cannot be happy; to the ignoble, +it cannot be secure. Socialistic and communistic schemes have generally, +however, a fatal defect; they are content with too low and material a +standard of well-being. That instinct of perfection, which is the +master-power in humanity, always rebels at this, and frustrates the +work. Many are to be made partakers of well-being, true; but the ideal +of well-being is not to be, on that account, lowered and coarsened. M. +de Laveleye,[463] the political economist, who is a Belgian and a +Protestant, and whose testimony, therefore, we may the more readily take +about France, says that France, being the country of Europe where the +soil is more divided than anywhere except in Switzerland and Norway, is +at the same time the country where material well-being is most widely +spread, where wealth has of late years increased most, and where +population is least outrunning the limits, which, for the comfort and +progress of the working classes themselves, seem necessary. This may go +for a good deal. It supplies an answer to what Sir Erskine May[464] says +about the bad effects of equality upon French prosperity. But I will +quote to you from Mr. Hamerton[465] what goes, I think, for yet more. +Mr. Hamerton is an excellent observer and reporter, and has lived for +many years in France. He says of the French peasantry that they are +exceedingly ignorant. So they are. But he adds: "They are at the same +time full of intelligence; their manners are excellent, they have +delicate perceptions, they have tact, they have a certain refinement +which a brutalized peasantry could not possibly have. If you talk to one +of them at his own home, or in his field, he will enter into +conversation with you quite easily, and sustain his part in a perfectly +becoming way, with a pleasant combination of dignity and quiet humor. +The interval between him and a Kentish laborer is enormous." + +This is, indeed, worth your attention. Of course all mankind are, as Mr. +Gladstone says, of our own flesh and blood. But you know how often it +happens in England that a cultivated person, a person of the sort that +Mr. Charles Sumner[466] describes, talking to one of the lower class, or +even of the middle class, feels and cannot but feel, that there is +somehow a wall of partition between himself and the other, that they +seem to belong to two different worlds. Thoughts, feelings, perceptions, +susceptibilities, language, manners,--everything is different. Whereas, +with a French peasant, the most cultivated man may find himself in +sympathy, may feel that he is talking to an equal. This is an experience +which has been made a thousand times, and which may be made again any +day. And it may be carried beyond the range of mere conversation, it may +be extended to things like pleasures, recreations, eating and drinking, +and so on. In general the pleasures, recreations, eating and drinking of +English people, when once you get below that class which Mr. Charles +Sumner calls the class of gentlemen, are to one of that class +unpalatable and impossible. In France there is not this incompatibility. +Whether he mix with high or low, the gentleman feels himself in a world +not alien or repulsive, but a world where people make the same sort of +demands upon life, in things of this sort, which he himself does. In all +these respects France is the country where the people, as distinguished +from a wealthy refined class, most lives what we call a humane life, the +life of civilized man. + +Of course, fastidious persons can and do pick holes in it. There is just +now, in France, a _noblesse_ newly revived, full of pretension, full of +airs and graces and disdains; but its sphere is narrow, and out of its +own sphere no one cares very much for it. There is a general equality in +a humane kind of life. This is the secret of the passionate attachment +with which France inspires all Frenchmen, in spite of her fearful +troubles, her checked prosperity, her disconnected units, and the rest +of it. There is so much of the goodness and agreeableness of life there, +and for so many. It is the secret of her having been able to attach so +ardently to her the German and Protestant people of Alsace,[467] while +we have been so little able to attach the Celtic and Catholic people of +Ireland. France brings the Alsatians into a social system so full of the +goodness and agreeableness of life; we offer to the Irish no such +attraction. It is the secret, finally, of the prevalence which we have +remarked in other continental countries of a legislation tending, like +that of France, to social equality. The social system which equality +creates in France is, in the eyes of others, such a giver of the +goodness and agreeableness of life, that they seek to get the goodness +by getting the equality. + +Yet France has had her fearful troubles, as Sir Erskine May justly says. +She suffers too, he adds, from demoralization and intellectual stoppage. +Let us admit, if he likes, this to be true also. His error is that he +attributes all this to equality. Equality, as we have seen, has brought +France to a really admirable and enviable pitch of humanization in one +important line. And this, the work of equality, is so much a good in Sir +Erskine May's eyes, that he has mistaken it for the whole of which it is +a part, frankly identifies it with civilization, and is inclined to +pronounce France the most civilized of nations. + +But we have seen how much goes to full humanization, to true +civilization, besides the power of social life and manners. There is the +power of conduct, the power of intellect and knowledge, the power of +beauty. The power of conduct is the greatest of all. And without in the +least wishing to preach, I must observe, as a mere matter of natural +fact and experience, that for the power of conduct France has never had +anything like the same sense which she has had for the power of social +life and manners. Michelet,[468] himself a Frenchman, gives us the +reason why the Reformation did not succeed in France. It did not +succeed, he says, because _la France ne voulait pas de reforme morale_-- +moral reform France would not have; and the Reformation was above all a +moral movement. The sense in France for the power of conduct has not +greatly deepened, I think, since. The sense for the power of intellect +and knowledge has not been adequate either. The sense for beauty has not +been adequate. Intelligence and beauty have been, in general, but so far +reached, as they can be and are reached by men who, of the elements of +perfect humanization, lay thorough hold upon one only,--the power of +social intercourse and manners. I speak of France in general; she has +had, and she has, individuals who stand out and who form exceptions. +Well, then, if a nation laying no sufficient hold upon the powers of +beauty and knowledge, and a most failing and feeble hold upon the power +of conduct, comes to demoralization and intellectual stoppage and +fearful troubles, we need not be inordinately surprised. What we should +rather marvel at is the healing and bountiful operation of Nature, +whereby the laying firm hold on one real element in our humanization has +had for France results so beneficent. + +And thus, when Sir Erskine May gets bewildered between France's equality +and fearful troubles on the one hand, and the civilization of France on +the other, let us suggest to him that perhaps he is bewildered by his +data because he combines them ill. France has not exemplary disaster and +ruin as the fruits of equality, and at the same time, and independently +of this, an exemplary civilization. She has a large measure of happiness +and success as the fruits of equality, and she has a very large measure +of dangers and troubles as the fruits of something else. + +We have more to do, however, than to help Sir Erskine May out of his +scrape about France. We have to see whether the considerations which we +have been employing may not be of use to us about England. + +We shall not have much difficulty in admitting whatever good is to be +said of ourselves, and we will try not to be unfair by excluding all +that is not so favorable. Indeed, our less favorable side is the one +which we should be the most anxious to note, in order that we may mend +it. But we will begin with the good. Our people has energy and honesty +as its good characteristics. We have a strong sense for the chief power +in the life and progress of man,--the power of conduct. So far we speak +of the English people as a whole. Then we have a rich, refined, and +splendid aristocracy. And we have, according to Mr. Charles Sumner's +acute and true remark, a class of gentlemen, not of the nobility, but +well-bred, cultivated, and refined, larger than is to be found in any +other country. For these last we have Mr. Sumner's testimony. As to the +splendor of our aristocracy, all the world is agreed. Then we have a +middle class and a lower class; and they, after all, are the immense +bulk of the nation. + +Let us see how the civilization of these classes appears to a Frenchman, +who has witnessed, in his own country, the considerable humanization of +these classes by equality. To such an observer our middle class divides +itself into a serious portion and a gay or rowdy portion; both are a +marvel to him. With the gay or rowdy portion we need not much concern +ourselves; we shall figure it to our minds sufficiently if we conceive +it as the source of that war-song produced in these recent days of +excitement:-- + + "We don't want to fight, but by jingo, if we do, + We've got the ships, we've got the men, and we're got the money + too."[469] + + +We may also partly judge its standard of life, and the needs of its +nature, by the modern English theatre, perhaps the most contemptible in +Europe. But the real strength of the English middle class is in its +serious portion. And of this a Frenchman, who was here some little time +ago as the correspondent, I think, of the _Siecle_ newspaper, and whose +letters were afterwards published in a volume, writes as follows. He had +been attending some of the Moody and Sankey[470] meetings, and he says: +"To understand the success of Messrs. Moody and Sankey, one must be +familiar with English manners, one must know the mind-deadening +influence of a narrow Biblism, one must have experienced the sense of +acute ennui, which the aspect and the frequentation of this great +division of English society produce in others, the want of elasticity +and the chronic ennui which characterize this class itself, petrified in +a narrow Protestantism and in a perpetual reading of the Bible." + +You know the French;--a little more Biblism, one may take leave to say, +would do them no harm. But an audience like this--and here, as I said, +is the advantage of an audience like this--will have no difficulty in +admitting the amount of truth which there is in the Frenchman's picture. +It is the picture of a class which, driven by its sense for the power of +conduct, in the beginning of the seventeenth century entered,--as I have +more than once said, and as I may more than once have occasion in future +to say,--_entered the prison of Puritanism, and had the key turned upon +its spirit there for two hundred years_.[471] They did not know, good +and earnest people as they were, that to the building up of human life +there belong all those other powers also,--the power of intellect and +knowledge, the power of beauty, the power of social life and manners. +And something, by what they became, they gained, and the whole nation +with them; they deepened and fixed for this nation the sense of conduct. +But they created a type of life and manners, of which they themselves, +indeed, are slow to recognize the faults, but which is fatally condemned +by its hideousness, its immense ennui, and against which the instinct of +self-preservation in humanity rebels. + +Partisans fight against facts in vain. Mr. Goldwin Smith,[472] a writer +of eloquence and power, although too prone to acerbity, is a partisan of +the Puritans, and of the nonconformists who are the special inheritors +of the Puritan tradition. He angrily resents the imputation upon that +Puritan type of life, by which the life of our serious middle class has +been formed, that it was doomed to hideousness, to immense ennui. He +protests that it had beauty, amenity, accomplishment. Let us go to +facts. Charles the First, who, with all his faults, had the just idea +that art and letters are great civilizers, made, as you know, a famous +collection of pictures,--our first National Gallery. It was, I suppose, +the best collection at that time north of the Alps. It contained nine +Raphaels, eleven Correggios, twenty-eight Titians. What became of that +collection? The journals of the House of Commons will tell you. There +you may see the Puritan Parliament disposing of this Whitehall or York +House collection as follows: "Ordered, that all such pictures and +statues there as are without any superstition, shall be forthwith +sold.... Ordered, that all such pictures there as have the +representation of the Second Person in the Trinity upon them, shall be +forthwith burnt. Ordered, that all such pictures there as have the +representation of the Virgin Mary upon them, shall be forthwith burnt." +There we have the weak side of our parliamentary government and our +serious middle class. We are incapable of sending Mr. Gladstone to be +tried at the Old Bailey because he proclaims his antipathy to Lord +Beaconsfield. A majority in our House of Commons is incapable of +hailing, with frantic laughter and applause, a string of indecent jests +against Christianity and its Founder. But we are not, or were not +incapable of producing a Parliament which burns or sells the +masterpieces of Italian art. And one may surely say of such a Puritan +Parliament, and of those who determine its line for it, that they had +not the spirit of beauty. + +What shall we say of amenity? Milton was born a humanist, but the +Puritan temper, as we know, mastered him. There is nothing more unlovely +and unamiable than Milton the Puritan disputant. Some one answers his +_Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce_. "I mean not," rejoins Milton, "to +dispute philosophy with this pork, who never read any." However, he does +reply to him, and throughout the reply Milton's great joke is, that his +adversary, who was anonymous, is a serving-man. "Finally, he winds up +his text with much doubt and trepidation; for it may be his trenchers +were not scraped, and that which never yet afforded corn of favor to his +noddle--the salt-cellar--was not rubbed; and therefore, in this haste, +easily granting that his answers fall foul upon each other, and praying +you would not think he writes as a prophet, but as a man, he runs to the +black jack, fills his flagon, spreads the table, and serves up +dinner."[473] There you have the same spirit of urbanity and amenity, as +much of it, and as little, as generally informs the religious +controversies of our Puritan middle class to this day. + +But Mr. Goldwin Smith[474] insists, and picks out his own exemplar of +the Puritan type of life and manners; and even here let us follow him. +He picks out the most favorable specimen he can find,--Colonel +Hutchinson,[475] whose well-known memoirs, written by his widow, we have +all read with interest. "Lucy Hutchinson," says Mr. Goldwin Smith, "is +painting what she thought a perfect Puritan would be; and her picture +presents to us not a coarse, crop-eared, and snuffling fanatic, but a +highly accomplished, refined, gallant, and most amiable, though +religious and seriously minded, gentleman." Let us, I say, in this +example of Mr. Goldwin Smith's own choosing, lay our finger upon the +points where this type deflects from the truly humane ideal. + +Mrs. Hutchinson relates a story which gives us a good notion of what the +amiable and accomplished social intercourse, even of a picked Puritan +family, was. Her husband was governor of Nottingham. He had occasion, +she said, "to go and break up a private meeting in the cannoneer's +chamber"; and in the cannoneer's chamber "were found some notes +concerning paedobaptism,[476] which, being brought into the governor's +lodgings, his wife having perused them and compared them with the +Scriptures, found not what to say against the truths they asserted +concerning the mis-application of that ordinance to infants." Soon +afterwards she expects her confinement, and communicates the cannoneer's +doubts about paedobaptism to her husband. The fatal cannoneer makes a +breach in him too. "Then he bought and read all the eminent treatises on +both sides, which at that time came thick from the presses, and still +was cleared in the error of the paedobaptists." Finally, Mrs. Hutchinson +is confined. Then the governor "invited all the ministers to dinner, and +propounded his doubt and the ground thereof to them. None of them could +defend their practice with any satisfactory reason, but the tradition of +the Church from the primitive times, and their main buckler of federal +holiness, which Tombs and Denne had excellently overthrown. He and his +wife then, professing themselves unsatisfied, desired their opinions." +With the opinions I will not trouble you, but hasten to the result: +"Whereupon that infant was not baptised." + +No doubt to a large division of English society at this very day, that +sort of dinner and discussion, and indeed, the whole manner of life and +conversation here suggested by Mrs. Hutchinson's narrative, will seem +both natural and amiable, and such as to meet the needs of man as a +religious and social creature. You know the conversation which reigns in +thousands of middle-class families at this hour, about nunneries, +teetotalism, the confessional, eternal punishment, ritualism, +disestablishment. It goes wherever the class goes which is moulded on +the Puritan type of life. In the long winter evenings of Toronto Mr. +Goldwin Smith has had, probably, abundant experience of it. What is its +enemy? The instinct of self-preservation in humanity. Men make crude +types and try to impose them, but to no purpose. "_L'homme s'agite, Dieu +le mene_,"[477] says Bossuet. "There are many devices in a man's heart; +nevertheless the counsel of the Eternal, that shall stand."[478] Those +who offer us the Puritan type of life offer us a religion not true, the +claims of intellect and knowledge not satisfied, the claim of beauty not +satisfied, the claim of manners not satisfied. In its strong sense for +conduct that life touches truth; but its other imperfections hinder it +from employing even this sense aright. The type mastered our nation for +a time. Then came the reaction. The nation said: "This type, at any +rate, is amiss; we are not going to be all like _that!_" The type +retired into our middle class, and fortified itself there. It seeks to +endure, to emerge, to deny its own imperfections, to impose itself +again;--impossible! If we continue to live, we must outgrow it. The very +class in which it is rooted, our middle class, will have to acknowledge +the type's inadequacy, will have to acknowledge the hideousness, the +immense ennui of the life which this type has created, will have to +transform itself thoroughly. It will have to admit the large part of +truth which there is in the criticisms of our Frenchman, whom we have +too long forgotten. + +After our middle class he turns his attention to our lower class. And of +the lower and larger portion of this, the portion not bordering on the +middle class and sharing its faults, he says: "I consider this multitude +to be absolutely devoid, not only of political principles, but even of +the most simple notions of good and evil. Certainly it does not appeal, +this mob, to the principles of '89, which you English make game of; it +does not insist on the rights of man; what it wants is beer, gin, and +_fun_."[479] + +That is a description of what Mr. Bright[480] would call the residuum, +only our author seems to think the residuum a very large body. And its +condition strikes him with amazement and horror. And surely well it may. +Let us recall Mr. Hamerton's account of the most illiterate class in +France; what an amount of civilization they have notwithstanding! And +this is always to be understood, in hearing or reading a Frenchman's +praise of England. He envies our liberty, our public spirit, our trade, +our stability. But there is always a reserve in his mind. He never means +for a moment that he would like to change with us. Life seems to him so +much better a thing in France for so many more people, that, in spite of +the fearful troubles of France, it is best to be a Frenchman. A +Frenchman might agree with Mr. Cobden,[481] that life is good in England +for those people who have at least L5000 a year. But the civilization of +that immense majority who have not L5000 a year, or, L500, or even +L100,--of our middle and lower class,--seems to him too deplorable. + +And now what has this condition of our middle and lower class to tell us +about equality? How is it, must we not ask, how is it that, being +without fearful troubles, having so many achievements to show and so +much success, having as a nation a deep sense for conduct, having signal +energy and honesty, having a splendid aristocracy, having an +exceptionally large class of gentlemen, we are yet so little civilized? +How is it that our middle and lower classes, in spite of the individuals +among them who are raised by happy gifts of nature to a more humane +life, in spite of the seriousness of the middle class, in spite of the +honesty and power of true work, the _virtus verusque labor_, which are +to be found in abundance throughout the lower, do yet present, as a +whole, the characters which we have seen? + +And really it seems as if the current of our discourse carried us of +itself to but one conclusion. It seems as if we could not avoid +concluding, that just as France owes her fearful troubles to other +things and her civilizedness to equality, so we owe our immunity from +fearful troubles to other things, and our uncivilizedness to inequality. +"Knowledge is easy," says the wise man, "to him that understandeth";[482] +easy, he means, to him who will use his mind simply and rationally, and +not to make him think he can know what he cannot, or to maintain, _per +fas et nefas_, a false thesis with which he fancies his interests to be +bound up. And to him who will use his mind as the wise man recommends, +surely it is easy to see that our shortcomings in civilization are due +to our inequality; or, in other words, that the great inequality of +classes and property, which came to us from the Middle Age and which we +maintain because we have the religion of inequality, that this +constitution of things, I say, has the natural and necessary effect, +under present circumstances, of materializing our upper class, +vulgarizing our middle class, and brutalizing our lower class.[483] And +this is to fail in civilization. + +For only just look how the facts combine themselves. I have said little +as yet about our aristocratic class, except that it is splendid. Yet +these, "our often very unhappy brethren," as Burke calls them, are by no +means matter for nothing but ecstasy. Our charity ought certainly, Burke +says, to "extend a due and anxious sensation of pity to the distresses +of the miserable great." Burke's extremely strong language about their +miseries and defects I will not quote. For my part, I am always disposed +to marvel that human beings, in a position so false, should be so good +as these are. Their reason for existing was to serve as a number of +centres in a world disintegrated after the ruin of the Roman Empire, and +slowly re-constituting itself. Numerous centres of material force were +needed, and these a feudal aristocracy supplied. Their large and +hereditary estates served this public end. The owners had a positive +function, for which their estates were essential. In our modern world +the function is gone; and the great estates, with an infinitely +multiplied power of ministering to mere pleasure and indulgence, remain. +The energy and honesty of our race does not leave itself without witness +in this class, and nowhere are there more conspicuous examples of +individuals raised by happy gifts of nature far above their fellows and +their circumstances. For distinction of all kinds this class has an +esteem. Everything which succeeds they tend to welcome, to win over, to +put on their side; genius may generally make, if it will, not bad terms +for itself with them. But the total result of the class, its effect on +society at large and on national progress, are what we must regard. And +on the whole, with no necessary function to fulfil, never conversant +with life as it really is, tempted, flattered, and spoiled from +childhood to old age, our aristocratic class is inevitably materialized, +and the more so the more the development of industry and ingenuity +augments the means of luxury. Every one can see how bad is the action of +such an aristocracy upon the class of newly enriched people, whose great +danger is a materialistic ideal, just because it is the ideal they can +easiest comprehend. Nor is the mischief of this action now compensated +by signal services of a public kind. Turn even to that sphere which +aristocracies think specially their own, and where they have under other +circumstances been really effective,--the sphere of politics. When there +is need, as now, for any large forecast of the course of human affairs, +for an acquaintance with the ideas which in the end sway mankind, and +for an estimate of their power, aristocracies are out of their element, +and materialized aristocracies most of all. In the immense spiritual +movement of our day, the English aristocracy, as I have elsewhere said, +always reminds me of Pilate confronting the phenomenon of Christianity. +Nor can a materialized class have any serious and fruitful sense for the +power of beauty. They may imagine themselves to be in pursuit of beauty; +but how often, alas, does the pursuit come to little more than dabbling +a little in what they are pleased to call art, and making a great deal +of what they are pleased to call love! + +Let us return to their merits. For the power of manners an aristocratic +class, whether materialized or not, will always, from its circumstances, +have a strong sense. And although for this power of social life and +manners, so important to civilization, our English race has no special +natural turn, in our aristocracy this power emerges and marks them. When +the day of general humanization comes, they will have fixed the standard +of manners. The English simplicity, too, makes the best of the English +aristocracy more frank and natural than the best of the like class +anywhere else, and even the worst of them it makes free from the +incredible fatuities and absurdities of the worst. Then the sense of +conduct they share with their countrymen at large. In no class has it +such trials to undergo; in none is it more often and more grievously +overborne. But really the right comment on this is the comment of +Pepys[484] upon the evil courses of Charles the Second and the Duke of +York and the court of that day: "At all which I am sorry; but it is the +effect of idleness, and having nothing else to employ their great +spirits upon." + +Heaven forbid that I should speak in dispraise of that unique and most +English class which Mr. Charles Sumner extols--the large class of +gentlemen, not of the landed class or of the nobility, but cultivated +and refined. They are a seemly product of the energy and of the power to +rise in our race. Without, in general, rank and splendor and wealth and +luxury to polish them, they have made their own the high standard of +life and manners of an aristocratic and refined class. Not having all +the dissipations and distractions of this class, they are much more +seriously alive to the power of intellect and knowledge, to the power of +beauty. The sense of conduct, too, meets with fewer trials in this +class. To some extent, however, their contiguousness to the aristocratic +class has now the effect of materializing them, as it does the class of +newly enriched people. The most palpable action is on the young amongst +them, and on their standard of life and enjoyment. But in general, for +this whole class, established facts, the materialism which they see +regnant, too much block their mental horizon, and limit the +possibilities of things to them. They are deficient in openness and +flexibility of mind, in free play of ideas, in faith and ardor. +Civilized they are, but they are not much of a civilizing force; they +are somehow bounded and ineffective. + +So on the middle class they produce singularly little effect. What the +middle class sees is that splendid piece of materialism, the +aristocratic class, with a wealth and luxury utterly out of their reach, +with a standard of social life and manners, the offspring of that wealth +and luxury, seeming utterly out of their reach also. And thus they are +thrown back upon themselves--upon a defective type of religion, a narrow +range of intellect and knowledge, a stunted sense of beauty, a low +standard of manners. And the lower class see before them the +aristocratic class, and its civilization, such as it is, even infinitely +more out of _their_ reach than out of that of the middle class; while +the life of the middle class, with its unlovely types of religion, +thought, beauty, and manners, has naturally, in general, no great +attractions for them either. And so they, too, are thrown back upon +themselves; upon their beer, their gin, and their _fun_. Now, then, you +will understand what I meant by saying that our inequality materializes +our upper class, vulgarizes our middle class, brutalizes our lower. + +And the greater the inequality the more marked is its bad action upon +the middle and lower classes. In Scotland the landed aristocracy fills +the scene, as is well known, still more than in England; the other +classes are more squeezed back and effaced. And the social civilization +of the lower middle class and of the poorest class, in Scotland, is an +example of the consequences. Compared with the same class even in +England, the Scottish lower middle class is most visibly, to vary Mr. +Charles Sumner's phrase, _less_ well-bred, _less_ careful in personal +habits and in social conventions, _less_ refined. Let any one who doubts +it go, after issuing from the aristocratic solitudes which possess Loch +Lomond, let him go and observe the shopkeepers and the middle class in +Dumbarton, and Greenock, and Gourock, and the places along the mouth of +the Clyde. And for the poorest class, who that has seen it can ever +forget the hardly human horror, the abjection and uncivilizedness of +Glasgow? + +What a strange religion, then, is our religion of inequality! Romance +often helps a religion to hold its ground, and romance is good in its +way; but ours is not even a romantic religion. No doubt our aristocracy +is an object of very strong public interest. The _Times_ itself bestows +a leading article by way of epithalamium on the Duke of Norfolk's +marriage. And those journals of a new type, full of talent, and which +interest me particularly because they seem as if they were written by +the young lion[485] of our youth,--the young lion grown mellow and, as +the French say, _viveur_, arrived at his full and ripe knowledge of the +world, and minded to enjoy the smooth evening of his days,--those +journals, in the main a sort of social gazette of the aristocracy, are +apparently not read by that class only which they most concern, but are +read with great avidity by other classes also. And the common people, +too, have undoubtedly, as Mr. Gladstone says, a wonderful preference for +a lord. Yet our aristocracy, from the action upon it of the Wars of the +Roses, the Tudors, and the political necessities of George the Third, is +for the imagination a singularly modern and uninteresting one. Its +splendor of station, its wealth, show, and luxury, is then what the +other classes really admire in it; and this is not an elevating +admiration. Such an admiration will never lift us out of our vulgarity +and brutality, if we chance to be vulgar and brutal to start with; it +will rather feed them and be fed by them. So that when Mr. Gladstone +invites us to call our love of inequality "the complement of the love of +freedom or its negative pole, or the shadow which the love of freedom +casts, or the reverberation of its voice in the halls of the +constitution," we must surely answer that all this mystical eloquence is +not in the least necessary to explain so simple a matter; that our love +of inequality is really the vulgarity in us, and the brutality, admiring +and worshipping the splendid materiality. + +Our present social organization, however, will and must endure until our +middle class is provided with some better ideal of life than it has now. +Our present organization has been an appointed stage in our growth; it +has been of good use, and has enabled us to do great things. But the use +is at an end, and the stage is over. Ask yourselves if you do not +sometimes feel in yourselves a sense, that in spite of the strenuous +efforts for good of so many excellent persons amongst us, we begin +somehow to flounder and to beat the air; that we seem to be finding +ourselves stopped on this line of advance and on that, and to be +threatened with a sort of standstill. It is that we are trying to live +on with a social organization of which the day is over. Certainly +equality will never of itself alone give us a perfect civilization. But, +with such inequality as ours, a perfect civilization is impossible. + +To that conclusion, facts, and the stream itself of this discourse, do +seem, I think, to carry us irresistibly. We arrive at it because they so +choose, not because we so choose. Our tendencies are all the other way. +We are all of us politicians, and in one of two camps, the Liberal or +the Conservative. Liberals tend to accept the middle class as it is, and +to praise the nonconformists; while Conservatives tend to accept the +upper class as it is, and to praise the aristocracy. And yet here we are +at the conclusion, that whereas one of the great obstacles to our +civilization is, as I have often said, British nonconformity, another +main obstacle to our civilization is British aristocracy! And this while +we are yet forced to recognize excellent special qualities as well as +the general English energy and honesty, and a number of emergent humane +individuals, in both nonconformists and aristocracy. Clearly such a +conclusion can be none of our own seeking. + +Then again, to remedy our inequality, there must be a change in the law +of bequest, as there has been in France; and the faults and +inconveniences of the present French law of bequest are obvious. It +tends to over-divide property; it is unequal in operation, and can be +eluded by people limiting their families; it makes the children, however +ill they may behave, independent of the parent. To be sure, Mr. +Mill[486] and others have shown that a law of bequest fixing the +maximum, whether of land or money, which any one individual may take by +bequest or inheritance, but in other respects leaving the testator quite +free, has none of the inconveniences of the French law, and is in every +way preferable. But evidently these are not questions of practical +politics. Just imagine Lord Hartington[487] going down to Glasgow, and +meeting his Scotch Liberals there, and saying to them: "You are ill at +ease, and you are calling for change, and very justly. But the cause of +your being ill at ease is not what you suppose. The cause of your being +ill at ease is the profound imperfectness of your social civilization. +Your social civilization is, indeed, such as I forbear to characterize. +But the remedy is not disestablishment. The remedy is social equality. +Let me direct your attention to a reform in the law of bequest and +entail." One can hardly speak of such a thing without laughing. No, the +matter is at present one for the thoughts of those who think. It is a +thing to be turned over in the minds of those who, on the one hand, have +the spirit of scientific inquirers, bent on seeing things as they really +are; and, on the other hand, the spirit of friends of the humane life, +lovers of perfection. To your thoughts I commit it. And perhaps, the +more you think of it, the more you will be persuaded that Menander[488] +showed his wisdom quite as much when he said _Choose equality_, as when +he assured us that _Evil communications corrupt good manners_. + + + + +NOTES + + + + +POETRY AND THE CLASSICS + + +PAGE 1 + +[1] ~Poetry and the Classics~. Published as Preface to _Poems_: 1853 +(dated Fox How, Ambleside, October 1, 1853). It was reprinted in Irish +Essays, 1882. + +[2] ~the poem~. _Empedocles on Etna_. + +[3] ~the Sophists~. "A name given by the Greeks about the middle of the +fifth century B.C. to certain teachers of a superior grade who, +distinguishing themselves from philosophers on the one hand and from +artists and craftsmen on the other, claimed to prepare their pupils, not +for any particular study or profession, but for civic life." +_Encyclopaedia Britannica_. + +PAGE 2 + +[4] _Poetics_, 4. + +[5] _Theognis_, ll. 54-56. + +PAGE 4 + +[6] ~"The poet," it is said~. In the _Spectator_ of April 2, 1853. The +words quoted were not used with reference to poems of mine.[Arnold.] + +PAGE 5 + +[7] ~Dido~. See the _Iliad_, the _Oresteia_ (_Agamemnon, Choepharae_, and +_Eumenides_) of AEschylus, and the _AEneid_. + +[8] ~Hermann and Dorothea, Childe Harold, Jocelyn, the Excursion~. Long +narrative poems by Goethe, Byron, Lamartine, and Wordsworth. + +PAGE 6 + +[9] ~Oedipus~. See the _Oedipus Tyrannus_ and _Oedipus Coloneus_ of +Sophocles. + +PAGE 7 + +[10] ~grand style~. Arnold, while admitting that the term ~grand~ style, +which he repeatedly uses, is incapable of exact verbal definition, +describes it most adequately in the essay _On Translating Homer_: "I +think it will be found that the grand style arises in poetry when a +noble nature, poetically gifted, treats with simplicity or with severity +a serious subject." See _On the Study of Celtic Literature and on +Translating Homer_, ed. 1895, pp. 264-69. + +[11] ~Orestes, or Merope, or Alcmaeon~. The story of ~Orestes~ was +dramatized by AEschylus, by Sophocles, and by Euripides. Merope was the +subject of a lost tragedy by Euripides and of several modern plays, +including one by Matthew Arnold himself. The story of ~Alcmaeon~ was the +subject of several tragedies which have not been preserved. + +PAGE 8 + +[12] ~Polybius~. A Greek historian (c. 204-122 B.C.) + +PAGE 9 + +[13]. ~Menander~. See _Contribution of the Celts, Selections_, Note 3, +p. 177.[Transcriber's note: this is Footnote 255 in this e-text.] + +PAGE 12 + +[14] ~rien a dire~. He says all that he wishes to, but unfortunately he +has nothing to say. + +PAGE 13 + +[15] Boccaccio's _Decameron_, 4th day, 5th novel. + +[16] ~Henry Hallam~ (1777-1859). English historian. See his +_Introduction to the Literature of Europe in the Fifteenth, Sixteenth +and Seventeenth Centuries_, chap. 23, Sec.Sec. 51, 52. + +PAGE 14 + +[17] ~Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot~ (1787-1874), historian, orator, +and statesman of France. + +PAGE 16 + +[18] ~Pittacus~, of Mytilene in Lesbos (c. 650-569 B.C.), was one of the +Seven Sages of Greece. His favorite sayings were: "It is hard to be +excellent" ([Greek: chalepon esthlon emenai]), and "Know when to act." + +PAGE 17 + +[19] ~Barthold Georg Niebuhr~ (1776-1831) was a German statesman and +historian. His _Roman History_ (1827-32) is an epoch-making work. For +his opinion of his age see his Life and Letters, London, 1852, II, 396. + +PAGE 18 + +[20] _AEneid_, XII, 894-95. + + +THE FUNCTION OF CRITICISM AT THE PRESENT TIME + +PAGE 20 + +[21] Reprinted from _The National Review_, November, 1864, in the +_Essays in Criticism_, Macmillan & Co., 1865. + +[22] In _On Translating Homer_, ed. 1903, pp. 216-17. + +[23] An essay called _Wordsworth: The Man and the Poet_, published in +_The North British Review_ for August, 1864, vol. 41. ~John Campbell +Shairp~ (1819-85), Scottish critic and man of letters, was professor of +poetry at Oxford from 1877 to 1884. The best of his lectures from this +chair were published in 1881 as _Aspects of Poetry_. + +[24] I cannot help thinking that a practice, common in England during +the last century, and still followed in France, of printing a notice of +this kind,--a notice by a competent critic,--to serve as an introduction +to an eminent author's works, might be revived among us with advantage. +To introduce all succeeding editions of Wordsworth, Mr. Shairp's notice +might, it seems to me, excellently serve; it is written from the point +of view of an admirer, nay, of a disciple, and that is right; but then +the disciple must be also, as in this case he is, a critic, a man of +letters, not, as too often happens, some relation or friend with no +qualification for his task except affection for his author.[Arnold.] + +[25] See _Memoirs of William Wordsworth_, ed. 1851, II, 151, letter to +Bernard Barton. + +PAGE 21 + +[26] ~Irene~. An unsuccessful play of Dr. Johnson's. + +PAGE 22 + +[27] ~Preface~. Prefixed to the second edition (1800) of the _Lyrical +Ballads_. + +PAGE 28 + +[28] ~The old woman~. At the first attempt to read the newly prescribed +liturgy in St. Giles's Church, Edinburgh, on July 23, 1637, a riot took +place, in which the "fauld-stools," or folding stools, of the +congregation were hurled as missiles. An untrustworthy tradition +attributes the flinging of the first stool to a certain Jenny or Janet +Geddes. + +PAGE 29 + +[29] _Pensees de J. Joubert_, ed. 1850, I, 355, titre 15, 2. + +PAGE 30 + +[30] ~French Revolution~. The latter part of Burke's life was largely +devoted to a conflict with the upholders of the French Revolution. +_Reflections on the Revolution in France_, 1790, and _Letters on a +Regicide Peace_, 1796, are his most famous writings in this cause. + +PAGE 31 + +[31] ~Richard Price, D.D.~ (1723-91), was strongly opposed to the war +with America and in sympathy with the French revolutionists. + +[32] From Goldsmith's epitaph on Burke in the _Retaliation_. + +PAGE 32 + +[33] ~Num. XXII~, 35. + +[34] ~William Eden, First Baron Auckland~ (1745-1814), English +statesman. Among other services he represented English interests in +Holland during the critical years 1790-93. + +PAGE 35 + +[35] ~Revue des deux Mondes~. The best-known of the French magazines +devoted to literature, art, and general criticism, founded in Paris in +1831 by Francois Buloz. + +PAGE 36 + +[36] ~Home and Foreign Review~. Published in London 1862-64. + +PAGE 37 + +[37] ~Charles Bowyer Adderley, First Baron Norton~ (1814-1905), English +politician, inherited valuable estates in Warwickshire. He was a strong +churchman and especially interested in education and the colonies. + +[38] ~John Arthur Roebuck~ (1801-79), a leading radical and utilitarian +reformer, conspicuous for his eloquence, honesty, and strong hostility +to the government of his day. He held a seat for Sheffield from 1849 +until his death. + +PAGE 38 + +[39] From Goethe's _Iphigenie auf Tauris_, I, ii, 91-92. + +PAGE 40 + +[40] ~detachment~. In the Buddhistic religion salvation is found through +an emancipation from the craving for the gratification of the senses, +for a future life, and for prosperity. + +PAGE 42 + +[41] ~John Somers, Baron Somers~ (1651-1716), was the most trusted +minister of William III, and a stanch supporter of the English +Constitution. See Addison, _The Freeholder_, May 14, 1716, and +Macauley's _History_, iv, 53. + +[42] ~William Cobbett~ (1762-1835). English politician and writer. As a +pamphleteer his reputation was injured by his pugnacity, self-esteem, +and virulence of language. See _Heine, Selections_, p. 120, +[Transcriber's note: This is Footnote 144 in this e-text] and _The +Contribution of the Celts, Selections_, p. 179.[Transcriber's note: +This is Footnote 257 in this e-text.] + +[43] ~Carlyle's~ _Latter-Day Pamphlets_ (1850) contain much violent +denunciation of the society of his day. + +[44] ~Ruskin~ turned to political economy about 1860. In 1862, he +published _Unto this Last_, followed by other works of similar nature. + +[45] ~terrae filii~. Sons of Mother Earth; hence, obscure, mean persons. + +[46] See _Heine, Selections_, Note 2, p. 117.[Transcriber's note: This +is Footnote 140 in this e-text.] + +PAGE 43 + +[47] ~To think is so hard~. Goethe's _Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship_, +Book VII, chap. IX. + +[48] See Senancour's _Obermann_, letter 90. Arnold was much influenced +by this remarkable book. For an account of the author (1770-1846) and +the book see Arnold's _Stanzas in Memory of the Author of "Obermann_," +with note on the poem, and the essay on Obermann in _Essays in +Criticism_, third series. + +[49] So sincere is my dislike to all personal attack and controversy, +that I abstain from reprinting, at this distance of time from the +occasion which called them forth, the essays in which I criticized Dr. +Colenso's book; I feel bound, however, after all that has passed, to +make here a final declaration of my sincere impenitence for having +published them. Nay, I cannot forbear repeating yet once more, for his +benefit and that of his readers, this sentence from my original remarks +upon him; _There is truth of science and truth of religion; truth of +science does not become truth of religion till it is made religious._ +And I will add: Let us have all the science there is from the men of +science; from the men of religion let us have religion.[Arnold.] + +~John William Colenso~ (1814-83), Bishop of Natal, published a series of +treatises on the _Pentateuch_, extending from 1862-1879, opposing the +traditional views about the literal inspiration of the Scriptures and +the actual historical character of the Mosaic story. Arnold's censorious +criticism of the first volume of this work is entitled _The Bishop and +the Philosopher_ (_Macmillan's Magazine_, January, 1863). As an example +of the Bishop's cheap "arithmetical demonstrations" he describes him as +presenting the case of Leviticus as follows: "'_If three priests have to +eat 264 pigeons a day, how many must each priest eat?_' That disposes of +Leviticus." The essay is devoted chiefly to contrasting Bishop Colenso's +unedifying methods with those of the philosopher Spinoza. In passing, +Arnold refers also to Dr. Stanley's _Sinai and Palestine_ (1856), +quotations from which are characterized as "the refreshing spots" in the +Bishop's volume. + +[50] It has been said I make it "a crime against literary criticism and +the higher culture to attempt to inform the ignorant." Need I point out +that the ignorant are not informed by being confirmed in a confusion? +[Arnold.] + +PAGE 44 + +[51] Joubert's _Pensees_, ed. 1850, II, 102, titre 23, 54. + +[52] ~Arthur Penrhyn Stanley~ (1815-81), Dean of Westminster. He was the +author of a _Life_ of (Thomas) _Arnold_, 1844. In university politics +and in religious discussions he was a Liberal and the advocate of +toleration and comprehension. + +[53] ~Frances Power Cobbe~ (1822-1904), a prominent English +philanthropist and woman of letters. The quotation below is from _Broken +Lights_ (1864), p. 134. Her _Religious Duty_ (1857), referred to on p. +46, is a book of religious and ethical instruction written from the +Unitarian point of view. + +[54] ~Ernest Renan~ (1823-92), French philosopher and Orientalist. The +_Vie de Jesus_ (1863), here referred to, was begun in Syria and is +filled with the atmosphere of the East, but is a work of literary rather +than of scholarly importance. + +PAGE 45 + +[55] ~David Friedrich Strauss~ (1808-74), German theologian and man of +letters. The work referred to is the _Leben Jesu_ 1835. A popular +edition was published in 1864. + +[56] From "Fleury (Preface) on the Gospel."--Arnold's _Note Book_. + +PAGE 46 + +[57] Cicero's _Att._ 16. 7. 3. + +[58] ~Coleridge's happy phrase~. Coleridge's _Confessions of an +Inquiring Spirit_, letter 2. + +PAGE 49 + +[59] ~Luther's theory of grace~. The question concerning the "means of +grace," i.e. whether the efficacy of the sacraments as channels of the +divine grace is _ex opere operato_, or dependent on the faith of the +recipient, was the chief subject of controversy between Catholics and +Protestants during the period of the Reformation. + +[60] ~Jacques Benigne Bossuet~ (1627-1704), French divine, orator, and +writer. His _Discours sur l'histoire universelle_ (1681) was an attempt +to provide ecclesiastical authority with a rational basis. It is +dominated by the conviction that "the establishment of Christianity was +the one point of real importance in the whole history of the world." + +PAGE 50 + +[61] From Virgil's _Eclogues_, iv, 5. Translated in Shelley's _Hellas_: +"The world's great age begins anew." + + + +THE STUDY OF POETRY + + +PAGE 55 + +[62] Published in 1880 as the General Introduction to _The English +Poets_, edited by T.H. Ward. Reprinted in _Essays in Criticism_, Second +Series, Macmillan & Co., 1888. + +[63] This quotation is taken, slightly condensed, from the closing +paragraph of a short introduction contributed by Arnold to _The Hundred +Greatest Men_, Sampson, Low & Co., London, 1885. + +PAGE 56 + +[64] From the Preface to the second edition of the _Lyrical Ballads_, +1800. + +[65] ~Charles Augustin Sainte-Beuve~ (1804-69), French critic, was +looked upon by Arnold as in certain respects his master in the art of +criticism. + +PAGE 57 + +[66] ~a criticism of life~. This celebrated phrase was first used by +Arnold in the essay on _Joubert_ (1864), though the theory is implied in +_On Translating Homer_, 1861. In _Joubert_ it is applied to literature: +"The end and aim of all literature, if one considers it attentively, is, +in truth, nothing but that." It was much attacked, especially as applied +to poetry, and is defended as so applied in the essay on _Byron_ (1881). +See also _Wordsworth, Selections_, p. 230.[Transcriber's note: This is +Footnote 371 in this e-text.] + +[67] Compare Arnold's definition of the function of criticism, +_Selections_, p. 52.[Transcriber's note: This approximates to the +section following the text reference for Footnote 61 in this e-text.] + +PAGE 59 + +[68] ~Paul Pellisson~ (1624-93). French author, friend of Mlle. Scudery, +and historiographer to the king. + +[69] Barren and servile civility. + +70. ~M. Charles d' Hericault~ was joint editor of the Jannet edition +(1868-72) of the poems of ~Clement Marot~ (1496-1544). + +PAGE 62 + +[71] _Imitation of Christ_, Book III, chap. 43, 2. + +[72] ~Caedmon~. The first important religious poet in Old English +literature. Died about 680 A.D. + +[73] ~Ludovic Vitet~ (1802-73). French dramatist and politician. + +[74] ~Chanson de Roland~. The greatest of the _Chansons des Gestes_, +long narrative poems dealing with warfare and adventure popular in +France during the Middle Ages. It was composed in the eleventh century. +Taillefer was the surname of a bard and warrior of the eleventh century. +The tradition concerning him is related by Wace, _Roman de Rou_, third +part, v., 8035-62, ed. Andreson, Heilbronn, 1879. The Bodleian _Roland_ +ends with the words: "ci folt la geste, que Turoldus declinet." Turold +has not been identified. + +PAGE 63 + +[75] "Then began he to call many things to remembrance,--all the lands +which his valor conquered, and pleasant France, and the men of his +lineage, and Charlemagne his liege lord who nourished him."--_Chanson de +Roland_, III, 939-42.[Arnold.] + +[76] + "So said she; they long since in Earth's soft arms were reposing, + There, in their own dear land, their fatherland, Lacedaemon." +_Iliad_, III, 243, 244 (translated by Dr. Hawtrey).[Arnold.] + +PAGE 64 + +[77] "Ah, unhappy pair, why gave we you to King Peleus, to a mortal? but +ye are without old age, and immortal. Was it that with men born to +misery ye might have sorrow?"--_Iliad_, XVII, 443-445.[Arnold.] + +[78] "Nay, and thou too, old man, in former days wast, as we hear, +happy."--_Iliad_, XXIV, 543.[Arnold.] + +[79] "I wailed not, so of stone grew I within;--_they_ wailed."-- +_Inferno_, XXXIII, 39, 40.[Arnold.] + +[80] "Of such sort hath God, thanked be His mercy, made me, that your +misery toucheth me not, neither doth the flame of this fire strike me." +--_Inferno_, II, 91-93.[Arnold.] + +[81] "In His will is our peace."--_Paradiso_, III, 85.[Arnold.] + +[82] _Henry IV_, part 2, III, i, 18-20. + +PAGE 65 + +[83] _Hamlet_, V, ii, 361-62. + +[84] _Paradise Lost_, I, 599-602. + +[85] _Ibid._, I, 108-9. + +[86] _Ibid._, IV, 271. + +PAGE 66 + +[87] _Poetics_, Sec. 9. + +PAGE 67 + +[88] ~Provencal~, the language of southern France, from the southern +French _oc_ instead of the northern _oil_ for "yes." + +PAGE 68 + +[89] Dante acknowledges his debt to ~Latini~ (c. 1230-c. 1294), but the +latter was probably not his tutor. He is the author of the _Tesoretto_, +a heptasyllabic Italian poem, and the prose _Livres dou Tresor_, a sort +of encyclopedia of medieval lore, written in French because that +language "is more delightful and more widely known." + +[90] ~Christian of Troyes~. A French poet of the second half of the +twelfth century, author of numerous narrative poems dealing with legends +of the Round Table. The present quotation is from the _Cliges_, ll. +30-39. + +PAGE 69 + +[91] Chaucer's two favorite stanzas, the seven-line and eight-line +stanzas in heroic verse, were imitated from Old French poetry. See B. +ten Brink's _The Language and Meter of Chaucer_, 1901, pp. 353-57. + +[92] ~Wolfram von Eschenbach~. A medieval German poet, born in the end +of the twelfth century. His best-known poem is the epic _Parzival_. + +PAGE 70 + +[93] From Dryden's _Preface to the Fables_, 1700. + +[94] The _Confessio Amantis_, the single English poem of ~John Gower~ +(c. 1330-1408), was in existence in 1392-93. + +PAGE 71 + +[95] ~souded~. The French _soude_, soldered, fixed fast.[Arnold.] From +the _Prioress's Tale_, ed. Skeat, 1894, B. 1769. The line should read, +"O martir, souded to virginitee." + +PAGE 73 + +[96] ~Francois Villon~, born in or near Paris in 1431, thief and poet. +His best-known poems are his _ballades_. See R.L. Stevenson's essay. + +[97] The name _Heaulmiere_ is said to be derived from a headdress (helm) +worn as a mark by courtesans. In Villon's ballad, a poor old creature of +this class laments her days of youth and beauty. The last stanza of the +ballad runs thus: + + "Ainsi le bon temps regretons + Entre nous, pauvres vieilles sottes, + Assises bas, a croppetons, + Tout en ung tas comme pelottes; + A petit feu de chenevottes + Tost allumees, tost estainctes. + Et jadis fusmes si mignottes! + Ainsi en prend a maintz et maintes." + +"Thus amongst ourselves we regret the good time, poor silly old things, +low-seated on our heels, all in a heap like so many balls; by a little +fire of hemp-stalks, soon lighted, soon spent. And once we were such +darlings! So fares it with many and many a one."[Arnold.] + +PAGE 74 + +[98] From _An Essay of Dramatic Poesy_, 1688. + +[99] A statement to this effect is made by Dryden in the _Preface to the +Fables_. + +[100] From _Preface to the Fables_. + +PAGE 75 + +[101] See Wordsworth's _Essay, Supplementary to the Preface_, 1815, and +Coleridge's _Biographia Literaria_. + +[102] _An Apology for Smectymnuus_, Prose Works, ed. 1843, III, 117-18. +Milton was thirty-four years old at this time. + +PAGE 76 + +[103] The opening words of Dryden's _Postscript to the Reader_ in the +translation of Virgil, 1697. + +PAGE 77 + +[104] The opening lines of _The Hind and the Panther_. + +[105] _Imitations of Horace_, Book II, Satire 2, ll. 143-44. + +PAGE 78 + +[106] From _On the Death of Robert Dundas, Esq._ + +PAGE 79 + +[107] ~Clarinda~. A name assumed by Mrs. Maclehose in her sentimental +connection with Burns, who corresponded with her under the name of +Sylvander. + +[108] Burns to Mr. Thomson, October 19, 1794. + +PAGE 80 + +[109] From _The Holy Fair_. + +PAGE 81 + +[110] From _Epistle: To a Young Friend_. + +[111] From _Address to the Unco' Quid, or the Rigidly Righteous_. + +[112] From _Epistle: To Dr. Blacklock_. + +[Footnote 4: See his _Memorabilia_.][Transcriber's note: The reference +for this footnote is missing from the original text.] + +PAGE 83 + +[113] From _Winter: A Dirge_. + +PAGE 84 + +[114] From Shelley's _Prometheus Unbound_, III, iv, last line. + +[115] _Ibid._, II, v. + + +LITERATURE AND SCIENCE + +PAGE 87 + +[116] Reprinted (considerably revised) from the _Nineteenth Century_, +August, 1882, vol. XII, in _Discourses in America_, Macmillan & Co., +1885. It was the most popular of the three lectures given by Arnold +during his visit to America in 1883-84. + +[117] Plato's _Republic_, 6. 495, _Dialogues_, ed. Jowett, 1875, vol. 3, +p. 194. + +[118] ~working lawyer~. Plato's _Theoetetus,_ 172-73, _Dialogues_, IV, +231. + +PAGE 88 + +[119] ~majesty~. All editions read "majority." What Emerson said was +"majesty," which is therefore substituted here. See Emerson's _Literary +Ethics, Works_, Centenary ed., I, 179. + +PAGE 89 + +[120] "His whole soul is perfected and ennobled by the acquirement of +justice and temperance and wisdom. ... And in the first place, he will +honor studies which impress these qualities on his soul and will +disregard others."--_Republic_, IX, 591, _Dialogues_, III, 305. + +PAGE 91 + +[121] See _The Function of Criticism, Selections_, p. 52.[Transcriber's +note: This approximates to the section following the text reference for +Footnote 61 in this e-text.] + +[122] Delivered October 1, 1880, and printed in _Science and Culture and +Other Essays_, Macmillan & Co., 1881. + +[123] See _The Function of Criticism, Selections_, pp. 52-53. +[Transcriber's note: This approximates to the section following the text +reference for Footnote 61 in this e-text.] + +PAGE 92 + +[124] See _L'Instruction superieur en France_ in Renan's _Questions +Contemporaines_, Paris, 1868. + +PAGE 93 + +[125] ~Friedrich August Wolf~ (1759-1824), German philologist and +critic. + +PAGE 99 + +[126] See Plato's _Symposium, Dialogues_, II, 52-63. + +PAGE 100 + +[127] ~James Joseph Sylvester~ (1814-97), English mathematician. In +1883, the year of Arnold's lecture, he resigned a position as teacher in +Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, to accept the Savilian Chair of +Geometry at Oxford. + +PAGE 101 + +[128] Darwin's famous proposition. _Descent of Man_, Part III, chap. +XXI, ed. 1888, II, 424. + +PAGE 103 + +[129] ~Michael Faraday~ (1791-1867), English chemist and physicist, and +the discoverer of the induction of electrical currents. He belonged to +the very small Christian sect called after ~Robert Sandeman~, and his +opinion with respect to the relation between his science and his +religion is expressed in a lecture on mental education printed at the +end of his _Researches in Chemistry and Physics_. + +PAGE 105 + +[130] Eccles. VIII, 17.[Arnold.] + +[131] _Iliad_, XXIV, 49.[Arnold.] + +[132] Luke IX, 25. + +PAGE 107 + +[133] _Macbeth_, V, iii. + +PAGE 109 + +[134] A touching account of the devotion of ~Lady Jane Grey~ (1537-54) +to her studies is to be found in Ascham's _Scholemaster_, Arber's ed., +46-47. + + +HEINRICH HEINE. + +PAGE 112 + +[135] Reprinted from the _Cornhill Magazine_, vol. VIII, August, 1863, +in _Essays in Criticism_, 1st series, 1865. + +[136] Written from Paris, March 30, 1855. See Heine's _Memoirs_, ed. +1910, II, 270. + +PAGE 113 + +[137] The German Romantic school of ~Tieck~ (1773-1853), ~Novalis~ +(1772-1801), and ~Richter~ (1763-1825) followed the classical school of +Schiller and Goethe. It was characterized by a return to individualism, +subjectivity, and the supernatural. Carlyle translated extracts from +Tieck and Richter in his _German Romance_ (1827), and his _Critical and +Miscellaneous Essays_ contain essays on Richter and Novalis. + +PAGE 114 + +[138] From _English Fragments; Conclusion_, in _Pictures of Travel_, ed. +1891, Leland's translation, _Works_, III, 466-67. + +PAGE 117 + +[139] ~Heine's~ birthplace was not ~Hamburg~, but ~Duesseldorf~. + +[140] ~Philistinism~. In German university slang the term _Philister_ +was applied to townsmen by students, and corresponded to the English +university "snob." Hence it came to mean a person devoid of culture and +enlightenment, and is used in this sense by Goethe in 1773. Heine was +especially instrumental in popularizing the expression outside of +Germany. Carlyle first introduced it into English literature in 1827. In +a note to the discussion of Goethe in the second edition of _German +Romance_, he speaks of a Philistine as one who "judged of Brunswick mum, +by its _utility_." He adds: "Stray specimens of the Philistine nation +are said to exist in our own Islands; but we have no name for them like +the Germans." The term occurs also in Carlyle's essays on _The State of +German Literature_, 1827, and _Historic Survey of German Poetry_, 1831. +Arnold, however, has done most to establish the word in English usage. +He applies it especially to members of the middle class who are swayed +chiefly by material interests and are blind to the force of ideas and +the value of culture. Leslie Stephen, who is always ready to plead the +cause of the Philistine, remarks: "As a clergyman always calls every one +from whom he differs an atheist, and a bargee has one or two favorite +but unmentionable expressions for the same purpose, so a prig always +calls his adversary a Philistine." _Mr. Matthew Arnold and the Church of +England, Fraser's Magazine_, October, 1870. + +[141] The word ~solecism~ is derived from[Greek: soloi], in Cilicia, +owing to the corruption of the Attic dialect among the Athenian +colonists of that place. + +PAGE 118 + +[142] The "~gig~" as Carlyle's symbol of philistinism takes its origin +from a dialogue which took place in Thurtell's trial: "I always thought +him a respectable man." "What do you mean by 'respectable'?" "He kept a +gig." From this he coins the words "gigman," "gigmanity," "gigmania," +which are of frequent occurrence in his writings. + +PAGE 119 + +[143] _English Fragments, Pictures of Travel, Works_, III, 464. + +PAGE 120 + +[144] See _The Function of Criticism, Selections_, Note 2, p. 42. +[Transcriber's note: This is Footnote 42 in this e-text.] + +PAGE 121 + +[145] _English Fragments_, chap. IX, in _Pictures of Travel, Works_, +III, 410-11. + +[146] Adapted from a line in Wordsworth's _Resolution and Independence_. + +PAGE 122 + +[147] ~Charles the Fifth~. Ruler of The Holy Roman Empire, 1500-58. + +PAGE 124 + +[148] _English Fragments, Conclusion_, in _Pictures of Travel, Works_, +III, 468-70. + +[149] A complete edition has at last appeared in Germany.[Arnold.] + +PAGE 125 + +[150] ~Augustin Eugene Scribe~ (1791-1861), French dramatist, for fifty +years the best exponent of the ideas of the French middle class. + +PAGE 126 + +[151] ~Charles Louis Napoleon Bonaparte~ (Napoleon III), 1808-73, son of +Louis Bonaparte, brother of Napoleon I, by the _coup d'etat_ of +December, 1851, became Emperor of France. This was accomplished against +the resistance of the Moderate Republicans, partly through the favor of +his democratic theories with the mass of the French people. Heine was +mistaken, however, in believing that the rule of Louis Napoleon had +prepared the way for Communism. An attempt to bring about a Communistic +revolution was easily crushed in 1871. + +PAGE 127 + +[152] ~J.J. von Goerres~ (1776-1848), ~Klemens Brentano~ (1778-1842), +and ~Ludwig Achim von Arnim~ (1781-1831) were the leaders of the second +German Romantic school and constitute the Heidelberg group of writers. +They were much interested in the German past, and strengthened the +national and patriotic spirit. Their work, however, is often marred by +exaggeration and affectation. + +PAGE 128 + +[153] From _The Baths of Lucca_, chap. X, in _Pictures of Travel, +Works_, III, 199. + +PAGE 129 + +[154] Cf. _Function of Criticism, Selections_, p. 26.[Transcriber's +note: This approximates to the section following the text reference for +Footnote 27 in this e-text.] + +[155] Job XII, 23: "He enlargeth the nations and straiteneth them +again." + +PAGE 131 + +[156] Lucan, _Pharsalia_, book I, 135: "he stands the shadow of a great +name." + +PAGE 132 + +[157] From _Ideas_, in _Pictures of Travel, Works_, II, 312-13. + +[158] ~Robert Stewart, Viscount Castlereagh~ (1769-1822), as Foreign +Secretary under Lord Liverpool, became the soul of the coalition against +Napoleon, which, during the campaigns of 1813-14, was kept together by +him alone. He committed suicide with a penknife in a fit of insanity in +August, 1822. + +[159] From _Ideas_, in _Pictures of Travel, Works_, II, 324. + +[160] From _English Fragments_, 1828, in _Pictures of Travel, Works_, +III, 340-42. + +PAGE 133 + +[161] Song in _Measure for Measure_, IV, i. + +[162][Transcriber's note: "From _The Dying One_: for translation see p. +142." in original. Please see reference in text for Footnote 180.] + +PAGE 135 + +[163] From _Mountain Idyll, Travels in the Hartz Mountains, Book of +Songs. Works_, ed. 1904, pp. 219-21. + +[164] Published 1851. + +[165] ~Rhampsinitus~. A Greek corruption of _Ra-messu-pa-neter_, the +popular name of Rameses III, King of Egypt. + +[166] ~Edith with the Swan Neck~. A mistress of King Harold of England. + +[167] ~Melisanda of Tripoli~. Mistress of Geoffrey Rudel, the +troubadour. + +[168] ~Pedro the Cruel~. King of Castile (1334-69). + +[169] ~Firdusi~. A Persian poet, author of the epic poem, the +_Shahnama_, or "Book of Kings," a complete history of Persia in nearly +sixty thousand verses. + +[170] ~Dr. Doellinger~. A German theologian and church historian +(1799-1890). + +[171] _Spanish Atrides, Romancero, Works_, ed. 1905, pp. 200-04. + +[172] ~Henry of Trastamare~. King of Castile (1369-79). + +PAGE 137 + +[173] ~garbanzos~. A kind of pulse much esteemed in Spain. + +PAGE 138 + +[174] Adapted from Rom. VIII, 26. + +PAGE 139 + +[175] From _The Baths of Lucca_, chap. IX, in _Pictures of Travel, +Works_, III, 184-85. + +[176] _Romancero_, book III. + +PAGE 140 + +[177] ~Laura~. The heroine of Petrarch's famous series of love lyrics +known as the _Canzoniere_. + +[178] ~Court of Love~. For a discussion of this supposed medieval +tribunal see William A. Neilson's _The Origins and Sources of the Court +of Love, Studies and Notes in Philology and Literature_, Boston, 1899, +chap. VIII. + +PAGE 142 + +[179] _Disputation, Romancero_, book III. + +[180] _The Dying One, Romancero_, book II, quoted entire. + +PAGE 143 + +[181] Written from Paris, September 30, 1850. See _Memoirs_, ed. 1910, +II, 226-27. + + +MARCUS AURELIUS. + +PAGE 145 + +[182] Reprinted from _The Victoria Magazine_, II, 1-9, November, 1863, +in _Essays in Criticism_, 1865. + +[183] ~John Stuart Mill~ (1806-73), English philosopher and economist. +_On Liberty_ (1859) is his most finished writing. + +[184] The _Imitation of Christ_ (_Imitatio Christi_), a famous medieval +Christian devotional work, is usually ascribed to Thomas a Kempis +(1380-1471), an Augustinian canon of Mont St. Agnes in the diocese of +Utrecht. + +PAGE 146 + +[185] ~Epictetus~. Greek Stoic philosopher (born c. A.D. 60). He is an +earnest preacher of righteousness and his philosophy is eminently +practical. For Arnold's personal debt to him see his sonnet _To a +Friend_. + +PAGE 147 + +[186] ~Empedocles~. A Greek philosopher and statesman (c. 490-430 B.C.). +He is the subject of Arnold's early poetical drama, _Empedocles on +Etna_, which he later suppressed for reasons which he states in the +Preface to the _Poems_ of 1853. See _Selections_, pp. 1-3. +[Transcriber's note: This approximates to the section following the text +reference for Footnote 1 in this e-text.] + +[187] _Encheiridion_, chap. LII. + +[188] Ps. CXLIII, 10; incorrectly quoted. + +[189] Is. LX, 19. + +[190] Mal. IV, 2. + +[191] John I, 13. + +[192] John III, 5. + +PAGE 148 + +[193] 1 John V, 4. + +[194] Matt. XIX, 26. + +[195] 2 Cor. V, 17. + +[196] _Encheiridion_, chap. XLIII. + +[197] Matt. XVIII, 22. + +[198] Matt. XXII, 37-39, etc. + +PAGE 149 + +[199] ~George Long~ (1800-79), classical scholar. He published +_Selections from Plutarch's Lives_, 1862; _Thoughts of Marcus Aurelius_, +1862; etc. + +[200] ~Thomas Arnold~ (1795-1842), English clergyman and headmaster of +Rugby School, father of Matthew Arnold. + +PAGE 150 + +[201] ~Jeremy Collier~ (1650-1726). His best-known work is his _Short +View of the Immorality and Profaneness of the English Stage_, 1698, a +sharp and efficacious attack on the Post-Restoration drama. _The Emperor +M. Aurelius Antoninus, his Conversation with himself_, appeared in 1701. + +PAGE 151 + +[202] _Meditations_, III, 14. + +PAGE 152 + +203. ~Antoninus Pius~. Roman Emperor, A.D. 138-161, and foster-father of +M. Aurelius. + +[204] To become current in men's speech. + +[205] The real name of ~Voltaire~ was ~Francois Marie Arouet~. The name +Voltaire was assumed in 1718 and is supposed to be an anagram of Arouet +le j(eune). + +PAGE 154 + +[206] See _Function of Criticism, Selections_, p. 36.[Transcriber's +note: This approximates to the section following the text reference for +Footnote 36 in this e-text.] + +[207] ~Louis IX of France~ (1215-70), the leader of the crusade of 1248. + +PAGE 155 + +[208] ~The Saturday Review~, begun in 1855, was pronouncedly +conservative in politics. It devoted much space to pure criticism and +scholarship, and Arnold's essays are frequently criticized in its +columns. + +[209] He died on the 17th of March, A.D. 180.[Arnold.] + +PAGE 156 + +[210] ~Juvenal's sixth satire~ is a scathing arraignment of the vices +and follies of the women of Rome during the reign of Domitian. + +[211] See Juvenal, _Sat._ 3, 76. + +[212] Because he lacks an inspired poet (to sing his praises). Horace, +_Odes_, IV, 9, 28. + +PAGE 157 + +[213] ~Avidius Cassius~, a distinguished general, declared himself +Emperor in Syria in 176 A.D. Aurelius proceeded against him, deploring +the necessity of taking up arms against a trusted officer. Cassius was +slain by his own officers while M. Aurelius was still in Illyria. + +[214] ~Commodus~. Emperor of Rome, 180-192 A.D. He was dissolute and +tyrannical. + +[215] ~Attalus~, a Roman citizen, was put to death with other Christians +in A.D. 177. + +[216] ~Polycarp~, Bishop of Smyrna, and one of the Apostolic Fathers, +suffered martyrdom in 155 A.D. + +PAGE 159 + +[217] ~Tacitus~, _Ab Excessu Augusti_, XV, 44. + +PAGE 161 + +[218] ~Claude Fleury~ (1640-1723), French ecclesiastical historian, +author of the _Histoire Ecclesiastique_, 20 vols., 1691. + +PAGE 163 + +[219] _Med._, I, 12. + +[220] _Ibid._, I, 14. + +[221] _Ibid._, IV, 24. + +PAGE 164 + +[222] _Ibid._, III, 4. + +PAGE 165 + +[223] _Ibid._, V, 6. + +[224] _Ibid._, IX, 42. + +[225] ~Lucius Annaeus Seneca~ (c. 3 B.C.-A.D. 65), statesman and +philosopher. His twelve so-called _Dialogues_ are Stoic sermons of a +practical and earnest character. + +PAGE 166 + +[226] _Med._, III, 2. + +PAGE 167 + +[227] _Ibid._, V, 5. + +[228] _Ibid._, VIII, 34. + +PAGE 168 + +[229] _Ibid._, IV, 3. + +PAGE 169 + +[230] _Ibid._, I, 17. + +[231] ~Tiberius, Caligula, Nero, Domitian~. Roman Emperors, 14-37 A.D., +37-41 A.D., 54-68 A.D., and 81-96 A.D. + +[232] _Med._, IV, 28. + +[233] _Ibid._, V, 11. + +PAGE 170 + +[234] _Ibid._, X, 8. + +PAGE 171 + +[235] _Ibid._, IV, 32. + +[236] _Ibid._, V, 33. + +[237] _Ibid._, IX, 30. + +[238] _Ibid._, VII, 55. + +PAGE 172 + +[239] _Ibid._, VI, 48. + +[240] _Ibid._, IX, 3. + +PAGE 173 + +[241] Matt. XVII, 17. + +[242] _Med._, X, 15. + +[243] _Ibid._, VI, 45. + +[244] _Ibid._, V, 8. + +[245] _Ibid._, VII, 55. + +PAGE 174 + +[246] _Ibid._, IV, 1. + +[247] _Ibid._, X, 31. + +[248] _Ibid._ + +PAGE 175 + +[249] ~Alogi~. An ancient sect that rejected the Apocalypse and the +Gospel of St. John. + +[250] ~Gnosis~. Knowledge of spiritual truth or of matters commonly +conceived to pertain to faith alone, such as was claimed by the +Gnostics, a heretical Christian sect of the second century. + +[251] The correct reading is _tendebantque_ (_AEneid_, VI, 314), which +Arnold has altered to apply to the present case. + + +THE CONTRIBUTION OF THE CELTS TO ENGLISH LITERATURE + +PAGE 176 + +[252] From _On The Study of Celtic Literature_, London, 1867, chap. VI. +It was previously published in the _Cornhill Magazine_, vols. XIII and +XIV, March-July, 1866. In the Introduction to the book Arnold says: "The +following remarks on the study of Celtic literature formed the substance +of four lectures given by me last year and the year before in the chair +of poetry at Oxford." The chapter is slightly abridged in the present +selection. + +PAGE 177 + +[253] _Paradise Lost_, III, 32-35. + +[254] _Tasso_, I, 2, 304-05. + +[255] ~Menander~. The most famous Greek poet of the New Comedy (342-291 +B.C.). + +PAGE 179 + +[256] ~Gemeinheit~. Arnold defines the word five lines below. + +[257] See _The Function of Criticism, Selections_, Note 2, p. 42. +[Transcriber's note: This is Footnote 42 in this e-text.] + +[258] ~Bossuet~. See _The Function of Criticism, Selections_, Note 2, p. +49.[Transcriber's note: This is Footnote 60 in this e-text.] + +[259] ~Henry St. John, Viscount Bolingbroke~ (1678-1751), English +statesman and man of letters, was author of the _Idea of a Patriot +King_. Arnold is inclined to overestimate the quality of his style. + +PAGE 180 + +[260] ~Taliessin~ and ~Llywarch Hen~ are the names of Welsh bards, +supposedly of the late sixth century, whose poems are contained in the +_Red Book of Hergest_, a manuscript formerly preserved in Jesus College, +Oxford, and now in the Bodleian. Nothing further is known of them. +~Ossian~, ~Ossin~, or ~Oisin~, was a legendary Irish third century hero +and poet, the son of Finn. In Scotland the Ossianic revival was due to +James Macpherson. See Note 1, p. 181.[Transcriber's note: This is +Footnote 262 in this e-text.] + +[261] From the _Black Book of Caermarthen_, 19. + +PAGE 181 + +[262] ~James Macpherson~ (1736-96) published anonymously in 1760 his +_Fragments of Ancient Poetry, collected in the Highlands of Scotland and +translated from the Gaelic or Erse language_. This was followed by an +epic _Fingal_ and other poems. Their authenticity was early doubted and +a controversy followed. They are now generally believed to be forgeries. +The passage quoted, as well as references to Selma, "woody Morven," and +"echoing Lora" (not _Sora_), is from _Carthon: a Poem_. + +PAGE 182 + +[263] ~Werther~. Goethe's _Die Leiden des jungen Werthers_ (1774) was a +product of the _Sturm und Drang_ movement in German literature, and +responsible for its sentimental excesses. Goethe mentions Ossian in +connection with Homer in _Werther_, book II, "am 12. October," and +translates several passages of considerable length toward the close of +this book. + +[264] ~Prometheus~. An unfinished drama of Goethe's, of which a fine +fragment remains. + +PAGE 183 + +[265] For ~Llywarch Hen~, see Note 1, p. 180.[Transcriber's note: This +is Footnote 260 in this e-text.] The present quotation is from book II +of the _Red Book_. A translation of the poem differing somewhat from the +one quoted by Arnold is contained in W.F. Skene's _The Four Ancient +Books of Wales_, Edinburgh, 1868. + +[266] From _On this day I complete my thirty-sixth year_, 1824. + +[267] From _Euthanasia_, 1812. + +PAGE 184 + +[268] ~Manfred, Lara, Cain~. Heroes of Byron's poems so named. + +[269] From _Paradise Lost_, I, 105-09. + +PAGE 185 + +[270] Rhyme,--the most striking characteristic of our modern poetry as +distinguished from that of the ancients, and a main source, to our +poetry, of its magic and charm, of what we call its _romantic element_-- +rhyme itself, all the weight of evidence tends to show, comes into our +poetry from the Celts.[Arnold.] A different explanation is given by J. +Schipper, _A History of English Versification_, Oxford, 1910: "End-rhyme +or full-rhyme seems to have arisen independently and without historical +connection in several nations.... Its adoption into all modern +literature is due to the extensive use made of it in the hymns of the +church." + +[271] Lady Guest's _Mabinogion, Math the Son of Mathonwy_, ed. 1819, +III, 239. + +[272] _Mabinogion, Kilhwch and Olwen_, II, 275. + +PAGE 186 + +[273] _Mabinogion, Peredur the Son of Evrawc_, I, 324. + +[274] _Mabinogion, Geraint the Son of Erbin_, II, 112. + + +PAGE 187 + +[275] ~Novalis~. The pen-name of ~Friedrich von Hardenberg~ (1772-1801), +sometimes called the "Prophet of Romanticism." See Carlyle's essay on +Novalis. + +[276] For ~Rueckert~, see _Wordsworth, Selections_, Note 4, p. 224. +[Transcriber's note: This is Footnote 356 in this e-text.] + +[277] Take the following attempt to render the natural magic supposed to +pervade Tieck's poetry: "In diesen Dichtungen herrscht eine +geheimnissvolle Innigkeit, ein sonderbares Einverstaendniss mit der +Natur, besonders mit der Pflanzen-und Steinreich. Der Leser fuehlt sich +da wie in einem verzauberten Walde; er hoert die unterirdischen Quellen +melodisch rauschen; wildfremde Wunderblumen schauen ihn an mit ihren +bunten sehnsuechtigen Augen; unsichtbare Lippen kuessen seine Wangen mit +neckender Zaertlichkeit; _hohe Pilze, wie goldne Glocken, wachsen +klingend empor am Fusse der Baeume_"; and so on. Now that stroke of the +_hohe Pilze_, the great funguses, would have been impossible to the tact +and delicacy of a born lover of nature like the Celt; and could only +have come from a German who has _hineinstudirt_ himself into natural +magic. It is a crying false note, which carries us at once out of the +world of nature-magic, and the breath of the woods, into the world of +theatre-magic and the smell of gas and orange-peel.[Arnold.] + +~Johann Ludwig Tieck~ (1773-1853) was one of the most prominent of the +German romanticists. He was especially felicitous in the rehandling of +the old German fairy tales. The passage quoted above is from Heine's +_Germany_, Part II, book II, chap. II. The following is the translation +of C.G. Leland, slightly altered: "In these compositions we feel a +mysterious depth of meaning, a marvellous union with nature, especially +with the realm of plants and stones. The reader seems to be in an +enchanted forest; he hears subterranean springs and streams rustling +melodiously and his own name whispered by the trees. Broad-leaved +clinging plants wind vexingly about his feet, wild and strange +wonderflowers look at him with vari-colored longing eyes, invisible lips +kiss his cheeks with mocking tenderness, great funguses like golden +bells grow singing about the roots of trees." + +[278] _Winter's Tale_, IV, iii, 118-20. + +[279] Arnold doubtless refers to the passage in _The Solitary Reaper_ +referred to in a similar connection in the essay on Maurice de Guerin, +though Wordsworth has written two poems _To the Cuckoo_. + +[280] The passage on the mountain birch-tree, which is quoted in the +essay on Maurice de Guerin, is from Senancour's _Obermann_, letter 11. +For his delicate appreciation of the Easter daisy see _Obermann_, letter +91. + +PAGE 188 + +[281]. Pope's _Iliad_, VIII, 687. + +[282] Propertius, _Elegies_, book I, 20, 21-22: "The band of heroes +covered the pleasant beach with leaves and branches woven together." + +[283] _Idylls_, XIII, 34. The present reading of the line gives[Greek: +hekeito, mega]: "A meadow lay before them, very good for beds." + +[284] From the _Ode to a Grecian Urn_. + +PAGE 189 + +[285] That is, _Dedication_. + +[286] From the _Ode to a Nightingale_. + +[287] _Ibid._ + +PAGE 190 + +[288] Virgil, _Eclogues_, VII, 45. + +[289] _Ibid._, II, 47-48: "Plucking pale violets and the tallest +poppies, she joins with them the narcissus and the flower of the +fragrant dill." + +[290] _Ibid._, II, 51-52: "I will gather quinces, white with delicate +down, and chestnuts." + +[291] _Midsummer Night's Dream_, II, i, 249-52. + +[292] _Merchant of Venice_, V, i, 58-59. + +[293] _Midsummer Night's Dream_, II, i, 83-85. + +PAGE 191 + +[294] _Merchant of Venice_, V, i, 1 ff. + + +GEORGE SAND + +PAGE 192 + +[295] Reprinted from the _Fortnightly Review_ for June, 1877, in _Mixed +Essays_, Smith, Elder & Co., 1879. ~Amandine Lucile Aurore Dudevant~, +nee ~Dupin~ (1804-76), was the most prolific woman writer of France. The +pseudonym ~George Sand~ was a combination of George, the typical +Berrichon name, and Sand, abbreviated from (Jules) Sandeau, in +collaboration with whom she began her literary career. + +[296] ~Indiana~, George Sand's first novel, 1832. + +[297] ~Nohant~ is a village of Berry, one of the ancient provinces of +France, comprising the modern departments of Cher and Indre. The ~Indre~ +and the ~Creuse~ are its chief rivers. ~Vierzon, Chateauroux, Le +Chatre~, and ~Ste.-Severe~ are towns of the province. ~Le Puy~ is in the +neighboring department of Haute-Loire, and ~La Marche~ is in the +department of Vosges. For the ~Vallee Noire~ see Sand's _The Miller of +Angibault_, chap. III, etc. + +[298] ~Jeanne~. The first of a series of novels in which the pastoral +element prevails. It was published in 1844. + +[299] The ~Pierres Jaunatres~ (or ~Jomatres~) is a district in the +mountains of the Creuse (see _Jeanne, Prologue_). ~Touix Ste.-Croix~ is +a ruined Gallic town (_Jeanne_, chap. I). For the druidical stones of +~Mont Barlot~ see _Jeanne_, chap. VII. + +PAGE 193 + +[300] ~Cassini's great map~. A huge folio volume containing 183 charts +of the various districts of France, published by Mess. Maraldi and +Cassini de Thury, Paris, 1744. + +[301] For an interesting description of the patache, or rustic carriage, +see George Sand's _Miller of Angibault_, chap. II. + +[302] ~landes~. An infertile moor. + +PAGE 194 + +[303] ~Maurice and Solange~. See, for example, the _Letters of a +Traveller_. + +[304] ~Chopin~. George Sand's friendship for the composer Chopin began +in 1837. + +PAGE 195 + +[305] ~Jules Michelet~ (1798-1874), French historian. + +[306] ~her death~. George Sand died at Nohant, June 8, 1876. + +PAGE 196 + +[307]. From the _Journal d'un Voyageur_, September 15, 1870, ed. 1871, +p. 2. + +[308] ~Consuelo~ (1842-44) is George Sand's best-known novel. + +[309] ~Edmee, Genevieve, Germain~. Characters in the novels _Mauprat, +Andre_, and _La Mare au Diable_. + +[310] ~Lettres d'un Voyageur, Mauprat, Francois le Champi~. Published in +1830-36, 1836, and 1848. + +[311] ~F.W.H. Myers~ (1843-1901), poet and essayist. See his _Essays, +Modern_, ed. 1883, pp. 70-103. + +PAGE 197 + +[312] ~Valvedre~. Published in 1861. + +[313] ~Werther~. See _The Contribution of the Celts, Selections_, Note +1, p. 182.[Transcriber's note: This is Footnote 263 in this e-text.] + +[314] ~Corinne~. An esthetic romance (1807) by Mme. de Stael. + +[315] ~Valentine~ (1832), George Sand's second novel, pointed out "the +dangers and pains of an ill-assorted marriage." ~Lelia~ (1833) was a +still more outspoken diatribe against society and the marriage law. + +PAGE 199 + +[316] From _Lelia_, chap. LXVII. + +[317] ~Jacques~ (1834), the hero of which is George Sand in man's +disguise, sets forth the author's doctrine of free love. + +[318] From _Jacques_, letter 95. + +PAGE 200 + +[319] From _Lettres d'un Voyageur_, letter 9. + +[320] _Ibid._, a Rollinat, September, 1834. + +PAGE 203 + +[321] ~Hans Holbein~, the younger (1497-1543), German artist. + +PAGE 205 + +[322] From _La Mare au Diable_, chap. 1. + +[323] _Ibid._, _The Author to the Reader_. + +PAGE 206 + +[324] _Ibid._, chap. 1. + +PAGE 207 + +[325] _Ibid._, chap. 1. + +PAGE 208 + +[326] From _Impressions et Souvenirs_, ed. 1873, p. 135. + +[327] _Ibid._, p. 137. + +[328] From Wordsworth's _Lines Composed a few Miles above Tintern +Abbey_. + +[329] From _Impressions et Souvenirs_, p. 136. + +PAGE 209 + +[330] _Ibid._, p. 139. + +PAGE 210 + +[331] _Ibid._, p. 269. + +[332] _Ibid._, p. 253. + +PAGE 211 + +[333] See _The Function of Criticism, Selections_, p. 29.[Transcriber's +note: This approximates to the section following the text reference for +Footnote 29 in this e-text.] + +[334] ~Emile Zola~ (1840-1902), French novelist, was the apostle of the +"realistic" or "naturalistic" school. _L'Assommoir_ (1877) depicts +especially the vice of drunkenness. + +PAGE 212 + +[335] From _Journal d'un Voyageur_, February 10, 1871, p. 305. + +[336] ~Emile Louis Victor de Laveleye~ (1822-92), Belgian economist. He +was especially interested in bimetallism, primitive property, and +nationalism. + +PAGE 213 + +[337] From _Journal d'un Voyageur_, December 21, 1870, p. 202. + +PAGE 214 + +[338] _Ibid._, December 21, 1870, p. 220. + +PAGE 215 + +[339] _Ibid._, February 7, 1871, p. 228. + +[340] _Round my House: Notes of Rural Life in France in Peace and War_ +(1876), by ~Philip Gilbert Hamerton~. See especially chapters XI and +XII. + +[341] ~Barbarians, Philistines, Populace~. Arnold's designations for the +aristocratic, middle, and lower classes of England in _Culture and +Anarchy_. + +PAGE 216 + +[342] ~Paul Amand Challemel-Lacour~ (1827-96), French statesman and man +of letters. + +[343] See _The Function of Criticism, Selections_, Note 4, p. 44. +[Transcriber's note: This is Footnote 54 in this e-text.] + +[344] From _Journal d'un Voyageur_, February 10, 1871, p. 309. + +PAGE 217 + +[345] The closing sentence of the Nicene Creed with _expecto_ changed to +_exspectat_. For the English translation see Morning Prayer in the +Episcopal Prayer Book; for the Greek and Latin see Schaff, _Creeds of +Christendom_, II, 58, 59. + + +WORDSWORTH + +PAGE 218 + +[346] Published in _Macmillan's Magazine_, July, 1879, vol. XL; as +Preface to _The Poems of Wordsworth_, chosen and edited by Arnold in +1879; and in _Essays in Criticism_, Second Series, 1888. + +PAGE 219 + +[347] ~Rydal Mount~. Wordsworth's home in the Lake District from 1813 +until his death in 1850. + +[348] ~1842~. The year of publication of the two-volume edition of +Tennyson's poems, containing _Locksley Hall_, _Ulysses_, etc. + +PAGE 221 + +[349] ~candid friend~. Arnold himself. + +PAGE 222 + +[350] The _Biographie Universelle, ou Dictionnaire historique_ of F.X. +de Feller (1735-1802) was originally published in 1781. + +[351] ~Henry Cochin~. A brilliant lawyer and writer of Paris, 1687-1747. + +PAGE 223 + +[352] ~Amphictyonic Court~. An association of Ancient Greek communities +centering in a shrine. + +PAGE 224 + +[353] ~Gottlieb Friedrich Klopstock~ (1724-1803) was author of _Der +Messias_. + +[354] ~Lessing~. See _Sweetness and Light, Selections_, Note 2, p. +271.[Transcriber's note: This is Footnote 427 in this e-text.] + +[355] ~Johann Ludwig Uhland~ (1787-1862), romantic lyric poet. + +[356] ~Friedrich Rueckert~ (1788-1866) was the author of _Liebesfruehling_ +and other poems. + +[357] ~Heine~. See _Heinrich Heine, Selections_, pp. 112-144. + +[358] The greatest poems of ~Vicenzo da Filicaja~ (1642-1707) are six +odes inspired by the victory of Sobieski. + +[359] ~Vittorio, Count Alfieri~ (1749-1803), Italian dramatist. His +best-known drama is his _Saul_. + +[360] ~Manzoni~ (1785-1873) was a poet and novelist, author of _I +Promessi Sposi_. + +[361] ~Giacomo, Count Leopardi~ (1798-1837), Italian poet. His writings +are characterized by deep-seated melancholy. + +[362] ~Jean Racine~ (1639-99), tragic dramatist. + +[363] ~Nicolas Boileau-Despreaux~ (1636-1711), poet and critic. + +[364] ~Andre de Chenier~ (1762-94), poet, author of _Jeune Captive_, +etc. + +[365] ~Pierre Jean de Beranger~ (1780-1857), song-writer. + +[366] ~Alphonse Marie Louis de Prat de Lamartine~ (1790-1869), poet, +historian, and statesman. + +[367] ~Louis Charles Alfred de Musset~ (1810-57), poet, play-writer, and +novelist. + +PAGE 228 + +[368] From _The Recluse_, l. 754. + +PAGE 229 + +[369] _Paradise Lost_, XI, 553-54. + +PAGE 230 + +[370] _The Tempest_, IV, i, 156-58. + +[371] ~criticism of life~. See _The Study of Poetry, Selections_, Note +1, p. 57.[Transcriber's note: This is Footnote 66 in this e-text.] + + +PAGE 231 + +[372] _Discourses_ of Epictetus, trans. Long, 1903, vol. I, book II, +chap. XXIII, p. 248. + +PAGE 232 + +[373] ~Theophile Gautier~. A noted French poet, critic, and novelist, +and a leader of the French Romantic Movement (1811-72). + +[374] _The Recluse_, ll. 767-71. + +[375] _AEneid_, VI, 662. + +PAGE 233 + +[376] ~Leslie Stephen~. English biographer and literary critic +(1832-1904). He was the first editor of the _Dictionary of National +Biography_. Arnold quotes from the essay on _Wordsworth's Ethics_ in +_Hours in a Library_ (1874-79), vol. III. + +[377] _Excursion_, IV, 73-76. + +PAGE 234 + +[378] _Ibid._, II, 10-17. + +[379] _Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early +Childhood_. + +PAGE 235 + +[380] _Excursion_, IX, 293-302. + +PAGE 236 + +[381] See p. 232.[Transcriber's note: This approximates to the section +following the text reference for Footnote 373 in this e-text.] + +PAGE 237 + +[382] ~the "not ourselves."~ Arnold quotes his own definition of God as +"the enduring power, not ourselves, which makes for righteousness." See +_Literature and Dogma_, chap. I. + +[383] The opening sentence of a famous criticism of the _Excursion_ +published in the _Edinburgh Review_ for November, 1814, no. 47. It was +written by ~Francis Jeffrey, Lord Jeffrey~ (1773-1850), Scottish judge +and literary critic, and first editor of the _Edinburgh Review_. + +PAGE 238 + +[384] _Macbeth_, III, ii. + +[385] _Paradise Lost_, VII, 23-24. + +[386] _The Recluse_, l. 831. + +PAGE 239 + +[387] From Burns's _A Bard's Epitaph_. + +PAGE 240 + +[388] The correct title is _The Solitary Reaper_. + + +SWEETNESS AND LIGHT + +PAGE 242 + +[389] This selection is the first chapter of _Culture and Anarchy_. It +originally formed a part of the last lecture delivered by Arnold as +Professor of Poetry at Oxford. _Culture and Anarchy_ was first printed +in _The Cornhill Magazine_, July 1867,-August, 1868, vols. XVI-XVIII. It +was published as a book in 1869. + +[390] For ~Sainte-Beuve~, see _The Study of Poetry, Selections_, Note 2, +p. 56.[Transcriber's note: This is Footnote 65 in this e-text.] + The article referred to appeared in the _Quarterly Review_ for January, +1866, vol. CXIX, p. 80. It finds fault with Sainte-Beuve's lack of +conclusiveness, and describes him as having "spent his life in fitting +his mind to be an elaborate receptacle for well-arranged doubts." In +this respect a comparison is made with Arnold's "graceful but perfectly +unsatisfactory essays." + +PAGE 243 + +[391] From Montesquieu's _Discours sur les motifs qui doivent nous +encourager aux sciences, prononce le 15 Novembre, 1725_. Montesquieu's +_Oeuvres completes_, ed. Laboulaye, VII, 78. + +PAGE 244 + +[392] ~Thomas Wilson~ (1663-1755) was consecrated Bishop of Sodor and +Man in 1698. His episcopate was marked by a number of reforms in the +Isle of Man. The opening pages of Arnold's _Preface_ to _Culture and +Anarchy_ are devoted to an appreciation of Wilson. He says: "On a lower +range than the _Imitation_, and awakening in our nature chords less +poetical and delicate, the _Maxims_ of Bishop Wilson are, as a religious +work, far more solid. To the most sincere ardor and unction, Bishop +Wilson unites, in these _Maxims_, that downright honesty and plain good +sense which our English race has so powerfully applied to the divine +impossibilities of religion; by which it has brought religion so much +into practical life, and has done its allotted part in promoting upon +earth the kingdom of God." + +[393] ~will of God prevail~. _Maxim_ 450 reads: "A prudent Christian +will resolve at all times to sacrifice his inclinations to reason, and +his reason to the will and word of God." + +PAGE 247 + +[394] From Bishop Wilson's _Sacra Privata_, Noon Prayers, _Works_, ed. +1781, I, 199. + +PAGE 248 + +[395] ~John Bright~ (1811-89) was a leader with Cobden in the agitation +for repeal of the Corn Laws and other measures of reform, and was one of +England's greatest masters of oratory. + +[396] ~Frederic Harrison~ (1831-), English jurist and historian, was +president of the English Positivist Committee, 1880-1905. His _Creed of +a Layman_ (1907) is a statement of his religious position. + +PAGE 249 + +[397] See _The Function of Criticism, Selections_, Note 2, p. 37. +[Transcriber's note: This is Footnote 38 in this e-text.] + + +PAGE 253 + +[398] 1 Tim., IV, 8. + +[399] The first of the "Rules of Health and Long Life" in _Poor +Richard's Almanac_ for December, 1742. The quotation should read: "as +the Constitution of thy Body allows of." + +[400] Epictetus, _Encheiridion_, chap. XLI. + +[401] ~Sweetness and Light~. The phrase is from Swift's _The Battle of +the Books, Works_, ed. Scott, 1824, X, 240. In the apologue of the +Spider and the Bee the superiority of the ancient over the modern +writers is thus summarized: "Instead of dirt and poison we have rather +chose to fill our hives with honey and wax, thus furnishing mankind with +the two noblest of things, which are sweetness and light." + +PAGE 256 + +[402] ~Independents~. The name applied in England during the seventeenth +and eighteenth centuries to the denomination now known as +Congregationalists. + +[403] From Burke's Speech on _Conciliation with America, Works_, ed. +1834, I, 187. + +[404] 1 Pet., III, 8. + +PAGE 258 + +[405] ~Epsom~. A market town in Surrey, where are held the famous Derby +races, founded in 1780. + +PAGE 259 + +[406] Sallust's _Catiline_, chap. LII, Sec. 22. + +[407] The ~Daily Telegraph~ was begun in June, 1855, as a twopenny +newspaper. It became the great organ of the middle classes and has been +distinguished for its enterprise in many fields. Up to 1878 it was +consistently Liberal in politics. It is a frequent object of Arnold's +irony as the mouthpiece of English philistinism. + +PAGE 261 + +[408] ~Young Leo~ (or ~Leo Adolescens~) is Arnold's name for the typical +writer of the _Daily Telegraph_ (see above). He is a prominent character +of _Friendship's Garland_. + +PAGE 262 + +[409] ~Edmond Beales~ (1803-81), political agitator, was especially +identified with the movement for manhood suffrage and the ballot, and +was the leading spirit in two large popular demonstrations in London in +1866. + +[410] ~Charles Bradlaugh~ (1833-91), freethought advocate and +politician. His efforts were especially directed toward maintaining the +freedom of the press in issuing criticisms on religious belief and +sociological questions. In 1880 he became a Member of Parliament, and +began a long and finally successful struggle for the right to take his +seat in Parliament without the customary oath on the Bible. + +[411] ~John Henry Newman~ (1801-90) was the leader of the Oxford +Movement in the English Church. His _Apologia pro Vita Sua_ (1864) was a +defense of his religious life and an account of the causes which led him +from Anglicanism to Romanism. For his hostility to Liberalism see the +_Apologia_, ed. 1907, pp. 34, 212, and 288. + +[412] _AEneid_, I, 460. + +PAGE 263 + +[413] ~The Reform Bill of 1832~ abolished fifty-six "rotten" boroughs +and made other changes in representation to Parliament, thus +transferring a large share of political power from the landed +aristocracy to the middle classes. + +[414] ~Robert Lowe~ (1811-92), afterwards Viscount Sherbrooke, held +offices in the Board of Education and Board of Trade. He was liberal, +but opposed the Reform Bill of that party in 1866-67. His speeches on +the subject were printed in 1867. + +PAGE 266 + +[415] ~Jacobinism~. The _Societe des Jacobins_ was the most famous of +the political clubs of the French Revolution. Later the term ~Jacobin~ +was applied to any promulgator of extreme revolutionary or radical +opinions. + +[416] See _ante_, Note 2, p. 248. + +[417] ~Auguste Comte~ (1798-1857), French philosopher and founder of +Positivism. This system of thought attempts to base religion on the +verifiable facts of existence, opposes devotion to the study of +metaphysics, and substitutes the worship of Humanity for supernatural +religion. + +[418] ~Richard Congreve~ (1818-99) resigned a fellowship at Oxford in +1855, and devoted the remainder of his life to the propagation of the +Positive philosophy. + +PAGE 267 + +[419] ~Jeremy Bentham~ (1748-1832), philosopher and jurist, was leader +of the English school of Utilitarianism, which recognizes "the greatest +happiness of the greatest number" as the proper foundation of morality +and legislation. + +[420] ~Ludwig Preller~ (1809-61), German philologist and antiquarian. + +PAGE 268 + +[421] ~Book of Job~. Arnold must have read Franklin's piece hastily, +since he has mistaken a bit of ironic trifling for a serious attempt to +rewrite the Scriptures. The _Proposed New Version of the Bible_ is +merely a bit of amusing burlesque in which six verses of the Book of Job +are rewritten in the style of modern politics. According to Mr. William +Temple Franklin the _Bagatelles_, of which the _Proposed New Version_ is +a part, were "chiefly written by Dr. Franklin for the amusement of his +intimate society in London and Paris." See Franklin's _Complete Works_, +ed. 1844, II, 164. + +[422] ~The Deontology~, or _The Science of Morality_, was arranged and +edited by John Bowring, in 1834, two years after Bentham's death, and it +is doubtful how far it represents Bentham's thoughts. + +[423] ~Henry Thomas Buckle~ (1821-62) was the author of the _History of +Civilization in England_, a book which, though full of inaccuracies, has +had a great influence on the theory and method of historical writing. + +[424] ~Mr. Mill~. See _Marcus Aurelius, Selections_, Note 2, p. 145. +[Transcriber's note: This is Footnote 183 in this e-text.] + + +PAGE 269 + +[425] The article from which Arnold quotes these extracts is not +Frederic Harrison's _Culture: A Dialogue_, but an earlier essay in the +_Fortnightly Review_ for March 1, 1867, called _Our Venetian +Constitution_, See pages 276-77 of the article. + +PAGE 271 + +[426] ~Peter Abelard~ (1079-1142) was a scholastic philosopher and a +leader in the more liberal thought of his day. + +[427] ~Gotthold Ephraim Lessing~ (1729-81), German critic and dramatist. +His best-known writings are the epoch-making critical work, _Laokooen_ +(1766), and the drama _Minna van Barnhelm_ (1767). His ideas were in the +highest degree stimulating and fruitful to the German writers who +followed him. + +[428] ~Johann Gottfried von Herder~ (1744-1803), a voluminous and +influential German writer, was a pioneer of the Romantic Movement. He +championed adherence to the national type in literature, and helped to +found the historical method in literature and science. + +PAGE 272 + +[429] _Confessions of St. Augustine_, XIII, 18, 22, Everyman's +Library ed., p. 326. + +HEBRAISM AND HELLENISM + +PAGE 273 + +[430] The present selection comprises chapter IV, of _Culture and +Anarchy_. In the preceding chapter Arnold has been pointing out the +imperfection of the various classes of English society, which he +describes as "Barbarians, Philistines, and Populace." For the correction +of this imperfection he pleads for "some public recognition and +establishment of our best self, or right reason." In chapter III, he has +shown how "our habits and practice oppose themselves to such a +recognition." He now proposes to find, "beneath our actual habits and +practice, the very ground and cause out of which they spring." Then +follows the selection here given. + +Professor Gates has pointed out the fact that Arnold probably borrows +the terms here contrasted from Heine. In _Ueber Ludwig Boerne_ (_Werke_, +ed. Stuttgart, X, 12), Heine says: "All men are either Jews or Hellenes, +men ascetic in their instincts, hostile to culture, spiritual fanatics, +or men of vigorous good cheer, full of the pride of life, Naturalists." +For Heine's own relation to Hebraism and Hellenism, see the present +selection, p. 275. + +[431] See _Sweetness and Light, Selections_, Note 1, p. 244. +[Transcriber's note: This is Footnote 392 in this e-text.] _Maxim_ 452 +reads: "Two things a Christian will never do--never go against the best +light he has, this will prove his sincerity, and, 2, to take care that +his light be not darkness, i.e., that he mistake not his rule by which +he ought to go." + +PAGE 274 + +[432] 2 Pet. I, 4. + +[433] ~Frederick William Robertson~ (1816-53) began his famous ministry +at Brighton in 1847. He was a man of deep spirituality and great +sincerity. The latter part of his life was clouded by opposition roused +by his sympathy with the revolutionary ideas of the 1848 epoch and by +the mental trouble which eventually resulted in his death. The sermon +referred to seems to be the first Advent Lecture on _The Greek_. Arnold +objects to Robertson's rather facile summarizing. Four characteristics +are mentioned as marking Grecian life and religion: restlessness, +worldliness, worship of the beautiful, and worship of the human. The +second of these has three results, disappointment, degradation, +disbelief in immortality. + +PAGE 275 + +[434] ~Heinrich Heine~. See _Heine, Selections_, pp. 112-144. +[Transcriber's note: This section begins at the text reference for +Footnote 135 in this e-text.] + +[435] Prov. XXIX, 18. + +[436] Ps. CXII, 1. + +PAGE 277 + +[437] Rom. III, 31. + +[438] Zech. IX, 13. + +[439] Prov. XVI, 22. + +[440] John I, 4-9; 8-12; Luke II, 32, etc. + +[441] John VIII, 32. + +[442] _Nichomachaean Ethics_, bk. II, chap. III. + +[443] Jas. I, 25. + +[444] _Discourses of Epictetus_, bk. II, chap. XIX, trans. Long, I, +214 ff. + +PAGE 278 + +[445] ~Learning to die~. Arnold seems to be thinking of _Phaedo_, 64, +_Dialogues_, II, 202: "For I deem that the true votary of philosophy is +likely to be misunderstood by other men; they do not perceive that he is +always pursuing death and dying; and if this be so, and he has had the +desire of death all his life long, why when his time comes should he +repine at that which he has been always pursuing and desiring?" Plato +goes on to show that life is best when it is most freed from the +concerns of the body. Cf. also _Phaedrus_ (_Dialogues_, II, 127) and +_Gorgias_ (_Dialogues_, II, 369). + +[446] 2 Cor. V, 14. + +[447] See Aristotle, _Nichomachaean Ethics_, bk. X, chaps. VIII, IX. + +[448] _Phaedo_, 82D, _Dialogues_, I, 226. + +PAGE 279 + +[449] Xenophon's _Memorabilia_, bk. IV, chap. VIII, Sec. 6. + +PAGE 280 + +[450] ~Edward Bouverie Pusey~ (1800-82), English divine and leader of +the High Church party in the Oxford Movement. + +PAGE 281 + +[451] Zech. VIII, 23. + +[452] ~my Saviour banished joy~. The sentence is an incorrect quotation +from George Herbert's _The Size_, the fifth stanza of which begins:-- + + "Thy Savior sentenced joy, + And in the flesh condemn'd it as unfit,-- + At least in lump." + +[453] Eph. V, 6. + +PAGE 282 + +[454] The first two books.[Arnold.] + +[455] See Rom. III, 2. + +[456] See Cor. III, 19. + +PAGE 283 + +[457] ~Phaedo~. In this dialogue Plato attempts to substantiate the +doctrine of immortality by narrating the last hours of Socrates and his +conversation on this subject when his own death was at hand. + +PAGE 284 + +[458] ~Renascence~. I have ventured to give to the foreign word +_Renaissance_--destined to become of more common use amongst us as the +movement which it denotes comes, as it will come, increasingly to +interest us,--an English form.[Arnold.] + + +EQUALITY + +PAGE 289 + +[459] This essay, originally an address delivered at the Royal +Institution, was published in the _Fortnightly Review_, for March, 1878, +and reprinted in _Mixed Essays_, 1879. In the present selection the +opening pages have been omitted. Arnold begins with a statement of +England's tendency to maintain a condition of inequality between +classes. This is reinforced by the English freedom of bequest, a freedom +greater than in most of the Continental countries. The question of the +advisability of altering the English law of bequest is a matter not of +abstract right, but of expediency. That the maintenance of inequality is +expedient for English civilization and welfare is generally assumed. +Whether or not this assumption is well founded, Arnold proposes to +examine in the concluding pages. As a preliminary step he defines +civilization as the humanization of man in society. Then follows the +selected passage. + +[460] ~Isocrates~. An Attic orator (436-338 B.C.). He was an ardent +advocate of Greek unity. The passage quoted occurs in the _Panegyricus_, +Sec. 50, _Orations_, ed. 1894, p. 67. + +PAGE 290 + +[461] ~Giacomo Antonelli~ (1806-76), Italian cardinal. From 1850 until +his death his activity was chiefly devoted to the struggle between the +Papacy and the Italian Risorgimento. + +PAGE 291 + +[462] ~famous passage~. The _Introduction_ to his _Age of Louis XIV_. + +PAGE 293 + +[463] ~Laveleye~. See _George Sand_, _Selections_, Note 2, p. 212. +[Transcriber's note: This is Footnote 336 in this e-text.] + + +[464] ~Sir Thomas Erskine May, Lord Farnborough~ (1815-86), +constitutional jurist. Arnold in the omitted portion of the present +essay has quoted several sentences from his _History of Democracy_: +"France has aimed at social equality. The fearful troubles through which +she has passed have checked her prosperity, demoralised her society, and +arrested the intellectual growth of her people. Yet is she high, if not +the first, in the scale of civilised nations." + +[465] ~Hamerton~. See _George Sand_, _Selections_, Note 2, p. 215. +[Transcriber's note: This is Footnote 340 in this e-text.] The quotation +is from _Round My House_, chap, XI, ed. 1876, pp. 229-30. + +PAGE 294 + +[466] ~Charles Sumner~ (1811-74), American statesman, was the most +brilliant and uncompromising of the anti-slavery leaders. + +PAGE 295 + +[467] ~Alsace~. The people of Alsace, though German in origin, showed a +very strong feeling against Prussian rule in the Franco-Prussian War of +1870-71. In September, 1872, 45,000 elected to be still French and +transferred their domicile to France. + +PAGE 296 + +[468] ~Michelet~. See _George Sand_, _Selections_, Note 1, p. 195. +[Transcriber's note: This is Footnote 305 in this e-text.] + + +PAGE 298 + +[469] The chorus of a popular music-hall song of the time. From it was +derived the word _jingoism_. For the original application of this term +see Webster's _Dictionary_. + +[470] ~Dwight L. Moody~ (1837-99) and ~Ira D. Sankey~ (1840-1908), the +famous American evangelists, held notable revival meetings in England in +1873-75. + +PAGE 299 + +[471] See, e.g., _Heine_, _Selections_, p. 129.[Transcriber's note: +This approximates to the section following the text reference for +Footnote 154 in this e-text.] + +[472] ~Goldwin Smith~. See Note 2, p. 301. + +PAGE 301 + +[473] See Milton's _Colasterion_, _Works_, ed. 1843, III, 445 and 452. + +[474] ~Goldwin Smith~ (1824-1910), British publicist and historian, has +taken an active part in educational questions both in England and +America. The passage quoted below is from an article entitled _Falkland +and the Puritans_, published in the _Contemporary Review_ as a reply to +Arnold's essay on Falkland. See _Lectures and Essays_, New York, 1881. + +[475] ~John Hutchinson~ (1616-64), Puritan soldier. The _Memoirs of the +Life of Colonel Hutchinson_, written by his wife Lucy, but not published +until 1806, are remarkable both for the picture which they give of the +man and the time, and also for their simple beauty of style. For the +passage quoted see Everyman's Library ed., pp. 182-83. + +[476] ~paedobaptism~. Infant baptism. + +PAGE 303 + +[477] Man disquiets himself, but God manages the matter. For ~Bossuet~ +see _The Function of Criticism_, _Selections_, Note 2, p. 49. +[Transcriber's note: This is Footnote 60 in this e-text.] + +[478] Prov. XIX, 21. + +[479] So in the original.[Arnold.] + +PAGE 304 + +[480] ~Bright~. See _Sweetness and Light_, _Selections_, Note 1, p. +248.[Transcriber's note: This is Footnote 395 in this e-text.] + +[481] ~Richard Cobden~ (1804-65), English manufacturer and Radical +politician. He was a leader in the agitation for repeal of the Corn Laws +and in advocacy of free trade. + +PAGE 305 + +[482] Prov. XIV, 6. + +[483] Compare _Culture and Anarchy_, chaps. II and III, and _Ecce +Convertimur ad Gentes, Irish Essays_, ed. 1903, p. 115. + +PAGE 307 + +[484] ~Samuel Pepys~ (1633-1703), English diarist. + +PAGE 310 + +[485] ~young lion~. See _Sweetness and Light_, _Selections_, Note 1, p. +261.[Transcriber's note: This is Footnote 408 in this e-text.] + +PAGE 312 + +[486] ~Mill~. See _Marcus Aurelius_, _Selections_, Note 2, p. 145. +[Transcriber's note: This is Footnote 183 in this e-text.] + +[487] ~Spencer Compton Cavendish~ (1833-1908), Marquis of ~Hartington~ +(since 1891 Duke of Devonshire), became Liberal leader in the House of +Commons after the defeat and withdrawal of Gladstone in January, 1875. + +PAGE 313 + +[488] ~Menander~. See _Contribution of the Celts_, _Selections_, Note 3, +p. 177.[Transcriber's note: This is Footnote 255 in this e-text.] + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Selections from the Prose Works of +Matthew Arnold, by Matthew Arnold + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WORKS OF MATTHEW ARNOLD *** + +***** This file should be named 12628.txt or 12628.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/2/6/2/12628/ + +Produced by Charles Franks, Carol David and PG Distributed Proofreaders + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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